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Minkowski sums are of theoretical interest and have applications in fields related to industrial backgrounds. In this paper we focus on the specific case of summing polytopes as we want to solve the tolerance analysis problem described in [@Teissandier-CIRP]. Our approach is based on the use of linear programming and is solvable in polynomial time. The algorithm we developped can be implemented and parallelized in a very easy way.
[**keywords:**]{} Computational Geometry, Polytope, Minkowski Sum, Linear Programming, Convex Hull.
author:
- 'Vincent Delos$^*$ and Denis Teissandier$^{**}$'
date: |
University of Bordeaux\
CNRS, National Center for French Research\
I2M, UMR 5295\
Talence, F-33400, France\
$^*$E-mail: [[email protected]]([email protected])\
$^{**}$E-mail: [[email protected]]([email protected])\
title: Minkowski sum of polytopes defined by their vertices
---
Introduction
============
Tolerance analysis is the branch of mechanical design dedicated to studying the impact of the manufacturing tolerances on the functional constraints of any mechanical system. Minkowski sums of polytopes are useful to model the cumulative stack-up of the pieces and thus, to check whether the final assembly respects such constraints or not, see [@Homri2013] and [@Srinivasan1993]. We are aware of the algorithms presented in [@Fukuda20041261], [@Fukuda2005_882], [@Teissandier-hal-00635842] and [@Delos-CMCGS] but we believe that neither the list of all edges nor facets are mandatory to perform the operation. So we only rely on the set of vertices to describe both polytope operands. In a first part we deal with a “natural way” to solve this problem based on the use of the convex hulls. Then we introduce an algorithm able to take advantage of the properties of the sums of polytopes to speed-up the process. We finally conclude with optimization hints and a geometric interpretation.
Basic properties
================
Minkowski sums
--------------
Given two sets $A$ and $B$, let $C$ be the Minkowski sum of $A$ and $B$
$ C = A + B = \{ c \in \mathbb{R}^n, \exists a \in A, \exists b \in B / c = a+b \} $
Polytopes
---------
A polytope is defined as the convex hull of a finite set of points, called the $\mathcal{V}$-representation, or as the bounded intersection of a finite set of half-spaces, called the $\mathcal{H}$-representation. The Minkowski-Weyl theorem states that both definitions are equivalent.
Sum of $\mathcal{V}$-polytopes
==============================
In this paper we deal with $\mathcal{V}$-polytopes i.e. defined as the convex hull of a finite number of points. We note $\mathcal{V}_A$, $\mathcal{V}_B$ and $\mathcal{V}_C$ the list of vertices of the polytopes $A$, $B$ and $C=A+B$. We call $\mathcal{V}_C$ the list of *Minkowski vertices*. We note $ k = Card( \mathcal{V}_A) $ and $ l = Card( \mathcal{V}_B) $.
Uniqueness of the Minkowski vertices decomposition
--------------------------------------------------
Let $A$ and $B$ be two $\mathbb{R}^n$-polytopes and $\mathcal{V}_A$, $\mathcal{V}_B$ their respective lists of vertices. Let $C = A + B$ and $c = a+b$ where $a \in \mathcal{V}_A$ and $b \in \mathcal{V}_B$.
$$\label{basicprop}
c \in \mathcal{V}_C \Leftrightarrow \text{the decomposition of $c$ as a sum of elements of $A$ and $B$ is unique}$$
We recall that in [@Fukuda20041261], we see that the vertex $c$ of $C$, as a face, can be written as the Minkowski sum of a face from $A$ and a face from $B$. For obvious reasons of dimension, $c$ is necessarily the sum of a vertex of $A$ and a vertex of $B$. Moreover, in the same article, Fukuda shows that its decomposition is unique.
Reciprocally let $ a \in \mathcal{V}_A $ and $ b \in \mathcal{V}_B $ be vertices from polytopes $A$ and $B$ such that $ c = a+b $ is unique. Let $ c_1 \in C $ and $ c_2 \in C $ such as $ c = \frac{1}{2}(c_1 + c_2) = \frac{1}{2}(a_1+b_1 + a_2+b_2) = \frac{1}{2}(a_1 + a_2) + \frac{1}{2}(b_1+b_2) = a+b $ with $ a = \frac{1}{2}(a_1 + a_2) $ and $ b = \frac{1}{2}(b_1+b_2) $ because the decomposition of $c$ in elements from $A$ and $B$ is unique. Given that $a$ and $b$ are two vertices, we have $ a_1 = a_2 $ and $ b_1 = b_2 $ which implies $ c_1 = c_2 $. As a consequence $c$ is a vertex of $C$.
Summing two lists of vertices
-----------------------------
Let $A$ and $B$ be two $\mathbb{R}^n$-polytopes and $\mathcal{V}_A$, $\mathcal{V}_B$ their lists of vertices, let $ C = A + B $.
$$C = Conv( \{ a+b, a \in \mathcal{V}_A, b \in \mathcal{V}_B \} )$$
We know that $ \mathcal{V}_C \subset \mathcal{V}_A + \mathcal{V}_B $ because a Minkowski vertex has to be the sum of vertices from $A$ and $B$ so $ C = Conv(\mathcal{V}_C) \subset Conv( \{ a+b, a \in \mathcal{V}_A, b \in \mathcal{V}_B \} ) $.
The reciprocal is obvious as $ Conv( \{ a+b, a \in \mathcal{V}_A, b \in \mathcal{V}_B \} ) \subset Conv( \{ a+b, a \in A, b \in B \} ) = C $ as $ C = A+B $ is a convex set.
At this step an algorithm removing all points which are not vertices of $C$ from $ \mathcal{V}_A + \mathcal{V}_B $ could be applied to compute $\mathcal{V}_C$. The basic idea is the following: if we can build a hyperplane separating $(a_u+b_v)$ from the other points of $ \mathcal{V}_A + \mathcal{V}_B $ then we have a Minkowski vertex, otherwise $(a_u+b_v)$ is not an extreme point of the polytope $C$. The process trying to split the cloud of points is illustrated in **Figure** \[vsum\].
![[]{data-label="vsum"}](sum_pol2.png)
To perform such a task, a popular technique given in [@Fukuda2004_faq] solves the following linear programming system. In the case of summing polytopes, testing whether the point $ (a_u+b_v) $ is a Minkowski vertex or not, means finding $ (\gamma, \gamma_{uv}) \in \mathbb{R}^n \times \mathbb{R} $ from a system of $k \times l$ inequalities:
$$\left\{
\begin{array}{l l}
< \gamma, a_i+b_j > - \gamma_{uv} \leq 0 ~; \forall (i,j) \in \{1, ..,k\} \times \{1,..,l\} ~; (i,j) \neq (u,v) \\
< \gamma, a_u+b_v > - \gamma_{uv} \leq 1 \\
f^* = \max ( < \gamma, a_u+b_v > - \gamma_{uv} )
\end{array} \right.$$
So if we define the matrix $
\Gamma =
\begin{pmatrix}
a_{1,1} + b_{1,1} & \cdots & a_{1,n} + b_{1,n} & -1 \\
\vdots & \ddots & \vdots & \vdots \\
a_{k,1} + b_{l,1} & \cdots & a_{k,n} + b_{l,n} & -1 \\
a_{u,1} + b_{v,1} & \cdots & a_{u,n} + b_{v,n} & -1
\end{pmatrix}
$
then $
\Gamma \begin{pmatrix}
\gamma \\
\gamma_{uv}
\end{pmatrix}
\leq
\begin{pmatrix}
0 \\
\vdots \\
0 \\
1
\end{pmatrix}
$
The corresponding method is detailed in **Algorithm** \[algbrut\]. Now we would like to find a way to reduce the size of the main matrix $\Gamma$ as it is function of the product $ k \times l $.
$A$ $\mathcal{V}$-representation: list of vertices $\mathcal{V}_A$ $B$ $\mathcal{V}$-representation: list of vertices $\mathcal{V}_B$ Compute $ f^* = \max ( < \gamma, a_u+b_v > - \gamma_{uv} ) $ with $ \Gamma \begin{pmatrix}
\gamma \\
\gamma_{uv}
\end{pmatrix} \leq
\begin{pmatrix}
0 \\
... \\
0 \\
1
\end{pmatrix} $, $ \Gamma \in \mathbb{R}^{k \times l} \times \mathbb{R}^{n+1} $ $ (a_u+b_v) \in \mathcal{V}_C $ $ (a_u+b_v) \notin \mathcal{V}_C $
Constructing the new algorithm
------------------------------
In this section we want to use the basic property \[basicprop\] characterizing a Minkowski vertex. Then the algorithm computes, as done before, all sums of pairs $(a_u,b_v) \in \mathcal{V}_A \times \mathcal{V}_B $ and checks whether there exists a pair $ (a',b') \neq (a_u,b_v) $ with $ a' \in A$, $b' \in B $ such as $ (a'+b') = (a_u+b_v) $. If it is the case then $ (a_u+b_v) \notin \mathcal{V}_C $, otherwise $ (a_u+b_v) \in \mathcal{V}_C $.
$a' = \displaystyle{ \sum_{i=1}^{k} \alpha_i a_i }$ with $ \forall i, \alpha_i \geq 0$ and $\displaystyle{ \sum_{i=1}^{k} \alpha_i } = 1$
$b' = \displaystyle{ \sum_{j=1}^{l} \beta_j b_j }$ with $ \forall j, \beta_j \geq 0$ and $\displaystyle{ \sum_{j=1}^{l} \beta_j } = 1$.
We get the following system:
$ \left\{
\begin{array}{l l l l l}
\displaystyle{ \sum_{i=1}^{k} \alpha_i a_i } + \displaystyle{ \sum_{j=1}^{l} \beta_j b_j } = a_u+b_v \\
\displaystyle{ \sum_{i=1}^{k} \alpha_i } = 1 \\
\displaystyle{ \sum_{j=1}^{l} \beta_j } = 1 \\
\forall i, \alpha_i \geq 0 \\
\forall j, \beta_j \geq 0
\end{array} \right.
$
That is to say with matrices and under the hypothesis of positivity for both vectors $\alpha$ and $\beta$:
$
\begin{pmatrix}
a_{1,1} & a_{2,1} & \cdots & a_{k,1} & b_{1,1} & b_{2,1} & \cdots & b_{l,1} \\
a_{1,2} & a_{2,2} & \cdots & a_{k,2} & b_{1,2} & b_{2,2} & \cdots & b_{l,2} \\
\vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\
a_{1,n} & a_{2,n} & \cdots & a_{k,n} & b_{1,n} & b_{2,n} & \cdots & b_{l,n} \\
1 & 1 & \cdots & 1 & 0 & 0 & \cdots & 0 \\
0 & 0 & \cdots & 0 & 1 & 1 & \cdots & 1
\end{pmatrix}
\begin{pmatrix}
\alpha_1 \\
\vdots \\
\alpha_k \\
\beta_1 \\
\vdots \\
\beta_l
\end{pmatrix}
=
\begin{pmatrix}
a_{u,1} + b_{v,1} \\
a_{u,2} + b_{v,2} \\
\vdots \\
a_{u,n} + b_{v,n} \\
1 \\
1
\end{pmatrix}
$
We are not in the case of the linear feasibility problem as there is at least one obvious solution:
$ p_{u,v} = ( \alpha_1, \cdots, \alpha_k, \beta_1, \cdots, \beta_l ) = ( 0, \cdots, 0, \alpha_u=1, 0, \cdots, 0, 0, \cdots, 0, \beta_v=1, 0, \cdots, 0 ) $
The question is to know whether it is unique or not. This first solution is a vertex $ p_{u,v} $ of a polyhedron in $\mathbb{R}^{k+l}$ that verifies $(n+2)$ equality constraints with positive coefficients. The algorithm tries to build another solution making use of linear programming techniques. We can note that the polyhedron is in fact a polytope because it is bounded. The reason is that, by hypothesis, the set in $\mathbb{R}^{k}$ of convex combinations of the vertices $a_i$ is bounded as it defines the polytope $A$. Same thing for $B$ in $\mathbb{R}^{l}$. So in $\mathbb{R}^{k+l}$ the set of points verifying both constraints simultaneously is bounded too.
So we can write it in a more general form:
$ P \begin{pmatrix}
\alpha \\
\beta
\end{pmatrix} =
\begin{pmatrix}
a_u + b_v \\
1 \\
1
\end{pmatrix},
P \in \mathbb{R}^{n+2} \times \mathbb{R}^{k+l}, \alpha \in \mathbb{R}^{k}_+, \beta \in \mathbb{R}^{l}_+, a_u \in \mathbb{R}^{n}, b_v \in \mathbb{R}^{n}
$
where only the second member is function of $u$ and $v$.
It gives the linear programming system:
$$\left\{
\begin{array}{l l}
\begin{pmatrix}
\alpha \\
\beta
\end{pmatrix} \geq 0 \\
f^* = \max ( 2 - \alpha_u - \beta_v )
\end{array} \right.$$
Thanks to this system we have now the basic property the algorithm relies on:
$$a_u \in \mathcal{V}_A, b_v \in \mathcal{V}_B, (a_u + b_v) \in \mathcal{V}_C \Leftrightarrow f^*=0$$
$ f^*=0 \Leftrightarrow $ there exists only one pair $ ( \alpha_u, \beta_v ) = (1, 1) $ to reach the maximum $ f^* $ as $ \sum_{i=1}^{k} \alpha_i = 1 $ and $ \sum_{j=1}^{l} \beta_j = 1 $ $\Leftrightarrow$ the decomposition of $ c = (a_u + b_v) $ is unique $ \Leftrightarrow c \in \mathcal{V}_C $
It is also interesting to note that when the maximum $f^*$ has been reached:
$ \alpha_u = 1 \Leftrightarrow \beta_v = 1 \Leftrightarrow f^*=0 $
$A$ $\mathcal{V}$-representation: list of vertices $\mathcal{V}_A$ $B$ $\mathcal{V}$-representation: list of vertices $\mathcal{V}_B$ Compute $ f^* = \max ( 2 - \alpha_i - \beta_j ) $ with $ P \begin{pmatrix}
a_i + b_j \\
1 \\
1
\end{pmatrix} $ $ P \in \mathbb{R}^{n+2} \times \mathbb{R}^{k+l} $ and $\begin{pmatrix}
\alpha \\
\beta
\end{pmatrix} \geq 0 $ $ (a_i+b_j) \in \mathcal{V}_C $ $ (a_i+b_j) \notin \mathcal{V}_C $
Optimizing the new algorithm and geometric interpretation
---------------------------------------------------------
The current state of the art runs $k \times l$ linear programming algorithms and thus is solvable in polynomial time. We presented the data such that the matrix $P$ is invariant and the parametrization is stored in both the second member and the objective function, so one can take advantage of this structure to save computation time. A straight idea could be using the classical sensitivity analysis techniques to test whether $(a_u + b_v)$ is a Minkowski vertex or not from the previous steps, instead of restarting the computations from scratch at each iteration.
Let’s switch now to the geometric interpretation, given $ a \in \mathcal{V}_A $, let’s consider the cone generated by all the edges attached to $a$ and pointing towards its neighbour vertices. After translating its apex to the origin $O$, we call this cone $C_O(a)$ and we call $C_O(b)$ the cone created by the same technique with the vertex $b$ in the polytope $B$.
The method tries to build a pair, if it exists, $ (a',b') $ with $ a' \in A$, $b' \in B $ such that $ (a+b) = (a'+b') $. Let’s introduce the variable $ \delta = a'-a =b-b' $, and the straight line $\Delta = \{ x \in \mathbb{R}^n : x = t \delta, t \in \mathbb{R} \} $.
So the question about $ (a+b) $ being or not a Minkowski vertex can be presented this way: $$a \in \mathcal{V}_A, b \in \mathcal{V}_B, (a+b) \notin \mathcal{V}_C \Leftrightarrow \exists \Delta = \{ x \in \mathbb{R}^n : x = t \delta, t \in \mathbb{R} \} \subset C_O(a) \cup C_O(b)$$
The existence of a straight line inside the reunion of the cones is equivalent to the existence of a pair $(a',b')$ such that $ (a+b) = (a'+b') $ which is equivalent to the fact that $ (a'+b') $ is not a Minkowski vertex. This is illustrated in **Figure** \[vsum2\]. The property becomes obvious when we understand that if $ (a',b') $ exists in $ A \times B $ then $ (a'-a) $ and $ (b'-b) $ are symmetric with respect to the origin. Once a straight line has been found inside the reunion of two cones, we can test this inclusion with the same straight line for another pair of cones, here is the geometric interpretation of an improved version of the algorithm making use of what has been computed in the previous steps.
We can resume the property writing it as an intersection introducing the cone $-C_O(b)$ being the symmetric of $C_O(b)$ with respect to the origin.
$$\label{primcone}
a \in \mathcal{V}_A, b \in \mathcal{V}_B, (a+b) \in \mathcal{V}_C \Leftrightarrow C_O(a) \cap -C_O(b) = \{O\}$$
![[]{data-label="vsum2"}](sum_pol3.png)
Conclusion
==========
In this paper, our algorithm goes beyond the scope of simply finding the vertices of a cloud of points. That’s why we have characterized the Minkowski vertices. However, among all the properties, some of them are not easily exploitable in an algorithm. In all the cases we have worked directly in the polytopes $A$ and $B$, i.e. in the primal spaces and only with the polytopes $\mathcal{V}$-descriptions. Other approaches use dual objects such as normal fans and dual cones. References can be found in [@Teissandier-hal-00635842], [@Delos-CMCGS] and [@Weibel3883] but they need more than the $\mathcal{V}$-description for the polytopes they handle. This can be problematic as obtaining the double description can turn out to be impossible in high dimensions, see [@Fukuda20041261] where Fukuda uses both vertices and edges. Reference [@Teissandier-hal-00635842] works in $ \mathbb{R}^3 $ in a dual space where it intersects dual cones attached to the vertices, and it can be considered as the dual version of property \[primcone\] where the intersection is computed with primal cones. It actually implements Weibel’s approach described in [@Weibel3883]. Such a method has been recently extended to any dimension for $\mathcal{H}\mathcal{V}$-polytopes in [@Delos-CMCGS].
Special thanks
==============
We would like to thank Pr Pierre Calka from the LMRS in Rouen University for his precious help in writing this article.
[66]{}
Denis Teissandier and Vincent Delos and Yves Couetard, “Operations on Polytopes: Application to Tolerance Analysis”, 6th CIRP Seminar on CAT, 425-433, Enschede (Netherlands), 1999
Lazhar Homri, Denis Teissandier, and Alex Ballu, “Tolerancing Analysis by Operations on Polytopes”, Design and Modeling of Mechanical Systems, Djerba (Tunisia), 597:604, 2013
Vijay Srinivasan, “Role of Sweeps in Tolerancing Semantics”, in ASME Proc. of the International Forum on Dimensional Tolerancing and Metrology, TS172.I5711, CRTD, 27:69-78, 1993
Komei Fukuda, “From the Zonotope Construction to the Minkowski Addition of Convex Polytopes”, Journal of Symbolic Computation, 38:4:1261-1272, 2004
Komei Fukuda and Christophe Weibel, “Computing all Faces of the Minkowski Sum of V-Polytopes”, Proceedings of the 17th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, 253-256, 2005
Denis Teissandier and Vincent Delos, “Algorithm to Calculate the Minkowski Sums of 3-Polytopes Based on Normal Fans”, Computer-Aided Design, 43:12:1567-1576, 2011
Vincent Delos and Denis Teissandier, “Minkowski Sum of $\mathcal{HV}$-Polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^n$”, Proceedings of the 4th Annual International Conference on Computational Mathematics, Computational Geometry and Statistics, Singapore, 2015
Komei Fukuda, “Frequently Asked Questions in Polyhedral Computation”, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and Zurich, Switzerland, 2004
Christophe Weibel, “Minkowski Sums of Polytopes”, PhD Thesis, EPFL, 2007
| |
Focus in this paper is on building a science of economics, grounded in understanding of organizations and what is beneath the surface of economic structures and activities. As a science Economics should be concerned with its assumptions, logic and lines of arguments, and how to develop theories and formulate ideas of reality. There is a disconnection between a science of economics focuses on structures and universal laws from what is experienced in everyday of life of business activity. The everyday of life of business is processual, dynamic and contradictional. This discussion of how to understand the everyday economic life is the central issue and is discussed from the perspective of interactionism. It is a perspective developed from the Lifeworld philosophical traditions, such as symbolic interactionism and phenomenology, seeking to develop the thinking of economics. The argument is that economics first of all is about two things; it is about interaction and it is about construction. If we are not able to understand and describe how people interact and construct, we cannot develop any theory of economics or understand human dynamics. So there are two issues to reflect upon: the object of thought and the process of thinking, e.g. the ontology and the epistemology.
1. Introduction
Economics and organization is human interaction and construction in and of everyday of life. So to develop economics in to a science that can describe and understand human dynamics, the focus has to be on the demands for such a science in relation to its ontology and epistemology.
The dominant and traditional view on economics is that, it is a matter of constructing theories that can explain the laws invisible to the eye and under the surface. This is the tradition that develops during the 19th and 20th centuries when social science was established, with its roots in positivism (e.g. Comte, Durkheim, ) and rationalism (e.g. Descartes, ) and later on in system theory (e.g. von Bertalanffy ). The epistemologycal question here is if the factors and laws are connected, not in relation to reality but to the models and the constructed theoretical universe. There are no empirical arguments for if and in which way reality is constructed as a system or as a mathematical reality. And if it is possible that reality can be explained strictly on numbers, or if there are universal laws which are only assumed by the tradition.
An alternative to those concepts of science comes from the central philosopher in connection with the development of a subjectivistic approach, especially Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant thought that the inner activities of man as conceptualized in the minds of human beings must be brought into focus. Our thoughts are not turned toward the objects, as they are represented or defined in themselves, independent of human intersubjectivity. Science only understands the world in so far as we have shaped it ourselves by forming ideas of it. If therefore the sciences shall have at least an element of truth in their analyses, pronouncements and validity, they must build on the relative necessity1, which is maintained by the intersubjective everyday life reality experienced by man. Sciences do not constitute a reference system standing above, abstracted and removed from the world to justify the validity of everyday life. The scientific conceptualization rests on preconditions, which mankind places into science itself, by being a participant in the experiencal world of everyday life. It is not necessary that the single scientist knows everything about the organizing of an experience. Therefore, he does not necessaryily see the viewpoint presupposed by science or the basis of which he works himself. Kant’s view of the relation between science and everyday life throws light on science as a human endeavor in which we are responsible ourselves for its outcomes .
In 1935, Husserl criticized a natural science approach in social science, as being a science that had lost its soul. (Social) Science had to a great extent been studying the culture at the terms of nature. That is, natural science had determined the trend of science, also seen in cultural and social sciences. But man has a soul, a life and a history, which disappear completely, if it is studied on the premises of natural science. Husserl was of the opinion that man has to seek his roots to understand the meaning of his life . His phenomenology is the study of consciousness, and he rejects the notion that consciousness or its contents can be fully investigated from a “theoreticcal attitude” using the philosophical assumptions, conceptual categories, and quantitative methods of science. Instead, the study of consciousness should start from the “natural attitude”: the relationship of consciousness to the Lifeworld—the world of ordinary, everyday experience. Only from the “natural standpoint” can we do justice to the exploration of consciousness and human experiences .
Schutz underlines that from a phenomenological perspective with the observation that social scientists’ facts, events and data are of a totally different structure than in the objective approach. The social world is not structureless in its nature. The world has a special meaning and structure of relevance to those people that live, think and act in it. Human beings have pre-chosen and pre-interpreted this world through a set of commonsense constructions of everyday of life reality. Such a construct of the world outlines those topics of thoughts that determine individual’s actions, defines the aim for their actions, the means to achieve them, and that are accessible to reach them. This perspective helps people to orientate themselves in their natural and socio-cultural milieu and to become comfortable with in it. The topics of thoughts that are constructed by the social scientist, refers to and are founded upon the topic of thoughts that are constructed by an individual’s commonsense thinking as they live their everyday lives among other people. The constructions, therefore that the scientist use, are thereby constructions of a second order, namely constructions of the constructions that are performed by the actors on the social scene. Then the scientist observes these actions and seeks to understand them in relationship with his scientific procedure rules.
If we are looking for what is meaningful in understanding reality we must have concepts of what that reality is. This is the area of ontology and in relation to economics we have to connect the discussion of economic figures, relations, forces, etc. to where they arise and in which way they are meaningful. The only way to do this is to take the departure in the subject and the subject relation to the phenomenon: both the economic actor and the researcher who is trying to understand the subject. We need a moving picture of what the economic actor is and what his realities are, and we need a focus upon how knowledge of this is produced.
In order to develop such a picture of everyday economic interactions we have to focus upon what will be described as “qualitative economics”, as a perspective and understanding of economics. Qualitative is seen in the complex construction by the actors of the economic organizing. The roots in this are in the traditions of “Lifeworld” and interactionism. Lifeworld comes from the German die Lebenswelt, with its roots in the 18th Century philosophy of Kant , and later on Husserl , Heidegger , Schutz , Gadamer , and can also be seen in the tradition of American philosophers’ Mead and Blumer from the early to mid-20th Century. The theoretical development from this philosophical tradition is seen in different schools of contemporary social science thought ranging from phenomenology, hermeneutic, ethnomethodology, linguistics and symbolic interactionism. The Lifeworld tradition and its interactionistic theoretical development is an approach to theorizing, describing, understanding and explaining everyday life, and is therefore creating the science of qualitative economics.
The aim of this paper is therefore—through the everyday life tradition—to discuss the central issues and basic concepts in order to understand and develop a qualitative economic perspective.
2. The Logic of Qualitative Economics—The Object of Thought
The reality of economics has been investigated and explained in many ways. But the discussion of how to understand the business research, and how the research is done along with the (ontological and epistemological) assumptions lying behind the research and its reality in everyday life, are rarely discussed. Discussions of philosophy in science and methodology are important for understanding reality and theorizing on its applications in everyday life. It is precisely these connections among philosophy of science that theorizing and methodologies arise to capture the reality, which must be in the center of any scientific discussion. Furthermore, openness and a specific discussion of an alternative philosophical approach to the established traditional way of seeing science and reality are necessary. Thinking and reflection are critical in the scientific investigation of reality together with and related to the basic philosophical assumptions. It is only in this connection that we can talk about something being true (e.g. correct) or false.
We will discuss how to understand the very concept of organizations and how organizations are constructed and developed. We need to have an understanding of what people are and what they bring to the organizational economic context by interacting with one another and in groups.
When the functionalistic economic theory fails to understand business life, the root to the problem is in the lack of a conceptual discussion on the very understanding and meaning of business activities within the firm. This section focuses on interaction and the firm as a social construction and upon understanding the process of change and development of the firm. The purpose is to discuss a conceptual understanding of the firm as a subjective, interactionistic and processual phenomenon. The discussion focuses upon the way in which actors in their everyday of life create an understanding of business reality and through their actions and interactions construct and change the firm.
2.1. The Constitution of the “Firm”
Organisations are created, maintained and developed though everyday human interaction . All business and economic activities are conducted by individuals communicating in an interactive or face-to-face manner, where the relations consist of concrete meetings between members in the firm. The word “Organization”/“Firm” is (only) a concept, which we use to describe a phenomenon. It is a conceptualization of what we believe and do and what we orient our actions toward. Organization is a concept in the same way as the concepts of family, class in school, a football team, an union etc. In other words, organization is a phenomenon that we experience when and where we see more than one person involved in activities over time.
Thus, organization becomes a collective arrangement where people try to give the situation and the activities meanings. In line with Blumer organizations consist of the fitting together of lines of activity—the interlinking of lines of action. Actors mixing, sharing, competing, and cooperating are parts of the interactive process that define groups and organization. And that is why most organizations, by definition, change and move dynamically in space and time.
By fitting together the lines of action and interaction as logically prior in organization, we are discouraged from mistakenly regarding organizations as “things” or simply “solid entities” such as a building or structure. Organizations are not concrete, immutable or even life-like objects that, somehow independent of our conscious intentions or unconscious motives, shape and determine what we do. The technical term for this kind of cognitive error is “reification”, an unconscious tendency to forget or be obvious to the role of human agency in creating, sustaining, and transforming social relations . We actively construct our social reality through language, through a process of symbolization by forming words and sentence to describe our experiences as well as our wants and desires. We create our organizational existence and live within it.
The language we share and use constitutes our relationships . An organization should therefore be understood through the actors who by their actions and knowledge create the firm in their everyday pursuit of life. In this the relation between action and knowledge is the central issue of interaction.
The actions exist in a context that is created by the actor through his/her actions. The action is related to the actor’s interpretation and understanding of the situation in the context of meanings imparted in the interaction of the phenomenon [11,13,14,16,17]. The actor has motives and definitions of the situation that makes the social world into an inner logic, which have rules and lines of action derived from the situation itself. Actions also happen in connection with expectations. When the actors are involved in the society, they expect suitable actions from themselves and from others: They are capable of understanding meanings of action by others and make their own point-of-view on themselves based on the response of other actors. They associate meanings to situations and to other actor’s actions and act in relation to their interpretations of these meanings. This can be understood in relation to typifications, formed by the earlier experiences of the actor, which define his/her “thinking-in-future” of others’ possible reaction to his/her actions.
The typifications that the actor uses in a situation are dependent on his/her knowledge in everyday life that is, “the-stock-of-knowledge” and “the generalized other” as Blumer described the phenomenon. These typifications give the individual a frame of reference that the actor can use to create actions and make sense of others’ actions. See Blumer’s notion of “reflections” for example. Typifications are thereby expectations to others actions containing symbols in relation to community and collective interpretations.
This social reality is pre-defined in the language by which we are socialized. The language gives us categories that both define and emphasize our experiences. The language spoken and dialogue among actors within an organization can be seen as communication of meanings and actions. But such language-usage is also a means to create a new understanding, changes in meanings and a new worldview. Language is the base line from which we understand and can interpret knowledge. Thus, knowledge, as expressed in language-usage, can thereby be understood as moving pictures of reality: experiences and information are produced through actions and transformed (by interpretation and retrospection) to the knowledge that the actor’s experiences are useful and relevant.
The world with which the actor is confronted is composed of experiences which the process of consciousness will develop or simplify toward different paths (or structures) and then transformed into actions (again). The actor uses and develops a scheme for interpretation to connect episodes of social action in a sensible way. A “scheme” should be understood as active information seeking pictures that accept information and orient actions continuously [18,19]. The action-knowledge process gives an understanding of the way in which people think, act, reflect and interact. Simultaneously it shows that the actors are engaged in their environment by means of interpretation and orientation with one another. Through this process they give define and give meaning.
The focus in the understanding of the organization is upon the way organizational members interpret their organizational world, which is nothing else than a special sphere of the individual’s Lifeworld. Lifeworld refers to the fact that in any real-life experience there is something that is given in advance or something that exits in advance and thus, taken for granted. This taken-for-granted world includes our everyday life and whatever prejudices and typical interpretations we may derive from it. Acting as a member of an organization, therefore, does not differ essentially from acting as an individual, for “whether we happen to act alone or, cooperating with others, engage in common pursuits, the things and objects with which we are confronted as well as our plans and designs, finally the world as a whole, appears to us in the light of beliefs, opinions, conceptions, certainties, etc., that prevail in the community to which we belong” . The important characteristic of this experience in any organization becomes the typical form of everyday life. Or as described by Schutz : The individuals commonsense knowledge of the world is a system of constructs of its typicality. In social interaction, the role of typification is important and can be expected to vary according to the nature of the relationship.
2.2. “Environment”
The environment is not an objective fact but something members of the work shop produce or rather co-produce as a consequence of their acts . The enacted environment is orderly, material, social construction that is subject to multiple interpretations . The existence of the objects in the environment is not questioned, but their meanings are. The traditionally distinction as well as the conception of environments and organisations embedded in organization literature is seriously questioned by Weick [18,22]. We think Weick is right stating that when concepts like organization and environment are treated as entities they start working as pre-judgment or selffulfilling prophesy. In other words when researchers make a clear-cut between an organisations and its environment they automatically or unconsciously starts looking for confirmation on these assumptions. In Weick’s perspective even an analyses of the environment becomes an act affecting and shaping the environment. The basic assumption is that reality is seen as a social construction . Members, and especially managers, of organisations enact the environment by constructing, rearranging, singling out and demolishing phenomenon in their surroundings. Since the construction of reality is a social process the manager is not alone when reality is constructed. The manager is obviously interacting with others and during these interactions reality is constructed. Clearly an enacted environment is not synonymous with a perceived environment but it is also clear that the perception of reality must somehow be influenced by the reality being socially constructed by members of an organization. The social construction of reality work as a self-fulfilling prophecy making members of an organization look for and find what they expect to find in the environment.
The actors in their “environment” construct reality and knowledge. It is precisely because knowledge is a relation to and has an orientation towards the “environment” through action, that the environment itself can be defined as the experiential space and as the interpretation space.
The experiential space is what is close and concrete, where the actors travel and interact. This can be seen in the consciousness of human beings in “the natural attitude” first of all being interested in that part of the actor’s everyday of life world that is in his reach and that in time and space are centered around him/her . The place where the body occupies the world, the actual here, is the point from which one orientates oneself in the space. In relation to this place, one organizes elements in the environment. Similarly, the actual now is the origin of all the time perspectives under which one organizes events in the world as before and after, and so on. This experiential space is experienced by the actor as the core of reality, as the world within his reach. It is the reality in which we are all engaged.
The interpretation space can be seen as the reality beyond the actor’s knowledge (e.g. through stories, tales) where something which the actor relates to, but which is not centered around his or her everyday of life, e.g. not in time. In relation to this, we can see the distinction that Weick talks about when he says, that humans live in two worlds—the world of events and things (or the territory) and the world of words about events and things (or the map). In this, the process of abstraction is the process that enables people to symbolize , and is described as “the continuous activity of selecting, omitting, and organizing, the details of reality so that we experience the world as patterned and coherent”. This process becomes necessary but inherently is inaccurate, because the world changes continuously and no two events are the same. The world becomes stable only as people ignore differences and attend to similarities. In a social constructed world, the map creates the territory. Labels of the territory prefigure self-confirming perspectives and action.
This perspective also means that the development of knowledge has its start in the actor’s existing knowledge. Or as Weick put it: it takes a map to make a map because one points out differences that are mapped into the other one. To find a difference, one needs a compareson and it is map like artifacts which provide such comparisons.
The development can be seen in relation to the actor’s everyday experiences with his attempt to orient him/herself and to solve problems. When the actors act in their experiential space, they thus widen their understanding of reality by interpreting and relating themselves to the result of the actions. Development of knowledge involves interpretation and retrospection whereby the actors create their experiential space: Reality is what one sees; hence it changes every time the actor constructs a new concept or a picture of connections. Development of knowledge thus demands that the actor reflects and relate to an understanding of the situation and the experiential space.
The essence is in the idea that we all develop knowledge through actions and that actions are the means by which we engage ourselves in the reality; our actions construct and keep us in touch with the world [24,25]. The action-knowledge discussion is built upon the assumption that we only have a reality in force of that we are engaged in it: reality is socially constructed. This does not imply that people are in full control over the process of constructing the reality or that they have possibilities to change it basically, because they do not act alone and because it is an on-going process.
It is necessary now to take the discussion of actors, actions and knowledge, and develop an understanding of the way in which people are orientated toward each other and in which way the organizational reality actually becomes a reality.
2.3. Interaction and Knowledge
Interaction is symbolic in the sense that actors respond to the actions of others, not for some inherent quality in them, but for the significance and meanings imputed to them by the actors. Meanings shared in this way, in an intersubjective way, form the basis for human social organization . People learn symbols through communication (interaction) with other people, and therefore many symbols can be thought of as common or shared meanings and values . This mutually shared character of the meanings gives them intersubjectivity and stresses that it is interaction and intersubjectivity that constitute the firm as a reality for the actors. Interaction in this relation should be understood as a complete sequence of interaction, as a process of interaction.
The central point in this is the time perspective and the dependency of the context and the acts: It is the actions by the actor and the process of interaction that give and make the firm over time. The “firm” therefore both has a past (the experiences of the actors) and a present (the actors interpretations and pictures) and a future in relations to the actors fantasies of the future and orientations. The processes related to interaction are presented in the figure below.
Figure 1 outlines interaction between the actors in the firm. It is a process of knowledge development, which occurs through the process of interaction in an experiential space. It is intersubjective and can be seen as a moving picture that defines what the actors’ experience as important and real. Thus, knowledge has an impact on future actions and is central for an understanding of the actors’ orientation and the organizational actions. The actors’ act in relation to the picture and definition they have of the experiential space and the situation. Each action means possibilities for experiences and information, and for strengths or weaknesses in interpretation of connections in the situation. In every situation there is the possibility of several different interpretations. This means that changes in the experiential space create ambiguity and the actors are tempted to use previous successful actions and interpretations—the existing picture of reality.
2.4. Organizing—Fitting Together of Lines of Activities and Actions
Through the processes of interaction, the actors construct
Figure 1. Knowledge and interaction.
some results: the interaction means organizing and creation of the firm, and the actors create a moving picture of and a relation to the experiential space. The actors create intersubjective moving pictures of the reality, which is an organizational paradigm.
The actors create over time that thing we define as the “firm”. The processes that occur can be understood as organizing, which not only focuses upon action and interaction but also on creation of meanings of reality and intersubjectivity. Essentially, the firm can be understood as overlapping interactions. The actors create the firm through interactions, but “it” has also an influence upon them through their interpretation of “it”. This dialectical perspective appears from the view that the firm only exists through the interactions between the actors and thus is viewed as a corollary of these interactions. Simultaneously, the organization is historically to the individual member: The individual enters into an already existing organizational everyday of life, which sets the institutional parameters for his self-development. Self and organization thus develop together and because of each other in a dialectical process of mutual transformation [13,26,28-30].
The actors have to live with and exist with uncertainty and ambiguity. In other words, the way in which the actors handle themselves is in itself uncertain and exposed to many different interpretations and understandings. To reach security, the actors attempt to organize their activities. Organizing means assembling the actions and should be seen in relation to interpretation and understanding by the actors. The actors form their actions so as obtain information and experiences that give meanings to the organizational world. This is organized by the actors in an attempt to construct an understanding. In the organizing the dependent actions are oriented towards removing contradictions and uncertainty: the actors seek to define and make sense in their situation, and thus they both create the firm and the experiential space. Organizing is to be seen as a social, meaning-making process where order and disorder are in constant tension with one another, and where unpredictability is shaped and “managed”. The raw materials of organizing are people, their beliefs, actions and their shared meanings that are in constant motion .
There is a similarity between the phenomenological meanings of the practical activity of organizing and theorizing—the act of sense-making is in fact the central feature of both. Theorizing is most fundamentally an activity of making systematic as well as simplified sense of complex phenomena that often defy understanding by everyday, common-sense means. Theorizing might also be seen as a means by which people in organizations make their own and other’s actions intelligible by reflective observations of organizing processes; through these processes novel meanings are created and possibilities for action are revealed. Theorizing becomes an act of organizing, first, when it is a cooperative activity shared in by several or even all of the actors in an organizational setting; and second, when its purpose is to reveal hidden or novel possibilities for acting cooperatively. Organizing is cooperative theorizing and vice versa . In short, the firm is a social construction and a collective phenomenon.
Interaction between actors in a situation allows for many different interpretations whereby the actors are facing multiple realities. The interaction between different opinions means that new conceptions may arise. The reality is seen differently which produces changes. Brown states that the organizational change could be seen as an analogy with scientific change: “... most of what goes on in organizations, involves practical as well as formal knowledge. That is, the relevant knowledge is often a matter of application, such as how to employ the official procedures and when to invoke the formal description of those procedures, rather than abstract knowledge of the formal procedures themselves. Paradigms, in other words, may be understood not only as formal rules of thought, but also as rhetoric and practices in use” .
Bartunek talks about an organizational paradigm as interpretive schemes, which describes the cognitive schemata that map our experience of the world through identifying both its relevant aspects and how we are to understand them. Interpretive schemes operate as shared, fundamental (though often implicit) assumptions about why events happen as they do and how people are to act in different situations.
The structures of meaning arises in and is institutionalized through the action of human beings, our own and those of our fellow men, and those of our contemporaries and our predecessors. All objects of culture (tools, symbols, language systems, social institutions, etc.) point back, through their origin and meaning, to the activities of human subjects. Intersubjectivity, therefore, can be seen as a common subjective state or as a dimension of consciousness that is common to a certain social group who mutually affects each other. The social connections are rendered possible through the intersubjectivity such as through a mutual understanding of common rules that are, however, experienced subjectively. Intersubjectivity refers to the fact that different groups may interpret and experience the world in the same way that is necessary at a certain level and in some contexts out of regard for collective tasks.
Human behavior is part of a social relationship, when people connect a meaning to the behavior, and other people apprehend it as meaningful. Subjective meanings are essential to the interaction, both to the acting person who has a purpose with his action and to others who shall interpret that action and react in correspondence with the interpretation . The basis for intersubjectivity is the social origin of knowledge or the social inheritance in which the acting persons are socialized to collectively typify repeated social events as external, objective events (which shall be seen in relation to structures of meaning). However, in consciousness such a typification is experienced as subjective reality.
Essence of all this is that the meaning people create in their everyday reality gives the understanding of why people are like they are which can be seen in their interaction and intersubjectivity, including their common interpretations, expectations and typifications. As long as organizational actors act as typical members, they tend to take the official system of typification for granted as well as the accompanying set of recipes that help them define their situation in an organizationally approved way. The emergence of other, non-organizationally defined typifying schemes results from the breaking down of the taken-for-granted world when the actors enter into faceto-face relationships.
3. Connections of Everyday of Business Life—The Process of Thinking
Kant thought that the problem with all classical objective metaphysics was that it forgot to investigate the meaning and cognitive reach of its own concepts.
Kant’s first attempt, in creating an understanding of the relation between man and reality, was to establish a synthesis of two ways of thinking which were mutually contradictory: the Cartesian dualism between soul and body, as well as Hume’s resolution of self-conceit. i.e. Descartes’s distinction between thought and extension: thinking has its own principles of movement, and the thing follows other principles. And Hume’s view, that the relationship of man to the world is based on natural belief and faith—a practical relationship that cannot be explained theoretically as cognition and through the ego. Kant was of the opinion that all cognition starts with the experience, and that knowledge was a synthesis of experiences and concepts: without sensing we cannot be aware of any objects (the empirical cognition); without understanding we cannot form an opinion of the object (the a priori cognition): “There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. For how should our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impressions into that knowledge of objects which is entitled experience? In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all our knowledge begins” .
However, there are limits to knowledge. Kant distinguishes between the phenomena (the world of phenomena) and reality (the noumenal world): We cannot apprehend the mysterious substance of the thing, what he called “das Ding an Sich” (the-thing-in-itself). If we try to go outside the world of phenomena, i.e. if we wish to use the concepts outside the limits of the comprehensible world, it will lead to paradoxes, fallacies and pure selfcontradictions. Kant argued that the traditional metaphysical arguments about the soul, immortality, God and the free will all exceed the limits of reason. Reason can only be used legitimately in the practical sphere, i.e. if we try to acquire knowledge of the world. If we cannot reach das Ding an Sich, then we must be satisfied with “das Ding für Uns” (the things as they presents themselves to us2).
This is the question that we have to raise when we are studying the field of economics: What are the things, who are the actors, and in which way do I understand?
The primary goal of the social sciences is to obtain organized knowledge of social reality. Schutz understands social reality as the sum total of objects and occurrences within the social cultural world as experienced by the “common-sense” thinking of men living their daily lives among their fellow-men, connected with them in manifold relations of interaction . It is a world of cultural objects and social institutions in which we are born, in which we have to find our bearings and to come to terms with. Seen from outside, we experience the world we live in as a world which is both nature and of culture, not as a private world, but as an intersubjective world. This means that it is a world common to all of us, either actually given or potentially accessible to everyone; and this involves intercommunication and languages. It is in this intersubjective world that action shall be understood.
In this everyday Lifeworld the actors use “common sense knowledge”, as kind of knowledge held by all socialized people. The concept refers to the knowledge on the social reality held by the actors in consequence of the fact that they live in and are part of this reality. The reality experienced by the actors as a “given” reality; i.e. it is experienced as an organized reality “out there”. It has an independent existence, taking place independently of the individual. However, at the same time this reality has to be interpreted and made meaningful by each individual through his experiences—we experience reality through our common sense knowledge, and this knowledge is a practical knowledge of how we conduct our everyday lives.
All our knowledge about the world involves constructions, i.e. a set of abstractions, generalizations, formalisms and idealizations which are specific for the organ izational level of thoughts in question . Such things as pure and simple facts do not exist.
According to Schutz social science must deal with the behavior of man and common sense interpretation in the social reality, based on an analysis of the entire system of projects and motives, of relevance’s and structures. Such an analysis refers necessarily to the subjective viewpoint, i.e. to interpretation of the action and its surroundings from the viewpoint of the actor. Any social science that wishes to understand “social reality” must adopt this principle. This means that you always can and for certain purposes must refer to the activities of the subjects in the social world and their interpretation through the actors in project systems, available means, motives, relevance’s, etc.
To be able to understand the social reality and handle the subjective views, science must construct its own objects of thought, which replace the objects of common sense thinking. This approach allows for an understanding of research work on models of parts of the social world, where typical and classified events are dealt within the specific field in which the research worker is interested. The model consists of viewing the typical interactions between human beings, and to analyze this typical pattern of interaction as regards its meaning to the character types of the actors who presumably created them. The social research worker must develop methodological procedures to acquire objective and verifiable knowledge about a subjective structure of meaning.
In the sphere of theoretical thinking, the research worker “puts in brackets” his physical existence and thus also his body and its system of orientation, of which his body is the center and the source . The research worker is interested in problems and solutions, which in themselves are valid, to anybody, everywhere, at any time, anywhere and whenever certain conditions, from which he starts, are present. The “jump” in theoretical thinking involves the decision of the individual to suspend his subjective viewpoint. And this very fact shows that it is not the undivided self, but only a partial self, a role player, a “Me”, i.e. the theorist, who acts in scientific thinking. The features of the epoché, which is special for the scientific attitude, can be summarized through the following. In this epoché the following is put in brackets: 1) The thinking subjectivity as man among fellow men, including his bodily existence as psychophysical human being in the world; 2) The system of orientation through which the everyday Lifeworld is grouped in zones within actual, restorable, achievable reach, etc.; 3) The fundamental anxiety and the system of practical relevances, which originate from it .
The system of relevance’s, reigning within the province of scientific contemplation, arises in the random act of the research worker, when he chooses the object of his further exploration, i.e. through the formulation of the existing problem. Thus, the more or less anticipated solution to this problem becomes the summit of the scientific activity. On the other hand, the mere formulations of the problem, the sections or the elements of the world, which are topical or may be connected to it as relevant concerning the present case, are determined at once. After that this limitation of the relevant field will pilot the investigation.
The difference between common sense structures and scientific structures of patterns of interaction is small. Common sense structures are created on the basis of a “Here” in the world. The wide-awake human being in the natural attitude is first of all interested in the sector of his everyday Lifeworld, which is within his reach, and which in time and space is centered around him. The place that my body occupies in the world, my topical Here, is the basis from which I orient in the space. In a similar way my topical “Now” is the origin of all the time perspectives under which I organize events in the world, like before and after, past and future, presence and order, etc. I always have a Here and a Now from which I orient and which determines the reciprocity of the assumed perspectives and which takes a stock of socially derived and socially recognized knowledge for granted. The participant in the pattern of interaction, led by the idealization of the reciprocity of the motives, assumes that his own motives are joined with those of his partner, while only the manifest fragments of the actions of the actors are available to the observer. But both of them, the participant and the observer, create their common sense structures in relation to their biographic situation.
The research worker has no Here in the social world which he is interested in investigating. He therefore does not organize this world around himself as a center. He can never participate as one of the acting actors in a pattern of interaction with one of the actors at the social stage without, at least for some time, to leave his scientific attitude. His contact is determined by his system of relevance, which serves as schemes for his selection and interpretation of the scientific attitude which is temporarily given up to be resumed later. The research worker observes, assuming the scientific attitude, the pattern of interaction of human beings or their results, in so far as they are available to become observations and open to his interpretation. But he must interpret these patterns of interaction in their own subjective structure of meaning, unless he gives up any hope of understanding “social reality” on its own merits and within its own situational context.
The problematic that Schutz brings up here and the understanding that one may reach of the subjective knowledge of another person, can be expressed in the following way. The whole stock of my experience (Erfahrungsvorrat) of another from within the natural attitude consists of my own lived experiences (Erlebnisse) of his body, of his behavior, of the course of his action, and of the artifacts he has produced. My lived experiences of another’s acts consist in my perceptions of his body in motion. However, as I am always interpreting these perceptions as “body of another”, I am always interpreting them as something having an implicit reference to “consciousness of another”. Thus the bodily movements are perceived not only as physical events but also as a sign that the other person is having certain lived experiences, which he is expressing through those movements. My intentional gaze is directed right through my perceptions of his bodily movements to his lived experiences lying behind them and signified by them. The signitive relation is essential to this mode of apprehendding another’s lived experiences. Of course he himself may be aware of these experiences, single them out, and give them his own intended meaning. His observed bodily movements become then for me, not only a sign of his lived experiences as such, but of those to which he attaches an intended meaning. The signitive experience (Erfahrung) of the world, like all other experience in the Here and Now, is coherently organized and is thus “ready at hand” .
The point is how two “streams of consciousness” get in touch with each other, and how they understand each other. Schutz expresses it quite simply, when he talks about the connection, as: the phenomenon to “grow old together”; to understand the inner time (durée) of each other. In fact, we can each understand all others by imagining the intentional acts of the other, when they happen. For example, when someone talks to me, I am aware—not only of the words—but also of the voice. I interpret these acts of communication in the same way as I always interpret my own lived experiences. But my eyes go directly through external symptoms to the internal man of the person talking. No matter which context of meaning I throw light on, when I experience these exterior indications, its validity is linked with a corresponding context of meaning in the mind of the other person. The last context must be where his present, lived experiences are constructed steps by step .
The simultaneousness of our two streams of consciousness does not necessarily mean that we understand the same experiences in identical ways. My lived experiences of you are, like the surroundings that I describe to you, marked by my own subjective Here and Now, and not by yours. But I assume that we both refer to the same object that thus transcends the subjective experiences of both of us. But at the same time not all your lived experiences are open to me. Your stream of lived experiences is also a continuum, but where I can catch detached segments of it. If I could become aware of all your experiences, you and I would be the same person. Hence, the very nature of human beings is that they do not have exactly the same interpretation of experiences; and therefore are different. It is precisely this human diversity that distinguishes humans from other life forms yet creates conflict and turmoil within societies and between them.
We also differ in other ways; how much of the lived experiences of the other we are aware of; and that I, when I become aware of the lived experiences of the other, arrange that which I see within my own meaning context. And in the meantime the other has arranged them in his way. But one thing is clear: This is that everything I know about your conscious life is really based on my knowledge of my own lived experiences. My lived experiences of you are constituted in simultaneity or quasi-simultaneity with your lived experiences, to which they are intentionally related. It is only because of this that, when I look backwards, I am able to synchronize my past experiences of you with yours past experiences . My own stream of consciousness is given to me continuously and in all its perfection, but that of the other person is given to me in discontinuous segments and never in its perfection and exclusively in “interpreted perspectives”. This also means that our knowledge about the consciousness of other persons can always be exposed to doubt, while our own knowledge about our own consciousness, based as it is on immanent acts, is in principle always indubitable. In the natural attitude we understand the world by interpreting our own lived experiences of it. The concept of understanding the Other is therefore the concept: “Our interpretation of our lived experiences of our fellow human beings as such”. The fact that the You confront me as a fellow human being and not a shadow on a screen—in other words that the Others duration and consciousness—is something that I discover through interpretation of my own lived experiences of him. In this way the very cognition of a “You” also means that we enter into the field of intersubjectivity, and that the world is experienced by the individual as a social world.
So in this discussion of how to understand phenomena and meaning we have to focus on the central dimension: language.
4. Language as Science
Connected to Symbolic Interactionism and Phenomenology is Chomsky’s theory of languages such that natural language is common “to discover ‘the semantic and syntactic rules or conventions (that determine) the meanings of the sentences of a language’, and more important, to discover the principles of universal grammar (UG) that lie beyond particular rules or conventions”. Chomsky’s “primary purpose is to give some idea of the kinds of principles and the degree of complexity of structure that it seems plausible to assign to the language faculty as a species-specific, genetically determined property” . He does this by distinguishing between “surface” and “deep” structures.
Chomsky describes the Surface Structure as the basic everyday words and sentences we use to communicate. On the Surface, we understand each other, or think that we do, and proceed to communicate and behave based on those sets of assumptions. At the Surface level, we can form “various components of the base interact to general initial phrase markers, and the transformational component converts an initial phrase marker, step by step, into a phonologically represented sentence with its phrase marker” . In short, we can take everyday discussions and mark the sentences into a theoretical form for further detail and analysis. This process leads to the transformational derivation which is “The sequence of phrase markers generated in this way...” to form sentences . From this process we have the syntax of a language.
The basic terms are structure and deep structure which refer “to non-superficial aspects of surface structure, the rules that generate surface structures, the abstract level of initial phrase markers, the principles that govern the organization of grammar and that relate surface structure to semantic representations, and so on” . The Deep Structures are the semantics that give meanings to the sentence and words of the Surface Structures. Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between Surface and Deep Structures. Transformational relations or rules connect the two structures.
