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Framework for scalable DeepLabCut based analysis including 3D tracking
Project description
Anipose is a framework for scalable DeepLabCut-based analysis. It supports both 2d and 3d tracking, handles calibration and processing all files within a group of folders.
The name Anipose comes from Animal Pose, but it also sounds like "any pose".
(NOTE: This is not yet ready for production, still some issues to fix to make the experience smooth )
Getting started
 1. Setup DeepLabCut by following instruction here
 2. Install Anipose through pip: pip install anipose
Input specification
Ideally someone who is collecting data should just be able to put all the videos into a single folder during a data collection run.
Different data collection sessions (e.g. on different days) are usually placed into different folders.
We'll need a config file to specify what to use for tracking and post-processing. However, it's cumbersome to remember to put a new config file for each new session, especially if the config doesn't really change from session to session.
It would be nice to be able to place a separate config file into each session though, to override the experiment config as needed.
It would be extra nice to reprocess the data if any of the config parameters change.
layout of folder for videos for 2d tracking
layout of folder for videos for 3d tracking
Example config file for 2d/3d tracking:
# Project name
project = "flypose"
# Change this to match deeplabcut folder (one with trained network)
model_folder = '/Data/Videos/DLC_Analysis/Running-Brandon-2019-01-29'
# How many folders are nested in structure?
nesting = 1
# Settings for a threshold filter
# Removes data outside threshold (probably errors in tracking), and interpolates
enabled = true
medfilt = 13
offset_threshold = 25
score_threshold = 0.8
spline = true
# labeling scheme...specify lines that you want to draw
scheme = [ ["head", "thorax", "abdomen"], ["thorax", "leg-1"] ]
Output specification
The output structure should match the input structure, with additional files resulting from the tracking.
The structure should be as follows:
Where FOLDER is a folder storing the output of a specific processing step.
It can be one of the following values:
 - videos-raw = input videos
 - pose-2d = 2d tracking for each of the input videos
 - pose-2d-filtered = filtered version of 2d tracking
 - calibration = camera parameters obtained from 3d calibration, along with calibration videos
 - pose-3d = 3d tracking for each group of input videos
 - angles = computed angles from 3d tracking
 - videos-labeled = videos labeled with the 2d tracking
 - videos-3d = 3d videos generated from 3d tracking
 - config = computed configuration for each session
Outline of processing plan
For each experiment, for each session
 1. Compress the videos into videos-raw
 2. Place the configuration files into config (based on defaults and session config)
 3. Perform the 2d tracking based on the configuration
 4. Label the individual videos with 2d tracking
 5. If 3d tracking is enabled
 1. Perform camera calibration
 2. Perform triangulation of 2d tracking
 3. Compute angles, if needed
 4. Generate 3d videos
Using the pipeline in the field
Ideally, there should be one repository with all the code, and the data is held separate. Each data folder should come with a configuration file of its own. The user should be able to invoke some pipeline script to process everything, and separate pipeline scripts for each step.
Perhaps something like:
anipose calibrate # run calibration of intrinsics and extrinsics
anipose label # label the poses for each video
anipose label-videos # create videos for each pose
anipose run-data # run only the data portion (no viz)
anipose run-viz # run only the visualization pipeline
anipose run-all # run everything (run-data then run-viz)
The program anipose should parse out the config within the folder, and figure out all the appropriate parameters to pass to the functions underneath.
Computing angle estimates
Although it's very useful to get 3D tracking estimates, we also need angle estimates.
However, not all angles make sense, it is up to the user to specify which angles she cares about.
This may be specified in the config.toml file as follows:
L1_CF = ["L1A", "L1B", "L1C"]
L1_FTi = ["L1B", "L1C", "L1D"]
L1_TiTa = ["L1C", "L1D", "L1E"]
The key above is the [angles] header, which specifies that whatever follows is an angle.
Next, each angle is specified by a name on the left, and by a list of 3 joints on the right.
Summarizing the data
After computing the whole pipeline for all videos, the final outputs of interest (the 3d pose coordinates and angles, possibly the 2d coordinates) are scattered across a lot of folders.
For further processing and analysis, it is often useful to have one central file with all the data. Hence, Anipose provides the command "summarize", which summarizes everything into a "summaries" folder. The output csv for each of angles, 3d, and 2d tracking coordinates has all the data from all sessions, and a few extra columns to show where the data comes from.
Configuring the standardized 3D pose
In order to properly compare across different trials, different animals, and different setups, the 3D coordinates must be standardized relative to a common reference frame.
Anipose should allow configuration of this by specifying 2 sets of points to use as axes, and which axes these should be.
The algorithm to determine the axes is as follows:
 - the first axis is taken as given
 - the second axis is orthogonalized with respect to the first
 - the third axis is the cross product of the first two axes
An axis is specified as a pair of points, with the axis going from the first to the second point.
Furthermore, it is often useful to set the zero to a standard reference point. Anipose allows this too.
An example configuration:
axes = [
 ["x", "L1A", "L3A"],
 ["z", "L1B", "L1A"]
reference_point = "L1A"
Calibration marker configuration
Anipose uses ArUco markers for calibration. They are superior to checkerboards in that they are more robust to blurring, rotation, and cropping. This makes them ideal for calibrating arbitrary camera setups.
In order to configure this, it should be possible to specify which ArUco board was used to calibrate the cameras. What should be configurable:
 - The type of board (ArUco / ChArUco)
 - the size of the board (number squares in X and Y directions)
 - ArUco marker dictionary (number of bits and number of markers in dictionary)
 - Length of marker side in appropriate unit (triangulation is set to this unit)
 - Length of marker separation (for ArUco) or square side (for ChArUco), in same unit
# aruco / charuco
board_type = "aruco"
# width and height of grid
board_size = [2, 2]
# number of bits in the markers
board_marker_bits = 5
# number of markers in dictionary (less is best)
board_marker_dict_number = 50
# length of marker side
board_marker_length = 4 # mm
# If aruco, length of marker separation
board_marker_separation_length = 1 # mm
# If charuco, square side length
# board_square_side_length = 8 # mm
Calibration: how to actually calibrate
TODO: Document how to calibrate cameras
TODO: Document where to place the calibration folder and how this is processed
TODO: document how to specify ROIs
TODO: provide example python/matlab code to automatically generate toml files
Here are some references for DeepLabCut and other things this project relies upon:
 title={DeepLabCut: markerless pose estimation of user-defined body parts with deep learning},
 author = {Alexander Mathis and Pranav Mamidanna and Kevin M. Cury and Taiga Abe and Venkatesh N. Murthy and Mackenzie W. Mathis and Matthias Bethge},
 journal={Nature Neuroscience},
 title = {DeeperCut: A Deeper, Stronger, and Faster Multi-Person Pose Estimation Model},
 author = {Eldar Insafutdinov and Leonid Pishchulin and Bjoern Andres and Mykhaylo Andriluka and Bernt Schiele},
 booktitle = {ECCV'16},
 url = {}
Project details
Download files
Files for anipose, version 0.2.1
Filename, size File type Python version Upload date Hashes
Filename, size


text:
view a plan
Want to make a Rainbow? This Experiment tells you how.
6, 7, 8
Title – RAINBOW ON THE WALL
By – Judy Schneider
Primary Subject – Science
Secondary Subjects – Science
Grade Level – 6 – 8 (adaptable)
SCIENCE PROJECT OF THE WEEK
RAINBOW ON THE WALL
PROBLEM: How can I make a spectrum (rainbow)?
RESEARCH: Look up visible light, spectrum, or rainbows in a science textbook or encyclopedia. Write two or three paragraphs on what you learned.
HYPOTHESIS: What do you think you need to do to make a rainbow?
shallow bowl of water
1. Use the protractor to set the mirror in the bowl at 30 degrees from the bottom of the bowl. Use clay or wax to hold the mirror in place.
2. Darken the room (or do the project at night).
3. Shine the flashlight toward the mirror.
4. Describe what you see.
5. Enrichment: On a very sunny day, spray the hose in an arc. Move around the spray until you see a rainbow in the spray. Based on what you have learned, explain why a rainbow forms in the spray.
DATA: Make a data table to record your observations.
CONCLUSION: This is not optional. You must explain what you learned by doing this activity.
Remember that you must answer the question you asked in your original problem statement.
NOTE: BE SURE TO HAVE YOUR PARENT OR GUARDIAN SIGNS YOUR WORK. PARENTS: YOUR SIGNATURE SHOWS YOUR STUDENT HAS DONE THE WORK.
POSSIBLE HYPOTHESIS: A rainbow will form on the wall when the light is shined into the water.
POSSIBLE CONCLUSION: The water acts like a prism and separates the white light from the flashlight into the colors of the spectrum.
E-Mail Judy Schneider!

