text:
Manufacturing Large Membrane Mirrors at Low Cost
- Monday, 05 February 2007
Shapes are determined by edge retention fixtures rather than by precise molds.
Relatively inexpensive processes have been developed for manufacturing lightweight, wide-aperture mirrors that consist mainly of reflectively coated, edge-supported polyimide membranes. The polyimide and other materials in these mirrors can withstand the environment of outer space, and the mirrors have other characteristics that make them attractive for use on Earth as well as in outer space:
- With respect to the smoothness of their surfaces and the accuracy with which they retain their shapes, these mirrors approach the optical quality of heavier, more expensive conventional mirrors.
- Unlike conventional mirrors, these mirrors can be stowed compactly and later deployed to their full sizes. In typical cases, deployment would be effected by inflation.
Potential terrestrial and outer-space applications for these mirrors include large astronomical telescopes, solar concentrators for generating electric power and thermal power, and microwave reflectors for communication, radar, and short-distance transmission of electric power.
The relatively low cost of manufacturing these mirrors stems, in part, from the use of inexpensive tooling. Unlike in the manufacture of conventional mirrors, there is no need for mandrels or molds that have highly precise surface figures and highly polished surfaces. The surface smoothness is an inherent property of a polyimide film. The shaped area of the film is never placed in contact with a mold or mandrel surface: Instead the shape of a mirror is determined by a combination of (1) the shape of a fixture that holds the film around its edge and (2) control of manufacturingprocess parameters.
In a demonstration of this manufacturing concept, spherical mirrors having aperture diameters of 0.5 and 1.0 m were fabricated from polyimide films having thicknesses ranging from <20 μm to 150 μm. These mirrors have been found to maintain their preformed shapes following deployment.
This work was done by Larry J. Bradford of United Applied Technologies for Marshall Space Flight Center. For further information, access the Technical Support Package (TSP) free on-line at www.techbriefs. com/tsp under the Manufacturing & Prototyping category.


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Definitions of extensive
a. - Having wide extent; of much superficial extent; expanded; large; broad; wide; comprehensive; as, an extensive farm; an extensive lake; an extensive sphere of operations; extensive benevolence; extensive greatness. 2
a. - Capable of being extended. 2
The word "extensive" uses 9 letters: E E E I N S T V X.
No direct anagrams for extensive found in this word list.
Adding one letter to extensive does not form any other word in this word list.Words within extensive not shown as it has more than seven letters.
All words formed from extensive by changing one letter
Browse words starting with extensive by next letter

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Animal Land Load Guidelines for Self-Sufficiency (Sustainability)
How many animals can I put on my land and not have to buy feed? This sounds like a pretty simple thing, but it is fairly complex, and involves a range of variables that have to be taken into account.
The short answer is this:
The long answer is that it depends on many factors, which include the breeds of the animals (primarily whether they are large or small breeds), the condition of the land, the amount of attention you want to give the land, and how you stack the animals (which animals are penned together).
Let's start with a more complicated version of that chart above, which includes a few more animals, and which includes some additional information.
Acres Animal Category Quantity
1 Chicken A 200
1 Duck A 100
1 Goose B 60
1 Turkey A 20
1 Lg. Hog ABC 2
1 Goat B 4
1 Sheep B 4
10 Cow C 2
10 Horse C 2
So, what all this means, is that with land that has not been improved, but which started out having a good amount of wild forage, these are the numbers of standard sized animals you can raise on the listed acreage, without over-stressing the land.
But... it also means you mix and match when you have more than one kind of animal. Since goats and sheep have the same quantity limit, you can have 4 goats, or 4 sheep, OR two of each in the same acreage. Same with other animals, a percentage of one offsets a percentage of another animal.
The Category lists the kind of stress the animal puts on the land. You can COMBINE animals from more than one category, and you don't have to fully exchange. For example, if you combine an A and a B, you do not have to compensate for half and half, you can do 60-75% of each instead of 50% of each. This is because they overlap SOME on the kinds of forage and land stress, but not completely, so by combining different categories, you can gain more use of the land. Pigs count in all three categories, because they fully occupy any land they are on.
Keep in mind:
 1. If you have poor land, decrease the numbers by half.
 2. If you raise miniature breeds, you can double the number of animals, sometimes more (up to 4 times with Bantam chickens).
 3. You will need to maintain the forage on the land. Sometimes you will need to plant, sometimes you will need to protect an area while a plant type is coming up, and you may need to put screening around trees to keep goats or pigs from eating the bark.
 4. Your house space does not count in your acreage. If you have a home on 1 acre, then you are going to have to subtract the area you are not using specifically for the animals.
 5. Land area may include land used to raise crops for the animals. You may put the animals on half the land and raise crops on the other half. All of it counts.
 6. If you haul in feed, you can increase your animal loads on the land. If you want to buy half the feed, you can double the numbers of animals. If you do, they will stress the land more, their feet will destroy more habitat, and you may find that you have to purchase 60-70% of the feed in order to compensate for the trampling of forage. It depends on what crops you have on their forage land, and how densely stocked the land actually is.
 7. Planting aggressive growers (things like comfrey, wild blackberry, etc) which tend to take over when not grazed, can increase your forage potentials - but if you stop grazing animals there, they may be difficult to control without heavy grazing. Forage animals are a great way to control aggressive trees which propagate by seed or sucker, such as alders, willows, plum trees, apple trees, etc. The presence of aggressive growers which are also good forage can slightly increase your land loads.
 8. If you are in an area that gets a lot of rain, where plants grow really fast, you may also be able to increase stocking densities.
 9. Watch the land - if it is trampled and you start to lose forage, then you need to back off. If it ends up overgrown in the corners, then you can add animals.
And that last thing really is the determining factor. The guidelines listed are a place to start. If your forage grows faster than it can be consumed, you may add animals. If your land starts showing stress and getting down to dirt and mud, then back off a bit, rotate pastures, etc.
Calculations are based on published information regarding several animal species, with estimates extrapolated for those animals for which we could not locate recommended stocking densities.


Daily news
18 March 2004
No Moon, no life on Earth, suggests theory
Without the Moon, there would have been no life on Earth.
Four billion years ago, when life began, the Moon orbited much closer to us than it does now, causing massive tides to ebb and flow every few hours. These tides caused dramatic fluctuations in salinity around coastlines which could have driven the evolution of early DNA-like biomolecules.
This hypothesis, which is the work of Richard Lathe, a molecular biologist at Pieta Research in Edinburgh, UK, also suggests that life could not have begun on Mars.
According to one theory for the origin of life, self-replicating molecules such as DNA or RNA emerged when small precursor molecules in the primordial "soup" polymerised into long strands. These strands served as templates for more precursor molecules to attach along the templates, creating double-stranded polymers similar to DNA.
But the whole theory fails without some way of breaking apart the double strands to keep the process going, says Lathe. It would take some external force to dissociate the two strands, he says.
Doubling up
As an analogy, he points to PCR, the technique used to amplify DNA in the lab. DNA is cycled between two temperatures in the presence of appropriate enzymes.
At the lower temperature of about 50 °C, single DNA strands act as templates for synthesising complementary strands. At the higher temperature of about 100 °C, the double strands break apart, doubling the number of molecules. Lower the temperature, and the synthesis starts again. Using this process, a single DNA molecule can be converted into a trillion identical copies in just 40 cycles.
Lathe believes that thanks to the Moon, something similar happened during Earth's early years. Most researchers agree that the Moon formed five billion years ago from debris blasted off Earth in a giant impact.
A billion years later when life is thought to have arisen, the Moon was still much closer to us than it is now. That, plus the Earth's much more rapid rotation, led to tidal cycles every two to six hours, with tides extending several hundred kilometres inland, says Lathe. Coastal areas therefore saw dramatic cyclical changes in salinity, and Lathe believes this led to repeated association and dissociation of double-stranded molecules similar to DNA.
When the massive tides rolled in, the salt concentration was very low. Double-stranded DNA breaks apart under such conditions because electrically charged phosphate groups on each strand repel each other.
But when the tides went out, precursor molecules and precipitated salt would have been present in high concentrations. This would have encouraged double-stranded molecules to form, since high salt concentrations neutralise DNA's phosphate charges, allowing strands to stick together.
Unrelenting cycles
These unrelenting saline cycles would have amplified molecules such as DNA in a process similar to PCR, says Lathe. "The tidal force is absolutely important, because it provides the energy for association and dissociation [of polymers]."
Many researchers do not believe DNA and RNA were the first replicating molecules. Graham Cairns-Smith of the University of Glasgow, UK, thinks much simpler "genetic" material formed first, from the crystallisation of clay minerals.
But he says Lathe's idea deserves attention. "Whatever the replicating entities were that started the evolutionary process, it would be significant that they lived in an environment in which the conditions were changing."
If the theory is right, life could not have evolved on Mars, says Lathe. Phobos, the larger of Mars's two Moons, is so small that the tidal forces it generates are just one per cent of those generated by our Moon. "Even if there was water on Mars, life could not have evolved there because these polymers could not have replicated," he says.
Journal reference: Icarus (vol 168, p 18)


