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We are delighted to unveil some of our FEM EMEA Summit agenda highlights taking place on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 November at the O2 InterContinental, London.
The Summit brings the global mobility community together for two intensive days of expert insight, engaging roundtables and panel discussions, interactive workshops and case studies along with plenty of invaluable opportunities for networking.
JUST SOME OF THE GREAT SESSIONS TO LOOK OUT FOR:
Business travel – why it can be a risky business
We will explore:
- The key strategic, reputational, financial and operational risks
- The general principles and the increased focus of the tax authorities on Business Travellers & Short Term Assignments in The Netherlands, UK and Belgium.
- Dispel the myth of the "183-day rule" and touch on the potential corporate tax implications
- Tracking, data collection and compliance
- Safety and security of employees
Countdown to the GDPR – What the EU's General Data Protection Regulation means for global mobility
On 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force, introducing stringent new data protection obligations for European (and some non-European) businesses
We will explore:
- The scope of the GDPR and what it will mean for global mobility and the wider business
- The key data protection obligations in the GDPR, including the concepts of privacy by design, accountability and obligation to appoint a data protection officer
- New rules governing international transfers of personal data, in relation to data collected from or used by an expat employee
Brexit and Beyond – Turning challenges into opportunities
- What does the triggering of Article 50 mean for global mobility?
- Is your organisation ready to deal with change?
- What do the Trump Administration's new policies on immigration and tax mean for UK and European companies?
- How does the removal of Australia's 457 visa affect business?
- How can you turn these challenges into opportunities?
The Future Workplace
This panel explores how the workplace is evolving and its impact on global mobility, including technology development, compensation and benefits, demographic changes and diversity. Topics to be discussed include:
- What is the Future Workplace? How are companies and individual roles evolving as Millennials step into more senior positions? What are the implications for C&B and mobility as younger people begin to move throughout EMEA on assignment?
- How is connectivity changing today's workplace? How is global mobility affected as employees have increasing ability to work from anywhere?
- How is technology changing the workplace, and more specifically mobility as a function? What are the opportunities for self-service and process automation?
- How should technology tie into compliance?
- A look at the diversity agenda – how has this changed in EMEA in the past few years and what are the areas for future development?
More agenda highlights revealed soon!
We look forward to seeing you there! Forum for Expatriate Management
*Registration is free for in-house HR Professionals


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-DuplicateItems.ps1 -Identity migtester1 -Type Calendar -Impersonation -DeleteMode MoveToDeletedItems -Mode Full -Verbose
Alternative, you can use an e-mail address and specify credentials. This allows the script to run against mailboxes in Office 365, for example:
Remove-DuplicateItems.ps1 -Identity _EMAIL_ -Type Mail -DeleteMode MoveToDeletedItems -Mode Full -Credentials (Get-Credential) -Retain Oldest
A more complex example using IncludeFolders, ExcludeFolders and PriorityFolders:
$Credentials= Get-Credential.\Remove-DuplicateItems.ps1 -Mailbox _EMAIL_ -Server outlook.office365.com -Credentials $Credentials -IncludeFolders '_TAG_#\*','\Projects\*' -ExcludeFolders 'Keep Out' -PriorityFolders '*Important*' -CleanupMode Mailbox
This will remove duplicate items from the specified mailbox in Office365, using the following options:
- Fixed Server FQDN – bypassing AutoDiscover.
- Limits operation against the Well-Known Inbox folder, top Projects folder, and all of their subfolders.
- Excluding any folder named Keep Out.
- Duplicates are checked over the whole mailbox.
- Priority is given to folders containing the word Important, causing items in
those folders to be kept over items in other folders when duplicates are found.
In case you want to process multiple mailboxes, you can use a CSV file which needs to contain the Identity field. An example of how the CSV could look:
Identity francis philip
The cmdlet could then be something like:
Import-CSV users.csv1 | Remove-DuplicateItems.ps1..
The script is available on GitHub here.
Feedback is welcomed through the comments. If you got scripting suggestions or questions, do not hesitate using the contact form.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Shenzhen City Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mobile: _PHONE_
Fax: 075529966073
Home > news > Content
Anti-counterfeit QR code label production process
Edit：Shenzhen City Industrial Co., Ltd.UpDate：2019-03-29
The two-dimensional code security label form mainly includes:
Clear code, scratch-off type and uncovering type, the code is that the surface of the QR code is not covered, it can be directly scanned, generally used for inner packaging, the customer can only scan when the outer package is opened; the scratch-off QR code security label The two-dimensional code (scraping the silver QR code label) is covered with a scratched silver, and can not be directly scanned. The consumer can scratch the scan before the inquiry; the open type two-dimensional code security label is opened by Cover the QR code, you can't scan it before uncovering, and uncover the surface scan QR code to check the authenticity before querying.
The main applications of anti-counterfeiting QR codes in the field of anti-counterfeiting are:
1. Query product authenticity information by fixing QR code: Produce specific QR code by the required text and corresponding URL. After scanning, consumers can quickly understand the information and enter the relevant website link. Enter the security code on the label to query. Product authenticity information. In addition to the Internet traffic, this process does not generate other costs; the space occupied by the QR code can be small, and the corresponding label can also be smaller. This is also the most widely used method of QR codes in anti-counterfeiting labels.
2. Scan the anti-counterfeit QR code to obtain the authenticity information of the product: this kind of two-dimensional code is different from the first scenario, each tag has a uniquely changed two-dimensional code, and the two-dimensional code contains a specific code and a corresponding security code. As long as the QR code is scanned, the authenticity information of the product can be directly obtained, which is convenient and quick; the disadvantage is that the label produced by such a two-dimensional code has a large enough space and the production cost is relatively high.
3. Realize product logistics tracking through anti-counterfeiting QR code to realize anti-smuggling management: raw material suppliers carry out batch management when supplying raw materials to food manufacturers, and manufacture raw materials of raw materials, date of manufacture, date of origin, origin, producers, Information such as the presence or absence of the genetic combination of the genetic combination is entered into the two-dimensional code and the label with the two-dimensional code is printed, pasted on the package, and delivered to the food manufacturer.


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Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Ray Birdwhistell (1918 – October 19, 1994) was an American anthropologist who founded kinesics as a field of inquiry and research. The term kinesics was originally coined by Birdwhistell, and he also proposed the term kineme.
Dr. Birdwhistell was born in 1918 and died October 19, 1994. He was raised and went to school in Ohio. He graduated from Fostoria High School in 1936, and was very involved by being part of the history club, debate team, journalism, and school plays. Birdwhistell attended the Miami University of Ohio, BA,(sociology) Ohio State University, MA (Anthropology) and University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in Anthropology. Afterwards he taught at the University of Toronto (Ontario), University of Louisville (Kentucky), and the University at Buffalo (New York) and Temple University [Philadelphia, (ref. daughter, Jill). From 1944 to 1948 he worked with G. Gordon Brown and Edmund S. Carpenter, who were in the same department as him at the University of Toronto. For some years he was affiliated with the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute and Temple University in Philadelphia, where he worked with Gregory Bateson,PhD, Adam Kendon, Albert Scheflen, MD, and others to develop an interactive approach to the study of mental illness. From 1969 until he retired in 1988, Birdwhistell taught at The Annenberg School for Communication, at the University of Pennsylvania.
He was influenced by his mentor's views, Margaret Mead (1901–1978) an anthropologist, and the work of David Efron in the early 1940s. Birdwhistell became interested in kinesics by analyzing the way people interacted in films. He observed how people unconsciously transmitted information through facial expressions, postures, and eye movements.
Birdwhistell pointed out that "human gestures differ from those of other animals in that they are polysemic, that they can be interpreted to have many different meanings depending on the communicative context in which they are produced". And, he "resisted the idea that "body language" could be deciphered in some absolute fashion". He also indicated that "every body movement must be interpreted broadly and in conjunction with every other element in communication"
The film, TDR- 009, was a result from his productive collaboration with film maker Jacques D. van Vlack. TDR-009 is an eighty minute, 16 mm, black and white sound film of an English pub scene in a middle class London hotel. Birdwhistell and van Vlack observed behavior of listeners in relationship to speakers during the film. Birdwhistell wrote Introduction to Kinesics, Kinesics and Context, and encyclopedia entries and essays. His first book Introduction to Kinesics was published in 1952, but he is more known for his second book Kinesics and Context.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Danesi, M (2006). Kinesics. Encyclopedia of language & linguistics. 207-213.
- ↑ Ottenheimer, H.J. (2007). The anthropology of language: an introduction to linguistic anthropology. Kansas : Thomson Wadsworth. p129.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Kirby, E (2006). Ray Lee. Birdwhistell. Retrieved October 16, 2007, from Biography Web: Minnesota State University Web site: _URL_
- ↑ Banning, T (2001). Department of Anthropology: University of Toronto. Retrieved October 15, 2007, from A Brief History of Anthropology Web site:_URL_
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lee, L (2006). University of Pennsylvania: Folklore & folklife. Retrieved October 16, 2007, from Graduate Handbook Web site: _URL_
- ↑ _URL_
- ↑ Barfield, T (1997). The dictionary of anthropology. Illinois: Blackwell Publishing.
|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).|

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Prato allo Stelvio/Prad am Stilfserjoch is situated at the entrance of the Stelvio National Park, the largest protected natural environment in Italy. Against the backdrop of the lush, green valley with its wheat fields and wide expanse of orchards and vegetable gardens, lie the majestic glaciers of the Ortler mountain range with the highest peaks in the region.
A number of castles and forts, Romanesque towns, churches, monasteries lie perched on the slopes and halfway up there are farmsteads and irrigation canals, bringing water to the fields down in the valley. The paths running alongside these canals have been converted to popular trails for leisurely walks.
This mountain valley situated on the border with Switzerland and Austria is a rich combination of history and lush nature with a landscape shaped by the harmonious coexistence between man and nature across the centuries. Near the alluvial Prader Sand, there are still traditional markets where typical products of the region may be found.


