text:
In this problem you are given a number
sequence P consisting of N integer and Pi is the ith element in the sequence. Now you task is to answer a list of queries, for each
query, please tell us among [L, R], how many Pi is not less than A
and not greater than B( L<= i <= R). In other words, your task is to
count the number of Pi (L <= i <= R, A <= Pi <= B).
In the first line there is an integer T
(1 < T <= 50), indicates the number of test cases.
For each case, the first line
contains two numbers N and M (1 <= N, M <= 50000), the size of sequence
P, the number of queries. The second line contains N numbers Pi(1
<= Pi <= 10^9), the number sequence P. Then there are M lines,
each line contains four number L, R, A, B(1 <= L, R <= n, 1 <= A, B
For each case, at first output a line
'Case _TAG_:', c is the case number start from 1. Then for each query output a
line contains the answer.


Was Lenin poisoned by Stalin?
The founder of Russian communism Vladamir Lenin died after being poisoned by his political successor Joseph Stalin, according to a sensational new theory.
Russian historian Lev Lurie, believes that while Lenin was already in poor health having suffered several strokes, Stalin may have finished him off after a bitter feud.
Lenin, who had initially supported Stalin's rise to power, later began aligning himself with Leon Trotsky.
Theory: Russian historian Lev Lurie believes Lenin, left, could have been poisoned by his political rival and successor Joseph Stalin, right
In notes dictated before his death, Lenin criticises Stalin's rude manners and ambitious nature.
He even suggested that Stalin should be removed from his position of General Secretary of the Communist Party.
Poisoning would later become Stalin's preferred method for dealing with his enemies, Lurie points out.
He added: 'The funny thing is that the brain of Lenin still is preserved in Moscow, so we can investigate.'
Popular theory maintains that Lenin died from the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis.
Stalin was reportedly furious after Lenin aligned himself with Trotsky (pictured)
Mr Lurie and UCLA neurologist Dr. Harry Vinters reviewed Lenin's records for an annual conference at the University of Maryland School of Medicine on famous people's deaths.
Dr Vinters put forward a separate theory, maintaining that stress or a family medical history could have accounted for Lenin's death
Prior to his death, the 53-year-old Soviet leader's health had been growing worse over time.
A subsequent major stroke later left him paralyzed on one side and unable to speak.
'Number one, he's so young and number two, he has none of the important risk factors,' Mackowiak said.
There was 'considerable suspicion' among Russians at the time of Lenin's death that syphilis was to blame, Mackowiak said.
'People were always trying to assassinate him, for example.' Dr Vinters said.
'And then he experienced a series of really, really bad convulsions which is quite unusual for someone who has a stroke,' Vinters said.


Pedal Box - Whats this then?
Discussion in 'Diesel Tuning UK' started by ABYSS, Jan 11, 2012.
 1. ABYSS
 ABYSS Andrew - Diesel Tuning UK Site Sponsor
 Apr 7, 2010
 Likes Received:
 [Jan 11, 2012]
 Diesel Tuning UK would like to introduce the Pedal Box to the UK market from DTE of Germany. A simple yet effective throttle response modification designed to improve your driving experience. Fitting between the accelerator pedal and the ECU (the cars brain), on modern Ã¢â¬Ëdrive-by-wireÃ¢â¬â¢ vehicles, the Pedal Box maximises the signal to give the smoothest and most effective response. Suited to both diesel and petrol vehicles the Pedal Box makes the vehicle more driveable in many ways...
 When in an overtaking situation it is essential to access all the engines power as efficiently as possible. An enhanced throttle response improves that efficiency and therefore the speed and safety of an overtaking manoeuvre.
 Driving Pleasure
 A better throttle response plays a major part in the overall driving experience as it gives the driver superior control over the acceleration of the vehicle.
 Coming Out of a Corner
 Prior to entering a corner, the vehicles brakes are applied or power is reduced. When the accelerator is applied through or after the corner, the vehicle needs to respond smoothly and quickly in order to maintain the correct road speed. A better throttle response improves the power delivery and helps the car accelerate from the corner more effectively.
 Changing Gear
 After changing gear there can be a slight delay in the response of the throttle, this delay is often only one or two seconds but can have a negative impact on the driveability of the vehicle. An improved throttle response will vastly shorten or remove this delay altogether transforming the driving experience.
 Traditionally a vehicles accelerator pedal would be connected to the engine by a cable, so that when the pedal was pressed the cable would be pulled and the throttle would open. Most modern vehicles utilise a fly-by-wire control system for the accelerator. This means that when the pedal is pressed a sensor measures how far the pedal has been pressed, sends a signal to a control module, which in turn sends a signal to the engine to open the throttle the corresponding amount.
 The Pedal Box sits between the sensor and the control module, intercepting that signal and altering it in order to shorten and improve the response time. This works in the same manner as many manufacturer fitted Ã¢â¬ËSportÃ¢â¬â¢ buttons, reducing the amount of pedal travel required to achieve Ã¢â¬ËThrottle Wide OpenÃ¢â¬â¢, allowing you to access the engines full potential.
 The Pedal Box comes programmed with four adjustable maps, specific to your vehicle model, that each alters the throttle signal to a different level. The driver can select and adjust the different maps to find the setting that best suits their driving style and individual vehicle.
 No additional power, no additional stress on components, just better response.
 rrp is £229.00 inc vat but we will be offering ASN members discounts on the Pedal Box too
 2. Ads
 [Dec 25, 2014]
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text:
Inventor of the Week Archive
for a different Invention or Inventor
One of the most popular labs at MIT is the one directed by
Toyoichi Tanaka, whose polymer gels have shown their potential
to transform the technology of medicine, energy, food production
Born and raised in Japan, Tanaka received his higher education
at the University of Tokyo, where he earned a B.S. (1968),
M.S. (1970), and D.Sc. (1973), in Physics. In 1975, he joined
the faculty of MIT, where he has risen to the rank of Professor
of Physics as well as Morningstar Professor of Science.
Tanaka's field of expertise is gels. A gel is typically a mixture of a polymer
"matrix," that is, a chain of individual molecules, and a
fluid "solute," in a ratio of about 1:30. The obvious example
is Jell-O, which has a matrix of gelatin in a solute
of sugar water. However, synthetic gels can be made in which
the polymers are very tightly bonded---with sometimes surprising
In the mid-1970s, Tanaka discovered that certain synthetic (polyacrylamide) gels had remarkable properties: for example, they responded to minute changes in their environment by drastically swelling up or changing color. Any substance will respond to its environment to some extent; but Tanaka learned to fine-tune his gels to undergo radical changes, or "phase transitions," when they encounter either a chemical or a change in conditions (temperature, light, electricity, magnetism, etc.).
At this stage, Tanaka's gels have valuable applications because they can expand and contract up to 1,000 times their original volume in response to predictable stimuli: for example, these gels could be used as artificial muscles, set in motion by a specific electrical pulse. More importantly, the polymers in the gels can capture or expel specific substances as they grow or shrink, so that the gels could be used, for example, as super-sponges to absorb and immobilize toxic waste, or as molecular filters of various sorts.
The more complex stage of Tanaka's research has been to develop
"smart" gels which imitate proteins by recognizing conditions
and responding to their environment. For example, smart gels
can be fine-tuned to draw humidity from the air when it is
over a given temperature, or even to release insulin when
the glucose level around them drops below a given point.
By 1992, Tanaka had earned eight patents for his gels. In the same year, he and a partner founded Gel Sciences, Inc., in order to market SmartGel products. Their first effort was a liner for shoes and skates, which is pliant until it encounters the body heat of the foot; then it firms up to provide custom-molded support. More recently, the firm has focused on medical applications of the gels, such as long-lasting eyedrops and sunscreen; and numerous drug delivery systems are in production.
Meanwhile, Tanaka continues his research at MIT, while technologists
in many disciplines monitor his progress carefully: in 1996,
Tanaka won both the R&D 100 Award and Discover Magazine's
Editor's Choice for Emerging Technology Award. Although Toyoichi
Tanaka has been the world's leading expert on gels for almost
20 years, it is clear that his greatest success is still to

