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Getting Critical: 4 Alternatives to Criticising Your Child
Proponents of constructive criticism assert that it is important for parents to criticize their children so they can correct behaviour or motivate better performance. However, it is equally important to consider that criticizing a child often has negative implications for his development and sense of self-efficacy. There are better ways to help your child improve and succeed. Here are some alternatives to criticising your child:
1. Criticize the Behaviour or Performance
In one of their experiments, Melissa Kamins and Carol Dweck, researchers at the Columbia University, found that kindergarten children who were personally criticized by their teacher for building a Legos house without windows felt terrible about their capabilities. These children were likely to think that they were not good enough compared to the kids whose outcome (a house without windows) not personhood was criticized. Even if you are disappointed by your child's performance or behaviour, it is best to focus on the correcting the behaviour or performance than simple saying "You cannot do anything right," "You have disappointed me." A better approach would be to say, "You did not perform as good as you did last time or as we expected."
2. Teach Empathy
According to studies by Prof. Joan E. Grusec of the University of Toronto and Maayan Davidov of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, children who learn to be empathic are friendlier, less likely to engage in hurtful behaviour and are more oriented to solving problems effectively. Instead of criticizing your child's selfish behaviour and telling her how "bad" of a child she is, teach her how to consider other people' feelings and how his actions have an impact on other people. For example, if your child likes to throw a fit in public, causing you embarrassment, it is unwise to say to him "You are such a bad, annoying child." Instead, tell him, "It is not good to throw fits unnecessarily, you can hurt others, damage things and make mommy feel stressed out."
3. Solve Problems as a Team
Loving parents are committed to nurturing their children, whether the child is a toddler or a teenager. Solving problems together is one of the best ways to nurture your child and to avoid criticising. When you solve problems with your child, he is likely to feel empowered and believe in his capabilities even when he does not perform well or struggles with certain emotions or behaviours. For example, your 9-year-old son is not performing too well in Math; do you tell him how he will never be good at Math, how he never puts enough effort to study, how all his friends at school are doing well at math? No. Solve the problem together. Find out why your child seems to be underperforming, discuss the issues at hand with him, ask him what he thinks should be done, suggest solutions such as extra tuition that might help your child improve his performance.
4. Let it Go
Criticism can easily get out of hand when you keep focusing on the "bad" the "disappointments" the little things that are not being done. A great alternative to criticizing is to train yourself as a parent to let go of the small things that really do not require critiquing. For example, if your 5 year old breaks his cup, labelling him as "careless" "sloppy" "good for nothing" "always breaking stuff" is not an appropriate response to an act so negligible. As a loving parent, assess carefully when you should say something about your child's performance, behaviour or action. Are you reacting from your own anger and stress or are you truly looking out for the best interest of your child when you say to him "I am disappointed." If it is not a big deal, don't make it one.


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Meet Sonya and her extra-prickly kittens.
Mama cat Sonya adopted four orphaned hedgehog babies when they were rescued after losing their Mama, and cared for them alongside her own kitten. The video was originallyrecorded in August.
The sound you just heard was your heart breaking into millions of tiny pieces. See video of the "hedgekittens" nursing above and some additional photos below. Prepare to dawww...
Altruism in animals
Altruism is a well-documented animal behaviour, which appears most obviously in kin relationships but may also be evident amongst wider social groups, in which an animal sacrifices its own well-being for the benefit of another animal.
Examples of animal altruism
*Dogs often adopt orphaned cats, squirrels, ducks and even tigers.
*Dolphins support sick or injured animals, swimming under them for hours at a time and pushing them to the surface so they can breathe.
*Mongooses support elderly, sick, or injured animals
*Wolves and wild dogs bring meat back to members of the pack not present at the kill. Male baboons threaten predators and cover the rear as the troop retreats.
*Gibbons and chimpanzees with food will, in response to a gesture, share their food with others of the group. Chimpanzees will help humans and conspecifics without any reward in return.
*Vampire bats commonly regurgitate blood to share with unlucky or sick roost mates that have been unable to find a meal, often forming a buddy system.
*Raccoons inform conspecifics about feeding grounds by droppings left on commonly shared latrines. A similar information system has been observed to be used by common ravens.
*In numerous bird species, a breeding pair receives support in raising its young from other "helper" birds, including help with the feeding of its fledglings. Some will even go as far as protecting an unrelated bird's young from predators
*Most mammal carnivores like wolves or dogs have a habit of not harming pack members below certain age, of opposite sex or in surrendering position (in case of some animals, the behavior exists within entire species rather than one pack). (Wikipedia)
VIDEO Baby Hedgehogs Have a Cat Mom
After their mother died, these baby hedgehogs were left alone... but luckily for them, Sonya the cat was willing to save them! Watch as Sonya nurses the wee hedgehogs, while also cuddling with her own young kitten. What a great mom!

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


To burn or not to burn
Two distinct weather patterns frequently vex the Yakima Valley in terms of leaving air pollution lingering, though the problem is more prevalent in the Upper Valley than the Lower Valley.
Unless you frequent the internet, it can be awfully challenging during this time of year to keep up with burn ban declarations in the Lower Valley.
Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority is responsible for declaring burn bans. It does so based on 24-hour a day monitoring of tiny air particulates, as well as weather conditions and forecasts from Pendleton.
Yakima County is a particularly challenging area, according to Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority's Dave Caprile.
"Our weather conditions are such that we frequently have to weather conditions that produce the same effect. A high pressure system pushes pressure down and holds our surface air in this valley, or bowl, that we live in," Caprile explained. "Until (it) weakens or lifts, there is a continued level of pollution and it begins to build a thicker mass down toward the ground."
Stable air mass is the other weather condition that holds pollution in the air. With a stable air mass, Caprile said, "There is no wind to move it around, no ventilation to dilute or move it."
The Yakima Valley has a long history of wood burning, Caprile said, and it's due in part to the fact that wood's readily available, whether it's orchard wood or tamarack wood from the forest.
"The problem is kind of an insidious thing that has grown over time: there's too many of us now," Caprile said.
Caprile noted there is usually more ventilation in the Lower Valley than the Upper Valley.
The biggest problem in the winter are the particulates created by unburned wood. It may sound like those particulates have a mass to them, but they're very small, so small that Caprile said it would take 15 or so wood particulates to create the diameter of a strand of air. The particulates can get down in the air sacs of the lungs, leading to breathing trouble.
When it comes to air pollution in the valley, Caprile said it's a "saw-tooth' effect. People burn wood, weather produces stagnation keeping pollution down and improperly ventilated, creating a burn ban. A burn ban is declared, particulate contribution from wood burning decreases, weather improves, and, Caprile said, "People burn, burn, burn."
Burn bans then are declared off and on throughout the colder months.
"It's all health-based, really," he said. If air quality begins to deteriorate, Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority has five color categories to determine approximate health impacts.
When it's green, all is well in terms of particulates. When it starts to deteriorate, the color code switches to yellow, which means it poses a moderate health risk. When it moves to orange, that means the air is unhealthy for those with existing health conditions. The next color is red, meaning the air is unhealthy. Rarely does Yakima County reach the last two stages: very unhealthy (purple) and hazardous (maroon).
When asked why Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority doesn't just declare burn ban status for a period of time when weather is traditionally stagnant, Caprile said, "It's really not fair to tell people they can't use their $3,000 to $4,000 (wood-burning) device."
In the past couple of years, Caprile said notification through the media has improved, though sometimes toward the end of the colder season readers become disenchanted with the "same old news," so it might be easy to miss a burn ban declaration in this area.
For that very reason, Caprile recommends those who have a computer to frequent Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority's website: _URL_. For those who do not have a computer, Caprile suggests checking the current burn status by taking the time to call _PHONE_, and pressing 1.
Caprile said it's his organization's job to "watch, guard and protect air quality."
Caprile said it's not easy, but Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority is committed to educating people and even dispersing grant funding so Yakima County residents with wood burning as the primary source of heat can replace uncertified fireplace and wood stove inserts.
Since the clean air agency began dispersing the grant funds, roughly 1,000 wood stoves in Yakima County have been switched out to cleaner burning devices.
Caprile said his organization expects to be able to provide rebates and even full-replacement costs next year for those who qualify, and those who are interested need to call now. For more information, call Michelle at Yakima Regional Clean Air Authority, _PHONE_, ext. 100.
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text:
Do Plants Eat Animals?
Do Plants Eat Meat? The Wonderful World of Carnivorous Plants - Biology Books for Kids | Children's Biology Books
by Baby Professor
Did you know that some plants eat special food? Sunlight is not enough for them and they lack the capacity to create their own food. That is why they prey on insects. They have a unique scent that attracts their small prey so they just sit and wait until they can gobble something up! Should you be afraid of these carnivorous plants too?
About the Author:
Baby Professor showcases a collection of subjects that are educational for kids to help them learn how to do something themselves, exactly how something is done or how it came about. Children love to learn through attractive visuals and Baby Prof. is ideal to get your child the head start he or she needs for the future. Our Motto - "Learning is Fun, so let's Make it Fun to Learn".
Age Range: 4 and up
Grade Level: Preschool and up
Paperback: 64 pages
Publisher: Baby Professor (March 15, 2017)
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.2 x 8.5 inches