“We use language against a background of shared beliefs about things and within the framework of a system of social institutions” . Transformations are rules (shows the occurrence of a word corresponding to a yesno question), which “map phrase markers into (other)
Figure 2. Linguistic transformation theory (N. Chomsky, 1975).
phrase markers” . Transformation component is “One component of the syntax of a language consists of such transformations with whatever structure (say, ordering) is imposed on this set” . For the transformation component to function in generating sentence structures, must have some class of “initial phrase markers” . The concept of Universal Grammar indicates that all languages contain the components in Figure 2. In other words, the Transformational Theory can apply to all languages. “The study of language use must be concerned with the place of language in a system of cognitive structures embodying pragmatic competence, as well as structures that relate to matters of fact and belief” .
A number of useful concepts can be borrowed from linguistic theory for the understanding of economics. The basic premise of linguistic theory is that language has its own order. The use of grammar to connect ideas requires the definition and meanings of words, phrases and sentences to be understood. To that requires the scientific method which consists of hypotheses, observation, data collection and analyses with the ability to replicate experiments (in this case language) in order to validate the hypotheses. Linguistic theory does this through the examples of deep and surface structures, which need to be understood through the interactions of transformational rules. The application of linguistic theory and science to economics can be done with a focus in four areas.
First, as noted, language distinguishes human beings from all other forms of life. Humans do have complicated language and therefore communication systems that allow them to send messages, symbolize, create, and build on a body of knowledge. Human language is composed of complicated sets of symbols that when used interactively allow messages to be transmitted. Second, linguistic theory argues that language is divided into two components: surface and deep structures. The surface structures are those symbols that people use in their everyday life to speak and write. The surface structures are the part of the grammar that cultures devise in order to record their history, communicate, and transact business. The deep structures are an entirely different phenomenon. Language has meaning attached to words and combinations of words (sentences) that are not expressed in the communication act itself. Furthermore, many of the deep structures are not defined in dictionaries or other guides to the language. In short, deep structures constitute the real core and understanding of any language and therefore of any culture and people’s actions. Third, individuals learn surface structures (speaking and dialogue of a language) throughout their lives. Some of aspects of language can be taught. However, empirical studies show people understand or learn the deep structures (grammar and syntax) at an early age.
The qualitative perspective focuses on understanding of the meaning and definitions behind the interactive dynamics of human change within society. Qualitative methods and language therefore become crucial for describing, understanding, and perhaps predicting the human condition. Quantitative methods on the other hand do not provide an adequate framework or even set of tools to understand the creativity of innovation and its adaptation in everyday business life. Moustakas , in discussing qualitative methods, talks about the common qualities and bonds of human science research as being: 1) Recognizing the value of qualitative designs and methodologies, studies of human experiences that are not approachable through quantitative approaches; 2) Focusing on the wholeness of experience rather than solely on its objects or parts; 3) Searching for meanings and essences of experience rather than measurements and explanations; 4) Obtaining descriptions of experience through first-person accounts in informal and formal conversations and interviews; 5) Regarding the data of experience as imperative in understanding human behavior and as evidence for scientific investigations; 6) Formulating questions and problems that reflect the interest, involvement, and personal commitment of the researcher; 7) Viewing experience and behavior as an integrated and inseparable relationship of subject and object and of parts and whole.
The qualitative perspective is strongly humanistic, with focus upon the understanding of the human being, the human condition and of science. An empirical science has to respect the nature of the empirical world that is its objects of study, and the empirical world is understood as the natural world created by group life and conduct. To study it is to involve and interact with the actual group of actors, to understand how they carry on in their lives—social life appears in their natural environment— in their everyday of life. In seeing the organization as an organization of actions, interactionism seeks to understand the way in which the actors define, interpret, and meet the situations at their respective Here and Now. The linking together of this knowledge of the concatenated actions yields a picture of the organized complex.
In a qualitative perspective some general demands to scientific constructions, is needed. The discussion of science and its demands on the structure of models for the understanding of the social or business reality can be categorized in four principles:
1) The demand for logical consistency. The system of typical structures drawn up by the research worker must be established with the largest extent of clearness and precision in the frame of concepts implicated and must be fully compatible with the principles of formal logic. The fulfillment of this demand guarantees the objective validity of the objects of thought constructed by the research worker, and their strictly logical character is one of the most essential features with which scientific objects of thought differ from the objects of thought constructed by common sense thinking in everyday life which they are to replace. In other words: A logically connected system implies that the means-goal relations together with the system of constant motives and the system of life plans must be constructed in such a way that: 1) it is and remains accepted by the principles of formal logic; 2) all its elements are drafted in full clearness and precision; 3) it only contains scientifically verifiable assumptions which must be totally accepted by all our scientific knowledge .
2) The demand for subjective interpretation. The researcher must, to explain human action, ask which model can be constructed by an individual consciousness and which typical content must be ascribed to it, in order to explain the observed facts as a result of such an activeity of consciousness in an understandable relation. The acceptance of this demand guarantees the possibility of referring all kind of human action or its result to the subjective meaning that such an action or its result has to the actor .
3) The demand for adequacy. Any expression in a scientific model referring to human action must be constructed in such a way that a human act carried out in the Lifeworld by an individual actor in the way which is indicated by the typical structure is rational and understandable to the actor himself as well as to his fellow men in the common sense interpretation of everyday life. The demand for adequacy is of the greatest importance to social scientific methodology. Adequacy makes it possible for social science to refer to events in the Lifeworld at all. The interpretation of the researcher of any human act and situation could be the same as that of the actor or his partner. Accordance with this principle therefore guarantees the consistency of the data of the researcher with data in the common sense experience of everyday business reality .
4) The demand for ethics. Ethics must be applied to research in everyday business life. Because the interacttion between the researcher and the subjects is intense and often revealing, it is important that the results of the work reflect the concerns and well-being of those who provided the data. Dire consequences could come to people if certain business secrets (as in the case presented in chapter 9 and 10 below regarding intellectual property of commercialized inventions) or strategies are revealed. Everyday business life has numerous hazards attached to it; the work of the researcher should not be one of them. In the end, the researcher should be able to contribute and enhance the wellbeing of the everyday business activity under study. And this is precisely the purpose of action research: to contribute to the business situation through interaction .
5. Summary and Conclusions
The business actions of people, groups and their networks and organizations are about people interacting in everyday of life, trying to construct the future and making sense of the present. In the science of economics we have to focus upon that, but the dimension in this is to create theories that make a difference.
Weick talks about that and end up with some qualities as possible properties of such moving theories: 1) Analysis is focused on what people do; 2) Context of action is preserved, and context-free depiction of elements is minimized; 3) Holistic awareness is attributed to the actor; 4) Emotions are seen to structure and restructure activity; 5) Interruptions are described in detail with careful attention to what people were doing before the interruption, what became salient during the interruption, and what happen during resumption of activity; 6) Activity is treated as the context within which reflection occurs, and reflection is not separate from, behind, and before action; 7) Artifacts and entities are portrayed in terms of their use, meaning, situated character, and embedding in tasks rather than in terms of their measurable properties; 8) Knowledge is seen to originate from practical activity rather than from detached deductive theorizing or detached inductive empiricism; 9) Time urgency rather than indifference to time is treated as part of the context; 10) The imagery of fusion is commonplace, reflecting that activity takes place prior to conceptualizing and theorizing; and 11) Detachment from a problem and resort to general abstract tools to solve it is viewed as a last resort and a derivative means of coping rather than as the first and primary means of coping (whatever else people may be, they are not lay social scientists).
In Weick’s discussion of theorizing and understanding, he points to important issues in science and theorizing: What is interesting science in terms of saying something meaningful about reality, and what is not? What is important to people in their search for understanding of their reality and to organize their everyday of life, and what is not important?
In the discussion of the “firm” and its constant economical and organizational changes, it is important to have an understanding of both organizing and time and space as a subjective and intersubjective phenomenon. The process of organizational activities and actions comes from interpretation and understanding of the situation by those actors involved in the actions. It is thereby a discussion of interaction processes and the way in which the actors interpret the processes, and how the interpretations effect changes in the organizational development of the firm.
The development of the firm is a complex phenomenon, but also an everyday of life reality for people and thus very simple on another level of understanding. It is not something one experiences as abstract. Individuals are engaged in and related to the firm and are thinking about it in very concrete ways. Firms are unique phenomena, simply by the reason that people are unique. To understand a firm—an organization—we have to treat it as subjective and qualitative phenomena. In this, the central issue in understanding the firm is an understanding of the actors subjectivity and intersubjectivity with their motives and intentions in their everyday business life. People understand themselves retrospectively and act accordingly, but additionally they are thinking-in-future: What are the projects they are thinking upon? In which way do they try to realize them? And how do the projects change through the process of action and interaction? People construct their organizational reality through actions in everyday life and they build paradigms in order to orient themselves to their own reality. We have to relate ourselves to this discussion in economics if it is the empirical reality and not the theoretical “reality” in which we are interested. In other words, understanding of the social construction of people’s organizational life and activities is the context of their everyday business life within the firm.
REFERENCES
- A. Comte, “Om Positivismen,” Korpen, Göteborg, 1991.
- Durkheim, “Sociologins Metodregler,” Korpen, Göteborg, 1991.
- W. Woodrow II and M. Fast, “Qualitative Economics: Towards a Science of Economics,” Coxmoor Publishing Company, Chipping Norton, 2008.
- L. von Bertalanffy, “General System Theory,” Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London, 1971.
- I. Kant, “Critique of Pure Reason,” Macmillan, Hong Kong, 1929.
- C. Bjurwill, “Fenomenologi,” Studentlitteratur, Lund, 1995.
- J. D. White, “Phenomenology and Organizational Development,” Administrative Science Quaterly, Vol. 28, 1990, pp. 331-496.
- A. Schutz, “Hverdagslivets Sociologi,” Hans Reitzel, København, 1973.
- E. Husserl, “Ideas,” Macmillan, New York, 1962.
- M. Heidegger, “Being and Time,” Blackwell, Oxford, 1992.
- A. Schutz, “The Phenomenology of the Social World,” Heinemann Educational Books, London, 1972.
- H.-G. Gadamer, “Truth and Method,” Sheed & Ward, London, 1993.
- G. H. Mead, “Mind, Self, & Society—From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist,” The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962.
- H. Blumer, “Symbolic Interaction—Perspective and Method,” Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1969.
- R. P. Hummel, “Applied Phenomenology and Organization,” Administrative Science Quaterly, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1990, pp. 10-17.
- R. H. Brown, “Bureaucracy as Praxis: Towards a Political Phenomenology of Formal Organizations,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1978, pp. 365-382. doi:10.2307/2392415
- R. Jehenson, “A Phenomenological Approach to the Study of the Formal Organization,” In: G. Psathas, Ed., Phenomenological Sociology—Issues and Applications, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1978.
- K. E. Weick, “The Social Psychology of Organizing,” Addison-Wesley Inc., New York, 1979.
- J. M. Bartunek, “Changing Interpretive Schemes and Organizational Restructuring: The Example of a Religious Order,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3, 1984, pp. 355-372. doi:10.2307/2393029
- A. Schutz, “Collected Papers I: The Problem os Social Reality,” Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1990.
- K. E. Weick, “Sensemaking in Organizations,” Sage Publications, Los Angeles, 1995
- K. E. Weick, “Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations,” Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4, 1988, pp. 305-317. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.1988.tb00039.x
- K. E. Weick, “That’s Moving—Theories That Matter,” Journal of management Inquiry, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1999, pp. 127-133. doi:10.1177/105649269982005
- H. Garfinkel, “Studies in Ethnomethodology,” Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1967.
- G. Morgan and R. Ramirez, “Action Learning: A Holographic Metaphor for Guiding Social Change,” Human Relation, Vol. 37, No. 1, 1984, pp. 1-27. doi:10.1177/001872678403700101
- P. Singelmann, “Exchange as Symbolic Interaction: Convergences between Two Theoretical Perspectives,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 37, 1972, pp. 414-424. doi:10.2307/2093180
- A. M. Rose, “A Systematic Summery of Symbolic Interaction Theory,” In: A. Rose, Ed., Human Behavior and Social Processes—An Interactionist Approach, Routledge & Kegan, Paul, London, 1962.
- P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann, “The Social Construction of Reality—A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge,” Doubleday & Company, New York, 1966
- J. K. Benson, “Organizations: A Dialectical View,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1977, pp. 1-21. doi:10.2307/2391741
- I. Arbnor and B. Bjerke, “Methodology for Creating Business Knowledge,” Sage, Los Angeles, 1997/1981.
- D. Sims, S. Fineman and Y. Gabriel, “Organizing and Organizations,” Sage Publications, London, 1993.
- A. Schutz, “Reflections on the Problem of Relevance,” Yale University Press, New Haven, 1970.
- N. Chomsky, “Reflections on Language,” Pantheon Books, New York, 1975.
- N. Chomsky, “Rules and Representations,” Columbia University Press, New York, 1980.
- C. Moustakas, “Phenomenological Research Methods,” Sage, Los Angeles, 1994.
NOTES
1i.e. the general understanding of man.
2cf. also Husserl’s concept of intentionality. | https://file.scirp.org/Html/9-1500092_19288.htm |
AUDIOLOGY SERVICE AT INAMDAR MULTISPECIALITY HOSPITAL - PUNE,INDIA
Audiology is the branch of science that studies hearing, balance, and related disorders. An audiologist is a healthcare professional specializing in identifying, diagnosing, treating and monitoring disorders of the auditory and vestibular system portions of the ear. Our audiologists are trained to diagnose, manage and/or treat hearing or balance problems. An audiology exam tests your ability to hear sounds. Sounds vary, based on their loudness (intensity) and the speed of sound wave vibrations (tone).
Hearing occurs when sound waves are converted into electrical energy, which stimulates the nerves of the inner ear. Eventually, the sound travels along nerve pathways to the brain.
Sound waves can travel to the inner ear through the ear canal, eardrum, and bones of the middle ear (air conduction), or through the bones around and behind the ear (bone conduction).
THE INTENSITY OF SOUND IS MEASURED IN DECIBELS (DB):
- A whisper is about 20 dB
- Loud music (some concerts) is around 80 – 120 dB
- A jet engine is about 140 – 180 dB
THE TONE OF SOUND IS MEASURED IN CYCLES PER SECOND (CPS) OR HERTZ:
- Low bass tones range around 50 – 60 Hz
- Shrill, high-pitched tones range around 10,000 Hz or higher
The normal range of human hearing is about 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz. Some animals can hear up to 50,000 Hz. Human speech is usually 500 – 3,000 Hz.
Usually, sounds greater than 85 dB can cause hearing loss in a few hours. Louder sounds can cause immediate pain, and hearing loss can develop in a very short time. | https://www.inamdarhospital.com/audiology-services-pune/ |
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Audience & Purpose: Evaluating Disney's Changes to the Hercules Myth
What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.
- Classroom Resources | Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan
Get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies
Students compare a book to its film adaptation, and then perform readers theater of a scene from the book that they feel was not well represented in the movie version. | http://readwritethink.org/search/?resource_type=6&learning_objective=42&theme=13&grade=13 |
A huge number of artificial satellites are nowadays orbiting at low altitudes (400-700 km) from the Earth’s surface . At the end of their life, or in case of failures, they become uncontrolled and they clutter orbits which are important from a commercial and scientific point of view. Active spacecrafts and space stations are likely to collide with these objects, causing fragmentation and then an increment in the number of debris in low-Earth orbits. ESA e NASA are aware of the problem and in the last few years they organized conferences and projects to face it A possible solution consists in capturing debris with chaser spacecrafts with the idea of de-orbiting or, if it is the case, repairing them. Such a maneuver requires however the accurate knowledge of several parameters of the target such as center of mass location and angular rate. The proposed solution is able to measure these data uniquely from the observation of the debris, without requiring any form of contacts. Such pools of systems, which are covered by 3 different patents, allow estimating the data exploiting passive sensors (cameras).
Possible Applications
- On-orbit repairing of failed or uncontrolled spacecrafts;
- On-flight refueling;
- Active space debris removal and de-orbiting.
Advantages
- Versatility: ease of use on-board of any kind of chaser spacecraft;
- Inferior cost and weight , but comparable accuracy of passive sensors with respect to active ones;
- Robust to temporary losses of measurement data (high reliability). | https://www.knowledge-share.eu/en/patent/mechanical-and-physical-characterization-of-an-orbiting-space-body/ |
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Where to Start?
Ferne Reid
Posts: 131
Location: SW Tennessee Zone 7a average rainfall 52"
4
posted 4 years ago
I have never, ever grown a
mushroom
in my life.
I currently own 13.8 acres in zone 7. About 1/4 of it is mixed forest with a few areas that collect
water
naturally. The tree mix tends to lean more towards pine and juniper, although there are oak, maple,
locust
, and tulip
trees
scattered about. There is also a LOT of wild blackberry.
If you were going to add mushrooms for personal use and as a potential cash crop, where would you start? Something that's easy to do and doesn't take a lot of micromanaging ... remember I've never grown a mushroom.
Thanks for your help!
Dan Huisjen
Posts: 51
Location: Acadia Region, Maine.
6
posted 4 years ago
1
I just spent several hours tapping shiitake dowel plugs into oak logs this afternoon. This is one way you can start, but you
should
be thinking about what the logs need by way of environment, and what mushrooms will grow on what logs. And what time of year the logs should be cut and the mushroom spawn installed.
Mushroom growing can easily turn into a laboratory clean room kind of operation. You might want to look into some basics along those lines too, just to understand the life cycle. The first thing I did was oyster mushrooms cultured on agar in a petri dish (which really wasn't that hard), and then grown out on
straw
that had been through the pressure cooker. There are ways to grow oysters from supermarket oyster mushrooms on boiled
cardboard
. Maybe give that a try. The advantage to that is it's quick (a few weeks) and you learn a bit in the process.
Burra Maluca
Mother Tree
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Location: Portugal
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I'm in the middle of writing a review for the new book
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which sounds perfect for you!
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Global Crisis. Global Response.
MMD attended the inaugural 2018 Countering Explosive Threat and Demining conference in London.
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26 November 2018
Part 3: Three Semi-Mobiles & 400 Tonne Transporter bound for Thailand
All three stations operational to the satisfaction of the customer at the Mae Moh mine in northern Thailand.
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On Saturday night in Derbyshire (UK), MMD celebrated 40 years of mining innovation in style.
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The HALO Trust: Saving limbs and lives with Sizer Technology
MMD donates a revolutionary anti-personnel landmine clearance rig to The HALO Trust at the Hillhead Show.
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Well the garden is in full swing. The zucchini have been absolutely amazing and I can’t remember when I’ve eaten this much of the squash. We’ve used it mainly in pastas and or just grilled on the bbq.
While I thought that I had picked my last zucchini last week, it seems like a new crop is now starting to flower. Thank goodness! I just need to figure out how to preserve them for the winter time, maybe save a few seeds for next year.
In the next few weeks, it looks like the tomatoes are going to ripen. The vines have loads of large green, roma tomatoes just waiting to turn into that beautiful red. I’m planning on using these for sauce to can for the winter months. In the mean time, the cherry tomatoes are ripening one by one. These are fantastic over pasta, sauteed with a little garlic and olive oil and then rip a few fresh basil leaves over top……oh ya. It’s good.
Now of all the bean seeds I planted….only 3 plants managed to make their debut. Two rows of seeds and all I’ve got are 3 plants. Not much, but I’ll take it. A few of them are ready to pick but there’s not nearly enough for a substantial meal or even a side dish.
I did pick my first cucumber though. It would have been my second cucumber of the season had not some furry, little creature gnaw away at the first ripe cucumber in the patch.
Overall, except for the whole weed control problem, my garden has been pretty much a success. We’ve definitely enjoyed what it’s produced and it’s made me appreciate what it takes to produce food. When I bring those zucchini over to my mom’s for dinner to share with the family, I have to say that I’m proud of them. When someone utters “mmm…the zucchini are good”. I kind of puff out my chest and exclaim “Ya, there mine. From my garden. I grew them all by myself.” I’m so proud of them! My little zucchini babies!
This has definitely expanded my vision for next year. Oh ya. That garden is going to be twice the size. We’re are going to add some winter squash, garlic, onions, corn, whatever I can fit in it. I’m gonna start composting and install a few rainbarrels. The idea of getting rid of my lawn and planting a wheat field has even crossed my mind. Heck! I can even put a apiary back there and get those bees busy makin some honey! Honey! And don’t even get me started on getting me some city chickens! Fresh eggs anyone?? | https://www.windsoreats.com/2009/08/garden-of-plenty/ |
Anyone who has dashed up a flight of stairs after discovering the elevator is broken can appreciate the requisite effort. Now, string together 61 flights, or roughly 1,200 stairs, and you’ve got Climb to the Top Boston, a National Multiple Sclerosis Society fund-raiser at the 200 Clarendon Tower March 3.
But what does it take to arrive on the top floor relatively unscathed, so you can enjoy the views?
“Personally,” said Watertown’s Hillary Monahan, 26, “I like to do anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes on the Stairmaster a few times each week at the gym, playing around with speeds and getting creative to make it a high-intensity interval training workout.”
Monahan was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, or MS, four years ago. The potentially debilitating disease attacks the central nervous system, disrupting the body’s internal information flow. For Monahan, battling MS means staying active.
“Movement is my sanity,” she said. “A diagnosis of MS at 22 years old led me to seek out activities that help me regain my power over a vicious disease that threatens to steal everything from me.”
According to Lakeville’s Christy Burbidge, Monahan’s teammate on the Mindful Mountaineers, stair-climb events present distinct physiological challenges.
“I was surprised at how my lungs felt at the end of the race – almost filled with fluid,” said Burbidge, 39. “I’ve done a Warrior Dash where I’ve injured my tailbone, and road races where I’ve hurt the next day. But the sensation in my lungs was unique to this climb. It made me stop and think of what people with MS and other chronic conditions experience every day.”
Salem’s Dennis Levasseur, deputy chief with the Salem Fire Department, is one of many firefighters drawn to these events. He said he understands just how Burbridge feels.
“The most difficult thing during a stair climb is breathing,” said Levasseur, 57. “I never really had a problem with my legs. Breathing heavy during the climb seems to make you breathe deep and fast using all of your lungs. Your lungs will tell you how hard they worked when you continue to cough for several hours after the event is over.”
The Boston chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society offers several training pointers:
■ Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Ask your apartment building manager for permission to use the stairwell or to do climb repetitions on several shorter flights of stairs. At the gym, rotate your workouts between treadmill and stair-climber. Boston-area residents can take advantage of the Bunker Hill Monument, which is open to the public and has 294 steps.
■ Try different workout options and see what works. Pace yourself, since stair climbing uses different muscles than running and you’ll be sore the next day if you don’t ease yourself into training.
■ Try climbing 8-12 flights of stairs, two steps at a time, at full speed, then rest/walk for 3-4 minutes (making sure you keep moving). Depending on your fitness, do four to 10 sets. Afterward, cool down for 10 minutes and stretch for another 10 minutes.
Beverly’s Molly Andruszkiewicz, diagnosed with MS last year, described herself as a “casual weekend warrior.” She’s been following the society’s recommendations to prepare for her first star-climb event.
“I’ve been keeping up with regular cardio as well as adding in extra flights of stairs at work and trips on the stair-climber at the gym,” said Andruszkiewicz, 29. “Hopefully it’s enough.”
MS patient Patrick “Batman” Garrett, an East Boston product now living in Derry, N.H., has ramped up the “difficulty factor” with each successive event he’s participated in. Next month’s Climb to the Top will be his seventh. Last year, he did seven laps at Clarendon Tower, top-to-bottom, wearing a 100-pound weight vest for the first four laps.
“My participation in MS events, as well as non-MS physical events, is all to prove to myself what I’m capable of,” said Garrett. “I also use all of my events as leverage for my fund-raising efforts. If I’m going to ask for their money, then I want to deliver something for their generosity.”
Likewise, Monahan sees a dual purpose in her participation.
“Participating in Climb to the Top Boston – especially as someone who has MS – is one way I like to raise awareness of what multiple sclerosis is and how it impacts the lives of those affected,” she said.
“I want people to understand that 20-somethings get MS, too,” said Monahan. “I’ve heard ‘Oh, but you’re so young’ way too frequently. In reality, MS is most commonly diagnosed between 20 and 50. It’s also really important to understand that MS is a ‘snowflake disease’ – no two disease courses are alike.”
For others, the event is simply an opportunity to test their limits.
“I’m proud of myself for going outside of my comfort zone and signing up for this event,” said Braintree’s Michelle Taverna, 36. “I just want to complete it and prove I can do it.”For details on Climb to the Top Boston, visit nationalmssociety.org, or call 1-800-344-4867. If you have an idea for the Globe’s “On the Move” column, contact correspondent Brion O’Connor at [email protected]. Please allow at least a month’s advance notice. | https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/north/2018/02/09/step-step-tips-climbing-clouds/3iCllbuPvhHphSw0iFX0GJ/story.html |
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and method that minimizes retry delays in high traffic computer networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method that modifies sequence numbers used to request a new session so that the modified sequence number is greater than a previous sequence number.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many computer systems used in high-speed networks open and close numerous network connections (sessions) when communicating over a network with a particular computer system. For example, a client computer system may repeatedly open and close sessions with a particular server computer system. In some conditions, as will be described herein, the request for a new session is identified by the server as a packet belonging to the previous session, rather than a new session request.
When this condition occurs, timeouts in the current TCP protocol results in delays and, consequently, poor performance. FIG. 3 depicts a prior art example of this condition occurring and the resulting delays. First computer system 300 and second computer system 301 are shown communicating using a protocol, such as the TCP protocol. First computer system 300 is often a client computer system and second computer system 301 is often a server computer system, however the types of systems involved is irrelevant so long as the first computer system and the second computer system are communicating over a network using a protocol such as the TCP protocol.
First computer system 300 sends request 310 to terminate a previous network session. In the TCP protocol, the termination request is a FIN request. The termination request uses a sequence number that is used for the previous session, and is depicted as “X, in the figures. While “X” is used repeatedly, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that “X” represents a series of sequence numbers that extends from an initial base sequence number. The sequence numbers assist the computer system in determining the order of packets so that a packet that takes more time to travel through the network and arrives out of order is able to be processed correctly. The second computer system responds with packet 320 that acknowledges the terminate request. Again, in the TCP protocol, the termination acknowledgement is a FIN_ACK response. First computer system 300 sends acknowledgement (ACK) packet 325 that acknowledges receipt of the FIN_ACK packet from the second computer system. When the second computer system receives the last ACK, the second computer system enters “time wait” state 340 (TIME_WAIT) that is generally used to clean up any packets from the previous session that was just terminated. The time wait state varies from one system to another. Generally, the TIME_WAIT state is dependent on the operating system being used.
In many situations, first computer system 300 requests a new session with second computer system 301 before the time wait period has expired. This new session request is accomplished when sync (SYN) packet 330 is sent from first computer system 300 to second computer system. The new session request has a different sequence number. The new series of sequence numbers, represented as “Y”, is different from the old series of sequence numbers (X) that was used with the previous session. A common approach to creating the new sequence number (Y) is using a random number generator. If the new sequence number (Y) is less than or equal to the sequence number that was used with the previous session (X), than the second computer system will consider the new request (SYN request 330) to be part of the previous session and not a request to establish a new session. This is represented by decision block 350. If the new sequence number is greater than the previous sequence number, then decision 350 branches to “no” branch 355 whereupon, at step 360, a new session is established using the new sequence number as the base sequence number.
On the other hand, if the new sequence number is less than or equal to the previous sequence number, then decision 350 branches to “yes” branch 365 whereupon the second computer system returns an acknowledgement (ACK) response 370 with the sequence number that was expected (X) and the second computer system does not establish a new session. In traditional systems, the acknowledgement (ACK) is received by the first computer system which responds by (1) sending a reset (RST) request 380 to the second computer system, (2) waiting at least three seconds to ensure that the second computer system's TIME_WAIT state has cleared, and (3) re-requesting the new session by sending sync (SYN) request 390 after the three second period has expired. Note that the second computer system may be configured to allow TIME_WAIT assassination, in which case the TIME_WAIT state is eliminated upon the second computer system's receipt of reset (RST) request 380. As can be seen, with systems that are repeatedly establishing new sessions amongst each other, frequently encountering the three second delay in order to re-request the new session can be quite challenging resulting in reduced network throughput and slower overall system performance.
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Played in eight games and had 11 catches for 118 yards.
Had a touchdown catch against Lebanon Valley (9/17).
Made a season-high four catches for 33 yards at Misericordia (10/1).
Participated in all 11 games and had a pair of catches.
Recorded receptions in wins over King’s (10/3) and Muhlenberg (11/21),.
Threw a 19-yard touchdown pass in a win at Wilkes (10/31).
Also had 11 punt returns on the season with a long of 11 against Wilkes (10/31).
As a freshman (2013): Appeared in four games for the Mustangs ... totaled 11 yards off one catch in a 24-18 win versus Albright (9/14).
Before Stevenson: Played varsity for two years under head coach DaLawn Parrish at Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School ... was a two-year starter ... named Second Team All-Gazette ... team went 14-0 and won the State Championship in 2012 ... also participated in track and field.
Personal: Full name is Kenneth Kim Scott-Kelow ... born on May 8, 1995 in Washington, D.C. ... is the son of Deborah Kelow ... has one older sister, Ebony ... is majoring in criminal justice. | http://www.gomustangsports.com/sports/fball/2016-17/bios/scott-kelow_kenneth_j805 |
---
abstract: |
We study the impact and subsequent retraction dynamics of liquid droplets upon high-speed impact on hydrophobic surfaces. Performing extensive experiments, we show that the drop retraction rate is a material constant and does not depend on the impact velocity. We show that when increasing the Ohnesorge number, ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=\eta/\sqrt{\rho R_{\rm I}
\gamma}$, the retraction, dewetting, dynamics crosses over from a capillaro-inertial regime to a capillaro-viscous regime. We rationalize the experimental observations by a simple but robust semi-quantitative model for the solid-liquid contact line dynamics inspired by the standard theories for thin film dewetting.
bibliography:
- 'Drop.bib'
- 'biblio.bib'
title: 'Retraction dynamics of aquous drops upon impact on nonwetting surfaces.'
---
Introduction: Drop Impact on Solid Surfaces
===========================================
![Temporal evolution of the contact radius of droplets upon impact and retraction. The radii are normalized by those of the spherical droplets before impact. The pictures show the shape of the droplets at the different stages of retraction. Droplet radius is $1$ mm, impact speed is $2 \;{\rm m \cdot s^{-1}}$: a) pure water, b) viscous water-glycerol mixture, viscosity $50\; {\rm mPa\cdot s}$. []{data-label="fig:Rwater"}](fig1v2){width="12cm"}
Drops impacting onto solid surfaces are important for a large number of applications: for instance, almost all spray coating and deposition processes rely ultimately on the interaction of a droplet with a surface. A large variety of phenomena can be present during drop impacts, from splashes to spreading, and from large wave surface deformation to rebound (see [@Rein93] and references therein).
Research on drop impacts has a long history, starting with the pioneering studies of Worthington and later on with the famous photographs of Edgerton[@Worth; @Edge54]. Most of the previous work on drop impact focused on determining the maximum diameter a drop is capable of covering upon impact [@fukai93; @Roisman2002; @Clanet2004]. However, the practical problem of deposition can be very different if one wants to efficiently deposit some material on the surface. This is especially grave when the surface is not wetted by the liquid, as is illustrated by the high-speed video pictures in Fig.\[fig:Rwater\] for the impact of a water droplet. It can be observed that the drop expands rapidly, due to the large speed with which it arrives at the surface. However, due to the hydrophobicity of the surface, subsequently the drop retracts violently, leading to the ejection of part of the droplet from the surface: we observe droplet rebound. It is this “rebound” that is the limiting factor for deposition in many applications, for instance for the deposition of pesticide solutions on hydrophobic plant leaves [@Bergeron]. We study here the impact and subsequent retraction of aqueous drops onto a hydrophobic surface, and seek to understand the dynamics of expansion and retraction of the droplets.
In general, these problems are difficult because for most practical and laboratory situations, three forces play an important role: the capillarity and viscous forces, and the inertia of the droplets. We try and disentangle the effects of the three forces here by performing systematic experiments, varying both the importance of viscous and inertial forces.
We provide experimental evidence for the existence of two distinct retraction regimes. In both regimes, capillary forces are the motor behind the droplet retraction, and are, for the first regime countered by inertial forces. In the second regime the main force slowing down the retraction is viscous. We also show that, perhaps surprisingly, the drop retraction rate (the retraction speed divided by the maximum radius) does not depend on the impact velocity for strong enough impacts. The dimensionless number that governs the retraction rate is found to be the Ohnesorge number, ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=\eta/\sqrt{\rho R_{\rm I}
\gamma}$, with $\eta$ the viscosity, $\rho$ the liquid density, $R_{\rm I}$ the impacting drop radius, and $\gamma$ the surface tension. The Ohnesorge number therefore compares the dissipative (viscous) forces to the non-dissipative (capillary and inertial) forces. The crossover between the two regimes is found to happen at a critical Ohnesorge number on the order of $0.05$ .
In order to develop a better understanding for the different regimes that are encountered, particularly the retraction dynamics in these regimes, we propose two simple hydrodynamic models inspired by the standard description of thin film dewetting dynamics. These simple models provide a simple but quite robust picture that allows us to rationalize the retraction rate in both regimes.
In order to be able to say something about the speed of retraction, one also needs to understand the maximum radius to which the droplet expands. Combining our results with those obtained by [@Clanet2004] for the maximum radius, we propose a phase diagram delimiting four regions for the spreading and retraction dynamics of impacting drops.
Drop retraction dynamics: Generic Features
==========================================
As the impact dynamics of liquid droplets on a solid surface happens usually in a few tens of milliseconds, we use a high-speed video system (1000 frames/second, Photonetics) to analyze the drop-impact events. When necessary, we use an ultrahigh-speed system allowing to go up to 120,000 frames/second (Phantom V7). We study aqueous drops impacting on a solid surface; the surface we used is Parafilm, which provides us with a hydrophobic surface (receding contact angle for water ${\theta_{\rm R}}\approx 80^\circ$). In addition, the surface has a low contact angle hysteresis with water, and allows us to obtain highly reproducible results. The liquids we used are different water-glycerol mixtures. Varying the glycerol concentration, we vary the liquid viscosity, keeping the liquid density and its surface tension almost constant. For the highest concentration of glycerol, the surface tension has decreased from $72$ (pure water) to $59$ $mNm^{-1}$, whereas the density has increased to $1150 kg/m^3$. The viscosity is varied between $1$ and $205 \;{\rm mPas}$. Viscosity, density and surface tension were measured before each impact experiment. Drops were produced using precision needles, and the initial radius of the drops ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}$ have been systematically measured on the images ($1.1 <{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}<1.4$ mm). From the high-speed images such as the ones shown in Fig.\[fig:Rwater\], we follow the contact radius $R$ in time. This section summarizes the results of more than $80$ different drop impact experiments, each of which have been repeated at least two times.
Two series of experiments were performed: first, letting the droplets fall from a fixed height, but increasing the viscosity, we increase the Ohnesorge number while keeping the inertial forces constant. The second series of experiments is performed at fixed viscosity and upon increasing the height from which the droplets falls; the droplet turns out to be in free fall (as is verified in the experiment to within a few percent) and so the relation between fall height $h$ and impact velocity is simply ${\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm I}}=\sqrt{gh}$, with $g$ the gravitational acceleration. Increasing the impact velocity increases the Weber number, keeping the Ohnesorge number fixed, where the Weber number, ${\mbox{\textit{We}}}$, compares the inertial forces to the capillary forces, ${\mbox{\textit{We}}}\equiv \rho R_{\rm I} {\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm I}}^2/\gamma$.
In all that follows, we restrain ourselves to high-speed impact conditions. More precisely, the Weber and Reynolds numbers are chosen so that ${\mbox{\textit{We}}}>10$ and ${\mbox{\textit{Re}}}>10$, where ${\mbox{\textit{Re}}}\equiv\rho{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}{\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm I}}/\eta$ is the Reynolds number. This implies that inertial forces are at least one order of magnitude larger than both the capillary and the viscous forces. Such conditions imply large deformations of the drop when the liquid impinges on the solid substrate. On the other hand, we also restrain our experiments to impact speeds that are far from the ’splashing’ regime in which the drop disintegrates after impact to form a collection of much smaller droplets [@MST95].
The pictures in Fig.\[fig:Rwater\] show that two distinctly different regimes exist for the shape of the droplets after impact. For low fluid viscosity, we typically obtain the images shown in Fig.\[fig:Rwater\](a). At the onset of retraction, almost all of the fluid is contained in a donut-shaped rim, with only a thin film of liquid in the center. On the other hand, for high viscosities the deformation of the drop is less important, and the pancake-shaped droplet of Fig.\[fig:Rwater\](b) results. These visual observations allow to distinguish the capillary-inertial and the capillary-viscous regimes that are described in detail below directly.
Drop Retraction Rate: influence of fall height and viscosity
------------------------------------------------------------
![Temporal evolution of the contact radius for a water-glycerol drop ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=9.1\,10^{-2}$, ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}=1.2$ mm (a) contact radius vs. time, (b) contact radius normalized by the maximum spreading radius vs. time Impact velocities : $\times$: $V_{I}=2.4{\rm ms}^{-1}$, $+$: $V_{\rm I}=2.2{\rm ms}^{-1}$, $\circ$: $V_{\rm I}=1.9{\rm ms}^{-1}$,$\square$: $V_{\rm I}=1.7{\rm ms}^{-1}$, $\Delta$: $V_{\rm I}=1.4{\rm ms}^{-1}$, $\diamond$: $V_{\rm I}=1{\rm ms}^{-1}$ []{data-label="fig:Rmax"}](fig2v2){width="15cm"}
Fig. \[fig:Rmax\] summarizes the most important findings of this study. The temporal evolution of the drop contact radius $R(t)$ for different impact velocities, shown in (a), is normalized in (b) by its maximal value at the end of the spreading ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$. Two important observations are made. (i) A well defined retraction velocity $V_{\rm ret}$ can be extracted from each experiment; this is a non-trivial observation that will be rationalized below. (ii) Independently of the impact speed, all the $R(t)/{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ curves collapse onto a single curve for different impact velocities. This shows that the retraction [*rate*]{}, rather than the retraction speed is the natural quantity to consider, and that this rate is independent of the impact velocity. These results hold for all the viscosities tested in our experiments.
In Fig. \[fig:TR-We\] we have plotted the retraction rate $\dot \epsilon\equiv{\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm ret}}/{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ versus the impact Weber number, where ${\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm ret}}$ is defined by ${\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm ret}}\equiv\max{[-\dot R(t)]}$. Clearly, the drop retraction rate does not depend on the impact velocity. One might think that the explanation for this observation is rather obvious: the initial kinetic energy of the droplet is transformed into surface energy (which fixes ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}/R_I \propto {\mbox{\textit{We}}}^{1/2}$), and is then transformed back into kinetic energy (which in turn fixes $V_{\rm ret}\propto V_I$). This naive explanation is unfortunately wrong fro the following reasons. First, it has been observed recently that, at the onset of retraction, low viscosity liquids undergo vortical motion in the drop [@Clanet2004]. This residual flow in the drop reveals that a part of the initial kinetic energy is still available then, and thus that a simple energy balance argument cannot work. This was indeed already suggested by previous observations of a clear disagreement between experiments and the ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}/R_I \propto {\mbox{\textit{We}}}^{1/2}$ law[@fukai93; @Roisman2002; @Okumura2003]. The second reason why the simple energy-balance argument does not work follows directly from Fig. \[fig:TR-We\], where it is shown that the retraction rate depends on the viscosity and consequently that the previous inviscid picture is not correct.
![Retraction Rate plotted versus Impact Weber number for various water glycerol droplets. $\times$: ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=2.510^{-3}$, $+$: ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=3.910^{-3}$, $\circ$: ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=1.510^{-2}$, $\vartriangle$: ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=1.610^{-2}$, $\square$: ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=2.310^{-2}$, $\diamond$: ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=7.110^{-2}$[]{data-label="fig:TR-We"}](fig3v2){width="12cm"}
We therefore performed experiments that elucidate the role of the viscosity, or, equivalently, of the Ohnesorge number. For what follows, it is convenient to define two intrinsic time scales for the droplet: a viscous one and an inertial one. The viscous time is the relaxation time of a large-scale deformation of a viscous drop: ${\tau_{\rm v}}\equiv(\eta{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}})/\gamma$, whereas the inertial time scale: ${\tau_{\rm i}}=(\frac{4}{3}\pi\rho{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}^3/\gamma)^{1/2}$ corresponds to the capillary oscillation period of a perturbed inviscid droplet. Since ${\tau_{\rm i}}$ is independent of ${\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm I}}$ and $\eta$, this quantity is almost constant for all tested drops.
Fig. \[fig:TR-Oh\] shows the retraction rate, made dimensionless using the inertial time, as a function of the Ohnesorge number. It can be observed in the figure that two different regimes exist for the retraction rate. The first region where the retraction rate $\dot{\epsilon}$ is independent of the viscosity points to an inertial regime and $\dot{\epsilon}\propto {\tau_{\rm i}}^{-1}$. The retraction rate is consequently found not to depend on the impact speed, a result similar to that obtained recently by [@Richard2002] who show that the contact time is independent of the impact speed. For higher viscosities, typically ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}>0.05$, the retraction rate decreases strongly. In this regime, capillary and viscous forces govern the dynamics: we find $\dot{\epsilon}\propto {\tau_{\rm v}}^{-1}$.
![Circles: Normalized retraction rate $\dot{\epsilon}{\tau_{\rm i}}$ plotted versus the Ohnesorge number, experimental values. Error bars represent the maximum deviation from the mean value. Full line: (left) $\dot{\epsilon}{\tau_{\rm i}}$ evaluated using Eq. \[Eq:inertial\], (right) $\dot{\epsilon}{\tau_{\rm i}}$ evaluated using Eq. \[eq:viscous\]. Dashed line :(left) Fit obtained taking the mean value of the five first experimental points,(right) Best fit according to the predicted $1/{\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}$ power law.[]{data-label="fig:TR-Oh"}](fig4v2){width="12cm"}
Two simple models for the drop retraction dynamics
==================================================
We have consequently established the existence of two different regimes for the retraction rate: a viscous one and an inertial one. We now develop some simple arguments allowing for a semi-quantitative description of the dynamics, using ideas already existing for the dynamics of dewetting, a problem closely related to the current one.
Inertial regime
---------------
We employ a Taylor-Culick approach commonly used for the inertial dewetting of thin films [@Taylor; @Culick; @Buguin] to describe the drop retraction rate. For high-velocity drop impacts, liquid spreads out into a thin film of thickness $h$ and radius ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$. The liquid subsequently dewets rapidly the surface, and in doing so forms a rim that collects the liquid that is initially stored in the film. The shape of the drop surface shape is therefore never in a steady state and consists of a liquid film formed during the spreading stage and a receding rim. The contact angle at the outer side of the rim is taken to be very close to the receding contact angle (${\theta_{\rm R}}$) since viscous effects can be neglected small [@Buguin]. The dynamics is consequently determined by a competition between capillary tension coming from the thin film and the inertia of the rim. If we write down momentum conservation for the liquid rim: $$\frac{\rm d}{\rm d t}\left(m\frac{\rm dR(t)}{\rm
d t}\right)=F_{\rm C}\label{eq:Culick}$$ with $m$ the mass of the liquid rim and $F_{\rm
C}$ the capillary force acting on it, $F_{\rm
C}\sim 2\pi\gamma R(t)\left[1-\cos(\theta_{\rm
R})\right]$. The stationary solution of Eq.\[eq:Culick\] can be obtained writing $\dot{m}(t)=2\pi \rho R {\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm ret}}h$, and gives: ${\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm ret}}=\sqrt{\gamma[1-\cos({\theta_{\rm R}})]/(\rho h)}$. Using volume conservation, $h\sim\frac{4}{3}{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}^3{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}^{-2}$, it follows that: $$\frac{{\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm ret}}}{{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}}\sim {\tau_{\rm i}}^{-1}\sqrt{\pi\left[1-\cos{\theta_{\rm R}})\right]}
\label{Eq:inertial}$$ Which is the final result. Comparing with the experimental data, it turns out that this equation not only gives the correct scaling behavior for the retraction in this regime rate but also provides a rather accurate estimate of the numerical prefactor (see Fig \[fig:TR-Oh\]). Indeed, the ratio between the experimental and the predicted numerical prefactors is found to be $0.6$ Repeating the experiment for water on a polycarbonate surface, which changes the contact angle value to $60 ^\circ$, we retrieve exactly the same ratio of $0.6$.
Viscous regime
--------------
In the opposite limit of very viscous liquids, the drops adopt pancake shapes upon impact. During the first stages of retraction, the pancake shape rapidly relaxes towards a roughly spherical cap, and the drop shape remains like this during the retraction since the capillary number is small. During the retraction, it is only the contact angle that varies slowly: it is mainly this slow contact angle dynamics that dictates the drop evolution during the retraction. Contrary to the previous analysis, the slow receding velocity allows to assume a quasi-static dynamics for the surface shape during the retraction. In this regime, it is then natural to assume that the work done by the capillary force $F_{\rm C}$ is dissipated through viscous flow near the contact line. Since we focus our study on high-speed impacts, ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ is always much larger that ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}$ which justifies a small $\theta(t)$ approximation at the onset of retraction. The viscous effects near the contact line then lead to the well-known linear force-velocity relation [@PGG85]: $$F_{\rm V}=-\frac{6\pi\eta}{
\theta}\ln\left(\frac{\Lambda}{\lambda}\right)R(t)\dot{R(t)}\label{forcevitesse}$$ where $\Lambda$ and $\lambda$ are respectively a macroscopic and a microscopic cutoff lengths. $\Lambda$ is typically of the same order as the drop size $\sim1{\rm mm}$. $\lambda$ is a microscopic length, and is usually taken to be on the order of $\lambda\sim 1{\rm
nm}$ [@PGG85]. On the other hand, the capillary force drives the retraction. Near the contact line it can be written: $$F_{\rm C}=2\pi R(t) \gamma \left [\cos
\theta(t)-\cos
{\theta_{\rm R}}\right]\label{forcecappilaire}$$ Volume conservation gives: $\frac{4}{3}\pi
{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}^3\sim\frac{\pi}{4}\theta(t)R^3(t)$, where we have taken the small angle limit. Eqs. \[forcevitesse\] and \[forcecappilaire\] together with the volume constraint leads to the following relation for the variation of the contact radius: $$\frac{\dot{R}(t)}{R(t)}=-\frac{\left[1-\frac{1}{2}\theta^2(t)-\cos(\theta_R)\right]\theta(t)^{4/3}}{(144)^{1/3} \ln(\Lambda/\lambda)}{\tau_{\rm v}}^{-1}
\label{eq:theta}$$ the above equation is obtained in the small angle limit and is only valid for short time after the onset of retraction. We estimate the retraction rate $\dot{\epsilon}$ as the maximum value of ${\dot{R}(t)}/{R(t)}$ so that: $$\frac{{\mbox{\textit V}_{\rm ret}}}{{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}}\approx\left( \frac{3}{25} \right)^{1/3} \frac{(1-\cos {\theta_{\rm R}})^{5/3}}{5
\ln(\Lambda/\lambda)}{\tau_{\rm v}}^{-1} \label{eq:viscous}$$ Comparing again to the experiments, good agreement is found: the retraction rate is solely set by the viscous relaxation time ${\tau_{\rm v}}$ and consequently $\dot{\epsilon}{\tau_{\rm i}}\propto {\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}^{-1}$. Beyond this correct scaling prediction, Eq. \[eq:viscous\] provides a quite accurate estimate for the numerical prefactor as is shown in Fig \[fig:TR-Oh\]. Indeed, the ratio between the experimental and the predicted numerical prefactors is found to be $1.5$. Again, repeating the experiment on a polycarbonate surface, this ratio changes only slightly from $1.5$ to $1.8$.
Conclusions and perspectives
============================
![(a) Normalized maximum spreading radius plotted vs. the impact number. (b) ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ (normalized by the radius before impact) plotted vs. Weber number for small values of the impact number. Full line: power-law fit. (c) ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ (normalized by the radius before impact) plotted vs. Reynolds number for large values of the impact number. Full line: predicted power-law dependence with power $0.2$. $*$: $\eta=10^{-1}Pa.s$, $+$: $9.510^{-2}$, $\circ$: $\eta=4.810^{-2}Pa.s$, $\vartriangle$: $\eta=2.810^{-2}Pa.s$, $\square$: $\eta=10^{-2}Pa.s$[]{data-label="fig:RmaxWe"}](fig5v2){width="14cm"}
Our experiments reveal that the retraction rate is independent of the impact speed. To account for the retraction speed, the maximum radius to which the droplet expands, has to be known also. A number of studies have been devoted to the understanding of the maximum spreading radius (see for instance [@fukai93; @Roisman2002; @Clanet2004]). However, no clear and unified picture emerges from previous experimental investigations. A recent experimental study of ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$, combined with recent theoretical ideas in the same spirit of the ones presented here was done by [@Clanet2004]. They obtain a zeroth order (asymptotic) description of the spreading stage, compare it with experiments and suggest that two asymptotic regimes exist for ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$. The first is given by a subtle competition between the inertia of the droplet and the capillary forces; if only these two are important, it follows that ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}/{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}\propto{\mbox{\textit{We}}}^{1/4}$. In the second regime, ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ is given by a balance between inertia and viscous dissipation in the expanding droplet, leading to ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}/{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}\propto{\mbox{\textit{Re}}}^{1/5}$. Consequently, a single dimensionless number is defined that discriminates between the two regimes: ${\mbox{\textit{P}}}={\mbox{\textit{We}}}{\mbox{\textit{Re}}}^{-4/5}$ referred to as the Impact number. The crossover between the two regimes happens at a $P$ of order unity.
Our experimental data are in qualitative agreement with their prediction, as is shown in Fig. \[fig:RmaxWe\].a. At low ${\mbox{\textit{P}}}$, the scaling $R_{\rm max}/{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}\sim{\mbox{\textit{We}}}^{1/4}$ is clearly observed. However, for impacts corresponding to ${\mbox{\textit{P}}}>1$, we observe only a very slow variation of the maximum spreading radius as a function of ${\mbox{\textit{P}}}$. Therefore, the relation between ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ and the Reynolds number is not very clear from our data (Fig \[fig:RmaxWe\]. c). Although the main trend is not in strong contradiction with the prediction ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}/{\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}\propto{\mbox{\textit{Re}}}^{1/5}$, a power-law fit of our data gives exponents that are always smaller than the predicted value of $0.2$. Perhaps even more important- in view of the small range of the maximal expansion ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ that we cover- is that the different water-glycerol mixtures do not appear to collapse on a single master curve, as would be predicted by the above argument. However, since the maximum value of ${\mbox{\textit{P}}}$ that we reach is on the order of 10, it may be that we have not reached the purely viscous regime. In that case, the capillary, inertial and viscous forces are still of comparable amplitude and have to be taken into account together. Note also that the more sophisticated models reviewed in [@Ukiwe2004] do not provide better agreement with our experimental measurements.
Despite this small problem, we are now able to develop a simple unified picture for drop impact dynamics accounting for both the spreading and the retraction dynamics. The two natural dimensionless numbers that have been identified are the impact number ${\mbox{\textit{P}}}$, that quantifies the spreading out of the droplet, and the Ohnesorge number ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}$ that quantifies the retraction. We can thus construct a phase diagram in the experimentally explored $({\mbox{\textit{Oh}}},{\mbox{\textit{We}}})$ plane, which is shown on Fig. \[fig:WeOh\]. The experimentally accessible plane is divided in four parts, where the main mechanisms at work during the impact process are different. These four parts are separated by the curves ${\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}=0.05$ and ${\mbox{\textit{We}}}={\mbox{\textit{Oh}}}^{-4/3}$. They are labeled as follows: ICCI the drop dynamics is given by a competition between inertia and capillarity both for the spreading and the retraction. IVCV: inertia and viscous forces dominate the spreading, capillary and viscous forces dominate the retraction. These two regimes have been studied in detail here. The two more intriguing regions are the IVCI (viscous spreading, inertial retraction) and ICCV (capillary spreading, viscous retraction) that are unfortunately difficult to explore in detail. For the IVCI- regime, the large inertia at impact, combined with a small surface tension, will make the droplets undergo large non-axisymetric deformations and they will eventually splash and disintegrate. On the other end of the phase diagram, the ICCV region corresponds to very low impact speeds and important capillary forces, implying very small deformations of the droplets. If the deformations are small, pinning of the contact line of the droplets will become important, and all our simple scaling arguments for both the maximum radius and the retraction rate are invalidated.
A numerical investigation of droplet impact would be very helpful for two reasons. First, numerics would allow to vary ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}$ while keeping all the other physical parameters constant. This would allow to check the robustness of our results, since experimentally it is not easy to vary ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm I}}$ over a wide range. Second, as emphasized above, the viscous regime for the maximum radius is difficult to characterize precisely due to the smallness of the variation of ${\mbox{\textit R}_{\rm max}}$ for viscous drops. If precise numerical simulations could be done, these different remaining problems could be resolved.
In sum, we have studied the retraction dynamics of liquid droplets upon high-speed impact on non-wetting solid surfaces. Perhaps the strongest conclusion from our investigation is that the rate of retraction of the droplet is a drop constant which does not depend on the impact velocity. Two regimes for the retraction rate have been identified: a viscous regime and an inertial regime. We have in addition shown here that simple hydrodynamic arguments can be formulated that give very reasonable agreement with experiments in the two different regimes.
![Phase diagram in the $({\mbox{\textit{We}}},{\mbox{\textit{Oh}}})$ plane for the impact and retraction dynamics of droplets. The four regions are discussed in the text, and the symbols represent the parameters of the data reported in this paper. Different symbols have been assigned for each region.[]{data-label="fig:WeOh"}](fig6v2){width="10cm"}
[**Acknowledgments:**]{} Benjamin Helnann-Moussa is acknowledged for help with the experiments. Denis Bartolo is indebted to the CNRS for providing a post-doctoral fellowship. LPS de l’ENS is UMR 8550 of the CNRS, associated with the universities Paris 6 and Paris 7.
