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These new demographic attributes are availiable for cities, Counties, ZIP Codes and even neighborhoods (Census Blocks) when you search by a specific Wisconsin address.
See our:
POPULATION
|Total Population||45,455|
|Population in Households||42,202|
|Population in Familes||31,192|
|Population in Group Qrtrs||3,253|
|Population Density||54|
|Diversity Index1||16|
INCOME
|Median Household Income||$57,540|
|Average Household Income||$71,375|
|Per Capita Income||$27,342|
|Wealth Index3||67|
HOUSING
|Total Housing Units||18,880 (100%)|
|Owner Occupied HU||11,280 (59.7%)|
|Renter Occupied HU||5,963 (31.6%)|
|Vacant Housing Units||1,637 ( 8.7%)|
|Median Home Value||$170,089|
|Housing Affordability Index2||139|
HOUSEHOLDS
|Total Households||17,243|
|Average Household Size||2.45|
|Family Households||10,686|
|Average Family Size||3|
|
|
GROWTH RATE / YEAR
|2010-2019||2019-2024|
|Population||0.39%||0.49%|
|Households||0.56%||0.59%|
|Families||0.41%||0.5%|
|Median Household Income||2.45%|
|Per Capita Income||2.58%|
The table below compares Dunn County to the other 72 counties and county equivalents in Wisconsin by rank and percentile using July 1, 2019 data. The location Ranked # 1 has the highest value. A location that ranks higher than 75% of its peers would be in the 75th percentile of the peer group.
|Variable Description||Rank||Percentile|
|Total Population||# 32||57th|
|Population Density||# 35||53rd|
|Diversity Index||# 45||39th|
|Median Household Income||# 22||71st|
|Per Capita Income||# 48||35th|
Additional comparisons and rankings can be made with a VERY EASY TO USE Wisconsin Census Data Comparison Tool. | https://wisconsin.hometownlocator.com/wi/dunn/ |
Permutation of an array that has smaller values from another array
Given two arrays A and B of equal size. The task is to print any permutation of array A such that the number of indices i for which A[i] > B[i] is maximized.
Examples:
Input: A = [12, 24, 8, 32], B = [13, 25, 32, 11] Output: 24 32 8 12 Input: A = [2, 7, 11, 15], B = [1, 10, 4, 11] Output: 2 11 7 15
If the smallest element in A beats the smallest element in B, we should pair them. Otherwise, it is useless for our score, as it can’t beat any other element of B.
With above strategy we make two vector of pairs, Ap for A and Bp for B with their element and respective index. Then sort both vectors and simulate them. Whenever we found any element in vector Ap such that Ap[i].first > Bp[j].first for some (i, j) we pair them i:e we update our answer array to ans[Bp[j].second] = Ap[i].first. However if Ap[i].first < Bp[j].first for some (i, j) then we store them in vector remain and finally pair them with any one.
Below is the implementation of above approach:
C++
|
|
Python3
|
|
24 32 8 12
Time Complexity: O(N*log(N)), where N is the length of array.
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- Restore a permutation from the given helper array
- Lexicographically largest permutation of the array such that a[i] = a[i-1] + gcd(a[i-1], a[i-2])
If you like GeeksforGeeks and would like to contribute, you can also write an article using contribute.geeksforgeeks.org or mail your article to [email protected]. See your article appearing on the GeeksforGeeks main page and help other Geeks.
Please Improve this article if you find anything incorrect by clicking on the "Improve Article" button below. | https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/permutation-of-an-array-that-has-smaller-values-from-another-array/ |
When we think of islands it is usually the tropical kind but travellers looking for island destinations should not overlook Europe. Some of Europe’s islands offer enormously diverse scenery, fascinating history and incredible beaches with crystal clear water. Here are my favourites.
Santorini
If you have ever been seduced by an image of the Greek Islands, it was most likely by a photograph of Santorini. Nestled amongst the Cyclades islands, Santorini was created by volcanic activity that left the island in the semi circle shape it is today. Settlements are on the clifftops making for spectacular sunset photos but also making beach access a bit of a mission. Santorini offers beaches of several colours though, such as red, black and white, so make sure you get to them. You can always ride a donkey back up the hill. Santorini is also known for local produce. Make sure you try the local wine and tomatoes.
Lanzarote
The Spanish island of Lanzarote is one of the largest of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic. The island is famous for it’s weird lunar landscapes and dark sand, on account of volcanic activity, and is a destination for Europeans looking for winter sun on account of it’s average year-round temperature of 22 degrees Centigrade. The island has caves to explore, beaches, parks and gardens, and offers other activities including theme parks, diving, golf and bowling.
Ibiza
The party island of the Balearics, Ibiza leads the way for clubbing holidays in Europe. The island is a magnet to DJs who flock there in summer to showcase new tunes. Ibiza’s nightclubs are especially famous for their house, techno and trance music and live music events are held in summer. Away from the partying Ibiza also has an impressive history and large portions of the island are declared UNESCO World Heritage sites.
|Ibiza, Balearics, Spain|
Rhodes
Greek island Rhodes, in the Dodecanese islands, is one of the most popular destinations in the Mediterranean. Having been inhabited since the 16th century BC, Rhodes is full of history. The walled city contains many examples of historic architecture from different periods and there are several museums. Lindos and Faliraki are two of the smaller settlements on the island. It is also possible to make a daytrip visit to Fethiye or Marmaris in Turkey from Rhodes.
Malta
The island of Malta, just east of Libya and south of Italy, offers a fantastic mix of culture and adventure. Archaeological finds indicate Malta was inhabited as early as 5200 BC and the island offers plenty of art and architecture for history buffs. Nearby island Gozo is a haven for divers, offering spectacular underwater tunnels, caves and beautifully clear visibility. Above water Malta offers sightseers cathedrals, forts, museums, caves, beaches and even an air-raid shelter.
|Valetta, Malta|
Corsica
Although technically French, Corsica’s culture contains elements from both France and Italy. The island is less developed than mainland parts of the Mediterranean and boasts spectacular natural scenery such as cliffs, gorges, caves, valleys, forest and beaches. Corsica also has a nature park and UNESCO listed nature reserve that offers protection to rare animals and plant species.
Sicily
Not only can Sicily boast of being the largest island in the Mediterranean but it is also home to Mount Etna, an active volcano that burps out clouds of black smoke occasionally. Mount Etna stands over 3,000 metres above sea level and hikers on Sicily are rewarded for their efforts with magnificent views. Cave drawings on the island indicate it has been inhabited since around 8,000 BC and as if to prove the point, there are six UNESCO World Heritage sites on Sicily including a roman villa, an ancient necropolis, islands and of course Mount Etna.
Have you got a favourite European island? Please let the rest of us know about it in the comments section below. | http://www.theworldswaiting.com/2013/10/europes-best-islands.html |
7 Keys to Successful Public Speaking
The year was 2001. I was asked to give a “toast” at my sister’s wedding; I reluctantly agreed to do so.
The wedding day came and the wedding ceremony seemed to go by in a flash. Before I knew it, I was the next person to speak. My arm pits began to sweat profusely. I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I began to think of the thousands of the things that could go wrong. My heart started to pump blood as if my life was in imminent danger. I thought: “Why am I so nervous!”
Have you ever felt this way? There was a time when I would literally “recoil” at the thought of speaking in front of an audience. I even had trouble saying my name in front of a small crowd. Now, however, after following the tips below, I have come to love speaking in public. I created this guide for people who “don’t” speak regularly, but who want to look “professional” when they are required to speak in public. | https://possibilitychange.com/tag/public-speaking/ |
Q:
$A_n$=$\frac {a_1+a_2+...a_n}{n}$ is monotonic if $a_n$ is monotonic
if $a_n$ is monotonic increasing/decreasing show that sequence
$A_n$=$\frac {a_1+a_2+...a_n}{n}$ is also monotonic increasing/decreasing.
my attempt:
I intially thought of using induction since $A_2>A_1$ when $a_2>a_1$ so base case is available. but to prove $A_{n+1}>A_n$ doesnt show up easy. Any other way?
A:
Proving the generalized case is very similar to the base case, because you can write $A_{n+1} = \frac{n}{n+1}A_n + \frac{1}{n+1} a_{n+1}$, which looks very similar to $A_2 = \frac{1}{2}A_1 + \frac{1}{2} a_{2}$
Basically, it amounts to stating why the relative contribution from $a_{n+1}$ is at least as large as the relative contribution from any of the previous elements $a_j, j<n$ (the reason for which is monotonicity of the sequence $(a_j)_{j>1}$).
| |
Q:
Let $f: R \to R$ fulfill the following $f(x+1)=f(x)$. Prove that for all $n \in Z$ $f(x+n)=f(x)$.
Let $f: \mathbb R \to \mathbb R$ fulfill the following $f(x+1)=f(x)$.
1.) Prove that for all $n \in Z$ $f(x+n)=f(x)$.
2.) Prove that if the limit $\lim_{x \to \infty} f(x)=L$ exists, then f is a constant.
1.) Since we're given that $n \in Z$, I was immediately drawn to using induction. f is a periodic function with a period of 1.
Let's try n=1:
$f(x+1)=f(x)$
This is correct because that's what was given. Let's assume for any $n\in N$ this statement still holds true. Let's try for $n+1$:
$f(x+(n+1)$
Since we assumed n is true we can set (n+1)=m, and $m\in N$,therefore
$f(x+m)=f(x)$
Is my work correct? By induction we assume it holds true for n, adding 1 is just adding another period to the function.
2.) I'm having difficulties even starting with this one. Was thinking about using derivatives but it's not explicitly given that f is differentiable.
A:
Your proof is good for proving that $f(x+n)=f(x)$ for positive integers $m$.
However, if you notice that
$$
f(x-1)=f((x-1)+1)=f(x)
$$
you'll be able to complete the proof for negative integers as well.
For the second part, assume $f$ is not constant, so there are $x_1$ and $x_2$ with $f(x_1)\ne f(x_2)$. Consider the sequences
$$
a_n=x_1+n,\qquad b_n=x_2+n
$$
What can you say about
$$
\lim_{n\to\infty}f(a_n)
$$
and
$$
\lim_{n\to\infty}f(b_n)
$$
taking into account that $\lim_{x\to\infty}f(x)=L$?
If you can't use sequences, it's a bit more complicated. But you can notice that, given $M>0$, there always is $n$ such that $x_1+n>M$ and $x_2+n>M$.
Take $\varepsilon=|f(x_1)-f(x_2)|/2$ and try seeing what happens taking into account that $\lim_{x\to\infty}f(x)=L$.
| |
Q:
Print multiple time on different lines Python
I have written a code and I want to print multiple time on different lines, I wrote the code below my question is about the last line of code.
import math
# Make an program, ask the user how old he or she is and tell them the year
# they turn 100
name = input("What is your name? ")
age = input("How old are you? ")
random_number = input("Please give a random number between one and ten: ")
age = int(age)
random_number = int(random_number)
year_awnser = 100 - age
year_awnser = int(year_awnser)
print(f"It will take {year_awnser} years until you are 100")
awnser = 2020 + year_awnser
awnser = int(awnser)
print(f"{name} you will be 100 in: {awnser}")
print("\n")
# Print the message above, times given by the random_number.
print(f"{name} you will be 100 in: {awnser}. " * random_number)
Can anyone help me to solve this issue ? Thank you!
A:
If you want to use your code, just add the '\n' tag:
print(f"{name} you will be 100 in: {awnser}. \n" * random_number)
I recommend using a loop, because it gives better impression and clarifies the code. The print method has a built in '\n' tag in it:
for times in range(random_number):
print(f"{name} you will be 100 in: {awnser}. ")
| |
By Sidd Rao
This ending to the game helps to explore the relationship between the player and narrator throughout many different games and settings to try and prove in the end the narrator is necessary.
Step 1: turn around and walk out of the personal office.
Step 2: walk through the office and then turn right after proceeding through the door.
Step 3: proceed though the hallway making a left and then entering a room with two doors.
Step 4: purposefully ignore the narrators instructions and go through the door on the right.
Step 5: follow the hallway until the lounge and then walk through the lounge.
Step 6: again ignore the narrators instructions and walk through the door at the end of the hall.
Step 7: take the open left door and walk into the warehouse.
Step 8: now make your way to the platform to the right of the given area.
Step 9: step onto the platform to the right side and do not fall off.
Step 10: purposefully fall off of the platform onto the catwalk, you should be able to see the catwalk when looking completely down.
Step 11: follow the catwalk to the right and through the hallway.
Step 12: once you encounter the blue and red doors walk through the blue door to the dismay of the narrator.
Step 13: again walk through the blue door.
Step 14: turn around and again walk through the blue door.
Step 15: follow the hallway and go through the door at the end.
Step 16: now go through the “new” door on the right.
Step 17: choose any rating you want, choosing 1 gives additional voice lines from the narrator along with a better response.
Step 18: admire the scoreboard as much as you want and then proceed through the “new” door yet again.
Step 19: again choose any rating you see fit, 1 for the best response.
Step 20: play the “baby game” as long as you like or simply let it die, will result in the same next step causing the game to restart. Unless you play this for 4 hours along with a “dog game” which will give you a special ending where you understand the “baby game” to its fullest, much better to look it up on youtube.
Step 21: walk through the dirt house that has been made, this will happen a small monologue from the narrator.
Step 22: exit the house and follow the narrators directions down into the mine, go as far as you want nothing will change and the game will restart.
Step 23: exit the cell and walk around the cell to the right. you can pick up the radio while in the cell and carry it with you, along with any other item in the cell (can only carry one item at a time).
Step 24: place the cube onto the large button on the floor and proceed through the newly opened door.
Step 25: fall down into the empty unfinished office building below.
Step 26: jump down again, it does not matter where.
Step 27: go straight through two doors and then make a left.
Step 28: walk towards the light and enter the control room.
Step 29: walk back out of the room and the narrator will monologue some more. upon doing this multiple times, it seems that you can also wander aimlessly until the narrator does his monologue to get the same ending. | http://culture.gameology.org/walkthrough/the-stanley-parable-im-needed-walkthrough/ |
The invention relates to a method for assisting the driver of a vehicle (1), in particular a motor vehicle, having a sensor array (2, 3) for detecting lateral objects (6), the sensor array comprising at least one first (2) and one second (3) distance-measuring sensor sensing a detection area (4, 5) lateral to the vehicle (1). The first (2) and the second (3) sensor are arranged one behind the other in the travel direction (7) on one side of the vehicle (1), one sensor (2, 3) being arranged in the front region and one sensor (2, 3) being arranged in the rear region of the vehicle (1). In order to identify moving lateral objects (6), and to avoid unnecessary collision warnings, the method comprises the method steps: a) detecting an object (6) by means of the first sensor (2), b) detecting the object (6) by means of the second sensor (3), c) checking whether the object (6) has again left the detection area (5) of the second sensor (3), d1) discarding the distance data measured by the first sensor (2) and the second sensor (3) if the object (6) has again left the detection area (5) of the second sensor (3), or d2) determining the position of the object (6) from measured distance data if the object (6) has not left the detection area (5) of the second sensor (3) again. | |
Liters in cylinder
Determine the height at which level 24 liters of water in a cylindrical container having a bottom diameter 36 cm.
Correct result:
Correct result:
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Tips to related online calculators
Do you know the volume and unit volume, and want to convert volume units?
You need to know the following knowledge to solve this word math problem:
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Radian Translation On Other Language:
radian\ra"di*an\ (-an), n. [from radius.] (math.) an arc of a circle which is equal to the radius, or the angle measured by such an arc. [radian n : the unit of plane angle adopted under the system international d'unites; equal to the angle at the center of a circle subtended by an arc equal in length to the radius (approximately 57.295 degrees) [syn: rad]
The radian is the standard unit of angular measure, used in many areas of mathematics. An angle's measurement in radians is numerically equal to the length of a corresponding arc of a unit circle, so one radian is just under 57.3 degrees (when the arc length is equal to the radius). The unit was formerly an SI supplementary unit, but this category was abolished in 1995 and the radian is now considered an SI derived unit. The SI unit of solid angle measurement is the steradian.
Noun1. the unit of plane angle adopted under the Systeme International d'Unites; equal to the angle at the center of a circle subtended by an arc equal in length to the radius (approximately 57.295 degrees) (synonym) rad (hypernym) angular unit (part-meronym) milliradian
A unit of plane angle measure equal to the angle subtended at the center of a circle by an arc equal in length to the radius of the circle. Note: One radian is equal to 360°/2, which is approximately 57° 17' 44.6".
| |
This article was co-authored by Carlos Alonzo Rivera, MA. Carlos Alonzo Rivera is a guitarist, composer, and educator based in San Francisco, California. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from California State University, Chico, as well as a Master of Music degree in Classical Guitar Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Carlos specializes in the following genres: classical, jazz. rock, metal and blues.
This article has been viewed 27,980 times.
The Blues, a type of music originating from the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. As a musical form, it began and developed with little more than guitars and voices. While the blues take a lifetime to develop, the basics are simple enough for anyone to begin playing.
Steps
Method 1
Method 1 of 2:Playing the 12-Bar Blues Chords
-
1Use the 12-bar blues chord progression as the backing of any blues song. This form is simply a guide for when to play certain chords. Each bar (or count of "1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4, 1...") is assigned a chord, and together they form the melodic backbone of 95% of blues songs. To make it, you simply take the first (I), fourth (IV), and fifth (V) chords of the major scale and make them into chords. Once you know the form in one key, like "E," you can then easily transpose the song into any key you want. For the key of E, your chords are E, A, and B.
- While the following article uses easy to form power chords, you can also uses seventh chords, minor chords, or minor sevenths.
- Before beginning, make sure you review the major and minor scales for guitar.
- The blues are in simple 4/4 time, like almost all radio songs. If this is a struggle, review rhythm and time signatures.
-
2Alternate a big downstroke and a quick upstroke when strumming for a "shuffle" feel. Use a "swung", chugging rhythm to give the song a blues feel — your strums should sound like "dun da-dun da-dun da-dun..." It can help to listen to early blues recordings like Robert Johnson's "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" to get this rhythm down.br>
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- If you count out, like "1 and, 2 and, etc," think of a big strum down on the number, then a quick upstroke for "and."
- If this is difficult at first, start with a strumming pattern that works for you until you get the progression down.
-
3Play an open E, the I chord, for four measures. The first chord you play is going to be the key of the song. If you start with an E, your songs will be a twelve bar blues in the key of E. You will hold this E for four full bars.
- It always helps to practice with a metronome to ensure you play each measure the correct number of times.
-
4Play open A (the IV chord) for two measures, return to then E for two measures. Next, in a 12-bar blues, you play the fourth of the starting chord for two measures before returning to the starting chord. Since A is three notes above an E in the major scale, it's the IV chord in the key of E.
-
5Play B-A-E-B, each for one measure to end the progression. The last four bars of a 12-bar blues are called the turnaround. In the turnaround, you play the fifth, the fourth, the starting chord, and then repeat the fifth one more time. B is the fifth of E since it is one note above A, the fourth, so we play B, then A, then E, then B again.EXPERT TIPCarlos Alonzo Rivera, MA
Professional Guitarist
Pro Tip: "The one, four, and five chord can all be turned into what's known as a dominant seventh chord in blues. So if you're going to play blues in the key of E major, you can substitute E, A and B for E7, A7 and B7." Try this out and compare the sounds of the different progressions!
-
6Repeat ad nauseum. That's all there is to a basic 12-bar blues — just play E-E-E-E-A-A-E-E-B-A-E-B until the song's over (note that, when they're performed live, most 12-bars have a special ending that will vary from song to song.) To get the full 12-bar experience, try getting a friend who's more experienced at guitar to solo over your chords — with a little practice, you should soon get the hang of this simple but important blues progression.
- To play in a different key, simply pick a different starting chord and shift the fourth and fifth accordingly. For instance, if you want to play in the key of C, you'll use C as your starting chord, F for the fourth, and G for the fifth.
- Looking to spice up your progression? Check out Wikihow's ways to spice up your riff.
-
7Substitute 7 chords for a bluesy feel. Real blues musicians often use a special kind of chord called a "7" chord (or a "dominant 7th chord") to make the song sound a little "bluesier." These chords are the same as major chords, but with one note different. For a quick rundown of how to finger the most common 7 chords, click here.
- You have two options when you substitute 7 chords into a 12-bar blues: you can either change the fifth to a 7 chord (for instance, in the key of A, E would become E7), or you can change every chord to a 7 chord (in the key of A, A would become A7, D would become D7, and E would become E7.) Different options sound better for different songs, so try experimenting to find the chords you like. X Research source
Method 2
Method 2 of 2:Learning the Basic Blues Scale
-
1Use a modified version of the pentatonic scale to solo over any chord progression. If you remember the pentatonic scale, this will be an easy modification. If you don't know it, then it can't hurt to review, but the rest of the article will continue as if you've never played it before.
- The following scale is for the E-minor blues, meaning it will fit the chord progression played earlier.
-
2Use all of the open strings as part of your scale. The beauty of playing in E is that you can use all of the open notes as part of your scale, meaning you don't have to fret six of the notes in the scale. This can make hammer-ons, pull-offs, and quick multi-string playing a lot of fun with a lot less effort.
-
3Play the open note and the 3rd fret on the sixth string. These are the first two notes of your scale. Play the root note, here the E on the open sixth string, then move down three frets. Most people play this second note with their ring finger or pinky.
- Remember that the pentatonic scale is a "shape." You can move this to start on any note on the 6th string. The first note of the scale will be the song's key.
-
4Move down a string, playing the open note, the first fret, and the second fret. These three notes are where the blues scale differs from the pentatonic, which ignores the first fret. This note, however, is the "flat fifth" in music theory that makes a song sound bluesy. You will play three notes total on the A string.
- The flat fifth is an accent -- it is best played quickly, not lingered on.
-
5Play the open string and second fret on the D string. Note how a box-like pattern is forming. The open strings form a constant "line" of notes in the scale, while your ring finger frets a box either 2-3 frets down. Here, you simply play the open string and the second fret.
-
6Play the open string, second fret, and third fret on the G string. This third fret is actually a reoccurring flat fifth -- it is the octave of the note you played earlier. Theory aside, this means the 3rd fret, usually played with your pinky, is another bluesy accent note.
-
7Play the open string and the 3rd fret of the last two strings. The last two strings are identical to the first string. Simply create this little box between the open string and the third frets on both the high-E and B strings.
-
8Move the whole scale down to the 12th fret to see how easily the form moves. You can play the exact same scale starting from a different E. Simply move the whole form down to the 12th fret, since the 6th string 12th fret note is another E. Now, instead of playing open notes, you simply fret every string on the 12th fret when you get to it. Everything else stays in place.
- Now that you know the scale, practice getting up and down it as smoothly and quickly as possible, in multiple locations across the fret board.
- Check out "Master Lead Guitar Basics" for cool ways to use notes in a solo or improvisation. X Research source
Community Q&A
Video
Tips
- The blues take a lifetime to master and are infinitely complex. Keep playing, practicing, and listening to the blues to get better and better.Thanks!
Things You'll Need
- A guitar (if electric, use amp if available)
- A plectrum (or thumb if you don't have one)
- A fair knowledge of guitar
References
About This Article
To play the blues on the guitar, start by playing an open E chord for 4 measures while alternating a big downstroke with a quick upstroke. Continue this rhythm as you play an open A chord for 2 measures before returning to the E chord for another 2 measures. For the next 4 bars, play the fifth, the fourth, and the starting chord, before returning to the fifth chord one more time. Then, repeat this pattern throughout the song. If you want a more bluesy feel, consider substituting a “7” chord for some of the chords in the song. For tips from our Music co-author on how to play a basic blues scale, read on!
Reader Success Stories
-
"Really, it added on my blues learnings. Very useful article. Thanks." | https://www.wikihow.com/Play-the-Blues-on-Guitar |
I’d like to start with Joey Hudy. Joey is the youngest CEO I know. He’s also the youngest Intel employee, at just 16 years old. Hi, Joey.
Sarah Volz, first place winner at the Intel Science and Talent Search this year.
Shunsuke Nakamura, grand prize winner of the Intel Perceptual Computing contest.
Eesha Khare, the winner of the 2013 Intel Science and Engineering Fair.
Indira Negi, inventor of the smart earbuds we saw earlier, and an Intel employee.
The youngest one who will come up here, Schuyler St. Leger, a Galileo maker, a 3-D thinking expert at just age 13. Schuyler also brought — I told you we’d print out a 3D Bunny Man; that’s the 3D Bunny Man. Schuyler brought it out for us onstage to prove we will do here tonight.
Mick Ebeling, Not Impossible Labs who looked low-cost prosthetics for Sudan.
And Mark Allyn, an Intel employee, a maker, a clothing artist, and a master of light.
The people who have joined me here tonight onstage are the same trailblazers that Noyce and Moore were. They want to build an immersive world with us.
All of us here in this hall tonight are lucky to live in a time when computing is taking us in incredible new directions. I’d like to thank you for being with me tonight on this journey of transformation. I’ll be here the rest of this week. I look forward to talking with you and sharing Intel’s vision of the future. And I invite all of you tonight to join us in the revolution in the making. Thank you. | https://singjupost.com/ces-2014-show-keynote-brian-krzanich-intel-ceo/8/ |
We start our adventure with an hour long boat ride from Port Arthur, with the captain telling us stories and facts about the local wildlife and landscapes.
As we approach a cave opening along the coast, the captain turns his engine off and the boat drifts closer to the cave. He tells us to lean backwards against the railing and to look up towards the sky. The waves rise up and down, swirling the boat gently. It feels as though we’re inside a washing machine.
We follow the coast line, gliding past deserted beaches at Safety Cove and Crescent Bay before circling north to our drop off destination at Denmans Cove, the starting point of the Three Capes Track in Tasman National Park.
With nervous anticipation we walk off the beach, take an obligatory group photo and begin the journey hiking south along the coast. The walk on day one is short, about 1.5-2 hours. Our time nearing the latter as we stop for each “encounter”. Encounters are rest points with unique names that detail stories/facts from the “Three Capes Track Encounters on the Edge” guidebook.
It’s recommended to take it slowly today as the ranger at the next camp needs time to clean up, so we leave after 9am.
We walk south and with a gentle climb to Arthurs Peak (at 312m) we see a beautiful view over Crescent Bay and Mt Brown.
We continue reading the guidebook and learn that wombat poo is square shaped and for the rest of day we look for wombats as we encounter the square blobs, unfortunately we didn’t see any.
We pass coastal heathland and sheltered forests before arriving at the second night’s accommodation at Munro.
At Munro there’s a deck area with scenic views of Munro Bight. The camp also has an outdoor shower (the only one on the trail) and some intelligent trekkers heated water in a kettle and used that for a hot shower.
At night you’ll find many possums coming out to play around the camp.
We woke early this morning to watch the sunrise at the nearby helicopter pad.
Today we head out to the Blade. It’s recommended to bring a light pack with just the essentials (water, lunch etc) as the day’s track is a return path from Munro.
The walk begins through covered forest and then opens out to sweeping views of the ocean.
For lunch we sit on a rock platform along the cliff’s edge before ascending to the Blade.
The views at the Blade are the most extraordinary of the trip with sheer sea cliffs and Tasman Island on the forefront. As we peered down we could see seals sunbaking at the base of Cape Pillar.
We stayed on the Blade for quite a long time, soaking up the views, taking photos and listening to atmospheric music to match the dramatic landscape.
After a long while we pulled ourselves away and headed back towards Munro, collected our backpacks and headed north to our night’s accommodation at Retakunna.
We have an early start for our final day, leaving camp at 7:30am with looming clouds overhead. We made it out in time and managed to avoid the rain.
We climb Mount Fortescue at 482m above sea level and then walk through lush rainforest with lichen covered trees and mossy logs.
At the junction we drop off our packs and carry a light bag with our essentials as it is an estimated 2 hour return trip to Cape Hauy.
It is a tiring up and down climb over the three peaks before reaching the final platform, looking out towards the dolerite cliff edge and beautiful ocean views. It is incredibly windy here!
We head back towards the junction and it is about another hour, mostly downhill to Fortescue Bay. At Fortescue you can take a dip in the cleanest water in the world.
At 2pm we wait at the bus pickup area and we are driven back to the visitor centre at Port Arthur.
I really enjoyed hiking the Three Capes Track and have fond memories of laughing with friends, whipping up creative meals and seeing some of the most beautiful scenery Tasmania has to offer. I would definitely recommend the Three Capes Track for beginners and the more seasoned hikers alike. Perfect for families, groups of friends or solo hikers.
For more information on Three Capes Track and to book your cabin accommodation, visit the official website. | https://www.annehoang.com.au/photoblog/three-capes-track-tasmania/ |
(Friday, August 7, 2020; 9:00 p.m. EST) Confirming a recovery is under way and the recession is ending, the U.S. Labor Department reports 1.76 million net new jobs were created in July and the rate of unemployment dropped to 10.2%.
In addition, strong increases in the service and manufacturing sectors were reported by corporate purchasing managers, according to the Institute of Supply Management, and ISM's forward-looking sub-index measuring new-order activity surged in July.
Improvement in the job situation and corporate purchasing numbers had been expected but the gains were materially stronger than had been expected by economists.
08/07/2020 closing number: 3,351.28
The Covid-crisis recession and recovery are unprecedented in modern U.S. history, making precise predictions tenuous. But the job situation and corporate purchasing manager data have been better than expected for two months.
The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index closed Friday at 3,351.28, up six-tenths of 1% for the day, +2.42% from a week ago, and +39.86% than its March 23rd bear market low.
Stock prices have swung wildly since the crisis started in March. Drops of as much as7% in one day have occurred in this period and volatility is to be expected in the months ahead.
For tax purposes, this is good time to consider certain strategies, including conversion to a Roth IRA from a traditional IRA, or gifting assets to children and grandchildren.
The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be representative of the stock market in general. It is a market-value weighted index with each stock's weight proportionate to its market value. Index returns do not include fees or expenses. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance quoted.
Nothing contained herein is to be considered a solicitation, research material, an investment recommendation, or advice of any kind, and it is subject to change without notice. It does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs. Product suitability must be independently determined for each individual investor.
This material represents an assessment of the market and economic environment at a specific point in time and is not intended to be a forecast of future events or a guarantee of future results. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results, performance, or achievements may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Information is based on data gathered from what we believe are reliable sources. It is not guaranteed as to accuracy, does not purport to be complete, and is not intended to be used as a primary basis for investment decisions.
This article was written by a professional financial journalist for Advisor Products and is not intended as legal or investment advice.
2021
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- Despite Gloomy Jobs Report, The Economic Outlook Remains Bright
- S&P 500 Rebounded Today After A Difficult Week And Month
- China Financial Contagion Fears Come And Go In A Few Days
- August Retail Sales Indicate The Recovery Is Intact
- This Week’s Financial Economic News
- Latest Financial Economic News For Investors
- After Fed Inflation Policy Speech, Stocks Closed At New Record High
- Stocks Closed 1% Off All-Time High; Strong New Economic Data
- Stocks Broke Record High Again This Week
- U.S. Jobs Picture Improved, Covid Variant Risk Declined, And Stocks Closed Week At Record
- This Week’s Economic And Investment News
- Positive Earnings, Housing, and LEI News; Stocks Closed Week At A Record
- Today Versus Post-War History Of U.S Economic Cycles
- Stocks Surged 1.1% Today, Closing At A Record High For The Third Straight Week
- Strong Jobs Report Confirms Recovery
- What's Ahead For The Second Half Of 2021?
- Despite Strong Economic News, Stocks Dropped This Past Week
- Stocks Closed At A Record High; What's Expected For The Rest of 2021? | https://heroldlantern.com/weekly-update/4798 |
Egyptian Eid cookies or what we call “kahk” is a dessert that is usually baked in happy occasions and traditionally at feasts celebrated by Christians and Muslims such as Ramadan, Fitr feast and Christmas. It is said that back during the old days of the Ancient Egyptians, these cookies were eaten as a snack. It is interesting to know that there are drawings on the walls of temples showing the steps of the making of kahk.
The word kahk means cookies or biscuits in Arabic. Some Middle Eastern countries prepare the kahk using semolina flour while others use normal all-purpose flour. It can be eaten in several ways, either plain or stuffed with different fillings such as nuts or “agameya” (special honey filling)! It is then dusted with powdered sugar before serving.
This recipe yields 30 kahk cookies.
Recipe uploaded by Marigo Gharbawy http://marigosblazingkitchen.com/recipes
Ingredients
- 750 gram all purpose flour - دقيق أبيض
- 500 gram butter - زبدة
- 1 pinch salt - ملح
- 1/3 cup milk - لبن
- 7 gram yeast - خميرة
- 1 tablespoon sugar - سكر
- 2 tablespoon sesame - سمسم
- powdered Sugar (for dusting) - سكر بودرة
Step by step
- Preheat the oven to 180C. Dissolve sugar and dry yeast in warm milk and set aside until it forms a foamy surface on top.
- In a deep dish, mix the flour, salt and sesame seeds.
- Meanwhile, in a large pot, melt butter on medium heat until it starts to bubble (keep an eye on it to avoid burning). Turn off the heat.
- Add the flour mixture bit by bit while stirring with a wooden spoon. When you pour half of the flour mixture add the milk mixture. Then continue adding flour bit by bit. Feel free to use your hands to mix the dough.
- Leave it to rest for 30 minutes.
- Line your baking tray with parchment paper. Take a piece of dough and roll it to make a small ball then press gently to flatten it slightly. Use tweezers or a fork to score the surface of the kahk (so it holds the powdered sugar on top). Place it on the baking tray. Repeat the process till you finish all the dough.
- Bake it in the oven for 25 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool and keep it in an air-tight container.
- Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
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These cookies are absolutely brilliant and not just for vegans but for anyone really. It’s crispy on the outside with a cracked top and extra chewy and soft in the inside. Once you try it it’s going to be a staple at your house. This recipe is adapted from Ovenly’s Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe […]
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Perfect for the lunchbox with added fruits, as finger food for little kids on the go, or at home with a drizzle of pure honey, these Oat Pancakes are simply delicious and so easy to prepare a night in advance! | http://cairocooking.com/md_recipe/egyptian-cookies-ka7k/ |
Find the equation of the line. It should be of the form $ax + by + c = 0$. Given two points $(x_1, y_2)$ and $(x_2, y_2)$, plug these into that equation. They are on opposite side of the line if $ax_1 + by_1 + c < 0$ and $ax_2 + by_2 + c > 0$, or visa-versa.
$CD$ are on the opposite sides of $AB$ if and only if $\left(\overrightarrow{AB}\times\overrightarrow{AC}\right)\cdot\left(\overrightarrow{AB}\times\overrightarrow{AD}\right)<0$, where $\times$ is cross product and $\cdot$ is dot product.
Writing $A$ and $B$ for the points in question, and $P_1$ and $P_2$ for the points determining the line ...
Compute the "signed" areas of the $\triangle P_1 P_2 A$ and $\triangle P_1 P_2 B$ via the formula (equation 16 here)
$$\frac{1}{2}\left|\begin{array}{ccc}
x_1 & y_1 & 1 \\
x_2 & y_2 & 1 \\
x_3 & y_3 & 1
\end{array}\right|$$
with $(x_3,y_3)$ being $A$ or $B$. The points $A$ and $B$ will be on opposite sides of the line if the areas differ in sign, which indicates that the triangles are being traced-out in different directions (clockwise vs counterclockwise).
You can, of course, ignore the "$1/2$", as it has not affect the sign of the values. Be sure to keep the row-order consistent in the two computations, though.
| |
Did extraterrestrials answer Arecibo message to the heavens?
The mystery of the crop formations: Part Two
The Crabwood crop formation which appeared near Winchester in Hampshire in August 2002 is perhaps the most mysterious feature that has surfaced in recent times but it is just one of a plethora of complex geometric patterns that magically surface in crop fields around the globe annually… some more perplexing than others.
In the summer of 2009 a depiction of a giant jellyfish suddenly appeared in a field close to an ancient burial chamber near Ashbury in Oxfordshire that, according to enthusiasts, appeared to replicate the Earth’s magnetic field.
The 600-foot by 250-foot pattern emerged in a barley field at Wayland’s Smithy a few miles from the iconic Uffington chalk White Horse landmark and close to a burial site near the ancient Ridgeway trail.
Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group founder Francine Blake described the design as exhibiting “a criss-cross style throughout and a very fine design” with seven small circles, or moon shapes, and suggested it depicted the “magnetic field of the Earth”.
But unlike many of the most recent examples of the phenomenon, the Ashbury jellyfish featured a rather simplistic pattern of crescents and circles, which conceivably could have been created using simple tools to trample the design into the barley.
A far more technologically-advanced method of creating formations seems to involve subjecting the plant nodes to high levels of microwave energy, which creates a blast effect that causes water inside them to vaporise and burst out, resulting in the stalks bending over to produce extremely complex patterns.
How the Ashbury jellyfish got there remains unclear but, despite it’s simplistic appearance, witnesses suggest it was an example of the more complex formations that clearly require sophisticated technology to create, incorporating some form of microwave radiation, GPS and lasers.
But why groups, or individuals, would go to such lengths and expense to create pretty patterns in fields that often result in hefty financial losses for farm owners remains a huge mystery... with the only other explanation being that the designs are a product of more otherwordly origins.
Support for this theory comes from two formations that appeared in the same field not far from the Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire in August 2001, one representing a “face” and the other appearing to depict an answer to the Arecibo transmission sent by SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) by radio telescope back in 1974.
The SETI transmission originated from the Arecibo radio telescope on the northern coast of Puerto Rico and contained an encoded message to the heavens, aimed towards the M13 star cluster about 25,000 light years away and consisting of around 300,000 stars in the Hercules constellation.
Transmitted on 16 November 1974, the message consisted of 1,679 pulses of binary code, which took a little under three minutes to transmit at a frequency of 2,380MHz.
The reason for there being 1,679 pulses was down to mathematics, with the number representing the unique product of two prime numbers, 23 and 73, multiplied together.
The theory behind this was that any intelligent beings would probably look for unique universal constructs, such as prime numbers, chemical element frequencies and binary digits, within the message. And since only the two prime numbers 23 and 73, when multiplied together, produce 1,679 there can only be a single way to arrange the signal when it is converted into a matrix grid of 23 by 73 squares.
The original message was comprised of several sections, each depicting a particular aspect of human civilisation. At the top were binary representations of the numbers one through 10, showing the numbers eight, nine and 10 as two columns to allow anyone decoding the message to understand numbers too large to be written on a single line could be “carried over”.
The next section contained the binary values one, six, seven, eight and 15 which indicated the atomic numbers of the primary elements for life on Earth… hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus respectively.
A larger section of three rows represented the formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA, with a graphical representation of our DNA double helix either side of a vertical bar that indicated the number of nucleotides in DNA.
Directly below the DNA double helix was a small representation of humans, depicted as a body, two arms and two legs (resembling a stick man). To the left was a binary value of the population of the Earth back in 1974 and to the right binary code for the height of humans.
The next section was a simplified representation of our solar system, highlighting the significance of the third planet from the sun… our home, the Earth.
The last section depicted the origin of the message itself, the Arecibo radio telescope, and the diameter of the radio dish.
According to British computer consultant and crop-circle enthusiast Paul Vigay, who was found dead under mysterious circumstances on a Portsmouth beach in 2009, the crop formation at Chilbolton responding to the Arecibo message appeared to highlight nine major discrepancies when compared to the original SETI transmission.
While the numbers one to 10 were exactly the same in the formation, the atomic numbers indicating the prevalent elements for life on Earth were different… an additional element with an atomic number 14, silicon, appearing in the response.
Another discrepancy indicated an extra strand on the left side of the DNA double helix, with a less obvious change incorporated in the binary coding of the number of nucleotides in DNA itself.
There were also changes to the shape of the humanoid, which was depicted as almost “alien-like”, and to the diagram of the Arecibo dish. And, either side of the ET in the formation, were changes to both the population figure and the height value, which was roughly 3'4" and correlates with alleged “alien abduction” accounts by “greys”.
In the solar system section there were also changes, with the fourth and fifth planets from the sun highlighted as well as the third. Could this be referencing Mars and Jupiter for some reason?
The final alterations focused on the representations of the Arecibo transmitter in the original message, with the response seemingly containing a diagrammatic version of a formation that had appeared in the same field a year earlier, in 2000. The binary code for the size of the transmitter had also been altered.
The actual implications of these changes are difficult to decipher and could refer to the Earth or perhaps the home planet or planets of those extraterrestrials thought to be responding to the Arecibo message. Perhaps silicon is fundamental to their existence and they are about 3'4" tall? Maybe they occupy three planets in their solar system or are present on the Earth, Mars and Jupiter in our own?
And what about the apparent depiction of the formation in the same field a year earlier, which researchers had identified as a possible design for a communication device or perhaps a new model of the nucleus? It’s all very mysterious and would require a huge effort to plan and produce over such a small space of time. It really seems impossible to believe that any terrestrial organisation would go to such lengths to create an elaborate hoax of this complexity.
While many groups profess to be involved in the phenomenon none have come forward to claim responsibility for these amazing designs and the equipment required remains a mystery, with a high-powered magnetron device seemingly the only way to create the energy capable of splitting the crop nodes in such a precise way.
It is widely believed that the power sources for any extraterrestrial craft that could be interacting with our planet would involve some form of electromagnetic propulsion system, suggesting a microwave radiation device could easily be a type of technology these extraterrestrials may possess.
But, until such time as one of these amazing formations is filmed being brought to life then the entire subject remains shrouded in mystery, although… from the evidence so far... there would certainly seem to be grounds for extensive research into the secrets these designs could contain.
Check out Part Three of this series for more on the mysterious crop patterns that clearly suggest otherwordly entities could be trying to communicate with humanity and guide mankind on its path to “infinity and beyond”.
About the author
Steve Harrison
Something doesn't add up about the Covid-19 pandemic... are there reasons to be fearful for our futures?
JOIN THE DOTS: http://not.wildaboutit.com
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Be the first to respond and start the conversation. | https://vocal.media/earth/did-extraterrestrials-answer-arecibo-message-to-the-heavens |
The wall's purpose was to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from Xiongnu attacks during the rule of successive dynasties.
The wall stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles), although a more recent archaeological survey shows that the entire Great Wall with all of its branches, stretches for 8,851.8 km (5,500.3 mi) from east to west of China . One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, but only little of it remains. The current wall is much further south and was built during the Ming Dinasty. In fact, it began as independent walls for different states when it was built, and only during the Qin Dynasty the separate walls were united, turning into The Great and becoming The Wall. It is estimated that somewhere between 2 and 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall, as the Ming Wall as guarded by more than a million men.
Although some portions north of Beijing and near tourist centers have been preserved and even reconstructed, the Wall is falling apart in others. These portions have become a source of stones to rebuild houses and roads, or even playgrounds for the local communities' children. Parts of the wall are subject of vandalism and victim of graffiti unsightly damage. Due to erosion from sandstorms, over 6- kilometers of the wall in Gansu province may disappear over the next 20 years. In other places, the wall shirked from over five meters in height to less than two. Some portions of the wall are made from mud instead of brick and stone, therefore they are more exposed to erosion.
Although in poplar culture it is widely known that the Great Wall is the only work of man visible from the moon, no lunar astronaut has ever claimed seeing it from the moon. The distance and volume are comparable to viewing a human hair from 2 miles away.
With over 2000 years of history, Th Great Wall of China is still one of the most appealing architectural attractions in the world.
China
The photos displayed on this page are the property of one of the following authors:
[Jim], Jesse Varner, Brian Yap (?)
Some photos courtesy of: . The photos provided by Flickr are under the copyright of their owners. | https://www.explorra.com/attractions/great-wall-of-china_8146 |
Eureka Math is the most widely adopted math resource by teachers for good reason. It was written by teams of teachers in New York State where it began as the NY State Math Curriculum, EngageNY. Eureka Math supports the development of problem solving skills and asks students to defend their thoughts with mathematics and statistics. Eureka Math is both aligned to Illinois’ standards and Elmhurst’s overarching mathematics goals. It is also the most highly rated K-8 math resource according to rigorous third party reviews.
HELPFUL WEBSITES
Click on the following links for math help:
Eureka Math
Eureka Math homework and videos
Reading
Language Arts
|
|
SCHOOLWIDE
TRIMESTER ONE -- LAUNCHING AND FICTION
TRIMESTER TWO -- NON-FICTION
TRIMESTER THREE -- ECOSYSTEMS: HUMAN IMPACT
READING AT HOME
Check here for ideas for working on reading at home.
Writing
GRAMMAR GAMES
Click here for a website to work on various grammar skills.
SPELLING -- WORDS THEIR WAY
WRITING
TRIMESTER ONE -- PERSONAL NARRATIVE
TRIMESTER TWO -- INFORMATIONAL WRITING
TRIMESTER THREE -- OPINION WRITING
Science
Mystery Science
Mystery 1: Are Magic Potions Real?
Mystery 2: Could You Transform Something Worthless into Gold?
Mystery 3: What Would Happen if You Drank a Glass of Acid?
Mystery 4: What Do Fireworks, Rubber, and Silly Putty Have in Common?
Mystery 5: Why Do Some Things Explode? | https://hawthorne.elmhurst205.org/staff/fifth-grade/nora-graff |
1. What is the key to effective integrated pest management?
Regular monitoring of plants
3
2. What is the first control method that should be used?
Something non-chemical
4
3. What is the next method that should be used?
Biological Control
5
4. What is the last control method that should be used?
Chemicals
6
5. What is Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?
Using a variety of control methods.
7
6. What is biological control?
Using natural enemies to control pests.
8
7. List four examples of biological control.
Bacteria Fungi Insects Birds Etc.
9
8. How many offspring can a single aphid produce in one month?
318 Million
11
9. How does the Braconid Wasp kill aphids?
Lays eggs in aphid. Larvae eat the aphid and kill it.
12
Inserting eggs into aphid
15
less problems with pests?
10. Why did the smaller farms during the first half of the 20th century have less problems with pests? Natural predators controlled pests
16
common name for this insect?
11. Coccinella septempunctata is an insect that helps control aphids. What is the common name for this insect? European Seven Spotted Lady Beetle
17
12. What is the name of the bacteria that has been used to control the Gypsy moth?
Bacillus thuringiensis
18
13. How does the Braconid wasp kill the Tomato Hornworm?
Lays eggs on the hornworm, larvae eat the hornworm.
21
14. How does the tiny stingless wasp, Pediobius faviolatus, kill the Mexican Bean Beetle?
Lays eggs inside the bean beetle larva.
22
15. How does the natural pesticide, Bacillus thuringiensis, kill insects pests?
Upsets their digestive tract, causes starvation.
23
Bacillus thuringiensis
24
16. List five examples of how biological controls work.
Plant resistant to pest Chemicals in the plant repel the pest Insect parasitizes the pest Eats the pest Competes for food sources
25
17. What does VFN resistant mean?
Plants resistant to – Verticilium wilt Fusarium wilt Nematodes
27
Fusarium Wilt
28
Nematode
29
18. Why is the Rhododendron Mist Maiden plant resistant to insect damage?
Thick layer of hair under the leaves. Also called pubescence
31
19. How does the Brimmer Tomato deter the tomato fruit worm?
Has a thick skin
32
20. What is an endophyte? Organism that lives inside plants without harming them. Fungi inside plant cell
33
21. How can Basil be used as a pest control agent?
Acts as a repellant
34
22. How can Big Sagebrush be used as a pest control agent?
Prevents the Colorado Potato Beetle from feeding
35
Assassin bug nymph feeding on a Colorado potato beetle larva
36
23. How can Chilcuan be used as a pest control agent?
Use root extracts to control pests.
37
24. How can Mamey be used as a pest control agent?
Can use flowers, fruits, and leaves to control pests.
38
25. How can Calamus be used as a pest control agent?
Use as an insect repellant in stored grains.
39
26. How can the Neem Tree be used as a pest control agent?
Extracts from Neem seeds are a good insect repellant.
40
27. Why is knowledge of a pest’s life cycle important for controlling the pest?
There are times in the pests life cycle when they are easier to control.
41
Complete Metamorphosis
42
28. What is crop rotation? Planting different crops each year.
43
29. How does crop rotation help control pests?
Pests of certain crops will die off if different crops are grown.
44
30. How much money is lost each year due to plant diseases?
$4 Billion
45
31. Can orange peel be used to control pests? If so, what kinds?
Yes – Ants, Fleas
46
32. What is Allelopathy? Plants that secrete chemicals that inhibit root growth or seed germination of other plants. Garlic Mustard Plant Black Walnut Tree
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In getting ready to slam-dunk the ball, a basketball player starts from rest and sprints to a speed of 6.0 m/s in 1.5 s. Assuming that the player accelerates uniformly, determine the distance he runs. — I’ve tried doing this problem so many ways, that I think I’m just lost in the simplicity of it. Supposedly the answer is 4.5 meters; how do you arrive at that answer?
