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How many people are currently homeless in the United States? How many of them are families, youth, or veterans? The answers to these questions and more can be answered by point-in-time counts. A point-in-time count is an unduplicated count on a single night of the people in a community who are experiencing homelessness that includes both sheltered and unsheltered populations.
Basics of the Count
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires that communities receiving federal funds from the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants program conduct a count of all sheltered people in the last week of January annually. Electronic administrative records are used to enumerate people living in emergency shelters and transitional housing. Unsheltered counts are required every other year, although most communities conduct an unsheltered count annually. In an unsheltered counting efforts, outreach workers and volunteers are organized to canvas Continuums of Care to enumerate the people who appear to be living in places not meant for human habitation.
During these point-in-time counts, communities are required to identify whether a person is an individual, a member of a family unit, or an unaccompanied youth under the age of 18 or age 18 to 24. In addition, communities must identify if a person is chronically homeless, indicating long-time or repeated homelessness and the presence of a disability.
Why do we Count?
Point-in-time counts are important because they establish the dimensions of the problem of homelessness and help policymakers and program administrators track progress toward the goal of ending homelessness. The first of these counts was conducted in January 2005 meaning that we have data for every CoC for the last ten years. Collecting data on homelessness and tracking progress can inform public opinion, increase public awareness, and attract resources that will lead to the eradication of the problem. If homeless youth are not included in local point-in-time counts, their needs could be under-represented as governments, nonprofits, and key stakeholders at the federal, state, and local level plan to respond to the problem.
HUD uses information from the local point-in-time counts, among other data sources, in the congressionally-mandated Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (AHAR). This report is meant to inform Congress about the number of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. and the effectiveness of HUD's programs and policies in decreasing those numbers.
On the local level, point-in-time counts help communities plan services and programs to appropriately address local needs, measure progress in decreasing homelessness, and identify strengths and gaps in a community's current homelessness assistance system.
The point-in-time counts are not without limitations. There is variation in count methodology year-to-year within and across communities. Unsheltered counts have more limitations than sheltered counts and there is more variation in methodology. Point-in-time counts are, however, the only measure that enumerates people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in addition to those who are sheltered. And, despite its flaws, the annual point-in-time counts result in the most reliable estimate of people experiencing homelessness in the United States from which progress can be measured.
One gap that exists in these point-in-time counts is the coverage of unaccompanied youth (or those living separately from any family members) under the age of 24. Despite the fact that point-in-time counts are required to collect the number of unaccompanied youth under the age of 18, those numbers do not appear accurate, with many CoCs reporting that there are zero unaccompanied youth in their communities. Youth may be afraid or unwilling to enter individual shelters and communities typically have scarce resources, beds, and units dedicated to youth. This means that, in most communities, the required count of sheltered youth is more likely a count of beds available to youth as opposed to the number of youth who need shelter.
Even further complications arise in trying to identify the number of youth who are unsheltered. Youth are often not engaged with traditional homelessness assistance programs and congregate in different areas than older individuals experiencing homelessness. This makes unsheltered youth harder to find and therefore to count.
Without adequate coverage of homeless youth in point-in-time counts, there is a danger that they will continue to be underserved.


text: The eternal state of infants who die is a subject which stretches our theology to the utmost. The Bible seems to have little to say concerning this subject. Our questions are so numerous and the answers seem to be so few. What is the eternal destiny of these precious ones? Do they go to heaven or hell? Is there some intermediate state? Do they need a Savior? Are they born with a sinful nature? If so, are they savable? If so, then how can it possible if they cannot consent to the gospel message? If they are savable, are they all saved? Do only baptized infants who die go to heaven? Do only infants with believing parents go to heaven? This series addresses these questions and more while seeking to stay within the framework contained in the Biblical record.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Eclipsing binaries observed with the WIRE satellite*
II. β Aurigae and non-linear limb darkening in light curves
Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK e-mail: _EMAIL_
2 School of Physics A28, University of Sydney, 2006 NSW, Australia e-mail: _EMAIL_
3 US Air Force Academy, Department of Physics, CO, USA e-mail: _EMAIL_
Accepted: 13 March 2007
Aims.We present the most precise light curve ever obtained of a detached eclipsing binary star and use it investigate the inclusion of non-linear limb darkening laws in light curve models of eclipsing binaries. This light curve, of the bright eclipsing system β Aurigae, was obtained using the star tracker aboard the wire satellite and contains 30 000 datapoints with a point-to-point scatter of 0.3 mmag.
Methods.We analyse the wire light curve using a version of the ebop code modified to include non-linear limb darkening laws and to directly incorporate observed times of minimum light and spectroscopic light ratios into the photometric solution as individual observations. We also analyse the dataset with the Wilson-Devinney code to ensure that the two models give consistent results.
Results.ebop is able to provide an excellent fit to the high-precision wire data. Whilst the fractional radii of the stars are only defined to a precision of 5% by this light curve, including an accurate published spectroscopic light ratio improves this dramatically to 0.5%. Using non-linear limb darkening improves the quality of the fit significantly compared to the linear law and causes the measured radii to increase by 0.4%. It is possible to derive all of the limb darkening coefficients from the light curve, although they are strongly correlated with each other. The fitted coefficients agree with theoretical predictions to within their fairly large error estimates. We were able to obtain a reasonably good fit to the data using the Wilson-Devinney code, but only using the highest available integration accuracy and by iterating for a long time. Bolometric albedos of 0.6 were found, which are appropriate to convective rather than radiative envelopes.
Conclusions.The radii and masses of the components of β are RA = 2.762±0.017, RB = 2.568±0.017, MA = 2.376±0.027 and MB = 2.291±0.027, where A and B denote the primary and secondary star, respectively. Theoretical stellar evolutionary models can match these parameters for a solar metal abundance and an age of 450-500 Myr. The Hipparcos trigonometric parallax and an interferometrically-derived orbital parallax give distances to β which are in excellent agreement with each other and with distances derived using surface brightness relations and several sets of empirical and theoretical bolometric corrections.
Key words: stars: fundamental parameters / stars: binaries: eclipsing / stars: binaries: spectroscopic / stars: distances / stars: evolution / stars: individual: β Aurigae
© ESO, 2007


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Unitary in a sentence
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Sentence count:147Posted:2016-12-13Updated:2016-12-13
Similar words: unitary systemmilitaryunituniteunityguitarpunitiveimpunityMeaning: ['juːnɪtərɪ] adj. 1. relating to or characterized by or aiming toward unity 2. of or pertaining to or involving the use of units 3. characterized by or constituting a form of government in which power is held by one central authority 4. having the indivisible character of a unit.
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1. Wales will be divided into 21 unitary authorities instead of eight counties and 37 districts.
2. We are predisposed towards unitary authorities.
3. Operations should be run by a highly centralized unitary body which would provide services on the trunk routes of the world.
4. In the large conurbations, the creation of unitary authorities has required new quangos and joint boards to handle such issues.
5. We will reform principal local councils into a unitary system based on natural communities and the wishes of local people.
7. In unitary states, governments must evaluate the trade-off between higher taxes and higher welfare benefits.
9. They argue strongly for the retention of the unitary board(, where all directors take collective responsibility for all board decisions.
10. The major advantage of a unitary state is the presence of clear, hierarchical authority.
11. As such it complements the introduction of unitary development plans for the metropolitan districts.
12. In the unitary and harmonious female Spirit-Self there will be no such splits.
13. The new unitary authorities there will be known as county councils.
14. This highlights the second major difficulty with the theories, the general assumption that there is a unitary dimension of arousal.
15. The Royal Commission had recommended a regional tier as a necessary complement to a unitary system of local authorities.
16. Unitary Because all legislative power stems from Parliament,[] we have a unitary as opposed to a federal constitution.
17. Such a step allows development of theory which can explain social transformation in terms of unitary types of activity. 2.
18. It was becoming an alliance of the trade union movement with a unitary political party.
19. We believe that there are strong arguments in favour of unitary authorities.
20. Being defined in terms of tension or paradox, ambiguity's potential diversity was restored to some sort of unitary wholeness.
21. Green Belt functions were transferred to the lower tier authorities who are now required to prepare unitary development plans for their areas.
22. Indeed, it helps to demolish the farcical notion of general, unitary intelligence altogether.
23. The smallest metropolitan county had, therefore, a population approximately double that of the largest unitary authority.
24. One way to tackle these is to recall the words of musicians who were disturbed by unitary control.
26. In a statement Mr Gould said Labour was committed to unitary authorities.
27. More than 70 percent of the current countries are unitary states.
28. Operational experience of real systems design reinforces doubts about the allocation of function concept as a basis for a unitary systematic procedure.
29. These staff members would have to be replicated in any unitary structures that emerge following reform in this region.
30. The degree to which the entire godhead is evoked as a unitary spiritual conception depends upon the circumstances.
More similar words: unitary systemmilitaryunituniteunityguitarpunitiveimpunitycommunitydietarymunitionsmomentarysecretaryvoluntarycommentarymilitarismopportunityelementarydocumentaryunited nationstotalitarianismstarstaretunicuniqueunionnitstarttarrytarget
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THE FINAL FRONTIER...
Space was the topic for Year 2 at Paxton School, Gipsy Hill. Here Maxine MacPherson, their teacher explains what they did and how Roamer became a natural focus for their activities.
After some initial work on the solar system, the children recognised the planets and knew their order from the sun. The planets were set out on the floor and Roamer introduced. The scenario was that Roamer lived on Pluto which, being the furthest from the sun, is cold. Deciding that a summer holiday was needed Roamer decided to go in search of some sunshine on Mercury (the planet nearest the sun). Visiting all the other planets on the way, when Roamer arrived at Mercury he had to play a "happy tune" (discussion here about different musical "moods") to persuade its inhabitants that he was only coming for a short visit and not invading. (Obviously Roamer could not speak their language nor they his so music was their only means of communiction - shades of "Close Encounters")
The children themselves decided that they would play a tune at each planet and produced 2 different types of music. P4 was for when "Roamer Rocket" reached each planet and P5 was for when it eventually got to Mercury.
All the pupils participated in creating the programs and designing the "Milky Way Mat" with its various constellations and planets for the Roamer Rocket to travel through. Their investigations were shown to the whole school in our class assembiy at the end of term.
We also did a play about the relationship of the Sun and the 9 planets that make up the solar system. Each pupil was a heavenly body!
The pupils are now busy elaborating upon the Roamer music in their music lesson, using a variety of instruments.
The children have thoroughly enjoyed the project and I can see that we will all be Roamering well into the future.
|© 2004. Amethyst Consultancy Ltd.|

