text:
Although the name mondo grass leads you to believe this plant is grass, it is not. Mondo grass is a member of the lily family and is scientifically known as Ophiopogon japonicus. There are several popular species, including dwarf mondo grass and black mondo grass. Mondo grass is used as a ground cover and spread by means of underground stolons and tuberous roots. The plant is drought resistant and prefers warm soil. Mondo grass is hardy in USDA planting zones 7 through 10.
Choose a location that has full morning sun and partial afternoon shade. The area should be high enough that water will not pool after a rain. Plan on preparing the soil bed as soon as the ground can be worked in the early spring.
Scrape off lawn turf from the top of the soil with a flat-head shovel. Sprinkle remaining soil with a balanced fertilizer and 1 oz. of nitrogen per 100 square feet of soil. Till to a depth of 6 inches. Water the soil every other day for a period of two weeks to allow sprouting of weeds.
Pull all weeds that have sprouted and spread on another application of fertilizer. Add 2 inches of compost to the top of the soil and till again to the same depth. Rake the soil out level. Water again for another two weeks and pull all weeds that have sprouted.
Dig holes with a garden spade the same size as the containers that the mondo grass plants were purchased in. They should be spaced 6 to 12 inches apart for long-leaf varieties and 2 to 4 inches for dwarf varieties.
Remove the mondo grass plants from the containers and place into the planting holes. They should be planted at the same level they are in the containers. Firmly tamp the soil down around them.
Water the mondo grass thoroughly to establish roots and keep the soil evenly moist throughout the spring and summer. Start to cut back watering in the fall when the soil starts to feel dry.
Mulch around the young plants with grass clippings or pine needles. This will keep down the weeds while the plants are getting established. Grass clippings and pine needles will also decompose naturally and add nitrogen to the soil. Once established the mondo grass will fill out and it will be too shady for weeds to grow.


text:
Caritas Laments Plight of Women Refugees
Requests Resources to Protect and Heal Victims
| 2980 hits
VATICAN CITY, JUNE 19, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Caritas is decrying the lack of protection for women and girls in conflict zones, and is calling on governments and international organizations to act against these injustices.
The aid agency stated this today in a message sent for World Refugee Day, which will take place Saturday.
It highlighted the plight of female refugees who are often targets of violence in war and noted a "collective failure" to protect women and girls from rape and other forms of exploitation.
Martina Liebsch, coordinator of the migration and trafficking advocacy team, stated: "Humiliating women through violence and abuse is a common feature in armed conflicts around the world today.
"Women are often the last to leave as they stay to look after their families. This makes them vulnerable and subject to violence."
The communiqué reported that in Colombia, 17.7% of women who flee their homes reported sexual violence as the cause.
Women and girls who ran from violence in Sri Lanka reported fear of violence in the overcrowded refugee camps, and a lack of privacy which often leads to abuse.
Caritas noted that in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, 463 rape cases were reported in the past three months, over double the amount in that space of time last year.
Liebsch asserted that the effects of this violence are "devastating."
She explained: "Apart from the physical and psychological damage that rape brings to the individual, there is also a grave risk of unwanted pregnancy and HIV infection.
"It affects families, communities and villages. Some will never totally recover from this attack to their dignity."
"Caritas says that although the international humanitarian laws are in place that guarantee the protection of civilians, women, and children, they are not being upheld," Liebsch stated.
She called for governments and international organizations to "address this failure by improving protection, medical treatment, counseling and means for rehabilitation and compensation."
"Women should be encouraged to report on the abuses they suffered to start their healing," said Liebsch. "To do justice to their suffering their perpetrators should be brought to justice."
Caritas reported the plan to make an appeal for women and children by sending representatives from 11 countries to a June 29 U.N. consultation meeting in Geneva on the topic of refugees.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Documentation Center
 - Trial Software
 - Product Updates
Class: LinearModel
Simulate responses for linear regression model
ysim = random(mdl)
ysim = random(mdl,Xnew)
ysim = random(mdl) simulates responses from the fitted linear model mdl at the original design points.
ysim = random(mdl,Xnew) simulates responses from the mdl linear model to the data in Xnew, adding random noise.
Input Arguments
Linear model, as constructed by fitlm or stepwiselm.
Points at which mdl predicts responses.
Output Arguments
Vector of predicted mean values at Xnew, perturbed by random noise. The noise is independent, normally distributed, with mean zero, and variance equal to the estimated error variance of the model.
expand all
Simulate Response Data
Create a model of car mileage as a function of weight, and simulate the response.
load carsmall
X = Weight;
y = MPG;
Create simulated responses to the data.
Xnew = X;
ysim = random(mdl,Xnew);
Plot the original responses and the simulated responses to see how they differ.
For predictions without random noise, use predict or feval.
See Also
| |
How To
Was this topic helpful?


text:
Accession Number : AD0671731
Title : SHIELDING AN EXTERNAL FIELD BY A HOLLOW OBLATE ELLIPSOID (EKRANIROVANIE VNESHNEGO POLYA POLYM SPLYUSHUTYM ELLIPSOIDOM),
Corporate Author : FOREIGN TECHNOLOGY DIV WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB OHIO
Personal Author(s) : Kurenev,S. I. ; Volkov,M. G.
Report Date : 29 AUG 1967
Pagination or Media Count : 9
Abstract : For practical purposes, such as investigating the effect of foreign bodies on the electric strength of dielectrics, a boundary problem is approximately solved by using the Laplace equation. Those cases where the external field is oriented along the x-axis and along the z-axis are considered. Long theoretical formulas for the shielding factor are given, as well as curves showing the effects of the dielectric constant upon the shielding factor. In dealing with ellipsoid shields, taking the direction of the field into account is recommended.
Descriptors : (*ELECTROSTATIC FIELDS, SHIELDING), (*DIELECTRICS, DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES), PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS, BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS, POTENTIAL THEORY, ELLIPSOIDS, ELECTROSTATICS, USSR
Subject Categories : Electricity and Magnetism
Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Depression is complex and influenced by many factors, but the way depressed people think is a likely contributor to the disorder. Depression is often associated with cognitive biases, including paying more attention to negative than positive events and recalling them more easily. People with depression also tend to ruminate over perceived failures and criticism, and they are extra sensitive to negative feedback.
Analogous cognitive biases can be found in animals. Now, in a new study, researchers have demonstrated for the first time a link between pessimism and sensitivity to performance feedback in rats. It's the latest finding to show parallels between human depression and rat pessimism – an important result that lends further legitimacy to using animal research to shed light on human psychological problems.
You might wonder how on earth it is possible to measure pessimism in rats. One way to do this was shown in a 2004 study in which animals were trained to press a lever to receive a food reward in response to hearing one tone, and to press a different lever to avoid a mild electric shock upon hearing a different tone. Then the scientists presented the animals with intermediate tones, in between the ones that signaled either food or shock. Which lever the rats pressed in response to these ambiguous cues was considered an indicator of whether the animals expected a positive or negative event. In other words, their behaviour revealed their relative optimism or pessimism.
In the new research, Rafal Rygula and Piotr Popik of the Polish Academy of Sciences used the same paradigm to compare the reaction of rats displaying optimistic and pessimistic traits to positive and negative feedback. First, they divided rats into two groups based on how they performed in the ambiguous-cue interpretation test. Some rats tended to interpret ambiguous cues as signaling a reward, indicating a positive cognitive bias, while others were more likely to interpret them as signaling punishment, indicating a bias toward more pessimistic judgments.
Then the optimistic and pessimistic rats were trained and tested in a probabilistic reversal-learning (PRL) task, which essentially involves using negative or positive feedback to teach the animals to change or maintain a response that they've learned previously. Rygula and Popik determined how likely each rat was to switch its response after receiving negative feedback and to maintain its response following positive feedback.
The researchers found that the two groups did not differ in their responses to positive feedback, but that pessimistic rats were more sensitive to negative feedback than optimistic rats. That is, the pessimistic rats were much quicker to drop a previously learned response once it started to be met with negative feedback – you could see this as akin to a depressed human giving up more quickly in response to criticism.
This new finding builds on earlier research by Rygula and his colleagues, in which they demonstrated that the trait of pessimism can also influence rats' motivation levels (the optimistic rats were more motivated than pessimistic rats to obtain a sip of sugary water), and their vulnerability to "stress-induced anhedonia" – after being restrained, which they find stressful, pessimistic rats showed a longer-lasting lost appetite for sugary water. This might represent a reduction in their ability to experience pleasure that is analogous to human anhedonia, which is another important symptom of depression.
This new study on sensitivity to negative feedback in pessimistic rats, in combination with Rygula's two previous studies, supports the claim that rats that tend to be pessimistic are also more likely to demonstrate a variety of behavioral and cognitive processes that are linked with increased vulnerability to depression.
It's hard to know how similar pessimistic rats are to depressed people, but studies like these certainly provide intriguing commonalities. Scientists use animals such as rats as models for human disorders like depression, and use such models to test new therapies and drugs. It seems that rats can display the same negative cognitive biases as people, tending to make negative judgments about events and interpreting ambiguous cues unfavorably. And these biases, in turn, affect both rats' and humans' sensitivity to negative feedback.
Post written by Mary Bates (_USER_) for the BPS Research Digest. Mary is a freelance science writer specialising in the brains and behaviour of humans and other animals. She has been published in National Geographic News, National Geographic's Weird & Wild blog, New Scientist, the Society for Neuroscience's BrainFacts website, plus many other outlets. She earned her PhD from Brown University, where she researched bat echolocation and bullfrog chorusing. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook and see all of her work at her website.
Our free weekly email will keep you up-to-date with all the psychology research we digest: Sign up!