Monday 11th May 2020
Good Morning Leaders.
If we were at school this week it would be SATS week and our class would be split with the Year 6 children sitting 2 papers today. Instead, we are all 'together', even though that may be virtually at present, and we are going to be basing our tasks this week on dreams. "For those who dare to dream, there is a whole world to win."Dhirubhai Ambani
This week we are going to be looking at poetry around the theme of dreams. First, I'd like you to listen to the song – please feel free to sing along – come on Leaders, you know you want to!!
 1. What is a dream? Explore as many possible meanings as you can.
 2. Why is it important to have dreams and goals in your life?
 3. What are your dreams for your future?
In the first part of this investigation you will be adding fractions together to make a whole, before moving on to making more than a whole, followed be more than one whole.
There are 3 steps to this investigation – challenge yourself as much as you can.
Dream Catcher
To link with our work on dreams, have a go at making a dream catcher. You can make these in all sorts of different ways. First, you need to find or make a hoop. This could be a readymade hoop shape or you could make your own from; a bendy twig, an old metal coat hanger or anything you can mould into a circle shape.
See what you can find out about dreamcatchers. Where did they originate?


Ria Formosa - Portal de Turismo do Algarve
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Ria Formosa
Ria Formosa
Natural paradise between land and sea
The Ria Formosa Nature Park is a unique lagoon system that is continually changing because of the movements of winds, currents, and tides.
A gift of nature, of approximately 18,000 hectares, it is an area of transition between land and sea skirting 60 km of the Eastern Algarve coastline, between the Ancão peninsula and the Manta Rota beach in the East.
This internationally recognised wetland is an invaluable habitat for wildlife: flamingos, buzzards, woodcocks and kingfishers. However, the symbol of the park is the purple swamphen, a rare species which, in Portugal, only breeds in these lakes. Another inhabitant of this wetland is the chameleon, which is at risk of extinction elsewhere in Europe.
This is a micro-environmental world, which can only be discovered by following walking trails or going for slow boat trips to observe the wetland, fresh water pools and ancient Roman salting tanks. Uncover and learn the secrets of the forests, and see the restored tide mill up close.
Quinta de Marim, headquarters of the Nature Park, is located close to Olhão. Apart from an Environmental Education Centre, it has a hostel where you can stay overnight, a Bird Recovery Centre and a kennel dedicated to breeding water dogs, an endangered Algarvian species.
Updated on: 05-10-2015
Visitor: 26022714
 - Turismo de Portugal


Take the 2-minute tour ×
Let $A$ be a $2\times2$ matrix with real entries such that $A^2=0$.Find the determinant of $I+A$ where $I$ denotes the identity matrix. I proceed in this way :Note that $(I+A)A=A+A^2 \Longrightarrow (I+A)A=A$ (Since $A^2=0$).
Now taking determinant both side we get $|(I+A)A| = |A| \Longrightarrow |(I+A)|\cdot|A|=|A|\Longrightarrow |I+A|=1$.
Am I proceed in correct way? In the last line am I need to consider $|A|=0$?
share|improve this question
Since $A^2=0$ $A$ is not invertible, therefore $|A|=0$, so your proof is not correct. – sebigu Aug 2 '12 at 13:25
Better consider the characteristic polynomial of $A$. You can compute the one from $A+I$ from it and read out the determinant. – sebigu Aug 2 '12 at 13:27
As an alternative to _USER_'s hint: you can show that a nilpotent matrix is similar to a strictly triangular matrix. Now, what is the determinant of the sum of the identity and a strictly triangular matrix? – Guess who it is. Aug 2 '12 at 13:33
5 Answers 5
up vote 5 down vote accepted
The matrix $A$ is nilpotent with characteristic polynomial $x^2.$ But by definition $x^2 = \det(A - xI).$ If we let $x = -1,$ then we have $\det(A + I) = 1.$
share|improve this answer
This is the simplest way. Than you for help – Argha Aug 2 '12 at 14:16
$A$ is similar to (and hence has the same determinant as) a matrix of the form $\begin{pmatrix} 0 & * \\ 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}$. That is, there is an invertible matrix $P$ such that
$$A':=P^{-1}AP = \begin{pmatrix} 0 & * \\ 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}$$
and $\det A = \det A'$. But $I':=P^{-1}IP=I$, and so $P^{-1}(I+A)P=I+A'$, and so $\det (I+A) = \det (I+A')$.
So what is $\det (I+A)$?
share|improve this answer
Let $x = \det (I+A)$
Hence $\det(I+nA)=x^n$
But $\det(I+nA)=P(n)$ with P a polynomial (of maximum degree the size of matrix A).
So the only solutions are $x=1$ or $x=0$. But If $x=0$, there is a $v\neq 0$ such that $v+Av=0$, hence, $Av=-v$, and $A^2v=v$, that is not possible.
So $\det(I+A)=1$
Note that this proof is true for any size of matrix.
share|improve this answer
Very nice answer, +1 – Clive Newstead Aug 2 '12 at 14:01
I like this one:
The characteristic polynomial of $A$ is $x^2$. By substitution we get $$(x-1)^2=x^2-2x+1$$ as characteristic polynomial of $A+I$. Now we see trace and determinant.
share|improve this answer
The trace of $A$ is $0$, using $$A^2-\operatorname{tr}(A)\cdot A+(\det A)\cdot I=0$$ and the fact that the determinant of $A$ is $0$. Applying this to $A+I$, we get $$\tag{1} A+2I-\operatorname{tr}(A+I)\cdot(A+I)+\det(A+I)\cdot I=0,$$ hence $$2A+I-2(A+I)+\det(A+I)\cdot I=0,$$ and $$\det(A+I)\cdot I=I,$$ hence $\det (A+I)$.
The formula $(1)$ can we deduce either by Cayley Hamilton theorem (sledgehammer), or by hand.
share|improve this answer
Your Answer


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3D Shape Reconstruction from Multiple Range Image Views
Ganapathi Annadurai, K. (2006). 3D Shape Reconstruction from Multiple Range Image Views (Thesis, Master of Science (MSc)). The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved from _URL_
Permanent Research Commons link: _URL_
Shape reconstruction of different three dimensional objects using multiple range images has evolved recently within the recent past. In this research shape reconstruction of a three dimensional object using multiple range image views is investigated.Range images were captured using the Waikato Range Imager. This range images camera is novel in that it uses heterodyne imaging and is capable of acquiring range images with precision less than a millimeter simultaneously over a full field. Multiple views of small objects were taken and the FastRBF was explored as a mean of registration and surface rendering. For comparison to the real range data, simulated range data under noise free condition were also generated and reconstructed with the FastRBF tool box.The registration and reconstruction of simple object was performed using different views with the FastRBF toolbox. Analysis of the registration process showed that the translation error produced due to distortion during registration of different views hinders the process of reconstructing a complete surface. While analyzing the shape reconstruction using the FastRBF tool it is also determined that a small change in accuracy values can affect the interpolation drastically. Results of reconstruction of a real 3D object from multiple views are shown.
The University of Waikato
All items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
- Masters Degree Theses


