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Intelligent Interfaces for the Exploration of our Cultural Heritage
by Oliviero Stock
Artificial Intelligence, and in particular intelligent interfaces, may open new scenarios for tourism and the fruition of our cultural heritage. The main prospect made possible by the adoption of these technologies is to move from the current mass-oriented approach to an approach oriented toward the individual. This has at least two facets: on the one side, systems will have to take into account the specificity of the user with his own interests, idiosyncrasies, and so on; on the other, the user will be the main agent in his exploration, he will take the initiative and exploit the high level of interactivity that will be available in intelligent interfaces.
With this vision of the future, at IRST (Institute for Scientific and Technological Research), Trento, we have worked for several years at integrating some advanced research concepts in a complex system. The resulting prototype, called AlFresco, has been demonstrated widely and is often mentioned as a reference system in the new area of intelligent multimedia systems.
AlFresco is a natural language dialogue system for a user interested in XIVth century Italian frescoes and paintings. It aims not only to provide information on a specific work of art, but also to promote other masterpieces that may appeal to the user. It runs on a workstation connected to a videodisk unit and a touch screen. The particular videodisk in use includes images of frescoes and monuments. Besides understanding and using language, the system integrates it with hypermedia both in input and output. The user can interact with the system by typing a sentence, navigating in the underlying hypertext, and using the touch screen. In input, our efforts have been focused on combining the interpretation of linguistic deictic references with pointing to images displayed on a touch screen. In output, images and automatically generated text with buttons offer entry points for further hypertextual exploration. The result is that the user communicates both linguistically and by manipulating various entities, images, and text itself.
AlFresco thus provides a suitable environment for the exploration of a large information space where the user may integrate moments of goal-oriented investigation and browsing within a coherent overall dialogue.
A system like AlFresco can constitute the basis for culture and art exploration at home. But we believe nothing can take the place of a visit to the'real thing'. The emotion is different. So the whole cultural experience can be seen as encompassing three phases, each of which can take advantage of technology: support before the visit, during the visit and after the visit.
The AlFresco prototype.
A new project has thus been started recently with the objective of supporting the visitor during his visit to the museum or art gallery. The perspective is that the visitor moves in the physical space while seeking information and guidance. It is important to emphasise that the user is not moving in virtual space but in a real space (such as a museum), augmented with a personalized informational dimension. The system presents information on the basis of explicit input on the part of the visitor and on the basis of his current position and of the history of the visit so far. The overall approach includes a personalized user model that can vary the material presented according to the different interests and knowledge of the particular visitor. This prototype is being developed with the Museum of Rovereto, in the Trentino region. In collaboration with a local company, the museum has obtained a patent for a device in which infrared technology is integrated with a PDA (Portable Digital Assistance), so that the position of the visitor at any given moment is easily computed.
An Esprit Project beginning in June 1997, in the Intelligent Interactive Interfaces Subprogramme, will build on this experience. The project, called HIPS, has the University of Siena as the prime contractor and includes a large European consortium (IRST, Univ. of Edinburgh, Univ. College Dublin, GMD (Germany), Sintef (Norway), Siette (Italy), CB&J (France).
One of the most interesting aspects of this new development is that we shall include the capacity of generating coherent text (to be synthesised) for the user, taking into account the actual unfolding of his visit. Both the University of Edinburgh and IRST have a relevant experience in the area of automatic text generation, the field that aims at producing coherent language out of internal non linguistic data. The process includes aspects such as the choice of what to communicate and how to best communicate, both as overall planning of the sequence of sentences and for the production of correct and coherent individual sentences.
The generation system has been designed to be flexible, so that the characteristics of the reader/hearer can be taken into account; a second feature is that different output languages can be integrated into the same framework without any conceptual difficulties (as opposed to machine translation). These features are expected to open a whole new perspective for the future of tourism and cultural visits, an area that, especially for Italy, is of strategic importance. For more information on ALFresco see see _URL_
Oliviero Stock - IRST
Tel: +39 461 314517


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Silk Products in China
China is where silk originiated. There are many different types of silk products in China: clothes, scrolls, silk fan, and so on. Among each product, classes of silk can vary a lot. For example, the photo on the left is a Dragon robe of Chinese Emperor Qianlong. Chinese upper classes people are the only ones that able to wear silk, because silk is really expensive. The emperors are the highest class in the society, so the quality of silk they use are the highest, too. The higher the quality of silk means a softer and lighter touch. In many ancient Chinese stories, the best silk can feel as nothing. So when people wear a silk clothes, they will feel really relaxed. If the emperor decides to grant silks as rewards to the ministers, the quality of those silks cannot be better than the one used by the emperor, otherwise it can be regarded as a vioation of the emperor's stateliness.
There are three different types of silk in China, and they are from different regions of China. The picture on the left is the most famous one, Yun Jin (云锦). Yun Jin is produced from Nanjing, China. The earliest Yun Jin appeared in Song Dynasty. Yun Jin is very colorful and glossy just like the cloud on the sky, and that's why it is called "Yun Jin (云锦)". Yun (云) is a Chinese character means clouds, and Jin (锦) means silk. Because of that, Yun Jin has been regarded as tribute only to the emperor and the royal class.
The picture on the left is an example of Shu Jin (蜀锦). Shu Jin is the type of silk produced from Sichuan, China. The word "Shu (蜀)" is a nickname of Sichuan province. Shu Jin has the longest history among the three different types, and it has been invented from Han Dynasty. Shu Jin is one of the most important goods traded along the Silk Road. Some of the Japanese silk productions are influenced by Shu Jin.
The picture on the left is an example of Song Jin (宋锦). Song Jin comes from Suzhou, China, and the name comes from Song Dynasty. It is developed based on Shu Jin in Tang Dynasty. There are many different types of Song Jin: Da Jin (大锦), Xiao Jin (小锦), Cai Dai (彩带) and so on. The most historical type is Da Jin, so it is also called "Fang Gu Jin (仿古锦)", which means "imatating the tradition" in Chinese.
This is a silk scroll from Yuan Dynasty. It is a painting of pink and white lotus.
This is a photo of a circular silk fan. The design on the fan is cat and calligraphy.
Written by Hao Yu

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 2007 (2007), Article ID 87519, 10 pages
On a Discrete Epidemic Model
Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Science, Knez Mihailova 35/I, Beograd 11000, Serbia
Received 3 August 2006; Revised 5 November 2006; Accepted 6 November 2006
Copyright © 2007 Stevo Stević. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
We investigate the global asymptotic behavior of solutions of the difference equation,, where,, and the initial values are arbitrary negative numbers. Asymptotics of some positive solutions of the equation are also found.


Switch Tester
0-100N IEC60320-1 Switch Tester Coupler Lateral Pulling Test Machine
 - Model：
Coupler Lateral Pulling Testing Apparatus
Product Information:
This device is according to the IEC60320-1, figure 19 standard requirement to design. It is used for the testing of withdrawing appliance inlet under the conditions of the connector with force, for this reason to test the mechanical strength of the connector.
Technical Parameters:
1, Flexible cable bending height: 40±2 mm, adjustable.
2, Pull range: 0-100N.
3, Pull way: Manual operation,50 times in one direction and then 50 times in the opposite direction.
4, Conductor Selection and the corresponding test lateral pulls value table
Table 7 - Values for the lateral pulls applied
Rated current of connector
Using method:
1. Select the corresponding apparatus input socket according to the required test of the connector to install and tighten.
2. Insert the connector into the input socket of the appliance, you can adjust the adjustment block properly for other special connectors.
3. With the spring balance end to lock the connector soft cable, flat on the bakelite supporting block.
4. To pull the connector to the required test force, and the position can be adjusted.
5. Normal test, after pulling 50 times, rotate connector and appliance input socket 180°, and then pull 50 times. Do not need to release spring balance end, then corresponding rotation.
After the test, whether to enter the follow-up test according to the connector is damaged or not.
1. Ensure that the terminal is clamped and pay attention to safety when testing;
2. When spring scale is not in used, it should be kept loose state;
3. Apparatus should be kept dry, dust proof, pay attention to the maintenance of the equipment after the test is completed.


