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The University of Richmond began in 1830 as a men's seminary founded by a group of Virginia Baptists. It officially became Richmond College ten years later when it incorporated a literary studies program into its curriculum. The T.C. Williams School of Law opened in 1870. During the Civil War, Richmond's campus served as both a hospital and barracks for Confederate and Union soldiers.
When the war ended, the school's entire endowment of $100,000 was invested in Confederate bonds and was worthless. The school reopened in 1866 but struggled with severe financial difficulties for several years. In 1914, Westhampton College for women opened, made possible in part by donations from John D. Rockefeller. The opening of the women's college coincided with the school's relocation to the site of an abandoned amusement park in Richmond's West End, where it stands today.
This historic move marked the beginnings of the current coeducational system. In this early period, the male and female students were fully separated by the Westhampton Lake in the middle of campus, and attended separate classes, but since then coeducation has been implemented, bridges have been built across the lake, and there are now male and female residence halls on both sides. In 1920, Richmond College and Westhampton College were united under a single administration, the University of Richmond.
In 1921, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was founded. The E. Claiborne Robins School of Business opened in 1949, and the School of Continuing Studies followed suit in 1962.
The University of Richmond is an attractive 350 acres of grassy quads, pine trees, and rolling hills, spread around a ten-acre lake. Its buildings are in the Gothic style, and 90% of students live on campus. Richmond is a wireless campus.
As reported by a campus rep:
"The Tyler Haynes Commons serves as our student center and most students walk through the building at least once every day to get from one side of the campus to the other. Student groups usually hold their meetings in this building and it also houses the radio station, Tyler's Grill, the campus newspaper, and the student activities desk. Newly released movies are screened for free in the commons every weekend but people don't generally hang around before or after and the doors are locked by midnight. The commons is more of a place to study, do work, or grab a quick bite to eat than a place to spend free time with friends.
In the fall and spring lots of kids hang out on the Westhampton Green, a big grassy field between the Modlin Center for the Arts and some dorms. On sunny days it isn't uncommon to see students playing catch or Frisbee or just laying out in the sun. Oddly enough kids also tend to hang out in the library. There's a coffee shop serving Starbucks next door and it's a nice place to sit and catch up with a friend.
During the weekends most hanging out takes place in the residence halls or the university apartments. Apartment parties range from intimate gatherings to raging masses of drunken people that attract attention from university police. Fraternities also have lodges on the edge of campus that host parties most weekends."
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the city itself has about 200,000 residents, while Richmond's greater metropolitan area is home to roughly 1.2 million people. Richmond sits on the James River, and is one of only 12 cities in the country with a Federal Reserve Bank
A current student reports on things to do around the school:
"The University of Richmond is tucked away on the western edge of the city, on the border between Richmond and Henrico Counties. The area is quiet, residential, and feels relatively removed from the downtown section of the city. It takes about 15 minutes to drive southeast to Carytown, a district full of colorful, independent boutiques and restaurants that is also home to the historic Byrd Theater. The Fan District, just east of Carytown, also has a great restaurant scene and borders the VCU campus on its eastern edge. Further south along the northern bank of the James River is the downtown area of Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom, where you'll find Richmond's nightlife and a more upscale restaurant selection. You can drive there in about 15 to 20 minutes, as well. There are several malls and movie theaters in the Richmond area, none further than 30 minutes away. The central Richmond area is also home to several parks and museums.
Richmond has a great location in that the Capitol, mountains, and beaches are all within easy reach. If you're looking to get out of town, Richmond is close enough to Washington, DC to make it a convenient day trip – only 100 miles away. Virginia Beach, a lovely resort city with miles of beaches and plenty of charming restaurants, is also only 100 miles southwest of Richmond. The beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains to the northwest are also only about two hours away, and there you can find a long stretch of camping and hiking sites."
Another campus rep adds, "the beautiful James River is only five miles or so south of campus and is a very nice place to hang out on warm sunny days."
On a given Saturday in spring, it is tradition the annual Pig Roast is held. Students wake early and begin partying, drinking and celebrating between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00AM. In the early afternoon students leave their dorms and apartments, girls wearing sundresses and boys in seersucker shorts and ties, and head for the fraternity lodges on the edge of campus. Some frats hire live bands and pork sandwiches are generally served; it is a day of drunken merrymaking and sloppy festivities that ends around 4pm when everyone is either too drunk or too tired to continue. Students understand Pig Roast as the one day of the year when it is acceptable to be drunk in public and sometimes even parents and alumni show up to join in the fun. The event is heavily policed, but for the most part, as long as students aren't violent or belligerent, the authorities leave the happy party-goers alone. The administration is now requesting that students refer to the event as "Festivus," but everyone still knows it as Pig Roast.
Official events on graduation weekend include a Saturday night candlelight ceremony around Westhampton Lake, in which the entire graduating class circles the lake. There is generally a speaker and a fireworks display. Commencement ceremonies, held at the Robins Center, take place the next morning. The unofficial graduation weekend, however, is different. After classes let out and final exams are over in the spring, groups of students usually get together for a week at a beach house – a tradition also typically associated with nonstop drinking, but some students go for a more low-key experience and make it a point to enjoy the other pleasures that a beach setting has to offer.
During the first few weeks of great weather in the spring, students will blow off their work for an afternoon and take a trip down to the James River with their friends. This same week, you'll also see people attempting to multitask on campus– working and sunbathing – in such areas as the Greek Theater and the Westhampton Green, which usually isn't too successful.
On the first night of basketball practice allowed by the NCAA, the men's and women's teams suit up and present themselves to a crowd filled with Richmond Rowdies (the student spirit team) in the annual tradition of Midnight Mayhem.
Ring Dance is a celebration of the academic achievements of junior women, hosted by Westhampton College. It is held at a downtown hotel and is a formal dance that parents, family, and friends are encouraged to attend. Rings were at one time associated with the dance, hence the name.
-Becky Stewart '10 and Katy Einerson '10 contributed reporting
Leslie M. Baker Jr. (1964) is a former president and CEO of the Wachovia Corporation.
Paul Duke (1947) was a journalist who hosted PBS' Washington Week in Review for 20 years.
Tim Finchem (1969) is commissioner of the PGA Tour.
Douglas Freeman (1904) won two Pulitzer Prizes for his historical biographies on President George Washington and General Robert E. Lee, respectively.
Virgil Goode (1969) is a US congressman representing Virginia's fifth district.
Leland Melvin (1986) is a NASA Astronaut.
Frank E. Resnik (1955) was a former chairman and CEO of Philip Morris USA.
The University of Richmond competes in NCAA Division 1 athletics, in the Atlantic 10 conference. The Spiders (as they're called) compete in 18 varsity sports. The team derives its name from the moniker of a lanky star pitcher, Puss Ellyson, who led Richmond's baseball team to many a victory back in 1893 and was described in the local newspaper as a "clever, creeping insect."
The most popular sports at Richmond are basketball and football, but there isn't a whole lot of school spirit. The university hopes to improve attendance with a new football stadium that is scheduled to open in 2010. That said, football games already draw more crowds than other sports events, and in true southern fashion, everyone gets really dressed up for the games, the men wearing collared shirts and ties and the girls donning sundresses.
Richmond is currently ranked fourth nationally in graduation rate for student-athletes, with 97 percent of them earning their degrees.
-Becky Stewart '10 and Katy Einerson '10 contributed reporting
On October 15, 1992, presidential candidates George H. W


Islets of Hope What are basal insulin and basal rates?
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Want help determining how to calculate your need for insulin? First, be sure to check with your doctor but you can also use Insulin Pumper's insulin calculating tool to better understand how your doctor might determine your need for insulin.
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Medical Encyclopedia
Basal Insulin - Basal Rate Insulin
Basal insulin is sometimes also called "background insulin"
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Basal (pronounced bay-sill)
Definition: Basal insulin may also sometimes be called "background" insulin, that is, the insulin working behind the scenes. Basal insulin may be covered with Lantus insulin (via shots), or in some cases, intermediate acting insulin like NPH.
Rapid acting insulin is generally used to cover food eaten when taking shots, but almost always the only insulin used in an insulin pump. Rapid insulin, when used in an insulin pump, therefore covers meal and correction boluses as well as is used for administering basal insulin.
The term basal rate is used to describe the rate of steady or continuous (or, in the case of an insulin pump, periodic, intermittent delivery of insulin, usually every few minutes) supply of a drug, chemical or process.
In the treatment of diabetes the term basal rate simply means the low rate of insulin supply needed to cover the basal metabolic functions of daily living (i.e. breathing, heart rate, and other metabolic processes of the body). That is, what insulin is needed to maintain good blood sugar control without taking into account eating any food (food is covered with a "bolus" of insulin).
All persons with the juvenile form of type 1 diabetes need to take insulin to live.
Page Updated 07/24/2007


