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Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide with over 1 million new cases diagnosed each year. Advances in treatment and survival are likely to have increased lifetime costs of managing the disease. Cost-of-illness (COI) studies are key building blocks in economic evaluations of interventions and comparative effectiveness research. We systematically reviewed and critiqued the COI literature on CRC.
Methods: We searched several databases for CRC COI studies published in English, between January 2000 and February 2011. Information was abstracted on: setting, patient population, top-down/bottom-up costing, incident/prevalent approach, payer perspective, time horizon, costs included, cost source, and per-person costs. We developed a framework to compare study methodologies and assess homogeneity/heterogeneity.
Results: A total of 26 papers met the inclusion criteria. There was extensive methodological heterogeneity. Studies included case-control studies based on claims/reimbursement data (10), examinations of patient charts (5), and analysis of claims data (4). Epidemiological approaches varied (prevalent, 6; incident, 8; mixed, 10; unclear, 4). Time horizons ranged from 1 year postdiagnosis to lifetime. Seventeen studies used top-down costing. Twenty-five studies included healthcare-payer direct medical costs; 2 included indirect costs; 1 considered patient costs. There was broad agreement in how studies accounted for time, but few studies described costs in sufficient detail to allow replication. In general, costs were not comparable between studies.
Conclusions: Methodological heterogeneity and lack of transparency made it almost impossible to compare CRC costs between studies or over time. For COI studies to be more useful and robust there is need for clear and rigorous guidelines around methodological and reporting "best practice."


Today's name is Mongo
The name "Mongo" conjures up memories of Blazing Saddles for many of us of a certain age (and thoughts of a hospital for magical maladies for others). However, it is, in fact, a completely period name. It is a variant form of Mungo, the given name of the Scottish saint who is the patron of salmon and of the city of Glasgow. As Mongo, it appears in Scots records as a given name dated to 1490 and c. 1592. [1] In the spelling Mongow, it also appears in Scots records dated to 1579.[1]
Additionally, in one of those odd coincidences that often happens with language, "Mongo" is also a Mongol descriptive nickname meaning "silver."
[1] "Index of Scots Names in Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue" by Sara L. Uckelman
[2] "Mongolian Naming Practices" by Linda Miku


Field Notes
D. W. Mogk 1997 Mineralogical Society of America, Washington, DC Teaching Mineralogy p47-51
This article introduces the concept of "novelty space" and emphasizes that students' learning is impaired if they are 1) uncertain about their geologic and geographic setting, 2) not clear about what tasks they are expected to do or what the outcomes should look likem and 3) concerned about their personal safety and comfort. Pre-field trip preparations can significantly decrease this novelty space so students are well-prepared to engage field experiences to promote learning and positive attitudes about the activity.
The full text of the notes can be downloaded from this website.
Subject: Geoscience:Geology
Research on Learning: Ways Of Learning:In the Field, Cognitive Domain:Misconceptions/barriers to learning


How to Control Your Social Media Usage
How to Control Your Social Media Usage
Do you ever open your social media with the intention of using it for a few minutes, only to realize later on that you've spent hours scrolling through your feed? If not, you are not alone – in 2019, 16-24-year-olds spent an average of three hours per day on social media. Excessive social media usage, especially among youth, is not a surprise given how social media companies intentionally design their products to be addictive.
What Makes Social Media So Addictive?
Before trying to limit your social media usage, it is beneficial to understand what makes these apps so addictive in the first place. First of all, many social networks use infinite scroll, which significantly reduces your sense of control. After all, we rely on visual cues more than internal cues to decide whether we want to stop consuming content. Moreover, over the years, many apps have shifted towards brighter and bolder logos, since we naturally gravitate towards these colors. Instagram, which changed its logo in 2016, is a prime example of this shift.
Perhaps the most blatant source of distraction is the notifications themselves. For one, they are strikingly unpredictable – you may receive a notification about an event, someone else's posts, or even suggested accounts to follow. In the same manner, your content itself is also unpredictable, for you do not have control over what posts appear in your feed. This high degree of uncertainty makes social media apps akin to a slot machine.
Ways to Reduce your Social Media Usage
Now that you understand why social media is so addictive, here are some tips to help you regain control over your social media habits.
Disclaimer: I am speaking from my personal experience, and my advice may not work for everyone.
 1. Delete social media apps from your phone
Prior to simplifying my home-screen, my phone had almost every social media app, including Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger, Discord, and Reddit. However, I later realized that many of these apps did not provide any value to my life, but instead made me constantly on edge. I would also have the habit of checking one social media after another. Knowing this, I deleted all the aforementioned apps, except Instagram, which I regularly use for work purposes. Reflect on whether the majority of your time spent on each social media app is productive and intentional. If not, delete it.
What if I can't permanently delete these apps?
If you need to regularly use a certain app for productive purposes, then it's fine to keep it. However, you may still find yourself using that app for the wrong reasons. In that case, temporarily delete the app, and after a break, reinstall it again. For example, I delete and reinstall Instagram several times per week, because I have the habit of opening it when I am bored. Given that reinstalling an app requires significantly more effort than opening it, it forces you to consciously ask yourself why you want to use it.
 1. When necessary, use social media on your computer
This is related to the previous point about deleting social media from your phone. Sometimes, you will need to use a particular app, be it for school, work, or extracurricular activities. However, if you do not need to use it often, then access it on a computer instead.
For me, I am far more likely to mindlessly scroll through social media on a phone than a computer. The reason is twofold. First, social media is a lot easier to access on a phone, only requiring a single screen tap. Secondly, I often associate my computer with work and school, as I often access my computer for these two purposes. This means I am less likely to get sidetracked, and even when I do, I am more likely to explicitly notice it.
 1. Remove all social media sites from your bookmarks
Social media websites must not be easily visible on your computer; otherwise, you will encounter the same issue of instant accessibility. To overcome this issue, remove all your social media sites from your bookmarks.
 1. Disable your social media notifications
Believe it or not, social media notifications often have little to do with yourself, but rather with other people. You will be notified when someone else is interested in an event, someone else has sent a message into a hundred-person group chat, or even when someone else has posted on their feed. These notifications are distracting due to both their sounds and bright colors, and appear at unpredictable times. As a result, they can lure you into checking social media far more frequently than you intend to. If you do not feel ready disabling all your notifications, leave them on for meaningful conversations, such as those with your close friends or family members.
 1. Shut down your cell phone often
If you are still constantly getting distracted by your phone, then create the habit of shutting it down a few times per day. Since you can no longer instantly access your apps, you are far less likely to instinctively reach for your device.
 1. Read a Book
All habits have the same structure: a cue, a routine, and a reward. In the case of using social media, your cue is what triggers you to use it (e.g. a location, an emotional state, a certain time); your routine is your using the social media itself; and your reward is your experience of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that causes pleasure and satisfaction. In order to change a habit, you must change your routine. For me, reading is an activity that is not only satisfying but also intellectually stimulating – as a result, it has been a replacement for checking social media.
Although it may seem like a daunting task, you are capable of curbing your social media usage. Even for me, this was a long-term process that required a lot of experimentation, so I hope my suggestions provide a good starting point for your journey.
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DuPont and ADM launch bioplastic pilot plant
Article by Amanda Doyle
DUPONT and ADM have announced the opening of a pilot plant in that will be the world's first production facility for bio-based furan dicarboxylic methyl ester (FDME), which can be used to make a lightweight plastic.
The two companies developed a method for producing the long sought-after molecule FDME from fructose derived from corn starch in 2016. They have now moved to the pilot phase with the opening of a pilot plant in Illinois, US, which is expected to produce 60 t/y of FDME.
The DuPont and ADM facility. Credit: DuPont
FDME is a molecule that can be used to create chemicals and materials, including plastic. One of the first FDME-based molecules under development is polytrimethylene furandicarboxylate (PTF), a polymer that can be used to make more sustainable plastic bottles. PTF has a gas barrier that is 10-15 times higher than the commonly-used plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This increases the shelf life of the product and reduces the amount of plastic needed to keep the CO2 in the drinks. PTF is produced using a more environmentally friendly method compared to PET, which is usually derived from petrochemicals.
"We're confident FDME is both the more sustainable option and the better-for-business option," said Michael Saltzberg, global business director for biomaterials at DuPont Industrial Biosciences. "This molecule, and its numerous applications, will be high-performing, cost-effective and better for the environment."
Article by Amanda Doyle
Staff Reporter, The Chemical Engineer
Recent Editions


text:
Today's guest blog is from Zachary Kron, Architectural Designer and Software Analyst for Autodesk.
Have you ever seen those elegant, light masonry arches that seem impossibly thin? Along with a little mortar to just help things stick together, they only use gravity and careful form making to stand up. How can you find that kind of arched form where the bricks are held together by gravity? And how could you make a cool 3D model of it?
I did a little masonry experiment in Autodesk® Project Vasari, a design tool for creating building concepts that is freely available for download as a Technology Preview from Autodesk Labs. Along with integrated analysis for solar, energy, and carbon data, Vasari includes a physics based form finding tool called Nucleus. This feature allows designers to simulate gravity, wind, constraints, and collisions on surfaces with different physical properties. Combined with the paneling tools in Vasari, I was able to simulate a compression masonry structure.
In most fabrication scenarios, assembling this sort of structure out of individual pieces would be a nightmare of numbering, finding neighboring pieces, and creating temporary scaffold structures. In this experiment, however, the entire assembly was printed out on a Z Corp ZPrinter 450 pre-assembled, and the "scaffolding" was simply vacuumed out from underneath. No assembly required!
This form was relatively conservative in terms of stressing the compression system and creating tight joints. Next time we run this experiment, we'll try creating a more pronounced gap on a more dynamic form.
- ▼ April (4)