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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More Than Sharp: The Science of Porcupine Quills
A close-up of a porcupine quill shows the difference in texture between the tip and the base. Credit: PNAS
If youre walking through the woods and you see what looks like a small dog clinging to a high branch, dont investigate. Thats probably a North American porcupine up to 3 feet long weighing 35 pounds, covered in 30,000 sharp spines. And he wont hesitate to stick you if youre acting suspicious.
Most people know to steer clear of these spiny rodents (though some curious dogs learned it the hard way). What you may not know is that there is more to these quills than meets the eye. In a study out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jeffrey Karp of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Womans Hospital and a team of Harvard Medical School researchers have comprehensively described these defensive hairs.
Their quills easily penetrate the skin of a predator but are much harder to get out. And unlike the African porcupine, hedgehog, and echidnawhich have smooth spinesthe North American porcupines quills are tipped with microscopic backward-facing barbs that act like grappling hooks and lodge in the skin of a threat, Karp says. Each quill has up to 800 barbs, all of which are located on the first 4 mm of the quills tip. The quills easily detach from the porcupine, allowing it to escape while the sharp hair remains painfully lodged in the enemy.
We were most surprised to find that the barbs not only increased the force required for removal, but reduced the penetration force," Karp says.
He found that barbed quills require less energy to penetrate deeper into muscle than quills without barbs because the barbs concentrate the stress of surface tension on smaller points instead of the point of the entire quill. Less pressure on lots of little points gets the same result as lots of pressure on one big point.
Its a mathematical concept we already use for cutlery: it takes less work to cut with a serrated blade, which localizes strain at points on the tips of the teeth, than with a straight blade. If youre going to cut a tomato, use a serrated knife," Karp says.
His team also tested the findings beyond porcupines. The scientists created a prototype hypodermic needle with barbs, and found that it took 80 percent less force to penetrate skin than a traditional non-barbed needle. Karp says that the more pressure is required to insert a needle, the less tactile feedback the doctor or nurse gets. With reduced required force, needle placement would be more accurate with less chance for breakage. (PM reported on moving beyond traditional hypodermics earlier this year.)
Medical technology has also been moving away from sutures and staples, which require time and diligence, toward alternatives like mechanically interlocking adhesive patches. Porcupine-quill tech could improve these too a Band-Aid-like patch with tiny barbed points could be applied with minimal force and would seal the wound quickly and securely. Hernia mesh, long a painful treatment for patients, might be more comfortable, since barbed points dont need to penetrate the skin as deeply, Karp says.
So if you ever see a porcupine in the forest, say thank you for inspiring some next-gen medical technology. Just dont get too close.


When it comes to precious metals, gold tends to steal the limelight. Although it is often overlooked, silver happens to be a worthwhile precious metal investment, too. Just like gold, silver offers a measure of protection in the event of economic crises. If you are interested in silver prices or information related to silver investments, there is at least some information you need to know.
Influences on Silver Prices
Like many other precious metals, silver is often in high demand. However, the price of silver often fluctuates. You should always be aware of what factors influence the price of silver, so you know when to invest.
Supply and Demand
As with any product, supply and demand is the biggest influential factor when it comes to the worth of silver. If there is a limited supply but a constant or high demand, the price of silver will rise. Silver supplies may drop if a mining strike occurs. Pay attention to reports of a mining strike, and you will likely see the price of silver increase. The introduction of new silver will also drive prices up.
You will often find silver in various products aside from jewelry. Believe it or not, silver once dominated the photography industry. Silver was often found in photographic film because it provided light-sensitive properties. It is because of those light-sensitive properties that you will also find silver in solar panels.
By the same measure, many newly formed technologies move away from the use of silver. In fact, silver no longer dominates the photography industry thanks to new and improved technologies. Therefore, the price of silver will fluctuate based on whether silver benefits the use of certain products or not.
Trends in Economics
Always pay attention to economic trends. If the economy runs stagnant, people are less likely to spend money. When the economy is in good shape, people will make more purchases.
Although people are not as likely to purchase jewelry when the economy is low, luxury items remain in high demand. Therefore, the price of luxury silver items will hover at higher prices.
Historic Uses
Historically speaking, silver was once one of the most important precious metals because of its medicinal properties. In fact, Alexander the Great would drink water from silver containers because he believed it sanitized and disinfected the water. Parents gave children silver spoons to suck on like lollipops to ward off illnesses, too.
Silver has antibacterial properties, which explains why it was once used in a variety of medications. In fact, silver used to be the most popular way to cure terrible illnesses such as syphilis and tuberculosis. Eventually, the Food and Drug Administration decided to remove silver-based medications from the market, though it was widely used in clinics and hospitals.
Today, silver-based medications are alternative medications rather than widely prescribed medications. Before vaccines excited, colloidal silver was the only reliable existing cure for polio. When the FDA decided to remove silver-based medications from the market, a terrible polio epidemic occurred, thus proving the importance of silver.
Is it Worthwhile?
Despite the history of silver's use and understanding factors that influence the price of silver, you may still wonder if it is a worthwhile investment. Take into consideration that gold, which is among the more popular of all precious metals, is not as widely used as silver. The demand for gold in industrial applications is only between 10 and 15%. Silver, on the other hand, permeates your life daily.
Silver exists in technology, medical equipment, jewelry, and biocides, which is barely the tip of the iceberg. Although new technologies often replace silver, it has done nothing to quell the industrial demand for silver. That is because new applications that use silver spring up nearly every single day.
When weighing the worth of silver, keep in mind that silver used within industrial applications is often destroyed. Therefore, manufacturers cannot smelt the silver back down for use in additional applications. Because of the destruction of silver, the demand for more silver increases.
There is simply no point trying to recover a minute speck of silver found in batteries, cell phones, and even casino chips. Therefore, the only solution is to request additional silver. Investing in silver can offer you the benefit of owning a piece of a precious metal that is often in the highest demand.
Unfortunately, recessions and depressions can decrease even industrial demands for silver. Make sure you watch the local, national, and global economy carefully to determine when you should invest and when you should walk away. Investing in silver is not something you should do on a whim while hoping for the best.
Investment Risks
There is absolutely no investment that comes without risks. Investing in even the most valuable and in-demand product comes with high risks. Silver is no different. Whether you purchase silver sheet metal, silver bullion, or any other form of metal, the investment is all the same, as are the risks. Understanding those risks is of extreme importance if you plan on investing.
Investing in silver is like betting. You are betting that demand will rise and so will the value of your investment, thus making you money. Silver is a volatile investment. You will come across situations where the value of silver suddenly rises, which prompts investors to buy into it. As such, the value of silver will rise even higher, which gives it a sense of sustainability.
However, as more and more people invest, you will suddenly see rapid spikes or drops in value. In the past, marketers limited the amount of silver available for investment because of its volatility. As such, investors saw the value of silver suffer a sharp decline. Because it is so volatile, investing in silver is a risky gamble, but one that is worthwhile if done right.
To further understand the risks, you should always analyze silver investments throughout history. Researching the historical value of silver as it rises and falls will help you understand the risks versus the benefits of investing. Historically speaking, silver prices resulted in annual losses approximately 43% of the time since 1990, which is nearly half.
Buying Silver
If you have decided to purchase silver, you will notice that you have at least a couple of options. You can use the exchange-traded fund (EFT) to use a variety of funds to gain access to different metals, including silver. You can also buy physical forms of silver, such as bullion. Understanding the pros and cons of both forms will help you determine which you should buy.
Many people wrongly assume funding options are not as reliable as owning physical silver that you can see and touch. While it might seem more comforting to reach into a vault and touch the silver you own, there are beneficial reasons to invest in funded silver. For starters, EFT's can better track the continuously fluctuating prices on silver.
Also, it is easier to sell EFT's to interested buyers. You cannot simply hope that a wise investor will purchase a bullion without first testing the legitimacy of it. Silver labs can test and confirm the legitimacy of silver, but that can take time. If you want to trade off your silver quickly while prices are high, your best bet is to invest using EFT's.
That said, there are beneficial reasons to consider investing in bullion, too. When you purchase bullion, you own the silver. It is yours and yours only. When you buy into EFT's, however, you do not own the silver. Instead, you are a shareholder who lacks any title to the metal, which can make some people feel uncomfortable. Physical silver, however, such as coins and bullion, belong to you and no one else.
Determining which form of buying offers you the most based on the pros and cons allows you to get started with silver investing. You cannot invest if you don't know what form you prefer to purchase and the risks and benefits involved with each.
Avoiding Scams
You may come across people trying to scam you. Sometimes you will find people attempting to sell silver coins or bullion online. That is not to say that online buying is not reliable. However, some people may attempt to make money by fooling you. Make sure you work with a reputable professional when buying and selling silver to avoid scams.
When it comes to honest sellers, the biggest threat to the market is the high-pressure sellers who push rare silver of numismatic coin. Although there are plenty of rare silver coins out there for sale, it is too difficult to determine who is telling the truth. Make sure you check the accuracy and legitimacy of all silver you purchase before providing the seller with any money.
Of course, the best way to avoid potential silver buying scams is to stay away from rare coins altogether. Instead, stick with bullion buying or EFT's. Of course, if you choose to buy silver in physical form, you will still need to check the legitimacy of the sale.
With all this knowledge in mind, investing in silver should be easier. Staying informed about silver investments allows you to begin your investment journey safely. If you jump in without any prior knowledge, you could end up putting yourself at significant risk of scams, purchasing mistakes, or phenomenal losses.
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text: choose among a great variety of units. Unlike other... SBG01 measures heat flux in the range of (5 to 200) x 10³ W/m². Equipped with a black absorber, heat flux sensors of this type are designed for measurement in an environment in which heat flux is dominated by radiation. Using an open detector, SBG01 is also sensitive to convective heat flux. This contribution is usually ignored. Measuring heat flux is a powerful tool to gain insights in processes. Hukseflux is the world's market leader in instruments for heat flux measurement. We briefly explain some fundamentals of measuring with heat flux sensors: Heat flux sensors measure energy flux onto or through a surface in [W/m²].


