text:
From: The Honorable Colleen Hanabusa
Reps. Hanabusa and Gabbard would like to invite your boss to sign the appropriations request letter (below) requesting critical funding for the Volcano Hazards Program. This request is to the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment,
and Related Agencies, which is due TODAY.
Here is a list of states this program benefits: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Northern Marianas Islands, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.
And, here is a map of the areas where the volcanic activity monitored by this program are:
Current signatures: Hanabusa, Gabbard, Don Young, DeFazio
Deadline to sign on: 4pm TODAY. Please email _EMAIL_ to sign on.
Dear Chairman Calvert and Ranking Member McCollum,
As the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies considers appropriations for Fiscal Year 2018, we respectfully request this subcommittee to provide $26,238,000 for the Volcano Hazards Program, which is overseen by
the U.S. Geological Survey.
The Volcano Hazards Program is critical in understanding the potential impacts of the United States' 169 potentially active volcanoes in the United States' western states, Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. Pacific territories. Under the mandate of the Robert
T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, this program minimizes the potential of devastating social and economic impacts on nearby communities and ecosystems through delivery of effective forecasts, warnings, and information regarding volcanic
hazards based on scientific data and on understanding of volcanic processes.
The scientific information collected through the Volcano Hazards Program is essential in order to effectively communicate findings and activity alerts to emergency-management professionals and the public. In addition, the information collected helps communities
develop comprehensive hazard zonation maps and assessments, long-term eruption forecasting, land-use planning, and short-term emergency planning.
Ensuring programmatic resources for the Volcano Hazards Program will ensure and improve health and safety protections of residents, businesses, and tourists in areas where there is volcanic activity. We thank this subcommittee for its attention and consideration
of this request.


text:
AlterEgo's 'Chelsea's Choice' is an innovative and powerful production highlighting the very serious and emotional issue of child sexual exploitation. The production shows how young people, boys and girls, are groomed by adults for the purposes of sexual exploitation using various methods, ensnaring young people and eventually taking complete control and dominating their whole lives. The audience will gain a better understanding of the devastating impact that sexual exploitation has on a young person's life. This is a very useful and innovative way of raising awareness of the issues relating to sexual exploitation and reaching young people, giving them some skills and knowledge to be able to protect themselves from this form of abuse.
– Sheila Taylor, National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People
Target audience :-
- Young people (year 7+)
- Parents, carers, teachers & professionals working with young people
- The Police & the CPS
- The play is NOT suitable for young people that have already been identified as having suffered trauma or abuse. Consultation with the young person, family and professionals should be undertaken before delivery to determine suitability and benefits of watching.
'Chelsea's Choice' is our internationally renowned, hard-hitting Applied Theatre Production that has proven highly successful in raising awareness around the issues surrounding Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE). The play, which has now been seen by hundreds of professionals and over 800,000 young people throughout the UK, is followed by an actor facilitated post-show talk exploring the issues raised.
It tells the story of a group of three students who discover the diary of a girl called Chelsea. Chelsea was a 15 year old girl who, having fallen out with her friends and family, met a guy called Gary. Gary was kind, understanding, had a nice car, had his own flat and listened to her. Unfortunately Gary was not what he seemed to be! Chelsea's story is played out and examined by the three students who, along with their teacher, attempt to understand what happened to Chelsea and how it could have been prevented.
The play has been seen by thousands of young people & hundreds of professionals & has proven highly effective at covering:-
- What makes a Healthy Relationship
- What makes an Unhealthy Relationship
- Safe Internet Use/Sexting
- What is Consent
- The Grooming Process, Child Sexual Exploitation & the differing models & methods
- Where to go for help & advice
For adult audiences it also:-
- Raises Awareness of 'The Warning Signs of CSE'
- Raises Awareness of the journey that young people may have been on that has resulted in them being exploited – a journey that can all too easily make it seem as though they have 'made their own choices' and can leave them not seeing themselves as victims and fighting against any intervention.
Raising young peoples' awareness of child sexual exploitation is key in helping to prevent them from becoming victims of this crime. AlterEgo's safeguarding drama, 'Chelsea's Choice', does this by creatively tackling the issue of child sexual exploitation, exploring the different ways that young people can be drawn into abusive relationships and illustrating some of the consequences.
- Nathalie Walters, Chief Executive, Safe and Sound Derby
AlterEgo are proud to be members of The NWG Network and often seek their help and advice to ensure that the script and post-show talk are current and correct.
For information on the US adaptation 'Kourtney's Choice' please click here.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
|IODP publications Expeditions Apply to sail Sample requests Site survey data Search|
Backstripping is a proven method for extracting amplitudes of global sea level from passive margin records (e.g., Watts and Steckler, 1979). One-dimensional backstripping is a technique that progressively removes the effects of sediment loading (including the effects of compaction) and paleowater depth from basin subsidence. By modeling thermal subsidence on a passive margin, the tectonic portion of subsidence can be assessed and a eustatic estimate obtained (Kominz et al., 1998, 2008; Van Sickel et al., 2004). Backstripping requires knowing relatively precise ages, paleodepths, and porosities of sediments, and each of these criteria are best obtained from borehole transects. Such transects also allow application of two-dimensional backstripping techniques that account for lithospheric flexural effects, increasing the precision of the eustatic estimates (Steckler et al., 1999; Kominz and Pekar, 2001). The eustatic component obtained from backstripping needs to be verified by comparing sea level records with other margins and those derived from δ18O estimates.
Drilling at Sites MAT-1 to MAT-3 will allow us to make precise late Oligocene to early middle Miocene eustatic estimates using oneand two-dimensional backstripping as described above. One- (Kominz et al., 1998; Van Sickel et al., 2004) and two-dimensional (Kominz and Pekar, 2001) backstripping of onshore New Jersey sites have provided preliminary amplitude estimates of 10–60 m for million year–scale variations, but the estimates are incomplete, particularly for the Miocene, because most lowstand deposits are generally not represented (Miller, Sugarman, Browning, et al., 1998; Miller et al., 2005a, and fig. F2 therein). Amplitude estimates derived from δ18O studies require assumptions about temperature and the sea level/δw calibration; although the uncertainties are large, initial eustatic estimates based on δ18O records are consistent with backstripping results (Fig. F1). Sites MAT-1 to MAT-3 are precisely located to recover as nearly a complete set of late Oligocene–middle Miocene sequences as possible and, through backstripping, provide a much more direct measure of the full range of amplitudes for this time interval.
Once we have obtained precise eustatic estimates from late Oligocene to early middle Miocene records at Sites MAT-1 to MAT-3, we will be able to extend our results to the older and younger records. Middle Miocene through recent sediments record similar clinoform geometries on the New Jersey shelf; by applying calibrations of seismic profiles and facies developed as part of this work, we should be able to derive eustatic estimates for the interval 16–0 Ma. In particular, deriving a firm, independent eustatic estimate from margin sediments will
Whereas both backstripping and δ18O methods make inherently large assumptions, the convergence of the two methods (Fig. F1) suggests that we will be able to produce a testable eustatic model for the past 42 m.y. and perhaps for the older record as well.
Shallow-water records contain unconformities observed in outcrop or in the subsurface at all spatial scales, whether they divide beds or basins. Unconformably bounded sequences are the fundamental building blocks of the shallow-water record (Sloss, 1963; Van Wagoner et al., 1990; Christie-Blick, 1991). Researchers at the Exxon Production Research Company (Vail et al., 1977; Haq et al., 1987; Van Wagoner et al., 1988; Posamentier et al., 1988) claimed that similarities in the ages of stratal unconformities pointed to global sea level (eustasy) as the overriding control. The resulting "eustatic curve" has remained controversial (e.g., Christie-Blick et al., 1990; Miall, 1991), largely because of basic assumptions about the stratigraphic response to eustatic change and because the work relies in part on unpublished data. In response to this controversy, Christie-Blick and Driscoll (1995), among others, pointed out that the fundamental enterprise of interpreting the origin of layered rocks does not really require any assumptions about eustasy. They emphasized that sequence boundaries attest to changes in depositional base level. The timing of many of the Exxon Production Research Company sequence boundaries has been validated onshore New Jersey and correlated to the δ18O proxy of eustatic change (Miller et al., 1998, 2005a), though other sequence boundaries on this and other margins may be tectonically derived. Whether sequence boundaries are caused by changes in eustasy, local tectonism, or sediment supply (Reynolds et al., 1991), disconformable surfaces irrefutably divide the shallow-water record into sequences. Whatever their cause, these stratal breaks are real and they provide an objective means of analyzing the rock record.
Facies between sequence boundaries vary in a coherent fashion, and various facies models have been proposed for shelf sedimentation (e.g., Posamentier et al., 1988; Galloway, 1989). Much work has been done by the exploration and academic communities in testing and applying these models, and much has been learned. For example, flooding surfaces (particularly maximum flooding surfaces) can be used to unravel stratigraphic stacking patterns (e.g., Galloway, 1989), whereas highstand deposits are generally regressive and commonly serve as reservoirs for oil or water resources (e.g., Posamentier et al., 1988; Greenlee et al., 1992; Sugarman and Miller, 1997; Sugarman et al., 2006). Nonetheless, predictions of facies models have not been widely successful because they are the products of many unevaluated processes (Reynolds et al., 1991).
One major reason that models are still poorly constrained is that there has been no publicly available study of continuous cores across a prograding clinoform deposit that constitutes the central element of many facies models. As a result, the water depths in which clinoforms form and the distribution of lithofacies they contain are not well known. It is widely debated whether clinoform tops ever become subaerially exposed during sea level lowstands and whether the shoreline ever retreats to (or perhaps moves seaward of) the clinoform rollover (Fulthorpe and Austin, 1998; Austin et al., 1998; Steckler et al., 1999; Fulthorpe et al., 1999). Settling these controversies will have significant implications on our understanding of how sequence boundaries develop and how much of the facies distribution within clinoforms can be attributed to eustasy. Some workers assume that the shoreline is always located at the clinoform rollover (e.g., Posamentier et al., 1988; Van Wagoner et al., 1990; Lawrence et al., 1990). Others have presented models of basin evolution that suggest the shoreline and the clinoform rollover can move independently of each other (e.g., Steckler et al., 1993, 1999). The sea level estimates of Greenlee and Moore (1988) argue that sea level falls expose an entire continental shelf and that strata onlapping clinoform fronts are coastal plain sediments deposited during the beginning of the subsequent sea level rise. Many researchers (e.g., Steckler et al., 1993) stress that if strata onlapping clinoform fronts were deposited at or near sea level, then the clinoform heights dictate that sea level occasionally fell hundreds of meters in less than a million years; such magnitudes and rates are beyond the reasonable scales of any known mechanism for eustatic change. Extracting the amplitude of sea level fluctuations from sequence architecture is critically dependent on whether the lowest point of onlap onto sequence boundaries is truly coastal or is deeper marine. Determining water depths at the clinoform edge is essential to sequence stratigraphic models and understand this basic element of the dynamic land-sea interface. It can only be established by sampling, such as proposed here.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Jason J. Gauci and Kenneth O. Stanley (2007)
Generating Large-Scale Neural Networks Through Discovering Geometric Regularities
In: Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2007). New York, NY: ACM, 2007 (8 pages)
Connectivity patterns in biological brains exhibit many repeating motifs. This repetition mirrors inherent geometric regularities in the physical world. For example, stimuli that excite adjacent locations on the retina map to neurons that are similarly adjacent in the visual cortex. That way, neural connectivity can exploit geometric locality in the outside world by employing local connections in the brain. If such regularities could be discovered by methods that evolve artificial neural networks (ANNs), then they could be similarly exploited to solve problems that would otherwise require optimizing too many dimensions to solve. This paper introduces such a method, called Hypercube-based Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topologies (HyperNEAT), which evolves a novel generative encoding called connective Compositional Pattern Producing Networks (connective CPPNs) to discover geometric regularities in the task domain. Connective CPPNs encode connectivity patterns as concepts that are independent of the number of inputs or outputs, allowing functional large-scale neural networks to be evolved. In this paper, this approach is tested in a simple visual task for which it effectively discovers the correct underlying regularity, allowing the solution to both generalize and scale without loss of function to an ANN of over eight million connections.


