Wednesday, April 6, 2016
A to Z of Grave New World 2016: E is for Elsie
E is for Elsie the Ohio River Monster.
Sightings of Elsie go back to the Iroquois long before european settlers found the area and have always been especially prominent within several miles either direction of what is now Cincinnati, OH and Newport, KY. Elsie is believed to be a corrupted version of a an Iroquois word meaning "sprit serpent". She was officially added to the National Cryptid Repository in 1961 and was given special protected status in 1968, after several drunken mobsters in Newport unloaded two tommy guns at her.
Elsie has been positively identified as a neoplesiosaur, a fairly common cryptid species that is extremely long lived and indigenous to lakes and rivers all over the world, including Loch Ness in Scotland and Lake Champlain in the Northeastern U.S.
Cryptozoologists, still have numerous unanswered questions about the creatures, especially their ability to disappear, sometimes for decades. Dr. Ashon Lagat of Kenya has been studying the creatures for over thirty years and claims to have consulted a redcap named Tumult who says that the creatures have several spiritual qualities to them and that they transcend humanly's understanding of animals, in the much same way sasquatches do. While Dr. Lagat does not fully embrace Tumult's information, he has not ruled it out.
Meanwhile, on a clear day, keep your eyes out for Elsie.
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Marvel Monday: Wolverine for Godbound


text:
Can the MDNA assessment be manipulated for results?
We are often asked if the MDNA assessment can be manipulated for a certain result. And the answer is yes it can, to a certain degree. For example, if you are familiar with the MDNA gifts you can answer the assessment to show any results you need. With that being said, however, there are some considerations that generally prevent "gaming" the assessment.
All Questions are Neutral
MDNA focuses on intrinsic motivation versus temperament or strengths. Whereas other assessments may show positive and negative traits, intrinsic motivations are primarily neutral. You will be motivated by something or you will not. Because of this, there tends to be less desire to manipulate ones answers.
Motivated for Self Awareness
Once again, because we focus on intrinsic motivation, there is generally a desire for self-discovery. Many times, we receive feedback that the questions actually caused an individual to think about how they occur to themselves and others. This tends to focus the individual on being authentic as possible.
We have experimented with the number of questions, testing to see if the length of assessment can be reduced. What we found, however, was that having more questions reduced the margin of error should an individual misunderstand or couldn't choose which answer best fit them. This also works to limit manipulation as it is difficult to sway the results across all ninety one questions.
As a final safeguard, should it be necessary, we have provided MDNA training for leaders to recognize when somebody has assessed improperly. This is more involved but can be helpful depending upon the situation. But typically, we find people assess improperly for different reasons other than manipulation. Generally, this boils down to self-awareness, confidence and willingness to answer authentically. In most cases, some upfront encouragement and coaching from a trained MDNA leader rectifies this quickly.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


ed)
Do not maintain an internal body
temperature (cold-blooded)
Do not maintain an internal body
temperature (cold-blooded)
β - Skill: Construction of dichotomous keys for use in identifying specimens.
 - A dichotomous key is a key constructed from a series of statements arranged into pairs.
 - The two descriptions should represent separate choices or characteristics that determine the difference between the two organisms.
 - Both choices are read and compared with the organism to be identified.
 - If the first characteristic is present in the organism to be identified follow the instructions at the end of the statement. If the characteristic is not present go to the second statement as this should be true.
 - Once a choice is made, that selection directs you to another pair of descriptive statements.
 - One statement might identify the organism or lead you further on in the key.
 - This process is repeated until a successful identification is obtained.
Example for the Kingdom Animalia (using some of the characteristics from the above table)
Has bilateral symmetry go to 2
Has radial symmetry go to 3
Has mouth and anus go to 4
Has only one opening for mouth and anus go to 5
Secretes hard exoskeleton made from CaCO3 Stony corals
Soft exoskeleton go to 6
Body structure
Has segmented body go to 7
No segmentation with mantle Octopus
Has suckers and hooks for attachment Tapeworm
No suckers or hooks Planaria
Move on surface beneath it by an adhesive foot Sea Anemone
Move by propulsion of water Jellyfish
Hard exoskeleton with jointed appendages Scorpion
Soft outer skeleton with bristles Earthworm
- Archaea, eubacteria and eukaryote should be used for the three domains.
- Members of these domains should be referred to as archaeans, bacteria and eukaryotes.
- Students should know which plant phyla have vascular tissue, but other internal details are not required.
- Recognition features expected for the selected animal phyla are those that are most useful in distinguishing the groups from each other and full descriptions of the characteristics of each phylum are not needed.
- Viruses are not classified as living organisms.
- There are international codes of nomenclature and agreements as to the principles to be followed in the classification of living organisms.
Theory of knowledge:
- The adoption of a system of binomial nomenclature is largely due to Swedish botanist and physician Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778). Linnaeus also defined four groups of humans, and the divisions were based on both physical and social traits. By 21st-century standards, his descriptions can be regarded as racist. How does the social context of scientific work affect the methods and findings of research? Is it necessary to consider the social context when evaluating ethical aspects of knowledge claims?
IB Biology - Curriculum Notes


text:
Michigan Online Resources for Educators
The Michigan Online Resources for Educators (M.O.R.E.) is an online resource for teachers and educators helping them prepare to present a variety of subjects to their students. With the ability to search by standards, grade, or subject educators can find examples and outlines for lesson plans, along with a lesson plan builder that will help teachers prepare for the classroom. Online training is also available as well as information regarding professional development events. A job search link is also provided to help teachers find the educational job they are looking for. The Michigan Online Resources for Educators (M.O.R.E.) is putting tech in teaching.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


the case where the exponent is a complex number, we have: e^( a+iφ )= (e^ a)*( e^(iφ)) = A*e^(iφ)
where 'A' is a real number that indicates amplitude and e^(iφ) is a unit complex number that indicates angle.
 - When the argument to np.exp is imaginary or complex, the result is a complex number.
 - This example confirms that e ^(iφ) is a complex number with magnitude 1 and angle φ radians
7.3 The synthesis problem
 - we can create compound signals by adding up complex sinusoids with different frequencies. And that brings us to the complex version of the synthesis problem: given the frequency and amplitude of each complex component, how do we evaluate the signal?
7.4 Synthesis with matrices
 - As we saw in Section 6.2, we can also express the synthesis problem in terms of matrix multiplication
 - Again, amps is a NumPy array that contains a sequence of amplitudes. fs is a sequence containing the frequencies of the components. ts contains the times where we will evaluate the signal.
 - args contains the outer product of ts and fs, with the ts running down the rows and the fs running across the columns (you might want to refer back to Figure 6.1). Each column of matrix M contains a complex sinusoid with a particular frequency, evaluated at a sequence of ts.
 - When we multiply M by the amplitudes, the result is a vector whose elements correspond to the ts; each element is the sum of several complex sinusoids, evaluated at a particular time.
 - Remember that we can think of a complex number in two ways: either the sum of a real and imaginary part, x + iy, or the product of a real amplitude and a complex exponential, Ae^(iφ0). Using the second interpretation, we can see what happens when we multiply a complex amplitude by a complex sinusoid. For each frequency, f, we have:
Ae^(iφ0) · e^( i2π f t) = Ae^(i2π f t+φ0)
 - Multiplying by Ae^(iφ0) multiplies the amplitude by A and adds the phase offset φ0.
 - Now that we have the more general solution to the synthesis problem – one that handles complex amplitudes – we are ready for the analysis problem.
7.5 The analysis problem
 - The analysis problem is the inverse of the synthesis problem: given a sequence of samples, y, and knowing the frequencies that make up the signal, can we compute the complex amplitudes of the components, a?
7.6 Efficient analysis
 - Unfortunately, solving a linear system of equations is slow. For the DCT, we were able to speed things up by choosing fs and ts so that M is orthogonal. That way, the inverse of M is the transpose of M, and we can compute both DCT and inverse DCT by matrix multiplication.
 - We'll do the same thing for the DFT, with one small change. Since M is complex, we need it to be unitary, rather than orthogonal, which means that the inverse of M is the conjugate transpose of M, which we can compute by transposing the matrix and negating the imaginary part of each element. See
 - The NumPy methods conj and transpose do what we want. Here's the code that computes M for N = 4 components:
 - If M is unitary, M^*M = I, where M^* is the conjugate transpose of M, and I is the identity matrix. We can test wheter M is unitary like this:
We can use this result to write a faster version of analyze1:
7.7 DFT
 - As a function, analyze2 would be hard to use because it only works if fs and ts are chosen correctly. Instead, I will rewrite it to take just ys and compute freq and ts itself.
 - First, I'll make a function to compute the synthesis matrix, M:
 - We are almost done; analyze3 computes something very close to the DFT, with one difference. The conventional definition of DFT does not divide by N
 - The inverse DFT is almost the same, except we don't have to transpose and conjugate M, and now we have to divide through by N:
 - If I could go back in time, I might change the definition of DFT so it divides by N and the inverse DFT doesn't. That would be more consistent with my presentation of the synthesis and analysis problems. Or I might change the definition so that both operations divide through by √ N. Then the DFT and inverse DFT would be more symmetric. But I can't go back in time (yet!), so we're stuck with a slightly weird convention. For practical purposes it doesn't really matter.


Using JavaScript and jQuery to Configure an Anchor Tag
We recently helped one of our Exam Engine customers with a custom question template. In this template, they wanted to have a smaller version of an image. The user could then click on the smaller image to see a larger version in a popup window. The first task was to add the anchor tag to the HTML as shown below. The new lines are shown in bold.