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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President Dr. Arif Alvi has called for adopting modern farming techniques to increase the agricultural productivity so to meet the country's food requirements. He also underlined the need to promote latest technological and IT tools to ensure the availability of agricultural inputs to farmers and reduce the cost of production. The President expressed these views during a meeting with a delegation of farmers at Governor house. Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam, Punjab Food Minister, Hamid Yar Hiraj, and agriculturalists from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh attended the meeting.
The farmers apprised the president about the issues related to input costs, subsidies and support price of different crops. Addressing the meeting, the president stated that the government was focusing on uplifting farmers as the prosperity of agriculture sector was directly linked with the socioeconomic development of the country. He added that incentives had been offered to support farmers and reduce their cost of production which had given a major boost to agricultural yield of major crops during the last year.


Chapter 10
Coversheet 10 coversheet
PowerPoints (lecture series are to big for website, students need to get them from shared drive) 10_1 Lecture Series with notes 10_2 Lecture Series with notes
Student workbook pages (SWB) 10 SWB chapter 10
Chapter Summary Form
Chapter notes (10.1 and 10.2) 10 notes
Textbook (chapter 10, 11, 12) Textbook unit 4 chapter 10_11_12
10.1 What you'll learn:
 - Describe the function of negotiable instruments
 - Identify the different types of negotiable instruments
 - List the essential elements of negotiable instruments
 - Differentiate between a draft, a note, and a certificate of deposit.
If you ever get a certificate of deposit or borrow money to buy a car, you need to know about the law of negotiable instruments.
10.2 What you'll learn:
 - Explain the contractual relationship between a bank and its customers
 - Distinguish stop payment orders, forgeries, and material alteration
 - Differentiate between types of checks
 - Define electronic fund transfers
You need to know what your legal rights and duties are when you open a checking account


text:
A Look at End-of-Life Care Issues for Native Americans
More than 4 million people in the United States identify themselves as either American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN), a diverse group of people who come from more than 500 tribes. Access to quality health care by AI/AN is often compromised by poverty, lack of health insurance, and the fact that many live in isolated regions. Although as a group, AI/AN have a lower incidence of most types of cancer than non-Hispanic white Americans, they are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage disease, and their cancer survival is generally poorer than that of other groups. Yet despite this burden, their access to palliative care, hospice, and end-of-life services lags behind the rest of the nation.
The AI/AN populations need these services not only for cancer patients, but also for patients with other diseases that are more common in the AI/AN population than the white population—diseases such as diabetes, tuberculosis, pneumonia and influenza, and gastrointestinal and heart conditions.
"Palliative care and end-of-life services are poorly available yet critically needed," said Dr. Judith Salmon Kaur, a Choctaw/Cherokee who is the medical director for the Mayo Clinic Hospice and for the Native American Programs of the Mayo Comprehensive Cancer Center. For a dozen years, a number of partners and collaborators have been working on an educational approach designed, Dr. Kaur said, "to bring these services to people who often face desperate situations with limited resources, options, and hope."
Developing Trust, Awareness, and Respect
"Each tribe has unique traditions, customs, and beliefs," explained Dr. Kaur, "and within each tribe both families and individuals may interpret these differently, especially as they confront issues of mortality." She said that a number of studies have reaffirmed the critical role of cultural sensitivity, understanding, and consideration in devising successful palliative care programs for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Researchers have found that it is important to develop trust in order to establish a successful palliative care program. There is no shortcut. "You need to take time to learn the unique customs, religious beliefs, and practices of the people services are directed to. This frame of culture will determine how patients and families receive information, make decisions, and try to find meaning and direction in the face of potentially life-limiting or end-of-life situations," she said.
Awareness of how each patient and family may experience and open up to palliative and end-of-life care is a first principle, but there are themes that may cut across tribes and regions.
Hospice programs, which often encourage talking directly about death and dying, need to be sensitive to the fact that such direct discussion may be uncomfortable for many American Indians and Alaska Natives. It can sometimes be useful to develop a "code" for such communication. For example, in one hospice program, at the Fort Defiance Indian Hospital on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, the social workers devised a gentle, indirect statement that addresses advance directives, which patients and families can read and sign.
Patients receiving palliative care may prefer a hospital setting to their home, although preferably a hospital on tribal land. The challenge comes in trying to establish a setting that reflects their culture and creates an atmosphere in which they can die in peace and with dignity.
Training Trainers To Build the Programs
About half of all American Indians and Alaska Natives receive health care through the Indian Health Service (IHS), a government-funded program on 163 reservation and urban sites serving 332 tribes. In 2005, an NCI-funded study of IHS tribal health directors found that a majority of Native American communities were not receiving pain management services, advanced care planning, physical therapy, traditional medicine, bereavement support, care for the dying and hospice care.
Meanwhile, the National Cancer Institute had developed a comprehensive educational curriculum for health care providers, known as EPEC-O, or Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Oncology. In 2006, the IHS and NCI partnered to modify EPEC-O to target the AI/AN population and to re-fashion it for use by an interdisciplinary team of health providers that includes physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, pharmacists, nursing assistants, and cultural liaisons. In 2007 and 2008, the partners provided three train-the-trainer seminars for 89 physicians and healthcare providers from IHS service units throughout Indian country.
The training has proved successful. Four out of five of those trained said they had used what they learned and incorporated these palliative care principles into their practice settings. About half were planning to train others, and more than half had started new palliative services, such as consultations about advance planning, grief and loss, pain management, and palliative services—often recruiting interdisciplinary teams of care providers from within their health centers to deliver these services. The program has even been enhanced by specific hands-on training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, with development of an "intensive case-based palliative care program."
The CD-ROM and DVD for EPEC-O with American Indian and Alaska Native Cultural Considerations is available from NCI. November is National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. NCI leads the National Cancer Program and the NIH effort to dramatically reduce the burden of cancer and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families, through research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of new interventions, and the training and mentoring of new researchers. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI web site at _URL_ or call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (_PHONE_). More articles and videos in the culturally relevant Lifelines series are available at _URL_

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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UBC Theses and Dissertations
Optimal mapping with topology change for animation and geometry problems Zhu, Yufeng
This thesis investigates several aspects of the optimal mapping problem, finding a bijective function between two shapes which minimizes some metric, and its many applications in computer graphics such as finding planar embeddings of curved surface meshes, image warping, mesh deformation, elastoplastic simulation, and more. We highlight in particular problems where differences in topology between the shapes—which necessitate discontinuities in the mapping—play a crucial role, e.g. due to animation decisions or physical fracture. Our first project presents an approach to extend discrete variational shape interpolation to create keyframe animation involving extreme deformation, topology change and dynamics. To construct correspondence between keyframe shapes as well as satisfying feature matching constraints, we introduce a consistent multimesh structure that is able to resolve topological in-equivalence between shapes and a Comesh Optimization algorithm that optimizes our multimesh for both intra and inter-mesh quality. To further speed up the total solving time, we then develop three new improvements to the state of the art nonlinear optimization techniques that are frequently used in this field, including a barrier-aware line-search filter that cures blocked descent steps due to element barrier terms; an energy proxy model that adaptively blends the Sobolev gradient and L-BFGS descent to gain the advantages of both; and a characteristic gradient norm providing a robust and largely meshand energy independent convergence criterion. Finally, we demonstrate another related interesting graphics application, brittle fracture simulation. In particular, we investigate whether we can sidestep the volumetric optimal mapping problem for solving elastic deformation and instead use a boundary element discretization which only requires a surface mesh. We will show how the computational cost of such problems can be alleviated using a boundary integral formulation and kernel-independent Fast Multipole Method. By combining with an explicit surface tracking framework, we further avoid the expensive volumetric mesh construction and maintenance during fracture propagation and shape topology change.
Item Citations and Data
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International


