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Are you curious about the native plants growing around you? "What is this species, and what do I need to know about it?" On Sept. 26, 2014, OHA invited the community to bring photos and/or samples to our "Evening with the Experts," event, along with observations about the plant. Community members were encouraged to bring digital photos on USB flash drives, SD memory cards, or email in advance to _EMAIL_. The event was open to everyone, whether they brought in a mystery plant or not. There were plenty of examples available for everyone to learn from.
The event began with a brief overview provided by the panel of botanists. Dana Visalli presented on what flowers are for, how their shapes and colors function, and how they reproduce. George Thornton presented on habitat types, followed by Erica Heinlen's brief overview of bryophytes (mosses, lichens, etc.).
Participants were then invited to bring plant specimens and photos to the panel of experts, and plant enthusiasts were also on hand to assist with plant identification using field guides and keys. Samples of interest were projected onto a large screen for the whole group to see, and specimens, as they were labeled, were made available for display on tables.
Download the event handouts:
- Common Plant Attributes / Characteristics of Common Wildflower Families (1.4 MB)
- Guide to Identifying Plant Families (1.3 MB)
- Plant Families, Methow Naturalist (3.9 MB)
- Recommended Plant Field Guides (136 KB)
About the Experts:
George Thornton, retired Oroville high school teacher, long-time local botanist, and President of OHA's board, will spearhead the event. Thornton grew up in the Okanogan and raised his family here, contributing to the community as a teacher and a botanist, and volunteering with a wide variety of community organizations. His interest in plants began at an early age and developed throughout this life; on Sept 26 he will share from his wide-ranging experience with unique and rarely seen Okanogan Highland plants, as well as the more common species. Thornton provided the first Highland Wonders presentation in November of 2010 on "Botanical Gems of the Okanogan Highlands," and has also lead an OHA outdoor Native Plant Hike at Lost Lake and a Cedar Ecology event near Chesaw.
Dana Visalli contributed his knowledge on the panel, returning to Highland Wonders after his initial presentation on Highland Wildflowers in November of 2012. Visalli has worked for the last 22 years as a professional botanist and naturalist. He has published the quarterly natural history journal, "The Methow Naturalist" for the past 19 years, and has directed a summer ecology camp for children for 22 years. He lives in the Methow Valley, where he is an organic market gardener, and maintains the regional species lists for flowering plants, mosses, lichens, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. "I am becoming increasingly entranced by the story of the journey that life is on," Visalli says. "Plants are a big part of that story, becoming more complex over time. There are 300,000 different species of plants on earth, each one of them intricately adapted to a particular environment. They are beautiful and intriguing in their own right, and of course they make our lives, and all animal life on land, possible. So let's get into them!"
Erica Heinlen joined the Highland Wonders team for this event, sharing her unique specialty in mosses. The community is fortunate to have a mosses expert living in Tonasket, and OHA is pleased that she generously shared her skill and understanding at this event. Heinlen studied botany at the University of Washington and worked for the local Forest Service for several years doing vascular plant surveys. She caught an interest in bryophytes (mosses) on the job and so attended the University of Alberta and obtained her Masters degree in bryophytes in 2002, focused on mosses of the Okanogan Highlands. She has been working part-time for the Forest Service and contracting other bryophyte work since then. Heinlen was also available to help identify lichen, in addition to mosses.
Do you have a mystery plant you'd like to bring to a future event? Please follow these important guidelines: Download and print Guidelines for Plant Photos & Specimens
- Record the date and your name; write notes about the plant's location, elevation, habitat (surrounding plants including trees, site characteristics such as wet or dry soil, southern or northern exposure, etc.), and any other helpful or background info. Take notes on general plant information such as growth habit (tree, shrub, grass, herb), general size, leaf pattern (opposite, alternate, rosette), and anything else of note.
- GPS if possible, definitely optional
- Include something for size perspective (pencil, ruler, coin are common examples).
- Take multiple images from a variety of angles and distances.
- Digital images at highest pixel density available so they can be enlarged.
- Try to get a good, focused close-up of flower or other reproductive organ, if available. A close up of the leaf, including the leaf edge, is also helpful. Also show a broad perspective where the plant grows.
- If the plant is easily accessible, you may want to take photos at various stages of growth.
- Photos need not be printed out; you can bring them in on a digital device (preferred), such as your camera, flash/thumb drive, or SD card. If you don't have a digital device, prints are fine.
- Never, never take a specimen sample unless there are ample examples – a minimum of 20 in the immediate vicinity, but 50 or more is better.
- If the plant is abundant, take roots and all, if possible and practical.
- Alternately, consider taking a single flower and then notes and photos. If it is an unusual plant, you run the risk of harming a very small population.
- Be careful if collecting seed heads. Invasive non-native plants can be transported inadvertently, or you may introduce a native species that could become "weedy" to you, once growing in a different habitat. Plants with seed heads should be pressed with the book or press sitting in an open plastic bag that will capture released seeds. Once the plant is thoroughly dried, close the bag securely.
- Let the specimen partially wilt – it presses and dries much more easily. Usually you collect in a plastic bread sack or similar bag that is large enough, so you don't have to bend or crush it too much. Do not leave the specimen in plastic for more than a couple of days, or it may begin to rot.
- Use a stack of material, an old phone book, or something that is relatively rigid and large enough to press without a lot of folding or bending of the specimen. 8.5 X 11 is minimum, larger for larger plants.
- Spread out the specimen on newspaper or other absorbent paper with minimal overlap and all parts as flat as possible – particularly the flowering or reproductive parts of the specimen.
- Use newspaper layers with rigid material (cardboard, tag board, or other heavy duty water absorbent papers) below and above the specimen. Use multiple layers to make a sandwich for multiple specimens over time.
- It takes practice to lay out specimens, so practice on common material. They also make great pressed arrangements.
- Include an ID note or paper with notes as described above.


text: Where the Floodwaters Escape "That was the way it had been throughout all the long ages since the Dreamtime, and how it remained until the appearance of a new kind of evil spirit that came in the guise of pale boree ghosts from the land of the dead. The evil was insidious, for it came bearing gifts and offering friendship, so that the people did not immediately recognize it for what it was. Not that they could have resisted its inexorable onslaught in any case, for it was more potent and malign than anything that lurked in caves or the murky depths of waterholes. And against it the magic of the mekigar was powerless." -excerpt from Lament for the Barkindji by Bobbie Hardy Since 2012 I have been drawn to the rural Indigenous community of Wilcannia, NSW, Australia, home to the Barkindji people. In my time there I have witnessed a convoluted junction of race, history, power and socioeconomics and grappled to understand it meaningfully. The Barkindji have emerged scathed from a historical war fought with the tools of battle, disease and cultural cleansing, only to face a contemporary one fought through policy and institutionalized neglect. Their story is bound by a chain of cultural identity, some links holding strong and others damaged beyond repair. Like the majority of Aboriginal Australians, while they have survived, the legacies of the past continue to impact them in exhausting ways. To put it in context, a Barkindji man in Wilcannia has a life expectancy of only 37 years. Where the Floodwaters Escape reflects a people whose identity is shaped by the polarity of their history and the uncertainty of their future. Amongst the dysfunction in this community, there is evidence of their determination and will, threads of culture that hold them together. A meaningful narrative exists somewhere in the space between, framed by beauty, fragility, despair and hope. To be Barkindji is a blessing, despite the involuntary burden that is inherited.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


What are peacock babies called?
Peacock babies are called peachicks, though you won't find any peachicks at Sacrewell as we only have male peacocks and no peahens.
We thought you might be interested to know the correct terms for the male, the female and the baby of some other animals that we have on the farm too.
Animal Adult male Adult female Young
peafowl peacock peahen peachick
pig boar sow piglet
cattle bull cow calf
chicken cockerel hen chick
sheep ram ewe lamb
goat billy nanny kid
horse or pony stallion mare foal
alpaca macho hembra cria
donkey jack jenny foal
guinea pig boar sow pup
rabbit buck doe kit
For some animals, farmers also use different words for adult animals which are used for breeding and adult animals which aren't. Here are two examples:
Animal Castrated male Breeding male Young female Breeding female
pig barrow boar gilt sow
cattle steer bull heifer cow
An adult male peacock displaying his fabulous feathers.


What happened in the 19th century?
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What happened in the 19th century? by Mind Map: What happened in the 19th century?
1. Joseph Gayetty invented toilet paper in 1857.
1.1. Gayetty was born in Massachusetts USA, and worked in New York
2. Another inventions
2.1. The telephone, which allowed people to communicate over long distances
2.2.. The modern light bulb
2.3. Photography
2.4. Braille printing.
3. Alfred Nobel
3.1. He invented dynamite in 1867.
3.2. He studied in Russia, excelling in the study of chemistry.
3.3. He experimented with different elements, eventually inventing not only dynamite but other explosives, was well
4. Why do humans use money?
4.1. After that, around 400 BC, the Greeks began to use salt as currency.
4.2. Between 700 and 500 BC, India and China began to use coins.
5. Capitalism
5.1. Use your money, or capital, to create even more money. The better you are at making your money grow, the more money you have. You can even become very wealthy. It depends on how you invest your money.
5.2. Capitalism as we know it really started during the Industrial Revolution around 1760 in England, and got much worse after the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870.
6. Nobel Prize
6.1. Nobel Prize began in 1901 and is given every year to leaders in various fields of science and literature.