Next, we used the fact that the larger image would match the name of the smaller image except for a _lg at the end of the name. So if the question image were "xyz.png", then the large image would be "xyz_lg.png." We thus added the code below to the function that is called when the page is fully loaded.
// make hyperlink out of questionGraphic
 if (questionDictionaryId["QuestionGraphic"]!= null) {
 var lgGraphic = questionDictionaryId["QuestionGraphic"].replace(".png", "_lg.png");
 $("_TAG_").attr("href", ("../media/" + lgGraphic));
The questionDictionaryId JavaScript objects holds all the items for the question. If it has a "QuestionGraphic" item, we put a reference to the large graphic in the lgGraphic local variable. We then use jQuery to find a reference to the questionGraphicLink anchor object. We then set its href attribute to a relative path to that graphic. If the question does not have a graphic, we skip this step and thus avoid any kind of broken links.
Finding Old Hyperlinks
One of the challenges of updating our Learning & Mastering ToolBook product is making sure all the hyperlinks are current. We run the script below via the Command Window. I wrote it to ensure that there were no lingering hyperlinks to the version 9 example files. It uses the getObjectList() function to find any objects with hyperlinks (the _asym_hyperlinks user property not being null) and then checks the appropriate element of the array for the portion of the URL in question. Notice how we start at the current page rather from the beginning of the book to keep from checking pages over and over. Notice also how you need to have a local variable (tempArray in this case) when reading or writing a user property that is an array.
local tempArray[][]
local url
step num from pageNumber of this page to
 pageCount of this book
 pageId = page num
 objList = getObjectList(pageId, "",
 while objList null
 pop objList into objId
 tempArray = _asym_hyperlinks of objId
 url = tempArray[1][2]
 if url contains "tbcbt9"
 go to pageId
 request objId && name of objId && "has
 a hyperlink to tbcbt9"
 break step
 end if
 end while
end step
Creating an Interactive "Rollover" Screen
Let's make an interactive screen where the names of Beatles albums are listed down the left side. When the user rolls her mouse over the names, they change color and a graphic of the album cover is displayed on the right side of the screen. We'll also include a track list from. Album names that have been "rolled over" will be shown in a third color so that the user can tell which ones she has already completed. Finally, we will display a message when all of the rollovers have been completed. This is a pretty realistic interactive training screen and will introduce us to a number of important concepts.
ToolBook – OpenScript
I assembled the graphics as.png files and created fields along the left with the titles of the albums. The names of these fields are "album 1" through "album 5." You might be wondering why I put a space between the base (album) and the number. Unlike some of the other environments, ToolBook allows this. The advantage comes when it is time to "parse" the number from the name. With OpenScript, we can use syntax like this: word 2 of name of target. The space between the base and the number is what separates word 1 from word 2. This keeps us from running into problems when we get to album 11. In environments that don't allow spaces in object names, I'll put an _ instead and use some kind of split method for the same reason. You will see that in later examples.
I imported the graphics as resources and gave them matching names. Finally, I went to and grabbed the track listing for each album and put them in fields named "field 1" through "field 5." I hid these fields as we are going to read their text (technically their richText so that we preserve any formatting) and show them in a common "display field." I like this technique because it avoids the need to reposition all the fields if we show and hide them in turn. Our design is then that we'll show the album cover in a button and set this display field to be the track listing in response to the mouseEnter event, which is what ToolBook calls a rollover.
We are now ready to do some programming. Let's start with the mouseEnter script shown below. We put this script at the page level so that we can write one mouseEnter handler for all five album name fields.
to handle mouseEnter
 system lastFieldId
 system stack completedInteractionList
 system dword numInteractions
 local string tarName
 local string tarNum
 local field fieldId
 tarName = name of target
 if word 1 of tarName = "album"
 tarNum = word 2 of tarName
 fieldId = field "display field"
 richText of fieldId = richText of field ("field " & tarNum)
 normalGraphic of button "albumImage" = bitmap ("album " & tarNum)
 strokeColor of target = blue
 sysCursor = 19 -- pen
 if lastFieldId null
 strokeColor of lastFieldId = 120,25.125,100 -- dark green
 end if
 lastFieldId = target
 -- check for completion
 if ASYM_ItemInList(tarNum, completedInteractionList) = False
 push tarNum onto completedInteractionList
 end if
 if itemCount(completedInteractionList) >= numInteractions
 richText of fieldId = "COMPLETED: " & richText of fieldId
 end if
 end if
end mouseEnter
We have lots of good programming concepts to discuss in this script. The first is a global variable, which we might define as some data that needs to survive beyond the life of the current handler or function. In OpenScript, we declare a global variable with the word system in front of it. In most cases, we want to declare a type as well. We do this so that the environment will help us if we do something dumb like try to assign "Joe" to a variable that is supposed to be a number. So the line system dword numInteractions means a global variable of type dword (positive integer) of the name numInteractions. In the mouseEnter script, we need three global variables:
1. A reference to the "previous" field that we entered. To understand this, we need to think through the set of events. The user will move his mouse into "Rubber Soul." At that point, we want to turn it blue. He then moves the mouse into "Help." We then turn "Help" blue to denote that it is the current item. We want to turn "Rubber Soul" green to show that we have already visited it. To do that, we need to remember which field we were in last. That is why we have lastFieldId. We don't declare a datatype in this case because OpenScript is flexible enough to make it a field reference when we are using it but then allow us to set it to null when entering the page. If we type the variable, ToolBook would give us an error when we try to set it to null.
2. In addition to knowing the most recent field that the user entered, we need to keep track of all the fields in order to determine when the user has completed all of them. There are a number of ways we could approach this, but one of the simplest is to have a comma-delimited list of completed interactions (1,3,5 for example). This is a stack data type that we store in the completedInteractionList variable. It again needs to be global since we need to build up this stack interaction by interaction.
3. Finally, we need to know how many interactions there are in order to figure out if we are finished. This doesn't strictly need to be a global variable but we end up using this value in two different handlers (mouseEnter and enterPage). The advantage of a global variable here is that we only have to change the value once if we change the number of interactions.
After the global variables, we have three local variables. This means that they survive only until the end of the handler or function. The tarName variable allows us to avoid having to keep referring to name of target. Similarly, we end up grabbing the interaction number and putting it in the tarNum variable. Finally, we end up referring to our display field several times. It is a good practice to put this object reference in a variable, which we call fieldId. This is a bit more efficient for the program if it doesn't need to keep "resolving"


Leighton Buzzard
Contents Menu
Domesday Book
What's in a name?
Town Coat of Arms
Guided Tours
Leighton Buzzard Observer
Trade Directories
Local People
Wills Transcripts
Manorial History
Impacts of Wars
Contents & photos
© copyright Kevin Quick
Edward Backwell (c. 1619 - 1683), goldsmith and banker
Edward was the son of Barnaby Backwell, a yeoman of Leighton Buzzard. He was apprenticed as a goldsmith in 1635 to Thomas Vyner, a leading figure in that trade. He received his freedom of the Goldsmith's Company in 1651 and later, in 1660, he became a prime warden.
During the time of the English republic, Edward was deeply involved in credit finance, and dealt in former Crown property that had been put on the market, e.g. during the Commonwealth he purchased the park at Hampton Court and then resold to the state, at a profit, during the protectorate.
In the 1650s he was involved in bullion transactions and in 1657 helped Thomas Vyner to handle captured Spanish plate. He was also very actively involved as treasurer for the Dunkirk garrison, from the time of its capture and establishment as an English base in 1657 until its sale back to France in 1662. Together with Sir Thomas Vyner he was responsible for provision of money to the royal household and with handling bullion brought in for coinage at the Royal Mint.
In 1660, just before the Restoration, Edward was elected alderman of the City, but the following year he paid the customary fine to be excused from continuing to serve. He is the most frequently referred to financier in Samuel Pepys's Diary, which is perhaps indicative of his importance.
After the Restoration, Edward advanced considerable credit to the crown, and was subsequently severely affected by the stop of the exchequer from December 1671 to January 1672, which lasted two years instead of the one year originally planned.
In 1671 Edward was appointed, together with his son John, as comptroller of customs in the port of London. Together with Vyner he also served a four year term as a commissioner of the customs and farmer of the customs revenue in 1671.
In 1673 he was twice returned as MP for Wendover, Buckinghamshire. He also sat for Wendover in all three Exclusion Parliaments of 1679 - 81, but only seems to have taken an active part in the first.
In 1682 Backwell became bankrupt: it is believed as a result of the crown's actions with respect to Edwards dealings with Sir George Cartaret as treasurer of the navy many years earlier.
His dealings as a banker are very well documented, as ledger books have descended through his grandson to Child's Bank and ultimately to the Royal Bank of Scotland. These ledgers are the earliest systematic achive of any British bank.
Edward married for the first time to Sarah Brett, the daughter of a London merchant. Through this marriage he had one son, John (c. 1653). He married for a second time in 1662 to Mary Leigh (or Lyse), daughter of Richard Leigh. By this marriage he had three sons and two daughters, but his wife died in 1669. Edward died, abroad in the Netherlands, and his body was brought back to England to be buried at St Mary Woolnath in the City on the 13 June 1683. Two years later his body was exhumed and reburied at Tyringham, Buckinghamshire, where he had gained control of the estate from his son's father-in-law, Sir William Tyringham.
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Let $f:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$ a convex decreasing function. Let $x_0 < x_1 < x_2$. Studying the behaviour of the difference quotient, it is clear that $$f(x_0)-f(x_2) \leq M (f(x_0)-f(x_1))$$ with $M=\frac{x_2-x_0}{x_1-x_0}>0$.
Now take $F:\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R}$ convex and decreasing with respect to each variable. Let $x_0 < x_1 < x_2$ and $y_0 < y_1 < y_2$. I ask if a similar condition holds, say for example $$F(x_0,y_0)-F(x_2,y_2) \leq M (F(x_0,y_0)-F(x_1,y_1))$$ with $M=\max ( \frac{x_2-x_0}{x_1-x_0}, \frac{y_2-y_0}{y_1-y_0} )$.
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1 Answer 1
If $f(x)$ is a function with many variables that is twice continuously differentiable, then its convexity is equivalent to the Hessian being positive semi-definite, $$x'H(f)(x)x \geq 0 \quad \forall \ x \in \textrm{dom}(f)$$.
In a two-variable case, the sign of the diagonals elements of the Hessian determines the convexity of $f$ in either $x_1$ or $x_2$ (holding the other variable constant); however, the cross-partial derivative is what determines whether $f$ is a convex function in its domain if the second derivatives with respect to $x_1$ and $x_2$ are both negative.
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text:
Soybean leafminer: Soybean leafminer, Odontota horni.
The adult soybean leaf miner is a small, flattened, squarish beetle. Its underside is black and the top of the insect is brick red and its head is black. In addition to its unique shape and coloration, there is also a thin black stripe that extends down the middle of its forewings beginning at the base of its prothorax. Note that the black stripe does not quite extend to the tip of the thorax. Another similar beetle the locust leafminer, Odontota dorsalis, is occasionally found in soybean (especially near locust trees); however, it is much less common. The locust leafminer looks similar except the black dorsal stripe widens toward the tail-end of the beetle and extends to the end of the forwings.
Larvae reach a maximum of 7 mm long, is cream-colored with a dark brown head and lateral tubercles. Typically, the larvae are not found exposed on the surface of the leaf, rather they mine within the layers of the leaf.
Soybean leafminer larva: Soybean leafminer larva.
larval soybean leafminer injury: Larval injury to a soybean leaf from the soybean leafminer.
Pupae are similar to the larvae in color and can be easily seen through the translucent pupal chamber within the leaf.