text:
06 November 2019
Partners and Competitors: Forces Operating in Parallel to UN Peace Operations
By Lisa Sharland and Alexandra Novosseloff
Since the end of the Cold War, the UN Security Council has authorized or recognized the deployment of more than forty parallel forces that operate alongside UN peace operations. As the Security Council has deployed peace operations in increasingly non-permissive environments, the division of labor between UN missions and these parallel forces has blurred, and their goals have sometimes come into conflict. This raises the question of whether they are partners or competitors.
This report from the International Peace Institute examines the missions that have operated in parallel to UN peace operations to identify how to strengthen these partnerships in the future. It analyzes and categorizes the types of parallel forces that have been deployed and examines the rationales for deploying them. It also looks at strategic and operational challenges, including the challenges unique to peace operations operating alongside a counterterrorism force. Finally, drawing on lessons from past and current parallel deployments, it offers recommendations for member states, the Security Council, and the UN Secretariat. These include:
- Strengthening coordination of assessments, planning, and application of UN standards: The UN and actors deploying parallel forces should conduct joint assessments and planning when deploying or reconfiguring missions. The UN Security Council should also engage more regularly with parallel forces and encourage the continued development of human rights compliance frameworks for them.
- Clarifying roles, responsibilities, and areas of operation: Peace operations and parallel forces should clearly delineate their responsibilities and areas of operation, assess the risks of collocating, and improve strategic communications with the local population. The Security Council should also continue to put in place mechanisms to strengthen the accountability of parallel forces, especially when peace operations are providing support that could contribute to counterterrorism operations.


text:
Grilled Sous Vide Artichokes with Lemon and Butter
Courtesy of Chef Josh Horrigan (thechefsacademy.com)
- 4 lemons
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) extra virgin olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 2 teaspoon (10 ml) sea salt
- pinch cracked pepper
- 3 or 4 large artichokes
- 1/2 cup (20 g) fresh parsley
- Bamboo kabob skewers
- 1 cup (240 ml) drawn butter (or melted ghee) for serving
- Fill and preheat set sous vide water bath to 185F/85C.
- Finely grate the zest of one lemon into a large bowl. Cut it and another one of the lemons in half to use to prevent discoloration of the cut artichokes in step 4. Cut the other two lemons into wedges just before serving.
- To the zest, add the oil, garlic, salt, and pepper and whisk to combine the marinade.
- Working with one artichoke at a time to prevent discoloring from oxidation:
- Trim away and discard the bottom 1/2-inch (1.25 cm) of the stem.
- Break off any small leaves on the stem, and then peel the stem with a vegetable peeler or small knife.
- Rub the stem with a cut lemon.
- Remove the first 3 layers of outer leaves, starting at the base, by bending back a leaf until it snaps, then pulling down to remove the leaf.
- With a vegetable peeler or small knife, trim away the tough outer skin remaining from the discarded leaves. Rub this area with lemon.
- Using a sharp knife, cut off and discard the top third of the artichoke. Rub the cut area with lemon.
- Cut the artichoke in half lengthwise through the stem end. Cut each half in half again (lengthwise) to create a total of 4 wedges. If the artichoke is very large, cut it into 6 wedges. Rub all cut surfaces with one of the lemon halves.
- Remove 5 or 6 layers of the pale, inner leaves and use a small spoon to remove the hairy choke. Rub all over with lemon.
- Transfer the wedges to the bowl with the olive oil mixture and toss to coat all surfaces of the artichokes.
- Repeat with the remaining 3 artichokes.
- Transfer the artichoke quarters to a cooking pouch, add any remaining marinade from the bowl, arrange the wedges in a single layer, and vacuum seal. It may be necessary to use several pouches.
- Refrigerate the pouch(es) for 2 hours to allow the marinade to infuse.
- Submerge the pouch(es) in the water bath and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until tender, but not mushy.
- Preheat a lightly oiled grill or grill pan to high heat.
- Remove the artichokes from the water bath, transfer them to a platter, and load the quarters onto bamboo skewers.
- Grill over high heat to add some charred marks.
- Garnish with lemon wedges, if desired, and serve them hot or at room temperature, with the lemon wedges and drawn butter for dipping.
Like this? Why not share it:


Install docker on FreeBSD
This is going to be a quick tutorial that'll show you how to set up docker on a FreeBSD system. Docker, as you're probably familiar with, is a utility that alleviates making, deploy, and launching software programs by compiling it into lightweight, executable packages called containers. By condensing an application into a package, the developers create a standalone container that comes with all the libraries and dependencies included. This makes the distribution much easier for the devs, as the containers allow the applications to work on various Linux platforms.
As of yet, docker isn't supported for the FreeBSD operating system, so there's no way you can use docker on FreeBSD, natively at least. Several attempts have been made to build the docker source up for FreeBSD, but none that I could find yielded any substantial results. This is likely because FreeBSD lacks some of Linux's features, such as namespace and cgroups that aren't yet a part of FreeBSD kernel.
So that leaves us with one option only: using a virtual machine. So we'll use virtualbox in this tutorial to fire up a Linux VM in FreeBSD and use docker within it.
Step 1: Install docker client and virtual machine in FreeBSD
To install both docker client and virtual machine along with virtual box all in one command, type the following into the shell and hit enter:
$ sudo pkg install docker docker-machine virtualbox-ose
The reason why we're setting up docker-machine with the virtual box is that it facilitates management for Docker hosts. With a docker-machine, you can create servers and install docker on each of them, and also configure each individually.
Step 2: Load the vboxdrv kernel module
With virtualbox installed on your system, load the vboxdrv kernel module. To do this and add your user account to the vboxusers group, you'll need to run the following command:
$ sudo pw groupmod vboxuser -m
Once the command executes, you'll be able to use vbox. You can use virtual machines after restarting your system.
Step 3: Creating VirtualBox hosts
Use the command below to create a Virtualbox host:
$ docker-machine create -d virtualbox default
To see every host current on your system.
$ docker-machine ls
With a new virtual box host in place, we should set the VM parameters to communicate with the docker client. Use the command below:
$ eval "$(docker-machine env default)"
Then copy-paste this command to the.bashrc/.zshrc file, and you're all set to use docker on FreeBSD.
Why go through all this trouble?
Surely there has to be an easier way to run docker, one that doesn't need the use of virtual machines?
Well, no. As of yet, this is the only way to get docker up and running on a FreeBSD system, because as mentioned earlier, FreeBSD doesn't have the support for some of the elements that are crucial to docker's operation.
Then why not use an alternative to docker? I've heard rkt is a much better alternative to docker, and it runs on FreeBSD!
Sure, there are many FreeBSD alternatives to docker that are better, if not just as good. The thing is: most people are familiar with docker, and it's rather daunting to shift platforms completely for some users. Another reason is the lack of instructional material for rkt, so those new to the containerization software would opt for docker instead of its FreeBSD alternatives.
That's it for this tutorial. Hopefully, you're now able to use docker on FreeBSD with the box.
About the author
Younis Said
Younis Said


Paranormal Things Dogs Can Sense That Most Humans Can't
By Jessica Booth – Bustle Mag
"Pets are the best, especially dogs. They're your companion when you need a friend, they cuddle whenever you're feeling lonely, and they can make you smile the second you walk in the door. But for all of the good things about pets, they do have a creepy side: it sometimes seems like they have a paranormal sense that humans just don't have. Have you ever been alone in your home with your dog, and all of the sudden, their hair goes up and they seem to be staring at something that doesn't exist? It's scary enough to make you want to run out the door. There are some weird, paranormal things dogs might sense, and it's pretty terrifying.
To make things less scary, know this: there's no actual scientific evidence that dogs can sense paranormal activity, like ghosts. And, actually, you might have that same sixth sense. Pet psychologist Marti Miller told Animal Planet that both humans and dogs have a sixth sense, saying, "But humans judge or deny what they're feeling. Dogs don't judge what is going on in the environment. While our own minds start to analyze what is happening, dogs don't do that. They feel the barometric pressure change, and may react by shaking, panting, salivating and feeling anxious, or they may not react at all.
Some say that dogs don't have a sixth sense at all; they can simple smell and see better than us. According to Animal Planet, a dog's eyes "detect more delicate movements; his sense of smell is 1,000 to 10,000 times more sensitive than a human's. He can hear much higher frequencies, and at four times the distance of a human with normal hearing." Some also say that a dog's reactions can come from early trauma, like being stuck outside in a storm.
But you know what? It's a lot more fun to imagine that your dog is sensing something IMG_7328.jpgparanormal, as eerie as that seems. Plus, we might not have evidence that they have a sixth sense, but we also don't have evidence that they don't. There's a lot about dogs (and animals in general) that we don't know, so it's completely possible that they can see ghosts and predict natural disasters. Just saying!
In any case, here are a few things that dogs can sense. It's pretty spooky:
Dogs can hear higher pitched noises than us and they can also hear at further distances than we do. According to Paw Culture, "this could be what makes dogs more likely to hear some footprint of a ghost or a parallel universe." It's possible that dogs are just hearing noises we don't have the ability to hear, but it's also possible that they're hearing paranormal activity.
According to Animal Planet, "Dogs' heightened sense of smell is credited with their ability to detect some cancers in humans." There are also service dogs who help people prone to seizures – these dogs are trained to be alerted to small shifts in the person's health, like body smells and dilated pupils. These things warn the dogs of a looming seizure attack. Paw Culture says, "For example, dogs seem to be able to 'smell' storms, cancer, low insulin levels, bombs, drugs, truffles, so it makes sense that they might be able to smell other energies we're not aware of."
A dog's sense of sight is also a lot sharper than ours, so again, they might just be seeing things we don't notice… but it could also be something spooky. Brandy Stark, who runs a paranormal investigation group called SPIRITS of St. Petersburg, told Paw Culture a story about taking her two rescued Pugs on an investigation where they spotted unusual activity. They stopped and looked at a spot on the wall, and she later discovered that the original owner, who was believed to be haunting the property, had an office in that spot. Spooky!
According to Animal Planet, "Wild and domestic animals, including dogs, seemed to sense the impending Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, displaying their distress with behavior changes and vocal warnings, and either ran for cover or refused to go outside. Some experts believe they could sense vibrational changes on land from impending the earthquakes before humans could." This probably definitely happens all the time, and is so weird.
If you have a dog, you might notice that there are certain areas or spots they are inexplicably afraid of, or there's one place they always act strange in. As an example, my dog gets spooked by a corner of my backyard. We don't know why, and it's very strange. Now, it's possible that something traumatic has happened to the dog in that area that we don't know about, and they're associating that are with that moment. But it's also possible that they're sensing an energy we can't sense. There are lots of accounts of dogs doing this.
Dogs can definitely sense things we can't, because they're more sensitive to emotions and changes in the atmosphere. They can be sensitive to bad energy or something feeling "off." They might also be more sensitive to sub-conscious things. This can range from natural disasters to illnesses to humans to ghosts. There are a lot of stories about dogs seeing or sensing something eerie, and scientists have no explanation for what's going on."
Photos: MBarrettMiller/ConnemaraProductions
Leave a Reply
You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )
Google photo
Twitter picture
Facebook photo
Connecting to %s