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


The Ambiguous Quest for Marriage Equality
In The Ambiguous Quest for Marriage Equality, Adam Macleod puts into coherent words something I have been thinking about how to say. It's nice when someone much smarter does that for you.
Alternate versions of marriage to the traditional heterosexual one can only exist as alternatives to the standard. If the standard erodes away, or is legislated out of existence, those marriages also will disintegrate. Please read.
We sometimes destroy that which we seek.
The Ambiguous Quest for Marriage Equality.
14 thoughts on "The Ambiguous Quest for Marriage Equality
 1. tildeb
 Macleod concludes with
 Some people speculate that a majority of the Supreme Court justices are determined to force this social experiment on all fifty states, whatever the costs. Well, what do they have in mind? Do they plan to be logically consistent and thoroughgoing about this? Will they eliminate the rights of children to have legal connections to their biological parents?
 I am no legal expert but Macleod's fear mongering panders to the religiously deluded. All he needs to do is open his eyes and look past his professorship to countries that have have more than a decade of this absurdly described "social experiment" to see what real effects it has on the rights of children to have legal connections to their biological parents. And the answer is clear and unequivocal: none.
 This is not the answer he wants to hear or see or consider because it interferes with the fictional Chicken Little narrative he thinks is true, that the legal sky will fall if people of the same gender can legally marry. That's simply not true and there are dozens of countries that offer ample evidence for this. But I understand that looking to reality can be a scary and very challenging option to people who have long assumed that their incompatible religious beliefs comport with it.
 1. tildeb
 You have gone to the same well for both reports and then tell me that I am unaware. I am aware that most families have some level of dysfunction and it would be bizarre to find no outliers in this issue about children raised by same sex parents. But the fact of the matter is that there is less familial dysfunction in same sex marriages as indicated by sources of repute outside of your careful selection. Just go to any psychological or psychiatric college that regulates its members' licencing and see what the wide evidence is. And it isn't about some additional harm in the aggregate. The idea that same sex marriage itself is somehow harmful just isn't true.
 But the issue of affect on children alone is not what gay marriage is about. It's about being able to be legally recognized as a spouse and all the benefits and responsibilities that legal recognition entails. Advocates against same sex marriage advocate against these legal rights that really does deeply affect how these very real people live, inherit, make medical decisions, file taxes, and so on. In this In this sense, the sky has not fallen in any of the some dozen and a half countries that do recognize this equality.
 Traditional marriage has not disintegrated and children being raised by same sex couples are not in some legal limbo or without any rights common to all. And in every one of these countries, the real cost of same sex marriage has been to those who want to continue to try to legally discriminate against real people in real life under the guise of various poor moral and ethical reasons that simply aren't supported by real and compelling evidence… beyond these kinds of outliers. And that's what you're doing here: selecting what only appears to support your case to continue legal discrimination… supposedly for the sake of the children. And that's bunk when we look at and compare the differences overall. What you're doing is called 'confirmation bias' and it is you who need to try commenting with a more informed opinion that just what you think supports your opinion.
 1. madblog Post author
 OK, how about some evidence to back up your assertions? We could both be using confirmation bias, but you haven't answered the hard evidence offered in the articles. Again, if you're going with the flow, you aren't likely to run aground of popular opinion or encounter what those who do experience.
 2. tildeb
 Yes I have, MB: I specifically said for you to "Just go to any psychological or psychiatric college that regulates its members' licencing and see what the aggregate evidence is."
 If you are actually interested in the subject, it might be interesting for you to follow the aggregate evidence to better inform your opinion and see why same sex marriage is not in itself harmful to children; poor parenting is.
 2. Pingback: More Responses to Obergefell vs. Hodges | Enjoyment and Contemplation
 3. madblog Post author
 tildeb, you still have not countered the real problems cited in the articles.
 In "Same-Sex Marriage Ten Years On: Lessons from Canada", many cases are cited to show that freedom of speech is now conditional, and that those who find themselves under suspicion for having shared unpopular views are liable to be ruined financially or lose their jobs. Is the writer making this up, or are you saying it's just not that important?
 "Expressions of disagreement with the reasonableness of institutionalizing same-sex marriage are understood by these bodies to be acts of illegal discrimination…" Throughout the political movement, there is no tolerance for any but one view, no willingness to believe that those who hold another view on SSM might have principled reasons for doing so. If you (the collective you, not YOU) have got to turn those who simply disagree with you monsters or imbeciles, you're showing your own position to be weak indeed, and demonstrating that you will, or cannot, discuss or debate the issue.
 This is to say nothing of the difficult position not only parents, but children, are put in when facing what can only be called indoctrination in school. Just try to imagine you have a child who's being subjected to…say, creationism-only, creationism-is-fact education in science class. Well, you don't believe it, you don't want your children to be indoctrinated with it, but your courts have recently ruled that to teach evolution is discriminatory, bigoted and backward. What would you do? What should someone do who believes that their children are being slowly but surely indoctrinated with a destructive worldview?
 That's just the first half of one of the articles. I'll have to pick it up later.
 1. tildeb
 Same sex marriage is about legal rights. Many of the issues raised are tangent but I'm quite willing to explain how these have been misconstrued.
 Bad legislation allowed tribunals to be set up to handle rent discrimination. That was the mandate and it worked very well to rectify the rampant discrimination specifically in Toronto against non whites. But the legislation was such that under the banner of 'human' rights these tribunals could be used when legal recourse was otherwise unavailable. Specifically, the tribunals became the go-to tool for discrimination in the workplace. It is not surprising that these tribunals then evolved into making illegal judgements that were rectified only through expensive litigation. The criticisms of these tribunals and the commissions that appointed its members grew. A perfect example is the national magazine Macleans that did a story on them and was then fined by the head human rights commission for using electronic communication for spreading 'hate'.
 In this theater of the absurd, the federal government then dropped the article in the legislation that effectively dismantled their ability to make such judgements and the tribunals have gone back to handling clear claims of discrimination.
 As for what are called 'hate speech' laws, the objective in legislation and upheld by the Supreme Court is to reduce and eliminate discrimination as laid out in Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yes, Canadians have the right to freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association but all of these have legal limits. And one of the legal limits is where the meaning of the expression is specifically forbidden by the law. The law used against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is the Human Rights Act that specifies you cannot discriminate against someone on that basis. Again, this goes back to the intent of the Constitution where "Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination."
 So the Supreme has ruled that freedoms are limited and no one has the right to discriminate – or promote discrimination – on a prohibited basis. And this legal battle is ongoing… involving all kinds of organizations.
 I lay all this out because in many cases where earnest people are trying their best to discriminate for what they think are good reasons meet this legal obstacle and then try to argue that they are the ones being discriminated against because they are not allowed to discriminate!
 Well, yeah!
 This is what's going on in your examples. It's a gross misrepresentation to assume that the obstacle isn't the law clearly laid out (it is) but has to do with saying unpopular things. It's not 'unpopular'; it's illegal because it is legally discriminatory! And that is prohibited by law.
 Look, In Ontario (about 14 million people) we have a same-sex married Premier. Throughout the country we have same-sex married members of Parliament. We have same-sax married officers and enlisted personnel in the Armed Forces. We have LGBT people in roles of leadership in business and the professions. It is not just illegal to advocate discrimination against these people but basically a non issue in the public domain. No


text:
Stay Accountable by texting your partner daily – How to make accountability work with a cell phone.
If you feel an accountability relationship hard to maintain, consider using texting to make it easier.
Most all of us carry our cell phones around with us everywhere we go. Funny how we feel 'naked' without our phones!
Picking up the phone and calling sometimes seems intrusive and makes us feel like we are bothering someone, but texting (like email) seems less intrusive. We don't seem to hesitate to send nonsense and links via email or text, so why not something as important as staying accountable?
How does accountability work via text?
- Check in with your partner at least once daily
- Ask them to pray for specific items such as stressful or heavy temptations that may be ahead in your day
- When you are under heavy temptation, text them immediately – they can send up prayers immediately on your behalf
- If you fail text them and confess. A phone call should follow after they get your message
- Celebrate victories during your day letting them know you came through
- Offer encouragement by sharing quotes or verses that have spoken to you
- At the end of the day tell them how you did and rate your day
Staying in contact with your partner daily instead of every few days or weekly will greatly help both of your walks.
These are just a few examples of how to have an accountability relationship via text. Try this out with your partner and let me know how it is working for you.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


GtkFixed A container which allows you to position widgets at fixed coordinates The _TAG_ widget is a container which can place child widgets at fixed positions and with fixed sizes, given in pixels. _TAG_ performs no automatic layout management. For most applications, you should not use this container! It keeps you from having to learn about the other GTK+ containers, but it results in broken applications. With _TAG_, the following things will result in truncated text, overlapping widgets, and other display bugs: Themes, which may change widget sizes. Fonts other than the one you used to write the app will of course change the size of widgets containing text; keep in mind that users may use a larger font because of difficulty reading the default, or they may be using Windows or the framebuffer port of GTK+, where different fonts are available. Translation of text into other languages changes its size. Also, display of non-English text will use a different font in many cases. In addition, the fixed widget can't properly be mirrored in right-to-left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic. i.e. normally GTK+ will flip the interface to put labels to the right of the thing they label, but it can't do that with _TAG_. So your application will not be usable in right-to-left languages. Finally, fixed positioning makes it kind of annoying to add/remove GUI elements, since you have to reposition all the other elements. This is a long-term maintenance problem for your application. If you know none of these things are an issue for your application, and prefer the simplicity of _TAG_, by all means use the widget. But you should be aware of the tradeoffs. The _TAG_-struct struct contains the following fields. (These fields should be considered read-only. They should never be set by an application.) _TAG_ *children; a list of _TAG_ elements, containing the child widgets and their positions. Creates a new _TAG_. _USER_: a new _TAG_. Adds a widget to a _TAG_ container at the given position. _USER_: a _TAG_. _USER_: the widget to add. _USER_: the horizontal position to place the widget at. _USER_: the vertical position to place the widget at. Moves a child of a _TAG_ container to the given position. _USER_: a _TAG_. _USER_: the child widget. _USER_: the horizontal position to move the widget to. _USER_: the vertical position to move the widget to. _USER_: _USER_: _USER_: _USER_:


text:
on mass at m/z 204.
Figure 1: Reaction pathways and rates for all analyte ions with NH3 cell gas derived from reference 10. Hg and Pb are highlighted, showing how reaction data can be used to identify the potential to resolve the isobaric overlap from 204Hg on 204Pb.
In the case of hafnium analysis in a rare earth element matrix, the reaction data presented in Figure 1 suggests that NH3 cell gas might be able to resolve the Yb and Lu overlaps on Hf. The 178Hf isotope is the preferred isotope for quantitative analysis, but 176Hf is required for some applications such as Hf/Lu and Hf/Hf isotope geochronology. The 176Hf isotope could be considered the worst case in terms of interferences in sample matrices that contain REEs. As well as direct isobaric interferences from 176Yb and 176Lu,176Hf is also overlapped by oxide ions of 160Gd and 160Dy. Figure 2 shows that Hf (a Type 2b element) reacts with NH3 cell gas, whereas Yb (a Type 1 element) does not. Hafnium will therefore form Hf-NH3 product ions that cannot be overlapped by corresponding NH3 product ions formed from Yb.
The same principle does not necessarily apply to resolving the 176Lu isobaric overlap on 176Hf. Lu is a Type 2a element, so it does react with NH3, and may form product ions that can overlap the Hf-NH3 product ions. Also, ion-molecule reaction data does not give specific information about the potential for a given cell gas to resolve polyatomic overlaps, such as the 160Gd16O and 160Dy16O interferences on 176Hf. The solution to confirming the suitability of a given reaction gas to resolve such interferences is to verify the performance experimentally by using a product ion scan.
Identifying Interference-free Hf-NH3 Product Ions in REE Matrix Using Product Ion Scanning
For analytes, interferences, and sample types that are not defined in preset methods or available from reference publications, product ion scanning can identify the best product ion(s) for the application. Product ion spectra were acquired for a 10 ppb Hf standard and a 1 ppm 14-element REE mix. An overlay of the two product ion spectra covering the mass range from m/z 175 to 265 is shown in Figure 3. The spectrum comparison facilitates identification of product ions formed from m/z 176 precursor ions in the Hf standard but not the REE mix. The most intense interference-free 176Hf product ion identified was 176HfN(NH3)4+, which appears at m/z 258. This Hf product ion is free from any REE-based overlap-that is, no overlapping NH3 product ions are formed from Lu and GdO/DyO precursor ions present at m/z 176.
In this example, the REE-based overlaps being investigated were known in advance, so a synthetic standard solution could be prepared, ensuring the creation of the interfering REE-NH3 product ions. For complex sample matrices, which might give rise to unknown product ions, the product ion scan can be performed for a real sample matrix. In this way, potential overlaps from all sample components can be checked and accounted for during method development.
Controlling Product Ion Formation with MS/MS vs. Single Quadrupole or Bandpass
Product ion scanning-and the MS/MS methods developed using it - rely on Q1 operating at unit mass resolution (1 u mass window). The necessity for this is illustrated in Figure 4, where normal Agilent 8900 MS/MS operation is compared to deliberately "detuned" operation where Q1 has been set to pass a 3 u mass range. This simulates ICP-MS operation with a bandpass filter rather than a unit mass filter before the cell.
Figure 4: Detail showing NH3 product ions in the mass range around the preferred 176Hf product ion at m/z 258. In (a) MS-MS mode, 176HfN(NH3)4 is free from any REE product ion overlap. (b) In simulated 3 u bandpass mode, 175Lu is not excluded from the cell, so 175LuNH(NH3)4 is formed, overlapping 176HfN(NH3)4 at m/z 258.
The top spectrum in Figure 4 shows the mass range from m/z 250 to 270 extracted from the full mass product ion spectra in MS/MS mode shown in Figure 3. This includes the preferred, interference-free 176HfN(NH3)4+ product ion at m/z 258. The lower spectrum shows the same mass range for the same product ion scans for the 10 ppb Hf and 1 ppm REE solutions, acquired with 3 u bandpass mode. With a bandpass filter before the cell, adjacent precursor ions are not rejected, so they enter the cell and react. In this example, with Q1 passing a 3 u range of masses around the set mass, 175Lu can enter the cell when the precursor ion mass is set to m/z 176. 175Lu reacts with NH3 cell gas to form a product ion 175LuNH(NH3)4+, which appears at m/z 258, overlapping the preferred 176HfH(NH3)4+ product ion used for 176Hf analysis.
The example of interferences on Hf product ions in a REE matrix illustrates a general limitation of incomplete rejection of adjacent masses before the cell when using highly reactive cell gases. Any nontarget ions that enter the cell may react to form overlapping product ions, giving errors on the target analyte product ion mass.
Triple-quadrupole ICP-MS is often perceived as being more complicated and difficult to setup than single-quadrupole ICP-MS. However, the main benefit of the MS/MS tandem mass spectrometer configuration is the superior control it offers with reactive cell gas methods for interference removal. For these reaction gas methods, the ability of MS/MS to select the specific mass that is passed to the cell provides much greater control of the reaction chemistry. Rejecting nontarget, off-mass elements and isotopes using Q1 means these ions cannot enter the cell and affect the reaction processes. As a result, reaction gas methods on ICP-MS/MS are more consistent, more reliable, less matrix dependent, and therefore easier to setup than on single quadrupole ICP-MS.
(1) E. McCurdy and G. Woods, J. Anal. At. Spectrom. 19, 607–615 (2004).
(2) S.D. Tanner and V.I. Baranov, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 10, 1083–1094 (1999).
(3) L.J. Moens, F.F. Vanhaecke, D.R. Bandura, V.I. Baranov, and S.D. Tanner, J. Anal. At. Spectrom. 16, 991–994 (2001).
(4) F. Vanhaecke, L. Balcaen, I. Deconinck, I. De Schrijver, C. Marisa Almeida, and L. Moens, J. Anal. At. Spectrom. 18, 1060–1065 (2003).
(5) S.D. Fernandez, N Sugishama, J.R. Encinar, and A. Sanz-Medel, Anal. Chem. 84, 5851–5857 (2012).
(6) N. Sugiyama, "The accurate measurement of selenium in twelve diverse reference materials using on-line isotope dilution with the 8800 Triple Quadrupole ICP-MS in MS/MS mode" (Agilent publication 5991-0259EN, 2012).
(7) Handbook of ICP-QQQ Applications using the Agilent 8800 and 8900, (Agilent publication 5991-2802EN, 2019).
(8) V.G. Anicich, Astrophys. J., Suppl. Ser. 84, 215–315 (1993).
(9) V.V. Lavrov, V. Blagojevic, G.K. Koyanagi, G. Orlova, and D. K. Bohme, J. Phys. Chem. A. 108, 26, 5610–5624 (2004).
(10) N. Sugiyama and K. Nakano, "Reaction data for 70 elements using O2, NH3 and H2 gases with the Agilent 8800 Triple Quadrupole ICP-MS" (Agilent publication 5991-4585EN, 2014).
(11) L. Balcaen, E. Bolea-Fernandez, M. Resano, and F. Vanhaecke, Anal. Chim. Acta809, 1–8 (2014).
Ed McCurdy and Glenn Woods are with Agilent Technologies in Stockport, United Kingdom. Naoki Sugiyama is with Agilent Technologies International, in Tokyo, Japan. Direct correspondence to: _EMAIL_


Close-up of a yellow-bellied glider at night
Yellow-bellied glider
Yellow-bellied gliders are marsupials found only in eastern Australia. They are able to glide from tree to tree over distances of more than 100 metres at a time. Yellow-bellied gliders depend on eucalyptus trees for food and bite into the trunks to extract the sap. Being nocturnal, they sleep in leaf-lined dens in hollow trees during the day.
Scientific name: Petaurus australis
Rank: Species
Common names:
Fluffy glider
Watch video clips from past programmes (1 clip)
Map showing the distribution of the Yellow-bellied glider taxa
Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder.
The Yellow-bellied glider can be found in a number of locations including: Australia. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Yellow-bellied glider distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Conservation Status
Least Concern
 1. EX - Extinct
 2. EW
 3. CR - Threatened
 4. EN - Threatened
 5. VU - Threatened
 6. NT
 7. LC - Least concern
Population trend: Decreasing
Year assessed: 2008
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
 1. Life
 2. Animals
 3. Vertebrates
 4. Mammals
 5. Kangaroos, possums and wallabies
 6. Petauridae
 7. Petaurus
 8. Yellow-bellied glider


Take the 2-minute tour ×
Here is the problem:
A rectangle has its base on the x-axis and its upper two vertices on the parabola y=12-x^2 What is the largest area the rectangle can have, and what are its dimensions?
Well, I don't really know where to start. My initial idea was to find inflection points because I figured that is where the vertices would be, but there are no inflection points because it is a parabola...
Then I though about finding where the derivative and the parabola cross, found it, but I don't know how that will help me.
I really don't know where to start.
Any help is appreciated, thanks.
share|improve this question
You should be able to express the area of the inscribed rectangle in terms of $x$. Differentiate that, and find the values of $x$ that make it zero, and check that your results do correspond to a maximum. – Ｊ. Ｍ. Dec 21 '11 at 16:57
Okay, so: xy=A, X(12-x^2)=A, -3x^2 + 12 = 0, x = 2, y = 8, Area = 16. – user21589 Dec 21 '11 at 17:06
_USER_: Almost there! Area is $2x(12-x^2)$, base goes from $-x$ to $x$. If you have doubts, picture will take care of them. You found the area of the first quadrant part of the best rectangle. – André Nicolas Dec 21 '11 at 17:17
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1 Answer
Have a look at following picture. Does this help? Can you get (using this picture) area of the rectangle?
You should get $A(x)=2x(12-x^2)$ as mentioned in André's comment.
After getting this expression for $A(x)$, can you continue with the solution? What will be $A'(x)$ and where is it equal to zero?
You have $A(x)=24x-2x^3$, which means $$A'(x)=24-6x^2.$$ Solving $A'(x)=0$ gives $x=2$ and $A(x)=2\cdot2\cdot(12-2^2)=2\cdot2\cdot8=32$ as you correctly stated in the comment.
(There is also solution $x=-2$ but that one is not interesting for us - we are looking for $x\ge 0$ since we denote by $x$ the point to the right from $0$.)
parabola and rectangle
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Whether I use 2x or x, I still get x=2 in the end, and y = 8, thus area = 16. Did I do something wrong? Assuming above equation, next step is 24x-2x^3 = A, -6x^2 + 24 = 0, x=2, y=8, area=16. – user21589 Dec 21 '11 at 17:30
The only think to do is multiply the area by 2, to get the whole rectangle. Otherwise your solution is fine. (It should be also clear that you should get the same $x$ when you maximize the area of rectangle or half of this area.) – Martin Sleziak Dec 21 '11 at 17:35
Ah, I see exactly what you mean now. Thanks. – user21589 Dec 21 '11 at 17:38
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13: The dreaded double hybrid
Mr and Mrs Mouse both had one copy of each allele for teeth (one normal copy, one vampire fangs copy). In that sense, they were hybrids for the vampire allele. Well, they are also hybrids for the fur allele  one copy of the fluffy fur allele, and one copy of the wiry fur allele. (And let's assume that fluffy fur is a recessive trait, like vampire fangs).
Now there are two pairs of alleles in the mother's genotype. One allele pair has the vampire/non-vampire teeth. The other pair has flat/fluffy fur. But each egg gets only 1 allele from each of the pairs. So across the top of the Punnett Square, where we list all possible kinds of eggs, we have to list all possible combinations of one-allele-from-each-pair. This is just like the possible combinations of heads and tails on two coin flips:
The father has the same two allele pairs. To make a baby, Mr Mouse flips his two coins, and Mrs Mouse flips her two. We can make a Punnett Square to help us figure out what their babies should look like.
I am guessing you have already seen this kind of Punnett Square in your lecture or your textbook or both. If you already understand how it works and can reproduce it on your own, you could skip this page. If not, do not look up how to do a Punnett Square. I will ask you some leading questions, but the idea is for you to figure it out, then you won't need to memorise it or look it up.
As you know by now, the top needs to list all of Mum's possible egg types (her 'menu' of choices). How many: (1) all dominant ("normal") egg, (2) fangs with normal fur, (3) fluffy fur with normal teeth, (4) fangs and fluffy fur, are there? So that makes a 'menu' of four choices. Likewise for Dad.
1. Put Mum's egg choices along the top. Put Dad's sperm choices down the side. (Put the teeth gene first and the fur gene second).
2. That was the hard part. Now that we have the borders of the table done, you can fill in the middle. Each square represents 1 baby, and each baby is going to get one fur and one teeth allele from Mum, and one fur and one teeth allele from Dad. List all four alleles for each box. This gives you the genotype.
3. Now look at each box. Using the dominance rule, what should each baby look like (i.e. what is its phenotype)?
If you followed these steps faithfully, you should end up with 9 normal
babies, 3 with fluff, 3 with fangs, and 1 fluffy vampire (poor kid!)
This is the famous 9:3:3:1 ratio for a dihybrid cross.


