songs from the book of knowledge: pigeon
listen to pigeon
The Story of The American Pigeon, Cher Ami
Pigeons bred and trained for racing or for carrying messages are termed homing pigeons.They possess a remarkable sense of direction and can be trusted to return several hundred miles to their home lofts. Caesar used pigeons as messengers, and at the time of the crusades, there was a well established pigeon postal service. Thousands of homers are kept by clubs in America, and even more in Belgium for the sport of pigeon racing. A speed of 60 miles an hour over a course of 75 miles in not uncommon. 40 miles an hour is considered good speed over distances of 125 miles or more.
During the World War, where telephone and wireless communication was not possible, the services of these feathered messengers won for them the praise and admiration of the world. All the armies made use of them. At one point 12 miles behind the French lines, the British kept 60 pigeons housed in a London motor-bus. The outside had been roofed to form their cage, while the attendants, consisting of a chauffeur, trainer, and orderly, slept inside. A perch was cleverly arranged before the opening in the front, so that when the birds alighted on returning from their flight, an electric bell alerted the men inside, day or night. The pigeons were taken out to the trenches in baskets to serve as needed. If not used in 24 hours, they were released anyway with some message, to keep them in practice. Birds were always sent in couples with the same message, so if one happened to be killed, there would still be a chance of the message arriving safely. An American Pigeon, Cher Ami, brought help to the famous Lost Battalion of the 77th Division. They had written a message telling where they were and asking for help. This message they put in a little aluminum capsule, fastened it to the left leg of the pigeon, and opened the coop. Up Cher Ami rose until he was high enough, back to the American lines he flew, dropped into the coop there, and delivered the word which saved the battalion. Although seriously wounded when flying over the enemy firing line, he never wavered in his flight. They nursed him back to health and General Pershing gave the little hero a silver medal. When he died, his body was mounted and placed in the National Museum in Washington, D.C
Note: The words in all Songs from the Book of Knowledge are excerpts taken from a 1939 Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia and Fact-Index.
Songs from the Book of Knowledge: Airplane
The words in all Songs from the Book of Knowledge are excerpts taken from a 1939 Compton's Encyclopedia. The music is by Erica Harris, mixed with Garage Band.
.....
listen to Airplane
Never did things change so fast as in these days. Your grandfather's father may have seen the coming of the steamboat, struggling along the river or lying with its nose against the banks. Your grandfather saw the early railway train, which came pushing proudly into the world at 20 miles an hour. Your father saw the motor-car riding the roads like a giant of power at a mile a minute. But you have seen a thing that clever men and wise men hardly dreamed of years ago; you have seen a thing that clever men scoffed at even when it first appeared – you have seen an airplane riding through the clouds!
In all the history of the world there has hardly been anything equal to that. Think of it in any way you like, and it must seem to you a miracle. Throw a stone up into the air and it falls down; throw a stream of water up and it comes back to earth; throw a feather up and, although it floats a little while on the wind, it soon glides back to the solid earth.
They fall, all of them, by what we call the law of gravitation, which means that earth pulls everything toward its center. A pebble rolls down hill; water runs to the lowest point. It is the pull of something in the mass of the earth that draws all things toward it as a magnet draws a needle. It will pull a flint down through a chalk bank if we give it time; it will pull down an overhanging tree if the tree is left long enough without support. This universal power of matter to attract other matter to it, the larger mass attracting a smaller, is one of the mysteries that no man understands.
And yet an airplane flies past a mile above our heads, so high that it looks like a bird, so beautiful that it looks as if Nature herself had made it, so confident of its power as it passes out of sight that it thrills a man to feel that he belongs to the race that made it. Now it is a speck! Soon our eyes will lose it, but we know that there is a man up there.
songs from the book of knowledge: echo
listen to echo
Nearly all ancient peoples had poetic stories about the echo.
According to the Greeks, Echo was a mountain nymph who pined away for the love of the youth Narcissus until there was nothing left of her but her whispering voice, and this she could only use to repeat the last word of others.
When you called out "Hello!", echo answered softly "Hello."
And when you cried "Who are you?", you heard only her mocking answer: "You."
No one really knew what an echo was until wise men discovered that sound travels in waves, just as water and light travel. If a wave of water is stopped by a cliff, it is thrown back into the sea. So if a sound wave is stopped by a cliff, it is thrown back to our ears. The sound very seldom comes back just as it was made. It is usually broken into an airy shattered echo just as a wave is thrown back in spray. And it really seems as if some mocking sprite calls back from a fairy grotto in the rocks.
Sometimes the echo repeats the sound several times. This is caused by successive rebounds from several different objects, placed at varying distances from the observer. If you stand about a hundred feet from the reflecting surface, you hear only the final syllable of what you call. If you take your stand farther back, more and more syllables can be heard.
Sir Isaac Newton used the echo in a corridor at Trinity College, Cambridge to measure the speed at which sound travels. Standing at one end of the corridor he started a group of sound waves by stamping his foot. These waves were thrown back by the wall at the far end of the corridor. He timed the interval between stamping his foot and hearing the echo, he knew the distance to the wall and back, and from these factors, he calculated a speed for sound which was within a few feet of a second of the speed which modern science has determined.
songs from the book of knowledge: moon
listen to moon
The mind of man can hardly conceive that life has ever been upon the moon, but as we look at this silent world and see with our own eyes the mighty record of its past, we feel a sense of the boundless mystery of the universe.
We stand on a world of life and look on a world of death.
We see spread out before us, in the full light of the sun, a landscape as vast as the American continent, with not a living thing upon it.
Not a flower blooms, not a tree grows, not an insect creeps, not a sound is heard, not a thing moving; the silence of a thousand ages is unbroken in this solitude that no man knows.
But it was not always thus.
The energies let loose in the world war were like children's toys compared with the forces that must have once rent and torn the moon.
Unthinkable forces have made her what she is – beautiful to look upon as she rides in majesty with the Earth around the sun, but with a face all scarred and worn with time, and the mark of some great agony written over it.
Who is not moved by that picture of the moon which Professor J.A. Thomson has given us?
We may say of the moon, in his words, that "it was Earth's only child, and it died."
songs from the book of knowledge: water
listen to water
Here is a good game. Let everyone write on a sheet of paper, and it should be a large one, every important fact he can think of about water, including its special properties, the things it does, and what it is used for; the winner to be the one with the largest number of correct items in his list.
All the players will, of course, set down rain, snow, hail, ice, and dew, streams, lakes and oceans, the moisture in the atmosphere and in the soil. They will include also the use of water for drinking, washing, cooking, cooling our refrigerators and gasoline engines, driving our water wheels and turbines, and floating our ships.
Many players will probably recall that our bodies are about 70% water and, indeed, that all active living cells and tissue, vegetable and animal alike, must contain a certain amount of water to stay alive. they may add likewise that water is the greatest of all solvents, most of the liquid chemicals used in science, medicine and industry being water solutions.
Some players will know that countless 'dry' solids, particularly crystals like borax and washing soda, contain water; and that countless others, such as plaster, bricks, and concrete require water for their formation.
But how many will realize that if water obeyed the rule, common to most other


text:
A bullock cart or ox cart is a two-wheeled or four-wheeled vehicle pulled by oxen (draught cattle). It is a means of transportation used since ancient times in many parts of the world. They are still used today where modern vehicles are too expensive or the infrastructure does not favor them.
Used especially for carrying goods, the bullock cart is pulled by one or several oxen (bullocks). The cart (also known as a jinker) is attached to a bullock team by a special chain attached to yokes, but a rope may also be used for one or two animals. The driver and any other passengers sit on the front of the cart, while load is placed in the back. Traditionally the cargo was usually agrarian goods and lumber.
Costa Rica
In Costa Rica, ox carts (carretas in the Spanish language) were an important aspect of the daily life and commerce, especially between 1850 to 1935, developing a unique construction and decoration tradition that is still being developed. Costa Rican parades and traditional celebrations are not complete without a traditional ox cart parade.
In 1988, the traditional ox cart was declared as National Symbol of Work by the Costa Rican government.
In 2005, the "Oxherding and Oxcart Traditions in Costa Rica" were included in UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
In Indonesia, Bullock Carts are commonly used in the rural parts of the country, where it is used for transporting goods and carriages and also people. But it is mostly common in Indonesia that there are Horse Car than Bullock Carts on the streets of Indonesia.
Bullock carts were widely used in Malaysia before the introduction of automobiles, and many are still used today. These included passenger vehicles, now used especially for tourists. Passenger carts are usually equipped with awnings for protection against sun and rain, and are often gaily decorated.
See also
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ox-drawn carts|

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Download ebook Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition free pdf
Medical books free.
Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition PDF
. Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition ebook
The most concise, clinically relevant, and current review of medical microbiology and immunology
Essential for USMLE review and medical microbiology coursework!
Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology is a succinct, high-yield review of the medically important aspects of microbiology and immunology. It covers both the basic and clinical aspects of bacteriology, virology, mycology, parasitology, and immunology and also discusses important infectious diseases using an organ system approach. The book emphasizes the real-world clinical application of microbiology and immunology to infectious diseases and offers a unique mix of narrative text, color images, tables and figures, Q&A, and clinical vignettes.
Content valuable to any study objective or learning style:
- 650 USMLE-style practice questions test your knowledge and understanding
- 50 clinical cases illustrate the importance of basic science information in clinical diagnosis
- A complete USMLE-style practice exam consisting of 80 questions helps you prepare for the exam
- Pearls impart important basic science information helpful in answering questions on the USMLE
- Concise summaries of medically important organisms
- Self-assessment questions with answers appear at the end of each chapter
- Color images depict clinically important findings, such as infectious disease lesions
- Gram stains of bacteria, electron micrographs of viruses, and microscopic images depict fungi, protozoa,
- Chapters on infectious diseases from an organ system perspective
Sections Include: Basic Bacteriology, Clinical Bacteriology, Basic Virology, Clinical Virology, Mycology, Parasitology, Immunology, Ectoparasites, Infectious Diseases, Brief Summaries of Medically Important Organisms, Clinical Cases, Pearls for the USMLE, USMLE Practice Questions, USMLE Practice Examination.
Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition free download
Download Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition pdf free