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
An agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by gluing morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view. Agglutinative languages are the most common form of synthetic language, and are usually highly inflected. The name was derived from the Latin verb agglutinare, which means "to glue together".
The opposite of a synthetic language is an analytic, or isolating language. Synthetic languages which are not agglutinative are called fusional languages; they combine morphemes by "squeezing" them together, often changing the morphemes drastically in the process.
"Agglutinative" is sometimes used as a synonym for synthetic, although it technically is not. When used in this way, the word embraces fusional languages and inflected languages in general. It is also worth noting that the distinction between an agglutinative and a fusional language is often not a sharp one. Rather one should think of these as two ends of a continuum, with various languages falling more toward one end or the other.
As you can see, agglutinative languages are not entirely grouped by the family (although Finnish and Hungarian are related, as are possibly Japanese and Korean). Rather, convergent evolution had many separate languages develop this property.


text:
People With Low Self-Esteem Show More Signs of Prejudice
When people are feeling badly about themselves, they're more likely to show bias against people who are different. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, examines how that works.
"This is one of the oldest accounts of why people stereotype and have prejudice: It makes us feel better about ourselves," says Jeffrey Sherman of the University of California, Davis, who wrote the study with Thomas Allen. "When we feel bad about ourselves, we can denigrate other people, and that makes us feel better about ourselves."
Sherman and Allen used the Implicit Association Test (IAT)—a task designed to assess people's automatic reactions to words and/or images—to investigate this claim. In order to reveal people's implicit prejudice, participants are asked to watch a computer monitor while a series of positive words, negative words, and pictures of black or white faces appear. In the first part of the test, participants are asked to push the "E" key for either black faces or negative words and the "I" key for white faces or positive words. For the second task, the groupings are reversed—participants are now supposed to associate positive words with black faces and negative words with white faces.
Determining prejudice in the IAT is pretty straightforward: If participants have negative associations with black people, they should find the second task more difficult. This should be especially true when people feel bad about themselves.
But what psychologists don't agree on is how this works. "People were using the exact same data to make completely different arguments about why," Sherman says. There are two possibilities: either feeling bad about yourself activates negative evaluations of others, or it makes you less likely to suppress those biases.
In their experiment, Sherman and Allen asked participants to take a very difficult 12-question test that requires creative thinking. No one got more than two items correct. About half of the participants were given their test results and told that the average score was nine, to make them would feel bad about themselves. The other half were told that their tests would be graded later. All of the participants then completed the IAT and, as expected, those who were feeling bad about their test performance showed more evidence of implicit prejudice.
But Sherman and Allen took it a step farther. They also applied a mathematical model that reveals the processes that contribute to this effect. By plugging in the data from the experiment, they were able to determine that people who feel bad about themselves show enhanced prejudice because negative associations are activated to a greater degree, but not because they are less likely to suppress those feelings.
The difference is subtle, but important, Sherman says. "If the problem was that people were having trouble inhibiting bias, you might try to train people to exert better control," he says. But his results suggest that's not the issue. "The issue is that our mind wanders to more negative aspects of other groups. The way around that is to try and think differently about other people. When you feel bad about yourself and catch yourself thinking negatively about other groups, remind yourself, 'I may be feeling this way because I just failed a test or something.'"
For more information about this study, please contact: Jeffrey Sherman at _EMAIL_.
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Ego Threat and Intergroup Bias: A Test of Motivated-Activation Versus Self-Regulatory Accounts" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Divya Menon at _PHONE_ or _EMAIL_.


text:
Answer Garden is where you can "plant a question, grow answers". It's a feedback tool that can be used online, or it can be embedded within a blog. Creating an Answer Garden is very easy to use and integrate. You provide a question, or brainstorming statement, and your students provided the answer... in 20 characters or less. The answers are presented in a word cloud format. If the same answer is submitted multiple times, it grows larger.
Answer Garden can be integrated in many ways - for brainstorming, classroom polls, exit cards, open-ended questions... The possibilities are endless.
Please share how you'll use Answer Garden in your class.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


From the very first meeting, we provide our Kent clients with a thorough analysis of their potential legal issues and take the time to tailor a legal strategy based on their specific needs and desires. Additionally, we make sure to keep our clients in the loop throughout the entire process, so they are comfortable every step of the way.
Nearly 200 years ago, what is now the City of Kent was two villages known as Carthage and Franklin Mills. The town fathers renamed the village "Kent" in 1864 to honor Marvin Kent who, in 1863, was responsible for bringing a railroad through town that played a major role in the village's development. Kent was incorporated as a village in 1867.
Kent became known as the "Tree City" when, in the late 1800s, John Davey, an expert horticulturalist, planted hundreds of trees throughout the City. He also trained people in the caring of the newly planted trees. Mr. Davey later founded the Davey Tree Company which is still in existence today.
Today, Kent is the largest city in Portage County and according to the 1990 census, the population is 28,835.
If you are in the following zip codes, give us a call, we would love to hear from you!
44240, 44242 and 44243


Reinier Munguia releases an American Kestrel
A group of family and friends gathered this afternoon at Circle B Bar Reserve to remember Chuck Geanangel's legacy.
Geanangel, who died last month, was a local environmental leader, birdwatcher, educator, mentor and friend to many.
He was called "an apostle of the Audubon movement," someone "who did what was necessary," and as a calming influence duiring contentious debates.
A pair of American kestrels and a pair of Barred Owls were released back into the wild in his memory as the event's finale.


text:
Deep in the heart of Africa the Zambezi, which means "Great River", is one of the great rivers of the world. Its path cuts through southern Africa. Yet apart from the Victoria Falls most of it is unknown.
The Zambezi tells us in two parts the full story of its journey and the life that the river controls from the source in Zambia to the delta in Mozambique. The Festival presents Zambezi - Source of Life, the first part of this visually stunning two part series that follows the river from its headwaters to the thundering power of the Victoria Falls.
As the river ebbs and flows with the season, the Zambezi dominates the life of both the wild animals and the human cultures that depend upon its waters. The documentary shows the river through the times of rain and plenty to the dry months when its waters are the only source of life. Even though mankind now exploits its power, the Zambezi remains wild as are the creatures that depend upon its water for life.
From its gentle start in the uplands of Zambia, the Zambezi trickles south growing in power. Ancient rocks dictate its course as it thunders over the lip of the Victoria Falls: the waters of the Zambezi have travelled some thirteen hundred kilometers. At its delta the freshwater blends with the salt of the ocean. The long journey of this river mirrors life itself: the story of the Zambezi is the story of Africa.


For years, "customer centricity" has been a guiding principle for many support and service teams who know that building a customer centric culture is about much more than just saying "the customer is always right."
Yet these same teams also often struggle to make the benefits of true customer centricity understood and valued company-wide. Many companies operate under the false assumption that outside of service organizations, the interests of customers and employees are inherently at odds. In fact, there are many ways that you can benefit both.
New research from SurveyMonkey shows that companies with a customer-centric culture are significantly more likely to have employees who are more engaged and more committed to sticking with their job.
Causation is hard to prove, and our data doesn't show that customer centricity definitely leads to more engaged employees. But it does show that a customer-centric culture is intrinsically connected to job meaningfulness and loyalty.
For service teams dealing with exhausting attrition rates and challenges with leadership support, building a culture of customer centricity might be a step in the right direction.
We break customer centricity into three key areas:
 - Listening to customers
 - Understanding customer needs
 - Advocating and acting on customer needs
Every step is critical, each needs to be supported at both the individual and organizational levels. The work of every employee at a company impacts customers eventually, but the degrees of separation between can create disassociation. Companies with a customer-centric culture bridge that gap so that each person can listen to customers, understand them, and advocate for them -- regardless of their role.
A customer-centric culture amplifies the customer voice through shared channels and company experiences, so that everyone within an organization understands what customers are struggling with, what they love about the product, and how the work that company does ultimately impacts customers' lives.
It might sound abstract in concept, but customer culture is actually very measurable. (This free culture of customer centricity survey template can get you started.) If you can track it against improved employee satisfaction, attrition, and even customer experience, you have an incredibly compelling case for prioritizing customer centricity as an HR metric. SurveyMonkey's research uncovered four major areas that are positively associated with employee engagement, based on the data.
The 4 Pillars of a Strong Customer Culture
1. Each person feels empathy for your customers.
Customer empathy is a relatively recent, but deeply important concept. The Harvard Business Review indexed the 100 most empathetic companies, and reported that the top 10 "increased in value more than twice as much as the bottom 10, and generated 50% more earnings." That profit difference is almost certainly due to customer loyalty, but it's possible that having a dedicated base of engaged employees helped too.
SurveyMonkey research found that 76% of people who reported having high levels of customer empathy found meaning in their work. Among those with low customer empathy, that number was only 49%.
Employees who feel like they can connect to their customers' needs on a personal level seem to be more readily fulfilled. It makes sense: if customers are nothing but faceless complaints, there's nothing very rewarding about solving their problems. But being able to understand where your customers are coming from makes the necessity of your work much more evident.
2. Employees feel like your organization cares about customer pain points.
Individual empathy is great, but research found that having a sense of customer centricity as a community is just as important.
People who say customer satisfaction is a key priority for their company are almost twice as likely to say they plan to work there in two years than others (83% versus 56%).
In customer service, it isn't often that people forget the fact that customer satisfaction is a priority -- but believing that it is a priority for the rest of the company too could help boost engagement rates. Emphasizing your company's focus on happy customers tells employees that their work matters, and how it is part of taking the right steps to grow as a business, keeps the entire workforce rallied around common goals.
It's also possible that making "customer satisfaction" a more explicit company value helps elevate the work of your service team, and helps the whole organization understand the absolutely critical role that they play. Individual acknowledgment can play a major role in employee retention. Now extend that logic to an entire field (customer service).
3. Your people understand how their work affects customers.
In an interview with Forbes, Intuit CEO Brad Smith said, "Clear a path from work to customer... The best reward for employees is seeing the profound impact of their work on the lives of our more than 50 million customers." He's a wise man.
Seventy-six percent of workers who think their work has a large impact on customers find their jobs meaningful. Among those who feel their work has little impact, only 49% say the same.
Do your service employees get to see the results of their work play out? Do they have insight into the ways that their day-to-day tasks translate into a better world for customers?
It may seem like the path from work to customer is obvious, but knowing something in the back of one's mind isn't the same as experiencing it day-to-day. A hospital accountant filling out excel sheets doesn't necessarily get to see the patients benefiting from the medical supplies she's budgeting for. If she did, she might be more emotionally invested in her job. The same applies to answering tickets -- zooming out from what could become menial tasks to remind workers of their ultimate impact may give those tasks more purpose.
4. Your organization keeps customers top-of-mind.
The research found that employees who think about customers on at least a weekly basis are the ones who find the most meaning in their work.
Seventy-two percent of employees who think about customers on a weekly basis find their jobs meaningful, versus 58% of those who don't.
Consistency is important. Just like daily gratitude diaries improve psychological wellness, weekly reminders of who your customers are and why they matter could influence employee attitudes for the better.
How a Customer Centric Culture Prevents Customer Churn
Good customer service has become a major differentiator for companies across industries, but the cost of keeping up with the competition has created infamously high burnout rates. HubSpot's and McKinsey's research highlights the expansiveness of the problem:
"Although 58% of growing companies we surveyed prioritized the retention of customer support reps, we also learned that only 42% of customers support reps who responded planned to continue a career in customer success -- and just 19% of respondents with less than one year of experience planned to stay in customer success."
No amount of cultural change can compensate for insufficient pay or benefits. Much of the turnover in customer service is attributable to unfavorable work hours and conditions that are written into their contracts, and prioritizing customer centricity won't help with that. But for shaping the overall attitude of the workforce and instilling a sense of purpose and loyalty, an optimistic culture of customer centricity could work wonders.
Management experts say that meaningful work and a culture of purpose is more effective for employee retention than offering elaborate perks. Thoughtful, consistent expression of customer-centric values could help build that sense of meaning.
Many service organizations consider keeping customer service agents in their jobs the most pressing barrier to success. Reducing attrition can make a major impact on business operations and the success of service teams as a whole. Changes that support a more positive customer culture are accessible and inexpensive relative to the cost of losing good employees.
How to Build a Customer-Centric Culture
This article won't be able to do justice to the multitude of ways that you can build a customer-centric culture, or the depth of explanation that these programs require, but here are a few high-level concepts for ways you might build a stronger culture of customer centricity at your organization.
As you experiment, use the culture of customer centricity survey to test the impact of different strategies on your company culture.
1. Try customer interaction reports to bring customer service to the forefront, and give all employees more holistic insight into customer lives.
Customer interaction reports (or CIRs) are quick forms that employees from every department are encouraged to fill out after an engagement with a customer, which are shared with the rest of the company. They don't need to be completed after every interaction -- just the ones that strike the employee as notable.
SurveyMonkey's integration with Zapier can help you do this. Zapier is a "master key" that automatically triggers actions after surveys get filled out. In this case, Zapier can connect customer interaction reports with other software, like company wikis or messaging channels, so the results are broadcast as soon as they're in.
At SurveyMonkey, employees fill out a CIR survey and then Zapier automatically sends excerpts to company Slack channel (a business messaging app). People across the company can read what the customer said and how the situation moved forward (and have conversations about it with other employees). In addition to giving employees a structure that makes it easier to connect with customers, the shared results also help the company as a whole make better strategic decisions, with customer needs in mind (which hopefully makes service people's jobs easier.)
These reports aim to help employees feel connected to both to the end customer and to other employees. The company is unified by the good work that everyone is doing, and by putting themselves into their customers' various shoes. Seeing the diversity of pain points and successes that customers experience encourages employees to work together with those various goals and needs in mind.
2. Circulate social media customer "love notes" regularly to keep morale up.
You want all of your employees to know how much their colleagues in making customers happy -- and that it pays off. Elevating the work of exceptional service employees is a great way to show them the type