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acceleration is constant. therefore, change in velocity/change in time = acceleration. acceleration = 4m/s^2 now you need the equations of motion. one of them is s = ut + 1/2*a*t^2 where s= displacement (distance) u = initial velocity (initial speed) a = acceleration t = time. just plug the numbers in… s = 0*1.5 + 1/2*4*1.5^2 = 4.5m
The equation you’re looking for is one of the equations of motion: s = (v + u)t / 2 u = 0m/s (initial speed) v = 1.5m/s t = 1.5s s = ?m (distance) s = (6 + 0) x 1.5 / 2 = 4.5 metres The equation basically says that the distance is equal to the average speed [(v+u)/2] multiplied by the time taken. | https://fornoob.com/in-getting-ready-to-slam-dunk-the-ball-a-basketball-player-starts-from-rest-and-sprints-to-a-speed-of-6-0-m-s-in-1-5-s/ |
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---
abstract: |
We consider polynomial optimization problems formulated in the framework of tropical algebra, where the objective function to minimize and constraints are given by tropical analogues of Puiseux polynomials defined on linearly ordered, algebraically complete (radicable) idempotent semifield (i.e., semiring with idempotent addition and invertible multiplication). To solve the problems, we apply a technique that introduces a parameter to represent the minimum of the objective function, and then reduces the problem to a system of parametrized inequalities. The existence conditions for solutions of the system are used to evaluate the minimum, and the corresponding solutions of the system are taken as a complete solution of the polynomial optimization problem. With this technique, we derive a complete solution of the problems in one variable in a direct analytical form, and show how the solution can be obtained in the case of polynomials in more than one variables. Computational complexity of the solution is estimated, and applications of the results to solve real-world problems are briefly discussed.\
**Key-Words:** tropical algebra, idempotent semifield, tropical Puiseux polynomial, polynomial optimization problem.\
**MSC (2010):** 15A80, 65K10, 90C47
author:
- 'N. Krivulin[^1] [^2]'
bibliography:
- 'A\_direct\_solution\_of\_tropical\_polynomial\_optimization\_problems.bib'
title: A direct solution of tropical polynomial optimization problems
---
Introduction
============
We considered constrained optimization problems, in which the objective function and constraints are given by polynomials, defined on tropical (idempotent) semifields (i.e., semirings with idempotent addition and invertible multiplication). A tropical polynomial in a variable $x$ can be defined as a formal analogue of a polynomial in conventional algebra $f(x)=a_{1}x^{p_{1}}+\dots+a_{n}x^{p_{n}}$, where addition and multiplication (and hence exponentiation) are interpreted in the sense of a tropical semifield, and the exponents $p_{1},\dots,p_{n}$ may be negative integer, rational or even real numbers.
Tropical polynomials have been studied in a range of research contexts, from minimax optimization problems in operations research to tropical algebraic geometry. Specifically, polynomials in one variable over the max-plus semifield, which has addition defined as taking maximum and multiplication as arithmetic addition, with nonnegative integer exponents, were examined in [@Cuninghamegreen1980Algebra; @Cuninghamegreen1984Using; @Baccelli1993Synchronization; @Cuninghamegreen1995Maxpolynomial; @Gondran2008Graphs]. Among the problems, which have been considered, are factorization of polynomials, solution of polynomial equations and of polynomial optimization problems.
In the framework of tropical (algebraic) geometry, tropical polynomials arise as both valuable instrument and important object of analysis, and are normally defined over the min-plus semifield with integer exponents (tropical Laurent polynomials), rational exponents (tropical Puiseux polynomials), and real exponents (generalized tropical Puiseux polynomials) [@Itenberg2007Tropical; @Markwig2010Field; @Maclagan2015Introduction; @Grigoriev2018Tropical].
In this paper, we are concerned with tropical polynomials in the general setting of an arbitrary linearly ordered idempotent semifield, which has rational exponents well defined and extendable to real exponents. The polynomial functions under study are allowed to have real exponents, and thus can be considered as generalized tropical Puiseux polynomials.
We formulate optimization problems to minimize a tropical polynomial with or without constraints in the form of tropical polynomial inequalities. These problems arise, in particular, in applications that involve solving minimax approximation problems, including minimax single-facility location problems [@Krivulin2016Using; @Krivulin2017Using; @Krivulin2018Algebraic].
To solve the optimization problems, we apply a technique that introduces a parameter to represent the minimum of the objective function, and then reduces the problem to a system of parametrized inequalities. The existence conditions for solutions of the system are used to evaluate the minimum, and the corresponding solutions of the system are taken as a complete solution of the polynomial optimization problem. With this technique, we derive a complete solution of the problems in one variable in a direct analytical form, and show how the solution can be obtained in the case of polynomials in more than one indeterminates. We estimate computational complexity of the solution, and discuss possible lines of future investigation.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section \[S-GTP\], we present an overview of the basic definitions and notation, which underlie the results obtained in the next sections. Section \[S-SOPPOV\] is focused on the solution of the polynomial optimization problems in one variables. We extend the results obtained to handle problems with two variables in Section \[S-SPTV\], and draw some conclusions in Section \[S-C\].
Generalized Tropical Polynomials {#S-GTP}
================================
In this section, we outline the basic definitions, properties and notation to be used in the formulation and solution of tropical polynomial optimization problems in the subsequent sections.
Idempotent Semifield
--------------------
Let $\mathbb{X}$ be a nonempty set, which is equipped with addition $\oplus$ and multiplication $\otimes$, and has distinct elements zero $\mathbb{0}$ and one $\mathbb{1}$ such that $(\mathbb{X},\mathbb{0},\oplus)$ is an idempotent commutative monoid, $(\mathbb{X}\setminus\{\mathbb{0}\},\mathbb{1},\otimes)$ is an Abelian group, and multiplication distributes over addition. Under this conditions, the algebraic system $(\mathbb{X},\mathbb{0},\mathbb{1},\oplus,\otimes)$ is usually referred to as an idempotent (tropical) semifield.
Idempotent addition induces a partial order on $\mathbb{X}$ by the rule: $x\leq y$ if and only $x\oplus y=y$ for any $x,y\in\mathbb{X}$. We assume that this partial order is extended to a linear order in the semifield.
The power notation with integer exponents indicates iterated multiplication: $\mathbb{0}^{n}=\mathbb{0}$, $x^{0}=\mathbb{1}$, $x^{n}=x^{n-1}x$ and $x^{-n}=(x^{-1})^{n}$, where $x^{-1}$ is the inverse of $x$, for all $x\ne\mathbb{0}$ and natural $n$. We assume that the equation $x^{n}=a$ has a unique solution $x$ for each $a\in\mathbb{X}$ and natural $n$, and thus the semifield is radicable, which allows rational exponents. Moreover, the rational powers are assumed extended (by some appropriate limiting process) to real exponents.
With respect to the order induced by idempotent addition, both addition and multiplication are monotone: the inequality $x\leq y$ yields $x\oplus z\leq y\oplus z$ and $xz\leq yz$ (here and henceforth, the multiplication sign $\otimes$ is omitted for compactness). Furthermore, addition possesses the extremal property (majority law) in the form of the inequalities $x\leq x\oplus y$ and $y\leq x\oplus y$. The inequality $x\oplus y\leq z$ is equivalent to the pair of inequalities $x\leq z$ and $y\leq z$. Finally, exponentiation is monotone in the sense that, for any $x,y\ne\mathbb{0}$, the inequality $x\leq y$ results in $x^{r}\geq y^{r}$ if $r<0$, and $x^{r}\leq y^{r}$ if $r\geq0$.
Examples of the semifield under consideration include semifields $$\begin{aligned}
\mathbb{R}_{\max,+}
&=
(\mathbb{R}\cup\{-\infty\},-\infty,0,\max,+),
\\
\mathbb{R}_{\min,+}
&=
(\mathbb{R}\cup\{+\infty\},+\infty,0,\min,+),
\\
\mathbb{R}_{\max,\times}
&=
(\mathbb{R}_{+}\cup\{0\},0,1,\max,\times),
\\
\mathbb{R}_{\min,\times}
&=
(\mathbb{R}_{+}\cup\{+\infty\},+\infty,1,\min,\times),\end{aligned}$$ where $\mathbb{R}$ is the set of all real, and $\mathbb{R}_{+}=\{x>0|\ x\in\mathbb{R}\}$.
The semifield $\mathbb{R}_{\max,+}$ (max-plus semifield) has the operations $\oplus=\max$ and $\otimes=+$ and the neutral elements $\mathbb{0}=-\infty$ and $\mathbb{1}=0$. For each $x\in\mathbb{R}$, the inverse $x^{-1}$ corresponds to $-x$ in the conventional algebra; the power $x^{y}$ coincides with the arithmetic product $xy$, and thus is defined for all $x,y\in\mathbb{R}$. The order induced by idempotent addition is consistent with the natural linear order on $\mathbb{R}$.
In the semifield $\mathbb{R}_{\min,\times}$, the operations are $\oplus=\min$ and $\otimes=\times$, and the neutral elements are $\mathbb{0}=+\infty$ and $\mathbb{1}=1$. The inversion and exponentiation have the standard interpretation, whereas the order agreed with the addition is opposite to the linear order on $\mathbb{R}$.
Tropical Polynomials
--------------------
A (generalized) tropical Puiseux polynomial in one variable over $\mathbb{X}$ is defined for all $x\ne\mathbb{0}$ and a natural number $n$ as follows: $$f(x)
=
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}x^{p_{i}},
%\quad
%a_{i}\in\mathbb{X},
\quad
a_{i}\ne\mathbb{0},
\quad
p_{i}\in\mathbb{R},
\quad
p_{1}<\dots<p_{n}.$$
In the context of the max-plus semifield $\mathbb{R}_{\max,+}$, the polynomial is written in terms of the usual operations as $$f(x)
=
\max\limits_{1\leq i\leq n}(a_{i}+p_{i}x),
\quad
a_{i},p_{i}\in\mathbb{R},$$ which specifies a piecewise-linear convex function of $x\in\mathbb{R}$.
To simplify further formulae, we exploit an equivalent representation using negative indices. With two natural numbers $m$ and $n$ serving to specify the range of indices, the polynomial is given by $$f(x)
=
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}a_{i}x^{p_{i}},
\label{E-fx_imnaixpi}$$ where the exponents satisfy the conditions: $$p_{-m}<\dots<p_{-1}<0,
\quad
p_{0}=0,
\quad
0<p_{1}<\dots<p_{n}.$$
Tropical Puiseux polynomials in more than one indeterminates are introduced in the same way. Specifically, the polynomial in two variables is of the form $$f(x,y)
=
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{l}
a_{ij}x^{p_{i}}y^{q_{j}},
\label{E-fxy_imnjklaijxpiyqj}$$ where the exponents satisfy the conditions: $$\begin{gathered}
p_{-m}<\dots<p_{-1}<0,
\\
q_{-k}<\dots<q_{-1}<0,
\quad
q_{0}=0,
\quad
0<q_{1}<\dots<q_{l}.\end{gathered}$$
In terms of $\mathbb{R}_{\max,+}$, we have a convex function, which has the conventional representation $$f(x,y)
=
\max\limits_{-m\leq i\leq n}\max\limits_{-k\leq j\leq l}(a_{ij}+p_{i}x+q_{j}y),
\quad
a_{ij},p_{i},q_{j}\in\mathbb{R}.$$
Polynomial Optimization Problems
--------------------------------
We are concerned with optimization problems in the tropical algebra setting with the objective function and constraints are given by generalized Puiseux polynomials over a tropical semifield. As an example, consider the constrained problem $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min_{x>\mathbb{0}}
&&&
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}a_{i}x^{p_{i}};
\\
&&
\text{s.t.}
&&&
\bigoplus_{i=-k}^{l}b_{i}x^{q_{i}}
\leq
c.
\end{aligned}$$
The optimization problem is formulated as a minimization problem, where the conventional interpretation of the optimization objective is dependent on the particular semifield. If the problem is given in terms of the max-plus semifield $\mathbb{R}_{\max,+}$, it is a minimization problem in the ordinary sense as well.
Suppose that this problem is considered in the framework of min-semifield $\mathbb{R}_{\min,\times}$. Then, the problem corresponds to an ordinary maximization problem since the objective $\min$ is treated in the sense of the order induced by idempotent addition.
Note that the polynomial optimization problems, when formulated in the sense of $\mathbb{R}_{\max,+}$, can be represented as linear programs and solved by appropriate computational algorithms of linear programming. This approach, however, cannot guarantee a direct solution in an explicit form. In the next sections, we use a tropical algebraic technique to derive a complete analytical solution of the problems in a general setting of an arbitrary idempotent semifield.
Solution of Optimization Problems for Polynomials in One Variable {#S-SOPPOV}
=================================================================
We start with a complete, direct solution of an unconstrained polynomial optimization problem, which demonstrates the key elements of the algebraic technique used. Then, the solution is further extended to handle problems with polynomial constraints.
Unconstrained Problem
---------------------
Given a tropical Puiseux polynomial , consider the problem to find nonzero $x\in\mathbb{X}$ that attains $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min_{x>\mathbb{0}}
&&&
f(x).
\end{aligned}
\label{P-minx0fx}$$
A complete solution of this unconstrained problem is given by the next result.
\[N-minx0fx\] The minimum in problem is equal to $$\mu
=
a_{0}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}
\bigoplus_{j=1}^{n}
%a_{i}^{p_{j}/(p_{j}-p_{i})}
%a_{j}^{-p_{i}/(p_{j}-p_{i})},
a_{i}^{\frac{p_{j}}{p_{j}-p_{i}}}
a_{j}^{-\frac{p_{i}}{p_{j}-p_{i}}},
\label{E-mu_unconst}$$ and all solutions are given by the condition $$\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\mu^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
\leq
x\leq
\left(
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}\mu^{-1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{1/p_{i}}
\right)^{-1}.
\label{I-mu-x_unconst}$$
To solve problem , we introduce an additional parameter $\theta$ to serve as an auxiliary variable in the equivalent problem $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min_{x>\mathbb{0}}
&&&
\theta;
\\
&&
\text{s.t.}
&&&
f(x)
\leq
\theta.
\end{aligned}$$
The problem now reduces to solving for $x$ and $\theta$ the inequality $$f(x)
=
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}a_{i}x^{p_{i}}
\leq
\theta.$$
The inequality is equivalent to the system of inequalities $$\begin{aligned}
a_{i}x^{p_{i}}
&\leq
\theta,
\quad
i=-m,\dots,n,
\quad
i\ne0;
\\
a_{0}
&\leq
\theta.\end{aligned}$$
Taking into account the sign of exponents $p_{i}$, we solve the first inequalities for $x$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
x
&\geq
\theta^{1/p_{i}}
a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}},
\quad
i=-m,\dots,-1;
\\
x
&\leq
\theta^{1/p_{i}}
a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}},
\quad
i=1,\dots,n.\end{aligned}$$
We aggregate the results to represent the inequalities in a compact form of the double inequality $$\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\theta^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
\leq
x\leq
\left(
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}\theta^{-1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{1/p_{i}}
\right)^{-1},
\label{I-theta-x_unconst}$$ where the right-hand side is derived from the second set of inequalities by taking the inverse of both sides, combining the obtained inequalities into one, and then taking the inverse once again.
The double inequality determines a nonempty set if and only if the following condition holds: $$\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}
\theta^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
\bigoplus_{j=1}^{n}
\theta^{-1/p_{j}}a_{j}^{1/p_{j}}
\leq
\mathbb{1},$$ which is equivalent to the system of inequalities $$\theta^{(p_{j}-p_{i})/p_{i}p_{j}}
a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
a_{j}^{1/p_{j}}
\leq
\mathbb{1},
\quad
i=-m,\dots,-1;
\quad
j=1,\dots,n.$$
Solving the inequalities in the system for $\theta$ yields $$\theta
\geq
a_{i}^{p_{j}/(p_{j}-p_{i})}
a_{j}^{-p_{i}/(p_{j}-p_{i})},
After combining these inequalities and adding the inequality $\theta\geq a_{0}$, we have the lower bound for $\theta$ in the form $$\theta
\geq
We denote by $\mu$ the minimum of $\theta$, and set this minimum equal to the lower bound to obtain . Finally, replacing $\theta$ by $\mu$ in the double inequality at gives .
Note that the above solution procedure does not need the monomials in a polynomial to be ordered according to their exponents, while partitioning between the distinct negative, zero and positive exponents remains essential for the solution.
The most computationally intensive part of the solution is the evaluation of the minimum $\mu$, which requires $O(mn)$ operations. As a result, the computational complexity of the entire solution is at most a square of the length of the polynomial $f(x)$.
Constrained Problem
-------------------
Suppose $f,g_{1},\dots,g_{t}$ are tropical Puiseux polynomials over $\mathbb{X}$ in the form of , and $c_{1},\dots,c_{t}$ are nonzero constants in $\mathbb{X}$. Consider a polynomial optimization problem, formulated in the tropical algebra setting as follows: $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min_{x>\mathbb{0}}
&&&
f(x);
\\
&&
\text{s.t.}
&&&
g_{i}(x)
\leq
c_{i},
\quad
i=1,\ldots,t.
\end{aligned}$$
Note that, without any loss of generality, we can consider that there is only one inequality constraint in the problem. It is not difficult to see that the system of inequality constraints $g_{i}(x)\leq c_{i}$, where $i=1,\dots,t$, can easily reduce to one equivalent inequality. Indeed, rewriting these inequalities as $c_{i}^{-1}g_{i}(x)\leq\mathbb{1}$, and combining the results yield $g(x)=c_{1}^{-1}g_{1}(x)\oplus\dots\oplus c_{t}^{-1}g_{t}(x)\leq\mathbb{1}$.
Now, we suppose that, given tropical Puiseux polynomials $$f(x)
=
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}a_{i}x^{p_{i}},
\qquad
g(x)
=
\bigoplus_{i=-k}^{l}b_{i}x^{q_{i}},$$ we need to find nonzero $x$ that solves the problem $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min_{x>\mathbb{0}}
&&&
f(x);
\\
&&
\text{s.t.}
&&&
g(x)
\leq
c.
\end{aligned}
\label{P-minx0fx-gxleqc}$$
Let the following condition hold: $$c
\geq
b_{0}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{i=-k}^{-1}\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}
%b_{i}^{q_{j}/(q_{j}-q_{i})}
%b_{j}^{-q_{i}/(q_{j}-q_{i})}.
b_{i}^{\frac{q_{j}}{q_{j}-q_{i}}}
b_{j}^{-\frac{q_{i}}{q_{j}-q_{i}}}.
\label{I-c}$$
Then, the minimum in problem is equal to $$\begin{gathered}
\mu
=
a_{0}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\bigoplus_{j=1}^{n}
\\\oplus
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}
a_{i}
b_{j}^{-p_{i}/q_{j}}
c^{p_{i}/q_{j}}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}
a_{i}
b_{j}^{-p_{i}/q_{j}}
c^{p_{i}/q_{j}},
\label{E-mu}\end{gathered}$$ and all solutions are given by the condition $$\begin{gathered}
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\mu^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}c^{1/q_{j}}b_{j}^{-1/q_{j}}
\\\leq
x
\leq
\left(
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}\mu^{-1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{1/p_{i}}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}c^{-1/q_{j}}b_{j}^{1/q_{j}}
\right)^{-1}.
\label{I-mu-x}\end{gathered}$$
First, we replace by the equivalent problem $$\begin{aligned}
&&
&&&
\\
&&
&&&
\quad
g(x)
\leq
c,
\end{aligned}$$ and examine the system of inequalities $$f(x)
=
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}a_{i}x^{p_{i}}
\leq
\theta,
\qquad
g(x)
=
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{l}b_{j}x^{q_{j}}
\leq
c.$$
We split the inequalities into the system $$\begin{aligned}
a_{i}x^{p_{i}}
&\leq
\theta,
\qquad
i=-m,\ldots,n,
\quad
i\ne0;
\\
b_{j}x^{q_{j}}
&\leq
c,
\qquad
j=-k,\ldots,l,
\quad
j\ne0;
\\
a_{0}
&\leq
\theta,
\qquad
b_{0}
\leq
c.\end{aligned}$$
Solving the inequalities in $x$ yields the results: $$\begin{aligned}
x
&\geq
\theta^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}},
\qquad
i=-m,\ldots,-1;
\\
x
&\leq
\theta^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}},
\qquad
i=1,\ldots,n;
\\
x
&\geq
c^{1/q_{j}}b_{j}^{-1/q_{j}},
\qquad
j=-k,\ldots,-1;
\\
x
&\leq
c^{1/q_{j}}b_{j}^{-1/q_{j}},
\qquad
j=1,\ldots,l.\end{aligned}$$
Next, we aggregate the results into the double inequality $$\begin{gathered}
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\theta^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}\theta^{-1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{1/p_{i}}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}c^{-1/q_{j}}b_{j}^{1/q_{j}}
\right)^{-1},
\label{I-theta-x}\end{gathered}$$ which has solutions provided that the following inequality is valid: $$\begin{gathered}
\left(
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\theta^{1/p_{i}}a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
\oplus
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}c^{1/q_{j}}b_{j}^{-1/q_{j}}
\right)
\\\otimes
\right)
\leq
\mathbb{1}.\end{gathered}$$
After multiplying the brackets and rearranging the terms, we arrive at the equivalent system of inequalities $$\begin{aligned}
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\bigoplus_{j=1}^{n}
\theta^{(p_{j}-p_{i})/p_{i}p_{j}}
\\
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{-1}\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}
\theta^{1/p_{i}}
a_{i}^{-1/p_{i}}
b_{j}^{1/q_{j}}
c^{-1/q_{j}}
&\leq
\mathbb{1},
\\
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}
\\
\bigoplus_{i=-k}^{-1}\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}
b_{i}^{-1/q_{i}}
b_{j}^{1/q_{j}}
c^{(q_{j}-q_{i})/q_{i}q_{j}}
&\leq
\mathbb{1}.
\end{aligned}
\label{I-theta-c}$$
By solving the first three inequalities for $\theta$ in the same way as above, we obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\theta
&\geq
\\
\theta
&\geq
\\
\theta
&\geq
\bigoplus_{i=1}^{n}\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}
a_{i}
b_{j}^{-p_{i}/q_{j}}
c^{p_{i}/q_{j}}.\end{aligned}$$
Combining the obtained inequalities for $\theta$, including the inequality $\theta\geq a_{0}$ obtained before, yields $$\begin{gathered}
\theta
\geq
c^{p_{i}/q_{j}}.\end{gathered}$$
We rewrite this inequality as equality and replace $\theta$ by $\mu$ to get . Substitution of $\mu$ for $\theta$ in gives .
The solution of the last inequality in the system at for $c$ is given by the inequality $$c
\geq
This inequality, combined with the inequality $c\geq b_{0}$, produces the condition at , which implies the existence of solutions of the polynomial inequality constraint in the problem.
Solving Problems in Two Variables {#S-SPTV}
=================================
In this section, we examine a problem with two variables without constraints, which allows to simplify further formulae, but follows the same procedure as in the constrained case.
Given a tropical polynomial $f(x,y)$ in the form of , we consider the optimization problem $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min_{x,y>\mathbb{0}}
&&&
f(x,y).
\end{aligned}
\label{P-minxy0fxy}$$
Similarly as before, we replace the problem by that in the form $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min
&&&
\theta;
\\
&&
\text{s.t.}
&&&
f(x,y)
\leq
\theta.
\end{aligned}$$
Then, we solve for one of the variables, say $y$, the inequality $$f(x,y)
=
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{l}
a_{ij}x^{p_{i}}y^{q_{j}}
\leq
\theta,$$ which we represent as the system of inequalities $$\begin{aligned}
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}
a_{ij}x^{p_{i}}y^{q_{j}}
&\leq
\theta,
\\
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}
\\
a_{i0}x^{p_{i}}
&\leq
\theta.
\end{aligned}
\label{I-theta-xy}$$
Solving the first two inequalities of for $y$ leads to the following double inequality: $$\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}
\theta^{1/q_{j}}
a_{ij}^{-1/q_{j}}x^{-p_{i}/q_{j}}
\leq
y\leq
\left(
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=1}^{l}
\theta^{-1/q_{j}}
a_{ij}^{1/q_{j}}x^{p_{i}/q_{j}}
\right)^{-1}.
\label{I-y}$$
This inequality defines a nonempty set for $y$ if and only if $$\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}
\theta^{1/q_{j}}
a_{ij}^{-1/q_{j}}x^{-p_{i}/q_{j}}
\bigoplus_{r=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{s=1}^{l}
\theta^{-1/q_{s}}
a_{rs}^{1/q_{s}}x^{p_{r}/q_{s}}
\leq
\mathbb{1}.$$
Similarly as before, we solve this inequality for $\theta$ to obtain $$\theta
\geq
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{j=-k}^{-1}
\bigoplus_{r=-m}^{n}
\bigoplus_{s=1}^{l}
%a_{ij}^{q_{s}/(q_{s}-q_{j})}
%a_{rs}^{-q_{j}/(q_{s}-q_{j})}
a_{ij}^{\frac{q_{s}}{q_{s}-q_{j}}}
a_{rs}^{-\frac{q_{j}}{q_{s}-q_{j}}}
%x^{(p_{i}q_{s}-p_{r}q_{j})/(q_{s}-q_{j})}
x^{\frac{p_{i}q_{s}-p_{r}q_{j}}{q_{s}-q_{j}}}.$$
By adding the third inequality at , we derive a lower bound for $\theta$, given in terms of the variable $x$ by the inequality $$\theta
\geq
\bigoplus_{i=-m}^{n}
a_{i0}x^{p_{i}}
\oplus
We now examine the left-hand side of the inequality, which presents a tropical sum of monomials of the form $ax^{p}$. We rearrange the monomials by partitioning between groups with negative, zero and positive exponents, and hence form a tropical Puiseux polynomial, which we denote by $h(x)$.
As a result, the problem in two variables reduces to the polynomial optimization problem in one variable: $$\begin{aligned}
&&
\min_{x>\mathbb{0}}
&&&
h(x).
\end{aligned}$$
By applying Proposition \[N-minx0fx\], one can obtain the minimum $\mu$ of the polynomial $h(x)$ and the solutions, given by a double inequality $x_{1}\leq x\leq x_{2}$. This inequality together with , where $\mu$ substitutes for $\theta$ provides a complete solution of problem .
Note that the solution scheme described presents a variant of procedure of successive elimination of variables. It is not difficult to see that this scheme can be further extended to solve both unconstrained and constrained polynomial optimization problems with many variables. However, with increasing number of variables, the complexity of the analytical solution drastically increases, which invites the development and application of appropriate software tools of numerical and symbolic computations.
Conclusion {#S-C}
==========
We have considered polynomial optimization problems, which involve generalized Puiseux polynomials in the tropical algebra setting to define the objective function and constraints in the problem. We have proposed a solution technique that offers solutions for both unconstrained and constrained optimization problems with one variable. The solutions are given in a direct analytical form, ready for immediate computations with low polynomial complexity. We have extended the solution technique to an unconstrained problem with two variables as a computational procedure, which is based on successive elimination of variables, and can be applied to handle problems with many variables.
The future research can include the derivation of solutions for polynomial problems with more general constraints, and the development of algorithms and software tools of solving problems with arbitrary number of variables.
[^1]: Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics, Saint Petersburg State University, 28 Universitetsky Ave., St. Petersburg, 198504, Russia, [email protected].
[^2]: This work was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant No. 20-010-00145).
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---
abstract: 'The existence of an extra degree of freedom (d.o.f.) in $f(T)$ gravity has been recently proved by means of the Dirac formalism for constrained Hamiltonian systems. We will show a toy model displaying the essential feature of $f(T)$ gravity, which is the pseudo-invariance of $T$ under a local symmetry, to understand the nature of the extra d.o.f.'
address:
- |
Departamento de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Serena, Av. Juan Cisternas 1200, La Serena 1720236, Chile\
[email protected]
- |
Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio (IAFE), CONICET, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Casilla de Correo 67, Sucursal 28, Buenos Aires 1428, Argentina\
Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Universitaria, Pabellón I, Buenos Aires 1428, Argentina\
[email protected]
author:
- María José Guzmán
- Rafael Ferraro
title: 'Degrees of freedom and Hamiltonian formalism for $f(T)$ gravity'
---
$f(T)$ Gravity
==============
The teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) is a reformulation of general relativity (GR) in terms of a field of tetrads. It encompasses the vector basis $\mathbf{e}_a = e_a^{\mu} \partial_{\mu}$ and its co-basis $\mathbf{E}^a = E^a_{\mu} dx^{\mu}$, which are mutually dual: $E^a_{\mu} e_b^{\mu} = \delta^a_b$. Tetrads are related to the spacetime metric through the orthonormality condition $$\eta_{ab} = g_{\mu\nu} e^{\mu}_a e^{\nu}_b~, \ \ \ \ \ g_{\mu\nu} = \eta_{ab} E^a_{\mu} E^b_{\nu}~.$$ The spacetime underlying TEGR is endowed with a curvatureless, metric-compatible spin connection. Usually the Weitzenböck connection $\omega^a_{\ b \mu}=0$ is chosen, which in coordinate bases means $\Gamma^{\rho}_{\ \mu\nu} = e^{\rho}_a \partial_{\mu} E^a_{\nu}$. TEGR Lagrangian is built from the torsion $T^{\rho}_{\ \mu\nu} = e^{\rho}_a ( \partial_{\mu} E^a_{\nu} - \partial_{\nu} E^a_{\mu} )$ through the torsion scalar $T$ defined as [@Aldrovandi2013] $$T = -\dfrac{1}{4}T_{\rho\mu\nu} T^{\rho\mu\nu} -\dfrac{1}{2} T_{\rho\mu\nu} T^{\mu\rho\nu} + T^{\rho}_{\ \mu\rho} T^{\sigma\mu}_{\ \ \sigma}~.
\label{tscalar}$$ TEGR Lagrangian $L=ET$ ($E$ stands for $ \text{det}(E^a_{\mu})=|g|^{1/2}$) and GR Lagrangian $L=-ER$ ($R$ being the Levi-Civita scalar curvature) are dynamically equivalent since they differ in a boundary term: $E (R+T) = \partial_{\mu}(E T^{\nu \ \mu}_{\ \nu} )$. So, both TEGR and GR govern the same d.o.f., which are associated with the metric tensor. The metric tensor is invariant under local Lorentz transformations of the tetrad, $\mathbf{E}^a \rightarrow \mathbf{E}^{a^{\prime}} = \Lambda^{a^{\prime} }_{\ a}(x) \mathbf{E}^a$, which is thus a gauge symmetry of TEGR. The TEGR Lagrangian is used as a starting point to describe generalizations to GR inspired in $f(R)$ theories; the so called $f(T)$ gravity is governed by the action [@Ferraro:2006jd] $$S = \dfrac{1}{2\kappa} \int d^4 x\ E\ f(T).\label{action}$$
A Toy Model with Rotational Pseudo-Invariance
=============================================
TEGR Lagrangian $L=ET$ is not gauge invariant but pseudo-invariant, because $T^{\nu \ \mu}_{\ \nu}$ in the above mentioned boundary term is not invariant under local Lorentz transformations of the tetrad. Therefore, a general function $f$ will not allow the boundary term to be integrated out in the $f(T)$ action ; as a consequence, the theory will suffer a partial loss of the local Lorentz symmetry;[@Ferraro:2006jd] so an extra d.o.f. not related to the metric could appear. We will analyze this issue by resorting to a simple toy model with rotational pseudo-invariance (a similar one was introduced in a previous work [@Ferraro:2018axk], but the boundary term was simpler). Let be the Lagrangian $$L = 2\left(\dfrac{d}{dt} \sqrt{z\overline{z}} \right)^2 - U(z\overline{z}) + \dot{z} \dfrac{\partial}{\partial z} g(z,\overline{z})+\dot{\overline{z}} \dfrac{\partial}{\partial \overline{z}} g(z,\overline{z})~.
\label{Ltoymod}$$ The two first terms are invariant under local rotations $z \rightarrow e^{i\alpha(t)}z$. The rest of $L$ is a total derivative; it does not take part in the dynamics but can be affected by the local rotation. So, the Lagrangian $L$ is just [*pseudo-invariant*]{} under a local rotation. As any gauge invariance the local pseudo-invariance implies the existence of constraints among the canonical momenta; a unique primary constraint is obtained in this case: $$G^{(1)} \equiv z\left(p_z - \dfrac{\partial g}{\partial z} \right) - \overline{z}\left( p_{\overline{z}} - \dfrac{\partial g}{\partial\overline{z} } \right) \approx 0.\label{G1}$$ $G^{(1)}$ is an angular momentum; it generates rotations. In fact, it is $\{ G^{(1)},z\overline{z} \} = 0$, which means that the dynamical variable $|z|$ is gauge invariant. As can be seen, the angular momentum not only is conserved in this case; since the symmetry is local (time-dependent), the conserved value is constrained to be zero.
Primary constraints have to be consistent with the evolution, as controlled by the primary Hamiltonian $H_p = H + u(t) G^{(1)}$. In the case - it results that the consistency is fulfilled without specifying the Lagrange multiplier $u(t)$. Thus, the evolution of any variable that does not commute with $G^{(1)}$ is affected by an undetermined function $u(t)$; this is the case of the phase of $z$, which become a “pure gauge" variable, but not the case of $|z|$, which is a genuine d.o.f. or observable. $G^{(1)}$ is called [*first-class*]{}, since it commutes with all the constraints (it is the only constraint in this example). As it is well known, each first class constraint removes one d.o.f. from a Hamiltonian constrained system. In this toy model, one d.o.f. is removed from the pair $(z,\overline{z})$, showing that $|z|$ is the only d.o.f. of the theory.
Modified toy model
==================
We will [*deform*]{} the toy model of the previous section by introducing the Lagrangian $f(L)$. Let us show that this can be done by means of the Lagrangian $$\mathcal{L} = \phi L - V(\phi),
\label{modLtm}$$ where $\phi$ is an auxiliary canonical variable. Equation resembles the Jordan-frame representation of $f(R)$ gravity. From $\mathcal{L}$ one gets the equation of motion for $\phi$: $L=V^{\prime}(\phi)$. Thus, $\mathcal{L}$ is (on-shell) equal to the Legendre transform of $V(\phi)$; therefore it depends only on $L$, i.e. $\mathcal{L}=f(L)$ (from the inverse Legendre transform we also know that $\phi=f^{\prime}(L)$). Thus the Lagrangian $\mathcal{L}$ is dynamically equivalent to a $f(L)$ theory. As expected for a $f(L)$ theory, $\mathcal{L}$ is not pseudo-invariant under local rotations. This is because the total derivative coming with $L$ is now multiplied by $\phi$ in . We will present the main outcomes of the Hamiltonian formalism for this $f(L)$ model and see the implicancies of the lost pseudo-invariance.
By computing the canonical momenta for $\mathcal{L}$ one gets two primary constraints: the angular momentum and the momentum conjugated to $\phi$, $$G^{(1)} = z \left( p_z - \phi \dfrac{\partial g}{\partial z} \right) - \overline{z} \left( p_{\overline{z}} - \phi \dfrac{\partial g}{\partial \overline{z}} \right) \approx 0, \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ G^{(1)}_{\pi} = \pi = \dfrac{\partial \mathcal{L} }{\partial \dot{\phi}} \approx 0.$$ The Poisson bracket between the constraints is $$\{G^{(1)}, G^{(1)}_{\pi} \} = -z \dfrac{\partial g}{\partial z} + \overline{z} \dfrac{\partial g}{\partial \overline{z}},
\label{pbmodtoy}$$ which depends on the function $g(z,\overline{z})$ appearing in the boundary term of $L$. Depending on $g$, the Poisson bracket could be zero or not, which would drastically affect the counting of d.o.f. So, we will separate two cases:
- **Case (i): $g(z,\overline{z}) \neq v(z\overline{z})$.** In this case it is $\{G^{(1)}, G^{(1)}_{\pi} \}\not\approx 0$, so the constraints are [*second class*]{}. The consistency is guaranteed by choosing the Lagrange multipliers $u^{\pi}(t)$ and $u(t)$ associated with $G_{\pi}$ and $G^{(1)}$, respectively. In particular, it results $u^{\pi}=0$ which implies that $\phi$ does not evolve but is a constant. The constancy of $\phi$ also implies that $|z|$ evolves like in the undeformed theory governed by $L$. But now the evolution of the phase of $z$ is determined too, because the Lagrange multiplier $u(t)$ is no longer left free. Since the evolution is already consistent at this step, then the algorithm is over. The counting of d.o.f. goes like this: from the set of three canonical variables $(\phi,z,\overline{z})$, just [*one*]{} d.o.f. is removed due to the appearance of [*one pair*]{} of second class constraints. We are left with two d.o.f., which can be represented by the variables $(z,\overline{z})$. The Lagrangian $f(L)$ determines not only the modulus of $z$ but its phase as well.
- **Case (ii): $g(z,\overline{z})=v(z\overline{z})$.** In this case it is $\{G^{(1)}, G^{(1)}_{\pi} \}= 0$. This case is trivial because if $g(z,\overline{z})=v(z\overline{z})$ the entire Lagrangian $L$ will depend exclusively on $|z|$, so being locally invariant. Thus we do not expect an extra d.o.f. in the deformed $f(L)$ theory. So, let us check that Dirac’s algorithm yields the right answer. The consistency of the constraints with the evolution leads to a new [*secondary*]{} constraint $G^{(2)} = L - V^{\prime}(\phi)\approx 0$. Since $\{G^{(1)}, G^{(2)} \} = 0$, and $\{G^{(1)}_{\pi}, G^{(2)} \} = V^{\prime \prime}(\phi)$, then $G^{(1)}$ is first-class, while $G^{(1)}_{\pi}$, $G^{(2)}$ are second-class. The Lagrange multiplier $u^{\pi}(t)$ is fixed by the consistency equations. Instead $u(t)$ (associated with $G^{(1)}$ in $H_p$) is not fixed by the algorithm, so meaning that the variables that are sensitive to rotations, like the phase of $z$, will remain as pure gauge variables. The counting of d.o.f. goes like this: from the three canonical variables $(\phi,z,\overline{z})$ we remove two d.o.f., one coming from $G^{(1)}$ being first-class, and the other one because the pair $G^{(1)}_{\pi}$, $G^{(2)}$ is second-class, leaving us with the genuine d.o.f. $|z|$. Remarkably, $u^{\pi}(t)$ results in a non zero function; therefore $\phi$ is not a constant and affects the evolution of $|z|$, that departs from the evolution it had in the original undeformed theory $L$.
Conclusions
-----------
In principle $f(T)$ gravity is case-(i), since TEGR Lagrangian is pseudo-invariant under local Lorentz transformations of the tetrad. This means that $f(T)$ gravity entails an extra d.o.f. associated with the orientation of the tetrad. However we could wonder whether $f(T)$ gravity can be case-(ii) on-shell. This is an interesting point because, even though $f(T)$ gravity is case-(i), there could exist particular solutions to the equations of motion making zero the value of the Poisson bracket . For such solutions, $\phi$ (and so $T$ too) would be an evolving field, and no extra d.o.f. would manifest. Remarkably, flat FRW spacetime seems to be a good arena to test this conjecture, because it contains both solutions with $T$ equal to a constant[@Bejarano:2017akj] and $T=-6 H^2(t)$ an evolving function[@Ferraro:2006jd].
Acknowledgments {#acknowledgments .unnumbered}
===============
M.J.G. has been funded by CONICYT-FONDECYT Postdoctoral grant No. 3190531. R.F. has been funded by CONICET and Universidad de Buenos Aires. R.F. is a member of Carrera del Investigador Científico (CONICET, Argentina).
[0]{} R. Aldrovandi and J. G. Pereira,[*Teleparallel Gravity*]{} ( Springer, Dordrecht, 2013).
R. Ferraro and F. Fiorini, [*Phys. Rev. D*]{} [**75**]{}, 084031 (2007).
R. Ferraro and M. J. Guzmán, [*Phys. Rev. D*]{} [**98**]{}, 124037 (2018).
R. Ferraro and M. J. Guzmán, [*Phys. Rev. D*]{} [**97**]{}, 104028 (2018). C. Bejarano, R. Ferraro and M. J. Guzmán, [*Eur. Phys. J. C* ]{} [**77**]{}, 825 (2017).
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Click on a section or point of the graph to pull up the most recent corresponding tweets from that month. Below you will have the option to “view more posts”, where you can see all posts from the corresponding month.
2) C. Top Posts by Engagements
The top posts by the tracked Twitter page that generated the most amount of engagements.
Likes - the amount of likes that tweet received
Retweets - the amount of retweets that tweet received
Post Caption - the caption of the tweet
Date - The date the tweet was posted by the Twitter account
Tool Tip:
Click on the post to pop up statistics about it, which looks like the picture below:
View on Twitter - this will open the tweet selected on Twitter, and will navigate you away from Keyhole
2) D. Follower Growth
Follower growth is the only data that does not backfill to a year prior, which the rest of the data and graphs do. This is because we need a baseline to measure growth, and the tracker will measure this beginning when you set up the tracker. In the picture below, the tracker was set up in November, and measures the growth of followers from then moving forward.
Follower Count - The total amount of followers the Twitter page has per month
Follower Change - The followers gained per month
Data From: - The date range you set in the top right corner of the Dashboard
X Axis - Months
Y Axis - Number of Followers
Tool Tip:
Click on a point on the graph for “ Follower Count” or a bar in “Follower Change” to see the most recent posts from that month. Scroll down and click “View More Posts” to view all posts from that month.
2) E. Most Frequent Post Types
The types of posts the user is publishing.
Reply - amount of tweets this account has replied to
Tweet - Original tweets published by the user
Quote RT - The amount of quote retweets this account has published
Retweets - The amount of retweets this account has published
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a section of the graph (for example “Quote RT”) to see the percentage of times this user published this post type (out of 100%). The centre of the graph will also show the exact number of “Quote RTs” this user published. The percentage and total number will change based on the date range.
2- Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph. It will look similar to the picture below:
2) F. Most Frequent Media Types
The kind of media the user is Tweeting.
Link- A tweet that includes a link
Text - A tweet that is only text
Photo - A tweet that includes a photo
Combination - A post that has two or more media types
GIF - A tweet that includes a gif
Video - a Tweet that includes a video
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a section of the graph (for example “Photo”) to see the percentage of times this user published this post type (out of 100%). The centre of the graph will also show the exact number of “Photos” this user published. The percentage and total number will change based on the date range.
2- Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph.
2) G. Most Engaging Post Types
The average engagements for each type of post.
Reply - The average engagements for replies, and the number of posts measured
Tweet - The average engagements for tweets, and the number of posts measured
Quote RT- The average engagements for Quote Retweets, and the number of posts measured
X Axis - Post type
Y Axis - Number of average engagements
Tool Tip:
Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph.
2) H. Most Engaging Media Types
The average engagements for each media type.
Photo - The average engagements for posts with a photo, and number of posts measured
Text - The average engagements for posts of text, and number of posts measured
Link - The average engagements for posts with a link, and number of posts measured
Combination -The average engagements for combination media posts, and the number of posts measured
GIF - The average engagements for posts with a GIF, and the number of posts measured
Video - The average engagements for posts with a video, and the number of posts measured
Tool Tip:
Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph.
3) Optimization
3) A. Optimal Post Time
The most optimal days of the week and hours of the day to post based on average engagements, and frequency of how often the account posts.
Data From: - the date range set in the top right hand corner
X axis - Hours of the day
Y axis - Days of the week
Engagements - the optimal times the user should post based on average engagements, total likes, total retweets, and number of posts
Frequency - The most frequent times the user publishes tweets
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a point on the graph to see the average engagements, total likes, total retweets, and number of posts for the corresponding day and hour
2 - Directly below is the Best Times To Post graph, which interprets the data and tells you the exact day and time to post based on the users followers interactions with the page
3) B. Optimal Post Length
The optimal length of a post based on the users engagements and frequency of their post lengths, divided by character number.
X Axis - Post length divided by number of characters
Y Axis - Number of average engagements
Engagements - Optimal post length based on the user's engagements
Frequency - The most frequent post length
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a bar in the graph to see the number of corresponding posts.
2- Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph.
3) C. Top Hashtags By Engagement
The most popular hashtags published by the user, and the frequency of how much they use each hashtag.
X Axis - Number of average engagements
Y Axis - Top Hashtags
Engagements - the top hashtags based on engagements of the users followers
Frequency - The top hashtags based on how frequently the hashtag is used
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a bar in the graph to see the number of corresponding posts and average engagements
2- Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph
3) D. Optimal Number of Hashtags
The optimal number of hashtags the user should include in tweets based on engagement and frequency.
X Axis - Number of hashtags used
Y Axis - Average engagements
Engagements - Optimal number of hashtags a user should include in tweets
Frequency - The most frequent amount of hashtags a user is posting in tweets
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a bar in the graph to see the number of corresponding posts and number of hashtags.
2- Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph.
3) E. Average Engagements by Day/Time
The average engagements the page receives broken down into day of the week and hour.
X Axis - Day of the week or time
Y Axis - Average number of Engagements
Data From: - The date range set in the top right hand corner of Optimization page
Day - Average engagements divided by day
Time - Average engagements divided by hour
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a bar in the graph to see the number of corresponding posts and number of engagements.
2- Click on a section of the graph to see the most recent instances of the corresponding part of the graph.
4) Followers - Insights
4) A. Follower Location
Geographical location of the account’s followers.
World- geographical location in a world map view
USA - geographical location in a USA map view
4) B. Top Countries Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a country on the map to see the name of the country and the amount of followers in that country
2- Click on a section of the graph or Country under Top Counties to see a pop-up list of the followers per country
4) C. Follower Gender
Gender divided by Male and Female
4) D. Interactions by Gender
Interactions based on gender
Tool Tip:
1- Hover over a section of the graph to see the amount of followers per gender. In the centre of the graph you can see the percentage of male or female followers.
2- Click on a section of the graph or to see a pop-up list of the corresponding followers.
4) E. Top Keywords from Followers Bios
Track the occurrences of top keywords in followers bios.
Tool Tip:
Click on a Keyword for a pop-up window of users with the corresponding keywords in their bio.
4) F. Audience by Follower Count
Amount of followers users have, who are following the tracked Twitter account.
X Axis - The numerical range of followers a user has
Y Axis- Percentage of users with that amount of followers
Tool Tip:
Hover over a bar in the graph to show the exact number of users with that amount of followers.
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Find out and download a PDF of Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) Aptitude Test Exams Questions & Answers and Likely Examination Questions. Applicants who apply for the 2021 GPS Online Recruitment after a successful Screening exercise (Body Selected and Document validation) selected applicants will be shortlisted to write an Aptitude Test to qualify for the next stage of the recruitment exercise.
Ghana Prisons Service applicants who apply to become Prisons Officers will be invited to write an Aptitude Test at the designated Examination Centers in all 16 regions of Ghana.
General knowledge Questions & Answers
When was the Ghana Prisons Service Established?
Answer:
It was established in 1860 by the Colonial Government’s Prisons Ordinance and was promulgated in 1876 which gave birth to the Prisons Department in the Gold Coast.
What is the rank structure of the Ghana Prisons Service?
Officer Ranks
- Officer Cadet
- Assistant Supt. of Prisons
- Deputy Supt. of Prisons
- Superintendent of Prisons
- Chief Superintendent of Prisons
- Assistant Director of Prisons
- Deputy Director of Prisons
- Director of Prisons
- Deputy Director-General of Prisons
- Director-General of Prisons
Junior Officer Ranks
- 2nd Class Officer
- Lance Corporal
- Corporal
- Sergeant
- Assistant Chief Office
- Chief Office
- Senior Chief Office
Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) screening and shortlisted applicants
Some Equipment used by the Ghana Prisons Service
- The equipment consists of older weapons of British, Brazilian, Swiss, Swedish, Israeli, and Finnish origin. The Ghanaian Prisons Service inventory gave the following equipment: FV-601 Saladin and EE-9 Cascavel reconnaissance vehicles; MOWAG Piranha armored personnel carriers; 81mm and 120mm mortars; 84mm recoilless launchers; and 14.5mm ZPU-4 and 23mm ZU-23-2 air defense guns.
