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Sexton Creek Limestone,
Type section and use of name: The Schweizer Member of the Wilhelmi Formation was named by Willman (1973) for Schweizer School 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the type section, which is part of the Wilhelmi type section, in the SE¼ sec. 35, T.35 N., R.9 E., Will County, Ill. The lithologic distinctions between the Birds Member of the Wilhelmi and the overlying Elwood Formation of Illinois are lost in northwestern Indiana, and the lithologic equivalents of each are included in the Sexton Creek Limestone. Because the lower member of the Wilhelmi, the Schweizer, is both laterally and vertically gradational with the Sexton Creek in Indiana, it is included as a member of the formation in Indiana (Rexroad and Droste, 1982).
Description: The Schweizer Member generally consists of intermixed dolomitic shale and shaly to argillaceous dolomite. Silty intervals and patches of siliceous dolomite are present in some areas, but the unit has little or no chert. Reworked Ordovician material, including fossils, is present throughout the member, but particularly in the lower part, and commonly imparts a greenish color to the Schweizer. Otherwise, gray dominates in contrast with the more usual brown of the overlying part of the Sexton Creek. Maximum recognized thickness in Indiana is 39 feet (12 m). The unit thins and disappears to the east and the south by depositional thinning and interfingering with the rest of the Sexton Creek.
Correlation: The Schweizer Member is the basal unit of the Alexandrian Series in Illinois and in part of Indiana. The few indigenous conodonts are those of the Panderodus simplex Assemblage Zone, but this interval is recognized primarily on negative evidence as the zone underlying the lowest level of occurrence of Distomodus kentuckyensis in the Midwest (Liebe and Rexroad, 1977). The Schweizer is about the same age as the Belfast Member of the Brassfield Formation (Dolomite) of southwestern Ohio and adjacent Kentucky.


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ASEAN KEY DESTINATIONS
AseanAffairs' Guideline for Contributors
Types of contributions
- AseanAffairs – the bi-monthly print edition and the online version – _URL_ - publishes original, informative, analytical and/or reflective short and medium length pieces on a wide range of topics and issues - politics, economics, industry, social, environment and culture on Southeast Asia. Both the print and online versions carry reviews on books relevant to Southeast Asia and photo essays featuring aspects of the region and countries in the region.
- AseanAffairs is not an academic publication. We do not follow the normal conventions of academic writing (e.g. no footnotes or bibliographies) and we strive to avoid jargon and abstractions.
- AseanAffairs online - draws a wider and immediate audience – particularly individuals and businesses with strong interest in Southeast Asia. (Visit _URL_ to find out more.)
As a contributor, you will ensure:
- that your work is original
- that your work does not breach copyright or defame others
- that you coordinate with AseanAffairs on the article first
- that you meet the deadline to deliver your article
Length of articles
Depending on the topic, articles can be:
- short (750-800 words),
- long (1,500-1,600 words)
Before you send in your article:
- write/save your article in a MS Word file (preferably 2003)
- follow particular story ideas/suggestions from the editor – _EMAIL_ or you may propose your idea
- try to add tables, graphics, illustrations to support the story whenever possible
- add brief (30-word) biographical information about the author
Brief Style Guide
- remember that you are writing for a global audience and hence explain where necessary about things that are too local for the audience such as currencies, place names, and so on.
- write Apec, Asean, Unesco, instead of APEC, ASEAN, UNESCO for the well-known acronyms that can be pronounced.
- avoid putting your story in an academic context. Do not include footnotes or references.
- provide two high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi) images and/or graphics with your article, and email them separately from the manuscript with a note for layout if there is a specific position for each image/graphic. Add captions, headlines where necessary.
- depending on time availability, you will asked to review/prove your article once it is accepted and laid out.
- AseanAffairs follows British spelling, not American. For example, we use's' instead of 'z' (organisation, NOT organization), kilometres (NOT kilometers) and travelling (NOT traveling).
- Use local language expressions sparingly, and translate/interpret/explain them where necessary.
- Do not use full-stops between the letters in acronyms. Write US (NOT U.S.)
- Do not use the word dollar or USD for the US currency. For example, say $3 million instead of 3 million dollars or US$3 million. Use S$, A$, T$, HK$, but spell out the currency terms for others. For example, write 2 million rupiah, but not Rp2 million or 2 million IDR, or IDR 2 million.
- Spell out numbers under 10, for example, seven. For 10 and above, use the figures, unless the sentence begins with a number.
- Do not use full stops when writing the time. Write it as one word, for example, 10am, 3pm.
- The date (for example, 'in the 1970s') does not have an apostrophe.
- Dates should be in month-day-year format October 10, 2009 (NOT 9 October 2009).
If you have questions, please send them to _EMAIL_.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


How do DNA Test Kits Work? The Difference Between Birthplace and Heritage
At a rally on Thursday night, President Donald Trump expressed skepticism at Senator Elizabeth Warren's claims of Native American ancestry. To illustrate his point, he made some creative claims about how DNA tests work.
"You know those little kits they sell on television for two dollars?" Trump said at the rally, likely referring to genetic testing services like 23 And Me, Ancestry DNA, Living DNA and National Geographic's Geno 2.0. In reality, these kits tend to cost around $99, or up to $199.
"Learn your Heritage!" Trump continued. "Guy says 'I was born in Scotland;' turns out he was born in Puerto Rico, and that's ok. That's great."
23 and Me
A woman opens a popular DNA test kit from the company 23 and Me. It will not help her understand what country she was born in, but she may already know the answer to that. CLAUDIO REYES/AFP/Getty Images
However, a personalized DNA kit cannot tell someone where they were born. That's something that you might ask your mother about.
Instead, the function of a DNA kit is to help you estimate your genetic ancestry. If a set of full siblings were each born on different sides of the world, they would still have the same genetic ancestry.
However, some scientists dispute the accuracy of these tests. Since there is no worldwide database of human DNA indicating at what locality different genotypes evolved, it's very difficult to find an accurate read of DNA. Some scientists call them "recreational genetics." The kits can't tell you exactly where your ancestors lived or what ethnicity they identified with, but they can tell you if a lot of people who lived in a certain vague geographic area share similar DNA to you.
A DNA test may help determine whether Warren has any Native American blood, or it may not. The National Congress of American Indians says DNA testing can be useful, but they don't guarantee eligibility for someone to enroll as a tribe member. On the other hand, a DNA test has been used to remove tribal members who didn't appear to share a genetic link with that tribe.
DNA test kits include items for collecting DNA, such as a small container into which the customer will spit, or a swab to collect cells from the inside of their cheeks. The customer then sends the kit off to a lab, where scientists isolate their cells and analyze their genes. Then they compare the alleles from your genes with the alleles in their databases—although different companies have access to different databases, which means you could get different results depending on which product you use. When your DNA shows similarities to certain locations, you get a report describing your heritage.
Where you live, where you were born, where your mother lived while pregnant with you, and where you were conceived have absolutely no bearing on your genetics.
Continuing his point, Trump described a situation in which he would "gently" throw a kit to Warren in the hopes that she would use it to prove her ancestry. "Because we're in the 'Me Too' generation, so we have to be very gentle," Trump explained. "And we will very gently take that kit and we will slowly toss it, hoping it doesn't hit her and injure her arm, even though it only weighs probably two ounces."


Violent Ubiquity Images
Vision Portfolio Modeling Contact Links
vis-ion [vizh-uhn]:
2. a scene, person, etc., of extraordinary beauty.
Origin: _PHONE_; ME < L vision- (s. of visio) a seeing, view, equiv. to vis(us), ptp. of videre to see + -ion- -ion
Since ancient times the human sense of vision has been a source of wonder: a commonplace, everyday miracle. But the joy of seeing was always frustrated by the fleetingness of events and the melancholy quickness with which memory fades. This is the basis for most art: The actualization of our collective desire to depict what we see, either with our eyes or mind's eye. Beauty broken from the mold of the mind and solidified, crystalized into tangible, everlasting form.
pho-tog-ra-phy [fuh-tog-ruh-fee]
1. the process or art of producing images of objects on sensitized surfaces by the chemical or electronic action of light or of other forms of radiant energy, as x-rays, gamma rays, or cosmic rays.
Origin: 1839; photo- + -graphy
It was the need for lasting, ever more detailed images that drove the invention of photographic technologies and photography. Photography, both the Art and Science, is basically about documenting human vision. People, architecture, documents and events are all subjects to be captured faithfully by the lens. But beyond the mere physical reality etched by light is the true essence of the human experience: joy, desire, pain, tragedy...beauty. All of these are as widespread and everchanging as the photons which record them. We acknowledge this omnipresent dynamicism in the universe, a sort of "violent ubiquity", and take it to heart as a core value of our photography. Documenting these intangibles, especially beauty, is not only a heartfelt value, but our ardent passion. And as is the case with all art, that sometimes means enduring sacrifice and employing tough love and strict discipline in the pursuit of one's muse (mostly just so she will sit still long enough to snap her picture).
Copyright 2009 - Violent Ubiquity Images


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Soil Mechanics/Site investigation
The objective of a geotechnical investigation is to characterize the geologic environment. This may include;
1) The lateral distribution and thickness of the soil and rock strata.
2) Groundwater Conditions and quality.
3) Ground response to changing conditions such as surface loading from structures and unloading by excavations or extraction.
4) Physical properties of soils and rock formations.
5) Engineering properties of soils and rock formations.
6) Hazardous conditions such as unstable slopes, faults, flood plains, ground subsidence and heave potential.
The magnitude of the site investigation depends upon the geological variability of the site as well as the size (spatially and financially) of the planned project.Last modified on 22 July 2009, at 13:32