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1.1 NCCU recognizes that relocation of an employee is often necessary to serve the best interests of the employee and of NCCU. In order to most effectively utilize the capabilities of each employee and to staff all positions with qualified persons, the transfer of employees may be necessary.
1.2 When the transfer of an employee is made to a new duty station 35 miles or more away from the current residence, the employee becomes eligible for consideration for reimbursement of moving expenses if the employee chooses to change place of residence. Under such circumstances it is the policy of NCCU to grant leave with pay to the employee for a reasonable amount of time required to locate a new residence and to accomplish the relocation to that new residence.
2. Scope
2.1 Full-time or part-time (half-time or more) permanent, probationary, trainee and time-limited employees are eligible for leave.
2.2 Temporary, intermittent, and part-time (less than half-time) are not eligible for leave.
3. Leave to Locate a New Residence
It is desirable that the employee make a decision on permanent living arrangements prior to the time of transfer to the new duty station. Leave with pay may be granted up to a maximum of three trips of three days each to locate a new residence. NCCU shall consider the employee’s effort being exerted, and progress made, in order to determine if three trips are necessary.
4. Leave to Move to a New Residence
4.1 Leave with pay shall be granted for two days when the employee moves household and personal goods from the old residence to the new one. NCCU may grant additional days of leave with pay if the distance between old and new duty stations warrants this, or if other uncontrollable factors require a longer period of time.
4.2 Note: Policy on reimbursements for moving expenses is contained in the State Budget Manual. This policy on leave does not always coincide with provisions for paying moving expenses. | https://www.nccu.edu/policies/retrieve/123 |
Device description ESI file/XML
The ESI device description is stored locally on the slave and loaded on start-up. Each device description has a unique identifier consisting of slave name (9 characters/digits) and a revision number (4 digits). Each slave configured in the System Manager shows its identifier in the EtherCAT tab:
The configured identifier must be compatible with the actual device description used as hardware, i.e. the description which the slave has loaded on start-up (in this case EL3204). Normally the configured revision must be the same or lower than that actually present in the terminal network.
For further information on this, please refer to the EtherCAT system documentation.
Display of ESI slave identifier
The simplest way to ascertain compliance of configured and actual device description is to scan the EtherCAT boxes in TwinCAT mode Config/FreeRun:
If the found field matches the configured field, the display shows
otherwise a change dialog appears for entering the actual data in the configuration.
In this example in Fig. Change dialog, an EL3201-0000-0017 was found, while an EL3201-0000-0016 was configured. In this case the configuration can be adapted with the Copy Before button. The Extended Information checkbox must be set in order to display the revision.
Changing the ESI slave identifier
The ESI/EEPROM identifier can be updated as follows under TwinCAT:
- ▪
- Trouble-free EtherCAT communication must be established with the slave.
- ▪
- The state of the slave is irrelevant.
- ▪
- Right-clicking on the slave in the online display opens the EEPROM Update dialog, Fig. EEPROM Update
The new ESI description is selected in the following dialog, see Fig. Selecting the new ESI. The checkbox Show Hidden Devices also displays older, normally hidden versions of a slave.
A progress bar in the System Manager shows the progress. Data are first written, then verified. | http://infosys.beckhoff.com/content/1033/ej6224/4348710539.html?id=8388152204901817322 |
The GX3232 is a multi-channel 16-bit, analog input and output cPCI module, supporting 32 single-ended or 16 differential input channels and four analog output channels. The inputs can be software configured for differential or single-end operation and are sequentially scanned with a maximum aggregate scan rate of 300 kS/s. Three input ranges are software-selectable: ±10 V, ±5 V or ±2.5 V. Optionally, the GX3232 is available with a high voltage input configuration and supports three ranges: ±60 V, ±30 V and ±15 V. The high voltage configuration supports 16 single-ended or 8 differential input channels. Four analog output channels provide software-selectable output ranges of ±2.5 V, ±5 V or ±10 V. The outputs can be updated either synchronously or asynchronously and support waveform generation. Each output can be clocked at rates up to 300 kS/s. A 16-bit digital I/O port is also provided, which supports 16 bidirectional data lines. Note that when used with a TS-700 system only 8 of these digital I/O lines are available at the test system's receiver interface.
The GX3232’s input channels are sampled sequentially at a maximum aggregate rate of 300 KS/s. Sampled data is accessed via the PCI bus and a 32 K-sample FIFO buffer. Scanned channels can be set for 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 channels per scan with the sample clock being generated by one of two internal rate generators which employ 16-bit programmable dividers. The four output channels can be clocked at rates up to 300 KS/s and like the input channels, offer programmable ranges. Each output channel includes a dedicated 16-bit D/A converter with output data being clocked from a 32 K sample FIFO buffer, which interfaces to the PCI bus. Output clocking is generated by one of two internal rate generators which employ 16-bit programmable dividers. Sync input and sync output lines are also provided for synchronizing the input and output signals to an external event. These signals are not accessible at the TS-700’s receiver interface.
The module supports an auto-calibration routine which applies any required offset and gain correction values for all input and output channels. Additionally, a self-test input switching network routes output channels or calibration reference signals to the analog inputs - verifying module integrity and functionality.
The GX3232 is supplied with a virtual instrument panel, which includes a 32-bit DLL driver library and documentation. The virtual panel can be used to interactively adjust and control the instrument from a window that displays the instrument’s current settings and measurements. | https://www.terotest.com/products/stimuli/gx3232.html |
Q:
How far is a Wheel?
The inhabitants of Mid-World seem to use both miles and wheels as units of distance. In The Wind Through The Keyhole, Bix offers directions in the unit of Roland's choice - and Roland chooses wheels.
How far (in miles or kilometers) is a wheel?
A:
This information is compiled from the Dark Tower Concordance, a book of Dark Tower references by Robin Furth. The Concordance lists two different measures for a wheel based on two different books. I will list them both; the Concordance does not confirm one over the other.
Wheels: An archaic form of measurement still used thoughout Mid-World and the BORDERLANDS.
In The Waste Lands, Blaine tells us that a distance of eight thousand wheels is equivalent to seven thousand miles. In that case there are about 1.143 wheels to a mile.
In Wizard and Glass, tricky Blaine tells us that 900 mph is the same as 530 wheels per hour. In this instance, one wheel is equal to 1.69 miles.
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It appears that The Time Traveler’s Wife TV show is a true mini-series that has a beginning, middle, and end. But, if the show performs strongly in the ratings, could HBO potentially find a way to continue the story and bring the series back for a second season? Stay tuned.
A sci-fi romantic-drama series, The Time Traveler’s Wife stars Rose Leslie, Theo James, Desmin Borges, and Natasha Lopez. The story follows the out-of-order love story between Clare Abshire (Leslie), and Henry DeTamble (James). They have a marriage with a significant problem — time travel. At six years old, Clare meets Henry, the future love of her life. Unbeknownst to her, he’s a time traveler who is actually visiting from the future. Some 14 years later, a beautiful redhead wanders into the library where Henry works. She claims to have known him all her life and to also be his future wife. From there, a magical romance ensues that is as sprawling and complicated as Henry’s attempts to explain his “condition”.
The ratings are typically the best indication of a show’s chances of staying on the air. The higher the ratings, the better the chances for survival. This chart will be updated as new ratings data becomes available.
Note: If you’re not seeing the updated chart, please try reloading the page or view it here.
Note: These are the final national ratings, including all live+same day viewing and DVR playback (through 3:00 AM). Early fast affiliate ratings (estimates) are indicated with an “*”. While these numbers don’t include further delayed or streaming viewing, they are a very good indicator of how a show is performing, especially when compared to others on the same channel. There can be other economic factors involved in a show’s fate, but typically the higher-rated series are renewed and the lower-rated ones are cancelled.
What do you think? Do you like The Time Traveler’s Wife TV series on HBO? Would you watch a second season or should the first season be the end? | https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/the-time-travelers-wife-season-one-ratings/ |
In Actuality, we require an Amplifier that can boost a signal from a very weak source, like a Microphone, to a level appropriate for another transducer, like a Loudspeaker, to operate at. This is Accomplished using Multistage Amplifier, which cascade multiple Amplifier stages.
1. Need for Cascading
A faithful Amplifier should match its input and output Impedances to the source and the load, and it should have the desired voltage and current gains. Because of the Limitations of Transistor/FET Parameters, these Fundamental Requirements of the Amplifier are Frequently not met by single stage Amplifiers. In these circumstances, multiple Amplifier stages are Cascaded in order to meet Impedance Matching Requirements with some Amplification from the input and output stages while the Majority of the Amplification is provided by the remaining middle stages.
We can say that,
When the Amplification of a single stage Amplifier is not Sufficient, or,
When the input or output Impedance is not of the correct Magnitude, for a particular application two or more Amplifier stages are connected, in cascade. Such Amplifier, with two or more stages is also known as Multistage Amplifier.
Two Stage Cascaded Amplifier
Vi1 is the input of the first stage and Vo2 is the output of second stage.
So, Vo2/Vi1 is the overall voltage gain of two stage amplifier.
n-Stage Cascaded Amplifier
Voltage gain :
The resultant voltage gain of the multistage amplifier is the product of voltage gains of the various stages.
Av = Avl Av2 … Avn
Gain in Decibels
When comparing two powers, it is frequently found to be much more convenient to do so on a logarithmic scale rather than a linear one. Decibel is the name of the scale’s logarithmic measurement unit (abbreviated dB). The difference between a power P2 and a power P1 in decibels, N, is determined by
dB, or decibel, stands for power ratio. When the number of dB is negative, the power P2 is smaller than the reference power P1, and when it is positive, the power P2 is larger than the reference power P1.
For an amplifier, P1 may represent input power, and P2 may represent output power.
Both can be given as
Where Ri and Ro are the input and output impedances of the amplifier respectively. Then,
If the input and output impedances of the amplifier are equal i.e. Ri = Ro= R, then
Gain of Multistage Amplifier in dB
The gain of a multistage amplifier can be easily calculated if the gain of the individual stages are known in dB, as shown below
20 log10 Av = 20 log10 Avl + 20 log10Av2 +… + 20 log10 Avn
Thus, the overall voltage gain in dB of a multistage amplifier is the decibel voltage gains of the individual stages. It can be given as
AvdB = AvldB + Av2dB + … + AvndB
2. Advantages of Representation of Gain in Decibels
Logarithmic scale is preferred over linear scale to represent voltage and power gains because of the following reasons :
- In multistage amplifiers, it permits to add individual gains of the stages to calculate overall gain.
- It allows us to denote, both very small as well as very large quantities of linear, scale by considerably small figures. For example, voltage gain of 0.0000001 can be represented as -140 dB and voltage gain of 1,00,000 can be represented as 100 dB.
- Many times output of the amplifier is fed to loudspeakers to produce sound which is received by the human ear. It is important to note that the ear responds to the sound intensities on a proportional or logarithmic scale rather than linear scale. Thus use of dB unit is more appropriate for representation of amplifier gains.
Methods of coupling Multistage Amplifier
In multistage amplifier, the output signal of preceding stage is to be coupled to the input circuit of succeeding stage. For this interstage coupling, different types of coupling elements can be employed. These are :
1. RC coupling
2. Transformer coupling
3. Direct coupling
RC coupling
Figure shows RC coupled amplifier using transistors. The output signal of first stage is coupled to the input of the next stage through coupling capacitor and resistive load at the output terminal of first stage
Since the coupling capacitor Cc prevents the d.c. voltage of the first stage from reaching the base of the second stage, it has no effect on the quiescent point of the subsequent stage. It is a broadband network, the RC. In order to cover all of the A.F. amplifier bands, it therefore provides a wideband frequency response without a peak at any frequency. However, due to coupling capacitors at very low frequencies and shunt capacitors like stray capacitance at high frequencies, its frequency response is reduced.
Transformer Coupling
Figure shows Transformer coupled Amplifier using Transistors. The output signal of first stage is coupled to the input of the next stage through an Impedance Matching Transformer
This type of Coupling is used to match the Impedance between output an input Cascaded stage. Usually, it is used to match the larger output resistance of AF power Amplifier to a low Impedance load like Loudspeaker. As we know, Transformer blocks d.c, Providing d.c. Isolation between the two stages. Therefore, Transformer Coupling does not affect the Quiescent point of the next stage.
In Comparison to an RC coupled Amplifier, the Frequency response of a Transformer-coupled Amplifier is subpar. Its inter winding Capacitances and leakage Inductance prevent the Amplifier from Amplifying signals of various Frequencies equally. The Coupling between the Transformer’s inter Windings may cause Resonance at a particular Frequency, which causes the Amplifier to produce very high gain at that Frequency. We can achieve Resonance at any desired RF Frequency by Connecting Shunting Capacitors to each Transformer winding. Tuned voltage Amplifiers are what these Amplifiers are known as.
These provide high gain at the desired of Frequency, i.e. they amplify Selective Frequencies. For this reason, the Transformer-coupled Amplifiers are used in radio and TV Receivers for Amplifying RF signals. As d.c. resistance of the Transformer winding is very low, almost all d.c. voltage applied by Vcc is available at the Collector. Due to the absence of Collector resistance it Eliminates Unnecessary power loss in the Resistor.
Direct Coupling
Figure depicts a Transistor-based direct coupled Amplifier. The input of the following stage is directly connected to the first stage’s output signal. Because of this direct Coupling, the first stage’s Quiescent d.c. Collector current can pass through the base of the second stage and change the Biassing conditions there.
Due to absence of RC Components, Frequency response is good but at higher Frequencies Shunting Capacitors such as stray Capacitances reduce gain of the Amplifier.
The Collector current and voltage of Transistors are affected by temperature changes in Transistor Parameters like VBE and. These changes show up at the base of the Subsequent stage due to direct Coupling, which also affects the output. Drift is a serious issue in direct coupled Amplifiers because it causes such an Unintended change in the output. | https://onlineexamguide.com/multistage-amplifier/ |
Thank you for visiting TeachingDegrees.com. TeachingDegrees.com (formerly TeacherDegrees.com) has been around for over a decade, providing a valuable resource for prospective teachers to figure out which degree or career might be best for them. In 2019, we relaunched the website, updated with accurate school listings and content written by college professors and former teachers with either their M.Ed. in Education or Ed.D. in Education degree.
Who We Are
TeachingDegrees.com is owned and operated by Enroll Education LLC, who researches up-and-coming degree programs (such as teaching education), aggregates college educational data, creates website resources for potential college students, and helps universities find students that are the right fit for their degree programs. We have a number of different researchers and contributors for TeachingDegrees.com, all of which have experience as a teacher or have their educational background as a teacher.
Editor & Contributor: Chanelle Pickens
- Instructional Designer: Develop e-learning content for the higher education sector. ADDIE and Backward Design. ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. curriculum development and design, curriculum mapping, and assessment writing.
- Current student: Master of Arts (MA), English & Creative Writing (Southern New Hampshire University)
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Contributor: Glenda Wagner
- Retired teacher (7th and 8th grade Math Teacher)
- Masters in Education degree (Math Instruction)
Our Goals
We pride ourselves on researching accredited educational institutions and programs across the entire United States. Our goal is to make all programs accessible to all of our website visitors, and to keep the most up to date information on teaching colleges and universities. We aim to provide accurate and helpful narrative content, helping students figure out what degree in teaching might be best for them.
Our Data
Our database of over 500 universities and 2,000+ teaching education programs is among the largest on the web, and it is 100% hand-gathered. Meaning, our team scours the web to record specific data points, which we display throughout the website. It is a lot of work, but we have found that it makes our website stand alone as the premium resource for anyone looking to get into teaching.
Some of our data resources include:
- CAEP
- National Education Association
- National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification
- Council of Chief State School Officers
- National School Board Association
- National Center for Educational Statistics
- United States Bureau of Labor Statistics
- United States Census Bureau
Our Beliefs
We believe the value of an excellent teacher is completely understated. Teachers shape and mold everyone to become a contributor to society and a better person overall.
The great teachers truly bring out the best in others, and believe in everyone. We want to make our site the most accessible website for prospective teachers to find a degree they are passionate about at universities across the nation, and that will never change. We will constantly search the web, do our research, write informative, clear, and concise content on subject matter that teachers are interested in, and make our website easy to use. | https://www.teachingdegrees.com/about |
- This event has passed.
ROCKARIA THE ELO EXPERIENCE
3 June @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm AEST
Formed in 1970 in Birmingham England, ELO was formed out of Jeff Lynne’s and Roy Wood’s desire to create modern rock and pop songs with classical overtones. During the 1970s and 1980s, ELO released a string of top 10 albums and singles, including two LPs that reached the top of British charts: the disco inspired Discovery (1979) and the science fiction themed concept album Time (1981).
This is a tribute concert not to be missed.
In 1988 Jeff Lynne together with George Harrison formed The Traveling Wilburys with fellow members Bob Dylan,Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.
Performing all the classic hits including Evil Woman,Living Thing, Don’t Bring Me Down, Telephone Line, Sweet Talkin Woman, Strange Magic,Do Ya, Rock n Roll Is King, Hold On Tight, Roll Over Beethoven, Can’t get it Out Of My Head, Rockaria plus many more.
Also including legendary songs by The Traveling Wilburys including Hand With Care, End Of The Line, Last Night, Wilbury Twist. | https://www.destinationtamworth.com.au/event/rockaria-the-elo-experience/ |
The last day of competition at the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Greenville (USA) was devoted to the road races for the handbike and tricycle athletes.
The host nation added three silver medals to its overall tally with Alicia Delsford Brana (WH3), William Groulx (MH2) and Jill Walsh (WT2). USA finishes the Worlds with a total of 18 medals (9 gold, 6 silver, 3 bronze) followed by Germany with 14 medals (7 gold, 3 silver, 4 bronze) and Italy with 13 medals (6 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze).
One of the much-awaited duals on the last day of competition was in the Men’s H5 road race between Italy’s Alex Zanardi, first in the time trial a few days earlier, and South African Ernst Van Dyk, gold medallist at the Beijing Paralympics and second behind Zanardi in London 2012.
After a nail-biting race it was the South African who claimed the world title, recording the same time (1h43.03) as his Italian rival over the 61.2km course: “No words,” wrote Van Dyk on Twitter after his victory. “Just thankful to all the people who made this happen. We have a rainbow jersey!”
The world title caps an impressive year for this veteran handcylist and wheelchair athlete: in April he won his 10th Boston Marathon.
It was a similar scenario for French athlete Joël Jeannot in the MH4 road race. Also second in the time trial, Jeannot snatched the road race title from Germany’s Vico Merklein (2nd) and Poland’s Arkadiusz Skrzypinski. All three clocked the same time of 1h38.08.
Not all the racing was so close, however. One of the most clear-cut wins of the day was in the Women’s T2 road race, which saw defending champion Carol Cooke (Australia) cover the 30.6km in 1h02.43. She had to wait 7 minutes 29 seconds to congratulate her runner-up, Jill Walsh (USA). Germany’s Jana Majunke finished third a further six minutes back.
“I had such a good ride during the ITT that I didn’t think it would be possible to have two perfect rides,” declared the winner. “It was an amazing feeling to realise that I had just won another World Championships title!”
In total, 13 gold medals were awarded on the last day of competition. Germany and South Africa both won three gold medals, followed by Italy and France with two each, and one gold medal each for Poland, Australia and Canada.
Full results of the 2014 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships can be found on the UCI website.
The 2015 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships will be held in Nottwil, Switzerland July 28 – August 2.
Para-cycling sport classes
C – Cyclist: conventional bike with some minor adaptations
T – Tricycle: three-wheeled bike
B – Blind: tandem
H – Handbike
Each group is divided into different sport classes depending on the severity of the handicap. | http://cycletimes.net/uci-para-cycling-road-world-championships-usa-strongest-nation/ |
Chapter 731: Thanks Sherlock
With the spells cast by Jake, the duo made their way through the checkpoints of each plateau without slowing down. They didn't need to be discreet, as they proudly paraded up the never-ending staircase and reached the top without a hitch.
When they had joined the Mutant Office three months earlier, they were not allowed to proceed to visit the headquarters at the peak of Laudarkvik. Three months later, Jake could travel to the summit without disruption as if he were in his own backyard.
?? n?? - ? o? ?? , ?`?`m 'This... How do you do that?" Carmin whispered helplessly, her heart racing. Every time a guard looked in her direction, she would momentarily freeze up from her fear of being found out.
"Relax. They can't see us, they can't hear us, and they can't smell us." Jake replied coolly.
His vague answer did not reassure Carmin in the least.
"But then, why can I see you? And even if they can't see or hear us, there's still our Aetheric and spiritual signature..." She countered with concern.
No sooner had she finished expressing her doubts than Jake who was walking beside her vanished before her eyes. It wasn't just her eyesight that was playing tricks on her. He had literally disappeared as if he no longer existed.
Whether it was his aura, his Aether, or even the air flow that accompanied his every step, nothing betrayed his presence. The level of control required to accomplish this was just terrifying and she found it hard to believe that a Fourth Ordeal Player like her could do it. And yet, that's exactly what had just happened!
Then Jake reappeared in front of her, narrowly missing giving her a heart attack. Gasping loudly while pressing her hand against her bouncing chest, she angrily mouthed,
"Don't... ever... do that again! Goodness, I thought I was going to die! It's not okay to make jokes like that."
Jake let her grumble to herself the rest of the way, but at least she was no longer worried about making too much noise. In truth, these Stealth spells weren't foolproof.
While they were truly undetectable by the enemy's five senses and even extrasensory perception, they were still basic Aether Spells that he had cooked up with his meager experience. On the surface they seemed impossible to counter, but in practice they were only powered by his Aether Core.
At just over 5,000 yield points, it may have seemed powerful, but for casting spells it was actually quite paltry. It took a considerable amount of Aether to produce a little energy and the 5000 points of the accretion disc was obviously not enough.
Under normal circumstances, when Jake used his Aether Core he would speed up its rotation to passively suck in the surrounding Aether. This was the only way he could spam Aether Spells that had the energy potential of a big grenade. For more powerful spells, Jake had to tap into his own stamina to sustain their execution.
Since the goal was to erase their presence, he obviously couldn't rely on his Aether Core's ability to suck up energy for his spells, or the turbulence generated would instantly expose them. The Aether in his Aether Core was insufficient, so the fuel came almost exclusively from his stamina.
Jake was practically tireless, it was true, but that was only relative to normal efforts. In this case, he might have climbed the stairs undetected, but a keen observer would have easily noticed the many beads of sweat on his forehead. With most of his stamina going into supporting those Stealth Spells, even the slightest bit of intense combat would cause him to run out of breath in no time.
'Can't wait for my Reiga Core to reach a functional level.' He sighed inwardly, ignoring his muscle fatigue.
The glycogen in his muscles was depleting rapidly, but each of his cells was like a small nuclear battery, quickly renewing the lost energy. In addition to this, he had also eaten a plutonium ingot for continuous energy at breakfast as usual. If he had still been human, these radioactive materials would have been the equivalent of whole grain cereals.
Besides the difficulty of maintaining the spell, the real weakness of these Stealth Spells was their low energy level. If the enemy, whether native or Player, could cast a detection or anti-magic counterspell superior to his, their presence would be immediately detected. If one of these enemies also possessed outstanding mental power and specifically scanned the area they were in, they would also be exposed.
Finally, there were many other methods of detection that were much more circuitous. For example, instinct, clairvoyance, and divination. All it took was one player with a higher Oracle Rank than his and all his efforts would be easily nullified.
Fortunately for them, luck seemed to smile on them. Despite the growing pressure as they got closer to the top, not once were they disturbed.
After passing the last checkpoint without any trouble, the duo finally reached the top of Laudarkvik. This one was narrower than the other plateaus, and apart from the headquarters of each faction and the strongholds of the most influential clans, there was nothing but a vast, impeccably mowed lawn.
For the place that was supposed to be the decision-making and military center of Laudarkvik, both Jake and Carmin were surprised to see no one. This mountain top was... incredibly empty.
"Where is everyone?" The young woman murmured suspiciously.
Jeanie, who was napping in her pocket until now, chose this moment to wake up. Her sleepy little face swung her head to the right and then to the left, before commenting limply,pan da-nov el ,c`o`m
"There's not much of a crowd..."
"Thanks Sherlocks." Jake patted the tiny fairy's head, pushing her back into the bottom of his mantle pocket.
"Who is Sherlock?" Her muffled, sulky voice echoed through his mantle, but he ignored it to focus on the dilemma before him.
After a few seconds of thought, he made a guess,
"Having never been here before, I don't know if this situation is normal or not. Each stronghold is protected by its own compound and to avoid tensions between Factions in this climate of war it may have been decided to prohibit inter-faction travel."
"That would make sense anyway." Carmin agreed with his reasoning but did not relax her guard. "But that means the defenses will be stricter."
"I never thought we could safely extract Wyatt without a fight anyway." Jake snarled, his casual disposition changing dramatically. In the blink of an eye, he went from relaxed to combat-ready, his stern face becoming that of a dangerous killing machine.
As Jeanie and Carmin witnessed the change in his demeanor, they stopped chattering and also conditioned themselves for the coming battle.
" Which is the stronghold of the Dracul clan?" Jake asked dispassionately as he quickly inspected each Vampire stronghold with a quick glance. In addition to the HQ, there were three strongholds corresponding to the three clans holding seats on the Council. Cazimir Nosferati had been killed, so in theory there were only two left, unless he had been replaced.
Pointing to a medieval castle all in dark stone with tall, pointed towers, Carmin confidently said,
"It should be this one. At least that's where Wyatt is being held prisoner."
Indeed, Wyatt had no reason to hide his location from his childhood friend and other longtime subordinates. By giving them the ability to locate him at will, he could greatly increase his chances of escape.
Jake hadn't forgotten this feature of the Oracle Device, but his Shadow Guide had remained motionless when he had tried to plan a rescue. This could only mean one of two things: Either a Player with a higher Oracle Rank than him was overseeing the enemy operation, or Wyatt did not want to be found by him.
While he didn't completely refute the first assumption, the second was still very likely. After all, they were enemies not so long ago, and it was hard to trust a rival from another faction like that. If it weren't for Carmin, Jake wouldn't have cared about Wyatt's fate.
'I guess I'm not as petty and selfish as people think.' Jake gave a sour laugh.
"Follow me. From now on, we can get into a fight anytime." Jake stated as he drew his sword.
Carmin took him seriously and also grabbed her Blood Whip. Jeanie also equipped her tiny wand that was no longer than a toothpick.
Under the cover of her Stealth Spells, the duo climbed the wall without attracting the attention of the guards. Before jumping to the other side, they were able to confirm their previous hypothesis.
Vampires as far as the eye could see and almost all of them aristocrats. Vampire Nobles and offspring of the Vampire Progenitor were legion here and represented the core power of the Dracul clan.
Following Carmin's directions, the group weaved in and out of the guards, until Jake came to an abrupt stop. The young woman bumped her head against his back, but she refrained from making any noise. She noticed at once that instead of speaking, Jake had simply waved his hand.
It spoke volumes about the dangerousness of the situation.
Articulating exaggeratedly to let her read his lips, Jake silently explained,
"From that point on, there's an anti-magic barrier with other functions that I don't understand. We have two options. Decipher it and get through it without setting off the alarm, or rush as fast as we can to Wyatt and free him." | https://novelarchive.net/novel/the-oracle-paths/chapter-731 |
Three other widespread Masonic symbols are the sun disk with wings or winged sun, double-headed eagle in a crown with a sword in his paws, and the caduceus, which are treated as a symbol of a sealed mystery, a symbol of the art of war, fearlessness of Masons, royalty of their art and the world spiritual union of masons of highest degrees, and a symbol of knowledge and polar equivalence of good and evil, as well as a symbol of unity of masculine and feminine (double-headed eagle as an emblem of Scottish Rite Masonic lodges ). All three of these signs have very ancient history and is known as minimum, with the IV millennium BC.
Winged sun disk - a symbol of heaven, divine order and sun power
(see the images on the page)
The winged sun disk was found in ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Anatolian, Persian (Zoroastrian), South American and even Australian symbolism and has many variations. In the Victorian era it was transformed into a Christian symbol, symbolizing the life-giving power of God.
According to one version, the winged disc represents the sun at the time of eclipse, and the wings and sometimes tail of the bird display elements of the solar corona, which is visible at the moment of total eclipse. According to another version, disk depicts a mythical celestial body of Nibiru, which is described in the mythology of the Ancient East. More believable and frequent interpretations of this symbol, however, is its comparison with the sky, the sun, solar power and renewal of life or divinity, majesty, power and eternity of the spirit. Sometimes winged disk consider as a stylized image of eagle's wings.
In ancient Egypt, winged sun was associated with Ra-Horahti and Horus Behdetskiy (according to the majority of Egyptologists, they belonged to the gods of the sun).
Quite often it is accompanied by one or two uraeus of cobras on each side, and one or two Ankhs. A variation of the sun disk with wings, apparently, are the images of the goddess of truth, justice, harmony of the universe, divine order and ethical norms of Maat, which is often shown with arms or less often, half-bent wings, and the patron of Upper Egypt heavenly mother goddess of Nehbet in a kind of a kite, Egyptian vulture or falcon with outspread wings and often a solar disk on his head. There are images of the ancient god of the rising sun, Khepri who is associated with rebirth, resurrection and new life as a winged scarab.
In the book "Earth before the Flood - the world of sorcerers and werewolves" I showed that Ra-Horahti and Horus Behdetskiy likely belonged to Adityas (although we cannot exclude that they belong to Daityas or Danavas). Maat and Nehbet likely belonged to Apsaras. And as I said, and Adityas and Apsaras were among sun or celestial gods, who from time immemorial lived on the northern continent of Hyperborea.
In Sumer and Mesopotamia winged sun was associated with the sun god Shamash (without the human figure) and the Assyrian supreme god Ashur (with the human figure), which corresponded to the Sumerian supreme god Enlil. In Urartu, there was a state that existed in the 1 millennium BC in the Armenian highlands, with the sun god Shivini. All of them belonged to the sun or celestial gods.
Double-headed eagle - a sun symbol of power, nobility and uncompromising struggle against evil (see the images on the page)
The double-headed eagle is one of the oldest symbols. He was widely distributed in the Sumerian culture. One of the earliest images of the eagle was found during excavations of the Sumerian city of Lagash in Mesopotamia. Probably even more ancient a two-headed eagle was cut from smoky jade by the Olmec and its eyes please visitors at the best museum of Costa Rica.
Ancient Hittites also well knew the symbol. The character-attributes of their chief state god Tischuba (Teschuba), god of thunder, were a double ax (later entered to Crete and assigned to Zeus) and a double-headed eagle.
Not far from the Turkish village Boguskoy, where once was the capital of the Hittite state, it was found the oldest two-headed eagle (13th century BC), carved in the rock. The double-headed eagle with outstretched wings holds in paws two hares. A modern interpretation of the image is a king stands out, looking around, defeats his enemies which hares portray, animals cowardly, but voracious.
A double-headed eagle is depicted on cylinder seals found in the excavations of the fortress Boguskoy. This symbol is also found on the walls of monumental buildings of other cities of the Hittite civilization. Hittites, like the Sumerians, used it for religious purposes.
The double-headed eagle (6th century BCE) was met in the Medes, east of the former Hittite.
The double-headed eagle was met in ancient Egypt and Assyrian monuments, where they are, according to experts, are to symbolize the connection with the Median kingdom of Assyria in the 6th and 7th centuries
The "Dictionary of international symbols and emblems" states "the Roman generals had the eagle on their Rods as a sign of supremacy over the Army". Later the Eagle "was turned into a purely imperial sign, symbol of supreme power."
In ancient Greece, the sun god Helios traveled across the sky in a chariot drawn by four horses. It rare describes, not for the public, images of Helios in his chariot drawn by two-headed eagles. There were two eagles and four heads. Perhaps it was a sign of a more ancient, secret character.
Later, the double-headed eagle was used by Persian shahs of the Sassanian dynasty (1st century AD), and then by replaced them Arab rulers who put the logo even on their coins. Ottomans minted coins with Star of David on one side and a double-headed eagle on the other. It is also images of double-headed eagles on the Arab coins of Zengid and Ortokid from the 12th to the14th century.
In the Arab world two-headed eagle also become a popular element of oriental ornament. In the Middle Ages, this symbol appeared on the standard of the Seljuk Turks, who, moreover, adorned by it stands of the Koran. The double-headed eagle was circulated in Persia as a symbol of victory, as well as in the Golden Horde.
A number of coins of the Golden Horde survived, minted during the reign of the Khans Uzbek and Djanibek, are with a double-headed eagle. Sometimes there are allegations that the double-headed eagle was the State Emblem of the Golden Horde. However, a coat of arms usually associates with a state seal, and to date has not kept any document (label) with the seal of the Jochi Ulus, therefore the most historians don't consider a double-headed eagle was an emblem of the Golden Horde.
There is evidence that the two-headed eagle was on the banners of the Huns (2nd-5th centuries). An Indo-European two-headed eagle first appeared in the Hurrians (3rd millennium BC, the center of civilization in the Caucasus), who honor it as a guardian of the Tree of Life.
It is believed that Europeans first learned of the two-headed eagle during the Crusades. This symbol is used as a first coat of many Templars who went to the conquest of the Holy Sepulcher in the Holy Land, and is likely to have been borrowed by them in their travels through the territory of modern Turkey. Since then, the two-headed eagle is frequently used in European heraldry. In Byzantium and the Balkan countries, it was often decorative. Double eagles were depicted on fabric, ritual vessels, walls of religious buildings, as well as on the seals of territorial principalities and imperial cities.
Since the end of the 14th century, a gold double-headed eagle on a red field increasingly appeared on various state regalia of Byzantium. In the 15th century, under the Emperor Sigismund, or shortly before it, the double-headed eagle was adopted as the state emblem of the Holy Roman (German) Empire. It was portrayed in the black gold shield with golden beaks and claws of an eagle were surrounded by halos.
The double-headed eagle was depicted in the past on the coat of arms of Austria, German Union, Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, as well as on the arms of shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah. It was also present on the coins of medieval Bulgaria. Currently, a two-headed eagle is depicted on the coat of arms of Albania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro.
On the chest of the eagle, since Peter I, it was placed the ancient emblem of Moscow. It portray the Rider of Heaven who embodied the image of the Holy Great Martyr, George the Victorious, spearing a serpent, symbolizing the eternal struggle between Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. In the paws Eagle firmly holds the scepter and orb, the immutable symbols of power, great power, unity and integrity of the state.
Most researchers of this symbol believe the eagle is associated with the sun. The logic here is that the eagle is the king of birds and the sun the is the king of all the planets. The eagle flies above all, and is closest to the sun. The eagle is a symbol with multiple meanings. The eagle always personifies power and nobility, reminding to a man of his exalted origin and divine nature. Large outstretched wings are a symbol of protection, sharp claws are a symbol of uncompromising struggle against evil, and white head symbolizes just power. In addition, the eagle is always associated with strength, courage, morality and wisdom.
An eagle with antiquity was known as the royal symbol. It symbolizes rule. It is a sign of kings of the earth and heaven. (Eagle - Envoy of Jupiter). Zeus turns to an eagle to abduct Ganymede.
The double-headed eagle represents the possibility of amplification of power, its extension to the west and east. Allegorically an ancient image of a two-headed bird could represent an unsleeping guardian who sees everything in the east and the west.
The eagle has always been a sun symbol and is an attribute of sun gods in many cultures. It was considered as a sacred emblem of Odin, Zeus, Jupiter, Mithra, Ninurta (Ningirsu) and Ashur (Assyrian god of storms, lightning and fertility). The double-headed eagle symbolized Nergal (Mars), the deity personifying the sizzling heat of the midday sun, and also represents the god of the underworld.
The eagle was also considered to be a messenger of the gods, which connected the earth and celestial sphere. In Mesoamerica, the eagle is also considered as a symbol of light and space of the heavenly spirit. In Christianity, the eagle is the embodiment of divine love, justice, courage, spirit, faith, as well as the symbol of resurrection. As in other traditions, the eagle played a messenger of heaven.
Fravahar - a sun symbol of victory of truth (see the images on the page)
One of the well-studied images of the sun disk with wings is a Zoroastrian fravahar known since the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
It is believed that the word "fravahar" comes from the ancient Iranian (Avestan) word “fravarane”, which translates to "I choose”, and implied a choice of goodness, justice, the religion of Zoroaster or Zarutushty. According to others, it is derived from the Avestan word “far” or “khvar” – “shining”, with the meaning of radiance of divine grace, which as if soars on the wings of light, or “fravati”, “to protect” in the sense of divine protection by angel custodian, Fravati or Fravashis. Another translation of this character is “move forward power”, which implies movement to divine truth.
Whatever the original meaning of the word, its use implies a winged disc with a tail and human figure sitting on it which, according to some sources, is the image of the supreme god Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians, on the second, the abstract, not personalized personality, and on the third, the highest glory or divine radiance (the Royal Glory).
There are several interpretations of meaning of fravahar. It is considered as a symbol of pride, progress, improvement and happiness of man, based on good thoughts, words and deeds (three layers of feather wings of fravahar) in an infinite world (large circle in the center), on the base of two fundamental principles: love and eternity. The raised hand symbolizes the upward direction, to divine truth, and the wings - flight to paradise.
Fravahar is also interpreted (version Shahriar or Shahriari) as the flight of the soul toward progress. Large circle in the center symbolizes eternity of the universe or the eternal nature of the soul. Like a circle, they have no beginning and no end. The figure of an elderly man, inscribed in a circle, talking about the wisdom of time. Lifting one of his hands up he shows the direction in which to move people. His other hand holds little promise ring. This means that these promises cannot be broken. Empennage bottom also consists of three parts - bad thoughts, words, and deeds. It is at the bottom in order to emphasize that the choice of such qualities prevent flight of the soul to the divine truth. Finally, the two "threads" twisted into spirals at the ends at the bottom symbolize the duality of human nature. They indicate that in the spirit of righteous, people will come to the right choice, while the unrighteous spirit, or its absence, to the wrong choice.
The concept of the celebration of the divine truth in fravahar is combined by its submission as a solar symbol (it is recognized by all researchers), that allows it to be considered a sign of sun or celestial gods. This interpretation is confirmed by the essence of the character of Zoroastrian supreme god Ahura Mazda, which, as many researchers believe, is depicted in fravahar. Ahura Mazda was the leader of Ahuras (“lords”), which included sun gods Mitra, Varuna, Veretranga and others. Ahura Mazda and Ahuras was associated with one of the major religious concepts (“art” or “Asha”), a fair rule of law, divine justice, and in this sense they completely corresponded to Indian Adityas.
In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda was considered the one and only Creator of the universe, invisible helper of mankind in the fight against evil. His characters were fire as the pure element of peace, banishing evil, and light as having the cleanest energy particle (photons) in the entire universe, driving away darkness.
Thus, the sun disk with wings or winged sun with numerous varieties is another ancient symbol of the sun or the heavenly gods.
Caduceus - a symbol of confrontation between good and evil and of the knowledge of divine truth (see the images on the page)
Caduceus (from the Greek word “messenger” or “precursor” ) was worn by the god-healer of Mesopotamia (Eshmun?), Ancient Egyptian gods Anubis and sometimes Isis, the Greco-Roman god Hermes-Mercury, the Phoenician god Bal (Baal), the Sumerian goddess Ishtar along with other gods. In Christianity, the caduceus became an attribute of Sophia (Wisdom). On the ancient Orthodox icons she keeps it in his right hand.
There are quite a few interpretations of the meaning of the caduceus. It is considered as a key symbol, opening the limit between light and darkness, good and evil, life and death. In this the wings of the caduceus symbolize the ability to cross any borders (option - are the epitome of the spirit), rod - power over the forces of nature, double snake - opposite sides of dualism, which eventually should connect. Two snakes represent the coupling strength of the separation of good and evil, fire and water, etc.
It is believed that the rod is the world axis (option - the world tree), up and down which between Heaven and Earth, the gods moved intermediary. Caduceus are worn as a sign of peace and protection all the messengers, and it was their main attribute. Two snakes with their heads facing up symbolize in this case the evolution of the universe, two principles (like the Ying and Yang in Taoism) or interpreted as two mutually due process of evolutionary development of material forms and souls that govern material forms. Symmetrical arrangement of snakes and wings is evidence of the opposing forces balance and harmonious development of both low, solid and the higher, spiritual level.
Snakes have also been associated with the cyclical nature's revival and restoration of the universal order when it is broken. Quite often they are equated to the symbol of wisdom. In Asia Minor tradition two snakes were a common symbol of fertility and in Mesopotamian tradition woven snakes were considered the epitome of god healer.
A symbol similar to caduceus was found in the ancient Indian monuments. In esoteric Buddhism, a rod of the caduceus symbolize an axis of the world, and a snake, the cosmic energy, Serpent Fire or Kundalini, traditionally represented by coiling at the base of the spine (the analog of world axis in a scale of the microcosm). Intertwining around a central axis, snakes joined at seven points, they are linked with the chakras. Kundalini sleeps in the basal chakra, and when in the result of evolution wakes up, goes through the spine in three ways: central, Shushumna, and two lateral, which form two intersecting spirals - Pingala (That's right, men's and active spiral), and Ida (left, ladies and passive ) .
Whatever the interpretation of the caduceus (both from above, and not mentioned in the paper) was not true, it is considered by most researchers to be one of the oldest symbols of creative power. Therefore, it was thought that owned the caduceus possessed all laws of knowledge that rule nature.
Caduceus - a symbol of the unity of sun and moon gods (interpretation of A. Koltypin)
In such a conventional interpretation of the caduceus, it is not reflected several of its most important features which I want to draw your attention to. These are:
- Outstretched wings, which are virtually indistinguishable from the wings of the above described symbol - a winged disk of the sun, with its many varieties - fravahar, winged Ashur, Maat, Nehbet, Khepri, etc.;
- Knob of the staff that has a shape of the sun disk, sun disk bordered by moon or Ankh.
According to some researchers, a kind of the caduceus in ancient Egypt was a scepter topped with a sun disk bordered by moon . It is believed that the caduceus is the rod that supports both symbols of the Sun and the Moon.
- The composition of the caduceus, which is consistent with many images of the other ancient Egyptian symbol, Urey or Wadjet, uniting into one (often in different combinations) birds, snakes, and the sun bordered by the moon. Quite often, they are joined by another ancient Egyptian symbol, “the eye of Horus” (in Masonic symbolism it represents the all-seeing eye).
According to the majority of Egyptologists, winged Urey-cobra, or Urey in a kind of a cobra and bird, symbolize the unity of Lower and Upper Egypt. According to the reconstruction in my book, "Earth before the Flood - the world of sorcerers and werewolves”, they were administered respectively by snakemen-amphibians and white gods (apsaras), or globally, the sun and moon gods. And being on both sides of the sun disk snakes meant balance (or equality) of counter forces.
In my opinion, the caduceus is another symbolic image of the unity or union. In this case the rod corresponds to the world axis, which as if (seems to) supports the Sun and the Moon (or sky). Wings symbolize celestial or sun (white) gods, and snakes - moon (serpentine) gods. Sun gods are closer to the sky, sun, and moon goods - to the ground. Characteristically, the messengers between gods often have mixed origin. For example, Hermes was a son of the leader of the sun gods Zeus and the nymph (apparently, among snakemen-amphibians) Maya and according to many of his attributes (it was the god of theft and trade) did not match the sun gods.
This hierarchy of the sun and moon gods confirmed by legends of many people, which states that after the first great battle between them, which ended with the victory of white gods (according to my interpretation, taking place at the turn of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, 65.5 million years ago), white or sun gods settled on the surface of Earth and Snakemen down under the ground. Simultaneously the caduceus may be a symbolic representation of the unity of the underworld or land (snakes) and the surface of Earth or Heaven (wings) that revolve around the world axis (the staff) and illuminated by the Moon and the Sun (Knob).
Alliance reflection of the sun and moon gods on the caduceus, winged sun and Wadjet
Interpretation of the meaning of the caduceus proposed by me is supported by a famous image of a winged sun disk from the 9th century BC, found in the palace in Caparra (T) al- Halaf (Syria). It shows the Sumerian-Akkadian epic hero Gilgamesh , flanked by two “semiman-semibuffalos” holding a winged sun.
Why do I call your attention to this relief? In the first place, because “semiman-semibuffalos” are remarkably similar to the ancient gods of the Maya, Nahua, and Aztecs depicted on bas-reliefs of Central America and Mexico, Ica stones and medieval figures. Also, as I have shown in the book “Earth before the Flood - the world of sorcerers and werewolves”, they all belonged to serpent people, or "old" people. According to the “Popol Vuh”, they formed a significant part of the underground settlement of Tulan-Chimostok and predicted the imminent domination of “new” people (humanoid white gods).
Location wings or the winged sun over the snakes or the “old” people, apparently, represents the dominant position of sun or celestial gods over old serpentine or moon gods in their union with each other. And, indeed, when studying mythology, especially the ancient Chinese, history shows that the sun gods always played the leading role. They have always been at least nominal rulers of old people, even when the real power belonged to the last (such as it was in the reign of the legendary Chinese emperors Zhuan Xu and Di – Ku). In almost all cases, there was indication that the guiding hand of “white gods” stretched from north (Hyperborea - AK).
At the same time mythological, especially Indian, history suggests that for a very long time there was an alliance between the sun and moon or celestial or earthly gods. Together they (Adityas, Gandharvas, Apsaras, Nagas, Maruts, and Rakshasas, among others) have struggled against space invaders, both light-skinned and dark-skinned "demons" with a human appearance of Daityas and Danavas. During the “golden age” (and here) (according to my interpretation, in the Paleocene and Eocene, 66-34 million years ago) snakemen and white gods lived together within a single world state, which Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhukada called “Bharatavarsa”. After arrival of Daityas and Danavas on Earth strategic military alliance of white gods, different types of serpent people, many armed creatures and various chimeras and mutants were established to reflect aggression of “demons” - atheists.
This union of the “old” and “new” people, by definition of the “Popol Vuh”, and in my opinion, is reflected on the caduceus, some pictures of a winged sun disk and Egyptian Urey or Wadjet , which often were given in combination with the sun disk or a winged sun. Two snakes on the caduceus and two fringing the sun snake of Urey may mean that in the union two types of serpent people took part - came from the Mesozoic era Nagas, Viyevichs, Maruts, Rudras and others, and also landed on Earth in the late Eocene (34 million years ago) snakemen-amphibious led by Enki, Chalchiuhtlicue, Shennun, etc. And this view is confirmed by many legends.
Reflection of the divine and demonic spirit or soul of a person on the caduceus and fravahare
Anyone can cite one more possible interpretation of the above symbols (it can complement the first one). Sun or celestial gods are personified the highest divine truth, and the image above shows the path for those who manage to overcome the low desires and acquire the knowledge they offer. Conversely, snake-like or moon gods are personified demonic, and their image below shows the direction in which to move those who will be guided in life by carnal desires. It is also possible, and the caduceus and fravahar represents two sides of the human “I”, which co-exist two opposite halves: the light, divine, and the dark, demonic, and offer two possible ways of development. And interestingly, this interpretation is very close to many different interpretations of these symbols.
Or maybe they just show that the human body by agreement between the sun and moon gods became the seat of two souls, both the divine and demonic, and point the way leading to liberation from demonic entity (in terms of sun gods). It is not a coincidence, therefore, many ancient teachings say that in every man there are two opposite halves, one of which carries good, divine beginning, and the other, the evil, demonic one.
Read my work “Types of people and their relationship with the former inhabitants of the Earth” and “Thinking about the nature of the demonic half (entity) of people. What is "the devil dwelling inside us"?", as well as "Ancestors living in people - how to see them? What can teach the profession of a puppeteer?" by A.Kornazhek
Baphomet - a symbol of old serpentine gods, the legacy of which is the demonic "half" of humans
In this regard, it is necessary to mention another Masonic symbol, which was borrowed by them from the Knights Templar, “Baphomet” or “Palladium”.
According to Y. Lukin (“In a world of symbols”, 1936), the interpretation of the word Baphomet (it is also Beelzebub, Baal Zebub - first assistant of Lucifer), read from right to left TEMOHRAS, will Notariqon of the following formula: TEMPLI-OMNIUM-HOMINUM-RACIS-ABBAS, which translated from Latin, means “Rector of all people of the world”.
Yuri Lukin said that Kabalistic drawing transmitted to the Templers together with a statue of Baphomet considered handwritten signature of Baal Zebub by Masons. This system of signs occur on the podium in the houses of Diabolist (Satanists), where the statue rests on a huge bowl, serving the emblem of the Earth. Famous French occultist Eliphas Levi in his book “Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic” (St. Petersburg, 1910), gave a stylized image of Baphomet (goat-headed monster Mende).
Skull between the horns strongly moved apart is steaming sulfur, and burning pentagram on the forehead - Magen Shlomo (Solomon Star). A monster has female torso and eagle wings, goat feet trampling the globe, and an abdomen covered with fish scales. Also, between the legs is a protruding object with a knob similar to the caduceus, but without wings. The left arm points to the moon on the growth and the right - to month on the wane.
These attributes, according to Levy, is the total of the universe: the mind, four elements, divine revelation, sex, motherhood, sin and salvation. White and black crescents on both sides of the figure are symbols of good and evil.
The Church of Satan, founded in 1966 in San Francisco, as a symbol of Satanism, took another image of Baphomet. This image is a goat's head, inscribed in an inverted five-pointed star, located in turn, in a double circle.
"Portrait" of Baphomet on this Masonic symbol is very much like other images of the old gods, (which I attributed to serpentine one, though not always with good reason), the Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Mayan. So I just wanted to say that it represents the oldest terrestrial or moon gods, the inhabitants of the “underworld”. Probably their heritage is present in every human demonic, satanic half. At the same time, some images of the caduceus (with wings) over Baphomet apparently reflects its true place in an alliance with sun gods, giving us thus to understand what are snake pictured on it.
The beginning/Part 4. Key Masonic symbols and their origins (the crosses and all-seeing eye )
© AV Koltypin 2010
© J Gray, 2013 (translation)
We, A. Koltypin the authors of this work, and J.Gray the translator of this work, give permission to use this for any purpose except prohibited by applicable law, on condition that our authorship and hyperlink to the site http://earthbeforeflood.com is given. | http://earthbeforeflood.com/key_masonic_symbols_and_their_origins_winged_sun_double_headed_eagle_and_caduceus_3.html |
This article was written by Global Graduates, published on 2nd May 2014 and has been read 14751 times.
Thanks to Routes into Languages, I was lucky enough to attend a talk about careers for linguists at GCHQ: my secret dream alternate career. (Though now I’ve told you that, there’s no chance whatsoever.) In fact, I’m quite excited by the fact that GCHQ’s Cyber team are obviously going to read this article to check that I’m not causing trouble, so - Hi guys! Keep up the good work :) Here's a roundup of GCHQ: what they do, whether or not they have a license to kill, why languages are important, what GCHQ linguists do, the experience and skills they are looking for, what a graduate role involves, plus top advice and tips for applying for a graduate role.
2. GCHQ is the least well-known of the three intelligence agencies, so what do they do?
4. Why are languages important?
5. What do GCHQ linguists do?
6. What skills and experience do I need?
7. What does a graduate role involve?
As an audience, we know the speaker only by a first name on her badge - ‘Lindsay’ - which is indubitably a ‘nom d’agent’ - but she is quite clearly English, relatively far into her career at GCHQ, and loving her job. She speaks around ten languages, including French, Italian, Arabic and Persian, and wants to make young people aware that if you’re studying one European language, you need a minimum of two for a job at GCHQ - so now’s the time to take up a new one! Or - even better - a rare Middle Eastern dialect!
1. GCHQ needs to know what is going on in other countries in order to protect our interests. They protect what we (the UK) are doing and what we’re talking about from other people. For example, when we hosted the 2012 Olympic Games they had an Olympic Countdown Clock at GCHQ in line with the fear of a terrorist attack with someone wanting to embarrass the UK Government by doing something like sabotaging the timing equipment.
2. During the Cold War, 80% of the linguists at GCHQ were Russian linguists. After the Cold War, many learnt other languages, and now they’re being asked to go back to Russian!
3. Don’t worry about GCHQ listening to your phone conversations and reading all your email by the way (unless you are plotting something, of course) - they still need a warrant to do this, granted by Foreign Secretary William Hague or a senior minister.
4. GCHQ employees do not have a license to kill. You need to apply to MI6 if that's what you're after.
The linguist is the first person at GCHQ who will discover something of importance. They will then need to write a report on it, so linguists need to be well-trained and very intelligent.
Languages are required for Signals Intelligence (known as ‘SIGINT’), where they can be used in the interception of foreign electronic signals; filtering, processing and decryption of data; transcription and translation; analysis of the data collected; and delivery of intelligence to customers, including government departments, the Foreign Office, the Police Force, and other countries.
Of 4,500 people at GCHQ, there are about 250 linguists who collectively and generally cover 40 languages, but have capacity in 60.
1. Identify content in spoken or written foreign language, and then decide if it is important, of current interest and legal to analyse and report.
3. Write reports for ‘customers’.
4. Present the findings at meetings, briefings and conferences.
5. Interpret with meetings with allies, or for the public.
Once you have worked in one language for a while, you are encouraged to learn another, and in terms of career progression for GCHQ linguists, you can continue to work in languages while progressing in your career with a definite career path.
Most GCHQ linguists have a language degree (the year abroad gives you valuable cultural and communication skills - especially if you do something 'off the beaten track'), but you can apply if you have been brought up with a language.