Frameworks for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from municipal solid waste in Oman
Umar, Tariq (2020) Frameworks for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from municipal solid waste in Oman. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, 31(4), pp. 945-960. ISSN (print) _PHONE_
Purpose The Gulf Cooperation Council member countries not only generate the highest quantity of municipal solid waste (MSW) per capita when compared globally, but also in most of these countries, such waste is just dumped at different landfill stations. In Oman, the total quantity of MSW stood at 2.0 million tons per year. The emission from this waste is estimated at 2,181,034 tons/year (carbon dioxide equivalent). This article attempts to develop frameworks that considered landfilling, composting and recycling of MSW. Design/methodology/approach To know the composition of the municipal solid waste in Oman, a quantitative research method was employed. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from MSWM in this study focus on three major gases, CO2, CH4 and N2O. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 model is used to calculate GHG emissions from landfills and composting (IPCC, 2006). Four frameworks – baseline F0, framework F1, framework F2 and framework F3 – are outlined in this paper. The F0 represents the current situation of the MSW in which most of the waste goes to landfills and dumpsites. In F1, improved MSW collection service and landfilling are incorporated and open burning is restricted. The F2 considered landfilling and composting, while F3 is based on landfilling, composting and recycling. Findings The framework F2, which proposes the composting process for the organic waste which normally goes to landfills, results in the reduction of emissions by 40% as compared to landfill practice. Similarly, the samples of MSW collected in Oman show a good amount of recycling waste. The framework F3, which considers the landfill, composting and recycling, reduced the total GHG emissions from 2,181,034 tons/year to 1,427,998 tons/year (carbon dioxide equivalent), representing a total reduction of 35% in emissions. Research limitations/implications Different values such as CH4 correction factor, the fraction of degradable organic carbon and the fraction of DOC used to determine the GHG emissions from MSW considering landfilling, composting and recycling based on the IPPC model and existing literature review. The actual determination of these values based on the Oman conditions may result in more accurate emissions from MSW in Oman. Practical implications Different frameworks suggested in this research have different practical implications; however, the final framework F3, which produces fewer emissions, required a material recovery facility to recycle the MSW in Oman. For framework F3, it is important that the residents in Oman have enough knowledge and willingness to do the waste segregation at the household level. Apparently, such knowledge and willingness need to be determined through a separate study. Originality/value The frameworks F2 and F3 are considered to be more suitable solutions compared to the current practices for Oman and other gulf countries to reduce its per capita emissions from MSW and protect its local environment. There is a potential for further work that needs to explore the possible solutions to implement the suggested frameworks.
Actions (Repository Editors)
Item Control Page Item Control Page


text:
The Process of Diamond Manufacturing
The Diamond Manufacturing Process
The Manufacturing Of High Quality Polished Diamonds is a very complex and time consuming process. It requires a lot of time, resources, human skills and modern machinery.
Each and every diamond is sorted, analyzed and planned seperately and requires the knowledge and experience of several experts in their fields. Once the diamond is planned and it's "Yield" is estimated, everyone in the production line has the task of achieving the "target". Diamonds are analyzed before, during and after each step of the manufacturing process.
Step #1) Assortment and Planning of the "rough Diamonds"
This is of course the "initial stage" of the diamond manufacturing process. In this process, an expert analyzes the rough diamond to determine it's characteristics.
The unique characteristics of each diamond are analyzed for the 4 C's. (Cut,Carat,Clarity,Color) This will give a preliminary estimate, of the overall quality of the "rough diamond"
Step #2) Rough Diamond "Planning" and "Marking"
Planning is crucial to diamond manufacturing. Like any other work of art or architecture, a diamond is created twice. Once as a "blueprint" and again as the actual product.
There are various sub-processes in planning, such as (Marking, windowing & simulation)
Hi-Tech computer aided, 3 dimensional "simulation" systems are used to plan the diamond. The exact shape, size and purity of the diamond is determined at this stage. If the planning is not done efficiently, then significant value can be lost. The entire planning process is designed to "maximize" the value and beauty of each diamond.
Step #3) Cleaving And Sawing
"Cleaving" and "Sawing are two different processes. Cleaving is essentially breaking up the rough diamond into parts. Sawing can also be used to perform this task, depending upon the need and desired results.
"BLOCKING" is a process where the first eight facets are given to the diamond. This technique is used to reduce weight loss from cutting and polishing
"Auto-Blocking" is also used to perform faceting but is completely automatic. When one facet is polished, it automatically rotates and the second facet is started.
Step #4) Bruting
Bruting is essentially the process of giving the diamond "Shape" The "Bruter" considers such things as "maximum" yeild and ensuring the diamond doesn't break, utilizing advanced equipment.
Final Step #5) Polishing
Polishing Is the final step in the diamond manufacturing process. The "Bruted" diamonds are sent to the polishing phase. Again the diamond is analyzed. The "polisher" has to be very careful in this phase. Even a SMALL mistake can reduce the quality of the diamond. All facets of the diamond are polished.


text:
"People think you can be disabled or LGBT but not both"
The Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA), hosted by leading children's charity National Children's Bureau, is publishing new resources for school staff to help tackle the homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (HBT) bullying of disabled young people and those with special educational needs (SEN).
Research shows that HBT bullying is widespread in UK schools: over half of children who identify as LGBT have experienced bullying relating to their gender or sexual orientation, with disabled children and those with SEN at increased risk. A survey of LGBT young people in the UK found that two thirds (66%) of children with disabilities or SEN had experienced homophobic bullying, compared to 55% among the sample as a whole1.
The new ABA resources, developed in partnership with Educational Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH), are being published to mark the start of LGBT History Month, and follow a report from NatCen which found that schools lack confidence and feel under-resourced when it comes to dealing with homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying.
Qualitative research by ABA with disabled young people, some of whom identified as LGBT+, confirmed that teachers didn't always understand the issues they faced: "How are we supposed to tell [about bullying] if teachers don't understand LGBT+ or disability?" asked one young person.
The young people ABA spoke to revealed the 'top issues' schools should address if they are to reduce bullying of disabled young people – particularly in relation to gender and sexual orientation:
- Reports of bullying must be taken seriously – many young people said that they were not believed when they reported bullying.
- Speaking out about bullying was made more difficult when the young people saw their peers and teachers being bullied for being LGBT+: "at my school it was horrible. One person came out as gay and he left really quickly".
- Many young people said that the use of homophobic, transphobic and/or disablist language was rife:"It happens both ways. Whether you're gay or not, they say 'you're so gay'. I think they think it's easier to say that than to say something to us about being disabled. Then you hear people saying to gay people 'you're so retarded."
- Many of the young people said they had received little or no sex and relationships education (SRE) at school; with what they had learnt focussing on heterosexual sex and safe sex, and lacked focus on developing healthy relationships: "Sex education for disabled young people… There is none".
- Not discussing being LGBT+ in school, and especially not hearing about LGBT+ disabled people, made the young people feel invisible and marginalized. This made coming out as LGBT, or being understood as LGBT increasingly difficult: "People think disabled people are asexual as it is, so they don't talk to you about any relationships, let alone about being or acknowledging that you are LGBT."
Lauren Seager-Smith, National Coordinator of the Anti-Bullying Alliance said:
'We are very concerned by reports of dual discrimination, bullying and marginalisation experienced by disabled young people that identify as LGBT+. There are clear steps we can take to change the situation – we must listen to disabled young people in our schools and act on their recommendations, fight for statutory sex and relationships education that is inclusive of all young people, and make sure our anti-bullying initiatives do not exclude those children most at risk.'
Jonathan Charlesworth, Executive Director of EACH said:
'More research is needed which looks at the prejudice facing young people who fall into both of these minority groups. We must focus on a whole-school approach to combatting the issue; with comprehensive anti-bullying policies – which specifically reference prejudiced based bullying, and proper sex and relationships education which doesn't focus solely on heterosexual sex, relationships and sexual health and which is tailored, appropriate and accessible for disabled children and those with SEN.'
'Today, every forward-looking school strives to support all its pupils not regardless of but because of their pupils' and staff's diverse sexuality, gender, identity, race, faith or ability. We hope these new resources will help schools support disabled children and those with special educational needs so they do not have to suffer the lasting harm that comes from being bullied.'
The resources for schools are available from: _URL_


text:
jackrowe at compuserve.com
Sat Nov 1 13:51:50 EST 1997
I can believe that to-us subtle changes in light frequencies can have an
effect on seed germination... what appear to be small initial influences
can often result in profound changes in outcome. This mechanism might
prevent weed seeds (which are often impressively-long-lived) from
germinating before the canopy is opened above them or they are carried on a
hog snout out into the open and replanted.
A lot of weed seeds have two dormancy requirements. The first is a ripening
or maturation stage, which they spend underground or out of the light. The
second requirement can then be satisfied by exposure to light. This is true
of a lot of amaranthus', for instance, and Chenopdiums. This is the reason
for the common name "pigweed", historically applied to both these genera...
these plants are often germinated by rooting pigs, who expose mature seeds
to light in the course of their rooting and so cause their germination.
These are called weeds of disturbed soil and they tend to be fast-growing,
tolerant of poor soil, and fast to produce huge quantities of tiny seeds.
In the case of the two I mentioned, good eatin', too.
This makes a good argument for constant-mulched, no-till gardening, as does
the erosion cited by Dan, as does simple ergonomic sanity. Rodale Inst., by
the way, has found a great decline in the germination of weed seed
resulting from soil disturbance, if weeding and/or digging is done at
night, and soil thus disturbed is re-mulched before daylight returns.
More information about the permaculture


text:
As brilliant as most software and apps might seem, they are still severely awareness-disabled, meaning they don't know and can't respond to simple user contexts such as who I am, where I am, what grade I'm in, what class this is, what level I've achieved, what my learning style is, etc. The objective of Adaptive Software is that discrete levels of context awareness allows it to respond constructively to arising learning situations.
While Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains futuristic, Adaptive Software requires far more basic response capabilities that are possible now. For example, context-awareness is critical for emerging mobile apps. The venture opportunity is for application developers and instructional designers to develop accountability-driven pedagogical models focused on the learning experience.
Gartner – Contextual User Experience