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What to do with this activity?
Activities that encourage concentration and control of small finger and hand movements are very good for your child's brain development. One craft activity that your child might enjoy is stitching. We think that stitching on stiff card (or similar) is easier than stitching on cloth, so start with that. Make sure you have a suitable large needle and coloured thread.
Make it a maths measuring exercise by keeping the stitch holes the same distance apart for neat patterns.
Here are some tips and projects that your child might enjoy. Notice that this is an activity for both boys and girls.
1) Stitching on polystyrene or paper plates - inspiration from "Make it & love it".
2) Stitch heart shapes on paper plates - from "Happy Hooligans".
3) Ideas and tips on how to stitch onto card from "Kiwi Crate".
4) Make stitched book marks as presents, from "Grey lustre girl".
Children learn numbers and maths in a natural way through play and everyday activities. It's different to school and should always be fun and practical – that way your child will enjoy working with numbers.
Your child also develops a sense of patterns and what time means in everyday life. This is important for helping your child to manage everyday activities – going places, how long they have to wait and understanding when things will happen in the future.
Talking about numbers helps your child's fluency in counting, estimating and understanding numbers and money in everyday life. It takes time for children to understand addition and subtraction so use objects when helping them understand this or when doing their homework.
Rate this activity
How would you rate this activity?
1 = Poor, 5 = Great.


text:
Phase was a Force power that enabled the user to pass through matter, such as walls and doors.
An'ya Kuro was a known user of this ability. Bazel Warv could also use this ability. After Bazel used it, Raynar Thul said that Killiks developed the technique while they created the Maw. Leia Organa Solo suggested that it was Celestials that developed the ability since the Killiks absorbed the memories of any being who became Joined to one of their nests.
- The Clone Wars Campaign Guide (First identified as Phase)


text:
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To joke or quip.
- v. To make sport of.
- n. A joke or quip.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- v. intransitive To jest; play tricks; joke; jeer.
- v. transitive To mock; deride; gibe; trick; befool.
- n. a joke
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To jest; to play tricks; to jeer.
- v. To mock; to trick.
- n. a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter
- From Middle English japen ("to joke, play tricks"), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French japer ("to bark, howl, scream") (possibly conflated with Old French gaber ("to mock, deride"), see gab), related to Old Provençal japar, jaupar ("to bark, yelp, yap"), probably of Germanic origin, related to Old Saxon galpōn ("to cry loudly, make a noise, brag") (Low German galpen ("to bark, howl, scream")), Middle High German gelpfen ("to scream, bark, boast, proclaim"), Old Norse gjálpa ("to yelp") (Swedish dialectal galpa ("to cry, screech")). More at yelp, yawp, yap. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English japen, probably from Old French japer, to yap, chatter, nag, of imitative origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
"We don't want to criminalise a group of students, but at the same time we don't want to treat the problem as some kind of jape, either."
"Even Ponting describes the quiet as "appalling" on one of his intertitles, which otherwise often have a jolly-jape feel."
"That eye wanted to cross, to discredit Perkus Tooth's whole sober aura with a comic jape."
"The Huffington Post noted the references as well as more "jokes" in the same vein (including a video of Cooper's jape, over which David Gergen cluelessly chortles)."
"I remember when I was a young boy, 1 April fell on a Saturday, so the Football League decided to create a 'hilarious' jape by sending referees and linesmen with thematically linked names to the same game," recalls Robin Tucker."
"Cambridge Union Society's pole-dancing jape is just plain daft."
"People would halt the progress of whatever parley they were engaged in and turn to stop him in aisles and antechambers, demanding an instant jape or trick from him."
"Such little verses always made the best sort of jape."
"A little jape on himself, and one that would certainly deliver more concrete rewards than his loftier verse."
"Chef Nikki Billington and her partner Paul Watson had always made running a restaurant feel less like a business venture and more like a jolly jape."
These user-created lists contain the word 'jape'.
Words formed in imitation of the sound of the things they signify.
Words that are fun to say....
A list of words that WWF recognizes as valid - most are unusual words; some are simply high-scoring.
I marvel at the amazing variety of four-letter words in the English language. And that's not even counting really common (to me) words like fuck.
Everyone's got their favorites. Here are some of mine.
Words formed in imitation of a natural sound.
Words which are highly likely to be found in the work of learned writers.
visions of witfulness and vision - a wise guise
Looking for tweets for jape.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


_USER_{7005, abstract = {Activity-dependent bulk endocytosis generates synaptic vesicles (SVs) during intense neuronal activity via a two-step process. First, bulk endosomes are formed direct from the plasma membrane from which SVs are then generated. SV generation from bulk endosomes requires the efflux of previously accumulated calcium and activation of the protein phosphatase calcineurin. However, it is still unknown how calcineurin mediates SV generation. We addressed this question using a series of acute interventions that decoupled the generation of SVs from bulk endosomes in rat primary neuronal culture. This was achieved by either disruption of protein–protein interactions via delivery of competitive peptides, or inhibition of enzyme activity by known inhibitors. SV generation was monitored using either a morphological horseradish peroxidase assay or an optical assay that monitors the replenishment of the reserve SV pool. We found that SV generation was inhibited by, (i) peptides that disrupt calcineurin interactions, (ii) an inhibitor of dynamin I GTPase activity and (iii) peptides that disrupt the phosphorylation-dependent dynamin I–syndapin I interaction. Peptides that disrupted syndapin I interactions with eps15 homology domain-containing proteins had no effect. This revealed that (i) calcineurin must be localized at bulk endosomes to mediate its effect, (ii) dynamin I GTPase activity is essential for SV fission and (iii) the calcineurin-dependent interaction between dynamin I and syndapin I is essential for SV generation. We therefore propose that a calcineurin-dependent dephosphorylation cascade that requires both dynamin I GTPase and syndapin I lipid-deforming activity is essential for SV generation from bulk endosomes.}, author = {Cheung, Giselle T and Cousin, Michael A.}, issn = {_PHONE_}, journal = {Journal of Neurochemistry}, number = {5}, pages = {570--583}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Synaptic vesicle generation from activity‐dependent bulk endosomes requires a dephosphorylation‐dependent dynamin–syndapin interaction}}, doi = {10.1111/jnc.14862}, volume = {151}, year = {2019}, }


text:
Hadrian's Villa was constructed at Tibur (modern-day Tivoli), Italy, as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD. Hadrian was said to dislike the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, leading to the construction of the retreat. During the later years of his reign, he actually governed the empire from the villa.
After Hadrian, the villa was used by his various successors. During the decline of the Roman Empire the villa fell into disuse and was partially ruined. In the 16th century Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este had much of the marble and statues in Hadrian's villa removed to decorate his own Villa d'Este located nearby.


Take the 2-minute tour ×
What advice/suggestions/guidance would you provide for designing a class that has upwards of 100 properties?
 - The class describes an invoice. An invoice can have upwards of 100 attributes describing it, i.e. date, amount, code, etc...
 - The system we are submitting the invoice to uses each of the 100 attributes and is submitted as a single entity (as opposed to various parts being submitted at different times).
 - The attributes describing the invoice are required as part of the business process. The business process can not be changed.
 - What have others done when faced with designing a class that has 100 attributes? i.e., create the class with each of the 100 properties?
 - Somehow break it up (if so, how)?
 - Or is this a fairly normal occurrence in your experience?
EDIT After reading through some great responses and thinking about this further, I don't think there really is any single answer for this question. However, since we ended up modeling our design along the lines of LBrushkin's Answer I have given him credit. Albeit not the most popular answer, LBrushkin's answer helped push us into defining several interfaces which we aggregate and reuse throughout the application as well as a nudged us into investigating some patterns that may be helpful down the road.
share|improve this question
How are you serializing/deserializing the objects - do you store them in a database? Are you using WCF? – Philip Wallace Oct 27 '09 at 19:48
_USER_ - the data is stored in a combination of SharePoint and SQL Server. No WCF. All submission of data is done between internal systems where the end point takes an Excel spreadsheet of the data (no other options with the system). – Metro Smurf Oct 27 '09 at 19:55
Are you actually dealing with all (or most) of those properties in your code? Or is it just a data structure that "passes through" it - read from some input in a generic fashion, just to be output to some other existing software that implements your business process? – Pavel Minaev Oct 27 '09 at 19:57
_USER_ - we are directly editing around 90% of the attributes. – Metro Smurf Oct 27 '09 at 20:03
It's pretty common to have a denormalized table like an invoice_header that actually has the address and all the customer info from the time it was created. – dotjoe Oct 27 '09 at 21:51
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17 Answers
up vote 9 down vote accepted
I would imagine that some of these properties are probably related to each other. I would imagine that there are probably groups of properties that define independent facets of an Invoice that make sense as a group.
You may want to consider creating individual interfaces that model the different facets of an invoice. This may help define the methods and properties that operate on these facets in a more coherent, and easy to understand manner.
You can also choose to combine properties that having a particular meaning (addresses, locations, ranges, etc) into objects that you aggregate, rather than as individual properties of a single large class.
Keep in mind, that the abstraction you choose to model a problem and the abstraction you need in order to communicate with some other system (or business process) don't have to be the same. In fact, it's often productive to apply the bridge pattern to allow the separate abstractions to evolve independently.
share|improve this answer
_USER_ - thank you, re: Bridge Pattern. This is the type of answers I was looking for and will spend some time reading up on it. – Metro Smurf Oct 27 '09 at 20:11
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You could try to 'normalize' it like you would a database table. Maybe put all the address related properties in an Address class for example - then have a BillingAddress and MailingAddress property of type Address in your Invoice class. These classes could be reused later on also.
share|improve this answer
_USER_ - sadly the data doesn't really subclass into tidy segments. Although there is the possibility of breaking some parts down... hmmm... will take another look. Thanks. – Metro Smurf Oct 27 '09 at 19:58
I agree. Try to break up the data into smaller parts. 100 properties on a class is out of control. – Chuck Conway Oct 27 '09 at 21:32
Also, what about having a generic List to hold all the properties? – RCIX Nov 2 '09 at 11:49
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The bad design is obviously in the system you are submitting to - no invoice has 100+ properties that cannot be grouped into a substructure. For example an invoice will have a customer and a customer will have an id and an address. The address in turn will have a street, a postal code, and what else. But all this properties should not belong directly to the invoice - an invoice has no customer id or postal code.
If you have to build an invoice class with all these properties directly attached to the invoice, I suggest to make a clean design with multiple classes for a customer, an address, and all the other required stuff and then just wrap this well designed object graph with a fat invoice class having no storage and logic itself just passing all operations to the object graph behind.
share|improve this answer
_USER_ - yes! you've nailed it, re: the internal system we submit to is the bottleneck. – Metro Smurf Oct 27 '09 at 20:02
_USER_: that doesn't mean your object model has to suffer, just the part that submits it to the internal system needs to be ugly. – Austin Salonen Oct 27 '09 at 22:01
Sounds like something similar to an adapter - you have your own object model, nicely broken into small classes, and one ugly class where you shove them so that it looks to the internal system as one giant class with 100 properties... – Mathias Oct 28 '09 at 1:13
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Hmmm... Are all of those really relevant specifically, and only to the invoice? Typically what I've seen is something like:
class Customer:
class Address
class CustomerAddress
.AddressDescription ("ship","bill",etc)
class Order
class OrderDetails
And tying it all together:
class Invoice
When printing the invoice, join all of these records together.
If you really must have a single class with 100+ properties, it may be better to use a dictionary
Dictionary d = new Dictionary();
d.Add("ShipAddress","1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Suite 0, Washington, DC 00001");
The idea here is to divide your into logical units. In the above example, each class corresponds to a table in a database. You could load each of these into a dedicated class in your data access layer, or select with a join from the tables where they are stored when generating your report (invoice).
share|improve this answer
What benefits will Dictionary give here, exactly, except for more clumsy syntax and lack of type safety? – Pavel Minaev Oct 27 '09 at 19:56
Well, a typed dictionary wouldn't cause lack of type safety. Also, as I've said, normalizing the data is a much better way to go. Using a dictionary, though, is far more expedient than declaring a class with 100+ properties. I've NEVER seen an instance where that was necessary, or desirable. – David Lively Oct 27 '09 at 19:59
_USER_ - I can't see a dictionary being a viable solution if you have properties of differening types. Then you would have to store them as type Object. As Pavel said, this will quickly lead to type safety, for example when I put "foo" into InvoiceDate. – Philip Wallace Oct 27 '09 at 20:15
Like I said, I don't think a dictionary is a good idea. But it's comparably bad to creating a class with 100+ properties. Choose your insanity. – David Lively Oct 27 '09 at 20:46
Why is d.Get("Address_Line_1") better than inv.AddressLine[0]? Also in any reasoable business app you would probably have a good deal of validation rules for each field and the class as a whole. You end up with a humungous mess if you implement with a dictionary. – James Anderson Oct 28 '09 at 10:47
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It would be too many columns when your class / table that you store it in starts to violate the rules of normalization.
In my experience, it has been very hard to get that many columns when you are normalizing properly. Apply the rules of normalization to the wide table / class and I think you will end up with fewer columns per entity.
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Unless your code actually uses many of the attributes at many places, I'd go for a dictionary instead.
Having real properties has its advantages(type-safety, discoverability/intellisense, refactorability) but these don't matter if all the code does is gets these from elsewhere, displays on UI, sends in a web-service, saves to a file etc.
share|improve this answer
_USER_ - around 90% of the attributes are editable by the processors and is used throughout the UI