They don’t need that many European linguists, but they recruit people with two common European languages (e.g. French and Spanish) to retrain in other languages, because they clearly have an aptitude for language learning. One European language is not enough - minimum two - but one of the languages on the ‘interested in’ list is enough.
The starting salary is £25,000pa, and for the first 12 to 18 months you are simply required to learn another language - you don’t have to work on the side! You come into GCHQ at linguistic Level 1, and you are expected to get to Level 2 within a year, with a lot of help from senior linguists! From 9am til 4pm you learn your new language in small groups of 2-6 people, doing conversation classes, watching films, reading books, and practicing speaking and writing. You also have 2 hours a day of self-study.
If you have learnt Arabic at university, you will have learnt standard Arabic, so you might spend your first year learning a particular Arabic dialect so that your skills are more useful to GCHQ. For example, at the time of the Libyan crisis, Arabic-speakers of a similar dialect quickly shifted over to the relevant Libyan dialects.
You can see that for passionate linguists, this is a fantastic opportunity to discover new cultures and ways of thinking.
1. If you’ve done a language A Level, then pick up a new language ab initio at university! The rarer the language, the higher the demand.
2. Practice written translation from the foreign language into English, and practice transcription too - write down a piece from the radio either in the foreign language or in English (an important skill - more so than your degree, according to Lindsay!) It has to be very accurate, with names, details and everything! This is what your entry test will involve, so get practicing!
3. There are some posts abroad, but if you’re looking for a foreign posting then you need to apply to MI6 - but DON’T TELL ANYONE IF YOU’RE THINKING OF APPLYING! Or you'll have to kill them.
Are there many jobs in academia for linguists? | https://globalgraduates.com/articles/gchq-careers-for-linguists |
There are so many good places to fish in our area this time of year.
Jim and I fished a spot on the Middle Provo this week that we haven’t visited in a while. Then later, I took one of my neighbors back to the same place.
Again, both these days were very bright days, but we managed to catch fish.
What flies and techniques caught fish on the Lower and Middle Provo River – Late May to Early June?
This report was prepared on May 18, so the dates include 29 total days from May 4 – June 1 (14 days before and after).
We have records for 15 fishing trips this time of year between 2014 – 2018. We don’t normally fish the Lower Provo this time of year, but we fished the Middle Provo nine times and caught a total of 120 fish.
We also made 5 additional fly fishing trips to Strawberry Res., the Strawberry River and other places.
Catch Chart Middle Provo River –
May 4 – June 1
|Technique||Fly||Fish||Pcent|
|nymphing
|
bounce
inline
or Euro
or swing
|Sow Bug||49||40.8%|
|P.R. Worm||16||13.3%|
|midge nymph||13||10.8%|
|BWO nymph||8||6.7%|
|PMD nymph||5||4.2%|
|Total under
||91||75.8%|
|dry or
|
dry-dropper
|Caddis||26||21.7%|
|Palmer Fly||2||1.7%|
|Green shuck||1||0.8%|
|Total Top||29||24.2%|
We caught a total of 120 fish with 91 fish by nymphing (mostly bounce rig and light in-line rigs) and we caught 29 fish on top fishing dry flies.
The majority of our fish (almost 76%) were caught on the Middle Provo Rivers using under-water fly fishing techniques; mostly the Provo River Bounce rig. When fish are rising, we actively fish dry flies, otherwise, we usually nymph.
What to expect in May on the Lower and Middle Provo Rivers
The water usually starts running faster this time of year on the Lower Provo (and was running at over 500 cfs today), so we usually fish the Middle Provo or one of the many other streams in our area.
I talked to several anglers this week that reported good success with the stoneflies around the Bunny Farm (above River Road) area on the Middle Provo and the newest DWR fishing report for the Middle Provo River (updated May 15), but they also mentioned watching for stone flies.
We specifically fished that area (North side of River Road; AKA Bunny Farm) this week hoping to see stoneflies, but did not see any stone flies or any major hatch of any kind.
We did see evidence of a few drowned caddis from previous hatches, but we caught all fish on Provo River worms, sow bugs and very small midge nymphs.
We agree with the Division report, fishing was better mid-morning than later in the day.
Don’t know where to fish? Want to improve your fly fishing skills? Want to do something special with out of town friends? Book a guided trip with Jim and Dan. Click Here to Learn More.
Flies to Use in Early May on the Provo River
What flies should be in your fly box the next few weeks on the Lower or Middle Provo River?
Our Catch Charts for this time frame had only three flies for the Lower Provo and eight flies for the Middle Provo.
These were the most important flies for both the Lower and Middle Provo Rivers:
- sow bug
- Caddis
- BWO nymph
- P.R. worm
- midge nymph
- PMD nymph
Historically on the Middle Provo this time of year, sow bugs caught over 40% of our fish in previous trips and caddis (dry flies) accounted for just over 20% of our catches.
Add the Provo River worm to your fly box along with some very small (size 20 – 22) midge and BWO nymphs, and that accounted for almost 90% of all the fish we caught.
As I’ve mentioned before, we fish the Middle Provo more than the Lower Provo River this time of year, because water managers have to increase the flow in the Lower Provo.
If you plan to fish the Lower Provo, be safe and try bouncing sow bugs and small BWO and midge nymphs at the edge of the fast water.
May Provo River Flows
Today, the flow out of Jordanelle is 316 cfs into the upper part of the Middle Provo River (down slightly from last week even though we had some rain). As of this morning, it is was running at over 500 cfs out of Deer Creek Reservoir.
Since the snow pack above the Provo River is now at 18% for this time of year, the runoff will not be high this year and any high water we do get will not last long.
We look forward to seeing you on the river.
This Provo River Fishing Outlook Report is provided by Jim O’Neal & BackcountryChronicles.com
Winner of Free Guided Fly Fishing Trip With Backcountry Adventures Fly Fishing
Jeremy Cunningham from Orem Utah won the trip. He brought his Dad (Mike) on their trip….
“I want to take my dad with me on the guided trip. We’ve fished together our whole lives but have recently gotten into fly fishing.
We’re both at the beginner stage but learning quickly. I would love to learn how to match the hatch as well as work on fly presentation.”
***We had a great day on the Middle Provo River yesterday (July 19) with Jeremy and Mike. Fishing was tough, but after they got the hang of casting, mending and recognizing strikes, they both caught some very nice fish. (Will link to photos and video when posted).
If there is enough interest (Leave comments on the new fishing reports), we will have another free trip later this Summer.
See all of our fly fishing videos here at Jim’s YouTube site.
Our video from this week is not ready yet, so check out last year to remember high fast the water was running.
Fly Fishing Big Flow Late May Provo River
This is the best fly box we’ve ever used. It’s Magnetic! Simply drop your wet flies on the magnetic pad and never lose another fly to the wind! | https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/provo-river-fishing-report-5-18-18/ |
Who won Brown vs Pouncy?
Alandria Brown beat Jasmine Pouncy by submission in the 1st round, during the prelims of LFA 137, on Friday 29th July 2022 at Commerce Casino in Commerce.
The fight was scheduled to take place over 3 rounds in the Strawweight division, which meant the weight limit was 115 pounds (8.2 stone or 52.2 KG).
Brown vs Pouncy stats
Alandria Brown stepped into the ring with an undefeated record of 0 wins, zero loses and 0 draws.
Jasmine Pouncy made his way to the ring with a record of 1 wins, 1 loss and 0 draws, with 1 of those wins by knock out.
The stats suggested Pouncy had a massive power advantage over Brown, boosting at 100% knock out percentage over Brown's 0%.
Alandria Brown was the older man by 3 years, at 28 years old.
Brown had a height advantage of 1 inch over Pouncy.
Brown was the less experienced professional fighter, having had 2 less fights. He had fought 2 less professional rounds, 0 to Pouncy's 2.
Activity check
Brown's last 2 fights had come over a period of 1 year, 4 months and 19 days, meaning he had been fighting on average every 8 months and 10 days. In those fights, he fought a total of 6 rounds, meaning that they had lasted 3 rounds on average.
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You must be logged in to post a comment. | https://www.mmafacts.com/bouts/brown-vs-pouncy/ |
In order to modify the defects of the existing method for the laying of color stone on the pavement, the utility model provides a prefabricated slab of color stone pavement. The using of the prefabricated slab of color stone pavement solves the problem of difficult forming of the decorative patterns of the pavement, difficult spreading of small area and non-strong firm degree, and has more beauty and short period of the construction. The prefabricated slab of color stone pavement comprises a concrete slab body (1) and a steel wire mesh (2) arranged in the concrete slab body. A color stone positioning steel wire (3) is prefabricated in the direction of perpendicular to the slab plane in the concrete slab body (1). Wherein one end of the positioning steel wire (2) is connected with a color stone (4) and the other end is connected with the steel wire mesh (2). A connecting hole is arranged in the color stone (4). One end of the color stone (4) is tightly inserted in the connecting hole and the other end is sleeved with the steel wire of the positioning steel wire (2). The length of the positioning steel wires (2) are same. Some of the color stone (4) is exposed outside the surface of the concrete slab body (1). | |
The inaugural panel for Q3 began with the observation that, “Political Science had given up on the future.” In his opening words, Director James Der Derian remarked that what has hindered our ability to prepare for the shocks to the international system has been the abandonment of the essential imperative to speculate. When the premise of a peace and security symposium is speculation, identifying vantage points becomes the primary challenge. Assembling thinkers from a spectrum of methods, disciplines, and cultures, the opening panel traced three of these points.
Michael Biercuk, Associate Professor of Physics and Director of the Quantum Control Laboratory at the University of Sydney, opened the panel with his presentation titled ‘A New Quantum Revolution‘. Dr. Biercuk discussed how multiple quantum phenomena are being harnessed as resources in powering new quantum technologies, beyond the quantum computer alone. For example, quantum superposition and entanglement research is improving the issue of industrial nitrogen fixation; improvements in semiconductor fabrication have also led to improvements in national power grid resilience and efficiency. These developments are at the centre of a collaborative relationship between the public and private sectors, covering issues from defence to finance. At the centre of Dr. Biercuk’s presentation was the question, what will happen when the application of advanced quantum technologies becomes exploited? What are the consequences of winning – or losing – a global technological race?
Shohini Ghose, Associate Professor of Physics at Wilfred Laurier University in Canada, followed with a social perspective examining the individuals tasked with developing and operating these quantum technologies. Titled ‘Quantum Diversity‘, Dr. Ghose traced the relationship between the invisible world of quantum theory and the visible world of quantum scientists. To develop this, Dr. Ghose remarked on classical versus quantum behaviours, how entanglement at the quantum level and chaos at the classical level arise from the coupling between the atomic spin and its center-of- mass motion. To explain this, Dr. Ghose drew on recent research into quantum tunnelling – the quantum mechanical phenomenon where a particle tunnels through a barrier that it classically could not surmount. These behaviours translate into a set of guidelines: the invisible can be made visible, barriers can be crossed, small changes can have a big impact, and nonlocal connections are powerful. Tying the discussion back to the social perspective, Dr. Ghose outlined that these quantum-classical behaviours could be translated into strategies and applied to questions of diversity.
Bentley B. Allan, Assistant Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins University, continued with a historical perspective of the philosophical and political discourses that frame the scientific processes of development. Titled ‘Quantum Cosmologies and the Future of the International Order‘, Dr. Allan drew on the international history of scientific ideas to demonstrate how they have shaped international orders by reconfiguring foundational concepts that underpin political discourses. For example, there was Copernicus’ mathematics and heliocentric model of the universe, then Descartes’ philosophy on the world as matter possessing a few fundamental properties and interacting according to a few universal laws. Anticipating the potential effects of a 21st century quantum revolution on political discourses, the place of the individual within the universe would be challenged with direct implications for the configuration of states and their sources of power. These effects could occur through three channels: the metaphorical, the institutional, and the technological. Analysing the arrangement of interests, Dr. Allan concluded that a few questions needed to be answered: how could quantum technologies introduce practices that would reconstitute state power, and who are the central actors at the centre of quantum research?
Raising questions of speculation and simulation, this panel offered a primer. As a useful method of inquiry, simulations become acutely useful when speculating about the future. Reiterating Richard Feynman, the famous American physicist, “Nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it’s a wonderful problem because it doesn’t look so easy”. As a driver of change in the global security matrix, quantum technologies hold a uniquely volatile capacity to affect the future of the international system. This panel revealed that in the broader debate of peace and security in a quantum age, vantage points are not necessarily fixed; instead, they form the strands of a much larger fabric of thought.
Eleanor Claire Williams is a recent Master of International Relations graduate of the University of Sydney, and is currently working in public policy for the NSW Government. Eleanor is also a Project Q research assistant and contributor to the blog. | https://projectqsydney.com/2016/03/04/the-q-symposium-quantum-moment-panel/ |
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- press.
Instruction
1
Well wash the shoes and let it dry for at least a day in a warm place. If the moisture is completely evaporated, to glue the materials to each other will be very difficult, and the shoes will break again in a few days, especially if the street is wet weather.
2
Apply a small amount of acetone on a rag and thoroughly wipe material. It not only removes the remaining particles of dirt, but will degrease. You can also use for degreasing gasoline. If the gap between the two parts of the Shoe is large, treat the surface with emery cloth.
3
Smear glue on the place that you want to glue. Wait 10 minutes, then strongly squeeze and hold. Place the shoes under a press for 24 hours, during which time the glue is completely dry. For repair of shoes it is better to use glue, but super glue doesn't work well, though, and dries in minutes.
4
If the shoes fell apart again, you can flash it, but make it your own is problematic, in this case it is better to consult a cobbler. If you decide to flash shoes for yourself, use a needle and thick Shoe very durable nylon thread. Try to flash along the line of the sole is approximately 2 mm below the place where the material begins immediately. | https://eng.kakprosto.ru/how-31617-how-to-seal-the-shoes |
Overweight and Diabetes are two of the main public health problems of our society and are strongly linked to common Lifestyle determinants such as physical inactivity and poor dietary habits. Physical inactivity and overweight are also main factors contributing to the development of cardiovascular disease. This research program aims to curb the obesity and diabetes epidemics by identification of the primary lifestyle and biological determinants and by evaluation of efficient ways to improve lifestyle in order to prevent disease and to improve outcomes in people with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Pathophysiology and epidemiology of overweight and diabetes. This theme includes experimental and epidemiological studies of the biological, genetic and behavioral determinants of overweight and diabetes and their potential interrelations.
Prevention of overweight and diabetes. Research projects pertaining to this theme aim to modify unhealthy lifestyles with a particular emphasis on improving dietary intake and promoting or increasing physical activity and reducing sedentariness.
Care for patients with overweight and diabetes. Projects addressing the effectiveness and efficiency of health care aimed at chronic disease management of obesity and type-2 diabetes are central in this theme.
These themes are studied in children, adults and the elderly population.
Physical inactivity and overweight are two important factors contributing to the development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The program Lifestyle, Overweight and Diabetes combines the expertise of the pathophysiology and epidemiology of metabolic and cardiovascular abnormalities, expertise and practical experience of diabetes, prevention programs and the development of health care.
The prevalence of obesity has risen over the last decades, and incidence and prevalence of Type 2 diabetes is still on the rise, in the Netherlands as well as abroad. Further curbing these epidemics requires better insight in their biological, including genetic, and behavioral determinants and their interactions and interrelations. Furthermore, there is still a lack of evidence-based prevention schemes and the growing number of patients asks for evidence-based chronic disease management interventions, including self-management schemes. For the coming years our research efforts will focus on gaining further insight in the causal pathways, effective lifestyle interventions to contribute to prevention, and on improving chronic disease management. | http://www.emgo.nl/research/lifestyle-overweight-and-diabetes |
Computer Science is a fascinating subject that teaches you how to think through problem-solving tasks and challenges. This is a two-year course that covers the theory of computation and many practical elements. You will become a competent programmer in Visual Basic.NET as well as working on an investigative project on a topic of interest to you.
Our resources, events and support are second to none and we are confident that you will both enjoy and achieve at the end of this course.
You will be assessed formally through two exams (80%), one of which is an on-screen examination and a coursework element (20%).
A qualification in Computer Science equips you with numerous skills: literacy, numeracy, analytical reasoning and problem-solving.
Taking A-level Maths with this A-level will be advantageous but not essential.
Careers in Computer Science
On completion of this course, you can pursue courses in higher education to do Software Engineering, Gaming, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security or explore the Cognitive Sciences, Data Handling, Aerospace Technology, Business Systems and much more. Alternatively, you could choose an apprenticeship in Computing or start your career as a trainee in an IT related field. There are more job opportunities in this fast-moving industry than there are graduates available, with earnings exceeding most other fields of study.
Entry Requirements
You need to have achieved at least 5 GCSEs at grade 4 or above (A*-C), these need to include Maths at grade 5 and English. There is no need to have taken Computer Science at GCSE to be accepted on this course, however if you have, then a grade 4 in Maths would suffice. It is vital to have an interest in this subject and be keen to keep up-to-date with the latest technology. | https://www.bsix.ac.uk/courses/computer-science/ |
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) helps doctors incorporate the best available scientific evidence into their individual patient care decisions.
Today's doctors face a serious challenge trying to keep up with the vast amounts of new information on the latest available drugs, technology, and research. Evidence-based medicine provides doctors with a methodology to manage this vast amount of data.
Doctors who can easily access current best evidence are able to combine it with their own clinical expertise to determine how the research may help meet patients' individual treatment needs.
Putting Evidence-Based Medicine into Practice
Doctors practice evidence-based medicine using a four-step process: ask a well-constructed clinical question; search for the best evidence to answer the question; critically evaluate the evidence; and apply the evidence to patients.
Ask a Well-Constructed Clinical Question
Asking a well-constructed clinical question involves use of the "PICO" mnemonic.
- P is for patient characteristics. These include age, gender, condition, social situation, resources, values, and setting (rural or urban, inpatient or outpatient).
"For people under 60 with chronic low back pain..."
- I is for intervention. What treatment is your doctor considering? This could be a medication, a diagnostic test, or a certain treatment.
"For people under 60 with chronic low back pain, is acupuncture..."
- C is for comparison. What option to the intervention can your doctor compare it to? This could include alternative treatments or tests, or even no treatment at all.
"For people under 60 with chronic low back pain, is acupuncture as effective as wearing a brace..."
- O is for outcome. An outcome is the effect your doctor wants to achieve or avoid. The outcome can be an effect from a treatment or its side effect.
"For people under 60 with chronic low back pain, is acupuncture as effective as wearing a brace in relieving pain."
Search for the Best Evidence to Answer the Question
Medical library databases house records of journal articles that contain the information, or evidence, needed to address the clinical question. Searching medical databases is similar to performing a Google search, but using sophisticated medical search engines instead.
Critically Evaluate the Evidence
The information obtained from searching the evidence must be evaluated. This involves assessing how well the research was conducted (the internal validity) and how well the results can be generalized to patients (external validity).
Apply the Evidence to Patients
Once the evidence has been critically evaluated, the doctor must decide whether the results apply to the specific patient. This involves identifying what is unique to the patient and the doctor, such as the doctor's knowledge, skill, and experience, as well as the patient's concerns and expectations.
Clinical Practice Guidelines
It can be difficult to obtain high levels of evidence to answer some medical questions. This is especially true for problems with complex treatments or variations, such as orthopaedic surgery. In these situations, general guidelines based on evidence — called clinical practice guidelines — can help doctors make treatment decisions.
To develop a guideline, a panel of experts meticulously reviews the medical literature and scientific evidence to determine the highest level of evidence available to answer the specific medical question. The panel then uses its collective expertise to "fill in the gaps" where high-level evidence is lacking.
Guidelines provide doctors with the best available scientific evidence, and are a useful tool in making decisions about treatment options.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons provides its members with several Clinical Practice Guidelines to assist in patient care decisions.
Types of Research Studies
There are several different types of research studies and, depending upon the subject matter, some study results are more valid than others. This is often based upon a study's potential for bias.
Bias
Bias is defined as "prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair." There are many forms of bias that can occur in scientific experiments and drastically distort the results. Most of these biases are not intentional.
- Popularity bias may attract certain volunteers to a research study because it focuses on a popular trend, such as natural or organic treatment options.
- Publication bias may occur if a medical journal is more likely to publish a study with a positive result.
- Volunteer bias may occur when subjects who volunteer to participate in a study do not represent the population as a whole.
- Magnitude bias may occur if the reporting of research results exaggerates the occurrence of the problem. For example: Exposure to some agent may result in an additional 10,000 people becoming ill. Out of the total number of people affected, this represents only an increase of 0.0001%. The number 10,000 seems quite large, but 0.0001 is almost zero.
Double-blind Randomized Controlled Trial
The best way to minimize the chance of bias occurring in a scientific experiment is to perform a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT).
- Randomized means that patients are randomly placed into different treatment groups.
- Controlled means that some groups may not receive any treatment at all (or may receive a placebo).
- Double-blind means that neither the subjects nor the people involved in analyzing the results know which patients received the treatment and which did not.
Double-blind randomized controlled trials are usually conducted when the treatment being evaluated is a medicine. It is usually difficult and, more importantly, unethical to design this type of study when a complicated form of treatment, such as surgery, is involved. For example, doctors would not perform "fake" operations on patients to best evaluate whether performing a surgical procedure is better than other forms of treatment.
Cohort Study
A cohort is a group of people who are being studied for a similar reason. They may have been exposed to a drug or toxin, or they may need a similar medical procedure. A cohort study follows this group of people over time, then compares them to a similar group of people who have not been exposed to the variable.
- Prospective cohort studies follow a group forward in time from the initial exposure.
- Retrospective cohort studies follow a group backward in time from a certain outcome.
Case-control Study
A case-control study focuses on a certain medical condition. People with the condition (called cases) are compared to those who do not have the condition but are otherwise similar. The group without the condition is called the "controls" because they represent a healthy or normal condition. Examples of this type of study include those that demonstrated the strong association between lung cancer and smoking. Smokers (the cases) were compared to nonsmokers (the controls).
Case Series and Case Report Studies
A case series or case report is a collection of observations of a small group of similar patients (series), or of a single patient (report). A case report often documents an unusual appearance of a known disease or an account of a new disease or condition.
These types of research studies are observations with no control groups for comparison of outcomes.
Meta-analysis
In a meta-analysis, researchers carefully combine data from many similar studies in order to conduct a powerful statistical analysis. The results from this analysis are reported as if they were from one large study.
Hierarchy of Evidence
In evidence-based medicine, it is necessary to determine which research is the strongest and most authoritative. To evaluate the validity of a study's results, researchers consider the potential for bias. Some research studies are less susceptible to bias than others, depending upon the topic being analyzed. How well a study limits potential bias is tied to its validity, and determines where it falls within a hierarchy of evidence.
For example, to assess the effectiveness of a specific drug or new diagnostic test, the hierarchy of evidence generally looks like this:
- Randomized controlled trial
- Prospective cohort study
- Retrospective cohort study
- Case-control study
For any level in the hierarchy, a meta-analysis is more powerful than any single study. For instance, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials evaluating the benefit of Vitamin C in curing the common cold would be more powerful than the results of just one randomized controlled trial on the subject.
Challenges to the Hierarchy of Evidence
Ethics
In cases where there is an obvious and large benefit to a treatment intervention, it may be unnecessary or even unethical to conduct randomized controlled trials. Patients in the control group would be deprived of the benefits of the intervention.
Unnecessary Trials
Randomized controlled trials may not be necessary when the mechanism of action of a drug or other intervention is well understood. In addition, trials may not be needed if the results can be reliably predicted from theory rather than experiment, or if a large number of consistent observational studies exist. For example, the benefits of pap smears, insulin, and penicillin are well known and the risk is very small that conclusions about their effectiveness would be wrong.
Real-life vs Trial Conditions
Randomized controlled trials often represent a "best-case" example. This means that patients in these studies are those most likely to follow all of the rules and conditions of the study. As a result, there is a greater chance for success.
In the real world, the results may be less effective. Randomized controlled trials may overestimate effectiveness because they take place under ideal, rather than real-life, conditions.
Physician Experience
When technical interventions such as surgery are involved, the expertise of the surgeon may be as important as the results of a high-level study. For example, a randomized controlled trial may show that in certain circumstances, outcomes are better when a torn rotator cuff tendon is treated with arthroscopy. However, a surgeon who has many years of experience treating these tears with standard, open surgery may have better outcomes than a surgeon who is still mastering arthroscopic techniques.
Advantages of Evidence-Based Medicine
There are more advantages to evidence-based medicine than simply providing a methodology for managing the large volume of available data.
Identifying Cost-Effective Treatment Options
The cost of health care remains high, and there are limited resources to serve large populations. As a result, there is increasing pressure for healthcare providers to demonstrate the effectiveness of the treatments they recommend, and to use the most cost effective measures to treat patients. EBM is a helpful tool in this regard.
Sharing Early Research Findings
Another advantage of EBM is that it helps to decrease the delay of "bench to bedside research." It can take many years for important breakthroughs discovered in the laboratory to become available to doctors and their patients. One study, published in Science, showed that the median time from initial discovery of a medical intervention to a highly cited article was 24 years.
This time period allows for extensive testing to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a breakthrough. However, sometimes this delay can result in unnecessary harm if a new treatment has great promise. The EBM process allows better dissemination of early research findings to doctors and patients alike.
Evaluating Conflicting Results
EBM offers a way for practitioners to deal with conflicting results. It is not uncommon for one (or several) studies to show that an intervention is effective, while others show that the same intervention is not helpful. EBM provides a method of analyzing and "grading" the results of these studies, and even allows data from several studies to be combined in an effort to generate a more "powerful" answer.
Conclusion
Many misconceptions exist about what EBM is and is not. It is not cookbook medicine, managed care, cost-cutting measures, or rigid guidelines defining how a patient should be treated. When used appropriately, EBM is a rigorously systematic way for doctors to evaluate the appropriateness of available evidence for the care of an individual patient. EBM makes it possible for physicians to make treatment decisions based on an informed balance of patient values, clinical expertise, and available evidence.
Last Reviewed
February 2021
Contributed and/or Updated by
AAOS does not endorse any treatments, procedures, products, or physicians referenced herein. This information is provided as an educational service and is not intended to serve as medical advice. Anyone seeking specific orthopaedic advice or assistance should consult his or her orthopaedic surgeon, or locate one in your area through the AAOS Find an Orthopaedist program on this website. | https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/treatment/orthopaedic-evidence-based-medicine/ |
People using assistive technology may not be able to fully access information in these files. For additional assistance, please contact us.
Structured Abstract
Objectives
To summarize the benefits and harms of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) compared to conventional treatment (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs] and/or intra-articular corticosteroids) with or without methotrexate, and of the various DMARDs compared to one another, in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA); and to describe selected tools commonly used to measure clinical outcomes associated with JIA.
Data Sources
MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Additional studies were identified from the review of reference lists.
Review Methods
To evaluate efficacy, we included prospective trials that included a comparator and that lasted for at least 3 months. No comparator was required for reports of adverse events or of the clinical outcome measure tools.
Results
A total of 198 articles were included. There is some evidence that methotrexate is superior to conventional treatment (NSAIDs and/or intra-articular corticosteroids). Among children who have responded to a biologic DMARD, randomized discontinuation trials suggest that continued treatment decreases the risk of having a flare. Although these studies evaluated DMARDs with different mechanisms of action (abatacept, adalimumab, anakinra, etanercept, intravenous immunoglobulin, tocilizumab) and used varying comparators, followup periods, and descriptions of flare, the finding of a reduced risk of flare was precise and consistent. There are few direct comparisons of DMARDs, and insufficient evidence to determine if any specific drug or drug class has greater beneficial effects. Reported rates of adverse events are similar between DMARDs and placebo in nearly all published randomized controlled trials. This review identified 11 incident cases of cancer among several thousand children treated with one or more DMARD. The Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ) was the most extensively evaluated instrument of those considered. While it demonstrated high reproducibility and internal consistency, it had only moderate correlations with indices of disease activity and quality of life, and poor to moderate responsiveness.
Conclusions
Few data are available to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of either specific DMARDs or general classes of DMARDs. However, based on the overall number, quality, and consistency of studies, there is moderate strength of evidence to support that DMARDs improve symptoms associated with JIA. Limited data suggest that short-term risk of cancer is low. Future trials are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of DMARDs against both conventional therapy and other DMARDs across categories of JIA, and registries are needed to better understand the risks of these drugs. | https://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/products/juvenile-arthritis-dmards/research |
20.26.007 Timing of administrative design review.
20.26.011 Design review submittal requirements.
20.26.013 Development and design review guidelines.
20.26.020 Required findings to grant design review adjustments.
20.26.024 Public notification and action on design review adjustment applications.
20.26.026 Appeal of director’s action on design review adjustments.
20.26.040 Director authority and findings.
20.26.100 Duplex and triplex design standards.
20.26.300 Nonresidential design review standards.
20.26.400 Industrial (ML) design standards.
(4) Nonresidential development located in all zones. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2680 § 3, 2001; Ord. 2518 § 1, 1997; Ord. 2513 § 1 (Att. A § 3.a), 1997; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(3) Normal building maintenance including the repair or maintenance of structural members. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(6) Offer incentives of density bonus or height bonus to encourage the provision of community benefits, facilities or improvements above and beyond those required in city ordinances, and supporting the goals, objectives and policies of the adopted comprehensive plan. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
Design review shall be conducted by the director as a part of site plan review pursuant to building permit issuance and/or review of discretionary land use permits. A pre-application conference with the community development department is strongly recommended in order to clarify the standards and the requirements of the design review process and to assist applicants in preparing a pre-application vicinity meeting and a subsequent formal application. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(1) This meeting shall only be required for applicants proposing a new multiple-family project that contains 20 or more dwelling units or for commercial and/or any nonresidential projects on sites that are within 300 feet of residential development and which either: (a) are greater than 10,000 square feet in floor area; (b) include more than 20,000 square feet of impervious coverage; or (c) involve outdoor sales, fueling, services or repair.
(2) The purpose of this meeting is to facilitate an early informal discussion between the applicant and neighbors regarding the conceptual characteristics of the architectural and site design of the proposed project. The meeting shall be open to residents within the vicinity, including those living farther away than the distance established in subsection (4) of this section. Nothing in this section shall be construed to delegate design or project review decision-making authority to the participants in the preapplication vicinity meeting.
(3) Development services1 department staff shall attend the meeting and shall prepare a summary of the comments made at the meeting. This summary shall be entered as a part of the record for consideration by the development services1 director in reviewing the project for compliance with design standards. Additional written materials or illustrations submitted by the applicant or members of the public attending the meeting may be added to said record.
(4) The notification radius for the meeting shall be a minimum of 300 feet, or the notification of application radius assigned to the underlying land use permit, whichever is greater. A certified list of the mailing shall be provided to the development services department. Notice of the meeting shall be sent by the applicant by first class mail to all owners of property as shown on the last available county tax assessor’s roll2 at least 10 days before the meeting.
(5) Notice shall be posted in a conspicuous location on the property to which the proposed application will apply at least 10 days prior to the date of the meeting. Posting of a notice within public right-of-way adjacent to the subject property shall be considered as meeting the requirements of this subsection.
(d) Sketch building elevations showing conceptual massing of building(s). (Ord. 3119 § 25, 2016; Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001).
(5) A written narrative from the project architect outlining in point-by-point detail compliance with all applicable design standards that apply to the project scope. (Ord. 3119 § 26, 2016; Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001).
The city council, upon recommendation of the planning commission, may establish additional administrative guidelines for use by the community development director in review of new development subject to design review. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
Any affected person may challenge an interpretation and determination of the director pertaining to this section subject to the provisions of Chapter 20.87 PMC and related sections of the municipal code. (Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(1) Residential Development. An adjustment to architectural or site design requirements such that no more than two of the total number of required menu items in PMC 20.26.100 and 20.26.200 are out of compliance.
(3) Site Plan Design Principles. In the event that a building cannot be designed to meet the street corner building entrance orientation and “corner terminus” design guidelines due to special circumstances related to the building’s function or intended use, applicants may request relief from PMC 20.26.300(3)(b)(ii), only, upon review and approval by the design review and historic preservation board. The applicant shall demonstrate equal or superior architectural compliance with the design guidelines when requesting relief from the entrance standards. Nothing in this section shall be construed to allow a deviation in setbacks as they relate to the building’s location on a site plan. (Ord. 3119 § 27, 2016; Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(4) That each of the findings under PMC 20.26.040 can be made by the community development director in granting such adjustment. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
Upon the filing of a properly completed application and associated request for a design review adjustment, the director shall, within a reasonable time, make an initial determination that the proposed design complies with the required findings as contained in PMC 20.26.020 and 20.26.040. Upon determining that required findings can be made, the director shall notify by mail those individuals requiring meeting notice under PMC 20.26.009(4) informing them of the requested adjustment and the city’s initial determination to issue the approval, including any conditions of approval, if applicable. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(1) If a written objection to the initial determination notice is filed by any such property owner or by the applicant within 10 business days of said notification, the community development director shall reconsider the initial determination in light of the objection(s) as raised and render a final decision on the permit. This final decision shall result in either the director’s affirmation of the original determination of approval, the approval with additional modifications or denial.
(a) The appeal shall be filed on forms provided by the community development director.
(b) The appeal shall clearly state the decision being appealed, setting forth the specific reason, rationale, and/or basis for the appeal.
(c) Fees associated with the appeal shall be paid to the city upon filing of the appeal in accordance with a fee schedule established by resolution.
(3) Upon filing of a timely and complete appeal, the hearing examiner shall conduct a public hearing to consider the merits of the appeal. This hearing shall be subject to the noticing and public hearing requirements set forth in Chapter 20.12 PMC, and shall include notification of all parties notified of the director’s final decision. The hearing examiner may affirm the director’s decision or may remand the matter to the director for further review in accord with the examiner’s direction.
(4) If no written objection is filed to the initial determination within the specified time limits, the director shall render a final decision on the permit in accord with the initial determination. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(4) The proposed development meets required setback, landscaping, architectural style and materials, such that the building walls have sufficient visual variety to mitigate the appearance of large facades, particularly form public rights-of-way and residential zones. (Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
Unless otherwise stated, the following standards apply to duplex and triplex structures, whether individual or part of a larger project.
(e) Garage doors and front entry doors facing different directions than the doors of the abutting unit(s) in such a manner as to avoid a book-matched or mirror-image design in the facade and so that, in elevation view, the structure’s overall door and window fenestration resembles a single-family house.
(d) Front entry door facing a different direction than the door of the abutting unit(s).
(3) Average Setbacks of Duplex and Triplex Structures in RS Zones. The front yard shall be either the average of the front yards of the single-family structure on either side, or not less than minimum front yard setback established in PMC 20.20.020(5), whichever is less. In the case where one of the adjacent lots is vacant, or in the case of a corner lot, averaging shall be accomplished by averaging the minimum setback requirement, with the adjacent structure(s) within 100 feet on either side.
(4) Duplex and Triplex Roof Pitches. All duplexes and triplexes shall have a roof pitch no less steep than 4:12 for coverage of no less than 65 percent of the structure.
(5) Duplex and Triplex Roof Lengths. For all duplexes and triplexes exceeding one story in height, no ridgeline shall be greater than 24 feet in length without a five-foot vertical or sloped offset that creates a new ridgeline that is at least 10 feet in length.
(6) Duplex and Triplex Front Forward Garages. Structures with garages placed forward of the living portion of the dwellings shall contain window openings on the front facade, not including openings into the garage, equal to no less than one-half (50 percent) of the surface area of the garage doors.
(7) Duplex and Triplex Orientation to the Street. Streetfront orientation or a facade of a side elevation containing proportionally at least as many windows, trim, siding and other building details as on the front elevation shall be required if the duplex or triplex structure faces a traditional street system or public right-of-way.
(Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2513 § 1 (Att. A § 3.b), 1997; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(a) Dwelling units shall be arranged around courtyards as per subsection (2) of this section.
(b) Dwelling units shall be organized along a traditional street system as per subsection (3) of this section.
(c) Dwelling units shall be oriented towards a major natural feature on or directly adjacent to the site, including an environmentally critical area and associated buffer, or a stand of significant trees exceeding three acres in size protected within a native growth easement or designated open space area.
(a) The size of the courtyard space, or series of courtyard spaces, shall be no smaller than 30 percent of required common open space. A portion of the courtyard space, not to exceed 40 percent of the total, may be private open space.
(b) The length of the courtyard space shall be no greater than twice the width. The courtyard space may be secured with fences and gates.
(c) The courtyard space shall be unobstructed from the ground to the sky bound on three or more sides constituting enclosure of 60 percent (as measured such that 100 percent creates total enclosure) or more of the space.
(d) Enclosure of the courtyard may be achieved by any of the following means and combinations thereof: walls of one or more buildings; a continuous row of plants which3 will achieve a height of at least six feet within three years of planting; walls higher than six feet; berms with a continuous row of plants which will achieve a height of at least six feet within three years of planting from the original grade; or natural earth forms steeper than 40 percent grade and higher than 10 feet.
(i) At least two of the following pedestrian amenities are provided in the space: seating unit, sculpture, or active play area. A “seating unit” shall consist of one minimum 12-foot-long bench or ledge seating area for every six ground floor units within 30 feet of the courtyard perimeter; “sculpture” is a piece of three-dimensional art that can be appraised as having artistic value; and an “active play area” shall consist of an area no smaller than 12 feet by 12 feet containing recreational facilities such as a big toy, jungle gym, basketball court or volleyball court.
(C) Ground cover, sufficient to cover within a three-year period 75 percent of landscape area not otherwise covered with shrubs or lawn.
(f) At least one window or glass door from a primary room (i.e., kitchen or living room) of each dwelling unit that surrounds the courtyard must face the courtyard.
(a) Streets upon which the dwelling units are oriented toward shall be organized by blocks that do not exceed 500 feet in length for the purpose of breaking up the scale of the development pattern.
(b) The street pavement width shall not exceed 10 feet above the minimum width of a street based on its functional classification or most appropriate classification if the street is private.
(c) Garages integrated into residential buildings may be accessed from the street; provided, that the street-facing facade has a total window area (excluding window openings into the garage) that is at least 50 percent of the total area of any garage door openings on the same facade.
(d) Parallel parking is permitted along both sides of the street. Perpendicular or angled parking spaces are not permitted except in groupings of six stalls with at least 100 feet of street front between groupings.
(e) Dwelling units shall have their entrance and front facade oriented to the traditional street system.
(f) For dwelling units oriented to the street, at least one window or door from a primary room (i.e., kitchen or living room) of each dwelling unit must face the street.
(g) The front facade facing the traditional street system shall be characterized by modulating intervals no wider than 24 feet with at least a two-foot offset between each interval.
(h) Roofline variety of buildings taller than one story utilizing the traditional streetscape system orientation shall include at least two feet in elevation change or offset distance between any continuous roofline segment over 24 feet in length.
(4) Multifamily Menu Options to Achieve Variety in Architectural Massing.
(v) A stand of trees with a canopy of 1,000 square feet (as measured in frontal view rather than top view) located no farther than 20 feet from a facade of the building, consisting of either existing trees, or planted trees.
(5) Multifamily Menu Options for Treatment of Building Articulation.
(iv) Between the stories of a building, a change in materials or color separated by continuous horizontal trim bands, continuous horizontal decorative masonry, or a recess or projection by at least two feet.
(6) Achieving Building Design Variety in Multifamily Development.
(a) Individual multifamily buildings with more than 24 units shall be characterized by variation in the application of materials, colors and fenestration details at any point where modulation is required under the provisions of subsection (4) of this section. For example, siding materials or colors may be alternated between building sections; accent siding materials and prominent siding materials may also be reversed; projecting bay or box windows may be used on alternating facade sections.
(b) Multiple buildings on a single site shall not be exact or close replicas of each other. While common materials, colors and styles are acceptable, each building shall be unique in terms of its general massing design and fenestration design. Variety in designs shall be achieved by variation in each building’s footprint, rooflines, facade modulation, and window arrangement. Color and materials shall also be varied.
(f) Differentiation among front entry designs by such means as variation in porch roof designs, column and balustrade designs, entry court designs (e.g., courtyard walls, gates, paving and landscaping), door designs and (in conjunction with other variation techniques) door colors.
(a) Orientation of the narrowest end of building toward the abutting RS zone district. The horizontal length of the facade which is parallel to and oriented to the RS zone boundary shall not exceed 40 feet in width.
(b) Provision of a 15-foot-wide landscaped buffer consisting of continuous row of trees and a six-foot-tall wood opaque fence, masonry wall or vegetative screen or a native growth protection easement with a minimum width of 25 feet along the boundary between the multiple-family project and the abutting RS zone district.
(c) Windows shall only be placed on the wall facing the abutting RS zone district if they are opaque or higher than seven feet above the floor elevation of each floor.
(9) Setback and Stepback of Multiple-Family Projects Abutting RS Single-Family Zone Districts.
(a) Setback. Multiple-family buildings shall maintain a setback of 25 feet along all property lines abutting RS zone districts.
(b) Third-Floor Stepback. Multiple-family buildings within 50 feet of an RS zone district shall not exceed two stories unless the exterior walls and roof of the third story are stepped back at least seven feet from the second floor exterior walls that face the RS zone district.
(10) Multifamily Minimum Width of Exterior Stairway for Buildings Three or More Stories. On buildings three or more stories tall, exterior stairways leading up or down to multiple story dwelling unit front entrances shall have a minimum width of eight feet.
(a) Rows of angled or perpendicular parking stalls shall not be allowed over a continuous distance of more than 120 feet without a landscape break consisting of an area at least 100 square feet in size and at least one tree.
(b) Carports shall not exceed 72 feet in length.
(c) For parking areas with over 20 stalls, sidewalks or designated pedestrian paths/routes shall be provided from parking areas to residential units.
(d) Parking stalls shall not be located nor positioned to cause headlights to shine into windows of residential units.
(e) Structured parking garages proposed in the RM-Core zone shall be subject to the “Parking Structure” section of the Downtown Design Guidelines, which shall be administratively applied.
(a) Accessory buildings shall contain the same building materials and – where roofed – roofing materials and roof forms as those used on the primary residential structures.
(b) Trash and recycling shall be visually screened from streets and adjacent properties by: (i) substantial sight-obscuring landscaping which will achieve a height of at least six feet within three years of planting; or (ii) an enclosure constructed4 of the same siding materials used on the primary residential structures.
(c) If the same building materials are discontinued or otherwise unavailable, an alternate material that closely resembles the original material may be used. (Ord. 3119 § 28, 2016; Ord. 2851 § 9, 2006; Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001; Ord. 2454 § 1, 1995).
(iii) The minimum width of each modulation is 15 feet.
(i) The height of the visible roofline must change at least four feet if the adjacent roof segments are less than 50 feet in length.
(ii) The height of the visible roofline must change at least eight feet if the adjacent roof segments are 50 feet or more in length.
(iii) The length of a sloped or gabled roofline must be at least 20 feet, with a minimum slope of three feet vertical to 12 feet horizontal.
(d) Buildings with other roof forms, such as arched, gabled, vaulted, dormered or sawtooth, must have a significant change in slope or significant change in roofline at least every 100 feet.
(iv) Use of functional or nonfunctional architectural features such as windows, doors, pillars, columns, awnings, roofs, etc., which cover at least 25 percent of the wall surface.
(A) Buildings may be set back to a maximum of 20 feet to accommodate an eight-foot plaza space as required by subsection (3)(b)(i) of this section.
(B) Optionally, the pedestrian plaza space may project into the required front or street side yard landscape buffer (as required under PMC 20.58.005(2)) by a maximum of four feet; corner plaza spaces or outdoor cafes may project into the required landscape buffer by a maximum of six feet.
(iv) Site development plans shall be designed so that, to the greatest extent feasible, buildings and building entries are at street level and not elevated by retaining walls, particularly on sides of buildings where an entry way is oriented toward the abutting right-of-way.
(c) Interior Building Orientation. Once the site development has achieved at least 50 percent of the site frontage which is occupied by buildings in accordance with the street orientation standards above, or when panhandle/internal lots not fronting on a public right-of-way, or where existing buildings and/or improvements would physically prevent subsections (1) and (2) of this section from being achieved, other structures may be placed internal to the site but shall be oriented towards each other and in close proximity to the site’s street frontage buildings to allow for pedestrian movement between structures through pedestrian scaled plaza areas without crossing parking areas.
(d) Building Entrances and Design. At least one building entrance for an individual building (or individual tenant spaces) shall face each public street frontage. Directly linking pedestrian access shall be provided between the street right-of-way and each building entrance. No less than 60 percent of the surface area of any street-facing wall shall consist of windows and/or transparent doorways.
(e) Parking Lot Entrances and Driveways. The city may impose additional restriction on the width, number and location of driveways to and from the subject parcel to improve vehicle circulation or safety, or to enhance pedestrian movement or desirable visual characteristics.
(f) Each side of a parking lot which abuts a street must be screened from that street using the appropriate landscaping as specified in the city’s vegetative management standards or by locating the building between the street and the parking lot.
(4) Siding Materials. Acceptable siding materials include brick, stone, marble, split-face cement block, shingles, and horizontal lap siding. Other materials, such as stucco, may also be used as an accent if: (a) they are used as accent materials in conjunction with acceptable siding materials; and (b) said accent materials are characterized by details or variations in the finish that create a regular pattern of shapes, indentations, or spaces that are accented or highlighted with contrasting shades of color.
(5) Achieving Building Design Variety.
(a) Multiple-tenant buildings shall be designed with common materials, colors and styles across their entire facades so as to create cohesive building designs. Nonetheless, they shall be characterized by variation in the application of said materials and colors and also in fenestration details at least at any point where modulation is required under the provisions of subsection (1)(b) of this section. For example, siding materials or colors may be alternated between building sections; provided, that no single section be of a material or color that is not found on other portions or elements of the facade design. Accent siding materials and prominent siding materials may also be reversed to create interest. Tenant-specific motifs are prohibited if they do not reflect the style, colors and materials that characterize the overall facade design. For purposes of this section, a “single building” is defined as any structure that is completely separated from another structure by at least a 10-foot distance.
(b) Multiple buildings on a single site shall not be exact or close replicas of each other. While common materials, colors and styles are acceptable, each building shall be unique in terms of its general massing design and fenestration design. Variety in design may be achieved by variation in each building’s footprint, rooflines, facade modulation, and window arrangement. Color and materials may also be varied. (Ord. 3143 § 2, 2017; Ord. 3119 § 29, 2016; Ord. 2954 §§ 10, 11, 2010; Ord. 2851 § 9, 2006; Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001).
(1) Trees along Building Facades. A minimum 15-foot-wide landscape strip shall be provided along the entire length of blank wall facades of buildings in the ML zone district. A mixture of medium to large evergreen conifer and deciduous trees and shrubs (evergreen and/or deciduous shrub mix) shall be planted for all buildings along the entire length of all visible facades on buildings with footprints of more than 10,000 square feet, which have walls reaching 20 feet or more above ground level and which are visible from a public road or located within 100 feet of a residential zone. The stand of trees may include either existing trees or planted trees. The design of the landscaping treatment shall be consistent with the “SLD-01” standard contained in the city’s vegetation management standards (VMS) manual.
(b) Singular materials are characterized by details or variations in the finish that create a regular pattern of shapes, indentations, or spaces that are accented or highlighted with contrasting shades of color.
(3) Loading and Storage Areas. Loading docks and outdoor product or equipment storage areas shall be screened from public roads by means of a vegetative screen or six-foot masonry wall or wood opaque fence. If a vegetative screen is used, the screen shall conform to the landscape buffering standards described in PMC 20.26.500(1). If a wall is used, it shall include a 10-foot landscaping strip on the side facing the public which is planted with shrubs at least three-gallon container size (spaced no more than five feet on center) and a continuous row of trees (at least eight feet tall at planting) spaced no more than 30 feet on center. (Ord. 3119 § 30, 2016; Ord. 2954 § 12, 2010; Ord. 2694 § 2, 2001).
(a) Evergreen trees that are at least eight feet tall at planting, spaced no more than 15 feet on center, and placed in a triangular pattern (having three equal sides, except in 15-foot-wide buffers) to resemble a natural growth pattern and to give depth and density to the screening. For added interest and variation, deciduous trees may be mixed with evergreen trees, provided the required number of evergreen trees are installed and spaced in a manner that will provide required screening.
(b) Understory shrubs (at least three-gallon container size) spaced no more than five feet on center, or sufficiently sized and spaced to assure full screening between required trees up to a height of six feet within three years (as determined by a professional landscape architect and as approved by the director). A variety of shrubs may be used, provided they are of a type and species that will provide vertical height and horizontal fullness for screening purposes (e.g., photinia frasier, arborvitae, huckleberry, tall Oregon grape).
(c) A six-foot-high masonry wall or wood opaque fence shall be established and maintained along the inside edge of the landscape buffer that abuts said residential zone or public park/city open space site.
(i) Color. Primary colors and other bright, intense, fluorescent or vivid colors (whether in deep or light tones) are prohibited, except that such colors (excluding fluorescent) may be used as accent colors on doors and narrow trim pieces around windows. Roof, wall, and remaining trim may be any color found in the spectrum of soil and clay colors, or in the spectrum of nonflowering vegetation colors, or any color found in similar tones and shades on the walls or roofs of at least two residential dwellings located within 300 feet of the proposed development site.
(ii) Siding and Trim. Illuminated panels, spandrel glass, smooth-faced block, metal, stucco and dry-vit siding and trim materials are prohibited, except that stucco or dry-vit is permitted in combination with roofs having a pitch of at least 4:12 (i.e., four inches rise to 12 inches run) over the entire building.
(iii) Roof Design. Flat roofs, modulated parapets and mansard roofs are prohibited, except that flat roofs are permitted in combination with walled structures having brick, stone or clapboard siding.
(iv) Fenestration and Window Design. Window penetrations shall constitute at least 25 percent of exterior walls visible from the street. Commercial storefront window assemblies, kickplates below windows and reflective glass are prohibited.
(b) Limited Parking and Service Areas. Parking lots, service canopies and drive-up service windows may not be located on or forward of any portion of the building side that faces the residential zone. A driveway leading to side or rear yard is permitted in the front yard, provided the driveway does not exceed 36 feet in width.
(3) Limited Driveway Width in Buffers. A driveway may extend perpendicularly through the buffer if necessary for access, provided the driveway does not exceed 36 feet in width in front yard buffers, or 24 feet in width for rear and side yard buffers.
(4) Easements in Buffer Areas. On-site easements do not negate on-site buffer requirements. If easements exist which allow driveways or private streets parallel to the property lines where buffers are otherwise required, the required buffer shall be shifted to the edge of the easement in order to avoid the easement. Buffers may be similarly shifted to avoid utility easements.
(5) Allowed Accessories in Buffer Areas. Buffer areas shall be fully landscaped, except for allowed driveway encroachments defined in subsection (3) of this section, and for utility boxes and poles that either serve the subject site or are located on established utility easements; provided, that utility boxes shall be fully screened from abutting properties and from the street. Excavation for utility work does not negate the requirement to maintain required landscaping. If plantings are disturbed, lost or destroyed for any reason, the property owner is responsible for full replacement. The property owner may choose to locate the buffer out of utility easements to avoid vegetation replacement concerns.
(6) Limit Building Height. The maximum height for all structures within the first 30 feet of setback from an adjoining street or residential zone shall be one foot for each foot of setback. The maximum building height may be increased by one and one-half feet for each additional one foot of setback in excess of 30 feet up to the maximum building height permitted by the underlying zoning standards.
(a) Use downward directional lighting. Except for architectural lighting using low-wattage (60-watt maximum) incandescent designer bulbs, light fixtures shall be of a type that casts light downward (e.g., “shoe box” style pole lamps, “eyebrow” style wall packs, recessed and flush-mounted ceiling fixtures). The sides and top of the fixture’s housing shall be totally opaque. Fixtures may not be tilted beyond their horizontal plane or otherwise modified to cast light sideways. Spotlights for signage purposes are exempt from these standards, provided they conform to the signage standards described in subsection (8) of this section.
(b) Light sources (e.g., light bulbs, lamps or fluorescent tubes) shall not extend below the bottom edge of the fixture’s solid and opaque housing.
(c) Translucent drop lenses are prohibited. If lenses are desired, they must be flush with, or extend no lower than, the bottom edge of the fixture’s solid and opaque housing.
(d) Avoid excessive light throw. Lighting shall not be cast beyond the premises and shall be limited to illumination of surfaces intended for pedestrians or vehicles. Light fixtures shall include all necessary refractors within the housing to direct lighting to areas intended to be illuminated.
(e) Limit height of lighting fixtures. Light fixtures shall be no higher than 20 feet above any finished grade level within 10 feet of the fixture.
(8) Signage. Compatibility related to signage is an important feature in zone transition areas. Please refer to Chapter 20.60 PMC for specific provisions regarding signage regulations when a nonresidential zone abuts a single-family residential zone or when a nonresidential use is permitted within an RS zone. (Ord. 3172 § 1, 2018; Ord. 3073 § 10, 2014; Ord. 3010 § 14, 2012; Ord. 2954 § 13, 2010; Ord. 2754 § 7, 2003; Ord. 2694 § 3, 2001).
Code reviser’s note: As laid out in Ord. 3119, this subsection referred to the community development department and director. These references have been changed to refer to the development services department and director per the intent of the city.
Code reviser’s note: The word “roll” was inadvertently deleted with the amendments of Ord. 3119. It has been retained per the intent of the city.
Code reviser’s note: The word “which” has been added to the amendments of Ord. 3119 for clarity.
Code reviser’s note: As laid out in Ord. 3119, this subsection originally referred to “an enclosure constructed building of the same siding materials...” The word “building” has been deleted for clarity. | https://www.codepublishing.com/WA/Puyallup/html/Puyallup20/Puyallup2026.html |
Many children have difficulty learning how to read or improving their reading. Some read reasonably well, but their spelling and writing skills are poor. If any of these issues sound familiar, your child is a prime candidate for a reading evaluation.