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Nicol and Schear win best paper award
By Jenny Applequist, Information Trust Institute
July 3, 2008
- Prof. David Nicol and grad student Nabil Schear won the Best Paper Award from the 22nd ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation.
- The paper, entitled "Performance Analysis of Real Traffic Carried with Encrypted Cover Flows," studies the possibility of providing protection to network traffic by tunneling it inside synthetically generated traffic.
- The paper was presented at the PADS workshop in Rome, Italy.
A paper co-authored by ECE Professor David M. Nicol and his student Nabil Schear has brought home the Best Paper award from the 22nd ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation (PADS 2008).
In the winning paper, entitled "Performance Analysis of Real Traffic Carried with Encrypted Cover Flows," the authors explore the possibility of providing protection to network traffic by tunneling it inside synthetically generated traffic. The approach creates additional costs and has the potential to increase delivery time of the traffic so much that it renders the system unusable. Therefore, Schear and Nicol studied ways to analyze the characteristics of real traffic that can be carried by cover traffic without impacting a user's perception of his or her interaction with the Internet. Their work combined simulation and analytical modeling in an innovative way. Simulation was used to generate measurements of traffic behavior, and then the measurements were used to validate the separately developed analytical models that study how much time the traffic will take and whether the scheme can keep up with demand.
"Our paper shows that it's possible to take measurements from real or simulated traffic and use them to estimate parameters for an accurate analytic model of tunneling, without the measurements or simulations having any notion at all of tunneling," the authors explained. "The nature of our problem allows for an interesting and useful decoupling of models."
Nicol is the theme leader for Critical Infrastructures and Homeland Defense research in the Information Trust Institute at Illinois. His main research interests are in high-performance computing, modeling and simulation of large-scale systems, networks, and cyber security. Schear is pursuing a Ph.D. degree in the Department of Computer Science at Illinois, with a focus on research in systems, networking, and security.
The Best Paper award was presented at the PADS workshop, which was held June 3-6, 2008 in Rome, Italy. The workshop series that became PADS began in 1985 and has since become a leading forum for presentation of research findings in all aspects of simulation technology. The workshop is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Simulation, the IEEE's Computer Society Technical Committee on Simulation, and the Society for Modeling and Simulation International (SCS).
Editor's note: media inquiries should be directed to Brad Petersen, Director of Communications, at _EMAIL_ or _PHONE_.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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- A new study traces the migration of a genus of shrub frogs, endemic to India's Western Ghats, to Sri Lanka some 27 million years ago.
- A constantly changing climate gave rise to various types of habitats over the course of geological time, allowing isolated populations of the same species to evolve in vastly different ways.
- One group of frogs later even migrated back across to India.
- The researchers hope to identify historical reasons that may be driving current trends of species diversity and distribution.
Hindu legend has it that the deity Rama built a bridge from the southern tip of India to the island of Sri Lanka, for his army of ape men to cross and help him rescue his wife, Sita, from the clutches of the Ravana.
It's a story immortalized in the Sanskrit epic the 'Ramayana' and venerated as myth. But the idea of creatures crossing from one side to the other over a land bridge is far from a myth: A recent study shows a group of frogs made the crossing some 27 million years ago, settling and evolving in Sri Lanka's highlands, before some crossed back again about 8.8 million years ago.
The study used time-calibrated multi-gene phylogeny, a theory that sheds light on how organisms are related to one another through evolutionary time, to analyze the tempo of diversification, or the rate at which a species evolves. By studying diversification in the context of past climate and geography, the researchers hope to identify historical reasons that may be driving current trends of diversity and distribution.
That's also the case with Sri Lanka, where the "three main mountain ranges of this region constitute ecological islands of cool, wet habitats separated by low, warm and often drier valleys," according to the paper, published in the March issue of the journal Molecular Phlyogenetics and Evolution.
However, the habitat associations of these species also indicate that a cooler climate itself is not enough for their survival. "They also need specific habitat conditions, and the most of important of these is forest cover. Forest cover coupled with a cool wet climate effectively serve as a refugium," said Madhava Meegaskumbura, an evolutionary biologist and lead author of the study.
The descendants of those frogs that made the original crossing — during a period of climate cooling and drying that exposed the land bridge of low islands today known as Ram Setu (Rama's Bridge) — constitute a group of shrub frogs from the genus Pseudophilautus. Today they're endemic to the Western Ghats of southwestern India and to Sri Lanka and exhibit a wide range of diversification, though dozens of known shrub frog species are now considered extinct.
After arriving, their endemic diversification largely took place within the wet tropical regions of Sri Lanka — a vivid story about species evolution, geography, geology and historical climate change.
The study highlighted how the hills of Sri Lanka served as "species pumps as well as refuges" throughout 31 million years of evolution, highlighting the importance of tropical montane regions for both the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Pseudophilautus today occupy several habitat types, ranging from open grasslands, rock substrates along streams, and rainforest canopy, to shrubs, open grasslands and human-influenced habitats.
While the frogs' initial habitat during the Oligocene epoch some 27 million years ago was the mountainous central hills, they later repeatedly colonized areas beyond. There was also a frequent pattern of sister species being distributed across the three mountain regions and diversification within a given geographic region.
Changes in the climate played an important role in the geographic distribution, dispersal and process of speciation, providing an opening for the frogs' colonization of Sri Lanka.
The gradual diversification of their lineages began during the Oligocene, as the Indian subcontinent pushed up against the Asian land mass, creating the Himalayan mountain range and thus initiating the monsoon cycle.
This was followed by a period of glaciation in Antarctica, ushering in a climate suitable to the spread of species adapted to cool and wet conditions, such as those that would have existed in Sri Lanka's central hills.
Further up the geological time line, lowland lineages arose as the Asian monsoon cycle strengthened, giving rise to lowland rainforests that would have enhanced the frogs' opportunity for diversification.
While there was nothing to indicate a rapid initial burst in the Sri Lankan diversification of these shrub frogs, there was a constant rate of diversification over the entire history of the clade, the study shows.
Sri Lanka's habitat complexity provided opportunities for isolated populations of the same species to evolve in different ways. The current exceptional diversity of Pseudophilautus within Sri Lanka owes much to the long period of time available for diversification, abundant ecological opportunity, habitat, and fewer competing lineages, Pethiyagoda said.
The traffic wasn't one-way, though; during the late Miocene epoch, about 8.8 million years ago, another glaciation event once again exposed the land bridge between India and Sri Lanka. This allowed the migration back to the Indian mainland of some of the frogs, now vastly different from the species that made the first crossing all those millions of years earlier.
Those back-migrating Pseudophilautus were possibly lowland forms that were probably adapted to drier conditions. Today, the lowland regions of India and Sri Lanka adjacent to the shallow Palk Strait that separates the two land masses are warm and dry, with scrub forest habitats in which a single species of Pseudophilautus occurs on either side: P. regius in Sri Lanka and P. kani in the Western Ghats.
The period between the initial migration and the subsequent back migration also coincided with the intensification of the monsoon, indicating a period favorable for diversification of the species in Sri Lanka. The initial migration to Sri Lanka may have provided abundant ecological opportunity to the early colonizers in the form of habitat unexplored by other frog species, the study says.
When diversification of these shrub frogs began to take place, a process facilitated by climatic events, suitable habitats likely became available gradually over time. The species that were adapted to lower elevations — and warmer and drier conditions — were more likely to be sources of dispersal among mountain ranges, unlike those species restricted by elevation, the study says.
During climatically favorable periods, the species crossed the valleys between mountain ranges, giving rise to montane communities made up of members derived from disparate clades.
These features highlight the importance of montane regions in generating and sustaining the remarkable diversity of Sri Lankan shrub frogs through time.
"It is important however, to note, while there is high endemism, there is also high extinction, at the higher elevations," Pethiyagoda said.
And this happens, according to Meegaskumbura, when lowland rigorous species move up the mountains displacing the more vulnerable Pseudophilautus species. "As climate warming continues, unable to find high enough mountains to track their optimal climatic conditions, many of these species risk going extinct."
Meegaskumbura, M., Senevirathne, G., Manamendra-Arachchi, K., Pethiyagoda, R., Hanken, J., & Schneider, C. J. (2019). Diversification of shrub frogs (Rhacophoridae, Pseudophilautus) in Sri Lanka — Timing and geographic context. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 132, 14-24. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2018.11.004
Banner image: Pseudophilautus femoralis, commonly known as the round-snout pygmy frog, belongs to the Rhacophoridae family and is endemic to Sri Lanka. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and is threatened by habitat loss. Photo by Hiranya Sudasinghe.