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Newswise — PHILADELPHIA (January 22, 2014) – New research from the Monell Center reveals humans can use the sense of smell to detect dietary fat in food. As food smell almost always is detected before taste, the findings identify one of the first sensory qualities that signals whether a food contains fat. Innovative methods using odor to make low-fat foods more palatable could someday aid public health efforts to reduce dietary fat intake.
"The human sense of smell is far better at guiding us through our everyday lives than we give it credit for," said senior author Johan Lundström, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist at Monell. "That we have the ability to detect and discriminate minute differences in the fat content of our food suggests that this ability must have had considerable evolutionary importance."
As the most calorically dense nutrient, fat has been a desired energy source across much of human evolution. As such, it would have been advantageous to be able to detect sources of fat in food, just as sweet taste is thought to signal a source of carbohydrate energy.
Although scientists know that humans use sensory cues to detect fat, it still remains unclear which sensory systems contribute to this ability. The Monell researchers reasoned that fat detection via smell would have the advantage of identifying food sources from a distance.
While previous research had determined that humans could use the sense of smell to detect high levels of pure fat in the form of fatty acids, it was not known whether it was possible to detect fat in a more realistic setting, such as food.
In the current study, reported in the open access journal PLOS ONE, the researchers asked whether people could detect and differentiate the amount of fat in a commonly consumed food product, milk.
To do this, they asked healthy subjects to smell milk containing an amount of fat that might be encountered in a typical milk product: either 0.125 percent, 1.4 percent or 2.7 percent fat.
The milk samples were presented to blindfolded subjects in three vials. Two of the vials contained milk with the same percent of fat, while the third contained milk with a different fat concentration. The subjects' task was to smell the three vials and identify which of the samples was different.
The same experiment was conducted three times using different sets of subjects. The first used healthy normal-weight people from the Philadelphia area. The second experiment repeated the first study in a different cultural setting, the Wageningen area of the Netherlands. The third study, also conducted in Philadelphia, examined olfactory fat detection both in normal-weight and overweight subjects.
In all three experiments, participants could use the sense of smell to discriminate different levels of fat in the milk. This ability did not differ in the two cultures tested, even though people in the Netherlands on average consume more milk on a daily basis than do Americans. There also was no relation between weight status and the ability to discriminate fat.
"We now need to identify the odor molecules that allow people to detect and differentiate differentiate levels of fat. Fat molecules typically are not airborne, meaning that they are unlikely to be sensed by sniffing food samples," said lead author Sanne Boesveldt, PhD, a sensory neuroscientist. "We will need sophisticated chemical analyses to sniff out the signal."
The paper can be accessed at _URL_ Boesveldt currently is at the Division of Human Nutrition, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Support was provided in part by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
The Monell Chemical Senses Center is an independent nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For 45 years, Monell has advanced scientific understanding of the mechanisms and functions of taste and smell to benefit human health and well-being. Using an interdisciplinary approach, scientists collaborate in the programmatic areas of sensation and perception; neuroscience and molecular biology; environmental and occupational health; nutrition and appetite; health and well-being; development, aging and regeneration; and chemical ecology and communication. For more information about Monell, visit _URL_.


Quantum transport in a three-dimensional Weyl electron system
Yuya Ominato, Mikito Koshino
Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review
89 Citations (Scopus)
Quantum transport in a three-dimensional Weyl (massless Dirac) electron system with long-range Gaussian impurities is studied theoretically using a self-consistent Born approximation (SCBA). We find that the conductivity significantly changes its behavior at a certain critical disorder strength which separates the weak and strong disorder regimes. In the weak disorder regime, the SCBA conductivity mostly agrees with the Boltzmann conductivity, except for the Weyl point (the band touching point) at which the SCBA conductivity exhibits a sharp dip. In the strong disorder regime, the Boltzmann theory fails in all the energy regions and the conductivity becomes larger the disorder potential increases, contrary to the usual metallic behavior. At the Weyl point, the conductivity and the density of states are exponentially small in the weak disorder regime, and they abruptly rise at the critical disorder strength. The qualitative behavior near zero energy is well described by an approximate analytic solution of the SCBA equation. The theory applies to three-dimensional gapless band structures including Weyl semimetals.
Original languageEnglish
Article number054202
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Issue number5
Publication statusPublished - 2014 Feb 6
 - 71.23.-k
 - 72.10.-d
ASJC Scopus subject areas
 - Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
 - Condensed Matter Physics
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How has Plastic Helped to Advance Modern Day Medicine?
Plastic may gain a bad reputation for taking over 450 years to biodegrade, but many people forget about the many positive ways that this relatively new material can aid humankind, especially in our quest for superior medical care.
Modern medicine evolves every day, but also faces new challenges and obstacles on a regular basis; plastic has made life more comfortable, cost effective and hygienic for doctors and patients all over the world.
Infections Are Less Prominent Than Ever
Before the introduction of disposable medical equipment, infections that were frequently transmitted in wards and in surgery were frequently just as deadly as the diseases that sent patients to the hospital in the first place.
In 1847, a Hungarian scholar by the name of Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that childbed fever was a disease created and spread by unclean hands and equipment in hospitals throughout Europe. Nowadays, thanks to proper training and the introduction of plastic equipment, these kinds of infections are for the most part, a thing of the past.
The Introduction Of Plastic In Hospitals
Prior to the introduction of plastic medical equipment, apparatus was typically made from other more expensive materials, meaning it had to be reused because it was too costly to replace. Failure to clean and disinfect the equipment sufficiently between patients meant that this reuse often led to infection.
Some simple but very important plastic equipment found in hospitals today includes:
 - Bed Pans
 - IV Tubes
 - Plastic Cups
 - Disposable Gloves
 - Disposable Gowns
Comfort & Style In Eyewear
Do you remember those larger than life glasses our older generations had to put up with? Well thanks to plastics such as xylonite and cellulose acetate propionate, glasses are lighter and more effective and we are able to make a fashion statement with them thanks to the huge choice and variety that becomes more colourful and trendier each year.
Xylonite, makes it possible to create unique layered glasses frames that can make them disappear from your visual field, making glasses easier to grow accustomed to for first time users, and this material is also very cost effective.
If you are looking for the lightest possible material for your glasses, Cellulose acetate propionate is an excellent option. This nylon-based plastic has literally revolutionised modern eyewear.
A large percentage of modern lenses are made from plastic, making them more durable and less likely to break. For those people who simply refuse to wear glasses regardless of the material, there are always contact lenses, most of which are also made of plastic nowadays.
Plastic Offers Us Safer Options
From a simplistic point of view, plastic is a less hazardous material than metal. Some surgical tools are now made of plastic, and most heart valves are manufactured using a transparent plastic that is easier to insert and observe.
Child safety has improved due to the introduction of tamper proof plastic caps that prevent children from accessing medicines (and chemicals) that are not intended for them.
Plastic also helped to solve the riddle of the MRI machine. An MRI machine works miracles in the field of radiology, however it also acts as a giant magnet that attracts any metal object within range and as such, can become a hazardous weapon.
Nowadays all equipment situated near an MRI machine is fabricated from plastic, as are the tools that are used to install the MRI.
Is Plastic the Future?
Plastic has already revolutionised modern medicine the world over but what next? Is there a new material that will surpass plastic just as plastic did with metal?
Plastics ability to mould and change shape easily means it is in high demand in the prosthetics industry where the quality of the items produced has gone from strength to strength. As a far more cost effective and functional material than those previously used in the manufacture of prosthetics, plastic is of huge importance to growing children, who require an updated prosthetic on a regular basis.
As it stands, plastic still has a lot more to give to medicine as its unique relationship with the 3D printer currently has the world watching. 3D printed replicas of vital human organs can be used to train surgeons in a completely new way. Plastic is here to stay and still has a lot more to offer to the world of medicine...
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6116 in-depth character profiles from comics, games, movies
Speed Demon (Spider-Man enemy) (Marvel Comics)
Speed Demon
Best-known as a Spider-Man foe and a Thunderbolts member, Speed Demon is the main super-speed villain in the Marvel Universe.
 - Real Name: James Sanders.
 - Other Aliases: Whizzer, Harvey James.
 - Marital Status: Single.
 - Known Relatives: None.
 - Group Affiliation: Formerly Squadron Sinister, Sinister Syndicate, Thunderbolts, and Supreme Power.
 - Base Of Operations: New York.
 - Height: 5'11" Weight: 175lbs.
 - Eyes: Brown Hair: Grey
Powers and Abilities
Speed Demon can act at speeds far greater than normal people, due to the effects of a chemical he created under the Grandmaster's guidance.
It changed his physical structure, strengthening his muscles and bones. It also increased the efficiency of his nervous system, including his brain, making his thought processes and reflexes six times faster than those of the average person.
Capable of moving at a speed of 160 mph for around three hours, he can move faster for shorter periods. These heightened speeds allow him to run up vertical surfaces, or even run on the air if he has enough of a run up.
Sanders has a master's degree in chemistry. He is a skilled fighter, especially at using his speed.
Chemist James Sanders was contacted by the Grandmaster, who offered him super-powers in exchange for his services. Agreeing, Sanders created tablets based on information the Grandmaster provided, which granted him superhuman speed.
Given the identity of the Whizzer by the Grandmaster, he was introduced to the rest of the Squadron Sinister. This team was modelled on the Squadron Supreme, a superhero group from an alternate reality. The other members were Hyperion, Nighthawk, and Doctor Spectrum.
The Squadron were pitted against the Avengers, themselves pawns of the Grandmaster's opponent, Kang. Split up, Whizzer was pitted against Goliath (Clint Barton) in London. The battle was interrupted by the Black Knight, who knocked Sanders out, believing he was helping, but the action actually broke the rules of the contest, preventing the Avengers from winning at that point.
While the Avenger's challenges continued, the Squadron were released from the Grandmaster's service, and returned to Earth.
When Hyperion sold the Earth to the alien, Nebulon, the Squadron initiated a plan to melt the polar ice caps and flood the Earth. Nighthawk betrayed them, however, warning the Defenders of the Squadron's intentions.
They were eventually stopped, Doctor Strange casting a spell over them which caused them to forget their powers and identities.
Stolen memories
Believing himself to be a chemist called Harvey James, Sanders got a job at the Hudson Pharmaceutical Company in West Caldwell, New Jersey. This false personality remained in place until the Avengers turned up looking for information about Doctor Spectrum's Power Prism, which had taken control of the Wasp.
As soon as he saw Captain America, Hawkeye and the Scarlet Witch, Sanders remembered who he was, and instantly attacked. Running circles around them, he nearly escaped, until Captain America tagged him with his shield.
Speed Demon (James Sanders) vs. Sea Leopard
It's unclear what happened to him next. If he had been turned over to the authorities, he escaped. Experimenting on the speed formula allowed him to become even faster. He adopted the new identity of Speed Demon, using his powers to carry out thefts from shops and museums.
This type of crime would often bring him into conflict with Spider-Man, on his own or partnered with the Human Torch. Sanders would often be arrested, but never for that long.
Sinister Syndicate
He later joined the Sinister Syndicate, alongside the Beetle (Abner Jenkins), Rhino, Boomerang, and Hydro-Man. Their first job was to kill Silver Sable, which ran into complications when Spider-Man turned up with her, and the Syndicate were beaten.
Speed Demon with his Whizzer costume
The Syndicate, led by Doctor Octopus, helped rebels overthrow the oppressive government of the European country of Belgriun. However, this was part of a plan to make off with the treasury. Silver Sable and Spider-Man turned up to oppose them again, but fell afoul of the public, who saw the Syndicate as heroes.
Spider-Man and Sable managed to foil the theft, resulting in the treasure being dropped over the public. It's uncertain whether the truth of their intentions became known to the public, so Sanders may still be welcome in Belgriun.
Sanders was one of the speedsters invited to race by the Runner, alongside Black Racer, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Makkari, Quicksilver, Super Sabre, and the Whizzer of the Squadron Supreme. While he outlasted the Black Racer, and Super Sabre, Speed Demon fell at around 81,000 km.
The race was won by the latecomer, Buried Alien, far faster than any of them.
Again working with the Sinister Syndicate, Sanders began making moves on Boomerang's girlfriend, Leila Davis, when Boomerang was arrested. Leila turned out to actually be the wife of the late Ringer, who blamed the Beetle for her husband's death, and had only infiltrated the group to gain revenge on him.
Her plans exacerbated rifts in the group, splitting them into two opposing factions, and they soon disbanded.
Working for the Man
Recruited by Justin Hammer, Speed Demon was part of a group of super-villains Hammer lent to his current co-conspirator, the Sphinx, and they battled the New Mutants and Spider-Man, who were trying to foil the Sphinx's plans.
Speed Demon (James Sanders) vs. Spider-Man
When they realized how dangerous the Sphinx's plans were, directly threatening their lives, Speed Demon was one of the villains who teamed with the heroes to oppose him, rather than fleeing. They stopped the Sphinx, and Sanders left.
Again employed by Justin Hammer, Speed Demon was teamed with Whiplash, Hydro-Man, and the Blizzard (Donnie Gill), as protection from the 'new' Beetle, who'd been raiding Hammer's facilities.
They fought the Beetle when he attacked, and the Thunderbolts, when they arrived tracking him. They were eventually overwhelmed and were forced to flee, leaving the Thunderbolts to drive the Beetle away.
Deciding to start using throwing knives, Speed Demon took part in the Bloodsport tournament in Madripoor. In the first round he was pitted against Patch (Wolverine), within a giant cylinder. He was doing well until Patch used his throwing knives against him, leaving him bleeding from a bad neck wound.
Patch refused the audience's calls to kill him. Surviving, Sanders decided against continuing to use weapons.
Hired by Baron von Strucker, head of Hydra, he was tasked with infiltrating the Thunderbolts, currently led by Mach-IV (Abner Jenkins), to keep an eye on them. Coming to the team's aid against the Wrecking Crew, he was accepted into the team, although not without suspicion.
Justice, like lightning
Eventually coming into conflict with Hydra when their plans threatened Manhattan, Speed Demon betrayed Strucker, siding with the Thunderbolts. Reaching speeds beyond what he normally could, Sanders managed to reach all the bombs Strucker had set around the city, getting the final one miles away from the city within seconds.
Speed Demon (James Sanders) dodging Spider-Man's blows
He spent a lot of time trying, unsuccessfully, to hit on team mate Joystick. Fellow new Thunderbolt, Blizzard (Donnie Gill), uncertain at his new role, seemed to latch on to Sanders, looking up to him as a kind of older brother figure. When he learned that Sanders was considering pulling a job with the Shocker, Gill tried talking him out of it.
Sanders pulled the job, using his old Whizzer suit, not knowing Blizzard had planted a tracker on him. Blizzard tried to stop him during the heist, but Sanders beat him, leaving him tied to the Throgs Neck bridge, half-naked, with a note thanking him for trying.
Following the job, Sanders informed the police of the Shocker's location. Snatching his weapons and the loot the moment they arrived. The loot he then gave to Jenkins to support the Thunderbolts, since their funding, which had originally come from Strucker, was running low.
He continued stealing money to support the group, including from the company of old team mate, Nighthawk (Kyle Richmond). Nighthawk soon found him, confronting him with his crimes in front of the other Thunderbolts.
Before the matter could be settled, they were interrupted by new versions of Hyperion and Dr. Spectrum (Alice Nugent), who abducted both Speed Demon and Nighthawk.
They were told of the new Squadron's plans (although Nugent wanted them to call themselves Supreme Power) to solve the worlds problems. It would first require them to take over the world. Learning that their plan to take over was more to make the world better than to feather their own nests, Sanders decided it sounded too much like work.
Speed Demon and Nighthawk tried to play along, but their subterfuge was quickly seen through. The Thunderbolts arrived just as battle broke out, and Hyperion and


