erry swore revenge against them by making them suffered like she did. After she was defeated by Tōma, she was returned to Necessarius and was placed under house arrest where she became an unlikely friend of Orsola.
Orsola Aquinas (オルソラ＝アクィナス Orusora Akwinasu?)
Voiced by: Aya Endō (Japanese), Mallorie Rodak (English)
A blond, blue eye nun from Italy and a skilled decoder. She was originally a famous Roman Catholic nun, but was marked for death when it was revealed she was able to decrypt the Liber AL vel Legis, a grimoire containing dangerous magic. Unknown to the Church, Orsola's attempt to decrypt the grimoire was in order to destroy the book itself. Fearing for her life, she sought the protection of the Amakusa Catholics, but ran away from them as well as she didn't trust them and feared they wanted the knowledge of the grimoire. After meeting Tōma, she learns that both he and Amakusas genuinely wanted to help her and rejoins them as battle nuns from the Catholic Church arrive to assassinate her. However, when they discover Orsola was never capable of deciphering the grimoire at all, the Catholic Church calls off the order to eliminate her and Necessarius grants her sanctuary. While it is unclear if Orsola is a member of Neccesarius, she has helped the organization by using her skills as a decoder. A common joke about her is her absent-mindedness.
Marie Spearhead (メアリエ＝スピアヘッド Mearie Supiaheddo?)
Voiced by: Asami Seto
Marie is one of Stiyl's students who can manipulate water.
Mallybath Blackball (マリーベート＝ブラックボール Marībēto Burakkubōru?)
Voiced by: Megumi Han
Mallybeth is one of Stiyl's students who can manipulate earth.
Jane Elves (ジェーン＝エルブス Jēn Erubusu?)
Voiced by: Risa Taneda (Japanese), Sarah Wiedenheft (English)[4]
Jane is one of Stiyl's students who can manipulate wind.
Theodosia Electra (テオドシア＝エレクトラ Teodoshia Erekutora?)
Theodosia is a member of Necessarius who turned down the work to capture Patricia Birdway, and later defeated Richard Brave, who abused the system to issue the said order.
Tour Guide Girl (ツアーガイドの少女 Tsuā Gaido no Shōjo?)
Tour Guide Girl is a tour guide in London who also works as a messenger for Necessarius.
Amakusa Catholic Church[edit]
The Amakusa Catholics are a secret order of Japanese warriors. The order was formed during the Edo period when Japan banned Christianity. In order to escape persecution, they merge Shintoism and Buddhism into their Catholic beliefs to hide their religion which led the Amakusas creating a unique fusion of magic. While skilled magicians, the Amakusas are also skilled with martial arts and fighting in groups.
Kaori Kanzaki (神裂 火織 Kanzaki Kaori?)
Voiced by: Shizuka Itō (Japanese), Morgan Garrett (English)
An eighteen-year-old Japanese sorceress from Necessarius. Unlike her partner Stiyl, she uses magic to magically strengthen her body. Her sorcery name is Salvare000, "Be the salvation of those who cannot be saved" (救われぬ者に救いの手を Sukuwarenu Mono ni Sukui no Te o?). She uses a two-meter-long nodachi called "Seven Heavens Seven Swords" as her weapon. She has a special attack called Nanasen (七閃?, "Seven Flash") that uses her sword and some wires. She used to be a kind woman who treated Index like a sister, but when Index's memories were erased by Necessarius, Kaori changed into a ruthless and silent woman as Index was unable to remember her and consequently distrusted her. After Tōma saves Index's life and her current memories, she decides to let Index stay at Academy City as she feels Tōma can protect her.
Later in the novels, more of her past is revealed. Not only is Kaori a skilled swordswoman, but she is a Catholic Saint possessing the "Stigma" — the ability to call upon God's power — and the former leader of the Amakusa Catholics; however, Kaori left the group as she resented that she had been fated since birth to become its leader, which led to her resenting the concept of luck and fortune. Though she is Catholic, she joined Necessarius in hopes of changing her fate and befriended Index, developing a sisterly relationship with her. The repeated failed attempts to make Index remember her after each memory erasure resulted in Kaori beginning to accept that no matter how much a person tries, no one can change their destiny. However, Kaori begins to show a kinder side to herself after Tōma saves Index, giving her hope that anyone can defy their destiny, and eventually falls in love with him after he helps her reunite with the Amakusa Catholics, becoming more prone to showing emotion and sometimes showing a little embarrassment if she is with him. She is the protagonist of her own spin-off mini light novel bundled with the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun DVDs.
Saiji Tatemiya (建宮 斎字 Tatemiya Saiji?)
Voiced by: Kōsuke Toriumi (Japanese), Duncan Brannan (English)
The substitute-Supreme Pontiff of the Amakusa Catholics, who saves people for the sake of saving them rather than for any ulterior motive. A capable leader, he strives to rebuild the group so that Kaori, who left the group and rejected the position of Pontiff in order to protect them from any incidents that would occur as a result of her status as a Saint, would feel welcome to return to them some day. He has impressionable pitch-black hair and a unique sense of fashion, which includes an over-sized shirt and one meter long shoe laces. Saiji is an expert in Amakusa-style combat and is equipped with a 180-centimeter-long Flamberge.
Itsuwa (五和?)
Voiced by: Ai Kayano (Japanese), Krishna Smitha (English)
An Amakusa Catholic girl. Originally introduced in the 11th novel, she makes an earlier appearance in the anime episode "The Book of the Law" which is based on the beginning of the 7th novel. In the 11th novel, she fell in love with Tōma after their first meeting, claiming it was Love at first sight but the anime suggests she fell for him much earlier during the Orsola incident in the 7th novel. However due to her shyness, she is unable to properly tell him how she feels. Yet she hopes to get Tōma's attention, even when knowing her senpai and superior Kaori is also in love with him. She has accompanied Tōma and his friends on more than one occasion, including traveling with him to Italy, France, and Britain. In the events of the 16th novel she becomes his bodyguard and caretaker. When Acqua first attacks Academy City, she fails to protect him and tries to heal Tōma with magic but unsuccessfully due to his Imagine Breaker. After Tōma is sent to the hospital she goes into despair for failing to protect him but Saiji rebukes her and tells her to snap out of it as she focus on fighting with Acqua if she wants to protect him. During the Amakusas' rematch against Acqua, Itsuwa suddenly displays a change of personality, becomes full of tranquil fury that even the way she spoke changed. She performed a "Saint Destroyer" spell in that battle, harming Acqua and causing him to lose the "Divine Mother's Mercy" spell which allows them to defeat him.
Her weapon is a Friulian Spear, which by adding layers of reinforcement magic, turns it into a symbol of a 'Thousand Years Tree', which symbolizes the growth of plants and makes certain magic spells to be more potent over time. She also can perform Nanasen (七閃?, "Seven Flash") by manipulating her spear and steel wires just like Kaori.
Isahaya (諫早?)
An member of the Amakusa Catholics, Isahaya is old man who wields a sword and mace.
Ushibuka (牛深?)
An Amakusa Catholic member, a physically enormous man whose main weapon is a battle axe.
Tsushima (対馬?)
A female Amakusa Catholic member, she has blonde hair and blue eyes. Her main weapon is a short sword.
Nomozaki (野母崎?)
A member of Amakusa Catholics who is married and wields a long sword.
Kōyagi (香焼?)
A young Amakusa Catholic member. His main weapon is a dagger.
Agnese Forces[edit]
A group of over 250 Catholic Battle Nuns who are proficient in magic and combat.
Agnese Sanctis (アニェーゼ＝サンクティス Anyēze Sankutisu?)
Voiced by: Rie Kugimiya (Japanese), Alex Moore (English)
Agnese is the former leader of the Agnese Forces, a group of Battle Nuns under the Catholic Church. She has long