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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As a result, the causes of existing gender-related inequalities are taken into (even) greater consideration. The additional information provided can also help to better predict the expected effects of certain policies prior to policy decisions. First, additional data on self-employment by men and women could support the development of differentiated policy recommendations for (dependent) employees and self-employed persons. In addition, the Gender Overall Earnings Gap provides no added value. Assessing the progress by means of the data underlying this synthetic indicator seems more appropriate. Furthermore, as part of the indicators in the area of economic decision-making, focusing on the macroeconomic level rather than on a particular group of the largest companies would result in important additional insights. Despite technical constraints, disaggregation by age may be particularly useful, for example to highlight the special significance of reconciling work and family life.
IW Economic Forecast Autumn 2018
The Working Time Wishes of Dependent Employees: A Longitudinal Study
Options for Refining the Indicators in the Three Priority Areas of Economic Policy The EU's Strategy for Promoting Gender Equality between Women and Men (2016–2019)
This paper examines possible options for refining the indicators in three economic related policy areas of the EU's strategy for gender equality between men and women (2016–2019). The objectives and measures of the EU strategy are not analyzed, but modifications and extensions of the empirical reporting are proposed.
- Jörg Schmidt ·
- IW-Trends ·
- 26 Sep 2018


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From the outside, a pressure-assist toilet may look like a traditional one but, they function rather differently. The ceramic tank has an air-filled pressure container fitted in it. While a standard toilet uses gravity to flush water through, a pressure-assist toilet uses compressed air. This results in water being forced into the toilet bowl at a much more powerful rate than gravity alone can achieve.
Pressure-assist toilets come with many advantages. For instance, the strong flushing capacity of this type of toilet results in fewer clogs in the system. Plus, it's water efficiency will save gallons of water each year making it much more eco-friendly.
Older homes also benefit from pressure-assisted toilets, this is because the powerful force of the flush helps to push waste through old pipework. Also, due to the tank's design, you will not see a buildup of condensation when the weather is humid. They are also easier to maintain than standard toilets.
Before you start replacing your toilets for pressure assist ones, there are a few things you should be aware of. For example, this type of toilet has a much louder flush than a gravity kind. They can also be more expensive than a standard toilet. You may also find that if your home has low water pressure, a pressure-assist toilet may not work as efficiently because they will need at least 20 to 30 PSI of pressure.


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ing". Adiabatic expansion causes the aerosol contents to cool rapidly on exiting the can.
- The propellants in aerosol cans are typically combinations of ignitable gases and have been known to cause fires and explosions. However, non-flammable compressed gases such as nitrogen and nitrous oxide have been widely adopted into a number of aerosol systems (such as air fresheners and aerosolized whipped cream) as have non-flammable liquid propellants.
- Bellis, Mary The History of Aerosol Spray Cans
- Norwegian Patent No. 46613, issued on November 23, 1926
- U.S. Patent 1,800,156 — Method and Means for the Atomizing or Distribution of Liquid or Semiliquid Materials, issued April 7, 1931
- Kvilesjø, Svend Ole (17 February 2003). "Sprayboksens far er norsk". Aftenposten (in Norwegian). Archived from the original on 30 June 2008. Retrieved 6 February 2009.
- U.S. Patent 2,170,531 — Appratus for Mixing a Liquid With a Gas, granted August 22, 1939.
- Carlisle, Rodney (2004). Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries, p.402. John Wiley & Songs, Inc., New Jersey. ISBN 0-471-24410-4.
- U.S. Patent 2,331,117, filed October 3, 1941, and granted October 5, 1943. Patent No. 2,331,117 (Serial No. 413,474) for an aerosol "dispensing apparatus", filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan (including dispenser drawing)
- Kimberley A. McGrath (Editor), Bridget E. Travers (Editor). World of Invention "Summary". Detroit: Thomson Gale. ISBN 0-7876-2759-3.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
- Article "Aerosol Bomb", by The Golden Home and High School Encyclopedia, Golden Press, New York, 1961.
- Article "Aerosols and Insects", by W.N. Sullivan, "The Yearbook of Agriculture - Insects", United States Department of Agriculture, 1952
- Core, Jim, Rosalie Marion Bliss, and Alfredo Flores. (September 2005) "ARS Partners With Defense Department To Protect Troops From Insect Vectors". Agricultural Research MagazineVol. 53, No. 9.
- U.S. Patent 2,631,814 — Valve Mechanism for Dispensing Gases and Liquids Under Pressure; application September 28, 1949, issued March 17, 1953
- "Chloroflurocarbons CFCs History". Consumer Aerosol Products Council. Retrieved 2015-07-20.
- Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (91 Stat. 685, p. 726)
- Weiss, Edith Brown (2009). "The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer" (PDF). United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law. United Nations. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- Nash, Eric R. (23 September 2013). "History of the Ozone Hole". NASA Ozone Hole Watch. NASA. Retrieved 2015-07-20.
- "The Accelerated Phaseout of Class I Ozone-Depleting Substances". United States Environmental Protection Agency. 19 August 2010. Retrieved 2015-07-20.
- "Solstice® Propellant Technical Information" (PDF). Honeywell.
- "Aerosol Propellant / Pressurisation Filling Machine - R + R Aerosol Systems Ltd". R + R Midlands Ltd. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
- US5941462A, Sandor, "Variable spray nozzle for product sprayer", published 1999
- image: aerosol and bov pressurized containers, illustration
- "Dust Off Death". snopes.com. Retrieved 2015-05-24.
- "Deodorant burns on the increase". ABC News. 10 July 2007.
- "Paint & Aerosol Safety". uvm.edu. The University of Vermont. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- "Solstice Propellant for Aerosols". Honeywell Aerosols. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spray cans.|


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Securing genomic data in the cloud to support advances in personalized medicine
- Genecloud¹ is a platform and interface which researchers can use to engage with sensitive genomic data in a managed environment that enforces data access policies.
- Genecloud is one of the technologies created by InterTrust, a holding company with the goal of interoperability and access to platforms that allow global communication. Their technologies focus on assuring digital security, data privacy, trusted computing and rights management.
- Researchers can build pipelines based on an assortment of best-in-class analysis tools that are compatible with custom third-party tools.
- Sensitive health and genetic data is accessible to responsible parties using the information for advances in science, while ensuring data privacy and legal frameworks are adhered to.
- Anonymization of data encourages individuals to share genomic data they may previously have been averse to sharing.
- Researchers are not required to overcome trust barriers with a direct subset of customers and instead can rely on second-party data to provide highly personalized information.
- Genecloud is cloud-based software that manages access to sensitive healthcare information including medical and biological data that can be securely accessed by third parties.
1. Source: _URL_; WEF/Accenture Analysis
Genecloud is one of more than 100 case studies identified as part of the World Economic Forum's Digital Transformation of Industries initiative. An overview of the DTI program can be found here.


Differentiating Landline and Cell Phone Numbers
landline and cell phoneWhich Number Should You Call?
Whenever someone calls you, it's helpful to be able to figure out whether that call was made from a landline phone or a cell phone. Why?
If you can determine that it was a cell phone, then you can feel free to call back at any time of the day in order to leave a message. If it's a landline, however, you might not want to call at certain times, like early in the morning or late at night, because the ringing of the landline phone might wake people up if the homeowners never turn off the ringer.
Another consideration is the other party's cell phone minutes. That is, if you ascertain that a phone call was made from a mobile phone, you might choose to respond by sending a text message or by writing an email. That way, you don't have to worry about eating up the other person's valuable phone minutes if you're not sure and want to be respectful of that.
Businesses can also benefit from being able to tell cell phone numbers apart from landline numbers.
If you run, say, a hair salon, you might be in the habit of texting your customers about upcoming appointments. However, you don't want to be sending text messages to a landline number by mistake. Not only will text messages to landlines never get delivered (although some landline based VoIP numbers do accept text messages) you may still be charged a fee by your text message service provider for these requests.
In addition, many businesses and medical offices want to have a cell phone number for every one of their clients or patients so that they can reach them at any time of the day. And medical offices may qualify for EHR incentives if their phone number data is more meaningful.
Most schools want to be able to reach parents in case of any type of emergency involving their children and when filling out the school forms, occasionally parents don't enter the right numbers in the correct fields. If school administrators call a landline number during the day when no one is home it can be useless, this wastes school administrator time and can cause your child undo anxiety.
If you manage a doctor's office, and you are in the processing of switching from a paper filing system to an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system, you need to input up-to-date information on the phone numbers of all of your patients.
How Do You Know if You are Calling a Landline or Mobile Number?
So how do you actually go about figuring out whether a certain phone number is a landline number or a mobile number? A company like SearchBug can actually do all of the work for you. In fact, the company's phone number verification tools is among one of its most popular services.
So how does this system work? All you have to do is visit the landline or cell phone number tool and enter the phone number. Any valid phone number from the United States or Canada will work. SearchBug will then tell you whether that phone number is a landline number, a wireless number, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) number, or an unknown number (unknowns can be for a variety reasons such as the area code is invalid, or the area code and prefix do not match, or the number provide is not a valid number like the area code 555 is used for movies.
VoIP numbers by the way, are a system of vocal communications in which the sounds of people's voices are carried over the Internet. VoIP numbers are typically sold in blocks of 1000s to VoIp providers from the major CLEC (Central Local Exchange Carriers).
That's not all. SearchBug will also respond with the following pieces of information about that number:
 - the name of the phone company or, in the case of VoIP, the name of the local exchange carrier
 - the city or town where a landline phone is located, or where a mobile phone owner lives
 - the area code local
 - the local time zone for that number
You can find out all this information for free, too. SearchBug will even let you search for up to five different phone numbers a day. And for a nominal charge, you can find out if the phone number you searched for was ported – meaning whether that number was transferred, say, from a landline phone to a mobile phone or from AT&T to Verizon for example.
For an extra charge, you can learn the name of the person to whom that phone number is assigned if you need that sort of information. That can be a valuable tool in case, for instance, someone keeps calling you and hanging up whenever you answer.
-- Download Differentiating Landline and Cell Phone Numbers as PDF --
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The Best Advice on Children's Products
The Fascinating World of Mammals
Digital Disc, Educational Skills, Internet/Virtual, Science
This new and innovative video series builds confidence in science through fun and interesting content with amazing content along with narration describing mammal features and abilities. This format is designed for all ages as it helps to expand a child's vocabulary as the video content grabs viewers Each mammal is clearly identified and shown in their natural habitat and as child grows will learn larger concepts such as echolocation and many interesting facts about mammals from Africa, Asia and Alaska. This is a useful guide in preparation for a trip to the zoo or wildlife park. The series helps to answer questions like: How does a beaver build a dam? Which mammal wears velvet? Which animal is the only flying mammal? Mammals include beaver, kangaroo, moose, dolphin, lion, giraffe, elephant, bat, chimpanzee, and bear and is ideal for home and school. The beginner level reviews show mammal flash cards and what features are common among all mammals. The more advanced levels quiz children on mammal facts and broader scientific terms related to mammals.