Compiled XAML = BAML not IL
May 25, 2007
Yesterday I lectured about XAML and the following question was asked: Why XAML is compiled into BAML and not directly into IL for better performance?
Before giving the correct answer, I want to explain what BAML is.
There are actually two ways for handling a XAML file: Loose or Compiled.
 - Loose XAML file should be parsed at runtime, and can be deployed as a simple XML file, locally, remotely or embedded into the assembly.
 - Compiled is a XAML file marked as "Page" in Visual Studio ( in MSBuild), deployed as a BAML (Binary Application Markup Language) file and embedded as an assembly resource.
A loose XAML file can't include the x:Class XAML keyword, also it can't embed a source code, nor it can emit code by all means. It is possible to load a loose XAML file by calling XamlReader.Load() method, casting the return value into the root element. The loose XAML version provides a dynamic way to load and change the view, but provides poor performance due to the fact that the XML file is parsed at runtime.
A compiled XAML file (BAML) can emit code, by using x:Class, or by registering events for example. It is possible to load an element from inside the BAML by calling the Application.LoadComponent(), casting the return value into the root element. The compiled XAML version provides better performance since it is pre-tokenized binary version of the XAML file, hence it is smaller and can be loaded faster, but it is not dynamic.
Once upon a time, there was CAML. CAML was the exact IL version of the compiled XAML file. Unfortunately, the WPF team has decided to eliminate it, and keep the BAML version for the following reasons:
1. BAML is compact hence it can be downloaded faster (good for XBAP applications)
2. BAML is less security threat than code execution (good for XBAP applications)
3. BAML can be localized after compilation
In the bottom line, BAML is a little slower than IL but has more advantages than CAML.
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 1. JigneshMay 5, 2010 ב 18:01
 Good one…..Really helpful…..
 2. Claude GlauserFebruary 24, 2011 ב 22:10
 Thanks a lot for good your explanation! It is much clearer now. One question left: Why is BAML less security thread?
 3. Tomer ShamamFebruary 24, 2011 ב 22:54
 Hi Claude,
 It is said that BAML is safer than IL, since it can't contain malicious code, it is only a binary stream of WPF objects, where IL can be anything.
 BAML is considered safer when dealing with XBAP applications.
 4. LakshmiMarch 2, 2011 ב 18:33
 Your explanation saved me alot instead of wasting one more day to load loose xaml.
 5. DavidFebruary 8, 2012 ב 18:01
 Great explanation
 6. AlexanderAugust 21, 2013 ב 21:03
 Good explanation, thx.


text:
Attitudes to Open Source Software in Bergen Kommune
MetadataShow full item record
This work describes key elements of Open Source Software, computer history and the attitudes found in the municipal of Bergen to Open Source Software. It tries to describe the use of the software, which attitudes that can be found and what creates them. It then concludes the research and takes a look on further possible research.