text:
verb (used without object)
to splash, as things in water, or as water does:
Waves were swashing against the piers.
to dash around, as things in violent motion.
verb (used with object)
to dash or cast violently, especially to dash (water or other liquid) around, down, etc.
the surging or dashing, sometimes violent, of water, waves, etc.
the sound made by such dashing:
the thunderous swash of the waves.
the ground over which water washes.
Chiefly Southeastern U.S. a channel of water through or behind a sandbank.
Printing. an extending ornamental flourish, as on letters of certain fonts of italic or cursive type.
Printing. noting or pertaining to a character having a swash:
a swash letter.
[swosh-buhk-ler, swawsh-] /ˈswɒʃˌbʌk lər, ˈswɔʃ-/
a swaggering swordsman, soldier, or adventurer; daredevil.
(intransitive) (esp of water or things in water) to wash or move with noisy splashing
(transitive) to dash (a liquid, esp water) against or upon
(intransitive) (archaic) to swagger or bluster
Also called send. the dashing movement or sound of water, such as that of waves on a beach Compare backwash
any other swashing movement or sound
a sandbar washed by the waves
Also called swash channel. a channel of moving water cutting through or running behind a sandbank
swagger or bluster
a swaggering or flamboyant adventurer
a film, book, play, etc, depicting excitement and adventure, esp in a historical setting
adjective 1. tending to swash: swashing water. 2. swashbuckling. verb (used without object) 1. to splash, as things in water, or as water does: Waves were swashing against the piers. 2. to dash around, as things in violent motion. 3. to swagger. verb (used with object) 4. to dash or cast violently, especially to dash […]
noun 1. an ornamental italic capital letter having a flourish extending beyond the body of the type. swash letter noun 1. (printing) a decorative letter, esp an ornamental italic capital
noun, Machinery. 1. an inclined circular plate on a rotating shaft for transferring force and motion to or from parts reciprocating in a direction parallel to the axis of shaft rotation. noun 1. (engineering) a collar or face plate on a shaft that is inclined at an oblique angle to the axis of rotation and […]
noun 1. a figure used as a symbol or an ornament in the Old World and in America since prehistoric times, consisting of a cross with arms of equal length, each arm having a continuation at right angles. 2. this figure as the official emblem of the Nazi party and the Third Reich. noun 1. […]


What Day Is Opposite Day?
What day of the week is opposite day?
Opposite Day ObservancesFun Holiday: Opposite Day ObservancesYearWeekdayDate2020SatJan 252021MonJan 252022TueJan 257 more rows.
What is opposite day at school?
4. "A Day of Opposites" is a creative writing prompt that asks students to write about a day they have in which EVERYTHING is OPPOSITE. Looking for other activities to use in the classroom in the coming weeks?
Is National Hug Day today?
National Hug Day or National Hugging Day occurs on January 21st and is officially recognized by the United States Copyright Office, but is not a public holiday. The purpose of the day is to help everyone show more emotion in public.
What is the opposite of Christmas?
What is the opposite of Christmas?departureleavehegiraleavingpartingretreatfleeingflightretirementwithdrawal6 more rows
Who started opposite day?
President Calvin CoolidgeThe origin of National Opposite Day is unknown however there are references dating back to President Calvin Coolidge in the 1920's. In the 1928 election, Coolidge made a statement to the press announcing, "I do not choose to run".
How do people celebrate Opposite Day?
10 Ways to Celebrate Opposite DayBreakfast for Dinner. Pancakes, bacon, and eggs are the clear choice for dinner on opposite day. … Wear Your Clothes Backwards. Let your kids dress silly for the day. … Baths in the Morning. I live and die by my schedule. … Engage in silly conversation. … Eat Dessert First. … Lefty Righty. … Cup Swap. … Picture Time.More items…•
How do you dress like a boy for the opposite day?
Turn t-shirts, pants, shorts, skirts or dresses inside out. Wear button-up shirts, dresses or baseball hats backwards. Mix things up by wearing each item of clothing in a different direction to create even more opposites. For example, combine a backwards shirt with inside out pants.
Why do we celebrate Opposite Day?
Did SpongeBob create opposite day?
SpongeBob Squarepants' 1999 "Opposite Day" episode was the basis for the rise of the "game" in my experience. Before this episode aired I had never played it, and after it I engaged in playing the game many times. … The 86th episode of "Seinfeld" in 1994 also had a similar theme and was labelled "The Opposite".
What is January 25th day?
January HolidaysDateHolidayCategorySat Jan 25National Irish Coffee DayFood & BeverageSat Jan 25Opposite DaySpecial InterestSun Jan 26National Peanut Brittle DayFood & BeverageSun Jan 26National Spouses DayRelationship88 more rows
What does Opposite Day mean?
Opposite Day(ProperNoun) A contrived holiday on which everything is done backwards, for example "yes" means "no".
When was opposite day invented?
August 17th, 1959The History of opposite day A little know moment in American history occurred 60 years ago when President Dwight E. Eisenhower declared that August 17th, 1959 was opposite day for one day only.


text:
'If you don't do the time, you don't get the results'.
Start by deciding on how much time you should spend on home study, ie, written work and study/learning work. The following is the suggested minimum time for the six years of secondary school:
* First Year: 1-2 Hours
* Second Year: 1-2 Hours
* Third Year: 2-3 Hours
* Transition Year: 2-3 Hours (may be less depending on the style of syllabus)
* Fifth Year: 3 Hours
* Sixth Year: 3-4 Hours


text:
PICLS is a thermal simulation tool which helps designers easily perform thermal simulation of PCBs. Even if you are unfamiliar with thermal simulation, you will obtain a simulation result without stress through the tool's easy and quick operation in 2D. You can import the data of a PCB created in PICLS to scSTREAM and HeatDesigner, that is, you can pass the analysis data seamlessly from the PCB design stage to the mechanical design stage.
Useful applications of PICLS
- Troubleshooting thermal issues of current products
- Examining thermal interferences of part layouts
- Consider heat release changes depending on a wiring pattern (coverage ratio)Examine the arrangement of thermal vias (e.g. location, number)
- Examine the arrangement of thermal vias (e.g. location, number)
- Examine the performance of a heat sink
- Examine the size of a PCB
- Examine the number of layers and the thickness of copper foil
- Consider natural/forced air cooling
- Consider radiant heat
- Considering heatsinks (number of fins, size
- Examining heat dissipation performances by connection to enclosure
- Considering PCB mounting environment
Learn more about Cradle CFD products and services at _URL_
For general and product specific platform support, please visit our Platform Support page.