Who Is The Current Director-General of the Ghana Prisons Service
Answer:
- DGP Isaac Kofi Egyir acts as Director-General of the Prisons
What are the objectives of the Ghana Prisons Service?
Answer:
To protect the public by;
- Holding prisoners securely
- Reducing the risk of prisoners re-offending
- Providing safe and well-ordered establishments in which we treat prisoners humanely, decently, and lawfully
What is the Motto of the Ghana Prisons Service?
- The Prisons Service motto is “safe custody, humane treatment, reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates”.
Numerical Reasoning Test
A numerical reasoning test is a form of psychometric assessment commonly used in the application stages of the recruitment process. It is specifically designed to measure a applicant’s numerical aptitude and their ability to interpret, analyse and draw conclusions from sets of data.
A step-by-step guide to find fractions of numbers
When finding a fraction of a number we are, in simple terms, multiplying that number by the fraction. The easiest way to remember this is to replace the word ‘of’ with a multiplication sign, so the question ‘what is ½ of 20’ would be written as (½) x 20.
To multiply a number by a fraction, follow the steps below.
Questions
Below are some questions for you to try out yourself.
While the method for working out fractions of numbers is relatively simple in theory, it becomes more complex when working with larger figures. In these scenarios, there’s a few more steps you’ll need to take, which we’ve explained in example question 3 below.
Question 1
Kate has decided to buy a new television. The model she chose costs GH¢ 450, but is due to go on sale at two-thirds of the price. If Kate waits for the sale, how much will she save?
To find the answer to this question, we first need to work out what the sale price would be, so we need to calculate ⅔ of 450.
Multiply the whole number by the numerator, and then divide the result by the denominator:
450 x 2 = 900
900/3 = 300
Now we know the sale price would be GH¢ 300, we can subtract that from the original cost to work out the saving:
450 – 300 = 150
Answer: Kate would save ¢ 150.
Question 2
Sam works a 37-hour week in retail. He spends ¾ of his time on the shop floor, and the rest working in the warehouse. How many hours per week does Sam spend on the shop floor?
If we multiply the whole number by the numerator here, we get an answer of 111.
111 is not equally divisible by the denominator, so we know we’ll have a remainder.
4 goes into 111 27 times, leaving a remainder of 3. So we’re left with an answer of 27 ¾.
Answer: We can’t simplify ¾, so we can say that Sam spends 27 ¾ hours on the shop floor every week.
Question 3
Jack was rewarded with GH¢ 550 by his parents for performing well in his previous exam. He decided to use 3/10 of this to purchase a new fitness device. How much does the fitness device cost?
As we’re working with larger numbers here, you may find it easier to simplify the equation first. To do this, look for common factors shared by the whole number and the denominator of the fraction, and cancel them out.
In this case, we can see that both 550 and 10 are divisible by 10, leaving 55 and 1 respectively. We can now simplify 3/10 of 550 to 3/1 of 55.
Now complete the equation by multiplying the whole number by the numerator, and dividing the result by the denominator:
55 x 3 = 165
165/1 = 165
Answer: The fitness device that Jack bought cost him GH¢ 165.
Basic Numeracy
1. What is the next number in this series?
1, 5, 9, 13, 17, _
A. 15
B. 23
C. 21
D. 20
Answer: The rule for this pattern is to add 4 to the previous number, so in this case, the answer would be C. 21
2. Find the missing number in the series.
120, 60, 30, __, 7.5, 3.25
A. 20
B. 5
C. 18
D. 15
Answer: This sequence is solved in the same way as above, even though the missing number is in the middle. The relationship between each number is the division by two of the previous number – and it’s important to understand that the terms in a series don’t need to be integers. In this question, the missing term is D. 15.
3. What is the next number in this sequence?
2, 5, 11, 23, 47, __
A. 95
B. 101
C. 94
D. 97
Answer: This pattern combines geometric and arithmetic sequences, and the rule is that each number is the previous number multiplied by two, and then add one.
The difficulty here is establishing the right combination of mathematical functions that are needed. In this example, the next term in the series would be 95, so the answer is A.
4. Your phone bill is GH¢ 42. It increases by 10% after 12 months, and a further 20% increase is applied six months later. What’s the price of your phone bill after 18 months?
Solution
10 + 100 = 110, expressed as 1.10 as a decimal
20 + 100 = 120, expressed as 1.20 as a decimal
42 x 1.10 = 46.2
46.2 x 1.20 = 55.44
Answer: GH¢ 55.44
5. Find the mean average of 3, 15, 8 and 22
3 + 15 + 8 + 22 = 48
48 ÷ 4 = 12
Answer: 12
Situational Judgement Aptitude Test Questions and Answers
Passage
At a recent departmental meeting one of your more senior colleagues appears to be acting intentionally awkward towards you. Whenever you make suggestions relating to the topic area being discussed they interrupt you and come up with reasons why your suggestion is not workable. You have known this person since you joined the business six months ago and you have always got on well. They have been with the company for over 2 years and seem to be well respected by most people. You have heard rumours that they are having personal issues at the moment. You are only 1 hour into an all-day meeting. What would you do?
Q1) Read the passage and select how you would most likely and least likely respond:
A. Wait until the next coffee break and ask the colleagues you are closer to whether they have noticed this behaviour and ask for their thoughts on how to deal with the situation, particularly considering the delicacy of the personal issues that may be ongoing for the individual concerned.
B. Ignore their behaviour and continue to input to the meeting in a confident and supportive manner. This will show your peers and manager that you can handle difficult situations and as you have always got along well with this person in the past this is probably a one-off. Everyone has bad days and as a colleague it is up to you to not make anyone feel worse than they do already.
C. Attempt to face the problem head on in the meeting. The situation is reflecting badly on you and you do not want your line manager to think that you can’t stand up to someone just because they have more experience than you. Wait to see if it happens again and then politely ask whether they have an issue with you that they would like to discuss in more detail.
D. Wait until the coffee break and then ask the person you are having the issues with if they could spare five minutes for a chat. Politely ask them whether you have done something to offend them as you feel their attitude towards you this morning has been somewhat negative. Ask if there is something you can do to improve the situation as it is making the meeting awkward for everyone.
Answer
A. Least likely. This response could make the problem worse on a number of levels. Firstly, you have flagged the issue to people who do not really need to be involved. By talking about your colleague with these people you are potentially making the issue bigger than it was initially as they will be looking for any signs of the problem continuing or getting bigger. Secondly, you are bringing up someone else’s personal issues that are of no concern to your other colleagues regardless of how well you get on with them.
D. Most likely. This approach ensures that the problem is addressed before it becomes any worse. As there may be a genuine reason why they are obstructing your suggestions it shows that you are willing to listen to and learn from other people. It also does so in a non-public forum so that you can both share your views freely. | https://flatprofile.com/ghana-prisons-aptitude-test-answers-and-questions-pdf/ |
2 Computer Engineering Department, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University,
Abstract
Big data analytics is one of the most important subjects in computer science. Today, due to the increasing expansion of Web technology, a large amount of data is available to researchers. Extracting information from these data is one of the requirements for many organizations and business centers. In recent years, the massive amount of Twitter's social networking data has become a platform for data mining research to discover facts, trends, events, and even predictions of some incidents. In this paper, a new framework for clustering and extraction of information is presented to analyze the sentiments from the big data. The proposed method is based on the keywords and the polarity determination which employs seven emotional signal groups. The dataset used is 2077610 tweets in both English and Persian. We utilize the Hive tool in the Hadoop environment to cluster the data, and the Wordnet and SentiWordnet 3.0 tools to analyze the sentiments of fans of Iranian athletes. The results of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic events in a one-month period show a high degree of precision and recall of this approach compared to other keyword-based methods for sentiment analysis. Moreover, utilizing the big data processing tools such as Hive and Pig shows that these tools have a shorter response time than the traditional data processing methods for pre-processing, classifications and sentiment analysis of collected tweets.
Keywords
Main Subjects
Chen, C.P. and Zhang, C.Y., 2014. Data-intensive applications, challenges, techniques and technologies: A survey on Big Data. Information sciences, 275, pp.314-347.
Pang, B. and Lee, L., 2008. Opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Foundations and Trends® in Information Retrieval, 2(1–2), pp.1-135.
Birjali, M., Beni-Hssane, A. and Erritali, M., 2017. Machine learning and semantic sentiment analysis based algorithms for suicide sentiment prediction in social networks. Procedia Computer Science, 113, pp.65-72.
Öztürk, N. and Ayvaz, S., 2018. Sentiment analysis on Twitter: A text mining approach to the Syrian refugee crisis. Telematics and Informatics, 35(1), pp.136-147.
Pandey, A.C., Rajpoot, D.S. and Saraswat, M., 2017. Twitter sentiment analysis using hybrid cuckoo search method. Information Processing & Management, 53(4), pp.764-779.
Xiong, S., Lv, H., Zhao, W. and Ji, D., 2018. Towards Twitter sentiment classification by multi-level sentiment-enriched word embeddings. Neurocomputing, 275, pp.2459-2466.
Morente-Molinera, J.A., Kou, G., Peng, Y., Torres-Albero, C. and Herrera-Viedma, E., 2018. Analysing discussions in social networks using group decision making methods and sentiment analysis. Information Sciences, 447, pp.157-168.
Araque, O., Corcuera-Platas, I., Sanchez-Rada, J.F. and Iglesias, C.A., 2017. Enhancing deep learning sentiment analysis with ensemble techniques in social applications. Expert Systems with Applications, 77, pp.236-246.
Howells, K. and Ertugan, A., 2017. Applying fuzzy logic for sentiment analysis of social media network data in marketing. Procedia computer science, 120, pp.664-670.
Wang, X., Zhang, C., Ji, Y., Sun, L., Wu, L. and Bao, Z., 2013, April. A depression detection model based on sentiment analysis in micro-blog social network. In Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (pp. 201-213). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Yu, Y. and Wang, X., 2015. World Cup 2014 in the Twitter World: A big data analysis of sentiments in US sports fans’ tweets. Computers in Human Behavior, 48, pp.392-400.
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0-387-30164-8_652, Last accessed on April 2019.
Pak, A. and Paroubek, P., 2010, May. Twitter as a corpus for sentiment analysis and opinion mining. In LREc, Vol. 10, No. 2010, pp. 1320-1326. | https://jacet.srbiau.ac.ir/article_14116.html |
---
author:
- 'D. R. Parisi,[@inst1; @inst2][^1] P. A. Negri[@inst2; @inst3][^2]'
title: Sequential evacuation strategy for multiple rooms toward the same means of egress
---
Introduction {#sec:introduction}
============
A quick and safe evacuation of a building when threats or hazards are present, whether natural or man-made, is of enormous interest in the field of safety design. Any improvement in this sense would increase evacuation safety, and a greater number of lives could be better protected when fast and efficient total egress is required.
Evacuation from real pedestrian facilities can have different degrees of complexity due to the particular layout, functionality, means of escape, occupation and evacuation plans. During the last two decades, modeling and simulation of pedestrian movements have developed into a new approach to the study of this kind of system. Basic research on evacuation dynamics has started with the simplest problem of evacuation from a room through a single door. This “building block” problem of pedestrian evacuation has extensively been studied in the bibliography, for example, experimetally [@Kretz:2006; @Seyfried:2009], or by using the social force model [@Helbing:2000; @Parisi:2005; @Parisi:2007], and cellular automata models [@Kirchner:2002; @Burstedde:2001; @Song:2006], among many others.
As a next step, we propose investigating the egress from multiple rooms toward a single means of egress, such as a hallway or corridor. Examples of this configuration are schools and universities where several classrooms open into a single hallway, cinema complexes, museums, office buildings, and the evacuation of different building floors via the same staircase. The key variable in this kind of system is the timing (simultaneity) at which the different occupants of individual rooms go toward the common means of egress. Clearly, this means of egress has a certain capacity that can be rapidly exceeded if all rooms are evacuated simultaneously and thus, the total evacuation time can be suboptimal. So, it is valid to ask in what order the different rooms should be evacuated.
The answer to this question is not obvious. Depending on the synchronization and order in which the individual rooms are evacuated, the hallway can be saturated in different sectors, which could hinder the exit from some rooms and thus, the corresponding flow rate of people will be limited by the degree of saturation of the hallway. This is because density is a limitation for speed. The relationship between density and velocity in a crowd is called “fundamental diagram of pedestrian traffic” [@Weidmann:1993; @Fruin:1971; @Seyfried:2005; @DiNenno:2002; @Helbing:2007; @pednet]. Therefore, the performance of the egress from each room will depend on the density of people in the hallway, which is difficult to predict from analytical methods. This type of analysis is limited to simple cases such as simultaneous evacuation of all rooms, assuming a maximum degree of saturation on the stairs. An example of an analytical resolution for this simple case can be seen in Ref. [@DiNenno:2002], on chapter 3-14, where the egress from a multistory building is studied.
From now on we will analyze a 2D version of this particular case: an office building with 7 floors being evacuated through the same staircase, which is just an example of the general problem of several rooms evacuating through a common means of egress.
Description of the evacuation process {#subsec:DescEvac}
-------------------------------------
The evacuation process comprises two periods:
- $E_1$, reaction time indicating the time period between the onset of a threat or incident and the instant when the occupants of the building begin to evacuate.
- $E_2$, the evacuation time itself is measured from the beginning of the egress, when the first person starts to exit, until the last person is able leave the building.
$E_1$ can be subdivided into: time to detect danger, report to building manager, decision-making of the person responsible for starting the evacuation, and the time it takes to activate the alarm. These times are of variable duration depending on the usage given to the building, the day and time of the event, the occupants training, the proper functioning of the alarm system, etc. Because period $E_1$ takes place before the alarm system is triggered, it must be separated from period $E_2$. The duration of $E_1$ is the same for the whole building. In consequence, for the present study only the evacuation process itself described as period $E_2$ is considered. The total time of a real complete evacuation will be necessarily longer depending on the duration of $E_1$.
Hypothesis
----------
This subsection defines the scope and conditions that are assumed for the system.
1. The study only considers period $E_2$ (the evacuation process itself) described in subsection \[sec:introduction\] \[subsec:DescEvac\] above.
2. All floors have the same priority for evacuation. The case in which there is a fire at some intermediate floor is not considered.
3. The main aspect to be analyzed is the movement of people who follow the evacuation plan. Other aspects of safety such as types of doors, materials, electrical installation, ventilation system, storage of toxic products, etc., are not included in the present analysis.
4. After the alarm is triggered on each floor, the egress begins under conditions similar to those of a fire drill, namely:
- People walk under normal conditions, without running.
- If high densities are produced, people wait without pushing.
- Exits are free and the doors are wide open.
- The evacuation plan is properly signaled.
- People start to evacuate when the alarm is activated on their own floor, following the evacuation signals.
- There is good visibility.
Simulations {#sec:simul}
===========
The model
---------
The physical model implemented is the one described in [@Parisi:2009], which is a modification of the social force model (SFM) [@Helbing:2000]. This modification allows a better approximation to the fundamental diagram of Ref. [@DiNenno:2002], commonly used in the design of pedestrian facilities.
The SFM is a continuous-space and force-based model that describes the dynamics considering the forces exerted over each particle ($p_{i}$). Its Newton equation reads
$$m_i \mathbf{a}_{i}= \mathbf{F}_{Di}+\mathbf{F}_{Si}+\mathbf{F}_{Ci},
\label{Newton}$$
where $\mathbf{a}_{i}$ is the acceleration of particle $p_{i}$. The equations are solved using standard molecular dynamics techniques. The three forces are: “Driving Force” ($\mathbf{F}_{Di} $), “Social Force” ($\mathbf{F}_{Si}$) and “Contact Force”($\mathbf{F}_{Ci}$). The corresponding expressions are as follows
$$\mathbf{F}_{Di}=m_{i}~\frac{(v_{di}~\mathbf{e}_{i}-\mathbf{v}_{i})}{\tau },
\label{F_D}$$
where $m_{i}$ is the particle mass, $\mathbf{v}_{i}$ and $v_{di}$ are the actual velocity and the desired velocity magnitude, respectively. $\mathbf{e}_{i}$ is the unit vector pointing to the desired target (particles inside the corridors or rooms have their targets located at the closest position over the line of the exit door), $\tau $ is a constant related to the time needed for the particle to achieve $v_{d}$.
$$\mathbf{F}_{Si}=\sum_{j=1,j\neq i}^{N_\text{p}}~A~\exp \left(\frac{-\epsilon _{ij}}{B}
\right)~\mathbf{e}_{ij}^{n},
\label{F_S}$$
with $N_\text{p}$ being the total number of pedestrians in the system, $A$ and $B$ are constants that determine the strength and range of the social interaction, $\mathbf{e}_{ij}^{n}$ is the unit vector pointing from particle $p_{j}$ to $p_{i}$; this direction is the “normal” direction between two particles, and $\epsilon_{ij}$ is defined as
$$\epsilon _{ij}=r_{ij}-(R_{i}+R_{j}),$$
where $r_{ij}$ is the distance between the centers of $p_{i}$ and $p_{j}$ and $R$ is their corresponding particle radius.
$$\begin{aligned}
&\mathbf{F}_{Ci}=\\
&\sum_{j=1,j\neq i}^{N_\text{p}}\left[ (-\epsilon_{ij}~k_{n})~\mathbf{e}_{ij}^{n}+({v}_{ij}^{t}~\epsilon_{ij}~k_{t})~\mathbf{e}_{ij}^{t}\right] ~g(\epsilon_{ij}),
\label{F_C}\notag\end{aligned}$$
where the tangential unit vector ($\mathbf{e}_{ij}^{t}$) indicates the corresponding perpendicular direction, $k_{n}$ and $k_{t}$ are the normal and tangential elastic restorative constants, $v_{ij}^{t}$ is the tangential projection of the relative velocity seen from $p_{j}$($\mathbf{v}_{ij}=\mathbf{v}_{i}-\mathbf{v}_{j}$), and the function $g(\epsilon _{ij})$ is: $g=1$ if $\epsilon_{ij}<0 $ or $g=0$ otherwise.
Because this version of the SFM does not provide any self-stopping mechanism for the particles, it cannot reproduce the fundamental diagram of pedestrian traffic as shown in Ref. [@Parisi:2009]. In consequence, the modification consists in providing virtual pedestrians with a way to stop pushing other pedestrians. This is achieved by incorporating a semicircular respect area close to and ahead of the particle ($p_i$). While any other pedestrian is inside this area, the desired velocity of pedestrians ($p_i$) is set equal to zero ($v_{di}~=~0$). For further details and benefits of this modification to the SFM, we refer the reader to Ref. [@Parisi:2009].
The kind of model used allows one to define the pedestrian characteristics individually. Following standard pedestrian dynamics bibliography (see, for example, [@Helbing:2000; @Parisi:2005; @Parisi:2007; @Parisi:2009]), we considered independent and uniform distributed values between the ranges: pedestrian mass $m~\epsilon~$\[70 kg, 90 kg\]; shoulder width $d~\epsilon~$\[48 cm, 56 cm\]; desired velocity $~v_d~\epsilon~$\[1.1 m/s, 1.5 m/s\]; and the constant values are: $\tau=0.5$ s, $A=2000$ N, $B=0.08$ m, $k_n=1.2~10^5$ N/m, $k_t=2.4~10^5$ kg/m/s.
Beyond the microscopic model, pedestrian behavior simply consists in moving toward the exit of the room and then toward the exit of the hallway, following the evacuation plan.
From the simulations, all the positions and velocities of the virtual pedestrians were recorded every 0.1 second. From these data, it is possible to calculate several outputs; in the present work we focused on evacuation times.
Definition of the system under study {#subsec:definitionSyste}
------------------------------------
As a case study, we have chosen that of a medium-rise office building with $N=7$, $N$ being the number of floors. This system was studied analytically in Chapter 3-14 in Ref. [@DiNenno:2002], only for the case of simultaneous evacuation of all floors.
The building has two fire escapes in a symmetric architecture. At each level, there are 300 occupants. Exploiting the symmetric configuration, we will only consider the egress of 150 persons toward one of the stairs. Thus, on each floor, 150 people are initially placed along the central corridor that is 1.2 m wide and 45 m long. In total, 1050 pedestrians are considered for simulating the system.
For the sake of simplicity, we define a two-dimensional version of a building where the central corridors of all the floors and the staircase are considered to be on the same plane as shown in Fig. \[figure2\].
![Schematic of the two-dimensional system to be simulated. Each black dot indicates one person.[]{data-label="figure2"}](2dbuilding.pdf){width="45.00000%"}
The central corridors can be identified with the “rooms” of the general problem described in section \[sec:introduction\] and the staircase is the common means of egress. The effective width of the stairway is 1.4 m. The central corridors of each floor are separated by 10.66 m. This separation arises from adding the horizontal distance of the steps and the landings between floors in the 3D system [@DiNenno:2002]. So the distance between two floors in the 2D version of the problem is of the same length as the horizontal distance that a person should walk, also between two floors, along the stairway in the 3D building.
Evacuation strategies
---------------------
The objective of proposing a strategy in which different floors start their evacuation at different times is to investigate whether this method allows an improvement over the standard procedure, which is the simultaneous evacuation of all floors.
The parameters to be varied in the study are the following:
- The order in which the different levels are evacuated. In this sense, we study two procedures: a.1) “Bottom-Up”: indicates that the evacuation begins on the lowest ($1^{st}$) floor and then follows in order to the immediately superior floors. a.2) “Top-Down” indicates that the evacuation begins on the top floor ($7^{th}$, in this case), and continues to the next lower floor, until the $1^{st}$ floor is finally evacuated.
- The time delay $dt$ between the start of the evacuation of two consecutive floors. This could be implemented in a real system through a segmented alarm system for each floor, which triggers the start of the evacuation in an independent way for the corresponding floor.
The initial time, when the first fire alarm is triggered in the building, is defined as $T_0$.
The instant $t_{0~\{BU,TD,SE\}}^f$ indicates the time when the alarm is activated on floor $f$. Subindices $\{BU,TD,SE\}$ are set if the time $t$ belongs to the Bottom-Up, Top-Down, or Simultaneous Evacuation strategies, respectively.
The Bottom-Up strategy establishes that the $1^{st}$ floor is evacuated first: $t_{0~BU}^1=T_0$. Then the alarm on the $2^{nd}$ floor is triggered after $dt$ seconds, $t_{0~BU}^2 = t_{0~BU}^1+dt$, and so on in ascending order up to the $7^{th}$ floor . In general, the time when the alarm is triggered on floor $f$ can be calculated as:
$$t_{0~BU}^f = T_0 + dt \times (f-1).$$
The Top-Down strategy begins the building evacuation on the top floor ($7^{th}$, in this case): $t_{0~TD}^7=T_0$. After a time $dt$, the evacuation of the floor immediately below starts, and so on until the evacuation of the $1^{st}$ floor:
$$t_{0~TD}^f = T_0 + dt \times (N - f).$$
Simultaneous Evacuation is the special case in which $dt=0$ and thus, it considers the alarms on all the floors to be triggered at the same time: $$t_{0~SE}^f =T_0|_{f=1,2,...,7}.$$
Results {#sec:result}
=======
This section presents the results of simulations made by varying the strategy and the time delay between the beginning of the evacuation of the different levels.
Each configuration was simulated five times, and thus, the mean values and standard deviations are reported. This is consistent with reality, because if a drill is repeated in the same building, total evacuation times will not be exactly the same.
Metrics definition {#subsec:definitions}
------------------
Here we define the metrics that will be used to quantify the efficiency of the evacuation process of the system under study.
It is called *Total Evacuation Time (TET)*, starting at $T_0$, when everyone in the building ($150 \times 7 = 1050$ persons) has reached the exit located on the ground floor (see Fig. \[figure2\]), which means that the building is completely evacuated.
The $f^{th}$ *Floor Evacuation Time* ($FET_f$) refers to the time elapsed since initiating the evacuation of floor $f$ until its 150 occupants reach the staircase. It must be noted that this evacuation time does not consider the time elapsed between the access to the staircase and the general exit from the building, nor does it consider as starting time the time at which the evacuation of some other level or of the building in general begins. It only considers the beginning of the evacuation of the current floor. Average Floor Evacuation Time (${FET}$) is the average of the seven $FET_f$.
From these definitions, it follows that $TET > FET_f$ for any floor (even the lowest one).
Simultaneous evacuation strategy {#subsec:SimultaneousEvac}
--------------------------------
![Snapshot taken at 73 seconds since the start of the simultaneous evacuation, where the queues of different lengths can be observed on each floor.[]{data-label="figure3"}](figure_3.pdf){width="45.00000%"}
In general, the standard methodology consists in evacuating all the floors having the same priority at the same time.
Under these conditions, the capacity of the stairs saturates quickly, and so all floors have a slow evacuation. Figure \[figure3\] shows a snapshot from one simulation of this strategy. Here, the profile of the queues at each level can be observed. The differences in the length of queues are due to differences in the temporal evolution of density in front of each door.
In this evacuation scheme, the first level that can be emptied is the $1^{st}$ floor ($105 \pm 6$ s) and the last one is the $6^{th}$ floor ($259 \pm 3$ s).
The Total Evacuation Time (*TET*) of the building for this configuration is $316 \pm 8$ s, and the mean Floor Evacuation Time (${FET}$) is $195 \pm 55$ s.
For reference, the independent evacuation of a single floor toward the stairs was also simulated. It was found that the evacuation time of only one level toward the empty stair is $65 \pm 4$ s.
Bottom-Up strategy
------------------
\[c\]\[c\][${FET}$]{} \[c\]\[c\][*TET*]{}
Figure \[figure4\](a) shows the evacuation times for different time delays $dt$ following the Bottom-Up strategy.
It can be seen that the Total Evacuation Time (*TET*) remains constant for time delays ($dt$) up to 30 seconds. Therefore, *TET* is the same as the simultaneous evacuation strategy ($dt = 0$ s) in this range. It is worth noting that 30 seconds is approximately one half of the time needed to evacuate a floor if the staircase were empty.
Furthermore, the mean Floor Evacuation Time (${FET}$) declines as $dt$ increases, reaching the asymptotic value for $65$ seconds, which is the evacuation time of a single floor considering the empty stairway. As expected, if the levels are evacuated one at a time, with a time delay greater than the duration of the evacuation time of one floor, the system is at the limit of decoupled or independent levels. In these cases, *TET* increases linearly with $dt$.
Since *TET* is the same for $dt < 30$ s and ${FET}$ is significantly improved (it is reduced by half) for $dt = 30$ s, this phase shift can be taken as the best value, for this strategy, to evacuate this particular building.
This result is surprising because the *TET* of the building is not affected by systematic delays ($dt$) at the start of the evacuation of each floor if $dt \leq 30$ s, which reaches up to 180 seconds for the floor that further delays the start of the evacuation.
More details can be obtained by looking at the discharge curves corresponding to one realization of the building egress simulation. The evacuation of the first 140 pedestrians (93%) of each floor is analyzed by plotting the occupation as a function of time in Fig. \[figurePop\] for three time delays between the relevant range $dt~\epsilon[0, 30]$. For $dt=0$ \[Fig. \[figurePop\](a)\] there is an initial transient of about 10 seconds in which every floor can be evacuated toward a free part of the staircase before reaching the congestion due to the evacuation of lower levels. After that, it can be seen that the egress time of different floors has important variations, the lower floors ($1^{st}$ and $2^{nd}$) being the ones that evacuate quicker and intermediate floors such as $5^{th}$ and $6^{th}$ the ones that take longer to evacuate. After an intermediate situation for $dt=15$ s \[Fig. \[figurePop\](b)\] we can observe the population profiles for the optimum phase shift of $dt=30$ in Fig. \[figurePop\](c). There, it can be seen that the first 140 occupants of different floors evacuate uniformly and very little perturbation from one to another is observed.
In the curves shown in Fig. \[figurePop\], the derivative of the population curve is the flow rate, meaning that low slopes (almost horizontal parts of the curve such as the one observed in Fig. \[figurePop\](a) for the $5^{th}$ floor between 40 and 100 s) can be identified with lower velocities and higher waiting time for the evacuating people. Because of the fundamental diagram, we know that lower velocities indicate higher densities. In consequence, we can say that the greater the slope of the population curves, the greater the comfort of the evacuation (more velocity, less waiting time, less density). Therefore, it is clear that the situation displayed in Fig. \[figurePop\](c) is much more comfortable than the one in Fig. \[figurePop\](a).
{width="95.00000%"}
In short, for the Bottom-Up strategy, the time delay $dt=30$ s minimizes the perturbation among evacuating pedestrians from successive levels; it reduces ${FET}$ to one half of the simultaneous strategy ($dt=0$ s); it maintains the total evacuation time (*TET*) at the minimum and, overall, it exploits the maximum capacity of the staircase maintaining each pedestrian’s evacuation time at a minimum. This result is highly beneficial for the general system and for each floor, because it can avoid situations generating impatience due to waiting for gaining access to the staircase.
Top-Down strategy
-----------------
Figure \[figure4\](b) shows the variation of *TET* and ${FET}$, as a function of the time delay $dt$, for the Top-Down strategy.
It must be noted that *TET* increases monotonously for all $dt$, which is sufficient to rule out this evacuation scheme.
In addition, for $dt < 15$ s, ${FET}$ also increased, peaking at $dt = 15$ s. It can be said that for the system studied, the Top-Down strategy with a time delay of $dt = 15$ s leads to the worst case scenario.
For $15$ s $< dt < 45$ s, there is a change of regime in which ${FET}$ decreases and *TET* stabilizes.
For values of $dt > 45$ s, ${FET}$ reaches the limit of independent evacuation of a single floor (see section \[sec:result\]\[subsec:SimultaneousEvac\]). And the TET of the building increases linearly due to the increasing delays between the start of the evacuation of the different floors.
In summary, the Top-Down Strategy does not present any improvement with respect to the standard strategy of simultaneous evacuation of all floors ($dt = 0$).
Conclusions {#sec:conclusions}
===========
In this paper, we studied the evacuation of several pedestrian reservoirs (“rooms”) toward the same means of egress (“hallway”). In particular, we focused on an example, namely, a multistory building in which different floors are evacuated toward the staircase. We studied various strategies using computer simulations of people’s movement.
A new methodology, consisting in the sequential evacuation of the different floors (after a time delay $dt$) is proposed and compared to the commonly used strategy in which all the floors begin to evacuate simultaneously.
For the system under consideration, the present study shows that if a strategy of sequential evacuation of levels begins with the evacuation of the $1^{st}$ floor and, after a delay of 30 seconds (in this particular case, $30$ s is approximately one half of the time needed to evacuate only one floor if the staircase were empty), it follows with the evacuation of the $2^{nd}$ floor and so on (Bottom-Up strategy), the quality of the overall evacuation process improves. From the standpoint of the evacuation of the building, *TET* is the same as that for the reference state. However, if ${FET}$ is considered, there is a significant improvement since it falls to about half. This will make each person more comfortable during an evacuation, reducing the waiting time and thus, the probability of causing anxiety that may bring undesirable consequences.
So, one important general conclusion is that a sequential Bottom-Up strategy with a certain phase shift can improve the quality of the evacuation of a building of medium height.
On the other hand, the simulations show that the sequential Top-Down strategy is unwise for any time delay ($dt$). In particular, for the system studied, the value $dt = 15$ s leads to a very poor evacuation since the *TET* is greater than that of the reference, and it maximizes ${FET}$ (which is also higher than the reference value at $dt = 0$). In consequence, the present study reveals that this would be a bad strategy that should be avoided.
The perspectives for future work are to generalize this study to buildings with an arbitrary number of floors (tall buildings), seeking new strategies. We also intend to analyze strategies where some intermediate floor must be evacuated first (e.g., in case of a fire) and then the rest of the floors.
The results of the present research could form the basis for developing new and innovative alarm systems and evacuation strategies aimed at enhancing the comfort and security conditions for people who must evacuate from pedestrian facilities, such us multistory buildings, schools, universities, and other systems in which several “rooms” share a common means of escape.
This work was financially supported by Grant PICT2011 - 1238 (ANPCyT, Argentina).
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[^1]: E-mail: [email protected]
[^2]: E-mail: [email protected]
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Q:
The $S$-unit equation for functions on curves
Let $X$ be a smooth projective connected curve over a number field $k$, and let $S \neq \emptyset$ be a finite set of closed points of $X$. The curve $Y = X \setminus S$ is affine, and we denote by $R$ the $k$-algebra of regular functions on $Y$.
The $S$-unit equation for $k(X)$ is the equation $f+g =1$, with $f,g \in R^\times \setminus k^\times$; in other words $f$ and $g$ are two non-constant rational functions on $X$ whose zeros and poles are contained in $S$.
For example, in the case $Y = \mathbb{P}^1 \setminus \{0,1,\infty\}$, the pair of functions $(f,g) = (t,1-t)$ is a solution of the $S$-unit equation. In fact, if $f$ is an homography preserving $\{0,1,\infty\}$ then $1-f$ has the same property, and $(f,1-f)$ is a solution. So there are at least 6 solutions.
Mason proved that there exists an effecitve bound (depending on the cardinality of $S$ and the genus of $X$) on the degrees of the possible solutions $f,g$; see e.g. Zannier, Some remarks on the $S$-unit equation in function fields, Acta Arith. 64 (1993) no. 1, 87--98.
Is it expected that the number of solutions $(f,g)$ is actually finite? Are there methods or algorithms to find these solutions in practice?
I am interested in the following particular cases:
$X=E$ is an elliptic curve and $S$ is a finite subgroup of $E$;
$X$ is a modular curve and $S$ is the set of cusps of $X$.
A:
The set of solutions to the $S$-unit equation for $k(X)$ is finite. Let me explain why. (You can "theoretically" find all solutions, as the finiteness eventually boils down to the "effective" finiteness result of de Franchis-Severi on maps of curves.)
Let $k$ be a number field, let $X$ be a smooth projective geometrically connected curve over $k$, let $S$ be a finite set of closed points of $X$, and let $Y := X \setminus S$. Let $R = \mathcal{O}(Y)$.
Claim. The set of solutions $(f,g)$ of the $S$-unit equation $f+g =1$ for $X$ (with $f$ and $g$ thus in $R^\times \setminus k^\times $ ) is in bijection with the set of non-constant morphisms $Y\to \mathbb{P}^1_k \setminus \{0,1,\infty\}$.
Proof of Claim. Let $(f,g)$ be a solution of the $S$-unit equation in $k(X)$. Then $f:Y\to \mathbb{G}_{m,k}$ is a non-constant morphism such that $1-f$ also defines a morphism to $\mathbb{G}_{m,k}$. Thus $f(Y) \subset \mathbb{G}_{m,k} \setminus \{1\}$. Conversely, if $f$ is a non-constant morphism from $Y$ to $\mathbb{P}^1_{k}\setminus \{0,1,\infty\}$, then $1-f$ is also such a morphism. This concludes the proof. QED
Let $K$ be an algebraic closure of $k$. Note that $Hom_k(Y,C) \subset Hom_K(Y_K,C_K)$. Thus,
to answer your question, we can work over an algebraically closed field $K$ of characteristic zero. (That is, you can as well let $k$ be any field of characteristic zero.)
The finiteness of the set of solutions will boil down to finiteness results for hyperbolic curves.
Let me recall what a hyperbolic curve is. From now on, let $K$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero.
Hyperbolic curves. Let $C$ be a smooth quasi-projective connected curve over $K$. We say that $C$ is hyperbolic if $2g(\overline{C}) - 2 + \#( \overline{C}\setminus C )>0$. Equivalently, $C$ is non-hyperbolic if and only if $C$ is isomorphic to $\mathbb{P}^1_K$, $\mathbb{A}^1_K, \mathbb{A}^1_{K}\setminus \{0\}$, or a smooth proper connected genus one curve over $K$.
We will need the following topological lemma on hyperbolic curves. (For your purposes we really just need that $\mathbb{P}^1_k\setminus \{0,1,\infty\}$ has a finite etale cover of genus at least two. This can be proven by considering $\mathbb{P}^1_k\setminus \{0,1,\infty\}$ as an (open) modular curve and taking a modular curve of high enough (even) level.
Topological Lemma. If $C$ is a hyperbolic curve over $K$, then there is a finite etale morphism $D\to C$ with $D$ a smooth quasi-projective connected curve over $D$ such that the genus of $\overline{D}$ is at least two. (This is obvious if $\overline{C}$ itself is of genus at least two. Thus, we reduce to the case that $C = \mathbb{P}^1_K\setminus \{0,1,\infty\}$ or that $C $ is $E\setminus \{0\}$ with $0$ the origin on an $E$ an elliptic curve over $K$. In these two cases, one can explicitly construct $D$.
Hyperbolic curves satisfy many finiteness properties. One of them is the following version of the theorem of De Franchis-Severi. An integral quasi-projective curve is of log-general type if its normalization is of log-general type, i.e., hyperbolic.
Theorem. [De Franchis-Severi] Let $C$ be an integral quasi-projective curve over $K$ whose normalization is of log-general type. Then, for every integral quasi-projective curve $Y$ over $K$, the set of non-constant morphisms $Y\to C$ is finite.
Proof of Theorem. Note that the normalization $\widetilde{Y}\to Y$ is surjective. Therefore, replacing $Y$ by its normalization if necessary, we may and do assume that $Y$ is smooth. Now, every non-constant morphism $Y\to C$ is dominant and will factor uniquely over the normalization of $C$. Thus, we may and do assume that $C$ is smooth.
Now, we use the Topological Lemma. Thus, let $D\to C$ be a finite etale morphism with $D$ of genus at least two. Let $d:=\deg(D/C)$. If $Y\to C$ is a morphism, then the pull-back $Y':=Y\times_C D$ is finite etale of degree $d$ over $Y$. Since $K$ is algebraically closed of characteristic zero, the set of $Y$-isomorphism classes of finite etale covers $Y'\to Y$ of degree $d$ is finite. Thus, we may and do assume that $C=D$. Now, note that every non-constant morphism $Y\to C$ extends to a non-constant morphism $\overline{Y}\to \overline{C}$. However, there are only finitely many such maps as $\overline{C}$ is of genus at least two. QED
Remark. In the last paragraph of the previous proof we use the finiteness theorem of de Franchis-Severi for compact connected Riemann surfaces of genus at least two. (It just happens to be that this "compact" version implies the analogous "affine" version. This is no longer true in higher dimensions.) The "compact" finiteness result also holds in higher dimensions: if $C$ is a proper variety of general type and $Y$ is a proper variety, then the set of dominant rational maps $Y\dashrightarrow C$ is finite. This was proven by Kobayashi-Ochiai. (You can use this to show that, for every integral quasi-projective variety $Y$ over $K$, the set of non-constant morphisms $Y\to \mathbb{P}^1_K\setminus\{0,1,\infty\}$ is finite.)
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Note that there is also an entire section devoted to modeling correlation (explaining more advanced methods).
Replace the n observed values for the two variables X, Y by their ranking: the largest value for each variable has a rank of 1, the smallest a rank of n or vice versa. The Excel function RANK( ) can do this, but it is inaccurate where there are ties, i.e. where two or more observations have the same value. In such cases, one should assign to each of the same-valued observations the average of the ranks they would have had if they had been infinitesimally different from the value they take.
and where ui, vi are the ranks of the ith observation in samples 1 and 2 respectively. This calculation does not require that one identify which variable is dependent and which is independent: the calculation for r is symmetric so X and Y could swap places with no effect on the value of r. The value of r varies from -1 to 1 in the same way as the least squares regression coefficient r. A value of r close to -1 and 1 means that the variables are highly negatively and positively correlated respectively. A value of r close to zero means that there is no correlation between the variables.
which approximates to a t-distribution with (n-2) degrees of freedom. | https://www.vosesoftware.com/riskwiki/RankOrderCorrelationCoefficient.php |
Blog: Understanding The simple Maths behind Simple Linear Regression.
Not a lot of people like Maths and for good reasons. I’m not exactly fond of it, but I try to keep afresh with the basics:- Algebra, Line-Graphs, Trig, pre-calculus e.t.c. Thanks to platforms like Khan Academy… Learning Maths could be fun.
This article is for anyone interested in Machine Learning, ideally for beginners, new to Supervised Learning Technique- Regression.
Some may argue that Data Science and ML can be done without the Maths, I’m not here to refute that premise, but I’m saying one needs to find time to look beneath the hood of some of the tools and abstractions we use daily, to have a better intuition for heuristics.
Linear Regression as we already know, refers to the use of one or more independent variables to predict a dependent variable. A dependent variable must be continuous such as predicting Co2_Emissions, age or salaries of workers, tomorrow’s temperature e.t.c. While independent variables may be continuous or categorical.
We shall concentrate on Simple Linear Regression (SLR)in this article. SLR is arguably the most intuitive and ubiquitous Machine Learning Algorithm out there.
In Machine Learning, a model can be thought as a mathematical equation used to Predict a value, given one or more other values.
Usually the more relevant data you have, the more accurate your model is.
The image above, depicts a Simple Linear Regression Model (SLR). It is called Simple Linear Regression because only one feature or independent variable is used to predict a given label or target. In this case, only Engine_Size is used to predict Co2_Emissions. If we had more than one predictor, then we’d refer to it as Multiple Linear Regression (MLR).
The red line in the image above represents the model. It is a straight line that best fits the data. Thus the model is a mathematical equation that tries to predict the Co2_Emissions (dependent variable), given the Engine_size(independent variable).
The aim of this article is to create a better intuition to SLR, to make us more comfortable with the concept and its internal workings. It’s just simple Maths. Anyone can figure it out. One effective way to start is from the known to the unknown… So let’s go back to High school for a second.
y = mx + b
The Slope-Intercept form (y=mx+b) is a linear equation that applies directly in form, to Simple Linear Regression
y = The value on the y-axis
m = The Slope or gradient of the line(change in y / change in x)
x = The value on the x-axis
b = The y-intercept or the value of y when x is 0
A linear equation is an equation wherein if we plot all the values for x and y, the plot will be a perfect straight line on the coordinate plane.
Therefore the Slope-Intercept form states that for any straight line on the coordinate plane, the value of y is the product of the slope of the line m, and the value of x plus the y-intercept of the line b.
y = mx + b
Okay, back to Simple Linear Regression… The SLR model is identical to the Slope-Intercept form equation we saw above, the only difference is that we denote our label or dependent variable that we want to predict as y and we represent our weights or model parameters as m and b and our independent variable or feature as x.
In Simple Linear Regression:
y = wx + b
Which is same as:
y = b + wx
Which is same as:
y = b0 + b1x1
Where:-
y = The dependent or target variable.(aka, the prediction or y_hat)
x = The independent or predictor variable. (aka, x1).
b0 = The y-intercept. (aka bias unit).
b1 = The Slope or Gradient of the Regression Line
And just like the Slope-Intercept form(y = mx + b), as long as the independent variable(x) and the dependent variable(y) have a Linear relationship, whether the relationship is positive or negative, we can always predict y given the weights (b0 and b1).
The Most Fundamental Questions are:-
1. How can we tell if an independent variable has a Linear relationship , whether positive or negative, with a dependent variable that we want to predict?
Because in Linear Regression(whether Simple or Multiple), there must be a Linear relationship between the independent or predictor variable(s) and the dependent or target variable.
2. How can we choose the best line for our SLR model? In other words, how can we find the ideal values for b0 and b1 such that they produce the best prediction line, given our independent and dependent variables?
How to verify if a Linear Relationship exists between two variables.
Ever heard the term ‘Correlation’ ??
In other words, correlation tries to tell us if a change in one variable affects the other or could cause a change in the other variable, and to what extent.
For Example if an increase in Engine_Size of a car likely leads to some increase in Co2_Emissions, then they are positively correlated. But if an increase in COMB_(mpg), likely leads to some decrease in C02_Emissions, then COMB_(mpg) and C02_Emissions are negatively correlated. If no likely relationship exists, then Statisticians say there is a weak correlation between them.
Correlation produces a number between -1 and 1. If the number is close to -1 it denotes a strong negative relationship, if it’s close to 1, it denotes a strong positive relationship, and if it’s just around 0, it denotes a weak relationship between the variables.
If the correlation has an absolute value above 0.6, it shows a Linear relationship exists between the variables.
The Linear relationship could be negative(if the correlation is negative) or positive.
Correlation or Pearson’s correlation is denoted by symbol r
‘ Remember Correlation does not imply Causation… ’
Let’s Play With Some Real Data…
We shall use the Fuel consumption ratings data set for car sales in Canada. (Original Fuel Consumption Ratings 2000–2014). But frankly, any popular data set for Regression analysis will suffice.
The Data set has been downloaded to Google drive so let’s import it to colab.
A little EDA to get a feel of the Data set…
let’s confirm the shape, column data types and check if NaN values exist.
Correlation
For SLR, we want to predict Co2_Emissions(dependent variable) using only one feature or variable from the data set. Let’s view the correlation of variables in our Data set, so we can pick a strong independent variable.
Clearly, variables with the best correlation figures with Co2_Emissions are:- Fuel_Cons_City(0.92) , COMB_(mpg)(0.92) and Engine_Size(0.83). Let’s visualize each relationship.
All three variables have a strong Positive Linear Relationship with CO2_Emissions. I choose ENGINE_SIZE(L) as my independent variable for this exercise. You’re free to choose any one of them.
Now it’s time to answer the second fundamental question.
The best value for parameters b0 and b1 would be the value that minimizes the Mean Squared Error (MSE).
What is The MSE?
The Mean Squared Error is simply the sum of the squared differences between each predicted value and each actual value, divided by the total number of observations.
Here, an observation is a specific row of data. An example, is simply a pair of a given Engine_Size value and it’s corresponding CO2_Emissions value. Remember, the data set contains 14343 examples / observations.
So how can we find the ideal values for b0 and b1 that would produce the least MSE for our SLR Model?
Cheesy… First, we find the value of b1(slope) using a simple Mathematical formula. Then we substitute b1 in the SLR equation (y = b0 + b1x1), to find the value of b0(intercept or bias unit)… And that’s it.
The Slope formula for calculating b1(slope) in Simple Linear Regression is:-
where:
n (is the total number of observations)
x (The independent variable, Engine Size, which is an n * 1 column vector)
y (The dependent variable, Co2_Emissions, which is an n * 1 column vector)
i = 1 (refers to first observation in the data set. Note: i goes from 1 up to n)
xi (The ith observation of x)
x_bar (The mean or average of x)
yi (The ith observation of y)
y_bar (The mean or average of y)
In Summary
To find b1, we divide the Numerator of the slope formula by the Denominator.
The Numerator is simply the sum from i equals 1 through n for each value of xi minus x_bar, multiplied by the corresponding value of yi minus y_bar.
The Denominator is simply the sum from i equals 1 through n of the squared differences between each value of xi and x_bar.
Let’s solve for b1 or slope using The Slope Formula.
First let’s define our variables:- x and x_bar, as well as y and y_bar
Next let’s define a simple function that takes the variables and returns b1
Next Let’s substitute value of b1 in SLR Equation
Remember that the SLR equation (y = b0 + bixi) is identical to the slope intercept equation (y = b + mx).
Therefore we can use any given value of y and x that we know and substitute the slope (b1) into the SLR equation, to get the y_intercept or b0.
Let’s use the average values x_bar and y_bar.
y = b0 + b1x1
Therefore:
y_bar = b0 + b1(x_bar)
Let’s solve for b0
Therefore:
b0 + b1(x_bar) = y_bar
Finally solving for b0, it can be written as:
b0 = y_bar – b1(x_bar)
Let’s input the values of y_bar, b1 and x_bar to get the value of b0.
In Summary
Solving Mathematically, we can see that the ideal values for model parameters b0 and b1 to give us the best linear fit for our Model is: 119(b0) and 37.28(b1).
Thus our mathematical SLR model is y_hat = 119 + 37.28(x1)
This means if we want to predict the Co2 emission for a car with Engine size 13.5 litres. Our unknown prediction is y_hat. Our predictor is x1, which is 13.5. So all we need do is substitute 13.5 into the equation to find y_hat.
y_hat = 119 + 37.28 * 13.5
y_hat = 622 (rounded to a whole number)
Let’s Compare our Maths Model to an Sklearn Model
First import LinearRegression from sklearn and create a model
Next we make the independent(X) and dependent(Y) variables as 2D arrays. Then we fit/train the model with the X and Y data… And finally we print out the slope(model.coef_) and the intercept(model.intercept_) values
Both the Maths and Sklearn Models have exactly the same parameters b0 and b1, giving credence to the fact that one can solve SLR intuitively without the libraries, especially if it’s a small/medium data set.
Finally,
Evaluation…
How are The Models performing?.
Let’s compare the RMSE for both The Maths and Sklearn Models.