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A major challenge in high-resolution x-ray free-electron laser-based coherent diffractive imaging is the development of aerosol injectors that can efficiently deliver particles to the peak intensity of the focused X-ray beam. Here, we consider the use of a simple convergent-orifice nozzle for producing tightly focused beams of particles. Through optical imaging we show that 0.5 μm particles can be focused to a full-width at half maximum diameter of 4.2 μm, and we demonstrate the use of such a nozzle for injecting viruses into a micro-focused soft-X-ray FEL beam.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Condensed Matter Physics


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- Hits: 1211
Evolution of competing commensurate collinear (AF4) and incommensurate cycloidal (AF2) magnetic structures in Mn0.8Co0.2WO4 multiferroic was studied by neutron diffraction, magnetic, and pyroelectric characterization measurements. In contrast to pure and slightly Co doped MnWO4, the antiferromagnetic AF4 collinear phase [k1=(1/2,0,0)] inherent to the pure CoWO4 was observed below Néel temperature TN≈20 K in Mn0.8Co0.2WO4. This collinear order survives down to the lowest temperature reached in the experiments (2 K) even after the appearance of the second (cycloidal AF2) spin order below TFE≈8.5 K [k2=(−0.211,1/2,0.452)]. Ferroelectric polarization along b axis was revealed below TFE in the low temperature conical phase resulting from the superposition of the AF4 and AF2 spin structures. The arrangement of the spins after the two successive magnetic transitions are thoroughly described. In particular, we found that spins in the AF4 phase are aligned along the easy direction in the ac plane (∼142∘ with respect to the c* axis), while the cycloidal AF2 spin order is developed in the magnetically hard directions, perpendicular to the easy one, and consequently the TFE decreases compared to the pure MnWO4.


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TOOLS: First Steps in CraftShare on LinkedIn
Share on Facebook
Share on TwitterWhen learning a new skill, knowledge of the tools comes first.
In the process of mastering techniques, for making gift items, three tools are vital:
cuts jewellery wire and pins
2. ROUND NOSED PLIERS
shapes the wire/pins to form loops and rings
3. FLAT NOSED PLIERS
grips components and opens or closes jump rings.
The 4th tool shown is an option/matter of personal preference
4. FLAT NOSED, CURVED END PLIERS
useful for difficult to reach areas
(In the early learning stages it is not vital; some craft practitioners prefer this tool rather than standard, round nosed, pliers)


Field Trips
"The Board of Trustees recognizes that school-sponsored trips are an important component of a student's development and supplement and enrich the classroom learning experience. School-sponsored trips may be conducted in connection with the district's course of study or school-related social, educational, cultural, athletic, school band activities, or other extracurricular or cocurricular activities."
 From BP 6153
However, staff planning or participating in any school-sponsored trips MUST ensure that all legal, policy and liability requirements are met. To that end, the following information is provided:
 1. BP 6153
 2. AR 6153
 3. Flow Chart
 4. Forms and Guidelines - information packet
 5. Parent/Student Forms
 6. Staff Forms
 7. Non District Sponsored Trips - information
 8. Non District Sponsored Trips - Notification Template for Sponsors


What Can I Use Instead Of Toilet Paper?
What cultures do not use toilet paper?
France, Portugal, Italy, Japan, Argentina, Venezuela, and Spain: Instead of toilet paper, people from these countries (most of them from Europe) usually have a bidet in their washrooms.
A bidet like a toilet, but also includes a spout that streams water like a water fountain to rinse you clean..
How do you make homemade toilet paper?
Can you make your own toilet paper?Gather paper around your home, such as printer paper, non-glossy magazine sheets, or newsprint. … Soften the paper even further by soaking it in a water-filled bucket. … Transfer the paper to a pot. … Increase the heat and bring the water to a boil for about 30 minutes.More items…•
How do you use water instead of toilet paper?
How to use water instead of toilet paper. There are many ways to incorporate water into your washroom if you're not lucky enough to have a hose or built-in system, like we use in India. You can simply buy a small container — something like a plastic measuring cup, with a spout — and use it.
What do zero wasters use for toilet paper?
It's the most similar to conventional toilet paper but is made from recycled paper – sometimes up to 100% recycled paper.
Do Chinese not use toilet paper?
Most public restrooms in China do not provide any toilet paper, while others provide a common roll for visitors to use. According to a China Radio International report, the Temple of Heaven Park has supplied toilet paper in its public toilets for the last 10 years, but found that supplies were quickly exhausted.
Is wiping with toilet paper enough?
Using toilet paper doesn't clean our derrières properly and could cause worrying health problems, experts warn. … But now doctors are warning that wiping alone could leave faeces behind while excessive use could cause health problems such as anal fissures and urinary tract infections.
What is cowboy toilet paper?
Mullein aka "cowboy toilet paper" Mullein is a biennial plant available for use in almost every bioregion. When this plant blooms in the spring, not only will it satisfy your lower cheeks, but you'll be awed by a striking display of yellow flower blossoms growing up towards the sky.
What can I use if I don't have toilet paper?
If you run out of toilet paper, here's what you can use insteadPaper towels and tissues. Paper towels and tissues are probably the closest analogs to conventional toilet paper (and, frankly, ones that you may have already considered). … Paper. Upcycled paper may come in handy if you run out of toilet paper. … Cardboard toilet paper rolls. … Cloth. … Sponge. … Water.
What religion does not use toilet paper?
Islamic toilet etiquette – Wikipedia.
Why you should stop using toilet paper?
You're probably going to wish we didn't tell you this, but toilet paper can actually leave traces of poo behind so it's not a very effective way of cleaning yourself. Those traces of poos can also lead to health woes like anal fissures and painful urinary tract infections.
Is toilet paper more hygienic than water?
In most countries people use the toilet paper to clean themselves while lesser population prefers using water. While water is considered more hygienic, tissue paper is most widely used around the globe.
Why are there no toilet seats in Italy?
Apparently, the toilet seats are there originally but, then, they break. The seats break because people stand on them. People stand on them because they are not kept clean enough to sit on. … Either the proprietors decide there's no point in continuing the cycle, so they consign their toilet to the ranks of the seatless.


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America was supposedly named after Amerigo, Mr. Vespucci as it were, yet one in his exploration party wrote that the natives of what now is called Venezuela referred to themselves as the Veneciuela tribe, descendants of the Veneti of the Brittany coast of France, of the kingdom of Vannes, great mariners, some of their megaliths now submerged off Carnac, along with the ruins of the kingdom of Is, and no doubt others yet to be reported, mariners during and after the ice age, which actually ended circa 1500 b.c.
A peninsula of Brittany is called Amorica, sound familiar? Probably the Americos tribe of Venezuela are the descendants of the early Amorica of France, easy to believe when you realize those ancients were able to accurately measure and map the earth, by its wobble rate, for the earth commensurate units of length, the olympic foot and the cubit, the method explained in article #2 at _URL_, not what you'll learn in the public schools, but maybe soon we hope. Don't you think it's interesting? Indeed see _URL_.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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Above are clips from an MSNBC and a CNN interview with people who saw strange lights in the sky just before/during the Chile earthquake. Just as documented before the 2004 Tsunami, the 2008 China quake, and the 2010 Haiti quake, there is video evidence and many witnesses who saw aurora borealis type lights in the sky. It is NOT a natural phenomenon to see such lights before/during a natural earthquake, however, such a lighting effect IS a common side-effect of HAARP waves coming back down from the Ionosphere. This is very damning evidence.
A bright glow is not a precursor to a natural earthquake. A bright glow was reportedly seen during the time of the Haiti earthquake. Pravda.Ru reported The Russian Navy reports that the U.S. created the earthquake in Haiti, the article archived on NoLiesRadio. A bright glow was seen during the time of China's last powerful earthquake. There is documented evidence that it was created by scalar weapons based on a wedding party video that showed plasma discharge lights in the sky before that earthquake. A bright glow was seen and reported by hundreds of people, locals and tourists, during Vanuatu's 7.3 earthquake in 2002. The writer witnessed that bright glow there during that quake around 4 a.m. Ni-vans, the Republic of Vanuatu's indigenous population and one of the World's oldest living cultures that inhabits a remote and pristine tropical paradise area, reported that they had never before seen a bright glow during earthquakes. (Click here to read more from this article)
Another gauge to check for HAARP's responsibility is the Alaskan Induction Magnometer which basically shows whether or not HAARP is on or off at any particular time. Before/during the 2004 Tsunami, 2005 Katrina, 2008 China quake, and the 2010 Haiti quake, HAARP was indeed turned on and turned up to very high levels. Before yesterday's quake HAARP was turned on once again, this time at very low frequency, for about 8-12 hours ending about 5 hours before (just like Haiti) the quake hit. Not only this, but the USGS actually registered a 2.5 rictor quake in Alaska at the same time as the Chile quake! There are actually 2 HAARP facilities in Alaska, one in Russia, one in Norway, and one in Puerto Rico, unfortunately none of which have an Induction Magnometer in place to check if any of them were fired up in tandem.
There is no officially known numbers of separate HAARP stations worldwide, some say 3-4, 4-6, others as many as 8 to 10, the most well known being in Alaska and Norway (remember the Norway spiral? That happened over a HAARP station). So this technology heats up the ionosphere (an electromagnetic-wave conducting a layer of electrically charged particles acting as a shield from solar winds 62 miles above the earth). Remember there was an earthquake in Alaska today at a scale of 2.5 at the same time as this earthquake in Chile which was at a scale of 8.8, you could draw a straight line on the map between these two locations (Click here to read more from this article).
Above is Juan Andres Salfate on the Chilean conspiracy show, La Conspiración, talking about HAARP with subtitles in English. In Breaking News today, Lori Price, Managing Editor of Citizens for Legitimate Government(CLG) has implied that HARRP could have been involved in Chile's monumental 8.8 earthquake. CLG highlighting HAARP today concurs with a growing number of scientists and the public aware of the HAARP weapon of mass destruction and its geoengineering capacity to trigger "natural disasters" for imperialist political gain (Click here to read more).
To conclude, I'll just leave you with this USGS chart of Worldwide Deadly & Destructive Earthquakes over the past 100 years. Isn't it interesting that we've had a HUGE spike in deadly and destructive earthquakes since the invention of HAARP? Coincidence? You be the judge.


