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Teacher's Resources - The Hero Twins and the Lords of Death
How did this world begin? This question has been asked by every culture, and we have a version of the way the Maya, answered it in the Popul Vuh, the creation story of the K'iché Maya people of Guatemala. A 16th century copy of the Popul Vuh that was discovered in the 1850s tells us how the ball game in Mesoamerica acted as a metaphor for the game of life and death, of fate and of war. Here is a brief synopsis of the origin of humans according to the Popul Vuh.
The first part of the Popul Vuh tells the story of the great Maker and Modeller who created the world out of the primordial sea and sky. The Maker created life to nourish the gods, who are fed with prayers. After many attempts, humans were considered the pinnacle of creation because of their ability to speak (and pray) and master their surroundings
The second part deals largely with the adventures of the Hero Twins, Xbalanque (sh-bah-len-kay) and Hunahpu (hoon-ah-puu). Before their birth, their father, Hun Hunahpu (hoon hoon-ah-puu), and their uncle, enraged the gods of Xibalba (shi-ball-bah), the underworld, with their constant, noisy ball playing. The gods and demons challenged them to face a series of trials including a ball game in the underworld, which they lost due to the trickery of the lords of Xibalba. Their penalty for loss was death.
The severed head of Hun Hunahpu managed to father twins, howeverthe Hero Twins, who similarly disturbed Xibalba with ball playing. They were subjected to the same challenges as their father, but they outwitted the gods and turned the tables on them. After a series of tricks, they managed to kill one of the gods and vanquish the rest. After restoring the honour of their father and uncle, they turned themselves into the sun and the moon to watch over and be worshipped by the people.
Another origin story from Yucatan is recorded in the Books of the Chilam Balam (jaguar priest in the Mayan language). These books were made just after the Spanish conquest in 1519-49. They are written with the Latin alphabet that the Spanish monks and friars adapted to Maya. As in the Popul Vuh, the Plumed Serpent gives birth to the world, and the books describe the cyclical nature of all things, greater and lesser cycles of time following each other, life arising out of death and ending again in death.
In the Andean region, Viracocha, the supreme deity of the Inkas, was a storm god and a sun god who wore the sun for a crown. He wandered the earth as a beggar and wept when he saw the plight of the creatures he had created. Viracocha made the earth, the stars and mankind, but his first creation displeased him so he destroyed it with a flood and made a new, better one. Viracocha eventually disappeared across the Pacific and never returned.
Mesoamerican Ball Game
Ball courts are found throughout Mesoamerica. The ball game probably originated in the first millennium B.C., perhaps in the Valley of Mexico, and everywhere it was seen not as sport but as a means of predicting or controlling the future.
Although the rules and the courts varied greatly from place to place, the game was always played in a sacred space, and players were usually noblemen and/or warriors who were highly respected and well trained. In many instances, the game was played with a solid rubber ball, which was heavy enough to require that the players wear protective gear. In some cultures players dedicated themselves entirely to practicing the game and preparing for matches, but in others war captives were forced to play the game. Some groups sacrificed the losing team, and in some places all of the possessions of onlookers were the prizes for the team that emerged victorious.
Classroom Activities and Projects (recommended ages are in italics and are approximate)
1. 9 -14 : Draw a Mesoamerican ballplayer with the kinds of clothing and decorations you see worn by the Nayarit Ballplayer and the figures on the Cacao Vessel. Then right beside it draw a contemporary player of a ball sport (baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, etc.). Compare and contrast the kinds of equipment and decoration, using these criteria: design, function, physical conditions, cultural significance.
2. 9 -14: Research and compare origin myths from other cultures, for example, European, Middle Eastern, Indian.
3. 8 - 12: Try playing the game of Mesoamerican ball with a volleyball or lightweight ball. Pad the players' middles with towels and improvise a goal, perhaps a chalk line on a brick wall or a line of masking tape on the gym wall.


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Novgorod First Chronicle
||This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. (September 2011)|
The Novgorod First Chronicle (Russian: Новгородская первая летопись) or The Chronicle of Novgorod, _PHONE_ is the most ancient extant chronicle of the Novgorod Republic. It reflects a tradition different from the Kievan Primary Chronicle. As was first demonstrated by Aleksey Shakhmatov, the later editions of the chronicle reflect the lost Primary Kievan Code (Начальный Киевский свод) of the late 11th century, which contained much valuable data suppressed in the later Primary Chronicle.
The earliest extant copy of the chronicle is the so-called Synod Scroll, dated to the second half of the 13th century, first printed in 1841 and currently preserved in the State Historical Museum. It is the earliest known manuscript of a major East Slavic chronicle, predating the Laurentian Codex of the Primary Chronicle by almost a century. In the 14th century, the Synod Scroll was continued by the monks of the Yuriev Monastery in Novgorod.
Other important copies of the Novgorod First Chronicle include the Academic Scroll (241 lists, 1444), Commission Scroll (320 lists, mid-15th century), Trinity Scroll (1563), and Tolstoy Scroll (208 lists, 1720s).

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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It's the one thing every U.S. taxpayer dreads: to receive an audit notice from the Internal Revenue Service. Because auditing is typically a stressful process, people who receive such a notice often exude a sour disposition for weeks afterward. Whenever someone asks them what is wrong, they respond grouchily, "I'm being audited by the IRS."
But who or what is the IRS? Is the IRS the computer that identified the tax accounting error and requested the audit? Is it the organization's director? Is it the person that mailed the audit notice? Or is it the laws that established the IRS and describe proper tax accounting methods?
According to a concept called Actor-Network Theory (ANT), it's all of the above. Scientists proposed ANT to explain how people, objects and ideas (i.e., actors) work together to form structured entities, or networks. Actors create networks by adapting resources, taking on defined roles, forming interdependent relationships and repeating predetermined behaviors to solve problems or accomplish goals. For example, the IRS exists because every year its agents receive millions of tax forms, feed them into computers for analysis, check for errors in the paperwork and then respond to taxpayers by mailing tax refunds, collection bills, or audit notices. If the agents and computers suddenly failed to engage in these actions, or if the laws upholding the actions were repealed, the IRS would cease to function as a viable organization.
Scholars in the field of science and technology proposed Actor-Network Theory in the 1980s to debunk claims that heroism or advanced innovation was responsible for the development of useful inventions. Instead, scientists stated that the process of scientific invention could be explained more accurately and rationally by taking into account all of the factors involved: the knowledge of the inventor, the tools or technology used, history, societal pressures, the influence of institutions or other networks, and the ideas that inspired the invention. With ANT, scientists wanted to show that scientific production does not result from a higher form of thought, but is naturally translated from the complex interactions between actors and networks.
For the purposes of Actor-Network Theory, anything can be an actor within a network: a law, a text, a person, an idea, an inanimate object and even another network. Even more interestingly, however, is that each of these elements receives equal consideration in ANT. For example, the IRS agent who enters data into a computer may be more complex or contribute more to the organization than the computer, but both the computer and the agent function as actors within the IRS and derive their role and purpose from that network. Since agents and computers (theoretically) came together to form the IRS, the organization cannot (theoretically) operate or exist without them both, implying a basic equality shared among actors.
To form a network, human actors first identify a problem that the network will attempt to solve. This is known as problematisation. During problematisation, leaders are selected to represent actors and establish roles within the network. Next, actors negotiate the terms of their assigned roles, a process called interessement. Enrollment occurs when actors accept their roles. Finally, actors mobilize their allies and resources to support the network.
ANT, unlike other sociological theories, functions on the principle that scholars should view all actors within the same theoretical framework regardless of their status, and that all assumptions concerning the nature of networks or actors should be abandoned prior to study. In other words, ANT demands total impartiality when describing actors and networks. The terminology used must be consistently applied to every actor, and conclusions drawn must be based on what is actually observed, not on the scholar's presuppositions. Even an actor's non-network purpose or behavior is excluded from the methodology. This allows networks to be described accurately, in concrete terms, taking into account all of their various elements.
Because of its strong sociological implications, Actor-Network Theory has been used in sociology to examine how humans organize through interaction. ANT does not attempt to explain why networks are formed, but how. It is primarily concerned with how networks grow stronger and stabilize; attract, enroll and motivate actors; organize actors and resources; and maintain actor loyalty. For this reason, ANT is a useful tool for observing and evaluating human behavior, resource adaptation and object utility. Consequently, the theory has been applied to economics, business, geography and health studies, among other fields.
Of course, no theory is without its critics. Some scholars say that evaluating both human and non-human actors through the same theoretical lens is ridiculous because humans, unlike objects, possess intent, and intentionality can influence networks. Others have accused ANT of being amoral and overly managerial. Because ANT only describes networks and does not explain why they are created, some critics claim the theory is useless to sociologists. Nevertheless, its consideration of the agency of non-human actors, while controversial, remains relevant to fully understanding network processes and interactions.


