text:
Utilize transportation tools in communications, traffic control, and monitoring and prediction to maximize the ability of the highway network to support evacuation operations.
Experience nationwide in the successful use of the transportation network in emergency evacuations with advance notice.
Communication Tools. A critical element in emergency evacuations is the ability of emergency response officials to communicate to all segments of the population in the evacuation zone. The following communication tools can help emergency management communicate to the public:
- Traveler Information-Dial 511 is the single traffic information telephone number in use by states and local jurisdictions (since 2000). As of 2008, nearly half of the states and metropolitan areas have 511 services. Nationwide availability of 511 is expected by 2010. The service is provided free of charge or the cost of a local telephone call. In addition to telephone information, many states provide comprehensive traveler information on 511 information websites. Evacuees with mobile or landline telephones (or an internet connection) can dial 511 to access current information for specific routes and roadway segments, including anticipated travel delays, traffic accidents, roadway blockages and lane closures. Roadside sensors that monitor traffic along highways permit the calculation of travel times.
- Loud Speakers that are located in the community can be used to alert people within a specific location, and loud speakers mounted on vehicles (e.g., roving police cars) can broadcast emergency information across different neighborhoods.
- Siren Systems are used to alert people when immediate action or cover is required (e.g., tornadoes or tsunamis).
- Handouts providing evacuation information (such as emergency preparedness steps, evacuation routes and locations for shelter and food) can be distributed at highway rest areas, transit stops, turnpike service plazas, gas stations, hotels, etc.
- REVERSE 911 enables emergency management to place thousands of phone calls simultaneously to residents to provide evacuation information. The service also enables communication with the hearing impaired with an optional Telephone Device for the Deaf.
- Variable Message Signs (VMS) are either pre-installed or portable, and they can be used to display information to direct motorists to the evacuation route and shelters.
- Commercial and Public Media are a critical resource for emergency management because they reach most segments of the population. After emergency response agencies brief the media, the media broadcasts this information through television networks, radio stations, newspapers, and websites.
- Emergency Alert System (EAS) enables the President and the heads of State and local government to provide immediate communications with the public.
- Public Access Cable Television operated by local governments can broadcast emergency information to the public.
- Cell Phones are an increasingly useful and accessible means of communication. Real-time traffic information can be broadcast directly to cell phone users who subscribe to traveler information services and travelers can use their phones to dial 511 and other information resources.
- Call Centers located at state and local agencies can provide real-time information on the status of the emergency, tips for preparedness and evacuation routes.
- Traffic Incident Management (TIM) assets enable jurisdictions to respond to incidents, which is particularly important during evacuations because of the priority on mitigating causes of congestion.
- Traffic Counting Devices are used to determine highway congestion levels. These data are relevant to decisions in regards to developing and using alternate routes and preparing for the number of people seeking shelter.
- Traffic Signals that are controlled by Traffic Management Centers (TMCs) can be optimized by TMCs for throughput on evacuation routes. Traffic signals not controlled by TMCs must be changed at the location of the intersection. Controlling traffic at intersections during evacuations may require police presence at major intersections for directing traffic. Some jurisdictions include intersection control in their emergency planning. For example, the city of Portland's emergency management plan has provisions for controlling traffic at critical intersections.
- Traffic Signal Timing Planning for emergency evacuations ahead of time expedites operations during the actual event. An important component to preparedness is sharing signal timing plans with law enforcement so that police can prepare for changes in traffic patterns.
- Traffic Signal Pre-emption devices change the traffic signal when an emergency vehicle approaches to allow it to proceed unimpeded through the intersection.
- Ramp Meters allow for the timed entry of vehicles by stopping traffic on an interval basis, improving the efficiency of vehicles merging onto highways.
- Ramp Gates prevent traffic from entering or exiting highways are used during contraflow operations.
- Traffic Signs designate evacuation routes, contraflow patterns and the location of shelters. Flip-down signs have emergency information on the flipped-down part of the sign; the sign is flipped back up when conditions return to normal. Similarly, pre-installed signs with signs attached to their back can display contraflow information to motorists.
- Pavement Markings indicate when a road is an evacuation route or when a restricted lane can be used in an emergency.
- High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes can be used by non-HOV vehicles or as an ingress lane for emergency vehicles in emergencies.
- Frontage Roads with limited or controlled access and that are adjacent highways can be used by emergency vehicles.
- Reversible Lanes can be switched to accommodate travel moving in the direction of the evacuation.
- TMCs facilitate the safe movement of people and goods on surface roads during evacuations.
- Clarus is an effort of the U.S. Department of Transportation's ITS Joint Program Office and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Road Weather Management Program. It is supports traffic planning by predicting weather conditions in terms of its impact on transportation.
- Consequence Assessment Tool Set/Joint Assessment of Catastrophic Events (CATS/JACE) provides disaster analysis in real time with contingency and logistical planning and consequence management. The CATS program helps assess collateral damage to facilities, resources, and infrastructure, and it creates mitigation strategies for responders.
- Dynamic Network Assignment-Simulation Model for Advanced Road Telematics (Planning version) (DYNASMART-P) is a state-of-the-art dynamic network traffic operational planning tool developed under the FHWA's Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) research project. It supports transportation network planning and traffic operations decisions through the use of simulation-based dynamic traffic assignment.
- Evacuation Traffic Information Systems (ETIS) helps forecast where emergency transportation situations may arise and uses data from previous hurricane evacuation studies to estimate probable roadway congestion.
- Evacuation Travel Demand Forecasting System. This system leverages Internet-connected sensors and cameras along roads and highways to improve the surface transportation aspect of evacuation. The system proposes efficient evacuation algorithms that dynamically generate evacuation plans for both single and multiple incidents scenarios, based on real-time traffic information obtained from sensor data available through the Internet.
- Hazard U.S. – Multihazard (HAZUS-MR2) is a software program that estimates potential losses from earthquakes, hurricane winds, and floods. Developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under contract with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), it uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to map and display hazard data and the results of damage and economic loss estimates for buildings and infrastructure. Estimating losses provides a basis for emergency response and recovery planning.
- Hurricane and Evacuation (HURREVAC) is a restricted-use computer program for government emergency managers to track hurricanes and assist in evacuation decision-making for their communities.
- MASS eVACuation (MASSVAC) uses macroscopic traffic flow models to forecast hurricane evacuation performance.
- Network Emergency Evacuation (NETVAC) models traffic flow in emergency evacuation conditions.
- Oak Ridge Evacuation Modeling System (OREMS) models evacuation operations and planning and management scenarios for a variety of disasters.
- Plume Modeling Tools predict the behavior of a cloud of toxic material released into the environment.
- Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) is a computerized model run by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to estimate storm surge heights and winds resulting from historical, hypothetical, or predicted hurricanes.
- Traffic Estimation and Prediction System (TrEPS) analyzes real-time traffic data from different sources to select strategies for meeting traffic control, management, and operation objectives.
Author: Houston, Nancy
Published By: Prepared by Booze Allen Hamilton for the USDOT FHWA
Source Date: December 2006
Other Reference Number: FHWA-HOP-06-109URL: _URL_
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Intelligent Transportation Systems > Emergency Management > Response & Recovery > Evacuation & Re-Entry Management
Intelligent Transportation Systems > Emergency Management > Response & Recovery > Response Management
Intelligent Transportation Systems > Transportation Management Centers > Permanent TMCs


Liquid Bottle Rocket
Subject: Rocketry
Topic: liquid propelled rocket.
Description: A flyable liquid-propelled rocket is made from a plastic 2 liter soda pop bottle.
Contributed By: Gregory Vogt, OSU
EDITED BY: Roger Storm, NASA Lewis Research Center
Refer to cautions in the discussion section.
 1. Remove the plastic flat bottom from the 2 liter bottle. The black plastic is glued on and can be removed by pulling it off. It may be helpful to use scissors to cut it a bit in order to get a grip. Do not puncture the bottle.
 2. Tape the plastic, non-bendable soda straw along the side of the bottle to form a launch lug like those used in model rockets.
 3. Remove the bottle cap and pound a nail hole from the inside to form a rocket nozzle. Use the wood block as a surface to hammer into. The hole should be about 1/8" in diameter.
 4. Set up the launch pad in an open area about the size of a back yard.
 5. Transfer enough lighter fluid from the container to the spray mist bottle to enable the bottle to work. Spray the lighter fluid a few times Into the air away from open flame or other ignition sources to get a uniform spray.
 6. [THE TEACHER SHOULD DO THE NEXT TWO STEPS] Remove the bottle cap and spray lighter fluid 1 or 2 times (no more) into the bottle. Replace the cap and thread the bottle's straw with the launch pad's launch rod.
 7. Insert an electric igniter into the nozzle so that the igniter head enters the chamber where the lighter fluid mist is. Be careful not to squeeze the igniter wires together to cause a short circuit, premature ignition, and perhaps burns. Normally, the plastic liner of the cap is sufficient to prevent short circuits with the cap metal.
 8. Do a brief countdown and ignite the rocket. Use a second rocket if you wish to have another flight. The first rocket needs time for fresh air to replace residual combustion gasses.
Upon ignition, the liquid propellant bottle rocket rises about 15 to 20 feet into the air with a very audible whoosh from the rocket's exhaust. Because the lighter fluid or naptha has been converted into a fine spray, much of the fluid in the bottle ignites immediately. Each tiny droplet of naptha provides a large burning surface for its volume consequently making ignition much more rapid than would have taken place if large drops of naptha were ignited.
The liquid propelled space rocket works on this very principle. Liquid propellants from tanks inside the rocket casing are pumped to the combustion chamber of the engine. Injectors, the rocket equivalent of shower spray nozzles, spray combustible mixtures of the propellants into the chamber where they are ignited. The rapid burning of the spray produces high gas pressure inside the chamber because of the expansion of the gas products during combustion. The expanded gas escapes through the engine nozzle and creates a powerful thrust.
The liquid propelled bottle rocket rises quickly off the launch pad to an altitude of as much as 20 feet before drag with the air produces a tumbling motion and stops its upward progress. After the first flight the bottle is crumpled because the plastic is heated, but not burned through, by the combustion inside. Cool outside air cannot flow back into the bottle as quickly as the combustion products that left through the nozzle. Outside air pressure squeezes the bottle and creates permanent dents. The bottle is still usable for several flights because additional ignitions reshape the bottle as pressure inside increases.
Caution: As with any demonstration involving fire, be careful to keep away from the rocket a safe distance before igniting it. A distance of 10 feet is sufficient. Do not over pressurize the bottle by spraying more than 2 times per launch or experimenting with smaller diameter nozzle holes. If the rocket does over pressurize, the aluminum bottle cap will be blown off the bottle downward with a startling sound. The bottle itself is surprisingly strong. Discard the rocket and make a new one. it is recommended that students not be told what the liquid propellant is. Refer to it as "special rocket fuel only teachers can get."
Aviation and Space Education News
 Oklahoma State University


