Kindness in the times of _TAG_ : Indian Edition Part 2
by - April 30, 2020
More tales of kindness from India during the COVID lockdown.
covid19 kindness
Despite struggling from poverty himself, farmer Datta Ram Patil distributes the entire wheat from 1 acre of his 3 acre farm to the needy.
Residents of Ganesh Nagar in Sambalpur are looking after the daily wage workers in their locality by collecting and providing rations directly to them. Each family is provided 5 kgs of rice and 1 kg of dal along with soaps and hand sanitizers. The families have also been told to inform the residents of Ganesh Nagar when supplies are low so that the latter can provide more.
The Guru Nanak College in Chennai has opened their doors to migrant workers who are stuck due to the COVID19 lockdown. The migrants are provided accommodation and food at the college campus in Velachery.
Migrant workers in Chennai
Members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in Kolkata prepare food boxes before distributing them among migrant workers and people in need.
men preparing food during covid lockdown
Noting how animals too are suffering during the lockdown due to starvation, the Rajasthan Police initiated measures to feed stray dogs, cattle and even monkeys during the lockdown. Along with various NGOs, they provide over 15,000 chapatis to stray animals and birds every day.
6 year old child artist Debangkita Banerjee first donated Rs 10,000 - all the money she had saved from her musical performances. When she felt it was not enough, she started singing in the local market places during permissable hours, asking people to contribute if they liked her performance. She collected Rs 70,000 which she promptly donated to the chief minister's COVID-19 relief fund.
child donating money
old lady in a car
donating food
Residents in Jamia Nagar also provided essential commodities to those worst affected during lockdown.
Labourers who had been provided food and accommodation while being kept in quarantine inside a government school in Sikar, Rajasthan decided to express their gratitude by helping school back and repainting all the buildings.
labourers painting school
Heroes of Kindness:
You can follow my 2020 Edition of Heroes of Kindness here.
2017 edition (Articles - 40, Heroes - 67)
2018 edition (Articles - 34, Heroes - 52)
2019 edition (Articles - 31, Heroes - 42)
Heroes of Kindness - Indian edition
Heroes of Kindness - My Interviews
You May Also Like
 1. Hey Roshan, It was an amazing journey through your stories of love and humanity. Thank you :)
 In order to support our readers in making the right choice, we at rightpurchasing would like to have a suggestion from you for product reviews on our website. This product could be one that you want to know about or just want us to review. Click the link below and fill in the short form. Thank you 
 2. Congratulations on successfully completing yet another A to Z challenge!
 Thank you for spreading the light and love and hope you continue to do the same in the future!
 3. He's a true hero. Thank you for sharing such inspirational stories. Congratulations on finishing the A2Z challenge! Kudos to you, AtoZ survivor. :)
 4. It's heartening to learn of these acts of kindness during the pandemic. Thank you for sharing!
 5. Wonderful to read such positive stories in the time of distress! Thank you for sharing! :)
Let me know what you think.


text:
Three workshops were held. The first for Training of Trainers on New Media Literacy (Nagpur) to enable youth belonging to Church of North India to discern the characteristics, language, technology and ideology of New Media and critically analyse New Media texts. The second on 'Understanding Digital Divide in the Indian Context' (Bangalore) to define Digital Divide and understand it in the historical perspective. It looked into the concept of Digital Divide from the standpoint of the third world and critically examined the role of media conglomerates and Information imbalance between North and South. The third on 'Understanding India's Information Society' (Bangalore) focusing on the characteristics of Information Society in India and the changes taking place in the social practices, labour practices, political processes and in the realm of media and public policies. In a second phase, community radio action research was carried out to develop community radio as a medium catering to the people's needs and concerns at the local level and to assess its relevance and possible impact as a new media tool towards people's empowerment. Programmes produced during the training and production phase were assessed through a series of focus group discussions and an audience survey of content, contextual relevance, implications and suggestions.
|Final Report||Half Yearly Narrative Report|
|New media literacy manual|

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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First Flush Devices - A Review
by Doug Pushard
What is a First Flush? Is there one perfect type of First Flush device? Where do I put a First Flush on my rainwater catchment system?
First Flush or Rain Diverters, as the name implies, flush off the first water of a storm before it enters the storage tank. This is the water that could be the most contaminated by particulates, bird droppings, and other materials laying on the roof. Eliminating these contaminants before they enter into your storage and conveyance system is critical to keeping rainwater clean.
After screening your gutters, a First Flush device is the next line of defense in keeping your system and water clean. This is especially true if the water is used inside the house or where children or those with weakened immune systems may come in contact with the water.
Over the years, numerous articles have been written about First Flush devices and it is still an area of much research. However, it is generally agreed that these devices can improve the quality of the rainwater, lengthen the life of your system components, and reduce overall maintenance. The simple diagram above depicts the theory behind these devices (i.e. draining off first rainfall before it enters the tank).
Below is a summary of some the major articles and resources addressing First Flush devices. These should provide a general reference in evaluating the need for a first flush and the type of device best suited for your unique situation.
Rainwater Harvesting Pty Ltd First Flush website article
This article discusses the wide array of designs and sizes of First Flush devices with pictures of the different designs. According to this article, First Flush devices are a critical component of rainwater harvesting systems. By preventing the first, most contaminated water from the roof they:
- Improve rainwater quality and safety
- Help extend the life of pumps (used to distribute rainwater for use)and internal appliances (such as hot water systems, washing machines, dishwashers, etc)
- Reduce tank maintenance
This article sites a study done in Australia which preliminarily concludes that the quality of the water improves dramatically with the use of First Flush water diverters.
First Flush Device Comparisons - An article by Kenneth Vidacovich published
February 2004, and available on Green Pages compares Constant-Volume Containers and First Flush Devices. This article reviews the effects of rain intensity, the general variability of rainfall intensity and maintenance issues in terms of functionality and possible health concerns. Cost estimates are made in order to compare the costs of two popularly used configurations.
This article provides an excellent overview article with detailed comparison between the two different types of devices with good instructions on how to construct a device. The author of the article is the President of FloTrue, a manufacturer of a First Flush device.
A major point from the article: "Rainfall events "generally" start at a low intensity (i.e. mist or drizzle), and rain intensity is the critical washoff factor; it is likely that a constant-volume container will substantially fill with clean water. Then, when more intense rains begin, debris and contaminates from the roof can undesirably wash into the water storage vessel. This is the major pitfall of constant-volume First Flush devices. First Flush valves can be designed to substantially overcome this pitfall."
The Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvesting - 3rd Edition - is an excellent manual that is recommended reading for anyone interested in rainwater harvesting.
Included in this manual is a chapter on First Flush devices and instructions on how to build a simple low-cost device.
People for Rainwater FAQ from Japan states that according to research done in March - April 1980 on rainwater collected from the roof of an office building in central Tokyo, about 0.19 - 0.39 of an inch (.5 - 1 cm) of rainfall was needed to wash the surface of the roof. Other research, done in August - September 1986, also in central Tokyo, measuring the degree of change in water quality in rainwater collected from a roof after a period of about 11 days of no rain, showed that water quality is generally stable after 0.59 - 0.78 of an inch (1.5 - 2 cm) of rain. In other words, even after a dry spell, only about the first 0.59 of an inch (1.5 cm) of rainwater is affected by pollutants accumulated on the rain-collecting surface.
Effects of First Flush on Rainwater Qualitypublished in May 2006, by the International Rainwater Catchment found that First Flush systems contribute signifcantly to reducing the contaminents that are washed off the roof harvesting area.
According to this article, rainwater users can reduce their risks of disease from contaminated rainwater consumption by regular maintenance and using a well-designed system. A range of pathogens has been found in roof-collected rainwater including Salmonella, Campylobacter, Giardia and Cryptosporidium. The likely sources of these pathogens were faecal material deposited by birds, frogs, rodents and possums, and dead animals and insects, either in the gutters or in the water tank itself.
However, detailed event studies undertaken in South East Queensland (SEQ) in Australia have shown that discarding the first.039 of an inch (~1 cm) of runoff with a First Flush device usually does little to substantially reduce the event mean concentration of bacteria and heavy metals entering a rainwater tank during a storm event.
The article also discusses a study by SEQ on first flush devices that highlighted the complexity of roof runoff chemistry. A current research project is underway which is investigating the effect of geographic location (i.e. cities, suburbs, air quality) on bulk contaminant deposition on roofs, the interaction of roofing material and rainfall characteristics on contaminant concentration in the runoff, and the transformation of contaminants that occur in a rainwater tank due to biogeochemical processes.
Rainwater Harvesting Technology Filters and Separatorsby Development Technology Unit of
the School of Engineering,
University of Warwick, covers all the different types of first flush options including: manual, fixed volume, fixed mass and flow rate. Additionally, the article includes the pros and cons of different placements (i.e. at downpipe, in downpipe, etc) of the filter options.
Key highlights from this article: 1) users will usually only spend 5-10% of cost of system on filtering the water, 2) manual systems are usually employed only in very low cost situations, and 3) filtration systems require maintenance and are usually disabled if not easy to maintain.
In summary, First Flush devices can improve the quality of your rainwater, but how much is still under debate. However, all devices that remove impurities and particulates before your water is stored are a good thing. Consequently, regardless of the proven and agreed upon health consequences, cleaning your rainwater will reduce your maintenance and lengthen the life of the system components.
Some general rules of thumb:
- As a general guideline First Flush devices should remove about 10 gallons (37.8 liters) of water per 1,000 square feet (92.9 square meters) of roof/catchment area
- Remember to size for each downspout of the catchment/roof area
- If harvesting rainwater in an area with high pollution (e.g. urban area with poor air quality), an area with lots of dust or other pollution sources, a larger First Flush is required
- First flush devices need to have an easy way to open and maintain. If not, the First Flush will most likely be disabled.
Related Article: Rainwater Harvesting Pty Ltd First Flush website article
Related Article: First Flush Device Comparisons
Related Webpage: The Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvesting - 3rd Edition
Related Webpage: Rainwater Harvesting Technology Filters and Separators
Related Article: Comparing Storage Alternatives
Related Article: Effects of First Flush on Rainwater Quality
Related Article:Comparing Storage Alternatives
Related Service: How To Build a Floating Extractor