Scientists find metallic magnet with largest yet atomic displacement during thermal expansion
July 30, 2010 By Lisa Zyga feature
( -- Although most materials change shape in the presence of a magnetic field, the change is usually very small. In a new study, scientists have found that a certain magnet containing manganese experiences a change in the distance between two neighboring atoms of up to 2%, which is the largest ever found in a metallic magnet. Magnets with large magnetoelastic interactions - the mechanism that causes this change - play a crucial role in new materials that could be used in applications from sensors to refrigerants.
Alexander Barcza from the University of Cambridge and coauthors from ISIS and Imperial College London in the UK observed the giant magnetoelastic interactions in the material CoMnSi, which is a metallic antiferromagnet. The scientists also discovered that this magnet uses a new mechanism for achieving the large magnetoelastic effects, which involves competing exchange interactions among atoms.
"The usual mechanism [of magnetoelastic coupling], large spin-orbit coupling, is found mostly in rare earth-containing compounds, as the orbital angular momentum of rare earths is usually non-zero," physicist Karl Sandeman of Imperial College London told "So to be able to have a large magneto-elastic coupling in a transition metal-based system may be useful in terms of reducing the need to turn to rare earths for such effects. Rare earths, while not truly 'rare,' are already under increasing demand for their use in eco-friendly technologies that use batteries and permanent magnets."
The researchers could directly investigate this magnetoelastic effect on both the material's crystal and structure by using a technique called high-resolution neutron diffraction in combination with magnetic measurements. Their observations revealed that a change in applied magnetic field can cause the magnetism of the material to suddenly increase. This sudden increase in magnetism corresponds to a phase transition called metamagnetism.
The scientists showed that, in this case, the origin of the material's metamagnetism is a large magnetoelastic coupling among the material's atoms. The scientists observed what they describe as a "giant" change during heating of about 2% in the distances between manganese atoms. In addition, the researchers showed that the magnetoelastic coupling serves as a precursor to a metamagnetic tricritical point with enhanced shape change effects.
As the scientists explain, the large magnetoelastic coupling - and its resulting change in atomic separations - is driven by a competition between the exchange interactions of two different pairs of manganese atoms. Sandeman explained that, while the volume changes of the material are quite small overall, the shape change in certain directions is quite large. Specifically, textured materials show more shape change than other materials such as polycrystals, which tend to "average out" the changes.
"In a sense, competition is the theme here: the competition between different magnetic exchange leads to the presence of the magneto-elastic effect in the first place, as the system finds itself choosing between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic coupling of Mn atoms," Sandeman explained. "We also see a competition in the volume change, between the significant decrease in the length of one axis (the a-axis) with increasing temperature or magnetic field and the conventional, positive thermal expansion and swell in a magnetic field of the other two axes. The root of this is that, in zero field, the giant changes in Mn-Mn distances in our material compensate each other; and so the thermal expansion of the total volume of the material is actually quite small."
The discovery of a material with large atomic displacements during heating and shape changes in the presence of a magnetic field could have benefits in several areas, such as magnetic refrigerant materials and magnetostrictive materials, which respond to a change in and can therefore be used as sensors or actuators. Plus, the researchers note that it should be possible to engineer materials of different compositions that have the same large magnetoelastic effects.
"The focus of my group is on magnetocaloric materials, which employ a magnetic field-driven change of state to provide a cooling effect," Sandeman said. "This is derived from a solid state transition such as a Curie point or, in this case, a metamagnetic transition, but is analagous to the evaporation of a volatile liquid to form a gas in a conventional gas compression fridge. Magnetic refrigerants often have bigger cooling effects if the magnetic change of state occurs in harmony with some change in the crystal lattice. Hence the interest in magneto-elastic interactions."
Sandeman is also the co-founder of a magnetic refrigeration company called Camfridge that is incorporating solid state magnetic refrigerants (different from those in this study) for gas-free, high-efficiency room-temperature cooling. The company also co-sponsored Alexander Barcza's research. In partnership with Whirlpool, Camfridge announced that it will display a working magnetic cooling prototype during the London 2012 Olympics. More information is available here.
Explore further: Towards the magnetic fridge
More information: A. Barcza, et al. "Giant Magnetoelastic Coupling in a Metallic Helical Metamagnet." Physical Review Letters 104, 247202 (2010). DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.247202
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1.5 / 5 (8) Jul 30, 2010
Reminds me of the 4% discrepancy found in basic particle components as of recent. Whoops! where did that come from!
Never say never, all you engineering-minded blowhards! There's plenty or room left in your lives yet to be wrong (yet) again, in your steadfast belief that all science is settled and no physical constant, formula, or theory is even remotely capable of being outside of dogmatic permanence.
There is only one fact in existence..and that is....that 'there are no facts'. In essence, that is all we know about'reality', with regard to engaging any potential for permanence. All else is observation, theory and formula. Nothing is set in stone. I'm sorry... if your 'emotions' can't handle that, then you never should have chosen science - which is subject to change (at any moment).
(I wisely never miss a chance to slap the recalcitrant dogmatic types around -they sorely need it)
This material, subject to non-linear resonance interactions! Whoo-boy....!! (think!!)
1 / 5 (1) Jul 30, 2010
So what does this equate to in terms of volume displacement in a solid?
Wonder if it could be in some way adapted for power generation, either acoustically or by physical compression?
You seem to be hinting at some type of potential, so do tell, if you please.
3.7 / 5 (3) Aug 02, 2010
KBK got a bum wrap because he is confrontational with his verbiage. He is right though. Big bang is slowly getting challeneged and dark matter will go with it. Perfect example of what he is saying. We cant think in a box. If we did we would still be carrying a large piece of wood as our primary survival tool.
not rated yet Aug 06, 2010
A recent article here on Dipole Moment does provide crumbs....
1 / 5 (1) Aug 07, 2010
Forget that I asked. I was curious -not as you seem to assumemounting a new Inquisition.
Click here to reset your password.


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We've seen them in the movies, but now we can read the real-life history of America's nuclear warriors, the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, known as NEST. The story of NEST, which would protect the U.S. in the case of an attempt at nuclear extortion or terrorism, is told in declassified documents published Tuesday.
The 69 documents, released under the federal Freedom of Information Act, were published by the National Security Archive, a respected research organization at George Washington University. (More about the National Security Archive.)
They tell the story of MIGHTY DERRINGER, a training exercise in 1986 in which NEST attempted to find a nuclear device smuggled into Indianapolis. In the training scenario, the device was detonated, destroying 20 blocks of downtown Indianapolis.
The archive said the documents "offer the first detailed public look at the inner workings of the agencies, military units and other U.S. entities responsible for protecting the country from a terrorist nuclear attack."
And they reveal problems that can arise in coordinating the many organizations that would respond to such an attack: problems of bomb detection, interagency coordination, containment of contamination and general "confusion."
"While the MIGHTY DERRINGER exercise and resulting documents are over two decades old," the archive said, "the institutions participating in the exercise retain their roles today, and the issues confronting them in 1986 are similar to the ones that they would face in responding to a nuclear threat in 2012 (and beyond)."
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Teen wins right to wear 'Jesus Is Not a Homophobe' T-shirt to school
- Nuclear terrorism: 1986 NEST files reveal confusion in training exercise
- Violent holiday weekend claims at least 10 lives in Chicago
- What caused naked face-chewing attack: Bath salts, LSD?
- Video: Bear cools off in backyard pool


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In a survey of 400 likely voters, 215 responded that they would vote for the incumbent and 185 responded that they would vote for the Challenger. let P denote the fraction of all likely voters who preferred the incumbent at the time of the survey and let P^ be the fraction of survey respondents who preferred the incumbent.
a. Use the survey results to estimate p.
b. Use the estimator of the variance of P^, p^(1-P^)/n, to calculate the standard error of your estimator.
c. What is the p-value for the test H0: p=0.5 vs H1: p > 0.5?
d. What is the p-value for the test H0: p=0.5 vs H1: p not equal to 0.5?
e. Why do the result from c and d differ?
f. Explain if the survey contained statistically significant evidence that the incumbent was ahead of the challenger at the time of the survey?