QC that 'the circumstances in which… [good faith] can be implied into commercial agreements is an incrementally developing area of law'. Although there is no general doctrine of good faith in English contract law it can still affect commercial contracts in three ways:
 - Express duty.The parties can expressly agree that they will act in good faith. The question is whether the words chosen actually impose this duty and what it means in practice.
 - There is a well-recognised duty of rationality under which a party must exercise a contractual discretion in good faith and not arbitrarily or capriciously. This is often referred to as the "Braganza duty".
 - Implied duty.The courts might imply a general duty of good faith in a contract, or use the concept of good faith to imply other fact-specific duties. However, these duties are only likely to arise under a limited class of "relational" contracts.
Below is a more detailed look at these three avenues by which good faith is introduced into English law contracts.
Express obligations to act in good faith
Express duties of good faith, i.e. a clause stating that the parties should act in good faith, act with the utmost good faith, act in absolute faith, resolve disputes by friendly discussions, may achieve the following:
 - Prevent action that frustrates the purpose of the agreement.
 - Require the disclosure of material facts to the other party.
 - Prohibit knowingly lulling the other party into a false belief.
 - Prohibit asking for information under a pretence.
 - Prohibit knowingly providing false information on which the other party will rely.
 - Prohibit negotiating behind the other party's back.
 - Prohibit knowingly sustaining a groundless dispute.
The duty of rationality (the Braganza duty)
Another way to introduce good faith is through the principle known as the 'duty of rationality'. This is an implied obligation in English contract law, in the absence of clear language to the contrary, to exercise a contractual discretion in good faith and not arbitrarily or capriciously (as stated in the case British Telecommunications plc v Telefónica O2 UK Ltd [2014] UKSC 42). This is often referred to as the "Braganza duty" after the leading case, Braganza v BP Shipping Ltd [2015] UKSC 17.
The duty of rationality is limited in scope. It is only likely to arise when one party, acting as decision-maker, makes a subjective decision on a matter that affects both parties giving rise to a potential conflict of interest between the parties. Any potential conflict of interest will be heightened where there is a significant imbalance of power between the parties. To simplify, the duty exists to stop the more powerful party to a contract from abusing that power.
The duty has been applied in a broad range of situations. Below are some examples:
 - Unilaterally setting or varying the charges or interest rate in a contract.
 - Valuing a portfolio of securities after the default of a counterparty.
 - Deciding whether to award an option to a service provider.
 - Deciding whether to award discretionary bonuses to employees.
 - Placing an employee on gardening leave.
 - Refusing to allow a tenant to keep a dog.
 - Deciding to carry out a valuation of premises.
 - Assessing and reclaiming overpayments.
 - Avoiding an insurance policy.
Implied obligations requiring good faith
It is well recognised that broad concepts of fair dealing may be reflected in the court's response to questions of construction and implication of terms: "A thread runs through our contract law that effect must be given to the reasonable expectations of honest men" (Lord Steyn, LQR 1997, 133 (Jul)). Almost all contracts would reasonably be understood as requiring honesty in their performance, reflecting the common assumption by the parties to this effect. For example, one of the principles of contract law is that no person may benefit from his or her own wrongdoing, which encourages honest performance. The court may also imply terms in fact that:
 - The parties will co-operate in the performance of a contract.
 - A party cannot insist on the performance of an obligation it has prevented the other from performing.
Although these obligations exist it would be incorrect to imply that they constitute the concept of good faith as defined in courts around the world. The concept of good faith should not be seen as a "general organising principle". To do so would risk undermining the express terms agreed between the parties in that, in English Law, the terms of a contract are the most important thing to assess before any subjective principles such as good faith (as stated in the case MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA v Cottonex Anstalt [2016] EWCA Civ 789.) However, where the contract is "relational", it may be possible to use the concept of good faith as an aid when interpreting a contract. This concept was first advocated by the High Court in Yam Seng. Some recent decisions support the concept of a relational contract and give a sense of 'relational' is defined:
 - The Court of Appeal commented, obiter, that a 25-year PFI contract could be classified as a relational contract. Given the "massive length" of the contract, the parties should not latch onto "infelicities and oddities" to disrupt the project and maximise their own gain. (Amey Birmingham v Birmingham City Council [2018] EWCA Civ 264.) Similarly, the High Court decided that a different 25-year PFI contract was a "paradigm example of a relational contract in which the law implies a duty of good faith(Essex County Council v UBB Waste (Essex) Ltd [2020] EWHC 1581 (TCC)).
 - In the High Court, Leggatt LJ decided that a long-term joint venture to develop hotels and an associated travel business was a relational contract subject to an implied duty of good faith (Al Nehayan v Kent).
Length can be seen as the main factor in recent statements when considering whether or not a contract is 'relational'. As stated in the 2019 case Bates v Post Office, broadly speaking a relational contract exists when there is:
 - A long-term contract or a contract the parties intend to be long term, even if it lacks a fixed term and allows termination by notice.
 - The parties intend their roles to be performed with integrity and with fidelity to their bargain.
 - The parties will be committed to collaborating with one another.
 - The spirits and objectives of the venture cannot be expressed exhaustively in a written contract.
 - The parties each repose trust and confidence in one another.
 - The contract involves a high degree of communication, co-operation and predictable performance based on mutual trust and confidence, and expectations of loyalty.
 - One or both parties have made a significant investment.
 - The relationship is exclusive.
However, the law remains in flux and the circumstances in which a contract will be considered "relational" are limited.
Understanding the way the concept of good faith is constituted and used in the jurisdiction under which a contract is governed is the first step when considering to rely upon it. As has been mentioned, its subjective nature causes a wide variety of interpretations and not always the clearest picture of how it is used in practice. Taking the UK as our prime example (and specialism), the English courts have an austere, some would say draconian, approach to interpreting good faith into contracts because the written terms of a contract are seen as being precedent and therefore able to overrule any such principles. Therefore the surest way to make sure the obligation exists in English law (or does not) is by considering the inclusion (or non-inclusion) of a good faith clause.
Relying on the duty of rationality or the concept of a 'relational' contract, i.e. not an express clause, is ill-advised. In a recent case, TAQA v RockRose [2020], the court decided that just because a contract could be defined as a 'relational contract', it would not automatically lead to the conclusion that the parties owe each other a good faith obligation. It would depend on the terms of the particular contract. This is further indication that the UK courts are unlikely to imply a duty of good faith and even within the context of Covid-19 it is doubtful that its scope will increase.
If you have any questions about good faith clauses or about contract law more generally please contact Neil Williamson.
boilerplate clauses
Boilerplate clauses - what are they?
Boilerplate clauses are repeated in all kinds of contracts. They are not the commercial terms that vary from one transaction to another. They regulate the operation of the contract: its duration, interpretation, transferability and enforceability.
What are boilerplate clauses?
Boilerplate clauses are often standard, and most are not typically negotiated. But they are important. Many contract disputes depend on the drafting of boilerplate clauses such as termination, force majeure, and entire agreement.
Some heavily negotiated commercial terms routinely appear in so many contracts that they may also be classed with boilerplate. Examples are indemnities and limit of liability clauses.
Example: how boilerplate clauses may affect a dispute
Here's an example from the case FoodCo UK LLP v Henry Boot Developments Ltd [2010] EWHC 358 (Ch). An entire agreement clause saved a developer from a series of claims for misrepresentation, brought by businesses that had leased units in the development. The clause agreed that no lessee had relied on any representation beyond those recorded in the contract. The effect was that one businessman, when confronted with the clause in the contract he