Authors: Eslava, JL; Iglesias-Juez, A; Fernandez-Garcia, M; Guerrero-Ruiz, A; Rodriguez-Ramos, I
Appl. Surf. Sci.. vol: 447. page: 0169-4332.
Date: jul-31. 2018.
Doi: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2018.03.207.
The effect of using two different promoter precursors on the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis was studied over cesium promoted ruthenium catalysts supported on a high surface area graphite support. In this work we reveal significant modifications in the selectivity values for Fischer-Tropsch reaction depending on the Cs promoter precursor (CsCl vs CsNO3). Specifically the bimetallic catalyst (4Ru-4Cs), prepared from nitrates both for metal and promoter precursors, showed a high selectivity to CO2 during reaction. By modifying the cesium precursor, it was possible to inhibit the water gas shift reaction, decreasing significantly the selectivity to CO2. In order to understand the chemical origin of these modifications a careful characterization of the materials was performed including: X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy measurements, temperature programmed reduction studies, determination of the CO uptakes on the catalysts and the evolution of the CO adsorption heats as a function of surface coverages. It was found that upon reduction and under reaction atmosphere the promoter in the ex-nitrate catalyst appears as Cs2O which is considered responsible of the CO2 production, while in the catalysts prepared with Cs chloride the promoter remains as CsCl suffering a slight partial reduction. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved..


text:
When someone writes totally in capital letters it's because they don't want who they truly are to be seen. They may well be totally unaware that that is why they are doing it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is!
People who are just looking for clarity sometimes print. Engineers, accountants, architects are some of the employment groups who very often print because exactness and accuracy are so important in their line of work.
However, capital letters provide no further clarity than printing, so all caps is not done for clarity.
The least possible is revealed from writing in all capitals. Printing shows less than script, but when all the writing is in capitals, it hides even more.
Most handwritten ransom notes, for example, are written in all capitals!
This of course does not mean that everyone who writes in all caps is engaged in something nefarious, or even dishonest. But it does mean they do not want to give too much of themselves away.
You can get something from writing that is all capitals however.
For example, the slant will still tell you the emotional make up of the writer (the farther to the right, the more the emotional expression), and the heaviness of the writing will still tell you how deeply emotions affect this writer.
There are a few other indications that will still show through in all capital writing, however, the main thing to think about is that this person, knowingly or unknowingly, is hiding themselves away.
The question is "why?"
Did you like this article? Sign up for RSS Feed from this Blog


text:
Tidal currents created by COASTMAP Data Services. COASTMAP is a framework used to integrate and deliver data from a variety of numerical models and observation systems. (_URL_
The current vectors seen here are generated from a tidal model called ADCIRC. Note that these vectors represent only the astronomical tidal component of the currents and not other current flows generated from winds or fresh water inflows.
The vectors are calculated from a database that ASA has developed from original work implemented by the U.S. Army Research and Development Center, Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (ERDC/CHL) using ADCIRC simulations (Luettich et al., 1992). ADCIRC is a coastal hydrodynamic circulation model that employs a finite element grid which allows flexible gridding (large elements in deep offshore region and fine elements near coasts).
Applied Science Associates (ASA) is an international leader in the development and application of computer tools to analyze marine and freshwater environments. ASA answers questions about our environment and human interaction within that environment, using computer models to simulate physical, chemical, and biological processes, as well as hydrodynamic models to predict surface and subsurface currents in water bodies all over the world. To learn more about ASA, please visit their website at _URL_


text:
Ocean Volcanic Rocks Contain Samples of Recycled Crust
Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials from the early Earth's crust. But decisive evidence for this phenomenon has proven elusive. New research from a team including Carnegie's Erik Hauri demonstrates that oceanic volcanic rocks contain samples of recycled crust dating back to the Archean era 2.5 billion years ago. Their work is published in Nature.
Oceanic crust sinks into the Earth's mantle at so-called subduction zones, where two plates come together. Much of what happens to the crust during this journey is unknown. Model-dependent studies for how long subducted material can exist in the mantle are uncertain and evidence of very old crust returning to Earth's surface via upwellings of magma has not been found until now.
For more information about these results, see the press release
from the Carnegie Institution.


-.
Crossing The Data Drop Chasm-Revit To Excel and Back Again Using Dynamo
It is sometimes desirable or necessary to push data from Revit to Excel, and back again. One such example I can think of is when working with a door hardware consultant.
The door hardware consultant may not have access to Revit, little lone your Revit model. You have a few options. You could export your data to Excel, have him/her populate it, and then re-enter the data once it is back in Revit OR you could export it to excel using Dynamo, and then re-import the data from excel to Revit.
It's worth mentioning that you want to be very intentional about how and when you complete these tasks. For example if you export your data, and add/remove a door, this information will be lost in translation with your door hardware consultant.
Exporting Revit To Excel
All Elements of Category paired with Categories pulls all the elements that exist in your model.
Next, we want to pick which parameters from the elements to export. To do this we will use the "Element.GetParameterValueByName" node. I'm also using the "Element.Id" so I can match the components and their data with the unique Element.Id.
List.Create allows you to take multiple streams of data and combine them. This is important as the Revit to Excel node later will be receiving one stream of data.
List.Transpose flips data. It makes rows columns and columns rows. If you are a grasshopper user, this does the same thing as "Flip Matrix" in grasshopper.
Excel.WriteToFile is AMAZING. This node is where the magic happens. We have a few inputs to match up. Where is the File located? What is the sheet name? Which Row/Column do you want to start with? Overwrite data that exist?
Here is the result! Now to email the hardware consultant! ;)
Push data from Excel to Revit
Here is the full script for importing the data from excel back into Revit.
Importing the data from Excel into Revit begins with the "Excel.ReadFromFile" node. You will use the File Path and File.FromPath nodes to browse to your excel file. Pick which sheet you want to import from. Pick the Sheet name. One of the most important subtle check boxes that I found extremely important was the "ReadAsStrings" input. The reason this input is so important is depending on if your Revit parameter name is a number or not, you will want to be intentional about checking this true or not. Revit text parameter=True. Revit number parameter=False.
We'll be using the List.Transpose again to get convert the rows back to columns and the columns back to rows.
We'll use the List.GetItemAtIndex to choose which Excel column to grab. "0" will be the first column. "1" will be the second columns, and so on.
Finally we will want to pick which elements and parameter(s) to feed our data back into. We will be using the "Element.SetParameterByName node to populate the data. We can pair the "All Elements of Category" with the "Categories" node to grab the doors again. We are using a code block with quotes for the parameter name "Door Hardware Group". It's worth mentioning again that since our excel to revit node imported as string, we do not need to convert the data to a text string for the text parameter "Door Hardware Group". You will need to take into consideration if your parameter is number parameter or an integer parameter instead of a text parameter as you may need to use the string to number node.
And here is the Door Hardware Group populated in the Revit schedule!
Here's the data set I used. Enjoy! _URL_
Interested in growing your Dynamo ninja skills or want to host a dynamo workshop at your office? Reach out to me personally at _EMAIL_
_TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_ _TAG_
What Can We Help You With?
© 2020 Evolve Lab LLC Trademark and Copyright, all rights reserved