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Mitigation vs Contingency
Risk management is defined as the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks or the effect of uncertainty in investment decision making. It is very important to manage risk to avoid unbearable losses or bankruptcy. Mitigation and contingency are two strategies that are used in the management of risk. Risk mitigation and contingency planning are very closely related to one another as they are steps used in the larger risk management process. There are, however, a number of differences between the two and the timings in which they are needed. The article offers a clear explanation of each risk management strategy and explains the similarities and differences between the two.
What is Risk Mitigation?
Mitigation is the process of solving problems that were caused or reducing the effect of the risk once it arises. In other words, risk mitigation strives to minimize a risk that materializes. Risk mitigation can also be seen as a method used to control damage that has already being done, and to reduce the 'blow' or consequences that it may have on the organization.
Even though risk mitigation is done after the damage occurs, the strategies for mitigation should be pre planned and communicated across the organization so that they can be properly implemented during the time of a crisis. For example, In the event that there is a union strike within a firm there will be no employees working, which will halt production and sales. In order to solve this problem or reduce the damage caused in this situation, the company will negotiate with the union and try to meet employees' demands. This is the risk mitigation process that is used to deal with the crisis.
What is Contingency Plan?
Contingency is a planning process in which the company will come up with a few backup plans in the event that the risk materializes. A contingency plan is also known as the action plan for the worst case scenario. Such plans are essential to an organization as it helps organization quickly adapt to changes while suffering less consequences. For example, a company may introduce a new product to the market with the expectation that the product will not face much competition till one year's time (which is the time that might be needed to develop a similar product by the competitors). However, a competitor releases an identical product to the market within 6 months. A company should have done some contingency planning to determine what steps could be taken in the event that such a situation materializes.
What is the difference between Mitigation and Contingency?
Risk management is essential for organizations to ensure the long term smooth running of the business. There are two parts to risk management; risk mitigation and contingency planning. There are a number of differences between the two strategies. Risk mitigation is carried out after the risk materializes, as a measure to 'clean up the mess'; contingency planning is used way before the risk actually arises and is the process of coming up with a backup plan to deal with the risk if things go wrong. Risk mitigation is aimed at reducing the consequences of the crisis, whereas contingency planning is used to determine how problems can be solved if a crisis occurs. An important part of both risk mitigation and contingency planning is the requirement to identify risks before they materialize. Risk weighing and prioritizing is also an important process needed for mitigation and contingency as risk management should be focused mostly on the most significantly damaging risks.
Mitigation vs Contingency
- Risk management is essential for organizations to ensure the long term smooth running of the business. There are two parts to risk management; risk mitigation and contingency planning.
- Mitigation is the process of solving the problems that were caused or reducing the effect of the risk once it arises.
- Contingency is a planning process in which the company will come up with a few backup plans in the event that the risk materializes.
- Risk mitigation is aimed at reducing the consequences of the crisis, whereas contingency planning is used to determine how problems can be solved if a crisis occurs.


Reference > Brewer's Dictionary > Arras,
tapestry. So called from Arras, in Artois, famed for its manufacture. When rooms were hung with tapestry it was a common thing for persons to hide behind it, especially the arras curtain before the door. Hubert concealed the two villains who were to put out Arthur's eyes behind the arras. Polo'nius was slain by Hamlet while concealed behind the arras. Falstaff proposed to hide behind the arras at Windsor, etc. 1


text:
Jul 9, 2007
"Coexistence requires greater effort, but is possible in principle."
Dr Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter, Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology and Biosafety. Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA) Braunschweig (later JKI /Julius Kühn Institute). Coordinator of the SiFo joint project on potential impacts of the cultivation of transgenic oilseed rape, 2001-2004
Is GM oilseed rape capable of coexisting with conventional rape? – Questions put to Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter.
GMO Safety : In the past few years you have dealt intensively with the outcrossing behaviour of oilseed rape. You have conducted on-farm trials lasting several years and have recently presented a comprehensive literature study. So how prone to outcrossing is oilseed rape?
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: Oilseed rape is self-fertilising and its propensity to outcross is relatively low compared with maize. Even with direct plant contact, cross-fertilisation takes place only 25 to 30 per cent of the time. In field trials where we planted GM and non-GM rape next to each other, we found only one to ten per cent GM oilseed rape in the contact zone in the non-GM rape field. The outcrossing rate drops sharply just five to ten metres from the GM rape field.
GMO Safety: How relevant is long-distance transport? Pollen from GM rape can be carried over long distances to conventional fields by the wind or by bees.
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: The higher the proportion of GM oilseed rape fields in a growing region, the higher the potential GMO presence. However, here we are dealing with isolated events that are usually caused by insects. Wind plays hardly any role in the long-distance transport of pollen. Insects can carry pollen three to four kilometres and further in some cases. The level of contamination is generally to be regarded as very small.
GMO Safety: What measures are useful for minimising incrossings from neighbouring GM rape to conventional rape fields? Do you recommend buffer plantings?
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: Our working group and others have conducted experimental research on this topic. With oilseed rape fields of the same size, at distances greater than ten metres we found incrossings of only 0.1 to 0.3 per cent on the non-GM field when the fields were ten metres apart. Buffer planting of five to ten metres is therefore the most effective measure. And works best when planted along the non-GM rape field on the side facing the GM rape field. Additional/alternative measures are adequate separation distances. Another possibility would be buffer plantings around the GM rape field.
GMO Safety: Oilseed rape can also survive as volunteer rape off the field, e.g. along field margins and railway lines. How relevant are such populations for coexistence?
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: They are of very little, if any, relevance. This was clearly shown in our research and in an EU joint research project. We are dealing here with rape populations that have temporarily gone wild, that do not occur all the time, and often disappear again the following year. Oilseed rape is not very competitive off the field.
GMO Safety: Oilseed rape seeds can survive for a long time in the soil and can keep germinating again during the crop rotation. If GM rape and conventional rape are grown on one farm, such volunteer plants would be a source of GMO presence in conventional crops.
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: Volunteer rape is the factor with the greatest significance. If it is not properly controlled on a farm, coexistence cannot be guaranteed in the long term. Soil cultivation after the rape harvest, systematic control of volunteer rape plants and suitable crop rotation are the most important levers for keeping volunteer rape under control.
GMO Safety: Is current farming practice adequate for controlling volunteer rape from a coexistence point of view?
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: Safeguarding the coexistence of GM and non-GM rape in the long term requires greater effort. In order to minimise the seed potential of GM rape in the soil, as many seeds as possible should be made to germinate immediately after harvesting. This is most effective when ploughing does not take place until a few weeks later. And I can only repeat: systematic control of volunteer rape in follower crops, such as cereals, is important.
GMO Safety: Oilseed rape has wild relatives in Europe with which it could outcross. How relevant are such incrossings to wild relatives for the dispersal of oilseed rape in arable crops?
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: Oilseed rape may have lots of relatives, but in Europe the only outcrossings that are really relevant are those with turnip rape. Relevant means that the outcrossing results in progeny that are fertile and can in turn produce fertile progeny. Turnip rape is not found much in most regions of Germany. It is more common in Denmark and is probably a crop plant that went wild.
GMO Safety: The 'super weed' scenario keeps recurring in public debate. What does it refer to?
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: This is a very fuzzy term. In the context of herbicide-tolerantGM oilseed rape a number of different scenarios are conceivable. Firstly, if the same herbicide is used repeatedly, resistant weeds may develop. There are numerous examples of this, but this kind of scenario is not specifically linked to genetic engineering – it depends on the herbicide used. If something like this occurs, the farmer has to change herbicides. Secondly, herbicide-tolerant GM rape outcrosses with related arable weeds, transferring the gene for herbicide tolerance to the weeds. This results in the formation of herbicide-tolerant weeds. However, as already explained, this has been of little, if any, relevance until now because of a lack of outcrossing partners. And thirdly: the herbicide-tolerant GM volunteer rape emerges as weeds in the subsequent crops, usually cereal. In this case, it can be controlled using standard conventional cereal herbicides. In summary, one can say that what is important is to have farsighted crop management.
GMO Safety: Now to the summing-up and your conclusions. Can GM and conventional oilseed rape crops be grown alongside one another in the long term with a justifiable level of effort?
Antje Dietz-Pfeilstetter: Whether the level of effort required is justifiable depends on the benefits to the farmer. The cultivation of GM and non-GM oilseed rape in a region certainly requires greater caution on the part of the farmers and well thought-out crop management, including the mutual exchange of information.
GMO Safety: Thank you for talking to us.
Free text search
GM rape seed: Canada and Australia
- Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI)), Institut für Sicherheit in der Gentechnik bei Pflanzen
- Hüsgen A., Dietz-Pfeilstetter A. (2008) Parameters Affecting Gene Flow in Oilseed Rape, ISB News Report
- Hüsken A., Dietz-Pfeilstetter A. (2007) Pollen-mediated intraspecific gene flow from herbicide resistant oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.), Transgenic Research