text:
Web edition: January 15, 2013
Print edition: February 9, 2013; Vol.183 #3 (p. 17)
Pregnant male pipefish have hormone swings
The first study to track a form of testosterone through male pregnancy in fish has found an unusual roller coaster of swoops and spikes.
Among pipefishes, seahorses and sea dragons, females produce eggs but males get pregnant, carrying the embryos. Even though pregnant male Gulf pipefish (Syngnathus scovelli) reverse common sex roles, tests show males still have more of the main fish form of testosterone (called ketotestosterone) than females do, Sunny K. Scobell of Texas A&M University in College Station reported on January 6. What's different in role-reversed pipefish is that male ketotestosterone levels vary, much as hormones do in females of other species.
For most of a male pipefish's 14-day pregnancy, ketotestosterone concentrations stay low, closer to female ketotestosterone levels. This dip allows for normal embryo development. About day 10 or 11, male ketotestosterone concentrations shoot up tenfold, presumably letting males ready sperm for the next mating, within a day or so of giving birth, Scobell said.
Wings have damage control for insect-sized smash-ups
Flying insects have their fender-benders, too, and so have evolved at least two alternatives to bumpers.
Yellow jacket wings have a dot of rubbery material called resilin toward the wing tip along the leading edge. The wing doesn't flex in flight but bends there during collisions, Andrew Mountcastle of Harvard University reported January 5.
In a lab test, wings with a natural resilin patch lost only 18 percent of the tip area when a yellow jacket was spun in a rotating cradle that bumped the wing tip area against a fixed surface for an hour. When researchers immobilized the rubbery spot (by gluing on a dot of polyester glitter), spinning yellow jackets lost about 80 percent of their wing tip area.A common bumblebee's wings don't have rubbery spots, but spinning them in the collider didn't cause damage as severe as in yellow jacket wings with a glitter-stiffened joint. Resilin might not help much in bumblebees because it would have to be six times stiffer to prevent flexing during their deep, fast wingbeats, Mountcastle calculated. Instead, he hypothesizes that bumblebees get crash flexibility from reduced wing veins toward the tip.