why women file for divorce
Why do people file for divorce first?
Do women initiate most divorces?
The study, based on a survey of over 2000 heterosexual couples, found that women initiated nearly 70 percent of all divorces. Yet there was no significant difference between the percentage of breakups initiated by women and men in non-marriage relationships.
What are the 5 reasons for divorce?
Currently, the five possible grounds for divorce are: adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion, living apart for more than two years (with agreement) and living apart for more than five years (without agreement).
Why would someone want a divorce?
How do I financially file for divorce?
Reclaim your name
 1. Change names on house deeds, stocks and bonds, and car titles.
 2. Change beneficiaries on investments, retirement plans, life insurance policies, and savings accounts.
 3. Update your will.
What counts as unreasonable Behaviour in divorce?
"Unreasonable behaviour" is the term used to describe the fact that a person has behaved in such a way that their partner/spouse cannot reasonably be expected to live with them. It is important to understand there is no definitive list of unreasonable behaviours used in divorce petitions.
You might be interested: what is a pro bono divorce lawyer
Who breaks more men or women?
Interestingly, while he found that women are more likely to end a marriage than men, women are not more likely to initiate a breakup in non-marital relationships. Additionally, the research shows marriage quality was influential in these decisions.
Who is more likely to ask for a divorce?
According to every viable source on the planet, women do in fact initiate divorce more than men. For a married couple with children, women initiate divorce two thirds of the time. With or without children, the number still hovers around the 68.9 percent.
What percentage of divorces are initiated by the woman?
70 percent
At what age is divorce most common?
30 years old
What is the only reason for divorce in the Bible?
Do you need a reason for divorce?
Is divorce a sin?
You might be interested: how long does a contested divorce take in ny
What qualifies as irreconcilable differences?
This means that neither spouse seeks to prove a wrongdoing that caused the end of the marriage. Instead, irreconcilable differences reflect a marriage in which the couple has grown apart for some or many reasons. These fundamental disagreements make it impossible for them to continue being married.
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Last Updated: Thursday September 30 2010 05:24 GMT
Hotseat: Michael Morpurgo
Children's author Michael Morpurgo
Michael Morpurgo is one of the UK's best-loved kids' authors and he's been talking to Newsround about his latest book, Shadow.
The former Children's Laureate has seen loads of his books get turned into stage plays and now Hollywood director Steven Spielberg is turning one of Michael's most famous books, War Horse, into a movie!
Michael Morpurgo's Shadow - book cover
Shadow is based on the true story of a sniffer dog in Afghanistan, who went missing during an attack while out on patrol.
The soldiers thought the dog was dead, but 14 months later he shows up alive. The question is, who looked after him all that time?
Shadow is an imagined story about what happened to the sniffer dog. An Afghan boy called Aman befriends the dog when it turns up outside the cave where he lives.
When Aman's family flees the country and comes to England as asylum seekers, the dog Aman has called Shadow won't leave their side...
Why did you choose to set your new book in Afghanistan?
I've written a lot about war before but particularly wars that have been in the past. With these stories we know the outcome. But when we write about a war that's going on, it's much sharper because we're still full of anxiety about it.
You've written quite a few books about war - what's your interest in war?
Everyone is interested in war, in that people don't want it to happen. I'm much more interested in peace than in war but it's important to understand why we fight.
I grew up in 1943 [during World War II], I was a war baby. The first world I knew was a country that had been through a war. It affected me deeply.
Why should kids be interested in war?
It's important because kids know it's there, they watch TV, they know these things are going on. Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world.
How did you research for the book?
I did a lot of research about soldiers in Afghanistan, and about Afghan people living in north Afghanistan. I found out about people living in caves in a place called Bamiyan. I researched those people in particular and decided that's where my family should come from.
I also researched a detention centre for asylum seekers called Yarl's Wood. It's the only place in the country where we still imprison children and I was very upset about that.
I visited Yarl's Wood. I didn't visit Afghanistan but I did talk to people who had been there.
Shadow is based on a dog - are you a dog lover?
Yes, we've had dogs in my family all my life until seven or eight years ago, when our beloved lurcher died and we felt we couldn't replace her. Now is the only time I've never a dog.
What's your favourite animal?
Elephants, but they're quite difficult to keep in your house!
I like their eyes - when you look into their eyes you know they're intelligent. I'm fascinated by how ancient they are and how they're prehistoric animals.
You have seven grandkids - do you test out your stories on them?
I don't test my stories on them anymore. I did a little with my children when I was younger. But I do test my stories out on school children. When I visit schools I read them what I've been writing.
I only tested out Shadow on my wife. She always says the same thing - it's very good, but it's not as good as War Horse.
War Horse is being made into a movie - how do you feel about that?
I feel very flattered that one of our great storytellers [Steven Spielberg] has chosen War Horse to make into a film. He's one of very few directors who can do it justice.
It's a very difficult story to tell. At the heart of the story there's an animal - the horse tells the story. There are no stars. It's about a war, the young people, and the animals with them. [Spielberg] will tell it brilliantly in the cinema.
What tips would you give kids who want to become writers?
Don't worry about writing a book or getting famous or making money. Just lead an interesting life.
Start writing two or three lines every day about something interesting that's happened to you. Go places, meet people - so you have lots to write about.
Read a lot of books, read everything - fill your head with stories, poems, facts.
What kids' book do you wish you had written?
Treasure Island. It's the first book I loved, when I was about nine, the greatest adventure story for boys. Robert Louis Stevenson is my writing hero.


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Communications technology is dramatically changing the playing field for educators, opening up new opportunities to promote institutional learning agendas by delivering the right information to the right people at the right time to inspire postive action.
The educational technology (EdTech) sector is booming, with an array of solutions growing to support these opportunities and is expected to be worth more than US$93.76 Billion by 2020 (2)
Balancing competing cost and innovation priorities is challenging though, and we've previously looked at the growth of the educational cloud (software, platform or infrastructure as a service) as an efficient way of sourcing these new capabilities.
Let's take a closer look at the some practial ways you can implement new capabilities through effective communications technology:
- Redesigning communications workflows;
- Practical steps to follow for implementing communications enablement platforms; and
- Operational communications in action - the Monash University Case Study
Redesigning enterprise communications workflows
The concept of Business Process Re-engineering, which involves radically redesigning core operational processes for dramatic productivity improvements, has been practiced for over a quarter of century.
The challenges with this approach are typically the scale of the projects involved, and the time, resources and skills required to effectively prosecute the change management activities.
This is the key advantage of SaaS deployed capabilities, as the appropriate solution can be adopted with no development lead time, and API integration typically allows these services to connected rapidly and securely to existing systems, to leverage their functionality and data.
Synchronising a SaaS Communications platform to HR data for example, and connecting the system to IT incident monitoring tools, provides a level of certainty that all staff and students can be reached in a timely way, with information relevant to their roles.
The full potential of modern communication systems can be realised when workflows are redesigned in a planned and automated fashion that fully exploits the potential of these tools.
Transitioning to communication automation requires rethinking traditional operating processes, starting with a foundation of proactive scenario planning and innovating around operations and interactions with staff, suppliers, parents, students and the wider community.
Factors to consider when adopting communication enablement platforms include:
Proactive scenario planning: Having a clearly defined plan in place for communicating in different situations cuts down response time, improves accuracy of contact, and ensures the right people are able to be reached in a timely manner.
Targeted, multi-channel messaging: Send messages to your staff and community in the way that suits them, whether that's voice, SMS, Social Media, Rich Messages or email, to improve the rates of delivery. Knowing they will almost always have their mobiles close allows organisations to provide messages on all these channels. Geolocation can segment communications even further, such as providing multilingual messages appropriate to the recipient's location or pre-defined contact preferences.
Pre-prepared, interchangeable message templates: Message templates should be prepared with specifics which can be rapidly altered to suit the appropriate services or situations being targeted, thereby saving time with pre-planned communication and response options.
Timing is essential: When urgent communication is required, SMS accelerates the speed of notification. Whereas half of all emails aren't opened for at least six hours, the average text message is accessed within a few minutes and responded to within 30 minutes. Voice calls to mobile and fixed lines generate an even faster response, and can be created to trigger automatically from the communications platform.
Scalability and consistency: Look for solutions that can be scaled not only to other operational parts of the business, but can also scale internationally, and comply with regulatory requirements in differing jurisdictions.
Unified communications: Combining all of these communications streams into a single platform, with a central reporting dashboard improves cut-through in the delivery of messages and provides a mechanism for tracking all critical communications, giving recipients a way to respond appropriately. This allows informed, real time decisions to be made from these conversations.
Streamlined education communications in action - Monash University case study
Background: Monash University, the largest Australian university by numbers, identified a need to improve their IT Service Management capabilities (ITSM) to ensure stakeholders - staff and students - could receive accurate and timely notifications of any disruptions to service on different devices or channels of their choice.
Solution: Whispir was chosen to provide a modern, robust ITSM solution, in keeping with the university's core requirements of resilience, reliability and high availability.
Being cloud hosted, with globally distributed high availability architecture, the system is secure and independent of existing infrastructure, guaranteeing service continuity during times of IT disruption.
- Targeted Communications: The University can now target communications that best fit the audience preference, and have the most suitability for reach, engagement and cost effectiveness. Examples include:
- SMS for urgent advisories, such as to IT responders, if a critical system issue is identified.
- Email notifications to academic and administrative staff for all planned outages or system maintenance, which are cost effective and wide reaching.
- Social media announcements through Twitter and Facebook to alert students and staff to any upcoming outages. This has been shown to produce the highest engagement levels with students, who rarely check emails, meaning important information is at risk of being missed.
- Message consistency: eSolutions can create standardised message templates, and workflow rules for different scenarios, which can then be deployed by the relevant departments who need access to the platform for their specific communications.
The advantage is that communications best practice can be established centrally, while still giving the respective departments the autonomy to publish information that they need quickly and directly.
-Reduced call volume: having information published in the right places has lowered the number of calls to the service desk, lowering the cost of responding to IT service queries.
- Greater user engagement: publishing notifications through social media, especially Facebook and Twitter has been more effective in reaching students, resulting in a higher number of reads, retweets and shares.
With a full suite of mobile-integrated tools, Whispir is uniquely placed to help your school benefit from these new advancements in education. If you're ready to explore more ways to improve your operations with effective communications, get in touch with one of our team members today.


