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Wireless optical networks could make vehicles lighter
COVENTRY, UK – LED-based wireless optical networks in vehicles could significantly cut the weight of wiring under the hood, not only saving on fuel, but also allowing passengers to tap into visible or infrared spectrum bands in overhead lighting to watch movies or play music.
Radio-frequency (RF) signals are used for smartphones, for hands-free headsets for the driver and passengers, and for multimedia-related applications such as tablet PCs, but RF communication suffers from a congested bandwidth. In contrast, wireless systems benefit from an unlimited and unregulated spectrum.
The University of Warwick's Roger Green is working to create LED-based optical wireless networks.
Although optical wireless has been explored for some time in aviation, scientists in the University of Warwick's engineering department are exploring its use in private vehicles. It can be used to communicate between parts inside a car's engine compartment, such as between temperature sensors and the engine management system, or between the brake and speed-control systems.
Optical wireless can simply use a basic LED, such as those used in flashlights, to send data. In situations where it is best for the beam to be invisible, infrared light can be used instead. It can be installed in the overhead lights for in-car entertainment.
The major advantage of optical wireless is the weight of wiring it can remove from cars, translating into significant fuel savings over the lifetime of a vehicle, the researchers say. But it also reduces manufacturing costs, as LED and infrared light sources are not expensive to make, and it cuts back on the expense of maintaining and repairing wires.
Combined, all these factors spell significant advantages over the current systems for in-car data, which, in the engine, are generally copper wire-based or carbon fiber.
"Optical wireless is relatively unknown at the moment. But it's not hard to imagine a day when passengers can watch TV streamed through a beam coming from their overhead light, or when parts of the engine can 'talk' to each other without wires," said UW professor Roger Green. "We believe that this technology is poised to come into its own."
Other benefits include its lack of electromagnetic interference, he said.
The engineers presented their work at the International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks this summer at the university.


Case Simulators
MediaLab's Case Simulators use in-browser virtual microscopes to help teach and assess key laboratory skills.
Red Blood Cell Morphology Case Simulator
Twenty-five case studies to teach identification hypochromasia, macrocytes, microcytes, Pappenheimer bodies, platelet clumps, polychromasia, schistocytes, sickle cells, spherocytes, target cells, teardrop cells, and more.
White Blood Cell Case Simulator
Twenty-five expert-reviewed differentials, each with 100 slide images. Cells include segmented neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, blasts, myelocytes, band neutrophils, nucleated red blood cells, eosinophils, metamyelocytes, basophils, reactive lymphocytes, and promyelocytes.
Advanced WBC Case Simulator
Twelve expert-reviewed differentials, each with 100 slide images, focusing on more advanced identification skills, including leukemias.
Body Fluid Case Simulator
Thirty peritoneal and pleural fluid expert-reviewed cases, each with images of hemocytometer, cytospin slides, unknown nucleated cell identification, cell count calculation exercises, and review videos.
Urinalysis Case Simulator
Thirty expert-reviewed cases, each with 50 slide images. Cases include casts, crystals, and more.


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|Configuring Geronimo Eclipse Plugin to publish POJO projects as Shared Libraries||Configuring your development environment|
This tutorial will demonstrate the usage of Eclipse XML tools to generated Geronimo specific deployment plans.
We DO encourage users to leverage GEP for schema validation, because GEP has already integrated these schema files in its distribution package. The steps described in this article are only for your reference.
You might be experiencing certain XML validation problems when using Geronimo Deployment Plan Editor in Eclipse v3.5(Galileo), it's a known defect of the Xerces feature in WTP. Try the following workaround in Eclipse v3.5 to avoid the problem:
- In the toolbar, select Windows->Preferences
- Expand XML section, and then select XML Files->Validation
- Uncheck the Honour all the XML schema locations option, and then save all the changes.
To run this tutorial, as a minimum you will be required to have installed the following prerequisite software.
- Sun JDK 5.0+ (J2SE 1.5)
- Eclipse 3.4.1 (Eclipse Ganymede SR1 distribution)
- Apache Geronimo v2.2
Details on installing eclipse are provided in the Development environment section. This tutorial is organized in the following sections:
Configuring Eclipse for geronimo schema
- Geronimo schema files can be found in /schema. Copy all these schema files to a folder say geronimoschema. Content of these files might be different by release.
- Add the following XML catalog file to this folder and zip it. This will give you a
- Launch Eclipse and select New->Project as shown in the figure.
- On the next screen select General->Project. Select Next.
- Name the project as geronimoschema and Select Finish.
- Under Project explorer right click on geronimoschema project and select Import. Then select General->Archive File. Select Next.
- On the next screen Browse to
geronimoschema.zipcreated in step #2. Once done select Finish.
- Under the geronimoschema project you can see all the schema definitions.
- Next select Window->Preferences from Eclipse menu.
- On the next window select XML->XML Catalog. Select User Specified Entries and click Add.
- On the next window click the icon beside Location and select workspace.
- Select GeronimoSchema.xmlcatalog. Select OK.
- Specify the key, for example, geronimoschema.
- On the next screen you can see geronimoschema listed.
Using the configuration in application development
- For the next steps we will consider the Stateless Session Bean project.
- Consider the Few More Configurations section in the above tutorial where you have to add a dependency element for database pool.
- In StatelessSessionEJB select ejbModule->META-INF->openejb-jar.xml. Right click and select Open With->XML Editor.
- Once you have the openejb-jar.xml select Design tab.
- You can edit the fields by double clicking against each fields.
- Once done open the source tab you can see the dependency element added to openejb-jar.xml.
This completes the illustration of using Eclipse xml tools for Apache Geronimo.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Marriott's® Strategy for Contributing to Environmental Conservation
With an increase in global travel comes corporate responsibility for mitigating our business impact on the natural environment. Both in our hotels and beyond, we seek to understand and act on the direct and indirect environmental impacts of our business operations.
Our goals include:
- Further reduce energy and water consumption 20% by 20201. Energy 20 percent per kWh/conditioned m2; Water 20 percent per occupied room (POR). Baseline: 2008
- Empower our hotel development partners to build green hotels2.
- Green our multi-billion dollar supply chain.
- Educate and inspire associates and guests to conserve and preserve
- Address environmental challenges through innovative conservation initiatives including rainforest protection and water conservation

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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How do I add multiple masks to a layer in Photoshop CS3? I already created one mask for chain link fence so that the fence would appear between a person and his original background:
Now I would like to apply a second mask to the chain link fence for dirty grunge effect - for example, make some chains broken or frailed. The reason why I want two masks is so that I can edit each independently and have a non-destructive way of playing with my fence.
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2 Answers 2
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It's hacky, but you can add multiple raster masks by Grouping the layer. Of course, this may cause problems if you need it to be bound to a lower layer, but if the layer is "independent" you can add as many redundant masks as you want.
So, in your example, you could make your fence with its layer mask. Then make a group with the fence (and any effects). Mask the group with the man's outline so the fence appears behind him.
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I wouldn't call that "hacky." It's just using a feature in a sneaky way. ;-) – Alan Gilbertson May 19 '11 at 20:30
You can add a vector mask, not a second raster mask, but that won't get you where you need to go.
There a several ways to add your grunge effect, but probably the simplest would convert the fence layer to a Smart Object (they were new in CS3, from what I remember) and mask that. You'll not interfere with the mask in the object itself, but you will have a problem if you ever need to move either the man or the fence.
Another way to grunge up only the fence layer would be to make a new layer group with only that one layer in it, and add a mask to the layer. If you "unhook" your existing mask from the layer, you will be able to adjust the position of the layer without affecting the illusion.
All that said, a different but possibly much faster technique is:
 1. Make the "man" layer active, then Ctrl-click (Cmd-click) the fence layer's mask icon in the layers panel to load it as as selection.
 2. Copy (Ctrl/Cmd-J or Layer > New > New Layer Via Copy) the man and the background bits seen through the fence onto a new layer.
 3. Move this new layer above the fence layer, and you can do anything you want with that mask.
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Related topics: Human
if you sneeze, air suddenly comes from your nose, making a noise, for example when you have a cold:
She started coughing and sneezing.
The dust was making him sneeze.
2 British English nothing to sneeze at American English spoken
used about an offer, especially of money, that is very good, and which you should consider carefully:
In those days £5 an hour was not to be sneezed at.


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Please check the attached file for the network diagram
A network of railway lines connects the main lines entering and leaving a city. Speed limits, track reconstruction, and train length restrictions lead to the flow diagram below, where the numbers represent how many cars can pass per hour. What is the maximal flow in cars per hour from the west to the east?
Logic of the max flow - min cut theorem applied to describing the solution to a traffic flow graph.