How Deep Are Gas Lines Buried? Everything You Need To Know Before Digging Your Yard
How deep are gas lines buried
Gas lines are buried at a minimum of 24 inches away from the ground, but this depth varies from region to region. If you plan to dig holes or trenches, call 811 in advance to have any utility lines marked. Doing this will help avoid mishaps that may affect public utility supply or cause accidents.
There are thousands of underground utility lines beneath our yards that might get faulty when we dig without caution. You can try and identify gas lines by yourself, but it is not recommended. You better be safe than sorry, and so it would help if you called beforehand to have utility lines marked for you. In this guide, we take you through some effective ways of locating underground utility lines before you dig. Read on!
When To Call 811 For Utility Marking
Here are some of the reasons you should call 811 before you dig in your yard for them to come and mark any gas or utility lines:
1. When digging post holes for putting up a fence
2. Creating your garden pond
3. Digging foundations for a garage or shed
4. Installing irrigation systems or drainage lines
Utility Lines That Require Marking Before You Dig
The call before you dig service does not mark some utilities such as security systems, landscape lighting wires and systems, lawn irrigation systems, and other utilities that were installed by private companies. It is also important to note that 811 only marks utility lines up to the initial connection point to a home. If these lines continue underground, 811 consider them your property and not theirs. Here's a list of utility lines that are usually marked by 811:
1. Natural gas pipes
2. Internet and cable tv wires
3. Electric service wires
4. Water and sewer mains
5. Telephone service wires
How To Find Utility Lines By Yourself
Finding utility lines by yourself is challenging and comes with high chances of failure. Different utility lines are buried at different depths, and sometimes, these lines are not marked. However, sometimes it is possible to find these lines by yourself though we do not recommend it. The easiest way to find utility lines is to find out where they start and end then find a route between those two points. For example, to locate a gas line, mark where the pipe joins your house from the street and mark this point. Next, find where the gas lines are connected to your house and figure out a straight line between these two points. Never try to probe the ground to find a utility line as it might be dangerous and costly in the long run. It is wise to call 811 to countercheck before you dig since this method is not conclusive, and the 811 marking service is free of charge.
How 'Call Before You Dig' Marking System Works
811 has been the number to call before you start any digging since 2005. The U.S federal government set up this number to alert regional services that locate underground public utilities throughout the country. In New England, this service is referred to as dig safe while in all other areas; it is known as 'call before you dig.' Here's a detailed step by step insight on how the process works:
1. Call 811 at least three days before when you want to dig/ this lead time may vary according to your region
2. Your call is directed to a central call center, and you are asked questions regarding the nature of your digging project. The call agent then reaches out and informs any public utility that might be affected by your digging to come and mark utility lines.
3. The utility company then sends workers to come to your facility and mark underground utility pipes or wires using either paint or flags. These markings have color codes that represent different utilities:
1. White: Proposed excavation
2. Green: Sewer line
3. Pink: Survey markings
4. Purple: irrigation and reclaimed water
5. Orange: alarms and communications
6. Red: Electric lines
7. Yellow: natural gas, oil, steam
8. Blue: Potable water
4. 811 markings are valid for one month since this paint may wash off over time. Ensure that all utilities are marked before you start digging. If for some reason, you delay your project for a month, it is advisable to call 811 to have the process repeated.
The free utility location service is amazing and free, but it also has some limitations. This service only marks utilities up to their initial point of entry. The service doesn't coordinate marking of utilities that were installed by private companies. In case you want to locate underground cables or pipes installed by a private company, you may have to call the company and part with a fee.
Key Points To Note When Digging Around Utility Lines
1. It is helpful to know the depth of different utility lines before digging so you can avoid them. For phone and cable lines, they are buried about 12 inches deep, water pipes are buried about 12 inches deep, but some are buried an extra 12 inches below the frost line. Natural gas and electric pipes have buried a minimum of 24 inches deep.
2. Once utility lines are marked for you, it is advisable to keep a distance of about 15 inches from either side of the marked lines. This is because the gadgets used to detect utility lines are not 100% precise
3. In case you bought a home with existing utility lines and you don't know their exact location, it is advisable to contact a private locating company. This will help you pinpoint the exact location of utility lines and plan your projects around that.
4. Be careful when digging and do it slowly to protect any lines that were not identified for marking.
There are millions of underground utility lines in our yards, and we need to be extra careful when we dig to avoid accidents or explosions. Knowing their exact location and depth is crucial in ensuring we are safe. Ensure you call before you dig to ensure you don't cut out public utility supply. We hope this information was enlightening and helpful to you.
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AirplaneOn average, in-flight medical emergencies occur about 15 times per day. When asked by flight crews to help in a medical emergency, providers have fairly extensive legal protection, and in some cases have a legal obligation to help [1]. In the U.S., all 50 states have some form of a "good Samaritan" law, which provides legal protection to medical providers who perform their services in response to medical emergencies outside the hospital. While these laws typically apply broadly to most out of hospital emergencies, in 1998 Congress specifically passed the Aviation Medical Assistance Act (AMAA) which offers legal protection to providers, who give assistance in the case of an in-flight emergency [2].
1. You should help if asked.
From an ethical standpoint, providers have an obligation to provide assistance when possible. In terms of in-flight emergencies, two conditions need to be met in order for the provider to be considered a volunteer under the AMAA.
 - The flight crew must ask for assistance. Responding to an overhead page of "Is there a doctor on board" meets this qualification. Providers who respond to an emergency without being asked to do so by the airline are covered under the AMAA, but are not typically protected by the airline.
 - The flight crew must make an effort to determine if the provider is a "medically qualified individual." The AMAA defines "medically qualified individuals" as anyone who is licensed or otherwise qualified to provide assistance including physicians, nurses, physician's assistants, and paramedics. The flight crew is asked to make a good-faith effort to verify credentials, which can include asking for proof of licensure. Airline policy will dictate what type of proof is required. Providing this documentation does not mean that you are acting in a formal medical capacity and does not compromise legal protections that are provided for volunteer responders [3].
2. You may be required to help.
The AMAA covers airlines that are registered in the U.S. Airlines registered in other countries may have broader coverage for providers. For example, airlines registered in the European Union and Australia go beyond providing protection and include a legal obligation for physicians to respond to in-flight emergencies. Generally the laws from an airline's home country apply while in flight.
3. You are protected if you help.
Typical medical malpractice cases refer to the concept of simple negligence, which means that a provider's actions departed from good and accepted medical practice. This is typically known as a deviation from a particular standard of care. The AMAA offers broad legal coverage to providers that respond to in-flight emergencies and protects them from instances of simple negligence. When responding to in-flight emergencies, providers are not held to any particular standards and are simply expected to avoid gross negligence and willful misconduct which refers to a "conscious voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." [4]
For example, if you are asked to perform a vaginal birth delivery on a flight to Hawaii, you are expected to make your best attempt to treat the patient, but you are not held to the same standard that you would be if the same situation occurred in your Emergency Department.
4. You can be thanked for your services.
In general, providers should not ask for financial compensation or submit a bill for their services; however, accepting a gift such as an upgraded seat in business class or even a voucher for a free flight should not compromise their legal protection.
5. You don't determine the ultimate disposition.
Most airlines partner with a health care agency that provides on-line medical assistance. When responding to an in-flight emergency, providers should work in conjunction with the airlines medical team. Decisions such as the need to divert the plane are complex as they involve logistics, which includes weather, fuel supply, and availability of a suitable landing area. A recent study of about 15,000 in-flight emergencies found that the aircraft was diverted in only 7% of the cases. In the event of a critically ill patient, providers should provide their best medical opinion in terms of need for immediate care, but ultimately the decision to divert the plane lies with the pilot and the airline [5].
Bottom Line
As the rate of air travel increases, emergency medical providers are increasingly likely to encounter an in-flight emergency. Providers have extensive legal protection when helping with these cases and should not hesitate to offer assistance when they are able.
 1. Stewart PH, Agin WS, Douglas SP. What does the law say to Good Samaritans?: A review of Good Samaritan statutes in 50 states and on US airlines. Chest. 2013;143 (6): 1774-83. PMID 23732588
 2. Aviation Medical Assistance Act of 1998, Pub. L. 105-170, Apr.24, 1998, 112 stat. 47, Sec. 5. Washington DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1998.
 3. Dachs RJ, Elias JM. What you need to know when called upon to be a Good Samaritan. Fam Pract Manag. 2008;15 (4): 37-40. PMID _PHONE_
 4. Gardner BA. Black's Law Dictionary. 9th Ed. Wellington, NZ: Thompson Reuters; 2009:1084, _PHONE_.
 5. Peterson DC, Martin-gill C, Guyette FX et-al. Outcomes of medical emergencies on commercial airline flights. N. Engl. J. Med. 2013;368 (22): 2075-83. PMID 23718164
This post belong's to Dr. Matthew DeLaney's series on Everyday Risk in Emergency Medicine (EREM).
Matthew DeLaney, MD
Matthew DeLaney, MD
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Assistant Medical Director
University of Alabama at Birmingham


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Suppose I pick $k$ integers without replacement from $\{1, \ldots, n\}$. Let $I$ be the value of the highest integer. A calculation with binomials reveals $$E[I] = \frac{k}{k+1}(n+1)$$ This is a very simple formula - does it have a simple calculation-free proof?
share|improve this question
Do you know some instance of calculation-free proof for the expected value of some non-constant random variable? I would like to see it. – Matemáticos Chibchas Feb 7 '13 at 8:22
In many cases, you can use symmetry or some clever conditioning to avoid heavy calculations. – pierre Feb 7 '13 at 8:33
You just said it: "heavy" calculations. This is OK, but no calculations at all? Besides, I agree that conditioning is clever, but it is based on the nontrivial subject of conditional expectation. – Matemáticos Chibchas Feb 7 '13 at 9:04
_USER_ - the answer by Henry below is what I would call calculation-free. – pierre Feb 8 '13 at 23:42
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1 Answer
up vote 4 down vote accepted
Picking $k$ integers without replacement from $\{1, \ldots,n\}$ involves breaking the interval $[0,n+1]$ into $k+1$ pieces where the length of each piece has the same distribution.
So the expected length of each piece (including the piece from the highest sampled integer to $n+1$) is $\dfrac{n+1}{k+1}$ and so the expected value of the highest sampled integer is $n+1 - \dfrac{n+1}{k+1}$.
Simple calculation will give your result.
So in general, the expected value of the $j$th sampled integer (counting from the bottom) is $j \dfrac{n+1}{k+1} $.
share|improve this answer
Sorry by my ignorance, but I don't get it: what is the "same distribution" of each piece? (I don't understand the expected length stuff either, but hopefully this will be cleared when I get illuminated about the "same distribution" issue) Thanks. – Matemáticos Chibchas Feb 7 '13 at 20:08
Very nice! But how do you show that are no "edge effects," i.e., that the length of the first piece has the same as the length of the second? – pierre Feb 7 '13 at 22:04
_USER_ Chibchas: Each length is a random variable with a distribution. Each of these distributions is the same and has the same mean. – Henry Feb 8 '13 at 7:35
_USER_: Imagine seating $k+1$ people round a table with $n+1$ seats: there are no edge effects in the gaps between people. Then cut the table where the first person sits and straighten it into a bench of length $n+1$. – Henry Feb 8 '13 at 7:39
Lovely. Thank you for this fantastic answer. – pierre Feb 8 '13 at 23:41
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text:
Sci Fi Science – Superbot by Michio Kaku
Robot Engineers at the University of Southern California have created a super robot that can recombine and reform to create a new machine. Can this invention be used to create an intelligent robot?
Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku
Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and… by Michio Kaku
Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos by Michio Kaku
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimens ion by Michio Kaku
Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century by Michio Kaku
Sci Fi Science: Seasons 1 & 2 by Michio Kaku
(1) How To Build A Light Saber:
Harvard University's Dr. Ron Walsworth uses cutting edge science and existing technology to show how we could build the most popular movie weapon ever.
(2) How To Blow Up a Planet:
Could a real life death star ever actually be built? Dr. Michio Kaku believes that an advanced civilization might be able to manipulate ray bursters and beam destruction onto whatever planet they liked.
(3) How to Build A Force Field:
Dr. Michio Kaku reveals how to build a real life deflector shield using components from cutting-edge experiments and theoretical physics.
(4) How To Build A Sci-fi Robot:
Learn how artificial intelligence is becoming reality.
(5) How To Build a Starship:
Dr. Michio Kaku sets out to design a craft that really can travel to the stars. He fires up Princeton University's plasma engine and visits the world's largest vacuum chamber at NASA's Plumbrook space facility.
(6) How To Explore the Universe:
Dr. Michio Kaku visits Brookhaven National laboratory's atom smasher where particles are accelerated to near light speed. Professor Miguel Alcubierre explains how Star Trek provided inspiration for a breakthrough equation showing how a spacecraft could travel at warp speed.
(7) How To Travel to a Parallel Universe:
MIT cosmologist Alan Guth explains his recipe for creating your own universe in the lab.
(8) How To Become a Superhero:
New technologies are rocketing superhero powers off the pages of comic books and into the real world.
(9) How To Teleport:
Teleportation is already taking place on an atomic level at the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland.
(10) How To Travel Through Time:
Professor Jeffrey Hoffman, the first man to spend more than a thousand hours in space, explains why the effects of time dilation make him a time traveler. Dr. J. Richard Gott at Princeton came up with a theory for time travel that uses cosmic strings-gargantuan threads of primordial energy that are left over from the big bang.
(11) How To Become Invisible:
Dr. Michio Kaku visits Japan where he tests out an optical camouflage cloak and meets its inventor, Professor Susumu Tachi.
(12) How To Build a Flying Saucer:
Meet cosmologist Alan Guth who believes that out in deep space we may one day find exotic monopole magnets. If he's right – our skies could be full of flying saucers.
(1) Earth 2.0:
Dr. Is it possible to transform a neighboring Planet into a second Earth? Space scientist Geoff Landis demonstrates how we could build floating cities in the gaseous atmosphere of Venus.
(2) Galactic Colonization:
Dr. Michio Kaku shows how the colonization of the galaxy could become reality.
(3) Deep Impact:
90% of the rocks in space are big enough to destroy civilization. To deal with the multiple threats, Dr. Kaku designs a laser equipped system to zap the space rocks before they hit us.
(4) A New Solar System:
Dr. Michio Kaku meets Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institute who identifies 47 Ursae Majoris as our nearest suitable star, where a new solar system can be constructed.
(5) Alien Invasion:
Dr. Michio Kaku explores what would we really do if a hostile alien race were intent on invading the Earth.
(6) First Contact:
Do aliens really exist? Dr. Michio Kaku thinks so. Find out how can he be so sure.
(7) Destroy the Death Star:
Dr. Michio Kaku talks swarm tactics with top gun pilot Colonel Rod Zastrow, who flew an F15 in the Gulf War, and reveals the truth about dogfights in space.
(8) Black Hole Odyssey:
Dr. Michio Kaku aims to sort fact from fiction and work out how to travel through a black hole and survive.
(9) A.I. Uprising:
We're fast approaching the moment when machines will be smarter than we are.
(10) Cyborg Army:
Could we one day build our own army of superhuman cyborgs to protect us from extraterrestrial threats? Find out how.
Seth Goldstein at Carnegie Mellon explains how programmable matter will mean objects can shape-shift at the touch of a button.
(12) Shapeshifting Transformer:
Dr. Michio Kaku is on a quest to build a real life shapeshifting Transformer. While doing so, he puts the finishing touches to his very own version of Optimus Prime.
The Best of Discovery Channel:
2057 (3 Episodes)