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If you wanted to measure the strength of, say, a chess player, the best way would involve knowing the true value of each position: then you could compute the frequency $W$ with which the player finds a winning move in a won position, and $D$ of finding a drawing move in a drawn position.
Even without a perfect evaluation algorithm, perhaps mathematics offers the possibility of saying something about a player's $W$ and $D$? So I ask, do there exists tools in probability theory, if not for chess then at least for some class of idealized games (only the morphology of the game tree would matter) that would would allow prediction of one player's winning percentage over another given just the two players' $W$ and $D$ frequencies?
If yes, then the distribution of winning percentages in a population of players might serve as data for an inverse problem allowing the statistical estimation of $W$ and $D$ frequencies (or at least associated derived quantities, or relative quantities).
Also welcome: thoughts about refining the model in the second paragraph to get results more realistic for real world games like chess (e.g., separate frequencies for opening, middle game and ending).
Edit: While I appreciate critiques of my model, I hope the weakness of the model doesn't distract from the purely mathematical question of the 2nd paragraph: for suitable idealized games, can one compute dominance in the game globally from the players' $W$ and $D$ frequencies? If that probability question turns out intractable then my whole project sinks; if it has a positive answer, I can hope to refine the models.
I'm not attached to $W$ and $D$ as the ultimate measure of game playing strength. I am interested in the mathematical challenge of estimating these frequencies in the absence of an evaluation oracle.
Also, is it enough merely to point out the naivete of my model? Shouldn't the critic argue that my distortion has significant numerical effect on the dominance calculation?
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David, I believe I didn't merely point out some weak assumptions but also pointed out an experimental technique for comparing multiple algorithms by pitting them against each other, or having them make evaluations of static board positions. Per my moniker "sleepless", I'll need some more cogitation and perhaps some rest before I return and modify my answer. I believe my attempt at an answer pointed out that your $W$ and $D$ measures would be different at different depths/plies of the tree, and that assigning a single numerical value does distort the nature of these "grades". Back later! :) – sleepless in beantown Dec 20 '10 at 1:29
Sleep sweetly, sleepless. I'm thinking over your suggestions. In particular I'm considering effect of the tradition of resigning lopsided positions - doesn't truncating play obviate the unwarranted oscillation of the winning advantage that my stochastic assumption might otherwise entail? – David Feldman Dec 20 '10 at 2:36
Anyway my personal interest lies in estimating the hidden parameters $W$ and $D$ rather than finding better measures of playing strength. I do understand $W$ and $D$ as averages that may vary by changing the sample space. Available data will reflect how players perform in practical positions. The meanings of $W$ and $D$ should be conditioned on the same (fuzzily defined) sample space. – David Feldman Dec 20 '10 at 2:37
Not directly related, but maybe interesting anyway, how a machine learning based system for chess ranking works research.microsoft.com/pubs/74417/NIPS2007_0931.pdf – Yaroslav Bulatov Dec 20 '10 at 21:23
3 Answers 3
Your question makes assumptions with which I disagree.
I do not think that strength means choosing winning moves more frequently in theoretically won positions. The positions encountered in chess are not uniformly random, and the positions you encounter depend on previous moves. You might find someone who reliably executes a nontrivial endgame, but who performs poorly in related positions someone else sets up.
Part of chess is giving an imperfect opponent opportunities to make mistakes. Your measure assumes there is no skill involved in playing theoretically lost positions, but in practice there is.
Although it is popular to call chess mathematical, I think many other games such as backgammon allow much deeper mathematical analysis than chess, in part because positions have equities which are not restricted to $\{0,1/2,1\}$, and there are MonteCarlo methods for estimating the values of positions. Serious backgammon players commonly measure skill in error rates expressed as normalized millipoints per move. In my November 20006 column for GammonVillage, I looked at the correspondence between backgammon error rates and Elo rating differences on one backgammon server, concluding, for example, "100 rating points roughly corresponds to 1.8 millipoints per move."
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Here is a situation where choosing many winning moves may not indicate strength, and might be a sign of weakness: Suppose the position is a forced win in 3 moves, but instead I take 30 moves to win. This will bloat the number of winning moves I make, and it will decrease my percentage of blunders, but it suggests that I overlooked the faster way to win. – Douglas Zare Dec 21 '10 at 22:03
David, your question makes the assumption that players will stochastically pick a move in the current possible set of branches, and does not say anything about the current depth of the tree. I believe that for certain states, particularly those labeled "end-games", it is possible for an astute player (or an experienced player) (the set of astute and experienced players are not equal) to have a higher $W$ percentage against an equally skilled or worse opponent.
Thus I believe that $W$ and $D$ are not just functions of one player $P_1$, but also of - the opponent $P_2$ and of - the current-depth of the game tree (= the number of moves played thus far), and - the current-state (global and local) of the game board.
$P_1$'s $W$ may change for a different opponent and for certain opening sequences or end-games with which they are familiar.
Now if you allow the assumption that you do not have an oracle evaluation function, but do have the win and draw percentages for two players, $P_1=(W_1, D_1)$ and $P_2=(W_2,D_2)$, your question in the second paragraph asks if that is sufficient to allow for calculating the probabilities of one player dominating over the other. I do not believe that there is a way to calculate this, as the $W$ and $D$ ratios are going to have to be calculated as a measure over all possible game board states, and the finite sampling of win and draw ratios for a finite number of games and board positions will not be sufficient to allow for such an extrapolation to be made.
Back to my first ruminations: the $W$ and $D$ will depend on the depth of the game tree and the relative experience of the players. If a player picks a bad move but has better experience, she could still recover and win at a later point in the game. If a player picks a bad move but does not have much experience, they are less likely to be able to recover and get to a position of advantage.
An experienced player recognizing classic openings may play by rote for a few moves, or may in fact feint and play slightly askew to see how her opponent responds. This type of psychological repertoire and skill cannot be encoded and captured in a two parameter model, and is also why I think $W$ and $D$ ratios are not just a function of the player $P_1$ but also of the opponent.
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also, the human chess player is neither a deterministic nor probabilistic "small number of states" finite-state-machine. It might be interesting to test your theory/concept out on two (or more) chess-playing algorithms, as that would allow for both algorithmic-players to be tested out on identical board positions for comparison. This type of comparison would be doable as the majority of playing algorithms are not "learning algorithms" which change based upon the new games which they play, thus the order in which board positions are tested would not matter. I sense an experimental approach! – sleepless in beantown Dec 19 '10 at 9:36
Let us suppose that the initial position of chess is a drawn position. In this case, why not just assign someone a rating based on how often they win/lose/draw this particular position? I.e. how often they a game?
share|improve this answer
There's a word missing here. Can't make sense of what you wrote. – David Feldman Dec 19 '10 at 21:46
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onfocus event
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Event Property object.onfocus = handler;
attachEvent Method object.attachEvent("onfocus", handler)
addEventListener Method object.addEventListener("focus", handler, useCapture)
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Event handler parameters
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Type: IHTMLEventObj
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When one object loses activation and another object becomes the IHTMLDocument2::activeElement, the HTMLInputFileElementEvents2::onfocus event fires on the object becoming the IHTMLDocument2::activeElement only after the HTMLInputFileElementEvents2::onblur event fires on the object losing activation. Use the focus events to determine when to prepare an object to receive input from the user.
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Sets focus to an object.
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text:
Last modified: 2011-03-18 by andrew weeks
Keywords: czech republic | bohemia |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors
As for (non)existence of Bohemian flags before WW1: we know, that Austrian
Länder had no flags in their own right, but Armorial (or Livery) Colours
(Landesfarben), sometimes used in form of flag. White over red Bohemian
flag was also first flag of independent Czechoslovakia
between _PHONE_. Flag of Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate
was created in autumn 1939 by Prince Karel Schwarzenberg (based on "Staatsfarben"
of Czechoslovakia). In the first months of the Protectorate former Czechoslovak
State Flag was used.
Aleš Křížan, 24 Jul 2002
According the "Diccionario Enciclopédico Universal ESPASA, the
flag used by Bohemia before 1918 was red over white in horizontal stripes.
Is this correct?
Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán, 20 Jul 2002
In Brockhaus' Kleines Konversations-Lexikon (1914) I read: Landesfarben:
Rot-Weiss (Colors: red-white) - which seems to corroborate your Dictionario.
Jarig Bakker, 24 Jul 2002
During the Austro-Hungarian period, there were *no* flags of the crown
lands (Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Galizia, Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia
etc.), only the *colors* derived from the lands' coat of arms. The Bohemian
coat of arms is and was a silver lion on red, so the heraldically correct
order is white over red (and this flag has actually been used in Bohemia
during 19th century to 1918 when it has become a first national flag of
Czechoslovakia). So, there is no indication that red-over-white flags were
in use, except some encyclopedia whose sources seem to be quite ancient
(from pre-vexillological epoch).
Jan Zrzavy, 24 Jul 2002
I agree that no officially approved flags existed, but maybe the colors
(Landesfarben) derived from the arms were used as flags. Neubecker
1929 shows all of these Landesfarben as flags.
Santiago Dotor, 25 Jul 2002
I have a book entitled The Olympic Games, Sydney 2000 Special Edition
about all the athletes, events and results from Athens to Sydney. In the
chapter of 1908 there is a picture of the opening ceremony and there is
a flag that looks like the one printed at the top of this page, a bicolour
of white over red. I think this flag was probably used for civil purposes
and for use outside of Bohemia at that time.
Daniel Malton, August 1 2002
The 11th flag mentioned and illustrated in the Book of All Kingdoms
[e9s50] is that of Bohemia: "El rey de Boemia a por señales un penãn
blanco con un leãn bermejo coronado d'esta maneraõ": The King of Bohemia
has for signal a white pendon with a red crowned lion, like this.
Attached , as depicted in the illustrated transcription of [e9s05], in the sinister-hoisted ogival flag shape default of this source.
This design is not mentioned at , but it is the banner of the arms Bohemia, with reversed colors.
Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin, 7 Nov 2007


text:
No, it can not destroy a Wall of Force.
The description of Wall of Force states (emphasis mine):
Nothing can physically pass through the wall.
The term nothing implies that even a hole in the multiverse cannot pass through it. The Sphere of Annihilation:
[...] obliterates all matter it passes through and all matter that passes through it.
But a Wall of Force seems not to be made of matter at all, but by force (whatever it means, see for example the discussion here about force damage). The quoted part from the spell description provides the sole way to disintegrate the wall, i.e. using a Disintegrate spell. Moreover:
Anything else that touches the sphere but isn't wholly engulfed and obliterated by it takes 4d10 force damage.
Hence, the sphere can not destroy it but it would deal 4d10 force damage – but the Wall of Force is immune to all damage, and hence it does not take such damage even if the sphere touches it.
A DM can rule otherwise, reasonably.
A Sphere of Annihilation is a legendary item which may also affect artifacts, while Wall of Force is a 5th-level spell: a DM may state that a legendary item is so powerful that overcomes spells of such level and maybe of higher levels.
What if a Wall of Force is cast in the Sphere's space?
There is another issue about the interaction between the Wall of Force and the Sphere of Annihilation: what happens when the wall created by the spell appears in the sphere's space? The description of the spell mentions the case of creatures only:
If the wall cuts through a creature's space when it appears, the creature is pushed to one side of the wall (your choice which side).
It is not clear what happens in case of objects (see for example this Q&A How does Wall of Force interact with objects?). The DM has to make a ruling here:
- The sphere follows the rule for creatures, and hence is pushed on one side of the wall.
- The sphere is stuck in the wall. In this case another DM call is needed: they have to decide if the sphere can be moved again and what happens to the hole left in the Wall of Force, or if it is not possible to move it.
As a DM, in this particular case I would apply the first ruling, mainly to ease the game, since even if the sphere is on the other side of the Wall with respect to a creature, they can still control it, because the only requirement is to be within 60ft of the sphere.