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Can a single word create miracles?
Switchwords are straightforward and easy to use. Switchwords are simply words that "switch" on your subconscious mind, sort of like switching on a light. They are, in many ways, one-word affirmations. But unlike the conventional affirmations that don't work, these one-word miracles do.
Why don't traditional affirmations work?
A subconscious block is why an affirmation like "I am prosperous and I have plenty of money" does not work. The subconscious mind will throw that affirmation out because it is bumping up against an ingrained pattern you have that runs counter to the affirmation. This ingrained pattern needs to be bypassed. Often, the more you say affirmations like "I am prosperous and I have plenty of money", the more your subconscious mind will resist and cause you to fall further into financial problems. It is happening all the time. Notice that after the law of attraction took center stage in 2006 through the secret, individual and global prosperity had declined sharply.
Why are Switchwords different?
Switchwords bypass the resistance of your subconscious mind. They are switches. They don't give the subconscious mind time to process whether something you want is achievable or not. It just gets you in the right state of mind. They effectively bypass the old pattern instead of fighting it like the other methods do.
Switchword Miracles will teach you everything you need to know about how to use these amazing single-word affirmations.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Literacy in Oman
The importance that Oman places on education is reflected by the fact that well over a quarter of the civil expenditure of the state budget is spent on the education system, though this has not always been the case. Until 1970, there were only three public schools in the country, and most other schools were Koran-based schools primarily aimed at teaching religious values. The public schools were elementary boys' schools, located in Muscat, Mutrah and Salalah. Throughout the entire country, 909 students were taught by about 30 teachers. It was not until subsequent years that a school system free of charge was introduced and became accessible to the people of Oman. This system stands out for its quality in the Arab world. However, the previous generations that did not benefit from a good school system were not forgotten in shaping current education policy.
Illiteracy – a problem of the older generation
Naturally, as the education system in Oman grew, so did the gap in education between young and old people. To address this, Sultan Qaboos established a strong adult education system in parallel to the ever-improving public education system. There are now approximately 250 adult education centers and over 180 literacy centers open to every adult citizen of Oman. Anyone who wishes to do so will be instructed in Arabic reading and writing as well as various other educational courses.
Literacy – Progress in all parts of the country
While urban populations have been quickly and effectively integrated into the education system in recent decades, the process in more rural areas have tended to be slower. Since Oman is a vast country that is sparsely populated in some areas, creating educational opportunities is often not simple in more rural areas of the country. Now more than ever, it is possible to access remote regions and promote literacy in the deserts and smaller villages and towns on oases or desert outskirts. Particularly older women are extensively using the opportunities of adult education in the country with great enthusiasm because, in the past, they had little access to education in reading and writing.
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text:
Your child's jejunostomy tube starts outside your child's belly, goes through their stomach, and into the midsection of their small intestine. The tube delivers food and medicine. With this help, your child will grow stronger and healthier.
It is important to take good care of the skin around the tube so that your child does not get an infection or skin irritation.
You will also learn how to change the dressing around the tube every day. Try to make this part of your daily routine.
Make sure you keep the tube protected by taping it down under a t-shirt. Do not let your child pull on the tube.
Your doctor may replace the tube every now and then.
Cleaning the Skin around the J-tube
To clean the skin, you will need to change the bandages once a day or more if the area becomes wet or dirty.
The skin area should always be kept clean and dry. You will need:
Warm soapy water and a washcloth
Dry, clean towel
Ointment or hydrogen peroxide (if your doctor recommends)
Follow these guidelines every day for good health and skin care:
Wash your hands for a few minutes with soap and water.
Remove any dressings or bandages on the skin. Place them in the plastic bag, and throw them away.
Check the skin for redness, odor, pain, puss, or swelling. Make sure the stitches are still in place.
Apply soap and warm water to a washcloth, or dip the Q-tip in half strength hydrogen peroxide (1 tsp. hydrogen peroxide and 1 tsp. water) or other ointment that your provider recommends.
Gently wash the skin all around the tube with the washcloth or Q-tip. Try to remove any drainage or crusting on the skin and tube. Be gentle. Dry the skin well with a clean towel.
If there is drainage, place a small piece of gauze under the disc around the tube.
Do not rotate the tube. This may cause it to become blocked.
Replacing the Dressings around the Tube
You will need:
Gauze pads, dressings or bandages
Your nurse will show you how to place the new bandages or gauze around your tube and tape it securely to your abdomen.
Usually, split gauze strips are slipped over the tube and taped down on all four sides. Tape the tube down as well.
Avoid using creams, powders, or sprays near the site unless your child's doctor tells you to.
Flushing the J-tube
To flush the J-tube, use the syringe to slowly push warm water into the side opening of the J-port.
You may rinse, dry, and reuse the syringe later.
When to Call the Doctor
Call your child's doctor or nurse if:
The tube is pulled out
There is redness, swelling, smell, pus (unusual color) at the tube site
There is bleeding around the tube
The stitches are coming out
There is leaking around the tube
Skin or scarring is growing around the tube
Your child is vomiting
Your child's stomach is bloated
George F. Longstreth, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, San Diego, California. Also reviewed by A.D.A.M. Health Solutions, Ebix, Inc., Editorial Team: David Zieve, MD, MHA, David R. Eltz, Stephanie Slon, and Nissi Wang.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


What is Career Direct®?
Career Direct is a comprehensive career assessment system that combines biblical principles with cutting-edge career guidance technology and statistics. With more than 20 years of development, Career Direct has undergone rigorous testing and validation.
What makes Career Direct unique?
Career Direct is one of the few assessment tools to approach career guidance from a biblical perspective. Unlike other career guidance assessments that explore one or two facets of a person's identity, Career Direct examines four essential components of career selection: personality, interests, skills, and values. As a result, Career Direct is one of the most comprehensive guidance systems on the market today.
Fast Facts


