text:
Download Research Tools
A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and so, apparently, is an idle computer. On November 18, scientists from Oregon State University (OSU) will begin harnessing the idle time of thousands of personal computers to study climate modeling and the resulting weather effects on the Pacific Northwest and California. This project illustrates the power of "citizen scientists," in this case, the thousands of individuals whose personal computers will be leveraged during idle times. By lashing together the computing power of these privately owned PCs, the OSU team will create a digital network with the computational chops of a supercomputer.
The OSU participation in this worldwide initiative, under the leadership of Philip Mote, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, will study the reliability of various climate simulation models in the western United States. Microsoft Research provided primary funding for this initiative, with additional support coming from the Bureau of Land Management, the California Energy Commission, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
The work at OSU will join that already underway in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Since the project's inception in 2003, hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists have donated their spare computer processing power to run global climate change models. During idle times, the personal computers collect data on regional climate information, including temperature, winds, and humidity, which is then compiled and fed into climate model simulations.
Experiments in the OSU-led initiative include predicting regional weather events-including droughts, floods, and temperature extremes-during the 2020s and 2030s, and forecasting the possible climate impact if global temperatures rise two, three, or four degrees by the end of the century.
Surface temperature in the global model - you can watch this progressing as your model runs.
Mote notes that the rationale behind these climate modeling studies is elegantly simple. "In less than two months, we can run 40,000 different year-long climate simulation models with our network of volunteers. A dedicated supercomputer, during that time, could simulate a couple hundred years worth of data."
"It's exciting that both climate modeling and computer technology have advanced to the point that people at home can contribute to the effort to study climate change," he added.
Individuals in the western United States who wish to donate their computer's spare processing power are encouraged to visit _URL_ where they can register to have the climate model application downloaded. Much like a screensaver, it will run only when your computer is idle.
—Dan Fay, director of the External Research division of Microsoft Research
On November 11 and 12, 2010, an international group of distinguished researchers met in São Paulo, Brazil, to expand ongoing environmental research on the Brazilian tropical rainforest ecosystem. The workshop built upon the Sensor Nets in Tropical Forests, a pilot project that deployed a sensor net in a 1 km2 area of forest in Serra do Mar, Ubatuba, southeast of Brazil. The workshop was sponsored by Microsoft Research-FAPESP Institute for IT Research, a joint venture of the External Research division of Microsoft Research and FAPESP (the São Paulo Research Foundation).
The gathering brought together scientists from the United States, Chile, Canada, and Brazil, representing such diverse disciplines as phenology, climate science, soil ecology, successional forestry, micrometeorology, and earth system modeling. Among them was Dr. Carlos Nobre, one of the world's foremost researchers on climate change, whose talk, "The Fate of the Amazon Forest in the 21st Century," discussed the impact of global warming, climate change, and fires to the balance of the Amazon forest.
The distinguished attendees identified and tied together a multidisciplinary set of research problems with technology development and collaboration requirements, creating an experiment plan that broadly charts several years of environmental experiments and technology development. In the course of developing the plan, the researchers spent considerable time reflecting on how technology can support them in the ongoing research, pondering the implications of using new methods and technology support to conduct their science. There was broad consensus that environmental science is faced with enormous data-driven challenges-from data acquisition to data management, cleaning, provenance, annotation, visualization, sharing, publication, discovery, and archival. These challenges are accompanied by acceleration in problem complexity and the need for new, integrated multidisciplinary approaches to research.
In response to these important and daunting trends, it is essential to develop new technologies and particularly new computational solutions. In the collaborative rainforest project, we find just such interdisciplinary and data complexity problems, and we see this as a tremendous opportunity to solve specific problems by flexible, extensible, and adoptable means. By so doing, we will build solutions with applicability beyond their immediate corresponding problems.
—Juliana Salles, senior research program manager in the External Research division of Microsoft Research
Amazing people working to make the world a better place—that pretty much encapsulates the presentations at the recent PopTech conference in Camden, Maine. A network of cutting-edge thinkers from many disciplines, PopTech fosters deep, world-changing collaborations. And in a world where science often receives short shrift in the popular media, the annual PopTech conference puts a spotlight on the social impact of science.
One of the highlights of the conference was the inauguration of the PopTech Science and Public Leadership Fellows Program, which aims to develop "a corps of highly visible and socially engaged scientific leaders who embody science as an essential way of thinking, discovering, understanding and deciding." This initiative is supported by Microsoft Research, Intel, the National Science Foundation and others.
The 18 Fellows chosen in this first year of the program were all present at the conference, with many presenting the results of their ground-breaking research. For example, Fellow Sinan Aral demonstrated his work on how behavioral contagions spread through social networks and discussed his belief that we are on the brink of a new understanding of human behavior. Sarah Fortune, another Science Fellow, talked about her efforts to develop new approaches to curing TB—the leading cause of death by a treatable disease, while Fellow Justin Gallivan presented his work in synthetic biology, which aims to reprogram bacteria to track and neutralize environmental pollutants.
Some of the most impressive talks revealed how much can be achieved with very little, by thinking outside the box. Dutch inventor Pieter Hoff showed off his creation, the Groasis Waterboxx, a simple apparatus that will enable billions of survivable trees to be planted in arid regions around the world—even deserts and salt flats—helping to reverse the crisis of CO2 buildup occurring today. Nathan Eagle, from MIT, discussed his efforts to build a cell-phone based virtual workforce in Africa, where everything is now starting to be enabled via mobile phones; he is working on rolling this out in 220 operations across 80 countries, reaching a population of potentially 2.1 billion workers.
Nathan Eagle discusses the use of cell phones to empower a third-world workforce of 2.1 billion people.
Lauren Abramson, of the Community Conferencing Center, showed the means for communities to resolve conflict on their own, without governmental intervention. It's effective and costs less than a tenth of going through the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, citizen scientist Gale McCullough presented amazing information about whale migration that she uncovered by watching closely. She has been tracking pictures of humpback whales and discovered that a particular whale photographed in Brazil was also seen off the coast of Madagascar, more than 6,000 miles away. This was breakthrough information: it was not previously known that these whales migrated this way.
Perhaps the most inspiring presentation came from Azeem Hill, co-captain of an amazing team of teenagers from West Philadelphia High School. The West Philly team went head-to-head with major universities and research institutes in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize competition, a contest to develop production-capable 100 MPG automobiles. The revolutionary car designed by these budding engineers from a disadvantaged community made it to the finals, edging out the team from MIT!
The uplifting mood of the conference was reinforced by treating the attendees to a sneak preview of Kinect for Xbox 360, the new sensor that allows people to control the machine merely by moving their body. This demo was very popular, and attendees began to realize that this is just an inkling of how we will all be interacting with computer technology in the (near?) future.
—Tom McMail, senior research program manager, External Research, a division of Microsoft Research


text:
This tutorial will help you to create, list & delete docker containers on Linux machine.
#1. Launch Docker Container
To launch a new Docker container using below command. This will start a new container and provide you access to that container with /bin/bash shell.
# docker run [OPTIONS] [COMMAND] [ARG...]
For example below command will create new docker container using the image named "ubuntu". To list all available images use
docker images command.
# docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash
To exit from docker container type CTRL + P + Q. This will leave container running in background an provide you host system console. If you used exit command, it will stop the current container. Click here to read for more options about docker run command.
#2. List Docker Containers
After existing from Docker container, execute below command to list all running containers.
# docker ps CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES f2582758af13 ubuntu "/bin/bash" 2 hours ago Up 2 hours first_ubuntu
By default Above command will list only running containers. To list all containers (including stopped container) use following command.
# docker ps -a CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES f2582758af13 ubuntu "/bin/bash" 2 hours ago Up 2 hours first_ubuntu 6b5b5a969241 centos "/bin/bash" 2 days ago Exited (0) 24 hours ago ubuntu-web
#3. Start/Stop/Attach Container
You can start, stop or attach to any containers with following commands. To start container use following command.
# docker start
To stop container use following command.
# docker stop
To attach to currently running container use following command.
# docker attach
#4. Drop Docker Container
Before deleting any container make sure that container is stopped. You can use 'docker ps -a' command to list status of containers. If container is still running first stop that container using given commands in above step.
Now use the following command to delete single or multiple containers.
# docker rm
You can also delete all stopped containers at once using the following command.
# docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Javascript Dates, Y2K etc.
The treatment of the year value in Javascript dates is incompatible between Netscape 4 (Javascript 1.3 and ECMAScript) on the one hand, and Netscape 3 (Javascript 1.2) on the other hand. The question then arises, whether we can deduce the correct year from the value of date.getYear(), without needing to know which version of Javascript we're dealing with. Netscape 2 just covers a restricted date range, and needs no additional consideration here re. coding.
It's amusing that many of the free "cargo cult" Javascripts found on the web, despite their baroque complexity, don't work for even one version of Javascript, outside of the range _PHONE_, presumably because the authors couldn't be bothered to RTFM before starting to write their code.
Of course, the actual problem goes away in Netscape 4/ECMAScript, because you can use getFullYear to get a clearly defined answer. But if we want the code to run without modifications or extra tests on NS3 (and NS2 where applicable), this would not do.
A pertinent answer is given in the Javascript FAQ and, I'm tickled to see, gives the same getYear()-based solution that I deduced for myself.
What the specs say
Netscape 3 (Javascript 1.2):
The getYear method returns either a 2-digit or 4-digit year:
For years between and including 1900 and 1999, the value returned by getYear is the year minus 1900. For example, if the year is 1976, the value returned is 76.
For years less than 1900 or greater than 1999, the value returned by getYear is the four-digit year. For example, if the year is 1856, the value returned is 1856. If the year is 2026, the value returned is 2026.
Netscape 4 (ECMAScript, Javascript 1.3)
Year minus 1900
I don't see any mention of years BC, so it's possible that they aren't dealt with; any attempt to deal with them would mean that you couldn't tell the difference between say 1800 (for which Netscape 4 would return a getYear of -100) and a certain year BC (for which Netscape 3 would presumably return -100, though I don't find this actually documented). So let's exclude years BC from our consideration.
Also, I've made no attempt to consider what happened as a result of the calendar change in 1752 (nor any calendar changes before that). John Stockton commented on Usenet:
1582/3 is not special to javascript; nor is 1752 (except that javascript can represent dates which did not occur everywhere).
Netscape documentation for Netscape 3, as already noted, says that except for years _PHONE_, it returns a "4-digit" year. This seems to limit the range of applicability to the years 1000-9999AD. There is no clear statement of what happens for years outside this range. So let's exclude those from our considerations too.
On that basis:
Let's set an upper cutoff year of 2899. Then values of getYear of 2000 upwards can only occur with JS1.2 and we don't add 1900.
To cut a long story short: if we test getYear against 1000, then lower values (i.e 0-999 and negative values) should have 1900 added to them, whereas other values should be left unchanged. This will then cover the period AD1000 to 2899, assuming that browsers behave as documented. If the answer lies outside of this range then it could be incorrect (although it might be correct, but we'd need to check the version to find out). However, you might want to avoid tangling with dates in 1752 or earlier, to avoid needing to understand possible issues from calendar change(s)!
Final remarks
OK, this was just a bit of pedantic fun. Anyone spot any errors in the logic? Please let me know.
|Up| |RagBag|About the author|


