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- Ocean perch
- Sea Bass
- Turbot (Greenland)
SOLE GROUP PAGE
From Alaska to California, U.S. fishermen harvest several varieties of this delicate mild-tasting flatfish. The Pacific soles are not true soles, which are found only in the Atlantic, and are more closely related to flounder.
Since World War II, Dover sole has been harvested along the West Coast by trawlers over the sandy, muddy bottoms along the coast of Oregon, California, and Washington. Since groundfish are often caught together, harvests of more abundant species such as Dover sole have been limited in order to rebuild the species that are still overfished. In early 2011, managers implemented a catch share program for the West Coast groundfish trawl fishery to help address this issue.Learn More...
English sole has been harvested along the West Coast since the late 1800s. Today, most U.S.-caught English sole is harvested by trawlers over the sandy, muddy bottoms along Oregon, California, and Washington. Along the West Coast, English sole populations have been increasing rapidly in the last decade, thanks to successful reproduction and survival from _PHONE_, and are well above target population levels.Learn More...
Larger than many of the other Pacific soles, flathead soles have firm white meat and thicker fillets, and they most closely resemble the true European sole. Alaska fishermen catch almost all of the commercial harvest of this fish, but a very small amount is also harvested along the West Coast, mainly off the coast of Oregon. Scientists actively monitor the abundance of flathead sole, and managers use the latest abundance estimates to set sustainable harvest limits for the next fishing season.Learn More...
With a fine texture and a sweet, delicate flavor, petrale sole is the highest valued flatfish on the West Coast. Declared overfished in 2009, the West Coast petrale sole stock is now rebuilding under strict harvest limits. Due to responsible management of the fishery, along with above-average reproduction and survival rates in the past few years, this valuable fish is on target to be fully rebuilt in 2013.Learn More...
Two species of rock sole—northern and southern—are harvested in U.S. waters of the North Pacific. The population was once heavily fished by foreign fleets in the 1960s, but has now recovered well above target population levels. Along with yellowfin sole, the rock sole fisheries along the Alaskan coastline are the largest flatfish fisheries in the United States.Learn More...
This is the most abundant flatfish species in the eastern Bering Sea and the target of the largest flatfish fishery in the world. Alaska is responsible for the majority of the worldwide yellowfin sole catch, harvesting more than 150,000 metric tons in 2011. While out at sea, fishermen usually remove the head, gut, and freeze the fish whole, and then ship it to Asian countries to be further processed. The fillets of this delicate, mild-tasting fish are often re-exported back to the United States.Learn More...


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Fart Pocket (Fart on command by lifting your leg!!!)
Fart Bomb Countdown
Is very easy to use.
1) Click the icon and your phone will make a fart.
2) Press and hold on icon to set as ringtone, notification or alarm.
"Fart Collection" Turns your phone into a Fart Machine.
Each fart button releases a fart sound. Fart High quality and high volume.
Make sure you turn up your Media Volume to hear the farts in all their Power.
Funny farts for everyone. It will make you smile!
How to use:
Press and hold on icon to set as ringtone, notification or alarm.
Click the icon to play Fart Sounds
History of Farts:
Farts are thought to have originated in the time before mass evolution when every life form was a small microbe. Farts were used a boost application to escape predators, which then evolved into a natural repellent. Then, a few young males needing something to occupy their time while hunting later pioneered its evolution just because they found it entertaining, and passed the art down to every generation of boys since by.... tradition. Farting was even a rite of passage for many in the ancient world, a boy might have to prove himself by out-farting the older males of his tribe. Aristotle was the first to insist that "fart logic" is the only logic undeniably true, and indeed: "He who denied it, supplied it." Later, Descartes based his fundamental ontology on the phrase: "I fart, therefore I am."
Along side it''s historical use as weaponry at war, Fartium also was an early free form anaesthetic well known to the Continental European Tribes although considered uncivilized by the Greeks and Romans who preferred to just throw the sick to the lions. Then for the longest time it was considered vulgar.
In the 20th century, the fart joke was reestablished as the main medium for experiencing a fart. Gone were the days of seeing it as a noble art. Despite this, direct facial Fartium exposure rose to prominent as a form of torture, and became known as giving someone a helping of "beef-stew." This would have been seen as barbaric in earlier ages, but in the context of the post-modern period, the etiquette of planting one''s butt in the face of another and ripping a fart was literally blown out the window. The feminist movement started as a reaction to this practice, which was normally perpetrated by males onto their little sisters--little brothers, as everyone knows, enjoy being farted on.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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In the digital age, the availability of workshop manuals in PDF format has transformed the way enthusiasts and technicians access and utilize automotive knowledge. This article explores the significance of workshop manuals in PDF, their advantages, and where to find and download them for a seamless learning and maintenance experience Workshop Manuals PDF.
The Power of Workshop Manuals in PDF
1. Portable Wisdom at Your Fingertips
Workshop manuals in PDF format offer portable wisdom. Whether on a computer, tablet, or smartphone, enthusiasts and technicians can carry an entire library of automotive knowledge in their pockets. This portability enhances accessibility, allowing users to refer to manuals anytime, anywhere.
2. Interactive Learning Experience
PDF workshop manuals provide an interactive learning experience. Users can navigate through clickable links, zoom in on detailed diagrams, and search for specific keywords. This level of interactivity fosters a deeper understanding of complex automotive systems, making it an ideal format for learning.
3. Printer-Friendly Precision
The PDF format is printer-friendly, allowing users to print specific sections or pages as needed. This feature is invaluable for technicians working in garages or enthusiasts tackling DIY projects in their home workshops. Having a physical copy on hand can enhance precision and convenience.
Where to Discover and Download Workshop Manuals in PDF
1. Manufacturer's Digital Library
The official website of the vehicle's manufacturer remains a primary source for authentic workshop manuals in PDF format. Navigating to the support or service section often reveals downloadable manuals tailored to specific makes and models.
2. Digital Communities and Forums
Engaging with online automotive communities and forums is a goldmine for PDF workshop manuals. Enthusiasts often share links or files, making it a collaborative space for learning and troubleshooting. These communities become valuable resources for accessing PDF manuals for various vehicles.
3. Specialized Digital Platforms
Dedicated third-party platforms specializing in curating workshop manuals in PDF format act as centralized repositories. These platforms make it convenient for enthusiasts and technicians to find manuals for different makes and models in one accessible location.
Downloading Workshop Manuals in PDF: A Step-by-Step Guide
1. Identify Your Vehicle Details
Commence your digital journey by precisely identifying the make, model, and year of your vehicle. This foundational step ensures that the downloaded PDF workshop manual aligns accurately with your vehicle's specifications.
2. Navigate to the Manufacturer's Digital Library
Visit the official website of your vehicle's manufacturer, the digital sanctuary of authentic workshop manuals. Explore the support or service section, follow the prompts, and accurately select your vehicle details to initiate the download of the PDF manual.
3. Immerse in Automotive Communities
Immerse yourself in online automotive communities and forums. Utilize the search function to find threads discussing PDF workshop manuals. Follow shared links or instructions provided by community members to access and download the manual.
4. Explore Third-Party Digital Repositories
Explore reputable third-party platforms specializing in workshop manuals in PDF format. Utilize search functionalities to specify your vehicle details and identify the correct manual. Follow the provided steps to download the PDF document.
5. Verify Compatibility
Before fully embracing the PDF workshop manual, perform a compatibility check. Ensure that the manual aligns accurately with your vehicle's make, model, and year. This step ensures that the guidance within is tailored precisely to your vehicle.
6. Download and Unlock Digital Expertise
Once verified, proceed to download the workshop manual in PDF format. Unlock the digital expertise contained within the document. Familiarize yourself with its structure, sections, and the detailed instructions for maintaining and repairing your vehicle.
Conclusion: Your Digital Library of Automotive Expertise
In conclusion, workshop manuals in PDF format are not just documents; they are your digital library of automotive expertise. Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or a seasoned technician, these PDF manuals become your portable, interactive guides, leading you through the intricate landscape of vehicle maintenance with ease.


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How Green
City Parks May Be Bad for the Environment
But according to new research, green parks in dry climates -- which bring thick carbon-capturing grass to regions normally populated by sparse native vegetation -- may actually increase the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere.
"The greenhouse gases produced by maintaining the park are the problem," reports Amy Townsend-Small, an earth scientist at the University of California, Irvine. Her research suggests that parks in arid cities, as they are currently managed and landscaped, are not as "green" as they look.
Her measurements of soil carbon and the air above the park's turf in Irvine showed that grass itself captures a fair amount of CO2 and emits only a tiny amount of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that soil bacteria create while digesting fertilizer.
But when Townsend-Small included estimates about how much energy and fuel was required to manage the land -- and the pollution produced by equipment such as lawn mowers and leaf blowers -- she calculated the resulting carbon footprint created from landscaping maintenance to be 10 times the amount of carbon that the park's green area could absorb.
Just watering the grass alone produced enough carbon to override any potential reduction in the gas that the lawn might produce.
The numbers were even worse for the park's athletic fields, where turf is continually torn up and replanted before it can store significant amounts of carbon.
Published in the Jan. 22 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the research suggests that parks in arid cities, as currently managed, should not count as carbon credits.