Chinese for Kids, a Fun Way to Learn
It is a well known fact that learning a foreign language benefits students of any age. When children learn a second language, they get a better understanding of their own, become more creative and display more empathy. And the growing interest in Chinese for kids lessons is proof that the earlier they begin, the faster they'll learn.
If you are considering signing your child to Chinese lessons, in this post we'll mention some of the benefits he or she will receive.
On top of that, learning Chinese opens to them a door of opportunities. China is an economic power in continuous expansion, offering a wide range of commercial possibilities to Chinese speakers in the world. Kids that are learning Chinese today are getting ready to embrace those opportunities in the future.
7 benefits of Chinese for kids
1. Learning Chinese is FUN!
What do kids like? Children like to play, to draw, to color, to sing… Fortunately, all those activities must be present in classes of Mandarin for kids. Let's see why.
Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language (it has 4 tones and a neutral one), so musicality and intonation are present from the first class. Songs and videos help the children learn the new sounds by playing and singing.
Then is writing. Whereas for an adult learning Chinese writing may seem daunting, for kids is as entertaining as drawing or coloring. Not to mention how quiet they are while practicing the different strokes!
Finally, to help them learn how to identify and read characters there are so many playful activities that, with the help of a good teacher, your child will never get bored.
2. It's good for the brain
Bilingual people tend to connect more with the world and get along better with people of different cultures. In the case of children, their skills to converse and communicate expand, their analysis of information sharpens and their social awareness grows.
Besides, the speed on which a child can learn a new language is greater than an adult's, who has his mind already loaded with much more information. And to add a third language or more gets easier for a bilingual person.
3. Sharpens the musical ear
As mentioned above, Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, so when someone studies it, but especially children, it helps them to train their ear. Tones play a key role in Mandarin Chinese because a one-syllable word may have different meanings depending on its intonation.
Thanks to that, many students of Chinese find that their singing or music playing improved a lot.
Chinese for kids at home
4. Grammar structures improve memory skills
The sentence structures in Chinese are pretty simple for a kid and, especially for an English speaker. For example, the construction "subject + verb + object" is the most common. Thus, "I study Chinese" is as easy as: 我 (I) 学 (study) 中文 (Chinese language), "Wǒ xué zhōngwén".
Days of the week and months are also easy to memorize. They only consist of the word for "day" (周; zhōu) or "month" (月; yuè) and the corresponding number. So, "Monday" becomes 周一 (zhōuyī) since it is the first day of the week, and "April" is 四月 or 4月 (sìyuè), the fourth month.
5. Improves school performance
An advantage for kids that learn Chinese is that, being as it is a difficult subject, other school subjects become easier. And since it requires using other parts of the brain, it improves the child's general performance at school,but especially in Mathematics.
This is so because, unlike other languages, learning to count is really easy once you learn numbers from 1 to 10. It follows a very logical process. As an example: 15 is the sum of 10 + 5: 十五 (shí wǔ), and 35 is 3 times 10 + 5: 三十五 (sānshíwǔ).
6. More and better opportunities in the future
If your children start taking lessons of Chinese for kids since an early age (4-5 years old) many doors will open for them in the future, not only in their studies or job positions but also in their interactions with others. Around the world, there are over 1,3 billion native speakers of Chinese, so there will always be plenty of opportunities to converse and practice the language.
7. It can be a family project
Have you consider it? Even if it is not as easy for you as for your kids, if you do the effort to learn Chinese yourself, you can get some of the benefits mentioned here and others.
Even if you take separate lessons, your children won't feel they are alone, which, in turn, will boost their confidence. Learning Chinese as a family is a fun way to spend time with them. You can put name tags with them in everything around the house or practice vocabulary lists together, like country names.
Granted, they will correct your every mistake, but that's why kids can be such good teachers! And if you get to visit China, the whole family will enjoy the trip more.
No doubt, there are more and more parents that consider that lessons of Chinese for kids is an excellent bet for their children.
At Hanyu Chinese School we offer courses tailored to the needs and capabilities of the little ones, with our own material and highly qualified teachers that parents and children feel comfortable with. We also offer courses for adults, depending on your needs and circumstances.
Contact us, we'll be happy to hear from you. Don't forget to ask for your free lesson!
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Name: AERN-Real Version: Cabal-Version: >= 1.2 Build-Type: Simple License: BSD3 License-File: LICENCE Author: Michal Konecny (Aston University) Copyright: (c) 2007-2008 Michal Konecny, Amin Farjudian, Jan Duracz Maintainer: Stability: experimental Category: Data, Math Synopsis: datatypes and abstractions for approximating exact real numbers Tested-with: GHC ==6.8.2 Description: Datatypes and abstractions for approximating exact real numbers and a basic arithmetic over such approximations. The design is inspired to some degree by Mueller's iRRAM and Lambov's RealLib (both are C++ libraries for exact real arithmetic).. Abstractions are provided via 4 type classes:. * ERRealBase: abstracts floating point numbers. * ERApprox: abstracts neighbourhoods of real numbers. * ERIntApprox: abstracts neighbourhoods of real numbers that are known to be intervals. * ERApproxElementary: abstracts real number approximations that support elementary operations. For ERRealBase we give several implementations. The default is an arbitrary precision floating point type that uses Double for lower precisions and an Integer-based simulation for higher precisions. Rational numbers can be used as one of the alternatives. Augustsson's Data.Number.BigFloat can be easily wrapped as an instance of ERRealBase except that it uses a different method to control precision.. ERIntApprox is implemented via outwards-rounded arbitrary precision interval arithmetic. Any instance of ERRealBase can be used for the endpoints of the intervals.. ERApproxElementary is implemented generically for any implementation of ERIntApprox. This way some of the most common elementary operations are provided, notably: sqrt, exp, log, sin, cos, atan. These operations converge to an arbitrary precision and also work well over larger intervals without excessive wrapping.. There is also some support for generic Taylor series, interval Newton method and simple numerical integration. Extra-source-files: HISTORY tests/Test1.hs Flag containers-in-base Default: False Library hs-source-dirs: src if flag(containers-in-base) Build-Depends: base < 3, binary >= 0.4, haskell98 else Build-Depends: base >= 3, containers, binary >= 0.4, haskell98 Exposed-modules: Data.Number.ER, Data.Number.ER.Real, Data.Number.ER.Real.DefaultRepr, Data.Number.ER.Real.Base.MachineDouble, Data.Number.ER.Real.Base.CombinedMachineAP, Data.Number.ER.Real.Base.Rational, Data.Number.ER.Real.Base.Float, Data.Number.ER.Real.Base, Data.Number.ER.Real.Arithmetic.Elementary, Data.Number.ER.Real.Arithmetic.Integration, Data.Number.ER.Real.Arithmetic.Taylor, Data.Number.ER.Real.Arithmetic.Newton, Data.Number.ER.Real.Approx.Sequence, Data.Number.ER.Real.Approx.Elementary, Data.Number.ER.Real.Approx.Interval, Data.Number.ER.Real.Approx, Data.Number.ER.PlusMinus, Data.Number.ER.BasicTypes, Data.Number.ER.Misc, Data.Number.ER.ExtendedInteger Extensions: DeriveDataTypeable, ForeignFunctionInterface, ScopedTypeVariables


don't require refrigeration (meaning they are shelf-stable) or any special handling. They can generally survive the journey through the stomach to the intestines.
Soil-based organisms are typically able to seed the digestive tract with beneficial bacteria which can grow and flourish, supporting overall healthy digestion and a healthy immune system. †
Product Disclaimer Product Disclaimer


no use to anyone other than the maintainer of Date::Manip. They are included solely for the sake of completeness. If someone wanted to fork Date::Manip, all the tools necessary to do so are included in the distribution.
(*) Meaning of $::TZ and $ENV{TZ}
In Date::Manip 5.x, you could specify what time zone you wanted to work in using either the $::TZ or $ENV{TZ} variables.
Date::Manip 6.00 makes use of two different time zones: the actual local time zone the computer is running in (and which is used by the system clock), and a time zone that you want to work in. Typically, these are the same, but they do not have to be.
As of Date::Manip 6.00, the $::TZ and $ENV{TZ} variables are used only to specify the actual local time zone.
In order to specify an alternate time zone to work in, use the SetDate or ForceDate config variables.
(*) Date_Init handling of config variables
The handling of config variables has changed slightly.
Previously, variables passed in to Date_Init overrode values from config files. This has changed slightly. Options to Date_Init are now parsed in the order they are listed, so the following:
would first set the DateFormat variable, and then it would read the config file "DateManip.cnf". If that config file included a DateFormat definition, it would override the one passed in to Date_Init.
The proper way to override config files is to pass the config files in first, followed by any script-specific overrides. In other words:
Date_Init doesn't return the config variables
In Date::Manip::5.xx, Date_Init could return the list of all config variables. This functionality is no longer supported. Date_Init is used strictly to set config variables.
(*) Config file options
Date::Manip 5.xx had the concept of a global and personal config file. In addition, the personal config file could be looked for in a path of directories. All this was specified using the config variables:
All of these have been removed. Instead, the single config variable:
will be used to specify config files (with no distinction between a global and personal config file). Also, no path searching is done. Each must be specified by a complete path. Finally, any number of config files can be used. So the following is valid:
Other config variables removed
The following config variables have been removed.
 TodayIsMidnight Use DefaultTime instead.
 ConvTZ Use SetDate or ForceDate instead.
 Internal Use Printable instead.
 DeltaSigns Use the Date::Manip::Delta::printf
 method to print deltas
 UpdateCurrTZ With real time zone handling in
 place, this is no longer necessary
 IntCharSet This has been replaced with better support for
 international character sets. The Encoding config
 variable may be used instead.
Other config variables deprecated
The following config variables are deprecated and will be removed in some future version:
 TZ Use SetDate or ForceDate instead.
Previously, holidays could be defined as a "Date + Delta" or "Date - Delta" string. These predate recurrences, and introduce some complexity into the handling of holidays. Since recurrences are a much better way to define holidays, the "Date + Delta" and "Date - Delta" strings are no longer supported.
TZ replaced (and enhanced)
The SetDate and ForceDate variables (which include the functionality of the deprecated TZ variable) are much improved as described in the Date::Manip::Config documentation.
Since it is now handles time change correctly (allowing time changes to occur in the alternate time zone), parsed results may be different than in 5.x (but since 5.x didn't have proper time zone handling, this is a good thing).
(*) today, tomorrow, yesterday
The words "today", "tomorrow", and "yesterday" in 5.xx referred to the time now, 24 hours in the future, and 24 hours in the past respectively.
As of 6.00, these are treated strictly as date strings, so they are the current day, the day before, or the day after at the time 00:00:00.
The string "now" still refers to the current date and time.
ISO 8601 formats
A couple of the date formats from Date::Manip 5.xx conflicted with ISO 8601 formats in the spec. These are documented in the Date::Manip::Date documentation.
Dates are now parsed according to the spec (though a couple extensions have been made, which are also documented in the Date::Manip::Date documentation).
There is one change with respect to Date::Manip 5.xx that results from a possible misinterpretation of the standard. In Date::Manip, there is a small amount of ambiguity in how the Www-D date formats are understood.
The date:
might be interpreted in two different ways. It could be interpreted as Wednesday (day 3) of the 2nd week of 1996, or as the 3rd day of the 2nd week of 1996 (which would be Tuesday if the week begins on Sunday). Since the specification only works with weeks which begin on day 1, the two are always equivalent in the specification, and the language of the specification doesn't clearly indicate one interpretation over the other.
Since Date::Manip supports the concept of weeks starting on days other than day 1 (Monday), the two interpretations are not equivalent.
In Date::Manip 5.xx, the date was interpreted as Wednesday of the 2nd week, but I now believe that the other interpretation (3rd day of the week) is the interpretation intended by the specification. In addition, if this interpretation is used, it is easy to get the other interpretation.
If 1996-w02-3 means the 3rd day of the 2nd week, then to get Wednesday (day 3) of the week, use the following two Date::Manip::Date methods:
 $err = $date->parse("1996-w02-1");
 $date2 = $date->next(3,1);
The first call gets the 1st day of the 2nd week, and the second call gets the next Wednesday.
If 1996-w02-3 is interpreted as Wednesday of the 2nd week, then to get the 3rd day of the week involves significantly more work.
In Date::Manip 6.00, the date will now be parsed as the 3rd day of the 2nd week.
(*) Parsing is now more rigid
The philosophy in Date::Manip 5.xx with respect to parsing dates was "if there's any conceivable way to find a valid date in the string, do so". As a result, strings which did not look like they could contain a valid date often would.
This manifested itself it two ways. First, a lot of punctuation was ignored. For example, the string "01 // 03 -. 75" was the date 1975-01-03.
Second, a lot of word breaks were optional and it was often acceptable to run strings together. For example, the delta "in5seconds" would have worked.
With Date::Manip 6.00, parsing now tries to find a valid date in the string, but uses a more rigidly defined set of allowed formats which should more closely match how the dates would actually be expressed in real life. The punctuation allowed is more rigidly defined, and word breaks are required. So "01/03/75" will work, but "01//03/75" and "01/03-75" won't. Also, "in5seconds" will no longer work, though "in 5 seconds" will work.
These changes serve to simplify some of the regular expressions used in parsing dates, as well as simplifying the parsing routines. They also help to recognize actually dates as opposed to typos... it was too easy to pass in garbage and get a date out.
Support dropped for a few formats
I've dropped support for a few very uncommon (probably never used) formats. These include (with Jan 3, 2009 as an example):
 DD/YYmmm 03/09Jan
 DD/YYYYmmm 03/2009Jan
 mmmYYYY/DD Jan2009/03
 YYYY/DDmmm 2009/03Jan
 mmmYYYY Jan2009
 YYYYmmm 2009Jan
The last two are no longer supported since they are incomplete.
With the exception of the incomplete forms, these could be added back in with very little effort. If there is ever a request to do so, I probably will.
No longer parses the Apache format
Date::Manip 5.xx supported the format:
used in the apache logs. Due to the stricter parsing, this format is no longer supported directly. However, the parse_format method may be used to parse the date directly from an apache log line with no need to extract the date string beforehand.
Date_PrevWorkDay behavior
The behavior of Date_PrevWorkDay has changed slightly.
The starting date is checked. If $timecheck was non-zero, the check failed if the date was not a business date, or if the time was not during business hours. If $timecheck was zero, the check failed if the date was not a business date, but the time was ignored.
In 5.xx, if the check failed, and $timecheck was non-zero, day 0 was defined as the start of the next business day, but if $timecheck