text:
As the federal scientific review of the safety of atrazine wraps up, PAN continues to push for common-sense process: keep it transparent, and don't let industry influence undermine the fair use of science in government decisions. Are we worried? Unfortunately, yes. A recent look at the docket reveals a controversial, Syngenta-funded study.
The study, which was released in the weeks leading up to this final review, claims that there is no correlation between breast cancer and atrazine exposure. The corresponding author, Charles Breckenridge, is a Syngenta employee, and Syngenta funding relationships are evident in the review team. "Not surprisingly, studies submitted to reviewers by Syngenta-sponsored science give the company's flagship herbicide a clean bill of health," commented Kathryn Gilje, Co-Director of Pesticide Action Network. "From the beginning, we urged EPA's reviewers to focus on independent science, and follow where it leads."
Syngenta, the world's largest pesticide corporation, is the primary manufacturer of atrazine. Syngenta is the target of a lawsuit brought by Midwest water districts and has a record of undermining scientific integrity of research related to atrazine. With 94% of U.S. drinking water testing positive for atrazine in 2008, there's a lot at stake when it comes to our health and the legacy we leave our children.
4 simple steps to a fair review
Throughout the review process PAN has joined Midwest farmers in making the following, common-sense demands:
- Transparent, democratic process. The process should be 100% transparent. That means no closed-door meetings of any kind, especially with industry representatives, and summaries of all interactions between EPA and stakeholders on this topic should be included in the official record and made publicly available.
- Discount Syngenta-funded studies.Studies funded by Syngenta should be discounted in the review process. The studies they have submitted in the past have been deeply flawed and have hampered good decision-making. Publicly-funded and peer-reviewed science should be given primary consideration.
- No secret science. All scientific studies supporting the continued registration of atrazine should be made available for public scrutiny, or be removed from consideration. Syngenta and other atrazine registrants should not be permitted to hide critical data from independent scientific examination by claiming "confidential business information."
- Take swift action. EPA should take swift action based on the science. If the science shows that atrazine threatens human health or the environment, EPA should take swift and clear action to protect farmers, workers, rural communities and the environment.
"Several scientific studies have found a link between long-term exposure to atrazine and breast cancer," notes Physicians for Social Responsibility in a letter submitted to EPA's docket for the review, citing independent research from Kentucky, the UK and multiple laboratory studies.
More than 150 studies on the health and environmental effects of atrazine have been completed since EPA's last review, including strong evidence linking low-level exposure to human birth defects, infertility and several types of cancer. These are the science on the basis of which this re-evaluation of atrazine was deemed necessary.
"Studies have shown that babies conceived during the spring when levels of pesticides including atrazine are highest are more likely to develop birth defects, including spina bifida, Down syndrome and cleft palate," the letter continues. PSR also highlights scientific findings on infertility, cancer and atrazine's impacts on frogs and fish.
The review is done, and the science now sits with EPA. Syngenta, for its part, needs to keep its paws off the science, and let this be a fair review.


text:
Book Chapter or Conference Paper Title
Towards reusable personas for everyday design
Institute for Educational Development, East Africa
Publication ( Name of Journal)
Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
ACM digital library
Personas are artificial character based representations of user goals, attitudes, motivations and abilities which enable designers to focus their design efforts on key, targeted users. The success of personas in design is due to their capacity to enable designers to empathize with users and understand user goals. Persona development is rooted in the rigorous collection and analysis of data specifically related to the design project being undertaken. New design projects thus require the development of new personas. Since redevelopment is not always achievable attention has turned towards reuse of personas and the underlying data. This paper reports on ongoing research into the development of reusable personas for use by non-expert, everyday designers. Such designers are regularly faced with small scale but diverse design challenges for which they cannot carry out user research and modelling. They can, however, make use of general, reusable personas developed independently of their current design project.
(2016). Towards reusable personas for everyday design. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2915-2922.
Available at: _URL_


text:
The Use of Image and Point Cloud Data in Statistical Process Control
Megahed, Fadel M.
MetadataShow full item record
The volume of data acquired in production systems continues to expand. Emerging imaging technologies, such as machine vision systems (MVSs) and 3D surface scanners, diversify the types of data being collected, further pushing data collection beyond discrete dimensional data. These large and diverse datasets increase the challenge of extracting useful information. Unfortunately, industry still relies heavily on traditional quality methods that are limited to fault detection, which fails to consider important diagnostic information needed for process recovery. Modern measurement technologies should spur the transformation of statistical process control (SPC) to provide practitioners with additional diagnostic information. This dissertation focuses on how MVSs and 3D laser scanners can be further utilized to meet that goal. More specifically, this work: 1) reviews image-based control charts while highlighting their advantages and disadvantages; 2) integrates spatiotemporal methods with digital image processing to detect process faults and estimate their location, size, and time of occurrence; and 3) shows how point cloud data (3D laser scans) can be used to detect and locate unknown faults in complex geometries. Overall, the research goal is to create new quality control tools that utilize high density data available in manufacturing environments to generate knowledge that supports decision-making beyond just indicating the existence of a process issue. This allows industrial practitioners to have a rapid process recovery once a process issue has been detected, and consequently reduce the associated downtime.
- Doctoral Dissertations


text:
Appropriate for ages: 7-12
This is a touching story about an inter-generational relationship between a young girl and a very old woman who lives in a garbage dump. Françoise teaches Anne many lessons through this story, including a sense of responsibility for others, kindness, love and friendship. She teaches Anne that people are not always what they appear to be on the outside. This story is sure to capture your students' hearts.


text:
reduced the permeability of the soil by reducing the amount of water passing through it. That was attributed to the facts that the fine particles of bentonite filled the voids in the soil and therefore reducing the amount of water passing through it. From the experiments carried out it can be concluded that additional of 20% bentonite and 20% rice husks ashes greatly reduced the permeability of soil and there for making it better to be used for landfill covers.
The addition of bentonite added rice husks ashes greatly contributes to the improvement of the soil strength. The rice husks ashes have the ability to stabilize the soil and therefore the addition of it together with bentonite to the soil improves the strength. Bentonite being a clay mineral greatly contributes to the transformation of the shear strength of soil[CITATION Ind16 \p 665 \l 1033 ].
Additional of bentonite added rice husks to the soil increase the plastic limit of the soil and at the same time reduces the shrinkage limit of soli, this makes that soil to be ideal for landfill covers.
In conclusion, the challenge of how to dispose the rice husks that are produced in pretty in rice producing countries has called for research to come up with ways on how the rice husks can be used commercially. For this study ways on which ways on which the bentonite added husks can be used as land fil covers have been discussed.
From the literature review that has been conducted it can be conducted that the addition of bentonite added rice husks ashes greatly contributes to the improvement of the soil strength. The rice husks ashes have the ability to stabilize the soil and therefore the addition of it together with bentonite to the soil improves the strength. Bentonite being a clay mineral greatly contributes to the transformation of the shear strength of soil.
1. Centre, I. N. S. D., 2016. Indian Science Abstracts. 4th ed. Chicago: Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre.
2. Crini, G., 2013. Sorption Processes and Pollution: Conventional and Non-conventional Sorbents for Pollutant Removal from Wastewaters. 1st ed. Chicago: Presses Univ. Franche-Comté.
3. DeWinter, F., 2013. mankind's future source of energy: proceedings of the International Solar Energy Society Congress,. 5th ed. Sydney: Pergamon Press.
4. Engineers, N. B. o. C. &., 2016. Manufacture of Value Added Products from Rice Husk (Hull) and Rice Husk Ash (RHA)(2nd Revised Edition): How to Manufacture Rice Husk based Products, Forming Promote Products from Rice Husk, Rice Husk Ash Fuel & Powder Value Added Products, Rice Husk based Product. 3rd ed. London: Niir Project Consultancy Services.
5. Rakshit, A., 2014. Nutrient Use Efficiency: from Basics to Advances. 4th ed. Londn: Springer.
6. Rodgers, B., 2016. Rubber Compounding: Chemistry and Applications. 3rd ed. Texas: CRC Press.
7. Shulz, W. W., 2016. Science and Technology for Disposal of Radioactive Tank Wastes. 3rd ed. Chicago: Springer Science & Business Media.
8. Youngquist, J., 2016. Literature review on use of nonwood plant fibers for building materials and panels. 3rd ed. Paris: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory,