"explicit" formula I came up with: The function $w$ counts the number of maps from a set of $n$ objects onto a set of $i$ objects (with $n$ assumed greater than or equal to $i$). The OP's recursive formula does the count by starting with the number of all maps ($i^n$) and subtracting the number that are mappings onto subsets of size $j$ for $j=1$ to $i-1$. My explicit formula is an inclusion-exclusion count of all maps (not necessarily onto) from a set of size $n$ to sets of size $i-j$. The only little mystery from this point of view is why the equivalence works for all $n$, not just $n\ge i$.
share|cite|improve this answer
In terms of the Stirling numbers of the second kind $S(n,i)$, we have $w(i) = i!\, S(n,i)$. – Ira Gessel Dec 16 '11 at 16:53
Asaf, thank you for aligning the displayed equations (although I kind of liked the original Christmas-tree tiering -- it seemed seasonally festive). – Barry Cipra Dec 16 '11 at 18:05
:-)${}{}{}{}{}$ – Asaf Karagila Dec 16 '11 at 18:14
_USER_: Yes you are right about the 2nd example. The set $S$ of points that never leave (0,1) is measure zero, closed and perfect. The function is chaotic on this set $S$, not (0,1) itself. But if we are focusing on functions from integers to integers, this fact may not be very relevant :-( – user16033 Dec 18 '11 at 15:28
_USER_: Actually I used the same mapping model inside my mind to come up with the recursive formula. Notice that $w(i)=0$ for $n


Soroptimist International of Europe
Centenary Award 2021 Guidelines
The Centenary Award 2021 has been created to recognise an outstanding Soroptimist or a group of Soroptimists who through their current or past work made a difference to their club, union or community and whose activity uniquely exemplifies standing up for women or women's rights.
This one-time-only Award will be presented during the SIE Centenary event in Krakow on 2nd July 2021.
The Awardee(s) should cover one of the following fields of activity:
 1. Access to Education
 2. Elimination of Gender-Related Violence and Discrimination
 3. Women's Rights and Justice
 4. Women & Leadership
 5. Economic Empowerment
The Award will consist of:
 1. A certificate signed by the SIE President and the Chair of the Jury
 2. A sculpture designed by Anne-Marie ADAM, a former Soroptimist from Belgium, living in France
 3. € 5.000, - financial reward
The Awardee will be invited to the SIE Centenary event to receive her prize. Her travel expenses and hotel accommodation will be covered by SIE. In the case the Award is presented to a group of women rather than one Soroptimist, the group will designate the individual who will represent them.
Criteria for decision
The following criteria will be taken into consideration, and at least three of them should be fulfilled:
 1. Long-term, sustainable and exemplary work
 2. Sense of responsibility, dedication to a cause
 3. Altruism / Selflessness
 4. Transparency and tolerance
The Centennial Committee will propose a pre-selection of approximately 5 to 10 suitable candidates from all applicants for the '100 years – 100' Soroptimists' to the chair of the Centenary Award Jury.
The Centenary Award Jury, chaired by the SIE Immediate Past President and four SIE Past Presidents, will select the Awardee for the Centenary Award, based on the recommendation of aforesaid Committee.
Financial Reward
The Reward of € 5.000 is for a specific project to be presented by the Awardee to the Centenary Award Jury in accordance with the Mission and Vision of Soroptimist International.


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HDG Social Performance
The third aspect of sustainable development, social ramifications, is a bit harder to measure. However, there are some inherent positive social impacts for utilizing hot-dip galvanizing. The social aspect of sustainable development is woven within both the environmental and economic impact and is most easily measured by improvements to quality of life and social progress. In addition to characteristics already discussed, such as its maintenance-free durability and longevity, hot-dip galvanizing provides positive social impact in the area of safety. The purpose of utilizing hot-dip galvanizing is to minimize corrosion. Less corrosion of infrastructure, buildings, electricity grids, etc. translates to a healthier, safer world. As North Americas infrastructure continues to age and deteriorates faster than it can be maintained, the likelihood of a potential life-threatening disaster also rises.
Additionally, hot-dip galvanizing can help minimize the damage of natural disasters. Hot-dip galvanizing meets the new, stricter seismic standards, written to make structures more durable in earthquakes. History also shows hot-dip galvanized earth anchors minimize the damage to mobile homes during tornadoes and galvanized transmission and distribution poles maintain service during natural disasters such as hurricanes.
In addition to the many social benefits hot-dip galvanizing attributes to the built environment, the hot-dip galvanizing industry strives to improve our current social, economic, and environmental position. The industry adopted a Sustainable Development Charter in 2005 providing a commitment to responsibly manage all environmental and human health risks keeping employees, citizens, and the community safer. Furthermore, rather than rest confidently in our current position, the industry actively participates in research aimed at improving the sustainability and efficiency of the galvanizing process and hot-dip galvanized products.


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-Ahn. The Queen wanted show her authority and ordered all the flowers to bloom at the same time inorder to make her happy. All the flowers obeyed, except for the peony. The Queen was so angry that she had it sent away to the country side, NakYang. Strangely, as soon as the peony arrived in NakYang, it bloomed beautifully. When the Queen heard this she was enraged and ordered it burned. Even after burning, the peony bloomed. Based on this legend, the peony became the symbol of loyalty among Chinese. The Japanese apricot has been the symbol of China, since Mao Tse-tung's army started the revolution.
The earliest record of the peony was found in 1972 in a first century tomb. On one of the bamboo slips, a prescription was written: using the skin of the tree peony's root. A famous painter, Gu Kaizhi (345-406), painted a garden scene with tree peonies in the background. During the time of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty (605-618), we find in recorded history that a tribute of 20 cases of tree peonies of various names in red and yellow were presented to the Emperor.
From the Tang Dynasty to the end of the Sung Dynasty (_PHONE_), the tree peony enjoyed great prestige. It was the favorite flower from the imperial court down to the common folks. Calling it the ~King of Flowers~ was initiated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). A poet wrote "Only the tree peony is worthy of being called the Beauty of the Empire." People were enthralled by the tree peony. Poets wrote poems, musicians composed songs, artists painted pictures, and writers wrote articles about it. One of the most valuable articles preserved till today is Ouyang Xiu's (_PHONE_), Record of the Tree Peony in Luoyang. In this article he listed 24 kinds of tree peonies and described them one by one. Today, several in this group are still in existence and treasured by flower lovers in China.
Peony is the flower of June in Japan, symbolizing ~hands full of cash.~
On March 13, 1957, the peony became Indiana's 4th state flower.
Common Names: ~Pulegium~ ~European Pennyroyal~ ~Pudding Grass~ ~Lurk-in-the-Ditch~ ~Run-by-the-Ground~
Pennyroyal, a bitter-tasting mint whose flavor is no longer popular. In former times, it was used as a flavoring for puddings and sauces.
Barley meal mixed with water and pennyroyal, was the drink that Misme served to Demeter during her long search for Persephone. This became the ritual drink of the Eleusine Mysteries.
It is used for strength, peace and protection. Pennyroyal has been used for centuries as a flea repellant. It was also used to induce abortion. It was also used as a contraceptive in ancient times. It also kept bees from flying away when placed into a container with them.
Several tribes of North American Indians used the American species of Pennyroyal, Hedeoma pulegioides, for various ailments. The Chickasaws soaked the plant in water and placed it on the forehead to relieve itchy and watery eyes. The Mohegans drank pennyroyal tea to cure a stomach ache, and the Catawabas used the tea as a cold remedy. Many white settlers learned of these remedies from the American Indian Healers. Both the Indians and the settlers rubbed the leaves against their skin to repel insects. Pennyroyal is called pudding grass because it was used to flavor haggis.
It is considered a sign of hospitality. In the language of Flowers it means to Flee away/Go away.
Originated in Australia, Southern Africa and South America. According to Botanists, Protea are one of the oldest flowers on the earth, known to exist in prehistoric times. It has more than 1,400 different varieties. As a family, proteaceae is so diverse that it did not receive a botanical name until 1735.
Protea was named after the Greek mythological sea god Proteus, who herded seals for Poseidon and could assume many different shapes at will.
Associated with the star sign Aquarius. Proteas are suitable for drying. They have a vase Life of 7 to 10 days
Common Names: ~Flower of Christmas Eve~Flame Leaf~ ~Flower of the Holy Night~
Known by its Spanish name ~Flor de nochebuena~ Poinsettias are native to Mexico. There are over 100 varieties of poinsettias available. William Prescott, a historian and horticulturist named the plant the poinsettia after America's first ambassador to Mexico, Joel Poinsett who brought the plants to America in 1828.
The botanical name, Euphorbia pulcherrima, was named by the German botanist, Wilenow. The plant grew through a crack in his greenhouse. Dazzled by its color, he gave it the botanical name, Euphorbia pulcherrima meaning ~very beautiful.~
In the early 1900's the Ecke family of southern California grew poinsettias outdoors for use as landscape plants and as a cut flower. Eventually the family grew poinsettias in greenhouses and today are recognized as the leading producer of poinsettias in the United States.
The Mexicans in the 18th century thought the plants were symbolic of the Star of Bethlehem and the Poinsettia became associated with the Christmas season. Poinsettia plants are traditionally given at Christmas. Their leaves are pink, white or red.
According to Mexican legend, a child knelt before the altar at his village's church on Christmas Eve. Since he had no money, he could not get a gift to offer to the Christ Child on his birthday. His prayers were sincere, and through a miracle the first ~Flower of the Holy Night~ bloomed at his feet. This was the birth of the Poinsettia.
Another story goes that a poor Mexican child on her way to church on Christmas Eve wept because she had no gift to offer the Christ Child. Through her tears, an angel suddenly appeared and instructed her to gather weeds from the roadside. When the child arrived at the altar with her wilted offering, starry crimson blossoms burst forth from every stem.
The poinsettia's brilliant display is produced by colored bracts surrounding the real flowers, which appear as a cluster of yellow berries called cyathia. The petal-like bracts are modified leaves located at the junction of the flower stalks and main stem. The actual flower of the poinsettia is small and yellow but surounding the flower are large, bright red leaves, often mistaken for petals.
The Aztecs called poinsettias ~Cuetlaxochitle.~ During the 14th - 16th century the sap was used to control fevers and the bracts were used to make a reddish dye.
Poinsettia are known as the ~Crown of the Andes~ in Chile and Peru and ~Lobster Flower~ and ~Flame Leaf Flower~ in Central America.
December 12 is National Poinsettia Day. Poinsettias represent over 85 percent of the potted plant sales, worth about $220 million, during the holiday season in the Unites States. The cost of a poinsettia is determined by the number of blooms. Ninety percent of all poinsettias are exported from the United States of which California is the top poinsettia producing state.
Polygonum bistorta L.
Common Names: ~Bistort~ ~Dragon's Wort~ ~Snakeweed~ ~Serpentary~ ~Snake Root~ ~Adderwort~ ~Osterick~ ~Passions~ ~Easter Ledges~
Bistort means ~twice-twisted~ because it's root which is a stout, twisted, reddish-brown horizontal rhizome.
In the Language of Flowers it signifies Horror. It is used for divination and trance work. The root is used as a charm and if carried near the breast, it helps those vexed with frenzy. It is supposed to heal passions and gives a person who touches it the virtue of their sign or planet. Leaves and young shoots were used in Herb Pudding in the Middle Ages.
Poppy comes from the Greek word ~rhoeas~ meaning ~red.~ Papaver is Latin, meaning ~pap,~ the opium poppy's milky juice. Oriental poppies contain opium which has been used for centuries. The corn poppy does not contain opium.
Poppies were found in Egyptian tombs dating back 3,000 years. According to the Romans the poppy could heal a love wound and they used it for witchcraft. The ancient Greeks used poppies as a love charm and thought that they were a sign of fertility and brought health and strength so Greek atheletes were given mixtures of poppy seeds, honey, and wine.
According to Greek legend, the poppy was created by Somnus, the god of sleep, to help Ceres, the corn goddess, who was exhausted by the search for her lost daughter that she couldn't make the corn grow. The poppies soothed her to sleep, and when she rested, the corn grew again, giving rise to the belief that the presence of poppies was essential to grow corn.
Demeter