text:
"How about this weather?"
Social Dialog with Embodied Conversational Agents
Abstract Social dialogue can be used by an embodied interface agent both to satisfy "interpersonal" goals, such as building rapport with the user and demonstrating the expertise of the agent, and to directly or indirectly satisfy task goals, such as acquiring background information about the user. We describe the ongoing development of an embodied conversational agent that is capable of multimodal input understanding and output generation and operates in a limited application domain in which both social and task-oriented dialogue are used. An approach to discourse planning for social dialogue is described, along with an implementation and preliminary evaluation.


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Global minimum corporation tax rate: why the argument that it breaches EU law will probably fail
8 Jul 2021
It's all getting very taxing. SOPA Images/Alamy
The commitment by 130 countries to introduce a 15% minimum corporation tax has stirred up objections from some countries that could make it more difficult to implement. Notably Estonia and Hungary contend that the agreement, brokered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), contravenes EU law, potentially causing a problem for the 23 member states which are parties to the agreement.
Estonia and Hungary have two of the most generous corporation tax regimes in the EU. Hungary offers a headline corporation tax rate of 9%, while Estonia's is 20% but drops to zero for certain kinds of companies. Of the other EU nations that compete aggressively on corporation tax, Ireland and Cyprus have also stayed out of the OECD agreement, though the Netherlands and Luxembourg have both signed up.
So what is Estonia and Hungary's legal basis for claiming that the plans violate EU law, and are they likely to be right?
How multinationals avoid tax
At present, the 130 countries have agreed to a statement of intent, with an implementation plan to be finalised by October and to come into force in 2023. It follows a similar commitment made by the G7 nations at the UK summit a few weeks earlier, and aims to prevent multinational companies from avoiding paying taxes. The OECD estimates that this costs countries between US$100 billion (£73 billion) and US$240 billion a year.
This is possible because each country decides on its own tax regime, which it can use to try and attract multinationals to set up a base with them for tax purposes. This competition, which is of course not confined to the EU, has been characterised by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as resulting in a "race to the bottom".
Multinationals are known for setting up subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions and filtering international earnings through them even though they do little business in the jurisdiction in question. The US tech giants, for example, have become particularly well known for such schemes, not least in relation to earnings from digital services and intellectual property royalties.
The OECD agreement rests on two pillars. Pillar one enables a fairer allocation of profits by multinationals by requiring that more of their activities are taxed where profits are earned – regardless of whether they have a physical presence there. Pillar two sets the minimum corporation tax level of 15%, and this is what is causing the controversy.
The Cadbury Schweppes case
The argument from Estonia and Hungary appears to rest on the 2006 case of Cadbury Schweppes plc and Cadbury Schweppes Overseas Ltd v Commissioners of the Inland Revenue. Cadbury Schweppes, a confectionery and soft drinks company, was headquartered in the UK but had operated a group structure with subsidiaries established in Ireland for tax reasons. While UK corporation taxes are generally not charged on the profits of a foreign subsidiary, this case concerned UK rules that provided an exception.
The Cadbury lawyers argued, among other things, that the UK legislation was a restriction on the EU freedom of establishment, which enables companies and individuals to set up undertakings anywhere in the bloc. The European Court of Justice accepted this argument, holding that it was incompatible with European Commission law for a member state to tax a resident company on profits made by a subsidiary in another member state, to prevent that subsidiary from taking advantage of more generous tax rates.
Estonia's deputy secretary general for tax affairs, Helen Papahill, is reported to have said that this case "shows quite clearly that these kinds of rules should not exist" in the EU. The argument appears to be that the OECD agreement would entail countries where large companies are based imposing the minimum tax rate on subsidiaries incorporated in other member states with lower tax rates. Put simply, you can't tax a company's subsidiary that is based in another country.
However, the judges in the Cadbury Schweppes case only considered the impact of one member state's tax laws on profits earned by a subsidiary in another member state, and it should not be taken as establishing a broader principle that the EU's freedom of establishment laws prevent international tax rules from being agreed.
It is likely that the OECD agreement would be regarded as a justified limitation on freedom of establishment, potentially on the grounds that it creates a common solution to the problem that multinationals are not currently paying fair rates of tax. Arguably it would not even hinder a company's freedom of establishment if every state followed the same minimum tax rate, particularly when smaller countries potentially have other advantages that could attract multinationals to incorporate in them, such as skilled workforces.
Nonetheless, this legal question is not the only obstacle to the OECD agreement being implemented. As a tax measure,, it is likely that it will need unanimous approval among EU member states – besides Hungary and Estonia. It is also still unclear whether Ireland and Cyprus will sign up.
The agreement may also face a tough time gaining approval from the US legislature, without which it would be greatly weakened. Tensions between the US and EU over European proposals to introduce an extra tax on digital companies are not helping. For all these reasons, the plan to tighten up corporation tax worldwide could still be facing a bumpy future in the months to come.
Read the full article here.
Covid-19 – Johns Hopkins University
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On The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific
November 23, 2012 - Ray Tsuchiyama
Above-listed is the official name, known in Hawai'i as simply "Punchbowl", for the large green, calming dipped expanse atop an extinct volcanic tuff cone located near downtown Honolulu. According to geologic time, the cone is not that ancient, as it was blasted and formed about 75,000 to 100,000 years ago during the most "recent" period of volcanic activity on Oahu Island.
After the 1893 Overthrow, the new Republic of Hawai'i government assigned a committee to investigate various land parcels, and a committee (all pro-Republic, non-Kingdom loyalists) recommended that Punchbowl become the site for a new cemetery. However, the new pro-Dole government rejected the idea, since that would put a graveyard for all races overlooking the Republic's new splendid capital city, and for the next fifty years, after the Territory of Hawai'i was established, the idea for a cemetery languished.*
After World War II Congress and veteran's organizations lobbied the U.S. Department of War to accelerate the burials of the remains of thousands of GIs stored on Guam awaiting permanent burial. This was the trigger for the U.S. Army to begin planning the Punchbowl cemetery, and soon construction began.
Starting in early 1949 among the first persons to be buried at Punchbowl was Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent who was killed on Iwo Jima in 1945 (he was also an ex-Navy enlisted man, Seaman Third Class, which gave him great empathy for the downtrodden soldiers and sailors, especially in the Pacific War, and was beloved by millions who read his battlefield reports).
Among many Hawai'i heroes who are buried at Punchbowl, one is Staff Sergeant Robert T. Kuroda, who was with the 442nd Infantry Regiment, and killed in action in the famous "Lost Battalion" battle near Bruyeres, France in fall, 1944. He single-handedly attacked two enemy machine gun posts before being killed by a sniper – and was later awarded the Medal of Honor. When he passed away, he was only 21 years old. On Kalia Road at Fort DeRussy in Waikiki, the "Kuroda Field" sign, so named after this gallant, brave soldier in a ferocious battle so far away from Hawai'i, is in front of a monkey pod tree.
Contrary to popular opinion, not all who are buried at Punchbowl were killed during World War II battles (over 13,000 remains are there now). Included in the list of Medal of Honor winners is Private Erwin Jay Boydston, a Marine who was decorated for his efforts supporting the Allied defenses during the Boxer Rebellion in Beijing, China, during a terrifying siege campaign in the summer of 1900. After his Marine service, Private Boydston somehow made his way to Honolulu and passed away in 1957, and was interred at Punchbowl. One wonders what he would have thought of the past two decades of China's economic rise, so different from his Marine service at the turn of the century: the weak imperial government, a revolutionary nationalist uprising, and an technologically-advanced international "police" force, including Americans, British, Russians, French, and Japanese -- that could march anywhere in China not subject to any Chinese laws. Now the Chinese have a huge army, and are developing better missiles, even an aircraft carrier, and are engaged in territorial disputes with countries ranging from Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan.
Among notables in politics, entertainment, and space travel interred at Punchbowl are former Governor John A. Burns (he served in the U.S. Army), Clara H. Nelson (known as the iconic "Hilo Hattie", the "Hawai'i Calls" radio personality and 1960s nightly singer/comedienne at the Hilton Hawaiian Village; as a spouse of a former serviceman, she was eligible to be interred at Punchbowl, as my mother), and astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka (an Air Force Lt. Colonel), who passed away in the Challenger tragedy in 1986. Interestingly, Ellison Onizuka, a native of the Island of Hawai'i, was the first Buddhist in space.
Some time ago the Punchbowl ground burial sites ran out. So, low walls were constructed with rows of small spaces where urns with the deceased ashes are placed – called a "columbarium" (the original Latin term referred to compartmentalized housing for doves and pigeons).
Whenever I stand in front of my parents' small wall marker, I feel very close to my parents' spirits, perhaps by now reincarnated. I clean the small metal flower vase and place sunflowers (my father's favorite) or tropical arrangement (my mother liked anthuriums) into the vase. Out of curiosity, I read other grave markers along the wall. I felt uncomfortable once when I saw a grave marker for an individual whose birthday year was the same as mine – such a short life: I felt that I was coming nearer to the end of my life, as well, and felt anxious about what I had not done nor experienced (but that's another post). Often on visits with my sister or other family members I see gaudy birthday balloons attached to the vases, and in front of one space, according to the birthday date, the interred individual would be 129 years old.
Once during Thanksgiving some years ago I saw a turkey and mash potatoes meal in a take-out box in front of a grave (unopened beer bottles can be enjoyed by the maintenance crew – but a full dinner attracts ants and other insects). As the holiday season is coming, I chuckled when I read the Punchbowl rules – no Christmas trees are allowed, as these are not in the "potted plant" category and banned (as are stuffed animals, pinwheels, balloons, large cards – but I have seen them all and a lot more).
Even if our loved ones are gone forever from the material world, some family members and friends try their hardest to include them still in their daily lives, and to do something that would have made them happy. And although I wince at entire turkey dinners, I have thought of bringing a slice of apple pie for my father to place in front of the wall and imagine how much he would have enjoyed it.
*Barely 30 years after the Republic of Hawai'i ended, in 1927 a Beaux-Arts memorial was dedicated to the Hawai'i servicemen who gave their lives during World War I – the Natatorium in Waikiki. The controversy still rages if the memorial includes the pool – and this is a critical point for some supporters, since if that is so, any destruction or removal of the pool from the Natatorium site would mean a desecration of the memorial to the fallen Hawai'i soldiers at far-away European battlefields.
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language-c-0.4.2: Analysis and generation of C code
Safe HaskellNone
This module provides the notion of identifiers in C, speed up using hashing. Identifiers are associated optionally associated with a NodeInfo, i.e. with a unique Name and a source location (Position). The ordering relation on identifiers is based on the hash and does not follow the lexical order.
data SUERef Source
References uniquely determining a struct, union or enum type. Those are either identified by an string identifier, or by a unique name (anonymous types).
isAnonymousRef :: SUERef -> BoolSource
Return true if the struct/union/enum reference is anonymous.
mkIdent :: Position -> String -> Name -> IdentSource
build an identifier from a string.
 - only minimal error checking, e.g., the characters of the identifier are not checked for being alphanumerical only; the correct lexis of the identifier should be ensured by the caller, e.g., the scanner.
 - for reasons of simplicity the complete lexeme is hashed.
builtinIdent :: String -> IdentSource
returns a builtin identifier (has builtin position and no unique name)
internalIdent :: String -> IdentSource
returns an internal identifier (has internal position and no unique name)
internalIdentAt :: Position -> String -> IdentSource
return an internal identifier with position info
isInternalIdent :: Ident -> BoolSource
return True if the given identifier is internal
identToString :: Ident -> StringSource
string of an identifier
dumpIdent :: Ident -> StringSource
dump the identifier string and its positions for debugging purposes