Provably Efficient Reinforcement Learning with Kernel and Neural Function Approximations
AuthorFeedback »Bibtex »MetaReview »Paper »Review »Supplemental »
Zhuoran Yang, Chi Jin, Zhaoran Wang, Mengdi Wang, Michael Jordan
Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms combined with modern function approximators such as kernel functions and deep neural networks have achieved significant empirical successes in large-scale application problems with a massive number of states. From a theoretical perspective, however, RL with functional approximation poses a fundamental challenge to developing algorithms with provable computational and statistical efficiency, due to the need to take into consideration both the exploration-exploitation tradeoff that is inherent in RL and the bias-variance tradeoff that is innate in statistical estimation. To address such a challenge, focusing on the episodic setting where the action-value functions are represented by a kernel function or over-parametrized neural network, we propose the first provable RL algorithm with both polynomial runtime and sample complexity, without additional assumptions on the data-generating model. In particular, for both the kernel and neural settings, we prove that an optimistic modification of the least-squares value iteration algorithm incurs an $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\delta_{\cF} H^2 \sqrt{T})$ regret, where $\delta_{\cF}$ characterizes the intrinsic complexity of the function class $\cF$, $H$ is the length of each episode, and $T$ is the total number of episodes. Our regret bounds are independent of the number of states and therefore even allows it to diverge, which exhibits the benefit of function approximation.


move (command)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article
Jump to: navigation, search
In computing, move is a command in various DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows command line interpreters (shells) such as COMMAND.COM, cmd.exe, 4DOS/4NT and Windows PowerShell. It is used to move one or more files or directories from one place to another. The original file is deleted, and the new file may have the same or a different name. It is analogous to the Unix mv command.
In Windows PowerShell, move is a predefined command alias for the Move-Item Cmdlet which basically serves the same purpose.
See also[edit]


My book says that "koto" can convert verbs into nouns. It can also convert adjectives and adverbial nouns, but what does that mean? It gives examples like:
Tori o tsukamaeru koto wa kantan ja nai?
Watashi wa kare ga nihon e itta koto o nd dare date boku ga atama ga warui koto ot shitteru
The book says "koto" means "thing", "fact", or "matter".
How exactly do you use "koto"?
 - I presume your book says that koto is used to convert verbs into nouns, right? – Darius Jahandarie Dec 20 '13 at 3:35
 - yes what I want to know is how exactly to use it in a conversation – Arturo Dec 20 '13 at 3:39
 - thank you very much for separating and explaining. Sorry but book also says it converts adjectives and adjectival nouns, how does that work, I understand the nouns now, the other example is watashi wa kare ga nihon e itta koto o nd dare date boku ga atama ga warui koto ot shitteru thanks for your patience sensei – Arturo Dec 20 '13 at 3:59
 - 2
 Hi _USER_, could you check the spelling on your last example one more time? Some of the words seem incorrect and it makes it hard to understand the example. – Troyen Jan 26 '14 at 9:03
tori wo tsukamaeru
"I catch birds."
"I will catch the bird."
This is a full sentence, as you can see in the English meanings provided.
tori wo tsukamaeru koto
"catching birds"
When you add koto on the end, it becomes a noun.
Since it is a noun, you can use as part of a larger sentence:
tori wo tsukamaeru koto ha kantan ja nai
"Catching birds is not simple."
 - 4
 There are other meanings of koto -- I only talked about the one you were asking about in this answer. – Darius Jahandarie Dec 20 '13 at 3:45
 - oh realy do you mind telling me them, if no that's ok I'll look for them on my own, its cause it's not clear yet how to use koto, by your explanation I know you change it to catching, eating, and so on, but thanks anyway – Arturo Dec 20 '13 at 4:03
How about this:
彼女たちは 日本語を 勉強したことが あります。
Kanojo-tachi wa nihon-go o benkyō shita koto ga arimasu.
Them girls studied Japanese at least once.
 - "koto" turns every thing preceding it into a substantive (noun) clause.
 - "ga arimasu" indicates that the subject exists in at least one instance.
I'll put something up from the book I'm reading, Teach Yourself Books C. J. Dunn and S. Yanada Japanese (first printed 1958, impression 1973):
In lesson 7 (p. 29)
"A standardized adjectival clause is used as one of the ways of expressing the idea of "being able". Thus yomu koto ga dekimasu is equivalent to "I can read"; in other words, to add the idea of "being able" to any verb, put the plain form of the verb before the expression kota ga dekimasu. Thus, to give another example, Eigo o hanasu koto ga dekimasu can be translated as "Can you speak English?" The expression koto ga dekimasu is best thought of as idiomatic; koto is "an abstract thing" and dekimasu, or dekiru, to use the dictionary form, as we shall henceforth when referring to a verb, is a word of wide meaning, including such as "is made", "is produced", "is possible"; you may thus think of yomu koto ga dekimasu as "a reading thing is possible" or "reading is possible", but it is probably better not to analyse the meanings of the expressions such as this. However, the construction composed of a verb followed by koto is a useful one, for it can be used to translate English verbal noun ending in "-ing". Thus yomu koto is "reading", oyogu koto, "swimming", hanasu koto, "speaking", e.g., Nihongo o hanasu koto wa muzukashii desu. Speaking Japanese is difficult. Or It is difficult to speak Japanese."
I am here to further my understanding of this noun.
(Glossary: koto n. (abstract) thing, fact)
I recommend looking up the definition for idiomatic. This is probably why it is hard to translate because there is not a literal meaning that is necessarily obvious. This book gave me some useful examples, but even so I need more examples before I can truly understand koto.
Darius' example above is right. But, you can also use KOTO as follows. Anyone, please correct me if the below translations are wrong.
かのじょ たち は 日本 ご を べんきょう した こと が あり. - She (all) HAD DONE the thing of studying Japanese.
かれ の かお は 見た こと が あり ます. - I HAD DONE the thing of looking at his face.
MP 3 プレーヤー を つかった こと が あり ます か? - HAD you DONE (did you do) the thing of using the MP3 player?
Past tense + koto = HAD DONE THE ACTION OF something.
 - 1
 I don't think ～たことがある should be translated with the past perfect tense. E.g. 彼の顔は見たことがあります should be more along the lines of I have seen his face (before/already). The past perfect tense seems to fit well for ～たことがあった, though. – Earthliŋ Dec 14 '14 at 12:17
 -［名詞a noun］が できます。 ga dekimasu. ・［動詞a verb辞書形dictionary-form］ことが できます。 koto ga dekimasu.
 能力ability・可能the possible
 例 スキーが できます / およぐことが できます。
 Sukii ga dekimasu / Oyogu koto ga dekimasu
-［しゅみ/しごと］は ［動詞a verb辞書形dictionary-form］ことです。 [Shumi/Shigoto] wa koto desu. ・［動詞a verb辞書形dictionary-form］ことが すきです。 koto ga suki desu.
 ［動詞a verb辞書形dictionary-form］こと ＝ ［名詞a noun］
 例 しゅみは えいがを みることです。
 Shumi wa eiga o miru koto desu.
-［動詞a verbた形ta-form］ことが あります。 koto ga arimasu.
 経験an experienceが あります
 例 アフリカへ いったことが あります。 Afurika e itta koto ga arimasu.
Your Answer


Drive Reduction Theory of Motivation: Definition & Examples
Your next lesson will play in 10 seconds
 - 0:41 What Is Normal?
 - 1:12 Homeostatic Shift
 - 2:11 Drive Reduction
 - 2:40 Primary vs. Secondary Drives
 - 3:44 Drive Examples
 - 4:58 Lesson Summary
Create An Account
To Start This Course Today
Used by over 10 million students worldwide
Create An Account
Try it free for 5 days
Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Devin Kowalczyk
Devin has taught Psychology and has a master's degree in Clinical Forensic Psychology, and will earn a PhD in 2015.
There is nothing as motivating to you as the need to eat and drink. You are driven by these biological needs, but why do you work? You are sitting at this computer, not out there finding deer to hunt or edible plants to eat. Why?
What Is the Drive Reduction Theory of Motivation?
Are you hungry right now? Maybe you should go get a snack. Thirsty? Go get a drink of water. If your chair is uncomfortable and causing you pain, you'll need to find a new chair. When your body tells you that you 'need something,' or that you need to 'change something,' this is your body giving you a drive.
Drive reduction theory of motivation can be simply described as you don't want to be hungry, thirsty, in pain, or horny. If your body wants something, that want is the drive. You are motivated to reduce the drive.
What Is Normal?
The title of this section is a little misleading. 'Normal' here means that your needs have been met, so you are not wanting anything like food, water, or sex. When one of these is wanted or needed, it means you are not operating at your homeostatic norm. Your homeostatic norm is when you don't need or want anything; you are satisfied. Homeostasis is a balancing act where every need tilts and unbalances the system. When there is a drive, it means your body wants a certain something to continue functioning.
Homeostatic Shift
Your homeostatic norm can be shifted. Sometimes this can occur due to brain damage but most often occurs because a person begins taking drugs. Homeostatic shift is when your body begins to crave substances it does not originally need but over time has come to depend on them. For example, certain drugs cause the brain to release large amounts of brain chemicals. Over time, the brain only releases these chemicals when the drug is present, and in smaller and smaller amounts. At one time, the drug made them high, but after several dozen uses, they need the drug to feel normal.
This means their homeostatic norm has shifted. The drug becomes another need, like food or water. Without the drug, they are in agony because the drug has artificially changed the structure of the brain so the need for the drug is stronger than the need for food, water, or sex. Anyone's body can go a day or two without food and they will be unhappy; similarly, the changes made in the brain of a drug user make quitting extremely painful.
Drive Reduction
Drive Reduction Theory was first established by Clark Hull. Hull was interested in applying mathematical formulas to psychology, and it is simple to see how this works with the Drive Reduction Theory.
If you have achieved homeostasis, your motivation is zero, since you have no drives to reduce. If you are hungry, then your drive is increased to one. If you are really hungry, your drive becomes two. If you are thirsty, your drive to satisfy the hunger and thirst becomes three. As drives accumulate, your overall motivation increases.
Primary vs. Secondary Drives
You may have noticed that human behaviors go far beyond getting food, water, and sex, and being comfortable. If you are reading this right now, you are literally not obtaining any of those. But you are working towards them by way of a secondary drive.
Primary drives are biological needs that provide you motivation. If you are hungry, you look for food. If you are thirsty, you look for water. These drives keep you alive.
Secondary drives are drives that are associated with the primary drives. Going to work is not fun, or not as fun as running around and doing whatever you want. But working gets you money, and money gets you food, water, and more. You have been conditioned to link the primary drives to the secondary drives. This means that you are driven to accomplish secondary drives, like work for money, to satisfy your primary drives, food and water. Your brain has been conditioned so thought pathways make these secondary drives nearly as powerful as your primary drives.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Member.
Create your account
Unlock Your Education
See for yourself why 10 million people use
Become a member and start learning now.
Become a Member
Already a member? Log In
Earning College Credit
To learn more, visit our Earning Credit Page
Transferring credit to the school of your choice
You have earned a badge for watching 20 minutes of lessons.
You have earned a badge for watching 50 minutes of lessons.
You have earned a badge for watching 100 minutes of lessons.
You have earned a badge for watching 250 minutes of lessons.
You have earned a badge for watching 500 minutes of lessons.
You have earned a badge for watching 1000 minutes of lessons.


