text:
Tandberg Television Powers HD Under the Sea
A research expedition from the University of Washington to transmit the world's first high-definition footage from the sea floor is using encoding technology from Tandberg Television.
The University's VISIONS '05 underwater expedition is designed to study geologic activity in the underwater volcanoes in the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean.
Using the Tandberg Television HD E5780 HD MPEG-2 encoder and TT1280 HD decoder, the HD video was compressed and transmitted live from the research vessel over IP satellite to the University of Washington, where it was streamed over the Internet to research facilities across the United States. The seafloor locations are approximately 200 miles offshore and HD video links reached 20 Mbps.


text:
The Southern Darter ( Sympetrum meridionale ) is not a common species in Southern Spain and care is needed to confirm identification. Where it is found in larger numbers it is never as abundant as the other Sympetrums. Breeding habitat is in waters with plenty of emergent vegetation and even marshy areas. These photographs were taken in wet areas off the Canuelo shown.
KEY I/D FEATURES
The virtual absence of any black abdominal markings, particularly on Segments 8 and 9, are a good indicator. On the sides of the thorax there are narrow black lines along the sutures. The legs have more yellow than black in them.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
TOSHIBA CMOS Digital Integrated Circuit Silicon Monolithic
TC74VHC125F/FN/FT/FK Quad Bus Buffer
TC74VHC126F/FN/FT/FK Quad Bus Buffer
The TC74VHC125/126 are high speed CMOS QUAD BUS
BUFFERs fabricated with silicon gate C2MOS technology.
They achieve the high speed operation similar to equivalent
Bipolar Shottky TTL while maintaining the CMOS low power
The TC74VHC125 requires the 3-state control input G to be
set high to place the output into the high impedance state,
whereas the TC74VHC126 requires the control input G to be set
low to place the output into high impedance.
An input protection circuit ensures that 0 to 5.5 V can be
applied to the input pins without regard to the supply voltage.
This device can be used to interface 5 V to 3 V systems and two
supply systems such as battery back up.
This circuit prevents device destruction due to mismatched
supply and input voltages.
- High speed: tpd = 3.8 ns (typ.) at VCC = 5 V
- Low power dissipation: ICC = 4 μA (max) at Ta = 25°C
- High noise immunity: VNIH = VNIL = 28% VCC (min)
- Power down protection is provided on all inputs.
- Balanced propagation delays: tpLH ∼− tpHL
- Wide operating voltage range: VCC (opr) = 2 to 5.5 V
- Low noise: VOLP = 0.8 V (max)
- Pin and function compatible with 74ALS125/126
Note: xxxFN (JEDEC SOP) is not available in
: 0.18 g (typ.)
: 0.12 g (typ.)
: 0.06 g (typ.)
: 0.02 g (typ.)


text:
Dictionary Results for small|
1. small - noun
· the slender part of the back
2. small - noun
· a garment size for a small person
3. small - adjective
· limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent; "a little dining room"; "a little house"; "a small car"; "a little (or small) group"
4. small - adjective
· relatively moderate, limited, or small; "a small business"; "a newspaper with a modest circulation"; "small-scale plans"; "a pocket-size country"
Synonym(s): minor, modest, small-scale, pocket-size, pocket-sized
5. small - adjective
· (of children and animals) young, immature; "what a big little boy you are"; "small children"
6. small - adjective
· slight or limited; especially in degree or intensity or scope; "a series of death struggles with small time in between"
7. small - adjective
· low or inferior in station or quality; "a humble cottage"; "a lowly parish priest"; "a modest man of the people"; "small beginnings"
Synonym(s): humble, low, lowly, modest
8. small - adjective
· lowercase; "little a"; "small a"; "e.e.cummings's poetry is written all in minuscule letters"
Synonym(s): little, minuscule
9. small - adjective
· (of a voice) faint; "a little voice"; "a still small voice"
10. small - adjective
· have fine or very small constituent particles; "a small misty rain"
11. small - adjective
· not large but sufficient in size or amount; "a modest salary"; "modest inflation"; "helped in my own small way"
12. small - adjective
· made to seem smaller or less (especially in worth); "her comments made me feel small"
Synonym(s): belittled, diminished
13. small - adverb
· on a small scale; "think small"
or unscramble the word you need to complete that puzzle or to finish that
project or homework!
letters to unscramble the word
synonyms, antonyms and related words
word below with '?' to indicate missing letters
word to find the rhymes
letters of the beginning, middle or end of the word.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


2月 132019
When you use maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to find the parameter estimates in a generalized linear regression model, the Hessian matrix at the optimal solution is very important. The Hessian matrix indicates the local shape of the log-likelihood surface near the optimal value. You can use the Hessian to estimate the covariance matrix of the parameters, which in turn is used to obtain estimates of the standard errors of the parameter estimates. Sometimes SAS programmers ask how they can obtain the Hessian matrix at the optimal solution. This article describes three ways:
 - For some SAS regression procedures, you can store the model and use the SHOW HESSIAN statement in PROC PLM to display the Hessian.
 - Some regression procedures support the COVB option ("covariance of the betas") on the MODEL statement. You can compute the Hessian as the inverse of that covariance matrix.
 - The NLMIXED procedure can solve general regression problems by using MLE. You can use the HESS option on the PROC NLMIXED statement to display the Hessian.
The next section discusses the relationship between the Hessian and the estimate of the covariance of the regression parameters. Briefly, they are inverses of each other. You can download the complete SAS program for this blog post.
Hessians, covariance matrices, and log-likelihood functions
The Hessian at the optimal MLE value is related to the covariance of the parameters. The literature that discusses this fact can be confusing because the objective function in MLE can be defined in two ways. You can maximize the log-likelihood function, or you can minimize the NEGATIVE log-likelihood.
In statistics, the inverse matrix is related to the covariance matrix of the parameters. A full-rank covariance matrix is always positive definite. If you maximize the log-likelihood, then the Hessian and its inverse are both negative definite. Therefore, statistical software often minimizes the negative log-likelihood function. Then the Hessian at the minimum is positive definite and so is its inverse, which is an estimate of the covariance matrix of the parameters. Unfortunately, not every reference uses this convention.
For details about the MLE process and how the Hessian at the solution relates to the covariance of the parameters, see the PROC GENMOD documentation. For a more theoretical treatment and some MLE examples, see the Iowa State course notes for Statistics 580.
Use PROC PLM to obtain the Hessian
I previously discussed how to use the STORE statement to save a generalized linear model to an item store, and how to use PROC PLM to display information about the model. Some procedures, such as PROC LOGISTIC, save the Hessian in the item store. For these procedures, you can use the SHOW HESSIAN statement to display the Hessian. The following call to PROC PLM continues the PROC LOGISTIC example from the previous post. (Download the example.) The call displays the Hessian matrix at the optimal value of the log-likelihood. It also saves the "covariance of the betas" matrix in a SAS data set, which is used in the next section.
/* PROC PLM provides the Hessian matrix evaluated at the optimal MLE */
proc plm restore=PainModel;
 show Hessian CovB;
 ods output Cov=CovB;
Not every SAS procedure stores the Hessian matrix when you use the STORE statement. If you request a statistic from PROC PLM that is not available, you will get a message such as the following: NOTE: The item store WORK.MYMODEL does not contain a Hessian matrix. The option in the SHOW statement is ignored.
Use the COVB option in a regression procedure
Many SAS regression procedures support the COVB option on the MODEL statement. As indicated in the previous section, you can use the SHOW COVB statement in PROC PLM to display the covariance matrix. A full-rank covariance matrix is positive definite, so the inverse matrix will also be positive definite. Therefore, the inverse matrix represents the Hessian at the minimum of the NEGATIVE log-likelihood function. The following SAS/IML program reads in the covariance matrix and uses the INV function to compute the Hessian matrix for the logistic regression model:
proc iml;
use CovB nobs p; /* open data; read number of obs (p) */
 cols = "Col1":("Col"+strip(char(p))); /* variable names are Col1 - Colp */
 read all var cols into Cov; /* read COVB matrix */
 read all var "Parameter"; /* read names of parameters */
Hessian = inv(Cov); /* Hessian and covariance matrices are inverses */
print Hessian[r=Parameter c=Cols F=BestD8.4];
You can see that the inverse of the COVB matrix is the same matrix that was displayed by using SHOW HESSIAN in PROC PLM. Be aware that the parameter estimates and the covariance matrix depend on the parameterization of the classification variables. The LOGISTIC procedure uses the EFFECT parameterization by default. However, if you instead use the REFERENCE parameterization, you will get different results. If you use a singular parameterization, such as the GLM parameterization, some rows and columns of the covariance matrix will contain missing values.
Define your own log-likelihood function
SAS provides procedures for solving common generalized linear regression models, but you might need to use MLE to solve a nonlinear regression model. You can use the NLMIXED procedure to define and solve general maximum likelihood problems. The PROC NLMIXED statement supports the HESS and COV options, which display the Hessian and covariance of the parameters, respectively.
To illustrate how you can get the covariance and Hessian matrices from PROC NLMIXED, let's define a logistic model and see if we get results that are similar to PROC LOGISTIC. We shouldn't expect to get exactly the same values unless we use exactly the same optimization method, convergence options, and initial guesses for the parameters. But if the model fits the data well, we expect that the NLMIXED solution will be close to the LOGISTIC solution.
The NLMIXED procedure does not support a CLASS statement, but you can use another SAS procedure to generate the design matrix for the desired parameterization. The following program uses the OUTDESIGN= option in PROC LOGISTIC to generate the design matrix. Because PROC NLMIXED requires a numerical response variable, a simple data step encodes the response variable into a binary numeric variable. The call to PROC NLMIXED then defines the logistic regression model in terms of a binary log-likelihood function:
/* output design matrix and EFFECT parameterization */
proc logistic data=Neuralgia outdesign=Design outdesignonly;
 class Pain Sex Treatment;
 model Pain(Event='Yes')= Sex Age Duration Treatment; /* use NOFIT option for design only */
/* PROC NLMIXED required a numeric response */
data Design;
 set Design;
 PainY = (Pain='Yes');
ods exclude IterHistory;
proc nlmixed data=Design COV HESS;
 parms b0 -18 bSexF bAge bDuration bTreatmentA bTreatmentB 0;
 eta = b0 + bSexF*SexF + bAge*Age + bDuration*Duration +
 bTreatmentA*TreatmentA + bTreatmentB*TreatmentB;
 p = logistic(eta); /* or 1-p to predict the other category */
 model PainY ~ binary(p);
Success! The parameter estimates and the Hessian matrix are very close to those that are computed by PROC LOGISTIC. The covariance matrix of the parameters, which requires taking an inverse of the Hessian matrix, is also close, although there are small differences from the LOGISTIC output.
In summary, this article shows three ways to obtain the Hessian matrix at the optimum for an MLE estimate of a regression model. For some SAS procedures, you can store the model and use PROC PLM to obtain the Hessian. For procedures that support the COVB option, you can use PROC IML to invert the covariance matrix. Finally, if you can define the log-likelihood equation, you can use PROC NLMIXED to solve for the regression estimates and output the Hessian at the MLE solution.
The post 3 ways to obtain the Hessian at the MLE solution for a regression model appeared first on The DO Loop.
 Leave a Reply