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Aim To identify magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features differentiating high-grade (>5% round-cell component) from low-grade myxoid liposarcomas (LPS) (≤5% round-cell component). Materials and methods Informed consent was waived. Patients with myxoid LPS and MRI before biopsy, neoadjuvant therapy, and surgery were included retrospectively. High-grade components were recorded from histological specimens by a pathologist (24 years of experience). Images were evaluated by a senior radiologist (>12 years of experience) for tumour size, location, tissue layer, and MRI features (signal intensity, heterogeneity, margin, and perilesional characteristics). Descriptive statistics, Fisher's exact test to identify associations with a round-cell component, and multivariate logistic regression to identify independent predictors of high-grade tumours were used. Results Thirty-one patients (16 women [mean 51.1 years; range 19–79 years] and 15 men [mean 45.5 years; range 18–95 years]) with myxoid LPS (23 low-grade, eight high-grade) were included. All high-grade lesions had lipid signal, a peritumoural capsule and peritumoural contrast enhancement, and more commonly exhibited heterogeneous signal; however, the average size of ≥10 cm was the strongest independent indicator of high-grade status (odds ratio [OR], 14.6; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.6, 131). Conclusion Size ≥10 cm is most strongly associated with high-grade myxoid LPS (round-cell component >5%). Other features possibly differentiating high-grade from low-grade status include lesion margin, lipid signal, and perilesional characteristics.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging


Saturday, June 1, 2013
What's wrong with eating octopus?
Kids always get it.
When I give tours to children and ask them what they think about the veal crate, they never hesitate to proclaim, "It's cruel and mean!" They know it is mean to socially isolate a baby calf and stick him in a crate so small, he cannot turn around.
When I ask kids what they think about eating Patty the pig, with few exceptions, they all say it would be wrong. They see Patty as an individual and relate to her on that level. Not all of them do. Some have already been inculturated at a young age to see certain nonhuman animals as "food". Violently killing other animals has become normalized to these youngsters.
Which is why videos like these make my heart happy. Not merely because it is wonderful seeing a child work through his feelings on whether it is appropriate or not to eat animals, but because he has a wonderful mother who acknowledges and embraces this child's feelings. Too often, parents force their kind-hearted children to engage in behaviors they feel uncomfortable with to maintain the status quo. When your child steps up and wants to avoid violently ending another living being's life - embrace and support them. You are helping a child find his or her own truths.
No comments:


text: Nora Sturges paints narrative landscapes in several evocative series. Her most recent work depicts a night fallen world of arctic ruin, where the vestiges of a human presence seem to lie vacant and forlorn upon the ice. In some cases one wonders which is the more recent arrival, the people or the ice? They convey a haunting sense of the precariousness of life on the edges of habitability. Sturges' obsessively detailed brushwork, along with the intimate scale of her paintings, reinforce the quietude of these scenes.


Welcome to Shengbao Special Cotton Machine Technology Co., Ltd. official website!
Does Saxo teach you how to pack the packer?
Type：News | Updatetime：2021-03-26 10:33:23
After the baler is purchased, how is the baling done when the baling is carried out, and what is the specific baling process? As a professional automatic baler manufacturer, I will take everyone to understand the baler packaging process. The packing process of the packing machine is composed of four links: feeding, tightening, cutting, and pasting.
During the belt feeding process, the belt feeding wheel rotates counterclockwise, and the friction between the toothed belt wheel and the packing belt is used to make the packing belt advance along the packing belt path until the end of the packing belt hits the micro switch of the stopper, So that the packing tape is stopped, and it is in the position to be packed.
In the process of tightening the strap, the right paw rises to press the end of the strap, and the feeding wheel rotates clockwise. The friction force is also used to make the strap withdraw along the rail frame. At this time, the blades in the rail are retracting from the strap. Under the action of pulling force, it is released, so that the packing belt is continuously withdrawn until it is close to the surface of the package, and the tensioning arm swings downwards to completely tighten the packing belt.
The next step is the cutting and ironing process. The left jaw rises and presses the two layers of packing belts. The isolation table exits and the ironing head follows up. The two ends of the packing belt are heated. This is when the pressure block rises and cuts the packing belt.
Then there is the pasting process. The ironing head exits the actual position, and the pressure block continues to rise, and the two layers are pressed together with the heated packing tape to complete the packing action.
Prev：How does the baler handle the cutter
Next：Saxo balers manufacturers analyze why the automatic balers will have bonding fai


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Wounded military servicemen are carried to a waiting ambulance bus from a U.S. Air Force C-17 medical evacuation aircraft at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. / By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY
Military doctors are fighting to defeat a fungal infection that has killed a handful of direly wounded troops in Afghanistan and infected scores of others, often requiring that more of their limbs be cut away to get above diseased areas.
Out of about 100 troops diagnosed with the organism in the past three years, six have died either from the fungus or other causes, says Navy Cmdr. Carlos Rodriguez, who has led investigations into the infection. The victims are mostly soldiers or Marines who suffer the worst wounds of the war, multiple amputations from roadside bombs.
The fungi exist in the soil, and appear to be prevalent in two hard-fought southern Afghanistan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. For the typical patient, the organism is blown deep into blast wounds from buried explosives - known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs - during foot patrols in those regions, Rodriguez says.
"All the stuff that lives in the dirt is getting jammed in there," says Army Lt. Col. John Oh, director of trauma at the Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
New guidelines were published Nov. 1 urging combat doctors to soak wounds with a diluted bleach called Dakins consisting of sodium hypochlorite - a product once used on World War I combat casualties - as a precaution to kill the fungus before it takes hold.
The fungus is nearly undetectable at first because infected tissue initially appears healthy. Surgeons cutting away dead bone and flesh from blast wounds will stop short of areas that appear healthy to preserve as much of a limb as possible.
"Even for somebody that's very experienced, it's hard to tell exactly what's dead and what's alive," Oh says.
Within days or even hours after the operation, infected tissue begins to die and more of a limb must be cut away, doctors say. Making matters worse, the two of the most common fungal organisms infecting troops - Mucor and Aspergillus terreus - can take days or weeks to positively identify.
One medical theory is that troops who suffer massive blast damage are particularly vulnerable because their immune systems are weakened from receiving large amounts of donated blood to stay alive.
Rodriguez said doctors have gotten better at identifying the fungus, but the answer lies in killing or cutting out spores before they infect.
As a result, the new guidelines urge military doctors in Afghanistan to begin using the diluted bleach and anti-fungal medications on those wounded troops who are most at risk for the infection: those suffering multiple amputations and lower torso damage from blasts, and who have received massive transfusions of blood.
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: Military doctors fight to defeat fungal infections

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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When an adult gets a hold of Sophie The Giraffe, the first comment is usually "Oh! It is so soft! What is that texture? Amazing!", and when we mention that it is natural rubber straight from the trees, he or she immediately starts smelling Sophie. Some love the smell because it reminds them of their childhood. Others like it less. Some would love to taste it but refrain themselves, due to the fact that they are adults.
But what do babies think of Sophie? Actions speaking louder than words, it seems that they all agree: Sophie The Giraffe is fun to hold, but it is also the greatest object to gnaw and chew on.
The counter-pressure from biting on Sophie's nubs, ears, and feet helps relieve the pressure from under the gums when a baby teethes.
For parents the best thing about Sophie ( handmade in France) is that she is made out of a natural flexible rubber, and non-toxic paint and that she has no harmful chemicals (such as Parabens, PVC, Phtalates, BPA (Bisphenol-A) and Nitrosamines). She is a safe alternative to a plastic teether and helps minimize a baby's chance of being exposed to chemicals.
In the first year, babies put everything in their mouths, and in doing so, they can absorb large amounts of toxic chemicals that we aren't always aware of. Some of those chemicals have not been around long enough for us to know what the long-term consequences might be, but why take a chance when our babies can have Sophie? ^__^


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Whether it's your first time or one-hundred-and-first time reading Little Women, you'll love immersing yourself into the imaginative world of the March sisters, their beloved Marmie, and the wistful, lovelorn Laurie. An electronic eBook makes Louisa May Alcott's novel easier to read than ever before.
- Project specific pages onto the board when discussing reading from the night before
- Allow class members to read the PDF on tablets during silent reading time
- URL for the publisher is on a footnote of intermittent pages
- Does not provide opportunities for annotation or highlighting unless you are using a PDF program with editing capabilities
- Streamlined PDF format makes it easier to assign the book than with a class set of novels
- Learners who enjoy reading in their smartphones can engage with the text


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- Fulfil and fulfill are both correct spellings of the same word. It means "to put into effect," "to achieve," "to carry out," or "to realize."
- Fulfil is the spelling commonly used in English speaking countries like the UK and Australia.
- Fulfill is the spelling commonly used in the United States.
- In Canada, they use both spellings.
Fulfill is one of those words with multiple spellings. It can end with two l's or with one, depending on where the person writing the word is from.
Fulfil vs. Fulfill—What's the Difference?
We use fulfill to say that we did something we promised, that we carried out a duty, or that we realized or put into effect something that someone entrusted us to do.
There are two ways you can spell the word—fulfill and fulfil. Neither of the spellings is wrong. The longer one, fulfill, is the spelling you'll see people use in the United States:
In other English-speaking countries, people spell the word fulfil:
You can come across both spellings in Canada.
Most of the inflected forms of the word retain the double l, regardless of dialect. That's why you'll see fulfilling, fulfilled, and fulfiller in all English speaking countries. A notable exception is the word fulfillment, which follows the same rules as the root word:
Fulfill in the US
Fulfil outside of the US
American English and British English are different in many small, almost unnoticeable ways. When it comes to spelling, Americans usually prefer the shorter words, like "benefited" over "benefitted" or "check" over "cheque", but every once in a while they choose to use the longer spelling, like fulfill.


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Copyright © 2014, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
The telomere structure in the Iberian shrew Sorex granarius is characterized by unique, striking features, with short arms of acrocentric chromosomes carrying extremely long telomeres (up to 300 kb) with interspersed ribosomal DNA (rDNA) repeat blocks. In this work, we investigated the telomere physiology of S. granarius fibroblast cells and found that telomere repeats are transcribed on both strands and that there is no telomere-dependent senescence mechanism. Although telomerase activity is detectable throughout cell culture and appears to act on both short and long telomeres, we also discovered that signatures of a recombinogenic activity are omnipresent, including telomere-sister chromatid exchanges, formation of alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT)-associated PML-like bodies, production of telomere circles, and a high frequency of telomeres carrying marks of a DNA damage response. Our results suggest that recombination participates in the maintenance of the very long telomeres in normal S. granarius fibroblasts. We discuss the possible interplay between the interspersed telomere and rDNA repeats in the stabilization of the very long telomeres in this organism.


