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1. Core dump and heap dump files
Stores CPU and JVM-related information. It mainly stores the running position of each Java application thread at a certain time point, that is, the method of the class to which the execution is performed and the line. Javacore is a text file. Once opened, the execution stack of each thread is displayed in stacktrace mode. Through the analysis of javacore, You can see whether the application is "stuck" at a certain point, that is, the running time at a certain point is too long, such as database query, and the response is not received for a long time, leading to system crash.
Saves the memory usage of the Java program. The heapdump file is a binary file that stores the objects in the JVM heap at a certain time. This type of file needs to be analyzed by a corresponding tool, using the heap analyzer tool. The most important role of this file is to analyze whether the system has memory overflow. The heapanalyzer can easily analyze the overflow location.
Run the kill-3 command on Linux/Unix to generate the javacore file and heapdump file.
2. Core dump and heap dump analysis tools
Core Dump analysis tool: IBM thread and monitor dump analyze
Heap dump analysis tool: mdd4j or heap analyzer.
Other tools: visualvm, netbeans or eclipse's memory analyzer tool
// Add an analysis instance to todo
3. Reprinted an article about core dump and heap dump.
From introduction to heap dump & core dump
Core dump and heap dumps:
AJava CoreIs a snapshot of the threads at work in a JVM. it also details a cross section of information from the major components in the JVM like XM, XE, LK, etc (IBM javacore only, Sun does not-it just shows threads)
A Java dump, also known as a Java core, Java thread dump, or a thread dump is a file that contains the following sewing:
- All of the threads that run on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM ).
- All of the monitors on a JVM.
- Some useful information about the system that the JVM runs under.
AHeapdumpIs a snapshot of JVM memory-it shows the live objects on the heap along with references between objects. It is used to determine memory usage patterns and Memory Leak suspects.
Both can be created by issuing a kill-3 on the PID of the JVM process. There are other ways to gather these docs as well (wsadmin scripts)
If the kill command does not produce the dumps, you can always generate one with a jacl/Jython script via the wsadmin Interface
Set JVM $ admincontrol completeobjectname type = JVM,*
$ Admincontrol invoke $ JVM dumpthreads
Set JVM $ admincontrol completeobjectname type = JVM,*
$ Admincontrol invoke $ JVM generateheapdump
JVM = admincontrol. completeobjectname ('Type = JVM, process = server1,*')
Admincontrol. Invoke (JVM, 'dumpthreads ')
The heapdump and a javacore shocould be created in the WebSphere/appserver directory. You can confirm this by reviewing the verbose GC output after issuing the kill command.
- Threadanalyzer is a problem determination tool for WebSphere Application Server thread performance and Deadlock Detection. you can use it to obtain a Java dump from an application server and use its analysis features for problem determination. for performance problem determination, threadanalyzer provides a top-of-the-stack (ToS) analysis that counts all of the methods at the top of the stack for the listed threads.
- It then sorts them by 'weight '(automatically computed by threadanalyzer), and lists the possible performance bottlenecks in your application. threadanalyzer does automatic Deadlock Detection while it analyzes the Java dump.
To download threadanalyzer go
What is IBM thread and monitor dump analyzer for Java?
- During the run time of a Java Process, some java virtual machiness (JVMs) may not respond predictably and oftentimes seem to hang up for a long time or until JVM shutdown occurs. it is not easy to determine the root cause of these sorts of problems.
- By triggeringJavacoreWhen a Java Process does not respond, it is possible to collect diagnostic information related to the JVM and a Java application captured at a participant point during execution. for example, the information can be about the operating system, the application environment, threads, native stack, locks, and memory. the exact contents are dependent on the platform on which the application is running.
- On Some platforms, and in some cases, javacore is known as "javadump. "The Code that creates javacore is part of the JVM. one can control it by using environment variables and run-time switches. by default, a javacore occurs when the JVM terminates unexpectedly. A javacore can also be triggered by sending specific signals to the JVM. although javacore or javadump is present in Sun Solaris JVMs, much of the content of the javacore is added by IBM and, therefore, is present only in IBM JVMs.
- IBM thread and monitor dump analyzer for Java analyzes javacore and diagnoses monitor locks and thread activities in order to identify the root cause of hangs, deadlocks, and resource contention or monitor bottlenecks.
How does it work?
- This technology analyzes each thread information and provides diagnostic information, such as current thread information, the signal that caused the javacore, Java heap information (maximum Java heap size, initial Java heap size, garbage Collector counter, allocation failure counter, free Java heap size, and allocated Java heap size), number of runnable threads, total number of threads, number of monitors locked, and deadlock information.
- In addition, IBM thread and monitor dump analyzer for Java provides the recommended size of the Java heap cluster (applicable only to ibm sdk 1.4.2 and 1.3.1 sr7 or abve) based on the heuristic analysis engine.
- IBM thread and monitor dump analyzer for Java compares each javacore and provides process ID information for threads, time stamp of the first javacore, time stamp of the last javacore, number of garbage collections per minute, number of allocation failures per minute, time between the first javacore and the last javacore, number of Hang suspects, and list of Hang suspects.
- This technology also compares all monitor information in javacore and detects deadlock and resource contention or monitor bottlenecks, if there are any.
What is heapanalyzer?
- Heapanalyzer allows the finding of a possible Java heap leak area through its heuristic search engine and Analysis of the Java heap dump in Java applications.
- Java heap areas define objects, arrays, and classes. when the garbage collector allocates areas of storage in the heap, an object continues to be live while a reference to it exists somewhere in the active state of the JVM; therefore the object is reachable. when an object ceases to be referenced from the active state, it becomes garbage and can be reclaimed for reuse.
- When this reclamation occurs, the garbage collector must process a possible finalizer and also ensure that any internal JVM resources that are associated with the object are returned to the pool of such resources. java heap dumps are snap shots of Java heaps at specific times.
How does it work?
Heapanalyzer analyzes Java heap dumps by parsing the Java heap dump, creating directional graphs, transforming them into directional trees, and executing the heuristic search engine.
The following are examples of features:
- List of Java heap leak suspects
- Recommendation of the size of kcluster
- List of gaps among allocated objects/classes/Arrays
- Java objects/classes/arrays Search Engine
- List of objects/classes/arrays by type name
- List of objects/classes/arrays by Object Name
- List of objects/classes/arrays by address
- List of objects/classes/arrays by size
- List of objects/classes/arrays by size of child
- List of objects/classes/arrays by number of child
- List of objects/classes/arrays by Frequency
- List of available heap spaces by size
- Tree View of Java heap dump
- Loading/saving processed Java heap dumps.