because the designer wishes to encourage investigation, if only to increase turns spent in the location and with them risk, making the detail matter is important. Player learn quickly to ignore useless dungeon dressing, so it should sometimes contain incidental or hidden treasure and frequently offer interesting information that can help the players understand the setting or location.
Such information and mysteries need not be direct clues to overcoming a dungeon's obstacles (but it's useful if they are), but they can be evocative hints about the nature of the location - murals and carvings that indicate former purposes or tell histories. In Broken Bastion an example of the first are hatched cocoons on the ceiling - a grave warning to look up and watch for things hatching from cocoons, even if the players don't immediately know that these will be poisonous glass spiders. An example of the second is the repeated motif of a haloed triangle - symbol of the Bastion's former inhabitants, Keystone Alignment empyreans. Murals showing the Bastion as an orbital fortress in battle, indicating that it likely contains arcane siege weapons of immense destructive power is a mixed example. The murals give hints about the location's purpose and past, but they are also veiled warnings that there are immensely destructive magical energies at play in the Bastion, which given its damaged state may be unwise to tamper with.
Obviously the immediate detail of the cocoons - a big flashing sign indicating a repeated trap/ambush in the location is a useful clue that the players may interact with. The murals also provide benefit about the location, tangentially perhaps, but still offer a key piece to the location's main puzzle. The information about the former allegiance of the Bastion and its now deceased inhabitants has no immediately useful application. Its interest is entirely narrative for the players, a chance to discover who's stuff they are poking through and potentially useful at understanding the politics and factions of Empyreans if they come up elsewhere in the campaign.
Yet even the useless detail is valuable in a jewelbox, it not only uses up player time (not every search should have a positive result) but it builds an understand of the location and offers a chance for the players to absorb detail at their own pace and in the context of the story. The problem with history and similar 'lore' in fantasy adventure games isn't the detail itself - many players very much enjoy detail as it allows better visualization of the imagined environment - but the 'lore dump' where the GM offers up large amounts of bland, information without context. Background information is more accessible and interesting to most players if its provided as a reward for curiosity during play, and it's more memorable when it's placed in the context of a location within the game world. For example, players will often ask about and remember the details of murals and mosaics in dungeons, even when there's no evident use, to the point where I never fail to include a description when writing a key. This sort of decor becomes a wonderful way to include myths, legends, faction identity and religious iconography in one's setting. Some players even take it further then observation and memory, attempting to unravel the details of what they find in later adventures or during their character's downtime.
It is still difficult to balance detail, one needs to carefully blend of evocative and informative description and terse utility. That's the trick of writing adventures, a largely functional document that also requires a touch of the imaginative. While there's no specific formula to writing useful but poetic keys, its a good rule to avoid unnecessary detail and emphasize details that will appear in play. History and description should be blended and discoverable in play. In Broken Bastion, while I have included the name and symbols of the Empyrean faction that built the ruin, but none of their history or goals, because these don't matter, they aren't discoverable by search and there are no living members of the faction to interact with. Only the player facing details of the history is provided. It may also be useful to provide any details that are necessary for the GM to run NPCs or locations - for example it's worth mentioning an NPCs fears and desires, but rarely helpful to provide an elaborate backstory that describes how they developed them. Jewelbox design may offer the designer a little more space to elaborate and describe, but for it to work the Game Master still needs to be able to quickly separate the details that matter in play, and the best way to do this is to relegate Game Master facing information to a short introduction or appendix. Better still is to avoid it entirely.
Because jewelbox design depends on denser detail it's possible to depart from system guidelines and built in setting far more than in a minimally keyed adventure. Additional space available for each key allows new things in longer descriptions, so the tropes of vernacular fantasy or implied setting aren't necessary to fill in detail. Additionally, new and unique setting elements help encourage greater investigation and player effort to understand the location - either out of interest or simply to aid in their character's survival. Unique monsters require caution and efforts to figure out their strengths and weaknesses, more complex descriptions of traps and puzzles mean more possible solutions and more attention is required to unravel them.
This provides another reinforcing loop - grater player interaction with the adventure leads to greater setting knowledge and greater setting knowledge provides better outcomes to the players. At its core jewelbox design is an effort to encourage this loop, to arouse player interest in the setting and visualizing it rather than focusing on the system mechanics or knowledge and the ways to manipulate them for the best results. Obviously the mechanics will never entirely vanish, many players may not be interested in understanding or visualizing a fantasy world (or less interested then the designer at least), so as with its other elements described here jewelbox design as a whole is both aspirational and usually partial.
*realism is a dangerous concept in RPGs and I hesitated to use it descriptively here, obsessions with realism lead to strange games, useless Greenwoodian maximalism, mechanical overindulgence in subsystems that see very little use and fights about the density of bronze, the quality of steel in katana blades or real world minutiae that not only will ruin your game, but will attract people who want to bully nerds like ants to honey.
February has been a busy month! In addition to my publication of a new dungeon and this a bit of design theory, Zinequest 3 has exploded -- it's such a big event that even I've been drawn into it! I've been helping a couple friends with their projects and I've backed several more that I liked.
1. Ultan's Door - Ben Laurence. I've long done cartography for Ultan's Door, and this new DOUBLE issue of the zine is no exception. This is some of the finest classic adventure design out there, combined with a wonderful setting, terse but incredibly flavorful and sometimes poetic writing and imagination. The public seems to agree with me, and has shown a lot of love for Through Ultan's Door throughout it's Kickstarter, ultimately funding it at 2,000% for a total of $50,000 -- a huge number for zinequest, though at least partially driven by a love of the very high quality physical product represented by the zine and the chance to obtain reprints of the back issues.
In addition to the two official Through Ultan's Door zines, the Kickstarter is also the first Ultan's project to include written content by someone other than Ben L. He's graciously let me write a companion adventure for Through Ultan's Door - a 40 page sewer pirate base in the wreck of a perfume barge, and the offices of a corrupt lawyer above who depends on the pirates' proclivity for kidnapping to help his practice. I've done writing, art and maps for this zine "Beneath the Moss Courts" and am gratified that Ben has trusted me enough to touch Wishery.
As part of the Kickstarter rewards Ben and I will also be preparing a mini-adventure for Ultan's Door. The abandoned Sweet Factory, a place of sugary delight equal parts 19th century Ghazipur opium factory, honey ghul trap house, and sticky rotten candyland.
2. Errant.
Ava Islam has written a lush and thoughtful ruleset that evolves classic play mechanics and procedures to produce a more baroque and textured game. There's a lot of theory in Errant, and it shares a goal of mine -- making exploration an equal, mechanically supported pillar of play as combat and role play. I'm providing a few illustrations and will produce another mini-adventure written for Errant and involving Ava's fairytale Avian Kings.
Curse of the Ganshoggr will be a free PDF to Errant backers, that asks the questions: What does a tyrannical King of Geese (and Swans he insists!) do exactly to anger the gods? What does a divine curse of the Gods of Geese look like anyway? What do you get when you cross a dragon and a goose? What choices will you characters make between fame, fortune, and imminent destruction?
Errant also funded, getting 500 backers and $10,000.00 which should mean it will have top notch art and production better then the high level originally intended.
While these two projects are the only ones I've promised work to, I've also backed three more because I know and like the authors and am a fan of their past work.
A. Where the Wheat Grows Tall - Evlyn Moreau who is one of my favorite illustrators working in the RPG space and excels at precisely the sort of regional maps and character art that seem at the heart of this zine. There aren't enough adventures about farmlands and rural spaces