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Press Release 01/02
FISHING AT SEA CLAIMS MORE THAN 70 LIVES A DAY, FAO SAYS
Rome, 25 January 2001. - With more than 70 fatalities per day, fishing at sea may be the most dangerous occupation in the world, according to a new report released today by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The annual death toll among fishermen, estimated at 24,000 worldwide by the International Labour Organization, may be considerably lower than the true figure because only a limited number of countries keep accurate records on occupational fatalities in their fishing industries, says the report.
More than 97 percent of the 15 million fishers employed in marine capture fisheries worldwide are working on vessels that are less than 24 meters in length, largely beyond the scope of international conventions and guidelines, according to The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2000, which will be presented to FAO's Committee on Fisheries meeting in Rome, 26 February-2 March 2001.
Where inshore resources have been overexploited, fishers have to work farther away from shore, sometimes for extended periods, and frequently in fishing craft designed for inshore fishing or not complying with security regulations, FAO says.
Among the main reasons for the occurence of fatal accidents, the report mentions that an international legal instrument on safety at sea has yet to be ratified. It also cites lack of national regulations or, where they exist, their enforcement, lack of experience of offshore fishing operations and lack of knowledge about essential issues such as navigation, weather forecasting, communications and the vital culture of safety at sea.
"Many of these causes can be rectified and FAO is involved in a number of such activities in the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific," FAO expert Jeremy Turner said.
In developing countries, poorly designed and built fishing craft, lack of safety equipment and inappropriate, outdated and inadequately enforced regulations are the main causes of fatalities. In one night, in November 1996, during a severe cyclone, more than 1,400 fishers perished in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India due to poorly designed trawlers and lack of awareness of the intensity of the danger.
In developed countries, rapid progress in vessel and fishing technologies and the application of more stringent regulations have not always led to a significant decrease in fatalities. "It seems that, as vessels are made safer, operators take greater risks in their ever-increasing search for good catches," the report points out.
For example, in the United States the fatality rate among fishers is 25 to 30 times the national average in other occupations. In Italy, it is more than 21 times the national average, and in Australia it is 143 per 100,000, compared with the national average of 8.1 per 100,000.
In 1981, Norway was one of the first countries to offer safety courses for fishers. They became obligatory in 1989. The other Nordic countries followed, and all of them established safety education when Finland introduced safety courses for fishers in 1999.
The FAO report also tackles the issue of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing that the FAO ministerial meeting on fisheries in March 1999 had pointed out as a major fisheries management issue. It calls for "concerted international cooperation towards greatly reducing or eliminating IUU catches which account, in some important fisheries, for up to 30 percent of the total catches."
Consequences include failure to achieve fisheries management goals and the loss of social and economic opportunities. "In extreme cases, IUU fishing can lead to the collapse of a fishery or seriously affect efforts to rebuild fish stocks that have been depleted," FAO emphasizes.
Reviewing trends in production, utilization and trade, the report underlines that fisheries and aquaculture remain very important as a source of food, employment and revenue in many countries and communities.
"Reported global capture fisheries and aquaculture production contracted from 122 million tonnes in 1997 to 117 million tonnes in 1998. This was mainly owing to the effects of El Niño on some major marine capture fisheries. However, production recovered in 1999, for which the preliminary estimate is 125 million tonnes," the report says.
"During the past decades, per capita fish consumption has expanded globally along with economic growth and well-being. However, growth will not go on forever. There is a limit to how much food - including fish - each individual will consume, and long-term ceilings for consumption will develop. While in OECD countries, the image of fish is changing from the basic food it once was to a culinary speciality, in the developing countries, fish is still very much an essential food contributing an important part of the animal protein in many people's diet," the report also says.
For further information, please contact FAO media relations branch, tel. 0039.06.57053625, or FAO experts Jeremy Turner (tel. 0039.06.57056446) and Ulf Wijkström (tel.: 0039.06.57053156).
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2000 is available on FAO's website: _URL_


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The 95% reliability of TI schemes is demonstrated on the basis of historical hydrology data. However, the history of rainwater run-off and stream-flow does not take into account the impacts of climate change. Reliability of TI schemes is further tested against future climate using methodology developed by Australia's premier research body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) through its Tasmanian Sustainable Yields project. Using the CSIRO's considerable expertise, this project has examined water availability in Tasmania through to 2030 under wet, median and extreme dry scenarios. You can view the information here: CSIRO Tasmanian Sustainable Yields.
TI refers all projects it develops to the Commonwealth Government for assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, regardless of whether we think that the individual project warrants it or not. TI willingly submits its projects for scrutiny for any impacts of scheme hydrology, construction and operation on matters of national environmental significance.
Tasmanian Irrigation also understands that its environmental obligations extend beyond development of schemes to include their enduring impacts once operating. It is a requirement that water from schemes developed by Tasmanian Irrigation may be applied on farm only in accordance with a completed Farm Water Access Plan (Farm WAP). Farm WAPs contain water, soil and biodiversity modules to ensure that the application of water accords with modern sustainability principles. The minimum requirement to access water from a scheme developed by Tasmanian Irrigation is that a Farm WAP is in place to cover the area of land directly affected by the use of scheme water and that the land is managed in accordance with any recommendations or restrictions identified in the Farm WAP. Click here for further information on Farm WAPs


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There are no facts, only interpretations.
- Frederich Nietzsche
When the allegation lacks substance or reality, nothing is required in response.
– Commission of National Inquiry (CoNI)
by Azra Naseem
The idea that an objective truth can exist independent of political power is a myth dating back to Plato. On the contrary, truth and political power are intricately woven together—one cannot exist without the other. Instead of an 'objective truth', what becomes accepted as 'reality' is based on what those in power are willing to include as 'true' and what they exclude as 'false' in what they say and do about a given issue. While such power/truth relations are normally hidden from surface observations and casual scrutiny, the Report of the Commission of National Inquiry, Maldives is a document that blatantly demonstrates how 'truth' is produced in this manner and how the truth so constructed is used to exercise power and control over society.
It is CoNI's conclusion that there was "No coup, no duress, no mutiny" in the Maldives on 7 February 2012. To arrive at this 'truth', the CoNI Report excludes all information it regards as false and includes only what it deems true according to preconceived notions and beliefs. "When the allegation lacks substance or reality", it states, "nothing is required in response." How CoNI decided what 'lacks substance or reality' and, therefore, can be dismissed as not worthy of a response, is not explained. It is an arbitrary measurement, composed and set up by the Commission according to a standard that itself decided on, and which it decided not to make public.
Some statements contained in the report, however, do provide an indication as to the criteria used by CoNI to decide which of the 293 witnesses it interviewed were telling the truth, and which of them were judged as simply repeating 'hearsay' or enthusiastically relaying fantasies of a confused mind susceptible to suggestion.
Take, for example, the following statement:
Just as a question has no evidential value unless the person answering accepts or adopts the fact contained in the question, allegations have no evidential value just because someone has articulated them repeatedly.
What does this confused and confusing statement mean? If a question is being asked in order to establish the facts of an event, why then does the question itself contain a fact that the answer must first accept for it to be considered valid? Is CoNI saying that a decision was made from the very beginning to exclude as invalid all the answers that did not first accept 'the fact'—as stated in CoNI's findings—that 'there was no coup'?
How much evidence was excluded on this basis? Is this the grounds on which the evidence of Nasheed's wife, Laila, for instance, was given no consideration by CoNI? In an investigation of the validity of Nasheed's claim that he resigned under duress, fearful not just of a public bloodbath but also for the safety of himself and his family, would the evidence of his wife not be essential to verifying his explanation?
It is not just Laila's evidence that seems to have no place in CoNI's deliberations. Although one of the appendices to the report provides a list of 49 pieces of documentary evidence submitted by various witnesses, there are only seven such documents it refers to as having 'comprehensively reviewed by the Commission'.
Of these, what it relied on most was its own Timeline, published on 6 June 2012, over two months before it completed its deliberations. [The English translation of the Timeline published on the CoNI website on its official letterhead was copied verbatim—except for an occasional substitution of a word here and there—from Dhivehi Sitee with neither permission nor acknowledgement, or shame for that matter.]
According to the CoNI Report this Timeline, published prior to interviewing some of the most important witnesses to the events of 7 February, was the truest document of them all. There was nothing anybody could say to challenge its version of events, for it contained CoNI's 'truth'.
It must be noted also that despite the many alternative scenarios which have been produced internally and internationally, there has been virtually no challenge of any substance to what was recorded in the Timeline.
Indeed. Not when all evidence that was excluded from the Timeline remained excluded as unworthy of inclusion.
This is an analysis of some of the most blatant exclusions of fact the CoNI Report relied upon to construct a particular 'truth' about the events of 7th February 2012. It is part one in a series of in-depth analyses of the CoNI Report which, if accepted in its current form as 'what really happened' in the Maldives on that day, renders the 2008 Constitution of the Maldives meaningless and creates the conditions in which the illegal overthrow of a government can be deemed legal.
Exclusions that made CoNI's 'truth' possible
The role of the judiciary
Crucial to the events leading to the downfall of the first democratically elected government of the Maldives is its judiciary. In 2010, authoritarian loyalists within the Judicial Service Commission—the independent body set up by the first democratic Constitution of 2008 to monitor judicial independence and ethical/professional standards of judges—conspired successfully to declare parts of the Constitution irrelevant. Article 258 required that by 7 August 2010 all individuals on the bench should possess particular standards of education and moral standing.
Authoritarian loyalists, determined since the beginning of the transition to democracy to prevent its consolidation [as Umar Naseer said], have sought to control the judiciary as part of its plan to derail the democratic project. Dismissing Article 285 as 'symbolic' allowed individuals to sit on the bench who had not only shockingly low levels of education (some are primary school drop-outs) and possessed long criminal records, but are also of disgustingly low moral character.
Given that CoNI regarded Nasheed's decision to arrest Abdulla Mohamed, Chief Judge of the Criminal Court, as the catalyst of the events of 7th February, how objective is a truth that dismisses as irrelevant clear relations between the dismissal of Article 285 as 'symbolic', Abdulla Mohamed, and President Nasheed's decision to forcibly remove him from the bench? This is evidence made available to CoNI in Velezinee's witness statement and in the Nasheed government's Dossier on the Maldivian Judiciary 'considered comprehensively' by CoNI.
When CoNI says Abdulla Mohamed was arrested because he 'made a decision which deeply displeased President Nasheed and the MDP stalwarts', it is providing a version of 'truth' that deliberately excludes the crucial information that Abdulla Mohamed is a criminal who is on the bench by dint of an oath administered to him unconstitutionally through the secret machinations of a group of authoritarian loyalists.
Abdulla Mohamed's moral character is in serious doubt, having reportedly ordered two child witnesses in a sexual offence case to re-enact the alleged abuse, in open court and in front of the accused (See complaint filed against Abdulla Mohamed by Dr Hassan Saeed, currently Special Advisor to the president). Abdulla Mohamed also freed a murder suspect to 'teach the Health Minister a lesson' (See also The Failed Silent Coup, Aishath Velezinee, p.86).
Within three hours, the freed prisoner had killed again. When the Judicial Service Commission found him guilty of political partisanship and thus of judicial misconduct, the Civil Court overruled JSC, the oversight body appointed by the Constitution to keep the courts in check. The Majlis, the only remaining power with the authority to supervise the Judicial Service Commission, failed to do so.
Anybody considering 'the objective truth' about President Nasheed's decision to arrest Judge Abdulla Mohamed must necessarily consider the context in which it occurred. CoNI did the opposite. Its Report takes Abdulla Mohamed's arrest as entirely separate from all facts surrounding it bar those relating to actions taken by the President. To do so, it falsely claims that all evidence submitted to CoNI 'about the unconditional behaviour of Judge Abdulla' were submitted only by 'MDP members', then dismisses it all as beyond the Commission's mandate and thus irrelevant.
It is the exclusion of evidence against Abdulla Mohamed—which explained Nasheed's decision to arrest the man—that allows CoNI to offer as 'the objective truth' Abdulla Mohamed's detention as the actions of a man willing to hold the country's Constitution as ransom for his personal pleasure. All action that followed could thus be explained as 'reactions' to this unreasonable and 'unlawful' act.
Islamists' incitement of hatred
It was not only the role of the judiciary in the events leading to 7 February 2012 that CoNI excluded from its deliberations. The vital role, led by Sheikh Imran Abdulla, that Islamists played in inciting public hatred against President Nasheed, indispensable for facilitating the day's events unfold in the manner it did, is also missing from the 'objective truth' CoNI presents.
This is information necessary for understanding why military officers were marching on the streets of Male', beating their chests in unison and shouting 'God is Great!' in defiance of their Commander in Chief. The Islamists' (and leading opposition politicians') labelling of Nasheed as a heretic, and their call to an imagined Maldivian Ummah to rise up in Jihad against him is well documented in the media. Much of it was, in fact, telecast live on VTV, DhiTV and, later, on the illegally seized and renamed state-broadcaster 'TVM'.
All of this is either glanced


