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The design of optimal immigration policy, particularly in the face of the spiralling demand for highly skilled workers, such as IT workers and engineers, is a topical issue in the policy debate as well as the economic literature. In this paper, we present empirical evidence from firm level data collected in 2000 on the demand in Europe for highly skilled workers in general and abroad and their determinants. Major findings are that the fraction of highly skilled recruited from the international labour market is very small, and it seems that foreign and domestic workers are very similar in terms of formal education, that is subject of specialisation, and job characteristics. We suggest an efficiency wage model that can explain why firms recruit foreign workers in small numbers and are willing to pay migrants the same wage as local workers and at the same time are willing to pay for moving costs, for example, that are specific to immigrating workers.
migration labour demand firm data highly skilled workers globalization


Take the 2-minute tour ×
In a Haskell program compiled with GHC, is it possible to programmatically guard against excessive memory usage? That is, have it notify the program when memory usage reaches a specified limit, preferably indicating the offending thread.
For example, suppose I want to write a server, hosting a scripting language interpreter, that users can connect to. It's Turing-complete, so programs could theoretically use unlimited memory or time. Suppose each client is handled with a separate thread. If a client writes an infinite loop that consumes memory very quickly, I want to ensure that the thread consumes no more than, say, 1 MB of memory, before being alerted with an exception. I do not want other users to be affected when that happens.
This is probably possible using separate processes and ulimit, but:
 - I would rather keep it in one program, to avoid the complexity of inter-process communication.
 - I need to support both Linux and Windows, so I would prefer to keep it platform-agnostic if possible.
share|improve this question
I think it might be possible to do this using RTS options. The -M option in particular looks promising, but I'm not sure it's enough by itself. – hammar Sep 4 '11 at 6:26
2 Answers 2
In your example, you may need to modify the source of the scripting language interpreter, make some twists to the memory mgmt. module(s), of course IF it has some managed memory allocation features, the interpreter can complain about an execessive use of memory quota by an API callback to your host application.
share|improve this answer
The interpreter is something I was planning to write in Haskell. Unless I allocate memory manually (which basically defeats the purpose of writing it in Haskell), I am interested in a capability of GHC's allocator. – Joey Adams Sep 9 '11 at 6:17
_USER_ Adams: For that you would need to have a concept of ownership of memory. However in general purpose allocator it needlessly complicate things - for example what if thread is terminated and other thread is using it (quite common when you're using par etc.). – Maciej Piechotka Sep 14 '11 at 20:01
May not be exactly what you want. But, as documented here you have a ghc compile option: -Ksize, update: Oops, sorry, -K is for stack overflows. Still, you can check that link.
share|improve this answer
Your Answer


Migration file format reference
The config V3 migrations files generated by the CLI are pure SQL files.
Migration directory format
Each migration is stored inside a directory, which has the following structure:
A version which is the Unix timestamp in nanoseconds when the migration was created is the first part of the name of the directory. Followed by a name which is either manually added or auto-generated by the console. The files inside this directory indicates what step this is. up.sql file is supposed to have forward step(s), e.g. creating a table. The down.sql file should include the corresponding rollback step.


Open source databases Intelligent gathering Whistle-blower report FIU to FIU cooperation STR & wealth declaration
Witness interviews Forensic accounting Identify and locate assets Mutual legal assistance request Evidence gathering Analyze financial transactions Provisional freezing of assets / seizure
International cooperation Asset freezing / confiscation
Victim compensation Asset sharing Monitoring
What is Asset Recovery?
With the entry into force of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2005, the international community signalled a consensus that "asset recovery" is to play a key role in the global fight against corruption. In Chapter V, UNCAC prescribes minimum international standards for asset recovery. These range from prevention, international cooperation to enforcement.
But what is "asset recovery" in practical terms?
The notion of asset recovery in the international context is often understood, at least from a layman perspective, as the return of illicitly obtained public funds deposited in foreign jurisdictions to their country of origin. However, asset recovery is a far more complex process. It involves various legal and procedural steps in multiple jurisdictions and international cooperation plays a key role. The actual return of assets stands only at the very end of these preceding steps, all of which, including repatriation, require high levels of technical knowledge and capacity.
Asset recovery is commonly divided into four phases:
 1. Pre-investigation: intelligence gathering and tracing embezzled assets
 2. Investigation: identifying and freezing proceeds of crime; collecting and establishing evidence of ownership as well as respective links to illegal acts to support eventual confiscation
 3. Prosecution/Judicial: building and referring case for trial and issuing judgment to obtain a confiscation order
 4. Repatriation: returning property to the requesting state and ensuring that assets are distributed in such a manner that they are not re-corrupted
Challenges in practice
A number of international efforts to recover and repatriate stolen assets are underway in different jurisdictions. Only few, to date, have resulted in the actual return of assets to a requesting state and usually only after lengthy legal proceedings and political interventions.
The challenges are multiple and lie in the nature and complexity of the actual process. Since public assets of one country have been diverted into another country, the process will almost always involve, at least, two if not more jurisdictions. This requires that states cooperate and trust each other to achieve any inroads and that legal systems are sufficiently compatible. Furthermore, the act of tracing assets requires one set of technical skills, while the act of building a legal case of international dimensions requires an entirely different skill set. In addition, the process depends on mature and functioning domestic legal structures to support international recovery efforts. Simultaneously the affected governments must demonstrate political will to apply these structures. The necessary requirements for a successful asset recovery are thus multiple.
The return of assets […] is a fundamental principle of this Convention, and States Parties shall afford one another the widest measure of cooperation and assistance in this regard.
United Nations Convention against Corruption, Chapter V, Article 51
Responses to the challenges in asset recovery vary and occur on the domestic and international level. On the national level, states that recognise their technical and legal deficiencies in asset recovery are increasingly seeking assistance. They call upon expert institutions, both international as well as non-for-profit and development organisations, to improve their technical skills for recovering assets, to assist them in case work through legal advice and guidance, or to support them in evaluating their domestic legal and judicial infrastructures in line with international standards and best practises. Some states may seek representation from law firms. Financial centres that are affected by stolen assets deposited in their financial institutions have more recently also enhanced legislation to facilitate asset recovery, and boosted resources in their domestic law enforcement agencies to support international asset recovery efforts.
On the international level, most often in the context of conferences, expert workshops or other types of debate and policy forums, a mix of actors, including governments, international organisations, development partners, advocacy groups, non-governmental entities, technical and academic institutions regularly convene to discuss and share their respective expertise and experience in asset recovery. Through such forums the discourse on asset recovery continuously expands and evolves, and can lead to the development and implementation of new policies, international standards and frameworks to advance the asset recovery process. This has also enabled an improved international coordination among relevant stakeholders for example in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.
Regardless of these enhanced efforts domestically and internationally, success in recovering stolen assets remains limited. This is concerning, as the recovery of stolen assets plays a critical role in fighting corruption, ending impunity and supporting economic and social development.
 - Sani Abacha
 * 20.09.1943 - † 08.06.199
 President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998
 - Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier
 * 03.07.1951 - † 4.10.2014
 President of Haiti from 1971 to 1986
 - Vladimiro Lenin Montesinos Torres
 * 20.05.1946 - imprisoned since June 2001
 Head of Peruvian Secret Service from 1990 to 2000
 - Ferdinand Marcos
 * 11.09.1917 - † 28.09.1989
 President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986


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Automatic Darkening Welding Filter
Definition - What does Automatic Darkening Welding Filter mean?
An automatic darkening welding filter contains a shutter module that is operated electronically. This module contains ultraviolet (UV) and infra red (IR) filters. The UV and IR filters do not need electricity to operate. The liquid crystal light valve, though, is operated electrically.
Safeopedia explains Automatic Darkening Welding Filter
The liquid crystal (LC) light valve is operated electrically. When the voltage is applied, the crystals re-orient themselves, which are separated by two separate sheets of glass. When the bright light from the welding operation strikes the light valve, the control module darkens the LC valve shutter. The liquid crystal is not sensitive to light itself, and it does not change the shade independently. It depends on the control circuit to change the tint of it.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Color is the byproduct of the spectrum of light, as it is reflected or absorbed, as received by the human eye and processed by the human brain.
by DEVX Staff
Jan 1, 2000
Page 3 of 8
The gamut is the set of possible colors within a color system. No one system can reproduce all possible colors in the spectrum.
Unfortunately for designers, it is not possible to create every color in the spectrum with either additive or subtractive colors. Both systems can reproduce a subset of all visible color, and while those subsets generally overlap, there are colors which can be reproduced with additive color and not with subtractive color and vise-versa.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


How to grow a goatee
The Goatee is everywhere, from Hollywood to your local high street, and there's a good reason for its popularity.
 It's about the smallest beard you can grow (not counting the Soul Patch). In fact, its almost a'starter beard' (which you can extend into a Full Goatee - aka Circle Beard - at a later stage). You can practice trimming it, shaving it into slightly different shapes, and pulling at it a bit with your fingers when you want to indicate puzzlement. As boys' toys go, it's easier to acquire than most, and it doesn't need batteries. Enjoy!
2. Using your beard trimmer without the comb, remove the rest of your moustache and beard, except for a small section underneath (and a bit wider than) your mouth
3. Set your precision trimmer to 1-2mm. Trim a line on your chin 5mm from the corner of your lip on each side, and connect this line below the jawbone.
4. Curve a line around your Soul Patch on each side.
5. Finish the job off by using a rotary shaver on everything that's not part of your Original Goatee.