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


brightmail – Brightmail Module
March 26, 2020 Contributors
The Brightmail module provides a mechanism for checking the current inbound message context (for each recipient) against a Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam content server.
In Momentum version 3.x, Sieve continues to be supported but scripting via Lua is preferred for the following reasons:
 - Sieve has no concept of looping or iterators
 - Simple comparative logic in Sieve is awkward to author
 - Unlike Sieve, new modules do not need explicit C development to enable Lua capabilities
If you intend to use this module be sure to choose it during installation. For more information see "Installing Additional Packages". You will also need to purchase a license from Symantac.
brightmail "brightmail1"{
 server = ""
 num_workers = 10
 sieve_mode = "on"
 sieve_prefix = "brightmail"
 max_size = 2048
 timeout = 15
Open connections to the brightmail server are cached. This defines how long to keep an idle connection open.
**Configuration Change. ** This feature is available starting from Momentum 3.1.
The brightmail module will drop a connection after processing this many messages. Set this option to 0 to process an unlimited number. The default value for this option is 0.
This option specifies the number of bytes sent to the brightmail server. For example, if this is set to 2048 and a message of 4,000 bytes is received, only 2048 will be sent to the Brightmail server.
The number of times to attempt a connection to the brightmail server; if we can't connect and max_tries is greater than one, retry the connection max_tries number of times.
Specifies the concurrency of access to the Brightmail service. For numbers greater than zero, this specifies the number of threads that will be used to concurrently communicate with Brightmail. Each thread will have its own TCP/IP connection to the server and be capable of handling new messages serially. 0 (zero) has a special meaning: exactly one connection will be made synchronously to the main Momentum process and thus block other operations—this is highly discouraged.
Specifies the IP address and port on which the Brightmail service should be reached. Since the module makes a TCP connection it isn't essential that it run on the same server as Momentum. Instead of an IP address, you can also specify the hostname.
This option specifies whether to operate in script-only mode or not. If this option is active then no brightmail checking will occur unless called for directly from a Lua or a Sieve script. If the module is loaded with "sieve_mode = off" then the scanner will be run from the module (rather than a script) for all messages in the data phase. If you set sieve_mode to on then you need to invoke the brightmail_scanner manually. This can be invoked at the data, spool or each_rcpt phases. It will not work at the connect, ehlo, mailfrom or rcptto phases. If you don't want brightmail to see a given message, do not call msys.brightmail.scan or brightmail_scanner for that message.
In version 3.x, this option must be set to on if you wish to use the Lua function, msys.brightmail.scan.
For more information on using brightmail from Sieve see brightmail.
Specifies a name for a specific brightmail server instance. Allows you to concurrently interface with any number of servers that use the brightmail module. This setting also determines the prefix for the validation context variable and the names of the brightmail Sieve functions. See "Brightmail Runtime Usage" and brightmail. The default value for this option is brightmail.
Specifies the maximum time to wait for a response before assuming a failure on the part of the brightmail server.
Brightmail Runtime Usage
The brightmail module sets one context variable in the event of an error:
This variable, if it exists, contains information pertaining to the error that occurred while attempting to process the current message through the Brightmail service.
Lua Functions
This module makes the Lua function msys.brightmail.scan available. For a description of how this function is used see msys.brightmail.scan.
Sieve Usage
See brightmail for more details on implementing policy based on the Brightmail verdict.
The brightmail::error variable is accessible in the message validation context and can be used in the following way:
$err = vctx_mess_get "brightmail::error";
if not ec_test :is $err "" {
 ec_action 451 "Brightmail issue";
Note that the prefix for this variable is determined by the sieve_prefix setting. For example, if this module is loaded with sieve_prefix set to bm, you would access the error message using the code $err = vctx_mess_get "bm::error";.


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How the COVID-19 Pandemic Changes Drug Testing
COVID-19 has changed work dynamics in many ways. As remote work rises due to the pandemic, drug use has increased and the drug testing landscape has also changed. This article focuses on what employers and employees should know about the employment drug testing process in this altered work dynamic.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, several aspects of the work and personal lives of individuals have changed. Nonessential companies alongside their employees have tilted towards remote work also known as "work from home." Over 40 million Americans lost their jobs and companies still struggle to adapt to the new system. One crucial matter they need to adapt to is making sure that the age-long employment drug testing policy is adjusted for a rapidly changing work environment.
Table of Contents
covid-19 drug testing
How COVID-19 Affects Employment Drug Testing
The coronavirus pandemic poses some challenges to companies that drug test employees normally. Employee drug testing raises some crucial questions about personal protective equipment, safety, and social distancing. Luckily, a large number of these tests are done in health care clinics and these hospitals are equipped to manage the accompanying risks. Many of these drug testing locations are open, but the employees must be prepared to observe social distancing and wear masks. The tests have also not changed, but there is a need for the employees to sit further away from the lab technician when the paperwork is being processed. In the same vein, collection sites must be sanitized according to OSHA guidelines. The employees must also be aware of the safety precautions so they can know that steps have been taken to keep them safe.
Drug Testing Remote Workers
Due to the rapid and dramatic shift to working from home, there is an increased risk of alcohol and drug use especially for people who aren't used to being home always. The increased health-related and economic strain as well as the closure of many social gathering places, has caused a 55 percent rise in the consumption of alcohol compared to the previous year. Also, drug use may be on the increase for the same reason. So, companies need to continue their regular drug testing policies to ensure that stress-related drug use does not affect their workplace.
Considering the fact that drugs are harder to resist in the circumstances, the staff are likely to push back. Employers have the duty to remind remote staff of all regulations that the industry abide by to clear any misconception. Also, they should reiterate that all alcohol and drug policies remain effective during the remote working period. The employees must be aware of what the company policies are and the consequences when such rules are not followed.
Drug Testing Furloughed Employees
Employers cannot test furloughed employees while they aren't working. However, if the employees are retuned after being furloughed for over a month or more, they can be treated as new hires. Lots of companies ensure that their staff reinstatement process includes the usual onboarding requirements. In many cases, pre-employment drug testing may be a part of these requirements.
Drug Testing Those Who Continue to Work
If an employee falls into a high-risk category for COVID-19 or has a chronic disease, the person may be unwilling to go to the lab to submit a saliva sample. In such cases, it is not an unreasonable request. The tricky part for the employers is determining whether the employee refused to get tested for valid reasons. The pandemic makes it even more complicated.
There is a guideline that covers refusals to get tested. The DOT guideline remains the same in the case. It is the responsibility of the employer to consider the circumstances of the refusal of the employee to test. Also, the employer will need to determine whether or not the action of the employee is considered a refusal.
In non regulated industries, drug testing is solely controlled by the employer. The employer determines how to manage the drug testing program. There are also federal laws as well as local and state laws play a part in all non-DOT testing procedures. The law can offer guidance for any employer who struggles with drug testing during the COVID-19 era. However, DOT's guidelines remain a great resource.
Moving Forward
A lot of people hope that the economy can recover quickly from the effects of the pandemic. However, no one knows when it will end and how it will change the drug testing procedures in post-pandemic world. Companies as well as their employees must understand all the risks. Even though a large bulk of employees are now working from home or being furloughed, one thing has clearly not changed in the corporate world of America: drug use isn't tolerated. If you want to get a job, you have to pass a drug test.