text:
Hey there RRR! I'm back with another tutorial already! Why, you ask? Well...because the last one I made, while useful, wasn't actually what was requested. Why? Well because sometimes I'm not very bright. There, I said it!
Anyways, this is another puzzle switch tutorial, but more in the vein of a rubix cube, though simpler. This puzzle will cause a switch to change color, along with the switch next to it. The goal is to match all the colors to one pre-defined color. For the sake of the tutorial, I used yellow as the color you'd like to reach. Anyways, on with the tutorial!
The first thing you are going to create is switches, make as many as you want, to keep things simple, I made four and made each one a different color.
Now for each event you will create a number of pages equal to the amount of colors you will cycle through (Again, I used four). On each of these event pages you will create something rather simple, but a bit time consuming. You must make a variable for each switch you are going to use. Now you will have a button pressed action for the event. What it will do is increase the variable of it's own color by 1 as well as the variable of any colors next to it.
You will then repeat this for each event page. Though for each page after the first you must make a requirement of the variable for that event, and have each page require one higher variable. What this will do is cause it to change event pages each time the variable goes up, if that's pushing this event or the one adjacent to it, it will have the same result.
You can now repeat this process for each event, make sure to have each event start on a different color, though you will want to keep the event pages identical in style to the first one, but with variables that match that event and the ones it is adjacent to.
Now you ask, "But how does it go back to it's default color?!" Why, that's where your safety net event comes in! You will make a parallel process event that has several conditional branches in it. You will set each of these conditional branches alone, and have them check for each variable, once that variable equals a number higher then the amount used in the event pages, (In my case 4), you will set that variable to 0, causing it to revert to it's default color! Simple, yes?
Now in that same event you will have a longer conditional branch string. You must make each one check to see if the event is the variable for the color you want them all to be(In my case yellow), so this will require you to check the event pages on each of them and see what the variable is required for that color.
Then you set the first conditional branch to check if it's the right variable, if it is you check the next one and so on, until it's complete. If it is not the right variable, set no else, as it will simply continue. Now on the last event page, when all of them are the correct variable you will create one final variable(I named my solution) and set it to 1, do not add as the parallel process will just keep adding it as long as the colors are correct.
On the chest or door or such you will put a conditional branch of that variable, requiring it to be set to 1, if it is, your chest will open, if it is not it laughs at you or whatever you had devised.
Phew, that was a lot of words! You've all been troopers, especially since there was no pictures in this tutorial. So. Here is a puppy:
Along with a demo Here

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
From China-Africa to Africa-China: A Blueprint for a Green and Inclusive Continent-wide Africa Strategy Towards China
download our report here:
More specifically, it is important for readers to be aware of six innovations of this guide that distinguish the information provided from others on this topic. They are as follows:
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable
content of a page when looking at its layout.


text:
An (x, y) coordinate pair can be transformed to another coordinate system by scaling, rotation and translation. The first two can be implemented using 2 x 2 matrices to hold the coefficients:
If the point P is (a, b) and it is transformed to the point Q (a', b')
P ⇒ Q or (a, b)? (a', b')
a' = pa + rb, b' = qa + sb.
Translation can be included in this if the points P and Q are regarded as 3-vectors instead of 2-vectors, with the 3rd element being unity:
The coefficients u and v specify the translation.
So, the six elements (
) of the 3 x 3 matrix contain all the transformation information. These elements are stored in a list in the graphics state slot
Transforms can be combined by matrix multiplication to effect successions of translation, scaling and rotation operations.
Functions are provided in Graphics Ports which apply translation, scaling and rotation to a transform, combine transforms by preor post-multiplication, invert a transform, and so on.


text:
A fire problem exists in gasoline and diesel powered equipment operated in environments in which volumes of organic dusts become aerosolized. Plant residues can be of sizes small enough to be suspended in the air. These particles can be deposited and build up on the surfaces of the equipment. While the machines generally are equipped with some form of screen to prevent airborne residue from reaching the radiator system of the equipment, small particles can pass through this filter and be blown by the radiator fan across the surface of the engine. When the engine is heavily loaded and the dust particles are very dry, it is possible for dust deposits on hot surfaces to smolder and/or for some portion of the airborne dust particles to reach auto ignition temperature.
SDSU researchers have developed a Patent Pending system to prevent aerosol dusts from reaching the zone around the hottest exhaust system components. A specially crafted enclosure can be fitted to the engine to envelop the exhaust turbine and exhaust manifold against the engine block. The design of the enclosures allow for a flow of dust-free air to be introduced by a fan or blower and filter in to the enclosure around the exhaust system while keeping a positive pressure differential across all parts of the enclosure.
The ability to keep the surface of the enclosure free of accumulated dust simultaneously reduces the temperature of the exhaust system can reduce engine fires in combines and other machines exposed to organic dusts. Many farmers that drive combines at suboptimal speeds in order to keep the heat of the exhaust system reduced will be able to use their combines to the fullest extent of the machine's capability. Additionally, the farmer will not have to constantly be stopping to check for possible exhaust ignitions of dust which can result in a combine fire if not spotted immediately. This system can allow for optimal harvesting results while giving the user a peace of mind during the harvest.


text:
SUMMARY: Critical issues in emergency management after a seismic event are assessing the functionality of the main infrastructures (hospitals, road network, etc.) and deciding on their usability just after the mainshock. The use of a pure analytical tool to assess the aftershock risk of a structure can be contrasted with the limited time available to make a decision about the usability of a structure. For this reason, this paper presents a method for evaluating post-earthquake bridge practicability based on a rational combination of information derived from numerical analyses and in situ inspections. In particular, we propose an effective tool to speed up the decision-making process involved in evaluating the seismic risk of mainshock-damaged bridges in the context of aftershocks. The risk is calculated by combining the aftershock hazard using the Omori law and the fragility curves of the structure, which are calculated using the regression analysis of a sample of results obtained with data randomly generated by the Latin Hypercube Sampling technique and updated based on the results of in situ inspection. Different decision criteria regarding the practicability of bridges are discussed, and a new criterion is proposed. This tool was applied to an old highway RC viaduct. There are two main findings, including the high sensitivity to Bayesian updating (especially when the damage predicted by numerical analysis does not match the real damage) and the criteria used to decide when re-open bridges to traffic. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
|Titolo:||Aftershock risk assessment and the decision to open traffic on bridges|
|Data di pubblicazione:||2013|
|Citazione:||Alessandri, S., Giannini, R., & Paolacci, F. (2013). Aftershock risk assessment and the decision to open traffic on bridges. EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING & STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, 42(15), 2255-2275.|
|Appare nelle tipologie:||1.1 Articolo in rivista|


text:
A UK Paper-Ballot ElectionThis is quick tour of the voting process from when the polls open (typically 7am in the UK) until they close (typically 10pm) on polling day (often a Thursday in the UK), and then how the votes are counted and the results declared.
1: The polling station will have large clear signs outside; you have to find the correct polling station for your ward/area/constituency...
2:...but you should have been notified of that by post, with the notices typically showing a simple map. (This postcard notice was for a General Election.)
Postal votes are available if you will not be able to vote in person, eg if you are out of the country on polling day.
3: When you walk into the polling station you will usually be able to see the ballot box, and the officials who will issue you with your ballot paper with which you cast your vote (or votes).
You can see various signs pinned up such as "APPLY HERE for BALLOT PAPERS", offering the use of a magnifying glass if you need one to complete your vote, and listing the candidates and voting method. Not all UK elections are "first past the post" with a single vote, for example.
The officials check that no one person's vote is used more than once, and tally up the total number of ballot papers issued in order to help verify that all the ballots make it safely to the count.
4: The offical will hand you a fresh ballot paper, typically torn off a pad (the officials keep all the unused forms to be counted to double-check that all the filled-in ones arrived at the count, for example), and possibly folded in half to save you having to do it.
5: Then you take your ballot paper to one of the voting booths, and out of site of anyone else, cast your vote(s) by marking X or numbers as appropriate.
6: Having cast your vote, you drop your vote in through the slot in the top of the ballot box without letting anyone else see how you voted. You can see various seals and locks on the box to prevent anyone tampering with its contents, and labels to help keep track of it.
7: When voting finished for the day, each ballot box is sealed shut so that no more ballots can be inserted.
8: Each ballot box is then taken to be counted, immediately or maybe the next day.
9: In the case of the Brighton and Hove local elections in May 2007, the boxes were stored overnight in the main count room, watched over by CCTV, security guards and the police.
10: As the count begins, first the ballot papers are counted to make sure that all of them arrived safely, then the votes themselves are recorded. Depending on the voting mechanism there may be more than one vote on each ballot paper.
Note that the count can be observed in the count room by the candidates and their agents; no press or news organisation is allowed access, though they can typically watch from a balcony.
11: As the results are finalised for each seat being decided, a "declaration" is made, either by the Returning Officer or on their behalf, indicating the winner(s) of the poll/vote for that seat.