text:
Kilian Liebe: Topological Fundamental Groups
Bachelor thesis presentation
Time: Thu 2022-06-09 11.30 - 12.30
Location: Kräftriket, house 6, room 306
Respondent: Kilian Liebe
This paper will examine a topological invariant known as the topological fundamental group. The first main theorem discussed gives conditions for exactly when the topological fundamental group is discrete, and the second one gives an example of a topological fundamental group which fails to be a topological group.


text:
Macular degeneration cases in Germany
27.326 cases in the year 2020
27.729 cases in the year 2023 ( Prognosis )
The predicted increase in case numbers is based on population growth data from the Federal and State Statistical Offices. The calculation is made for each age group, so that demographic effects are taken into account. The case numbers are based on a network of different sources available to the public. By means of data analysis procedures, these figures are processed and made available to our users.


text:
Primitive Fiber Optics (Mar, 1939)
Piped Light Aids Surgeons and Dentists
PIPED LIGHT, providing surgeons and dentists with powerful, sterile beams devoid of heat, glare, or the danger of electrical shock, is made possible by instuments molded from a transparent plastic which carries light around curves and bends (P.S.M March '37, p. 43). The molded hand-held rodlike instruments have electric bulbs at their bases, powered either through extension cords from transformers that cut down 110-volt current to six volts, or by flash-light cells in a special base. Among the new plastic instruments are a tongue depressor that throws a concentrated beam on the throat of a patient, a retractor which serves the double purpose of holding back the cheek and lighting the mouth, and a long curved rod which casts a brilliant beam on the teeth.


text:
AMS Mediation of Burnsville, Minnesota, has a variety of educational classes to support individuals during and after divorce. AMS Mediation's qualified staff offers a number of tools to help you get your life back in order after a difficult divorce. Just about anyone who has been through a divorce can tell you that legal processes can be overwhelming, confusing, complicated, and stressful. Our team can help you make sense of the process and find a way forward.
AMS Mediation has the means of helping you gain confidence in the areas of your life that divorce might have damaged. We offer classes that provide you with the tools you need to gain important knowledge that can empower you to navigate your unique situation and achieve a cost efficient, and family focused divorce.
Toolkit for Navigating Your Legal Process
The legal processes of divorce can cause the dissolution of your marriage to become more adversarial than you or your spouse might have expected. Our legal processes class provides insight into the common dynamics of divorce and empowers both members of the divorcing couple to enter the process with a healthier perspective and more direct knowledge of their own responses to the divorce. Some of the topics covered in this class include:
- Stress and grieving: Both are normal responses to divorce; understanding each can help you address your response to them, which allows faster healing and healthier responses.
- Options available to the couple relating to the legal process
- Division of property: Even couples who believe they have little in the way of possessions can find that what they co-own is difficult to divide, but AMS Mediation can help you make the division of property easier.
- Child support
- Spousal maintenance
- Parenting plans: This may be the real essence of the divorce process when children are affected. Couples who do not have the benefit of a mediation provider like AMS Mediation are more likely to find themselves in adversarial situations without solution. But AMS Mediation offers common-sense solutions that serve your children.
Toolkit for Successful Separate Parenting
The emotions experienced by divorcing couples can complicate how you provide parenting to your children. AMS Mediation, however, has the experience and knowledge to help you understand your unique experience alongside the trends that have been identified by AMS Mediation in divorcing couples. Some of the covered topics in Class 2 include:
- Maximizing communication skills
- How conflict impacts children
- Children's needs, organized by age-group
- Understanding the dynamics of change and rebuilding trust
- Conflict and anger
- Ensuring the provision of healthy-parenting environments
For more information about these classes and AMS Mediation's divorce mediation services in Minnesota, call _PHONE_.


text:
bathtub is more than just a simple compressor: it does multi-band compression, multi-layer parallel compression, series compression, mid/side compression, Left/Right compression, RMS/Peak detection, side-chaining, look-ahead, limiting & maximizing and has comprehensive metering and clip counting.
bathtub is really two flexible and configurable stereo compressors that can be routed to be in series or parallel, can be fed the input signal split into high/low frequencies or full band, and can perform as different styles of compressor, limiter or maximizer to produce a range of flavours and effects. The metering shows you visually what is happening too, so you can see how much compression and gain you are getting.
- 2 Band multi-function compressor with comprehensive metering.
- Flexible controls allow use as a compressor, limiter or maximiser.
- Can be used as a single band compressor, dual band compressor, dual parallel compressor or dual series compressor.
- 2 bands can be split high / low freq or full spectrum.
- 2 bands can be in parallel or series.
- Fully adjustable frequency split point with adjustable overlap/gap of bands.
- Each band has a full set of independent compression controls for different compression flavours in each.
- Each band has stereo balance for independent Left and Right channel compression.
- Each band has mid/side stereo narrow/width control, which can be used to narrow the low frequency and spread the high, or have independent mid/side compression.
- Either or both bands can use sidechaining to drive the compressor from an external signal.
- Either or both bands can be muted to help with sound design or save CPU in single band mode.
- Attack / Release curve can be linear or non-linear.
- Stereo input detection can be linked or unlinked.
- Input detection can be filtered to reduce distortion at short release times.
- Input detection can be stereo average or max level.
- Input detection can be Peak or RMS level with adjustable window.
- Optional soft limit at final output.
- Look-ahead defined by user in ms.
- Wet/Dry mix control allows blending of dry uncompressed signal for NY style parallel compression.
- Metering for each band and combined output, covers stereo input, output and gain, gain reduction and clip indicator/counter, with adjustable sensitivity. All meters show actual and peak levels.