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Presentation on theme: "Random Variables Lesson chapter 16 part A Expected value and standard deviation for random variables."— Presentation transcript:
Random Variables Lesson chapter 16 part A Expected value and standard deviation for random variables
What is a Random Event: Picking a card from a deck of cards: Tossing a coin: Etc... Can you think of any others? (pg 1.2 list 3 others ) Picking a student in a class looking for Jan birthdays: (1.4) An event with a list of outcomes where the outcome of the event is random
What is a Random Variable: Defined as a capital X that we never solve for. A function that maps for us a random event to numerical outcomes, and the total probability of all outcomes is 1 Or a function that maps a sample space into real numbers. Picking a card from a deck of cards: (pg 1.3-1.4) Assign a value to the cards - $0.25 for face cards, $0.5 for aces, 0 for others Tossing a coin: (1.5-1.6) $2.00 for a head and $-1.00 for a tail Convert the random events you came up with to random variables? (pg 1.9 – 3 questions) Picking a student in a class looking for Jan birthdays (1.7-1.8) Jan b-day = 12 points versus non-Jan b-day = 5 points
Now lets look at the math behind random variables – Finding the average outcome of a random variable or what you can expect to win!
What is the average of a random variable? 9, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 6, 9, 2, 4 What is the average of this set of numbers? (pg 2.1) Ok, now lets do it a different way: Lets look at the formula for finding the average: 9+6+5+3+3+3+6+9+2+4 10
9, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 6, 9, 2, 4 Lets do it a different way: (pg 2.2a) (2+3+3+3+4+5+6+6+9+9) /10 Use algebra: (pg 2.2b) (1x2 + 3x3 + 1x4 + 1x5 + 2x6 + 2x9) /10 Break it apart: (pg 2.3) Rewrite it: (pg 2.4) Change to percents: 10%(2) + 30%(3) + 10%(4) + 10%(5) + 20%(6) + 20%(9) This formula is called the Expected Value!!
If you select a face card you get $0.50, if you get any other card you get nothing. It costs $0.25 play. Is it worth playing? (what is the average pay out?) Create a Probability Model for the game. OutcomesFace CardsAll OthersTo Play Value - x P(X = x) $ 0.5$ 0.0$ -0.25 12 / 5240 / 52 You can answer 3 different questions here: 1- what is the average payout of the game? 2- what is the average winning of the game? 3- what is the average cost of the game? (pg 3.2) (pg 3.3) (pg 3.4) (pg 3.5 answer all 3 questions)
Expected Value (mean) Over "the long haul" how much to you expect to pay/get? Can the expected value can be modeled with BoB!?! YES! Now you can find the probability of a random variable's payout.
Expected Value Credit unions often offer life insurance on their members. The general policy pays $1000 for a death and $500 for a disability. What is the expected value for the policy? The payout to a policyholder is the random variable and the expected value is the average payout per policy. To find E(X) create a probability model (a table with all possible outcomes and their probabilities). (pg 4.1-4.2)
Probability Model Credit unions often offer life insurance on their members. The general policy pays $1000 for a death and $500 for a disability. What is the expected value for the policy? Out comePayout xP(X=x) Death Disability Neither 1,000 500 0 1 / 1000 2 / 1000 997 / 1000
Class Practice On a multiple-choice test, a student is given five possible answers for each question. The student receives 1 point for a correct answer and loses ¼ point for an incorrect answer. If the student has no idea of the correct answer for a particular question and merely guesses, what is the student's expected gain or loss on the question? Suppose also that on one of the questions you can eliminate two of the five answers as being wrong. If you guess at one of the remaining three answers, what is your expected gain or loss on the question? (pg 5.1 - 5.5)


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Students, Teachers Begin Preparations for SAT-9
Posted: March 16, 2001
Students and teachers are beginning preparations for the Stanford Achievement Test - Ninth Edition (SAT-9), which will be administered April 2-6 in West Virginia.
The SAT-9 enables schools to measure academic performance and gives educators valuable data to help tailor instruction to meet the educational needs of all students.
"Our students are tested in the areas of reading, vocabulary, reading comprehension, mathematics problem solving, mathematics procedures, language, spelling, study skills, science, social studies and listening on the SAT-9," said State Superintendent Dr. David Stewart. "This assessment is used by teachers and school systems to measure academic progress of students and to determine areas needing improvement. The state's Instructional Goals and Objectives are aligned with this assessment."
Jan Barth, executive director, Office of Student Services and Assessment, said that "schools prepare students by teaching the West Virginia Instructional Goals and Objectives throughout the year; however, in the days preceding the SAT-9 administration, most schools review subject matter and prepare students for testing."
School systems will receive the assessment results at the county office within three weeks from the date the county test coordinator submits them to the West Virginia Department of Education.
In addition to school reports, each parent will receive a detailed report indicating his or her child's performance on the test. Dr. Karen Huffman, assistant director, Office of Student Services and Assessment, provides tips to help students prepare for the SAT-9.
Parents can help children prepare for the SAT-9 by:
- making sure that children have sufficient sleep so that they're alert,
- ensuring that children have a nutritious breakfast to start the day,
- encouraging children to relax by reassuring them that the test measures learning and will show strengths and accomplishments,
- discussing the importance of following directions, and
- encouraging children to do their best.


text:
Optimal oral health for all Medicaid, Medicare and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries.
To improve Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP oral health programs by collaborating with key stakeholders, sharing resources and disseminating innovative strategies.
MSDA seeks opportunities to:
- Provide state and national leadership in the development of sound Medicaid/CHIP oral health policy.
- Provide a support system to state and national Medicaid/CHIP dental program representatives.
- Encourage innovation and collaboration among state and national Medicaid/CHIP dental program representatives.
- Promote the integration of oral health and primary care in Medicaid/CHIP programs.
- Promote an appropriate balance between the prevention and treatment of oral diseases and condition
For more information about MSDA please visit _URL_