Ideas for Enhancing Oral Reports
Robert Harris
Version Date: November 1, 2012
Previous: April 20, 2012
Who gives oral reports? High school students, business CEOs (they call them presentations), and especially college students. Yes. You can be attending a university or a career-oriented college or a junior college, but the truth is, no matter where you attend college, at some point you will have to present an oral report.
But whether delivered by a high school freshman, college student, or even by a business professional, many oral reports are ineffective. And it's not because they lack good content but because they are presented in a way that does not connect with the audience. Here are some of the basics for a good report, followed by a list of enhancements.
Basics of a Good Presentation
A good oral presentation should include the following:
1. Planning. Start with the So What? Just what is the point you want to make? It's said that listeners to a presentation can process and remember only about 20% of what is said. (You can raise this number with appropriate graphics, summarizing, repetition, and audience participation.) So plan the main point you want to make and focus your presentation around it.
2. Preparation, Structure. To avoid a rambling, stream-of-consciousness talk that goes nowhere, take the time and effort to follow the plan for your presentation, put it into an orderly shape, and learn it well enough that it can be delivered effectively. A good way to understand why preparing adequately is important is to think about what makes a terrible presentation:
If you think about it, you will see that these errors are all caused by a lack of planning, preparation, and structure. Planning your talk, rehearsing it to become familiar with it, practicing your enunciation and volume, organizing until the presentation is clear and logically structured--these steps will help prevent the terribles from occurring.
3. Communication. To communicate well, be sure that you
4. Credibility. This is the issue of character (or ethos as the Greeks called it). Provide some evidence that you are worth listening to. Those who introduce speakers provide some background that builds credibility, as do biographical notes for books, which list the author's credentials. For an oral report, you have less of an opportunity to establish your credibility, but here are some things that will help: 5. Engagement. The real secret to an effective presentation is to get your audience involved. People don't want just to sit an listen. They want to participate. Here are some quick tips:
Oral Report Enhancements
Your oral report can be made more vital, interesting, and compelling (as well as more understandable) by using some of the following enhancements:
1. PowerPoint Slides. PowerPoint can be used to present outlines, tables, graphs, pictures, photographs, illustrations, cartoons, music, and video. With a tablet PC, you can connect ideas with arrows or lines, circle a key word or concept, underline an important phrase or sentence. Be sure to read the PowerPoint Tips article.
2. Slides. Take some photographs with a digital camera and create a presentation with PowerPoint or PhotoStory (or a similar product). Titles can be included easily by using a word processor to print them in large headline size and photographing them close up. Hand drawn titles will also work, but look less professional. A slide show provides an opportunity to bring in large-scale outdoor scenes into your presentation. These might be natural scenes (trees, meadow, lake) as a backdrop for some comments or special illustrations (factory, product, people engaged in activity).
3. Video. Show some professional, purchased video clips, tape some interesting segments from TV, or use a video camera and shoot some custom material. Many news magazine shows and educational programs sell DVDs of their programs. Most video stores have specialty sections that carry useful program material from public broadcasting or other sources. If you film your own material, you can include interviews with people, "man on the street" surveys of opinion or reaction, or simply background shots similar to what you might do with slides: a photo of a factory making or packaging some product, or even of consumers eating, walking, reading, etc.
4. Charts. Use some spreadsheet software or graphics software to create some organization charts, tables, or diagrams. Blow these up for putting on posterboard (an enlarging copier can help here, as can a photo service), or photograph these for your slide show or video presentation. Do not create charts that are too small and do not do something that looks amateurish.
5. Graphs. Use a spreadsheet or graphics package to create some graphs. Use a color printer or hand color them after you enlarge them. A computer display would be ideal, since you can project the graphs on a screen.
6. Drawings. Find or create some line art or other kinds of drawings of things, places, people, or ideas. There is a lot of old etching art available to illustrate your talk.
7. Photographs. You can buy a throw-away camera with film for just a few dollars. Get prints, have enlargements made or make color copies to include in a handout. Photographs can be printed very large and hung or mounted individually, pasted on posterboard, collected in a portfolio, or used in a document or handout. You can find many great photos online by searching for "free stock photography." Stock Xchange (_URL_) is one example.
8. Posters. If you have artistic talent, you can draw a poster. If you cannot draw, you can still paste cut-outs from magazines, use stencils, spray paint, or attach charts and graphs rather than projecting them. Remember, though, that a poorly done poster is probably worse than none at all.
9. Sound. Add music or sounds to your presentation. You can record sound effects like traffic, bird chirps, crashing noises, narration, singing, instrumentals, or factory noise. Attach amplified speakers to an MP3 player for playback. Additionally, while not as effective as a video interview, sound-only interviews can be recorded and portions played at intervals during your presentation.
10. Mock-ups and Models. Build a mock up or a working model of your project, city, device, experiment, technique, process, or object. Remember there is clay, papier mache, casting plaster, wood, metal, wires, cardboard, tape, glue, paint, fabric, and more. Toothpicks, hot glue, newspaper, and some paint can make almost anything.
11. Props. Even ordinary items can be used to help people visualize your ideas or attach your concepts to something concrete. If a can of hairspray or a shoe or a CD helps illustrate something, bring it in and show it. Remember that the classroom is usually a rather austere environment separated from most of the physical attributes of the outside world. So when you bring in a piece of this outside world--a board, a plant, a tool, a consumer product--the item will gain special attention and can be used to connect an idea to something visual and familiar. And even if you are really cute, people like to have more to look at than just you while you talk.
12. Experiments and Demonstrations. Design an experiment that will illustrate something. The experiment can be realistic (like a model of a volcano to show how volcanoes erupt) or metaphorical, just to illustrate a concept (like cutting one string after another between two objects, to illustrate the gradual separation of parent and child).
13. Skit. Get a few friends together and write a skit that will illustrate an idea. Show how your idea works in the lives of people, how they respond to it, and so on. A skit can also be used for exposition, just to tell information about something. Three people speaking two sentences each will probably be more interesting than one person speaking six sentences. Skits are great for demonstrating concepts in sociology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, business, and education. And they can be used very effectively for recreating events in history, law, and literature. While you're at it, grab that video camera and film the skit.
14. Costume. Think of a costume as a one-person, minimalist skit. You can dress up as a particular person (famous or infamous), or in a particular style. Quite effective is the two-in-one costume, where one costume is worn over another and then removed at the appropriate time, during a "before and after" presentation.
15. Web Site Visit. If you are presenting to a small class or have projection capability, you might visit one or more pertinent Web sites to take a survey, demonstrate an application, show some video clips, visit an online museum and so on. The possibilities are endless.
16. The Five Senses. The more senses you engage, the better opportunity you have to make a lasting impression on your audience. Eyes and ears are of course going to be reached, but what about touch (pass around your props), or taste (bring something to eat or drink), or smell (perfume, fruit)? Citrus aromas are supposed to focus attention, so why not shoot a burst of citrus air freshener into the room at the right moment?
17. Handout. Compile an outline, some illustrations, diagrams, cartoon, descriptions, or any other useful information and make copies for everyone in class to look at and keep for future reference. Handouts make presentations tangible and more memorable, and the fact that something is in print lends an aura of solidity to the information. (Yes, the print bias is still strong.)
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A Summary of Using the JSVGCanvas Class to Display a SVG Document
First of all it's important to note the class inheritance hierarchy being used here since several methods called from the JSVGCanvas class are actually implemented by some of the classes it inherits from.
JSVGCanvas : JSVGComponent : JGVTComponent : JComponent
After creating a JSVGCanvas instance the setURI() method is called with a URI of the SVG document to load. If the URI is valid the loadSVGDocument() method of the JSVGComponent class is called with the URI.
In the loadSVGDocument() method all document processing for the current document is stopped, and then a DocumentLoader and SVGDocumentLoader are created. The SVGDocumentLoader handles the firing of document loading events and the DocumentLoader uses a SAXSVGDocumentFactory to create a SVGDocument instance. The SAXSVGDocumentFactory in turn relies on a SAXDocumentFactory to parse the SVG data referenced by the given URI.
The JSVGCanvas relies on the SVGDocumentLoaderListener, GVTTreeBuilderListener, and SVGLoadEventDispatcherListener listeners that are added in the JSVGComponent constructor in order to know what is going on with the loading, building, and rendering of the SVGDocument. The listeners are implemented in the JGVTComponent.Listener and JSVGComponent.SVGListener classes.
When the document has finished being loaded and parsed the setSVGDocument() method of the JSVGComponent class is called, which then calls the installSVGDocument() method in the same class.
The installSVGDocument() method:
1. Gets rid of any resources from the previous document (if any)
2. Create a new BridgeContext to associate the SVG DOM and the GVT tree
3. Configures the component and BridgeContext instance based on the document state (ALWAYS_STATIC, ALWAYS_DYNAMIC, ALWAYS_INTERACTIVE, AUTODETECT)
4. Creates a GVTTreeBuilder with the SVGDocument and BridgeContext
5. Initializes event handling for mouse and keyboard events
When the GVTTreeBuilder is done building the GVT tree the JSVGComponent performs some additional configuration so that dynamic documents work correctly, and then calls the scheduleGVTRendering() method of the JGVTComponent class.
The scheduleGVTRendering() method calls the renderGVTTree() method of the same class and:
1. Sets the size of the visible rect to be the size of the component
2. Creates either a static or dynamic image rendered based on the document state (StaticRenderer or DynamicRenderer)
3. Finds the inverse of the rendering transform, which is set to the identity matrix
4. Creates a shape by transforming the rectangle found in step 1 with the matrix from step 3
5. Creates a GVTTreeRenderer and starts the rendering thread
The GVTTreeRenderer fires GVT tree rendering events and calls the repaint() method of the renderer. Once repainting is complete, the JGVTComponent is notified of the fact by a GVT tree rendering event, and in response repaints the component using the updated image that was rendered offscreen by the renderer.
BatikRenderingSummary (last edited 2009-09-20 23:47:36 by localhost)