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Creator: H. Beam Piper
H. Beam Piper was an American SF writer, best known for the series Paratime (which is about exploiting The Multiverse for fun and profit); the Terrohuman Future History, or TFH, which is about the human race spreading throughout the stars, and the cultural rising and falling that happens as a result; and Little Fuzzy, an arc within the TFH series about the discovery of intelligent life on a settled planet. He committed suicide in 1964 because of financial problems. A check was literally in the mail.
Tropes found in his works include:
 - Alternate Universe (A bare minimum of Once per Episode in Paratime.)
 - His first published story, "Time and Time Again" (1947), launched an alternate universe when the dying main character's consciousness was flung thirty years back in time to his then-thirteen-year-old body — and decided to change history to prevent the World War Three in which he'd been killed. His plans involved having his father, Blake Hartley, become President in 1960; two later stories, set in '65 and '68, mention President Hartley, so the plan was successful to that extent at least....
 - Another story, a sort of proto-Paratime, had a mysteriously vanished diplomat from our Earth stumble into a parallel universe where the American and French Revolutions failed.
 - Although the one about the diplomat isn't explicitly labelled a Paratime story, the first specifically Paratime story makes an apparent reference to the incident as having been accidentally caused by a Paratime policeman. At least the dates and a one-sentence description of the events match up.
 - Brown Note: The aliens in "Naudsonce" experience sound as physical sensations. The Terran expedition finds it necessary to bury their water pump because it gets the aliens blissed out to the point of neglecting their farms; their linguist is handicapped because her voice causes the aliens extreme discomfort.
 - Continuity Nod (Carlos von Schlichten and Paula Quinton have a romance in Uller Uprising; the short story "Oomphel in the Sky" has a reference to a Paula von Schlichten Fellowship, which is in sociography, Paula Quinton's field.)
 - The short story "Naudsonce" named a exploratory starship Hubert Penrose after an important character in "Omnilingual."
 - Crusading Widower: Lucas Trask in Space Viking. He slides right into What the Hell, Hero? by nuking cities and looting them to pay for all that crusading. Bonus points? He delivers the "what the hell" speech to himself.
 - Death from Above (Dire Dawn in Uller Uprising)
 - Death World (Fenris in Four-Day Planet comes very close, if not outright qualifying)
 - Due to the Dead (Are the Little Fuzzies intelligent? Well, they bury their dead.)
 - Earth That Used to Be Better (In ''Space Viking", the main character worries about his home planet's civilization declining, and a historian agrees: "That's what happened to the Terran Federation, by the way. The good men all left to colonize, and the stuffed shirts and yes-men and herd-followers and safety-firsters stayed on Terra and tried to govern the Galaxy.")
 - Eternal English (Averted. Most of the TFH uses a kind of linguistic potpourri that's basically every modern language run through a blender at once.)
 - Fantastic Slurs (Ullerans are known as "geeks". Partially through onomatopoeia from some local languages, partially because some Ulleran cultures kill small, iguana-like food animals by biting off their heads.)
 - The Khooghra of Yggdrasil are officially sapient, but so stupid that calling a Terran a "son of a Khooghra" once led to a shooting. The man so described knew he was being insulted.
 - The Federation: The Terran Federation during the early part of the TFH
 - Hideous Hangover Cure (Not actually hideous or a hangover cure; the "alcodote-vitimine pill" won't let you get drunk at all.)
 - Homage : Traveller revises the Sword Worlds of Space Viking to suit the Traveller universe.
 - Horse of a Different Color (Freyan oukry, which are used to make Westerns. Most people in the TFH seem to think horses are extinct; a minor news story in Four Day Planet mentions a movie shot using real horses.)
 - Human Aliens (the Freyans, spelled out in the novella "When In the Course..." They're human enough to interbreed with Terrans, despite the Terran doctor insisting it's impossible. Piper apparently had some explanation in mind, most likely some variant of Transplanted Humans, but it was never revealed.) The story was Retconned out of Future History, and substantially rewritten to become Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen in the Paratime milieu.
 - Although Paula Quinton from Uller Uprising states that she's part Freyan, so the concept wasn't completely eliminated.
 - Also Martians, in the TFH: they died out 50 millennia ago, but statues, paintings, and mummified corpses in "Omnilingual" are specifically stated to look fully human. Considering the short story "Genesis" and the Paratime series both claimed Earth humans are descended from Martian colonists, Piper may very well have had this origin in mind for the TFH too.
 - Humans Are White : Averted. While explicit physical descriptions of characters are rare, the prevalence of multiethnic names indicates that most of them are some shade of brown.
 - Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better (Except in Paratime)
 - Lie Detector - (TFH law is based around the "veridicator", a 100% accurate lie-detector.)
 - Like a Fish Takes to Water: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. He quickly goes from State Trooper to Great King.
 - Lucas Trask takes to being a Space Viking like said fish.
 - Master Computer (both played straight and subverted)
 - Multiethnic Name: Particularly common in Uller Uprising, where just about every major character's given name and surname are of distinctly divergent ethnic origin. Justified by mass migration from the nuked northern hemisphere to South America and Africa following the Fourth World War.
 - Mundane Utility (we're going mining on Flourine-Tainted Niflheim, the Planetary Hell...volcano mining with atomic warheads.)
 - Narrative Profanity Filter: "I'll fix the expurgated unprintability!"
 - Nuke 'em (ship-to-ship combat in Space Viking, the climax of Uller Uprising.)
 - Our Souls Are Different - The Last Enemy involved a world where reincarnation was a proven scientific fact, and the resulting cultural changes. Most important: death was considered a temporary inconvenience at worst, leading to suicide parties being a socially accepted practice and frequent duels to the death taking place.
 - Past Life Memories: The retrieval of these by means of mediumschanneling the souls of the recently deceased, proving one theory of reincarnation true in The Last Enemy. This leads to social chaos as people sue to reclaim property they had in former lives.
 - The Plan ("Ministry of Disturbance")
 - Reincarnation: Focus of the plot in The Last Enemy, with an exploration of the social effects that result in its being proven to exist, along with two political factions fighting over their rival theories about how it works.
 - Silicon-Based Life - Life on Uller, including four-armed humanoid reptiles and creatures like hexapodal pine cones.
 - Space Pirates (or, more accurately, Space Vikings. They don't board and rob ships, they nuke cities from orbit and loot any cities that chose to surrender.)
 - Stuff Blowing Up: Ranging from exploding bullets to fusion fireball bombs that destroy everything within a thousand miles with a miniature sun.
 - Technology Marches On: The TFH stories include videophones, antigravity, faster-than-light travel...and... cameras that use film which must be developed before viewing and huge computers that fill whole rooms and are programmed via plugboards.
 - Tomato Surprise: "The Return".
 - The Masquerade: One of the primary tropes of the Paratime stories: you can go visit other universes, but you're not supposed to let the locals catch on that you're from another universe... It might cut into the 'profit' end.
 - What the Hell, Hero?: Lucas Trask gives himself one of these moments in Space Viking.
 - Trask also gets one from a comrade after gunning down a local who was grieving for a dead spouse. His response was that he was putting the man out of his misery, and included the words: "How many more happinesses do you think we've smashed here today? And we don't even have Dunnan's excuse of madness."
 - He also says that he wished that Dunnan had done that for him, "so that none of this would have happened." (see Crusading Widower above.)
 - Writer on Board: Piper believed in reincarnation and wrote a Paratime story about a world where it was proven to the hilt. Even with this, it was still a pretty good story.
 - Perhaps


What Is the Jensen's Measure?
The Jensen's measure, or Jensen's alpha, is a risk-adjusted performance measure that represents the average return on a portfolio or investment, above or below that predicted by the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), given the portfolio's or investment's beta and the average market return. This metric is also commonly referred to as simply alpha.
Key Takeaways
 - The Jensen's measure is the difference in how much a person returns vs. the overall market.
 - Jensen's measure is commonly referred to as alpha. When a manager outperforms the market concurrent to risk, they have "delivered alpha" to their clients.
 - The measure accounts for the risk-free rate of return for the time period.
Understanding Jensen's Measure
To accurately analyze the performance of an investment manager, an investor must look not only at the overall return of a portfolio but also at the risk of that portfolio to see if the investment's return compensates for the risk it takes. For example, if two mutual funds both have a 12% return, a rational investor should prefer the less risky fund. Jensen's measure is one of the ways to determine if a portfolio is earning the proper return for its level of risk.
If the value is positive, then the portfolio is earning excess returns. In other words, a positive value for Jensen's alpha means a fund manager has "beat the market" with their stock-picking skills.
Real World Example of Jensen's Measure
Assuming the CAPM is correct, Jensen's alpha is calculated using the following four variables:
Using these variables, the formula for Jensen's alpha is:
Alpha = R(i) - (R(f) + B x (R(m) - R(f)))
R(i) = the realized return of the portfolio or investment
R(m) = the realized return of the appropriate market index
R(f) = the risk-free rate of return for the time period
B = the beta of the portfolio of investment with respect to the chosen market index
For example, assume a mutual fund realized a return of 15% last year. The appropriate market index for this fund returned 12%. The beta of the fund versus that same index is 1.2, and the risk-free rate is 3%. The fund's alpha is calculated as:
Alpha = 15% - (3% + 1.2 x (12% - 3%)) = 15% - 13.8% = 1.2%.
Given a beta of 1.2, the mutual fund is expected to be riskier than the index, and thus earn more. A positive alpha in this example shows that the mutual fund manager earned more than enough return to be compensated for the risk they took over the course of the year. If the mutual fund only returned 13%, the calculated alpha would be -0.8%. With a negative alpha, the mutual fund manager would not have earned enough return given the amount of risk they were taking.
Special Consideration: EMH
Critics of Jensen's measure generally believe in the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), invented by Eugene Fama, and argue that any portfolio manager's excess returns derive from luck or random chance rather than skill. Because the market has already priced in all available information, it is said to be "efficient" and accurately priced, the theory says, precluding any active manager from bringing anything new to the table. Further supporting the theory is the fact that many active managers fail to beat the market any more than those that invest their clients' money in passive index funds.


Bacteria Change Behavior to Tackle Tiny Obstacle Course
May 21, 2019
It's not exactly the set of TV's "American Ninja Warrior," but a tiny obstacle course for bacteria has shown researchers how E. coli changes its behavior to rapidly clear obstructions to food. Their work holds implications for not only biology and medicine, but also robotic search-and-rescue tactics.
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the well-known "swim and tumble" behavior that bacteria use to move toward food or away from poisons changes when bacteria encounter obstacles.
"In the real world, they always encounter lots of obstacles," said Ziv Bar-Joseph, a professor in CMU's Computational Biology and Machine Learning departments. E. coli, for instance, inhabits the complicated terrain of the gastrointestinal tract. Yet previous studies of chemotaxis -- the way bacteria move toward a higher concentration of food or away from concentrations of poisons -- generally have been done in unobstructed chambers.
Existing models of chemotaxis predict that obstacles will slow the progress of bacteria. So the researchers designed microfluidic chambers -- just 10 micrometers high, one millimeter wide and one millimeter long -- and placed evenly distributed square and round obstacles in them. When they tested E. coli inside these tiny obstacle courses, they were surprised at the speed at which the bacteria found a food source.
"Almost regardless of the obstacles, they got to the food almost as quickly as they did without obstacles," said Sabrina Rashid, a CMU PhD student in computational biology and the lead author on the study. "The obstacles were not affecting the time they needed to reach food, as the previous models predicted."
Bacteria are known to communicate with each other by secreting chemicals, and this sort of communication no doubt informs bacteria as they try to get around an obstacle, she said. But a closer look at the bacteria also showed a change in behavior.
Normally, bacteria swim a bit, then perform a circular dance, called tumbling, to reorient themselves regarding food concentrations. The tumbling slows progress toward food, but importantly enables bacteria to make course corrections.
The researchers suspected that a key reason for the improvement in speed when facing obstacles is the bacteria's ability to tumble less and swim more until they are in the clear. So they designed additional experiments that tracked individual bacteria cells and confirmed these predictions.
Given the importance of cell movement in biology, the new findings could have implications for how malignant cells spread through the body or how infections might be treated, Bar-Joseph said.
Based on these findings the researchers have developed their own chemotaxis model to account for this new behavior and better predict the performance of bacteria. Applying the model to simulations of teams, or swarms, of robots performing searches for trapped victims in emergencies has shown that this approach can reduce their search time as well.
"Any type of insight we can get from biology to improve computation is important to us," Bar-Joseph added.
In addition to Bar-Joseph and Rashid, the research team at CMU included Shashank Singh, a PhD student in machine learning and statistics. At Pitt, Hanna Salman, associate professor of physics and astronomy, and Zoltan Oltvai, associate professor of pathology, were joined by Zicheng Long, a post-doctoral researcher in Salman's lab, and Maryam Kohram and Harsh Vashistha, both Ph.D. students in physics. Saket Navlakha, an associate professor at the Salk Institute, completes the team.
The National Science Foundation supported this research.
Source: Carnegie Mellon University