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We tested the hypothesis that the lipid composition of infant formula is consistent between manufacturers, countries and target demographic. We developed techniques to profile the lipid and glyceride fraction of milk and formula in a high throughput fashion. Formula from principal brands in the UK (2017–2019; bovine-, caprine-, soya-based), the Netherlands (2018; bovine-based) and South Africa (2018; bovine-based) were profiled along with fresh British animal and soya milk and skimmed milk powder. We found that the lipid and glyceride composition of infant formula differed by region, manufacturer and date of manufacture. The formulations within some brands, aimed at different target age ranges, differed considerably where others were similar across the range. Soya lecithin and milk lipids had characteristic phospholipid profiles. Particular sources of fat, such as coconut oil, were also easy to distinguish. Docosahexaenoic acid is typically found in triglycerides rather than phospholipids in formula. The variety by region, manufacturer, date of manufacture and sub-type for target demographics lead to an array of lipid profiles in formula. This makes it impossible to predict its molecular profile. Without detailed profile of the formula fed to infants, it is difficult to characterise the relationship between infant nutrition and their growth and development.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited


Comprehensive Induction Program (CIP)
 - lead mentor training summer 2019Supporting Delaware's newest educators is essential to ensuring all of Delaware's students receive a quality education and are college and/or career ready. By providing comprehensive support to our newest educators, the Delaware Department of Education, school districts, and charter schools can work together towards increasing educator retention rates; improving professional practices of both new and veteran educators, and most importantly, having positive effects on student achievement.
 The purpose of the Comprehensive Induction Program is to provide new educators with the support necessary to become familiar with school and district policies, hone their professional skills, help them evaluate and reflect on their own professional performance and develop an individualized growth plan to improve their effectiveness.
 Delaware provides a four (4) year mentoring and induction program for educators new to the profession, including teachers, school nurses, school counselors, and school psychologists. Additionally, educators who are new to the State of Delaware are required to participate in one-year of mentoring and induction activities. The Comprehensive Induction Program is divided into four years focusing on providing a comprehensive suite of ongoing professional learning activities and supports carried out over time that meet state, district and/or school goals.
Last Modified on February 15, 2021


Sonnet 18 Anne Bradstreet Analysis
1053 Words5 Pages
"…We are invited to see this significance in the perspective of the poem … but through our own perspective…" (Simecek, 504). The techniques of explaining your perspective can prove to be a rather challenging task. The authors William Shakespeare and Anne Bradstreet do just this. With the use of multiple literary devices, the poets used emotions and feelings to make you understand the connections between the author and subject. The perfect examples being the two titles, "Sonnet 18" and "The Author to Her Book".
The use of poetry to describe the beauty of the world is a common trend in history. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, is a common example of the description of beauty within the world and in humans. Shakespeare uses a comparison of a summer day
…show more content…
Just as Shakespeare did, she uses a comparison to a relatable subject. She used her literature as her child, but unlike Shakespeare, she does not believe that her subject is perfect. Charlotte referred from the beginning of the piece to the work being "ill-formed" meaning full of grammatical mistakes and how the work no matter how much she tried to mend it she still did not see it as perfect.
Both poets also hold a very close relationship to the subject of the poem. The attachments are alike in the matter that the author uses common metaphors. In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare compares the individual to the summer days which is something the reader can relate to. The feelings of a physical attachment to his subject's beauty show that William was obsessed with looks instead of the emotional connections that are needed for an intimate relationship.
Unlike the relationship that Shakespeare depicted in his Sonnets, Bradstreet's relationship was entirely different in nature. The relationship she had with her work was very intimate and caring. However, the feelings of intimacy were more of a paternal instead of a romantic like Shakespeare had depicted. She describes creating and maintaining her work from beginning to end just like childbirth and raising which for many females in the seventeenth century was all, but expected for the
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Until recently, techniques for measuring birefringence have hardly altered with observations being made using standard polarising microscopes with white light and crossed polars, which can lead to coloured interference patterns in the sample image. To avoid this, the new Metripol technique uses a monochromatic light together with a rotating polariser and a circular analyser to carry out both qualitative and quantitative measurements of transparent microscopic specimens. it has useful applications in many areas, including the analysis of strain in industrial diamonds, phase transitions in crystals, and the analysis of collagen and hydroxyapatite distribution in bone.
What is Birefringence?
The phenomenon of birefringence (also known as double refraction) is a result of optical anisotropy, and can be described as the difference between two refractive indices for a given light beam, depending on the orientation of the polarisation of the incoming light. Birefiringence is displayed by a broad range of materials, including all crystals (except those of cubic symmetry), liquid crystals, glass and plastics subjected to mechanical strain. it also occurs in materials in which the underlying crystal structure may have its atoms distributed in such a way that it forms an anisotropic structure causing optical anisotropy.
How Is Birefringence Observed in a Normal Polarising Microscope?
The birefringence colours seen in a normal polarising microscope arise from a combination of three effects - intensity distribution of the light through the sample, the magnitude of the birefringence and the orientation of the indicatrix (φ). To get an exact image of the birefringence and determine its value, it is necessary to rotate the sample into a number of positions and determine the magnitude of the birefringence by inserting different compensating crystalline plates to effectively cancel the birefringence of the sample. For complex samples with numerous orientations this approach is very time consuming.
The Metripol Technique
Work carried out by Professor Mike Glazer at Oxford University, UK, into the relationship between crystal structure and physical properties, developed an entirely different approach to birefringence imaging. The research group wanted to create a system that could image, analyse and most importantly quantify birefringence. A collaboration with Oxford Cryosystems, UK, resulted in the Metripol emerging as a commercial analytical technique.
How Does the Metripol Technique Work?
The Metripol microscope produces quantitative birefringence data of samples in the form of images within a matter of seconds. The system incorporates a modified polarising microscope, rotating polariser, wideband adjustable wave plate and polariser (circular analyser). An integrated software suite is used to control the measurement process and for analysing the resulting images.
Monochromatic light is used and images are collected using a CCD camera at different angles as the polariser rotates, which makes it possible to separate out the birefringence, orientation and transparency that are normally superimposed in conventional polarising microscopy. The software then generates three separate images, in which false colour is used to denote these components separately. The software also allows histograms and profiles through the images to be produced. Average values can be reported from selected regions of the images, so that the progress of a particular quantity at any place in the image can be studied - as a function of temperature, for example.
The Multifile Facility
A multifile facility allows the creation of a sequence of images that can be scanned through, in order to plot sequential values on a graph or to make an AVI video file of a process. Multifile creation can be automatically phased with an external source, such as a heating or cooling stage.
The Metripol system has already been used for a broad range of applications, from analysing collagen distribution in bone to studying optical properties of minerals, illustrating its versatility.
Strain Analysis in Diamonds
As a cubic crystal, diamond is not normally birefringent, and is optically isotropic. However, strain in diamond introduced by impurities, restrictions during growth or applied stress, makes the structure anisotropic and results in birefringence.
Sources of Strain in Industrial Diamonds
Producing diamond industrially using HPHT and CVD can cause the introduction of mechanical strain, which can significantly alter its physical properties causing twinning, crystal defects and weakness. However, in some situations the introduction of strain can actually strengthen the diamond, making it less susceptible to cleavage. Here, the Metripol technique has been used to generate both qualitative and quantitative information on different forms of diamond, including artificially grown diamond with nitrogen impurities, thin-film (CVD) diamond and diamond gemstone.
Analysing Strain in Industrial Diamonds
In the artificially-grown diamond shown in figure 1a, nitrogen has accumulated during the growth of the diamond. The diamond is grown as (111) plates (right, lower left, upper left) from a tiny seed (in the centre). At the sector interfaces there is a slight crystal-lattice misalignment, which allows for the incorporation of nitrogen. The misalignment, together with the presence of nitrogen, causes a build-up of strain leading to optical anisotropy. In the transmission image, the contrast in the centre is caused by absorption of light by the nitrogen. The birefringence image, figure 2b, indicates the magnitude of the strain in different parts of the diamond, with the purple colour representing the lowest values. The colours in the orientation image, figure 1c, indicate the orientation of one of the indicatrix axes and show that this axis points towards the centre of the diamond at all places.
Figure 1. (a) Transmission image showing absorption at the centre caused by nitrogen. (b) Birefringence caused by strain associated with growth boundaries. (c) Orientation image, with strain orientations being marked by short lines in addition to the colour scale.
Phase Transition Studies
The study of phase transitions is an important field of materials science, not only in its own right, but also for its importance in industrial applications. The Metripol was developed specifically for the purpose of following phase transitions, and as a result is perfectly suited to this application. Using the Metripol, crystallographic twins can be identified and, in some cases, the symmetry relating them can be determined together with the orientation of domain walls separating them.
When a crystal is accurately cut and placed on a heating stage it is often possible to identify which phase the crystal is in, simply by determining the number of different twin domains visible in the crystal and the orientation of the indicatrix in each domain. Phase transitions can be accurately determined by the appearance of twin boundaries or from analysis of the change in birefringence as a function of varying temperature.
Phase Transition in Sodium Bismuth Titanate
The phase transition studies shown here have been carried out on Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) crystals, figure 2. Figure 2a illustrates the pure cubic phase 1 at 590°C showing low birefringence with random orientation. At 548°C, figure 2b, the tetragonal phase II begins to appear, especially in the orientation image. Figure 2c shows the pure tetragonal phase II ‑ notice the different birefringence in the central part of the cross feature. At 196°C, figure 2d, the rhombohedral-tetragonal coexistence region starts to form, and the rhombohedral phase III starts to appear in the orientation image. The end of rhombohedral-tetragonal coexistence occurs at 151°C, figure 2e. At this stage, the tetragonal phase II has nearly disappeared, and is only distinguishable in the orientation image. At 31°C, figure 2f, the pure rhombohedral phase III is visible, while residual signs of the tetragonal twin structure still remain in the orientation image.
Figure 2. Phase transition studies using Metripol were carried out on Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) crystals.
Other Areas of Use for the Metripol System
The Metripol system has been adopted by research groups in fields as diverse as diamond research, the study of polymorphic pharmaceuticals, engineering and biology. One of the most exciting developments has been in protein crystallography, in which research in collaboration with oxford and Warwick universities is starting to suggest that the Metripol may be a useful tool in determining crystal quality and early crystalline growth. Other exciting applications exist in earth sciences as an aid to identifying minerals in rock sections.
Qualitative and quantitative imaging of birefringence in transparent materials can add extremely valuable data to a broad range of studies in the fields of drug discovery, materials science and biological research. The Metripol imaging system offers an elegant solution to the problem of gathering such data.