text:
Appendix A: Evaluation approach and Data
The evaluation was conducted between 2007 and 2010. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, we pursued two evaluation goals. The first was to determine the effi cacy of the WG strategy and iGov Institute strategy as mechanisms for launching transnational DG research collaborations that are innovative, diverse, sustainable, and influential on research practice. The second was to identify replicable actions, resources, incentives, strategies, stakeholders, relationships, and methods that lead to efficacy. We analyzed the data using both descriptive and inferential methods.
- Participant Survey – In October 2010, a survey was sent to 91 participants identified as current members of the three working groups. In total, 55 participants responded (60 percent response rate, including at least 50 percent from each group). The survey consisted of 35 Likert-type scale items, three questions regarding the number of certain kinds of academic outputs, two open-ended questions and a set of demographic items. Together the questions covered:
- Opinions about general and specifi c elements of experience with the working group
- Assessment of the value of certain features of the working group strategy, such as the value of faceto-face meetings
- Identification of research products such as journal articles and grant proposals associated with participation in the working group
- Interactions in the DG community during the time of the experiment such as conference participation and academic exchanges
- Demographic questions such as amount of international experience, discipline, institutional location, and rank
- Open-ended questions covering personal and professional benefits, achievements, or other community building activities
- Semi-structured interviews with co-chairs – Between 2008 and 2010, the US co-chair from each group participated in three semi-structured interviews concerning the progress of the group. Questions addressed changes in goals, relationship development between junior and senior faculty, experiences at faceto-face meetings, communication tools and strategies, obstacles encountered, and disseminating results.
- Reflection day workshop – Members from each working group (including both co-chairs, one US working group member, one international member, and a student) participated in a two-day workshop at the end of the grant period to refl ect on the experience, identify lessons learned, and share observations and ideas on the future. Participants engaged in small group interviews based on their group and their role (student, faculty, practitioner, co-chair), as well as plenary sessions with all participants.
- Observations of working group meetings – One member of the evaluation team attended at least one meeting of each working group as a formal observer.
- Related artifacts – Meeting agendas, minutes, email correspondence, online collaboration repositories, press releases, and other artifacts were collected to provide context.
- Observations – One member of the evaluation team attended each of the iGov Institutes (2007-1010) as a formal observer.
- Exit and follow-up surveys – An exit survey was administered to all of the iGov cohorts (i.e., 2007-2010, total n = 74) within two months of attending the institute. In total, 74 participants responded (a 100 percent response rate). Follow-up surveys were administered to the 2007, 2008, and 2009 cohorts one year later (n=46 of 54, response rate 85 percent) and again to the 2007 and 2008 cohorts two years later (n=27 of 34, response rate 79 percent). The exit survey consisted of 10 Likert scale items with multiple sub-items, open-ended questions, and network questions. The subsequent follow-up surveys tracked the changes in attitudes and opinions of a sub-set of the 10 Likert scale exit survey questions, and added additional Likert scale and open ended questions.
- Opinions about general and specific elements of the experience;
- Assessment of the value of certain features of the iGov program, such as the value of discussionbased site visits;
- Identification of research products such as journal articles, or dissertations associated with iGov participation or influence;
- Interactions in the larger DG community during the time of the experiment such as conference participation; Barriers to engaging in international education opportunities such as funding or visa requirements;
- Demographic questions such as amount of international experience, discipline, institutional location, and year in doctoral program; and
- Several open-ended questions covering personal and professional benefits or achievements, and other community building activities.
- Related artifacts – iGov programs, contents of the wiki associated with each year, email correspondence, press releases, and other artifacts were collected to provide context information.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Posts Tagged 'America'
Scapegoating and American Politics
Jesus, a victim of scapegoating, understood all too well its origin and its outcome. From the "Hosannas" of Palm Sunday to the "Crucify him!" of a few days later, Jesus witnessed the fears of the human heart and how easily those fears turn to blame.
What is happening in the heart of the person who turns to scapegoating? It's easy for us humans to believe that by hating a person we despise, we separate ourselves from evil and differentiate ourselves as good. Yet the opposite is actually true. When we give in to hate, we begin to become like what we are hating. When hatred and violence grow in our hearts, we move closer along the spectrum toward the object of our hate. Jesus knew this, and he also knew how unconsciously this was occurring when he prayed from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
The battle between good and evil plays out not between individuals but within individuals. The battle between good and evil is fought within every human heart. Yet we naturally shun the fear and hatred within ourselves, and so we seek shortcuts instead of doing the hard inner work we need to do. When a leader arises who blames a person or group for our woes, whether in a family, an organization, or a nation, the appeal of that leader proves strong. At this moment in American politics, Donald Trump's scapegoating of various groups, including African Americans and immigrants, is proving irresistible to many. Why do the hard inner work, personally and as a nation, when it is so easy to blame others?
The trouble with scapegoating is threefold. First, of course, it damages the individuals and groups who are its targets. Second, it damages the ones who hate those individuals and groups by filling their hearts with fear and hatred. Third, it doesn't solve anything. When, in the history of the world, has scapegoating resulted in a good outcome for those who scapegoat? Never. There is some relief for awhile, but the problems don't go away because they haven't been addressed at the root. So the cycle repeats itself: a new scapegoat gets identified, that person or group is crucified or chased out of town, some relief is felt for awhile, the problems resurface, and so on.
Jesus said, "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me." Who are the least of these today? In America today, they are those we scapegoat. Will we keep crucifying Jesus? Will we keep participating in scapegoating or not standing up for those scapegoated? Are you in the crowd, shouting "Crucify him!" Are you Peter, not standing up for Jesus? Or can you find it in your heart to stand with Jesus to the end, as the women at the foot of the cross did, and stand up for those scapegoated in our time and place?
(This article is a revision of the March 2016 Executive Soul blog).


text:
- foot (n.)
- Old English fot, from Proto-Germanic *fot (cf. Old Saxon fot, Old Norse fotr, Dutch voet, Old High German fuoz, German Fuß, Gothic fotus "foot"), from PIE *ped- (cf. Avestan pad-; Sanskrit pad-, accusative padam "foot;" Greek pos, Attic pous, genitive podos; Latin pes, genitive pedis "foot;" Lithuanian padas "sole," peda "footstep"). Plural form feet is an instance of i-mutation. Of a bed, grave, etc., first recorded c.1300.
The linear measurement of 12 inches was in Old English, from the length of a man's foot. Colloquial exclamation my foot! expressing "contemptuous contradiction" [OED] is first attested 1923, probably a euphemism for my ass, in the same sense, which dates back to 1796. The metrical foot (Old English, translating Latin pes, Greek pous in the same sense) is commonly taken as a reference to keeping time by tapping the foot.
To get off on the right foot is from 1905; to put one's best foot foremost first recorded 1849 (Shakespeare has the better foot before, 1596). To put one's foot in (one's) mouth "say something stupid" is attested by 1942; the expression put (one's) foot in something "make a mess of it" is from 1823.
- foot (v.)
- c.1400, "dance, move on foot," from foot (n.). To foot a bill is attested from 1848, from the process of tallying the expenses and writing the figure at the bottom ("foot") of the bill.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


'),
62. 'title': pygame.image.load('star_title.png'),
63. 'solved': pygame.image.load('star_solved.png'),
64. 'princess': pygame.image.load('princess.png'),
65. 'boy': pygame.image.load('boy.png'),
66. 'catgirl': pygame.image.load('catgirl.png'),
67. 'horngirl': pygame.image.load('horngirl.png'),
68. 'pinkgirl': pygame.image.load('pinkgirl.png'),
69. 'rock': pygame.image.load('Rock.png'),
70. 'short tree': pygame.image.load('Tree_Short.png'),
71. 'tall tree': pygame.image.load('Tree_Tall.png'),
72. 'ugly tree': pygame.image.load('Tree_Ugly.png')}
The IMAGESDICT is a dictionary where all of the loaded images are stored. This makes it easier to use in other functions, since only the IMAGESDICT variable needs to be made global. If we stored each of these images in separate variables, then all 18 variables (for the 18 images used in this game) would need to be made global. A dictionary containing all of the Surface objects with the images is easier to handle.
74. # These dict values are global, and map the character that appears
75. # in the level file to the Surface object it represents.
76. TILEMAPPING = {'x': IMAGESDICT['corner'],
77. '#': IMAGESDICT['wall'],
78. 'o': IMAGESDICT['inside floor'],
79. '': IMAGESDICT['outside floor']}
The data structure for the map is just a 2D list of single character strings. The TILEMAPPING dictionary links the characters used in this map data structure to the images that they represent (This will become more clear in the drawMap() function's explanation).
81. '2': IMAGESDICT['short tree'],
82. '3': IMAGESDICT['tall tree'],
83. '4': IMAGESDICT['ugly tree']}
The OUTSIDEDECOMAPPING is also a dictionary that links the characters used in the map data structure to images that were loaded. The "outside decoration" images are drawn on top of the outdoor grassy tile.
85. # PLAYERIMAGES is a list of all possible characters the player can be.
86. # currentImage is the index of the player's current player image.
87. currentImage = 0
88. PLAYERIMAGES = [IMAGESDICT['princess'],
89. IMAGESDICT['boy'],
90. IMAGESDICT['catgirl'],
91. IMAGESDICT['horngirl'],
92. IMAGESDICT['pinkgirl']]
The PLAYERIMAGES list stores the images used for the player. The currentImage variable tracks the index of the currently selected player image. For example, when currentImage is set to 0 then PLAYERIMAGES[0], which is the "princess" player image, is drawn to the screen.
94. startScreen() # show the title screen until the user presses a key
96. # Read in the levels from the text file. See the readLevelsFile() for
97. # details on the format of this file and how to make your own levels.
98. levels = readLevelsFile('starPusherLevels.txt')
99. currentLevelIndex = 0
The startScreen() function will keep displaying the initial start screen (which also has the instructions for the game) until the player presses a key. When the player presses a key, the startScreen() function returns and then reads in the levels from the level file. The player starts off on the first level, which is the level object in the levels list at index 0.
101. # The main game loop. This loop runs a single level, when the user
102. # finishes that level, the next/previous level is loaded.
103. while True: # main game loop
104. # Run the level to actually start playing the game:
105. result = runLevel(levels, currentLevelIndex)
The runLevel() function handles all the action for the game. It is passed a list of level objects, and the integer index of the level in that list to be played. When the player has finished playing the level, runLevel() will return one of the following strings:'solved' (because the player has finished putting all the stars on the goals), 'next' (because the player wants to skip to the next level), 'back' (because the player wants to go back to the previous level), and'reset' (because the player wants to start playing the current level over again, maybe because they pushed a star into a corner).
107. if result in ('solved', 'next'):
108. # Go to the next level.
109. currentLevelIndex += 1
110. if currentLevelIndex >= len(levels):
111. # If there are no more levels, go back to the first one.
112. currentLevelIndex = 0
113. elif result == 'back':
114. # Go to the previous level.
115. currentLevelIndex -= 1
116. if currentLevelIndex < 0:
117. # If there are no previous levels, go to the last one.
118. currentLevelIndex = len(levels)-1
If runLevel() has returned the strings'solved' or 'next', then we need to increment levelNum by 1. If this increments levelNum beyond the number of levels there are, then levelNum is set back at 0.
The opposite is done if 'back' is returned, then levelNum is decremented by 1. If this makes it go below 0, then it is set to the last level (which is len(levels)-1).
119. elif result =='reset':
120. pass # Do nothing. Loop re-calls runLevel() to reset the level
If the return value was'reset', then the code does nothing. The pass statement does nothing (like a comment), but is needed because the Python interpreter expects an indented line of code after an elif statement.
We could remove lines 119 and 120 from the source code entirely, and the program will still work just the same. The reason we include it here is for program readability, so that if we make changes to the code later, we won't forget that runLevel() can also return the string'reset'.
123. def runLevel(levels, levelNum):
124. global currentImage
125. levelObj = levels[levelnum]
126. mapObj = decorateMap(levelObj['mapObj'],
127. gameStateObj = copy.deepcopy(levelObj['startState'])
The levels list contains all the level objects that were loaded from the level file. The level object for the current level (which is what levelNum is set to) is stored in the levelObj variable. A map object (which makes a distinction between indoor and outdoor tiles, and decorates the outdoor tiles with trees and rocks) is returned from the decorateMap() function. And to track the state of the game while the player plays this level, a copy of the game state object that is stored in levelObj is made using the copy.deepcopy() function.
The game state object copy is made because the game state object stored in levelObj['startState'] represents the game state at the very beginning of the level, and we do not want to modify this. Otherwise, if the player restarts the level, the original game state for that level will be lost.
The copy.deepcopy() function is used because the game state object is a dictionary of that has tuples. But technically, the dictionary contains references to tuples. (References are explained in detail at _URL_ Using an assignment statement to make a copy of the dictionary will make a copy of the references but not the values they refer to, so that both the copy and the original dictionary still refer to the same tuples.
The copy.deepcopy() function solves this problem by making copies of the actual tuples in the dictionary. This way we can guarantee that changing one dictionary will not affect the other dictionary.
128. mapNeedsRedraw = True # set to True to call drawMap()
129. levelSurf = BASICFONT.render('Level %s of %s' % (levelObj['levelNum']
+ 1, totalNumOfLevels), 1, TEXTCOLOR)
130. levelRect = levelSurf.get_rect()
131. levelRect.bottomleft = (20, WINHEIGHT - 35)
132. mapWidth = len(mapObj) * TILEWIDTH
133. mapHeight = (len(mapObj[0]) - 1) * (TILEHEIGHT - TILEFLOORHEIGHT) +
134. MAX_CAM_X_PAN = abs(HALF_WINHEIGHT - int(mapHeight / 2)) + TILEWIDTH
135. MAX_CAM_Y_PAN = abs(HALF_WINWIDTH - int(mapWidth / 2)) + TILEHEIGHT
137. levelIsComplete = False
138. # Track how much the camera has moved:
139. cameraOffsetX = 0
140. cameraOffsetY = 0
141. # Track if the keys to move the camera are being held down:
142. cameraUp = False
143. cameraDown = False
144. camera


Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World
January 15, 2010 | A Touch of Grey |
Why doesn't business fix itself instead of meddling with others where it has no comparative advantage?
Why am I so critical of the philanthrocapitalist revolution? First, it erodes the independence of non-profits and makes it more difficult for them to hold business and government accountable for their actions, or push them to do the things they don't want to do. Second, it threatens the distinctive values of civil society which are based on cooperation and commitment, not the ethics of the marketplace, values that have spurred the creation of social movements from the abolition of slavery to pro-democracy protests in Iran. And third, it privatizes the way we solve collective problems and gives too much power to those who have little or no accountability to the public. That's got to be bad for democracy. It's great that business has a social conscience, but that doesn't give them any right to decide how our schools should be reformed.


HOME UP PREV NEXT (Power Modelling using SystemC)
Dynamic Voltage Scaling
CMOS delay is inversely proportional to supply voltage.
Voltage to a region may be varied dynamically. A higher
Operating region of the frequency/voltage curve is roughly linear.
Let's only raise VCC when we ramp up f.
 2. then adjust VCC so logic just works.
Overall: power will then have cubic dependence on f. So we achieve peak performance under heavy loads and avoid cubic overhead when idle.
Power isolation is used on a longer and larger scale (complete continents).


text:
Instructor: Bradley Hedges, Ph.D.(_URL_
Sexual Abuse affects a large percentage of the clients seen in the Community Mental Health system, with sexual offenders comprising approximately two percent of all people in the general community and represents a much higher number of people who present to outpatient mental health clinics. Understanding where sexually aggressive behavior comes from and understanding what to do about it is important for all mental health practitioners. This two day training provides the groundwork for understanding sexual pathology and introduces intervention strategies.
Recognize the difference between normal and abnormal sexual behavior
Increase understanding of sexually abusive behavior and the various factors that contribute to it.
Participants will be able to verbally define "abnormal" sexual behavior from a legal, social, mental health, personal and statistical perspective.
Participants will differentiate normal sexual behavior from abnormal sexual behavior.
Participants will successfully explain the various dynamics that drive sexually abusive behavior.
When presented with case studies, participants will be able to
1) Apply the concept of culpability
2) Categorize sexual behavior as normative, of concern, or abusive
3) Determine the range of sexual behavior
Participants will accurately explain the etiology of sexual abuse and apply it to case examples
Participants will be able to explain the origins of SORN and its', discuss the risks and benefits associated with the process of classification and correctly identify criteria associated with registration determination.
Day 1 – Theoretical
Normal vs. abnormal sexuality
Why do they do it?
Understanding the legal implications
Participants: Counselors, Social Workers, Psychologists
Prerequisites: In order to register for this training, participants MUST also register for Introduction to Sexual Pathology, Part II.
To register for the event: _URL_
Last day of registration: Friday, October 3, 2014


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How to find an initial guess for an optimization
Nonlinear optimization routines enable you to find the values of variables that optimize an objective function of those variables. When you use a numerical optimization routine, you need to provide an initial guess, often called a "starting point" for the algorithm. Optimization routines iteratively improve the initial guess in an attempt to converge to an optimal solution. Consequently, the choice of a starting point determines how quickly the algorithm converges to a solution and—for functions with multiple local extrema—to which optimum the algorithm converges.
But how can you produce a "good" starting point for multivariate functions? Some analysts use a constant vector, such as a vector of all 0s or a vector of all 1s. Although this practice is widespread, this default initial guess might not converge to a global extremum. You can usually do better by choosing a starting point that is based on a few easy evaluations of the objective function.
I recently described how to use the EXPANDGRID function in SAS/IML software to construct a set of ordered k-tuples that are arranged on a uniformly spaced grid. By evaluating a function on a grid, you can visualize the function and determine a starting point for an optimization algorithm. This "evaluate on a grid" technique is sometimes called a "pre-search" technique. This article shows how to choose an initial guess when there are no constraints on the parameters of the objective function ("unconstrained optimization").
Defining objective functions in SAS/IML
To use the pre-search technique, you should write your objective function so that you can pass in a matrix. The columns of the matrix are the variables in the equation for the objective function. Each row of the matrix is a point at which to evaluate the function.
The NLP routines in SAS/IML will work even if your objective function evaluates only scalar values, but the pre-search technique is much more efficient if you write a vectorized function. To vectorize a function, use the elementwise multiplication operator (#) in your formulas. For example, if your objective function is g(x,y) = x2 + x*y + y2, define the following SAS/IML function:
proc iml;
start g(m);
 x = m[,1]; y = m[,2]; /* variables are columns of m */
 return( x##2 + x#y + y##2 ); /* use elementwise multiplication */
m = {0 0, /* test it: define three points in the domain of g */
 0 1,
 1 2};
z = g(m); /* one call evaluates g(x,y) at three points! */
By writing the function in a vectorized fashion, you can evaluate arbitrarily many points (rows of a matrix) with a single call.
Visualizing a function of two variables
There are several "test suites" of functions that are used to test optimization algorithms. One test function is called the "four-hump camel function" because it has four local maxima (from Dixon and Szego (1978), "The global optimization problem: an introduction"). Some people call it the "six-hump camel function" because it also has two local minima, but that's a misnomer. The camel function is a polynomial equation in two variables:
 f(x,y) = (4 - 2.1 x2 + x4 /3) x2 + xy + (-4 + 4 y2) y2
The following SAS/IML function defines the four-hump camel function, generates a uniform grid of points on the rectangle [–3, 3] x [–2, 2], and creates a rotating surface plot by using the RotatingPlot graph in the SAS/IML Studio application:
proc iml;
/* four-hump camel has two global maxima:
 p1 = {-0.08984201 0.71265640 };
 p2 = { 0.08984201 -0.71265640 }; */
start Camel(m);
 f = ( 4 - 2.1*x##2 + x##4 /3) # x##2 + x#y +
 (-4 + 4 *y##2) # y##2;
 return( -f ); /* return -f so that extrema are maxima */
m = ExpandGrid( do(-3, 3, 0.1), do(-2, 2, 0.1) ); /* SAS/IML 12.3 */
z = Camel(m);
/* In SAS/IML Studio, visualize surface with 3D rotating plot */
RotatingPlot.Create("Camel", m[,1], m[,2], z);
The surface plot is shown at the top of this article. It indicates that the function is fairly flat on top, but has small bumps that contain local maxima. By using the interactive graphics in SAS/IML Studio, it is easy to find the absolute maxima (there are two), or you can find the maxima programmatically by using the following statements:
optIndex = loc(z=max(z)); /* find maximum values of z */
optX = m[optIndex,]; /* corresponding (x,y) values */
print optX;
Prior to these computations, I had never seen the "camel function" before. I did not know where the maxima might be. However, by evaluating the function on a coarse grid of 2,500 points, I now know that if I want to find global maxima, I should look in a neighborhood of (–0.1, 0.7) and (0.1, –0.7). These would be good choices to use as starting points for an optimization algorithm.
Visualizing a function of three variables
Although it is harder to visualize a function of three variables (the graph is in four-dimensional space!), you can still get a feel for high and low values of a function. You can evaluate a function of three variables on a uniform grid and then color each point in the grid according to the functional value at that point. This generalizes the two-dimensional example that I wrote about in the article "Color scatter plot markers by values of a continuous variable." As an example, define the following quadratic function:
 Q(x,y,z) = –(x - 1.1)2 – (y - 2.2)2 – (z - 3.3)2
By inspection, the function Q(x,y,z) has a single global maximum at the point (1.1, 2.2, 3.3). The following statements evaluate the function on a 3-D grid of half integers:
start Q(x);
 return( -(x[,1] - 1.1)##2 - (x[,2] - 2.2)##2 - (x[,3] - 3.3)##2 );
m = ExpandGrid( do(0,5,0.5), do(0,5,0.5), do(0,5,0.5) );
f = Q(m);
optIndex = f[<:>]; /* find maximum values of Q */
optX = m[optIndex,]; /* corresponding (x,y,z) values */
print optX;
The result shows that (1, 2, 3.5) is the point on the grid for which the function is the largest. If you start a numerical optimization from that point, you will converge very quickly to the optimal solution. The 3-D scatter plot at the beginning of this section is a scatter plot of the grid, where each point has been colored according to the value of Q. The big blob of red indicates where the function is the largest. This graph crudely visualizes the function by showing where it is large and where it is small.
Finding an initial guess for an extremum
In theory, the pre-search technique works for any multivariate function. However, the size of the grid grows geometrically as the number of variables increases, so you will need to reduce the coarseness of the grid for functions of many variables. For example, if you use k grid points for each variable of a 10-dimensional function, then the grid will contain k10 points! Clearly, you should choose k to be small. If k = 5, then the grid contains 510 = 9.7 million points, which is large, but still computationally manageable. For functions with more than 15 variables, the pre-search technique on a "full factorial" grid becomes impractical.
Nevertheless, a coarse grid gives you more information than no grid at all, and a starting point based on the pre-search technique is usually superior to an arbitrary starting point. It is easy to implement the pre-search technique in the SAS/IML language, and you can often use it to provide a good initial guess to a nonlinear optimization routine.
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How to generate a grid of points in SAS
In many areas of statistics, it is convenient to be able to easily construct a uniform grid of points. You can use a grid of parameter values to visualize functions and to get a rough feel for how an objective function in an optimization problem depends on the parameters. And of course, grids are used to construct a full factorial design, which is an experimental design in which every setting of every factor appears with every setting of every other factor. I have previously blogged about how to generate two-dimensional grids in SAS, but this article describes how to generate grids with more dimensions.
In the SAS DATA step, you can


text: Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Dover Castle in Dover, England, is its secret wartime tunnels. Although the castle was built in the 12th century, it wasn't until 700 years later during the Napoleonic Wars that this intricate tunnel system was engineered beneath it. This network underground has served as barracks for troops, an air-raid shelter during World War II, hospital and military telephone exchange. The castle's most famous role in battle was in 1216 when it staved off the French. The United Kingdom government owns Dover Castle today. On a guided tour, visitors can walk through the castle, tunnels and the recently renovated Admiralty Lookout, an exhibition on the defense systems used during the world wars.