text:
Ninety-eight years ago on this date -- Nov. 14, 1914 -- the Dodge Brothers produced their first car. Or at least, that's the convenient history. But we did some fact checking, and it turns out that on Nov. 14, 1914, the Dodge Brothers (that's supposedly Horace on the left and John on the right, but correct us if we have them backwards) were merely photographed riding in the rear seat of the first car to bear their last name. According to "The Dodge Brothers: The men, the motor cars, and the legacy" by Charles K. Hyde, here's the full story:
The widely accepted history of the initial production of early Dodge Brothers automobiles in November 1914 is at odds with much of the evidence about the earliest Dodge Brothers cars. Automotive historians have thought that the first production car, later named "Old Betsy," came off the assembly line at the Hamtramck factory on 14 November 1914. Guy Ameel, superintendent of final assembly for Dodge Brothers since the start of automobile production, served as John and Horace's chauffeur that day. With the brothers in the back seat, Ameel stopped the first Dodge Brothers car in front of John Dodge's mansion on Boston Boulevard in Detroit and a photographer recorded this important moment.
"Old Betsy" was more likely an experimental prototype car assembled several months before 14 November 1914 and not a production car at all...
So, there you have it: The Dodge Brothers were photographed being chauffeured around in a prototype vehicle in front of one of their mansions on this date 98 years ago.


text:
Today, electrical bistable devices are the foundation of digital electronics, serving as building blocks of switches, logic gates and memories in computer systems. However, the bandwidth of these electronic computers is limited by the signal delay of time constants important to electronic logic operations.
In an attempt to mitigate these problems, scientists have considered the development of an optical digital computer, and one team has gone so far as to demonstrate the optical and electrical bistability for switching in a single transistor.
This week, in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign present their findings regarding the optical and electrical bistability of a single transistor operated at room temperature.
Prior to this work, quantum-wells were incorporated near the collector in the base of a III-V heterojunction bipolar transistor, resulting in a heavily reduced radiative spontaneous recombination lifetime of the device. The laser current modulation bandwidth is related to the electron-hole radiation recombination lifetimes, photon lifetimes and cavity photon density.
In a method patented by two of the article's authors, often referred to as Feng and Holonyak's idea, the optical absorption can be further enhanced by the cavity coherent photon intensity of the transistor laser. Using the unique property of intra-cavity photon-assisted tunneling modulation, the researchers were able to establish a basis of direct laser voltage modulation and switching at high gigahertz speeds.
The researchers found the transistor laser electrical and optical bistabilities to be controllable by base current and collector voltage. The current switching was found to be due to the transistor base operation shift between stimulated and spontaneous electron-hole recombination process at the base-quantum-well.
According to Milton Feng, of the research group, this was the first time this has been done.
"We put a transistor inside of an optical cavity, and the optical cavity controls the photon density in the system. So, if I use tunneling to absorb the photon, and then the quantum-well to generate the photon, then I basically can voltage-tune and current-control the electrical and optical switching between coherent and incoherent state for the light, and between stimulated and spontaneous recombination for the current," Feng said.
Compared to prior investigations, which contained optical hysteresis in cavities containing nonlinear absorptive and dispersive gain media, the operation principles as physical processes and operating mechanisms in transistor laser electro-optical bistabilities are considerably different. In this case, different switching paths between optical and electrical energy states results in different thresholds of input collector voltage, resulting in this considerable difference in method and results.
"Because of the switching path differences between coherent and incoherent cavity photon densities reacting with collector voltage modulation via Feng-Holonyak intra-cavity photon-assisted tunneling resulting in the collector voltage difference in switch-UP and switch-DOWN operations, the transistor laser bistability is realizable, controllable and usable," Feng said.
It is the researchers' belief the operations of the electro-optical hysteresis and bistability in the compact form of the transistor laser can be utilized for high speed optical logic gate and flip-flop applications.
"I hope the new domain for research will be extended from electronics -- from bodies in electronics which transport in solid-state -- into electronic-optical domain into an integrated circuit, which is going to be the big breakthrough for the future generation of high-speed data transfer," Feng said.


Skip to main content
What is Intelligence: Human Brain vs. Artificial Neural Network Representation
 Human Brain vs. Artificial Neural Network Representation
In regular programming, we usually write code in text form, but this code eventually gets transformed through several layers to a representation that the computer hardware can deal with, which are numbers. Basically just 1 and 0. But in reality, the computer doesn't know what a number is and it is the humans who interpret the discrete states of the computer hardware as 1 and 0. There is no symbol 1 and 0 imprinted anywhere on the computer circuit, the computer circuit performs its operation on several circuit components that can be in any of the binary states of high or low voltages, it is the human who interprets these states as 1 and 0 thus ascribing a symbol to the lumped matter abstraction of computer circuitry.
Neural Networks are kind of like computer circuits because they can be in varying states represented by the range of floating point numbers. In the early perceptrons the 0 and 1 states where used for direct computation but they were found to be limited so therefore modern neural networks use floating point numbers for their computation.
So as a programmer solves compute-centric problems by writing a program which is then translated to numbers and eventually circuit states to run on a computer. A neural network engineer solves human-cognition-centric problems by designing neural network architectures which are a more restricted form of the general kinds of programs we write with computers.
In a sense, we can say that neural networks are a specialization of generic computer programs. Indeed in a practical sense, a neural network is just a composition of functions. Each so-called "layer" can be viewed as a function that receives input, performs some computation and returns an output, mostly numerical. Even the so-called layers are actually composed of simpler units like the activation functions. Designing a neural network architecture is like writing a program to solve a problem similar to what is done in traditional software, and training the neural network and eventually performing inference is similar to actually running some computer program and issuing queries to it by either typing commands or clicking on some GUI.
In a grey scale image, we only have 255-pixel values possible per pixel and we can pass that image into some deep neural network for feature extraction directly without needing a convolution step. All that is required is some linearization which converts the square matrix that is used to represent the image into a single 784-dimensional vector. In colour images, we usually have a 3 tensor and not just 2d matrix so some convolution is needed.
This is because colour images are usually made up of 3 colour components, the RGB colour system with R for red and G, B for green and blue respectively. So the image is replicated 3 times in the three colour components. So rather than just having a single 2d matrix to deal with we have 3 2d matrices which are known as a 3 tensor.
Convolving an image already represented as a 3 tensor yields a simpler representation of the image with certain dimensions reduced so as to reduce the number of parameters the network has to deal with. After the convolution step and a pooling step, the resulting structures are passed unto the fully connected layers as a single dimensional vector so that the classic deep learning algorithms can do their work.
As varied and complex as all these deep learning systems are, in the final analysis, they are extracting features sometimes using dimensionality reduction or expansion as the case may be depending on network design and return as results a vector of probabilities.
Sometimes in a neural network, we have to go wide before we go deep, this is also another scenario which can increase the dimensionality of some input vector. This is necessary for some scenarios for practical reasons to help a network do more memorization than generalization. The insight here is that in deep networks when we reduce the dimensionality we are removing "noisy" features so we can extract features of high importance which are kind of like general to the class we are dealing with. So if we are training a deep network to recognize cats and we have submitted all kinds of cat photos in all kinds of postures and environmental configurations and also different kinds of species, we want to find out a representation of cats that is independent of varying special conditions. The question that our deep network is trying to answer is, what really composes the image of a cat.
In wide networks, we might want to memorize more rather than generalize. Generalization and memorization are usually seen as opposites when designing neural networks. There is usually a scale we keep in mind when thinking about our networks, on the one end is generalization which is the goal of deep networks. On the other end is memorization which is called over capacity.
Although we might not be able to reach the highest level of generalization capacity ever we are usually okay with a level of generalization that produces the best loss during training and also good accuracy during inference. If the network capacity is too large it will tend to memorize more than generalize. If our goal is strictly generalization then this is of course not desirable. But there are scenarios where memorization is also a good thing and people have found practical ways to exploits it.
So, in essence, dimensionality reduction enables us to handle data in a compact way. This reduction can be seen as compression, where some longer vector (list) is reduced to a shorter vector. In a deep learning system in order to get at the features of the data, we usually do some kind of lossy compression of the data because we are working in a limited symbol system.
What is a symbol system? This is the format we choose to represent the data in. computers only know how to manipulate numbers and whatever we store or manipulate on a computer is merely numbers running in some electronic circuits, of course, if we go lower in our understanding the "numbers" are still another representation of the voltage levels on the computer circuitry. So, in essence, there are no numbers actually but voltage levels on the computer circuitry that we represent for ease of understanding as numbers. Up the abstraction hierarchy are the images we deal with in typical deep-learning systems, but we are not limited to images we can learn on all kinds of data even sounds.
When we are representing images to a neural network (NN), we use floating point numbers which are numbers with a decimal point like 2.3445. The precision of the floating point number is the length of the numbers after the decimal point. In the number written above the precision will be 4 because there are 4 digits.3445 after the decimal point. The precision matters because it determines the detail of granularity that our network can handle. A higher precision number will handle a greater degree of detail than a lower precision number. This is somehow analogous to the binary number system as used in a computer where the length of the bits determines how many distinct things you can encode. A 3-bit sequence can encode 8 things starting from 000 to 111. 4 bits can encode 16 things. The formula for determining how many things a particular bit length can encode is 2^N(^ means to the power, N is the length of the bit string. We have something similar with floating point numbers the greater the precision, that is the length of the bits after the decimal point, the greater the number of things you can encode. Pixel values are represented as these floating point numbers, although on the computer circuitry they are still binary, that is 1 and 0.
The NN manipulates these vectors or tensor of numbers and crunches high dimensional stuff into some class representation in the process that we call learning! There are also associated weights in the "neurons", which are the connection strengths between "neurons" in the neural network. This is all very abstract stuff and the neurons we are talking about have no relation to neurons in the human brain. They are just a simplification derived from neuroscience because the brain contains neurons and synaptic connections between the neurons, and by a paradigm known as Hebbian learning proposed by Donald Hebb in 1949, learning actually happens when a group of neurons adjust their connection strengths in response to some input data in order to represent the input data in a generalized format as weights.
Neural Networks take the input data and perform some operations with some randomly chosen weights and perturbs the weights until the best weights that generalize the data input is found. Also, the dimensions are squished until it ends up as a vector of values representing probabilities of correct inference to input data.
Because we are dealing in a symbol system that can change in only one "dimension", by dimension I mean that we can either increase or reduce the magnitude of the floating point number that represents some weights in the network, the kinds of features we can extract can only vary in one dimension at a time. This I call a single dimension of change, quite different from the use of the word dimension as refers to the length of a list (vector) of values. The precision of the floating point numbers stay the same during the training process, if the precision could increase and reduce during training I would say that it changes in two dimensions that is magnitude in a fixed precision and the precision itself.
Don't get confused let me clear things out. The floating point values used to represent the weights in a typical neural network increases in magnitude (that is one dimension) only within a strict precision boundary (that is the length of the digit string constituting the number)! To accommodate a particular number of colours we could have values like 0.0000 representing black and 1.0000 representing white. All numbers between like.4567 could represent some other shade of some other colour. The detail of the colour space that can be represented depends on how many individual values occur between 0.