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
You define Vanity URLs in CQ to create easy-to-remember and easy-to-search URLs on your website.
The following video demonstrates how to define a Vanity URL for a specific page on your website.
To verify the vanity URL that you created using the steps in the video, do the following:
- Go to the Adobe CQ5 Web Console (http://localhost:4502/system/console/jcrresolver).
- Enter the name of the vanity URL in the Test text box of the Configuration Test section and click Resolve.
The result of the test appears in the next line.
If you defined the URL correctly, the path value in the result displays the resolved URL.
You can also use the Sling Resource Resolver to verify issues that you face when creating vanity URLs.
For example, if the vanity URL does not exist:
Also, you defined a vanity URL but when you test the URL on the browser, another page shows up.
Again, you can use the Sling Resource Resolver to verify the resolved URL for a vanity URL. For example, you defined the same vanity URL (dealoftheday) for two pages on your website.
This issue occurs since you define vanity URLs by page. So it's necessary to go to a specific page to define a vanity URL for that page. In this case, you inadvertently set the same vanity URL for two pages.
To get around this issue, you can either go to the Sling Resource Resolver and go through the list of Resolver Map Entries. This list contains defiend vanity URLs.
Alternatively, you can use the URL Mapping feature of CQ to replicate this functionality.
To create a URL map between a /content URL in your repository and a shortened URL:
- Go to the Configuration tab of the Adobe CQ5 Web Console (http://localhost:4503/system/console/configMgr).
- Go to the Apache Sling JCR Resource Resolver section.
- Click the + sign in the URL Mappings section.
- In the new text box, enter the resolved URL and the vanity URL.
- Click Save.
- Finally, follow the steps to verify your vanity URL, goingforgold.


DataServer.RLOCK Method
Click or drag to resize
DataServer.RLOCK Method
Lock a specific record in this data server for exclusive write access; other users can still make read-only reference to the record.
Namespace: VO
Assembly: VOSystemClasses (in VOSystemClasses.dll) Version: 2.7
 nRecord AS USUAL := NIL
Request Example View Source
nRecord (Optional)
Type: Usual
The ID (usually a record number) of the record to be locked. If specified, record locks held by the current process are retained. If not specified, all locks held by the current process are released and the current record is assumed.
Return Value
Type: Usual
TRUE if successful; otherwise, FALSE. Note that FALSE is returned even if the record was successfully locked but other record locks cannot be maintained.
When specified with an argument, RLock() does not release records locks held by the current process. Instead, it adds the newly locked record to the lock list.
Tip Tip
Some data servers cannot support the maintenance of multiple record locks or even the lock of a record other than the current one based on a record number.
See Also


text:
Automated Target Recognition in Gigapixel Video
Agency / Branch:
DOD / USAF
The objective of the proposed program is to develop a long term image-based tracking camera system. Our goal is to allow fewer personnel to analyze and respond to threats detected in aerial video, making large format video useful in real time analysis. We propose to exploit long term 'contextual' information gathered over long periods of time over wide areas to improve tracking performance. Further, we provide identification and classification of thousands of simultaneous targets using both tracking information and previously gathered identity data. In the first phase, we propose to study three algorithms - short term tracking (0-30 seconds), medium term tracking (30 seconds - 1 hour), and long term tracking and identification (1 hour - 24 hours). ArguSight personnel have significant experience in large format imagery and video analysis, and are well qualified to address all parts of the work effort. We will be working with subcontractor Carnegie Mellon University (CMU, a premier computer vision research center.
Small Business Information at Submission:
6350 Rolling Mill Ct Unit 103 Springfield, VA 22152
Number of Employees:


[How to make meat dumplings delicious？
】 _How to do_How to do
[How to make meat dumplings delicious?
】 _How to do_How to do
In daily life, people who often cook often know that they must change patterns and tastes frequently, so that even if the family eats nutrition, it can also increase the family's appetite. Everyone knows that they want to eat meat fillings and mix them by themselves.It can also add a little fun to life and make life more diversified, but how to make meat dumplings delicious?
In fact, the meat dumplings are delicious when there is a trick.
How to make meat dumplings delicious?
1. First, choose the meat (pork, lamb, beef, etc.). According to personal preference, it is not good to choose lean meat. The dumpling stuffed out will be slightly dry and affect the taste.
So choose fat and thin, fat and lean meat is best.
2. You can use a meat grinder to grind the filling, eliminating the need for a chop.
If you like to eat better dumplings and overcome the force of dumplings, you can chop it by yourself. First cut the meat into thin slices, then cut it into shreds, and finally cut it into small dices. Cut before chopping.Try to cut it a bit.
3. The meat filling is adjusted well. The step of adding water is very important. Add the chopped meat filling to the water three times. After each addition, it will be even for a while, then place it for a while and add it again.
When stirring, pay attention to turning in a clockwise direction, add the minced ginger to the meat, and then add cooking wine, salt, chicken essence, and pepper powder in order.
4. In order to color the meat, it seems to overcome the appetite, then add soy sauce and continue to stir, then add the sesame oil on top until it is stirred vigorously.
5, chopped scallions and garlic for later use, it is best to enlarge the scallions, the scallions can not adjust the taste of scallions.
Chopped green onion and ginger should be placed when you eat it. If you leave it for too long, it will affect the taste. If you do n't add other vegetables, just eat meat and green onion stuffing.
6. After the onion is enlarged and mixed evenly, put a spoonful of oil on it, so that the meat filling looks more smooth and smooth, tastes more fragrant and tastes better.
The prepared mincemeat can be baked patties, and dumplings and buns can be made.
How to make delicious dumpling stuffing?
First of all, the ratio of meat and vegetables should be appropriate.
First, the meat-to-dish ratio of dumplings is 1: 1 or 1: 0.
5 is appropriate.
First, don't dump the juice.
It is determined that more than 60% of the vitamins will be lost after the Chinese cabbage is dehydrated.
In order to avoid nutrition loss and waste, the scientific method is: after chopping the vegetable stuffing, first squeeze the vegetable juice out into the pot, add the meat and soy sauce one after the other, and stir thoroughly to make the vegetable juice penetrate into the meat, thenAdd the dishes and stir well.
For vegetarian dumplings, you can also chop the vegetable stuffing first, pour it into the pan (pot), add cooking oil (vegetable oil) and stir gently, let the oil wrap the vegetables, and then add salt and seasoning.
In this way, not only the nutrition is preserved, the dumpling fillings are also tender and delicious. If it is leek meat fillings, the vegetable fillings are mixed with oil, and then the mixed meat fillings (with enough salt) are poured and mixed well.
The vegetable stuffing is mixed with oil first, and is covered with a layer of oil film. It is not easy to dehydrate when it encounters salt.
The dumplings wrapped with this stuffing taste very fresh and have a clear fragrance of vegetable juice.
Finally, the meat is chopped.
Make the stuffed meat and chop it with a knife to become velvety.
When there is a lot of lean meat, you can add the appropriate amount of vegetable juice or water; when there is a lot of fat, add less vegetable juice or water, and stir vigorously in one direction.
After the meat is sticky, add appropriate amount of pepper powder, spiced oil, salt, fresh ginger, MSG, sesame oil, and continue to stir.
At the same time, soy sauce should be added slowly little by little.
If there is broth, it is best to add broth, add the drops and stir until it becomes a paste, and then pour the vegetable stuffing and stir well.
Dumplings made with this kind of dumpling stuffing have rich soup and tender meat.
When adding dumplings with a little sugar, the dumplings will have a delicious seafood flavor.


text:
Geothermal Technology Analysis
The Department of Energy's (DOE) Geothermal Energy Program focuses in three areas: energy systems research and testing (working to enhance conversion of geothermal energy into heat and electricity) led by NREL; drilling technologies research (for both hardware and diagnostic tools) led by Sandia National Laboratories; and geoscience and supporting technologies research (exploration and resource management) led by the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. NREL's geothermal research, conducted in NREL's Center for Buildings and Thermal Systems, primarily supports DOE's Energy Systems component, specializing in advanced power plant systems, small-scale power plants, and direct-use performance.
Energy analysis supports R&D in the following areas of geothermal technologies.
Geothermal energy taps the Earth's internal heat for a variety of uses, including electric power production, and the heating and cooling of buildings.
NREL works in partnership with industry, academia, and other research laboratories to research, develop, and demonstrate technologies to advance the use of geothermal energy as a clean, renewable, domestic power source for the United States.
These online tools guide state and local officials in developing effective policies that support geothermal energy development.
More than 300 cities and towns have been identified within 5 miles of a known geothermal resource.
Sponsored by the DOE Geothermal Technologies Office, this working guide for agency, industry and policymakers describes permitting processes and timelines and helps identify potential areas of concern for geothermal projects.
Learn more about our Geothermal capabilities and current projects in this area.
Access more information on all of our Staff Analysts