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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Full-waveform inversion (FWI) enables us to obtain highresolution subsurface images; however, estimating model uncertainties associated with this technique is still a challenging problem. We have used a Bayesian inference framework to estimate model uncertainties associated with FWI. The uncertainties were assessed based on an a posteriori covariance operator, evaluated at the maximum a posteriori model. For the prior distribution, we have used a spatially nonstationary covariance operator based on a plane-wave construction with local dips measured from migrated images. Preconditioned frequencydomain FWI was used to estimate the maximum a posteriori model. Efficient manipulation of the posterior covariance was based on a low-rank approximation of the data misfit Hessian preconditioned by the prior covariance operator. The strong decay of the singular values indicated that data were mostly informative about a low-dimensional subspace of model parameters. To reduce computational cost of the randomized singular value decomposition, we have used a Hessian approximation based on point-spread functions. The 2D numerical examples with synthetic data confirmed that the method can effectively estimate uncertainties for FWI. Visual comparisons of random samples drawn from the prior and posterior distributions have allowed us to evaluate model uncertainties. Furthermore, we found out how statistical quantities, such as means and pointwise standard deviation fields, can be efficiently extracted from the prior and posterior distributions. These fields helped us to objectively assess subsurface images provided by FWI.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geochemistry and Petrology


text:
A quadrilateral changes shape with the edge lengths constant. Show
the scalar product of the diagonals is constant. If the diagonals
are perpendicular in one position are they always perpendicular?
NRICH has always had good solutions from Madras College in St
Andrew's, Scotland but the solutions to this problem were truly
As a quadrilateral Q is deformed (keeping the edge lengths constnt)
the diagonals and the angle X between them change. Prove that the
area of Q is proportional to tanX.


text: We present a new approach for personalizing Web search results to a specific user. Ranking functions for Web search engines are typically trained by machine learning algorithms using either direct human relevance judgments or indirect judgments obtained from click-through data from millions of users. The rankings are thus optimized to this generic population of users, not to any specific user. We propose a generative model of relevance which can be used to infer the relevance of a document to a specific user for a search query. The user-specific parameters of this generative model constitute a compact user profile. We show how to learn these profiles from a user's long-term search history. Our algorithm for computing the personalized ranking is simple and has little computational overhead. We evaluate our personalization approach using historical search data from thousands of users of a major Web search engine. Our findings demonstrate gains in retrieval performance for queries with high ambiguity, with particularly large improvements for acronym queries.


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It looks like you accidentally enabled the OpenType feature "Ordinals".
Why are only the characters 'o' and 'a' superscripted, and not the entire text?
The function of ordinals is different from superscript:
Function: Replaces default alphabetic glyphs with the corresponding ordinal forms for use after figures. One exception to the follows-a-figure rule is the numero character (U+2116), which is actually a ligature substitution, but is best accessed through this feature.
Example: The user applies this feature to turn 2.o into 2.º (abbreviation for secundo).
(Microsoft OpenType specification, _URL_
Some fonts contain properly drawn superscript characters to support proper ordinals for the most frequent English ordinal indicators "st", "nd" and so on, to enable "1st", "2nd" – more rare fonts do not assume English only and contain the entire lowercase alphabet.
Minion Pro contains è so one can typeset "2ième" with confidence. (The accented character may be meant for another language and number. If you look this up you may find "the only correct abbreviation for deuxième is 2e".)
Most font designers don't go that far. But as the specific characters 'ª' (feminine ordinal indicator, Unicode U+00AA) and 'º' (masculine ordinal indicator, Unicode U+00BA) are part of the recommended basic supported character set "Latin-1", they usually appear in fonts anyway. From that, it's a small step to add the feature 'ordinals', because its most basic form is to only swap 'a' for 'ª' and 'o' for 'º'.


bitmaps can then be put onto the background. A transparent color can be specified before drawing a bitmap, these pixels won't be drawn in transparent mode. RLE compression expects a list of 2 values: first one is the pixel color, second one is the number of pixels to draw with this color.
See terminal_codes for the specific commands.
There are a few examples in this directory.
Sprite handling
Once a bitmap is loaded, it can be used to draw a maximum of 256 sprites. A sprite is an object which is movable over the background. If a sprite is moved or removed, the previous background gets restored. If the sprite is manipulated by a bitmap or a different sprite, this state remains until it gets moved or removed. The sprite is then redrawn and the previous background restored. Moving a sprites, which is overlaped by another leads to artefacts.
Sprites can be drawn solid or with a transparent color. A drawn sprite keeps its settings (solid/transparent) and even the tranparent color until it gets removed.
Once a sprite is active, you should not manipulate or reload its bitmap source, otherwise the sprite changes to this new bitmap source if it gets moved.
Animations could be realized by redefining the sprite with a different bitmap source.
There's a example for a moving dinosaur (after first loading them in hex or binary).
Graphics performance
Since we have cache enabled now on the Pi, the speed is more or less the same on every model. In most cases it's probably faster to not enable DMA.
Graphics which are drawn on a multiple of 4 pixels x-position draw faster than on a multiple of 2 or 1. You will also get more speed if your image has a width of a multiple of 4. Drawing solid is faster than drawing transparent.
This is a table that shows the time for drawing a 400x300 pixel image on different x-positions. This is an example for getting an idea.
Pi Gen. Aligned 4 px Aligned 2 px unaligned DMA enabled
1 (zero) 4.7ms 9.3ms 10.5ms 3.9ms
2 1.9ms 2.1ms 2.6ms 5.2ms
3 2.2ms 2.7ms 3.8ms 5.2ms
4 0.9ms 1.6ms 3.3ms 4.9ms
Collision detection
At the time a sprite is defined, the borders of the sprite are used for detecting collisions with other sprites, so this is always a rectangle. A collision is reported if 2 sprites touch or overlap. Collisions with lower sprite indexes are detected first.
Collision detection takes place at the time a sprite is defined or moved. This sprite is checked against all other active sprites. All detected collisions are reported.
A collision is reported as a keyboard input with this syntax: \ESC[#-idx1-;-idx2-c where -idx1- is the sprite index you just defined or moved and -idx2- is the sprite it collides with.
Compiling on Mac / Linux
To compile you will need to install a GNU ARM cross compiler toolchain and ensure that arm-none-eabi-gcc, arm-none-eabi-as arm-none-eabi-ld and arm-none-eabi-objcopy are in your PATH.
At this point, just run:
$./makeall
in the PiGFX root directory. The project should compile with the 2019 version of the toolchain.
Compiling on Windows
You'll also need the git executable git.exe in your PATH.
At this point, just run:
> makeall
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2016-2020 Filippo Bergamasco.
No packages published


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Tips for Adapting Tuberculosis Educational Materials
Adapting existing educational materials usually requires less time and fewer resources than developing new materials. Before using existing materials, review the materials to ensure accuracy of information. Also, be sure to review and evaluate the materials based on individual, community, and program needs. You may be able to use some products and materials without any modification. Other materials may not be appropriate for your target audience or compatible with your program's guidelines. These materials may require modification.
Below are some tips and resources to consider for evaluating and adapting materials.
1. Assess needs and resources
- Identify program resources (time, personnel, budget) for material development or adaptation.
- Get to know your audience and build a partnership for the process of adapting and developing materials. Getting to know the audience helps determine what information to include based on what they already know and what they need to learn. This is also essential in ensuring the right reading level and ensuring the content is culturally and linguistically appropriate.
- Identify your audience's needs and resources through literature searches, observations, informal conversations, surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
2. Evaluate the material
- Evaluating health education materials will help you determine if the material can be used as is, if it can be adapted, or if a new material should be developed to better meet the training and education needs of the target audience.
- It is important to thoroughly review the content for accuracy; is the information consistent with recent guidelines?
- Also review the writing style, reading level, images, and format to determine what needs to be revised for your setting, audience, and training/education needs.
3. Find out whether you need permission to use or adapt the existing material
- Some organizations have copyright requirements. Contact the organization, author, or production company to get more information and permission to use or adapt the material
- Adhere to the "Fair Use" clause. This clause states that you can use some materials for educational purposes, but you cannot publish, sell, or take credit for them without written permission.
- U.S. federal government documents and publications are not copyrighted. They are free for all to use without permission. If you make changes to government documents, all government logos should be removed before publishing.
- For all adapted materials, it is common courtesy to give proper acknowledgment and a full citation to the original materials and producers.
4. Pilot test (field test) new or adapted materials with members of your audience
- Pilot testing is a strategy that allows members of your target audience to review the materials before they are finalized and mass produced.
- Pilot testing can help answer questions about alternate ways to present information, concepts, content, appearance, and format.
- Pilot testing can also identify confusing or unclear terms and determine if the material is effective in increasing knowledge or changing attitudes.
- Pilot testing methods include focus groups, in-depth interviews, surveys, and questionnaires.
- Pilot testing will help save your program time and money because it identifies which messages and materials work best with your target audiences.
5. Make changes based on pilot test
- After pilot testing materials, collect and review the information.
- Make changes to the materials based on comments and suggestions.
6. Finalize and implement
- Determine how many copies of the materials are needed.
- Develop a distribution and marketing plan for the materials.
7. Evaluate your adapted material
- Monitor the quantity of materials distributed and determine how the materials are being used.
- Periodically reevaluate, update, and revise the materials as needed.
For more detailed information on how to develop or adapt existing materials, please visit
the following resources and references.
Making Health Communication Programs Work, available from the National Cancer Institute
How to Write Easy to Read Health Materials, available from the National Library of Medicine and
the National Institutes of Health, Medline Plus
Beyond the Brochure: Alternative Approaches to Effective Health Communication
available from The AMC Cancer Research Center and CDC
CDCynergy available from the CDC
The Community Toolbox available from the Work Group on Health Promotion and Community
Development at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas