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LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists say they have developed a way of pinpointing variations in a person's genetic code using a chemical test on saliva, meaning quick, cheap DNA tests for risks of certain diseases may be around the corner.
Researchers at Edinburgh University said their technique, based on chemical analysis, can deliver reliable results without the need for expensive enzymes used in conventional DNA testing.
Juan Diaz-Mochon of the university's School of Chemistry, who led the research, said the chemical method was able to detect genes linked to cystic fibrosis in laboratory experiments using synthetic DNA.
With funding from commercial partners and the Scottish Enterprise fund, he said his team planned to market a cystic fibrosis test very soon and then run further research to see if the same method could be used to decode entire human genomes.
"We're hoping to bring the first test for cystic fibrosis to the market within five months," he told Reuters. "With the scientific data we already have, we believe we can develop this test further and in different ways."
Tests which identify tiny variations or omissions in DNA code are increasingly being developed and marketed as ways of determining whether or not a person is healthy, susceptible to disease, or has a disease or serious risks of developing one.
Cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening inherited disease in which internal organs such as the lungs and digestive system become clogged with thick sticky mucus, is one of a small number of diseases caused by a single, identifiable faulty gene.
Companies around the world are racing to develop ever faster and cheaper gene sequencing techniques to offer scientists and drug developers swifter routes mapping whole genomes.
U.S. firm Illumina launched its latest genome sequencing tool, HiSeq 2000, in January and challenges rivals at Life Technologies, Roche, Affymetrix, Agilent Technologies and Helicos BioSciences.
Experts say the "holy grail" for such firms is to be able to decode a person's entire genetic sequence for $1,000.
Diaz-Mochon said his chemical method would offer a "speedy, cost-efficient alternative" to existing DNA analysis.
"The market for DNA testing is quickly expanding as it becomes more affordable. Our method could help reach the goal of complete genome analysis in a few hours for less than $1,000," he said in a commentary about the study, which was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie and funded by Scottish Enterprise.
Mark Bradley, who also worked on the study, said the team planned to extend their collaborations with researchers and companies working in DNA "and establish our first commercial operations within the next six months."
SOURCE: Angewandte Chemie International Edition, published online February 12, 2010.
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How Lighting, Camera Distance and Vampirism Portrays the Death of the Rural Countryside in 1980s America in the Movie 'Near Dark'
America in the nineteen-eighties was a difficult time for farmers and landowners as the expansion of cities destroyed agricultural land and engulfed small towns. Literature and film created in this time period often portrayed rural communities as a utopia due to a negative stigma associated with the advancement of technology and growth of urban life (Dyer 54). The feature film, Near Dark, released in 1987 uses camera distance, lighting and vampirism to portray the death of the rural countryside in nineteen-eighties America.
The movie follows Caleb, a young man having grown up in a rural farming community who wants nothing more than to escape the small-town life and travel "a thousand miles from here tonight." The opening scenes of the movie show the sun setting over the rolling fields, the light fading and darkness falling the further Caleb drives into his small town. This is the first sense the viewer has that lightness, and therefore life, is a feature of the rural areas. As the movie progresses, city scenes are shot solely in the night's darkness, while the countryside remains a contrasting golden hew of daylight. This portrays the sinister aspects of city life. If the protagonist had been a city man falling prey to the vampiric lifestyle, the film would have lost this representation entirely. However, having the vampires, one of which is the love of Caleb's life, lure him into the city, contrasts the innocence or rural life with the malevolence of urban. Vampires, trapped in limbo between life and death, are often shot with there faces half in darkness and half in light. The light depicting the life they yearn to have in the country, the dark depicting the cities that engulf them. Mae, a vampire, meets Caleb in the country, suggesting the city moving into the country. Mae's line, "look, the night, it's so bright it'll blind you," suggests she's been kept in the dark from her crimes, and therefore the cities' crimes. In "Rural America in Film and Literature" Dyer argues that this depiction is idealized: "Although this sentimental yearning for ponds, vegetable gardens, and old houses set deeply in the woods seems relatively harmless, it frequently prevents us from recognizing and understanding the hard realities of our rural population: financial difficulties of the farmers, unemployment of miners and loggers, boredom and confusion of youth living in small country towns." The title itself, Near Dark, is a commentary on the lighting, the skyscrapers that will soon cast a shadow over the countryside, leaving it in darkness. Dyer points out that this sense of rural utopia is fictionalized and portrays a biased view of rural standard of living.
Furthermore, camera distance is used to create a similar effect. After Caleb is initially bit by Mae, he runs home to safety. The fields he runs through are shot with loose framing to suggest freedom and safety. He can run in any direction, it's only the vampire bite and the growing infection that slows him down. However, the moment Caleb is kidnapped by the vampires he is sequestered into an RV where the framing is tight suggesting the confinement of the expanding cities. Tight framing and confined spaces are used every time Caleb is pressured to act in a criminal manner; the train car with only one exit, the dive bar where Severn instructs Caleb to kill for the first time, and the hotel room where the vampires find themselves under the attack of the police. These close shots give the impression of claustrophobia, while the shots of the ranch are always loose with wide frames. When Caleb's father and sister visit the police to enquire about Caleb's missing person's case, we once again have tight framing and shadowy lighting. This suggests that the country folk are turning towards authority, and therefore the city for help, which is leading them into darkness. In the end, it is not the police or even the hospital that brings Caleb to safety and health, but rather his return to the countryside.
Lastly, a significant historical event of the nineteen-eighties is the discovery of AIDS, a disease rampant in many young urban men (CDC 430). In cinema, vampires have often been symbolic of the detriments of unsafe blood transfer and the spreading of disease (Marty 416-432). Near Dark is no exception. Caleb and Mae's first sexual encounter, a simple kiss turned bite, leads to the transfer of blood that infects Caleb and turns him into a vampire. A creature of the night. A city dweller. The drinking of blood is played out in overtly sexual ways, often leading to the death of the human, which suggests the spreading of AIDS throughout the city, causing an influx in mortality. It should be noted that when Caleb watches Mae kill for the first time there are oil rigs in the background. She sucks the blood from a man while the city sucks the "life" from the Earth. Since vampires acting sexually towards their prey before killing them is not unlike the oilrigs "raping" the rural landscape. Although the vampires reside in the city, their prey tends to be people in rural areas, like the country folk in the dive bar, people that won't be missed. Furthermore, when Caleb chooses not to kill in order to survive, there's a sign in the background reading "Because Clean Hay Pays," which once again connects the countryside to life and survival. In the end, Caleb cannot overcome his sickness until he returns to his home in the country. He no longer wants to run away from small town life, instead he's found contentment within. The last scene is of Mae choosing to love by joining Caleb in the country; she too is given a second chance at life now that she has put the city behind her. In "Embracing the metropolis: Urban Vampires in American Cinema of the 1980s and 90s" Abbott writes, "Since Stoker's novel, vampires, particularly in film, have been increasingly attracted to cities in which they are free to hunt amongst the crowds… The vampire in cinema is no longer an outsider representing the pre-modern but rather embraces the metropolis as its home and through it modernity itself." When Caleb and Mae leave the city, they no longer embrace modernity and therefore can no longer be considered vampires.
The nineteen-eighties were a time when rural life was depicted in film and literature as a utopia that should be strived towards, as the expansion of city goes hand in hand with the expansion of crime (Dyer 54). Although this a skewed view of rural living, it is a reminder that with change comes fear. Much like changing from human to vampire. Near Dark uses lighting, camera distance and vampirism to depict the death of the rural countryside due to the expansion of cities. However, it also suggests hope. Hope that people can realize when something is wrong, fight against it, and return to what is safe and pure. An especially poignant line, delivered by Mae in this film is, "Don't think of it as killing. Don't think at all." This line juxtaposes the intention of the film, to have the viewer consider the expansion of evil, and take action against it.
Abbott, Stacey. "Embracing the metropolis: Urban vampires in American cinema of the 1980s and 90s." Vampires: Myths and metaphors of enduring evil 28 (2006): 125.
Bigelow, Kathryn. "Near Dark." Perf. Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen. F/M (1987).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC. "HIV and AIDS–United States, _PHONE_." MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report 50.21 (2001): 430.
Dyer, Joyce. "Rural America in Film and Literature." The English Journal 76.1 (1987): 54-57.
Fink, Marty. "AIDS Vampires: Reimagining Illness in Octavia Butler's "Fledgling"." Science Fiction Studies (2010): 416-432.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Broadview Press, 1997.
I am a screenwriter and story editor based out of Vancouver. I have attended Vancouver Film School and have now joined the amazing Canadian writer's community.
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The ocean is an awe-inspiring sight with a seemingly endless expanse of rolling water that stretches to the horizon. The ocean can be calm and relaxing, fun and playful, romantic and mysterious, or fierce and powerful. The details of the water -- the constant movement of the ocean and the rhythm of the waves -- can be hard to capture on canvas. A subtle detail like the white foam of a rolling breaker or the spray of a cresting wave, however, can easily add movement and realism to your painting that might otherwise be lacking.
Locate a suitable reference to work from. Sea foam is a rapidly changing and dynamic subject that might be very hard to create convincingly from memory alone. Find multiple photographs of breaking waves that you can refer to. You do not have to copy the details exactly, but you want to observe the way the foam interacts with the waves. If you are painting from real life, study waves at each point in the life cycle. Waves break the same almost every time; the only thing that changes is the scale of the wave.
Video of the Day
Paint the seascape and the waves. Work your way from the underlying basic colors to the more specific hues of the water. The ocean is not a single color, so use a mixture of different hues and shades to create a convincing seascape.
Form contours of waves with long smooth brush strokes. Follow the path of the water with your brush. The texture of the paint will help create the illusion of shape and movement. Taller waves will have slightly darker water at the base of the wave, while the top will have more light shining through, creating a lighter hue or even a slight glow.
Add the sea foam with a small brush and short quick brush strokes. You can also use a sponge and gently dab to create foam. Use white paint with just a hint of the primary hue of the sky in it. The ocean in real life reflects the color of the sky and the sea foam often will have a hint of this as well. Avoid creating solid blocks of a single color and let flecks of the water peek through, giving the illusion of spray and foam.
Create depth and detail to the foam by adding shadow and shade. When sea foam rolls into a beach or tops a breaking wave, it's a three-dimensional object. The underside of the foam will often be slightly darker than the foam on top. This is easier to see if you are using a photograph as your source. With a small brush, apply a slightly darker hue to the underside of rolling foam or anywhere the light may not be able to reach as well. Blend the transition from dark to light smoothly for a nice, rounded edge.