text:
Regardless of whether you can appreciate the fact that wind turbines provide a valuable source of renewable resource electricity or you simply hate the look of them because they destroy your idea of what a landscape should look like, the fact is that wind power plants are popping up all over the country. Some people may have been wondering why there are red flashing lights mounted on top of the wind turbines that they see powering wind farms around the country.
The reason is because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements state that all structures that are more than 200 feet tall must have aircraft warning lights. Due to the fact that a wind farm can comprise more than 200 wind turbines, lighting every single one of them is not only impractical it can also present a distinct annoyance to neighbours in the area. For this reason the FAA has considered an alternative to placing a light on every single wind turbine tower.
The compromise is to place lights on the perimeter wind turbines at a distance of no more than half a statute mile from the next. The flashing red lights are then synchronised so that they all flash on and off at the same time. These lights are only to be required at night and they are affixed to the nacelles of the wind turbines which is at the top of the tower, rather than at the highest point of the turbine.
Depending on whom you choose to listen to, red aviation lighting either does or does not attract migrating native birds. According to the FAA the flashing red lights that are used as aviation warnings do not have any noticeable effect on the birds in the area. However those who are in opposition to wind farms and the turbines that power them cite the possibility that birds will be more attracted to red flashing lights than they will to a white light.
No matter what the structure – radio tower, lighthouse or wind turbine – there will be the risk of bird strike. The question still to be answered is whether the number of bird and bat strikes is higher as a result of the presence of red flashing lights.
A constant concern that is voiced from local residents is the disruption the red blinking lights will cause to the surrounding area. It is not clear whether those who are opposed envisage that the lights are going to shine into the windows of their homes or simply disrupt their outlook at night.


Last updated: August 03, 2015
Sugar, the sweetest decision maker at work
Eating sugar
Having trouble with a work decision? Have a hit of sugar then. Picture: ThinkStock Source: AAP
WE'VE all been there. It's that time of the day when our energy levels slump and we just can't seem to make that all important work decision.
The solution according to one online author and marketing guru is to eat - and have sugar.
Canadian Herbert Lui reckons the key to better and more level-headed decision making is glucose.
Mr Lui says studies have repeatedly shown the link between constant glucose levels in people's blood and the ability to make good decisions.
Citing one study from Willpower, written by university professors Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, Mr Lui said research showed how people became less angry with glucose in their systems.
In this study, participants were given lemonade mixed either with sugar or with a diet sweetener while playing a virtual game - with neither told which they were drinking. Those given the artificial sweetener were far more likely to become angry than those given sugar.
"It has been proven that when our glucose levels are replenished, it becomes much easier to consistently endure trials and to make tough decisions," he writes.
And workers shouldn't underestimate their need for sleep either, Mr Lui adds, writing that sleep is the first activity that gets sacrificed as entrepreneurs find their workloads picking up.
Getting enough rest helps reduces "the body's demand for glucose and improves its overall ability to make use of the glucose in the bloodstream" he adds.


-Not-Rerank [30]
Baselines and Methods. We test the following models:
 1. 1.
 DrQA-NYT [9]: DrQA system which uses NYT archive.
 2. 2.
 DrQA-Wiki [9]: DrQA system which uses Wikipedia as its unique knowledge source. We would like to test if Wikipedia could be sufficient for answering questions on events distant in the past.
 3. 3.
 QA-NLM-U [21]: QA system that uses the best reranking method in [21], while the Document Retriever Module and Document Reader Module are the same as the modules of QANA.
 4. 4.
 QA-Not-Rerank [30]: QANA system without reranking module, same as other large scale question answering systems. The Document Retriever Module and Document Reader Module are the same as the modules of QANA.
 5. 5.
 QANA-TempPub: QANA version that uses only temporal information of timestamp for reranking in Time-Aware Reranking Module.
 6. 6.
 QANA-TempCont: QANA version that only uses temporal information embedded in document content for Time-Aware Reranking Module.
 7. 7.
 QANA: QANA with complete Time-Aware Reranking Module.
4.2 Experimental Results
We measure the performance of the models under comparison using exact match (EM) and F1 score - the two standard measures commonly used in QA research. As shown in Table 3, QANA with full components outperforms other systems for all different N, which represent the numbers of reranked documents used in the Document Reader Module. The performance improvement is due to the use of temporal information for locating more correct documents which is derived from the question itself, document timestamp and document content. We then compare our model with others by considering the top 1 and top 5 documents. When comparing with the DrQA system, which is often used as QA baseline, the improvement is in the range of 17.77% to 32.14%, and from 24.25% to 33.49% on EM and F1 metrics, respectively.
Table 4.
Performance of the models when answering questions having few relevant documents vs. when answering questions with many relevant documents
Top 1
Top 5
Top 10
Top 15
Questions with few relevant documents
Questions with many relevant documents
We have also examined the performance of DrQA when using Wikipedia articles as its knowledge source. In this case, the results are worse than the ones of any other compared method that uses NYT (including DrQA), which implies that Wikipedia cannot successfully answer questions on distant past events, and they need to be answered using primary sources, i.e., news articles from the past.
When comparing with QA-NLM-U [21], the improvement ranges from 12.76% to 12.12% on EM score, and 12.21% to 10.19% on F1 score. In addition, when comparing with QA-Not-Rerank [30] that does not include reranking module, we can also observe an obvious improvement, when considering the top 5 and top 15 documents, ranging from 23.33% to 8.33%, and from 15.64% to 7.11% on EM and F1 metrics, respectively. Moreover, QANA-TempPub performs better than QANA-TempCont when using the top 1 and top 5 documents, but worse when using top 10 and top 15. In addition, we can observe that just using only timestamp information still allows achieving relatively good performance. Nevertheless, QANA with all the proposed components, which make use of the inferred time scope of the questions and the temporal information from both document timestamps and document content, achieves the best results.
We next evaluate the performance of QANA based on the number of relevant documents, and compare it with QA-Not-Rerank. We first rank questions by the number of documents they return, and then group them into two equal parts. As shown in Table 4, we can see that both the tested models achieve better results on questions with few relevant documents, as it is likely easier to locate more relevant documents from small number of documents. We also observe an improvement when comparing our model with QA-Not-Rerank, especially, for the top 5 and top 15 documents, which proves the effectiveness of the reranking method by utilizing temporal information.
Table 5.
Performance of the models when answering questions with few bursts vs. when answering questions with many bursts
Top 1
Top 5
Top 10
Top 15
Questions with few bursts
Questions with many bursts
Moreover, we also analyze the impact of the number of bursts on performance. About half of the questions (96 questions) have few bursts (less than or equal to 4). Table 5 shows that both QANA and QA-Not-Rerank perform much better when answering such questions. The events in questions with many bursts are likely to be similar to other events that occurred at different times, which causes the difficulty to distinguish between the events. As our system considers the importance of bursts by assigning weights to them, it significantly outperforms QA-Not-Rerank. Although \(\alpha (Q)\) is smaller in this case (according to Eq. 9), it still plays an important part in selecting relevant documents. For example, if the number of bursts of a question is 10, \(\alpha (Q)\) approximately equals to 0.1, which means that the final reranking is driven by about 10% of the temporal score.
Finally, we examine the effect of \(\alpha (Q)\), which determines the proportion between temporal relevance score and query relevance score. As shown in Fig. 3, the model using dynamic alpha (depicted by dashed lines) performs always better than the model with static alpha, since the dynamic value is dependent on the distributions of relevant documents over time for each question. The dynamic approach flexibly captures the changes in importance of temporal information and relevance information, resulting in better overall performance.
Fig. 3.
QANA performance with different static alpha values vs. one with dynamic alpha for the top 5 reranked documents
5 Conclusions
In this work we propose a new research task of answering event-related questions on long-term news archives and we show effective solution for it. Unlike other common QA systems designed for synchronic document collections, questions on long-term news archives are usually influenced by temporal aspects, resulting from the interplay between the document timestamps, temporal information embedded in document content and query time scope. Therefore, exploiting temporal information is crucial for this type of QA, as also demonstrated in our experiments. We are also the first to incorporate and adapt temporal information retrieval approaches to QA systems.
Finally, our work makes few general observations. First, to answer event-related questions on long-span news archives one needs to (a) infer the time scope embedded within a question, and then (b) rerank documents based on their closeness and order relation to this time scope. Moreover, (c) using temporal expressions in documents further helps to select best candidates. Lastly, (d) applying dynamic way to determine the importance between query relevance and temporal relevance is quite helpful.
 1. 1.
 2. 2.
 We use Glove [23] embeddings trained on the Common Crawl dataset with 300 dimensions.
 3. 3.
 Note that other techniques could be used to perform burst detection (e.g., [26, 27, 28]).
 4. 4.
 We use the list of temporal signals taken from [13].
 5. 5.
 6. 6.
 We note that we have also tested QANA on 200 separate questions containing explicit temporal expressions, hence with time scopes directly given, and found that it outperforms the same baselines with even better results.
 1. 1.
 Korkeamäki, L., Kumpulainen, S.: Interacting with digital documents: a real life study of historians' task processes, actions and goals. In: Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, CHIIR '19, pp. 35–43. ACM, New York (2019). ISBN 978-1-4503-6025-8
 2. 2.
 Bogaard, T., Hollink, L., Wielemaker, J., Hardman, L., Van Ossenbruggen, J.: Searching for old news: user interests and behavior within a national collection. In: Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, pp. 113–121. ACM (2019)Google Scholar
 3. 3.
 Devlin, J., Chang, M.-W., Lee, K., Toutanova, K.: Bert: pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding. arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.04805 (2018)
 4. 4.
 Rajpurkar, P., Zhang, J., Lopyrev, K., Liang, P.: Squad: 100,000+ questions for machine comprehension of text. arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.05250 (2016)
 5. 5.
 Rajpurkar, P., Jia, R., Liang,


