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Position weight matrix
A position weight matrix (PWM), also known as a position-specific weight matrix (PSWM) or position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM), is a commonly used representation of motifs (patterns) in biological sequences.
PWMs are often derived from a set of aligned sequences that are thought to be functionally related and have become an important part of many software tools for computational motif discovery.
The position weight matrix was introduced by American geneticist Gary Stormo and colleagues in 1982 as an alternative to consensus sequences. Consensus sequences had previously been used to represent patterns in biological sequences, but had difficulties in the prediction of new occurrences of these patterns. The first use of PWMs was in the discovery of RNA sites that function as translation initiation sites. The perceptron algorithm was suggested by Polish American mathematician Andrzej Ehrenfeucht in order to create a matrix of weights which could distinguish true binding sites from other non-functional sites with similar sequences. Training the perceptron on both sets of sites resulted in a matrix and a threshold to distinguish between the two sets. Using the matrix to scan new sequences not included in the training set showed that this method was both more sensitive and precise than the best consensus sequence.
The advantages of PWMs over consensus sequences have made PWMs a popular method for representing patterns in biological sequences and an essential component in modern algorithms for motif discovery.
From Sequences to PWM
A PWM has one row for each symbol of the alphabet: 4 rows for nucleotides in DNA sequences or 20 rows for amino acids in protein sequences. It also has one column for each position in the pattern. In the first step in constructing a PWM, A basic position frequency matrix (PFM) is created by counting the occurrences of each nucleotide at each position. From the PFM, a position probability matrix (PPM) can be created by dividing the nucleotide count at each position by the number of sequences, and then normalising. Formally, given a set X of N aligned sequences of length l, the elements of the PPM M are calculated:
where i (1,...,N), j (1,...,l), k is the set of symbols in the alphabet and I(a=k) is an indicator function where I(a=k) is 1 if a=k and 0 otherwise.
For example, given the following DNA sequences:
the corresponding PFM is:
and therefore the resulting PPM is:
Both PPMs and PWMs assume statistical independence between positions in the pattern, as the probabilities for each position are calculated independently of other positions. From the definition above, it follows that the sum of values for a particular position (that is, summing over all symbols) is 1. Each column can therefore be regarded as an independent multinomial distribution. This makes it easy to calculate the probability of a sequence given a PPM, by multiplying the relevant probabilities at each position. For example, the probability of the sequence S = GAGGTAAAC given the above PPM M can be calculated:
Pseudocounts (or Laplace estimators) are often applied when calculating PPMs if based on a small dataset, in order to avoid matrix entries having a value of 0. This is equivalent to multiplying each column of the PPM by a Dirichlet distribution and allows the probability to be calculated for new sequences (that is, sequences which were not part of the original dataset). In the example above, without pseudocounts, any sequence which did not have a G in the 4th position or a T in the 5th position would have a probability of 0, regardless of the other positions.
Creating the PWM
Most often the elements in PWMs are calculated as log likelihoods. That is, the elements of the PWM are transformed using a background model so that:
The simplest background model assumes that each letter appears equally frequently in the dataset. That is, the value of for all symbols in the alphabet (0.25 for nucleotides and 0.05 for amino acids). Applying this transformation to the PPM M from above (with no pseudocounts added) gives:
The entries in the matrix make clear the advantage of adding pseudocounts, especially when using small datasets to construct M. The background model need not have equal values for each symbol: for example, when studying organisms with a high GC-content, the values for C and G may be increased with a corresponding decrease for the A and T values.
When the PWM elements are calculated using log likelihoods, the score of a sequence can be calculated by adding (rather than multiplying) the relevant values at each position in the PWM. The sequence score gives an indication of how different the sequence is from a random sequence. The score is 0 if the sequence has the same probability of being a functional site and of being a random site. The score is greater than 0 if it is more likely to be a functional site than a random site, and less than 0 if it is more likely to be a random site than a functional site. The sequence score can also be interpreted in a physical framework as the binding energy for that sequence.
Information content of a PWM
The self-information of observing a particular symbol at a particular position of the motif is:
The expected (average) self-information of a particular element in the PWM is then:
Finally, the IC of the PWM is then the sum of the expected self-information of every element:
Often, it is more useful to calculate the information content with the background letter frequencies of the sequences you are studying rather than assuming equal probabilities of each letter (e.g., the GC-content of DNA of thermophilic bacteria range from 65.3 to 70.8, thus a motif of ATAT would contain much more information than a motif of CCGG). The equation for information content thus becomes
where is the background frequency for that letter. This corresponds to the Kullback–Leibler divergence or relative entropy. However, it has been shown that when using PSSM to search genomic sequences (see below) this uniform correction can lead to overestimation of the importance of the different bases in a motif, due to the uneven distribution of n-mers in real genomes, leading to a significantly larger number of false positives.
There are various algorithms to scan for hits of PWMs in sequences. One example is the MATCH algorithm which has been implemented in the ModuleMaster. More sophisticated algorithms for fast database searching with nucleotide as well as amino acid PWMs/PSSMs are implemented in the possumsearch software and are described by Beckstette, et al. (2006).
- Stormo, Gary D.; Schneider, Thomas D.; Gold, Larry; Ehrenfeucht, Andrzej (1982). "Use of the 'Perceptron' algorithm to distinguish translational initiation sites in E. coli". Nucleic Acids Research 10 (9): 2997–3011. doi:10.1093/nar/10.9.2997.
- Stormo, G. D. (1 January 2000). "DNA binding sites: representation and discovery". Bioinformatics 16 (1): 16–23. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/16.1.16. PMID _PHONE_.
- Sinha, S. (27 July 2006). "On counting position weight matrix matches in a sequence, with application to discriminative motif finding". Bioinformatics 22 (14): e454–e463. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btl227.
- Xia, Xuhua (2012). "Position Weight Matrix, Gibbs Sampler, and the Associated Significance Tests in Motif Characterization and Prediction". Scientifica 2012: 1–15. doi:10.6064/2012/917540.
- Guigo, Roderic. "An Introduction to Position Specific Scoring Matrices". _URL_. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
- Nishida, K.; Frith, M. C.; Nakai, K. (23 December 2008). "Pseudocounts for transcription factor binding sites". Nucleic Acids Research 37 (3): 939–944. doi:10.1093/nar/gkn1019.
- Aleksandrushkina NI, Egorova LA (1978). "Nucleotide makeup of the DNA of thermophilic bacteria of the genus Thermus". Mikrobiologiia 47 (2): 250–2. PMID 661633.
- Erill I, O'Neill MC (2009). "A reexamination of information theory-based methods for DNA-binding site identification". BMC Bioinformatics 10: 57. doi:10.1186/_PHONE_-57. PMC _PHONE_. PMID _PHONE_.
- Kel AE, et al. (2003). "MATCHTM: a tool for searching transcription factor binding sites in DNA sequences". Nucleic Acids Research 31 (13): 3576–3579. doi:10.1093/nar/gkg585. PMC 169193. PMID _PHONE_.
- Wrzodek, Clemens; Schröder, Adrian; Dräger, Andreas; Wanke, Dierk; Berendzen, Kenneth W.; Kronfeld, Marcel; Harter, Klaus; Zell, Andreas (9 October 2009). "ModuleMaster: A new tool to decipher transcriptional regulatory networks". Biosystems (Ireland: Elsevier) 99 (1): 79–81. doi:10.1016/j.bios


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Celebrate Princeton Invention: Craig Arnold
Posted December 21, 2009; 01:08 p.m.
Able to adjust its focus more than 100,000 times faster than the human eye, the TAG Lens invented by mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Craig Arnold and his colleagues has applications in materials processing and imaging. (Photo: Brian Wilson)
Name: Craig Arnold, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering
Invention: Tunable Acoustic Gradient Index of Refraction Lens (TAG Lens)
What it does: The TAG lens features a cylinder made of a special material that vibrates when electricity is passed through it, enclosed inside a fluid-filled chamber. Controlling the flow of electricity changes the vibrations that propagate through the fluid, changing the lens' focus more than 100,000 times faster than the human eye can refocus.
Inspiration: After developing a low-cost lens to shape laser beam output into different patterns, Arnold and his colleagues focused their attention on understanding how the device worked and its potential applications. Finding that the lens had the unique ability to focus rapidly at a wide range of focal lengths, they realized its potential went far beyond the original intended purpose, with numerous applications in materials processing and imaging.
Collaborators: Euan McLeod, a 2009 Ph.D. recipient, and Alexander Mermillod-Blondin, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Arnold lab
Back to main story

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Quick Answer: Is It Correct To Be More Busy?
Is Unbusy a word?
Yes, unbusy is in the scrabble dictionary..
What is the superlative of beautiful?
beautiful (comparative more beautiful, superlative most beautiful)
Why is more better wrong?
"More" implies a higher level of "good." Therefore, "more better" would imply a level that is better than better. "More better" is never correct. If you want to say that something is better than good, you say it is "better," but if you want to say it is more than better, you say that it is "best."
What is the meaning of busy?
Adjective. busy, industrious, diligent, assiduous, sedulous mean actively engaged or occupied. busy chiefly stresses activity as opposed to idleness or leisure. too busy to spend time with the children industrious implies characteristic or habitual devotion to work.
What is the meaning of less?
1 : constituting a more limited number or amount less than three less than half done. 2 : of lower rank, degree, or importance no less a person than the president himself. 3a : of reduced size, extent, or degree. b : more limited in quantity in less time.
What's another word for busy?
What is the degree of busy?
busier. Superlative. busiest. The superlative form of busy; most busy.
Is busy an abstract noun?
Answer and Explanation: Busy is not an abstract noun. Instead, busy is an adjective.
What is the meaning of less busy?
1. not busy; idle; unoccupied. It's his task to keep from being unbusy.
What is the superlative form of busy?
busierTwo syllablesAdjectiveComparativeSuperlativesimplesimplersimplestbusybusierbusiesttiltedmore tiltedmost tiltedtangledmore tangledmost tangled1 more row
What is the superlative of wise?
EnchantedLearning.com GrammarCaseAdjectiveSuperlative Form1-syllable adjectives ending in "e"hugehugestlargelargeststrangestrangestwisewisest45 more rows
Is it correct to say how is you?
The pronoun YOU always takes a plural verb, even when it refers to only one person. So we always say "How are you?" never "How is you?"
Can you say more good?
You can do more good. However if you are using it as an adjective (e.g. "my work is good") then if you improved your work, you would say "my work is better", not "my work is more good."
What is another word for not busy?
Do you say more busy or busier?
"Busier" is a comparative: more busy than something else. You could be busier than another person, or busier than you were yesterday, etc. "Very busy" is an absolute.
What is the comparative of busy?
busierTwo syllablesAdjectiveComparativeSuperlativehappyhappierhappiestsimplesimplersimplestbusybusierbusiesttiltedmore tiltedmost tilted1 more row
Is more good grammatically correct?
"better" is a comparative form of "good", so you do not need to (and should not) say "more better": say either: It is better than your book. It is far better than your book. Using "more better" is against normal grammar, and if it is used it is uneducated and substandard.


