text:
FAQs for NAPCC
- How can the NAPCC benefit your institution?
- How does the NAPCC achieve its stated purposes?
- What are NAPCC collections used for?
- What are the criteria required of NAPCC participants?
- What factors are important in the review and approval of NAPCC applicants?
- What types of plant collections can be included in the NAPCC?
- Who administers the NAPCC?
- Who is eligible to participate in the NAPCC?
Acceptance into the NAPCC program is added recognition of your institution's long-term commitment to plant collections preservation, and to achieving a high standard of excellence in plant collections management. Participation is highlighted through features in APGA publications, conferences, and website. NAPCC participants maximize the potential of their collections, by making efficient use of available resources through a coordinated continent-wide approach and strengthening their own collections through collaboration with others. Specialized professional development opportunities and curatorial networking groups keep participants apprised of latest developments. NAPCC institutions have opportunities to take part in grant-funded projects available through their collaborative activities.
[Back to Top]
Participating institutions commit to holding and developing a collection(s) of documented living plants according to professional standards of collections management. They assemble a comprehensive representation of a designated plant group such as a family or genus, or alternatively as a floristic region or other theme. The primary focus can be on taxonomic diversity including cultivars, or genetic diversity for conservation-based collections representing different populations throughout their natural ranges. This commitment involves replication of taxa within an institution and complementary replication of taxa among different institutions to ensure germplasm preservation. Multiple institutions might contribute to the distributed holdings large plant groups where no single institution is capable of forming a comprehensive collection due to climatic and physical space limitations.
[Back to Top]
Participating institutions share collections information with other institutions to compare holdings and to identify duplications and gaps. This continent-wide approach makes efficient use of available resources, strengthening collections through combined collaborative activities. NAPCC Collections holders make germplasm available for selection and breeding, taxonomic study evaluation, utilization, and other research purposes. NAPCC Collections may function as reference collections for plant identification and cultivar registration. Their curators are tapped as authorities and share their expertise through scholarly publications and presentations. NAPCC participants can also serve as centers of information about taxonomy, horticulture, conservation, exploration, and research efforts. NAPCC collections may be highlighted through attractive horticultural displays, plant society shows, educational programs, image libraries, and websites.
- Long-term institutional commitment to collect, document, grow, and maintain living plants of a particular taxon and conserve this germplasm
- Governing body's support, including provision for adequate and sustained resources for collection
- Collections policy
- Designated curator for the collection
- Collections maintained according to professional standards
- Reasonable access to collections for research, evaluation, and introduction
- Back-up replicates and long-term germplasm storage desirable to ensure preservation
- Regular collections updates and periodic on-site evaluations
- Quality of existing candidate collection
- Current holdings represent approximately 50% of proposed collection
- Potential for further development of collection
- Location and environmental conditions favorable to collection
- Commitment to excellence in professional collections management
- Staff expertise with designated plant group
- Likelihood for long-term stability and support for collection
- Any unique, enabling characteristics of collections holder
Woody and herbaceous ornamentals, native and/or exotic, are eligible. Collections can be defined on the basis of a taxonomic level such as family, genus, or section, depending on the size of the designated plant group and institutional capacity. Other collections may be defined by a floristic or geographic region. Documented wild origin plants, sampled from throughout the natural range and genetic variability of the species, have the broadest utility for NAPCC preservation goals. The NAPCC is also designed for clonal material and conservation of horticultural cultivars. High-priority taxa may be identified and target institutions encouraged to consider NAPCC participation.Priorities for conservation include genetic variability for crop improvement (disease/pest resistance, adaptability, phenological variability, yield); plants from difficult or restricted access locations; rare and endangered in the wild; and historical/period cultivars.
It is a program of the American Public Gardens Association in cooperation with the USDA Agricultural Research Service. The NAPCC Coordinator administers the program and is advised by an APGA board-level committee. A regionally-based recruiter/mentor network of volunteers assists potential applicants on the local level. Peer reviewers lend their expertise during the application process. Specialized curatorial groups are being formed to focus attention on targeted plant genera represented by multiple institutions.
All APGA members are invited to submit applications for any number of their collections. Individual collectors, breeders, and plant societies may participate through an APGA member.


In a disagreement with your boss, is it ever acceptable to go over your boss' head to his or her own supervisor? While in most cases, your employer will instruct you to work things out directly with your manager, there are times when it makes sense to bring the issue to someone higher up.
Figuring out what you should and shouldn't do can be tricky, but there are two situations where you shouldn't hesitate to go over your manager's head:
 - If your manager is doing something illegal. If he or she is embezzling or violating labor laws or other business regulations, you have an obligation to alert someone higher in the hierarchy.
 - If you're being illegally harassed or discriminated against. If you're being sexually harassed or treated differently because of your race, sex, ethnicity, religion, or other protected class, you should report it to your employer. If your manager doesn't take it seriously, or if your manager is the person at fault, you should address the issue with your company's human resources department—or, if your company doesn't have an HR department—address it with your manager's boss.
The question becomes more complicated beyond those two situations. What if nothing illegal is occurring but your manager is simply a bad boss? People often wonder if they should talk to someone higher up if their supervisor is a jerk who drives away good employees, someone who lies to others in the company, or who is incompetent.
In these cases, here are the questions to ask yourself to determine whether you should go over your boss' head:
1. How serious is the complaint? If you escalate something that's relatively minor, your complaint likely won't go anywhere, and could reflect badly on you. Managers aren't perfect after all, and many companies give their managers wide leeway in how they manage, so complaints need to be fairly serious before they'll intervene.
If you complain about something that appears minor or petty, you'll call your own judgment into question. Instead, escalation should be saved for truly significant problems, like a manager who is regularly abusive to staff members, or whose incompetence is causing the company to lose clients.
2. Is your complaint about a pattern or a one-time problem?Patterns are what count here. Short of really horrific details, a single instance isn't usually going to be seen as egregious enough to warrant going over the boss' head.
3. Is the person you're planning to talk to someone who (a) has a record of taking employee complaints seriously and (b) will ensure that you're protected from retaliation by your manager?This is crucial. The person you're approaching should be someone who is open to listening and has a track record of fairness and good judgment, rather than just blindly backing managers. In addition, the person needs to be insightful and skilled enough to ensure your manager doesn't retaliate against you for speaking up. If the person you're considering approaching doesn't fit this profile, the unfortunate reality is that your complaint might do more harm than good.


of data than an individual could deal with, and compares data to prior trials or previous experiments, see Fig 1. However it is critical to remember that we are comparing participants within similar contexts.
Fig 1. MVPA diagram of testing and inference Norman et al (2006) Fig 1. MVPA diagram of testing and inference (Norman et al 2006)
Poldrack (2011) gives an excellent example of how to use MVPA, which was conducted by Kay et al (2008). Simply Kay et al (2008) scanned participants viewing natural images n= 1750. In the following trial 120 images were added, MVPA of the neural data was able to accurately predict which images were being viewed. This method has seen substantial development to the point that using a similar method researchers have accurately analysed neural patterns observed in a participants waking brain into decoding what participants are dreaming. Basically the quantity and quality of when taking account of context may be used to conduct reverse inference, but this does require previous data, within context, for the MPVA and other machine learning methods to compare too.
This does not mean that machine learning can not be wrong if incorrectly applied. It is a statistical method in which humans set the parameters, the post below by Arnon Weinberg accurately defines the issues and pot holes that must be avoided to make this method viable for reverse inference.
Norman, K. A., Polyn, S. M., Detre, G. J., & Haxby, J. V. (2006). Beyond mind-reading: multi-voxel pattern analysis of fMRI data. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(9), 424–430. _URL_
 - 1
 $\begingroup$ If I may translate your ideas to one sentence: because in Machine Learning there is so much data that says A means B, there is a large chance that B means A? Is that correct? $\endgroup$ – Robin Kramer Jan 10 '17 at 17:57
 - 1
 $\begingroup$ That's how I interpret this answer as well, and is exactly the kind of thinking that Poldrack criticises, so I don't think this answers the question correctly. $\endgroup$ – Arnon Weinberg Jan 10 '17 at 19:06
 - 1
 $\begingroup$ Thanks for your answer _USER_. Note that its very premise ("MVPA(..) is a form of reverse inference"), is opposite to that of Arnon's, which reads "reverse inference is a special case of decoding." $\endgroup$ – z8080 Jan 11 '17 at 12:16
 - 1
 $\begingroup$ Also, you say that MVPA compares the training pattern at hand with that observed in past experiments - however that is not what most MVPA papers report at all, unless of course they have a meta-analytical purpose. Can you link to a study that does that? $\endgroup$ – z8080 Jan 11 '17 at 12:20
 - 1
 $\begingroup$ @ Comte Good answer, but I wouldn't say MVPA is a form of reverse inference; reverse inference may or may not follow MVPA. _USER_ You are right that few MVPA studies make use of past data - Poldrack encourages researchers to consider doing more of that before making reverse inferences. $\endgroup$ – Arnon Weinberg Jan 11 '17 at 20:42
Your Answer