text:
Actually, working in Dreamweaver is what gave me the inspiration to write the "Count Your Words" article because I wanted to do a word count while working on an HTML document, but couldn't. So, today I'll explain a bit about Dreamweaver's configuration mechanism, how commands work, and how to implement and incorporate your own word count function. Then you'll be able to count the number of words you've selected or those from the complete document.
To follow the examples, you'll need either Dreamweaver or Dreamweaver Ultradev version 3 or later. Since all configuration files are simple plain text, you can just use Dreamweaver to make the necessary changes. You can download a free 30-day trial version at Macromedia's Dreamweaver download page.
Dreamweaver_Home/Configuration/Commands/ and are selectable via the Commands menu.
So, let's see what happens internally when you invoke a command by selecting it in the Commands menu?
When you select and open the Commands menu, Dreamweaver reads all the command files that are defined for this menu. The menu and its items are defined in a separate configuration file,
menu.xml, which is explained in greater detail in the next section.
To determine if a command is suitable for a document or its selection, the function
canAcceptComand() is called, and it returns either true or false. In case of the latter, the menu item is grayed out. If you want your command to be always selectable, just leave this function.
To receive arguments, the function
receiveArguments() is called. This function receives its arguments either from the attribute property of the selected menu item or from
dreamweaver.runCommand(), which is the calling function.
To create the buttons on the right of the dialogue, the function
commandButtons() is called in the next step. Here you can create a array of button text and action strings, which must be returned from this function. To make l10n easier, you can use one the symbolic variables defined in
Dreamweaver_Home/Configuration/Shared/MM/Scripts/CMN/localtext.js. You can leave this function if your own command doesn't depend on arguments.
In order to become displayed, the HTML document must contain a
form element. If it has one, the function
windowDimension() is called, which is expected to return a string containing a comma delimited width and height pair. If this function can't be found, the size of the dialogue is determined by the document's content.
In the last step, the functions defined in the document's body
onload event handler are called, just as in any other HTML document. Now the command is prepared and ready to work. After completing its task, it's closed by a simple
We created an example file for you containing the needed skeleton with all functions of the Commands-API.
Now, let's see how a command is integrated into one of Dreamweaver's menus.
DreamWeaver 4: The Missing Manual
Earlier versions of Dreamweaver stored its menu structure in a set of HTML documents. Beginning in version 3, the complete menu structure is stored in one XML file,
Dreamweaver_Home/Configuration/Menus/menu.xml. This file defines menubars and shortcut lists that are associated to the different Dreamweaver windows by their ID. For instance, the shortcut list and menubar of the main document window are identified by
So, open this file and search for a
menubar element with ID
DWMainWindow, this menubar holds all menus displayed in sequential order like
Edit, etc. in
menu elements. The name attribute of a menu element defines the name displayed. Adding an underscore in front of a letter causes this item be become selectable with the keyboard when selecting the menu via the "Alt" key.
Inside each menu you can find two different types of elements, either a
menuseparator element. Since menu.xml pretends to be an XML document (which it's not, as it lacks a document element), you have to take care to close those elements properly when you create new ones, i.e. use a slash before the closing bracket to create a well-formed element.
Creating a new entry for our command is a very straight-forward task. Use the Commands menu for this task. Search for the menu with ID
DWMenu_Commands. You're free to create a new
menuitem like the one below wherever you want inside the menu element:
key attribute creates a hotkey combination for the item. The
enabled attribute value to
false causes this menu item be become grayed out and unselectable. The
checked attribute can be used to add a checkmark in front of the item with an attribute value of
Make sure you create a well-formed document, and when you're finished, just save the file. In case you messed up
menu.xml, you can find a default version in the same menu,
menu.bak, which just needs to be saved over your edited file to restore the default behavior.
Dreamweaver_Home/Configuration/Commands/ folder as
In order to have Dreamweaver reload its configuration, you can restart the application. Much easier is the following trick.
Fortunately you don't have to restart Dreamweaver every time you change something in your configs. Simply open the objects palette (Ctrl-F2), and click the small triangle on the upper right while holding the Ctrl key (see Figure 1).
You'll find a new menu item at the bottom,
Reload Extensions. Selecting it causes Dreamweaver to read the configuration files again, and recreate all configurable items like objects, menus, commands, etc.
To work with the new command, just select it via the Commands menu, or use the hotkeys if they are available. To count all of the words, don't select any text and you'll get a count for the entire document. Otherwise, make a selection and call the command for a count of a specific area.
Copyright © 2009 O'Reilly Media, Inc.


About Wellness Corporate Solutions
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Top Incentives for Health Risk Assessment Completion
Often, companies struggle to convince employees to fill out Health Risk Assessments (HRA's). The HRA typically involves a series of health related questions which stubborn employees refuse to answer because of the time and effort required. In some cases, people worry that companies will use information against them down the line, but for the most part, employees are either unaware the HRA exists or prefer not to "waste their time" filling out a survey. To combat this resistance, many companies have begun incentivizing the process, offering cash or other desirable prizes for those who take the time to fill in their information, creating a baseline health report.
According to a 2010 study by the Healthcare Intelligence Network, top incentives for HRA completion are:
1. $25-$100 Cash
2. Lower premium/deductible
3. $101-$200 Cash/merchandise
4. Trinkets/T-shirts
5. $200+ Cash
Financially speaking, it makes sense that employers are more likely to offer $25-$100 cash than $200 as an incentive. It costs the employer less. However, research suggests less enticing incentives can be effective at garnering participation among employees and are more likely to lead to behavior change down the line due to innate human irrationality. Offering $1,000 cash to overweight employees who lower their body fat percentage over the course of a year might seem like an irresistible motivator, but emerging evidence suggests that when it comes to incentives, less is more.
The overjustification effect occurs when an incentive such as money or prizes decreases an individual's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. The main reasoning behind the overjustification effect stems from cognitive evaluation theory. This theory proposes that tangible rewards (like money) are perceived as controlling or coercive. Instead of acting as reinforcement, the incentive actually serves to decrease perceived self-determination and undermine intrinsic motivation.
In terms of HRA's, the promise of a large external reward ($200 cash) undermines any pre-existing drive within the individual to fill out the form. By comparison, we view a smaller incentive (like a t-shirt or key chain) as a nice bonus, but not as the full motivator behind completing the HRA.
With this in mind, companies can appropriately incentivize their wellness programs and maximize participation by taking these socio-cultural theories to heart.
Need help thinking up ways to effectively incentivize your wellness program? We'd be happy to help.
Jessilyn said...
i've also worked at companies that use negative incentives (ie. higher premiums if 80% of the company doesnt sign up)... and those were pretty effective too
Windwaterwine said...
Going to another pattern, Toyota doesn't offer separate incentives and gets lots of employee participation. The key difference is that Toyota manages by means, the doings, not by results. Japanese exercise progs are known. Another pro-active way would offer ergonomic gear such as stand-up desks and encourage stand-up and walking meetings.
Affiliated Physicians said...
Corporate incentives aren't always enough. They can encourage employees to change their behavior and get them started on the right path, but it is up to the employee to keep at it. External motivation will only take you so far.
Carol said...
These are really great incentives. Now it is up to the businesses to implement HRA's for their employees.