text:
- Strongly Support means you believe: Too few Americans have adequate health insurance. The government should make funds available for more complete coverage, or should expand existing government-run coverage to all citizens. A single-payer system would solve most healthcare problems.
- Support means you believe: The government should provide coverage or subsidize health insurance for at-risk groups such as children and the elderly. Society benefits when more people are covered. Universal health insurance is a good goal, although some market methods can work as well as government systems.
- Oppose means you believe: While more thorough health coverage is a noble
idea, further health coverage should be promoted through non-government means.
- Strongly Oppose means you believe: Nationalized health care would entail a government takeover of a large portion of the economy and undue intrusions into our personal medical histories.
Remove the federal government from the health care industry.
This question is looking for your views on how large a role the federal government should play in the health care industry. However you answer the above question would be similar to your response to these statements:
How do you decide between "Support" and "Strongly Support" when you agree with both the descriptions above? (Or between "Oppose" and "Strongly Oppose").
The strong positions are generally based on matters of PRINCIPLES where the regular support and oppose positions are based on PRACTICAL matters.
If you answer "No Opinion," this question is not counted in the VoteMatch answers for any candidate.
If you give a general answer of Support vs. Oppose, VoteMatch can more accurately match a candidate with your stand.
Don't worry so much about getting the strength of your answer exactly refined, or to think too hard about the exact wording of the question -- like candidates!
- Single-payer universal coverage
- Insure the millions of uninsured Americans
- Require coverage of all children
- Supported Obama's "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (PPACA)
- Strongly Support means you believe in the principle of single-payer government-run healthcare.
- Support means you believe in practical progress toward universal health coverage.
- Oppose means you believe in practical progress towards healthcare availability via the free market.
- Strongly Oppose means you believe in the principle that government should not be involved with providing healthcare.
HMOs & MANAGED CARE
- 'ObamaCare' refers to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, which reformed healthcare insurance with the goal of near-universal coverage.
- Critics refer to ObamaCare as socialized medicine -- which could mean the government runs the healthcare system, as in the United Kingdom, but more accurately in the United States means that the federal government mandates individual health coverage.
- Individual Mandate: The crux of the opposition to ObamaCare is whether the federal government can mandate that individuals purchase health insurance -- that will be tested in a Supreme Court case late in 2012.
- 'RomneyCare' refers to the Massachusetts state version of mandated healthcare initiated under Gov. Mitt Romney -- its principal difference being a STATE mandate instead of a FEDERAL mandate.
- Opponents of ObamaCare suggest replacing it with the following list of reforms: cross-state purchasing; tort reform; Health Savings Accounts; small business pooling; and transparency for better patient choice.
- Tort Reform refers to changing the rules about civil litigation, typically to cap damage awards. In a political context, it usually applies to medical malpractice lawsuits, but in a legal context, it also applies to personal injury and product liability lawsuits. The term "tort" means "at fault;" when a doctor is found at fault, a jury can currently award unlimited damages. Awards in the millions of dollars put upward pressure on malpractice insurance rates; hence many conservatives favor tort reform as a means to reduce healthcare costs. Proposed solutions include capping lawsuit compensation or restricting "frivolous lawsuits." Trial lawyers--the recipients of legal fees from tort awards--heavily favor Democratic candidates, so Republicans would like to limit their legal fees.
- The Supreme Court decided the case "National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius" on June 28, 2012, on the constitutionality of ObamaCare's individual mandate. Justices Roberts and Kennedy were very skeptical that the mandate was justified under the "commerce clause." But the government's lawyer made a strong case for the government's taxing power—that argument eventually won the day—because the mandate would be administered by the Internal Revenue Service, paid on your Form 1040 on April 15th. The president had argued that the mandate was not a tax; the court decided it was.
PATIENT'S BILL OF RIGHTS
- Prior to ObamaCare, comprehensive national health care reform had died in Congress in 1994 (after a report by a commission run by Hillary Clinton, hence the moniker "HillaryCare").
- 16% of Americans (42 million people) have no health insurance (and hence must pay for health services in full, or receive hospital charity).
- 14% of Americans receive some form of public health care or health insurance (70% have private health insurance).
- 20% of Americans are members of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs).
Congress and the Presidential candidates are debating a 'Patient's Bill of Rights' which would establish rules of dealing with HMO managed care. The buzzwords in this debate are:
MEDICAID / MEDICARE
- External Appeal: Patients cannot currently appeal an HMO's decision to deny coverage, even if the HMO doctor agrees with the patient. The 'Bill of Rights' would establish some form of expert appeal board external to the HMO.
- Medical Necessity: At issue is whether the doctor or the HMO management determines what is necessary. Determination of 'necessity' may become subject to expert review as well, or it may become measured against established standards of 'generally accepted practices.'
- Legal Liability: Patients would be granted the right to sue HMOs for medical costs and damages, which is not a right under current law. Generally, liberals supoprt the right to sue HMOs while conservatives do not. This is the primary distinction between Republican and Democrat versions of Patient Bill of Rights proposals.
- Scope of Coverage: Some states regulate HMOs in ways similar to those described here; a 'Bill of Rights' could apply to them, to all HMOs, or to all patients.
- Prevention: Advocating prevention implies support for removing government from health care, or opposition to more federal health care funding or national insurance.
- Consumer Choice: Advocating consumer choice or reduction in healthcare bureaucracy implies support for removing government from health care, or opposition to national insurance.
- Medicare and Medicaid background is covered in the Social Security section (but quotations are cross-referenced here).
- The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in June 1997 that there is no constitutional right to euthanasia, but that states can allow euthanasia without federal intervention.
- 'Euthanasia' means 'good death' in the context of terminal illness. Buzzwords:
- Passive Euthanasia: Hastening death by withdrawing life support.
- Active Euthanasia: Causing death in response to a request from that person.
The best-known examples are by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who was found guilty of 2nd degree murder in March 1999.
- Physician Assisted Suicide: A physician supplies information and/or the means of committing suicide so that a patient can easily terminate their own life.
- Involuntary Euthanasia: A synonym for murder; used by anti-euthanasia activists.
- Right to Die: Establishing suicide as a civil right; used by pro-euthanasia activists.
- The state of Oregon passed a Death With Dignity law, which was active until the federal Department of Justice reversed its enforcement policy in November 2001.
- In Nov. 1998, 46 states settled the cases they had filed against the tobacco companies.
(The other 4 states had previously settled, on similar terms)
- Now, the state legislatures are debating the best use of the settlement funds, which totals $246 billion to be paid over the next 25 years
($5 to $9 billion per year starting in April, 2000).