User Interface Text
Usage patterns
Design concepts
 Text fonts, sizes, and colors
 Other text characteristics
 Dates and times
 Globalization and localization
 Title bar text
 Main instructions
 Supplemental instructions
 Control labels
 Supplemental explanations
 Commit button labels
User interface text appears on UI surfaces. This text includes control labels and static text:
 - Control labels identify controls and are placed directly on or next to the controls.
 - Static text, which is so called because it is not part of an interactive control, provides users with detailed instructions or explanations so they can make informed decisions.
Note: Guidelines related to style and tone, fonts, and common control labels are presented in separate articles.
Usage patterns
UI text has several usage patterns:
Title bar text
Use title bar text to identify a window or the source of a dialog box.
Screen shot of Folder Options title bar
In this example, the title bar text identifies a window.
Main instructions
Use the prominent main instruction to explain concisely what to do in the window or page.
The instruction should be a specific statement, imperative direction, or question. Good main instructions communicate the user's objective rather than focusing just on manipulating the UI.
Screen shot of question: Do you want latest Help?
In this example, the main instruction text directly engages the user with a question in terms of the user's own benefit or interest.
Supplemental instructions
When necessary, use a supplemental instruction to present additional information helpful to understanding or using the window or page.
You can provide more detailed information, provide context, and define terminology. Supplemental instructions elaborate on the main instruction without simply re-wording it.
Screen shot of text on switching to admin account
In this example, the supplemental instructions provide two possible courses of action to take in response to the information presented in the main instruction.
Control labels
Labels directly on or next to controls.
Screen shot of desktop clock options
In this example, control labels identify desktop clock settings that users can select or modify.
Supplemental explanations
An elaboration of the control labels (typically for command links, radio buttons, and check boxes).
Screen shot of security-settings dialog box
In this example, the supplemental explanations clarify the choices.
Design concepts
Software developers often think of text as relegated to product documentation and technical support. "First we'll write the code, and then we'll hire someone to help us explain what we have developed." Yet in reality, important text is written earlier in the process, as the UI is conceived and coded. This text is, after all, seen more frequently and by more people than perhaps any other type of technical writing.
Comprehensible text is crucial to effective UI. Professional writers and editors should work with software developers on UI text as an integral part of the design process. Have them work on text early because text problems often reveal design problems. If your team has trouble explaining a design, quite often it is the design, not the explanation, that needs improving.
A design model for UI text
As you think about UI text and its placement on your UI surfaces, consider these facts:
 - During focused, immersive reading, people read in a left-to-right, top-to-bottom order (in Western cultures).
 - When using software, users aren't immersed in the UI itself but in their work. Consequently, users don't read UI text—they scan it.
 - When scanning a window, users may appear to be reading text when in reality they are filtering it. They often don't truly comprehend the UI text unless they perceive the need to.
 - Within a window, different UI elements receive different levels of attention. Users tend to read control labels first, especially those that appear relevant to completing the task at hand. By contrast, users tend to read static text only when they think they need to.
 1. Interactive controls in the center
 2. The commit buttons
 3. Interactive controls found elsewhere
 4. Main instruction
 5. Supplemental explanations
 6. Window title
 7. Other static text in main body
 8. Footnotes
You should also assume that once users have decided what to do, they will immediately stop reading and do it.
Eliminate redundancy
Redundant text not only takes valuable screen space, but weakens the effectiveness of the important ideas or actions that you are trying to convey. It is also a waste of the reader's time, and all the more so in a context where scanning is the norm. Windows® strives to explain what users need to do once—well and concisely.
Review each window and eliminate duplicate words and statements, both within and across controls. Don't avoid important text—be explicit wherever necessary—but don't be redundant and don't explain the obvious.
Avoid over-communication
Even if text isn't redundant, it can simply be too wordy in an effort to explain every detail. Too much text discourages reading—the eye tends to skip right over it—ironically resulting in less communication rather than more. In UI text, concisely communicate the essential information. If more information is necessary for some users or some scenarios, provide a link to more detailed Help content, or perhaps to a glossary entry for clarification of a term.
Screen shot of dialog box with 6 paragraphs
In this example, there is too much text to scan easily. Although not intended by the designer, there is so much text that users will most likely click Next without reading anything.
To avoid text that discourages reading, craft your text to make every word count. What doesn't add subtracts, so use simple, concise text.
Use the inverted pyramid
Academic writing typically uses a "pyramid" structural style that lays down a foundation of facts, works with those facts, and builds up to a conclusion—forming a pyramid-like structure. By contrast, journalists use an "inverted pyramid" style that starts with the conclusion—the fundamental "takeaway" that readers must have. It then fills in progressively more detail that readers may be interested in—perhaps just to scan. The advantage of this style is that it gets right to the point, and allows readers to stop reading at any point they choose and still understand the essential information.
You should apply the inverted pyramid structure to UI text. Get right to the point with the essential information, let users stop reading at any time they choose, and use a Help link to present the remainder of the pyramid.
Screen shot of message on joining Windows program
In this example, the essential information is in the query of the main instruction text, additional helpful information is in the supplemental instructions, and details are available by clicking a Help link.
If you do only five things...
1. Work on text early because text problems often reveal design problems.
2. Design your text for scanning.
3. Eliminate redundant text.
4. Use easy-to-understand text; don't over-communicate.
5. When necessary, provide links to Help content for more detailed information.
 - Remove redundant text. Look for redundant text in window titles, main instructions, supplemental instructions, content areas, command links, and commit buttons. Generally, leave full text in main instructions and interactive controls, and remove any redundancy from the other places.
 - Avoid large blocks of UI text. Ways of doing this include:
 - Chunking text into shorter sentences and paragraphs.
 - When necessary, providing Help links to useful, but not essential, information.
 - Choose object names and labels that clearly communicate and differentiate what the object does. Users shouldn't have to figure out what the object really means or how it differs from other objects.
 Screen shot of list of unnamed monitors
 Screen shot of list of specific network adaptors
 In the incorrect example, the object names are not differentiated at all; the better example shows strong differentiation by product name.
 Screen shot of formatting warning using OK button
 Screen shot of formatting warning and Format button
 - Use one space between sentences. Not two.
Text fonts, sizes, and colors
 - The following fonts and colors are defaults for Windows.
 PatternTheme symbolFont, Color
 First column: Title bar text CaptionFont9 pt. black (#000000) Segoe UI
 First column: Main instructions MainInstruction12 pt. blue (#003399) Segoe UI
 First column: Secondary instructions Instruction9 pt. black (#000000) Segoe UI
 First column: Normal text BodyText9 pt. black (#000000) Segoe UI
 First column: Emphasized text BodyText9 pt. black (#000000) Segoe UI, bold or italic
 First column: Editable text BodyText9 pt. black (#000000) Segoe UI, in a box
 First column: Disabled text Disabled9 pt. dark gray (#323232) Segoe UI
 First column: Link HyperLinkText9 pt. blue (#0066CC) Segoe UI
 First column: Links (Hover) Hot9 pt. light blue (#3399FF) Segoe UI
 First column: Group Header 11 pt. blue (#003399) Segoe UI
 First column: File Name (in Content view) 11 pt. black (#000000) Segoe UI
 First column: Document text (none)9 pt. black (#000000) Calibri
 First column: Document headings (none)17 pt. black (#000000) Calibri
 - Use blue text only for links and main