text:
The importance of timescales for the emergence of environmental self-regulation
Models which explore the possibilities of emergent self-regulation in the Earth system often assume the timescales associated with changes in various sub-systems to be predetermined. Given their importance in guiding the fixed point dynamics of such models, relatively little formalism has been established. We analyse a classic model of environmental self-regulation, Daisyworld, and interpret the original equations for model temperature, changes in insolation, and self-organisation of the biota as an important separation of timescales. This allows a simple analytical solution where the model is reduced to two states while retaining important characteristics of the original model. We explore the consequences of relaxing some key assumptions. We show that increasing the rate of change of insolation relative to adaptation of the biota shows a sharp transition between regulating, and lifeless states. Additionally, in slowing the rate of model temperature change relative to the adapting biota we derive expressions for the damping rate of fluctuations, along with a threshold beyond which damped oscillations occur. We relax the assumption that seeding occurs globally by extending this analysis to solve a two-dimensional cellular automata Daisyworld. We conclude by reviewing a number of previous Daisyworld models and make explicit their respective timescales, and how their behaviour can be understood in light of our analysis.
Life sciences simulation: Ecology


text:
Laborers' Local 91 represents union laborers in Niagara County. In 1935, Local 91 was originally founded as the International Hod Carriers' Building and Common Laborers' Union of America. Local 91 in Niagara Falls is affiliated with the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA). The members of Local 91 are involved in various types of construction and industrial projects, including brick masonry; asbestos removal; hazardous materials abatement; paving roads and runways; pipe installation; and bridge and building construction. Local 91 laborers have participated in various projects throughout Niagara County, such as Niagara Hydro-Electric Power Generating Station, AES Somerset Electric Generating Station, the Seneca Niagara Hotel and Casino, and the Yahoo Data Center.
Up until the late 1970s, Local 91 laborers were exposed to asbestos through materials they applied, removed or handled. Exposure to asbestos dust and fibers can cause mesothelioma or lung cancer many years after an initial exposure. Local 91 members were also exposed to asbestos dust by working in close proximity to other tradesmen, including insulators, carpenters, electricians, and fireproofers, who applied or removed asbestos-containing materials. Asbestos was widely incorporated into many building materials and industrial products that laborers applied or removed, including pipe covering, block insulation, roof shingles, joint compound and fireproof materials. It was also common for laborers to be present when asbestos fireproofing was applied to structural steel in order to keep the machine loaded with the insulating material. Among the many general duties of laborers, which would have exposed them to asbestos, laborers swept up dust and debris after drywall finishers sanded asbestos-containing joint compound. Additionally, laborers performed general duties on construction sites, which also exposed them to asbestos.
The dangers of exposure to asbestos dust were unknown to workers who performed their work without wearing masks or protective gear. Inhaling dust and particles from the application of asbestos-containing materials placed workers at risk for developing mesothelioma or lung cancer. Even workers who were not in direct contact with asbestos materials remain at risk for developing an asbestos-related disease, such as mesothelioma or lung cancer. If you or a loved one worked as a Local 91 laborer and have been diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer, please contact us regarding your legal rights.


text:
"..They're shiny, eye-catching and hold a great tune.
And a leading academic has described the process involved in producing his state-of-the-art guitars as "the next industrial revolution".
Olaf Diegelmade – a professor based at Massey University's School of Engineering and Advanced Technology – has produced a series of prototypes of 3D-printed electric guitars.
Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing is the process of making three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file using a printer that deposits layers of plastic or metal powder – with each layer fused by a precision laser beam.
"The whole purpose is customisation and trying to avoid waste," Diegelmade said.
"It's the next big thing in manufacturing, because you can create to order and modify the design to suit specific individual requirements -
- whether it's for a new set of teeth, a door handle or a piece of jewellery.
"It's the next industrial revolution and it's going to completely change the way we do things…"
go to source/story>>>


Challenge to the tobacco ban goes up in smoke: High Court declares the prohibition of the sale of to
In order to curb the spread of COVD-19, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs ("the Minister") issued regulations prohibiting the sale of tobacco products, e-cigarettes and related products ("the tobacco prohibition"). This prohibition has been subject to widespread criticism and controversy surrounding the thriving trade of illicit tobacco products as a result of the ban as well as much political heat.
As a result of the tobacco prohibition, the Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association ("FITA") lodged an application against the President of South Africa and the Minister seeking an order declaring that:
 - cigarettes and tobacco products are essential goods in terms of the Level Five Regulations;[1]
 - regulation 27 of the Level Four Regulations to the extent that the sale of tobacco products are prohibited is invalid, alternatively is reviewed and set aside;[2]
 - regulation 45 of the Level Three Regulations is invalid to the extent that the sale of tobacco products are prohibited, alternatively is reviewed and set aside;[3] and
 - the sale of tobacco products and cigarettes is lawful.
As with the recent court judgement de Beers v Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, in which the Lockdown Regulations were declared invalid and unconstitutional, legality and rationality formed the crux of FITA's argument. Simply put, FITA's argument was that the ends sought to be achieved by the Minister of curbing the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring that healthcare facilities are not overwhelmed, bears no relationship to the means adopted by her i.e. the prohibition of the sale of tobacco. As a result, FITA argued that the Minister acted irrationally and in so doing, breached the principle of legality.
The question before the court was whether the regulations are rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. If not, the regulations may be declared inconsistent with the rule of law, and therefore invalid. Judgment was handed down by the Pretoria High Court on 26 June 2020 in which the prohibition of the sale of tobacco products, e-cigarettes and related products was declared valid. The reasoning for the court's decision is analysed below.
Reasons for the judgement
The legality principle forms part of the rule of law, which is one of the constitutional control mechanisms on the exercise of public power. Rationality is the minimum threshold requirement applicable to the exercise of all public power by members of the Executive and other functionaries.
The rationality test requires that there must be a rationally objective basis which justifies the conduct of the Minister. Once this hurdle is overcome, the conduct of the Minister is deemed rational. In this respect, the Minister's task involved striking a balance between a number of complex economic, medical and social considerations in order to protect the public from the devastating effects of the pandemic. This entailed making informed policy choices.
The primary reason advanced by the Minister for the tobacco prohibition was "to protect human life and health and to reduce the potential strain on the health care system." She recorded that this will ensure that healthcare facilities are not overwhelmed to the extent that those in need will be denied access to healthcare. The Minister further asserted that the reality is that South Africa is a developing country with limited access to healthcare facilities as demanded by the pandemic. This reality places a duty on her in her role as Minister to take measures that would prevent unnecessary strain on the limited healthcare facilities to ensure that COVID-19 patients have access to such facilities.
Although studies around the potential link between the use of tobacco products and COVID-19 are in the developmental stage, medical evidence shows that the use of tobacco products increases not only the risk of transmission of COVID-19, but also the risk of developing more severe symptoms of the disease. The Minister referred to a variety of medical sources and statistical figures, which she submitted presented a serious potential of harm which, as a responsible decision-maker, she could not "in good conscience ignore". In this regard, the court held that the Minister had not cherry-picked medical evidence in favour of the tobacco prohibition, but that she had made a properly considered decision which was rational and intended to assist the State in complying with its responsibilities to its people.
FITA contended that the Minister failed to consider a number of other relevant factors such as the economic impacts of the prohibition, the potential health and psychological impact on smokers as well as the illicit trade in cigarettes. On the contention that the Minister failed to consider the economic impacts of the prohibition, she submitted that the economic impacts of the tobacco prohibition were indeed considered. However, it was decided that any impact that the tobacco prohibition may have on the economy was outweighed by the harm posed to life and the healthcare system by allowing the continued sale of tobacco products.
The court held that the illicit trade of tobacco products was not fatal to the rationality of the ban. This is considering that the Minister need only show that the means chosen to achieve the intended objective were reasonably capable of achieving it, and not whether it was the most effective or the best means possible. The continuing illicit trade in tobacco products does not negate the overwhelming view that smoking affects the respiratory system. It further renders smokers more susceptible than non-smokers to the heightened progression of COVID-19, especially amongst persons with comorbidities.
FITA lastly contended that tobacco related products ought to be classified as essential goods. This is because tobacco is addictive and the withdrawal from tobacco related products may lead to serious physical, psychological and emotional harm. This is aggravated by the freely available illicit, non-regulated products which are most hazardous to health.
The court however held that tobacco does not fall within the ambit of essential goods. Tobacco is not food, cleaning and hygiene products, fuel nor is it a medical product, and would only constitute as "essential goods" if it is considered as a basic good, akin to airtime and electricity. Accordingly, FITA's argument that tobacco ought to have been considered as "essential" because it is addictive, does not hold water.
Originally appeared in Lexology at
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A couple of pawns in a historic game of chess
While politicians are busy mining the intellectual works of the Founding Fathers for evidence to support their agendas, archaeologists in Virginia have uncovered actual physical evidence of how one such Father exercised his intellect at home. Archaeologists at Montpelier, James Madison's Virginia estate, recently discovered pieces of two pawns that belonged to the former president's chess set among a variety of artifacts excavated from a 19th century trash heap.
Historians have long known that our fourth president was an avid chess player. Madison frequently matched wits on the chessboard with his presidential predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, whose granddaughter Ellen Wayles Coolidge would later write that her grandfather, "a very good chess-player," sometimes participated in "'four hour games' with Mr. Madison," as the Associated Press recently pointed out.
James Madison chess set
A game of chess with Mr. Madison
Curators at his Montpelier home located a chess set they believe is very like the one Madison often used.
Pieces of two pawns were found among items recovered during excavations of a trash heap at Montpelier.
A game of chess with Mr. Madison
A game in progress at Montpelier.
A game of chess with Mr. Madison
A game in progress at Montpelier.
The games may have had special significance for the two presidents, who were close friends and allies. "You can play chess and just move people around, but those epic battles are very evocative of what their friendship was," said Matthew Reeves, director of archaeology at Montpelier.
Madison's leading role at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 earned him the nickname "Father of the Constitution," though his introversion has allowed more flamboyant characters like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to overshadow him in the popular memory. Visitors to Montpelier in the years after Madison left the presidency recalled extensive discussions of politics, books and the beginnings of the nation. Chess was a game well-suited to the ex-president's quiet intelligence. His passion for the game "showed that he was an intellectual," said Reeves. "His intellectual nature extended into his personal life, into his daily activities. Even in games, he was very much an intellectual."
Reeves began searching for remnants of the former president's chess set after managers at Montpelier announced their wish to purchase and display a contemporary set. He found two small pieces of ivory that stood out, though barely, in a collection of sewing equipment excavated from the grounds in the 1990s. "If you weren't looking for a chess set," he said, "they looked like they might be part of a sewing bobbin."
Reeves sent a photograph of the pieces to a chess expert, who confirmed they were, in fact, part of a colonial-era "Washington-style set." The high cost and low availability of chess sets in Madison's time made them almost exclusively the property of the master of the house, which meant that Reeves had likely discovered a part of the set given to Madison by his colleague Benjamin Franklin and used in his matches with Thomas Jefferson.
Those ivory pieces provided Montpelier's curators with enough information to purchase an identical chess set dating from the same period. They unveiled it this week at Montpelier.
"It might seem like a simple little chess piece," said Reeves, "part of a pawn, but it helps us to add another detail to the rich tapestry of who Mr. Madison was."
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 A health care legacy, revisited
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 Bloomsday, I said yes
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 A founding father's books discovered in Missouri library
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 Go Jed!!!