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Make EML with R and share on GitHub
2017-08-18T16:28:02Z (GMT) by
The Ecological Metadata Language standard (EML) has been developed by the ecological community to communicate essential information about how a dataset was created and what the dataset contains. It is written in the Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is machine and human readable, modular, and capable of storing detailed information. The modular nature of EML accommodates the diverse datasets encountered in the ecological and environmental sciences and the extensible character facilitates evolution of the standard as best practices and new data types develop. In summary, EML provides a strong basis for discoverability and reuse of data long after the primary goals of a data generating research project have been fulfilled.Here we demonstrate how you can use R to write custom scripts for your data documentation workflow. We'll also introduce you to some file versioning basics with Git and how to access these in RStudio. Finally, at the end of today's session we'll show you how to share this script in the collaborative environment of GitHub.


Make Your Detergent At Home, Know More Here
When you think of making your own homemade laundry detergent the first think that comes to mind is that it would be difficult and time consuming, but in reality it is neither. Making your own laundry powder is quick, simple and cheap.
Here is a nice stack of various formulas for making custom made laundry detergent. Making your own natural, homemade laundry detergent is one of the easiest parts of a transition to natural living. This natural laundry soap formula is a great way to save money on laundry detergent and more it is quite simple.
Homemade detergent smells like soap, not the counterfeit fragrances that are added to commercial detergents, so it's useful for individuals who are averse to fake aromas.
Reasons to use natural laundry soap
Conventional laundry detergent is stacked with chemicals like sulfates, fragrances, phenols and more. Numerous brands contain things like petroleum distillates, which are connected to tumor and lung infection. Scents in these cleansers are made of a blend of harmful chemicals.
Fortunately, making your own particular laundry soap is a simple and quick process! You just need three fundamental ingredients to make either a powdered or fluid laundry soap:
 1. Washing Soda
 2. Borax
 3. Natural Bar Soaps (Can make a homemade coconut oil soap)
Washing Soda and Borax should be available at your neighborhood market. Normal bar cleansers are in the natural segments of the store, or online. You can likewise include two or three tablespoons of baking soda to help freshen clothes.
How does this ingredients help in laundry cleaning
Borax is a naturally occurring mineral made up of sodium, boron, oxygen, and water. It is an ingredient in most of the natural soaps available and to top it all it is very inexpensive.
Borax is frequently touted as a wonder ingredient for natural cleaning in formulas like homemade cleaners and even in homemade beauty products as a preservative. Borax, of the mule team variety, is sodium tetraborate or sodium borate and not boric acid.
Washing Soda, in some cases called sodium carbonate or soda ash, is produced using common salt and limestone or found as normal deposits. Baking soda has natural ingredients that help in cleaning.
Natural Laundry Soap Recipe:
First Formula:
 1. Grate the bar soap or blend in food processor until finely ground. Use your preferred soap. You can use homemade coconut oil soap.
 2. In a large bowl, blend 2 parts washing soda, 2 parts Borax and 1 section grated soap. (Include a couple of teaspoons of baking soda if wanted).
 3. Store the mixture in a closed container. If you are using a big enough container, just put all ingredients in storage container or jar and shake.
 4. Use 1/8 to 1/4 cup per load of laundry.
Second Formula
2.5 gallons Water (hot)
1 Bar Soap (grated)
3/4 cup Washing Soda
3/4 cup Borax
2 TBS Glycerin
1.Melt grated soap over medium-low heat topped with water, mix until melted
 1. In a large bucket, pour 2.5 gallons of boiling water, include melted mixture, washing soda, borax and glycerin. Blend well.
 2. Utilize 1/2 container for every full load.
Liquid Laundry soap recipes
 1. Grate one bar of soap with cheese grater or food processor.
 2. Put grated soap in pan with 2 quarts water and steadily heat, blending continuously until soap is totally dissolved.
 3. Put 4.5 gallons of truly hot faucet water in a 5-gallon pail and blend in some borax and some Washing Soda until totally dissolved.
 4. Pour soap mixture from pan into 5-gallon bucket. Blend well.
 5. Cover and leave overnight.
 7. Use 1/2 to 1 cup per load.
These recipes are additionally an extraordinary approach to spare cash on laundry. One can save a lot on the laundry bill.
Too lazy to make your own laundry soap?
Some people may find it boring to make their own laundry soap or some may not get the time to prepare one because of different reasons, but there are few good brands of Eco friendly laundry detergent that are good to use.
Ecover Zero Laundry Detergent
Functions well, generally cost effective and low/no danger of developmental or reproductive toxicity and cancer as per the EWG.
Emma Eco Me Detergent
It is cost effective, works well and also rated highly by EWG and cleans up to 64 loads for $12. Good scents.
Planet Natural Detergent
Cost effective and relatively eco friendly.
Clearly the best option is to make your own detergent if possible, but if you aren't able to make one for yourself, those natural alternatives are a good choice. Making homemade laundry detergent is less expensive and can have more benefits in long run.
latest articles


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If you're a backpacker you need a reliable yet lightweight method for purifying and filtering water in the wild. Most commercial methods are either bulky and heavy or need supplies such as salt and/or batteries. Instead you can make a gravity water filtration system using two water bladders, a $17 Aquamira Frontier Pro filter or likewise, and a pack of chlorine dioxide purification tablets.
YouTube user and veteran backpacker Jason Klass demonstrates the light weight, versatility, and low cost (around $40 for everything) of this setup. Basically you fill your "dirty" water bottle directly from a river, lake, or stream, add a purification tablet, and connect your clean water bottle to the Aquamira filter. The other side of the filter is connected to the water resevoir you drink from. Hang the dirty water from a tree branch and keep the clean water on the ground and in half an hour you'll have a couple of liters of clean water to drink.
Why does this system use both a chemical and a mechanical filter? The aquamira filter is good at keeping out dirt and objects that would change the taste of your water but does not filter closely enough to remove most bacterias and viruses. A chlorine dioxide chemical treatment (same as what most municipal water supplies use) will kill 99.999% of all viruses and bacterias and shouldn't change the taste of the water. If you run out of purification tablets while on the trail you can always gravity filter the water into a pot and boil it.


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A categorical independent variable is called a factor. The categories are called the levels of the factor.
Replications are experiment observations made under the same conditions, that is, under the same combination of factor levels.
An experimental design is said to be balanced if each combination of factor levels is replicated the same number of times.
For the main effect of a factor, the degrees of freedom is the number of levels of the factor minus 1. To understand this intuitively, note that if there are I levels, there are I - 1 comparisons between the levels.
For an interaction between factors, the degrees of freedom is the product of the degrees of freedom for the corresponding main effects. To understand this intuitively, note that if there are two factors, with I levels of the first factor and J levels of the second factor, there are I - 1 comparisons of the levels of the first factor at each of the J - 1 comparisons of the levels of the second factor.
For error, think of the error mean square as a pooled s2. If there were 2 replications at each combination of the 2 factors, you would have s2 on 2-1 degrees of freedom at each combination. Hence, pooling over all factor combinations,
error df = (2-1)*(number of combinations).
If there were 3 replications
error df = (3-1)*(number of combinations).
Then you should find that all the degrees of freedom add up to the total which is the total number of observations minus 1.
Consider a balanced 2-factor design. Suppose there are I levels of the first factor and J levels of the second factor, and K replications at each of the IJ combinations of the two factors. Then there are IJK observations and
(IJK - 1) = (I - 1) + (J - 1) + (I -1)(J - 1) + IJ(K - 1)
is the breakdown of the total degrees of freedom into: main effect of the first factor, main effect of the second factor, interaction between the two factors, and error.
For example, suppose you have Factor A at 4 levels, Factor B at 3 levels, and 3 replications of every combination of Factor A and Factor B. Then I = 4, J = 3, K = 3 and there are 36 observations. The SV and DF columns of the ANOVA will be:
SV DF Factor A 3 Factor B 2 Interaction AxB 6 Error 24 Total 35


text: Logos is a provider of English training for working adults with varying levels of proficiency in the English language. It offers English training which will be of practical value to staff in any organisation. Logos sets itself apart from other training providers by conducting English training using the Structural Approach. The Structural Approach equips one with the necessary knowledge needed to use English effectively – written and spoken. At Logos, we strive to develop English programmes which will instil in the learner good habits of written and spoken English through copious exercises. These copious exercises can be done by the learner on his/her own after the completion of the training. Practice strengthens learning. As such, a good foundation of English learning will ultimately lead to increased confidence on the part of the learner.