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In 2002, teenaged William Kamkwamba had a vision in the very poor African nation of Malawi: A little bicycle generator that powers a light, if connected to a windmill, could allow him to read his schoolbooks at night. As he went further with his plans, he began to see how such a windmill might actually bring the 20th century to his own village. Out this week is "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind," a book that tells Kamkwamba's story. We talked with William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, the book's co-authors.
"He didn't have washers, so he would go collect bottle caps, beer bottle caps, in front of the bar and flatten them out and put a hole through the middle. He didn't have a drill, so he would use a nail and heat it over his mom's cooking fire, that he would bore holes through this plastic... His cousin found a car battery so he was able to hook the windmill up to a car battery, charge it and then power four more bulbs which he ran through a circuit breaker system that he made out of nails and wire and a magnet that he busted out of a stereo speaker. And it worked."
—Bryan Mealer, co-author of "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind," on how William made the windmill


What's the Difference Between Flash Drive and Pen Drive
What's the Difference Between Flash Drive and Pen Drive
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A pen drive and flash drive perform the same essential function; however, many people confuse the terms. Flash drive is a wider term than pen drive. Flash drive can be pen or USB drive. For example your memory card is a kind of flash drive. Even a chip in pen drive is a flash drive.
Pen Drive
The pen drive is a type of flash drive named for its small pen-like appearance. Pen drives can be inserted directly into a USB port without a USB cord. Due to its lack of a cord, a pen drive is extremely mobile and can be attached to a key chain or put in your pocket. Often pen drive is manufactured according fixed P/E cycles (program erase cycles). When your pen drive achieves this limit it will become automatically useless. Integrated flash drive has no such problem because in some computer systems it is working in place of hard disk.
What's the Difference Between Flash Drive and Pen Drive
Computer with low specification (hard disk, RAM and processor) takes long time to handle the pen drive same is the situation of external flash drive. While internal flash drive has no such problem. It works as a normal hard disk works.
Flash Drive
Generally speaking, a flash drive is any data storage device that holds data with non-movable parts. Before the inception of flash drives, computer users used floppy discs and CDs to store small amounts of data. When a computer user inserts a disk or CD into a computer, the computer reads the devices through movable parts, such as a laser scanning a CD. Since the flash drive has no moving parts, it is less susceptible to damage. Another advantage of the flash drive is that it is almost universally compatible with a variety of devices. To transfer data between two devices both devices need to have a USB port or USB adapter, but most contemporary computers and electronic products have a USB port. This means that in addition to providing backup storage on a computer flash drives can also be used to store information from video game consoles, mobile media devices, and cellular phones.
Name Recognition
According to the Phison company website, the term "pen drive" came into the computer vocabulary in 2001. Phison developed a removable data storage device they named "pen drive." Since then, a pen drive has incorrectly been synonymous with all USB flash drives.
Major Differences
The major difference between a pen drive and flash drive is that a pen drive is generally only used as a mobile USB storage device, whereas a flash drive has many different uses for data storage.
Another difference is that the pen drive always refers to a drive that can be plugged directly into a USB port.What's the Difference Between Flash Drive and Pen Drive
On the other hand, a flash drive may be accessible by a direct USB connection, a corded USB connection, or even stored internally inside a cell phone or mobile media device.
Both are storage medium and connects via usb port 2.0 or 3.0… Apart from this USB Hard drive is similar to internal hard disk in structure except with a casing. A USB flash drive is simply a solid state drive which has no movable parts. key difference :USB Hard drive stores data using spindles of disks that spin thousand of times every minute while in flash drive data is stored electronically,using millions of small gates.
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A stroke occurs when the brain is damaged after being deprived of blood by a blockage or a haemorrhage in the blood vessels. While strokes are often regarded as a by-product of advanced age, stroke patients in the UAE tend to be much younger than in Europe and other comparable regions. While most strokes in Europe occur in people aged between 60 and 75, in the Emirates the danger period is between the ages of 40 and 55 - which many people view as the prime of life.
It's welcome news that medical professionals and health authorities are taking the incidence of stroke seriously and are investing resources and expertise in the area. To that end, a dedicated stroke treatment centre will open at Al Qasimi Hospital in Sharjah early next year.
As The National reported yesterday, the new centre will have the latest equipment for the emergency treatment and rehabilitation of these patients. More importantly, it will have dedicated staff and streamlined, rehearsed procedures.
According to Dr Gunther Wihl, a consultant neurologist at The City Hospital in Dubai, professional treatment is essential to the recovery chances of stroke patients.
The time between the incident and the commencement of treatment is crucial: the shorter the better, but certainly it must occur within the first four-and-a-half hours for the patient to have a positive prognosis.
Many people recover completely or with minor disabilities, but stroke can be permanently disabling or fatal if it is not treated properly and quickly by people who know what they are doing.
The facility in Sharjah will be the second specialist centre in the UAE; the other is at Dubai's Rashid Hospital. As Dr Wihl points out, the nation needs more of them. There is also an urgent need for triage staff in all hospitals to be trained to recognise stroke patients on arrival at the emergency room, and to fast-track them for critical care.
Even with professional help at hand when it is needed, it is also important for people to know the symptoms of stroke, which can include, but are not limited to, sudden headache, loss of speech, numbness or paralysis down one side of the body, and confusion.
While it may be something of a cliché when it comes to medical advice, this is an occasion when swift action really will save lives.


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A ghoul is a monster from ancient Arabian folklore. Ghouls live in burial grounds and other uninhabited places. The English word comes from the Arabic name for the creature: الغول ghūl, which literally means "demon". The ghul is a devilish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis.
The female form is given as "ghouleh" in Muhawi and Kanaana (see ref below). The plural is "ghilan".
Ghul is also the name for shapeshifting demon that lives in the desert. The demon can take the form of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary travellers into the desert. It will then kill and eat them. The creature also preys on young children, robs graves, and eats the dead. Because of this habit, the word ghoul is sometimes used to refer to an ordinary human such as a grave robber, or to anyone who likes the macabre.
In Iran [change]
In Iranian mythologies, Ghouls are creatures very similar to humans, but larger. Usually they are less intelligent and not necessarily evil. Most Persian speakers use Ghul to describe large people (figuratively "giants"). This may or may not be considered an insult, depending on the situation.
How ghouls are shown [change]
Ghouls and ghoul-like creatures have been portrayed in different ways in fiction, including a series of dark fantasy, short stories by Brian McNaughton, a Michael Slade novel, "Ghoul", Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, The Chronicles of Narnia, the works of Caitlín R. Kiernan, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, and Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.
Morlocks are a fictional species of cannibalistic ghouls, created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, The Time Machine. The Morlocks, as well as another supposed offshoot of humans, the Eloi, exist in the future world in the year 802,701 A.D. in The Time Machine.
Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula has a character that acts much like a ghoul. The character is named Renfield. Under the vampire's influence, Renfield becomes his willing slave. He develops a craving to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. After being confined to an asylum, he considers eating a human hospital orderly, but finds he can only capture and consume flies, spiders, and the occasional bird.
In the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, a ghoul is a member of a nocturnal race that lives underground. Some ghouls were once human, but a diet of human corpses, and perhaps the tutelage of proper ghouls, changed them into horrific bestial humanoids. In the short story "Pickman's Model" (1927), the first of Lovecraft's ghoul stories, they are unutterably terrible monsters; however, in his earlier novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926), the ghouls are somewhat less disturbing, even comical at times, and both helpful and loyal to the protagonist. Richard Upton Pickman, a noteworthy Boston painter who disappeared mysteriously in "Pickman's Model", appears as a ghoul himself in Dream-Quest. Similar themes appear in "The Lurking Fear" (1922) and "The Rats in the Walls" (1924). Both of stories claim there are subterranean clans of degenerate, cannibals or carrion-eating humans.
In modern and contemporary fiction, ghouls are often confused with other types of undead, usually the mindless varieties of zombies. Although modern fiction (post-1954), particularly 1954's I Am Legend, suggests that the latter beings share cannibalistic habits with ghouls, it is nonetheless generally believed that vampires and zombies prefer live prey.
In Frank Herbert's Dune series, a Ghola is a deceased person who has been brought back to life, via a secret, almost illegal Tleilaxu technology. Traditionally, the Ghola is stripped of memories from his or her past life and taught new skills. Ghola are often sold to nobles by the Tleilaxu as servants and retainers. Given their highly superstitious nature, Fremen are distrustful of ghola, despite the potential usefulness of the living dead. The ambiguity as to whether or not latent memories of the "old self" are still present in the ghola's mind is a long-drawn debate throughout the story. It has been suggested that the term ghola originates in Arabic, as do other terms in the Dune series.
Movies and television [change]
Although many screenplays have featured ghouls, the first major motion picture of this theme was the 1933 British movie entitled The Ghoul. The actor Boris Karloff plays a dying Egyptologist who possesses an occult gem, known as The Eternal Light, which he believes will grant immortality if he is buried with it, and thereby able to present it to Anubis in the afterlife. Of course, his bickering covetous heirs and associates would rather keep the jewel for themselves. Karloff vows to rise from his grave and avenge himself against anyone who meddles with his plan, and he keeps this promise when one of his colleagues steals The Eternal Light after his death.
In 1968, George A. Romero's movie Night of the Living Dead combined reanimated corpses (zombies) with cannibalistic monsters (ghouls). With this, it created new movie monsters more terrifying than either of the two alone. The term "ghoul" was the one actually used in the movie. The term zombies came later, after the movie was released. Romero had never thought of them that way; he said he thought of the Caribbean creatures, when he heard the term zombies.
The 1976 Turkish movie 'Milk Brothers' (original story by H. Rahmi Gurpinar's 'Ghoul') is a Turkish comedy. Here, a ghoul is a monster with extra power. Ghoul is a monster that was used to frighten little children in the old times, so here the ghoul is used to frighten not only little children, but as well big people.
The 1975 British movie The Ghoul (unrelated to the Karloff movie) stars Peter Cushing as a defrocked missionary whose son has developed a taste for human flesh while traveling in India. As the son's mind and body degenerate, Cushing has several young people dispatched and prepared as food for his offspring, whom he keeps locked up in the attic.
The 1975 anthology movie The Monster Club featured a scene where a village of ghouls stumbled upon by an unwary traveller (Stuart Whitman), who temporarily escapes the creatures with the help of one half-human girl, but he is recaptured when it turns out that the ghouls have representatives inhabiting our normal human world.
In the anime and manga series Hellsing, ghouls are zombie-like creatures that are created when a "chipped" (technological) vampire drains a victim to death, or, in the Manga, where a vampire drains the blood of someone who is not a virgin. If fatally wounded, they instantly crumble to dust. They are under the control of the vampire who bites them, eat human flesh, and are intelligent enough to use firearms. It is not rare to see a vampire make a small army of Ghouls for attack or defense.
The Batman comics-based franchise, including the 2005 movie, Batman Begins, has an antagonist named, Rā's al-Ghūl, whose name derives from the original Arabic name for the star Algol in the constellation Perseus meaning "the monster's (i.e. Medusa's) head".
Other pages [change]
Footnotes and references [change]
- Muhawi, Ibrahim, and Sharif Kanaana. Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1988
- ""ghoul"". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. _URL_ Retrieved January 22, 2006.
- ""ghoul"". Encyclopædia Britannica. _URL_ Retrieved January 22, 2006.
- "ghoul", Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
- Jim Kaler (Prof. Emeritus of Astronomy, University of Illinois). "Algol". STARS. _URL_ Retrieved February 18, 2006.