An estimated 80% of individuals diagnosed with learning disabilities have difficulty with various aspects of reading, including decoding, comprehension, and written expression.
An evaluation should be both diagnostic and prescriptive—that is, it should define and describe the problems as well as provide suggestions for remediating them.
Evaluator Qualifications
The first step in the evaluation process is to find a reading expert who is skilled at administering and interpreting reading assessments. While many evaluators have knowledge and expertise about learning disabilities in general, it’s critically important to find someone who understands how the brain is wired to learn reading (the neurology of reading disabilities).
Because reading is all about processing language, it’s important that the reading evaluation be done by someone who understands language development at a deep level, including how to measure the oral and written language skills necessary for reading and writing proficiency.
Evaluation Components
The evaluation should include a series of standardized achievement tests to determine how your child performs relative to a normal sample. But it shouldn’t stop there. If your child is struggling with sounding out (decoding) and spelling (encoding) words, the examiner should determine if he has difficulties with phonological processing (breaking down aural language into smaller components—words, syllables, etc.).
Since most reading disabilities are rooted in language processing, these skills must be measured. There are three aspects to phonological processing:
- Phonological awareness (understanding that each word can be isolated from a stream of spoken words)
- Naming or processing speed
- Working memory
When one or more of these areas is below average, reading, writing, and spelling are often impacted.
Additional Information
While much of this testing yields important standardized scores, the evaluation should also include qualitative information, including insights into how your child spells, reads different types of text, the types of questions he is able to answer to demonstrate comprehension, and the quality of a story “retell” (used to observe comprehension and language skills). Along these lines, you can also expect to find a description of your child’s behavior during testing.
In addition, you will want to make sure the evaluator describes your child’s strengths and aptitudes. When prescribing a course of action for remediation, those skills and interests will be used to strengthen learning weaknesses. This is especially important as your child gets older and is more apt to compare his performance with his peers. His teachers will need to know what his gifts and talents are.
Recommendations
The most important part of the evaluation comes after the test results are analyzed, and a summary is presented that describes how your child learns and what teachers need to know in order to help him learn effectively.
These are the recommendations for a remedial program that matches your child’s profile and addresses his reading difficulties. The recommendations form the basis of his Individual Education Plan (IEP). They may also include recommendations for accommodations such as extended time.
The recommendations should be specific enough to be translated into IEP goals and objectives and include suggestions for monitoring your child’s progress to ensure that the interventions are working.
To track your child’s progress, tests that have established norms should be given throughout the year. If the tests show that your child isn’t making adequate progress in order to ‘close the gap,’ adjustments must be made to the interventions.
Ask to receive the evaluation report in plenty of time to read (and reread) it before you’re expected to act on it. It may include unfamiliar terms and information you’ll need to digest and discuss with someone else. Once you’ve highlighted parts of the report and prepared questions, arrange to speak with the evaluator. The more you understand, the greater success you’ll have advocating for your child.
The author is the President of Literacy How and a Research Affiliate at Haskins Laboratories, which conducts basic research on spoken and written language. She is also a member of the Smart Kids with LD Professional Advisory Board. | https://www.smartkidswithld.org/first-steps/evaluating-your-child/evaluating-your-child-for-dyslexia/ |
Fourth Grade Curriculum Overview
This brochure has been written to inform you about the academic program, skills, and concepts being studied in fourth grade. It is intended to give you a broad overview of the core subjects, instructional goals and learning expectations your child will experience. Newington has a strong comprehensive curriculum, which includes sequential instruction at every grade in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, the arts, and wellness.
Language Arts
The purpose of the Language Arts Curriculum is to develop all aspects of language (reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing), so students are able to communicate effectively in a technological, ever-changing world. We seek meaningful ways to guide our students to apply their knowledge of the language arts across content areas and in realistic situations through a balanced literacy program, including reader's workshop and the Harcourt Trophies reading program.
The fourth grade reading program includes reading aloud, where teachers read aloud quality literature for enjoyment and to develop literacy skills; shared reading, where teachers and students engage in the reading process; guided reading, where the teacher reinforces skills to aid students in interpreting and evaluating literature; and independent reading, where students select a book according to interest and reading level.
In fourth grade, students work to develop quality writing pieces through writer's workshop. During writer's workshop, the teachers guide the students to continue to focus on and improve narrative writing skills. Teachers guide students to elaborate ideas, organize pieces, select interesting words and develop voice and fluency. Through conferences with peers and a teacher, students further craft their work through revision. Finally, students edit for conventions and share completed work.
Students will:
read grade-level text with fluency
learn, understand, and apply new vocabulary
use various strategies to determine the meanings of unknown words and phrases
monitor comprehension while reading
summarize fiction and non-fiction using relevant information from the text
infer and interpret story elements
identify text structure and author's purpose for using it
compare and contrast the point of view of different stories
interpret information presented visually or orally
compare and contrast themes, topics, and events
use capitalization and punctuation appropriately
write and speak using grammatically correct sentences
write organized and elaborated narratives, opinion pieces, and informational pieces
proofread, edit, and revise written work
apply spelling strategies in writing
write legibly, forming manuscript and cursive letters appropriately
report on topics or text using facts and a clear voice
describe the speaker’s point of view and supporting reasons
contribute relevant information to class discussions
use formal and informal speech appropriately
Mathematics
The goal of the fourth grade math curriculum is to build upon students' existing foundation of concepts and skills. Students participate in specific units of study to further their understanding through meaningful and challenging tasks. The curriculum is aligned to the Common Core State Standards, which define what students should know and be able to do in their study of mathematics.
The fourth grade mathematics program includes direct instruction, where teachers target specific skills and concepts; guided math, in which the teacher reinforces and builds on skills with small groups of students based on individual progress; independent practice; and collaborative learning, where students have the opportunity to communicate their reasoning, cooperate, and develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Through activities, labs, daily practice and problems, and games, students will:
read, write, and compare multi-digit numbers based on place value concepts
find all factor pairs for numbers through 100
demonstrate fluency with multiplication facts
demonstrate fluency with division facts
multiply 4-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers and 2-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers
divide 4-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers with and without remainders
compare fractions with different numerators and different denominators
solve problems by adding/subtracting fractions (including mixed numbers) with like denominators
solve problems involving multiplying a fraction by a whole number
compare decimals to hundredths
represent and solve word problems using an equation with a letter standing for the unknown
use estimation strategies to determine reasonableness of an answer
compare/classify polygons (parallel lines, perpendicular lines, symmetry, angles, etc.)
convert measures from a larger unit to a smaller unit
solve word problems involving measurement
solve addition and subtraction problems to find unknown angle measurements
make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
communicate mathematical thinking clearly and precisely, orally and in writing
Science
As fourth grade students explore new concepts in science, they are encouraged to apply the skills of the scientific process. They make observations and predictions, ask questions, seek information, and conduct experiments. The students analyze data and use it to draw and present conclusions. The students explore how all organisms depend upon the features of their environment to survive. They learn that when an environment changes, organisms must change or move elsewhere, otherwise survival is not possible. Water has a major role in shaping the Earth's surface, especially through erosion. Fourth graders explore how water circulates through the Earth and its atmosphere. Additionally, they study how the sun affects the water cycle. Students also explore electricity. Force and motion are investigated, as the students note the effects of push and pull on the motion of objects.
Health
All students in Newington are encouraged to appreciate and demonstrate respect, responsibility, and empathy. The goal of our health program is for students to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Students practice making healthy and appropriate decisions throughout each school year. Fourth graders learn how the human body needs healthy food choices and regular exercise to function properly. Conflict resolution is a focus area, as students are challenged to effectively address and resolve stressful encounters and situations. The students learn about the negative impacts of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco on the body, as well as strategies for dealing with peer pressure to try such substances. The students also learn how related diseases can affect the body.
Social Studies
In Grade 4 students engage in the study of United States Geography as it relates to the regional cultural, economic, and political development of the United States. This approach supports in-depth inquiry through the examination and evaluation of multiple sources and allows students to explore regions of the United States supported by the disciplines of history, civics, and economics. The study of geography requires that students generate and research compelling questions such as:
What makes a region a region?
How do factors interact to influence where people settle?
How do changes in science and technology affect community and the environment?
What causes people to migrate to or leave a region?
How would our lives be different if we lived in a different region?
Educational Technology
The technology education program provides students with direct instruction and practice in technology skills on a graduated basis. Students acquire a working knowledge and understanding keyboarding, word processing, multimedia skills, and features in G Suite for Education Applications. Students demonstrate mastery of skills by completing grade-appropriate activities and projects.
Art
Art education promotes self-awareness, self-expression, and well-being. The art program promotes interdisciplinary experiences that aid students in the integration of ideas, concepts and processes, and in a holistic perception of their world. It promotes an understanding of the diverse cultures in society as reflected in the arts. In fourth grade, an increased visual awareness is developed as students learn to identify subtle visual qualities in nature and the constructed environment as well as artworks.
Students will:
develop their knowledge of design concepts
understand the ideas and designs for artwork that can come from different views of the environment
contrast and compare the functions, cultural origin and relative age of artwork from different time period
examine and reflect upon the process of creating their artwork and the artwork of others
identify various careers that use of visual arts
continue to make a correlation between the visual arts and other content areas
Music
Music education enhances learning, creativity, communication, teamwork, discipline, respect for others, cultural awareness, and self-esteem through personal accomplishment. The elementary music program develops these skills in children to help them succeed in school, in society, and in life.
reinforce their vocal skills by using a ‘singing' voice and singing ‘in-tune'
further develop their knowledge of classroom instruments by exploring, demonstrating and identifying various patterns on these instruments
continue to study symphonic instrumentation through the study of the four families of instruments, including identification of instruments in the context of listening repertoire
learn a variety of new terms and symbols
students in fourth grade will have the unique opportunity to participate in a variety of performing organizations. Students may also elect to further their vocal skills by participating in chorus
Wellness
The Wellness program in fourth grade is designed to help children better understand their movement capabilities, and in turn, helps them to better master many movement skills. It provides the students with the opportunity for individual and creative responses, and allows the child to progress at his/her own rate. In grade 4, skills unique to individual and team sports are introduced.
Students are exposed to various sports skills and develop:
fitness appreciation
ability to work with a partner
ability to function as part of a "team" | https://www.npsct.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=477398&pageId=1951241 |
An insider threat is a malicious activity aimed at an organization and carried out by people who have authorized access to the organization’s network, applications, or databases. These individuals are typically current employees, former employees, contractors, partners, or vendors. The objectives of these breaches range from malicious exploitation, theft, or destruction of data to the compromise of networks, communications, or other information technology resources.
Primarily motivated by financial gain, an insider threat can be for espionage, retaliation, or revenge. Most commonly used to describe deliberately harmful activities, insider threats can also refer to unintentional or accidental damage caused by individuals.
Let’s jump in and learn:
Insider Threat Types
There are three main types of insider threats.
-
Malicious
An individual with authorized access who knowingly takes action to steal digital assets or sabotage operations is considered a malicious insider threat. Common motivations for malicious insider threats include gaining access to information that can be sold or which can help them personally (e.g., professional gain achieved with stolen trade secrets), finding ways to hurt an organization, or punishing or embarrassing an organization or specific people who are involved with it.
-
Negligent
An authorized user who does not follow proper IT procedures is described as a negligent insider threat. Also known as careless insider threats, these individuals unknowingly or accidentally create vulnerabilities that expose computer systems, applications, and network infrastructures to cyberattacks.
Negligent insider threats are the most prevalent, because there are many points of weakness, including falling for phishing attacks, leaving systems unattended without locking the screen or logging out, saving sensitive information on flash drives, using insecure networks, using weak passwords, or sharing login credentials.
-
Compromised
A compromised insider threat is actually an outsider who achieves insider access. A common tactic for gaining access is to pose as a user with legitimate access, such as an employee, contractor, vendor, or partner. Another approach is by using malware to infect an employee’s computer, typically engineered through phishing attacks.
Once access has been established, the compromised insider threat can be very harmful. Cyberattacks can be launched from the infected computer to access files, infect other systems, and even escalate privileges.
Insider Threat Data Exfiltration
Regardless of the type of insider threat, if the objective is to steal information, the perpetrator must be able to get the data out. Data exfiltration can occur through a number of vectors. The most common channels through which insider threats leak data include:
- Removable media
- Hard copies
- Cloud storage
- Personal email
- Mobile devices
- Cloud applications
- Social media
- Developer tools
- Screen clipping and screen sharing
- FTP sharing sites
Insider Threat Detection and Prevention
Detecting an insider threat requires constant vigilance. Key things to monitor include:
- Unauthorized access
- Privileged access abuse
- Suspicious behavior
- Remote access from all endpoints, including mobile devices
Identifying and stopping an insider threat before it causes damage can be facilitated with the following tactics. These policies and controls must be documented and consistently enforced.
- Establish physical security
- Implement security software and appliances, such as:
- Active Directory
- Endpoint protection system
- Intrusion prevention system
- Intrusion detection system
- Web filtering solution
- Traffic monitoring software
- Spam filter
- Privileged access management system
- Encryption software
- Password management policy and system, with a minimum standard of two-factor authentication
- Call manager
- Data loss prevention system
- Security information and event management system (SIEM)
- Enable e-mailbox journaling
- Require strong passwords
- Manage and monitor remote access
- Harden perimeter security
- Enforce least privilege access policies
- Log, monitor, and audit employee actions
- Purge dormant or orphan accounts
- Control third-party access
- Prevent data exfiltration
- Detect compromised accounts
- Define security agreements for cloud service providers, especially related to access and monitoring
Insider Threat Indicators and Triggers
Insider threats can sometimes be detected by identifying unusual behavior. Common indicators of malicious or compromised insiders include:
- Badging into work at unusual times
- Logging in at unusual times
- Logging in from unusual locations
- Accessing systems / applications for the first time
- Copying large amounts of information
Paying attention to employee behavior and influencing events can help identify someone who could be an insider threat. There are numerous insider threat triggers and signals, including:
- Poor performance reviews
- Disagreements over an organization’s policies and excessive negative commentary
- Conflicts between an organization and its employees, former employees, vendors, or partners
- Changes in someone’s behavior, such as making more mistakes than usual, missing deadlines, and skipping meetings
- Financial difficulties and indebtedness
- Drug or alcohol abuse
- Interest in areas outside the user’s traditional scope of duties
- Suspicious financial gain
- Resignation and layoff notifications
Insider Threat Response Plans
An insider threat response plan’s objective is to provide guidance on preventing, detecting, and responding to an insider threat, whether malicious or accidental.
Benefits of an Insider Response Plan
Taking the time to develop an insider threat response plan has a number of benefits, including:
- Compliance with corporate, industry, and government regulations
- Early detection of insider threats
- Expedited response to insider threats
- Minimized damage from an insider attack
- Reduced cost for responding to insider threats
Insider Response Plan Preparation Checklist
- Assess current cybersecurity measures
- Research IT requirements for the insider threat program with which the organization needs to comply
- Define the desired results for the program
- Formulate a list of stakeholders to include
- Perform a risk assessment
- Enumerate resources required to create the program
- Secure the support of executive management
Key Tactics When Developing an Insider Threat Plan
- Assign an insider threat response team.
This should be a cross-functional team of employees that acts as the front line of defense against insider threats. They should have training on the processes and tools needed to detect and respond to an insider threat.
Considerations when creating an insider team include:
- Articulating the objectives of the insider threat response team
- Selecting a leader for the team and the hierarchy of other team members
- Establishing the responsibilities of each team member
- Arming the team with policies, processes, and tools (e.g., software) to support their efforts
- Implement insider threat detection tools and processes.
To enable early detection of and rapid response to insider threats, a combination of software and processes must be put in place. These include:
- Monitoring user activity
- Collecting detailed logs of user activity
- Managing user access to sensitive information
- Analyzing user behavior to detect early indicators of an insider threat (e.g., with user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA))
- Create insider threat incident response strategies.
Consider common insider attacks and have responses documented so that the response team can act quickly. Insider threat response plans should include:
- Description of the insider threat
- Threat indicators—both technical and non-technical
- Individuals responsible for the threat
- Mitigation tactics
- Documentation of related evidence
- Depending on the severity of the attack, support from your public relations and investor relations teams
- Plan insider threat incident investigation.
Effective insider threat plans must include investigations and documentation of findings. This not only helps facilitate an understanding of the impact of the insider threat, but also provides information that helps prevent similar incidents in the future. When conducting an insider threat investigation, it is important to:
- Collect data on the incident—reviewing digital resources (e.g., log files, UEBA) and interviewing people connected with the incident (i.e., witnesses)
- Assess the damage and data loss caused by the insider threat
- Secure all evidence
- Report the incident—per internal protocols and compliance requirements
- Train employees.
Educating employees is one of the most effective tactics when combatting insider threats. Employee training helps team members become aware of the issue and teaches them to identify and report suspicious or risky behavior.
Training programs should include the following elements:
- Explanation of why the program is being put in place
- Examples of insider attacks and the damage done
- Description of activities that can lead to accidental incidents by negligent insider threats, such as social engineering and phishing attacks
- Information about malicious insider threat tactics and how to spot them
- Training on how to avoid phishing and social engineering attacks
- Contact information for reporting a possible insider threat
- Plan for measuring the efficacy of the insider threat program
- Connect security and HR teams.
Human resources teams can help head off an insider threat by letting the security team know about employees who may pose a risk. The security team can then put the employee on a watchlist and closely monitor their behavior.
- Review insider threat program regularly.
Because insider threats change, it is important to keep insider threat response plans up to date. They should take into account the latest insider threat vectors and tools.
Insider threat plans should be reviewed:
- At set intervals
- After an incident
- When new compliance requirements are released
- When new technologies are available—for users and the insider threat response team
- If there are changes in the response team
- When the company experiences a merger or an acquisition
- Prior to a significant reduction in force
Follow Best Practices to Avoid Damage from an Insider Threat
Although it is not possible to eliminate insider threats, awareness and diligence are critical to detection and reducing potential damage. Understanding the types of threats, training employees, using monitoring tools, and remaining vigilant will mitigate the risk of insider threats.
Egnyte has experts ready to answer your questions. For more than a decade, Egnyte has helped more than 17,000 customers with millions of customers worldwide. | https://www.egnyte.com/resource-center/governance-guides/insider-threat |
Corals are tiny animals that live in large communities made up of individual polyps that secrete a calcium carbonate substance that hardens and builds up to form the reef structure over time. There are different types of corals, such as brain corals and fan corals, that form different types of structures. The coral polyps live symbiotically with algae that provides them with their food. Disease, temperature extremes and pollution can cause corals to expel the algae, leaving only the white calcium carbonate skeleton behind, an event called coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is a worry with global warming heating up the oceans and carbon dioxide causing the oceans to acidify. Coral reefs are important ecosystems because they support larger communities of fish, mollusks, crustaceans and other sea creatures.
Related Topics: Biodiversity, Fish, Climate Change, Ocean
Hawaii's ecosystems are under scientific scrutiny this month.
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"As much as one quarter of ocean species depend on coral reefs for food or shelter," according to NASA. Rising sea levels and temperatures threaten these important ecosystems, which also play an important role economically around the world.
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Low-light algae living in coral have evolved a never-before-seen way to capture energy.
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Diving deep in the Red Sea, researchers discover a dim, blue world.
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The 2,300-square-mile reef was hiding in plain sight.
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Solitary corals, Heliofungia actiniformis, were forced to endure hyper-thermal stress in an experiment to learn more about coral bleaching. They can be seeing belching 'Symbiodinium' - a form of algae that gives them their color.
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A massive reef system lurking in the mouth of the Amazon River hides a hidden menagerie of strange and wonderful underwater creatures.
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Not all coral reefs emerge from naturally occurring objects on the sea bottom.
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Australia's Great Barrier Reef corals are in trouble, with the northern part of the reef experiencing "the worst mass bleaching event in its history."
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“This has been the saddest research trip of my life,” says Prof. Terry Hughes, National Coral Bleaching Taskforce. Video from March 16th, 2016 shows reefs from Cairns to Papua New Guinea in distress. | https://www.livescience.com/topics/coral-reefs/3 |
Do you have difficulty preparing for tests and exams that require a lot of memorization?
Are you interested in learning how to maximize your memory for facts and information?
Are you interested in learning how your brain works in the memorization process?
The following tips and information will help you learn more about the process of memorization and strategies you can use to improve your memory.
Memorization topics:
- What does it mean to memorize?
- How can you create an efficient memory?
- How can you effectively use your short-term memory?
- How can you effectively use your long-term memory?
1. What does it mean to memorize?
Learning how your memory works is the first step in improving it. Here’s how your memory works:
Your brain is always busy perceiving signals, sorting and storing information.
Your memory is thus continually being used to process information.
Information sorting is divided into short-term memory and long-term memory. All information passes through your short-term memory, but to commit information to your long-term memory, you must:
- Understand it well.
- Link it to information already understood.
- Experience it by using multiple senses (for example, reading aloud allows you to use two senses: sight and hearing).
- Use it.
Write, Link, See: these are three techniques to help you purposefully place information in your long term memory. For example, remembering an author’s name will be easier if:
- You WRITE the name down.
- You LINK the author to a known literary trend.
- You SEE the name in your reading material.
2. How can you create an efficient memory?
Memorization depends on the senses you use to best store information. Most people are visual or auditory learners, but some people can also learn by using kinetic senses.
How do you learn best?
- Visual learners learn best by seeing pictures or words.
- Auditory learners learn best by sound association and having information being told or read to them.
- Kinetic sense learners learn best by using their sense of touch and incorporating practical experience.
A healthy lifestyle can improve your memory:
- Spend some time outside and get some fresh air.
- Get enough sleep and exercise. It will minimize stress and help clear your mind.
- Avoid cigarettes and alcohol: nicotine harms your memorization abilities, and alcohol prevents you from consolidating information.
- Eat right: vitamins, minerals, and protein are part of a balanced diet.
- Establish a regular working schedule: this schedule will help you avoid overworking at the end of semesters.
- Be informed and aware of the effects of medications on your memory process.
3. How can you effectively use your short-term memory?
Your short-term memory is also known as your working memory. It transfers and stores information into your long-term memory. Information processed by your working memory allows you to reuse this information when needed. Your short-term memory stores a small amount of information for a short period of time only. Consequently, it is very important to avoid mental passivity.
Mental passivity occurs when you are not making an effort to understand, link, and repeat the information given in class. Unfortunately, students often experience this lack of effort in classes that have little student-professor interaction.
A good learning situation gives you the opportunity to process the information you need to remember and thus help you reflect, organize, experiment with, and reformulate the information you receive in class.
Here are some tips to help you in this process:
Listen actively.
- Review and silently repeat the professor’s explanations to yourself.
- Associate what the professor says to what you already know.
- Go over the professor’s key words.
- Take notes in a way that you’ll be able to re-read later.
Select information to memorize.
- Identify the main ideas and stay focused.
- Highlight or underline the important information.
- Add key words in the margins of the page.
- Make a short summary in your own words.
- Create your own tables, graphs, or diagrams.
In preparation for exams, organize information in units.
- Create a summary that reduces many pages of notes to only a few pages.
- Use visual representations such as tables, graphs, and diagrams.
Choose memorization techniques appropriate for the material.
- To retain abstract concepts, use concrete and personal examples.
- To retain a list of dates, repeat them in and out of order.
- To understand the content of a long text, write a summary in your own words.
- To give a personal slant to the knowledge, make associations to real-life situations.
- Formulate your own questions.
Learn from general to precise.
- Skim through the information you need to learn before learning details.
- Concentrate on understanding the essence of what you’re learning by understanding main ideas and the links between them.
Use more than one of your senses.
- Read and speak: read the key elements in the text aloud or talk about them with someone.
- Read and write: create a summary or a table.
- Read and do: put the elements of the text to use and apply them.
Visualize the information.
- Create relevant mental images.
- Imagine yourself performing a task by visualizing the context as precisely as possible.
Use mnemonic tricks (mental associations).
- Use different colours for your notes.
- Create acronyms or acrostics.
- Sing the information to the tune of a popular song.
The best way to achieve an efficient short-term memory is to train it. Use daily chores such as memorizing your grocery list or phone numbers of friends to keep your mind active. Be confident in your abilities!
Your short-term memory is capable of storing 5 to 9 pieces of information for a short period of time.
To retain more information for a longer period, you will need your long-term memory.
4. How can you effectively use your long-term memory?
To transfer information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory, you need to:
- Stay focused
- Take good notes in class
- Review your notes after class
- Re-read your notes regularly between classes
- Reuse the information as often as possible
Back to Study Skills to find other helpful guides. | https://sass.uottawa.ca/en/mentoring/tools/memorization |
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Geopolitics of Perestroika and the Collapse of the USSR
Right up until 1985, the attitude in the USSR towards connecting with the West was on the whole rather sceptical. Only in the period of Y. Andropov's rule did the situation change somewhat, and according to his instruction, a group of Soviet scientists and academic institutes received the task of actively cooperating with globalist structures (the Club of Rome, the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, etc.). On the whole, the principle foreign policy aims of the USSR remained unchanged during the entire stretch from Stalin to Chernenko.
Changes in the USSR begin with M. S. Gorbachev's arrival to the office of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He took office against the backdrop of the Afghanistan War, which more and more came to a deadlock. From his first steps in the office of General Secretary, Gorbachev came up against serious problems. The social, economic, political, and ideological car began to stall. Society was apathetic. The Marxist worldview lost its appeal and continued to be broadcasted by inertia. A growing percentage of the urban intelligentsia was more and more attracted to Western culture, wishing for "Western" standards. The national outskirts lost their modernizational potential, and in some places the repressive processes of archaization began; nationalist sentiments flared up, and so on. The arms race and the necessity of constantly competing with a rather dynamically developing capitalist system exhausted the economy. To an even greater extent, discontent in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe came to a head, where the appeal of Western capitalist standards was felt even more keenly, while the prestige of the USSR gradually fell. In these conditions, it was demanded of Gorbachev to make some kind of definite decision concerning the further strategy of the USSR and of the entire Eastern bloc.
And he made it; it consisted of this: in a difficult situation, to adopt as a foundation theories of convergence and the propositions of the globalist groups and to begin drawing closer to the Western world by means of the implementation of one-sided concessions. Most likely, Gorbachev and his advisers expected symmetrical actions from the West; the West should have responded to each of Gorbachev's concessions with analogous movements in favour of the USSR. This algorithm was laid up in the foundations of the policy of perestroika. In domestic policy, this meant the abandonment of the strict ideological Marxist dictatorship, the relaxation of restrictions in relation to non-Marxist philosophical and scientific theories, the cessation of pressure on religious institutes (in the first place, on the Russian [Russkii] Orthodox Church), a broadening of the permissible interpretations of the events of Soviet history, a policy on the creation of small enterprises (cooperatives), and the freer association of citizens along political and ideological interests. In this sense, perestroika was a chain of steps directed towards democracy, parliamentarism, the market, "glasnost'", and the expansion of zones of civic freedom. This was a movement away from the socialist model of society towards a bourgeois-democratic and capitalist model. But at first this movement was gradual and remained within the framework of the social-democratic algorithm; democratization and liberalism were combined with the preservation of the party model of the administration of the country, a strict vertical and planned economy, and control of the party agencies and special services behind social-political processes.
However, in other countries of the Eastern bloc and on the periphery of the USSR, these transformations were perceived as a manifestation of weakness and as unilateral concessions to the West. Such a conclusion was confirmed by Gorbachev's decision to finally remove Soviet military contingents from Afghanistan (1989), by oscillation over a series of democratic revolutions unfolding throughout Eastern Europe, and by his inconsistent policies in relation to a series of allied republics: Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, and also Georgia and Armenia, which were the first involved in the process of the establishment of independent statehood.
Against this background, the West took up a well-defined position: while encouraging Gorbachev and his reforms in word only and extolling his fateful undertaking, not one really symmetrical step was taken in favour of the USSR; not the smallest concession was made in a single direction to Soviet political, strategic, and economic interests. As a result, Gorbachev's policies led, by 1991, to the gigantic, planetary system of Soviet influence being brought down, while the second pole, the USA, and NATO quickly filled the vacuum of control that had opened up. And if in the first stages of perestroika it was still possible to consider it as a special manoeuvre in the "Cold War" (not unlike the plan of the "Finlandization of Europe", worked out by Beria; Gorbachev himself spoke of a "European house") then by the end of the 1980’s it became clear that we were dealing with a case of direct and one-sided capitulation.
Gorbachev agreed to remove Soviet troops from the German Democratic Republic, disbanding the Warsaw Pact, recognizing the legitimacy of the new bourgeois governments in the countries of Eastern Europe, moving to meet the aspirations of the Soviet republics to receive a large degree of sovereignty and independence, and to revise the conditions of the agreement for the formation of the USSR on new terms. More and more Gorbachev also rejected the social-democratic line, opening a path for direct bourgeois-capitalist reforms in the economy. In a word, Gorbachev's reforms amounted to recognition of the defeat of the USSR in its confrontation with the West and the USA.
From a geopolitical point of view, perestroika represents not only a repudiation of the ideological confrontation with the capitalist world, but also a complete contradiction of Russia's entire historical path as a Eurasian, great-continental formation, as the Heartland, as the civilization of Land. This was the undermining of Eurasia from within; the voluntary self-destruction of one of the poles of the world system; a pole that did not at all arise in the Soviet period, but took shape for centuries and millennia in the riverbeds of the natural logic of geopolitical history and in accordance with the lines of force of objective geopolitics. Gorbachev took the position of Westernism, which quickly led to the collapse of the global structure and to a new version of the Time of Troubles. Instead of Eurasianism, Atlanticism was adopted; in the place of the civilization of Land and its sociological set of values were placed the normatives of the civilization of the Sea, contrary to it in all regards. If we compare the geopolitical significance of these reforms with every other period in Russian [Russkii] history, we cannot escape the feeling that we are dealing with something unprecedented.
The Time of Troubles in Russian [Russkii] history did not last long and was replaced by periods of new sovereign rebirth. Even the most frightening dissensions preserved this or that integrating centre, which became in time a pole of a new centralization of Russian lands. And even the Russian [Russkii] Westernists, orientated towards Europe, adopted along with European customs ideas, technologies and skills, used to reinforce the might of the Russian [Rosiiskii] state, to secure its borders, and to assert its national interests. Thus, the Westernist Peter or the German Catherine the Second, with all their enthusiasm for Europe, increased the territory of Russia and achieved for it newer and newer military victories. Even the Bolsheviks, obsessed by the idea of world revolution and having easily agreed to the fettering terms of the Brest-Litovsk world, started in a short period to strengthen the Soviet Union, returning under the control of Moscow its outskirts in the West and the South. The case of Gorbachev is an absolute exception in Russian [Russkii] geopolitical history. This history did not know such betrayal even in its very worst periods. Not only was the socialist system destroyed; the Heartland was blown up from within.
The geopolitical significance of the collapse of the USSR
As a result of the collapse of the USSR Yalta World came to its logical end. This meant that the two-polar model ended. One pole put an end to its existence by its own initiative. Now one could say with certainty what the theory of convergence was in fact: the cunning plan of the civilization of the Sea. This cunning plan conceived an action and brought victory to thalassocracy in the "Cold War". No convergence occurred in practice; and according to the extent of the one-sided concessions from the side of the USSR, the West only strengthened its capitalist and liberal ideology, expanding its influence further and further throughout the ideological emptiness that had formed. NATO's zone of control also expanded together with this. Thus, at first almost all of the countries of Eastern Europe joined NATO (Romania, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia), and then also the former republics of the USSR (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia). This meant that the structure of the world after the end of the "Cold War" preserved one of its poles, the civilization of the Sea, the West, Leviathan, Carthage, the bourgeois-democratic bloc with its centre in the USA.
The end of the two-polar world meant, therefore, the victory of one of its poles and its strengthening at the expense of the loser. One of the poles vanished, while the other remained and became the natural dominating structure of the whole global geopolitical system. This victory of the civilization of the Sea over the civilization of Land represents the real content of globalization, its essence. Henceforth the world became simultaneously both global and unipolar. From a sociological point of view, globalization represents the planetary dissemination of a single model of the Western bourgeois-democratic, liberal, market society, the society of merchants. This isthalassocracy. And at the same time the USA is the centre and core of this (henceforth global) bourgeois-democratic thalassocracy reality. Democratization, Westernization, Americanization, and globalism essentially represent various aspects of one and the same process of the total attack of the civilization of the Sea, the hegemony of the Sea. Such is the result of that planetary duel that was the major content of international politics in the course of the 20th century. During Khrushchev's rule, the Soviet edition of tellurocracy suffered a colossal catastrophe, and the territorial zones, separating the Heartland from the warm seas came, to a significant degree, under the control of the sea power. Precisely, thus should we understand both the expansion of NATO in the East at the expense of the former socialist countries and allied republics and the subsequent strengthening of the influence of the West in the post-Soviet space.
The collapse of the USSR, which ceased to exist in 1991, put an end to the Soviet period of Russia's geopolitics. This stage ended with such a severe defeat that there is no analogue to it in Russia's preceding history; not even falling into complete dependence on the Mongols, and even that was compensated for by integration into a political-governmental model of the tellurocratic persuasion. In the present case, we are dealing with the impressive victory of the principle enemies of all tellurocracy, with the crippling defeat of Rome and the triumph of the new Carthage.
The disintegration of the USSR signified, from a geopolitical point of view, an event of colossal importance, affecting the entire structure of the global geopolitical map. According to its geopolitical features, the confrontation of the West and East, the capitalist camp and socialist one, with its core in the USSR, represented the peak of the deep process of the great war of the continents, a planetary duel between the civilization of Land and the civilization of the Sea, raised to the highest degree of intensity and to a planetary scale. The entire preceding history led to the tense apogee of this battle, which received precisely in 1991 its qualitative resolution. In this moment, together with the death of the USSR, the collapse of the civilization of Land was realized
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To a certain demographic – those aged enough to have experienced Cold War tensions, Russia is never thought of without a sense of unease.
Stories of the gulag and the KGB; the GRU and NKVD – names of agencies upon which many stories of intrigue are built, generally send shivers down the spines of those exposed to such tales.
And with good reason! Narratives detailing such experiences paint a terrible assault on humanity for all to see.
But do they accurately describe the Russia of today? That is a difficult call to make.
Recent tales of social unrest in Russia clash with the Kremlin’s unforeseen diplomatic outreach in the Middle East and Latin America.
Hosting the World Cup last year and the Winter Olympics four years before were designed to show that Russia intends to become a front-and-centre player on the world stage.
Such ambitions contrast vividly with the Russian annexation of Crimea, which took place at the very time that world unity was on display in Sochi, during the Winter Olympics.
One might find it difficult to divine Russian machinations and motivations, especially when constantly assailed with its positive and negative political aspects; often at the same time.
To understand them, we have to dive deep into the history of Mother Russia, review past diplomacy and calculate the rationale that drives the politics of the one individual leading that vast country.
The Politics of Imperial Russia
At one time, the Russian Empire was the third-largest in history, commanding vast parcels of land that stretched across three continents – Europe, Asia and North America, and a massive population exceeded only by India and China.
These statistics are deceptive because Russia rose as a world power only as its neighbouring rival powers waned.
To the south, the Ottoman Empire was in decline, as was the Qajar dynasty in Persia. The Swedish Empire, northwest of Russia, saw a reversal of its fortunes after the Napoleonic Wars.
To the west, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed after the third partitioning of Poland.
Through all of these turmoils, Russia emerged intact, even helping to defeat French expansionist aspirations during the 1814-18 war.
Unfortunately, while cultural elements sufficed, Russia did not have the economic or technological wherewithal to maintain the illusion of power gained from her neighbours’ downfall.
While other European nations had prospered during the First Industrial Revolution and were getting ready for the second one, Russia remained a largely agrarian society with the bulk of its population bound in serfdom.
Discover how the industrial revolutions advanced European geopolitics...
Towards the end of the 19th Century, Russia finally started to modernise and industrialise, but only through the help of other nations. Foreign capital largely paid for the railways that grid Russia still today, and foreign enterprises built factories which provided jobs for the recently-freed serfs.
One might say that releasing people from their obligations to – and protection of their landholders was the first step towards the civil unrest that precipitated the fall of the Russian Empire.
With nowhere else to turn, imploring the Tsar for help became the way to improve one’s lot in life. Tsar Nicholas II, with seeming negligence, failed to do anything for his starving people; not even appeasement efforts were made.
Essentially, his series of political missteps, at home and abroad, brought the Russian Empire to its end.
In this brief history, we see that Russia, vast in her land holdings and full of people, nevertheless was never really powerful in her own right. Much of her might was illusory.
Discover the subtle might of Asian geopolitics...
Russia During the Cold War and Beyond
After the Tsar was deposed, a provisional ‘Peoples Government’ was established, which was quickly overthrown by Vladimir Lenin.
Quickly, under his leadership, various government agents set about establishing a barrier between Russia and western European powers by unifying with countries that we know today as Belarus, Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and others.
During the Second World War, any territories to the west that were overtaken by Russia’s army became satellite states, further serving as a buffer between powers.
Later, during the division of Europe into capitalist versus communist... there is just no nice way of saying it: the Soviet Union engaged in a land-grab.
Seizing control of half of Berlin, as well as the territory that called itself the German Democratic Republic is what caused the political and military tension between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
Those two powers, formerly allies but now bitter foes, with their respective allies, circled each other warily in a decades-long dance we know as the Cold War.
Significant elements of that era include:
- The ‘Long Telegram’, a magazine article by an American diplomat in Russia, advocating for containment to avert the spread of communism
- The Truman Doctrine: the American foreign policy to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion
- The Warsaw Pact: a collective defence treaty ratified by the Soviet Union and seven satellite states in the East Bloc
- COMECON: an economic assistance organisation designed to support the East Bloc and communist regimes throughout the world
- The Iron Curtain: a figurative (and later, literal) line of demarcation dividing Europe.
‘The West’, meaning western Europe and the United States, were treated only to sparse reports of torture and imprisonment, authoritarian rule and mass killings in the Soviet Union.
In the rare occasions that eyewitness accounts were made possible, either through news broadcasts or through networks of spies, the impression of power – through the police or the military, was strong.
And with the defection of athletes and artists, we were treated to first-hand accounts of what life was like... but what was really going on behind that Curtain?
What was the extent of communist reach in Latin America?
Tearing Down the Wall
It is important to understand that, although economics is considered separate from geopolitics, a regime’s economy plays a role in the extent it can engage in world affairs.
Once sequestered from global affairs, it was all the Soviet Union could do to manage their internal affairs.
As the region’s economy stagnated for so long, no expansive military dreams could be entertained, let alone could any large-scale lending be done to any other country, such as China or North Korea.
Soviet regions embellishing reports of grain output certainly did not help matters, and America’s grain embargo, in retaliation for the USSR meddling in Afghanistan brought them no benefit either.
On paper, everything looked great but the reality was that the people of the Soviet Union were hungry, frustrated and tired of being bound to a regime that no longer served them.
A series of revolts ultimately brought the end to this painful time in Russian history.
However, this period reveals why Russia has such an interest in Afghanistan; you can learn more about it in our geopolitics in the Middle East article.
Russian Geopolitics Today
To truly understand how Russia operates on the world stage, we need only to look toward history.
In spite of her reputation as a mighty world power, Russia, historically and today, has merely cultivated and projected the illusion of power... and apparently engages in bluster to maintain that image.
While it is true that her space programme initially led the world, even those efforts could not be sustained in the long term.
What really hurt Russia is the loss of those ‘buffer lands’ - the countries that separate her from the rest of Europe.
What really did damage to Russia’s hopes for a strategic alliance with them was when they and the Balkan states became NATO members – essentially pledging themselves against Russia.
The lone exception was Ukraine... we’ll go a bit deeper into that situation in a mo.
Painfully aware of how quickly the political tide can turn in Europe as well as with their ally, the United States, Russia knows that she is strategically vulnerable at this point.
Even worse: in the event of a crisis, not many nations would leap to help defend her.
Finally, the global lack of trust in Russia, of her motivations, actions and goals, leaves her diplomats and president constantly working to regain ground.
That is why we see Mr Putin reach out beyond his country’s nearest neighbours for diplomatic opportunities, overlooking former ally China and bypassing Europe altogether.
He is using soft power to build long-distance relations in Africa, the Middle East and in Latin America.
Are you curious about how geopolitics play out in Africa?
Still, the Russian political machine does nothing to dissuade global powers that Russia is still to be feared and that her reach is long. In fact, they encourage it, notably during two brazen poisonings of former Soviet agents on British soil!
Most political analysts suspect that Mr Putin likes for the world to believe that he has influence over the United States and that the American president is working on his behalf.
The likelihood of that being true is minimal but, in continuing to portray Russia in as sinister a tone as possible, that country’s leader expends virtually no resources and loses little diplomatic goodwill, all while maintaining an image of power.
The proof of this analysis lies in the Ukraine.
That country’s 2004 presidential election results were met with widespread demonstrations and accusations of corruption and fraud: voters contended that the election was rigged in favour of the Russian-backed candidate.
Outrage over the alleged duplicity fanned the flames of public revolt and the outcry caused the election results to be scrapped and a new one held.
This time, the election was deemed impartial by a combined body of national and international observers.
The Orange Revolution played out on the world stage, forcing a high-profile reckoning between historical foes, Russia and the U.S. It took ten years for the situation to play itself out.
That democracy-friendly Ukrainian president served a six-year term, after which the Russian-friendly candidate took office. Four years later, in 2014, he was ousted in a bloody clash.
Sensing that Western allies had a foothold in Ukraine, one of the last bastions of Russian security, Russia promptly annexed Crimea – both as a show of force and to reestablish some buffer between themselves and western powers.
In spite of fierce sabre-rattling, neither side was willing to engage. Tensions were diffused through a non-aggression pact, leaving the Ukraine with democratic support from western countries but no military reinforcements.
Having taken Crimea as their security buffer, that was a deal the Russians could live with.
Can’t get enough of geopolitics? Discover how geopolitics play out all over the world. | https://www.superprof.co.uk/blog/geopolitics-in-russia/ |
Last week, the Court heard the case of Zakrewski v The Regional Court in Lodz, a case concerning the requirements for a valid European Arrest Warrant under the Extradition Act 2003, s 2(6)(e).
Background
The respondent was arrested on the grounds of two European Arrest Warrants, which detailed sentences for various crimes of which he had been convicted. EAW 1 was issued by the District Court of Torun and EAW 2 by the Regional Court of Lodz. EAW 2 related to six offences that resulted in four sentences: a three year suspended sentence in respect of offences of assault and robbery, a four year suspended sentence in respect of robbery and theft, a three year suspended sentence in respect of theft and a four year suspended sentence in respect of theft. However, prior to the hearing in relation to his extradition the four sentences were reduced to one year and ten months by an order of the District Court in Grudziadz.
S 2(6)(e) of the 2003 Act requires that an EAW must state the “particulars of the sentence which has been imposed under the law of the category 1 territory in respect of the offence, if the person has been sentenced for the offence.” The respondent submitted in the Administrative Court that EAW 2 was no longer valid because of the passing of a “cumulative sentence” which substituted a total penalty in respect of all of the offences to which the second warrant related.
Decisions of the lower courts
District Judge Rose found that the warrant still satisfied the requirements of s 2 (6)(e). The judge relied on the wording of the letter from the Regional court of Lodz that stated that “Pursuant to the judgement passed, Lukasz Zakrzewski has been sentenced to a cumulative penalty of one year and ten months’ imprisonment . . . At that, it should be underscored that a cumulative sentence does not invalidate any of the single sentences covered by that cumulative sentence and its only effect is that instead of executing the single penalties of imprisonment imposed on the convict, a cumulative penalty is executed in the extent determined in the cumulative sentence.” District Judge Rose considered that the warrant therefore still accurately reflected “the sentence which has been imposed” as required by the subsection.
In the Administrative Court it was argued on behalf of Mr Zakrzewski that the requirement in section 2 that a warrant must state the sentence imposed in respect of the offences on the warrant requires any aggregate sentence to be stated. Mr Justice Lloyd Jones agreed. On his analysis it was clear that the cumulative sentence was the operative sentence and that the previous individual sentences, while remaining valid, were not operative. Justice Jones also rejected the argument that s 2(6)(e) should be read to refer to the situation as it existed at the time of the warrant and therefore it was sufficient that the warrant provided an accurate statement of the sentence at the time the warrant was issued. The purpose of s 2(6)(e) is to provide the necessary sentencing information in order to determine if the requirement of s 65 of the Act are satisfied. In order to determine whether the offences identified in the warrant are extradition offences within s 65(2), (3), (4), (5) or (6) the court has to ascertain the length of sentence which has been imposed. Justice Jones concluded that in order to fulfil this purpose, the information must relate to the current operative sentence and not to earlier sentences that have been subsumed in an aggregated order. In the absence of such information there is a danger that a court may proceed on the basis of earlier individual sentences and, in certain circumstances, may come to an incorrect conclusion as to whether the warrant relates to an extradition offence.
Justice Jones also referred to the Art 8 of the Framework Decision that a European arrest warrant shall contain information about “(f) the penalty imposed, if there is any final judgment.” Where there is an aggregated sentence, it is that which is the final judgment. As a more general principle Justice Jones stated that there is a duty on the part of the requesting authority to ensure that the information contained in the warrant is proper, fair and accurate. Therefore, after a European arrest warrant is issued, if the courts of the requesting State vary the length of sentence imposed for the offence to which the warrant relates, it is necessary for the requesting authority to withdraw the warrant and issue a new warrant that accurately states the sentence imposed and meets the requirements of s 2(6)(e).
Comment
Extradition cases often turn of what may be perceived as legal technicalities. Assange turned on the exact interpretation of the words ‘judicial authority’ and this case turns on what some would perceive as a similar legal pinhead. However, the wide sweeping nature of the EAW system is in part justified by its rigorous procedural requirements, and its operation needs to be absolutely clear. It is not uncommon for sentences to be changed by requesting courts, and as such any clarity provided by the Court on this issue will greatly aid the practical implementation of the EAW system. | http://ukscblog.com/case-preview-zakrzewski-v-the-regional-court-in-lodz-poland/ |
Ice-marginal moraines are often used to reconstruct the dimensions of former ice masses, which are then used as proxies for palaeoclimate. This approach relies on the assumption that the distribution of moraines in the modern landscape is an accurate reflection of former ice margin positions during climatically controlled periods of ice margin stability. However, the validity of this assumption is open to question, as a number of additional, nonclimatic factors are known to influence moraine distribution. This review considers the role played by topography in this process, with specific focus on moraine formation, preservation, and ease of identification (topoclimatic controls are not considered). Published literature indicates that the importance of topography in regulating moraine distribution varies spatially, temporally, and as a function of the ice mass type responsible for moraine deposition. In particular, in the case of ice sheets and ice caps (> 1000 km2), one potentially important topographic control on where in a landscape moraines are deposited is erosional feedback, whereby subglacial erosion causes ice masses to become less extensive over successive glacial cycles. For the marine-terminating outlets of such ice masses, fjord geometry also exerts a strong control on where moraines are deposited, promoting their deposition in proximity to valley narrowings, bends, bifurcations, where basins are shallow, and/or in the vicinity of topographic bumps. Moraines formed at the margins of ice sheets and ice caps are likely to be large and readily identifiable in the modern landscape. In the case of icefields and valley glaciers (10–1000 km2), erosional feedback may well play some role in regulating where moraines are deposited, but other factors, including variations in accumulation area topography and the propensity for moraines to form at topographic pinning points, are also likely to be important. This is particularly relevant where land-terminating glaciers extend into piedmont zones (unconfined plains, adjacent to mountain ranges) where large and readily identifiable moraines can be deposited. In the case of cirque glaciers (< 10 km2), erosional feedback is less important, but factors such as topographic controls on the accumulation of redistributed snow and ice and the availability of surface debris, regulate glacier dimensions and thereby determine where moraines are deposited. In such cases, moraines are likely to be small and particularly susceptible to post-depositional modification, sometimes making them difficult to identify in the modern landscape. Based on this review, we suggest that, despite often being difficult to identify, quantify, and mitigate, topographic controls on moraine distribution should be explicitly considered when reconstructing the dimensions of palaeoglaciers and that moraines should be judiciously chosen before being used as indirect proxies for palaeoclimate (i.e., palaeoclimatic inferences should only be drawn from moraines when topographic controls on moraine distribution are considered insignificant).
|Original language||English|
|Pages (from-to)||44-64|
|Journal||Geomorphology|
|Volume||226|
|Early online date||8 Aug 2014|
|DOIs|
|Publication status||Published - 1 Dec 2014|
Documents
- Barr and Lovell (2014) (accepted manuscript)
Rights statement: “NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in 'Geomorphology'. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Geomorphology, [226, 01/12/2014] DOI: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2014.07.030" | https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/a-review-of-topographic-controls-on-moraine-distribution(233617ec-5ed1-4f6d-9c9a-9ff505b615f5).html |
Glaciers Sentence Examples
- Among the great glaciers which stream from the peak the most noteworthy are those of Bossons and Taconnaz (northern slope) and of Brenva and Miage (southern slope).
- But there are no perpetual snow-fields, no glaciers creep down these valleys, and no alpine hamlets ever appear to break the monotony.
- Below Aosta also the Dora Baltea receives several considerable tributaries, which descend from the glaciers between Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa.
- But the effect of its southern latitude is tempered by its peninsular character, bounded as it is on both sides by seas of considerable extent, as well as by the great range of the Alps with its snows and glaciers to the north.
- Snow accumulating on the higher portions of the land, when compacted into ice and caused to flow downwards by gravity, gives rise, on account of its more coherent character, to continuous glaciers, which mould themselves to the slopes down which they are guided, different ice-streams converging to send forward a greater volume.
- Most of the glaciers terminate at an altitude of 14,800-14,900 ft., but the small Cesar glacier, drained to the Hausberg valley, reaches to 14,450.
- Beyond this point the Anglo-Russian Commission of 1895 demarcated a line to the snowfields and glaciers which overlook the Chinese border.
- On the Swiss Alps it is one of the most prevalent and striking of the forest trees, its dark evergreen foliage often standing out in strong contrast to the snowy ridges and glaciers beyond.
- The Aptera have perhaps the most extensive distribution of all animals, being found in Franz Josef Land and South Victoria Land, on the snows of Alpine glaciers, and in the depths of the most extensive caves.
- They not only indicate the height of the land, but also enable us to compute the declivity of the mountain slopes; and if minor features of ground lying between two contours - such as ravines, as also rocky precipices and glaciers - are indicated, as is done on the Siegfried atlas of Switzerland, they fully meet the requirements of the scientific man, the engineer and the mountain-climber.
- C. von Sonklar, in his map of the Hohe Tauern (r: 144,000; 1864) coloured plains and valleys green; mountain slopes in five shades of brown; glaciers blue or white.
- They are printed in three colours, contours at intervals of 10 and 20 metres being in brown, incidental features (ravines, cliffs, glaciers) in black or blue.
- The shores are so extensively indented with voes, or firths - the result partly of denudation and partly caused by glaciers - that no spot in Shetland is more than 3 m.
- The presence of enormous glaciers in the Ice Age is attested by the moraines at the Atlantic end, and by other indications farther east.
- The coast-line of Melville Bay (the northern part of the west coast) is to some degree an exception, though the fjords may here be somewhat filled with glaciers, and, for another example, it may be noted that Peary observed a marked contrast on the north coast.
- In some parts the interior ice-covering extends down to the outer coast, while in other parts its margin is situated more inland, and the ice-bare coast-land is deeply intersected by fjords extending far into the interior, where they are blocked by enormous glaciers or " ice-currents " from the interior ice-covering which discharge masses of s"aefel's0° icebergs into them.
- In the rapidly moving glaciers of the icefjords this striation is not distinctly visible, being evidently obliterated by the strong motion of the ice masses.
- Here the ice converges into the valleys and moves with increasing velocity in the form of glaciers into the fjords, where they break off as icebergs.
- In twenty-four hours, with which the glaciers of Greenland move into the sea, the margin of the inland ice and its glaciers was studied by several expeditions.
- (Danish).3 It was, however, ascertained that there is a great difference between the velocities of the glaciers in winter and in summer.
- There seem to be periodical oscillations in the extension of the glaciers and the inland ice similar to those that have been observed on the glaciers of the Alps and elsewhere.
- This iron is considered by several of the first authorities"on the subject to be of meteoric origin,' but no evidence hitherto given seems to prove decisively that it cannot be telluric. That the nodules found were lying on gneissic rock, with no basaltic rocks in the neighbourhood, does not prove that the iron may not originate from basalt, for the nodules may have been transported by the glaciers, like other erratic blocks, and will stand erosion much longer than the basalt, which may long ago have disappeared.
- Its early beginnings take their rise amidst a mighty mass of glaciers which cover the northern slopes of the watershed, separating them from the sources of the Gogra on the south; and there is evidence that two of its great southern tributaries, the Shorta Tsanpo (which joins about 150 m.
- These trenches have for successive geological periods been the drainage valleys of immense lakes (probably also of glaciers) which formerly extended over the plateau or fiords of the seas which surrounded it.
- It rises in the glaciers of the Tbdi range, and has cut out a deep bed which forms the Grossthal that comprises the greater portion of the canton of Glarus.
- There are also many smaller lakes fed by the glaciers of the Sailughem (Achit-nor, 4650 ft., and Uryu-nor), and others scattered through the Ektagh Altai.
- (1) The principal stream is considered to be that of the Hinter Rhine, which issues (7271 ft.) from the glaciers of the Rheinwaldhorn group, and then flows first N.E.
- Forbes was also interested in geology, and published memoirs on the thermal springs of the Pyrenees, on the extinct volcanoes of the Vivarais (Ardeche), on the geology of the Cuchullin and Eildon hills, &c. In addition to about 150 scientific papers, he wrote Travels through the Alps of Savoy and Other Parts of the Pennine Chain, with Observations on the Phenomena of Glaciers (1843); Norway and its Glaciers (1853); Occasional Papers on the Theory of Glaciers (1859); A Tour of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa (1855).