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Regional Archives The Altamont Enterprise, August 2, 2007
Fishers leading a life of crime"
Fingerprints track wayward animals
By Saranac Hale Spencer
ALBANY COUNTY Carbon dust and contact paper, sticky side up, arent used in the forensics lab, but, for the New York State museum, they serve the same purpose as dansyl chloride or fingerprint-lifting tape.
Like human fingertips, fishers' paws have unique patterns, and a research team at the museum has begun fingerprinting them as a way to track their population. The project, said Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the museum, "has its roots in the basic question: How do you know where an animal lives""
A relative of the weasel, fishers are one of the biggest members in that family, Kays said; they generally grow to be between eight and 10 pounds. The lowest point for their population numbers was in the 1930s, he said, when they were trapped for their fur. In the last decade of the century, though, the Fisher population exploded, he said. So far, his research team has found that fishers are the second most abundant carnivore in the Adirondacks, behind coyotes.
"They're one of the best species to kill porcupines," said Kays, which is important because the prickly rodents can do a lot of damage to forests and trees. "They'll sort of spin around and bite the porcupine in the face," he said, thereby avoiding its quills.
Porcupines, too, likely have unique prints on their feet, Kays said. The prints from porcupine feet are scaly, he said, rather than the swirly appearance of human fingerprints or the dot patterns on fishers paws.
"Things that climb trees, it gives more friction to have prints," Kays said of how some animals evolved to have distinctive patterns.
After his group put track boxes throughout the Adirondack Park and got good prints from fishers using the contact paper and carbon powder, Kays said, "We were sitting there looking at the prints and saw all these patterns." But, he recalled saying at the time, "We don't know anything about fingerprints."
In 2000, the scientists working on the project asked the states Division of Criminal Justice Services for help in matching the prints.
"What he's trying to do is very similar to crime-scene fingerprints," said Richard Higgins, a 35-year veteran of DCJS, who spent a number of years in the latent fingerprints department. A latent fingerprint is one that is not apparent to the eye, but can be made visible by dusting or fuming for use in identification.
"Latent fingerprints especially is a very challenging, very rewarding experience," Higgins said of finding a match for a partial print left behind at a crime scene. "It's almost like magic."
That process is very similar to matching a footprint left in a track box by a fisher scavenging for a chicken wing, said Higgins. In both cases, investigators are often working with only partial prints.
"The difference between fingerprints and fisher prints is fingerprints are continuous ridges with bifurcation, enclosures, and islands," he said, while fisher prints are more like patterns of dots. Higgins tried entering some of the fisher prints into the state's computer system, but the system is set up to read ridges and bifurcation, he said, so it didn't work well for matching fisher prints.
The museum research group has come up with a system for visually identifying matches; in its paper on the project, it says, "In the process of teaching this technique to others, we learned that some biologists have more aptitude than others for spatial pattern recognition and matching, a fact long recognized by those hiring criminal fingerprint technicians."
It is always a person who makes the identification in the crime lab, said Higgins. "The machine only spits out a number of candidates that are close," he said. "It's not like CSI," he said, referring to the popular TV crime show, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Human ingenuity has always been part of fingerprint detection, and tracking fishers based on their prints is not the first fingerprinting innovation to come out of Albany. In the 1850s, John Maloy, a police constable in Albany, solved a burglary case by using a positive identification from a crime-scene fingerprint, according to a recent book by Simon Cole.
A bloody thumbprint was found on a piece of broken glass in the window of a house that had been robbed. It was matched by Maloy with an imprint of the suspected burglars thumb.
"If the thumbprint story is true," Cole writes, "then Maloy deserves credit for making the earliest known use of fingerprints to solve a crime, predating what historians had previously believed to be the earliest such instance by around twenty years."
Pioneering isn't easy, though. To get their system right, Kays said, "it took a year or two of fiddling with it."
Plans to be aired for $9M road rehab
By Rachel Dutil
ALBANY COUNTY A $9 million highway rehabilitation project proposed for Normanskill and Johnston roads in the towns of New Scotland and Guilderland will be the subject of a public meeting next Thursday.
Normanskill Road County Route 306 becomes Johnston Road, County Route 203, and runs between routes 155 and 20.
The project is still in the design phase, and fits into the five-year capital plan for the county, said Michael Franchini, the commissioner for Albany Countys department of public works. The project budget is $9 million, he said; it would be funded solely through the county.
At this point, the existing conditions on the four-mile stretch of road have been identified, said Jeff Pangburn, an engineer with Creighton Manning Engineering, working on the design for the project. The next step is "to get feedback on what constraints are most important to residents," he said.
"We want to try to work with property owners to address their concerns," said Pangburn.
The Aug. 9 meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Westmere Elementary School gymnasium on Johnston Road.
"We hope to have the design ready for construction next year," Franchini said.
Franchini outlined five goals for the project. First, is the addition of a five-foot wide sidewalk along Johnston Road from Solarview Estates to Route 20.
"Whenever we reconstruct a road, we try to include a sidewalk," Franchini said. A five-foot wide sidewalk is standard, and complies with the American with Disabilities Act, he explained. "Anything less is substandard," Franchini added, noting that sidewalks that are not five feet wide are likely quite old.
The second objective is to widen the shoulders on the roadway to accommodate bicyclists. "Some county roads are not wide enough for bicycles" and cyclists must ride in the travel lanes, said Franchini. "It is much safer to ride on the shoulder," he said.
The third goal is to reconstruct the existing pavement. "The pavement is wearing down and deteriorating," Franchini said of the roadway, explaining that each year the county conducts pavement rating tests on its roads.
Pavement rating is "a relative objective measurement," said Franchini. The rating and the road's history of repair weigh heavily into the assessment of the need for roadwork, he explained.
Fourth, the project will also improve sight distance and, fifth, reconstruct the existing drainage system. The objective, said Franchini, is to bring the roadway up to standards. "There are some features that don't meet modern-day standards," he said.
Creighton Manning Engineering has done projects for the county before, Pangburn said. The goal of the design is to do a "best fit" throughout the corridor and to "try to minimize impact," he said.
Drainage is a "key" concern, Pangburn said. The idea is to try and maintain the natural water pattern, he said.
This stage of the project is an ideal time to get residents feedback, Pangburn said, adding that sometimes a property owner has a better idea of how a certain aspect of a project would best be handled.
One issue, he said, is that in order to accommodate the sidewalk, the county will need to acquire small strips of land on numerous properties. This is an obvious concern to property owners, he said.
Pangburn plans to hold another public meeting in the late fall or early winter, before construction begins.
"We want to inform them of the process and allow them to weigh in on it," Pangburn said. "The sidewalk really improves the quality of life for all the residents in that area," he concluded.
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Full-fat Cow's Milk kefir
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS & equipment
 - 1 qt/1 liter organic full fat cow's milk
 - 1 large Fido jar (1.5 L capacity or larger)
 - 1 tbsp milk kefir grains
 - Filtered water
 - Plastic fine-mesh strainer
 - Silicon/wooden spatula
 - Sauce pan
 - Thermometer
 - Glass jar/pitcher for storing
Video de la receta
 1. Take your milk kefir grains out of the refrigerator, and let the warm up to room temperature.
 2. Heat the milk slowly and gently in a saucepan, and wait until it is about to boil (or until it reaches at least 180ºF/82ºC). Stir frequently to avoid scalding. Once the milk begins to "bubble" lower the heat further, and keep under low heat for 5-10 minutes.
 3. Set aside, and allow the milk cool to 104ºF (40ºC) or lower.
 4. Place your kefir grains in a fine-mesh strainer, and rinse thoroughly under fresh filtered water, while the milk is cooling. Set aside and let them drain.
 5. Pour the milk into a large Fido jar once it has cooled down to the right temperature, and add the rinsed and drained kefir grains. Stir the milk/kefir grains briefly.
 6. Cap the jar loosely and let the milk ferment for at least 24 hours, or up to 5 days (depending on how sour you like it to taste and/or if you want to make sure your kefir is lactose-free). Choose a place where the temperature is relatively warm but not excessively (best between 65ºF-80ºF).
 7. Stir the milk/kefir grains occasionally if you are fermenting for longer than 24 hours, to bring more of the milk in contact with the grains (helpful but not required). Loosen the cap after agitation.
 8. The process is complete when the milk thickens (it should be a pourable liquid rather than an "eat with a spoon" level of thickness). The milk will also have a distinctive sour smell.
 9. When you are ready to harvest, simply place a plastic strainer over a bowl and pour the finished kefir through the stainer. Use a plastic or wooden spatula to gently work the kefir through the strainer.
 10. Transfer the kefir to a glass container and store in the refrigerator immediately. Alternatively, if you want to carbonate your kefir, leave at room temperature for 12-24 hours. The fermentation continues even without the grains as all the organisms in them are now part of the kefir.
 11. The kefir grains that remained in the strainer need to be rinsed off with fresh filtered water and stored in the refrigerator with enough milk to cover them, until ready to start the next batch. Kefir works best as a continuous rhythm. Keep your batches small so you do not get overwhelmed.
 12. If you need to stop production, rinse kefir grains, drain them, pat them dry, seal them in something airtight, and freeze them.
 13. You can enjoy your milk kefir as an amazing probiotic beverage, or you can substitute for milk, yogurt, sour cream or buttermilk in your recipes. Salad dressings, soups, smoothies and baked goods are my favorites.
What are the benefits of this dish?
Kefiran is an exo-polysaccharide produced by Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens, which is one of the dominant bacterial strains found in kefir. It contributes to the taste and texture of kefir, as well as the structure of the kefir grains themselves.
Milk kefir is a good source of probiotics, vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids that support healing and repair of the gut mucosa. Milk kefir is particularly rich in vitamins A, B1, D, K2, folate, B12, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus.
Some of the health benefits attributed to kefir include, protection from gastrointestinal diseases, providing nutrients necessary for optimal bone health and regulating immune function.
Although not as widely popular as other fermented dairy products, such as yogurt and cheese, kefir has been consumed and associated with health benefits for 100s of years; originally by communities in the Caucasian mountains.
Kefir is traditionally made with cow's milk but it can be made with milk from other sources such as goat, sheep, buffalo, or coconut milk.
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An Empirical Investigation into the Relationship Between Computer Self-Efficacy, Anxiety, Experience, Support and UsageJournal of Computer Information Systems
AbstractOrganizations make significant investments in information technology. However, if individuals do not use information system applications as anticipated, successful implementation can be hard to achieve. In order to investigate some key factors thought to affect an individual's use of information technology, this study draws on Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), Triandis's Theory of Interpersonal Behavior (TIB), and the computer anxiety literature to develop its conceptual model and research hypotheses. An empirical investigation (n=978) found support for the majority of the hypotheses. As suggested by SCT, experience and support were positively related to computer self-efficacy, and computer self-efficacy was negatively related to anxiety and positively related to usage. As suggested by TIB, experience was positively related to usage. Furthermore, computer anxiety was negatively related to experience. By providing insight into these important relationships, this research can help further understanding of their role in the acceptance and use of information technology.
Copyright2003 by Mary Helen Fagan, Stern Neill, and Barbara Ross Wooldridge.
Citation InformationMary Helen Fagan, Stern Neill and Barbara Ross Wooldridge. "An Empirical Investigation into the Relationship Between Computer Self-Efficacy, Anxiety, Experience, Support and Usage" Journal of Computer Information Systems Vol. 44 Iss. 2 (2003) p. 95 - 104
Available at: _URL_