text:
Murni, Dhungang, Jirrar: Living in the Illawarra - Aboriginal people and wild resource use
This book is about Aboriginal people's uses of plants and animals in the Illawarra area, south of Sydney. The title means animal food (Murni), plant food (Dhungang) and fur (Jirrar) in Dharawal language.
The book includes interviews with Aboriginal people, combined with extensive background research. It explores the spiritual and economic significance of various Illawarra environments - including marine, inter-tidal, estuarine, woodland and forest habitats - to the Aboriginal people of the Illawarra.
'Murni, Dhungang, Jirrar: Living in the Illawarra' is consistent with a change in emphasis in the organisation's cultural heritage research. For many years, OEH's Aboriginal cultural heritage management efforts were focused on archaeological sites and objects. More recently, OEH has tried to expand this focus to acknowledge the deep and ongoing connections between Aboriginal communities and their country.
This new publication is part of the Illawarra Aboriginal Heritage Regional Studies program which also includes 'A history of the Aboriginal people of the Illawarra'. These books have already made an impact on national park management and educational activities in the Illawarra. OEH hopes that they will become a valuable resource for the Illawarra Aboriginal community and the wider community for years to come.
Documents to download
This publication is available in two versions.
If you have a broadband internet connection, you may wish to download the complete book:
- Murni, Dhungang, Jirrar: Living in the Illawarra (PDF - 7.5MB)
If you have a dial-up internet connection, you may wish to download sections of the book individually:
- Murni, Dhungang, Jirrar: Living in the Illawarra
- Find out about a related publication 'A history of the Aboriginal people of the Illawarra'.
Page last updated: 10 June 2011


Printout Header
LEX Online Manual Content
Container Class Evaluation
Lex shows the hierarchy of the current connected LDAP directory in the tree view panel on the left side in the LEX main window, so that a fast and easy navigation is possible. To show this hierarchy, LEX reads all the container objects from the server, so that these objects can be used to build up the navigation tree.
The probem is: LDAP allows all types of objects to have child objects. So if you want to build up the current LDAP tree, normall you have to check literally all LDAP objects for children. This would lead to a sluggish application performance when you want to browse through a large tree hierarchy. Or if you would first pre-cache the tree structure, it would last very long to achieve this.
Therefore LEX has a list for each type of directory server with the names of the typical container object classes. There are different lists for the following environments:
 - OpenLDAP
 - Microsoft Active Directory (this includes AD LDS and ADAM)
 - Novell eDirectory
 - Sun iPlanet (this includes SUN Directory Servers and NetScape Directory Servers)
 - Siemens DirX
 - Generic LDAP (all other LDAP servers)
This classification was made to reflect the fact that all types of directories tend to have their typical structural elements. In all these lists, the object class 'organizationalUnit' will be in the list for sure. Other classes are not so obvious to be potential container classes with child objects.
If LEX loads the directory tree hierarchy, the list of container classes will be converted to the appropriate LDAP filter. This filter is used then to retrieve all the object from the server which are needed to built up the tree view.
The list of the container classes can be configured with the menu option Tools - Options - Container Classes. You see here different buttons for the regarding LDAP server environments where you can configure the appropriate list of container classes:
Configuring the container classes
Normally you do not have to work hard on these lists because a lot of the classes usually used as container classes are predefined as default values here.
Maybe you have to configure new classes to this lists if you encounter the following problem: You don't see an object in the tree view hierarchy as a container, even if it is shown in the object list when you look at the parent container:
Domain Controllers don't appaear in the tree
If you change the object list scope to 'deeptree', so that you see the entire subtree under the parent object, you may notice that this object have child objects - although it was not shown as a container.
Child objects visible in deeptree scope
Then you have to check what object class the regarding object has. Add this object class to the appropriate container class list under Tools - Options - Container Classes. If you don't know to which type of directory your current LDAP server belongs, you can check this in the option Connection - Connection Info.
Pseudo Container Classes
There might be object classes in a directory environment which have a large number of real objects existing for this class, whereas these objects have very seldom child objects below them. An example of such an object class are the 'computer' objects in an Active Directory environment.
In order to be able to show all hierarchical structures in the tree view panel in a very fast way, LEX works with so-called Pseudo Container Classes. These container classes are handles as follows:
 - Container Class objects are shown in the tree view panel ONLY if they have actually child objects:
 Pseudo Container Classes
 - If the entire tree hierarchy has to be cached (first connection or reload operation on the entire tree), LEX does not search for Pseudo Container Class objects. This is because there may be a huge count of these objects in the current directory - so this would last far too long for building up a tree with these information included. Even if we would search for all these - this would result potentially in a very large number of container objects in the tree view - although most of such objects doesn't have child objects.
 So for the caching of the entire tree hierarchy, no Pseudo Container Classes are used. Only the normal container class objects are evaluated.
 - If you just reload the 'tree environment' of the currently selected node, then only the node's parent, siblings and child nodes are refeshed. This is done by just pressing F5 or using the ViewRefresh option. Because this is probably a smaller amount of container objects to read from the server, LEX requests the normal container classes together with the Pseudo Container Classes.
The list of the pseudo container classes can be configured with the menu option Tools - Options - Container Classes. You see here different buttons for te regarding LDAP server environments where you can configure the approprate list of pseudo container classes:
Configuring the container classes


text:
Flavor Networks Reveal Universal Principle Behind Successful Recipes
Source: Emerging Technology
In this graph representing the top 100 ingredients in the global flavor network, nodes are ingredients, edges represent shared flavors, and node colors represent clusters of linked ingredients.
Given the number of ingredients that humans eat, the total number of ways to combine them is on the order of 10 to the 15th power. And yet the actual number of recipes we eat is around one million—a small fraction of the total. That strongly suggests an organizing principle that, in recipe terms, sorts the wheat from the chaff.
So an ongoing challenge for food scientists is to discover laws that govern flavor combinations and use them to create new recipes yet to be experienced by human taste buds.
Tiago Simas at Telefonica Research in Barcelona, Spain, and a few pals say they have discovered an important principle of flavor combination by studying foods of different cultures. This insight could help create novel recipes.
The background to this group's discovery is the hypothesis of food pairing developed by the chefs Francois Benzi and Heston Blumenthal. At first glance, foods such as chocolate and blue cheese can seem as different as it is possible for foods to be. And yet, these foods share 73 different flavor molecules.
That's why at certain high-end restaurants, you'll sometimes find blue cheese and chocolate in the same dishes. The thinking is that when ingredients contain the same flavor molecules, they can be successfully paired. The idea is that shared flavors help blend ingredients more effectively. Food pairing immediately suggests a novel way to create new recipes, which is why it rapidly gained influence among a certain breed of gastronomist.
Then in 2011, a curious piece of research revealed that food pairing was only part of the explanation behind successful recipes. In this work, a team at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, analyzed the network of links between ingredients in recipes from all over the world. In this network, ingredients are nodes in a web, linked when they share flavor molecules.
This approach turned the food-pairing hypothesis on its head. When recipes from North America and Western Europe are analyzed in this way, the networks reveal that food pairing is an important factor. But when the team analyzed recipes from East Asia (Korea and Japan, for example), they found exactly the opposite. These cuisines seem to combine the very foods that do not share flavor ingredients. Clearly the food-pairing hypothesis is just part of a bigger picture and in need of a serious upgrade.
Enter Simas and his colleagues. These guys have looked a little harder into the web of flavors behind recipes and discovered a deeper principle at work. The basic idea is that when two ingredients do not share flavors, the team look for a third ingredient with flavors in common with each of the first pair. In this way, they were able to identify flavor chains and explore how recipes in different parts of the world use them.
For example, apricot and whiskey do not share flavors with each other but do have flavors in common with tomato. This creates a flavor chain that links all three ingredients, making them suitable to be used in the same recipe.
The team call this food bridging. They define it as "the ability to connect a pair of ingredients, that may or may not have a direct connection, through a path of non-repeating ingredients."
This has an important impact on recipes. While food pairing intensifies flavor by mixing ingredients in a recipe with similar chemical compounds, food bridging smooths any contrast between ingredients, say Simas and co.
So what role does food bridging play in recipes from different cultures? To find out, Simas and co examined the flavor networks of cuisines from various parts of world and then analyzed the respective roles of food pairing and food bridging in each cuisine.
In Latin America, for example, recipes exploit both food pairing and food bridging, while East Asian food seems to avoid both principles. Southeast Asian cuisines such as Thai and Vietnamese seem to rely only on food bridging, while North American and Western European food use only food pairing.
That's interesting work that extends the principles behind the way we create recipes. Indeed, it reveals that food pairing is really a special case of food bridging in which the number of nodes in the flavor chain is 0.
A better understanding of these principles should help chefs create new recipes in specific styles. But it is by no means the be-all and end-all of cooking. Successful recipes have a wide range of different parameters in addition to flavor. There is the texture of the food, its temperature, its mouth feel, and its color, to name just a few.
Food bridging can certainly help with new recipes. But a truly universal tool for recipe creation will need to be much broader to incorporate these other factors into its model. That will require significant work.
But step by step, food scientists are learning how humans prune the list of all possible combinations of food to produce the combinations we actually end up eating.