While many Muslims say that Islam liberates women, one verse in the Qur'an has sparked debate on this idea for years. According to many popular English translations, verse 4:34 instructs Muslim men who "fear disloyalty and ill-conduct" from their wives to first admonish them, then refuse to sleep with them, and then "beat them (lightly)." Does that verse mean that in Islam, God permits husbands to beat their wives?
Non-Muslims often wonder if this verse justifies domestic violence. At the least, doesn't it reinforce the idea that women are inferior to men? A new English translation of the Qur'an, published by Iranian-American scholar Laleh Bakhtiar this spring, aims to strike down these ideas. Instead of translating the root verb daraba as "beat them lightly," Bakhtiar translates this key verse to mean "go away from them." She bases her word choice on, among other things, the example of Prophet Muhammad, who, according to prophetic tradition, never hit anyone in his family, not even lightly, and always treated his wives (there were 12 over the course of his lifetime) with respect.
Critics, like "Koran for Dummies" author Sohaib Sultan, argue that Bakhtiar's translation is a "modern-day revisionist report," saying other well-read translations of the Qur'an have always taken the word daraba to mean something physical. But Bakhtiar says the word has 17 different meanings, the most popular being "to separate."
Linguistics aside, will Bakhtiar's translation be accepted by Islamic scholars? Will this new interpretation become the standard reference for Muslims? Beliefnet asked Bakhtiar as well two experts on the subject, Bonita McGee and Hadia Mubarak about the new translation and its possible implications for husband and wife relationships.
Laleh Bakhtiar, author of more than 20 books on Sufism, psychology, and other topics, has also translated more than 25 books on Islamic beliefs into English. "The Sublime Quran"--the first translation of the Qur'an by an American Muslim woman--was published in April 2007 by Kazi Publications.
 - Listen: Crisis of Faith
 Bonita McGee is co-founder of Muslim Family Services, a social service organization serving the Muslim community in the greater Columbus, Ohio, area. She has worked with domestic violence survivors for many years and has advised the Islamic Society of North America on the issue.
 - Listen: Dynamics of Domestic Violence
 - Listen: Women Need an Imam's Help
 Hadia Mubarak, currently a senior researcher for Georgetown University's Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, served as the first female president of the Muslim Student Association (national) and published an academic paper in 2004 on the historical interpretations of verse 4:34.
 - Listen: Growing Up Muslim
 - Listen: Three Traditions from the Prophet
 Laleh, how did you arrive at your new translation of verse 4:34?
 Bakhtiar: While I was working on the translation, it came to me strongly that the Prophet never hit anyone, and so there must be another meaning to that verse. Then I found Edward Lane's 1863 Arabic-English dictionary, which is still authoritative, and he said that word also means "to go away." That moment was important for me, because that's exactly what the Prophet did when he was upset with his wives--he went away from them. Since then, I have found other scholars who also use the translation "to go away from" rather than "to beat."
 So this translation of 4:34 isn't new in the world of Islamic scholarship?
 Mubarak: In my own research, I found discussion of that verse has gone on for a very long time, as far back as the scholar Ibn Abbas (who was 13 when the Prophet Muhammad died), who was a successor to the companions of the Prophet. He said in his tafsir (interpretation of the Qur'an) that his fellow scholars misunderstood the verse. He understood that phrase wadribuhunna (daraba in root form) to be in an imperative form that actually means God is saying, "Don't beat them."
 Growing Up Muslim
 I thank Laleh for putting this interpretation in an English translation, because I don't think it's been done before. Growing up, it was a personal dilemma for me to reconcile that verse, "to beat them," with my own notions of Islam's egalitarianism. I believe the Qur'an ordains mercy and compassion between men and women--we see that especially in verse 9:71, where God describes men and women as "partners of one another." God never gives one gender any level of moral superiority or authority over the other.
 When working with domestic violence survivors in the Muslim community, does this verse actually result in abuse?
 Dynamics of Domestic Violence
 McGee: No, the verse does not cause domestic violence. Abusers abuse because it works for them. If you had a perfect translation of the Qur'an, guess what? Abusers would still abuse and find justification for it. It's a behavior choice.
 On another level, though, this translation opens up the conversation on tauwid, or the larger idea of the oneness of God, and how that affects our relationships with our spouses and our families. In some circles, this translation may force people to revisit this issue.
 Bakhtiar: The problem comes when beating is done in the name of God. In the eyes of many people, it's sanctioned by the interpretation this verse has had over the centuries. People say, "You are only supposed to beat lightly, with a small stick or a handkerchief." But there's no way to limit that at the moment of anger.
 McGee: I tell imams that I work with: "You say domestic violence is never allowed in Islam, but you then go through a 15-minute description on how to properly hit someone--that's contradictory; 'never' and 'but' don't go together." I remind them there's always a survivor in the audience, whether they know it or not. That verse can create a serious crisis of faith for women who are hurting and don't know how to accept it into their hearts.
 - This verse caused inner turmoil for some of you. Do you think that's true for other Muslim women?
 Mubarak: I know a lot of other educated young women struggle with it. You read the Qu'ran and see the basic gender paradigm that ordains mercy and justice between men and women. Then you come to this one verse that seems to contradict everything you believe Islam stands for, and it just doesn't fit. I never accepted that this verse actually instructed men to beat their wives. That to me is an absolute contradiction to the way God describes Himself, as absolutely just.
 How did you resolve that conflict?
 Mubarak: You have to consider several things when you read that verse. The first one we've already talked about: interpreting a specific verse in the context of the Qur'an's general message. The second principle is looking at the example of the Prophet. You'll find the four authentic prophetic traditions that prohibit beating.
 Three Traditions from the Prophet
 In one tradition, the Prophet said, "Never beat God's handmaidens." And in another one: "Could any of you beat your wife as he would a slave and then lie with her in the evening, or sleep with her?" In a third one, some people complained to him that others were beating their wives, and he said, "Those are not the best among you." Finally, his wife, Ayesha, said the Prophet never beat anyone--not a wife, not a servant, or anyone--except if he was in a war.
 You also have to look at the verse's purpose. It's clear God intends to reconcile two people who are having problems. Now if God is telling men to beat their women, then the woman is going to want out of that marriage. She could exercise her Islamic right to divorce if he resorted to physical abuse. All of that would contradict the objective of reconciliation.
 Then there's grammar. According to one scholar, the word itself (daraba) has 17 different meanings in the Qur'an, and most of the time, it's used to mean "to separate." That fits exactly with the practice of the Prophet.
 In American-Muslim marriages, when a couple faces a problem, do they open up the Qur'an? Do these interpretations matter in a practical way?
 Women Need an Imam's Help
 McGee: They can. In my experience, religion gets involved whenever people disagree. Even if you have two people who only attend one Eid prayer a year, when they disagree, the Qur'an will come out. Many younger couples, who may not even be mosque-going, will at some point reach out to their imam. That's why in our work as domestic violence advocates, imams are such a crucial ally: They can make or break the effort to stop domestic violence in their community.
 I also see Muslim women who say, "I want the abuse to stop but I don't want the marriage to end." But when she seeks help outside the Muslim community, she constantly gets the message, "Leave, leave, leave." She may be less apt to take advantage of those safe--but secular--services, because that message contradicts what she wants and expects from the marriage.
 Mubarak: The problem is people's understanding of men and


text: Proteomics is an emerging field that uses many types of proteomic platforms however has few standardized procedures. Deciding which platform to use to perform large-scale proteomic studies is either based on personal preference or on so-called "figures of merit" such as dynamic range, resolution, and the limit of detection; these factors are often insufficient to predict the outcome of the experiment as the detection of peptides correlates to the chemical properties of each peptide. There is a need for a novel figure of merit that describes the overall performance of a platform based on measured output, which in proteomics is often a list of identified peptides. We report the development of such a figure of merit based on a predictive genetic algorithm. This algorithm takes into account the properties of the observed peptides such as length, hydrophobicity, and pI. Several large-scale studies that differed in sample type or platform were used to demonstrate the usefulness of the algorithm for improved experimental design. The figures that were obtained were clustered to find platforms that were biased in similar ways. Even though some platforms are different, they lead to the identification of similar peptide types and are thus redundant. The algorithm can thus be used as an exploratory tool to suggest a minimal number of complementary experiments in order to maximize experimental efficiency.


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The sauce is a extruded mixture of carbon black, kaolin, chalk and glue, sold in the form of short sticks, wrapped in foil. In their artistic qualities, it resembles a pastel, but more saturated in tone. Has great expressive power and are equally successfully applied to thumbnails and sketches to large works. Sauce exactly fall on the paper, can be applied by stroke and feather, goes well with other materials, such as coal or ink. It has 10 colour shades: white (more suited for drawings on tinted paper), brown, gray, khaki, black (gives a very beautiful, deep, velvety shades from the darkest to lightest) and some others. Draw the sauce in two ways – dry and wet.
A dry method. For drawing you can take a smooth paper, but most paper is used on an invoice basis. Work dry sauce about the same as coal. The transition from dark tones to lighter is achieved by rostoski – pointed fingers, a tightly rolled from cut triangle paper strips. Dry sauce are the main forms of the picture, and the details applied by the Italian pencil. Drawings made in the dry way, fix varnish, kept under glass, or shift a thin paper.
To draw in the wet way easier. Take a thick, grainy paper. Break off a piece of sauce and put it in a container with a small amount of water. The less water, the more intense will be the color. Taken brush like watercolors. Prepare another supplementary sheet, on which you can test the saturation of the paint on the brush. Drying the sauce is fixed on the paper, but it is easily erased by the elastic band, good shade, so the transitions from tone to tone are made dry. Fine details are drawn with watercolor brushes, a wide plane – bristle. Drawings made wet sauce, the fixation is not needed.
Often these two methods are combined in one figure. To do this, first apply the shades wet sauce from light to dark. Small parts are drawn in the dry way.


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Wed 3 February 2016 at 10.00 am
Rewriting and Substantive Editing
Taking Place: The Kingâ€™s Centre, Osney, Oxford
Increasingly, texts pose greater challenges than editors would expect to find in their standard copy-editing activity. How do you make a case for more-substantive editing than had been envisaged for a text? How do you set about reworking a text that doesn't work in its submitted form? And how do you do so while keeping the person or people responsible for writing it on board? These, and other, questions are explored in Rewriting and Substantive Editing, a training course that presents ideas and strategies for making the process of rewriting less daunting than it can at times appear to be.
- Identifying problems and considering solutions
- When sentence construction breeds confusion
- Adjusting the level of a piece of rewriting
- Clarifying the message of a text
- Maintaining the author's voice
- The pros and cons of bullet points
- Approaches to cutting text
- Editing text written in English as a second language
- Considering jargon and specialist vocabulary
Date: Wednesday 3rd February 2016
Venue: The King's Centre, Osney Mead, Oxford
Tutor: Andrew Steeds has a background in writing and editorial consultancy. In addition to his work for the Migration Museum Project, he runs two companies – Simply Put Ltd and the Writing Clinic – that work with organisations to make public written communication clearer and more accountable. His work for both companies involves writing, project management, consultancy and training. He started off working as a teacher before going on to work in educational research and educational publishing. He was heavily involved in the publication of the then Department for Education and Skills' adult core curriculum documents, including manuals on working with refugees and asylum seekers, and with EAL learners (learners with English as an additional language).