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St. Philip the Evangelist Anglican Church
Charlotte, North Carolina
Your Link to the Past, Your Bridge to the Future, Your Shelter in a time of Storm
Who is St. Philip the Evangelist?
St. Philip the Evangelist is an important figure in the early Christian Church and should not be confused with St. Philip the Apostle and Disciple of Jesus. St. Philip the Evangelist was one of the first seven deacons of the church (a protodeacon), he was ordained by the twelve Apostles. When his fellow deacon Stephen was martyred, Philip moved to Samaria and began to preach and perform miracles among the Samaritans. His obedience to Christ's commission to take the Gospel to the Gentiles inspired the Apostles. St. Philip is also recorded evangelizing the Ethiopian Eunuch, and Simon Magus. Holy Scripture also records that St. Paul visited his home, and that St. Philip had four virgin daughters who had the gift of prophecy.
Christian tradition tells us that prior to his recorded ministry St. Philip was one of the seventy preachers that Jesus sent out. This event is recorded in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 10, and is why Philip is called an Apostle of the Seventy. He is also said to have been consecrated a Bishop by the Apostles and sent to Tralles in Asia Minor where he died in his old age.
Tradition also tells us that Philip's daughter Hermione, a propehtess, served Christ by ministering to the sick. She was assisted in this medical ministry by her sister Eukhidia. During Roman persecution of the church Hermione was arrested and beheaded, thus becoming a martyr.
St. Philip the Evangelist is sometimes called St. Philip the Deacon, and Apostle Philip of the Seventy. His feast day is commemorated on October 11th, and on June 6th in some traditions. The feast day to commemorate the Apostles of the Seventy is January 4th. Hermione is commemorated on September 4th, the day of her martyrdom.


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MW
The Shakti Sthala solar power project in Tumakuru district, Karnataka, is now the second-largest solar power plant in India, having previously been the largest of its type in the world.
Ultra Mega Solar Park – 1,000MW
Based in Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh – another leading Indian state for solar power – the 1,000-MW Ultra Mega Solar Park spans an area of more than 5,932 acres.
Rewa Solar Power Project – 750MW
The 750-MW Rewa Solar Power Project is being constructed in Madhya Pradesh. The Rewa solar power plant is one of the major power suppliers to the Delhi Metro – a mass rapid transit system in India's capital city.
Rewa is the country's first and only solar project until now to be funded from the Clean Technology Fund and also India's only solar power plant to obtain a concessional loan from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.
Kamuthi solar power plant – 648MW
The Kamuthi solar power plant in Ramanathapuram district, Tamil Nadu, is the fifth-largest plant of its kind in India. The plant is cleaned by every day a robotic system that has its own solar panels to charge it.
India's Focus Areas
Methanol and Biomass:
- Utilizing other alternatives like methanol-based economy and biomass.
- Bio-CNG vehicles with 20% blending in petrol is also a target for the government.
- Generating energy from Biomass is a better option since it will clean the cities and also decrease our energy dependence. Fuels created from biomass have a high calorific value and are cleaner than traditional biomass.
The Twin Challenge
- India has a twin challenge of providing more as well as cleaner energy to the population in India.
- It should focus on getting into the manufacturing of solar panels under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat initiative because the demand is to generate jobs and supply decentralised energy to all the households in India.
- Developing the whole supply chain of all the components besides the manufacturing sector.
Hydrogen based FCV
- It is likely to change the landscape of renewables and moving towards Hydrogen Based Fuel Cells Vehicles (FCV) is another area of focus.
- It is the practice of developing effective ways to provide variable renewable energy (RE) to the grid.
India's clean-energy initiatives have the wind at their back thanks to global advances in green technology—especially solar power, wind power, and energy storage. These technologies are progressing exponentially and have entered a virtuous cycle: As prices for these technologies fall, demand for them rises, and as production is expanded to meet demand, prices fall some more, all of which contributes to accelerating adoption.
Two burning questions for India — and the world — are how fast the use of renewables and related clean energy technologies can scale, and to what extent can they mitigate the increase in fossil fuel use. As the second-largest coal-producing and -consuming country on earth and the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, India's transition from carbon-intensive resources is a critical front in the global climate change fight.
India has reduced its emission intensity by 21 percent over 2005 levels. Over the last decade, India focused mostly on adding solar and wind energy capacity as fast as possible. The next phase will require deep structural reforms to create a cleaner, more flexible and more efficient power system.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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October 7, 2011
Four gull carcasses collected from beaches in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (National Lakeshore) have tested positive for type E botulism toxin (avian botulism). Type E botulism is a powerful neurotoxin that has been linked to large bird die-offs throughout several areas of the Great Lakes in past years. More than 200 birds have already been found dead on National Lakeshore beaches this summer, and based on trends from recent years, that number is expected to increase this fall.
Avian botulism is a paralytic, often fatal disease of birds that results when they ingest toxin produced by the native Clostridium botulinum type E; an anaerobic bacterium found in nutrient-rich lake bottoms. The bacterium spores rest in the gills and digestive tracts of fish living in many North American lakes. The spores can remain viable for years and are harmless until the correct environmental conditions prompt them to germinate. Type E botulism occurs only when the spores germinate and the bacteria multiply and produce toxin. Changes in the Great Lakes ecosystem have increased the growth of the botulism bacterium, which has led to an increase in birds poisoned by eating toxin-tainted fish or invertebrates.
The National Lakeshore is conducting a study of avian botulism to determine whether any steps can be taken to control outbreaks. Dead birds and fish are identified, counted, and collected for analysis. Dedicated National Lakeshore volunteers have helped discover that die-offs begin in the heat of the summer and reach their peak during the fall bird migrations. It is believed that the large flocks of migrating birds ingest the toxin in offshore waters, where it has been accumulating throughout the summer, resulting in the fall die-offs. These are usually detected when strong autumn storms blow the dead birds to shore. At this time last year, nearly 300 birds had been found dead, and then from early October to mid-November, another 385 birds washed ashore.
In addition to actively monitoring the shoreline for sick and dead birds, the park is collaborating with scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern Michigan College's Water Studies Institute, to conduct studies in the Lake Michigan nearshore environment to better understand the mechanisms of toxin transmission. Many of these studies are funded through President Obama's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to assure that Great Lakes beaches, fish, and sources of public drinking water are safe, and that the ecosystems that fish and wildlife depend upon are healthy.
Lake Michigan beaches within the National Lakeshore remain safe for swimming and recreation, however, park visitors should exercise caution upon encountering bird or fish carcasses. Type E botulism is not an infectious disease. It is a poison. You must ingest the toxin, usually by eating an undercooked infected fish or animal, to become ill. You are not at risk for contracting botulism by swimming in Lake Michigan. Visitors bringing pets to the park should keep them leashed and away from dead animals on the beach. Pets may be poisoned if they eat dead birds or fish containing botulism.
For more information, please call the National Lakeshore at _PHONE_ or visit their website at _URL_ Also, check out their Facebook page at _URL_


