double-edged sword for groups, it is a panacea for the individuals who accumulate it (until their group collapses because of their despotism). Amassing power is a proven way to increase reproductive success (Betzig, 1986). So it is no wonder that humans have an urge to seek power. If a behavior leads to reproductive success, organisms will develop an urge to do it.
I am going to discuss three "pathways to power"5. These are ways that individuals can increase their social influence within a group.
Pathway to Power 1: Make your subordinates more submissive
One way to increase your power is to make your existing subordinates more submissive. By doing so, you make your power more absolute.
While potent, coercion is an expensive way to increase your power. The more you coerce someone, the more they will dream of killing you. This is the fear of every despot – that their subordinates will turn on them. So while coercion can exact obedience, it requires constant vigilance. Ignore your coerced subordinates for a moment and you may find a dagger in your back.
A less expensive way to make your subordinates more submissive is to turn to the power of ideas. Convince your subordinates that you have the legitimate right to command them and you immediately increase your power.
What matters is its virulence. To work, your ideology must infect the minds of your subordinates. It must convince them that your power is legitimate.
Whether you use coercion or ideology (or both), making your subordinates more submissive can increase your power. That being said, this approach is not an effective way to accumulate power. Why? Because having absolute power over a few subordinates hardly makes you Napoleon. To achieve great power, you need to become the master of many.
Pathway to Power 2: Accumulate direct subordinates
With Napoleon as your inspiration, you set out to accumulate subordinates. How do you do it? One way is to accumulate direct subordinates. A direct subordinate is someone who is directly under your control. They listen to you and no one else.
While simple, there are obvious limits to this pathway to power. Even the most charismatic person will find it hard to maintain direct power relations with hundreds of people. Yet to be powerful like Napoleon, you need hundreds of thousands of subordinates.
Pathway to Power 3: Accumulate indirect subordinates
If you are not satisfied with the number of subordinates you can control directly, the next step is to encourage your subordinates to find their own subordinates. By doing so, you accumulate indirect subordinates.
We assume here that power is "transitive". So if Bob controls Charlotte and Alice controls Bob, then Alice also controls Charlotte. When power is transitive, it forms a chain of command.
The advantage of accumulating indirect subordinates is that you don't need to manage relations with many people.
The disadvantage of having indirect subordinates, however, is that power is not perfectly transitive. Power gets diluted as it is passed down the chain of command.
You have to maintain the chain of command so that power flows smoothly.
The road to hierarchy
The best way to accumulate power is to use all three pathways: make your subordinates extremely submissive, accumulate direct subordinates, and encourage your subordinates to accumulate subordinates. When you pursue all three pathways to power, what do you get? In a word, hierarchy.
A hierarchy is a network in which every relation is a power relation. To maintain the hierarchy, you must make sure your subordinates are submissive (pathway 1). Next, you encourage all of your subordinates to command multiple subordinates of their own. This combines pathways 2 and 3, and leads to the quintessential feature of a hierarchy – the branching chain of command.
Think about the structure of hierarchy. As each new layer of hierarchy is added, the number of subordinates you command grows exponentially.
Now you have power that rivals Napoleon's. And our evolutionary theory predicts that you will use it to your advantage. You will use your immense power to take an exceptional share of the resource pie.
With a bit of evolutionary reasoning, it becomes clear that our relations must be what drives the distribution of income inside groups. Moreover, when groups organize using power relations, we have a clear prediction for how income should be distributed. I have called this prediction the power ethos: to each according to their social influence. Hierarchies, I have argued, are the quintessential tool for concentrating power. In them, the power ethos should dominate. In other words, in a hierarchy it's not what you know that shapes your income. It's who you control.
Part III: Evidence for the Power Ethos
Having proposed that the power ethos should prevail within hierarchies, I now put this idea to the test. I look for evidence of the power ethos inside modern firms.
To test for the power ethos, we need to quantify power.
But because power is difficult to quantify, this idea has rarely been tested.
As a consequence, a promising theory of resource distribution has languished.
To measure power, I propose that we break it down into two dimensions. We will distinguish between the number of people one influences and the strength of this influence. The purpose of doing so is to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative aspects of power. The strength of one's influence over others is a qualitative aspect of power. It is determined by the obedience of one's followers, which is difficult to quantify.
Slaves are far more obedient than Twitter followers. So these two forms of social influence are qualitatively different.
In contrast, the number of people one influences is easy to quantify. We just count people!
Here is where our two dimensions of power are useful. While we may not be able to (easily) quantify the obedience of followers, we can probably agree on a rough ranking. We can agree that social media followers are less obedient than employees in a corporate hierarchy.
Once we rank obedience, I argue that we can reduce power to a single dimension.
Let's first go through this obedience ranking. Then we will discuss why it is relevant for measuring power.
Figure 7 The Two Dimensions of Power. The y-axis ranks different forms of power in terms of the obedience of followers. The x-axis shows the number of followers of the given individual.