text:
Simply put, a business capability model is a functional breakdown of what a business does, usually going from quite coarse definitions of high-level business functions (think "Product Management") to a component function at a more detailed level (e.g. "Detailed Design"). How far down do you go? To a level that makes sense for the business (bearing in mind that some functional areas are more critical and/or complex than others, so a deeper dive is warranted) and that describes a useful service that the business provides, either internally or externally. It is not as far down as individual tasks and activities; that is usually too detailed to be useful as a strategic management tool. In practice, it is unusual to get strategic value digging any deeper than 3 − 4 levels; beyond that point it is more likely to be confusing than illuminating.
Why is it useful? A capability model forms a stable base on which to build many analyses of the business, is a touchstone for management conversations by giving a common understanding of the business (the "same page" we'd all like to be reading from), and serves as a foundation for other enterprise architecture tools. How? By being a description of WHAT the business does, which changes slowly and rarely, if at all, over many years. A lot of architecture practices like to start with a process model (which IS a useful tool) that describes HOW the business does things, but not only is that subject to frequent change (even disruption), most businesses are putting significant effort into process improvements; i.e. they are continually trying to change HOW they do things. This makes an unstable basis for strategic business design.
Some other useful definitions and descriptions can be found at these links:


1 year ago
Solution To End Lynchings? Only Produce Female Calves Through Artificial Insemination, Says BJP Minister Giriraj Singh
Bobins Abraham
Bobins AbrahamUpdated on Sep 05, 2019, 16:23 IST
Union Minister for Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Minister Giriraj Singh seems to have found a solution for the lynching menace in the country in the name of cattle protection.
According to Singh, through artificial insemination, if we ensure that only female calves are born, incidents of lynchings will also end.
"In the near future, only female calves will be born through sex-sorted semen. Now, the cases of mob lynchings in the name of stray cattle won't be reported," Singh said.
Mob Lynching
Explaining the logic behind his suggestion Singh stated that people tend to abandon bull calves as they are a financial burden for the farmers and they later become stray cattle.
Earlier such animals used to be sold to slaughterhouses, but since most of the states banned cattle slaughter, the farmers end up dumping them on the streets.
Singh also suggested that female calves born using semen from genetically superior bulls will also improve fertility and increase milk production which will ensure that the farmers keep them longer and not abandon them when they become less productive.
Mob Lynching
Last week Singh had said that "with help of the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and Embryo Transplant, the unproductive livestock in the country will be utilized as surrogate mothers. The word 'factory' was used to explain these techniques to friends who pet cows and not to open political factories for people."
"We will use IVF technology from cows giving 20 litres milk, on cows which stop giving milk. We will bring a revolution," he had said.
Lynchings in the name of cow protection have been for long an issue in the country. Many, especially those from the Muslim community were trashed and even killed by the so-called cow vigilantes merely on the suspicion of cattle smuggling.
Mob Lynching
Another major problem states that have banned cattle slaughter are facing is the increasing number of stray cows. After most of the slaughterhouses were shut down due to the ban, farmers in states like UP began abandoning their unproductive cows on the streets. Fed up with the alarming number of stray cows attacking their crops, farmers in UP had resorted to locking cow in their hundreds inside government buildings like schools and hospitals, demanding that the government should take them away.
The Conversation (0)
Start a conversation, not a fire. Post with kindness.


text:
|BOTANICAL ELECTRONIC NEWS|
|No. 157 February 15, _EMAIL_ Victoria, B.C.|
Computer-based multi-access keys, also known as interactive keys, can offer several advantages over conventional keys:
Other desirable features include:
It is an inevitable consequence of the flexibility of interactive keys that much of the strategy involved in carrying out an identification is left to the user. Good strategies must be learnt if the keys are to be used to the best advantage.
[This is an abbreviated abstract of the Forest Renewal of British Columbia funding proposal.]
RAPID will be an interactive plant identification computer program which will greatly accelerate the process of identifying vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens within B.C. The program and its database will continue to grow and evolve, and will possibly become our most valuable and readily accessible resource for plant identification. Images and line drawings will be an integral part of RAPID. In addition to the program's primary function, it will also be a useful teaching aid.
The random access approach to plant identification is dynamic compared with the restrictive dichotomous key approach used in traditional paper-based methods. This will allow greater exploration of the rich descriptive attributes of plants, in addition to their ecological characteristics. RAPID will be constructed as a relational database, which is a sophisticated and efficient way to store and quickly retrieve information.
Plant identification will begin with the selection of any of a variety of characteristics from an introductory menu. For example, identification will involve decisions on the following: location in the province, type of site, plant life form, physical size features, and a variety of properties associated with stems, leaves, inflorescence types, flowers, fruits, and roots. If you have an idea of the plant family or genus, you will be able to begin your search from that point. With each selection of a characteristic feature the list of likely candidate species is potentially shortened. The program will also advise on those characters most likely to discriminate amongst the species remaining. For example, if the type of leaf margin is able to discriminate amongst the remaining species in your candidate list, it will automatically move to the top of your list of "best" characters.
In the event a given plant characteristic cannot be clearly defined, e.g. a leaf is pubescent or possibly tomentose, you can ask the program to include all species with either description. Likewise if you are unsure your sample is considered a tree or a shrub, you can include both trees and shrubs in your selection. For those species which may be indistinguishable without expertise and access to materials such as a microscope or special chemicals, the user will be notified with a warning message. Likewise if a crucial plant component must be present in order to make a positive identification, the user will be notified.
Plant names may be displayed in either common or scientific names, along with the correct Latin code used to enter species names on field data forms. Explanation of any of the terminology used in the menus and keys will also be readily available in the form of text, diagrams and images.
Approach: Efforts are being made to learn about similar systems and initiatives in other parts of the world. RAPID's features will be carefully selected to ensure it meets the needs of field personnel here in B.C., as well as the broader goals and standards of international data exchange. RAPID will ultimately be the property of the B.C. Government. Wherever possible, RAPID will be a cooperative effort with other developers of similar initiatives and databases within and outside of the province.
When this project goes ahead, a web page will be constructed for the purpose of information exchange and updates.
For more information on interactive plant identification see the following: _URL_
[For interactive identification programs see also BEN # 96, March 25, 1995.]
The DELTA programs, and several data sets, are available via anonymous ftp from ftp.keil.ukans.edu (directory: /pub/delta) and via WWW from _URL_
The file Index.txt (note the upper-case I) contains a list of the available programs and data. Most of the subdirectories of delta contain text files *.1st which contain information about downloading and installing the programs or data in that sub-directory. When using ftp, always enter the command 'binary' at the start of the session.
When downloading the program distribution files, place them in a directory \DELTA. To install the programs, follow the instructions in Delta.1st.
The programs are supplied with documentation files, sample data, and a list of references. The conditions of use are in a file delta.use, and the prices in delta.reg. These files are within both of the self-extracting archive files delta1@.exe (MS-DOS INTKEY) and deltaw@.exe (MS-Windows INTKEY).
There is a mailing list, DELTA-L, for discussion of DELTA and announcements of updates. To subscribe, send the message
SUBSCRIBE DELTA-L your-first-name your-last-nameby email to _EMAIL_
Submissions, subscriptions, etc.: _EMAIL_.
BEN is archived on gopher freenet.victoria.bc.ca. The URL is:
gopher://freenet.victoria.bc.ca:70/11/environment/Botany/ben. Also archived at _URL_