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Courtesy Library of Congress
Until 1912, Oregon women lived by men's law. They had few legal rights with little power to improve their lives or communities. That changed when women won the right to vote.
Premieres November 05, 2012, 9:00 PM
on OPB TV
For decades, Oregon women worked to get the vote with no success. Then, just after the turn of the twentieth century, a younger generation of women burst onto the scene. They challenged traditional society by taking on male roles and demanding change.
They came from different backgrounds, and often had different agendas. But the diversity of the movement allowed more women to become engaged in their own communities. Their experiences empowered them as they gained valuable experience in leadership, politics and civic involvement.
Together they won the vote for Oregon women, and went on to help implement social change that dramatically altered the lives of women and children, and improved working conditions for all Americans.
This era of women's mobilization changed Oregon, and ultimately, the country.
© 2013 Oregon Public Broadcasting.


Overview Of Curved Glass
Measuring for a curve
Measuring for a curve, like everything else, is simple when you know how.
We hope the following guidelines will be of some help.
The main principle to understand is that accuracy is achieved by working/ measuring from point to point.
For example in the sketch below, the blue line and dots represent external point to point dimensions of a panel of glass. i.e chord, radius, depth of bend, and girth. The red line and dots represent the internal dimensions of the same panel of glass.
For us to produce curves from measurements supplied we need accurate details of at least 1 of the following options, along with the height.
 - 1. Radius and angle of arc (specify whether int. or ext)
 - 2. Radius and chord
 - 3. Chord and depth of bend
The above holds true once the curve represents a part or segment of a circle. However where the curve is an irregular shape, either elliptical or part curved with part straight, then we would always recommend taking an accurate template of the shape. Of course where templates are being provided, like with measurements it is important to specify what they represent: int. or ext or centre.
Design - B[]X | Hosting - HostingIreland | W3C CSS 2.1 Compliant | W3C XHTML 1.0 Compliant


Alternate History
Medieval Times (No Punic Wars)
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The Medieval era was very different in this TL, but there still was a medieval era. Rome was still around by 674 CE until it finally collapsed under rebellions because the tyrant Gregorius Illyrius Anton did not take good care of Rome after conquering the new republic. The medieval era had begun earlier in Africa because of the fall of Carthage due to African tribes strengthening into kingdoms. Carthage fell in 536 CE.
Nations in the Medieval era
Medieval Timeline
Carthage was the first of the great empires to fall. African nations to the south of it took over the Carthaginians. When they fell Rome rose to new heights. The Romans took over North Africa and the remnants of the Carthaginian empire in Arabia. In the Sahara Desert several states were formed and in parts just a bit lower than the Atlas Mountains formed the Oasis Kingdom. Soon
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Date of Conferral
Public Policy and Administration
Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been entangled in a cycle of violence. Extensive crimes that include summary executions, rapes, and the use of child soldiers are frequent in the eastern provinces of the DRC. Little is known, however, about the factors that have contributed to the emergence of these ongoing acts of terror. The study provides insights into the antecedent conditions of terrorism in this country. The purpose of this quantitative correlational research study is to examine the precursors of the conflict in the DRC. The study provides the opportunity to understand the degree and possible strength of the relationship between the criterionâ??terrorist incidentsâ??and the following predictors: political instability and economic activities in the DRC. Aberle's relative deprivation theory provided structure for the study. Research questions focused on the correlation between terrorist incidents and the 2 predictors: political stability and economic growth. A quantitative correlational study design was employed, using longitudinal secondary dataâ??91 casesâ??obtained from 2 organizations: (a) the World Bank and (b) the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Data from these sources were analyzed using a panel data regression. Results indicated a significant, but negative, association between terrorist incidents and political stability. No significant correlation appeared between terrorist incidents and economic growth. The implications for social change include informing the Congolese government, the African Union's leaders, and the international community about the precursors to these terrorist acts, as well as the need to improve the socioeconomic conditions of civilian and restore the credibility of the governments.


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The principle of effectiveness during the EU Financial Crisis: effective judicial protection of bank
The aim of this research was to identify whether courts within the EU effectively protect bank depositors and whether arbitration would offer additional protection, especially in the light of the current global financial crisis. This was achieved by examining selective case law of national, EU and supranational courts and awards given by international tribunals in this area. In order to consider and compare the approach of courts and arbitral tribunals towards the protection of bank depositors during the financial crisis, this paper's measure of assessment is based the right of effective judicial protection, as it is preserved in the Charter, the ECHR and the EU Treaties and the relevant case law.
Bank deposits as investments
The examination of the nature and characteristics of bank deposits in relation to the general features of investments under EU law and international law, might lead to some assumptions regarding whether bank deposits could qualify as investments.
At first, an investment involves a commitment of economic value, the purchase of an asset or the transposition of capital into a lucrative economic activity. The action of depositing money in a bank does not convert cash (or either cash-equivalents) into other assets. Furthermore, there is the argument that the operation of a bank deposit entails a commitment of economic value but from a reverse side. In particular, the bank invests the client's money when it on-lends it to third parties. In such argument, the client becomes the lender to the bank, instead of being an investor in it.
Moreover, the duration of an activity plays a key role in identifying the activity as an investment. Since there is no a fixed time threshold, on the basis of which someone could assess whether a contribution may qualify as an investment, it is difficult to draw a general conclusion regarding bank deposits and their duration. It is clear that short-term bank deposits could not satisfy the duration requirement and long-term deposits might illustrate the establishment of long-lasting link with a country, while medium-term deposits are more controversial.
The third feature of investment relates to the profit expectation and the assumption of risk. Bank deposits are income-producing, since the depositors have at least a minimum return, in the form of the interest returned to them. As every profitable activity, bank deposits involve some risk. Since most Deposit Guarantee Schemes provide for the protection of a maximum amount of money deposited, the rest of the deposit remains uninsured. Therefore, the deposits in excess of the deposit guarantee threshold constitute unsecured claims of the depositor on the bank, and they can be bailed-in, contrary to the initial supposition that money deposited are available to be returned to their owners on demand.
Furthermore, an investment is generally considered to contribute to the development of the country. Strictly speaking, an individual bank deposit cannot be advantageous for the development of a country in a direct way. However, the long-term importance of bank deposits in a country's economy is priceless. If banks do not provide finance, the economy of a country will suffer and finally fail. The ability of banks to provide finance depends on their ability to mobilise sufficient amount of deposits in the economy. Some clients deposit their money in a bank and some other clients borrow money from those resources, therefore the banking industry transform deposits into real productive capital, which contributes to the development of a country. Consequently, bank deposits are the foundations of an economy, since banks cannot function without deposits.
Moreover, the fact that some BITs expressly cover bank deposits also strengthens the argument that bank deposits are investments for the purposes of investment arbitration.
In summary, this section supports that although bank deposits cannot be regarded as investments up to the amount protected by the deposit guarantee schemes, they can be regarded as investments for the unsecured amount, i.e. the amount that is not secured under the relevant DGS. The importance of deciding whether bank deposits qualify as investments lies in the further allowance or prevention of the protection of depositors by the provisions of investment law and the availability of international investment arbitration for the resolution of their disputes and their effective protection during the financial crisis.
The approach of courts towards the protection of bank depositors and effectiveness
In the context of economic integration, the CJEU has been used to create new legal norms, establish new rights and interests and promote new policies. The whole process in this area has a normative character, since the changes introduced by the Court regarding economic governance and the role of various, national and supranational, actors involved, give rise to further litigation which results in deeper integration.
At the national level, courts remained highly deferential when dealing with reforms of the EMU and slightly less deferential when dealing with national measures in the same area. This extent of deference can be explained based in the concerns of domestic judges of possible adverse consequences of a negative decision and of intervening in areas of political process and sensitive emergency circumstances.
Similarly, the CJEU preferred to detach itself from scrutinising the legality of the ESM Treaty and declared inadmissible all applications made to review the compliance of national measures and the MoUs with the general principle of law and the Charter. Furthermore, it declared that the EU institutions were not involved in the conclusion of the MoUs and the financial assistance programmes, since they were not acting as organs of EU law at that time. Importantly, the EFTA Court refused to impose any responsibility on the State to compensate affected depositors, and prefer to shift all the burden on the DGS itself.
Finally, the ECtHR's case law on the Eurozone crisis is mainly based on the argument that the economic crisis at stake constituted a major threat for the Eurozone, but also for the Union as a whole, so most measures adopted were declared proportionate and States were given a wide margin of appreciation.
The first conclusion reached is that the nature of the subject matter of the disputes, which requires particular expertise and democratic legitimacy, and the emergent character of the measures at stake, constitute the basic obstacle to judicial review, though such review seems more necessary for individuals than ever before. Besides, by refusing any link of EU law and the EU institutions with the MoUs means that, de facto, no legal organ within the EU legal order remains eligible to examine the protection of citizens' fundamental, economic and social rights considering this field.
From a procedural scope of view all courts have offered sufficiently effective judicial protections, since applicants enjoyed access to justice and a fair trial. However, most of the rulings given only gave priority on economic and political considerations and the survival of the Eurozone, thus they have not focused on the protection of individuals' rights.
The tendency identified that holds some of the most important actions taken in response to the crisis, with the European Commission and the ECB playing a crucial role in their adoption, to fall outside the scope of EU law and the jurisdiction of the European courts, limits the judicial protection of individuals on their national courts. National courts, from their side, seem reluctant to shift their focus towards the effects of the measures under challenges on the citizens.
The approach of Arbitration towards the protection of bank depositors and effectiveness
After examining the approach of national, supranational and international courts towards the protection of bank depositors during the financial crisis, this paper proceeded to the position that international arbitration has adopted when arbitrators were asked to review the conformity of the post-crisis measures adopted at the EU and national level with the standards afforded to the protection of foreign investors. For this purpose, the Abaclat v Argentina case has operated as a benchmark and an indication of how other arbitral tribunals in the pending cases could approach the matters of financial instruments as investments and the financial crisis.
The fact that most arbitral cases regarding the Eurozone are still pending renders any conclusion drawn, at least for the time being, somehow premature. As a matter of procedure, at this point the paper reiterates the conclusion made in the previous chapter, namely that all arbitral tribunals have offered sufficiently effective protection, in the sense that the applicants' rights of access to justice and a fair trial have been respected. Consequently, comparatively, both litigation and arbitration satisfy the principle of effective (judicial) protection.
As an initial implication, the decision in Abaclat is considered landmark as it signals the availability of ICSID arbitration to holders of security entitlements that have been negatively affected by a sovereign debt restructuring. Such a possibility could be characterised both as salutary for foreign investors and as a menace to States in financial difficulties, such as the Eurozone countries. The immense significance of Abaclat does not depend on whether compensation was finally payable or not, but on the fact that it recognised that financial investment should enjoy the protection afforded by BITs. Indeed, since, probably, most BITs define 'investment' as 'any kind of asset', they give the opportunity to Tribunals to encompass on the notion of financial investments.
The introduction of international arbitration as a new forum for disputes arising out of sovereign debt restructurings demonstrates 'a neglected field in the European Union countries' reaction to the sovereign debt crisis. The reason for this is that, within the Eurozone, various legal and political measures were taken in order to achieve and secure financial stability, but the matter of the resolution of disputes arising out of those measures was never touched upon. If 'the crisis showed that it was possible to have a sovereign debt crisis in a European Member State', the Abaclat case revealed the availability of an international fora.
The regime of international arbitration lacks the feature of precedent, which means that arbitrators are not bound to follow previous awards, even in cases with very similar facts, and this is the reason why court decisions and arbitral awards do not have the same legal value though they are both enforceable and binding on the parties involved. Thus, it is only expected that the ongoing arbitration cases on the financial cases will use the