The Root-Mean-Squared-Error is the square root of the MSE and is an ideal metric for measuring the performance of a Linear Regression model.
RMSE can be interpreted right on the same scale as the dependent or target variable and gives a good indicator of how well our model performs. Simply find the range of the target variable and compare the RMSE to it. The lower the RMSE as a percentage of the range, the better the model performance.
Both Models have an MSE of 1110 and RMSE of 33.
But, what does an RMSE of 33 really mean… What can it tell us?
To get the meaning of the RMSE, let’s make it a percentage of the range of the dependent variable. The lower the percent, the better the model.
With an RMSE of 33, our model error is within 7% of the range(487)of the dependent variable(CO2_Emissions)… Which means our SLR Model as simple as it is, is doing good.
Let’s See a Plot of both the Maths and Sklearn Models.
Conclusion
I hope I have been able to show you how Simple Linear Regression works… How Statistics and simple Maths drive this concept.
As you keep on learning, spend more time practicing and applying the concepts.
Cheers. | https://timmccloud.net/blog-understanding-the-simple-maths-behind-simple-linear-regression/ |
For the past several weeks, there’s been a raging debate among pundits and political commentators about what lessons the American left can learn from Bernie Sanders’s defeat.
After Sanders dropped out in early April, I argued that his loss should discredit his campaign’s “political revolution” theory of victory, an approach centered on transforming the electorate by turning out habitual nonvoters. This “Marxist political strategy,” as I termed it, depended on the idea that Bernie’s social democratic policies could motivate young and working-class workers to go to the ballot box — not only winning the election but transforming the very nature of American politics.
On its face, this approach seems to have failed: It was Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders, who rode a multiracial working-class coalition to victory in the primary. And indeed, some observers in the media read the results the same way I did. But many of Sanders’s most prominent supporters, including the head of a left think tank and an editor of a notable left publication, continued to insist that he got it right.
The underlying thinking of the Sanders approach has failed repeatedly in recent years. It failed in the 2020 Democratic primary, in ways that have notable general election implications. It failed in the 2018 midterm elections, where moderate Democrats consistently outperformed progressives in red districts. And it failed in the 2019 British national election, which American leftists themselves set up as a test case for their theories of the US electorate.
What’s going on here, as an article in the flagship socialist magazine Jacobin helpfully concedes, isn’t really an argument about how to win electoral power. It’s an outgrowth of a theory of how progressive policy change happens. Many on the left believe only a working-class movement can win real policy victories; candidates who win with the wrong kind of supporters won’t be able to push through truly transformative policies.
Thinkers on the left are defending a dubious theory of how to win elections, in short, because of a broader ideology that demands they adhere to it. The real debate between left-leaning liberals and the socialist left is not so much about tactical electoral considerations as it about the importance of winning elections itself.
Yes, Sanders and the left’s theory really did fail
When I call the Sanders-left approach “Marxist political strategy,” I want to be clear on what that means.
Marxism, as formulated by either its many canonical thinkers or its modern academic exponents, is not a theory of winning elections. It’s classically concerned with describing how capitalism operates and what might cause the economic system to eventually be replaced.
What the Sanders team and his supporters in left media have done is take a key idea from the Marxist tradition — the idea that any meaningful challenge to entrenched inequality requires an organized, class-conscious workers’ movement — and applied it to the workings of modern American politics.
They believe that in a world of yawning inequality and neoliberal organization of the state, socialist policy has the ability to knit together a new political coalition. Young people, victims of the Great Recession and holders of massive student debt, would turn out in unprecedented numbers for someone promising to help them. The white working class, battered by globalization and a weak social safety net, can get over the racial hang-ups that made Trumpism appealing and join with nonwhite workers in coalition against the millionaires and billionaires.
This is the meaning of Sanders’s oft-touted “political revolution”: that his brand of class-conscious politics could transform the nature of the electorate by bringing in habitual nonvoters, including the young and economically disaffected, and by changing the class makeup of the Democratic Party’s supporters.
This did not emerge during the primary, to put it mildly. Rural and non-college white voters, a key element of Sanders’s strong 2016 performance that made the left theory plausible in the first place, preferred Biden. Sanders failed to make significant inroads with black voters, a key part of any multiracial working-class coalition. Younger voters actually made up a smaller part of the electorate in 2020 than they did in 2016.
Yet Nathan Robinson, editor of the left magazine Current Affairs, argues that this is not a problem for their theory — which was designed to apply only to the general election, not the primary.
“The whole theory the left had was not that the primary was easy to win, but that we would win the general election, because we would be given an opportunity to court independents and the politically disaffected—the kind of people who do not vote in party primaries,” Robinson wrote. “This is what we’ve been saying consistently.”
This isn’t exactly right, either as it relates to the Sanders campaign or even Robinson himself.
In an October piece titled “How to Get Bernie Sanders Elected President of the United States,” Robinson posted a question: “How, then, do we make sure that he gets the Democratic nomination?” His answer, it turned out, put the mobilization of nonvoters first and foremost.
“The success of Bernie Sanders is going to require a ‘nonvoter revolution.’ His appeal is, in large part, not to party loyalists, but to the 70+ percent of people who did not vote in the primaries last time,” Robinson wrote. “Part of your job, then, is to convince jaded nonvoters that Bernie’s candidacy is worth believing in, and then getting them to actually cast a ballot. For nonvoters, this is especially urgent, because many states disenfranchise people by setting absurdly early registration deadlines for voting in primaries.”
On this point, Robinson was in line with the candidate and his top surrogates. At a rally with Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made winning the disaffected central to her vision of victory. “The swing voters that we’re most concerned with are the nonvoters to voters,” she said. “That swing voter is going to win us this election and the general election.”
Sanders agreed. “Alexandria a few minutes ago made the point, and I want to make it again,” he said. “There are a whole lot of folks out there who have given up. ... We can win this Democratic nomination, but we can’t do it without increased involvement in the political process.”
This was not mere rhetoric. Ryan Grim, a reporter at the Intercept, wrote a lengthy feature in January on how the Sanders campaign premised its entire strategy on transforming the electorate along class lines.
“Interviews with dozens of senior campaign officials, volunteers, and Sanders allies” led Grim to this conclusion: “In order for a democratic socialist to win the Democratic Party’s nomination to the White House, Sanders believes he will have to do more than merely persuade a majority of the primary electorate to come out and vote for him. He’ll have to create a new electorate. ... Instead of crafting a platform to fit a coalition, the campaign is trying to create a coalition to fit his platform.”
It wasn’t just the campaign. Jacobin writer Shawn Gude described the Iowa primary as a test of “Sanders’ audacious wager” that “he could build a multiracial working-class base to power a political revolution.” Princeton professor Matt Karp, also writing in Jacobin, made the case for Sanders on the grounds that “the core of Bernie’s support comes from voters with a far more urgent material interest in the social-democratic programs he proposes, and a far clearer position in the class struggle that he has helped bring to the fore.”
This was the Sanders-left approach to the primary. And it failed.
No, Elizabeth Warren doesn’t vindicate Sanders
A second defense of Sanders and his strategy, offered by Karp and Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project, is that Sanders’s success or lack thereof isn’t actually the right benchmark. The fairer move is to compare his campaign to Elizabeth Warren’s, who performed far worse.
In their view, Warren represented a competing model of how a progressive candidate could win — assembling a coalition centering educated suburban whites — that belly-flopped worse than Sanders’s class-based theory.
“Instead of trying to appeal to working class voters as a ‘blood and teeth’ brawler, Warren tried to appeal to professionals and suburbanites as a policy super genius with a cute doggo,” Bruenig writes. “This [got] Warren third place in Iowa, fourth place in New Hampshire and Nevada, and then fifth place in South Carolina.”
There are a number of problems with this argument.
First, the success or failure of Warren’s campaign says nothing about Sanders’s electoral approach. It could be that both Warren and Sanders had incorrect theories about how to win the primary; the fact that one lost doesn’t mean the other is right.
Second, the actual trajectory of Warren’s campaign belies Bruenig’s diagnosis. She rocketed to the top of the primary polls last summer and early fall, when she was running hard as the policy-oriented “plans” candidate. Her decline came after a brutal fight on her single payer position, during which she came under heavy attack from both centrists like Pete Buttigieg and observers in left media.
Warren’s health care debacle wasn’t the result of some kind of mistaken theory of who her supporters were, but rather a combination of poor messaging and sexist double standards. Her defeat, always overdetermined by the fact that Sanders’s post-2016 fame gave him a huge lead among ideologically left-wing voters, doesn’t really work as a test case for a demographic theory in the way his does.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, the role of political strategy was fundamentally different in Warren’s campaign than it was in Sanders’s.
The Sanders campaign didn’t just have a theory of how it would win the primary; it elevated that theory into a central argument for the candidate himself. Sanders and his campaign admitted that their strategy was at odds with the way American politics traditionally operated; they claimed that the candidacy itself would change things. The political revolution was at the core of the campaign, as a matter of both electoral strategy and substance.
By contrast, Warren’s campaign never put a theory of turning out progressive surburbanites at the heart of its appeal. Warren didn’t center claims that she could revolutionize the nature of the primary electorate by shifting longstanding patterns of voting. Her campaign wasn’t ideologically committed to winning the suburbs in the way Sanders was committed to winning the working class, so its messaging and tactics aren’t a good benchmark for judging whether progressives can in fact win in the suburbs.
A better test of that theory is to look at the congressional elections, where candidates have to tailor their message to local demographics. The following chart, from the polling outfit Data for Progress, compares members of the Democratic Party by the demographic makeup of their district and whether they belong to one of two congressional groups — the centrist Blue Dogs or the left-wing Progressive Caucus.
You’ll see progressive candidates have won a number of seats in suburban districts but did comparatively poorly in rural ones. This is at least suggestive evidence that one kind of district is more open to a more left-wing Democratic Party than the other one is.
Sanders’s theory didn’t fail merely because he lost. It failed because of the way he lost: by losing working-class white voters to Biden and being unable to turn out youth voters in big numbers.
There’s no good reason to see the Warren campaign as a similarly strong test case for a competing theory about the progressive suburbs.
The real debate is about ideology
The most interesting contribution to this left’s Bernie postmortem genre came in Jacobin, from Paul Heideman and Hadas Thier. The piece, which discusses one of mine from April, starts by admitting what Sanders’s other defenders didn’t: that the theory of socialist politics’ unique ability to turn out downscale white voters was badly flawed.
“Much of the Left overestimated Bernie’s support with rural white voters coming out of the 2016 primary,” they write. “As Beauchamp points out, it now seems that much of this vote was driven more by antipathy toward Hillary.”
Yet Heideman and Thier do not draw what might seem like the clear conclusion: that the decades-long pattern of rural and working-class white support for left parties across Western democracies has deep roots that can’t be reversed by campaigns. Instead, they argue for putting even more effort into building a working-class movement.
Why? Because, as they put it, “there is no path to the Sanders agenda that does not run through a radicalized working class.” Essentially, they view the task of winning elections as subordinate to the task of building a left-wing working-class movement — and that Sanders’s campaign strategy reflected this ideological commitment rather than pure tactical calculation:
Today, there is no appetite for sweeping reforms like Medicare for All or the Green New Deal among the American ruling class. While in the 1960s, with a wary eye on civil rights insurgency, ruling-class institutions like the Ford Foundation promoted innovative initiatives in social policy, the ruling class of today is far less adventurous. Policies like Medicare for All or a full-employment Green New Deal will find only determined opposition from the Business Roundtable or the Brookings Institution. If these policies are to be enacted, it will be because a working-class insurgency has convinced at least some sectors of capital that they are worthwhile compromises.
This is why Bernie’s campaign prioritized mobilizing working-class voters. The idea that an electorally viable coalition could be created by bringing in working-class voters is a further development of this basic theory of American politics. If the theory is true, then it’s plain why Bernie couldn’t simply pivot to middle-class progressives. Even if doing so were to get him elected, he would be in no position to resist the corporate onslaught against his agenda.
This, to my mind, is the clearest articulation of the actual debate — about both the Sanders campaign and, more broadly, the nature of liberalism and the left in American politics.
Progressive liberals believe the Democratic Party as currently constituted is not perfect, but is a serviceable vehicle for pushing through reforms that can make people’s lives much better. Leftists, by contrast, think the party is a rotten edifice that cannot deliver meaningful reform unless and until it’s forced to by a working-class movement.
Liberals look at Sanders’s campaign and see its failure as the result of a romantic attachment to older models of political organizing, arguing for a need to adapt to an electorate where economics matters far less in determining votes than factors like partisanship, education level, and race. It doesn’t matter that much if the votes for progressive candidates come from the suburbs or the exurbs, so long as the candidates themselves support the right policies.
Leftists argue that they’re actually the hardheaded ones. Liberals are naive about capital’s willingness to allow policies like Medicare-for-all absent workers forcing them to; middle-class voters won’t, by their nature, be able to deliver the right kind of change. Prioritizing short-term electoral victory over movement-building dooms progressives to perpetual political disappointment.
This explains why so many of the defenses of Sanders’s campaign end up being Warren whataboutism or risible claims that his primary strategy wasn’t what it obviously was. The actual underlying commitments on the left here are prior to electoral politics; the real reason to believe in Bernie is not because his campaign had a successful strategy, but because the strategy must be made to succeed eventually if the US is to have any hope at all for a better future.
Settling this argument is beyond the scope of this piece. But one thing I’d like to suggest is that it’s possible these theories aren’t as obviously contradictory as they might seem.
The decline in working-class support for progressive causes is not reversible by means of short-term electoral politics. But it’s possible to imagine candidates who win via the suburbs supporting policies — like ones promoting unionization — that could end up rebuilding a working-class base for left politics down the line. Left-liberal means, socialist ends.
Trying this more indirect route, however, would require the left to more cleanly separate electoral politics from movement-building. They can keep doing the organizing and activism involved in the latter while recognizing that when it comes to the former, strategy needs to be built for the electorate rather than the other way around.
Making this strategy work will require a degree of self-reflection. That starts with admitting that Bernie Sanders did, in fact, fail. | https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/1/21239019/bernie-sanders-electoral-politics-socialism |
Bible Marking Pens and Pencils
One of the most popular questions I’m asked is what kind of pens and pencils I use for writing and marking in my Bible. There are many good markers, highlighters, pens, and pencils available. I’ve used many of them with various marking methods. Here’s my favorite:
I use Pigma Micron markers to write notes in the margins of my wide-margin Bible. They are archival quality and have almost no bleed-through and they don’t smear. They come in several tip-sizes and colors. I use 005 for notes. I use black for chain references, blue for headings, red for textual notes, and green for study systems and memory verses (I circle the verse number if it’s in my memory list). I use pencils for underlining, but if I were using these markers I would use 05. There are other sizes and colors available. You can get them from Amazon in a set of 8 or set of 6 markers.
I use PrismaColor coloring pencils for any highlighting or underlining. PrismaColor do not leave marks in the page and they have very rich colors. It’s best not to use too many colors because it can be difficult to tell them apart.
There are many other choices, but this is my current tool-kit. I’m currently considering a new Bible and a new marking method. I’m sure I’ll continue using these pens, pencils, or both. | https://biblebuyingguide.com/bible-marking-pens-pencils/ |
There is increased attention at the global level to the role that food systems play in shaping diets. This awareness is partly due to the Sustainable Development Goal 2, which aims to eliminate malnutrition in all its forms, and the recognition that poor diets are a leading risk factor in the global burden of disease.
Our understanding of food systems has benefited from research that has:
- explored the link between food systems and nutrition
- presented conceptual frameworks describing the various components of a food system
- prioritized food system-centric programmatic and policy interventions and measures to improve diets and nutrition
Evidence-based policymaking requires sound evidence. It is difficult for governments to make improvements across food systems that are not well understood or measured. At the country level, stakeholders still need a tool that lets them understand their own national food systems, identify key challenges and prioritize actions.
Overview
The food system is the complex network of people and activities involved in getting food from field to fork. It includes everybody – and everything – involved in producing and eating food. Food systems are essential to human well-being, because they affect people’s diets, nutrition, and health.
Dashboards are useful tools that help users visualize and understand key information for complex systems. Users can track progress to see if policies or other interventions are working at a country or regional level.
The Food Systems Dashboard is an innovative tool to describe food systems, diagnose challenges within them, and identify policies and actions for improvement. Using more than 50 sources, it provides data for more than 200 indicators on the drivers, components, and outcomes of food systems in more than 190 countries and territories.
The Dashboard’s publicly available data can be visualized with maps and a variety of graphs or downloaded as a dataset, allowing policy makers, practitioners, and academics alike to track and assess drivers of the food system. The Country Profiles provide a food system “snapshot” that offers context-specific data to inform decision making.
In recent years, the public health and nutrition communities have used dashboards to track the progress of health goals and interventions, including the Sustainable Development Goals. To our knowledge, this is the first dashboard that collects country-level data across all components of the food system.
Goals of the Dashboard
- To improve stakeholders’ awareness of the different food system core components of national food systems — food supply chains, food environments, and consumers — and how these components influence diets and nutrition outcomes
- To enable stakeholders to compare their food systems with those of other countries of a similar food system type,
- To suggest priority areas of action — in the form of policy and program interventions, tools, and investments — for improving food systems’ contribution to diets and nutrition and indicate the food system actors that need to be involved in bringing about the change desired
Project Team
The Dashboard was developed by an international, multi-disciplinary team led by Johns Hopkins University and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. Collaborators include the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Harvard University, City, University of London, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and the Agriculture-Nutrition Community of Practice. | https://bioethics.jhu.edu/research-and-outreach/projects/global-food/current-projects/the-food-systems-dashboard/ |
mutex Provides a locking mechanism with timeout functionality
This extension can be used in case a certain part of your application should only run ONCE at a time. For example you may have a cronjob console command that is executed every minute regardless of how long the action in the cronjob takes. See Mutex article on Wikipedia.
// Check if we have a lock already. If not set one which// expires automatically after 10 minutes.if (Yii::app()->mutex->lock('some-unique-id', 600))
{
// Do some time-expensive stuff here...// sleep(10) as example// and after that release the lock...
Yii::app()->mutex->unlock();
}
else
{
// The lock does already exist so we exitecho"Already working on it...";
exit;
}
The $timeout variable is there to ensure that the lock isn't infinite in case of things like a server crash. Means if you don't define a timeout and unlock() isn't called for some reason, the lock will stay forever.
All locks are represented in a single file. You can change the $mutexFile variable to change the path of this file (defaults to the Yii runtime path + /mutex.bin).
You can also define an $id when unlocking. That means in one cronjob you could setup a lock and in another one you could release that lock. For local created locks (current request), only unlock() works to make sure nested locks will get released in order.
Some more usage examples:
// Waiting for a lock to get released (spin lock)// Make sure to call sleep() inside of the loop, because everytime// you call lock(), the $mutexFile gets read (physical file-access).while (!Yii::app()->mutex->lock('id'))
{
sleep(1);
}
...
Yii::app()->mutex->unlock();
Downloads
If your app uses MySQL database, better use MySQL named locks for that. They will unlock automatically if your thread or even the entire server happens to die prematurely, so there's no need to set a timeout. Just make sure your lock's name is unique throughout the entire MySQL server (which is not very difficult to achieve).
when exception happens from the locked code segment , what 's your advise?
// Check if we have a lock already. If not set one which// expires automatically after 10 minutes.if (Yii::app()->mutex->lock('some-unique-id'))
{
// Do some time-expensive stuff here...// sleep(10) as examplethrownewException('for test !');
trigger_error('for test too!');
// and after that release the lock...
}
{
}
you see if there happens some error or trigger exception , the unlock will never called !
| |
When you are writing a piece of article or any essay, you will need to ensure that the writing is a perfect one. Before submitting any kind of essay or memo or research paper, one should try to proofread the whole thing. Proofreading services can try to check if it is able to communicate the message. At the same time, it will try to see if the paper is free from grammatical errors and punctuations are used in the right place. Once the proofreading process is complete, a poorly written paper can be easily changed into a good one.
Hyphens Are Very Important
Before writing a paper, one should have a proper understanding of the prefixes and suffixes part of a word. Along with that one should know also try to know the places to put hyphens, especially for compound word. However, it can be very difficult for some people as they may not have a proper idea about where it should be placed.
However, as a general rule of the thumb, hyphens should be used at regular intervals. It can act as one unit. Hence, with hyphen one can easily create new word that can convey new meaning totally.
Prefixes
However, before one gets the chance to master the hyphens, one should take a look into the prefixes and suffixes. Providers of proofreading services can easily explain them. Prefixes are added to the beginning of an existing word so that a new word can be formed. However, there stands a chance that the grammatical function of the word can get changed.
Suffixes
Suffix can be considered as a group of letters that can be easily attached at the end of the word. When it is added to the end of the word, it can create a new word. This is done in order to change the way it would be functioning in a sentence.
When To Use Hyphens?
Proofreading services know it well that the rules for prefixes and suffixes aren’t very simple. Some anomaly is always present within the rule. So when a person is trying to proofread certain paper, one should always take a look into the rules. Take a look below:
- Hyphen should be always used after the following prefixes, such as ‘all’, ‘cross’ for all-encompassing or crossroad.
- Hyphen should be used after all prefixes which precedes a noun.
- It is important to insert a hyphen when you notice that the prefix is ending with the same vowel, and the base word starts with the same letter, such as co-occur.
- Another important rule which must be taken a look into according to proofreading services is to include a hyphen after a prefix in order to establish the meaning of the word is very clear.
- Similarly, hyphen should be used with suffixes. Suffix ‘like’ should be hyphenated when the root word has more than three syllables.
- Also, hyphen should be used before the suffix fold, such as ten-fold. Proofreading services tell that hyphen shouldn’t be used if the number is less than ten like twofold.
These rules should be kept in mind while using prefixes and suffixes. Keeping it in mind can help one to get perfect writing. | http://www.bramptonsports.ca/category/proofreading-services/ |
The shuffling mechanism is designed for one deck of plastic or paper cards of max. size 88 x 63 mm (also narrow cards sized 88 x 57 mm can be processed). Cards size can be easily adjusted in user menu. Card shuffling is completely random.
Shuffling of cards will be accomplished in a single cycle. Cards are randomly distributed to 52 trays one by one, and they are subsequently lifted to the position for withdrawal. Each card is counted; the total number is shown on display. If there is a different number than 52, operator is notified of a wrong card number in the inserted pack.
At the end of each shuffling, the total number of cards in the deck is displayed. If the number is different from 52, the dealer will receive a notice of an incorrect number of cards on display. | https://www.apex-livegaming.com/product/card-shuffler-sk2/ |
EMLENTON, Pa. — Brightly colored quilt blocks have been appearing on Grange halls, barns and homes across Pennsylvania. The designs, often reminiscent of Grandma’s quilts, bring smiles to passersby.
Many of these blocks have originated from classes conducted by Glenn and Barbara Gross of Emlenton. When Barbara retired, she became an avid quilter.
“I have always been sewing,” she said. “My mother and grandmother always sewed.”
Now she spends part of her time away from fabrics, sewing machines and quilting frames.
Glenn, who taught vocational agriculture for 10 years and retired from USDA Rural Development, enjoys woodworking and has transferred those skills to creating and mounting wooden quilt blocks.
The couple spends much of their time as volunteers. They will return to the Farm Show as volunteers in the Family Living section.
“I am there for 11 days. I help with checking in entries, setting up displays and working with the events in the Family Living section,” Barbara said. “I also help with checking things out at the end of the show.”
When the Farm Show is over, they will return back to Emlenton where they help people create quilt blocks, also known as barn quilts, around the state.
They began making quilt blocks about 15 years ago.
Over the years they have created detailed instruction sheets and a page of hints so that their students can take the information home and teach others as well as complete the quilt block they start in the class.
“Though it costs more for the MDO board (pre-primed plywood), it creates a nicer finish,” Glenn said. “The cost of priming plywood is nearly as much as MDO board.”
They get their MDO board from a local sign painter. The edges of the MDO board need to be primed and painted with the border color.
The class begins with participants creating a grid that is appropriate for the design they want to use.
“We encourage our students to use a design that means something special to them or that represents where they plan to display the block,” Barbara said.
“I start out talking about fabric quilt blocks and how they are created.”
After creating an appropriate grid, students graph out their designs.
“We make several copies of their designs,” Glenn said. “We take our copier with us and I don’t remember ever not using it.”
All designs are worked from the middle out so that any variations in measurements are corrected with the border. Though all designs don’t have a border, one is recommended.
Students then experiment with colors to determine what they want as their final product.
“Every student goes home with enough paint to complete their block,” Glenn said. He takes paint from a quart can with a large syringe and puts it into a medicine bottle.
The Grosses have found that high quality house paint works well. Bright colors work best.
“If quilt blocks are to be used on buildings along the road, we encourage them to use bright colors so that motorists can see the block from a distance,” Barbara said.
“We plan for everyone to have created their design; to have the grid and design on their board before we break for lunch,” Barbara said.
When the Grosses are creating a new block, Barbara creates the grid and sketches out the design and puts the grid and design on the board. After the colors are determined, they mark each patch for the appropriate color.
Then, it is Glenn’s turn to decide what color should be put on first.
“I tape off all the blocks that will be painted with the first color,” Glenn said. “We used painter’s tape to tape the edges of the blocks, not masking tape.”
The tape is pressed down and the edges are rubbed down several times to ensure that paint does not seep under it.
After taping off the patches, any pencil marks that are within those borders need to be erased.
“Any pencil marks not removed will show through the paint,” Glenn said.
Each color of paint must dry two to four hours and each patch must have at least two coats of paint. Glenn says that he has learned that white should go on last. It covers well.
“When our students go home they have their board with one color painted and all the paint they will need to complete their boards,” Barbara said.
For several years, the Grosses have conducted classes at the Pennsylvania State Grange Fun Fest, a weekend of grange activities held at the Centre County Grange Fairgrounds.
The Grosses will conduct classes for groups with a minimum of 12 people and a maximum of about 20. The class runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“We will go wherever we are invited and only charge for our expenses,” Barbara said.
A class can be made up of people from a church, a Grange or a group of friends.
“We have taught classes to quilt guilds,” Barbara said.
“We are happy to share our instructions with anyone interested in making a block.”
For more information contact Barbara Gross at 724-290-3783 or [email protected]. | https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farm_life/family/learning-to-build-a-quilt-block-with-tape-and-paint/article_28c9366f-43f2-5d69-a6dd-811d8e88a94d.html |
There is something magical about the experience when it comes to the early morning alarm calls of Spotted Deer and Langur monkeys in the sub-continental forests and the languid appearance of one of the planet’s most powerful and breath-taking predators, so sadly struggling to maintain its place. With an itinerary that offers over a week’s photography allowing for travel time before and after, our chances of enjoying those elusive but awesome encounters is maximised, alongside our top local guides and our own photographic experiences of working at this particular reserve. It’s always a challenge to photograph tigers at this time of year but the green lush vegetation so soon after the monsoon season and before the dry heat to come, but the rewards when we do are photographically worth it, and that’s what this trip is all about. Add in the fact that this is just one of those species that will be high on any nature photographer’s wish-list and we know it’ll be full of experiences that will stay with you as long as the images.
Day 1: Leave UK on an overnight flight to Delhi.
Day 2: We are due to arrive in Delhi via our connecting flights by mid-morning. We will go to a currency exchange to get our Rupees and then arrange a taxi at the airport and transfer to our Delhi Hotel for a day of leisure and an evening’s rest. Over dinner we will discuss the plans of the forthcoming trip.
Day 3: In the early morning we will connect with our internal flight to Jabalpur. From Jabalpur airport we are met by our transfer driver and it is then a 4 hour drive to our destination which will take us to Bandhavgarh National Park. From then on we will be based in a comfortable and remarkably tranquil lodge in the small village of Tala near Bandhavgarh National Park owned and run by our resident expert guide Satyendra Tiwari and his family whose knowledge and tracking skills we will have to aid us throughout the trip. All meals are freshly prepared at our lodge and please note that it is strictly a vegetarian diet throughout. Once we have arrived at our destination we will only have short time to get ready for our first game drive that afternoon.
Day 4: It is an early morning start for our first encounter with the tigers and we need to be at the park entrance by 6.00 am. We will have three vehicles for our group and there will only be three people per jeep so we will have lots of space. There will be plenty of opportunities to photograph lots of different wildlife species like spotted deer, majestic samba, and wild boar and of course the ever playful langur monkey but our main priority throughout this trip is to photograph the beautiful Bengal tiger. Throughout our trip we will make morning and afternoon game drives, the morning’s drives will last from 6.00 am to 11.00 am and we will then go back to the accommodation to have a late breakfast and rest and we will also use this time to download our images from the morning session. We rest during the middle part of the day as it is too hot then and the light is too harsh for photography. After a light lunch we are back out in the afternoon for our afternoon game drive which will be from 2.30 pm until dusk. We then go back to our accommodation for the evening.
Days 5-10: These days are a repeat of Day 3 as we follow the same pattern throughout our stay; our ultimate aim will be the Bengal tiger as Bandhavgarh has got a healthy viable population of this beautiful mammal. The Bengal tiger can turn up literally anywhere whilst we are in the park, we might encounter one walking down the track but usually the best chance of seeing and photographing the tiger is when one is spotted by our guides or the park rangers, we will have a park ranger with us at all times and these guides are very knowledgeable for looking for signs and tracks but also listening for the tell-tale signs of the jungle which the alarm calls of the monkeys and more importantly the spotted deer give the game away of this illusive cat.
Day 11: After a final morning drive we will begin the journey home, returning to Delhi via Jabalpur (where we will catch our return flight to Delhi) and where we will stay overnight.
Day 12: We will leave Delhi for our return flights which will arrive back later the same day.
Transfers from the airport, accommodation, local transportation, all meals.
All flights, sundry items, tips and alcohol.
Our first and last night will be in a hotel near to Delhi airport and from then we will be based in a clean, comfortable and remarkably tranquil lodge. All meals are vegetarian and freshly prepared at our lodge.
In a physical sense this is not an especially hard trip but traveling in India is unlike anywhere else, and given this alongside early morning drives (offset by rest periods during the day) this can be a tiring trip. | https://www.natures-images.co.uk/holiday/majestic-tigers-india-2019/ |
- This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 1 year ago by Ken Garrett.
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Forums › FIA Forums › FA2 Maintaining Financial Records Forums › Non current asset
Question. ((Do we capitalise the cost of long leasehold property))
If no, then how we can charge depreciation of restaurant that hold a 25 year lease.? This is an example mention in F3 but I studied in FA1 that rent of long leasehold property is revenue expenditure then how it’s capitalised here???
Thanks
There can ve two elements to a lease:
1 An up-front capital payment to acquire the lease. This is capitalised and amortised/depreciated over the life of the lease.
2 Sometimes there is also a (usually) small ground rent to pay each year. This is an annual expense.
Thanks
The net book value of a company’s non-current assets was $200,000 at 1 August 20X2.During the year ended 31 July 20X3,the company sold fixed assets for $25,000 onwhich it made a loss of$5,000.
The depreciation charge for the year was $20,000.What was the net book value of fixed assets at 31July 20X3?
Can you answer this please.
Proceeds from sale = 25,000 and a loss of 5,000 was made, so the NBV of the assets sold must have been 30,000
So, the closing NBV must be: 200,000 – 30,000 – 20,000 (charge for the year) = 150,000.
What is accumulated depreciation?
Accumulated depreciation for an asset is the total amount of depreciation that has been ‘clocked up’ by the asset so far.
So, if an asset cost $12,000 and was being depreciated straight line at 25%, after three years the accumulated depreciation would be $9,000 (ie $3,000pa for three years). | https://opentuition.com/topic/non-current-asset-9/ |
Let () be real numbers such that Prove that .
Solution
Solution 1
First, suppose all the are positive. Then Suppose, on the other hand, that without loss of generality, with . If we are done, so suppose that . Then , so Since is a positive real for all , it follows that Then Since , . It follows that , as desired.
Solution 2
Assume the contrary and suppose each is less than 2.
Without loss of generality let , and let be the largest integer such that and if it exists, or 0 if all the are non-negative. If , then (as ) , a contradiction. Hence, assume . Then Because for , both sides of the inequality are non-positive, so squaring flips the sign. But we also know that for , so which results in a contradiction to our given condition. The proof is complete.
Alternate solutions are always welcome. If you have a different, elegant solution to this problem, please add it to this page.
See Also
|1999 USAMO (Problems • Resources)|
|Preceded by
|
Problem 3
|Followed by|
Problem 5
|1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6|
|All USAMO Problems and Solutions|
The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions. | https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/1999_USAMO_Problems/Problem_4 |
Capacity legislation is committed to the avoidance of undue medical paternalism by stipulating that the assessment of capacity focuses solely on the process by which a patient reaches a decision, irrespective of the content of that decision. Little attention has been paid to how procedural notions of capacity are supposed to function, as they rely on vague and underspecified normative notions such as 'balancing' or 'weighing' information. In this article I question whether the procedural elements of decision-making can in principle be considered separately from the substantive contents of beliefs and values that inform the decision outcome. In doing so I make two claims. First, on a solely procedural view of the relation between all the factors entering into the process and a decision outcome, one cannot reliably judge whether the decision-making process is undermined by a mental impairment. Second, recognising that substantive features of decision-making do underpin assessments of capacity does not entail that paternalistic evaluative judgments about the contents of beliefs or values need to be made. If a compromise view is taken that recognises the interplay between procedural and substantive elements of decision-making, a richer and more sophisticated approach to capacity can be developed, based on the claim that capacity can be thought of in terms of having 'recognisable reasons' for one's decisions. This approach is not value-neutral, but nonetheless is capable of avoiding charges of unwarranted paternalism.
The procedural conception of capacity and the Mental Capacity Act {#S1}
=================================================================
In England and Wales, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA)[1](#FN1){ref-type="fn"} has codified a test of decision-making capacity that aims to balance protection for vulnerable individuals with the right to autonomy. This right is retained wherever an individual has the ability to make a decision for himself about how he wishes to be treated. The MCA and its associated Code of Practice explicitly state that capacity assessment should be based on evaluating the processes a patient uses to arrive at a decision rather than the content of the decision itself: 'What matters is \[the\] ability to carry out the processes involved in making the decision -- and not the outcome' ([@R9], Code of Practice, Section 4.2).
Furthermore, the guiding principles of the MCA stipulate that '\[a\] person is not to be treated as unable to make a decision merely because he makes an unwise decision' (MCA, Section 1(4)). The competently made unwise decision should stand even if family members, carers or clinicians are unhappy with that decision. Such a right has been enshrined in English common law since 1850 ([@R2]). The adoption of this 'procedural' notion of capacity has a very clear purpose in law: to avoid as far as possible the threat of medical paternalism, which would lead to a patient's right to autonomy being overruled if a clinician does not agree that the patient has made the right or best decision. This notion of capacity can be distinguished from a 'substantive' view, in which the content of the decision outcome does play a role in ascertaining capacity. Conceptually, the MCA implies that the form of the decision-making process can and should be separated from its content. In practical terms, this means that in the context of assessing mental capacity, clinicians ought not to judge the content of the decision as being good or bad, wise or unwise, but only assess the process by which the decision has been reached. However, whilst indicating that judging the decision outcome is an inappropriate way to approach determining capacity, the Law Commission report that preceded the development of the MCA highlighted that a substantive approach was in fact common in clinical practice, since the decision outcome sometimes affects the clinician's judgment of capacity: '... if the outcome is to reject a course which the doctor has advised then capacity is found to be absent' ([@R24], paragraph 3.4).
In order to have capacity one must be capable of making epistemic commitments, namely beliefs, and evaluative commitments, namely values and desires, and acting upon those commitments. The procedural view does not, however, make any claims about what those commitments ought to be. In theory, an assessor need not share the specific beliefs or values held by the patient, nor agree with their decision in order to recognise how the decision-making process is formed and whether or not it might be impaired.
Under normal circumstances where a person's ability to make a decision is not in question, he has an inalienable right to decide whatever he wants, even if this is likely to result in his own death or disability. Case-law dictates that no reasons, justifications or rationalisations need to be provided to substantiate or explain his decision: "'... the patient's right of choice exists whether the reasons for making that choice are rational, irrational, unknown or even non-existent.'[2](#FN2){ref-type="fn"}'A mentally competent patient has an absolute right to refuse to consent to medical treatment for any reason, rational or irrational, or for no reason at all, even where that decision may lead to his or her own death.'[3](#FN3){ref-type="fn"}"
*Re MB* established that decisions based on irrational beliefs do not indicate a lack of capacity, unless the belief is caused by a mental impairment. The implication here is that even a decision that is 'so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards ... \[that\] ... no sensible person ... could have arrived at it'[4](#FN4){ref-type="fn"} does not undermine a person's capacity. Making what is judged to be an irrational decision, or basing it on irrational beliefs or values, does not, per se, entail a person lacks capacity: the burden of proof is on ascertaining whether the decision is the product of a mental impairment. In the MCA test for capacity there is thus a significant weight placed on the idea that it is, in fact, possible to ascertain whether a decision-making process is being disrupted by a mental impairment, without appealing to the content of the decision outcome to support the judgment.
In clinical practice, this is an exceptionally challenging judgment to make. Where cognitive impairments are evident, as in advanced dementia or a state of delirium, capacity assessment may be straightforward: it may be clear that the patient lacks the ability to understand the treatment options being offered, or engage in the decision process at all. However, in psychiatric settings some patients may not be obviously cognitively impaired, for example, in patients diagnosed with anorexia or depression ([@R30]). Nonetheless their capacity is called into question on account of the decisions they wish to make, such as refusing potentially life-saving medical treatment.
Critiques of procedural accounts of capacity have drawn attention to the fact that they do not match up with clinical experience: clinicians may consider a patient to lack capacity even if he ostensibly passes all the procedural requirements of the test ([@R6]). This is particularly true in mental health settings. Often it is precisely the decision outcome, such as a treatment refusal, that alerts clinicians to the fact that there may be a mental impairment influencing the decision-making process: 'doctors faced with a refusal of consent have to give very careful and detailed consideration to the patient's capacity to decide ....'[5](#FN5){ref-type="fn"} Patients suffering from anorexia are frequently able to articulate and understand their circumstances and understand the treatment that is being proposed. ([@R38]; [@R37]) conducted in-depth interviews with anorexic patients, revealing a complex picture of coherent decision-making, but which frequently involved distorted evaluative commitments. Such patients sometimes also hold patently false beliefs about their weight ([@R39]). These patients were able to tick all the necessary procedural boxes for demonstrating capacity, providing a logical account of their decision-making, but refused treatment that may have prevented serious deterioration in health and possibly their death. Under these circumstances, clinicians often feel there is a significant question over whether such patients have capacity to make treatment decisions ([@R36]).
Thus there appears to be a tension between the procedural legal criteria for assessing capacity and the experience of clinicians in judging difficult psychiatric cases, which highlights a problem for translating the law into clinical practice. Putting the practical realities of capacity assessment to one side for a moment, I wish to consider how a purely procedural account of capacity is supposed to function in principle: What distinguishes a process of decision-making that is disrupted by a mental impairment from one that is not? If a procedural account of capacity is to be viable, it had better be possible to draw this distinction independently of evaluating the content of the decision outcome, and the beliefs and values that have informed it.
How are procedural accounts supposed to work? {#S2}
=============================================
The most conceptually difficult criterion of the capacity test to determine is commonly held to be that of 'using or weighing' information. A person is able to use or weigh information in coming to a decision insofar as he can consider the risks, benefits and consequences of receiving or not receiving treatment, and take into account his own beliefs and system of values in determining what to do ([@R2]). This is consistent with an element in many tests of capacity referred to as the ability to 'reason' (e.g. [@R14]). There is surprisingly little discussion in the theoretical and empirical literature on capacity detailing either what is meant by using or weighing information, or what constitutes fulfilment of this criterion. In some of the legal precedents underpinning the MCA reference is made to 'balancing' information,[6](#FN6){ref-type="fn"} but this does not help clarify the criterion any further.
In assessing whether someone is using or weighing information, one needs to be aware of what information is entering into the decision-making process. Whilst the relevant treatment information imparted by the clinician will be an important part of this, other factors such as a value system and personal beliefs will also be influential in determining the decision outcome ([@R34], p. 126). On the procedural view, however, the contents of these beliefs and values will not themselves be evaluatively judged.
The capacity criteria require more than an understanding of the information given about a potential treatment or course of action; they require an indication that this information has been used appropriately to influence the decision outcome. This process might be envisaged as an information-processing black box: a visual metaphor common to cognitive psychology. On this model, various factors serve as inputs to decision-making, including the information given, along with a person's known beliefs, values, desires, fears, and so on. These are weighed up in a process whereby various cognitive mechanisms operate upon the information received, and subsequently an output emerges in the form of a decision about what the person wishes to do. How, though, could the operation of this process be judged?
It is essential to the procedural test of capacity that examining the process of decision-making can enable an observer to distinguish between these two possibilities, since they differ in ways that are significant for assessment: the former indicates fulfilment of the using or weighing information criterion, whereas the latter might not. Yet all that a clinician has to go on is the outcome of the decision, and some awareness of the input factors, many of which will be unknown to the clinician and perhaps even to the patient himself. It would seem that judgments about the decision-making process must be based upon the perceived normative connection between the input factors and the output: on whether or not the decision is one that, in some as yet unspecified sense, follows in the light of the person's beliefs and values (whatever they might be). There ought therefore to be a connection between the inputs and the decision outcome, if the person is to be judged to have used or weighed the information in coming to that decision. What might this connection look like on a procedural view of capacity?
Procedural rationality {#S3}
======================
Examining the internal structure of decision-making and action-guiding processes has spawned a vast conceptual and empirical research literature. Philosophical theories tend to construe reasoning and decision-making in terms of inferences from premises to conclusions, and the ability to recognise the validity of such inferences ([@R32]). The philosopher of mind and language Donald Davidson makes explicit that an understanding of actions can be conceptualised through mapping out logical relations between beliefs, desires and actions, in the form of an inferential argument: "'If we can characterise the reasoning that would serve, we will, in effect, have described the logical relations between descriptions of beliefs and desires, and the description of the action ... We are to imagine, then, that the agent's beliefs and desires provide him with the premises of an argument.' ([@R7], 85 -- 86)"
This understanding of decision-making as an inferential process also finds currency in cognitive psychology. For example, 'philosophical − psychological' (PP) rationality is a term used to describe a behaviour or action evaluated in terms of the process that led to it being performed, irrespective of the appropriateness of the ends or the outcome ([@R21]). PP-rationality is about the integrity of information processing rather than the rationality of actions themselves ([@R19]). It therefore appears to resemble the procedural notion of capacity, and it is thus instructive to examine how research into this type of rationality has sought to distinguish rational, procedurally intact, decision-making processes from those that are not.
Empirical research into reasoning and decision-making, particularly in the cognitive sciences, has for the most part been guided by a framework whereby the connection between a set of inputs and a decision output is judged according to the dictates of an ideal of logic (see [@R35], for an overview of the field). For instance, cognitive psychology in this area has tended to focus on conditional and syllogistic reasoning ([@R10]), and is largely concerned with investigating the frequent logical errors we make in reasoning tasks. The normative standards governing the connections between one's beliefs and actions are principles of 'procedural rationality' ([@R4]). They deal in relations of implication and entailment, providing a formal structure for setting out what ought to follow from a given set of premises. The kinds of outcomes that ought to follow are determined by logical functions operating between the premises and conclusion, which are syntactic, formal and content-free.
The notion that the connection between decision inputs and outcomes can be judged according to purely procedural norms therefore finds significant empirical and conceptual precedent ([@R35]). Procedural rationality seems to be aligned with the aim of capacity legislation to focus on evaluating the process of decision-making rather than whether or not the outcome is objectively good or wise. If we take the premises or inputs as being analogous to the beliefs and values a patient holds, and the conclusion as analogous to the decision outcome, it looks as though the contents of these inputs and outcomes are irrelevant to the assessment: it is only the integrity of the inference that matters.
The problem with process {#S4}
========================
The challenge mooted earlier for a procedural conception of capacity was how to distinguish between a process of decision-making in which information had been used or weighed, from one in which it had not because of a mental impairment. The procedural view of rationality looks as though it ought to be able to help characterise the connections within the 'black box' of the decision-making process: the connections between the factors entering into the decision process and the outcome can be understood in terms of the logical relations between the beliefs, values and desires a person holds and the decision that he makes. A person is thus engaged in a successful decision-making process to the extent that these relations obtain in a specific instance of decision-making and the inferential structure from premises (beliefs, values, and so forth) to conclusion (decision outcome) is valid.
I have talked loosely of a person's beliefs, desires, values, and so forth, considering them as determinable starting premises upon which a process of decision-making operates to produce a recognisable outcome. If the norms of procedural rationality are to have traction on our behaviour, we need a determinate specification of what is referred to by 'the set of a person's beliefs, desires, values and so forth' in a particular instance ([@R17]). However, I query whether it is possible to circumscribe these as a set for the purposes of seeking to establish what kinds of decision outcomes ought to follow in the light of them. In the context of ordinary decision-making, belief -- desire -- action relations do not form closed systems devoid of connections to a whole network of other relevant psychological elements. Rather, they are holistically interconnected with one another and with the world. Even if we could specify a set of starting premises from which to analyse the decision process, there is no way of determining in advance what other factors will be relevant to the processes of forming and revising one's beliefs and intentions: the concerns we bring to a decision-making process do not form a complete and closed system ([@R41]). It is therefore not possible to ascertain whether the connections between inputs and outcomes in a particular instance of decision-making are procedurally intact, as the initial premises cannot be reliably established. Furthermore, we cannot establish in advance what a procedurally intact decision-making process would look like or what would constitute a breach of procedural criteria. Any generalisations we could make about the way information ought to be used in particular circumstances will hold only for the most part, and will always be defeasible.[7](#FN7){ref-type="fn"}
This suggests that the very idea of attempting to codify what the procedural relations between decision inputs and outcomes ought to be is misguided, as no rules can be precisely applied to ascertain what a procedurally rational process would look like. Tracing back through the account outlined thus far, the error arises when we attempt to break down the criterion of using or weighing information through analysing what procedural constraints might operate between the inputs into decision-making and its outcome in a particular instance. Reducing the process to the logical relations between isolated sets of beliefs, values and actions, although a prominent and robust strategy in cognitive psychology, fails to help us understand how the decision-making process functions in complex real-world situations, in which there are limitations on our cognitive capacities and many extraneous factors influencing our decision-making: 'our thinking and desiring life does not go on in a form which allows the demands of deductive logic, decision theory and so on to get a direct and unproblematic grip on it' ([@R17], p. 56). In the clinical context, even circumscribing what information is relevant and needs to be understood for a simple procedure is difficult to pin down, and generates disagreement among clinicians ([@R15]), indicating that the information that needs to be taken into account when assessing capacity cannot be specified for the purposes of judging the relation between decision inputs and outcomes.
Moreover, the dictates of procedural rationality cannot provide normative guidance about how beliefs should be modified in the light of evidence or argument ([@R4]). This is especially pertinent in the context of acquiring new information that is relevant to oneself and one's decisions, as is usually the case in assessments of capacity. Making decisions does not take the form of an argument or proof, but rather concerns the process by which we justify, change and revise our beliefs, desires and values ([@R16]). Procedural rationality can say nothing about how we ought to form beliefs and make decisions in the light of the information we have or acquire, or what factors are relevant to take into account when making a decision. On their own, procedural criteria cannot gain a purchase on what it means to engage in a normatively appropriate decision-making process: 'Logical powers, in the absence of suitably grounded beliefs ... are like an engine without fuel' ([@R3], p. 41). This insight is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that individuals with schizophrenia frequently perform better than healthy controls on tasks of formal reasoning and logic ([@R28]). They are exceptionally good at being procedurally rational, but this does not entail that they are capable of accommodating important information into their decision-making, or making decisions that indicate they possess capacity.
To illustrate the impoverished perspective of the procedural view, consider a prime candidate for a procedural norm of reasoning that has been taken to be relevant to capacity assessment: consistency ([@R23]). Consistency in one's beliefs, values and decisions and over time is, on the procedural view of rationality, a central normative ideal. Decision-theoretic approaches take it that maintaining internal consistency within one's mental economy is essential ([@R26], p. 4), and the norm of consistency epitomises the standards of procedural rationality, as it generally demands we do not hold openly contradictory beliefs and values ([@R4]). Thus if procedural rationality is supposed to underpin capacity assessment, it is reasonable to presume that consistency should be a key criterion. Considering a specific instance of decision-making in isolation, obvious inconsistencies in what a person believes or values and what he ostensibly decides to do may indeed look bizarre and potentially hint at a lack of capacity. [@R23] suggests that a decision can be identified as having been made due to a pathology of belief or reasoning insofar as it is inconsistent with the patient's own previously expressed beliefs and values, irrespective of what the contents of those beliefs and values actually are. Evaluating the integrity of the decision-making process in this way might be a successful strategy in cases where capacity is temporarily impaired or fluctuating: expressing a choice that is out of kilter with one's own previously expressed beliefs and values may suffice to indicate a failure of logical relations between the inputs to the decision process and its outcome. Here, consistency is held up as a procedural norm by which to judge capacity.