07 September 2020
Think Big
Author/Compiled by
Cora Craigmile
WHAT IF... you reduced your logistical costs by sourcing bigger volumes?
Factsheet Block Body
One of the biggest cost drivers for businesses working in resource recovery from waste and wastewater is inefficient and time-consuming logistics. This is the case both when providing a door-to-door service in a highly dense city or in rural areas where distances between customers are long. Businesses that find themselves struggling with such costs might benefit from re-considering their logistics or re-modelling their business plan altogether to focus on more strategic partnerships from which they can source large quantities of inputs, e.g. from supermarkets, hospitals or schools. The Think big strategy focuses on optimising logistics of waste collection activities through more strategic partnerships, while maintaining the same quality of service.
Turning challenges into opportunities
Factsheet Block Body
Businesses working in RRR or reverse logistics of waste management, often struggle to acquire their waste from a source that generates consistent quantities of waste (ALNUWAIRAN, 2020). In some cases, the business will outsource its waste collection activities to a waste collection company for a fee. In other cases, the business will cover the whole lifecycle of the product: from collecting the primary material (in this case waste from where it is generated), to sorting it, processing it and then selling the recovered or recycled product to the end-user. Whether they pay a fee for a collection service or take care of collection activities themselves, businesses have to invest heavily into waste collection, which can prove to be an obstacle when trying to make their business model economically viable (DAS, S. and BHATTACHARYYA, B., 2015). The resources spent on related logistics depend largely on the scale that the business is operating at, the context and the type of waste it collects.
In this factsheet, we will explore the Think big strategy as an innovative option for optimising logistics.
Moving towards a strategy
Factsheet Block Body
What underpins this strategy is its focus on sourcing large volumes of waste as well as creating strategic partnerships. Large-scale waste recovery activities lower relative costs and offer greater opportunities for revenue generation and market proliferation than simply engaging in a door-to-door service.
Collecting municipal solid waste from individual households, for example, requires expensive logistics due to multiple stops, trips and potential interaction with many customers. Collecting the same amount of organic waste from 5 or 10 large supermarkets requires less trips, reducing the relative costs while you can probably obtain cleaner waste.
Identifying waste sources where you can collect large volumes or other inputs can help you optimise your business models in two ways:
 - Reducing direct logistical costs for transportation
 - Reducing efforts to ensure that you receive the required quality
To leverage such savings, you have to re-define your current partnerships or build new ones to secure continued supply. It is important to bear in mind that focusing on just a few partnerships can also pose a risk to your business model. If the business depends heavily on access to a certain type, quantity or quality of input which is granted by a local government, municipality or other partner, and this access is removed or reduced, it would pose a risk to the sustainability of the entire business. Maintaining healthy partnerships with these key partners is therefore an important task for managing risks related to dependencies on fewer sources of waste.
Instead of searching for ideal bulk sources, you can also explore establishing drop-off systems that allow you to reduce costs by picking up waste from a limited number of collection points. This strategy could also be applied to municipal waste collection systems which currently depend on a door-to-door paid service. Transforming a resource recovery business model towards using a limited number of collection points dotted around a city/town can massively reduce collection costs. At the same time, you have to ensure adequate incentives are put in place to engage individuals to dispose of their waste in the designated collection points.
The cost structure of your business will of course vary depending on the scale you work at, the input you collect and the context you operate in – as well as the extent to which you apply the strategy. However, your business could expect a significant reduction in collection costs since less personnel, time and transport resources (including petrol) would be needed. Sourcing input in bulk, however, could mean that the type of transport needed for collection would need to be reconsidered (collection trucks might need to be of a different type). This might require an additional investment in physical resources. Costs associated with communication could also be reduced significantly depending on the type and number of partners you have. If you transition from a door-to-door service, in which communication with each individual household is important to ensure that customers sort their waste appropriately, to sourcing your input in bulk from places that already sort it as part of their operations, then costs associated with communications would be cut down. As already mentioned earlier, relying on fewer partnerships from which to source your input might result in raised costs for activities related to customer relationships. This wouldn't be so much the case if the partner was benefiting significantly from your service and you had no or little competition.
Case Study 1
Factsheet Block Body
Compost Baladi is a Lebanese waste management social enterprise that was founded in 2017 in response to the on-going waste crisis in Beirut. It primarily repurposes organic waste and provides waste management solutions for different scales of operation. It currently outsources its waste collection activities to a professional waste collection company that collects waste from different points in the city. This proves to be more cost-efficient for the young company since it enables it to focus on its primary activities - which consist of making and selling compost and other resource recovered products. It is now looking to focus more on strategic clients, consisting of commercial establishments and produce manufacturers, from whom to source their waste. These clients would also serve as strategic partners since they generate greater volumes of waste from the same facilities, therefore only requiring single collection trips. This re-shaping in the business model of Compost Baladi is an example of the Think Big strategy. The enterprise has recognised that it makes more logistical sense to source its primary material (in this case waste) from clients who produce the same or even greater volumes of waste than 1000 individual households, or 100 smaller waste generation points. If it continues to outsource its waste collection activities, this will mean that Compost Baladi will require much less of the service and still get the same amount of waste. If it stops outsourcing, the amount of resources needed for the collection of waste will not be too high – allowing the resource recovering company to have greater chances of being profitable.
Compost Baladi on the ground. Source: Compost Baladi
Case Study 2
Factsheet Block Body
FabricAid is a social enterprise based in Lebanon that collects, sorts and cleans second-hand clothes before selling them at micro prices to less privileged people. It is a good example of the Think big strategy because it sources clothes in bulk and has built strategic partnerships to secure the sourcing of input, cutting down costs associated with logistics. It has several containers around the city where people can go and drop off their unwanted clothes and also buys donated clothes from NGOs. It also has strategic partnerships with businesses and organisations to secure a reliable inflow of clothes. Reducing costs on logistics means that prices of clothes can be kept very low for customers and more resources can be spent on improving other aspects of the business. FabricAid raises its value by having a positive social and environmental impact, since it provides less privileged people with affordable clothes and contributes to the reduction of landfill by extending clothes' utility.
FabricAid container. Source: Entreprise Forum (2018)
Library References
Create your Green Business!: The Handbook for Green Entrepreneurs in the Mediterranean
This book explains all the major steps for setting up your green business project. Designed to provide the necessary theoretical basis, the Handbook describes the methodology, the main concepts and the tools included in the Workbook, and presents different examples of entrepreneurs and their businesses. It will become your essential companion for your green entrepreneur journey.
FARRENY, R et al. switchmed (2015): Create your Green Business!: The Handbook for Green Entrepreneurs in the Mediterranean. switchmed URL
Resource Recovery from Waste
Humans generate millions of tons of waste every day. This waste is rich in water, nutrients, energy and organic compounds. Yet, waste is not being managed in a way that permits us to derive value from its reuse, while millions of farmers struggle with depleted soils and lack of water. This book shows how Resource Recovery and Reuse (RRR) could create livelihoods, enhance food security, support green economies, reduce waste and contribute to cost recovery in the sanitation chain.
While many RRR projects fully depend on subsidies and hardly survive their pilot phase, hopeful signs of viable approaches to RRR are emerging around the globe including lowand middle-income countries. These enterprises or projects are tapping into entrepreneurial initiatives and public-private partnerships, leveraging private capital to help realize commercial or social value, shifting the focus from treatment for waste disposal to treatment of waste as a valuable resource for safe reuse.
The book provides a compendium of business options for energy, nutrients and water recovery via 24 innovative business models based on an in-depth analysis of over 60 empirical cases, of which 47 from around the world are described and evaluated in a systematic way. The focus is on organic municipal, agro-industrial and food waste, including fecal sludge, supporting a diverse range of business models with potential for large-scale outand up-scaling.
OTOO, M. DRECH


Keith McMillen Instrument BATT-O-METER
Battery Tester
Our Price: $22.05List Price: $29.95
You save 26%! (Low Price Guarantee)
In Stock
 - saves you from risk and stress before a performance
 - saves you money by extending the life of each battery
 - save the environment by reducing the number of discarded batteries
Quickly and accurate measure:
 - how many volts a battery is delivering
 - hours left before the device runs out of power
(Requires 9 volt battery, not included)
Frequently Asked Questions:
What makes Batt-O-Meter work?
Stomp boxes and instruments use a standard stereo 1/4" phone jack and devices sense the insertion of the 1/4" mono plug to turn on the power. Batt-O-Meter measures the Voltage and Current to let you know how many more hours the battery will work. A micro-processor within the unit allows the device to intelligently determine the different loads that can be put on the battery and calculate the power in hours remaining. This eliminates the need for extra buttons and adaptors, and makes the Batt-O-Meter simple to use.
What devices does the Batt-O-Meter work with?
The Batt-O-Meter works with almost any active instrument pickup or effects unit (stompboxes and other floor effects) that require a 9 volt battery to operate, and is turned on when a standard 1/4" cable is plugged into it. The Batt-O-Meter can test stand-alone batteries: 9V, 1.5V (AAA, AA), and 3V. It does this, by automatically placing the battery under an appropriate load to simulate real world usage. It works with Alkaline, Rechargable (ie. Lithium-ion, NiCd, NiMH), and old school Carbon-Zinc batteries.
What is the Power Probe?
The Power Probe is not your normal 1/4 inch plug. It is a gold plated 1/4" plug specially designed to allow the Batt-O-Meter to test the unit without turning it on. This allows for far more accurate readings with a wide array of devices. In certain cases, for example with certain models of acoustic/electric guitars, the probe must be used discerningly, i.e. it must be inserted half or three-quarters of the way into the input jack to get an accurate reading.
Can the Batt-O-Meter check its own battery?
Click to download
We are not responsible for typographical errors in pricing or product specification