text:
Near Field Communication versus Bluetooth
NFC technology consumes little power when compared to standard Bluetooth technology. Only when NFC has to power a passive, unpowered source such as an NFC tag does it require more power than a Bluetooth transmission.
The close proximity that devices connected using NFC must be to each other actually proves useful in crowded locations to prevent interference caused when other devices are present and trying to communicate. Bluetooth may have trouble dealing with interference when trying to send signals between two devices, especially when several other devices are in close proximity.
Another benefit of NFC technology comes in its ease of use. Bluetooth requires users to manually set up connections between smartphones and takes several seconds. NFC connects automatically in a fraction of a second, so fast it seems instantaneous. Though the users must be close to one another to use NFC technology, it is faster and easier to set up than a Bluetooth connection.
Bluetooth does still offer a longer signal range for connecting during data communication and transfers. NFC technology has taken advantage of this and can connect two devices quickly, then turn the signal over to Bluetooth so the owners can move further away without severing the connection.
The latest development in Bluetooth technology, Bluetooth low energy (BLE), is targeted at low power consumption and uses even less power than NFC. As the technology increases, Bluetooth and NFC technology may continue to work together, relying on each other to help users meet their data transmission needs.
- Near Field Communication Technology Standards
- NFC Signaling Technologies
- History of Mobile & Contactless Payment Systems
- Security Concerns with NFC Technology
- Development of NFC Compatible Smartphones
- FeliCa Technology
- NFC SD and SIM Cards
- QR Codes versus NFC Tags
- Near Field versus Far Field
- Near Field Communication versus Bluetooth


text:
The surname Spink in my family tree is from my paternal line. At the moment I have 27 people with this surname. The earliest person is my 4x great grandfather William Spink who was born about 1764, probably in the Linton area of the Yorkshire Dales.
According to surnamedb the name Spink is of Anglo-Saxon origin. It is said to derive from a nickname given in the first instance to someone thought to resemble a finch in some way. Possibly with reference to its brightly coloured plumage or sweet singing voice.
A large number of early medieval surnames were gradually created from the habitual use of nicknames, given with reference to a variety of characteristics, such as
- a person's physical attributes or peculiarities
- mental or moral qualities
- a fancied resemblance to an animal's or bird's appearance or disposition
- habits of dress, or
The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Roger Spinc dated 1133 in the "Chartulary of Ramsey Monastery", Bedforshire. Other early recordings are :-
Thomas Spink listed in the Assize Rolls of Northumberland in 1256; the marriage of Edmonde Spincke and Alice Madison in Stepney, London on 5th September 1604; and the marriage of Stephen Spink and Ann Ring on 29th October 1696.


Established causes of diabetes do not fully explain the present epidemic. High-level arsenic exposure has been implicated in diabetes risk, but the effect of low-level arsenic exposure in drinking water remains unclear. The researchers sought to determine whether long-term exposure to low-level arsenic in drinking water in Denmark is associated with an increased risk of diabetes using a large prospective cohort.


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Joseph Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936) was an American journalist and one of the most famous practitioners of the journalistic style called muckraking. He is also known for his 1921 statement, upon his return from the Soviet Union: "I have been over into the future, and it works."
A better known version of his famous quote, "I've seen the future, and it works," can be found on the title page of the 1933 edition of Red Virtue, written by his wife, Ella Winter.
Steffens was born April 6, 1866, in San Francisco and grew up in Sacramento, California. He studied in France and Germany after graduating from the University of California, where he was first exposed to what were known then as "radical" political views.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lincoln Steffens."


text:
Farrar, Geraldine (fərärˈ) [key], 1882–1967, American operatic soprano, b. Melrose, Mass.; pupil of Lilli Lehmann. She made her debut in Europe (1901) and sang at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, from 1906 to 1922. Her most famous roles were in La Bohème, Madame Butterfly, and Carmen.
See her autobiography, Such Sweet Compulsion (1938).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on Geraldine Farrar from Infoplease:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Music: History, Composers, and Performers: Biographies


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When putting together a card sort for a web application, what level of granularity is appropriate for each card?
For example, is the function "forward an email to a distribution list" granular enough, or should that piece of functionality be broken down even further?
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1 Answer 1
up vote 2 down vote accepted
The question is - is that function relevant and understandable by whoever is going to be doing your card sort? I think your example would, in theory, make a fine card. Here's some words from a real expert:
Donna Spencer wrote a great book titled Card Sorting, and she's got a precursor article that contains this:
Granularity and sampling content.
Content selected for the cards can be individual pages, functionality, small groups of pages, or whole sections of the site. Be consistent with your chosen granularity—participants will find it difficult to group content at different levels of granularity.
If you choose to use small groups of pages or sections of the site, ensure that the groups are of items that belong together. For example, don't include a grouping of "media releases," as this may not suit users and their tasks (they may prefer individual media releases to be grouped with other pages of similar topic.). Instead, include some individual media releases and see what participants do with them.
The content for the card sort should be representative of the site (or the part of site that you are investigating). It is important to ensure that the content has enough similarity to allow groupings to be formed. If the content chosen is too varied, participants will not be able to create natural groupings.
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text: Annotating a data sample in a multi-label learning problem requires a human oracle to consider the presence/absence of every possible label separately, which is extremely labor intensive. Active learning algorithms automatically identify the informative samples from large amounts of unlabeled data and significantly reduce human annotation efforts in inducing a classification model. Further, deep models have gained popularity to automatically learn representative features from a given dataset and have depicted promising empirical performance in a variety of applications. In this paper, we exploit the feature learning capabilities of deep neural networks and propose a novel framework to address the problem of multi-label active learning with label correlation. We integrate an active selection criterion to the objective function and train deep networks to optimize the function. Our extensive empirical studies on five benchmark multi-label datasets show that our methods outperform the state-of-the-art algorithms, corroborating their potential for real-world image classification applications.