However, internal consistency is defeasible as a procedural principle by which to assess decision-making. Holding inconsistent beliefs does not necessarily undermine the rational connections between one's beliefs, values and decisions, in part because the vast range and number we hold at any one time means that incongruities, inconsistencies or tensions are not always manifest. We hold numerous competing and incompatible beliefs, values and desires, and it is indeed part of the process of making a decision that we become aware of and modify these, change our minds and often make decisions that represent a compromise between such conflicts. Decision-making also needs to be tempered by practical considerations such as the time and cognitive resources one has available for resolving internal tensions or inconsistencies ([@R16], p. 50). Furthermore, we may legitimately change our minds and adopt radically different views from those previously held. This is especially true in the context of medical decision-making, where often life-changing decisions are made, in the context of circumstances that have not been foreseen or previously considered. Although consistency may well be a component of good decision-making, we cannot ascertain what outcomes ought to follow from a consistent process, as there are innumerable different ways a consistent process could operate to produce different, but equally legitimate, outcomes. Hence the norm of consistency cannot form a criterion of decision-making.
There are two implications to draw out here. First, that beliefs, desires, values and whatever other factors enter into a decision-making process cannot be clearly circumscribed as a set of premises that bear logical relations only to one another and to the decision outcome. Beliefs and values can be indeterminate, held with differing degrees of conviction, and influenced by myriad other factors external to the immediate concerns of the decision process at hand, all of which affect what enters into the decision-making process and how these factors are used and weighed. There could potentially be any number of relevant beliefs that could legitimately shape a decision, but are unknown to the observer making a judgment about a person's decision-making.[8](#FN8){ref-type="fn"} Second, attempting to view the procedural constraints on decision-making atomistically, by breaking down the process into its constituent components, leaves us with a frustrating lack of clarity about how connections between inputs and outcomes are supposed to function. The procedural approach to decision-making is misleading and impoverished when extrapolated from abstract theorising and applied to real-world contexts. This inherent complexity means that a distinction between an intact decision-making process indicative of capacity, and one in which capacity is impaired, cannot be drawn on a procedural basis. Yet, if purely procedural accounts of capacity do not work, how can the process of decision-making be judged, without recourse to making paternalistic judgments based on the contents of a person's belief and value system, and the decisions they make?
Substantive features of decision-making {#S5}
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The presence of a mental impairment may cause a person to hold beliefs that are unequivocally untrue, to the clear detriment of capacity. For example, in a case preceding the development of the MCA, a female patient refused an emergency caesarean section because she denied being pregnant.[9](#FN9){ref-type="fn"} Similarly, a patient suffering from anorexia nervosa who refused naso-gastric feeding because she believed she was still fat, was deemed to be incapable of acknowledging facts about her weight.[10](#FN10){ref-type="fn"} In these cases, the patients denied empirical truths that were irrefutable to the outside observer, and were judged to lack capacity on the grounds that their mental disorders impaired their ability to comprehend obvious facts about the world. In clinical practice, incapacity is also frequently found in patients experiencing delusions ([@R29]). Legal precedents have established that clear epistemic breaches can undermine a decision-making process: 'a compulsive disorder or phobia may prevent the patient's decision from being a true one, particularly if conditioned by some obsessional belief or feeling which so distorts the judgment as to render the decision invalid.'[11](#FN11){ref-type="fn"} Here, the patient refused a medically necessary hysterectomy on the grounds that she was childless and wanted children. However, she had two grown-up children, and the falsity of her belief thus undermined her capacity.
There is a clear substantive condition at work here in judgments about the particular epistemic commitments of patients: the beliefs held in these examples significantly impaired the patients' ability to make an autonomous decision. There is thus legal precedent for acknowledging that the content of beliefs in decision-making can indeed legitimately influence judgments of capacity. Given that capacity concerns what a patient is capable of understanding, and what he is capable of doing with the information given to him, there is a clear argument for taking into account what it is that the patient believes when assessing his capacity to decide.[12](#FN12){ref-type="fn"}
The question for the law is thus not whether substantive elements of decision-making ought or ought not to be taken into account in capacity assessments, but rather how and to what extent they can legitimately be accommodated. Allowing judgments about the content of a person's beliefs and values that inform a decision to enter into the capacity assessment runs the risk of violating the MCA's value-neutral intentions, undermining its moral objectives to respect autonomy as far as possible. Belief systems vary widely across cultures and communities, and there is a risk that culturally sanctioned beliefs may be perceived as bizarre and potentially capacity-undermining by clinicians unfamiliar with the patient's cultural context. Furthermore, if the substantive elements of a person's decision-making influence the capacity assessment, the clinician's view about what it is or is not reasonable to believe, want or decide would become an inextricable part of the assessment ([@R23], p. 322).
The MCA is clear that the process of decision-making can, in principle, be influenced by unusual or eccentric beliefs and values, without detriment to the presumption of capacity.[13](#FN13){ref-type="fn"} This leaves us with a dilemma: procedural accounts cannot distinguish capacity from incapacity, but judging the substantive features of decision-making may lead to clinicians making illegitimate judgments about patients' capacity, on account of their unusual beliefs or decisions that are thought to be unwise. I suggest that it is possible to navigate between these two difficulties by taking a compromise position that combines the strength and objectivity of a procedural view with the necessary practicality of acknowledging the role of substantive features in judging a person's capacity. Rather than considering assessment in terms of acceptable procedural aspects of decision-making, as distinct from substantive (and thus unacceptable) aspects, more focus should be given to identifying how the procedural and substantive features of decision-making interact. It is this interplay that can supply the best guide as to whether the patient is successfully engaged in a decision-making process indicative of capacity.
Process and content {#S6}
===================
Decision-making requires us to draw on available sources of information and vast amounts of background data. One must have the capacity to accept particular premises, reject others, consider the testimony of others, appeal to one's knowledge of the way the world is, and call prior beliefs into question in the light of counter-evidence. Decision-making is essentially steeped in the context of one's own particular circumstances, enabling successful action in the world in the way that one intends. Hence whether the process is indicative of capacity or not is at least partially dependent on whether the decision outcome actually serves this role in connecting with and acting on the world.
I have argued that attempting to judge the process of decision-making in terms of its adherence to procedural criteria leads us down the wrong path and breeds misconceptions about what an unimpaired process of decision-making looks like. The same is true of attempting to judge the content of a decision: in itself it can be neither good nor bad, wise nor unwise, appropriate nor inappropriate. What makes the decision indicative of capacity is that it reasonably follows in the light of the information given, the person's beliefs, values, and so forth, and will likely have the desired effect given the particular context in which the decision is being made. This assessment is inherently both content-laden and procedural: the decision content and the process by which it is formed are not conceptually separable elements of decision-making.
To elaborate on why it is the combination of procedural and substantive features, rather than either on their own, that should determine capacity assessments, let us consider the example of delusions. Often delusions take the form of a highly elaborate set of beliefs and desires, each mutually consistent with one another and entirely inferentially valid, and patients may deliver procedurally intact reasoning in defence of their claims ([@R4], p. 471; [@R22]). On a procedural account, no deficit or impairment in decision-making may be identifiable. By the same token, if we examine the contents of delusional beliefs, there is no clear-cut way of distinguishing them from beliefs that are bizarre or eccentric but ultimately benign (e.g. [@R31]; [@R20]).[14](#FN14){ref-type="fn"} Prima facie this indicates that evaluating substantive features alone cannot distinguish capacity from incapacity. The most promising line of demarcation between a delusional belief and a non-delusional belief is rather that the person entertaining a delusion is unable or unwilling to reason about, justify and be open to the possibility of revising that belief in the face of counter-evidence or argument ([@R33], p. 391). What strikes us as unusual in such cases is a failure to afford due weight and significance to the available evidence that runs counter to the delusional conviction. This is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with the truth of the particular beliefs an individual holds, but rather perceiving a deficit in the processes by which significant facts about the world are grasped, accommodated and used in the formation, maintenance and revision of beliefs, and in the forming of intentions to act. It is attributable to neither a procedural deficit nor a substantive one, but an apparent breakdown in the relations between the individual's normal, general beliefs about the world and those that are guiding that particular instance of decision-making. Somewhere in the process, both procedural and substantive features of decision-making have gone awry.
Recognisable reasons {#S7}
====================
How can the interplay between procedural and substantive elements of decision-making best be conceptualised? I suggest it is fruitful to consider one idea presented in the conceptual literature on capacity, but that has not been further developed. In an early article on the notion of decisional competence to consent to treatment, [@R11] argues that what it means for a person to have capacity with regard to a decision is that he is capable of providing 'recognisable reasons' for his decision. On this view, if a mental impairment is suspected, a person must have reasons that are relevant to the decision he makes in order to be deemed to possess capacity.
Ordinarily, our decisions and actions are not guided by well-thought-out reasons, and it would be an overly stringent demand that a patient needs to articulate reasons for his decision in order to be judged to have capacity. However, evaluating a person's decision-making process for the purposes of determining whether or not he has a capacity-undermining impairment requires a more critical and rigorous consideration of his decisions than ordinary decision-making, particularly where the decision to be made has potentially serious consequences for the patient's health and wellbeing. On the view I am advocating, an attempt to grasp a patient's reasons for a decision can in fact be of practical use for clinicians, and for the courts involved in making fine-grained judgments about a person's capacity, providing the notion of 'reasons' can be adequately conceptualised. It has been suggested that the notion of rationality may be a key constitutive factor in understanding mental capacity ([@R30]), and, as such, patients' reasons for their decisions deserve conceptual scrutiny. Examining reasons may provide a way of considering decision-making in terms of both procedural and substantive elements, one that encompasses all the aspects of the capacity test set out in the MCA. This is because having a reason for a decision requires both procedural integrity, following in the light of one's beliefs, and substantive appropriateness, in that it has some grounding in reality or socially sanctioned beliefs. Reasons guide decisions and make them intelligible to an outside observer, functioning by enabling us 'to see the events or attitudes as reasonable from the point of view of the agent' ([@R8], p. 169). Conversely, in the absence of recognisable reasons we might think of an action or decision as failing to result from a legitimate process.[15](#FN15){ref-type="fn"}
Consider a few examples to illustrate the utility of an appeal to reasons in understanding a decision-making process: A man refuses potentially life-saving surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his liver. When asked why he refuses, he glances out of the window and says with sincerity 'because the number 23 bus just went past'.An artistic patient is being treated for bipolar disorder, but decides, against medical opinion, to refuse to take lithium. She tells her doctor that she believes this treatment diminishes her creativity and ability to appreciate colours, and she does not like the side effects it causes.[16](#FN16){ref-type="fn"}A patient has suffered a head injury and as a result of surgery now has a large lump on his head and several stitches. He believes the FBI have implanted a radio transmitter in his skull and has made several attempts to sue them for invasion of privacy. He refuses any further medical intervention to reduce the swelling and minimise the risk of permanent brain injury, as he believes this is a further attempt at mind control.[17](#FN17){ref-type="fn"}
In all three of the above cases, patients give reasons for the decision being reached, but they do not all possess the same status as recognisable reasons. In the first case, there is no logical or semantic connection between the location of the number 23 bus and a response to the option of surgery: the two states of affairs simply have no bearing on one another whatsoever. The man's stated reason therefore cannot be a reason for his decision. If this were the sum total of the patient's reasoning, clinicians would be justified in querying his capacity to refuse treatment. It may be possible that the number 23 carries some special and particular significance for the man that uniquely tells him something about the risks of his having surgery, so that in some roundabout way the salience of the bus route is connected to his decision, but the point here is that for the outside observer, there is no relation between the two and therefore his reason is not *recognisable* as such. There is no connection between the action and the reason the agent gives for it, as far as the clinician can ascertain. I suggest that the lack of a recognisable reason here captures an important sense in which the patient is failing to understand, use or weigh information in coming to a decision: appealing to recognisable reasons is a useful shorthand for picking out a problem in the decision process that does not require a conceptual separation between procedural and substantive aspects of decision-making.
In the second case, we have a common scenario in which a patient wishes to go against medical opinion and refuse a recommended treatment. This patient places a very high value on her ability to create artistic works, and so for her any medication affecting this ability will be extremely undesirable. Weighed in the balance against the advantages of taking such medication, such as a levelling out of mood, the patient places a higher value on her creative capacity. She has recognisable reasons for her decision coherently based on her belief and value system, and there is a clear logical connection between her given reasons and her decision. It is unlikely in this situation that the patient's capacity would be undermined. Again, the appeal to reasons has practical benefits: it means that one need not share the patient's own values to perceive how her decision follows from what she believes and understands, and no evaluative judgment needs to be made about the content of her belief and value system in order to assess her capacity.
It is the third case that is likely to cause the most trouble for clinicians attempting to ascertain the patient's capacity, and it highlights the conceptual concerns central to capacity assessments. Clearly the patient holds delusional beliefs, but these provide him with reasons for his action. We can understand how, given the belief that the FBI was interfering with his brain, and his taking his wound and stitches as evidence in support of this belief, the patient was seeking redress for the harm caused to him, and justifiably refusing any further medical intervention on those grounds. These reasons may not be good reasons, in that their epistemic basis is far from secure: the man ignores the more straightforward and compelling explanation that the lump and scar on his head resulted from surgery to treat a head wound, and that his life is potentially in danger if he does not consent to further treatment. Nonetheless, there is a recognisable relation between having such a belief and acting in the way that he does.
Does an appeal to recognisable reasons prove useful in this context? I suggest that it does, particularly given the use made of the notion of 'irrational reasons' in the influential *Re MB* and *Re T* rulings. In both rulings, the presumption of capacity was strongly enforced, and having 'irrational reasons' was explicitly deemed not to undermine capacity. However, exploring borderline cases such as the third example above points to the need to further and better specify what irrational reasons are, and under what circumstances they may or may not indicate impaired capacity. Clearly, irrational reasons can sometimes offer evidence of incapacity (if not a definitive judgment). In case (1), the reason given for treatment refusal is not so much irrational as entirely arational: having not even a semblance of a reason for the decision being made. The patient in case (3) is more complex. He could be considered to have an irrational reason for his decision: a term that captures the intuitive sense in which the reasoning process has gone awry. Although his decision is rational to the extent that it follows procedurally from his beliefs, his reasons are not responsive to significant facts about the world and he appears unable to countenance any other explanation for his wound. From this point, assessment of his capacity could be argued both ways. His capacity to refuse the treatment on offer is unclear, and it is beyond the scope of this article to consider more fully whether his reasons are in fact legitimate.[18](#FN18){ref-type="fn"} What is clear, however, is that the judiciary's reference to 'irrational reasons' needs to be further specified if it is to provide a useful benchmark; we need to cash out the ways in which reasons might be irrational but nonetheless recognisable as supporting a decision outcome, and also the ways in which an irrational reason might provide evidence for a capacity-undermining impairment. To this end, a fuller account of the significance of patients' reasons in judging capacity is warranted.
This brief exploration suggests that there is complex structure to the reasons that explain or account for one's actions and decisions, and that in some cases it is clear where this structure fails. This failure is not characterisable in terms of a violation of specific procedural or substantive norms, but the absence of a recognisable reason for the decision outcome points to a normative failure of some kind in the process. Despite the rhetoric of the *Re MB* ruling, if a mental impairment is suspected, then the reasons a patient has for refusing treatment may indeed be subject to scrutiny in an assessment of capacity ([@R34]). It is open to debate quite how to characterise what counts as a recognisable reason, but considering capacity in this way does confer distinct advantages on the assessment process. Couching an understanding of the decision-making process in terms of reasons prevents us from slipping into the illusion that the difference between success and failure on the capacity test turns on an elusive procedural connection between inputs and outputs.
This strategy also enables us to acknowledge that the contents of a patient's beliefs, values and desires may indeed influence how their decision-making is perceived, whilst alerting us to the fact that eccentric or unusual beliefs and values may be perfectly legitimate if they play the right kind of normative role in the decision-making process. This proposal therefore does conflict with the proclaimed value-neutrality of the MCA, because what patients believe, value and want to do does, in practice, affect judgments about whether or not they are capable of making a decision. This is not a negative consequence. The procedural capacity criteria cannot distinguish whether an apparently irrational decision is the product of a mental impairment or not, and so they cannot be sufficient for clinical judgments about a person's decision-making capacity. But the proposed alternative does not slide into unwarranted paternalism, because it does not involve making evaluative judgments *solely* about the contents of a patient's beliefs or desires, judging them to be rational or irrational, or in themselves 'pathological'. Rather, what matters in an assessment of capacity is how these beliefs and values interact with information about the proposed treatment, how coherently they fit with the person's broader belief and value system, and whether the decision outcome reasonably follows in the light of everything the patient knows about the decision being made. I suggest that understanding incapacity as a failure to have recognisable reasons for one's decision therefore provides a way to conceptualise capacity that avoids the pitfalls of either a procedural or substantive approach. It allows a more nuanced and sophisticated way of assessing capacity than the procedural test alone allows, whilst preventing undue medical paternalism being exercised, as clinicians cannot simply dismiss decisions that are perceived to be unwise if they are recognisably reasonable from the point of view of the patient.
This proposal may go some way towards reducing the tension between the law as it stands and the judgments of clinicians in difficult psychiatric cases. In clinical practice, construing successful decision-making in terms of having recognisable reasons for one's decision allows more scope to acknowledge the complexities and subtleties involved in the process, without reducing assessment to a test of cognitive functioning. Unlike the MCA criterion of 'using or weighing information', appealing to reasons explicitly acknowledges that both procedural and substantive elements of the decision-making process are being evaluated in a capacity assessment.
The role of context {#S8}
===================
Appealing to the recognisable reasons a person has for his decision generates an important consequence for understanding how the decision-making process can be assessed, as it creates conceptual space for the context of decision-making to come to the fore. Rather than seeking to narrow the scope of a judgment through characterising specific criteria by which to judge particular instances of decision-making, it is fruitful instead to broaden the perspective from which an assessor seeks to understand the decision process, encompassing something of the context in which the decision is being made, and the circumstances of the decision-maker. This is not merely a practical consideration, as awareness of the context provides a broad background against which potential impairments to capacity, where decision-making is going wrong, can be picked out.
Take a hypothetical example of a person suffering from anorexia who refuses to eat. Premised on his high valuation of thinness he may look as though he possesses decision-making capacity, since we cannot identify any impairment or failure of relations between the beliefs and values influencing his decision and the decision outcome itself. But in isolating this particular decision process, the values and beliefs he holds have been taken out of the broader context in which they occur and the potentially capacity-undermining nature of the decision process cannot be identified in this way. If, on the other hand, we take capacity assessment to pertain to a particular decision whilst fully acknowledging the contextual embeddedness of the factors entering into that decision within the person's own life, and explore the reasons for his decision, then we are in a far better position to assess whether the decision outcome is the result of a process indicative of capacity. These contextual factors may include explorations of the patient's own perceptions and evaluations of his condition, attitudes towards his health, aspirations or expectations of the future, belief in the efficacy of treatment, trust in the medical professionals treating him, relationships with caregivers, and so on, together with the severity of the consequences of not making a decision, or of the decision being a potentially life-threatening one. The kinds of factors relevant to his reasons and the assessment cannot be specified in advance or reduced to a set of criteria, but developing some broad brushstrokes of the background to the decision being made may enable a more sophisticated understanding of the decision outcome to be made by the assessing clinician. Contrary to the checklist tendency to break down the decision process into its constituent parts, taking a holistic and context-laden approach to capacity is likely to render a person's decision more intelligible, highlighting where there is an obvious breakdown in the relations between all the factors involved in the decision-making process.
Conclusion {#S9}
==========
Any adequate conception of capacity must distinguish a process of decision-making indicative of capacity from one that is impaired. Attempting to pin down this distinction by adopting a procedural account of capacity relies on the idea that the logical relations between inputs and outcomes, construed as analogous to an inference, can serve this purpose. However, I have argued that this approach is inadequate in real-world decision-making contexts, as innumerable factors may enter into the process, and it is not possible to specify on procedural grounds how information ought to be accommodated and used in making a decision. The distinction between the success and failure of a decision process cannot be drawn by assessing the procedural elements of decision-making alone. Judgments of capacity require the acknowledgement of the complex, context-rich processes of decision-making. Both procedural and substantive elements are involved in determining whether a person is able to make a decision that, loosely, is appropriate, given the range of factors that enter into the decision-making process.
Viewing the decision-making process in terms of having a recognisable reason for one's decision offers a way to accommodate this broader view, which reconciles both procedural and substantive elements of decision-making. This approach allows the decision to be understood within its context for the individual, whilst not prejudging the content of the decision or the factors that influence it as either acceptable or indicative of pathology. This enables the assessment to avoid the charge of risking unwarranted medical paternalism, regarding what a patient ought to believe or want. In assessing capacity, clinicians and the courts ought to acknowledge that procedural and substantive elements interact in patients' decision-making, and that exploring reasons for their decisions might shed more light on the decision-making process than assessments of procedural criteria alone would permit.
Although case-law acknowledges this complex interplay and the difficulties of determining capacity in borderline cases, in ordinary practice the criterial MCA test is liable to narrow clinicians' judgments and prevent further reflection on how assessments of capacity are guided by both procedural and substantive norms. The conceptual shift proposed here would require interpreting the legal test of capacity in a way that would inherently allow more scope for clinical expertise and judgment than a reductive box-ticking approach to the criteria. I do not consider that this is necessarily to the detriment of capacity assessments: they are complex, subtly balanced and contingent on a range of normative judgments, and it is better to acknowledge this complexity than to dismiss it in an attempt to simplify the judgment required. Whilst this approach cannot maintain the value-neutrality intended by the MCA, assessing decision-making through exploring patients' reasons could enable more sophisticated clinical judgments of capacity to be made. Such critical reflection on the legal criteria for capacity and how they are interpreted in clinical practice is essential to ensuring the right to autonomy in decision-making is protected as far as possible.
Mental Capacity Act 2005 c. 9. Available at: <http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2005/pdf/ukpga_20050009_en.pdf>.
Lord Donaldson in Re T *(Adult: Refusal of Treatment) \[1992\] 4 All E.R. 649, at 653*.
*Re MB (Medical Treatment)* \[1997\] 2 F.L.R. 426, at 426.
*Re MB* at 437.
*Re T* at 662.
For example, *Re MB*; *Re C (Adult: Refusal of Medical Treatment)* \[1994\] 1 W.L.R. 290, and the 'Eastman' test of capacity.
John McDowell makes an analogous argument in the case of ethics, denying the requirements of virtue can be precise: '\[T\]he best generalizations for how one should behave hold only for the most part. If one attempted to reduce one's conception of what virtue required to a set of rules, then ... cases would inevitably turn up in which a mechanical application of the rules would strike one as wrong' ([@R25], p. 336).
This is also to say nothing of the central role of emotion in decision-making, which has largely been underplayed in cognitive accounts of capacity (e.g. [@R5]).
*Norfolk & Norwich Healthcare (NHS) Trust v. W* \[1996\] 2 F.L.R. 613.
*South West Hertfordshire Health Authority v. KB* \[1994b\] 2 F.C.R. 1051.
*Trust A and Trust B v. H (An Adult Patient)* \[2006\] 2 FLR 958, at 965.
Some authors have also suggested that the content of a person's values can in themselves be capacity-undermining. For example, the extremely high value anorexia sufferers place on thinness may indicate a mental impairment influencing the decision-making process ([@R38]). However, making judgments about capacity based on a person's values does not have a recognised basis in case-law and is inevitably more controversial (e.g. [@R18]).
For example, *Re C*, concerning an individual with schizophrenia who was deemed to possess the capacity to refuse a medically recommended amputation of his gangrenous foot, despite his delusional belief that he was a famous doctor and would not die from his condition.
Differentiating between legitimate religious beliefs and pathological ones is recognised as a particularly problematic area of judgment ([@R40]).
This view is consistent with the 'accessible ends' approach to rationality developed by [@R27], whereby a person's decision-making is judged according to whether their ends, norms and evaluative and epistemic commitments can be appreciated and seen as intelligible by others, irrespective of whether those commitments are themselves shared.
Cited in [@R12].
Cited in [@R13].
A further analysis of what could legitimately count as a reason would require taking into account 'what norms have force within the relevant social practice and contexts' ([@R1], p. 103).
| |
Q:
Prove that $P(X=0)=1$ for a r.v. such that $P(X \ge 0)=1$ and $E(X)=0$
I am trying to prove that $P(X=0)=1$ for a random variable $X$ which satisfies $P(X\ge 0 )=1$ and $E(X)=0$. I know that this seems intuitively clear, but I am having trouble with a formal proof (one that relies on Lebesgue integration).
I have tried to make a proof based on contradiction where I assume that $P(X>0) >0$ and show that this implies that $E(X)>0$, but I am not sure if my proof is correct. It looks something like this:
Consider the probability space $(\Omega,\Sigma,P)$. Let $A=\{\omega\in\Omega:X(\omega)=0\}$ and $ B=\{\omega\in\Omega:X(\omega)>0\}$. Clearly $A$ and $B$ are disjoint. Assume $P(B)>0$ and write
$E(X)=\int_\Omega X(\omega)P(d\omega)=\int_A 0 P(d\omega)+\int_B X(\omega)P(d\omega).$
Since $P(B)>0$, and $X(\omega)>0$ for all $\omega \in B$, this should imply that $E(X)>0$, which is a contradiction.
Is this correct? How do I know that my final statement holds? Can I make it more formal by introducing limits of some kind? For instance by using $P(X>0)=\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} P(X\ge 1/n)$.
A:
Your argument is right. Here's a direct approach, using essentially the same calculations. We partition the set $(X\geq 0)$ as the union of the sets $(X\geq 1)$ and $(2^{-n}\leq X<2^{-n+1})$, $n\in\mathbb{N}$:
\begin{align*}
0&=E[X]=\int XdP=\int_{X\geq 1}XdP+\sum_{n=1}^\infty\int_{2^{-n}\leq X<2^{-n+1}}XdP\\
&\geq P(X\geq 1)+\sum_{n=1}^\infty 2^{-n}P(2^{-n}\leq X<2^{n-1})\geq 0
\end{align*}
so the inequalities are actually equalities. Since all numbers are nonnegative, they have to be zero, so $P(X\geq 1)=P(2^{-n}\leq X<2^{-n+1})=0$ for all $n$. Finally,
$$1=P(X\geq 0)=P(X=0)+P(X\geq 1)+\sum_{n=1}^\infty P(2^{-n}\leq X<2^{-n+1})=P(X=0)$$
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Mass transfer studies during adsorption.
Mathur, BC and Ibrahim, SH and Kuloor, NR (1970) Mass transfer studies during adsorption. In: Transactions, Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (October). pp. 20-28.
H2O was adsorbed from MeCOEt-H2O (11.89) azeotrope on Dryal (anhyd. CaSO4) at 1 atm, 75-100 Deg, flow rate 0.5-3.0 cm3/min, and bed height 5-20 cm. The optimum conditions for obtaining the max. enrichment of MeCOEt was 1.0 cm3/min and 80 Deg for a bed height of 20 cm. The optimum bed height was 15-25 cm, and the optimum particle size was 2-4.5 mm.
Mass transfer(in adsorption, of water from methyl ketone-water azeotropes by calcium sulfate); Adsorption (mass transfer in, of water from ethyl methyl ketone-water azeotropes by calcium sulfate). | http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/5922/ |
Zora the giraffe munched on a bucket of alfalfa on Thursday morning before strolling to the edge of the enclosure to get a better look at the cameras and zoo personnel that had gathered in the giraffe barn.
All the fuss and excitement was for her. An 8-year-old giraffe is pregnant with her first calf.
Zora’s calf is due in mid-March and will be the 29th giraffe born at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium since 1979.
“There are about 400 giraffes in the United States, and about 38 giraffes are born each year,” said Jason Herrick, the zoo’s vice president of conservation and animal health. “Omaha has been a big part of that.” rice field.”
Birth is important to zoos and to the overall survival of a species.
“Wild giraffes are not very energetic,” Herrick said.
People are also reading…
Conservationists have seen a 40% decline in giraffe populations since the 1980s, and vulnerable species have gone extinct in seven African countries.
Zora’s calf will be the zoo’s first calf since July 2021 when a male calf named Arthur was born.
This calf will be the sixth offspring of Jawara, a male giraffe. The 14-year-old was born at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois and moved to Omaha in 2010.
Zora arrived from the Great Plains Zoo in South Dakota in 2015.
Taylor Rowe, the zoo’s chief veterinarian, said the first-time mother is doing well.
“Keepers are here every day to observe and check on weight and appetite,” Law said. “There were no worries. With every birth, we always watch her first-time mother very closely.”
Law says it’s difficult for veterinarians to determine the sex of such large mammals before birth.
When born, the calves will be about 6 feet 150 pounds.
Babies and mothers are gradually introduced back into the herd, returning to a community of seven females and two males. | https://dutytowarn.info/omaha-zoo-announces-giraffe-pregnancy/ |
Where do we start?????
How to paint cedar paneling?
My sister and I are remodeling an older cottage; it has all cedar walls and we would like to lighten the whole interior how can we paint the walls without it looking cheap and/or cheesy? We are also wanting to paint the cabinets...
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Little Homestead In Boise on Aug 22, 2018
I think she would probably have to fill all of the knots with filler to get them smooth, then wash the whole area with TSP, and give it several coats of paint
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Lori Niemi Laksonen on Aug 23, 2018
We used semi-transparent white stain on our new cedar in our cabin and it brought out the beauty if the wood and the blemishes (water marks and such). You'll have to sand it first which shouldn't take much, I've been doing our old cabinets and it hasn't taken too long. Putting the white stain on these also.
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Lou on Aug 23, 2018
Looks more like knotty pine than cedar, but the tips are good either way. I wouldn't worry too much about the knots, but I would fill all the nail holes, as they will show through the paint. You might want to paint the cabinets a couple of shades lighter (or darker) than the walls, or a completely different contrasting color.
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Valleycat1 on Aug 23, 2018
I once painted some cheap glossy paneling. Just used a really good primer then a couple of coats of good paint. No sanding (we were willing to just rip out the paneling if my paint idea didn’t work). Still looked great when we sold the house 10 years later.
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Kristin Gambaccini on Aug 23, 2018
KILZ brand paint and primer would work well to cover the color and wormholes!
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Two Paws Farmhouse | Homesteading on Aug 23, 2018
First off, make sure you prime those walls first. Although most paints now come with paint and primer in them, it's not going to be enough to block the tannen. You can use primer such as Killz and give them one coat of primer using a roller, then use any latex paint you would typically use.
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Ted Rowland on Aug 23, 2018
Okay. I am going to dispel mythology here. You can leave the knots without filling them, and it will look like painted paneling, which is a desired look. Do not use TSP indoors. You will have to rinse so much that it will be ridiculous. TSP will interact with paint, and says on the box, Do not use on painted surfaces. Dish soap will remove any greasy prints around handles or whatever, and will be okay with normal rinsing. You are going to want to go to Sherwin Williams, or a paint store, and ask for the type of KILZ, or Zinser primer to convert from oil to latex. (Latex will not stick over varnish or poly urethane). Both KILZ and Zinser come in 3 different formulations, one for oil priming for oil paint, one for latex over latex, and one to convert surfaces that are varnish, oil, and poly urethane, to a surface that can accept latex paint. YOU CANNOT JUST PAINT OIL BASE PAINT OVER THIS EITHER. That is a myth. Have them TINT YOUR KILZ to the same color as you will paint the walls and cabinets. You must wear a mask that filters paint odors, and raise the windows while doing this. Leave for 4 hours after priming. You can use a 3/4 inch lambs wool roller, and go up and down with the groves, and use a 2.5 inch sash brush. Coat 2 coats KILZ, and 2 coats of good latex paint. It will look like a million bucks when you are done. Happy painting.
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BrokeCrazyLady on Aug 24, 2018
I've always thought part of the charm of an old cabin was the woody smell. I'd consider painting the wall at the back of the picture with a really light color, tossing down a few bright colored throw rugs and lightly sanding the walls but leaving it raw wood (not even sealing it.) If it really is cedar, you've got a bug repelling scent that is quite pleasant; even if it is knotty pine as someone else suggested, it would still smell great in the cabin without using costly oils and candles.
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Jennifer | CrazyDiyMom on Sep 21, 2018
Just be sure to use a primer that will cover the sap that wants to peek through the paint. Ask me how I know We used Zinsser (the kind that says it will cover wood/sap) and then chose our favorite white paint color. We didn't fill in the gaps between the boards because we liked that look. Ours took a good coat of primer and then 2 coats of the white paint and it turned out great!
Good luck! It's very time consuming, but worth it in the end!
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There are many definitions of "stakeholder". What is relevant for any definition is that a stakeholder is a person or a group who has an interest in a given situation, and who is an active player. A stakeholder can also be considered as an actor, in the sense of a person or organization who carries out one or more of the activities in an import or export process.
Trade Facilitation Stakeholders
Trade facilitation is characterized by many stakeholders at the national, regional or international level, and from the public as well as the private sector. The Buy-Ship-Pay Model of an international trade transaction groups the actors according to their roles as either Customer, Supplier, Intermediary or Authority. The following list shows the main stakeholders by group.
|Customer||Supplier||Intermediary||Authority|
|Buyer||Seller
||Transport Service Supplier
||Customs
|
|Importer||Exporter||Freight Forwarder||Environment|
|Consignee||Consignor||Bank||Agriculture|
|Ship to||Ship from||Insurance Provider||Standards|
|Payor||Payee||Customs Agent||Consular|
|Broker||Health|
|Commission Agent||Port|
|Intervention Board (EU)|
|Chamber of Commerce|
Actors can also be grouped by their core business, meaning the function they perform for the trade transaction. These groups are:
- Manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers who are active in the business of purchasing and/or selling goods.
- Shipping and transport companies that organize and take care of the physical movement of goods, or arrange commercial transportation in the case of freight forwarders and logistics companies.
- Other transport intermediaries such as port and airport authorities, terminal handlers, stevedores and warehouse operators, who are involved in the physical movement of goods.
- Commercial banks and Insurance companies, which are used by traders for payment of goods, payment of duties and taxes, insurance of goods during transport, insurance of vehicles, and the deposit of guarantees and securities.
- Other intermediaries, who are involved in the fulfilment of procedures, including customs brokers and Single Window operators, including service providers that are businesses that provide a service to one or a number of parties in the supply chain, usually in form of data processing and information exchange.
- Government or public bodies that encompass executive agencies, government departments or ministries at state and federal (regional) levels. Their role/business is to authorize and control the cross-border movement of goods and enforce national legislation.
Role of associations
Business or trade and industry associations are stakeholders that represent multiple members. Associations may be organized for specific business sectors (e.g. the shippers' councils) or for the private sector as the whole (e.g. chamber of commerce, association of employers), and can also have an international or regional dimension. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Association (FIATA) are examples of international transport organizations, and the International Chamber of Commerce is the international association of chambers of commerce. These associations are usually set up to represent their members' interest in national policy processes and to disseminate information to and from their members. Trade and industry associations are essential in consultation process as it is usually impossible for individual companies/entities to follow and participate in all consultative processes for reasons of lack of time and information. Government agencies therefore often accept participation of associations as stakeholders in trade facilitation bodies.
Stakeholder Identification
Multiple trade facilitation stakeholders are linked to each other in one way or another. They are usually part of a network of multiple dependencies and relationships that shapes their behaviour and attitudes toward each other. A stakeholder analysis provides information on who exactly the national trade facilitation stakeholders are, why they should become involved, and what their interests are. | https://tfig.unece.org/contents/stakeholders.htm |
Former president Bill Clinton has been lauded by the Democratic establishment for bringing the party to prominence in the 1990s. However, Clinton admitted that one of his own policies has been responsible for mass incarceration and overcrowding prisons.
Clinton spoke with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday (May 6) at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Morroco. In 1994, Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act into law which included a federal “three strikes” provision which gave stiff prison sentences for third-time offenders. Clinton took the bold step in admitting the law’s failure and how prisons are far too crowded today as a result.
“The problem is the way it was written and implemented is we cast too wide a net and we had too many people in prison,” said Clinton. “And we wound up putting so many people in prison that there wasn’t enough money left to educate them, train them for new jobs and increase the chances when they came out so they could live productive lives.”
The comments from Clinton come at a sensitive time as his wife, Hillary, has been pegged as the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election. While Mrs. Clinton has been outspoken about prison overpopulation in times past, she was supportive of her husband’s bill in 1994 according to CNN.
While Clinton admitted his role the signing of the bill, he put some of the blame on Republicans who pushed for the controversial three-strikes provision.
Watch CNN’s interview with Bill Clinton below. | https://hiphopwired.com/461804/bill-clinton-blames-own-policies-for-prison-overpopulation-video/ |
Country charm and modern convenience combine in this lovely home with wrapping front porch. The great room features a cathedral ceiling and cozy fireplace with built-ins, and the centrally located kitchen with its nearby pantry services the breakfast area and dining room easily. Guests will appreciate the convenient powder room. The master suite is elegantly appointed with walk-in closet and bath with whirlpool tub, shower, and dual sink vanity. A sitting room with bay window off the master suite is a special attraction. Upstairs, the hallway overlooks the great room below, and two secondary bedrooms share a full bath.
1st Floor: 1778 Sq. Ft.
House Dimensions: 81' 0" x 44' 2"
Great Room: 15' 4" x 21' 2"
Great Room (Cathedral): 15' 4" x 21' 2" x 21' 5"
Kitchen : 12' 8" x 13' 8" x 9' 0"
Breakfast Room : 10' 8" x 9' 10" x 9' 0"
Utility Room : 8' 8" x 7' 10" x 9' 0"
Bonus Room (Vaulted): 22' 0" x 13' 0" x 8' 0"
Garage Storage : 5' 0" x 13' 6" x 0' 0"
Master Bedroom : 12' 8" x 16' 4" x 9' 0"
Porch - Front : 56' 0" x 7' 0" x 0' 0"
Deck / Patio : 43' 0" x 12' 0" x 0' 0"
Storage (Other) : 3' 4" x 7' 8" x 0' 0"
Other : 17' 8" x 8' 10" x 9' 0"
Foyer (Vaulted): 11' 10" x 7' 2" x 21' 5" | https://www.dongardner.com/house-plan/388/the-williston |
Personal Injury Case -What Is the Discovery Phase ?
Posted on Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 10:07 pm
One of the most important parts of a personal injury lawsuit involves the discovery phase. If you have never been involved in a lawsuit before, you may not know what the discovery phase of a lawsuit involves. However, if you have a personal injury case that is headed to court, you should familiarize yourself with this important process.
What Is Discovery?
The discovery phase of a lawsuit is when both sides exchange information about the evidence and witnesses that may be presented at trial. Discovery is intended to ensure that each side understands the facts and theories of the other side’s case so that each side can prepare their own case.
Discovery is also designed to help narrow down the issues that will need to be resolved at trial. Through discovery, the parties may come to an agreement on certain facts, eliminating the need for a jury or judge to decide those facts.
Discovery is meant to help streamline the litigation process and prevent “trial by ambush,” where a party is surprised with evidence at trial with no opportunity to find and present opposing evidence.
What Are the Steps in Discovery?
The discovery phase may involve multiple steps depending on the types of evidence involved. In the first step, the parties will exchange interrogatories and requests for the production of documents. Interrogatories are questions that each party asks of the other. They are intended to help each party with their investigation of the case, including identifying potential sources of evidence or witnesses. Requests for the production of documents ask a party to provide copies of relevant documents in the party’s possession or control, such as reports or records.
Another major step in discovery involves taking depositions. A deposition is an out-of-court statement or testimony provided under oath by someone involved with the case or with knowledge relevant to the case. Depositions usually involve each side having the opportunity to ask questions of the witness being deposed. In many cases, witnesses who are expected to testify at trial will be subjected to a deposition so that the parties have an idea of what the witness will testify about at trial. Any differences between deposition and trial testimony may be used to call a witness’s credibility into question at trial. Depositions may also be used to get the testimony of a witness who cannot appear at trial, with the deposition testimony later read into evidence at trial.
Other steps in the discovery phase of a personal injury case may involve having the plaintiff submit to a medical examination, issuing subpoenas to obtain records or other documents relevant to the case, or submitting documents or evidence for examination to determine their authenticity.
Although parties to a case are expected to cooperate in discovery and provide timely, complete responses to all discovery requests, parties may sometimes get into discovery disputes. A party that has not received a complete response to their discovery request may seek an order compelling the other side to promptly respond to a discovery request. Or a party may lodge an objection to a discovery request on the grounds that fulfilling the request would pose an unfair burden on the producing party or on the grounds that the request seeks irrelevant information or information protected from disclosure by legal privilege. When discovery disputes arise, trial courts can issue orders either directing a party to comply or quashing a party’s discovery request.
What Happens at the End of Discovery?
At the end of the discovery phase of a personal injury case, one or both parties may file a motion for summary judgment. In a summary judgment motion, a party argues that the uncontested facts show that no genuine factual disputes remain to be decided. The motion states that based on the facts, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. If a summary judgment motion is granted by the trial court, the moving party wins the case and the need for a trial is eliminated. However, courts may sometimes grant only partial summary judgment to a party, resolving only certain issues in favor of the moving party. The remaining outstanding issues will proceed to trial.
If factual disputes remain between the parties, the trial court will hold a pre-trial conference to identify the issues to be tried and to schedule a date to start the trial.
Contact a Personal Injury Lawyer from Portner Bond, PLLC for Help with Your Case
If you have a personal injury case and want to know more about what is involved in the litigation process and its discovery phase, call the Beaumont personal injury lawyers of Portner Bond, PLLC at (409) 838-4444 or contact us through our website today for a free, no-obligation consultation. You’ll speak with a knowledgeable personal injury attorney from our legal team who can advise you about your rights and options. | https://www.portnerbond.com/what-is-the-discovery-phase-of-a-personal-injury-case/ |
Q:
Does the series $\sum_{k=2}^\infty \frac{(-1)^{[n/3]}}{\sqrt{\log n}}$ converges or diverges?
I have to study the series
$$\sum_{n=2}^\infty \frac{(-1)^{[n/3]}}{\sqrt{\log n}}$$ in which $[n]$ denotes the whole part of $n$.
I know that $$\left|\sum_{n=2}^\infty \frac{(-1)^{[n/3]}}{\sqrt{\log n}}\right| < \sum_{n=2}^\infty \left|\frac{(-1)^{[n/3]}}{\sqrt{\log n}}\right| = \sum_{n=2}^\infty \frac{1}{\sqrt{\log n}}$$.
But $\log n<n \rightarrow \frac{1}{\log n}>\frac{1}{n}\rightarrow \frac{1}{\sqrt{\log n}}>\frac{1}{\sqrt n}$.
The sum $\sum_{n}^\infty \frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}$ diverges, so$ \sum_{n}^\infty \frac{1}{\sqrt{\log n}}$ diverges.
I've tried with the other criteria but nothing. Can someone help me to understand?
A:
Given a natural number $n$, write $n=3k+r$ where $k$ is a nonnegative integer and $r$ is one of the numbers $0,1,2$. Then $n/3=k+r/3$, so $[n/3]=k$. Every nonnegative integer $k$ produces three natural numbers of the form $3k+r$ where $r\in \{0,1,2\}$, so the sequence $[n/3]$, when $n$ runs over the natural numbers, is simply:
$$\{0,0,1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,\dots\}$$
Therefore, the sequence $(-1)^{[n/3]}$ is this:
$$\{1,1,-1,-1,-1,1,1,1,-1,-1,-1,1,1,1,\cdots\}$$
that is, except for the first two $1$'s, it is a bunch of three-tuples of $\pm 1$'s in alternating signs.
Consider the sequence
$$A_N=\sum_{n=1}^N(-1)^{[n/3]}$$
Then you can convince yourself that $A_N$ takes only finitely many values, which are $1,2,0,-1$. In particular, the sequence $A_N$ is bounded.
Since for $n>1$, $1/\sqrt{\log n}$ is a positive decreasing sequence tending to zero as $n\to\infty$, it follows from Dirichlet's test that the series $\sum_{n=2}^{\infty}\frac{(-1)^{[n/3]}}{\sqrt{\log n}}$ is convergent.
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In some construction projects, hiring and firing are exercised to maintain a labor force that meets the needs of the project. Given that the activities of hiring and firing both incur additional costs, how should the labor force be maintained throughout the life of the project?
Let us assume that the project will be executed over the span of n weeks and that the minimum labor force required in week i is bi laborers. Theoretically, we can use hiring and firing to keep the work-force in week i exactly equal to bi. Alternatively, it may be more economical to maintain a labor force larger than the minimum requirements through new hiring. This is the case we will consider here.
Given that xi is the actual number of laborers employed in week i, two costs can be incurred in week i: C1(xi - bi), the cost of maintaining an excess labor force xi - bi, and C2(xi - xi-1, the cost of hiring additional laborers, xi - xi-1. It is assumed that no additional cost is incurred when employment is discontinued.
The elements of the DP model are defined as follows:
a. Stage i is represented by week i, i = 1, 2, ….. , n.
b. The alternatives at stage i are xi, the number of laborers in week i.
c. The state at stage i is represented by the number of laborers available at stage (week) i - 1, xi-1.
The DP recursive equation is given as
The computations start at stage n with x n = bn and terminate at stage 1.
Example 10.3-2
A construction contractor estimates that the size of the work force needed over the next 5 weeks to be 5, 7, 8.4, and 6 workers, respectively. Excess labor kept on the force will cost $300 per worker per week, and new hiring in any week will incur a fixed cost of $400 plus $200 per worker per week.
The data of the problem are summarized as
PROBLEM SET 10.3B
1. Solve Example 10.3.2 for each of the following minimum labor requirements:
2. In Example 10.3-2, if a severance pay of $100 is incurred for each fired worker, determine the optimum solution.
*3. Luxor Travel arranges I-week tours to southern Egypt. The agency is contracted to pro-vide tourist groups with 7,4,7, and 8 rental cars over the next 4 weeks, respectively. Luxor Travel subcontracts with a local car dealer to supply rental needs. The dealer charges a rental fee of $220 per car per week, plus a flat fee of $500 for any rental transaction. Luxor, however, may elect not to return the rental cars at the end of the week, in which case the agency will be responsible only for the weekly rental ($220). What is the best way for Luxor Travel to handle the rental situation?
4. GECO is contracted for the next 4 years to supply aircraft engines at the rate of four engines a year. Available production capacity and production costs vary from year to year. GECO can produce five engines in year 1, six in year 2, three in year 3, and five in year 4. The corresponding production costs per engine over the next 4 years are $300,000, $330,000, $350,000, and $420,000, respectively. GECO can elect to produce more than it needs in a certain year, in which case the engines must be properly stored until shipment date. The storage cost per engine also varies from year to year, and is estimated to be $20,000 for year 1, $30,000 for year 2, $40,000 for year 3, and $50,000 for year 4. Currently, at the start of year 1, GECO has one engine ready for shipping. Develop an optimal production plan for GECO.
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Copyright © 2018-2021 BrainKart.com; All Rights Reserved. (BS) Developed by Therithal info, Chennai. | http://www.brainkart.com/article/Work-Force-Size-Model--Dynamic-Programming(DP)-Applications_11255/ |
1. variable cost changes with the change in quantity. It increase or decrease as the output change.
3. Its curve is parallel to the curve of total cost.
The procedure of transforming predictable income streams in wealth is termed as: (1) capitalization. (2) profiteering. (3) financial alchemy. (4) capitalism. (5) asset conversion.
If all variable costs can be covered, in that case every firm maximizes profit by adjusting output till: (w) total revenue is maximized. (x) marginal revenue = average cost. (y) average cost = marginal cost. (z) marginal revenue = marginal cost. | http://www.tutorsglobe.com/getanswer/case-study-on-microeconomics-9028247.aspx |
Vegetable soup with beef. Browse & Discover Thousands of Book Titles, for Less. Stir corn, green beans, tomato sauce, and tomato paste with the beef. Pour tomato-vegetable juice cocktail into the pot; season with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper.