text:
Transparency and Economic Policy
29 Pages Posted: 3 Aug 2005 Last revised: 19 Aug 2008
Date Written: August 18, 2008
We provide a multiperiod model of political competition in which voters imperfectly observe the electoral promises made to other voters. Imperfect observability generates an incentive for candidates to offer excessive transfers even if voters are homogeneous and taxation is distortionary. Government spending is larger than in a world of perfect observability. Transfers are partly financed through government debt, and the size of the debt is higher in less transparent political systems. The model provides an explanation of fiscal churning; it also predicts that groups whose transfers are less visible to others receive higher transfers, and that imperfect transparency of transfers may lead to underprovision of public goods. From the policy perspective, the main novelty of our analysis is a separate evaluation of the transparency of spending and the transparency of revenues. We show that the transparency of the political system does not unambigously improve efficiency: transparency of spending is beneficial, but transparency of revenues can be counterproductive because it endogenously leads to increased wasteful spending.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation


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Many people think only of the tragedy masks when they think of Greek theater masks. However, Greek masks were not merely the solid, plain masks often used to represent the theater today. From the origination of the masks to how they are still used in modern productions of classical Greek theater, there are many facts about Greek theater masks that most people do not know.
Origination of Greek Masks
Participants wore masks during certain worship ceremonies and rituals for the Greek god Dionysus. The Greek writer Thespis originally covered his face in white lead during performances. Eventually, Thespis took the idea of wearing masks during ceremonies and incorporated white linen masks into his stage performances.
Reasons for Wearing Masks
There are several reasons why Greeks wore masks during performances. Plays were performed in large, outside amphitheaters. Due to the size of the stage and the positioning of the seating, many audience members were not able to clearly see what was happening on stage. Masks were used as a way to convey emotion to every audience member. Each mask was designed to show a certain emotion through the use of exaggerated facial expressions, which were readable by all audience members. This ensured that all audience members understood the tone and emotion of each character. Greek performers also wore masks because a limited number of actors were allowed on stage. Initially, one performer was allowed on stage at a time. Through the use of masks, different characters and emotions were established during plays. Eventually, three actors were allowed on stage. Also, there were no women actors in Greek theater, so men wore female masks for female roles.
Description of Masks
Masks used in Greek theater were made of plaster-soaked linen, wood or leather. The masks featured exaggerated facial expressions portraying emotions such as happiness, sadness and anger. The mouths were large cut-out or carved openings that enabled actors to speak loudly and clearly. Eyes were clearly drawn on the mask. Pupil holes were punched out so actors could see. Animal or human hair was often added to the mask as facial hair. Masks used to represent female characters featured larger eyes and larger mouth holes.
Finding Ancient Greek Masks
Due to the types of materials used to make the masks, authentic ancient Greek masks do not exist. The masks decayed over time. Fortunately, Greeks depicted people wearing these masks on vases and in drawings. Through research and extensive study, historians have pieced together what the masks looked like.
Greek Masks Today
Greek masks are still used in certain theatrical productions. Many modern directors feel that using Greek masks during Greek tragedy and comedy revivals is essential in capturing the spirit and theme of the play.
- Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images


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Chemical Sensors - Current State and Future Outlook (T. Seiyama). Physical and Chemical Aspects of Oxidic Semiconductor Gas Sensors (G. Heiland, D. Kohl). Tin Dioxide Sensors - Development and Applications (K. Takahata). Development and Application of Ceramic Humidity Sensors (T. Nitta). Limiting Current Type Oxygen Sensors (T. Takeuchi, I. Igarashi). Solid-Electrolyte Sensors for SO2 and/or SO3 (W.L. Worrell). Use of Zirconia Sensors in the Metallurgical Industry in Japan (K.S. Goto, M. Susa). Development of a Solid-State Gas Sensor Using Proton Conductor Operative at Room Temperature (N. Miura, N. Yamazoe). Ion Sensors for Microsampling (Y. Umezawa, M. Sugawara). Suspended Gate Field Effect Transistor (M. Josowicz, J. Janata). Micromachining for Chemical Sensors (S. Shoji, M. Esashi). Micro-Fabrication of Biosensors (I. Karube, H. Suzuki, E. Tamiya). Medical Applications of the Glucose Sensor (M. Shichiri, R. Kawamori, Y. Yamasaki, N. Ueda). Design and Applications of Biosensors in Medicine: Study on Artificial Pancreas (M. Mascini, G. Palleschi, D. Moscone). Optical Chemical Sensor (K. Nishizawa). Index.
Chemical Sensor Technology is a series of annual reviews reporting the latest progress being made in research and technology, both basic and applied, regarding chemical sensors. Chemical sensors continue to grow rapidly in importance encompassing a broad spectrum of technologies covering safety, pollution, fuel economy, medical engineering and industrial processes. Various types of chemical sensors have been devised for detection and monitoring of chemical substances in gases, solutions and organisms, and much work is being done to produce sensitive, selective, reliable and inexpensive sensors. The series aims at contributing to the progress of research and development of chemical sensors.
Contributors to the individual volumes are carefully selected by an international editorial board who ensure that as many innovative studies as possible are included. Each article describes a specific topic and is the original work of an expert working in the front lines of chemical sensor research. Contributors are encouraged to describe not only the academic or technological essence of the subject, but also the background and philosophy, evaluation and achievements and future problems. In this way, each topic is described in sufficient depth so as to be useful and stimulating to readers.
- © Elsevier Science 1988
- 1st August 1988
- Elsevier Science
- eBook ISBN:


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The effect of air moving through a roof cavity between vents.
The effect of air moving between vents in a roof cavity.
Placement of vent openings so that air flows in one vent, over insulated space, and out the other. In attics, a combination of eaves and ridge or high gable vents is best for cross-ventilation, because this takes advantage of natural convection.
The effect that is provided when air moves through a roof cavity between the vents.
Air that enters on one side of a room and leaves on a different side of the same room.
Use of windows or vents on opposite sides of an area to circulate air.