public safety departments around the world have implemented next-generation work centers that combine multiple data sources into a single, unified image using new technology and data analysis software. This will allow public security officials to assess the situation in real time and make appropriate decisions.
The definition of next-generation job centers is an example of real-time crime centers (RTCCs). Public safety departments can use data visualization, analytics, and artificial intelligence tools in RTCC to gain insights from old and real-time inputs. This skill allows for more accurate and faster decision making.
A cognitive engine, an artificial intelligence application capable of processing unstructured data from a variety of sources so that users – in this case public safety departments – can easily extract functional data, is a crucial enabling technology for this type of research. Law enforcement can use these cognitive engines to destroy and evaluate body camera material, edit multimedia, create transcripts, and more.
In the RTCC regulations, analysts and researchers can access 15-20 separate sources of information to identify a person of potential interest. Cognitive engines go through all of these sources and compile the data into aggregation displays and mapping systems, providing faster, more concise information to enable decision-making. Cognitive engines are also useful for law enforcement to improve transparency with the public outside of response functions. Cognitive engines can help authorities disclose information about police encounters with people more easily.
A cognitive engine is an artificial intelligence program that takes unstructured data, analyzes it, and then produces a structured result. Cognitive engines are used for many purposes. For example, there are engines for language recognition, translation, content detection, summary, emotional analysis and more, for example in the field of text analysis. Target recognition, license plate recognition, and optical character recognition are used for video analysis.
Benefits of cognitive engines for public safety
The use of cognitive motor technology in RTCC benefits public safety departments in many ways. One is enhanced transparency. The faster the evidence can be properly processed and corrected, the faster it can be released to the public. Cognitive engines are also force factors. They help reduce the resources and time staff need to analyze the evidence. Staff need to focus on more valuable work instead of time-consuming but low-value tasks such as editing and transcription
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text: Purpose: Several clinical trials have combined antiangiogenic agents and radiation therapy (RT), but evidence of its clinical benefit is insufficient. In this study, we rationalized and investigated the combination of vascular endothelial growth factor-Grab (VEGF-Grab), an antiangiogenic drug that inhibits VEGF-A and placental growth factor (PIGF) and radiotherapy for anti-cancer therapy. Methods and Materials: To observe for changes in PIGF after radiation, HCT116, HCT15, SW480, BxPC3, and RAW264.7 cells and Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) and BxPC3 tumors were given 10 Gy of radiation, and changes in the expression of PIGF were analyzed. Patients scheduled for RT for solid tumor mass were recruited, and their plasma VEGF-A and PIGF were analyzed at baseline and 2 and 4 weeks after the start of radiotherapy. To assess the effects of combining VEGF-Grab and radiotherapy, mice bearing LLC tumors were given 10 Gy of radiation once and 25 mg/ kg of VEGF-Grab every 2 days for 5 rounds. To show that VEGF-Grab is effective in human tumors, mice bearing BxPC3 xenografts were given 2 doses of 15 mg/kg of VEGF-Grab or VEGF-Trap. To assess the efficacy of combination therapy in BxPC3 xenografts, the same experiment used in the LLC model was performed. Results: We demonstrated that PIGF is increased as a direct consequence of irradiation in vitro and in vivo and in the plasma of patients being treated with radiation. Using a syngeneic tumor model, we showed that the combination of VEGF-Grab and RT most effectively inhibited tumor growth through antiangiogenesis, tumor vessel normalization, and tumor-associated macrophage polarization from protumorigenic M2-type to antitumorigenic M1 -type. Finally, we demonstrated similar enhanced antitumor effects using a human xenograft model. Conclusions: This study shows that PIGF is a potential target in patients being treated with RT and suggests VEGF-Grab as a viable therapeutic option in the context of inhibiting secondarily activated pathways responsible for tumor recurrence. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


text:
Two Articles on Polynesians and Cthulhu Oceanic Mythos
1. The Polynesians, Oceanic Nomads of the Pacific.
During the last Ice Age the water levels were much lower than they became after the ice began to melt. The ocean levels today are 330 feet (100.6 meters) higher. In Indonesia, or what now constitutes the South-East Asian area (Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, etc.), a people lived on a land that was not broken up and separated into islands by water. (See Map of Ocean Floor and my lines designating the land mass that would have been above sea level back then. At end of this article.) They all refer to this land as Maui, Mau, Muo, and Mu! Some experts call them Australoids, while some just name them Dravidians from the name of the same people/culture who still live in India and whose Kava ceremony they still retain to this day.
At the same time, in North-East Asia, were "Tungusics/Mongoloids" or Turanians as they named themselves. They were known as Hyperboreans by some, and Turanians or Naga, Chan or Hsien by most, which is where the name comes from in "remote pre-history." (They were those who, in oral doctrines, lived during the 4th world age during a time when Western experts think civilization didn't exist.) They had been drifting across a solid sheet of ice known as Beringia and coming to North America and Canada; other Turanians drifted into a predominantly Mediterranean China, and some of these came into that area from the Americas (Patala or Ameru, in tradition). A road is generally crossed two ways, back and forth, and recent genetic studies prove all of this. Some continued further south and built structures there. It is well known there that Naga people built them and once lived there: such as the structures in Thailand, such as those the Ch'ang built which Chinese history speaks of. Bone finds prove this; excavated ancient burial cites prove this. As more Turanians entered China in waves continuing up to the last Manchu dynasty, the Chinese began to look "more Oriental," as that is commonly thought of. They did NOT look Turanian. They did NOT look Mediterranean any longer. Now, they looked - Chinese.
That these two groups of people, the Dravidians and the Turanians, had known each other in even more ancient, but written of, times in India didn't matter. Cultural ties and traditions still linger to be traced; bones can be found to trace; but that is not important to the Pacific Islands, per se. It does seem to pop up in Mythos tales, albeit in a highly distorted fashion.
The ice began to melt. This prevented further eastward Turanian traveling and any further returning back on that road. It also forced the people in the South East Asian area to either flee back inland, lest the rising level of water wipe them out, or get into ocean going vessels and take to the sea. How one would EXPERIENCE water rising would feel the same as "land sinking."
This South East Asian group, which was once predominantly Dravidian with some Turanian mixture, decided to take to the seas. They became Nomads of the Sea. What is important is that, at Lapita, very ancient pottery was found along with skeletons of people and the tools they used. They are now called Lapita culture: the Lapita peoples. They were New People, different people, and they considered themselves different from others and the same as themselves. These people left a trail of bones, tools and pottery with intricate designs showing human faces and animals that have been traced from Lapita in New Caledonia back through the New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and then onto the mainland of Asia. This group of people was not Dravidian, nor were they Turanian, even if traces lead back to these two original groups in even remoter times before the last Ice Age was over. They were POLYNESIAN. They are as unlike both Dravidian and Turanian as Dravidian is from Turanian, just as the Chinese are pretty much another race from the Turanians and they are also now another race from the Mediterraneans.
Insects that migrated to these Polynesian Islands and became isolated also changed. There exist wasps with no wings, and birds with black fur and no wings. They were not long on the islands and they got there by flying. But remaining there, and not needing wings to escape predators or hunt food, they quickly lost their ability to fly. Zoologically, this is known as Burning your Bridges. You (or any organism) make an evolutionary choice, and you can not turn back. You change. You can change again in another new way, but you can not turn back. The change (whether in humans or non-humans and including trees and plants) can make a species "warlike": such as trees with poisons in their leaves that harm predators, such as birds that have to hunt, and such as humans that have to compete for food. The change can make a species very calm and peaceful: such as trees that lose their toxins because nothing eats their leaves, birds and insects that lose their flying ability, humans that settle down and develop cultural artistic abilities and live very simply in complete harmony with a friendly, not hostile, land.
Australian Aborigines do not figure into the picture of Oceanic peoples at all. They were there on Australia, as were the other strange creatures on that land, which exist nowhere else on earth. The Polynesians know it; the Aborigines know it. They've lived on Australia 60 thousand years by their own accounts. Nor does New Guinea or Tasmania fit into their travels. These lands were already inhabited by different people at least 20 thousand years ago. They were a hunter culture, not agricultural. Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania tell another story, perhaps a separate story. Not a Polynesian story. Later, when some Polynesians did go to these islands, they remained separate from the previous people and stayed on the coasts. Prior to the sea levels rising, Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania were one land-mass. These Aborginals, along with most of the other life present, are considered isolates: groups separated for so long that new species begin to change enough to evolve, such as the kangaroo, a marsupial animal.
How came these Polynesians to be one distinct people? Two previously separate groups mixed; they blended and then, blended, they had very rigid and strict codes of who can marry whom, known as dividing a tribe into moieties and clans with totems. The offspring of each clan goes to the clan of the mother, but a different breeding class from that of father or mother. There is a 4 class and an 8 class system and they are extremely rigid. Whatever they are doing, the system somehow prevented deleterious inbreeding in a way not known to specialists. What comes out of these matings is eugenic and not in any way dysgenic. This system, in fact, is universal among non-Christian (non-white) social systems, not just among the Polynesians. Something is not understood in Western science about the genetics involved. What is "Taboo" (a Polynesian word) is what would cause dysgenics! That is a fact. How the class system does this is unknown. As such, this group of people, who called themselves "The People," set sail for the seas. Like Nomads, they were literally Sea Nomads.
The first place they sailed to was Fiji. From there, some of them set sail and went to an island halfway between Asia and S. America: Tahiti. They brought only a few things native to Fiji with them, such as dogs, the bread-fruit plant, taro plant, pigs, rats (to eat), and chickens. The majority of fruits and animals they brought with them are known to be of Asian origin. On Tahiti they found an island paradise and lived well. In Tahiti, Tangaroa (Ta'aroa) was par excellence the god of creation. He was the god of "special tribes" and "clans" such as the Ati Ta'aroa, Ati Tane, and Ati Oro, but was not especially connected with fishing.
Later, a group of these people left Tahiti and went to the Marquesas (native name??). There, they brought the same few things with them but they found a harsher environment, which required them to build a series of irrigation systems and aqueducts and perform other beneficial forms of agricultural engineering. Necessity is the mother of invention. If you have to do it, you do it! If you don't, you don't! (Consider this if you doubt: would you continue to work 9 to 5 at a job if you won the lottery? If you say yes, then you must be a bored person with no inner-life at all, or a wannabe slave!)
From the Marquesas the Polynesians set to sea again: this time in many directions. I have no idea why they left and then continued to island hop. Of note, Tangaroa did not occupy a unique position on the Marquesas; he was a god of the seas and winds, and one of the patron deities of fishing.
Some set sail to Samoa where they had to build a dam which lead to a method of catching fish that was so