text:
The Mosque viewed from the southeast in 2012
|Architectural type||Church with Greek cross plan|
|Architectural style||Middle Byzantine - Comnenian|
Kalenderhane Mosque (Turkish: Kalenderhane Camii) is a former Eastern Orthodox church in Istanbul, converted into a mosque by the Ottomans. With high probability the church was originally dedicated to the Theotokos Kyriotissa. This building represents one among the few extant examples of a Byzantine church with domed Greek cross plan.
The mosque is located in the Fatih district of Istanbul, Turkey, in the picturesque neighborhood of Vefa, and lies immediately to the south of the easternmost extant section of the aqueduct of Valens, and less than one km to the southeast of the Vefa Kilise Mosque.
The first building on this site was a Roman bath, followed by a sixth-century (the dating was based on precise coin finds in stratigraphic excavation) hall church with an apse laying up against the Aqueduct of Valens. Later – possibly in the seventh century – a much larger church was built to the south of the first church. A third church, which reused the sanctuary and the apse (later destroyed by the Ottomans) of the second one, can be dated to the end of the twelfth century, during the late Comnenian period. It may date to between 1197 and 1204, since Constantine Stilbes alluded to its destruction in a fire in 1197. The church was surrounded by monastery buildings, which disappeared totally during the Ottoman period. After the Latin conquest of Constantinople, the building was used by the Crusaders as a Roman Catholic church, and partly officiated by Franciscan clergy.
After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the church was assigned personally by Mehmed II to the Kalenderi sect of the Dervish. The Dervishes used it as a zaviye and imaret (public kitchen), and the building has been known since as Kalenderhane (Turkish: "The house of the Kalenderi").
In 1746, Hacı Beşir Ağa (d. 1747), the Kizlar Ağası of the Topkapı Palace, built a mihrab, minbar and mahfil, completing the conversion of the building into a mosque. Ravaged by fire and damaged by earthquakes, the mosque was restored in 1855 and again between 1880 and 1890. It was abandoned in the 1930s, after the collapse of the minaret due to lightning, and the demolition of the Medrese.
The conservation of the building dates from the 1970s, when it was extensively restored and studied in a ten-year effort by Cecil L. Striker and Doğan Kuban, who restored its twelfth century condition. Moreover, the minaret and the mihrab were rebuilt, which allowed the mosque to reopen for worship.
The restoration also provided a solution to the problem of the dedication of the church: while before it was thought that the church was named after Theotokos tēs Diakonissēs ("Virgin of the Deaconesses") or Christos ho Akatalēptos ("Christ the Inconceivable"), the discovery of a donor fresco in the southeastern chapel and of another fresco over the main entrance to the narthex both bearing the word "Kyriotissa" (Greek for Enthroned), makes highly probable that the church was dedicated to the Theotokos Kyriotissa.
Architecture and decoration
The building has a central Greek Cross plan with deep barrel vaults over the arms, and is surmounted by a dome with 16 ribs. The structure has a typically middle Byzantine brickwork with alternating layers of brick and stone masonry. The entry is via an esonarthex and an exonarthex (added much later) in the west side.
An upper gallery over the esonarthex, following the same plan of the one existing in the Church of the Pantokrator, was removed in 1854. Also the north and south aisles along the nave were destroyed, possibly during the nineteenth century too. The tall triple arches connecting the aisles with the nave are now the lower windows of the church.
The sanctuary is on the east side; however, the reconstructed mihrab and minbar are in a corner to obtain the proper alignment with Mecca.
The interior decoration of the church, consisting of beautiful colored marble panels and moldings, and of elaborated icon frames, is largely extant. The building possesses two features which both represent an unicum in Istanbul: a mosaic, one meter square, representing the "Presentation of Christ", which is the only pre-iconoclastic exemplar of a religious subject surviving in the city, and a cycle of frescoes of the thirteenth century (found in a chapel at the southeast corner of the building, and painted during the Latin domination) portraying the life of Saint Francis of Assisi. This is the oldest known representation of the saint, and may have been painted only a few years after his death in 1226. Both have now been detached and partially restored, and can be seen in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul.
As a whole, the mosque of Kalenderhane represents – together with the Gül Mosque in Istanbul, the Church of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki and the Church of the Dormition in (Koimesis) in Iznik (Nicaea), one of the main architectural examples of a domed Greek cross church from the Byzantine middle period.
- Mathews (1976), p. 171.
- Magdalino (2007) pp. 227-230.
- Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 156.
- He was the chief of the custodians of the Harem in the Sultan's Palace. During the last years of his life he endowed several religious foundations. Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 156.
- A book by the two authors of the restoration was published in 1997.
- Mathews (1976), p. 172.
- This church was destroyed by an act of vandalism in 1920, but was studied some years before. Krautheimer (1986).
- Krautheimer (1986), p. 317.
- Mathews, Thomas F. (1976). The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul: A Photographic Survey. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01210-2.
- Gülersoy, Çelik (1976). A Guide to Istanbul. Istanbul: Istanbul Kitaplığı. OCLC _PHONE_.
- Müller-Wiener, Wolfgang (1977). Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul bis zum Beginn d. 17 Jh (in German). Tübingen: Wasmuth. ISBN 978-3-8030-1022-3.
- Krautheimer, Richard (1986). Architettura paleocristiana e bizantina (in Italian). Turin: Einaudi. ISBN 88-06-59261-0.
- Freely, John (2000). Blue Guide Istanbul. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-32014-6.
- Magdalino, Paul (2007). Studies on the History and Topography of Byzantine Constantinople. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-86078-999-4.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kalenderhane Mosque|
- Byzantium 1200 | Kyriotissa Monastery
- Interior pictures of Kalenderhane
- Other Christian Churches converted to Mosques
- The frescoes of St. Francis in the Kalenderhane (Italian)


text:
Various Rules are preconfigured in system and can be used for various scenarios. There are three options for configuring new rules:
- Change existing rule
- Copy existing rule and change it to new requirements
- Create a new rule.
You define the rules for date determination on the basis of the following dates:
- The possible baseline date is predefined by a fixed value range (for example current date, beginning of the contract) and cannot be changed.
- You can define the period in any way by specifying a number with a corresponding time unit.
- If you use a calendar ID to define a rule, the system determines the next possible workday starting from the baseline date. If you use a calendar ID, you may NOT specify a period.


text:
Create a combo
- Enter a card name for the combo in the textbox below and click 'Search'.
- After searching, click on the card to add it to the combo.
- You may click on a selected card again to remove it from the combo.
- Once all of the cards have been added to the combo you may add a description to help describe how it resolves.
- Add a tag to help categorize the combo.
- Click 'Post' to submit the combo!


text:
Harish from the University of Texas at Arlington writes:
Figure 1—Phantom oscillations exist in the output
of this transmission-line circuit.
Most books suggest that overshoot and ringing arise if the signal-rise time is less than the round-trip delay of the transmission line. Does that [suggestion] mean ringing and overshoot cannot occur if the signal-rise time exceeds the round-trip time even though an impedance mismatch exists? I tried the snippet in PSpice and found that oscillations exist in the output (Figure 1). How do you explain this scenario?
A line delay that is short compared with the signal rise and fall time does not by itself preclude ringing. A short line—less than one-third the length of the signal rise or fall time—does guarantee that you can model the line as a simple lumped-element circuit known as a pi model. The pi model for suitably short lines accurately mimics the transmission-line performance.
Figure 2 shows the correct pi-model configuration and values for the transmission line in Figure 1. The inductance equals the line delay multiplied by its characteristic impedance, Z0. Each capacitor equals one-half the line delay divided by Z0.
Figure 2—This pi-model circuit mimics the
behavior of a short transmission line.
The pi-model circuit, if you drive it as the Harish describes with a source impedance of 5Ω and load it with 10 pF, exhibits a high-Q resonance at 260 MHz. Harish is seeing that resonance.
His choice of driving waveform compounds his difficulties. The sharp corners of the 8-nsec PWL (piecewise-linear) edges kick the circuit with a splash of high-frequency energy on every transition. Those corners overstimulate the resonant behavior at 260 MHz.
A gaussian edge has no sharp corners and, so, better represents a real digital waveform. A gaussian edge with a rise time of 6.4 nsec (10 to 90) eliminates the phantom ripples in his simulation output (Figure 3).
If Harish had used a gaussian edge, he wouldn't have noticed the ringing. Then again, he wouldn't have learned anything new, would he?
Figure 3—A gaussian edge eliminates the phanton
ripples in the simulation output.
In general, at least three factors contribute to ringing: long lines, big capacitive loads, and source impedances much smaller than Z0.
Figure 1 uses a short transmission line but combines the bad factors of a big capacitive load and a small source impedance. Shorten the line delay, and watch the circuit become less sensitive to these two bad factors. Lengthen the delay, and observe an even more squirrelly system.
My "safe-harbor" recommendation for transmission lines works as follows: If the line delay is less than one-sixth of the rise or fall time, and the source impedance is no less than one-third of Z0, you will have little or no trouble with ringing.
I simulate everything else. When I do, I use a gaussian—or at least a parabolic—edge shape.


home about us contact us
The dances of the English court were heavily influenced by what was happening in Europe at the time, particularly in France and Italy. Performances are based on carefully researched dance and music manuals of the period. Passamezzo Early Dance takes its name from the 'Passamezzo' - a typical 16th century Italian dance.
The dances are performed in lavish period costumes that have been thoroughly researched from primary sources. The fabrics, styles and even the underwear are as historically correct as possible. The overall effect is to bring the Renaissance to life.
Recent example shown here is a Torch Dance performed at Leominster Priory as part of a re-enactment of a Tudor masque.
The Passamezzo Early Dancers are often accompanied by the Border Waites, a five-part ensemble based on the municipal town bands common all over Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries. Their members are drawn from principle theatres and early-music ensembles including The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, The Globe Theatre, The Corelli Orchestra, The King's Consort & The Gabrieli Players.