- Over the whole state there is a layer of drift deposited by the glaciers which once covered this region.
- The narrow strait Strdmmen separates Kvalii from the larger Seiland, whose snow-covered hills with several glaciers rise above 3500 ft., while an insular rampart of mountains, Sord, protects the strait and harbour from the open sea.
- In the Dachstein group are found the most easterly glaciers of the Alps, of which the largest is the Karls-Eisfeld, nearly 22 m.
- The Carpathians, which only in a few places attain an altitude of over 8000 ft., lack the bold peaks, the extensive snow-fields, the large glaciers, the high waterfalls and the numerous large lakes which are found in the Alps.
- They are nowhere covered by perpetual snow, and glaciers do not exist, so that the Carpathians, even in their highest altitude, recall the middle region of the Alps, with which, however, they have many points in common as regards appearance, structure and flora.
- It drains the tract between the Yamdok Tso and Tigu Lakes, and is fed by the glaciers of the Kulha Kangri and other great ranges.
- There are no glaciers near its sources, although they must have existed there in geologically recent times, but masses of melting snow annually give rise to floods, which rush through the midst of the valley in a turbid red stream, frequently rendering the river impassable and cutting off the crazy brick bridges at Herat and Tirpul.
- In the north, icebergs break off, as a rule, from the ends of the great glaciers of Greenland, and in the far south from the edge of the great Antarctic ice-barrier.
- Its glaciers send down a thousand rills which combine to form the Pangani river.
- Along the Ruwenzori range are glaciers and snowfields nearly 15 m.
- North America is bathed in frigid waters around its broad northern shores; its mountains bear huge glaciers in the north-west; the outlying area of Greenland in the north-east is shrouded with ice; and in geologically recent times a vast ice-sheet has spread over its north-eastern third; while warm waters bring corals to its southern shores.
- South America has warm waters and corals on the north-east, and cold waters and glaciers only on its narrowing southern end.
- A district of considerable extent in the centre of the island is occupied by snowfields, whence glaciers descend east and west to the sea.
- After the continental ice sheet entirely disappeared from the state, local valley glaciers lingered in the Adirondacks and the Catskills.
- Apart from the fjords and lakes the chief beauties of the Alps are glaciers and waterfalls.
- To the west of Aorangi glaciers crawl into the forest as low as 400 ft.
- The Pleistocene system in the South Island includes glacial deposits, which prove a great extension of the New Zealand glaciers, especially along the western coast.
- The glaciers must have reached the sea at Cascade Point in southern Westland.
- Glaciers are common both in the N.
- On its slope, which rises abruptly from the Bitterroot Basin, glaciers have cut canyons between high and often precipitous walls, and between these canyons are steep and rocky ridges having peaked or saw-toothed crest lines.
- Deep and narrow canons are common, and, at higher levels, glaciers, carved out amphitheatres, or " cirques " and " U "-shaped troughs.
- As the part east of the river was once covered by the ice-sheet, its hills have been lowered and its valleys filled through the attrition of glaciers until the surface has a gently undulating appearance. | http://sentence.yourdictionary.com/glaciers |
Melissa Collett explains why Corporate Chartered status is more important than ever in the digital age
In our digital age, consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about the goods and services they buy, and as a result are expecting higher standards from companies across all industries. Consumers look for indicators to help them identify companies who strive for better consumer outcomes. This is why Corporate Chartered status is becoming more important than ever.
Governance
Corporate Chartered status demonstrates that a firm has made a commitment to a published code of ethics, to provide knowledgeable advice backed up by qualifications and continuing professional development (CPD), and to seek good customer outcomes. As part of our recent consultation, a number of consultees said how important it was to ensure that Corporate Chartered firms continue to meet these requirements. That is why the Corporate Chartered status is governed by a contract which requires compliance with a set of Corporate Chartered status rules (the ‘rules’). These aim to protect the reputation of the professional body, the Corporate Chartered status mark (which includes the logo containing the title itself), and the profession as a whole.
Contractual relationship
It is important to understand that the PFS/CII is not a regulator, and as such cannot impose regulatory style sanctions on firms that are in breach of the rules. This means that we cannot impose fines, remove permissions or act on matters that are regulatory in nature, nor is it a substitute for the courts, for example in relation to potential claims of negligence. Any matters that fall within these categories should be pursued with the competent authority, such as the regulator, or where appropriate, the Financial Ombudsman Service or the courts, who have the jurisdiction to consider such matters.
Instead of a regulatory relationship, we have a contractual relationship with Corporate Chartered firms. Firms that currently hold Corporate Chartered status are required to comply with the rules at all times during their annual membership period, and failure to comply with the rules could lead to the withdrawal of Corporate Chartered status. If this happens, it is important that any determination made by the CII is followed within any specified time-frames, to prevent the misuse of the Corporate Chartered status. The above sanction can be considered as a ‘worst case scenario’, for example when a Corporate Chartered firm breaches a fundamental principle of our Code of Ethics or fails to inform us of a regulatory sanction.
However, despite us having the discretion to impose sanctions for breach of the rules, we want to be able to work collaboratively with Corporate Chartered firms to adopt more of a ‘prevention is better than cure’ approach to breaches of the rules, especially if that ‘cure’ results in the removal of a firm’s Corporate Chartered status.
We encourage Corporate Chartered firms to be open and transparent with us if a firm believes they are in breach (or may potentially be in breach) of the rules. By engaging with us at the earliest stage possible, we can work together to provide guidance and support to ensure that a potential breach can be remedied and prevented from re-occurring. This can avoid issues of non-disclosure of a potential breach from arising, which can sometimes make cases more difficult both for the firm and the PFS/CII.
Our motto of ‘Standards, Professionalism, Trust’ remains at the heart of the work we do. If the standards and professionalism of our members and Corporate Chartered firms are clear, then we are collectively one step closer to securing public trust in the profession. However, we cannot maintain these standards without the cooperation of Corporate Chartered firms. The Corporate Chartered mark is a sign of a valuable commitment, and the PFS/CII, with help from Corporate Chartered firms, will always seek to protect the value of the Corporate Chartered brand. | https://www.pfp.thepfs.org/2020/08/24/protecting-corporate-chartered-status |
Much of the research on vitamin D is related to bone health and cancer. But in a new study published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology, researchers from the University at Buffalo have discovered that vitamin D may also play a key role in eye health. In particular, vitamin D may help prevent age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in women with a genetic predisposition to the development of AMD.
For the study, researchers analyzed data from 913 women between the ages of 54 and 74 who participated in the Carotenoids in Age-Related Eye Disease Study—an ancillary study of the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study. The researchers determined participant vitamin D status from an analysis of a vitamin D biomarker 25-hydroxyvitamin D through vitamin D intake from sunlight, supplementation, and diet.
The researchers found that women who were deficient in vitamin D and had a specific high-risk genotype were 6.7 times more likely to develop AMD than women with adequate vitamin D levels and a normal genotype profile.
The anti-inflammatory and anti-angiogenic properties in vitamin D are thought to provide the protective effects against AMD. Anti-angiogenic inhibitors help slow new blood vessel growth, which is a characteristic often seen during the late stages of AMD. There is also a genetic variant associated with AMD in the complement factor H (CFH) gene.
“Our study suggests that being deficient for vitamin D may increase one’s risk for AMD, and that this increased risk may be most profound in those with the highest genetic risk for this specific variant in the CFH protein,” added Millen.
Previously, studies have also found that vitamin D intake from supplementation and foods are related to the lower incidence of AMD in women younger than 75 years old.
Millen, A.E., et al., “Association Between Vitamin D Status and Age-Related macular Degeneration by Genetic Risk,” JAMA Ophthalmology August 27, 2015, doi: 10.1001/jamaphthalmol.2015.2715, http://archopht.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2430468.
Hill, D.J., “Vitamin D may play key role in preventing macular degeneration,” University at Buffalo New Center, August 27, 2015; http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2015/08/032.html.
Millen, A.E., et al., “Vitamin D status and early age-related macular degeneration in postmenopausal women,” Archives of Ophthalmology April 2011; 129(4): 481–489, doi: 10.1001/archophthalmol.2011.48, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21482873. | https://www.doctorshealthpress.com/health-news/vitamin-d-may-play-key-role-in-macular-degeneration-prevention/ |
The lung is the essential respiration organ in air-breathing vertebrates. Its principal function is to transport oxygen from the atmosphere into the bloodstream, and to excrete carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere. This exchange of gases is accomplished in the mosaic of specialized cells that form millions of tiny, exceptionally thin-walled air sacs called alveoli. The lungs also have nonrespiratory functions.
Medical terms related to the lung often begin with pulmo-, from the Latin pulmonarius ("of the lungs"), cognate with the Greek pleumon ("lung").
Contents
Respiratory function
Energy production from aerobic respiration requires oxygen and produces carbon dioxide as a by-product, creating a need for an efficient means of oxygen delivery to cells and excretion of carbon dioxide from cells. In small organisms, such as single-celled bacteria, this process of gas exchange can take place entirely by simple diffusion. In larger organisms, this is not possible; only a small proportion of cells are close enough to the surface for oxygen from the atmosphere to enter them through diffusion. Two major adaptations made it possible for organisms to attain great multicellularity: an efficient circulatory system that conveyed gases to and from the deepest tissues in the body, and a large, internalised respiratory system that centralized the task of obtaining oxygen from the atmosphere and bringing it into the body, whence it could rapidly be distributed to all the circulatory system.
In air-breathing vertebrates, respiration occurs in a series of steps. Air is brought into the animal via the airways — in reptiles, birds and mammals this often consists of the nose; the pharynx; the larynx; the trachea; the bronchi and bronchioles; and the terminal branches of the respiratory tree. The lungs of mammals are a rich lattice of alveoli, which provide an enormous surface area for gas exchange. A network of fine capillaries allows transport of blood over the surface of alveoli. Oxygen from the air inside the alveoli diffuses into the bloodstream, and carbon dioxide diffuses from the blood to the alveoli, both across thin alveolar membranes. The drawing and expulsion of air is driven by muscular action; in early tetrapods, air was driven into the lungs by the pharyngeal muscles, whereas in reptiles, birds and mammals a more complicated musculoskeletal system is used. In the mammal, a large muscle, the diaphragm (in addition to the internal intercostal muscles), drive ventilation by periodically altering the intra-thoracic volume and pressure; by increasing volume and thus decreasing pressure, air flows into the airways down a pressure gradient, and by reducing volume and increasing pressure, the reverse occurs. During normal breathing, expiration is passive and no muscles are contracted (the diaphragm relaxes). Another name for this inspiration and expulsion of air is ventilation.
Nonrespiratory functions
In addition to respiratory functions such as gas exchange and regulation of hydrogen ion concentration, the lungs also:
- influence the concentration of biologically active substances and drugs used in medicine in arterial blood
- filter out small blood clots formed in veins
- serve as a physical layer of soft, shock-absorbent protection for the heart, which the lungs flank and nearly enclose.
Mammalian lungs
The lungs of mammals have a spongy texture and are honeycombed with epithelium having a much larger surface area in total than the outer surface area of the lung itself. The lungs of humans are typical of this type of lung. The environment of the lung is very moist, which makes it a hospitable environment for bacteria. Many respiratory illnesses are the result of bacterial or viral infection of the lungs.
Air enters through the oral and nasal cavities; it flows through the larynx and into the trachea, which branches out into bronchi. In humans, it is the two main bronchi (produced by the bifurcation of the trachea) that enter the roots of the lungs. The bronchi continue to divide within the lung, and after multiple generations of divisions, give rise to bronchioles. Eventually the bronchial tree ends in alveolar sacs, composed of alveoli. Alveoli are essentially tiny sacs in close contact with blood filled capillaries. Here oxygen from the air diffuses into the blood, where it is carried by hemoglobin, and carried via pulmonary veins towards the heart.
Deoxygenated blood from the heart travels via the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxidation.
Avian lungs
Many sources state that it takes two complete breathing cycles for air to pass entirely through a bird's respiratory system. This is based on the idea that the bird's lungs store air received from the posterior air sacs in the 'first' exhalation until they can deliver this air to the posterior air sacs in the 'second' inhalation.
Avian lungs do not have alveoli, as mammalian lungs do, but instead contain millions of tiny passages known as parabronchi, connected at either ends by the dorsobronchi and ventrobronchi. Air flows through the honeycombed walls of the parabronchi and into air capillaries, where oxygen and carbon dioxide are traded with cross-flowing blood capillaries by diffusion, a process of crosscurrent exchange.
This complex system of air sacs ensures that the airflow through the avian lung is always travelling in the same direction - posterior to anterior. This is in contrast to the mammalian system, in which the direction of airflow in the lung is tidal, reversing between inhalation and exhalation. By utilizing a unidirectional flow of air, avian lungs are able to extract a greater concentration of oxygen from inhaled air. Birds are thus equipped to fly at altitudes at which mammals would succumb to hypoxia.
Reptilian lungs
Reptilian lungs are typically ventilated by a combination of expansion and contraction of the ribs via axial muscles and buccal pumping. Crocodilians also rely on the hepatic piston method, in which the liver is pulled back by a muscle anchored to the pubic bone (part of the pelvis), which in turn pulls the bottom of the lungs backward, expanding them.
Amphibian lungs
The lungs of most frogs and other amphibians are simple balloon-like structures, with gas exchange limited to the outer surface area of the lung. This is not a very efficient arrangement, but amphibians have low metabolic demands and also frequently supplement their oxygen supply by diffusion across the moist outer skin of their bodies. Unlike mammals, which use a breathing system driven by negative pressure, amphibians employ positive pressure. Note that the majority of salamander species are lungless salamanders and conduct respiration through their skin and the tissues lining their mouth.
Invertebrate lungs
Some invertebrates have "lungs" that serve a similar respiratory purpose but are not evolutionarily related to vertebrate lungs. Some arachnids have structures called "book lungs" used for atmospheric gas exchange. The Coconut crab uses structures called branchiostegal lungs to breathe air and indeed will drown in water, hence it breathes on land and holds its breath underwater. The Pulmonata are an order of snails and slugs that have developed "lungs".
Origins
The first lungs, simple sacs that allowed the organism to gulp air under oxygen-poor conditions, evolved into the lungs of today's terrestrial vertebrates and into the gas bladders of today's fish. The lungs of vertebrates are homologous to the gas bladders of fish (but not to their gills). The evolutionary origin of both are thought to be outpocketings of the upper intestines. This is reflected by the fact that the lungs of a fetus also develop from an outpocketing of the upper intestines and in the case of gas bladders, this connection to the gut continues to exist as the pneumatic duct in more "primitive" teleosts, and is lost in the higher orders. (This is an instance of correlation between ontogeny and phylogeny.) There are no animals which have both lungs and a gas bladder.
See also
- Bronchus
- Bronchitis
- Pulmonology
- Lung volumes
- Cardiothoracic surgery
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Liquid breathing
- Mechanical ventilation
- Drowning
- Dry drowning
- Pneumothorax
- American Lung Association
Further reading
Wiktionary, the free dictionary. | http://worldwizzy.com/library/Lung |
The Twisted Path of Multimedia VDI
Monitoring and troubleshooting multimedia communications in a VDI environment is much more complex than in a peer-to-peer network model.
There is a big push in many organizations to move to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). This brings a whole new level of complexity to deploying, managing, and troubleshooting multimedia applications. An audio and/or video application may be operating over multiple paths, each with different types of encoding and operational characteristics, as seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Multimedia VDI Communications Path
There are three major flows in each direction for a bi-directional multimedia session to function.
* Client A VDI path to VDI Server 1, using Client A's VDI protocol.
* VDI Server 1 to VDI Server 2, using the native multimedia streaming protocol.
* Client B VDI path to Server 2, which may use a different VDI protocol than Client A's VDI protocol.
In addition, the reverse direction for each of the above paths may be used if a bi-directional multimedia session is in use.
Note that the VDI protocol can be different for each client, depending on the VDI server in use (i.e., Citrix or VMWare) or depending upon the client itself (i.e., computer, thin client, or tablet). And the network infrastructure between each client and its VDI server may be substantially different. For example, one client may be remote, such as at a satellite medical facility that is connected by a T1 access line.
Conferencing between three or more endpoints will require the addition of a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). Looking only at VDI Server 1 and VDI Server 2 conferencing paths, two additional paths would be added to the infrastructure for communication with the MCU. In this situation, the implementation may be made more complex if the protocol for each VDI server is different, such as when one of the clients is running a low bandwidth codec while another client is running a high bandwidth codec.
The quest for optimum performance and cost savings may further complicate the system. For example, if the organization is doing traffic engineering, asymmetric paths may result. Troubleshooting connectivity or performance problems in this type of environment can drive up the time and effort that it takes to diagnose problems.
The good news is that there are ways to tackle the complex task of diagnosing any potential problems. The bad news is that more advanced diagnostic tools will be needed to perform the troubleshooting within reasonable time frames. Simple packet capture tools can be used to look for specific symptoms, but the time required to perform the necessary analysis may make their use uneconomical.
Identify the Problem
You may learn that there is a multimedia problem because the people using the systems are reporting audio dropouts or jerky video. Proactive monitoring of the systems along the path can allow you to determine that there are problems, potentially heading off poor performance before it gets bad enough to have a big negative impact on the multimedia sessions.
When you are doing proactive systems monitoring, it is useful to configure the multimedia endpoints to report call stats to a central call controller for further analysis; the multimedia endpoints are the VDI Server 1 and VDI Server 2 (not the "Clients"). The ideal is getting RTCP info every 5 seconds, which allows you to determine how frequently the problem occurs. Without RTCP, obtain data about peak jitter and total packet loss from the server's multimedia-client application.
In the case of problems between each VDI client and its server, you'll need to monitor whatever performance measurement points are provided by the VDI software. It also makes sense to monitor network traffic statistics on both the VDI client and VDI server, looking for TCP retransmission counts and things like duplicate ACKs. A good network management product can help with basic network statistics monitoring.
Finally, the new generation of Application Performance Management (APM) products may be able to provide insight into a problem. These systems capture and analyze packet flows to identify application performance problems. They can typically measure jitter, packet loss, and server turnaround time to isolate the problem to the network, or to the server or the application.
Isolate the Path Components
Once you know that a problem exists, you can begin troubleshooting. You will need to isolate the source of the problem to one of the path components: 1) Client A to Server 1; 2) Server 1 to Server 2; or 3) Server 2 to Client B. Remember that the problem can be with the data flowing in one direction and not the other, so treat each direction separately for each path.
Once you think that you know the paths involved, check them thoroughly to confirm. I've seen a case where the video traffic was going to an MCU located on the Internet instead of to the corporate internal MCU. Traceroute between the two video systems took an entirely different internal path. The path via the Internet experienced a lot of jitter and loss while the internal path was clean. It took weeks of work before someone spotted the discrepancy in the configuration. Packet captures with a network analyzer or with an APM can verify that the endpoint addresses are correct. You may also need to look for network traffic engineering that may route the video traffic via a path that is different than what traceroute tells you.
The benefit of VDI is that all communications in the above scenario is routed through the data center. The installation of packet capture probes (e.g., Gigamon, Anue, etc) in the data center can significantly aid in the capture and analysis of multimedia and VDI flows. | https://www.nojitter.com/post/240145400/the-twisted-path-of-multimedia-vdi |
A dissertation paper like all other research papers needs an abstract. A dissertation is a piece of writing or essay that is quite lengthy. It is usually written to fulfil academic requirements prior to a PhD being awarded. To write a successful PhD dissertation, it is important that all aspects of the paper are well understood and well written.
One aspect of a dissertation research is the abstract. An abstract is a compilation of the gist of the dissertation paper. An abstract brings to live the ideas found in a dissertation. It is meant to highlight all the key ideas presented in the dissertation paper. A good abstract should not be more than a page long. There is no point in writing a long epistle of abstract if you are still going to repeat all the facts highlighted in the main body of a paper. The following tips are meant to help the student write a better abstract.
The sole aim of an abstract is to present the main ideas in a research or paper. It will be easy for a reader to understand what the research paper is about just by reading the abstract. The abstract is meant to highlight and answer key questions about your essay. In order to accomplish these purposes, it is important that the student gathers together all the main points found in this essay. It is usually a good idea to write your abstract once you are through with your essay. This will give you an idea of the facts found in your paper. Sometimes the student may start out with an idea for his dissertation only to end up with other ideas. The reason above is why it is important to write your abstract last. Just in case you have already written your abstract first, the best thing to do is either to change your abstract to fit your essay or change the main points in your essay to fit your abstract.
It is a good idea to present your abstract in a clear and concise language. There is no need using complicated and sophisticated words if it only serves to confuse your readers. A clear and concise language will ensure that you pass the correct messages along to your audience. If for any reason you want to communicate a really complicated idea in your abstract, it will be better for you to split your ideas into simpler sentences that make sense.
Avoid the use of ambiguous statement in you dissertation abstract. Ambiguity in any form connotes more than one meaning. Your purpose is not to pass along mixed messages. Your aim is to give your ideas only one meaning. Ambiguity will only get you penalized and you might end up losing valuable marks. Be exact in your meanings. Leave no room for doubts. If you find a sentence to be ambiguous, change it.
A bibliography is a list containing all the works consulted while writing your research paper. Be sure to include every piece of work you cited in your bibliography. All works not cited but which you made use of should also be included in this list. It is good to acknowledge anybody whose work has brought you this far in your research. | https://www.bestcustomwriting.com/blog/dissertation-writing-tips |
In April of this year, Urban Indy put together a list of questions for the Republican and Democrat candidates for Mayor in the 2011 election here in Indianapolis. Our questions are more than you would see in the usual media sources and are focused on issues that our readers find important. Topics such as transit, neighborhood development, environment, education, food and jobs were all given focused consideration. The Q & A below is how Democratic candidate Melina Kennedy answered. For her campagn website, please click here.
Melina Kennedy (image credit: marioncountydemocrats.org)
Neighborhoods:Q: How do you envision purposing RebuildIndy funds in coming years to invest in the neighborhoods of Indianapolis?
A: A Kennedy administration would implement a substantive re-definition of how the City plans projects, provide services, and spends taxpayer dollars. It would involve comprehensive community development strategy and individual neighborhood-based planning. This would be a switch from top-down (Mayor/City directed) “one size fits all” model of Rebuild Indy spending to a bottom-up, neighborhood-directed model. It starts from the premise that Indy is comprised of units called neighborhoods that have physical, social, and economic assets which need to be leveraged. I also want to be sure projects are not rushed for arbitrary deadlines, like elections, that have resulted in some improvements being made over a short period of time on the same roads, thereby wasting one time public dollars. In short, efficiency of the use of proceeds by better coordination and planning would also be a key component.
Q: Would you be willing to support options that allow neighborhoods to levy taxes on themselves to invest in specific infrastructure projects? (ie: sidewalks, transit stops, bike trails, etc)
A: I would consider supporting these options if pursued under the current law. If it would require new laws, I would likely be supportive but would want to see the language proposed.
Q: How important is it to invest in redeveloping areas such as the Lafayette Square neighborhood and what level of commitment to changing the built form to create a friendly space should the city take upon itself?
A: Very important. Comprehensive Community-based and neighborhood-driven redevelopment is the key to adding real jobs and solving a myriad of other issues including crime, education, transportation, and housing. While Deputy Mayor for Economic Development I oversaw numerous community development initiatives, including setting up the CRED District in the Lafayette Square area, as well as the Certified Technology Park near the old Bush Stadium.
Q: Do you support changes to zoning codes to reduce parking requirements, increase options for mixed use, and create a more dense urban core? (ie: Form Based Codes)
A: Yes. I support a flexible approach to zoning codes and land use planning that would allow particular communities to realize their shared vision of the future of their community.
Q: Do you support enforcement of existing penalties for residents who do not shovel their sidewalks of snow in the winter where sidewalks do exist?
A: Existing laws should be followed.
Transportation:
Q: Does IndyConnect sufficiently address the issues of investing in the city core versus transferring investment to the suburban areas?
A: Indyconnect still has not come out with a final plan, but we need to ensure that any mass transit plan addresses the needs of residents in all parts of our city. Nationally, about 40 percent of transit riders have incomes of less than $25,000 a year. But in Indianapolis, that number is upwards of 70 percent. More than 50 percent of IndyGo riders are ‘transit-dependent,’ meaning they have no other transportation choice to get to work, to shopping, to school, to day care. Of those riders, 78 percent do not have a vehicle available to them. And, sixty percent of IndyGO riders don’t even have a driver’s license. Improving transit option in the city core and connecting our neighbors with all parts of our city is essential quality of life. And, providing more transportation options is good for all citizens, not just the transit dependent.
Q: Are you supportive of more urban based rail projects that address local transportation options for city residents versus the concerns for regional mobility? (ie: light rail, modern streetcars, BRT dedicated guideways, etc)
A: Yes and as mayor, my long-term vision is of a multi-modal transportation system that is fiscally sustainable and integrates rail, roads, bus, air, pedestrian and bicycle facilities into a fully interconnected network. Affordable, reliable and accessible, our transportation system must provide viable choices to residents and visitors. Integrated with responsible land use planning, our transportation system will drive economic growth and a development pattern that enhances our quality of life, by creating complete communities with ready, safe and convenient access to jobs, shopping, school, services or recreation.
Q: Should an Indianapolis Mayor champion a cause to reduce local spending on roads and devote more of it to transit?
A: Infrastructure is important and so is an appropriate transit system. But, we also have many other critical issues facing our city like jobs, fighting crime and improving educational outcomes. And again, my long-term vision is of a multi-modal transportation system that is fiscally sustainable and integrates rail, roads, bus, air, pedestrian and bicycle facilities into a fully interconnected network. Affordable, reliable and accessible, our transportation system must provide viable choices to residents and visitors. Integrated with responsible land use planning, our transportation system will drive economic growth and a development pattern that enhances our quality of life, by creating complete communities with ready, safe and convenient access to jobs, shopping, school, services or recreation.
Jobs:
Q: How important is it to employ local workers for local infrastructure? At what point do we look at out of town/state laborers?
A: Very important. We should be working to put Indianapolis back to work and ensure that our residents have the skills required of the jobs that are available.
Q: What is your point of view on privatization of public assets? (ie: parking meters, utilities, etc)
A: Selling off our assets is not, in and of itself, leadership. I am not against privatization, per se, but it should be evaluated on a case by case situation. Each deal should be done in a way that protects and serves taxpayers and our City. Some of the deals that this Mayor has put together have not been done with the interest of the tax payer, like the parking meter deal.
Environmental Justice:
Q: What is your opinion on “green” infrastructure?
A: Encouraging green infrastructure such as green roofs, rain gardens and other green infrastructure is a positive way to protect the environment and enhance a city.
A: Choosing green is almost always a plus. It is particularly appropriate for new development when new materials and ways to incorporate green aspects can be done throughout. Retrofitting existing buildings and infrastructure is also important. Either way, it should be encouraged whenever possible.
Q: How might you support access to green space and recreational activities, especially among underserved communities like young people, seniors and those with limited proximity to parks?
A: The city can play a role by supporting its existing parks and recreational facilities, as well as partnering with businesses and other facilities to connect recreational places and initiatives to underserved families throughout the city.
Education:
Q: How do you see Indianapolis’ school systems contributing to community redevelopment efforts?
A: Indianapolis’s long-term success depends on the performance of our public schools. When families are deciding where to live, and businesses are choosing where to locate, the quality of the schools is a big factor. If our public schools are serving children and families well, we will be able to offer a better quality of life, be more attractive to families, and have a competitive advantage in recruiting and retaining employers to the city. If we don’t have strong public schools, we will fall behind.
Q: What, if any, additional efforts would you champion to improve local schools?
A: Improving educational outcomes will require sustained engagement from the mayor’s office. This includes working to improve access to high-quality early childhood education. To do this, I will make an initial investment from the Vision 2021 fund, which I’ve proposed be created from the proceeds of the water utility sale, to help pre-k providers improve their services and offer tuition credits so more families can gain access to those high-quality providers. Plus, because not all children learn in the same way, I will work to increase the variety of schools and teaching models so families can find the school that is the best fit for their child. Finally, in a Kennedy Administration, I will work to connect our schools with organizations, business leaders, and volunteers who want to work with us to improve our schools.
Food:
Q: What would you do, as mayor, to increase access to high-quality foods throughout our community?
A: I would support urban gardens, farmers markets, and other ways to promote healthy and high quality foods throughout the community. I would also promote education among families about the importance of healthy foods and availability of such.
Q: Specifically, what ideas do you have to address “food deserts” and food insecurity in Indianapolis?
A: Specifically, I would start with a comprehensive high quality food asset mapping initiative to best understand where food deserts exist. A combination of organizing efforts to recruit grocery stores or food co-ops, develop urban gardens and identify options to access high quality foods would comprise a strategy to address the areas identified as most in need of high quality food options.
Social Media
7 Responses to “ “Q & A with Mayoral Candidate Melina Kennedy”
Ya not voting for this person. Ballard gave much better details and offered a future solution to problems.
Side walk question for example
Existing Laws should be followed.
So if there was a law that said we had to jump off the empire state building we have to follow it?
Actually, they both are pretty worthless. Ballard’s solution to everything is to run a bigger Ponzi scheme than the last guy. The financial future of Indianapolis will be bleak when the bills come due and the short-term improvements begin failing.
I am not impressed by her, but you also have to realize that Ballard is in the office, so of course he will have more to show for and have more specifics on each issue. Having said that, I still don’t know what she stands for, and it seems to me that she is trying to get into the office the same way that Ballard fell into it (by getting the anti-incumbent vote).
John Howard, the food desert answer is among the best from the candidate, and it is one I would have expected from the incumbent.
.
Here’s what I got from the answer: “we’ll look at the whole county and map out places where people don’t have convenient access to stores selling fresh foods. Of necessity, we would concentrate on areas of greatest need, with factors like low car-ownership, high percentages of chronic disease, high child poverty. Then we’ll focus resources and work with partners to increase access in those areas of greatest need.”
.
Pretty good strategic approach.
This bugs me because it doesn’t answer the question.
“Q: Do you support enforcement of existing penalties for residents who do not shovel their sidewalks of snow in the winter where sidewalks do exist?
A: Existing laws should be followed.”
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Steve Griffith joined WNC in 2018 as Chief Human Resources Officer. In his role, he is responsible for driving strategic talent and culture initiatives across the organization, including leadership and employee development, succession planning, talent assessment and performance management, employee engagement, recruitment, compensation, and employee relations.
Steve has more than 30 years of experience in the field of human resources, talent management and executive coaching, serving in a variety of roles of increasing scope and responsibility in multiple industries. In his most recent position, he was Vice President of Global Talent Development for Alight Solutions, where he was responsible for leadership and management development strategy, an organization learning platform, performance management, employee engagement, diversity and inclusion, and culture initiatives. Prior to that position, he served as Vice President, Executive Coach for Robertson Lowstuter, a senior-level executive development, coaching and career transition/outplacement services firm.
Steve holds a Master of Arts degree in industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology and organizational development from the University of West Florida and a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. He also holds a certificate in leadership coaching from Georgetown University. | https://www.wncinsuranceservices.com/careers/ |
On February 25, 2020 the Supreme Court held that a child’s habitual residence depends on a totality of circumstances specific to the case, not on categorical requirements such as an actual agreement between parents.
This decision follows the International Child Abduction Remedies Act implemented by The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention) in 1980 to address international child abductions relating to domestic disputes. The US and Italy are among 101 signatory countries to the Convention. The Act states that a child removed from their country of “habitual residence” must be returned to that country if the removal was wrongful.
The case involved a couple who moved to Italy from the US, where the Italian husband allegedly abused his American wife after the move. The wife later fled to Ohio with their Italian-born infant. The husband petitioned the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, claiming the child was wrongfully removed from her country of “habitual residence.” The court granted the petition, which was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The court reasoned that the parents’ shared intent determines a child’s residence, even without an explicit agreement by the parents to raise the child in Italy.
The Supreme Court held that a child’s habitual residence depends on where the child regularly resides. However, the inquiry to determine residence is based on the context of a case— a totality of circumstances standard. “What remains for the court to do in applying that standard … is to answer a factual question: Was the child at home in the particular country at issue?”
The Supreme Court found that the District Court accurately determined that the wife was a habitual resident of Italy, like the husband. The Court ultimately held that the child was also found to be a habitual resident of Italy, thus affirming the lower courts’ decisions. The wife’s custody and parental rights in Italy are pending. | https://washtenawcountydivorce.com/blog/childs-residence-for-custody-purposes/ |
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Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have developed a new technology that could theoretically detect cancer early on.
The technology is based on the reception of nucleic acids, or “disease biomarkers,” as these acids are the essential ingredient to all living organisms.
“We envision this as a potential first-line, noninvasive diagnostic to detect anything from cancer to the Ebola virus,” says Adam R. Hall, Ph.D., adding “Although we are certainly at the early stages of the technology, eventually we could perform the test using a few drops of blood from a simple finger prick.” Hall is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the lead author of the study.
The findings were first published in the online journal Nano Letters.
Nucleic acids are extremely varied in shape and size, but are essentially chains of bases that can consist of just a few to millions of elements. The ordering of these acids is directly related to their function, and so the Wake Forest researchers are basing their findings on the assumption that cell and tissue activity can be predicted solely by nucleic acids.
“Scientists have studied microRNA biomarkers for years, but one problem has been accurate detection because they are so short, many technologies have real difficulty identifying them,” Hall says.
One family of nucleic acids are known as microRNAs. These are about 20 bases long, but can potentially signal diseases like cancer.
As a post at Controlled Environments Magazine by Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center staff points out, “In the new technique, nanotechnology is used to determine whether a specific target nucleic acid sequence exists within a mixture, and to quantify it if it does through a simple electronic signature. ‘If the sequence you are looking for is there, it forms a double helix with a probe we provide and you see a clear signal. If the sequence isn’t there, then there isn’t any signal,’ Hall says. ‘By simply counting the number of signals, you can determine how much of the target is around.’”
The team involved in the study first demonstrated that their technology could target a specific sequence of nucleic acids, “and then applied their technique to one particular microRNA (mi-R155) known to indicate lung cancer in humans.”
This showed that the new approach had the ability to expound the tiny amounts of microRNAs found in patients.
“Next steps will involve expanding the technology to study clinical samples of blood, tissue, or urine,” the Wake Forest team writes.
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Sr. Software Engineer (Java Full Stack Developer)
Job Type:
Permanent
Experience:
5 to 10 Years
Location:
Bangalore
We are looking for a Java full stack Developer with expertise on Apache Spark. You’ll be part of our EIQ platform product development team. EIQ platform helps in automating business processes, and data processing both batch and streaming data. For this, we make use of big data technologies like Apache Spark, Hadoop, Kafka, Casandra, and other related platforms. The platform also helps in automating ML pipelines where models can be built for algorithms like classification, regression, clustering, and deep learning neural networks.
As a Full Stack Developer, you should be comfortable around both front-end and back-end coding languages, development frameworks and third-party libraries. You should also be a team player with a knack for visual design and utility. We work in tight, creative teams, where industry experts operate in the same spaces as developers, and engineers sit alongside delivery specialists.
Role & Responsibilities:
- Work with development teams and product managers to ideate software solutions
- Contribute towards design and development of client-side and server-side architecture
- Build the front-end of applications through appealing visual design
- Develop and manage well-functioning databases and applications
- Write effective APIs
- Test software to ensure responsiveness and efficiency
- Troubleshoot, debug and upgrade software
- Create security and data protection settings
- Build features and applications with a mobile responsive design
- Write technical documentation
- Work with data scientists and analysts to improve software
Academic Qualification:
- B.E/B.Tech/MCA in computer science Engineering or a related field.
Required Skills:
- The candidate should be currently working in Product companies or supremely confident in his/her programming skills.
- Experience range between 5 to 10 years
- Experience in Java and associated technologies
- Very Strong in Data Structures & Algorithms
- Strong in programming and building large-scale distributed systems
- Able to come up with HLD and LLD were given a design problem
- Exposure to Distributed technologies like NoSQL, and Caching Systems; Clear with Computer Science fundamentals
- Strong RDBMS/SQL concepts. Senior engineers should know High Availability and Fault Tolerance concepts
- Understanding the importance of Code review & Unit Testing
- Ability to work in a fast-paced dynamic environment
- Proactively identify & communicate issues and risks
- Excellent problem-solving skills and a Growth Mindset to improve and change things
Good to have: | https://evoluteiq.com/careers/sr-software-engineer-java-full-stack-developer/ |
American billionaire entrepreneur
According to Wikipedia,
Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. He was ranked No. 4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014, with a net worth of $2.2 billion, and No. 391 on the Forbes 400 in 2020, with a net worth of $2.1 billion. , Thiel has an estimated net worth of $9.13 billion and was ranked 279th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
This paper list is powered by the following services:
Peter Thiel is affiliated with the following schools:
Peter Thiel is most known for their academic work in the field of business. They are also known for their academic work in the fields of literature and computer science.
Peter Thiel has made the following academic contributions: | https://academicinfluence.com/people/peter-thiel |
On January 6, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule on “Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulatory Actions and Influential Scientific Information.” 86 Fed. Reg. 469. EPA’s January 5, 2021, press release states the final rule establishes that when promulgating significant regulatory actions or developing influential scientific information, EPA will give greater consideration to studies where the underlying dose-response data are available in a manner sufficient for independent validation. The final rule requires EPA to identify and make publicly available the science that serves as the basis for informing a significant regulatory action at the proposed or draft stage to the extent practicable; reinforces the applicability of peer review requirements for pivotal science; and provides criteria for the Administrator to exempt certain studies from the requirements of the rule. The press release notes that the final rule “does not require the release of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Confidential Business Information (CBI) nor does it require EPA to collect, store, or publicly disseminate any PII/CBI data underlying pivotal science.” The final rule was effective on January 6, 2021. Its provisions apply to significant regulatory actions for which a proposed rule was published in the Federal Register after January 6, 2021, and influential scientific information submitted for peer review after January 6, 2021.
According to EPA, the final rule has a much narrower scope than the 2018 proposed rule and the 2020 supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM). Information on the proposed rule and SNRPM is available in our April 30, 2018, and March 9, 2020, memoranda, respectively. EPA states that the final rule builds upon its prior actions in response to government-wide data access and sharing policies. The final rule includes the following provisions:
EPA requires that, when promulgating significant regulatory actions or developing influential scientific information, it will determine which studies constitute pivotal science and give greater consideration to those studies determined to be pivotal science for which the underlying dose-response data are available in a manner sufficient for independent validation;
EPA is establishing provisions for how the rule requirements will apply. The rule sets the overarching structure and principles for transparency of pivotal science in significant regulatory actions and influential scientific information. The final rule provides that if implementing the rule results in any conflict between the rule and the environmental statutes that EPA administers, and their implementing regulations, the rule will yield and the statutes and regulations will be controlling;
EPA must clearly identify all science that serves as the basis for informing a significant regulatory action. EPA shall make all such science that serves as the basis for informing a significant regulatory action publicly available to the extent practicable using standards for protecting identifiable information;
EPA is establishing requirements for the independent peer review of pivotal science; and
The Administrator must consider certain criteria when granting case-by-case exemptions to the requirements of the final rule, including when:
Technological or other barriers render sharing of the dose-response data infeasible;
The development of the dose-response data was completed or updated before January 6, 2021;
Making the dose-response data publicly available would conflict with laws and regulations governing privacy, confidentiality, CBI, or national security;
A third-party has conducted independent validation of the study’s underlying dose-response data through reanalysis; or
The factors used in determining the consideration to afford to the pivotal science indicate that full consideration is justified.
The final rule includes the following definitions (to be codified at 40 C.F.R. Section 30.2):
Data means “the set of recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as necessary to validate research findings in which obvious errors, such as keystroke or coding errors, have been removed and that is capable of being analyzed by either the original researcher or an independent party”;
Dose-response data means “the data used to characterize the quantitative relationship between the amount of dose or exposure to a pollutant, contaminant, or substance and an effect”;
Independent validation means “the reanalysis of study dose-response data by subject matter experts who have not contributed to the development of the study to evaluate whether results similar to those reported in the study are produced”;
Influential scientific information means “scientific information the Agency reasonably can determine will have or does have a clear and substantial impact on important public policies or private sector decisions”;
Publicly available means “lawfully available to the general public from Federal, state, or local government records; the internet; widely distributed media; or disclosures to the general public that are required to be made by Federal, state, or local law. The public must be able to access the information on the date of publication of the proposed rule (or, as appropriate, a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, or notice of availability) for the significant regulatory action or on the date of dissemination of the draft influential scientific information for public review and comment”;
Reanalyze means “to analyze exactly the same dose-response data to determine whether a similar result emerges from the analysis by using the same methods, statistical software, models, or statistical methodologies that were used to analyze the dose-response data, as well as to assess potential analytical errors and variability in the underlying assumptions of the original analysis”;
Science that serves as the basis for informing a significant regulatory action means “studies, analyses, models, and assessments of a body of evidence that provide the basis for EPA significant regulatory actions”; and
Significant regulatory actions means “final regulations determined to be ‘significant regulatory actions’ by the Office of Management and Budget pursuant to Executive Order 12866.”
According to the final rule, EPA intends to issue implementation guidelines that will help execute the final rule consistently in specific programs authorized under various statutes (e.g., the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA)). EPA states that this “may include the process for designating key studies as pivotal science, documenting the availability of dose-response data, and requesting an Administrator’s exemption.”
Commentary
While this final rule clarifies and responds to many of the questions raised regarding the proposed rule and SNPRM, including questions about the definition of important terms such as “pivotal science” and “significant regulatory actions,” the final rule will inevitably remain controversial since its origin is rooted in legislative proposals more clearly intended to challenge important regulatory requirements, particularly related to EPA’s air program. The final rule has refinements that track various long-standing science policies already established at EPA about peer review, rule development, and transparency. Despite EPA’s statements in the final rule that this rule is not politically motivated, there remains distrust of how exactly such requirements might impact past or future regulatory action.
Given the imminent arrival of the new Biden Administration, expected to conduct an early review of decisions made by the Trump Administration, this rule will likely be among the first items subject to reversal or “clarifying” guidance making it consistent with previously established science policies (see Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.’s (B&C®) Forecast 2021 memo). With Democratic control of both houses of Congress, there might also be attempts to repeal the rule via action under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) of recently promulgated regulations. A lawsuit seeking to rescind this rule is also possible, including but not limited to challenging EPA’s authority to issue this rule as a procedural rule within the scope of EPA’s housekeeping authority and not under the authority of any substantive environmental statute, as well as issues regarding the potential retrospective impact of this rule.
BRAG helps members develop and bring to market their innovative biobased and renewable chemical products through insightful policy and regulatory advocacy.
Renewable chemicals are emerging at a fast pace, paving the way for new, innovative, and sustainable biobased products. A coalition of companies and trade associations committed to enhancing the legal and regulatory positioning of biobased products formed the Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group (BRAG) to address issues specific to biobased chemical products and, in particular, the...
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A tire alignment is a service performed by a mechanic to ensure that your vehicle’s tires are properly aligned. This helps to improve gas mileage, handling, and tire wear. There are three different types of tire alignments: caster, camber, and toe. Each type of alignment addresses different aspects of the tire’s position.
- Caster refers to the angle of the wheel in relation to the ground. If the wheel is pointing too far forward or backward, it can cause problems with steering.
- Camber measures how much the tire is tilted in or out at the top. If the tire is tilted too far in or out, it can cause premature tire wear.
- Toe measures how much the front and back of the tire is pointing in or out. If the tires are not pointing straight ahead, it can cause problems with steering and premature tire wear.
Most vehicles will need a caster and camber adjustment with a toe adjustment being done occasionally. A mechanic will use a special tool to measure the angles of the tires and then adjust them accordingly. Tire alignment is an important part of keeping your vehicle running properly. Neglecting to have it done can lead to premature tire wear and potentially dangerous handling issues. | https://rerev.com/glossary/tire-alignment/ |
This information describes the reference method for measuring the fiber cutoff wavelength (λCF) and the cable cutoff wavelength on uncabled fiber (λCCF) by the transmitted power method for Corning® single-mode optical fibers.
General
The minimum wavelength at which an optical fiber will support only one propagating mode is referred to as the cutoff wavelength. If the system operating wavelength is below the cutoff wavelength, multimode operation may take place and the introduction of an additional source of dispersion may limit a fiber’s information carrying capacity.
It’s important to note that the physical deployment of the fiber plays an important role in defining the region of single-mode operation. Typical deployment conditions for cabled fibers in the field, with varying lengths and bend configurations, will typically shift the actual cutoff to shorter wavelengths than the measured fiber cutoff wavelength (λCF). Therefore, the cabled fiber cutoff wavelength (λCC) is of more interest to the cabler because it’s a more accurate representation of the cutoff wavelength that can be expected in actual use. Because cabling the fiber tends to shift the cutoff to shorter wavelengths, a conservative estimate of cabled cutoff can be made by measuring uncabled fiber in the cable cutoff configuration(λCCF).
Measurement Description
To determine the cutoff wavelength of a single-mode fiber by the transmitted power method, the transmitted spectral power versus wavelength for the sample fiber is compared to the transmitted spectral power versus wavelength for two meters of a multimode fiber by applying the equation:
A multimode fiber is used as the reference fiber to permit mapping out the spectral response of the measurement system. To determine the cutoff wavelength, Am(λ) is plotted against wavelength. A straight line is fitted to the long-wavelength back slope of the plot and dropped 0.1 dB. As depicted in Figure 1, its subsequent intersection with the curve denotes the cutoff wavelength. An optimal fit can be used to control
errors in the transition zone.
Cutoff Wavelength Plot
Measurement Conditions
The fiber ends are stripped of coating and prepared with end angles less than 2° with a near-perfect
mirror surface. Cladding mode stripping is also provided.
• Launch Spot Size: 200 μm
• Launch Numerical Aperture: 0.20
• Source Spectral Width: ≤ 10 nm Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM)
• Measurement Wavelength: 1000 nm to 1600 nm in 10 nm steps
The sample fiber is deployed in accordance with TIA standard (see references) as shown here.
Fiber Deployment: Fiber Cutoff Wavelength (λCF)
Figure 2
The test sample shall be 2 meters of fiber deployed in a single turn of constant radius of 140 mm. There shall be no additional bends less than 140 mm radius. A typical deployment is shown in Figure 2.
Fiber Deployment: Cable Cutoff Wavelength of Uncabled Fiber (λCCF)
Figure 3
The test sample shall be 22 m of uncabled fiber coiled into a loop with a minimum radius of 140 mm to conservatively simulate cabling effects. To simulate the effects of a splice organizer, apply two loop of 80 mm diameter near one end, as shown in Figure 3. For fiber designs where the 22 m cable cutoff measurement agrees with a surrogate 2-meter measurement (2 loops @ 80 mm diameter), the 2-meter surrogate measurement is used.
Apparatus
Figure 4 shows the apparatus used to measure the cutoff wavelength in Corning® single-mode optical fibers.
References
TIA-455-80B, Measurement Cut-off Wavelength of Uncabled Single-Mode Fiber By Transmitted Power. | https://www.fiberoptics4sale.com/blogs/archive-posts/95040838-cutoff-wavelength-measurement-method |
- A solution of a drug that is made into a fine mist for inhalation.
- Airway obstruction
- A narrowing, clogging, or blocking of the passages that carry air to the
lungs.
- Alpha-1- antitrypsin
- (See alpha-1-protease inhibitor.)
- Alpha-1- protease inhibitor
- A substance in blood transported to the lungs that inhibits the digestive
activity of trypsin and other proteases which digest proteins. Deficiency of
this substance is associated with emphysema.
- Alveoli
- Tiny sac-like air spaces in the lungs where transfer of carbon dioxide
from blood into the lungs and oxygen from air into blood takes place.
- Bronchi
- Larger air passages of the lungs.
- Bronchiole
- Finer air passages of the lungs.
- Broncho-constriction
- Tightening of the muscles surrounding bronchi, the tubes that branch from
the windpipe.
- Bronchodilator
- A drug that relaxes the smooth muscles and opens the constricted airway.
- Capillaries
- The smallest blood vessels in the body through which most of the oxygen,
carbon dioxide, and nutrient exchanges take place.
- Cor pulmonale
- Heart disease due to lung problems.
- Corticosteroids
- A group of hormones produced by adrenal glands.
- Continuous positive airway
- A mechanical ventilation technique used to deliver continuous positive
airway pressure (CPAP) pressure.
- Cyanosis
- Bluish color of the skin associated with insufficient oxygen.
- Dyspnea
- Shortness of breath; difficult or labored breathing.
- Elastin
- An elastic substance in the lungs (and some other body organs) that
support their structural framework.
- Elastase inhibitors or Antielastases
- Substances in the blood transported to the lungs and other organs which
prevent the digestive action of elastases.
- Elastin degrading enzymes (elastases)
- Substances in the blood transported to the lungs and other organs which
digest or breakdown elastin.
- Gas exchange
- A primary function of the lungs involving transfer of oxygen from inhaled
air into blood and of carbon dioxide from blood into lungs.
- Hypoventilation
- A state in which there is an insufficient amount of air entering and
leaving the lungs to bring oxygen into tissues and eliminate carbon dioxide.
- Hypoxemia
- Deficient oxygenation of the blood.
- Hypoxia
- A state in which there is oxygen deficiency.
- Intermittent positive pressure breathing (IPPB) machine
- A device that assists intermittent positive pressure inhalation of
therapeutic aerosols without hand coordination required in the use of hand
nebulizers or metered dose inhalers.
- Laser
- In the context of a therapeutic tool, it is a device that produces a
high-intensity light that can generate extreme heat instantaneously when it
hits a target.
- Lavage
- To wash a body organ.
- Neonatal
- Period up to the first 4 weeks after birth.
- Pneumonia
- Inflammation of the lungs.
- Postural bronchial drainage
- Draining of liquids from the lungs by placing the patient in postures
(e.g., head below chest) which facilitate liquid flow.
- Vaccination
- Administration of weakened or killed bacteria or virus to stimulate
immunity and protection against further exposure to that agent.
- Ventilation
- The process of exchange of air between the lungs and the atmosphere leading to exchange of gases in the blood.
Medical Tools & Articles:
Next articles: | http://cureresearch.com/artic/copd_glossary_nhlbi.htm |
General Studies
The General Studies degree program offers students the opportunity to explore their own educational and professional pathways and discover the benefits of life-long learning. The program offers students the widest range of electives available and allows students to tailor a program and explore a broad range of career or intellectual interests to suit their individual needs. In order to ensure program coherence, students will meet each semester with program advisors who will assist in course selection.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of the program the student should be able to:
Communicate effectively
1.1 Display a command of the English language
1.2 Utilize current communication technology
1.3 Present ideas and information orally and in writing in accordance with standard usage
1.4 Organize and present ideas and information (including those gained from research) effectively
Reason scientifically and or quantitatively
2.1 Demonstrate understanding of mathematical and or scientific principles
2.2 Apply these principles to the solution of problems in academic work and everyday life
2.3 Interpret numeric information presented in graphic forms
2.4 Apply scientific methods to the inquiry process
Think critically
3.1 Read, analyze and understand complex ideas
3.2 Use information technology appropriately
3.3 Locate, evaluate and apply research information
3.4 Draw inferences from facts
3.5 Evaluate and present well-reasoned arguments
Develop a global perspective
4.1 Recognize differences and relationships among cultures
4.2 Recognize the role diversity plays in the development of the United States and in everyday social life
4.3 Recognize the relationships among events and values in different eras
Demonstrate a clear connection among their elective choices and their personal, occupational, or academic ambitions
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The increase in smog has had a grave impact on people’s lives. These tiny particles often have very complex compositions with devastating effects on air quality and human health. But no technology exists today that can quickly and accurately detect and analyze these pollutants. Techniques currently used for pollution detection involve numerous complicated steps, taking a lot of time and effort, and cannot reliably pinpoint the sources of pollution. This has become one of the biggest challenges for scientists hoping to study pollution in the environment and the human body.
A researcher at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qian Liu spent most of his career studying analytical chemistry. In his field, the most important task is identifying the chemical make-up of a substance: its various constituents, its structure, its state, and its physical properties. An expert in his field, he chose to use analytical chemistry as a tool to find the relationship between environmental factors and human health. In doing so, he invented a technique to quickly detect and track down dangerous pollutants in both the environment and the human body.
Faced with the urgent need to find a way to research the effect of pollutants, Qian used a variety of new ultra-trace detection technologies to target particulates in the environment and the human body in the nanometer to micrometer scale. His technique can quickly screen and identify a particulate, locate its source, and track its activities.
One of Qian’s major discoveries is the stable isotope fractionation phenomenon in silver nanoparticles in the natural environment. The differences in isotope fractionation from different sources provided a reliable method to distinguish these sources, immensely aiding the effective management of particulates. In recent years, Qian has been focusing on discovering new analytical techniques for smog particulates, hoping to leverage new technologies to better identify the sources of these particulates and the risks they pose to our health. | https://www.innovatorsunder35.com/the-list/qian-liu/ |
Deakin is committed to being a sector leader in sustainability. By embedding our principles in everything we do, we will minimise our environmental impact, maintain our financial viability and promote the social aspects of sustainability whilst nurturing and enabling our future leaders.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Deakin is a signatory to the University Commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Goals (UNSDGs):
The new UNSDGs, which came into effect on 1 January 2016, are an agreement by all countries to bring economic prosperity, social inclusion, environmental sustainability, peace, security and good governance to all by 2030.
Globally and in Australia, discussions are starting on how the country will meet the SDGs and the roles the different sectors have in enabling them to be achieved. Universities have a critical role to play through their research, innovation, education and leadership.