Programs & Services
The learning system Dan uses includes preparing the participants for the training and follow-up strategies after the training that ensure the learning gets embedded in the company culture. In delivering his message, he is able to break down the concepts into digestible and usable concepts so learners can absorb and apply the key concepts.
Dan Miller's programs combine innovative, interactive strategies with the essential principles of one or more of the following leadership and communication components to create a customized package for organization. Go to any module below for more information.
For over 35 years, Dan has applied cutting-edge technologies to help individuals move rapidly forward, both personally and professionally.
A Dan Miller rhythm event is a powerful and fun way to build team cohesiveness, create collaboration, and celebrate individuality. Creating and developing teams that interact effectively and produce efficiently is an ongoing process.


text:
OBJ: Today you will be researching past weather and completing two national weather maps, one for an autumn day and another for a spring day in this last year.
- By this time you should already have a handout from your teacher that has two US maps on it, if you do not have this, talk to your teacher
- Pick two days of the year 2011, one in spring (March-May) and one in fall (September-November) and write the dates in the appropriate blank on your maps
- Go to this website and find your days using the menu.
- On your maps draw in the following features from your chosen days:
- High Pressure (H)
- Low Pressure (L)
- Cold Fronts
- Warm Fronts
- Stationary Fronts
- Go to this website and find the location of the jet stream(s), add them to your maps
- When you are finished hold onto your paper, your teacher will pick them up from you at the end of class
- You may go to this website, but no where else unless you have specific permission from your teacher


text:
The AirRes Mask can be used to simulate a variety of stressful and high-risk scenarios.
A research team working out of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in Austria has developed a unique accessory for the Meta Quest 2 VR headset that allows users to interact with the virtual world by simply breathing. The bizarre-looking peripheral can also be used to hinder the user's breathing in order to simulate "adverse" environmental conditions, such as smoke caused by fire.
The AirRes Mask, as it's referred to by the team, is composed of a standard half-face respirator equipped with a sensor and resistance disk. The device works by measuring the user's breathing, allowing them to engage with the virtual world in a variety of unique ways.
In a video provided by the team, we catch a glimpse of the device being used to play the harmonica. Depending on the position of the virtual instrument and the force of the breathing, the user is able to trigger different notes. Later on, we see the user operating a virtual blowgun and blowing up balloons by carefully breathing into the apparatus.
As previously mentioned, the AirRes Mask can also be used to simulate breathing resistance in VR, allowing developers to safely immerse user's in a variety of harsh environments. This is demonstrated with a firefighter simulator in which the user battles a raging inferno from within a confined space.
As the smoke begins to fill the room, the resistance disk restricts airflow through the mask to simulate smoke inhalation and a decrease in stamina. According to the research team, hindering a user's breathing can increase their stress levels, further immersing the user in a variety of high-risk scenarios.
"Breathing resistance can provide feedback for simple actions such as blowing into wind instruments, or for more complex contextual information about environmental conditions or the state of the user's virtual avatar," said the research team in their full research paper.
"For instance, effects of virtual smoke or low stamina of the avatar can be expressed by the system as an increase in breathing resistance. We explore such action-based and context-based mappings of breathing interaction in a user study and investigate the system's ability to precisely map a user's breathing force to actions as well as its ability to provide noticeable variations in breathing resistance."
We've seen our fair share of bizarre multi-sensory technology in the past, from a haptic feedback device that utilizes ultrasonic transducers to simulate the feeling of spiders crawling on your face to a location-based experience that lets you smell the inside of a tree. The AirRes Mask offers yet another way for developers to immerse VR users in their experiences via multi-sensory technology.
In addition to entertainment, the device could prove immensely useful for training purposes. The technology offers companies and organizations a way to efficiently simulate stressful and even potentially dangerous scenarios without risk to the trainee.
For more information on the project, read the team's full research paper, AirRes Mask: A Precise and Robust Virtual Reality Breathing Interface Utilizing Breathing Resistance as Output Modality.
Image Credit: Salzburg University of Applied Sciences


Main Content
Get Started with the Image Labeler
The Image Labeler app provides an easy way to interactively create a variety of shapes to mark as region of interest (ROI) labels. You can create rectangular, polyline, pixel, and polygon ROI labels and scene labels in an image or image sequence.
You can use labeled data to validate or train algorithms such as image classifiers, object detectors, and semantic and instance segmentation networks. Consider your application when choosing a labeling drawing tool to create ROI labels. For more details on how to select the right label type and drawing tool for your application, see ROI Labels, Sublabels, and Attributes.
 - Load unlabeled data
 - Manually label an image frame from an image collection.
 - Automatically label across image frames using an automation algorithm.
 - Export the labeled ground truth data.
ROI and Scene Label Definitions
 - An ROI label corresponds to either a rectangular, polyline, pixel, or polygon region of interest. These labels contain two components: the label name, such as "cars," and the region you create.
Load Unlabeled Data
Load Data Programmatically
To programmatically load images from a datastore:
 1. Create a datastore from a folder of images:
 imageFolder = fullfile(toolboxdir('vision'),'visiondata','boats.png')
 imds = imageDatastore(imageFolder)
 2. Load the datastore:
To programmatically load a folder of images:
Load Data Directly from the App
Open the app from the Apps tab, under Image Processing and Computer Vision. Click Import to load images or click Open Session to open a saved session.
Create Label Definitions
Create ROI Label
An ROI label is a label that corresponds to a region of interest (ROI) in an image. You can define these ROI label types.
 - Rectangle — Draw 2-D rectangular bounding box labels around objects in an image, such as vehicles, boats, buildings.
 - Projected cuboid — Draw 3-D bounding box labels around objects in an image, such as vehicles, boats, buildings.
 - Line — Draw linear ROIs to label lines, such as lane boundaries.
 - Pixel label — Draw pixels to label various classes, such as road or sky, for semantic segmentation. For more information about pixel labeling, see Label Pixels for Semantic Segmentation.
 - Polygon — Draw polygon labels around objects. You can label distinct instances of the same class. For more information on drawing polygon ROI labels for instance and semantic segmentation networks, see Label Objects Using Polygons
For more details about these ROI label definitions, see ROI Labels, Sublabels, and Attributes.
In this example, you define a Boat group for labeling types of boats, and then create a Rectangle ROI label for a Sailboat and a Tanker. To control showing the ROI label names during labeling, select On Hover, Always, or Never from the Show ROI Labels drop-down menu.
 2. Create a Rectangle label type named Sailboat.
 4. From the Group drop-down menu, select New Group... and name the group Boats
 5. Click OK.
 The Boats group name appears in the ROI Labels pane with the label Sailboat created. You can move a label in the list to a different position or group in the list by left-clicking and dragging the label up or down.
 6. To add a second type of Boats label, select the group Boats, then click Label. Name the label Tanker. Click OK.
 7. Select the Sailboat sublabel, then use the mouse to draw a rectangular ROI around the a sailboat. Select the Tanker sublabel to draw an ROI around the tanker ship.
 Sailboat in the foreground and tanker ship in the background
Create Sublabels
A sublabel is a type of ROI label that corresponds to a parent ROI label. Each sublabel must belong to, or be a child of, a specific label defined in the ROI Labels pane. For example, in the ocean scene, a sailboat label might have sublabels for sails. For more details about sublabels, see ROI Labels, Sublabels, and Attributes.
Define a sublabel for sails.
 1. In the ROI Labels pane on the left, click the Sailboat label.
 2. Click Sublabel.
 3. Create a Rectangle sublabel named sail and optionally write a description. Click OK.
 The sail sublabel appears in the ROI Labels pane. The sublabel is nested under the selected ROI label, Sailboat, and by default has the same color as its parent label.
 You can add multiple sublabels under a label. You can also drag-and-drop the sublabels to reorder them in the list and right-click any label for additional edits.
 4. In the ROI Labels pane, select the sail sublabel.
 5. In the image frame, select the Sailboat label. The label turns yellow when selected. You must select the Sailboat label (parent ROI) before you can draw a sublabel for it.
 Draw sail sublabels for each of the sails.
Sublabels cannot have their own sublabels and they can only be used with rectangular or polyline ROI labels.
Create ROI Attribute
An ROI attribute specifies additional information about an ROI label or sublabel. For example, in a driving scene, attributes might include the type or color of a vehicle. In the ocean scene, attributes might include the type of sailboat or number of sails. You can define ROI attributes of these types.
 - Numeric Value — Specify a numeric scalar attribute, such as the number of doors on a labeled vehicle or the number of sails on a sailboat.
 - String — Specify a string scalar attribute, such as the color of a vehicle or boat.
 - Logical — Specify a logical true or false attribute, such as whether a vehicle is in motion or a boat is making way.
 - List — Specify a drop-down list attribute of predefined strings, such as make or model of a vehicle or boat.
For more details about these attribute types, see ROI Labels, Sublabels, and Attributes.
Add an attribute to a Label.
 1. In the ROI Labels pane on the left, select the Sailboat label and click Attribute.
 2. In the Attribute Name box, type sailboatType. Set the attribute type to List.
 3. In the List Items section, type different types of sailboats, such as Monohull, Catamaran, and Multi-hull, each on its own line. Optionally give the attribute a description, and click OK.
 4. Select a Sailboat ROI label. In the Attributes and Sublabels pane, select the appropriate sailboatType attribute value for that vehicle.
You can also add attributes to sublabels. Add an attribute for the sail sublabel to indicate whether it is a foresail or a mainsail.
 1. In the ROI Labels pane on the left, select the sail sublabel and click Attribute.
 2. In the Attribute Name box, type sailRaised. Set the attribute type to Logical. Leave the Default Value set to Empty, optionally write a description, and click OK.
 3. Select a sail in the scene. In the right-hand pane, set the appropriate isOn attribute value, or leave the attribute value set to Empty.
 The "Attributes and Sublabels" pane showing the sailRaised attribute with "True" selected
Create Scene Labels
A scene label defines additional information for the entire scene. Use scene labels to describe conditions, such as lighting and weather, or events, such as lane changes or point of sail.
Create a scene label to apply to an image.
 1. In the left pane of the app, select the Scene Labels next to the ROI Labels tab.
 2. Click Define new scene label, and in the Label Name box, enter a scene label named daytime.
 3. Change the color of the label definition to light blue to reflect the nature of the scene label. Under the Color parameter, click the color preview and select the standard light blue colors. Then, click OK to close the color selection window.
 4. Leave the Group parameter set to the default of None and click OK. The Scene Labels pane shows the scene label definition.
 5. Click Apply to Image to apply the daytime label to the scene. A checkmark appears for the scene label.
Label Ground Truth
You can label images manually, use a suitable built-in automation algorithm, create a new algorithm, or import an algorithm.
Label Ground Truth Manually
The ROI and Scene labels are defined for your entire session and all images, but you must draw the labels, and sublabels for each image and update the attribute information.
Label Ground Truth Using an Automation Algorithm
To speed up the labeling process, you can use an automation algorithm to label the remainder of your images. Select one of these types of automation algorithms from the app toolstrip Automate Labeling > Select Algorithm section.
 - A built-in automation algorithm — Select a suitable algorithm. Follow the steps that appear in the right pane.
 - Add algorithm — Create an automation. For details on how to define your own automatino algorithm, see Create Automation Algorithm for Labeling.
 - Import algorithm — Import a custom automation algorithm. For more details about importing an automation algorithm, see Create Automation Algorithm for Labeling.
Export Labeled Ground Truth
gTruth =
 groundTruth with properties:
 DataSource: [1×1 groundTruthDataSource]
 LabelDefinitions: [2x6 table]
 LabelData: [531×3 timetable]
Data Source
ans =
groundTruthDataSource for a video file with properties
 TimeStamps: [