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This gif set is an ad campaign concept for Mrs. Meyers Clean Day. The assignment was to create something for a company based off of one word: sustainability. This set is a collaboration with Alexa Finkelstein and Michelle London. We chose to not let the gifs scream Mrs. Meyers, but we kept their product color palette intact and chose to focus on the environment through their products. The top left (by Bailey Kirshner) conveys the natural ingredients used in their hand soap: flowers, from Mrs. Meyers garden. The top middle (by Bailey Kirshner) represents their laundry detergent. The top right (by Michelle London) represents Mrs. Meyers taking from the environment, and giving back to it. The bottom left (by Alexa Finkelstein) represents their dish soap, and how the ingredients used does not harm our planet. The bottom middle (by Bailey Kirshner) represents Meyer's multipurpose cleaner, and how their products and the production of them has no carbon footprint. The bottom right (by Alexa Finkelstein) represents their candle line, and this is illustrated through a flickering leaf in the wind.
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The tremendous concentration of power and influence we see in the fossil fuel industry today places sharp limits on our democracy (for examples, see our previous post). And as oil, gas and coal corporations pursue their relatively narrow, short-term profit goals, crafting effective responses to the climate crisis becomes more difficult.
One of the key steps we can take towards a more level democratic playing field is to create greater transparency. Knowledge of precisely how the industry is structured, and how our economic and political systems favour entrenched private interests over the public interest, is crucial. Without this knowledge we cannot have a meaningful discussion about democratic alternatives.
The Corporate Mapping Project promises to shine a bright light on the fossil fuel industry by investigating the ways in which corporate power is organized and exercised. The initiative is a partnership of academic and community-based researchers and advisors who share a commitment to advancing reliable knowledge that supports citizen action and transparent public policy making. The Corporate Mapping Project will extract and deliver information about the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry
We focus on "mapping" how power and influence play out in the oil, gas and coal industries of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan. We will also map the wider connections that link Western Canada's fossil fuel sector to other sectors of the economy (both national and global) and to other parts of society (governments and other public institutions, think tanks and lobby groups, etc).
A map is a guide that helps us find our way across terrain that can be disorienting and treacherous. Through mapping, we want to make corporate power and influence visible. Doing so can support communities, workers, First Nations and Aboriginal groups, civil society organizations and concerned citizens in their efforts to reshape our economy along more democratic and environmentally sustainable lines.
Our mapping efforts are focused in four key areas:
- How are the people and companies that control fossil-fuel corporations organized as a network, and how does that network connect with other sectors of the Canadian and global economy? That is, how is economic power organized in and around the fossil-fuel sector?
- How does that economic power reach into political and cultural life, though elite networks, funding relationships, lobbying and mass-media advertising and messaging? What are the implications of such corporate influence for politics and society?
- How is corporate power wielded at ground level, from fossil-fuel extraction and transport right through to final consumption? If we follow a barrel of bitumen from its source to the end user, how does it affect the communities and environments all along the way? How and why do certain links along these commodity chains become flashpoints of intense political struggle, as we have seen particularly with pipeline projects?
- How can we build capacity for citizen monitoring of corporate power and influence, while expanding the space for democratic discussion?
Over the next six years, our partnership will answer these questions and make our research widely available. We will develop an open-source, publicly-accessible database of who's who in and around the fossil-fuel sector, kept current by community researchers. And we will engage Canadians in a conversation about the role of the fossil fuel sector in our democracy.
We know that the climate crisis requires us to make a transition away from fossil fuels. The key questions are what sort of transition we will make, and how quickly. The answers hinge significantly on whether citizens, Indigenous people, workers and environmentalists are able to counterbalance the power and influence of the fossil-fuel sector. We and our partners in the Corporate Mapping Project look forward to providing the kinds of knowledge that can help fuel a just and timely transition.
This is the second of two posts about our project – you can read part one here.
This article was originally published on PolicyNote.ca
Author: Bill Carroll & Shannon Daub
Bill Carroll and Shannon Daub are co-directors of the Corporate Mapping Project, a research alliance led by the University of Victoria, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC and Saskatchewan Offices, and the Parkland Institute. The project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.


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Getting Started (Object2VR)
Download a project file to work with (created with Object2VR version 2.0.2.): project files (packed ZIP)
A single-row object VR movie simply consists of one row images. The movie can only rotate around one axis. A multi-row project will let the user view the object from multiple angles or axes. A project can also have multiple view states. View states are generally ways to show the object not only from different angles, but also different perspectives. For example, an object can be shown with different textures.
The Basic Workflow
- Import the image sequence using the Light Table.
◊ TIP: If you have a more complicated project, then try importing using Select Input, instead.
- Adjust the Viewing Parameters and spin control.
- Add some metadata that can be used for a information window.
- Make the object even more interactive using hotspots.
- Add a controller to the object using the Skin Editor.
- Output the project in HTML5, Flash and/or QuickTime.
- Add the output to your website.
- Use Multiresolution to let the user zoom in to the object to see detail.
- Build multiple view states.
- Use automation to capture the images.
- Use Object2VR to process the images and then convert them to a new project.


Utilizing Prescribed Fire to Create "Food Plots"
Land managers often wish to plant food plots to increase forage or serve as an attractant for wildlife. At times this may be a beneficial practice, particularly as an attractant for hunting. An alternative is to use prescribed fire to stimulate food producing native plants. Depending on the soil type, location, season of year, and precipitation, prescribed fires often stimulate plants that are utilized by wildlife.
Growing Season Fire
Growing season fires can be especially productive for creating food plots for mourning dove hunting, this favors several species of desirable food plants such as snow-on-the-mountain, croton or dove weed, and sunflower, as well as creates ample bare ground to allow doves to forage. These plants are also desirable for Northern bobwhite, ring-necked pheasant, and wild turkey. Additionally, late summer or early fall fires reduce grass litter going into the dormant season which can make certain important cool season plants more accessible. Scribner's panicum, which is important winter deer forage in many areas, is a good example. This plant is commonly foraged on by white-tailed deer during the winter in areas that were burned during the previous growing-season.
Dormant Season Fire
Dormant season fires can be equally important. Wild turkey in particular are attracted to areas that were burned in later winter or early spring as they have actively growing grasses for the first few weeks following the fire. Later as annual forbs (broadleaf herbaceous plants) increase in abundance the area become important for insect production for hens and poults. These same forbs will have seeds later in the summer and into the fall that wild turkey feed on. White-tailed deer will utilize many of these same forbs as forage. Further, burned areas that contain woody plants will have abundant resprouts that offer excellent browse for white-tailed deer. Plants such as greenbrier, elm, and blackberry are particularly attractive following a fire.
Final Considerations
While, these native "food plots" may not produce the quantity of forage per acre that a cultivated plot would, the cost is much less per acre, thus many more acres can be treated maximizing the benefit to wildlife. Land managers will not see the same results from year to year or place to place as weather and soil differences will influence the outcomes. Experimentation with various seasons of burns on a particular property will provide the manager guidance as to how to increase the attractiveness of a site to target wildlife. The important thing to remember is that you can successfully manage for wildlife without planting anything on your property. This requires an understanding of how to manipulate native plants with disturbances such as fire. To be successful with this type of management, it is imperative to learn to identify key plants that wildlife utilize.
Prescribed fire can create natural food plots at little cost to the landowner. These white-tailed deer are concentrated on a fire that was conducted in July, the photo was taken the following January. The deer are feeding on the winter rosettes of Scribner's panicum which is a native cool season perennial grass.


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March 2013 Women's History Calendar
Edith Claypole (1870–1915)
Born in England, Edith Claypole received her M.D. from UCLA in 1904. She joined UC Berkeley's pathology department as a volunteer and soon after became an associate researcher. She created a test to distinguish pulmonary streptothricosis from tuberculosis. When World War I broke out, Claypole enthusiastically lent her talents to the war effort. She devoted herself to developing a more effective typhoid vaccine for British and French troops. Her intensive work with typhoid bacteria led to her death from typhoid fever at age 45.
A passion for discovery: California women
trailblazers in science and technology
In celebration of National Women's History Month, this online calendar highlights remarkable yet little known women from California history who achieved success in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The calendar is produced by the California State Library, California Research Bureau and California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. Images and biographical material are from the State Library's extensive collection of photos, prints, rare books and ephemera documenting the state's rich history.


The signifier is the pointing finger, the word, the sound-image.
A word is simply a jumble of letters. The pointing finger is not the star. It is in the interpretation of the signifier that meaning is created.
The signified is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated by the signifier. It need not be a'real object' but is some referent to which the signifier refers.
The thing signified is created in the perceiver and is internal to them. Whilst we share concepts, we do so via signifiers.
Whilst the signifier is more stable, the signified varies between people and contexts.
The signified does stabilize with habit, as the signifier cues thoughts and images.
Using Format