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Vladimir (Vlad) Vlassov is a full Professor in Computer Systems at the Division of Software and Computer Systems (SCS), Department of Computer Science (CS), School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He is a member of the Distributed Computing research group. He was a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1998 and the University of Massachusetts (UMASS) Amherst in 2004, USA. Vladimir has participated in EU projects such as Grid4All (2006-2009, FP6), SELFMAN (2006-2009, FP6), ENCORE (2010-2013, FP7), PaPP (2012-2015, FP7), CLOMMUNITY (2013-2015, FP7), EMJD-DC (2011-2020), and ExtremeEarth (2019-2021, H2020). Currently, he is a principal investigator in the project "ALEC2 - Adaptive Level of Effective and Continuous Care to Common Mental Health Disorders" (2021-2025) that aims at the development of AVA (Automated Vigilance Assistant) - an AI-supported system for online cognitive behavioral therapy. At KTH, he is teaching courses on Data Mining, Distributed Systems, Concurrent Programming, Stream Processing. His current research interests include Cloud computing; data-intensive computing, stream processing, scalable distributed deep learning; autonomic computing; distributed systems.
Current research interests: Distributed systems; Cloud computing; Autonomic computing; Data-intensive computing, Stream processing, Scalable distributed deep learning, Reinforcement Learning, NLP and NLU
Abstract The ALEC2 project combines expertise from Clinical Psychology and Computer Science to develop and implement ML methods to improve adherence, clinical efficiency and treatment efficacy in the delivery of (Braive's) digital, iCBT (Internet-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) supported psychotherapy solutions. Braive (the company coordinating the project) will bring to market a new patient-centric and R&D-driven solution that will address the shortcomings of current iCBT solutions. To meet this goal, we will create a new generation of iCBT that gradually automates the timely response to a patient's development in treatment. Our new system AVA (Automated Vigilance Assistant) - an AI-supported system for online cognitive behavioural therapy to patients with common mental health disorders - will make use of AI technologies, namely NLP, NLU and DL, to automatically diagnose, predict and monitor mental health conditions, to support patients towards full recovery. AVA will be able to: (i) Take patient's guided inputs from clinically validated Mental Health Check (MHC) tool and support clinical decision-making by remote therapists, using quantitative scores and qualitative analysis; (ii) Understand patients' notes and queries through Deep Learning (DL) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) systems; (iii) Monitor and detect deviations from treatment trajectories, by interpreting written input and analyse sporadic queries with patients to assess compliance and do sentiment analysis; (iv) Trigger humanor AI-led interventions targeted to each patient and to the observed deviation from treatment trajectory.
Abstract Copernicus is the European program for monitoring the Earth. The geospatial data produced by the Sentinel satellites puts Copernicus at the forefront of the Big Data paradigm, giving rise to all the relevant challenges: volume, velocity, variety, veracity and value. ExtremeEarth concentrates on developing the technologies that will make Europe a pioneer in the area of Extreme Earth Analytics i.e., the Remote Sensing and Artificial Intelligence techniques that are needed for extracting information and knowledge out of the petabytes of Copernicus data. The ExtremeEarth consortium consists of Remote Sensing and Artificial Intelligence researchers and technologists with outstanding scientific track records and relevant commercial expertise. The research and innovation activities undertaken in ExtremeEarth will significantly advance the frontiers in Big Data, Earth Analytics and Deep Learning for Copernicus data and Linked Geospatial Data, and make Europe the top player internationally in these areas. The ExtremeEarth technologies will be demonstrated in two use cases with societal, environmental and financial value: the Food Security use case and the Polar use case. ExtremeEarth will bring together the Food Security and Polar communities, and will work with them to develop technologies that can be used by these communities in the respective application areas. The results of ExtremeEarth will be exploited commercially by the industrial partners of the consortium.
Abstract EMJD-DC is an international doctoral programme in Distributed Systems. Students carry out their research work over up to four years in two universities from different countries, with additional mobility to industry in most projects. Joint training schools cover both scientific topics and transferable skills, such as project and scientific management, communication, innovation techniques. EMJD-DC initially awards double degrees, however a task is evaluating the implementation of a Joint Degree. The research projects address some of the key technological challenges of our time, mainly but not exclusively: ubiquitous data-intensive applications, scalable distributed systems (including Cloud computing and P2P models), adaptive distributed systems (autonomic computing, green computing, decentralized and voluntary computing), and applied distributed systems (distributed algorithms and systems, working in an inter-disciplinary manner, in existing and emerging fields to address industrial and societal needs in the European and worldwide context. The consortium partners assembled in EMJD-DC have a high international reputation in the research fields described above. They complement each other very well in their specialisation fields of research, and in the corresponding training offers. The first language of all training and research activities will be English, but students are exposed to local languages.
Objective Community networking is an emerging model for the Future Internet across Europe and beyond where communities of citizens can build, operate and own open IP-based networks, a key infrastructure for individual and collective digital participation. The CLOMMUNITY project aims at addressing the obstacles for communities of citizens in bootstrapping, running and expanding community-owned networks that provide community services organised as community clouds. That requires solving specific research challenges imposed by the requirement of: self-managing and scalable (decentralized) infrastructure services for the management and aggregation of a large number of widespread low-cost unreliable networking, storage and home computing resources; distributed platform services to support and facilitate the design and operation of elastic, resilient and scalable service overlays and user-oriented services built over these underlying services, providing a good quality of experience at the lowest economic and environmental cost. This will be achieved through experimentally-driven research, using the FIRE CONFINE community networking testbed, the participation of large user communities (20000+ people) and software developers from several community networks, by extending existing cloud service prototypes in a cyclic participatory process of design, development, experimentation, evaluation and optimization for each challenge. The consortium has two representative community networks with a large number of end-users and developers, who use diverse applications (e.g., content distribution, multimedia communication, community participation) and also service providers, research institutions with experience and prototypes in the key related areas, and a recognized international organisation for the dissemination of the outcome.
Summary The E2E-cloud project proposes to develop a distributed and federated cloud infrastructure that meets the challenge of scale and performance for data-intensive services by aggregating, provisioning and managing computational, storage and network resources from multiple centers and providers. It is an open, secure and integrated network, storage and computing infrastructure where different nodes are owned by different organisations and organisations may combine the role of provider and user. The management of network resources is integrated with the management of computation and storage enabling good performance of applications running across multiple centers, as well as timely and efficient delivery of content to end-users encouraging further digital convergence between Telco, Media and ICT. The E2E-Cloud is based on an open, self-managing decentralised architecture, aggregating and managing distributed resources in a secure and fault-tolerant manner. It will facilitate the construction of novel data-intensive and media-intensive Internet services that use resources on-demand in short intense bursts, using and generating massive amounts of data. Together with industrial collaborators a number of demonstrators will be developed to test, evaluate and illustrate the E2E-Cloud platform, ranging from telecom to media production and distribution, large scale analysis of Web content, and software testing as a service.
Objective Modern advanced products of today use embedded computing systems with exacting requirements on execution speed, timeliness, and power consumption. It is a grand challenge to guarantee these requirements across product families and in the face of rapid technological evolution, as current development practices cannot manage performance requirements the same way they manage functional requirements. Even worse, with the proliferation of complex parallel target platforms, it becomes more difficult to design a system that reaches a given performance goal with just the minimum amount of resources, managed right. Today the only solution to this problem is to over-design systems: systems are equipped pragmatically with an overcapacity that likely avoids under-performance, but for this very reason are more expensive and consume more resources than necessary. The proposed project aims at making performance predictable in every development phase, from the modelling of the system, over its implementation, to its execution by allowing for early specification and analysis of performance of systems, its adaptation to different hardware platforms, including an adaptive runtime system. During the project, the developed methods and tools will be evaluated on a number of industrial use cases and demonstrators in three application domains important to European industry: Multimedia, Avionics and space, and Mobile communication. This approach will guarantee that the methods and tools developed are both usable and effective. To achieve our goals we have built a highly skilled European consortium consisting of a balanced mix of problem owners, domain experts, and technology providers: large enterprises as application drivers, platform providers and system integrators, SME's as key-technology innovators, and research institutes and universities bringing leading edge perspectives.


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Interview with Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
EDITOR'S NOTE: In addition to his other endeavors, the well-known Catholic writer Thomas E. Woods, Jr. has authored several books recently, ranging in topics from contemporary Catholicism to American History. His latest work, the recently reviewed The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era, discusses the efforts of American Catholics in the early decades of the 20th Century. I asked Dr. Woods to share some of his thoughts on the subject. PWM
Seattle Catholic (SC): The title of this book, The Church Confronts Modernity, identifies both a struggle and its primary participants. What was it that lay at the heart of this conflict?
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (TW): I show in the book that American intellectuals during the Progressive Era were trying to construct a new American ethic, in which the citizen's primary loyalty was to the "national community" (by which they essentially meant the federal government) rather than to states and localities, and to a new non-dogmatic, non-denominational ethic instead of to any revealed religion.
According to the Progressive, everything was in flux. This was a time when evolution was still all the rage, and Pragmatism in philosophy was undermining the very idea of unchanging dogma. The chief values in such an ethic were therefore open-mindedness, a willingness to change, and disdain for anything claiming to be absolutely fixed and permanent.
But the Catholic Church, and in particular the Deposit of Faith entrusted to her, happens to be something fixed and permanent. And it was for this reason that Catholics at the time suspected that this new ethic was really an attack on Catholicism. One Catholic described the Progressive attitude this way: "You may hold any faith or religion you please, but then you must not belong to any specific sect or be bound by any dogma." Well, Catholics couldn't accept that demand.
Education is an excellent example. For the Progressive, children in the new age needed to be taught procedural rules rather than substantial goods. In other words, they needed to be taught toleration, open-mindedness, and flexibility, for in this world of change and flux we needed to train citizens who would be easily adaptable. The last thing children needed, therefore, was unchanging religious dogma taught as truth.
For this very reason, John Dewey, perhaps the most influential Progressive educational theorist, denounced Catholic education in no uncertain terms: "It is essential that this basic issue be seen for what it is namely, as the encouragement of a powerful reactionary world organization [i.e., the Church] in the most vital realm of democratic life, with the resulting promulgation of principles inimical to democracy."
According to one Progressive educator, William H. Kilpatrick (whose theories were promoted in the Soviet Union, he later discovered to his delight), "The right of parents or other grown-ups to determine what children shall think must be essentially revised. In the new situation of ever increasing change, we cannot, try as we will, foretell what our children will need to think, while with the new philosophy of change and its ethics those who are at present in authority have no such right of control."
The Progressives often spoke in a religious idiom, but we should not be deceived by it. The only version of Christianity that they considered compatible with the national community they were constructing was the denuded, non-dogmatic "church" of the Social Gospel. Anything that smacked of authority, hierarchy, or doctrine was to be avoided, even condemned. Again, Catholics were obviously not being paranoid when they concluded that they were faced here with a frankly anti-Catholic movement.
SC: What was it that interested you in this topic or time period, enough so for you to choose it for your doctrinal dissertation, and later this book?
TW: Frankly, it's very difficult to come up with a good dissertation topic. What with the enormous supply of historians out there, it seems as if everything has already been done. To come up with something that fills a gap in the literature, amounts to a genuine contribution to our understanding, and would actually be worth reading, is a real feat. Given also that Columbia University, where I did my graduate work, wasn't exactly overflowing with faculty members bursting with suggestions I would have liked, it was tough. It was therefore with a huge sigh of relief that I concluded in early 1998, during some archival research in Washington, D.C., that I had found something that fulfilled all those demands.
I had originally intended to write something on John J. Wynne, S.J., the heroic founding editor of America magazine. So I went back and read early issues of America, which began publication in 1909. I fell in love with it. Out of curiosity, I began reading other Catholic publications from that period, including Catholic World, Catholic University Bulletin, and the American Catholic Quarterly Review. All excellent. These writers all sounded like traditionalists!
More importantly, I began to notice something: what emerged from the pages of these journals and from the private papers of some of the great Catholic writers of the time was a systematic and marvelously Catholic critique of the so-called Progressive Era. This, I knew right away, needed to be made part of the historical record. Look around in the historical literature for a book on opponents of the Progressive Era, people who raised an alarm about progressive education, philosophical pragmatism, and the like. It doesn't exist.
Thus the book's purpose is really twofold: from a historical point of view it fills a gap in the existing literature on the Progressive Era, and from a traditional Catholic point of view it allows us a glimpse of pre-conciliar life that debunks the myths of the anti-Catholic left and the neoconservative right.
SC: In researching the Catholic periodicals and reading the words of Catholic intellectuals from this era, what did you find most surprising?
TW: I didn't realize that I would be brought face to face with such dramatic testimony that the old Church really existed as I had heard it from my older friends, and that she really worked. I was talking to Roger McCaffrey not long ago and we agreed that the degree to which some traditionalists attack the pre-conciliar Church is most unfortunate.
What I think is so interesting and compelling about the story the book tells is that, faced with this challenge from the secular world, American Catholics did not capitulate. To the contrary, they grew more insistent than ever that the Church was absolutely unique and irreplaceable, and that she would not allow herself to be subsumed into the non-denominational blob envisioned by Progressives. The book shows the amazing vibrancy in terms of conversions, vocations, and the like of the Church at a time when she made no apologies and no attempt to dilute her message. People flocked to her. I don't think that's a coincidence.
The book also reminds us that Catholics have tried an approach to interacting with the surrounding culture other than the present one of allowing themselves to be totally absorbed by it. You can hardly tell a Catholic from a secular university today, for example, so eagerly have allegedly Catholic university presidents allowed themselves to be carried along by the secular tide. The men whose work I discuss in the book observed just the right balance between engaging and interacting with the culture on the one hand while keeping the Faith absolutely undefiled on the other.
Finally, the book records a very important moment in our Catholic past. Winston Churchill once said that the Soviet Union was the only country in the world with an unpredictable past. What he meant was that the regime was constantly changing the received understanding of events in order to serve the propaganda purposes of the present. As time passes and more and more people who lived during the pre-conciliar period and who are therefore equipped to refute, from firsthand experience, the caricatures that pass for descriptions of it today pass to their eternal reward, it will be easier and easier for our enemies to paint the old Church however they wish. Liberals can continue to condemn her as malignant and oppressive, and "conservative" defenders of the conciliar revolution can go on describing her as intellectually moribund, in desperate need of the injection of light, energy, and whatever else it is they say the Second Vatican Council gave her. There is an urgent need for traditionalists to preserve the past as it really was, and part of the reason I wrote The Church Confronts Modernity was to contribute to that important task.
SC: The attitude of Catholics quoted in the book (even in such journals such as America) was radically different from that seen today. Rather than the rush to defend everything short of clear and obstinate apostasy, Catholics displayed a militant attitude to protect their Faith from even the most subtle attempts toward what they regarded as thinly-veiled anti-Catholicism. What do you consider the turning point in which Catholic instincts turned from "fight" to "flight"?
TW: A lot of it, though not all, has to be placed squarely at the feet of the Second Vatican Council, which so often took a diffident, even apologetic, stance toward the modern world. But in the 1950s, as the Cold War was heating up, there was also a sense among some Catholics that in the fight against Communism we needed to close ranks and join together with non-Catholics in a common struggle. Now that is by no means an entirely wrongheaded idea, but over time I think it had the effect of wearing away the earlier insistence on preserving a distinctive Catholic intellectual identity.
SC: How important do you consider the consistency and certainty of the messages coming from the Vatican during this time period?
TW: In the late 1990s I was in Rome with


