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and the character will die more slowly, of infection. Someone would have to work very hard to deliver a nonfatal sword thrust to the neck, perhaps a glancing and shallow slice would do this.
Chest wounds Any wound that enters the chest cavity will result in partial-to-total collapse of the lung, and possible/probable blood in the lung, varying amounts. If you want your character to survive, make the injury a fairly clean in and out, one side only, and with a clean sword or knife. Have someone put an airtight dressing over it. If you make it a "sucking" chest wound, which means you can hear air drawn into the wound with every breath, it will be worse. In this case the airtight dressing must be open on one of the four sides only, in order to create a flap to allow air to be forced out.
While washing out wounds is good infection control in general, this is one case where you don't want water making its way into the chest cavity, unless someone is doing open chest surgery. I wouldn't expect this in Middle-earth.
If the amount of collapse is small, the air would get reabsorbed and the lung reexpanded; over a week or two is a good guess for a small collapse. Blood is a problem only if the loss is fairly large; say over 500 cc or 17 oz. It starts to become a problem at that point because it takes up space that the lungs need for air. If you have someone become slightly to moderately short of breath, recovery is a reasonable thought. If they are bringing up frothy bloody sputum, (like Boromir) forget it.
Wounds to the chest can also cut the aorta and vena cava, called the 'great vessels', in which case your character will bleed to death fairly fast. A stab wound to the heart is also very likely to kill.
Abdominal wounds If you want to scare your character or readers, have an abdominal wound that just penetrates the skin and muscle layer (known as the abdominal wall) but doesn't pierce the intestine or other organs. This will not differ much from wounds anyplace else. If you pierce the intestine you run a huge risk of infection and a slow death over a few days to a few weeks, usually on the shorter side. If you cut the liver, spleen or kidneys you have a good chance of bleeding to death without extensive surgery, usually over hours to a few days. The surgery needed to repair this would be almost impossible outside a well-equipped medical facility, say the Houses of Healing. If Middle-earth armies have MASH units, they could tackle something on this order. The same applies to any major blood vessel in the abdomen; the character would likely die outside a major medical facility.
Blood loss: The amount of blood loss people can tolerate varies with their weight. It will be different for a man weighing 80 kilos (or 176 pounds) and a hobbit who weighs, say 30 kilos (66 pounds). A person's blood volume is about 70 cc per kilo, say about 30 cc per pound. I will give typical symptoms of blood loss in terms of percentage of total blood volume lost, with some representative numbers for hobbits and men. If someone figures out how much an elf or dwarf weighs, tell me and I'll add the numbers for those races. I'm assuming that Boromir and Aragorn are fairly tall and muscular, and weigh about 80 kilos (or 176 pounds). If anyone has better guesses, I'd love to have them.
Effects of blood loss:
Class 1: 10% blood loss
Man: 500 cc or 16 oz, Hobbit: 210 cc or 7 oz - Healer sees no real effect.
Class 2: 15-25 % blood loss
Man: 840 to 1400 cc or 28 to 46 oz, Hobbit: 315 to 525 cc or 10 to 17 oz - Healer sees pulse increase slightly, cool hands and feet.
Class 3: 25-35 % blood loss
Man: 1400 to 1950 cc or 46 to 65 oz, Hobbit: 525 to 735 cc or 17 to 24 oz - Healer sees rapid pulse, patient pale, restless, sweaty.
Class 4: 35-50 % blood loss
Man: 1950 to 2800 cc or 65 to 93 oz, Hobbit: 735 to 1050 cc or 24 to 35 oz - Healer sees very rapid, weak pulse, patient very pale, cold, and confused.
Any wound can become infected, as bacteria are all over, on the skin, on the sword or arrow. Pieces of things left in wounds up the risk of infection. Organic objects in wounds up it even more, so bits of steel are less likely to be a problem than bits of wood (which is one of the reasons why bullets don't have to be removed but arrows do.)
Correct care by modern standards using Middle-earth equivalents: Wash out woundsthe more, the better. Remove foreign objects, such as grit, leaves, etc. from wounds. If there is dead skin or tissue underneath the skin, it must be removed by cutting it away. Your character will know it's dead because instead of a nice pink or red it will be black or grey. If your character is cutting away dead tissue (debriding) and you want to be descriptive, he or she should cut down to where it bleeds, or where the patient can feel it, in order to be sure you have live tissue. Purple can be blood in the tissue -think a big bruise, or it can be on the way to black. It's hard to describe the difference.
Bite wounds are likely to get infected. Human bites are among the worst. Cat bites less so, and dog bites least of the three. Wolf or warg bites might be similar to dogs. One could argue that since elves don't get diseases, an elf bite might not get infected. On the other hand, they probably have 'good' bacteria in their mouth, and so might have some of the nastier types that just don't affect them. I don't know about orc bites, but looking at their teeth, I'd worry. If your character punches someone in the mouth and the victim's teeth break the skinyou have a human bite.
Worst places to get infected: Face, because it can get into areas close to the brain. Hands, because the infection destroys or scars the small compartments in the hand and causes loss of function. Anything internal.
If it gets infected, immobilize the part (i.e. splint a hand) if possible. Hot soaks or compresses, if possible. If the area swells up and feels squishy like a water balloon, or leaks pus, it must be opened and cleaned out. No poking with a needle or tiny little cuts; the incision in an abscess, also called a boil, should be at least half the diameter of the abscess. After the healer opens the abscess it should be washed out. I cringe every time this is described as being done in a river or stream, since I think of the bacteria for the people and animals downstream. After washing it should have a dressing placed on it. Expect the wound to drain for at least a few days afterward, the bigger the abscess, the longer it will drain. Once opened, it will feel better anywhere from immediately for an abscess under great pressure, to several hours. It will stay sore for a few days at least. If your character doesn't have the abscess opened it may burst on its own, accomplishing the same purpose. Or the infection may spread throughout the area, resulting in bigger trouble. The infamous red streaks going up leg or arm from the infected area towards the heart means that the infection has gotten into the lymph channels. This is not a good sign, especially in a world without antibiotics. The character will have swollen glands in that area also.
There is no real life equivalent to athelas, but I'll assume it has some antibacterial properties. Use it on infected areas.
This is a work of fan fiction, written because the author has an abiding love for the works of J R R Tolkien. The characters, settings, places, and languages used in this work are the property of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, and possibly New Line Cinema, except for certain original characters who belong to the author of the said work. The author will not receive any money or other remuneration for presenting the work on this archive site. The work is the intellectual property of the author, is available solely for the enjoyment of Henneth Annûn Story Archive readers, and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author.


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Foundations of Education
This course introduces the prospective teachers to the three foundations of education, namely, psychological, anthropological and sociological. In the discussion of psychological foundations, learner, the learning process, and the learning situation are emphasized. It discusses the significant facts about each of these components and their inter-relationships in determining the effectiveness of any teaching-learning endeavor. On the anthropological foundations, emphasis is given to culture, cultural heritage, the Filipino family, and the Philippine cultural values. Sociological foundations include topics like education and society and socialization.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Frank Morgan's Math Chat
May 20, 1999
ANSWER (Joe Shipman). The most interesting question turns out to be: Which direction provides the best chance of reaching the tracks in time to intercept the train? The answer is: due north or due south. Of course if the train is heading westward, you have no chance, unless you can outrun a train. Your only hope is that the train is heading a relatively small angle q north of east [or south of east, you have to guess which]. In this case, due north gives you the best chance. You will reach the track before the train if the ratio of your speed to the train's speed is greater than the sine of q. This is true for anyone, no matter how far east of the toot. If you take some other direction to the track, you'll travel farther than someone else heading due north to the same spot, and thus need a greater velocity.
Unfortunately, even if the mathematician runs due north at 1/4 the speed of the train, he has only about a 4% chance that the train is heading a small enough amount north of east for him to intercept it.
Shipman concludes, "Personally, I would... go due west and flag the next train, judging that it is more likely there'll be another train before I die of thirst." Many readers agree. In particular, Joe Conrad agrees that this mathematician should not expect to be lucky enough to intercept the first train: "True, he could get lucky, but he's already lost in the desert so luck is not part of this mathematician's 'track' record."
John Snygg reports that at a problem-solving conference, he was the only one to solve this problem. His more complicated solution found the circle of points where he and the train might arrive simultaneously, drew the most distant track to meet that circle, and showed that it met the circle due north. The most elegant solution he encountered was one by a Russian student, Michael Chetchelnitsky, who used the law of sines.
NEW CHALLENGE (John, RiverGlen School). For a circular piece of paper, the lines along which you can fold it "in half" (with half the area on each side) are precisely the lines through the center. What other shapes work the same way?
Send answers, comments, and new questions by email to _EMAIL_, to be eligible for Flatland and other book awards. Winning answers will appear in the next Math Chat. Math Chat appears on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Prof. Morgan's homepage is at _URL_
Copyright 1999, Frank Morgan.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (Paperback)
A provocative new theory about fairy tales from one of the world's leading authoritiesIf there is one genre that has captured the imagination of people in all walks of life throughout the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and spread--or why so many people cannot resist its appeal, no matter how it changes or what form it takes. In this book, renowned fairy-tale expert Jack Zipes presents a provocative new theory about why fairy tales were created and retold--and why they became such an indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures around the world. Drawing on cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and other fields, Zipes presents a nuanced argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of literary culture and print, and how, in our own time, they continue to change through their adaptation in an ever-growing variety of media. In making his case, Zipes considers a wide range of fascinating examples, including fairy tales told, collected, and written by women in the nineteenth century; Catherine Breillat's film adaptation of Perrault's Bluebeard; and contemporary fairy-tale drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs that critique canonical print versions. While we may never be able to fully explain fairy tales, The Irresistible Fairy Tale provides a powerful theory of how and why they evolved--and why we still use them to make meaning of our lives.
About the Author
Jack Zipes is professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota and the author, translator, and editor of dozens of studies and collections of folk and fairy tales. His recent books include Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre, Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children's Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling, and The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films.