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Mass market digital manufacturing devices are severely limited in accuracy and material, resulting in a significant gap between the appearance of the virtual and the real shape. In imaging as well as rendering of shapes, it is common to enhance features so that they are more apparent. We provide an approach for feature enhancement that directly operates on the geometry of a given shape, with particular focus on improving the visual appearance for 3D printing. The technique is based on unsharp masking, modified to handle arbitrary free-form geometry in a stable, efficient way, without causing large scale deformation. On a series of manufactured shapes we show how features are lost as size of the object decreases, and how our technique can compensate for this. We evaluate this effect in a human subject experiment and find significant preference for modified geometry.
- Job Openings


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How will the sharing economy impact the organisation of shared urban logistics and transport?
Could your research help create better models for urban logistics and help society explore alternative concepts of personal transport?
In this special Issue, we will provide a platform for exchanging knowledge on emerging methods, practical implementation, and lessons learned regarding both urban freight logistics and the mobility of people in the sharing economy, and you can join the conversation.
Fuelled by digital technology and the Internet, the sharing economy (also referred to as collaborative consumption) is a developing phenomenon based on renting or borrowing goods and services, rather than owning them (Chan & Shaheen, 2012). The emerging sharing economy is particularly relevant in the context of cities that struggle with population growth and increasing density. Undoubtedly, some shared urban logistics and transportation service models may have disruptive impacts, and likely change the way in which people and goods are moved within a city (Savelsbergh & Woense, 2016). Urban logistics infrastructures and transportation systems in many cities already operate at maximum or near-maximum capacity, so it is important to consider novel approaches to organising shared urban logistics and transport.
In this special issue, we call attention to the movement of both freight and people. Shared mobility, the shared use of motor vehicles, bicycles, or other transportation modes, is one facet of the sharing economy, often accompanied by new organisational concepts, such as mobility-as-a-service (MAAS). Shared mobility could potentially improve urban sustainability by decreasing total vehicle-miles and congestion, saving energy, and reducing greenhouse gases, but these advantages may be diminished by rebound effects. This sharing is also applied to urban freight logistics, which involves the movement of freight within cities. Shared freight logistics enables companies to share existing assets and capacities, resulting in increased consolidation, higher capacity utilisation, and decreased fleet sizes for collaborating partners (Matzler, Veider, and Kathan, 2015; Seo et al., 2016).
The emerging concept of the sharing economy continues to motivate researchers and practitioners to develop better models for urban logistics and explore alternative concepts of personal transport. From the academic point of view, research on sharing logistics and transportation has predominantly relied on normative quantitative research methods; especially optimization studies (see Savelsbergh & Woense, 2016 for a review), and conceptual papers are also common (Henten & Windekilde, 2016). However, empirical studies concerning urban logistics in sharing economy remain scarce.
What can I contribute?
Our guest editors are encouraging submissions of original research articles that report significant research contributions including, but not limited to:
- What motivates potential adopters (at the individual, group, organisation, and supply chain level) to get involved in sharing urban logistics? What are the outcomes of adoption?
- What are the emergent business and governance models that enable, employ, or leverage shared logistics services? How might common objectives be obtained via sharing?
- What are the strategies, processes, capabilities and resources needed for a successful and effective implementation of a certain urban logistics sharing initiative?
- What are the context and consequences of the urban logistics sharing economy that drive government regulation?
- Which government regulation models are best for developing urban logistics sharing practices?
- What are the economic, social and environmental impacts of urban logistics sharing?
- What are the critical factors for travellers to use shared mobility services? What is travellers' response to the introduction of shared mobility services in terms of changes in travel behaviour?
- What are the effects of transitions to shared mobility systems on traffic flows, congestion, and environmental indicators?
- How can shared mobility concepts benefit accessibility or inclusion of vulnerable groups?
- What are the impacts of shared mobility systems on car ownership and the design of urban spaces?
- What are the positive or negative equity outcomes of transitions to shared mobility systems?
- How do sharing technologies (such as algorithms, rating and trust systems, etc.) enable new forms of organisational governance?
- Which theories help to explain the nature and growth of the sharing economy in urban logistics?
- What are the useful conceptual models and empirical analysis of the antecedents, consequences, and contingencies associated with sharing economy in urban logistics?
- What are the new applications of data collection methods and tools of analysis in the domain of urban logistics sharing
Why contribute to the International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications?
- Your article will be published in a widely read and cited journal (impact factor 1.018) enabling you to effectively contribute to the development of the research area
- Your research will be validated by a robust single-blind peer review process
- You can share you research using our open access options
- You can follow the impact of your research using My Authored Works
How can I contribute?
For detailed instruction on how you can contribute to our special issue click here. If you have any further questions feel free to contact our editorial team below.
- Principal Guest Editor: Yacan Wang, School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China (_EMAIL_)
- Co-Editor: Benjamin T. Hazen, Air Force Institute of Technology, Ohio, USA (_EMAIL_)
- Co-Editor: Dick Ettema, Department of Human Geography and Planning, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands (.F.Ettema@uu.nl)


Increased risk of COVID-19 infection amongst smokers and amongst waterpipe users
Webinar #3 The Impact of Waterpipe Tobacco Smoking on Respiratory and Cardiovascular Health
October 15, 2019
Q & A on tobacco use, including waterpipe use and COVID19 in EMRO
March 13, 2020
1- Smoking and increased risk of bacterial and viral infections
Smoking increases the risk of both bacterial and viral infections.
It has been documented that smokers incur a 2- to 4-fold increased risk of invasive pneumococcal lung disease, a disease associated with high mortality. Influenza risk is twofold higher and more severe in smokers compared with nonsmokers.[i] In the case of tuberculosis smokers also have a twofold increased risk of contracting the infection and a 4-fold increased mortality.
The mechanism of increased susceptibility to infections in smokers is multifactorial and includes alteration of the structural and immunologic host defenses.
 - Structural changes: Tobacco smoke and many of its components produce structural changes in the respiratory airways. These changes include increased mucosal permeability, impairment of the mucociliary clearance, changes in pathogen adherence, disruption of the respiratory epithelium, and peribronchial inflammation and fibrosis..[ii]
 - Immunologic Mechanisms: Smoking weakens the function of body defense immune cells and the production of antibodies in humans and animals.[iii],[iv],[v]
Increased risk of Coronavirus infection amongst smokers
There is still no robust evidence to suggest an increased risk of infection amongst smokers; however, analysis of deaths from coronavirus in China[vi] shows that men are more likely to die than women, something that may be related to the fact that many more Chinese men smoke than women. Among Chinese patients diagnosed with COVID-19 associated pneumonia, the odds of disease progression (including to death) were 14 times higher among people with a history of smoking[vii] compared to those who did not smoke. This was the strongest risk factor among those examined.
2-Use of Waterpipe and risk of infection transmission
Practice of waterpipe use
Waterpipe smoking is usually practiced in groups. The hose is passed from person to person, and the same mouthpiece is usually used by all the participants. Most smoking sessions last 45 to 60 minutes but may also continue for several hours.
Even if the pipe and mouthpiece is only used by one customer at a time, it should be noted that waterpipes and hoses are generally reused by other smoking customers at the same day It is therefore, not surprising, that waterpipe smokers are exposed to microorganisms that may be harmful to health.[viii],[ix][x]
How do the waterpipes get contaminated with infectious microorganisms?
The risk of transmission of infectious microbial agents through smoking waterpipes is high
 - If mouth pieces are not used individually the microorganisms can easily pass from mouth to mouth.
 - smokers often cough into hoses and moisture in tobacco smoke promotes the survival of microorganisms inside waterpipe hose.
 - Furthermore, the use of cold water in the water chamber for a cold airflow may facilitate the survival of viruses and bacteria.
 - The spread of infectious diseases could also result from the uncontrolled, manual preparation of narghile.
Evidence of Infectious Disease transmission though waterpipe
Waterpipes and mouthpieces have been implicated in an outbreak of pulmonary tuberculosis in Queensland, Australia.[xi],[xii].El-Barrawy et al. [xiii] related infection with Helicobacter pylori to waterpipes smoking in Egypt. The risk of transmission of the hepatitis C virus through waterpipes smoking was also demonstrated by Habib et al. (2001).[xiv] Other viruses that can be transmitted are Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), herpes simplex virus and respiratory virus [xv]. Fungal infections have also been reported to be waterpipes transmitted diseases when a patient with acute myeloid leukemia showed invasive infection with Aspergillus sp.[xvi][xvii]
Measures were taken by some countries in view of the potential risk of COVID-19 infection though waterpipe use
Some countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region such as Iran, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have banned the use of shisha in public places such as cafes, shisha bars or restaurants to avoid COVID-19 transmission.
3- Recommendations
 - Inform the public about the high risk of infection of COVID-19 when using waterpipe.
 - Complete ban of the use of waterpipes in all public establishments such as cafes, bars, restaurants, etc. with no exceptions even if the mouthpiece or hose is changed with each individual use. Avoid sharing waterpipe mouthpieces even in home settings.
 - Ensure the enforcement of the ban with adequate fines and penalties.
 - Inform the public about the increased risk of COVID 19 infection in smokers versus non-smokers.
 - Encourage smokers to quit smoking.
[ii] Dye JAAdler KB Effects of cigarette smoke on epithelial cells of the respiratory tract. Thorax 1994;49825- 834
[iii] Sopori MLGoud NSKaplan AM Effect of tobacco smoke on the immune system. JH DeanAE LusterM Kimereds. Immunotoxicology and Immunopharmacology New York, NY Raven Press1994;413- 432Google Scholar
[iv] Sopori MLKozak WSavage SM et al. Effect of nicotine on the immune system: possible regulation of immune responses by central and peripheral mechanisms. Psychoneuroendocrinology 1998;23189- 204
[v] Tollerud DJClark JWBrown LM et al. The effects of cigarette smoking on T cell subsets: a population-based survey of healthy caucasians. Am Rev Respir Dis 1989;_PHONE_
[viii] Koul, P.A., Hajni, M.R., Sheikh, M.A., et al., 2011. Hookah smoking and lung cancer in the Kashmir valley of the Indian subcontinent. Asian Pac. J. Cancer Prev. 12, 519e24. [PubMed
[x] Daniels K.E., Roman N.V. A descriptive study of the perceptions and behaviors of waterpipe use by university students in the Western Cape, South Africa. Tob. Induc. Dis. 2013;11:4. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] [Ref list]
[xi] Urkin, J., Ochaion, R., Peleg, A., 2006. Hubble bubble equals trouble: the hazards of water pipe smoking. Sci. World J. 6, 1990e7. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Ref list]
[xii] Munckhof, W.J., Konstantinos, A., Wamsley, M., et al., 2003. A cluster of tuberculosis associated with use of a marijuana water pipe. Int. J. Tuberc. Lung Dis. 7, 860e5. [PubMed] [Ref list]
[xiii] El-Barrawy, M.A., Morad, M.I., Gaber, M., 1997. Role of Helicobacter pylori in the genesis of gastric ulcerations among smokers and nonsmokers. East Mediterr. Health J., 3: 316e21. [Ref list]
[xiv] Habib, M., Mohamed, M.K., Abdel-Aziz, F., et al., 2001. Hepatitis C virus infection in a community in the Nile Delta: risk factors for seropositivity. Hepatology 33, 248e53. [PubMed] [Ref list]
[xv] Knishkowy, B., Amitai, Y., 2005. Water pipe (narghile) smoking: an emerging health risk behavior. Pediatrics, 116, e113e9. [PubMed]
[xvii] Szyper-Kravitz, M., Lang, R., Manor, Y., et al., 2001. Early invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in a leukemia patient linked to aspergillus contaminated marijuana smoking. Leuk Lymphoma, 42, 1433e7. [PubMed]