text:
Making Better Connections in Physics
Jan 07, 2013
Studio physics is an interactive way of learning science, and thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, Concordia is bringing studio physics to campus.
With studio, students experience a seamless integration between lecture and lab. Faculty briefly lecture at the start of the class period, and then students work in groups of three or four either to solve problems or do experiments that are integrated with the lecture.
Each group of students works with its own equipment and materials and records data on a dedicated laptop.
"In contrast to the lecture style where students observe the instructor doing an experiment, here students do the work themselves," says Dr. Luiz Manzoni, assistant professor. "We feel it's the best way to teach physics."
Extensive research shows this method improves students' ability to retain what they learn, Manzoni says.
"We're seeing our students are ahead of the curve in test results, and we're seeing that they have a much better understanding of the material," says Manzoni.
Manzoni says this method has been well established but requires an extensive initial expenditure for resources, equipment and computers. Receiving the NSF grant, which was written by physics professor Dr. Heidi Manning, enabled the department to launch studio classes.
"No question, studio encourages more student engagement," says Manzoni. "Students can devise their own method to measure an experiment, and there's more time for discussion at the same time that they are working on the experiment. We're not giving them a recipe to follow. Students are actively doing the problem-solving."
Manzoni says he enjoys studio teaching.
"Students are not afraid to ask questions, and there's much more discussion in class," he says. "It's more fun to teach."
The physics department will expand studio to four classes next year, including all the introductory physics classes.


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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced on 6 February 2018 that he was asking Professor Sir Norman Williams to conduct a rapid policy review into the issues pertaining to gross negligence manslaughter in healthcare.
Working with stakeholders, the Review considered:
- how to ensure healthcare professionals are adequately informed about:
- where and how the line is drawn between gross negligence manslaughter (GNM) and negligence;
- what processes are gone through before initiating a prosecution for GNM;
- how the vital role of reflective learning, openness and transparency is protected where the healthcare professional believes that a mistake has been made to ensure that lessons are learned and mistakes not covered up;
The Review also explored the lessons that need to be learned by the General Medical Council (GMC) and other healthcare professionals' regulators in relation to how they deal with professionals following a criminal process for gross negligence manslaughter.
The Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group submitted evidence as part of the Review.
In summary, we stated that:
- We would be extremely disappointed if an unintended consequence of the tragic death of Jack Adcock and the following case against Dr Bawa-Garba was the regression to a blame culture in any part of the health and care system, or moves towards a more risk-averse form of healthcare
- An appropriate balance must be struck – currently the GPhC, employers, patients and professionals expect and potentially require (e.g. as part of GPhC standards) that pharmacy professionals are open and honest, and reflect when things go wrong to help organisations understand the factors that have led to an incident so that lessons can be learned/shared, yet these reflections and analysis can then be demanded as part of a criminal investigation and used against the individual involved
- It often feels as though the ultimate goal of regulatory action is to improve public safety and patient care, yet the ultimate goal of a criminal investigation is usually to punish an individual – which makes the responsible pharmacist particularly vulnerable when things go wrong
- There is vast inconsistency in the approach taken by police forces in handling incidents involving healthcare professionals and it is not clear who advises them on proportionality and reasonable expectations. Professionals have a relatively clearer understanding of what to expect from their regulator (due to decision-making guidance being published) but criminal processes are much less clear so we would welcome further guidance on this.
- Public understanding of regulatory action and the application of learning should be improved – a lack of criminal conviction does not equate to a lack of action/learning and a conviction does not automatically lead to improved safety.
- We were particularly concerned by the approach taken by the GMC in this case, especially in the context that the Department of Health recently consulted on proposals to merge several of the healthcare regulators.


text:
In 2013, the Australian Bureau of Statistics was provided with access to the Australian Taxation Office's Personal Income Tax unit record data to assess the feasibility of linking records from the Australian Government's Settlement Database to the Personal Income Tax unit record data. The study concluded that linking was feasible, provided name and address information could be used as linking variables, and that the linked dataset could provide useful information that no other data source could provide. This paper provides background to the feasibility study, a brief description of the linking strategy and process, and an assessment of the quality of the linking. The potential benefits of future linking projects are also discussed.The authors comment that -
The results of this study are based, in part, on tax data supplied by the ATO to the ABS under the Taxation Administration Act 1953, which requires that such data is only used for the purpose of administering the Census and Statistics Act 1905. Any discussion of data limitations or weaknesses is in the context of using the data for statistical integration purposes, and is not related to the ability of the data to support the ATO's core operational requirements.
The confidentiality of data is protected by legislation. The Census and Statistics Act 1905 and the Privacy Act 1988 require that all information collected by the ABS remain confidential. Both these Acts ensure that data submitted to, or collected by, the ABS are not provided to anyone where those data can be used to identify an individual. All ABS staff, including temporary employees, are legally bound never to release personal information to any individual or organisation outside the ABS. In addition, comprehensive security arrangements are implemented in ABS computer systems.They report
In 2013, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) conducted a study to examine and assess the feasibility of linking unit record data from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Personal Income Tax records with the Australian Government's Settlement Database (SDB).
This study was known as the Migrant Personal Income Tax (PIT) Data Integration (DI) project.
The Migrant PIT DI project was conducted with the aim of assessing the viability and quality of linking the SDB with the ATO PIT data.
The primary benefits of the project are:
1. Increasing the potential for use of administrative data sources such as the SDB and PIT data by the ABS for the purpose of statistical output;
2. Creating an enriched dataset for statistical and research purposes;
3. Possible new statistics on recent migrants able to be produced at a relatively low cost and without additional burden to providers (to inform policy debate, decision making and evaluation); and
4. Advancing the capability of the ABS as an Integrating Authority through demonstration of the feasibility and statistical value of linking of administrative data.
The first phase of the Migrant PIT DI project is the Migrant PIT Linkage Feasibility Study. The study linked the SDB to the PIT records using variables such as name, date of birth and address. Figures from the linked file were compared with other data sources with comparable data items published by the ABS to assess the quality of the links and the linkage rate. Relevant legislation and guidelines, including the Privacy Act 1988 and the High Level Principles for Data Integration Involving Commonwealth Data for Statistical and Research Purposes were adhered to, protecting the privacy of individuals on both datasets.
Around 70% (68.8% in 2009/10 and 69.0% in 2010/11) of records on the SDB considered to be 'in-scope' for the feasibility study linked to a record on the PIT file. Of the unlinked SDB records, it is likely that a high proportion of them are simply non-tax lodgers, and therefore a match to a PIT record is not expected. If it were possible to quantify this and exclude these records from the linkage process, hypothetically the linkage rate would have been much closer to 100%. The project demonstrated that linking the SDB to PIT is feasible and can provide useful information on the economic contribution of individuals who have migrated to Australia. The feasibility study also demonstrated that data linkage using a limited range of variables is possible.
The next step for this project is to conduct a statistical study and, following consultation with relevant stakeholders, it is hoped that this second phase of the project can be conducted in 2014.
This paper provides background to the Migrant PIT Linkage Feasibility Study, a brief description of the linking strategy and process, a discussion of the quality of the linking of the SDB records to the PIT records, provides recommendations for improvements to the linking, and explores potential for an analysis dataset.


text:
WHAT WE DO
CTT Spain Special Programs offers a wide variety of educational services like:
– Open workshops related to teaching thinking in the classroom, covering the following fields:
Infusing instruction in analytical, critical and creative thinking skills into content.
Development of longer didactic units including Project Based Units which infuse thinking skills.
Assessing students' development of skill at thinking.
Creating a culture of thinking in classrooms.
Developing thinking schools.
– CTT Summer Institute in Spain.
– Conferences and keynotes specialised in:
Teaching for the development of important "Habits of Mind".
The role of Metacognition in the classroom.
Developing Emotional Intelligence.
Visible Thinking: Using "Thinking Routines" in the classroom and creating a classroom "culture of thinking".
Teaching for Understanding.
Teaching Specialized Thinking Skills for the Development of Multiple Intelligences.
Graphic Organizers for Thinking: Dos and Don'ts.
– Bringing to Spain leaders in the field to present on special topics of importance in the teaching of thinking, like David Perkins from Project Zero at Harvard, and Carol McGuinness from the Network of Thinking Schools in Ireland.
– Working with universities throughout Spain to develop special university programs for teachers on teaching thinking, both on site at the universities themselves, and on-line.
There are three levels of programmes that we offer:
- Introductory awareness presentations, for those who want to find out what TBL involves.
- Training programmes, for those who would like to introduce TBL in their own teaching.
- Extension programmes, for those teachers and schools that have already infused thinking in the classroom instruction. For example, developing longer didactic units including problem and project based units that infuse organised clusters of thinking skills, assessing students development of skill at thinking, The development of thinking dispositions.
Programmes will be aimed at infants and primary level instruction, secondary instruction, high school instruction, administrative leadership teams and university faculty.


text:
Liver Patients International (LPI) is pleased to share the new communications toolkit for COVID – 19 and liver patient organisations. The purpose of the toolkit is to inform liver patient organisations on how they can support patients during this challenging time of the pandemic:
This document has been made by José Willemse and Martine Walmsley, patient advocates, in collaboration with RPP and endorsed by ERN Rare Liver and EASL, as part of the RPP Patient Grant scheme.
Click the titles below to access the toolkit and find more information:
This document has three sections, in order to support liver disease patients during the COVID-19 pandemic:
- Section 1: helps patient associations to communicate accurate information about COVID-19 to patients
- Section 2: advises on the use of social media and newsletters to make communication to patients easier
- Section 3: gives tips about how advocacy can be used to improve the situation and treatment of liver disease patients
This lay summary of the guidance in the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) – the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Position Paper is intended to be read alongside local and national guidance about COVID-19.
The lay summary covers:
- How healthcare providers are minimising COVID-19 transmission
- What changes to expect in your care during the pandemic
- What to expect if you get COVID-19
- Prioritisation of patients for some tests and procedures
LPI encourages Liver Patient Associations to share and use this material in order to inform patients and raise awareness about COVID-19 and liver related issues.