text:
part of capital formation is incurred in relation to unique goods that are not homogeneous over time or for which standard units of quantity cannot be devised. Volume estimation is achieved in such cases by making assumptions about changes in prices which would have occurred had price series existed for the unique goods in question. Thus gross fixed capital formation is revalued using import and producer price indexes for equipment, various building price indexes, road construction price indexes and wage cost and material price indexes for other components of engineering construction. In the case of equipment, a complex model is used to allow the weights of the various import and producer price indexes to vary over time. The model uses data for commodity imports and for commodities manufactured in Australia, and various other sources, to estimate the commodity composition of expenditures on equipment in both the private and public sectors.
10.27 The volume estimation of government final consumption expenditure is based on revaluing inputs - the wages paid, and goods and services purchased - rather than on directly estimating the volume of services provided. This is consistent with the methods used to compile the current price value of final consumption expenditure on goods and services by general government, which is defined as the sum of material costs, labour costs and consumption of fixed capital less any amounts received through charges levied for goods and services provided by general government bodies (see Chapter 14). The volume estimates of wages, and goods and services purchased, are derived using wage cost indexes (compiled as annually - reweighted chain Laspeyres indexes) and material price indexes, and volume estimates of consumption of fixed capital are derived using a perpetual inventory model (described in Chapter 16). Some of the implications for productivity measurement of this method of revaluing government final consumption expenditure are discussed briefly below.
10.28 Import and producer price indexes are used extensively to derive volume estimates of the book values of inventory levels. These are differenced to obtain volume estimates of changes in private non-farm inventories. Farm and public authority inventories are mostly quantity revalued. A number of assumptions are made in the volume estimation of inventories (described in Chapter 17).
10.29 Most exports of goods are quantity revalued. Volume estimates of most of the balance are derived using export price indexes. Volume estimates of exports of services are derived using a range of price indexes, including the consumer price index. The great bulk of the volume estimates of imports of goods and services are obtained by price deflation (using components of the import price index and some price indexes from other countries).
Chain volume estimates of GDP using the production approach
10.30 The gross value added of an industry at current prices is defined to be the difference between the value of output and the value of goods and services (intermediate input) used up in the process of production. In the national accounts, therefore, it is natural to derive volume estimates of gross value added as the difference between volume estimates of output and intermediate input. By mirroring the current price identity, this method ensures the same consistency in the volume accounts as exists in the current price accounts. This is commonly called the double deflation (or net output) method and is used to derive all the annual industry gross value added estimates from 1995-96.
10.31 Double deflation is used in the annual supply and use tables to derive annual estimates of gross value added for each industry in the prices of the previous year. Wherever possible price indexes directly relating to the outputs and inputs are used, but in many cases such price indexes are unavailable. Proxies are often used that are largely based on input prices, i.e. wage cost and material price indexes. Volume estimates of wholesale and retail margins are derived on the assumption that they have the same growth rate as the sales of commodities they relate to.
10.32 With the exception of agriculture, the data required to use double deflation to derive quarterly volume estimates are unavailable, and so an alternative method must be used. For most industries it is assumed that the volume measure of gross value added grows at the same rate as the volume measure of output (the output indicator method). The assumption underlying this method is that in volume terms the ratio of intermediate input to output is stable. In order to ameliorate departures from this assumption as much as possible, quarterly output volume indexes at as detailed a level as practicable are weighted together using the current price estimate of gross value added in the earlier of the two years. The same approach is used for annual data prior to 1995-96.
10.33 For all the goods-producing industries (except agriculture) and nearly all of the private sector dominated service industries volume estimates of output, or proxies for output, are used as quarterly volume indicators of gross value added.
10.34 For service industries, in particular, it is often difficult (if not impossible) to measure the true changes in the quantum of output. In these circumstances, the volume estimation of output is achieved by using the best available proxies. The examples in the following two paragraphs are intended to clarify this point.
10.35 Two basic components are assumed to comprise the output of the transport industry - passenger movement and freight movement. A greater degree of homogeneity is introduced by identifying different kinds of transport - road, rail, air and water transport - and by distinguishing between country and suburban passengers where appropriate, and between a number of different kinds of freight (e.g. mail, livestock, coal or oil). In practice, the measures of quantity used for each mode of transport are passenger-kilometres and tonne-kilometres. However, such measures make no allowance for joint service components such as loading, or for quality changes resulting from variations in speed or frequency of services.
10.36 For the wholesale and retail trade industry, output is assumed to be proportional to the quantum of goods handled. As a result, no allowance is made for changes in the quality of service provided in handling these goods such as more prompt service or extended shopping hours. In the case of the banking industry the principal quarterly output measure is the real value of bank financial assets. Likewise, this measure takes no account of changes in the quality of banking services.
10.37 In the absence of satisfactory alternatives, hours worked data are used as the quarterly indicators of the volume movements in gross value added in the remaining service industries: property and business services; government administration and defence; education; health and community services; much of personal services; and part of cultural and recreational services. The assumption underlying this procedure is that there is no change in volume gross value added per hour worked, i.e. labour productivity is constant.
10.38 In the annual supply and use tables, annual volume measures of the labour income components of the outputs of the general government-dominated industries are derived by deflation, using wage cost indexes. As wages account for the bulk of general government output (defined to be equal to input), this is almost akin to using hours worked as the indicator of change. However, there is one difference worth noting: to the extent that changes in the mix of high and low paid jobs reflect changes in the average skill or productivity level of the workforce, wage-deflated estimates - unlike hours worked based estimates - will reflect productivity growth. It should be noted, though, that such a measure of productivity growth is likely to be only partial.
10.39 Just as constant price estimates were replaced by chain volume measures, so the previously published fixed-weighted price indexes have been replaced by chain price indexes. Thus, there are two types of price index published for each of the expenditure aggregates in the national accounts: chain price indexes and implicit price deflators (IPDs) derived from chain volume estimates. One of the benefits of chaining is that, for each aggregate, the growth rates of chain price indexes and IPDs derived from chain volume estimates are generally more alike than the previously published fixed-weighted price indexes and IPDs derived from constant price estimates.
Implicit price deflators
10.40 An implicit price deflator (IPD) is an index obtained by dividing a current price value by its corresponding volume estimate. Thus implicit price deflators are derived measures (hence the term 'implicit') and are not normally the direct measures of price change by which current price estimates are converted to estimates at constant prices. The formula for an IPD derived from annual, annually reweighted chain Laspeyres volume measures in year t is:
10.41 When calculated from the major national accounting aggregates, such as gross national expenditure, IPDs relate to a broader range of goods and services in the economy than that represented by any of the individual consumer and producer price indexes published by the ABS.
10.42 Implicit price deflators provide an estimate of 'pure' price change between a year (the base year) and a period in the following year, and use the quantity weights of this latter period. For quarterly IPDs in the latest year, the pure price change is from the year two years earlier. Because the weights change from period to period, implicit price deflators do not compare the price of a constant basket of goods and services between any two periods except when comparing a period with its base period. Therefore, a change in an IPD between any two periods, neither of which is the base period, represents a combination of the effects of actual price changes between the two periods and the effects of relative changes between those periods in the underlying quantity weights, or physical composition, of the aggregate from which the deflator is derived. It is possible for changes in the physical composition of the relevant aggregate to produce an increase in the IPD between two non-base periods when all component prices have decreased or, conversely, a decrease in the deflator when all component prices have increased. While these may be extreme cases, from time to time significant aberrations do occur in practice, e.g. when a major purchase of a capital good is

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter. They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of characters and objects. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of the text for either a student or teacher.
Chapter 1 Abstract
* Virginia "Vinnie" Miner is flying to London to research Play-Rhymes.
* She is accompanied by Fido, an invisible dog that manifests when Vinnie is feeling depressed.
Chapter 2 Abstract
* A Western-attired man sits next to Vinnie.
* He attempts to strike up conversation with Vinnie, even though she...
This section contains 647 words|
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)


Question: How Hot Is The Lithosphere?
How hot is the Earth 1 mile down?
Geologists calculate that, for every mile you dig beneath the Earth's surface, the temperature rises 15º F and the pressure increases simultaneously at a rate of about 7,300 pounds per square inch.
Violations of the 15-degrees-per-mile rule are unknown and constitute the notorious forbidden zone..
Why is the earths crust hot?
Which part of the lithosphere is the thinnest?
How hot is the crust?
The upper crust withstands the ambient temperature of the atmosphere or ocean—hot in arid deserts and freezing in ocean trenches. Near the Moho, the temperature of the crust ranges from 200° Celsius (392° Fahrenheit) to 400° Celsius (752° Fahrenheit).
What is not part of Earth's lithosphere?
Earth's lithosphere includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, which constitute the hard and rigid outer layer of the Earth. Sea water is not part of it.
What is the thinnest layer of the earth?
crust*Inner core * The Earth's crust is the outermost surface. *It is a very thin layer of solid rock. It is the thinnest layer of the Earth. *The crust is 5-35km thick beneath the land and 1-8km thick beneath the oceans.
Can we drill to the mantle?
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Scientific drilling into the Earth is a way for scientists to probe the Earth's sediments, crust, and upper mantle.
What state of matter is the lithosphere?
What is the hottest layer?
thermosphereBecause there are relatively few molecules and atoms in the thermosphere, even absorbing small amounts of solar energy can significantly increase the air temperature, making the thermosphere the hottest layer in the atmosphere. Above 124 mi (200 km), the temperature becomes independent of altitude.
What color is the lithosphere?
Why is lithosphere broken down into plates?
Plate Tectonics The lithosphere is divided into huge slabs called tectonic plates. The heat from the mantle makes the rocks at the bottom of lithosphere slightly soft. This causes the plates to move.
How hot is the lower mantle?
The temperature of the lower mantle ranges from 1960 K at the topmost layer to 2630 K at a depth of 2700 km.
Is the mantle hotter than the lithosphere?
New data suggests that the upper parts of Earth's mantle are around 60°C (108°F) hotter than previously expected. … And the planet's tectonic plates also wouldn't shift around like they do – something that requires the rocky layer to be molten at times.
What are the 3 components of lithosphere?
What are the 7 layers of earth?
They are, from deepest to shallowest, the inner core, the outer core, the mantle and the crust. Except for the crust, no one has ever explored these layers in person.
How thick is the lower mantle?
Structure of the EarthThickness (km)Density (g/cm3)Crust30Upper mantle7203.4Lower mantle2,1714.4Outer core2,2599.98 more rows
Is the lithosphere hot or cold?
The temperature at the earth's surface is near 0º C (freezing temperature of water). The temperature increases rapidly to about 1500º C at 100 km depth. From a depth of 100 km to about 2800 km, the temperature increases slowly by only 30º C per 100 km to a temperature of about 2500º C.
Is the lithosphere hot?
Temperature of the Lithosphere. The lithosphere does not have a specific temperature.