An ancient Earth like ours
August 9, 2010
The findings have been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA - and show that these belts were surprisingly like those of the present.
The researchers state: "The world of the ancient past had been thought by scientists to differ from ours in many respects, including having carbon dioxide levels much higher - over twenty times as high - than those of the present. However, it is very hard to deduce carbon dioxide levels with any accuracy from such ancient rocks, and it was known that there was a paradox, for the late Ordovician was known to include a brief, intense glaciation - something difficult to envisage in a world with high levels of. "
The team of scientists looked at the global distribution of common, but mysterious fossils called chitinozoans - probably the egg-cases of extinct planktonic animals - before and during this Ordovician glaciation. They found a pattern that revealed the position of ancient climate belts, including such features as the polar front, which separates cold polar waters from more temperate ones at lower latitudes. The position of these climate belts changed as the Earth entered the Ordovician glaciation - but in a pattern very similar to that which happened in oceans much more recently, as they adjusted to the glacial and interglacial phases of our current (and ongoing) Ice Age.
This'modern-looking' pattern suggests that those ancient levels could not have been as high as previously thought, but were more modest, at about five times current levels (they would have had to be somewhat higher than today's, because the sun in those far-off times shone less brightly).
"These ancient, but modern-looking oceans emphasise the stability of Earth's atmosphere and climate through deep time - and show the current man-made rise in greenhouse gas levels to be an even more striking phenomenon than was thought," the researchers conclude.
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Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank
Display comments: newest first
4.7 / 5 (3) Aug 09, 2010
This article mentions that the sun shone less brightly about 450 million years ago. What is the explanation for a fainter sun in the distant past? I am curious!
3 / 5 (3) Aug 09, 2010
Theories include:
1.) Higher greenhouse effect resulting in higher temperatures despite lower solar activity.
2.) Fewer clouds and land meant less sunlight was reflected out into space.
3.) Earth may have seen cyclic freezing and oceans freezing over as recently as 630 million years ago before the Cambrian explosion.
4.) Many other less accepted theories or a combination of those and the theories listed above.
5 / 5 (2) Aug 09, 2010
Thanks Trekgreek1 but this article mentions that the sun shone less brightly, I have also read this from some other sources. What I am wondering about is why the sun shone less brightly in our early younger solar system?
One would think a newly formed star would shine more intensely in its early life when its percentage of hydrogen would be at its highest.
3 / 5 (1) Aug 09, 2010
Hey Question, I believe that the 'evolution' of a star is based on the material that it is fusing to create the light at the moment in question.
4 / 5 (2) Aug 09, 2010
this is truly bad news for the earth's climate and the effects us humans are having on it.
5 / 5 (2) Aug 09, 2010
current events in Pakistan, Russia, and Europe point towards a catastrophic shift in accepted weather patterns. Here in Western Australia we have just had our driest winter on record, and the lowest recorded dam runoff amounts ever. Whilst we were having an imbecilic argument about whether or not it really was happening - it's happened!
5 / 5 (5) Aug 10, 2010
That is the way suns appear to function. As they age they heat up.
5 / 5 (1) Aug 10, 2010
Thanks for the two excellent links Ethelred.
5 / 5 (1) Aug 10, 2010
As stars mature they burn hotter and hotter as hydrogen fuel is spent and helium based nucleosynthesis becomes more and more common.
3 / 5 (1) Aug 11, 2010
Nobody claims climate change is not a fact! the question is what is the cause. I submit that we should admit our ingnorance. clearly i could walk
from location of london to the location of paris
ten thousand years ago and all of usa north of boston was covered a mile deep in ice.
weather observations are not evidence of climatic change unless they can be viewed in a 1000 yr. period.
5 / 5 (2) Aug 11, 2010
That's a ridiculous argument, po6ert. It's like saying "nobody claims evolution isn't a fact, we just have absolutely no idea about it, God probably did it all, and we really won't know for at least a thousand years."
By your definition, the average global temperature could rise 500 degrees and we would be unable to proclaim a change in climate until 1,000 years had passed.
5 / 5 (1) Aug 12, 2010
po6ert, normally you read the article, then post a response...
5 / 5 (1) Aug 16, 2010
Actually, climate is better understood today than just 5 years ago, thanks to new very powerful computers, and appropriate computer programs that are able to model climate.
That we are able to decipher the sparse geological clues to climate in the Ordovician, using fossil trace evidence, to the point where the positions of the polar fronts over time can be tracked is a major achievement.
Confining the upper limit to the carbon dioxide levels half a billion years ago -when the sun was measurably fainter than todayis a triumph that sadly may not be obvious for people raised with inaccurate descriptions of science in films and TV. Kudos to the team!
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text:
Real Numbers for a LEED for Homes Indiana Success Story
The Gulyas residence in Bloomington, Indiana was one of the first homes in Indiana to receive LEED for Homes Platinum certification. Through the use of passive house techniques and additional sustainable design strategies this project easily met and surpassed the criteria for LEED.
A home energy metric measuring energy per square foot calculation and spreadsheet was created by Allison Bailes III, PhD, to help effectively measure electric and gas usage in a house. AES used this spreadsheet on this project to help get an idea of how efficient the Gulyas residence is. The number of kilowatt hours per year for electric (no gas is used) at the Gulyas residence is 6,675, which averages to 556.25 kilowatt hours per month. The cost per year in 2011 was $960.07, averaging to $80.011 per month for all energy heating, cooling & electricity. The spreadsheet also contains a helpful key which describes the efficiency of the house in terms of kilowatt hour per square foot per year. Anything less than 5 is considered "super-efficient" and anything above 20 is considered an "energy hog." The Gulyas residence uses 4 kilowatt hours per square foot per year, describing it as super-efficient. Click here for Gulyas' actual electric bill for the past two years.
In terms of water use, AES contacted the City of Bloomington Utilities Department to find out the average water use per household in the city. Each person uses approximately 2,500 gallons of water per month, which equals 2.5 units (1,000 gallons equals 1 unit). This means that the average 2-person household uses 5 units of water per month, which is substantially higher than the Gulyas residence, which uses approximately 2 water units per month. Click here to view the Gulyas residence water bill for the past two years.
The Gulyas house is still a work in progress. Gulyas prioritized energy conservation technologies in the envelope design of the house, and integrated a separate ducted ERV system for exceptional air quality and energy conservation. He also plans to install a low voltage cable lighting system throughout the open areas of the house, which will have high output 12v LED mr16s. The new products have a very high color rendition index (CRI) in a variety of color temperatures, making it realistic to create very high quality lighting design while using a fraction of the energy of halogen (8-9 watts per lamp would be used as opposed to 50 watts). Gulyas would also like to implement rainwater harvesting system, as well as a photovoltaic and/or solar thermal system.
In summary, the statistics regarding the Gulyas residence are impressive. He has implemented a variety of energy saving approaches and is looking toward the future to implement additional technologies to create a home that is even more efficient. Stay tuned to find out what new developments take place as the Gulyas house progresses.
Read more on the project profile here.
This post originally appeared on the Alliance for Environmental Sustainability website.
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text:
Thinking With Pigs
Certain animals, as the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss explained in his study of totemism, are good for thinking with (Totemism, 1963). Here are a collection of quotations from individuals, both eminent and obscure, that use pigs in their speech.
In our thoughts and words, pigs are generous figures of speech. They freely lend their intrinsic nature to us for simile and metaphor, hyperbole and idiom. Pigs are also handy to use in personification or in analogy and allegory. And pigs are certainly good for swearing.
The thought of 'pig' in all its attendant meanings is an indispensable element of language in every culture that has encountered the pig. Handy and useful, 'pig' augments the meaning of many concepts — appearance, attitude, behavior, food and even currency.
Throughout the pig's association with man, their use to think and speak with has farrowed ideas and images as fit for a reflective pig as for a man to consider. Many within our swinish multitude have seen fit to utilize the pig in thoughts and words and our world is far richer for it.


Data Blocks «Prev
Database Module summary
This module discussed how to store data in data blocks for best access by setting the right number of freelists, and proper values for PCTFREE and PCTUSED. The main points of this module include:
 1. Oracle databases generally perform faster with large blocksizes, especially index accesses.
 2. Large blocks mean that more RAM storage must be available in the db_block_buffers.
 3. Space is reserved on blocks by using the PCTFREE table parameter.
 4. Only one table or index type may inhabit a data block.
 5. The first data block of a table or index is called the segment header.
 6. The segment header contains control information about free blocks, extents, and high water marks.
 7. The high water mark for a table gives the highest blocks that have been used to store rows.
 8. The high water mark can only be lowered by a table reorganization.
 9. Full-table scans will always read up to the high water mark, even if the space is completely empty.
 10. The PCTUSED parameter should be set to a low value for high performance.
 11. The PCTFREE parameter should be set so that chained rows occur infrequently.
 12. An index may warrant rebuilding if it has spawned to more than 4 levels, if the block gets per access is greater than 5, of where there are many deleted leaf rows.
Test with Large Volumes of Data
As described earlier in this module, objects within the database function differently after they have been used for some time. For example, a table's pctfree and pctused settings may make it likely that blocks will be only half-used or rows will be chained. Each of these scenarios causes performance problems that will only be seen after the application has been used for some time.


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The Eagle and the Wolves Summary and Analysis
FreeBookNotes found 2 sites with book summaries or analysis of The Eagle and the Wolves. If there is a The Eagle and the Wolves SparkNotes, Shmoop guide, or Cliff Notes, you can find a link to each study guide below.
Among the summaries and analysis available for The Eagle and the Wolves, there are 1 Short Summary and 1 Book Review.
Depending on the study guide provider (SparkNotes, Shmoop, etc.), the resources below will generally offer The Eagle and the Wolves chapter summaries, quotes, and analysis of themes, characters, and symbols.