Aperture Tables, let the light through.
April 05, 2021
Aperture Tables, let the light through.
Since my earliest designs I have been inspired by colours and shapes.
"I was challenged by one of my customers to design a series of tables that could show off the legs more fully, as so many of my designs have interesting legs that are partly covered up by their solid, opaque table tops."
Transparency was achieved by using precision cut and beautifully machine-polished 12mm thick pieces of circular toughened glass; I wanted the base to reference the geometric interplay of the blades within a camera lens aperture.
By letting the light through, the table tops are almost invisible apart from the sheen of the surface and the graphic circumference line that is present due to the hardening and toughening process of the glass.
This perimeter line helps frame the base and delineate volume to the top and has a purity in its unbroken form that is referenced by the legs. Elegant tapering and narrow lines are made possible by fabricating the frame in stiff tubular steel and finished in pigments of navy blue or oxblood red.
Apertures are controlled by an iris that is built up of many thin metal blades that overlay each other in a circular fashion. Light passes through to a greater or lesser amount depending on how wide the aperture is opened by twisting the lens, allowing the iris blades to pivot and slide over each other, therefore further opening or closing the aperture. The centre hole appears round by using many blades, however for the purpose of my tables, only 3 or 4 legs are required, so I connected these points leaving a triangular or square aperture that is logically and simply defined by the number of legs.
Aperture Square Side Table in Navy Blue, shown here with an Alexander Calder inspired mobile. Photograph courtesy of NORHOR.
Details of the Aperture Square tables in navy blue and oxblood red.
Aperture Square Coffee table and Side table in navy blue, images courtesy of NORHOR.
The largest of the Aperture tables is the Console, made possible by elongating the circle into a lozenge shaped table top.
The aperture detail is repeated at either end of the stretched out top with a connecting bar that locks the frame together.
Aperture Console table in oxblood red, image courtesy of NORHOR.
The double aperture detail can be clearly seen from above in this image of the oxblood red Aperture console table.
Aperture Console in navy blue (although the console is steady, we provide a wall tie to secure the table if required). Image courtesy of NORHOR.
"I hope you continue to enjoy receiving the Reeves Design newsletter which has always intended to be a window into the inspirations that go into each design. However at this current time when it is impossible to make and attend exhibitions in a physical way or even go to showrooms and shops, it has become an essential platform and direct link between our product, brand and customers.
I encourage you to reach out with any projects and dreams that may align with our values and vision as we are still operating, producing and creating. I trust we can harness shared motivation, enthusiasm and more enjoyable considered ways to explore culture and ideas; in doing so continue to evolve designs that look towards a bright future."
John Reeves


text:
The list and diagrams which are found on this page are part of Aigars Raumanis' Master's Thesis Saxophone music in Latvia: Collaboration of the composers and performers in the creation of musical pieces. The aim of this paper is to describe the cooperation of composers and musicians in the context of Latvian saxophone music, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The thesis consists of an introduction, 3 chapters and appendices. The first chapter examines the bachelor's and master's theses on saxophone music in Latvia to date. The second chapter presents the collected information with diagrams and tables, as well as explains the possible cause of this data. Third chapter focuses on the cooperation of specific musicians and composers, illustrating the information obtained with fragments of sheet music. The catalogue "Saxophone Music in Latvia _PHONE_" can be found in the appendix.
© Raumanis, A. (2023). Saksofonmūzika Latvijā: Komponistu un atskaņotājmākslinieku sadarbība skaņdarbu tapšanas procesā. Rīga: JVLMA


text:
A chocolate button themed reward chart to motivate students in the classroom.
Motivate students with this chocolate button themed reward chart.
Print, cut and laminate a reward chart for each student in your class. Stick them on to their desks to ensure they don't get lost.
When your students have filled all 20 spaces with a sticker or stamp, brainstorm a special reward with them.
You may also like these teaching resources:


Why People Fail at Organizational Improvement
Posted by on Oct 17, 2012 in Continuous Improvement, Lean Six Sigma, Problem Solving, Process Improvement | 0 comments
In their 1997 book, Process Redesign, The Implementation Guide for Managers, Arthur Tenner and Irving DeToro give three reasons people fail at organizational improvement. The first cause is the absence of a supportive culture. Responses include statements such as "We've tried that before and it didn't work!", or "Our processes are different." Generally, anytime someone wants to make a change there is resistance. Managers lack the commitment to make the necessary changes primarily because no one wants to rock the boat.
The second reason cited is poor planning. Change takes effort and resources and must never be undertaken without adequate preparation, planning, and senior management involvement. First, the organization needs to understand the current situation. Are core processes adequately documented? Is everyone trained in the current method? Are they following the method? Is the method adequate? Have key performance indicators been established and are they being monitored and communicated.
The third cause is a lack of skills or competence in systematic improvement. This should not be an excuse since there are many ways an organization can obtain the necessary skills. Organizations such as American Society for Quality, ASQ, have many courses companies can send their employees to that will teach them the basics of continuous improvement. The key is to keep it simple and don't overcomplicate things. Start by understanding the current situation. Determine what needs improved and where you want to be in the next 3 to 6 months. Put a team together, get them trained, then get out of there way and let them make the necessary changes.
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This question was tagged with the tag. However, I thought the term "statistics" were tied to attribute, ability scores, or any other numbers and traits which systematically specify the character's strength and weaknesses in RPG context, and there is a question which fits this meaning.
Since there is no tag wiki and there are both kinds of questions, here I present a question. What does tag mean?
 - Is it tied to mathematical statistics, as the first question is tied to?
 - Is it tied to statistics on a sheet, as the second question is tied to?
 - Is it supposed to mean something else, or a combination of multiple candidates?
 - 1
 \$\begingroup\$ Statistics as a tag is iffy and ambiguous. A tag wiki entry would be best. It should be about the math; stuff on sheets is called many ambiguous things, and the only time we'd generalize it would be times where a general "records" tag would perhaps be more appropriate. \$\endgroup\$ – Kyle Willey Feb 20 '14 at 4:04
 - \$\begingroup\$ Worth noting: 8 of the existing questions tagged statistics refer to math/probability. Only one refers to a character's attributes. \$\endgroup\$ – AceCalhoon Feb 20 '14 at 14:18
 - 1
 \$\begingroup\$ _USER_ That's an interesting statistic. ducks \$\endgroup\$ – BrianH Feb 21 '14 at 19:53
I propose we make a tag synonym to and take it off entirely from questions that don't fit (they can probably just have the relevant system tags, or or whatever else).
 - \$\begingroup\$ Good point, since I couldn't think how different [probability] and [statistics] are, but I doubt whether I have such a privilege. \$\endgroup\$ – Arle Camille Feb 20 '14 at 4:08
 - 2
 \$\begingroup\$ For our intents and purposes they're identical. Technically, statistics mostly ignores probability and is more about data presentation, but from a game perspective probability is the only part of statistics we care about, and it's more true to the common-language usage. \$\endgroup\$ – Kyle Willey Feb 20 '14 at 4:11
 - \$\begingroup\$ [mtg:character-creation] Umm, clearly I use the MTG tag way, waaaay too much (on B&CG). \$\endgroup\$ – Alex P Feb 20 '14 at 4:21
 - \$\begingroup\$ _USER_ Hmm. The questions I can think of as falling under the actual concept of "statistics" are few and far between. I'm imagining something like a "What percentage of D&D organized play characters are casters?" >.> \$\endgroup\$ – Alex P Feb 20 '14 at 4:24
 - \$\begingroup\$ Yeah, we don't really do real "statistics", and really only care about it in the context of probability, since people usually don't come to rpg.se to ask about organized play stuff. \$\endgroup\$ – Kyle Willey Feb 20 '14 at 5:33
 - \$\begingroup\$ How about rather merging [probability] into [statistics], as probability is one aspect of RPG-wise statistics we look for? \$\endgroup\$ – Arle Camille Feb 20 '14 at 7:12
 - \$\begingroup\$ _USER_ Well, our probability questions aren't really about statistics, for the most part. And going probability->statistics doesn't solve the problem of having the "statistics" tag on questions about, like, Constitution modifiers. \$\endgroup\$ – Alex P Feb 20 '14 at 13:19
The math kind. You could contribute to clarification by submitting a tag wiki.
We have [probability] too which is somewhat redundant with that...
For "character stats" - if that's even a valid tag, and I'm not really sure it is - we could put in something else, perhaps [ability-scores], but I am not sure it's really a valid tag.
 - \$\begingroup\$ Character stats are usually single game related; if it's related to something like character sheet design, a record-keeping tag would be better, and if it relates to a single game it should be kept relevant to that game, as Fate, d20, and Shadowrun (to name three games off the top of my head) each keep wildly different attributes that should be measured in different ways. \$\endgroup\$ – Kyle Willey Feb 20 '14 at 4:10
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text: Campinas - It was named after the pioneers who rested there. There were three small pieces of land in the region, which explains the name. In the framework of its colonial formation, it appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century as a rural district of Vila Jundiaí. In the second half of the eighteenth century, another dynamic economic and social policy in the region was taking shape. Coffee plantations were born inside cane farms, quickly driving to a new development cycle. With the crisis of coffee, Campinas focused on industrial and service sectors. It began to concentrate a more populated area, made up of migrants and immigrants from various regions.