constant - Perl pragma to declare constants
use constant PI => 4 * atan2(1, 1);
use constant DEBUG => 0;
print "Pi equals ", PI, "...\n" if DEBUG;
use constant {
 SEC => 0,
 MIN => 1,
 HOUR => 2,
 MDAY => 3,
 MON => 4,
 YEAR => 5,
 WDAY => 6,
 YDAY => 7,
 ISDST => 8,
use constant WEEKDAYS => qw(
 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
print "Today is ", (WEEKDAYS)[ (localtime)[WDAY] ], ".\n";
This pragma allows you to declare constants at compile-time.
When a constant is used in an expression, Perl replaces it with its value at compile time, and may then optimize the expression further. In particular, any code in an if (CONSTANT) block will be optimized away if the constant is false.
Constants defined using this module cannot be interpolated into strings like variables. However, concatenation works just fine:
print "Pi equals PI...\n"; # WRONG: does not expand "PI"
print "Pi equals ".PI."...\n"; # right
Even though a reference may be declared as a constant, the reference may point to data which may be changed, as this code shows.
use constant ARRAY => [ 1,2,3,4 ];
print ARRAY->[1];
ARRAY->[1] = " be changed";
print ARRAY->[1];
Dereferencing constant references incorrectly (such as using an array subscript on a constant hash reference, or vice versa) will be trapped at compile time.
Constants belong to the package they are defined in. To refer to a constant defined in another package, specify the full package name, as in Some::Package::CONSTANT. Constants may be exported by modules, and may also be called as either class or instance methods, that is, as Some::Package->CONSTANT or as $obj->CONSTANT where $obj is an instance of Some::Package. Subclasses may define their own constants to override those in their base class.
The use of all caps for constant names is merely a convention, although it is recommended in order to make constants stand out and to help avoid collisions with other barewords, keywords, and subroutine names. Constant names must begin with a letter or underscore. Names beginning with a double underscore are reserved. Some poor choices for names will generate warnings, if warnings are enabled at compile time.
List constants
Constants may be lists of more (or less) than one value. A constant with no values evaluates to undef in scalar context. Note that constants with more than one value do not return their last value in scalar context as one might expect. They currently return the number of values, but this may change in the future. Do not use constants with multiple values in scalar context.
NOTE: This implies that the expression defining the value of a constant is evaluated in list context. This may produce surprises:
use constant TIMESTAMP => localtime; # WRONG!
use constant TIMESTAMP => scalar localtime; # right
The first line above defines TIMESTAMP as a 9-element list, as returned by localtime() in list context. To set it to the string returned by localtime() in scalar context, an explicit scalar keyword is required.
List constants are lists, not arrays. To index or slice them, they must be placed in parentheses.
my _USER_ = WEEKDAYS[1.. 5]; # WRONG!
my _USER_ = (WEEKDAYS)[1.. 5]; # right
Defining multiple constants at once
Instead of writing multiple use constant statements, you may define multiple constants in a single statement by giving, instead of the constant name, a reference to a hash where the keys are the names of the constants to be defined. Obviously, all constants defined using this method must have a single value.
use constant {
 FOO => "A single value",
 BAR => "This", "won't", "work!", # Error!
This is a fundamental limitation of the way hashes are constructed in Perl. The error messages produced when this happens will often be quite cryptic -- in the worst case there may be none at all, and you'll only later find that something is broken.
When defining multiple constants, you cannot use the values of other constants defined in the same declaration. This is because the calling package doesn't know about any constant within that group until after the use statement is finished.
use constant {
 NEGMASK => ~BITMASK, # Error!
Magic constants
use constant E2BIG => ($! = 7);
You can't produce a tied constant by giving a tied scalar as the value. References to tied variables, however, can be used as constants without any problems.
In the rare case in which you need to discover at run time whether a particular constant has been declared via this module, you may use this function to examine the hash %constant::declared. If the given constant name does not include a package name, the current package is used.
sub declared ($) {
 use constant 1.01; # don't omit this!
 my $name = shift;
 $name =~ s/^::/main::/;
 my $pkg = caller;
 my $full_name = $name =~ /::/? $name : "${pkg}::$name";
It is not possible to have a subroutine or a keyword with the same name as a constant in the same package. This is probably a Good Thing.
A constant with a name in the list STDIN STDOUT STDERR ARGV ARGVOUT ENV INC SIG is not allowed anywhere but in package main::, for technical reasons.
You can get into trouble if you use constants in a context which automatically quotes barewords (as is true for any subroutine call). For example, you can't say $hash{CONSTANT} because CONSTANT will be interpreted as a string. Use $hash{CONSTANT()} or $hash{+CONSTANT} to prevent the bareword quoting mechanism from kicking in. Similarly, since the => operator quotes a bareword immediately to its left, you have to say CONSTANT() => 'value' (or simply use a comma in place of the big arrow) instead of CONSTANT => 'value'.
Readonly - Facility for creating read-only scalars, arrays, hashes.
Const - Facility for creating read-only variables. Similar to Readonly, but uses SvREADONLY instead of tie.
Attribute::Constant - Make read-only variables via attribute
Scalar::Readonly - Perl extension to the SvREADONLY scalar flag
Hash::Util - A selection of general-utility hash subroutines (mostly to lock/unlock keys and values)
Please report any bugs or feature requests via the perlbug(1) utility.
Tom Phoenix, <>, with help from many other folks.
Multiple constant declarations at once added by Casey West, <>.
Documentation mostly rewritten by Ilmari Karonen, <>.
This program is maintained by the Perl 5 Porters. The CPAN distribution is maintained by Sébastien Aperghis-Tramoni <>.
Copyright (C) 1997, 1999 Tom Phoenix


Alligator shear
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An alligator shear, historically known as a lever shear[1] and sometimes as a crocodile shear,[2] is a metal-cutting shear with a hinged jaw, powered by a flywheel or hydraulic cylinder. Alligator shears are generally set up as stand-alone shears, however there are types for excavators. The jaw size can range from 4 to 36 in (100 to 910 mm) long. They are generally used to cut steel members, such as rebar, pipe, angle iron or I-beams.[3][4]
Older alligator shears were powered by a flywheel. These shears ran continuously, which posed a safety hazard. Now alligator shears are hydraulically actuated. When actuated, the piston arm extends and slowly closes the upper jaw of the alligator shear, which passes alongside the bed or lower jaw of the shear to perform the cut.[4]
Alligator shears are used for cutting long-length metal stock or scrap, generally where accuracy is not an important consideration, and the size or shape of the material makes other cutting or shearing options impracticaloften the only other cutting option is cutting with a torch. Alligator shears are often used in conjunction with large metal shredders in the metal recycling industry, to 'clean' or prepare scrap for shredding by removing unwanted fittings or other parts the shredder will not accept.
The safety requirements for other powered metalworking shears are contained in ANSI B11.4, but alligator shears are specifically exempted from that standard. Federal OSHA and various state OSHA programs have requirements for guarding alligator shears, and newly manufactured alligator shears are provided with guards that adjust to the size of the stock or scrap being cut. The purpose of this guard, however, is to prevent pieces of metal from being ejected during cutting. Such a guard also prevents inadvertent exposure of the operator's hands, but does not conform to more stringent 'point of operation' guarding requirements.
In an interpretive letter dated June 24, 1981, Federal OSHA discussed the guarding dilemma presented by the alligator shear.
In instances where the shear is exclusively used for routine cuts on standardized stock, safeguarding of the point of operation is definable. In other instances, the operator is safeguarded from exposure to the point of operation by the physical size and configuration of the material being cut.
These practical considerations for guarding are not exclusive to alligator shears. A much more common type of equipment, the press brake, also requires point of operation guarding when used with standardized stock, but not with large-dimension stock.
 1. ^ International Textbook Company (1906), International Library of Technology 123, International Textbook Company, p. 27.
 2. ^ Gale, Walter Keith Vernon (1971). "crocodile shear". The iron and steel industry: a dictionary of terms. David and Charles. p. 57.
 3. ^ Mazzolani, Federico M.; Ivʹanyi, M. (2002), Refurbishment of buildings and bridges, Springer, p. 267, ISBN 978-3-211-83690-3 .
 4. ^ a b Lund, Herbert F. (2001), The McGraw-Hill recycling handbook (2nd ed.), McGraw-Hill Professional, p. 28.20, ISBN 978-0-07-039156-7 .


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Teachers from Invisible Children Uganda partner schools were given an opportunity to acquire new computer knowledge, skills and working methods through a one week computer training at Sacred Heart School. The training, conducted this week by Schools for Schools (S4S), is designed to support teachers and build their capacity to help students. Computer applications like Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint presentations, Word and internet use were the main topics of the training.
Opening presentations and graphs he created during the training, Okot Peter, a teacher of agriculture at Anaka Secondary School, tells how the training has been beneficial to him.
"My work is going to become much easier," he says. "I am now able to produce and conduct my lessons using PowerPoint, design the class list and present graph illustrations of how my students are performing."
By equipping teachers with this knowledge, they can use it to raise academic standards in the classroom. S4S partners with 11 schools in northern Uganda to build and renovate school structures while also improving the schools' educational climate through career guidance and teacher training.


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distance to mother unit
The unit of measuring the distance between the present object (daughter) and its mother object.
This feature is present on objects of types subphrase, phrase_atom, phrase, clause_atom, clause.
||distance measured in words|
||distance measured in phrase_atoms|
||distance measured in clause_atoms|
For explanation of what the mother of an object is, see mother. The mother is always a word, a phrase or a clause and we measure distances between mothers and daughters in words, phrase_atoms and clause_atoms respectively.


Electronic postal services questionnaire
The questionnaire will be used to evaluate the development and strategic importance of postal e-services at the global level, benchmark the development of postal e-services in UPU member countries, and identify the impact of possible key factors affecting the development of postal e-services.
Please save paper and complete the survey online (in English, French, Spanish and Russian and Arabic).
Guidelines for answering the questionnaire
To ensure the consistency of the data and make the questionnaire easier to understand, definitions are provided where necessary. Please read the definitions carefully before answering each question.


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But getting kids to choose fruit over the myriad other sweet temptations can be tricky. Here's a sneaky way to make an apple fun, and keep it fresh in a lunch box to boot!
Apples turn brown when they are cut because the enzymes and iron phenols in the fruit oxidize when exposed to air, basically causing the surface of the fruit to "rust." It's a protective mechanism against pests and pathogens, but doesn't really change the taste of the fruit. It's not very pleasing however, and while immersing the fruit (potatoes, bananas and pears, to name a few, are also prone to this "enzymatic bruising") in water or lemon will retard the effect, they can also make the fruit less pleasant to eat.
Try this at home!
|take a clean apple|
|make a cut straight across, next to the core|
|make the same cut|
|on each side|
|of the apple|
|the pieces will look like this|
|gather them back up to reform the apple|
|secure with a rubber band|
Voila! No oxidation!