Saturday, February 03, 2007
The Mitford Sisters
It is not that long ago I wrote about he Mitford sisters but if you weren't a devoted reader of my blog back in September last year, then here is link back to it and also a story from The Age. A book of Decca's (Jessica) letters has just been published. A truly fascinating family and in the tv series Love in a Cold Climate, Judi Dench was wonderfully cast as their mother
THE MITFORD sisters, like the Bloomsbury Group, have become a literary industry. After a cluster of novels, memoirs, biographies and films, and even a musical, The Mitford Girls, it might seem time to stop.
Yet Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford is a wonderfully rich and varied collection. Far better than her autobiography, Hons and Rebels, it brings together the extremes of her two worlds: the English aristocracy of her birth and postwar American radical politics.
Conflict and displacement, strong family affections and an even stronger urge to rebel against her class and upbringing are recurring themes. Her passionate commitment to social causes, especially the civil rights movement in the US, make Decca (as Jessica was known) the most sympathetic member of the famously eccentric Mitford family.
She shared the comic sense of her novelist sister Nancy. Both were brilliant letter writers, open, direct, funny, sharply satirical. But because Decca's life was more varied, more open to experience, than Nancy's, her letters are more satisfying.
Born in 1917, Decca Mitford was the fifth of the six daughters of Lord Redesdale, an English peer of no distinction and small means. His hatred of foreigners and intellectuals, combined with a dottiness that not even P. G. Wodehouse's Lord Emsworth could match, gave his daughters ample cause to escape their narrow upbringing.
Not allowed to go to school, the Mitford girls had a skimpy education from a series of governesses in their father's country house. Outdoors it was hunting and shooting for the men; squelching about in gumboots for the women. This was not enough for Decca, who was saving her running-away money from the age of 11.
The sisters escaped in spectacularly diverse ways. Unity Mitford, who became an intimate friend of Hitler, shot herself when Britain declared war on Germany. The beautiful Diana left her rich husband, Bryan Guinness, to marry Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, with whom she was jailed for treason in 1942.
Nancy, also divorced, lived in Paris, devoting herself to writing and to one of de Gaulle's generals, who would not marry her. Deborah's choice was happier and more conventional but was in accord with the Mitford habit of going to the top: she married the Duke of Devonshire.
At 19, Decca chose her causes: the communist party, the Spanish Republicans and her runaway schoolboy cousin Esmond Romilly, whom she married in Spain against her parents' wishes. "Whenever I see 'Peer's Daughter Scandal' in the newspapers," her mother said plaintively, "I know it is one of you children."
When Romilly was killed while serving with the Canadian Air Force in 1941, Decca made her permanent home in the US. She learned typing and shorthand and worked in badly paid repetitive jobs. Self-trained, with much charm, confidence, curiosity and persistence, she became a successful investigative journalist.
After her second marriage, to lawyer Bob Treuhaft, she moved to California, where both were active in the civil rights movement and the communist party.
Muckraking in a good cause, as author of the bestseller The American Way of Death, Mitford made a great deal of money and won a reputation for fearless questioning. She documented the emotional and financial exploitation of the funeral industry and its grotesqueries. Cushioned shoes for that last journey? A burial brunch coat?
Some publishers thought her gruesome chapter on embalming made the book unreadable, but Mitford's wit carried it through. Her one-liners were hard to resist. On seeing the pyramids she said: "Now there's a society where the funeral industry really got out of hand."
Mitford's other targets included the Famous Writers' School, which offered correspondence lessons at high cost to the manifestly untalented. She is credited with having bankrupted this dodgy enterprise. Going undercover, she endured a penitential week at Elizabeth Arden's Maine Chance, where wealthy women paid vast sums for health and beauty treatment. Her work on the US prison system, Kind and Usual Punishment, put her on collision course with state governors and prison officials.
Mitford's letters include glimpses of the Kennedys, LBJ and Ladybird Johnson, the Clintons, Princess Margaret, Gore Vidal, John Kenneth Galbraith, Julian Huxley. Never a name-dropper, she mentioned them only when there was a good story to tell. Novelist Maya Angelou and Katharine Graham, owner and publisher of The Washington Post, were her close friends.
Yet even after 50 years of American life, Mitford retained the detachment of a spectator. An avid collector of oddities on both sides of the Atlantic, she was not nostalgic for England.
The mixture of the personal and political enlivens the Mitford letters, especially those between the sisters. Decca deplored Nancy's admiration for de Gaulle and was sharply critical of the class system that enthroned Deborah in her stately home. They, in turn, could point to inconsistencies in Decca's breach with the American Communist Party, which she left in 1958. She found it easier to say that she was bored than that she was mistaken.
A refusal to admit defeat goes with a stoic denial of pain. Decca was never able to write about her desolation at the death of her first husband, or the accident in which her 10-year-old son was killed. Anger surfaces in her abiding fury at having been denied an education, but on the whole the comic spirit prevails in this large, well-edited and generous volume of her letters.
David Hicks again
It just go from bad to worse to farce.
The US has held one of our citizens for over five years in an isolated prison camp without charge. As an Australian, he should be entitled to efforts by Australia to have him returned home, as would any other Australian citizen would be if illegally held.
Has he been tortured in this prison, well most likely, even if the definition of torture is used very flexibly by both our and the US government.
Now what are they doing now? Well, for 'intellectual stimulation' they have been showing the prisoners pictures of Saddam Hussein's hanging.
When will this nightmare ever end?
Cancer of the Nose
It turns out that I do not have cancer of the nose and I won't need a disfiguring operation. Nor have been so drunk that I cannot recall walking nose first into a door.
After suffering a strangely sore and slightly swollen nose for a couple of days in silence, I mentioned it to my in house Doctor R and he diagnosed a pimple on the inside of my nose. As he is unqualified, I asked him how he knew and he has had one too.
I concurred with his diagnosis but also added that it could be an ingrown hair on the inside of my nose.
Whatever. After five days the nose is now back to normal and once again I can tilt my head back and disdainfully sniff at one and all.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Fine old mood
Let me see, I have had a go at trains, media, trams. Who or what next. Some people think I am a whinger.
Yeesss, let me have a go at Lexmark, maker of our printer. When it works, I like our printer. It is simple to use and does what I want. It scans and photocopies too.
There have been some issues over the couple of years we have owned it, usually ink related. If the ink cartridge level indicators were more reliable, I would have been much less troubled. It is not keen on a single sheet of paper on paper rest when it takes in a sheet either. But quirks, I can live with.
The first sign of trouble came when it started printing multicoloured addresses on envelopes. Uninstalling drivers and software did not rectify the problem, so serious business letters now get a printed label and not a printed envelope. Multi coloured is quite good for birthday cards.
It could even been a Microsoft Word problem, maybe.
Now it is really cantakerous. It will print half a page and then say there is a problem with the ink cartridge. By unplugging the power and plugging it back in, it may then print the whole page, or make a couple of errors in the middle of the page. Sometimes it will print fine, mostly not.
Now it has in it two half full cartridges, plus we have a spare colour cartridge. Total value around eighty dollars.
The printer cost $170, friends later bought a slightly upgraded one for $80 and now the same basic all in one can be had for $40. The cartridges can still be used in the new model, so you can see my temptation.
But, the new model is white, not dark grey and would stand out, like the proverbial dog's accoutrements, among our decor.
But a couple of years is not long for a printer to last and I have never bothered Lexmark before, but my request for technical assistance via email has gone unanswered for a week


text:
environment, since the thin long Corridors can propagate the Signals easily, that can cause the signal's strength to stay unchanged or change by a very little amount.
Movement model Maybe a movement model can be incorporated with the particle filters. This model can keep track of the user's speed and direction, and can be used to refine the particles. This can be done by keeping in consideration that if a person is walking in one direction, it is more probable that this person keeps walking in the same direction, rather than turn back suddenly.
Physical walls, barriers model We can take into consideration the fact that people can not walk through walls or other physical barriers. We can use this fact to refine the results given by the particle filters.
I used the following resources:
aima-java Java implementation of algorithms from Norvig And Russell's "Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach 3rd Edition." _URL_
annas Graph implementation and algorithm package _URL_


MMA Forum - UFC Forums - UFC Results - MMA Videos - View Single Post - Independent Knee
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Old 07-07-2007, 10:55 AM #1 (permalink)
MMA Fanatic
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 14
joelovesfishin has a little shameless behaviour in the past
Independent Knee
Hey Fellow Fighters,
I usually post articles in the Muay Thai section, but thought this area would be more fitting.
I posted an article about properly using the Independent Knee. Videos are located at the following link:
Independent Knee Article
One of my favorite knees to teach students is the Independent Knee (IK) and is the foundation I teach the other knees. An IK is a knee without the use of a clinch or leaping off the ground (AKA Flying Knee). I teach it one of several ways; grabbing the shoulder, the top of the head or nothing at all. Like most "advanced" techniques the IK should be set up with some other technique, i.e.; punch, kick, etc. The time that you may not have to set up the IK with another technique is if you're fighting someone that pushes their way forward with their head down, i.e.; an unskilled boxer turned Muay Thai Kickboxer.
Here's how to do the basic Independent Knee:
1. Punch or kick your opponent and when you see they have ducked or covered.
2. Reach out with your right hand and grab their right shoulder or top of their head.
3. Tuck your chin and have your left arm come across your face covering your right temple.
4. Push your knee out (not up - VERY IMPORTANT)
5. Lean your torso back
6. Pull the shoulder/head with you
7. Drive your knee with your hips
You can do this without grabbing anything. Just drive your knee out towards your opponent.
Some of the problems that I've seen with this technique are:
1. Not setting up the Independent Knee and just throwing it out there.
2. Not throwing it like you mean it - If you're going to use the IK, use it forcefully.
3. Not leaning far enough back to get the hips into the motion.
4. Not protecting your melon.
Here are two videos that use the Independent Knee. See if you can determine who uses the technique more effectively. Why is one technique better than the other? What did they do right? What did they do wrong? What could they do to improve their technique?
Buakaw vs. Kalakoda, K-1 Max Elimination, 05Apr06
Zambidis vs. Drago, K-1 World Max, 26Jun07
A blog to help reinforce the lessons I teach my students by seeing actual fighters using the same technique. Feel free to post constructive feedback.
joelovesfishin is offline Reply With Quote