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30 Aug AMNIOTIC MEMBRANE THERAPY FOR THE EYES
Amniotic membrane therapy has become a popular procedure in the last two decades. This treatment allows for a biological bandage to be applied to the ocular surface to promote surface reconstruction and healing.
WHAT IS AMNIOTIC MEMBRANE TISSUE?
The amniotic membrane is a thin layer of skin that lines the inside of the placenta. The purpose of the amniotic membrane is to protect the fetus against harm and is naturally therapeutic to help the fetus develop. The collagen of the membrane is what makes the tissue so special, because it contains specialized proteins as well as growth factors.
Amniotic Membrane tissue is taken as a graft from elected cesarean section and is handled in sterile conditions to be used for ocular therapy.
WHAT ARE AMNIOTIC MEMBRANE GRAFTS?
There are three different types of amniotic membrane grafts that are used in ocular therapy.
Surgical Graft: This type of grafting is used when a permanent graft is needed to restore tissue. The graft is surgically sutured onto the tissue of the eye, and over time the membrane dissolves. This treatment is most commonly used during conjunctiva reconstructionwhen there is a benign growth of the inner eye.
Dehydrated Sutureless: Popularly used for ocular scarring, this grafting procedure can be done by ophthalmologists and optometrists. With this procedure a circular tissue graft is applied to the desired area of the cornea and flattened to the surface without an outer stabilizing ring. A lid speculum is required for this procedure as it helps the amniotic membrane graft to stay in place on the cornea, keeping the surrounding eyelid away. Steady hands are needed for the insertion and removal of this procedure to make sure the lid speculum does not disrupt the graft, or move the contact lens.
Cryopreserved Sutureless: Since the dehydrated sutureless graft is more of a challenging procedure due to the insertion of the lid speculum, the cryopreserved sutureless is a popular choice, because optometrists can perform the treatment at their own clinic. With this procedure the amniotic membrane is applied with an ophthalmic conformer ring. The ophthalmic conformer ring comes in various different levels of thickness depending on how severe the eye condition is and resembles a contact lens.
WHAT ARE THE INDICATIONS OF NEEDING AMNIOTIC MEMBRANE THERAPY?
Amniotic membrane therapy is used for any condition that damages the ocular surface, underlying stromal inflammation or any condition that can cause permanent scarring of the ocular surface affecting the patient's vision.
Conditions that may require amniotic membrane therapy include:
- Shield ulcers
- Neurotrophic corneal epithelial defects
- Corneal abrasions, ulcers and burns
- Filamentary keratitis
- Dry eye and exposure keratopathy
- Recurrent corneal erosion
- Salzmann's nodular degeneration
- Chemical and thermal burns
- Post-infectious keratitis
Determining what procedure should be preformed for each condition are patient and case dependent. Some amniotic membrane therapies may last longer than others, as the membrane will dissolve or be absorbed at different rates.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF AMNIOTIC MEMBRANE TRANSPLANTS?
With allogeneic tissue there is an implied risk of infectious disease transmission, however all caesarean section donors are thoroughly screened for communicable diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis and syphilis. The grafted membrane that is taken from cleared donors is then stored in sterile conditions depending on the grafting procedure the sample is to be used for. The membrane tissue is either stored for fresh use or cryopreserved at a temperature of -80 degrees Celsius.
If you have any further questions regarding the transplantation of this particular procedure, feel free to comment on our Facebook page, or book an appointment for further consultation.


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Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative
A national working group has begun the Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative (CCCII) to develop and disseminate resources and guidelines to assist Catholic elementary and secondary schools in integrating elements of Catholic identity (Catholic values, Scripture, Church social teachings, encyclicals, etc.) into curriculum and instruction based on the Common Core State Standards.
The initial phase of CCCII focuses on K-8 English/Language Arts/ Literacy. Resources for other subjects and for 9-12 curriculum will be developed in later phases.
Forty-six states have agreed to adopt the Common Core State Standards, a set of high quality K-12 learning standards that includes rigorous content and application of knowledge using higher-order thinking skills, leading students to college and career readiness. Currently, Catholic schools are assessing what the implications of the standards and accompanying assessments may be for them.
While Catholic schools have their own local or diocesan standards, their ability to continue to provide high-quality education for their students is compelling them to consider adoption of the common core standards. Catholic schools will be impacted as curriculum resources and professional development opportunities become aligned with Common Core State Standards by producers of instructional materials, college teacher preparation programs, or regulations for participation in the federal programs that currently benefit their students and teachers. Within this environment, maintaining the uniqueness and integrity of the Catholic school will require integrating the demands of their mission and the academic expectations of their constituents and the wider education community.
To assist Catholic schools with enhancing Catholic identity integrated into the curriculum, the Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative (CCCII) has been launched as a collaborative project involving Catholic universities, corporations and sponsors invested in Catholic education, and the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA).
The Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative has two goals:
- to empower Catholic schools and dioceses to design and direct the implementation of the Common Core standards within the culture and context of a Catholic school curriculum
- to infuse the Common Core standards with the faith/principles/values/social justice themes inherent in the mission and Catholic identity of the school.
The CCCII project aims to accomplish its goals by creating a process and a product:
Phase 1: Gather approximately 35 practitioners and curriculum and catechetics experts to pilot a CCCII ELA Unit development process to be shared with the larger Catholic educational community. (June 2012)
Phase 2: Revise and refine the unit development process so that it can be replicated in dioceses around the country.
Phase 3: Invite participation in development of additional CCCII ELA Units by Catholic educators around the country.
Phase 1: Utilize the expertise and strength of experienced and innovative teachers to develop complete units/exemplars that join Catholic identify with the Common Core curriculum standards. Utilize the expertise of CCCII leaders to develop supporting resources and guidelines. (June 2012)
Phase 2: Post exemplar units, guidelines, and resources developed in for the June 2012 launch for open access by Catholic educators on the Catholic School Standards Project Website _URL_). (July 2012)
Phase 3: Expand exemplar units and Catholic Identity resources available for use by local Catholic schools.
Tailor the CCCII Unit development process for Catholic secondary schools.
Expand CCCII to include additional subject areas.
Meet the CCCII Leadership and Planning Teams


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Building Ocean Literacy in our youth through unique learning experiences in our National Marine Sanctuaries.
This project aims to develop and implement residential and non-residential science camp and summer camp programs and related activities to over 1500 youth and teachers from 8 elementary and middle schools. NOAA's Multicultural Education for Resource Issues Threatening Oceans (MERITO) program will serve as a key outreach mechanism to reach underserved youth and their families. The proposed project will utilize existing ocean educational materials, including those developed by NOAA, in experiential learning programs for youth through Camp SEA (Science, Education, Adventure) Lab. The two major goals of the project are: (1) to develop and implement marine-oriented outdoor science and summer camps in close collaboration with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, resulting in an effective model for dissemination of the Ocean Literacy Essential Principles and Fundamental Concepts to large numbers of youth and their teachers; and 2) to develop a model and a feasibility plan to implement the program across a broader geographical area, e.g. through other National Marine Sanctuaries.