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iscussion 2: On Olive Senior's "The Pain Tree" and Ana Menéndez's "Her Mother's House"
 Your initial post is due by midnight (11:59 PM) on Thursday. You must write at least 400 words on Olive Senior's "The Pain Tree" and Ana Menéndez's "Her Mother's House" (in other words, at least 200 words for each story).
 Instead of relying on plot summary you will support your interpretation by using and analyzing textual evidence. When you quote the story make sure you cite the page number: for instance, after the quotation put the page number in parenthesis (60). Avoid writing out "on page 60". When you quote a passage from the story make sure you introduce the context and that you are analyzing the meaning of what you quoted.
I encourage your own formulations, but address the following prompts (you can address them in any order and be sure to write at least three or more paragraphs):
 1. In the short stories, you are going to encounter protagonists attempting to reconnect and remember (as in "putting together again") their Caribbean "home" spaces. How have their perceptions of their Caribbean homelands been shaped by their parents? What new perceptions do they gain and how does this transform their view of themselves and their history?
 2. Victor Shklovsky argues that ostranenie ("making strange" in Russian, and also translated as estrangement/defamiliarization) is the essence of literature. Where in the two stories do we encounter descriptions of estranged perception? Analyze the significance of these moments in the stories. Be sure to consult and cite Shkovsky's essay (especially his definition of ostranenie on page 80) to support your analysis.
 3. For our annotation assignment, we learned how to notice patterns and overlooked meanings that helped us understand "Sonny's Blues" more fully. In "The Pain Tree" and "Her Mother's House" what patterns, connections or implied meanings did you notice structuring the stories?
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The UAE healthy future study: a pilot for a prospective cohort study of 20,000 United Arab Emirates nationals
Source of Publication
BMC public health
BACKGROUND: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is faced with a rapidly increasing burden of non-communicable diseases including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The UAE Healthy Future study is a prospective cohort designed to identify associations between risk factors and these diseases amongst Emiratis. The study will enroll 20,000 UAE nationals aged ≥18 years. Environmental and genetic risk factors will be characterized and participants will be followed for future disease events. As this was the first time a prospective cohort study was being planned in the UAE, a pilot study was conducted in 2015 with the primary aim of establishing the feasibility of conducting the study. Other objectives were to evaluate the implementation of the main study protocols, and to build adequate capacity to conduct advanced clinical laboratory analyses.METHODS: Seven hundred sixty nine UAE nationals aged ≥18 years were invited to participate voluntarily in the pilot study. Participants signed an informed consent, completed a detailed questionnaire, provided random blood, urine, and mouthwash samples and were assessed for a series of clinical measures. All specimens were transported to the New York University Abu Dhabi laboratories where samples were processed and analyzed for routine chemistry and hematology. Plasma, serum, and a small whole blood sample for DNA extraction were aliquoted and stored at -80 °C for future analyses.RESULTS: Overall, 517 Emirati men and women agreed to participate (68% response rate). Of the total participants, 495 (95.0%), 430 (82.2%), and 492 (94.4%), completed the questionnaire, physical measurements, and provided biological samples, respectively.CONCLUSIONS: The pilot study demonstrated the feasibility of recruitment and completion of the study protocols for the first large-scale cohort study designed to identify emerging risk factors for the major non-communicable diseases in the region.
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text:
Cameron, L. and Rutland, A. and Turner, Rhiannon and Holman-Nicolas, Rosie and Powell, Claire (2011) Changing attitudes with a little imagination': Imagined contact effects on young children's intergroup bias. Anale de Psychologia, 27 (3). pp. 708-717. ISSN 0212-9728.
The current research tested a recent development in social psychology, namely 'imagined contact', among young children (n = 123, 5 to 10 years). Children imagined interacting with a physically disabled child, or did not take part in this activity (the control group). Compared with the control group, children who engaged in 'imagined contact' subsequently showed reduced inter-group bias in their general attitude and ratings of warmth and competence. Imagined contact also led to more positive intended friendship behavior towards the disabled, but only among 5 – 6 year olds. This provides partial support for our hypothesis that younger children, perhaps as a result of their lack of out-group experience, are more likely to benefit from imagined contact. Implications for the development of attitudes towards the disabled, imagined contact theory and the development of classroom-based prejudice-reduction techniques based on imagined contact are discussed.
|Subjects:||B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology|
|Divisions:||Faculties > Social Sciences > School of Psychology|
|Depositing User:||Lindsey Cameron|
|Date Deposited:||10 May 2011 11:03|
|Last Modified:||20 Apr 2012 14:46|
|Resource URI:||_URL_ (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)|
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text:
There are three FAI Rotorcraft Certificates of Proficiency: Bronze, Silver and Gold (see Sporting Code, Section 9, Chapter 7).
The levels of pilot experience achieved throughout the scheme are recognised by the award of the appropriate Certificate when the minimum requirements are met or exceeded. The form and the colour of the badges are valid internationally.
How to order a Certificate of Proficiency
Requirements for Certificates of Proficiency
The following licences are to be submitted and experience to be proved :
In addition one of the following requirements must be met:
In addition three of the following requirements must be met:
In addition four of the following requirements must be met:
The FAI keeps a list of the names of all pilots holding Certificates of Proficiency.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Halfway Home – The Rehabilitation of New Zealand Second World War POWs in Britain
While suffering through monotony and deprivations, New Zealand Second World War POWs mentally escaped their confines by imagining their eventual return home. They envisaged returning to a world free from the woes of captivity and war. This paper examines their rehabilitation in Britain. While Britain was not New Zealand, the prisoners expected it to conform to their idealised version of home. However, this paper argues prisoners experienced difficulties during their rehabilitation, and they were destabilised when confronted with the continued presence of the war and captivity.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.


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Relevance to Underserved Issue
The Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRSA) professional shortage area guidelines (HPSA) provide the criteria needed to determine locations that are underserved.
Summary of Key Information
- Purpose of the Guidelines
To provide criteria for identifying areas that have a deficit of mental health providers.
- Program Authority
The Public Health Service Act section 332 amended by public law 101-597 requires the Secretary of Health of HHS to establish, by regulation, criteria for the designation of HPSAs. Program RequirementsThe program requires that the core mental health providers who may offer mental health services consist of psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurse specialists and marriage and family therapists.
- Identified Need for Providers
HRSA has defined three types of shortage designations consisting of
- Geographic area
- Population based
- Facility based
Criteria necessary to be designated as a mental health shortage area under these categories:
A. Geographic Area Based Manpower Shortage Designations
- The geographic area is a rational area for the delivery of mental health services.
- One of the following conditions exists in the area:
- The population ratio to core psychiatrists and/or non-physician mental health professionals is disproportionate using HRSA defined ratios as defined in the summary table below.
- The area has unusually high needs for mental health services (i.e., poverty, children, elderly, high amount of substance abuse and alcoholism) and the ratio of population to core mental health clinicians is disproportionate to meet this need.
Contiguous area considerations: Mental health professionals near the areas that are being identified as HPSAs will be considered extremely far away, over-utilized or unavailable to the HPSAs if they meet the following criteria: (1) it is more than 40 minutes from the main population center of the area being considered, (2) if the core mental health professionals in that area are overutilized and con not be expected to fill the void (3) there is a cultural, language or geographical barrier and/or because of residency restrictions.
B. Population Based Manpower Shortage Designations
- Population groups in specific service areas are deemed as shortage areas if access barriers prevent the population group from using mental health services.
- The ratio of the number of individuals per population group is disproportionate to the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) mental health professionals or FTE psychiatrists.
C. Facility Based Manpower Shortage Designations
Types of facilities that fall under this designation include: federal and state correctional institutions, state and county mental hospitals, community mental health centers and other public or nonprofit private facilities.
Facilities can be deemed manpower shortage areas based on HRSA defined criteria that take into account variables such as the ratio of mental health professional to the defined population, average length of stay, average daily inpatient census, etc.
Summary Table, Guidelines for Mental Health Care Designation
(Adobe document, will open in a new window.)


Antarctic Animation:
Gestures and lines describe
a changing environment
Approved for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. October 2010.
Supervised by Dr Simon Pockleyand Mr Hobart Hughes (aka John Hughes)
KEY WORDS: animation, artistic, Antarctica, dance, drawing, climate change, communication, gesture, improvisation, on-line, perceptions, practice-based, scientific