text:
The Chaucer Review: An Indexed Bibliography (Vols. 1-30)Return to the Subject List
Benson, C. David. "Their Telling Difference: Chaucer the Pilgrim and His Two Contrasting Tales." 18 (1983): 61-76.
Chaucer does not give enough information about the pilgrim identified with himself in the Canterbury Tales for critics to claim that the pilgrim is a well-developed character. The tales this pilgrim tells, however, present a dramatic contrast between clever and poor art. The Tale of Sir Thopas is not satiric, but a highly imaginative, carefree tale of nothing. The Tale of Melibee is the stylistic opposite of Thopas. Melibee is highly moral and has little imaginative content either in words or ideas. Chaucer does not merely contrast good with bad art, but different ways to use language. Thus Thopas and Melibee work best when read as a unit.
Burrow, John. "'Worly under wede' in Sir Thopas." 3 (1969): 170-73.
The rare form "worly" for "worthily" in Group VII, line 917 is a more accurate transcription of the word Chaucer chose, given its status as a native English word. Its use in that position would probably encourage the Host to stop the tale.
Daileader, Celia R. "The Thopas-Melibee Sequence and the Defeat of Antifeminism." 29 (1994): 26-39.
The Wife of Bath problematizes the abuse of women, both physically and verbally, in her rebellion and misconstruction of authority. Chaucer responds to the Wife in the Tale of Melibee, reasserting his authority through Prudence. The rapes at the beginning of the Wife of Bath's Tale and the Tale of Melibee parallel each other in several significant ways. These violations also raise the question of how women may speak about the violation of texts and their bodies. In the Tale of Melibee, Prudence must convince Melibee to listen to her, and she does so by direct quotation from a number of texts. The Wife asserts herself by misquoting a few texts. In Prudence Chaucer responds to the Wife of Bath's feminist rhetoric which misconstrues authoritative texts by systematically addressing and dismantling those authorities.
Gaylord, Alan T. "The Moment of Sir Thopas: Towards a New Look at Chaucer's Language." 16 (1982): 311-29.
Both Dante and Deschamps wrote treatises expressing a particular view of language. In the Tale of Sir Thopas Chaucer presents his view of literary language carefully concealed behind parody. Chaucer adjusts the tail-rhyme of Guy of Warwick to create laughter and to establish literary English. A standard of language adapted for poetry did not exist in the fourteenth century: Chaucer had to create a poetic language that sounded believably like speech.
Hamel, Mary. "And Now for Something Completely Different: The Relationship Between the Prioress's Tale and the Rime of Sir Thopas." 14 (1980): 251-59.
In Group VII (Fragment B2), the tales are connected quickly and contrast each other. Chaucer emphasizes the contrast between the Tale of Sir Thopas and the Prioress's Tale, but Thopas gains effectiveness from its similarity to the Prioress's Tale. Thopas's name associates him with the Prioress's chaste protagonist. The lily Thopas wears in his helmet parodies the Prioress's Tale by equating the Virgin Mary with the Elf-queen. In Thopas, Chaucer also parodies the Prioress's anti-Semitism, suggesting that the Jews, like the three-headed monster in Thopas, are feared because they are unknown.
Haskell, Ann S. "Sir Thopas: The Puppet's Puppet." 9 (1975): 253-61.
Sir Thopas is a joke figure, the puppet of Chaucer the pilgrim, controlled by Chaucer the writer. Details in the description of Sir Thopas indicate that he may have physically been a puppet. Ultimately, the character of Thopas, however artificial he may be, is real.
Mandel, Jerome. "Courtly Love in the Canterbury Tales." 19 (1985): 277-89.
In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer occasionally uses the trappings of courtly love as seen in the Clerk's, Merchant's, Shipman's, Squire's, Franklin's, Cook's, Reeve's, Miller's, and Knight's Tales, and the Tale of Sir Thopas. In the Canterbury Tales as a whole, however, Chaucer does not hold up courtly love as positive or important.
Olson, Glending. "A Reading of the Thopas-Melibee Link." 10 (1975): 147-53.
Chaucer expands his moral tale but does not substantially change its content from Renaude de Louens's Livre de Mellibee et Prudence. The word "treyts" refers to the ways in which the different versions Melibee have been circulating. Chaucer uses more proverbs in Melibee than appear in his sources, but the meaning is the same as the other versions of the tale.
Peterson, Joyce E. "The Finished Fragment: A Reassessment of the Squire's Tale." 5 (1970): 62-74.
Chaucer intentionally made the Squire's Tale a fragment. Examining it in terms of the larger structure of the Canterbury Tales, the narrator's point of view, and the action of tale demonstrate its completeness. Sir Thopas and the Monk's Tale show that intentional fragments result when the listeners or readers become frustrated. The Franklin halts the Squire by pretending his tale is done, showing the Franklin's sensitivity to social rank. The Squire's Tale thus becomes a "thematic link" to the Franklin's Tale. Instead of demonstrating how he is not like Damyan (Merchant's Tale), he shows the weakness of his own morality as it is based on the difference between "vulgarity and elegance, not cupiditas and caritas" (70). The Squire's Tale depicts the carnality of courtly tradition (gentillesse) and the unnaturalness of a caste system. Since the Squire has demonstrated all of this before the Franklin interrupts him, the Franklin can be said to have stopped him at the point where the action ends.
Ruggiers, Paul G. "Platonic Forms in Chaucer." 17 (1983): 366-82.
Chaucer builds his poetry around four different topics, "1) eating and drinking; 2) sexuality and love; 3) play and seriousness; and 4) the making of art" (367). Drinking has religious overtones of suffering, and the drinking image appears in the Reeve's, Pardoner's, Man of Law's, and Franklin's Tales as well as in Troilus and Criseyde and the House of Fame. Chaucer treats love in four different ways as seen in Troilus and Criseyde, and in the Miller's, Reeve's, and Second Nun's Tales. Furthermore the Canterbury Tales as a whole experiments with the theme of play, examining play from a number of different points of view. Chaucer also investigates what it is to create a literary work, a theme particularly present in the Tale of Sir Thopas and the Tale of Melibee.
Tschann, Judith. "The Layout of Sir Thopas in the Ellesmere, Hengwrt, Cambridge Dd.4.24, and Cambridge Gg.4.27 Manuscripts." 20 (1985): 1-13.
The presentation of the Tale of Sir Thopas in the Ellesmere, Hengwrt, and Cambridge manuscripts gives readers different ways of reading it, and suggests the ability of the scribes who presented the poem to read and understand the story they were copying as if it were a piece of architecture.
Waterhouse, Ruth, and Gwen Griffiths. "'Sweete wordes' of Non-Sense: The Deconstruction of the Moral Melibee (Part I)." 23 (1989): 338-61.
Chaucer's alterations of Louhans's Livre de Mellibee et Prudence make clear to the reader that determining the "sentence" of the tale is impossible, but that it is not a "lapse" (339). Melibee shares a number of elements with the other tales, and it must be read in that context. The juxtaposition of Melibee with Thopas suggests that the two oppose each other. In Thopas the discourse is subordinate to the story line, which makes Thopas a parody; in Melibee the story is obscured by the discourse, underlined by the distance readers recognize between allegory and story line. In both tales signifiers refer to competing sets of signifieds, creating a sense that appearances cannot be trusted.


text:
Is there a common pathway into committing cybercrime (such as hacking)? What does a cybercriminal look like? Can a cybercriminal be diverted into doing good things with their computer skills instead?
The average age of arrest for all crime is 35 – for cybercrime it's just 17. Cybercrime prevention is a key part of the UK's National Cyber Security Strategy.
In this session, Detectives Will Farrell and Emyr Jones will explain how police are preventing cybercrime from happening in the first place. Find out how individuals on the cusp of committing cybercrime are identified and how police help them make informed Cyber Choices, diverting individuals away from crime to do positive things with their computer skills instead.
What you will take away from this session:
TO SEE THE FULL WEEKS AGENDA AND REGISTER FOR OTHER WALES TECH WEEK EVENTS, CLICK HERE


text:
This chapter in the Six-Word Memoir book series examines a topic bursting with words: Jewish life. Here is what the media is saying about Oy! Only Six? Why Not More? Six-Word Memoirs on Jewish Life.
The Forward: "Millions of words, over thousands of years, have been written about the nature of the Jewish soul. But the most precise distillation of our people's essence may have finally arrived in fewer characters than a tweet."
J-Weekly: "The six-worders on Jewish Life are reflective of Jewish life itself: They run the gamut from hilarious to deeply poignant, with stops everywhere in between."
The Jewish Exponent: "The concept has been bandied about the Shabbat table, in synagogues and among Jewish leaders. Rabbis have used the concept in sermons, and storytelling sessions at various JCCs and synagogues have, in Smith's words, 'created community in new ways.' "
The Virginian Pilot: "Chock full of stories on faith and family, duty and identity from Jews across the world."
Gothamist's Jamie Feldmar talks to Larry Smith about SMITH Magazine's live story show series, including the latest, "Six Words on the Jewish Life."
SHOP THE BOOK >


text:
This post explains how to calibrate two 2Touch screens to work with an extended desktop configuration – where the desktop spans across two display screens, with the Windows task bar in the left-hand screen and an extended working area in the right-hand screen.
Implementing interactive touch for the above configuration requires two units both of which are equipped with both serial and USB communications.
(Note: The other common multiple-screen configuration is the Stretched Desktop.)
Extending the desktop across two monitors is simply achieved in Windows "Display Properties" dialog. Note: both monitors must have the same Screen Resolution settings.
The two touch screens are calibrated separately, one using USB communications and the other using serial communications. We will call the two 2Touch screens "Touch Panel 1" and "Touch Panel 2" respectively.
Calibrating Touch Panel 1
1. Connect the power supply to Touch Panel 1 and then connect the USB cable.
2. Carry out the simple four-point Calibration procedure.
Calibrating Touch Panel 2
1. Install NextWindow's Touch+ Software, making sure you select "Run serial runtime on Windows startup."
2. Locate the Serial Runtime directory.
The default is here:
C:\Program Files\NextWindow\Touch+ #.#.#\Serial Runtime
3. Create a text file called SerialRuntime.ini and enter the following lines:
Note the parameter OffsetX=32767 in the [Main] Section. This pushes the calibration points for the serial connection over to the extended screen.
4. Connect the serial cable from Touch Panel 2 to the computer.
5. Run the SerialConfig program, select [Port Detect] and then click the [Calibration] button to start the Calibration sequence for Touch Panel 2.
This completes the calibration procedure. Now both monitors are touch enabled.


text:
Climate change may constrain future electricity supply adequacy by reducing electric transmission capacity and increasing electricity demand. The carrying capacity of electric power cables decreases as ambient air temperatures rise; similarly, during the summer peak period, electricity loads typically increase with hotter air temperatures due to increased air conditioning usage. As atmospheric carbon concentrations increase, higher ambient air temperatures may strain power infrastructure by simultaneously reducing transmission capacity and increasing peak electricity load. We estimate the impacts of rising ambient air temperatures on electric transmission ampacity and peak per-capita electricity load for 121 planning areas in the United States using downscaled global climate model projections. Together, these planning areas account for roughly 80% of current peak summertime load. We estimate climate-attributable capacity reductions to transmission lines by constructing thermal models of representative conductors, then forcing these models with future temperature projections to determine the percent change in rated ampacity. Next, we assess the impact of climate change on electricity load by using historical relationships between ambient temperature and utility-scale summertime peak load to estimate the extent to which climate change will incur additional peak load increases. We find that by mid-century (2040-2060), increases in ambient air temperature may reduce average summertime transmission capacity by 1.9%-5.8% relative to the _PHONE_ reference period. At the same time, peak per-capita summertime loads may rise by 4.2%-15% on average due to increases in ambient air temperature. In the absence of energy efficiency gains, demand-side management programs and transmission infrastructure upgrades, these load increases have the potential to upset current assumptions about future electricity supply adequacy.
- climate change
- electrical grid
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Environmental Science(all)
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health


text:
You are here
India-Trento Program for Advanced Research – Advanced methods for the analysis of optical and radar remote sensing images acquired by last generation satellite systems (ITPAR phase 3)
The project is developed within the India-Trento Program for Advanced Research – (ITPAR phase 3) with the aim to push scientific collaboration between Indian and Italian research institutions. The specific projet aims at developing advanced techniques being able to effectively analyse data acquired by the "last-generation" remote sensing sensors: i) Very high spatial/spectral resolution optical images; ii) Very high resolution polarimetric SAR images; and iii) Multi/hyper-temporal SAR and optical images. During the activity novel applications will be investigated with attention to challenges related to environmental monitoring, land surveillance, and man-made and natural resources.
Fondazione Bruno Kesser
Università degli Studi di Trento
IIT Mumbai, India