text:
the null indicator information in the parallel null structure, then upon object flush the object attributes will be set to
NULL in the database.
If you want to set all of the attributes to
NULL during object creation, you can use the
LNOCI_OBJECT_NEW_NOTNULL attribute of the environment handle using the LNOCIAttrSet() function. When set, this attribute creates a non-null object. That is, all the attributes are set to default values provided by Oracle and their null status information in the parallel null indicator structure is set to
NULL. Using this attribute eliminates the additional step of changing the indicator structure. You cannot change the default values provided by Oracle. Instead, you can populate the object with your own default values immediately after object creation.
When LNOCIObjectNew() is used to create a persistent object, the caller must identify the database table into which the newly created object is to be inserted. The caller identifies the table using a table object. Given the schema name and table name, the LNOCIObjectPinTable() function returns a pointer to the table object. Each call to LNOCIObjectPinTable() results in a call to the server to fetch the table object information. The call to the server happens even if the required table object has been previously pinned in the cache. When the application is creating multiple objects to be inserted into the same database table, Oracle Corporation recommends that the table object be pinned once and the pointer to the table object be saved for future use. Doing so improves performance of the application.
Before you can update an object, the object must be pinned in the cache. After pinning the object, the application can update the desired attributes directly. You must make a call to the LNOCIObjectMarkUpdate() function to indicate that the object has been updated. Objects which have been marked as updated are placed in a dirty list and are flushed to the server upon cache flush or when the transaction is committed.
You can delete an object by calling the LNOCIObjectMarkDelete() function or the LNOCIObjectMarkDeleteByRef() function.
You can control the size of the object cache by using the following two OCI environment handle attributes:
LNOCI_ATTR_CACHE_MAX_SIZEcontrols the maximum cache size
LNOCI_ATTR_CACHE_OPT_SIZEcontrols the optimal cache size
You can get or set these OCI attributes using the LNOCIAttrGet() or LNOCIAttrSet() functions. Whenever memory is allocated in the cache, a check is made to determine whether the maximum cache size has been reached. If the maximum cache size has been reached, the cache automatically frees (ages out) the least-recently used objects with a pin count of zero. The cache continues freeing such objects until memory usage in the cache reaches the optimal size, or until it runs out of objects eligible for freeing. The object cache does not limit cache growth to the maximum cache size. The servicing of the memory allocation request could cause the cache to grow beyond the specified maximum cache size. These two parameters allow the application to control the frequency of object aging from the cache.
Pinning is the process of retrieving an object from the server to the client cache, laying it in memory, providing a pointer to it for an application to manipulate, and marking the object as being in use. The LNOCIObjectPin() function de-references the given
REF and pins the corresponding object in the cache. A pointer to the pinned object is returned to the caller and this pointer is valid as long as the object is pinned in the cache. This pointer should not be used after the object is unpinned because the object may have aged out and therefore may no longer be in the object cache.
The following are examples of LNOCIObjectPin() and LNOCIObjectUnpin() calls:
status = OCIObjectPin(envh, errh, empRef,(OCIComplexObject*)0, OCI_PIN_RECENT, OCI_DURATION_TRANSACTION, OCI_LOCK_NONE, (dvoid**)&emp); /* manipulate emp object */ status = OCIObjectUnpin(envh, errh, emp);
empRef parameter passed in the pin call specifies the
REF to the desired employee object. A pointer to the employee object in the cache is returned in the
You can use the LNOCIObjectPinArray() function to pin an array of objects in one call. This function de-references an array of
REFs and pins the corresponding objects in the cache. Objects that are not already cached in the cache are retrieved from the server in one network round-trip. Therefore, calling LNOCIObjectPinArray() to pin an array of objects improves application performance. Also, the array of objects you are pinning can be of different types.
When pinning an object, you can use the pin option argument to specify whether the recent version, latest version, or any version of the object is desired. The valid options are explained in more detail in the following list:
LNOCI_PIN_RECENTpin option instructs the object cache to return the object that is loaded into the cache in the current transaction; in other words, if the object was loaded prior to the current transaction, the object cache needs to refresh it with the latest version from the database. Succeeding pins of the object within the same transaction would return the cached copy and would not result in database access. In most cases, you should use this pin option.
LNOCI_PIN_LATESTpin option instructs the object cache to always get the latest copy of the object. If the object is already in the cache and not-locked, the object copy is refreshed with the latest copy from the database. On the other hand, if the object in the cache is locked, Oracle assumes that it is the latest copy, and the cached copy is returned. You should use this option for applications that must display the most recent copy of the object, such as applications that display stock quotes, current account balance, and so forth.
LNOCI_PIN_ANYpin option instructs the object cache to fetch the object in the most efficient manner; the version of the returned object does not matter. The pin any option is appropriate for objects which do not change often, such as product information, parts information, and so forth. The pin any option also is appropriate for read-only objects.
When pinning an object, you can specify the duration for which the object is pinned in the cache. When the duration expires, the object is unpinned automatically from the cache. The application should not use the object pointer after the object's pin duration has ended. An object can be unpinned prior to the expiration of its duration by explicitly calling the LNOCIObjectUnpin() function. Oracle supports two pre-defined pin durations:
LNOCI_DURATION_SESSION) lifetime is the duration of the database connection. Objects that are required in the cache at all times across transactions should be pinned with session duration.
LNOCI_DURATION_TRANS) lifetime is the duration of the database transaction. That is, the duration ends when the transaction is rolled back or committed.
When pinning an object, the caller can specify whether the object should be locked using lock options. When an object is locked, a server-side lock is acquired, which prevents any other user from modifying the object. The lock is released when the transaction commits or rolls back. The following list describes the available lock options:
LNOCI_LOCK_NONElock option instructs the cache to pin the object without locking.
LNOCI_LOCK_Xlock option instructs the cache to pin the object only after acquiring a lock. If the object is currently locked by another user, the pin call with this option waits until it can acquire the lock before returning to the caller. Using the
LNOCI_LOCK_Xlock option is equivalent to executing a
SELECT FOR UPDATEstatement.
LNOCI_LOCK_X_NOWAITlock option instructs the cache to pin the object only after acquiring a lock. Unlike the
LNOCI_LOCK_Xoption, the pin call with
LNOCI_LOCK_X_NOWAIToption will not wait if the object is currently locked by another user. Using the
LNOCI_LOCK_X_NOWAITlock option is equivalent to executing a
SELECT FOR UPDATE WITH NOWAITstatement.
Depending upon how frequently objects are updated, you can choose which locking options from the previous section to use.
If objects are updated frequently, you can use the pessimistic locking scheme. This scheme presumes that contention for update access is frequent. Objects are locked before the object in the cache is modified, ensuring that no other user can modify the object until the transaction owning the lock performs a commit or rollback. The object can be locked at the time of pin by choosing the appropriate locking options. An object that was not locked at the time of pin also can be locked by the function
LNOCIObjectLock(). The locking function
LNOCIObjectLockNoWait() does not wait to acquire the lock if another user holds a lock on the object.
If objects are updated infrequently, you can use the optimistic locking scheme. This scheme presumes that contention for update access is rare. Objects are fetched and modified in the cache without acquiring a lock. A lock is acquired only when the object is flushed to the server. Optimistic locking allows for a higher degree of concurrent access than pessimistic locking. To use optimistic locking most effectively, the Oracle object cache detects if an object is changed by any other user since it was fetched into the cache. By turning on the object change detection mode, object modifications are made persistent only if the object has not been changed by any other user since it was fetched into the cache. This mode is activated by setting
LNOCI_OBJECT_DETECTCHANGE attribute of the environment handle using the
Changes made to the objects in the object cache are not sent to the database until the object cache is flushed. The
LNOCICacheFlush() function flushes all changes in a single network round-trip between the client and the server. The changes may involve insertion of new objects


text:
- What is the formula for cost of goods sold?
- Why is depreciation a product cost?
- What qualifies as R&D?
- How is variable cost calculated?
- Is CEO salary a period cost?
- Is insurance a period cost?
- How is material cost calculated?
- Is Depreciation a product or period cost?
- Is R&D an asset or expense?
- What is a prime cost?
- What type of cost is salary?
- Is advertising cost a period cost?
- What is the formula for calculating cost of goods manufactured?
- How is full cost calculated?
- Do Period costs appear on the balance sheet?
- How do you calculate R&D?
- Why is period cost important?
- Are salaries manufacturing overhead?
- Is research and development a product cost or period cost?
- What are considered period costs?
What is the formula for cost of goods sold?
Or, to put it another way, the formula for calculating COGS is: Starting inventory + purchases – ending inventory = cost of goods sold..
Why is depreciation a product cost?
Product cost refers to the costs incurred to create a product. These costs include direct labor, direct materials, consumable production supplies, and factory overhead. … Depreciation is a fixed cost, because it recurs in the same amount per period throughout the useful life of an asset.
What qualifies as R&D?
Work that advances overall knowledge or capability in a field of science or technology, and projects and activities that help resolve scientific or technological uncertainties, may qualify for R&D relief. … To qualify the company must be carrying out research and development work in the field of science or technology.
How is variable cost calculated?
Calculate total variable cost by multiplying the cost to make one unit of your product by the number of products you've developed. For example, if it costs $60 to make one unit of your product, and you've made 20 units, your total variable cost is $60 x 20, or $1,200.
Is CEO salary a period cost?
Understanding Period Costs On occasion, it may also include depreciation expense, marketing expenses, CEO salary, and rent expense relating to the corporate office. … In short, all costs that are not involved in the production of a product (product costs) are period costs.
Is insurance a period cost?
Period costs are typically divided into two categories: administrative costs and selling costs. Examples of period costs include: … Insurance: Insurance expenses are a period cost. Advertising: Any advertising or marketing related expense is a period cost.
How is material cost calculated?
Steps to estimate the direct material costs:Find the total amount to be produced. … Calculate the total amount of raw materials required to produce the order size.Multiply that amount by the cost associated with the raw materials.If there is a waste or scrap, its cost should be added to the costs in step 3.More items…
Is Depreciation a product or period cost?
Depreciation on production equipment is a manufacturing cost, but depreciation on the warehouse in which products are stored after being manufactured is a period cost.
Is R&D an asset or expense?
Accounting for R&D Activity. Research and development costs no longer appear as intangible assets on the balance sheet, but as expenses on the income statement.
What is a prime cost?
Prime costs are a firm's expenses directly related to the materials and labor used in production. It refers to a manufactured product's costs, which are calculated to ensure the best profit margin for a company. … Direct costs do not include indirect expenses, such as advertising and administrative costs.
What type of cost is salary?
Annual salaries are fixed costs but other types of compensation, such as commissions or overtime, are variable costs.
Is advertising cost a period cost?
Sales commissions, administrative costs, advertising and rent of office space are all period costs. These costs are not included as part of the cost of either purchased or manufactured goods, but are recorded as expenses on the income statement in the period they are incurred.
What is the formula for calculating cost of goods manufactured?
The cost of goods manufactured equation is calculated by adding the total manufacturing costs; including all direct materials, direct labor, and factory overhead; to the beginning work in process inventory and subtracting the ending goods in process inventory.
How is full cost calculated?
The full-cost calculation is simple. It looks like: (total production costs + selling and administrative costs + markup) ÷ the number of units expected to sell.
Do Period costs appear on the balance sheet?
Before the products are sold, these costs are recorded in inventory accounts on the balance sheet. … Period costs are always expensed on the income statement during the period in which they are incurred. In sum, product costs are inventoried on the balance sheet before being expensed on the income statement.
How do you calculate R&D?
The Alternative Simplified Credit (ASC) method for calculating the research credit involves a four-step process:Figure the company's average qualified research expenses (QREs) for the past three years.Multiply that average by 50%Subtract the result of Step 2 from the company's current year QREs.More items…•
Why is period cost important?
Tracking period costs may also help a business: Balance their budget. Gain important savings. Focus on growing their business and controlling their direct costs.
Are salaries manufacturing overhead?
Manufacturing overhead does not include any of the selling or administrative functions of a business. Thus, the costs of such items as corporate salaries, audit and legal fees, and bad debts are not included in manufacturing overhead.
Is research and development a product cost or period cost?
Example of period costs are advertising, sales commissions, office supplies, office depreciation, legal and research and development costs. Period costs may be further classified into selling costs and administrative costs.
What are considered period costs?
Period costs are all costs not included in product costs. Period costs are not directly tied to the production process. Overhead or sales, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs are considered period costs.