Iowa non compete law
Are non competes enforceable in Iowa?
Iowa non – compete agreements are generally enforceable if they are found necessary to protect an employer's business', not unreasonably restrictive and are not prejudicial to public interest. However, the employer cannot preclude a previous employee from making a living, at least not indefinitely.
How do you get around a non compete clause?
Typically, the only way to fight a non – compete agreement is to go to court. If you are an employee (or former employee) who signed such an agreement, this means you must violate the agreement and wait to be sued. It may be that your former employer has never sued another employee to enforce the non – compete agreement.
Is a non compete clause enforceable in New York?
In New York, courts disfavor non – compete agreements and enforce them only when necessary. non competes are enforced only when necessary to protect legitimate business interests such as trade secrets or special skills acquired during employment. non compete agreements must be reasonable in time and geographic reach.
What states do not allow non competes?
The majority of U.S. states recognize and enforce various forms of non – compete agreements. A few states, such as California, Montana, North Dakota, and Oklahoma, totally ban non – compete agreements for employees, or prohibit all non – compete agreements except in limited circumstances.
What voids a noncompete agreement?
You might be interested: Iowa rent rebate form
What happens if you violate a non compete?
In general, if you violate a non – compete agreement that is valid and enforceable under state law, it is likely that the employer (a party to the non – compete agreement) will file either a lawsuit for money damages against you for any actual losses suffered by your employer, or a lawsuit against you seeking to enforce
How serious are non compete agreements?
Non – compete clauses are generally not enforceable. However, LegalNature's non – compete agreement may still be used to prohibit the employee from soliciting other employees (but not customers) away from the employer.
How much does it cost to fight a non compete?
Does a non compete apply if fired?
Enforced if Fired When you sign a non – compete agreement, the enforceability of the document does not depend on why you leave a company. If you voluntarily leave or if you are fired, you still cannot go and work for a competitor, as a general rule.
Can my employer stop me working for a competitor?
When you leave a job some employers will say you can 't work for a similar business for a certain amount of time. Your contract might restrict what work you can do next, but your employer can only do this if it's needed to protect their business.
You might be interested: Iowa at wisconsin football
How are non competes enforced?
If an employee signs a valid non – compete it could be enforced against the employee if the employee takes a position that competes with the employee's previous employer. If the employer's interest outweighs the employees, the non – compete agreement is valid and enforceable.
Does a non compete hold up in court?
In consideration of the above factors, courts will also seek evidence that it is within the public interest to enforce the covenant. Many, if not most, non – compete clauses will be considered too restrictive to be enforced, given the level of scrutiny they must pass through.
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Key design considerations for lifts and escalators in offices - part 3 lift design for the redevelopment of existing office buildings
Graham BarkerView bio
Part one covered lift design considerations affecting building layout and space take.
Part two covered making the right choices during lift design.
There are many key design considerations for lifts and escalators in offices which are consistent across all projects, in Part 3 we'll focus on lift design associated with the redevelopment and refurbishment of lifts and escalators in existing office buildings:
- The challenges of lift design for existing office buildings
- The importance of lift and escalator feasibility studies for existing offices
- Suitability of the existing office lift provisions
- Opportunities to increase building population density
- Escalator constraints
The challenges of lift design for existing office buildings
For new office developments, the vertical transportation design has the luxury of not being restricted by an existing structure. Instead, the key consideration is minimising the building area occupied by the lift cores and lobbies to maximise the net lettable area. Every square foot or metre given over to lift shaft is space that can't be leased to a tenant.
In an existing building, the cross-sectional area of the lift shaft is typically a restriction due to the significant structural works, and therefore costs, which would be needed to move lift shaft walls. Frequently existing building will be increased in height with the addition of extra floors, and the lift shaft extended. Similarly, lift shafts may be excavated to increase their depth, or to enable the lift to serve new basement levels.
In any case, the constraints of an existing building often increase complexity and require a slightly different approach to that applied to new build development.
The importance of lift and escalator feasibility studies for existing offices
In an existing building, the first action should be to engage a lift consultant to undertake a feasibility assessment which will identify restrictions or limitations imposed by the structure on any lift or escalator works, and determine the areas where challenges may exist complying with latest regulations and standards. In parallel with this, the lift consultant will consider the architect or developer's plans and pull all these inputs together to provide advice on realistic opportunities which will help in delivering the overall aims of the development.
The lift and escalator survey and feasibility assessment can often form part of the developer's due diligence when considering purchasing a property, with the lift consultant often surveying the existing lift provisions as part of the acquisition process providing advice on the feasibility of future vertical transportation modifications.
Some examples of challenges a lift consultant may face for existing buildings include:
- Addition of new lower floors, associated with the excavation of the lift pit
- Addition of new upper floors and extension of the lifts to serve them
- Extending existing lifts to serve what was previously the roof level to activate the roof
- Increasing the size or speed of lifts to improve the buildings lift capacity without structural modifications
- Change lifts to a machine room less arrangement to release the area previously occupied by machine room
- Assessment of options to extend the lifespan of the lift whilst minimising capital investment
- Replacement or refurbishment of aged escalators which are landlocked
The feasibility assessment will inform the developer if their plans are deliverable within the envisaged budget and programme. The long lead time and high capital costs associated with lift works can have significant impacts on the projects on-time and on-budget success if not correctly planned for from the start.
Suitability of the existing office lift provisions
In most existing office buildings, the key initial consideration regarding lifts and escalators will be the suitability of the equipment for the intended use, the remaining life span of the equipment, and any significant capital expenditure which will be needed.
Opportunities to increase building population density
Over time the way that offices are used has developed. And the theme over recent years has seen office population density increasing placing greater demand on the lift system. It is important to assess the potential for existing office buildings, and lift systems, to handle this increased building population and to ensure that lift waiting times will be acceptable. This is an area where your lift consultant can couple a lift performance measurement survey with lift traffic analysis simulation to assess the suitability or limitations of the existing equipment.
Taken to the next step, performance measurement of existing lift systems can also identify ways in which a lift system's performance can be improved – be it by tuning of the existing system, or through targeted lift modifications and upgrades to deliver enhanced lift system performance with minimal intervention or capital investment. In a recent project, performance measurement of the existing lifts identified minor adjustments which could be made to the setup of the existing lifts, delivering marked improvement in lift performance, allowing the lifts to achieve BCO compliance even though the occupancy of the building increased.
Escalators are usually inserted into a building as part of the building's construction sequence, often being installed before surrounding walls and floors.. An escalator in a need of refurbishment or replacement will need to be managed differently.
In this scenario there are generally three potential solutions:
- A complete replacement can be undertaken when the escalator can be removed and a new unit brought into the building. If the escalators are located adjacent to the building entrance, or in an atrium this replacement can be undertaken easily.. However, the further into the building an escalator is, the bigger the challenge becomes of removing it.
- Where removal is not an option, then refurbishment of the existing may be considered. The various wear components of the escalator are removed and either reconditioned or replaced with new.
- Over recent years the concept of 'in truss replacement' has been developed where the escalator internals are stripped out leaving only the structural escalator shell. Then through detailed surveying and design, a new escalator is engineered and manufactured to fit within the original structure.
Its fair to say that no two escalator projects are the same and each needs its own detailed assessment of the available options, which are a factor not only of the escalator equipment but more significantly of how the old and new escalator equipment can be brought to site.
Lift and escalator consultancy for office developments
There are many ways in which a lift consultant can help to improve the value and operation of office buildings, through the thoughtful specification of the vertical transportation equipment.
This series of blogs aimed to provide some thoughts, coupled with experience from previous projects, to assist with the reader's future building designs and the associated lift and escalator design considerations. To discuss in more detail please don't hesitate to contact the writer.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Copyright © 2013 Surreal Graphic Design LLC. All rights reserved.
Would you like to jump start your child's education? Or improve their interest in science??
"Science Animated : The Human Body" is an animated educational DVD that is perfect for school age children!! It
combines education with entertainment as it covers the basics of human bones, muscle, and skin. This approach
makes learning fun and truly is "Educational Entertainment".


text: Predictive Policing: A Potential Nightmare for Communities of Color Posted on July 7, 2015July 8, 2015 by Kelly Allen Predictive policing may be a dream come true for budget-strapped police departments, but the implications of its use in youth and communities of color are a nightmare. "Predictive policing" refers to the use of data analysis software to guide law enforcement; it employs data on crime and offenses to generate predictions on the places and times that future crimes may occur. The software developers promise lower crime rates without the investment of additional staff or money. Predictive policing companies have been gaining popularity across the country, most recently with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's potential new investment of over $150,000 in PredPol Inc.'s software. Yet, despite the bold claims made by software developers, there has been no independent study conducted to confirm the effectiveness of predictive policing. Additionally, the negative implications of these methods for youth and communities of color have been grossly overlooked by law enforcement and completely ignored by software developers. Crime forecasting can only be as good as its data. At the fundamental level, predictive policing is destined for failure. The W. Haywood Burns Institute relies on law enforcement data to determine where inequalities exist within the system and to inform policy changes. We've discovered, and countless independent studies support, that there are vast racial and ethnic disparities throughout youth and criminal justice systems across the country. As long as these disparities exist, the implementation of predictive policing software in communities of color will lead to the continuation, if not worsening, of racial and ethnic disparities. To use a simplified example – Communities of color are policed at higher rates than predominantly White communities. Therefore, certain crimes that go unnoticed in White communities (e.g. marijuana possession) more often result in criminal charges in communities of color, despite similar usage across all demographic groups. Predictive policing software documents arrests made, not the actual crimes committed. Because communities of color tend to experience vast disparities in arrest rates when compared to their White peers, those neighborhoods are shown to be "hot spots." Thus, a cycle of over-policing in communities of color and the resulting racial and ethnic disparities in justice systems, continues to persist. While the collection and analysis of data is critical to the justice system, the statistical methods used by predictive policing confuse correlation and causation to the detriment of the lives of people of color and their and communities. Predictive policing methods should raise concerns for all communities. As a RAND report released in 2013 stated, "The very act of labeling areas and people as worthy of further attention inherently raises concerns about civil liberties and privacy rights." While Oakland may be attracted to the simplicity of fighting crime promised by PredPol, Inc., the decision to invest thousands into an unproven program is questionable at best. For a police department still under federal control for repeated abuses of power, the adoption of such a controversial program could have disastrous effects for communities of color throughout Oakland.


My watch list
 Cacodyl, dicacodyl, tetramethyldiarsine, alkarsine or minor part of the "Cadet's fuming liquid" (after the French chemist Louis Claude Cadet de Gassicourt) (CH3)2As—As(CH3)2 is a poisonous oily liquid with a garlicky odor. Cacodyl undergoes spontaneous combustion in dry air.
Cacodyl oxide is prepeared by the reaction of potassium acetate with arsenic trioxide.
4KCH3COO + As2O3 → As2(CH3)4O + 4K2CO3 + CO2
A subsequent reduction or disproportionation of the substance at the reaction condition is leading to a mixture of several methylated arsenic compounds.
A far better synthesis was developed which started from the dimethyl arsine chloride and dimethyl arsine.
As(CH3)2Cl + As(CH3)2H → As2(CH3)4 + HCl
Jöns Jakob Berzelius coined the name kakodyl (later changed to cacodyl) for the dimethylarsinyl radical, (CH3)2As, from the Greek kakodes (evil-smelling) and hyle (matter).[1]
It was investigated by Edward Frankland and Robert Bunsen and is considered one of the earliest organometallic compounds ever discovered. It was originally made from arsenic distilled with potassium acetate.
In Bunsen's words "the smell of this body produces instantaneous tingling of the hands and feet, and even giddiness and insensibility...It is remarkable that when one is exposed to the smell of these compounds the tongue becomes covered with a black coating, even when no further evil effects are noticeable".
Work on cacodyl led Bunsen to the postulation of methyl radicals.
Cacodyl was used to proof the radical theory of Berzelius, which resulted in a wide use of cacodyl in research laboratories. After the radical theory was established the interest in the toxic substance with the literally evil smell decreased. During World War I the use of cacodyl as poison gas was considered, but it was never used in the war. The inorganic chemistry discovered the properties of cacodyl as ligand for transition metals.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cacodyl". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.