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In todays blog post I would like to dive into a topic of insufficient bile production. Let's look at it's symptoms and common causes.
Most importantly, for all of you who have bile deficiency, let's learn about the proven nutritional solutions and natural strategies, that help to increase bile production for better fat digestion and health.
How do you know if you have bile deficiency?
Often you can suspect that you have bile deficiency when you have difficulty with fat digestion, as well as when you experience few of the below described symptoms at the same time:
- Abdominal tightness
- Pain under the rib cage, on the right side
- Nausea after eating fatty foods
- Floating stools in your toilet's water, that are difficult to flash down
- Pale, yellowish coloured stools
- Unexpected weight gain
- Deficiency of fat soluble vitamins that cause lots of symptoms within the body
- Jaundice – yellowing of the eyes and skin
Many of my patients would have combination of these symptoms. Deficiency of bile production is a common issue when you suffer from digestive imbalances.
What are the causes of bile deficiency?
Some common causes are:
- Following low fat diet for a prolong time
- Having pre-existing condition such as fatty liver
- Having had gallbladder removed
- Having dysbiosis
- Damaged gastrointestinal lining, scar tissues, IBD, Crohn's Disease
- Suffering from eating disorder
What is Bile?
Bile is a dark-green-to-yellowish-brown fluid produced by the liver that aids the digestion of lipids in the small intestine. It is produced continuously by the liver and stored and concentrated in the gallbladder. After eating, this stored bile is discharged into the duodenum.
The composition of hepatic bile is 98% water, 0.7% bile salts, 0.2% bilirubin, 0.51% fats (cholesterol, fatty acids, and lecithin), and 200 meq/l inorganic salts. The two main pigments of bile are bilirubin, which is orange–yellow, and its oxidised form biliverdin, which is green. When mixed, they are responsible for the brown color of feces. About 400 to 800 millilitres of bile is produced per day in adults.
What is bile's role?
- Bile emulsifies fat, increasing fat absorption. Bile is an essential "de-greaser" and "emulsifier" of dietary fats. Bile is also essential for the utilization of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. When acidified food enters into the small intestine from the stomach, bile salts alkalinize the food, preparing nutrients for assimilation in the small intestine.
- Another role of bile is to assist in detoxification. Bile contains the conjugated toxins from the 2 phases of liver detoxification. These toxins may include carcinogens, xenobiotic chemicals, pharmaceuticals and heavy metals like mercury, aluminium and lead.
- Bile keeps the microbial balance in check
- It helps to eliminate the excess cholesterol from your body that you don't need.
- It lubricates the colon allowing the food go through the digestive tract a lot easier.
Health consequences of bile deficiency:
Bile insufficiency has significant implications on your overall health.
When you experience bile insufficiency you cannot break down dietary fats properly. Fats build your hormones and carry fat-soluble vitamins. It is easy to understand that you will run into deficiency of fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D, K and E as well as start experiencing endocrine imbalances, and detoxification issues.
Endocrine imbalances can manifest in menstrual irregularities, weight problems, dry skin, fatigue, increased sensitivity to cold, or heat, estrogen dominance, POCS, just to name a few.
Insufficiency of bile will cause digestive symptoms such as these mentioned above.
How do you diagnose Bile deficiency?
To diagnose bile insufficiency I would encourage you do blood work, for which you need to see your GP, or your nutritionist/naturopath.
- You will be looking at your cholesterol levels. If they are lower then 170, it is possible there is bile insufficiency.
- It is also important to look at increases or decreases in the liver enzymes ALT (>30, <10) or AST (>30, <10), GGTP (>30) can indicate dysfunction and/or congestion in the liver and low bile production.
- In addition, digestive stool analysis can help identifying undigested fat in stool, which is caused by low bile production.
The good news is that there is a lot you can do to improve your bile flow and help yourself digest fats well.
How to increase bile production naturally?
The common approach is to support the liver through diet, hydration and certain herbal and nutritional interventions.
- Proper hydration is essential for liver detoxification and bile production. Approximately 85% of bile is made from water.
- Bitter foods are great at stimulating bile production. You can choose from all dark green leafy vegetables, as well as beetroot, artichokes and pickles.
- Drinks such as roasted dandelion root tea, lemon tea, celery juice and coffee all stimulate bile production.
- Supplements such as Swedish bitters, which are a collection of bitter herbs in one incredible formula. These are best taken 10-15 minutes before each meal.
- Bile salts like Choline, Glycine and Taurine in a supplement form will help to build the bile.
- Regular meal times and meals that contain fats will also insure your bile production is stimulated.
- Herbs: Triphala, shilajit, guduchi, hibiscus
- Spices: fenugreek seeds, cinnamon stick, turmeric, ginger
- There are two dietary recommendations depending on your specific bile problem;
- To thin your bile, it is recommended to eat cooked beets, artichokes, Jerusalem artichoke, carrots and apples.
- To flush the liver and gallbladder of congested bile: it is recommended to eat cooked leafy greens, rocket salad, fresh lime/lemon juice, aloe vera juice, grapefruit
In the intermittent treatment, you may need to supplement with Ox Bile to help to limit some of the uncomfortable symptoms right away.
Get started, introduce a better diet, herbs, nutritional supplements and biters to promote natural bile production.
These were your bile essentials. If you would like a personalised guidance, do not hesitate to book one on one consultation with me.
To learn more about digestive wellness and natural health, subscribe to my YouTube Channel and sigh up for my newsletter, where I will share with you more in depth information, recipes and special offers.


text:
infant mortality - in text and easy-to-read graphs.
Vital Signs is an invaluable guide for public policymakers and environmentally concerned citizens everywhere who wish to become environmentally literate.
Copies at $10.95 US are available through W.W. Norton, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 USA.
· The United Nations Population Fund (220 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 USA) publishes an excellent monthly magazine, Populi, which reports on population issues. Published in English, French and Spanish, Populi is available free of charge to interested parties.
WIT SPEAKERS BUREAU
WIT has expert speakers who can address your company, club or organization on various aspects of the environment. Call or write the WIT office for information or reservations.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
WIT is a non profit international, non governmental organization,
recognized by the United Nations dedicated to the promotion of environmental
literacy among opinion leaders and concerned citizens around the world. You can
help us in our important work with donations of time and
World Information Transfer's (WIT) raison d'être is to promote environmental literacy. While WIT did not originate this term, the organization has defined it in a concrete and operative manner. As literacy connotes facility in reading and writing, the addition of the adjective environmental indicates a fundamental ability to write and read about issues relating to ecology. This ability rests on knowledge of global and local concerns.
How then does this differ from familiarity with any subject area? WIT regards environmental literacy as a set of skills, undergirding an examination of other topics relating to ecological understanding. These skills include those abilities commonly associated with literacy plus the ability to raise questions about the environmental connection between the particular topic and a general or local ecological concept and the ability to identify genuine environmental problems. WIT considers ecology not so much as an independent topic in and of itself and set off from other realms of knowledge by specialists, but rather as connecting glue that is necessary for areas of study to be fully understood. From our point of definition, it would be impossible to study any topic without incorporating an environmental component.
SOURCE: The State of the World Population
This brings us to another way of differentiating environmental literacy from subject matter knowledge. Literacy requires skills acquisition and once obtained the individual may remain ignorant of particular information but has adopted the abilities needed to acquire the unknown knowledge.
It can be argued that environmental literacy is really a point of view. Developing the ability to read and write about environmental issues may likely lead one to our point of view, but that is not necessarily a result of becoming environmentally literate. Acquisition of these skills may also lead an individual to a neutral stance where objective questions are raised, for example, of computer models that predict global warming. The possibility exists also that a person gaining facility in environmental literacy may become a critic of environmentalism altogether.
WIT's goal is to provide the opportunities for individuals to gain the ability to read and write about the environment. Our starting assumptions are that the earth's ecological balance has degraded to the point that the human species is under threat and secondly that knowledge is power. We know that as more people gain these skills our assumptions will probably be challenged and we welcome argument rooted in the skills we try to promote.
WIT provides the opportunities for the acquisition of environmental literacy in four ways: our newsletter, our annual conference on health and environment, our speaker's bureau, and our Centers for Environmental Sustainability Studies.
It is important to recognize that although we would like to change thought and behavior in support of redressing global environmental degradation, this is not our primary goal Rather, our primary goal is the promotion of environmental literacy. We believe, that as more and more people around the globe develop such literacy, the possibility for productive dialogue which leads to constructive action is greatly enhanced.
World Information Transfer, Inc.
444 Park Avenue South, Suite 1202
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: _PHONE_
Fax: _PHONE_
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed its the only thing that ever has."
U S. POSTAGE PAID


text:
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: IS 240VAC two-phase - NO
Original poster: BunnyKiller
Tesla list wrote:
>Original poster: dhmccauley-at-spacecatlighting-dot-com
>240VAC is correctly denoted as SPLIT single phase. It is NOT two phase.
>It is simply a centertapped, 240VAC single phase line from a single phase
>Two phase denotes a phase angle difference of 180 degrees. The sum of all
>phases in any system must always equal 360 degrees. The standard home
>electrical system in the US is two phase, 180 degree difference( two times
>180 equals 360). Each phase is 125 volts RMS to neutral, and 250 volts RMS
>from phase to phase.
when testing the house wiring with my O-scope.. the 120V shows a single
sine wave... when testing the 240 system it shows 2 sine waves ( had to
use both leads)
so how does a single phase get "split" via a center tap transformer to
produce the opposed phases???


text:
This innovative water generator creates clean, drinkable water from the air.
Milan, Italy, 26th May 2023 – Vire Spa, a pioneering company specializing in innovative projects across various sectors, is excited to announce the launch of its groundbreaking product, a drinkable water generator from the air. The company, owned by Francesco Vitale, Italian real estate Visionary entrepreneur. Francesco is driven by a passion for creating innovative solutions that positively impact people's lives and the world.
Water scarcity and the lack of access to clean drinking water are critical global issues, particularly in developing countries. Vire Spa's water generator from the air offers an affordable and sustainable solution to address this problem. By extracting moisture from the atmosphere through atmospheric water generation (AWG) technology, this revolutionary product ensures a constant supply of clean, safe drinking water.
"At Vire Spa, we believe that access to clean water is a basic human right," said Vire Spa's owner. "Our drinkable water generator from the air is a game-changer, capable of providing potable water at a minimal cost, even in unfavorable climatic conditions. With this technology, we can transform the lives of millions of people and tackle the global water crisis head-on," he added.
The water generation process involves several key steps. First, the AWG system draws in ambient air from the surroundings, which is meticulously filtered to remove dust, particles, or contaminants. The air is then cooled using a state-of-the-art refrigeration system, causing the water vapor within the air to condense into liquid water. The condensed water droplets are collected and stored in a reservoir, where further filtration and purification processes eliminate impurities, bacteria, viruses, and chemical contaminants. The purified water is then stored and ready for dispensing, ensuring it meets the highest drinking water standards.
Vire Spa's water generator from the air can produce an impressive 20 liters of pure water per day, regardless of extreme weather conditions, simply by capturing it from the air. By contributing to the company's crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, supporters can help bring this life-changing technology to those who need it the most. Access to clean drinking water can be provided to families, schools, and hospitals in developing countries, significantly reducing the global water crisis and positively impacting the environment by reducing plastic waste from bottled water.
"Your contribution can make a huge difference," emphasized Francesco Vitale. "Together, let's make clean drinking water accessible to everyone, no matter where they live in the world."
Vire Spa, known for its expertise in renewable energy and commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology, has once again demonstrated its dedication to creating sustainable solutions for complex challenges. With a strong focus on research and development, the company strives to create a more technologically advanced and environmentally friendly future.
For more information about Vire Spa and to support their crowdfunding campaign, the Indiegogo campaign page can be visited.
Francesco Vitale can be reached at +39 _PHONE_ and _EMAIL_.
About the Company:
Vire Spa is a pioneering company specializing in innovative projects across various sectors, driven by a passion for creating sustainable solutions and pushing the boundaries of technology. Led by owner Francesco Vitale, the company aims to positively impact the world through expertise in renewable energy, information technology, and well being city development.
Organization: Vire Spa
Contact Person: Francesco Vitale
Contact Number: +39 _PHONE_
Release Id: _PHONE_
The post Francesco Vitale Pioneers Water Revolution: Introducing the Air-to-Drinkable Water Generator appeared first on King Newswire.
Disclaimer: The views, suggestions, and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article.