Certified Spoken and Written English Short Courses
Offering a wide range of career options, many institutions in Melbourne have short courses designed to meet specific job requirements in different areas. The courses are meant for both fresh and experienced students. Duration, course material, content, teaching methods are prepared by qualified trainers with practical experience in the field.
Students after completing the course obtain theoretic and practical knowledge to perform efficiently in their job assignments. Good training and practical skills gathered give them enough confidence to apply lessons learnt at their workplace and contribute to achieving a progressive career.
Flexible timing options provided for Melbourne short courses allow people to attend the course along with their regular job schedule and assignments. The overall duration also helps people to gain knowledge in a relatively short amount of time.
One other main advantage of the courses is the accreditation provided post successful completion of the training. The accreditation allows people to fulfil the necessary legal guidelines in case of specific jobs.
Communication is an essential part of any job requirement and it requires people to have minimal knowledge of the native language. Nonnative speakers may lack proficiency in the English language and hence require specialised training. Multiple choices of courses are available to improve knowledge of the English language. Each course is designed based on the extent of knowledge required for students to meet their needs in daily life, job and further studies.
Certificate iii in spoken and written English is one course intended to provide training required for gaining fluency in speak and writing of the English language. The course gets students to get more involved in the language and improves their familiarity to converse daily and all other scenarios.
The course is aptly designed for those who wish to improve overall command over the English language. Ability to listen, speak, pronounce, read and write the English language are core areas on which the course is focused. You can join renowned English tuition centre in Marine Parade, Singapore.
On completion of the course, the English language skills of students are expected to be at an intermediate level of knowledge.
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Object pool pattern
||This article has an unclear citation style. (March 2012)|
The object pool pattern is a software creational design pattern that uses a set of initialized objects kept ready to use, rather than allocating and destroying them on demand. A client of the pool will request an object from the pool and perform operations on the returned object. When the client has finished, it returns the object, which is a specific type of factory object, to the pool rather than destroying it.
Object pooling can offer a significant performance boost in situations where the cost of initializing a class instance is high, the rate of instantiation of a class is high, and the number of instances in use at any one time is low. The pooled object is obtained in predictable time when creation of the new objects (especially over network) may take variable time.
However these benefits are mostly true for objects that are expensive with respect to time, such as database connections, socket connections, threads and large graphic objects like fonts or bitmaps. In certain situations, simple object pooling (that hold no external resources, but only occupy memory) may not be efficient and could decrease performance.
Handling of empty pools
Object pools employ one of three strategies to handle a request when there are no spare objects in the pool.
- Fail to provide an object (and return an error to the client).
- Allocate a new object, thus increasing the size of the pool. Pools that do this usually allow you to set the high water mark (the maximum number of objects ever used).
- In a multithreaded environment, a pool may block the client until another thread returns an object to the pool.
When writing an object pool, the programmer has to be careful to make sure the state of the objects returned to the pool is reset back to a sensible state for the next use of the object. If this is not observed, the object will often be in some state that was unexpected by the client program and may cause the client program to fail. The pool is responsible for resetting the objects, not the clients. Object pools full of objects with dangerously stale state are sometimes called object cesspools and regarded as an anti-pattern.
The presence of stale state is not always an issue; it becomes dangerous when the presence of stale state causes the object to behave differently. For example, an object that represents authentication details may break if the "successfully authenticated" flag is not reset before it is passed out, since it will indicate that a user is correctly authenticated (possibly as someone else) when they haven't yet attempted to authenticate. However, it will work just fine if you fail to reset some value only used for debugging, such as the identity of the last authentication server used.
Inadequate resetting of objects may also cause an information leak. If an object contains confidential data (e.g. a user's credit card numbers) that isn't cleared before the object is passed to a new client, a malicious or buggy client may disclose the data to an unauthorized party.
If the pool is used by multiple threads, it may need the means to prevent parallel threads from grabbing and trying to reuse the same object in parallel. This is not necessary if the pooled objects are immutable or otherwise thread-safe.
Some publications do not recommend using object pooling with certain languages, such as Java, especially for objects that only use memory and hold no external resources. Opponents usually say that object allocation is relatively fast in modern languages with garbage collectors; while the operator
new needs only ten instructions, the classic
delete pair found in pooling designs requires hundreds of them as it does more complex work. Also, most garbage collectors scan "live" object references, and not the memory that these objects use for their content. This means that any number of "dead" objects without references can be discarded with little cost. In contrast, keeping a large number of "live" but unused objects increases the duration of garbage collection. In some cases, programs that use garbage collection instead of directly managing memory may run faster.
In the.NET Base Class Library there are a few objects that implement this pattern.
System.Threading.ThreadPool is configured to have a predefined number of threads to allocate. When the threads are returned, they are available for another computation. Thus, one can use threads without paying the cost of creation and disposal of threads.
Java supports thread pooling via
java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService and other related classes. The executor service has a certain number of "basic" threads that are never discarded. If all threads are busy, the service allocates the allowed number of extra threads that are later discarded if not used for the certain expiration time. If no more threads are allowed, the tasks can be placed in the queue. Finally, if this queue may get too long, it can be configured to suspend the requesting thread.
See also
- Goetz, Brian (2005-09-27). "Java theory and practice: Urban performance legends, revisited". IBM developerWorks. Archived from the original on 2005-09-27. Retrieved 2012-08-28.
- Goetz, Brian (2005-09-27). "Java theory and practice: Garbage collection in the HotSpot JVM". IBM developerWorks. Archived from the original on 2003-11-25. Retrieved 2012-08-28.
- Kircher, Michael; Prashant Jain; (2002-07-04). "Pooling Pattern". EuroPLoP 2002. Germany. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
- OODesign article
- Improving Performance with Object Pooling (Microsoft Developer Network )
- Developer.com article
- Portland Pattern Repository entry
- Apache Commons Pool: A mini-framework to correctly implement object pooling in Java
- Game Programming Patterns: Object Pool


the company
TurnTide is developing the world's most reliable,
efficient, and intelligent motor system that has
the potential to reduce electricity consumption
and carbon emissions by more than 25%.
the mission
To lower global energy consumption by
creating motors that optimize the efficient
transfer of electricity.
the product
Unlike a standard induction motor, TurnTide's
switched reluctance motor has no rotor bars
and therefore, no torque-producing current flow
in the rotor. Instead, driven by its advanced
software, the system converts electrical energy
into mechanical energy. This yields a product
50% more efficient than high-efficiency
fixed speed motors.
i dig it - here's why...
Over 47% of the world's energy is consumed by analog motors, and more than half of that is wasted by inefficient systems. By maximizing the output of motors, TurnTide reduces the necessary energy expenditure to run our world. Switched reluctance motors are not only more sustainable than their conventional alternatives, they are also less expensive to own and operate.
how it works
New Solutions
Potential Markets
Switched reluctance motors are simple in design but require a complex operating system. With modern computing power, TurnTide is making this previously exclusive technology accessible to individual consumers.
TurnTide is targeting heavy consumers of energy like HVAC and agriculture as its initial market. As production continues to scale, the motors might be seen in appliances, electric vehicles, and even aerospace technology.
Carbon Impact
Intelligent Technology
Replacing all of the world's motors with TurnTide technology would be the carbon equivalent of creating seven new Amazon rainforests.
TurnTide's advanced operating system allows users unparalleled control over their motors. It is the only motor that reports what it is actually doing under the hood and is even able to connect to the Internet of Things.


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To mend difficult fractures // and correct deformities // bones are being wrenched apart // to help them heal.
Filling the Gap
In the realm of scientific discovery, distraction osteogenesis qualifies more as happenstance than intentional innovation. Who knows whether anyone would ever have tried to pull a fractured bone apart to get it to heal if a patient hadn't accidentally reversed the tightening rod that was supposed to push together the ends of his fractured femur. And if the doctor who noticed the result—new bone filling in the gap between the separated segments—hadn't been Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov, surgeons might not have practiced this revolutionary tissue-engineering technique until decades later, if ever. "I might have told the patient, 'Don't do that again,' but the genius of Ilizarov was that he wondered, 'How can I get this to happen again?'" says J. Tracy Watson, chief of orthopedic traumatology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.
Most of the world didn't hear of Ilizarov's technique, which he named distraction osteogenesis in 1951, for more than 30 years. A general practitioner, and a Jew, Ilizarov had been ordered off to the industrial city of Kurgan in Siberia to tend to the wounds of soldiers returning from the Second World War.
With so many patients suffering from bone infections and missing bone from bullet wounds, Ilizarov became an orthopedist by necessity. And with resources severely constrained, his distraction apparatuses were primitive. The external frame that encircled the outside of fractured bones was made from head gaskets cut from old tanks; the pins that he drilled through the fractured bone and affixed to the external frame were fashioned from bicycle spokes. By tightening the spokes, Ilizarov would slowly force the bone segments apart.
Experimenting on dogs, Ilizarov found that new bone would spontaneously form if broken bone was distracted at the rate of one millimeter per day—coincidentally, the same rate at which stretched nerves will regenerate. Distracting just 0.25 millimeters at a time, four times a day, worked even better and caused less pain. But the Cold War and a repressive medical bureaucracy kept Ilizarov's discovery buried until 1967, when he cured the badly broken and infected tibia and fibula of Valery Brumel, a Soviet high jumper and Olympic gold medalist. Then, more than a dozen years later, Ilizarov used distraction to mend the infected tibia of the Italian mountaineer Carlo Mauri. That finally attracted the attention of European surgeons, and during a trauma fellowship in Switzerland, in 1986, Watson saw distraction osteogenesis being performed.
"I sneaked over to Germany and saw surgeons sticking piano wires into skin to pull apart bone," he recalls. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing. At first look, you had to say it was insane."
For years, that was the consensus among Western doctors—that distraction osteogenesis was the antithesis of rational medical practice. In 1987, when Watson, then at the Cleveland Clinic, used the technique to save the leg of a patient whose badly fractured tibia had refused to heal, a senior doctor termed the procedure "the tool of the devil." But Watson and other orthopedists, including James Aronson, director of the Laboratory for Limb Regeneration Research and chief of pediatric orthopedics at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, pursued the technique. Ilizarov (accompanied by KGB agents) eventually traveled to the United States, and two dozen American doctors, including Watson and Aronson, visited his institute in the USSR, where they operated on Soviet patients. Slowly the approach gained acceptance, and today distraction osteogenesis is used to treat some of the most challenging orthopedic conditions: fractures that won't mend, limb deformities and bone defects from trauma, infection or cancer.
Theoretically, any bone can be distracted, and in Russia, surgeons actually distract the skull after a stroke with something "that looks like a medieval torture device," Watson says. "Distraction causes microcapillaries to form and creates a new blood supply to the area. So by freeing up small sections of bone over the area of the brain that has sustained the stroke, you increase the blood flow. But of course, we'd be probably thrown out of the hospital if we tried that treatment here."
For defects elsewhere in the head, however, maxillofacial and plastic surgeons have enthusiastically embraced distraction. "It has revolutionized and simplified craniofacial surgery," says Joseph McCarthy, professor of plastic surgery and director of the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at New York University Langone Medical Center. McCarthy performed the first craniofacial distraction procedure in 1989 and now does at least 50 a year to correct such defects as cleft palate, malformed jaws that interfere with breathing and Crouzon syndrome, in which premature fusion of skull bones prevents the skull and facial bones from developing normally. "For children with Crouzon syndrome, for example, we can use distraction to move the upper jaw, the cheekbones, the nose and the eye sockets in one block," McCarthy says.