text:
- In the last three decades, intensive care units (ICUs) and critical care researchers have amassed a body of pathophysiologic knowledge that has advanced the care of critically ill patients. Severity of illness scoring systems are tools that have been designed both to predict and to evaluate, from multiple perspectives, the outcomes of critically ill patients.
- Most of these scoring systems have evolved from multivariate regression analysis applied to large clinical databases to identify the most relevant factors for prediction of mortality. Scoring systems are then validated by prospective application to other patient populations.
- The ideal components of a scoring system are data collected during the course of routine patient management that are easily measured, objective, and reproducible.
- The most widely applied scoring systems in adults at the present time are the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE), the Mortality Probability Models (MPM), Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS), and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA).
- The potential uses of severity-of-illness scoring systems as applied to patient groups include clinical investigation (to standardize or compare study groups), ICU administration (to guide resource allocation and budget), and assessment of ICU performance (to compare performance over time or between health care settings).
- The use of scores in the delivery of care to individual patients is controversial; in some studies the accuracy of prediction of outcomes of scoring systems is not greater than that of the individual clinician's judgment.
Severity-of-illness scoring systems were developed to evaluate the delivery of care and provide prediction of outcome of groups of critically ill patients who are admitted to intensive care units (ICUs). The purpose of this chapter is to review the scientific basis for these scoring systems and to make recommendations for their use. While there is a growing recognition that when properly administered, these tools are useful in assessing and comparing patient populations with diverse critical illnesses, their use for predicting individual patient outcome is controversial and unresolved.
There are five major purposes of severity-of-illness scoring systems (Table 6-1). First, scoring systems have been used in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and other clinical investigations.1–5 The second purpose of severity-of-illness scoring systems is to quantify severity of illness for hospital and health care system administrative decisions such as resource allocation. The third purpose of these scoring systems is to assess ICU performance and compare the quality of care of different ICUs and within the same ICU over time. For example, severity-of-illness scoring systems could be used to assess the impact on patient outcomes of planned changes in the ICU, such as changes in bed number, staffing ratios, and medical coverage.6 The fourth purpose of these scoring systems is to assess the prognosis of individual patients in order to assist families and caregivers in making decisions about ICU care. Finally, scoring systems are now being used to evaluate suitability of patients for novel therapy (e.g., the use of the APACHE II assessment for prescription of recombinant...


text:
There is hardly anyone who hasn't heard of Jamshedji Tata. But few remember his elder son Dorab. To this Tata goes the credit of starting the Olympic movement in India. Dorab Tata was mostly educated in England and his interest in sport was a result of his Western upbringing.
In the 1880s and '90s, Dorab Tata was active in organising school and college cricket in Bombay. He then became involved with the Deccan Gymkhana where he was nominated president. The committee, which ran the Gymkhana, was not conversant with the details of managing athletic meets on European lines and wanted to develop their sports programme more in line with established Indian traditions.
At the first athletic meet the Gymkhana organised, Dorab Tata discovered that the competitors were "all boys of the peasant class working in the fields and living off poor fare". Naturally they had no idea of European rules or modern training of any kind. Dorab Tata found that the competitors were proposing to run their 100-yard heats round a bend without strings. This was because their sports ground was very small and the track was part of a rough unrolled grass field.
Other popular events included the long distance race of about 25 miles. The peasants who participated were used to running barefoot on hard macadamised or dirt roads. Despite their lack of training and primitive conditions, the first three or four men ran the distance in good time. Dorab Tata felt that their time compared well with those in Europe or elsewhere. In 1919, some of their times were close to the times clocked in the Olympics.
Suitably impressed, the Tata scion decided to send three of the runners, at his own expense, to the Antwerp Games of 1920. Later he wrote a letter to IOC president Count Baillet Latour explaining his motives: "I therefore offered to arrange for the sending of three of the best runners to Antwerp to run the Olympic marathon at the next meeting, when I hoped that with proper training and food under English trainers and coaches they might do credit to India."
Ultimately six or seven athletes from India proceeded to Antwerp with Dorab Tata bearing a bulk of the cost, which was estimated to be Rs 35,000. Dorab, however, only visited Antwerp briefly. Suffering from poor health, he could not find time to see the Games or meet the Indian contingent. Thus began India's eventful Olympic journey.


text:
About the Microdata Library
The Microdata Library is a service established to facilitate access to microdata that provide information about people living in developing countries, their institutions, their environment, their communities and the operation of their economies. It participates in the Bank's commitment to wholesale and democratize research, in line with the Bank's philosophy of Open Data, Open Knowledge, and Open Solutions.
The Microdata Library includes datasets that have been produced by the World Bank, such as impact evaluation of the Bank's operations or research on development issues. The Microdata Library also includes datasets from other international organizations, statistical agencies and other agencies in low and middle-income countries.
The microdata in the Microdata Library have been collected through sample surveys of households, business establishments or other facilities. Datasets may also originate from population, housing or agricultural censuses or through an administrative data collection processes.
The Microdata Library is comprised of a number of Contributing Catalogs. These catalogs can be browsed and searched individually or centrally from the Central Microdata Catalog. The Central Microdata Catalog operates as a portal for all microdata held in the Microdata Library.
All data and surveys within the Microdata Library are documented in compliance with international standards and practices.


text:
This chapter examines the sociological roots of the current problems in contemporary policing. Employing Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, capital, and doxa the chapter begins by highlighting the cultural mechanisms that maintain and reproduce ineffective policing practices. In an example from Wilmington, Delaware in the United States, the authors show how the 'game' on the field of policing focusses primarily on law enforcement outputs. This game shapes the worldview and dispositions of officers (habitus). Police officers are recognised and rewarded (capital) for acting in ways that align with the game's logic. This process creates the condition doxa, in which the socially constructed and changeable field of policing is mistaken for natural way it should be. This chapter also considers why perspectives on police reform diverge and what this means for the future of policing in an age of reform.
Nolan, James; Hinkle, Joshua C.; and Molnar, Zsolt, "Changing the Game: A Sociological Perspective on Police Reform" (2020). CJC Publications. 34.


text:
A multi-site method to capture turnover in rare to common interactions in bipartite species networks
journal contributionposted on 2022-04-01, 00:58 authored by MV Henriksen, G Latombe, DG Chapple, SL Chown, Melodie McGeochMelodie McGeoch
Ecological network structure is maintained by a generalist core of common species. However, rare species contribute substantially to both the species and functional diversity of networks. Capturing changes in species composition and interactions, measured as turnover, is central to understanding the contribution of rare and common species and their interactions. Due to a large contribution of rare interactions, the pairwise metrics used to quantify interaction turnover are, however, sensitive to compositional change in the interactions of, often rare, peripheral specialists rather than common generalists in the network. Here we expand on pairwise interaction turnover using a multi-site metric that enables quantifying turnover in rare to common interactions (in terms of occurrence of interactions). The metric further separates this turnover into interaction turnover due to species turnover and interaction rewiring. We demonstrate the application and value of this method using a host–parasitoid system sampled along gradients of environmental modification. In the study system, both the type and amount of habitat needed to maintain interaction composition depended on the properties of the interactions considered, that is, from rare to common. The analyses further revealed the potential of host switching to prevent or delay species loss, and thereby buffer the system from perturbation. Multi-site interaction turnover provides a comprehensive measure of network change that can, for example, detect ecological thresholds to habitat loss for rare to common interactions. Accurate description of turnover in common, in addition to rare, species and their interactions is particularly relevant for understanding how network structure and function can be maintained.