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The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (Russian: Пу́лковская астрономи́ческая обсервато́рия, official name The Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, Гла́вная (Пу́лковская) астрономи́ческая обсервато́рия Росси́йской акаде́мии нау́к), the principal astronomical observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located 19 km south of Saint Petersburg on Pulkovo Heights (75 m above sea level). It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.
 Early years
The observatory was opened in 1839. Originally, it was a brainchild of the German/Russian astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, who would become its first director (in 1861, his son Otto Wilhelm von Struve succeeded him). The architect was Alexander Bryullov. The observatory was equipped with the state-of-the-art devices, one of them being the a 38-cm (15 in.) aperture refractor, one of the large refractors in the world at that time (see Great Refractor). In 1885, the observatory was equipped with 30-inch (76 cm) refractor, which was one of the biggest refractors in the world, until the 36" (91 cm) telescope at the Lick Observatory in California a few years later, both of which were built by Alvan Clark & Sons in Massachusetts. The principal line of work of the observatory consisted of determination of coordinates of stars and astronomical constants, such as precessions, nutations, aberrations and refractions, and also discovering and measuring double stars. Observatory's activities have also been connected to the geographical study of the territory of Russia and development of navigation. The star catalogues, containing the most precise positions of 374, and then 558 stars, were made for the years 1845, 1865, 1885, 1905 and 1930.
By the 50th anniversary of the Observatory, they had built an astrophysical laboratory with a mechanical workshop and installed the Europe's largest refractor, a 76-cm refractor (30 inch). Astrophysical research really gained momentum with the appointment of Feodor Bredikhin as a director of the Observatory in 1890 and transfer of Aristarkh Belopolsky from the Moscow Observatory, an expert in stellar spectroscopy and solar research. In 1923, they installed a big Littrow spectrograph, and in 1940 – a horizontal solar telescope, manufactured at a Leningrad factory. After having received an astrograph in 1894, the observatory began its work on astrophotography. In 1927, the Observatory received a zone astrograph and with its help the Russian astronomers catalogued the stars of the near-polar areas of the sky. Regular observation of movements of celestial poles began with the construction of the zenith telescope in 1904. In 1920, the Observatory started transmitting the exact time by radio signals. The observatory participated in the basic geodesic work, namely in measuring degrees of the arc of the meridian from the Danube to the Arctic Ocean (until 1851), and in triangulation of Spitsbergen in 1899–1901. Military geodesists and hydrographers used to work at the Observatory as interns. The Pulkovo Meridian, which passes through the center of the main building of the Observatory and is located at 30°19,6' east of Greenwich, was the point of departure for all former geographical maps of Russia.
In order to observe the southern stars that could not be seen on the observatory's latitude, the scientists organized 2 affiliates. One of them was an astrophysical station in the Crimean town of Simeiz (Simeiz Observatory), which had been organized on the basis of a private observatory presented to the Pulkovo Observatory by an astronomy lover N.S.Maltsev in 1908. The other affiliate of the Pulkovo Observatory was an astrometric station in Nikolaev – a former observatory of the Department of the Navy, (today's Nikolaev Astronomical Observatory).
 Later history
During the siege of Leningrad (1941–1944), the Observatory became the target of fierce German air raids and artillery bombardment. All of the buildings were completely destroyed. Under dramatic circumstances, the main instruments were saved and stored safely in Leningrad, including the lens of the destroyed 30-inch refractor, and a significant part of the unique library with manuscripts and important works from the 15th to 19th century. On February 5, 1997, nearly 1,500 of the 3,852 books were destroyed by malicious arson and the rest of the library items were damaged by flames, smoke or water.
Even before the end of the war, the Soviet government made a decision to restore the Observatory. In 1946, it began the construction after having cleared the territory. In May 1954, the Observatory was re-opened, not only having been restored but considerably expanded in terms of instruments, employees and research subjects. New departments had been created, such as the Department of Radio Astronomy and Department of Instrument Making (with its own optical and mechanical workshop). The surviving old instruments were repaired, modernized and put into service once again. Also installed were new instruments, such as the 65-cm (26-inch) refractor, a horizontal meridian device, a photographic polar telescope, a big zenith telescope, stellar interferometer, 2 solar telescopes, coronagraph, a big radio telescope and all kinds of labware. The Simeiz station became a part of the new Crimean Astrophysical Observatory of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1945. They also built the Kislovodsk Mountain Astronomical Station and a laboratory in Blagoveshchensk. The Observatory organized many expeditions for determining differences of longitudes, observing passages of Venus and solar eclipses, and studying astroclimate. In 1962, the Observatory sent an expedition to Chile to observe stars in the southern skies. The 65 cm Zeiss telescope was originally intended as a gift from then Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler to the Italian Benito Mussolini, but it was not delivered and instead was taken by the Soviet Union.
- 1839–1862 Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve
- 1862–1889 Otto Wilhelm von Struve
- 1890–1895 Fyodor Aleksandrovich Bredikhin
- 1895–1916 Oskar Backlund
- 1916–1919 Aristarkh Belopolsky
- 1919–1930 Alexandr Alexandrovich Ivanov
- 1933–1937 Boris Gerasimovich
- 1937–1944 Sergey Belyavsky
- 1944–1946 Grigory Neujmin
- 1947–1964 Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Mikhailov
- 1964–1979 Vladimir Alekseevich Krat
- 1979–1982 Kiril Nikolaevich Tavastsherna
- 1983–2000 Viktor Kuzmich Abalakin
- 2000– Alexandr Vladimirovich Stepanov
- Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments – UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Hellemans, Alexander; Bunch, Bryan (1988). The Timetables of Science. Simon & Schuster. p. 304. ISBN _PHONE_.
- Pulkovo Observatory web page (in Russian)
- John Lankford History of astronomy: an encyclopedia pp.423-424, Taylor & Francis, 1997 ISBN 0-8153-0322-X
- Eremeeva, A. I. (November 1995), "Political Repression and Personality: The History of Political Repression Against Soviet Astronomers", Journal for the History of Astronomy: 297, Bibcode:1995JHA....26..297E
- André Heck Information handling in astronomy: historical vistas p. 147, Springer, 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1178-4
- Frank Kelly Edmondson AURA and its US national observatories pp. 199 ff Cambridge University Press, 1997 ISBN 0-521-55345-8
- Journal for the history of astronomy vol. 28, pt. 2, p. 177 (1997), Title: Book Review: Pulkovo / St. Petersburg : Spuren der Sterne und der Zeiten : Geschichte der russischen Hauptsternwarte / Peter Lang, New York, 1995, Bibliographic Code: 1997JHA....28..177H
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pulkovo Observatory|
- History of the observatory (in Russian)
- The official site of Pulkovo observatory
- Overview of the observatory[dead link]
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pulkovo". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.


text:
Hugh Lane is best-known for establishing Dublin's Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 1908 (the first known public gallery of modern art in the world) and for his remarkable contribution to the visual arts in Ireland. Born in County Cork on 9 November 1875, Lane was brought up in Cornwall in England. He began his career as an apprentice painting restorer and later became a very successful London art dealer. Through regular visits to Coole, Co. Galway, the home of his famous aunt, Lady Augusta Gregory, Lane remained in contact with Ireland. He counted among his family and friends those who collectively formed the core of the Irish cultural renaissance in the early decades of the 20th century.
On a visit to Dublin in 1901, Lane viewed an exhibition of paintings by Nathaniel Hone and John Butler Yeats and soon after began a campaign to establish a gallery of modern art in Dublin. He became passionate that the best of national and international art should be on public view in Dublin. To further his campaign, in 1904, Lane organised the first ever exhibition of contemporary Irish art abroad, at the Guildhall in London. The exhibition was a great success. In the preface to the catalogue, Lane stated "There is something of common race instinct in the work of all original Irish writers of to-day and, it can hardly be absent in their sister art." On his return to Dublin, Lane persuaded leading artists of the day to donate a representative work to form the nucleus of the collection, as well as personally financing many acquisitions including a number of major Impressionist masterpieces. He was to become one of the foremost collectors of Impressionist paintings in these islands, and amongst those outstanding works purchased by him for the new gallery were La Musique aux Tuileries and Eva Gonzales by Manet, Sur la Plage by Degas, Les Parapluies by Renoir and La Cheminée by Vuillard.
The Municipal Gallery of Modern Art opened in January 1908 in temporary premises in Harcourt Street, Dublin. However, Lane did not live to see his Gallery permanently located as he died tragically in 1915 on board the Lusitania, off the west coast of Cork, the county of his birth.
Following Lane's death in 1915, a long dispute ensued between Dublin and London over possession of his valuable collection of Continental pictures. Constant difficulties and delays in locating a permanent home for his collection in Dublin resulted in Lane loaning his continental paintings to The National Gallery in London in 1913 and although he refused to confirm it, made a will leaving them to London. The following year he was appointed Director of The National Gallery of Ireland. In 1915, just before leaving for the United States of America, Lane added a codicil to his will stating that he had changed his mind and he now left his famous collection of 39 continental works to Dublin. The codicil was signed but not witnessed. Lane's wishes were not honoured as a British commission set up 1929 in deemed they should not be returned to Dublin. However subsequently, beginning in 1959, agreements have been reached whereby the paintings are shared between Dublin and London.


Main site sections:
Plants section links:
 - San Diego Zoo
Plants: Species
Sugarcane Saccharum officinarum
FAMILY: POACEAE (Grass Family)
Yo ho ho and a bottle of...sugarcane? Sugarcane transported from its home in the South Pacific to the Caribbean in the late 15th century led to the production of molasses, which later was distilled into rum. Native to tropical Asia and Polynesia, sugarcane is still the main source of the world's sugar and its foliage provides fodder for cattle.
This tasty member of the grass family is a favorite treat for some of our Zoo animals to munch on, including giant pandas and sun bears.


text:
- SELECT SITE CURRENCY
Select a currency for use throughout the site
Physical Database Design. The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems
Elsevier Science and Technology, June 2007, Pages: 448
The rapidly increasing volume of information contained in relational databases places a strain on databases, performance, and maintainability: DBAs are under greater pressure than ever to optimize database structure for system performance and administration.
Physical Database Design discusses the concept of how physical structures of databases affect performance, including specific examples, guidelines, and best and worst practices for a variety of DBMSs and configurations. Something as simple as improving the table index design has a profound impact on performance. Every form of relational database, such as Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), Enterprise Resource Management (ERP), Data Mining (DM), or Management Resource Planning (MRP), can be improved using the methods provided in the book.
The first complete treatment on physical database design, written by the authors of the seminal, Database Modeling and Design: Logical Design, 4th edition.
Includes an introduction to the major concepts of physical database design as well as detailed examples, using methodologies and tools most popular for relational databases today: Oracle, DB2 (IBM), and SQL Server (Microsoft).
Focuses on physical database design for exploiting B+tree indexing, clustered indexes, multidimensional clustering (MDC), range partitioning, shared nothing partitioning, shared disk data placement, materialized views, bitmap indexes, automated design tools, and more!
1 Introduction to Physical Database Design
2 Basic Indexing Methods
3 Query Optimization and Plan Selection
4 Selecting Indexes
5 Selecting Materialized Views
6 Shared-nothing Partitioning
7 Range Partitioning
8 Multidimensional Clustering
9 The Interdependence Problem
10 Counting and Data Sampling in Physical Design Exploration
11 Query Execution Plans and Physical Design
12 Automated Physical Database Design
13 Down to the Metal: Server Resources and Topology
14 Physical Design for Decision Support, Warehousing, and OLAP
16 Distributed Data Allocation
Appendix A A Simple Performance Model for Databases
Appendix B Technical Comparison of DB2 HADR with Oracle Data Guard for Database Disaster Recovery
Lightstone, Sam S.
Sam Lightstone is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Development Manager with IBM's DB2 product development team. His work includes numerous topics in autonomic computing and relational database management systems. He is cofounder and leader of DB2's autonomic computing R&D effort. He is Chair of the IEEE Data Engineering Workgroup on Self Managing Database Systems and a member of the IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Autonomous and Autonomic Computing. In 2003 he was elected to the Canadian Technical Excellence Council, the Canadian affiliate of the IBM Academy of Technology. He is an IBM Master Inventor with over 25 patents and patents pending; he has published widely on autonomic computing for relational database systems. He has been with IBM since 1991.
Teorey, Toby J.
Toby J. Teorey is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and a Ph.D. in computer sciences from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was general chair of the 1981 ACM SIGMOD Conference and program chair for the 1991 Entity-Relationship Conference. Professor Teorey's current research focuses on database design and data warehousing, OLAP, advanced database systems, and performance of computer networks. He is a member of the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society.
Tom Nadeau is the founder of Aladdin Software (aladdinsoftware.com) and works in the area of data and text mining. He received his B.S. degree in computer science and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His technical interests include data warehousing, OLAP, data mining and machine learning. He won the best paper award at the 2001 IBM CASCON Conference.