Technical Service Bulletins
Hyundai speed sensor diagnosis
Order Reprints
Hyundai speed sensor diagnosis
The 2007 and later Elantra uses two individual sensors to detect rotational speed of the transaxle's input and output shafts. The part descriptions as "input" and "output" are based upon their use in previous Hyundai models. However, the sensor applications are reversed for the 2007 and later Elantra. NOTE: The two sensors are not interchangeable.
P/N DESCRIPTION IN CATALOG FUNCTION IN 2007-LATER ELANTRA
42621-39200 Output speed sensor Input speed sensor
42620-39200 Input speed sensor Output speed sensor
When diagnosing DTCs for either of these sensors for 2007 and later Elantras, the part numbers listed here should be referenced. Disregard the part description shown in the parts catalog.
 1. Attach a GDS and select vehicle, "A/T," "Current Data" and "Input speed sensor" and "Output speed sensor." If the sensors show continuous/changing output, the wiring has no open/shorts during the current test condition. Go to Step 2.
 2. Check the wiring harness visually for an open circuit or short circuit to ground.
 3. Disconnect the connectors at the input and output speed sensor and PCM. Check for bent pins or pins not fully inserted into the connector. Check the pin tension using the J-35616-C pin tension tester. If a harness open/short is found, repair or replace the ECM control harness between the PCM and transaxle. If a harness open/short is not found, go to Step 4 or 5.
 4. For the following DTCs, replace P/N 42621-39200:
- P0715 (input speed sensor circuit)
- P0716 (input speed sensor range/performance)
- P0717 (input speed sensor no signal)
 1. For the following DTCs, replace P/N 42620-39200:
- P0720 (output speed sensor circuit)
- P0722 (output speed sensor no signal)
 1. Attach a GDS and clear the codes. Drive the vehicle for two key-on to key-off cycles. If the DTCs do not set again, return the vehicle to the customer. If the DTC(s) set again, substitute a known-good PCM from another 2007-later Elantra and test drive for two key-on to key-off cycles. If the condition is corrected, replace the PCM. If not, go to Step 7.
 2. If Steps 1-6 do not correct the condition, troubleshoot the harness for an open/short circuit. Repair or replace the ECM wiring harness between the PCM and the transaxle as necessary.
Related Articles
Hyundai Elantra speed sensor diagnosis
Hyundai Rear ABS Sensor
Hyundai 8-Speed ATF Procedure
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Andy Clark of element14 has designed and built a simple robot that can warn him before posting an unkind comment to an online forum.
To accomplish this, Clark connected a USB keyboard to an FTDI host module. This passes serial data to an Arduino MKR Zero, which performs a sentiment analysis. The Arduino then simultaneously passes the unaltered keyboard input to a host computer (by itself acting as a USB keyboard), and controls a servo (based on the sentiment analysis) that causes the robot to either smile or frown.
The robot itself is a wood cut-out of a face with large googly eyes. Hidden behind are 3D printed gears turned by the servo that cause the "mouth" to change appearance. If you see a frown, you may want to reconsider what you have just written before clicking "submit."
The sentiment analysis algorithm was developed in a Google Colab notebook. A tiny (less than 300 parameter) neural network was developed and trained. The notebook exported C language code representing the trained model that was then transferred to the Arduino IDE.
Depending on your perspective, the final result is either a helpful robot friend keeping you from future regrets, or a nosy nanny watching and criticizing your every move. Either way, it is a fun and fairly easy build for anyone looking for a weekend project. Get all the details in the following video from element14.


Baylor > Multicultural Affairs > Multicultural Top 10
Multicultural Top 10
 1. To enhance academic success through positive involvement.
 2. To make a difference in your campus community.
 3. To cultivate new friendships.
 4. To prepare for a challenging career.
 5. To enhance leadership and communication skills.
 6. To share your culture and experience.
 7. To challenge prejudices and stereotypes while striving to eliminate myths through education and support for proactive policies.
 8. To become a goal-setter by establishing worthy goals and pursuing them passionately and professionally.
 9. To emerge as positive role models.
 10. To leave a legacy that will inspire other students to excel.


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An HIV-positive dental hygienist who was fired because of his HIV status brought a claim against his employer under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The employer raised the ADA's direct threat exception, arguing that an HIV-positive hygienist poses a significant risk of HIV transmission to patients. Relying in part on the CDC's 1991 recommendations related to the practice of HIV-positive health care workers, the court found for the employer, concluding that the hygienist performed "exposure prone" procedures and was thus a direct threat to his patients. Despite what was known at the time about the relative risk of HIV transmission, and the protective effect of universal precautions, the court essentially determined that any risk of HIV transmission, no matter how low and regardless of whether it had occurred before, is a significant risk, and consequently that HIV-positive hygienists invariably pose a threat to patients, without regard for the hygienist's individual skills, health, or work history.
The Center for HIV Law and Policy challenges barriers to the rights and health of people affected by HIV through legal advocacy, high-impact policy initiatives, and creation of cross-issue partnerships, networks, and resources. We support movement building that amplifies the power of individuals and communities to mobilize for change that is rooted in racial, gender, and economic justice.


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Life Science: Bottle Biology
Bottle Basics: Stringing Bottles
Bottle columns do not have to be strung and hung up but there are several advantages to doing so. By stringing bottles, you can:
- access different segments of your system more easily;
- stabilize your system and hold joints together better;
- transport your system more easily; and
- increase the chances that kids and/or pets will not knock your system over.
- Use a soldering iron (a hole punch works too, but holes are more
prone to ripping out) to make holes on each side of the bottle above
and below each joint.
- String nylon craft cord (string works too but is prone to decaying if it stays wet a long time) up one side and down the other, alternating between from outside in and from inside out.
|prev: bottle building blocks|


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You can come at the problem of describing a noisy scene in various ways. Using a broad brush, you can apply words like noisy, cacophonous, and so on (see below). Using a finer brush, you can particularize the noise, describing it as clangorous or sonorous or whatever (see further below), perhaps even going as far as inventing a noise-word to describe an actual instance of a sound, such as a huge cork coming out of an empty barrel with a SHBUNNKKK!
Another thing you can do is devote word-power to describing the effect(s) of a noise, rather than concentrating on describing the actual noise (e.g., a car stereo with chest-thumping hip-hop). Describing the effect of a noise puts you a little further down the road of showing rather than telling.
But you can also bend imagery to your purpose (something I'll try to show in tomorrow's post) and try to reconstruct sounds using non-sound words. This takes a bit of ingenuity, but it can be well worth the headache.
Let's take a quick look at the vocabulary of noise (in English).
English words that can be used to indicate noise include babel, ballyhoo, bedlam, clamor, commotion, din, discord, fracas, hubbub, hullabalou, outcry, pandemonium, racket, ruckus, tumult, turmoil, uproar, vociferation.
The word "noise" is rather generic (and thus vague) because it can refer to so many kinds of sounds. Sometimes you want a word that can put more specificity on the noise. Consider the following words:
- obstreperous—unruly noisiness (usually implies difficult to control).
- cacophonous—harsh sounding, grating.
- clamorous—marked by confused din or outcry.
- clangorous—noise characterized by clanging.
- plangent—loud, resounding, and often melancholy.
- sonorous—a sound that's full, deep, rich.
- stentorious or stentorian—loud (usually used in reference to a person's voice, in honor of the herald, Stentor, in Homer's Iliad).
- strident—loud, harsh, grating.
- stridulous—implies a shrill creaking sound, as of floorboards being being torn up, a creaking door, or possibly the death-gasp of some person or animal. Many insects have special adaptations that allow them to emit stridulatory sounds (e.g., crickets, grasshoppers).
Words Indirectly Suggestive of Noise
Words that can be used to suggest noise include unruly, riotous, rampageous, pandemonic. These words imply chaotic behavior, rather than audible sound per se. They can be bent (through synesthesic metaphor) to other semantic scopes; for example, "neon lights in riotous colors."
Individual Types of Noises
The list here is endless: bang, boom, buzz, growl, hiss, jingle, pop, screech, squeal, tinkle, whimper, whine, yelp, etc. (All of these can serve either as verb or noun.) Many sounds are associated with particular sources (e.g., the caterwaul of a cat). I don't know of a book that catalogs every conceivable type of noise (although J.I. Rodale's Synonym Finder is a good place to start). I'm sure there are hundreds of such words.
Noises can be further characterized by auxiliary words (adjectives) that describe a sound's unique characteristics (e.g. the staccato clack-clack-clack of a stick along a picket fence).
With all these tools in your toolbag, you'd think it would be easy (or straightforward, at least) to describe a noisy subway station, or crowd noise at a rally. It's actually harder than you might think, unless you simply want to say "the crowd was noisy" and be done with it. Tomorrow, I'll show an example of how I handled a noisy bar/restaurant scene in a piece of fiction I'm working on. Bring your ear-plugs.