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Molar heat capacity
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
Molar heat capacity is a measurable physical quantity that characterizes the ability of a mole to explode (or, in scientific terms, asplode.) It is defined as the rate of change of temperature as heat is added to a mole's body at the given conditions and state of the body (usually its temperature).
In the International System of Units, heat capacity is expressed in units of Julie's per Kelvin. And, as we all know, the average Kelvin likes him some Julie's! It is termed an "expensive quantity" because it is sensitive to the size of the object's wallet. Dividing heat capacity by the moles body's mass yields a specific heat capacity (also called mole-specific heat capacity or more loosely mole in heat), which is an "insensitive quantity," meaning it is no longer dependent on how much the mole likes you, which is good, as you're about to blow him up.
Please review the first paragraph.
edit Explanation of the Formula
Where equals the number of times the cheerleader dumps on Kelvin and where equals Dr. Kelvin's body temperature at maximum embarrassment and where shows that a mole is better than a rat and where is the whole point of the exercise.
is what we solve for, usually by eating the freshly asploded mole.
Dr. Kelvin, renowned temperature scientist discovered Molar Heat Capacity, mostly by accident. It is well understood that Dr. Kelvin discovered Absolute Zero in relation to his studies of cheerleaders and their reactions to him. The hottest of the cheerleaders (in scientific terms, of course) had a pet mole. After rejecting Dr. Kelvin in front of the whole gym class, Dr. Kelvin vowed revenge. After a few days in the cafeteria, he was ready.
edit Dr. Kelvin is Ready
Converting one of the microwave ovens into a portable microwave gun, Dr. Kelvin took careful aim at Julie's pet mole. As a scientist, he was careful to note the settings he used on the rodent. With the gun set to pop popcorn, the mole asploded beautifully. Julie was left covered in mole haggis and Dr. Kelvin was voted Most Likely to Asplode Things.
Word of this discovery spread throughout the scientific research community. Several different organizations used this information.
The CIA, due to an excess of experimentation, came up with several postulates on how mole's explode. Since larger moles have more mass, they require more and more energy, in the form of microwaves, to asplode, However, when large moles are detonated the ensuing asplosion is that much more brilliant and orgasmic.
MI6, being more reserved and British, focused on mole density as a solution. The younger a mole is, the more dense it is, that is because when things get old, the get wrinkly n' stuff, so they take up more space. As a mole gets denser, it becomes more difficult to aspolde, but the asplosion is so much more bloody and satisfying.
With their abundance of Microwaved Meat Technology, KFC is uniquely positioned to take advantage of Molar Heat Capacity research. As yet no findings have been forthcoming from KFC, it is hoped that moles might soon replace chicken on their menu.
edit Home Experiments
Though the average person does not have access to Dr. Kelvin's enormous research grants, his enormous brain, or Julie's enormous research funding, they can perform a few simple experiments with molar heat capacity.
First take an old microwave oven, then bash open the door. Attach a long extension cord, long enough to reach the girl next door. Take your new device over to her house, and call her Julie. She'll probably get mad, unless her name IS Julie. At this point, you must turn it ON. Some people miss this step and get mad. After the micowave has been on for a few minutes, you will hear a series of loud pops coming from behind Julie. Then you know you killed the moles on her back.


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The status of consciousness in nature
The most central metaphysical question about phenomenal consciousness is that of what constitutes phenomenal consciousness, whereas the most central epistemic question about consciousness is that of whether science can eventually provide an explanation of the phenomenon. Many philosophers have argued that science doesn't have the means to answer the question of what consciousness is (the explanatory gap) but that consciousness nonetheless is fully determined by the physical facts underlying it (no ontological gap). Others have argued that the explanatory gap in the sciences entails an ontological gap. This position is also known as 'property dualism'. Here I examine a fourth position, according to which there an ontological gap but no explanatory gap.


The Participatory Museum
By: Dr Lynda Kelly, Category: Museullaneous, Date: 10 Dec 2009
Went to a talk on The Participatory Museum given by Nina Simon on 9 December as part of the Powerhouse Museum's Innovation Series. Here's my notes.
Young visitors in the tank area
Young visitors in the tank area
Photographer: Mark McGrouther © Australian Museum
The participatory museum is a place where visitors create share and connect with each other around content (& objects). Nina quoted a colleague who used to visit museums every Saturday afternoon with her aunt, when questioned why they always went there: "We have better conversations in the company of these things".
How do we design infrastructure that supports social engagement rather than it happening serendipitously? We do this through social technologies: tools that enable people to create, share and connect with each other.
What does that mean for museums? It requires change from the old relationship where authority is content provider to a new relationships as authority as platform provider. There still is a huge role for museum expertise as expert voices are still valued in a democratic society.
Why the participatory museum? Five reasons:
 1. deliver personal relevance
 2. celebrate and network diverse voices
 3. deliver dynamic content
 4. encourage interpersonal dialogue
 5. support collaborative and creative practice
Visitors can become part of the creative process. Designers [and others on an exhibition team I would think] need to figure out the frames that can give visitors opportunities to participate with both each other and content in respectful ways. Nina referred to the hierarchy of participation which she has blogged here as well as the Forrester ladders of participation research [the Museum has also used this in a research project which you can find here].
Need to start with the audience and what are their needs and then match those to what the museum is about and think about what relationships do we want to have?
Seven techniques for the participatory museum:
 1. be personal
 2. be creative in a scaffolded and comfortable way
 3. offer multiple engagement points
 4. network the experience, ("museums that get better the more people use them")
 5. give visitors 'real' and meaningful work to do
 6. be honest
 7. connect to known frameworks
Take what people already know and do and then create opportunities for them to do something with it to create value in order to makes museums better the more people use them.
We need to design participatory experiences in respectful and comfortable ways so visitors feel more inclined to make a comment that matters.
I know that Nina has posted about this on her Museum 2.0 blog but there's so much there I suggest you trawl through posts with the tag call participatory museum coz an't find exactly what I'm looking for...! Nina's slides from her talk are here.
Lynda Kelly - 7.12 AM, 13 December 2009
Thanks for uploading tis lin Seb.
sebchan - 11.12 AM, 11 December 2009
The video recording of the talk can be viewed along with slides over at the Powerhouse Museum's Fresh & New blog -
Report misuse


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Before being made available for purchase on the market, the majority of electronic equipment must undergo thorough testing. The goal of testing engineers is to uncover flaws that could affect the product's quality and the brand's reputation. Even after the most extensive manual testing, the problems still exist. Therefore, the most effective way to ensure that there are no problems and that efficiency is increased is to use the ATE semiconductor test system.
Manual software testing is carried out by a person with the aid of a computer system. They must experiment with various input and usage combinations, navigate the software panels, understand the prediction outcomes, and record their overall evaluation.
During development, manual tests are conducted often to check for code changes as well as other factors like hardware and operating system variations. There are many other reasons why modern procedures need the support of an automated environment to be completed. Let's quickly review automated testing for semiconductor parts.
What is Semiconductor Test System?
The most popular type of automated test equipment is the semiconductor test system (ATE). This tester sends electrical impulses to semiconductor machinery, which then assesses the output signals in comparison to the predicted values. As was already said, testing is done to identify defects or determine whether an item functions as intended.
Logic testers, memory testers, and analogue testers are a few examples of semiconductor testers. The two testing steps are wafer testing and packaging testing. Wafers are tested using a probe card, and packages are tested using a test socket. It's time to understand the commercial importance of the technological components after becoming familiar with them.
Benefits of Semiconductor Test System
1. Test Code Templates Available:
The semiconductor test system offers a selection of drag-and-drop functional test code templates. The main purpose of this feature is to accelerate common semiconductor tests, such as pattern bursts, varied waveforms, continuity checks, and many more. These templates are made to be compatible with all contemporary devices and to adhere to the most recent 5G NR specifications.
2. Efficiency Optimization:
A solution for automatic test equipment that is ready for production is a semiconductor test system. These units can be used immediately on your semiconductor production and testing line after being removed from shipping containers because they are plug-and-play ready. Keep in mind that the semiconductor test equipment comes with all of the compatible connectors needed to start entering data or performing tests. Therefore, a full set of digital, RF, and DC instrumentation is needed in order to properly personalise the machine. The pin connectors, plugs and probes, and included within the device make it simple to communicate data.
3. Test Time Accuracy:
The semiconductor test equipment's test time accuracy is outstanding due to the accurate parameter measurement carried out during the device characterisation face. While minimising the amount of test time required throughout the manufacturing process, correct pass/fail binning is also achieved.
4. Enhanced Customer Experience:
High-end customer support services from National Instruments ensure the proper operation of a semiconductor test system. Engineering, training, and technical support are the main components of these services. Since semiconductor test systems employ standard test locks, utilising them with a wide range of other test devices is simple and hassle-free.
5. Conduct Multiple Tasks Simultaneously:
If you want to increase semiconductor quality, automated testing can expand the scope and volume of testing methods. A semiconductor test system is capable of carrying out the numerous tests that you would often avoid carrying out during human testing.
Numerous computers with various configurations are capable of controlling semiconductor test devices. They can effortlessly carry out hundreds of challenging test cases while guaranteeing coverage for each test run, which is impossible for manual testing to do.
The National Instruments PXI platform, the Lab VIEW Graphical programming system, and the TestStand software are all included in the semiconductor test system. Semiconductor testing can be done with less electricity and wasted space by enclosing those systems in a single, fully enclosed unit. To increase the effectiveness of your company's equipment, make an investment in the best and most compatible semiconductor test devices.