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Choosing the best method for verbal autopsy (VA) requires the appropriate metrics to assess a given method's performance, and researchers from IHME and the University of Queensland undertook a study to determine these metrics.
Because there are many different methods of performing VA, including physician review and computer-automated methods, there needs to be a way to evaluate the performance of each method. Currently used metrics to assess performance of VA methods, such as sensitivity, specificity, and cause-specific mortality fraction error, do not provide a robust basis for comparing methods. This study was designed to test metrics to compare the performance of all types of VA methods to help identify the best methods for estimating causes of death in a population.
The authors show that VA methods need to be evaluated across a set of test datasets with widely varying cause-specific mortality fraction composition. They propose two metrics for assessing the performance of a given VA method. For assessing how well a method does at individual cause of death assignment, they recommend the average chance-corrected concordance. For testing how well a method does across a population, the authors recommend testing the accuracy of cause-specific mortality fractions. Performance of a VA method in estimating cause-specific mortality fraction by cause can be determined by examining the relationship between the estimated cause-specific mortality fraction calculated by a VA method and the true cause-specific mortality fraction in a population.
The authors performed simple simulations of populations to demonstrate that most metrics used in VA validation studies are sensitive to the cause-specific mortality fraction composition of the dataset being used to test a VA method. They also conducted simulations to show that the composition of the test dataset must be varied, demonstrating that an inferior method for assessing VA can actually produce better results than a superior method on the basis of only one test dataset.
The metrics examined in this study are crucial for objective assessment of the range of VA methods currently in use. By utilizing the most robust metrics available, the best methods will be discovered in order to most accurately determine causes of death in populations without vital registration systems. These metrics will provide a basis of comparison so that different VA methods can be compared across different studies and in different populations. These standardized metrics will also facilitate innovation of new methods by providing a clear answer if a new method is leading to improved performance in assigning causes of death through VA.


text: my name is Reed Gaddie, a cousin to most of the Gaddies living in Hart County Kentucky USA, and our father was traced back to a descendant William Gaddey (Gaddy,Gadie,Gaddey) family whom left Scotland possibly about _PHONE_, and settled somewhere in New Kent County Virginia. My mother gave me a copy of a land lease in 1732, which stated he was from New Kent County Virginia, most of which parish records were burned in the civil war. Recently, our family travelled to Scotland to find our lost ancestors. We discovered them in the eastern coastal lowland towns of Arbothnott, Kineff, and Bervie. Some of our family at one time lived on the Orkney Island. One interesting fact is these towns were close to Aberdeen. In Aberdeen, there is today a river named "Gadie Burne" located at the back of the Benachie mountains. Additionally, there is a national song written regarding this river or Burne. My question for all those knowledgeable in Scotland's history. What is the source of the name "Gadie Burne." One individual suggested it may have been named after a family of ancient origin whom lived in that area perhaps even earlier than most historial records were recorded. According to another, the Gadie family was in that area even as early as the 4th century a.d. and was involved in some battle which nearly extinguished the family. This family anciently were known to be practice the skills of blacksmithing even perhaps of ancient weapons, and worked with precious ores. An inventory of widow Mary Gaddey in 1752 verified this fact. Back to my question - Does anyone know of the origin of the Gadie family, or Gadie Burne name?


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Access Areas and Controls
This section addresses access to electrical and mechanical hazards.
7.1 Operator Access Areas
7.1.1 Definition. Any area:
1. That can be accessed without the use of a tool.
2. That is defined by the manufacturer as an operator service area.
3. Where the means of access is deliberately provided to the operator.
7.1.2 Operator Exposure. Operators shall not be exposed to:
1. Energy levels of 240 VA or more.
2. Stored energy levels of 20 J or more.
3. Potentials in excess of 42.4 V peak (30 VRMS) or 60 VDC in dry areas.
4. Potentials in excess of 10 VAC or DC in wet areas.
7.1.3 Operator Protection. The operator(s) shall be protected from electrical and mechanical hazards by one or more of the following:
1. Enclosures, shields, and covers that require a tool to open.
2. Interlock switches on doors, shields, and ovens.
3. Grounded or insulated handles, levers, knobs, shields and covers that are touched held or actuated in normal use.
7.2 Service Access Areas
7.2.1 Definition. All areas not defined as operator access areas that skilled service personnel must gain access to service or maintain the equipment
7.2.2 Service Personnel Exposure. Service personnel shall not be exposed to inadvertent contact with hazardous potentials or energy levels.
7.2.3 Service Personnel Protection. Service personnel protection requirements are:
1. Protection shall be provided:
a. Where service is required with power on and inadvertent contact is likely.
b. Where it is necessary to reach over, under, around, or in close proximity to hazards.
c. Where dropped tools could cause shorts and arcing.
2. Protection shall be provided by one or more of the following:
- Remote or external test points.
- Insulated potentiometer extensions.
- Access holes.
-Separation of low voltage and line voltage terminal blocks and relays.
3. Equipment requiring manual adjustments shall be so designed that adjustment does not expose personnel to electrical or mechanical hazards.
4. Shafts of operating knobs, handles, etc., shall not be in contact with hazardous live parts. Handles, levers, and knobs which are held or actuated in normal use shall be grounded, of insulating material, or adequately covered by insulating material if parts are likely to become energized.
7.2.4 Maintenance Access. Maintenance access shall be provided for servicing equipment.
1. Machines that require service and have access covers shall have a minimum of 28 in. clear space. This does not apply to movable units.
Note: Clear space is measured from any protrusions, auxiliary units, etc., not from the main frame to the wall or any other obstructions.
2. Large equipment shall be equipped with maintenance cat walks, access ladders, crossovers, etc., to facilitate safe access to valves, motors, dampers, pumps, motor drives, and other components.
7.2.5 Working Space. Sufficient working space shall be provided for servicing electrical equipment having energized hazardous potentials or energy levels.
1. DepthWorking space shall be at least 36 in. When voltages exceed 150 V to ground, the depth may have to be increased.
2. Widthworking space shall be 30 in. in front of the exposed voltage.
3. AccessThere shall be at least 28 in. of clear access to the working space.
4. Clear SpaceWorking space shall remain clear and shall not be used for equipment of storage.
7.3 Safety Interlocks
7.3.1 Requirements. Hardware based interlocks are required whenever access can be gained, without the use of a tool, to an area which would allow the inadvertent contact with electrical or mechanical hazards, such as:
- Remote or programmed machine starts.
- Moving mechanical parts.
- Hazardous potentials.
- Hazardous energy levels.
- Hazardous gas flow.
- RF energy.
- Laser beams.
- Capacitor discharge.
7.3.2 Interlock Location. Safety interlocks shall be hardwired between the logic output (switching) device and a fail-safe magnetic device that controls the hazardous energy.
7.3.3 Interlock Bypass. Safety interlocks shall require an intentional operation to bypass and shall comply with the following:
1. Removing or opening interlock covers shall remove associated hazards.
2. To restart equipment for service, interlocks must be bypassed and then start circuits manually reactivated.
3. Equipment shall not be operable unless covers are reinstalled (closed) and interlock function restored.
7.3.4 Programmed Machine Controls. Equipment with programmed machine controls (software based logic circuits) shall comply with the following:
1. Programmed machine controls shall not be used as safety interlocks.
2. Safety interlocks shall remove hazard independently of programmed machine controls.
3. Hardwired safety interlocks shall override associated machine controls. See 7.5.2.
7.4 Hand Controls
7.4.1 General Requirements. Equipment must have adequate operator controls.
1. The quantity and type of controls are dictated by equipment size and complexity.
2. "Power On" conditions and equipment operation status must be visually and reliably indicated.
3. Indicating lights and lighted switches shall comply with 3.4.
4. Circuit breakers or circuit protectors shall not be used as operator controls for on / off or start / stop functions.
5. Control switches shall comply with 3.3.
Note: Equipment that functions independently of operator interaction or exposure does not require operator controls. See 8.1.5.
7.4.2 Start (ON) Switch. Start switches shall comply with the following:
1. Should be momentary contact push button with recessed or flush type head.
2. Other types are allowed.
See Sec. 6.3 and 10.6.
3. Shall be located or designed to prevent accidental operation.
7.4.3 Stop (OFF) Switch. Stop switches shall comply with the following:
1. Shall be momentary contact push button with extended type head.
2. Other types are allowed. See Sec. 3.3 and 7.6.
3. Shall be located or designed to prevent accidental operation.
4. Mushroom head switches shall not be used.
5. Shall take precedence over the associated start / on switch. See TEST under 7.6.
7.4.4 Emergency Off (EMO) Switch. EMO switches shall comply with the following:
1. Shall be labeled "EMERGENCY OFF."
2. Shall be pushbutton with red mushroom type head.
3. The mushroom head shall be a minimum of 1.25 in. in diameter.
4. Resetting switches shall not restart the equipment.
5. Shall be located to prevent accidental operation:
- Shall not be recessed.
- Should not be guarded.
6. Shall not be used in place of normal stop / power off switch.
7. Shall take precedence over all other controls. See TEST under 7.6.
7.4.5 Service Safety Switch. Service safety switches shall comply with the following:
1. Shall clearly indicate ON / OFF status.
2. Shall be lockable in the open position.
3. Shall be within sight from the equipment or component to be serviced.
4. Shall remove power from the equipment or component to be serviced.
Note: The supply disconnect switch may serve as the service safety switch.
7.4.6 Two Hand Cycle Start Controls. When dual, series connected hand controls are required to isolate the operator from the hazards, the hand controls and / or control circuit shall comply with the following:
1. The hand controls shall be momentary contact pushbutton switches with black or green mushroom type heads.
2. Each hand control shall be protected against unintended operation.
3. Each hand control shall by design, construction and / or separation so that the use of both hands is required to start the machine cycle. Typically, they should be mounted at least 24 in. apart in the same vertical or horizontal plane.
4. Both hand controls shall be depressed within one second of each other in order for the machine to cycle.
5. Both hand controls must be depressed until the hazard no longer exists.
6. The control system shall incorporate an anti-repeat feature that limits the machine to one cycle for each depression of the hand controls.
7. The control system requires an anti-tie-down feature that requires the release of both hand controls between cycles.
8. For a typical circuit see Figure 16.
Note: Timer 1TR shall be: one second, fixed, time delay on release.
Figure 16. Typical Two Hand Cycle Start Circuit
7.5 Machine Controls
7.5.1 Undervoltage Protection. Undervoltage protection shall be provided for all equipment which may initiate a hazardous motion upon the return of power after an undervoltage condition.
7.5.2 Solid State and Programmed Controls. Solid state and programmed controls shall not be relied upon for personnel or equipment safety because they are not fail-safe. Electromechanical devices shall be used.
7.5.3 Safety Controls
1. Appropriate safety controls shall be installed, such as:
- Over temperature controls.
- Under temperature controls.
- High level controls.
- Low level controls.
- High and low pressure controls.
- Pressure relief controls.
- Over limit controls.
- Ground Fault Circuit Interruptors.
2. Safety controls and switching devices shall override associated solid state or programmed machine controls and final control elements.
See 3.9 and 8.1.4.
7.6 Fail-Safe Controls and