Spirit and soul destiny.
215px-Chapelle-du-prigny-Pieds-St-Guenole[1]A soulmate is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity, similarity, love, intimacy, emotive bond, spirituality, or compatibility.
Spirit is a term which can be used when bringing up the idea of a soulmate or being which is somehow bound by means of a feeling or other tie to that of our own inner personality and identity.
Current use of the concept soulmate.
In current usage, a soulmate usually refers to romantic ones to who we look as a partner, with the implication of an exclusive lifelong bond. The term is a very versatile term, being defined differently by different sections and belief of individuals, as it is related to the concept of love.
Spirit and soul.
There is a need to understand that a spirit is a term implied when one talks in a means to convey their inside being but a soul is used to talk of the personality traits which pre exist the individual. It is said that the spirit is the spark of life which touches a body and makes the expression, emotional and conscience part of their make up. With no spirit there is a loss of everything that makes one who they are. A soul and real soul mate is the one in life that is believed can mirror but moreover match the most important states in life. The mate or connector link commonly holds the connotation of being the strongest bond with another person, romantically or otherwise, that one can achieve. The term is not used as often as other terms representing the same idea, and this is likely to lead to its perceived rarity in meaning in spiritual and other theories. The definition of it ranges widely, and cannot be pinpointed but is something that has had a firm foundation in cultures throughout the years. It is commonly accepted that one will feel 'complete' once they have found their soul mate, as it is partially in the perceived definition that two souls are meant to unite and the spirit will flourish when this is done.
In his dialogue during a famous part of The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present a story about soul mates. Aristophanes states that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. He continues that there were three genders pertaining man, woman and the Androgynous. Each with two sets of organs with the Androgynous having both male and female reproductive organs. The men were children of the sun, the women were children of the earth and the Androgynous were children of the moon, which was born of the sun and earth. It is said that humans had great strength at the time and threatened to conquer the gods. The gods were then faced with the prospect of destroying the humans with lightning as they had done with the Titans but then they would lose the tributes given to the gods by humans. Zeus then developed a creative solution by splitting humans in half as punishment for humanity's vanity and pride and doubling the number of humans who would give tribute to the gods. These split humans were in utter misery to the point where they would not eat and would perish finally so Apollo had helped patch them up and reconstituted their bodies with the navel being the only remnant harkening back to their original form. Each human would then only have one set of reproduction means and would forever long for his and her other half; the other half of his and her soul. It is said that when the two find each other, when their beings could be near there is an unspoken understanding of one another, that they feel unified and would lay with each other in unity and would know no greater joy than that one true moment.
In Theosophy and spiritualism.
According to Theosophy, whose claims were modified by Edgar Cayce, one higher entity created androgynous souls equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls were split into separate genders of male and female, perhaps because they incurred some version of karma while playing around on the Earth, or separation from a divine. Over a number of reincarnations, of altered times and points each half seeks the other. The idea of repaying a debt is used here but solely to refer to a divine being or onlooker of whom the responsible task is laid to match two souls of identical nature and belief, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.
Bashert: Jewish views of soulmates
Bashert, is a Yiddish word that means destiny. It is often used in the context of one's divinely foreordained spouse or soul mate, who is called basherte in female or basherter in a male. It can also be used to express the seeming fate or destiny of an auspicious or important event, friendship, or happening.
The idea of basherte comes from statements found in classical rabbinic scrolls and literature. A proverb that marriages are made in heaven is illustrated by a story in a midrash collection which is used to practically define the importance that fate has to bring together the man with a one being who will make them better then in every way.
A Roman matron, on being told by Rabbi Jose ben Halafta that a higher being arranges all marriages, said that this was an easy matter, and boasted that she could do as much herself. Thereupon she assembled her male and female slaves and paired them off in couples but on the morrow they all went to her with complaints and sadness. Then she admitted that divine intervention is necessary to suitable marriages if they had to last in happiness.
In modern usage, Jewish singles will say that they are looking for their bashert, meaning they are looking for that person who will complement them perfectly, and to whom they will complement perfectly. Since it's considered to have been foreordained by a higher being and that this one person will be the bashert by definition of that person whether they go on to marry or remain independent.
A soul mate when talked of in spirit is the individual who has a bond or likened heart which can in numerous means understand matters as no other can. The principal of a kindred being, some individual who is able to evoke senses of love and an undeniable amount of compatibility with how we are on a daily scale is a theme which has been heralded as important through history and is a question of the mind and of heart which both those upon this level and in spirit explore and endeavour to fully know about.
Picture highlighted is of Saint Guenole's Statue whose feet have been pierced with pins by local girls who would want to find their soul mates. The figure has been placed in Loire Atlantic.


text:
Womb Wisdom: Awakening the Creative and Forgotten Powers of the Feminine
Tools to awaken the creative powers of the womb
- Contains exercises to open the womb's energetic pathways, release toxic emotions, and harness creative potential
- Reveals how the womb's energies are crucial for the spiritual shift of 2012: birthing a new civilization
- Shows how the awakened womb can also bring about male spiritual transformation
- Includes 45-minute CD to help awaken creative energies
In the past and in present-day indigenous traditions, women have known that the womb houses the greatest power a woman possesses: the power to create on all levels. Utilized in the process of giving birth, this power of creation can also be tapped in the birth of projects, careers, personal healing, spirituality, and relationships. However, because the womb stores the energetic imprint of every intimate encounter—loving or not—the creative voice of the womb is often muffled or absent altogether, affecting the emotional, mental, and spiritual health of women and their relationships.
Drawing on sacred traditions from ancient India, Tibet, Egypt, Gnostic Christianity, and Judaism, the practice of Womb Wisdom empowers women to become aware of the intuitive voice of the womb outside of pregnancy and the moon cycle to unlock this potent inner source for creativity, birthing the new conscious children, spiritual growth, and transformation not only for themselves but also for their male partners. The authors include exercises to clear the past, release toxic emotions, open the womb's energetic pathways, activate the sacred sensual self, bring balance to relationships, and harness creative potential. Including intimate, individual stories of women experiencing the opening of the womb, this book also explores the forgotten sacred sites of the womb around the world as well as how the womb's energies are crucial to birth a new civilization in the spiritual shift of 2012. The accompanying 45-minute CD includes a soundscape to assist in the awakening of these creative forces.


text:
This module is a resource for lecturers
This section provides a list of (mostly) open access materials that the lecturer could ask the students to read before taking a class based on this Module.
- Hallak, Jacques and Muriel Poisson (2007). Corrupt schools, corrupt universities: what can be done? Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
- Huss, Oksana and Oleksandra Keudel (2020). Open government in education: Clarifying concepts and mapping initiatives. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and International Institute for Educational Planning.
- Kirya, Monica (2019). Education sector corruption: How to assess it and ways to address it. Bergen, Norway: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Chr. Michelsen Institute.
- Transparency International (TI) (2013). Global Corruption Report: Education. Berlin.
- United Nations Development Programme (2011). Fighting Corruption in the Education Sector: Methods, Tools and Good Practices. New York.
Next: Advanced reading


1. Forum
 2. >
 3. Topic: Turkish
 4. >
 5. [Grammar] Suffix: -dir
[Grammar] Suffix: -dir
After countless questions about the usage of "-dir", I thought we should have a small guide on the topic.
How many of you guys have started hating this annoying suffix?
This suffix has a number of uses, but I'll just talk about 3 of them here and see how it goes:
I. When writing a sentence, "writing" being the keyword here, if you're stating important facts, "important" being the keyword here, then you should use "-dir".
For example, you want to write: "Phobos is a satellite of Mars"? Yes, that's a fact. And it's pretty important! (Mind you, soon we're going to Mars). Had it been a satellite of Uranus, you wouldn't need it, because we're not going there anytime soon!................ (Just kidding. You would use it there too. It's all encyclopaedical information. You need the "-dir" with such statements.)
But this is when writing. When speaking, it's up to you really. I never use it when I speak, for instance.
Also remember my remark about using the "-dir" in important facts. So please don't walk around saying "-dir" with sentences like "This chicken smells fishy", "The weather is nice today," "My father is in the kitchen," or "My car is a BMW," because everyone knows a Mercedes is better……… And also because none of these are encyclopaedical pieces of information. TL;DR : No one cares about your car. (I love BMWs btw. Contact me and we can exchange photos).
If it seems hard to decide when to use it, just never use it. It's much worse (for the listeners) when you use it in the wrong place than when you simply discard it where it's expected. You'll learn it in time. No rush.
II. Here comes the weird part: the "-dir" is also used when you're not too sure of something. After reading the first rule about encyclopaedical usage of "-dir" which you state established facts with, this might seem like a paradox. But this is usually a spoken language thing, although it's fine to use it in writing too. For example, you're about to rob a bank with some friends. (With friends like that…) And one of them asks: "So where do you think they're keeping all the money?" (He's asking in Turkish, btw. So feel free to ask him to take his sock-mask off so you can hear him clearly; Turkish is hard to understand as it is!) And so you turn to him with rolling eyes: "Probably in the vault?" You could say: "Muhtemelen kasada," but wait! Don't kill the moment! Remember this guide and use the "-dir"! "Muhtemelen kasadadır." That's not necessarily a fact. With the "-dir", you mean: "I mean I haven't seen it, but that's probably the case."
Another example: "You give a bacon to the cat, but it won't eat it." (Dogs > cats. _TAG_ popcorn#) So you go to your friend and say: "The cat's not eating the bacon." Your friend might say: "Aç değil." He's not hungry, hinting he had fed him earlier. But, he could also say: "Aç değildir," which would mean: "He's probably not hungry".
III. You would use "-dir" also to indicate the duration of something. English uses "for" for this. "5 saattir buradayım." → I've been here for 5 hours, or: "Sen o şehre taşındığında 10 yıldır orada yaşıyordum." (When you moved to that city, I'd been living there for 10 years). But remember, you can only use it when in English you would use a perfect tense. Otherwise you can't. For example a sentence like "I'll be in London for 5 days," would not allow "-dir". No perfect tense is used. So: "Dört gün Londra'da olacağım." You could use "boyunca" in this case if you really want to use something: "Dört gün boyunca Londra'da olacağım."
I hope this sheds some light on the matter!
May 16, 2015
Your posts are amazing. I thought Turkish was going to be very difficult to learn; however, the course is constructed so well with clear and comprehensive tips and notes, relevant sentences in exercises (you guys went to the extent of adding different words which sound or appear similar to the same "logical" sentence so that we know the difference!), logical progression of skills and most importantly brilliant moderators, who are very active in the discussion rooms and explain every issue with such clarity. My mind is blown away, not only am I finding the Turkish course the easiest to learn (I tried different apps before and was fed up with how difficult the language seemed to be!), this course is actually helping me improve my English grammar! Çok acayıp, çok şaşırtıcı! In short, I want to declare to the universe that I love the Turkish course moderators, the course and language itself, Doulingo and Turkey!! Çok teşekkür ederim :-)
Very good explanation, indeed! For the first one I would like add some points that I consider important. I think -dir is used mostly in written and formal language. I recently realized that I have seen it quite often in warning and information texts in public places such as subways, buses, concerts, restaurants, shopping malls... Let me give a couple examples
İki bira alana bir tane ücretsizdir. - One beer is free when you buy two beers. (Written on a menu or on a signboard on the table.)
Sistem geçici süreyle servis dışıdır. - The system is temporarily unavailable. (Written on a screen at subway)
Film gösterimi üst kattadır. - The movie screening is at the top floor. (Written on a signboard)
However advertisements don't like it very much. They usually use -dir when giving necessary information in small fonts such as 'KDV dahildir'. (Vat is included). But if this is part of advertising/campaign they don't use it and say KDV Dahil! (Vat is included!) in big fonts. Because it's less formal, so more attractive.
So when you want to go formal, official or public (all in all, BORING) you can prefer to use -dir. It's usually used in written language (especially public or formal) and public speechs. In daily speaking some people may also use it in order to sound very assuring and confident especially when they try to prove their points or teach something. It can make a statement sound something very true and need to be accepted/learned. I personally find it a bit bumptious, smarty or distant in a one to one conversation.
Yes in one word it can be explained as boring.
Funny and informative! Thanks! They made a good choice, adding you to Team Turkish.
[deactivated user]
 I laughed like an idiot ahahah I love the way you explained the whole topic, gg wp
 Hilarious and helpful. (Everyone knows Turkish cats are Muslim and don't eat bacon. Look it up on the encyclopedia.)
 However, it's very peculiar and subtle. İt'll take years to master, no doubt. (That's a "-dir")
 Very useful and funny, I will never forget the puzzled robber :) Thanks and have a lingot!
 Have writtin more articals? If yes please give me the links, because you are hilarious! I really did enjoy the reading :D
 I loved everything about this post as a Turkish person! :) Great job. If anyone needs help i would be more than happy to participate :3
 Simply Amazing. You explained it so well and in such a witty way, that it really becomes very interesting to read it again and again. And after reading this, I am reading all your comments you have ever posted. I have to search "Ektoraskan" in order to read your posts. Is there any other way to find all your/his posts?
 Thanks again
 Your posts are blowing my mind. Thanks! :)
 for the first one, in order to use -dir, the verb must be ''to be''
 Very well written!
 teşekkür ederim, çok faydalı.....
 hahaha, so funny! sağ ol!
 I wish I had read this earlier, would've saved me a lot of time and head-scratching! I remember reading that -dir is sometimes used when the word on its own sounds vague(probably in longer sentences)? If that is indeed true, I would like some examples, please! :D
 P.S. Cats > Dogs :p
 [deactivated user]
 nice explanation sir.
 1. Loved the explanation! 2. Does this work for past as well? E.g If I want to say "It was the correct file" (really stressing the fact that it was (:) Thanks!
 very useful :):)
 you are a good teacher, although I didn't grab the entire subject but I'm happy that it's something that we can skip in speaking.
 Frankly speaking all the suffixes are