Drum sieve
[widgetkit id=3817]
Product description
Sieving into fractions is essential for the proper functioning of many recycling processes. The drum sieve offers a simple and reliable solution to sort material to a predetermined size. Due to its simplicity, the drum screen can easily handle large volumes of material. Many different models are possible.
Factors that determine the structure of the sieve drum are, a.o., the throughput, the size of the screen opening, the number of screening steps, the diameter and length of the drum. These factors are determined by the input material, the desired tonnage and number of sieve fractions. Depending on the number of sieve fractions, hoppers and conveyors are provided. As an additional advantage, the chassis of the drum sieve can be made so that the panels with the screen openings are interchangeable. The customer's wish is key here.
The drum is available in a round or hexagonal version. Due to the angled shape of the hexagonal sieve, materials which have been entwined, are untangled and presented to the screening surface again.
Due to the stringent requirements imposed on the environment, a sieve drum is usually provided with a sound and dustproof casing.
The scope of a sieve drum is very varied. Going from the sifting of rubble and compost to the calibration of carrots. Sieve drums can be found in every branch of industry.
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I guess most of us who have been an ardent user of Linux O.S. must have seen dreaded "Kernel Panic" error messages at some point of time and generally those are very difficult to solve and takes away lot of time researching on it.There are many reasons for Kernel Panic error messages and one of them is related to ACPI and APCI, which I am going to talk about in this post. ACPI has superseded the old APM.
Typically you will see error messages like this:
kernel panic – not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
Try passing the following kernel parameters (all at once) in your GRUB (menu.lst) or LILO (lilo.conf) configuration file:
acpi=off pci=noacpi noapic nolapic
There are 90% chances that your problem will solve if it is related to ACPI and APIC. Once you can boot your system by giving above parameters, try eliminating each one of them, one by one, to find which parameter actually is required. However, there could be more than one parameter that you will end up using. For example, in my case I had to give:
to resolve my Kernel panic error.
If you are still getting Kernel panic even after giving the above four parameters, then try these additional parameters in permutation and combination with the above four to see if you resolve the issue:
pnpbios, pci=usepirqmask, pci=biosirq
If you are still not able to solve it, then I suspect that it might not be an APCI and ACPI related issue. However, I strongly encourage you to boot from a Knoppix live CD or Ubuntu live CD and look at the "Help" section before it starts booting. In the help section they suggest many kernel parameters that you may have to give because of broken firmware or buggy BIOS in order to boot your system.
In my next part of this post, I will explain and also give some useful pointers as to why we need to give those parameters to safely boot the Linux Kernel and how can we boot the kernel without giving those parameters because in some situation (when you are using a laptop) you simply cannot give up ACPI features.
As usual, please leave a comment/feedback if you have any. Comments encourages bloggers to post more and keep their spirits high.


Monday, October 5, 2015
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Bacteria give legumes their high protein content
By Harold Keyser
Legumes are known for their high protein content and the symbiosis they form with rhizobia bacteria, which provide them with free nitrogen from the atmosphere.
Legumes, the third-largest family of plants, provide us with many options for our gardens, including high-protein vegetables, ground covers, "green" manures, windbreaks, shade, living fences and forages for livestock.
You can learn more about legumes and the many choices for use in your garden:
» _URL_
» _URL_
The basis for their high-protein content is found in their root nodules, where rhizobia can use otherwise inert nitrogen gas in the air and convert it to useable ammonia through a unique nitrogenase enzyme. The plant feeds the bacteria in the nodule in exchange for the "fixed" ammonia. The plant does the rest, converting the ammonia to amino acids and protein. This symbiosis can provide the legume with its entire nitrogen requirement.
Beans, peas, peanuts and soybean are the common vegetable legumes found in Hawaii gardens. These four legumes each require different rhizobia for an effective symbiosis, and their presence in any given soil depends on many factors.
A simple test performed before planting can help you determine whether the specific rhizobia are present: Put a small amount of your garden's soil in a pot and plant the legume of interest. Examine it for nodules after about three weeks and cut open the nodule. Look for a pink to red color, indicative of active nitrogen fixation. If nodules are lacking or the cut-open nodule is white, legume inoculant containing the specific rhizobia is required. The inoculant can be obtained from nurseries or seed supply stores.
To take full advantage of the benefits from legumes, having the compatible rhizobia is necessary.
Question: I have heard that legumes increase the fertility of soil. What are my options for doing this?
Answer: One of the best options is to grow the appropriate legume as a green manure that gets incorporated into the soil. As a regular practice, this will increase the organic matter, nitrogen content and water-holding capacity; improve soil structure and aeration; and reduce the potential for erosion. Candidates include Sunn hemp, pigeon pea, white sweetclover, lablab and Stylosanthes guianesis, or stylo. Theses legumes can also be used as a feed source for some livestock.
Q: Is there a legume I could use as a cover crop in my backyard orchard?
A: Legume cover crops can benefit the soil and a perennial crop at the same time. An excellent candidate is perennial peanut with coffee, banana or citrus. Other candidates include Desmodium triflorum, or tick clover, and Stylosanthes guianesis, or stylo.
Q: I have heard that mulch made from legumes is like a slow-release fertilizer. What legumes are best for this purpose?
A: Some woody legumes offer their own variety of uses, including Gliricidia sepium, commonly known as gliricidia, and Leucaena leucocephala, the common invasive weed known as koa haole, in your garden. They can be repeatedly pruned, with their high nitrogen foliage laid as mulch. Gliricidia can also be spaced for use as a living fence or windbreak and to provide shade.
Harold Keyser is the Maui County administrator for the University of Hawaii's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources.
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Analysis of gamma-ray and neutron-induced chromosome aberrations in CHO-K1 cells using the atomic force microscope
THE ENUMERATION OF CHROMOSOME aberrations remains a popular method to relate DNA damage to radiation dose delivered, and is the basis of efforts to improve aberration assays. In the work reported here, atomic force microscopy was used to study the induction of chromosome aberrations in CHO-K1 cells, after irradiation with 1-3 Gy p(66)/Be neutrons and 2-7 Gy 60Co γ-rays. The investigation showed that small structures, not normally well defined using conventional microscopy, can be resolved and identified with the atomic force microscope. Furthermore, the height information gathered by atomic force microscopy is useful for eliminating counting mistakes, which might be caused by chromatid or chromosome overlaps. The superior resolution of atomic force microscopy over conventional optical microscopy renders the scoring of as few as 20 cells per dose point as sufficient to draw accurate dose curves that correctly express the biological damage induced by different radiation sources.


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In the cherry blossom's shadeby Kobayashi Issa
English version by Robert Hass
Original Language Japanese
In the cherry blossom's shade
there's no such thing
as a stranger.
|-- from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell|
In Japanese Zen poetry, spring blossoms, particularly cherry blossoms, are often used as symbols for the simple, natural, unfolding springtime of enlightenment.
Understanding this, the rest of the poem opens up.
In the "shade" or, you might say, beneath the canopy of enlightenment, there is no longer any sense of separation. Nothing and no one is foreign to you. There is no such thing as a stranger.


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Most Active Stories
Thu October 13, 2011
Dennis Ritchie, C Programmer And Unix Co-Creator, Has Died
Dennis Ritchie is being remembered today as a pioneering computer scientist, the "father of [the] C programming language," co-creator of the Unix operating system and "a 'titan' of the [computer] industry whose influence was largely unknown."
Ritchie, 70, has died. The news was confirmed this morning by Alcatel-Lucent, which owns the Bell Labs where Ritchie worked from 1967 until his retirement in 2007.
"While the introduction of Intel's 4004 microprocessor in 1971 is widely regarded as a key moment in modern computing, the contemporaneous birth of the C programming language is less well known. Yet the creation of C has as much claim, if not more, to be the true seminal moment of IT as we know it; it sits at the heart of programming — and in the hearts of programmers — as the quintessential expression of coding elegance, power, simplicity and portability."
It adds that "Ritchie designed a computer language, C, that could be quickly and easily moved between different hardware. Programs that were written in C, provided they followed the rules, would then run with little or no modification on any computer that could itself run C."
Then Ritchie and Kenneth Thompson "rewrote Unix in C, giving the operating system the same ease of portability. Programmers could then learn one operating system, one set of tools and one language, and find those skills nearly universally applicable."
Ritchie and Thompson were 1998 National Medal of Technology laureates "for their invention of UNIX operating system and the C programming language, which together have led to enormous growth of an entire industry, thereby enhancing American leadership in the Information Age."
That medal "is the highest honor for technological achievement bestowed by the President of the United States on America's leading innovators."
Alcatel-Lucent has posted video of Ritchie and Thompson talking about their work.