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A presentation for Simon Fraser University's Clinical Psychology graduate students.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
Define the prevalence of SUDs and describe rationale for psychological intervention with people affected by this disorder
Identify how language choices influence client care and outcomes
Describe theory and select interventions of Cognitive Behavior Therapy for SUD
Refer to list of resources for further information on psychosocial treatments for SUDs


Christology (study of Christ)
cs en de
Custom training
The New Testament Christology studies the nature and significance of the person of Jesus Christ. Especially prominent is the understanding of Christological titles in the NT and their variations or emphasis among NT authors. The most important of these titles is the Messiah and the Son of God. In general, these titles point to the divine nature of Jesus.
Another question Christology is dealing with is the relationship between divine and human nature of Christ or nature and salvific effects of his death and resurrection.
Word Meaning
ὕδωρ, ὑδατος, τό water
φῶς, φωτός, τό light
διδάσκαλος, ου, ὁ teacher
ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ Son of God
θύρα, ας, ἡ gate
σωτήρ, ῆρος, ὁ savior
παῖς, παιδός, ὁ servant, slave; boy (child)
ὁ υἱὸς Δαυίδ Son of David
ποιμήν, ένος, ὁ a shepherd


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American Association for the Advancement of Science
The 'hairless' gene
Chinese crested dogs: hairless and coated (Powderpuff) variants.
When you see a hairless breed of dog, you probably realize that they are not like most other dogs. Some people think they are cute. Others think they are ugly. But hairless dogs are definitely unique. In fact, the ancient Aztecs of Mexico even considered hairless dogs to be sacred, and statues of hairless dogs date all the way back to 1700 BC.
Today, hairless dogs are helping scientists better understand how animals' bodies develop over time. By looking at their DNA, researchers have found the particular gene that is responsible for the "hairless" trait in these special dogs.
For a dog, being hairless means having a patchy coat of fur (or no fur at all) and a strange, abnormal set of teeth. Swiss researcher Cord Drögemüller and colleagues studied Chinese crested hairless dogs, along with Mexican and Peruvian hairless dog breeds, and identified exactly what gives these dogs their odd-looking traits.
They found a mutation on a particular gene, which they called FOXI3, to be responsible for hairless breeds of dog. When they mutated the same FOXI3 gene in a group of mice, the researchers saw that the mice had abnormal hair, whiskers, and teeth as well.
That result told Drögemüller and the team of researchers that the FOXI3 gene plays a large role in the development of those tissues and organs. So the next time you see a hairless dog, you will know that it has a mutated FOXI3 gene that makes it how it is.
These findings were published in the 12 September issue of the journal Science.


to true once the sheep was hit by hay.
With that out of the way, add this line to Update:
transform.Translate(Vector3.forward * runSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
This makes the sheep run towards its forward vector (the local Z axis) at the speed set in the runSpeed variable.
Next, add this method below Update:
private void HitByHay()
 hitByHay = true; // 1
 runSpeed = 0; // 2
 Destroy(gameObject, gotHayDestroyDelay); // 3
Here's the gist of this method:
 1. Set hitByHay to true, this will be useful to check if the method was already called, so it doesn't get called twice or more.
 2. Set the running speed to 0, this stops the sheep in its tracks.
 3. You've already seen this method call, but there's an extra parameter this time. The Destroy method accepts a second parameter, the delay in seconds before the GameObject gets destroyed. In this case, the delay variable you added above is used.
The last part is making the sheep react to physics by adding the following code:
private void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other) // 1
 if (other.CompareTag("Hay") &&!hitByHay) // 2
 Destroy(other.gameObject); // 3
 HitByHay(); // 4
Here's what this does:
 1. This method gets called when a trigger enters this GameObject (or vice versa).
 2. If the GameObject that hit this one has the Hay tag assigned and the sheep wasn't hit by hay already...
 3. Destroy the other GameObject (the hay bale).
 4. Call the HitByHay method you added before this one.
That's it for now, save the script and return to the editor. Select Sheep in the Hierarchy and add a Sheep component. Set its Run Speed to 10 and Got Hay Destroy Delay to 1.
Now, play the scene, shoot the sheep and see what happens!
Awesome! The sheep stops moving and disappears like you've scripted it to. What happens if the sheep runs through without you shooting it though? Restart the scene and test that out.
The sheep flies over the edge as if by magic, that's no good! You'll have to create another trigger zone so the Sheep script can detect collisions with it and react accordingly.
Create a new empty GameObject as a child of Triggers, name it Sheep Dropper and reset its Transform. Set its position to (X:0, Y:4, Z:-54) and add a Box Collider with Is Trigger checked and a Size of (X:60, Y:8, Z:12). Now change its Tag to DropSheep and you'll have a nice big trigger behind the hay machine ready to be used.
When the sheep hits this trigger, it should fall down and get destroyed once out of sight. To implement this, you'll need to make some adjustments to the Sheep script. Open it again in a code editor and add the following variable declarations below the existing ones:
public float dropDestroyDelay; // 1
private Collider myCollider; // 2
private Rigidbody myRigidbody; // 3
They speak for themselves, but here's a brief overview:
 1. The time in seconds before the sheep gets destroyed when it's over the edge and starts dropping.
 2. Reference to the sheep's Collider component.
 3. A reference to the sheep's Rigidbody.
Now, assign the needed references by adding this to Start:
myCollider = GetComponent();
myRigidbody = GetComponent();
This finds and caches the sheep's collider and rigidbody for later use.
Next, the sheep's collider setup needs adjustments so it gets affected by gravity. Add this method to do just that:
private void Drop()
 myRigidbody.isKinematic = false; // 1
 myCollider.isTrigger = false; // 2
 Destroy(gameObject, dropDestroyDelay); // 3
This method is simple:
 1. Make the sheep's rigidbody non-kinematic so it gets affected by gravity.
 2. Disable the trigger so the sheep becomes a solid object.
 3. Destroy the sheep after the delay specified in dropDestroyDelay.
Now, add the following to OnTriggerEnter, right below the existing if-statement:
else if (other.CompareTag("DropSheep"))
If the sheep was hit by something other than a hay bale, it checks if the collider it hit has the DropSheep tag assigned; Drop gets called if that's the case.
Now save this script and return to the editor. Select Sheep and change Drop Destroy Delay to 4.
Play the scene again and let the sheep move past the machine to see what happens.
Great! The sheep now falls down to its demise when the player fails to save it. Now that's motivating!
Now that the sheep acts as intended, drag it from the Hierarchy to the RW\Prefabs folder to turn it into a prefab and delete the original from the Hierarchy.
That's it for the first part of this tutorial! Pat yourself on the back, you have learned the basics of how to create scripts to implement gameplay in Unity.
Where to Go From Here?
You can download the finished project by clicking on the Download Materials buttons at the top or bottom of this tutorial.
If you want to know more about Unity's API, check out these handy resources:
Once you're ready to go a step further in scripting with Unity, check out the second part of this tutorial. Here, you'll invite a whole flock of woolly friends and learn how to:
 - Create lists and iterate them.
 - Update UI elements.
 - Use the Event System.
 - Make use of the Singleton pattern.
 - Pass data between scenes to customize a game.
We hope you enjoyed this tutorial, if you have any questions or comments, join the forum discussion below!
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Two new studies published this week looked at two important concerns of women battling breast cancer: quality of life and quality care.
Improving Quality of Life
In a study of 240 women with non-metastatic breast cancer, University of Miami researchers found that exercise can help improve the mental and physical well-being of women undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
The women who were more active reported less fatigue, depression and a better quality of life than women who were less active.
The study authors explained that women who are physically active may also have more confidence in their own ability to continue with family-related, household, work-related, or social activities, which bring meaning and satisfaction to their lives.
The same researchers previously found that stress management also improves women's response to breast cancer treatment.
Quality Care—Says Who?
Hospitals and healthcare providers who conduct patient surveys to assess the quality of care they provide may want to take note of a recent study conducted by researchers in New York who interviewed 374 women treated for early stage breast cancer.
The women were surveyed over the phone when they first entered the study, and again six months later. The researchers then looked at the women's medical records to see what care they received.
They found that the definition of "quality care" for patients was different than that of the healthcare institution treating them. While hospitals often rate care based on whether medical guidelines and treatment protocols were followed, patients viewed quality care based on their experience of getting care and by how much they trusted their doctors.
For example, just over half (55%) of the women said the care they received was "excellent," whereas 88% actually got good-quality care in line with medical guidelines.
The researchers found that what was important to women was the ease of receiving care and good communication with their caregivers.
Women who said they received "excellent" care were more likely to report excellent treatment by medical staff, to say they knew which doctor to go to with questions or concerns and to say they had good trust and communication with their doctor. They were less likely to mistrust the medical system.


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Questions for Photo 5
1. The boundaries of all but the most isolated of the relocation centers were defined by guard towers and barbed wire fences. The boundaries were patrolled by military police, armed with rifles with fixed bayonets. Why do you think the government thought such measures were necessary?
2. Why do you think WRA photographers were forbidden to take pictures of guard towers?
3. In 1943, a WRA report stated that: "the contrast between the barbed wire and the confinement within Manzanar and the observable freedom and motion for those immediately outside, is galling to a good many residents."¹ Do you think that these conditions made the relocation centers into prisons or concentration camps, as some historians have argued? Discuss.
¹1943 Report of the War Relocation Authority, cited in Jeffery F. Burton, et al., Confinement and Ethnicity, 45.
* The photo on this screen has a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi), and therefore will print poorly. You can obtain a larger version of Photo 5, but be aware that the file will take as much as 32 seconds to load with a 28.8K modem.