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Cardiovascular Fitness and Diving, Diet and Exercise Go A Long Way
But Watch Your Medications, Too
By Laurie Gowen
We all do when it comes to diving: it's why we dive. Our hearts are figuratively in our diving because we enjoy our sport. But our hearts are literally in it as well. Your cardiovascular health can play a formidable part in the safety of any dive you make. So, how's your own heart health?
Checking the Numbers
When DAN dive researchers look at the injury and fatality cases in our database, they glean a great deal of varied information. One of the most important facts they offer is that high blood pressure and heart disease have consistently been the most frequently reported chronic health conditions contributing to dive fatalities in the 15 years DAN has formally compiled fatality statistics.
In the 2004 DAN Report on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities and Project Dive Exploration, more than 14 percent of the fatalities reported had a chronic history of high blood pressure and / or heart disease. Obesity, another factor reported in 55 percent of fatalities, is connected to heart disease and hypertension, with resulting links to poor health and poor exercise tolerance. In combination with other contributing factors, poor cardiovascular health can increase the risk of a severe or fatal dive incident.
Lowering the Odds
These issues can compromise your cardiovascular health: high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, congenital heart disease, cigarette smoking and a family history of heart disease.
What, then, can help improve cardiovascular health? What medications for cardiovascular disease can influence someone's ability to dive safely?
Stop smoking. Cigarette smoking compromises heart and lung function, and nicotine can constrict blood vessels resulting in hypertension.
Exercise regularly. Even a moderate increase in activity will improve physical fitness and increase exercise tolerance. This, in turn, will improve stamina and endurance while diving.
Eat sensibly. A diet low in saturated fats and cholesterol will naturally reduce the risk of obesity and heart disease.
While a family history of heart disease cannot be changed, controlling diet and increasing exercise can reduce the risk of health-related accidents and injuries. In understanding the risks, divers can make choices that positively affect their diving.
With increasing age and declining cardiovascular health, Americans lead the way in using medications for help controlling high blood pressure and coronary disease, and other First-World nations see a similar trend.
Chronic hypertension is associated with damage to the heart, kidneys and an increased risk of stroke. Antihypertensive medications, however, can help reduce the risk of serious illness. A common question to the DAN Medical Information Line asks about the safety of diving while taking these medications.
Here are some of the more common medications and their possible adverse reactions for divers:
Commonly used to treat hypertension, beta blockers have a big drawback: they can reduce the heart's capacity for exercise and therefore affect your exercise tolerance. In addition, if medication restricts the heart's function during exercise, then there is an increased risk of loss of consciousness, which could prove fatal underwater.
Because of this effect on divers, doctors often recommend a stress test. According to Dr. Alfred Bové (Bové and Davis' Diving Medicine, 4th Ed.), divers who use beta blockers and who can achieve a strenuous level of exercise without severe fatigue may be cleared for diving. Bové also mentions that although diving does not usually represent the maximum workload on the heart, divers taking beta blockers should avoid extreme exercise because their maximum capacity for exercise may be reduced.
ACE (Angiotension-converting enzyme) inhibitors have less effect on exercise than beta blockers, so doctors prescribe them for people who exercise more often. Although ACE inhibitors seem to have fewer adverse effects on divers, they can produce a cough and airway swelling: both conditions can cause severe problems underwater. Most people can usually tolerate a mild cough on land, but if a cough due to the drug persists, many physicians will change medications. In the presence of kidney disease, ACE inhibitors should be avoided.
Calcium Channel Blockers
Calcium channel blockers don't typically pose problems for divers: they relax the walls of blood vessels, reducing blood flow resistance and thus lowering blood pressure. In some cases, especially in moderate doses, a change in position from sitting or lying down to standing may cause excessively low blood pressure and a subsequent momentary dizziness. This postural blood pressure change may be a cause for concern with divers, but calcium blockers appear to have no other adverse reaction for diving.
Diuretics reduce the amount of excess water and salt in the body, thus lowering the blood pressure. Divers seem to have very little trouble with diuretics, although in very warm environments, they may cause excessive water loss and dehydration. Because dehydration seems to be a contributing factor to the risk of decompression sickness, divers may want to reduce the dosage on the day of diving. Before changing dosages, however, check with your doctor.
Antiarrhythmics are designed to help maintain a stable heart rhythm. Dr. Bové warns that some of the antiarrhythmics, when combined with exercise and a loss of potassium, could increase the risk of injuring the heart. Although these medicines normally do not interfere with diving, the dysrhythmia, or abnormal heart rate, for which the medication is being taken may be a contraindication to diving. Through consultation, a cardiologist and a dive medicine physician should evaluate anyone who has an abnormal heart rate and requires medication.
A diver who has been prescribed an anticoagulant, e.g., Coumadin® or Warfarin®, should be warned of the potential for bleeding: excessive bleeding can occur from even a seemingly benign ear or sinus barotrauma. There is a potential risk that, if decompression illness occurs, it may then cause significant bleeding in the brain or spinal cord
Get in the Know
Cardiovascular disease can contribute to dive injuries as well as fatalities. Both are preventable. With increased information about cardiovascular health and fitness, divers can make better choices and increase the opportunity that every dive will be accidentand injury-free.
Read all you can about your medications, consult with your doctor, and when you have questions about diving and drugs, call DAN.
(c) DAN - Alert Diver November / December 2005


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What Aristotle called "the arrangement of the incidents," the plot of a work depends upon how its episodes are presented. A work of IF may have only one possible plot, as in Photopia. It may have several plots, as in Losing Your Grip. Most cave-crawl adventures have multiple plots because they have puzzles that can be solved in a different order each time. Although a work like the usual play or novel can be said to have a plot, a work of IF has one or more potential plots that are only realized during an interaction.
-- nm - 15 Jul 2002