Guns & Ammo Network
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Bullets vs. Wind
January 4th, 2011 0
Wind is the varmint shooter's greatest enemy, and the search for better "wind-bucking" bullets is never-ending.
If you've embarked on that search, be sure not to confuse a bullet's "wind resistance" with its "air resistance."
In flight, bullets are affected by three separate forces: gravity, air resistance and wind. Gravity pulls down on the bullet, causing it to drop below the line of sight. Air resistance (or "drag") slows the bullet with a force proportional to the square of the velocity. Wind makes the projectile drift from its normal still-air trajectory.
There are two key elements to understanding a bullet's susceptibility to wind drift. The first is its ballistic coefficient (BC), which combines the air resistance of the bullet shape (the drag coefficient) with its sectional density (the ratio of its frontal surface area to bullet mass), and is expressed by a figure providing the ratio of its ballistic efficiency compared to a standard theoretical reference projectile.
Sporting bullets have BCs in the range 0.12 to slightly over 1.00, with 1.00 being the most aerodynamic and 0.12 being the least. Bullets with higher ballistic coefficients have better air resistance, and the deceleration a bullet will experience due to drag is proportional to its BC.
In technical terms, wind drift is caused by drag. It is not, as is commonly thought, caused by wind pushing on the side of the bullet. Drag makes the bullet turn into the wind, keeping the center of air pressure on its nose.
This causes the bullet nose to angle into the wind and the base to be angled downwind. Since drag is the force slowing the bullet against the resistance of the air, the effect is to make it drift from its linear path in the downwind ("backward") direction. The greater the bullet's drag, the more it will drift.
Headwinds or tailwinds have similar but less obvious drag effects. A headwind will slightly increase the velocity of the bullet relative to the air it is passing though, which will increase the amount of drag and corresponding bullet drop.
A tailwind will reduce the drag and the bullet drop. In the real world, pure headwinds or tailwinds are rare since wind seldom is constant in force and direction and normally interacts with the terrain it is blowing over.
The second key element in a bullet's susceptibility to wind drift is its velocity. Here, unlike the complex physics of drag coefficients, the issue is simple. The longer the time any bullet is exposed to wind while in flight to the target, the more it will drift; the faster it gets there, the less it will drift.
While it is also true that drag increases as velocity increases, if you use bullets having high BCs to begin with, the benefit of the reduced flight time will outweigh any additional drag effect.
If you are seeking the maximum in wind resistance for varmint shooting, you need to pick the bullet with the highest ballistic coefficient (least drag) you can find for your cartridge of choice and push it to the highest velocity possible while maintaining the accuracy you need.
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Using the File Library
Every image, document, video and audio file that is uploaded onto your intranet is stored in the file library. Your role and permissions will determine how many of those files you can view and access.
For the majority of users with publishing powers, you can only view the files you have uploaded and the files uploaded to the sections you're in.
For webmasters as well as global publishers and section managers, you can view and manage every file ever uploaded.
Media library displayed with My files tab selected and filter options available
Relevant roles
 - Webmaster
 - Section manager
 - Publisher
 - Editor
 - Author
Files in Administration
As part of the set up, webmasters can choose which file extensions they will allow users to upload for the four supported file types.
1. Go to 'Administration' from the workbar
2. Find heading 'global settings' and the sub-heading 'security'
3. Select 'File types'
4. Check the boxes in each category for the files users can upload
5. Select 'Save'
List of file types which can be chosen to be allowed to be uploaded by selecting a checkbox
File library when creating an item
Publishers need to add images, attachments and other files such as audio and video to enhance the content they're creating.
There are two ways to do this in Invotra.
More obviously, publishers will see 'Add image' and 'Add attachment' when they are going through the steps of creating an item and app post.
1. Select 'Create', 'Item' and the item you are going to create
2. Add title, summary, body, relationship, etc.
3. Select 'UPLOAD FILE ' and choose the file or media from your local drive
Upload file link
4. Or drag and drop your file, which must be less than 40 MB as instructed
Add file options to upload file or drop file
Adding an image that is not in the file library:
1. The name of your file will automatically populate, override this to make it search friendly
2. In describe your image, write for users of assistive technology to improve their experience of your content
3. Add title text if you want a label to appear when a user hovers over your image
4. Select 'Continue'
Image upload with fields to add name, description and title text
Adding an image from the file library:
1. Select 'Add image'
2. In the tabs at the top of the file library, select 'Files'
3. If you uploaded the image previously, select 'My files'
4. Search by name, file type, or use sorts and ordering
5. Select the file you want and it will highlight orange
6. Select 'Continue'
FIle upload screen showing my files previously uploaded and image selected
These same steps can be followed for attachments, which will default to document file types.
When you are in the file library you can search within the four file types using the appropriate field.
Files added in the 'Image' and 'Attachment' areas when you are creating an item will appear in the image and attachment widgets.
To add an image within the body of your content, you must do so using the 'Add file' icon in the WYSIWYG editor.
Adding a file with the WYSIWYG editor
1. Locate and select the 'Add file' icon
Wysiwyg editor file icon for item description
2. In the file library select the tab you need from Upload, Files, My files and One Drive
3. Select file you want and then 'Continue'
4. Your file will be added into your body copy where your cursor was when you selected 'Add file' in the WYSIWYG editor
5. How it appears will depend on the file type
6. To alter an image, right click and edit the image's size, border, hyperlink, etc.
7. To edit a document or audio file, use heading style, colouring, etc. to make the file stand out for the user
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text:
You can link together pairs of tools, so that changing the information displayed in one tool automatically updates the other. This can be done for virtually any tool in Common LispWorks, and provides a simple way for you to browse information and see how the state of the Lisp environment changes as you run your code. For instance, you can make between an Inspector and a Listener so that every time you evaluate a form in the Listener, its value is automatically inspected.
You can also link two copies of the same tool. This can be a very useful way of seeing two views of a tool at once. For instance, you could create a copy of the Class Browser by choosing Window > Clone, and then link them together. By keeping one browser in the subclasses view, and the other in the slots view, you can automatically see both the subclasses and the available slots for a given class.
Linked tools have a master-slave relationship. One tool (the slave) gets updated automatically, and the other tool (the master) controls the linking process. To link together any two tools:
To break a link, select -- No Link -- instead of a specific tool.
To view all the current links that have been established, choose Edit > Link from > Browse Links... Select any of the links listed and click on Remove Link(s) to remove them.


text:
The lesser flamingo, Phoeniconaias minor, stands between four and five feet high but is the smallest of the six flamingo species. With the greater flamingo, it is one of two Old World flamingo species. The clearest difference between the two species is that the greater flamingo has a pale pink bill with a contrasting black tip while the lesser flamingo has a dark crimson bill. The lesser flamingo is also shorter and redder in colour.
Marabou storks eat flamingo eggs and young and can cause entire colonies to desert their nests. Attacks by a maximum of 17 Marabou storks caused greater flamingos to desert nests at Lake Elmenteita in south-central Kenya three years running. These storks are common urban scavengers. The soda ash plant would provide them with a permanent food supply.
A study by the East African Lake Natron Consultative Group found that tourists drawn to the region to see lesser flamingos contributed US$12m annually. Tourist to Lake Natron alone is worth US$500,000 per annum excluding associated spending. Visits to the area are likely to increase if the soda ash proposal is rejected.
Lesser flamingos attract tourists to the national parks of Kenya and Ethiopia as well as Tanzania.
In 2001, the Tanzanian government listed Lake Natron as a Ramsar Site under the international Ramsar wetlands treaty. Lake Natron has also been designated an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International.
Up to 30 per cent of the population of chestnut-banded plover is found on the Lake Natron site plus important numbers of Cape teal, marsh sandpiper and little stint. Lesser kudu and gerenuk are mammals likely to be affected together with the endemic fish species, Oreochromis alcalicus.
The species has long pink legs and a long neck. Its large body is rose-pink, the colour coming from pigments in its food, the bacteria Spirulina. The birds eat by holding their bills upside down in the water. Flamingo bills are shaped to filter tiny food items within the bill using a specially adapted tongue.
Lesser flamingos feed on Spirulina which is commonly known as blue-green algae although in fact it is bacteria. Spirulina sometimes gives Lake Natron a pink or red colour. It grows only in salty lakes. Lake Natron is known as a soda lake because of its high concentration of sodium carbonate.
Flamingos live until they are about 40 years old but only breed every five or six years. Non-breeding birds do not return to breeding sites until they are ready to breed again.
The bird lays one chalky white egg on mounds built of mud. Chicks join crèches soon after hatching which can number more than 100,000 birds. The crèches are marshaled by adult birds which lead youngsters by foot to fresh water to drink, a journey that can be longer than 20 miles.
There are thought to be between 2.2 million and 3.25m lesser flamingos in the world of which between 1.5m and 2.5m are found in East Africa. The global population is declining because of habitat loss and contamination. Lack of breeding at Lake Natron will reduce the region's population.
The lesser flamingo is classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List 2004. It is listed on Appendix II of CITES and on Appendix II of the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species.