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Traditionally, for-profit organizations have operated with the overarching goals of making money and increasing shareholder equity. While these functions are surely important—profit is the lifeblood of any company—the 1990s brought on a new era of corporate social responsibility in which organizations began to realize that profit-building can—and should be—carried out in ways that benefit local communities and protect the environment. By virtue of paperboard's sustainability and renewability, the industry has been exemplifying the tenets of social responsibility far before the term ever became popular.
Indeed, the paperboard industry champions environmental stewardship and conservation by engaging in sustainable, responsible business practices throughout the entire supply chain. In order to harvest tree fiber for making paper, the paperboard industry turns to managed forests, planted and replanted specifically for consumer uses. Later, during the design phase, converters strive to create reliable and effective packages using the least amount of fiber necessary. Converters also aim to reduce and recapture the energy and water used during the box-making process. Finally, the industry is proud to provide a finished product that consumers can easily recycle.
Yet the paperboard packaging industry's commitment to social responsibility does not end with sustainable business practices; the industry cares deeply about the communities it serves and the people it employs. Converters and suppliers work tirelessly to earn returns for their shareholders while also looking after the welfare of employees, the environment, and local communities.
By making contributions to charitable organizations and educating local communities on the environmental benefits of planting trees and recycling paper, they also make a positive impact in the communities in which they serve.


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The Pacific sea cucumbers (Stichopus Holothurioidea species and other family members) of the revered Chinese cooks since ancient days. In particular, the sea cucumber dishes for special occasions, mainly in New Year's Eve celebrations. An old Confucian recipe, loosely translated The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea and made of sea cucumber, shark fins, and five species of fish and shellfish, is one of the classic banquet dishes. The sea cucumber is assessed as well as other delicacies such as shark fins is Ginseng, Cordyceps, Tremella, and disease preventive and longevity tonic. This was the agent of medical in the Bencao Congxin (New Compilation of Materia Medica) of the Wu Yiluo 1757. The popular Chinese name for sea cucumber is haishen, which means, roughly, ginseng of the sea. Often known in the medical literature fangcishen (fang = four-sided, ci = spiky, referring to the spiky protrusions that emanate four sides), or in abbreviated form, fangshen.
The Asian demand for sea cucumber is so high that it gathered in the United States and other countries (eg Australia, the Philippines) that passend will be quoted. The Atlantic sea cucumber, Cucumaria frondosa, collected primarily in the food, but recent studies from medical, side through the efforts of the Coast of Maine Organic Resources, led by Peter Collin.
Kiszerelésébol and use of sea cucumber
To prepare the sea cucumber gather after the internal organs removed and washed the dirt and sand in the cavity. Then boiled in salted water and dried in the air to preserve. When ready to take the food, the hard, dried sea cucumber softened. The process is quite lengthy, so that the food tends to appear in the special dinners and parties rather than the day-to-day kitchen. To soften the dried sea cucumber in the instructions: Place the sea cucumbers in a bowl and add cold water to cover, at least 12 hours per week, and cook over low heat for 1-2 hours, add more water if necessary that the water is always covered with the cucumber, remove from heat and cool to room temperature, then drain.
A nutritional point of view of the sea cucumber is ideal for a refreshing meal. The higher protein (55%) than most other foods other than protein (99%) and 10-16% materials used for cartilage mucopolysaccharides. Sea cucumber less fat than most other foods.
Sea Cucumber as a food supplement
In modern medical terms, a valuable source of sea cucumbers of different materials can serve as natural health products, and drugs may be developed. As the sea cucumber food is a very small segment of the population outside East Asia, most people have no access to its beneficial components. Thus, the desired sea cucumber extract and simply consume formats, such as capsules (hard and soft gelatin) and pills.
Sea cucumbers, cartilage provides a rich source of mucopolysaccharides point body, mainly chondroitin sulfate, which is known for its ability to reduce arthritis pain, particularly osteoarthritis only 3 grams per day of dried sea cucumber is also useful for significantly reducing arthralgia. Measure is similar to chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine, chondroitin is the main building blocks.
Chondroitin blocks, which left the chemical layout shows a building block that can be repeated several times, this is really a glucose molecule (left potion) and glucosamine molecule (right panel), which has been sulfated (O3S, above). This block is illustrated on the right side in a three-dimensional representation.
Long-chain sulfated polysaccharides such as chondroitin can inhibit the virus, there is a Japanese patent sea cucumber chondroitin sulfate for HIV therapy based on this operation, and other sulfated polysaccharides in the seaweed has a patented anti-herpes viruses. Chondroitin can be obtained in commercial quantities of bovine trachea or shark cartilage (including sharks), while glucosamine sulfate from shrimp and crab shells. These compounds are also found in deer antler, which is not practical because of the rarity and resource extraction costs, but it is likely that glucosamine and chondroitin is a key supporter of the healing of deer antlers.
Russian, Japanese and Chinese studies indicate that sea cucumbers also saponins (triterpene glycosides) files. These compounds are similar to the structure of the active ingredient of ginseng, ganoderma, and other famous tonic herbs. Pharmacological studies show inflammatory and anti-cancer properties of sea cucumber saponins.
One of the sea cucumber saponins, representatives of the structures normally found in these organisms.
In addition, the sea cucumber oil contains two inflammatory fractions. A fraction of these fatty acids are characteristic of the fish, it can be used as a substitute for fish oil reduces inflammation by-products of fat metabolism and feed the brain and heart. The main components of the interest in fish oils EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid is found in the sea cucumber, and DHA (docosahaenoic acid), which is unique to the fish:
Stereochemical representations of EPA (left) and DHA (right). The double bond locations are different, resulting in further deflection of the structures
The second fraction a mixture of branched-chain fatty acids, mainly 12-MTA (methyltetradecanoic acid). This compound, and the more widely studied variant, 13-MTA, the 5-LOX inhibitors (lypoxygenase) enzyme system. 5-LOX inhibitors are one of the most important areas of modern drug development, the plans for the use of compounds in the treatment of asthma, ulcerative colitis, and arthritis. In addition, the cancer-inhibitory effect was observed in preliminary studies in prostate cancer cell lines and other human cancer cells These fatty acids are thought to be produced by bacteria that live in the sea cucumbers, they are also produced by bacteria in other marine organisms such as sponge and tunicates.
For example, branched fatty acids found in marine organisms. The key fob is a simple carbohydrate. These long chains can interact with cell membranes
Illustrated in a Chinese medical book and photographed Stichopus chloronotus, often as "green fish" (top row)Thelenota and pineapple, as often "pineapple sea cucumber" (bottom row).
Source from :
SEA CUCUMBER, FOOD AND MEDICINE
by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon
Enchin Zhang (Editor), Chinese Medical Diet, 1988 Publishing House of Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai.
Weici Tang, Chinese medicinal materials from the sea, Summary of Chinese Medicine 1987; 1 (4): 571-600.
Peiying Yang, et al, Inhibition of proliferation of PC3 cells by branched-chain fatty acid, 12-MTA with inhibition of 5-lipoxygenase, Prostate is 2003, 55: 281-291.


Browse data: KeyPolicyQuestion
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KeyPolicyQuestion > Component : Energy demand or Flood risks or Human development or Terrestrial biodiversity
Click on one or more items below to narrow your results.
Showing below up to 12 results in range #1 to #12.
 1. PQ1 (ED) (Energy demand, How will energy demand evolve particularly in emerging and mediumand low-income economies?)
 3. PQ1 (HD) (Human development, What are the key future trends in human development, such as those targeted by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?)
 5. PQ2 (ED) (Energy demand, What is the mix of end-use energy carriers to meet future energy demand?)
 7. PQ2 (HD) (Human development, How are changes in the global environment likely to affect human development?)
 11. PQ3 (HD) (Human development, How is improved access to food, water and energy likely to contribute to human development?)


text:
Accession Number : ADA332301
Title : Indenter Geometry Effects on the Measurement of Mechanical Properties by Nanaindentation with Sharp Indenters
Corporate Author : RICE UNIV HOUSTON TX DEPT OF MATERIALSSCIENCE
Personal Author(s) : Tsui, T. Y. ; Oliver, W. C. ; Pharr, G. M.
PDF Url : ADA332301
Report Date : 1996
Pagination or Media Count : 8
Abstract : The measurement of mechanical properties by nanoindentation methods is most often conducted using indenters with the Berkovich geometry (a triangular pyramid) or with a sphere. These indenters provide a wealth of information but there are certain circumstances in which it would he useful to make measurements with indenters of other geometries. We have recently explored how the measurement of hardness and elastic modulus can be achieved using sharp indenters other than the Berkovich. Systematic studies in several materials were conducted with a Vickers indenter, a conical indenter with a half-included tip angle of 70.3 deg, and the standard Berkovich indenter. All three indenters are geometrically similar and have nominally the same area-to-depth relationship. but there are distinct differences in the behavior of each. Here, we report on the application of these indenters in the measurement of hardness and elastic modulus by nanoindentation methods and some that the difficulties that occur.
Descriptors : *MODULUS OF ELASTICITY, *HARDNESS, DEFORMATION, MICROMECHANICS.
Subject Categories : Mechanics
Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE


text:
This study was conducted to determine the effects of high pressure interposed ventilations during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Cardiac output was measured by a modified indicator dilution technique in eight anesthetized, intubated mongrel dogs. Positive pressure ventilations (12/min, 80% O2) were interposed after every five chest compressions (performed at 62/min) by a mechanical chest compressor (Thumper®). On repeated trials in the same animal, ventilation pressures from 10-50 cm of H2O were tested in randomized sequence, while the technique of chest compression was held constant. Arterial blood gases immediately after resuscitation were monitored. Increasing ventilation pressure had surprisingly little effect on cardiac output during CPR, although blood gases were profoundly altered. For ventilation pressures of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 cm of H2O, producing mean tidal volumes 23, 38, 61, 83, and 94 ml/kg; cardiac output remained nearly constant, averaging 21, 25, 23, 26, and 24 ml/min/kg. Corresponding mean post-resuscitation pH was 7.24, 7.41, 7.51, 7.56, and 7.53; PCO2 was 41, 26, 18, 16, and 15 torr. The post-resuscitation arterial oxygen tension was greater than 100 torr at all ventilation pressures except 10 cm of H2O. Interposed ventilations of pressure and volume more than adequate to prevent acidosis during CPR did not impair artificial cardiac output. If anything, cardiac output was slightly improved by more forceful ventilation.
Date of this Version
Babbs, Charles F.; Voorhees, W D.; Fitzgerald, K R.; Holmes, H R.; and Geddes, L A., "Influence of interposed ventilation pressure upon artificial cardiac output during cardiopulmonary resuscitation in dogs" (1980). Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications. Paper 100.