Gnawa music
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Gnawa musicians performing in a street in Morocco
The word 'Gnawa', plur. of Gnawi, is taken to be derived from the Hausa-Fulani word "Kanawa" for the residents of Kano, the capital of the Hausa-Fulani Emirate, which was a close ally of Morocco for centuries, religiously, economically, and in matters of defence. (Opinion of Essaouira Gnawa Maalems, Maalem Sadiq, Abdallah Guinia, and many others). Moroccan language often replaces "K" with "G", which is how the Kanawa, or Hausa people, were called Gnawa in Morocco. The Gnawa's history is closely related to the famous Moroccan royal "Black Guard", which became today the Royal Guard of Morocco.
A short browsing of the Moroccan and Hausa contexts will suffice to show the connections between both cultures, religiously -as both are Malikite Moslems, with many Moroccan spiritual schools active in Hausalandand artistically, with Gnawa music being the prime example of Hausa-sounding and typical Hausa articulation of music within Morocco, its local language, and traditions.
Gnawa music is one of the major musical currents in Morocco. Moroccans overwhelmingly love Gnawa music and Gnawas 'Maalems' are highly respected, and enjoy an aura of musical stardom.
In a Gnawa song, one phrase or a few lines are repeated over and over, so the song may last a long time. In fact, a song may last several hours non-stop. However, what seems to the uninitiated to be one long song is actually a series of chants, to do with describing the various spirits (in Arabic mlouk (sing. melk)), so what seems to be a 20-minute piece may be a whole series of pieces - a suite for Sidi Moussa, Sidi Hamou, Sidi Mimoun or the others. But because they are suited for adepts in a state of trance, they go on and on, and have the effect of provoking trance from different angles.
The melodic language of the stringed instrument is closely related to their vocal music and to their speech patterns, as is the case in much African music. It is a language that emphasizes on the tonic and fifth, with quavering pitch-play, especially pitch-flattening, around the third, the fifth, and sometimes the seventh. This is the language of the blues.
krakebs or Qraqab
Gnawa music is characterized by instrumentation. The large heavy iron castanets known as qraqab (or krakebs large iron castanets; Ar. قراقب) and a three -string lute known commonly as a hajhuj (or gimbri) are central to Gnawa music.[1] The rhythms of the Gnawa, like their instrumentations are distinctive. Particularly Gnawa is characterized by interplay between triple and duple meters. The "big bass drums" mentioned by Schuyler are not typically featured in a more traditional setting.[2]
Gnawa have venerable stringed-instrument traditions involving both bowed lutes like the gogo and plucked lutes like the gimbri (Ar. چنبري; also called hajhuj, Ar. هجهوج or "sentir" Ar. سنتير), a three-stringed bass instrument. The Gnawa also use large drums called tbel (Ar. طبل ) in their ritual music. The Gnawa hajhuj has strong historical and musical links to West African lutes like the Hausa halam, a direct ancestor of the banjo.
Gnawa hajhuj players use a technique which 19th century American minstrel banjo instruction manuals identify as "brushless drop-thumb frailing". The "brushless" part means the fingers do not brush several strings at once to make chords. Instead, the thumb drops repeatedly in a hypnotically rhythmic pattern against the freely-vibrating bass string producing a throbbing drone, while the first two or three fingers of the same (right) hand pick out, percussive patterns in a drum-like, almost telegraphic manner.
Gnawas perform a complex liturgy, called lila or derdeba. The ceremony recreates the first sacrifice and the genesis of the universe by the evocation of the seven main manifestations of the divine demiurgic activity. It calls the seven saints and supernatural entities (mluk, Arabic: ملوك) represented by seven colors, as a prismatic decomposition of the original light/energy. The derdeba is jointly animated by a maâlem (master musician) at the head of his troop and by moqadma or shuwafa (clairvoyante) who is in charge of the accessories and clothing necessary to the ritual.
During the ceremony, the clairvoyante determines the accessories and clothing as it becomes ritually necessary. Meanwhile, the maâlem, using the guembri and by burning incense, calls the saints and the supernatural entities to present themselves in order to take possession of the followers, who devote themselves to ecstatic dancing.
Inside the brotherhood, each group (zriba; Arabic: زريبة) gets together with an initiatory moqadma (Arabic: مقدمة), the priestess that leads the ecstatic dance called the jedba (Arabic: جذبة), and with the maâlem, who is accompanied by several players of krakebs.
Preceded by an animal sacrifice that assures the presence of the spirits, the all-night ritual begins with an opening that consecrates the space, the aâda ("habit" or traditional norm; Arabic: عادة), during which the musicians perform a swirling acrobatic dance, playing the krakebs.
The mluk (sing. melk) are abstract entities that gather a number of similar jinn (genie spirits). The participants enter a trance state (jedba) in which they may perform spectacular dances. By means of these dances, participants negotiate their relationships with the mluk either placating them if they have been offended or strengthening an existing relationship. The mluk are evoked by seven musical patterns, seven melodic and rhythmic cells, who set up the seven suites that form the repertoire of dance and music of the Gnawa ritual. During these seven suites, seven different types of incense are burned and the dancers are covered by veils of seven different colours.
Each of the seven families of mluk is populated by many "characters" identifiable by the music and by the footsteps of the dance. Each melk is accompanied by its specific colour, incense, rhythm and dance. These entities, treated like "presences" (called hadra, Arabic: حضرة) that the consciousness meets in ecstatic space and time, are related to mental complexes, human characters, and behaviors. The aim of the ritual is to reintegrate and to balance the main powers of the human body, made by the same energy that supports the perceptible phenomena and divine creative activity.
Later, the guembri opens the treq ("path," Arabic: طريق), the strictly encoded sequence of the ritual repertoire of music, dances, colors and incenses, that guide in the ecstatic trip across the realms of the seven mluk, until the renaissance in the common world, at the first lights of dawn.
Almost all Moroccan brotherhoods, such as the Issawa or the Hamadsha, relate their spiritual authority to a saint. The ceremonies begin by reciting that saint's written works or spiritual prescriptions (hizb, Arabic: حزب) in Arabic. In this way, they assert their role as spiritual descendants of the founder, giving themselves the authority to perform the ritual. Gnawa, whose ancestors were neither literate nor native speakers of Arabic, begin the lila by recalling through song and dance their origins, the experiences of their slave ancestors, and ultimately redemption.
Gnawa music today[edit]
During the last few decades, Gnawa music has been modernizing and thus becoming more profane. However, there are still many lilas organized privately, which conserves the music's sacred, spiritual status.
Within the framework of the Gnaoua World Music Festival of Essaouira ("Gnaoua and Musics of the World"), the Gnawa play in a profane context with slight religious or therapeutic dimensions. Instead, in this musical expression of their cultural art, they share stages with other musicians coming from the four corners of the world.
As a result, Gnawa music has taken a new direction by fusing its core spiritual music with similar genres like jazz, blues, reggae, and hip-hop. Every summer for four days in June, the Festival welcomes famous musicians that come to participate, exchange and mix their own music with Gnawa music, creating one of the largest public festivals in Morocco as well as one of the best jam sessions on the planet. Since its debut in 1998, the free concerts have drawn a festival audience that has grown from 20,000 visitors to over 200,000 in 2006 including 10,000 visitors from around the world.
Past participants have included Randy Weston, Adam Rudolph, The Wailers, Pharoah Sanders, Keziah Jones, Omar Sosa, Doudou N'Diaye Rose, and the Italian trumpet player Paolo Fresu.
There are also projects such as "The Sudani Project", a jazz/gnawa dialogue in collaboration between saxophonist/composer Patrick Brennan, Gnawi maâlem


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How well do you move? Have you become aware of restrictions in your movement that may be impacting your day to day life?
This 60 minute case history and movement assessment is designed to help you understand what aspects of your movement could improve. Our habits and lifestyles can create compensations in our bodies which, over time, can make us less able to perform day to day tasks successfully. This session includes the following:
A full case history
Identification of your goals
A full movement assessment
Analysis and discussion
Takeaway plan of simple exercises