Amongst other initiatives Deakin’s work in establishing an Environmental, Social and Governance investment pool, developing a Carbon Management Strategy and being a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, supports the targets and objectives of the SDGs.
Sustainability Aspirations
Deakin University, among other universities, is playing a part in addressing the global challenges to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The 2030 Challenge is the framework for the sustainable development of the University.
By 2020
- Policy and decision making
Sustainability is embedded into Deakin's policy framework and values and a sustainability funding model is established and implemented.
- Communication and engagement
Increase staff and student awareness, action and participation in sustainability at Deakin.
- Procurement and supply chain
Increase Deakin's local (G21 region) procurement spend by 7 per cent and increase jobs from target communities by 20 per cent.
- Travel and transport
Complete a transport strategy for each campus and increase the use of sustainable transport to and between campuses.
- Energy and emissions
Reduce total carbon emissions to the 2013 baseline despite growth and increase the percentage of on-campus renewable energy generation.
- Waste and recycling
Reduce the volume of waste to landfill to 20kgs per person (equivalent to 26 per cent waster diversion).
- Water
Reduce mains water consumption to five kilolitres or less per person.
- Built environment
Embed the Deakin Sustainable Built Environment (SBE) Principles and complete a climate adaptation review.
- Natural environment
Complete a biodiversity management plan and embed biodiversity considerations into campus planning.
By 2025
- Policy and decision making
Sustainability is embedded into Deakin's decision making and formal governance processes.
- Communication and engagement
Have sustainability ambassadors in every Faculty, Institution or Other area.
- Procurement and supply chain
All strategic suppliers meet Deakin's sustainable procurement principles.
- Travel and transport
Electric vehicle charging stations implemented on campus, and Deakin's fleet is 100 per cent hybrid or electric.
- Energy and emissions
Reduce total carbon emissions by 40,000 tonnes from the 2013 baseline.
- Waste and recycling
Further reduce waste to landfill per person to 10kg (equivalent to 77 percent waste diversion).
- Water
25 per cent of the University grounds irrigated using reclaimed/ captured water.
- Built environment
All high priority climate change adaptation actions completed.
- Natural environment
Enhance the biodiversity of the campuses' natural landscapes and waterways.
By 2030
- Policy and decision making
Deakin's operations positively contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- Communication and engagement
The Deakin community is collectively mindful about sustainability impacts, actions and opportunities.
- Procurement and supply chain
Deakin's supply chain has measurable positive impacts on multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- Travel and transport
The majority of staff and students with sustainable transport options, use these to travel to and between campus.
- Energy and emissions
Achieve carbon neutrality
- Waste and recycling
Achieve zero waste (equivalent to 90 per cent or greater waste diversion).
- Water
Maintain or improve on 2025 mains water consumption despite University growth.
- Built environment
Every new Deakin building will offset its own sustainability impacts.
- Natural environment
Biodiversity corridors have been established in priority locations, allowing wildlife to thrive on campus.
Deakin Sustainability Reports
We are proud to be global leaders in sustainability reporting with award winning reports.
Deakin Sustainability
Report 2015
Deakin Sustainability
Progress Report 2016
Deakin Sustainability
Report & Outlook 2017
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Closing the Loop - A solution to organic waste at Deakin
Deakin was a finalist in the Green Gown Awards Australasia in a truly great example of closing the loop.
We undertook a food waste processing trial at Waurn Ponds Estate that not only reduced the amount of food waste going to landfill but returned the goodness back to the earth by using it as fertilizer in the beautiful kitchen garden.
With 19 food venues across our four campuses, Deakin is committed to finding ways to reduce the impact of food waste on campus and has plans to roll out the Closed Loop system further.
Deakins #WarOnWaste
Deakin’s fighting the #WarOnWaste and working hard to improve our Sustainability. This is one of the ways you can take action - use a reusable cup and get a discount on your coffee at the same time.
Contact us
Please direct Sustainability enquiries to:
Organisational Sustainability,
Manager Organisational Sustainability, | https://www.deakin.edu.au/students/your-campus/organisational-sustainability |
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Copyright 2009 Keith D. Bishop, Clinical Nutritionist, B.Sc. Pharmacy The following research summary is for information and education use only. The information and commentary provided are not intended to replace your doctors care. You should consult with your health care provider before making changes in your diet, lifestyle and supplement program.
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Copyright 2009 Keith D. Bishop, Clinical Nutritionist, B.Sc. Pharmacy Prostate Cancer: Diet and Lifestyle I’m providing a summary of recent research on the effects diet and lifestyle has on prostate cancer. This research information will enlighten and empower you in your quest for a healthier life.
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Copyright 2009 Keith D. Bishop, Clinical Nutritionist, B.Sc. Pharmacy Prostate Cancer: Diet and Lifestyle You will have the basic tools to maximize your body’s ability to fight prostate cancer, all other cancers and most other causes of early death.
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Copyright 2009 Keith D. Bishop, Clinical Nutritionist, B.Sc. Pharmacy Prostate Cancer: Risks Prostate cancer does not have a single cause. Prostate cancer grows over many years before being diagnosed. Prostate cancer does have some risk factors including age, race and family history or genetics.
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Copyright 2009 Keith D. Bishop, Clinical Nutritionist, B.Sc. Pharmacy Prostate Cancer: Risks It’s estimated that 50% of cancer is preventable. Methods Mol Biol. 2009;472:25-56 One-third of the more than 500,000 cancer deaths that occur in the United States each year can be attributed to diet and physical activity habits, including overweight and obesity, while another third is caused by exposure to tobacco products. (66%) CA Cancer J Clin 2006; 56:
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Fairtrade Africa (FTA), a member of the wider Fairtrade International movement represents Fairtrade certified producers in Africa and the Middle East. We operate four regional networks: Eastern and Central Africa Network (ECAN) based in Nairobi, Kenya; West Africa Network (WAN) based in Accra, Ghana, Southern Africa Network (SAN) based in Blantyre, Malawi and the Middle East and North Africa Network (MENA).
Fairtrade Africa is owned by its members, who are African producer organizations certified against Fairtrade International Standards producing traditional export commodities such as coffee, cocoa, tea, flowers, cotton, bananas, cane sugar, wine, fresh fruits, herbs and spices and non-traditional commodities including shea butter and rooibos tea. Currently, the organization represents over 1 million producers across 28 countries in Africa. Fairtrade Africa secretariat is located in Nairobi, Kenya, and has 50% ownership of the Fairtrade system.
ABOUT THE JOB
To provide the producer and member organizations with pre and post-certification support, conduct needs assessment, thematic training and providing coaching to ensure that these organizations grow to provide the best form of services to their members.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Organizational Strengthening
Initiate and maintain relationships with local communities, public and government institutions, and educational institutions among other stakeholders
Understand producer needs and concerns, and advocate for relevant policies to enhance FTA’s work with the local opinion leaders and decision-makers.
Ensure awareness of the local trends, perceptions and players in the local community.
Advice on how to manage risk and optimize the opportunities
Influence localized policies and perceptions in favour of FTA through the support of the Programme Manager.
Support the identification of opportunities for programmes and projects development
Support and provide advice to producer groups to enable access to trade and marketing opportunities
Represent FTA in-country and field events
Support the needs and situational assessment of producer organizations and propose recommendations to best support Small Producer Organizations
Support in provision of technical assistance to members in the development of business strategic plans, marketing plans related to business development and growth requirements
Provide thematic training on issues such as; Gender, workers’ rights, pest management
Post and Pre-Certification
Organize pre and post-certification training
Provide support to cooperatives to prepare for audit through trainings on the Fairtrade standards
Support producer organizations in the implementation of corrective measures and follow up on performance issues
Membership Support
Implement FTA membership strategy and ensure follow-up on membership issues with a regional office
Submit necessary reports on country activities as per required timelines
Support and or, participate in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) activities
Advice on member’s perceptions and attitudes towards FTA and the NFOs and other stakeholders operating within the region
SKILLS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Academic Qualifications
Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, Agriculture or related field Experience and Knowledge
A minimum of 3 years of experience in agricultural development
Experience in supporting ethical and sustainable supply chains
Knowledge of agricultural development and sustainable business practices
Knowledge and understanding of Fairtrade standards
Thematic knowledge and expertise in FTA’s priority areas Skills
Good command of spoken and written English.
Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to interact with individuals across multi-functional disciplines
Conflict resolution skills
Good organizational skills
Good training and facilitation skills
Method of ApplicationAn application form (CVs will not be accepted) can be found on the jobs and volunteering page of our website https://fairtradeafrica.net/vacancies-2/
Completed applications should be saved in the applicant’s name and the position of Senior Programme Officer.
All applicants should state how they meet the essential requirements of the post and include their email address, telephone contacts and three referees with contact details on the application form and email to: [email protected]
If you have any queries, please call +254202721930 and ask to speak to a member of the HR team.
Qualified applicants will be subjected to background checks as a condition of employment.
Only Shortlisted Candidates will be contacted. | https://www.jobwebtanzania.com/jobs/senior-programme-officer-at-fairtrade-africa-fta/ |
Fostering entrepreneurship in Indonesia remains challenging. Many still regard entrepreneurship as the less preferred choice of career and those that can be categorized as voluntary-and-successful entrepreneurs represent a small fraction of the country’s population1. Common factors cited as the reasons include the lack of entrepreneurial training in the education system, a culture that appreciates salary employment as the more secure career choice, the dominance of established players with strong backing, and the limited access to funding for start-up entrepreneurs.read more.. | http://www.arghajata.com/article.php?id=ajcpub014 |
Frank Westerman goes back to his roots in this literary reportage devoted to the great hydraulic works. The book tells the parallel fates of the Vajont dam and MOSE in Venice, and places them side by side with the stories of two French dams in Normandy, whose demolition will allow salmons to repopulate the Sélune River.
For Westerman, engineering is the starting point for a narrative around life and man’s attempts to master its flows, and it becomes an observatory to explore the social tensions and conflicts that large-scale works always catalyse. Weaving a plot of speculation and myths of progress, as well as struggles for environmental justice and images of floods, Westerman transforms water and large hydraulic artifacts into metaphors to read the contemporary world.
Curious, determined and never dogmatic, Westerman offers a narrative that, like salmons, always rides upstream.
Autore
Frank Westerman is one of the most important contemporary Dutch writers, translated into 17 languages. An engineer by training who turned to journalism, he is the author of reportage books on the topics of racism, culture, identity and power, including Ingegneri di Anime, El Negro e Io, Ararat, I soldati delle parole and the recent Noi, Umani, all published in Italy by Iperborea. | http://wetlandsbooks.com/en/libri/collana-mude/dittico-idraulico-venezia-vajont-e-il-sorriso-del-salmone |
The properties of euclidean space seem natural and obvious to us, to thepoint that it took mathematicians over two thousand years to see analternative to Euclid’s parallel postulate. The eventual discovery ofhyperbolic geometry in the 19th century shook our assumptions, revealingjust how strongly our native experience of the world blinded us fromconsistent alternatives, even in a field that many see as purelytheoretical. Non-euclidean spaces are still seen as unintuitive and exotic,but with direct immersive experiences we can get a better intuitive feel forthem. The latest wave of virtual reality hardware, in particular the HTCVive, tracks both the orientation and the position of the headset within aroom-sized volume, allowing for such an experience. We use this nacenttechnology to explore the three-dimensional geometries of theThurston/Perelman geometrization theorem. This talk focuses on oursimulations of H³ and H²×E. | https://math.gatech.edu/seminars-colloquia/series/applied-and-computational-mathematics-seminar/elisabetta-matsumoto |
In most cultures, birds have always played major roles as symbols. A few of these include the sacred ibis of Egypt symbolized the moon god, Thoth, a deity of wisdom, apparently because its curved bill resembled the crescent moon. Cranes were symbolic of Apollo, the Greek god of the sun. The hoopoe plays a major role in the “The Conference of the Birds” in Islamic mysticism. Doves are well recognized as symbols of love and peace, and the Holy Spirit in Jude-Christian cultures is often symbolized as a dove. Birds are found as emblems or escorts of Celtic goddesses, especially the carrion-eaters, such as crows or ravens, that accompanied goddesses of war and death. Birds sometimes represented souls leaving the body, as their connection with warrior goddesses would suggest, but they also were seen as oracular. The designs formed by birds in flight were the basis of a now-lost system of divination. | https://nasvete.com/page/30/ |
Capps Introduces Bill to Help Veterans Receive Benefits
Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, on Wednesday introduced the Veterans’ Record Reconstruction Act, a bill that will make it easier for veterans to prove their eligibility for certain benefits or decorations.
The bill would require that the Department of Defense, in consultation with the Department of Veterans Affairs, develop guidelines for the consideration and use of unofficial sources of information in determining benefits and decoration eligibility when a veteran’s service records are incomplete due to damage caused to the records while in the possession of the Department of Defense.
In 1973, a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in Overland, Missouri, destroyed 16 million to 18 million Official Military Personnel Files. Because none of the destroyed records had duplicate copies, nor had they been copied to microfilm, it was difficult to determine what had been destroyed. This has led to incomplete records for many of our nation’s World War II, Korean War and Vietnam-era veterans. However, these records are often the only acceptable documentation for benefit and awards determination, leaving millions of veterans in a potential state of limbo.
In response, unofficial sources of information, including post-marked letters, photographs and eyewitness accounts have been used on a case-by-case basis to help reconstruct some veterans’ files. But currently there is no set pathway to guide a veteran through this process. The Veterans’ Record Reconstruction Act would direct DOD and the VA to develop clear criteria for the consideration and use of unofficial sources, making it easier to help more veterans get the benefits they deserve.
“It is unacceptable that — three decades later — this tragic fire is still making it difficult for veterans to receive the benefits and recognition they deserve,” Capps said. “While my office has been able to help some veterans on a case-by-case basis, the process of reconstructing incomplete military records can be time-consuming, confusing and costly for veterans. It shouldn’t be that way. The debt we owe to our nation’s veterans is immeasurable, and we need to create a clear pathway to reconstructing their military service records to ensure we are doing all we can to get them the benefits and recognition they have earned.”
“I have worked with numerous people who have been denied benefits as a result of their records being destroyed in the fire,” said Bob Handy, national chair of Veterans United for Truth. “It is shameful to deny former servicemen and women the benefits and recognition that they have earned in service to our country. Rep. Capps is to be commended for taking the steps to right this wrong and provide our veterans with the recognition they deserve.”
“As the local chapter commander in Lompoc, I have met with several veterans that had their claims denied by the VA because of no records to support any claims of military service or injuries incurred,” said Frank Campo of Disabled American Veterans. “Several of these veterans were granted initial ratings by the VA, but when they went to upgrade their disability rating percentage, were denied for no supportable documentation. I believe the passage of this important veteran’s legislation will help those veterans obtain the benefits they deserve.”
The local chapters of the Disabled American Veterans and the AMVETS both sent letters in support of this legislation.
Capps — whose district is home to more than 50,000 veterans — has long been a strong supporter of our nation’s veterans, voting for the post-9/11 GI Bill, as well as the largest increase in funding in the history of the Veterans Administration. She is also the author of bipartisan legislation to help Iraq and Afghanistan vets use their medical training to more easily become civilian Emergency Medical Technicians.
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GBP/USD Forecast: likely to consolidate ahead of FOMC minutes
The GBP/USD pair stalled its recent recovery move and seesawed between tepid gains and minor losses through the early European session on Wednesday. After two consecutive days of up-move, the pair now seems to have found a tough resistance near the 1.3220-25 region. A set of conflicting UK macro data, released on Tuesday, had no meaningful impact on major and absent major market moving releases on Wednesday would turn investors’ attention to the key FOMC meeting minutes.
Meanwhile, US Dollar was weighed down by uncertainty over the US President Donald Trump's tax overhaul plan and hence, today's publication of the FOMC minutes could act as a key catalyst for the pair's near-term momentum ahead of the next BoE monetary policy meeting.
Technically, the pair is holding with mild positive bias and hence, a follow-through buying interest beyond 1.3220-25 supply zone could accelerate the up-move towards 1.3265 intermediate resistance ahead of the 1.3300 handle and the next major hurdle near mid-1.3300s.
On the flip side, weakness back below 1.3180 level might continue to find some support at the 50-day SMA near the 1.3135 region which, if broken, would turn the pair vulnerable to slide back below the 1.3100 handle towards 1.3075 (Monday's low) en-route to the 1.3030-25 area.
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Opinions expressed at FXStreet are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the opinion of FXStreet or its management. FXStreet has not verified the accuracy or basis-in-fact of any claim or statement made by any independent author: errors and Omissions may occur.Any opinions, news, research, analyses, prices or other information contained on this website, by FXStreet, its employees, partners or contributors, is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. FXStreet will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to, any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. | |
AbstractThe Drug Services Research Survey (DSRS) was initiated to collect detailed information on the characteristics of drug treatment facilities and the clients discharged from those facilities in the United States. Data were collected between June and December of 1990 in two phases. In Phase I, facility-level information was gathered via telephone interviews with facility directors and drug treatment providers in a national sample of drug treatment facilities. The questionnaire included point prevalence estimates for March 30, 1990. Phase II involved site visits to a sample of Phase I facilities. This visit included an in-person interview with the facility director or administrator and the collection of client-level data from a sample of client records. Record abstractions were done for clients discharged from these facilities between September 1, 1989, and August 31, 1990. Follow-up of the clients to assess post-treatment status was conducted in the SERVICES RESEARCH OUTCOMES STUDY, 1995-1996: [UNITED STATES] (ICPSR 2691).
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MethodsICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Performed consistency checks.; Standardized missing values.; Created online analysis version with question text.; Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
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Table of Contents
Datasets:
- DS0: Study-Level Files
- DS1: Phase I -- Facility Telephone Interview
- DS2: Phase II -- Administrator Interview
- DS3: Phase II -- Client Record Abstracts
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Time period: 1990
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1990-06 / 1990-12Collection date: 1990-06--1990-12
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United States
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The study was conducted by the Schneider Institute for Health Policy, Brandeis University. The data were collected and prepared by Westat, Inc.
The original data collection included two files for the Facility Telephone Interview, a file with imputed values and a file without imputed values. This release includes only the file with imputed values. Please see the processor notes for instructions for resetting imputed values to missing.
The Phase I Facility Telephone Interview file originally included data for 1,986 records. However, one record had missing data on every variable and was subsequently deleted from this release.
The telephone facility data file treats service units as the base unit of analysis. Accordingly, there are more records than sampled facilities in this file. For facilities operating more than one service unit, the first record was treated as the "Master Facility Record" and included valid data on all the variables. Each subsequent service unit for the facility includes valid data only for those variables that apply to the service unit. Missing data that are provided on the master facility record are coded -4: "Not Master Facility".
- 3393 (Type: ICPSR Study Number)
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McCarty, Dennis, Roman, Paul M., Sorensen, James L., Weisner, Constance. Health treatment research for drug and alcohol treatment and prevention. Journal of Drug Issues.39, (1), 197-207.2009.
- ID: 10.1177/002204260903900115 (DOI)
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National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Division of Biometry and Epidemiology, Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System. Alcohol Epidemiologic Data Directory. Arlington, VA: Department of Health and Human Services. 2003.
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Batten, Helen L.. Drug Services Research Survey, Final Report, Phase I. Washington, DC: United States Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse. 1992.
- ID: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/SAMHDA/PDF/ot3393p1.pdf (URL)
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Batten, Helen L., Prottas J., Horgan C.. Drug Services Research Survey, Final Report, Phase II. Washington, DC: United States Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse. 1992. | https://www.da-ra.de/dara/study/web_show?res_id=436523&lang=en&mdlang=en&detail=true |
Forensic biology is a scientific method of examining, testing, and probing evidence from a crime scene investigation. When you review the history of forensics, you see that there are varying timelines. The history, as complied by the American College of Forensic Examiners, began as early as the 4,000 BC. The modern association of forensic biology has been developed into many subdivisions such as toxicology, pathology, anthropology, and odontology, just to name a few.
In 4–6 paragraphs, address the following:
In your own words, what is the definition of forensic biology? Explain.
Which of the major subfields do you feel is the most important to forensic biology? Explain.
Examples can include serology, entomology, odontology, etc.
If you must select 1, which of the following developmental stages of forensic biology do you feel is the most important to the field? Explain why.
- Antigen polymorphism
- Protein polymorphism
- DNA polymorphism
How might each of the above be used in an investigation to clear or convict a criminal? Provide 1 example for each.
Solution Preview
This material may consist of step-by-step explanations on how to solve a problem or examples of proper writing, including the use of citations, references, bibliographies, and formatting. This material is made available for the sole purpose of studying and learning - misuse is strictly forbidden.Forensic biology is the application of bio studies in law enforcement by examination. According to NCBI (2009), living organisms are steady determinants of majority of crimes, accidents and deaths. Therefore, an investigation of the organisms, including human involved in a crime or accident gives an investigator a strong lead on the factors prior to the accident. Although also pertinent in examination of animal related accidents such... | https://www.24houranswers.com/college-homework-library/Law/Criminal-Justice/14055 |
“The growing fiscal imbalance is driven on the spending side by rising health care costs and the aging of the population,” the GAO said in its report, The Federal Government’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook, Spring 2012 Update.
Furthermore, "[d]espite limits on discretionary spending that would bring discretionary spending to levels not seen in recent history, our simulations show total federal spending continuing to exceed revenues and feeding an unsustainable growth in debt," states the report. "The policy actions required to close the fiscal gap are significant, and changing the long-term outlook will likely require difficult decisions about both federal spending and revenue."
The GAO said that the federal spending caps negotiated by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in August did improve the picture some, but they did not address the real cause of the crisis: entitlement spending, such as for Social Security and Medicare. (Back in August 2011, in a deal to raise the debt ceiling on federal borrowing, Congress agreed to a $1.047 trillion cap on discretionary spending for fiscal year 2013.)
In fact, in both of GAO’s long-term projections, federal health care and entitlement spending drive the government toward unmanageable levels of debt.
In its first scenario – what the GAO calls its baseline scenario – federal tax and spending policies take effect as planned, including the expiration of the current tax rates in 2013. Also included in GAO’s baseline scenario is the full and successful implementation of Obamacare, which that GAO said would greatly reduce health care costs should the entire law work the way its proponents claim.
“Several provisions of PPACA [Obamacare] were designed to control the growth of health care costs,” states the GAO. “The full implementation and effectiveness of these cost-control provisions, which are reflected in the Baseline Extended simulation, would slow the growth in federal health care spending over the long term.”
However, like the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other federal forecasters, the GAO’s baseline scenario is not considered to be the most likely course the federal government will take. Like the rest of the government, GAO constructed a more likely budget forecast based on past congressional actions and the predictions of other forecasters, such as the Medicare Chief Actuary and the CBO.
The GAO’s alternative scenario also incorporates the wide-ranging skepticism of budget and health care experts that Obamacare will work as planned, citing the CBO, the Medicare Chief Actuary, and the Medicare Trustees, all of whom have expressed doubt that the president’s signature law will actually reduce health care costs over the long term.
“The Trustees, CBO, and the CMS [Medicare] Actuary have expressed concerns about the sustainability of certain health care cost-control measures over the long term,” the GAO said.
Specifically, the GAO noted that Medicare experts doubted whether Obamacare could make health care efficient enough to allow for reduced Medicare payments as planned.
“They have also questioned whether a provision in PPACA that would restrain spending growth by reducing the payment rates for certain Medicare services based on productivity gains observed throughout the economy is sustainable over the long term,” stated the report.
Because Obamacare may not produce the savings its proponents claim, the GAO said that there were “significant uncertainties” about its effectiveness, uncertainties that were reflected in the alternative scenario.
That alternative scenario, the GAO found, led to massive federal deficits and debt as entitlement spending and debt service alone burn through 100 percent of tax receipts by 2030.
“In this simulation, spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest exceeds revenues by 2030 and by 2040, 73 cents of every federal dollar spent would go to these categories,” reported the GAO.
The GAO also said that in order to avoid this situation, Congress needed to immediately cut spending by 32 percent, raise taxes by 46 percent, or find an acceptable mix of both. If it waited until 2022, Congress would have to cut spending by 37 percent, raise taxes by 54 percent, or find a combination of the two. | https://cnsnews.com/news/article/gao-federal-spending-driving-unsustainable-debt |
Dissertation submitted to Technologicl University Dublin in partial fulfilment of M.A. (Higher Education), 2015.
Abstract
A cross-sectional quantitative study was implemented to identify and analyse student approaches to learning (SALs) in the four stages of an undergraduate optometry honours degree programme. Study results will be used to inform optometric educators of the SAL trends of this student cohort. Seventy-three undergraduate optometry students participated in the study. Individual participant SAL scores were calculated using the shortened Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) for a semester-long academic module identified for each programme stage. Only R-SPQ-2F main scale SAL scores measuring the deep approach (DA) and surface approach (SA) were included in the final analyses, due to poor internal consistency and reliability of subscale measures, as confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Assessment scores across a range of assessment types represented measures of participant academic performance. No statistically significant differences were found in intra-or-inter-stage DA and SA scores as analysed using the paired t-test. Pearson correlational analysis elicited a negative correlation between the DA and SA scores for stage 4 data and for combined participant data. One-way ANOVA analysis showed no inter-stage or inter-gender SAL differences. Pearson correlation coefficient analyses showed no relationship between SAL and age. Overall, Pearson correlational analyses of SAL and assessment scores showed variable results, with no significant correlations found for most of these analyses. For stage 1 participants, the DA score and multiple choice questions, MCQ, (Online) scores were positively correlated. Stage 3 participant DA scores were positively correlated with Written Theory Question and Literature Review Assignment scores respectively. Stage 4 participants SA scores were negatively correlated with MCQ (Written) and Case Study Question scores respectively. It is envisaged that this study will form the foundation for ongoing investigation into SALs in undergraduate optometry students to further elicit the relationship between SAL and assessment methods across a wider range of academic modules. This information will be used in routine reviews of teaching and assessment materials for the DT224 optometry programme as well in the planning of continuing professional development (CPD) activities for graduates of the programme.
Recommended Citation
Moore, L. (2015) The relationship between approaches to learning and assessment outcomes in undergraduate optometry students. Dissertation submitted to Technologicl University Dublin in partial fulfilment of M.A. (Higher Education), 2015. | https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ltcdis/32/ |
The University of California, Berkeley, is the premier university in the world for transportation research, education and scholarship. Our large, diverse and evolving community is interested in all aspects of transportation, including intelligent transportation systems, data science and demand forecasting, autonomous and connected vehicles, aviation and airport design and operation, traffic safety, transportation finance, transportation economics, infrastructure design and maintenance, traffic theory, public policy, logistics, and energy and environmental systems analysis. Our interdisciplinary Transportation Engineering Degrees are based in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and draw on faculty from City and Regional Planning, Economics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Business Administration, Political Science, Energy Resources Group, Global Metropolitan Studies and other departments.
Many research projects are housed at the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), a research institute funded in 1947, that includes seven research centers, startup-incubators and accelerators, a tech transfer program and one of the leading transportation libraries in the world. The research funding averages $40 million/year and involves 300 faculty, staff and graduate student researchers, who make use of our unique facilities including self-driving vehicles, UAV, the first hydrogen vehicle fueling station in the Bay Area, traffic simulators, and battery and drone testbeds.
The Transportation Graduate Students Organizing Committee (TRANSOC) is a very active graduate student transportation group enriching graduate life at UC Berkeley. | http://www.its.berkeley.edu/node/2294 |
Are The Oscars On the Decline?
Leading up to this year’s 94th Academy Awards, viewership was of big uncertainty. Would the Oscars reflect yet another year of decrease in viewers? Or would it bring a resurgence in popularity with the pandemic slowing down? The answer is quite clear.
April 25, 2022
This year’s Oscars drew in 16.6 million viewers, displaying a 58% increase from last year’s record low audience of 10.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen, a global marketing research firm. However, unsurprisingly, it still marks the 2022 Oscars as the second-worst in terms of viewership and for ratings.
58 BCA students were polled to see if this trend was also present in our own student body. A majority of students reported that they had not seen the Oscars, with 58.6% stating they had not seen this year’s Academy Awards and 41.4% stating that they had. Similarly, of the people that had watched the Oscars this year, 21.8% of students said they had only watched from anywhere between less than five minutes to a maximum of 30 minutes.
So why has viewership been on a steady decline over the past few years for the Academy Awards? One possible explanation is that the Oscars are geared too much for movie fans and aren’t casual friendly enough. Evident in its nominees for different awards, it is quite clear that people don’t watch the movies that get nominated. In a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times, a majority of consumers who had seen the numerous best picture nominees were unaware that the particular movie was even nominated for an Academy Award.
Similarly, the same group of BCA students were polled to see how many had seen this year’s best picture nominees. Almost a majority of students reported that they had not seen any movie nominated for best picture, with the two most seen movies being Don’t Look Up and West Side Story, the more mainstream of the bunch. If popularity and accessibility are any forms of metric in determining mainstream appeal, many of the movies nominated for awards don’t bring in any commercial appeal because they typically aren’t popular amongst casual movie-watchers.
The box office is one form of quantifying movie success and popularity. The winners for best picture in the previous five years have reflected the trend that best picture winners do not make much money at all at the box office. In 2018, Peter Farrelly’s Green Book, managed to win best picture over A Star Is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody, despite only making 85 million dollars. While monetary success shouldn’t be the driving factor in winning an Oscar, or even being nominated for one, without commercially successful films, people have no reason to watch the Academy Awards over films they haven’t seen.
Award shows of all types have displayed a similar trend. While their waning popularity is no secret, it is not a stretch to say people aren’t interested in awards shows as much when compared to the 1980s. The 1980s were a period of time when celebrities were not at the front of media reports. The Oscars provided a live show, full of celebrities in which the public were able to get a better connection with these people. As Vox states, “they [were] fascinated with Hollywood, with the glamour, with seeing stars in a few rare semi-unscripted moments.”
Now, actors and actresses are all over the media. People see them in the news daily and the notion of being a celebrity isn’t as enigmatic as it once was. The Oscars do not provide an exclusive experience to the public anymore, and the decline in the viewership of the Academy Awards is no surprise. | https://academychronicle.com/7409/features/are-the-oscars-on-the-decline/ |
Soft tissue injuries cover any injury to muscles, tendons and ligaments (and exclude any injury to bone tissue). Tendons are bands of fibrous tissue that connect muscles to bones and ligaments are bands of fibrous tissue that connect bones to other bones. Where there is damage to muscles or tendons these are referred to as 'strains', whereas any damage to ligaments is referred to as a 'sprain'.
Strains are where muscles either contract or stretch too quickly and a partial or complete tear in the muscles and/or tendons occurs. Sprains are where a joint is forced beyond its normal range of motion and one or more ligaments either stretch or tear.
A bruise (also sometimes referred to as a 'contusion' or 'cork') results from any relatively forceful impact to the skin which results in bleeding into soft tissue (a 'haematoma') which in turn causes the skin discolouration.
Soft tissue damage can also occur as a result of repetitive 'overuse' of particular sets of muscles, tendons and ligaments over time, as opposed to being due to one specific incident or injury.
Soft tissue injuries are very common and are the most common sporting injury.
Causes
Although any type of impact or high energy trauma can cause strains, sprains and bruising, most soft tissue damage is caused by falling or by twisting. Any previous injury will also increase the risk of further injury to the same area.
Symptoms
Primary symptoms are pain, swelling and bruising, which may also be accompanied by loss of movement or range of motion and loss of function, including being able to take any weight or pressure on the affected joint. Overuse injuries develop the same symptoms (with the exception of bruising) over a longer period of time.
Tests / Diagnosis
A physical examination can generally establish if the injury is only soft tissue or anything more serious. If there is a suspicion of something more serious, such as a bone fracture, an x-ray may be required.
Treatment
Treatment for soft tissue injuries very rarely require surgical intervention, unless tendons or ligaments have substantially or completely detached (for example ACL rupture). Most soft tissue injuries are treated according to the RICE protocol – Rest, Ice*, Compression, Elevation.
* although there is now a slight question mark over use of ice, as it may in fact delay recovery, even though it may give some immediate pain relief. | https://moopanarortho.com.au/conditions/soft-tissue-injury |
I like the spin that Pete Lindstrom gives to some classical security discussions, but I think he is completely missing the point here:"If finding vulnerabilities makes software more secure, why do we assert that software with the highest vulnerability count is less secure (than, e.g., a competitor)?"If we agree with him we could also say that cities where more criminals are caught and sent to jail are more secure than those that catch less criminals. I could then argue that in order to become more secure a city should stop putting criminals into jail.There are two separate problems. One is to avoid new criminals (or to avoid adding vulnerabilities to code). The other is to deal with those that are already there (finding bugs). Dealing with the first problem is the best approach as you will spend less with the second, but you cannot just let the current criminals "working" until they "retire".With crime we can know how effective the measures to prevent the creation of new criminals without necessarily working to put the current ones into jail. You just need to keep numbers on crime occurrences. But for vulnerabilities we need discover them in order to know if the developer is doing a good job on avoiding them. We can accept the fact that an unknown vulnerability has no risk, but I don't think it's a good idea to wait until people with malicious intent start finding holes in the software I use to know if that developer is good on writing secure code or not. At that time, it's too late. | http://blog.securitybalance.com/2009/03/cognitive-dissonance-i-must-disagree.html |
CROSS-REFERENCED APPLICATION
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
The present application claims the priority of provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/539,582, filed Jan. 29, 2004.
The present invention is directed to the field of scanning printed documents and storing these documents in a manner allowing retrieval by the public.
Currently, printed documents to be preserved in a memory allowing Internet access to these documents are scanned and maintained in an archive. These documents could include, but would not be limited to, academic journals.
These documents were scanned using a 600 DPI (dots per inch) bi-tonal TIFF G4 image format as a long-term digital preservation standard. This provides for clean and crisp text and line-art. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) was used to make content full-text searchable and build an index, and page images are presented to a user in a matter that replicates the experience of reading the original material. For viewing on-screen, grayscale GIF page images at approximately 100 DPI were produced, and the 600 DPI bi-tonal scans in PDF® format for printing was provided.
Early on, it was realized that halftone gray-scale and color images (hereinafter referred to as “halftone images”) needed to be treated separately from the bi-tonal material, since the 600 DPI bi-tonal scan did not reproduce halftones adequately. It was elected to scan such material separately at 200 DPI with 8- or 24-bit depth. This scanning resolution is sufficient to preserve the content of typical halftoned images. These scans were presented to the end-user together with the image of the page upon which the halftone illustration originally appeared but were not imbedded into the page image.
A few years ago an effort was initiated to digitize a collection of academic journals dedicated to Art History and related topics. The significance of the printed halftoned images in these journals exceeded that of the images that had previously been preserved. After some investigation and experimentation, it was decided that these images would be scanned at 300 DPI. The images were presented in the context of the original page, rather than separately as had been done up to this point. To do this, a set of scanning guidelines and data capture specifications were developed that allowed the accurate positioning of the separately scanned illustration on the scanned page image. Software was also developed to compose the separately scanned images together into a single page image for on-screen viewing and for printing using the PDF format.
The deficiencies of the prior art are addressed by the present invention which includes a method and system for scanning documents having both bi-tonal material as well halftone images.
Each page of the document to be archived would be scanned to obtain a bi-tonal (black and white) image of the page. If that particular page contained halftone images, it will be scanned a second time, utilizing a different, generally lower resolution. However, it is noted that the resolutions of both the bi-tonal and the halftone image could be equal, as well as the resolution of the bi-tonal image could be lower than the resolution of the halftone image. The bi-tonal image of that page would be stored in a first file and the halftone image of that same page would be stored in a separate, second file. The position of each of the halftone images on that particular page would be stored along with additional information relating to the article in general in a metadata storage file, or, alternatively in either or both of the first and second files. Each additional page of the article would be scanned and stored in a similar manner. Therefore, after all of the pages of the article have been scanned, all of the bi-tonal images would be stored in the first file and all of the halftone images would be stored in the second file. Each of the files can be stored in separate memories, or at different locations of the same memory.
The images provided in both of the files would be delivered to a user for the purpose of reconstructing each page to be displayed on the user's screen or to be printed for later use. Dependent upon whether the user wishes to display the image on his or her screen or to print the image, the manner in which the images would be displayed or printed are slightly different. In the case in which the image is to be displayed upon the user's computer screen, the halftone images would be overlayed upon the bi-tonal image. In the situation in which the page is to be printed, the bi-tonal images provided under the halftone images would be blanked out.
Further features of the invention, its nature and various advantages will be apparent from the accompanying drawing and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.
FIG. 1
is a block flow diagram showing the method of scanning a page as well as processing the scanned page to be displayed or printed; and
FIG. 2
is a block diagram showing various components of the present invention.
As previously recited, the present invention is directed to a system and method for scanning and reproducing images on pages which generally contain both bi-tonal images as well as halftone images.
Documents are scanned full pages bi-tonally at generally 600 DPI, while halftone images are scanned with 8 or 24-bit depth at a resolution determined by the source halftone grid, thus 200 DPI for most journals, and 300 DPI for the higher quality images in Art History and related journals, or in a range between 200 DPI and 300 DPI. It is also noted that other resolutions for the bi-tonal and halftone images can be employed. This permits optimized scanning and storage parameters for each type of source material to be developed. It is noted that the exact resolution is not important. It is also noted that, while the bi-tonally image scan generally would have more resolution than the halftone image scan, this is not necessarily the case. For example, both resolutions could be equal, or the halftone image would have more resolution than the bi-tonal image.
Each page thus comprises multiple components that must be composed for display or printing. These components are, on the one hand, the bi-tonal full-page scan and, on the other hand halftone images.
Solutions for on-screen display, and for printing separately, were considered, with the goal of creating an on-screen display that enables the user to easily and quickly view and read individual pages of an article. On-screen viewing should be available to any standard web browser that is capable of displaying images.
The goal for delivering print-quality content is primarily to provide the full scanned image depth and resolution to the printer. Secondarily, the size of the file that is delivered for printing is to be minimized as much as possible.
Modern web browsers support three image formats, GIF, JPEG, and PNG, although PNG support is limited in some versions. All three formats were evaluated for image quality and file size. As a result of these evaluations, it was decided to deliver pages with halftone content in JPEG format with a “quality” parameter setting of 60. Settings higher than 60 increased the file size without any visibly significant change in quality, while settings lower than 60 degraded the text content in particular. Additionally, it was decided to continue to deliver pages with no halftone content in GIF format, because of the smaller file size.
The set of options for print content delivery was smaller than that for on-screen delivery. The frequent use of the PDF format by users meant that composite page images in PDF would definitely need to be delivered. There was no need to decide whether to offer a “no halftone” option for PDF delivery.
Beyond archiving the journal content, a method was determined for facilitating “access,” which can mean many things. At a minimum, it means that the preserved information is retrievable in some form. It also means that the content, as delivered, is as faithful as possible to the original preserved form, while not imposing unreasonable constraints on the end user. Considerations such as dial-up Internet access speeds, disk and RAM requirements, printer memory and speed limitations, display screen sizes, and software availability are taken into account. A significant fraction of the user community has dial-up access to the Internet from home. Since many users have screens between 800 and 1024 pixels wide, it is important to design pages to fit on an 800-pixel wide screen. Some users will be using computers on which they cannot install software, such as those in public “computer labs.” Thus, only common software that is likely to be already installed on those computers, minimally a web browser for on-screen viewing and Adobe Acrobat Reader for printing is all that is necessary.
GIF page image for text-only pages.
JPEG page image with Q=60 for pages with halftone images.
Page image width of 760 pixels, which fits nicely on an 800-pixel wide screen while maximizing text readability.
Provide an option for the user to view page images created only from the bi-tonal page scan, to reduce download times on slow network connections.
Full-resolution PDF files always include composed Halftone Images. The areas of the bi-tonal page image that lie “behind” the Halftone Images are blanked out when we build the PDF file.
Reduced-resolution PDF files do not include composed halftone images.
PDF image content uses G4 compression for the bi-tonal page image and JPEG compression for the halftone images.
The following relates to image delivery for the present invention:
It should be noted that retrieval and the composition of an image can be accomplished at any time such as real-time or just-in-time composition, as well as employing a batch composition.
The implementation of the delivery system for composed images comprises four major parts. These are the image and meta-data storage, software for composing on-screen images, software for composing PDF files, and software to deliver the composed images as part of a web interface.
To save disk space, the bi-tonal page images for each journal article are compressed together into a single file using the Cartesian Perceptual Compression® algorithm. This reduces the space required to about one quarter that required by the original TIFF images. The halftone images are stored as JPEG files, one per image. The set of image files that make up an article in a journal are linked together by the article meta-data. Therefore, it is noted that separate memories are used to store the bi-tonal page images and the Halftone Images.
The article meta-data fully describes the journal article, including information such as the article's title and authors. It also lists the image source files that comprise the article. Each halftone image file is described by its file name and the (x,y) coordinates of a rectangle that it covers in the bi-tonal page image coordinate system. Thus, to build a composed page image or PDF file, the system loads this information from the meta-data and uses it to drive the program or programs that perform the actual composition.
1. Determine from the scale factor (output image size divided by input image size).
2. Scale the input bi-tonal image.
3. Compute the appropriate scale factor for each halftone image.
4. Compute the position at which the halftone image will be composed into the output.
5. Rescale each halftone image and overlay the result at the computed position in the output image.
6. Compress the output image to a JPEG file using the specified quality parameter.
One such program is called JCompose. It takes as input a single bi-tonal page image, a set of halftone images, placement specifications for the halftone images, and parameters that specify the desired output image size and quality. Briefly, it functions as follows:
The bi-tonal image is scaled using an “area averaging” algorithm. Simply put, each output pixel overlays a square region of the input image. Each “black” input pixel whose center lies within this square is considered to contribute to the output gray level. Thus, if all pixels overlapped by the square are black, the output pixel will be black. If only 50% of the pixels overlapped by the square are black, the output pixel will be gray with an intensity of 0.5.
The halftone images are scaled using “bilinear averaging”. That is, each color component in the image is considered as a bilinear “intensity” surface. Again, the output pixel is overlaid onto this surface as a square. The integral of the surface within this square, divided by the area of the square, gives the output intensity of that color component. The scaling algorithms were chosen because they produced good image quality at a reasonable computational cost.
2
1. Load the bi-tonal page image.
2. Blank out any bi-tonal page images within the rectangle covered by the halftone image.
3. Add the bi-tonal image to the PDF page.
4. Add each halftone image to the page.
In connection with print content delivery, the program utilized to produce the PDF files is called “pagepdf,” and accepts as input a list of page image files; a list of halftone image files, each accompanied by the page number on which it appears and positioning data; and output file specifications. The procedure it follows for each output page is outlined below:
1. The journal containing the page is designated as one for which composed pages will be delivered, AND
2. Halftone images exist for the page, AND
3. The user has not selected a preference, OR the user preference is for composed pages, OR the user has asked to view the page in composed form.
After all the pages have been built, the output PDF file is written. The user also has the ability to view pages without composed images, for a given page or as a preference that changes the default setting for all pages. A given page will be delivered with composed images if the following conditions hold:
A composed image can be produced only when halftone images exist on a page, and position information is available for those images. If no positionable halftone images are associated with a page, then a GIF page image containing only bi-tonal images is delivered.
By default, a composed page image for a page with positional halftone images will be delivered when the journal is marked for composite delivery. The user may elect to view a particular page without the composed halftone images by clicking on a link while viewing the composed page. Users may also set a permanent preference to see pages without composed images. In such case, the user may elect to view any particular page with composed images by clicking on a link while viewing the page.
FIGS. 1 and 2
10
12
42
Referring to , which illustrates the teachings of the present invention , a page of a document or a journal would initially be scanned at to capture a bi-tonal image. This would be true whether the page contains halftone images or not. The resolution of the scan can vary. However, it has been shown that a resolution of 600 DPI would be appropriate. The bi-tonally scanned page would be stored in a bi-tonal file in, for instance, TIFF G4 format. It is noted that the actual formats and compression techniques that are used to produce the bi-tonal image are not essential to the process of the present invention.
14
40
Once a bi-tonal scan has been made of a first page, a second scan would be made of that page if that page contains halftone images that need to be captured. It is important to note that the page is not moved on the scan bed after the bi-tonal scan to insure that the scanner registration for the halftone image scan would be identical to that of the bi-tonal image scan. Once this second scan is complete at step , the halftone image is stored in a second file employing a TIFF format, using 24-byte color resolution. It is further noted that this second scan is generally made at a resolution different than the resolution of the bi-tonal scan. For example, based upon the type of halftone image as well as the intended user, a resolution of 200 DPI would be used for most journals and 300 DPI would be used for higher quality images.
16
46
46
42
40
40
42
A combined automated and human process would be utilized to capture the (x,y) coordinates of each of the halftone images at step . The automated process attempts to find potential halftone images during the bi-tonal image scan, utilizing a program to capture the halftone image including its (x,y) coordinates. The results of this process are reviewable by humans. These coordinates (the number of pixels, horizontally and vertically from the top-left corner of a page) are measured and are saved in a third file, or metadata memory . This metadata describes a relationship between the bi-tonal image and the halftone images. The metadata also includes additional information about the archived document. Although it is shown that the metadata file is separate from the bi-tonal memory and the halftone memory , it is noted that this metadata could be provided in either or both of the files , .
18
A process of error-checking and data cleansing would be done at step using automated and human efforts. The automated process scans the metadata and images to ensure that there is a consistency of captured information. One technology used in this process would be a random sampling of the images to be printed and viewed. A visual comparison is made of these images, if necessary. This insures that the correct illustrations have been captured and that the (x,y) coordinates of each of the halftone images are correct. This would also insure that the halftone images are scanned correctly and accurately to produce an attractive finished product.
40
42
46
20
48
50
54
FIG. 1
Once this quality control is complete, the material stored in the halftone file , and the bi-tonal file are combined in a memory using the information in the metadata file and sent to a delivery system for subsequent use by the end users at step . This delivery could encompass physically delivering the material in a particular file format to the end user to be inputted to the hard drive of the user's computer or to deliver the material to the user's computer through the use of the internet. In either situation, the user is supplied with the resulting images. The software to compose the image, software to deliver the image to the user's screen, software to compose a PDF file for printing the image software to deliver PDF file to the printer generally reside on the production side of the system as outlined in the top portion of . However, it is noted that the software could be supplied to the end user.
FIG. 1
40
42
22
28
Referring again to , once the material in the files and is delivered to the end user, the material in these files could either be viewed by the end user and/or printed by the end user. In the situation in which the user wishes to display the images on the computer screen, the user would request an onscreen page at step . This onscreen page need not contain illustrations. Even if the onscreen page does contain illustrations, the user has the ability to request only the bi-tonal image to be displayed. In the situation in which the user wishes a composite image consisting of bi-tonal and halftone images, to be displayed on the user's screen, the illustrations would be scaled and adjusted for color depth and resolution. These parameters are determined to provide the best balance between quality and image size to the user. In the situation in which both bi-tonal and halftone images are contained on a particular page, the halftone images are overlayed on top of the bi-tonal page image, replacing the underlying bi-tonal image. This composite page is then delivered to the user at step in various formats such as, but not limited to, GIF, JPEG, or PNG format. This format decision may change over time as new formats become popular or more beneficial.
30
24
32
34
36
In the situation that the user wishes a particular page or pages to be printed, the user would request this page or pages to be printed, generally utilizing the PDF format in step . Similar to step , step would scale the halftone images and adjust these images for color depth and resolution. These parameters are determined for the best balance between quality and image size. At this point, at step , the locations of the bi-tonal images are blanked out of the PDF image files to conserve PDF file size. Therefore, the page or pages which are printed would contain both the bi-tonal image as well as the halftone image or images. Due to the aforementioned style of size constrictions, it would make no sense to deliver to the printer a composite page containing halftone images overlaying bi-tonal images. Rather, the page delivered to the printer would blank out the bi-tonal image in the position of the halftone image. At this point, the PDF file would be delivered to the end user at step for printing, using, for example, an Adobe Acrobat reader. Obviously, in the instance that the software to view and print the images reside on the production side, the user must be in communication with the production side to view and print the image on the user's screen or on the user's printer.
While the present invention has been described with reference to its preferred and alternative embodiments, those embodiments are offered by way of example, not by way of limitation. Various additions, deletions, and modifications can be made to the embodiments of the present invention by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. | |
After being admitted to the hospital in 2020 for treatment of Covid, Michael Rosen had to learn to walk again. With the help of the hospital staff, he began the slow steps to recovery—rolling through corridors in a wheelchair, taking tiny steps with a walker, and navigating the parallel bars at the gym.
But it was the walking stick he named Sticky McStickstick that helped him take the most important steps of all: back to his home and the love of his family.
The former British Children’s Laureate offers a personal and openhearted account, with whimsical illustrations by Tony Ross adding a note of levity as they relay the comedy in Rosen’s reluctance and failed attempts. It’s a story of perseverance and hope told in a way that children can understand, conveying reassurance and the importance of overcoming fear—while learning to accept help.
is backordered. We will ship it separately in 10 to 15 days. | https://petronella.co.nz/products/michael-rosens-sticky-mcstickstick |
With newly complex arrangements and more freeform songwriting, the Atlanta duo ventures from its bedroom pop origins with occasionally fascinating results.
Lowertown writes about childhood as a recent past, like a strong gust of wind could transport them back to adolescence. It doesn’t hurt that the duo, made up of vocalist and guitarist Olivia Osby and multi-instrumentalist Avshalom Weinberg, are barely out of high school. The two bonded over The Glow Pt. 2 and Alex G during sophomore year at a private school in Atlanta, and they graduated into the uncertainty of 2020 with a self-produced album and a record deal with Dirty Hit. Their second EP on the label, The Gaping Mouth, gestures toward their bedroom pop influences but veers from the form, cutting a meandering path into adulthood.
Osby sings with a nervous lilt, cramming rushed syllables into contrastingly lolling measures as if each verse might be her last. Though her voice retains the same baseline youthfulness as on last year’s Honeycomb, Bedbug EP, it sounds gnarlier and brattier, nasally vowels elongated and protruding from her whispered phrases. Her pinched aggressiveness suits the more freeform writing, recalling Frances Quinlan’s raspy indignation as she sings about blackbirds (“those stupid little beasts”) on “Seaface,” her voice dripping with contempt.
The songwriting is a marked step above Lowertown’s previous efforts: Conspicuous Alex G imitations (the dog named “Randy” in last year’s “My Dog” might as well have been “Harvey” ) are replaced by poetic imagery and nonlinear narratives. Although Osby’s stream-of-consciousness mumbling leads to a few stoned aphorisms (“Everything is intentional if you payed attention to it,” she murmurs on “Clown Car”), there are just as many surprising gems: “You are the iris in my eye,” she sings on the title track, “The more light, the more you shrink away.” Her cryptic metaphors and close miked vocals evoke the hushed tones of an insomniac’s ramblings, sometimes literally: Producer Catherine Marks liked Osby’s 4 a.m., home-recorded vocal take for “The Gaping Mouth” so much that she used it in the final mix.
The music and lyrics on The Gaping Mouth move independently of each other, reaching the same destination at different paces. Osby sings over Weinberg’s instrumentation with a shared mood but a distinct rhythm. Phrases and musical motifs repeat, but anything resembling a chorus hardly reappears in any predictable fashion. Instead, Weinberg’s accompaniments seem more like loose guides for Osby’s words, more like a score to her slam poetry than a unified song.
Weinberg experiments more with song structure here, and his willowy compositions often leave a more lasting impression than the words. His classical training and background in jazz and math rock are evident in the nimble fingerpicking and complex rhythmic changes. On the prettiest moments, it’s tempting to want an instrumental version of these songs, their delicate melodies cast into the background even by Osby’s quiet delivery. For an album so grounded in the minutiae of teenage emotions, the plaintive accompaniment, which evokes solo guitar composition more than indie rock, feels mismatched. But when they lean into more straightforward song structures, as on closer “Sunburnt,” the duo’s chemistry comes into clearer view, Osby’s voice rising to meet the bigger sound.
Lowertown tends to catastrophize adulthood, but they lace their anxiety with caveats—they know 19 isn’t old, but it’s “old enough” to be threatened by the passage of time. That nuance sometimes comes at the expense of melody: The winding verses of The Gaping Mouth might find their way into the margins of a notebook, but they’d be a tough sell for a karaoke night or a cathartic group singalong. Still, that sense of solitude might be the point. Leaving childhood is a deeply isolating experience, even more so when lockdown and quarantine plague your last year of high school. The Gaping Mouth sounds the way that adolescence feels: self-aware but not yet self-assured. | https://www.yourchoiceway.com/2021/09/lowertown-gaping-mouth-music-album.html |
As I get up for my normal 4:15 a.m. wakeup call on this rainy morning and get ready for my normal workday, I turn on the news and realize that, unfortunately, the last few weeks of 2020 have not been a dream but are likely our new reality for at least a few weeks — maybe months. I decide that through uncertain times like these, while I’m working at home or an enclosed office, my goal will be to help my team and company be as productive during this time as they can possibly be. So the question is: Where do you start when your team can’t travel, most people don’t want you to come to their office or location, and your normal customers may be holding on tightly to their purse strings right now as they try to figure out what the world is going to do before they spend capital on their businesses?
The first place I believe you should start is to take time to invest in yourselves and your talent, educate yourselves on existing product offerings, listen to some motivational and educational podcasts, and read some of your favorite sales and business books you’ll never take time to read otherwise.
Second, take time to research your sales targets and companies by looking online for news and updates on key players, new company initiatives and expansion plans, if any, for the company. Be educated on the markets you are focused on, what their pains and challenges are and what you can do to help them solve those once you connect. What will a downturn do to their business, and can you create an empathetic response or offering to address that?