text:
- AWB (Air Waybill) – equivalent to the term 'Air Consignment Note', means the document entitled 'Air Waybill/Air Consignment Note' made out by or on behalf of the shipper which evidences the contract between the shipper and airline for carriage of cargo over the routes of the airline
- Agent – an agent appointed by an airline to solicit and process international air freight for shipment.
- Bank Shipment – the shipment where the consignee is identified as a bank and the real consignee is mentioned under "notify party"; the carrier cannot release the cargo to real consignee until a written approval is received from the bank
- Bonded Area – secured facility supervised by customs authorities, where dutiable landed imports are stored pending their re-export, or release on assessment and payment of import duties, taxes and other charges
- Booking – customer's concluded arrangement with an air cargo agent representing a completed sale.
- Break Bulk Agent – the air cargo agent that deconsolidate a consolidated shipment into individual shipments
- Cargo / Freight – which is equivalent to the terms 'Goods', means anything carried or to becarried in an aircraft, other than mail or baggage
- Carriage - equivalent to the term 'Transportation', means the carriage of cargo by air or any other means of transport including road, gratuitously or for reward. "International Carriage Other Than That Defined By The Convention" means any carriage which is not international carriage as defined either by the Warsaw Convention, by the Warsaw Convention as amended at The Hague, 1955, or by the Montreal Convention but in which, according to the agreement made by the parties, the place of departure and the place of landing are situated in more than one country.
- Cargo Ground Handling Agent – appointed agent that handles the cargo in the name of the airline
- Chargeable Weight – the chargeable weight is the highest weight calculated between the actual weight and the volumetric weight. (Lxlxh [cm] / 6000).
- Commodity – consignment's content (e.g. computer parts).
- Shipper – equivalent to the term 'Consignor', means the person whose name appears on the Air Waybill as the party contracting with airline for carriage of cargo.
- Consignee – the person whose name appears on the Air Waybill as party to whom the consignment is to be delivered by the airline.
- Consolidation – combining several smaller shipments into a large shipment to avail of better freight rates. Each individual shipment is carried under a House Air Waybill (HAWB) issued by a cargo agent
- Consolidator – the air cargo agent that consolidates individual air shipments
- Customs Broker – person who is licensed by the local customs and acts as a professional-agent for an importer or exporter, prepares and submits all documents for clearing goods through customs
- Customs Formalities – customs procedures carried out by the customs broker for the importer / exporter of the goods
- Damage – harm or injury of the cargo resulting in impairment or loss of function, usefulness, or value
- Damage Report – a form filled by the handling agent when the cargo is damaged
- Dangerous Goods / Special Cargo – articles or materials capable of posing significant risk to people, health, property, or environment when transported in quantity.
- Dangerous Goods Regulations (DGR) – reglementari ce cuprind o lista a tuturor bunurilor periculoase si care impun conditii detaliate in ceea ce priveste ambalarea si manipularea acestor bunuri.
- Delivery Receipt - a document that is typically signed by the receiver of a shipment to indicate that they have in fact received the item being shipped and have taken possession of it.
- Origin – the origin point of the carriage mentioned in the Air Waybill
- Destination – the ending point of the carriage mentioned in the Air Waybill
- Dimensions (DIMS) – the length, width and height measured in centimeters and used for calculating the freight charges and general information
- Flight Number – the flight identification number.
- Freight Forwarder – a company specialized in arranging storage and shipping of merchandise on behalf of its shippers, which usually provides a full range of services including: tracking inland transportation, preparation of shipping and export documents, warehousing, booking cargo space, negotiating freight charges, freight consolidation, cargo insurance, and filing of insurance claims.
- Freighter – an aircraft designed or converted for the carriage of cargo.
- General Cargo – cargo that is not classified as a special cargo (like dangerous goods, valuable, fresh, postal consignments etc)
- Gross Weight – the gross weight of the goods, including all the packing materials
- Handling – the action of handling the cargo
- House Air Waybill (HAWB) – an Air Waybill issued by a consolidator which contains instructions addressed to a breakbulk agent. It is always accompanied by a Master Waybill (MAWB)
- Master Air Waybill (MAWB) – AWB issued by a cargo agent to a breakbulk agent for consolidated cargo.
- IATA – abbreviation for International Air Transport Association, organization that issues rules and regulation to be followed in air freight.
- Letter of Credit (L/C) – a written commitment to pay, by a buyer's or importer's bank (called the issuing bank) to the seller's or exporter's bank (called the accepting bank, negotiating bank, or paying bank). A letter of credit guarantees payment of a specified sum in a specified currency, provided the seller meets precisely-defined conditions and submits the prescribed documents within a fixed timeframe.
- Live Animal Regulations (LAR) – the IATA Live Animals Regulations (LAR) is the essential standard to ship animals in a safe, and cost-effective manner.
- Cargo Manifest – a document that lists the goods carried in a means of transport or in a transport-unit (aircraft)
- Part (Partial) Shipment – a shipment of only some of the goods that were ordered; part delivery.
- Rate – the amount per unit established by the air cargo agent for the purpose of computing freight charges
- Rerouting – a new route choosed by the airline to carry the goods, other than the one specified in the Air Waybill (AWB)
- Road Feeder Service (RFS) – a truck that operates on regular routes or outside the regular routes of an aircraft
- Routing – all the airports that are mentioned in the Air Waybill, from the origin airport to destination airport
- Surcharges – additional fees related to air freight.
- Unit Load Device (ULD) – pallet or container used for bulk air cargo.
- Tare weight – the weight of ULD.
- UN numbers – UN numbers or UN IDs are four-digit numbers that identify dangerous goods, hazardous substances and articles (such as explosives, flammable liquids, toxic substances, etc.) in the framework of international transport, assigned by the United Nations Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods
- Valuable cargo (VAL) – a consignment which contains one or more of the
- Any article having a declared value for carriage of US $1,000.00(or its equivalent)
or more, per gross Kilogram;
- (1) Gold bullion (including refined and unrefined gold in ingot form), dore bullion,
(2) Gold only in the form of grain, sheet, foil, powder, sponge, wire, rod, tube, circles, moldings and castings;
- (1) Platinum, platinum metals (palladium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium and rhodium);
(2) Platinum alloys in the form of grain, sponge, bar, ingot, sheet, rod, wire, gauze,
tube and strip; Provided that those radioactive isotopes of the above metals and alloys are dangerous goods.
- Legal banknotes, traveler's cheques, securities, shares, share coupons, postage stamp and revenue stamps (excluding mint stamps from the United Kingdom) and ready for use bank cards and/or credit cards;
- (1) Diamonds (including diamonds for industrial use), rubies, emeralds, sapphires,
opals and real pearls (including cultured pearls);
(2) Jewelry consisting of any of the articles under (1) above;
- Jewelry and watches made of platinum and/or gold and/or silver; and
- Articles made of platinum and/or gold, other than platinum and/or gold plated.
- Volume – the volume of the cargo, measured in cubic meters
- Weight Charge – the air freight charges based on the cargo's actual weight.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Bacteria in liquid culture can be streaked on a plate to obtain individual colonies. It is important for a molecular biologist to work with bacteria that are genetically identical. By streaking for single colonies, one isolated colony will form from a single bacterial cell and thus the colony is genetically identical.
One method is to streak bacteria around the petri
plate, working in a circle and diluting the bacterial population as you
go. The microbiological loop is either flamed, or a new loop is used, at
four steps. These are represented by different colors in the figures below.
|#1 = a loopful of bacteria is obtained from a resuspended
liquid culture, and a dime to penny sized circle is made on the plate (BLACK).
#2 - a second loop is used to make four lines moving out from the circle (RED).
#3 - a third loop is used to make four more lines which overlap the first four (BLUE).
#4 - a fourth loop is used to make four more lines which overlap the second four (GREEN).
NOTE that the same loop is used to make the final four lines (GREEN).
|On this plate, many isolated colonies are seen on the third set of streaks.|
Return to the Virtual Lab Book Table of Contents