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Functioning and disability are universal human experiences. However, our current understanding of functioning from a comprehensive perspective is limited. The development of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) on the one hand and recent developments in graphical modeling on the other hand might be combined and open the door to a more comprehensive understanding of human functioning. The objective of our paper therefore is to explore how graphical models can be used in the study of ICF data for a range of applications.
We show the applicability of graphical models on ICF data for different tasks: Visualization of the dependence structure of the data set, dimension reduction and comparison of subpopulations. Moreover, we further developed and applied recent findings in causal inference using graphical models to estimate bounds on intervention effects in an observational study with many variables and without knowing the underlying causal structure.
In each field, graphical models could be applied giving results of high face-validity. In particular, graphical models could be used for visualization of functioning in patients with spinal cord injury. The resulting graph consisted of several connected components which can be used for dimension reduction. Moreover, we found that the differences in the dependence structures between subpopulations were relevant and could be systematically analyzed using graphical models. Finally, when estimating bounds on causal effects of ICF categories on general health perceptions among patients with chronic health conditions, we found that the five ICF categories that showed the strongest effect were plausible.
Graphical Models are a flexible tool and lend themselves for a wide range of applications. In particular, studies involving ICF data seem to be suited for analysis using graphical models.
In recent years, research in health conditions with high impact such as cancer, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases has been redefined from simplistic cause models towards a systems approach. This permits complex interactions of multiple components embedded in the cellular machinery of the body, and hence a new understanding of disease and aetiology. Similar to this new approach to genomic and cellular disease mechanisms, macroscopic views on health and disease are changing.
Health is increasingly understood as a complex interaction of functioning with a multifaceted environment. Functioning and disability are universal human experiences in which body, behavior and society are inextricably intertwined [1,2]. In our lifespan we all will experience limitations in functioning due to acute or chronic health conditions, or aging. Modern societies aim to optimize functioning and quality of life through rehabilitative efforts on the clinical, service and policy level [3,4].
Our current understanding of functioning from a comprehensive perspective is limited. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently made a compelling case to develop human functioning and rehabilitation research in its resolution R114 on 'disability, including prevention, management and rehabilitation'. All substantive articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities refer to specific domains of human functioning. Human rights require appropriate levels of functioning. Significantly implementing a right means to know and analyze all the relevant levels of human functioning in concert with a facilitating environment. The right to education, for example, can only be implemented by enabling mobility, communication, access to appropriate facilities and support. We require, in short, a comprehensive understanding of human functioning. Likewise, the "Rehabilitation Medicine Summit: Building Research Capacity" which was organized by the Foundation for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, and the Association of Academic Physiatrists stated the need to increase investment in human functioning and rehabilitation research.
Still, there has been considerable progress into the understanding of functioning. Among the recent developments is the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF; see ), and as a consequence the possibility for innovative modeling strategies in that context. The ICF which was endorsed by the World Health Assembly in May 2001 provides a common language for functioning and health. With the ICF it is possible to systematically define the prototypical spectrum of functioning and health domains for specific health conditions, therapy targets, and age groups. Likewise, the association of elements of functioning on the level of single categories can be analyzed beyond the study of the incidence and prevalence of disease.
It is a difficult task to catch the complex associations encountered in human functioning research. This methodological problem has been solved for the domain of genomic medicine by using graphical modeling. Graphical models were identified as a promising new approach to modeling clinical data, and thus the systems approach to health and disease. Beyond association, this method has also been developed for estimating causal effects.
Based on current work, graphical models have potential for a range of applications. Firstly, the dependence structure of complex data can be visualized by graphs thus facilitating intuitive understanding. Secondly, graphical models can be used for dimension reduction of complex data. Thirdly, differences in dependence structures between subpopulations can be clarified. Fourthly, under stricter assumptions, bounds on the (causal) effects of interventions can be estimated from observational data using graphical models. Yet, so far there is no systematic road-map to describe the potential applications of graphical models for the study of functioning.
The objective of our paper therefore is to explore how graphical models can be used in the study of ICF data in order to develop a more detailed understanding of human functioning.
Specifically, our first aim was to develop and improve statistical approaches to the visualization of complex associations. Our second aim was to examine how graphical models can be used for dimension reduction. Our third aim was to examine how differences in association structures between subpopulations can be clarified. Finally, our fourth aim was to investigate the possibility of estimating intervention effects from observational data without knowing the underlying causal structure.
Study design and population
This study was a post hoc analysis of two data sets collected in the context of the ICF Core Set project. Methods for data collection and descriptive analyses have been published elsewhere (see and ).
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) data
The multi center, cross-sectional study of patients with SCI was conducted in 14 countries. Individuals were included if they had sustained a SCI with an acute onset, or if they were receiving rehabilitation in the early post-acute situation, or if they were in a long-term context. Individuals had to be at least 18 years old and had to be able to understand purpose and reason of the study. Written informed consent was obtained from all included patients. Individuals with significant traumatic brain injury or diagnosed mental disorders prior to SCI were excluded. Acute onset was defined as injury or disease with the development of SCI within 14 days. The early post-acute context was defined as starting with active rehabilitation and ending with the completion of the first comprehensive rehabilitation after the acute SCI. The long-term context follows the early post-acute context. This working definition was based on a worldwide consensus of researchers involved in the data collection and was approved by the steering committee of the project. In total, 1026 patients were included, of which 22% were female. Patients had a mean age of 42 years. Mean time since injury was 6 years with 46% of the patients being tetraplegic and 54% being paraplegic. Impairment according to ASIA score was complete in 52% of the patients. For subgroup analyses, we used data from 598 patients: 304 from four European countries (Denmark, Germany, Israel, and Switzerland) and 294 from four Asian countries (India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam). An extensive description of this data set can be found in. We obtained permission to reanalyze the data.
Chronic Health Conditions (CHC) data
We used data from a multi center, cross-sectional study involving 1039 patients with chronic health conditions. Individuals were included if they were undergoing inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation in 19 German hospitals and rehabilitation centers and had at least one of the following chronic health conditions: low back pain, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, chronic ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, breast cancer, obesity, chronic widespread pain, depression, stroke. The percentage of female patients was 59%. Patients had a mean age of 53 years. Main diagnoses were low back pain (19%) and chronic widespread pain (12%) followed by breast cancer (12%) and stroke (11%). An extensive description of this data set can be found in. We obtained permission to reanalyze the data.
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is a multipurpose classification which belongs to the World Health Organization (WHO) family of international classifications. The ICF contains so-called ICF categories organized in two parts, each consisting of separate components. The first part covers functioning and disability with the components "Body Functions" (coded with b), "Body Structures" (s) and "Activities and Participation" (d). The second part covers contextual factors with the components "Environmental Factors" (e) and "Personal Factors". The ICF categories of each component, with exception of the "Personal Factors", which are not classified yet, are hierarchically detailed up to four levels. The hierarchical code system consists of the abbreviation of the component and the chapter number (e.g. b2 Sensory functions and pain), followed by the second level (e.g. b210 Seeing functions), the third level (e.g. b2100 Visual acuity functions) and the fourth level (e.g. b21000 Binocular acuity of distant vision). The SCI data comprised 268 second level categories. The CHC data comprised 128 second level categories. The ICF suggests qualifiers which range from 0 to 4 for each category in b, d and s and from -4 to 4 in e. ICF codes and descriptions of the ICF categories used in this paper are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. ICF code


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May 15, 2008 Researchers in Israel have found that teenagers' values helped determine whether or not they engaged in violent behavior at school, especially in schools where violence was common.
The researchers are from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The researchers gave questionnaires to 907 Jewish and Arab teenagers in grades 10 to 12 who attended 33 schools in Israel, where Jewish and Arab children attend two separate public schools systems. The teens answered questions about the importance of 10 different values and about their own violent behavior. Values were defined as goals and ideas the students saw as important and guiding principles in their lives. Violent behavior was defined as actions like hitting and threatening. The prevalence of violence in the schools was estimated by averaging, in each school, adolescents' reports of their own violent behavior, violent behavior by their two best friends, and the violence they had encountered at school.
In both Arab and Jewish schools, adolescents who valued power (trying to attain social status by controlling and dominating others) reported more violent behavior than their peers. Teenagers who valued universalism (promoting understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protecting the welfare of all people and nature) and those who valued conformity (limiting actions and urges that might violate social expectations and norms) reported less violent behavior than their peers. The association of power and universalism with teenagers' behavior was especially strong in schools where children's exposure to violence was relatively common.
According to the researchers, the study's findings highlight the protective role of values, in the same way that personality and family can be protective. In high-risk environments like violent schools, adolescents who place a low value on power and those who place a high value on universalism may be relatively protected against engaging in violent behavior. This could happen, the researchers suggest, because as teenagers become more aware of violence, their values are more likely to guide their behavior.
"It has always been a major goal of developmental research to understand the causes of violence," says Ariel Knafo, assistant professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the lead author of the study. "The current study, focusing on a life period considered crucial to the development of values, shows the importance of values considered in the educational context. The results suggest that programs that promote universalistic values at the expense of power values, if properly implemented, may help reduce adolescents' violent behavior."
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- Values as Protective Factors against Violent Behavior in Jewish and Arab High Schools in Israel. Knafo, A, Daniel, E, and Khoury-Kassabri, M (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem). Child Development, Vol. 79, Issue 3. (May/June 2008).
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.


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Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure: Delete Cloud Instance
An adversary may delete a cloud instance after they have performed malicious activities in an attempt to evade detection and remove evidence of their presence. Deleting an instance or virtual machine can remove valuable forensic artifacts and other evidence of suspicious behavior if the instance is not recoverable.
Routinely check user permissions to ensure only the expected users have the capability to delete new instances.
|User Account Management||
Limit permissions for deleting new instances in accordance with least privilege. Organizations should limit the number of users within the organization with an IAM role that has administrative privileges, strive to reduce all permanent privileged role assignments, and conduct periodic entitlement reviews on IAM users, roles and policies.
The deletion of a new instance or virtual machine is a common part of operations within many cloud environments. Events should then not be viewed in isolation, but as part of a chain of behavior that could lead to other activities. For example, detecting a sequence of events such as the creation of an instance, mounting of a snapshot to that instance, and deletion of that instance by a new user account may indicate suspicious activity.
In AWS, CloudTrail logs capture the deletion of an instance in the
TerminateInstances event, and in Azure the deletion of a VM may be captured in Azure activity logs. Google's Admin Activity audit logs within their Cloud Audit logs can be used to detect the usage of
gcloud compute instances delete to delete a VM.