text:
I am new to working with DEM files but have a need to be able to work with SRTM3 DEM files to calculate elevation given a Lat,lon coordinates.
I understand from reading the documentation that the file contains binary data that represents Signed Int16 data that has height in meters.
My question is this, given a file say that has its bottom left corner being -33, 152 and covers 1 degree of lat, long how would do read a location in the file based on a given latitude, longitude point.
So if I had a position that was -33.456 152.434 how do I calculate the position of that height reading in the file?
I have read the file in to memory I just need to work out how to select the correct location in the resulting array.
Hope this makes sense.
Thanks for you help


text:
Metalinguistic Awareness and Second Language Acquisition
Disponibilitate: LIVRARE IN 3-5 SAPTAMANI (produsul este livrat din Marea Britanie)
Okian.ro este o LIBRARIE online de carte in limba engleza.
CITESTE MAI MULT
Metalinguistic Awareness and Second Language Acquisition is the first book to present an in-depth overview of metalinguistic awareness as it relates to SLA. In this volume, Roehr-Brackin discusses metalinguistic awareness in the context of both child and adult language learning, and outlines the various methods that can be used to measure metalinguistic awareness. The author presents different approaches to metalinguistic awareness, including a cognitive-developmental perspective that explains how the concept relates to literacy, and an applied linguistics perspective that understands metalinguistic awareness as explicit or conscious knowledge about language. Roehr-Brackin explores the role of metalinguistic awareness in language education aimed at young learners, as well as in instructed adult SLA. This book is an excellent resource for those researching or taking courses in second language acquisition, biand multilingualism, and language teaching.


text:
1, Medfield High School is in the Boston area]
"Medfield's school district has partnered with a school in Bengbu, a city in China's Anhui province, for an extensive exchange program. Medfield hosted the school's principal two years ago, followed by a visit to China by Superintendent Robert Maguire. The next step was an exchange of teachers, with two from Bengbu visiting Medfield while a local teacher spent six weeks at the school in China. Most recently, Medfield hosted two teachers and 10 students, including Melody. Next fall, Medfield will send students to Bengbu, and Simon has applied to be among them. Melody's family has already agreed to host Simon if she is selected. "She was thrilled that I wanted to come," Simon said." [Ibid]
Medfield started teaching Mandarin in its high school three years ago, and expanded course offerings into the middle school this year. Educators say a growing number of schools are offering the language. Most of them, 80 or 90 percent, they added it in the past five or 10 years," said Wanli Hu, director of the China Program Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston, which offers conferences for Chinese language teachers. Maguire said the Chinese language instruction is helping to prepare students for an increasingly global workplace. "We're in a different world," he said. "Making students aware of the rest of the world, having them become cognizant of other languages and cultures, is going to be critical in the future." [Ibid]
"Medfield is one of 60 districts across the country given Confucius Classroom status by the Asia Society, in recognition of exemplary Chinese language and culture programs," Henrick wrote. "The honor has brought at least $30,000 in grants into the district, with the possibility of more to come. Simon traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this year for an event focused on school exchange programs, where she met the president's wife, Michelle Obama, and Medfield's school district contributed to the official state gift given to the president of China, Hu Jintao, during his visit to the United States." [Ibid]
Simon said she was surprised to learn how much more Melody knew about American society than she knows about other cultures. Simon was unable to name any Chinese music artists, while Melody was 'totally obsessed'' with Michael Jackson. And when she asked Melody, a talented singer and dancer, to perform, Simon said, 'We thought she would sing a traditional Chinese song, and she sang the 'Titanic' song.'' [Ibid]
American Students Interested in Chinese
Biden with Wen Jiabao Calvin Henrick wrote in the Boston Globe, "Students are signing up for Chinese instead of French or Spanish for a variety of reasons, she said. "One boy in the seventh-grade class was really into kung fu, and he just really loves watching Jackie Chan movies," Batts said. "Other parents have told their children, 'This is a new opportunity, it would be great for you to try this.' A lot of those parents understand the global perspective." [Source: Calvin Henrick, Boston Globe, March 20, 2011
"DeSorgher said that, in addition to being potentially useful to students later in life, the Chinese exchange exposes them to diversity, something he said the district otherwise lacks. "With this exchange, it brings in a different culture, a different language, different thought patterns," DeSorgher said. [Ibid]
"Maguire, who adopted the Chinese name Ma Bao Bo when he visited Bengbu, said he hopes his district will eventually be able to offer a full slate of Chinese classes, from middle school through high school. The superintendent said the Chinese program is helping Medfield students make important personal connections across continents." [Ibid]
Mahuire told a story of sixth-graders participating in a video conference with their Chinese pen pals. One of the Chinese students became especially excited seeing her American counterpart, Maguire said. "The Chinese kid looks at the American girl and says, 'You are so beautiful.' And she looked back and said, 'You're beautiful too,'" Maguire said. "And they're doing this in front of 100 other sixth-graders "That's been a very powerful piece for me. They're getting a fundamental understanding that, as people, they're not much different from each other." [Ibid]
The U.K. is also boosting the teaching of Mandarin at its schools. In November 2010, the British government announced it would train 1,000 new Chinese language teachers over the next five years, [Ibid]
Anti-American sentiments stirred up by the Korean War helped Mao pursue his radical agenda.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States was a model and an inspiration for young, educated Chinese, who provided the backbone for the Tiananmen square pro-democracy movement. These days these same young educated people are often the first to express nationalistic and anti-American views.
The anti-American diatribe A China That Can Say No was a bestseller in China. Chapters in the book included "Burn Down Hollywood" and "Don't Fear Declaring, 'Prepare for War,'" and "The Blue Sky Must Die, the Yellow Sky Must Rule."
Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999
Anti-American protests after bombing
of Chinese embassy in Belgrade In May 1999, during the War in Kosovo, United States planes, flying under NATO command, struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia with two laser-guided missiles, killing three people (all journalists) and injuring 27. The United States claimed it was an accident based on faulty intelligence. Many Chinese thought the attack was deliberate. The damage and casualties could have been worse: at least one and maybe two bombs dropped on the embassy didn't explode.
The planes thought their bombs were aimed at the Yugoslav Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement. The target was selected by the C.I.A. using an out-of-date map (tourist maps available at the time showed the site was occupied by the Chinese embassy, which opened there in 1996). No one bothered to do a ground check even though areal photography showed the building didn't look like a government building.
Most the blame for the mistake was placed on the C.I.A but not all of it. A review team in Washington missed the mistake as did the NATO command structure in Europe. Washington and NATO were also blamed for demanding too many targets in too short of time, putting pressure on military planers to come up with targets. A mid-level officer at the C.I.A. who put "X" on the map was dismissed and six other employees were disciplined.
China described the United States as an evil empire, Clinton was called a fiend and the bombing itself was called a "war crime," "barbaric act" and a "gross violation of international law." One protestor, dressed in Levis and Nikes, at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said. "We really loved you, you know, but you killed our people."
Anti-American and anti-NATO demonstrations broke out in at least 20 Chinese cities. At Tiananmen Square crowds chanted "Kill the bitch Albright" and "Bill Clinton is a son of a bitch and Tony Blair is the grandson of that bitch." They carried signs that read "Support Yugoslavia and Resist America" and "Adolph Clinton." Twenty Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets were attacked (only one was seriously damaged) and a window was broken at a TGI Friday. Anti-American feelings ran so high, some students said they were going to quit their English classes and rebuke their places in American universities.
Attacks on American Embassies in China
Protests after bombing
of embassy in Belgrade In Beijing, protesters threw rocks, paint and Molotov cocktails at the U.S. Embassy, formed human wedges to break through police lines, and tried breaking down the reinforced doors with a bicycle rack. Nearly every window was broken.
American ambassador to China James Sasser was trapped for four days in the embassy. He wrote in Newsweek, "The crowds just mushroomed. The police did their best to obey their orders, which were to keep demonstrators outside the compound. But beyond that, it was anything goes. Rocks, Molotov cocktails, paint. The first night I tried to sleep, but all I could hear was the sound of rocks hitting the embassy. I was up all night."
On the second day, "I was told the police lines were in danger of breaking. From the third floor, I saw a sea of people...The Chinese police were making desperate plans for reinforcements—we felt they couldn't hold. We decided to start destroying sensitive documents and sensitive equipment."
The U.S. Consulate in Chengdu was set in fire. A mob rammed the door of the building. American inside called police but they refused to enter the compound for around 40 minutes because they "needed an official letter because it was U.S. government property." After four drafts, the authorities were finally satisfied and police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd,.
The bombing chilled relations between the United States and China for some time. The Chinese refused to let American navy ships dock in Hong Kong. The United States paid $28 million in compensation to China for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, plus $4.5 million in compensations to the injured and the families of those killed. China paid the United States $2.87 million in compensation for damage to U.S., embassies and consulates in China.
American Spy Plane Incident in 2001
On May 200