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(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 02 2007,00:48
No. Criticism is valid. But only if it leads to alternative hypotheses that can be tested, and then to testing of those hypotheses. That is known as "constructive criticism". What you are doing is known as "bitching".
Sorry, but your arguments remind me exactly of those used by communists. They also accepted ctriticism but only if it was constructive. Unbelievable. They used to say "Criticism yes, but only constructive one". You have to add your own solution of the problem, otherwise you was a saboteur. Consequently criticism was almost impossible.
It is interesting that "sciences" like marxism or (neo)darwinism require from their critics to be constructive.
Do you think it is normal procedure also in the area of real sciences like physics, math? Do not criticise discrepancies in the Maxwell electromagnetic theory! Yet physicists made computations (before 1900) and came to conclusions that this theory is unable to explain some phenomena.
It was Max Planck who gave explanation of them. According you physiscists before Planck were "bitching".
I could not answer, but should maintain my ground.-
Charles Darwin
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Over time with changes in a company's infrastructure, design, staff complement, and objectives, there comes a requirement to relocate network points. Some of reasons why you may need to relocate your current network points:
Such physical changes often force modifications to be made to a company's network, with the actual floor space in which to work being changed. Network point relocations will allow for better flow of activities and daily operations.
People and equipment must be positioned in a way that enables maximum efficiency and productivity and equipment may need to be moved to achieve this. The proximity of people within an office space can result in better collaboration of teams with objectives being met faster, better work being outputted, and ideas being exchanged more easily. In this case it makes great financial sense to relocate network points, to make this all possible.
Organisation restructures are commonplace today, and with them come role changes and job relocations. Often changes need to be made to the physical network to accommodate these moves.
Introducing new systems into your network, such as IP telephony, will likely require network cabling upgrades. If your current system has been well planned, and quality cabling been installed at the onset, it may simply require the relocation of some network points for the roll out of these additions.
With gradual network changes over time, if network cables have not been installed carefully or encounter significant increases in electrical or magnetic interference around them, signal disruptions and degradation can occur. This will affect data transmission, causing intermittent communication between devices, thereby slowing the network down and resulting in lost information, dropped calls, poor signal strength and frustrated employees. Network points may need to be moved to prevent this.
No matter what the reason, Supima Technologies is here to assist you with all your network cabling requirements.


Bees were conditioned to collect food on natural and artificial flower beds, parts of which could be set into rotation or side to side movement. Through the relative motion of the flowers the number of alternating stimuli upon the bee's eye is increased. Due to the fact that bees show a strong reaction to intermittent optical stimulation, the proportion of bees settling on the moving section of the flower bed is increased. It seems probable therefore that the visual reaction of bees to flowers in nature is largely due to the flicker effect produced through the motion of the bees relative to the flowers.
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OLMOS CREEK (UVALDE COUNTY)
OLMOS CREEK (Uvalde County). Olmos Creek rises (at 29°08' N, 100°04' W) in far southwestern Uvalde County two miles southeast of Dabney and runs south for twelve miles to its mouth (at 29°01' N, 100°04' W) on Muela Creek, fourteen miles northwest of La Pryor in northwestern Zavala County. The creek name is Spanish for "elm trees." The stream rises in flat to gently sloping terrain with local depressions or sinkholes; the land here is surfaced by very shallow to shallow and stony clays and loams that support scrub brush and grasses. The creek continues through low-rolling hills and prairie with deeper clayey and loamy soils that support chaparral, some mesquite, and grasses. Toward the mouth of Olmos Creek the terrain becomes low relief, surfaced by deep loams and clays that support pecans and other hardwoods and various grasses.
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article."OLMOS CREEK (UVALDE COUNTY)," Handbook of Texas Online (_URL_ accessed June 19, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.


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Nehemiah Blakiston was Governor of the Maryland colony from 1691 through 1692. He became Governor as the 2nd Leader of a group known as the Protestant Associators, succeeding John Coode, who has taken control of the state following the Glorious Revolution in England. Blakiston was succeeded by the first Governor with an official royal appointment, Lionel Copley. He was related to Nathaniel Blakiston.
|This article about a Maryland politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|


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Expression profiling of constitutive mast cells reveals a unique identity within the immune system.
Dwyer DF., Barrett NA., Austen KF., Immunological Genome Project Consortium None.
Mast cells are evolutionarily ancient sentinel cells. Like basophils, mast cells express the high-affinity receptor for immunoglobulin E (IgE) and have been linked to host defense and diverse immune-system-mediated diseases. To better characterize the function of these cells, we assessed the transcriptional profiles of mast cells isolated from peripheral connective tissues and basophils isolated from spleen and blood. We found that mast cells were transcriptionally distinct, clustering independently from all other profiled cells, and that mast cells demonstrated considerably greater heterogeneity across tissues than previously appreciated. We observed minimal homology between mast cells and basophils, which shared more overlap with other circulating granulocytes than with mast cells. The derivation of mast-cell and basophil transcriptional signatures underscores their differential capacities to detect environmental signals and influence the inflammatory milieu.


text: astroengine writes "Two exoplanets have been discovered by scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy orbiting the star HIP 11952. But according to conventional thinking, these worlds shouldn't exist. You see, HIP 11952 is a'metal-poor star and planetary formation is hindered around stars with low metallicity (PDF). This isn't the only thing; as metal-poor stars were the first stars to form when the Universe was very young, these two worlds also formed around the same time. They are therefore the most ancient exoplanets discovered to date."


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Intermediate Level Breaking – Level Demonstration and Scoring
We host one Level Demonstration at the end of each season to evaluate a student's level of proficiency. We will notify students of the date for sign-up. Students can also schedule a private lesson at any time during the season, with an individual instructor, to complete their demonstration whenever they feel ready.
Level Demonstration Scoring
Scores are used to measure each student's level of proficiency and provide a final score for each move. Scores are measured on a scale of 1 through 5. A score of 4 or better is required for each move. A demonstration with an average score of 4 or better is required to qualify a student for the next level.
Students that don't qualify (an average score of 3 or lower) will be shown exactly what will be needed to improve. They will receive feedback on each move and tips that can help students complete their demonstration the next time around.
Score Definition and Criteria
5 – Can execute the move to the music
- Music Connection – Interprets the music and rocks the beat with rhythm, energy, confidence, and style. Strong connection with music.
- Creativity – Creating new moves and flows.
- Maintains beginner level foundation.
- Shows proficiency in both directions with the Intermediate vocabulary.
- Possesses all the criteria in score 4.
4 – Can execute the move both directions
- Proficient with the Intermediate level Breaking vocabulary.
- Top Rocks – Has a developed rocking groove. On beat with rhythm, confidence, and style. Can break down and interpret the music.
- Go Downs – Unique flow that connects top rocks to footwork. On beat, good posture and form, authentic character and personality.
- Footwork – Revolution, direction, speed, power, proper squat and toe positions.
- Freezes – 30 second 2-handed holds for each freeze. Stable breathing.
- Technique – Heightened body awareness, technique, and skill.
- Character – Energy, emotion, personality, and style with a unique flavor and approach to Breaking.
- Confidence – Confidence in yourself, your movement, and your knowledge.
- Music Connection – Interprets the music. Strong connection with music. Consistent rhythm, energy, and confidence.
3 – Can execute the move but more practice needed
- Does not show full proficiency with the vocabulary.
- Top Rocks – Rocking groove not developed. Missing the connection between the move and the rhythm of the beat. Lacking confidence, or style.
- Go Downs – Needs to work on flow and connecting top rocks to footwork. Posture and form needs improvement, or more character and personality is needed.
- Footwork – No revolution, lacks direction, lacks speed, lacks power, needs to improve footwork form, squat form or toe positions.
- Freezes – Can't hold a 30 second freeze without falling or toes touching. Unstable breathing.
- Technique – lacking some body awareness, technique, or skill.
- Character – Needs more energy, emotion, and/or personal style.
- Confidence – Lacks confidence in yourself, your movement, or your knowledge.
- Music Connection – not fully connected with the music. Overthinking or has an average connection with music. Inconsistent rhythm, lacking energy, or confidence.
2 – Can't execute the move without errors
- Needs reminding of the name of the move.
- Needs reminding on how to do the move.
- Slow making the connection between the name and the move.
- Needs reminder to understand what the move is.
- Needs reminder on how to do the move.
- Making errors.
- Having to start over.
1 – Doesn't know the move at all
- Doesn't know the name of the move.
- Doesn't know how to do the move.
- Not making a connection between the name and the move.
- Needs help understanding what the move is.
- Needs help on how to do the move.