text: This is a beginner sheet to learn how to make simple sentences about the nationality and where somebody is from. The first sentences are complete. Then, more and more words are missing until they are capable of making the complete sentences by themselves. Ultimately, they have to choose a famous person from their country and make the sentences again. In the third column, there are flags. This is a nice way to review colours! Most characters are famous football players.


Archiver > GERMAN-JEWISH > 2002-08 > _PHONE_
From: <>
Subject: [GERMAN-JEWISH] Possibly a Jewish background?
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 15:39:04 -0000
I am searching this out as a possible connection. Not certain however of much of anything other than this guys name.
Ignatz Johann Von Neuhaus was born in early 1800s in Prussia (Westfalia?)
He came to the United States in the mid-1800s and taught German in New York City for a bit. Rumored to be skipping out on a military draft
in Prussia.
The reason I am wondering about a possible Jewish connection-- my great aunt has had people ask her if she is Jewish when they heard her
maiden name (Neuhaus).
Another possible clue is that Ignatius John Neuhaus (Americanized version of the above name) is rumored to have been born out of wedlock
but yet is educated enough to be a teacher.
It's pretty difficult to discern a family history, especially when the child is born out of wedlock. (Just wasn't discussed you know.) I am
looking for any information of families around then as well as patterns in naming children born out of wedlock, etc.
Any help is appreciated,
Joshua Meredith
This thread:


text:
Benefits of Expanded Feed
Many scientific studies show that expander technology is an essential addition to a modern pelleting machine, as a useful tool to fulfill a wide range of customer needs in order to provide a different feed for every animal's life stage.
In addition to traditional foods and pellets, breeders require cooked foods, expanded pellet and mono-components, processed to be used in TMR feed.
With regard to nutritional values and digestibility, the expander technology has achieved interesting results, in particular through its use in the fields of dairy cattle's high-energy nutrition, broiler bran and pig feed.
Feed mixtures for piglets, feeding pigs, broiler and laying hens can be manufactured with the expander, with the following benefits:
- Pellet quality improved and higher pellet mill output.
- More liquids (fat or oil) can be included in high percentages (e.g. 15% fat, 15% molasses), without losing the pellet quality.
- Low percentage of fines.
- Increased digestibility thanks to the starches' hydrolyzation.
- Hygienic treatment: destruction of harmful germs.
- Fewer risks of mortality and diseases.
- Less down-times.
- Increased flexibility of production.
- Reduced production costs of granulated feed.
- Major durability before the consumption.
Added benefits for poultry:
- No problem of force feeding during summer periods. During winter periods, dosages can be increased obtaining excellent results.
- Less feed consumption because the feed is softer and lighter.
Added benefits for layers:
- Less feed consumption because the feed is softer and lighter with equal eggs laying.
- Elimination of salmonellae bacteria in the eggs.
Added benefits for small feeding piglets:
- Expanded feed with very small granulometry is the most suitable for small feeding pigs.
- Depending on its formula, the structure of the expanded material is shaped like dough, thick flakes or crumbles.


text:
Base data serves many needs in humanitarian response. Often responding organizations are scrambling to gather data because it is not readily available. The focus of HOT's work in Indonesia has been data preparedness and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The original pilot of this project was declared successful and it has now moved into its second year.
In order to minimize the growing rate of exposure and rising vulnerability, governments need to first identify where and who is exposed to disaster risks. AIFDR has developed an open source risk modeling software, InaSAFE, that performs these calculations. The ¨Indonesia Scenario Assessment for Emergencies¨ (InaSAFE) is free software that produces realistic natural hazard impact scenarios for better planning, preparedness and response activities. In order to use this software sufficient base data, such as critical infrastructure, is necessary. HOT focuses on teaching how to collect and map this data.
Phase II (July 2012- March 2013)
Through a partnership with AIFDR, GFDRR, ACCESS and BNPB, HOT has concentrated on enabling communities and governments to collect exposure information, which in turn feeds into the impact modeling software. This data collection has occurred through two methods: building a team of OpenStreetMap experts in Indonesia and teaching workshops in vulnerable areas to collect better data. Since August 2012, HOT's developing expert team has taught various OSM tools and techniques in six disaster prone provinces (East Java, West Java, West Sumatra, South Sulawesi, NTT, West Papua). HOT is also continuing the work that was started last year with ACCESS. For these workshops, HOT has created beginning, intermediate and advanced guides, which are all translated into Bahasa Indonesian, and will be found at learnosm.org in the future months.
HOT is helping to build the OpenStreetMap community in Indonesia. The team has created a website, _URL_, for which people can gather resources, read about what the OSM community is up to, and contact trainers for further support.
Phase I: Pilot Year
Last year, HOT focused on urban mapping through workshops and a mapping competition (KompetisiOSM). A few students from the five universities that competed joined the HOT training team. The focus of the competition was to map roads and individual buildings in Padung, Jakarta, Surabya, Yogjakarta, and Bandung. A student from each university that mapped the most received a scholarship to State of Map 2011 in Denver, CO, USA.
Rural areas were also mapped with ACCESS, which is an AusAID poverty reduction project to help with community strengthening and resilience. Over the course of a month, HOT had seven workshops with eight ACCESS sub-districts and other PNPM facilitators (National Government poverty reduction program).
Through this multi-faceted approach of workshops, contests and translation with our partners HOT hopes to answer the question, "Can OpenStreetMap be used to collect exposure data?" Time will tell as communities, translated documents and tools get up to speed. So far though, the answer appears to be yes.