text:
Most Active Stories
Thu March 22, 2012
From Abe Lincoln To Donald Duck: History Of The Income Tax
The story of how the U.S. wound up with the income tax is the story of two wars, a Supreme Court justice on his death bed, and Donald Duck.
It's also the story of how the government overcame three obstacles.
Obstacle No. 1: Logistics
How do you make sure people pay?
Before the Civil War, the government received most of it revenue through tariffs — taxing goods as they came into the ports. This had its limits, though.
"Tariff duties are a great way to raise money as long as [you're] not fighting a war," says Joe Thorndike, co-author of the book War and Taxes.
In the 19th century, war meant blockaded ports, sunk ships — and almost no revenue from tariffs.
So during the Civil War, Congress decided it had to try an income tax. It devised a really clever plan to get people to pay. It made the tax returns public.
"Your neighbor would see you driving around on a brand new plow and he'd say, 'Wait a minute,' " Thorndike says. " 'I'm going to see how much he reported on his income tax.' "
Even the president's tax returns were public. Here is a tax assessor's list from 1864. Note the entry for "Lincoln Abraham" right there below "Linney Edward."
President Lincoln paid $1,296 in taxes. The list also includes a retail liquor dealer and an eating house owner.
Obstacle No. 2: The Constitution
In the 19th century, the income tax fell almost exclusively on the rich — who, as it turns out, had some pretty good lawyers.
They argued that a "direct tax" had to be divvied up among the states according to their populations. The income tax didn't work that way.
In 1895, the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. One justice was on his death bed, and the remaining eight split evenly. The dying justice came back, and the court re-heard the case.
By a 5-4 vote, the court found the income tax unconstitutional.
It wasn't until 1913, when Congress and the states amended the Constitution to allow for the income tax, that the tax became legal again.
Obsacle No. 3: The Love
Until World War II, the income tax was levied only on the rich. But wartime spending meant the government needed money, and ordinary folks are now asked to pay.
"There was a lot of concern that Americans just wouldn't do it," Thorndike says. "Or that they wouldn't understand that they were supposed to... or even just how to do it."
The government needed to get the word out. It needed a spokesperson. Someone credible, and easy to understand.
The government needed Donald Duck.
The movie at the top of this post is from 1943. In it, Donald Duck marches around his house, listening to the radio and filling out his tax form. Occupation: actor. Dependents: three (Huey, Dewey and Louie).
This wartime patriotic motivation campaign worked. Maybe we didn't love the income tax. But we paid it.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Get ready, because tax day is fast approaching. It seems like the appropriate time to note that the income tax is the major source of revenue for the U.S. government. But that was not always the case. In fact, the story of how we got the income tax is the story of several wars, a Supreme Court justice on his death bed and a duck.
David Kestenbaum with our Planet Money team has a brief history.
DAVID KESTENBAUM, BYLINE: Before you can have an income tax, you have to overcome three basic obstacles. The first, logistics. Like, how do you make sure people pay? In the early days, the government got most of its revenue a simpler way. Taxing stuff that came into the ports. Though, that had its limits.
JOE THORNDIKE: Tariff duties are a great way to raise money as long as you're not fighting a war.
KESTENBAUM: Yeah, because someone's blocking your port, right?
THORNDIKE: Or sinking your ships on the way across the ocean.
KESTENBAUM: That's Joe Thorndike, who co-authored a book called "War and Taxes." During the Civil War, he says, Congress decided it had to try an income tax. And the government does this really very clever thing to get people to pay it. It makes tax returns public.
THORNDIKE: During the Civil War, anyone could go in and look up your income tax return or at least your report of how much you earned. And the idea was that this would help improve compliance, because your neighbor would see you driving around on your brand new plow and he'd say wait a minute. That guy, how did he get all that money? I'm going to see how much he reported on his income tax.
KESTENBAUM: A tax assessors list from 1864 shows a Mr. Abraham Lincoln, address: White House, taxes paid: $1,296. Also entries for restaurant owners and liquor dealers. The income tax - people paid it.
The income tax faced a second obstacle though, a legal obstacle. The income tax at this point taxed mainly the rich. The rich didn't like it and the rich, have lawyers. In 1895, the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.
JOHN STEELE GORDON: My great, great uncle was one of the lead lawyers in that case. And guess which side he was on?
KESTENBAUM: Trying to shoot down income tax.
GORDON: You got it. He was a Morgan partner five years later.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KESTENBAUM: This is economic historian John Steele Gordon. The argument his great, great uncle made in court was that the income tax violated the U.S. Constitution, which said any direct tax had to be divvied up among the states according to their populations. And the income tax wasn't taxing according to population, it was taxing according to income.
GORDON: A very interesting thing happened in the Supreme Court. One justice was ill - in fact, he was dying, Justice Jackson from Tennessee. It was argued before eight justices, split four-four.
KESTENBAUM: That's why we have an odd number of justices, so you can't have a tie.
KESTENBAUM: The court decides to haul Justice Jackson out of his death bed and rehear the case. Jackson is a supporter of the income tax. So, he is going to break the tie in favor of the income tax. And the tie is broken, but it's five-four the other way, against. Income tax is ruled unconstitutional.
GORDON: One of the other justices, we don't know who because the opinion was unsigned, switched his vote.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
GORDON: And so, the tax was unconstitutional, no income tax.
KESTENBAUM: The legal problem is finally overcome in 1913 with a constitutional amendment. So, logistics, check. Legality, check. The income tax needs one more thing - love.
The income tax up to this point has been a tax on the rich. Everyone else was exempt. This changes with World War II. The government needs money and now ordinary folks are asked to pay.
THORNDIKE: There was a lot of concern that Americans just wouldn't do it.
KESTENBAUM: Again, Joseph Thorndike.
THORNDIKE: That they wouldn't understand that they were supposed to, or that they had to, or even just how to do it.
KESTENBAUM: The government needs to get the word out. It needs a spokesperson for the income tax. Someone with credibility, someone who's instantly recognizable, someone who's easy to understand.
(SOUNDBITE OF DONALD DUCK)
KESTENBAUM: Donald Duck.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KESTENBAUM: This film is from 1943. In it, Donald Duck is marching around his house patriotically listening to the radio and talking back to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "SPIRIT OF '43")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Are you a patriotic American?
CLARENCE NASH: (as Donald Duck) Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Eager to do your part?
NASH: (as Donald Duck) Yes, sir.
KESTENBAUM: Donald Duck runs and gets a gun and a sword and boxing gloves.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "SPIRIT OF '43)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Then there's something important you can do.
NASH: (as Donald Duck) Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Your income tax.
NASH: (as Donald Duck) Income tax?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Yes, your income tax.
NASH: (as Donald Duck) (Unintelligible) income tax.
KESTENBAUM: The film walks Donald Duck through filling out his tax form. Occupation, he writes actor. Dependents: Three - Huey, Duey and Louie.
And this wartime patriotic motivation campaign, it worked. Maybe we didn't love the income tax.