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Are those spots on my plant at my desk at work anything to worry about?
Your plant appears to be Zamioculcus zamiifolia (more easily known as ZZ plant). These dark blotches or spots are quite normal and nothing to worry about - they develop on older stems. The stem I'm uncertain about is the more yellowish coloured stem with blotches in the forefront of the picture, that one might have a problem, because of its yellowish colour rather than the blotches, although the leaves coming off it look perfectly healthy. If the leaves start to turn yellow, then clip that stem out and adjust your watering as described below, if that's not how you're watering currently.
Getting the watering right is important - they need to dry out a little between waterings, so water when the surface of the potting soil feels just dry to the touch, water well, and empty out any excess from an outer pot or tray 30 minutes later. They tolerate various light conditions, but prefer relatively bright light, though never direct sunlight, and temperatures between 13-26 deg C. Usually, overwatering shows itself by yellowing leaves rather than a yellowing stem; the colour of that stem may not be particularly significant, though the need for repotting might be a possibility, I'm unable to tell because the pot is not visible in the photo. More information here _URL_
The whitish spots look like pesticide residue to me. This is most likely on a new plant. One of the last things the growers do before shipping is an application of pesticide to take of insect pests. It could also be dissolved salts from alkaline water.
Take a cloth and rub the leaves, if it comes off it is a residue. Wash your hands afterwards in case they used something with residual activity.
Otherwise your plant looks very healthy


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The Acoustic Search
In the field
ARU mounted on a tree (left) with its battery (right). Photo by Chris Tessaglia-Hymes
To search for acoustic evidence for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Arkansas and other states within the historical range, we record ambient sounds using autonomous recording units (ARUs). ARUs are programmable, battery-operated digital audio recorders developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Bioacoustics Research Program. Each ARU contains a microprocessor, 12-bit analog-to-digital converter, an omnidirectional microphone, preamplifier and signal conditioning circuitry, and a hard disk for storing audio data. These components are packaged in a cylindrical PVC housing, and attached to tree trunks two to three meters above the ground or water surface. ARUs are typically deployed for periods of two to four weeks.
ARU in Arkansas. Photo by Chris Tessaglia-Hymes
ARUs are programmed to record for two four-hour periods each day, the first beginning 30 to 45 minutes before sunrise, the second ending 30 to 45 minutes after sunset. The range at which an ARU could detect sounds of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker is unknown, because there are no data available on the volume of kent calls or double knocks. We estimate, however, that these signals would be detectable by ARUs up to distances of approximately 200 meters.
We select recording sites based on habitat quality, locations of previous Ivory-billed Woodpecker sighting reports, and presence of possible ivory-bill roost/nest cavities and feeding signs.
Reviewing and analyzing the sounds
Since the start of large-scale acoustic search efforts in 2004, our protocols for reviewing and evaluating ARU recordings have evolved in order to provide more consistent and informative evaluations of ivory-bill-like sounds. Our current protocol is summarized here.
To find sounds similar to those of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the ARU recordings, we use a multi-step process:
1. Automated screening by computer: The digital recordings are scanned by software that detects sounds similar to known vocalizations of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (from the 1935 Allen-Kellogg recording), and to double-knocks from other Campephilus woodpeckers.
2. Initial human screening: An acoustic analyst reviews all of the computer's detections. Most of the sounds flagged by the computer are easily discarded at this stage as not being similar enough to ivory-bill sounds to warrant further attention. The computer flags many "false alarm" events because we adjust the software to be very sensitive, reducing the chance that a real ivory-bill call might be missed. Sounds that pass this stage are forwarded to the next stage of review.
3. Expert panel review: A panel of three or more experts (outside of the acoustic analysis team) reviews all of the sounds that pass stage two. The expert panel categorizes each sound as "implausible" or "plausible." "Plausible" events are further categorized depending on whether a potential alternate source is identified, and if that alternate source is positively identified elsewhere on the deployment. Sounds categorized as "implausible" are either positively identified as an alternate source, or are deemed to be too different than an ivory-bill.
Plausible categories are:
- P1: Plausible Ivory-billed Woodpecker, no likely alternative known
- P2: Plausible Ivory-billed Woodpecker, alternate possibility identified but not present in recording
- P3: Plausible Ivory-billed Woodpecker, alternate possibility identified and present
- P4: Insufficient signal for full analysis
"Plausible" sounds are scored on various criteria, receiving a point for each positive response to one of several questions. A higher score indicates a greater likelihood that the sound originated from an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
Scoring criteria for vocalizations:
1. Is the harmonic interval between 580 and 780 Hz?
2. Is harmonic emphasis appropriate?
3. Is the event part of a biologically appropriate series?
4. Is there a temporal context or co-occurrence with other events of interest on the same day?
5. Is there a clear temporal context or co-occurrence with other events of interest across days?
Scoring criteria for double-knocks:
1. Is the inter-knock interval between 60 and 120 milliseconds?
2. Is sound resonant and woody?
3. Is there an absence of confounding woodpeckers?
4. Is the event part of a biologically appropriate series?
5. Is there a clear temporal context or co-occurrence with other events of interest on the same day?
6. Is there a clear temporal context or co-occurrence with other events of interest across days?
At every stage of the review process, researchers compared suspect sounds not only with those of ivory-bills and other Campephilus woodpeckers, but also with a variety of similar sounds from other species, and carefully considered the surrounding context.
What have we discovered so far?
Here we present some examples of "plausible" sounds collected in the Big Woods of Arkansas. Note: this website is not intended to be a complete and final analysis of our acoustic monitoring and research. Rather, we aim to provide a sampling of sounds that we believe are suggestive of ivory-bill and a number of "sound-alikes" that we hope will help inform other searchers about what to listen for. We are presently working on peer reviewed publication that will explain our findings in detail.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


The End of Emotional Privacy
A bodysuit that reads and stores people's emotions and allows you to "feel" how others are feeling. The project applies infrared sensor technology to simulate thermal vision and "read" emotions. By standing in front of it, the user's emotions are read and mapped as heat into the back of the bodysuit. In a context of growing concern over privacy, where corporations know who we are and what we want, 'The End of Emotional Privacy' suggests a future in which our emotional states are monitored, manipulated, and monetised.
Initial research: senses
This diagram shows how through senses get that from the world that our mind transforms into a perception of what the world is.
*This data is received through certain types of stimuli. These receptors send impulses in certain patterns, to send information about the intensity of a stimulus.
The if conditional and the purpose
Considering we have 5 senses, intuition has always been known as our "6th" sense. What if intuition was a sense, for real? That made me think about empathy, then, what if empathy was a sense?
This project will be developed around this question, seeking to find a solution to amplify empathy by exploring emotions and how to understand them. The goal is to be able to feel what others are feeling.
The statement: "emotions are heat"
"Emotions are guesses that your brain constructs at the moment when millions of brain cells work" – Lisa Feldman Barret
Guesses are predictions. Therefore, how people really feel?
Among all the methods that are being used at this moment to explore emotions, such as heart rate, face tracking, brain waves or skin conductivity, we decided to give a chance to body heat.
The idea and the device
An empathy amplifier that detects emotions* around you, by sending heat notifications, developed as a wearable bodysuit, so you can easily feel the heat.
*happiness, fear, sadness, anxiety
Based on how senses work, we created a flowchart and we replicated it in order to create a circuit logic.
Simulation of how a sense works and how to recreate it with Arduino
And this is the diagram for the full prototype:
The process
The first prototype was based on over 100 embedded wires, and 16 DIY heatpads made with conductive thread on a lace pad as base.
A work in process following the diagram
Detail of the custom heat pads I build with conductive thread
For the second prototype, I focused on using only conductive thread. The combination is Karl Grimm conductive thread for the connections, and silver-plated conductive thread to build the DIY heat pads. Before I got to that conclusion, I burned several fabrics, broke a few Arduinos, and considered buying chunky heat pads instead of wasting time in building my own. But I managed and they warmed up nicely.
As the project had to be exhibited one month, instead of the lace pads I've got the back of the bodysuit embroidered so the feeling of warmth was more noticeable on cotton (over than the nylon of my black lace pads) as well as being way more resistant to the touch of hundreds of users during the exhibition.
Getting emotional data
"The End of Emotional Privacy" aims to make people reflect on the fact that our emotions could be used as data. All the values that the IR sensor is reading, are sensed to a private database for personal further analysis, so whoever is wearing it, could learn how to me empathic.
This is an example of values of that database:
The values highlighted in red are the ones indicating that someone was in front of the wearable as it is detecting their heat.
What if all this emotional data is not used just for personal use, but is managed by big corporations? Then, they could be sending us ads when we are more vulnerable to buy.
In order to make the prototype more interactive for the exhibition format, I made a simple real time data visualisation with p5.js which displayed on a screen the emotion that the sensor just read. The sensor read values from 0 to 80ºC in an angle of 60º, working by proximity. Knowing that:
0 – Standby
No data is read, the IR sensor is waiting to have someone in front of it.
1 – Sad
The IR got temperature values between 0 and 24.
2 – Happy
The values are greater than 24 and smaller than 27.
3 – Anxious
For values greater than 27 but smaller than 55.
4 – Fearful
The last state – values greater than 55, smaller than 80.
Press coverage
The project was exhibited in the Museum of Design of Barcelona, DHUB Barcelona, among other projects for a month.
In this clip extracted from the Spanish national news, you can see some of the other projects, as well as a short interview that I had:
I also appeared in Barcelona's local tv:
I even took part in a documentary about privacy from Catalonia's national television. Here is the link to the chapter. I appear from minute 7.
This is just a terrible screenshot of the interview.
And here is the link to an article of a national newspaper that interviewed me too.
'The End of Emotional Privacy' is a project made during the Master in Advanced Interaction, IAAC (2018).