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The sudden rise in the number of unexpected mental health patient deaths has sparked a wide-ranging investigation of NHS services. It was found that the number of patients committing or attempting suicide has also risen by 26%. These numbers cover both those being treating for serious mental health problems in hospital and those being cared for at home.
Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Lamb obtained the figures that show the number of "serious incidents" which involve unexpected or avoidable death, serious harm or injury, have increased by 34% (reaching a total of 8,139 a year). These serious incidents have become so common that the North East London foundation trust had a total of 633 in 2015 – that is almost two per day.
Lamb compared these findings to the Mid Staffordshire scandal, where over four years, hundreds of patients died due to poor care.
"The numbers of unexpected deaths at the Mid Staffs NHS trust caused an outcry and these figures should cause the same."
"NHS England and the government should set up an investigation into the causes of these deaths as these figures involve tragedies for families around the country and the human impact is intense."
Lamb claimed that the underfunding of the "sometimes threadbare" mental health services that are struggling to cope with the rising demand is to blame.
Chief executive of the charity Mind and chair of the NHS England's mental health taskforce, Paul Farmer explains how concerning these figures are.
"We know that suicides among people in touch with crisis resolution and home treatment, which are there to support people in crisis to stay in their homes for care rather than be a hospital patient, have significantly risen."
He continued to explain how many of these care teams have been "starved of funding", or in some cases been disbanded altogether. This has resulted in the teams losing their specialist function at a time of rising demand. Farmer urges that every unexpected death be investigated so that we can learn how to prevent any future loss of life.
Recent years have seen the number of people with mental health problems dramatically increased in the UK. The NHS services are simply unable to cope with the volume. The number of people contacting mental health services over the past 10 years has increased by over 40% and the numbers of prescribed antidepressants have risen by over 100%.
However, the government have been accused of cutting millions from the funding for mental health services. Many long-term patients describe long waiting times, lack of professionals and an overreliance on prescription medicines. According to the Guardian, the number of nurses specialised in mental health has fallen by over 10% since 2011.
After declining to comment directly on Lamb's figures, a spokeswoman for the NHS said, "The reporting of incidents is intentionally up across the whole of the NHS, including mental health, as part of our national effort to encourage a culture of learning."


Start a new topic
I then exported the gerbers using units "Inch", and the "Decimal Digits" of "1". Now when I reload the gerbers they look wrong. What happened?
If you selected to export the Gerbers with a "Decimal Digit" of "1". This means that the accuracy of your gerber files is only to 1 decimal place (i.e 1/10th inch), and your gerber files coordinates will be rounded down.
For example, if a coordinate in your gerber file was meant to be 2.24 inches, it would be rounded to 1 decimal place of accuracy, resulting in 2.2 inch.
Note: This is typically the case when you view your resulting gerbers in a "gerber viewer" and see many weird geometries.
Solution: Simply export your gerbers with at least 4 "decimal digits" and you should be fine.
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text:
What does 2HLANN stand for?
2HLANN stands for Two Hidden Layers Artificial Neural Network
This definition appears rarely and is found in the following Acronym Finder categories:
- Information technology (IT) and computers
- Science, medicine, engineering, etc.
- Second Generation Language
- Second Generation Non Turbo
- Second Generation (Video) Surveillance System
- Draw Raffle
- Second Half (of the year)
- Two-handed sword (World of Warcraft gaming)
- Double Sided, High Density Disk
- Second Harmonic Distortion
- 2-Hydroxy Ethyl Methacrylate
- Second Harvest Japan


text:
Author: Chitta Ranjan, Ph.D., Director of Science, ProcessMiner, Inc.
Industry: Chemicals, Pulp & Paper
The goal of this project was to autonomously control part of a tissue mill's continuous manufacturing process using artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to reduce raw material consumption while maintaining the product quality with specification limit.
Predictive analytics uses a manufacturing machine's historical data to predict process outcomes. Through machine learning and artificial intelligence, these models continue to learn, adapt and evolve, providing the user with accurate information that can drive better decisions.
It is difficult to learn a multitude of relationships in a complex manufacturing environment. Typically, an operator uses his or her past experiences in determining how to regulate the dosage of a raw material with:
- preferred minimum raw material consumed, while
- keeping the product quality within range
The challenge, therein, lies with the operator's ability to act quickly with the dynamically changing manufacturing processes, and deliver continuous process improvement with autonomous chemistry control.
This is where the ProcessMiner AutoPilot real-time predictive system comes in and solves the problem, making recommendations and prescribing solutions. In doing this, it minimizes raw materials and reduces costs while maintaining both speed and product quality.
ProcessMiner's AI platform is a cloud-based system that utilizes information, including:
- Physical tissue/papermaker property measurements
- Tissue/papermaking process knowledge
- System 'meta-data' to mathematically model the tissue/papermaker system
The information generated by this continuously-learning model is then used to accurately predict key performance indicators (KPI) of the tissue/paper machine, and therefore, provide actionable insights.
The Solenis OPTIX ProcessMiner AutoPilot platform is designed to be an adaptive and evolving artificial intelligence system, allowing it to automatically and simultaneously learn these relationships. The adaptive analytics system accurately learns complex variable relationships in pulp and paper manufacturing processes and yields a digital measure of product quality.
For example: every time the system hits a new data point, it runs an orchestration (sequence of steps) series of processes, and in turn, updates the AI platform to adapt and evolve, always morphing to holistically make recommendations in real-time.
During the onboarding process, the ProcessMiner system loads up to one year of historical data, uses that past data to immediately initialize and train its artificial system so it is ready to go as soon as it is launched.
About the ProcessMiner AutoPilot adaptive and evolving model: Tissue/Paper manufacturing is a complex, continuous process that slowly and sometimes abruptly changes over time.
Example: When conditions in the complex tissue/paper manufacturing processes change over time due to parameter control variations (e.g. changes in raw materials or machine speed) it's difficult to predict the quality of the produced product ahead of lab tests and often leads to machine operators making reactive control adjustments.
- These scenarios lead to two considerations, namely the predictive model needs to be updated frequently and historical data quickly becomes obsolete
- Thus, a continuously-evolving and adaptive model is required
- The ProcessMiner AutoPilot predictive model evolves over time as more data is collected
- With new data streaming, the old data slowly loses its relevance
- The prediction system is built such that it automatically uses the knowledge gathered from the old data and combines it with the new data to construct an evolved (a relearned and more accurate) model
Additionally, the prediction system self-adapts to a process change. For the model adaptation, we perform the best prediction model selection, and its retuning, periodically and on-demand.
- The periodic runs are to ensure nothing is missed by the triggers
- The on-demand is triggered automatically whenever a process shift is detected
- Data with measurement errors are identified in real-time using F-tests and are isolated from the training data
- Both of the above features are computationally intensive
- To deploy them in real-time, we parallelized the processes through multiple processing units
- The parallel processing enables the delivery of accurate predictions in real-time every 30 seconds.
The charts throughout this case study show the outcome of a predictive model that uses an off-the-shelf approach without considering the unique characteristics of the tissue/papermaking process compared with a model using a tailor-made, advanced approach such as the one discussed previously. The oversimplified model depicted on the left does not mirror the true process, while that on the right considers the complexity of the tissue/papermaking process and clearly delivers predictions that are more accurate.
- A predictive model using poor prediction techniques that oversimplify the process (left)
- A predictive model with the same data utilizing advanced techniques capable of handling paper machine process data (right)
Predictive Model Accuracy: An accurate model provides predictions close to the actual value most of the time. The absolute value of the prediction, minus the test value, should be close to zero. Prediction accuracy must also be measured in real-time to instill confidence in users acting on the predictions. One method to evaluate prediction accuracy in real-time is to use a control chart to monitor the difference between actual and predicted values.
What makes the platform unique?
- Predictive soft sensor
- Machine learning
- Application expertise
- Model diagnostics
- Insight to influential process variables
The results are a manufacturing game-changer. Autonomous manufacturing using AI with machine learning allows for improved product quality, optimized use of raw materials with reduced water and energy consumption.
Using a closed-loop controller in conjunction with quality parameter predictions, the mill was able to control its strength chemistry autonomously to ensure optimal chemical feed and adhere to target parameters.
As a result of the artificial intelligence platform, the tissue mill achieved unprecedented autonomous chemistry, allowing for:
- Besides Wet Strength, Also Reduced Dry Strength Chemistry by 25%
- Grade ~30% Wet Strength Chemistry


text:
16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence
School-based programmes and violence prevention
Fact 12: School-based programmes to prevent dating violence can prevent violence against women.
Safe Dates is a school and community initiative that targets 13-15 year-old girls and boys in the United States of America. The programme addresses gender norms and equality early in life, before stereotypes develop. It includes a 10-session educational curriculum, training for providers of support services, and a theatre production. An evaluation found that participants reported less psychological abuse and sexual and physical violence against their current dating partner one month after the programme ended and four years later.


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The new BONElike Skulls are made of a new material that allows an absolutely natural reproduction of even finest anatomical structures of the human skull for the first time. Bones made of 3B BONElike look real, have an absolutely natural feel and almost exactly the weight of a natural bone. By combining one transparent and one bony skull half this is the first model to allow teachers, especially those of human anatomy, a topographical juxtaposition of the structures that cannot be seen in other skull versions.
The right, transparent skull half allows the study of important anatomical details, such as the location of the paranasal sinuses. Therefore, in combination with the left, bony skull half, a direct transfer of the otherwise invisible structures becomes easy and uncomplicated. The transparency of the jaw in this skull allows an exceptional view onto the periodontal pockets and roots. The teeth from the skull are removable for detailed studies. In addition, the external masticator muscles (masseter and temporal muscles) are represented on the bony skull half. To demonstrate masticator movement, the lower jaw in the skull is mounted flexibly. These features also make the skull especially valuable for dentists.
The skull can be disassembled into both halves of the skullcap and base of skull, the nasal septum, the complete mandible and both masticator muscles. This replica is a valuable addition to any study of the human anatomy.