Certain chemical pollutants in food linked to type 2 diabetes
August 18, 2011 in Diabetes & Diabetes Prevention, Nutrition Topics in the News
Certain chemical pollutants in food linked to type 2 diabetes
According to a new study published in Diabetes Care, people with high blood levels of certain pesticides may have a greater risk of type 2 diabetes, especially if they are overweight.
Previous studies have linked diabetes risk with exposure to older pesticides (e.g. ones that are no longer in use) known as organochlorines, PCBs and other chemicals known as "persistent organic pollutants."
Organochlorines are now banned or restricted in the U.S. and other developed countries, after research linked them to cancer and other potential health risks. PCB's were widely used for industrial purposes until 1977, when they were banned in North America.
However these chemicals stick around in the environment for years and accumulate in the fat of humans and animals.
In North America, diet is the main potential source of exposure, in particular fatty foods such as dairy products, meat and oily fish.
Research in the lab has hinted that some persistent organic pollutants impair the body's ability to regulate blood sugar which may explain the link to type 2 diabetes.
Some of the compounds also have been shown to promote obesity, which is a major risk factor for developing diabetes.
For the study, researchers from Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare measured blood levels of several persistent organic pollutants in about 2,000 older adults of which 15% had type 2 diabetes. The risk of diabetes was higher among people with the highest blood levels of organochlorine pesticides.
Those with levels in the top 10 percent were about twice as likely to have diabetes as their peers in the bottom 10 percent. But the link appeared to be limited to people who were overweight or obese.
The researchers accounted for participants' age, sex, waist size and blood pressure levels. But they did not have information on diet and exercise habits which could explain the pesticide-diabetes link.
But the overall body of research, say the researchers, suggests a cause-and-effect relationship.
There is a fair amount of evidence that shows that these compounds disrupt hormone function in the body.
Other studies have found that people's blood levels of persistent organic pollutants predict their future risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The major dietary contributors of these chemicals are beef, chicken, and pork (34%), dairy products (30%), vegetables (22%), fish and shellfish (9%) and eggs (5%).
Choosing lean cuts of meat and low fat dairy products and using cooking methods that allow the fat to cook off (e.g. baking, broiling, grilling versus frying) will lower the amount of persistent organic pollutants in foods.


Arduino/Four wire stepper test
From Wikiversity
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Motor Inspection[edit | edit source]
Stepper Motor from discarded printer or fax
The motor originally came from a fax or printer that had been discarded. The motor had a label. From this label, specifications to a similar motor were found. There were four, identical red wires attached to it. Since the wires were stranded, solid wires were soldered onto the ends.
Arduino Motor Shield[edit | edit source]
Stepper Motors connect to the arduino through a motor shield. Adafruit makes an inexpensive shield.
adafruit motor shield
Two motor drivers were downloaded as zip files and expanded into a window's machines c:\programs\arduino\libraries folder. The new folder names were to long and contained spaces according to an error message that hid behind some open windows. The arduino IDE would not start. The folders were renamed AccelStepper and MotorShield. Then the arduino IDE started. New examples appeared in the arduino software files > examples folder.
Decoding Wires[edit | edit source]
The four stranded red wires were attached to four different colored solid wires. The connector has 5 holes, with a number 5 on the left. The middle pin was empty. The pair near pin 5 were given the colors blue, then orange. The pair nearest pin 1 were given the colors orange and red.
Motor Connector
Then resistance was measured between blue/orange and purple/red was 10 ohms.
Stepper Test[edit | edit source]
The example sketch StepperTest was found associated with the MotorShield driver. This code suggested that the motor's four wires should be attached to M3 and M4 on the motor shield. Orange/Blue were attached to M3 and purple/red were attached to M4. The sketch was uploaded to the arduino and the motor began to turn. A video was taken.
Wiring[edit | edit source]
Stepper motor wiring is easy. Stepper motors have inductors that turn into electro-magnents like all other motors. The inductors have an internal winding resistance. The 4 wire stepper motor above had two inductors of 10 ohms. There were two pairs of wires. These pairs can be plugged into the adafruit motorshield into a wiring header. The stepper test sketch software assumes you are plugging into the header labeled M3 and M4.
The pairs of wires are determined with an ohm meter. Then one pair is plugged into M3 and the other into M4. It doesn't matter which pair goes where. It doesn't matter which wire of the pair is in the left hole of M3. Hook the motor up. Reverse the pairs, reverse which wire is in the M3 left hole, and the motor will start up in the reverse direction. Messing up the pairs causes the stepper motor drive shaft to oscillate back and forth.
Power[edit | edit source]
Start with powering the motor from the USB cable. Touch the motor, touch the chips on the motor shield to see that things are not heating up. The 10 ohm motor started heating up with just power from the usb cable. Adding an external 9V 650ma DC adapter to the arduino caused the motor and a chip on the motor shield to heat up fast and to heat up too hot to touch. The DC adapter started to buzz and perhaps started to heat up. Here is probably why: I=V/R = 9volts/10 ohms = 900 ma which is much greater than the rated 650 ma. Motors with larger inductor winding resistance remained cool, chips on the motor shield remained cool, but then the adapter started buzzing.
Revolutions[edit | edit source]
Most of the motors tested stepped 7.5 degrees. 100 steps means 750 degrees rotation... two complete circles plus 30 degrees. This was observed on most motors. There was one stepper motor where it appeared that 100 steps was one complete rotation meaning the steps were 3.2 degrees.