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Sunday, August 25, 2013
Some of the Greatest and Amazing Works and Principles of Engineers
Could you imagine the world without engineers? How do we survive our life today without their greatest contributions? Try to think if we don't have amazing computers and internet which connects our life to the different people and it can be used for variety of research and we can gain more knowledge, a wonderful televisions that enables us to see a different world and through this we can learn about other people and events in different places, cars and other vehicles that makes possible to fast commute from one place to another, a simple light bulb that provides light in our every dark nights, great buildings that serves a shelter and business locations, longest roads and bridges that provides passage for easy transportation.
 Let us learn and discover some of the great and amazing works and principles of engineers.
The bridge is located on the rail line between Shanghai and Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu province. It is in the Yangtze River Delta where the geography is characterized by lowland rice paddies, canals, rivers and lakes. The bridge runs roughly parallel to the Yangtze River, about 5 to 50 miles south of the river. It passes through the northern edges of population centers (from west to east) beginning in Danyang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou and ending in Kunshan.
There is a 9-kilometre long (5.6 mi) section over open water acrossYangcheng
Lake in Suzhou.It was completed in 2010 and opened in 2011. Employing 10,000 people, construction took four years and cost
source: wikipedia
The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), known unofficially as the Big Dig, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery (Interstate 93), the chief highway through the heart of the city, into a 3.5-mile (5.6-km) tunnel. The project also included the construction of the Ted Williams Tunnel (extending Interstate 90 to Logan International Airport), the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge over the Charles River, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway in the space vacated by the previous I-93 elevated roadway. Initially, the plan was also to include a rail connection between Boston's two major train terminals.
The official planning phase started in 1982; the construction work was done between 1991 and 2006; and the project concluded on December 31, 2007, when the partnership between the program manager and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority ended.The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S. and was plagued by escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests, and even one death. The project was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998 at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006).
 However, the project was completedonly in December 2007, at a cost of over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars, meaning a cost overrun of about 190%) as of 2006. The Boston Globe estimated that the project will ultimately cost $22 billion, including interest, and that it will not be paid off until 2038. As a result of the deaths, leaks, and other design flaws, the consortium that oversaw the project agreed to pay $407 million in restitution, and several smaller companies agreed to pay a combined sum of approximately $51 million. The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway is a roughly 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) series of parks and public spaces, which are the final part of the Big Dig after Interstate 93, was put underground. The Greenway was named in honor of Kennedy family matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and was officially dedicated on July 26, 2004.
source: wikipedia
The Suez Canal (Arabic: قناة السويس Qanāt al-Sūwais) is an artificial sea-levelwaterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows ship transportbetween Europe and Asia without navigation around Africa. The northern terminus is Port Said and the southern terminus is Port Tawfiq at the city of Suez. Ismailialies on its west bank, 3 km (1.9 mi) from the half-way point. When first built, the canal was 164 km (102 mi) long and 8 m (26 ft) deep. After multiple enlargements, the canal is 193.30 km (120.11 mi) long, 24 m (79 ft) deep and 205 metres (673 ft) wide as of 2010. It consists of the northern accesschannel of 22 km (14 mi), the canal itself of 162.25 km (100.82 mi) and the southern access channel of 9 km (5.6 mi).
The canal is single lane with passing places in the "Ballah By-Pass" and theGreat Bitter Lake. It contains no locks; seawater flows freely through the canal. In general, the canal north of the Bitter Lakes flows north in winter and south in summer. The current south of the lakes changes with the tide at SuezThe canal is owned and maintained by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) of Egypt. Under international treaty, it may be used "in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag."
source: wikipedia
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (柏崎刈羽原子力発電所 Kashiwazaki-Kariwa genshiryoku-hatsudensho?, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP) is a large, modern (housing the world's first ABWR) nuclear power plant on a 4.2-square-kilometer (1,038 acres) site[1] including land in the towns of Kashiwazaki and Kariwa in Niigata Prefecture, Japanon the coast of the Sea of Japan, from where it gets cooling water. The plant is owned and operated by The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). It was the largest nuclear generating station in the world by net electrical power rating.
2007 : It was approximately 15 miles from the epicenter of the second strongest earthquake to ever occur at a nuclear plant, the Mw 6.6 July 2007 Chūetsu offshore earthquake. This shook the plant beyond design basis and initiated an extended shutdown for inspection, which indicated that greater earthquake-proofing was needed before operation could be resumed. The plant was completely shut down for 21 months following the earthquake.
2009: Unit 7 was restarted after seismic upgrades on May 9, 2009, followed later by units 1, 5, and 6. (Units 2, 3, 4 were not restarted). However all units have since been stopped for regular inspection. After the April 2011 earthquake safety improvements are being carried out 2011-2013 but no units are expected to restart until mid-2013.
source: wikipedia
The plan to regenerate central Scotland's canals and reconnect Glasgow withEdinburgh was led by British Waterways with support and funding from seven local authorities, the Scottish Enterprise Network, the European Regional Development Fund, and the Millennium Commission. Planners decided early on to create a dramatic 21st-century landmark structure to reconnect the canals, instead of simply recreating the historic lock flight. Designs were submitted for a boat lift to link the canals; the Falkirk Wheel design won. As with many Millennium Commission projects the site includes a visitors' centre containing a shop, café, and exhibition centre.
The difference in height at the wheel is 24 metres (79 ft), roughly equivalent to the height of an eight-storey building. The Union Canal is still 11 m higher than the aqueduct which meets the wheel, and boats must pass through a pair of locks to descend from this canal onto the aqueduct at the top of the wheel.
The structure is near the Rough Castle Fort; the closest village is Tamfourhill. On 24 May 2002, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Falkirk Wheel as part of her Golden Jubileecelebrations. The opening was delayed a month due to flooding caused by vandals who forced open the wheel's gates.
The main project architect was Tony Kettle who was, at the time, Design Principal of Edinburgh based RMJM. Kettle worked out the concept of keeping two arms upright while rotating, by building a model using his daughter's


I want to write a fictional short story where part 2 is embedded in part 1. Has anyone heard of this or tried this?
Any ideas of resources would be greatly appreciated.
Edited for Clarity:
Imagine a story where every letter could be turned into another letter (or every word into another word) if the person converting those letters or words had a secret key (a code or password, for example).
Now, imagine if a story, which was written as fiction or literary fiction for example, had a second story, again fiction or literary fiction, embedded within its letters and/or words that, when converted with the key or password, turned into a brand new story--perhaps a continuation or sequel.
 - 2
 Not exactly hidden as such, but Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar is composed of a large number of quite short chapters, and you can either read them in sequence as written in the book, or jumping to a specific chapter as indicated at the end of each chapter, assembling them into an entirely different story. – SF. Oct 18 '14 at 22:45
 - SF -- that's a neat idea. – Anton Rasmussen Oct 20 '14 at 13:17
You could certainly try, but it sounds like the main story would come out gibberish to me.
The only example of this which springs to mind is the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott." A character receives a letter which reads:
Which sounds kind of incoherent. It's actually in skip code, so every third word is the real message:
which is:
I honestly don't know how you'd make a framing story which was readable and had plot and character development while also going through all the coding circumlocutions to create the embedded story. Or conversely, the main story would be readable and the second story would be a short, oddly-worded missive because you could only use the terms from the main story.
It seems like either you'd sacrifice readability of the main story to create the second, or the second would be seriously hobbled by being subject to whatever you could pick out of the main narrative.
| improve this answer | |
 - Thanks Lauren! I guess I'm gonna have to figure out another way of doing this--thought the skip code is a cool idea. – Anton Rasmussen Oct 20 '14 at 14:44
Perhaps something like what you're trying to do could be done by inserting the second story inside the first one, but backwards, starting at the bottom of the last page, and working its way up, maybe combined with one or more skip codes (one specifying skipped words, another skipped pages.) Would the two stores need to be of equal "weight" or complexity? Having both read coherently and "naturally" would require each undergoing some interesting adjustments and compromises in style and readability. I imagine it could be done. But for how many words? I'm sure there are examples of music being written this way, though I can't think of any offhand -- though the idea brings to mind Brian Eno's Driving Me Backwards.
| improve this answer | |
 - Nicole, that's a wonderful idea! I think that's the approach I will take. It's very binary!! Interestingly, I already do something like it when writing stories... I write one story in a spiral notebook opening from the right (the usual way) and leave all the page backs blank. Then I turn the notebook over (opening from the left side) and write the other story on the back pages... I like your idea a lot! – Anton Rasmussen Oct 23 '14 at 17:13
 - Excellent, Anton! Glad I could be of some help. Happy writing. Maybe post us a link when the story/stories are done. – Nicole Oct 24 '14 at 21:49
 - You mean like this: _URL_-reed-the-lost-generation-annotated? – Jerenda Nov 18 '16 at 18:37
You are describing a not entirely unheard of method of hiding a coded message in a plaintext. I don't know if it's in common usage by real world spies, but it certainly has appeared before in fiction. I fondly remember once reading a time-travel romance (whose name I've unfortunately forgotten) where the young lovers communicated using overlapping codes.
Can this actually be used for a longer work? It would certainly be difficult since it necessitates a certain level of artificiality and constraint. The technique is described but not (as far as I know) actually used in Daniel Manus Pinkwater's young adult classic "Alan Mendelson, Boy From Mars" in which a dictionary hides not one, but two separate coded messages describing how to develop psychic powers AND transition to alternate realities. The use of a dictionary is probably realistic, in that it doesn't require a coherent plot, and is already divided into smaller sections.
Try as I might, I can only think of one author who has actually used this technique (but with surprising success): Steven Hall. His "Raw Shark Texts" contains 36 ordinary chapters, which contain the entire story, and can be read as given. It also, however, has 36 "negative" chapters which have been hidden in various ways, including being coded into the text of the original chapters (with different negative chapters in different translations of the book, as described here). I believe some of them are coded visually and digitally (rather than in the plaintext), which gives an avenue into making one text do double duty without sacrificing meaning.
| improve this answer | |
Your Answer