Tag Archives: wage labor
Slavery and modern management
The following article in the New York Times, American Capitalism Is Brutal, You Can Trace That To The Plantation, describes in an excellent manner how modern management systems have their roots in slavery and plantation economy. A short summary: an efficient plantation required an elaborate bookkeeping to keep track of each slave's productivity. Hence a multilayered system of supervision of labor was necessitated. Continue reading Slavery and modern management


Bill Potter on Prospects for US-Russia Cooperation under Biden
January 4, 2021
William Potter
CNS Founding Director Dr. William Potter spoke with the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe about the future of Russian-US cooperation on nonproliferation under the new Joe Biden administration.
"It's hard to imagine relations being any worse than they are currently," he tells them. "They are characterized by a total lack of trust, respect, and empathy—a total recipe for disaster."
During the Cold War and immediate post-Cold War eras, several nuclear incidents were narrowly averted, in large part due to the existence of trust between the two countries. "If a similar incident were to occur today in the absence of any trust," Dr. Potter warned, "the outcome may be different."
He is hopeful that a Biden administration will make it possible for the United States and the Russian Federation to be much more capable of cooperating on nuclear nonproliferation and important risk reduction measures. "At a minimum," he said, "it is essential for both to reiterate support for the Reagan-Gorbachev principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."
He is optimistic on several fronts, including joint cooperation on Iran, efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism, nuclear testing, and other urgent issues.
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text:
We recently came across Anita Lillie's beautiful music visualization and MusicBox projects. The music visualization project was especially intriguing to us, since it was the only music visualization project we'd seen that did not require video playback—the visualizations were strictly in 2D. Unfortunately, the source code for Lillie's visualizations was not available, so we decided to build our own.
Our goal was to build a 2D visualization that could be approached like one of Edward Tufte's sparklines: a quick, snapshot overview with high information density. In addition, having an image snapshot of a song could be useful for visually-minded people who often find themselves thinking of music as in spatial or pictorial terms. In the same way that Cicero used different rooms in his home to memorize different sections of his oratories, a 2D song-picture could provide a memorable structure for interpreting and contextualizing moments in a piece of music.
Here is the fruit of our labors. The top segment represents volume across the duration of the song. The bottom segments represent the 12 pitches of the song's primary key, and the weight of each block corresponds to that pitch's volume at that point in the song. Details, including Echo Nest integration and source code, are below.
The Echo Nest has developed a brilliant piece of software called Analyze. It "listens" to music as if it were human, and extracts information about rhythm, tone, pitch, etc. The amount and quality of information available is stunning. A simple web service API provides anyone with access to its vast power.
Adam Lindsay has written a fantastic overview of the API service.
Our code, below, requires the Python Imaging Library, aggdraw, and Echo Nest Remix with a valid API key. This is a rough sketch of what is possible, and there are probably bugs, so don't be surprised if something breaks.
Please feel free to use and modify this code as you see fit, we'd just ask that you provide a link back to this site if you happen to use our code in any of your projects.
import echonest.audio as audio import Image import aggdraw import math def main( input_filename, output_filename, width=None, height=None ): """ Simple song visualization using Echo Nest published by Chris Mueller, _URL_ """ audio_file = audio.LocalAnalysis( input_filename ) segments = audio_file.analysis.segments if width is None: width = int( math.ceil( audio_file.analysis.duration ) ) * 2 width_scale = float( width ) / audio_file.analysis.duration if height is None: height = 216 height_part = height/3 img = Image.new( "RGBA", ( width, height ), "_TAG_" ) draw = aggdraw.Draw( img ) draw.setantialias( False ) brush = aggdraw.Brush( "#0088aa", 255 ) pen = aggdraw.Pen( "_TAG_", 1, 0 ) for segment in segments: left = width_scale * segment.start right = width_scale * ( segment.start + segment.duration ) rect = ( left, height_part, right, segment.loudness_max * -1 ) draw.rectangle( rect, pen, brush ) for i in xrange( len( segment.pitches ) ): # assumes a constant key pitch_loudness = segment.pitches[ i ] pitch_brush = aggdraw.Brush( "#0088aa", int( 255 * pitch_loudness ) ) pitch_height = 2 * height_part * ( 1.0 / 12.0 ) top = height_part + i * pitch_height rect = ( left, top, right, top + pitch_height ) draw.rectangle( rect, pen, pitch_brush ) draw.flush() del draw img.save( output_filename, "PNG")
This is only scratching the surface of possible 2D music visualizations. We look forward to exploring this concept more in the future. Many thanks to Echo Nest for their great service.


Blue Lives Matter Law: Good Intent, But Utterly Ridiculous, Bad Law | Law & Crime
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Police Lives Matter via shutterstockThis is another law that we want to be a good idea, but just isn't.
Yesterday, the Louisiana governor signed the Blue Lives Matter bill, which expands the groups covered by "hate crime" statutes to include police officers, firefighters and EMS personnel.
This law, on the surface, seems to do something sensible – increase the punishment when crimes are committed against the brave professionals who put their lives on the line for our public safety. So what's the problem?
First, we don't need this law. Penalties are already worse for crimes against law enforcement. Crimes are broken into degrees based on factors such as the severity of the circumstances, the behavior of the criminal, and the identity of the victim. When victims are children, or law enforcement personnel, or judges, the degree of the crime and corresponding punishment are more severe. Our society has a general belief that crimes committed against law enforcement officers should be punished more harshly than crimes against ordinary individuals – and our laws already reflect that value. This legislature using its session time to pass new laws to do something that's already being done is the worst kind of legislative redundancy. It shows disrespect for the legal system, lack of value for taxpayer money, and a true misunderstanding of the responsibility of government.
Being redundant, though, isn't this law's biggest problem. Expanding the definition of "hate crimes" to include violence against police, firefighters and EMS personnel not only is unnecessary, but also undermines the entire concept of hate crimes.
The term "hate crime" was first used in the 1980s, and was used to create a clear line between bias-based speech (some of which has Constitutional protection under the First Amendment) and violence motivated by that bias. Hate crimes are primarily committed against racial, ethnic, and religious groups, as well as against LGBTs. Think Klan-style violence. Hate crime legislation was instituted to differentiate run-of-the-mill criminal activity from the kind of bigotry-motivated violence aimed at groups of people because of who they are.
The FBI defines hate crimes as follows:
State-level hate crime legislation echoes the FBI definition in both language and purpose.
Hate crime laws focus on violence motivated by identity-based characteristics such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or gender-identity. The legal language for what those groups have in common is that they share "immutable characteristics" – meaning that the very thing that made them the target of a crime is something they cannot change. Not coincidentally, those are the same groups that are covered (at least to some extent) by anti-discrimination laws and Constitutional precedent. Immutability for purposes of legal protection is a central facet of the nature vs. nurture debate over sexual orientation and gender identity. The Supreme Court has thus far declined to give the same legal protection to LGBTs as it has to racial and religious groups; that decision is based in part on the disagreement over whether homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism are behavioral choices or innate biological characteristics. Hate crime laws were created to categorize violence against groups with a history of victimization; blacks and Jewish people had been the most frequent victims, and in recent years, Muslims and LGBTs have joined their ranks.
With history and context in mind, the idea of including a person's profession as a hate-crime characteristic is utterly ridiculous. A person's occupation, no matter how meaningful, is not an immutable characteristic. Our gratitude for the service of law enforcement professionals does not transform police work into an ethnicity.
Louisiana's repurposing its hate crime law dilutes the very idea of a hate crime beyond recognition. And that's not to downplay violence against police. There are many criminals who hate police, and who commit violent crimes against cops just for being cops. And those crimes against police are no less serious or immoral because they are not truly "hate crimes." This is simply a legislative attempt to put a square peg in a round hole.
The people of Louisiana respect their law enforcement professionals, and they were angry when Darren Goforth, a uniformed sheriff's deputy, was ambushed and killed last August. Many are angry because they feel the "Black Lives Matter" movement has created an atmosphere of disrespect for law enforcement. The Blue Lives Matter law is meant to be a salve for that wound.
Poorly-drafted laws do not honor the memory of a victim. Nonetheless, in today's political circus, laws are not passed because they have legal or practical value. Laws are not passed when they are needed, or when they will make a difference to society. Laws are passed when they make people feel good.
"The overarching message is that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Louisiana," Gov. John Bel Edwards said after signing the law.
Actually, that's not true. The overarching message is that there is a war between those who actively oppose racial discrimination and those who respect and value the lives of police officers. The intent to pit the "Blue Lives Matter" against "Black Lives Matter" is unmistakable. This statute was drafted and passed as a way to make Louisianans feel like their government is "doing something" about the problem of violence against police. But in passing this law, the Louisiana government has eroded its own criminal justice system for the purpose of creating a pleasing headline. Legislating in a way that accomplishes goals we've already met and weaken laws that already exist shows an absolute lack of integrity on the part of those entrusted with authority to govern.
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text: We present an exploration of generative probabilistic models for multi-document summarization. Beginning with a simple word frequency based model (Nenkova and Vanderwende, 2005), we construct a sequence of models each injecting more structure into the representation of document set content and exhibiting ROUGE gains along the way. Our final model, HIERSUM, utilizes a hierarchical LDA-style model (Blei et al., 2004) to represent content specificity as a hierarchy of topic vocabulary distributions. At the task of producing generic DUC-style summaries, HIERSUM yields state-of-the-art ROUGE performance and in pairwise user evaluation strongly outperforms Toutanova et al. (2007)'s state-of-the-art discriminative system. We also explore HIERSUM's capacity to produce multiple 'topical summaries' in order to facilitate content discovery and navigation.