Crystal Methods
From Wikiversity
Jump to: navigation, search
Crystal methods are a family of methodologies (the Crystal family) that were developed by Alistair Cockburn in the mid-1990s. The methods come from years of study and interviews of teams by Cockburn. Cockburn's research showed that the teams he interviewed did not follow the formal methodologies yet they still delivered successful projects. The Crystal family is Cockburn's way of cataloguing what they did that made the projects successful.
Crystal methods are considered and described as "lightweight methodologies". The use of the word Crystal comes from the gemstone where, in software terms, the faces are a different view on the "underlying core" of principles and values. The faces are a representation of techniques, tools, standards and roles.
Methodology, techniques, and policies are differentiated between by Cockburn:
 - Methodology - set of elements (e.g. practices, tools)
 - Techniques - skill areas (e.g. developing use cases)
 - Policies - dictate organizational musts
Crystal methods are focused on:
 1. People
 2. Interaction
 3. Community
 4. Skills
 5. Talents
 6. Communications
Cockburn says that Process, while important, should be considered after the above as a secondary focus. The idea behind the Crystal Methods is that the teams involved in developing software would typically have varied skill and talent sets and so the Process element isn't a major factor.
Since teams can go about similar tasks in different ways, the Crystal family of methodologies are very tolerant to this which makes the Crystal family one of the easiest agile methodologies to apply.
In his research, Cockburn [1999], he defines behaviour of people in teams:
 - "People have trouble acting consistently over time."
 - "People generally want to be good citizens, are good at looking around, taking initiative, and doing 'whatever is needed' to get the project to work."
The points above are why Crystal methods are so flexible and why they avoid strict and rigid processes typically found in older methodologies.
The Crystal Family[edit]
Cockburn developed the different methods in the family of methodologies to suit teams of different sizes which need different strategies to solve diverse problems.
The Crystal family of methodologies use different colours to denote the "weight" of which methodology to use. If a project were a small one a methodology such as Crystal Clear, Crystal Orange or Crystal Yellow may be used or if the project was a mission-critical one where human life could be endangered then the methods Crystal Diamond or Crystal Sapphire would be used.
The family is divided into different colours. Some examples:
 1. Crystal Clear
 2. Crystal Yellow
 3. Crystal Orange
 4. Crystal Orange Web
 5. Crystal Red
 6. Crystal Maroon
 7. Crystal Diamond
 8. Crystal Sapphire
Crystal Family example.jpg
[Source: A Practical Guide to Seven Agile Methodologies Part 2, ( )]
The Crystal Family of Methodologies. One characteristic of Crystal is its intentional scaling to projects based on size and criticality. The larger a project gets (from left to right), the darker the colour.
Between all the methods in the Crystal family, there are seven prevailing common properties. Cockburn found that the more of these properties that were in a project, the more likely it was to succeed.
The seven properties are:
 1. Frequent delivery
 2. Reflective improvement
 3. Close or osmotic communication
 4. Personal safety
 5. Focus
 6. Easy access to expert users
 7. Technical environment with automated tests, configuration management, and frequent integration
Frequent delivery[edit]
Frequent Delivery is the regular releasing of iterations of the software program. This idea comes from agile methodologies. Designers and developers decide what features to include in each release and they design and test for each release. With Crystal methods, iterations are to be released weekly up to quarterly – the release times are dependant on the length of the project.
By releasing iterations, stakeholders will be able to spot problems earlier in the project which will save a lot of hassle later on. Another point on this is that if the end users decide that the project does not do things the way they'd like it to be done, then steps can be taken to resolve this before it is too late.
With Crystal methods, there can be more than one iteration in a release. This is because it may not be feasible to release every iteration, so a collection of iterations are gathered and delivered in a single release.
Reflective improvement[edit]
Reflective improvement involves developers taking a break from regular development and trying to find ways to better their processes. Iterations help with this by providing feedback on whether or not the current process is working.
With Crystal methods, the idea of teams holding "reflection workshop" meetings every couple of weeks is encouraged. These workshops help find processes that are and aren't working well and help the team to modify them so that a strategy can be developed that works well for the team.
Close or osmotic communication[edit]
In Crystal Clear and the smaller of the Crystal methodologies, Osmotic Communication is used. Osmotic communication involves the team being together in a room and getting information to flow around it. With regards to larger teams (over 8 or so), where distraction can arise, Close Communication is used.
The team must be in the same room for this to work. This is because if the developer has to break concentration to move somewhere else to ask a question then their thought process will probably be lost.
By using this type of communication, information flows quickly throughout the team. Questions can be rapidly answered and all the team members know what is going on as well as having the ability to correct any misconceptions that may arise.
By listening to the others in the team, a developer can pick up on what the others are doing, gain experience and develop new ideas. Developers working near each other can help with problems that the other is encountering.
Communication overhead is greatly reduced by using this type of communication. The need for email updates, extra documentation, etc is lowered. By having the team together, each member knows what the others are doing so they should be able to take over their team-mate's parts of the project if needed.
Personal safety[edit]
This has got to do with the issue of free speaking within a group of people. If a person is ridiculed whenever they ask a question, suggest an idea, etc then they will be less likely to speak up the next time. The people in the team must be able to trust each other and feel free to speak up about issues or whatever arises.
Focus in crystal refers to two things; firstly focusing on an individual task in a project for enough time that progress will be made and secondly, it refers to the direction of which the project is heading.
With the first, the flow of progress is taken into account while thinking of issues that would affect it such as interruptions, meetings, long questions, phone call, etc. It can take a while to get back into the flow again so this delays completion of the current task.
Crystal defines two rules for dealing with issues that may interrupt focus. One is to set a two-hour period where the developer is to have no interruptions. The other one is to assign a developer to a project for at least two days before being switched to another project.
With the second meaning of focus, issues such as definition of goals are discussed. The definitions should be clear and the developers should know exactly what the goals of the project are. The project leader should prioritise the goals which will allow developers to focus on particular areas.
Easy access to expert users[edit]
This involves the developers working with a person of expertise in the project area so that the expert answers any questions, suggest solutions to problems, etc. The expert user should be an actual/real-life user and not just a tester from the development team. The more involved the expert user is (in practical terms), the better since they would have more hands-on experience.
The more time that the expert user can give will greatly help the overall project but this is not always feasible. There should be a minimum of a once a week, two-hour meeting with the expert user, and the ability to make phone calls to the expert user too.
Technical environment with automated tests, configuration management, and frequent integration[edit]
The idea behind this is that there should be continuous integration and testing so that if any changes are made, then errors, breakages, etc can be spotted. Since this is done on a regular basis, problems are less likely to grow as they can be resolved earlier in the project.
The process of checking-in code into a repository can help in identifying the problem code and remove it by reverting back or updating with correct code. This is where configuration management and automated testing come in. These allow for quicker unit testing and eventual resolution of problems.


A Jet Tour Through the New Testament
What Is Pragmatism & Why Is It Bad?
Selected Scriptures January 20, 2010 QA209
John MacArthur
Unfortunately, that perfectly sums up the predominant attitude behind much of ministry today. Bad doctrine is tolerable; a long sermon most certainly is not. The timing of the benediction is of far more concern to the average churchgoer than the content of the sermon. Sunday dinner and the feeding of our mouths takes precedence over Sunday school and the nourishment of our souls. Long-windedness has become a greater sin than heresy. The church has imbibed the worldly philosophy of pragmatism, and we're just beginning to taste the bitter results.
What Is Pragmatism?
What's wrong with pragmatism?
After all, common sense involves a measure of legitimate pragmatism, doesn't it? If a dripping faucet works fine after you replace the washers, for example, it is reasonable to assume that bad washers were the problem. If the medicine your doctor prescribes produces harmful side effects or has no effect at all, you need to ask if there's a remedy that works. Such simple pragmatic realities are generally self-evident.
But when pragmatism is used to make judgments about right and wrong, or when it becomes a guiding philosophy of life and ministry, it inevitably clashes with Scripture. Spiritual and biblical truth is not determined by testing what "works" and what doesn't. We know from Scripture, for example, that the gospel often does not produce a positive response (1 Cor. 1:22, 23; 2:14). On the other hand, Satanic lies and deception can be quite effective (Matt. 24:23, 24; 2 Cor. 4:3, 4). Majority reaction is no test of validity (cf. Matt. 7:13, 14), and prosperity is no measure of truthfulness (cf. Job 12:6). Pragmatism as a guiding philosophy of ministry is inherently flawed. Pragmatism as a test of truth is nothing short of satanic.
Nevertheless, an overpowering surge of ardent pragmatism is sweeping through evangelicalism. Traditional methodology—most notably preaching—is being discarded or downplayed in favor of newer means, such as drama, dance, comedy, variety, side-show histrionics, pop-psychology, and other entertainment forms. The new methods supposedly are more "effective"—that is, they draw a bigger crowd. And since the chief criterion for gauging the success of a church has become attendance figures, whatever pulls in the most people is accepted without further analysis as good. That is pragmatism.
Perhaps the most visible signs of pragmatism are seen in the convulsive changes that have revolutionized the church worship service in the past two decades. Some of evangelicalism's largest and most influential churches now boast Sunday services that are designed purposely to be more rollicking than reverent.
Even worse, theology now takes a back seat to methodology. One author has written, "Formerly, a doctrinal statement represented the reason for a denomination's existence. Today, methodology is the glue that holds churches together. A statement of ministry defines them and their denominational existence."2 Incredibly, many believe this is a positive trend, a major advance for the contemporary church.
Some church leaders evidently think the four priorities of the early church—the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42)—make a lame agenda for the church in this day and age. Churches are allowing drama, recreation, entertainment, self-help programs, and similar enterprises to eclipse the importance of traditional Sunday worship and fellowship. In fact, everything seems to be in fashion in the church today except biblical preaching. The new pragmatism sees preaching—particularly expository preaching—as pass‚. Plainly declaring the truth of God's Word is regarded as offensive and utterly ineffective. We're now told we can get better results by first amusing people or giving them pop-psychology and thus wooing them into the fold. Once they feel comfortable, they'll be ready to receive biblical truth in small, diluted doses.
Pastors are turning to books on marketing methods in search of new techniques to help churches grow. Many seminaries have shifted their pastoral training emphasis from Bible curriculum and theology to counseling technique and church-growth theory. All these trends reflect the church's growing commitment to pragmatism.
Notes: * This article is excerpted from Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World (Wheaton: Crossway, 1993).
1. Jamie Buckingham, "Wasted Time," Charisma (Dec. 88), 98.
2. Elmer L. Towns, An Inside Look at 10 of today's Most Innovative Churches (Ventura, CA: Regal, 1990), 249.


text:
In a milestone for people who don't identify as male or female, the United States just issued its first-ever 'X' gender passport, joining other countries including Australia, Canada, Argentina, and Nepal who allow citizens to designate a gender other than male or female on their passports.
According to the Associated Press, the State Department released a statement revealing they expect to offer the option to gender-nonconforming, intersex, and nonbinary citizens by early 2022.
The State Department now allows passport applicants to self-select male or female without requiring them to submit medical certification if their gender does not match the gender listed on other identification records, the Associated Press reports.
"When a person obtains identity documents that reflect their true identity, they live with greater dignity and respect," the U.S special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights, Jessica Stern, said in a statement reported by the AP. "We see this as a way of affirming and uplifting the human rights of trans and intersex and gender-nonconforming and nonbinary people everywhere."
"Offering a third gender marker is a significant step towards ensuring that our administrative systems account for the diversity of gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics," Stern told the Washington Blade. "Because people do not always fit within a male or a female designation, it doesn't benefit anyone to have inconsistencies between people and systems."
"I am proud that the United States seeks to protect and promote the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons globally and this is an excellent example of leading by example," added Stern.