The European digital library (Europeana). Concerns related to intellectual property rights
Author:Marta Christina Suciu - Mina Fanea Ivanovici
Position:Bucharest University of Economic Studies - Bucharest University of Economic Studies
The European digital library (Europeana).
Concerns related to intellectual property rights
Professor Marta-Christina SUCIU
Associate professor Mina FANEA-IVANOVICI
The current technological and scien tific revolution taking place within the larger
context of knowledge and innovation ba sed society and economy has changed all aspects of
life, including those related to cultural content consumption, creation, access and
distribution. Although art galleries, libraries, archives and museums will continue to exist
and function in a physical form, there has been no ticed a trend is to preserve and provide
access to world cultural heritage by means of digital libraries. Amon g the European
objectives included in the Europe 2020 Strategy we find the digitisation of cultural content
and the development of a library that can store and preserve Europea n culture
Europeana. The main objective of this paper is that of debating the main stakes of access to
digitised cultural content, such as it is found in digital libraries, A particular focus is set on
the issue o f intellectual property rights. The study specifically refers to the case of the
European Digital Library, Europeana. The main scientific research method used in the
paper is the critical analysis of IP legal regulations. Thus, we debate the ma in implications
of these regulations for the process of digitisation, and we next identify the main current
legal opportunities for and obstacles in the way of cultural content digitisation.
Keywords: intellectual property rights, digitisation, cultural content, Europeana.
JEL Classification: K11, K19, O34, Z19
1. Introduction
During the last decades of the 20th century we were the witnesses of a
significant development of the information society, which led to major changes in
the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and to their use in
all aspects of economic, social and cultural life
. In the European Union
Marta-Christina Suciu - Bucharest University of Economic Studies, christina.suciu@economie.
Mina Fanea-Ivanovici - Bucharest University o f Economic Studies, mina.ivanovici@economie.
Access to culture project Digital Library of Romania, PODCA.
A Digital Agenda for Europe, COM (2010) 245/ 19.05.2010, Communication of the Commission to
the European Parliament, Council, European Economic and Social Committee and Co mmittee of the
Juridical Tribune Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2018 245
digitisation of cultural resources is considered a key factor that will contribute to
the improvement of accessibility and the continuous flow of data and knowledge in
a society and economy that are based more than ever on innovation and knowledge.
Digitisation of cultural resources and the existence of a unique platform within a
digital library have a huge economic, social and cultural potential, which can lead
to increased competitiveness in Europe. Large scale use of ICT and facilitating
access to public services, including to cultural content services, are part of the
Europe 2020 Strategy, which promotes a smart sustainable and inclusive
Creative and cultural sectors are seen as a drive for smart sustainable and
inclusive growth and are at the heart of the Europe 2020 Strategy. One of the
Strategy pillars is the European Digital Agenda, which refers the creation and
development of a European Digital Library, Europeana
According to Calimera Guideslines
the digitisation mainly consists in:
Transposing a document from a traditional format into a digital format;
Organising digitised documents and including them in databases or
2. The European Digital Agenda and the Digital Economy and Society
Index (DESI)
The European Commission prepared an annual report named "i2010 a
European information society growth and employment ", which included the 27 EU
member states, Norway and Iceland. According to the report, only 18.4% of the
Romanians were using the Internet, at the specific time period when the research
was organised, on a regularly basis, compared to the European average of 46.7%,
which resulted in placing Romania on the 29th position, the last place. In addition,
the study illustrated that only one third of the Romanian households had broadband
Internet access, which placed our country on the 26th position according to this
criterion. Later on, according to the European Digital Agenda, a new
benchmarking method was adopted in the EU, which ranks EU countries based on
the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI).
According to the most recent ranking of 2017, which was published in
March 2017, as concerns the Digital Economy and Society Index
, Romania is part
of the low performing cluster. The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) is a
composite aggregate index
, and it is calculated by the European Commission (DG
Calimera Guideslines, (last consulted on
6 (last consulted on 10.11.2017).
7 (last consulted on 10.11.2017).
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text:
Use the power of real time vision inside ArcGIS
Access images, videos and AI detections instantly and easily within ArcGIS, Esri's market leading platform. Nexar captures images and detects objects and change on a daily basis across all the US, and you can easily access those insights within Esri.
- Use Nexar imagery within your existing workflow of using Esri
- Seamless stream of Nexar data readily available within the platform
- Better context by overlaying Nexar data onto ArcGIS
- Improve outcomes for field inspections and decisions by accessing the most relevant data in advance and being able to see and understand change


text:
Down: Click to move the selected element up or down in the script
- Copy: Copy the selected element to the clipboard
- Paste: Paste the clipboard contents at the mouse cursor
- Delete: Delete the selected element
- Configuration: Open the element's configuration window if it has one
Inserting a DragScript from a File
If you have a fragment of DragScript code that you would like to use in several places in your script, or one that you frequently use in different scripts, you can create the DragScript fragment, save it to a file, and then insert it and modify it as many times as necessary into your final script.
For example, we created this script to run a sequence, check for success, and go to the next block if OK, else send an email notifying us of the problem and try again, three times.
Note that we created this DragScript code directly in the main Script block. When we insert this later into another DragScript, a block is automatically created to hold the new fragment, so we don't need to put this in a block now:
We saved this script to a file called Example-Block-2.
Now we open the script to which we want to add this fragment:
Right click on the Script block tag and select Insert DragScript from File. Choose the file containing the DragScript fragment we saved above and click Open:
The DragScript fragment is added in a new block at the end of the Script block. Highlight the new Block tag (Block 1 in this example), use the up/down arrow toolbar icons to move the block to your desired location. Edit the block as required and don't forget to save your changed script.
The Simulator lets you understand how control will flow in your script after each action is completed, whether with an OK outcome (success), an error, or a timeout.
It also shows you the control flow when an Emergency Exit, Emergency Suspend or Emergency Resume event are raised.
No actions are executed during the simulator session. This is just to understand the flow of control of your script under different conditions.
- The panel on the left contains the script to simulate. It contains the currently loaded script in the editor.
- For this example we have added very simple event handling to the script shown above in the DragScript Editor section. For example, if a Weather Event is configured to raise an Emergency Suspend on cloudy weather, and an Emergency Exit if it starts raining:
- Emergency Suspend: Voyager will command the mount to stop tracking and close the observatory shutter (or roll-off roof if that's the type of observatory)
- Emergency Exit: Voyager will command the mount to park, close the shutter or roll-off roof, and park the dome
- Emergency Resume: Voyager will open the shutter and command the mount to resume tracking
- The script also demonstrates how the OK, ERROR and TIMEOUT results of an action are handled. In this example, Voyager would attempt to Connect to your setup.
- If the Connect is successful (IF OK), the script will cool the CCD, slew to near the zenith, and take an exposure.
- If the Connect Setup returns an error (IF ERROR) or times out (IF TIMEOUT), the script will raise an Emergency Exit event and the steps outlined above for Emergency Exit will be done
- Start - F1: Click this button or press the F1 key to start the simulation. When you start the simulation, the Next buttons are activated and messages start to appear in the window on the right. In the next screenshot, we can see the results after pressing Start - F1 and then Next - F2 (or Next OK - F3) three times:
- Next - F2: Click this button or press the F2 key to move to the next line of the script without raising any events
- Next OK - F3: Click this button or press the F3 key to simulate successful completion of the current line of the script and move to the next line that will be executed
- Next ERROR - F4: Click this button or press the F4 key to signal an ERROR has occurred while executing the current line of the script. Then press Next and the trace window on the right will show the path of execution after the ERROR was raised
- Next TIMEOUT - F5: Click this button or press the F5 key to signal a TIMEOUT has occurred while executing the current line of the script. Then press Next and the trace window on the right will show the path of execution after the TIMEOUT was raised
- Next DO IF Condition (no variables) TRUE - F9: Press this button or the F9 key to simulate execution of a DO IF conditional statement that evaluates to TRUE. The DO IF Condition should not contain variables.
- Next DO IF Condition (no variables) FALSE - F10: Press this button or the F10 key to simulate execution of a DO IF conditional statement that evaluates to FALSE. The DO IF Condition should not contain variables.
- Emergency Exit - F7: Click this button or press F7 to simulate an Emergency Exit event. Then press Next and the trace window on the right will show the path of execution after the Emergency Exit event was raised
- Emergency Suspend - F8: Click this button or press F8 to simulate an Emergency Suspend event. Then press Next and the trace window on the right will show the path of execution after the Emergency Suspend event was raised
- Emergency Resume - F11: Click this button or press F11 to simulate an Emergency Resume event. Then press Next and the trace window on the right will show the path of execution after the Emergency Resume event was raised
- END - F6: Click this button or press the F6 key to end the simulation
Checking COUNTER values in the DragScript Simulator
As of Voyager 2.1.1c, the DragScript simulator will display the results of testing counter variables in a DO IF COUNTER VALUE statement.
In this example, the variable numseqs was set equal to 1 at the start of the DragScript.
- The Next OK button was pressed repeatedly to step through the DragScript
- After line 61, since numseqs = 1, the DO IF COUNTER VALUE is Greater or Equal to 1 test succeeds
- The next line is highlighted blue and the phrase Counter MATCH tells you that the test succeeded and the actions in the DO IF block will be executed
- After line 72, since numseqs = 1, the DO IF COUNTER VALUE is Greater or Equal to 2 test fails
- The next line is highlighted yellow and the phrase NOT MATCH!= 1 tells you that the test failed and the actions in the DO IF block will not be executed
To learn about the individual DragScript elements, visit the DragScript Elements page.