3 Tips To Deal With Ghosting
Ghosting is an unfortunate situation most of us have been in. If a person you are texting does not reply or does so after a long period of time, you are being ghosted. Excuses from a person that does so, like "I was sick" or "I was tired" are just excuses. If they honestly wanted to talk with you, they would, or they would at least notify that they cannot text at the moment. Here are three tips to deal with ghosting.
Stop texting them.
Continuing to text a person who is ghosting you does not help. If they decided to do so, they will. Texting after being ignored for a long time will make you appear needy and insecure. The first and the most important step to deal with ghosting is to cut contact with that person until and if they text you first.
Do not take it personally.
It is very important to understand that it is not your fault if you were ghosted. It can happen to all of us, and it says more about the person who is ghosting, than the one who is being ghosted. You did not make anything wrong, and you are not a bad person. If you were, a person that is not responding would still text at least something to you.
Move on.
Moving on from a person who is ghosting you will not only solve the problem, but it will help you in other areas of your life. Forgetting about such person will save you time spent texting to a black hole.
Time is valuable, and allocating saved time to improving yourself or building a valuable relationship with another person will make you overcome this problem.
In conclusion, ghosting sucks. The most important thing to remember is that being ghosted has nothing to do with yourself, as it can happen to everyone regardless of the person.
Do not be afraid to move on and pursue other relationships.
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Seven Things About Everything
Essay By: frog
Religion and spirituality
It may be controversial to explain Everything.
Submitted:Oct 11, 2009 Reads: 185 Comments: 0 Likes: 1
In the infinite space which everything is included, there are seven truths. Everything is cyclical, has equilibrium, can be broken down, is connected, is hypocritical, has the capability to go on forever, and comes to an end. Using various life like examples, we can find out the seven things in which drive people, plants and animals, the things the living create, and the space in which is inhabited by them.
Everything is cyclical. The easiest definition to a cycle is anything that repeats itself. The cyclical nature of the earth's rotation is true in people themselves. The earth goes round and so do humans. Where there is the happiness and joy of life there is the sadness and sorrow of death. A child is born an old man dies. A tree grows and it gets struck down by lightning. An idea emerges and it gets lost within the realms of history. The cycle of rain, seasons, and time are all included. What is true of physics and science and earth itself is also true for John, our imaginary example man.
There are two types of cycles. The first are good cycles which can be defined as any cycle that leads to receiving any necessity of life or seen as positively affecting life. The necessities of life are food, water, shelter, and love. (Love meaning sex and the continuance of the precious gift of life.) There are also bad cycles and these can be defined as any cycle that impedes one from receiving any necessity of life or seen as negatively affecting life.
John was caught up in many cycles that benefited his life and the lives of many others. He was involved in academics and his academic success gained him money which in turn allowed him to buy food, water, and shelter. John studied for school, went home practiced piano, helped his mother with chores, and then went to bed. He woke up the next morning and repeated the same process. These were all cycles that were seen as good and benefited John. When John grew older he found himself doing the same things but instead of school he found himself going to work, getting paid, buying food, and going to bed.
There are thousands of good cycles all of us find ourselves doing. Some examples include; showering, working, singing, dancing, exercising, volunteering, going to church, watching television etc. Now many would question that if John had watched television all his life he would be a nobody, but we must remember that the definition states what is seen to benefit life and leads to the gaining of one of the necessities of life is what defines a good cycle. John's balance of time is what would make him a success and this balance is what we will discuss after we touch on bad cycles.
John may seem so far to be free of bad cycles but there are some poor cycles that he participated in. When he turned eighteen he became very distressed because it was his senior year and decided that it was ok for him to smoke. What John failed to realize was that smoking was a cycle that would not benefit his life because he would soon find out that his "game" was no good anymore. John decided to quit his habit of smoking and he found himself in a worse situation than just not trying to smoke in the first place. He became easily angered and was short tempered after deciding to quit. John also became depressed after quitting smoking. He lost interest in many things and found himself not enjoying many activities he use to. He quit piano, quit sports, and became a couch potato watching T.V. day after day. These ongoing behaviors of doing what society calls nothing are called bad cycles because they cause misery for John and everyone around him.
Many people find themselves participating in bad cycles or non cycles. Some examples of bad cycles include; smoking, drinking, binging, purging, gambling, not practicing, not showering, quitting, prostitution, excessive porn, etc. Keep in mind the definition of bad cycles they are what impedes one from receiving a necessity of life and is seen as negatively affecting one's life. Some may question why quitting is a bad cycle, but remember it is only referring to quitting good cycles. Next we will discuss the fact that the earth is in a natural equilibrium.
I lied we are going to keep you in suspense until the next paragraph to discuss equilibrium. I also lied because there is a third controversial cycle. If numbers truly go on forever it is very possible that not only cycles go on forever but they are only a part of something much larger. For example if we look at time fragments we have seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months, seasons, years, decades, eons, and so forth. Those periods must get smaller and larger forever if we look mathematically at them. There is the cycle that is called the accumulative which is referring to any cycle that starts out small and gets larger. A good example yet a tongue biter is evolution. Another example would be the capacity to get smarter and smarter over time but we know that sooner or later those other cycles will bring that capability to an end. We call that old age. Another improvable theory would suggest that our lives are only part of something much larger just like red blood cells are making us live there is a possibility that there is something studying us discussing what it is our purpose is. This section will make more sense once we continue on with equilibrium and the other facts to life.
We are always in search of the right balance, we don't want too much and we definitely will not settle for less. The earth needs good just as well as evil because what a boring life it would be for everyone without bad. There would be no heroes, no Nobel Peace winners, no need to get off our ass to do something because everything would be good just as is. I couldn't imagine a world without good either. Life and death fall in this category of equilibrium because without one there isn't the other. There is a female and male to create life without man or woman neither would exist. Even our biological bodies follow this rule and we call it homeostasis. What is true for the world is true for John.
What occurred to John after quitting was a physics term called equilibrium. What is true in physics is true with John. John deciding to quit a bad habit led to the effect of being ill tempered. It is true that it takes two negatives to create a positive. Because John did decide to quit(bad) something bad(bad), the two bads created good. Some may ask what about killing someone bad? Because we are dealing with life and death which is a natural cycle killing is always bad. It would be like trying to stop water from flowing downhill, possible yet stupid.
Each action has an equal and opposite reaction. There are many examples that we have hidden through our words. Stress is a label we put on uncomfortable living in everyday life. In health class we are taught to get rid of that stress by journaling, screaming in a pillow, and in anyway venting. Another example is what we find if we as humans move to space. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We move to space which is good because we save the planet we are on from overcrowding. The negative is obviously unknown, but could include littering space with random metal objects from space shuttles. Beginning wars in space could be a problem. The cost of living in space and those who die figuring out how to live in space could be a few of many other problems to match with the good effects of living in space. A better example would be here from earth. Why were older siblings and adults able to get away with more in their age time? John's parents were able to get away with more mischievous behavior than John was ever to get away with. John found it hard to vent growing up. This is because John had to work less than his parents. His parents mowed the lawn with a push while John always got to use a rider so therefore the bad things he is able to do are less because he has spent less time doing good. Those who spend more time doing good spend more time doing badly in a sense.
What about relationships some may ask. Ah yes, the chemistry between people must follow the rules just as everything else. She or he must complete me. Personality plays a great role in relationships. If you have two people with the same personality they will have the same interests but will not make the best companions for each other. The magnet example opposites attract and similarities repel sums it up well. In our world putting two people who are exactly alike together for a long period of time is going to cause problems. If you were to compare a parent who had a major problem with a specific child to the child, their personalities would show up as the same. "We don't want them to make the same mistakes as we did" "you're acting just like your mother". Women complete men as men complete women and their personalities in the cases of failed marriages will be similar and vice versa.
What about John and Sabrina? John and Sabrina should by all means get a divorce if their personalities are too much alike. They are friends who met and just had many of the same interests. They like to volunteer, they both have happy personalities, they are very generous, and by all means that relationship really ends in a disastrous divorce because the divorce (negative) needs to match there successes in the past. Only after messy kid dividing divorce can John and Sabrina make a realistic life. No one has a perfect life.
Equilibrium has been present in the description of


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On my road trip to Michigan, I visited Library Park in Elk Rapids. The Park is on the shores of Lake Michigan, with a beach, a harbor and a Jetty. At the end of the jetty were a few clumps of beach grass, bushes and a short willow. Such a harsh habitat does not teem with insect diversity, but an entomologist can intensively search the few available resources.
On the willow, I found a single gypsy moth caterpillar. How did it arrive? The willow was hundreds of meters from the nearest tree. Gypsy moth females are flightless and lay eggs in clusters. It is unlikely that a female gypsy moth laid a single egg on the bush. The egg could have been part of a mass laid on a piece of wood that drifted to the jetty.Possibly the caterpillar traveled by air. Gypsy moth larvae can spin down from trees on silken thread and catch a ride on the wind. If this happened, this single larva was lucky enough to land on the only possible plant that could support it before it was blown into the miles of the watery death of nearby Lake Michigan.