text:
Brad's suggestion to use the built-in number formatting functionality is wise -- it seems like a bad idea to permanently convert a decimal number to a formatted string in a table.
That said, if you really want to do this, read on:
If the Acres field type is Text, you can use the VBScript
FormatNumber function which by default adds thousands separators. Set the first argument to the Acres field and set the second argument to 0 to truncate (or round, not sure which it does) the decimal portion. Be sure to make a backup as this is a destructive operation.
FormatNumber(cint([ACRES]), 0) (note the string to integer conversion)
If the Acres field type is Float or Double, you would have to add another field of type Text and calculate it in a similar way:
Note: It is likely these methods will fail on records with null values so do a select by attributes first to select non-null records, e.g.
"ACRES" IS NOT NULL


Data types are pre-defined data structures that have many different uses. Among them:
 - Providing complete objects as inputs for robots
 - Providing a structure in which to build data sets
 - Providing standardised outputs for robots
 - Manipulating data in pipes robots
Data types and property types
Data types act as object templates - for example, if you create a Person data type, then each Person you create will share the same properties of the same types:
As you can see, properties in a data type can be of the following types:
 - Text
 - Number
 - True / False
 - Multiple choice
 - Object
Any property can also be defined as a list. Setting a property as a list tells us that the property accepts more than one value, that is to say, it is a list of values of the type given.
We defined id as being a key - this means that the id property is unique, so when there are multiple Person objects in a data set, each person will have a unique id.
In this example, a Person data type contains an id, firstName and lastName text values. Each Person will algo have an age property which has to be a number, attempting to assign it a value which is not a number will result in the value not being assigned. Each Person also has a europeanCitizen property which can either be true or false.
Multiple choice values act as text values, but are restricted to the choices given when creating the data type; in this example, gender can only be the text male or female.
Objects are groups of properties that can be nested indefinitely. In this example, a Person can have multiple socialMedia objects, with each socialMedia object consisting of a service and a accountOrId property. Objects can also contain objects inside of them.
Did this answer your question?


Love affairs and linear differential equations
Differential equations are a powerful tool for modeling how systems change over time, but they can be a little hard to get into. Love, on the other hand, is humanity's perennial topic; some even claim it is all you need. In this blog post — inspired by Strogatz (1988, 2015) — I will introduce linear differential equations as a means to study the types of love affairs two people might find themselves in.
Do opposites attract? What happens to a relationship if lovers are out of touch with their own feelings? We will answer these and other questions using two coupled linear differential equations. On our journey, we will use graphical as well as mathematical methods to classify the types of relationships this modeling framework can accommodate. In a follow-up blog post, we will also play around with non-linear terms and add a third wheel to the mix, which can lead to chaos — in the technical sense of the term, of course. Excited? Then let's get started!
Introducing Romeo
A lovestruck Romeo sang the streets of serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a streetlight, steps out of the shade
Says something like, "You and me, babe, how about it?"
Romeo is quite the emotional type. Let $R(t)$ denote his feelings at time point $t$. Following common practice, we will usually write $R$ instead of $R(t)$, making the time dependence implicit. The process which describes how Romeo's feelings change is rather simple: it depends only on Romeo's current feelings. We write:
which is a linear differential equation. Note that this implicitly encodes how Romeo's feelings change over time, since when we know $R$ at time point $t$, we can compute the direction and speed with which $R$ will change — the derivative denotes velocity. Our goal, however, is to find an explicit, closed-form expression for Romeo's feelings at time point $t$. In this particular case, we can do this analytically:
A differential equation describes how something changes; to kickstart the process, we need an initial condition $R_0$. This allows us to find the constant of integration $C$. In particular, assume that $R = R_0$ at $t = 0$, which leads to:
such that:
The left two panels of the figure below visualize how Romeo's feelings change over time for $a > 0$ with initial condition $R_0 = 1$ (top) or $R_0 = -1$ (bottom). The right two panels show how his feelings change for $a < 0$ with $R_0 = 100$ (top) or $R_0 = -100$ (bottom).
plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-1
We conclude: Romeo is a simple guy, albeit with an emotion regulation problem. When the object of his affection is such that $a > 0$, his feelings will either grow exponentially towards mad love if he starts out with a positive first impression ($R_0 > 0$), or grow exponentially towards mad hatred if he starts out with a negative first impression ($R_0 < 0$). On the other hand, if $a < 0$, then regardless of his initial feelings, they will decay exponentially towards indifference.
For $R_0 = 0$, Romeo's feelings never change. For any other initial condition, we have uhindered, exponential growth when $a > 0$; it never stops. For any other initial condition and $a < 0$, we crash down to zero very rapidly. Thus $R = 0$ is a fixed point in both cases, which is stable for $a < 0$ but becomes unstable if $a > 0$. We can visualize this in phase space on a line. The phase space is filled with all possible trajectories because each point can serve as the initial condition.
plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-2
In the next section, a wonderful new episode in Romeo's life begins: he meets Juliet.
Introducing Juliet
Juliet says, "Hey, it's Romeo, you nearly gave me a heart attack"
He's underneath the window, she's singing, "Hey, la, my boyfriend's back
You shouldn't come around here singing up at people like that
Anyway, what you gonna do about it?"
Life becomes more complicated for Romeo now that Juliet is in his life. It is their first real relationship, and they have much to learn. We start simple. Let $J$ denote Juliet's feelings for Romeo, and let $R$ denote Romeo's feelings for Juliet. We can extend our single linear differential equation from above to a system of two linear differential equations:
Using the results from above, the solutions to the two differential equations are:
where $R(t)$ and $J(t)$ give the trajectories of love for Romeo and Juliet, respectively, and $J_0$ is Juliet's initial feeling towards Romeo at $t = 0$. In contrast to the one-dimensional phase diagram from above, we now have a two-dimensional picture which is known as a vector field.
Analogously to the case of a single differential equation, $a < 0$ and $d < 0$ imply exponential decay for Romeo and Juliet's love, and $a > 0$ and $d > 0$ imply exponential growth. The left figure below visualizes decay: whatever the initial state of their love, it will crash into the origin of indifference. The figure on ther right visualizes growth: whatever the initial state, except for indifference, their feelings will grow exponentially and eventually consume them.
plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-4
This can result in happy, ever increasing love if they start out liking each other (top right quadrant), but can also result in an increasingly violent feud if they start out disliking each other (bottom left quadrant). For asymmetric starts, one of them will be hopelessly in love with the other, while the other's hate grows unboundedly. The fixed point (0, 0) is stable on the left, as any tiny perturbation will move the system towards it. In contrast, the fixed point on the right is unstable, as any ounce of love or hate, no matter how small, will make the system explode. One unfortunate subtlety arises, however: if Romeo loves Juliet, but Juliet is indifferent, then Juliet will forever stay indifferent even though Romeo's love grows without bound.
Another interesting case occurs when their affection is asymmetric, i.e., $a \neq d$. The figure below on the left shows one such case for negative parameters: we see that whatever feelings Juliet has for Romeo, they decay faster then the feelings Romeo has for Juliet. Moreover, since $(a, d) < 0$, the origin is stable. The figure on the right shows a more impactful asymmetry: Romeo's feelings decay ($a < 0$), but Juliet's increase ($d > 0$). Regardless of what the initial feelings of Romeo are, he will always end up in a state of indifference with respect to Juliet (all arrows point to the y-axis). Juliet, on the other hand, will go increasingly mad with love or hate, depending on her initial feelings — the exception being if she starts out with indifference ($J_0 = 0$): then she will stay indifferent. This type of fixed point is called a saddle point, which occurs if there is one vector along which the system is stable (here the x-axis) and one vector along which the system is unstable (here the y-axis).
plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-5
What happens if Romeo's feelings never change, i.e., $a = 0$? This is visualized as the figure on the left below: Romeo's feelings will always stay at the initial point. Juliet's feelings decrease ($d < 0$), so regardless of where she is, the system will end up at a stable fixed point on the x-axis. A similar situation occurs if Juliet's feelings never change, and Romeo's feelings decay ($a < 0$), which is visualized in the figure on the right: all points on the y-axis are stable fixed points. If instead the moving parties' feelings would increase instead of decay, the fixed points would be unstable. The most boring case is $a = 0$ and $d = 0$, because then every point on the plane is a fixed point: however the two lovers start, they will never change.
plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-6
Note that in all the love affairs described above, the feelings of Romeo and Juliet are actually independent of each other. They do not communicate with each other, and we all know that communication is key! In the next section, Romeo and Juliet's relationship matured and they start taking each other seriously. Formally, we couple the two love birds and analyze what types of love this can set free.
Coupled differential equations
In the previous section, we saw that the behaviour of the system was determined entirely by the values of $a$ and $d$ — depending on whether $a$ or $d$ were positive, negative, or zero, the system would either be stable or unstable along the $R$ or $J$ dimension. Incorporating communication complicates the system, but is ultimately for the better. To model the fact that Romeo and Juliet now respond to each other's feelings, we simply write:
or in matrix form:
The classification of such a system is more difficult. In the next section, we introduce one type of relationship between a matured Romeo and Juliet that will motivate a