Instagram has been around for 11 years.
While the app was initially meant for still images, content creators and everyday users can now share photos and videos in various forms, like Story posts, Instagram Reels, and longer-form videos on IGTV.
Although there are many content types to post on the app, simply leveraging one of the options isn't enough to find marketing success on the platform. This is because, no matter how high-quality the content you share, the Instagram algorithm determines what succeeds on the app and what doesn't.
While Instagram doesn't disclose all the factors that the algorithm uses to assess content, they have released general information about what the algorithm looks for. In this post, we'll explain everything you need to know about the algorithm to succeed on the app, from the factors that play into it and tips and tricks to use to make sure your content doesn't go unnoticed.
New Data: Instagram Engagement Report [2021 Version]
As a business, unless you're entirely reliant on paid ads, it's essential to understand how the algorithm works and what you need to do to ensure that it favors your content and shows your posts to your target audience.
Below we'll explain how the Instagram algorithm works and the factors it assesses when surfacing your content in news feeds.
How does the Instagram algorithm work?
If you're a frequent Instagram user, you may have heard people say something like "Bring back reverse chronological order!" when talking about the algorithm. What they're referring to is when Instagram showed the most recent posts at the top of someone's feed and older ones at the bottom.
It was great for creators and Instagram users because, at some point, your post would be at the top of all of your followers' feeds, so they would be guaranteed to see it.
However, in March 2016, the algorithm changed. Instagram said, "People miss, on average, 70 percent of their feeds. As Instagram has grown, it has become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. This means you often don't see the posts you might care about the most."
It's no longer a question of when you post, but a variety of factors that we'll discuss below: relationship, timing, frequency, following, usage, interest.
Instagram Algorithm Factors
Perceived relationships are the most important ranking factor.
The algorithm prioritizes sharing content with you based on the relationships you have with the accounts you follow. The more you comment, like, and interact with an account on Instagram, the more likely you will see their content, and see it often.
The algorithm also notes people you direct message, accounts you search for, and photos you're tagged in.
The relationship factor applies to brands as well. If a consumer regularly likes your content and interacts with it, repeat engagement will make your posts shown to them more often and closer to the top of their feed. This means that it's essential for you to inspire engagement in your content, which we'll discuss further below.
Although feeds aren't chronological, the algorithm still wants users to see the most recent and relevant posts, especially from accounts that you have a stronger, established relationship with.
Timing just means that you're not as likely to see a post from three weeks ago as you were before 2016.
You can leverage this factor to your advantage by using your profile analytics to discover the best time to post on Instagram, helping you meet your followers when they're most active on the app and more likely to engage.
Frequency refers to how often a user opens the Instagram app.
Frequent users will see a more chronological feed, but those who seldom open the app will see posts most relevant to their interests and relationships since last opening the app.
Following many people means that the algorithm has more content to choose from when surfacing posts in a feed. When this happens, they prioritize relationships, engagement, and perceived interests.
Again, this factor emphasizes the importance of generating a relationship with your audience, encouraging engagement, and posting at the right times.
The usage factor is similar to frequency, as it relates to how much time is spent on the app.
Those who do quick browsing sessions will see what the algorithm determines to be the day's highlights based on the factors mentioned above, while those who spend more time on the app will see a more significant number of posts.
Frequent browsers may even run out of content to see, at which point the algorithm will suggest new posts and accounts based on your interactions and engagement history.
Instagram makes many content recommendations, so a portion of the content users see is based on the app's understanding of their interest in specific topics.
If it detects that you always like, comment, and interact with posts around similar topics, you'll see those posts first. Users who engage with content similar to what you post are also more likely to be shown your posts, and vice versa.
While not a direct factor that Instagram has noted as an algorithm factor in 2016, engagement does play a significant role in the algorithms process.
How Instagram's Algorithm Uses Engagement
In addition to all of the above factors, engagement plays a significant role in how the Instagram algorithm prioritizes and surfaces content to users. The most important engagement metrics are comments, likes, shares, and video views.
Here is a breakdown of how engagement factors into the algorithm:
1. When you first post a photo, it's shown to a small percentage of your audience.
2. Instagram measures how quickly that photo is interacted with, i.e., comments and likes.
3. Instagram compares the engagement that your post gets to other content you've shared at similar times and days. For example, is your post from today at 10 am getting more or less traffic than your post from last Monday at 10 am? The app compares to similar times to ensure accuracy when evaluating your engagement metrics, especially since certain times bring better results.
4. If your photo attracts a lot of engagement, Instagram will show it to a higher percentage of your audience and maybe even share it on explore pages.
5. If your post continues to attract engagement, your photo will stay at the top of your audience's news feeds and reach more people. If it doesn't attract a lot of initial attention, less of your audience will see your post.
Instagram Algorithm Update 2021
The 2016 algorithm update was almost a complete overhaul to how the algorithm works, so it is the most notable, publicized, and confirmed by Instagram.
Unfortunately, since then, Instagram doesn't always make it public when they've changed the algorithm. So, if you notice changes to your engagement and reach, it is most likely not the result of an algorithm change but most likely due to the app's growth.
There are so many accounts on the platform, and as people follow more and more users, competition on the app grows. It becomes more difficult to quickly generate a significant amount of engagement, which in turn impacts how, where, and when your posts are shown in your audience's feed. This is one of the many reasons why it's important to monitor your Instagram analytics.
Instagram Algorithm Recent Changes
That being said, the most recent update to the algorithm as of 2021 is the removal of like counts on people's photos.
The update hasn't yet been made available to all Instagram users, but it would effectively remove a total like count from a user's photo and instead display only the usernames of people that have liked the post. Users who post a photo still have the option to see the number of likes a photo has received, though.
Instagram is making this update because they believe it will do numbers to diminish bullying on the app and protect users from being influenced by social pressure that says they need to get a certain amount of likes on their posts.
How to Get Your Posts Shown Higher on Instagram
Although there is not much you can do to beat the algorithm, or so to speak, there are ways to get your posts shown higher on Instagram.
Post when you know your audience is most active.
Like all social media platforms, one of the easiest ways to generate immediate engagement is to post content when you know your followers are most active, as they're already browsing the app and ready to see what you have to offer.
To get this information, you can use the native Instagram Analytics tool available to all users with business accounts or another option like Marketing Hub.
If you're new to the app, it will be challenging to get this information right away, so come back to this tip after you've spent enough time on the app to get valuable, actionable analytics.
Post content you know your audience likes.
Again, use your analytics. Understand the content that your audience engages with the most, whether it's high-quality product photos, behind-the-scenes content, or Instagram Reels. Use this to your advantage, and continue creating content that they enjoy as they're more likely to interact with something they like.
Use business-relevant hashtags.
Hashtags are a great way to signal to the algorithm about your content, which can help surface your profile to audience members interested in the hashtags you use.
Don't overload your hashtag use, but aim to use them in all of the content you share on Instagram, from Stories to IGTV to photo captions.
Encourage engagement and interaction.
Interaction on your profile will come naturally, but encouraging engagement and interaction with the content you share can be valuable in getting the algorithm to work for you.
Create engaging captions that entice users to comment on your posts, ask for likes and shares, and be in conversation with those who interact to inspire loyalty and entice them to return.
You can also place interactive elements in your Instagram Stories, like polls, stickers, and emojis. The benefits of this are twofold, as your customers will be interacting with your content, and you'll also learn more about their interests and desires based on the responses


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Jonathan Raymond is the founder of Refound.com and the author of a new book called 'Good Authority'. Jonathan has worked in many businesses, including, in the wind energy sector, as a lawyer, and as a yoga instructor. He began his work as a business consultant when he became the CEO of EMyth in 2011.
In this broadcast, Jonathan Raymond and I talk about:
- How becoming the CEO of EMyth helped him begin to find his balance in life.
- Why it is that Refound.com has the goal of 'helping the helper'.
- Some of the common challenges to holding people accountable in business and organizations.
- How to hold people accountable while keeping an open heart. How to be a boss who is not too tough or too soft.
- Identifying some of the symptoms of being a boss who is not great at accountability with his team, including:
- Constantly finding yourself mediating disputes between people.
- Having the sense that there are sloppy mistakes being made by your team.
- Having people continually check in with you on tasks they should be able to complete themselves.
- Finding that every meeting ends with a call for better communication.
- Frequently seeing that something is 'off' with your team but not doing anything about it.
- How to take proactive steps to avoid these accountability and communication problems by naming the problem and setting up a culture of communication within your organization.
- The problems that happen when bosses forget that they do have power, which can cause a barrier to honest communication.
- His theory of the 'Trickle-Down-Transformation', how it happens and why it does not work.
- How the alternative to Trickle-Down-Transformation is real time feed back, a culture of communication within the organization, and consistent outside feedback from those who are structurally outside of the day-to-day operations of the organization.
How to find Jonathan Raymond online:
- Websites: Refound.com
- Book: Good Authority: How to Become the Leader Your Team Is Waiting For
- Course: The Culture Course
- Twitter: _USER_
If you enjoyed today's podcast, please leave a review on iTunes here. Thanks so much in advance for your support.