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Jeremiah 10:1-4 KJV
Is Jeremiah talking about a Yule Tree here?
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See recent post on anachronisms – user1985 Jan 29 at 2:21
3 Answers 3
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It would appear that this is not the case, when the entire passage is read according to the webpage article Jeremiah 10 and the "Pagan" Christmas Tree (Bucher, 2000), the next verses detail that
and importantly, according to the article Jeremiah 10 and Christmas Trees it is concluded that Jeremiah is not condemning Christmas trees (a practice started in Europe in the 16th century AD), but is condemning idolatry.
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Jeremiah is operating in the capacity of The Lord's mouthpiece to the house of Israel. In 10:2 The Lord sends a warning to them saying: "Learn not the ways of the (ungodly)nations." By learning their ways the house of Israel could start practicing them. In 10:3 He states that their customs or ways are vanity (false). The Lord then gives them an example that they were probably familiar with, which was the decorating of the tree. Once the tree was decorated they would worship it as if it were a God. Deuteronomy 5:7-10 explains how The Lord feels about this practice, and the consequences that will incur.
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No. The next sentence goes on to talk about how they will not walk on their own. Yule trees do not receive such anthropomorphic language. Passage 11 clarifies that this is talking about carving/fashioning gods (idols), not a pagan tree custom.
Also, while some do argue for an early veneration of evergreen trees that may be precursor to Yule tree in later Germany, this is not seen in Semitic cultures of this period making this question an almost laughable anachronism.
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It may not have been seen in Semitic cultures, but the practice would have been seen from the Romans. The passage warns against "Learn not the way of the nations", obviously we're not talking about just Semitic cultures here. – The Freemason Dec 30 '13 at 3:58
So you presume the ancient Jews had contact with the Romans in the 6th century BC? I have something to sell you :) – user1985 Jan 2 at 0:14
I may be off by 600 years or so. Maybe The Roman link isn't the best. But my point is that the text suggests something outside of the Semitic cultures. – The Freemason Jan 2 at 1:11
I think the text suggests a practice outside of Jewish culture, but to say more than that is an assumption. Who's to say they even had much contact with non-Semitic cultures at that time? I don't know answer I just ask – user1985 Jan 3 at 21:43
Your Answer


Dynamic Many-Light Sampling for Real-Time Ray Tracing
Monte Carlo ray tracing offers the capability of rendering scenes with large numbers of area light sources---lights can be sampled stochastically and shadowing can be accounted for by tracing rays, rather than using shadow maps or other rasterization-based techniques that do not scale to many lights or work well with area lights. Current GPUs only afford the capability of tracing a few rays per pixel at real-time frame rates, making it necessary to focus sampling on important light sources. While state-of-the-art algorithms for offline rendering build hierarchical data structures over the light sources that enable sampling them according to their importance, they lack efficient support for dynamic scenes. We present a new algorithm for maintaining hierarchical light sampling data structures targeting real-time rendering. Our approach is based on a two-level BVH hierarchy that reduces the cost of partial hierarchy updates. Performance is further improved by updating lower-level BVHs via refitting, maintaining their original topology. We show that this approach can give error within 6% of recreating the entire hierarchy from scratch at each frame, while being two orders of magnitude faster, requiring less than 1 ms per frame for hierarchy updates for a scene with thousands of moving light sources on a modern GPU. Further, we show that with spatiotemporal filtering, our approach allows complex scenes with thousands of lights to be rendered with ray-traced shadows in 16.1 ms per frame.
Pierre Moreau (NVIDIA, Lund University)
Publication Date:
Monday, July 8, 2019
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Right-handedness dominant for 500,000 years
Published on April 21st, 2011 | by Sevaan Franks0
The oldest teeth come from a more than 500,000-year-old chamber known as Sima de los Huesos near Burgos, Spain, containing the remains of humans believed to be ancestors of European Neandertals. Other teeth studied by Frayer come from later Neandertal populations in Europe.
"These marks were produced when a stone tool was accidentally dragged across the labial face in an activity performed at the front of the mouth," said Frayer. "The heavy scoring on some of the teeth indicates the marks were produced over the lifetime of the individual and are not the result of a single cutting episode."
Overall, Frayer and his co-authors found right-handedness in 93.1 percent of individuals sampled from the Sima de los Huesos and European Neandertal sites.
Story: Brendan M. Lunch, University of Kansas | Photo: University of Kansas, Department of Anthropology


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Besides continuos conduction mode (PWM), the TPS63805 and TPS63806 feature power safe mode (PFM) operation to achieve high efficiency at light load currents. This is implemented by pausing the switching operation, depending on the load current.
The skip comparator manages the switching or pause operation. It compares the current demand signal from the voltage loop, IREF, with the skip threshold, ISKIP, as shown in Figure 9-1. If the current demand is lower than the skip value, the comparator pauses switching operation. If the current demand goes higher (due to falling VO), the comparator activates the current loop and allows switching according to the loop behavior. Whenever the current loop has risen VO by bringing charge to the output, the voltage loop output, IREF (respectively VEA), decreases. When IREF falls below ISKIP-hysteresis, it automatically pauses again.


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Sentence Builder is designed to help elementary aged children learn how to build grammatically correct sentences. Explicit attention is paid to the connector words that make up over 80% of the english language. Sentence Builder offers a rich and fun environment for improving the grammar of all children.
- Simple and intuitive interface to build sentences
- 100 distinct pictures to build sentences around
- 3 levels of play
- 60 encouragement animations and audio clips
- Optional correct sentence audio reinforcement
- Statistics to track student progress


quite explain why. Certainly not to the cops.
Small Time and Big Time
Once Upon a Time in America
Mystic River is difficult to read correctly without extended reference to Sergio Leone's much debated, strange, and complex film Once Upon a Time in America. The films share much in terms of themes, situations, and mystery. The common elements are obvious: Lost Innocence, Time, Illusion, Crime and Violence, Betrayal of Friendship, a sense of Eternal Return. But there are direct echoes in Mystic River of Leone's film. They are two films that use a Proustian recherche as their dramatic engine. What is explicit and symbolic in Leone is implicit and whispered (and sometimes offscreen) in Mystic River. Both movies give us counter-indications that should make us question their "obvious" story. Both filmmakers are bent on troubling the dream/narrative.
David "Noodles" Aaronson (Robert de Niro) is a small-time hood, suspended in time. He is lured out of temporal exile by dark psychological forces that are not immediately clear. He seems to have a deadly betrayal on his conscience. It's an old story: friendship or family ties crushed in the maw of the business of crime. That's why Gangster films are always transparent critiques of Capitalism. Gangsters are capitalists. Period. With them business ultimately has to come first.
As the audience journeys with Noodles into his past though the vehicle of his future, Leone builds up an expectation of some narrative revelation. Everyone wants a "Rosebud" moment from Leone. But he confounds that expectation. The end sends us back to the beginning like in Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) but we now doubt the information we've been given. What Leone found fascinating about the source material and the "Harry Grey" character was the tension between the recollected memories and the cliched, obviously invented material. Was this some protective device, Leone wondered, some Brechtian distancing that would allow the bearer of dangerous memories to navigate, in the guise of fiction, the territory of his past?
The reason we must suspect the story that Noodles presents is because it absolves him almost completely of any moral responsibility. He is passive, dissociating even when he erupts in violence. Time is his junk, and memory is his vice. He is a narrator, not a protagonist of his life. He uses events and people almost as totems, to buttress his shattered inner life.
Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern), his lost girl, says to Noodles, "Memories are all we have left" and warns him not to open that last door. What's interesting about the final confrontation between Max (James Woods) and Noodles is the absolutely rigorous ambiguity of it. De Niro gives no indication that he recognises Max, and though he is obviously moved when the pocket watch, the absolute symbol of the recherche, is produced, he does not seem to respond to it as a token of their lost friendship, but as the montage of ensuing memories proves, as the talisman of a journey though lost time.
The psychological levels (or screens) of Once Upon a Time in America:
1. An Author veiling his reminiscences in a novel. (The Harry Grey level.)
2. An inner core of "true" events and people. Elements that can be acknowledged without repression. (The epistemological level.)
3. The main body of the film, the elaboration of these "core" circumstances into a dream of memory. (The opium or pipe dream level.)
4. The guilt that forever obscures what really happened. (The level of Repression.)
5. The cinematic and personal dream world of the filmmaker. (The Nostalgic Level)
6. The repressed shadow story, never seen, that exists only as a negation of events remembered. (The level of psychological truth.)
Once Upon a Time in America
This hierarchy of screens is why, despite the many heroic critical attempts, there can be no definitive "decoding" of what has happened to Noodles. It is a movie made to order for the postmodernist malaise. Just as it was impossible for Leone to separate the "real" America from his remembered celluloid America, it is impossible to sift the truth from memories. What Leone is doggedly asserting is that memory itself is the opium pipe. Though we can only guess at what is contained in the shadow story, we understand that its source, like in Mystic River, is a primal loss of innocence.
That moment is the death of little Dominic (Noah Moazezi), the youngest member of the gang, the ensuing revenge killing of Bugsy (James Russo) and the first suspension of time for Noodles. As the others stand or back off, Noodles explodes in violence, an act that allows the others to prosper while remaining relatively clean. His time in jail separates him emotionally from the others, and marks a rift in time. From this point on there will be growing tension between the two childhood friends, Max and Noodles. It can only lead to a fatal confrontation.
In Mystic River, the loss of innocence comes in almost identical cinematic terms. A brutal, almost happenstance event, and a moment where children look on while one of them takes on the guilty burden of violence, both in meaning and responsibility, and who becomes forever defined by the event. A sacrifice, a scapegoat.
The Scapegoat
In Mystic River, Dave Boyle is that character. But what is striking about Dave Boyle is his unusual empathy, compassion and insight. Some gifts have come out of the unimaginable trauma. When he confesses to his wife that he thinks he may have killed somebody, he makes us feel it, too. "I went…off." But he is also ashamed of what is also a violent release. "It makes you feel alone – hurting somebody." Dave is suddenly eloquent. "Makes you feel…alien."
And later, when Jimmy is struggling in the aftermath of Katie's death, Dave is tender with him, drawing out the stifled emotions. Jimmy talks about himself and his daughter, revealing a little more of that period of lost time: he confesses that he "was afraid of my little daughter". This is the "Oscar Scene" of the movie. It is a classic Methody turn that the audience associates with "great acting". But Clint makes it all part of a larger dialectic. Like a scientist, he is relentlessly cataloguing the types and dimensions of male pain.
Here we have a man trying too hard to shit out his pain. Sean Penn's overwrought performance in the moment works to the benefit of the whole picture. We feel that it is just slightly off. There is a mild alienation effect. "We were like the last two people on earth, forgotten, unwanted." He is baffled by his own lack of emotional response. "The thing is, I can't cry for her." That's when Dave, with real tenderness, as if trying to console him, reminds him: "You're crying now."
So part of what makes Dave strange to the neighbourhood is this combination of deadness and emotionality. Unlike Noodles, he is not utterly an emotionally dead man. But it's clear that he holds the key to the others' lost emotions. He has an important function: Dave is the emotional core of the movie.
In what is perhaps the most sinister repetition of the story, Sean (with Whitey) and Jimmy unconsciously act out the re-victimisation of Dave in terms that are disturbingly similar to the original event. Dave describes it to Celeste as a burial. "They buried me in that cellar. Nobody came to help ol' Dave." Later that night, the cops themselves come for Dave. Whitey says: "I sent two of my ugliest troopers to pick him up." Later, when the Savages recount this fact to Jimmy as evidence of Dave's guilt, they are more specific. "They put him in the back seat, if you know what I mean." A second fateful car ride. Then Dave is locked up overnight and interrogated. Once again he is at the mercy of "wolves" with badges.
In his zeal to prosecute, Whitey has crossed a line. He will do anything to break the case. And Sean, once again, is strangely ambivalent. Whitey accuses his partner of getting too personal. Ever sensitive, Dave picks up on the strange vibe between the two cops. He challenges Sean: "You're somebody's bitch, though." Meaning he's letting his partner push him around. The interrogation feels like another terrible violation, of rights, friendship, of personhood. This time, the adult Dave refuses to be a victim. Once again, he must deliver himself out of the metaphorical cellar. He doesn't realise it, but his time in custody is the first nail in his coffin.
Once Upon a Time in America
Eastwood is particularly interested in the benefits the community draws from the scapegoat. While the community seems to offer compassion and pity for "victims", such an identification also functions as a not-so-subtle stigmata. Nobody wants to be a victim. Clint uses the audience's unsettled identification between victim and victimiser to maximum effect. He also plays with the audience's unconscious transformation of Dave Boyle from Damaged Victim into Suspect, despite numerous suggestions to the contrary. It is a red herring that is psychologically backed by the audience. And it is this crucial identification that naturally bothers Rosenbaum the most, because he dangerously misunderstands the last 20 minutes of the film.
"Damaged goods." Like Max, the ambitious gangster, in Leone's film