text:
School: SANTA FE SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS
Area of Science: Ecology
Abstract: Problem: How the breeding cycle of the Leatherback Sea Turtle is affected by natural and human causes. The Leatherback is an endangered species due to poaching and nesting habitat destruction. By modeling these affects we hope to gain information to help us preserve the future of the Leatherback Sea Turtle.
Sponsoring Teacher: David Bailey


text:
The following article is an example of a.NET implementation of Kruskal's algorithm for finding the minimum spanning tree of a connected, undirected graph.
The minimum spanning tree for a graph is the set of edges that connects all nodes and has the lowest cost.
In order to be able to run this solution, you will need.NET 4.0. The example was constructed using Visual Studio 10, and WPF for the graphical representation.
In this article, I will be using a large portion of the code that I used to exemplify Dijkstra's algorithm for finding the minimum distance path between two nodes
in a connected undirected graph. You can find this example here.
Similar to Dijsktra, Kruskal's algorithm is also characterized as "greedy." Even though these algorithms are quite similar, their approaches are quite different since
their goals are simply not the same. In the case of minimum spanning tree, there are some additional structures that we will be using, making the understanding of the algorithm
a little bit more difficult.
In addition, the minimum spanning tree is a more abstract concept and a little more difficult to compare to a practical situation.
In the case of minimum distance algorithm, we thought of the graph as a map of cities where the nodes represent the cities and the edges – the roads that connect them.
We could imagine a similar scenario for a minimum spanning tree. For example, we could imagine that we are an internet provider that is currently building their network
in a given country and that we use optic fiber to connect all the cities in it. Since optic fiber costs us money, we would like to use as little as possible. The minimum spanning
tree algorithm can help us do that.
As already mentioned, Kruskal's minimum spanning tree is similar to Dijkstra's shortest path in the way that both are "greedy" algorithms.
When we were looking for the shortest path, we were trying to select the best possible edge from the node with the smallest total cost incurred.
The reason why this is an efficient strategy is because it reduces the number of nodes that we need to visit in order to get to the target.
In order to find the minimum spanning tree, we need a slightly different approach. To construct the tree in an efficient manner, we need to visit all nodes by visiting
as few edges as possible. Therefore, it makes sense to collect all the edges of the graph and have them ordered so that we consider the least costly ones first.
However, that is not enough since it does not guarantee us that we will select only the edges that we need to construct the minimum spanning tree. Let's consider
the following simple case. We have a graph with three nodes that are interconnected. We start collecting the edges to construct the minimum spanning tree.
We start with the edge between nodes 1 and 2. The next logical one would be the edge between nodes 2 and 3. At this point, there is a direct connection between
nodes 1 and 2, 2 and 3, and there is an indirect connection between 1 and 3 by going through node 2. Therefore, it would be a mistake to add the last edge to the minimum spanning tree.
Therefore, the minimum spanning tree consists only of the edges between nodes 1 and 2 and 2 and 3. We need a way to keep track of the edges that we have already
selected for the minimum spanning tree and the nodes that we have visited. In order to do that, we will use an additional structure that we will call cluster.
A cluster is simply a collection of nodes that we have already visited. As we keep adding edges to the minimum spanning tree, we need to check if each node the edge
connects is already in the cluster or not. If both nodes have been already added, the edge should not be included in the minimum spanning tree, even if it is the shortest edge in the list.
Having defined the role of the cluster, it becomes clear that at the start of the algorithm, we will need to have a cluster for each node.
As we keep adding edges to the minimum spanning tree, we will keep merging the clusters until we are left with what encompasses all the nodes in the graph.
The best way to exemplify the algorithm is to view an example that is a bit more complete than the example before.
Starting with the edge with the minimum cost, we will first add the edge between 2 and 5 to the minimum spanning tree and we will first merge the clusters of nodes 2 and 5.
We will apply the same logic for nodes 1 and 6 and the edge between them. The next edge we should consider is the one between nodes 3 and 4 or between 6 and 4
since they have the same cost of 15. Let's imagine that we take the edge between nodes 3 and 4. We find ourselves in the same situation as before.
The nodes are part of different clusters; therefore, we proceed in the same fashion. The next edge in line is the one between nodes 4 and 6.
The nodes are from different clusters: node 6 is in the same cluster as node 1, and node 4 is in the same cluster as node 3. We add the edge to the minimum
spanning tree and merge the two clusters into a single that will contain nodes 1, 6, 4, and 3. At this point, there are only two clusters left, the one we just
constructed and the one containing nodes 2 and 5. Therefore, the next edge that we select must allow us to merge these two clusters and it will be the last edge
in the minimum spanning tree. The edge with lowest cost is the one between nodes 4 and 5. This yields a minimum spanning tree with a total cost of 63.
Using the Application
In order to use the application, first the user needs to create the nodes and the edges between them. To create a node, the user needs to click on the canvas.
In order to connect two nodes, the user needs to consecutively select two nodes created on the canvas. To find the minimum spanning tree, the user needs to click
on "Find Minimum Span Tree". The "Clear" button allows the user to clear the canvas and build a new graph. "Restart" allows the user to go back to the initial condition
of the graph before finding the minimum distance.


text:
Alexandria, City of
Town Incorporated: 1779
City Incorporated: 1852
Formed From: Fairfax County
Previous Names: Hunting Creek Warehouse, Belhaven
Alexandria County (extinct) was named for the town of Alexandria. It was formed from a portion of Fairfax County that had been ceded by Virginia in 1789 to the federal government for use as the site of the national capital. In 1801, the area officially became part of the District of Columbia, although Congress named it Alexandria County. The county was returned to Virginia in 1846, and in 1847 the General Assembly extended the commonwealth's jurisdiction over the locality. In 1920, the county name was changed to Arlington County.
Original Records at The Library of Virginia: Yes


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Let $(B_i)$ be a collection of i.i.d. random variables taking values 0 or 1.
Suppose $0 < x^- < x^+ < 1$. Consider two different "success probabilities" for the i.i.d. collection $B_i$: under measure $P^-$, each $B_i$ takes value 1 with probability $x^-$, while under measure $P^+$, each $B_i$ takes value 1 with probability $x^+$.
Consider increasing events which are functions of the collection $(B_i)$.
I'm looking for a result of the following form: given $u^-\in(0,1)$, there exists $u^+>u^-$ such that if $A$ is an increasing event with $P^-(A)\geq u^-$, then $P^+(A)\geq u^+$.
Perhaps I'm missing something simple.... There are easy arguments, for example, when $x^+\geq (x^-)^{1/2}$. (Then one can consider two independent samples of $(B_i)$ from $P^+$, and take the min of the two samples; this dominates a sample from $P^-$. From this the result follows with $u^+=(u^-)^{1/2}$.)
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we may think on second measure $P^{+}$ as a coupling of $P^{-}$ and another Bernoulli scheme (that is, $B^{+}=\max(B^{-},C)$, where $C$ takes values 0,1 with suitable probabilities). In this case, any element of $cn$-neighborhood of $A=\{(B_1,\dots,B_n)\}$ w.r.t Hamming distance would hold with probabilty almost 1, provided $c$ is small enough. So, your question essentially reduces to isoperimetric inequalities on Bernoulli cube. Sorry that it is not answer, and is not very clear – Fedor Petrov May 31 '10 at 20:59
3 Answers 3
Say the $B_i$'s have success probability $x$, and let $P_x(A)$ denote the resulting probability of the increasing event $A$. Then the derivative of $P_x(A)$ at $x$ is equal to the "sum of the $x$-biased influences of $A$", which is a measure of the "edge-boundary" of $A$. Specifically, it equals $(1/x) \sum_{i} P_x(A_i)$, where $A_i$ is the event that $(B_1, \dots, B_n) \in A$ but $(B_1, \dots, -B_i, \dots, B_n) \notin A$. This is the "Russo-Margulis Lemma".
For particular events $A$, one can sometimes argue that the sum of the $x$-biased influences of $A$ is large based on symmetries of $A$. In that case, $P_x(A)$ increases quickly as a function of $x$. It's hard to describe more in a short space; you could take a look at Ehud Friedgut's survey on his work on "sharp thresholds": "Hunting for Sharp Thresholds", Random Structures Algorithms 26 (2005), no. 1-2, 37--51; also at
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Thanks Ryan, and thanks Fedor and Alekk too. I guess Fedor's suggestion of isoperimetric bounds is rather in the same direction as the question of influences. – James Martin Jun 2 '10 at 11:18
Ryan, the question now becomes: can one find a bound on $\sum_i P_x(A_i)$ in terms of $P_x(A)$? In particular, if $P_x(A)$ is not too close to 0 or 1, does it follow that $\sum_i P_x(A_i)$ is reasonably large? – James Martin Jun 2 '10 at 11:19
My impression is that the power of Friedgut's results is when the number of variables becomes large. Perhaps here, in looking for a bound that is uniform in $A$, it will be events that depend (or nearly depend) on a small number of variables that are the most important. – James Martin Jun 2 '10 at 11:21
The rough philosophy of Friedgut's results is that events A which do not "essentially depend on a small number of coordinates" have the property that the derivative of $P_x(A)$ is large at the "critical probability" (i.e., the $x_c$ such that $P_{x_c}(A)$ is $1/2$). Thus the event has probability nearly $0$ or $1$ for almost all $x$. – Ryan O'Donnell Jun 2 '10 at 22:27
up vote 1 down vote accepted
I managed to hack out an answer to this question, and get the following result:
For any $k$ and $\epsilon$, if
$ x^+\geq 1-(1-x^-)^{1+1/k} $
$ P_{x^-}(A)\in (k\epsilon^{1/2}, 1-k\epsilon^{1/2}) $
$ P_{x^+}(A)-P_{x^-}(A)\geq \epsilon. $
Given $u^-$, $x^-$ and $x^+$, it's easy to use this to get a $u^+$ of the form I was asking for, by choosing appropriate $k$ and $\epsilon$.
As it happens, this result is not enough to get a lower bound on the influences that I was asking for under Ryan's post (such a bound would follow for example if one could replace the interval $(k\epsilon^{1/2}, 1-k\epsilon^{1/2})$ by $(k\epsilon, 1-k\epsilon)$ above).
The argument I've got is not deep but too long to post here. It involves considering $k+1$ copies of the collection of Bernoulli random variables, then comparing the probability of the event A occurring based on the max of all $k+1$ of the copies or based on the max of just $k$ of the copies. Looking at an appropriate sequence of conditional probabilities as more information about the Bernoulli collections is revealed, one shows that if there is enough randomness in the sequence for the probability of the event occurring to be significantly away from 0 and from 1, then also there must be a significant chance that the event occurs based on the max of $k+1$ copies but not on $k$ copies. For completeness and just in case anyone happens to care, I've put some messy notes about it at
Of course I'd still be very interested to hear of any references where this or something similar has been done. I wouldn't be surprised if a more general approach involving isoperimetry or concentration is possible.....
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if the $C_i$ are Bernoulli rvs independent from everything, with $P(C_i=1)=\alpha$ and $\alpha(1-x^-)=x^+$ then $B_i \wedge C_i$ are also Bernoulli rvs with success rate $x^+$. Hence $P^+(A) \geq P^-(A) + (1-P^-(A))P^{\alpha}(A)$, isn't it?
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Yes, but what then? How to estimate fom below $P^{\alpha}$. I guess, no uniform bound exists by trivial examples. – Fedor Petrov May 31 '10 at 21:46
I do not think that there is a uniform bound from below: what would make you think that such a bound exists? – Alekk May 31 '10 at 22:25
As I understand, $u^{+}$ should depend only on $x^{-}$, $x^{+}$ and $u^{-}$. It is likely that it really is so, but I do not remember appropriate isoperimetric inequalities (see my comment to the initial post). – Fedor Petrov May 31 '10 at 22:34
Your Answer