R style default plot for Pandas DataFrame
The default plot method for dataframes in R is to show each numeric variable in a pair-wise scatter plot. I find this to be a really useful first look at a dataset, both to see correlations and joint distributions between variables, but also to quickly diagnose potential strangeness like bands of repeating values or outliers.
From what I can tell, there are no builtins in the python data ecosystem (numpy, pandas, matplotlib) for this so I coded up a function to emulate the R behaviour. You can get it in this gist (feedback welcomed).
Here's an example of it in action showing derived time-series features (12 hour rates of change) for some clinical variables.
One datavis for you, ten for me
Over the years of my graduate studies I made a lot of plots. I mean tonnes. To get an extremely conservative estimate I grep'ed for every instance of "plot\(" in all of the many R scripts I wrote over the past five years.
find. -iname "*.R" -print0 | xargs -L1 -0 egrep -r "plot(" | wc -l
The actual number is very likely orders of magnitude larger as 1) many of these plot statements are in loops, 2) it doesn't capture how many times I may have ran a given script, 3) it doesn't look at previous versions, 4) plot is not the only command to generate figures in R (eg hist), and 5) early in my graduate career I mainly used gnuplot and near the end I was using more and more matplotlib. But even at this lower bound, that's nearly 3,000 plots. A quick look at the TOC of my thesis reveals a grand total of 33 figures. Were all the rest a waste? (Hint: No.)
The overwhelming majority of the plots that I created served a very different function than these final, publication-ready figures. Generally, visualizations are either:
 - A) Communication between you and data, or
 - B) Communication between you and someone else, through data.
These two modes serve very different purposes and can require taking different approaches in their creation. Visualizations in the first mode need only be quick and dirty. You can often forget about all that nice axis labeling, optimal color contrast, and whiz-bang interactivity. As per my estimates above, this made up at the very least 10:1 of visuals created. The important thing is that, in this mode, you already have all of the context. You know what the variables are, you know what the colors, shapes, sizes, and layouts mean – after all, you just coded it. The beauty of this is that you can iterate on these plots very quickly. The conversation between you and the data can dialogue back and forth as you intrepidly explore and shine your light into all of it's dark little corners.
In the second mode, you are telling a story to someone else. Much more thought and care needs to be placed on ensuring that the whole story is being told with the visualization. It is all too easy to produce something that makes sense to you, but is completely unintelligible to your intended audience. I've learned the hard way that this kind of visual should always be test-driven by someone who, ideally, is a member of your intended audience. When you are as steeped in the data as you most likely are, your mind will fill in any missing pieces of the story – something your audience won't do.
In my new role as part of the Data Science team at Penn Medicine, I'll be making more and more data visualizations in the second mode. A little less talking to myself with data, and a little more communicating with others through data. I'll be sharing some of my experiences, tools, wins, and disasters here. Stay tuned!
Plot with ggplot2, interact, collaborate, and share online
Editor's note: This is a guest post by Marianne Corvellec from Plotly. This post is based on an interactive Notebook (click to view) she presented at the R User Conference on July 1st, 2014.
Plotly is a platform for making, editing, and sharing graphs. If you are used to making plots with ggplot2, you can call ggplotly() to make your plots interactive, web-based, and collaborative. For example, see plot.ly/~ggplot2examples/211, shown below and in this Notebook. Notice the hover text!
0. Get started
Visit _URL_. Here, you'll find a GUI that lets you create graphs from data you enter manually, or upload as a spreadsheet (or CSV file). From there you can edit graphs! Change between types (from bar charts to scatter charts), change colors and formatting, add fits and annotations, try other themes…
Our R API lets you use Plotly with R. Once you have your R visualization in Plotly, you can use the web interface to edit it, or to extract its data. Install and load package "plotly" in your favourite R environment. For a quick start, follow: _URL_
Go social! Like, share, comment, fork and edit plots… Export them, embed them in your website. Collaboration has never been so sweet!
Not ready to publish? Set detailed permissions for who can view and who can edit your project.
1. Make a (static) plot with ggplot2
Baseball data is the best! Let's plot a histogram of batting averages. I downloaded data here.
Load the CSV file of interest, take a look at the data, subset at will:
online_data <-
batting_table <-
batting_table <-
 subset(batting_table, yearID >= 2004)
The batting average is defined by the number of hits divided by at bats:
batting_table$Avg <-
 with(batting_table, H / AB)
You may want to explore the distribution of your new variable as follows:
 + geom_histogram(aes(Avg), binwidth=0.05)
# Let's filter out entries where players were at bat less than 10 times.
batting_table <-
 subset(batting_table, AB >= 10)
hist <-
 ggplot(data=batting_table) + geom_histogram(aes(Avg),
We have created a basic histogram; let us share it, so we can get input from others!
2. Save your R plot to plot.ly
# Install the latest version
# of the "plotly" package and load it
# Open a Plotly connection
py <-
 plotly("ggplot2examples", "3gazttckd7")
Use your own credentials if you prefer. You can sign up for a Plotly account online.
Now call the 'ggplotly()' method:
collab_hist <-
And boom!
You get a nice interactive version of your plot! Go ahead and hover…
Your plot lives at this URL ('collab_hist$response$url') alongside the data. How great is that?!
If you wanted to keep your project private, you would use your own credentials and specify:
py <- plotly()
3. Edit your plot online
Now let us click "Fork and edit". You (and whoever you've added as a collaborator) can make edits in the GUI. For instance, you can run a Gaussian fit on this distribution:
You can give a title, edit the legend, add notes, etc.
You can add annotations in a very flexible way, controlling what the arrow and text look like:
When you're happy with the changes, click "Share" to get your plot's URL.
If you append a supported extension to the URL, Plotly will translate your plot into that format. Use this to export static images, embed your graph as an iframe, or translate the code between languages. Supported file types include:
Isn't life wonderful?
4. Retrieve your plot.ly plot in R
The JSON file specifies your plot completely (it contains all the data and layout info). You can view it as your plot's DNA. The R file (_URL_ is a conversion of this JSON into a nested list in R. So we can interact with it by programming in R!
Access a plot which lives on plot.ly with the well-named method 'get_figure()':
enhanc_hist <-
 py$get_figure("mkcor", 305)
Take a look:
# Data for second trace
The second trace is a vertical line at 0.300 named "Good". Say we get more ambitious and we want to show a vertical line at 0.350 named "Very Good". We overwrite old values with our new values:
enhanc_hist$data[[2]]$name <- "VeryGood"
enhanc_hist$data[[2]]$x[[1]] <- 0.35
enhanc_hist$data[[2]]$x[[2]] <- 0.35
Send this new plot back to plot.ly!
enhanc_hist2 <-
Visit the above URL ('enhanc_hist2$url').
How do you like this workflow? Let us know!
Tutorials are at _URL_. You can see more examples and documentatation at _URL_ and plot.ly/r. Our gallery has the following examples:
This presentation benefited tremendously from comments by Matt Sundquist and Xavier Saint-Mleux.
Plotly's R API is part of rOpenSci. It is under active development; you can find it on GitHub. Your thoughts, issues, and pull requests are always welcome!
Guest post by


text: Nepali Rope Incense belongs to the long tradition of family cottage industries in the Himalayas. Almost all young children learn to twist ropes from their grandparents and eventually teach their own children or grandchildren. The ropes are produced in large quantities by farmers and other villagers during the off season. High quality aromatic medicinal herbs are gathered and dried. Herbs used have fumigation qualities and purify the atmosphere when burned. Lokta paper made from the Daphne bush is used to contain the herbs. The herbal blend is placed in the paper and given an artistic twist to create the rope like strands.


text:
The Ballard Basin projects combine Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI), also known as natural drainage, and future underground storage to control approximately six million gallons of sewage and stormwater. Currently overflows into the Ship Canal and Salmon Bay happen after as little as one-tenth of an inch of rain. Natural drainage opportunities within Ballard include rain gardens, landscaped areas that allow stormwater to soak into the ground.
Ballard Natural Drainage – this project constructed raingardens along several streets to help reduce sewage overflows by keeping stormwater out of the sewer system. Runoff is diverted into swales with special soil to slow and filter the stormwater. Performance monitoring of the swales completed in 2011 began in fall 2012.


text:
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
The performance of a battery, like most electronics, is greatly affected by temperature. All battery packs are designed to operate within a safe temperature range for the cell chemistry selected. For some chemistries, like Lithium-Ion, safe operation of the battery is critically dependent upon temperature. The range for safely charging Lithium chemistries is typically 0°C thru 45°C, which is narrower than the safe range for discharge, typically -20°C thru 60°C. Any heat generated during charge and discharge will be considered for every design, as well as external environmental temperature influences like sunlight. Thermal gradients in a battery can cause imbalances in cells and reduce cycle life, so proper consideration is critical. NBS can perform complete and accurate thermal analysis of battery performance in any environment. We will choose the right chemistry for your application.
Many other considerations can affect battery performance, including altitude, humidity, etc. Many of our designs meet the strictest military standards, such as MIL-STD-810. NBS has also done many designs to ATEX, with encapsulation, and for intrinsic safety. Our enclosures can also be designed to meet any IP Code. Several of our designs work very well in wet environments. We have the capabilities to design, from cell to electronics to mechanical enclosure, a battery pack that will work in any environment.