Glasshouse (novel)
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First edition cover
Author Charles Stross
Cover artist Rita Frangie
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Science Fiction
Publisher Orbit (UK), Ace (US)
Publication date
June 2006
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback
Pages 352 pp
ISBN 0-441-01403-8
OCLC 63692719
813/.6 22
LC Class PR6119.T79 G57 2006
Glasshouse is a science fiction novel by British author Charles Stross, first published in 2006. The novel is set in the twenty seventh century aboard a spacecraft adrift in interstellar space. Robin, the protagonist, has recently had his memory erased. He agrees to take part in an experiment, during which he is placed inside a model of a late twentieth/early twenty-first century Euroamerican society. Robin is given a new identity and body, specifically that of a woman named "Reeve". Major themes of this novel are identity, gender determinism, self-imageand conformity. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a sequel to his 2005 novel Accelerando, although Stross has stated that the two novels are not obviously incompatible.[citation needed] Glasshouse won the Prometheus Award for 2007, and was nominated for the Hugo, Campbell, and Locus Awards in 2007.[1]
Stross wrote of the book's production:
Glasshouse appeared, almost fully formed, in my head between 2:30 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. in the afternoon of 23 March 2003, while I was at the pub nattering with a friend. I held it off for all of two weeks or so, until 8 April, when the compulsion to start writing became too strong to resist, and the first draft emerged in just three weeks of obsessive 12-hour days.
Plot introduction[edit]
It is the 27th century. The culture featured in the novel is based on the culture portrayed in the last chapter of Accelerando, "Survivor" (full chapter here). Humanity has spread throughout the galaxy using the wormhole technology copied from the alien routers, forming a plethora of societies and 'polities'.
Robin, a human male, is recovering from a memory excision process in a rehabilitation centre. Though he remembers nothing of his past life(s), he suspects that he lived through traumatic times as a participant in the series of wars that raged many years before. Suspecting that he has been targeted for assassination by persons unknown, he agrees to sign-up with a radical, isolated social experiment that will attempt to recreate the forgotten "Dark Ages", the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
On being transferred to the polity in which the program is being held, he discovers that he has been given the body of a woman, Reeve. As the experiment unfolds, she begins to suspect that all is not what it seems, and that the founders of the experiment are engaged in a very sinister conspiracy. Slowly, she realises that her role is not as clear-cut as she originally thought, which leads her to question, and then struggle against the program.
Explanation of the novel's title[edit]
In the context of the novel, "glasshouse" refers to a military prison. The polity in which the bulk of the story takes place was formerly a high-security facility for war criminals. The term was first used to describe the glass-roofed military detention barracks based in Aldershot, UK, in the mid-19th century.
Stross also refers to the Glasshouse as a type of panopticon, a prison constructed in such a way that the guards in the center can see everything the prisoners are doing, but the prisoners can never tell if the guards are watching. Philosopher Michel Foucault used the model to represent the way humans tend to conform to and internalise societal ideals based on this kind of omnipresent gaze, an idea Stross exploits in the novel.
Transport technology[edit]
T-gates : (Transporter gates). These are the ubiquitous point-to-point wormholes which link everything from polities that are light-years apart to rooms in habitats to each other. They are also used to enable one to access private storage spaces, even from clothing. Unlike the A-gates, traffic through these is instantaneous and unfiltered, though they can be fitted with firewalls at a variety of strengths.
A-gates : (Assembler gates). Nanotechnological arrays that can be used for creating all kinds of objects, goods, and substances very quickly, molecule by molecule, working from a wide series of templates. They are also used by the posthuman populace to create "backups" of themselves, redesign their physical bodies to whatever parameters they wish, long-distance travel between far-flung polities, and for medical purposes, making them, if they wish to be, virtually immortal. Military-grade versions exist which can be used to download polity-inbound traffic, analyse it for threats/contamination, reroute it to a DMZ, and then reassemble it if all is well.
Mobile Archive Suckers : Large spacecraft or mobile habitats which travel at slower-than-light speeds between the brown dwarf stars which most polities orbit. Self-contained and self-sufficient, fitted with their own A-gates, they are fuelled by plasma piped-in by T-gate from nearby stars. Generally, the ships' systems are not connected to the galactic network at large. The crews and/or passengers can, if they do not wish to experience the long subjective timescales of travel by this method, disassemble themselves in an A-gate and "sleep" throughout the journey.
Population centres[edit]
The vast majority of posthumanity lives in massive artificial cylindrical habitats, along with a few domed colonies on the planets, moons, and asteroids orbiting brown dwarf stars. These can be linked to each other by T-gates, creating a huge network of interconnected societies, known as the Republic of Is.
For a variety of reasons, posthumanity has forgotten the history of events preceding, during, and just after the singularity (the "acceleration") as it occurred back in the Solar System, from around 1950 to 2040. They refer to this period as the Dark Ages. Data-storage methods changed so rapidly that proper backups weren't made; much data was encrypted, or stored on perishable media; many individuals hailing from the period excised their memories too many times, creating a historical "bias"; and many "censorship wars" were fought, with computer viruses and worms changing or erasing what was left.
Censorship wars[edit]
A long series of these wars plagued posthumanity, starting around 300 years before the novel begins, lasting for almost a century (two centuries, according to Yourdon). Censor factions used A-gates to propagate redactive worms throughout the Republic's networks, which targeted historical data and even memories of why the wars had started in the first place. Historians and archaeologists were singled out for annihilation. These events placed a great strain on the political cohesiveness of the Republic of Is – but worse was to come.
Curious Yellow[edit]
Persons unknown created a worm of enormous destructive capability – Curious Yellow. Like previous worms it used the A-gates to spread, but it also used the people who travelled with/uploaded to them as transmission vectors. An infected A-gate would surreptitiously delete swaths of personal memory from a victim, particularly memories associated with historical knowledge of pre-Republic times. It would then force a copy of its kernel into the victim's netlink (the Cyberware which everyone uses to connect to and communicate with the gate networks) along with some bootstrap functions.
The infected victim, upon encountering a "clean" A-gate, would then feel compelled to switch the gate into debugger mode, enter a set of commands, then upload him/herself, after which the gate would execute the infected boot-loader in his/her netlink, copy it into its working set, and thus become infected in turn.
When a set amount of gates in a network became infected, they would begin communicating with each other and create privileged instruction channels which could be used by shadowy controllers with the correct authentication keys to control them remotely. They could defend themselves against attack, build and direct weapons to selected targets, and netlink to any number of T-gates.
Eventually, the republic crumbled under the pressure, converting into a series of isolated, heavily firewalled polities.
Curious Yellow is derived from a paper on worm design by Brandon Wiley: Curious Yellow: The First Coordinated Worm Design.[2]
However, there were those who fought back. A variety of militia groups formed, among them the Linebarger Cats, who specialised in esoteric strategies and psyops. They formed and acted on a plan to "repurpose" the worm, rewriting its code as an "immune system" and introducing it, slowly but surely, into the A-gates. Millions died as the worm fought back, but they eventually succeeded.
After Curious Yellow's destruction, a number of Quisling dictatorships formed, using hacked versions of the worm to spread in an attempt to form separatist dystopias, populated by brainwashed populations led by sinister "cognitive dictators". But these were mopped-up one-by-one, and the galaxy returned to a semblance of normality with the firewalled polities building "clean" A-gates to carefully re-integrate. The Invisible Republic became one of the largest new networks.