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data are sent at long distance, on the Internet, through an ethernet connection, being visualised by a browser.
The paper has a technical contribution by implementing the scientific theory of distributed parameter systems with the linear and non-linear estimation techniques for a practical application using intelligent wireless sensor networks. This approach may be seen as a new technology based on specific estimation algorithms, using the sensor network as a "distributed" sensor place in the field of the distributed parameter systems, with application in the development of methods for monitoring, fault detection and diagnosis, and sensor malfunction detection.
The main contribution of this paper is a complex estimation structure, combining the two estimation algorithms, with regression and auto-regression, tested separately on other case studies, implemented using three efficient estimation methods: one linear and two non-linear - with neural networks and ANFIS. This complex system is used to estimate the value of the sensor at the moment t+1, based on the past values of the same sensor and also based on the current values of the adjacent sensors. The paper presents an implementation on a real sensor network of the complex estimator, using three existing fault detection and diagnosis algorithms. The complex estimator uses the efficiency of the linear and non-linear implementation methods.
The identification algorithms are in accord with the distributed parameter systems. The step between the considered mathematical models and the estimation algorithms is obvious analyzing the form of the estimation algorithm and the general equation of a distributed parameter system.
The aspects arising in the identification of distributed parameter systems are analysed. The structure determination, variable selection and distributed computation are solved in practice.
The specific model structure imposed by the distributed parameter system dynamics is integrated into the estimation algorithms. The algorithms are designed based on knowledge obtained from the process seen as a distributed parameter system. The number of inputs is in accord with the process dynamics. The data acquired using sensor networks are filtered from the associated constraints of communication, computation and others specific to the technology of wireless sensor networks.
The sensor network has a major role in this approach, the development being done according to the modern facilities and capabilities of such an intelligent concept.
The main points of the paper may be summarised as follows. Some estimation algorithms, based on regression and auto-regression, for parabolic distributed parameters systems, are developed. They may be implemented using different linear or non-linear estimation methods – such as neural networks or ANFIS. A monitoring method based on a sensor network and these estimation algorithms is presented. A case study for the heat transfer in plane is presented. The results of a comparison study for these three methods, based on a quadratic quality criterion, are presented. Good approximations were obtained for all three methods. To improve the quality of the estimation one of these methods could be chosen, related to the desired error and the complexity of the implementation.
A virtual instrument was developed for the sensor network monitoring, including an estimator, based on the estimator coefficients obtained in an off-line estimator design.
A long distance monitoring over the Internet is developed.
The importance of the work consists in developing new estimator methods and implementation in distributed parameter systems. The main attention is given to the way in which to choose the number and the positions of the sensor nodes according to the desired accuracy in the identification process. Some examples of generated meshes and temperature estimates for different numbers of sensor are presented. A comparative study of how to place the sensor nodes in the field is made. A solution to know the right number of needed sensor nodes is offered. The users could know the right points in space to place the sensor nodes to obtain a good approximation by identification. The placing points are more important than the number of sensors.
A monitoring method based on a sensor network and ANFIS as estimation method for non-linear systems is presented.
The complex estimation system, based on the above estimation methods and algorithms, was developed to be implemented using virtual instrumentation.
Using this complex system the quality of estimation was improved, fact demonstrated by the good values obtained for the quadratic quality criteria.
The following applications and extensions are suggested: applications in fault detection and diagnosis of distributed parameter systems based on sensor networks and virtual instrumentation, allowing the treatment of large and complex systems with many variables, and also on learning and extrapolation. The monitoring method may also be applied in the case of discovery of malicious nodes in wireless sensor networks. New applications may be developed in the future, considering all the capabilities of the sensor nodes to measure physical variables.
This work was developed within the frame of PNII-IDEI-PCE-ID923-2009 CNCSIS - UEFISCSU grant.
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- Volosencu C: Identification of distributed parameter systems, based on sensor networks and artificial intelligence. WSEAS Transactions on Systems 2008, 7(6):785-801. ISSN 1109–2777Google Scholar
- Volosencu C, Curiac DI: Monitoring of distributed parameter systems based on a sensor network and ANFIS. In 2010 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence. IJCNN volume, Barcelona, Spain; 2010:2272-2279.Google Scholar
- Volosencu C: Applying the technology of wireless sensor network in environment monitoring. In Cutting Edge Research in New Technologies. Edited by: Volosencu C. Intech, Rijeka; 2012:97-106.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
- Curiac DI, Voloşencu C, Doboli A, Dranga O, Bednarz T: Discovery of malicious nodes in wireless sensor networks using neural predictors. WSEAS Transactions on Computer Research 2007, 2(1):38-44. ISSN 1991–8755Google Scholar
- Akyildiz IF, Su W, Sankarasubramaniam Y, Cayirci E: Wireless sensor networks: a survey. Computer Networks 2002., 38(4):Google Scholar
- Krishnamachari B: A Wireless Sensor Networks Bibliography. University of Southern California, Technical Report; 2007.Google Scholar
- Novak RU, Mira U: Boundary estimation in sensor networks: theory and methods. In 2nd International Workshop on Information Processing in Sensor Networks. IPSN, Palo Alto, CA; 2003.Google Scholar
- Pottie GJ, Kaiser WJ: Wireless integrated network sensors. Communications of the ACM 2000., 43:Google Scholar
- Tong L, Zhao Q, Adireddy S: Sensor Networks with Mobile Agents, Proceedings IEEE 2003 MILCOM. Boston, USA; 2003:688-694.Google Scholar
- Allende-Cid H, Veloz A, Salas R, Chabert S, Allende H: Self Organizing Neuro-Fuzzy System, in Progress in Pattern Recognition. Image Analysis and Applications, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg; 2008.Google Scholar
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About Essential Skills
The Government of Canada and other national and international agencies have identified and validated nine key essential skills for the workplace.
What is an Essential Skill?
An essential skill is a necessary developed ability or capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained efforts to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas, things and/or people.
Why are these Skills "essential"?
Essential Skills are the skills that people need for work, learning and life. They provide the foundation for learning all other skills.
Why are Essential Skills important to industry?
These skills are used in nearly every job and at different levels of complexity and then enable people to evolve their jobs and adapt to workplace change.
Essential Skills and the Trades
Good Essential Skills means you will understand and remember concepts introduced in techinical training. The level of Essential Skills required for most trades is as high or higher that it is for many office jobs.
Essential skills are used in nearly every job and at different levels of complexity. The provice the foundation for learning all other skills and enable people to evolve their jobs and adapt to workplace change. The following 9 skills have been identified and validated as key essential skills for the workplace.
New Essential Skills Mobile App
Assessment Tool for Teachers and Students Features:
- Profiles of over 40 different trade and technology careers.
- Summary of the Nine Essential Skills for the workplace.
- A comprehensive set of questions that can be completed on average in 15-20 minutes. Results are provided as a star rating link to careers in trade and technology sectors.
- Social Media features for users to share their results with friends, teachers and parents. Students can post and compare their results to see how their friends are performing and progressing. Teachers can use the App as a classroom tool.
- A link to the Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) Office of Literacy and Essential skills with access to all the National Occupational Profiles. Results can be compared against the levels of complexity in the ESDC profiles for specific skilled trade careers.
- A directory of all trade and technology schools and training facilities in Canada.
The Essential Skills Mobile App is designed for iPhone®, iPad® and iPod Touch® and android devices and is currently available free for download in the App Store and Google Play.
For more information regarding the Essential Skills, check out the Skills Canada website at Skills Canada