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We observe that features from demographic and financial data rank higher in terms of importance in our model. Features from POIs and Human Mobility such as the number of public transportation stops, the visitor capture rate and the visitor dwell time also play important roles.
Another tool for model Interpretation is SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) [7, 8, 9]. SHAP is a unified approach to explain the output of any machine learning model, and its values show the consistent, locally accurate and individualized attribution of each feature in the model. In this exercise, SHAP helps us understand in which way each feature affects the prediction record by record (see the SHAP Summary plot below).
The plot mainly demonstrates that with feature values increasing or decreasing, the magnitude and direction of feature impact on the model output may change accordingly. For example, having a high Number of Households is associated with high and positive impact on model output. Besides, credit card sales scores tend to have a positive influence on stores located in areas with high feature values, but would cause a negative impact on stores with lower values.
With SHAP we can also see at single record level how each feature makes a contribution (negative/positive) to the prediction value.
The above example shows for one specific store, how features contribute to push the model output from the base value (i.e. the average revenue over the training dataset) to final predicted value. Features pushing the prediction higher are shown in red, those pushing the prediction lower are in blue. Focusing on this store, we can see Median Income = 96610 (in contrast to Average Median Income = 62411) pushes the predicted revenue going higher from the base value and Number of Households = 4964, which is much lower than mean value = 18001, makes the model output go down.
Finally, it is time for us to start using our model for predicting revenues at potential new retail locations. In order to do that, we define a list of 40 potential sites in which the retailer may want to consider opening a new store and we enrich their 10-min drive isochrones with features from the location data streams as we have done in Section 2 when building our model. We then apply the resulting model in Section 3 to generate predictions for annual revenues at the different candidate locations. Note that to do that we only need to repeat data enrichment workflow as we did before. The Map below shows the projected revenues for potential store locations in Los Angeles, California.
From the revenue predictions we observe that the top performant new potential stores are located in Los Angeles happen to be in areas where financial sales score and ticket size score as well as number of household and median household income are much higher. Besides, potential locations with higher predictions tend to have higher capture rate from human mobility's perspective.
Modern retail is a challenging field, with ecommerce narrowing margins across nearly every category. Retailers need to be using every tool at their disposal to inform their site-planning and operational decisions and protect their bottom line.
By leveraging the latest tools and techniques, such as enriching existing sales data with modern data streams, and creating predictive models that incorporate spatial components equips business leaders with the insights they need to act intelligently, decisively, and quickly.
Read any news website in 2022 and there's one phrase you can't escape; the "cost of living crisis." In the UK, living costs have been rising at their fastest rate in 30 yea...Spatial Data
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Shaikh Ubaid Al-Jaabiri briefly speaks about Shaikhul Islaam's great concern for his children, students and others
Shaikh Ubaid Bin Abdillaah Al-Jaabiri (may Allaah preserve him) said:
And among the most important qualities of the Shaikh [i.e. Shaikhul Islaam Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhaab (rahimahullaah)] is that he gave importance to the citizens (of the nation) and acknowledged everyone's status, and he did not neglect his dependents (i.e. those under his care).
He knew the status of the leader and the scholar. He knew the status of his students and gave them their (rightful) levels. He gave (close) attention to his children, despite being preoccupied with Dawah, writing and teaching. This concern for his children was so much that after him, his children were from the senior scholars, rather among them were some who used to teach the Uloom (i.e. the different subject areas or sciences of the religion) during his lifetime. How can this not be the case, for back in the old days it used to be said: [هذا الشبل من ذلك الأسد – This (brave) cub is from that lion (i.e. from the offspring of that lion)]
[Source: Tanbeeh Dhawil Uqool As-Saleemah' page 12. Abridged and slightly paraphrased]
Abu Mu'aawiyah (Abdullah Al-Gambi)


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Denaakk'e (also Koyukon) occupies the largest territory of any Alaska Athabascan language. The name Denaakk'e [də-nae-kuh] derives from the word denaa 'people' and the suffix -kk'e 'like, similar', thus literally meaning 'like us'.
Denaakk'e is spoken in three dialects -- Upper, Central, and Lower -- in 11 villages along the Koyukuk and middle Yukon rivers. The total population is about 2,300, of whom about 300 speak the language.
A Jesuit Catholic missionary, Jules Jette, did extensive work on the language from 1899 through 1927. Since the early 1970s, native Koyukon speaker Eliza Jones has produced much linguistic material for use in schools and by the general public.
(Common expressions in Koyukon and other Alaska Native languages)


Library of Congress
Advertising | Newspaper Article | First-Person Accounts | Biography | Recording History Through Maps
Recording History Through Maps
The maps of this collection provide a record of the history of the Civil War primarily through visual data, not text. Students can study these maps and then create their own to develop their skills of conveying information about past events visually. It might help them to think of their audience as someone who does not speak English but must use the map to learn about the Civil War.
Have students begin by determining how the cartographers depicted information without text. Then, students can browse the collection by the Subject Index to see what information was included in a map's legend. What title appears on the maps? Is there a descriptive paragraph that provides background information for what appears in the map? Does the user gain an accurate understanding of the actual events depicted on the map?
Students can then research an event in history for which they will create a map. They might choose a Civil War battle, a battle from another war, a recent news event, or even something in their personal lives.
 - What key information must the map include to accurately portray the event?
 - Using only the map title, legend, and labels, what information can the student convey?
 - Is the map an accurate portrayal of the event? How might people be confused by the map?
 - Is a short paragraph needed to explain what cannot be portrayed on the map?


75.
 - Jeremy Topaz
 I agree. But what difference does it make when going through the train when it is not moving, yet, you want to guarantee you do not want to miss the train?
 - Andrew
 1. Because the passages between cars are slippery when wet. If I had written a rule for liability reasons, I certainly don't think I'd want to have included a specific exemption that might allow someone to slip and fall onto the roadbed. (While walking between cars is a lot safer on a stopped train is a lot safer than walking between cars on a moving train, it's still nowhere near as safe as walking along the platform.)
 2. Because the train starts moving with a jolt, and anybody who had been walking between cars assuming that the train wasn't going to move could slip and fall when it starts moving unexpectedly (perhaps he didn't notice the announcement, or perhaps the PA wasn't working in the car he was in when the announcement was made). Again, if I had written a rule for liability reasons, I don't want to have included a specific exemption that might allow someone to slip and fall onto the roadbed.
 3. Because there's no need to complicate the rule with exemptions. If you walk along the platform and board the train as soon as the bell rings, you won't miss the train, and you may have made it father down the train because you didn't have to allow down to open each of the doors.
 Personally, I would have preferred if passage between cars had remained permitted, along with a PR campaign demonstrating how to do so safely – by holding on to the grab irons. I cringe when I see people walking between cars (even while the train is stopped!) without holding onto anything. But it's certainly not unusual for a subway system to ban passage between cars – come to think of it, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single system without open gangways that permits it.
 - Allan Rosen
 If walking between cars is so dangerous, why was it allowed for over 90 years without any problems? And people used to do it all the time. The fact is that it is only dangerous if you are also doing something else you shoudn't be doing, like drinking or doing acrobatics between cars.
 It's like when we were in elementary school. One student does something dumb and the entire class is punished.
 As far as comlpicating the rule with exemptions, that is utterly ridiculous. Laws have exemptions all the time and they work just fine. It makes sense to tailor laws to the specific circumstances. Why ban a left turn at all times if a problem only exists during certain hours?
 There you go again defending the MTA.
 - Andrew
 As I said yesterday: "I would have preferred if passage between cars had remained permitted, along with a PR campaign demonstrating how to do so safely." I don't like the rule. But I can certainly understand why it exists. In a word: liability.
 Still awaiting your explanation of why you prefer to walk between cars at a terminal rather than walking along the platform until the bell rings, which is safer, faster, and easier.
 - Allan Rosen
 How much time do you have from the time the bell rings until the doors close?
 - Andrew
 If the conductor's in the cab and ready to go and waiting for the lights, I'd guess probably about 10-15 seconds, as an absolute minimum, but usually he isn't quite so ready to pounce on it. And if you're in the front half of the train, you get a few extra seconds, since the conductor always closes the rear section before the front section.
 If you're (apparently) so concerned about missing the train even where you can hear the bell and where the conductor can see you walking along the platform edge, why aren't you concerned about finding yourself unexpectedly between cars (where you can't hear the bell and where the conductor can't see you) when the train jolts forward?
 - Allan Rosen
 You can always hear the chimes when the doors close so you know the train is about to move and if you are holding on with both hands, the jolt poses no danger anyway.
 I have been riding trains for 60 years and never heard a bell ring before the doors close. I wonder how many others besides you know about it and if it is loud enough for everyone to hear.
 - Andrew
 As I said yesterday (in a different context), you learn something new every day. I've been trying to tell you about this since yesterday, but you've been so busy criticizing me that it apparently took you three posts to notice. That you've never noticed them in all this time is telling, but I'm glad I could save you $75.
 According to this post, green starting lights – and I assume bells to go with them – have been around since the mid-1980's. As far as I know, every regular terminal has them (except for some reason on the 42nd Street shuttle, where the countdown clock hitting 0 seems to serve as a substitute), although some short-turn locations and temporary (GO) terminals may not.
 The bell is typically quite loud, and regular riders at terminals seem to know exactly what it means. (As I said, even the pigeons know about it.) Listen for it when you're next at Brighton Beach.
 - Allan Rosen
 That explains some things. I used Utica Avenue Eastern Parkway everyday between 1967 and 1977, before they were instituted, and Brighton Beach 50% of the time between 1978 and 1995. So it was in effect for only about 10 of the almost 30 years I regularly used a terminal station.
 As for saving me money, you have saved me none since I just enter the first car since the ban was instituted. You maybe will save me a few minutes, which doesn't mean that much to someone not going to work or school.
 - Allan Rosen
 I have probably heard the bell. Just never knew what it meant. You probably also have a reason to explain why the MTA wouldn't want to publicize what it means to give the riders a slight advantage.
 - Andrew
 You don't think there's already information overload around the subway system, and now you want more information posted on something of relevance to a small fraction of riders (only those who board at terminals), of whom most regular riders figure it out on their own, and which is not critical information for anyone?
 You're entitled to your opinion, but I personally don't think that's a good idea.
 The system exists for dispatching purposes. It's not a secret (it's even been mentioned in the Times), and riders who find it useful can take advantage of it. Do you also think that the MTA should post public notices if the starting bell system isn't in use for some reason, with trains being dispatched in another fashion?
 - Allan Rosen
 There is no information overload around the subway system. If anything, the postings for reroutes isn't widespread enough as others have pointed out with crucial information missing or wrong in certain cases.
 And who said the information needs to be posted everywhere? A small sign at each end of important terminal stations near the stairway entrance to the platform is all that would be necessary. it might not be noticed the first time, but regular station users will eventually see it. It does not have to be a huge sign.
 But naturally, as I thought, you would find a reason to side with the MTA. And if the bell isn't in use at times, you think it is still a good idea to walk along the platform and possibly miss your train?
 - Andrew
 There is no information overload around the subway system.
 Regular riders manage to figure it out just fine without the clutter of yet another sign. Just because you never noticed it doesn't mean that nobody else does.
 - Andrew
 Ah, so you were commenting on something that you haven't had personal experience with in 19 years, while stubbornly resisting new information that might have been relevant. Got it.
 - Allan Rosen
 No, that is not what I said.
 I still use Brighton Beach station but not on a daily basis. With the tone of your comments, such as this one, you have the nerve to wonder why I am so "busy criticizing you".
 - Subway Stinker
 Sorry Allan but Liability is more of a problem in recent years than 90 years ago. We have become a much more litigious society than in the earlier part of the 20th century, and our runaway juries find for even the most careless and blameworthy plaintiffs. In your heart, you know I am right.
 - Allan Rosen
 Yes, you are correct, but there is also the possibility of better education notifying passengers how to safely cross between cars. And juries only rule for the plaintiff if negligence can be proven.
 As I stated elsewhere, do you also believe we should spend millions to encase each subway station to eliminate the possibility of falling onto the platform because some passengers stand too close to the edge of the platform or lean over to see if a train is coming? That would also reduce liability.
 I think there are better ways to spend limited resources.