I love to serve this tasty soup with crusty baguettes or cornbread with soft sweet cream butter. This is a wholesome hearty fall and winter meal that you can feel good about serving your family. Beef Veggie Soup Brimming with chunks of beef, potatoes, carrots, green beans and mushrooms, this satisfying soup is a meal in itself. You can cook Vegetable soup with beef using 9 ingredients and 4 steps. Here is how you achieve that.
Ingredients of Vegetable soup with beef
- It’s 3 litres of water.
- Prepare 1 cup of macaroni.
- You need 1 handful of fresh chomolia, washed and chopped.
- You need 300 g of beef stewing pieces.
- It’s 1 of large onion, chopped.
- It’s 6 of baby tomatoes, chopped.
- Prepare 1 sachet of Benny spice.
- Prepare 1 of large carrot, peeled and chopped.
- You need 1 of green pepper, chopped.
When unexpected guests come to visit, this is one of my favorite recipes to prepare because it's ready in no time. —Ruby Williams, Bogalusa, Louisiana. In a large skillet, brown beef in oil; drain. Transfer to a plate and repeat with remaining half of beef. Place roast in a large Dutch oven.
Vegetable soup with beef instructions
- Pour water in your pot and beef boil after an hour add chopped chomolia..
- Add chopped onion and tomatoes boil.
- Add Benny spice and macaroni.
- Add chopped carrot and green pepper simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the water, barley, onion, celery, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. I was looking for a good, 'regular' beef vegetable soup that used normal ingredients. This was exactly what I was looking for. There's no need to spend all day at the stove with this vegetable beef soup recipe. This is the perfect recipe to make with leftover beef, or on the stovetop after your beef cooks, but you can also make the whole soup in the slow cooker.
Foods That Can Make You Happy Most of us believe that comfort foods are bad for us and that we ought to stay away from them. At times, if your comfort food is essentially candy or other junk foods, this is true. Other times, though, comfort foods can be totally nutritious and it’s good for you to eat them. A number of foods really do boost your mood when you consume them. If you are feeling a little bit down and you need a happiness pick me up, try a couple of these. Eggs, you may be amazed to discover, are wonderful at combating depression. Just make sure that you don’t toss out the yolk. The yolk is the most essential part of the egg in terms of helping raise your mood. Eggs, the egg yolk particularly, are stuffed full of B vitamins. B vitamins can truly help you improve your mood. This is because they help improve the function of your neural transmitters, the components of your brain that dictate your mood. Try to eat an egg and feel a lot better! Build a trail mix out of seeds and/or nuts. Almonds, cashews, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, etc are all helpful for elevating your mood. This is possible because these foods are high in magnesium which promotes serotonin production. Serotonin is the “feel good” chemical that tells your brain how you feel at all times. The more serotonin in your brain, the happier you’ll feel. Nuts, on top of raising your mood, can be a great source of protein. If you wish to fight depression, try eating some cold water fish. Herring, trout, tuna, wild salmon, and mackerel are all high in omega-3 fats and DHA. These are two things that improve the quality and the function of your brain’s gray matter. It’s true: consuming a tuna fish sandwich can earnestly raise your mood. Some grains are really great for fighting off bad moods. Quinoa, millet, teff and barley are all actually wonderful for helping increase your happiness levels. They help you feel full also which can actually help to better your mood. It’s not difficult to feel low when you feel famished! These grains can elevate your mood as it’s easy for your body to digest them. These foods are easier to digest than others which helps kick start a rise in your sugar levels which in turn brings up your mood to a happier place. Your mood could truly be helped by green tea. You just knew green tea had to be included in this article, right? Green tea is found to be packed full of an amino acid known as L-theanine. Studies have discovered that this amino acid essentially stimulates brain waves. This will improve your brain’s focus while also relaxing the rest of your body. You probably already knew how easy it is to become healthy when you consume green tea. Now you know green tea can help raise your mood as well! Now you can see that junk food isn’t necessarily what you have to eat when you want to help your moods get better. Try a few of these instead! | https://bestrecipecollections.com/415-recipe-perfect-vegetable-soup-with-beef/ |
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1979?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1978?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1977?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1976?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1975?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1974?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1973?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1972?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1971?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!
“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1970?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question! | https://www.bookscrolling.com/category/sci-fi-fantasy-award-winners/1970s/ |
Q:
Linear dependence of a set for what h?
I asked the same question yesterday, but this one is a bit different in terms of computations. It is from my exam I took an hour ago.
For what $h$ the columns of this matrix are linearly dependent? $$\begin{bmatrix} 1 & -3 & 4 \\ -4 & 7 & h\\ 2 & -6 & 8 \end{bmatrix}$$
Attempt: after row reducing, but not completely:
$$\begin{bmatrix} 1 & -3 & 4 & 0 \\ -4 & 7 & h & 0 \\ 2 & -6 & 8 & 0 \end{bmatrix} \sim \begin{bmatrix} 1 & -3 & 4 & 0 \\ 0 & -5 & h+16 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 \end{bmatrix} $$
My guess was that if $h=-16;-\frac{28}{3}$ the system is linearly dependent. And I just guessed the -16. Hints please.
A:
You are asking: for what values of $h$ are the vectors
$$\vec{v_1}=\left(\begin{array}{r}1\\-4\\2\end{array}\right),\quad \vec{v_2}=\left(\begin{array}{r}-3\\7\\-6\end{array}\right),\quad \vec{v_3}=\left(\begin{array}{r}4\\h\\8\end{array}\right)$$
linearly dependent?
You seem to be trying to do this by looking at the equation
$$\alpha\vec{v_1}+\beta\vec{v_2}+\gamma\vec{v_3}=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\0\\0\end{array}\right)$$
and trying to determine for what values of $h$ there is a nonzero solution. This leads to the matrix you have:
$$\left(\begin{array}{rrr|c}
1 & -3 & 4 & 0\\
-4 & 7 & h & 0\\
2 & -6 & 8 & 0
\end{array}\right).$$
Now, since the third equation is a multiple of the first, that equation does not matter: it provides no new information. That means that you have a homogeneous system of two equations in three unknowns. Those systems always have infinitely many solutions. In particular, no matter what $h$ is, the system has infinitely many solutions, and so must have a nontrivial solution. Thus, the vectors are always linearly dependent.
To understand what is happening, note that all three vectors lie in the plane $z=2x$. Any two vectors on the plane that are not collinear will span the plane. Since $\vec{v_1}$ and $\vec{v_2}$ are not collinear, and both lie on the plane $z=2x$, any vector that lies on the plane $z=2x$ will be a linear combination of $\vec{v_1}$ and $\vec{v_2}$. Or, put another way, three vectors in a $2$-dimensional space (a plane through the origin) are always linearly dependent.
Here you have three vectors that satisfies $z=2x$; every other vector that satisfies that is a linear combination of $\vec{v_1}$ and $\vec{v_2}$: if $(a,b,2a)^t$ lies in the plane, then the system
$$\alpha\left(\begin{array}{r}1\\-4\\2\end{array}\right) + \beta\left(\begin{array}{r}-3\\7\\-6\end{array}\right) = \left(\begin{array}{c}a\\b\\2a\end{array}\right)$$
has a solution, namely $\alpha = -\frac{7a+3b}{5}$, $\beta=-\frac{4a+b}{5}$ (obtained by Gaussian elimination). In particular, since no matter what $h$ is $\vec{v_3}$ lies in the plane $2z=x$, then we will have
$$\vec{v_3} = -\frac{28+3h}{5}\vec{v_1} - \frac{16+h}{5}\vec{v_2}.$$
Note that this makes sense no matter what $h$ is.
This can be read off your row-reduced matrix: you got
$$\left(\begin{array}{rrr|c}
1 & -3 & 4 & 0\\
0 & -5 & h+16 & 0\\
0 & 0 & 0 & 0
\end{array}\right).$$
Divide the second row by $-5$ to get
$$\left(\begin{array}{rrr|c}
1 & -3 & 4 & 0\\
0 & 1 & -\frac{h+16}{5} & 0\\
0 & 0 & 0 & 0
\end{array}\right),$$
and now add three times the second row to the first row to get
$$\left(\begin{array}{rrc|c}
1 & 0 & 4+\frac{-3h-48}{5} & 0\\
0 & 1 & -\frac{h+16}{5} & 0\\
0 & 0 & 0 & 0
\end{array}\right) = \left(\begin{array}{rrc|c}
1 & 0 & -\frac{28+3h}{5} & 0\\
0 & 1 & -\frac{h+16}{5} & 0\\
0 & 0 & 0& 0
\end{array}\right).$$
So $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are leading variables, and $\gamma$ is a free variable. This tells you that the solutions to the original system are:
$$\begin{align*}
\alpha &= \frac{28+3h}{5}t\\
\beta &= \frac{h+16}{5}t\\
\gamma &= t
\end{align*}$$
Any nonzero value of $t$ gives you a nontrivial solution, and $t=-1$ gives you the solution I give above.
Of course, this can be done much more simply noting that since your original matrix has linearly dependent rows (third row is a scalar multiple of the first row), then the dimension of the rowspace is at most $2$ (in fact, exactly $2$), and hence the dimension of the columnspace is at most $2$ (in fact, exactly $2$, since $\dim(\text{columnspace})=\dim(\text{rowspace})$, so the columns are always linearly dependent.
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This invention relates generally to freestanding structures such as tents and the like.
For thousands of years, large-scale tensioned fabric structures have been used as shelter and protection for groups of people. Large-scale structures pre-date the smaller versions, typically used by two or three people, which were designed only in the last few centuries. Innovations and improvements have modernized virtually every aspect of the smaller versions and currently the field of invention for these structures is very crowded and a minor advance carries great weight. Despite the overcrowding of patentable art in the field of small structures, most of these improvements have not been practiced on larger-scale structures, leaving these designs crude in comparison. It has been more than 30 years since large-scale design having today""s widest commercial and industrial acceptance was developed.
All present-use tensioned fabric structures utilize some sort of weight-bearing pole framework which forms a skeleton upon which the fabric cover is suspended. As such, the pole framework performs the function of supporting the fabric weight and the fabric cover performs the separate function of establishing the structure""s sheltering walls and roof. In prior-art structures, the two functions work against each other to create the tension referred to in the generic Class of this invention, xe2x80x9cTensioned fabric structuresxe2x80x9d. In the author""s opinion, all prior-art design wrongly separates these two functions into opposing roles. By not integrating the support and covering functions in a cooperative, co-active role, present-use structures suffer from a number of disadvantages. My prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887 describes the disadvantages suffered in the field of small-scale structures; this present invention addresses the various types of problems suffered by large-scale structures.
One of the principal problems with large-scale structures is that associated with erecting them. The assembly process is complicated and exacting, rendering set-up by one person impossible and often three or more persons are required. The process involves unpacking a bewildering assortment of pole segments, stakes, guy-lines and an enormous flaccid fabric cover which is many times bigger than, and has no apparent relationship to, the structure""s final set-up shape. The most rudimentary embodiments require a minimum of six vertical rods (each of which is typically longer than five feet), at least three horizontal support poles (each usually has a length of more than seven feet), and several (the simplest structure requires eight) stakes and/or guy-lines. The set-up and trimming process guarantees that the assembly procedure of all prior-art large-scale structures is never the same twice, each is a laborious and custom installation. If the users suffer from lack of experience or a momentary negligence, they may upset the delicate balance of the partially-erected structure at any time during the set-up procedure, causing them to start again and all their progress lost. Furthermore, if any one of the components is lost, torn, broken or misplaced, set-up of these prior-art structures could be impossible.
Present-use large-scale design requires users to anchor the fabric cover to the terrain with stakes, guy-lines or the like. This is a second handicap as such structures are incapable of being relocated after they are assembled. The tensioned support is violated when any stake, rod or other anchoring mechanism is moved; relocating involves dismantling the frame and extensive anchoring means and rebuilding from the beginning. Structures lacking freestanding capability are also unsuitable for scree, rocky or sandy terrain.
The weight of prior-art large-scale structures is a third liability which smaller-structure design has attacked zealously. It is not uncommon for a smaller structure accommodating two users to weigh as little as three or four pounds while larger structures accommodating six users can weigh more than sixty pounds. The inefficient distribution of stresses in large-scale prior-art design, caused by separating the support function from the covering function as described previously, feeds a vicious circle of ever-increasing weight: heavier framing members require heavier fabrics which in turn require enhanced frame support, calling for still heavier fabrics, etc., etc., etc. Further, present-use designs strengthen stress areas assiduously with weighty reinforcement means. Additional support poles, rods, stakes and/or guy-lines to relieve the fabric of poorly diffused stress add further weight, complexity and expense.
The high cost of present-use structures is a fourth significant detriment. Because the supporting and covering functions are set in opposition, stresses inherent in large-scale design require framing members and fabrics not only heavier but also much more costly than necessary. Poles and rods are generally expensive components and heavier versions are even more costly to produce, ship and warehouse. Workmanship to cut and handle brawnier fabrics is more complicated and sewing is much more difficult. Reinforcing large areas as described increases manufacturing complexity and expense. Workmanship to attach myriad stakes, guy-lines and another anchoring means increases manufacturing costs while purchasing additional parts requires expensive outsourcing.
All prior-art large-scale fabric structures suffer a fifth and final drawback regarding their limited range of sizes and/or shapes. Present-use large structures are square or slightly rectangular; to erect larger structures or to utilize shapes other than these limited options introduces an entirely new level of complexity which is evidenced at outdoor events and the like where typically rented facilities accommodating larger groups of people involve an experienced full-time staff of many members and usually a full day for set-up or disassembly.
It is unfortunate that the designs of smaller-scale support structures, including their innumerable variants, can not be adapted for large-scale embodiments. Smaller-scale structures utilize bowed poles to place the fabric cover under tension; users skilled in the art recognize the difficulty and possible danger of bending enlarged support poles if adapted for use with larger-scale structures which typically use rigid and inflexible frame members. Also, smaller designs, if adapted, would lack basic functional capability: the simplest embodiments utilizing two or three support poles are undependable in ordinary winds without profuse anchoring, larger versions of these designs would be totally implausible. Designs of more elaborate smaller-scale embodiments utilize semispherical pole formations which employ arc trigonometry formulae that cannot be adapted if a low profile structure is required. These disadvantages, developed further in the following sections, effectively eliminate the possibility to adapt the myriad designs of small-scale embodiments for use as large-scale structures and today no such versions are recognized commercially.
Large-scale, freestanding tension structures which do not employ the inefficient support structure described previously have been disclosed in the prior art. My U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887 describes a stable, lightweight, easy to assemble, portable fabric structure which eliminates weight-bearing support poles and rods by utilizing an end panel at each end, comprised of resilient strip material formed into a single hoop secured to flexible fabric covering and maintained in generally upright position by at least one spreader rod extending between the end panels. The end panels preferably have circular hoops, yet circles, by definition, are as tall as they are wide so by enlarging such structures the height and width are coequally increased. Thus the invention of my U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887 is intended primarily or small-scale structures rather than for large-scale embodiments where height becomes a limiting factor.
A circular framing member can be made oval as described in my U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887 by increasing tension along its horizontal axis. Utilizing an oval frame member provides for a shorter and wider structure than an embodiment utilizing a circular framing member. However, after exceeding a limited and invariable horizontal-to-vertical ratio, an oval framing member suffers loss of capability as the fabric-covered oval fails to supply any weight-bearing role without distortion or collapse. This ratio is approximately two-to-three (height-to-width) or to put this in other words: if one wants a structure utilizing prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887 one will have a structure two-thirds as tall. While contributing an incremental enhancement vis-à-vis the author""s circular embodiment, the limited capability of oval framing members nevertheless limits the possible size of any functionally operable structure described in my U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887 especially if structures with substantially low profiles are required.
My U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887 discloses a structure with two fabric end panels, each provided with a single hoop sewn or in any manner attached to the fabric. The hoops are twisted and collapsed when the tent is prepared for storage, and this can be done easily if the tent is not too large. For larger embodiments utilizing larger hoops, the hoops must be twisted several times to reduce the overall size for storage, and this can be quite difficult considering the weight and bulk of the fabric.
In accordance with my present invention, the end panel(s) is provided with two or more hoops rather than just one. Plural hoops relatively small in diameter can be even more effective than one large hoop and are much easier to handle when twisted for storage, especially for large-scale structures.
Several advantages of the present invention are:
1. Novel Support Element:
My invention uniquely integrates the support and cover functions by means of novel fabric-covered hoops which act as the weight-bearing support element while simultaneously forming the structure""s covering end panels. Unlike poles which can bear weight by themselves, the hoops have a tendency to sag into an oval under the slightest load. However, the hoop incorporates a taut non-stretch fabric attached generally at all points to its perimeter, constricting it and thereby preventing sagging. This integrated fabric-covered hoop maintains its original shape despite bearing considerable weight and is a key advancement in the art of fabric-tensioned structures.
2. Easier and Speedier Assembly:
My invention eliminates all of the principal complications in the assembly of prior-art large-scale design:
The user shakes the collapsed structure of my invention and the resilient hoops virtually xe2x80x9cself erect.xe2x80x9d Because these hoops constitute essential parts of opposite end walls, it is uniquely easy to recognize the final shape of the structure during the assembly process.
The fabric-covered hoops of my invention, forming the end walls as described, stand erect by themselves and thus make irrelevant the need to lift end wall fabric during assembly. The self-standing hoops also support the weight of the structure""s roof, therefore the complex process of lifting and setting up prior-art structures is greatly simplified.
In short, the design of my invention allows for a large scale structure to be assembled in the shortest possible time and with the fewest people. The structure can be set up by novice users. The tedious xe2x80x9clearning curvexe2x80x9d associated with other structures is eliminated. As well as easily introducing new users to the sport of outdoor camping, the simplicity of assembly also enables the structure of my invention to be used as shelter for groups in emergencies. Ease of assembly is crucial in inclement or severe environments or where users are setting up the structure for the first time.
3. Structurally Capable in any Size:
The end panels of my invention can be adapted in a wide variety of configurations to provide for structures of any size. By utilizing more than a single hoop at the structure""s end panel, the tent can be enlarged without increasing its height. Two adjacent hoops, for example, double the structure""s width, three hoops triple it, etc.
The end panels can be still further adapted in a wide variety of configurations to provide specific advantages without compromising the objects of the invention. The preferred embodiment establishes multiple hoops in a generally adjacent and approximately flat end panel in-use configuration. Multiple hoops can also be configured to form a wedge or similarly shaped non-flat end panel to provide for increased internal space and/or windworthiness. The end panel can also be further adapted to provide for even larger structures: additional fabric can be provided in the space(s) between the multiple hoops to enlarge the width of the tent without increasing the height; hoops positioned above one another allow for taller structures if required. Moreover, the end panel or at least one of the multiple hoops therein can be inclined and/or the acclivity of one or both sidewalls increased to maximize floor space. These adaptations do not alter any of the tent""s structural components nor compromise any of the invention""s capabilities.
4. Freestanding:
The tent of my invention in some embodiments requires no stakes or guy-lines running to outlying stakes to establish structural support. These anchors typically suffer the obvious disadvantage of coming loose either by the tent working the wind or by the user tripping over them during darkness. My invention is suitable for rocky or sandy terrain or impenetrable hardpan, also the orientation can be rapidly changed under varying weather conditions if necessary.
5. Stronger:
As is well known to those skilled in the art, circles, ellipses and arches disburse weight evenly and with great stability. The end panels of my invention easily distribute the considerable weight of the covering fabric of a large-scale structure. Stresses common to prior-art tents are distributed naturally throughout the hoop(s) so stress points and compensating reinforcement are minimized.
A user can lean on the walls of my invention and the hoops will move to absorb stress from any direction. It is practically impossible to break the integrated fabric-cover hoop so the chances of collapse or permanent damage to the tent are minimized.
Further, the circular design of my invention deflects loads caused by rain, wind, ice rime and/or snow. As disclosed previously, the invention can be altered for increased wind worthiness without changing the tent""s structural components. By inclining one or both end-walls of the structure and/or increasing the acclivity of the sidewalls, the target size of the structure is reduced for extra dependability in deflecting heavy wind loads and to facilitate shedding of snow and wind-driven rain in inclement weather.
6. More Internal Space with Less Material:
Nature""s most efficient shape (maximum internal volume with minimum surface area) is a sphere. Due to the novel circular-based hoop design of the end panels, my invention encloses more cubic living space per given amount of fabric than any prior-art tension structure. Putting this another way, to provide a structure of given internal size, an advantage of my invention is that it requires less fabric.
7. Lighter:
Fabric-covered hoops distribute stress evenly throughout the hoop""s perimeter so lighter fabrics can be adopted and reinforcing minimized. Also, as previously described, a structure of any particular size can be made with a minimum of fabric thus reducing a principal factor contributing to a structure""s weight.
8. Full Use of height, Increased Headroom and Floor Use:
Prior-art designs allow the user to stand erect in only a small central or apex portion of the structure. The consistent, uniform height of my invention eliminates any such apex and provides for uncompromising utilization of the structure""s full height throughout the entire length of the structure.
My invention""s circular design further provides increased headroom as its shape correlates to the space used by a users"" upper body movements.
Many, but not all embodiments of my invention provide rectangular or square floors correlating to the shape of the users"" sleeping bags and related equipment. Sleeping bags and user gear may be pushed all the way to the edge of the structure if desired because the vertical sidewalls allow for optimum use of the floor area.
9. Fewer Components:
Because the fabric-covered hoop is both the support element and also the structure""s end walls, my tent requires far fewer support members compared to prior-art tents. Fewer parts can be broken or misplaced; complexity during set-up, teardown and in-use is reduced; maintenance is minimized. In some embodiments, rods and poles are completely eliminated; in other embodiments, only a single rod is utilized. In still further embodiments, no sleeves, stakes, tie members, flaps, straps, grommets, buckles or guy-lines are needed.
10. Ease of Production:
The consistent height of my invention reduces the number of separate fabric pieces and minimizes workmanship in cutting and sewing of irregular fabric patterns. Additionally, full widths of material can be utilized eliminating fabric waste. Costly reinforcements to counteract fabric stresses are substantially reduced as are the needs for support means and anchoring means as mentioned above.
11. Less Expensive:
Due to the superior strength and efficiency of the hoop design, the capability to utilize lighter, less expensive fabrics and to minimize fabric waste in production, ease of cutting and sewing, the reduced need for support members, etc., as described, the tent of my invention is less expensive to produce than all other large-scale prior-art fabric tension structures. Containerizing, shipping and insurance costs are correspondingly reduced.
12. Superior Compatibility:
The structure of my invention folds into a packed relatively flat disc by taking three turns in the manner described in prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887. Instead of folding a very large single hoop, however, multiple smaller hoops are turned as a xe2x80x9choop groupxe2x80x9d into a readily portable flat circular configuration. Prior patent 5,343,887 describes tents which fold to one-third or one-ninth of the loop""s size when opened; the patent of my present invention can double or triple this factor and, in some embodiments, the structure folds to less than one-fiftieth the size of the end panel when opened.
One embodiment features an end panel which is releasibly attached to the covering fabric by means such as zippers or the like. When the end-panels are separated from the covering fabric, bulkiness during folding is reduced and nine hoops can be taken to provide for a smaller collapsed parcel. Weight of the packed disc is evenly distributed and balanced for ease of transport. In another embodiment, folding is facilitated by removing the hoops from the fabric sleeves of the end panel. The loops can be reinserted or end-panels reattached and the structure regains full structural capability and efficacy. Separating the hoop(s) from the fabric utilizing the two means as described above, either severally or in combination, allows for optimized folding and packing.
It is therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an improved fully freestanding, portable large-scale structure.
A second objective of this invention is to provide such a structure which can be erected readily by fewer users.
Another object of the invention is to provide a versatile large-scale structure which can be truly made in a plurality of sizes depending on design parameters.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a large-scale structure which can readily be folded into a compact size for storage and transportation purposes.
It is further an object of this invention to provide such a structure which is extremely simple and economical to manufacture.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a fully-accessible floor, increased headroom and greater cubic living space while using less fabric than prior structures.
It is still a further object to provide a large-scale structure light in weight.
A further object is the provision of a novel, inherently integrated design wherein fabric-covered loops support the structure""s weight and form its walls.
A still further object is to provide a rugged, essentially non-breakable large-scale structure.
A further object is to provide a stable, windworthy large-scale structure.
A still further object is the provision whereby a hoop, fabric therefore and cover cooperate to define a unitary assembly of unique design and decorative appearance.
The above and other objects are realized by the provision of a self-contained freestanding large-scale tension structure which in general terms comprises one or more end panels, at least one of which comprises two or more approximately adjacent hoops of flexible coilable resilient material and a flexible fabric cover extending between said panels. The end-panels, or hoops of flexible material therein, are held in a generally upright position preferably by a single segmented rod which exerts tension horizontally and in opposite directions.
The hoop is affixed. to a flexible fabric-like taut sheet material; more particularly, by securement at least at a plurality of points between the fabric and the hoop. Hoops are preferably endless and closed, but as described earlier in this patent, ends of the coilable strip material may be releasably connected to provide for removal of the loop from the fabric-like taut sheet material for ease of packing and storage.
The hoops can take on any of a wide variety of specific configurations. For example, the hoop can be compelled into an oval shape by increasing tension in its covering fabric in either the vertical or horizontal direction. Alternatively, the hoop can be fabricated into a circle, ellipse or arch shape. A hoop having one or more generally right-angle square corners in an otherwise circular or elliptical shape is possible. The loop may incorporate extension(s) running to the ground or to other parts of the end panel. Each embodiment offers separate advantages without compromising the objects of the invention.
The end panel flexible fabric cover can incorporate one loop style or shape or a combination of different styles without affecting the capability or operability of the structure. The integrated fabric-covered hoop maintains its weight-bearing capability when the hoop""s covering fabric incorporates openings or voids to provide access to the outside of the structure. One end panel may utilize two adjacent hoops and the other end more than two hoops and the structure collapses fully and suffers no loss of capability. The other end may also utilize fewer hoops or even none, for example when attaching the fabric cover to a separate structure to provide for a spare room. This adaptation provides for ultra-lightweight structures similar to tents known in the prior art as a xe2x80x9cbivvyxe2x80x9d. It should be understood that connections between adjacent hoops are preferable in some embodiments, but are not essential. Also, the two hoops of an end panel can be of different sizes if required.
The frame, as described, is held in the desired in-use configuration by a flexible fabric cover extending between the end panels. The fabric cover can take on a wide variety of specific configurations without compromising the invention. For example, in some embodiments, additional floor space can be provided by increasing the acclivity of the covering fabric side-walls. In other embodiments, the fabric floor can be eliminated. The structure can be adapted with openable and extendable side-wall(s) to provide for a cabana-like structure with shade-giving awning(s). The fabric can be further adapted to provide space between it and a separate or integrated rain fly. The end-panel can be releasably attached to the fabric cover, by means of a zipper or the like, to allow for the two components to be separated and folded independently for ultimate compactibility.
Because of the coilable nature of the hoop material and the flexibility of the fabric covering, the structure can be xe2x80x9ccollapsedxe2x80x9d in an orderly fashion by manipulating the loops in a simple manner as described in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,887. Upon collapse, the structure assumes a flat circular configuration which is readily portable and which virtually self-erects upon further manipulation.
Each of the above components, as disclosed in the preferred embodiment described in further detail below, can be altered without compromising the efficacy of the invention. For example, the framing means of the several embodiments are interchangeable. The diverse configurations of the fabric cover are practicable on any embodiment. Likewise, all of the end panel loop configurations of the several embodiments herein disclosed are interchangeable with one another.
The features, advantages, and objects of my invention which are explicit and implicit in the foregoing as well as others will become apparent and more fully understood from the following detailed description of the invention in connection with the accompanying drawings.
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Instructional designers often strive to develop training material that is concise and easily digested by the target learners. They also strive to create assessments and questions that are valid, clear, and direct. After all, it’s best if the learner can focus on the learning event rather than on trying to interpret and decipher the meaning of the content.
At least, that’s a commonly held belief in training circles.
The reality is that content and assessments are often so clear and so clean that the learner’s brain coasts by on cruise control, without engaging the material.
Consider the following question:
If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long will it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
100 minutes or 5 minutes?
This question is part of Shane Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), designed to evaluate the rationality of thought and mental processing. The correct answer is 5 minutes. Each machine takes 5 minutes to make one widget, so 100 machines would make 100 widgets in that same time period.
The Brain Wants to Take the Easy Route
The human brain, however, strives to find quick and easy answers and connections with the least amount of cognitive effort. When the CRT, which includes the previous question and two others of similar design, was given to a group of Princeton students, 90% of the students got at least one of the questions wrong. The answers don’t require any higher-level math or problem solving skills – they just require a minimum amount of logical reflection to rule out an immediate, intuitive, yet incorrect answer.
Now, consider this question:
In a lake, there is a patch of lilypads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
24 days or 47 days?
This question is also part of the CRT, and the correct answer is 47. If the patch doubles in size each day and takes 48 days to cover the lake, then it covered half of the lake on the 47th day. Again, the question doesn’t require higher-level knowledge or skill, but there is an intuitive, incorrect answer that the brain wants to accept as correct with minimal evaluation.
No Strain, No Gain
The fascinating part of the Princeton CRT testing, however, isn’t the questions. It’s how the presentation of the questions changed the results. 90% of the students got at least one of the three questions wrong when the CRT was presented in regular, clear font. However, when the CRT was presented in a light gray, difficult-to-read font, like the above, the percentage of wrong answers dropped to 35%.
The difficult-to-read font resulted in more correct answers!
By adding an element of cognitive strain,the test-takers applied greater effort in determining the answers and more often rejected incorrect or flawed intuition.
Adding a Few Potholes
Of course, this doesn’t mean that instructional designers should create all of their materials in light gray font. However, it does offer an important insight into training effectiveness.
By striving to create the smoothest, most efficient path to a learning outcome, we may actually decrease the success of a learning event. The smooth path offers the least resistance to the human brain’s assumptions, intuitions, and biases. As a result, it’s possible – or even probable – that important aspects of the training will be interpreted and applied incorrectly thanks to the brain’s automatic reliance on intuition and reluctance to engage situations that appear to have an easy answer.
The challenge in applying this concept, however, is that the most common method of mental application in eLearning is a clearly defined test and assessment. Simply adding a test question or two is neither sufficient nor effective. Instead, consider adding mental strain via these integrated, in-line learning techniques to achieve better learning results.
Strain The Brain
1. Add an Application Scenario
Rather than using explicit questions to test a learner’s knowledge retention, transition to an application scenario that is framed in the context of a case study or real world business problem. One technique for creating cognitive strain is to include previously discussed elements, along with elements that are coming up in the next section of learning. The unknown content in the scenario will slow down the learner and set up a strong introduction to the content in the next section.
2. Add A Game
Games can be woven into the learning experience and framed so that they are seamlessly integrated with the course content. Virtually any scenario can be turned into a game if a system of performance rewards or goals is created in a fun context. Even scenarios are easily turned into role-play games that, perhaps, contain elements spanning the entire course content.
3. Create a Discovery Activity
Discovery activities are designed so that the learner can explore content with which he is not already familiar. Well designed discovery activities present content in a sequence that results in “Aha!” moments of realization and then allow the learner to reflect on the learning that has occurred.
Of course, there are many other ways to create cognitive strain in eLearning, but simply placing a few, strategic potholes on the learning pathway may be all that’s needed to bump the learner out of cruise control and engage his higher level cognitive processing. From a client perspective, it’s the difference between successful human change and a failed training program. From a learner’s perspective, it’s the difference between an engaging learning experience and a mind numbing exercise.
For those of you who won’t rest until you know the third question in the CRT, here it is:
A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Leave your answer in the comments. | https://www.dashe.com/blog/learning-style-theory/strain-brain-better-results/ |
A multicenter comparison of isoflurane and propofol as adjuncts to remifentanil-based anesthesia.
To compare recovery, hemodynamics, and side effects of remifentanil-based anesthesia with hypnotic concentrations of isoflurane or propofol. Multicenter, prospective, randomized, two-group study. 15 university and 5 municipal hospitals. 249 ASA physical status I, II, and III adult patients scheduled for elective gynecological laparoscopy, varicose vein, or arthroscopic surgery of at least 30 minutes' duration. Anesthesia was induced in the same manner in both groups: remifentanil-bolus (1 microg/kg), start of remifentanil-infusion (0. 5 microg/kg/min), followed by propofol as needed for induction. Five minutes after intubation, remifentanil was reduced to 0.25 microg/kg/min, and it was combined with either a propofol-infusion (0.1 mg/kg/min) or with isoflurane (0.6 vol% end-tidal) in O(2)/air. Adverse hemodynamic responses of heart rate and systolic blood pressure were recorded and treated according to a predefined protocol. With termination of surgery, anesthetic delivery was discontinued simultaneously without tapering, and recovery times were recorded. No significant differences were observed between the remifentanil-isoflurane or remifentanil-propofol treatment regimens. Recovery times (means +/- SD) were similar for spontaneous ventilation (5.8 +/- 3.2 min vs. 6. 3 +/- 3.7 min), extubation (7.6 +/- 3.5 vs. 8.5 +/- 4.2 min), eye opening (6.8 +/- 3.2 vs. 7.5 +/- 3.8 min), and arrival to the postanesthesia care unit (16.5 +/- 7.0 vs.18.0 +/- 7.2 min). There were no significant differences in adverse hemodynamic responses, postoperative shivering, nausea, or vomiting between the groups. Emergence after remifentanil-based anesthesia with 0.6 vol% of isoflurane is at least as rapid as with 0.1 mg/kg/min propofol. Both isoflurane and propofol are suitable adjuncts to remifentanil, and the applied dosages are clinically equivalent with respect to emergence and recovery. Therefore, both combinations should be appropriate, particularly in settings in which rapid recovery from anesthesia is desirable, such as fast tracking and/or ambulatory surgery.
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Metre (m), also spelled meter, in measurement, fundamental unit of length in the metric system and in the International Systems of Units (SI). It is equal to approximately 39.37 inches in the British Imperial and United States Customary systems. The metre was historically defined by the French Academy of Sciences in 1791 as 1 / 10,000,000 of the quadrant of the Earth’s circumference running ...
www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-things-that-are-1-meter-long
Until fairly recently there was only one thing that was exactly one meter long. It was the prototype meter, a rod of platinum that was by definition exactly one meter. The unit itself was originally based on the length of a pendulum that swings wi...
www.rapidtables.com/convert/length/meter-to-feet.htm
Meters (m) to feet (ft) conversion calculator and how to convert. How to convert meters to feet. 1 meter is equal to 3.28084 feet: 1 m = (1/0.3048) ft = 3.28084 ft
www.howmany.wiki/u/How-many--inch--in--1|2--meter
A meter (m), is the base unit of length in the the International System of Units (SI). It is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.
internationalshippingusa.com/Cubic_Meter_in_Ocean_Freight.aspx
Cubic meter in cargo transportation. In respect of international cargo transportation, a cubic meter is the relatively large shipping volume. For example, shipping from the USA overseas a cargo of volume of one cubic meter is equal to international delivery of 12 standard U.S. medium shipping boxes sized 18"x18"x16" (3 cubic feet each).. This web page should help you to understand t...
sewguide.com/size-of-a-yard-of-fabric
How big is a yard of fabric. 1 yard = 0.9144 meters= 91 cms = 36 inches = 3 feet; I meter = 39.37 inches = 1.0936 yards. In some countries like the USA, the Imperial system of measurement is used.
www.thesprucecrafts.com/ways-to-measure-without-ruler-2366642
Check the length of your arm against a ruler or measuring tape to find out how close to 1 meter this distance is for you. One elbow length, or the distance from your bent elbow to the tips of your fingers, is 15 to 18 inches (35 to 48 cm) for most people. A woman's size-9 foot (U.S. and Canada) is usually 10 inches (25 cm) long. In Europe, this ...
jmcinspections.com/is-your-gas-meter-too-small
Meter Sizing When a gas meter is installed by your gas utility provider (PG&E in our area), they size the meter based upon the total capacity of the gas appliances installed in the building when the meter is installed. The meter label (see below) will indicate the rated capacity of the meter in cubic feet per hour (cf/h), and out in the field ...
www.endmemo.com/cconvert/m2m.php
Conversion between square meter and meter. Square meter to Meter Calculator
mainfacts.com/convert-m-to-m2
square meters of an object = height in meters* width in meters = size in meters * size in meters = size 2 in square meters. RAVI HAVANUR: 2020-08-14 06:02:36 What is formula to convert from meter to sq meter? | https://www.reference.com/web?q=How%20Big%20is%20a%20Meter&qo=pagination&o=600605&l=dir&sga=1&qsrc=998&page=4 |
"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."
-- Peter Ustinov
We are always on the lookout for comedies that take us through familiar situations and give us a new perspective on them. And while what happens to the characters in Palm Springs is not likely to happen to any of us, we still recognize what they are feeling.
Director Max Barbakow and writer Andy Siara begin this frolicsome, witty, and quite wonderful romantic comedy at a wedding in Palm Springs, California. The lead characters are Nyles (Andy Samberg), the boyfriend of a bridesmaid, and Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the bride's eccentric sister. The ritual of marriage serves as a gateway to a variety of feelings and fantasies about relationships, love, disappointment, and risk.
After Nyles saves Sarah the embarrassment of giving a speech at the wedding when she's already quite drunk, they strike up a conversation and eventually go out into the desert surroundings for a little romance. Then something inexplicable happens when she follows him into a cave. It turns out that Nyles has for some time been stuck in a time loop, a la Groundhog Day, reliving the day of the wedding over and over again; now Sarah does too.
Every time these two fall asleep, they wake up on the same morning. Even though they may not want to, they are forced to live in the present moment. Sarah tries to escape by driving home to Texas, but alas, wakes up in Palm Springs again. Nyles, a goofball and a gadfly, tries to show her the advantages of being immortal, like not dying in an accident and being able to be silly in a biker bar with no consequences. They hang out in the pool at a house where the owners are gone and for sure aren't coming back during this day.
Living up to the promise that this film is a romantic comedy, most of these situations are hilarious with Samberg and Milioti proving to have great comic timing and also good chemistry. As Sarah warms to Nyles, they begin to spend more time together and fall in love. One magical night, they see some dinosaurs walking across the desert.
Still, Sarah is determined to find a way out of the loop and wants Nyles to come with her. Amidst the absurd situations are moments when these two must deal with questions of commitment and even the meaning of life. Why not stay in the loop, Nyles suggests, rather than go back into time where there is death and taxes and climate change to deal with.
When it appears they have a chance to escape the time loop by taking a big risk, we were reminded of the Joe Versus the Volcano where two valiant souls find new life by taking a leap of faith. And as we did in that prior film, we found ourselves wondering if we would be able to do the same.
Director Max Barbakow and screenplay writer Andy Siera end Palm Springs in an open-ended way so we can draw our own conclusions as to what happens to Sarah and Nyles. As for the dinosaurs in the desert, they just keep marching on. | https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/29049/palm-springs |
If your dog’s incision has non-dissolving skin stitches, staples, or stent sutures, they are usually removed 10-14 days after the operation; the actual time depends on the type of surgery performed. Your veterinarian will tell you when to return to the clinic to have the sutures or staples removed from your dog.
How long do stitches stay in after a spay?
If your pet has staples or stitches, those will need to be removed 10-14 days after surgery, or sooner if your vet advises. Until that time, follow the discharge instructions, don’t allow your pet to participate in boisterous play or exercise and keep her incision clean and dry.
How do I know when my spay incision is healed?
How Do I Know If My Dog’s Spay Incision Is Healed? You’ll know a spay incision has healed when redness is gone from the incision and no staples or sutures are needed to hold the wound together. There should be no tenderness on or near the incision area, and it should be free of all discharge.
How long do dissolvable stitches last in dogs?
Glue generally will dissolve or grow off over a period of 10 to 14 days. In all cases, it is important to prevent your pet from licking at incisions, pulling at sutures or staples. Use an Elizabethan Collar to prevent trauma to the incision if necessary. For more information on sutures, talk to your veterinarian!
How do you know if you ripped internal stitches after spay?
If an internal layer of sutures ruptures, you may notice a new bump under healthy normal skin or tenderness in that area. If the external incision dehisces, the incision will be open. Dehiscence can allow fat, muscle, and even internal organs to herniate out of their normal positions.
How do you tell if stitches are healing properly?
3 Ways to Know the Difference Between Healing and Infected Surgical Wounds
- Fluid. Good: It is normal for a surgical wound site to have some fluid come out of the incision area – this is one of the ways our bodies naturally heal themselves. …
- Redness. …
- Raised Skin.
9.12.2013
How long does it take for internal stitches to dissolve after spay?
Such swellings are firm and there is no fluid drainage or bleeding from the incision. They generally resolve in 3-4 weeks and represent reaction to the internal stitches as they dissolve.
Is a lump normal after spay?
A seroma appears as swelling at the surgical site, and this can occur during the recuperation period that follows any surgical procedure. In the case of a spay procedure, the lump will appear around the incision line on your dog’s abdomen. When palpated gently, it feels like a water-filled balloon.
What should a spay incision look like after a week?
What should the incision look like? The incision should normally be clean and the edges should be touching each other. The skin should be a normal or slightly reddish-pink color. It is not unusual for the incision to become slightly redder during the first few days, as healing begins to take place.
Is a belly lump normal after dog spay?
Occasionally, hernias aren’t dangerous or even painful. In the case of a hernia showing up after being spayed, these are usually more serious. If you notice a lump on your dog’s abdomen shortly after surgery, it could be part of the body healing itself and naturally-occurring inflammation taking place.
Should I pull out dissolvable stitches?
Should you ever remove them? A person should not attempt to remove any stitches without their doctor’s approval. There is generally no need to remove dissolvable stitches as they will eventually disappear on their own.
How do you know when to take your dog’s cone off?
The cone should stay on until the site is fully healed, and/or the sutures are removed. Most sutures and staples are left in for 10-14 days. Other lesions may take less or more time than that to heal completely.
What happens if a dog jumps after being spayed?
After surgery, you need to have your pet rest and heal for ten to fourteen days and limit physical activity. Among those limits includes not allowing her or him to jump after surgery because jumping could cause the sutures to open, which would cause additional health problems and complications.
What to expect after spaying?
Most spay/neuter skin incisions are fully healed within about 10–14 days, which coincides with the time that stitches or staples, if any, will need to be removed. Bathing and swimming. Don’t bathe your pet or let them swim until their stitches or staples have been removed and your veterinarian has cleared you to do so.
How do you tell if stitches are infected?
If your stitches have become infected, you may notice the following symptoms:
- redness or swelling around the stitches.
- fever.
- an increase in pain or tenderness at the wound.
- warmth at or around the site.
- blood or pus leaking from the stitches, which may have a foul odor.
- swollen lymph nodes.
What color are dissolvable stitches?
Generally absorbable sutures are clear or white in colour. They are often buried by threading the suture under the skin edges and are only visible as threads coming out of the ends of the wound. The suture end will need snipping flush with the skin at about 10 days. | https://patchesofpink.com/sewing-tools/how-long-after-spay-do-stitches-come-out.html |
Abstract: What is the Golden Ratio? In this talk, we will explore this mysterious number “phi” throughout its history. We will explain how to derive it, and how it naturally arises in all sorts of surprising situations, including geometry, music, art, poetry, and pineapples!
September 30: Justin Fitzpatrick
Title: To Deal or Not to Deal, That is the Question
Abstract: Getting on a game show is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so you had better go prepared! In this talk, we will prepare you specifically to play correctly on the wildly popular game shows “Deal or No Deal” and “The Price is Right.” We introduce the concept of expected value, a concept that is extremely integral to determining correct strategy for many games, and then apply it and other game-theoretic concepts to these two game shows. You will learn when to deal, when not to deal, when to spin again, and when to let the next person spin! And, since there is no substitute for experience, we will allow four lucky students to COME ON DOWN and compete for prizes!!
October 7: Adam Weaver
Title: The People Have Spoken: but what did they say?
Abstract: Have you ever felt like there is something not quite right about the voting system? Is it a conspiracy or something intrinsic to voting? Think you could come up with a better system? How much impact does the choice of voting system have on the outcome, anyway? We’ll try to answer these questions with a mock election. We will consider some properties of an ideal voting scheme, and the possibility of achieving such an ideal. We will also discuss different ways to measure voting power.
October 14: Alan Wiggins
Title: Magic Computers
Abstract: In the 1980’s, Richard Feynman suggested building a computer based on quantum mechanical principles. What does that mean? What would such a machine look like? Are they out there right now? We’ll discuss these questions and what the theoretical limits on such machines would be. In particular, you CAN’T win a million dollars from the Clay Institute for making a “practical” quantum computer (unless you believe in traveling faster than the speed of light), but you CAN crack a host of security codes, which would get you even more from Microsoft.
October 28: Matt Calef
Title: Across the Eighth Dimension (Buckaroo Bonzai!)
Abstract: While the term dimension is used regularly it has many different definitions not all of which agree. An intuitive understanding is that the dimension is the maximum number of mutually perpendicular directions. However, dimension can be meaningful in settings where the notion of direction is not. The talk will start by considering the dimension of objects familiar to first year calculus students and then move on to examining dimension in more involved settings. We shall see that the questions: Can the dimension be infinite? and Can the dimension be non-integer? are both answered in the affirmative.
November 4: Alex Wires
Title: When is the Whole Equal to the Sum of its Parts?
Abstract: The number theoretic work of Euclid’s Elements culminates with the perfect numbers. But the ancient Greek geometers could only describe perfect numbers which were even. Are there infinitely many even perfect numbers? Are there any odd perfect numbers? In asking these two questions Edmund Landau wrote, “Modern mathematics has solved many (apparently) difficult problems, even in number theory; but we stand powerless in the face of such (apparently) simple problems as these.” Drop in to learn about the oldest unsolved math problem. There will also be the inaugural announcement of the Odd Perfect Cash Prize.
November 11: Dan Ramras
Title: A Tour through Topology
Abstract: Topology studies intrinsic properties of geometric objects: those features that remain unchanged if the object is deformed continuously. A basic goal of topology, and topologists, is to distinguish geometric objects. Sometimes this is easy. We all know the difference between a donut and a sphere; one has a hole, and the other doesn’t! But to distinguish more complicated, higher dimensional objects, subtler tools are needed. We’ll start off by discussing Euler’s theorem, which gives a topological invariant that can be computed for geometric objects built out of simple building blocks. Euler’s theorem has some nice applications, like Pic’s formula for the area of certain regions in the plane. We’ll move on to discuss the “fundamental group,” which describes loops inside a geometric object. This notion lead Poincare to make his famous conjecture about three-dimensional geometry, solved a hundred years later (in 2002) by Grigori Perelman.
November 18: Tara Davis
Title: To infinity and beyond!
Abstract: Infinity is a universal idea that has captured man’s imagination for centuries. It is ubiquitous in mathematics, art, philosophy and science. But what is infinity? We will discuss this question through the framework of history, anthropology, and mathematics, and along the way will meet some challenging questions which will illuminate just how mystical infinity really is. | https://my.vanderbilt.edu/undergradseminar/2008-fall/ |
Butterflies Like It HOT!
July 31 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm$4
Ages 8+. Join a Naturalist to identify and observe our butterflies! Learn why they prefer the “dog days of summer.” Bring binoculars if you have them so we can see them up-close without disturbing them.
BOTH ADULTS AND CHILDREN MUST REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT
Attendance: 20
All programs require registration unless otherwise noted. | https://cromwellvalleypark.org/event/butterflies-like-it-hot/ |
- Total Floor Area Approx. 4267 sq.ft.
Occupying a superb location on one of Hale’s most popular roads, Oak Lodge, 30 Delahays Drive has been substantially upgraded and extended over recent years and now offers fabulous family accommodation set in large southerly facing gardens to the rear which are not overlooked.
Briefly the accommodation comprises a welcoming entrance hallway with downstairs wc, the two main focal points of the ground floor are a large open plan living/dining area complemented by a beautifully refitted breakfast kitchen with independent dining area with utility room adjacent. Completing the ground floor is a t.v. room, a play room, a study and double garage. At first floor level leading from an L shaped landing is a master bedroom suite with en-suite dressing room, bathroom, separate wc and a fabulous sun terrace overlooking the southerly facing rear gardens. Completing the first floor are three further double bedrooms and a family bathroom. At second floor level is a fifth bedroom which could equally double up as a large L shaped play room and has en-suite facilities.