Events not seen in CAPC
Article ID: 106090
Updated On:
After upgrade Events are not seen in the Performance Management.
We see the following error is seen in the Data Aggregator /opt/IMDataAggregator/apache-karaf-2.4.3/data/log/karaf.log* files (your installation path may vary if not default).
ERROR | EventPush | 2018-07-06 07:51:44,269 | EventProducerWS | or.eventproducer.EventProducerWS 945 | | | Failed to push xxx events: org.apache.cxf.interceptor.Fault: Marshalling Error:
It also references the wrong host name or IP address for the Performance Management server.
Another place to look is the DA:8581/rest/emregistration page. The eventConsumerURL should point to the correct Performance Management host but may not if this error is seen.
Wrong IP address registered with the DA
All supported Performance Management releases
To trouble-shoot do the following:
Run the following from the Data Aggregator :
 curl -v http://:8281/EventManager/EventManagerWS.asmx?wsdl
This command should succeed. If it doesn't then the IP is wrong in the event manager general table possibly because there are multiple NICs on the box
Do the following:
 - Edit the Event Manager data source and change the IP in the Host Name dialog box to the correct IP address. This is going to update the "General" table for the EM database after it syncs. You can verify that by doing the following
 mysql -unetqos -pPASSWORD em
 Replace PASSWORD with your MySQL password.
 select * from general;
 - Assuming it updates run the following SQL to identify the sourceid of the Data Aggregator data source:
 select sourceid, sourcetype,consolename from netqosportal.data_sources2 where SourceType = 262144;
 Example output:
 | sourceid | sourcetype | consolename |
 | 3 | 262144 | Data [email protected] |
 In that example the sourceid is 3, your installation may have a different sourceid.
 - Take the sourceid value for the Data Aggregator Data Source form the previous step and run the following SQL:
 update em.data_sources set LastEvent=0,ConsumerID=0 where sourceid = ;
 Using the example above (again your id may vary) you would run:
 update em.data_sources set LastEvent=0,ConsumerID=0 where sourceid = 3;
 - This will re-register the Event Manager with the Data Aggregator. It may take upwards of 15-20 minutes for the values to transfer around via normal synchronization cycles in Performance Management.
 - The errors will be resolved when we see the eventConsumerURL value on the http://DA:8581/rest/emregistration page reflecting the correct Performance Center server host name or IP address.


By now most public schools in around the Northland have announced their plans for the upcoming school year - with reopening plans dictated largely by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's those concerns that will see two less teachers in the Superior school district when students come back in September.
The Superior School Board accepted the resignations of five teachers at their most-recent meeting on August 10 - two of which specifically mentioned their concerns about COVID-19 as the reason behind their decision. The teachers in question are from the Superior High School and Northern Lights Elementary School.
In one case - the teacher from Northern Lights Elementary - the concern was based on the large number of students she comes in contact with throughout the day. Her position was a specialist - teaching music - and she had broad contact with most of the students in the building. The other teacher - at the high school - teaches in the English department. She cited that she worries about getting sick and also getting her family sick.
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All five of the teachers - the two citing COVID-19 and the other three who are leaving for other reasons - are being held liable for liquidated damages. According to news sources, those damages vary between "$750 and $1,500 depending on when they made their resignation request." The concept of liquidated damages is foreign to many outside of the education world, but it has become commonplace at most public school school districts and many private schools. Superior School District Administrator Amy Starzecki explains:
"We added liquidated damages to the contract a few years ago to make up for things that we lost out when a teacher left closer to the start of school. [Those items that the district takes a loss on] include[...] their health savings account contribution, the cost to recruit someone for the position and the cost of a long-term substitute teacher."
The Superior School Board did make adjustments to the liquidated damages assessed to one of the teachers; that teacher asked for "leniency" as a result of the unprecedented times we're going through.
7 Ways People Are Wearing Masks Wrong


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Costoluto Genovese Tomato
From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
Common Name: Costoluto Genovese Tomato
Scientific Name: Lycopersicon lycopersicum cv
Description: Tender garden vegetable; Flattened, deeply lobed and scalloped, bright rich red fruits; Soft in texture, juicy and slightly tart
Size: Indeterminate vines; space caged plants 24 to 36 inches apart
Cultural Information: Prefers rich, sweet garden loam and full sun
Historical Notes: The Costoluto Genovese tomato is an Italian heirloom tomato variety. Its heavily lobed and often convoluted shape is indicative of early nineteenth century tomato varieties, but makes an oddity in today's vegetable garden. The Costoluto Genovese's stellar flavor is intense and acidic. Because of its odd shape, this tomato is best for sauces and pastes where the skin is removed.
- ↑ This article is based on a Center for Historic Plants Information Sheet.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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by Lynette Long
First, learn to use simple addition to find the total number of dots, from zero to twelve, on each domino. Then, see if you can find the dominoes with each total hidden in the pictures. With a simple but imaginative approach, Lynette Long has created a fun-filled counting book sure to appeal to even the most reluctant math students. Full color.
No additional information available.


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Strengthening the Bonds of Chicano Youth (El Proyecto de Nuestra Juventud) is a comprehensive, multilevel, community-based, and culturally appropriate program designed to meet the prevention needs of rural Chicano youth in Central Arizona who demonstrate high-risk characteristics of substance abuse. The program is rooted in a family-oriented approach that is based on Mexican-American culture, values, and principles. The project was conceived and implemented by the Pinal Hispanic Council, a minority nonprofit organization based in Eloy, Arizona.
The target population served by the project included 450 high-risk youth (323 female, 127 male) in three age groups (9–11 years old, 12–14 years old, and 15–16 years old), who were residents of low-income housing and students at the elementary, junior high, and senior high schools. Availability of alcohol and drugs, attitudes favorable to drug use, negative peer influences, and poor family management were the risk factors used for referral to the project interventions. During the project, 330 families and 60 service providers were reached.
Based on the theoretical framework of Hawkins and Catalano, the interventions addressed four life domains: family, individual/peer, school, and neighborhood/community. The project uses a combination of culturally appropriate interventions for youth and families. Family interventions include camps (campamentos) and informal talks (platicas). Youth interventions include peer support groups and workshops. Community interventions include a homework center, a mural project, and a theatre project.
The project also included the following interventions:
The evaluation indicated that the project succeeded in improving family communication and bonding. Youths and families reported increased communication, trust, and a sense of belonging and bonding. Another significant finding was an increase in awareness of substance abuse issues and a decrease in substance abuse. Increased family communication and bonding had a significant positive impact in reducing potential substance abuse by the children.
The major significant findings include the following:
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices: Model program
Ralph Varela, C.M.S.W.
Pinal Hispanic Council
712 North Main Street
Eloy, AZ 85231–2037
Phone: _PHONE_
Varela, Ralph. 2001. Cultural Competent Prevention Program for At-Risk Chicano Youth. Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration/Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (SAMHSA/CSAP) Report. Washington, DC: SAMHSA, CSAP, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.


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Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 3, or GOES-3, is a weather satellite launched in 1978 that has long lost its imaging capability. However, the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) still uses its fully functional communication transponder for the approximately 7 hours a day when it is visible at the South Pole.
The University of Miami serves as the teleport for the GOES-3, operating and controlling the satellite for the National Science Foundation and providing the ground station at Richmond, Florida.
GOES-3 supports data rates of roughly 1 Mbps out of and roughly 1.5 Mbps into South Pole Station. Its U.S. ground station is in Miami, Florida, which is connected to an access point in the USAP Denver data center by a dedicated communications circuit, providing Internet and telephone services to South Pole network users.
About the USAP


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Creating Successful Snapchat Ad Campaigns
Creating successful Snapchat ad campaigns involves careful planning, targeting the right audience, creating compelling content, and optimizing your ads for maximum engagement. Here are some key steps to help you create successful Snapchat ad campaigns:
Define Your Campaign Goals
Clearly define the objectives of your ad campaign. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive app installs, boost website traffic, or promote a specific product or service? Setting clear goals will help you measure the success of your campaign.
Understand Your Target Audience
Research and identify your target audience on Snapchat. Snapchat provides robust targeting options based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and location. Understanding your audience will help you create relevant and engaging content that resonates with them.
Choose the Right Ad Format
Snapchat offers various ad formats, including Snap Ads, Filters, Lenses, and Story Ads. Each format has its unique benefits and best practices. Consider your campaign goals, budget, and creative assets to choose the most suitable format for your campaign.
Create Compelling Content
Snapchat is a platform known for its visual content, so make sure your ads are visually appealing and capture attention within the first few seconds. Use vibrant colors, clear messaging, and incorporate Snapchat's interactive features like swipe-ups and AR elements to increase engagement.
Keep Ads Short and Snappy
Snapchat users have shorter attention spans, so it's crucial to keep your ads concise and to the point. Aim for ad lengths of 10 seconds or less to maximize viewer engagement. Consider telling a story or showcasing your product/service quickly and creatively.
Leverage Influencer Partnerships
Collaborating with Snapchat influencers can help amplify your brand's reach and credibility. Identify influencers who align with your brand and have an engaged audience. Partnering with them for sponsored content or takeovers can generate significant exposure for your ad campaign.
A/B Test and Optimize
Split test different versions of your ads to identify the most effective elements such as ad copy, visuals, or calls-to-action. Snapchat's Ad Manager provides analytics and performance metrics to track key metrics like impressions, swipe-ups, and conversions. Use this data to optimize your campaigns continuously.
Utilize Snapchat's retargeting capabilities to re-engage users who have interacted with your ads or visited your website. This allows you to create personalized ad experiences and increase the likelihood of conversions.
Monitor and Adjust
Regularly monitor your campaign performance and make adjustments as needed. Analyze the data, identify areas for improvement, and optimize your ads accordingly. Experiment with different targeting options, ad formats, and creative variations to find the winning formula for your campaign.
Set Realistic Budgets
Allocate your budget wisely based on your campaign goals and the audience you want to reach. Snapchat offers different pricing models, including cost per impression (CPM) and cost per swipe-up (CPSU). Start with smaller budgets and scale up as you see positive results.
Remember, Snapchat's audience is primarily young and highly engaged, so creating content that resonates with them is key to running successful ad campaigns on the platform. Stay up-to-date with Snapchat's latest features and ad formats to stay ahead of the competition and continuously optimize your campaigns for better results.