Elder Law Litigation and the Lessons I've Learned
Generally speaking, these are cases in which the people whose resources or care are the subject of the dispute are alive (at least at the time the relevant events occur), but suffer from cognitive impairment and, as a result, are unable to police their own situations. These are cases that place the murky legal theories of "capacity" and "undue influence" on an even more fantastic and inscrutable background of personalities and family dynamics.
I've come to love this practice niche, and I've been fortunate to have had cases that I believe (if I tell the stories well) illustrate the types of facts, legal theories, and procedural challenges in which these matters arise and are resolved. As they say, the stories are real, but the names have been changed…
Douglas G. Chalgian
About the Author: Attorney Douglas G. Chalgian is both certified in elder law by the National Elder Law Foundation and a Fellow with the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He is also the only attorney in Michigan who has served as Chair of both the Probate and Estate Planning and Elder Law and Disability Rights Sections of the State Bar.
Learn more about Douglas G. Chalgian
Lesson 1:
Cognitive Impairment Is Much More Than Memory Loss
Let's call him Joe.
Joe never left the farm he was raised on. In his 82 years, he traveled outside the confines of his rural Michigan county maybe a dozen times. He graduated from high school, but everyone acknowledges that as a child he was "different"—not good with school work, odd, and quiet—what today we might call autistic. Never married. No kids.
Now, after a life of milking cows and putting up hay, he deeds the farm to a farmhand, a younger man who has lived on or near the farm for nearly 40 years and with whom Joe has developed as much of a human connection as he has with any human (which ain't saying much). Joe has no concept or interest in the tax ramifications of this decision. He can't explain how he will support himself if his care costs should increase and he might need the equity in the farm to provide for his needs. The only real explanation he can offer for his decision is that he believes that by giving the farm to the farmhand, he has taken a step that provides the best chance of him not being sent to a nursing home, or as he calls it, the "nut house." The farmhand, he believes, will take care of him.
Tests reveal that Joe probably has a low IQ to begin with and that he is also experiencing the normal decline of aging (a slow-ing of the mental process). Typical tests for dementia show some memory loss, but not significant. When he talks about the farm and what he wants to happen to it after he is gone, he gets tearful (depression?).
So, is the deed valid? If we look at just the issue of memory loss, the deed would be valid. But the concept of capacity is a much different thing. The problem is that courts are looking for simple markers and magic words to guide their decisions. Mention Alzheimer's and you automatically win points. Without it, courts often struggle.
In many cases, the challenges for the elder law litigator are (1) to dig deeper and (2) to get the court to listen. Elder law litigators should know what "normal" aging is and that there are many forms of "dementia"—some that primarily affect memory loss, but others that affect different areas of the brain. Elder law litigators need to educate themselves on the difference between memory loss and other forms of cognitive impairment that are not as commonly discussed or recognized, such as diminished "executive function." They must know how to work with doctors who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of cognitive impairment and should understand what types of tests are needed to develop a true picture of capacity.
Lesson 2:
People Are People First, Then They Grow Old (or The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall)
While I was in chambers talking to a seasoned probate judge about a particularly difficult case, the good judge, referring to the elderly gentleman who was the subject of the case, observed in an offhand way: "Doug, that's me and you when we get old."
He was talking about an 87-year-old college professor who was making incredibly irrational decisions and fighting everyone who dared suggest that he might be cognitively impaired. This man had published many books, had spoken regularly at national conferences, and could carry on a conversation with the best of us (unless you asked the wrong types of questions). But there was no way to deny it: he was severely demented. It was only the high level of intelligence that he started with (what some geriatricians would call "reserved capacity") that allowed him to fake it so well.
In the course of the litigation, the professor had fired several local doctors who had the audacity to advise him of his condition, and then he got lost in an airport while trying to make a connection to the Mayo Clinic on a last-ditch effort to locate a doctor who would support his position that he was perfectly capable of managing his own affairs.
This case provided me with a clear appreciation of the rule that, in the world of cognitive impairment, we are who we are first and that cognitive impairment doesn't take away our quirks, hang-ups, mental illnesses, or idiosyncrasies. In fact, in many cases it only makes them worse.
A corollary of this rule goes to the point being made by the judge: people who held positions of authority and influence often present the most difficult challenges when cognitive impairment humbles them and forces them to give up control. It is an important point to understand because so many of the most challenging elder law cases involve difficult people—who only become more difficult when cognitive impairment sets in.
Lesson 3:
For the Elderly, the World Can Be a Cold and Scary Place (or Incapacity and Vulnerability Are Two Different Things)
When I think of this client—call her Mary—I also have to re-call her dog, Sandy.
Coming into Mary's tiny home always meant being greeted by Sandy, hearing Mary tell about how she found Sandy at a dog shelter after Sandy and Sandy's littermates had been abandoned at a highway rest stop, admiring Sandy as she performed her "tricks," and sitting in the car after I left, struggling to remove Sandy's hair from my clothes. Now put yourself in the place of a 75-year-old widow with limited resources, a fixed income, a small savings, maybe a house that is paid off. Your kids are not close, either physically or emotionally. You are old. You are lonely. Your mind still works fine, but you worry and you hear things. You are invited to "educational" seminars, where you are provided a free meal. You would never admit it, but you enjoy hav-ing company when you eat and the attention of someone who treats you like an adult…like you matter. Someone wearing a suit and tie, with credentials of some sort, tells you that your financial situation is at risk if you don't buy this financial product or get that legal document.
You start to believe:
 - I have to "avoid probate."
 - If I go a nursing home, the state will take my home and "everything I've worked for."
 - If I don't do something, the "death tax" and other taxes will waste my estate.
 - If I want to stay in my home, I need to have a plan.
The people who exploit seniors in America understand these dynamics and are extremely sophisticated about using scare tactics as well as emotional appeals to take advantage of their victims. In an audience of two or three dozen seniors, these predators can quickly identify the few who meet the profile: lonely, some resources, maybe a little cognitively impaired. Soon they are raking in commissions—big commissions—selling annuities, reverse mortgages, "living trusts," and other products that are, more often than not, overpriced and of little or no value to the person to whom they are being sold. (Ever meet with a client whose entire estate is worth about $100,000 but who spent thousands of dollars for a massive trust agreement designed to "protect" his estate from taxes that are levied only on the estates of multi-millionaires? Or a client who was convinced to take out a reverse mortgage on her home, not because she needed the extra money, but only so she could then be sold an annuity?) These cases pose different challenges. Frequently, the victims of these scams are old but clearly not incompetent. They realize they have been taken, but are hesitant to reveal the crime. They are embarrassed about being so "dumb" and worry that their children will see it as just further evidence that they don't know what they're doing. These victims are not incompetent, but they are vulnerable.
The elder law litigator will see these cases. Unfortunately, Michigan's consumer protection laws are weak, and obtaining legal relief often involves more cost than can be justified. But on the other side, the bad actors like to work in the dark and are often willing to cough up commissions rather then face the prospect of someone shining a light on what they do.
Lesson 4:
Among the Aged, Negotiations and Love Songs Are Inseparable
Tom was comfortable. Good retirement. Significant assets. But completely devastated when his wife of 60 years passed away. For weeks after the funeral he would go to her graveside each day and cry for hours.
Tom was suffering from the early signs of dementia, but as long as his wife was around,


text:
Grant Recipient School: J.R. Briggs Elementary School
The Padcaster Studio turns an iPad into a powerful learning tool that teaches valuable skills while giving students the freedom to explore the world around them.
Students will use Root robots to co-create geometric wall drawings.
A hands-on, interdisciplinary approach to tackling STEAM concepts by using Ozobot robots to follow lines and symbols drawn by the students.
Nature Trail WiFi
This grant facilitated the creation of hypotheses experiments that connect to the Briggs nature trail. The Grove PI Boards and Sensors purchased with the funds allows for data gathering and observations to test theories and see how things like sunlight, water, wind etc. affect organisms on the Nature Trail.
iPads for English Language Learning (ELL)
The Ash-West ELL program is small but integral in meeting the needs of students whose home language is not English. The ELL population represents the largest growing student population nation-wide, a trend that is seen in Ash-West. Currently there are 54 ELLs district-wide. This population is taught in small groups. Having an iPad is an…MORE
Make Time for Reading
This is an early pre-literacy reading program for families. Dr. Jean Fahey presented a workshop and her book "Make Time for Reading" provides steps to allow early reading activities to meet Kindergarten standards.
Sandbox Play Area
The foundation provided funds to construct and build a sandbox play area for the elementary school.
Imagine a classroom where students get to bring lessons to life through 3D creative arts. My classroom is a choice-based environment. The students are given instruction on a topic and are then able to explore that concept in their own creative way. The goal of this grant is to get a new technology into the…MORE
Lego Mindstorms Robotics Kits
The LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits promote science, technology, engineering and math education in the District. Students work together to build, program, and test their robots. They develop skills in working cooperatively, a highly sought after 21st century skill especially important in the technology field. Students will receive explicit instruction in working as teams in the…MORE
Interactive Bright Board System
This group of teachers will use money from the Foundation to create a mobile, Interactive Bright Board System to support language arts instruction in grades 3-5 at John R. Briggs Elementary School. Many elementary students approach the task of revising their writing with disinterest. An interactive bright board system can help teachers make the revision…MORE


.getCause().getMessage();
 int line = 0;
 if (msg.startsWith("sun.org.mozilla")) {
 msg = msg.substring(msg.indexOf(':') + 1);
 msg = msg.substring(0, msg.lastIndexOf('(')).trim() + " "
 + msg.substring(msg.lastIndexOf(')') + 1).trim();
 try {
 line = Integer.valueOf(msg.substring(msg.
 lastIndexOf("number") + 7)); //NOI18N
 } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
 }//Implement OutputListener, for hyperlinks:
 io.getOut().println(msg, new MyOutputListener(fo, line));
 } else {
 } catch (Exception ex2) {
 } catch (Exception ex) {
 5. Next, create a class called MyOutputListener, let it implement OutputListener and, for now, just let the IDE generate three method stubs that we can fill out some other time. So, for now, when you click a link in the Output window, you'll receive an error message because you haven't implemented the method yet.
 6. And what about the palette? Just download it here, add it to the module suite, and then tweak a few things. For example, the palette was written for text/x-java, so change that to text/x-groovy. You might also want to do some refactoring, to make the class names, and so on, Groovy-oriented rather than Java-oriented. Then change the sample snippet to generate the code that you want to have generated. Now your module suite should be as follows:
 It really is cool that one can now (from 6.0 onwards) create a palette in one module, and (via MIME-type registration in the layer) make it available to an editor defined in a different module. Potentially, your users do not want to have a palette in their Groovy editor. Now they don't have to have it. They simply would not install it. Plus, one engineer could 'own' the palette module, while another engineer could 'own' the editor module, thus allowing for a very clean separation of work areas. Ah, but anyone reading this blog, and who has got this far in this particular blog entry, should be aware of the benefits of module-based development already... :-)
When you now install the editor again, you should see the same things as shown in the two screenshots at the start of this blog entry. Hurray! Thank you, JSR 223 and thank you Schliemann. Now there's scripting support for Groovy in NetBeans IDE.
In other news. My colleague Rohan, from Bangalore, wrote me with this cool news: "We, at Sun India, have launched a unique contest called the CODE FOR FREEDOM CONTEST to encourage students in India to adopt open source technologies and contribute to them. You can find more details here. NetBeans is part of the open source technologies covered by this contest." Hurray!
Join the discussion
Comments ( 8 )
 - Mohamed Monday, August 27, 2007
 Hi Geertjan, Howdy?
 Hope you can help me with this, I'm trying to use Schliemann to add editing support for Torque Scripting Language (Torque is a game engine). Torque Script has a C like syntax, so I'm trying to reuse the javascript.nbs. Only changes I made until now is adding local and global variables, which are similar to the identifier rule, but has % precedes local variable and $ precedes global.
 "%"["a"-"z" "A"-"Z" "_"]
 ["a"-"z" "A"-"Z" "0"-"9" "_"]\*
 "$"["a"-"z" "A"-"Z" "_"]
 now the switch block grammar rule is like Java and Javascript but without the break;
 SwitchStatement = "switch" "(" Expression ")" "{" (CaseClause)\* [DefaultClause] (CaseClause)\* "}";
 CaseClause = "case" Expression ":" (Statement)\*;
 DefaultClause = "default" ":" (Statement)\*;
 LabelledStatement = ":" Statement;
 PrimaryExpression = PrimaryExpressionInitial | ObjectLiteral;
 PrimaryExpressionInitial = "null" | "true" | "false" | | |
 | | "(" Expression ")" |
 ArrayLiteral | FunctionDeclaration | FunctionCall;
 when I try to test this, the case clause inside the switch block is always highlighted as syntax error.
 not sure if I made this clear, but would you please guide me to find the problem?
 - Geertjan Monday, August 27, 2007
 Hi Mohamed, are you sure there's a problem there? I tried pasting the above in my own NBS file, and there's no error marking at all. If you like, you can send the whole NBS file to me at geertjan DOT wielenga AT sun DOT com and I (and maybe others if needed) will look at it. Sounds great, by the way, Torque support -- keep going and don't give up!
 - Mohamed Thursday, August 30, 2007
 Hi Greetjan, thanks a lot for your reply, the error is not in NBS file, it's in the Torque Script test file. I've sent the project including the NBS and the Torque Script sample file, I hope files was arrived to your email.
 - Geertjan Thursday, August 30, 2007
 Sorry, I haven't received it. Make sure it is in a ZIP file, not in a RAR file or something different, otherwise it will get rejected by my mail server. Don't know why.
 - Alejandro Téllez Saturday, October 25, 2008
 Hi Geertjan, I used to ask this questions to Roumen, but, apparently he's now at opensolaris evangelization, I hope not to bother u, I believe u r quite busy right now.
 I'm a developer and a teacher here in Mexico, now I have been assigned to and Algorithms class, I used to teach something more advanced like Java EE, but I want to use pseudo-code before I introduce my students to the whole wolrd of Java and NetBeans, I found something interesting with this article of yours, and an Idea hit me. So i wrote a Schliemann's module for a pseudo-code "programming", almost everything works fine, but I have some problems with expressions and operators, I took Java.nbs (as u recomended, but now with NB6.5 seems replaced with lexer?). Is there some kind of debuger, or something I could use, 'cause I've been strugling with this problem for several weeks.
 Thnx in advance for your attention
 I forgot to mention, I used Java.nbs as a template, 'cause I need the exact same logic for operators and expressions, here I post some of the expressions, that are marked as errors,
 x = 25 \* (z+y)
 x = z\*y
 In the first one, NB65 marks with an error underline the \* operator and the ( symbol. It's funny, because the second one also marks error at the \* operator. But with + or - operators everything works fine.
 I've put the nbs file at this url, also I've created a new filetype, with extension pcode, there r three possible options, an empty pcode file, and algorithm file, and finally a class file.
 Thnx again for your time
 - Geertjan Saturday, October 25, 2008
 - bob Monday, August 15, 2011
 should be written as