Successful DJ Entrepreneurs
entrepreneur 3
By Stacy Zemon
Why is it that some mobile DJ business owners succeed more than others? Is it an innate ability, present from birth, or a learned behavior? What are the traits that identify a successful entrepreneur?
The 10 attributes of successful DJ entrepreneurs are:
1. Business focus.
2. Confidence.
A deeply held belief in oneself and one's abilities.
3. Creative thinker.
Creativity in taking an existing product or idea and turning it into a better one.
4. Delegator.
5. Determination.
Every entrepreneur goes through difficult times. While some throw in the towel, those who succeed persevere through difficulties.
6. Independent.
Independence doesn't necessarily mean working alone, as these successful entrepreneurs have shown. They are able to do whatever is needed to be done to make their business successful.
7. Knowledge-seeker.
8. Promoter.
9. Relationship-builder.
10. Risk-Taker
Growth involves risk. The successful DJ entrepreneur has an instinctive knowledge of how to mitigate and manage high-risk situations. DJ entrepreneurs perform best when they are able to utilize their dominant natural talents and create a consistent effort to nurture them.
What do you see as your best talents? Performance? Sales? Organization? Idea generation? Once you identify your top skills, put your energy into developing them further. For those parts of the business at which you are not talented, or have no interest, find others to take over those responsibilities. With a focus on your talents, you'll be able to point your DJ service in the direction of success.
Stacy Zemon
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 (Redirected from Lady Clay)
Jump to: navigation, search
Publication information
Publisher DC Comics
First appearance (Karlo)
Detective Comics #40
(June 1940)
Detective Comics #298
(December 1961)
Detective Comics #478
(July–August 1978)
Outsiders #21
(July 1987)
(Clay Payne, Claything)
Batman #550 (January 1998)
Catwoman #1 (2004)
Batman: Gotham Knights #60
(February 2005)
Created by (Karlo)
Bob Kane
Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff
(Payne, Fuller)
Len Wein, Mike W. Barr, Marshall Rogers
(Clay Payne, Claything)
Doug Moench, Kelley Jones
Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke
A.J. Lieberman
In-story information
Alter ego Basil Jamal Karlo
Matthew D. Hagen
Preston "Bill" Payne
Sondra Fuller
Cassius Payne
Dr. Peter Malley
Todd Russells
Johnny Williams
Ethan Bennett
Team affiliations Karlo:
The Society
Injustice League
Anti-Justice League
All Clayfaces:
Mud Pack
Notable aliases (Karlo):
Lady Clay
Abilities (Karlo):
Shapeshifting (body made out of mud)
Power duplication
Ability to melt people via physical contact
Temporary shapeshifting and voice-shifting
Body constituted by living mud, which he can divide or change the tone of at will
Superhuman strength from exo-skeleton suit
Ability to melt people via physical contact
Power duplication
(Cassius "Clay" Payne):
Superhuman strength
Power duplication
(Dr. Peter Malley):
Ability to melt people by looking at them
(Todd Russell):
(Johnny Williams):
Clayface is an alias used by several fictional supervillains appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Most of them possess clay-like bodies and shape-shifting abilities, and all of them have been enemies of Batman.
In 2010, IGN named Clayface the 73rd-greatest villain in comic book history.
Publication history[edit]
Created by Bob Kane, the original Clayface (Basil Karlo) was a B-movie actor who began a life of crime using the identity of a villain he portrayed in a horror film.[1]
In the late 1950s, Batman began facing a series of science fiction-inspired foes, including Matt Hagen, a treasure-hunter given vast shape-shifting powers and resiliency by radioactive protoplasm, who became the new Clayface. He retained the title for the next several decades of comic book history. In the late 1970s, Preston Payne became the third Clayface. A scientist suffering from hyperpituitarism, Preston Payne used the second Clayface's blood to create a cure but became a claylike creature that needed to pass his condition on to others to survive instead. His condition was used as a metaphor for drug abuse and sexually transmitted disease.
Sondra Fuller of Strike Force Kobra, used the terrorist group's technology to become the fourth Clayface, also known as Lady Clay. She formed the Mud Pack with the original, second, and third Clayfaces. During that time, Payne and Fuller had a son dubbed "Cassius 'Clay' Payne", who also had metahuman clay powers. During this era, the original Clayface used the DNA of Payne and Fuller to become the most powerful Clayface, often considered the current and ultimate incarnation of the villain.
Clayface has appeared in three animated adaptations of Batman, starting with the late 1970s-era The New Adventures of Batman, which featured a comedic version of Hagen. The 1990s-era Batman: The Animated Series featured a past-his-prime actor disfigured in a car accident who uses an experimental, addictive cosmetic to regain his appearance only to become a monstrous hunk of clay after a massive overdose of the substance. This interpretation, like the series' Mr. Freeze, was applauded as a deeper, more sympathetic version of a sci-fi-era villain, and the comic book incarnation of the Basil Karlo Clayface was retooled after it. The 2000s-era The Batman featured a new character Ethan Bennett, who had ties to a young Bruce Wayne, as Clayface before introducing a version of Basil Karlo.
In 2009, Clayface was ranked as IGN's 73rd Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.[2]
Fictional character biography[edit]
Basil Karlo[edit]
The Basil Karlo Clayface. Art by Glen Orbik and Laurel Blechman.
The original Clayface, Basil Karlo, appeared in Detective Comics #40. He is an actor who is driven insane when he hears that a remake of the classic horror film he had starred in, The Terror, would be shot without him acting in the film, even though he is to be one of the advising staff. Donning the costume of the film's villain he once played, Clayface, he begins killing the actors playing characters he killed in the order and way they die in the film, along with someone who knew his identity. Last, he plans to murder the actor playing the Clayface killer. He is foiled by Batman and Robin.[3] He reappears in Detective Comics #49 (March 1941) after the prison ambulance he is riding in plunges off a cliff. He once again dons the mask of Clayface and targets Bruce Wayne's fiancée, Julie Madison. Once again, the Dynamic Duo foil his plans. A movie buff, Batman creator Bob Kane states that the character was partially inspired by the Lon Chaney, Sr. version of The Phantom of the Opera and that the name of the character comes from Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone.[4][5]
Much later, Karlo languishes in a prison hospital, when the current Clayface, Sondra Fuller, visits him out of curiosity. Karlo proposes an alliance between all living Clayfaces to kill Batman. Even though "the Mud Pack", as the group called itself, is defeated, Karlo injects himself with samples from Preston Payne, Matt Hagen and Sondra Fuller, gaining the abilities to shapeshift and melt with a touch; he becomes the self-declared "Ultimate" Clayface.[6] He is defeated by the combined efforts of Batman and Looker of the Outsiders by overloading his abilities, making him melt into the ground. He literally sinks into the Earth's crust when he loses control of his powers; he survives, however, and now his body sports crystals similar to quartz that endow him with greater powers. Karlo escapes his underground prison when Gotham City is struck by a great cataclysm. He captures Batman and is about to kill him, but he gets into a feud with Mr. Freeze on who has a right to kill the Caped Crusader. Using that distraction, Batman soundly defeats both of them.
During the "No Man's Land" storyline, Karlo holds Poison Ivy, who is in charge of producing fresh vegetables for the remaining people in the city, prisoner in Robinson Park. Poison Ivy eventually battles and defeats Karlo, sinking him deep into the ground. It appears that the Ultimate Clayface is destroyed in this battle, but has resurfaced as a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains. Later, he seeks to increase his already formidable powers by absorbing Wonder Woman (a clay construct similar to him), giving him an amount of powers that bordered on invulnerability. While he is successful in absorbing some of the heroine's powers, causing her to regress to a teenage appearance resembling Donna Troy, he is ultimately returned to normal when Wonder Woman and Donna were able to trick Clayface into entering a train carriage with Wonder Woman while she was disguised as Donna, Donna subsequently using the Lasso of Truth to swing the carriage around and turn it into a mystical centrifuge, causing the clay Clayface had taken from Wonder Woman to split away from him and re-merge with Wonder Woman due to the differences between the two types of clay
Basil Karlo is among the members of the Injustice League and is among the villains seen in Salvation Run. He can be seen as a member of Libra's Secret Society of Super Villains. In the second issue of Final Crisis, he triggers an explosion at the Daily Planet under Libra's orders when Lex Luthor demands for Libra to do something that will draw Superman to them.[7]
Black Mask attempted to control Clayface by implanting a device in his body. He escaped Black Mask but was captured and imprisoned by the Outsiders.
In The New 52 (a reboot of the DC Comics universe) as a part of "Death of the Family" storyline, Poison Ivy breaks Basil Karlo out of Arkham intent on marrying him.[8] This turns out to be a ruse with Poison Ivy messing with Karlo's mind. He later sets out to seek revenge.[9]
Karlo later returns with a new plan: to use his DNA-duplication abilities to impersonate Bruce Wayne and take control of Wayne Enterprises. He even guesses that Wayne is Batman's true identity. However, Batman plants false evidence to suggest that he anticipated Karlo's attempt to take his DNA and tricked him into taking a fake sample. Batman eventually stops him by trapping him in a security system that can only be deactivated with Karlo's original DNA, reasoning that Karlo has changed too much for his original DNA to be present in his system.[10]
Matt Hagen[edit]
Cover to Detective Comics #298.