FutureFive New Zealand logo
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Artificial intelligence to play crucial role in NZ way of life
Changes brought about by artificial intelligence will be as significant as those brought about by computers and the internet, according to an industry expert.
NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller says AI technologies are beginning to have a major impact on New Zealand's economy and society, and will make significant changes in all aspects of business, government and everyday life, the same way computers and the internet have over the last 30 years.
Muller's comments follow the New Zealand AI Forum's latest research report, which highlights the importance of AI for New Zealand's future growth.
"Last year the AI Forum released a report that called for a national AI strategy. That would be nice, however technology is moving so fast we just need to get on with it," he says.
"It is excellent that this new report identifies we should immediately begin considering the role of AI to support all of the existing national strategies," says Muller.
"We need to consider AI in all sectors, including health, education, agriculture and banking. AI will be useful in almost every way of life in New Zealand," he explains.
"For example, how can AI reduce the road toll? According to this study, AI has the potential to save 64 lives a year, prevent 7200 injuries and more than $800 million in social costs," Muller says.
"The research clearly highlights the value of AI for achieving New Zealand's wellbeing, sustainability and economic goals."
The report provides a showcase of AI case studies, analysis of what is needed to boost acceptance and adoption and a first examination of Maori attitudes, perceptions of and engagement with AI.
"The research identifies that New Zealand urgently needs to increase its focus on areas such as investment in AI, skills and talent, research, trusted data, ethics and regulation," says Muller.
"The report shows how AI solutions can be used to improve wellbeing, productivity and sustainability."
Muller says AI is fast emerging as a key technology to solve many business and social problems.
"More than half of New Zealand businesses and organisations think AI will be, or is already, a game changer and will enable transformation of business and society," he says.
"Underpinning all of this is the ever-increasing importance of data."
Muller says organisations are starting to place greater value on opportunities arising from their data.
"But more needs to be done if we want to capture the power of AI for New Zealand's well-being."


text:
EULESS, TEXAS. Euless is at the intersection of State highways 10 and 183, on the southwest side of the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, north of the West Fork of the Trinity River in Tarrant County. Bird's Fort was established at a site just south of the present city limits in 1841. The community began by 1845, when a small party of pioneers led by Isham Crowley reached the confluence of Big Bear and Little Bear creeks. There on the eastern edge of the site of present Euless, on the current airport grounds, a post office was founded in 1857, named Estill's Station, and a school, a church, a store, and a cotton gin were established. The post office closed in 1868. It reopened, 1881–1904, under the name Estelle. Most of the community gradually dissipated and moved to present Euless and Irving. A mile or more to the southwest, around 1876, a community hall-church-school building was erected. In 1881 Elisha Adam and Julia Euless from Tennessee built a home and cotton gin nearby, and the community began to thrive. Local farmers decided to honor the young man whose presence seemed to coincide with better times, and the community was named for him. The Euless post office opened in 1886 and closed in 1910. Euless farmers usually journeyed to Dallas to buy supplies and sell produce and cotton. In 1903 the Rock Island Railroad built a depot two miles south of Euless at Candon, whose name changed to Tarrant by 1905. Tarrant had a post office, 1905–23, and in the 1910s Tarrant may have had 100 people and Euless twenty-five. The Rock Island soon discontinued regular service, and the depot closed in the 1930s. By then Euless may have attained a population of 100, while Tarrant's was perhaps twenty-five. Tarrant gradually merged with Euless. From the early twentieth century to the mid-1930s Euless community life revolved around the general store run by the Fuller family, the Baptist and Methodist churches, and the Euless School, erected in 1913. The Tennessee Dairies receiving plant in Euless and the Fort Worth Sand and Gravel Company just south of town in the Trinity bottoms opened operations in the 1920s, aiding a number of local farm families in supplementing meager farm incomes. The brewing and sale of illegal whiskey during prohibition, 1919–33, was another economic stimulus in the area. Electricity arrived in 1929, and the school achieved high school status in 1934. After the stimulus of World War II there were perhaps 300 people in Euless and Tarrant by the end of the 1940s. The Euless post office reopened in 1949. A crisis moved the community to the edge of violence. In 1949 black parents in Mosier Valley refused to obey new orders from the Euless school superintendent, which called for the busing of their children outside their district to Fort Worth. There were closer schools in Euless, but they had always been for whites only. The Mosier Valley elementary school was a tattered branch of the Euless district. A district judge ruled that Texas law provided that students had a right to be educated in their own districts and that a district's schools were supposed to be funded impartially. Texas at the time had some 1,100 districts that bused blacks to other districts, and it appeared for some months as though segregation in Texas might stand or fall on the Euless case. Blacks entered the Euless school on September 4, 1950, in an attempt at enrollment, and the building was soon surrounded by a hostile crowd of some 150 whites. The school superintendent informed his black audience in the auditorium that he had to enforce the state's segregation laws. Blacks returned to the Mosier Valley school, which was quickly refurbished by white authorities. The village incorporated in 1951, disincorporated in 1952 over water and sewer taxes, and reincorporated in 1953. The Euless school district merged with Hurst in 1955 and was joined by Bedford in 1958. The HEB district desegregated in 1968. Growth was enhanced in the early 1950s by the paving of old State Highway 183 and Farm Road 157 and the construction of Amon Carter (Air) Field on the eastern edge of Euless, which opened in 1953. The Euless Chamber of Commerce was established in 1952 and merged with that of Hurst in 1955. The Menasco Manufacturing Company, which made airplane parts, was an important local manufacturer. American Airlines began moving its installations to Euless in 1957. The population surged to over 4,200 in 1960. In 1967 Euless voted 211 to 133 to merge with smaller Bedford, but an overwhelming majority in Bedford opposed it. Hurst, Euless, and Bedford all approved the establishment of a joint hospital district in 1969. Euless's population climbed to 19,300 in 1970, but the completion of Airport Freeway and the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport drove land prices out of reach for most of the decade. The population increased only to 24,000 in 1980. The town is heavily committed to arboreal beautification, reflected dramatically in its annual Arbor Daze fair launched in 1989. The DFW Airport's announcement to expand a new west side runway in 1988 triggered an acrimonious conflict with Euless and a prolonged legal tussle. The town could lose $100,000,000 worth of property. Euless had a population of over 38,000 in 1990.
Clippings File, Euless Public Library. Historic Resources Survey: Selected Tarrant County Communities (Fort Worth: Historic Preservation Council for Tarrant County, 1990). Janet L. Schmelzer, Where the West Begins: Fort Worth and Tarrant County (Northridge, California: Windsor, 1985).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.George N. Green, "EULESS, TX," Handbook of Texas Online (_URL_ accessed April 18, 2015. Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.


What is a standard implicature?
A standard implicature is a conversational implicature based on an addressee's assumption that the speaker is being cooperative by directly observing the conversational maxims.
Example (English)
 - In the following exchange, A assumes that B is being cooperative, truthful, adequately informative, relevant, and clear. Thus, A can infer that B thinks A can get fuel at the garage:
 - A: I've just run out of petrol.
 - B: Oh; there's a garage just around the corner.
 - Generic
 A standard implicature is a kind of
 Levinson 1983 104
 Context for this page:
 Page content last modified: 5 January 2004
 © 2004 SIL International


text:
Component-based development is a software engineering paradigm that can facilitate the construction of embedded systems and tackle its complexities. The modern embedded systems have more and more demanding requirements. One way to cope with such a versatile and growing set of requirements is to employ heterogeneous processing power, i.e., CPU–GPU architectures. The new CPU–GPU embedded boards deliver an increased performance but also introduce additional complexity and challenges. In this work, we address the component-to-hardware allocation for CPU–GPU embedded systems. The allocation for such systems is much complex due to the increased amount of GPU-related information. For example, while in traditional embedded systems the allocation mechanism may consider only the CPU memory usage of components to find an appropriate allocation scheme, in heterogeneous systems, the GPU memory usage needs also to be taken into account in the allocation process. This paper aims at decreasing the component-to-hardware allocation complexity by introducing a two-layer component-based architecture for heterogeneous embedded systems. The detailed CPU–GPU information of the system is abstracted at a high-layer by compacting connected components into single units that behave as regular components. The allocator, based on the compacted information received from the high-level layer, computes, with a decreased complexity, feasible allocation schemes. In the last part of the paper, the two-layer allocation method is evaluated using an existing embedded system demonstrator; namely, an underwater robot.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited


Friendly Robots
 - By Susan K. Lewis
 - Posted 11.01.06
 - NOVA scienceNOW
As a designer of sociable robots, MIT engineer Cynthia Breazeal thinks about her creations in terms of hearts and minds as well as nuts and bolts. In this slide show, Breazeal introduces us to Kismet and other emotionally appealing robots, and she compares "raising" robots to teaching children.
Launch Interactive
Engineer Cynthia Breazeal talks about some of her favorite non-human companions in this audio slide show.
Friendly Robots
Posted: November 1, 2006
Section 1 - Robot Emotion
[Audio: child interacting with robot]
CYNTHIA BREAZEAL: There's something special, I think, about robots. They kind of cross that boundary from the device to the animate world I think more than any other technology we've really been exposed to yet.
So I think we really have to, as designers of these systems, recognize that, embrace it, stop being surprised by it, but really think hard and deeply about what does it really mean to design a robot that understands and interacts and treats people as people? Because there's really no technology that does that yet. How do you build a machine to be socially and emotionally intelligent in the way that people, or at least animals, are?
The question for the robot is not, "are robots going to have human emotions or dog emotions", because they're never going to be humans or dogs, but "what is a robot emotion in that we would find it to be genuine and authentic the same way that we ascribe genuine emotions to dogs and other animals." That's the deeper question.
If you look at movies and science fiction, of course people are very readily willing to ascribe, authentic emotional states to the sort of robots that you see on the screen like R2D2 or C3PO. They wouldn't be compelling characters if you didn't, but what happens when it's in the real world, interacting with people? If you can get those sort of interactions that really capture the sense of social and emotionally intelligent behavior, I think people will be very willing to ascribe those states to robots as well.
Section 2 - Kismet
CYNTHIA BREAZEAL: Kismet was groundbreaking because it was really the first. You know, Kismet kind of broke wide open the question of robots interacting in this very interpersonal, social, emotional way with people. For a completely autonomous robot, it was really the first of its kind.
Why did we try to pattern the robots on infants? Well, there's a number of reasons why we do that. One is simply from appreciating that when adults interact with infants and very young children, we adapt our behavior to that of the level of sophistication of the child in a way that helps the child understand us and interact with us.
We make bigger gestures; we make bigger facial expressions. We become almost cartoon-like in the way we interact with young children. It makes it easier, it turns out, for babies and very young children to extract what we're trying to communicate to them. So we leverage that in building these robots that are also very youthful in their nature because it helps simplify the perceptual problem for the robots.
And part of it is also just managing expectations, so having an adult interact with a robot that's not at your level, they kind of get the feeling of, oh, well this is just like a very, very young child.
Features that elicit the sort of nurturing response in adults are things that of course dolls and Disney characters and anime all possess. These really big eyes, kind of larger heads with respect to the body – it's basically sort of baby-like features. Beyond that then it's about behavior.
So a lot of our systems we actually don't do speech-like interactions. We tend to do more emotionally expressive interactions and focus much more on the non-verbal behavior.
[Audio: researcher interacting with Kismet]
Section 3 - The Huggable
CYNTHIA BREAZEAL: For something like the huggable, which is being designed to be this interactive Teddy bear, the goal is to make it a sort of invisible robot in that when you interact with this Teddy bear, you shouldn't think of it as a robot at all. There shouldn't be anything distracting about it in a technological sense that you often see in these robotic toys today. So there's so much that just screams, "I'm a machine, I'm a machine." We put a soft silicone skin underneath the fur so when you touch the fur you feel something that's much more sort of fleshy almost. We've put a lot of thought into the design of the mechanics and the actuators so you don't hear the gears gnashing and you don't feel the grittiness of the gears. It feels much more like muscles.
With my own children I appreciate very much how much of when I play with them and interact with them, it's a very physical, tactile process. I sit them on my lap, I'm stroking their hair, you know, it's not just verbal or visual. It's extremely tactile.
So how do you design a robot that can understand that emotional and communicative intent behind the way you touch it? The way the bear understands, as you hold it, the relationship of its body to yours—am I holding it this way, am I sitting it on my lap, is it facing me, is it not facing me, and always kind of appreciating where its body is in relation to my own. So this physical, visceral, full-body interaction is really what that project is about.
If you were to design a learning companion for a child, being able to take a Teddy bear like this and sit it on your lap and you can discover things together and it can look to you as if something, you know, cool happened. What we really want are these sort of robotic companions that really nurture the child's curiosity and exploration and have it be a very sharing-oriented interaction where you're really encouraging the child to use their imagination.
Section 4 - Raising Robots
CYNTHIA BREAZEAL: We always have wanted to say we're building these social robots to bring benefit to people's lives. Once you can actually get them to people's lives then you can really try to learn from those interactions, improve the technology. There's so much we still have yet to learn about how people are going to interact with these robots over really long term. Nobody's really done that yet.
How do we and other animals, how are we able to really learn from each other? How do you design robots that anyone could actually teach? If you want to design robots that anyone can interact with and anyone can teach, there's a really profound question about, "what is that going to be like?" Today, if you look at the way machines are trained or taught, it's by a specialist who labels extensive data sets or sets these robots in these sort of extensive training regimens that are not realistic at all for the real world, for what grandma or little Sally is going to do if they want to teach their robot.
When I'm with my children they have my complete, undivided attention. The amount of the parental investment, so to speak. You can't really appreciate it, I think, until you have children of your own.
If we're going to take learning seriously in machines, we're going to have to take experience seriously in machines, and how do you get the sort of long-term, rich, human-like experience into these machines? Well, they might have to be raised in this sort of environment. So it's a huge investment, yeah.
[Audio: children playing and laughing]
Section 5 - Human-Robot Friendship
CYNTHIA BREAZEAL: Do people really want robots that look like human beings? I think clearly in Japan where a lot of this work is being done, their culture doesn't have a problem with that. In the United States and in western cultures I think people would be averse to that idea. I don't really see the sense in doing that because robots are not human, they're never going to be human. They should be valued for what they are in their own distinct capabilities.
So can a robot ever be a friend to a human? Well, I mean, I guess the question is what do you mean by that? So is your dog your friend? Is your pet lizard your friend? What is the nature of that relationship? People definitely have emotionally kind of rewarding relationships with entities that are not human.
So yes. I mean, the short answer is yes. I think that it will be possible to have kind of human-robot friendships eventually, but I think robots are not going to be like humans, and I don't think they're going to be exactly like animals, but I think we're going to be able to kind of take lessons from both kinds of relationships and try to craft this sort of new relationship, the human-robot relationship so to speak. And that's – we have a lot to learn about that still.
Produced by
Susan K. Lewis
Edited by
David Levin
Emotion images
(child with Kismet, Kismet making faces)
Courtesy MIT
(Leonardo images)
Â© NOVA/WGBH Educational Foundation
(scene from Star Wars)
Â© Twentieth Century Fox
Kismet images
(Kismet and Cynthia Breazeal)
Courtesy Donna Coveney/MIT
(Breazeal with son)
Â© NOVA/WGBH Educational Foundation
(man with Kismet, woman with Kismet)
Courtesy MIT
(Disney store)
Â© James Leynse/CORBIS
Hugg


text:
The institute of positive education
About the Institute of Positive Education
The Institute of Positive Education (IPE) is a ground-breaking initiative by Geelong Grammar School, the first school to embed the principles of Positive Psychology into all aspects of school life.
The IPE's primary role is to deliver transformational educational programmes to promote wellbeing throughout the world. The IPE aims to teach students valuable life skills on which they can increase their learning capacity and build a successful and happy life.
In 2018, the IPE delivered 124 training courses comprising 208 training days, which were attended by over 6000 participants. The IPE's training team has a combined total of more than 150 years of classroom and school leadership experience and over 50 years of practice implementing Positive Education. The team consists of experienced teachers (primary and secondary) and qualified psychologists and researchers.
The programmes offered by the IPE are designed to have a meaningful impact on the future wellbeing of both educators and young people so that they can flourish and contribute to their world in more positive ways. The IPE's training courses allow participants to explore the key concepts and skills of Positive Education in a practical way and all content is supported by empirical research and are evidence-based.
About Positive Education
The fundamental goal of Positive Education is to promote flourishing within the school community. Around 160,000 young people aged 16 to 24 live with depression each year. While there has been some decline in suicide rates in Australia in the past ten years, suicide continues to be one of the leading causes of death in Australians aged between 15 and 24. With this epidemic of mental health problems, Geelong Grammar School made a commitment to its young people to take positive action to promote wellbeing in schools. Research is now beginning to show that Positive Education programmes decrease stress and anxiety as well as increase self-efficacy, self-esteem and optimism. Evidence-based Positive Education programmes are playing a crucial role in teaching the skills of wellbeing and promoting positive health for students. Positive Education provides strategies to get the best out of life's situations, from exercising resilience when facing adversity to using strengths when striving for future goals. A flourishing student is engaged in their learning, contributes positively to their community and nurtures many healthy relationships. Schools have a prime opportunity to impact the wellbeing of young people by implementing a Positive Education programme.
The Institute of Positive Education presents The Science of Achievement Conference taking place at the National Education Summit on Friday 30 August 2019.


text:
Disponível em: Springer
Autor(es): Rafael Chaves Lima, Lindiane Bieseki, Paloma Vinaches Melguizo e Sibele Berenice Castellã Pergher
This book details zeolites, their structures and the parameters that influence their synthesis, providing a new and actual perspective of this field. Following this, the authors show different processes used to synthesize zeolites using residues, natural materials, and other eco-friendly materials such as raw powder glass, clays, aluminum cans, diatomites, rice ashes or coal ashes. Finally, this book gives the reader a wide range of different synthesis methods that they can be applied to several industrial processes.