Can You Store Weed In The Freezer?
Can You Store Weed In The Freezer?
Storing cannabis has always been an issue for people who indulge for many different reasons. From your personal small stash weed storage to your larger storage for longer-term, the misunderstandings and misinformation on the web are easily fallen for. But we look at it from a scientific perspective.
The freezer may look like a tempting option for the long-term storage of large quantities of weed. But as we are about to see, although the freezer may very well 'freeze' and put a pause on all the chemical processes responsible for the aging processes of weed, ultimately, it's a very bad idea and can ironically ruin your bud in an instant.
This is especially true if you don't put a lot of thought into the whole freezing and thawing process and don't properly control processes like condensation, which can instantly turn your herb into a mush.
Why Freezing Weed Isn't a Great Idea
At first glance, it makes sense. After all, food that would otherwise go bad in a day at room temperature, can be kept for many years in a freezer. And since weed can be kept at room temperature for months, it would make sense that in the freezer, you can store it for a lifetime, right?
Well, it would certainly make sense that at the low temperature the freezer reaches, factors like mold, light exposure, and chemical oxidation by atmospheric oxygen are greatly reduced or even eliminated.
However, there are risk factors involved, which ultimately make freeze-storage a very bad idea. Here are some of them:
Weed Loses Its Structural Integrity While Freezing and During Thawing
If you've ever frozen vegetables or fruits, you know what happens to them when you get them out of the freezer and thaw them – they have become mushy, wet and have lost their fresh look. This is because as water freezes, it first contracts and then expands.
This breaks the cellular walls of the plant material, causing it to turn into a mush. This is very similar to the process that occurs during cooking.
Even though weed is already relatively dry, it still has a 10% to 15% water content, and as that water freezes in the tiny trichomes, it causes them to break off, crumble and turn into a fine powder, which is then very difficult to properly roll into a joint or pack into a bowl.
The trichomes are where all the potency is, so their destruction during the freezing process is obviously a very bad thing.
If you take any frozen plant material out of the fridge, tiny water droplets will immediately start condensing on its surface, making it wet.
Although this can be theoretically avoided by keeping the weed sealed in a container during the thawing process, it's still something that can easily ruin a large batch very quickly if you're not careful.
As you can see, freezing weed is generally a bad idea and there's no reason to do it – it involves many risks that can potentially ruin your herb, without offering any significant advantages.
So, stick to proven storage techniques, like a glass jar or another container with carefully controlled humidity levels inside.
If you keep the herb out of strong light and in a cool place, it can very well last for years, without a significant loss of potency or flavor.
Leave a comment
Please note, comments must be approved before they are published


How to Use a Jointer Efficiently and Safely
How to Use a Jointer Efficiently and Safely
Jointers are wonderful machines to have in your woodworking shop. They are excellent for straightening and flattening the edges of a board, and the faces, to a certain degree. That said, using a jointer properly and safely takes some skill and knowledge.
That's exactly what we'll talk about below.
How to Use a Jointer
Let's go through an in-depth step-by-step process on how to use a jointer.
Step 1: Read the Manual
You do want to be intimately familiar with your machine before you start using it, which means that reading the user's manual is highly recommended. No, you don't have to become a world-leading expert on jointers, but knowing what all of the parts and their functions are, as well as the safety rules is very important.
Something else you will want to find out here is what size of stock your jointer can accept, because using stock larger than the accepted range won't work, and trying to mill very small pieces can be dangerous.
Step 2: Tune the Jointer
To ensure that you can actually achieve the results that you want, you will need to tune the jointer, which can be done on most jointers by using the included tune-up function. If you cannot use the tune-up function for your purposes, or you do not have one, you will need to tune it on your own.
First, you need to ensure that the infeed and outfeed tables are aligned, which is done by raising both tables to the same height and then using a bubble level to ensure that both are perfectly level with the main table. To lower the tables at their outer ends, loosen the gib screws.
You will also need to ensure that the fence is completely square with the main table. Use a triangle to measure the angle between the fence and the table. If the angle is not 90 degrees, now is the time to make the adjustment.
At this point, you also want to ensure that the jointer's blades or cutting heads are in good condition. If they are not in good condition, sharpening or replacing them may be called for. Now is also the time where you want to adjust the depth of the cutterheads, so you can face-joint your stock.
Setting Up a Jointer
Step 3: Do Some Face-Jointing
One of the most important steps here is to ensure that one of the faces of your board is completely flat and straight. At least one face needs to be flat and straight so you can rest it against the fence as you joint the edge of the board.
If one face-side of the board is not perfectly flat and straight, when you go to joint either of the edge-sides of the board, you will run into problems. When you edge-joint the crooked board, your edge-jointing results will be equally as crooked. Remember, when all has been said and done, you want the faces and edges of your board to all meet at precise 90-degree angles.
Therefore, set the depth of the cut accordingly, measure and mark a perfectly straight line across one face of the board, and then run it through the jointer. You should now have one edge of the board (the skinny side along the length), that is perfectly flat and straight, perfect for resting against the fence as you joint the edges. To ensure perfection, you can use a bubble level.
Step 4: Measure, Set the Fence, & Set the Cutterheads
Now it is time to finish things off. Now that the faces of your board are jointed and flat, you can move onto jointing the edges of the board. First and foremost, you now need to set the jointer to the appropriate cutting depth.
For instance, if you need to joint 1/4-inch off the edge of your board to achieve straightness and flatness, you will want to set your jointer's cutting heads to be even more precise than that, such as 1/16-inch, or even more precise. Yes, this means that you will need to make a couple of passes on the same edge, but it also ensures that you don't cut away too much at once, which would of course not be good.
You need to examine your board and do some measuring to see exactly where and how much of the wood you need to remove to achieve a flat and straight edge. Use a pencil or something similar to mark your board so you can see what your progress is like, so you don't joint off too much or too little.
You now also need to set the fence so that it is in the right position to edge-joint the board. You really just need to make sure that the fence is set to a perfect 90 degrees, which you can technically do with a digital angle scale, designed exactly for this purpose. With the cutter heads and the fence of the jointer set properly, and the board marked and ready to go, you can move onto the next step.
Step 5: Edge-Joint the Board
The only thing left to do now is to feed the edge of the board through the jointer. Remember that the edge being jointed needs to be facing down into the cutterheads of the jointer.
To properly do this, first, turn the jointer on, and then place the edge being jointed down on the table surface, and make sure to rest the board against the fence.
Place your left hand on top of the board near the front edge (applying just enough downward pressure to make sure that the wood doesn't bounce over the cutterheads), and then use your right hand to push the board through the cutterheads. Keep repeating this process until you have achieved the desired result.
Jointing a Board
The Basics of Jointer Safety
Jointers are some pretty dangerous tools. After all, they have very sharp and fast moving cutterheads that can cause serious damage. Let's go over some basic jointer safety rules to keep your fingers and the rest of you in one piece.
First, when using a jointer, always wear the appropriate protective gear, mainly some high-quality safety goggles to protect your eyes, and if you feel that it is necessary, you may also wear ear protection. Also, never have loose and long hair, never wear jewellery that hands down (such as long necklaces), and never wear loose-sleeved clothing. Anything that can potentially get caught in the jointer is a no-go.
Always turn the jointer on and have it running at full speed before attempting to pass a board through it. If you do this the other way, if you put the board on the cutterheads while they are stationary, and then turn the jointer on, it will cause the board to bounce and move around, potentially causing injury, and at the very least, damaging the workpiece.
Before using the jointer, always make sure that anything that can be loosened or adjusted is tight and secure. Make sure that the infeed and outfeed tables are secure, that the fence does not wobble, and that the cutterheads are securely locked into place.
One of the biggest mistakes that you could make with a jointer in terms of safety is trying to make adjustments when the machine is running. Never make adjustments or get your fingers near those cutting heads when they are still in motion.
When working on stock, always keep both hands on it, on top of it, in order to keep it in the proper position and to prevent any injuries or damage from occurring. If necessary, if the piece is too short or narrow, use push blocks to push it through the jointer, in order to keep your fingers safe.
Finally, always have the board resting against the fence. Trying to freehand a piece of wood without the fence is very dangerous and can result in serious injury.
Mistakes to Avoid, Tips & Tricks
To finish things off, let's go over some other tips and tricks to help make life easier, and to produce the best possible results when using a jointer:
 - You generally want to flatten or joint the faces of the board first, as this is the only way that you can achieve a solid 90-degree angle when jointing the edges.
 - Although it is not always necessary, it is generally best to joint wood with the grain to prevent tear-out, not against the grain.
 - Do not try to remove more than 1/16-inch at once. Attempting to make cuts that are too deep can damage the board, cause tear-out, and may even damage the cutter heads. In many cases this means having to make more than one pass to achieve the desired end result.
 - Whatever wood you are working on, it is good to limit it to no more than twice the length of the infeed table.
There you have it folks, everything that you need to know about using a jointer safely and efficiently.
They really aren't overly hard to use, as long as you follow the proper usage and safety directions. Remember, these are dangerous tools and your safety always comes first.