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As I described in my previous post, I have had some company in the lab lately (and I don't mean the mummies – I'm sorry, but I don't consider them to be company, exactly!) – several of our conservation interns have spent some time up here making impressions of scarab amulets from our collection.
The purpose of making these impressions is so that our curators can use them as "dummy" artifacts for teaching students how to read the inscriptions, as they would in the field. Again, see my previous post for more info on that.
Why have conservation interns work on this project? Well, it's a job that requires someone to examine an artifact, assess its condition, and then prepare and handle it without risk to the artifact-all skills that are important in conservation!
We have hundreds of these amulets in our collection, many of them with inscriptions on one, and sometimes both, sides. To make impressions of these inscriptions, we've chosen to use Sculpey, a polymer clay that, once shaped to form, is then baked in the oven to harden. Sculpey works well because it is soft enough to form quickly around artifacts in good condition, so requires very minimal contact time, it's easy to work with and widely available, and it doesn't require very high temperatures nor very much time in the oven to set. Furthermore, it doesn't shrink much upon setting, which is important since we're capturing fine details in the amulets.
To start, Sculpey of the desired color is chosen (with input from our curators, we chose "Hazelnut" since it looks a lot like mud). A chunk is removed from the package and by rolling it between our hands, it is warmed and softened slightly, and then rolled out to the desired thickness using a rolling pin (a pasta machine works well too!).
Before taking an impression, the amulet is first examined, often under the binocular microscope. It is important to examine each one – first, to inspect the inscription for signs of dirt or other concreted products which would prevent a good impression from being taken, and most importantly, to ensure that the amulet is in good enough condition to be pressed into the Sculpey. Amulets with cracks or flaking surfaces may need to be stabilized prior to taking an impression, or they may be deemed too fragile altogether. If there is dirt built up in areas on the amulet, it should be removed before taking the impression.
After examining the amulet, the surface is coated by brush with a thin layer of talc-the talc acts as a separator, and will prevent the amulet from sticking to the Sculpey.
The talc-coated amulet is then pressed gently and evenly into the Sculpey and then removed.
The Sculpey can be cut around the impression to the desired shape, and the talc can be brushed off the impression, and the amulet, with a soft brush. Any excess talc on the surface of the amulet can be removed by swabbing gently with ethanol.
Once a batch of impressions are made, they are placed in a glass pan and popped in the oven according to the Sculpey baking instructions. After they're set, they are done, and ready for use in the classroom!
As I said, we are grateful to our conservation interns for helping us with this project. Earlier this week, our very first Artifact Lab-dedicated conservation intern started working with us, and I have a feeling that you'll be hearing more about, and from, her in the upcoming weeks.


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(Japan Association of Rolling Stock Industries)
Measures to cope with global warming
- By the year 2000, stabilize the CO2 gas exhausted as energy is consumed in the rolling stock production process at the 1990 level.
- As a measure to reduce weight for higher speed and to save energy, promote the introduction of cars made of stainless steel and aluminium alloy.
Waste Disposal Measures
- By the year 2000, reduce the amount of final disposal waste from disassembled cars by 10% from the 1990 level.
- Promotion of product development from the viewpoint of LCA.
- Effective use of the shredder dust generated from used rolling stocks.
- Will promote the building of a setup for acquiring ISO14001 certification.
Environmental Conservation in Overseas Business Activities
- The best conceivable environmental conservation technology will be adopted in the overseas host country.
Home Page in English


State capture inquiry: Zuma, the Guptas, and the sale of South Africa
South Africa's former President, Jacob Zuma, is giving evidence this week at a commission set up to investigate corruption allegations during his time in office.
The inquiry takes its name from an academic term, "state capture", that has become a buzzword – shorthand for the multiple scandals that plagued the Zuma administration and eventually brought it down.
So what exactly is state capture?
State capture describes a form of corruption in which businesses and politicians conspire to influence a country's decision-making process to advance their own interests. As most democracies have laws to make sure this does not happen, state capture also involves weakening those laws, and neutralising any agencies that enforce them.
"State capture is not just about biasing public policy so that it systematically favours some corporations over others," Abby Innes, assistant professor of political economy at the London School of Economics, told the BBC. "It's also about strategically weakening that part of the state's law enforcement mechanism that might crack down on corruption."
"Classic corruption involves individual politicians taking side-payments for preferential treatment in outsourcing contracts, a small deal here, a license payment there," Dr Innes said.
"Full-on state capture is where corporations can influence the nature of the legislative process, and political actors allow them to do so for private gain. The whole policy-making structure of the state becomes commodified – something that politicians are willing to sell."
If traditional corruption means slipping a bribe to every police officer that catches you speeding, state capture means paying to have your car fitted with police lights so that no officer dare stop you from speeding again. Rather than paying to get away with breaking the law, you pay to make the law work for you.
Where did the term come from?
The concept of state capture was defined in a 2003 World Bank report on corruption in eastern Europe and central Asia.
Joel Hellman, a report co-author who now serves as dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, said a new term was needed to describe the extraordinary tactics that certain firms, owned by oligarchs, were using to maintain their dominance of the market.
"We noticed that these firms were active players not just in lobbying, which goes on everywhere, but also in using private payments to public officials to shape the laws of institutions in their favour," Mr Hellman told the BBC.
State capture theory initially helped explain the oligarchs' hold over the fragile democracies of the former Soviet bloc. Today, the concept is applied more broadly for a range of dubious dealings between corporations and governments around the world.
How did state capture operate in South Africa?
Many of the revelations from the inquiry concern the relationship between two families – the Zumas, centred on the former president, and the Guptas, three Indian-born brothers who moved to South Africa after the fall of apartheid.
The two families became so closely linked that a joint term was coined for them – the "Zuptas".
All parties have denied the allegations against them, describing them as politically motivated.
The Guptas owned a portfolio of companies that enjoyed lucrative contracts with South African government departments and state-owned conglomerates. They also employed several Zuma family members – including the president's son, Duduzane – in senior positions.
According to testimony heard at the inquiry, the Guptas went to great lengths to influence their most important client, the South African state.
Public officials responsible for various state bodies say they were directly instructed by the Guptas to take decisions that would advance the brothers' business interests.
It is alleged that compliance was rewarded with money and promotion, while disobedience was punished with dismissal.
The public bodies that are said to have been "captured" in this fashion included the ministries of finance, natural resources and public enterprise, as well as the government agencies responsible for tax collection and communications, the state broadcaster SABC, the national carrier, South African Airways, the state-owned rail-freight operator Transnet and the energy giant Eskom, one of the world's largest utility companies.
The responsibility for promoting and dismissing public officials lay with Mr Zuma. According to David Lewis, executive director of Corruption Watch, a Johannesburg-based NGO that investigated the Guptas, the president's powers of appointment were key to the success of the alleged conspiracy. As well as ministers, the South African president has the right to appoint the boards of directors of state-owned enterprises and – critically – the heads of law enforcement agencies.
Mr Zuma could do as he pleased, Mr Lewis told the BBC, "as long as he ensured who was appointed the head of the police, and the head of the anti-corruption agency of the police".
What was the impact of state capture in South Africa?
The allegations eventually brought the Zuma presidency to a premature end last year and prompted the Guptas to leave South Africa.
They also damaged the reputations of various illustrious firms that had done business with the Guptas.
Ethical lapses were highlighted at the global accounting giant KPMG, management consultants McKinsey and Bain and Co, and the German IT company, SAP. Bell Pottinger, a London-based PR firm with a history of representing repressive governments, was dealt a fatal blow, closing down over its dealings with the Guptas.
State capture has blown a hole through the public finances, disappearing tens of billions of dollars from Africa's most advanced economy. The scandal has also dealt a huge blow to the reputation of the African National Congress, the party that has governed South Africa for nearly 30 years. Many of Mr Zuma's colleagues in the party have, like him, been accused of corruption.
According to Dr Innes, the ultimate victim of state capture tends to be the political system that is corrupted by business interests. "Politics becomes the point of entry and exit into what is fundamentally a financial market for retaining control over the state and its assets," she said.
What can be learnt from the South African case?
The alleged conspiracy between the Zumas and the Guptas was eventually stopped by a combination of factors, including pressure from global financial markets that were alarmed by the hiring and firing of ministers in charge of the economy.
Mr Lewis argues that while the country had been let down by certain democratic institutions, such as its prosecutorial and regulatory agencies, it was rescued by others.
These included the independent media, the courts and civil society organisations – all of which had honed their skills fighting apartheid. South Africans, he said, belonged to a "young democracy with a very recent tradition of resistance to authoritarian rule. They don't take things lying down".
Mr Hellman, who testified at the inquiry, says South Africa's open discussion of the impact of state capture had set a positive example for other countries. However, he warned that there was also a risk that any such process ends up being used to settle political scores, rather than to address the "structural issues" that allowed the corruption to flourish.
Having left South Africa, the Guptas are now living in Dubai.
Jacob Zuma is currently on trial in a separate corruption case. In a 2007 TV interview, he denied that the state had been "captured".
"There is no parliament that is captured, there is no executive that is captured," he said. "State capture is political propaganda."
The interview was given to ANN7, a TV channel founded by the Gupta family. Its former editor told the state capture inquiry that Mr Zuma had been "very much involved in the running of the station".