Theodore Dreiser
Sowjet Russland (Dreiser Looks at Russia), 1929
Works Burned
All works published before May 1933
American author Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) grew up in a German-speaking environment in Terre Haute, Indiana. One of ten children born to an impoverished German immigrant family, he was largely self-educated. Censorship and bans accompanied him all of his life. He began his writing career as a reporter for a number of Chicago and St. Louis newspapers. Dreiser was a pioneer of American naturalist fiction and a lifelong foe of censorship. In 1900 his first novel, Sister Carrie, was withheld from general distribution by the publisher due to the work's perceived amoral content. Later novels were censured by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and banned in Boston. Dreiser's work became increasingly political, as his interest in socialism and Communism deepened. His works were banned and burned in Nazi Germany.
Critical Thinking Questions
Thank you for supporting our work


Mac Basics: Dictation lets you speak text instead of typing
Getting started with Dictation
Use these steps to turn Dictation on or off:
 1. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
 2. From the View menu, choose Dictation & Speech to view Dictation preferences.
 3. Click On to enable Dication, or Off to disable it.
You can also choose a shortcut key, change your language, and select a microphone from Dictation preferences. If your computer or display doesn't have a built-in microphone, you can connect an external microphone to use Dictation.
Using Dictation in an app
You can speak the text you want to enter in a text field, like a TextEdit or Pages document.
Use these steps to start dictating:
 1. Click a text field or document window where you want to start typing.
 2. Press the fn (Function) key twice, or choose Edit > Start Dictation.
 3. Dictate (speak) what you want your Mac to type.
 4. When finished, click Done or press the fn key again. Your spoken words then appear in the text field.
The input meter indicates how loud your voice is. If it's too quiet, try moving closer to your microphone or speaking louder.
 - If the input meter does not fill when you speak, check that your microphone and sound input are set up correctly.
 - If the input meter fills more than half of the microphone icon, there might be too much background noise, and Dictation might be less accurate.
 - If the input meter barely fills when you speak, try moving closer to the microphone or speaking louder.
Your computer listens for up to 30 seconds at a time. If you need to dictate longer sentences, enable the option for Enhanced Dictation.
Enhanced Dictation
With Enhanced Dictation, text appears as you speak. This allows you to dictate continuously. Enhanced Dictation automatically stops listening when you switch to another window, press the Fn key again, or click Done.
Enhanced Dictation in OS X Mavericks and Yosemite also let you dictate without an active Internet connection. To use Dictation when you're offline, enable Enhanced Dictation in the Dictation & Speech pane of System Preferences while you are still connected to the Internet.
The first time you turn on Enhanced Dictation, your Mac downloads content that allows Dictation to work offline. The amount of free disk space required to download this content varies depending on the language you're using. After the additional software downloads, you can use Dictation even when an Internet connection isn't available.
Dictation requires an Internet connection in Mountain Lion
If you're using OS X Mountain Lion, you need to be connected to the Internet in order to use Dictation. If your Internet connection is slow, it could cause delays between when you speak a word and when the word appears in a text field. If you're at a business or school and you have a proxy server on your network, Dictation might not be able to connect to the Internet. Have your network administrator refer to "Well known TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products" to learn which network ports Dictation uses.
Dictating commands
Dictation understands basic text-related commands such as "all caps," "new paragraph," and "new line."
When you say "period," "comma," "question mark," or "exclamation point," Dictation adds that punctuation in the current text field. When speaking a calendar date (like "January 30, 1983") you do not have to say "comma". The comma is automatically detected and entered for you. Insert emoticons into a text field by saying "smiley face" or "frowny face".
You can also enable additional Dictation commands in OS X Yosemite.
Accents, dialects and languages
The more you use Dictation, the better it understands you. Dictation learns the characteristics of your voice and adapts to your accent. For best results, select your dialect from the Language menu in the Dictation pane of System Preferences. Note that some languages (such as English) have multiple options available to choose from.
You can select which language to use for Dictation in the Dictation and Speech pane of System Preferences. If you don't see your language listed, you can add it. Make sure you are connected to the Internet, then follow these steps to add or remove a language for Dictation.
 1. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
 2. Click the Dictation & Speech icon.
 3. Choose Add Language. from the Language pop-up menu.
 4. Select any languages you want to add. Deselect languages you no longer want to use.
The software needed for each language you select downloads from Apple. In OS X Yosemite, you can recover the disk space used by an installed language when you remove it. If you need to use the language again, the software downloads the next time you select the language.
Dictation in OS X Mountain Lion and later supports English (U.S., UK, and Australia), French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Korean, Canadian English, Canadian French, and Italian. Enhanced Dictation supports even more languages. To see a complete list, enable Enhanced Dictation and select Add Language from the Language menu.
Learn more
You can also speak to your Mac to make it perform certain actions, like selecting text, or moving to the top of a document. Search for Dictation Commands in Mac Help for more information about how you can tell your Mac what you want it to do.
About Dictation and privacy
When you use Dictation, you can choose to have either your Mac or Apple's servers perform the speech recognition for you. If you use Mac-based Dictation (Enhanced Dictation), your computer will convert what you say into text without sending your dictated speech to Apple.
Information collected by Apple is treated in accordance with Apple's Privacy Policy, which can be found at
You can choose to turn off or change your preferences for Dictation at any time by going to the Dictation & Speech pane within System Preferences. If you turn off Dictation, or switch from using server-based Dictation to Mac-based Dictation (Enhanced Dictation), Apple will delete your User Data, as well as your recent voice input data, from Apple's servers. Older voice input data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a period of time to generally improve Dictation and Siri functionality in Apple products and services. This voice input data may include audio files and transcripts of what you said and related diagnostic data, such as hardware and operating system specifications and performance statistics.
Last Modified:


Next: , Previous: Diversion support, Up: Programming in M4sugar
8.3.4 Conditional constructs
The following macros provide additional conditional constructs as convenience wrappers around m4_if.
— Macro: m4_bmatch (string, regex-1, value-1, [regex-2], [value-2],..., [default])
The string string is repeatedly compared against a series of regex arguments; if a match is found, the expansion is the corresponding value, otherwise, the macro moves on to the next regex. If no regex match, then the result is the optional default, or nothing.
— Macro: m4_bpatsubsts (string, regex-1, subst-1, [regex-2], [subst-2],...)
The string string is altered by regex-1 and subst-1, as if by:
 m4_bpatsubst([[string]], [regex], [subst])
The result of the substitution is then passed through the next set of regex and subst, and so forth. An empty subst implies deletion of any matched portions in the current string. Note that this macro over-quotes string; this behavior is intentional, so that the result of each step of the recursion remains as a quoted string. However, it means that anchors ('^' and '$' in the regex will line up with the extra quotations, and not the characters of the original string. The overquoting is removed after the final substitution.
— Macro: m4_case (string, value-1, if-value-1, [value-2], [if-value-2],..., [default])
Test string against multiple value possibilities, resulting in the first if-value for a match, or in the optional default. This is shorthand for:
 m4_if([string], [value-1], [if-value-1],
 [string], [value-2], [if-value-2],...,
— Macro: m4_cond (test-1, value-1, if-value-1, [test-2], [value-2], [if-value-2],..., [default])
This macro was introduced in Autoconf 2.62. Similar to m4_if, except that each test is expanded only when it is encountered. This is useful for short-circuiting expensive tests; while m4_if requires all its strings to be expanded up front before doing comparisons, m4_cond only expands a test when all earlier tests have failed.
For an example, these two sequences give the same result, but in the case where '$1' does not contain a backslash, the m4_cond version only expands m4_index once, instead of five times, for faster computation if this is a common case for '$1'. Notice that every third argument is unquoted for m4_if, and quoted for m4_cond:
 m4_if(m4_index([$1], [\]), [-1], [$2],
 m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\\]) >= 0), [1], [$2],
 m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\$]) >= 0), [1], [$2],
 m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\']) >= 0), [1], [$3],
 m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\"]) >= 0), [1], [$3],
 m4_cond([m4_index([$1], [\])], [-1], [$2],
 [m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\\]) >= 0)], [1], [$2],
 [m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\$]) >= 0)], [1], [$2],
 [m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\']) >= 0)], [1], [$3],
 [m4_eval(m4_index([$1], [\"]) >= 0)], [1], [$3],
— Macro: m4_default (expr-1, expr-2)
— Macro: m4_default_quoted (expr-1, expr-2)
— Macro: m4_default_nblank (expr-1, [expr-2])
— Macro: m4_default_nblank_quoted (expr-1, [expr-2])
If expr-1 contains text, use it. Otherwise, select expr-2. m4_default expands the result, while m4_default_quoted does not. Useful for providing a fixed default if the expression that results in expr-1 would otherwise be empty. The difference between m4_default and m4_default_nblank is whether an argument consisting of just blanks (space, tab, newline) is significant. When using the expanding versions, note that an argument may contain text but still expand to an empty string.
 m4_define([active], [ACTIVE])dnl
 m4_define([empty], [])dnl
 m4_define([demo1], [m4_default([$1], [$2])])dnl
 m4_define([demo2], [m4_default_quoted([$1], [$2])])dnl
 m4_define([demo3], [m4_default_nblank([$1], [$2])])dnl
 m4_define([demo4], [m4_default_nblank_quoted([$1], [$2])])dnl
 demo1([active], [default])
 demo1([], [active])
 demo1([empty], [text])
 -demo1([ ], [active])-
 ⇒- -
 demo2([active], [default])
 demo2([], [active])
 demo2([empty], [text])
 -demo2([ ], [active])-
 ⇒- -
 demo3([active], [default])
 demo3([], [active])
 demo3([empty], [text])
 -demo3([ ], [active])-
 demo4([active], [default])
 demo4([], [active])
 demo4([empty], [text])
 -demo4([ ], [active])-
— Macro: m4_ifblank (cond, [if-blank], [if-text])
— Macro: m4_ifnblank (cond, [if-text], [if-blank])
If cond is empty or consists only of blanks (space, tab, newline), then expand if-blank; otherwise, expand if-text. Two variants exist, in order to make it easier to select the correct logical sense when using only two parameters. Note that this is more efficient than the equivalent behavior of:
 m4_ifval(m4_normalize([cond]), if-text, if-blank)
— Macro: m4_ifndef (macro, if-not-defined, [if-defined])
This is shorthand for:
 m4_ifdef([macro], [if-defined], [if-not-defined])
— Macro: m4_ifset (macro, [if-true], [if-false])
If macro is undefined, or is defined as the empty string, expand to if-false. Otherwise, expands to if-true. Similar to:
 m4_ifval(m4_defn([macro]), [if-true], [if-false])
except that it is not an error if macro is undefined.
— Macro: m4_ifval (cond, [if-true], [if-false])
Expands to if-true if cond is not empty, otherwise to if-false. This is shorthand for:
 m4_if([cond], [], [if-true], [if-false])
— Macro: m4_ifvaln (cond, [if-true], [if-false])
Similar to m4_ifval, except guarantee that a newline is present after any non-empty expansion. Often followed by dnl.
— Macro: m4_n (text)
Expand to text, and add a newline if text is not empty. Often followed by dnl.


- attributes are per-vertex values that are supplied as the input to the OpenGL pipeline.
Plotting Points on a Map
OK, now that we have some background on maps and some background on WebGL, let's put it all together and put some markers on a map.
Requirements (differing colors, size, shrink, opacity, fade)
The starting point of this map was a prior POC. That iteration used a technique called 'ping-ponging'. It used two off-screen buffers and a two-dimensional canvas. As events came in, they would be rendered immediately to the 2d canvas. On each animation frame, the previous frame (stored in a framebuffer) was copied to a second framebuffer with a GLSL program that blurred it. The contents of the 2D canvas would then be written on top of the blurred frame. The frame was then copied to the screen. The 2D canvas and the first framebuffer were then cleared, and the second framebuffer became the source for the next iteration.
That approach had some fatal limitations. First, that the map didn't zoom. It was set to a view of the United States using an Albers Equal Area projection that preserved the relative sizes and proportions of regions, but it didn't allow for focusing on a region. Second, there wasn't any ability to vary the representations of different plotted traffic. Since all of the markers were 'degraded' together as an image, it wasn't possible to make more important events like ad clicks more prominent than less important events like ad impressions so they were swallowed up in the noise. Additionally, treating the marker overlay as an image didn't work well if we added interactionif the map were panned, blank areas would be moved onto the screen. If it were zoomed the markers would no longer match up with their geographic locations.
The solution was to move away from the hybrid 2D Canvas/WebGL image processing model and move to OpenGL vertex arrays. Each marker type is given it's own buffer of locations and the shader program takes arguments through uniform variables to vary the color, size, whether it shrinks over time, it's inital opacity, and whether it fades to transparent.
Projecting Events
We have spent an awful lot of time working up to this, but here's where we tie it all together. We know that we can't treat each event as a momentary instance and forget about itsince the marker may move around the screen, may change in size based on the map zoom, and may fade, we need to keep some information about the event for as long as it's on the screen. We want to keep the barest minimum of data we can, though! We can distill the required data down to three piecesthe location of the event, the time of the event, and the type of event. We can define all of the other properties as functions of those three attributes. How that plays out is a little subtle, however.
The screen location of a marker may change at any timeany time a user touches the screen the map we are overlaying changes it's bounds, which changes the portion of the earth that we are displaying. It doesn't make any sense to loop through in the slow single-threaded Javascript context and blocking the UI thread to project them from their geographic coordinates to screen coordinates. This is particularly true since many of the points may not even actually be plottedif the map is zoomed to view Denver, the user will never see events in Wichita.
The solution to this lies in what a geographic projection is and why we spent so long in going over it earlier; it's just a function that takes geographic coordinates and maps them to a cartesian plane. A vertex shader similarly takes coordinates in a programmer-defined space and projects them into a screen spacedefined in OpenGL as a range between –1.0 and 1.0 along each axis. Anything that falls outside of that range is quickly and efficiently discarded. So we can simply define our programmer-defined space to be a geographic space of spherical coordinates, and our projection function to be the Spherical Mercator projection interpolated within map bounds at the time of render.
Here is the Spherical Mercator projection, with scaling for zoom levels, as implemented in the vertex shader:
￼float scale_factor(float zoom) {
 float result = 256.0 * pow(2.0, zoom);
 return result;
vec2 transform(vec2 point, float zoom) {
 vec2 result = vec2((((0.5 / M_PI) * point.x) + 0.5), ((-0.5 / M_PI) * point.y + 0.5)) * scale_factor(zoom);
 return result;
vec2 project(vec2 point) {
 vec2 result = vec2(point.x * DEG_TO_RAD, log(tan((M_PI / 4.0) + (point.y * DEG_TO_RAD ) / 2.0)));
 return result;
void main() {
 vec2 transformed = transform(project(a_coords.xy), u_zoom);
With this in place, we simply specify our x-values as degrees longitude and our y-values as degrees latitude[^xy ordering].
This gets us much of the way there, but we can't ignore z-values. Since we are drawing all of these points at once, if we don't assign a z-value they will all be the same, which turns into a situation called 'z-fighting' as a marker will be drawn under another marker one frame and over it the next. This becomes a really distracting flicker when it's animated.
We expect that the most recent markers should be on top of older markers, and that as new markers come in they cover those that were there before. In order to accomplish this we pass in our event time in the place of a normal z- value. If we pass in the current time and establish a time window, we can map event times to our z-value. In our case each marker fades out in a few seconds, so we can assert that we won't even display an event older than a minute. We can then map the time range of 'now – one minute' to 'now' to the z-values –1.0 to 1.0. Now we have it so that the most recent events are always at the top of the stackexactly what we expect.
Making Circles
That makes displaying markers work pretty well. But we are displaying points, and by default points in OpenGL are square. This looks horrible. We need another trick to turn them into circles.
In a fragment shader we can discard any fragments that we don't want. We can use this to turn our squares into circles.
￼float distance = distance(gl_PointCoord, vec2(0.5, 0.5));
if (distance > 0.5) {
In the fragment shader, gl_PointCoord is a vec2 normalized to the range [0.0, 1.0], so the center is at [0.5, 0.5] no matter what the size of the point is in screen coordinates. We take a look at the distance from the center to the current location, and if it's more than 0.5 (the distance from the center to an edge vertically or horizontally) we discard it.
Fuzzing Borders
That's a lot better, but the borders on the circles are full of jaggiesby just discarding pixels we have a sharp edge. Instead of just discarding, let's ramp the alpha to the closer you get to the edge.
￼// This value 'fuzzes' the edges a bit to make the circles look better
float falloff_modifier = clamp(pow(1.8 - distance * 2.0, 2.0), 0.0, 1.0); gl_FragColor = vec4(u_color.rgb, falloff_modifier);
The actual code takes into account an original alpha (u_color.a[8]) and a potential fade, but this code gives us nice, smooth circles.
The 'Finished' Product
Now we have a map that we can pan and zoomin our office we have it running on a 55″ television with an infrared touch overlay. We can now style the different types of events individually, changing color, size, fading and shrinking, and we can keep up with our traffic rateat times exceeding 1500 events per second and still maintain a 60 frame/second draw rate. We actually still have a lot of breathing room, tooaccording to Chrome's development tools, rendering a frame takes consistently takes less than 2ms on my MacBook Pro. You can see the video in full motion below.
Map Demo
 1. In a previous life I was a Quartermaster in the U.S. Coast Guard. During my tenure there I got to plan several long cruisesthe first was from Sitka, AK to Honolulu, HI. While we are all familiar with the adage that the 'closest distance between two points is a straight line', that doesn't make much sense in navigationwith a round planet, the closest distance between two points leads through the earth. When navigating across the Earth, the closest route will be a great circle route– an arc of a circle which passes through the center of the earth. In order to determine this course, we plotted it on a small scale chart (covering a wide area) that used a Gnomonic projection. We then broke that line into segments, got the latitude and longitude of the endpoints of each segment, and then overlaid them on a Mercator projection to determine the course to steer for that segment of the voyage. Just a tangential illustration of various uses of different projections