text:
Raucous Music May Tap Into Your Inner Animal
WEDNESDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Harsh, jarring music -- a mainstay of rock-and-roll, movie soundtracks and many garage bands -- appears to stimulate your mind by simulating the sounds of animals in distress, a new study claims.
The research doesn't directly prove that the distortion in a song such as Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" makes you subconsciously think about the screams of other mammals. However, study author Daniel Blumstein said "it gives us the biological basis behind why certain forms of music create emotions. What's so nice about this is that they're inspired by biological forces, by 3.5 billion years of life."
Blumstein, chair of the ecology and evolutionary biology department at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues are studying how the distress sounds of mammals and birds command attention. It appears that they "overblow" their vocal systems, Blumstein said, creating distortion similar to what you hear if you turn your stereo volume up too high.
The researchers sought to better understand how people react to distortions in music. With the help of Greg Bryant, an assistant professor of communication studies at UCLA, musician and recording engineer, they created 10-second snippets of music. Some were bland -- "Muzak-y," Blumstein said -- and others transformed after five seconds into harsh, rough music.
The idea was to create discordant sounds evocative of those made by animals in distress. "We're not increasing the tempo, we're not increasing the amplitude, we're not changing keys," Blumstein said. "We're adding noise, something that would be naturally produced. We're creating biologically inspired music."
Forty-two UCLA undergrads who heard the snippets that included the rougher music found them more stimulating than the other music.
However, a second group of students was less aroused if they watched innocuous videos while they listened to the musical selections. "Music alone seems to be able to manipulate arousal... but in our experiments, the addition of video suppressed these arousing responses," Blumstein said. In other words, context influences the listener's feelings.
Daniel Levitin, a professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, said the findings fit in with theories that distorted sounds grab attention because they mimic sounds of distress.
Also, these sounds can be loud, and "our brain interprets loud sounds that are very near us as potentially dangerous, triggering the well-known'startle' response we have if, say, a balloon pops nearby," he said. "This is an ancient reflex that we share with all mammals, occurring deep in the brain stem," added Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music.
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London, said the study is valid and serves as "a very preliminary exploration of the potential evolutionary basis of musical preferences. The main message is that distorted music may tap into evolved biological processes or systems in our brain which have the capacity to perceive danger even before we are conscious of it."
But it doesn't have applications in everyday life, he said.
Just what is the appeal of jarring music? "My experience and studies suggest that liking distorted music is a function of being more creative and open to novelty," he said.
One of the next steps in research, study author Blumstein said, is to figure out how emotionally charged video -- like that in a horror movie -- affects people's response to the sounds of distortion.
The study was published online June 12 in the journal Biology Letters.
Music therapy can help people in distress. For more, see the American Music Therapy Association.
SOURCES: Daniel T. Blumstein, Ph.D., professor and chair, department of ecology and evolutionary biology, University of California, Los Angeles; Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Ph.D., professor, business psychology, University College London, England; Daniel J. Levitin, Ph.D., professor, psychology and behavioral neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal; June 12, 2012, Biology Letters, online


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Writing in the Huffington Post, Lennard Davis takes Hollywood and Broadway to task for regularly casting actors without disabilities to portray characters with disabilities, as when Abigail Breslin (left) was selected to play Helen Keller in the upcoming revival of "The Miracle Worker." An excerpt:
The media helps to shape and define how society at large thinks about disability. The more that television, films, theater, and other forms of performance reflect a world filled with diverse peoples and bodies live, the more egalitarian and fair our society will be.
The one way to achieve this goal is have not just characters with disabilities appear regularly in the media but to know that people with disabilities play them.
Lennard Davis is professor of English, disability studies, and medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.


text:
Crested Caracara: Caracara cheriway
About the size of an osprey, this boldly patterned raptor has a
crest, naked face, heavy bill and longish neck and legs.
Crested Caracara is a resident of the prairies and range lands
of south-central Florida.
At one time, caracaras were common in the prairies of central
Florida, but their numbers declined as favored habitat was
converted to housing developments, citrus groves and improved
pastures. Today, both the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service list the caracara
as Threatened. This species is most abundant in a six-county area
north and west of Lake Okeechobee (DeSoto, Glades, Hendry,
Highlands, Okeechobee and Osceola counties). Their stronghold is
privately held ranch land, and biologists are working with
landowners to better understand the needs of caracaras and the many
wild animals dependent on these upland prairies.
Consider a visit to Forever Florida and the Crescent J Ranch, a
private wilderness preserve and working cattle ranch near St.
Cloud. Call _PHONE_ for more information.
A member of the falcon family, the caracara is a strong flier
but spends a lot of time on the ground, scratching or digging for
insects, or hunting around shallow ponds or marshes for turtles,
snakes, frogs or fish. Caracaras occasionally eat larger animals
such as rabbits and cattle egrets and a pair will sometimes work
together to subdue these larger prey. Caracaras may also be spotted
on fence posts or utility poles along highways where they scan
roadways for roadkilled raccoons, opossums or armadillos.


takes unsigned integral type. For both types, integral would mean bool to __int64 as base integer type.
 - RealType indicates float or double type.
Properties of Distribution classes
There are more number of distribution classes (around 20) than there are engine classes (around 8). Therefore, unfortunately for readers, there are more properties applicable for distribution classes. The properties that are same as engine classes are clubbed together in the first row of the following table:
Property Meaning
Argument Type
Result Type
min and max,
 - All distribution classes have these properties/methods.
 - The seed method is not applicable for distributions.
 - The operator() takes engine, which would generate the pseudo-random value.
 - The type that engine's operator() should return.
 - The compile would convert types, else it would give warning/error.
 - This type is either predefined by the distribution class, or specified by the template argument.
 - Takes an engine object as argument.
 - Calls operator() on that engine
 - Distributes (filters) the returned value as per distribution, and returns value to caller.
 - Another overload takes param_type as the argument.
 - Resets any cached values, so that the next call to operator() does not depend on the previously obtained values.
 - Internal type, which is beyond the discussion.
 - Precondition as specified by the distribution that must be met, while constructing the object.
 - The debug build simply calls the assert function, if pre-condition is not met.
 - An example would be 0.0 to 0.5 as precondition, for the distribution argument (recollect 0.7?).
Okay, let me try to explicate things, by giving more of examples and their outputs. I will not explore all classes in the header, but a few important/interesting ones. At the end of this section, there is (would be) a table of all classes and their salient features. Believe me, gathering relevant information, producing good examples, and writing it down is far difficult than the difficultly level of reading and understanding it!
Let's use the class that implements the oldest and best-known random number generator, Linear Congruential Generator. This algorithm is used by many runtimes, and is used by the rand function. [Need not understand the following]. The LCG algorithm generates the next number, as defined by the following formula:
X[i+1] = (A * X[i] + C) % M; // x(i+1) = (a * x(i) + C) mod m
Where A, C, and M are integral constants. The constants A and C must be less than M. The engine class (Simple Engine) for this is linear_congruential_engine. This is the class template, whose first argument takes UIntType and the rest of the arguments take unsigned integer constants that reflect A, C, and M. The prototype of the class template is:
template
 linear_congruential_engine ;
And this is how we can instantiate and use it (don't ask the meaningfulness of constants!):
linear_congruential_engine lce;
int nRandom;
nRandom = lce(); // Returns 28
nRandom = lce(); // Returns 352
As pointed out in Properties of Engine classes above, this is one of the engine classes which takes the data-type and that data type becomes the result_type. Therefore, result_type for this instance (lce), is int. This is one of the Simple Engines.
We have used the default engine, named default_random_engine, which is actually type-defined with mt19937:
typedef mt19937 default_random_engine;
What's that? Well, mt19937 is type-defined with the template instance of mersenne_twister. Another type-definition for 64-bit Mersenne Twister is expressed as mt19937_64, which is the template instance of the class mersenne_twister_engine with a 64-bit data type (result type).
typedef mersenne_twister
typedef mersenne_twister_engine<_ULonglong, 64, 312, 156, 31,
 0xb5026f5aa96619e9ULL, 29,
 0x5555555555555555ULL, 17,
 0x71d67fffeda60000ULL, 37,
 0xfff7eee000000000ULL, 43,
Don't get it? Don't bother! I just mentioned it for completeness, since default_random_engine is used in this article, and you'd probably use it for quick code. Also, in MSDN documentation and examples, mt19937 is used frequently. mersenne_twister(_engine) is, again, a simple engine.
Note: All VC10 engine classes end with _engine. If not, they are not new to VC10.
Now, let me explain a few Compound Engines, the engines that take another engine to act upon.
If you remember a common method for all engines named discard, you would recollect that it effectively discards a given number of next random values. It does so by calling operator() for the same class. What if you need to attach something with an engine that discards N random numbers, and gives the next random numbers? For this, you can use the Compound Engine named discard_block_engine. This template class takes another engine, and some constant numbers - using that, it shells out random values. Here is an example:
default_random_engine def_rand;
discard_block_engine dbe; // SEE DESCRIPTION BELOW
 wcout << def_rand() % 100 << "\t";
 wcout << dbe() % 100 << "\t";
The object dbe, of type discard_block_engine, is instantiated, taking default_random_engine as its parent engine. The random values would be generated by the parent engine only, and discard_block_engine will just discard and return a set of randoms depending on the template parameters. The second template argument (integer) specifies the total block size (specified as P), and the third template argument specifies the used block size (R).
The engine produces R (2, as per code above) random values, and after that count, it ignores (discards) P - R (3) values. For example, if the original numbers generated as 1 to 20, it will produce:
1, 2, 6, 7, 11, 12, 16, 17...
For this program, which is based on default_random_engine (Mersenne Twister), the result would be as follows:
12 2 34 85 4 91 29 85 98 3
35 65 40 26 39 20 19 4 97 6
12 2 91 29 35 65 20 19 9 9
26 36 12 9 95 53 44 6 76 45
The modulo with 100 is done just to produce small numbers, so that it can be analyzed easily.
Well... The random discussion is getting long and long, and I am postponing further discussion of different classes. If time allows, I would definitely do more research and update the gained information here.
Here is a tabular summary of all classes in the header.
Class Name Simple or Compound
Class Name Implements
Bernoulli Distribution
Binomial Distribution
Cauchy Distribution
Chi-Square Distribution
Unsure about!
Exponential Distribution
Extreme Value Distribution
Fisher F Distribution
Gamma Distribution
Unsure about!
Log-normal Distribution
Negative Binomial Distribution
Normal Distribution
Unsure about!
Unsure about!
Poisson Distribution
Student's T Distribution
Unsure about!
Unsure about!
Weibull Distribution
Improvement in sets
First thing first, about sets. In STL, a set is a data structure that implements an associative data container. It holds only unique values, discarding any duplicate insertions. It stores them in ordered form, meaning that when you iterate over the set, the values would be ascending sorted (with the default comparison function). The following example inserts some random values, and then displays them:
// Codename: SET1.CPP
set us;
mt19937 rnd; // mersenne!
uniform_int_distribution<> uid(1,100); //
 us.insert( uid(rnd) );// Random generation, distribution
// wcout << "Elements: " << us.size() << "==>\n";
for_each(us.begin(), us.end(),[](int n)
Since code above generates only pseudo-random values, it will always have the following 60 values:
1 4 5 6 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 18 19 22 23 28 30 31 32 37