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COVID-19 has required students to adapt to an online university entirely, with a significant portion of the Harvard student body living off campus. On-campus residential life and its social aspects have been stripped away for most, leaving mandatory intermingling within Zoom breakout rooms and lectures as the main form of contact with peers. As a result, the role that social media plays at Harvard has become more complex: in a world where students are isolated physically, how has their behavior changed with respect to virtual interaction? In light of this, we've turned to investigate just how the pandemic has impacted students' social media habits, their general social media usage, and their connections.
The data used in this article was collected from a survey sent out by HODP across all class years at Harvard College. We reviewed 145 responses concerning a total of 9 social media apps: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp, GroupMe, TikTok. We chose to assess these applications based on their widespread usage and focus primarily on creating communications between users. Our sample is predominantly made of first-year and second-year students, with a large female population.
[Note: Since many students have taken leaves of absences, we defined their class year as their "graduation year at matriculation", i.e. their "social class." ]
To get an initial idea of what the social media scene looks like at Harvard, we asked participants which social media platforms they currently use on a regular basis. Instagram received the most mentions, thereby receiving the title of the most popular social media platform used by Harvard students during the pandemic.
Instagram is Harvard's most popular social media platform, with about 80% of students reporting regular use. Snapchat and GroupMe come in second with nearly 60% of respondents reporting use, followed by Facebook and Facebook Messenger at around 50%. Trailing those are Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn, along with other social media platforms like WhatsApp. This trend reflects the Pew Research Center's findings on the U.S. population's social media usage, with adults ages 18 to 24 strongly favoring Instagram and Snapchat over the average adult (Perrin and Anderson 2019).
Instagram is consistently used within class years, with at least 70% of the students surveyed in each year reporting to use it. Facebook usage seems to increase as class year increases, with Facebook least used among first years and most popular among third and fourth years. This is likely due to social networking and job searching near the end of most students' college years. In comparison, the greatest use of GroupMe occurs among third and first years with 57% of the surveyed first years regularly using it. Through the creation of class and club group chats, GroupMe provides the class of 2024 the ability to connect with one another in the landscape of online learning. On the other hand, the class of 2023 uses Snapchat and Instagram most out of all the class years.
Instagram rules as Harvard's favorite social media app, with over half of students surveyed in each class year reporting it being one of their favorite apps. Following Instagram, other favorites vary based on class year. As seen previously with use, Facebook continues to be most popular among the classes of 2021 and 2022 with Twitter being most popular in the class of 2021 as well. In comparison, Snapchat and Tiktok are the most popular among the class of 2023. It appears that younger students favor platforms with a stronger emphasis on photos and videos (Snapchat, TikTok), while older students favor platforms that are more text-based (Facebook, Twitter).
Overall, Harvard students post infrequently, with students who post less often than once a few weeks on social media making up 39% of our respondents. Following them are students that post once every few weeks (26%) and those who never post anything on social media (11%). Across all class years excluding the Class of 2022, most students post less often than once a week on social media. Within the Class of 2022, most students post once a few weeks. The largest group of students who reported never posting on social media were within the Class of 2023.
Over 75% of students reported spending 1 to 4 hours every day on social media, with most students claiming to spend 1 to 2 hours. There were more students that reported spending 0 hours on social media than students that reported 7+ hours.
As the pandemic has continued to impact every part of student life, we were curious to explore how Harvard students used social media before and during the pandemic as well as whether staying in touch with friends and family has dominated its use. We asked students about whether the amount of time they spend on social media has changed since the start of the pandemic along with questions concerning app usage and the purpose of using social media.
Contrary to our hypotheses, class years varied in what they dedicated their time to doing. For example, every class year except sophomores reported using social media to find entertaining content more than staying in touch with friends and family. This may be as a result of fall and spring planning which resulted in the majority of sophomores remaining off campus for 2020-2021. The first years seem to most evenly divide using social media to find entertaining content and stay in touch with their loved ones.
After the start of the pandemic, there was a large increase in the use of Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, GroupMe, and Messenger with TikTok taking the lead. Surprisingly, in spite of their consistent popularity and use across class years, Snapchat and Instagram experienced a decrease in usage since the start of the pandemic.
About 80.5% of students reported an increase in their time spent on social media since the start of the pandemic, with about half reporting an increase of 1 to 2 hours. Following this, approximately 11.3% of students reported a decrease and only 8% of students reported experiencing no change at all in their time spent on social media.
As a result of the pandemic, in-person interactions and friendships now rely more strongly on social media communication. Harvard students reflect a general increase in time spent on social media, and we wanted to analyze the relationships between students on social media.
To do so, we decided to look at self-reported popularity on social media. How popular do students think they are online, and how does this relate to their social media usage? We asked our respondents to rate their online popularity on a scale from 0 (not popular at all) to 4 (very popular).
Given their social media habits, Harvard students seem to be infrequent users of social media—our thoughts on our own popularity reflect that. Regardless of class year, most students provided themselves a rating of 2.
In order to determine how self-reported popularity affects student behavior, we asked students how frequently they posted on any social media platforms (Instagram post, Snapchat story, tweet, etc). We converted these responses to a scale that ranged from 0-6, where 0 was never posting and 6 was posting several times a day. We observed that as self-reported popularity increased, the frequency of posting also increased. This may signify that students who believe they are popular feel the need to post more frequently, or the converse: students are more popular because they post more frequently.
Harvard student social media preferences appear to reflect those of 18-24 year olds across the country: Instagram and Snapchat are regularly used, and TikTok's popularity is on the rise. Students tend to be on social media about 1 to 4 hours a day, posting rarely and usually looking for entertaining content or staying in touch with friends and family. The release of Fall '21 plans has struck hope in the hearts of students because a full return to campus is expected in August and September. While these changes in social media use illustrate a niche set of circumstances, the impact of this time may continue to be visible in future trends.
Thank you to Thuan Tran and Ostap Stefak for the guidance and helping create and deliver the survey.


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Let's start with a simple question: how accurate is your gaming mouse? If your answer is in terms of DPI--maybe the number you've read off the side of the mouse' package--you're omitting a lot of attributes and variables that affect the accuracy and performance of a typical mouse. That's part of the reason it's difficult to objectively evaluate a gaming mouse. So much of user experience lies in subjective factors: the physical sculpting and weight of a mouse, your preference for button surface textures, etc. These are the things that you notice immediately and affect your day-to-day use, while sensor quality more often than not just has to pass a threshold of acceptable responsiveness and accuracy for non-professional gamers.
When I visited Logitech's Borel Innovation Center facility last week, I spoke with the company's engineers about the process of designing a gaming mouse and learned about the tracking variables that they care about when testing mouse accuracy.
Full disclosure: Logitech paid for my trip to their laboratories in Lausanne, Switzerland, but we were under no obligation to produce video or write about anything I saw there. The information I learned from Logitech's engineers is genuinely interesting to me from both a consumer and product reviewer's perspective, and the insights about mouse tracking variables are applicable any gaming mouse, whether it's made by Logitech or a competitor.
Logitech Senior Engineer François Morier explained that when developing tracking sensors for new generations of gaming mice, engineers look to four areas for improvement. They are, as indicated in the photo below: Tracking Quality, Surface Coverage, Power Consumption, and Size Reduction. These goals are relatively self-explanatory; it makes sense for Logitech to want to improve the accuracy of their sensors while also reducing its size and power consumption. But advancements in each of these areas doesn't always happen concurrently, nor are they always complimentary. Improving surface coverage, like being able to use a mouse on transparent glass, may come at the cost of accuracy or power consumption because a different imager technology is used. The advancement of each goal may require a tradeoff with another, and it's the job of mouse engineers to figure out the right balance of features to meet the needs of different users.
If you use a wired gaming mouse on a mousepad, the attribute you likely care about most is Tracking Quality. That's where specs like DPI comes in. DPI (dots per inch) is a metric taken from printer technology, and corresponds with the resolution of the mouse sensor. Mouse engineers actually refer to this as CPI, or counts per inch, because that more accurately describes what the sensor imager is doing when reading the data of light reflecting off the mouse surface. Think of it the megapixels of a camera.
Something interesting I learned was that an increase in DPI doesn't necessary imply a larger sensor imager. Just like with the megapixel myth in photography, a higher DPI isn't always better. It depends on how that higher number is achieved. In the case of mice, where the sensor size is often fixed for cost or physical space constraints, the higher DPI resolution is achieved through magnification in the plastic lensing. The lens (or series of lenses) that optical light has to pass through to get from tracking surface to the sensor can give the imager more data, which the digital signal processor can split up to into more "counts" to analyze and track. But because the sensor hasn't changed in size, this data may be "noisier" and more prone to errors.
Sensor resolution is one of many tracking variables that Logitech engineers consider then testing the accuracy of their new sensors. These are the variables that you should care about too when buying a new mouse, and most can be evaluated with simple testing using a drawing application on your desktop. With sensor resolution already covered, let's examine the other variables:
Angle Error. Accurately tracking horizontal and vertical movements is much easier for a mouse than tracking a perfect diagonal one. That's because diagonal tracking is derived from the combined data of horizontal and vertical movement. Mice sensors and processors try to compensate for that with some degree of prediction. So when the mouse thinks you're moving in a diagonal line, it will figure out the angle of movement and align the tracking point to that line. This avoids the "staircase" look of a diagonal line. But the snapping prediction can't be too strong, or it'll prevent you from being able to draw accurate curves. One way to test for this is to draw a circle very slowly.
Resolution vs. Speed Error. As I mentioned above, one consequence of increasing the resolution of the mouse sensor is that the data becomes a little fuzzier. As a result, the tracking of high-speed movement may become inconsistent. For example, if you move your mouse quickly from one end of the mousepad to the other, you would expect that moving the same distance back at the same speed would put your cursor back at its starting point. If a mouse fails to accomplish that, then it may be compromising speed accuracy for resolution.
Ripple. The effect of ripple and jitter is another one of those things that you might not notice in-game (or with mouse smoothing turned on), but it can be detected in design applications. If when drawing a straight horizontal or vertical line, you see slight deviations (or "jumps") along both sides of the line, the sensor may be inaccurately tracking noisy data. Again, this is something that can happen at high DPI settings.
Pixel Walk. This phenomenon occurs when moving your mouse at very low speeds, and is a good test to gauge for low-speed accuracy. To conserve power in wireless mice, tracking is sometimes disabled when the mouse isn't moving, and activated when the sensor detects a certain threshold of movement. That threshold is very tricky for mouse engineers, because they want to keep it as high as possible to conserve battery consumption while also as low as possible to track very slow and nuanced movements. When you're moving a mouse at the speed that hovers right at that threshold, tracking may start and stop, causing the cursor to jump.
Timing and Circle Drift. Drawing perfect circles is a really good way to test the accuracy of a mouse sensor. In this test, the timing of the tracker can be gauged by drawing a perfect circle several times. In the ideal scenario, the cursor will end each circle where it started, drawing several circles over the sample spot. But if sensor's timing is off, the the circles will be more like ovals and spiral away from the start position.
That should give you a good place to start for testing your own mouse. Logitech--and I assume other mice makers--have their own computerized tools for testing these tracking variables. But even without a machine that can draw a perfect circle, you should be able tune your settings to detect (and in some cases avoid) anomalies like angle error and line jittering.