text:
4 Definitions of Battle
The definition of battle, the meaning of the word Battle:
Is battle a scrabble word? Yes!
- n. - A hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war
- n. - An energetic attempt to achieve something
- n. - An open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals)
- v. - Battle or contend against in or as if in a battle
Battle is worth 8 points in Scrabble, and 10 points in Words with Friends
There are 6 letters in battle: A B E L T T
1 Anagram of Battle
Words that can be created with an extra letter added to battle:
55 words found using the letters in "Battle"
6 Letter Words
5 Letter Words
4 Letter Words
3 Letter Words
2 Letter Words
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text:
|About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us|
This week's theme: verbs.
dehisce (di-HIS) verb intr.
1. To burst open, as the pod of a plant.
2. To gape.
[When a peapod is ripe after a long wait and bursts open, it's yawning, etymologically speaking. The term dehisce comes from Latin dehiscere (to split open), from hiscere (to gape, yawn), from Latin hiare (to yawn). Another term that derives from the same root is hiatus.]
Today's word in Visual Thesaurus.
-Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org)
"Garrison Keillor: Rhubarb is a vegetable, no matter what the government says: a member of the buckwheat family of herbaceous plants including buckwheat, dock and smartweed, which are characterized by having swollen joints, simple leaves, small petalless flowers and small, dry, indehiscent fruit. Indehiscent means 'not dehiscent,' not opening at maturity to release the seed. So "indehiscent" means 'hard, dry, holding onto the seed,' which actually describes Norwegians quite well. Most Norwegians consider dehiscence to be indecent. They hold the seed in. But rhubarb pie comes along in the spring, when we're half crazed from five months of winter -- it's the first fresh vegetable we get, and it makes us dehisce." Carol Stocker; Rediscovering Rhubarb; Boston Globe; May 16, 1996.
I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. -Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (_PHONE_)
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Xinerama [bool]
Enables Xinerama support if the boolean argument is true and disables it if the argument is false. Calling this command without arguments turns on Xinerama support if it was disabled before and turns it off if it was enabled. For example:
# Turn Xinerama support on, use primary screen 2
XineramaPrimaryScreen 2
Xinerama on
# Turn it off again
Xinerama off
XineramaPrimaryScreen [primary-screen]
Takes an integer number or 'g' or 'c' as its argument. A number is taken as the number of the Xinerama screen that is to be used as the primary screen. The primary screen can be used as the preferred screen to place windows with
XineramaPrimaryScreen
Style * StartsOnScreen p
The primary screen is used in some of the modules and for the default icon box too. Any number that is zero or more is taken as the primary screen's number. Instead, the letter 'c' indicates to use the current screen (containing the pointer) whenever the primary screen is used. This may be very confusing under some circumstances. With 'g', the global screen is used as the primary screen, effectively disabling the primary screen. Calling this function with any other argument (including none) resets the primary screen to 0.
XineramaSls [bool]
For multi-screen implementations other than Xinerama, such as Single Logical Screen, it is possible to simulate a Xinerama configuration if the total screen seen by fvwm is made up of equal sized monitors in a rectangular grid. The XineramaSls command turns SLS support on or off or toggles it to the opposite state, depending on if the boolean argument is "True", "False" or "toggle". If no argument is given, this is treated like "toggle". The default layout uses one by one screens. To configure the layout, use the XineramaSlsSize or XineramaSlsScreens command.
XineramaSlsSize Horizontal Vertical
This command configures the layout of the Single Logical screen feature. It takes two arguments, Horizontal and Vertical which must be an integer value dividing evenly into the total desktop width, and height. For an example with two monitors side by side which appear as one screen through the X-Server with the right screen as the primary screen, use:
XineramaSlsSize 2×1
XineramaSls On
XineramaPrimaryScreen 1
Xinerama On
XineramaSlsScreens number-of-screens [screen-spec …]
This command configures the layout of the Single Logical screen feature. Its first argument is the number of screens to use. It must be followed by exactly this number of screen-spec arguments. Each of these can be written either in standard X geometry format: "x++" or as a space separated list of numbers: "x y width height". Both ways of describing screens can be mixed in a single command. All four numbers must be supplied. The x and y values specify the origin of the screen in relation to the global screen's origin while width and height specify the size of the screen in pixels. No checks are done if the geometries make sense, so it is possible to define overlapping screens (with random results) or screens that are not visible at all.
XineramaSlsScreens 3 \
512×768+0+0 512×300+512+0 512 300 512 468
XineramaSls On
XineramaPrimaryScreen 1
Xinerama On
FVWM/Controlling the Virtual Desktop


Re: High Academic Results Make Better Programmers
Alan Skorkin argues that "High Academic Results Make Better Programmers", or approximately that with certain caveats. He's writing to try to balance out the view that often denigrates high marks and high academic achievements as he notes.
I generally agree with what he says there, and I think some more details can be given to support why good academic performance is important to programmers. So here goes.
Education is expensive, so a university graduate with low marks raises a question about his or her priorities. Of course, if the marks are low and many impressive personal programming projects were also completed, projects that are relevant to the job being applied to or whatever, then the low marks might be looked at differently.
But then again, between two candidates, both having completed a wealth of relevant personal programming projects, but one has higher GPA than the other, it's obvious to me who would get hired.
Or look at it another way. Hiring a university graduate with a high GPA could mean hiring someone who is simply exceptional, or someone who is a grade chasing conformist who'll adapt and do whatever it takes to get a high GPA (or a high pay) — some people apparently believe that's what a high GPA indicates.
There's a chance the high GPA graduate could be incompetent, but hopefully the GPA awarded by the institution is such that this possibility is slim. On the other hand, hiring a low GPA graduate could mean hiring someone who is simply incompetent, or someone who would be exceptional given the right conditions and motivations for him or her to bloom (such a delicate flower).
It seems hiring the high GPA graduate has a lower risk for the employer, even though the low GPA graduate might end up being ultra exceptional given the right motivations to "show off" his or her abilities. Hiring decisions are inherently high risk, so why make it worse by hiring someone with a low GPA, given all else being equal? (The unequal part might be a programming test during the interview or whatever else.)
But all of this neatly sidesteps an important question: why in the world do you want to hire a computing science grad (or why do you want a computing science degree yourself)? Computing science is supposed to teach science. Programming or software development is an important skill necessary to computing science (as it is also necessary in many areas of math, physics, and engineering these days), but the goal of a computing science degree program isn't to simply teach programming skills. For better or for worse, university is not, and is not supposed to be, specific training for an industry. There are schools that are better aligned for that kind of thing, but then we'd be venturing into an issue of public policy debate (at least in regards to the value of public universities to society).
I guess the optimistic view to having a high GPA in all courses from a computing science degree program, beyond learning the bare basics of many things in computing science, including programming skills, is to prove that you're capable of learning and performing well under various conditions for various purposes. Maybe it shows an adaptability and willingness to change in order to perform well: whether it's seminar-based, test-based, or project-based courses; whether it's art, English, history, programming in C, in Java, or doing math; you'd have shown you can perform to expectations. How is that not a good thing from an employer's point of view, all else being equal, especially in a new university graduate.
A cynic might say that all it shows is the student is a mindless drone, willing to conform to the pointless rules of an unfair system. Oh well. It's hard to please a cynic (just as it is hard to please a conspiracy theorist).
A final note. This comment from Joris also makes a good point that the software development profession is or is quickly becoming a science that requires university level education to become effective in for the vast majority of people wishing to enter the profession. (Doesn't software engineering programs exist for this purpose? It seems some half of a computing science degree program could more fruitfully be seen as applied math, and the other half perhaps software engineering...)
No comments:


Legal Glossary N – S
Janet Gershen-Siegel
She can always be bribed with pie.
Legal Glossary N – S
Semantic Shenanigans Legal Glossary N - S
A – G
H – M
T – Z
This glossary does not substitute for a good legal dictionary. We provide it solely to assist you in reading some of our blog posts and in listening to our shows.
Negligence is not exactly synonymous with neglect. Although that's how we use it in non-legal speech. Rather, in the law, negligence refers to a failure to exert a certain degree of care. And usually the rule encompasses a reasonable person (formerly, 'reasonable man') test. E. g. is it reasonable to assume that a driver will service his or her car at least once per year? Yes, probably, particularly in light of annual inspection requirements. However, is it reasonable to assume a driver will take his car for service once per week? Probably not.
Most noteworthy, states vary in terms of how they consider plaintiff's own negligence in a case. E. g. if plaintiff pedestrian is struck by defendant driver, who is at fault if plaintiff was jaywalking? Some states consider it contributory negligence, and won't award a dime. While others call it comparative negligence, and see it in terms of a percentage or sliding scale. Yet others embrace a hybrid approach, whereby up to a certain percentage (usually 49%), the finding is comparative, but if the plaintiff tips into 50% or more fault, then contributory negligence kicks in. And then no money is awarded. See: negligence.
Ninth Amendment
The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states, in its entirety:
See: Ninth Amendment.
This term crops up in a lot of different contexts. However, the main idea says that blame does not have to be proved in order to allow for a recovery. Hence, it's sort of like strict liability, e. g. we don't care why or how your car was damaged; we just pay the damages on it. See: no-fault insurance, no-fault law.
One of my favorite legal terms. And it just means 'nearly worthless'. It's pronounced like a cross between creamy nougat and Tori Spelling (or Amos, if you prefer). Furthermore, it more or less rhymes with purgatory and mandatory. Use it today! Nugatory, nugatory, nugatory … see, it's fun! See: nugatory.
Of course in common speech we use this term as more or less a synonym for the word pest. In the law, a nuisance divides into private (your neighbor runs his weed whacker at four in the morning) and public (the factory down the street converts from a more or less smell-free automobile manufacturing plant to a paper mill. If you've ever smelled a paper mill, you know what I mean). Nuisances tend to have a real property damage/devaluation component to them, although not always. See: civil nuisance.
Obiter Dictum/Dicta
Time to lay some Latin on you, yo'.
This is a term which means 'said in passing' (dicta is just the plural of dictum). This is all the extra stuff which judges stuff into legal opinions. Beyond the ruling, the facts of the case, the citations and anything which directly relates to the judge's findings, they often add extra verbiage. Sometimes that ends up being cited in later cases. Even lawyers and judges can and do sometimes blur the lines between dicta and holding. See: obiter dictum.
Courtroom dramas use this word All. The. Time. Objections don't happen in court (or at deposition) just because lawyers feel like disrupting the process (although that is a side effect). In an examination before trial in New York state, parties generally stipulate to only allow objections as to relevancy. Therefore, this preserves any other objections for motion practice and/or trial. If an objection at trial is improperly sustained or denied, such can be the subject of an appeal. See: objection.
Parol Evidence
Parol is not the same as parole (although the two words are pronounced the same)! Instead, it's really just verbal testimony offered in court. See: parol evidence.
Parole is early discharge, sometimes as a reward for better behavior and sometimes just due to prison overcrowding. See: parole.
A perpetrator is a person who actually commits a crime, as opposed to a suspect, who is alleged to have committed a crime. See: perpetrator.
Petit Jury
The opposite of a grand jury; a petit (pronounced like pet it) jury is the standard panel of peers who try cases in a court of law. See: petit jury.
Plea Agreement (Plea Bargain)
The criminal analogy to settlement is a plea agreement (colloquially known as a plea bargain), whereby the defendant generally agrees to a lesser sentence in exchange for not going to trial. Because trials are risky, lengthy, and expensive, it is usually to everyone's advantage to seek a plea agreement. About 93 – 97% of all criminal cases end in plea bargains. See: plea agreement.
While we generally use the terms jail and prison interchangeably, the word prison is more likely to refer to a larger and more impregnable structure where more serious criminals serve their sentences. See: prison.
Pro Bono Publico
Often just referred to as pro bono, pro bono publico is lower-cost/free legal services. In general, only a lawyer's billable hours are provided for free. But court costs remain the client's responsibility. Many jurisdictions now require a certain number or percentage of annual pro bono hours for lawyers to retain their licenses and remain in good standing. See: pro bono publico, pro bono.
Pro Hac Vice
Pro hac vice (pronounced like pro hock vee-chay) means 'for one time' or 'for one purpose'. When a lawyer admitted to practice in one state is hired to work in another, that lawyer can petition for admission pro hac vice, and be considered to be admitted for the sole purpose of litigating the one case. Pro hac vice admission lasts for the duration of that case and only needs to re-moved (e. g. the motion would have to be made again) if the lawyer takes another case in that same jurisdiction.
If a lawyer routinely takes cases in another jurisdiction, often a better way to handle things is to seek admission to practice in that jurisdiction. Depending upon the jurisdiction, and how long the attorney has been admitted to practice, this might involve a petition and the payment of a fee, or it could involve taking continuing legal education classes or making up for mandatory pro bono hours. It could even involve taking the entire Bar Examination again. See: pro hac vice.
Protected Class
In Federal law, only certain groups can claim certain protections. Probably the easiest way to show this is via the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). They list the following protected classes:
 - Age (over 40)
 - Disability
 - National Origin
 - Pregnancy
 - Race
 - Religion
 - Sex
Note that, as of the writing of this glossary (2016), sexual orientation and gender identity are currently not protected classes.
See: EEOC website.
Quash means to nullify or void something. See: quash.
Quasi Contract
Unlike a contract, a quasi contract is close. The parties' behavior (and possibly payments) can create an obligation even if there is nothing formally in writing. It can be enforceable, even though it's not 100% 'official'. See: quasi-contract.
Rainmaking is the act of bringing in clients. Except (maybe) for managing partners (or law firms with built-in in-house counsel agreements), all partners and wannabe partners have to do this. Generally, this means networking, schmoozing and handing out a ton of business cards and giving free seminars. See: rainmaking.
Ratification is really just another word for confirmation. See: ratification.
Res Ipsa Loquitur
Oh, Latin! Yay! Res ipsa loquitur (pronounced: Ray's Ipsah Low-quih-tour) means 'the thing speaks for itself'. Much like strict liability, it takes the fault out a claim. Or at least it makes it so the plaintiff doesn't have to prove fault (although multiple defendants will probably duke it out amongst themselves).
For example, if I wake up from surgery with a sponge in my abdomen, it doesn't matter to me who did it. Fault is fault (and it's not mine!) whether that was due to the negligence of the surgeon, a surgical nurse, the anesthesiologist, any interns or residents who may have been assisting, any spectators, or even some weird passerby who came in, tossed a surgical sponge into my guts and then fled (probably while cackling maniacally). Of course the defendants will all point fingers at each other and testimony will be taken on things like how much assistance the intern gave, or when the resident was in the operating room, or even how securely the doors were closed. But that's not my, the plaintiff's headache; it's defense's. See: res ispa loquitur.
Rescission, a term used in contract law, really just means cancellation. See: rescission.
Restraining Order
This is another term we have all heard on courtroom dramas and other law-related television shows. Based on old equitable remedies, a restraining order (which can