Delahays Drive is characterised by a mixture of detached houses many of which have been re-modelled in recent times. This particular house as previously mentioned has been consistently upgraded, the most recent addition being a contemporary kitchen and the house is decorated to a light, tasteful contemporary theme and is presented in walk-in condition. Newly refurbished York stone driveway and patio
Delahays Drive is situated literally within five minutes of Hale, Altrincham and Hale Barns. Hale with its fashionable shops and restaurants is complemented by Altrincham with its busy market town centre and Metro system into Manchester. Hale Barns village is also close at hand with its re-modelled village centre and the International Airport, the Bollin Valley and Green Belt are all close at hand.
DIRECTIONS
From the centre of Hale proceed up the main Hale Road in the direction of Hale Barns, turning left onto Delahays Road, second right into Delahays Drive where the property will be found on the right.
These details have been approved by the vendor before printing and every effort has been made to ensure their accuracy. However, in view of the recent Property Misdescription Legislation affecting Estate Agents, prospective purchasers are advised to make their own enquiries, to view the property and to satisfy themselves as to the accuracy of the particulars.
This Property Is Freehold
Hale WA15 8DP
GROUND FLOOR
Entrance Hallway
Study
7' 10'' x 12' 2'' (2.39m x 3.71m)
Downstairs Wc
6' 4'' x 7' 10'' (1.93m x 2.39m)
Utility Room
7' 10'' x 16' 5'' (2.39m x 5.00m)
Living/Dining Room
25' 7'' x 29' 6'' (7.79m x 8.98m)
Dining Area
18' 4'' x 12' 6'' (5.58m x 3.81m)
Kitchen/Breakfast Room
13' 1'' x 15' 9'' (3.98m x 4.80m)
Television Room
18' 4'' x 16' 6'' (5.58m x 5.03m)
Play Room
11' 2'' x 11' 10'' (3.40m x 3.60m)
FIRST FLOOR & LANDING
Master Bedroom Suite
18' 1'' x 18' 1'' (5.51m x 5.51m)
Sun Terrace
En-Suite
11' 2'' x 9' 3'' (3.40m x 2.82m)
Separate Wc
Dressing Room
11' 10'' x 13' 1'' (3.60m x 3.98m)
Bedroom Two
13' 9'' x 14' 9'' (4.19m x 4.49m)
Bedroom Three
14' 1'' x 13' 1'' (4.29m x 3.98m)
Bedroom Four
9' 6'' x 10' 2'' (2.89m x 3.10m)
Bathroom
SECOND FLOOR & LANDING
Bedroom Five
28' 3'' x 27' 7'' (8.60m x 8.40m)
En-Suite Bathroom
EXTERNALLY
Double Garage
16' 5'' x 21' 4'' (5.00m x 6.50m)
Hale WA15 8DP
Please complete the form below to request a viewing for this property. We will review your request and respond to you as soon as possible. Please add any additional notes or comments that we will need to know about your request. | http://www.jhilditch.com/properties-for-sale/property/11231484-30-delahays-drive-hale |
This article was updated on May 10, 2017.
Most retirees believe it's best to wait as long as possible before applying for Social Security. But is this really the smart thing to do? Surprisingly, the answer is often "no."
It's understandable if you're one of the many Americans who think it pays to wait, as the size of your monthly benefits does indeed depend on when you begin receiving checks. If you do so at the earliest possible moment -- that is, the month after turning 62 -- then your monthly take will be 25% to 30% less than it would have been had you waited until your full retirement age.
Meanwhile, if you wait beyond your full retirement age, then you'll receive delayed-retirement credits that boost your benefit checks by 8% for every year you delay them up until age 70, when your benefits max out. The net result is that you could end up receiving 24% to 32% more each month than your primary insurance amount (what you're entitled to at your full retirement age) and 76% more than you'd get by taking benefits at age 62.
But while these numbers are impressive, there's more to this cost-benefit calculation. This is because there's a large cost associated with waiting: If you start receiving benefits at 62 as opposed to 70, then you get monthly checks for eight more years. The question, in turn, is whether (and, more specifically, when) the cost of waiting outweighs the benefit of a higher but delayed monthly check.
This is known as a breakeven analysis. And while there are calculators for this purpose online, here's the gist of it: If you expect to live past 77, then you should consider waiting until full retirement age to begin collecting benefits, as this is the point when the gain from waiting overtakes the cumulative cost -- see point "A" in the above chart.
Moreover, if you live past 82, then you'll receive more in lifetime benefits if you wait until you're 70 years old to claim Social Security. The rationale is the same: By that point (see "B" in the chart), your cumulative benefits from waiting will add up to $206,000 compared to $204,000 had you elected to receive benefits at 66 and $189,000 had you begun drawing from the system at 62 -- this is assuming a primary insurance amount of $1,000.
But here's the thing that's important to keep in mind: The average lifespan of an American is 79.8 years old. And for men, it's only 77.4 years compared to 82.2 years for women. Thus based on age alone, particularly for males, it may not be as smart as you first think to hold out for larger Social Security checks.
It's also worth pointing out that, according to a government report, "The Social Security benefit formula adjusts monthly payments so that someone living to average life expectancy should receive about the same amount of benefits over their lifetime regardless of which age they claim."
Now, just to be clear, there are a number of additional variables that should factor into one's decision about when to apply for benefits. If you're planning to work between the ages of 62 and 66, for instance, the scale tips in favor of deferment, as wages above a certain threshold will erode your Social Security benefits until you reach full retirement. And the same can be said if you have a spouse or other dependents that are likely to outlive you. The net result would be to extend the life (and thus the value) of your cumulative benefits.
Nevertheless, the point here is that if you find yourself in a position to apply for benefits early, rest assured that there's little reason not to. | https://www.fool.com/retirement/general/2014/05/31/social-security-why-taking-benefits-at-62-is-smart.aspx |
Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX) VP Jeff Fairman Sells 4,619 Shares
Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX) VP Jeff Fairman sold 4,619 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $22.50, for a total value of $103,927.50. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.
Jeff Fairman also recently made the following trade(s):
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On Thursday, December 9th, Jeff Fairman sold 131 shares of Vaxcyte stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $22.50, for a total value of $2,947.50.
On Tuesday, October 26th, Jeff Fairman sold 4,750 shares of Vaxcyte stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $22.69, for a total value of $107,777.50.
On Monday, September 27th, Jeff Fairman sold 4,750 shares of Vaxcyte stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.17, for a total value of $124,307.50.
Shares of Vaxcyte stock opened at $23.50 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.24 billion, a PE ratio of -13.13 and a beta of 0.45. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $23.18. Vaxcyte, Inc. has a 12 month low of $15.51 and a 12 month high of $30.88.
Vaxcyte (NASDAQ:PCVX) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, November 10th. The company reported ($0.51) EPS for the quarter, topping the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of ($0.55) by $0.04. Equities analysts forecast that Vaxcyte, Inc. will post -1.92 EPS for the current year.
Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Manchester Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Vaxcyte in the third quarter worth $38,000. Macquarie Group Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Vaxcyte in the second quarter worth $45,000. Royal Bank of Canada boosted its position in shares of Vaxcyte by 434.1% in the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 2,804 shares of the company’s stock worth $56,000 after buying an additional 2,279 shares during the period. Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. boosted its position in shares of Vaxcyte by 32.3% in the second quarter. Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. now owns 3,117 shares of the company’s stock worth $70,000 after buying an additional 761 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in shares of Vaxcyte by 13.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 4,132 shares of the company’s stock worth $93,000 after acquiring an additional 489 shares in the last quarter. 82.81% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.
Separately, Zacks Investment Research lowered Vaxcyte from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 17th.
About Vaxcyte
Vaxcyte, Inc, a preclinical-stage biotechnology vaccine company, develops novel vaccines to prevent or treat infectious diseases worldwide. Its lead vaccine candidate is VAX-24, a 24-valent investigational pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. The company also develops VAX-XP to protect against emerging strains and address antibiotic resistance; VAX-A1, a conjugate vaccine candidate designed to treat Group A Strep; and VAX-PG, a novel protein vaccine candidate targeting Porphyromonas gingivalis. | |
Celebrating Huma Abedin’s Both/And: A Life In Many Worlds with Tanya Taylor and Samantha Barry
The last month has been a transformative one for Huma Abedin. After 25 years spent largely behind the scenes as the deputy chief of staff and right hand to Hilary Clinton, she has stepped out to tell her story in Both/And: A Life In Many Worlds, published by Scribner. And to ensure the memoir, over three years in the making, gets the attention it deserves, Abedin has been on an unrelenting tour across the country, telling her stories of adversity, triumph, and a few humorous mishaps, including that one time a garment bag full of Clinton’s clothes wound up in the East River.
The tour continued last night at a private residence in Nolita, but rather than defend herself to critics, Abedin found herself surrounded by her closest confidantes. “This night, of all the nights I’ve had in the last four weeks, might be the most special,” she mused to the room full of captivated partygoers that included her sister Heba Abedin, her wedding planner Brian Rafanelli, and many longtime colleagues from Capitol Hill. “There are so many people in this room who have carried me through some of my worst moments.”
She stood alongside Samantha Barry, editor-in-chief of Glamour, and designer Tanya Taylor, who served as sounding boards for the contents of Both/And throughout its editing process. “We were both living in East Hampton while she was working on this, and we would meet for lunch,” Taylor told Vogue. “She would tell me stories I maybe didn’t know about her, or stories that might be revealing, but honestly, they all were because she’s so private. I think she feels liberated to share these moments from both her private and professional life, and I’ve just been there to listen.”
Also listening in were plenty of Abedin’s powerful pals outside of the political realm—Natalie Massenet, Elizabeth Kurpis, Lili Buffet, Isolde Brielmaier, and Sarah Hoover—all of whom stuck around as the last glasses of rosé were poured. “I feel a total sense of optimism and liberation,” Abedin, wearing a custom emerald green Tanya Taylor look, told us in a quiet moment between fielding a seemingly endless line of congratulatory hugs and handshakes. “I lived for so long bracing for the next call, or the next piece of news, so to now be on the other side, I feel a lightness of being and a joy that I’m not sure I ever understood or appreciated. The joy of seeing the end product that so many people are buying after all of this hard work is hard to put into words.”
And with this wave of optimism, many were left wondering, would Abedin continue this new era with a run for political office? “I’m going to be open about new opportunities,” she added. “I don’t see myself running for office, because I know what that life is like. I have found balance in my life, and like having that balance, but I feel at 45, you should be open to anything. You never know.” | |
Q:
Find number of sub-string in a string between two character(a*b) using python re module
Given a string S as input. The program must find the number of patterns matching a*b. where * represent 1 or more alphabets.
import re
s = input()
matches = re.findall(r'MAGIC',s)
print(len(matches))
'''
i/p - aghba34bayyb
o/p - 2
(i.e aghb,ayyb)
It should not take a34b in count.
i/p - aabb
o/p - 3
(i.e aab abb aabb)
i/p : adsbab
o/p : 2
(i.e adsb ab)'''
A:
You can find the positions of a and b in the word, find all possible substrings and then filter the substrings that only contains one or more chars in between
from itertools import product
words = ['aghba34bayyb', 'aabb', 'adsbab']
for word in words:
a_pos = [i for i,c in enumerate(word) if c=='a']
b_pos = [i for i,c in enumerate(word) if c=='b']
all_substrings = [word[s:e+1] for s,e in product(a_pos, b_pos) if e>s]
substrings = [s for s in all_substrings if re.match(r'a[a-zA-Z]+b$', s)]
print (word, substrings)
Output
aghba34bayyb ['aghb', 'ayyb']
aabb ['aab', 'aabb', 'abb']
adsbab ['adsb', 'adsbab']
| |
hours to days
This converter makes instant conversions from hours to days as time duration. To use the converter, please provide a value in the input field. The converter will begin making conversions as the values are being typed in. To add or subtract time from a date, please use our date calculator. To add, subtract, multiply, and divide time, please use our time calculator. To calculate the time between two dates, please use our days calculator.
How many days in a hour?
ISO 8601 is an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of date and time-related data. ISO 8601 uses the 24-hour clock system, which means there are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute. Based on this standard, there are ≈ 0.041666667 days in a hour.
How to convert hours to days
Based on the definition of 24 hours in a day, the hour to day conversion formula is:
|day =||
|
Thus, to convert from hours to days, divide a value in hours by 24. For example, convert 45 hours to days: | https://www.calculatorweb.com/conversion/hours-to-days |
Importance Of Waste Management
Waste Management deals with the collection, transport, recycling and disposal of waste. It includes the regulatory acts and policies requiring companies to comply with local, national and international standards designed to protect the health and safety of the public while ensuring the conservation of resources. The primary responsibility of a company in regards to waste is to comply with applicable legislation and regulations and carry out the functions necessary to ensure that the waste is disposed of in the most safe and hygienic manner possible. The primary objective of a company in regards to waste management is to design an integrated system that removes waste from the environment as safely and responsibly as possible. Checkout Yatala Waste Management.
There are various methods of waste management and all of these methods have varying degrees of success, as each requires dedicated resources to operate properly and effectively. For example, there is the alternative option of the use of closed or open waste disposal systems. Closed systems include the use of trenches to contain waste, often in a landfill site. Open systems involve the use of containers or drums in which waste can be disposed of easily, such as in a skip bin.
One method of waste management that is commonly used and effective is the use of liquid wastes, such as oil, natural gas, vinegar and other solid organic substances. There are various options when dealing with liquid wastes, such as oil, however, it is important to dispose of this waste correctly so that no contamination occurs. One option is to have the oil pumped into a central location for Later Waste Management and then treated and stored. Another option is to have liquid wastes deposited on a specialized facility for Later Waste Management, where they will be dealt with later and disposed of in the proper way. Liquid wastes can also be melted and recycled using a plasma gasification system.
Contact Info: | https://www.bluetopazistanbul.com/importance-of-waste-management/ |
James Harden is the best 1-on-1 player in the NBA. If he has an opponent on an island in iso, then sometimes it’s just better to head to the other side of the floor and assume that he’s going to get a bucket. Harden’s bag of tricks is so vast that he’s oftentimes unstoppable for the average defender.
It should come as no surprise that Harden faces a lot of double-teams. This season, in particular, it seems to be the go-to option for most defenses to handle him. Of course, that hasn’t slowed him down — he’s still scoring an unreal 38.2 points per game and dropped 35 points on Denver during their matchup on Tuesday night despite facing doubles most of the evening.
Nuggets coach Mike Malone believes Harden should see this much attention as a sign of respect, and as it turns out, Harden agrees. Via Tim MacMahon of ESPN:
“I know it’s probably frustrating for him,” Malone said before Tuesday night’s game at the Toyota Center. “But he should take it as a sign of huge respect because people are game planning to get the ball out of the [hands] of the best scorer in recent memory.”
…
“For sure,” Harden said after scoring 35 points on 10-of-17 shooting in the Rockets’ 130-104 win over the Nuggets. “Me and Coach [Mike] D’Antoni talk about it all the time. That means that I’m doing something right, [that] I’m pretty good.”
There is no greater sign of respect as a scorer than a defense deciding they would rather risk someone else being open if it means that you don’t score. While Harden probably finds it exhausting to have to play against a locked-in defense on a nightly basis, that’s the price he has to pay for being the incredible a scorer he is. It’s just impressive that despite this he continues to dominate the way he does. | |
What Has ANR Done?In an innovative cooperative arrangement between UC ANR and the private Leslie J. Nickels Trust, retired UC farm advisor Tom Aldrich established an experimental orchard, located in southern Colusa County, in 1973. This public/private collaboration, the Nickels Soil Lab (NSL), is unique within the ANR research system, using private farmland and financial resources to conduct University research for the betterment of local agriculture. As stipulated in Mr. Nickels' will, ANR manages 200 acres of orchard land to develop and investigate farming practices that allow profitable ag production on marginal soils.
UC campus-based faculty and farm advisors address a broad research agenda targeting five key areas: irrigation, soil modification or fertility, variety or root stock evaluation, pollination and orchard design. From these efforts a complete package of recommendations emerged, including drip irrigation, fertigation, the use of optimal varieties and rootstocks, and a hedgerow orchard design. Surprisingly, yields in the test orchards are nearly comparable to the best in the Central Valley, proving to local growers that high yields are attainable under these challenging conditions.
NSL also serves as a teaching facility where large research plots demonstrate the viability of newly developed orchard practices. Growers from throughout the Central Valley attend annual Nickels Field Days, where researchers report trial results and discuss ways to implement the new concepts.
The Payoff
Billion Dollar Boost to California's EconomySome 250,000 acres of orchards have been planted in the Central Valley in the last two decades, representing $1.6 billion in additional agricultural production. By adopting techniques first developed for almonds and walnuts at NSL -- such as hedgerow planting, drip and micro-irrigation and minimal pruning -- growers are now producing profitably on the outlying, marginal land of the Central Valley.
Clientele Testimonial“I don’t take chances on things. We probably wouldn’t be farming on the west side if it weren’t for the Nickels trials. Boy, what a valuable asset it has been.” -- Floyd Perry, a farmer since 1972 who works 6,000 acres in Northern California. | http://cecontracosta.ucanr.edu/?a=0&impact=561&sharebar=share |
Q:
Python Pandas: Custom rolling window calculation
I'm Looking to take the most recent value in a rolling window and divide it by the mean of all numbers in said window.
What I tried:
df.a.rolling(window=7).mean()/df.a[-1]
This doesn't work because df.a[-1] is always the most recent of the entire dataset. I need the last value of the window.
I've done a ton of searching today. I may be searching the wrong terms, or not understanding the results, because I have not gotten anything useful.
Any pointers would be appreciated.
A:
Aggregation (use the mean()) on a rolling windows returns a pandas Series object with the same indexing as the original column. You can simply aggregate the rolling window and then divide the original column by the aggregated values.
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame(np.arange(30), columns=['A'])
df
# returns:
A
0 0
1 1
2 2
...
27 27
28 28
29 29
You can use a rolling mean to get a series with the same index.
df.A.rolling(window=7).mean()
# returns:
0 NaN
1 NaN
2 NaN
3 NaN
4 NaN
5 NaN
6 3.0
7 4.0
...
26 23.0
27 24.0
28 25.0
29 26.0
Because it is indexed, you can simple divide by df.A to get your desired results.
df.A.rolling(window=7).mean() / df.A
6 0.500000
7 0.571429
8 0.625000
9 0.666667
10 0.700000
11 0.727273
12 0.750000
13 0.769231
14 0.785714
15 0.800000
16 0.812500
17 0.823529
18 0.833333
19 0.842105
20 0.850000
21 0.857143
22 0.863636
23 0.869565
24 0.875000
25 0.880000
26 0.884615
27 0.888889
28 0.892857
29 0.896552
| |
Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) probe microscopy tips were grown by a surface growth chemical vapor deposition method. Tips consisting of individual SWNTs (1.5-4 nm in diameter) and SWNT bundles (4-12 nm in diameter) have been prepared by design through variations in the catalyst and growth conditions. In addition to high-resolution imaging, these tips have been used to fabricate SWNT nanostructures by spatially controlled deposition of specific length segments of the nanotube tips.
|Original language||English|
|Pages (from-to)||3136-3138|
|Number of pages||3|
|Journal||Applied Physics Letters|
|Volume||76|
|Issue number||21|
|DOIs|
|Publication status||Published - May 22 2000|
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Growth and fabrication with single-walled carbon nanotube probe microscopy tips'. Together they form a unique fingerprint. | https://sofi-northwestern.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/growth-and-fabrication-with-single-walled-carbon-nanotube-probe-m |
*above: the cover of Trabajo's *Gamelan to the Love God
When British electronic duo Plaid played New York's Le Poisson Rouge in 2011 to support their album Scintilli, they had an unusual opener: A New York City-based, 26-member Balinese gamelan ensemble called Gamelan Dharma Swara. Seated onstage among bronze metallophones, gongs, flutes, and drums, the group used ice-pick-like mallets to create an intricate, twinkling cacophony that changed tempos frequently and fluidly, following the lead of wooden hand drums. I was initially surprised that Plaid didn’t ask a rising electronic musician to kick off the show. But as they recreated the complex layers of Scintilli onstage, I found that certain rhythms and sonorities were suddenly reminding me of the gamelan music I’d just heard. It was like a personalized recommendation for electronic music fans: If you like us, you’ll love this.
Gamelan is a centuries-old, percussion-based style of traditional music from Southeast Asia. Members of a gamelan ensemble play bronze or bamboo instruments, each repeating a variant of a melody within a unique framework of scales, at different tempos, creating a song made of intricate layers. It can instantly alternate from loud and chaotic to quiet and soothing. (Maybe the Pixies owe “loud quiet loud” credit to 17th-century Indonesians.)
Gamelan Dharma Swara playing at Brooklyn Bridge Park last summer
“We had a few people say it was their first experience with gamelan, and they really enjoyed it,” Plaid’s Andy Turner told me recently via Skype. “We’ve been exposed to it over the years from various different sources. It’s very repetitive. Phrases go on and on for a considerable amount of time. Coming from a dance music background, that made sense to us.” Looking back on Plaid’s 25-year, nine-album career (their tenth, Reachy Prints, is out May 20 on Warp), the gamelan influence is clear. “We’ve tended to use bells and gong-type sounds a lot over the years,” Turner says. “They’re percussive but also melodic. You can have sort of pitched rhythm.” Plaid also collaborated with a London-based Javanese gamelan ensemble, the Southbank Gamelan Players, in 2010.
“For people who aren’t familiar with gamelan, it can seem improvised,” says Bethany Collier, president of Gamelan Dharma Swara and Assistant Professor of Music at Bucknell University. “It’s so hard to understand how all of these people are playing all of these crazy instruments.” The primary difference between gamelan and Western music is that low-pitched gongs maintain the basic structure of a song, whereas in a pop song the higher-pitched singer is the anchor. “You have to flip your ears around,” Collier said. But there’s a clear connection between gamelan and electronic, Collier says, in their shared emphasis on layering and building. | https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/298-gamelan-electronic-musics-unexpected-indonesian-influence/ |
Exotic fusion food recipes
October 9, 2015
Vegetable Pulav ( Pulao)
This is a simple vegetarian rice preparation which you can prepare for a pair or a crowd.
Here I’m using basmati rice which is a long grain and flavorful rice. Basmati rice comes in polished and unpolished. Unpolished one requires a longer time to cook, hence I’m using the easily available polished basmati rice. Pulao is always best with the basmati rice.
If you have a rice cooker at home your job is much easier. You can use frozen mixed vegetables instead of fresh ones for a quick meal.
Preparation time : 10 mts
Cooking time : 15 mts
Serves : 4 – 6
Ingredients :
Basmati rice – 1 1/2 cups
Carrot – 1 (medium size) diced
Fresh / frozen peas – 1/2 cup
Onion – 1/2 diced
Green chillies – 3 (slit in the middle)
Juice of 2 limes
Water – 3 cups
Coriander leaves – 1/2 cup (chopped)
Oil – 2 table spoon
Dry spices :
Cinnamon stick – 1/2 stick
Cardamom – 4
Cloves – 5
Raisins – 2 table spoon (optional)
Method:
Wash the rice at least 3 times to remove excess starch.
Soak the rice for 10 mts not longer than that.
Drain and keep it.
At the same time in a big vessel add oil and when the oil gets heated up add in the dry spices.
When the spices starts to release aroma add in the chopped onion, green chillies, carrots and peas.
Saute it for a few seconds.
Add in the drained rice and slowly fry the rice in low fire till the grains separates. Take your time doing this step. It’s worth it.
Add water and lime juice and season it with salt. Taste to see if you can taste the salt. The salt will be slightly less now than when the rice is cooked. You may need around a tsp of salt for this amount of rice.
Sprinkle coriander leaves and mix it well.
When the water starts to bubble lower the heat and close the vessel with a tight lid and cook for around 10 mts.
Switch off the fire and do not try to open the lid.
Keep it like that for at least 1/2 an hour.
After 1/2 an hour if needed fluff the rice with a fork.
Notes:
The rule of cooking this type of rice is twice the amount of water for every cup of rice.
If you want to serve the rice immediately reduce the water to 3/4 cup for every cup of rice.
Keep it like that for at least ½ an hour.
After ½ an hour if needed fluff the rice with a fork.
Notes:
The rule of cooking this type of rice is twice the amount of water for every cup of rice.
If you want to serve the rice immediately reduce the water to ¾ cup for every cup of rice.
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Creamy Italian Macaroni Salad.
You can have Creamy Italian Macaroni Salad using 7 ingredients and 6 steps. Here is how you achieve that.
Ingredients of Creamy Italian Macaroni Salad
- Prepare 1 box of elbow macaroni.
- It’s 1/2 bottle of creamy italian salad dressing.
- Prepare 1/4 cup of mayonnaise (*or miracle whip depending on your tastes).
- It’s 1 cup of broccoli florets.
- Prepare 1 cup of cauliflower florets.
- Prepare 1 of small tomato.
- You need 1 tsp of celery seed (*optional).
Creamy Italian Macaroni Salad step by step
- Boil water in a medium/large saucepan. Cook noodles to desired consistency. Drain. Dump into large bowl or container..
- Wash & break, broccoli & cauliflower florets, into smaller pieces and add to pasta..
- Dice tomato and add to other ingredients..
- Cover ingredients with mayonnaise and creamy italian dressing. Mix well..
- Add celery seed or any other desired spices. Blend thoroughly..
- Cover & refrigerate for 4 hours before serving or until chilled evenly. Enjoy!. | https://www.beritaindo.my.id/2-easiest-way-to-prepare-yummy-creamy-italian-macaroni-salad.html |
The park of about 300 acres, extends along the Lambro river among the towns of Brugherio, Cologno Monzese and Sesto San Giovanni. It connects to the north with Monza and the Park of Villa Reale; to the south with park Adriano; to the west, through the Falck areas, to the Parco Nord; to the east, across the Martesana channel, to the East Parco delle Cave.
A green link of an articulated system involving Milan, Monza, Sesto San Giovanni, and Brugherio Cologno Monzese, with a total area of about 3500 hectares of green.
What to do in the park
In the Falck areas, in the district of San Maurizio al Lambro, it is possible to follow a path to revive the past of this area told by illustrated signs or another path which stimulates ous five senses, to visit a biodiversity wood, to go up the tower in the orientation zone and go down through a big slide, to lose oneself in the labyrinth, to prove oneself on the skaboard-halfpipe track or on the climbing wall. Whereas children can take part to labs or enjoy the playgrounds.
In Sesto San Giovanni, the area facing via Pisa is supplied with walking paths.
In Cologno Monzese, the horse riding centre Erbastro offers horse rides in the park.
In Milan, at Lambro Park, there are a guided botanical tour, playgrounds for children and many sport opportunities: a fitness trail, a soccer field, a Disc Golf course, a skateboard track and a 4 km trail for runners and cyclists. Here there are also a two bars.
Always in Milan, at the Water Park there are 6 playgrounds, trails for cyclists, pedestrians, runners or joggers, a pond to go kayaking and industrial archeology attractions.
At Adriano Park, then, two basketball courts join playgrounds, trails for walking, runnig or go biking and here it is possible to have a break at picnic areas.
How to reach the Park
Look the map of the park here.
Entrances in Monza: | https://turismo.monza.it/en/things-to-do/1798-media-valle-del-lambro-park |
This post celebrates my daughter Margo's life. Margo passed away peacefully in her sleep on July 6 after a 15-year battle with chronic illness. At 24, she lived life to its fullest and made the most of every day.
Margo was a remarkable person in many ways. Our most cherished memories of Margo include her:
1) ability to smile and find joy even in the toughest of moments,
2) constant desire to put others first and give,
3) incredible creative talent: margomade,
4) innate baking and cocktail-making skills, and
5) unconditional love for pugs and all furry creatures.
Margo was an intrinsic part of Something New For Dinner. She designed the original website and collaborated on our new site. She cooked with me, baked for me and made me delicious cocktails. She was a skilled recipe editor and could look at 100 photographs and zero in on the best three in nano-seconds. Margo and her buddy Eric produced and filmed our video It All Starts Somewhere. Margo designed an ebook we will soon be publishing and our gorgeous Something New For Dinner aprons.
Margo will be missed everyday. Her smile, her sassy sense of humor and her amazing kindness to all will live forever in my heart.
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Margo's favorite recipes
Margo was an avid cook. Even as a college student she cooked from scratch several times a week. Margo once told me that I had taught her to eat well. After she moved away from home she said the only way she could continue to eat well was to cook. And cook she did. Her friends were always happy to be asked to dinner at Margo's. When invited to a party she always brought something delicious. She was particularly well known for her Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, her Ginger Molasses Cookies, Hawaiian Chocolate Bread Pudding and her tasty Sangria.
To honor Margo, here is a list of her favorite recipes. It's a long list, but these were the recipes she made over and over and asked me to make when she was home. I hope you enjoy them as much as she did.
Salads
Chicken Frisee Salad with Roasted Peppers, Manchego & Spanish Paprika
Chicken, Berry, Date & Candied Walnut salad
Pear, Prosciutto & Pomegranate Salad
Watermelon, Tomato & Strawberry Salad with Burrata
Strawberry, Blueberry, Spinach & Quinoa Summer Salad
Japanese Cucumber & Shrimp Salad
Avocado Massaged Kale Salad with Oranges and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
Soups
French Lentil & Garlic Sausage Soup
Sides
Tomato, Basil and Feta Bruschetta
Orzo Salad with Tomatoes, Basil & Feta
Chicken, Artichoke, Lemon & Rosemary Risotto
Main Courses
Chicken, Potato & Prosciutto Kabobs
Za'atar & Lemon Grilled Chicken
Pineapple & Pork Lettuce Wraps
Roasted Leek, Pancetta & Tomato Pasta
Breakfast
Mango & Yogurt Breakfast Parfaits
Desserts
Nectarine Crisp with Salted Honey Whip
Rice Krispie Treats Samoas Style
Rice Krispie Treats Tagalong Style
Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies
Pumpkin Pie with Fresh Ginger & Espresso
Chocolate Espresso Pots of Creme
Pavlova with Berries, Brown Sugar & Sour Cream
Cocktails
Comments
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Kim, this is a beautiful tribute to your very lovely daughter, Margo. Thank you for sharing a bit of her with your followers and please accept my heartfelt condolences. I hope knowing that so many will see and enjoy her works and favorite contributions will bring you some small measure of comfort, and may you always hold your cherished memories close to your heart. Many blessings to you and your family.
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In honor of Margo, this take-out queen is going to light up the kitchen. One more way that Margo’s influence will encourage people to try new things — and likely generate a few gut-busting laughs. Thanks for providing a vehicle for more Margo memories.
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What a beautiful tribute! Thank you for posting these recipes. I will try them all!
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Kim, a lovely tribute to Margo and a beautiful photograph. I cannot begin to comprehend your heartbreak but send my deepest condolences to you and your family. In honor of Margo, I am going to begin my own neighborly dinners with my small group of close friends and will be cooking up Margot’s favorite recipes. I hope I do her proud, and I hope a happy tribute to her life. God Bless you and your family.
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I’ve been checking for your Monday posts and wondered why they were missing — my heart sank when I saw your post today. Your tribute was phenomenal and gave us a wonderful picture of a beautiful, creative, amazing young woman. Thank you for sharing this with us. My deepest condolences on your heartbreaking loss.
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What a wonderful way to honor your beautiful daughter, Margo! Thank you for the recipes, I will love cooking and sharing them at our family gatherings. Sending my deepest sympathy to you and your family.
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Our heart breaks for you. We remember when you came to the xmas party and you were pregnant with Margo. You had a craving for a sandwich and Keith made you one. We will recreate your recipes and will teach them to our kids to pass on to their kids. The circle will continue. We send our endless love your way.
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I was so sorry to see this post. Margo took my sewing class at our shop a few times and I enjoyed having her in class. She was so meticulous with her sewing which was so impressive. She made a beautiful blouse with a fabulous fabric. I took one of her scraps and still use it for an example of a quality fabric for my new students. Margo spoke often of you and her siblings and I liked her stories. My heart hurts for you and your family.
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In honor of Margo…. I’m making a couple of her favorites for Katya’s 29th birthday…..
Watermelon, tomato, strawberry salad with burrata and Asian sesame noodles; with one of your salmon recipes! Of course I always have to make a fresh strawberry pie with graham cracker crust for her birthday cake! Just returned from our Ireland/Scotland trip…… Hope to get together when we get unpacked & organized!! Love & hugs. 🙂
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Love the Margo favorites page!!!
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I love the Margo celebrations and remembering her great spirit.
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This is a wonderful tribute to your beautiful daughter! I think I was supposed to find this website as I just typed in “something different for dinner”. We share the sadness of losing a part of our hearts. I’m looking forward to trying both of your recipes.
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As her chemistry teacher, I was fortunate to taste many of her baked seasonal goods and they were all delicious! Only a few students leave a lasting impression in your heart and Margo is one who has done so. Smart, kind, happy, and pure goodness will continue to be my lasting memory of Margo.
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I’ve never expressed my feelings to you about your loss, and I am so sorry for that. I guess I didn’t know how to or what to say. I now can say I feel your sadness and if anything I can do to help I’m here for you. We lost Ana our 27 year old daughter 5 months ago. It hurts. | https://somethingnewfordinner.com/blog/memory-daughter-margo/ |
Relativity theory also applicable in other research areas
Einstein’s theory of time and space will celebrate its 100th anniversary this year. Even today it captures the imagination of scientists. In an international collaboration, researchers from the Universities of Vienna (Časlav Brukner), Harvard (Igor Pikovski) and Queensland have now discovered that this world-famous theory can explain yet another puzzling phenomenon: the transition from quantum behavior to our classical, everyday world. Their results are published in the journal "Nature Physics".
In 1915 Albert Einstein formulated the theory of general relativity which fundamentally changed our understanding of gravity. He explained gravity as the manifestation of the curvature of space and time. Einstein’s theory predicts that the flow of time is altered by mass. This effect, known as "gravitational time dilation", causes time to be slowed down near a massive object. It affects everything and everybody; in fact, people working on the ground floor will age slower than their colleagues a floor above, by about 10 nanoseconds in one year. This tiny effect has actually been confirmed in many experiments with very precise clocks. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Vienna, Harvard University and the University of Queensland have discovered that the slowing down of time can explain another perplexing phenomenon: the transition from quantum behavior to our classical, everyday world.
How gravity suppresses quantum behavior
Quantum theory, the other major discovery in physics in the early 20th century, predicts that the fundamental building blocks of nature show fascinating and mind-boggling behavior. Extrapolated to the scales of our everyday life quantum theory leads to situations such as the famous example of Schroedinger’s cat: the cat is neither dead nor alive, but in a so-called quantum superposition of both. Yet such a behavior has only been confirmed experimentally with small particles and has never been observed with real-world cats. Therefore, scientists conclude that something must cause the suppression of quantum phenomena on larger, everyday scales. Typically this happens because of interaction with other surrounding particles.
The research team, headed by Časlav Brukner from the University of Vienna and the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, found that time dilation also plays a major role in the demise of quantum effects. They calculated that once the small building blocks form larger, composite objects – such as molecules and eventually larger structures like microbes or dust particles –, the time dilation on Earth can cause a suppression of their quantum behavior. The tiny building blocks jitter ever so slightly, even as they form larger objects. And this jitter is affected by time dilation: it is slowed down on the ground and speeds up at higher altitudes. The researchers have shown that this effect destroys the quantum superposition and, thus, forces larger objects to behave as we expect in everyday life.
Paving the way for the next generation of quantum experiments
"It is quite surprising that gravity can play any role in quantum mechanics", says Igor Pikovski, who is the lead author of the publication and is now working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "Gravity is usually studied on astronomical scales, but it seems that it also alters the quantum nature of the smallest particles on Earth". "It remains to be seen what the results imply on cosmological scales, where gravity can be much stronger", adds Časlav Brukner. The results of Pikovski and his co-workers reveal how larger particles lose their quantum behavior due to their own composition, if one takes time dilation into account. This prediction should be observable in experiments in the near future, which could shed some light on the fascinating interplay between the two great theories of the 20th century, quantum theory and general relativity.
Publication in "Nature Physics":
"Universal decoherence due to gravitational time dilation". I. Pikovski, M. Zych, F. Costa, Č. Brukner.
Nature Physics (2015)
DOI:10.1038/nphys3366
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It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops (2 Timothy 2:6, esv).
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul used a string of work analogies to show what it’s like to follow Christ Jesus. He spoke of Christ-followers as teachers (2:2), soldiers (2:3), athletes (2:5), and farmers (2:6). Most of us can relate to at least one job on that list.
Any farmers reading today? Many of us are far-removed from the farming experience. That farm-to-table distance is more like a gulf. But when the New Testament was written, everybody got this concept right away. So let’s imagine that we’re farmers so we can grasp Paul’s point. It’s simple and profound. Let’s call it the farmer principle. To summarize Paul’s words, “Feed yourself first!”
Farmers know that. Imagine that you have a farm with 100 acres of corn. You till it, plant it, and watch it grow. It’s a year for a good yield, so you get 150 bushels per acre. Let’s do a little math. With 100 acres, at 150 bushels per acre, you yield 15,000 bushels. What a great harvest!
Next step? Do you take all 15,000 bushels of corn to market and sell it all so that next summer you can buy more land and yield an even bigger crop?
That would be a very bad, foolish, short-sighted plan. The farmer needs to feed his livestock, and he needs money to buy groceries for his family. It’s going to be a long winter. You can’t take everything you earn and turn it into output. The farmer that labors must be the first to partake of the fruits.
In other words, feed yourself first.
This holds true spiritually. You have to feed yourself first before you can feed someone else. Pastors can’t preach sermons that they’re not working on personally. Their sermon preparation can’t be the only time they’re in the Bible all week. They need to keep their hearts fed and tender. They can’t feed everybody else without first feeding themselves. It’s the nourishing of God’s Word in their own souls that gives them the strength to persevere.
Let’s make this more personal. What was your spiritual diet this past week? What have you gleaned from God’s Word in the last thirty days? This is the condition of your soul. You can be out telling the world about Jesus but starving your own soul.
It’s not enough to just show up at church on Sunday and let your pastor feed you. The time you spend together in God’s Word at church is a sample to whet your appetite so that you will crave and feast on more spiritual food all week. Some Christians get so fired up about Jesus at church, and then they lose that high by their Monday lunch break. Have you had enough cycles of that? Your soul needs regular feeding, not a once-a-week sampler platter.
Farmers get this, and Paul wanted Timothy (and us!) to get this also. Feed yourself first, or face the fallout—an empty soul. Feed yourself first! And then you can feed others too.
Journal
Pray
Father God, thank You for how Your Word practically connects to my everyday life. Help me to take to heart the farmer principle. This week, I want to feed myself first. Once I’m filled up spiritually, I can then turn around and feed others. Your Word continually offers a feast for my soul. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen. | https://jamesmacdonaldministries.org/the-farmer-principle/ |
Take for example the mystical belief that the number 11 or 11:11 is somehow significant. Uri Geller goes on about this on his web site. To quote from Geller's web site (and you'll find other similar thinking on many 11:11 web sites):
String theory is said to be the theory of everything. It is a way of describing every force and matter regardless of how large or small or weak or strong it is. There are a few eleven's that have been found in string theory.
I find this to be interesting since this theory is supposed to explain the universe! The first eleven that was noticed is that string theory has to have 11 parallel universes (discussed in the beginning of the "11.11" article) and without including these universes, the theory does not work.
The second is that Brian Greene has 11 letters in his name. For those of you who do not know, he is a physicist as well as the author of The Elegant Universe, which is a book explaining string theory. (His book was later made into a mini series that he hosted.) Another interesting find is that Isaac Newton (who's ideas kicked off string theory many years later) has 11 letters in his name as well as John Schwarz. Schwarz was one of the two men who worked out the anomalies in the theory. Plus, 1 person + 1 person = 2 people = equality.
Also, the two one's next to each other is 11. The two men had to find the same number (496) on both sides of the equation in order for the anomalies to be worked out, so the equation had to have equality! There were two matching sides to the equation as well because they ultimately got 496 on both sides. So, the 1 + 1 = 2 = equality applies for the equation as well.
I added a little bold type there because it amused me; pity that Mr Geller didn't look up the definition of equation before writing that line.
But key to this whole belief is that the number 11 keeps turning up at random. When I first read about this I looked up at the clock and it was 11:43. Whoa! Spooky!
But then I remembered Benford's Law. Benford's Law is essentially that in lots of real-life data the leading digit is 1 with a probability of about 30% (instead of the 10% you'd expect if the first digit was random from 0 through 9) and hence numbers beginning with 1 occur more often than numbers starting with any other digit.
A simple illustration is my clock experience. What's the probability that if you look at a clock at random that the first digit is a 1? Well it's more likely than any other number.
For a clock showing 12 hour time it cycles through: 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. A simple count will show you that the number 1 is the first digit for 8 out of the 24 hours and that all the other digits occur 2 times in 24 hours. So what's the probability that if I glance at a clock at random I'll see a 1 at the beginning? 8/24 or 1/3 of the time... which is Benford's Law.
Now, Benford's Law isn't restricted to time. It occurs all over the place (Wikipedia lists: electricity bills, street addresses, stock prices, population numbers, death rates, lengths of rivers, physical and mathematical constants) and so if you walk through life looking at random numbers you'll see numbers starting with a 1 more often than any other number. In 1988 a mathematician named Ted Hill showed why this is the case for many real-world systems.
But, what about 11? I hear you ask. Well if the first digit is more likely to be 1 than any other than it's clear that you are more likely to see numbers in the range 10 through 19 more than other two digit numbers, but a more interesting offshoot of Benford's Law is explained here.
Essentially as you walk through the digits of a number you are more likely to see a 1 than another digit, but that effect diminishes the longer the number gets. The probability that the the second digit is a 1 is about 11% (instead of the expected 10%) and given that the probability that the first digit is a 1 is 30% you are bound to come across 11 more frequently than you'd expect (if numbers were random).
So, it's no surprise that we see lots of 11s, and hence there's a simple explanation for all those 11s. Either that or I've been missing the call of the 11:11 Spirit Guardians all these years:
These 11:11 Wake-Up Calls on your digital clocks, mobile phones, VCR’s and microwaves are the "trademark" prompts of a group of just 1,111 fun-loving Spirit Guardians, or Angels. Once they have your attention, they will use other digits, like 12:34, or 2:22 to remind you of their presence. Invisible to our eyes, they are very real. | https://blog.jgc.org/2008/02/ |
In all honesty, I daresay that the photos and film footage shown on national television on Sunday reminded me of the desolation I saw when I visited Hiroshima, victim of the first nuclear strike in August 1945. With good reason, it is said that hurricanes release an enormous amount of energy, equal, perhaps, to thousands of nuclear weapons like the ones used on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would be worthwhile for a Cuban physicist or mathematician to do the relevant calculations and make a comprehensible presentation.
Being Cuban (from New York) , and a physicist (when I was employed), I felt challenged to provide details. What follows are the results of a simple model.
I consider a hurricane to be a vortex with a local rotational speed that increases as the point of observation moves to smaller radius. The center of the hurricane is a zone of low pressure, while the exterior of the hurricane is a region of high pressure; air is drawn radially inward by this pressure gradient. Air drawn into the outer radius of the hurricane, Ro, rotates with angular (or circular) speed vo. Let us say this condition applies to a ring (inward along the radial direction) of thickness dr. This ring has a height L, from sea level up to the top of the storm (what satellite cameras photograph). The rotation of this large cylindrical shell carries a total angular momentum (the product of total air-mass in the shell times average rotational speed), which we will label Mr.
w = M/(2 pi rho Ro L r r).
[I have dropped the x for multiplication.] This quantity is the total momentum of the storm, M, divided by the product of 2, pi = 3.14159…, rho = density of air, Ro, L, and the square of the radius in question.
Hang on, we’re almost there.
the product of w1 times the square of r1. So, once we measure the wind speed at any given radius, we can infer the rotational frequency there (w1 = v1/r1), and then we can define constant A and use this in the formulas shown to get w and v at any radius.
in units of energy called joules (if you fell asleep, this is the answer).
E is the product of five factors, the four leading ones being: pi, rho, L and the square of A; and the product of these four is multiplied by the mathematical function called the natural logarithm (LOGe) of the ratio Ro/Ri. The natural logarithm of 1 is equal to 0; LOGe(2.7182818…) = 1; LOGe(10) = 2.3026; LOGe(100) = 4.6052.
1 km = 0.62 mile.
E = 6.944 x (10 to the 17th power) joules.
The energy released by the explosion of 1000 tons of TNT (a kiloton, abbreviated kt) is 4.182 x (10 to the 12th power) joules. So, E = 166,055 kt (or equivalently, 166.05 megatons). The atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 produced about 15 kt, so the model storm has the energy equivalent of 11,070 Hiroshima bombs. Most of the energy of a hurricane is dissipated as atmospheric turbulence and heating, and friction along the Earth’s surface, only a very tiny portion of it is absorbed by the structures built by humans.
Bear in mind that the energy of the hurricane is spread over a much larger volume than that of a nuclear explosion (so hurricane energy per unit volume is smaller), and it is released over a much longer period of time. But it is of awesome scale, and we are still as powerless before it as were our first ancestors four million years ago.
More articles by:Manuel García, Jr. | https://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/05/the-energy-of-a-hurricane/ |
The IFLA Section on Reading is pleased to present some practical suggestions for library staff who would like to help our society become more literate. We believe that libraries are uniquely situated to promote literacy. Libraries may develop and staff their own programs or they may support literacy projects sponsored by other organizations.
The aims of these practical pointers are:
- To encourage libraries to become involved in literacy programs
- To serve as an informal checklist for evaluating library-based programs that are already in place
Our definition of literacy is broad. It includes the development and practice of reading, writing, and numeracy skills (skills related to numbers). These skills encourage the independence, curiosity and lifelong learning of individuals and groups. Such learners contribute greatly to the economic, social and cultural health of the communities and the nations in which they live.
We have written these guidelines as librarians speaking to librarians. We have asked and answered a number of questions in the first person to give the sense that we are working with you:
- Who is our audience?
- How do we start planning and developing community cooperation?
- Who are our potential partners?
- What materials are needed and how do we choose them?
- How do we train our staff?
- How do we promote our literacy program?
- How can we tell if we are successful?
- How do we keep our program going?
The activities of each library will be different. They will depend on local factors. We know that the answers we give will not apply to every library or every project. An open mind and good will are keys to the success of any project. These are qualities that are hard to express in a brochure, but we know them when we see them at work among partners.
The questions and answers are offered as suggestions, not formal guidelines. They are written for library staff who share and wish to implement our belief that libraries and literacy are partners.
Literacy is the key to education and knowledge and to the use of library and information services."
IFLA Guidelines for Public Libraries, August 2000
Who is our audience?
Several target audiences seem suited to library-based literacy programs:
- Young people who have dropped out of school
- Unemployed young people
- Women and older people, who have not had the opportunity to learn or practice reading, writing and numeracy skills (skills related to with numbers)
- Adults with literacy difficulties
- People from different countries, languages, and ethnic groups
- Migrant workers
- Refugees
- People in institutions, such as prisons or hospitals
Library staff will want to discuss the program and the needs of the audience they have in mind as they begin to plan. Some of the questions they may wish to discuss with the participants are:
- Where is a suitable space for classes and practice?
- What are the best times for the classes?
- How frequently will the classes be held?
- What materials will be useful for every learner?
- Who will be leading the project and what training has the person had?
- What occasions will participants have to use their new skills?
- What supports for learning are on hand? For example: posters, computers, videos, radios, and materials for writing and drawing
How do we start planning and developing community cooperation?
The staff will first want to assess the library service's position in its local, regional, and national context. Libraries work within local and national cultural and educational policies. Library staff will want to respect the cultural patterns in the community. Before a project starts, the library staff will wish to develop a plan that should include:
- Community information (cultural, social and practical, with statistical information, if possible)
- A detailed report of overall aims
- Identification of other groups working in the literacy field
- A financial plan
The staff will want to discuss this plan with members of the community and partners. The location of the literacy program will vary, but library staff should consider places in a community where it will be comfortable for participants to gather. The places may be:
- Public, mobile, and other types of libraries
- Healthcare centres, community centres, schools, places of worship
- Bus and railway stations, factories
- Beaches, the sports field and even restaurants
- The home of a community leader
The location should be comfortable, easy to reach, and attractive for the participants. Timing for project activities-for example, when a project should start, how long it should last and when the classes take place-should be developed in cooperation with project staff, local authorities, and project participants. The frequency of the classes is also important. The group should meet as often as it can-weekly if possible-to support the progress of the participants.