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What is a Page?
Check out this video to find out!
"Before attending page school, I didn't know much about any government related work and how much they actually affect our everyday life. For example, public transportation, education funding, passing bills/laws/amendments, service for low income families, and jobs. … Being a page I got to see bills being passed into law, which is very interesting, and also made me think about going into government studies or maybe being a state legislator one day." — Kiahna, March 2010
Welcome to the Page School
During each week of the legislative session, approximately 35 students ages 14 to 16 from across the state serve as legislative pages. Legislators sponsor the pages, who assist with the Legislature's work by making deliveries and performing other necessary tasks. Pages spend part of each day attending Page School. Page School is an opportunity for pages to learn about the Legislature's role, its process, and its participants.
The Page School is a joint program of the House and Senate and is housed in the Irv Newhouse Building on the Capitol Campus. The Legislature employs a certificated teacher with experience teaching civics and social studies and an assistant teacher. They bring a wealth of knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm to the Page School program.


multiple forms returning last value
Accepts any number of forms and evaluates all of them in order, returning the last value. This is used for inserting side-effects into a form which accepts only a single value, such as in a body of an if when multiple clauses make it so you can't use when. Some lisps call this begin or progn.
(if launch-missiles?
 (promote lt-petrov))
These all work as you would expect, with a few caveats. The ~= operator is used for "not equal", and // for integer division is only available in Lua 5.3 and onward.
They all take any number of arguments, as long as that number is fixed at compile-time. For instance, (= 2 2 (unpack [2 5])) will evaluate to true because the compile-time number of values being compared is 3.
Note that these are all special forms which cannot be used as higher-order functions.
.. string concatenation
Concatenates its arguments into one string. Will coerce numbers into strings, but not other types.
Example: (.. "Hello" " " "world" 7 "!!!") -> "Hello world7!!!"
# string or table length
Returns the length of a string or table. Note that the length of a table with gaps in it is undefined; it can return a number corresponding to any of the table's "boundary" positions between nil and non-nil values. If a table has nils and you want to know the last consecutive numeric index starting at 1, you must calculate it yourself with ipairs; if you want to know the maximum numeric key in a table with nils, you can use table.maxn.
Example: (+ (# [1 2 3 nil 8]) (# "abc")) -> 6 or 8
. table lookup
Looks up a given key in a table. Multiple arguments will perform nested lookup.
Example: (. mytbl myfield)
Example: (let [t {:a [2 3 4]}] (. t :a 2)) -> 3
Note that if the field name is known at compile time, you don't need this and can just use mytbl.field.
: method call
Looks up a function in a table and calls it with the table as its first argument. This is a common idiom in many Lua APIs, including some built-in ones.
(let [f (assert (io.open "hello" "w"))]
 (: f :write "world")
 (: f :close))
Equivalent to:
 (f.write f "world")
 (f.close f))
values multi-valued return
Returns multiple values from a function. Usually used to signal failure by returning nil followed by a message.
(fn [filename]
 (if (valid-file-name? filename)
 (open-file filename)
 (values nil (.. "Invalid filename: " filename))))
while good old while loop
Loops over a body until a condition is met. Uses a native Lua while loop, so is preferable to a lambda function and tail recursion.
 (var done? false)
 (while (not done?)
 (print :not-done)
 (when (> (math.random) 0.95)
 (set done? true))))
->, ->>, -?> and -?>> threading macros
The -> macro takes its first value and splices it into the second form as the first argument. The result of evaluating the second form gets spliced into the first argument of the third form, and so on.
(-> 52
 (+ 91 2) ; (+ 52 91 2)
 (- 8) ; (- (+ 52 91 2) 8)
 (print "is the answer")) ; (print (- (+ 52 91 2) 8) "is the answer")
The ->> macro works the same, except it splices it into the last position of each form instead of the first.
-?> and -?>>, the thread maybe macros, are similar to -> & ->> but they also do checking after the evaluation of each threaded form. If the result is false or nil then the threading stops and the result is returned. -?> splices the threaded value as the first argument, like ->, and -?>> splices it into the last position, like ->>.
This example shows how to use them to avoid accidentally indexing a nil value:
(-?> {:a {:b {:c 42}}}
 (. :a)
 (. :missing)
 (. :c)) ; -> nil
(-?>> :a
 (. {:a :b})
 (. {:b :missing})
 (. {:c 42})) ; -> nil
Note that these have nothing to do with "threads" used for concurrency; they are named after the thread which is used in sewing. This is similar to the way that |> works in OCaml and Elixir.
Similarly, the doto macro splices the first value into subsequent forms. However, it keeps the same value and continually splices the same thing in rather than using the value from the previous form for the next form.
(doto (io.open "/tmp/err.log)
 (: :write contents)
 (: :close))
;; equivalent to:
(let [x (io.open "/tmp/err.log")]
 (: x :write contents)
 (: x :close)
The first form becomes the return value for the whole expression, and subsequent forms are evaluated solely for side-effects.
Requires a module at compile-time and binds its fields locally as macros.
Macros currently must be defined in separate modules. A macro module exports any number of functions which take code forms as arguments at compile time and emit lists which are fed back into the compiler. For instance, here is a macro function which implements when in terms of if and do:
(fn [condition body1...]
 (assert body1 "expected body")
 '(if _USER_
 (do _USER_ @...)))
A full explanation of how macros work is out of scope for this document, but you can think of it as a compile-time template function. The backtick on the third line creates a template for the code emitted by the macro. The @ serves as "unquote" (other lisps use, or ~ for this purpose) which splices values into the template.
In effect it turns this input:
(when (= 3 (+ 2 a))
 (print "yes")
and transforms it into this code at compile time:
(if (= 3 (+ 2 a))
 (print "yes")
See "Compiler API" below for details about additional functions visible inside compiler scope which macros run in.
Note that the macro interface is still preliminary and is subject to change over time.
Evaluate a block of code during compile-time with access to compiler scope. This gives you a superset of the features you can get with macros, but you should use macros if you can.
 (tset _SPECIALS "local" (. _SPECIALS "global")))
Compiler API
Inside eval-compiler blocks or require-macros modules, these functions are visible to your code.
Note that lists are compile-time concepts that don't exist at runtime; they are implemented as regular tables which have a special metatable to distinguish them from regular tables defined with square or curly brackets. Similarly symbols are tables with a string entry for their name and a metatable that the compiler uses to distinguish them. You can use tostring to get the name of a symbol.
Note that other internals of the compiler exposed in compiler scope are subject to change.
Fennel's Lua API
The fennel module provides the following functions.
Start a configurable repl
Takes these additional options:
The pretty-printer defaults to loading fennelview.fnl if present and falls back to tostring otherwise. fennelview.fnl will produce output that can be fed back into Fennel (other than functions, coroutines, etc) but you can use a 3rd-party pretty-printer that produces output in Lua format if you prefer.
If you don't provide allowedGlobals then it defaults to being all the globals in the environment under which the code will run. Passing in false here will disable global checking entirely.
Evaulate a string of Fennel
local result = fennel.eval(str[, options[,...]])
The options table may contain:
Additional arguments beyond options are passed to the code and available as....
Evaluate a file of Fennel
local result = fennel.dofile(filename[, options[,...]])
The env key in options and the additional arguments after it work the same as with eval above.
Use Lua's built-in require function
table.insert(package.loaders or package.searchers, fennel.searcher)
local mylib = require("mylib") -- will compile and load code in mylib.fnl
Normally Lua's require function only loads modules written in Lua, but you can install fennel.searcher into package.loaders (or in Lua 5.3+ package.searchers) to teach it how to load Fennel code.
The require function is different from fennel.dofile in that it searches the directories in fennel.path for.fnl files matching the module name, and also in that it caches the loaded value to return on subsequent calls, while fennel.dofile will reload each time. The behavior of fennel.path mirrors that of Lua's package.path.
If you install Fennel into package.loaders then you can use the 3rd-party lume.hotswap function to reload modules that have been loaded with require.
Compile a string into Lua (can throw errors)
local lua = fenn