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Linearly Ordered Groups and CH
26 Feb 2021 -
Earlier today Jonathan Alcaraz gave a GSS talk about Linearly Ordered (LO) Groups, which are a fun topic with connections to dynamics, topology, geometric group theory, etc. This reminded me of a problem I told myself to think about a while ago, and so I decided to finally do that. After a bit of thought, a friend from CMU (Pedro Marun) and I were able to figure it out. This post is going to be somewhat more meandering than usual (if you can imagine such a thing), because I want to showcase what the flow of thoughts was in solving the problem. At the end I'll clean things up and write them linearly.
I guess we should start with what a LO Group is, but it's pretty much what it says on the tin:
A (Left) Linearly Ordered Group is a group $G$ equipped with a total order $\leq$ which is compatible with (left) multiplication in the following sense:
\(g_1 \leq g_2 \quad \implies \quad hg_1 \leq hg_2\)
I first heard of LO Groups from an exercise in Marker's "Model Theory: An Introduction", where an exercise has you use compactness to show every torsion free abelian group admits a compatible linear order. I heard about them again on mse, to the surprise of nobody. Somebody asked for examples of finitely generated left orderable groups. I knew about the abelian example because of Marker, but I was curious about nonabelian examples.
This led me down a rabbit hole of papers to skim, including Katheryn Mann's "Left Orderable Groups that Don't Act on the Line" (see here). This paper mentions a classical result:
A countable group is LO if and only if it embeds in $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$, the group of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of $\mathbb{R}$.
The order on $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$ is as follows:
Enumerate \(\mathbb{Q} = \{q_n\}\). Then we say $f \lt g$ exactly when $f q_i \lt g q_i$, where $i$ is least with $f q_i \neq g q_i$ (this is more or less the lex order on $\prod_{\omega} \mathbb{R}$).
As soon as I saw this, I wondered if anything was special about "countable" here. If we assume the Continuum Hypothesis (CH) fails, what can we say about other LO groups of size $\lt \mathfrak{c}$? Do they all have to embed in $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$ as well?
I keep a list of "problems to think about", so I added this and left some brief thoughts before going back to answering mse questions.
When Jonathan brought up this theorem in his talk, it reminded me to think about that problem. I found a proof of the result to see if it immediately worked for larger cardinalities, and much to my surprise it relies heavily on the countability of $G$! This is a summary of a proof from Clay and Rolfsen's "Ordered Groups and Topology" (see here), Theorem 2.23.
$\ulcorner$ Let $G$ be countable and LO. Then by looking at $G \times \mathbb{Q}$ with the lex order, we can assume $G$'s ordering is dense. Moreover, it is easy to see that $G$ is torsion free, so for any element $g$, there is always some $g_L \lt g$ and some $g_R \gt g$ ($g^{-1}$ works for one, and $g^2$ for the other).
So $G$ is a countable dense linear order without endpoints! If you're a logician your heart should be leaping now. Cantor's famed back and forth argument shows that any such ordering is isomorphic (as an order) to $(\mathbb{Q}, \lt)$. It was really exciting to see this familiar face pop up in this proof! But since $(G, \lt) \cong (\mathbb{Q}, \lt)$ embeds densely in $(\mathbb{R}, \lt)$, we can extend the left action of $G$ on itself to a homeomorphism of $\mathbb{R}$. $\lrcorner$
This theorem relies on a back and forth argument for most of the heavy lifting, and that argument fails spectacularly for uncountable cardinalities. In fact, for any uncountable $\kappa$ there are $2^\kappa$ nonisomorphic dense linear orders without endpoints of cardinality $\kappa$ (see here, for instance). This made me start wondering if the theorem is actually false for groups of size, say, $\aleph_1$.
I texted Pedro, a close friend and set theorist, with some ideas that he pretty quickly found flaws in. He had a good idea, though, and reminded me that $\mathbb{R}$ doesn't contain any chains of length $\omega_1$. That is, there's no monotone function $f : \omega_1 \to \mathbb{R}$.
I thought if we could find a LO group $G$ with some $\omega_1$ chain, then we should be done. My thought process was baiscally:
Of course, this turned out to be wrong too. It's not hard to find homeomorphisms $f \lt g$ where $fx \not \lt gx$. It was a good start, though, on the way to the right answer.
If nothing else, we should just build such a group to show we know how, right? This is a simple compactness argument:
So we've successfully found a LO group of size $\aleph_1$ which contains an increasing chain of length $\omega_1$… But didn't we say this doesn't actually solve our problem?
This is where I remembered a fact from Descriptive Set Theory: For a compact metric space $X$, we actually know that \(\text{Homeo}(X)\) is polish (see Kechris's "Classical Descriptive Set Theory", I.9B, example 8). There's a classic argument that $\mathbb{R}$ doesn't contain any chains of length $\omega_1$ which seems to only use separability1, and the dream would be to show this continues to hold in a general polish space.
Of course, we also need to check that \(\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})\) is actually polish. The above theorem only guarantees polishness for compact spaces $X$, and the reals are (among other things) not compact.
First, I searched for "borel ordering" in Kechris's book, and found a reference to Harrington, Marker, and Shelah's "Borel Orderings" (see here). Corollary 3.2 gives exactly what we want2, but it's phrased in terms of subsets of $\mathbb{R}$… But now we know what to search for, and we quickly find a mse question which cites the paper and makes me feel confident that I'm not misinterpreting it.
All that's left is to show $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$ is really polish, but our journey ends like it began, on mse.
As a nice exercise, can you show that the order on $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$ really is borel? That is, can you show
\[\{ (f,g) ~|~ f \leq g \} \subseteq \text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R}) \times \text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})\]
is a borel subset?
Ok. Now that the exposition is out of the way, we're holding a draft of a proof in our heads. It was a wandering path, but look how deceptively simple it looks once we organize our thoughts and write it down:
Theorem ($\lnot \mathsf{CH}$):
There exists a LO group of size $\aleph_1$ which does not embed in $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$
$\ulcorner$ Since $(\mathbb{Z}, \lt)$ is an infinite LO group, a standard logical compactness argument furnishes an LO group of size $\aleph_1$ which contains an increasing sequence \(\{g_\alpha\}\) of length $\omega_1$. Call such a group $G$.
Then since \(\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})\) is a polish space (cf. here) and its ordering is borel, a theorem of Shelah and Harrington (cf. Corollary 3.2 here) shows that no chain of length $\omega_1$ can exist in $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$.
Since $G$ contains such a chain, it cannot embed into $\text{Homeo}_+(\mathbb{R})$. $\lrcorner$
Can you believe that teeny little proof took hours of reading and thinking (times two people, no less!) to figure out? It really makes you appreciate how much work goes into


Signal is the state-of-the-art application of choice for secure text messaging and secure voice and video phone calls.
To set it up on your phone, download it here:
After you install it, Signal will ask to access your contacts and your microphone and camera. You must allow it do so this for the application to work.
 1. To use Signal, find icon on your phone:
2. When it opens up, you'll need to hit the icon on the right that kind of looks like a pen and piece of paper:
3. Signal automatically finds your contacts that also have Signal installed. If they do not have Signal installed, you can send them a download link.
4. Once Signal finds your accessible contacts – that's it! You are configured and ready to go. Just start talking :-)
November 13-14, 2021 (Online)


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Energy Efficiency and Alternative Energy
North Carolina invests significant state resources to increase energy efficiency and to promote the use of alternative energy. The N.C. ARC Program, in partnership with the N.C. Energy Office, the Energy Center at Appalachian State University, and others plays an important role in North Carolina's efforts through implementing initiatives identified in the ARC Energy Blueprint.
North Carolina Green Economy Resource Directory
The purpose of the N.C. Green Economy Resource Directory is to highlight local, regional, state, and national organizations that provide support, guidance, funding, incentives and education for North Carolina's green economy. Designed with collaboration in mind, suggestions are expected.
Energy Efficiency in Appalachia
Prepared for ARC by the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, March 2009
The Energy Efficiency in Appalachia report assesses the long-term energy-efficiency gains that could be achieved by implementing energy-efficiency policies throughout Appalachia. The report examines energy-efficiency resources in Appalachia; the timeframe for harnessing these resources; and the policies and programs that could most effectively translate these resources into energy savings, as well as the impact those policies and programs could have on jobs and wages in Appalachia. It addresses several essential questions:
- How big are the energy-efficiency resources in Appalachia?
- How quickly can these energy-efficiency resources be realized?
- What policies and programs can most effectively translate these resources into energy savings?
- What impact will such policies and programs have on jobs and wages in Appalachia?
North Carolina Resources:
Energy Center at Appalachian State University Energy Center
N.C. Energy Office
N.C. Green Business Fund
N.C. Solar Center at NCSU
N.C. Sustainable Energy Association
N.C. Wind Energy at Appalachian State University
Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance
Southeastern Energy Society
National Alternative Energy Resources:
Alternative Energy Institute
American Coalition for Ethanol
American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)
American Solar Energy Society
American Wind Energy Association
Clean Energy Alliance - National Alliance of Clean Energy Business Incubators, National Renewable Energy Lab, US DOE
National Biodiesel Board
National Renewable Energy Lab
Renewable Fuels Association
Solar Energy Industries Association
U.S. Department of Energy: Renewables
National Energy Efficiency Resources:
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy
Consortium for Energy Efficiency
Energy Star (Joint program of the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy)
Greenwire - Energy and Environmental News
National Association of Counties: Energy Efficiency Management Resources
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
U.S. Department of Energy, Efficiency and Renewable Program: State Energy Program
U.S. Department of Energy: Energy Efficiency Pages
U.S. EPA National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency


EENI Global Business School
Business in Indonesia, Jakarta
Syllabus of the Subject: Foreign Trade and Business in Indonesia - Jakarta
 1. Introduction to the Republic of Indonesia (Southeast Asia)
 2. Indonesian Economy
 1. Indonesian Petrol and Gas
 2. Indonesian industrial states
 3. Infrastructure facilities in Indonesia
 4. Indonesian Banking sector
 3. Indonesian International Trade (Import, Export)
 1. Sabang Freeport zone
 4. Doing Business in Jakarta
 5. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Indonesia
 6. Case Study:
 1. Telkom Group
 2. PT Panggung Electric Citrabuana
 7. Indonesian Muslim Businesspeople
 1. Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno
 2. Abdul Latief
 3. Aburizal Bakrie
 4. Basrizal Koto
 5. I.R. Ciputra
 8. Access to the Indonesian Market
 9. Business Plan for Indonesia
The purposes of the Subject "Foreign Trade and Business in the Republic of Indonesia" are the following:
 1. To analyse the Indonesian Economy and Foreign Trade (Import, Export, FDI)
 2. To know the business opportunities in the Republic of Indonesia
 3. To explore the Indonesian trade relations with the country of the student
 4. To know the Indonesian Free Trade Agreements (FTA)
 5. To examine the profile of Indonesian businesspeople and companies
 6. To develop a business plan for the Indonesian Market
The Subject "Foreign Trade and Business in Indonesiabelongs to the following Online Higher Education Programs taught by EENI Global Business School:
 1. Doctorates: Islamic Business, Asian Business, World Trade
 2. Diploma: Business in the ASEAN Markets
 3. Masters: Business in Asia, Muslim Countries, International Business, Foreign Trade
Online Students, Master in International Business and Foreign Trade
EENI Online Masters and Doctorates in Global Business adapted to the Indonesia, Master, International Business, Foreign Trade Indonesian Students
Learning materials in Courses, Masters, Doctorates in International Business in English (Study Master Doctorate Business in Spanish Indonesia Study, Master in International Business in French Indonesie)
 1. Credits of the Subject "Foreign Trade and Business in Indonesia": 3 ECTS Credits
 2. Duration: three weeks
EENI Global Business School in Bahasa Indonesia: Master Bisnis Internasional
Sample of the Subject - Doing Business in Indonesia
Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno Indonesian Businessman (Course Master)
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Description of the Subject: Business in Indonesia
Transport Corridors
 1. Access to the Nanning-Singapore Economic Corridor
 1. Pan-Beibu Gulf Economic Zone
 2. Access to the East-West Economic Corridor (Myanmar-Thailand-Laos-Vietnam)
Indonesian Market Access and Trade Agreements
 1. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
 1. ASEAN Free-Trade Area (AFTA)
 2. East ASEAN Growth Area
 3. Free Trade Agreements (ASEAN member): Australia-New Zealand, Canada, the People's Republic of China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, the United States, European Union, and Pakistan
 4. European Union-Indonesia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
 5. Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT)
 2. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
 3. India-Indonesia Economic Cooperation Agreement
 4. Trade Preferential System of the OIC
 5. Islamic Centre for Development of Trade (ICDT)
 6. Indian-Ocean Rim Association (IORA)
Trade Facilitation Programs
 1. World Trade Organisation (WTO)
 2. Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement)
 3. Agreement on Preshipment Inspection
 4. Agreement on Safeguards (SG)
 5. Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA)
 2. World Customs Organisation (WCO)
 1. Revised Kyoto Convention
 3. Convention Relating to Temporary Admission (Istanbul Convention)
 4. International Maritime Organisation (IMO)
 1. Customs Convention on Containers (CCC)
The Republic of Indonesia:
 2. Total population of Indonesia: 255 million people
 3. The main Indonesian ethnic group are Javanese (42% of the Indonesian population)
 4. Indonesian Diaspora: 8 million of Indonesians
 5. Indonesian Capital: Jakarta (10 million people)
 6. 30 million people live on the island of Java, the most populous island of the World
 7. Indonesian land borders: Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia
 9. Bahasa Indonesia (Malay) is the correct term for Indonesian language (Official language)
 1. Other Indonesian Languages are Javanese (84% of the Indonesian population) and Sundanese (34%)
 2. More than 700 regional languages
 10. Type of Government of Indonesia: Unitary Presidential constitutional Republic
 11. Area of Indonesia: 1,904,569 square kilometres
 12. Indonesian independence: 1949 (The Netherlands)
Pan-Beibu Gulf Economic Zone, China, ASEAN, Brunei Philippines Indonesia
 1. Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence): Shafi
 2. The Indonesian Constitution implements freedom of religion
 3. Other religions in Indonesia:
 1. Hinduism (3 million)
 2. Christians (20 million)
 3. Buddhism
 4. Confucianism
Indonesia is a member of the Islamic Civilisation.
Indonesian Economy:
 1. Indonesia is rich in natural resources
 3. 90% of the Indonesian population works in agriculture
 4. The fluctuations in the global prices of traditional export commodities have led to a change in the recent years in the Indonesian economy structure
 5. Indonesia produces various types of cars, lorries, buses, and motorcycles under Licensing from foreign producer.
 6. Indonesia also produces electronic equipment and electrical appliances
 7. The Indonesian Aviation industry has been growing, and new production lines are coming on-stream as well its Universal Maintenance Centre for Overhaul of aircraft engines. The aircraft produced are for national use as well as for export
 9. Tourism is gaining a more important sector as a foreign exchange earner
 10. Currency of Indonesia: Indonesian rupiah (Rp) (IDR)
Foreign Trade of Indonesia.
 1. Petrol and gas contribute to 70% of total export earnings and 60% of the Indonesian Government revenues
 3. In the recent years some steps have been taken to promote and stimulate the non-petroleum exports, which include handicrafts, textiles, precious metals, tea, tobacco, cement, fertilizers as well as manufactured products
 4. Air transport and sea ports are being widespread to cater the growing traffic on both local and International sectors, of passengers as well as freight
 5. The Port of Jakarta is the largest Indonesian seaport and one of the largest seaports in the Java Sea basin, with an annual traffic capacity of 45 million tonnes of cargo and 4,000,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit)
Economic Organisations. Indonesia is a member of:
 1. Islamic Development Bank (IsDB)
 2. Asian Development Bank (ADB)
 3. Economic Social Commission Asia-Pacific (ESCAP)
 4. Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
 5. United Nations (UN)
 6. World Bank (WB)
 7. World Trade Organisation (WTO)
 8. International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Samples - Business in Indonesia
Indonesia Telkom Ethics (Master Doctorate)
Indonesia Case Study
Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) ASEAN. Sumatra Investment and Trade Survey
Indian-Ocean Rim Association IORA, Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, the Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania...
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC. Trade and Investment Liberalisation. Bogor Goals
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
Indonesian language
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Logrotate can work on individual files or wildcarded files (*.log, for example) in a specified directory, but does it inherently have the ability to traverse a directory tree of arbitrary depth and process files it finds?
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1 Answer 1
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No, it doesn't. You can wildcard the directories though so if your tree has a small-ish known depth you could do something like:
 /a/* /a/*/* /a/*/*/* {
 rotate 5
If you only have logs at the leaf only /a/*/*/* is needed.
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Jurors are selected from a list of registered voters, persons holding valid driver's licenses, and persons with state identification cards provided to Richland County by the State Election Commission. The County uses a computerized jury selection program to ensure that jurors are selected entirely at random.
The juror selection for the Magistrate's Courts only selects jurors who live in the area served by a particular Magistrate's Court, while the Civil and Criminal Courts select jurors from throughout the entire county. Once selected, summonses or notices are created and mailed out to the persons selected for service.
You have a choice to serve or not serve if you are over sixty-five years old, or if you were inadvertently summoned after having served within the past three calendar years as a juror. Additionally, you may be disqualified from jury service if:
- You have been convicted in a state or federal court of a crime punishable by more than one year of imprisonment and your civil rights have not been restored
- You are unable to read, write, speak or understand the English language to a degree sufficient to allow you to act as a juror
- You have less than a 6th grade (or equivalent) education
- You are unable to render efficient jury service due to severe mental or physical infirmity
If one of these exemptions applies and you have received a Summons for jury duty, please contact the Jury Coordinator as soon as possible to be excused. Your name will not be removed from the jury pool unless you contact the Jury Coordinator and request the exemption.