Did you know?
buzz - definition and synonyms
What are red words?
Thesaurus diagram
verb buzz pronunciation in American English
Word Forms
present tense
present participlebuzzing
past tensebuzzed
past participlebuzzed
 1. 1
 [intransitive]Sound effect when an insect such as a fly or bee buzzes, it makes a rough continuous sound
 1. a.
 [intransitive] used about machines or electric tools that make a similar sound when they are being used
 Saws were buzzing everywhere.
 2. b.
 [intransitive] to move somewhere while buzzing
 buzz around/by/past etc.:
 Flies were buzzing around my head.
 3. c.
 [intransitive] [usually progressive] if your ears or your head are buzzing, you can hear a continuous sound inside your head
 My head was still buzzing hours after leaving the nightclub.
 4. d.
 [intransitive/transitive] spoken to press a buzzer to attract someone's attention
 Just buzz me when the client arrives.
 Buzz if you know the answer.
 2. 2
 [intransitive] [usually progressive] if a place or group of people is buzzing, there is a lot of noise or activity
 buzz with:
 Normally the house was buzzing with cheerful conversation.
 1. a.
 if someone's head, mind, or brain is buzzing with ideas, questions, etc. or if these are buzzing around in their head, mind, or brain, they cannot stop thinking about them
 buzz with:
 His mind was always buzzing with new and exciting ideas.
 buzz around:
 With all these questions buzzing around in my head, I couldn't sleep.
 Synonyms and related words
 3. 3
 [transitive] informal to fly an airplane low over people or buildings
 The locals are fed up with being buzzed by military jets.
 4. 4
 [intransitive] to move around quickly and busily
 buzz around/about:
 Jane buzzed around serving drinks and chatting with her guests.
phrasal verbs
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BuzzWord Article
Open Dictionary
open/agreeable/able to be communicated with via text
add a word
global English and language change from our blog
Macmillan learn live love play


text:
The city of Holtville, or Holton as it was first called, was founded by W.F. Holt and incorporated in 1908. Holt was a banker from Missouri who moved to the west for health reasons. Mr. Holt had a vision of what the mperial Valley would become, and in the process he was the first to envision a town east of the Alamo River.
In 1903, the city of Holtville was born. Construction of the new town was slow in the beginning because of a town policy which only allowed brick construction. On June 20, 1908 the city of Holtville was incorporated. The city of was designed so that businesses faced Holt Park, which formed a town square. Holt Park is the focus for the city of Holtville which boasted large, lush shade trees, and the City Hall building which is a two story structure that was built in the center of the Park. There have been several changes in Holt Park but it still remains the gem of the city. At one time, the Park even had a monkey cage and a fish pond. However, what remains today is a time capsule which is to be opened in the year 2015. The Time Capsule Opening is scheduled for July 2026
Fire has been a major tragedy to the city of Holtville.
In the 60's, the Holtville Unified School District, which consisted of a 2-story structure, was destroyed by a fire. A theater that once graced Main Street was also destroyed by fire in the 1970's. The Business District was also destroyed by fire in the 1980's.


text: This article discusses what ethicists have called "unacceptable trade-offs" in health policy choices related to universal health coverage (UHC). Since the fiscal space is constrained, trade-offs need to be made. But some trade-offs are unacceptable on the path to universal coverage. Unacceptable choices include, among other examples from low-income countries, to expand coverage for services with lower priority such as coronary bypass surgery before securing universal coverage for high-priority services such as skilled birth attendance and services for easily preventable or treatable fatal childhood diseases. Services of the latter kind include oral rehydration therapy for children with diarrhea and antibiotics for children with pneumonia. The article explains why such trade-offs are unfair and unacceptable even if political considerations may push in the opposite direction.


text:
Stories of Hope-Barbara Reynolds
The stereotypical image of a 1950s housewife is one of a life limited to the domestic scene, concerned with raising children, maintaining the household, and quietly accepting the status quo. For the majority of her early life, Barbara Leonard Reynolds, by her own admission, embodied this stereotype.
However, a life-altering trip around the world led her to the path of peace activism.
Rather than returning from her journey to a life unconcerned with world events, Barbara concentrated her efforts on bringing to the world the story of the hibakusha. The word hibakusha, meaning "explosion-affected people," refers to any person (including an unborn child) who was within the city limits of Hiroshima or Nagasaki when the atomic bombs were dropped, came into the cities within two weeks of the bombings, or had direct contact with bomb victims. Barbara dedicated herself to helping the hibakusha share their experiences and their message that atomic bombs should never again be used by any nation.
- _PHONE_: Growing Up with Taro and Tak
- _PHONE_: The Housewife and the Bomb
- _PHONE_: Meeting Japan
- _PHONE_: Adventure and Awareness
- _PHONE_: Sailing in Restricted Waters
- _PHONE_: Spreading the Message
- _PHONE_: Working for Peace
- _PHONE_: Global Community
- _PHONE_: The Wonder Woman Never Quits
- A Lasting Legacy


You can actually see the fish and dolphins in the canals of Venice again as tourists stay away during coronavirus crisis
Greg Evans
Wednesday 18 March 2020 08:45
The coronavirus outbreak is worrying for everyone. But people being kept inside has resulted in some positive effects for the surrounding environment.
Pollution levels have dropped above northern Italy as factories have been forced into lockdown and air pollution in London has reportedly dropped due to the amount of people working from home.
Although the lack of tourists around the world have forced animals in places like Thailand and Japan to forage for their own food, in Venice, Italy the world-famous canals have miraculously become so clear again that you can actually see the fish for the first time in decades.
Images of the canals have been widely shared on social media and people, especially those that have visited the city are astonished at what they have seen.
It's not just fish that have been spotted in the city again. Dolphins, swans and even wild boars (which are actually in Sardinia) have begun to reclaim their place in the world.
Meanwhile, this is what it looks like in Venice, one of the biggest tourist destinations in Italy, from a human perspective.
At the time of writing, Italy remains on lockdown after confirming more than 31,000 cases and 2,503 deaths.


text: This paper examines the importance of national-level institutional arrangements for promoting the EU's Protected Geographic Indication scheme (PGI). Taking the example of Ireland, for which PGI designations remain comparatively low, it explores whether the approach to providing institutional supports to the PGI scheme is influenced by top-down technocratic governance structures that pertain to food safety and quality certification that encompass the broader operating environment for food production in Ireland. Although the regulation of food safety and quality certification are distinct remits to the administration of the PGI scheme, in the Irish context the same institutional bodies are involved in governance of both. Using a discourse analysis interpretative framework, this paper draws on interviews with Irish producer group members and institutional representatives to examine how governance of the PGI scheme reflects management perspectives and practices more in keeping with a regulatory environment for food safety and quality than with development of place-based food product links. It suggests that incentives to avail of the PGI scheme as a means of realising value-added for producers are not well established because they require the development of more subjective, context-dependent processes and practices linked to geographical place and place identity. These are not easily accommodated under current institutional arrangements that also incorporate food safety and quality remits because these are in turn strongly established through nationally and internationally recognised systems of regulation and bench-marking. The findings point to the benefits to be gained from a more layered governance structure for PGI; devolving operation of the scheme to relevant regional and local development organisations that possess the expertise and relevant local knowledge to (a) incentivise the formation of producer groups, and (b) prioritise mentoring and support for PGI concept development as a clearer reflection of bottom-up rural sustainability policy. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Osteology Lesson
 1. Begin this lesson by discussing how important knowledge of osteology (the study of bones) can be when a forensic scientist wishes to identify remains at a crime scene. When a forensic scientist arrives at a crime scene area s/he is often faced with very badly decayed remains along with many other types of physical evidence. This can present a difficult to solve problem should one wish to identify the victim(s) at the scene. However, a student of osteology will know just how to extract a great deal of information from the bones.
 2. The first step in learning about osteology is to figure out how to distinguish human bone from that of other types of animals. Begin this process by directing students to The eSkeletons Project to learn more about comparative human anatomy. For further human anatomy resources go to a Bone Review. You may also wish to discuss some basic ways of distinguishing human from animal bone. For instance, birds, unlike humans, have very wide marrow cavities in their bones (this enables them to fly since they have less bone mass and are much lighter than animals with narrow marrow cavities). Although the computer is a very useful resource, the best way to learn human osteology is to visit an anatomy lab at a local university and have a look at their osteology collection(s) (with permission of course).
 3. The next step you should take to familiarize your students with human anatomy is to point out that humans are the only mammals that are habitually bipedal (meaning that they habitually walk on two feet instead of four). There are many modifications of the human skeleton caused by this unique mode of locomotion that allow forensic scientist to easily distinguish human bone from that of other animals. For example, humans have what is called a valgus knee; meaning that our femur (upper leg bone) is not directly in line with our tibia (the largest of the two lower leg bones). Instead the femur angles out from where it articulates (or meets) with the proximal (or closest to the center of the body) end of the tibia. This angle allows us to keep our center of gravity directly over our lower limbs and it reduces the back and forth aspect of our locomotion. (A chimpanzee does not have a valgus knee and thus seems to waddle back and forth as it walks.) Humans also have a very large calcaneus (or heel bone) due to the fact that all of our body weight must pass through our feet when we walk. For this reason, humans also have a very robust great toe bone. (There is a point in our stride when our great toe bears all of our body weight.)
Last Update:


Status Summary
Passed out of the Senate Ways & Means. Placed on a second reading by the Rules Committee on Feb 28. Did not make it out of the Senate before House of Origin cutoff.
Legislative Session
Misalignment between state and federal law continues to exist. Federal law allows a person under twenty-one years old, who otherwise meets the requirements for eligibility under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 31 1101(a)(27)(J) to file for relief [this determination offers interim relief from deportation to undocumented, unmarried immigrant youth under 21 years old, if a state court with jurisdiction over juveniles has made specific findings]. In Washington, however, vulnerable youth who are between eighteen and twenty-one years old have largely been unable to obtain the findings from the superior court necessary to seek this classification and the relief that it was intended to afford them, solely because superior courts cannot take jurisdiction of these vulnerable youth under current law. This is true despite the fact that many vulnerable youth between eighteen and twenty-one years old face circumstances identical to those faced by their younger counterparts. Given the recent influx of vulnerable youth arriving to the United States, many of whom have been released to family members and other adults in Washington, and who have experienced parental abuse, neglect, or abandonment, it is necessary to provide an avenue for these vulnerable youth to petition the superior courts to appoint a guardian of the person, even if the youth is over eighteen years old. This bill authorizes a court to appoint a guardian for a vulnerable youth from eighteen to twenty-one years old, who is not participating in extended foster care services authorized under RCW 19 74.13.031, and who is eligible for classification under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 20 1101(a)(27)(J).


Elderly most affected by inflation according to survey
Inflation hits the elderly harder.
Older people are more likely to be affected by inflation than younger groups.
A survey by Age UK Enterprises has found that inflation takes a higher toll on the elderly than any other age group.
The charity's commercial arm says inflation is steeper on the elderly because they spend the majority of their money on food and fuel. The group say their research shows the real cost of inflation for UK residents over the age of 55 is much higher than that estimated by the official RPI measure.
Age UK Enterprises has produced its own measure of inflation for those over 55 years old which is called the Silver RPI. The Silver RPI is calculated by assessing the proportion of income spent by each age group on various items and how much these items have increased in price over a period of time.
The body claims the Silver RPI rises to 4.1% above the government measure of inflation for those over 75 years of age. This reflects a significant difference and backs up similar research which shows that the gap between inflation costs for the elderly and the rest of the nation has widened significantly in the last 2 years.
One factor thought to be behind the widening gap is the recent fall in mortgage interest rates – something which many elderly residents won't have been affected by. This fall has meant that the cost of living for the elderly hasn't dropped as much as for the rest of the population in general.
Recent increases on utility and energy rates are also have thought to have had a significant effect on the cost of living for the elderly.
"In the aftermath of a global recession many households are struggling with their finances but … the impact of inflation on over-55s has been substantially underestimated and it worsens as you age", commented the managing director of Age UK Enterprises.
"The Silver RPI suggests that for too long official measures have misrepresented how finances look for those in later life by considering over-55s as one single group who experience money (and inflation) in the same way".
For more information on the Silver RPI, visit the Age UK website.


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What is a DLL? A DLL, short for Dynamic Link Library, is a library that contains both code and data that can be used as a shared DLL or resource DLL by more than one program or application at the same time. Using Windows DLLs or DLL libraries allows the developer to make more efficient use of memory and disk space, as well as allowing for a more modular approach to the application design that encourages componentization and code re-use.
A DLL library can be used as a software component to add functionality to your application or project, without the need to spend the time to write all of the code yourself. You will find.NET DLL products and C# DLL products here for a variety of common tasks that are both visual and non-visual.
For example you will find dynamic DLL products that are datagrid DLLs that enable you to provide data grids or to present datatables in your app. Or if you need full calc engine functionality there are spreadsheet DLLs available too. If you are looking for charting DLLs or graphing DLLs, you will find several products here to include in your application to draw pie-charts, bar charts, line graphs etc.
Other visual DLL libraries listed here include: a DLL editor for text editing and word processing, calendar DLLs for planning and scheduling, Computer Aided Design or CAD DLLs, image processing DLLs and image conversion DLLs and DLL libraries for document imaging & scanning, OCR DLLs for optical character recognition projects, as well as complex DLLs for multi-media and video compression tasks, or a simple dynamic DLL to display a barcode.
You will also find non-visual dynamic DLL products, that work in the background to add functionality to your your application, such as sending and receiving emails via SMTP or POP or transferring files via FTP or HTTP over the Internet. Or non-visual data reporting DLLs to create daily management reports or scheduled MIS reports overnight or to create PDF files in batch mode using a PDF DLL library to carry out the file format and conversion task for you.
You will also find similar C++ DLL or CPP DLL products or DLL libraries for your Visual C++ application or the equivalent Borland library for your BC++ project code.
Microsoft Visual Basic (MS Visual Basic) allows Visual Basic programmers to create Windows applications for their end users fast. Visual Basic developers can extend the standard functionality available inside the Visual Basic IDE with a variety of Visual Basic add-ins and Visual Basic tools. The extensibility of Visual Basic software is one of the main reasons it has proved to be so popular with developers, as Visual Basic software engineers can find Visual Basic downloads from other companies or other developers to act as a Visual Basic extension to their Visual Basic IDE.
The versatility of Visual Basic also extends to various forms of Visual Basic software components. Visual Basic controls can be used to create feature rich Visual Basic user interfaces on forms and Web pages for Visual Basic apps. These Visual Basic UI controls are augmented by non-visual Visual Basic components or Visual Basic libraries that can help a developer add many hidden features in Visual Basic applications running in the background. These non-visual components are commonly available as a Visual Basic library, Visual Basic Class library or as a Visual Basic custom control or ActiveX/OCX component.
An example of a visual Visual Basic control is Janus GridEx, a Visual Basic UI control that allows you to create an MS Outlook style or look and feel to your latest Visual Basic project. A non-visual Visual Basic component example is a Visual Basic compatible product that allows you to create and output files in different formats, such as: PDF, XPS, PostScript, RTF, HTML, XML to help solve file conversion and document storage needs.
The Visual Basic software products listed in this Visual Basic product gallery will allow you to save a lot of time and effort in creating your new Visual Basic app. Whether you are looking for a Visual Basic plug-in or Visual Basic utility, or you are looking for a Visual Basic control or a Visual Basic component, you will be able to find a wide variety of Visual Basic tools to help you finish your project faster.
We also have other Visual Basic product galleries for: Visual Basic 2010, Visual Basic 2008, Visual Basic 2005 and Visual Basic.NET compatible products.
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Question: "What is Amyraldism?"
Answer: Amyraldism is an off-shoot of Calvinistic theology (sometimes called "4-point Calvinism" or "moderate Calvinism"). It is named after its creator, Moses Amyraut, a 16th-century French theologian, who was influential in the development of the doctrine of "hypothetical redemption" or "hypothetical universalism." This doctrine, in essence, softens the Calvinistic doctrine of limited atonement. In order to better understand Amyraldism, it might be beneficial to recap what Calvinism is.
Classic Calvinism centers on the so-called five points of Calvinism. It should be noted that Calvinism isn't limited to just five points, nor was it the invention of John Calvin. Rather, Calvin put together his system of five points from the clear doctrines of Scripture. The five points of Calvinism were responses by the Dutch Reformed Church to Arminianism, another five-point system which was developed by Jacob Arminius (_PHONE_), a Dutch theologian. The five points of Calvinism are summarized below:
1. Total Depravity – Man, in his fallen state, is completely incapable of doing any good that is acceptable to God.
2. Unconditional Election – As a result of man's total depravity, he is unable (and unwilling) to come to God for salvation. Therefore, God must sovereignly choose those who will be saved. His decision to elect individuals for salvation is unconditional. It is not based on anything in man, but solely on God's grace.
3. Limited Atonement – In order to save those whom God has unconditionally elected, atonement for their sin must be made. God the Father sends His Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for the sins of the elect and secure their pardon by His death on the cross.
4. Irresistible Grace – The Holy Spirit applies the finished work of salvation to the elect in "space and time" by irresistibly drawing them to faith and repentance. This saving call of the Holy Spirit (not to be confused with the general call to preach the gospel to all people) cannot be resisted and is referred to as an efficacious call.
5. Perseverance of the Saints – Those whom God has elected, atoned for and efficaciously called are preserved in faith until the last day. They will never fall away because God has secured them with the seal of the Holy Spirit. The saints persevere because God preserves them.
As mentioned earlier, the particular point that Amyraldism takes issue with is the third point, limited atonement. Amyraldism replaces it with the concept of "hypothetical universalism," which in essence asserts that Christ died for the sins of all people, but because God knew that not all would respond (due to man's total depravity, to which Amyraldians do hold), He elected some to whom He would impart saving faith. By doing this, Amyraldism avoids some of the problems that limited atonement raises, while at the same time, preserves the doctrine of unconditional election.
This places Amyraldism somewhere between Calvinism and Arminianism when it comes to the extent of the atonement. Calvinism teaches that the extent of the atonement is limited to the elect only; Christ's death on the cross makes salvation a reality for the elect. Arminianism teaches that the extent of the atonement is unlimited and available to all; Christ's death on the cross makes salvation possible to all and man must exercise faith to make salvation actual. Amyraldism says that Christ died for all men, but God only applies this salvation to those whom He has chosen. This is very similar to a view that is circulating in some Calvinistic circles called unlimited/limited atonement.
However, in attempting to resolve some of the apparent problems that limited atonement presents – namely, the biblical passages that teach Christ died for all men (John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 John 2:2 to name a few) – the Amyraldians create larger problems that require resolution. The same objection that can be applied to Arminianism regarding the extent of the atonement can also be applied to Amyraldism. If Christ died for all men as it says in 1 John 2:2, then we have a problem; namely, there are people in hell right now who have had their sins atoned for. The Arminian would respond by saying that they didn't activate their salvation by believing in Christ, and the Amyraldian would respond by saying that God didn't elect them. Yet, that does nothing to resolve the dilemma. Whether or not they responded in faith or God elected them, their sins have been atoned for and they should not be in hell! If Christ died for my sins, then my believing it or not believing it doesn't make it any less true. If my sin debt has been paid, then I should go to heaven, not hell where I will pay for the same debt for eternity. In fact, Amyraldism makes things worse than Arminianism because it posits God passing over people for whom Christ died.
Without going into a detailed exegesis of 1 John 2:2, the apparent contradiction between what some think that verse means and the doctrine of limited atonement can be easily resolved by looking at the context of the verse. John writes:
"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2 ESV).
It is clear from the context that John is writing to a group of believers ("My little children"). John is telling his believing readers that a life of continual sin is incompatible with being a Christian. Yet if someone does sin, we have an Advocate who stands in our defense before the bar of God's justice. He was the atoning sacrifice for our sin, but not ours only but also the whole world. In other words, the extent of Christ's saving work isn't only applicable to John's readers, but is a message for the whole world! Christ not only died to save God's remnant amongst the Jews, but His elect throughout the whole world. God's elect people are chosen "from every nation, tribe, people and language" (Revelation 7:9). As Jesus said, "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd" (John 10:16).
Another thing to note is that John says that Christ is the propitiation for our sins. In other words, Christ actually atoned for the sins of John and his readers; it is a statement of fact. John then applies this actual atonement not only for his readers, but the whole world. The Arminians say that the atonement didn't actually save anyone, but makes all men savable. Yet that's not what John is saying. He is referring to an actual atonement, not a potential atonement. It would be hermeneutically incorrect to go from an actual atonement to a potential atonement in the same sentence. On the other hand, as noted earlier, the Amyraldian claims that God actually atoned for the whole world, but only applies it to the elect, to which we would argue that God is sending people to hell whose sins have been atoned for.
In conclusion, Amyraldism seeks to modify some of the "harsh" conclusions of the Calvinist position, but as we have seen, it raises much more serious questions than it attempts to answer. The five points of Calvinism are links in a chain that put forth a strong biblical case that God is completely sovereign in salvation. The act of saving a people unto Himself is a testament to God's grace and mercy and displays His glory in a unique way.
© Copyright 2002-2013 Got Questions Ministries.