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Research and information on collecting and recycling food waste.
Diversion of food waste from disposal is becoming a priority for local authorities in the UK. As at May 2011 47% of local authorities in the UK are providing a food waste collection service to householders and an increasing number are looking to collect food waste from small businesses and schools.
WRAP has information on collecting household food waste and a lot of that information draws on the experience gained from WRAP supported food waste collection trials over the period January 2007 to March 2009.
There are key studies commissioned by WRAP on the nature and scale of food waste together with ways of dealing with food waste. Studies on managing food and garden waste go into the cost benefit analysis for dealing with food and garden waste and on the performance of mixed food and garden waste collections.
A summary report and a full report on the findings of a research project to better understand the nature and types of food waste in schools; the reasons why food is wasted in schools and the impact of interventions developed to help schools to reduce this waste.


text:
Oct 16, 2012
A new study published in the Environmental Contamination and Toxicology bulletin reconfirm earlier findings that the weapons and ammunition that were used by the US and Nato in Iraq have led to a widespread health crisis, with a sharp rise in birth defects and unexplainable illnesses.
A team led by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health conducted the study and found that there was a five-fold increase in birth defects since the occupation began.
Dr Savabieasfahani said that for the first time, there is a "footprint of metal in the population" and that there is "compelling evidence linking the staggering increases in Iraqi birth defects to neuro-toxic metal contamination following the repeated bombardments of Iraqi cities". She called the "epidemic" a "public health crisis".
"The latest study found that in Fallujah, more than half of all babies surveyed were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010. Before the siege, this figure was more like one in 10. Prior to the turn of the millennium, fewer than 2 per cent of babies were born with a defect.
More than 45 per cent of all pregnancies surveyed ended in miscarriage in the two years after 2004, up from only 10 per cent before the bombing. Between 2007 and 2010, one in six of all pregnancies ended in miscarriage.
The new research, which looked at the health histories of 56 families in Fallujah, also examined births in Basra, in southern Iraq, attacked by British forces in 2003.
Researchers found more than 20 babies out of 1,000 were born with defects in Al Basrah Maternity Hospital in 2003, a number that is 17 times higher than recorded a decade previously.
In the past seven years, the number of malformed babies born increased by more than 60 per cent; 37 out of every 1,000 are now born with defects."
So far the governments of both of US and the UK have failed to accept any kind of responsibility, which should come as no surprise considering the fact that they have been dodging blame for genocide and war crimes since before any of us were even born.
There has still been no acknowledgement of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan, the Napalm used in Vietnam or the centuries of brutal conquest and genocide that has led up to this point.
A US Defense Department spokesperson said:
"We are not aware of any official reports indicating an increase in birth defects in Al Basrah or Fallujah that may be related to exposure to the metals contained in munitions used by the US or coalition partners.
We always take very seriously public health concerns about any population now living in a combat theatre. Unexploded ordnance, including improvised explosive devises, are a recognised hazard."
While a UK government spokesperson said there was no "reliable scientific or medical evidence to confirm a link between conventional ammunition and birth defects in Basra", adding:
"All ammunition used by UK armed forces falls within international humanitarian law and is consistent with the Geneva Convention."
It will be interesting to see how this study compares with the World Health Organizations report which is due out next month
It is likely that their report will be watered down and only offer a very superficial view of the damage that has been done.
However, despite the organizations obvious bias, their assessment is still projected to show that western intervention has had a detrimental impact on the health of the entire country.
If you have any questions or disagreements feel free to email me at _EMAIL_
J.G. Vibes is the author of an 87 chapter counter culture textbook called Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance and host of a show called Voluntary Hippie Radio. He is also an artist with an established record label and event promotion company that hosts politically charged electronic dance music events. You can keep up with his work, which includes free podcasts, free e-books & free audiobooks at his website _URL_.
This article was posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 1:52 am


text:
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
The Bright Lights in New York Could Be Solar
The big city glow of New York could be coming from more than the bright lights on Broadway. The Big Apple also is increasingly aglow with solar power, particularly from rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar.
Earlier this year, the city unveiled the New York City Solar Map, a collaborative tool which gives an estimate of solar photovoltaic potential for the one million buildings in the five city boroughs. The interactive map, hosted by The City University of New York (CUNY), is based on information from flights over the city by an airplane equipped with an aerial laser system. The device, known as Lidar for "light image detection and ranging," gathered information on the shape, angle, size, and shade of rooftops along with the surface elevations of ground, buildings, and trees. Analysis of the data showed that the city has a solar potential of 5,800 megawatts peak output—more that 40% of the city's electrical demand at peak times if all the rooftops were fully outfitted with solar. About two-thirds of the city's structures are suitable to house solar panels.
CUNY's work on the NYC Solar Map was funded through the Energy Department in 2007 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. For the complete story, see the Energy Blog.


content: map-get($team-rocket-map, brock);
_USER_ {
content: 'Sorry, but team-rocket-map doesn\'t have this key!';
css output.rocket:after {
content: 'Sorry, but team-rocket-map doesn't have the required key!';
It might seem like an overkill, and it probably is. Use this only in complex mixins. Check out the _USER_, _USER_ and _USER_ directives too. And for those who are starstruck with if-else conditional in Sass... Oh yes, you can use it all you want now :)
Sass Map Functions
These are the map functions, as sourced from the SassScript documentation:
map-get($map, $key) : Returns the value in a map associated with a given key.
map-merge($map1, $map2) : Merges two maps together into a new map.
map-remove($map, $keys…) : Returns a new map with keys removed.
map-keys($map) : Returns a list of all keys in a map.
map-values($map) : Returns a list of all values in a map.
map-has-key($map, $key) : Returns whether a map has a value associated with a given key.
keywords($args) : Returns the keywords passed to a function that takes variable arguments.
Keyboard programming
Map Use Cases
How to Loop Through a Map and Generate Classes
We'll create a map plotting Pokemon trainers to their favorite Pokemon.
$trainers: (
ash: pikachu,
misty: magikarp,
brock: onyx
Next, we'll make an each loop that will go through every key and value in a map, and output the keys in a class name, and values into its content!
_USER_ $name, $pokemon in $trainers {
.trainer--#{$name} {
content: $pokemon;
css output.trainer--ash {
content: "pikachu";
.trainer--misty {
content: "magikarp";
.trainer--brock {
content: "onyx";
Multiple Values for Amazeball Buttons Module
Moving on. It's possible to give a key more than one value. This is done by using clippings and entering multiple values with a comma separator. This is a great way to transfer styles for variants of a module, in this example - button.
In our little snippet, the first value will be the background color of the button, the second will be the text color, and finally padding. We will then loop through the keys, and we'll reference the values as a $styles object. We can easily fetch values using nth() function. Let's do this.
$styles: (
error: (red, white, 3rem),
success: (green, white, 2rem),
warning: (yellow, black, 1rem)
.button {
display: inline-block;
background-color: lightgray;
color: darkgray;
padding: 0.5rem;
_USER_ $type, $style in $styles {
$background-color: nth($style, 1);
$font-color: nth($style, 2);
$padding: nth($style, 3);
&--#{$type} {
background-color: $background-color;
color: $font-color;
padding: $padding;
css output.button {
display: inline-block;
background-color: lightgray;
color: darkgray;
padding: 0.5rem;
.button--error {
background-color: red;
color: white;
padding: 3rem;
.button--success {
background-color: green;
color: white;
.button--warning {
background-color: yellow;
color: black;
padding: 1rem'
Handling Layers (z-index)
The infamous z-index. Lots of frontend developers are struggling with it in a sense that they don't have any particular design pattern around it. Usually, z-index is set to 1 if we want a particular layer to be "on top of" something else, 2 if we want another layer to really be "on top of" something else, then 9, then 99, then 9999, then 99999999... and so on. It's easy to get lost. This is where Sass maps can help us.
Let's start with a $layer map. We can name the keys with something meaningful, such as "modal", "tooltip", "offcanvas", and so on.
$layer: (
default: 1,
offcanvas: 100,
dropdown: 150,
modal: 200,
tooltip: 500
Next, we can create a layer function that returns the appropriate z-index, let's say for a dropdown.
_USER_ layer($level) {
_USER_ map-get($layer, $level);
.dropdown {
z-index: layer(dropdown);
Surely, you can skip the function and directly use the map-get() function inside the class, but this way you can use the error handling which we omitted for this example. This is the output:
css output.dropbox {
z-index: 500;
Font Base Styles
A good project has it's own configuration file. One example would be base typography, where you would define base font color, family, size and line height as variables. Perhaps a better way would be to use a map for the said attributes.
$font: (
color: $base-color,
family: (Alegreya, Roboto),
size: 18px,
line-height: 1.6
body {
color: map-get($font, color);
font-family: map-get($font, family);
font-size: map-get($font, size);
line-height: map-get($font, line-height);
Ta daah!
Breakpoints <3
Personal favorite. It's superb to have a place for the breakpoints that are used throughout the project. In this way, similar to the z-index hack, you can have an overview of the breakpoints. Also, you can change the behavior throughout your project by changing only the breakpoints map. You can also easily add new breakpoints, or remove extra ones.
So let's start with a map called $breakpoints.
Our goal is to use breakpoints with implicit names instead of hard pixel values in an element. Because of this, we need a mixin that will output the value of the stated name. I called the mixin "breakpoint" and passed $breakpoints as a parameter. With $type I get the pixel value of the expected breakpoint. First things first, let's create the map.
$breakpoints: (
small: 0,
medium: 640px,
large: 1024px,
xlarge: 1200px,
xxlarge: 1440px
Next, we'll do a mixin called breakpoint, and include the mixin in a.navigation--mobile class like so:
_USER_ breakpoint($breakpoint) {
$breakpoint: map-get($breakpoints, $breakpoint);
_USER_ screen and (min-width: $breakpoint) {
.navigation--mobile {
display: block;
_USER_ breakpoint(medium) {
display: none;
css output.navigation--mobile {
display: block;
_USER_ screen and (min-width: 640px) {
.navigation--mobile {
display: none;
Now I Know Everything, Why Would I Need "Part Two"?
Now that we've covered the basics, there's much more to explore using Sass, but most importantly - you always need to practice. In part two we will use this knowledge, and expand it to a mini project where we'll create simple, colorful, pixelized CSS pocket monsters. Here's a small teaser - all of the drawings will be done with box shadows. Stick around!
Part two is online, you can read it up here!