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Volume strain: Due to the application of external force, if the volume of an elastic body is changed without changing its shape, the strain is called volume strain. It is measured by the unit change of volume.
Explanation: It is the ratio of the change in volume of a body to its original volume. If VV is the original volume of a body and V + ΔV is the volume of the body under the action of normal stress, the change in volume is ΔV.
Let the initial volume of an object = V and due to application of external force the change of volume = ΔV.
So, according to definition, volume strain = change of volume / original volume = ΔV /V
So, the volumetric strain is the unit change in volume, i.e. the change in volume divided by the original volume.


Return on invested capital (ROIC) is closely related to ROCE. Like ROCE it looks at returns (usually EBITA) free of the effects of capital structure. There are a number of definitions of ROIC in use which incorporate various refinements:
 - Stripping out assets not used in the business (such as cash and financial investments)
 - Stripping out free funding (most often trade creditors)
 - Adding back the cost of assets that have been written off (most often goodwill impairment)
 - Adjusting for the effect of financial structure on tax paid.
The point of all these is the same: to give investors a better idea of the return the company makes on the money it has invested in the past. ROCE is flattered by writing off assets, ROIC is not. There are a number of definitions of ROIC. A good starting point is:
where A is total assets (equivalent to debt plus equity),
C is cash holdings,
X is non-interest bearing current liabilities, and
W is the cost of assets that have been written off.
It can sometimes be useful to refine this further by replacing EBITA with EBITA ×(1 - tax rate). This shows what the total return would be if the company was purely equity funded. This variant is preferable if comparing companies with permanently different tax rates (e.g., operations in different countries). Total assets includes all fixed assets and current assets.
NOPAT can be used instead of EBITA.
Although some references suggest excluding goodwill from ROIC, there is a very strong case of including it. It is an investment that has been made and that requires a return. The cash balance is excluded as it is not invested in the business, the same reason cash is not included when calculating EV.
Non-interest bearing current liabilities are excluded as they are free sources of funds for the company. If a company is funding a part of its assets by borrowing at no cost (often from trade creditors). By obtaining free funding a company is boosting returns to shareholders and this should be reflected in the ROIC.
The most difficult adjustment is the addition of assets that have been written off. How far into the past should once go? Should we add back an appropriately amortised value rather than the full value? Should amortisation of long lived intangibles in reversed?
ROIC is used to compare the efficiency of companies within a sector. Cross sector comparisons will not be meaningful: an aircraft manufacturer needs more assets than a software company. However, whatever industry the company is in, ROIC must be more than the WACC — otherwise the company is destroying rather than creating wealth.
ROIC is not perfect. As described above, it is still subject to the vagaries of asset values shown on the balance sheet. These depend on depreciation policies and the age of a company's assets. ROIC does nonetheless give investors a useful way of assessing how well run a company has been.
CROIC is similar to ROIC but measures cash returns.


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Another method to the ones described above would be ID-based encryption where a trusted third party, called the Private Key Generator (PKG), generates the corresponding private key based on the user's identity (whether it be domain name or email address).
Given the master public key, any party can compute a public key corresponding to the identity ID by combining the master public key with the identity value. To obtain a corresponding private key, the party authorized to use the identity ID contacts the PKG, which uses the master private key to generate the private key for identity ID. If only part of the master private key is used to generate the corresponding private key, then the PKG can generate two private keys by using different parts of the master key. That way, the user will have one private key, and management the other.
Whether or not this is secure depends on how much you trust the third party PKG.
For further information, have a look at the following link.
ID Based Encryption
Also have a look at the following article:
Identity-Based Encryption from the Weil Pair
If you do a search on the title, you should be able to find the associated PDF.


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May 14–15, 2010
The Wild and Wilderness in Ottoman Gardens and Landscape
B. Deniz Çalış, Assistant Professor & Vice Chair, Department of Architecture, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey
This study proposes to examine territorial relationship of wildlife habitats to cultivated gardens and landscapes of the Ottoman world from the 15th century to the late 19th century, focusing on hunting preserves and imperial gardens. Hunting preserves defined a territory of wilderness—in most cases, adjacent to or within cultivated or semi-cultivated landscape(s), neighboring imperial palaces and the urban fabric, or experienced as nodes of wilderness between imperial centers. The study aims to examine the definition, selection, and territorial expansion of hunting preserves; understand and document the inventory of wild animals; and question the idea of wilderness caught up in the activity of hunting as identified by the rules and laws projected for the act of hunting and the location of hunting grounds. From the 16th to the late 19th centuries, imperial gardens housed wild animals as displays of power. In the 16th century, variety of animals represented wealth of the Empire as the center of the Islamic world—ornamenting imperial grounds with the qualities of the Paradise Garden. In the late 19th century, wildlife habitats within imperial gardens became part of exotic collections with animals imported from different countries and various regions of the Empire. The aim of the study is to understand and outline the cultural meaning(s) of the wild and wilderness in Ottoman culture by examining territorial allocations of wildlife habitats either designed, inhabited, visited, pursued, captured or, at times, imagined.
B. Deniz Çalış is an architect and historian of Ottoman architecture and landscape culture, practicing and teaching in Istanbul, Turkey. She received her architectural diploma from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey (METU) in 1995; Master's Degree in Architecture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 1996; and, completed Ph.D. in Architecture at METU in 2004. Çalış received fellowship from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (1996–1998); grants from TUBA Turkish Academy of Sciences (2008) and Hamad Bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art (2007). She was a junior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Studies (2003–2004). One of the editors of the _URL_; her work has also been published in TOPOS and Dumbarton Oaks Publications among others. She is currently writing a book on the deviant landscape culture of Ottoman Sufis from the 16th c.–18th c. Çalış is teaching at Bahçesehir University, Faculty of Architecture and Design in Istanbul.
Designing a Wilderness for Wildlife: The Case of Pilanesberg, South Africa.
Jane Carruthers, Professor, Department of History, University of South Africa
In the late 1970s a ground-breaking project began in the Pilanesberg (presently in the North West Province of South Africa) to create a wildlife conservation and eco-tourism venture from marginal farmland. In the process of so doing, there was innovative design at a number of levels—community development, tourist satisfaction and ease of access, scientific and wildlife management, the aesthetics of wilderness, and in national identity formation—that subsequently served as models for similar projects elsewhere in southern Africa. During the apartheid era, a large gambling and luxury hotel was established in Bophuthatswana (near Rustenburg, about 200 km from Johannesburg) in order to draw tourists into the homeland and create employment, secondary industries, and to build local capacity. Close to the hotel complex lies the Pilanesberg, a long-extinct volcano of exceptional natural beauty and scientific and geological interest, which was considered appropriate for a small game reserve to amuse hotel visitors. However, the inventive ideas around community participation, wildlife management and environmental restoration initiated by a number of pioneering ecologists, game rangers and administrators, were important in creating the Pilanesberg National Park which is today a substantial and important tourist and wildlife attraction in the region.
Jane Carruthers is a Professor in the Department of History, University of South Africa, Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. She has held Visiting Fellowships in Australia and is on the Advisory Board of the Rachel Carson Center for Environmental History at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. She has been President of the South African Historical Society and serves on the editorial boards of numerous academic journals and book series. Jane has written a number of books and chapters in books, as well as authoring more than 30 articles in scholarly journals. Her doctoral thesis, The Kruger National Park: A Social and Political History (1995) is a standard reference work. She is engaged in research around the history of the biology and national parks, colonial art, heritage and cartography in southern Africa and Australia and has been involved in land restitution claims and land reform.
From Elephants to Mice: the Impact of Ecology and Spatial Scale on the Design of Conservation Strategies
Joshua Ginsberg, Senior Vice President, Global Conservation Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, New York
Scale is a critical variable in both design and conservation planning. In this paper, I examine two aspects of scale as it relates to species-focused conservation efforts. I address how order of magnitude changes in geographic extent influence the conservation targets and concerns that conservationists address for individual species, particularly terrestrial vertebrates. At the smallest scale, in captive and extensive breeding facilities (0–10km2), genetics and demographic stochasticity of small populations dominate both conservation science and management. Management of species in small-scale facilities typically focuses on display and education; breeding for species recovery; or breeding to enhance an economic use of wildlife (e.g. hatcheries). At somewhat larger scales (10–100km2), conservationists focus on active management of threats that reduce population persistence, and the active management of small metapopulations becomes more critical. Many protected areas occur at scales of 1,000–10,000 km2: at this scale, conservation focus shifts from intervention at the species level, to greater attention to the management of habitat and threats at the scale of landscapes. Management efforts at scales of greater than 10,000 km2 focus on larger landscape-level planning and policy efforts, emphasizing the matrix between and among protected areas and the connectivity of areas of relatively low human influence. Here conservationists tend to use species to plan conservation programs, or as metaphorical tools to engage real and epistemic communities in conservation efforts, across political boundaries. Such generalizations about scale, while mostly supportable, are highly influenced by the biology of individual species. In closing, I will note how individual requirements—particularly home range size—affect species persistence as organisms interact with human activities and suggest that greater nuance is required when looking at issues of spatial extent and wildlife persistence.
Joshua Ginsberg is currently Senior Vice President and Deputy Chief Conservation Officer at the Wildlife Conservation Society. He spent 15 years working as a field biologist across East and Southern Africa leading a variety of mammal ecology and conservation projects. As Director of the Asia and Pacific Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society from 1996 until September 2004, Josh oversaw 100 projects in 16 countries. Dr. Ginsberg was also Acting Director of the WCS Africa Program for 10 months in 2002 and Vice President for Conservation Operations from 2003–2009. He received a B. Sc. from Yale, and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton in Ecology and Evolution. He served as the Chairman of the NOAA/NMFS Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Team from 2001–2007. Dr. Ginsberg has held faculty positions at Oxford University and University College London, and is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University where he teaches conservation biology and international relations of the environment. He has supervised 14 Masters and four Ph. D. students. He is an author on over 50 reviewed papers, and has edited three books on wildlife conservation, ecology and evolution.
Biodiversity of Wildlife Habitats as an Educational Resource: Two case studies, Alice Springs Desert Park and Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary
Stuart Green, Principal, Landscape Architect, Green & Dale Associates, Melbourne, Australia
The Alice Springs Desert Park in Central Australia is a successful example of landscape design for biodiversity. It brings together botanical, zoological and ethno-biological elements which provide a rich educational experience for the visitor. The plant habitat regimes include riverine, sand dune desert and dry woodland areas. The zoological element entails protection of wildlife from predators with the design of 'habitat immersion' animal enclosures. The visitor's experience is enriched by the stories told by the indigenous park rangers and guides, who, as custodians of this park, have an extensive knowledge and appreciation of the wildlife and its Central Australian habitats.
The Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary is located within one of the largest and richest surviving examples of the Indochinese dry forest habitat. The design objective of this project is to conserve the existing natural habitats of the region's wildlife. The urgency to protect wildlife by preventing wholesale deforestation and poaching in this area cannot be understated. In the expansive sanctuary prey and predators will share the same environment. The Sanctuary will be designed as an educational resource for the Cambodian community and for visitors.
The role of design in promoting zoological biodiversity as an educational resource is central to the contrasting projects of Central Australia and Cambodia. Drawing on the experiences of the author as a designer in both projects, this paper discusses the major factors that can influence the success or otherwise of design initiatives that integrate biodiversity conservation with education. These factors include the relative prioritization of education within the project, the local context (social, economic, geographic and political), the type of funding