text:
Structural and tectonic interpretation of deep seismic reflection data offshore Spain and Portugal: A tectonic rifting model
Unger, Michael Rhodes
Sawyer, Dale S.
Master of Arts
A portion of new seismic reflection/refraction data collected over the Iberia margin were processed and interpreted, resulting in the recognition of two previously unknown normal faults in the deep crust. These faults, named Q and R, formed during the Triassic-Cretaceous rifting of Pangea, and formation of the Atlantic basin. Previous studies have shown a third surface, the low-angle S reflector, in the area. S has previously been interpreted as a detachment surface or as a velocity interface. A model is proposed where extension was accommodated along Q, R and S during the rifting of Pangea. R and S acted as detachment surfaces as the hangingwall block moved westward. Late in the rifting process, the geometry of R and S was altered by motion of underlying serpentinized mantle material. This upwelling of the mantle controlled the shape of Sin three dimensions. Total extension across the margin is estimated at 1.67.


text:
Countries go through good and bad times, just like people do. And just as it happens to people, the cause is to be found sometimes in objective facts, other times in subjective reasons. The former are the most frequent cause, related to poverty, injustice or illness; the latter, among which are dissatisfaction or depression, should not be underestimated. Spain, a country which has overcome situations of apparent inequality, extreme poverty and manifest lack of freedom, finds itself, forty years after the implementation of the 1978 Constitution, in a deep crisis due primarily to symbolic and psychological reasons. The article analyzes the central role of language in the present crisis and suggests educational and communicative strategies to facilitate the empowerment of languages in Spain so that they can become languages of Spain.
Linguistic Conflict, Political Crisis, Languages in Spain, Languages of Spain.


Gunjala Gondi Lipi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Gunjala Gondi Lipi
Gondi Lipi.png
"Gondi Lipi" written in Gunjala Gondi script
Languages Gondi
Time period
c. 1750-Present
Parent systems
Sister systems
Unknown, thought to be similar to Devanagari and Modi
[b] The exact lineage of the Gunjala Gondi script is a subject of ongoing research, and no lineage has yet been officiated by linguistic authorities.
The Gunjala Gondi lipi or Gunjala Gondi script is a recently discovered script used to write the Gondi language, a Dravidian language spoken by the Gond people of northern Telangana, eastern Maharashtra, southeastern Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. Approximately a dozen manuscripts in the script were recovered from Gunjala, a Gond village in Adilabad district of Telangana by a team of researchers from the University of Hyderabad, led by Professor Jayadheer Tirumala Rao.[1] The script and preliminary font were unveiled in early 2014.[2]
History of Manuscripts[edit]
The manuscripts have been dated to approximately 1750, based on knowledge from Gondi pundits and researchers at the Center of Dalit and Adivasi Studies and Translation (CDAST).[3] The information contained in the manuscripts includes that of the names of the months and days, a horoscope chart, grammar, and numbers. Additionally, manuscripts were found on "knowledge of the seasons, history, and the Gondi code of ethics and literature." Of the historical information that has been discovered, the following cases have been reported: the 6th-7th century trade relationship between the Pardhan community and civilizations in Myanmar; the origins of the Indravelli mandal; the early eighteenth century rebellions of the Chandrapur Gond kings against the British, with the support of the Rohilla community, all of this among other pieces of information.
The characters themselves, while bearing resemblance to similar phonemes found in other Indian scripts, are in a different, "native" order, as the script starts with the letter "ya" instead of the traditional "ka" for other Indian scripts. The script includes 12 vowels and 25 consonants.[4]
Response to Discovery, Education, and Spread[edit]
The script has seen a very welcoming response by the various government agencies in Andhra Pradesh, at the national level, and local agencies in the region.[5] The existence of the manuscripts has allegedly been known for 5–9 years, but were not prioritized until 2013, when Prof. Jayadheer Tirumala Rao discovered that only four elders in the village were still able to read the script. Currently, approximately eighty students are able to read the script, with students devising stories and elder Kotnak Jangu writing an autobiography. Plans are in place for the expansion of the script to fifteen other government schools in villages with a high Gond population. A reader for the script in Telugu was released for Standard I students.[6] Efforts are being undertaken to standardize the font for the language.
See also[edit]


text:
|Course||Course Title||Credit Hours|
|CAP 103||Introduction to Professional Cooking Skills and Technique||(5-0) 5 Cr. Hrs.|
This course will provide aspiring chefs a broad orientation to the culinary industry so that they will better understand what is required to succeed. Emphasis for discussion will be on professionalism, safety and sanitation standards, equipment identification, identification of food products, knife handling skills and a basic understanding of stock making and basic cooking techniques. Students will be required to purchase an initial set of hand tools for skills development. Students must receive an overall GPA of 2.5 to pass the class, as well as pass the final practical with a minimum of 2.5.
(A requirement that must be completed before taking this course.)
- CAP 102 or current ServSafe certification.
Upon successful completion of the course, the student should be able to:
- Examine the aspects of what it takes to be a chef.
- Explain basic sanitation and safety guidelines as they apply to the food industry.
- Perform basic cooking techniques.
- Demonstrate proper knife skills.
- Demonstrate proper use of kitchen equipment.
- Differentiate between the standard food products found in a culinary kitchen.
- Produce classical knife cuts.
- Produce brown veal stock.
- Produce white chicken stock.
- Differentiate fresh herbs.
- Differentiate dry spices.
- Demonstrate basic knowledge of Culinary Arts Department operations.
- Identify the major pieces of smallwares used in a Culinary kitchen.
- Identify the major pieces of Culinary kitchen equipment.
- Explain the uses of major pieces of Culinary kitchen equipment.
Note: This course may not be offered every semester.
Please check the CAP section of the current course schedule for availability.


text:
GASTON, WILLIAM HENRY
GASTON, WILLIAM HENRY (1840–1927). William H. Gaston, a founder of Dallas, was born on October 25, 1840, near Prairie Bluff, Alabama, the son of Robert Kilpatrick and Letitia (Suddeth) Gaston. He and his family moved to Mississippi and then to Plentitude, Texas, in 1849. His father farmed extensive landholdings in that region and served two terms in the Texas legislature. William, along with his brothers Robert and George, attended the nearby Mound Prairie Institute. All three later served in the Confederate Army. The family was en route to Dallas in 1861 when an outbreak of typhoid fever caused them to stay temporarily near Mount Sylvan in Smith County. From there Gaston left to join a volunteer company being recruited in Anderson County for Confederate service. By October 1861 he had been elected captain, and his company became part of the First Texas Infantry regiment of Hood's Texas Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia.
Gaston commanded his company with distinction through the terrible battles in Virginia in 1862. After recovering from typhoid fever, he was detailed to Texas on recruiting duty for the regiment. While on leave he married a former schoolmate, Laura Furlow. He was subsequently reassigned to serve as Confederate purchasing agent in the Trans-Mississippi Department, where he spent the remainder of the war.
After Gaston was discharged in June 1865 he returned to Anderson County and farmed. His wife died in 1867, and a year later he married her sister Ione. After a successful cotton crop, they moved to Dallas with $20,000 in gold. Sources disagree about the source of the gold. Some of it came from cotton; some may have come from Gaston's days as a purchasing agent. Gaston entered into partnership with Aaron C. Camp, and they opened the Gaston and Camp Bank of Dallas, the first permanent bank in Dallas. Within a short time Gaston had expanded into real estate, merchandising, and general speculation; the bank became the Exchange Bank and later the First National Bank of Dallas. Only five years after his arrival the Dallas Herald (see DALLAS TIMES HERALD) declared that William Gaston was most responsible for the transformation of Dallas into a city. He was reported to be one of the city's first millionaires, and another of his banks, Gaston and Gaston Bank, was the predecessor of the Republic National Bank. A Dallas Thoroughfare bears his name.
In 1886 Gaston donated eighty acres for the State Fair of Texas grounds. He and his wife raised three sons and two daughters. He died on January 24, 1927, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Dallas.
Dallas Morning News, January 25, 1927. Dallas Times Herald, January 25, 1927. Robert W. Glover, ed., Tyler to Sharpsburg: The War Letters of Robert H. and William H. Gaston (Waco: Texian Press, 1960). Ralph W. Widener, Jr., William Henry Gaston, A Builder of Dallas (Dallas: Historical Publishing, 1977).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Robert W. Glover, "GASTON, WILLIAM HENRY," Handbook of Texas Online (_URL_ accessed May 19, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.


text:
: a word or phrase that has an exact meaning
terms : the particular kinds of words used to describe someone or something
: the length of time during which a person has an official or political office
: to give a particular name or description to (something) : to call (something) by a particular name or to describe (something) in a particular way
What made you want to look up term? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).


text:
We are engaged in research in various aspects of human development. Personal development & self growth is an urgent need. Only with an ongoing self growth one can cope effectively with the pressures of work, relationships and find meaning in one's personal, social and professional life. We cater to normal needs of normal people. This entails our undertaking regular orientation and training workshops.
In all fields of work and life, it is becoming increasingly evident that success, effectivity & fulfillment depend on continuous learning processes. Self growth is tender, there is no greater investment.
At Pathways we will be:
- Helping you and your team to share same vision and mission.
- Helping your team to understand the importance of self and organizational efficiency for faster growth and results.
- Helping in making a self growth plan and working on it.
- Helping to enhance people skills and work towards the transformation of personality and attitudes.
- Helping you to gain peace and happiness by accurate application of principles.