# HOW TO EDIT THIS FILE: # The "handy ruler" below makes it easier to edit a package description. Line # up the first '|' above the ':' following the base package name, and the '|' on # the right side marks the last column you can put a character in. You must make # exactly 11 lines for the formatting to be correct. It's also customary to # leave one space after the ':'. |-----handy-ruler------------------------------------------------------| ksudoku: ksudoku (sudoku game) ksudoku: ksudoku: KSudoku is a logic-based symbol placement puzzle. ksudoku: The player has to fill a grid so that each column, row as well as ksudoku: each square block on the game field contains only one instance of ksudoku: each symbol. ksudoku: ksudoku: ksudoku: ksudoku: For more information, visit: _URL_ ksudoku:


What does "PUK" mean on your SIM card when you lock your phone?
With mobile phones, PUK stands for "personal unlocking key." This code is used to open a SIM card that has been locked after using the wrong personal identification number (PIN) a certain number of times.
Most SIM cards allow only up to three tries before being locked. A locked SIM card then requires a PUK. This usually comes with the SIM card, or the mobile carrier can be contacted to inquire how to procure this code. If the wrong PUK is entered a set number of times, the SIM card is then permanently locked. This can happen if a person continues to enter the PIN when the SIM card is already asking for the PUK.


text:
From ScienceDaily — A fractured skull and a thighbone hacked in half. Finds of damaged human bones along with axes, spears, clubs and shields confirm that the bog at Alken Enge was the site of violent conflict.
"It's clear that this must have been a quite far-reaching and dramatic event that must have had profound effect on the society of the time," explains Project Manager Mads Kähler Holst, professor of archaeology at Aarhus University.
For almost two months now, Dr Holst and a team of fifteen archaeologists and geologists have been working to excavate the remains of a large army that was sacrificed at the site around the time of the birth of Christ. The skeletal remains of hundreds of warriors lie buried in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø in East Jutland, Denmark…
For the complete article click here.
More "bog men" stories here.Share


text:
International Date Line Change: The Sabbath Unchanged?
On Thursday, December 29, 2011, Samoa and Tokelau stepped west into the future, across the International Date Line. Skipping Friday, December 30th, the next day was declared to be Saturday, December 31st, 2011. There was simply no Friday in Samoa or Tokelau.
The move was purely for economic convenience. Samoa has close trading ties with Australia, New Zealand, and China. Being one day "behind" their closest neighbors cut two days (Monday and Friday) off of each work week.
The fact is, the International Date Line is a relatively recent man-made invention. It zig-zags its way across the Pacific and has changed several times over the years.
The International Date Line is the imaginary line on the Earth that separates two consecutive calendar days. That is the date in the Eastern hemisphere, to the left of the line, is always one day ahead of the date in the Western hemisphere. It has been recognized as a matter of convenience and has no force in international law.
Without the International Date Line travelers going westward would discover that when they returned home, one day more than they thought had passed, even though they had kept careful tally of the days. This first happened to Magellan's crew after the first circumnavigation of the globe. Likewise, a person traveling eastward would find that one fewer days had elapsed than he had recorded, as happened to Phileas Fogg in "Around the World in Eighty Days" by Jules Verne. ("The International Date Line," United States Naval Observatory)
|Pope Gregory XIII, best known for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian calendar, which remains the internationally accepted civil calendar to this date.|
So the International Date Line has proven to be a real problem for the inhabitants of Samoa. It was the difficulty of being on a day different from its surrounding neighbors that led Samoa to change the location of the International Date Line.The International Date Line is an attempt by man to solve a man-made problem: differing weekly cycles that inevitably occur on a round earth when one uses a continuous weekly cycle that is not anchored to the heavenly bodies and the rotation of the earth.
However, when one chooses to follow the Luni-Solar calendar, Yahuwah is the Arbiter of time, where the moon governs the monthly and weekly cycles for your specific location. He removes ALL need of the International Date Line and thus removes ALL dependence on the Gregorian Calendar and other man-made technology. All you need is the moon to know when the months and weeks begin.
It is widely believed that the continuously cycling week in use today has come down uninterrupted from Creation, via Noah and his sons. The fact that this is not true is demonstrated by considering the various waves of immigration that took place after the flood. When Noah's descendents emigrated from the Mountains of Ararat, some moved to the east and others to the west.
If a tribe of seventh-day Sabbath keeping Shemites moved to the East, following the rising sun, eventually, several years later, they would come to a point half way around the world. Being Sabbath keepers, they would have kept very careful track of time. Let us say, just for this example, that they had used a continuous weekly cycle. Due to the rotation of the earth and the fact that they moved toward the rising sun, once they reached the far side of the world, they would be 12 hours ahead of their original starting point at Ararat.
Now consider that a tribe of seventh-day Sabbath keeping Japhethites also moved from Ararat. This tribe, however, moved to the West, following the setting sun. Being Sabbath keepers, they also would have kept a careful track of time. Again, for the sake of illustration, let us say they too used continuously cycling weeks.
A few years later, upon arriving at the same point on the other side of the world occupied by the tribe of Shemites that moved east, the tribe of Japhethites that moved west would, by the act of moving in a westerly direction, be 12 hours behind the time at Ararat. The two tribes, one having gone east, the other west, would discover that they were a full 24 hours apart from each other.
This would not be due to one group loosing track. Rather, it is simply a function of the rotation of the earth that when one group travels east, they travel ahead of the daylight, while the group that travels west, travels backward into the night that comes before the day.
So which group is correct? The answer is: if they had been using a continuous weekly cycle, they would both be correct, which is not possible. And herein lies the crux of the problem. This conundrum actually proves the ideology of continuously cycling weeks from Creation to be false.
As people spread out and populated the world in the centuries following the flood, they took with them the method of time-keeping used by Adam and his descendants, brought down through the flood by Noah and his sons.
This method of time-keeping, established by Yahuwah at Creation, was the Luni-Solar calendar. Unlike the solar Gregorian calendar, which uses only the sun for marking time in days and years, the Luni-Solar calendar uses both the sun and the moon for time calculation.
Like the solar Gregorian calendar, the Luni-Solar Biblical calendar uses the sun to measure days and years. Unlike the solar calendar, however, the Luni-Solar calendar uses the moon for regulating the months. This, in turn, keeps track of the seven-day weeks, because the weekly cycle restarts with each New Moon.
The result is, that if two tribes moved away from Ararat, one to the east, and the other to the west, if they encountered each other a few years later on the other side of the world, they would both be 12 hours different from their original starting point at Ararat, but they would not be 24 hours apart from each other.
As each tribe moved, they would keep track of time by watching the moon. As the tribes moved closer together, on the far side of the world, their observation of the moon would also draw closer and closer together so that when they finally met, they would, as at the beginning of their journey, be on the same day and the same date as the other.
Here is seen the beauty and symmetry of the heavenly system of time-keeping. At Creation, Yahuwah specified that the lights (plural) in the heavens were to be used for marking the passage of time and all religious observances.
"And... [Yahuwah] said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." (Genesis 1:14, KJV)
The word "seasons" comes from the word mo'ed. This is a word widely used to refer to all religious gatherings. In fact, all of the feasts listed in Leviticus 23 (the first of which is the seventh-day Sabbath) are also called mo'ed.
When the Creator set aside the Sabbath day, and blessed and sanctified it as holy time, He also created a system by which people could keep track of the passage of time so that when the Sabbath came, they could know and worship Him. It took both the sun and the moon to create this perfect system of time-keeping.
As the anchor to the months and the weeks, the moon regulates time accurately, no matter where you are on Earth. Thus, were a tribe of Shemites to move east and a tribe of Japhethites to move west and reunite a few years later, they would be united on the same weekly schedule because the basis for their weekly count is anchored in the heavens. It is not grounded on any man-made institution.
Scripture explicitly states that the moon was created to mark the passage of time:
"He appointed [created] the moon for seasons [mo'ed]: the sun knoweth his going down." (Psalm 104:19)
Because the modern weekly cycle has no ties to anything in nature, problems arise that do not exist in the Luni-Solar calendar of Creation: specifically, the need for an arbitrary International Date Line. A continuous weekly cycle, anchored to nothing in nature, is a man-made institution. The International Date Line is simply a man-made solution to what is nothing more than a man-made problem.
On the counterfeit pagan/papal calendar, months are arbitrary and dates have an artificial starting point at the International Date Line – which is itself arbitrary and moveable. Only on the Biblical calendar are months and dates anchored to the lights in the heavens which were given for the express purpose of regulating time.
Yahuwah's calendar, using the combined action of the sun and the moon for marking the passage of days, weeks, months, and years, will stand forever. It forms an integral part of the very structure of the heavens. It can be witnessed and used by everyone on earth, and accurately regulates time and holy days.
"It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky." (Psalm 89:37)
Which calendar will you choose to use for worship – man's or Yahuwah's?
Click here to watch the video!