text: This paper investigates the impact of the introduction and implementation of the new EU bail-in framework on the banks subordinated bond yield spreads over senior unsecured bonds, and links the bond yields developments with the characteristics of the issuing entities and the economic and financial environment. The analysis does not show evidence of a significant and generalized increase in the spreads as a result of a higher risk perception in the sample under review. The results reinforce the relevance of the Tier 1 capital ratio for making subordinated debt safer, while markets price the higher risk of banks with less stable sources of funding in their liability/capital structures. Market conditions and economic environment variables also play a key role in explaining bond spreads. Interestingly, after the introduction of the new bail-in framework, there is a convergence between the bond yields of the GSIBs and the non-GSIBs, which could point out to a reduction in the market perception of the so called "too big to fail" public implicit guarantee. Nonetheless, this convergence is mostly driven by the reduction of the yields of bonds issued by banks not categorized as GSIBs, and not by significant increases in the GSIBs' bond yields.


text:
: Large turkey-tail point is made of Harrison County flint. It is leaf-shaped or feather-shaped with a small base that has shallow side notches. It is mostly gray in color with areas of light gray, dark gray, dark brown and very pale brown. At the base and on one edge close to the tip there are small areas where the weathered outer layer of the flint core from which the point was made (cortex) is still present. The biface is unbroken, which is unusual for turkey-tail points. View on Ohio Memory.
: AL07249 Subjects
: American Indians; Ohio History--Natural and Native Ohio; Archaeology Places
: Point, projectile


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- The Miombo Network: Framework for a Terrestrial Transect Study of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in the Miombo Ecosystems of Central Africa
- This report describes the strategy for the Miombo Network Initiative, developed at an International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) intercore-project workshop in Malawi in December 1995 and further refined during the Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) Open Science Meeting in January, 1996 and through consultation and review by the LUCC Scientific Steering Committee (SSC). The Miombo Network comprises of an international network of researchers working in concert on a 'community' research agenda developed to address the critical global change research questions for the miombo woodland ecosystems. The network also addresses capacity building and training needs in the Central, Eastern and Southern Africa (SAF) region, of the Global Change System for Analysis Research and Training (START). The research strategy described here provides the basis for a proposed IGBP Terrestrial Transect study of land cover and land use changes in the miombo ecosystems of Central Africa. It therefore resides administratively within the LUCC programme with linkages to other Programme Elements of the IGBP such as Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE). The report provides the framework for research activities aimed at understanding how land use is affecting land cover and associated ecosystem processes; assessing what contribution these changes are making to global change; and predicting what effects global change in turn could have on land use dynamics and ecosystem structure and function. The key issues identified are: patterns, causes and rates of change in land cover in relation to land use; consequences of land-use and land-cover changes on regional climate, natural resources, hydrology, carbon storage and trace gas emissions; determinants of the distribution of species and ecosystems in miombo; and fundamental questions of miombo ecosystem structure and function.


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By Daniel Chamovitz
Last month, a group of scientists from around the world announced that they had successfully determined the DNA sequence of the tomato genome. One of the most surprising results of this work was that the lowly tomato, like rice and the common Arabidopsis before it, has more genes than we do – about 25% more.
How could this seemingly passive plant that we know and love, that key ingredient in ketchup and in our summer salads, be genetically more complex than we are?
This question has several answers, but I want to focus on one aspect of a tomato's life, and indeed the lives of all plants that we don't often consider: how plants deal with rootedness and adversity, and how this could influence their genetic complexity.
Rootedness is arguably the major constraint on plant evolution, and its implications are that plants can't escape adversity. Think about how we deal with adversity. We often solve problems by moving, either by running away from a dangerous situation, or by migrating to a better environment. If we're hungry, we can walk to the deli; if the weather gets cold, we can migrate to Miami; if we're lonely, we can meet up with a friend for a cup of coffee. But plants are literally rooted to the ground, unable to migrate in search of food, unable to seek shelter in a storm, unable to search for a mate.
Because of this sessile state, plants have to be keenly aware of their environment so they can modulate their own physiology and survive. Indeed, many of us rarely stop to think about the sensory world in which plants live, and we may be surprised to learn that ferns, tulips, and yes, the tomato, contain incredibly sophisticated sensory mechanisms not so different from our own.
Like us, plants see light and are aware not only of its direction, but of the light's intensity. Most surprising for many of my friends is that plants are also aware of the light's color – like us, plants differentiate between red and blue. Plants even see types of light that we're blind to, such as UV light and far-red light, the long waves that we barely see as the sun sets. Plants smell volatile pheromones given off by their own leaves and fruits, but also by the leaves and fruits of their neighbors. Trees feel the wind shaking their branches, and use this information to decide whether to grow tall and majestic or stubby and thick. Roots constantly monitor the soil, tasting and absorbing nutrients and also chemicals given off by other roots. Plants use these chemicals to communicate physiological states such as stress from lack of water.
The most amazing aspect of a plant's life, to me, is that it integrates this varied sensory information, yielding an organism exquisitely suited to its environment – and this integration occurs in lieu of a nervous system. Leaves, flowers, and roots exchange information regarding light, pests, weather and water, and together this leads to different genes being turned on and off — all in the absence of neurons. So apparently a nervous system is only one evolutionary adaptation for information processing – it is necessary for human beings and other animals to process information, but that isn't the case for plants.
Now, going back to the tomato, one adaptation that helps a plant survive in a changing environment is that it often has more than one copy of a given gene. A plant can have one copy of a gene for a normal environment, and a second copy which comes into play when it's under environmental stress. Take a plant's ability to sense light, for example – plants have up to 12 genes that encode different types of photoreceptors, which is more than twice that in humans. Among these genes, one will be used for high intensity blue light and one for low intensity blue light, and so on.
Our seemingly simple green neighbors utilize their genetic complexity to sense and survive adversity. They compensate for their inability to migrate away from a bad environment by having more genes which give them greater genetic options for responding to changing and extreme circumstances.
So the next time you walk around the vegetable section of your local grocer or farmers' market, take a look at the bright, juicy tomatoes, and stop for a second to consider that they have more genes than you do. These extra genes may not make the tomato smarter, but they have helped it survive long enough to get to your shopping cart.
Daniel Chamovitz, Ph.D., author of "What a Plant Knows," is Director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University.