Third, work and create local email campaigns with new topics, offerings and grabbers that you can have ready to go. One of the best ways is to use a series of four to six emails you can rotate and schedule every Monday morning to automatically send through Microsoft, Salesforce or another email vehicle your company or marketing team utilizes to push your messages out.
Finally, pick up the phone and call your prospects or your customers. Over-communicate during times of uncertainty. People are hunkered down in the office or they are telecommuting from home and probably will welcome a call or be willing to take a call if they’re a prospect. Set up tentative meetings for 30 days from a time of crisis to give them and yourself hope that it too will pass. Ask if you can set up some remote webinars on products or services they might be interested in or have expressed interest in at some point. Tell them your focus is to help educate them on what could be coming during a time when they can slow down and focus on items that, most of the time, they are too busy to look at.
Take an opportunity during crazy, unique and uncertain times like these to maximize value to your own self, your customers and your next customers by bringing them the best of you, your time and your educational offerings. This will help get us through a week or season of uncertainty so we can look back and say: I made the most of what I had and what I could do.
Just remember that, as Paul Harvey said, “In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.”
Executive Vice President of Sales at NAVCO, leading the company's strategic sales growth and team for the company in North America. Read Angie Barnes' full executive…
Executive Vice President of Sales at NAVCO, leading the company's strategic sales growth and team for the company in North America. Read Angie Barnes' full executive profile here. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2020/04/02/what-to-do-as-a-leader-when-the-world-feels-shut-down/ |
Poet, painter, photographer... At the age of 73, Abbas Kiarostami is a director whose talent is not only expressed on screen, although it is through his films that the Iranian director has been consecrated in the eyes of the world. A major figure of free and innovative "cinéma d'auteur" and a member of the Iranian "nouvelle vague" that appeared in the seventies, he won the Palme d'Or in Cannes in 1997 for Taste of Cherry (Ta'm e guilass). This year, he is President of the Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury. He recalls his first ventures in film.
What kind of a young director were you?
I am inclined to say that the only point I can see now, at my age, that I had in common with young filmmakers of the day was that we were all young. I had not studied film. I did not see it as my vocation. I studied painting but I did not end up as a painter. Then at some point I realised that the cinema would be a refuge for me and that film would be the medium in which I could best express myself.
What are your memories of your first experiences behind the camera?
My first film was extremely difficult to make. As luck would have it, it was a big hit and was recognised. For me, that didn't mean that I would become a filmmaker. I believed that this chapter was over and that I would not make any more films. Nevertheless, I did make more films, and then I made even more of them. When I made my first feature film, I told myself that I should take stock of the fact that being a filmmaker was my job. For this first film, I encountered two types of audiences: one was composed of people who loved my films and the other, larger group did not like them at all. That is still true today.
What qualities does a first film need for it to be a success?
What convinced me that my first film was a success was that it was recognised in a festival and that it was selected for the award for best short film. For me, that was the criterion of success. Today, in retrospect, I do not think that a good film is a film that wins a prize. Nor do I think that a good film is one that draws a big audience or that gets positive reviews from the critics. I think that the determining criterion is its sustainability. A good film is one that lasts, that history deems worthy of staying with us. I do not remember who set this time frame at thirty years. Whoever it was said that after thirty years we can judge whether a film is sustainable, whether we even know if it still exists or if it has disappeared.
What importance do you attach to short films in the career of a filmmaker?
They are extremely important because they give the director an opportunity to be bold and to experiment. The personality of a director is felt very strongly in his or her short films. In feature films, the producer and the financing inevitably cast a long shadow, as well as audience taste. No director can ignore these two factors. As a result, the short film is more important because it is so personal. The quest for the avant-garde, for innovation, has to take place in short films and in a director's first films.
Abbas Kiarostami © FIF / CB
Tell me about Iranian film. Do you feel it is in a healthy condition?
To take a snapshot of Iranian cinema today, you have to make an extension between two types of films. On the one hand, there is the State cinema, financed by the authorities. In Iran, there are a number of filmmakers who work thanks to the State and for the State. I don't think much about them and I don't expect much of them because they these filmmakers are only known in Iran. Their films are meant for an extremely local and targeted consumption. Then there is an independent cinema that is flourishing. Today, unknown filmmakers are arriving from the most far-flung provinces of Iran. Thanks to the opportunities offered by new technologies and small digital cameras, they are delivering very high quality films. My hope is embodied in these people.
What is left of the Iranian New Wave that you were part of?
You will have to ask new generations to answer this question. They are the ones who could tell you what they have retained from it and whether there is a legacy, an influence. One thing is certain: the cinema and filmmakers of the time were much freer than they are today in Iran. We had the Kānun, this institute for the development of children and young people. Its directors gave us carte blanche and they did not interfere in any way in our work. This is quite a remarkable process that had an obvious impact on our work. However it seems to me that this New Wave has never broken. These filmmakers from the outlying provinces that I referred to just keep on renewing it constantly.
What do you still expect from cinema?
I don't expect anything. Expectation belongs to young people. But without expecting anything, I keep working. The essence of film is in the production of images. There is never a month that goes by that I don't make a short film, a little video piece or a photograph. Perhaps what I expect from cinema today is to know that I have made a new image when I fall asleep at night. Like a fisherman who always hopes to catch a fish when he casts his nets. | http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/69-editions/retrospective/2014/actualites/articles/interview-abbas-kiarostami-the-quest-for-innovation-has-to-take-place-in-short-films-and-in-a-director-s-first-films |
| Current course models to change with growth
If the Yale Corporation agrees to the proposed expansion of Yale College after its scheduled February vote, the “two lectures and a section” model — one of the University’s most common undergraduate course formats — may become a thing of the past.
The Graduate School — which provides most of the teaching assistants for College courses — cannot expand simply to meet undergraduate needs, Graduate School Dean Jon Butler said in an interview this week. But the possible 12 percent increase in enrollment, which would equal about 600 students, would require more TAs in some academic departments.
The relative inflexibility of Graduate School enrollment numbers would make it impossible to maintain the current weekly discussion section format popular with undergraduate lecture courses, Butler said. Instead, Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said the University may revamp “the way we teach” by turning to alternative, currently undetermined teaching formats that would depend less on the Graduate School and more on an enlarged University faculty.
At capacity?
Graduate School administrators said enrollment numbers are based on the perceived demand, the need for experts in each field and available University funding meant to support graduate students — not on the number of TAs needed by the College, Butler said.
If current course models — with large- and medium-sized courses breaking up into mandated weekly discussion sections led by graduate students — are maintained, professors said some departments could see a shortage of teaching assistants.
One way undergraduate students can fulfill the writing distributional requirement is through special writing sections in classes dispersed throughout dozens of departments. Yale College Writing Center Director Alfred Guy said the supply of teaching assistants qualified to lead such sections would have to increase, assuming demand for such sections rises along with the number of students.
“If everything expanded at the same rate, we would need more teaching fellows,” Guy said. “Lecture courses that offer the writing designation are at capacity.”
In the Anthropology Department — which already faces limited teaching assistant resources because its graduate students often conduct research abroad during their fourth years — Director of Graduate Studies Joseph Errington said a rise in undergraduate course enrollment without a similar rise in graduate enrollment would likely cause a shortage of teaching assistants. But caps on University funding designated to support graduate students limit enrollment in anthropology, Errington said.
And Vinodkumar Saranathan GRD ’11, a student in ecology and evolutionary biology — another department with TA shortages — who is currently a TA for the popular “Conservation Biology” course, said his course faced problems securing enough teaching assistants at the beginning of the semester.
“Our department has a shortage of students to begin with,” Saranathan said. “We have to hire people from other departments. Unless they increase the enrollment in the Graduate School, it’s going to be tough to deal with the influx of new students.”
Although Butler said the size of the graduate student body would not increase as a direct result of the undergraduate expansion, some graduate programs will inevitably increase their enrollments, particularly if additional faculty members are hired. Economics chairman Christopher Udry said the plum job market for those with doctorates in economics has opened the door for Yale’s program to grow. So far, faculty resources have limited the growth of the graduate economics program. A College expansion — and the new faculty hires it would enable through increased funding — could ease that constraint, Udry said.
The same could be true throughout the Graduate School, Butler said — although on a relatively small scale.
“The task of the next several years, presuming the expansion of the undergraduate colleges and faculty, will be to determine how graduate programs can and should be carefully and modestly enlarged to strengthen the opportunities they provide for graduate students,” Butler said.
Rethinking the model
But even a modest expansion at the graduate level may be impossible for some programs and may still not produce enough teaching assistants to meet undergraduate demand if current class formats are maintained.
Those departments, administrators said, may have to consider a number of new models besides the “two lectures and a section” format if the College grows.
“We might need to rethink the way in which we teach and the role of graduate students in that teaching,” Salovey said. “Is the model of two lectures and a section overly relied upon? Undergraduates tell us they don’t understand the purpose of many of the sections in which they are enrolled.”
Administrators said it is still too soon to speculate on what new teaching patterns may be — and this uncertainty results in as many questions as answers.
“We may, in a variety of fields, want to think about varying some of our teaching patterns,” Butler said. “It’s not clear that all courses need discussion sections. Do we have too many discussion sections? Should we concentrate sections in some courses and not in others?”
Some of those new patterns may, for example, include having three lectures a week for some courses, with professors holding question and answer sessions as part of each lecture, political science professor Steven Smith said.
But Smith, who teaches “Introduction to Political Philosophy,” said though these different options exist, discussion sections are ideal for courses like his. Smith said his class enrolls about 170 students who divide into seven sections.
“I think it’s very valuable for students to have a small group experience,” Smith said.
Smith said he had difficulty finding enough teaching assistants for his course this year, because while political science is becoming increasingly popular with undergraduates, the pool of teaching assistants has remained constant. Smith said he expects the problem would get worse if the College were to expand.
A solution down the road
Nicholaus Noles GRD ’08, a psychology student and TA who did his undergraduate work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said he does not think sections are a crucial feature of undergraduate courses.
“I had never heard of a section before coming here,” Noles said. “I think certainly you don’t have to have them. There are lots of universities that do just fine [without sections]. It’s just a different way of doing things.”
But most undergraduates interviewed said they are fond of the discussion section format.
History major Alex Afsahi ’09 said sections provide an intimacy absent during large lecture classes.
“[With discussion sections] you have a working relationship with the person who’s directly responsible for your grade,” Afsahi said. “It’s nice to have an approachable figure who you can talk to about how you’re doing. You have to make a pretty extreme effort to go to a professor’s office hours. A teaching assistant is an intermediary figure between you and the professor.”
Jeremy Hopkins ’10 said he thinks sections provide students with an in-depth knowledge of class material.
A section is only valuable when it functions as more than “a reading check,” Amy Lee ’10 said. Such sections, she said, are a waste of students’ time.
Lee said she thinks the optional section format discussed by some administrators would not draw many students.
“I find that optional sections only end up getting utilized for math or econ,” she said. “For English, a lot of people would choose not to do it. I think that for the most part, people are so busy that if they’re not getting something kind of concrete out of it, a lot of people will choose to forego it.”
Though there have already been meetings within departments about ways to adapt to the possible growth, Salovey said when the Corporation makes its final decision in February it is unlikely all the details and logistics of expansion will have been determined.
“If we decide to build the colleges, there will be time for future discussion,” Salovey said.
Dean of Undergraduate Education Joseph Gordon said the committee charged with weighing in on the effect the College’s growth would have on academics — of which he is chair — has not yet formulated a concrete plan to accommodate additional students. But he said the committee will ultimately address the challenges of the increased need for resources such as instructors, fellowship opportunities and facilities. | https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2007/11/08/current-course-models-to-change-with-growth/ |
Chandra Khatri is a Senior AI Research Scientist at Uber AI driving Conversational and Multi-modal efforts at Uber. Prior to Uber, he was the Lead AI Scientist at Alexa and was driving the Science for the Alexa Prize Competition, which is a $3.5 Million university competition for advancing the state of Conversational AI. Some of his recent work involves Multi-modal and Embodied Understanding, Common sense and Semantic Understanding, Natural Language and Speech Processing, Open-domain Dialog Systems, and Deep Learning.
Prior to Alexa, Chandra was a Research Scientist at eBay, wherein he led various Deep Learning and NLP initiatives such as Automatic Text Summarization and Automatic Content Generation within the eCommerce domain, which has lead to significant gains for eBay. He holds degrees in Machine Learning and Computational Science & Engineering from Georgia Tech and BITS Pilani. https://sites.google.com/view/chandra-khatri
Uber AI is at the heart of AI-powered innovation and technologies at Uber. AI research and its applications solve challenges across the whole of Uber. Uber AI not only advances the state of AI across multiple domains such as Reinforcement Learning, Control and Sensing, Conversational AI, and Computer Vision but also open sources the tools and techniques for a wider audience. | https://www.chatbotsummit.com/speaker/chandrakhatri |
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune is a premier autonomous Institution established by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, for promotion of high quality science education and research in the country.
Institute invites applications from Indian nationals having excellent academic record and relevant work experience for the following position purely on temporary and contractual basis under the funded project.
Post : Research Associate (RA) - 01 Post
Name of the Project : Conformational Properties of Block Polyelectrolytes: A Coarse- Grained Molecular Dynamics Study
Funding Agency : Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB)
Project Code : 30119469
Minimum Educational Qualifications : Ph.D. in Chemistry / Theoretical Chemistry / Computational Chemistry / Physics / Chemical Engineering or equivalent discipline Candidates who have submitted their thesis may also apply
Preference : Candidates having experience in theoretical methods / computer programming in C++ will be preferred
Tenure of the appointment : Initially for a period of one year, extendable for further period subject to satisfactory performance of the incumbent and continuation of the project.
Consolidated emoluments :
1) Rs.47, 000/- + 24% HRA per month.
2) Candidates who have submitted their thesis, but not completed defense (i.e. candidates without a provisional certificate of having qualified for the degree), will be designated as Senior Research Fellow (SRF) and paid Rs. 35,000/- + 24% HRA per month till the time of submission of Provisional Ph.D. certificate.
Age : RA : Not more than 35 years as on last date of application
SRF : Not more than 32 years as on last date of application
HOW TO APPLY
• Interested candidates should send the application by email in the prescribed format available below this advertisement by email (convert into PDF Format) addressed to [email protected] on or before January 15, 2022. Please mention “Research Associate, Advt No.84/2021 and Project Code: 30119469” in the subject line of the email.
• List of shortlisted candidates for selection process (Skype / Zoom Interview only) with date, time and other details will be put up on the institute website below this advertisement and candidates will be informed by e-mail only.
• Recent passport size photograph and photocopies of relevant certificates and other testimonials in support of age, qualification/s, experience/s etc. will be collected and verified at an appropriate stage.
General Information
1. The appointment is purely temporary and will terminate automatically without any notice or compensation on termination of the project.
2. The appointed person shall have no claim of appointment / absorption in Funding Agency or in IISER Pune.
3. The appointment of the applicant will be governed by the terms and conditions of the funding agency particularly applicable to the said project.
4. The qualification prescribed should have been obtained from recognized Universities / Institutions.
5. The prescribed educational qualification/s are the bare minimum and mere possession of same does not entitle candidates to be called for interview. Where number of applications received in response to this advertisement is large, it may not be convenient or possible to interview all the candidates. Based on the recommendations of the Screening Committee, the Project Investigator may restrict the number of candidates to be called for the interview to a reasonable limit after taking into consideration qualifications and experience over and above the minimum prescribed in the advertisement. Therefore, it will be in the interest of the candidates, to mention all the qualifications and experience in the relevant field at the time of applying.
6. Age relaxation commensurate with experience of the applicant may be considered with the prior approval of the competent authority.
7. No TA/DA will be admissible for appearing for the interview.
8. No interim enquiries / correspondence / communication of any sort will be entertained on the matter.
9. Canvassing in any form and / or bringing any influence, political, or otherwise, will be treated as a disqualification for the post applied for. | https://www.pharmatutor.org/content/december-2021/job-for-research-associate-at-iiser |
The Credit Union Operating Principles are founded in the philosophy of cooperation and its central values of equality, equity and mutual self help. At the heart of these principles is the concept of human development and the brotherhood of man expressed through people working together to achieve a better life for themselves and their children.
1. Open and voluntary membership
Membership in a credit union is voluntary and open to all within the accepted common bond of association that can make use of its services and are willing to accept the corresponding responsibilities.
2. Democratic Control
Credit union members enjoy equal rights to vote (one member, one vote) and participate in decisions affecting the credit union, without regard to the amount of savings or deposits or the volume of business. The credit union is autonomous, within the framework of law and regulation, recognising the credit union as a co-operative enterprise serving and controlled by it’s members. Credit union elected officers are voluntary in nature and incumbents should not receive a salary for fulfilling the duties for which they were elected. However, credit unions may reimburse legitimate expenses incurred by elected officials.
3. Limited dividends on equity capital
Permanent equity capital where it exists in the credit union receives limited dividends.
4. Return on savings and deposits
To encourage thrift through savings and thus to provide loans and other member services, a fair rate of interest is paid on savings and deposits, within the capability of the credit union.
5. Return of surplus to members
The surplus arising out of the operations of the credit union after ensuring appropriate reserve levels and after payment of dividends belongs to and benefits all members with no member or group of members benefiting to the detriment of others. This surplus may be distributed among members in proportion to their transactions with the credit union (interest or patronage refunds) or directed to improved or additional services required by the members. Expenditure in credit unions should be for the benefit of all members with no member or group of members benefiting to the detriment of others.
6. Non-discrimination in race, religion and politics.
Credit unions are non-discriminatory in relation to race, nationality, sex, religion and politics within the limits of their legal common bond. Operating decisions and the conduct of business are based on member needs, economic factors and sound management principles. While credit unions are apolitical and will not become aligned with partisan political interests, this does not prevent or restrict them from making such political representations as are necessary to defend and promote the collective interests of credit unions and their members.
7. Services to members.
Credit union services are directed towards improving the economic and social well-being of all members, whose needs shall be a permanent and paramount consideration, rather than towards the maximising of surpluses.
8. On-going education
Credit unions actively promote the education of their members, officers and employees along with the public in general, in the economic, social, democratic and mutual self-help principles of credit unions. The promotion of thrift and the wise use of credit, as well as education on the rights and responsibilities of members are essential to the dual social and economic character of credit unions in serving member needs.
9. Co-operation among co-operatives
In keeping with their philosophy and the pooling practices of co-operatives, credit unions within their capability actively co-operate with other credit unions, co-operatives and associations at local, national and international levels in order to best serve the interests of their members and their community. This inter-co-operation fosters the development of the co-operative sector in society.
10. Social responsibility
Continuing the ideals and beliefs of co-operative pioneers, credit unions seek to bring about human and social development. Their vision of social justice extends both to the individual members and to the larger community in which they work and reside. The credit union ideal is to extend service to all who need and can use it. Every person is either a member or a potential member and appropriately part of the credit union sphere of interest and concern. Decisions should be taken with full regard for the interests of the broader community within which the credit union and its members reside. | https://capitalcu.ie/credit-union-operating-principles/ |
New Delhi/Mandi, Feb 23 (IANS) Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi have used hydrochar derived from orange peels as a catalyst to convert biomass derived chemicals into biofuel precursors.
The research will help to develop biomass-based fuel to overcome the socio-political instabilities associated with dwindling petroleum reserves.
This method will help in producing clean green power from biomass and hasten India’s journey towards sustainable fuel development, free from the shackles of fossil fuel dependence.
The findings of the research team have been recently published in the journal ‘Green Chemistry’. The research was led by Dr Venkata Krishnan, Associate Professor of School of Basic Sciences at IIT Mandi, and co-authored by his students Tripti Chhabra and Prachi Dwivedi, a release from IIT Mandi said on Wednesday.
Biomass derived products from naturally occurring materials, is currently the fourth most significant energy source that can meet the energy demand after coal, oil, and natural gas, in the country.
Lignocellulosic biomass obtained from forestry and agricultural waste, for example, can potentially be converted to a variety of useful chemicals by various methods.
Of these methods, the use of catalysts for the conversion is particularly useful because such processes can be carried out with minimal energy input and the type of product obtained from the biomass can be controlled through the right choice of catalysts and reaction conditions.
Talking about the research, Dr Venkata Krishnan said: “One of the driving interests among the renewable energy community is the development of relatively clean and energy efficient processes to convert biomass into useful chemicals, including fuel.”
The simplest and most low-cost catalyst that has been studied by the researchers for biomass conversion reactions is hydrochar. It is typically obtained by heating the biomass waste (orange peels in this case) in the presence of water through the hydrothermal carbonisation process. The use of hydrochar as a catalyst for biomass conversion is attractive because it is renewable and its chemical and physical structure can be altered for better catalytic efficiencies, the release said.
The researchers have used hydrochar derived from orange peels to catalyse the conversion of biomass-derived chemicals into biofuel precursors. They heat dried orange peel powder with citric acid under pressure in a hydrothermal reactor (a lab-level ‘pressure cooker’) for many hours. The hydrochar that was produced was then treated with other chemicals to introduce acidic sulfonic, phosphate and nitrate functional groups to it.
“We used these three types of catalyst to bring about hydroxyalkylation alkylation (HAA) reactions between 2-methylfuran and furfural, compounds that are derived from lignocellulose, to produce fuel precursors,” explained Chhabra.
The scientists found that the sulfonic functionalised hydrochar catalyst was able to catalyse this reaction effectively, to produce biofuel precursors in good yield.
Further, Krishnan added: “We were able to synthesise the biofuel precursors under solventless and low temperature conditions, which decreases the overall cost of the process and also makes it environment-friendly, attractive from an industry point of view.”
This is the first comparative study in which the three types of acid functionalisation have been assessed. They also performed green metric calculations and temperature programmed desorption (TPD) studies to gain deeper insights into the catalytic activity of sulfonic, nitrate and phosphate functionalised hydrochar derived from orange peels, the release added. | https://www.glamsham.com/world/technology/iit-researchers-use-orange-peel-for-making-biofuel-precursors |
Tell Me Whats Wrong ?
Computer viruses / malware are increasingly common and destructive. To help reduce the risk of infecting your computer and the computers of others please follow these virus protection tips.
Do not open any files attached to an email from an unknown, suspicious, or untrustworthy source.
Do not open any files attached to an email unless you know what it is, even if it appears to come from a dear friend or someone you know. Some viruses can replicate themselves and spread through email. Better be safe than sorry and confirm that they really sent it.
Do not open any files attached to an email if the subject line is questionable or unexpected. If the need to do so is there always save the file to your hard drive before doing so.
Delete chain emails and junk email. Do not forward or reply to any of them. These types of email are considered spam, which is unsolicited, intrusive mail that clogs up the network.
Do not download any files from an unknown, suspicious, or untrustworthy source.
Exercise caution when downloading files from the Internet. Ensure that the source is a legitimate and reputable one. Verify that an anti-virus program checks the files on the download site. If you're uncertain, don't download the file at all or download the file to a floppy and test it with your own anti-virus software.
Update your virus definitions regularly. Over 500 viruses are discovered each month. While your virus protection software is scheduled to update your virus definitions automatically, occasionally you may need or want to update your virus definitions manually.
When in doubt, always err on the side of caution and do not open, download, or execute any files or email attachments.
Use Malware programs often. Update Virus Protection.
Adjust the privacy settings on social networking sites you frequent to make it more difficult for people you know and do not know to post content to your page. Even a "friend" can unknowingly pass on multimedia that's actually malicious software.
Use a strong password. As I pointed out in the article A little more about passwords, a sufficiently strong password (on a system with decent password protection) makes the likelihood of cracking the password through brute force attacks effectively impossible. Using a sufficiently weak password, on the other hand, almost guarantees that your system will be compromised at some point.
Don’t broadcast your SSID. Serious security crackers who know what they are doing will not be deterred by a hidden SSID — the “name” you give your wireless network. Configuring your wireless router so it doesn’t broadcast your SSID does not provide “real” security, but it does help play the “low hanging fruit” game pretty well. A lot of lower-tier security crackers and mobile malicious code like botnet worms will scan for easily discovered information about networks and computers, and attack those that have characteristics that make them appear easy to compromise. One of those is a broadcast SSID, and you can cut down on the amount of traffic your network gets from people trying to exploit vulnerabilities on random networks by hiding your SSID. Most commercial grade router/firewall devices provide a setting for this.
Once users have experienced the convenience and freedom of working wirelessly, they want to take their Wi-Fi on the road. Here are some tips for securing your Wi-Fi devices when using them away from your home network.
Enable WPA2 security: All of your Wi-Fi client devices (laptops, handsets, and other Wi-Fi enabled products) should use WPA2.
Configure to approve new connections: Many devices are set by default to sense and automatically connect to any available wireless signal. Configuring your client device to request approval before connecting allows gives you greater control over your connections.
Disable sharing: Your Wi-Fi-enabled devices may automatically enable themselves to sharing / connecting with other devices when attaching to a wireless network. File and printer sharing may be common in business and home networks, but you should avoid this in a public network such as a hotel, restaurant, or airport hotspot .
Software that’s multi-platform (has installers for Windows, Linux, Mac and Android), and provides a number of features to track your laptop or phone when it is lost. It uses GPS or auto-connects to a wireless connection when you send a signal remotely through SMS or internet, and then you could use it find your device’s location, lock it down or monitor the activities of the person using it.
Koobface spreads through social networking sites, most prevalently through Facebook. Generally, Koobface relies on social engineering in order to spread. The Koobface message is designed to trick recipients into clicking through to a fraudulent website and either (a) enter their Facebook (or other social networking) credentials or to accept the installation of malware disguised as a video codec or Flash update.
Victims of Koobface become part of the Koobface botnet, under remote control of the Koobface attackers. Koobface is typically used for data theft.
A botnet is a collection of compromised (infected) computers under the collective control of remote attackers. The malware on the infected computer is known as a bot, a type of backdoor or remote access trojan (RAT). Bots communicate with botnet command and control (c&c) servers, enabling the remote attacker to update existing infections, push new malware, or instruct the infected computer to carry out specific tasks. In general, the presence of the bot gives the remote attacker the same abilities as the legitimate logged in user.
Mozilla Firefox is an alternative to the Internet Explorer web browser. The way it has been created means it is safer to use and more flexible than Internet Explorer.
It is free to download and also features optional extensions so that you can add tools to improve things like downloading and security when browsing the Web.
Mozilla Firefox 4 was recently released. With more security features. Firefox’s cross-platform footprint and backwards compatibility with Windows XP—which isn’t supported by IE9.
You do not need to remove Internet Explorer to install Firefox - in fact it is useful to have both available to choose from, as there are one or two websites that require Internet Explorer to use, such as Windows Update.
You can have Firefox use the same settings and Bookmarks (Favorites) you had in Internet Explorer.
Spyware is malicious code that infects your PC and can manifest itself as things such as unwanted browser toolbars and pop-ups, or if your browser homepage suddenly changes without your knowledge.
Spyware also takes the form of tracking files that watch where you go on the web in order to create a marketing profile of you that will be sold to advertisement companies. Not only is it a source of irritation but it also affects your privacy too.
Removing spyware is an important step in the process of cleaning unwanted files and programs from your PC, keeping it secure and fixing problems.
Fortunately there are programs available to help you track down and remove these unwanted files. There are several commercial security packages that offer anti-spyware tools as well as other features.
Ad-Aware and Spybot are two free programs you can use to fight spyware.
With thousands of new viruses created every day, relying on traditional security updates isn't enough anymore. McAfee® AntiVirus Plus instantly detects and blocks viruses-and stops web threats before they are downloaded to your PC. Reengineered to be faster than ever before, the software's innovative design simplifies your security experience while offering you essential protection.
© 2011 Xtech.n.nu.John Mathews- All Rights Reserved. | http://www.xtech.n.nu/advice/freeware |
Shakespear Feyissa Joins Museum of History & Industry Board of Trustees
SEATTLE, WA., May 17, 2016 – The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) announced today the appointment of local Seattle attorney Shakespear Feyissa as its newest board of trustees member. Feyissa brings a wealth of experience in non-profit work, community outreach, and law practice.
MOHAI’s mission is to collect and preserve artifacts and stories of Seattle’s diverse history, highlights the regional tradition of innovation and imagination. The trustees and staff of the museum of are currently engaged in many activities to celebrate to region, consistent with MOHAI’s vision, to make the Museum treasured locally and respected nationally as a vibrant resource where history inspires individuals to be their best, individually and collectively.
“As a Seattle resident, active member of the business community and the local Ethiopian community, which is one of the largest immigrant communities in Seattle, Shakespear Feyissa has a unique understanding of the city of Seattle and its unique role in the history of our nation and beyond,” said MOHAI Trustee Al Young. “We are confident that he will make impactful contributions to our work as we pursue our mission of collecting and preserving artifacts and stories of MOHAI’s history of innovation and imagination.”
Feyissa joins 24 other active MOHAI board of trustee members with diverse professional backgrounds. Trustees’ current and former affiliations include Amazon, America’s Health Together, B2Launch, Defender Association, Enrico Products, Expedia, Integral Systems Inc., Marten Law, Muckleshoot Tribe, Nordic Cold Storage, Perkins Coie LLP, Planetary Power, Seneca Group, Skellenger Bender, Starbucks, The Boeing Company, Wells Fargo Bank, Vulcan Inc.
Feyissa is the principal partner at Law Offices of Shakespear N. Feyissa, where he practices law in areas such as civil litigation, personal injury, criminal law, employment discrimination, and immigration. He earned a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from Seattle University School of Law and has a B.A. in Political Science, Social Sciences, and Minor in History. Prior to immigrating to the United States, Feyissa was born in Ethiopia and spent three years in Kenya. He remains an active human rights advocate and was recognized for his outstanding contribution for the respect of human rights in Ethiopia in 2007 at an event hosted by Amnesty International and Amnesty International USA at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
MOHAI believes that the preservation and exploration of Seattle’s past is essential to making effective decisions for its future. From humble beginnings in 1911, MOHAI has grown into the largest private heritage organization in the State of Washington with a collection of over 4 million objects, documents, and photographs from the Puget Sound region’s past. MOHAI uses these artifacts along with cutting edge, hands-on interactive experiences to make history come alive through the unforgettable stories of the men and women who built Seattle from wilderness to world city. In addition to museum exhibits, MOHAI hosts a variety of award-winning youth and adult public programs and consistently collaborates with community partners on local events and activities.
About MOHAI
MOHAI is dedicated to enriching lives through preserving, sharing, and teaching the diverse history of Seattle, the Puget Sound region, and the nation. As the largest private heritage organization in the State of Washington; the museum engages communities through interactive exhibits, online resources, and award-winning public and youth education programs. For more information about MOHAI, please visit www.mohai.org or call (206) 324-1126.
About Law Offices of Shakespear N. Feyissa
Law Offices of Shakespear N. Feyissa is a Seattle-based law firm that practices in civil litigation, personal injury, criminal law, employment discrimination, and immigration. The principal partner is Shakespear Feyissa, a resident of Seattle and recognized human rights activist. For more information visit www.shakespearlaw.com. | https://www.shakespearlaw.com/single-post/2016/05/15/shakespear-feyissa-joins-museum-of-history-industry-board-of-trustees |
This month’s top sights to observe.
WHEN: 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14 & 16 May
Among Jupiter’s extended family of nearly 70 moons, only four can be easily seen through amateur telescopes. These are the Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, so called because they were first identified by Galileo in 1610.
Over time their star-like points flit back and forth either side of Jupiter’s disc. When they approach the disc from the west they are on the far side of their orbit relative to Earth and will pass behind Jupiter’s giant globe or into the planet’s shadow. When they approach from the east they pass in front of Jupiter, casting dark shadows on the planet’s atmosphere below. One exception to this is Callisto which has a large enough orbit to be able to pass above or below Jupiter when the planet’s small axial tilt is inclined enough.
For much of the time the Galilean moons and their shadows appear well separated from one another. This changes near opposition when Jupiter is on the opposite side of the sky to the Sun. Before opposition a moon’s shadow appears to the west of it, preceding the moon across the planet’s disc. After opposition the shadow follows the moon to the east of it. At opposition, the moon and shadow line up, crossing Jupiter’s disc in unison.
Typically this alignment isn’t perfect because a line from the shadow through the moon doesn’t directly point at Earth. Normally this line points either above or below our planet resulting in the moon’s opposition shadow appearing above or below the moon. Catching a moon and shadow transit at opposition is a matter of luck as a small offset in time either side of opposition makes a big difference to the appearance of the pairing.
There are a number of good examples of shadow transits this month occurring before and after 9 May, which is the date of Jupiter’s opposition. On 2 May Io can be seen chasing its shadow from 20:31 BST (19:31 UT). On 5 May it’s Europa’s turn to do the same thing from 23:03 BST (22:03 UT).
A more impressive moon and shadow transit occurs on 6 May when Ganymede can be seen chasing its shadow from 22:09 BST (21:09 UT). On 8 May, just before opposition, Io’s transit at 03:56 BST (02:56 UT) sees the moon virtually on top of its shadow. The end of this event occurs in daylight with Jupiter close to setting. A similar transit, again involving Io, occurs on 9 May from 22:24 BST (21:24 UT).
On 13 May Europa’s transit from 01:29 BST (00:29 UT) will see the moon preceding its shadow and another nice symmetry of events occurs after this with Ganymede also preceding its shadow from 01:53 BST (00:53 UT) on 14 May. Io can once again be seen preceding its shadow on 16 May at 23:08 UT.
5/6 May 9/10 May Io transit 22:24-00:32 BST Io shadow transit 22:25-00:35 BST Europa’s shadow Europa Europa transit 23:15-01:24 BST Europa shadow transit 23:03-01:19 BST Io’s shadow Io 6 May 14 May Callisto Ganymede’s shadow Ganymede Ganymede... | https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sky-at-night-magazine/20180409/281698320321719 |
Did you know there is a Twitter account continuously tweeting the orbit of Jupiters four biggest moons, aka the Galilean moons.
So:
—-c—————-g—————–J-i—–e——————————
Tells you that callisto and ganymede are to the left, while io and europa are to the right of jupiter from earths perspective at the moment.
If you scroll quickly down the page you can see the moons orbit around Jupiter. It looks something like this:
Thanks to @YYCTed for functional testing of the algorithm behind @JupiterMoonPos pic.twitter.com/f67wmY9f43
— Jupiter's moons (@JupiterMoonPos) January 31, 2014
The bot just recently got visual confirmation. So it is indeed accurate.
There’s also a version for Saturns moons coming.
So why did they make this bot?
The twitter acct was originally created as a cheat sheet for my astronomy club to have the ability to easily identify the galilean moons we were sharing with the public easily from our cellphones. They move so fast a pre-observing session briefing isn’t sufficient for a multi-hour session.
Here is picture I took of Jupiter and the tweet that identifies the position of the moons. | https://gadgetzz.com/2014/02/06/twitter-bot-tweets-position-jupiters-moons/ |
The eagerly awaited “Climate Action Plan 2019“ (the Plan) was published by the Government on 17 June 2019.
The aim is to make Ireland a world leader in responding to climate change. The Plan is ambitious, affecting almost every sector of the economy. The key difference however, between this Plan and previous ones is that it creates new governance structures necessary to implement the far reaching changes.
The key focus of the Plan is to identify how the Government plans to reduce Ireland’s growing greenhouse gas emissions. The goal is that Ireland will achieve its EU emission reduction targets for the year 2030. The Plan includes a new commitment to make Ireland 100% carbon neutral by 2050.
The Plan contains 183 action points designed to achieve our national climate change targets. The scale of the challenge is huge and the Plan identifies the need for everyone to contribute in tackling the challenges posed by climate change. It includes increased renewable electricity targets4 , the end of single use non-recyclable plastics and new building regulations. It will impact how our homes and businesses are heated, how we generate and consume electricity, how we travel and how food is produced.
Background – the driver for change
In late 2018 the Government committed to making Ireland a leader in responding to climate change. This stems from negative international publicity on Ireland’s climate position – international expert analysis deemed Ireland the worst country in the EU on climate action for the second year in a row last year. Ireland is set to miss its EU 2020 targets by some length5 . The Government did however receive positive feedback for enacting the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act 2018 and the Citizen’s Assembly process which produced far reaching recommendations for climate action. This, together with the recent Joint Oireachtas Committee Report on Climate Action6 was the major catalyst for the Plan.
The Plan
The Plan focuses on the energy, transport, waste and agriculture sectors and on buildings. This briefing note focuses on the key provisions of the Plan for the energy sector.
ENERGY SECTOR
Overview
The goal in the energy sector is to make Ireland less dependent on imported fossil fuels. To achieve this, energy needs to be decarbonised by harnessing renewable resources, particularly wind (both onshore and offshore), solar PV and biomass powered CHP.
Targets
The Plan envisages a radical step-up of our existing targets in order to meet the required level of emissions reduction by 2030, including:
- A reduction in CO2 eq. emissions by 50–55% relative to 2030 NDP projections
- An increase in electricity generated from renewable sources to 70%
- An objective to meet 15% of electricity demand by renewable sources contracted under Corporate PPAs
The Plan sets out 4 key measures to meet these targets:
1. Harnessing Renewable Energy
The transition to 70% renewable electricity will be made possible by a significant increase in onshore wind, offshore wind and solar PV. The recently announced Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) 7 will be a key policy measure to drive this growth. It is hoped that RESS will be open for applications by the end of 2019. However, given that the detailed auction design and State Aid approval are still awaited, that deadline may well slip into Q1 or even Q2 of 2020.
Although RESS is expected to be designed as a series of technology neutral auctions based on the lowest levelised cost of energy (LCOE), the Government has set out the following indicative levels of renewable electricity generation in the Plan:
- at least 3.5 GW of offshore wind
- up to 8 GW of onshore wind
- up to 1.5 GW of grid scale solar energy
The massive increase in offshore wind capacity8 will require putting in place a new planning and consenting regime and a new grid connection framework for offshore wind that aligns with the RESS auction timeframes. Enhanced interconnection will also be required. In this regard the Plan makes specific reference to the planned Celtic Interconnector to France and further interconnection to the UK.
The Plan also envisages that 15% of electricity demand will be met by renewable sources contracted under Corporate PPA’s. It is expected that a key driver in the growth of Corporate PPA’s will be the expected increase in data centres, which will lead in turn to a massive increase in demand for electricity.
2. Phasing out Fossil Fuels
Removing fossil fuels from the grid will be essential in the coming years. There are plans to replace coal fired generation with low carbon and renewable technologies. Bord Na Mona are committed to transitioning away from peat by 2028. There will be an end to coal burning at ESB’s Moneypoint generation plant by 2025.
3. Micro-generation
There will be a change in the electricity market rules in early 2020 in order to enable micro-generated electricity to be sold by businesses and householders to the grid. The Plan provides this should include provision for a feed-in-tariff for micro-generation to be at set at least at the wholesale price point. Mechanical electricity meters will be replaced by new smart meters in households by 2024 under the Smart Metering Programme.
4. Other Measures
Other measures include continued support for the DS3 programme, support for research on nascent ocean energy technologies (eg floating wind, tidal and wave technologies) and continued support for the development of combined heat and power generation (CHP).
Energy Efficiency in other sectors
The Plan also focuses on energy consumption in areas such as buildings, agriculture, enterprise, waste and transport. With buildings, the government plans to give further attention to energy and carbon ratings in all aspects of managing assets. In the enterprise and service industries, the government plans to embed energy efficiency, replace fossil fuels, give careful management to materials and waste, and carbon abatement across all enterprises and public service bodies. In transport, the Plan envisages an increase in the number of electric vehicles to one million by 2030, which will in turn drive the demand for renewable electricity.
What’s different about this Plan?
As mentioned above, one of the key difference between this Plan and previous plans in this area is the focus on governance and implementation. The Plan puts in place new structures to ensure that its goals can be delivered. It proposes the following new measures:
- An independent Climate Action Council to recommend the carbon budget and evaluate policy. The Climate Action Council will be a successor to the existing Climate Change Advisory Council and will have enhanced powers. One of these powers will be to recommend to Government the appropriate level of the 5-year Carbon budgets.
- A 5-year Carbon Budget and sectoral targets with a detailed plan of action to deliver them. A new Climate Action (Amendment) Bill will give legislative effect to the requirement to set rolling 5 yearly budgets. Penalties will be imposed where emissions exceed limits.
- A Climate Action Delivery Board overseen by the Department of the Taoiseach to ensure delivery. This new Board will oversee the implementation of the Climate Action Plan and will require a progress report to be submitted to Cabinet and published each quarter.
- Enhanced accountability to the Oireachtas Climate Action Committee – more regular reporting and updating to the Committee are provided for. The Government will also support the establishment of a Climate Action Office, within the Oireachtas, similar to the Parliamentary Budget Office, to provide robust advice and evidence to the Climate Action Committee regarding the impact of particular policy decisions on the decarbonisation and climate action objectives.
- Carbon proofing all Government decisions and major investments – the Plan envisages all Government memoranda and major investment decisions will be subject to a carbon impact and mitigation evaluation.
Commentary
The increased focus on offshore renewable energy will undoubtedly be welcomed by those in the sector. Ireland’s coastline has been identified as one of the most energy productive in Europe and the Plan provides a great opportunity for the industry to benefit from the Government’s new direction. However, in order for these ambitious offshore wind targets to stand any chance of being met by 2030, we need urgent action on the long awaited MAFA bill9 which has been in gestation since 2013.
The solar sector will no doubt be disappointed in the indicative target of only 1.5GW up to 2030. The stated reason in the Plan is that solar PV is “not showing as cost effective in MACC”10. This is presumably because of the low capacity factors of solar PV in Ireland compared with other countries. However, proponents of solar PV will point to the falling costs and rapid deployment opportunities in the solar sector.
The onshore wind sector in Ireland has a proven track record in delivering installed renewable capacity and it will relish the opportunity to rise to the challenge of a doubling of that capacity over the next 10 years. The upcoming RESS detailed design paper and the long delayed Wind Energy Planning Guidelines will be key in determining whether onshore wind can deliver the 8.2GW target by 2030.
One disappointing factor from an energy perspective was the absence of a clear action on private networks. Action point 22 contains a somewhat vague commitment to “consider facilitation of private networks/direct lines”. The prohibition on direct lines and private networks has long been a source of frustration to developers and is seen by many as an indirect attempt by the DSO to retain its monopoly over grid ownership and operation. Private lines are a common feature in many other jurisdictions and are actively encouraged under the new EU Clean Energy Package. Let’s hope that progress can be made in the short term in removing the barriers to private networks and direct lines between generators and large demand customers.
Whether the targets in the Plan are purely aspirational, time will tell. Unlike previous Plans and policies there is a clear focus on the governance and structural measures necessary to give effect to the Plan. This clear focus on implementation and accountability for the actions points set out in the Plan may be the missing ingredient to date and mark a new departure in the battle against climate change. | https://verde.ie/blog-post/irelands-climate-action-plan-2019-to-tackle-climate-breakdown/ |
The seemingly contradictory influences of r on neighboring sounds in the early Germanic languages have fueled controversy over r’s articulation in Proto-Germanic and later dialects. In this paper, we examine a number of these early Germanic sound changes and compare their effects to those observed in recent phonetic studies of the coarticulation of different types of r on adjacent vowels. We conclude that an apical trill and a central approximant r are phonetically the most likely conditioners of the earliest Germanic sound changes, while later changes can be accounted for by rhotics which were phonetically related to these earlier articulations.
Keywords: rhotics, Germanic, breaking, Old English, Old High German, sound change, historical phonetics
Published online: 14 August 2003
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.20.1.04den
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.20.1.04den
Cited by
Cited by 11 other publications
No author info given
Howell, Robert B. & Katerina Somers Wicka
Kostakis, Andrew
Lühr, Rosemarie
Mees, Bernard
Painter, Robert K. & Jeruen E. Dery
Recasens, Daniel
Russell Webb, Eric
Sen, Ranjan & Nicholas Zair
Versloot, Arjen P.
Winter, Bodo, Márton Sóskuthy, Marcus Perlman & Mark Dingemanse
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 08 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them. | https://benjamins.com/catalog/dia.20.1.04den |
One of Shakespeare’s shorter and earlier works, “Comedy of Errors” tells the tale of two pairs of estranged twins finding their way back to one another with many confusing bumps along the way. It’s a classic story of mistaken identity, carried by the Bard’s deceptively simple plot. The characters range from pitiful to exaggerated to just plain bizarre. UNCW’s Department of Theatre is staging the production, which opens February 20 at the Cultural Arts Building main stage theater.
It is Christopher Marino’s third time directing “Comedy of Errors.” He looks at the opportunity as a way to refine his creative vision.
“The first time I directed the show, I did it through this type of French bouffon, depicting characters as grotesque clowns,” Marino says. “The second time the setting was a dark, magical sideshow place.”
His third rendition places scenes in a more grounded reality. He has set the play during the turn of the century; though, Marino alludes to it being the 20th century, he wants the city to be in transition. It will feature an almost fantastical version of New York City.
“Anytime you do Shakespeare, the expectation is it’s going to be ye old-y, nothing to do with [modern] life—you expect it to be a bit dull,” Marino says. “So I’m constantly thinking how to grab an audience.”
For instance, in 2016 Marino set “Measure for Measure” in Raleigh, NC, post-election, under a conservative rule. In 2017 he turned “Much Ado About Nothing” into a post-Civil War drama. His 2018 adaptation of “Twelfth Night” was loosely based around a rise in the arts and sciences under the Weimar Republic (period in Germany between WWI and Hitler’s rise to power). The original setting of “Comedy of Errors” is the trading city of Ephesus, in the Greek islands. Although Marino doesn’t change the name of the town, he enhances its qualities by making it a melting pot and giving certain characters diverse dialects. Audiences will hear Turkish, French, German and African dialects, as well as a boisterous New York accent. To further reflect city life, costumes will turn away from the long gowns and puffy sleeves associated with the Elizabethan era.
“Taking from Shakespeare’s cue, I don’t get bogged down [by asking myself,] ‘How do we make this authentic?’” Marino says. “[Shakespeare] is writing contemporary material; he was unconcerned with getting things specifically correct.”
Marino doesn’t take the task of world-building lightly; he makes sure he constructs a setting around themes found in the original work. “If I make a decision about a time or a world, it will speak to the elements of the play,” he says. A strange, evolving city is a reflection of the chaos and confusion that characters feel throughout the plot.
The characters’ constant bewilderment will trigger laughter, but Shakespeare also built in scenes of love and intimacy to switch gears. Unlike many directors, Marino knows what to do with these types of scenes.
“One thing I concentrate on is [how they’re] all human—not just ideas of people living 400 years ago,” Marino says. “They want the same things we want; all their wishes and needs are the same.”
In “Comedy of Errors,” characters struggle for self-identity. Antipholus of Syracuse thinks he needs to find his other half, someone to complete him, but realizes he’s looking for an extension of himself. Marino hopes audiences will understand the characters with both clarity and empathy.
In choosing his cast, Marino was inspired by UNCW Department of Theatre students’ drive to do something interesting, different and ambitious. For two of his lead roles, Adriana and Antipholus of Syracuse, Marino has chosen senior Erin Sullivan and sophomore Davis Wood, respectively.
Sullivan is no stranger to loquaciously delivering the 16th century text, having performed in both “Romeo and Juliet” and “Love’s Labour’s Lost” during an immersive five-week Shakespeare program, called Make Trouble. Strong female leads are her specialty: She has played a school’s mean girl in “Good Kids” in 2018, a mother in “Tribes” in 2018, and a woman recently released from prison in “Getting Out” last fall. Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus, is a dynamic character who rapidly fluctuates between being dramatic and vulnerable.
“Playing Adriana is so much fun,” Sullivan says. “She’s such a drama queen—over-the-top about everything with many dramatic exits, but it comes from a real place. She has desires and a desperation for love and acceptance; I just get to crank the dial up. A lot of her scenes are her talking about her anger and insecurity. I have learned it’s better to get those emotions out.”
Wood’s Antipholus of Syracuse likes to joke around, a quality both character and actor share. As the youngest cast member, a sophomore sharing stage time with juniors and seniors (this is his first Shakespeare play), Wood admits he has a lot to learn from his fellow cast members and Marino’s direction.
“Instead of trying to take Antipholus’ personality and make it an extension of myself, I need to take my personality and mold it into a more accurate representation of [Antipholus,]” Wood says. “Shakespeare wrote all of the emotions and thoughts of each character in the lines. Once the performer finds the true meaning of the text, there is really no need to ‘act’ anymore.”
Marino says the main challenge of “Comedy of Errors” is its structure. The audience knows ahead of time about the twins’ mix up, so actors must be careful to show their own ignorance of circumstances, else the play loses its dramatic irony.
Despite the play’s challenges, Marino doesn’t stop pushing its boundaries. He utilizes different disciplines to enhance visual and auditory appeal. During the opening soliloquy, a silent movie by UNCW film students will play on the backdrop to engage the audience and help them follow the story. Live musicians also will be present to respond to the acting and introduce characters as needed.
Professional lighting designer Rachel Levy, from Chicago, Illinois, will be a guest on “Comedy of Errors.” The set consists of a two-story structure, split into six different rooms, each reflective of a character’s dwelling.
Marino suggests floor seating for a more intimate experience. For a complete view of the detailed set, he advises balcony seating. The show opens Thursday night. | http://www.encorepub.com/comedy-of-errors-uncw/ |
What does self-taught mean? Being self-taught means that you took the initiative to learn a new skill on your own by studying resources and practicing independently. Many people choose to teach themselves new skills instead of seeking out a formal education.
autodidact Add to list Share. … Auto- means “self” and “didact” comes from the Greek word for “teach,” so an autodidact is a person who’s self-taught.
The 2025 Top 10 job skills include: Analytical thinking and innovation, active learning, complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, leadership, technology use and design, stress tolerance and flexibility and ideation.
You can learn a lot on your own, but without a coach, mentor, or tool to provide feedback, you’ll get stuck eventually. Or, worse, you might keep ingraining bad technique, making it harder to unlearn later. For some skills, you can find online tools that will give you feedback.
Probably, the difference is that research requires learning without being taught. … But they are never taught how to learn, arguably, the one skill to unlock learning everything that’s taught to them in school. | https://daitips.com/what-to-learn/ |
The open call for papers to be presented at the 5th International Conference ON THE SURFACE: Photography on Architecture will be directed to the issues proposed for the three panels. (see more at PANEL#1, PANEL#2 and PANEL#3).
A set of papers with profile (a) will be selected to be published in Sophia Journal and a set of projects and visual essays with a maximum of 1000 words of second format (b) will be selected to publish in scopio Magazine
It is intended that this call will yield a significant collection of diverse texts and visual narratives, allowing a rich and deep reflection of how photography and image can be used for understanding the set of issues around the theme of public space transformation. A set of abstracts / papers will be selected for oral presentation and poster session.
For oral presentations of each panel, authors will present their work one-by-one (no more than 15 minutes, potentially 10 minutes) and there will be in each panel a roundtable for debate and authors will also be available to take questions for a few minutes.
For the poster session of each panel, authors will have their posters (in a standard size) mounted on boards in a specific space where the conference is taking place For a fixed period of time during the conference, all participants are invited to wander round the posters. Poster presenters typically stand by the posters and answer questions as people come by.
The poster presentation session will be more casual than the oral presentation, which does not mean that it is any less important or credible.
PROCEDURES
To facilitate and normalize the production of the paper, the organisation provides a template which is available here. The template contains a structure and pre-defined styles which must be used in preparing the abstract and the paper.
Abstracts should have 250 words and be submitted until February 19, 2019 by means of an email sent to [email protected]. The email subject must contain "Abstract Submission - Panel number" or “Abstract Submission - Practice” according to the adopted format. The abstract should be inserted as an attachment in .doc or .docx format and must be based on the template provided. Authors are encouraged to use images. Notification of abstract acceptance will be given until February 28, 2019.
Authors will then be invited to elaborate a full paper (between 2500 and 3000 words - for panel 1 and 4) or a visual essay (between 1000 and 1500 words - for issues 2 and 3) or a poster (500 words) until March 30, 2019. Notification of paper and poster acceptance will be given until April 15, 2019 and the submission deadline of the revised paper or poster will be on May 15, 2019.
Reference:
CFP: On the Surface: Visual Spaces of Change (Lisbon, 31 May 19). In: ArtHist.net, Feb 9, 2019 (accessed Feb 14, 2019), <https://arthist.net/archive/20032>. | https://www.scopionetwork.com/blog?category=on+the+surface |
In my blog post, 10 Tips for Better Project Estimates, I introduced the white paper by best-selling business author, Jerry Manas, titled Bigger Than a Breadbox: 10 Tips for Better Project Estimates — Part I, which outlines five out of 10 suggestions project managers should consider when estimating projects. Effective estimating drives project success, better resource planning, and portfolio alignment. Without it, impacts can extend far beyond the task or project and can affect the entire portfolio, resulting in misuse of organizational resources. As a quick recap, Part I outlines helpful tips around:
- Estimation methods and timing considerations (Accuracy versus timing)
- Addressing risk during planning (Managing uncertainty — traditional and agile approaches)
- Estimating mega-projects (Capital considerations)
- Special considerations for Agile (Different methodologies to employ in creating estimates)
- Resource management issues (Contributor estimates, earned value, and earned schedule)
The latest white paper rounds out tips 6 through 10:
- Planning for resources (Ensure resource availability)
- Estimates that mitigate risk (Include management reserve and contingency reserve)
- The mega-project (Have a separate project for estimating mega-projects)
- Using multi-point estimates (Consider multi-point estimates based on risk)
- When bad things happen anyway (and they do) (Don’t forget the other reasons projects are late)
I encourage you to read both Part I and Part II to determine where your organization can make improvements. Get your copy of Bigger Than a Breadbox: 10 Tips for Better Project Estimates — Part II and access a complete summary of tips on page 6.
I’d like to hear from you! After reading the papers and/or summary, let me know if the tips were helpful or if you have any tips of your own to share with your peers. | https://blog.planview.com/tips-better-project-estimates/ |
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