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Monday, March 1, 2010
Jean-Charles de la Faille
Today in 1597 is the birthdate for Jean-Charles de la Faille [Flemish mathematician]. He was a contempory of Galileo and one of many Jesuits involved in the sciences. His most famous work is Theoremata de centro gravitatis [Theorems of Centers of Gravity].
The portrait above by Van Dyck was done just prior to de la Faille's move to the court of Phillip IV in Madrid in 1629 and considered the only portrait that Van Dyck did of a scientist.
Jean-Charles de la Faille [Wikipedia]


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The ends of the hoops are inserted 6 to 8 inches into the soil on each side of the row so that the width of the hoop at the base is 24 to 36 inches and the height at the apex of the hoop is 14 to 18 inches. The hoops are spaced about 4 feet apart in the row. There are many variations of these dimensions, depending on crop size. Hoops made from a coil of wire are installed by hand; but for machine-installed hoops, the wire has to be straight to properly feed into the machine. For most crops grown with hoop-supported covers, black plastic mulch is used for weed control as well as for improved crop growth.
After the hoops are set, the plastic cover is applied and secured by burying the edges with soil. The cover should be taut to prevent flapping in the wind. An alternative way of securing the cover is to insert an outer wire hoop over the inner hoop with a solid (non-perforated) plastic cover wedged between the two hoops. With the double hoop technique, the edges of the plastic are not buried so that the cover can be raised and lowered for ventilation.
Another method of covering is to use plastic with either slits or perforations (3/8 inch holes). Generally, daytime opening is not required, although at night there is a greater loss of heat through these openings than through solid plastic. The advantage over solid plastic is minimal, if any, labor for manual ventilation. Daytime opening is necessary for crops such as tomatoes and pepper if the temperature under the cover is expected to exceed 90oF for several hours. Under such conditions, the easiest way to ventilate quickly is to make long slits at the top of the low tunnel; but this should be done in anticipation of the high temperatures, not after the fact. Cucurbits (melons, cucumbers, and squash) are more tolerant of high temperatures.
Depending on the crop and the environmental conditions, the covers are left in place for 3 to 4 weeks and then removed. For crops requiring bee pollination, the covers are removed about the time of the appearance of the first female flowers. For wind pollinated crops (tomato, pepper, eggplant), time of removal is somewhat temperature dependent since temperatures should not exceed 90o F at the late bud to open flower stage for more than a few hours.
Research is being conducted at the Center for Plasticulture on the use of various kinds of low tunnels both in the field and in high tunnels.


based formatting has demonstrated improvements to reading performance:
 - Students young and old who want to improve their learning performance, either for their primary language or one or more secondary languages;
 - Below average readers (Lake Wobegon children excepted);
 - Busy professionals who read every day in a distracting environment;
 - Readers who find that they often read while they're tired, and want to maintain and improve their reading performance even under poor conditions;
 - Anyone who feels overwhelmed by today's information overload and wants to improve their experience.
Whether you read news articles, journals, books, or even your Facebook feed, adding Asym Spacing can improve your experience.
Today, Asymmetrica Labs is launching the Asym Browser Extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari for pages in English. In the background, the Asym extension will dynamically apply our language models to the contents of your web pages. After your pages load, our spacing will quickly "snap" into place. We never change the text content, we just augment it with better word spacing.
We're pleased to provide this benefit to everyone and, in our initial release phase, the extension will be free. Support for Spanish and other languages are in the pipeline.
Content creators and distributors can benefit as well. Asymmetrica offers testing plans for creators to format their content using our secure APIs. Run A/B tests between the original content and Asym Spacing, and find out how much Asym Spacing can improve your content for your readers – we only benefit if you do. Delivering your content with Asym Spacing to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people will improve your users' experience and your bottom line.
Keep an eye out for our future developments, and enjoy your reading!
This entire post was formatted using this technology. Did Asym Spacing improve your reading experience?
Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn (_USER_) or in the comments below.
[1] North, A. J., & Jenkins, L. B. (1951). Reading speed and comprehension as a function of typography. Journal of Applied Psychology.


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Having been on the receiving end of needles twice
, I would like to add that there are two types of needles with vastly different concerns if you get stuck:
HOLLOW: these are what people usually think of as needles: the things on the end of a syringe when you get your vaccinations. Since these have a lumen and thus can store infective material, they are much more dangerous IF contaminated. Needlesticks from these are usually from carelessness (dropped in the trash or left on a bed) or, ironically, from recapping the needle and missing the protective cap.
SOLID: these are the safety pins and suture needles which harbor far less infective material. When they stick someone they are additionally cleaned on the way in by the person's gloves, clothing, and skin; risk is further lessened, although not eliminated.