TY - JOUR T1 - Temperature and muscle JF - Journal of Experimental Biology JO - J. Exp. Biol. SP - 333 LP - 344 VL - 115 IS - 1 AU - Bennett, A. F. Y1 - 1985/03/01 UR - _URL_ N2 - Rates of force development, contraction and relaxation of vertebrate skeletal muscle are temperature dependent with Q10 values of approximately 2. Maximal forces developed have a low or negative thermal dependence. The functional basis of these patterns is poorly understood. Muscle performance generally does not acclimate. There appears to have been some evolutionary adaptation among species and classes to different thermal regimes, such that muscles from cold-adapted species maintain better mechanical performance at low temperatures than do those from warm-adapted animals. However, rate processes remain strongly thermally dependent even in animals with low or variable body temperatures. This thermal dependence of muscle in vitro is reflected in behavioural performance: maximal force generation in vivo is temperature independent and time-dependent activities are more rapid at higher muscle temperatures. ER -


text:
keeshondArticle Free Pass
Britannica Web Sites
Articles from Britannica encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
- keeshond - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
The keeshond, a breed of nonsporting dog, is called the laughing Dutchman because it originated in the Netherlands and seems to be wearing a perpetually smiling expression. It is sometimes also called the wolfspitz.


text:
Pascal's Triangle is a special triangular arrangement of numbers used in many areas of mathematics. It is named after the famous 17th century French mathematician Blaise Pascal because he developed so many of the triangle's properties. However, this triangular arrangement of numbers was known by the Arabian poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam (c _PHONE_) and the Chinese mathematician Zhu Shijie (c _PHONE_) some 250 years before Pascal.
At the top of the triangle is a 1, which makes up the 0th row. The 1st row (1, 1) contains two 1s each formed by adding the two numbers above them, one to the left and one to the right, in this case 0 and 1. (All numbers outside the triangle are 0s.) Do the same to create the 2nd row; 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 0 = 1 and all subsequent rows.
A number in the triangle can be found by using nCr (n choose r), where n is the number of the row and r is the number of the element in that row. This is especially helpful to find a particular term in the expansion of a binomial in the form (x + y)n.
Find the 4th term in the 6th row of the triangle.
(Remember: the first 1 in each row is the 0th element so this is correct.)
Sum of rows: The sum of the numbers in any row is equal to 2n, when n is the number of the row.
20 = 1 = 1
21 = 2 = 1 + 1
22 = 4 = 1 + 2 + 1
23 = 8 = 1 + 3 + 3 + 1
24 = 16 = 1 + 4 + 6 + 4 + 1 and so forth.
Prime numbers: If the first element in a row is a prime number (remember the first 1 in any row is the 0th element.) all of the numbers in that row (excluding the 1s) are divisible by it.
For example in the 7 th row (1, 7, 21, 35, 35, 21, 7, 1) 7, 21, 35 are divisible by 7.
In Algebra, each row in Pascal's Triangle contains the coefficients of the binomial (x + y) raised to the power of the row.
(x + y)0 = 1
(x + y)1 = 1x + 1y
(x + y)2 = 1x2 + 2xy + 1y2
(x + y)3 = 1x3 + 3x2y + 3xy2 + 1y2
(x + y)4 = 1x4 + 4x3y + 6x2y2 + 4xy3 + 1y4 and so forth.
Another major area where Pascal's Triangle shows up and is very useful is in probability where it can be used to find combinations.
Interesting Number Patterns:
Many interesting number patterns can be found in the triangle. Included are the Fibonacci sequence, Triangular and Square Numbers (found in the diagonals starting with row 3.) and Polygonal Numbers.
Another interesting connection is to Sierpinski's Triangle. When all of the odd numbers in Pascal's Triangle are filled in and the evens are left blank, the recursive Sierpinski Triangle fractal is revealed.
Each of these are fascinating topics which warrant further research on your part.


text:
Giving a voice to all
We strive to make thought-provoking documentaries about the people within our multi-cultural society so we can understand each other better and build stronger relationships.
More than just a production company
New Zealand has more ethnicities than there are countries in the world. We are a multicultural society that over generations is blending this diversity into a unique national identity – a Kiwiness.
We believe in documenting this process as a way of embracing what makes us different whilst highlighting the challenges faced when these same groups undergo culture changes from living together.
The concept of ako
Ako is the reciprocal learning relationship where each person feels their contribution is valued and can participate to their full potential.
The verb akoako
By embracing the principle of ako, we strive to make documentaries shaped by the knowledge of diverse groups so that new knowledge and understandings can grow.


text:
Home > Marketing
& Communication > News
says imagination is child's play
Parents who invest a lot of time and thought into choosing
Christmas gifts for their child may find themselves frustrated
when the child plays with the box the present came in rather
than the gift itself.
Dr. Ron Fannin,
associate professor of family science and coordinator of the
child development program at Texas Woman University, advises
parents to relax — it's all part of growing up.
are doing these things, such as pretending a box is a rocket
ship or a car, they're projecting what they want to
have going on in their lives," he said.
Many of today's
toys don't require much of the children playing with
them, Dr. Fannin said.
we're caught by our own technology. The toys do everything
— we just watch," he said. "As adults, we
buy toys all the time. Ours are just more expensive and less
involved. If a child has a toy, he wants to use it."
enjoy both physical and imaginary involvement with their toys.
Dr. Fannin said a better question for parents considering
gifts is what will hold the child's interest.
be chosen with an eye toward stimulating the child's
imagination," he said. "Because of this, sometimes
the toy with the fewer bells and whistles is more engaging.
The simple toy requires the child to involve himself or herself
more fully into the play experience. This is a very good thing."
Tel: _PHONE_


text:
Question of the Week
browse by: questions
Thanks to Chris Busse for this great question!
And yes, it will! Heartleaf skullcap (Scutellariaovata) is one of the relatively few plants that go dormant in the summer, instead of the winter, thus defying our in grained view of how plants behave in response to seasonal changes. We're quite accustomed to plants going dormant in the winter, but usually around here, if something dies back in the SUMMER, it actually IS dead.
Since plants can't just get up and walk away when the weather gets bad, they have to adopt other strategies to deal with the changing seasons. Plants that are native to our temperate climatic zone usually respond to COOLER temperatures and SHORTER days by going to sleep to avoid potentially harmful clashes with the cold of winter.
But certain plants may also respond to the stress of extreme heat and drought,and the LONG days of INTENSE sunlightin the same manner-by hunkering down for a little nap until the situation improves.
Heartleaf skullcap does just fine here in our Central Texas winters, but doesn't care so much for our hot, dry summers. Even in "normal" summers, with a few DAYS, rather than a few MONTHS of temperatures over a hundred degrees, heartleaf skullcap more often than not avoids heat stress by dying back to the ground in summer.
In fall, it re-sprouts from underground stems. In fact, with October's cooler temperatures, Chris has seen her rebound.
Consider planting this native groundcover under winter dormant perennials. The silvery fuzzy leaves and later flowers will fill in the blank spaces. When it goes underground for summer, your hot-weather perennials will be back to get the spotlight.


text:
Author(s): Bhatt K, Roychoudhury A, Bhutia O, Pandey RM
Abstract Share this page
Abstract PURPOSE: Recurrence is a major concern in management of temporomandibular joint ankylosis. In this study functional outcomes of gap arthroplasty (group I) and temporalis myofascial interposition arthroplasty (group II) are compared. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Preoperative, intraoperative, and follow-up data were noted from our departmental database. Outcome variables were postoperative mouth opening, open bite, recurrence, and facial nerve dysfunction. The χ2 test, Fisher test, t test, 2-sample Wilcoxon rank sum test, and logistic regression analysis were used. RESULTS: Group I comprised 207 patients, and group II comprised 55 patients. The mean age was 12.9 years (SD, 7.0 years). There were 220 nonrecurrent and 42 recurrent cases. The mean follow-up period was 3.78 years (SD, 3.0 years). In first time-operated cases, the recurrence rate was 14.7\% in group I and 4.8\% in group II. In recurrent cases, the recurrence rate was 34.5\% and 30.8\%, respectively. The differences were statistically insignificant. CONCLUSIONS: In first-time operated temporomandibular joint ankylosis cases, both treatments are satisfactory in preventing recurrence, but the recurrence rate increases with previous recurrences. Copyright © 2014 American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This article was published in J Oral Maxillofac Surg
and referenced in Journal of Arthritis


text:
MSK's wide range of flavours and flavouring systems cover all applications and give you full control over the flavour in your food. But knowing which option to use in which situation can, at first, be confusing. Should you reach for a flavour drop or would a concentrate work better, or a compound? When do the oils work best and what about the heatstables?
It becomes more straight forward, if you remember the following two 'rules':
- Oil and water don't mix: only use the flavouring oils where there is at least a small amount of oil/fat in the mixture or base liquid for the oil to bind with. Similarly, the drops are water soluble and so there needs to be some water in the base mix for the drop to combine with. If you are using straight chocolate (which has no water content), always use an oil. A ganache, on the other hand, has some water-content so a drop or an oil is fine.
- Flavour drops are not heat-stable: if you apply heat to flavour drops, the volatiles will evaporate off and the full depth of flavour will be lost.
Beyond that, feel free to experiment!
Each flavouring system has a massive array of functions and which one to use for which application is really determined by the result you're looking for.
You might though find the following two guidelines useful to remember:
- If you want to colour and flavour and texture; use a flavouring compound, it provides all three. Fruit compounds will also replace the acidity found in the natural fruit.
- If you have already got 90% of the flavour you want and you just want to boost the flavour or add a secondary flavour tone, then reach for a Flavour Drop or Flavouring Oil.
Have a look at the articles on each flavouring system in the Virtual Kitchen or browse the flavouring section of the website for a short summary of each and some examples of usage.