Take the 2-minute tour ×
Let $\mathbb T^2=(S^1)^2$ be the 2-torus, for convenience. $\def\Imm{\operatorname{Imm}}$ Consider the Frechet manifold of immersion $\Imm(\mathbb T^2, \mathbb R^3)$ and the smooth mapping $R:\Imm(\mathbb T^2,\mathbb R^3)\to C^\infty(\mathbb T^2,\mathbb R^3)$ which is given by $$ R(f) := \partial_x f\times \partial_y f = f_x\times f_y, $$ where $\times$ denotes the vector product. Note that $R(f)$ is the unit normal to $f(\mathbb T^2)$ times the the density function of the area measure, parameterized.
 - Question: Roughly, given $g\in C^\infty(\mathbb T^2,\mathbb R^3)$, can one solve $R(f)=g$ for $f$? Can one reconstruct $f$ from $R(f)=g$ up to translations? Are there local solutions in $\mathbb R^2$? Of course one expects that the image $R$ is at best a codimension 6 submanifold of $C^\infty(\mathbb T^2,\mathbb R^3)$ because of the two periodicity conditions.
The tangent mapping of $R$ is $T_fR.h = f_x\times h_y + h_x \times f_y = f_x\times h_y - f_y\times h_x$. This is not elliptic in $h$. The symbol of $T_fR$ is $$ \sigma(T_fR)(\xi,\eta) = \begin{pmatrix} 0 & \gamma & -\beta \\\\ -\gamma & 0 & \alpha \\\\ \beta & -\alpha & 0 \end{pmatrix} \quad\text{ where }\quad \begin{matrix} \alpha = f^1_y.\xi - f^1_x.\eta \\\\ \beta = f^2_y.\xi - f^2_x.\eta \\\\ \gamma = f^3_y.\xi - f^3_x.\eta \end{matrix}. $$
 - Easier question: Is $T_fR$ injective? Is it surjective onto a codimension 6 linear subspace?
The interest in this problem comes from the fact that variants of $R$ like $f\mapsto |R(f)|^{-1/2}.R(f)$ pull back the flat $L^2$-metric on $C^\infty(\mathbb T^2,\mathbb R^3)$ to a weak Riemannian metric on $\Imm(\mathbb T^2,\mathbb R^3)$ which is invarint under the action of the diffeomorphism group of $\mathbb T^2$.
The related mapping for closed curves has been used successfully here. For the diffeomorphism group of $\mathbb R$ it has been used here.
The related problem for the unit normal for convex surfaces is classically called the Minkowski problem and there are solutions available, see [JFM 34.0649.01 Minkowski, H. Volumen und Oberfläche. (German) Math. Ann. 57, 447-495 (1903)] and [MR0478079 (57 #17572)
Pogorelov, Aleksey Vasilʹyevich. The Minkowski multidimensional problem. Translated from the Russian by Vladimir Oliker. Introduction by Louis Nirenberg. Scripta Series in Mathematics. V. H. Winston & Sons, Washington, D.C.; Halsted Press [John Wiley & Sons], New York-Toronto-London, 1978. 106 pp.]
share|improve this question
By Gauss-Bonnet, the normalization of $R$ is a degree-zero map $\mathbb T^2 \to S^2$. – Ryan Budney Apr 23 '13 at 6:56
It's certainly not always solvable globally on the torus. For example, take $R(f)=w$ to be constant and unit length. Then there are many local solutions, just take any area preserving immersion into a plane perpendicular to $w$. However, since the torus cannot be immersed in the plane, there cannot be a global solution. I have worked out the local solvability in the general case, but I don't have time to write out the solution right now. If I have time later today, I'll do that. – Robert Bryant Apr 23 '13 at 12:27
_USER_: I look forward to your description of the local solvability, many thanks. – Peter Michor Apr 23 '13 at 14:32
1 Answer 1
up vote 12 down vote accepted
I may have to enter this as a sketch and fill in details later, but I thought that I'd go ahead and get the main ideas out there.
The first thing to notice is that the given problem is equivalent to the problem of solving $\rho(f)=g$ where $\rho:\mathrm{Imm}(T^2,\mathbb{R}^3)\to\Omega^2(T^2,\mathbb{R}^3)$ is the differential operator $$ \rho(f) = f_x\times f_y\ \ dx{\wedge}dy $$ taking values in (nonvanishing) $\mathbb{R}^3$-valued $2$-forms on $T^2$. The advantage of considering $\rho$ instead of $R$ is that $\rho$ is well-defined, independent of coordinates on $T^2$.
The second thing to notice is that the inner product on $\mathbb{R}^3$ is something of a red herring. The cross product is really just the wedge product followed by the orientation-and-metric induced canonical isomorphism between the second exterior power of $\mathbb{R}^3$ and $\mathbb{R}^3$ itself.
Let's undo all this, and consider, instead, a $3$-dimensional vector space $V$ and a surface $\Sigma$ and define an operator $\rho:\mathrm{Imm}(\Sigma,V)\to\Omega^2\bigl(T^2,\Lambda^2(V)\bigr)$ that, in local coordinates $(x,y)$ on $\Sigma$, has the expression $$ \rho(f) = f_x{\wedge}f_y\ \ dx{\wedge}dy. $$
Now we want to ask the question "Given a nonvanishing $\Lambda^2(V)$-valued $2$-form $g$ on a surface $\Sigma$, when can it be written in the form $g = \rho(f)$ for some immersion $f:\Sigma\to V$ and in how many ways?" This question is interesting both locally and globally. Locally, it is three (nonlinear) first-order equations for three unknowns, but, as we shall see, it is highly degenerate, even when $g$ is 'generic', so that, for example, there is no hope of writing it in Cauchy form.
One distinct advantage of formulating the equation in this way is that its full equivariance is manifest. Not only does $\rho$ not depend on a choice of local coordinates on the surface, if $L(v) = Av + b$ is any invertible affine transformation of $V$, then one has $\rho(L\circ f) = \Lambda^2(A)\bigl(\rho(f)\bigr)$. In particular, replacing $g$ by $\Lambda^2(A)(g)$ does not change the problem, which shows that one can use the geometry of linear transformations of $V$ to uncover invariants of $g$ that will determine properties of the solution.
For example, in the (very degenerate) case in which $g$ is a $2$-form that takes values in a line in $\Lambda^2(V)$, one can write $g = e_1{\wedge}e_2\ \Phi$ where $e_1$ and $e_2$ are linearly independent and $\Phi$ is (nonvanishing) $2$-form on $\Sigma$. Then the only possible solutions $f$ to $\rho(f)=g$ are to have $f$ immerse $\Sigma$ into a $2$-plane $P$ parallel to the subspace spanned by $e_1$ and $e_2$ in such a way that it pulls back the volume form on $P$ dual to $e_1{\wedge}e_2$ to be $\Phi$. This is now essentially one equation for two unknowns and is always locally solvable, though there may well be no global solution. This is a trivial special case, though, and doesn't give you any sense of the general case.
On this first pass, I will avoid discussing the singular and intermediate cases and go directly to the 'generic' case, the case in which the projectivization of $g$, i.e., $[g]:\Sigma\to \mathbb{P}\bigl(\Lambda^2(V)\bigr)\simeq\mathbb{RP}^2$ is an immersion. In this case, the problem reduces to either an ellipt


What is Lions KidSight?
KidSight is part of a nationwide initiative of the Lions Clubs to help parents, childcare providers, and educators find and correct children's vision problems.
Lions offer this valuable community service absolutely FREE!
Our first and primary priority is to increase the number of children screened in the 6 month to 5 year old age group.
Spot it early treat it early.
Spot is a breakthrough device that quickly and easily detects vision issues across all age groups.
Spot helps ensure children have an opportunity to reach their full potential.
Spot is what vision screening should be.
A better way:
About 80 percent of learning is acquired visually, yet as important as vision is, screening approaches are often inaccurate and cumbersome. Undetected vision disorders can significantly handicap a child's potential. Spot is a better way.
Designed to work as easily with toddlers as with teenagers, Spot provides reliable data in seconds. With Spot, healthcare professionals can now confidently assess eyesight for all ages.
What Spot Sees:
* Near-sightedness (myopia)
* Far-sightedness (hyperopia)
* Unequal refractive power (anisometropia)
* Blurred vision, eye structure problem (astigmatism)
* Pupil size deviations (anisocoria)
* Eye misalignment (stabismus)
In just seconds, Spot provides a comprehensive, reliable analysis that enables informed decision making about the need for follow-up diagnosis.
SPOT Trained.jpg
Lago Vista Lions have Screened 11,840 children since from 7/12/2012 through 12/31/2019
Children referred were 1,569 (13%) through 152 events.
Lions Can Do This Because WE SERVE!


text:
Dynamic interactions of shock waves and turbulent structures occur in a wide range of applications. The accurate simulation of turbulence in these flows requires a numerical scheme with minimal dissipation whereas the shock-capturing requires a dissipative scheme to stabilise the solution in the shock-wave discontinuous regions. These contradictory requirements make simulations of these flows extremely challenging. A compatible implementation of the solid boundary conditions at the point of incepting the acoustic waves and their internalisation into hydrodynamic instabilities is also challenging. Here we present, a high-fidelity, massively parallel and accurate solver for both direct numerical simulations and large-eddy simulations of supersonic turbulent flows in cylindrical coordinates. A hybrid WENO/ high order central difference scheme is used for the spatial discretisation with a fourth-order five-stage 2N-storage Runge–Kutta for the time integration. The least square contraction of Lilly is utilised for large-eddy subgrid-scale modelling. The solid surface boundary condition is implemented using the offset wall and ghost cell technique. The numerical implementation is validated through a wide range of test cases from simple to more complex cases. The numerical results show good agreement with analytical solutions and available experimental results. In the large-eddy simulation of a supersonic under-expanded impinging jet, it is observed that the conventional Ducros sensor leads to a more dissipative hybrid scheme. In this paper, a new shock sensor based on a WENO smoothness indicator is proposed and it is demonstrated to perform better especially in the simulation of the supersonic under-expanded impinging jet by limiting the expensive WENO scheme to the discontinuous regions and reducing the computational cost by approximately 10%.
- Cylindrical coordinate
- Hybrid WENO/ high order central difference
- Large-eddy simulation
- Shock sensor


text:
Azimuthally Differential Pion Femtoscopy in Pb-Pb Collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV
ALICE Collaboration. (2017). Azimuthally Differential Pion Femtoscopy in Pb-Pb Collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV. Physical Review Letters, 118 (22), 222301. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.222301
Published inPhysical Review Letters
Rak, Jan |
© 2017 CERN, for the ALICE Collaboration. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons License.
We present the first azimuthally differential measurements of the pion source size relative to the second harmonic event plane in Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon-nucleon pair of √ s N N = 2.76 TeV. The measurements have been performed in the centrality range 0%–50% and for pion pair transverse momenta 0.2 < k T < 0.7 GeV / c. We find that the R side and R out radii, which characterize the pion source size in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the pion transverse momentum, oscillate out of phase, similar to what was observed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The final-state source eccentricity, estimated via R side oscillations, is found to be significantly smaller than the initial-state source eccentricity, but remains positive—indicating that even after a stronger expansion in the in-plane direction, the pion source at the freeze-out is still elongated in the out-of-plane direction. The 3 + 1 D hydrodynamic calculations are in qualitative agreement with observed centrality and transverse momentum R side oscillations, but systematically underestimate the oscillation magnitude....