Milk Powder
Australian manufacturers produce a range of milk powders, including skim milk powder (SMP) and whole milk powder (WMP).
SMP is very much the more dominant milk powder produced in Australia, accounting for close to 80% of milk powder production in 2019–20.
In recent years, dairy companies have had access to a smaller national milk pool and a wider variety of markets. As a result, companies have been more flexible with their product mixes to take advantage of relative movements in international commodity prices.
Differing market access arrangements also impact the competitiveness of product pricing. For example, local producers will be at a competitive disadvantage where Australia may not have negotiated a Free Trade Agreement, but a competitive supplier country has done so. This impacts local production mixes because the bulk of Australia's milk powders is exported overseas.
Australian production of milk powders (tonnes)
*Includes infant powder
Source: Dairy manufacturers
Only a small portion of Australia's powder production is sold domestically, with local usage mainly as an ingredient in food manufacturing.
Infant formula is a high-value product that has shown considerable growth in the past five years. Infant formula growth is generated through Australian supermarket sales (partly due to the demand from informal re-export trades, such as the Diagou-trade), as well as through direct exports.
Australia also imported about 101 million tonnes of milk powders in 2019–20. Imports of milk powders have increased over the past few years, and rose strongly, up around 30%, this year. Most of the imported milk powder is sourced from New Zealand.
The major export markets for Australian milk powders are concentrated in Asia, where 90% of SMP and WMP exports were destined in 2019–20.
Exported milk powder is often recombined into liquid milk products, particularly in tropical climates where fresh milk supplies are not readily available. It is also used in bakery products to improve the volume and binding capacity of bread and ensure crisper pastry and biscuits.
Other products Australian milk powder is used in include confectionery and milk chocolates, processed meats, ready-to-cook meals, baby foods, ice cream, yoghurt, health foods and reduced fat milks.
Industrial grade powder is used for stockfeed.


text:
In an effort to control one alien invader, the Brits now want to import another.
British scientists propose importing millions of Japanese sap-sucking psyllids to take down the island's epidemic spread of Japanese knotweed, a highly opportunistic alien invader that tolerates a wide range of soils and extreme cold (-30 degrees Fahrenheit), and survives via roots that run 23 feet wide and almost 10 feet deep.
It's a first for our cousins across the Pond – importing aliens to control an alien invasion – and you'd think they would know better after having witnessed, albeit secondhand, some of our more spectacular failures, like gypsy moths and Asian lady beetles.
The gypsy moth, first introduced to the continental U.S. as a strikebreaker for the slower and more finicky silkworm, has since proven it's a glutton too lazy to make silk but perfectly willing to eat any green thing in sight.
The giant Asian ladybug, identifiable by its fewer spots and habit of coming inside in winter, was introduced in California in 1916. This species did as hoped, eating every aphid in sight. Unfortunately, this left the smaller, American lady bug on a permanent diet – a situation that currently threatens their continued existence.
The Oriental psyllids, also known as jumping plant lice, are sap-sucking insects who naturally control knotweed in Japan, where aeons of symbiotic development makes the latter the natural food of the former.
Their importation to the British Isles dismisses the ecological importance of this sort of symbiotic evolution, demonstrating yet again that science may have its eye on the ball while remaining completely ignorant of the net. This sort of end-goal blindness often leads to an ecosystem's collapse, since native plants and insects didn't 'grow up' developing any natural defenses against the invader.
This is the argument of British environmentalists, who foresee the dangers to Britain's long-established and delicately balanced ecosphere. Unfortunately, the ravages of Japanese knotweed (which proliferates in the UK's balmy climate and can grow to over 10 feet) push solutions before common sense. Agronomists estimate knotweed eradication will cost more than $2.7 billion dollars if herbicides have to be used. This doesn't even take into account the environmental dangers and costs of herbicide remediation after the knotweed is banished.
British scientists counter that they have tested the oriental psyllids on nearly 100 crops and plants without observing any ill effects. The flaw in this logic is time. The testing covers less than a decade, and none of the scientists will be around to witness the adverse effects in 100 years, making this sort of heuristic problem-solving similar to the development of the atomic bomb.
Apparently these same scientists have also forgotten the 1930s cane toad fiasco, when Australia introduced the omnivorous amphibian to get rid of the cane beetle. These toads turned out to be better at breeding than eating beetles, and there are currently 200 million in northeast Australia, or 50 for every individual Queenslander. They not only complete with native species for food, but are poisonous when eaten, wiping out a lot of animals above them on the food chain.
How did the plant get introduced? Some gardener or horticulturalist reportedly brought a specimen of Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) back to Britain about 1850, no doubt admiring its foliage and hardiness. The plant is capable of growing spectacularly, even in 'waste' ground, colonizing such unappealing scenery as abandoned parking lots, as it can grow through and break up solid concrete, or even damage buildings.
Its relentless spread can be attributed either to its hardiness or perhaps to the fact that knotweed is a commercial source of resveratrol supplements. Resveratrol, also found in red wine, is currently being promoted as the modern Fountain of Youth, and growers no doubt see it as the next really big cash crop.
I wish our neighbors across the Pond good luck with the project, but history has already proven time and again that introducing one alien species to eradicate or replace another has more negative benefits than positive ones, and leads to a chain of 'fixes' that never quite restore ecologies to their original balance.
I don't want to accuse British horticulturalists of insanity (which Einstein defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results), since this will be their first try, but I do think their optimism is unwarranted.


text:
A matrix is the most important part of engineering mathematics which is applied in our daily life. Matrices find many applications in scientific field as well as in real life situation. Matrix is applied in the study of electrical circuits, quantum mechanics, optics, calculation of battery power outputs, resistor conversion of electrical energy into another useful energy.
Matrices also play a vital role in the projection of three dimensional images into two dimensional screens. Now a days matrix is used in the ranking of web pages in Google search. It can also be used in generalization of analytical motion like experimental & derivatives to their high dimensional. The most important usage of matrices in computer application is to encode, decode and send secret messages. Matrices are also used in geology for seismic survey, plotting graphs and robotics. In chemical engineering, problems are represented in terms of linear equation and solved by matrix method. Thus, matrices play a vital role in engineering science and are useful in solving scientific and real life problems.


text:
Principles of Surface Temperature Measurement
Dr. Bruce Bugbee, president of Apogee Instruments, talks in-depth about the use of research-grade infrared radiometers for conducting high-accuracy, non-contact, surface temperature measurement. In certain applications, using a high-accuracy infrared radiometers is critical for making measurements that are meaningful. In particular, Apogee Instruments IR sensors have been used all over the world for hydrology studies, road-surface monitoring,
Reviews have been disabled for Principles of Surface Temperature Measurement.


text:
The high vibration levels inside a tire have the potential to generate electrical power using vibration based energy harvesting techniques. In this paper, the feasibility of using an inertial vibrating energy harvester unit to power a sensor module inside the tire is assessed. The harvester unit is adapted to the tire vibration spectra and the superimposed acceleration signal. First prototypes demonstrate power generation capabilities sufficient enough to transmit tire sensor data multiple times per minute. To optimize the harvester performance with changing dominant tire vibration frequencies, a novel artificial neural network (ANN) based closed loop system capable of ensuring broad band operations has been proposed. By presenting a batteryless power supply unit, the proposed system addresses one of the key challenges in the realization of the intelligent tire concept.
|Original language||English (US)|
|Number of pages||19|
|State||Published - Oct 2012|
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Mechanical Engineering
- Computer Science Applications
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering


text:
Background: Living kidney donors have donation-related out-of-pocket costs (direct costs) and/or ongoing daily expenses while losing income (indirect costs). Yet there is little information about how much of a subjective burden these constitute for the donors.
Methods: From December 2003 through December 2014, we surveyed donors 6 months postdonation to determine their financial burden related to donation (on a scale of 1 to 10) and what resources were used to cover expenses.
Results: Of 1136 surveyed, 796 (70%) responded. Among respondents, mean age at donation was 43.6 ± 10.6 years, 64% were women, 96% were white, and 53% were related by blood to their recipient. Overall, 26% scored their financial burden as 5 or higher; 8% scored it as 8 or higher. Increased expenses were associated with a higher reported burden; however, significant burden was reported by some with no out-of-pocket expenses (presumably due to lost wages and continuing expenses). The burden was scored as 5 or higher by 27% of those employed outside the home (n = 660), 15% homemakers, 13% retirees, 40% students; 28% unemployed; and 26% whose occupation was unknown. Over half (51%) of those receiving a local or (means-tested) national grant still reported moderate to severe burden. Besides grants, donors used a variety of sources to help offset expenses: dipped into savings, borrowed from friends or family, took out a loan, and/or had a fundraiser. Those with the highest burden reported using the most additional sources.
Conclusions: Donors should not have to incur costs or a financial burden to donate; the transplant community should strive to make donation financially neutral.