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Modifiers: unix format
Next to the name, you can specify a format code. With (gnu) "gettext()", you often see this:
 printf gettext("approx pi: %.6f\n"), PI;
Locale::TextDomain has two ways:
 printf __"approx pi: %.6f\n", PI;
 print __x"approx pi: {approx}\n", approx => sprintf("%.6f", PI);
The first does not respect the wish to be able to reorder the arguments during translation (although there are ways to work around that) The second version is quite long. The content of the translation table differs between the examples.
With "Log::Report", above syntaxes do work, but you can also do:
 # with optional translations
 print __x"approx pi: {pi%.6f}\n", pi => PI;
The base for "__x()" is the printi() provided by this module. Internally, it will call "printi" to fill in parameters:
Another example:
 printi "{perms} {links%2d} {user%−8s} {size%10d} {fn}\n"
 , perms => '−rw−r−−r−−', links => 7, user =>'me'
 , size => 12345, fn => $filename;
An additional advantage is the fact that not all languages produce comparable length strings. Now, the translators can take care that the layout of tables is optimal. Above example in printp() syntax, shorter but less maintainable:
 printp "%s %2d %−8s 10d %s\n"
 , '−rw−r−−r−−', 7,'me', 12345, $filename;
Modifiers: unix format improvements
The POSIX "printf()" does not handle unicode strings. Perl does understand that the 's' modifier may need to insert utf8 so does not count bytes but characters. "printi()" does not use characters but "grapheme clusters" via Unicode::GCString. Now, also composed characters do work correctly.
Additionally, you can use the new 'S' conversion to count in columns. In fixed-width fonts, graphemes can have width 0, 1 or 2. For instance, Chinese characters have width 2. When printing in fixed-width, this 'S' is probably the better choice over 's'. When the field does not specify its width, then there is no performance penalty for using 'S'.
Modifiers: private modifiers
You may pass your own modifiers. A modifier consists of a selector and a CODE, which is called when the selector matches. The selector is either a string or a regular expression.
 # in Object Oriented syntax:
 my $f = String::Print−>new
 ( modifiers => [ qr/[XX]/ => \&money ]
 # in function syntax:
 use String::Print 'printi','sprinti'
 , modifiers => [ qr/[XX]/ => \&money ];
 # the implementation:
 sub money$$$$)
 { my ($formatter, $modif, $value, $args) = _USER_;
 $modif eq 'X'? sprintf("%.2f EUR", $value+0.0001)
 : $modif eq 'X'? sprintf("%.2f GBP", $value/1.16+0.0001)
 : 'ERROR';
Using printp() makes it a little shorter, but will become quite complex when there are more parameter in one string.
 printi "price: {pX}", p => $pi; # price: 3.14 EUR
 printi "price: {pX}", p => $pi; # price: 2.71 GBP
 printp "price: %{X}s", $pi; # price: 3.14 EUR
 printp "price: %{X}s", $pi; # price: 2.71 GBP
This is very useful in the translation context, where the translator can specify abstract formatting rules. As example, see the ( GNU ) gettext files, in the translation table for Dutch into English. The translator tells us which currency to use in the display.
 msgid "kostprijs: {pX}"
 msgstr "price: {pX}"
Another example. Now, we want to add timestamps. In this case, we decide for modifier names in "\w", so we need a blank to separate the parameter from the modifer.
 use POSIX qw/strftime/;
 use String::Print modifiers => [ qr/T|DT|D/ => \&_timestamp ];
 sub _timestamp($$$$)
 my $time_format
 = $modif eq 'T' ? '%T'
 : $modif eq 'D' ? '%F'
 : $modif eq 'DT'? '%FT%TZ'
 : 'ERROR';
 strftime $time_format, gmtime($value);
 printi "time: {t T}", t => $now; # time: 10:59:17
 printi "date: {t D }", t => $now; # date: 2013−04−13
 printi "both: {t DT}", t => $now; # both: 2013−04−13T10:59:17Z
 printp "time: %{T}s", $now; # time: 10:59:17
 printp "date: %{D}s", $now; # date: 2013−04−13
 printp "both: %{DT}s", $now; # both: 2013−04−13T10:59:17Z
Modifiers: stacking
You can add more than one modifier. The modifiers detect the extend of their own information (via a regular expression), and therefore the formatter understands where one ends and the next begins.
The modifiers are called in order:
 printi "price: {pX%9s}\n", p => $p; # price: XXX123.45
 printi ">{t T%10s}<", t => $now; # >XX12:59:17<
 printp "price: %9{X}s\n", $p; # price: XXX123.45
 printp ">%10{T}s<", $now; # >XX12:59:17<
Compared to other modules on CPAN
There are a quite a number of modules on CPAN which extend the functionality of "printf()". To name a few: String::Format <>, String::Errf , String::Formatter , Text::Sprintf::Named <>, Acme::StringFormat <>, Text::sprintf <>, Log::Sprintf <>, and String::Sprintf <>. They are all slightly different.
When the "String::Print" module was created, none of the modules mentioned above handled unicode correctly. Global configuration of serializers and modifiers is also usually not possible, sometimes provided per explicit function call. Only "String::Print" cleanly separates the roles of serializers, modifiers, and conversions.
"String::Print" is nicely integrated with Log::Report.
This module is part of String-Print distribution version 0.15, built on March 14, 2014. Website:−report/
Copyrights 2013−2014 by [Mark Overmeer]. For other contributors see ChangeLog.


Professor James McCommons, author of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service, explains the history of political compromise that created Amtrak. Why Amtrak will always need public subsidies. Why Amtrak can't be profitable. Why so few Americans have used train service. When government stopped supporting the railroads. Why politicians attack Amtrak. What we […]
Cliff Schecter explains just how disgusting and stunning it is that Republicans are cutting Amtrak spending the day after last weeks Amtrak crash that caused several deaths. Why the Republicans are undermining the American economy. Why more Amtrak funding would have saved lives. Why increasing infrastructure spending would be a win for everyone. Obama pushes […]


text:
A new editorial in PLoS medicine suggests five ways how trust in publications can be reestablished:
First, editors themselves should recognize and declare their own competing interests.
Second, noncommercial interests held by editors, reviewers, and authors (such as personal relationships, rivalries, lobbyist activities) must be acknowledged and declared […]
Third, the issue of ghostwriting of scientific papers must be tackled, particularly when it involves studies on drugs and devicesâ€"the editors propose that journals develop detailed authorship policies in order to combat ghostwriting.
Fourth, mechanisms to control outcome reporting bias should be developed, including requiring copies of study protocols and comparing them against submitted papers.
Finally, editors should â€œ…base their decisions on the importance of the underlying research question, and not on the headline potential of actual resultsâ€ in order to prevent reporting bias.
So, that's a good starting point for editors – but what are the five ways to five ways for authors to reestablish trust in publication?


text:
Since a Red Flag Warning is rarely issued, many people are caught off guard about what it means.
A Red Flag Warning is issued when weather conditions become supportive for explosive fire growth. It is issued to prevent burning in a situation where a fire can easily get out of control. Three criteria have to be met when considering a Red Flag Warning, 1.) Sustatined winds just above the surface above 15 miles per hour. 2.) Relative humdity values below 25 percent. 3.) 10 hour fuel moisture below 8 percent. (10 hour fuels - stem diameter less than 1 inch).
This afternoon's forecast for the Interstate 75 corridor calls for southwest around 15 mph with gusts up to 30 mph, relative humidities between 20 and 25 percent, and 10 hour fuel moisture less than 8 percent.
The public should restrain from burning this afternoon to avoid potential wild fires.


Task 1 (Table) – Changes in modes of travel in England between 1985 and 2000
Describe the information in the table and make comparisons where appropriate.
Write at least 150 words.
Average distance in miles travelled per person per year
Model Answer 1:
The line graph delineates how the vehicle preferences of British changed over the time by comparing the average distance an English travelled using different modes of carriers in 1985 and 2000. Overall, cars were British citizen's primary mode of transportation and taxi was the least used mode of travel for them.
As the data suggests, an English travelled more than 6400 miles on an average in a year which was almost 36% higher than the distance an average Brit travelled in 1985. Car use predominated this total travel as more than 4800 miles out of 6400 in 2000 were crossed using automobiles and a similar trend was seen in 1985. Use of personal cars in truth increased over the time, as the data outlines. Reliance on buses was higher than train and bicycle use and despite an average 255 miles walking by a Brit in 1985, it decreased after 15 years.
Taxi was perhaps the least preferred mode of commuting as only 13 miles were travelled by a British using it in 1985 which, despite an increase in 2000, was ignorable. Train travel hiked in 2000 while distance travelled by British in local buses dropped. All other transportations contributed to 585 miles of travel by a Brit in 2000, an increase than that of 1985.
Model Answer 2:
The table data outlines transportation preference by British commuters between 1985 and 2000. As is obvious, cars were the most common means of travelling in the two mentioned years in the UK.
Interestingly, British did not use taxi quite often back in 1985 – only 13 miles per year was cut by every citizen which made the taxi the least common mode of transportation this year. However, this number increased to 42 miles per person in 2000. On the other hand, bicycles were one of the least used vehicles in 2000 covering only 41 passenger miles. It is clear that cars were still on top of preference among commuters, increasing from 3199 miles in 1985 to 4806 miles in 2000. Walking habits remained almost the same by British while the use of local bus declined. Each passenger travelled around 250 miles per year in trains and that rose to over 350 after 15 years.
In summary, the overall distance travelled by an English citizen went up from 4740 to 6475 miles in 15 years and the car was the primary means of transportation for them.
[Author – Malaa]
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text:
AudioQuest Husky Details
- Patented Dielectric-Bias System (DBS) minimizes energy storage in the insulation and the multiple nonlinear time-delays that occur
- Metal: Solid 5% Silver
- Geometry: Triple-Balanced
- Insulation: Polyethylene Air-Tubes
- Noise-Dissipation System: Carbon-Based 4-Layer NDS
- Jacket: Up to 5m, Black/Blue Braid
- Terminations: RCA or XLR, Cold-Welded, Hanging-Silver directly over pure Red Copper, with groundings
POLYETHYLENE AIR-TUBE INSULATION: Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation and circuit board materials all absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion. All of Husky's conductors use PE Air-Tube Insulation because air absorbs next to no energy, and Polyethylene is low-loss and has a benign distortion profile. PE Air-Tube Insulation causes much less of the out-of-focus effect common to other materials.
PATENTED DIELECTRIC-BIAS SYSTEM (DBS): All insulation slows down the signal on the conductor inside. When insulation is unbiased, it slows down parts of the signal differently, a big problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio. AudioQuest's DBS creates a strong, stable electrostatic field which saturates and polarizes (organizes) the molecules of the insulation. This minimizes both energy storage in the insulation and the multiple nonlinear time-delays that occur. Sound appears from a surprisingly black background with unexpected detail and dynamic contrast. The DBS battery packs will last for years. A test button and LED allow for the occasional battery check.
CARBON-BASED 4-LAYER NOISE-DISSIPATION SYSTEM (NDS): 100% shield coverage is easy. Preventing captured RF Interference from modulating the equipment's ground reference requires AQ's Noise-Dissipation System. Metal and Carbon-Loaded synthetics prevent most RFI from reaching the equipment's ground plane.
TRIPLE-BALANCED GEOMETRY: The three conductors in "Triple-Balanced" Husky cables ensure that whether prepared with RCA or XLR plugs, the positive and negative signals have equally low-distortion conducting paths. The 100% coverage shield is never used as an inferior conductor.
COLD-WELDED HANGING-SILVER DIRECTLY OVER PURE RED COPPER SYSTEM: This plug design enables a perfect heat-free connection between cable and plug. The connection between the plug and conductors is made using AQ's Cold-Welded System, which provides a superior connection that ensures that the structural integrity of the conductor is kept completely intact. The Cold-Welded System refers to a combination of high pressure at the point of contact and the use of copperor silver-impregnated paste. (Husky's silver conductors get silver paste.) XLR plugs are also available.
GROUNDING: Sometimes there is a hum problem unless the subwoofer and AV receiver (or surround-sound processor) are attached to each other using a separate wire. If your system has a hum problem, try attaching the little spade-lug tails to the metal chassis of the subwoofer amplifier and to the chassis of the sending component. Usually, this extra wire will not be needed.
|Sub Title||Subwoofer Cable with RCA or XLR Terminations|
|Shipping Offer||AUTHORIZED DEALER - FULL WARRANTY - FREE SHIPPING|