text:
- noun the matter or surface on which an organism lives
- The base layer, or other surface upon which something is deposited, etched, attached, or otherwise prepared or fabricated. A substrate also provides physical support and insulation. For example, the base film of a magnetic tape, or the plastic base of a compact disc.
- A substrate (1) utilized in the manufacturing of circuits and microcircuits. Such a substrate may be made, for instance, of ceramic, plastic, glass, or a semiconductor material. An active substrate has active elements, such as transistors, formed directly on it, while passive substrates have components mounted upon them.
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The Artistry of Seedbox
Winter is the perfect time to see Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) in fruit, and to understand how this plant got its name.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) with fruit capsules
Attached along the length of the standing stems of this plant are fruit capsules that look like perfectly carved wooden boxes, each with a convex top and rounded bottom, and with elaborate designs that appear to be carved on the cube's lid.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) fruit capsules
These tiny decorative fruit capsules are often visible throughout winter, releasing the many tiny seeds inside through a pore on the top of the box, and eventually also by splitting open at the seams. Before the fruit capsule opens, the seeds may rattle, giving this plant another common name, Rattlebox.
How is this perfectly shaped fruit capsule produced? Who is responsible for the beautiful carvings on the lid? (Could it be tiny flower elves? Maybe there is a less magical explanation.)
Seedbox typically blooms in mid to late summer, usually July and August. Let's look at the flowers and buds for an explanation.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) in bloom
In Seedbox buds, sepals are the outermost layer of flower parts. They are green and leaf-like, and play the role of bud scales, enclosing and protecting the other parts of the flower before it opens. The photo below shows a flower bud, enclosed by the sepals. In the upper right of the photo, there is a notch in the sepals at the base of the bud, a narrowing of the structure, and a squarish impression in the leafy covering. This covering is enclosing the flower's ovary, the flower part destined to become the fruit capsule. We can see two sides of the ovary, already hinting at the box-like fruit capsule to come.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) flower bud. In the top right corner, note the square ovary with a leafy covering at the base of the bud. The ovary will become the fruit capsule; its square shape is already in place.
The purpose of the flowers is to attract visitors to assist with cross-pollination. The most effective pollinator will have a tongue long enough to reach the nectaries on the face of the ovary below, while brushing its body on the flower's reproductive parts, including the Sweat Bee in the photo below, and some Bumble Bees. Other bees and beetles are known to visit the flowers for nectar and pollen, while flies, wasps, and butterflies only partake of the nectar.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) flower with a visiting Sweat Bee. Her tongue is long enough to reach the nectaries while her body brushes against the flower's reproductive parts, dropping off and picking up pollen.
The bee is rewarded for her pollination assistance with nectar and pollen for herself, and she will also carry some back to provision her nest for her larvae.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) flower with a visiting Sweat Bee. Notice the pollen she has packed on her hind legs to bring back to her nest for her larvae.
Let's look at an open flower.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) in flower.
Working from the outer ring of flower parts layer by layer towards the center, each flower has four sepals, four yellow petals, four stamens (male reproductive parts) and one pistil (female reproductive part). The pistil consists of a stigma at its tip, where the pollen must be deposited in order for pollination to take place, the style, which positions the stigma and through which the pollen must travel to get to the ovary, which is at the pistil's base. Seedbox stigmas look like miniature pompoms perched at the top of their pedestal-like styles. As the ovary ripens to a fruit capsule, if the pollen successfully reaches and fertilizes the ovules in the ovary, seeds will be produced.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) in flower. The green sepals are peeking out from behind the yellow petals. The petals, stamens and style of the pistil are attached to the top of the ovary, while the sepals are appressed to the four sides of the ovary.
If we look at the very center of the flower, we can see the petals, stamens and pistil attached to the square top of the ovary, with the sepals appressed to the four straight sides around the ovary's outside edges.
The flower parts that made pollination possible eventually wither and drop off, leaving their mark on the face of the ripening fruit capsule.
The petals drop off after about a day, leaving tiny scars that can be seen at each corner of the developing fruit capsule's topside. As the stamens drop off, each leaves a mark midway between the corners, just slightly in from the edge of the square.
Developing Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) fruit capsule. Notice the scars left by the petals and stamens which have withered and dropped off. The stigma, style and sepals are still present.
Eventually the pistil's stigma and style, positioned at the center of the flower above the ovary, drop off, leaving a round scar as a reminder of their role in the flower's reproduction strategy.
Developing Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) fruit capsule. The stigma and style have dropped off. The sepals are still present.
Finally the sepals are gone, leaving the bare woody 'seedbox'.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) fruit capsules
The face of a Seedbox fruit capsule records the history of its pollination story. The four large-ish evenly spaced ovals in each quadrant on the top of the fruit capsule were the nectaries, the source of the beverage that enticed the flower's visitors.
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) fruit capsules. The scars from the petals and stamens are visible near the edges of the fruit capsule's top, the round scar in the center marks the spot where the style was attached, and the four ovals are the flower's nectaries.
Seedbox prefers moist soil, and can be found growing in wet meadows, prairies and woods, as well as in drainage ditches. It is native in Quebec and Ontario provinces in Canada, and in the United States from Vermont west to Wisconsin, southwest to Colorado, then south as far as Texas and the Florida panhandle. It is a member of the Evening-primrose (Onagraceae) family.
If you're looking for something to do while waiting for spring, look for Seedbox!
Dedication: Pam, this is for you!
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27 thoughts on "The Artistry of Seedbox
 1. Thank you Mary Ann for this post. In the fall of 2019 I purchased some Ohio ecotype seed, there was a mix up and I ended up with this little beauty! How fortunate is that? I saved the plants, but since I really didn't know anything them I decided understanding what makes them tick would be one of my 2020 winter projects! Your post has been a wonderful place to start!
 2. Wow, wow, wow. Amazing illustration of the complexity and beauty of this unusual plant. Thank you Mary Anne. You are a treasure!!!
 3. Mary Anne, this is a wonderful illustrated essay on the Seedbox! I have a small collection of perfect little boxy seeds and I hope to be able to grow the plant in my garden this year. I think I'll keep a few of the seeds just to look at, though…
 4. Thank you for yet another beautiful and informative lesson in nature's beauty and bounty. I am also going to look for seedbox near me!
 5. Mary Anne thank you for this wonderful article. I have a few stems of the seed pods of Ludwigia alternifolia on my desk because I think they are tiny works of art. And now I know how they became so beautiful.
 After reading your article I became curious about the genus name Ludwigia. I learned that Christian Gottlieb Ludwig was a prominent German botanist and physicist and was a strong critic of Linnaeus and his new system of plant classification. So to exasperate Ludwig, Linnaeus named a genus after him. (This was apparently a punishment Linnaeus sometimes bestowed on his critics.)
 Happy ending though – Ludwig eventually came around to Linnaeus' way of thinking!
 6. Happy Leap Year, Mary Anne. I loved the mystery with the excellent build-up to the solution complete with magnificent photos. I am going out to look for a seed box. This is a wonderful gift for this last day in February.
 7. Thanks so much for this wonderful explanation! I'm not sure I've ever noticed this plant. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
 8. Mary Anne–
 What a remarkable flower! I've never been able to follow how this amazing seed capsule develops from the rather insignificant flower, and you've revealed the mystery to me. Your photography is beautiful. Thank you for teaching us about this charming plant =)
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text:
bottom leaves of plants are dying (pics)help
Does anybody know what causes this to happen(see pics).I have them on the bottom of 8 of my 10 tomato plants.And is there a way to fix or are all my plants going to die.I also put a pic of the top of the plants were the leaves appear to be fine.Any help would be appreciated as this is my first year of gardening.Thanks in advance.
Yellowing Leaves on Tomato Plants
It could be any number of things.
First, as the plants mature, it's not uncommon for the bottom leaves to yellow due to lack of nutrients from the soil, that the weather is really hot, or even lack of light (the top leaves are shading out the bottom leaves). It's ok to pinch them off. And, don't worry about all the plants dying quite yet.
Next, do a soil test. It could be a lack of nitrogen in the soil. You can take some soil from around the base of the tomato plant to your local extension service and they can help with the test. There are also soil test kits available for purchase, but the reviews I've seen on them don't inspire a lot of confidence.
Your best bet is to test the soil and go from there.
P.S. Do you rotate where you plant tomatoes each year? If tomatoes are planted in the same place each year, the soil becomes very nutrient poor and diseases are more likely to be a problem. If you don't rotate, you should start next year. If you have the space a 3 year rotation cycle is optimal.


text:
All rights reserved. Technical University of Budapest Institute of Physics, NIIF Institute.
Turning away from physics and natural sciences is both European and worldwide problem that scientists face. A possible explanation of this phenomenon may be that physics is taught in such a low number of lessons at secondary schools that students cannot develop a proper scientific view of life. Experimentation plays a fundamental role in building the right physical approach. During the programme several experiments will be performed in order to emphasise that physics is present in our everyday life thus it is of utmost importance to study physics. Invoking several spectacular experiments the complex concepts and laws of physics can be explained in a clear and easily understandable way for the general audience.