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Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness [Paperback]
Susan L. Smalley PhD (Author), Diana Winston (Author)
Mindfulness—the art of paying attention with an open and curious mind to present-moment experiences—has attracted ever-growing interest and tens of thousands of practitioners, who have come to the discipline from both within and outside the Buddhist tradition. In Fully Present, leading mindfulness researchers and educators Dr. Sue Smalley and Diana Winston provide an all-in-one guide for anyone interested in bringing mindfulness to daily life as a means of enhancing well-being. Fully Present provides both a scientific explanation for how mindfulness positively and powerfully affects the brain and the body as well as practical guidance to develop both a practice and mindfulness in daily living, not only through meditation but also during daily experiences, such as waiting in line at the supermarket, exercising, or facing difficult news.


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The task assigned to Nagra by the Swiss waste producers is to prepare and implement solutions for waste management and disposal that ensure the long-term safety of man and the environment.
This includes in particular:
- Preparing inventories of all radioactive wastes arising in Switzerland from the nuclear power plants and from the use of radioactive materials in medicine, industry and research
- Planning deep geological repositories for all categories of waste
- Carrying out geological investigations
- Demonstrating the safety of potential sites for geological repositories
- Providing open and transparent information to the public
- Promoting international collaboration in key areas of research


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Definition of Kearns-Sayre syndrome
Kearns-Sayre syndrome: A neuromuscular disorder characterized by three primary findings:
Kearns-Sayre syndrome is one of the mitochondrial encephalomyopathies. These disorders are due to defects in the DNA of the mitochondria, the cell structures that produce energy. These defects cause the brain and muscles to function abnormally (encephalomyopathy). In about 80% of cases of Kearns-Sayre syndrome, tests reveal deletions in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
There are many other names for the Kearns-Sayre syndrome including: CPEO with myopathy; CPEO with ragged-red fibers; KSS; Mitochondrial cytopathy, Kearns-Sayre type; Oculocraniosomatic syndrome; Ophthalmoplegia-plus syndrome; Ophthalmoplegia with myopathy; and Ophthalmoplegia with ragged-red fibers.Source: MedTerms™ Medical Dictionary
Last Editorial Review: 6/14/2012
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text: Migrating Non-CDBs to New Hardware with a Different Endian Operating System and for a New Release Connecting to the Database with SQL*Plus 4 Connecting to the Database with SQL*Plus Connect to the Oracle Database instance using SQL*Plus. Step 1: Open a Command WindowTake the necessary action on your platform to open a window into which you can enter operating system commands. Step 2: Set Operating System Environment VariablesDepending on your platform, you may have to set environment variables before starting SQL*Plus, or at least verify that they are set properly. Step 3: Start SQL*PlusStart SQL*Plus. Step 4: Submit the SQL*Plus CONNECT CommandSubmit the SQL*Plus CONNECT command to initially connect to the Oracle database instance or at any time to reconnect as a different user.


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glutInitWindowPosition and glutInitWindowSize set the initial window position and size respectively.
void glutInitWindowSize(int width, int height); void glutInitWindowPosition(int x, int y);
Windows created by glutCreateWindow will be requested to be created with the current initial window position and size.
The initial value of the initial window position GLUT state is -1 and -1. If either the X or Y component to the initial window position is negative, the actual window position is left to the window system to determine. The initial value of the initial window size GLUT state is 300 by 300. The initial window size components must be greater than zero.
The intent of the initial window position and size values is to provide a suggestion to the window system for a window's initial size and position. The window system is not obligated to use this information. Therefore, GLUT programs should not assume the window was created at the specified size or position. A GLUT program should use the window's reshape callback to determine the true size of the window.


BC Geographical Names
Name Details:
Name: Rivers Inlet
Feature TypeClick here for a list of
Feature Types.
StatusClick here for an explanation of Status.: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: N. of Smith Sound, Range 2, Coast Land District
Latitude-LongitudeClick here for an explanation of Position Type.: 51°36'35''N, 127°32'00''W at the approximate centre of this feature.
DatumClick here for an explanation of Datum.: NAD83
NTS MapClick here for an explanation of NTS Map.: 92M/12
Related MapClick here for an explanation of Related Maps.: 92M/12
 Nearby names within
Origin Notes and History:
Decision in 18th Report, 1924.
Source: Canadian Geographical Names Database, Ottawa
Named by Captain Vancouver after George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers (1722?-1802), a writer and politician, chiefly famous for the beauty of his wife, Penelope, whom he married in 1746. Horace Walpole described Lady Rivers as "all loveliness within and without" and Lord Rivers as "her brutal and half-mad husband."


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A new review of the scientific evidence suggests that fructose may not be as bad as some research has suggested, and may even provide some health benefits.
The review – published in Diabetes Care – analysed 18 studies that assessed the effect of fructose consumption on blood sugar levels in people with diabetes, finding that overall fructose significantly improved blood sugar control.
Even more promising, the researchers add is that benefits were seen without adverse effects on body weight, blood pressure, uric acid (gout) or cholesterol.
"Over the last decade, there have been connections made between fructose intake and rates of obesity," said Dr. John Sievenpiper, senior author of the study. "However, this research suggests that the problem is likely one of overconsumption, not fructose."
The review analysed data from 209 participants with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes from 18 separate trials.
In all trials included in the review participants were fed diets where fructose was incorporated or sprinkled on to test foods such as cereals or coffee.
The diets with fructose had the same amount of calories as the ones without.
Sievenpiper and his colleagues revealed that the overall analysis showed fructose to significantly improve blood sugar control – to an equivalent level of what can be achieved with an oral antidiabetic drug, they said.
"We're seeing that there may be benefit if fructose wasn't being consumed in such large amounts," noted Adrian Cozma – who led the research. "All negative attention on fructose-related harm draws further away from the issue of eating too many calories."
"Attention needs to go back where it belongs, which is on the concept of moderation," he argued.
Source: Diabetes Care
Volume 35, Number 7, Pages _PHONE_, doi: 10.2337/dc12-0073
"Effect of Fructose on Glycemic Control in Diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled feeding trials"
Authors: A.I. Cozma, J.L. Sievenpiper, R. J. de Souza, L. Chiavaroli, V. Ha, et al


News Release
Fossils under your feet: Ancient sea cow found in Spanish street
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
Paving slabs
image: Paving slabs were scanned in a medical CT scanner to reveal more about the fossils anatomy. Image by Manja Voss and Oliver view more
Credit: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
SALT LAKE CITY, UT (Oct. 2016) - Have you ever spotted something unexpected while walking down the street? Last December, paleontologists literally stumbled upon a new discovery of a fossil sea cow in a very unexpected place - in a limestone paving stone in Spain! Research presented this week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, describes this remarkable find and how it is changing our understanding of sea cow evolution.
The unusual pavement was spotted in the picturesque town of Girona, northern Spain. A local geologist first noticed the fossil and submitted it to the website '', an online database of urban fossils worldwide. As word of the fossil spread, paleontologists Dr. Manja Voss and Dr. Oliver Hampe, from the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, visited Girona to take a look.
Closer inspection of the paving stones by Dr. Voss and Dr. Hampe revealed that the complex array of shapes was slices of the backbone and skull of an ancient marine mammal. Based on the skull and teeth, they concluded that it was a sirenian, or sea cow, a member of a group of large, plant-eating marine mammals represented today by the living manatee and dugong.
Once the significance of the fossil was understood, Dr. Voss and Dr. Hampe worked with the mayoralty of Girona and local geologists to have the 50x30cm large paving stones removed for study. Since the rock was cut into slices to form the paving stones, the paleontologists had a cross-sectional view of the sea cow's skull, revealing many details of its anatomy. However, they also wanted to see inside the stones, so they took them to a medical hospital, the Clinica Girona, where they were CT-scanned.
The scientists discovered that the 'Girona Sea Cow' is most likely a representative of Prototherium, a genus of extinct sea cows from Spain and Italy. However, this find is particularly important because the rocks from which the paving slabs were quarried are 40 million years old, explains Voss. "Hence the find represents one of the oldest sea cows in Europe, making it a unique opportunity to enhance our knowledge on the evolution and diversity of this marine mammal group that arose about 50 million years ago."
Next the scientists will use the CT scans to try to digitally piece together the separate skull slices of Prototherium. This can help them answer more questions, such as the animals' age when it died and its potential relationship to other fossil sea cows.
The Girona Sea Cow, which is providing clues into the evolution of sea cows in the ancient oceans of Europe, shows that fossils can be found in surprising locations. Voss says "While the limestone used to build the city of Girona are enriched by fossils -- it is quite common to identify invertebrates for example--finding a marine mammal on which thousands of people walked over for the last two decades is indeed very peculiar."
Image 1: Scientist Oliver Hampe examines fossil remains of Prototherium in paving stones in Girona, Spain. Image by Manja Voss and Oliver Hampe.
Image 2: The skull of Prototherium exposed on the paving slab, in cross-section, showing parts of snout and tooth sockets. Image by Manja Voss and Oliver Hampe.
About the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
Manja Voss
Museum für Naturkunde
Leibniz-Institut für Evolutionsund Biodiversitätsforschung
Oliver Hampe
Museum für Naturkunde
Leibniz-Institut für Evolutionsund Biodiversitätsforschung
Daryl Domning
Howard University, Washington DC.
Jorge Velez-Juarbe
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Lars Werdelin
(SVP Media Response Team)