In this paper, I am going to stay inside the bureaucratic hierarchy zone of obedience, visualized in Figure 8. Inside the bureaucratic hierarchy zone, obedience is institutionalized. This means that obedience does not depend on personal characteristics. Instead, it depends on institutional position.
The bureaucratic hierarchy zone is where the institutions of capitalism live. Bureaucratic hierarchy is how firms and governments are organized. More broadly, I would guess that it is how all large institutions in human history are organized.
Power is proportional to the number of subordinates one controls.
Figure 10 shows this equivalence between firm size and the hierarchical power of the CEO.
We will use this equivalence to see if the relative income of CEOs grows with hierarchical power.
Figure 11 shows how the CEO pay ratio grows with hierarchical power among US CEOs. Among these CEOs, it seems that the power ethos prevails. Relative income grows with hierarchical power.
Next, I will look at the income of all employees within firms.
In these firms, it seems that the power ethos prevails. Average income within hierarchical ranks is strongly proportional to hierarchical power.
The evidence above does not convince mainstream economists to abandon their theory. It is impossible to disprove that an unmeasured skill causes the returns to hierarchical power. The best we can do is show that measured skill does not explain these returns. In Fix (2018b), I show that common measures of skill (like education and firm experience) cannot explain the returns to hierarchical rank.
Time is important because there is a mismatch between how we learn skills and how we acquire hierarchical power. We learn skills gradually. But we acquire hierarchical power in lumps.
Skills are an individual trait.
To learn a new skill, you must forge new pathways in your brain. This takes time. Like all animals, our ability to learn has physiological limits. But accumulating hierarchical power has no such limits. That is because hierarchical power is a social trait.
The more hierarchical power someone gains during a promotion, the more their income increases. For demotions, the reverse is true.
I have shown you evidence that the power ethos prevails in a sample of modern firms. But how general is this relation? Does income always grow with hierarchical power inside hierarchies? I predict that it does.
Whenever we find institutional hierarchy, I predict we will find the power ethos. It doesn't matter if we are studying a feudal fiefdom, an archaic kingdom, a totalitarian regime, a democratic state, or a modern corporation. If there is hierarchy, I predict that access to resources will grow with hierarchical power.
Income is a social phenomenon. To understand it, we need to understand social relations. And there is no better place to start than to study the power relations that dominate our working lives.


Archive for February, 2012
Counting and Solving Final Fantasy XIII-2's Clock Puzzles
February 6th, 2012
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a role-playing game, released last week in North America, that contains an abundance of mini-games. One of the more interesting mini-games is the "clock puzzle", which presents the user with N integers arranged in a circle, with each integer being from 1 to \lfloor N/2 \rfloor.
A challenging late-game clock puzzle with N = 12
The way the game works is as follows:
To demonstrate the rules in action, consider the following simple example with N = 6 (I have labelled the six positions 05 in blue for easy reference):
If we start by choosing the 1 in position 1, then we have the option of choosing the 3 in either position 0 or 2. Let's choose the 3 in position 0. Three moves either clockwise or counter-clockwise from here both give the 1 in position 3, so that is our only possible next choice. We continue on in this way, going through the N = 6 positions in the order 103425, as in the following image:
We have now selected each position exactly once, so we are done – we solved the puzzle! In fact, this is the unique solution for the given puzzle.
Counting Clock Puzzles
Let's work on determining how many different clock puzzles there are of a given size. As mentioned earlier, a clock puzzle with N positions has an integer in the interval [1, \lfloor N/2 \rfloor] in each of the positions. There are thus \lfloor N/2 \rfloor^N distinct clock puzzles with N positions, which grows very quickly with N – its values for N = 1, 2, 3, … are given by the sequence 0, 1, 1, 16, 32, 729, 2187, 65536, 262144, … (A206344 in the OEIS).
However, this rather crude count of the number of clock puzzles ignores the fact that some clock puzzles have no solution. To illustrate this fact, we present the following simple proposition:
Proposition. There are unsolvable clock puzzles with N positions if and only if N = 4 or N ≥ 6.
To prove this proposition, first note that the clock puzzles for N = 2 or N = 3 are trivially solvable, since each number in the puzzle is forced to be \lfloor N/2 \rfloor = 1. The 32 clock puzzles in the N = 5 case can all easily be shown to be solvable via computer brute force (does anyone have a simple or elegant argument for this case?).
In the N = 4 case, exactly 3 of the 16 clock puzzles are unsolvable:
To complete the proof, it suffices to demonstrate an unsolvable clock puzzle for each N ≥ 6. To this end, we begin by considering the following clock puzzle in the N = 6 case:
The above puzzle is unsolvable because the only way to reach position 0 is to select it first, but from there only one of positions 2 or 4 can be reached – not both. This example generalizes in a straightforward manner to any N ≥ 6 simply by adding more 1's to the bottom: it will still be necessary to choose position 0 first, and then it is impossible to reach both position 2 and position N-2 from there.