Role of Applied Linguistics in the Teaching of English in Saudi Arabia
Intakhab Alam Khan
The importance of applied linguistics in general and English language teaching in particular is perceived by almost all pedagogues and educationists. Gone are days when a postgraduate or a graduate used to join teaching profession due the fact that he possessed good knowledge in English literature or even language. In the modern educational setting, the English teacher is supposed to know linguistics or applied English linguistics in order to prove himself as an effective English language teacher. In most pedagogic situations in Saudi Arabia, the teacher of English is bound to make error/contrastive analysis between LI (Arabic) and L2 (English) so that he can evolve a compatible strategy for each sub-aspect of the language: sound, grammar, spelling, meaning etc. The present paper is a modest attempt towards exploring the use of applied linguistics in the whole process of teaching/learning of the target language (English).
Full Text:
Copyright © Canadian Center of Science and Education


ValueManagement_44Valuemanagement VM1 EN12973 course
Success Stories
handle online training courses with 40+ participants doing a case study following the EN 12973 working plan for cost reduction and functional improvement
 - How can you maintain orientation through the seminar?
 What needs to be considered in the virtual environment?
 Which IT infrastructure is needed?
 - 1. Do a lot more of preparation in advance: When starting the seminar in the morning, it is too late for preparation. Therefore, prepare all your case study spreadsheets in advance. Also give information about virtual access of the video conference tool and the course material.
 - 2. Provide a suitable video conference infrastructure: You need a stable online Video conferencing tool. VMN - Valuemanager Ninaus is in favour of two systems therefore but this is personally opinion. ZOOM and MS Teams work out fine for this. both systems can handle 40+ participants. Both have advantages but for the seminar purpose we prefer ZOOM becuase of the breakout sessions in group working mode.
 - 3. Use a professional data sharing platform: You need to exchange a lot of information to your participants. For sharing content and annoucements the platform Moodle despites others is appropriate. That is your backbone for file sharing, shcedule information, group formation and so on. Moodle has developed nice features like automatic group member assignment and offers various functions for material uploads for your participants.
 - 4. Provide a detailed schedule for the seminar. Especially in a virtual traning environment,it is essential for participants during a long training day to know when to be on stage and whne to be offline for pauses. The participants want to know when they have time for breaks and to relax and get strengths for the next sessions. furthermore, tell them in advance when the have to listen to the lecturer and whne the have to switch to group work. If you want to be genious also them them which tools to use for their teamworks.
 - 5. Formulate clear milestones with time limits: you cannot send the participants in their breakout sessions to do their groupwork without clear targets for each session. Explain the targets that have to be achieved. Then let them work on it.
 The EN12973 working plan is perfect structure to show the progress during seminar:
 - 6. Coach each group during case studies: show up in each virtual room and ask for questions and feedback for understanding the task. Control the results within the group virtual room. You want have time that all groups can present all milestones of a case study.
 - 7. Allow sufficient time for the group session: Additional time must be provided for the virtual group sessions to be carried out.Nevertheless, be flexible for the teams if they think they can make a session quicker. Then shorten the duration. Here ZOOM has a nice function to force all group members to come back to the main virtual room at once.
 - 8. set up clear communication rules during the seminar: tell the participants how to use the video conference tool. Tell themn when to mute their microphones and when to switch of video. But what we even prefer is to tell them when to switch on the video as well. Trust us, it really can get boring seeing no face for most of the time during seminar.


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A C# Class to Perform Arithmetic on Complex Numbers
, 14 Nov 2007 CPOL
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A C# class to perform arithmetic on complex numbers
Although the C# language has been used quite successfully in many kinds of projects, it still remains to be proven proficient for scientific computing. Questions remain as to whether or not C# can measure up to the likes of FORTRAN and C++ for scientific and mathematical projects.
Complex Arithmetic
Arithmetic and algebra on complex numbers is important in many fields of science and engineering. Even though C# does not support an intrinsic complex number data type, it doesn't stop you from creating your own. You can do so using a struct, which has value semantics. The purpose of this article is to present my attempt to fashion a complex arithmetic class for C#.
Using the Code
The struct Complex is completely contained within the namespace ComplexMath in the file Complex.cs. There are three separate program files included in the download as well as a documented help file for the project. You can run the program either by using the ComplexMath.dll reference, or by using the ComplexMath library code directly by simply adding the Complex.cs file to a project. You must, in either case, add the header using ComplexMath; to the main project file. If you decide to go the DLL route, first build the library (DLL) by running the CompexMath.sln file from which you can generate two ComplexMath.dll files, one each in bin/Release and bin/Debug.
Steps to Use the Library as a DLL
 1. Start a new C# console application.
 2. Build both the Debug and Release versions.
 3. Place the Debug and Release versions of the ComplexMath.dll in their respective bin folders.
 4. From Project/Add Reference menus, find the ComplexMath.dll for the version (debug or release) and add it to the project.
 5. Add the header: using ComplexMath; to your program file.
 6. Use the accompanying TestComplexMath.cs file as a prototype for your own program.
Your test program should look something like the one below which briefly demonstrates many of the capabilities of the library:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using ComplexMath;
namespace TestLib
 class Program
 static void Main(string[] args)
 Complex z1, z2, z3; // instantiation
 z1 = new Complex(1.0, -2.0);
 z2 = new Complex(-3.0, -5.0);
 z3 = new Complex(0.292342, -0.394875);
 Console.WriteLine("instantiated complex numbers:");
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("z1 = {0}", z1));
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("z2 = {0}", z2));
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("z3 = {0}", z3));
 // random complex numbers
 z1 = Complex.Random();
 z2 = Complex.Random();
 z3 = Complex.Random();
 Console.WriteLine("random generated:");
 Console.WriteLine("basic properties:");
 ("z1.real = {0} z1.imag = {1}", z1.real, z1.imag));
 ("complex conjugate of z1 = {0}.", z1.Conjugate));
 ("complex modulus of z1 = {0}.", z1.Modulus));
 ("complex argument of z1 = {0}.", z1.Argument)); // operators
 z3 = z1 + z2; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("z1 + z2 = {0}", z3));
 z3 = z1 - z2; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("z1 - z2 = {0}", z3));
 z3 = z1 * z2; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("z1 * z2 = {0}", z3));
 z3 = z1 / z2; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("z1 / z2 = {0}", z3));
 // transcendental functions
 Console.WriteLine("transcendental functions:");
 z3 = Complex.Sin(z1); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Sin(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Cos(z1); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Cos(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Tan(z1); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Tan(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Sinh(z1);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Sinh(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Cosh(z1);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Cosh(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Tanh(z1);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Tanh(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Exp(z1); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Exp(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Log(z1); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Log(z1) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Log10(z1);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Log10(z1) = {0}", z3)); // roots
 z3 = Complex.Sqrt(z1);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Sqrt(z1) = {0}", z3));
 Console.WriteLine("k 4th roots:");
 for (long k = 0; k < 4; k++)
 z3 = Complex.NthRoot(z1, 4, k);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("NthRoot(z1, 4, {0}) = {1}",k, z3));
 } Console.WriteLine("the five 5th roots of unity:");
 Complex z = new Complex(1.0, 0.0);
 for (long k = 0; k < 5; k++)
 z3 = Complex.NthRoot(z, 5, k);
 (string.Format("{0}th 5th root of unity = {1}", k, z3));
 // powers
 int n = 7;
 z3 = Complex.Pow(z1, z2);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Complex.Pow(z1, z2) = {0}", z3));
 z3 = Complex.Pow(z1, n);
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Complex.Pow(z1, {0}) = {1}", n, z3));
 // display
 Console.WriteLine(string.Format("polar form of z1 = {0}.", z1.Polar()));
 // debug tracing
 }// Program
}// TestLib
The accompanying TestLib program demonstrates all of the capabilities of the Complex struct. One point worth making is that complex numbers can be expressed both in a rectangular form that most high-school algebra students are familiar with and in the more sophisticated polar form which requires some more advanced understanding of trigonometry, De Moivre's Theorem and Euler's Identity. If you are interested, check them out on the Web.
Note that all of the initialization input assumes that you are using the rectangular form of the complex number, which implies that real is measured along the x-axis of the Argand plane and imaginary is measured along the y-axis of that plane. However, the program has the capacity to output the components of the polar form -- that is, the modulus |z| and the argument (theta) -- by using the ShowPolar() and Polar() methods and the Argument and Modulus properties (see above).
Since complex numbers can be added, subtracted, multiplied and divided, it is convenient to have operators to accomplish those ends. Thus, we have incorporated those operators.
There appears to be no shortage of postings offering C# code for dealing with complex numbers. These include:
Although I have been involved in scientific mathematical and statistical programming for over 10 years, this article is the first that I have attempted to post. I quickly learned that there are many smarter and better programmers out there who have done a much better job at using C#. For me, this was an excellent learning experience, both in terms of learning some of the pitfalls of scientific computing with C# and having to explain to others what my code does.
The fact that C# class assignment operators which are automatically generated and cannot be overridden create something of a problem, particularly if one is coming from a C++ background. Once an assignment is made, the assignor and the assignee are locked together by a common pointer. Change one, you change the other. In order to work around that, one would have to implement ICloneable which can be rather tedious and complicated. For that reason, I chose to use the struct rather than a class. I am still learning about C#.
I plan to update and improve this code for my own use and for any others who wish to use it, and to do a better job in the future. You may use this code in any manner that you wish. It is always polite and professional to give the original author credit. Please report any comments, criticisms or bugs to the forum below.
About the Author
Mike Pliam
United States United States
Born in the USA
Comments and Discussions
SuggestionVery good class. PinmemberCFSW25-Aug-14 5:46
Generalcomplex atan Pinmemberjoerghaus23-Nov-08 4:36
GeneralRe: complex atan PinmemberMichael B Pliam