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Errors in Android Clocks
At OpenSignal, each datapoint we collect has two timestamps: the time the reading was taken and the time the reading was inserted into our server. Because we make extensive use of SQLite cacheing on devices, these times can be far apart - sometimes up to the order of weeks. The app reading time, however, should always be before the server insert time, otherwise you have an apparent violation of causality. When we noticed this happening occasionally, we took a closer look and found widespread difficulties getting accurate time readings.
We uncovered various causes of these Android time discrepancies: a bug in Android's setting of time via GPS which produces a 15s error; disagreements of one hour caused by Time Zone edge cases and perhaps also by a system bug in the application of timezones; and deliberate manual adjustments to the system clock time in order to fool games.
We'll focus on the time difference between the timestamps of speedtests taken in-app, and the timestamps for when they arrive at the server database.
If all phone clocks and our server clock were synchronised this would always be negative and usually quite small, since the app will attempt to upload a speedtest immediately after it has run. If the upload fails, it will wait until the next speedtest is run.
Looking at the last million speedtests run, this is the distribution found when restricting the dataset to just one minute either side of zero (density = frequency density).
Drawing out the salient features, we see some behaviour that is to be expected and some that is rather curious:
Some noise to the right is expected: while GPS is occasionally used to synchronize the clocks, the time is generally maintained on the device by its internal clock which can drift.
Stepping back to look 100 minutes either side of the origin reveals another anomaly: peaks at +/- one hour:This could be caused by the following:
The time displayed to the user will seem correct, if they go to France from the UK, they'll set the time one hour in advance. The system time, however, will be wrong - as the device still thinks it's in the UK timezone. In this case we'd expect the peaks at plus and minus one hour to be roughly the same height. But the right peak is about 20% higher than the left peak. This difference may be because users are deliberately mis-setting times.
It may not be only moving between countries or states that causes timezone problems, but daylight saving adjustments going awry on the device, as the following chart suggests:
This shows the weekly total number of devices submitting data found to be more than one hour in the future (actually we look at 59 minutes to catch minor fluctuations of a clock set one hour ahead). To give some idea of statistical significance, speedtests are currently run on about 100k distinct devices each week, though this figure was lower in the past.
Note the peak in November 2011, when the clocks go back. Consider clocks in Arizona, which does not obey DST unlike surrounding states, if for some reason the system thinks it does observe DST the clock will be set back one hour, Android users will react by setting it forward one hour - thus the system clock will be one hour in the future. There are many reports to be found of this in forums. In particular this may happen where users live in a border area, between a timezone that uses DST and one not using DST, if "use network time" is enabled in the app settings they may be erroneously placed in the wrong timezone, for half of the year this will provide correct times, but when DST comes into play users will find their phone an hour out and will manually adjust the displayed time, instead of chossing the correct timezone.
The fact that this peak occured just one year suggests the cause may have been exacerbated by an Android bug that was later fixed.
Coin Dozer is styled as an old-style fair/arcade game in which coins are pushed onto a table where they can bump other coins off into a collection tray. The user starts with a finite number of coins, more coins can be won to continue playing, additionally every 30s a coin is generated. If all coins run out by falling off the wrong side, the user must wait for a coin to be generated. This is a cunning technique to encourage users to keep the app open, which will increase ad revenue for the creators.
A cheat was discovered on Android and iOS that involves manually advancing the system clock to fool Coin Dozer and gain coins more rapidly. Since the system time on both iOS and Android is altered by scrolling through numbers, the quickest adjustment is to alter the clock by one hour, one day, or one minute. The cheats generally recommend an hour or a day in order to generate a full complement of coins.
On Android this cheat now requires rooting the phone. Coin Dozer are probably now using elapsedRealtime(), which returns the number of milliseconds the device has been on, and does not change when the clock is altered. However there are probably other apps that are still relying on currentTimeMillis, the field we've been measuring, which is susceptible to alteration.
What this cheat (and others like it) gives us is a possible explanation for why the peak on the right had side is higher than the left. It shows that that there is an incentive for people to deliberately mis-set their clocks an hour forward, which could go some way towards explaining the aysmmetry of the two peaks.
Examining the last million speedtests, 1.9% of devices are one hour or more in the future. As noted above, we can't be sure from this dataset how many devices have their clock set one hour in the past - since a negative value for difference could be because the reading is cached - however since the peak at plus one hour as about 20% higher than the peak at minus one hour we'll say the total is: 1.9 + 1.9*(1/1.2) = 3.5%
Looking at the number of devices having times set more than one day in the future, we find the numbers much smaller but have recently been growing:
For any app collecting data and cacheing it, incorrect clocks are a problem. For crowdsourcing apps like ours, it's a source of noise in timestamped data. For example it can cause problems when doing things like measuring cell breathing, whereby cell towers lose coverage at particular times of day as network traffic in that area increases.
Pretty much any app whose functionality in some way depends on how you are moving will use an offline timesource, so this includes apps like Waze or Nike+. Even if these apps include a large real-time element, like Waze, they will likely also collect absolute time. For example, Waze might want to use data that was cached on a device (since the device was in a tunnel or for some other reason could not immediately upload data) to calculate peak traffic hours.
Ensuring time accuracy requires the app to receive time notifications from a server (a special protocol, NTP, has been designed for this), when an update is received cache the value (call it T0), also cache the value returned by elapsedRealtime() (call it E0), to get the time at some later point when elapsedRealtime() = E1, use:
T1= E1 - E0 + T0
This solution is not ideal. It's cumbersome and, since elapsedRealtime() resets on boot, it requires the app to contact a server on every boot which will not be possible in many situations.
Unfortunately there are no silver bullets for this problem,
At OpenSignal we're building the world's most comprehensive coverage maps. It's hard to compare the maps provided by different carriers - they use different methods and every network operator wants to look good. That's why all of our data is crowdsourced from our community of app users. Join our 3.5 million contributors by downloading our app on Android or iOS, plus it'll help you find WiFi and get better voice signal.
If you're into Android you might also be interested in the story of how the Android Open Source Project helped get temperature & humidity sensors into the Galaxy S4
Sign up for our newsetter or to download a PDF version of this report.


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Budget conscious businesses often choose to buy preowned technology rather than always buying new, often buying used assets online. However, what precautions are online marketplace sellers taking with personal data when they post used devices for sale, and how likely is it for new owners to find residual data on preowned technology?
In partnership with Blancco Technology Group, the industry standard in data erasure and mobile device diagnostics, 159 used drives were purchased and evaluated to find out if residual data could be found.
In this webinar, we discuss the results of our research study, including:
- How many of our sampled drives retained data from the previous user
- The type of data we discovered on these previously used drives
- The primary data disposal method that had been usedand what was left undone
- The 4 steps you need to take before selling your IT assets
Learn more about the study—and how to prevent your data from being recovered from the IT assets you put up for resale today by listening to the webinar.


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UN Library's Francesco Pisano: 'This body of knowledge is the Silicon Valley of multilateralism'
1.7 million books. Tens of thousands of digital references. All the official UN documents. And the ongoing digitising process of the entire fund. This means making knowledge accessible to all and help to create wisdom. At least for the United Nations Library and Archives in Geneva.
The UN Library is a historical institution. More than a source of international documentation, it plays an essential role in the history of multilateralism. Built long before the birth of the United Nations on private money, it finds its voice in the stronghold of the knowledge it protects.
UN Library and Archives director, Francesco Pisano, describes this body of knowledge as the Silicon Valley of multilateralism, where its history can be fully retraced and its meaning for us as a civilisation defined.
At an age of digitalisation, the library's purpose transcends the sole preservation of knowledge, he says. It can connect people and organisations and address needs to move forward and tackle global issues.
"Digitising documents is an important part of the process today. It is not so much moving from the old paper-based library to the new and modern library, because paper is eternal. There is no conflict between the two, there is continuity. Information about knowledge is everywhere, but it's not accessible for anyone anywhere. And this is what keeps global frameworks from succeeding. Our digitising process aims to change that. To contribute to create wisdom and inspire solutions."
Pisano reflects on the importance of substance versus data in a world where change is necessary to rethink the global framework and face the future, by setting up collaboration across disciplines in the interest of many and not the competition of few. Listen to his conversation on resilience with Geneva Solutions.


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Princess, Cooperative Game$16.98
A Cooperative game about endangered species!
A lot of creatures are disappearing because they are being over-hunted and their natural habitats destroyed. Can we do the needed research to initiate Laws and Conservation Methods to save as many endangered species as we can?
Lots of decision making for each player. The basic game plays quickly, with advanced rules for older players!
Includes: 20 endangered creature cards, 50 research, protection, hunting and habitat tokens, project marker, educational booklet with species information, rules.
Recommended age: 9+
Handmade in Canada


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prop(redirected from Mouth prop)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia.
(in Russian, podpora), a slender pole, 3 to 6 m long, having tines or splits at the upper end and made of hardwood (oak, beech, hornbean, ash). Props are placed under the branches of fruit trees at harvest time to prevent the branches from breaking and bending and to prevent the shedding of fruits during winds. The vertical installment of props and the umbrella-like attachment of branches to props are common.


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Taryrn Brown, Ph.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor
School of Teaching and Learning
_PHONE_ • _EMAIL_
Dr. Brown broadly examines the interpretive, normative, and critical perspectives of education, both inside and outside of schools. With emphasis on the experiences of minoritized individuals and communities, much of her work emerges from the intersections of issues of race, social class, and gender.
Dr. Brown's interdisciplinary work seeks to promote critical questions that challenge the standard assumptions about the purposes of schools in a democratic society; the role that race, class, and gender play in education; and the importance of understanding critical policy analyses in the context of neoliberalism.
As a scholar-practitioner, Dr. Brown's current research and scholarship focuses on Black feminism, narrative analysis, intersectionality, critical race theory, and Black girlhood studies. Her dissertation, entitled "The Emancipatory Act of Utilizing Voice to Challenge the Deficit Paradigm of Teenage Pregnancy: The Narrative Experience of Black Teenage Mothers" explored the lived experiences of Black teenage mothers. This study investigated the impact of deficit discourses on Black teen-mothers' sense of themselves and how they understood their mothering in the context of those social discourses.