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Big welcome to Hyperscale (Citus) on Azure Database for PostgreSQL, now in Preview. Learn more.
Our beloved Structured Query Language may be the lingua franca for relational databases—but like many languages, SQL is in a state of constant evolution. The first releases of SQL didn't even have a notation for joins. At the time, SQL only supported inner joins.
Cross Joins and Where Filters
As a result, back in early eighties, the only way to express a join condition between tables would be in the WHERE clause.
select companies.name, campaigns.name, campaigns.monthly_budget from companies, campaigns where companies.id = campaigns.company_id and company_id = 5;
In that query, the PostgreSQL planner realizes that we are doing an INNER JOIN in between the companies table and the campaigns table, even though what we are actually writing is a CROSS JOIN in between the tables. In PostgreSQL documentation chapter Table Expressions we can read more about the CROSS JOIN operation:
For every possible combination of rows from T1 and T2 (i.e., a Cartesian product), the joined table will contain a row consisting of all columns in T1 followed by all columns in T2. If the tables have N and M rows respectively, the joined table will have N * M rows.
FROM T1 CROSS JOIN T2 is equivalent to FROM T1 INNER JOIN T2 ON TRUE (see below). It is also equivalent to FROM T1, T2.
In my opinion, it is so rare that what you want to achieve actually is a cross join that cross joins should fail your SQL unit testing. After all, code should always express the intentions of the programmer, and if your intention is not to implement a CROSS JOIN then using a comma separated list of tables in your FROM clause looks deadly suspicious.
Inner And Outer Joins in SQL
The previous SQL query can be written properly with an inner join syntax:
select companies.name, campaigns.name, campaigns.monthly_budget from companies inner join campaigns on companies.id = campaigns.company_id where company_id = 5;
Lucky for us, the PostgreSQL planner is smart enough to realize that both queries are specifying the same result set and accordingly executes the same plan to fetch it.
Now, if a company didn't program any advertising campaigns yet, then the company won't be listed at all in the output. What if you want to list all companies, whether or not they have campaigns attached to them? In that case we would use an SQL outer join:
select companies.name, campaigns.name, campaigns.monthly_budget from companies left outer join campaigns on companies.id = campaigns.company_id where company_id = 5;
The keywords INNER and OUTER in the SQL syntax above are noise words that the SQL standard allows. These noise words are not mandatory. After all, a LEFT JOIN is always an OUTER join, there's no choice here. So we can rewrite the query that way:
select companies.name, campaigns.name, campaigns.monthly_budget from companies left join campaigns on companies.id = campaigns.company_id where company_id = 5;
Planning for Joins with the PostgreSQL database
We said that PostgreSQL is smart enough to realize that there's more than one way to specify the same result set with SQL queries written in different ways.
So it follows that one of the tasks that the PostgreSQL planner must implement consists of finding the most efficient way to execute the JOIN specified in the query.
After all JOIN(A, B, C) gives the same results as JOIN(JOIN(A, B), C) and the same result as JOIN(A, JOIN(B, C)). So how does PostgreSQL decide which order to prefer?
It turns out this problem was solved by a pioneer in relational databases
Patricia Selinger co-published Access path selection in a relational database management system in the Proceedings of the 1979 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data, pp 23-34, where she exposes the algorithm she invented to plan for JOIN operations in SQL. Here's the summary of the paper:
In a high level query and data manipulation language such as SQL, requests are stated non-procedurally, without reference to access paths. This paper describes how System R chooses access paths for both simple (single relation) and complex queries (such as joins), given a user specification of desired data as a boolean expression of predicates. System R is an experimental database management system developed to carry out research on the relational model of data. System R was designed and built by members of the IBM San Jose Research Laboratory.
The Selinger Algorithm is still in use as of today in PostgreSQL source code, and Daniel Gustafsson did an awesome job at presenting the Selinger algorithm in his presentation titled Through The Joining Glass that he delivered at PGConf.EU 2017, last year. If you want to learn more about how PostgreSQL implements JOINs, read Daniel's slides!
Planning for Distributed Joins with PostgreSQL and Citus
When using Citus to scale out PostgreSQL horizontally (often to reap the performance benefits of a scale-out database architecture)—the same query as above might be fetching data from distributed tables. Because Citus is a PostgreSQL extension, Citus benefits from all the smarts that PostgreSQL provides when planning the query. A nice thing about this step in the planner is the Equivalence Class processing, which allows Citus to leverage the fact that PostgreSQL knows how to read the join condition and where clauses and inject the filters everywhere needed.
When PostgreSQL is done planning the query, Citus knows that there is a join
in between the companies and campaigns table, and also that both
campaigns.company_id = 5 and
company_id = 5.
If you're developing a multi-tenant application (like a SaaS app) this means you can use Citus to scale out your data and your queries across multiple nodes. You can shard by company id and Citus will know to route the query down to a single shard (on a single node.) This Citus multi-tenant app tutorial does a good job guiding you through the process of using the Citus database to scale out a multi-tenant application.


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Trade-Off Between Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Logistics Costs Based on Multiobjective Optimization
planning - route design, ridership - mode choice, mode - bus
Route selection, Route choice, Port of Rotterdam, Port of Gdansk, Multiobjective optimization, Mode choice, Modal choice, Logistics, Intermodal transportation, Intermodal systems, Hub and spoke systems, Freight transportation, Decision support systems, Costs, Choice of transportation, Carbon dioxide, Business logistics
This paper examines the relationship between the freight transport costs and the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in given intermodal and truck-only freight networks. When the trade-off, which is represented as the relationship, is changed, the freight mode share and route choice are also modified. To show the ever changing trade-off and mode and route choice, a decision-support tool was developed. The given intermodal freight networks represent different freight combinations (i.e., a truck-only system, a rail-based intermodal system, and a short sea-based intermodal system). Because CO2 constraints in logistics markets will need to be realized in the near future, a modal shift in freight transportation could be expected to reduce the CO2 emissions within the reasonable cost and time constraints. The technique of multiobjective optimization is used as the core of the decision-support tool for clarifying the relationship. The tool that was developed is applied to a simplified freight transport network connecting two large European ports: the Port of Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and the Port of Gdansk (Poland). The initial solution, based on the minimization of freight costs, shows that the mode share of freight is local and regional freight transportation situations, whereas the other solutions balanced with CO2 emissions show that the mode share is changed into an intermodal freight system, which is based on a hub-and-spoke network. In considering the changing demands and capacities of freight systems, five scenarios are tested to examine the impact of mode and route change on the trade-off. The results of scenario analyses show that the trade-off is significantly influenced by the demands and capacities of systems.
Kim, Nam Seok, Janic, Milan, van Wee, Bert, (2009). Trade-Off Between Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Logistics Costs Based on Multiobjective Optimization. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2139, pp 107-116.