Forgotten Realms Wiki
Forgotten Realms Wiki
The material component was a basic part of casting most spells.[2]
A material component consisted of one or more physical objects or substances. Depending on the spell, once it was cast, the material component was annihilated. However, a spellcaster could often use a spellcasting focus to substitute for most components, which would not be consumed by the spell. Casters who wielded priestly magic usually used a divine focus such as a holy symbol, which had higher spiritual significance than the standard focus, while druids often employed a druidic focus.[2][3]
Arcane spellcasters usually employed component pouches with individual compartments to store most material components required for their spells,[4] unless they chose to employ an arcane focus instead.[3]
Valuable or rare material components often had to be stored separately and could not be replaced by a focus.[3]
See Also[]


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First Lady Grace Coolidge plants a tree at the Chevy Chase Playground, February 28, 1929.
I've started doing research on District playgrounds so there's a good chance that I'll have a few posts about them in the near future. But for now, I'll start with a historical side note that I stumbled upon related to playgrounds, trees, and presidential wives. Apparently, from 1928 to 1934, the Women's City Club was successful in inviting siting and former First Ladies to attend their prominent tree planting ceremony.
The first such tree planting occurred on May 1, 1928, at the Park View playground as part of the he District playground program that included 42 municipal playgrounds. At the Park View Playground, Mrs. William Howard Taft planted a red maple. According to the day's program, during the exercises the school children danced around the tree singing the planting song.
On February 28 of the following year, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge planted a tree at the Chevy Chase playgrounds as one of her last acts as First Lady. More than 1,000 persons witnessed the ceremony. Though this was the second such event at a District playground, it was described as an established custom by former First Ladies in their final days in the Capital before the inauguration of a new administration.
Mrs. Woodrow Wilson was honored in 1930 with a tree planting at the Virginia Avenue Playground and Mrs. Herbert Hoover planted a willow oak on October 22, 1931, at the Mitchell Park Playground.
After a two year break, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt planted the last such tree that I've been able to track down on October 28, 1934. This tree was planted at the McMillan Playground (1st and Bryant).
It's possible that the tradition was interrupted by the Great Depression, or World War II, or that organizers had simply run out of presidential wives to honor. Whatever the reason, I like the idea and would be happy to see it come back.


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What is Influence and what is it used for?
Influence is granted by the apartments in your cities and determines the number of troops you can train.
To see your current Influence, click on one of your apartments in your Neighborhood view. In the apartment screen, there is a tab located at the top labeled 'Influence'.
In the Influence section you can see your total Influence and how that total is achieved through the apartments in your cities. Higher level apartments will give you more Influence and allow you to train more troops at once.
In your Hideout, you can see the required amount of Influence required to train a unit.


Synonyms for opaque
1. opaque (vs. clear), cloudy, muddy, mirky, murky, turbid, fogged, foggy, frosted, glaucous, lightproof, light-tight, milky, milklike, whitish, semiopaque, solid, unclear
usage: not transmitting or reflecting light or radiant energy; impenetrable to sight; "opaque windows of the jail"; "opaque to X-rays"
2. opaque, unintelligible, incomprehensible (vs. comprehensible), uncomprehensible
usage: not clearly understood or expressed
Related Content
Synonyms Index


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Language Trends Wales 2019
This report presents the findings of the fifth annual Language Trends Wales survey of secondary schools, and the second such survey of primary schools in Wales.
The report gathers information from 269 Welsh schools about the current situation for Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teaching and learning in Wales.
The huge decline in MFL exam entries in secondary schools continues, however a more positive picture is emerging at primary level.
View a blog from our Country Director, Jenny Scott who shares her thoughts on the report here.
Headline statistics from the report include:
- Since 2002, entries for GCSE in MFL have declined by 60% in Wales and continue to fall year-on-year
- 39% of responding secondary schools have no take up or provision of MFL for A-Level in 2019 compared to 29% in 2018 and 20% in 2017
- 73% of schools say the difficulty of MFL exams is putting off pupils at GCSE and A level.
- MFL GCSE take-up is stratified along both academic and socio-economic lines, with students receiving free school meals or with special educational needs or disabilities less likely to take the subject
- The implications of Brexit are seen as a challenge in 41% of schools.
- Welsh is seen as fulfilling the 'language slot'; responses show a connection between the decline in MFL entries over the past five years and the increase in entries for Welsh
- Primary schools are increasing their MFL provision – 39% of schools said they provide some form of MFL lesson, compared to 28% in 2016. Welsh medium primary schools are embracing international languages at a faster pace than their English-medium counterparts.
- There is a danger of a lost generation of language learners as children engaged at primary find no provision in secondary.
- Welsh-medium primary schools are more likely to be teaching international languages than other types of school.
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Saturday, 11 December 2010
Word Ladders
Word Ladders were invented by Lewis Carroll as a form of word play. The idea is that you start with a word, change one letter at a time, and end up with a new word. All words in the chain must be valid words in the dictionary (otherwise it'd be a bit rubbish). For example, you can turn beer into wine with the following
Let's write a simple program that calculates word ladders for a simplified version of the game where each change can only change a single letter at a time (rather than allow deletes and inserts too). Finding a word ladder can be thought about as a graph problem. Each node is a word, and each edge represents a connection to another valid word. The graph below is a partial representation of the graph starting with BEER. The real graph is much more complicated!
First things first, how do we build the graph? For starters we need to know if two words are neighbours or not. The following simple functions determine the difference between two strings. Remember that I'm only working on the simplest possible distance metric at the moment, that is allowing a single character to change.
neighbour :: String -> String -> Bool
 neighbour x y = difference x y == 1
 difference :: String -> String -> Int
 difference [] [] = 0
 difference (x:xs) (y:ys) | x == y = difference xs ys
 | otherwise = 1 + difference xs ys
 difference _ _ = error "Two strings must be the same length"
Next thing we need to grab is a huge list of words. We'll store these words in a Set because we'll want to test for membership frequently (an O(lg(N)) operation. An alternative would be to use a perfect hash (this is an option because the dictionary is fixed). This would give O(1) lookup times, and it looks like there is (as almost always) a library on Hackage that does just that. The simple distance metric chosen means we can limit the number of words based on the size of the input word.
import qualified Data.Set as S
 type WordSet = S.Set String
 wordListPath :: String
 wordListPath = "/usr/share/dict/british-english"
 createDictionary :: Int -> IO WordSet
 createDictionary n = do
 file <- readFile wordListPath
 return $ S.fromList $ filter (\x -> length x == n && all isAlpha x) (map (map toLower) $ words file)
Once we've got a dictionary, all we need to do is build the graph. Since Haskell is lazy, we don't need to worry about the space complexity of the graph - we'll just build it lazily and only the bit that is explored will be resident in memory.
Each node contains the word it represents and the links to the child elements. The graph is built by starting at a root, and filling all the valid neighbours. Each time we place a word in the graph we remove it from the dictionary, otherwise we'll get cycles in the graph.
data Node = Node String [Node] deriving Show
 buildGraph :: WordSet -> String -> Node
 buildGraph wordset top = Node top (map (buildGraph smaller) neighbours)
 neighbours = S.toList (S.filter (neighbour top) smaller)
 smaller = S.delete top wordset
The graph is *huge*, so we need to find some way to limit the search space. The most obvious way is to give a restriction on the depth of the search. A word ladder that is 10000 words rungs high is probably not much fun to complete. We can also cut the search short if the word is too many changes away given the maximum depth (for example, if 4 characters need to change in a 5 letter word and the maximum left to search is 3 then we can prune this search branch).
search :: Node -> Int -> String -> [String]
 search graph maxDepth goal = search' graph maxDepth goal []
 search' :: Node -> Int -> String -> [String] -> [String]
 search' (Node end children) maxDepth goal path
 | end == goal = end : path
 | null children = []
 | length path >= maxDepth = [] -- too deep
 | difference end goal >= maxDepth - length path = [] -- too much difference
 | otherwise = first
 childRoutes = filter (not. null) $
 map (\child -> search' child maxDepth goal (end : path)) children
 first | null childRoutes = []
 | otherwise = head childRoutes
 quickest | null childRoutes = []
 | otherwise = minimumBy (comparing length) childRoutes
The way we search the children is important. In this case we've used first gone for the first available route that satisfies the depth guarantee, but isn't guaranteed to be the shortest route. quickest on the other hand calculates all child routes and finds the minimum length part.
Finally, we can put this all together and write a simple search search function.
makeLadder :: Int-> String -> String -> IO [String]
 makeLadder maxDepth start end
 | length start /= length end = error "Only two strings of equal length are currently supported."
 | otherwise = do
 dict <- createDictionary (length start)
 if (S.member start dict && S.member end dict)
 then return $ search (buildGraph dict start) maxDepth end
 else return []
The complete code for this version available on my git hub repo here. This version has several problems.
 1. It's too slow - searching for the minimal path can take considerable time
 2. It's not very flexible
(this part completely edited from the original post, thanks to insightful comment about something *very* daft I was doing) Let's fix that. In order to be flexible, we need to support various distance metrics. For example, it'd be nice to allow insertions and deletions as well as character transposition. We just need a generic function that calculates the distance between any given strings. In order to improve performance, instead of searching the entire dictionary to see whether any are neighbours, we can generate the neighbours and find out which ones are in the dictionary. That means we need both a distance metric and a way of calculating the edits.
 data DistanceMetric = DistanceMetric (Word -> Word -> Int) (Word -> WordSet)
 difference :: Word -> Word -> Int
 difference x y
 | length x /= length y = 999999
 | otherwise = sum $ zipWith (\c1 c2 -> if c1 == c2 then 0 else 1) x y
 transposeChar :: Word -> [Word]
 transposeChar [] = []
 transposeChar (x:xs) = map (:xs) (validChars \\ [x])
 deleteChar :: Word -> [Word]
 deleteChar [] = []
 deleteChar (x:xs) = [xs]
 insertChar :: Word -> [Word]
 insertChar [] = []
 insertChar (x:xs) = map (\y -> y:x:xs) validChars
 differenceEdit :: Word -> WordSet
 differenceEdit x = edit' x [transposeChar]
 editDistanceEdits :: Word -> WordSet
 editDistanceEdits x = edit' x [insertChar,transposeChar,deleteChar]
 edit' :: Word -> [Word -> [Word]] -> WordSet
 edit' w fns = S.fromList $ concat $
 zipWith (\x y -> map (\z -> x ++ z) (concatMap (\x -> x y) fns))
 (inits w) (tails w)
 simple :: DistanceMetric
 simple = DistanceMetric difference differenceEdit
 edits :: DistanceMetric
 edits = DistanceMetric editDistance editDistanceEdits
This gives two distance functions and two ways of generating edits. The Levenshtein distance of 1 is generated by transposing, deleting and inserting characters from the original word. This gives us the flexibility, because another distance metric could be put in place (anagrams perhaps?). Next to performance.
 buildGraph :: DistanceMetric -> WordSet -> Word -> Node
 buildGraph d@(DistanceMetric dist edits) wordset top = Node top (map (buildGraph d smaller) neighbours)
 possibleNeighbours = edits top
 neighbours = S.toList (smaller 'S.intersection' possibleNeighbours)
 smaller = S.delete top wordset
 search :: DistanceMetric -> Node -> Int -> Word -> [Word]
 search (DistanceMetric dist _) graph maxDepth goal = search' graph []
 search' (Node end children) path
 | end == goal = end : path
 | dist end goal >= maxDepth - length path = [] -- too much difference
 | otherwise = first
 -- Find the best node to search by comparing it against the goal
 costForNextChild :: [(Int,Node)]
 costForNextChild = zip (map (\(Node x _) -> dist x goal) children) children
 bestFirst = map snd $ sortBy (comparing fst) costForNextChild
 -- Best first search
 childRoutes = filter (not. null) $ map (\child -> search' child (end : path)) bestFirst
 first | null childRoutes = []
 | otherwise = head childRoutes
Two things have changed