text:
Galley or Scratch Method of Division
Date: 12/08/2002 at 14:59:04 From: Julie Subject: Division in the 1400s In the 1400's what was the method for performing division?
Date: 12/08/2002 at 23:00:04 From: Doctor Peterson Subject: Re: Division in the 1400s Hi, Julie. According to D. E. Smith's History of Mathematics, By far the most common plan in use before 1600 is known as the galley, batello, or scratch, method and seems to be of Hindu origin. After showing just part of an example (which shows a pile of crossedout digits), he says The method is by no means as difficult as it seems at first sight, and in general it uses fewer figures than our common plan. Maximus Planudes (c. 1340) throws some light upon its early history, saying that it is "very difficult to perform on paper, with ink, but it naturally lends itself to the sand abacus. The necessity for erasing certain numbers and writing others in their places gives rise to much confusion where ink is used, but on the sand table it is easy to erase numbers with the fingers and to write others in their places." If you need to see the details, I can try figure out how it is done, and to work out a way to explain it. - Doctor Peterson, The Math Forum _URL_
Date: 12/09/2002 at 13:33:08 From: Julie Subject: Division in the 1400s Hi, I really appreciate your answer. I would like to see how it is done in practice. This is for a school project and I would like to understand it.
Date: 12/09/2002 at 16:59:51 From: Doctor Peterson Subject: Re: Division in the 1400s Hi, Julie. I was hoping you'd ask - I spent some time last night studying the explanation in my book so I could be sure I understood it. The tricky part is that there are several examples that seem to be variants on the method; all that Smith shows for those is the end result, and I can't see how the same method could give the numbers they used. But the rest of the examples do agree, so I can tell you the method pretty cleanly. I can actually give you three variants: one using cross-outs (the standard form used on paper), one using erasure (apparently the original form, used on a sand board) and one without either (the form a printer would have preferred). I'll do it in that order, for the problem 3945 / 27. First, we write the dividend, followed by a bar, after which we will write the quotient. Then below the left side of the dividend, we write the divisor: 3945 | 27 Now, as in the modern algorithm, we divide 39 by 27. The quotient is 1, so we write that in the answer at the right. Now here's what's different: we multiply each digit of the divisor by the quotient digit, 1, ONE AT A TIME, and subtract it from the dividend, crossing out digits and replacing them with the result of our subtraction. First, we subtract 2 from 3: 1 /945 | 1 /7 Note that I crossed out the 3 and the 2, which have been used up, and wrote the difference, 1, at the top of that column. (When you do this on paper, of course, you will still see the numbers you've crossed off. You may want to write this out and cross digits off on your own copy, so you can see what's happening.) Essentially, what I have done is to subtract 2000 from 3945, and I have 1945 left. So the digits on top, taken together, represent what is left of the dividend, and we are going to be subtracting from that at each step. So now we do the same with the 7, subtracting 7*1=7 from 19; we don't have to touch the 1 (though we might have), but can cross off the 9 and write the difference, 2, above it: 12 //45 | 1 // So far we've subtracted 2000 and 700 from 3945, leaving 3945-2700 = 1245. That takes care of the hundreds digit in the quotient. Now we write the divisor on the bottom again, shifted one place to the right, always putting each digit on the bottom of the appropriate column: 12 //45 | 1 //7 2 Now, how many times does 27 go into 124, the number on the top above these digits? Let's try 4; we'll subtract 2*4=8 from 12, and then 7*4 = 28 from the 44 we have left after that: 4 // //45 | 14 //7 / 1 / //6 ///5 | 14 /// / So now we've subtracted 400 times 27 from the 1945 we had left, and we know that 3945 - 140*27 = 165. One more step; we'll guess a 6, then subtract 6*2 and 6*7 from the respective columns: 1 / //6 ///5 | 146 ///7 /2 / /4 /// ///5 | 146 ///7 // / // ///3 //// | 146 //// // So the quotient is 146, with a remainder of 3. One thing I am not sure of is what they would do if they guessed a digit wrong - with all the crossing out, it would seem hard to back up and try again. If they guessed too small, they would subtract and have too large a remainder; it would be no trouble to subtract the divisor an extra time, cross off the wrong digit in the quotient and increase it by one, repeating again as needed. If they guessed too small, they would probably have to add the divisor back to the dividend pile (however many digits they had changed before discovering the problem) and try again. But none of the examples I've seen show this being done. Here's what I would have done if I had guessed 3 for the second digit: 6 // //45 | 13 //7 / 4 / //3 ///5 | 13 /// / Since the 43 on the top is still greater than 27, I would subtract 27 again without shifting it to the next place: 4 / //3 4 ///5 | 1/ /// /7 2 2 / / //3 4 ///5 | 1/ /// /7 / 1 / / /6 /// 4 ///5 | 1/ /// // / Now we're where we would have been if we had guessed right. Now, the erasure method, used on a sand table (or blackor whiteboard today) would work the same, but we would entirely erase each digit as it is used, so they don't pile up: 3945 | 27 1945 | 1 <--- I erased the 3 and 2, and replaced with 3-2 7 1245 | 1 <--- I erased the 9 and 7, and replaced with 9-7 1245 | 14 <--- I wrote the next digit in the quotient 27 445 | 14 <--- I subtracted 2*4 from 12 7 165 | 14 <--- I subtracted 7*4 from 44 165 | 146 <-- I wrote in the next digit 27 45 | 146 <-- I subtracted 2*6 from 16 7 3 | 146 <-- I subtracted 7*6 from 45 The book gives no examples of this (since it wasn't printed) but this seems to be what they must have done. The hard part is that it could be easy to lose track of where you are, since there is no evidence as to what digit you last worked on. Finally, you can do the same thing without erasing or crossing out, just remembering that only the top digit on each column is current. You have to write a zero to remove the top digit entirely: 0 10 _PHONE_ 3945 | _PHONE_ 22 This method was used in some books. Incidentally, the name "galley method" comes from seeing the final picture as looking like a ship, with tall sails and a low keel. If you are less concerned than they were about wasting paper, you can line up the work at each step, rather than draping each number over the existing pile, so it makes more sense: 03 04 16 04 12 3945 | 146 27 27 27 Having done all that, I searched the Web and found this explanation of the method: Things Could be Worse! - Carey Eskridge-Lybarger _URL_ Let me know if you need any more help. It's fun learning these old methods. - Doctor Peterson, The Math Forum _URL_
Date: 12/10/2002 at 12:51:24 From: Julie Subject: Thank you (1400's division) Hmmm, now I know why they came up with the "current" long division method


Take the 2-minute tour ×
According to Wikipedia, Jewish tradition divides the book of Tehilim into five sections (1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106, 107-150). This is unsourced there; the references at the bottom of the page include The Jewish Study Bible (which I don't have) and a bunch of non-Jewish sources. I had not heard this idea before seeing a question about it on Biblical Hermeneutics, but Google tells me it's a commonly-held understanding at least among non-Jews.
Is this idea of Jewish origin? If so, what is the source, and what is the purpose of these divisions?
share|improve this question
related judaism.stackexchange.com/q/9253/759 – Double AA Dec 18 '12 at 16:01
2 Answers 2
up vote 6 down vote accepted
One of the best ways to tell if books are separate is by looking at the divisions in a scroll. Traditionally, a number of lines are skipped in between books to mark a separation (see my discussion here). Looking at the Aleppo Codex yields just that. Here is the end of Psalm 41:
enter image description here
You can clearly see the larger gap in the right column.
Textually we find strong conclusive verses placed at the end of each of the books which don't immediately mesh with the preceding lines. Book Two (72:20) even concludes with:
כָּלּוּ תְפִלּוֹת דָּוִד בֶּן-יִשָׁי.
The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
Perhaps this means that historically our Book of Tehillim is a compilation of 5 "Booklets" of Tehillim passed down from/to David and others.
share|improve this answer
Interesting though that the Rambam doesn't mention leaving gaps between books of Tehillim. So perhaps there is some dispute about the nature of the division, but certainly it is a Jewish and Old idea. – Double AA Dec 18 '12 at 16:03
Thanks for the visual aid! My shul has most or all of Nach on scrolls but I wouldn't have thought to check for this. – Monica Cellio Dec 19 '12 at 1:40
_USER_ I would be surprised if they had any of the Ketuvim aside from the megillot as there isn't much liturgical use for them. – Double AA Dec 19 '12 at 1:52
I would be too, but since we usually read haftarah from a book, not a scroll, those don't get much use either (but we have them). I don't know the history of these scrolls. Now I'm curious... – Monica Cellio Dec 19 '12 at 1:55
Medrash (Tehilim) Shochar Tov says that Moshe gave us the 5 books of Torah and David gave us Tehilim which also has 5 books.
share|improve this answer
Your Answer


© PressTV
People walk on an island that that rose from the sea just off Pakistan's southern coast following Tuesday's earthquake on September 25, 2013.
A new island that rose from the sea just off Pakistan's southern coast following Tuesday's earthquake is emitting methane gas.
The 7.7-magnitude quake, which killed at least 328 people, occurred on Tuesday at 4:29 p.m. local time (1129 GMT). Its epicenter was 20 kilometers below ground in the Awaran district of southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Iran.
The powerful quake caused the seabed to rise and create a new island about 600 meters off the South Asian country's Gwadar coastline in the Arabian Sea.
A man living near the coastline sent a text message to local journalist Bahram Baloch, saying "a hill has appeared outside my house."
On Wednesday morning, Baloch and some of his friends visited the island and took photographs.
"It's an oval shaped island which is about 250 to 300 feet (76-91 meters) in length, and about 60 to 70 feet (18-21 meters) above the water," he said
Baloch and his friends put a match to the fissures from where methane was emitting, and set it on fire.
Muhammad Danish, a marine biologist from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography, said a team of experts landed on the island on Wednesday and found methane gas coming out.
Rashid Tabrez, the director general of National Institute of Oceanography, said, "The seabed near the Makran coast has vast deposits of gas hydrates, or frozen gas having a large methane content."
"These deposits lay compressed under a sediment bed that is 300 meters to 800 meters thick," he added.
"When the plates along the fault-lines move, they create heat and the expanding gas blasts through the fissures in the earth's crust, propelling the entire sea floor to the surface," Tabrez explained.
He also said that the island that emerged near Gwadar is the fourth in this region since 1945.


text:
Touch DNA evidence is increasingly being collected and analyzed during criminal investigations. The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant amount of male (suspect) touch DNA can be collected from the clothes of assaulted victims after varying time intervals. A "grab and struggle" model was used to transfer touch DNA materials from human volunteers onto three types of fabrics (cotton, polyester, and a cotton/polyester blend). This was designed to replicate a sexual assault, in which a male acted as an "assailant" and grabbed different fabric covered arm areas of a female volunteer "victim". Afterwards, three cuttings from each fabric sample were taken and extracted at 12 hours and 7 days post-deposition. The extracts were then quantified using the Quantifiler®Duo DNA quantification kit. The maximum yield of DNA from cotton fabric 12 hours post-deposition was 7 pg/ul and 5 pg/ul for total human DNA and human male DNA, respectively. The limit of detection of the Quantifiler Duo kit is 23 pg/ul, therefore these results are below standard profile detection range. No significant deterioration of DNA yield between the two time intervals (12 hours and 7 days) was observed. Variation between the tested fabrics and the areas of sampling could not be determined due to the very small quantities measured.
This study did not find useful amounts of touch DNA on clothes after this assault model. Results are limited by a relatively small sample size and the assault model parameters; however, these results do not support the routine use of touch DNA evidence from clothes in similar assault cases.


text:
Definition of logwood
n. - The heartwood of a tree (Haematoxylon Campechianum), a native of South America, It is a red, heavy wood, containing a crystalline substance called haematoxylin, and is used largely in dyeing. An extract from this wood is used in medicine as an astringent. Also called Campeachy wood, and bloodwood. 2
The word "logwood" uses 7 letters: D G L O O O W.
No direct anagrams for logwood found in this word list.
Words formed by adding one letter before or after logwood (in bold), or to dglooow in any order:
s - logwoods
List shorter words within logwood, sorted by length
All words formed from logwood by changing one letter
Browse words starting with logwood by next letter