text:
Nuts and bolts: Diamond synchrotron
Diamond Light Source, opened in 2007, was built to supply scientists and industry with just this capability. The facility currently supplies 20, soon to be 22, experimental stations with beams of X-rays, ultraviolet light and infrared light needed for a variety of purposes.
Diamond is an example of a thirdgeneration synchrotron. The device works by accelerating electrons to 3 gigaelectronvolts (GeV). These are then channelled into a storage ring, which they travel round at close to the speed of light.
The storage ring is not quite circular: instead, it is a series of straight lines. Every time the electrons turn a corner, they release energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation, or light. This light is fed to a beamline, where it can be used in experiments.
The facility was funded by a partnership between the government and the Wellcome Trust, and is free to academic scientists at the point of access. Ten per cent of proprietary beamtime is available to industrial scientists at a cost. All in all, around 3000 researchers use the Diamond synchrotron each year.
Experiments carried out generally involve focusing synchrotron light onto a substance (be it solid, liquid or gas) and measuring what happens to the light, using techniques such as diffraction, spectroscopy and imaging. This can provide valuable information about the chemical composition or atomic structure of the substance.
The Diamond synchrotron is used in fields as diverse as chemistry, archaeology, cell biology, energy and the environment, and materials science. Funding has been allocated to construct a further 10 beamlines by 2018, allowing Diamond to reach its full potential.
This feature first appeared in issue 72 of 'Wellcome News'.


Nat (spirit)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Nat oun (Suxorimus) hung on a post in a house.
The nats (နတ်; MLCTS: nat; IPA: [naʔ]) are spirits worshipped in Burma (or Myanmar) in conjunction with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 Great Nats and all the rest (i.e., spirits of trees, water, etc.). Almost all of the 37 Great Nats were human beings who met violent deaths (စိမ်းသေ, lit. "green death"). They may thus also be called nat sein (နတ်စိမ်း; lit. green spirits). The word'sein', while meaning 'green', is being used to mean 'raw' in this context. There are however two types of nats in Burmese Buddhist belief.
Nat spirits are termed lower nats or auk nats (အောက်နတ်), whether named or unnamed, whereas ahtet nats (အထက်နတ်) or higher nat dewas inhabit the six heavens.[1] Much like sainthood, nats can be designated for a variety of reasons, including those only known in certain regions in Burma. Nat worship is less common in urban areas than in rural areas, and is practised among ethnic minorities as well as in the mainstream Bamar society. It is however among the Buddhist Bamar that the most highly developed form of ceremony and ritual is seen.[2]
Every Burmese village has a nat sin (နတ်စင်) which essentially serves as a shrine to the village guardian nat called the ywa saung nat (ရွာစောင့်နတ်). An offertory coconut (နတ်အုန်းသီး) is often hung on the main southeast post (ဥရူတိုင်) in the house, wearing a gaung baung (headdress) and surrounded by perfume, as an offering to the Min Mahagiri (Lord of the Great Mountain), also known as the ein dwin (အိမ်တွင်းနတ်) or ein saung (အိမ်စောင့်နတ်) (house guardian) nat. One may inherit a certain member or in some instances two of the 37 Nats as mi hsaing hpa hsaing (မိဆိုင်ဖဆိုင်; lit. mother's side, father's side) from one or both parents' side to worship depending on where their families originally come from. One also has a personal guardian spirit called ko saung nat (ကိုယ်စောင့်နတ်).[3]
Nat worship and Buddhism[edit]
A nat kadaw dressed as U Min Gyaw at a nat pwè in Mingun, August 1989
Some disagreement in fact exists in academic circles as to whether Burmese Buddhism and Burmese spirit worship are two separate entities or just different dimensions of a single entity. Many Burmese themselves would say it is merely superstition and tend to downplay its role in society. Since the institution of the official 37 Nats was founded by King Anawrahta (1044–1077) of Bagan, albeit with later alterations, it has been argued that this may be interpreted as a process of Burmanisation and establishment of Bamar supremacy in the Irrawaddy valley after the unification of the country and founding of the First Burmese Empire was achieved by the king.[2] Worship of nats predates Buddhism in Burma. With the arrival of Buddhism, however, the nats were merged, syncretistically, with Buddhism.
Nat worship and ecology[edit]
Mount Popa from Kyaukpadaung road, the smaller precipice Taung Kalat with its nat shrines atop to left of picture
The widespread traditional belief among rural folks that there are forest guardian spirits called taw saung nats (တောစောင့်နတ်) and mountain guardian spirits called taung saung nats (တောင်စောင့်နတ်) appears to act as a deterrent against environmental destruction up to a point. Indiscriminate felling particularly of large trees is generally eschewed owing to the belief that they are dwellings of tree spirits called yokkazo (ရုက္ခစိုး) and that such an act would bring the wrath of the nat upon the perpetrator.[4]
Popular nat festivals[edit]
Mount Popa and Taung Kalat to left of picture seen from a distance across a dry riverbed
Offerings of alcohol and liquor to Min Kyawzwa at a nat pwe in Amarapura
The most important nat pilgrimage site in Burma is Mount Popa, an extinct volcano with numerous temples and relic sites atop a mountain 1300 metres tall located near Bagan in central Burma. The annual festival is held on the full moon of the month of Natdaw (December) of the Burmese calendar.[5] Taungbyone, north of Mandalay, is another major site with the festival held each year starting on the eleventh waxing day and including the full moon in the month Wagaung (August).[6] Yadanagu at Amarapura, held a week later in honour of Popa Medaw ("Mother of Popa"), who was the mother of the Taungbyone Min Nyinaung ("Brother Lords"), is also a popular nat festival.[3]
Nats have human characteristics, wants, and needs. They are flawed, having desires considered derogatory and immoral in mainstream Buddhism. During a nat pwè, which is a festival during which nats are propitiated, nat kadaws (နတ်ကတော် "lord-consort",[7] i.e. "medium, shaman") dance and embody the nat's spirit in a trance. Historically, the nat kadaw profession was hereditary and passed from mother to daughter. Until the 1980s, few nat gadaws were male. Since the 1980s, persons identified by outsiders as transgender women or gay male transvestites have increasingly performed these roles.[7]
Music, often accompanied by a hsaing waing ("orchestra"), adds much to the mood of the nat pwè, and many are entranced. People come from far to take part in the festivities in various nat shrines called nat kun or nat naan, get drunk on palm wine and dance wildly in fits of ecstasy to the wild beat of the Hsaing waing music, possessed by the nats.[5]
Whereas nat pwès are annual events celebrating a particular member of the 37 Nats regarded as the tutelary spirit in a local region within a local community, with familial custodians of the place and tradition and with royal sponsorship in ancient times, hence evocative of royal rituals, there are also nat kannah pwès where individuals would have a pavilion set up in a neighbourhood and the ritual is generally linked to the entire pantheon of nats. The nat kadaws as an independent profession made their appearance in the latter half of the 19th century as spirit mediums, and nat kannahs are more of an urban phenomenon which evolved to satisfy the need of people who had migrated from the countryside to towns and cities but who wished to carry on their traditions or yo-ya of supplicating the mi hsaing hpa hsaing tutelary spirit of their native place.[2]
List of official nats[edit]
Traditional offerings of bananas and coconut at a nat shrine
King Anawrahta of Bagan (1044–1077) designated an official pantheon of 37 nats after he had failed to enforce a ban on nat worship. His stratagem of incorporation eventually succeeded by bringing nats to Shwezigon Pagoda portrayed worshipping Gautama Buddha and by enlisting Śakra, a Buddhist protective deity, to head the pantheon above the Mahagiri nats as Thagyamin.[5][8] Seven out of the 37 Nats appear to be directly associated with the life and times of Anawrahta.[8]
The official pantheon is made up predominantly of those from the royal houses of Burmese history, but also contains nats of Thai (Yun Bayin) and Shan (Maung Po Tu) descent; illustrations of them show them in Burmese royal dress. Listed in proper order, they are:
 1. Thagyamin (သိကြားမင်း)
 2. Min Mahagiri


Update on NYS Grades 3-8 Assessments
Dear Watervliet families,
We want to update you about the grades 3-8 English language arts (ELA) and math tests scheduled for this spring. You may recall that these tests, which typically are held each year, were not given in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unless New York State receives a waiver from the federal government, we are planning to administer a shortened version of the grades 3-8 assessments.
We also have some key information share with you about how and when these tests will be given this year. The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has reduced the number of questions on the assessments, and all test questions will be multiple choice. Instead of the state tests being given over two days, testing will occur on one day per grade level for in-person learners. Given the shortened test format, we anticipate that students will be able to complete the assessments in 45-60 minutes; however, students will be able to take as much time as they need.
NYSED requires that all state assessments be completed at school. Changes to the format of the tests give us the flexibility to offer students who are fully remote an opportunity to come to school to take the tests on the dates provided on the schedule below. School administrators are reaching out to families of remote learners to identify students who will take the tests in school. A reminder that students must follow all COVID safety protocols in school when taking the tests, which include completing the health screening/attestation before entering the building.