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Skip the Robert Mapplethorpe.
Instead, go to LACMA before August 7 and check out a truly transcendent exhibit called "Royal Hawaiian Featherwork: NĀ HULU ALI'I."
"For centuries on the Hawaiian Islands," you may not have known, "vividly colored feathers gathered from native birds were valuable cultural resources, ornamenting spectacular garments painstakingly constructed by hand…[The garments] bore rainbows of feathers to signify the divinity and power of chiefs (ali'i), who wore them for spiritual protection and to proclaim their identity and status. These unique valuables also found use as objects of diplomacy, helping to secure political alliances and agreements."
The first documented visit of Westerns to the Hawaiian Islands occurred in December, 1778, when Captain James Cook and his crew arrived. When they left, they took with them more than forty featherwork garments that had been bestowed as diplomatic gifts. Featherwork evolved over the course of the ensuing monarchies and the next hundred years.
A sense of old-world courtesy and class surrounds the garments, which were often bestowed as signs of gratitude and respect. A gorgeous feathered cape was given by King Kamehameha III, for example, to "Mary Perkins, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Perkins of Boston" as a "token" after Mary was born in Honolulu in 1834. Kamehameha IV gave a short cape of deep gold as an expression of sympathy to Lady Franklin, the widow of the British Royal Navy Officer and explorer John Franklin, who sailed from England in 1845 to seek the Northwest Passage and whose ship disappeared.
Fewer than 300 known examples of royal featherwork remain. The splendid, almost mythic garments include 'ahu 'ula (long cloaks and short capes), mahiole (helmets), and lei hulu (leis).
The primary colors are a saturated blood-red (most commonly from the 'i'iwi), a deep, rich yellow, and black (both often from the 'ō-'ō). The exhibit includes color prints by Dutch bird illustrator Johannes Gerardus Keulemans (_PHONE_) depicting some of the other creatures whose feathers were used for the royal garments: the jet black and imperial yellow mamo, the O'ahu 'akialoa (honeycreeper), with its long slender curved beak and thrillingly deep gold plumage.
The designs feature crescents, long narrow triangles, and arrow shapes, and black edging.
Christina Hellmich, curator of a featherwork exhibit last year at San Francisco's de Young Museum, tells of the making of the garments:
"Hulu o na manu, or bird feathers, from certain island birds were highly sought. Kia manu, skilled bird catchers, understood the behaviors and environments of these birds, and they used a variety of techniques to attract and capture them to procure their feathers"…
"Bundles of feathers were tied together and attached to netting made of olonā, a member of the nettle family and among the strongest natural fibers in the world. The size, drape and movement of the netting used were determined to accentuate the light on cloaks and capes when worn, highlighting the feathers' beauty. For helmets, the feathered netting was fastened onto a twined rigid form of 'ie'ie aerial roots that allowed the feathers to maintain a specific shape, orientation, and arrangement."
With an eye toward future generations, Kamehameha I [_PHONE_] ordered his kia manu, or bird catchers, to release the birds after taking just a few of their feathers. Nonetheless, many of the species whose feathers were used are now extinct or endangered.
One 19th-century kāhili (royal staff of feathers) included blue peafowl feathers, dyed goose feathers, green sea turtle shell, whale ivory, and yellow and cream ribbon. Kāhili were symbols of noble rank, brought out for coronations and funerals. Fanciful and explosively extravagant, some staffs could be held in the hand; others were large and elaborate enough to require a stand.
A cape from 1882 associated with Queen Kapi'olani (_PHONE_), fashioned from brown pheasant feathers, brown and black fowl feathers, velvet, silk, and "frog-style" clasps, would even today make a dashing splash, thrown over a pair of creamy young shoulders at the opera.
The British Museum houses five feathered god images. In Royal Hawaiian Featherwork (University of Hawaii Press, 2015) poet-scholar Noelle Kahanu observes of seeing them: "I was not prepared for their size, their intensity, or their magnitude, in numbers but also in sheer presence…What I experienced was a profound sense not of my looking at them, but of their looking at me. It was as if they were asking me, 'Who are you?' 'Why are we here?' 'What are you going to do about it?' To be in the presence of sacred objects, created in a time so very different from our own, is to ask ourselves, 'How have we changed?'"
The follower of Christ of course, continually in the presence of sacred objects, asks those questions every day.
In 1893, a coup led primarily by U.S.-based businessmen deposed Queen Lili'uokalani, the last of the reigning monarchs. The Republic of Hawai'i was annexed to the United States in 1898. The royal featherwork was removed from the 'Iolani Palace and relegated to the Bishop Museum.
Thus was colonial rule established.
Thus, the birds fell from the sky, and were silenced.