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|Major islands||Beacon Cay|
|Department||San Andrés and Providencia|
Serranilla Bank (Spanish: Isla Serranilla or Banco Serranilla) is a partially submerged reef, with small uninhabited islets, in the western Caribbean Sea. It is situated about 350 kilometres (220 mi) northeast of Punta Gorda, Nicaragua, and roughly 280 kilometres (170 mi) southwest of Jamaica. The closest neighbouring land feature is Bajo Nuevo Bank, located 110 kilometres (68 mi) to the east.
Serranilla Bank was first shown on Spanish maps in 1510. It is administered by Colombia as part of the department of San Andrés and Providencia. Although the bank is currently occupied by Colombia, it is subject to a sovereignty dispute involving Honduras, Nicaragua, and the United States.
|This section requires expansion. (November 2011)|
Serranilla Bank is a former atoll, now a mostly submerged carbonate platform consisting of shallow reef environments. It is about 40 km in length and 32 km in width, covering an area of over 1200 km2, almost entirely under water. Three small cays and two rocks emerge above the water to form the bank's islands. These are West Breaker, Middle Cay, East Cay, Beacon Cay and Northeast Breaker. They are largely barren, with sparse vegetation of bushes and some trees. Most of the reef is drying and many shipwrecks are located in its vicinity.
Beacon Cay is the largest islet in the Bank. It is overbuilt with small military facilities, which house a small rotating garrison of Colombian naval personnel. There is a lighthouse on a coral ledge in the southwest approach to the bank. It is a 33 m (108 ft) tall skeletal tower built atop a 3-storey crew residence. The lamp emits a focal plane beam of light as two white flashes every 20 seconds. The current lighthouse was first erected in 1982, and was reconstructed in May 2008 by the Colombian Ministry of Defence. It is currently maintained by the Colombian Navy, and overseen by the state's Maritime Authority.
Territorial dispute
Serranilla is the subject of conflicting claims made by a number of sovereign states. In most cases, the dispute stems from attempts by a state to expand its exclusive economic zone over the surrounding seas.
Between 1982 and 1986, Colombia maintained a formal agreement with Jamaica which granted regulated fishing rights to Jamaican vessels within the territorial waters of Serranilla Bank and nearby Bajo Nuevo Bank. In November 1993, the two states agreed upon a maritime delimitation treaty establishing a "Joint Regime Area" to cooperatively manage and exploit living and non-living resources in designated waters between the two banks. However, the territorial waters immediately surrounding the cays themselves were excluded from the zone of joint-control, as Colombia considers these areas to be part of her coastal waters. The agreement came into force in March 1994.
Nicaragua lays claim to all the islands on its continental shelf, covering an area of over 50,000 km2 in the Caribbean Sea, including the Serranilla Bank and all islands associated with the San Andrés and Providencia archipelagoes. It has persistently pursued this claim against Colombia in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), filing cases in both 2001 and 2007.
The United States' claim was made in the 19th century by James W. Jennett under the provisions of the Guano Islands Act. Most claims made by the U.S. over the guano islands in this region were officially renounced in a treaty with Colombia, dated September 1972. But whether or not Serranilla Bank was included in the agreement is disputed—there is no specific mention of the feature in the treaty and, as per Article 7 of the said treaty, only matters specifically mentioned in the document are subject to it. According to other records, as well as claims made within the ICJ, Colombia is recognised by the United States as having varying degrees of sovereignty over Serranilla Bank through the treaty of 1972, which took effect in September 1981. The U.S. considers the reef to be an unorganized, unincorporated United States territory.
Honduras claims Serranilla Bank as part of its national territory in Article 10 of its Constitution. In 1986, it agreed upon a maritime boundary demarcation with Colombia that excluded Honduras of any control over the bank or its surrounding waters. The ratification of this boundary on 20 December 1999 proved to be controversial within Honduras, as it ensured that the state implicitly recognised Colombia's sovereignty over the claimed territory. Nicaragua, which has not resolved its maritime borders with Honduras or Colombia, disputed Honduras' legal right to hand over these areas before the ICJ. Despite the agreement with Colombia, however, the government has yet to officially renounce the claim in the Constitution.
See also
- Sailing Directions (Enroute), Caribbean Sea II (7th ed.). National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. 2001. p. 95.
- (Spanish) Armada de la República de Colombia: Forces and Commands — area is under the jurisdiction of Comando Específico de San Andrés y Providencia.
- "Mapa Oficial Fronteras Terrestriales y Maritima Convenciones". Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi. Retrieved 2009-10-25. An official map of Colombian borders, with treaty dates.
- Lewis, M.; International Justice (20 April 2011). "When Is an Island Not An Island? Caribbean Maritime Disputes". Radio Netherlands International. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- "Acquisition Process of Insular Areas". U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs. Retrieved 2008-01-13.
- Sanandresislas — description and photographs of Serranilla Bank.
- Shipwrecks in the Americas, Robert F. Marx. New York (1987), p414-17. ISBN 978-0-486-25514-9.
- (Spanish) "Anexo 7". Colombian Government, Ministry of National Defence. August 1997. Retrieved 2009-12-22. Legal status of the Banks of Serranilla and Bajo Nuevo, page 8.
- (Spanish) "Contract No. 153". Colombian Government, Ministerio de Defensa Nacional. February 2008. Retrieved 2009-10-23. Contract detail between Colombian Defense Ministry and private contractor, Tecnosoluciones Ltda, for the replacement of various metal lighthouse structures, including on Serranilla Bank.
- (Spanish) "Grupo de Señalización Marítima del Caribe". Colombian Government, Ministry of National Defence. May 2008. Retrieved 2009-11-16. Photographs of Colombian lighthouses, with Serranilla Bank shown, pages 4–5.
- "Fishing Agreement Between Jamaica and the Republic of Colombia". United Nations. November 1982. Retrieved 2009-11-20. Fishing agreement which permits regulated fishing rights to Jamaican vessels around Bajo Nuevo and Serranilla Banks.
- Charney, Jonathan; American Society of International Law (2004). International Maritime Boundaries, Vol. 2–3. Boston, United States: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 2616. ISBN 978-90-_PHONE_-1. p2179-2192.
- "Colombia Jamaica Joint Regime Treaty" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-11-13.
- (Spanish) "Sentencia No. C-045/94". Government of Colombia, Secretaría del Senado. February 1994. Retrieved 2009-11-22. Review of the 1993 Maritime Delimitation Treaty between Colombia and Jamaica.
- "Continental, Coastal and Marine Ecosystems of Colombia, 1 of 36". José Benito Vives de Andréis Marine and Coastal Research Institute (INVEMAR). 2001. Retrieved 2009-12-22. Topographic map of the Colombia-Jamaica Joint-Regime Area, with the two exclusion circles shown.
- "''The Republic of Nicaragua v. The Republic of Colombia'', CCJ Case File" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-11-13.
- (Spanish) El Espectador: Colombia could lose territory, despite the Hague failure
- "Territorial and Maritime Dispute". International Court of Justice. December 2007. Retrieved 2009-11-17. Nicaragua v. Colombia, Preliminary Objections.
- Moore, John Bassett; United States Government, Department of State (1906). A Digest of International Law, Vol. 8. Washington, United States: Government Printing Office. p. 788. ISBN 978-1-4432-8111-9. p77.
- "Acquisition Process of Insular Areas". United States Government, Department of the Interior. Retrieved 2008-01-13. Lists Serranilla Bank as an insular area under U.S. sovereignty.
- (Spanish) Treaty of exchange between Colombia and the United States, 1972
- "Revisions to the Table of Frequency Allocations". United States Government, Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved 2008-01-13. States on page 3 that Serranilla Bank is no longer under U.S