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Series Hybrid vs. Parallel Hybrid
April 18, 2012 by Ron Averill
Hybrid refers to something that is made up of two or more diverse ingredients. The goal in combining them is to capture and merge the advantages of each ingredient, while overcoming any disadvantages. But ingredients can be combined in many ways, resulting in considerable variation in performance depending on how they are combined.
In optimization search algorithms, as with electric vehicles, there are two main categories of hybrids: series and parallel. To better understand the basic
differences between the series and parallel hybrid approaches, let's consider a simple illustration.
Passing batonSuppose a team of people needs to carry an object a long distance. In a series hybrid strategy, one person will carry the object for a while, and then someone else will take the load and carry it a bit further. This "tag team" approach continues until the required distance is covered. This series approach might work well if the object is lightweight and small. But if the object is heavy or awkwardly shaped, then it will be difficult for one person to carry it even a short distance, if he or she can move it at all.
RowersIn this situation, it is clearly more effective for two or more people to carry the object together in a parallel hybrid approach. By working together in a well-coordinated effort, the load can be shared in a way that allows each participant to contribute to the task. Each contribution, however small, reduces the load on other team members, allowing the group to carry the load faster and further with less fatigue. Drivers of horse-drawn wagons, dog sleds and Christmas sleighs discovered this truth a long time ago.
Series hybrid optimization
Turning our attention to optimization, a series hybrid algorithm is developed by starting with one search algorithm, and then switching to another one (using a different strategy than that of the first algorithm) to continue the search. There is no limit to the number of different search strategies that can be used in this sequential manner.
Typically, a series hybrid algorithm begins with a search method that is good at global exploration, such as a Genetic Algorithm, and ends with a local refinement strategy, such as a gradient-based algorithm. Various other search methods can be sandwiched between these two. On some problems, this type of series optimization algorithm has been shown to perform reasonably well compared to monolithic (single-strategy) algorithms, when an appropriate set of algorithms and tuning parameters has been chosen.
How well a series hybrid optimization strategy performs depends on the specific algorithms and tuning parameters used at each stage of the search. Because each algorithm is working alone, the progress made at any time depends on how effective the selected method is for that problem and what it does with the information provided by previous search methods.
As I've mentioned in other posts, it is usually impossible to know which algorithms or values of tuning parameters will work well on a problem before it is solved. So, series hybrid algorithms have the same fatal flaw as most monolithic strategies, except the number of unknowns is now multiplied by the number of different strategies used.
Moreover, additional unknowns are introduced, such as the order of the strategies and when to stop one strategy in favor of another. Default values for these parameters may or may not work well for your current problem.
Parallel hybrid optimization
Parallel hybrid algorithms, like SHERPA (in HEEDS® MDO), overcome many of the shortcomings of series hybrid algorithms. In this strategy, multiple optimization methods actually work simultaneously to solve a problem in a collaborative fashion. Rather than contributing sequentially, these methods work together to search a design space and identify optimized solutions, like many hands helping to carry a heavy load.
As with any good team, a parallel hybrid algorithm requires good leadership, communication, coordination, and accountability. These attributes are built into the algorithm's infrastructure from the start.
Instead of separately exploring and refining at different stages of a search, a parallel hybrid algorithm enables these two essential activities to take place concurrently and synergistically! This not only speeds up the search but also makes it more likely to find the global optimum.
In a series hybrid algorithm, the search history can be used to determine which individual algorithm(s) made the most meaningful contribution to the search. But this is not possible with a parallel hybrid algorithm, because each algorithm behaves very differently as part of a team than it would individually.
Nevertheless, there are ways to hold an individual search strategy accountable for its contributions within a parallel hybrid algorithm, and those methods that do not contribute enough over time can be replaced by new methods or have their resources transferred to existing methods that are contributing at a higher level.
The characteristics of a well-designed parallel hybrid optimization algorithm include shared discovery, intellectual diversity, synergistic search, and greater robustness. Oh, and better designs, faster!
Collaborative Optimization
March 19, 2012 by Ron Averill
Collaborative optimizationMany engineers still resist the use of optimization algorithms to help improve their designs. Perhaps they feel that their hard-earned intuition is just too important to the solution process. In many cases, they are right.
At the same time, most optimization algorithms still refuse to accept input from engineers to help guide their mathematical search. The assumption is that the human brain cannot possibly decipher complex relationships among multiple system responses that depend upon large numbers of connected variables. Unfortunately, this is true.
Is this a case of irreconcilable differences? Or is it simply an example of everyone wanting to be the teacher, and no one wanting to be the student? I'm reminded of the Latin proverb:
Surely engineering intuition can benefit from the results of mathematical exploration, and vice-versa. It seems almost obvious.
So why do engineers and optimization algorithms prefer to work solo? I don't believe they prefer this. I think it is more a matter of not knowing how to collaborate, or not having the tools to facilitate this interaction.
Fortunately, modern optimization software tools like HEEDS now have features that encourage engineers to learn from the intermediate results of an optimization study and to share intuition-based insights with the optimization algorithm during a search. This collaborative optimization process leverages our two most powerful design tools – human experience and computers.
Consider the following example:
 - An engineer uses intuition and experience to define the goals of an optimization problem and a baseline (starting) design.
 - An optimization search algorithm then begins to explore the design space to uncover mathematical relationships that can lead to an optimized design, all the while sharing its progress and discoveries with the engineer.
 - While monitoring, validating and interpreting these intermediate search results, the engineer starts to learn what makes some designs better than others. This new understanding causes the engineer's intuition to practically blurt out, "If design B is better than design A, then design C should be even better!" Of course, the optimization algorithm might eventually discover design C on its own, but it would surely take a lot longer to do so.
 - The engineer shares his insight with the optimization algorithm, which happily accepts the input and puts it to use immediately. If the engineer was correct, then the algorithm now has new information that will accelerate its search. If the engineer's intuition did not lead to a better design, then the algorithm has only spent one design evaluation to discover this, and the new data may still have some valuable nuggets that can be exploited later in the search.
 - The circular process of exploring monitoring interpreting sharing is continuous throughout the search process, leading to better designs in much less time than was previously possible.
 - The enhanced communication between the engineer and the optimization algorithm builds a strong interdependent relationship between the two, leveraging the strength of each.
Collaborative optimization tears down one of the most common objections that experienced engineers have to using optimization methods. It not only makes full use of an engineer's intuition, but improves that intuition through experience gained from mathematical exploration of the design space. This is accelerated learning at its best.
Further, this is not one of those nice ideas that looks good on paper but doesn't work well in practice. This technique has already been used very successfully on many challenging design problems, including composite aircraft, crashworthy cars and insulated vaccine carriers.
There is now overwhelming evidence that a more intimate coupling of intuition with a hybrid, adaptive optimization algorithm can solve many challenging problems previously thought to be intractable.
Of course, in order to find the best solutions many optimization algorithms tend to explore a design space broadly, even spending some time in those regions of the space that don't yield any good designs. So the process helps us to understand not only what makes a good design, but also why some designs perform poorly. This reminds me of another important proverb:
"Wise men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by their own."
March 5, 2012 by Ron Averill
Clearly, the primary objective is to cross the finish line in the shortest time possible. But it's still important to remember that the total race time is the sum of the times necessary to complete three very different parts of the race – the swim, the bike and the run.
In optimization, this is often referred to as a summed objective problem. It is a good way to handle optimization problems containing multiple objectives that do not directly compete with one another. In other words, improving the value of one objective does not inevitably worsen another one. For example, swimming faster does not necessarily make you run slower, so these two objectives can naturally be summed together when seeking an optimal race strategy.
However, non-competing objectives might still be strongly coupled. In a triathlon, if you spend too much energy swimming faster, then you won't have enough energy remaining to bike or run at your best, resulting in a slower overall race time. Based on the athlete's level of skill and fitness,


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Schmallenberg virus detected in bovines in Denmark
In May 2012, the new animal disease, Schmallenberg (SBV), has been detected in Danish bovines. Antibodies against SBV have been detected in adult bovines, and virus has been detected in a single calf born with malformations.
Virus detected in vectors in Denmark
The new animal disease, Schmallenberg virus (SBV), has been detected in vectors in Denmark. The vectors are Culicoides midges that were collected in October 2011.
The disease affects cattle, sheep and goats, where the disease may lead to congenital malformations.
About the virus
The Schmallenberg virus is a new virus named after the location (Schmallenberg in Germany) where it was first identified. Information on its genome suggests that it is part of the Simbu serogroup of the Bunyaviridae family, genus Orthobunyavirus.
Viruses belonging to that group are mostly found in ruminants in Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East (Israel). The viruses are mainly transmitted by mosquitoes (Culicidae) or midges (Culicoides). Direct transmission from animal to animal has not been demonstrated except transplacental from a viremic dam to the foetus.
Milk and meat products do not pose any risk of disease transmission.
Investigations in Danish holdings
Surveillance for SBV has been ongoing in Denmark during the spring 2012. The aim of the surveillance was to obtain information about the presence of SBV in Danish ruminants. In total, 61 newborn animals with malformations were tested for SBV in the period March-May 2012. Of these, one calf tested positive.
Public health risk
Based on all available information, experts conclude that the transmission of the virus to humans cannot be excluded but is highly unlikely.