text:
How to reduce diode detector weak signal insertion-power-loss to less than that possible when the input is impedance matched
By Ben H. Tongue
Quick Summary: Diode detector insertion power loss can be reduced below the value achieved under impedance matched conditions provided it is operating below its LSLC point. The optimal conditions are: (1) The output audio load resistance equals twice the RF source resistance. (2) The Saturation Current and Ideality Factor of the diode are such that the very-low-signal output resistance of the detector (axis-crossing resistance, aka Rd, of the diode) equals the output load resistance. These conditions insure an impedance match at the audio output and a 1:2 mismatch at the RF input (source resistance = half the RF input resistance of the diode). Please bear in mind that the LSLC point is a point on a graph of output DC power vs input RF power of a diode detector system. It is not a point on a graph of DC current vs voltage of a diode. Info on the LSLC point is available in Article #15a.
It has usually been assumed by myself and others that power loss in
a two port device (here, a crystal set) is minimized when its input
and output ports are impedance matched. This article will show
that this is not true in the case of a diode detector operating
at a signal power level well below that of its region of essentially
linear operation. It is true, however, when a strong signal
(well above the LSLC point) is being received. In the linear region,
audio output power is proportional to RF input power. That is,
for every dB of change in input power there will be one dB change of
output power. In the lower power region, called the'square law'
region, a change of one dB in input power results in a two dB change
in output power. See Article #15a, Figs. 2 and 3 for info on the
LSLC point of a diode detector.
Definition of terms:
Rd: Resistance of a diode at its axis crossing. Rd=0.0257*n/Is at 25 degrees Celsius
It has been asserted in these Articles that the RF input and audio output resistances, Ri and Ro, of a diode detector, approach the same value and equal 0.0257*n/Is = Rd ohms at room temperature when the input signal strength is low enough. See Article #0, part 4, Article 4, part 2 and Article 16 for information on Is and n, and ways of measuring them.
Fig. 1 represents a conventional diode detector. The tank circuit T is shown with no internal loss. A real world tank will have loss that can be represented by a shunt resistor connected across it. For convenience of analysis it is assumed that this loss resistance is absorbed into the source V1, R1 (For a more complete explanation, see Article #1, first paragraph after the third schematic.). Assume that the impedance of the source (antenna) and load (headphone) are transformed to equal values (R1 = R2) and select a diode that has an Rd equal to them. This will result in a reasonable impedance match at both the input and output if the signal power level places operation below +10 dB of the linear-to-square law crossover point. Little of the input power directed towards the detector will be reflected back to the source and most all of the output power from the detector will be absorbed in the load, R2. If the diode detector were a linear device with linear input and output resistances, this impedance-matched condition would result in the least detector power loss (greatest sensitivity) obtainable. It would seem clear that the crystal set detector could not be made more sensitive. Actually, not so! Very weak signal sensitivity can be improved by about 2 dB by appropriate mismatching at the input. This provides a rather hard-to-hear increase in volume, but every little bit helps.
In the impedance matched condition discussed so far, R1=Ri=Rd and R2=
Ro. Simple math shows that the detector input voltage Vi will
equal one half the internal source voltage V1. If we create
an impedance mismatch between the source resistance R1 and the detector
input resistance Ri by replacing the diode D with a different one having
1/2 the saturation current, Vi will increase. The reason is that
the detector input resistance Ri is now twice R1. The voltage
divider made up of R1 and Ri will reduce Vi to only two thirds
of V1, making the new value of Vi=4/3 the old value. Since the
detector is operating in square law mode, the internal source voltage
in the detector that drives its output terminals will be (4/3)^2=1.77...
times as much as before. This higher voltage will be divided down by
the voltage divider action of the now twice-as-large diode output resistance
and R2 to give an output voltage 1.185 as large as before. This
equates to an output power 1.476 dB greater than in the original impedance
Theoretical calculation and SPICE simulation show that that in a crystal set having equal values for R1 and R2, the diode parameters that give to lowest insertion power loss at low signal power levels fits the equation: R1=R2= 2*(0.0257*n/Is) at room temperature.
Now let us look at the effect on Ri and insertion power loss if Ri does not match R1. Look at Fig. 2.
Look at Fig. 3. At the -95 dBW end of the graph, one can see that changing Is from 38 to 19 nA, and keeping R1 and R2 at at 700k ohms reduced the detector insertion power loss by about 1.5 dB (Series 1 to series 2). This comes from the increased voltage, Vi, at the detector input. Raising the output load resistance from 700k to 1400k ohms reduces the mismatch loss at the output to approximate. zero and reduces the overall insertion power loss by another approximate. 0.5 dB for a total improvement of 2.0 dB at low input power levels (Series 3). The detector insertion power loss at the -50 dBW input level is is also reduced by 0.5 dB because of the elimination of the output impedance mismatch.
Practically speaking, what does all this mean? Mainly, improved theoretical understanding of diode detectors. (see last bullet point)
#28 Originally published as Article #15 in Feb. 2001; later withdrawn.
Republished as Article #28: 03/04/05


Defining greed
Terri G. Seuntjens*, Marcel Zeelenberg, Seger M. Breugelmans, Niels van de Ven
*Corresponding author for this work
Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review
Although greed is both hailed as the motor of economic growth and blamed as the cause of economic crises, very little is known about its psychological underpinnings. Five studies explored lay conceptualizations of greed among US and Dutch participants using a prototype analysis. Study 1 identified features related to greed. Study 2 determined the importance of these features; the most important features were classified as central (e.g., self-interested, never satisfied), whereas less important features were classified as peripheral (e.g., ambition, addiction). Subsequently, we found that, compared to peripheral features, participants recalled central features better (Study 3), faster (Study 4), and these central features were more present in real-life episodes of greed (Study 5). These findings provide a better understanding of the elements that make up the experience of greed and provide insights into how greed can be manipulated and measured in future research.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)505-525
Number of pages21
JournalBritish Journal of Psychology
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2015
 - Emotions
 - Greed
 - Prototype analysis
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Defining greed'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Cite this


How the Navy Might Spin Seawater Into Jet Fuel
Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
US Iran
AP/U.S. NavyThe USS John C. Stennis
Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink -- but maybe a drop of alternative fuel? The U.S. Navy is hoping next-generation technology will let it replace petroleum fuels with something much more accessible and abundant: seawater.
"If they made fuel at sea," Naval Research Laboratory chemist Heather Willauer told NextGov this week, "they wouldn't be buying it."
Hydrocarbon fuel is, as the name suggests, made up of hydrogens and carbons. The first step to powering ships and planes with seawater is extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from seawater. There's actually a lot of CO2 dissolved in the ocean –- at a concentration 140 times greater than in the air, in fact. NRL's way of capturing carbon involves a three-chambered cell that applies electricity to seawater. This cell pulls out carbon dioxide and also produces hydrogen.
Next, the team uses a two-step process to combine the CO2 and hydrogen gases into a liquid soup of hydrocarbons. An iron-based catalyst converts both carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas into a type of hydrocarbon called an olefin (without the catalyst, you end up with a lot of wasteful methane production). For the second step, Navy chemists convert olefins to a jet fuel precursor through a process known as oligomerization –- combining little links of molecules called monomers into a longer, more complex chain called a polymer.
Challenges remain, of course. The initial part of the process does gobble up a lot of energy, and while the technique has become more efficient in recent years, NRL's carbon capture methods could still be more efficient, Willauer told NextGov.
%VIRTUAL-article-sponsoredlinks%In the fiscal year of 2011 alone, Navy vessels at sea used nearly 600 million gallons of fuel, according to the NRL. The Navy has set a goal of reducing its petroleum use by half by 2015.
In a 2012 analysis published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Willauer and her colleagues estimated that jet fuel could be made at sea for anywhere from $3 to $6 per gallon. While that's slightly more expensive than what the Navy has been paying for fuel, it may not be for long.
"In nine years, the price of fuel for the Navy could be well over the price of producing a synthetic jet fuel at sea which would not incur the costs associated with logistical storage and delivery," Willauer and colleagues wrote.
If the technology pans out, every Navy ship might be able to make its own fuel. Ships wouldn't have to be refueled by oil tankers -- a rough proposition in stormy weather or in battle.
"A ship's ability to produce any significant fraction of the battle group's fuel for operations would increase the Navy's operational flexibility and time on station by increasing the mean time between refueling," the NRL team wrote.
Pulling carbon dioxide out of the ocean to make jet fuel could also have an additional environmental boon, science writer David Biello noted at Yale Environment 360: reducing the trend of ocean acidification, which is caused by increased levels of CO2 in the ocean and has a range of effects on marine life, including making it harder for shellfish and coral to build their shells.
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text:
The double star, Porrima, is a double star system located about 40 light-years away, relatively close to the Sun in the grand scheme of things. The two stars orbit each other about every 170 years, and as they do so, the apparent distance that separates them changes (from our Earth-bound point of view). Right now, the two are well separated, meaning that with a telescope pointed at Saturn you will see the two stars as distinct objects. Only a few years ago, their alignment was such that you would have needed a very powerful telescope to see the two stars in the Porrima system as individual stars. Right now, if you put Saturn into view in a small to medium telescope, you will also get the Porrima system in your field of view as well.
The diagram (above) illustrates where to find Saturn and Porrima over the next few days, and this article from Space.com also provides insight and additional diagrams to help you see this sight.
So seize the moment and be an amateur astronomer for a night, making a fun discovery for yourself.