means moving from one place to another and invariance meaning not changing. If we had images of the same dog in multiple locations within a non-changing background, for example in one image a dog is at the upper left corner of the image, at another, it is at the lower right, centre some inches to the left and so on. We want the network to able to say that a dog is a dog independent of where in the picture we find the dog. The details of the locations will be abstracted/compressed/filtered away! This is the kind of information that is filtered away, by the training process occurring at a certain layer, the invariant here is the image of the dog and that which can vary is the location on the picture. The feature of interest here is the dog itself!
There are other layers that can eliminate other kinds of data like rotational invariance, a dog is a dog whether upside down or mirror reflected. Other layers can be tasked with saying that what a dog really is independent of species. Some layers are for identifying features like lines that make up a dog, etc. at the end of it all the most generalized representation of a dog is the result of the training process and it is on that generalization that any new image of a dog, supposing the network is well trained on large amounts of data, will be correctly inferred as a dog.
In the attempt of getting at a single goal which is identifying a particular class of objects in the image, we lose a lot of other information which of course looks irrelevant to our current task. Our brain doesn't filter out information like this.
Rather it learns everything learnable from a scene. I don't know how many things exactly it learns but it is a lot because all that it learns will become relevant in other thinking scenarios much later on. That is why you could walk past the street and your eyes are gazing but taking no particular attention to anything, but days later you hear on the news that something happened a few minutes after you walked passed to a car that was parked on that street and you recall that you saw that car, and depending on your mental abilities you can recall some facts about the car, the weather that day, sounds you heard, who you saw walking by etc.
While you were walking by that day your conscious mind must have been engaged in other tasks but your subconscious took notice of the environment and thus learned a lot from it. Your brain is doing much more than you're consciously aware of.
As we develop the field of artificial neural networks I think we should be moving towards these kinds of networks that learn more than what we are currently interested in so that at a later time we can query these systems for other kinds of features and they will readily adjust.
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10 innovative business ideas that will change the world
Technological advances and changes in consumer behavior, driven by broad dissemination of trends and behaviors in varied platforms based on cloud, continue to turn the tide of entrepreneurship. Below are 10 technological business ideas listed by the World Economic Forum that promise to change the world. Get inspired to create their own innovative business:
1. Cars powered by hydrogen
Hydrogen cars have many advantages over current models, run on gasoline, ethanol, diesel or electricity. Fuel cells generate electricity using hydrogen or natural gas and the energy is stored in batteries, allowing greater autonomy. Moreover, the refill compressed hydrogen gas cell takes about three minutes. Finally, the use of this fuel element and generates no carbon monoxide but water vapor, which helps to reduce pollution. But unfortunately there are still two obstacles: producing cheap hydrogen on a large scale and distribute it to the population.
2. Robotics
A technology also present long in the collective imagination and has undergone advances that are allowing finally is no longer confined to factories. Robots are more connected, benefiting from cloud computing to access and process information remotely, rather than having to be fully programmed to perform a task independently.
3. Plastic 'thermoset' recyclable
Although no recycling process is 100% efficient, this innovation – if employed on a large scale – can lead to a large reduction in waste disposal. It is expected that this new type of plastic "termoset" replace the old in five years and become ubiquitous in manufactured goods by 2025.
4. Genetic engineering agriculture
They confer on plants an increased resistance to pests and insects, reducing the need for pesticide use, and increase sustainability of crops by reducing the need of water and fertilizer.
5. 3D Printing
With the price of 3D printers falling and a large number of patents expiring this year, a growing number of these devices begin to enter the market. This provides retailers with the exciting prospect of producing customized products on demand at the store. On the other hand, there is also concern that these printers are used to produce counterfeit products. To overcome this, retailers must work closely with manufacturers to ensure that these opportunities will be explored at the same time that intellectual property is protected.
6. Artificial Intelligence
As well as new robots, artificial intelligence will lead to a significant increase in productivity and business ideas. Machines with fast access to a huge source of data may respond to situations without making mistakes based on emotions, as in the case of diagnosis of diseases.
7. Smart Drones
The market for civilian use of drones is taking off. For retail businesses, they have enormous potential to make deliveries faster and more cheaply. In film and in agriculture, we are already indispensable. For this reason it is expected that the drone market can reach U $$ 400 million by 2020.
8. Neuromorphic technology
Even today, the most advanced computers can not overcome the sophistication of the human brain. But since scientists working to create "neumórficos chips", which simulate the brain architecture increase exponentially and the ability of a computer to process information and react.
9. Digital genome
This ability to unlock our individual genetic promises to lead to a revolution, as more personalized and effective health services. That's because many of the ills we face stem from a genetic component. With the DNA scan, a doctor could, for example, according to treat a genetic composition tumor cancer.
10. Decentralized manufacturing
Instead of gathering all the necessary materials to make a product in a unique – and huge – location and then distribute it to the public, decentralized manufacturing distributes the manufacture of different parts of the product for several sites. And the final product is eventually mounted too close to where the consumer is, thereby, visibility for several business ideas are created with this same concept.
Before thinking about the future and by reference to these 10 technology business ideas, you know that management software for companies are reinventing the way we used to work and what we mean by sharing and dialogue with transparency and security? If your eyes shine with all these trends and the chance to implement a modern management tool in your business, learn and test the free Runrun.it. The team management software adopted by more than 100,000 companies worldwide.
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of making the matzo dough for Shmurah matzo or Shemurah matzo after the water comes into contact with the grain to eventually form the dough after rolling, kneading, and shaping it. The rabbi follows through until the completion of the baking of the matzo dough to ensure that no other ingredients and liquids come into contact with the matzo dough which could cause the matzo dough to become leavened. Before baking the matzo dough, the utensils used in the process as well as the oven are thoroughly cleaned to ensure this is the case.
The flour produced from the grain that is used in making the matzo dough - be it barley, oats, rye, spelt, or wheat flour - must be completely dry and is also stored in a dark, cool place overnight just prior to being used in the matzo-making process. Why store both the water and flour in a dark, cool, place overnight just prior to making the matzo? This is done so that the rate of leavening or fermentation will not be increased, which would otherwise necessitate having to complete the entire matzo-making process in an even shorter period of time than under 18 minutes. Finally, both the water and flour are watched by the rabbi that is in charge to ensure that no other ingredients or liquids come into contact with the water and flour until the matzo-making process has begun.
The difference between Shmurah and non-Shmurah matzo is in the level of quality control for the grain that is used for making the matzo. The qualified rabbi only watched the grain for the non-Shmurah matzo or "regular" matzo from the time the water first came into contact with the grain to make the matzo dough up to and including the completion of the baking process whereas the grain for the Shmurah matzo was watched by the qualified rabbi from the time the grain was cultivated or harvested until the time the grain came into contact with the water to make the matzo dough and up to and including the completion of the matzo-baking process. In both cases, as mentioned, only fresh spring water that was filtered and stored and cooled overnight to room temperature prior to making the matzo dough can be used to make matzo, and the water must also be watched to ensure no contact with leaven has occurred. Finally, in both cases, the matzo-making process is continuously watched until its completion by the supervising rabbi to ensure no other ingredients or liquids come into contact with the matzo dough which would otherwise render the matzo dough chametz or leavened and consequently, unfit for use and consumption during Passover/Pesach. Therefore, due to the close supervision of the grain beginning from the time it is harvested or cultivated as compared with supervision of the grain beginning only from the time it comes into contact with the water to make the matzo dough, Shmurah matzo ensures an extra level of quality control for the grain in the matzo-making process.
There are two types of matzo shapes: round and square. Shmurah matzo is usually - but not always - round in shape while non-Shmurah matzo is usually square in shape. Matzo is either handmade or machine-made; Shmurah matzo is most often handmade.
According to the Jewish laws for Passover/Pesach, matzo that is made with additional ingredients besides water and one of the five religiously prescribed grains can only been eaten by those who cannot easily digest the standard matzo. These include the infirm, the elderly, and young children. A popular type of "enriched" matzo or non-standard matzo is egg matzo made with - you guessed it - eggs. Matzo that is made with additional ingredients beyond the two basic and standard ingredients: water and flour, is called "Matzo Ashirah" in Hebrew, meaning "Enriched Unleavened Bread" or simply, "Enriched Matzo".
The role of Matzo in the Festival of Pesach is so important that the illustrious Rabbi Gamaliel I Ha-Zaken or Rabbi Gamaliel The Elder (9 C.E. - 50 C.E.), the grandson of Rabbi Hillel I Ha-Zaken or Rabbi Hillel The Elder (about 50 B.C.E. - 10 C.E.), once taught that, "Whosoever does not mention the three symbols of Pesach (or Passover) has not fulfilled his duty (to commemorate or celebrate Pesach or Passover). They are: Pesach (or Paschal lamb), Matzo, and Maror".