The All-Weather Radar That Keeps Your Plane from Landing on Luggage Trolleys
The ASDE-3/AMASS radar system that spotted an errant Jeep on Philadelphia International's runways has one fatal flaw—it thinks raindrops are incoming jets and goes nuts during downpours. The ASDE Model X, however, monitors runways rain or shine.
Airport Surface Detection Equipment (ASDE) and its add-on, the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) are designed to provide automated audio and visual alerts if it detects a potential runway collision when a plane is landing or taking off. In service since 2001—when it was installed at San Francisco International—it does so by predicting the movements of aircraft in relation to ground vehicles. However, the ASDE/AMASS system has to be shut off during storms because it mistakes raindrops for airplanes. This system was offline in 2005 when a passenger jet and cargo plane nearly collided at JFK, during a nighttime storm.
The ASDE-X system, however, is not affected by precipitation. The Model X employs a huge variety of data including surface movement radar, multilateration sensors, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast sensors, terminal radar, the terminal's own automation system, and transponders affixed to aircraft and service vehicles. The system takes all this data, mashes it together and outputs it to a real-time, color-coded map of the airports runways and taxiways. It keeps tabs on everything moving on the tarmac as well as all aircraft within 5 miles (and in some cases up to 60) of the airport.
The first Model X was installed in 2003 at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since then it has been installed in 35 of the nation's busiest transportation hubs including Chicago's O'Hare, Dallas-Ft Worth, JFK International, John Wayne Airport, Dulles International, Sky Harbor in Phoenix. And, since it is built from mostly off-the shelf components, the ASDE-X offers significant cost savings over the ASDE-3/AMASS system. [AMASS Wiki - ASDE-X Wiki - FAA 1 - FAA 2 - FAA 3 - NATCA]


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ATTENDANCE AT AND PARTICIPATION IN SPORTING ACTIVITIES
Attending sporting events has social benefits, by providing a forum for interaction and helping to forge bonds and networks associated with supporting local or national teams. The General Social Survey, 2006, reported that 31% of people with profound or severe disability had attended a sporting event in the previous 12 months, compared to 58% of people without disability (see Graph 10).
In terms of disability group, people with intellectual or physical disability reported a lower attendance at sporting events (31% and 41% respectively), compared to people who didn't have a disability (58%).
People experiencing profound or severe disability had lower attendance rates at all ages and attendance decreased with age (see Graph 10).
People with profound or severe disability were significantly less likely to report attending a sporting event than a person without a disability, with the greatest differences in attendance occurring in Western Australia and the ACT (see Graph 11).
People with profound or severe disability were less likely to report having participated in a sporting activity in the previous 12 months than people with no disability (38% compared to 68%). There was no difference in the participation rate between the sexes, with 38% of females and 39% of males with profound or severe disability having participated in a sporting event. Of the population without disability, 67% of females and 69% of males reported participating in sport in the previous 12 months.
In terms of particular disability types, 42% of people with an intellectual disability participated in a sporting activity, compared to 53% of people with a sensory disability and 68% of people without a disability. Participation rates for people with profound or severe disability were lower at all ages. In terms of age, the gap between participation rates of people with a disability and people without exceeded 20 percentage points from the mid-20s to the mid-80s (see Graph 12).
Participation rates in sporting events for people with profound or severe disability ranged from a low of 26% in South Australia to a high of 45% in the ACT. For the population without disability, participation ranged from 63% in South Australia to 79% in the ACT.
This page last updated 21 June 2011


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Principal Proposed Uses
- Chronic Respiratory Diseases
- Poor Digestion
The Latin name of elecampane comes from Helen of Troy, who was supposed to have carried elecampane with her while being abducted from Sparta. Revered by the ancient Greeks and Romans, this herb was recommended for treating such diverse problems as indigestion, melancholy, sciatica, bronchitis, and asthma.
What Is Elecampane Used for Today?
Some modern herbalists regard elecampane as a long-term treatment for respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, especially when excessive mucus is a notable feature. However, there is no real evidence that it is effective for this purpose.
Elecampane is also sometimes recommended as a daily supplement to improve general digestion.
A typical dosage of elecampane root is 1.5 to 4 g 3 times daily, either in capsule form or boiled in water as tea.
The only reported adverse effects of elecampane are occasional allergic reactions. However, safety in young children, pregnant or nursing women, or those with severe liver or kidney disease has not been established.
- Reviewer: EBSCO CAM Review Board
- Review Date: 07/2012 -
- Update Date: 07/25/2012 -


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The ecological effect of artificial lighting in the countryside is a topic of increasing concern.
Recent estimates have shown a 24% increase in light pollution in the UK between 1993 and 2000 (CPRE 2003).
Lighting schemes can damage bat foraging habitat directly through loss of land and fragmentation, or
indirectly by severing commuting routes from roosts, polluting watercourses, and water-bodies (Racey 2006).
As yet there are no established protocols defining when surveys and mitigation are required for schemes proposing
lighting enhancements (Fure 2006).
Despite the increase in light pollution,few studies have investigated the impact of artificial lighting on the
foraging and commuting behaviour of bats along linear features.
The bats and lighting project focuses on the
small and threatened lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) but
also investigates the effect of lighting on other more widely distributed species such as the common pipistrelle


Say it with feeling!
Or, "More than words"
In this blog post, I will attempt to share some of my current thoughts and related ideas on "Non-verbal communication".
"We have enough food to last for a week"
A straightforward phrase stating a simple fact. But…how does it make you feel?
If you're trapped in a cave, then that fact might make you feel fearful. But, if you're grocery shopping, then that fact might make you feel confident.
Depending on the situation, "having enough food to last for a week" could be good or bad and it might make you feel different emotions.
But, how can you effectively communicate both facts and feelings to others?
In some of my talks and training, I play a game that I call "Say it with feeling!" The game uses a custom deck of cards where each card presents a singular emotion – Anger, Arrogance, Boredom, Confidence, Disgust, Doubt, Fear, Happiness, Reservation, Sadness, Shame, and Surprise – and each emotion is represented by 3 synonyms and 3 images. The object of the game is to try and get others to correctly guess an emotion, and the rules of the game are simple:
 1. A volunteer selects a random card from the deck.
 2. The volunteer then says the phrase "We have enough food to last for a week", verbatim. But, they may use body language, hand gestures, facial expressions, changes to voice tone, pitch, volume, and more to express the emotion represented on the selected card.
 3. The rest of the group must try to guess the emotion being expressed.
An Emotional Deck
The game is fun, but also has interesting outcomes that can be analyzed to learn many lessons.
Sometimes, the group guesses the correct emotion. Great!
But sometimes, the group guesses a similar emotion. For example, the volunteer might be trying to express "Arrogance, Conceit, and Smugness" and the group guesses "Pride". Ok.
But often, the group guesses an incorrect emotion. For example, the volunteer might be trying to express "Surprise, Shock, and Amazement" but the group guesses "Anger". Uh oh!
Whether the emotion was correctly, approximately, or incorrectly guessed, it is always interesting to discuss why. What exactly did the volunteer do to express that particular emotion? And, what exactly did the group see and hear, and how did they interpret it?
It is enlightening to discuss how the volunteer sufficiently/insufficiently expressed the emotion, and how the group correctly/approximately/incorrectly recognized and interpreted the emotion.
For effective communication, it is important to consider both "what is said" and "how it is said". If not, there might be miscommunication that leads to trivial or dire consequences.
Consider what might happen if someone is trying to express "confidence" but it is interpreted as "arrogance"? Or if someone is "shy" but is seen as "bored"?
When communicating, ask yourself: "Do the nonverbal cues and clues reinforce or contradict the message?" If the latter, there might be a problem.
In My Experience, more awareness and understanding of non-verbal communication and its importance has helped me more effectively communicate with others.
I examine and explore "Non-verbal communication" in my talks, "CommuTication" and "The Hidden Requirements".