How do I resize an object in Boardmaker Studio?
 1. Select the object.
 2. Move the cursor over any edge or corner of the object until a double arrow appears.
 3. Click and drag the edge or corner until the object is the desired size.
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As we understand that the assessments are a vital part in improving the students' aptitude skills, We are offering the students a Interactive, learning-centric, user-friendly, robust test taking platform which gives immediate, insightful performance report with detailed explanation. We have experienced a huge improvement in the students aptitude skills after we expose them with the Online Assessment System. Few of the advantages are:
- High quality tests offered with varied difficulty levels.
- Instant results for the students with in-depth analysis.
- Explanatory answers given for each question immediately after finishing the test.
- Varieties of customized reports possible can be taken out of the system to understand the need for each student. Accordingly our training programs are tailor made.
- Since many recruiters are now offering the aptitude tests electronically, using this format for the assessments offer them a good experience in such environments.


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Editor's Pick (1 - 4 of 8)
Facility Management is a Sector Ripe for Digital Disruption
By Donald Macdonald, Director, Macdonald Lucas
- The elimination of laborintensive activities that add no value to the FM process; • Efficient interfacing of FM related IT systems; • Better analysis of how asset populations perform and deteriorate in situ; and, • The ability to optimize whole of life asset costs by better understanding the interrelationship between planned maintenance, reactive maintenance, and life cycle replacement. Macdonald Lucas has been privileged to work on two current FM initiatives that are truly digitally disruptive. IoT Initiative A major FM contract for FIFO villages (fly in fly out accommodation for itinerant workers in the utilities industry) in remote Australia saw the deployment of over 17,000 IoT sensors to bedrooms and common areas. These devices ensured the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems ran optimally. Consequently, utilities consumption and wear and tear was minimized, risk of asset failure reduced and asset life extended. Monitoring asset performance for issues like overheating and excessive vibration enabled a shift from planned maintenance to a condition-based maintenance model with maintenance carried out when required rather than in response to a strict calendar of activities. The same contract, saw air conditioning, triggered by environmental measures like ambient temperature and relative humidity, being automatically switched on or off as appropriate when rooms were empty. This negated risks like mould growth, condensation and similar. As it was included in the tender price the initiative was affordable, and being a new contract there was no cost of change. Also, competitive tension favoured it. This was because the remote, distributed, disaggregated portfolio being serviced made it a more cost-effective model than the more traditional laborintensive ones proposed by the competition. This initiative may be considered disruptive as it eliminated expensive labourintensive asset maintenance activities that are currently the bedrock of most FM contracts and it leveraged technology to optimise asset performance. Life Cycle Modelling A significant FM challenge is accurate budgeting for life cycle works (asset replacement at the end of design life) e.g. failed boilers, pumps, and air conditioning units. Life cycle modeling typically uses deterministic, linear modelling which is an inaccurate method of predicting asset failure. An Australian university has developed a web enabled life cycle estimating tool that uses probabilistic statistical analytical techniques including Markov Chain, Monte Carlo, and genetic algorithms to calculate degradation curves that model far more accurately asset life. These curves are applied at individual asset level and become more accurate over time as data regarding changing asset condition is periodically uploaded. A sample degradation curve Reasons why this work is digitally disruptive include: • By working with the tertiary education sector, whose core business is innovation, the limitations imposed by constrained R&D budgets has been broken; • A methodology to accurately model asset deterioration has been developed; and, • The ability to accurately model the whole of life costs is now one step closer. Conclusion These two projects send a clear message to the wider FM industry. Service providers that lock themselves into old fashioned models and to methods that are constrained by the limitations of current contracts, do so at their peril. They risk going the same way as other victims of digital disrupters, as more innovative thinkers enter the industry.


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Mexico scrambles to cope with egg shortage
A city worker sells eggs at government subsidized prices as people line up outside the city truck in Mexico City, Friday, Aug. 24, 2012. The Mexican government is battling an egg shortage and hoarding that have caused prices to spike in a country with the highest per-capita egg consumption on earth. About 11 million chickens were slaughtered after a June outbreak of bird flu. / AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini
(AP) MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government is battling an egg shortage and hoarding that have caused prices to spike in a country with the highest per-capita egg consumption on Earth.
A summer epidemic of bird flu in the heart of Mexico's egg industry has doubled the cost of a kilo (2.2 pounds), or about 13 eggs, to more than 40 pesos ($3), a major blow to workingand middle-class consumers in a country that consumes more than 350 eggs per person each year. That's 100 more eggs per person than in the United States.
Egg prices have dominated the headlines here for a week, spurring Mexico City's mayor to ship tons of cheap eggs to poor neighborhoods and the federal government to announce emergency programs to get fresh chickens to farms hit by bird flu and to restock supermarket shelves with eggs imported from the U.S. and Central America.
The national dismay over egg prices has revealed the unappreciated importance of a cheap, easy source of protein that's nearly as important to Mexican kitchens as tortillas, rice and beans. Added boiled to stewed chicken, raw to a fruit-juice hangover cure and in every other conceivable form to hundreds of other foods, the once-ubiquitous egg has disappeared from many street-side food stands and middle-class kitchens in recent days.
"Eggs, as you know, are one of Mexicans' most important foods and make up a core part of their diet, especially in the poorest regions of the country," President Felipe Calderon said Friday as he announced about $227 million in emergency financing and commercial measures to restore production and replace about 11 million chickens slaughtered after the June outbreak of bird flu.
Calderon said he was sending inspectors to stop speculation that he blamed for high egg prices, which have almost single-handedly driven up the national rate of inflation.
He said that the government had already begun large-scale importation of eggs and that about 3 million hens were being sent to farms hit by the flu outbreak.
The Mexico City government has sent a refrigerated trailer-truck of eggs into working-class neighborhoods over the last three days, selling kilo packets for less than half the current market price. Several thousand people lined up for about two hours Friday morning to buy eggs from the truck in southeastern Mexico City's Iztacalco neighborhood.
Isidro Vasquez Gonzalez, an unemployed 43-year-old cook, waited with his niece and nephew to buy three kilos of eggs that they said they would eat almost immediately in a lunch of meatballs with chopped eggs.
"You can make eggs with anything scrambled eggs, with pork rinds, eggs with beans, green chiles, poached eggs, green beans with eggs, eggs with tomato sauce, " Vazquez said, with a wistful look in his eyes. "People here eat a lot of eggs. They were the cheapest, but now they're the most expensive. They're more expensive than meat."
The crisis began with the June detection of bird flu in the western state of Michoacan, which produces roughly half of Mexico's eggs. Some 11 million birds were killed to prevent the spread of the disease, sharply cutting into the national supply of more than 2 million tons of eggs a year.
Government officials blame speculators in the wholesale egg business for driving up prices beyond the hike resulting from bird flu.
After existing stocks of eggs ran out, prices rose sharply in August.
"Eggs are what we eat the most these days," said Gertrudis Rodriguez, 68. But with the higher prices, she said, "if we eat beans, we don't eat eggs, or if we eat eggs, we don't eat beans with them."
Mexico City's public Food Supply Center, which provides government-subsidized fresh food to low-income residents, dropped other ingredients from its truck this week in favor of eggs, and will distribute 18 tons by the time its current stocks run out Monday, director-general Raymundo Collins said.
Calderon said more than 150 tons of eggs had already crossed the border from the U.S. and 100 trailers carrying 500 more tons would arrive in the country over the weekend.
"The federal government will keep using every tool in its power to keep family's quality of life from being eroded by unfair increases in the price of eggs," the president said.
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As the leaves turn, children of all ages begin their quest for a Halloween costume. If you're like most parents, this typically requires thinking ahead and spending more than $25 for each costume.
With many families continuing to feel the economic pinch, an average of 18.9 percent of consumers will make costumes instead of purchasing them this year. What to do if you're not an expert sewer or crafter? Here are some DIY ideas from the experts.
Needed: Gray sweat suit, one long aluminum dryer hose, two rectangular disposable foil pans, baseball cap, foil, colored markers, ribbon.
1. The foundation is a long-sleeve sweatshirt or undershirt and grey sweatpants.
2. Cut aluminum dryer hose in four parts. Place one on each leg over sweatpants for the legs. For arms, use ribbon attached to the hose with a stapler to connect the other two pieces across the child's back. Put on like a coat, one arm at a time.
3. Attach the two disposable foil pans with ribbons close to the corners, making sure there's enough space so it can go over the child's head like a sandwich sign.
4. Have your child use markers to create "robot" buttons and knobs on the foil pans.
5. Wrap a baseball cap with foil and use as the robot's hat.
Needed: long-sleeved T-shirt and leggings in pink or any favorite color, poster or foam board in matching color, ribbon, tissue paper in coordinating colors, assorted embellishments, such as beads, glitter pens, rhinestones, hair band, pipe cleaners, hot glue gun or other adhesive.
1. The foundation is the T-shirt and leggings.
2. Draw (find an easy stencil online or free-hand it) large wing shapes on poster or foam board and cut them out.
3. Involve your child in decorating the wings. Make sure you plan the design before you start gluing.
4. Use ribbon to tie the wings together and to create backpack-style straps to hold them on the child's shoulders.
5. Use additional poster board to create a belt to go around your child's waist. Cut tissue paper in triangles and staple to the belt, overlapping at the top and with pointed ends down, to create a skirt. Decorate the head band and attach the pipe cleaners.
With a little imagination and patience, you can create unique Halloween costumes with your child and have fun, too! Finally, remember to take plenty of pictures!