Take the 2-minute tour ×
Classicly, for a spin Riemannian manifold $M$, the $\hat{A}(M)$ genus will be $0$, if the scalar curvature is positive.
The proof is to use the Lichnerowicz formula. we have the index of the Dirac operator will be $0$, i.e., $$Ind(D_+)=0.$$ On the other hand, by the index theorem of Atiyah and Singer, we have $$Ind(D_+)=\hat{A}(M).$$ So we get $$\hat{A}(M)=0.$$
My question is "Can we have a different method to proof this result? without using the Lichnerowicz formula or without using the index theorem" Maybe a formal proof or explanation.
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Do you mean without use of the Lichnerowicz formula and without use of the index theorem? Or do you mean without use of the Lichnerowicz formula but with use of the index theorem? – Kelly Davis Sep 28 '11 at 12:05
Schoen and Yau dealt with positive scalar curvature obstructions using variational methods, but I don't think they identified the $\hat{A}$-genus explicitly. The problem is, as far as I know, the $\hat{A}$-genus doesn't have a geometric interpretation other than that it is the index class for the Dirac operator. – Paul Siegel Sep 28 '11 at 13:34
Hi, Kelly Davis. I want to say "without using of the Lichnerowicz formula or without using of the index theorem". – shu Sep 28 '11 at 14:07
I'm agree with Paul Siegel. One of the motivation to pose this question is that I want to understand the $\hat{A}$ genus by some geometric methods – shu Sep 28 '11 at 14:11
I would guess the answer would go something like: write the $\hat{A}$ genus in terms of the curvature two-form, then use a diagonalization of the curvature two-form, positivity of the scalar curvature, and the fact that $\hat{A}$ is an integer, i.e. $M$ is spin, to prove that the only integer $\hat{A}(M)$ can be is $0$. Admittedly, I have not thought about the last steps in detail, but with all the factors of 1/24 and 1/5760 and...in the $\hat{A}$ genus I'd guess it'll work. – Kelly Davis Sep 28 '11 at 15:26
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After thinking about this question for two hours, my belief is strengthened that there cannot be a proof of the vanishing of the A-genus for spin manifolds with positive scalar curvature without using both the index theorem for the Dirac operator and the Lichnerowicz formula (or other analytic techniques). In the comments to the question, a proof using the integrality of the $\hat{A}$-genus and Chern-Weil theory has been suggested. I wish to argue that there is absolute no reason to believe such a proof might work out.
\textbf{Objections to the use of the integrality theorem.} The manifold $CP^2$ has positive scalar curvature and $\hat{A}$-genus $1 /16$. It is of course not spin. Take the connected sum of 16 copies of $CP^2$ and call it $M$. The $\hat{A}$-genus of $M$ is $1$; $M$ is still not spin. The famous surgery lemma by Gromov and Lawson implies that $M$ has a metric of positive scalar curvature, because $M$ is obtained from the manifold $\coprod_{16} CP^2$ by a sequence of surgeries of codimension $4 \geq 3$. So there are connected pscm manifolds with integral but nonzero $\hat{A}$-genus. More generally, it can be shown that any simply connected, high-dimensional, oriented and non-spin manifold admits a metric of positive scalar curvature. This also goes back to Gromov and Lawson, and Sven F\"uhring worked out the details in his thesis:
This result shows that the integrality of the $\hat{A}$-genus has nothing to do with positive scalar curvature and that the spin hypothesis has to be used in a more subtle way.
\textbf{Objections to the use of Chern-Weil theory:} At a first glance, it seems tempting to use Chern-Weil theory for such questions, because it expresses characteristic classes in terms of curvature. Moreover, a conceptual proof of the Gauss-Bonnet theorem can be given with help of this theory. But an examination of the argument quickly shows that this is a lucky accident. The first accident is that the Euler class has a direct geometric-topological meaning, which allows to relate it to another topological invariant (the Euler number), while the complicated rational polynomial in the Pontrjagin classes has no such meaning (Paul Siegel alluded to this point in his comment).
The second accident is that the integrand of the Gauss-Bonnet-Chern theorem only depends on the curvature tensor and not on the metric itself (though to define the integrand, one needs to know that the connection preserves \emph{some} metric).
The problem with scalar curvature is that it depends on both, the connection and the metric, while the Chern-Weil forms only depend on the connection and not on the metric.
Of course there is a universal formula for the $\hat{A}$-form of any Riemann manifold $(M,g)$ of the form $\hat{A} = f(jet^2 g) \cdot vol_g$, where $f$ is an algebraic function of the $2$-jet of the metric. I have not worked out the concrete formula for $f$; for $4$-dimensional manifolds, this should not be too complicated and might be a worthy exercise. I predict that you won't find a formula for $f$ that depends on the scalar curvature in a controllable way. Another remark is that if such a formula gives a result for positive scalar curvature, it should give a result for negative scalar curvature as well. On the other hand, any manifold of large dimension has a metric of negative scalar curvature (Lohkamp).
The conclusion I draw is that Chern-Weil theory is insensitive to the sign of scalar curvature. The next problem is that Chern-Weil theory is insensitive to the spin condition as well: the map $Sym^{\ast} (\mathfrak{so}_n)^{SO(n)}\to Sym^{\ast} (\mathfrak{spin}_n)^{Spin(n)}$ on the space of invariant polynomials is an isomorphism. In other words, the spin condition does not yield any relation between Chern-Weil classes. The integrality of the $\hat{A}$-genus cannot be obtained by a local consideration; this would equate it to another manifestly integral class, which is not the case.
The view that positivity should enter the proof in a more global way is furthermore supported by Gromov's h-principle, a special case of which states that any open manifold (no compact component) has a metric of positive scalar curvature. This implies that any obstruction to positive scalar curvature has to arise in an essential global way.
My conclusion of the above discussion is that the integrality result forgets the relevant information from the spin condition and that Chern-Weil theory is not the correct recipient for the information coming from the positivity of the curvature. Philosophically, integrality is too global to capture the spin condition and Chern-Weil theory is too local to capture the sign of the curvature.
It is a pity that Misha Gromov is not active on this site.....
EDIT: here is an example which shows that any hope to use Chern-Weil theory to obtain information on scalar curvature is in vain.
Fact 1: Let $\nabla_g$ be the Levi-civita connection of the Riemann manifold $(M,g)$, then for all $c>0$, $\nabla_{cg} = \nabla_g$. Fact 2: the scalar curvature of $(M,cg)$ is $c^{-1} scal_g$. Fact 3: the scalar curvature of a product is the sum of the scalar curvature.
Now take $S^2$, $g_0$ the standard metric with $scal_{g_0}=1$; $F$ a genus $\geq 2$ surface with metric $g_1$ and $scal_{g_1}=-1$. Then the product $M=S^2 \times F$ with product metric $(c_0 g_0 )\times (c_1 g_1)$ has scalar curvature $c_{0}^{-1} - c_{1}^{-1}$. Suitable choices of $c_i$ yield any real value for the scalar curvature. But by fact 1, the Levi-Civitta connection and hence the Chern-Weil invariants do not depend on $c_i$.
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There are even more dramatic statements which demonstrate that the vanishing of the $\hat{A}$ genus due to positive scalar curvature could not possibly be explained locally. Suppose that $M$ is a manifold which is quasi-isometric to $\mathbb{R


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4 times, but both are 75%. The figure of 73% for to be considered accurate prediction was from a documentary program I watched to determine if identical twins can accurately predict the responses of each other. They failed, getting scores of 69 and 71%. Putting them in the relm of good guessers as opposed to the "virtual telepaths" they were saying they ware. They also tested fortune tellers and others who claimed they can predict an outcome accurately. – Francis Rodgers Aug 18 '11 at 2:02
Their research shows that in order to be considered "accurately predicting" something, you must be able to predict greater than 73% of the time. Otherwise you are just good guessing. I assume they were talking about tests with more than 4 questions. Thanks for your repsonse. – Francis Rodgers Aug 18 '11 at 2:04
ok, so the 73% limit they were using there would have been calculated for the number of guesses that they made in the test - it's not a universal threshold, but one tailored for that particular case. [edit: right, more than 4 guesses, but less than a hundred, i would guess] – andrew cooke Aug 18 '11 at 2:05
No. To prevent exactly that there are cryptographically strong pseudo random number generators. Even if you know all the parameters (except the seed), you cannot predict the next number. Just like you cannot invert a cryptographic hash, or decrypt an encrypted message without the key.
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Our first pet gold fish is oftentimes our last. A crude fact, and perhaps a bit more general than some people would want, but it serves to prove an important point: when it comes to caring for gold fish, we (most of us anyway) don't know squat.
This is due in no small part to the rampant misconception that there is nothing we need to know about gold fish care aside from buying a tank, filling it up, and littering it with some flakes every now and then. There's a lot more to caring for gold fish than the occasional feeding, and failing to recognize that puts our gold fish at serious risk.
How much risk? Well, considering part of the reason why people choose not to buy another gold fish after the first one passed away is because the original died too soon for their taste, you can probably imagine.
So here's a brief guide to caring for gold fish. While most of these instructions may come across as plain good sense, chances are you wouldn't even have taken them into consideration as a novice in fishkeeping.
- If you know anything about caring for gold fish, then you know that the classic image of gold fish in a glass bowl is incredibly misleading. Keeping your gold fish in a bowl will likely lead to stunted growth and restricted movement due to the limited space. Not to mention gold fish excrete a lot of waste. With less space and less water to dilute the waste, your gold fish will be forced to swim and eventually drown in its own toxic filth.
- Your gold fish's filth is also why you must make sure that your fish tank is cleaned on a regular basis. If you got a bigger tank (which you should have if you listened to my advice above), then you probably don't need to clean it everyday. Of course, it's always better to maintain the quality of your tank's water. Consider getting siphons and filters and changing the water on a regular basis.
- No matter how tempting it may be, never run your fingers along your gold fish's scales, and for the love of all that is good and holy, do not pet it! Doing either can cause it to lose the thin, protective layer that guards it against bacteria of all types. Sometimes, caring for gold fish means leaving them well enough alone.
- Set the tank up in a spot where there is a lot of light. Gold fish are known to lose their luster over time without light to keep them aglow.
- Also make sure your tank isn't located where its water could be affected by extreme shifts in temperature. Gold fish are vulnerable to sudden changes in temperature, and could die from the shock of being immersed in significantly colder or warmer water than their bodies have gotten used to. Keep in mind that gold fish are capable of surviving in temperatures between 10 to 25 degrees Celsius. Leaving them in a comfortable and stable environment is one of the secrets to gold fish care.
- Finally, watch what you feed them. Gold fish tend to keep eating long after they were supposed to stop, and some types have even been known to beg long after they've had their fill. A pinch or two of flakes should be enough of a meal for most fish.
These are but a few things to keep in mind when caring for gold fish. With these and with any luck, your first fish will end up to be your last only because it lasted a whole lot longer than you expected it to.