ma‧tu‧ri‧ty [uncountable]
1 the quality of behaving in a sensible way like an adult [≠ immaturity]:
Beth shows a maturity way beyond her 16 years.
One day you'll have the maturity to understand.
2 the time or state when someone or something is fully grown or developed
at maturity
The tree will reach only 5 feet at maturity.
reach/come to/grow to maturity
These insects reach full maturity after a few weeks.
the era when the Republic came to political maturity
sexual/emotional/physical maturity
He lacks the emotional maturity to appreciate poetry.
3BF the time when a financial arrangement such as a bond or an insurance policy becomes ready to be paid
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Posted by: vip | July 2, 2009
Keeping our records straight 3A: pre-Claveria Carcar records
After years of the space being left blank in the family tree, I finally found the baptism record of my great-great-grandmother, Berenguela Barcelo. She was baptized 21 April 1827 at 7 days. But her full name there was Ma. Berina. It's conceivable Berenguela was what her parents had in mind all along, because while Berina is nearer Severina, Berenguela was what she was called in her marriage to my great-great-grandfather, Hilario Aleonar in 1852, and Berenguela it was 'til the end of her days in 1904.
Actually, Hilario himself was Apolinario Aleonar in that 1852 marriage record (and others). He was Valeriano Hilario before Claveria. But these discrepancies account for almost nothing when you generally find many more inconsistencies in people's names in the books. For instance, the said baptism gave out Berina's father as Francisco Alcario but more records called the father Alcario Juanillo: he was Alcario Juanillo in his marriage in 1815 and, as a matter of fact, in the baptism for his child after Berenguela, Catalino Placido in 1829, he was Alcario Juanillo. There were more variances after that, of course and he was also Macario, Alcadio and Arcadio.
And cabezas Cleto Martin would be Martin Cleto in the next; Francisco Luis, Luis Francisco, and Santiago Cornelio, Cornelio Santiago. So if your purpose was for an official claim, these records would not serve you well. On top of that, the standard remedial procedure in our country is to produce an affidavit from two disinterested persons attesting that they knew the subject and that those names referred to the same person. You know, two disinterested somebodies who are still alive today (of course) who had already been around in the 1820s. More like disembodied.
Still and all, a rarified experience will befall anyone going over the Carcar Baptism records for _PHONE_. You will journey through time to when individuals were still going around without surnames. As you go drone through the names of children for baptism, and of their parents, their cabezas and padrinos and madrinas, you will also feel the queasiness and exasperation that Claveria or other Spanish officials of the time must have felt handed a list like that—and certainly could have led to the historic decree of 1849.
But, you encounter new discoveries, too, like you'll notice some individuals were actually using the surnames their family is now using in Carcar. But you can only conclude that these were not used for all individuals in the entire family and therefore could not quite qualify to be called family names yet.
In 1827, Marcelo Ybañis had her daughter baptized only as Ma. Potenciana and Juan Ybañis's son was Francisco Simon. Cesareo Ybañez's son was baptized as Mateo Wenceslao in 1844. Leoterio Navarro had his son baptized Lorenzo Ygnacio in 1828. These families did eventually become Ybañez and Navarro.
Guillermo Galicano, long the fiscal of the Carcar church and father of the general and Senator Troadio Galicano was baptized as Guillermo Galicano in Carcar in 1838. Guillermo is the only child of his parents to appear in my records and probably his father was influential enough to have been allowed to retain Galicano as the surname for his family. It must have been a special privilege because before that, the family did not appear to have been using Galicano and nor does the name belong to the alphabetical groupings for Carcar. In fact, the father was known as Salvador Modesto and was from Bohol.
On the other hand, the surname Alvarado, now indisputably belonging to a single Carcar strain had been used by various individuals who later on took other surnames. Juan Albarado[1] became Juan Barangan; Eugenio Albarado (son of Leonardo Salvador), became Eugenio Alfafara; Mateo Albarado, Alejado; Ysidoro Albarado, Barason; and Tamayo Albarado (AKA Tamayo Mariano) and his son Quirino Albarado–Alcordo.
Meanwhile, Samson Mercado became Samson Alesna.
A happy ending, though: Through the years, some church clerks had post-notated some of these records with the subsequent surnames of the individuals and the gesture is absolutely welcome: your family search goes so much easier. But the IDs were pretty random and not all families had the luck. Or–the intrigue–were they even then already politically biased? Anyway, the "favored" individuals belong to the following families: Barluado, Aleson, Daytec, Campaña, Baran, Ybañez, Sarausad, Panidar, Alegarbes, Camoro, Remocaldo, Sator, Sinajon, Candiong, Laoronal, Alcuisar, Alcontin, Catao, Alesna, Barason, Dayonot, Dayondon, Alcover, Dayanan, Lañas, Barellano, Aledo, Dayagdal, Enad, Navarro, Barcelona, Alejado, Barateria, Barga, Barbadillo, Campugan, Satorre, Barauidan, Alcorisa, Campanilla, Alegado, Mancao, Barcelo, Alcordo, Barangan, Alcoseba, Aleonar, Alegrado, Alfafara for _PHONE_ and some for 1836. Also, I had jumped directly to Galicano in 1838 just for the person. I'm excited to meet the others next time.
I was working on the said volume Friday and Saturday the other week and am dying to get back to Carcar hopefully today to get on with it. The passion is indeed overwhelming.
[1] Apparently, the consonants b and v are not that distinguishable from each other in spoken Spanish than they are in English, especially when they appear in the middle of a word. They recognize the fact, too, so that Spanish speakers even try to sub-define the unclear distinction by calling them b grande (big b) and v pequeño (small v). That may be the reason why there is an Alba as well as an Alva—and Rivera and a Ribera–in Spain, itself. Blame not too much the Cebuano and Carcar clerks, therefore.
 1. […] Baptisms _PHONE_ Carcar I already mentioned some things about this particular volume in the post Keeping our records straight 3A: pre-Claveria Carcar records. […]
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text:
Specify the risk level (denoted as α or alpha) for the test. Usually, an α of 0.05 works well. An α of 0.05 indicates a 5% risk of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is actually true (type I error).
The value of α is often set by industry guidelines. If you use a smaller value for α, such as 0.01, you can reduce the risk of a type 1 error. For example, if you perform an equivalence test using the default hypotheses, using a smaller alpha reduces the risk of claiming equivalence when it is not actually true. However, a smaller α also increases the risk that the test is overly conservative and does not allow you to claim equivalence when it is actually true.
The α value also sets the confidence level for the confidence interval. By default, the confidence level is (1 – α) × 100%. For example, if α is 0.05, Minitab calculates a 95% confidence interval.


text:
The aim of this paper is to examine the factors associated with the belief that vegetarian diets provide health benefits. A random population mail survey about food choice was conducted among a sample of 1000 South Australians. An additional (non-random) survey of 106 vegetarians and semi-vegetarians was also conducted, giving a total of 707 participants from both samples. The main predictors of the belief that vegetarian diets provide health benefits for all respondents were found to be the belief that meat is neither healthy nor necessary and frequent searching for information on healthy eating. However, there were differences between vegetarians, non-vegetarians and semi-vegetarians. In particular, health issues were relatively more important for semi-vegetarians and vegetarians, while knowledge and convenience issues were most important for non-vegetarians. The results have important implications for public health. Many South Australians perceive that health benefits are associated with eating a vegetarian diet, which may also apply to plant-based diets in general. However, if non-vegetarians are to obtain some of the health benefits associated with the consumption of a plant-based diet, they require information on the preparation of quick and easy plantbased meals.
Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright owner.
Field of Research
111199 Nutrition and Dietetics not elsewhere classified
Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in Deakin Research Online is owned by the author, with all rights reserved.
Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO.
If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact _EMAIL_.


text:
Definition of national bank in English:
1 another term for central bank.
- In Serbia 1992 the national bank issued single bank notes of 500 billion Serbian dinars.
- Of course national banks cannot file for bankruptcy.
- A supporter of the Glorious Revolution, he was engaged during the Nine Years War in government finance and pressed upon the government the establishment of a national bank to help finance the war.
1.1(In the US) a commercial bank which is chartered under the federal government and is a member of the Federal Reserve System.
- All national banks and member banks of the Federal Reserve System are required to join.
- The second major feature of campaign finance regulation is bans on contributions by corporations, national banks, unions, Federal government contractors, and foreign nationals.
- Calling itself the Federal Reserve, so as to seem official, it replaced the national bank system.
Definition of national bank in:
- US English dictionary
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
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text:
Precision Time Align is a high precision sub-sample delay that can slide a track forward or backwards in time. It will help you get perfectly synchronized double-tracked recordings completely eliminating timing anomalies and phase issues from your mix, especially on multi-miked drums, vocals and instruments:
- Synchronize signals to microsecond accuracy, up to 1/64th of a sample.
- Phase Invert button fixes mirror-image acoustical phasing.
- Precise Coarse and Fine controls optimize time shift in recordings.
- Perform negative delays, moving the track up in time relative to other tracks in the recording.
- Four different methods for calibrating the signal to achieve perfect signal matching.
- Precision Time Delay also included for use with D.A.W.s lacking delay compensation.
- Much faster and more accurate workflow than trying to manually align in your D.A.W.


text:
To graduate from EAST University, you must complete all of the following requirements. You must keep track of all artifacts in a Google Doc. When you have completed all of the requirements, submit the artifacts on Google Classroom.
1. Complete TWO tutorials.
2. Independent Application: Create something using the technology or skill on your own. (Not something you created through the tutorial.)
3. Complete the Career Research for your field of study. (Open the Google Doc then go to File--->Make a Copy)
4. Learning Community Involvement: You must create a tutorial/instructional video, host a hands-on workshop or demonstration (in class/lunch/after-school), or write a step-by-step tutorial complete with specific instructions and screenshots.
5. Complete the EAST U Reflection. (Open the Google Doc then go to File--->Make a Copy)