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Solid Wood Panels
A Solid Wood Panel (SWP) is a method of construction that uses timber to form load-bearing solid timber wall, floor and roof panels. Structural openings, such as doors and windows, are incorporated within the panels. In many cases only insulation and cladding is added to the external face to achieve high standards of thermal performance.
The methodology of layering, stacking and fastening softwood boards to create panels is what differentiates the members of the SWP family. The more common cross-laminated panels are characterised by placing and gluing boards across each other in layers; Another, visually distinctive, technique is to assemble a solid panel through gluing or dowelling together a series of timber 'posts'.
Panels are commonly fabricated up to around 4m in width and 15m in height (dimensions are restricted by road transport requirements), according to technique and manufacturer. The panels can be assembled to create most types of building including housing, which at Murray Grove in London reaches a record nine storeys.
The traditional key advantages of prefabricated components are speed, efficiency and precise tolerances. SWPs tick-off these features and combine them with attractive environmental and energy-efficient attributes such as use of a renewable resource, carbon sequestration, low waste, relatively low embodied energy and an inherent high standard of airtightness.
Though most SWPs are currently manufactured along a timber strip running through Austria, Germany and Switzerland, in the UK efforts are underway to create a home-grown industry to supply the growing number of projects being built using this technology.
The panels are made with softwood species that are usually in the C16 to C24 range but can be found in glulam grades. Face grades can be specified depending on the end use and visual appearance needed (standard, interior residential visible or industrial visible).
Solid wood panels are available for use in dry, humid and exterior situations (service class 1, 2 or 3) and will use adhesive suitable for passing the durability tests to meet the requirements for the desired end use.
Softwood strips are formed into panels, these panels are glued together in a press that covers the whole panel.
Cross laminated panels can be used for both structural and non-structural applications, usually walls, floors or roofs, lift shafts or stairs. The panels can be made with all the doors and windows or service runs already cut out before transporting to site.
SWP products on GreenSpec
GreenSpec accepts no responsibility or liability for any damages or costs of any type arising out of or in any way connected with your use of this web site. Data and information is provided for information purposes only, and is not intended for trading purposes. Neither GreenSpec nor any of its partners shall be liable for any errors in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


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Utah environmental legal requirements are generally found in three places:
Statutes are laws passed by the Utah Legislature and, usually, signed by the Governor. Utah statutes usually provide general guidance about control of pollutants and about how DEQ should implement a program. The activities of each division are governed by at least one statute. The work of the Division of Water Quality, for example, is governed by the Utah Water Quality Act, Utah Code Annotated Sec. 19-5-101 through 124. References to sections of Utah statutes will look like one of the following:
- Utah Code Annotated Sec. 19-2-114
- Utah Air Conservation Act Sec. 19-2-114
- Utah Air Conservation Act, Sec. 114
Utah environmental statutes may be found on the Utah State Legislature's Website.
Rules are laws created by agencies, using authority given to them by statutes. Rules are usually more specific than statutes. References to sections of Utah rules will look like one of the following:
- Utah Admin. Code R315-8-6
- Solid and Hazardous Waste Rules, R315-8-6
Utah environmental rules may be found on the Division of Administrative Rules Website.
To make rules, an agency must have authority under its governing statute and must follow the procedures in the Utah Rulemaking Act, found on the Utah State Legislature's Website.
Licenses and Permits
Licenses and permits contain requirements that bind licensees and permittees. These documents may sometimes be found online; any license or permit is also available for review at DEQ. If you'd like to review a license or permit, it is very helpful to call the agency before coming in.


Serious Game Classification
The Adventures of Valdo & Marie Ubi Soft Entertainment Software (France), Ubi Soft Entertainment Software (France), 1997
Informations Analyses Discussion
Besides play, this title features the following intents:
 - Licensed title
 - Educative message broadcasting
This title is used by the following domains:
 - Entertainment
 - Education
This title targets the following audience:
General Public
The gameplay of this title is Game-based
(designed with stated goals)
The core of gameplay is defined by the rules below:
Similar games
The Adventures of Valdo & Marie The Adventures of Valdo & Marie is an educational game for kids. The player takes the role of Valdo who is aboard a 16th century Portuguese ship heading for Japan. On the journey, they will explore exotic lands and deal with pirates, sharks, and storms. The main objective of the game is to gather the scattered pieces of a treasure map and reveal a mysterious adventure.
Most of the gameplay consists of the usual adventure activities: searching the environment, collecting items and solving puzzles. Most of them are of the classic item based kind but there are also a few dialogue and logic puzzles. Additionally the player has to solve a few action based mini games, e.g. a Soko-Ban or a Lemmings variant. It is possible to bypass some puzzles entirely which has a impact later in the game: either getting stuck without the possibility of going back or receiving another of the nine endings.
The educational part of the game consists mostly of the historically accurate foundation of the story and the environment. There are also many additional information in text form to read. Some puzzles require this knowledge to be solved, e.g. about ship speed. [source:mobygames]
Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : PC (Windows)


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It's a widely held misconception that horses aren't affected by sleep deprivation. Most require at least four hours of slumber, including about 60 minutes of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, during a 24-hour period. If a horse misses out on sleep for several days, he can become so exhausted that he literally falls asleep on his feet, collapsing.
Sleep deprivation is often confused with narcolepsy, a rare neurological disorder that produces excessive sleepiness, but it is usually much easier to remedy. Take the following steps to ensure your horse gets sufficient sleep each day:
Turn off the lights. Horses who are used to falling asleep outside in the darkness may have trouble snoozing if they're moved to brightly lit stalls. They can eventually adapt to brighter conditions---broodmares kept under artificial light for extended periods of time show few adverse effects---but they will be sleepy until they do.
Provide ample bedding. REM sleep can be achieved only when the horse is lying flat out or in sternal recumbency with his nose resting on the ground. You can encourage your horse to get off his feet by making the floor more comfortable. In one study, horses were more likely to lie down in a stall deeply bedded with shavings.
Keep it quiet. Horses are light snoozers, so at night try to keep the barn quiet or provide "white noise," such as easy-listening music turned down low.
Stable horses in congenial groups. Horses tend to sleep better when surrounded by other horses, but only if they all get along. Make sure your horse is friendly with herdmates in adjoining stalls. If two horses bicker all night, they may keep the whole barn awake.


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African foods make healthy choices especially when eaten in the right combination. This is why recipes from Africa are prepared in many different ways. You will have to know some methods used for cooking by simple housewives to renowned world class African chefs. Below is a list of cooking methods used to make delicious African cuisine.
Click here to discover more cool African recipes
You can cook food without using water over an open fire by roasting. You can have the fire burning in an open wood fireplace, a charcoal burner or a hearth. In Africa, foods are often roasted such as fish, meat, bulbs such as Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, arrow roots and some types of bananas.
You can also cook food in boiling water. You don't have to use oil. Frequently, Africans have to use earthen ware cooking pots. They also use cooking utensils made of metal and other materials, which are gaining much popularity.
Vegetables, bulbs such as cassava and potatoes, legumes such as beans and peas, and grains such as rice are commonly boiled foods. In places like northern Uganda, odii or a groundnut paste is added to the boiled food as sauce.
Some recipes in Africa particularly in southern Uganda, consider steaming as being an important technique of food preparation. Cooking matoke wrapped in banana leaves is usually steamed over boiling water. Meat, fish and vegetables are also steamed while enclosed in banana leaves.
This style of cooking is highly recommended to retain the nutritional value of foods.
Immigrants to Africa have brought their own styles of cooking as well which include frying food. Previously, frying food was not done in any African cuisine. But today, this method is now adopted by almost everyone in the country. When you fry food, you use cooking oil for cooking. It will also include onions and tomatoes to this style of food preparation.
Many Africans use frying many different foods such as fish, meat, vegetables, legumes and pastries.
African cuisine is slowly integrating the baking technique. This may however be a new method for cooking and most typically done in bakeries. In western societies, they have melted cheese dishes, breads, cakes, pies and other foods. But in Africa, this style of cooking is still not yet widespread.
The way that foods are prepared in Africa demonstrates the changing trends of African cuisine. It has adopted cooking techniques such as frying which plays a strong role in African style of food preparation.
The conventional styles of cooking such as boiling and steaming create meals with lesser or no fat. Hence, these styles of cooking have proven to be healthier and more nutritious.
These methods will continue to be used in many recipes from Africa. For instance, dried foodstuffs need to be boiled first to be cooked and ready to eat.
However, Africa has welcomed new methods for cooking to give a wider variation on flavors and taste as well as enhance cooking experiences.
Click to view the first part of a book on the flavors of African recipes


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Brazilian Leaf-Footed Bug
Many Hemiptera suck plant juices although some have evolved to suck blood and body fluids. Hemiptera groups include water scorpions, water boatman, backswimmers, water striders, plant bugs, bed bugs, assassin bugs, flat bugs, seed bugs, red bugs and stink bugs.
This sap-sucking Leaf-Footed Bug from Southern Brazil shows it's swollen femora hind legs. A few tropical Cor?id have elaborate tibial leaf structures as part of their modified hind legs. This one is relatively conservative although also has spines at the tips of it's pronotum. These true bugs are capable of emitting a scent from a couple of glands on the thorax. Notice the membranous patch of the fore wing. Although most feed on sap, a few are predaceous towards other insects.