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In addition, the expression of MIF in NPC neoplastic cells with Schmincke growth pattern (67.4%±35.2%) was higher than that in NPC with Regaud growth pattern (32.9%±29.7%), there existed a significant difference in MIF expression of NPC between two growth patterns (P<0.01).
Objective To research the calcium dependent intercellular adhesion molecule (E-cadherin,E-cad)expression and the relationship between E-cad and growth patterns and CT manifestations of peripheral pulmonary carcinoma(PPC).
目的 探讨周围型肺癌中钙依赖细胞粘附分子 (E -Cadherin,E -cad)的表达及E -cad与肿瘤生长方式及CT表现的关系。
Sometimes, tumors with high metastatic potential (5/16) showed diffuse and multinodular growth patterns. Examples of these tumors included small cell undifferentiated carcinoma (3 cases), pulmonary adenocarcinoma (1 case) and prostatic adenocarcinoma (1 case).
We investigated the chromosomal karyotypes, in vitro CFU-GM growth patterns, proliferating cell nuclear antigen(PCNA) expression, cell cycle kinetics and hematopoiesis clonality of bone marrow cells from 37 MDS patients, two post MDS AML(MDS/AML) patients and 11 normal controls.
There is the same regression equation:V=1.0972g0.9731 between volume and weight during growth and development of Hayward andJinfeng fruits. The result indicates that the growth patterns of these different varieties are the same.
According to the thin film interference principle,detailed elaboration and analysis about the dependences of the oscillation amplitude change of GaN thin film growth interference curve on the thin film growth patterns and the surface roughness through establishing thin film reflection model were made.
Some Thoughts on China's Foreign Trade Policies and Growth Patterns
To Cultivate and Develop the self-creative-power is the core sustentation for quickening the thorough change of economic growth patterns and the sources for competition capability and economic results of an enterprise.
From the viewpoint combin ing the cultural characteristics wi th the economic ones,this paper analyses the general characteristics and growth patterns of family firms in China,an d uses some examples to illustrate th e four types of growth patterns.
Since middle and late 1980's,it had appeared many growth patterns of industrial cluster with regional feature and strong competitive ability in China, especially in Zhejiang and Guangdong province etc.


text: A new children's book serves up Jewish folk tales and cuisine for families preparing to celebrate Passover. During the eight-day holiday that begins the evening of March 25, Jews do not eat any leavened products, which can be challenging for kids. "Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook," by award-winning children's writer Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple, pairs 18 of Yolen's richly detailed retellings of Jewish folk tales from around the world with Stemple's kid-friendly recipes. This is the second collaboration between the mother and daughter, who live in Western Massachusetts. In 2009, they coauthored "Fairy Tale Feasts." Yolen's mysterious Passover tale, "And the Matzo Was Still Warm," is followed by Stemple's recipe for matzo brei, the eggy breakfast treat. Matzo lasagna is an adaptation of the popular dish. In the introduction, the authors encourage readers to experiment and be creative with the stories and recipes. "Be playful," they write. "Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts" available at bookstores.


HOW TO: Knit an infinity scarf
It's getting to be that time of year where everyone is bundled up in their hats, gloves and scarves just trying to keep warm. Better make sure your accessories are cute.
Infinity scarves have become a trend on campus, and it's no wonder why. They keep you warm and have a unique design. That is just what you need for those cold winter days.
If you know how to knit, this will be easy. If not you will learn how to knit today. Lucky you!
You will need a pair of knitting needles and yarn for the scarf. You will probably need about two balls of yarn, since an infinity scarf is longer than usual. Also realize that the thicker the needles you use, the bigger the holes will be. Choose a medium-sized needle, such as size 13, for a scarf that has small enough holes to still keep you warm.
There are basically two steps to this: knit a scarf and then tie it together. Simple, right? But only if you know how to knit. For you beginners, here are the steps:
First, make a loop around the knitting needle. From there you will make more loops around the needles. You will probably need about 10 to 15 loops total depending on how thick your yarn is.
Now onto the actual knitting. This may be confusing at first, so a few practice stitches may be in order before you start your scarf. Take the other knitting needle that hasn't been used and stick it through the first loop of the other needle.
Wrap the extra yarn in between the two needles, then take the needle and place it over the yarn that is between the two needles but through the yarn that is wrapped around the first needle. (Need more help? Check YouTube for a tutorial)
Keep doing this until the scarf is halfway down your thigh (or however long you wish it to be). To end the scarf, you will be doing similar steps as before.
Knit two stitches like you normally would, but before you add on a third, slide the first loop over the second loop, making there be only one stitch on the needle. Continue to do this until you have one stitch left. Take the last loop off and take the extra yarn and tie a small knot on it to finish it off.
There, you have your scarf! Now to make it an infinity scarf is quite simple, just sew the two ends together.
This is a perfect way to keep warm during cold Michigan winters. Get a cup of tea, turn on a movie and knit what is soon to be your favorite accessory.


How to Remove Stickers from a
Did you just buy a new laptop or other device, only to find it covered in unattractive stickers?. Time to remove those stickers and free your hardware from its role as a traveling advertisement.
1. Make sure this laptop isn't too old. The stickers will dry up, and over time, the glue backing will separate from the printed material. If you decide to remove the stickers, do it quickly. The stickers are not going to stay fresh for more than a year or two, depending upon its quality. If your laptop is a relic, skip to the very last step to use a chemical removal method.
2. Decide which stickers to remove. Some stickers are useful, such as OEM licensing stickers that will be void when removed. Others may contain serial numbers, service tags, support information, or systems specifications. Commonly removed stickers include ones promoting the Windows operating system (ie: "Designed for Windows XP" and "Windows Vista Capable"), as well as Intel and AMD CPU stickers.nhl stickers
3. Remember to do this slowly. If you rush it and try to pull the whole thing off at once, you run the risk of tearing the sticker or separating the glue backing.
4. Start from the edges. Use your fingernails or a non-abrasive abrasive putty knife. Be careful not to scratch or damage any plastic or aluminum surfaces in the process.
5. Pull the sticker up slowly from the edge you just started. Try to pull it up using an angle between 45 and 90 degrees. Never bend the sticker back further than a 90 degree angle, as this will promote the separation of the glue backing and printed material.
6. Clean the surface. Some sticker residue may be rubbed off easily, while some require additional help. As always, avoid scratching the surface.
First, try rubbing off the remaining residue by hand. Many forms of glue, even when mixed with a little paper, will curl up onto itself when moved over a surface.
Second, if rubbing doesn't help, try using duct tape or other very sticky tape to remove the remaining residue. Break or cut off a piece of tape, apply it to the surface, then remove it or, if possible, simply rub the sticky surface of the tape over the residue. Repeat this until all of the residue has been removed, and attached to the tape instead.
Third, apply a small amount of cooking oil, such as canola or olive oils to the adhesive with a paper towel. Allow the oil to sit on the adhesive for site 2-5 minutes. The adhesive should now easily scrape off with your finger or a soft plastic tool. Using window cleaner, such as Windex, and a clean paper towel clean the remaining oil and adhesive off.
Fourth, if all previous attempts fail, use chemicals. A popular and extremely useful method is to use a citric-acid based cleaner such as "Goo-Gone". These types of cleaners will not harm metal or harder plastics, but may dry the surface of softer plastics, leaving a white, frosted appearance. Test this on a small, hidden area first. Another liquid to try is alcohol (try spraying a small amount of your deodorant or perfume, if that is handy). Aerosol furniture polish, like Old English, can be very effective. Another is WD-40 which won't hurt the surface and can be cleaned off the computer's surface with a dish rag and a little soap.
7. A product called "Odor Assassin" (Lemon-Lime Scent) that is available at most "dollar" and discount stores will dissolve most adhesives instantly and can be removed with a clean cotton face cloth.
 - If your laptop sticker has one or more rounded corners, start peeling it from a rounded corner. If you come to an area where it starts to separate, start over from another edge.
 - Patience conquers all stickers. Always go slow and steady on sticker removal. If it's not working and you're getting frustrated, leave it for another day when you have more patience.
 - Try to use tools that won't damage your laptop. Your fingernails, erasers, plastic putty knives, plastic guitar picks, no-stick spatula/pancake flipper, and even tweezers (used carefully) will pose the smallest threat to your laptop's surfaces.
 - Heat from a laptop increases the bond of some glue backings over time. This bond may etch into painted surfaces or even stain some plastics and brushed aluminum.
 - Don't remove any stickers with OEM license information, as it will void some OEM licenses.
 - Sharp or hard objects will damage laptop surfaces if used to scrape off stickers. car art stickers
 - Avoid spilling any liquid into the cracks or exposed area of a laptop, such as the keyboard. Some liquid is conductive and may cause electrical shorts.
 - Before following this process, ensure that the laptop power is turned off, and unplugged from any electrical source. If possible, remove the laptop battery from the case as well.
Things You'll Need
 - Tweezers for stickers that are difficult to start.
 - Cleaning solution such as alcohol or "Goo-Gone".
 - Paper towels, napkins, or rags to use with the cleaning solution.
 - Tape, such as duct tape, to help remove residue.


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Why we are the Lasers...
From our earliest beginnings in the nineteenth century when the lamp of knowledge was emblazoned on our College seal, to the one hundred and fifty years of Torchlight Parades, light has been a part of Lasell's rich history. It is in this tradition of light, and the pursuit of knowledge and excellence, that our athletes bear the name LASERS. Lasers are by definition a source of intense energy. Therefore, like a laser, our athletes are fast, focused and intense on the fields and courts of athletic endeavor.
It all began with the light. Legend has it that in the spring of 1851, a group of individuals gathered together and as the sun rose in the sky, illuminating Bragdon Hill, these individuals with a laser-like focus, made the decision to found a new school. As the founders, known as boomers, put shovels into the rocky New England soil, sparks flew and the flame of knowledge was ignited for a new generation of students. The lamp of knowledge was emblazoned into the college seal. Early in the history of Lasell College, the tradition of the Torchlight Parade took hold, with seniors marching through the campus, proudly holding high their burning torches, illuminating the academic path for future students as they passed on these symbols of light to the students who would succeed them... and the flame of knowledge continues to burn brightly here at Lasell, where being "Ignorant of Defeat" is the way we live.
With the intensity of a laser, Lasell's growth and prominence has continued its boom for over 157 years, and in all that time, our torch has never dimmed -- our flame of knowledge has never stopped burning brightly -- and our seniors continue to pass the torch to those they leave behind, as through their actions and deeds they bring light to the world wherever they go.
It is time to shine the light on the Lasers. Now is our boom-time. Never before have we had more reason to hold high the Lasell torch, lighting the way for the world to see. Who will lead us? Who will carry the torch the highest? Who will bring the light, and guide the Lasers to victory? Who will take the burning intensity of the Lasers and make it come alive? It will be our TORCHBEARER... it will be our symbol of the LIGHT... it will be our SPARK to victory...
It will be BOOMER! BOOMER will lead us; BOOMER will light our path; BOOMER will burn bright; BOOMER will inspire the Lasers; BOOMER will ignite us; BOOMER will BEAR THE TORCH and show us the way!