White sharks
NIWA contacts:
Where and when do white sharks occur in New Zealand waters, and how can fisheries bycatch be reduced?
Why do we want to tag white sharks?
White sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) became a protected species in New Zealand waters in 2007, but many of them are still caught incidentally each year in set nets and other fishing gear.
The status of white sharks in New Zealand is unknown, but because of their low reproductive and growth rates, there is concern that fishing mortality may be causing a population decline. Little is known about the habitat requirements of white sharks, their seasonal behaviour patterns, or their interactions with fisheries. An improved understanding of where they are at what times, and their migratory patterns would allow strategies for reducing bycatch to be developed
Hi-tech electronic tags
A joint NIWA/Department of Conservation (DOC) tagging programme was launched in 2005. Hi-tech electronic tags are being used to gather information on where the sharks are and when, and to record their depth and the temperature of the surrounding water. Three tag types have been used: popup archival tags, acoustic tags, and dorsal fin tags.
Popup tags
Popup tags are implanted in the muscle under the dorsal fin with a tagging pole, and record depth, temperature and location, storing the data for up to a year. They then release themselves from the shark, float to the surface, and transmit summaries of the data to a satellite. If the tags are physically recovered, the high resolution data collected at one minute intervals can be downloaded.
Popup tags provide only approximate location data, so they are most useful for tracking long-distance migrations.
Acoustic tags
Acoustic tags send out coded, individually identifiable sound 'pings' that can be detected up to a kilometre away by acoustic data loggers. The tag batteries last long enough to monitor the presence of white sharks in the region in the vicinity of a data logger for two years.
Acoustic tags provide accurate fine-scale information on sharks at specific locations.
Dorsal fin tags
Dorsal fin tags bridge the gap between popup and acoustic tags. They provide accurate location information by transmitting to orbiting satellites every time the shark is at the surface and the dorsal fin and the tag's aerial are exposed to air. Their batteries can last for more than one year, so both fine scale and large scale movement patterns can be recorded.
However, dorsal fin tags are more difficult to deploy: the shark has to be caught and restrained while the tag is attached to the dorsal fin. So far, only a few of these tags have been deployed in New Zealand.
See our 'Shark tagging' photo gallery
New insights into the behaviour of white sharks
Since 2005, 44 white sharks have been tagged with popup tags, mainly at the Chatham Islands and Stewart Island. These islands support large colonies of fur seals, which are a major food source for white sharks. Our research has focussed on Stewart Island since 2009. The population there is dominated by males (about 2.2 males for every female). Nearly all of the females are immature, being shorter than the female length at maturity of 4.5 to 5 m. Only about one-third of the males are longer than the male length at maturity of about 3.6 m. This indicates that the white shark aggregations at Stewart Island are not related to mating, and are most likely driven by the abundance of seals for food. Large, mature females are rarely seen anywhere in New Zealand and their distribution, habitat and behaviour are almost completely unknown.
Tagging results (click righthand map to enlarge) show that most New Zealand white sharks make annual migrations to tropical waters in winter, travelling as far as 3,300 km away. Sharks have migrated to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Coral Sea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Norfolk Island, Fiji and Tonga. They don't cross the equator.
Most of the sharks from Stewart Island headed northwest of New Zealand, whereas most Chatham Islands sharks headed north. However, some sharks from the two tagging locations overlap in the tropics. Surprisingly, we have not detected any direct movement between Stewart and Chatham islands.
Some popup tags have remained on the sharks for long enough (up to one year) to reveal that the sharks returned to their tagging locations after their tropical holiday. This has been confirmed by photo-identification work at Stewart Island. Each shark has a unique colour pattern, particularly around the gills and on the tail. Some individuals have been seen at Stewart Island each year for multiple years. This indicates that white sharks have a sophisticated navigation mechanism that enables them to make major direct oceanic migrations, and then return to precisely the spot they left from. We do not know how they achieve this.
During their travels, white sharks experience a wide range in temperatures, from 3 degrees C to 27 degrees C: very unusual for a fish. During their ocean crossings, they can travel 150 km per day, and average about 5 km per hour or 100 km per day.
They spend two-thirds of their time at the surface, and the rest making repeated deep dives to 200-800 m. Most sharks reach maximum depths exceeding 800 m, and the record depth achieved was 1,246 m. We do not know what the sharks are doing in these depths - where there is no light - but we presume that they are searching for prey such as deep water squids and fishes. They may also be searching for the many north-south running undersea ridges to use as a navigational aid.
Now that the large-scale migrations of white sharks are better understood, the focus of the research has shifted to determining their fine-scale movements and local temporal and spatial distributions. In March-April 2011 and 2012, 45 white sharks were tagged with acoustic tags around north-eastern Stewart Island, and 25 data loggers were deployed at strategic locations around northern Stewart Island, Ruapuke Island and Foveaux Strait. White sharks were present almost continuously from late summer to early winter, peaking in autumn (March−June). Sharks spent about 4−5 months in the region and the rest of the year outside New Zealand on their tropical migrations. Some of these sharks were detected in Australia and the Coral Sea by data loggers deployed by other researchers. White shark abundance was greatest in the Titi (Muttonbird) Islands off northeastern Stewart Island, and sharks showed different preferences for individual islands. Stewart Island sharks rove well beyond their aggregation sites, but the behaviour and dynamics of white sharks in other parts of New Zealand remain poorly understood.
Dorsal fin tags were attached to three sharks in 2013 and 2014, giving us unprecedented accurate information on their movements and the routes taken. One shark (nicknamed Nicholas Cage) swam to New Caledonia in an almost straight line and then 'disappeared' underwater for several months, before re-surfacing and making a more-meandering return trip to Stewart Island. Another shark (Pip) swam across the southern Tasman Sea to New South Wales in Australia, and then made her way north to warmer Queensland waters, before returning to Stewart Island. The third shark (Caro) swam north up the central Tasman Sea to the Coral Sea and Queensland before returning to Stewart Island.
The final phase of this study will be to compare information gained on the seasonal and spatial distribution of white sharks in New Zealand waters with the distribution of fishing effort to identify locations and seasons where there is a greater risk of sharks being caught by fishing gear.
Page last updated:
1 May 2015
Great white shark
A great white shark. Credit: Department of Conservation
Malcolm Francis tagging a white shark with an acoustic tag
Malcolm Francis tagging a white shark with an acoustic tag. Credit: W. Lyon/NIWA
Shark track map_2015.jpg
Tracks of white sharks tagged with dorsal fin tags at Stewart Island. [M. Francis]
Shark tracks.jpg
Approximate tracks of white sharks migrating from their tagging sites at Chatham Islands and Stewart Island to the tropical waters of the South Pacific. [M.Francis]


Our lovely town is famous for its association with the precious black gemstone, sometimes known as Whitby jet.
Beautiful and distinctive, we love seeing jet jewellery in Whitby's shops, but then we started to wonder where it came from.
Did you know that jet is actually fossilised wood, created from the Monkey Puzzle tree (Araucaria tree to give the tree its Latin term)?
Jet is actually one of just a handful of natural, organic gemstones in the world. Its story is millions of years in the making.
Millions of years ago, Monkey Puzzle trees were commonplace around our coast. Over the millennia, the wood and debris washed to sea and was eventually compressed into a thick sedimentary layer.
Ever-increasing pressure caused the debris to disperse, with the more resistant bits forming into jet.
If you are lucky enough to pick up a fragment of jet on the beach, it's surprisingly lightweight.
Jet can be highly polished, creating the glossy finish you see in Whitby's retailers and elsewhere.
However, this is 'nowt new' as it's thought jet was used for decorative purposes back in the Bronze Age! So, if you're ever asking, what did the Victorians do for us, they helped make it popular, yet jet had been in use for centuries.
In a way, we do have Queen Victoria to thank for the popularity of jet. Following the early death of her husband, Prince Albert, she wore jet as part of her mourning attire.
Whitby Jet was also displayed at the Great Exhibition in 1851 in London.
Back in the 19th century, jet was mined and transported by pony, and the jet industry was a major employer in the area. It is thought around 200 miners worked the coastline to find the jet, and up to 1,500 jet-related workers were in Whitby by the late 1800s.
However, window-shopping for jet jewellery (or, even better, buying it!) is a Whitby tradition.
You can carefully search for jet along our shores, but it's a time-consuming task. You need a keen eye and the patience of a saint.
We prefer having a meander around Whitby's narrow, cobbled streets and admiring the black gemstone in a mullioned shop window,
One such jet emporium is W Hamond, one of several jet outlets in our lovely town. W Hamond was established in 1860 and use local jet in their creative process.
Positioned close to the foot of the 199-steps that lead up to Whitby Abbey, W Hamond is now collaborating with the globally famous luxury brand, Fabergé®.
The Faberge® story started in France in the 1680s and moved to St Peterburg, Russia in the 1830s.
Gustav Fabergé® worked in the Russian capital for Keibel, goldsmiths and jewellers to the Emperors of Russia.
Gustav completed his apprenticeship and opened a jewellery shop in Bolshaya Morskaya, a fashionable street in St Petersburg.
Gustav's son Peter took over the business in 1882 and in 1885 to 1886, the Russian Emperor commissioned the now iconic Easter Egg for the Empress.
Fabergé® was later nationalised following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during the 20th Century underwent several challenges and changes before Fabergé® Limited announced it acquired the Fabergé® trademarks in 2007. Two years later, Fabergé® was relaunched.
During the following years, Fabergé® works alongside world-famous brands including Rolls Royce and more recently, W Hamond of Whitby.
Jet is rarer than diamonds but can be found in Germany, northern Spain, Turkey and New Mexico.
Whitby jet, though, is known for its excellent quality, including its toughness, stability and ability to polish up to a glossy shine.
If you go jet hunting, then Whitby is the wrong place to look, instead head up to Runswick Bay or Robin Hood's Bay.
There are very strict rules for jet gathering due to its rarity and small size.
Do NOT remove any jet from cliffs as if you want your own piece of jet, it must have been washed from the cliffs and onto the beach, where searchers can beach-comb for their finds.
Always keeps a safe distance from the cliffs and know your tide times allowing for incoming tides.
Also be sure you've found some jet and not a piece of coal. Take a piece of sandpaper with you, rub the specimen you've found against the paper and if it leaves a ginger-brown mark, then it is jet, otherwise it is coal.
Or you can always call into Whitby's jet shops for your own piece of gorgeous jewellery!
The craftworkers also use the gemstone Derbyshire Blue John along with other stunning materials such as amber and turquoise.
As we live and love Whitby, we are very proud of this famous industry which has such strong connections to our town.
Until next time …
Tagged as: Whitby Jet
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Productivity and accuracy are important attributes in the competition for machine tools. Five-axis machining provides considerable potential for increasing productivity. In many cases it permits higher metal removal rates than 3-axis machining. Production times can be significantly shortened thanks to a reduction of time required for resetting, for example, or through multi-operation machining in one setup. In any case, with increasingly complex workpiece geometry, 5-axis machining is becoming an indispensable part of the machining process.
Since significantly larger traverse ranges of linear axes are usually required for 5-axis machining, machines need to provide high accuracy over the entire working space. Moreover, the two rotary axes in a 5-axis machine tool can greatly influence attainable workpiece accuracy. Besides the rotary axes, in most cases the linear axes must also be moved in order to change the orientation of the cutter to the workpiece surface. This can cause visible flaws in the traverse range of up to five axes within a small area of the workpiece surface. In 5-axis machining, precision-limiting effects in the drives, such as screw-pitch and transmission error, reversal error, or thermally induced displacement, can therefore much more quickly lead to the production of scrap. The positioning accuracy of linear and rotary axes play a decisive role here in the performance of a 5-axis machine tool.
By now, 5-axis machining has become indispensable in many areas of metal-cutting machining. Clear economic advantages result from the capability to machine workpieces completely in one setup: the door-to-door time of a part can be dramatically reduced. At the same time, part accuracy can be significantly increased. Beyond this, the additional rotary axes allow better access to complex workpiece contours, for example cavities in dies or molds. Often, they permit shorter tools with less inclination to chattering so that even higher metal removal rates are achieved.
With 5-axis simultaneous machining, the cutting speed at the tool tooth can be held within narrow limits even on complex contours. This brings significant benefits with regard to the attainable surface quality. What is more, the use of highly productive tools (e.g. toroid cutters) when milling freeform contours would not be possible at all without 5-axis simultaneous machining.
Parts for aeronautics & space industry
High strength and low weight are essential for the aeronautics and space industry. Integral construction has established itself as the way to minimize the weight of "airborne" parts: components with complex structure are manufactured completely from a single blank. Metal removal levels can be as high as 95 percent. This high "buy-to-fly" rate leads to high costs for the raw material of the blanks.
In the area of structural components, 5-axis machining opens new opportunities for reducing weight without loss of component strength. First, a computer-aided topology optimization is conducted that adapts the geometry of the component to the respective loads. The result: the material is brought specifically to where the mechanical load can be highest. In the other areas, material is specifically reduced. For example, the thickness of walls for stiffening can be easily adapted to the load distribution in the component. The wall thickness can decrease with increasing height, for example. This workpiece geometry can be realized in a simple way through 5-axis pocket milling.
Five-axis machining has long become the standard for the machining of jet engines. High efficiency requirements are driving continuous improvements in the flow characteristics of all jet engine components. The resulting component geometries are very complex and are therefore manufactured exclusively in 5-axis simultaneous milling movements.