Sign up ×
I have been wondering about this question for some time now and would greatly appreciate if anyone had any leads on how to proceed.
Let $\{A_{i}\}_{i \in N}$ such that for, $i \neq j$, $A_{i} \cap A_{j} = \emptyset$ and $\bigcup{A_{i}} = N$. Let $(a_{i})_{i \in N}$ be a sequence in $R$. If, for all $A_{i}$, $\sum_{j \in A_{i}}{a_{j}} \geq 0$ (taking the usual ordering in $A_{i}$), is it true that $\sum_{i \leq n}{a_{i}} \geq 0$ infinitely often?
share|cite|improve this question
1 Answer 1
up vote 1 down vote accepted
Let $a_0=-1$, $a_1=-1$, $a_2=1$, $a_3=-1$, $a_4=1$, $a_5=-1$, $a_6=1$ and so on. Then all partial sums are negative, alternating between $-1$ and $-2$.
Let $A_0=\{0,2\}$, $A_1=\{1,4\}$, $A_2=\{3,6\}$, $A_3=\{5,8\}$, and so on. Then for any $j$ the sum of the elements of $A_j$ is $0$.
Thus there are quite simple partitions of the natural numbers for which the desired result fails.
Remark: We can produce a convergent series that converges to $0$ with the same property. Let $a_0=-1$. Let $a_1=1/2$, $a_2=1/3$. Adding $1/4$ would make the partial sum $\ge 0$, so $a_3=-1/4$. Now we can go forward again, twice. Let $a_4=1/5$ and $a_5=1/6$. Adding $1/7$ would make the partial sum positive, so $a_6=-1/7$. Continue. Again, we can partition the natural numbers into (finite) parts so that the sum over any part is $\ge 0$.
share|cite|improve this answer
Might I ask if the result is still trivial if $\sum_{i \in N}{a_{i}}$ converges? Thanks! – madprob Jul 23 '12 at 21:43
_USER_: sorry, missed your message until now. Start at $-1$. Next is $1/2$, $1/3$. Adding $1/4$ would make us positive. So next is $-1/4$. Then next are $1/5$ and $1/6$. Next would put us over, so next is $-1/7$. Continue. We are making a series with sum $0$, but all partial sums are negative. We can now partition the natural numbers into finite parts with sums $\ge 0$. The parts are now of different and growing sizes, but it's a very similar construction. – André Nicolas Jul 24 '12 at 4:24
Your Answer


What Helium Can Tell Us About Volcanoes
After Yellowstone's sizable earthquake on March 30, there was a lot of craziness. People were throwing around theories that animals were running from the park in fear, that the earthquake would trigger an eruption and that helium emissions were rising in the caldera, meaning an eruption was coming. Now, in my fervor to stifle such […]
Greg WillisFlickr
Columbia Springs in Heart Lake Geyser Basin, on the southern edge of the Yellowstone Caldera. Some of the highest amounts of helium are released in the Basin.Image: Greg Willis/Flickr


text:
Sugati means happiness, bliss, wellness or fortune. We as a trust would like to bring happiness and wellness. We can say Sugati means 'having a good or auspicious position'.
- Contribute towards Education
- Build awareness in cleanliness
- Inspire, Encourage, Energize everyone the trust can reach especially Children.
- Identifying the schools that require support to get children to school.
- Identifying the children who do not have any on basic education.◦Providing required support so that they can go to school.
- Identifying and supporting schools that lack basic facilities.
- Work closely with other organizations to reach needy children and provide education.
- Conduct medical and health awareness camps.
- Orphanages - supporting◦Make them self-sufficient.
- Old age homes - supporting◦Make them self-sufficient.
- Reach out to remote villages and support them to build basic necessities.
Sugati foundation plans and executes daily, weekly and monthly projects where we need your help. Everyone wish to contribute in a good deed. However, in this busy life it is not possible for everyone to spare time or energy.
Quote of the day
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
- Swami Vivekananda
During the last 2 years sugati was able to support education for multiple students across AndhraPradesh and Telangana states.


Pool and Hot Tub Stabilised Chlorine Granules (1 kg)
 - Easy to use, fast dissolving Stabilised Chlorine Granules (1 kg).
 - Highly effective pool and hot tub water sanitiser.
 - Ideal to maintain the pool or hot tub water in perfect condition and prevent algae growth.
 - Manufactured to the same specifications as other leading brands.
Chlorine Granules (1 kg) with built in stabiliser, a superior quality sanitiser for pool or hot tub water.
Availability: In stock
Chlorine Granules with built in stabiliser. Completely soluble and with little if any pH balance required, the granules should be dissolved in a clean plastic container of warm water. To ensure safe use of your pool, maintain a free chlorine level of between 1.5 - 3 ppm for pools or 3 -5 ppm for hot tubs and a pH level of between 7.2 and 7.6. The ideal pH level is 7.4.
More Information
Barcode Number (GTIN)None
BrandPool Pro
Used ForRegular Sanitisation
Instructions for use1. Test to check the chemical balance. 2. To increase your chlorine level by 1ppm or mg / litre add: 2 grams per 1,000 litres (220 gallons); 10 grams per 5,000 litres (1,100 gallons); 20 grams per 10,000 litres (2,200 gallons); 120 grams per 60,000 litres (13,200 gallons). 3. Fill a clean plastic bucket with water and add the required dose of chlorine granules to a maximum of 100 grams per 10 litres of water and mix well. 4. Add the solution to your pool or hot tub near the water inlet with pump running. 5. Allow the chemicals to circulate for 2 - 3 hours then retest and repeat as necessary to achieve the correct sanitation levels. NOTE: As a general guide for small pools and hot tubs use a daily rate of 18 grams to 10,000 litres (2,200 gallons) of water. ALWAYS ADD CHEMICALS TO WATER & NOT WATER TO CHEMICALS. NEVER MIX CHEMICALS.
Write Your Own Review
You're reviewing:Pool and Hot Tub Stabilised Chlorine Granules (1 kg)


text:
FOR: LightWave 3D 9.5
TIME TAKEN : Three hours
TOPICS COVERED : Setting bones to move geometry | Setting up bones to mirror movements | Arm animation | Full body animation
DOWNLOAD: Full-sized screenshots and scene files (ZIP, 32.7MB)
How to use this tutorial
Pause at a timecode, read the overview of the next section of the video, then play the footage. Please note that these screen-capture videos do not have narration.
Rigging the upper arm
The biggest issue you'll encounter when making a transforming robot is the sheer complexity of it. This section of the tutorial will break down the rigging process into more bite-sized chunks. In this case, you will be rigging the upper arms only, so that we can go into detail on the methods involved in rigging the parts. During the rigging, you will also be implementing a tool called 'Follower' to help speed up animation.
There is a main concept that is important to any transforming robot: a base skeleton. Remember, it's just a humanoid form trying to get out of its shell. Even with all the nurnies and parts that will be shifting around, it is always good to have a standard skeleton folded up in the mix. The position of each skeleton piece should be evenly distributed so that each section gets just about the same volume of metal from your vehicle. This is important to plan out, since you don't want too many or too few extra parts at the end of your transformation.
For a humanoid, there are about 15 skeleton pieces that require your vehicle parts to cover them. These include the feet, lower legs, upper legs, pelvis, spine sections, chest, upper arms, lower arms and hands. The head is usually not made up of any of the vehicle's geometry, but should be textured similarly, to give the illusion that it came from the same material. After you set up the base skeleton, you can parent the pieces to be children of their closest skeleton bone. The upper arms on the train, for instance, use a cylindrical section of parts near the centre of the train. As explained before, this video focuses on the process of rigging the upper arms (both left and right).
After loading the start scene with the train inside, it's time to isolate geometry. I have created an object that only contains the pieces that will be included in the transformation of the upper arms. It's best to simplify things this way, as it can become overwhelming once you add a bone for every part of the train. A second advantage of an object with isolated geometry is the fact that it will be considerably faster than all of the polygons at once. In LightWave 3D, you can replace an object via Item > Replace > With Object.
Add your base bone
Add a bone by clicking on Setup tab > Bone. This bone will be the base upper arm bone. I name it in all-capitals just to remind me that it's an important base bone, which will be the parent of all the moving parts. It's very important to add an 'rt' or 'lt' at the end of every piece to signify whether it is on the right or left side.
The next step is to place the bone close to all of its parts, so the parts don't have very long to travel to get to their destination position. Press the [P] key to access the bone's properties and set Strength to 0. Base bones do not require any strength, as they will be the parent of every piece. After placing the base bone, I changed its colour to red in the Scene Editor [Ctrl]+[F1]. It's optional, but a noticeable colour helps signify the bone's importance.
Start to add bones to each individual piece of the robot. Take care to keep naming conventions consistent
Add kibble bones
Oddly, this section has nothing to do with dogs. Kibble is a Transformers fandom design term: it refers to any part that doesn't seem to have a purpose on the robot in its humanoid form, but exists because it was a part of the original vehicle. One of the best examples of this is the car doors that appear on Bumblebee's back in the Transformers movies. I take a slightly inaccurate approach and refer to every moving part as kibble, not just the odd parts.
Start by adding a Child Bone of UPPER_ARM_RT: name it uparmkib01_rt. Naming pieces on a transforming robot can get a little confusing, since you can't make up a name that perfectly describes the piece that the bone moves. Sometimes you can find a particular order in which to name them; sometimes you'll just have to pick a random part to be 'upper arm piece #15.' After naming your first kibble bone, set its Strength to 100% and select its Bone Weight Map from the (rather long) list. These Weight Maps were pre-made in Modeler.
After giving the bone the correct Bone Weight Map, it is time to see exactly which piece of geometry it influences. Press the [R] key to rest the bone. Now, as you move the bone, you will see the geometry move as well. If your bone is not close to the piece, unrest it with [Ctrl]+[R] move it to the centre of the piece and re-rest it with [R] again. It's also a good idea to keep the length of the bone (Rest Length) similar to the size of the kibble geometry. Now you have successfully rigged the first piece. There are plenty to go… The cloning technique shown in the video will help to speed up the process.
Finish the right side of the rig by adding bones to the wheel section. Use a master bone to control the section
Move pieces inside
The process for adding bones to control the pieces is similar to what you did for the first kibble bone – so it's basically time to be tedious and repeat the previous step a few more times. The wheel and coupling rod should also be rigged during this process, as they are also considered kibble.
At this point, you probably have noticed that there are weird floating pieces on the side of the wheels. These pieces are meant to go inside the shell of the train, between the wheels. Why are they on the outside? It is much simpler to model and rig them this way. Can you imagine trying to select parts if they were all bunched up together in a big clump? Not fun. So let's rig that bunch so it can be put inside.
It's a good idea to create a master bone for this bunch, so it can be moved as a whole. Start by making a bone in the middle of the wheel-like part. This serves as the top of the hierarchy, so all other bones added for the bunch should be a child of this bone. Repeat until each part has been rigged. After you finish rigging the last piece of the right side, it's time to handle the left…
Mirror a hierarchy of bones and edit its labels so that the left-hand side matches the right
Mirror the hierarchy
Rigging the left-hand side is be much less painful than the work you did on the right. You can simply mirror the bones you've created so that you have the same hierarchy on the left. Start by selecting the UPPER_ARM_RT bone. Go to Setup tab > Mirror Hierarchy, or press [Ctrl]+[W].
If you've never used this tool before, it mirrors the bone you have selected and all of its children along the X axis. But that's not all… Using the drop-down menus for Replace this string and With this string, you can replace any occurrence of 'rt' in the names with 'lt'. This will automatically rename the bones on the left side with an appropriate 'lt' suffix. Even better than that is the fact that the new bones will use Weight Maps with an 'lt' instead of their original 'rt'.
When I used this tool, an odd glitch occurred after I mirrored the hierarchy, which seemed to offset the base bone by a random position. After clicking on several different bones, the position seemed to correct itself.
Set up Follower to mirror animation
The final step in rigging the upper arms is to set up a Follower modifier on all of the kibble on the left-hand side. When set up correctly, the left-hand kibble will mimic the movement of its right-hand counterpart as you animate the latter. This is extremely useful for the animation process, since it cuts time in half.
Click on the first kibble bone of the left-hand side (uparmkib01a_lt). Enter Motion Options for the item by clicking on Setup tab > Motion Options. (You can also press [M].) Click Add Modifier and select Follower from the list. This tool sets all the Position, Rotation and Scale channels of your item to follow another item. Select uparmkib01a_rt from the Item To Follow drop-down menu.
By default, your bone will follow all channels exactly. But to get correct results, you want to have the movement mirrored along the X axis. This is a simple matter of multiplying X Position by -1 instead of the default 1. Set the Multiply by values of Heading Angle and Bank Angle to -1 as well. This will allow mirrored rotation as well as positioning.
Select Continue and right-click Follower to make a copy of it. Select the next lt bone and paste Follower in its Motion Options. Now the only thing you need to change is Item To Follow. Repeat this workflow until all of the kibble bones on the left side have Follower applied to their motion. It is always a good idea to check your bones while you work to make sure they are moving