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Climate Risk and Attribution
In this fourth episode we discuss climate risk and attribution – understanding how man-made 'forcing factors' can affect the intensity and probability of extreme weather events such as heat waves and extreme rainfall leading to droughts and flooding. As our understanding of this emerging and complex area of climate science increases we may be better placed to understand climate risk and avoid or adapt to extremes of weather. To unpack this issue we are joined by Dr Neven Fučkar, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellow, COP26 Fellow in Climate Risk, and Departmental Tutor at the University of Oxford and Prof Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society.
You can download regular episodes of Planet Pod on our website or via all major podcast providers.
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text:
Coleman, SA and Nichols, E (2011) Embedding Inquiry based learning into Programming via Paired Assessment. ITALICS, 10 (1). pp. 72-77. [Journal article]
Full text not available from this repository.
Changes within our approach to teaching can make some students feel uncomfortable. To overcome this, inquiry based learning, which is strongly supported by research in the areas of intellectual development and approaches to learning (Prince, 2007), can be used. Inquiry based approaches should be introduced in combination with existing teaching styles in order to address the needs of all students. Pair programming enhances the communication among peers and encourages students to ask questions of each other and be more ambitious in their computer programming practicals. The students subsequently gain confidence from one another to try different approaches to solving programming problems; this enhances deeper learning. Additionally, working in pairs provides some students with the courage to ask questions of the teacher while with their pair, which they may not do alone. This paper presents a case study on using pair programming to encourage inquiry based learning within programming modules, to improve attendance and practical assessment results.
|Item Type:||Journal article|
|Faculties and Schools:||Faculty of Computing & Engineering|
Faculty of Computing & Engineering > School of Computing and Intelligent Systems
|Research Institutes and Groups:||Computer Science Research Institute|
Computer Science Research Institute > Intelligent Systems Research Centre
|Deposited By:||Dr Sonya Coleman|
|Deposited On:||11 Jul 2011 09:06|
|Last Modified:||11 Jul 2011 09:06|
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text:
necessarily globally) unique. If you require a globally unique identifier, you must ensure that the primary key is globally unique or use system-generated OIDs.
REF contains the following three logical components:
Referential integrity constraints on
REF columns ensure that there is a row object for the
REF. Referential integrity constraints on
REFs create the same relationship as specifying a primary key/foreign key relationship on relational data. In general, you should use referential integrity constraints wherever possible because they are the only way to ensure that the row object for the
REF exists. However, you cannot specify referential integrity constraints on
REFs that are in nested tables.
REF is constrained to contain only references to a specified object table. You can specify a scoped
REF when you declare a column type, collection element, or object type attribute to be a
REF. In general, you should use scoped
REFs whenever possible instead of unscoped
REFs because scoped
REFs are stored more efficiently. Scoped
REFs are stored on disk as just the OID, so each scoped
REF is 16 bytes long. In addition to the smaller size, the optimizer often can optimize queries that dereference a scoped
REF into efficient joins. This optimization is not possible for unscoped
REFs because the optimizer cannot determine the containing table(s) for unscoped
REFs at query optimization time.
However, unlike referential integrity constraints, scoped REFs do not ensure that the referenced row object exists; they only ensure that the referenced object table exists. Therefore, if you specify a scoped
REF to a row object and then delete the row object, the scoped
REF becomes a dangling
REF because the referenced object no longer exists.
REFs are useful if the application design requires that the objects referenced be scattered in multiple tables. Because rowid hints are ignored for scoped
REFs, you should use unscoped
REFs if the performance gain of the rowid hint, as explained below in the "Speeding up Object Access using the WITH ROWID Option" section, outweighs the benefits of the storage saving and query optimization of using scoped
You can build indexes on scoped
REF columns using the
INDEX command. Then, you can use the index to efficiently evaluate queries that dereference the scoped
REFs. Such queries are turned into joins implicitly. For certain types of queries, Oracle can use an index on the scoped
REF column to evaluate the join efficiently.
For example, suppose the object type
address_objtyp is used to create an object table named
people_reltab2 table can be created that has the same definition as the
people_reltab table discussed in "Column Object Storage", except that a
REF is used for the address:
CREATE TABLE people_reltab2 ( id NUMBER(4) CONSTRAINT pk_people_reltab2 PRIMARY KEY, name_obj name_objtyp, address_ref REF address_objtyp SCOPE IS address_objtab, phones_ntab phone_ntabtyp) NESTED TABLE phones_ntab STORE AS phone_store_ntab2 ;
Now, an index can be created on the
The following query dereferences the
When this query is executed, the
address_ref_idx index is used to efficiently evaluate it. Here,
address_ref is a scoped
REF column that stores references to addresses stored in the
address_objtab object table. Oracle implicitly transforms the above query into a query with a join:
SELECT p.id FROM people_reltab2 p, address_objtab a WHERE p.address_ref = ref(a) AND a.state = 'CA' ;
Oracle's optimizer might create a plan to perform a nested-loops join with
address_objtab as the outer table and look up matching addresses using the index on the
ROWID option is specified for a
REF column, Oracle maintains the rowid of the object referenced in the
REF. Then, Oracle can find the object referenced directly using the rowid contained in the
REF, without the need to fetch the rowid from the OID index. Therefore, you use the
ROWID option to specify a rowid hint. Maintaining the rowid requires more storage space because the rowid adds 16 bytes to the storage requirements of the
Bypassing the OID index search improves the performance of
REF traversal (navigational access) in applications. The actual performance gain may vary from application to application depending on the following factors:
REFtraversals an application does.
ROWID option is only a hint because, when you use this option, Oracle checks the OID of the row object with the OID in the
REF. If the two OIDs do not match, Oracle uses the OID index instead. The rowid hint is not supported for scoped
REFs with referential integrity constraints, or for primary key-based
An unnesting query on a collection allows the data to be viewed in a flat (relational) form. You can execute unnesting queries on both nested tables and varrays. This section contains examples of unnesting queries.
Nested tables can be unnested for queries using the
TABLE syntax, as in the following example:
phones_ntab specifies the attributes of the
phones_ntab nested table. To ensure that the parent rows with no children rows also are retrieved, use the outer join syntax as follows:
In the first case, if the query does not refer to any columns from the parent table (other than the nested table column in the
FROM clause), the query is optimized to execute only against the storage table.
You can also use the
TABLE syntax to query varrays. For example, suppose the
phones_ntab nested table is instead a varray named
phones_var. In this case, you still can use the
TABLE syntax to query the varray, as in the following example:
The unnesting query syntax is the same for varrays and nested tables.
You can create procedures and functions that you can then execute to perform unnesting queries. For example, you can create a function called
home_phones() that returns only the phone numbers where
location is 'home'. To create the
home_phones() function, you enter code similar to the following:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION home_phones(allphones IN phone_ntabtyp) RETURN phone_ntabtyp IS homephones phone_ntabtyp := phone_ntabtyp(); indx1 number; indx2 number := 0; BEGIN FOR indx1 IN 1..allphones.count LOOP IF allphones(indx1).location = 'home' THEN homephones.extend; -- extend the local collection indx2 := indx2 + 1; -- extend the local collection homephones(indx2) := allphones(indx1); END IF; END LOOP; RETURN homephones; END; /
Now, to query for a list of people and their home phone numbers, enter the following:
SELECT p.name_obj, n.num FROM people_reltab p, table( CAST(home_phones(p.phones_ntab) AS phone_ntabtyp)) n ;
To query for a list of people and their home phone numbers, including those people who do not have a home phone number listed, enter the following:
SELECT p.name_obj, n.num FROM people_reltab p, TABLE(CAST(home_phones(p.phones_ntab) AS phone_ntabtyp))(+) n ;
Oracle8i SQL Reference for more information about using the
The size of a stored varray depends only on the current count of the number of elements in the varray and not on the maximum number of elements that it can hold. The storage of varrays incurs some overhead, such as null information. Therefore, the size of the varray stored may be slightly greater than the size of the elements multiplied by the count.
Varrays are stored in columns either as raw values or
BLOBs. Oracle decides how to store the varray when the varray is defined, based on the maximum possible size of the varray computed using the
LIMIT of the declared varray. If the size exceeds approximately 4000 bytes, then the varray is stored in
BLOBs. Otherwise, the varray is stored in the column itself as a raw value. In addition, Oracle supports inline LOBs; therefore, elements that fit in the first 4000 bytes of a large varray (with some bytes reserved for the LOB locator) are stored in the column of the row itself.
If the entire collection is manipulated as a single unit in the application, varrays perform much better than nested tables. The varray is stored "packed" and requires no joins to retrieve the data, unlike nested tables.
The unnesting syntax can be used to access varray columns similar to the way it is used to access nested tables.
"Viewing Object Data in Relational Form with Unnesting Queries" for more information.
Piece-wise updates of a varray value are not supported. Thus, when a varray is updated, the entire old collection is replaced by the new collection.
The following sections contain design considerations for using nested tables.
Oracle stores the rows of a nested table in a separate storage table. A system generated
NESTED_TABLE_ID, which is 16 bytes in length, correlates the parent row with the rows in its corresponding storage table.
Figure 5-5 shows how the storage table works. The storage table contains each value for each nested table in a nested table column. Each value occupies one row in the storage table. The storage table uses the
NESTED_TABLE_ID to track the nested table for each value. So, in Figure 5-5, all of the values that belong to nested table
A are identified, all of the values that belong to nested table
B are identified, etc.
If a nested table has a primary key, you can