Chiasmus and the Copywriter
Copywriters have been using figures of speech in their work forever. And by figures of speech, I don't mean idioms or euphemisms, I mean figures from classical rhetoric. These are well-defined shapes and patterns in language. For classical rhetoricians, such patterns start at the highest level of organization and reach all the way down to sentences, clauses, phrases and words.
Let's look at one.
Parallelism is the repetition of patterns of words, phrases and clauses. It adds rhythm, clarity and coherence. Chiasmus is the anti-parallelism. It reverses the order of words and phrases. Rhythm is preserved, but intriguing new meanings and connotations erupt. This discussion by the guy who wrote the book on it is tops.
The classic example of chiasmus comes from Mae West:
It's not the men in your life that matters, it's the life of your men.
There are others you may recognize:
How about a couple for Lars Peterson Editorial Services?
Dr. Mardy Grothe, linked above, used this line from the Bible, "Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed," as an example of chiasmus that reverses more than one or two terms (there's no limit, by the way). Let's use it as a model.
A Copywriter who pens words that sell must first sell himself with words he pens.
That sounds heavy and old timey. And the rhythm is not quite right in the second clause ("himself" messes it up). Worse, it's not specific to me.
Let's start with another truism, in tighter, brighter language, and reverse it somehow in the second clause.
All copywriters think they write like Hemingway. He wouldn't have thought to write like me.
Better! Self-deprecating humor can work ("With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good."), but I don't want to give clients an easy way to pass on me. And it's not tight and bright enough.
Let's keep it under ten words, for both clauses or phrases, and make it specific to what I do (writing and editing).
Finding perfect words and perfecting words found.
Now we're getting somewhere. Still a little stuffy, and not easy to say aloud, but definitely one for the keeper file.


Percy Jackson Quiz
Random Literature or Percy Jackson Quiz
Can you name the details about the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series?
Quiz not verified by Sporcle
How to Play
Score 0/50 Timer 10:00
In the first book, Percy is currently attending which school?
Mrs. Dodds, who turns out to be a Fury, 'teaches' which subject?
The Furies are Hades'...
By when must Percy, Grover, and Annabeth return Zeus' master bolt?
When Percy first sees Dionysus, he describes the wine god as having the skin of a what?.
The process in which Sally Jackson shimmered in a golden light, and then dissolved, is called what?
Where did Percy jump off of to escape the clutches of Echidna and the Chimera?
How many days were Percy, Annabeth, and Grover stuck in the Lotus Casino?
When Percy, Annabeth, and Grover encounter Medusa, she refers to Athena as the what?
What number is Dionysus on the Olympian Council?
At the beginning of the second book, Percy is attacked by three Laistrygonians which go by what names?
What is Percy's PE teacher's name?
On the Princess Andromeda, Luke has two assistants. The smarter one, with the gruff voice, is named what?
What is Clarisse's ship's name?
What do the humans call the Sea of Monsters?
Blackbeard's ship is called what?
What are the Sirens?
When Clarisse, Grover, and Percy fight Polyphemus together, they use attack plan...
What did Poseidon write in his letter to Percy?
Tyson's present to Percy - a watch - turns into a what?
At the beginning of 'The Titan's Curse', Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia go to Westover Hall. What is the female teacher's name?
Dr. Thorn is what monster?
Which beast can bring the downfall of Olympus by sacrificing its entrails?
In which city does Percy catch Nereus?
Who are Zoë's sisters?
The mountain in which Atlas holds up the sky is called what?
What plant, or type of leaf, makes everything'smell like cough drops', according to Percy?
What did Zeus gift Hera for their wedding?
What is Luke's sword - which can kill mortals and demi-gods alike, called?
What is the name of Thalia's shield?
Which demigod is found in the Labyrinth, driven insane?
Which letter of the Greek Alphabet is considered the 'Mark of Daedalus'?
Ethan Nakamura is the son of which goddess?
When Percy, Annabeth, and Rachel encounter Anteus, he mentions that he has been wrestling since the first what?
Daedalus comes to Camp Half-Blood as a sword fighting instructor, under the alias of...
After Daedalus let his nephew Perdix die, Athena branded him with a murderer's brand - a bird. What type of bird was it?
Pan's dodo bird is called what?
What mechanical animal did Hephaestus send to lead Percy and Annabeth to his forge on Mount St. Helens?
Who was the Cyclopes' jailor during the reign of the Titans?
What is the proper name for the 'Hundred-Handed Ones'?
When Beckendorf fooled Ethan Nakamura on the Princess Andromeda, what was in his sack instead of explosives?
When Percy suddenly 'zones out' and is taken to Dionysus, whose birthday party is Dionysus at?
What game is Dionysus playing at the party?
As you know, Dionysus never remembers (or pretends to never remember) any camper's proper names. Finish this sentence: 'You must save Olympus,...'
In Percy's dream, before Kronos unleashes the Lydian drakon, where is the Titan's camp?
What weapon is described as not Chiron's favorite?
How did Paul pick up swordplay in college?
What was Tyson's battle cry?
When the satyr Leneus died, what plant did he turn into?
Fill in the blank: Percy describes Hephaestus' throne as a 'huge mechanical... type thing'
Friend Scores
 Player Best Score Plays Last Played
You You haven't played this game yet.
You Might Also Like...


3 Small Skin Problems That Could Mean BIG Trouble
Written by MCJStaff // May 29, 2014 // 0 Comments
close-up of man's face
By M. Brooks -blackdoctor.org
Your skin is the largest organ in your body. Not only does it protect you from elements and infections outside of your body, but it also helps protect you from what's happening on the inside by letting you know what's going on. Is your skin "speaking" to you and you just haven't been paying attention? Here are some common ways your skin may be showing you early warning signs for potential issues and what you can do when your skin starts to tell on you.
1. Rash on your back, knees or elbows
Could Mean: Celiac disease. Celiac disease is triggered by an immune reaction to gluten, a type of protein found in grains like rye, barley and wheat. Common symptoms of celiac disease are gas and bloating, but in 25 percent of patients an itchy or blistering rash can be a telling sign. Left untreated, celiac disease can lead to osteoporosis and anemia.
If you suspect you have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, have your doctor do a blood test. The rash should clear naturally once gluten is eliminated from your diet.
2. Chapped lips
Could Mean: Vitamin B deficiency. Cracks in the corners of your mouth and dry, chapped lips could mean you're not getting enough B vitamins in your diet. Vitamin B helps form red blood cells and helps your body turn the food you eat into energy. A lack of vitamin B could lead to anemia.
Increase your vitamin B intake with foods like fish, eggs, leafy green vegetables and beans.
3. Yellow-tinted skin
Could Mean: Gallstones. According to WebMD, "Gallstones form when cholesterol and other things found in bile make stones. They can also form if the gallbladder does not empty as it should." Gallstones can be smaller than a grain of sand or the size of a large golf ball, and when one blocks your bile ducts the build up can turn your skin yellow as well as cause back and abdominal pain.
Most people with gallstones do not have symptoms, but if you notice any skin discoloration, back/abdominal pain or the pain worsens when you eat, see a doctor immediately. If the stone doesn't pass, surgery to remove it may be needed.
Visit the BlackDoctor.org Skin Problems center for more articles and tips.
Celiac Disease
skin conditions
Vitamin B deficiency
warning signs of health issues
Similar posts
Leave a Reply


text:
Fetomaternal medicine is a specialty in gynaecology and obstetrics. It involves applying special knowledge and skills to pregnant women who are at risk when giving birth, and to cases where the health of unborn babies is at risk.
Specialists recognise and manage both normal and high-risk births, and carry out high-risk obstetric operations. Fetomaternal medicine also involves giving psychological care to women in labour and knowing how to relieve pain during birth.
Further areas of fetomaternal medicine:
- Identifying malformations and diseases of the foetus, giving expert advice to parents and carrying out pre-natal diagnostic procedures and treatments.
- Providing psychological counselling to pregnant women, conducting preliminary assessments and carrying out abortions after the 14th week of pregnancy.


text:
LITHIUM BATTERY SAFETY ONLINE TRAINING
The unique dangers of Lithium batteries are addressed in this online program. Lithium anode batteries are present in many industries where workers are servicing and repairing industrial equipment. Increased incident and severity rates among service providers demonstrate the need to become educated in the storage and handling of these batteries.
WHO WILL BENEFIT:
Workers exposed to lithium ion batteries such as directional surveying, logging and oil drilling industries, both domestically and internationally will find this information beneficial.
- History of Lithium batteries
- Oil industry uses
- Main suppliers
- Cell materials and components used
- Design of the cells
- Proper handling
- Storage of damaged batteries
- Failure modes
- Types of cells
- General dangers
- Effects of exposure
- Short term exposure limits
TIME: 90 minutes approximately
Testing is conducted throughout the program to emphasize learning. Successful completion is achieved after finishing this online program with an 80% pass mark. Two attempts at repeating the course are allowed to pass. A certificate of completion is available to download and print for your records.
To purchase courses for multiple users, please contact us directly.
LITHIUM BATTERY SAFETY ONLINE COURSE PREVIEW