text:
NANOSYSTEMS: PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, MATHEMATICS, 2013, 4 (2), P. 236–240
PERSISTENT CURRENT OSCILLATIONS IN ELECTRON-HOLE QUANTUM DOTS
A. A. Vasilchenko – Kuban State Technological University, Krasnodar, Russia; _EMAIL_
D. M. Tolkachev – Kuban State Technological University, Krasnodar, Russia; _EMAIL_
A system of Kohn-Sham equations was solved self-consistently for the two-dimensional, spatially separated electrons and holes. A series of magic numbers were found for the total angular momentum of the electrons and holes in a strong magnetic field. The change of the angular momentum of the charge carriers was shown to lead to oscillations of the persistent current.
Keywords: electron-hole quantum dots, the Kohn-Sham equations, persistent current.


text:
The OECD Global Science Forum (formerly the Megascience Forum) is a venue for meetings of senior science policy officials of OECD countries. Its goal is to identify and maximise opportunities for international co-operation in basic scientific research. The Forum establishes special-purpose working groups and workshops to perform technical analyses, and to develop findings and recommendations for actions by governments. These groups bring together government officials, scientific experts, and representatives of international organisations. Specifically, the Forum serves its Members in the following ways:
- Exploring opportunities for new or enhanced international co-operation in selected scientific areas. The Global Science Forum contributes to the identification and exploitation of opportunities for strengthening the global research infrastructure (e.g.facilities, instruments, databases, research networks and programmes) in response to new developments in science and technology, and to changing societal needs. Activities of this kind are expected to lead to better international co-ordination, sharing and rationalisation of existing or new resources.
- Defining international frameworks for vital national or regional science policy decisions. Governments can strengthen their own decision-making processes by using the Forum to become informed about the priorities, plans and funding decisions of other countries, prior to making their own national or regional plans. Such information can be useful for identifying, at an early stage, attractive opportunities and partnerships for international co-operation. Forum activities promote a dialogue between scientists and policymakers, to supplement the consultations that take place on a national or regional basis.
- Addressing the scientific dimensions of issues of global concern. Scientific research can provide essential information and advice to decision-makers on a wide range of critical global-scale issues. International consultations are needed for strengthening this type of research, and for promoting the use of scientific information in the development of the best policy options.
The Global Science Forum holds two general meetings each year and authorises specialised subsidiary activities as needed. The Forum produces findings and recommendations for action at senior administrative or operational levels. Recommendations to Science and Technology Ministers may also be made. Mechanisms are optimised for each topic under consideration, to produce policy-relevant findings, options, and recommendations for actions by governments:
- Working groups can be established, based on the Megascience Forum model. Such working groups, which have a well-defined scope and duration, bring together senior programme officials to exchange information about national priorities and plans, and to explore opportunities for co-operation and co-ordination on new or existing scientific programmes and projects.
- Single-event workshops can be organised to bring together government officials and scientific experts with the goal of exploring a selected issue in detail, and of formulating conclusions and recommendations for actions by governments and other relevant parties. Conducting a workshop may be appropriate before a working group activity is authorised.
- Surveys and studies can be conducted to gather and analyse information, if there is strong interest by a significant number of Forum delegations. Typically, these activities will serve to inform debate by the Forum itself. The responsibility for initiating and carrying out such work will normally rest with the governments that request it; the secretariat will provide analytical support upon request.
Subsidiary activities of the Global Science Forum are proposed by Member delegations, and participants are appointed by governments. Potential involvement of non-OECD countries, international bodies, and other OECD committees must be considered to maximise opportunities for productive interactions, and to avoid unnecessary duplication. The Forum does not duplicate or interfere with the work of any other international organisation or process, nor does it consider matters that can be dealt with on a bilateral or trilateral basis. In general, purely scientific matters are not to be debated by the Forum or its subsidiary bodies. If unresolved scientific questions emerge during the course of a Forum activity, an appropriate recommendation for action can be made to a scientific body. If opportunities for co-operation are identified, interested governments will decide whether they wish to participate in discussions leading to the negotiation and implementation of international projects. The responsibility for negotiating final agreement and administering the co-operation will reside with the participating governments. The Forum itself will not play an operational role in funding or managing any scientific project or facility.


text:
Posted by tourdemars to Scout Missions at January 10, 2002 12:00 PM
Robots that melt their way through ice may one day explore below frozen surfaces of other worlds, based on a pioneering version that successfully bored into an Arctic glacier in an adventurous field test. NASA teamed with the Norwegian Polar Institute and Norwegian Space Center to use the ice-penetrating robot, or Cryobot, for the first time on a glacier on the island of Spitsbergen, far above the Arctic Circle in the Norwegian-administered international territory of Svalbad. A mission proposal called Cryoscout will compete with other Mars Scout proposals to be chosen by NASA for a 2007 launch to Mars. Cryoscout is one of 10 Mars Scout concepts selected last year for further study. It proposes using a Cryobot to descend through Mars' polar ice cap. "If you want to learn about the climate history of Mars, which is important in the search for life, you want to examine the layers of the polar caps, and this is how you can do it," said Scott Anderson, a geophysicist on the Cryobot field-test team.
TrackBack URL for this entry:


text:
BEST IN PHYSICS (JOINT IMAGING-THERAPY) - Evaluation of Deformation Algorithm Accuracy with a Two-Dimensional Anatomical Pelvic Phantom
N Kirby*, C Chuang, J Pouliot, UC San Francisco, San Francisco, CAWE-E-213CD-1 Wednesday 2:00:00 PM - 3:50:00 PM Room: 213CD
Purpose: To objectively evaluate the accuracy of 11 different deformable registration techniques for bladder filling.
Methods: The phantom represents an axial plane of the pelvic anatomy. Urethane plastic serves as the bony anatomy and urethane rubber with three levels of Hounsfield units (HU) is used to represent fat and organs, including the prostate. A plastic insert is placed into the phantom to simulate bladder filling. Nonradiopaque markers reside on the phantom surface. Optical camera images of these markers are used to measure the positions and determine the deformation from the bladder insert. Eleven different deformable registration techniques are applied to the fulland empty-bladder computed tomography images of the phantom to calculate the deformation. The applied algorithms include those from MIMVista Software and Velocity Medical Solutions and 9 different implementations from the Deformable Image Registration and Adaptive Radiotherapy Toolbox for Matlab. The distance to agreement between the measured and calculated deformations is used to evaluate algorithm error. Deformable registration warps one image to make it similar to another. The root-mean-square (RMS) difference between the HUs at the marker locations on the empty-bladder phantom and those at the calculated marker locations on the full-bladder phantom is used as a metric for image similarity.
Results: The percentage of the markers with an error larger than 3 mm ranges from 3.1% to 28.2% with the different registration techniques. This range is 1.1% to 3.7% for a 7 mm error. The least accurate algorithm at 3 mm is also the most accurate at 7 mm. Also, the least accurate algorithm at 7 mm produces the lowest RMS difference.
Conclusions: Different deformation algorithms generate very different results and the outcome of any one algorithm can be misleading. Thus, these algorithms require quality assurance. The two-dimensional phantom is an objective tool for this purpose.