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One bit of digital information stored on a hard disk currently consists of about 3 million magnetic atoms. Researchers from Karlsruhe, Strasbourg, and Japan have now developed a magnetic memory with one bit per molecule.
By an electric pulse, the metal-organic molecule can be switched reliably between a conductive, magnetic state and a low-conductive, non-magnetic state.
''The superparamagnetic effect prevents smaller bit sizes from being reached in a hard disk,'' explains Toshio Miyamachi, first author of the study and researcher at the Center for Functional Nanostructures (CFN) of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
This super-paramagnetic effect implies that magnetic memory crystals are in-creasingly susceptible to thermal switching with decreasing size. Consequently, information may soon be lost.
''We chose another approach and placed a single magnetic iron atom in the center of an organic molecule consisting of 51 atoms. The organic shell protects the information stored in the central atom.''
Apart from the ultimate density of one bit per molecule, this type of memory based on so-called spin crossover molecules also has the advantage of the writ-ing process being reliable and purely electric.


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Heide Warncke MA
Area(s) of interest: Dutch History, History of Books, Languages & Literature, Migration History & Diaspora
The Amsterdam Hebrew Printing Industry _PHONE_: The impact of intellectual, economic and religious developments on Hebrew Printing
University of Amsterdam
Supervisor(s): Prof. Emile Schrijver/ Prof. Paul Hoftijzer (Universiteit Leiden)
The dissertation will give an insight into the history of Hebrew printing in Amsterdam and explore the impact that intellectual, economic and religious developments had on this history. The research will cover the period _PHONE_. Special emphasis will be put on identifying and analysing the networks that Hebrew book printers in Amsterdam had and how the presence or absence of networks influenced the field of Hebrew printing in this timespan. One objective of the dissertation is to examine if the book printers worked autonomously or responded to the demand of the market, the wishes of a sponsor or the restrictions on printing by the governors of the boards of Jewish congregations. Another objective is to get a clearer picture of the interaction between book printer, craftsmen, book trade and market. The aim is to map who the major players were and how this network functioned under different circumstances. The expectation is that this analysis will lead to a deeper understanding of the considerations and obstacles that a printer of Hebrew books had to face and the strategic choices made to bring a book to the presses.


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APOBEC3G, or A3G for short, is an enzyme that was previously known to fight HIV by inhibiting wild type Viral infectivity factor (Vif). It was the first enzyme that turned cytidine to uridine to be discovered. Some researchers now believe that it acts as a "double agent" by actually facilitating Vif depending on the amounts of DNA deaminase activity. According to the researchers studying this enzyme "The simplest answer might be the little DNA deaminase activity benefits the virus and a high level of activity destroys the virus" (Smith). This enzyme can be antiviral by inhibition of VIF or an HIV facilitator by bringing diversity to the genome of the virus which in turn gives new versions of the virus drug resistance properties.
APOBEC3G is a deaminase, which removes an amino radical from an amino acid or a compound. A3G deaminase-dependent antiviral activity hinders Vif by changing its genetic code and not allowing reverse transcription to take place.
APOBEC3G: a Double Agent in Defense
Harold C. Smith


POLQ 1 | Lesson 3 | Explore (Finding Common Divisor/Factor)
Finding Common Divisor/Factor
Find the Greatest Common Divisor (GCD) or the Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of the following sets of numbers. It is the largest factor or division common to the given numbers.
a) 72 and 48 b) 24 and 16 c) 32, 48 and 92
Think about and list the methods you used to find the GCD of each of the pairs. Strategies may include mental math, factor tree, and factor ladder. What is a common factor?
Common Factors are factors that two or more numbers share. Although \(2\) is a common factor of \(4\) and \(16\), is it the largest common factor?
The pairs above were solely numerical. Sets of monomials with variables also have GCDs.
Check solutions here.
Go to Practice (Finding GCF for Monomials)


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The stripe on the back of a credit card is a magnetic stripe, often called a magstripe. The magstripe is made up of tiny iron-based magnetic particles in a plastic-like film. Each particle is really a very tiny bar magnet about 20 millionths of an inch long.
The magstripe can be "written" because the tiny bar magnets can be magnetized in either a north or south pole direction. The magstripe on the back of the card is very similar to a piece of cassette tape fastened to the back of a card. (See How Tape Recorders Work.)
Instead of motors moving the tape so it can be read, your hand provides the motion as you "swipe" a credit card through a reader or insert it in a reader at the gas station pump.
On the next page, see how information is stored in the mag stripe and read by different types of machines.


Why is the moon important to the earth?
Quick Answer
The gravitational pull of the moon ensures that the earth remains in a constant position on its axis, despite the way it is moving around the axis. Without the moon, the earth would not be able to continuously rotate and it would be uninhabitable.
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Full Answer
Jupiter and the sun both have gravitational pulls which have the possibility of affecting the earth. These gravitational pulls could cause the earth to be constantly changing positions and would make the purpose of the axis of the earth defunct. These pulls could cause tides to change and would make the climate on the earth unstable. The gravitational pull of the moon is able to intercept these pulls and help the earth maintain a constant position on the axis.
It is important to note that the moon is perfectly positioned to the earth to help it maintain a constant position. If it were even slightly farther away or Jupiter were slightly closer to the earth, the pulls of the moon would not be effective. They would be so ineffective that the position of the earth could vary as much as 90 degrees. Mars is an example of what earth would be like without the large moon and the accompanying gravitational pulls.
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Constitutionalism: A Skeptical View
New York University School of Law
May 1, 2012
NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-87
This paper examines the ideology that goes by the name of "constitutionalism." The first part of the paper considers the significance of "written constitutions" The second part of the paper casts a skeptical eye at conceptions of constitutionalisim that emphasize "limited" government. Once "limited government" is contrasted carefully with "restrained government" (restraints upon specific actions by government) and with "controlled government" (e.g. insistence upon democratic control), we see that the association of constitutionalism with general limitations on the scope of government ought to make it a much more controversial ideal than the general anodyne acceptance of the term "constitutionalism" might lead us to expect. Finally, the anti-democratic implications of constitutionalism are explored. The paper argues that, by insisting on limited government, constitutionalism downplays the important role that constitutions have to perform in the modern world in establishing and securing specifically democratic authority.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 46
Keywords: authority, constitution, constitutionalism, constitutional law, democracy, judicial review, limited government, rights, written constitutionAccepted Paper Series
Date posted: December 11, 2010 ; Last revised: May 5, 2012
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Sets of components in system architecture
Jack Kruf
Studying the forest ecosystem and its natural laws for development and succession, it is noteworthy from the perspective of diagnosis of the state of systems, being organisations and even cities, to keep the sets of forest trees in mind, as found by Oldeman (1974a) in a diversity of forests. In the forest the main components are trees. In organisations it are people and on city level it could be organisations itself. It is the level of consideration which makes it helpful to choose.
The main sets of in this case tree in a present architectural photo are representing the past, the present and the future in one, symbolising respectively decay, determination (of mass and power) and prospect. It is this triangle that is useful and could be considered as a set of guiding principles of diagnosing systems in general.
The forest is characterized by its trees. In the first part, we examined the rules to which tree growth obeys, expressed in an architecture peculiar to each species, but whose principle can be identified in relation to some twenty tree models. These criteria make it possible to distinguish three sets of forest trees.
The whole of the future includes young trees, who, conforming to the initial model, often regenerated, will give structure to the future forest. The whole of the present brings together the trees having reached, by an abundant reiteration and growth in thickness, their maximum biomass and which determine the current architecture of the forest; the whole present is subdivided into structural sets at different heights.
Forest architecture is stratified; the relative density of the trees in each set determines the good or bad visibility of "strata." Lastly, the whole of the past includes trees in the process of being eliminated, traces of previous structures more or less blurring the architecture of the present.
Roelof A.A. Oldeman (1974a)
Oldeman, R.A.A. (1974a, 2nd ed.). L'architecture de la forêt guyanaise. Mémoires ORSTOM, 73.
See also