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3DShot for culture: how immersive technologies can benefit the cultural sector
In times of digital change, the use of 3D technologies has an increasing impact on every industry, including the cultural sector. Until recently, 3D technologies were inaccessible for most cultural institutions and individuals, since creating a 3D visualization of an object was a time-consuming and expensive process and required a professional 3D artist's expertise. The 3DShot mobile app is here to change that. Let's dive into details.


Pain in Both Arms?
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3 Sources of Unfair Credit Scores in Credit and Lending Decisions
December 26, 2019
How do you know if you've produced a fair or unfair credit score? Unfair credit scores hurt your business and your customers. In this post we'll explore 3 sources that may result in unfair credit scores when using AI and machine learning credit scoring prediction models in your credit and lending decisions.
Credit scoring helps lenders and underwriters determine the creditworthiness or risk of a potential borrower. Traditionally lenders have needed to rely on stagnant and incomplete information to then make a judgement call on decisioning. ML and AI provide lenders and credit underwriters with the means to decrease human error and eliminate judgement. But you can still have biased scores or use the wrong vs right data in your credit scoring models.
Three potential causes of unfair credit scoring practices to consider in your machine learning credit underwriting are:
 - Biased data
 - Algorithms within models
 - Business practices
3 Possible Sources of Unfair Scores
1. Biased Data
Data that unduly favors a particular group is biased. And using biased data for credit scoring contributes to an unfair scores.
Example: Zip codes are an example of biased data and a proxy for a protected class of attributes like race. Some US zip codes are predominantly African American based on the racial profiles of people who live there. A credit underwriter or lender may actively avoid lending to those residing in a particular zip code. This is a violation of anti-discrimination law and an example of unfair credit scoring with biased data.
2. Algorithms within Models
Unfair credit scoring can be caused by the machine learning credit underwriting algorithm itself. The most common way that people introduce biases into the credit score algorithm model is in the selection of attributes.
Example: Credit underwriters and credit analysts may have predetermined the set of attributes they consider to be the best indicators of a borrower's creditworthiness. This assumption of 'best indicator' qualification is based on past decisions, not on significantly large data sets. The credit scoring models are then built with the group of attributes subjectively selected, and based on biased or incorrect assumptions.
In this case, it may be only 10 attributes which may not be the correct attributes or sufficient attributes to build a robust credit scoring model. As such, proper due diligence is neglected in the building of credit scoring models.
In contrast, Trust Science encourages customers to share all their data points with us. We add additional alternative data to the customer data to ensure we have a broader, unbiased view of their consumers for credit and lending decisions. We then use robust feature selection algorithms to identify unprotected attributes that most likely explain the credit risk profiles of their consumers. Once these predictive attributes are identified, our model governance team works with dedicated model developers to ensure that the attributes are explainable in the event of adverse action.
3. Business Practices
Lastly, the third source of unfair credit scoring may be prevalent in how a business operates or the business practices realized. A company may only focus on a particular group of people which would introduce a slew of proxies into the credit score algorithm models.
Example: A credit underwriter or lender's primary target market may be single fathers. This focus may be because of the underlying corporate mission to help single fathers. However, this singular focus on single fathers as a target market inherently creates bias if the credit score developed on the data is used to decide loans for consumers other than single fathers.
And these proxies in turn create unintentional discrimination. So even though the company adheres to fair lending regulations, and doesn't supply the protected class of attributes such as sex and marital status, its data is biased. When the company provides its data to implement machine learning credit underwriting and build a credit score algorithm model, even though the protected class of attributes aren't present, proxies are.
Three Tips to Reduce Unfair Credit Scores
What can be done to reduce unfairness in scores?
TIP 1: Check for biased data & use the right data.
> Increases validity and fairness of data and algorithms used in credit scoring models.
TIP 2: Document every decision in the process, along with your assumptions and hypothesis.
> Increases clarity and transparency which limits biases in the data introduced.
TIP 3: Combine credit scoring models.
> Increases accuracy in scores by reducing the biases in a given model.
Want help in getting fair credit score models?
As a lender or credit underwriter you need to abide by strict government regulations and ensure the adherence to fair lending practices throughout your business. By being aware of implications involving disparate impact (unintentional discrimination) and disparate treatment (intentional discrimination), companies can reduce and eliminate discrimination with their credit scoring models towards protected groups.
At Trust Science, we enable machine learning credit underwriting that only provides fair scores to our customers and tosses out scores that are deemed unfair. Want to learn more about our scores/how we can help?
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.5.6? Or if it really does cost $350 bucks to produce a passport (with more pages) then how can I get a job there? The passports don't seem to be made of precious materials so I can only assume they pay very high wages to their employees. – hippietrail Oct 12 '13 at 9:23
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In addition to the other answers, there may be laws local to the issuing countries.
For example, Germany prohibits creating unique identification numbers for people. If the passport or ID card number would remain unchanged for a greater amount of time, this number could be used as an identification number (as citizens get at most one ID card and two passports), so documents with new, unrelated numbers have to be issued every ten years, and any documentation about the old number deleted from government databases as soon as the document is marked invalid (non-government databases are forbidden from storing the number at all).
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This is incorrect. All residents of Germany have a tax identification number (Steueridentifikationsnummer) which remains throughout the entire life. It has been disputed if the introduction of such a numbering system violates the German constitution, but all court rulings have been in favour of the system. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Oct 8 '13 at 11:19
_USER_-EinarJarnbjo Good luck trying to shut Pandora's Box after the fact. ~80 years ago when the US assigned everyone a number for Social Security (govt retirement program) they forbade its use as an identifier for anything else. Now it's defacto required when signing up for almost anything financial since it's needed to report tax information. – Dan Neely Oct 8 '13 at 13:17
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There are many, many reasons to limit the validity for passports. Just for completion as already called out:
 - Money: As a monopoly you are guaranteed to charge insidious prices and get the revenue.
 - Biometric features: Getting older, growing beards, glasses etc. could change you so much that you may be nearly unrecognizable.
 - Counterfeiting: Passport security could be enhanced repeatedly.
Now a passport itself is mostly unnecessary for a citizen inside a country, it is a travel and immigration document. Therefore it has useful purposes to watch, identify and control people who are moving outside their country.
Further reasons why a passport with unlimited time would be a disadvantage for countries:
 - Rare, but possible: New countries appearing and old countries disappearing. The authorities need to update the information.
 - Your government want you to get back to your home country: Sometimes a citizen does things which a government does not like very much so they have the urgent need to speak to you. Bobby Fischer spat on the US embargo in Yugoslavia and even worse, he did not pay his taxes. So the USA revoked his passport and Fischer would have been extradited sooner or later from Japan if Iceland did not jump in and gave Fischer an Icelandic passport.
 - Your government is convinced that you if you leave your country you are up to no good. Germany revoked the passport of Horst Mahler, a right-wing ex-lawyer, to prevent him to travel to a holocaust conference in Iran. It is also used for known hooligans to prevent traveling.
An unlimited passport makes it much easier in both cases to hide your papers or slip through controls.
 - Your government wants to know if you are alive. And where you are (for taxes, retirement provisions). If someone who left the country does not renew their passport, they know something is wrong.
 - The foreign country thinks that a person causes trouble, but they have no legal means against him. Limited passports make it much easier to extradite an undesired individual.
 - The foreign country has less problems to detect people who try to stay in the country for a long time.
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The last three points seem somewhat speculative. In fact, most countries don't impose taxes on nationals who reside abroad and won't chase you to pay a retirement pension even if you are entitled to it. Furthermore, having an invalid passport makes extradition more (and not less) difficult. I don't think passport expiration has much of a role in controlling foreigners; visa, residence permits, mandatory registration, police controls are much more important for that. Countries have many legal means to deal with foreigners causing trouble and create new ones as they see fit. – Annoyed Oct 9 '13 at 19:37
If you don't have a visa/right to stay in a country, having an expired passport is really a detail. If on the other hand you are entitled to stay (say because you have several nationalities), you most likely have no obligation to renew your other passport. Beside, to even know about it, the host country must have found you through a random check or some other means to track you as renewing passports is something that's done without their knowledge in consulates. – Annoyed Oct 9 '13 at 19:39
Expiry and revocation are completely separate. Revocation, by definition, occurs to a valid, unexpired passport -- if Fischer or Mahler's passport had expired, their governments wouldn't have needed to revoke them to prevent travel! A passport that didn't expire could be revoked just as easily as an expiring one. – David Richerby Feb 12 at 18:26
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