[977] Overall Survival after Radical Cystectomy for Bladder Cancer Using the New AJCC Pathologic Classification for Prostatic Stromal Invasion
Amit R Patel, Michael C Large, Sandip Prasad, Joshua A Cohn, Antic Tatjana, Jerome B Taxy, Norm D Smith, Gary D Steinberg, Gladell P Paner. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Background: In 2010, the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) reclassified primary staging for bladder cancer to include prostatic stromal invasion directly from bladder cancer and exclude subepithelial invasion of the prostatic urethra as pT4 staging status. We sought to determine whether the changes were reflective of overall survival between pT4 disease and the newly classified pT2 prostatic stromal invasion.
Design: We retrospectively extracted patients in our institutional cystectomy database with pT4 disease. Additionally, we queried the pathology database for all cystectomy specimens with prostatic urethral involvement. We systematically reclassified patients according to the new AJCC staging guidelines and divided the cohort into 2 groups: pT4 (n=56) and reclassified pT2 (n=21). Our primary endpoint was overall survival. We examined demographic factors and pathologic factors for each group.
Results: The two groups did not differ with respect to age, race, Charlson comorbidity index, or tumor size. However, the reclassified pT2 group compared to the pT4 group had a lower rate of lymph node involvement (15% vs 55%, p =0.002) and any positive margins (30% vs 62%, p=0.008). Median overall survival for reclassified pT2 versus pT4 was 18 months versus 8.6 months, p=0.026.
Conclusions: The new AJCC staging for urothelial carcinoma prostatic stromal invasion corresponds to a difference in pathologic outcomes as well as in overall survival for our population. Our results support continued use of the new AJCC staging system for bladder cancer.
Category: Genitourinary (including renal tumors)
Monday, March 19, 2012 1:00 PM
Platform Session: Section A, Monday Afternoon
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Q. What's the difference between desktop and laptop processors?
Although desktop and laptop processors are designed for their respective devices, compact desktop PCs and AIO (All-In-One) PCs often use laptop processors, and some large desktop replacement laptops use desktop processors. The biggest difference between the two is that laptop processors have much less power to work with and as a result run slower, but they support more mobile features. For example, the Intel Core i7-2760QM laptop processor and the Intel Core i7-2600K desktop processor are both quad-core chips, but the former has a 2.4GHz clock speed compared to the latter's 3.4GHz core clock. The laptop variant also operates with a 45-watt TDP (thermal design power; the maximum amount of power the device will need to be able to support the processor). The desktop variant has a 95-watt TDP.
... laptop processors have much less power to work with and as a result run slower, but they support more mobile features.
Q. What features do laptop processors have that desktop processors don't?
In the case of the desktop and laptop processors we contrasted above, the laptop variant supports Intel's (WiDi) Wireless Display technology, which lets you wirelessly transmit photos, videos, and Web to your TV for viewing (requires Intel WiDi TV adapter). Some other technologies exclusive to mobile processors include anti-theft features that enable you to remotely disable your notebook if it is stolen and support for 4G WiMAX, which lets your laptop connect to a citywide wireless network for Web access. Laptop processors also tend to have much more aggressive power-saving technologies.
QWhat can desktop processors do that laptop processors can't?
Because they have much higher thermal tolerances, desktop processors can support higher clock speeds and more discrete cores. Sixand even eight-core processors are available on desktops, whereas quad-core processors are still the peak in laptop performance. Desktop processors are also much more tolerant of overclocking, or raising the core clock of the processor so that it crunches numbers that much faster. That said, overclocking a processor entails completely disregarding the rated TDP, so extra attention must be paid to keeping the processor cool.
Q.Desktop and laptop processors both have integrated graphics, right?
True, graphics processors have begun appearing in processors in recent years. Laptops in particular benefit from this configuration because separate graphics chips of older laptops require dedicated cooling and power, which adds to the battery burden and tends to contribute to the laptop's overall bulk. Ultrabooks, the new wave of super-thin and portable laptops, can still be used for light gaming thanks to graphics integrated into the processor. Desktop processors with integrated graphics processors can also run without discrete graphics cards or chips on the motherboard.
One of the biggest advantages for desktops, at least with regard to Intel's latest desktop processors, is their support for Quick Sync, which harnesses the power of the processor's integrated graphics processor to transcode video. This can make a huge difference in the amount of time it takes to prep videos for Youtube, Facebook, or your smartphone, tablet, and home network. Incidentally, many of Intel's latest notebook processors also support Quick Sync.
Q. Can I upgrade my desktop or laptop processor?
The short answer is yes, for both, but laptops are much more difficult to upgrade. On desktops, as long as the processor fits into the mother board's CPU socket, and the motherboard supports the processor, then you can upgrade with little fuss and virtually no Windows-related tweaks. The same CPU socket and laptop motherboard requirements exist for mobile processors, but just getting access to the processor will often void your warranty and require detailed instructions for your particular laptop. It's generally not advisable to upgrade your laptop processor unless you're very comfortable working with the hardware.


Why Are Grow Lights Red And Blue?
The light you use for growing plants will determine how your garden develops. It doesn't matter if you are growing indoors or outside; the type of lighting you use can make the difference between strong plants and weak plants, or a beautiful harvest and a less than satisfactory harvest. So, the reason that grow lights are red and blue has to do with the way that plants use light.
Even though plants make use of the full spectrum of white light, the red and blue spectrums have the most profound influence on the development and the flower and fruit production of the plants. Red and blue lights also use less electricity and are cheaper to run in an indoor growing environment.
There are two main components to indoor grow lights; the spectral make-up of the light source and the light fixture itself. These two components of indoor grow lights work together to produce the spectral distribution of light for your gardening space. Your goal is to match the spectral distribution to the plants that will inhabit your grow space. That concept may sound complicated, but once you understand the basics of the effect of light on plants, everything will become clear.
Red blue grow lights
Photo 150739951 © Josefkubes | Dreamstime.com
What Effect Do Red And Blue Light Have On Plants?
What we perceive as white light from the sun is actually made up of all the colors of the rainbow. The three major colors of light are red, blue, and green.
When we look at a plant under blue light, we will see the color green. That's because when white light is broken down into its component colors, it turns out that plants don't reflect much of the red or the blue light that reaches them. They absorb these two light spectrums and use them to grow and produce flowers and fruit.
The fact that plant leaves don't usually appear blue or red shows that they absorb those frequencies of the light spectrum and use them in the plants' internal processes. This impacts the strength of the growth, the development of roots and leaves, and of course, the all-important development of the fruit!
Natural sunlight is considered white light and is made up of all the spectrums of light. Sunlight contains green, red, and blue light in almost equal quantities.
How Does Blue Light Affect Plants?
The effect that blue light has on plants is directly related to chlorophyll production. Plants that receive the right amount of blue light will have strong, healthy stems and leaves.
If plants do not receive enough blue light, they will be thin and spindly and will often not have sufficient rigidity in their stems to hold up their own weight. The term among growers that is often used to describe this problem in plants is that they appear to be "leggy." In other words, they look like they have long, thin, wobbly legs that cannot support them.
If your indoor plants, especially the seedlings, appear to be reaching up towards the light too fast, and the stems are looking spindly, then the grow lights you are using are probably not offering sufficient amounts of the blue light spectrum.
How Does Red Light Affect Plants?
The red light spectrum also affects the plants' growth and promotes sturdy growth in the plants, but the red light is also essential in the early life of a plant in seed germination and the development of healthy root systems or bulbs.
As the plant grows, red light stimulates the growth of healthy leaves and also plays a major role in the photosynthesis process of the plants to convert nutrients into usable food for the plants.
Red light is also an important trigger that facilitates the flowering of the plant and also in the production of fruit.
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What Is Far Red Light?
Far-red light is light in the upper end of the red light spectrum that is close to infra-red. Red light falls in the region of 620 to 750nm wavelength, while far-red falls in the 750 to 850 spectrum and is on the border of light that is invisible to the human eye. Research has shown that far-red light also plays a role in the stimulation of flowering of plants and on leaf and stem extension.
The absence of the far-red spectrum has been shown to produce plants that are more compact and smaller, with less extension of the main stem of the plants.
Thus, you can limit the size of your plants' if you choose red grow lamps that have a lower far-red component and a greater red component.
The indication on the lamps will be an R:FR designation to show the combination of red to far-red spectrum that the light emits.
What Proportions Of Light Are Needed?
Even though white light contains almost equal quantities of red and blue light, the plants use more of the red light spectrum than the blue light and often appear as purple grow lights.
For this reason, the blue light intensity does not need to be as significant as the red light. The plants seem to prefer a ratio of 80 to 85 percent red light combined with 15 to 20 percent blue light.
You can experiment with the ratios of red and blue light that will give you the best growth for your plants. Some species f plants will prefer a different mix in the proportions of red and blue light, which is why you may want to have different grow chambers with different light setups for different types of plants.
Why Do Grow Light Manufacturers Make Red And Blue Light?
The main reason that manufacturers produce red and blue grow lights is to make better use of the electricity to produce the wavelengths of light that the plants will make the most use of.
While the plants do use components of all the spectrums of white light, red and blue lights have the most profound effect on plants.
Red LED lights make the most efficient use of electricity in converting the energy from electricity into light. Thus, a red LED light will consume less electricity to produce red light than a lamp that produces white light would produce.
Similarly, blue LED lights use less electricity to produce light. Therefore, when blue and red light combinations are used in a grow tent or an indoor growing system, they would consume less electricity than a lamp that produces white light.
This helps to cut the costs of running grow lights for your indoor growing system. While this may not have much of an effect on your energy bill if you are only running one grow tent, if you are growing on a larger scale, the consequent energy costs can be extensive.
Using red and blue lighting lamps makes better use of the available electricity and makes the energy costs for the grow system cheaper than if it were powered by white lights.
Tower Garden Aeroponics System
Why Not Use A White Light for Indoor Plants?
Plants grow great under white light because they then have access to the full range of the light spectrum. However, the cost factor of running white lights in your grow room can rack up quite quickly when you are powering white light lamps for your plants on a large scale.
If you are running a smaller scale indoor growing operation, there is no reason for you not to use a white light to supply light for your plants.
You will just need to make sure that the white light is providing a wide enough spectrum of the white light to be beneficial to your plants. You would need a white light that provides at least between the 400 to 700nm of the light spectrum.
I've had great success with my Barina 4′ full spectrum LED lights, They are simple to use and cheap to run. I grow greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs in my Tower Garden and my Aeroponic buckets.
Many people growing plants indoors start with a small setup, sometimes even a homemade setup, to try out this growing system before committing money to the operation. This is because grow lights can become expensive, and it is cheaper to pick up a couple of LED lights from the local hardware than dedicated grow lights.
While this is the way most of us started, you will quickly find that some of the results are less than satisfactory. This is because many of the lights supplied in the local hardware store are not manufactured to provide the correct width of the spectrum of red and blue lighting required by your plants.
The best results for your indoor plant growth will be achieved by the use of a combination of red and blue grow lights that are designed for growing plants indoors.
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