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Hard Drive Crash
There is a difference between an operating system crash and a hard drive crash. If your operating system crashes, whether you are using Windows, Linux or Mac, that is a Logical Failure. If the hard drive itself malfunctions, that is a Physical failure. Either way your data is not readily accessible but it is still there. Of course, you should have a backup plan and an image of your computer just in case but if you do not; there is still hope for your precious Gigabytes of data you may have stored on your computer through a data recovery solution.
The best way to prevent damage from a hard disk crash is to take a proactive approach and back up the data stored on the drive. One of our favorite backup programs is the Acronis True Image backup utility.
Determine what is Causing the Crash
The first thing you need to do is figure out if the crash is caused by a physical or logical failure. That is the tricky part made easier by the Disk Doctors Drive Manager that monitors your hard drive and lets you know about potential problems before they happen. If your computer crashes, it simply will not boot to the operating system. You can get the same errors if the crash is caused by a physical or logical failure. If your computer will not boot and you hear a grinding, clicking or whirring noise, that is a good sign that it is caused by a physical drive failure. At this point you should stop trying to boot the computer and do not try to reload the operating system.
Physical Hard Drive Failure
If your hard drive crash is caused by a malfunction of the hard drive itself, there is still a very good possibility that the data is still intact and accessible. You will know if it is a physical failure by the noise the drive will make. You will hear a clicking, clunking, grinding or whirring sound coming from the hard drive. Do not mistake the sounds for a malfunctioning cooling fan. Carefully open the case and listen close to the drive.
If it sounds something like this, it is more than likely a physical hard drive failure. This drive is still functioning but by the way it sounds, its days are very limited. Notice the grinding, pinging, clicking and whirring sounds the drive is making.
If you can still boot the computer but the drive is making a lot of noise, you could still get an image of the drive or clone it to a new hard drive but that is risky. Do not try to start the computer and copy the files to an external drive because that may be too much stress on the failing hardware. The best bet is to remove the hard drive and put it into a different system to retrieve the important data from the drive with a Data Recovery Solution.
If you can retrieve the data, great – problem solved right? Now all you have to do is buy a new hard drive and reinstall your operating system and all of the applications. That is not a fun task. If you were able to retrieve the data, you may still be able to take an image or clone of the drive and transfer the image to a new drive using Acronis True Image 2011 or Norton Ghost. It is worth a try unless you like reloading Windows.
It is true that today's hard drives are much more reliable than they were 25 years ago when the personal computers hit the market, hard drives are still one of the weakest components in your system.
If the physical hard drive crash is so bad that the computer will not boot or another system cannot see the hard drive, then you may need to send the drive out to a data recovery solution like Disk Doctor or Stellar Data Recovery. They both have an excellent reputation for retrieving data from a crashed hard drive. It is not cheap but how much is your data worth?
Logical Hard Drive Failure
A logical failure occurs when the hard drive is healthy but you cannot boot into the operating system. This can be caused by many different factors. A virus, system driver conflict, human error or a software malfunction can cause a logical hard drive crash. When this type of failure happens, imaging or cloning the computer will do no good. Do not try to reinstall Windows or run the useless operating system tools like CHKDSK because those tools can just make matters worse. You will need a software data recovery solution from Stellar or Disk Doctor to retrieve your data.
Just because you cannot access your data on a crashed hard drive does not mean that it is not still present on the drive. What you do from here depends on the importance of the data that is stored on your computer. If you are like most people in this technological age, part of your life is stored on your computer and that data is important. I hope that if you have a hard drive crash you can retrieve your precious data. Hard drives do crash and the best way to protect your data is with a proactive approach that is to backup, image and backup some more.


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Even more exciting, the second feature that's available is György Kovásznai's exhilaratingly experimental 1979 film Habfürdő (Foam Bath), which stands quite apart in both form and substance from any other animated feature ever made.
Habfürdő gleefully upends every principle of traditional character animation and invents a unique, personalized style of motion to tell its story. It defies easy categorization and can barely be discussed using the established language of character animation; for example, can drawings of a character go "off-model" if there's really no model to begin with? To borrow from a bit I'd written earlier, "Kovásznai understands the power of the drawing to express a range of emotions and feelings that can't be captured by a live-action camera. The film suggests a new range of symbolic acting possibilities in character animation, while showing that the animated character is far more malleable than most Western filmmakers dare to consider."
The plentiful shorts available on their Vimeo page represent a who's who of Hungarian animation including works by Attila Dargay, Gyula Macskássy, Ferenc Rofusz, and István Bányai, among others. These films represent a different approach to storytelling than Western filmmakers, and they are often infused with rich metaphors and hidden meanings. This approach to storytelling was not necessarily by choice — since filmmaking was controlled by the Communist state, filmmakers needed to be ambiguous in their storytelling if they wanted to bypass government censors.
Visually, however, the filmmakers were largely free to explore different graphic styles and techniques. Since the films were state-supported, there was no commercial imperative or need to adhere to safe, conventional styles. Animators could thus experiment to their heart's content, and in the process, they exposed audiences to fantastically fresh graphic imagery.
For a more detailed look at 20th century Hungarian animation, here's an overview of key players throughout its animation history and here's an insightful essay by Zoltán Varga that includes a discussion of some of the films embedded below.
Here's a small sample of what the Hungarian National Film Archive has made available for viewing:
Párbaj (Duel) directed by Gyula Macskássy, 1960: "The fight between the Scientist who discovers atomic energy and uses it for peaceful purposes and Mars who wants to use atomic energy for destruction, is won by the former one."
Variációk egy sárkányra (Variations on a Dragon) directed by Attila Dargay, 1967.
Rendhagyó történetek (Unusual Stories) directed by Attila Dargay, 1967.
Sisyphus by Marcell Jankovics, 1974.
Babfilm by Ottó Foky, 1975: "A strange creature visits a very strange planet, where it watches the lives of the beans, the inhabitants of the planet. When the beans notice the creature's watchful eyes, they drive it away."
Hé, te! (Hey, You!) by Péter Szoboszlay, 1976: "A film about the distorting effect of force and agression."
Hamm by István Bányai, 1977: "The tragedy of greediness, or the drama of insatiability."
A légy (The Fly) by Ferenc Rofusz, 1980: "A fine day in the life of a fly presented completely from the fly's point of view."
Mixed in with the shorts, there's a bunch of commercials as well, like the ones below. There's plenty to discover and there's only a week to do it, so head over to their Vimeo page and start exploring today.


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Texturing in XSI
The aim of this tutorial is to introduce you to the world of texturing and explain how to work your textures in Half-Life 2 as well. It's assumed that you have read the tutorial on the basics of XSI: XSI Beginner Tutorial.
- 1 Texturing Outline
- 2 Texturing Basics
- 3 Texturing in XSI
- 4 The Texture Editor
- 5 Texturing our Cube
- 6 Selecting Good Textures
- 7 Helpful Links
In order to view your model in HL2 you have to texture it with at least a plain white texture, or else it will be purple boxed or possibly not even show up at all. Here we will discuss the principles of texturing, what you should look for in good textures, and how to get those textures into HL2 and Hammer so you can actually use your model. It is assumed you know how to make a TGA file and also how to compile it for Source using VTEX. The proper steps to texturing your model are as follows:
- Find a texture and convert to TGA
- Import into XSI
- Map the texture onto your model
- Convert TGA to VTF
- Export model, place into Hammer, compile, view in-game!
Whether you want to or not, it is essential to understand the basics of texturing before you even attempt to texture a model.
UV or Not UV - That is The Question
The basics of texturing involve some simple math to map coordinates in a 2D plane to a 3D model. In order to do this, the 2D texture has its own coordinate system in the U and V axis. U is the horizontal axis and V is the vertical axis of your texture, and they both go from 0 to 1 (eg. 0.5,0.5 would be the middle of the texture). An object in XSI can only be mapped with ONE texture, possibly, so when building your textures you must combine several into one 512x512 image and use that for all your objects.
Normal Mapping and other Peculiarities
A bump map is a texture that changes the way light interacts with the applied surface, much like small bumps on an object in the real world. There are 2 types of bump maps. Grayscale (black and white) and RGB normal maps. Bump maps (Called height maps in some engines) change the depth of the rendered pixel (Since we are taking about pixel shaders here), so its job is to give the illusion of depth. Height maps are useful for rivets, screws, gashes and stuff that isn't very complex. Normal maps are RGB (Red, green, blue) images depicting where there is change in the angle of the rendered pixel. This is much more useful for intricate details like folds, wrinkles, complex surfaces like faces and bodies, unlike height maps. There are several tutorials out there on how to make and apply normal mapped textures, but that is beyond the scope of this article. It usually involves creating a low poly game mesh and a high poly detail mesh, then UV mapping the low poly and baking the high-res model's polygon normals into a texture. You should NOT apply a normal map in XSI unless you are doing it to show off how your model will look before compiling it.
Using Ultimapper in XSI for normal map creation
Ultimapper is the tool used within XSI for rendering out normal maps from a high resolution mesh for mapping onto your game resolution mesh. General workflow is as follows; create a group of high resolution objects that define the detail areas of your mesh, or create a subdivided refinement of your base mesh. If you're using more than one object to make a detailed mesh, use the edit: group command from the Main Command Panel (MCP). Once defined and selected, you can render out your tangent space normals, high resolution ambient occlusion maps for texturing, and any other material infomration you may need (in the albedo map). One note of caution, you need to invert the up and down channel of the resulting normal map to match the rendering inside of the engine. Open the normal map in photoshop, open the channel section in the layer window, then select the green channel. You'll now need to invert this channel(ctrl+I). Save this and re-export your vtf. (this refers to version 5 and up of XSI, previous versions use the "GPU surface FX" property, which functions in a similar manner).
Texturing in XSI
Now you can begin getting textures into XSI and pasting them onto our models! Follow closely and look at the images if you get lost.
Importing a Texture
It's a good idea to use TGA (Targa) files because they are compressionless and are the same format that will be used by VTEX to create the HL2 materials, therefore WYSIWYG. First you need to make the texture local to our cube so that it will display properly, and more importantly, export properly. 'MAKE SURE YOUR OBJECT IS SELECTED BY OBJECT!' Click Render at the top of the screen, go down to Get - Texture, then press Image. Now you are ready to start texturing (see Left Image). What you see in front of you is the XSI default mapping texture, which is good to use if you are trying to see how certain sections of your model will map to a texture. Click edit next to the name of the texture (it should be nolcon_pic) at the top of the window (circled in the pic). This will bring up a new property window that you can use to change the image properties of this texture. Go to about the middle of the page using the scroll bar and where you see C:\somedir click the... button on the far right (circled in pic) and find the image you want to use as a texture on your computer. Congratulations your image is now imported into XSI, click the little left arrow on the top of the current properties window to return to the Texture Map properties page.
Following the UV Textured Road
Having imported your texture into XSI (in the pic you can see it is a new image, and it should be different in yours too) we can now map it to our object. With your object you want to texture selected, press the New button in the Texture Projection box. Then go down to Unique UV's (polymesh) to create a UV mapping of our model's mesh for use with our texture. Now to view our texture on the model, do what's depicted in the image titled Getting your view setup, in the 3D view. Now press ALT+7 to open the Texture Editor Window. Your object has been broken down into its polygons and laid out naked onto our texture!
The Texture Editor
So far, you have taken the TGA texture on your computer and imported it into XSI. Then you created a UV mapping of our object. Now we have our mapped polygons laid out on our texture ready to go.
In this box you have your basic select, move, and manipulate tools. The button on the far left is your select button and it will select depending on the settings you put in the upper blue box (more on that later). The next button is the move button, and will move whatever you click and drag depending on what is selected in the upper blue box. The button after that is the crop button and can be used to crop out your texture image. The last three buttons are for collapsing your selection into a single point, a horizontal line, or a vertical line respectively.
In this box are all the buttons you need to start off wraping your model onto the texture correctly. On the left is the linear wrapping button. Think of this as if you take your texture and paste it onto whatever surface you select. The second button is for cylindrical wrapping and is like taking a soda can and cutting it down vertically one side and pulling it apart into a sheet. This is basically what you are doing to the polygons of your selection (Good for a soda can model). The third button is spherical mapping, and as its name states, is good for mapping a texture onto a sphere.
There are only 2 buttons you should worry about here. The one with the circular arrows checks to see what you have selected in the 3D view and applies that selection to the texture editor, and the one with the horizontal arrows does the opposite. Very useful if you are mapping certain objects and it isn't selecting right in the texture editor.
In this upper blue box you designate what things you want to select or move using the tools from the orange box. This is exactly like what you have in the modeling portion of XSI only it is in the texture editor. V is for vertex, E is for Edge, and P is for polygon. The lower blue box is the same things in the modeling portion of XSI in which you can Scale, Rotate, and Translate whatever is selected. Unlike the move arrow in the orange box, when you select one of these, it applies to the entire selection.
In the green box are your commands for showing and hiding selections, just like in Hammer. Press the S button to show only what is selected. Press the H button to show everything not selected. Press the A button to show everything.
Texturing our Cube
Now you are going to take your texture and apply it to our cube. The cube shown in the picture has some extra details.
Back to the Texture Editor
In the 3D view with ray-cast polygon selection, select one side of your cube. Now back in the texture editor click the linear wrapping button and select Best Fit.