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For half a century, meat producers have fed antibiotics to farm animals to increase their growth and stave off infections. But now, according to Matthew Cimitile of Environmental Health News, scientists have discovered that those drugs are sprouting up in the vegetables we eat.
Tests conducted at the University of Minnesota showed vegetables such as corn, potatoes and lettuce absorb antibiotics when grown in soil fertilized with livestock manure,
The reporter quotes the Union of Concerned Scientists, which says "close to 70 percent of the total antibiotics and related drugs produced in the United States are fed to cattle, pigs and poultry."
The Minnesota study reported that antibiotic contamination has also been found in vegetables grown on organic farms. Manure is widely used as a substitute for chemical fertilizer in organic farming.
The researchers planted corn, green onions and cabbage, lettuce and potatoes in soil treated with liquid hog manure. Analysis found accumulated concentrations of the antibiotic Sulfamethazine, which is commonly used in livestock.
"Around 90 percent of these drugs that are administered to animals end up being excreted either as urine or manure," Holly Dolliver, a member of the Minnesota research team told the Environmental Health News.


Lesson Viewed
Finders of Personal Property
This lesson covers the law governing the rights of finders of personal property which is generally covered near the beginning of a Property course in law school. It addresses the possibility that the personal property might be lost, mislaid or abandoned because the true owner is unknown.
Learning Outcomes
1. Restate the elements necessary for one to become a finder of personal property.
2. State the elements of abandoned property.
3. Relate the elements of lost property.
4. Evaluate the potential application of statutory changes to the common law regarding finders.
5. Explain treasure trove and its application in the United States.
6. Assess the relative rights of finders, owners and other competing parties.
Lesson Authors


_TAG_-inner img {margin: 0 auto!important; _TAG_-inner {text-align: Center ;} Fiji Coupfourpointfive: Bainimarama's coup and claim of desire for ethnic equality: Separating facts from fiction
Names and pseudonyms encouraged; annonymous posts accepted in interest of debate
Monday, March 26, 2012
Professor Wadan Narsey
Adjunct Professor
The Cairns Institute
James Cook University
former Professor of Economics at
The University of the South Pacific (USP)
[Seminar at James Cook University. 23rd March 2012]
Fiji dictator on the international circuit
Initial sources to guide you: google the names(a) Dr Jon Fraenkel (ANU): detailed analyses of Fiji elections, especially under the Alternative Vote system of the 1997 Constitution.
Currently: the proportion of Indo-Fijians rapidly declining
Fijians and Indo-Fijians in the Fiji economy
* kept in the villages and discouraged by colonialists from capitalist sector
* totally dominated the army and large proportion of the police
* largely denied education during colonial ear.
Ethnic groups socially compartmentalized
 - Very self-contained and independent ethnic societies
Fiji's four sets of "constitutions/laws" governing elections
 - 1874 to 1970: colony, ruled by British law;
 - 1990 Constitution imposed by Rabuka Government: racially biased
Bainimarama's justification for the 2006 coup: keeps changing
1. Corruption
2. Electoral fraud against the Indo-Fijian FLP party
3. Racism against the minority Indo-Fijian people.
Briefly: earlier constitutions and electoral systems
 - Can read Brij Lal and Fraenkel.
 - Need to understand:
 19 Communal Indo-Fijian seats (likewise)
 1 Communal Rotuman seat (likewise)
 - But history indicates that they did not, in 1999.
Supported by
* the majority of indigenous Fijian people and civil servants
The 1987 and 2000 coups were opposed by the majority of
 - A website maintained by Ratu Tevita Mara (former senior army officer and son of Ratu Kamisese Mara) who escaped from Bainimarama) _URL_
 - [Strange omission: The Evans BOI Report on the website TruthforFiji does not include a 100 pages of the original Evans Report, including the evidence of key witnesses like George Speight and Silatolu: TruthforFiji have stated on the blog C4.5 26/3/2012) that the Evans Report given to them did not have these missing pages. This omission raises serious questions about the motives of the people who sent the Evans BOI Report to TruthForFiji. See my article on "Fiji's cancerous conspiracies of silence"]See my article on "Fiji's cancerous conspiracies of silence"]
CRW mutiny in November 2000 and attempt to kill Bainimarama
 - FLP went into Opposition alleging electoral fraud etc.
2 Forces destabilised Fiji: the judiciary and Qarase/Bainimarama fallout
 - Bainimarama suspended Daniel Fatiaki as Chief Justice
 - The Hindu and Muslim religious organisations and many prominent leaders
 - Groups of influential businessmen and business organisations openly support Bainimarama
Then the 2009 Court of Appeal rules 2006 coup illegal
Bainimarama has total control of all institutions and organizations
 - Appointment of selected judiciary (many from Sri Lanka)
 - Suspension of trade union rights.
 - Suspension and final abolition of Great Council of Chiefs
 - No Auditor General's Reports from 2006 till now.
 - Key militarization of many senior civil service posts
 - Thirty year back-pay to Bainimarama himself
 - Massive contracts being given outno public accountability
 - Qarase's SDL was entitled to 31 but got 36
 - But it was the smaller Fijian parties that lost out
 - Chaudhry's Fiji Labour Party was entitled to 28 but got 31
 - But not to ethnic groups as the Bainimarama supporters claimed.
 - Usual meaning of "democracy":
government of the people
for the people
by the people
 - Given my population projections of those aged 18 and over:
Fijians 56%
Indo-Fijians 39%
Others 5%
 - Which means that if ethnic block voting persists,
 - Bainimarama alleges that he is fairer to Indo-Fijians.
 - Important to ask:
Has Bainimarama been beneficial for Indo-Fijians?
How have indigenous Fijians fared under Bainimarama?
For the rest of the article follow the link below to Dr Narsey's website _URL_
Anonymous said...
the simple question is how many indians how many chinese how many whiteman how many other races apart from fijians work in illegal PM office????????
The answer is zero.
There is no indian or chainese or whiteman in PM office now.
So what is this no racial bullsit.
Its a sham and facade of the dictator.
Anonymous said...
Interesting reading..
Anonymous said...
You list the 1997 as "unanimously passed by the nationally elected Parliament". However, this "nationally elected parliament" was itself elected under the 1990 constitution, which you yourself label as "racially biased". Therefore, the 1997 constitution is also based on a racially biased foundation. That can be seen in the many recommendations from the Reeves commission that were left out or watered down. The final 1997 document is flawed in many places and that is why we need to start again from a fresh slate now!
Anonymous said...
The dictator is a racist.
there is no non fijians working in the illegal PM office.
This is fact.
So that the new consitution to provide multiracial new fiji?
can the dicatator appoint a deputy indian PM and appoint 50% staff in PM office -indiansthe answer is no.
this man is a liar and racist.
Dalit said...
As always, quality analysis from this guy that deserves to be given wide publicity in the Fiji dailies.
truthforfiji said...
Wadan Narsey's article is on "Separating facts from fiction" but he does go into conspiracy mode claiming there are strange omissions, that the TruthforFiji website left out 100 pages of the Evans' RFMF Board of Inquiry Report, including evidence by key witnesses like George Speight and Silatolu.... This is fiction and incorrect!
The RFMF Board of Inquiry Report that we have posted on this website is the exact same copy of the report that was smuggled out of Fiji and handed over to us. It does not include those pages referred to by Wadan Narsey and we did not omit any pages. However, Wadan Narsey's comments do add nasty fuel for conspiracy theorists and evil bitching, which Wadan Narsey does in his article on "Fiji's cancerous conspiracies of silence", which is available on his website.
Any evidence by George Speight and/or Ratu Silatolu would give more insight and credence to Ratu Tevita's claims and to the events surrounding the 2000 Coup. Their testimonials are definitively crucial and would have been included. Other people have said that they too have a copy of the RFMF BoI report. Maybe their copy has these missing pages that Wadan Narsey speaks of. If so, then please upload them to the web for everyone to see!
Keep The Faith said...
@ Anon March 26, 2012 12:12 PM: We've had 3 elections under the premise of the 1997 Constitutions. In 1999 the FLP won, so remind us again please where the racism from the 1997 Constitution is derived from?
Once again, we remind you that if the Constitution is racist it can only be amended by a democratically instituted parliament. The Ghai, Nandan and Vakatale circus is not that body.
Anonymous said...
thought provoking articles...love reading it...although I don't agree with some of his opinion... I do agree with the fact that our beloved country and her people need to do a lot of soul searching and ask a lot of provoking questions about where we are heading...
Anonymous said...
The facts as laid out by Coup 4.5 speaks volumes of truth; how the people of Fiji have been misled by the military coups over the years.
So what is the truth?
First, nationalist sentiment in 1987 under "Rambo" and again in 2000, Speight with half the support of the military.
Then a complete U-turn and a coup to clean up supposed corruption and racial disharmony?
It seems that all along the driving motive behind successive military coups has been greed and deceit. And an overwhelming desire for power and wealth. The entitlements of only an elected government mandated by its people.
It's bemusing to see some of these beneficiaries of the corrupt past and present governments are the same people.
Melanesian politics with a spicy flavour!
Anonymous said...
"Ethnic political tensions will become less and less