Why do we still use 18-year old BLEU?
The BLEU metric was introduced in 2002. In the 18 years since, Machine Translation (MT) and other aspects of NLP have changed radically; MT systems in 2020 work differently than MT systems in 2002, and produce much better translations. But MT evaluation has not changed; people still use the 18-year old BLEU metric.
So why has techology evolved but not evaluation techniques? Plenty of alternatives to BLEU have been proposed. WMT has a yearly "metrics" challenge where people propose new evaluation metrics, and every year many metrics are proposed which correlate better with human judgements than BLEU does. In recent years, WMT also has had a "quality estimation" track, which also has many interesting ideas for evaluation. But outwith these tracks, everyone still uses BLEU.
Similarly the ROUGE metric for summarisation was proposed in 2003, and it is still dominates summarisation evaluation despite the fact that the evidence that it is meaningful is much weaker than for BLEU.
So why is the NLP research community so reluctant to change its evaluation techniques, even when new techniques seem to be produce more meaningful results?
Science: Strong evidence base?
Perhaps we continue to use BLEU because there is a strong evidence base for its validity in predicting human judgements. My 2018 meta-analysis of BLEU's validity summarised results from 284 correlations between BLEU and human evaluations, which were reported in 34 papers. This extensive evidence base allows us to use BLEU when it is appropriate and not otherwise. So perhaps researchers are reluctant to switch to different metrics and evaluation techniques because these other techniques lack this kind of evidence base?
If this was the reason for BLEU's continued dominance, then the research community needs to have a discussion about how to solve the "chicken and egg" problem where we don't build up evidence of the validity of new metrics because people refuse to use them.
However, I personally dont believe the existence of a good evidence base is why people continue to use BLEU. This is because (A) many researchers ignore the evidence base and use BLEU in contexts such as NLGand German-English MT where the evidence base says that BLEU should not be used; and (B) ROUGE is dominant in summarisation evaluation despite the fact that it's supporting evidence base is much weaker than BLEU's.
Gamesmanship: We want a scoring function, not evaluation of utility?
Perhaps the real reason for the continued use of BLEU is that the research community isnt actually very interested in evaluating (or predicting) how useful an NLP system or model is. Instead, what it wants is a simple "scoring function" which enables researchers to publish endless papers about how their system does 1% better on a data set.
To put it crudely, perhaps NLP researchers focus on winning contests where they show that their model gets a better score than other models. And they dont really care whether the score is meaningful or not, they just take the scoring function as a given (like the scoring function in a computer game) and try to beat the other players in the contest.
If this is the case, then we would expect that whenever a new series of contests open up, whatever scoring function is chosen for these initial contests will persist and become established as the proper way to keep score in such contests. Indeed, attempts to change the scoring function on the basis that it is not "realistic" will be resisted by established players who have put a lot of time and energy into understanding the original scoring function.
In other words, BLEU is used because it was the first plausible metric for MT, and researchers dont want to change to other metrics because they understand and are comfortable with BLEU.
I suspect there is a lot of truth to this perspective. It certainly does explain why it is so difficult to dislodge established metrics even if new ones are proposed which are much better at predicting utility or human judgements.
Implications for Evaluation Research
I'm involved in a few different initiatives about evaluation, and I must admit that the above worries me. After all, there isnt much point in developing great new evaluation techniques if the research community will refuse to use them!
Most of my efforts are focused on human evaluation, and I think people who conduct human evaluations are interested in new ideas and understanding what constitutes best practice (eg van der Lee et al 2019). But I am beginning to wonder if it is almost impossible to get the NLP community to use a new BLEU-like metric for an established task.
2 thoughts on "Why do we still use 18-year old BLEU?
 1. Excellent post. My opinion is that BLEU is still widely used because if is easy to compute…
 To answer your last point: maybe a good initiative would be that NLP (and specifically NLG) industrial providers unite to define a real metric that correctly reflects user needs. This would be at least a powerful argument to replace BLEU in evaluation tasks.
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HESS Strategic Plan
Texas Tech University and the Department of Health, Exercise and Sport Sciences are committed to providing excellence in teaching, research and service. Our nationally and internationally recognized faculty lead the way in offering the highest quality educational experience to intelligent, motivated students. Our students and our faculty share a passion for working with people to improve their quality-of-life across the lifespan. Our research efforts are dedicated to answering questions related to disease and disability prevention, human performance, health enhancement and maintenance, motor development and control, management of collegiate and professional sports and effective teaching across the age span. Our instructional efforts are dedicated to the transfer of knowledge as we prepare our students to assume their roles in improving the health and well-being of an increasingly diverse society. Visit this page often for updates on departmental activities and items of interest; delve deeper to discover the many facets of the Department of Health, Exercise and Sport Sciences at Texas Tech University and what we have to offer you today and in the future.
Committed to excellence in teaching, research, and service, the Department of Health, Exercise, & Sport Sciences promotes intellectual, personal and professional development and strives to enhance quality of life through the advancement of knowledge in health and human performance.
The department will be nationally recognized for its promotion of health and human performance through its scholarship in teaching, research and service. The Department of Health, Exercise, and Sport Sciences values the following:
- Promotion of physical activity
- Development of health and human performance
- Advancement and application of knowledge
- Pursuit of excellence
- Respect for others
- Creativity and innovation
- Academic and intellectual freedom
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Home > Technology > Content
About Differential Scanning Calorimeter（DSC) measuring oxidation induction time(part 2）
Nov 23, 2018
OIT（oxidation induction time） application:
Although the oxidation induction period is a test method for the plastics industry, it can be used in the CCL industry for rapid testing of the heat-resistant oxygen aging properties of CCL, providing a strong basis for formula screening and guiding research and development.
2 Polyolefin materials are commonly used for the protection and insulation of optical cables and cables, and the thermal oxidative stability of polyolefins used on optical cables and cables can be used to judge their lifetime, and the level of material stabilization can be evaluated by the oxidation induction period.
The test is described in the following aspects:
1 test instrument:
DSC-500 Differential Scanning Calorimeter
2 According to the standard:
ISO 11357-6:2008
Plastics -- Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) -- Part 6: Determination of oxidation induction time (isothermal OIT) and oxidation induction temperature (dynamic OIT)
3 principle overview:
Oxidation induction time (isothermal OIT):
The sample and reference were warmed at a constant rate in an inert atmosphere. When the specified temperature is reached, switch to the same flow rate of oxygen or air. The sample was then held at this constant temperature until an oxidation reaction was shown on the thermal analysis curve. Isothermal OIT is the time interval between the start of oxygen or air to oxidation. The starting point of oxidation is indicated by the sudden exotherm of the sample. It is embodied in the DSC curve.
Oxidation induced temperature (dynamic OIT):
The sample and reference were warmed at a constant rate in an oxygen or air atmosphere until an oxidation reaction was shown on the thermal analysis curve. Dynamic OIT is the temperature at which the oxidation reaction begins. The starting point of oxidation is indicated by the sudden increase in exotherm of the sample, which can be observed by the DSC curve.
4 crucibles:
Place the sample in the opening or in a sealed, but ventilated bowl. It is best to use aluminum crucibles.
5 gas flow rate:
The gas flow rate is usually 50 ± 5 ml / min. The following is an example of isothermal OIT:
6 Take the isothermal OIT as an example to measure the main steps:
1.Nitrogen gas for 5 minutes before starting to heat up
2.20 ° C / min heating rate, the temperature is selected as much as 10 times the integral temperature
3.When the OIT is less than 10min and greater than 60min, it should be retested at lower and higher temperatures respectively.
4.Constant temperature 3min when the set temperature is reached
5.After the end of the constant temperature, switch the oxygen at the same flow rate, and continue to constant temperature until at least 2 minutes after the significant change point of the exotherm occurs.
6.test completed
7. Example curve:
Note: 1 The calibration of the isothermal OIT point is the intersection of a smooth curve before oxygenation and a smooth curve after oxidation of the sample (tangential analysis)
2 The higher the temperature of the sample, the shorter the oxidation induction time; the faster the heating rate, the higher the temperature during the oxidation induction period. The oxidation induction time and the oxidation induction temperature are also related to the surface area of the sample subjected to oxidation.
It is known from the above curve that the DSC curve extends downward at 11.6 min after oxygenation, which is an exothermic phenomenon, that is, the oxidation reaction of the sample occurs, that is, the oxidation induction period of the sample is 11.6 min.
Welcome to choose our Differential Scanning Calorimeter:


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As a provider for high-performance computing, SCART operates a Linux-cluster of 1536 cores and 6 TByte RAM in order to solve research problems of both industrial partners as well as research institutions on a nation-wide level. Simulation projects can be booked on a contractual basis.
Several numerical methods for Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations, Detached-Eddy Simulations (DES), Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) and Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) are available on the SCART cluster.
Various test facilities such as the Tunnel Simulation Facility (TSG), the Sidewind Facility (SWG), the Do728 Cabin Test Facility (Do728) and the Water-Towing Tank Facility (WSG) are operated. Additionally, sophisticated measurement techniques such as Hotwire Anemometry (HWA), Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA), Phase Doppler Anemometry (PDA) and various types of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) are available. Validation experiments and measurement campaigns can be booked on a contractual basis.
Validation Data Base
A validation data base containing selected results of experiments, Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) and highly resolved Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) will soon be provided for validation purposes.
Doctoral and Student Program
Doctoral studies and internships are offered for outstanding students who wish to carry out advanced research in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. The program is designed to provide stipends to doctoral, master and bachelor students who are motivated to address fundamental and applied flow problems of interest for the transportation industry.


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Earth, the mean radius is 6,371.009 km (≈3,958.761 mi; ≈3,440.069 nmi).
If the meridional mean and the mean of the two equatorial axes (which, for Earth, are equal) are averaged together, the mean radius approximation of the average great-circle circumference is found:
This is the equivalent great-circle radius of an ellipsoid, which for Earth is 6,372.797 km (≈3,959.873 mi; ≈3,441.035 nmi).
A closed-form solution exists for a spheroid:
where and is the surface area of the spheroid.
For Earth, the authalic radius is 6,_PHONE_ km (≈3,958.760 mi; ≈3,440.069 nmi).
For Earth, the volumetric radius equals 6,_PHONE_ km (≈3,958.760 mi; ≈3,440.069 nmi).
Another mean radius is the rectifying radius, giving a sphere with circumference equal to the perimeter of the ellipse described by any polar cross section of the ellipsoid. This requires an elliptic integral to find, given the polar and equatorial radii:
The rectifying radius is equivalent to the meridional mean, which is defined as the average value of M:
For integration limits of [0…π/2], the integrals for rectifying radius and mean radius evaluate to the same result, which, for Earth, amounts to 6,_PHONE_ km (≈3,956.545 mi; ≈3,438.147 nmi).
The meridional mean is well approximated by the semicubic mean of the two axes:
yielding, again, 6,_PHONE_ km; or less accurately by the quadratic mean of the two axes:
about 6,367.454 km; or even just the mean of the two axes:
about 6,367.445 km.


Sri Krishna bended the rules of war to defeat the enemy?
Q: There are many occasions when Krishna advocates for bending the rules of war to defeat the enemy? Should he not practice what he preaches?
About the rules of the war, in the olden times, the rules of the war were well defined. Some of the rules were that war cannot be continued after the sunset, a person should not be attacked if he is not on a chariot or unarmed.
In the evening all of them used to take bath in the same lake!. The lake is still there in Kurushetra. Its called Brahmasaraovar.
Kauravas broke the law first in case of Abhimanyu. 16 people attacked and killed him from behind, while he was unarmed. From the 4th day onwards, the war was no more dharmically fought. As such when one party breaks the rules of the war, the other party will be forced to do the same.
Some of the last verses in Mahabharata asks the question: "Why are you not following dharma? You can enjoy Artha and Kama through a life based on dharma."


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The lentil plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds. With 25% protein lentil are the vegetable with the highest level of protein other than soybeans, and because of this it is a very important part of the diet in many parts of the world, and especially South Asia which has a large vegetarian population.
A variety of lentils exist with colors that range from yellow to red-orange to green, brown and black. The colours of the seeds when removed from the pods also vary, and there are large and small varieties. They are sold in many forms, with or without the pods, whole or split.
The seeds have a short cooking time and a distinctive earthy flavor. Lentils are used to prepare an inexpensive and nutritious soup all over Europe and North America, sometimes combined with some form of pork. They are frequently combined with rice, which has a similar cooking time. Lentils are used throughout the Mediterranean regions and the Middle East.
In South Asia, lentils are known as dal, as are most sorts of dried legumes. The dishes made predominantly of lentils are also known as dal. India is the largest producer of lentils in the world.
A famous variety of small green lentils known for their earthy flavor is grown in Le Puy, France. These "Le Puy lentils" were the first dry vegetable protected by the French AOC (Appelation d'Origine Controlée) designation.