Universal Network Objects (UNO)
From Apache OpenOffice Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
OpenOffice.org provides a programming interface in the form of the Universal Network Objects (UNO). This is an object-oriented programming interface which OpenOffice.org sub-divides into various objects which for their part ensure program-controlled access to the Office package.
Since OpenOffice.org Basic is a procedural programming language, several linguistic constructs have had to be added to it which enable the use of UNO.
To use a Universal Network Object in OpenOffice.org Basic, you will need a variable declaration for the associated object. The declaration is made using the Dim instruction (see The Language of OpenOffice.org Basic). The Object type designation should be used to declare an object variable:
Dim Obj As Object
The call declares an object variable named Obj.
The object variable created must then be initialized so that it can be used. This can be done using the createUnoService function:
Obj = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop")
This call assigns to the Obj variable a reference to the newly created object. com.sun.star.frame.Desktop resembles an object type; however in UNO terminology it is called a service rather than a type. In accordance with UNO philosophy, an Obj is described as a reference to an object which supports the com.sun.star.frame.Desktop service. The service term used in OpenOffice.org Basic therefore corresponds to the type and class terms used in other programming languages.
There is, however, one main difference: a Universal Network Object may support several services at the same time. Some UNO services in turn support other services so that, through one object, you are provided with a whole range of services. For example, that the aforementioned object, which is based on the com.sun.star.frame.Desktop service, can also include other services for loading documents and for ending the program.
Documentation note.png VBA : Whereas the structure of an object in VBA is defined by the class to which it belongs, in OpenOffice.org Basic the structure is defined through the services which it supports. A VBA object is always assigned to precisely one single class. A OpenOffice.org Basic object can, however, support several services.
Personal tools


text:
Voltage Comparator circuit:- A fixed reference voltage Vref is applied to the (-) input, and the other time – varying signal voltage Vin is applied to the (+) input; Because of this arrangement, the circuit is called the non-inverting comparator. Depending upon the levels of Vin and Vref, the circuit produces output. In short, the comparator is a type of analog-to-digital converter.
At any given time the output waveform shows whether Vin is greater or less than Vref. The comparator is sometimes also called a voltage-level detector because, for a desired value of Vref, the voltage level of the input Vin can be detected.
- A fixed reference voltage Vref is applied to the (-) input, and to the other input a varying voltage Vin.
- Vary the input voltage above and below the Vref and note down the output at pin 6 of 741 IC.
- Observe that, when Vin less than Vref, the output voltage is -Vsat ( @ – VEE)
- when Vin is greater than Vref, the output voltage is +Vsat (@+VCC).
- If Vin < Vref, Vo = -Vsat @ – VEE
- Vin > Vref, Vo = +Vsat = +VCC.
||V = o/p


text:
In Jordan there is considerable interest in the development and production of nanotechnology; where many institutes were established such as: "Nanotechnology Research Center "at the Jordan University of Science and Technology / Irbid, and Hamdi Mango Center for Scientific Research at the University of Jordan in Amman, in addition to the Royal Scientific Society. There are also many different efforts in Jordanian universities in scientific research on nanotechnology. At least, 200 scientific publications were published in the field of nanotechnology.
Currently, no accurate statistical information is available on the number of industrial facilities that uses nano-materials in their industries due to the following: 1 - The recent development of nanomaterials is not well understood or recognized in statistical terms. 2 - Jordanian factories use imported raw materials in the form of nano-particles. 3 – The lack of sufficient awareness and development of nanomaterials. 4 - The raw materials containing ultrafine particles are more expensive than the usual raw materials.
1- A primary components for the manufacture of paints (calcium carbonate, kaolin, bentonite). The pharmaceutical industry and cosmetics. 2 - as a product of the mining industries such as: Jordanian phosphate. Cement. Roack and Stone quarries Marble and granite
Currently, there are no rules or legislation in Jordan dealing with nano-materials, but in principle these materials can be subjected under the laws and legislation for chemicals.
At this moment, poor activities and responsibilities regarding to the nanomaterials and nanotechnology issues been carried out by different local and national authorities such as Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Industry and trading, Jordan Institution for Standards and Metrology, research institues and universities. This is due to the lack of information and knowledge regarding nanomaterials manegment. However, these authorities will be more focused and active if this issue got a higher concern at the national level at recent time, these responsibilities can be summarized as bellow: - Establishing a database about nano-materials used, existing locally, imported as well as the users. - Control of products containing nano-particles, whether imported or locally produced. - Develop guidelines to deal safely with this technology. - Development of legislation for the use of these nano-materials in Jordan. - Disposal of waste resulting from dealing with this technology in environmentally safe ways.
Due to lack of experince and poor information about nanomaterials and nanotechnology, the situation for the non state sector is similar to the government sector as mentioned above., however, the expectation from this sector can be addressed as follows: - Educate citizens, especially workers in various sectors that use nanotechnology. - Contribute to the support and development of scientific research on nanotechnology
Some parties outside the government sector plays an important role in the management of nanomaterials such as: 1 - University of Jordan - Hamdi Mango Center for Scientific Research Was created at the University of Jordan in 1999 by a generous donation from the late Ali Mango. in the year 2009, the center starts to fund contribute to the scientific research in nano fields. - The College of Science at the University of Jordan is one of the important research centers in the Kingdom and especially in the field of nanotechnology, this is due to availability of human resources as well as the scientific instruments, such as: Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FEI), Atomic force microscopy (AFM), XRD, XRF and Xray single crystal. 2 - University of Science & Technology In 2009, the University of Science and Technology began the initial steps to establish a Nano-Technology Center in collaboration with the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign U.S. This center will serve three main purposes: - Create a scientific base of research in the fields of nanotechnology - Establish joint programs in research, development and innovation - Establish cooperation with companies and industrial enterprises to produce and develop products for the local and global markets. 3- Atomic Energy Commission: Electron accelerator project (SESAME Synchrotron) was built in Allan, Salt where more than 80% of infrastructure and beam lines were completed. This device is used to diagnose the characteristics of optical, electronic and molecular structure of the nanomaterials used in various fields. In addition, the body is found in devices used to diagnose the constituent elements of nanomaterials.
Despite the limited material resources and logistics capabilities, researchers were able to use the techniques of Jordanians Nanotechnology in the following applications:1 - computer operations: registration of a patent relating to detailed designs for a new computer circuits critical technology uses carbon tubes nanometric "Carbon Nanotubes" within nanometric dimensions. The importance of this research in the manufacturing of robotic devices nanomedical for possible future use in the fields of medical and military 2 - Systems Biology: Record a research team Jordanian patents in the field of Nanotechnology and its applications in systems biology. Thanks to the invention group was able to produce micro-magnetic multiple items from the fly ash from the hearths, iron and steel plants have been used in the rapid detection of pathogenic bacteria in water sources and disposal of them, and characterized the results are promising in the fightagainst cancer.
Nano-particles waste in Jordan can be divided into two categories: - Natural sources, such as volcanoes, storms, desert sand - Artificial sources, such as cement plants, industrial and mining factories, Nano-particles waste can present in air, soil and water. - Waste present Air: Recently, monitoring of gaseous air pollutants and dust particle are in the micron size only, detection of nano-waste is not listed under any international or local standards for air quality. Ministry of Environment is currently monitoring air quality through three projects are distributed as follows: - Study the levels of gases in the area of Jordan (Al-Zarka)) to monitor plant emissions of heat-emitted from AlHussein electric Station and Alkhirbeh Alsamra. - There are five monitoring stations in industrial sites: 1 - Amman 2 - Balqa (Cement Fuheis) 3 - Alzarka (Alrusaifeh) 4 - Mafraq 5 - Tafila (Alrashadih). - There are three monitoring stations in the industrial cities: Karak, Amman and Irbid. - The Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority is currently monitoring all levels of toxic emissions - Waste present in the soil: There is no tests in Jordan to monitor the contamination of soil in the nano-scale level. The nano waste in the soil might be from the sediment that comes from the air or the irrigation, rainfall and floods - Waste present in the water: There is no standard specification for measuring nanomaterials in water. The Ministry of Environment in the collaboration with the Ministry of Water, is currently monitoring water quality in the Jordan in five sectors:: - Ground water, springs and artesian wells. - Floods and valleys of a flood. - Water Dams - Traditional water (domestic wastewater) by observing the 33 stations of which 22 are under the authority of water and 11 belonging to the private sector. - Industrial waste water:
Jordan still in the initial phases of dealing with nanotechnology, it requires time and infrastructure as well as technical and financial resources in order to achieve an advanced level in the world. Therefore it requires encouraging studies and research for measuring the severity of nanomaterials on human health and their impact on the environment different. There must be technical laws that enable all stakeholders to monitor nanomaterials and to ensure their compliance with the Jordanian standards. 1. There is no national umbrella to manage and coordinate national efforts in this area. 2. Jordan lacks legislation on safe management and handling of nanomaterials 3. lack of sufficient awareness of nanotechnology for the working staff in relevant government agencies (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Customs Department of Jordan, etc...) 4. lack of sufficient awareness and knowledge of workers in the private sector, whether factories or companies. 5. lack of a database of nano-materials with the relevant authorities to enable them to deal easily with this technique.
1. Establish a national umbrella to manage and coordinate national efforts in the field of nanotechnology 2. Amending legislation and laws in line with the development of nanotechnology. 3. Launching awareness workshops for technical staff operating in the relevant authorities (Standards and Metrology, founder of the Food and Drug Administration, the Customs Department of Jordan) 4. to set up proper rules that determine the technical specifications of nano-materials. 5. to establish real database on products containing nanoparticles. 6. Support national capacity to deal with nanotechnology.