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UC San Diego
Northerly surface wind events over the eastern North Pacific Ocean : spatial distribution, seasonality, atmospheric circulation, and forcing
- Author(s): Taylor, Stephen V.
- et al.
The climate of the coastal US West coast is characterized by cool, alongshore, northerly wind from the Oregon border to the Southern California Bight, south of Point Conception. New datasets, including surface wind estimates derived from satellite scatterometer and North American Regional Reanalysis fields allow for a more detailed exploration than has heretofore been possible. This thesis examines episodes of enhanced northerly surface wind to determine the spatial and temporal character of the surface wind along and offshore of the California coast and the 3-D structure and seasonality of the atmosphere associated with the wind episodes. A deterministic approach is employed to enhance understanding of fundamental processes rather than improve predictability. The methodology includes diagnostic spatial and temporal analysis and numerical sensitivity experiments. Processes known to affect coastal wind are investigated to gain a better understanding of the role of possible mechanisms driving northerly wind events. It is found that the spatial and temporal structure of wind offshore of California is characterized by episodes of enhance equatorward surface wind that often extend from Cape Mendocino to Hawaii. Wind events typically last four days and are present 20% of the time during January-August. The summer circulation structure associated with wind events is fundamentally different than winter and spring. For instance the surface and upper-air circulation patterns associated with wind events are co-located in winter and 90⁰ out-of-phase in summer. Wind events are nearly always accompanied by a strong trough in the upper-air circulation that is directly above or just east of the coast. The analysis concludes that troughs are a nearly universal forcing mechanism for wind events, while the low -level atmospheric thermal gradient across the coast also plays an important, but less consistent role in wind events. A hypothesis is developed suggesting that southeastward movement of the North Pacific High may be a sufficient forcing mechanism for wind events in summer, but a trough along the coast is a necessary ingredient in winter. Other forcing mechanisms, feedbacks, and processes may also be important in reinforcing the circulation associated with wind events


Reckless Driving vs. Traffic Tickets
Reckless driving in Virginia is more serious than a lot of people would think. It is a misdemeanor, a criminal offense, which means that it carries the possibility of up to a year in jail, a $2,500 fine, as well as a six month license suspension.
While maximum penalties are not common except in very exceptional cases, on any reckless driving case there is a possibility of some jail, some loss of license, and some fine. Plus, beyond those penalties, there are long term consequences, most often with regard to insurance. Due to these serious factors, it is important that you contact a Virginia reckless driving attorney as soon as you have a chance. The following is more information on reckless driving and how it differs from a simple speeding infraction.
What Can Happen to Your Insurance After a Reckless Driving Charge?
In many cases, after the insurance carrier picks up the conviction from the Department of Motor Vehicles the insurance provider will in some cases cancel their policy. If they don't, their premium will go up significantly and can lead to costs of thousands of dollars over a period of years until that charge drops off the record. Reckless driving stays on your record in Virginia for 11 years.
What Are The Different Ways The Individual Can Be Charged With This Offense And What Are Some Examples?
An individual can be charged in many different ways. To name a few; they could be charged with general reckless driving, reckless driving by speed, reckless racing, reckless passing on a curve or hill, reckless failure to maintain brakes, or reckless passing of a stopped school bus.
What Are The Differences Between Reckless Driving And A Traffic Ticket?
There are important differences between reckless driving, which is a crime and a misdemeanor, and a simple traffic ticket which is often referred to as an infraction. Traffic infractions carry smaller numbers of points which go against an individual's license and traffic infractions are punishable only by fines which can be prepaid.
Reckless driving charges cannot be prepaid and must be dealt with in person, in court, by the individual who's charged. Serious consequences of reckless driving, which are not available for simple traffic infractions, include jail, large fines, the suspension of driving privileges, as well a serious long term insurance consequences.
Is There A Difference In How These Two Things Affect Your Criminal Record?
Yes. Traffic infractions do not appear on your criminal record. Reckless driving, just like other misdemeanor traffic offenses like DUI or Hit and Run, does go on your criminal record. Even if you're not convicted, the fact that you were charged remains on your record forever unless you go through the expungement process.
Anytime a person is charged with a crime in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the charge, and ultimately the conviction if there is one, is reported to the Central Criminal Record Exchange which is maintained by the FBI.