text:
Midford R., Cahill H., Ramsden R. et al.
Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy: 2012, 19(2), p. 102–110.
Unable to obtain a copy by clicking title? Try asking the author for a reprint by adapting this prepared e-mail or by writing to Dr Midford at _EMAIL_.
In Australia, alcohol outcomes from a secondary school harm reduction curriculum covering legal and illegal drugs strengthened the case that such education can not only curb harms, but also reduce consumption. Results suggest this approach might offer a more fruitful focus for education about commonly used substances than simply promoting non-use.
Summary The featured report documented post-programme alcohol-related outcomes from a small study evaluating a harm reduction model of drug, alcohol and tobacco education in Australian secondary schools. Three schools were allocated to the tested programme and a fourth to act as a control A group of people, households, organisations, communities or other units who do not participate in the intervention(s) being evaluated. Instead, they receive no intervention or none relevant to the outcomes being assessed, carry on as usual, or receive an alternative intervention (for the latter the term comparison group may be preferable). Outcome measures taken from the controls form the benchmark against which changes in the intervention group(s) are compared to determine whether the intervention had an impact and whether this is statistically significant. Comparability between control and intervention groups is essential. Normally this is best achieved by randomly allocating research participants to the different groups. Alternatives include sequentially selecting participants for one then the other group(s), or deliberately selecting similar set of participants for each group. school which carried on with normal lessons. All schools had pupil populations within the average range of socioeconomic status.
Of 930 year-eight pupils (typically 13 years old) in the schools, 521 completed a baseline assessment after approval had been obtained from the pupils and their parents. Later that school year the first set of 12 harm reduction lessons was implemented by the schools' own teachers, after which pupils completed a follow-up assessment. Another ten lessons were delivered the following year after which 318 pupils completed the final follow-up, typically when they were aged 14–15 years. Programme teachers were trained for two days in each year of the programme.
The tested curriculum incorporated learning strategies which aimed to: enhance knowledge; enhance negotiation skills; involve participants in rehearsing problem-solving and problem-prevention strategies; and engage them in deconstructing social pressures and perceived norms about levels of drug use. The curriculum was also informed by research which has identified social competence, problem-solving, autonomy and a sense of purpose as key attributes of resilient young people, and which has highlighted the importance of interactive and applied learning strategies in social and emotional learning.
At issue was whether compared to the control school, pupils in schools which implemented the harm reduction lessons improved more (or deteriorated less) in respect of their alcohol-related behaviour, attitudes and knowledge between the baseline and the final assessments. Knowledge scores in relation to alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs improved by 33% among programme pupils but only 18% in the control schools, a statistically significant advantage for the programme schools. Similarly there was a statistically significant advantage in respect of changes in the frequency of talking to parents about alcohol, which increased by 46% in the programme schools but fell slightly in control schools. The great majority of programme pupils recalled receiving more than one lesson on alcohol, but only a third of control pupils. However, the already highly responsible attitudes to drinking in both programme and control schools changed little and no more in the programme schools.
The proportion of pupils who had drank at least one full drink increased by slightly less in the programme schools (from 16% to 33% versus 20% to 43%), but this difference was not statistically significant. Neither was there any significant difference in the rise in the proportions who had drunk at least 50g or just over 6 UK units at one sitting. However, estimated total yearly consumption increased little in programme schools (from 148g to 205g) but rose significantly more steeply in the control school (from 79g to 308g). Similarly with the increase in the proportions who had drank in order to get drunk and in the number of times pupils had experienced alcohol-related social or health harms; average harm scores increased from 1.6 to 3.6 in programme schools but from about 1 to 5.2 in the control school.
The programme is most appropriately evaluated against its harm reduction objectives. On average it curbed the age-related increase in total alcohol consumption but not the increase in the proportion who risked harm by drinking heavily on a single occasion. The reason for this seemed to be that the curriculum exerted its greatest impact on pupils who usually drank in a low-risk manner at the start of the programme: their consumption increased by 131%, whereas the consumption of the low-risk control drinkers increased by 302%. In contrast, the programme did not persuade pupils who had already drunk heavily on a single occasion to curb their consumption any more effectively than usual lessons. Relative to the control school, the programme did however reduce drinking with a view to getting drunk and the average number of alcohol-related harms experienced by the pupils.
Judged instead against traditional abstinence objectives, the programme would not have been considered a success since it did not curb the increase in the proportion of pupils who drank.
The programme was also better at enhancing knowledge and encouraging pupils to talk to their parents about drinking, but did not lead to relatively more responsible attitudes to drinking.
These results however derived from a few schools and relatively few pupils, and many pupils did not join the study. Nevertheless the findings are consistent with studies that have shown school drug education which focuses on harm reduction can reduce consumption, risk and harm. The study also suggested that this can be achieved with a curriculum that does not focus solely on alcohol, even when it does not deter pupils from starting to drink. A curriculum covering all drugs may be easier for schools to find the time for than several focusing on different substances.
commentary The curriculum tested in the featured study was based in part on the Australian alcohol harm reduction curriculum SHAHRP. Like the featured curriculum, in both Australia and Northern Ireland SHAHRP curbed the growth in alcohol-related problems and also meant pupils drank less. These results further strengthen the promise of harm reduction education on drinking noted by a research review associated with guidance on alcohol education from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence issued in 2007. For commonly used substances like alcohol in Australia and in the UK, harm reduction may offer drug education a more realistic and culturally appropriate target for its limited classroom time and one which now has some solid research support. Such issues were addressed in the NICE guidance, which stressed that education should be adapted to its cultural context. For the UK the most salient point was that "alcohol use is considered normal for a large proportion of the population [and] a 'harm reduction' approach is favoured for young people".
One possibly significant finding in the featured study is the increase in the times pupils spoke to their parents about alcohol after the harm reduction lessons. An abstinence-oriented approach would have posed these 14–15-year-olds the choice of hiding their drinking (and even their interest in drinking) or risk being seen to have contravened the no-drinking rule. Harm reduction opens up opportunities for discussion which admit to drinking, making it possible to enrol parents in helping such drinking as does occur, occur more safely.
The same study has produced similar results in respect of smoking. Compared to pupils in the control school, pupils in the three schools which implemented the harm reduction curriculum were no less likely to take up smoking, but those who did smoked fewer cigarettes and experienced fewer associated harms. Over the previous 12 months, smokers in the harm reduction schools had smoked 37% fewer cigarettes at the final follow-up than they had at the start of the study, while smokers in the control school had smoked 268 times more. Corresponding figures for numbers of harms experienced were 28% fewer versus seven times more.
In the absence of random allocation of schools, it remains possible that the results of the featured study were due to differences between programme and control schools and pupils. Against this is the coherence in the findings suggestive of the intended harm reduction impact. Another major limitation is that barely more than half the pupils in the schools joined the study and only a third could be followed up, leaving a sample presumably characterised by parents willing to have their children receive special education on drinking and drug use, also willing to have them repeatedly questioned about substance use in the context of a study, and whose children tended to be available for and willing to be followed up. How the programme would have fared among the other two thirds of pupils is unknown. Finally, at this stage we do not know what happened in respect of the other substances covered by the curriculum.
For more on harm reduction education and on the UK policy and practice context see the most recent Findings analysis of the SHAHRP curriculum.
Thanks for their comments on this entry in draft to research author Richard Midford of Charles Darwin University in Australia and to Blaine Stothard, Independent Consultant in Health Education based in London, England. Commentators bear no responsibility for the text including the interpretations and any remaining errors.
Last revised 09 July 2013. First uploaded 05 July 2013