Rule-Based Access Control
"Although Web servers can perform user authentication and coarse-grained authorization checking for applications, developers of Web services and SOAs often must write custom code to restrict access to certain features of their system, or customize the behavior or appearance, based on the identity of a user. Embedding authorization checking within an application is inflexible, prone to error, and increases its complexity. What if it were data-driven instead of implemented by program logic?"
 1. 2006-12-15 8:39 am
 2. 2006-12-15 10:30 am
 3. 2006-12-15 11:59 am


It doesn't say there is an accident at Zoom! So what to do?
Zoom, which has become a part of the new normal, is now an integral part of both business and education life. As such, some problems and accidents are inevitable in Zoom searches that we use almost every day.
Especially the biggest accidents are usually caused by the microphone or camera being left on. In order to prevent these accidents, we have explained for you how to set up a meeting that is always muted.
You can avoid zoom accidents in two steps
To join the Zoom call, always with your microphone turned off, open the app on your desktop. Go to Preferences> Sound. Check the box "Mute microphone while attending a meeting".
Now, when you join a meeting, you will be automatically muted until you manually unmute. In this way, you will be able to prevent possible unwanted accidents.
Likewise, to turn off your camera by default, go to Preferences> Video. Check the "Turn off camera when joining a meeting" box. In this way, while participating in a conversation, you can make a conversation without fear of being caught unwanted.
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Alone: India's Farmer WidowsIndia's ongoing water crisis has driven 200,000 farmers to suicide. As water dwindles, that number grows, and farmer widows are left to pick up the pieces.
Over the past decade, India has been gripped by a devastating water crisis. Farmers make up an estimated 70 percent of the country's population, and for them the consequences of the drought have been dire: Overwhelmed by chronic lack of water, failed crops, and growing debts, more than 200,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997.
Their families often find them either hung or poisoned by pesticides they've chosen to ingest. The widows left behind struggle to support their children, working as landless laborers for as low as 100 rupees ($2) a day and battling creditors that come to collect money they claim to have lent their husbands. This slideshow features portraits of widows from Maharashtra, one of the three most suicide-ridden states in the nation. They represent only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands left behind.


Story: Sexual health
Syphilis and gonorrhoea were a source of deep shame, embarrassment and denial in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the First World War, Ettie Rout pioneered a safe-sex approach to minimise sexually transmitted infections among servicemen – but others opposed her and tried to promote abstinence instead. From the 1980s HIV/AIDS brought a new sense of urgency to sexual-health initiatives, and condoms became a symbol of safe sex.
Story by Jane Tolerton
Main image: VD prevention poster, 1980s
Story summary
All images & media in this story
Sexually transmitted infections are diseases passed on by having sex. Sexual health means attempts to control, prevent and cure these infections. Approaches to stop the spread of disease have varied over time – sometimes blaming infected people and insisting on abstinence (no sex), at other times supporting infected people and promoting safe sex.
Venereal disease
Venereal disease (VD) meant syphilis and gonorrhoea. There was no effective treatment for these before penicillin became available.
 - Syphilis could kill people or make them insane. Babies infected with syphilis in the womb were often born deformed, or died before birth.
 - Gonorrhoea could make women sterile, and make babies blind.
Early approaches to venereal disease
Venereal disease was believed to be due to immoral sexual behaviour. Infected people were often too ashamed to get treatment. When someone died from syphilis, their family sometimes pretended that the cause of death was something else.
Information about sex and sexual health was banned, so it was difficult for people to learn about venereal disease and how to prevent it.
Prostitutes were blamed for spreading venereal disease. From 1869 to 1910, under the Contagious Diseases Act, women suspected of prostitution could be forcibly examined for diseases, then locked up and treated.
First and Second world wars
Many New Zealand soldiers in Europe during the First World War caught venereal diseases. At first, safer sex practices such as condoms were not encouraged. But from 1917, servicemen going on leave were given kits that included condoms, developed by Christchurch woman Ettie Rout. She set up a brothel in Paris where servicemen could have safe sex.
In the Second World War servicemen were given condoms – but many still caught diseases. Some American servicemen stationed in New Zealand infected local women.
In the early 21st century chlamydia was New Zealand's most common sexually transmitted infection. Before the mid-1970s it was unknown; many cases of what was then called non-specific urethritis in men would now be recognised as chlamydia. Many people with chlamydia have no symptoms, but it can cause infertility.
HIV/AIDS arrived in New Zealand in the 1980s. People infected with HIV could develop AIDS, which made their immune systems fail. At first, most people with HIV died, but since the mid-1990s treatments have kept people alive longer, and pills to prevent infection were introduced in the 2010s.
Many cases of HIV were in the gay community, and gay activists organised to stop the disease spreading and to support people with HIV. They encouraged people to have safe sex and use condoms.
After prostitution was decriminalised in 2003, it became illegal for clients of prostitutes to have sex without a condom.
How to cite this page:
Jane Tolerton, 'Sexual health', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, (accessed 25 January 2021)
Story by Jane Tolerton, published 5 May 2011, reviewed & revised 7 Dec 2018


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Bubble Chamber Site
Photo © CERN larger image
This spiral track was made in a bubble chamber--a particle detector used in the 1970s and 1980s--and it was made by an electron that was knocked out of a hydrogen atom by one of the upward-moving particles. To learn more about this track, visit the CERN Gallery of Bubble Chamber (BC) Pictures, go to "Gallery of BC Pictures," and click on "electron."
Through Einstein's Eyes
Visit this site for a simulation of what you would see if travel were possible at light speed. You can take a rollercoaster ride, observe a tram moving near the speed of light, and tour of the solar system. Elsewhere in the site, you can explore the physics of special relativity. To learn more about Einstein, visit the Center for the History of Physics' online exhibits and go to "Albert Einstein--Image and Impact."


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Subjective Discrimination of Pitch and Amplitude Fluctuations in Recording Systems
This paper is concerned with the measurement of subjective thresholds of the unwanted pitch and amplitude fluctuations which occur in the reproduced output of all types of sound recording systems. The pitch fluctuations are commonly known as -wowand -flutter,- and new equipment is described for generating controlled fluctuations of this type in musical or other programme signals. The threshold measurements thus made possible are more realistic than those hitherto available, which have been related only to frequency fluctuations in test tones. The generation and threshold measurement of controlled amplitude fluctuations are also described, since amplitude and frequency fluctuation commonly occur together. The results obtained enable frequency weighting characteristics to be defined which can be incorporated into instruments measuring the magnitude of the unwanted amplitude and frequency fluctuations in practical systems. It is shown that such instruments may then approximate to an ideal, subjectively weighted measuring device which, when threshold value is reached, will give the same indication irrespective of the type and frequency of the fluctuation measured.
Click to purchase paper or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!
This paper costs $20 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers.


text:
Is Modern Society Ruining Childhood?
If a carefree childhood is a goal, Western society seems to be failing miserably. And the media isn't helping, some suggest.
A trio of new surveys indicates kids are worried about modern problems and fearing things that weren't even in youngsters' vocabularies in generations past. And an alarming number appear to be bored to death.
A survey of 500 U.S. children aged 6 to 11 found that one-third fear Earth won't exist when they grow up. And 56 percent believe the planet will not be as good a place to live.
(The truth: Earth may indeed become less hospitable in the next few decades as the climate warms and seas rise, but barring a surprise cosmic catastrophe —with odds that are astronomically long — the planet will be around for a few billion years. Feel free to share that with your kids.)
The study was conducted by Opinion Research for Habitat Heroes, an environmental charity, and a report on it by Treehugger.com has been widely cited. It should be noted that the findings suggest the questions had an environmental bent that might have influenced the answers in a manner that is not representative of kids in general. That said, other results from the survey:
- 50 percent of the kids said hurricanes and tornadoes are the natural disasters that scare them most.
- 28 percent said they fear extinction of animals, such as polar bears and penguins.
- The overall worries were most profound among black and Hispanic children.
- Girls worry more than boys, and urban kids worry more than those in suburbia.
The Habitat Heroes press release on the survey asks a worthy question: "Has all of the attention on saving the planet these days actually created more anxiety about the state of the Earth for our children?"
Few are carefree
A separate study of UK children, also announced this week, found only 11 percent are carefree, or free from worry. The research, which involved interviews with 200,000 children aged 6 to 14 and 18,000 of their teachers, did find 82 percent are happy most of the time. Girls are slightly happier than boys.
But 51 percent of the UK kids worry about their parents divorcing or arguing, and more than half also worry about violence and street crime.
"Children's well-being should be the top concern of any society, and a good measure of well-being is how safe children feel and how happy and fulfilled they feel," said study leader Karen Pine of the University of Hertfordshire. "I find it surprising that over half of the children surveyed worry about their parents arguing or divorcing. This shows how, when marriages are going through difficulties, children are more often aware than many parents might think they are."
(A three-year-long study published last fall in the journal Child Development found that young grade-school children who worry about how their parents are getting along do worse in school and are more likely to have psychological problems.)
The biggest factor for unhappiness among UK children, according to the researchers: boredom, cited by 74 percent.
"The children have told us that boredom is the biggest downer, along with adults who expect too much of them and having to work too hard," said Robert Hart, whose firm Intuitive Media Research Services conducted the survey. "Children want more freedom to play, relax, pursue their hobbies and be creative."
In previous generations, it was not uncommon for young children to be shielded from many of the world's problems. Be that good or bad, those days are largely gone. Another study announced over the weekend found 61 percent of British children say they have been affected by the recession. The study of 9- to 12-year-olds also found 14 percent fear getting stabbed or shot.
These studies all come on the heels of a newly presented theory that children — and adults — need to play more. Society depends on play, the thinking goes, and we've gotten away from it. Our early ancestors were good at it, the theory's proponent says.
Another kids-related idea presented this month — perhaps the most fleshed out research of any discussed in this article — suggests that children and adults need to spend more time with nature, a communion that is good for our brains. Playing outside vs. playing a video game gives the mind a much-needed rest, the researchers argue, by letting our brain sense things it is naturally attuned to.
The big question on my mind: Does any of this indicate that childhood is truly changing, that the shift in play from outdoors and make-believe to long hours at day care, the increasingly unavoidable news reports about impending apocalypse, the availability of electronic games and online social networking — that all of this is making kids less happy and more fearful?
It might be just differences in how questions were asked, but back 1999, Ohio State University researchers asked 86 children aged 8 to 12 several questions, including: "Most people are afraid of something. What are you afraid of?"
The results: Boys reported that they fear snakes (evolution can explain that one), monsters and scary theme park rides more often than girls did. Girls tended more to fear thunderstorms and the dark.
Ah, the good ol' days of routine fears!
- Spooked? Kids Must Face Fears
- World to End in 2012 (Check Back for Updates)
- Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth
Robert Roy Britt is the Editorial Director of Imaginova. In this column, The Water Cooler, he looks at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond.
MORE FROM LiveScience.com