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Writer's overwhelm is a term used to describe the overwhelming feeling that can take over when a writer is faced with too many ideas, deadlines, projects, or expectations. The result can be debilitating, leading to procrastination, self-doubt, burnout, and, ironically, a lack of productivity. This article provides twelve effective strategies to help writers regain their focus, productivity, and enjoyment in their craft.
- Prioritize Your Writing Tasks
One key strategy in defeating writer's overwhelm is learning to prioritize. Not all tasks hold equal importance, so understanding which ones need to be tackled first can help manage workload. Prioritizing involves assigning importance to tasks based on their urgency and impact. This not only creates a roadmap for tackling your work but also provides a sense of accomplishment as tasks get completed.
- Break Down Large Projects
Large writing projects can seem overwhelming. However, if you break them down into smaller, manageable tasks, they become less daunting. This could involve outlining the project, identifying key points, doing the research, writing the draft, and revising. This strategy can also enhance your sense of accomplishment, as you can tick off each task once it's completed.
- Set Achievable Goals
In a bid to accomplish a lot within a short timeframe, we sometimes set unrealistic goals. Rather than driving productivity, this can lead to stress and disappointment. Break your work into realistic, achievable goals. Celebrate small victories along the way to boost your confidence and motivation.
- Develop a Writing Routine
Creating a routine not only helps in managing time but also conditions the brain to be creative during certain periods. This doesn't mean you have to stick to the "early bird" or "night owl" stereotype; find a routine that best suits you and your lifestyle.
- Learn to Say No
As writers, we often juggle several projects simultaneously. While this can be exciting, it can also lead to burnout. Learn to say no to projects or requests that don't align with your goals or current capacity. Remember, it's better to deliver quality work on a few projects than sub-par work on many.
- Make Time for Rest
Rest is crucial for creativity and productivity. When overwhelmed, take short breaks to relax and recharge. This could be a walk, a nap, or a fun non-writing activity. Remember, working continuously without breaks can lead to fatigue and a decline in the quality of work.
- Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of focusing your attention on the present moment. It can help reduce stress, enhance creativity, and increase focus. Mindfulness exercises, like meditation, deep breathing, or yoga, can be powerful tools to combat writer's overwhelm.
- Use Tools and Apps
Take advantage of technology to stay organized. Project management tools, writing apps, or timers can help manage your tasks, stay focused, and avoid distractions. Remember, the goal is to make the process easier, not to add more complexity with tools that don't work for you.
Writing Tools and Apps to Combat Overwhelm
There's a multitude of tools and apps specifically designed to assist writers in streamlining their writing process, helping them manage their projects, and ultimately, overcoming overwhelm. Let's dive into some of these tools.
Scrivener is an all-in-one writing studio that goes beyond traditional word-processing software. It offers tools for outlining, storyboarding, and organizing research. This tool is ideal for large projects, as it allows you to break down your writing into smaller, manageable sections. Its distraction-free writing mode can also help you stay focused and productive.
- Google Docs
Google Docs is a versatile tool that allows real-time editing and collaboration. It's cloud-based, so you can access your work from anywhere. It also saves your work automatically, preventing any loss due to unexpected events.
Evernote is a note-taking app that can help manage your research and ideas. You can store web pages, images, and PDFs, and it syncs across devices. Using Evernote can prevent the overwhelm that comes from having scattered notes and research.
- Trello or Asana
Trello and Asana are project management tools that can be highly beneficial for writers juggling multiple projects or working in teams. You can track your tasks, set deadlines, and assign priorities. Using these tools can alleviate the stress of keeping track of everything in your head.
Grammarly is more than a spell checker. It helps with grammar, punctuation, and style, and it even offers suggestions for enhancing clarity and engagement. Using Grammarly can reduce the anxiety of editing and ensure your writing is polished.
- Freedom or FocusMe
Freedom and FocusMe are apps that block distracting websites and apps for a designated period. If you find yourself wasting too much time on social media or other online distractions, these tools can be a game-changer.
- Dragon Naturally Speaking
If you find typing overwhelming or tiresome, consider Dragon Naturally Speaking. This speech recognition software transcribes your spoken words into written text, allowing you to write in a more relaxed and natural manner.
- Hemingway App
The Hemingway App analyzes your writing for readability. It highlights lengthy, complex sentences and common errors, helping you write clear, concise, and impactful prose.
- Calmly Writer
Calmly Writer is a distraction-free writing tool that helps you concentrate on the act of writing. It features a clean interface and a "focus mode" that helps you center your attention on the sentence or paragraph you're working on.
RescueTime tracks how much time you spend on different apps and websites. By understanding your daily habits, you can manage your time more effectively and eliminate the overwhelming feeling that there's never enough time.
Each of these tools and apps offers unique features to assist with the writing process. The key is to experiment with a few and find out what combination works best for you. Remember, these tools are designed to assist you, so they should simplify your process, not complicate it.
- Seek Support from a Writing Community
Writing can be a lonely endeavor, but it doesn't have to be. Joining a writing community can provide support, inspiration, and feedback. Sharing your challenges with others who understand can provide a sense of relief and create opportunities for problem-solving.
- Avoid Perfectionism
Striving for perfection is a common trait among writers, but it can lead to procrastination and overwhelm. Remember, no piece of writing will ever be perfect, and that's okay. Focus on progress, not perfection. Allow yourself to write imperfectly, and understand that revisions are a normal part of the process.
- Manage Expectations
Whether it's client expectations, reader expectations, or self-imposed expectations, these can often lead to overwhelm. Clear communication, realistic deadlines, and setting boundaries can help manage expectations and reduce stress.
- Engage in Regular Physical Activity
Physical exercise is an excellent stress reliever. It can boost your mood, improve your concentration, and provide a healthy distraction from your work. Whether it's a short walk, a quick workout, or a yoga session, find an activity you enjoy and make it a part of your routine.
In conclusion, a writer's overwhelm is a real and challenging experience. However, with these twelve strategies, writers can regain control over their work, reduce their stress levels, and reignite their passion for writing. Remember, each writer is unique. It's crucial to find the strategies that work best for you and incorporate them into your routine. After all, writing should be a source of joy and fulfillment, not a cause for overwhelming stress.


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3.1. Layout of a NASM Source Line
Как в других ассемблерах,каждая строка NASM-исходника состоит из 4 основных частей :
label: instruction operands ; comment
As usual, most of these fields are optional; the presence or absence
of any combination of a label, an instruction and a comment is allowed.
Of course, the operand field is either required or forbidden by the
presence and nature of the instruction field.
NASM uses backslash (\) as the line continuation character; if a
line ends with backslash, the next line is considered to be a part of
the backslashended line.
NASM places no restrictions on white space within a line: labels may
have white space before them, or instructions may have no space before
them, or anything. The colon after a label is also optional. (Note that
this means that if you intend to code 'lodsb' alone on a line, and type
'lodab' by accident, then that's still a valid source line which does
nothing but define a label. Running NASM with the command-line option
'-w+orphan-labels' will cause it to warn you if you define a label
alone on a line without a trailing colon.)
Valid characters in labels are letters, numbers, '_', '$', '#', '@',
'~', '.', and '?'. The only characters which may be used as the _first_
character of an identifier are letters, '.' (with special meaning: see
*Note Section 3.9::), '_' and '?'. An identifier may also be prefixed
with a '$' to indicate that it is intended to be read as an identifier
and not a reserved word; thus, if some other module you are linking
with defines a symbol called 'eax', you can refer to '$eax' in NASM
code to distinguish the symbol from the register.
The instruction field may contain any machine instruction: Pentium
and P6 instructions, FPU instructions, MMX instructions and even
undocumented instructions are all supported. The instruction may be
prefixed by 'LOCK', 'REP', 'REPE'/'REPZ' or 'REPNE'/'REPNZ', in the
usual way. Explicit address-size and operand-size prefixes 'A16',
'A32', 'O16' and 'O32' are provided - one example of their use is given
in *Note Chapter 9::. You can also use the name of a segment register
as an instruction prefix: coding 'es mov [bx],ax' is equivalent to
coding 'mov [es:bx],ax'. We recommend the latter syntax, since it is
consistent with other syntactic features of the language, but for
instructions such as 'LODSB', which has no operands and yet can require
a segment override, there is no clean syntactic way to proceed apart
from 'es lodsb'.
An instruction is not required to use a prefix: prefixes such as
'CS', 'A32', 'LOCK' or 'REPE' can appear on a line by themselves, and
NASM will just generate the prefix bytes.
In addition to actual machine instructions, NASM also supports a
number of pseudo-instructions, described in *Note Section 3.2::.
Instruction operands may take a number of forms: they can be
registers, described simply by the register name (e.g. 'ax', 'bp',
'ebx', 'cr0': NASM does not use the 'gas'-style syntax in which
register names must be prefixed by a '%' sign), or they can be
effective addresses (see *Note Section 3.3::), constants (*Note Section
3.4::) or expressions (*Note Section 3.5::).
For floating-point instructions, NASM accepts a wide range of
syntaxes: you can use two-operand forms like MASM supports, or you can
use NASM's native single-operand forms in most cases. Details of all
forms of each supported instruction are given in *Note Appendix B::.
For example, you can code:
fadd st1 ; this sets st0 := st0 + st1
fadd st0,st1 ; so does this
fadd st1,st0 ; this sets st1 := st1 + st0
fadd to st1 ; so does this
Almost any floating-point instruction that references memory must
use one of the prefixes 'DWORD', 'QWORD' or 'TWORD' to indicate what
size of memory operand it refers to.
Pseudo-instructions are things which, though not real x86 machine
instructions, are used in the instruction field anyway because that's
the most convenient place to put them. The current pseudo-instructions
are 'DB', 'DW', 'DD', 'DQ' and 'DT', their uninitialised counterparts
'RESB', 'RESW', 'RESD', 'RESQ' and 'REST', the 'INCBIN' command, the
'EQU' command, and the 'TIMES' prefix.
3.2.1. 'DB' and friends: Declaring Initialised Data
'DB', 'DW', 'DD', 'DQ' and 'DT' are used, much as in MASM, to
declare initialised data in the output file. They can be invoked in a
wide range of ways:
db 0x55 ; just the byte 0x55
db 0x55,0x56,0x57 ; three bytes in succession
db 'a',0x55 ; character constants are OK
db 'hello',13,10,'$' ; so are string constants
dw 0x1234 ; 0x34 0x12
dw 'a' ; 0x61 0x00 (it's just a number)
dw 'ab' ; 0x61 0x62 (character constant)
dw 'abc' ; 0x61 0x62 0x63 0x00 (string)
dd 0x12345678 ; 0x78 0x56 0x34 0x12
dd 1.234567e20 ; floating-point constant
dq 1.234567e20 ; double-precision float
dt 1.234567e20 ; extended-precision float
'DQ' and 'DT' do not accept numeric constants or string constants as
3.2.2. 'RESB' and friends: Declaring Uninitialised Data
'RESB', 'RESW', 'RESD', 'RESQ' and 'REST' are designed to be used in
the BSS section of a module: they declare _uninitialised_ storage
space. Each takes a single operand, which is the number of bytes,
words, doublewords or whatever to reserve. As stated in *Note Section
2.2.7::, NASM does not support the MASM/TASM syntax of reserving
uninitialised space by writing 'DW?' or similar things: this is what
it does instead. The operand to a 'RESB'-type pseudoinstruction is a
_critical expression_: see *Note Section 3.8::.
buffer: resb 64 ; reserve 64 bytes
wordvar: resw 1 ; reserve a word
realarray resq 10 ; array of ten reals
3.2.3. 'INCBIN': Including External Binary Files
'INCBIN' is borrowed from the old Amiga assembler DevPac: it includes
a binary file verbatim into the output file. This can be handy for (for
example) including graphics and sound data directly into a game
executable file. It can be called in one of these three ways:
incbin "file.dat" ; include the whole file
incbin "file.dat",1024 ; skip the first 1024 bytes
incbin "file.dat",1024,512 ; skip the first 1024, and
; actually include at most 512
3.2.4. 'EQU': Defining Constants
'EQU' defines a symbol to a given constant value: when 'EQU' is
used, the source line must contain a label. The action of 'EQU' is to
define the given label name to the value of its (only) operand. This
definition is absolute, and cannot change later. So, for example,
message db 'hello, world'
msglen equ $-message
defines 'msglen' to be the constant 12. 'msglen' may not then be
redefined later. This is not a preprocessor definition either: the
value of 'msglen' is evaluated _once_, using the value of '$' (see
*Note Section 3.5:: for an explanation of '$') at the point of
definition, rather than being evaluated wherever it is referenced and
using the value of '$' at the point of reference. Note that the operand
to an 'EQU' is also a critical expression (*Note Section 3.8::).
3.2.5. 'TIMES': Repeating Instructions or Data
The 'TIMES' prefix causes the instruction to be assembled multiple
times. This is partly present as NASM's equivalent of the 'DUP' syntax
supported by MASM-compatible assemblers, in that you can code
zerobuf: times 64 db