Analysis of Dulce est Decorum est
Analysis of Song: Tears, Idle Tears
The poem, "Song: tears, Idle Tears" was part of a longer poem, and it was written as a song, as the title clearly states. Alfred lord Tennyson was British and was born in 1809 and he died in 1892.
Th title of the poem is the same as the fist few words of the poem and this suggests that it is a continuation from the title, perhaps like a narrative.
"Tears, idle ears, I know not what they mean", this probably means that his tears have been flowing for so long tat he doesn't even remember why he is crying. The repetition on tears emphasizes that he was crying a lot. "tears from the depth of some divine despair…", despair was considered a sin, so 'divine despair' is an oxymoron as divine is something good and despair is not. This probably shows that Lord Tennyson; a) Didn't believe in religion and its teachings or b) he considered despair as something great. He may have used the word divine to show the d=greatness of his despair.
"Rise in the heart and gathers to the eyes," here, enjambment from the previous line helps in continuing the rhyme scheme as well as the narrative story. He describes his tears as rising in the 'heart', which tells us that his tears were genuine and thy were not fake as they came from his heart. He flashes back to the memories of 'Autumn-Fields' and laments on them, "thinking of the days that are no more.".
"Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail..that brings our friends up from the underworld." This creates imagery of a 'sail' first coming into view. This perhaps means that he is hoping his 'friends' come back from the dead. These two lines are a contrast as he says that the first beam was fresh, but the people from the underworld will not be fresh as they are buried underground. "Sad as the last which reddens over one…below the verge." This creates reversed image of the first two lines of the stanza 2, as in the first two lines, it shows how they emerge while in this one it shows how it sinks. This probably shows the cycle of life and the dipping and rising of the sail creates a moving image int he readers mind. He says "sinks with all we love…", this may probably mean that his love was also buried which shows that his lover also died. The word 'all' may suggest that he has lost a lot in life. "So sad, so fresh, the days that are more more…" this probably is a sort of lament and the reader can almost hear the 'sigh' in his voice. He says the sad days are still fresh which may mean that it was something recent, but this then contrasts wit the first statement, "Tears, Idle tears…" as this tells us that he has been crying for so long that he forgot what his tears were for but when he says 's fresh', it means that the memory is still fresh in his head and that's why he's crying. This suggests that he is subconsciously revisiting the old memories and crying.
The third stanza of the poem is probably showing that last few moments of the dying person; "To dying ears, when unto dying eyes…grows a glimmering square,". Dying ears and dying eyes suggests that it is the last few moments before death and his/her eyes are slowly closing. This contrasts with "Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns…the earliest pipe of half awakened birds…" as these lines describe the beginning of the day while the next two lines describes the last minutes before death. This may probably mean that the lover died at a young age as just when the world was about to start living, he/she was dying. Lord Tennyson, repeats the last line of the second stanza in the third stanza to re-emphasize.
The last stanza shows regret of loving his lover as he says, "…sweet as those by hopeless fancy feinged, on lips that are for others," maybe his lover cheated on him and yet the narrator loved him/her and this makes it much more difficult for him. He says his love for his lover was 'deep as first love' and 'wild with all regret'. which suggests that perhaps his lover had hurt him.
The last stanza may perhaps change the perspective of the reader as it might be that the poem was a metaphor for the 'death of love', not 'death of lover', for the narrator as his lover cheated on him as he says 'O death in life' which means that his emotions were dead even though he was alive.
There is no consistent rhyme scheme as it is a blank verse, yet the internal rhyme and the narrative pace of the poem helps give it a rhyme. The tone of the poem is filled with regret and lament, it is slow and steady and this probably means that the narrator is having a flashback to these memories quite often, A lot of descriptive imagery is used to create a picture in the reader's mind to express the narrator's despair more vividly.
The poem is written to describe the narrator's love for his lover and how devastated he is and Lord Tennyson successfully achieves this by using a simplistic yet descriptive way of writing the poem which makes it very easy for the reader to understand and sympathize with the narrator.
A closer look at Rosencrantz's and Guildenstern's personalities
Being an existentialist play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, follows the journey of the central two protagonists, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern to their destiny; Death! The play focuses on chance vs. Fate and the decisions made by Rosencrantz & Guildenstern when faced with certain circumstances.
In the opening act, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are described as 'two Elizabethans' wearing the same thing – 'Hats, cloaks, sticks and all'. This shows that they were not anybody special. They are described generally and this might be to enforce the fact that they are 'two sides' to the same coin as they look identical yet have complete extreme personalities; 'Guildenstern's bag is nearly empty. Rosencrantz's bag is nearly full." Guildenstern seems to be a pessimist, 'Glass is half-empty kind of guy', while Rosencrantz seems to be the more optimistic one. Stoppard has used duality of meaning by describing their bags as nearly empty and nearly full in order to mirror image their personalities.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are playing a game of coin toss in which Rosencrantz seems to be winning; 'heads' 'Head' 'Head', while Guildenstern even though he doesn't care about the money is questioning and trying to come up with reasons why the run of heads is recurrent; "A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith…in the law of probability." Guildenstern doesn't believe in 'Luck', "It can be done by luck alone." "If that's the word I'm after." He needs a logical explanation for everything and wants to control everything and this leads to him coming up with weir syllogisms like, '…proposition that if six monkeys were…". Rosencrantz on the other hand is said back and goes with the flow. He doesn't question 'why?' or 'how?", "Eighty-five in a row-beaten the record!" These two contracting personalities have a different opinion of everything throughout the play; Guildenstern is more dominant and even though Rosencrantz does have different opinions, he usually does what Guildenstern does.
Guildenstern believes that everything in life is logical and reasonable. "It must be indicative of something", He tries to come up with explanations for everything by using syllogisms; "One, He had never known anything like it." Guildenstern always come very close to finding out the truth but at the last minute gets scared and changes the topic; "…Home…what's the first thing you remember?" Till the very end of the play, Guildenstern tries to control everything around him.
In act 3, he says, "I'm very fond of boats myself…they're-contained." He says this because a boat is a measurable enclosed space and so Guildenstern has the power to control everything, but what he can't control is the big world and everything outside the boat; i.e. the boat is only a small part of the vast universe and no-one except God can control the Universe. So even if all is in order in the boat, you never know what can happen the next minute, as there is a lot of chance and chaos surrounding the boat; "Pirates!" The Pirates arrive and Hamlet is kidnapped by them and that when Guildenstern realizes that he cannot control everything and that is when he truly understands and believes in it; "…our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current…"
Rosencrantz, on the other hand is more than happy to be suspended in time as this means that he doesn't have to make a decision because when it is time to take action, Rosencrantz is afraid and frightened like a child; "I want to go home", because usually he is so used to ignoring the truth that when the time comes to take action, he gets confused and afraid as he no longer has the comfort of doing nothing. Rosencrantz is a 'go with the flow


Texas Tech University
men standing with mobile radar
DOE X-band Radar
Figure. Final radome lift during the installation phase for the DOE-X radar.
John Schroeder
NWI Faculty Affiliate
Ph: _PHONE_
Email: _EMAIL_
The DOE-X radar prototype was funded by the US Department of Energy and originally developed to advance wind plant complex flow measurements. The specialized radar has also been used for atmospheric and defense-related research agendas. Relative to other "off the shelf" radar technologies, the TTU specialized transmitter and receiver chains were specifically designed to enhance data availability in non-precipitating atmospheres. The new radar prototype was integrated at TTU using components from various suppliers across the world, and then was installed at the Reese Technology Center in May 2016.
Following installation, functionality and performance testing were completed, and subsequent comparative analysis indicated that the new prototype greatly enhanced data availability by a factor of 3.5-50 in almost all atmospheric conditions relative to the TTUKa radars (the baseline used for comparison).
The new prototype also provided enhanced signal quality in clear air (i.e. non-precipitating) environments, mitigated atmospheric attenuation, and extended the useful range of data collection to beyond 30km in cooperative atmospheric conditions.
Importantly, the new DOE-X prototype has shown some initial indications of benefiting from Bragg scattering when the thermal stratification of the atmosphere is strong (i.e. during nocturnal hours) providing a unique advantage for many applications. The radar prototype is also able to detect bird activity at ranges beyond 15km.
Commercial applications of the developed X-band radar concept have started with the deployment of two early-stage commercial units for DONG Energy in the United Kingdom by SmartWind Technologies (_URL_).
Starting in the summer of 2016, these units have been providing continuous dual-Doppler coverage of the Westermost Rough wind plant. The commercial effort has also resulted in additional software development to assist end users in evaluating, visualizing, querying and extracting relevant radar data from a large archive of measurement.
Operating specs
radial velocity
Figure. Radial velocity (m/s) acquired from 360° surveillance scans acquired at 22 UTC (top-left), 08 UTC (top-middle), and 15 UTC (top-right) using the DOE-X prototype, and a time history of virtual potential temperature (K) profiles from the nearby TTU 200m tower (bottom), where the time of each radar scan is noted.
Ka-band Mobile Doppler Radar Trucks
One of NWI's two Ka-band radar trucks in the field collecting data.
NWI has two mobile Ka-band Mobile Doppler Radars. These fully coherent, pulse compression Doppler radar systems utilize traveling wave tube technology and provide the ability for four-dimensional mapping of a wide spectrum of atmospheric phenomena with very-fine spatial resolution useful for both the atmospheric science and engineering communities.
These data platforms allow our researchers to bring the radar instrumentation to the storm (instead of having to wait for the storm to arrive on their doorstep). They also enable four-dimensional mapping of atmospheric events which is useful for both atmospheric science and for wind engineering fields.
The radars are designed to enhance the sensitivity and the resolution of the data collected and allows more in-depth study of fine-scale atmospheric motions. They also have a higher resolution than that usually provided by other types of equipment which helps researchers "see" through the heaviest rains without losing much signal which means clearer (and more useful) data in the end.
The white dome on the bed of each truck houses the radar and protects it from inclement weather - called a Ra-DOME and looks very similar to a large soccer ball.
Studying severe weather and tornadoes can be tricky as these weather events are often "small" enough to just fit between permanent weather observation stations which means that they can "slip through the net" data-wise. StickNets and Ka-band radar trucks are able to "zoom" in to the most important parts of the storm whilst staying a safe distance away from the dangerous weather.
(Photo credit: Patrick Skinner, NWI Ph.D. student.)
Radar Rates
Internal projects
(i.e. funded research projects through TTU)
Rollout Fee: $2000/radar/project
Transmitter Fee: $250/radar/hour
External Projects
(i.e. service center activity)
Rollout Fee: $3000/radar/project
Transmitter Fee: $375/radar/hour
TTU Ka-band Radar Specifications:
Transmit Frequency 34.86 / 35.06 GHz (for TTUKa-1 / TTUKa-2)
Transmit Power 200 watts peak, 100 watts average
Transmitter Type: TWTA, 50% duty cycle
Antenna Type Cassegrain feed, epoxy dielectric
Antenna Gain 56 dB
Antenna 3dB BW 0.33 degrees
Polarization Linear, horizontal
Waveguide WR-28, pressurized
PRF Variable, up to 20KHz
Pulse Width 4 widths, variable from 30 nsec to 80 usec
Gate Spacing 12 meters
Receiver Dual block up/down converter
IF Frequency 60 MHz
Pedestal System Orbit AL-4016, 6 rpm max axis rotation
DSP Sigmet RVP-900 with Tx IF modulator drive
Modulation Pulse, Linear FM Chirp, Non-linear FM Chirp
Vehicle Chevy C5500 crewcab, custom bed
Plaform Stabilization Computer assisted hydraulic leveling system
Regional SODAR Network
SOnic Detection and Ranging (SODAR) are acoustic radars that are available to evaluate low-level atmospheric stability and wind characteristics.
The SODAR network is used for high resolution short-term wind forecasts and measures wind at different levels. (Wind speed tends to have different speeds at different heights from the ground which is useful for building safe structures and for use in academic and real-world projects.)
Six SCINTEC flat panel array units have been installed across West Texas and are part of the West Texas Mesonet (WTM) system. (See here for more information on the West Texas Mesonet system.)
SODAR units have been integrated with the WTM system to provide elevated measurements for high-resolution, short-term ensemble wind forecasts.
The SODARs run 10-minute scans at 10-m bin spacing. The first bin is at 30 meters above ground level (AGL) with wind speed and direction date available up to a maximum height of 380 meters AGL.
(Above) - Picture of SODAR unit in the field.
TTUKa-band Mobile Doppler Radars History
Radar Wake Research