The EU is Kazakhstan's main trade and investment partner, representing over one third of Kazakhstan's external trade and over a half of total foreign direct investment in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan's exports to the EU are almost entirely in the oil and gas sectors, alongside other minerals, chemicals and food products. From the EU, Kazakhstan imports machinery and transport equipment and pharmaceuticals, alongside chemical products, plastics, medical devices and furniture.
Kazakh-EU relations have significantly strengthened in the last two decades and go beyond trade and investment ties or political dialogue. The EU and Kazakhstan succeeded in establishing other successful cooperation in areas such as energy, transport, environment, research and security.
As the EU is working to make relations with Central Asia stronger and deeper, Kazakhstan continues to play a key role in the process. At a recent meeting of the Cooperation Committee, the EU and Kazakhstan discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of strengthened multilateralism. They also discussed the EU-Central Asia regional cooperation, including in the fields of security, counter-terrorism, fighting drug trafficking, and border management.
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text:
Wednesday, December 14, 2011, 08:50 pm
Inside Anobit: Why Apple is investing in flash memory technologyApple's investments in acquiring flash memory expertise and technology appear to be centered around packing more storage capacity into Macs and iOS devices at lower prices, with the same level of component reliability and longevity.
This week, Apple was both reported to be close to acquiring flash memory chip designer Anobit and engaging in plans to set up a semiconductor development center in Israel, where Anobit is located.
Apple already uses Anobit components in is iOS devices and the MacBook Air. The firm's unique flash memory technology, dubbed MSP or "Memory Signal Processing," is designed to enhance the reliability, performance, efficiency and endurance of flash memory.
The pros and cons of flash memory
Unlike DRAM, which stores memory bits using the state of electrical capacitors which must be continuously refreshed with power, NAND flash memory stores bits using floating gate transistors, which do not need to be continually refreshed to maintain their state.
This makes flash memory more energy efficient during operation, and allows it to retain its information even after the device is shut down. The use of flash memory storage in iOS devices and the MacBook Air provides long term storage of software, documents, music and movies without needing a conventional magnetic hard drive for disk storage.
The use of flash storage not only makes these devices quick to boot up and launch apps, but also slimmer, more battery efficient and less fragile than compatible devices using a conventional hard drive for persistent storage. Particularly on iOS devices, the use of fast flash memory also limits the need for large amounts of DRAM, further increasing the devices' battery life.
On the flip side however, flash memory storage is more expensive compared to disk storage, as well as being less reliable and having a shorter life span. The individual cells of flash memory chips eventually wear out and stop working reliably, requiring specialized software to manage their use.
Strengthening flash memory
Earlier this year, Apple incorporated TRIM support in Mac OS X Lion. TRIM is an OS level software technology designed to manage the flakey, short lived nature of flash memory used in Solid State Drives like the MacBook Air's (pictured below).
Anobit's MSP technology attacks the same issues, but does so on firmware level, using sophisticated monitoring of flash memory cells to accurately determine if they are failing or no longer able to reliably store data. These technologies also enable flash memory to continue to function longer than previously possible by simply working around failures.
In addition to enabling flash memory to live longer, MSP also promises to make components faster; it enables data to be pushed to flash memory at speeds that generate more errors, but can then detect and correct the errors.
Cheaper SSDs and flash memory
A second primary benefit to the MSP technology is that it makes less expensive types of flash memory usable for a wider range of applications. Most flash memory used in high speed storage holds one bit per memory cell, known as SLC or "single level cell" memory.
A cheaper type of flash memory known as MLC or "multi level cell" can store two bits per memory cell, making it less expensive to manufacture because it has a higher memory density. A primary problem with MLC is that is more prone to error, requiring more sophisticated management to make it useful.
MSP promises to make cheaper MLC memory components as accurate over the same lifespan as conventional SLC, something that would dramatically change how much storage Apple could pack into its devices and computers at the same price. That would have a huge impact on Apple's ability to compete, as flash memory storage is a significant part of the bill of materials in the devices it builds.
NAND flash is the second most expensive component of the iPad (after the touchscreen display), according to iSuppli, accounting for around ten percent of its total component cost. For the MacBook Air, 64GB of SSD flash memory is similarly estimated to be its second most expensive component (again, after the screen) and roughly the same price as its Intel CPU at a similar 10 percent of the total materials cost.
On Topic: MacBook Air
- MacBook Air inventory begins dwindling ahead of Apple's WWDC
- Apple fixes MacBook Air crashing issue in critical firmware update
- Best Buy, Amazon knock 10% off Apple's MacBook Airs & iMacs for Mother's Day
- Inside Iris: What Intel's new integrated graphics mean for Apple's future Macs
- Deals: Steeply cut MacBook Pro Retinas almost gone; $319 iPad minis, $899 13" MacBook Air, more [u]


What is TimbsComms?
TimbsComms is a niche communications agency. It is led by Olivia Timbs who is part of a network of professional trainers and communicators.
Olivia has over 30 years' experience in journalism and publishing, gained from working on UK national papers and for the specialist health and medical press.
Olivia has been an accredited trainer since 2013. Her courses include: Effective writing, for anyone who struggles to express themselves and lacks confidence; How to write an academic paper and get it published, for aspiring academics whatever their discipline; and How to turn your research into a news story for scientists and healthcare professionals interested in developing their journalistic skills. Using similar principles she can help people deliver speeches or make presentations.
The courses are usually run as one-day workshops for up to 16 people. In response to the pandemic Olivia has adapted the workshops so they can be delivered as interactive webinars via Zoom or Webex. Instead of being delivered in one day, the content is spread over three two-hour sessions. She also offers one-to-one mentoring and works with small groups.
So if you find writing difficult, want to increase the chances of seeing your academic paper published, if you want to improve your presentation skills or be confident that you can handle a tricky press conference, just get in touch and we will find someone to help you.


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Step 14: control system
The microcontroller has to be connected to the motor controller (OSMC) so it tells the OSMC how much power to send to the motor, and in which direction - forwards or reverse. There is a safety signal that tells the OSMC whether to lie dormant or go "live", there are two other pairs of wires controlling the type of pulsed signal to send to the motor. The microcontroller sends a pulse width modulated signal (on and off very fast) at 5V to the OSMC. The OSMC then sends a high power equivalent of this signal to the motor, so controlling its speed. This so called PWM signal is such that the more of the time the +5V is "on" relative to it being "off" i.e. 0V, the more power is sent to the motor. This "on/off" PWM signal cycles very fast e.g. 20KHz which incidentally is why the motor makes a high pitched whine. Here you can see the ribbon cable from the microcontroller running to the OSMC.


text:
Pierre Etienne Bezier was born on September 1, 1910 in Paris. Son and grandson of engineers, he chose this profession too and enrolled to study mechanical engineering at the Ecole des Arts et Metiers and received his degree in 1930. In the same year he entered the Ecole Superieure d'Electricite and earnt a second degree in electrical engineering in 1931. In 1977, 46 years later, he received his DSc degree in mathematics from the University of Paris.
In 1933, aged 23, Bezier entered Renault and worked for this company for 42 years. He started as Tool Setter, became Tool Designer in 1934 and Head of the Tool Design Office in 1945. In 1948, as Director of Production Engineering he was responsable for the design of the transfer lines producing most of the 4 CV mechanical parts. In 1957, he became Director of Machine Tool Division and was responsable for the automatic assembly of mechanical components, and for the design and production of an NC drilling and milling machine, most probably one of the first machines in Europe. Bezier become managing staff member for technical development in 1960 and held this position until 1975 when he retired.
Bezier started his research in CADCAM in 1960 when he devoted a substantial amount of his time working on his UNISURF system. From 1960, his research interest focused on drawing machines, computer control, interactive free-form curve and surface design and 3D milling for manufactoring clay models and masters. His system was launched in 1968 and has been in full use since 1975 supporting about 1500 staff members today.
Bezier's academic career began in 1968 when he became Professor of Production Engineering at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers. He held this position until 1979. He wrote four books, numerous papers and received several distinctions including the "Steven Anson Coons" of the Association for Computing Machinery and the "Doctor Honoris Causa" of the Technical University Berlin. He is an honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and of the Societe Belge des Mecaniciens, ex-president of the Societe des Ingenieurs et Scientifiques de France, Societe des Ingenieurs Arts et Metiers, and he was one of the first Advisory Editors of "Computer-Aided Design".
Definition: A Bézier curve is a curved line or path defined by mathematical equations. It was named after Pierre Bézier, a French mathematician and engineer who developed this method of computer drawing in the late 1960s while working for the car manufacturer Renault. Most graphics software includes a pen tool for drawing paths with Bézier curves.
The most basic Bézier curve is made up of two end points and control handles attached to each node. The control handles define the shape of the curve on either side of the common node. Drawing Bézier curves may seem baffling at first; it's something that requires some study and practice to grasp the geometry involved. But once mastered, Bezier curves are a wonderful way to draw!
Pierre Bézier was born September 1, 1910 and died November 25, 1999 at the age of 89. In 1985 he was recognized by ACM SIGGRAPH with a 'Steven A. Coons' award for his lifetime contribution to computer graphics and interactive techniques.
A Bezier curve with three nodes. The center node is selected and the control handles are visible.
A Bezier curve with three nodes. The second node (from left) is selected and the control handles are visible.
Alternate Spellings: bezier curve, Pierre Bezier
Common Misspellings: bezer, bezire, bexier
Dr. Pierre Bezier
Engineer, Inventor, Author, and Mathematician
Inventor of the Bezier Curves