text:
Gardens for entertainment
Vauxhall Gardens in the late 1740s had many delights. The gardens were situated just east of Vauxhall Bridge. They were first laid out around 1661 and were known as New Spring Gardens. However, it wasn't until 1732 when Jonathan Tyers took charge that the park became an elegant 'pleasure garden' where 'polite' society would meet.
The place to be seen
Tyers transformed the gardens. He added a music room, Chinese pavilion, gothic orchestra stand and numerous arches and temples. The many statues included one of the composer Handel, who often performed there. Tyers put in grand avenues where the fashionable could promenade. There were over one hundred supper boxes, each painted with a mural, where dinner could be served.
Many extravaganzas were performed at Vauxhall Gardens. These included a rehearsal of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks in 1749. The gardens provided entertainment until the mid-19th century, when they went into a gradual decline.
Museum number 53.52/5


Where Was I?
2008, 25' four movements cello, piano, percussion
Where Was I? - a pertinent question, in a number of situations: a resumption after an interjection, a mea culpa of responsibility, a short-term memory loss. Identity and its relation to the passage of time. Who was it who did those things, admirable and shameful, that fill one's memory? When was that exactly anyway? Amnesia, if one loves and is loved, can seem like the worst possible fate - and yet we all dream of the ultimate freedom it represents at one time or another. This piece attempts to inhabit or impersonate that mindset, a present mindful of the past, but not quite able to piece it all together, at least not at the moment.
Commissioned by Real Quiet & the Misnomer Dance Theater, Chris Elam, director
Movement 1
Movement 2
Movement 3
Movement 4


text:
This is the Epitaph of Seikilos. It is the earliest complete music composition with notation ever discovered. It dates from somewhere between 100 BC and 100 AD. There are earlier examples of music to be sure - the Delphic Hymns, of course, as well as some early Japenese and Chinese ceremonial music, but it's all either fragmented or unable to be dated due to oral tradition.
The original 'score', such as it is, doesn't look like much to our modern eyes:
If you translate that into Western notation, however:
This is music that is two thousand years old. It could have been played when Christ walked the earth. And thanks to music being a universal language, we can hear those exact same notes, like a piece of history coming to life in front of us. Isn't that just incredible?
This is so beautiful.
(Source: there-were-giants, via nextian)


text:
PyX — Example: bargraphs/minimal.py
Minimal bar-graph example
from pyx import * g = graph.graphxy(width=8, x=graph.axis.bar()) g.plot(graph.data.file("minimal.dat", xname=0, y=2), [graph.style.bar()]) g.writeEPSfile("minimal") g.writePDFfile("minimal")
For a minimal bar plot you have set an bar axis in the graph constructor and provide Xname column data (X stands for the bar axis to be used). Here, we just use column 0 which is automatically filled by
graph.data.file with the line number of the corresponding entry. Furthermore, you need to specify the graph style, since the default graph styles
function (depending on the data type) are not appropriate for bar graphs.
Note that bar graphs differ from other xy-graphs in that they use discrete axes for one graph dimension. However, the only affected components of this fundamental change are one of the axes, which needs to be come a discrete one, i.e. a bar axis, and the usage of appropriate graph styles.
A bar graph is fundamentally different from a graph with a histogram style in its usage of a discrete axis in one graph dimension. A histogram instead is created using continuous axes in all graph dimensions and just drawing the data in a specific bar-graph-like presentation. In particular, the discreteness of the bar axis is reflected in the naming of its column name: instead of the continuous "X" it expects an "Xname" (where X stands for the bar axis used) as mentioned above.
As all axes and graph dimensions in the PyX graph system are treated equally all you need to modify to get bar graph with horizontal bars is to assign the bar axis to the y-axis in the graph constructor and change the names of the data columns to
By using the bar style you implicitly also select a different positioning style, namepy
barpos. This positioning style handles a single-nested axes with sub-axis values of the range going from 0 to 1.


Book Launch: Memoir of a Pilgrimage for Eight, by Philip Adamo
Facebook Live
In the summer of 2017, a group of strangers followed in the footsteps of eight medieval monks, who in 1230 AD traveled north from their priory in France to found three new monasteries in the far reaches of Scotland.
PILGRIMAGE FOR EIGHT is a memoir of that modern-day pilgrimage, told through a historian's eyes. It's a tale of people from diverse backgrounds and cultures undertaking a journey that challenged them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This newly-created traveling 'family' experienced the joys and trials of communal life and formed deep friendships that would last well beyond their 1300-mile trek.
Phil will discuss the pilgrimage, read excerpts from the book, and answer questions from the audience.


About the COAD
What does the Elkhart County COAD do?
The Elkhart County COAD convenes and coordinates a collaborative disaster response network of private, public, and nonprofit individuals and organizations to respond to disasters.
Why should we join the Elkhart County COAD?
In times of disaster you will get up to date information about resources and response and the opportunity to attend regular disaster forums, trainings, and information sessions.
What do member organizations have to do?
Member organizations and individuals are asked to 1) attend regular meetings and trainings, 2) share updates about their work to facilitate collaboration, and 3) help communicate critical information and resources back to affected communities.
Who are the ECCOAD members?
Over 30 organizations and individuals are part of our COAD including the Community Foundation of Elkhart County, City of Elkhart, local faith institutions and businesses.
What is the value of a COAD?
Communities that bring resources together through a COAD can increase the effectiveness of their response to the needs of disaster survivors, and reduce the social and economic impact of the disaster.
Who runs the Elkhart County COAD?
The COAD is governed by an executive committee and chair. The COAD fiscal agent is the Crossroads United Way and it was jointly founded by the Community Foundation of Elkhart County and the Crossroads United Way.
Does the Elkhart County COAD have funding to distribute?
No, but the COAD can hold and distribute funds during an emergency
Does the Elkhart County COAD only convene member organizations during emergencies and disasters?
It would be very difficult for coordination to occur if there was no regular communication between COAD and member organizations. Meetings and communication occur regularly enough to maintain channels and updates during non-emergency periods. During emergencies and disasters, meetings are scheduled as needed and taskforces meet even more regularly to help coordinate resources.
Does the Elkhart County COAD have control over the member organizations?
No, the COAD serves, supports, and coordinates member organizations in disaster response and recovery. Participation is voluntary.
Does the Elkhart County COAD perform public outreach?
The COAD's role is to support members. We work through our members to coordinate messaging but COAD will do direct public outreach if it is requested from our member organizations.