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Implementing Farm to School Activities
While individual farm to school programs are shaped by their unique community, geographic region, and scope, the term 'farm to school' is generally understood to include efforts that connect schools with local or regional farmers, food processors and manufacturers in order to serve local or regionally procured foods in school cafeterias. Bringing more locally sourced, fresh fruits and vegetables into school cafeterias is a seminal activity of many farm to school efforts; procuring locally sourced, minimally processed main meal items so that the entire school meal is representative of regional options is also a focus of many farm to school programs. Thus, USDA considers farm to school to be inclusive of many types of producers, such as farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, as well as many types of food businesses, including food processors, manufacturers, distributors and other value-added operations.
In addition to procurement activities, food, agriculture and nutrition-based educational efforts that span a whole host of hands-on experiential activities, such as school gardens, field trips to local farms, and cooking classes, are also included in the concept of farm to school. Standards-based curriculum often integrates as well. For example, students dissect vegetables in science class, run farm stands using school garden produce to learn business skills, or practice data visualization techniques using plant growth measurements, all contributing to a holistic approach to learning centered on food, agriculture and nutrition. To embed farm to school activities into school culture, promotional and outreach efforts often aim to keep farm to school activities front and center in both the school and broader community.
As the potential impact of farm to school programs is significant, sophisticated evaluation and impact assessments are routinely used to monitor progress toward goals. Ultimately, farm to school programs are believed to strengthen children's and communities' knowledge about, and attitudes toward, agriculture, food, nutrition and the environment; increase children's consumption of fruits and vegetables; increase market opportunities for farmers, fishers, ranchers, food processors and food manufacturers, and support economic development across numerous sectors.
The webpages linked below should help you begin or expand your own farm to school program.


is a great opportunity to work with social skills.
Children need to interact and work together and they feel satisfied to work towards a common goal.
Relieve tension
Puzzles not only develop many physical, social and cognitive skills, but also provide emotional release. Working out quietly is a way to relieve stress and relax while studying. Calm, relaxed children are always in a good place to learn.
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Hacking Golang: Accessing Specific Value from Multi-Value Function Returns
In current version of Go (1.2), a multi-value returned from a function call can only be accessed by doing a multi-variable assignment:
b, c := F()
That works great. However, there are times, instead of using a two-step approach (assignment, then access) to get to targeted values, I want to access the value inline using an expression, not an assignment. Right now, however, Go does not support anything like that. For instance
the following will blow up:
type Path struct{FileName string}
The Go compiler will complain (paraphrasing here) about multi-value in a single-value context since path.Split() returns (string, string). This is as expected. I started thinking, with a language as capable as Go, is there a way to express target a specific return value and mute others so the expression above would work?
A Workaround
So I started to research how the multi-value returned by a function is represented inside Go? Is it an array, a slice, container, what? And why does fmt.Println(path.Split(...)) works without any complaint from the Go compiler? Looking for the answer to the ladder question in Go's source code for the fmt package revealed some interesting facts about the multi-values returned from a function call:
 - Multi-values returned from one function call can be passed in as multi-variable arguments to another function. Meaning, func Split()(string,string) can be passed as argument to fmt.Printf(a...interface{}). Inside, fmt.Printf(...) receives variable a as []interface{} from the compiler.
 - The compiler only does that trick (as far as I found) for function with varargs params. For instance f.Foo(a []interface{}) cannot be called with b.Bar()(string, string) as argument.
 - In other contexts, you get big fat ugly failures:
 - a []interface{} := path.Split(...) // illegal, fails compilation
 - var b []interface{} = path.Split(...) // fails with multi-value in single value context error
 - var c []interface{}; c = path.Split(...) // stil fails (as above)
So, that led me to come up with a function I call the mute function (represented by Greek letter mu, single character, simple, easy to use) as defined below.
func µ(a...interface{}) []interface{} {
 return a
See code at _URL_ mu function exploits the automatic conversion from the compiler to convert a vararg parameters in the form of "x...interface{}" to a standard []interface{}. The implication here is that I can use mu to wrap multi-values from a function call to access specific returned value by specifying an index as shown below.
NOTE: since µ() returns []interface{}, you will need Type Assertion to get the actual value.
You can see an example of the mu function on the Go Playground at _URL_ is a hack by all means. Go designers take pride in keeping things simple. Having an extra assignment step to access multi-values returned form function calls is not that big of a deal. On the other hand, while working with Go, you will inevitably run into cases where you wish there's a way to chain function calls as expressions. But right now, when your function call returns multiple values, you have to do an assignment first to unpack that value. Which feels like it is robbing Go of its functional qualities.
Jumping to Go
This post is about my impression of Google's language Go (or Golang). As the holidays approached last year (2013), I decided to pour my free time into Go. I went through the Go documentation methodically to make sure I understand the motivation behind some of the decisions regarding the language. That is very important since I carry the Java hammer around.
The result of all of my efforts culminated into the creation of an HDFS FileSystem client written in Go - _URL_ That alone is a testament of the simplicity and approachability of the language. Within 3 weekends (in Jan/Feb), I was able to put together a working WebHDFS client.
The followings are some points I wanted to share if you are thinking about jumping into Go yourself.
Jump into Go
Getting started in go is incredibly easy. To get a taste of the language you can take the Go Tour (_URL_ The tour gives you an online editor and server-side compilation service to explore several Go examples. The tour covers all major language constructs and APIs to get you started and keep you interested.
When you are ready to do Go locally, the steps are just as easy. First, download and install Go for your platform (_URL_ Next, select your favorite text editor to start slinging Go code.
The Workspace
One important point that I enjoy (as a Java developer) is the notion of Go's workspace. It is a location where Go keeps all source and binary packages organized in a specific directory structure. This simplifies many aspects of working with Go including building, testing, and dependency resolution. Because of this "Convention over Configuration" approach, one can build Go code without having to specify a long list path information (as is necessary using Java tools). For instance, the following will resolve package dependencies declared in the code, compile, and run the specified Go file:
go run hello.go
If you are from the Java camp, this may be reminiscent of what the local repository does when using the Maven tool. However, in Go, this approach is much simplistic and the workspace is a first-class citizen with the Go tools which understand how to deal with the code's organization.
For a full explanation of Go's code organization, check out 'How to Code in Go'.
No IDE Needed (Really)
If you are from the Java camp like myself, you may not believe it's possible to create complete projects without an IDE. Well, yes really, no IDE. I wrote the entire project using Sublime Text. How is that possible you may ask? Well, Go is a simple language with little surprises. In addition, the Godoc (see below) tool provides easy access to the API reference documentation whether online or offline.
Non-Ceremonious Language
I won't go into too much about the language itself as it is well documented at the _URL_ website. Nevertheless, Go takes a simplistic approach to language design by foregoing object-orientation. Go programs are collections of first-class functions, simple types, struct types, and Go's version of interfaces. Functions can be graphed unto any types (function receivers) to further organize code as computational components.
By removing the need to declare a class, a constructor, and main with program argument list, a compilable, functional Go code can be as simple as the following.
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
Run the code at _URL_
Documentation! Documentation! Documentation!
Switching sweaty Steve Balmer's chant from "Developers! Developers! Developers!.." (_URL_ to "Documentation! Documentation! Documentation! Docu..." would be an an apt way to explain the importance of documentation for the Go folks. Here are a few documentation resources.
Go's Website (_URL_)
The website has all the docs you will ever need to get started with Go including API docs, videos, best-practice articles, etc. I think the rarity of Go books has to do with the fact that the platform is so well documented on the site.
The Godoc Tool
The Godoc tool further demonstrates the importance of documentation within Go all the while keeping things simple. The following command will compile the entire golang.org website along with any source-level documentation in you own code and makes them available at http://localhost:6060/.
godoc -http=:6060
This makes all of Go's API documentation portable even when you don't have an Internet connection.
Godoc.Org (_URL_)
This website aggregate Go projects documentation from major source code hosting services including GitHub, BitBucket, Google Project, and LaunchPad. The content is indexed and made searchable. It is a really neat tool.
Go Talks (_URL_
Another fantastic source of information are the Go Tasks. This section of the website is a collection of deck slides and accompanying source code.
Fast Compile and Fast Tests
Again, being from the Java camp, I got used to my project taking minutes to compile and test. I have used that time slice (between build start and build finish) to read entire books, catch up on twitter, or even pick up a new skillset.
The story is a bit different with Go. I can compile and test my modestly-sized HDFS client project in milliseconds. That also includes running about two dozen tests (and counting). "So what?" you may say. Well, Go, it turns out, is the perfect platform for TDD. Because testing is so fast, it almost feels like there is little to no cost to integrate unit testing into your code cycle.
Solid APIs
Within its short existence, Go has garnered an impressive list of APIs (