text:
- reaction (n.)
- "action in resistance or response to another action or power," 1610s, from re- "again, anew" + action (q.v.). Modeled on French réaction, older Italian reattione, from Medieval Latin reactionem (nominative reactio), noun of action formed in Late Latin from past participle stem of Latin reagere "react," from re- "back" + agere "to do, act" (see act (v.)).
Originally scientific; physiological sense is attested from 1805; psychological sense first recorded 1887; general sense of "action or feeling in response" (to a statement, event, etc.) is recorded from 1914. Reaction time, "time elapsing between the action of an external stimulus and the giving of a signal in reply," attested by 1874.


Comscore Beacon
© Getty Images
Swedish Study Finds Health Benefits Of Owning A Dog
Single? Getting A Dog Could Help You Live Longer - Here's Why
Why Is This Important?
Having a furry, four-legged BFF can add years to your life. For real.
Long Story Short
Getting a dog isn't just a great way to add some unconditional love to your life, it can also help you live longer (especially if you're single), according to a study from Sweden's Uppsala University.
Long Story
Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden (the same university that discovered a link between dog ownership and a lowered risk of asthma) have found that owning a dog, especially if you're single, has some seriously surprising health benefits, like lowering your risk of cardiovascular disease and helping you live longer.
Analyzing the health records of 3.4 million Swedes (48% were male and the average age was 57), which included a myriad of info, including medical history and lifestyle details, like whether or not they owned a pooch (13.1% were identified as dog owners), researchers discovered that "dogs may be beneficial in reducing cardiovascular risk in their owners by providing social support and motivation for physical activity."
The study, which spanned 12 years, found that single adults living alone reaped the most benefits, as "dog ownership appears to be associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in single-person households and lower mortality in the general population."
And that's not all. "In age and sex-adjusted analysis, dog ownership was inversely associated with risk of acute myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke and heart failure," as well as "cardiovascular mortality and all-cause mortality." Turning that into percentages, "single dog-owning adults who lived alone were 11 percent less likely to subsequently develop heart disease and 33 percent less likely to die than non-dog owners." WOW.
Although no exact reason was found to explain the correlation, researcher Mwenya Mubanga speculated that "perhaps a dog may stand in as an important family member in the single households." Meanwhile, fellow researcher Tove Fall added, "We know that dog owners in general have a higher level of physical activity, which could be one explanation to the observed results. Other explanations include an increased well-being and social contacts or effects of the dog on the bacterial microbiome in the owner."
Oh, and if you're wondering if different breeds have different levels of impact, "ownership of hunting dogs was associated with lowest risk of CVD." Time to get that Lab or Golden Retriever you've always wanted. Or both!
Own The Conversation
Ask The Big Question
What are dogs not great for?
Disrupt Your Feed
Owning a dog can lower your risk of cardiovascular disease.
Drop This Fact
Single dog owners who lived alone were 33% less likely to die than non-dog owners.
Show comments


answer accordingly. – N.N. Jul 6 '11 at 9:28
One other thing to think about is that while most people do write directly in LaTeX, for some beginners, it is easier to start by using Lyx. It will certainly crop up at some point in time. I personally don't suggest it - because it makes terribly messy LaTeX, but it is easier for some people. – Barns Jul 6 '11 at 11:02
_USER_ I have added a note on how to efficiently outline a text without using LaTeX directly. – N.N. Dec 28 '11 at 18:46
 1. Chose and/or make all the layout and style.
 2. Make a feature list and test examples.
 3. Draft on paper
 4. Write comments on what you mean
 5. Other things
 1. This is important, for example because text width determines how the equations are broken to new line, how the figures are placed and what sizes they have. Changing the text width, for example, may require a lot of manual rework. So, there are the choices in order of increasing complexity:
 - Get a style file from your publisher. For example look at Springer's Book Manuscript Guidelines. As in the above example, usually the publishers provide a class file, documentation on how to use it, and.tex file templates.
 - Use the memoir class for configurable typesetting. It's not possible to configure everything, but it's configurable to a reasonable level. It's well documented, but the documentation has many pages and requires time to read. Some aspects of the book typography are described also. Which makes the documentation usable even if you don't use memoir.
 - Go with ConTeXt. It's a lot more configurable than memoir but the documentation is even bigger. As far as I know, there are also some almost undocumented areas/features of it. And some things that can be done via external packages in LaTeX may not be easily possible in ConTeXt. (Here some ConTeXt user may give a better comment.)
 - Write your own class file. This requires considerable knowledge of the TeX/LaTeX's internals. It may, or may not be practical to learn it.
 2. This means identifying all typesetting features needed and their corresponding internal commands, or external commands used via package; and some good practices. Usually in the list go only the things the user is not yet familiar with. Than it's good to write the "list" in to a sample document for testing how the commands work. Some random examples:
 - Internal commands
 - Greek letter Phi has two variants - \phi φ, and \varphi ϕ. Also some other Greek letters have variants. And in different countries different variant is preferable on tradition basis.
 - External commands
 - For typesetting tensors, for example, there is a package tensor, which provides the commands \indices, \tensor, etc.
 - Features that are good practices and ideas
 3. I think, drafting directly in TeX/LaTeX is not as effective, as drafting on paper. Draft can be done, for example:
 - For the whole document at once
 - Chapter by chapter. Which means drafting a chapter, than writing in the code.
 4. If you can't do something, write a comment. "Here I want a chapter", or "Here a want a reference to the figure containing function q(w) graph", etc. At some point you will learn how to do that. Or will find that commenting gives you better content-presentation separation.
 5. Graphics go last. And a blank box with the same dimensions can be used to place a figure, before the figure is ready. Header, footer, table of contents, indexes are also switched on last. And probably other things.
share|improve this answer
In addition to the other tips, I'd like to make two comments, which are both related to my day-to-day editing and compiling of LaTeX documents.
The first comment I'd like to make is that using a folding editor may be a an equally good alternative to files. You can easily comment out folds or uncomment them, and they take up only little space in your input document. Furthermore, you can easily move folds around. If you don't know what a folding editor is, have a look at folding in vim. The following picture may also give you some idea. The picture is from LaTeX and Friends.
using the vim folding editor for LaTeX code
Having said that, I have to admit that I currently I don't use a folding editor for my day-to-day LaTeX. However, I did use an OCCAM folding editor some 18 years ago and I liked it. As soon as I've more time, I'll start using vim folds.
The second comment I'd like to make is that using files for chapters and sections also has another big advantage, especially if your editor supports easy line deletion and line restoration. The advantage I'd like to point out is that this technique really lets you write your document in a top-down fashion and lets you play with the order of presentation.
How this works is as follows. (For simplicity I shall ignore the aspect of selecting the right titles for the chapter/section.) You can write your chapter titles and compile your document. To get an overview of the flow of the argument/text in the document you view the table of contents.
If you're happy with the order of presentation, then you're done but this hardly ever happens the first time, so you have to reorder the chapters/sections, add new chapters/sections, or remove them.
I use vim and three keystrokes let me remove the current \include line. A single keystroke lets me put it at another target position. This lets me quickly rearrange the order of the chapters and I do this until I think the order is right.
Notice that an undo-redo facility is also great because it lets you quickly undo the last changes, recompile your document (twice), see what it looked like before, redo the changes, compile your document (twice), and see what it looks like after the changes. Some editors have multiple undo-redo threads (but I've never used them).
BTW notice that this process doesn't require any mouse. All you do is put your document viewer on top of your editor. After that, a simple Alt+Tab lets you switch from the viewer to the editor or back---and all that with maximally-sized windows.
When I'm happy with the order of the chapters, I tackle the chapters, one by one. When tackling a chapter, I write the sections within that chapter in a similar way.
Notice that the technique also works if the chapter and/or section files contain text. A simple moving of a single line, lets you put put the chapter/section where it belongs. Without the files, this may not be so easy, unless you use a folding editor of course.
share|improve this answer
AUCTeX also has support for folding. – N.N. Jan 21 '12 at 14:18
Two editor-related tricks:
 1. (mac-specific) TexShop's Macro Editor allows you to insert a snippet of code by a hotkey. However, it limits you to command+key:
 enter image description here
 You can choose your own by going into Apple Menu>System Preferences>Shortcuts>App Shortcuts, press the + button. Enter the name of the macro and desired hotkey. This also works for assigning/reassigning other menu options in any app:
 enter image description here
 2. Sublime Text and Emacs has a feature called multiple cursors that lets you type in multiple parts of a document at the same time. Watch as I cleverly readjust the &s in a tabular:
 enter image description here
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