Scylla serrata
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Scylla serrata (often called mud crab or mangrove crab, although both terms are highly ambiguous, as well as black crab) is an economically important crab species found in the estuaries and mangroves of Africa, Australia and Asia. In their most common form, the shell colour varies from a deep, mottled green to very dark brown. Generally cooked with their shells on, when they moult their shells, they can be served as a seafood delicacy, one of many types of soft shell crab. Some consider them to be among the tastiest of crab species and they have a huge demand in South Asian countries where they are often bought alive in the markets. In the northern states of Australia and especially Queensland, mud crabs are relatively common and generally prized above other seafood within the general public.
These crabs are highly cannibalistic in nature and when another crab undergoes moulting the hard shelled ones attack the moulting crabs and devour them. The females can give birth to 1 million offspring which can grow up to in size and have a shell width of up to wide.
Mud crab can be killed by placing them in a freezer for up to two hours.
There has been a huge interest in the aquaculture of this species due to their high demand/price, high flesh content and rapid growth rates in captivity. In addition they have a high tolerance to both nitrate and ammonia (particularly NH3) (twice that of the similar...
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internalized toxin is routed to the lysosomes for degradation, so only a small fraction of surface-bound toxin reaches the Golgi apparatus and ER6-12
To monitor toxin translocation from the ER to the cytosol in cultured cells, we combined a subcellular fractionation protocol with the highly sensitive detection method of surface plasmon resonance (SPR)13-15
. The plasma membrane of toxin-treated cells is selectively permeabilized with digitonin, allowing collection of a cytosolic fraction which is subsequently perfused over an SPR sensor coated with an anti-toxin A chain antibody. The antibody-coated sensor can capture and detect pg/mL quantities of cytosolic toxin. With this protocol, it is possible to follow the kinetics of toxin entry into the cytosol and to characterize inhibitory effects on the translocation event. The concentration of cytosolic toxin can also be calculated from a standard curve generated with known quantities of A chain standards that have been perfused over the sensor. Our method represents a rapid, sensitive, and quantitative detection system that does not require radiolabeling or other modifications to the target toxin.
Immunology, Issue 59, Surface plasmon resonance, AB toxin, translocation, endoplasmic reticulum, cell culture, cholera toxin, pertussis toxin
Improving IV Insulin Administration in a Community Hospital
Institutions: Wyoming Medical Center.
Diabetes mellitus is a major independent risk factor for increased morbidity and mortality in the hospitalized patient, and elevated blood glucose concentrations, even in non-diabetic patients, predicts poor outcomes.1-4
The 2008 consensus statement by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) states that "hyperglycemia in hospitalized patients, irrespective of its cause, is unequivocally associated with adverse outcomes."5
It is important to recognize that hyperglycemia occurs in patients with known or undiagnosed diabetes as well as during acute illness in those with previously normal glucose tolerance.
The Normoglycemia in Intensive Care Evaluation-Survival Using Glucose Algorithm Regulation (NICE-SUGAR) study involved over six thousand adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients who were randomized to intensive glucose control or conventional glucose control.6
Surprisingly, this trial found that intensive glucose control increased the risk of mortality by 14% (odds ratio, 1.14; p=0.02). In addition, there was an increased prevalence of severe hypoglycemia in the intensive control group compared with the conventional control group (6.8% vs. 0.5%, respectively; p<0.001). From this pivotal trial and two others,7,8
Wyoming Medical Center (WMC) realized the importance of controlling hyperglycemia in the hospitalized patient while avoiding the negative impact of resultant hypoglycemia.
Despite multiple revisions of an IV insulin paper protocol, analysis of data from usage of the paper protocol at WMC shows that in terms of achieving normoglycemia while minimizing hypoglycemia, results were suboptimal. Therefore, through a systematical implementation plan, monitoring of patient blood glucose levels was switched from using a paper IV insulin protocol to a computerized glucose management system. By comparing blood glucose levels using the paper protocol to that of the computerized system, it was determined, that overall, the computerized glucose management system resulted in more rapid and tighter glucose control than the traditional paper protocol. Specifically, a substantial increase in the time spent within the target blood glucose concentration range, as well as a decrease in the prevalence of severe hypoglycemia (BG < 40 mg/dL), clinical hypoglycemia (BG < 70 mg/dL), and hyperglycemia (BG > 180 mg/dL), was witnessed in the first five months after implementation of the computerized glucose management system. The computerized system achieved target concentrations in greater than 75% of all readings while minimizing the risk of hypoglycemia. The prevalence of hypoglycemia (BG < 70 mg/dL) with the use of the computer glucose management system was well under 1%.
Medicine, Issue 64, Physiology, Computerized glucose management, Endotool, hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, diabetes, IV insulin, paper protocol, glucose control
Polymerase Chain Reaction: Basic Protocol Plus Troubleshooting and Optimization Strategies
Institutions: University of California, Los Angeles.
In the biological sciences there have been technological advances that catapult the discipline into golden ages of discovery. For example, the field of microbiology was transformed with the advent of Anton van Leeuwenhoek's microscope, which allowed scientists to visualize prokaryotes for the first time. The development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is one of those innovations that changed the course of molecular science with its impact spanning countless subdisciplines in biology. The theoretical process was outlined by Keppe and coworkers in 1971; however, it was another 14 years until the complete PCR procedure was described and experimentally applied by Kary Mullis while at Cetus Corporation in 1985. Automation and refinement of this technique progressed with the introduction of a thermal stable DNA polymerase from the bacterium Thermus aquaticus
, consequently the name Taq
PCR is a powerful amplification technique that can generate an ample supply of a specific segment of DNA (i.e., an amplicon) from only a small amount of starting material (i.e., DNA template or target sequence). While straightforward and generally trouble-free, there are pitfalls that complicate the reaction producing spurious results. When PCR fails it can lead to many non-specific DNA products of varying sizes that appear as a ladder or smear of bands on agarose gels. Sometimes no products form at all. Another potential problem occurs when mutations are unintentionally introduced in the amplicons, resulting in a heterogeneous population of PCR products. PCR failures can become frustrating unless patience and careful troubleshooting are employed to sort out and solve the problem(s). This protocol outlines the basic principles of PCR, provides a methodology that will result in amplification of most target sequences, and presents strategies for optimizing a reaction. By following this PCR guide, students should be able to:
- Set up reactions and thermal cycling conditions for a conventional PCR experiment
- Understand the function of various reaction components and their overall effect on a PCR experiment
- Design and optimize a PCR experiment for any DNA template
- Troubleshoot failed PCR experiments
Basic Protocols, Issue 63, PCR, optimization, primer design, melting temperature, Tm, troubleshooting, additives, enhancers, template DNA quantification, thermal cycler, molecular biology, genetics
Spatial Multiobjective Optimization of Agricultural Conservation Practices using a SWAT Model and an Evolutionary Algorithm
Institutions: University of Washington, Iowa State University, North Carolina A&T University, Iowa Geological and Water Survey.
Finding the cost-efficient (i.e.
, lowest-cost) ways of targeting conservation practice investments for the achievement of specific water quality goals across the landscape is of primary importance in watershed management. Traditional economics methods of finding the lowest-cost solution in the watershed context (e.g.
) assume that off-site impacts can be accurately described as a proportion of on-site pollution generated. Such approaches are unlikely to be representative of the actual pollution process in a watershed, where the impacts of polluting sources are often determined by complex biophysical processes. The use of modern physically-based, spatially distributed hydrologic simulation models allows for a greater degree of realism in terms of process representation but requires a development of a simulation-optimization framework where the model becomes an integral part of optimization.
Evolutionary algorithms appear to be a particularly useful optimization tool, able to deal with the combinatorial nature of a watershed simulation-optimization problem and allowing the use of the full water quality model. Evolutionary algorithms treat a particular spatial allocation of conservation practices in a watershed as a candidate solution and utilize sets (populations) of candidate solutions iteratively applying stochastic operators of selection, recombination, and mutation to find improvements with respect to the optimization objectives. The optimization objectives in this case are to minimize nonpoint-source pollution in the watershed, simultaneously minimizing the cost of conservation practices. A recent and expanding set of research is attempting to use similar methods and integrates water quality models with broadly defined evolutionary optimization methods3,4,9,10,13-15,17-19,22,23,25
. In this application, we demonstrate a program which follows Rabotyagov et al.'s approach and integrates a modern and commonly used SWAT water quality model7
with a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm SPEA226
, and user-specified set of conservation practices and their costs to search for the complete tradeoff frontiers between costs of conservation practices and user-specified water quality objectives. The frontiers quantify the tradeoffs faced by the watershed managers by presenting the full range of costs associated with various water quality improvement goals. The program allows for a selection of watershed configurations achieving specified water quality improvement goals and a production of maps of optimized placement of conservation practices.
Environmental Sciences, Issue 70, Plant Biology, Civil Engineering, Forest Sciences, Water quality, multiobjective optimization, evolutionary algorithms, cost efficiency, agriculture, development
Rapid Colorimetric Assays to Qualitatively Distinguish RNA and DNA in Biomolecular Samples
Institutions: University of Virginia.
Biochemical experimentation generally requires accurate knowledge, at an early stage, of the nucleic acid, protein, and other biomolecular components in potentially heterogeneous specimens. Nucleic acids can be detected via
several established approaches, including analytical methods that are spectrophotometric (


text:
If you are using an external DNS server, please use the following steps to change the external DNS setting on the SMTP virtual server:
1. Select Organization Configuration, Hub Transport Server, and Send connectors, respectively. From here, locate the clients send connector and right-click Properties.
Note: Use DNS MX records to route mail automatically.
2. If you want to route outbound mail, please use the DNS option to do so. Once the connector has used DNS to resolve the IP address of the remote SMTP server, then it will deliver the mail.
3. If you are going to use the DNS option, verify the following first:
Can your DNS server successfully resolve names on the Internet?
If you have used the Set-TransportServer cmdlet to configure an external DNS server that differs from the one specified on the network connection, can this external DNS server resolve names on the Internet?
4. Use the External DNS Lookup settings on the transport server to utilize the DNS servers list. Select this option if you want to use the external DNS servers list to resolve names on the Internet.
Note: Verify that you have configured the external DNS servers list by using the Set-TransportServer cmdlet or External DNS Lookup tab in the properties of the Hub Transport server object or Edge Transport server object.
5. From here, select the Use External DNS Lookup settings on the transport server check box.