Involving others
As well as talking with librarians, teachers and other professionals, the project staff will want to contact key people in the community including:
- Those who know its history, traditions and culture
- Those in voluntary and not-for-profit organizations and places of worship
- Those who work for the local government
Other government officials and people with technical knowledge should also be consulted in the planning, along with key experts in regional and national (or even wider) positions. Representatives from authors' organizations and the media could join the project staff. Plans should be made to ensure that all the participants can attend the program without fear and can take part freely in the classes. If specific guidelines are needed, in order to respect different cultural traditions, they should be considered in planning for the literacy project and for the work of the library as a whole.
Who are our potential partners?
There are many groups who provide different types of cultural, information and literacy services to the community. Working together, library staff and these groups will be more likely to succeed in their community. In fact, library staff could be the key link among these various agencies.
Cultural agencies with which libraries could cooperate in literacy programs include:
- Groups of artists, writers, dramatists, or musicians
- Local, regional and/or national government culture departments
- National and international cultural associations
- Cultural groups that produce publications
Library staff could cooperate with many different educational groups, including:
- Schools at all levels; adult education groups; teacher, parents and parent-teacher associ- ations
- Teachers' and literacy workers' groups
- Non-governmental education programs and associations
- Library and information studies departments
- Local, regional and national governmental departments of education
- Educational and cultural publishers
- Readers clubs; reading associations; publishers associations; and booksellers associations
Other community-based groups and associations that are potential partners include:
- Neighbourhood associations
- Religious groups and brotherhoods
- Non-governmental organizations
- Social workers, psychologists, counsellors etc.
- Community health workers
- Trade unions
- Business, media, and political groups
What materials are needed and how do we choose them?
Materials for library-based literacy programs may be created, donated, borrowed, recycled, purchased or downloaded from the Internet, according to local circumstances. As it is important to use relevant adult learning materials, library staff will want to choose materials of interest in local languages. These include:
- Booklets on health, the family and agriculture
- Information on economic development, the environment and local customs
- Newspapers and magazines
- Programming using radio, videos, and the Internet
When choosing materials, library staff should consider:
Design
- Is the print large, clear and easy to read?
- Are the paragraphs well-spaced?
- Is the page well-designed, attractive and easy to read?
- Are there illustrations to support the text?
Language
- Is the language plain, common usage and in the present tense?
- Does the text avoid difficult dialects, regional expressions, and figures of speech?
Words
- Does the writer use short, common words?
- Are technical or difficult words explained and repeated, so they can be learned?
Sentence and Paragraph Structure
- Are the sentences and paragraphs simple, short, and clear?
- Is each sentence introduced with a capital?
- Do single thoughts completed in two or three simple sentences make up a paragraph?
How do we train our staff?
Preparation
Preparing staff for participation in library-based literacy programs may occur in different ways. Training may be offered in pre-professional education, in-service training or as continuing education. More often it is given in short courses and workshops, or at special programs during professional meetings. To have a successful literacy program, three types of training may be considered:
- Training for staff working with the public
- Training for library staff managers of literacy projects
- Training for literacy tutors and persons providing services
Knowledge and skills required
All staff, but especially staff working with the public, need general training to provide them with an awareness of the needs of the target group. Some knowledge in the following areas would be useful:
- An understanding of literacy
- An understanding of the needs of illiterate people and the role of the library
- Methods of identifying the target population
- Types of services the library could provide
- Knowledge of potential partners
Staff who will be supervising literacy training need all the skills and knowledge listed above. In addition, they need more specific knowledge such as:
- Knowledge of the diverse needs of illiterate people
- Understanding the need for networking with literacy providers and community agencies
- Knowledge about developing, managing and assessing literacy programs
Literacy tutors, who will often be community volunteers, need specific training. It should include:
- Techniques in teaching the adult learner
- Advocacy training
- Training on the importance of privacy, respect and trust
How do we promote our literacy Program?
A library literacy program must be promoted, if it is to succeed. Project leaders will want to inform and update the community and other interested groups on their literacy project. These groups include:
- Library staff, library trustees and/or management or advisory boards; library users
- Government representatives
- Other community organizations;
- The media;
- Local cultural and educational groups.
The reasons behind the program also need to be explained and made known. The messages should focus on:
- Why the library is becoming involved in promoting literacy
- How the library is involved
- What results the library expects from its literacy program
Certain methods are useful in promoting literacy activities. These may include plans to:
- Develop a working group to help promote the program
- Provide posters and materials to the local media
- Create flyers, brochures, and short announcements for the local library, cultural and educational communities
- Work with partner organizations, when appropriate, in joint publicity efforts
How can we tell if our efforts are successful?
The library’s work in literacy needs to be assessed at regular intervals. We will want to know how effective our efforts have been in meeting the aims of the program and in reaching the intended target audience.
This is particularly useful if a program has been planned without the direct involvement beforehand of the target audience, such as frequently happens with programs aimed at students.
Areas for assessment may include:
- The number of participants who enrolled and completed the program
- How they evaluated the program
- How the program benefited the community
- The effectiveness of the use of literacy resources, e.g. the availability of resources and their use by target audiences
- The effectiveness of the program location, e.g. the site, buildings, furniture and equipment
- The convenience of the frequency and length of the program for the participants
- The structure of the program, e.g. administration, supervision, partnerships
- The longer-term benefit to the individuals
Methods of assessment may include:
- Interviews with individuals and focus groups from the target audience, including those who have participated in the program and those who have not
- Writing samples from the learners
- Interviews with literacy program staff about the effectiveness of the program and its partnerships
- Staff could also collect information on the number of participants, their attendance and the quality and types of resources used
How do we keep our program going?
To continue and to plan for the successful future of library-based literacy programs, library staff may consider: | https://www.ifla.org/publications/guidelines-for-library-based-literacy-programs?og=74 |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a separation mechanism for separating and feeding paper sheet, in particular, a separation mechanism for separating and feeding the paper sheet which is provided in a scanner apparatus, a laser beam printer, a copying machine, etc, and capable of separating plural sheets of paper sheet by sheet and feeding separated individual paper.
2. Description of the Related Arts (Prior Arts)
In the recent years, paper separating/feeding apparatus in the image forming apparatus installed in the copying machine, etc. is provided with a paper separation mechanism for separating the fed paper sheet. This apparatus adopts the method of separating and feeding paper by partially bringing the manuscript document into slidable contact with the respective convex portions of the conveying roller and the separating roller as a paper separating mechanism different from that of separating one sheet from the plural sheets of the manuscript document by bringing the plural manuscript documents, etc. into slidable contact with the overall surface of the conveying roller and the separating roller.
For instance, the published specification of Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 4-89732/1992 describes such a paper separating mechanism as shown in FIGS. 7a and 7b.
In FIGS. 7a and 7b, the reference numeral 1 represents a conveying roller, 2a separating roller, and both of the rollers 1 and 2, respectively, have convex portions 1a and 2a and concave portions 1b and 2b provided between the convex portions 1a and 2a, and further the both pitches of the respective convex portions 1a and 2a are almost equal.
The conveying roller 1 and the separating roller 2 oppose each other in a state of forming uneven steps such that the convex portions 1a, 2a and the concave portions 1b, 2b do not come into contact with each other.
The conveying roller 1 rotates in a positive direction for the paper feeding direction of the manuscript document P, while the separating roller 2 rotates in a negative (inverse) direction for the same. Further, the frictional coefficient of the above-mentioned conveying roller 1 is larger than that of the separating roller 2.
Regarding those rollers; the conveying roller 1 and the separating roller 2, the engagement amount (overlap amount) between the concave portion 1b or 2b and the convex portion 1a or 2a is adjusted by use of the adjusting means not shown in FIGS. 7a and 7b, in accordance with the paper thickness of the manuscript document.
When the above-mentioned amount is adjusted, the adjusting means sets the overlap amount of the manuscript document such that the overlap amount thereof turns out to be large while that of the thick manuscript document turns out to be small. If the adjustment is not performed in such way, in the case of employing the thin manuscript document sheet, the document sheet deforms and as a result the same escapes from the convex portions 1a and 2a of the rollers 1 and 2.
In such a situation, the document sheet having weak waist (easily bent) deforms largely, while the other document sheet having strong waist (rigid) does not deform so much compared with the case of employing the thin manuscript document sheet having weak waist.
In such separating mechanism as mentioned heretofore, when two or more sheets of manuscript document are fed for example, the document sheets advance into the space between the rollers 1 and 2.
However, since the frictional force between the manuscript document and the separating roller 2 rotating in an opposite direction to that of feeding paper is larger than the frictional force between both of the manuscript document sheets, all other document sheets excluding the upper-most side document sheet are pushed back to the separating roller 2. As a result, only the upper-most side document sheet brought into slidable contact with the conveying roller is fed. In such a manner, the document sheet can be prevented from being fed in a state of two or more sheets.
However, in such a conventional sheet feeding apparatus, since the diameters (the diameters of the convex portions 1a and 2a) of the conveying roller 1 and the separating roller 2 are approximately equal to each other, there arose a problem to be solved in the past that double (superposing) conveying of the manuscript document sheets could not be prevented sufficiently.
Namely, in case that the diameters of the rollers 1 and 2 are almost equal to each other, the advancing angles .alpha. of two manuscript documents (the angles formed in the sheet feeding direction and the tangent line between the rollers 1 and 2) are made almost equal to each other, and thereby two sheets of the manuscript document advance toward the space between the rollers 1 and 2 at the same time. At this time, since the frictional coefficient of the separating roller 2 is larger than that of the conveying roller 1, two sheets of document are fed in a state of coming into contact with each other without separating the document sheets advancing at the same time toward the space between the rollers 1 and 2 on some occasions.
For this reason, the double conveying of the manuscript document cannot be prevented sufficiently.
Further, since the engaging amount of the rollers 1 and 2 (the distance between the rollers 1 and 2) has to be adjusted at every time by the adjusting means in accordance with the thickness of the manuscript document, the adjustment work for adjusting the engaging amount requires much time and thereby the adjustment work cannot be done efficiently. It is a problem to be solved in the prior-art technology.
Further, since the respective pitches between the convex portions 1a and 2a of the paper feeding (conveying) roller 1 and the paper separating roller 2 are approximately equal to each other, the manuscript document sheet is entirely applied with a uniform contacting force in a direction perpendicular to that of feeding the document sheet by the action of those convex portions 1a and 2a. In consequence, in case that a skewing of the document sheet occurs at the time of feeding, the document sheet is conveyed in a state of skewing by the conveying roller disposed at the downstream side of the paper separating mechanism.
Furthermore, since the convex portions have the uniform pitch, the document sheet is uniformly bent in the direction perpendicular to that of conveying the document sheet. For this reason, the separated document sheet recovers its original state from being in the bent state in the sheet conveying direction toward the center portion, and never-the-less the document sheet's both ends keeps the state of banding as it is on some occasions, and thereby an ear folding, etc. occurs on both ends of the document sheet in the width direction thereof. Those are the problems to be solved.
| |
feature article: Was Hypatia of Alexandria a Scientist?
We’ve all believed in something weird at one time or another. In this week’s Skepticblog, Daniel Loxton reminds skeptics that critical thinking is a learned skill; we are not born with it.
In this week’s eSkeptic, S. James Killings reviews the film AGORA, distributed by Focus Features, produced by Fernando Bovaira and Álvaro Augustin, directed by Alejandro Amenábar, written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil, starring Rachel Weisz.
Dr. S. James Killings has a doctorate in Medieval History from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Mediaeval Studies. He has taught Classics at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota and North Central College in Illinois. His current work is on the 11th-century monastic poet Reginald of Canterbury for which he recently published an article in Revue Benedictine.
Agora film stills and movie poster are copyright © 2010 Newmarket Films. All Rights Reserved.
THE FILM AGORA, RELEASED IN THEATRES IN LATE 2009 in Spain and this summer in the United States, portrays an unlikely heroine for the popular American audience — the ancient mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, played by Rachel Weisz. Although renowned as a Neo-Platonic philosopher during her lifetime, she is remembered more often for her death than for her life. In 415 AD the pagan Hypatia was caught up in the political and religious violence that routinely swept Alexandria and murdered by a group of fanatical Christian monks who were intent on making an example of her. One of her colleagues, the Syrian Damascius, placed the blame squarely on the Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria and his Christian followers.
In the 18th century, the Enlightenment thinkers John Toland and particularly Voltaire seized on Damascius’ story of Hypatia’s death as symbolic of the antagonistic nature the Christian religion had toward the freedom of inquiry. They imagined her as a martyred symbol of free thought who was destroyed by the irrational dogmas of the growing ecclesiastical patriarchy. Her death, according to her blossoming legend, set back free inquiry a thousand years and ended the scientific hopes of the Hellenistic Age. This image of Hypatia as an Enlightenment symbol was to have far-reaching influence well into the 20th century, as Maria Dzielska explains in her book, Hypatia of Alexandria, so much so that it has become difficult now to untangle the historical Hypatia from her literary legend. Amenábar’s Hypatia, also apparently influenced by Carl Sagan’s portrayal of her in his documentary film Cosmos, appears to be another cultural product of this Enlightenment legend.
The intersections of religion and science and rising concerns over religious fundamentalism have gripped the news in recent years, so it is no wonder Amenábar has resurrected Voltaire’s Enlightenment emblem again. But Hypatia’s portrayal as scientific heroine in the movie deserves some scrutiny not the least to separate her legend from history for those who have not studied ancient philosophy, but also to give credit where credit is due for the advancement of scientific reasoning.
The historical life of Hypatia is shrouded in the mists of the past. She was the daughter of the mathematician Theon, who was known to have been associated with the Museion of Alexandria in the 4th century. What we know of her mathematical work (and much of her life) comes from a Byzantine history, the Suda, compiled five centuries after her death. She is thought to have written commentaries on the conics of Apollonius and the Arithmetica of Diophantus, along with an introduction to astronomical treatises, none of which have survived. It has been argued that she contributed a not insignificant part to her father’s editions of Euclid and Ptolemy, and perhaps all of her commentaries were collaborations with her father. She taught at the Neo-Platonic School in Alexandria, an institution separate from the Museion. As a teacher of Plato and Aristotle, according to the Suda, she became famous throughout Alexandria. She has often been associated with the invention of the hydrometer, a tool used to measure the density of liquids, but the wording of the evidence — Synesius of Cyrene’s letter to her — casts doubt on that score.
Although we cannot be completely certain of the nature of Hypatia’s mathematical work, the commentaries and work attributed to her in the Suda do suggest that she was interested in astronomy. Apollonius described the eccentric movements of the planets, their epicycles and deferents and described the mathematical properties of the ellipse, hyperbola and parabola. Ptolemy builds on Apollonius’ work to construct his geocentric model of the planets. Diophantus’ Arithmetica provides examples of quadratic equations that are necessary to determine the properties of curves. Because of her association with the Neo-Platonic school in the 4th century Near-East, her work may have had something to do with the Plotine criticism of astrology. Plotinus, the founder of the Neo-Platonic school, was highly skeptical of astrological divination, and so we would expect was Hypatia.
Confused by the irrational properties given by astrologers to this or that planet as it moved through the Zodiac, Plotinus asked: “What is the comprehensive principle of coordination [of the movements of the planets]? Establish this and we have a reasonable basis for divination.…” Plotinus believed the planets were living beings that paradoxically had no will but were bound to follow a set course through the heavens. In her studies of conics and curves, Hypatia may have thought to determine the “comprehensive principle of coordination” of these heavenly beings in order to make divination more rational. We may never know. But of the Neo-Platonists of her era — Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Damascius — Hypatia appears to have been unique in her focus on astronomy and this may have contributed to her popularity (and animosity toward her) in the superstitious culture of Egyptian Alexandria.
The scientific subplot of the movie has Hypatia questioning the geocentric theory of the planets as espoused by Aristotle and then Ptolemy. Amenábar’s Hypatia engages in physics and mathematics in her pursuit. Her empirical experiment with the falling grain sack aboard the ship proves that gravity has the same effect on falling objects whether moving forward or standing still. She excitedly concludes that the Earth could be moving forward in the heavens and we could be unaware of it (the logic of her conclusion is not explained in the film). This notion of a moving, non-stationary Earth, is in contravention to the Aristotelian idea of gravity which held that earth, as one of the four elements, was drawn to its natural place at the centre of the spherical universe, which also comprised the other three elements, water, air and lastly fire. Nonetheless, her experiment aboard the ship opens her up to questioning Ptolemy’s geocentric planetary model of celestial spheres and epicycles. Using her knowledge of Apollonian conics, mathematics, and a clinometer, she at length correctly deduces the elliptical orbits of the planets (Kepler’s first law of planetary motion) in a helio-centric (Copernican) system, a pair of discoveries that would have been 1200 years before their time.
The kind of reasoning that Amenábar’s Hypatia engages in, with the falling grain sack and the theoretical knowledge drawn from observation and experiment, is known as empiricism. It is a logical method so fundamental to our modern approach to science, especially astronomy, that it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to comprehend any useful scientific enterprise without it. But empiricism is the product of a long history of philosophers beginning principally with Avicenna in the 11th century and practiced by the likes of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler in the cause of astronomy in the 16th century. It was developed into a philosophical practice through the Enlightenment principally by John Locke and David Hume. This mode of thought would have been completely alien to the real Hypatia of Alexandria, not because her mind was not equipped for such paths, but because she, her colleagues, her father, and their predecessors had no experience in nor knowledge of such logical methods. Moreover, as a 4th century Platonist, Hypatia likely mistrusted physical observation altogether and believed, like her mentor Plotinus, that she could uncover the mysteries of the universe by ratiocination alone.
The story of her menstrual rags in the Suda was meant to illustrate this point: as a female philosopher, Hypatia was not interested in the physical, only the metaphysical. To employ empiricism to call into question Aristotle she would have had to first call into question her entire metaphysical philosophical tradition and invent almost ex nihilo a whole new and mature method of reasoning. In other words, the real Hypatia would have been more likely to attribute the physical properties of the falling grain sack to the god Seraphis, than to the possibility that it meant the Earth was moving in the heavens in contradiction to Aristotle. She simply had no body of evidence nor rational means to conclude otherwise. It would take another millennia and considerable advances in other scientific areas — especially in logic, argumentation, mathematics, instrumentation and observation — before thinkers could begin to accurately describe the motions of the planets and the workings of the heavens.
Without these logical methods and evidence, and as a Neo-Platonist, Hypatia’s astronomical study of conics and curves would have been a purely philosophical and mathematical pursuit, exercised in the cloistered confines of the Alexandrian Library, divorced from empirical observation. Nowadays, it is strange to contemplate astronomy without empiricism, but the Platonic philosopher Hypatia would have reveled in it. If we must give her a modern scientific title by which she can be recognized, it would be more accurate to describe her as a mathematician in the purest sense.
We ought not to diminish nor elevate Hypatia’s contribution to science. Making too much of her legend does great disservice to the multitude of men and women throughout history who have made modern science possible. If any great credit is due to the advancement of scientific reasoning and the birth of the Modern Age it is not to a rediscovered Hypatia, but to the many thinkers and philosophers of the Renaissance and Enlightenment who, after more than two millennia, first put into words and practice a revolution in our understanding of the universe. Amenábar has seemingly made Hypatia into a symbol of the modern scientific method. Voltaire would have approved.
The Collector’s Edition boxed set of 7 DVDs of the 13 hour series narrated in 1980 by Carl Sagan and revamped in 2000 with up-to-date science and images. The definitive tour of our universe. Inspiring! | https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-07-28/ |
Archive for May, 2009
Hi Nikki,
I have just started to go through the manual. I’m not in a hurry. I plan to do the treasure hunt somewhere between now and the end of March.
I’m planning to do the treasure for my two boys because I have 2 tickets for Disneyland and I want to give the tickets to them in a special, fun way.
They don’t know anything yet about the Disney trip. I would like to create special memories for the trip and I thought that including a treasure hunt to start with would be a good idea.
I will keep you updated on how it goes, I might have some questions for you though in the near future, I’ve never put a treasure hunt together before, but I do believe it will be a lot of fun for all of us….
Kind Regards,
Joke De Frenne, Idaho USA
Hi Nikki,
I used a treasure hunt and my kids loved it, now I’m trying to make another one
Heidi Alberts, Minnesota, USA
We are having our treasure hunt in Albuquerque and Corrales, New Mexico this Saturday about 1ish. It is a ‘back to school’ gathering for our 4th/5th grade class and their parents. Our theme is Knights and Castles!
Trish Nickerson, New Mexico USA
Hi Nikki
Party was yesterday and thankfully was a great success. As you would expect weather very unpredictable in Ireland for Nov but we were blessed with a dry if windy day. Have taken some photos and will email them to you this week.
Thanks so much for package which I must say was very thorough. The hardest part for me was trying to contain the children (21 in total) when they arrived at party and explain how the treasure hunt worked. Your website details have been passed to several parents so hopefully you will reap the rewards. Thanks again and photos will follow.
Anne Goodwin, County Kildare Ireland
Dear Nikki:
I’ve downloaded the planner and at first glance, it looks like there are lots of ideas that will work for our event after I tailor them to our needs.
Every July our church puts on a camp called, ‘Summer Hummer’. Ages 4- 5 stay only half a day, and each day I need to develop a new treasure hunt because the same children repeat the activities every day.
Ages 6 to 14 stay all day and the treasure hunt will be an activity the age groups participate in once. The groups are divided up, such as: ages 6-7 is one group, ages 8-9 is another, etc. All together there will be close to 900 kids! Wow, that takes my breath away. It’s really a blast, kids have a ball and so do the counselors. About 300 counselors participate. There’s craft people, snack people, story tellers, water slides, zip lines, luge racers, all sorts of field games: soccer, races, etc.
A theme is established by a company called Gospel Lights where we purchase the course. This year’s course is ‘Sonforce Kids’. During the week we emphasize a different element of the course. Monday is Trust, based on Exodus 1-2:10: Moses: Boy in a basket.
Tuesday is Unite, based on Esther 2-8: Esther: Queen at risk. Wednesday is Train, based on Daniel 1: Daniel: Servant of God. Thursday is Follow, based on Jeremiah 36-39: Jeremiah: Prophet in trouble. Friday is Lead, based on Numbers 13-14:9: Joshua: Spy in a strange land.
The setting is on a space station full of adventure and high drama leading the children to make good decisions based on the day’s Bible stories. I’m going to attempt to fashion clues and puzzles with a space theme.
I’ll have some help during the treasure hunt itself, but it will be up to me to figure out all the details and logistics of the hunt. It should be great! Thanks for all you do, you’ve given me some confidence and the beginning of some ideas to pull this off. I’ll keep you posted.
Regards,
Patty Pynch, Washington USA
Dear Nikki,
Yes, we played the Instant Treasure Hunt twice with a group of 10 year olds. They were so smart that they breezed through most of the clues, but they enjoyed it!
Thanks for the fun!
Amy Paikuli, Hawaii USA
We are having our treasure hunt in Albuquerque and Corrales, New Mexico this Saturday about 1ish. It is a ‘back to school’ gathering for our 4th/5th grade class and their parents. Our theme is Knights and Castles!
Trish Nickerson, New Mexico USA
Hi Nikki
My Scavenger Hunt is not until June 23 But the stuff that you sent me has been such a great help so far in organizing the event. Everyone here can not wait to participate. I have a waiting list started . I am sure that this will not be the last hunt that I organize. I just wish that I could
take part.
Maybe I will be a fifth wheel in one of the teams just to see how everything went. Will let you know the results after June 23 Thank you for your interest and I shall recommend you to anyone whom asks.
Kelly LaPorte, Ontario Canada
Hi Nikki
We used the instant treasure hunt outdoors for My Daughters 8th Birthday Party - I used the 5-7year old hints and they were perfect
Thanks
Richard Rude, Connecticut USA
Hi Nikki,
The pirate treasure hunt party is long over. It was a great success. I did make some changes which I thought I would pass along to you. I had all of the girls together, divided them up into their teams and as a big group they dressed up as pirates and continued as a big group to the flag making station. So they were outfitted and had their team flags before starting the hunt. My treasure chest was a pi?ata which, after they put the puzzle together they broke open. It was a lot of fun and my neighbor asked where I got my ideas from. Thanks
Catherine Grote, Kansas USA
Our treasure hunt is in Kansas, a birthday party with guests ranging from 4 - 14 yrs. We will be having a pirate theme
Selena Varady, Kansas USA
Nikki, just wanted to let you know that my treasure hunt was GREAT!!! I had four groups of two with six stations using the Winter theme. I was not expecting it to go by so quickly. I have never seen women wanting to get to the prize so fast! It truly was hilarious! I adapted some changes to the theme pack but it worked out great. Thanks for all your hard work!
Tina Franklin, North Carolina USA
Hi Nikki,
Thank you for your treasure hunt book. We held our treasure hunt a couple of weeks ago and it consisted of 12 groups of 10 year old children, a total of 110 kids. The treasure hunt was a culminating activity of our term’s unit ‘What is your treasure?’
We had 6 stations and made up fun challenges at each stop, the children received a piece of the last puzzle each time they successfully completed a challenge. The teams eventually ended up in the principal’s office where they found a spade and a beautifully tea-stained treasure map that directed them to a sand pit on the school property where the treasure was buried.
The winning team received the contents of the treasure chest and each participant a love heart with the words ‘Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also? Matt 21:6 with a chocolate bar attached to the back. The children absolutely loved the hunt and it was a highlight of the term. The book was so helpful in setting up the treasure hunt, which was quite complex with so many children involved. We will definitely use all of the tips again when we run the treasure unit next year.
Thank you for all of your help and your follow-up emails which ensured the day was a huge success!
Kindest regards,
Anna Payne, Queensland Australia
The treasure hunt went great! All the girls dressed up in pirate garb. My daughter was totally surprised. They all enjoyed the treasure hunt part and everything worked out perfectly. Your e-book was a great guide to planning an exciting party. Thank you! | http://www.treasurehuntbook.com/content/testimonials/date/2009/05 |
NEWLY installed traffic lights have been creating "total and utter chaos" according to members of Dunmow's Traffic Management Group.
The lights, on the White Hart Way junction with Dunmow's High Street, have been met with fierce criticism ever since they were installed at the end of last year.
And now it has emerged that one light is in-fact missing and is at fault for causing confusion for motorists - sparking off a review process.
Essex county council highways officer Chris Stoneham said: "We are looking at relocating a signal head to improve the junction - at the moment it is under review.
"We obviously would like to make sure everything is running smoothly before it is running at full capacity."
Before the lights were put in place, a bus stop and several parking spaces were removed as the road was widened to make room for a right-hand turn lane.
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But angry councillors and shopkeepers have piled on the pressure for a better solution saying that the bus stop outside the One Stop shop needs to be relocated and the lights set up correctly.
Dunmow town councillor Phil Milne is one member of the group.
He said: "The whole thing is a nightmare, I spent week observing what goes on at that junction and to be honest I'm shocked.
"Cars have to weave around busses and parked cars before arriving at the lights and then not being able to see if they are red or green.
He added: "Vehicles that filter right towards White Street get to the middle of the junction only to find that the lights change and cars are suddenly coming straight at them.
"Also cars get stuck half way between the sets of lights because they are not set up correctly. All of the traffic gets pushed over to filter lane anyway. The whole thing is astounding."
As a result of the many complaints, and as part of the original planning design - the bus stop is set to move further away from the lights to allow more space.
However, the actual spot is yet to be decided and according to Chamber of Trade chairman, Mike Perry, one thing is for certain - shopkeepers do not want to lose any more parking spaces as a result.
Mr Perry said: "A mini roundabout would have been fine in that spot, it works at the other end of town. Traffic is increasing through the High Street and becoming continuous during the day - so the problem will just get worse.
"Getting rid of the post office bus stop and the parking bays seems to have changed people's attitudes and not being able to get around, or into, town is killing off traders." | https://www.dunmowbroadcast.co.uk/news/dunmow-traffic-lights-causing-total-and-utter-chaos-4814720 |
Use of this information is subject to copyright laws and may require the permission of the owner of the information, as described in the ECHA Legal Notice.
EC number: 500-465-4
|
CAS number: 160901-28-0
1 - 2.5 moles ethoxylated
Details:
Water calibration:
Water calibration: Temp. = 24 °C,
σ = 0.997 g/cm3
Surface tension of purified water, mN/m
Value 1
71.6
Value 2
Value 3
Value 4
Value 5
71.5
Value 6
Arithmetic mean
Standard deviation
0.0
Arithmetic mean 71.1 mN/m, standard deviation 0.0 mN/m (theoretical
value: 72.0 mN/m →correction factor 1.0056)
First test solution
(c = 1005.0 mg/L), Temp. = 22 °C,
σ = 0.998 g/cm3, age of solution = 32
min)
Surface tension of solution 1, mN/m
32.9
32.7
32.6
32.4
Arithmetic mean 32.6 mN/m, standard deviation 0.2 mN/m
Second test solution
(c = 1.005 mg/L), Temp. = 22 °C,
σ = 0.997 g/cm3, age of solution = 39
min)
Surface tension of solution 2, mN/m
32.8
32.5
By adjusting the temperature setting of the tensiometer, differences in
the density of the liquid can be compensated automatically.
Arithmentic mean of two test solutions: 32.6 mN/m (+
0.0 mN/m)
Arithmetic mean corrected by calibration factor
determined via water calibration: 32.8 mN/m
The sample was dissolved in water and tempered at 20 °C. Then the
automatic measurement was initiated. The measurement was completed after
250 seconds.
The surface tension was determined at a concentration of 1 g/L.
32.8 mN/m at 22 °C, concentration: 1 g/L
The surface tension was determined by the ring method according to EU
test method A.5. (similar to OECD 115).
The substance should be regarded as being surface active material.
Information on Registered Substances comes from registration dossiers which have been assigned a registration number. The assignment of a registration number does however not guarantee that the information in the dossier is correct or that the dossier is compliant with Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (the REACH Regulation). This information has not been reviewed or verified by the Agency or any other authority. The content is subject to change without prior notice.Reproduction or further distribution of this information may be subject to copyright protection. Use of the information without obtaining the permission from the owner(s) of the respective information might violate the rights of the owner.
Welcome to the ECHA website. This site is not fully supported in Internet Explorer 7 (and earlier versions). Please upgrade your Internet Explorer to a newer version. | https://echa.europa.eu/it/registration-dossier/-/registered-dossier/5401/4/11 |
Let me preface by saying I’m not a fan of English breakfast teas. I find them fairly “boring” and there’s usually something else I’d rather drink, though I don’t hate English breakfast.
This English breakfast is, as my other half put it, a better English breakfast tea. :) I enjoyed the smoothness of the tea and the subtle favors that came out as I drank it. In essence, if I had to drink an English breakfast tea, this one would be first on my list.
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So no real clue what to write about myself here. A friend got me into drinking loose tea and it’s something I thoroughly enjoy though I have nowhere near the experience that many folks on the boards seem to have.
My other interests are cycling, reading, board games, disney cruises, world of warcraft and dancing – in no particular order. I love travelling and am currently working on trying to get my other half to as many place in the world as possible.
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03-19-2016 03:02 PM
Hello everybody,
I have the following problem with my Z710. I use it mostly plugged in and so I have enabled "Conservation Mode" in Energy Manager. As a result I get the indication "plugged in, not charging" around 60% as expected. If I understand that correctly, it means that Energy Manager has to keep the battery charged at 60%, only it doesn't.
When I unplug the laptop after a day or two on conservation mode, despite showing the battery at 60%, it only lasts around 30-45 seconds and the laptop shuts down abruptly. I just get a "battery critically low" type of message and then I only have a few seconds to plug in the power cord and let it charge.
Without conservation mode, with the battery fully charged, I can use it without a problem for 4+ hours as expected. The problem has always been there, since I bought the laptop about 6 months ago. Any opinion/advice would be greatly appreciated!
03-19-2016 03:11 PM
03-19-2016 03:21 PM
Thank you for the quick response. When fully charged it lasts over 4 hours as expected, with no problems. The diagnostics are all good, so I suppose it is some sort of software problem (?). Is it possible that a gauge reset will set everything ok? But again, I have read a lot of comments on how a gauge reset may cause problems to the motherboard and I tend to avoid it...
03-19-2016 05:55 PM
Well then don't do that. You can try what we used to do back in the day over a decade ago.
Run the battery down until it shuts off, then charge it back up again a few times. The last part to truly must be done in a mode where windows or some other OS is just sitting there without a power manager. Boot CD sitting on the blue setup screen for example or some thing else.
The other thing which you could try is unplugging and using it until its down say 50% or less and the plugging it back in and see if it starts charging it back up in conservation mode. Over time it should relearn the capacity again without damaging anything.
03-20-2016 06:28 AM - edited 03-20-2016 07:23 AM
I've tried the second thing some times and the behavior is like this; when I plug it back at 50% it charges normally until 60% as it should. The problem seems to be that energy manager is unable to maintain it at 60%. The indication just freezes at 60% and the battery just fades to zero while the laptop operates plugged in.
The same "freezing" thing happens if I enable conservation mode when over 60% (for example at 70%). The battery fades while I get a stable 70% on my screen never falling to 60%.
That's why my first guess is it's a software problem of Lenovo's Energy Manager, but I haven't heard of anyone else having the same problem...
I may try your first suggestion and see if anything happens. Thanks again. | https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-P-Y-and-Z-series/Z710-conservation-mode-not-working-correctly/td-p/3288015 |
The present invention relates to an improved-shape package for pourable food products.
As is known, many pourable food products, such as fruit juice, pasteurized or long-storage UHT milk, wine, tomato sauce, etc., are sold in packages made of packaging material.
The packaging material has a multilayer structure comprising a layer of fibrous material, e.g. paper, covered on both sides with layers of heat-seal plastic material, e.g. polyethylene, and, in the case of aseptic packages for long-storage products, also has a layer of oxygen-barrier material, e.g. a sheet of aluminum.
A typical example is the parallelepiped-shaped package for pourable food products known as Tetra Brik Aseptic™, which is formed from a continuous tube formed by longitudinally folding and sealing a web of sterilized packaging material.
The tube is filled with the food product and then sealed and cut at equally spaced positions to form pillow packs, which are then folded mechanically to obtain the finished, substantially parallelepiped-shaped packages.
To assist folding of the packaging material when forming the continuous tube and final folding, the packaging material is provided at the production stage with crease lines defining a so-called "crease pattern".
Though widely used, parallelepiped-shaped packages of the above type have some drawbacks.
Firstly, being perfectly parallelepiped-shaped, individual packages are difficult to remove from display rafts, by being packed tightly together with the lateral walls of adjacent packages contacting completely with no space in which to insert the fingers.
Secondly, the package is awkward to grip laterally, especially when damp, which makes it slippery, or in the case of so-called "family-size" packages. This is obviously problematic, in particular after opening of the package, when the product is poured and risks to spill over the package in a not controlled way.
Thirdly, parallelepiped-shaped packages also make it difficult to form a gas-filled "headspace", e.g. injected with nitrogen, advantageous to allow the product to be shaken before use and so to prevent the liquid from spraying when opening the package. Indeed, to obtain sufficient headspace, the height of the package would have to be increased considerably, thus increasing the amount of packaging material required, plus the cost of adapting the packaging machinery.
In order to solve the above problems, a prismatic package has been designed, as described, for example, in US-A-5,938,107, to which the preamble of claim 1 refers.
In one embodiment of the above US patent, the package is defined by a four-sided, e.g. square, top wall; a four-sided bottom wall; four lateral walls extending between the top and bottom walls; and four corner walls, each located between two lateral walls. The corner walls extend along a substantial portion of the height of the package, so that the middle cross section of the package is substantially in the form of a regular or irregular octagon. Triangular walls are interposed between each corner wall and the top and bottom walls, so that, vertically, the horizontal cross sections of the package go from the quadrangular or square shape of the top and bottom walls to an octagonal shape, with the diagonal sides gradually increasing in size to the constant octagonal shape of the middle portion.
The above shape has been highly successful, by being not only more attractive but also easier to grip and cheaper to produce, by enabling a headspace to be formed cheaply and easily, and by reducing the amount of packaging material required for a given content.
Nevertheless, it still leaves room for improvement, particularly as regards slippage when damp, and the tendency to buckle at the bottom due to hydrostatic pressure.
It is an aim of the invention to improve the above prismatic package to fully exploit or even enhance its advantages, while at the same time providing an attractive new shape.
According to the present invention, there is provided a sealed package for liquid food products, as defined in claim 1.
Further, preferred embodiments are disclosed in dependent claims 2 to 15.
Figure 1 shows a perspective view of a first embodiment of a package for pourable food products according to a first embodiment of the invention;
Figure 2 shows a side view of the package of Figure 1;
Figure 3 shows a top plan view of the package of Figure 1;
Figure 4 shows a perspective view of a second embodiment of a package for pourable food products in accordance with the invention;
Figure 5 shows a side view of the package of Figure 4.
A preferred, non-limiting embodiment of the present invention will be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Figures 1-3 show a first embodiment of a package 1 for pourable food products, containing a pourable food product such pasteurized or UHT milk, fruit juice, wine, etc.
Package 1 comprises a four-sided (in the example shown, square) top wall 2; a four-sided (in this case, square) bottom wall 3; four lateral walls 4 extending between top wall 2 and bottom wall 3; and four corner walls 5, each located between a respective pair of adjacent lateral walls 4, and extending between top wall 2 and bottom wall 3.
Top wall 2 is fitted in known manner with a cap 15.
Each corner wall 5 is defined by a top corner portion 5a and a bottom corner portion 5b.
Top and bottom corner portions 5a and 5b are in the form of triangles with equal, coincident bases 7, and with apexes 8, 9 coincident with the corners of top wall 2 and bottom wall 3 respectively. In other words, top corner portions 5a - which are triangular with the apexes facing upwards - are connected to respective bottom corner portions 5b - which are also triangular, but with the apexes facing downwards - at bases 7.
Top corner portions 5a are much smaller in height than bottom corner portions 5b, so that bases 7 are much closer to top wall 2 than to bottom wall 3 (in the example shown, they are located at a point at roughly 9/10 of the total height of package 1).
Each lateral wall 4 of package 1 is defined by a top lateral portion 4a and a bottom lateral portion 4b, both in the form of an isosceles trapezium with coincident minor bases 12. That is, top lateral portions 4a are connected to respective bottom lateral portions 4b at minor bases 12.
Bottom lateral portions 4b have a much greater height than top lateral portions 4a; and minor bases 12 and bases 7 extend in the same horizontal plane substantially parallel to bottom wall 3.
Lateral walls 4 and corner walls 5 are delimited to each other by top crease lines 10a and bottom crease lines 10b. Top crease lines 10a extend diagonally in pairs from corners 8 of top wall 2; and bottom crease lines 10b extend diagonally in pairs from corners 9 of bottom wall 3; the term "diagonally" here being intended to mean that top and bottom crease lines 10a, 10b extend transversely with respect to ideal lines joining each corner 8 of top wall 2 to a respective corner 9 of bottom wall 3. Top crease lines 10a are joined directly to respective bottom crease lines 10b at intersections 11 defining the ends of bases 7 and of minor bases 12. That is, there are no vertical lines between top crease lines 10a and respective bottom crease lines 10b.
Preferably, bases 7 are only ideal lines connecting intersections 11 across corner walls 5, and top and bottom corner portions 5a, 5b are connected gradually by curved portions. Similarly, minor bases 12 are also only ideal lines connecting intersections 11 across lateral walls 4, and top and bottom lateral portions 4a, 4b are connected gradually by curved portions.
By virtue of the shape of lateral walls 4 and corner walls 5, and the arrangement of crease lines 10a, 10b, lateral walls 4 project outwards, with respect to a parallelepiped-shaped package, from corresponding edges of top wall 2 and bottom wall 3, the maximum bulk portions coinciding with minor bases 12, so that, when packed on rafts, the packages only contact one another at minor bases 12, thus leaving a gap in which to insert the fingers for easy grip.
Moreover, by virtue of the geometry, bases 7 are arranged slightly rearwardly with respect to apexes 8, 9, as shown in the top plan view in Figure 3, in which bases 7 are shown by the dash lines. In other words, top and bottom corner portions 5a, 5b extend slightly inwards of package 1 from respective apexes 8, 9. Consequently, since top and bottom lateral portions 4a, 4b extend outwards, the cross section of package 1, in the plane containing bases 7 and minor bases 12, is smaller than the overall size of package 1 shown in the plan view in Figure 3, thus making package 1 even easier to grip, and preventing it from slipping even when damp or wet.
Package 1 is formed from a tube of packaging material provided with crease lines 10a, 10b, as well as conventional crease lines for forming top and bottom walls 2, 3 and sealing the top and bottom of the package.
The packaging material has a multilayer structure as described previously, and the crease lines are formed using the same punches currently used for octagonal packages. Moreover, currently used packaging machines can also be employed, by simply making appropriate minor alterations to the jaws and final folding device.
The advantages of the package described as regards easy, non-slip grip, and the need for only minor alterations to existing packaging machinery, will be clear from the foregoing description. In addition, the package described requires a smaller amount of packaging material for a given volume; is more rigid than octagonal packages; is less subject to deformation at the bottom as compared with the known octagonal solution; can be provided easily at the top with a gas-filled headspace; and can be fitted with known closing, sealing and tamperproof devices and optionals.
Last but not least, the package described has an attractive new look for a discerning market in search of novelty even in the packaging of pourable food products.
Clearly, changes may be made to the package as described and illustrated herein without, however, departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the accompanying claims. In particular, the plane containing the lines connecting the top and bottom portions of the lateral and corner walls may be located at a different height, e.g. closer to bottom wall 3 than to top wall 2, as shown in the Figure 4 and 5 embodiment.
Also, the lines between the top and bottom portions of the lateral and corner walls (bases 7 and minor bases 12) may be sharp lines defined by creases formed beforehand or during folding. | |
Last night enlightened me on one of the key concepts of the NBA, which is the value of a bench.
I recently wrote about which teams in the NBA have the best benches, statistically speaking. Shockingly, the Milwaukee Bucks were the big winners, coming away as the number one bench in the NBA. This was surprising as the Bucks are a .500 team that don’t have any star players coming off the bench, such as Manu Ginoboli or Jamal Crawford. However, they are a strong offensive and defensive supporting unit, and that well-rounded approach to the backup players is the reason why this Bucks club is in the playoff picture in the East.
However, it still seemed a little tough to believe that the Bucks had the best bench without a little game evidence to support it.
Then came their game against the Miami Heat, in which Milwaukee won 109-102.
When I first looked at the box score, I had a reaction that I am sure most sports fans have had, where I wondered how in the hell Milwaukee actually won this game.
Mario Chalmers had 21 and 8 assists, Wade scored 12 points in 19 minutes shooting an efficient 5 for 9 from the floor, and Chris Bosh led the game with 26 points. In fact, the Miami Heat starters shot 55.17% from the floor, 50% from three, had 29 rebounds, 16 assists, and totaled 89 points in 161 combined minutes.
Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Bucks’ starting lineup scored 55 points on 51% shooting. They gathered in 17 boards and 12 assists in a total of 139 minutes. The Bucks didn’t have a single player score more than 17 points in the game. Just looking at the box score, you become a little puzzled as to how the Heat lost this game by seven.
Then, you look at the benches. The Bucks’ bench contributed 54 points on 59% shooting, 17 rebounds, and 13 assists in only 101 minutes of action.
That is some fantastic production from a bench unit, but let’s remember why they are the best bench in the NBA. Being a good bench is more than just putting up solid offensive numbers. They need to be dominant defensively.
The Heat’s bench truly failed them. They shot 35.29%, 1 for 8 from long range, added 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and a pedestrian 13 points. For a combined 77 minutes of action, those are some awful numbers. The Heat’s bench wasn’t able to provide anything for Miami all night, which is the sole reason for the end result of the game.
This game was the perfect example as to why the NBA is such a phenomenal league.
The Heat have the star players on their roster. They also had their stars play very well, putting up impressive statistical performances. However, the Heat’s roster did not perform at the same level, which is the reason why this team fell to a roster full of role players and no name starters.
The league is built around star players. Great teams become great when they have a couple of exceptional players performing up to their talent levels. However, there is a change coming over the league which is opening up room for teams to build a strong roster, devoid of superstar talents, and compete for championships.
The Spurs laid the groundwork for this strategy last year and the Hawks are proving that it can be replicated. The Bucks are still a few years away from being as competitive as either of those teams, but this game is proof that they are going about building their roster the proper way. They are adding quality depth throughout their roster while still gaining players with superstar potential.
This game is a microcosm of a much bigger conceptual idea. The idea that there is no greater statistic in the NBA than bench productivity. A strong bench is the difference between a good team and a great team. It is the difference between a fan base celebrating a championship or complaining about how their stars were overworked throughout the regular season.
A strong bench is the difference in today’s NBA. | http://sportsadd.net/the-most-overlooked-part-of-the-nba/ |
- Memory is used as a working storage for temporarily/permanent storing the data and intermediate results generated during program execution.
- Computers use two kinds of memories: primary & secondary.
- Primary Memory –
- The Primary Memory is often referred to as RAM in everyday language.
- It is a read/write memory used to store both the program and data.
- Since RAM is volatile, computers also use a second level of memory- secondary memory- to permanently store the contents.
- Secondary Memory –
- Hard Disk is the non-removable secondary storage device which stores virtually everything on the machine.
- Computers also use other removable secondary memories like CD-ROMs, Magnetic tapes and recently Flash Drives to permanently take backup of the data onto Hard Disk or to transfer data from one machine to another. | https://www.codershelpline.com/courses/theorypapers/computer-fundamentals-theory/memory-system/ |
More than ten taxi companies provide service to and from the airport and locations throughout Las Vegas. Taxi cab service is regulated by the Nevada Taxicab Authority, a Nevada State agency responsible for issuing medallions and setting fares.
- Some taxis will not accept credit card payments. Customers should notify the attendant if they plan to use a credit card for payment.
- There is a $2.00 charge on all fares originating at the airport.
- The maximum number of passengers allowed in any taxi is five (5), including infants and children.
Remember to jot down the cab company, vehicle number, and driver's name when traveling to and from McCarran International Airport, just in case you leave something behind.
Terminal 1 Taxis
Taxicabs are available on the east side of baggage claim, outside door exits 1 - 4. Airport personnel are available to help queue the lines and provide assistance as needed.
Terminal 3 Taxis
At Terminal 3, taxis are conveniently located outside on Level Zero. There are 20 taxi loading positions on the west end of the building to serve domestic travelers and 10 loading positions on the east side of the building to accommodate international travelers. Quick exit lanes will allow traffic to leave the airport quickly and airport personnel are available to assist as needed.
Taxicabs are also available at the McCarran Rent-A-Car Center. | https://www.mccarran.com/Transportation/Taxi |
On the cycling newsgroup www.roadbikereview.com, one of the main figures is MB1. He and his wife, although working full-time, manage to log close to 20,000 miles per year on their bike. That's more than 50 miles every day ! Since they live on the east coast, this includes snow storm days, rainy days, every day.
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This week, Miss M (Mercedes) and MB1 (Mark) decided to come to California... with their bike, of course. On saturday they were going from LAX to Santa Barbara, I joined on part of the ride (80 miles), before going back to Los Angeles. Much to my surprise, Mercedes and Mark were not riding crazy fast. They were going a regular 15-16mph, but we made only a few short stops, no long break. Riding with them was very nice, I hope we can do another ride next week-end.
The day was marked by clouds and ashes from forest fires. Temperatures in the mountains were unusually high during all week, so that several huge fires started and were still out of control at the time of the ride. On the coast, though, we had a much cooler day, with fog lasting all morning. | http://www.vision.caltech.edu/pmoreels/Images/MB1MissMOct03/index.html |
This inquiry will examine, consider and report on preparations and the response to the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, up to and including the inquiry’s formal setting-up date.
In doing so, it will consider reserved and devolved matters across the United Kingdom, as necessary, but will seek to minimise duplication of investigation, evidence gathering and reporting with any other public inquiry established by the devolved administrations.
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The draft terms of reference set out the aims of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry:
1. Examine the COVID-19 response and the impact of the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and produce a factual narrative account. Including:
2. Identify the lessons to be learned from the above, thereby to inform the UK’s preparations for future pandemics.
In meeting these aims, the inquiry will:
This follows consultation with the Inquiry Chair, Baroness Hallett, and ministers in the devolved administrations.
A final terms of reference will be published once Baroness Hallett has consulted with the public, including with bereaved families and other affected groups.
The public consultation on the inquiry’s terms of reference is now open. You can submit your response on the UK COVID-19 Inquiry website. The consultation will close at 23:59pm on 7 April 2022. | https://boardchc.nhs.wales/having-a-say/covid-19-inquiry/ |
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