text:
Anyone who goes shopping or to a movie experiences the inconvenience of waiting in line. Not only do people spend time waiting in lines, but parts and products queue up prior to a manufacturing operation and wait to be worked on, machinery waits in line to be serviced or repaired, trucks line up to be loaded or unloaded at a shipping terminal, and planes wait to take off and land. Waiting takes place in virtually every productive process or service. Since the time spent by people and things waiting in line is a valuable resource, the reduction of waiting time is an important aspect of operations management.
Waiting time has also become more important because of the increased emphasis on quality, especially in service-related operations. When customers go into a bank to take out a loan, cash a check, or make a deposit, take their car into a dealer for service or repair, or shop at a grocery store, they equate quality service with quick service. Companies focus on reducing waiting time as a component of quality improvement. Companies are able to reduce waiting time and provide faster service by increasing their service capacity, which usually means adding more servers--that is, more tellers, more mechanics, or more checkout clerks. However, increasing service capacity has a monetary cost, and therein lies the basis of waiting line, or queuing, analysis, the trade-off between the cost of improved service and the cost of making customers wait.
Waiting lines are analyzed with a set of mathematical formulas which comprise a field of study called queuing theory. The origin of queuing theory is found in telephone network congestion problems and the work of A. K. Erlang. Erlang (_PHONE_), a Danish mathematician, was the scientific adviser for the Copenhagen Telephone Company. In 1917 he published a paper outlining the development of telephone traffic theory, in which he was able to determine the probability of different numbers of calls waiting and the waiting time when the system was in equilibrium. Erlang's work provided the stimulus and formed the basis for the subsequent development of queuing theory.
Different queuing models and mathematical formulas exist to deal with different types of waiting line systems. Although we discuss several of the most common types of queuing systems, we do not investigate the mathematical derivation of the queuing formulas. They are generally complex and not really pertinent to our understanding of the use of queuing theory to improve service.
Waiting lines form because people or things arrive at the servicing function, or server, faster than they can be served. This does not mean that the service operation is understaffed or does not have the capacity to handle the influx of customers. Most businesses and organizations have sufficient serving capacity available to handle its customers in the long run. Waiting lines result because customers do not arrive at a constant, evenly paced rate, nor are they all served in an equal amount of time. Customers arrive at random times, and the time required to serve each individually is not the same. A waiting line is continually increasing and decreasing in length (and is sometimes empty) and in the long run approaches an average rate of customer arrivals and an average time to serve the customer. For example, the checkout counters at a grocery store may have enough clerks to serve an average of 100 customers in an hour, and in a particular hour only 60 customers might arrive. However, at specific points in time during the hour, waiting lines may form because more than an average number of customers arrive and they have larger than average purchases.
Decisions about waiting lines and the management of waiting lines are based on these averages for customer arrivals and service times. They are used in queuing formulas to compute operating characteristics such as the average number of customers waiting in line and the average time a customer must wait in line. Different sets of formulas are used, depending on the type of waiting line system being investigated. A bank drive-in teller window at which one bank clerk serves a single line of customers in cars is different than a single line of passengers at an airport ticket counter that are served by three or four airline agents. In this section we present the elements that make up waiting lines before looking at waiting line formulas in the following sections.
The basic elements of a waiting line, or queue, are arrivals, servers, and the waiting line. The relationship between these elements is shown in Figure 16.1 for the simplest type of waiting line system, a single server with a single queue. This is commonly referred to as a single-channel queuing system. Following is a brief description of each of these waiting line components.
In our discussions of queuing, a customer is a person or thing that wants service from an operation. The calling population is the source of the customers to the queuing system, and it can be either infinite or finite. An infinite calling population assumes such a large number of potential customers that it is always possible for one more customer to arrive to be served. For example, a grocery store, a bank, and a service station are assumed to have infinite calling populations; that is, the whole town or geographic area.
A finite calling population has a specific, countable number of potential customers. It is possible for all the customers to be served or waiting in line at the same time; that is, it may occur that there is not one more customer to be served. Examples of a finite calling population are a repair facility in a shop, where there is a fixed number of machines available to be worked on, a trucking terminal that services a fleet of a specific number of trucks, or a nurse assigned to attend to a specific number of patients.
The arrival rate is the rate at which customers arrive at the service facility during a specified period of time. This rate can be estimated from empirical data derived from studying the system or a similar system, or it can be an average of these empirical data. For example, if 100 customers arrive at a store checkout counter during a 10-hour day, we could say the arrival rate averages 10 customers per hour. However, although we might be able to determine a rate for arrivals by counting the number of customers during a specific time period, we would not know exactly when these customers would arrive. It might be that no customers would arrive during one hour and 20 customers would arrive during another hour. Arrivals are assumed to be independent of each other and to vary randomly over time.
We further assume that arrivals at a service facility conform to some probability distribution. Arrivals could be described by many distributions, but it has been determined (through years of research and the practical experience of people in the field of queuing) that the number of arrivals per unit of time at a service facility can frequently be defined by a Poisson distribution. In queuing the average arrival rate, or how many customers arrive during a period of time, is signified by l.
The queuing theory arrivals are described in terms of a rate and service in terms of time. Service times in a queuing process may also be any one of a large number of different probability distributions. The distribution most commonly assumed for service times is the negative exponential distribution. Although this probability distribution is for service times, service must be expressed as a rate to be compatible with the arrival rate. The average service rate, or how many customers can be served in a period of time, is expressed as m.
Empirical research has shown that the assumption of negative exponentially distributed service times is not valid nearly as often as is the assumption of Poisson-distributed arrivals. Therefore, for actual applications of queuing analysis, this assumption would have to be carefully checked before this distribution was used.
It is logical to assume that the rate at which services are completed must exceed the arrival rate of customers. If this is not the case, the waiting line will continue to grow, and there will be no "average" solution. Thus, it is generally assumed that the service rate exceeds the arrival rate, l < m.
The queue discipline is the order in which waiting customers are served. The most common type of queue discipline is first come, first served--the first person or item in line waiting is served first. Other disciplines are possible. For example, a machine operator might stack in-process parts beside a machine so that the last part is on top of the stack and will be selected first. This queue discipline is last in, first out. Or, the machine operator might reach into a box full of parts and select one at random. This queue discipline is random. Often customers are scheduled for service according to a predetermined appointment, such as patients at a dentist's office or diners at a restaurant where reservations are required. These customers are taken according to a prearranged schedule regardless of when they arrive at the facility. Another example of the many types of queue disciplines is when customers are processed alphabetically according to their last names, such as at school registration or at job interviews.
Queues can be of an infinite or finite size or length. An infinite queue can be of any size with no upper limit and is the most common queue structure. For example, it is assumed that the waiting line at a movie theater could stretch through the lobby and out the door if necessary. A finite queue is limited in size. An example is the driveway at a bank teller window that can accommodate only a limited number of cars.
Waiting line processes are generally categorized into four basic structures, according to the nature of the service facilities: single-channel, single-phase; single-channel, multiple-phase; multiple-channel, single-phase; and multiple-channel, multiple-phase processes. These are illustrated graphically in Figure 16.2.
The number of channels in a queuing process is the number of parallel servers for servicing arriving customers. The number of phases, on the other hand, denotes the number of sequential servers each customer must go through to complete service. An example of a single-channel, single-phase queuing operation is a post office with


February 2015
Childhood obesity steals dreams.
Screencapture of LiveWell Colorado childhood obesity TV spotOur client LiveWell Colorado is raising awareness around the complex issue of childhood obesity. What are the contributing factors, and how is Colorado collectively making healthy change? We introduced a new TV spot during the 2014 Winter Olympics that addresses the environmental factors leading to childhood obesity. The new campaign has also been trans-created for Colorado's Hispanic audience. It's alarming how today's world is weighing heavy on Colorado kids.


text:
The search found 5 results in 0.013 seconds.
Fear/Stigma associated with HIV/AIDS continues to avert responses to the epidemic. Data (obtained in Tshwane metropolis) were used to test stigma/fear dimensions of an instrument. Factor analysis identified five foci of fear and stigma. There were significant differences on the factor scale measuring fear of sex, with females and younger respondents having significantly greater fear. Results were interpreted within a cultural context that realises that decreasing AIDS stigma is a vital step in stemming the pandemic.
Background: HIV-related stigmatisation and discrimination by young children towards their peers have important consequences at the individual level and for our response to the epidemic, yet research on this area is limited. Methods: We used nationally representative data to examine discrimination of HIV-positive children by grade six students (n = 39,664) across nine countries in Southern Africa: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. …
Stigma and discrimination towards people living with HIV have been widely documented, and have extended their impact into the workplace. Stigmatising attitudes towards people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the workplace significantly hinder HIV prevention efforts and indirectly affect national development. This cross-sectional study was designed to determine the level of knowledge about HIV and AIDS and assess attitudes towards PLHIV among the general staff of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), as well as to identify factors that are associated with it.
Artículo de prensa sobre la discriminación que sufren en Paraguay los niños que viven con VIH. Entrevista a Mirta Ruiz Díaz, coordinadora general de la Fundación Vencer Paraguay, quien describe la situación de los niños que viven con VIH en Paraguay y también la situación general de la epidemia a nivel nacional.
Artículo con una breve descripción de la nueva Constitución ecuatoriana aprobada en 2008. Entre otros elementos, reconoce la unión civil entre dos personas sin importar su sexo, sanciona la discriminación por orientación sexual, expresión de género y de personas que viven con VIH.


text:
The Articulated Total Body Model (ATB) is used for predicting gross segmented body response in various dynamic environments. The ATB computer program, originally written by the Department of Transportation as a Crash Victim Simulation (CVS) program, was later modified by the Calspan Corporation and More recently by the Armstrong Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory (AAMRL) to allow for aerodynamic force applications, harness belt capabilities and hyper-ellipsoidal graphical display of the modeled segments. The ATB model has been successfully used to investigate gross human body responses to bodies placed in such complex dynamic environments as high-speed aircraft ejection. This ATB model is quite versatile due to the variety of inputs it can handle. Because of this versatility, a wide range of physical systems may be simulated.
In this work, the ATB computer program has been modified for use on the Apollo workstation and utilized to predict limb and joint limitations a modeled human arm for the purpose of creating more effective rehabilitation schedules. A patient's left shoulder, left-upper and left-lower arm have been modeled for a case study. The required information consists of segment physical dimensions, weight.center of gravity and maximum forces and torques obtainable from various body muscles. From this information, forces a graphical display of desired segment positions, and numerical approximations of forces, torques, positions, velocities, and accelerations of any desired point of the modeled segment. A comparison of this numerical output found from the ATB will be made with actual patient response, further input will be created tracking the patient's rehabilitation progress. A mathematical model of this will be incorporated into the ATB for the purpose of predicting future patient responses and a predicted schedule for disabled patient rehabilitation.An accurate numerical and visual prediction of patient responses and limitations would be very beneficial in the creation of rehabilitation schedules. For such a service to be obtainable in a hospital environment, the ATB must be executable on a personal computing level. The Apollo workstation was selected for this project due to its relative mobility and availability. Many similar computing systems could be used where the criteria of mobility, large memory capabilities and superior graphics are obtainable. These criteria must be met so that the ATB could eventually be used by physicians in a clinic or office environment.
Laudon, M. F., "Implementation of the Articulated Total Body (ATB) Model on an Apollo Workstation" (1991). Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE). 140.