Diseñador:Ron Giland
Ron Gilad's new collection of furnishings, Grado°, underlines the designer's interest in basic geometric shapes. Tables large and small, wardrobes, bookcases, mirrors and shelves play conceptually and materially with revolutionary lements, thereby becoming objects that fascinate and capture our imagination. Surfaces are rotated and rounded off; the wooden and glass tables and the bookcases, in particular, create a shift that moves from an angle of 90° to one of 45° without corners; a cube is extracted from its volume, leaving a void emphasized by a mark of red paint. Red shelvespenetrate the wall with a passionate gesture that throws our perception of walls and shelves into doubt. The use of primary colors such as red, yellow and blue reiterates the basic shapes that characterize the collection. Grado° concludes with the small Panna Cotta table, at once delicate and heavy, a paradox in the use of materials such as marble and iron to achieve a fragile stability; 60°/ console and 35°/ tavolino "open box" table, of which we can only see the contours.
Elements of pure light that appear to suggest hidden treasures.
Compaso d'oro ADI


RISC World
First Steps in Programming RISC OS Computers
A RISCWorld reprint of the updated second edition
Chapter 6 :
We've just had a good bit of practice at using numbers and text strings, and printing words on the screen.
'Doesn't it all look boring!', you're probably thinking, 'It's just text scrolling up inside a command window in the middle of the screen. What about some pretty pictures?'
We've left pictures, or graphics until now because you need to use numbers to produce them, but this is a good time to have a go.
To use graphics, you need to understand coordinates. These are numbers which refer to the position of a point on the screen. Each point has two coordinates; an x coordinate which specifies how far in from the left-hand edge the point is and a y coordinate which tells you how far up it is from the bottom of the screen. It's standard practice to specify the x coordinate first. A point with both coordinates zero, which is frequently written (0,0), would be at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. This point is known as the graphics origin. It is possible to move the graphics origin to another point on the screen, in which case coordinates to the left of it or below it would be negative numbers, but that's another story.
OS Units, Pixels and Screen Modes
Coordinates are expressed in Operating System units or OS units, also known as graphics units. How many of these there are, horizontally across the screen and vertically up it, depends on which screen mode your computer is using for its display. You can find details of available modes in your computer's User Guide.
On a modern RISC OS computer (one with RISC OS 3.50 or later) you can set up which screen you want, in terms of size, number of colours etc., using the Display Manager icon near the right-hand end of the icon bar. When it comes to changing mode within a program, though, we'll restrict ourselves to using mode numbers, as used by earlier machines.
The size of the screen in a particular mode is usually expressed in pixels. A pixel is one of the dots - or picture elements - which make up the display and so is the smallest shape which, in practice, can be displayed.
Some modes, particularly the higher resolution ones, have square pixels. Mode 27, for example, is 640 pixels wide by 480 high. Each pixel measures 2 OS units wide by 2 OS units high so the mode 27 screen is 1280 × 960 units. Other modes, particularly the lower resolution ones such as mode 12, have rectangular pixels which are also 2 OS units wide but 4 OS units high. Mode 12 measures 1280 × 1024 OS units but has 640 pixels horizontally and only 256 pixels vertically.
Note, by the way, that the height of the screen is roughly ¾ of the width. If the number of pixels vertically in a mode is roughly ¾ of the horizontal number, the mode has square pixels but if it's only half this amount, the mode has rectangular pixels.
Different Modes for Different Monitors
If we include a command in one of our programs to change mode, we may encounter a problem if we want the program to run on any computer. Some older RISC OS computers may have a TV-standard monitor (indeed, the Acorn A3010 could actually use a TV set as a monitor). These monitors can only cope with modes 0 to 15. Later computers, such as the Risc Pc, however, are designed to work with higher resolution monitors and usually display these modes with the height reduced (usually known as 'letter-box format').
Some of the text-based programs in this guide will run perfectly adequately with their output in a command window. These programs don't include a command to change mode; you can always put one in, if you would like the program to use the whole screen.
The programs which do change mode are written so that they use a VGA mode, such as mode 27 or 28. These modes, as we have seen, are 1280 OS units wide and 960 units high. If you have a'standard resolution' monitor, you will have to change the appropriate line in the file so that it changes to a mode such as 12 or 15.
Now to try drawing some graphics! If you're following this guide on the screen, you'll have to read the next bit of it, or possibly write it down on paper, then try what it says. When you're ready to start, press F12 to get the star prompt and enter Basic that way. When you've finished, quit Basic and return to the desktop. The guide should be waiting, ready for you to try the next bit.
Enter Basic and type:
 MODE 27
or MODE 12 if you have a standard resolution monitor, then type:
 LINE 400,300,900,800
You will see a diagonal white line across the middle of the screen. The command that you gave the machine told it to draw a line from coordinates (400,300) to (900,800), that is from a point 400 units from the left and 300 units from the bottom to a point 900 units from the left and 800 units from the bottom.
This diagram shows the line, together with the left and bottom edges of the screen, and their coordinates.
Now re-enter Basic (if you've left it) and type LINE 400,300,900,800 again, then try typing:
 DRAW 900,500
The result will be a vertical line from the top of the diagonal one to a point below it.
How did we manage to draw a line by typing in only one pair of coordinates and why did it come from the top end of the diagonal line, rather than the other end?
The answer lies in the fact that we're using the graphics cursor. This is not a cursor you can see, like the flashing line which shows you where text is going to appear on the screen. When you do any drawing on the screen, the machine remembers the coordinates of the last point 'visited'. This is the position of the graphics cursor. You can move the cursor to a new position with the MOVE command and draw a line from it to another point with the DRAW command.
The command you typed using the LINE command was the same as typing:
 MOVE 400,300
 DRAW 900,800
Moving the Graphics Cursor
As well as drawing the line, these commands result in the graphics cursor ending up at (900,800). This is why our second line was drawn from the top right-hand end of the first line. We could just as easily have drawn the line with the command:
 LINE 900,800,400,300
This draws exactly the same line, but backwards. It looks the same but the graphics cursor ends up at the left-hand end. The result is that, when you add a second line with the DRAW command, it now comes from the left-hand end.
If you want to experiment with drawing more lines, you will want to clear the screen, so that it doesn't get too cluttered. You don't have to change screen mode to do this - just type:
which is the Basic command to CLear Screen.
Let's have a bit of fun drawing lines with the mouse. Take a look at the program file called MouseLines and try running it.
When you click the left-hand mouse button, the program draws a line to the pointer. Clicking the right-hand button produces a MOVE command to the pointer position and the middle button clears the screen.
Line 50 shows how we can use a star command within a Basic program. The star tells Basic to hand the rest of the line over to the operating system. In this way, we can use any operating system command within a Basic program.
The command *Pointer turns on the mouse pointer and sets it to the usual blue arrow.
Line 70 gives us information about the state of the mouse and puts it into the three variables following the MOUSE keyword. The x and y coordinates are put into x% and y% respectively and button% indicates the state of the three mouse buttons:
 - If the right-hand button is pressed, button%=1
 - If the middle button is pressed, button%=2
 - If the left-hand button is pressed, button%=4
If two buttons are pressed, the appropriate numbers are added together, but our simple program doesn't respond to this situation.
It is a simple matter for lines 90 - 110 to either MOVE or DRAW, using the coordinates in xpos% and ypos%, or clear the screen.
Drawing Shapes
You could draw a rectangle by using a MOVE command to position the graphics origin at one corner, followed by four DRAW commands to draw the sides, ending up back at the corner where you started, but it's a lot quicker to use the RECTANGLE command.
An example is:
 RECTANGLE 300,200,800,500
The four numbers are the x and y coordinates of the bottom left-hand corner, the width and the height. If you want to draw a square, you can miss out the last figure.
If you use RECTANGLE FILL, you can fill it in as well. For example:
 RECTANGLE FILL 600,500,100
will draw a solid square with sides 100 units long, with its bottom left-hand corner at (600,500).
You can also draw a circle or an ellipse using the CIRCLE and ELLIPSE commands. You can find out how to use them in Appendix 1.
It's also possible, though more complicated,