University of Bern in the news en-us provides the latest news from University of Bern A possible alternative to antibiotics Scientists from the University of Bern have developed a novel substance for the treatment of severe bacterial infections without antibiotics, which would prevent the development of antibiotic resistance. Biology Tue, 04 Nov 2014 06:20:02 EST news334302601 Immune cells regulate blood stem cells Researchers in Bern, Germany, have discovered that, during a viral infection, immune cells control the blood stem cells in the bone marrow and therefore also the body's own defences. The findings could allow for new forms of therapy, such as for bone marrow diseases like leukaemia. Biology Fri, 21 Feb 2014 08:00:04 EST news312191398 Missing monsoon lead to 'years without a summer' Why do cold, rainy summers in Europe follow intense volcanic eruptions in the tropics? A research team based at the University of Bern may have found the answer: volcanic emissions in the atmosphere block sunlight and can thereby affect the amount of precipitation in other parts of the world. Earth Fri, 14 Feb 2014 08:25:48 EST news311588430 Male honey bees more susceptible than females to widespread intestinal parasite Gender differences in nature are common, including in humans. A research team from Bern, Switzerland has found that male European honey bees, or drones, are much more susceptible than female European honey bees, known as workers, to a fungal intestinal parasite called Nosema ceranae. Originally from Asia, Nosema ceranae has rapidly spread throughout the world in recent years, and may contribute to the high number of colony deaths now observed in many regions of the northern hemisphere. These findings demonstrate the delicate nature of male honey bees, which are important to honey bee colony reproduction, to a well-distributed parasite. Biology Mon, 20 Jan 2014 09:00:01 EST news309427953 Variation in land-use intensity leads to higher biodiversity If grassland is managed intensively, biodiversity typically declines. A new study led by Bernese plant ecologists shows that it is rare species that suffer the most. These negative effects could be reduced, if farmers varied the intensity of their land use between years. Biology Tue, 24 Dec 2013 09:10:01 EST news307090300 New theoretical models aid the search for Earth-like planets Researchers from Bern have developed a method to simplify the search for Earth-like planets: By using new theoretical models they rule out the possibility of Earth-like conditions, and therefore life, on certain planets outside our solar system – and limit their search by doing so. Astronomy & Space Thu, 14 Nov 2013 19:00:01 EST news303677191 Understanding clouds as a necessary ingredient in the search for life: The case study of the exoplanet Kepler-7b An international team, with participation from the University of Bern, has produced the first map of clouds on an exoplanet using the Kepler Space Telescope. Studying the atmospheres of exoplanets is the path towards ultimately identifying life elsewhere in the Universe. Understanding the role of clouds in exoplanet atmospheres is a necessary ingredient in the cosmic hunt for life. Astronomy & Space Thu, 26 Sep 2013 06:30:14 EST news299395801 How successful plants take the lead Why are some plant species rare, and others common? Why do certain exotic plant species become invasive – while others do not? Scientists from the University of Bern now identified the most important environmental and species characteristics for plants to colonize and establish in novel places. Biology Tue, 16 Jul 2013 04:24:01 EST news293167430 How quality control works in our cells A cellular control mechanism prevents the production of defective proteins in our cells. A team of researchers from Bern has now obtained valuable insights into this vital mechanism that could lead to new therapeutic approaches for genetic diseases. Biology Mon, 08 Jul 2013 07:13:43 EST news292486408 Limiting global warming is not enough So far, international climate targets have been restricted to limiting the increase in temperature. But if we are to stop the rising sea levels, ocean acidification and the loss of production from agriculture, CO2 emissions will have to fall even more sharply. This is demonstrated by a study published in Nature that has been carried out at the University of Bern. Earth Thu, 04 Jul 2013 06:06:12 EST news292136757


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Canadian Language Benchmarks (version 2000)
The Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000: English as a second language for adults provides a set of descriptors of what learners can do with English at various levels, expressed as 12 benchmarks for each of the four skill areas: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
The purpose of the CLB is to describe accurately where the learner's ability to use English places him or her within the national descriptive framework of communicative language.
The CLB describe a personís ability to use the English language to accomplish a set of tasks at 12 Benchmark levels, in four language skill areas:
Each Benchmark contains:
- A global performance, or a short Benchmark performance profile
- Four selected competencies in social interaction, instructions, suasion and information
- Examples of communication tasks that may be used to demonstrate the required standard of proficiency
CLB 2000: Chart Overview
The following table illustrates how similar competencies require increasing complexity of performance across the three stages of proficiency.
Competency: Reading Instructional Texts
Follow very simple short everyday
instructions in a predictable context.
|Follow short common instructions and instructional texts.||Follow extensive, very complex|
and/or specialized instructions
and instructional texts.
Follow one-step instructions in educational materials in a classroom situation (e.g., print, copy, circle and underline, fill in, check and draw).
Explain/convey to someone health and safety warnings and instructions for use that are printed on chemical product labels (e.g., on dishwasher detergent containers).
Read selected personnel policy regulations and instructions, and apply the information to a specific case study situation.
|Competency: Writing Recording Information||Copy words and phrases to record short information for personal use.|
Reproduce and record simple to medium complexity information for various purposes (e.g., notes, summaries, main points and other formats).
Select and reproduce very complex information from multiple sources in a variety of appropriate formats.
Copy information from an appointment note into a calendar (e.g., name, address, time).
|Take point-form notes from onepage written text or from a 10- to 15-minute oral presentation on a practical topic.|
Write an article or paper for a public forum, presenting a synthesis or overview of an area of knowledge, based on multiple pieces of research or other publications.
Note: Competencies and tasks are only samples indicative of the range of a personís language ability at a particular Benchmark level.


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The Birdwatcher's Guide to Digital Photography
Look, there's a peregrine falcon! Oh, did you see the hummingbird flit by? If you're a bird enthusiast, you know there's nothing quite as exciting as... Show synopsis Look, there's a peregrine falcon! Oh, did you see the hummingbird flit by? If you're a bird enthusiast, you know there's nothing quite as exciting as observing these amazing creatures in their natural environment. Now you can capture the excitement by taking great bird photographs with "The Birdwatcher's Guide to Digital Photography." This book is written by one of Europe's most successful scenic and natural history photographers, and provides a comprehensive guide that will teach you everything you need to know to take beautiful digital photographs of birds. Also featured are the following. - Explanations of the importance of selecting the right equipment, including different types of cameras, lenses, and camera supports. - Technical aspects of taking photographs in easy-to-understand language accompanied by helpful graphics and pictures. - Birdwatchers are taught how to approach birds, how to bait them, stalk them, and finally, how to take fantastic photographs of our feathered friends in the wild or the backyard.