Oyeku Ofun Temple
By Professor Wande Abimbola
By "Ifa divination" we mean Ifa and related systems of divination based on the stories and symbols of the Odu such as dida owo (divination with the sacred divining chain called opele) and etıte-ale (divination with the sacred palm nuts), eerındınlogun (divination with the sixteen cowries), agbigba (divination with a divining chain slightly different from opele), and obi (divination with kola nuts). The purpose of this essay is to examine the intimate connection of Osun with Ifa divination both in her own right as a person, and through the instrumentality of Osetuura, her son. We will start with the popular view of the involvement of Osun in Ifa divination which states that she got to know about Ifa through Orunmıla, her husband. In the later pages of this essay, I will make the claim that Osun has much more to do with the origins of Ifa divination than the babalawo (Ifa priests) are ready to admit. I will, indeed, put forward the hypothesis that the entire divination system of Ifa started from Osun from whom it got to Orunmıla and not the other way round. I will base my claims on verses of Ifa which give us hints to that effect. We will then examine the possibility that eerındınlogun is older than dida owo and etıte-ale which are probably later developments of Ifa divinations.
Let us begin with the popular view that Osun was introduced to Ifa divination by Orunmıla. Several verses of Ifa tell us about this. For example, a verse of Ogbe"Sa states that Orunmıla created the sixteen-cowry divination system and gave it to Osun as a reward for saving his life. In this particular verse, it was after Orunmila had created the sixteen cowrie system for Osun that both of them became married. But as will be seen later from another verse of Ifa, even though they were husband and wife, they did not live together in one place because it was not the custom for couples to live together at that time.
Let me now take some time to tell the story of Osun and Orunmıla as contained in Ogbe'Sa, especially because it relates to the importance of eerındınlogun in the Ifa divination system. The story goes as follows. It happened at a time that Olodumare summoned all the four hundred-and-one Orisa to Orun. But to their greatest surprise, the Orısa encountered a group of wicked "cannibals" in heaven (probably witches known to the Yoruba as aje) who started to kill and eat up the Orısa one by one. But since Orunmıla had performed sacriﬁce before he left earth, he was miraculously saved by Osun who successfully hid Orunmıla from the cannibals, and substituted goat meat for the ﬂesh of Orunmıla which the cannibals had planned to eat on that particular day.
When both Osun and Orunmıla returned to the earth, they became much closer than ever before. It was probably at this time that Orunmıla and Osun became husband and wife. Orunmila then decided to reward Osun for saving his life, and that was how he put together the sixteen-cowry system of divination and taught Osun how to use it. Let me now quote a short portion of this verse of Ogbe'Sa. It goes as follows:
This was how Orunmıla and Osun became close.
Orunmıla said that the good turn which she did for him
Was an exceptional one.
He wondered what he should do in return.
This was the most important reason why Orunmıla
Created the sixteen cowries.
He then handed them to Osun.
Of all the Orısa who use sixteen cowries,
There is none who had it before Osun.
It was Ifa who gave it to Osun.
And asked her to cast it
And use it as another form of divination.
This was what Ifa used to reward Osun.
That is why the relationship between Ifa and Osun
Is such that nobody else can know
What is between the two of them.
Orunmıla then got married to Osun.
Of the several forms of divination,
Eerındınlogun is next in rank to Ifa.
According to this particular story in Ogbe'Sa, even though Orunmıla was the one who created eerındınlogun, this system of divination later received its own ase from Olodumare. It happened as follows:
Every sixteen years
Olodumare, Olofin of Orun,used to
Subject diviners of earth to a test
To ﬁnd out whether they were telling lies to the inhabitants of the earth Or whether they were telling the truth.
This test involved
Calling on Orunmıla and other diviners of the earth.
Olodumare would say that he wanted to see all of them.
When they arrived,
Olodumare would ask them to divine for him.
So, Olodumare asked Orunmıla to divine for him.
When Orunmıla ﬁnished divining,
Olodumare asked, "Who is next?"
Orunmıla said that the next person was his partner
Who was a woman.
Olodumare then answered,
"Is she also a diviner?"
To which Orunmıla replied, "That is true."
Olodumare then asked her to divine for him.
When Osun examined Olodumare,
She hit on all those things in his mind.
But she did not say it in full.
She mentioned the gist
But she did not tell the root of the matter like Ifa.
Olodumare asked Orunmıla,
"What is this one?"
Orunmıla then explained to Olodumare
How he honored Osun with the sixteen cowries.
Olodumare said, "It is all right."
He further said that even though she did not go into details,
He, Olodumare gave his assent to it.
He added, "From today on and forever,
Even if what eerındınlogun says may not be detailed,
Anybody who disbelieves it
Would see the consequences instantly.
It must not wait till the following day."
This is why the predictions of eerındınlogun come to pass quickly
Even though the stories may not be impressive.
That was how eerındınlogun received ase
Directly from Olodumare.
Osetuura and Ifa Divination Sacriﬁce
We will now turn our attention to myths of Ifa divination which tell us about the importance of Osun in Yoruba religion generally and how Osetuura became the representative of Osun in Yoruba divination and sacriﬁce. The full story goes as follows:
When the Orısa ﬁrst came to the earth, they must have arrived in waves—not all the four hundred-and-one Orısa arrived at once. In any case, according to this myth from the Odu Ose Otura, there were only seventeen Orısa in the ﬁrst party, and Osun was the seventeenth. Olodumare gave instructions to the Orısa about what they should do as soon as they arrived on earth to make the young earth a pleasant place to live. They carried out all the instructions without involving Osun in any of their activities. The result was that things did not go well for them... Rain did not fall. There was illness, bitterness, and restlessness all over the earth. Let us quote a few lines from this Odu at this juncture:
When they arrived on earth,
They created a sacred forest for Oro.
They created a sacred forest for Opa.
They made a small road leading to Ife.
They sent people to make okun beads.
They sent people to make brass objects.
But nobody involved Osun in anything.
Whereas Osun was the person taking care of them
Giving them food and other things.
All the things which the Orı.a were doing, none was successful.
They prayed for rain, but it did not rain.
Bitterness engulfed the earth.
Restlessness took over the streets of the city.
They exclaimed "Did Olodumare tell us a lie?
What is this?
We are doing everything according to his instructions."
The Orısa then decided to send Orunmıla to Olodumare to ﬁnd out what actually happened. When Orunmıla got to Olodumare, he stated the problem. He said that they were living on earth in accordance with the instructions of Olodumare, but to their greatest surprise nothing they did on earth was good. Olodumare then asked whether they involved the only woman among them in all they were doing. But Orunmıla replied that since she was a woman, they did not involve her. To which Olodumare replied as follows:
Olodumare said that he was a creator
But he would never create any person or thing twice.
He told Orunmıla


Province and Sedimentary Basin Geology
Go to the Petroleum Geology pagePetroleum Geology
Australia is relatively under-explored by international standards. Obtaining basic geoscience knowledge is important for attracting international investment in exploration. Such knowledge helps sustain Australia's oil and gas self-sufficiency.
Link to Coal Geology Coal Geology
Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from ancient vegetation which has been consolidated between other rock strata and transformed by the combined effects of microbial action, pressure and heat over a considerable time period.
Link to Uranium and Thorium Geology Uranium and Thorium Geology
Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive element which is found in the Earth mainly in oxides, silicates, carbonates and phosphates. Australia is host to the world's largest resource of easily recoverable uranium, and is a leading exporter of uranium worldwide.


text:
Durga Devi Zone
Embark on a Spiritual Wilderness Journey in Durga Devi Zone – Corbett National Park
Nestled within the verdant expanse of Corbett National Park, the Durga Devi Zone stands as a testament to the spiritual and natural harmony that defines this iconic wildlife sanctuary. Named after the historic Durga Devi Temple located within its boundaries, this zone offers a unique blend of divine tranquility and untamed wilderness, creating an enchanting destination for wildlife enthusiasts and nature lovers.
1. Durga Devi Temple: The focal point of Durga Devi Zone is the ancient Durga Devi Temple, a sacred site that adds a spiritual dimension to the wildlife experience. Surrounded by the lush greenery of the jungle, the temple is dedicated to the Hindu goddess Durga and attracts pilgrims and visitors seeking both spiritual solace and the wonders of nature.
2. Wilderness Safari Adventures: Explore the diverse landscapes and wildlife of Durga Devi Zone through safari adventures. Jeep safaris are a popular choice, allowing visitors to traverse the rugged terrain in the company of knowledgeable guides. The zone's varied topography, including riverbanks and dense forests, provides a rich tapestry for wildlife encounters.
3. Rich Fauna: Durga Devi Zone is home to a diverse array of wildlife, including elephants, tigers, leopards, spotted deer, and numerous bird species. The opportunity to witness these majestic creatures in their natural habitat adds to the allure of the zone, making it a must-visit destination for wildlife enthusiasts.
4. Mahasheer Fishing: The Ramganga River, which flows through Durga Devi Zone, is renowned for Mahasheer fishing. Anglers can indulge in the thrill of catching this prized freshwater fish while surrounded by the pristine beauty of the jungle.
5. Scenic Landscapes: The picturesque landscapes of Durga Devi Zone showcase the unspoiled beauty of Corbett National Park. From the scenic riverbanks to the dense Sal forests, visitors are treated to breathtaking views that capture the essence of the Indian wilderness.
6. Birdwatcher's Paradise: The diverse ecosystems within Durga Devi Zone make it a haven for birdwatchers. The zone is home to a variety of avian species, providing a captivating experience for those who appreciate the beauty and diversity of birds.
7. Ethereal Sunsets: Witness ethereal sunsets over the Ramganga River, casting a golden glow on the landscape. The tranquil ambiance of Durga Devi Zone creates the perfect setting to enjoy these mesmerizing moments in nature.
Durga Devi Zone in Corbett National Park is not just a wildlife sanctuary; it's a sacred journey into the heart of nature, where spirituality and biodiversity coexist in perfect harmony. Whether you seek a divine connection, thrilling wildlife encounters, or simply the serenity of the jungle, Durga Devi Zone invites you to embark on a journey of discovery and awe.