text:
It's confusing isn't it? Problem Solving Officers, Community Policing Officers, PSO Sergeants, Neighborhood Services Coordinators, PSA Lieutenants. Who are all these people and what role do they play in community policing? And, by the way, what the heck is community policing anyway? I'll try to shed some light on the subject.
Most police officers work in a division called patrol. These are the men and women who come to your aid when you dial 911. They perform an incredibly valuable service, particularly if a crime is still in progress.
For chronic problems, however, calling 911 isn't always effective. Once the patrol officers wrap up their reports and leave, the troublemakers return and the criminal activity continues.
Community policing is a program specifically designed to solve stubborn, chronic, public safety problems.
The city is divided into 57 community policing beats, each containing about 5,000 to 7,000 residents. Each beat has (or will have) a dedicated Problem Solving Officer (PSO). The PSOs used to be called Community Policing Officers, but the Police Department changed the name a couple of years ago. The PSOs do not respond to 911 emergency calls. Their mandate is to work with the community on long-term problem solving.
To understand how community policing works, let's take a brief detour into the theory. Community policing is based on three principals:
- Community partnership
- Problem solving
- Geographic focus
At its core, community policing is a partnership between the neighborhood and the police. The PSOs become an integral part of the community they serve. And the neighbors play an active role in solving problems. Each side brings important information to the table. The neighbors usually have in-depth knowledge of the troublemakers and criminal activity. The PSO has access to legal and enforcement resources. Working together as partners, they have a much better chance of achieving meaningful results.
While 911 policing responds to emergencies, community policing solves problems. PSOs have the time to sit down with the community and gain a real understanding of the local situation. And they have the flexibility to stick with a particular problem until it is actually resolved.
As a practical matter, community policing efforts are focused on small, well defined geographical areas (a.k.a. beats). It's pretty hard for an officer to become an expert in local concerns if his or her area stretches halfway across the city. And it's pretty hard for the neighbors to sustain a nine month project to get rid of a drug house if they are working with a different officer every week. For community policing to be successful, it requires a fairly narrow geographic focus.
To fill out the rest of the community policing organization chart on the police side, the PSOs report to PSO Sergeants, who in turn report to PSA Lieutenants. (PSA stands for Police Service Area. I know. The acronyms will drive you crazy.) Neighborhood Service Coordinators (NSCs) are community organizers. They help each neighborhood organize and develop its working partnership with the police.
In particular, the neighborhoods of Adams Point (beat 14X: map, info, Yahoo group), Grand Lake (beats 14Y [map, info] and 16X [map, info]: Yahoo group), and Haddon/China Hills (15X: map, info, Yahoo group) belong to PSA 3. Hoang Banh is the NSC for these neighborhoods (as well as a Grand Lake Guardian contributor).
For information on the boundaries of, and the NSC for, other beats, try this clickable map.
Would you like to make your neighborhood stronger and safer by participating in community policing? For all the details, contact Neighborhood Services Coordinator, Hoang Banh, at _PHONE_ or _EMAIL_.
Now that we've covered some of the basics, next time I'll take a look at what is actually happening in community policing this fall. Please chime in with news about how community policing is working in your neighborhood.


Set Gutenberg Block Display Based Upon An iMember360 Conditional
Select a conditional to control Gutenberg block display
Steps to select a conditional to control Gutenberg block display
 1. Within the Gutenberg editor select the block to show the block settings in the settings sidebar. Navigate to the iMember360 tab and expand it if necessary.
 2. From the Control mode drop down ensure Conditional is selected.
 3. From the Display if the conditional evaluates drop down select whether the conditional needs to evaluate as True or False to display the block.
 4. From the Conditional drop down select the required conditional to be evaluated.
 Active conditionals are shown in the drop down with the suffix of (publish).
 5. Once the settings have been completed ensure Publish or Update is clicked to save the configuration.


Bell Labs celebrates net speed record over copper lines
Telephone cable Bell Labs hit speeds using copper cables previously only available to fibre optic links
Related Stories
A team of researchers has announced it has transmitted data over traditional copper telephone lines at a record speed of 10 gigabits per second (Gbps).
Bell Labs said it used two pairs of 30m (98.4ft)-long standard phone cables to achieve the speed in its laboratory.
It suggested the tech could eventually be adapted to offer 1 Gbps in real-world uses.
That could reduce the amount of expensive fibre optic cable needed to boost internet speeds in cities.
"It will enable operators to provide internet connection speeds that are indistinguishable from fibre-to-the-home services, a major business benefit in locations where it is not physically, economically or aesthetically viable to lay new fibre cables all the way into residences," said Bell Labs' owner, Alcatel-Lucent.
"Instead, fibre can be brought to the curbside, wall or basement of a building and the existing copper network used for the final few metres."
However, one analyst noted that the tech would not solve the problem of slow net speeds for many other users.
"The problem that rural properties have is that they are usually very far away from the nearest telephone exchange - you can usually measure it in miles," said Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy.
Telephone cable Bell Labs achieved the high data speeds over normal pairs of copper telephone cable
"The speed jumps that Bell Labs have managed to achieve drop away at much shorter distances.
"In order to get any of these speeds you would need to be close enough to your exchange - or fibre optic cable connected to it - that you could pretty much throw a stone at it from your door."
Mr Green added that even in many parts of major cities, BT often only provides "fibre to the cabinet", rather than "fibre to the home" - and many properties would be too far away from a phone cabinet to benefit.
Even so, he acknowledged the tech could significantly cut the cost of offering ultrafast broadband to those who would qualify.
Faster, shorter
Bell Labs said a team of engineers at its Antwerp, Belgium offices developed a technology called XG-Fast to achieve the speed record, building on the existing specification.
To do this it developed kit that uses a wider frequency range of up to 500 MHz to transmit data, rather than the 106 MHz range used by
The trade-off, however, is that XG-Fast only works over shorter distances than its predecessor.
So, while offers 700 megabits per second over 100m, XG-Fast can offer either a one-way data transfer of 10 Gbps over 30m or the prospect of a simultaneous 1 Gbps upload and 1 Gbps download over 70m.
While Alcatel-Lucent can claim this is a new record for copper cables, it is still a fraction of 1.4 terabits per second speed it achieved last November in a test carried out with BT over a fibre optic cable link running between London's BT Tower and a research campus in Suffolk.
Quick conversions
Data graphic
Data speeds are usually described in terms of bits:
1,000 bits = 1 Kilobit
1,000Kb = 1 Megabit
1,000Mb = 1 Gigabit
1,000Gb = 1 Terabit
Data storage is usually described in terms of bytes:
8 bits = 1 byte
1,024 bytes = 1 Kilobyte
1,024KB = 1 Megabyte
1,024MB = 1 Gigabyte
1,024GB = 1 Terabyte
So, a 10 Gbps connection would allow you to transfer 75GB of data over the course of a minute, or the equivalent of about 110 full CDs worth of music.
More on This Story
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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites
More Technology stories


text:
This course is designed to teach cursive handwriting skills with a minimum of teacher supervision. However, it is necessary for teachers to watch the students' progress carefully. This book includes "teacher check" reports periodically at the bottom of the page.
The poem sheets are designed for students to color and remove, using them as mottoes, or putting them in a folder for a keepsake.
There are two practice sheet pages at the back of the book that may be removed and copied for students who need extra practice.
The fold-out sheet with slant lines at the back of the book may be tucked under the pages on the right hand side of the book as a guide to proper slant.
This book is intended to provide necessary writing skills with reminders of good manners and proper behavior and rules of good health and safety.
For added interest, this book features inspirational quotes from Scriptures and sayings, occasional poem practice sheets, and caricatured animal "Pentime Pals" that offer encouragement and advice on handwriting, health, and manners.
- Pentime Pals
- Pentime Cursive and Pentime Manuscript
- directions for handwriting posture
- Letter Group Charts
- Lowercase Strokes and Uppercase Strokes
- Cc Oo
- Aa Dd
- Bb Ii
- Ee Qq
- Uu Vv
- Yy Zz
- Mm Nn
- Hh Kk
- Jj Ll
- Pp Rr
- Gg Ss
- Tt Ff
- Ww Xx
- Writer's Checklist Self-check your handwriting
- How's Your Writing? checklist
- Cursive and Manuscript practice sheet
- blank practice sheet
- slant guide fold-out


CNN Student News - December 12, 2013
CNN Student News - 12/12/13
CNN Student News - 12/12/13
 CNN Student News - 12/12/13
CNN Student News - 12/12/13 09:59
Story highlights
December 12, 2013
On Thursday, CNN Student News gives viewers a ground-level view of the tension on the streets of Ukraine's capital, and we explain why many Ukrainians are not protesting. After following up on some recent stories, we reveal the 2013 TIME Person of the Year, and we discuss why some people preferred the runner-up. Plus, we meet a young entrepreneur and a homeless man who teamed up to develop an environmental app.
Media Literacy Question of the Day:
Why might other news organizations cover TIME's Person of the Year? Should they? Explain.
1. Pope Francis
2. mobile app
3. vaccine
Fast Facts: How well were you listening to today's program?
1. According to the report, why is Ukraine politically divided? What is the capital of Ukraine? What happened during recent protests there?
2. What did three New York courts decide regarding an effort to get chimpanzees some of the same rights as humans? What action does the Nonhuman Rights Project say it will take next?
3. Describe the rapport between software engineer Patrick McConlogue and software developer Leo Grand. What is the purpose of the app he developed?
Discussion Questions:
1. What are your thoughts on TIME's Person of the Year for 2013? What benefits and risks might come with choosing a "person of the year"? What would be your criteria for your person of the year? Whom would you select?
2. What is your opinion of what Merrill Newman said about a statement he gave in North Korea?
3. What characteristics of homeless coder Leo Grand stand out to you? Why do you think he chose to develop an app aimed at helping the environment? If you could develop a mobile app, what would it do?
Download PDF maps related to today's show:
Thank you for using CNN Student News!
Click here to submit your Roll Call request.