It's the new, hot trend in Latin America: Families with money are equipping their vehicles with bullet-proof windows so they can keep their families safe.
"In Latin American countries from Brazil to Mexico, the affluent are increasingly shielding their cars as a precaution against violence that has thrived due to weak police forces, easy access to guns and young, unemployed men on the lookout for lucrative targets," says a Fox Latino report.
Trying to improve their odds against crime, violence and kidnappings, the report says that Venezuela's wealthy have poured money into security. The number of bodyguards has grown an estimated 70 percent in the past five years, and it's common to see the children of wealthy businesspeople shuttled to school by armed chauffeurs, the report says.
Colombia was a pioneer in producing armored cars due to a long-running rebel conflict and drug violence, the report says, but now, Venezuela surpasses Colombia in the number of armored cars produced each year.
In Brazil, sales have risen from 3,045 vehicles in 2004 to 7,332 in 2010, according to the Brazilian Armoring Association. It says that about 85 percent of Brazilian clients are business executives and that fears of street crime are driving the increase.
In Mexico, says the report, an estimated 2,300 cars will be armored this year, compared to 1,200 in 2007.


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Comparative Environmental Economic Analysis of the Tourism Sector in the MENA Region
Since the beginning of the 1990's, the tourism sector has rapidly grown in the MENA countries with adverse environmental effects. The relationship between environmental requirements and tourism productivity is complex. In fact, ecologists consider that tourism activities are incompatible with the current lack of resources (e.g. fresh water, energy) and may lead to large landscape and shore deteriorations. On the other hand, managers argue that tourism activities create high value-added and incentives for protecting the natural patrimony. The reality lies somewhere in between. In order to set the limits in this domain, policies are needed.
The comparative environmental economic analysis of the tourism sector in the MENA region will help to link environmental and economic perspectives. The project approach consists in estimating the monetary value of environmental damages
The project will offer decision-making tools
that can balance the economic and environmental perception of tourism. The findings and conclusions will support the policy-makers' strategic choices and prioritizing.
The project aims to define and analyse decision-makings tools (based on the monetary valuation of the environment) for the tourism sector in the MENA region in order to ensure the economic efficiency of environmental protection (i.e. to guarantee that the most efficient remediation measures are used first).
The overall goal of such environmental economic study is to address several normative issues to guide tourism activities.
The environmental economic approach applied to the tourism sector in the MENA region will answer the following questions:
- What are the economic benefits for the tourism sector to protect the environment?
- What are the most efficient remediation measures to be applied in the tourism sector?
- What is the share of the tourism sector (meso level) in the national degradation of the environment (macro level)?
The project will also provide answers to the following questions:
- What are the indicators allowing the monitoring of the environmental degradation evolution at the micro level (hotel, resort, chain, touristic village, etc.)?
- What are the best-chosen indicators to obtain a relevant comparative approach of environmental degradation due to tourism (meso level) in the MENA region?
Additionally, the project will take into account potential problems that the tourism sector will face:
- What would happen to water resources in case of a massive influx of tourists?
- What is the impact of the development of tourism infrastructure on coastal ecosystems and natural resources?
- How will the tourism sector evolve environmentally in the MENA region?
Environmental category and data
To conduct such environmental economic study, it is important to define first the potential damage and inefficiency related to the tourism sector in the MENA region. In this respect, the following environmental categories will be addressed:
- Soil degradation
- Air pollution
- Energy consumption
- Water consumption and pollution
The analysis will observe the impact of tourism on the demand of water and natural resources, on traffic congestion and emissions as well as its impacts on land quality (landscape, littoral).
The project requires secondary data to highlight the economic dimensions of the tourism sector (VA, turnover, direct and indirect employment, number of tourists, prices) and its environmental repercussions (resources used, waste generated, pollutant emitted).
The project will have three major outputs:
- Database of environmental and economic information. This database will be an important tool for managing the environmental dimensions of the tourism sector in the MENA region. It will also indicate where important information is missing in order to be collected.
- Analysis of the main environmental economic results in order to decision-making process and priority setting of tourism managers and policy-makers in the MENA region.
- Final executive report highlighting main findings of the project that will also be published in an international peer reviewed scientific magazine for a wide dissemination.
This research is supported by a grant from the Economic Research Forum: _URL_
Main findings will be presented during an international conference to be held in Morocco on 27-28 November 2010.


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The score and completion status sent back to an LMS can be registered in a number of different ways
1. 'Sets course completion' option ticked in the Assessment Results asset
- If the Is tracked assessment option is checked then the score will be sent back to the LMS at the end of the assessment
- If Sets course completion is NOT set then completion from a SCORM perspective will be determined by whether the learner visits every screen in every topic in the course.
- If Sets course completion IS set then completion status sent back to the LMS will be determined by the assessment results. This can be set as either Completed or Pass/Fail in the Type of course completion dropdown.
Note that if completion is determined by the assessment then a dummy, unreachable, screen or topic should be added to the gomo course to ensure that completion isn't also triggered by the learner visiting every page.
2. Learner visiting every screen in the project
3. 'Sets course completion' action added to an interactive asset e.g. Button, Image Button


What are benchmark numbers in math?
Quick Answer
In mathematics, benchmark numbers are predefined numbers that assist in estimation of an unknown quantity. Benchmark numbers tend to be multiples of 5 or 10.
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What are benchmark numbers in math?
Credit: Alex Pepperhill CC-BY 2.0
Full Answer
Benchmark numbers can be used in a variety of estimation problems. They are often found on number lines and labeling known quantities, for example, a jar of pennies labeled with "100 pennies" next to a much larger unlabeled jar of pennies. In that example, knowing the volume that 100 pennies take up can help in estimating how many pennies are in the larger jar.
The concept of benchmark numbers comes from the generalized definition of a benchmark, which is a standard known quantity by which other quantities can be measured.
Learn more about Numbers
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Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.
Compete | FAQ | Contact Us
The Federated States of Micronesia
The Federated States of Micronesia is a series of islands in the Pacific Ocean that are united together under one government and recognized as one nation. The Federated States of Micronesia consist of four main states. Namely, they are Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei and Yap. Though they are tiny islands, they've come a long way as this tiny nation continues to grow and modernize.
2002 Celebrating & Perpetuating Cultural Understanding
2002 Notable Sites of Recognition
19 & under
Geography & Travel


Glossary, Definitions and Help - literature library
Proportion of Households with Firearms
Definition and Selection Criteria
In a given jurisdiction the number of firearms held by civilians could have risen, while in the same period the proportion of households containing firearms could have fallen, or vice versa.
Counting the proportion of households with firearms might reveal trends in which existing gun owners acquire more or fewer guns, while at the same time a decreasing or increasing proportion of households contain firearms.
ID: G175


Postcards & Other Experiments in Formalism
by: Alexander Weinstein
The postcard exercise is part of a larger genre within creative writing known as Formalism. In formalism you steal pre-existing forms (often ones not considered "literary") and pirate them to produce poems, essays, and fictional stories. Many writers have used forms such as dictionary entries, recipes, fictional interviews, water bills, and mock scientific reports to create their stories.
The benefit of using a form such as a recipe or a dictionary entry is that it comes with a very tight structure and often a pre-determined voice. We are all familiar with the dry and academic voice of scientific reports, for example, or the icy tone of a form-letter sent by a corporation—and we can use these tones to have a lot of fun. Remember that part of the joy of working in formalism is when you allow the strictness of the form to break its container just slightly.
For example, what does a dictionary entry written by someone having marital problems sound like? Are there moments when that author might let something slip into the definition that they didn't intend? What about a formal scientific report written by someone who still longs to see unicorns? Again, the variations of formalism are as infinite as are the genres it can span!
Let's Get Started:
1. Create a list of 20 forms.
 These forms should use language which already exist in the world. For example:
 - Book Reviews
 - Self-Help Article
 - Menus
 - Report Card
 - Dictionary Entries
 - Anthropological Study
2. Choose a form from your list and now spend 15-30 minutes writing.
Within the constraints of the form you've chosen, write a story/prose poem. Often the form comes with really fun additional elements you can play with (for example, dictionary entries often have synonyms listed afterward, scientific reports get to use graphs and formulas, etc.)
3. Now use the same form to create a second piece. One of the exciting elements of formalist constraint is that, within the parameters of the form you've chosen, you still have a lot of room for variation. Exploring the same form multiple times will allow you to play with the very malleable and expandable terrain of the form you've chosen.
Note: in some cases you may find that you've got a series emerging. Particularly if you choose a form which is shorter (dictionary entry for example) you may find that the story or poem you're producing is actually a series of dictionary entries.