, 2 disks
Since the copies are created above the zpool, a mirrored zpool will faithfully mirror the copies.
ZFS, copies=2, mirrored
Since the copies policy is set at the file system level, not the zpool level, a single zpool may contain multiple file systems, each with different policies. In other words, you could have data which is not copied allocated along with data that is copied.
ZFS, mixed copies
Using different policies for different file systems allows you to have different data protection policies, allows you to improve data protection, and offers many more permutations of configurations for you to weigh in your designs.
RAS Modeling
It is obvious that increasing the number of data copies will effectively reduce the amount of available space accordingly. But how will this affect reliability? To answer that question we use the MTTDL[2] model I previously described, with the following changes:
First, we calculate the probability of unsuccessful reconstruction due to a UER for N disks of a given size (unit conversion omitted). The number of copies decreases this probability. This makes sense as we could use another copy of the data for reconstruction and to completely fail, we'd need to lose all copies:
Precon_fail = ((N-1) \* size / UER)copies
For single-disk failure protection:
MTTDL[2] = MTBF / (N \* Precon_fail)
For double-disk failure protection:
MTTDL[2] = MTBF2/ (N \* (N-1) \* MTTR \* Precon_fail)
Note that as the number of copies increases, Precon_fail approaches zero quickly. This will increase the MTTDL. We want higher MTTDL, so this is a good thing.
OK, now that we can calculate available space and MTTDL, let's look at some configurations for 46 disks available on a Sun Fire X4500 (aka Thumper). We'll look at single parity schemes, to reduce the clutter, but double parity schemes will show the same, relative improvements.
ZFS, X4500 single parity schemes with copies
bigger view
You can see that we are trading off space for MTTDL. You can also see that for raidz zpools, having more disks in the sets reduces the MTTDL. It gets more interesting to see that the 2-way mirror with copies=2 is very similar in space and MTTDL to the 5-disk raidz with copies=3. Hmm. Also, the 2-way mirror with copies=1 is similar in MTTDL to the 7-disk raidz with copies=2, though the mirror configurations allow more space. This information may be useful as you make trade-offs. Since the copies parameter is set per file system, you can still set the data protection policy for important data separately from unimportant data. This might be a good idea for some situations where you might have permanent originals (eg. CDs, DVDs) and want to apply a different data protection policy.
In the future, once we have a better feel for the real performance considerations, we'll be able to add a performance component into the analysis.
Single Device Revisited
Now that we see how data protection is improved, let's revisit the single device case. I use the term device here because there is a significant change occurring in storage as we replace disk drives with solid state, non-volatile memory devices (eg. flash disks and future MRAM or PRAM devices). A large number of enterprise customers demand dual disk drives for mirroring root file systems in servers. However, there is also a growing demand for solid state boot devices, and we have some Sun servers with this option. Some believe that by 2009, the majority of laptops will also have solid state devices instead of disk drives. In the interim, there are also hybrid disk drives.
What affect will these devices have on data retention? We know that if the entire device completely fails, then the data is most likely unrecoverable. In real life, these devices can suffer many failures which result in data loss, but which are not complete device failures. For disks, we see the most common failure is an unrecoverable read where data is lost from one or more sector (bar 1 in the graph below). For flash memories, there is an endurance issue where repeated writes to a cell may reduce the probability of reading the data correctly. If you only have one copy of the data, then the data is lost, never to be read correctly again.
We captured disk error codes returned from a number of disk drives in the field. The Pareto chart below shows the relationship between the error codes. Bar 1 is the unrecoverable read which accounts for about 24% of the errors recorded. The violet bars show recoverable errors which did succeed. Examples of successfully recovered errors are: write error - recovered with block reallocation, read error - recovered by ECC using normal retries, etc. The recovered errors do not (immediately) indicate a data loss event, so they are largely transparent to applications. We worry more about the unrecoverable errors.
Disk error Pareto chart
Approximately 1/3 of the errors were unrecoverable. If such an error occurs in ZFS metadata, then ZFS will try to read alternate metadata copy and repair the metadata. If the data has multiple copies, then it is likely that we will not lose any data. This is a more detailed view of the storage device because we are not treating all failures as a full device failure.
Both real and anecdotal evidence suggests that unrecoverable errors can occur while the device is still largely operational. ZFS has the ability to survive such errors without data loss. Very cool. Murphy's Law will ultimately catch up with you, though. In the case where ZFS cannot recover the data, ZFS will tell you which file is corrupted. You can then decide whether or not you should recover it from backups or source media.
Another Single Device
Now that I've got you to think of the single device as a single device, I'd like to extend the thought to RAID arrays. There is much confusion amongst people about whether ZFS should or should not be used with RAID arrays. If you search, you'll find comments and recommendations both for and against using hardware RAID for ZFS. The main argument is centered around the ability of ZFS to correct errors. If you have a single device backed by a RAID array with some sort of data protection, then previous versions of ZFS could not recover data which was lost. Hold it right there, fella! Do I mean that RAID arrays and the channel from the array to main memory can have errors? Yes, of course! We have seen cases where errors were introduced somewhere along the path between disk media to main memory where data was lost or corrupted. Prior to ZFS, these were silent errors and blissfully ignored. With ZFS, the checksum now detects these errors and tries to recover. If you don't believe me, then watch the ZFS forum on where we get reports like this about once a month or so. With ZFS copies, you can now recover from such errors without changing the RAID array configuration.
If ZFS can correct a data error, it will attempt to do so. You now have a the option to improve your data protection even when using a single RAID LUN. And this is the same mechanism we can use for a single disk or flash drive: data copies. You can implement the copies on a per-file system basis and thus have different data protection policies even though the data is physically stored on a RAID LUN in a hardware RAID array. I really hope we can put to rest the "ZFS prefers JBOD" argument and just concentrate our efforts on implementing the best data protection policies for the requirements.
ZFS with data copies is another tool in your toolbelt to improve your life, and the life of your data.
Monday Apr 23, 2007
Mainframe inspired RAS features in new SPARC Enterprise Servers
My colleague, Gary Combs, put together a podcast describing the new RAS features found in the Sun SPARC Enterprise Servers. The M4000, M5000, M8000, and M9000 servers have very advanced RAS features, which put them head and shoulders above the competition. Here is my list of favorites, in no particular order:
 1. Memory mirroring. This is like RAID-1 for main memory. As I've said many times, there are 4 types of components which tend to break most often: disks, DIMMs (memory), fans, and power supplies. Memory mirroring brings the fully redundant reliability techniques often used for disks, fans, and power supplies to DIMMs.
 2. Extended ECC for main memory. Full chip failures on a DIMM can be tolerated.
 3. Instruction retry. The processor can detect faulty operation and retry instructions. This feature has been available on mainframes, and is now available for the general purpose computing markets.
 4. Improved data path protection. Many improvements here, along the entire data path. ECC protection is provided for all of the on-processor memory.
 5. Reduced part count from the older generation Sun Fire E25K. Better integration allows us to do more with fewer parts while simultaneously improving the error detection and correction capabilities of the subsystems.
 6. Open-source Solaris Fault Management Architecture (FMA) integration. This allows systems administrators to see what faults the system has detected and the system will automatically heal itself.
 7. Enhanced dynamic reconfiguration. Dynamic reconfiguration can be done at the processor, DIMM (bank), and PCI


text:
The steering rack and pinion (or steering gear) responds to movements of the steering wheel and steers the wheels in the corresponding direction.
Symptoms of Wear or Failure
- Steering may get noisy or jerky and lose its ability to turn
- Power steering fluid leak
- Clunk when turning or going over bumps
- Turn easily in one direction, but not the other
Related Repair Advice
- A four-wheel alignment should be performed after replacing the steering rack
- The shop should flush the power steering system when replacing the power steering rack
- Problems with the power steering control module (where applicable) can imitate problems with the steering rack. Be sure that the problem has been properly diagnosed before replacing an expensive steering rack.
- In some cases, the inner tie rod ends cannot be serviced and, if worn, will require replacement of the steering rack


text:
Paper Trail --A National Postage Savings Act will help our environment.
Thursday, March 18, 1999
A few years ago, the Postage Savings Act passed unanimously in Monterey County. Then-Supervisor Sam Karas introduced the act to the Board of Supervisors on April 26, 1994. Hundreds of Monterey County residents signed petitions and wrote letters. County supervisors listened to their voices.
The official estimate was that $9,000 per year would be saved. All the savings would be used to help the environment, to go towards recycling paper, and to investigate tree-free paper alternatives.
Millions of dollars could be saved nationwide if the Postage Savings Act is adopted on the state and federal levels. This act can make a big difference in helping the environment.
The act requires the government to print documents on both sides of the page, to use third-class mail when possible, and to look into the use of thinner paper for mass mailings.
In Monterey County, it was discovered that firstand third-class mail had comparable delivery times, so using first-class mail was unnecessary. Likewise, there are other parts of the country where it isn''t necessary at all. When you''re mailing something a short distance, there is little or no difference in delivery time.
The Monterey County act is a good example of reducing paper waste. Unfortunately, it hasn''t caught on. The state and federal governments continue to spend much money unnecessarily on postage. For example, thousands of copies of the Yosemite Valley plan recently have been sent out. A copy was sent to me by first-class mail. For a fraction of the cost, it could have been sent "book rate."
First-class mail is often not required for packages. Immediate delivery isn''t always necessary. And printing on one side of the paper is a wasteful practice done by government, businesses, lawyers, "environmentalists," and many others. For example, have you noticed how our representatives often send out letters printed on one side only, and use envelopes with non-recyclable plastic windows, helping to mess up the recycling process?
Government documents of great public interest should be sent to libraries, and people encouraged to look at them there. Persons owning computers should be encouraged to get these documents off the Internet.
All over the country, governments can adopt these practices. The Postage Savings Act needs to be passed on all levels.
If passed, it will be a great boost to our economy. Recycled paper and tree-free paper manufacturing industries will grow dramatically. Kenaf, an amazing plant which grows so quickly that one acre produces four times the fiber of an acre of Southern White Pine trees, can become the source for paper in the future with government assistance. Eventually, Kenaf paper will be cheaper to produce than tree-based paper (it recycles well, too). Trees will no longer be cut down for paper, and wood chips can be left in the forest as mulch to keep the soil healthy.
The Postage Savings Act will inspire Americans to reduce not only their paper waste, but other kinds of waste as well. For example, one-third of the food in this country is thrown away while people are starving elsewhere (just go to a salad bar and witness all the food left on plates.) How much good Americans could do if they would just use resources more wisely; how much money could be freed for worthy causes.
Our government needs to be a good example for the people to follow. I''m asking Sam Farr, Fred Keeley, and Barbara Boxer if they''d like to introduce this legislation.
Bryan Rosen is a local environmental activist.


text:
Author(s): Sivapullaiah PV, Savitha S
Bentonite, commonly used for liner constructions in waste containment systems, possesses many limitations. Illite or illite containing bentonite has been proposed as an alternative material for liner construction. Their properties in different types of pore fluids are important to assess the long-term performance of the liner. Further, the illite-bentonite interaction occurs and changes their properties. The effect of these interactions is known when the pore fluid is only water. How their properties are modified in electrolyte solutions has been brought out in this paper. The index properties have been studied since they give an indication of their engineering properties. Due to reduction in the thickness of the diffused double layer and consequent particle aggregation in bentonite, the effect of clay-clay interaction reduces in electrolyte solutions. In electrolyte solutions, the liquid limit, the plasticity index, and free swell index of bentonite are lower than illite. The plasticity index of bentonite is further reduced in KCl solution. Clays with a higher plasticity index perform better to retain pollutants and reduce permeability. Hence, the presence of both illite and bentonite ensures better performance of the liner in different fluids.


text: To accurately calculate light fluence rate distribution in prostate photodynamic therapy (PDT), optical heterogeneity has to be taken into account. Previous study has shown that a kernel based on analytic solution of the diffusion equation can perform the calculation with accuracy comparable to Finite-element method. An assumption is made that light fluence rate detected at a point in the medium is affected primarily by the optical properties of points (or elements) on the line between the source and the point. The exponential decay term of the light fluence rate is expressed as an integral of effective attenuation coefficient of each point along the line. The kernel method is first developed for a point source and then extended for a linear source. A linear source is considered being composed of multiple point sources and light fluence rate is summation of the fluence rates generated by the point sources. In this study, we have implemented a fast ray-trace algorithm to substantially speed up the calculation. The kernel calculation is compared with FEM calculation and is examined with light fluence rate measurements. The examination with clinical measurement data shows that calculated fluence rates present similar features in distribution as the measurement, with errors of 30%-70% for the peak fluence rates. We concluded that our heterogeneous algorithm is potentially valuable for light fluence rate optimization during interstitial PDT.