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Seeking the truth behind existence of charge: An Intricasy
 1. Mar 30, 2007 #1
 According to Klein Kaluza theory of fifth dimension (followed by string theory),
 there is an elecromagnetic dimension in which every particle of Universe (in Dirac Vacuum) perform translatory and rotational motion due to which they drag the e-m dimension. Thus if any two particles are placed quite distance apart due to spinning of both, they attract or repel each other depending on their spinning. If they've spins in same direction they repel each other and vice versa which is nothing but we can say it as charge.
 2. jcsd
 3. Mar 31, 2007 #2
 I don't think so:
 1. If, spin is the reason of the "real charge", then why neutrinos don't have charge even they've spin.
 2. Photons also have spin but noc harge and also have a sinusoidally varying e-m field.
 3. Charge is not a relative quantity. Consider a condition- a light particle(A) is
 revolving around a heavy particle(B), B has a spin and same angular velocity
 as that of revolution of A. Now, from the respective of A, B isn't spinning,
 does it mean that from respective of A there's no chargeon B?
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Art of Belgium
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Despite its size, Belgium has a long and distinguished artistic tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages, considerable pre-dating the foundation of the country itself.
History of Belgian art
Mosan art is a regional style of Romanesque art from the valleys of the Meuse in present-day Wallonia, and the Rhineland, with manuscript illumination, metalwork, and enamel work from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. Among them the masterpiece of Renier de Huy and perhaps of the whole Mosan art Baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège. The architecture of Roman churches of the Walloon country are also named Mosan, exemplified by the Collegiate Church of Saint Gertrude in Nivelles, and the churches of Waha and Hastière, Dinant. The Ornamental brassware is also a part of the Mosan art and among these dinandiers Hugo d'Oignies and Nicholas of Verdun.
Early Modern art
During the so-called Northern Renaissance, Belgium experienced an artistic boom, spawning the immensely popular Baroque Flemish school of painting. The cities of Bruges and Antwerp, some of the richest in the region, became artistic centres during the period.
Flemish art was not confined to the boundaries of modern Flanders and several leading artists came from or worked in areas in which langues d'oïl were spoken, from the region of modern Wallonia, e.g. Robert Campin, Rogier van der Weyden (Rogier de la Pasture) and Jacques Daret. Joachim Patinir Henri Blès are generally called mosan painters. Lambert Lombard (Liège, 1505 – 1566) was a Renaissance painter, architect and theorist for the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Gérard de Lairesse, Bertholet Flemalle were also important painters in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège.
The Brueghel Dynasty
- See also Bruegel Family
Flemish genre painting is strongly tied to the traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and was a style that continued directly into the 17th century through copies and new compositions made by his sons Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Many of these are kermis paintings and scenes of peasants partaking other outdoor enjoyments viewed from an elevated viewpoint.
Belgian art in the 19th-20th centuries
Originating in France, the Impressionist style was also adopted by Belgian artists. Anna Boch, Eugène Boch (a close friend of Vincent Van Gogh), Georges Lemmen and Théo van Rysselberghe were all influential Belgian impressionist or neo-impressionist painters.
During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Wallon painters emerged, including Félicien Rops, Paul Delvaux, Pierre Paulus, Fernand Verhaegen, Antoine Wiertz, René Magritte... The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s.
Jacques du Broeucq was a sculptor of the 16th century. Constantin Meunier was an influential Belgian sculpter of the late 19th-early 20th century. Unusually, his figures often depict industrial workers. George Grard (1901 — 1984) was a Walloon sculptor, known above all for his representations of the female, in the manner of Pierre Renoir and Aristide Maillol, modelled in clay or plaster, and cast in bronze. And in Liège also, principally Jean Del Cour, the sculptor of the Virgin in Vinâve d'Isle, Léon Mignon the sculptor of Li Tore and Louis Jéhotte of the statue of Charlemagne.
Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (Liège, 1858-Antwerp, 1910) architect and furniture designer, credited (along with Paul Hankar, Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde) with creating the Art Nouveau style, coined as a style in Paris by Bing.
Comic art (known as bande dessinée) first became popular in Belgium in the 1920s, but achieved huge popularity internationally after the Second World War. The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé first appeared in 1929, and have been translated into fifty languages, selling a total of 200 million copies.
Notable art collections in Belgium
The most significant art collection in Belgium is the national collection at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, however, there are more than a douzen other significant art collections around the country. Some of the most impressive museums in Belgium are The Royal Museum for Fine Arts, in Antwerp, which has an admirable collection of works by Peter Paul Rubens, the Groeningemuseum, in Bruges, with the Flemish Primitives, the Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS), which is the biggest museum in Belgium. There are also numerous smaller museums, often supported by the state, focused on individual artists, with museums devoted Magritte, Wiertz and Meunier amongst many others.
Belgium also has numerous galleries devoted to collections of non-indigenous art, including Oriental, Classical and Congolese painting, sculpture and other visual art.


Question: How Much Banana Can A 5 Month Old Eat?
What can baby eat at 5 months?
Good first food choices include single-grain, iron-enriched, whole grain cereal (whole grain oat, whole grain barley or brown rice), vegetables (like sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, peas and green beans), and fruits (including pureed ripe avocado, finely mashed bananas, or baby applesauce, peaches or pears)..
Should I steam banana for baby?
How long can a 5 month old go without eating?
Why is 5 month old waking at night?
There are many reasons a baby is waking at night (or any person for that matter) and the number of reasons increases with toddler sleep. Too cold, too warm, sick, and so on. The above reasons are just the five that seem to come up most frequently in sleep consultations.
Can I give my baby food at 5 months?
Remember, there's no need to rush this milestone. Most babies are ready to start solids between 5 and 6 months. Don't start solids before 4 months.
Can I give my 5 month old water?
What are the milestones for a 5 month old?
Can I give my 5 month old mashed potatoes?
When To Introduce Potatoes Mashed potatoes can be considered solid foods and should only be given to your baby when they approach their six months. This is the perfect time to start slowly with all kinds of solid foods. Mashed potatoes can be one of the many that you start giving your baby right away.
Can I feed my baby at 5 months?
The best time to introduce solid foods is when your baby has developed the skills needed to eat. Doctors recommend that breastfeeding moms wait until their baby is 6 months old. But sometimes babies are ready for solids sooner than that.
Can you blend banana for babies?
To make a thicker banana puree, you can simply mash a ripe banana until mostly smooth using a fork or potato masher. … Mix with whole milk plain yogurt, baby oatmeal, mashed avocado, sweet potato, or any other baby food you like as desired.
What fruit can babies not eat?
What fruit should baby eat first?
Bananas and babies are pretty much synonymous. Bananas are sweet, mushy and easy to digest, so they make a perfect first food for baby.
How much banana Can I give my baby?
With all factors considered – including sugar, fibre, and the need for a balanced diet – it is recommended that babies starting solid food at four months have no more than one-third of a banana per day, increasing to half of a banana by nine months, and up to one-and-a-half bananas by the time the child is one year old …
How much baby food should a 5 month old eat?
Can I give my 5 month old banana puree?
There are enough and more tasty and nutritious options in food that can be introduced to little ones once a baby is between 4 and 6 months. One such tasty option is banana puree. Banana puree is sweet and your little one will love its taste. It can be introduced to babies once they turn 4 months of age.
Is it OK to give banana to a baby daily?
Can a 5 month old eat a whole banana?
As your child grows, you can continue to make bananas a key part of her diet. Keep giving them to her pureed or mashed until she's about 9 months old. You then can offer them as finger foods in sliced and quartered chunks. By the time she's a year old, you can hand her a half or whole peeled banana.


text:
New Sensor Provides First Instant Test for Toxic E. Coli Organism
|By Jeffery Kahn, _EMAIL_
December 10, 1996
BERKELEY, CA -- Researchers have developed a sensor that, for the first time, can instantly detect the presence of toxic E. coli bacteria. Contamination by this bacteria is responsible for recent illnesses and deaths in the United States involving fruit drinks and fast-food hamburgers, a massive outburst of food poisoning in Japan, and a current outbreak in Scotland that is linked to 10 deaths.
Raymond Stevens, a chemist
at the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), says the sensors his team have developed are capable of providing an extremely inexpensive, on-the-spot litmus test for E. coli strain 0157:H7. First identified as a threat to humans in 1982, 0157:H7 is the virulent strain of E. coli responsible for these outbreaks.
Illustration courtesy of Chemistry & Biology magazine
Says Stevens, "These sensors have been designed so that the presence of the toxin produced by this strain of E. coli causes a color change, from blue to red. The greater the color change in the sensor, the higher the concentration of 0157:H7 toxin. The color change is instantaneous."
Up until now, no technology existed that would allow either food companies, health inspectors, or consumers to determine immediately whether E. coli 0157:H7 is present. Currently, the best detection method requires the taking of a sample which must be cultured for 24 hours. Only then can technicians ascertain whether the bacteria are present (with the use of a variety of tools ranging from microscopes to dyes.) Another detection technique, now under development, relies on polymerase chain reaction technology to multiply the amount of bacterial DNA present in a sample to detectable levels. Several hours must pass, however, before results can be obtained.
The instant analysis provided by Berkeley Lab's new sensors has obvious advantages as a public health tool. Dangerous pathogens can be detected before a food product has been shipped to the store. Another advantage is cost.
Says Stevens, "We can make an inexpensive sensor that can be placed on a number of different materials such as plastic, paper, or glass. The cost of the sensor is so nominal that it could be part of a bottle cap or container lid. If you open the product and the sensor has turned from blue to red, then you have a contaminated food product."
As for the maturity of the technology, a number of steps must occur before these sensors can be used commercially. The technology must be licensed to a private company. And then, it must be refined and adapted for mass manufacture and sale.
Stevens, who is also an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, developed the sensors in concert with Berkeley postdoc Quan Cheng. The device is a modification of one originally described in the journal Science by former Lab scientist Mark Bednarski and Lab materials scientist Deborah Charych. All are current or former members of Berkeley Lab's Biomolecular Materials Program in its Center for Advanced Materials. The center does basic research relevant to both the needs of industry and the Department of Energy.
Technically, the working part of the sensor consists of multiple copies of a single molecule which is fabricated into a thin film. This molecule has a two-part composite structure. The surface of the molecule -- developed by Stevens and Cheng -- binds the bacteria toxin. The backbone underlying this surface is the color-changing signaling system described by Bednarski and Charych.
The Biomolecular Materials Program focuses on adapting nature's biological systems to problems outside the living organism. In this case says Stevens, "We have made synthetic surfaces that mimic the unique cellular binding sites for the toxins produced by E. coli 0157:H7 interactions. When these toxins are produced, they hunt around for places to bind. When they find the right receptor site, they attempt to bind. This activity in humans causes disease. In the sensor, it is what triggers the color change."
The backbone of the sensor molecule is composed of a long diacetylene lipid, a molecule similar to the phospholipids that are the building blocks for cell membranes. Exposure to UV light links the molecules together by activating a triple bond within the diacetylene lipids, creating a blue-tinted polydiacetylene (PDA) film. PDA films are sensitive to changes on their surface as manifested by the wavelength of light they transmit. When E. coli 0157:H7 toxins bind to their synthetic membrane surface, the backbone chain of PDA reorganizes. The sensor that was blue turns red.
With the ability to instantly detect 0157:H7, health authorities would have a powerful new weapon to combat what has been a continuing series of outbreaks. These include more than 380 cases of food poisoning and 10 deaths in Scotland this month, all linked to tainted meat; more than 60 confirmed cases of infections linked to unpasteurized fruit juice in late October; 9,400 cases of food poisoning in Japan during the Summer of 1995; and illnesses involving sausage and hamburger meat contamination in the U.S. in 1993 and 1994.
The 0157:H7 strain thrives in animal fecal material which is why it often shows up in meat. Pasteurization of milk and juices -- a simple treatment with heat -- can kill the organism as can thorough cooking of meats. The bacteria strain is a potent health threat. Undoubtedly, numerous unreported outbreaks of E. coli related disease have occurred. Children and the elderly are particularly susceptible to infections. Symptoms include diarrhea and internal bleeding, and death can result.
Berkeley Lab has several patents pending on its sensors, which now are available for licensing to private industry. Firms interested in information about licensing should contact Viviana Wolinsky in the Lab's Technology Transfer Department. Wolinsky can be reached at _PHONE_ or via e-mail at _EMAIL_.
Berkeley Lab conducts unclassified scientific research for the U.S. Department of Energy. It is located in Berkeley, California and is managed by the University of California.