Home & Living
16 Common Dog Myths
16 Common Dog Myths
By Dr. Debra Primovic
Not sure what to believe when it comes to the health of your dog? Well, look no further! Petplace.com helps to put a muzzle on the myth.
1. Dogs should have a litter before they are spayed.
2. Dogs are sick when their noses are warm.
The temperature of a dogs nose does not indicate health or illness or if they have a fever. There is an "old wives tale" that cold wet noses indicate health. And Warm or dry noses indicate a fever or illness. The only accurate method to access a dog's temperature is to take it with a thermometer. Normal dog temperature is 100.5 to 102.5 degrees F.
3. Mutts are always healthier than purebred dogs.
4. All dogs like to be petted on their heads.
5. Happy dogs wag their tails.
This may be true but aggressive dogs often wag their tails too. There are several physical body motions and cues that help dogs to communicate their intent. A wagging tail can mean agitation or excitement. A dog that wags his tail slowly and moves his all rear end or crouches down in the classic "play bow" position is usually a friendly wag. Tails that are wagged when held higher, twitches or wagging while held over the back may be associated with aggression.
6. Only male dogs will "hump" or lift their leg to urinate.
7. Table scraps are good for dogs.
Some table scraps such as bones and pieces of fat can be dangerous to some pets. They may not digest the bones and the fat may cause gastrointestinal problems such as pancreatitis.
8. Garlic prevents fleas.
Garlic has not been proven to be helpful for flea control. Large amounts of garlic can even be harmful.
9. Household "pet dogs" don't need to be trained.
This is not true. Every dog should be trained.
10. Dogs eat grass when they are sick.
Dog descended from wild wolves and foxes that ate all parts of their "kill." This included the stomach contents of many animals that ate berries and grass. Many scientists believe grass was once part of their normal diet and eating small amounts is normal.
11. Dogs like tasty food.
12. Licking is Healing.
It is natural for a dog to lick its wound but this not necessarily always "healing." Too much licking can actually prohibit healing.
13. Dogs will let you know when they are sick.
This is not true. Dogs generally are very good at hiding that they are sick by survival instinct, thus not to appear vulnerable to "prey." Often by the time they show you that they are sick, their disease or condition is quite advanced.
14. Dogs that are mostly indoors don't need heartworm prevention.
This is not true. Indoor pets are also at risk for heartworm disease. Heartworm disease is spread by mosquitoes which can come inside.
15. Dogs eat rocks, lick concrete or eat their or another animals stools because of nutrient imbalances.
No one knows why dogs eat "stuff" that they shouldn't eat. Some veterinarians believe that some dogs that eat "things" may be trying to get attention or acting out of boredom. It is important for dogs to eat a well balanced diet that will fulfill their dietary and nutrient requirements.
16. Dogs don't need to housebroken--they naturally know where to go.
Oh, if only this were true. You need to train your dog on where to go. This preferably happens when you start young and give him positive encouragement for jobs well done.
High Times
10 Ways to Doggie Nirvana
10 ways you can change the world by making your dog happy.
Pet Peeves
15 Things that Bug Dogs
Not much can bug a dog, but even the "coolest" dogs have a bad day.
Home Alone
Home Alone?
Things you might notice that make you wonder just what went on during the day.
Woof! Woof!
What Is Your Dog Saying?
Adopt a Homeless Pet


text:
Last Updated: Tuesday - 01/04/2011
February 19, 2001
School district to launch native education project
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER
EDMONTON — Aboriginal students have a hard time adapting to city schools, a situation that often translates into low academic achievement, a high dropout rate and low self-esteem.
Statistics show aboriginal students are struggling in the school system. Their high school graduation rate is about 52 per cent in Alberta compared to 72 per cent for non-aboriginal students.
What makes it even harder for aboriginal students is that the curriculum doesn't reflect their cultural heritage.
That's all about to change as Edmonton Catholic Schools plans to address the problem with the help of a $1.6 million grant from Alberta Learning.
The purpose of the ambitious project is to help aboriginal students achieve higher success, said Bob Steele, division principal in aboriginal education.
"What we are trying to do is work on ways that all our schools can be more effective in working with aboriginal students."
The two-year pilot project and research study, beginning in September, will find ways to increase academic achievement among aboriginal students and lower their almost 50 per cent high school dropout rate, explained native education consultant Louise Breland.
"The idea is to make schools more responsive to the needs of aboriginal students."
A study conducted last year shows aboriginal parents and students want a better kindergarten to Grade 12 school program but they don't necessarily want a segregated school, noted Steele.
"About 90 per cent of aboriginal parents and students want to be able to go to their neighbourhood school with their friends and do well."
Six Edmonton Catholic schools, including elementary, junior high and high schools, will be picked for the project from about 15 that have expressed interest in participating. The final cut will be made in mid-March.
Grant money will be used to train teachers and staff in cultural awareness so they become more sensitive to aboriginal students' needs and make them feel more welcome in the schools.
Liaison workers will be hired to work closely with families and increase their involvement in the school life. "Parents want to feel that they can come to school and feel welcomed and wanted there too," Steele said.
Libraries will carry books by aboriginal authors and all classes will include aboriginal culture so students can see themselves reflected in the curriculum.
"For me, this is very much an issue of social justice and it's about time we had the financial support to tackle it," Breland said.
Steele said the project's research study component will be shared with schools across Alberta.
"I guess what the research will do is tell us what works and what doesn't when it comes to having this group of students come to school and do well and feel good about it."
There are about 1,500 aboriginal students in the Edmonton Catholic school system.
Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter
Our mission: To serve our readers by bringing the Gospel to bear on current issues in the Church and in secular culture through accurate news coverage and reflective commentary.


Peak Debt
DEFINITION of 'Peak Debt'
The point at which a household or economy's interest payments become so high compared to income that a halt in spending must occur. This is followed by a period of debt reduction.
The term "peak debt" is said to have been coined by Jaswant Jain, Ph.D., in 2006. Jain concluded that the debt taken on by an economy such as the U.S. economy is important to increase consumption. Debt will eventually rise to a certain exhaustion point. At this point consumption must be cut to pay the interest and debt services.
This action requires a reduction in future spending as well, which has a depressionary effect and leads to a reduction in borrowing.
 1. Debt-To-GDP Ratio
 The ratio of a country's national debt to its gross domestic...
 2. Doubtful Loan
 A loan where full repayment is questionable and uncertain. Degree...
 3. Debt Load
 The amount of debt or leverage that a company is carrying on...
 4. Standard Of Living Bubble
 The concept of consumers living beyond their means for an extended...
 5. Debt Deflation
 6. Debt Fatigue
 When a debtor stops making payments on his or her debts and starts...
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text:
PyX — Example: drawing/arrow.py
Adding an arrow when stroking a path
from pyx import * c = canvas.canvas() c.stroke(path.curve(0, 0, 0, 4, 2, 4, 3, 3), [style.linewidth.THICK, style.linestyle.dashed, color.rgb.blue, deco.earrow([deco.stroked([color.rgb.red, style.linejoin.round]), deco.filled([color.rgb.green])], size=1)]) c.writeEPSfile("arrow") c.writePDFfile("arrow")
The example shows how to use an arrow decorator instance to add an arrow to a path when it is stroked. Instead of using a default arrow instance, we create a highly customized arrow head.
Apart from setting arrow specific features like the arrow size, a list of styles and decorators can be passed to the arrow. In this example, the arrow is stroked in red with round corners. In addition, the arrow is filled in green.
Note that style properties are inherited from the outer towards the inner decorators. In this example, the linewidth is also used when stroking the arrow head. We could for example also skip the color.rgb.green value in the
deco.filled decorator and the arrow would be filled in blue.
To continue removing the deco.filled features, it is equivalent to write
deco.filled. This is due to the fact that
deco.filled already is an instance, which can be modified by call. An empty list does not really modify it. But you could even skip
deco.filled completely and the arrow would still be filled with blue color. The reason is that the arrow is implemented in a way that it always merges the
filled decorator. This step in the evaluation of the attributes is transparent to other settings: if we would replace the
color.rgb.green, we would still get a filled green arrow. You could then remove the
deco.stroked inside of the arrow instance and the line would become green as well. Note that the order of the attributes is not important for this style delegation feature.
Since we have learned that the arrow decorators always fill the arrow head by default, the question is now whether and how such a feature can be removed. This is done by clear instances available as a
clear class attribute. Hence in case of
deco.filled, it is available as
deco.filled.clear. When you add this attribute to the earrow call, the arrowhead will not be filled anymore and you will notice that the blue line is not stroked inside the arrowhead.
You might also have noticed, that the dashed linestyle is not used when stroking the arrowhead. This is similar to the default
filled feature of the arrowhead: The arrowhead merges a
style.linestyle.normal to ensure a solid line. Instead of manually setting
style.linestyle.dashed in the arrowhead, you could use
style.linestyle.clear to restore the linestyle setting of the path.
The arrow head is a so-called ornament. Beside attaching stroke and fill styles during the process of converting a path into a decorated path, any number of ornaments can be added to the decorated path. When adding ornaments, parts of the path can also be marked as not-to-be-stroked. While this is taken into account in a final stroke operation, different decorators do not see this information such that decorators always commute.