A robot, three omniwheels and a ball.
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A bot, three omni wheels and a ball
Paul works with three omniwheels driving a ball underneath. He has an IMU (MPU-6050) that provides two angles in x and z direction. These two panes are considered separately. The angle is input of a PID controller that delivers a correction speed in the same pane. This speed is converted into a movement of each omniwheel by use of inverse kinematics.
So, most complex parts of Paul are two things:
1. Kinematics, i.e. having a to-be speed of the bot, how do you compute the speed of each omniwheel?
2. Balance Control, i.e. depending on the two angles against the perpendicular axis the IMU provides, how do you compute the compensation speed in x and?
Additionally, there is three PWM breakout for the blinking LEDs (everyone likes blinking LEDs!) and an interface to the text2speed module Emic-2 (that's the one Steven Hawkins is using).
The overall components are connected together like this:
This is about computing the angular speed of a wheel out of the speed in x and y direction.
I do not list the boring maths here, if you are really interested please check the Kinematics Computation Excel. The outcome of a tough weekend is this:
On the left side are the angular speed of the omniwheels 1-3. rw is the radius of one omniwheel, rb is the radius of the ball. θ is the angle of motor's axis against the perpendicular axisp. RT is the transposed rotation matrix that is given by the two angles φx and φy coming from the IMU:
vx and vy is the speed in x and y direction, ωbz is the angular speed of the bot when Paul turns at the same position. All this together is implemented in Kinematics.cpp
Micro-wise I use two ATmega 644, one for running the balancing loop, and the other receiving moving commands from the remote via xbee and controlling the LEDs and speed. Since the AVR is a bit too weak to run a control loop with 100Hz, I use fixed point arithmentics instead of floats, which makes the code hard to read.
Control Loop
The control loop is a slightly adapted PID controller which has as parameters:
 - body position, body speed, body acceleration,
 - head position, head speed, head acceleration.
 - to lean into curves, the angular speed is used to compensate the centripedal force
All these parameters are computed out of the IMUs values, multiplied with a certain weight and added (implemented in BotController.cpp). Before that, the IMU's values are filtered with a Kalman filter to avoid sensor noise by fusing the gyro values with g-force sensor values (Implemented in IMU Component).
Before you ask: Yes, I manually tuned the PID parameters. I tried the academic way, but it did not work out very well.
Schematics (KiCad) is here. Main uC is sampling the IMU, executing the PID controller and sending the result to the motor drivers (H-Bridges):
The dimensions of the motors, omni wheels and the balls are denoted here:
I did not use a CAD programme but drew all the mechanical parts in powerpoint (really uncool, I know). I glued the printouts on plywood and used a scroll saw to get the pieces. This is the powerpoint file with construction shapes.
 - 1 × EMIC-2 text to speed module
 - 2 × ATMEGA 644 One for the balance controller, one for the main controller (xbee, LEDs speech)
 - 3 × DC Motor Driver Single Motor Driver Carrier Board VNH2SP30
 - 3 × ELV I2C LED Driver 16 Channels Regular PMW driver for LEDs
 - 3 × DC motors from Polulu with encoders
View all 8 components
View project log
Enjoy this project?
Pedro H. J. wrote 03/24/2019 at 12:49 point
Dear Jochen Alt
I'm from Brazil. I made a ballbot as well. Some videos about my ballbot:
(yaw test)
It works very well. I'm trying translation X and Y axis, but not sucess. Can you help me?
See this video He made a amazing ballbot.
Thank you so much
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tonynazmy wrote 12/21/2018 at 16:37 point
Great project. can you supply the resources of deriving the forward and inverse kinematics calculations?
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rishabbalasubramanian wrote 09/26/2018 at 07:29 point
Hey, I was wondering why you used DC motors instead of stepper motors. Also, were you able to achieve path-planning while using DC motors?
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EM _USER_.NET wrote 11/24/2017 at 00:08 point
Where do get the sample codes?
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Spencer Skelly wrote 07/18/2017 at 21:35 point
Gotta say, this is fantastic. Well done.
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shapskurts wrote 05/31/2017 at 10:13 point
Hi Paul what programmer did you use to program atmega 644p and also what software did you use thanks in adavance
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Josh Kay wrote 04/21/2017 at 19:56 point
Looks amazing! Both engineering and design. How did you decide on the physical parameters of the robot - sizes of the body and the ball, its mass, omniwheel angles, height of center-of-mass, etc? Do these Pololu motors have enough torque and velocity? Are those plastic omniwheels durable enough? How about the ball coating? Sorry for too many questions, I'm just really curious about the hardware part, as I plan to build a similar robot for my thesis.
 Are you sure? yes | no
Ember Leona wrote 03/19/2017 at 01:32 point
Make an Airvent Cleaner Robot they need those in prison I am allergic to dust and they had 8 inches of dust in the air vents now I think I have lung problems or mesothelomia. The airvents never cleaned since they made the prison.
 Are you sure? yes | no
Ember Leona wrote 03/19/2017 at 01:30 point
I wish I can watch you and learn side by side. I think this robot looks cool. It reminds me of the new star wars bot so its a good sci fi entry. I think you shoud make the shere rotate or move by itself like a weighted hemisphere in sphere that has a cnc to rotate the outer sphere. I was also thinking that could bluetooth connect and different robots can use different balls and send commands. Thats going far into sci fi land huh...!?
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Blankoo wrote 03/16/2017 at 10:03 point
Can you teach me the work of hackers
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burner wrote 03/14/2017 at 12:46 point
Just awesome. BTW do it fall often? If it do it need detection routine for that so that if it get too high G peak it say ouch. And if it is on wrong angle after that it start whining. example I am so alone. No one will help me. Just why I had to born without hands. Cosmos is cruel. Without my ball I am just lonely rider without horse. Pleas help me! Can someone take me out of that horizontal darkness. etc random phrases from long whining database.
Probably smaller G spikes can cause also produce random whining example: let me stay at my endless emptyness. Don't poke me, I am not your facebook friend. Etc
 Are you sure? yes | no
Jochen Alt wrote 03/14/2017 at 13:41 point
Actually, the fall happened due to a loose connection to the IMU, so the motors accelerated desperately in order to compensate the wrong angle, that's why Paul fell so fast. In normal operations Paul is quite stable. But we had the same idea, I built in some whining when the angle is above a certain threshold, if you check MoodController::loop in
you see the "mobbing mode", which is turned on when Paul is pushed, this is my list:
"You push like a girl, is that your best?"
(actually this is a surprising aggressive change in his character)
"Go away"
"That was not worse than the rest of my life"
"You moron!"
"Ouch! You hurt me!"
"You like hitting small robots, don't you?"
"Please push me harder."
(maybe not appropriate :-) )
"I have been pushed my whole life. Why should you be different."
"Oh no, you again. I anticipated this already."
 Are you sure? yes | no
burner wrote 03/15/2017 at 15:17 point
That is just so super cool robot that probably I need start build own one. Is there some specific reason to use plywood instead of 3d print? Have you try search more quiet motors


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