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Here to There: A History of Mapping
From the 16th to 18th centuries, many European mapmakers were convinced that California was an island — an Edenic paradise populated by black Amazons. The error persisted for over a hundred years after expeditions had proven that California was, in fact, firmly attached to the mainland. The idea of California as a fierce paradise appealed to Europeans, who were reluctant to let the mundane reality interfere with their vision of the world.
So in that spirit, we're devoting this episode of BackStory to maps — asking what they show us about who we are and and where we want to go. How do maps shape the way we see our communities and our world? What do they tell us about the kind of information we value? And what do they distort, or ignore?
Please help us shape this show! Share your questions, ideas and stories below. Have opinions on New York vs. D.C. subway maps? On the merits or shortcomings of Google Maps? And do you even still use old-fashioned, ink-and-paper maps? Leave us a comment!


- Merran Brown
Remote Team Meetings: What Could Go Wrong?
Lockdown measures are easing in Australia and other parts of the world, but the process could take a while. With every passing day, remote work becomes further entrenched in the way business is done.
There will come a time when in-person meetings are common again, but Zoom and other platforms will continue to be a relevant way for teams to meet. What could possibly go wrong?
1. The interruption quagmire
In a real room full of people, it's easy to know who has the floor. Knowing when to speak up, or when to let someone else chime in, is fairly straightforward.
This is not the case with videoconferencing. A satirical newspaper called The Onion said it all on 18 May with the headline, Coworkers On Zoom Trapped In Infinite Loop Of Telling Each Other 'Oh Sorry, No, Go Ahead.'
Sharing cyberspace does not produce the same social cues, no matter how clever the technology tries to be.
False starts and interruptions are commonplace and often cringeworthy. We can wait for tech companies to innovate ways of giving people the floor, but we can also strengthen our ability to prompt and be prompted by colleagues.
2. The patchy connection
Many a meeting has suffered at the hands of a participant whose internet connection is faltering. Countless minutes have ticked by as facilitators try to re-establish contact with a key participant.
This happens, and sometimes there's no way around it. That said, it's possible to test your connection before meetings. Zoom's recommendation for video conferencing is 3 mbps if you include sending/receiving files. If we identify connection issues in advance, we might be able to switch connections, or at least warn the group ahead of time.
Also, let's not let our frustrations get the best of us. In-person meetings have always had technical problems. A level of patience is required, but recurring connection issues get old fast.
3. The bumbling presenter
When it comes to meeting in cyberspace, the onus for productivity often rests on one or two people. Depending on the nature of the team and the topics discussed, screen sharing may be necessary. Video or documents may need to be shared.
The key is to consider technical details in advance, and test yourself. Make sure you know what buttons to click, where the files are, how to share them. Do your part to make the group experience go smoothly. It may seem like virtual meetings are intrinsically more forgiving, but colleagues can often tell the difference between technical difficulties and a lack of preparedness.
4. Extroverts and Wallflowers
It only takes a few first-hand experiences to realise that social cues are harder to read in virtual meetings. This makes some participants more reticent, while others seek to fill every pause. To be silent through an entire meeting might not reflect well. Likewise, dominating the conversation can give a bad impression. Everyone has to find a balance between getting their words in and allowing others to do the same. Dedicated prompts from meeting facilitators can help the group find a rhythm.
5. A lack of definition
Virtual meetings often end without a clear sense of what was accomplished or what action should be taken. This happens in real life, too – we've all had the experience of getting up from a conference table and wondering what just happened. But the lack of definition is arguably more a risk in virtual settings, when work is already blended with other aspects of life.
Assigning specific roles can help. A timekeeper can help things stay on track, while a notetaker can provide the group with summary notes. Dedicated facilitators and/or presenters can keep things moving in a productive direction.
There is such a thing as being pedantic, but a detailed approach to virtual meetings – especially when important points are being discussed – will produce better results for the team.
Skills worth polishing
Virtual meetings are a miraculous yet imperfect solution to physical office closures. We're allowed to poke fun at the limitations of the medium, and chuckle at the mishaps – but if we're serious about building better teams in the long run, we should take the opportunity to learn the medium, understand the pitfalls, and be more effective. When we get to the other side of the pandemic, whatever that looks like, these skills will more valuable than ever.
For further industry news and insight please follow the links below.
Thank you!


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Variant of scrag
- a lean, scrawny person or animal
- a thin, stunted tree or plant
- the neck, or back of the neck, of mutton, veal, etc.
- Slang the human neck
Origin of scragprobably ; from Old Norse as in Norwegian skragg, feeble, stunted person, Danish skrog, Old Norse skröggr, fox (nickname) ; from Indo-European base an unverified form (s)ker-, to shrivel, shrink


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On March 30th I posted a "mind the gap" item reflecting on the assumption that students connect with the school to university to career pathway. I came across a recent report from LSAY (Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth) that examined factors that influence young people's plans and ambitions for the first twelve years after completing school in Year 12. The results filled in a little of gap between the assumption that being at school will lead you through to tertiary education and then onto a career path and the patterns I had observed.
In the survey, predicted youth transition factors appeared in the initial analysis, such as socio-economic status, gender and peer influences. However, in terms of importance, the survey found academic achievement in Stage 5 of school (15 years of age) was the most important predictor of Year 12 (Stage 6) completion. This factor was followed by parental influence. The most important influencers on students' decision to go on to university were parents and peers. The most important factors influencing the achievement of expected work goals (occupational status) by age 30 are the influence of parents and academic achievement at age 15.
The take-away point is, as the survey phrases it, "just how critical parental influences are in driving young people's educational and occupational aspirations". I would also add, how critical the middle years of secondary schooling are for setting students up for achievement and for launching their life after school. Sadly, these are the very school years when many students are less focused, drift or disengage and are, therefore, less driven to achieve. School is often perceived as dull, pointless, less urgent and the end still seems a long way off – plenty of time to start working when we hit senior school. This survey suggests the impact of a negative performance at 15 years of age can have long-term impact, especially if this attitude to the importance of school performance is not challenged by parents at this point.
Ref: Gemici, Bednarz, Karmel, Lim. 4/2014. "The factors affecting the educational and occupational aspirations of young Australians", LSAY, Research Report no.66.


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NSEventWrite (Transact-SQL)
SQL Server 2005
Submits one event to the events table for the event class. You must use NSEventBeginBatchEventClassName to open a new batch and NSEventFlushBatchEventClassName to close the batch. You can submit multiple events before closing the batch.
[ schema_name. ] NSEventWriteEventClassName
 [ _USER_ = ] event_batch_ID,
 [ _USER_ = ] event_class_field_value [,...n]
[ _USER_ = ] event_ batch_ID
Is the ID of the event batch for the event. The event batch ID number must exist in the event batches table. event_batch_ID is bigint and has no default value.
[ _USER_ = ] event_class_field_value
Provides a name/value pair for an event class field. One event_class_field_name and event_class_field_value pair can be supplied for each column in the event table. If the column has a default value or accepts NULL, the name/value pair is not required.
0 (success) or 1 (failure)
Microsoft SQL Server Notification Services creates the NSEventWriteEventClassName stored procedure in the application database when you create the instance. When you update the application, Notification Services recompiles the stored procedure.
To use a query to obtain a set of events and then submit them to an application, use NSEventSubmitBatchEventClassName.
The following example shows how to begin an event batch, write one event, and then close the event batch. The event provider for the event batch is StockEP and the event batch ID number is returned in the _USER_ output parameter.
DECLARE _USER_ bigint;
EXEC dbo.NSEventBeginBatchStockEvents N'StockEP', _USER_ OUTPUT;
EXEC dbo.NSEventWriteStockEvents
EXEC dbo.NSEventFlushBatchStockEvents _USER_;
SELECT _USER_ 'Event Batch';
This example assumes that you are using SQL Server Management Studio, because the event batch ID is returned in the SELECT statement so you can see which event batch was created.
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