text:
4.2.1 Well Data Object
|For Standard||WITSML v2.0|
The well data object (Well) (Figure 4.2.1-1) is used to capture the general information about a well, which is sometimes called a well header. This general information includes identifying and legal information (legal name, license number, geographic location (country, state, county, region, and block), purpose (see enums), status (see enums) and more.
Additionally, the well has important related data objects related to its location including a well datum, well location and well reference point.


text:
SDN Mojorejo 1 Butterflies of East Java
the first step students must follow where does the butterflies lay their eggs. second, students must observe how long does the egg will emerge to be come caterpillars. third, students must observe how long does their stage in caterpillar and how does their shape. fourth, how long their stage in cocoon. the last, the students have to write their report.
SDN Mojoreo 01
to observe the complete metamorphosis processes of several butterflies which available around the school.
Lat: -7.92 Long: 112.55


text:
histrionic personality disorder
histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the american psychiatric association as a personality disorder characterised by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriately seductive behaviour, usually beginning in early adulthood. these individuals are lively, dramatic, vivacious, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is one of the most common found in the united states and effects 40% of inpatients, effecting more women than men by about 4:1 ratio. this disorder can easily be mistaken for immaturity, however a person with HPD does not simply grow out of this selfish state of being. you may perceive people with HPD to be very dependent, rude and demanding, shallow, and far from genuine.


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Even in Frigid Temperatures, Air-Source Heat Pumps Keep Homes Warm From Alaska Coast to U.S. Mass Market
March 9, 2021
When the north wind blows into Dillingham in the middle of winter, it can plunge well past 15 degrees below zero F on the remote strip of Alaska's southern coast. On these days, the oil heaters in many of the homes have to run pretty much nonstop to keep people warm.
As you walk through the small fishing town, perched on Bristol Bay's world-class salmon fishery, you can smell the acrid-sweet scent of wood-burning stoves. But one house stands out from the others: Located on the edge of the town, where spruce forest fades into an endless expanse of frozen, snow-covered tundra, it has no chimney, no fuel tank, no combustion of any kind.
Photo of a house surrounded by snow and trees
Tom Marsik's previous house on the tundra in Dillingham, Alaska, uses an air-source heat pump to warm the home, a building that won a world record for most airtight house. Photo courtesy of Tom Marsik
The air-source heat pump that Tom Marsik installed in his house eight years ago was rare for Alaska. Air-source heat pumps take heat from the outside air, run it through a refrigeration cycle to step up the temperature (just like your fridge, but in reverse), and deliver it to a building. Because they rely on "heat" from the outside air, they were not very common in subarctic climates. Yet, for five years, Marsik's heat pump kept his family warm even on the chilliest days of the year. Thanks to what researchers have learned from systems like this one, heat pumps are taking off in Alaska and other cold places as an alternative to more traditional heating systems like oil and natural gas.
"It's exciting because they are operating at lower temperatures than they historically have, which means they have the potential to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels in cold climates," Marsik said. "Helping to push the boundaries of clean energy and develop a sustainable future was important to me, especially in my own house, where we were raising our daughter."
Photo of the outdoor portion of an air-source heat pump
An air-source heat pump, such as the outdoor portion of Marsik's ductless heat pump shown here, takes heat from the outside air, runs it through a refrigeration cycle to step up the temperature (just like your fridge, but in reverse), and delivers it to a building. Photo courtesy of Tom Marsik
Today, Marsik lives in Fairbanks and is chief scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC). Though he does not live in an air-source-heat-pump-heated home anymore, he still spends a lot of time thinking about them, calculating runtimes and defrost cycles, remembering how he would come running downstairs when he would hear a new noise from his own unit, and researching how to make heat pumps work better for more Alaskans, who face a severe climate, lack of infrastructure, and energy bills five times higher than the average American.
Air-source heat pumps are part of a portfolio of solutions that can advance NREL's mission of making energy more affordable, equitable, and environmentally friendly. Their role, however, varies across the nation's vast topography of climates, natural resources, and housing types. NREL researchers are looking at how they can help people in cold climates, based on all of those factors and more.
In Alaska, the technology showing the most promise is a ductless heat pump, which includes an outdoor unit that absorbs heat from the air, and an indoor unit on the opposite side of the wall that delivers it to the room. Because there is no distribution system to spread heat throughout the home, ductless systems are well suited for the small, energy-efficient homes often found in Alaska.
"These are getting a lot of buzz largely because of the relatively low installed cost compared to other systems. Because they just blow air to an open space, you don't have to pay for the cost of a distribution system," Marsik said.
Photo of a large cold chamber in a laboratory
At NREL's Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks, Alaska, a cold chamber is used to evaluate how heating appliances and wall designs hold up in Alaska—including an air source heat pump study beginning now. Photo by Vanessa Stevens, NREL
Of course, there are unique challenges in a place like Alaska. While heat pumps have improved over the past decade, they are still affected by low temperatures: The colder it gets, the harder it is to extract heat, and the less efficient the system is. But just how much does their efficiency drop? To answer this question, Marsik's team is studying a heat pump inside a 20-below-zero test chamber in their Fairbanks lab. The study will also look at the effect of thermal loading, or the heat demand of the building, on the heat pump's performance.
"At very cold temperatures, the efficiency is getting relatively low, and at that point it doesn't typically make sense to use a heat pump anymore," Marsik said. "And it is often better to use other technologies."
Understanding the operating limits of heat pumps will shed light on how they can be expanded nationally. There is a much larger market for air-source heat pumps in the Lower 48, where cold-climate residents are also looking for affordable, cleaner ways to heat their homes. One benefit of heat pumps in less extreme climates is that they can provide both heating and cooling, with the simple switch of a valve. NREL researcher Jon Winkler is leading research to see how to get heat pumps into more of these homes.
The subset of housing he focuses on are those with central, forced-air heating—or roughly 35 million U.S. homes. These homes could switch to a heat pump fairly easily because they already have ductwork. The heat pump simply ties into these existing ducts, like a central air conditioner, to provide conditioned air throughout the home. In places with ductwork and high energy costs, heat pumps are especially attractive—like the Pacific Northwest, for example.
"They already have the ductwork, but they're using electric resistance heaters, which get the lowest possible heating efficiency. Installing a heat pump in these homes makes a lot of sense financially," Winkler said.
He is currently monitoring a dozen heat pumps in eastern Washington and Montana to gain a refined look at their efficiency. Similar to the Alaska study, Winkler is looking at how the efficiency of a heat pump drops in colder temperatures, and how to appropriately size a heat pump for a home. There is a twist, though: These heat pumps need to be sized to provide both the right amount of heat and air conditioning.
"So, for these homes, what is the optimal heat pump size from an energy efficiency perspective, a cost perspective, and also from a comfort perspective?" Winkler said.
Furthermore, how can heat pumps be combined with other appliances to provide the most benefit?
"Do you need to provide 100% of the heat with that heat pump?" Winkler said. "Or is it more cost-effective to provide 90% of heating with the heat pump and use an electrical backup resistance heater for those few days of the year it gets really cold?"
Photo of a researcher calibrating a cold chamber
NREL-CCHRC research engineer Robbin Garber-Slaght calibrates the cold chamber's internal thermostat by testing the chamber's ability to replicate Alaska's frigid -20-degree temperatures. She checks data from temperature sensors spaced throughout the chamber to ensure temperatures are even. Photo by Vanessa Stevens, NREL
That is what Marsik did in his Dillingham house, and what millions of other homes in cold climates could do, too. With the study's results to come, Winkler's project will create performance maps that show how heat pumps work in different regions of the country where consumers may want them.
While a growing market demand is driving NREL's research on heat pumps, it is not just about saving money for consumers, Winkler said. One critical piece of moving toward a clean energy economy is to electrify heating—moving buildings to the grid for heating and air conditioning rather than relying on appliances like oil boilers or gas furnaces. This allows green electrons—whether they come from wind, solar, geothermal, or something else—to provide thermal comfort as well as power.
"If we want to be purely renewable, we're going to have to electrify our home heating use," Winkler said, "and heat pumps are currently the best way to do that."
Learn more about buildings research at NREL and the Cold Climate Housing Research Center.
—Molly Rettig


text:
There are going to be two relays the ECM relay is what sends power to the coils in the pump relay. When you first turn the key on can you hear the relays latch in (click)?
Also you need to do a voltage check at the relays if you have voltage coming out of the relays check for it at the inertia switch then at the tank selector switch then at the pumps to see where you are loosing it at. Or you can start at the pumps and work you way back to the pump fuse checking for voltage.
Just remember you should only have power to the pumps for a couple of seconds when the key is first turned on. But you can put a jumper wire to ground on the data test plug to put constant power to the pumps to do the voltage checks