There doesn't seem to be an elegant way to count the number of solvable clock puzzles with N positions (which is most likely related to the apparent difficulty of solving these puzzles, which will be discussed in the next section), so let's count the number of solvable clock puzzles via brute force. Simply constructing each of the \lfloor N/2 \rfloor^N clock puzzles and determining which of them are solvable (via the MATLAB script linked at the end of this post) shows that the number of solvable clock puzzles for N = 1, 2, 3, … is given by the sequence 0, 1, 1, 13, 32, 507, 1998, 33136, 193995, … (A206345 in the OEIS).
This count of puzzles is perhaps still unsatisfying, though, since it counts puzzles that are simply mirror images or rotations of each other multiple times. Again, there doesn't seem to be an elegant counting argument for enumerating the solvable clock puzzles up to rotation and reflection, so we compute this sequence by brute force: 0, 1, 1, 4, 8, 72, 236, 3665, 19037, … (A206346 in the OEIS).
Solving Clock Puzzles
Clock puzzles are one of the most challenging parts of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and with good reason: they are a well-studied graph theory problem in disguise. We can consider each clock puzzle with N positions as a directed graph with N vertices. If position N contains the number M, then there is a directed edge going from vertex N to the vertices M positions clockwise and counter-clockwise from it. In other words, we consider a clock puzzle as a directed graph on N vertices, where the directed edges describe the valid moves around the circle.
The directed graph corresponding to the earlier (solvable) N = 6 example
The problem of solving a clock puzzle is then exactly the problem of finding a directed Hamiltonian path on the associated graph. Because finding a directed Hamiltonian path in general is NP-hard, this seems to suggest that solving clock puzzles might be as well. There of course is the problem that the directed graphs relevant to this problem have very special structure – in particular, every vertex has outdegree ≤ 2, and the graph has a symmetry property that results from clockwise/counter-clockwise movement allowed in the clock puzzles.
The main result of [1] shows that the fact that the outdegree of each vertex is no larger than 2 is no real help: finding directed Hamiltonian paths is still NP-hard given such a promise. However, the symmetry condition seems more difficult to characterize in graph theoretic terms, and could potentially be exploited to produce a fast algorithm for solving these puzzles.
Regardless of the problem's computational complexity, the puzzles found in the game are quite small (N ≤ 13), so they can be easily solved by brute force. Attached is a MATLAB script (solve_clock.m) that can be used to solve clock puzzles. The first input argument is a vector containing the numeric values in each of the positions, starting from the top and reading clockwise. By default, only one solution is computed. To compute all solutions, set the second (optional) input argument to 1.
The output of the script is either a vector of positions (labelled 0 through N-1, with 0 referring to the top position, 1 referring to one position clockwise from there, and so on) describing an order in which you can visit the positions to solve the puzzle, or 0 if there is no solution.
For example, the script can be used to find our solution to the N = 6 example provided earlier:
>> solve_clock([3,1,3,1,2,3])
ans =
 1 0 3 4 2 5
Similarly, the script can be used to find all four solutions [Update, October 1, 2013: Whoops, there are six solutions! See the comments.] to the puzzle in the screenshot at the very top of this post:
>> solve_clock([6,5,1,4,2,1,6,4,2,1,5,2], 1)
ans =
 3 7 11 9 10 5 4 2 1 8 6 0
 7 3 11 9 10 5 4 2 1 8 6 0
 9 10 5 4 2 3 7 11 1 8 6 0
 9 8 10 5 4 2 3 7 11 1 6 0
 1. J. Plesnik. The NP-completeness of the Hamiltonian cycle problem in planar digraphs with degree bound two. Inform. Process. Lett., 8:199–201, 1979.


text: Field observations and numerical simulations indicate that the 6-to-30-km-wide mangrove forest along the Gulf Coast of South Florida effectively attenuated stormsurges from a Category 3 hurricane, Wilma, and protected the inland wetland by reducing an inundation area of 1800 km2 and restricting surge inundation inside the mangrove zone. The surge amplitude decreases at a rate of 40–50 cm/km across the mangrove forest and at a rate of 20 cm/km across the areas with a mixture of mangrove islands with open water. In contrast, the amplitudes of stormsurges at the front of the mangrove zone increase by about 10–30% because of the "blockage" of mangroves to surge water, which can cause greater impacts on structures at the front of mangroves than the case without mangroves. The mangrove forest can also protect the wetlands behind the mangrove zone against surge inundation from a Category 5 hurricane with a fast forward speed of 11.2 m/s (25 mph). However, the forest cannot fully attenuate stormsurges from a Category 5 hurricane with a slow forward speed of 2.2 m/s (5 mph) and reduced surges can still affect the wetlands behind the mangrove zone. The effects of widths of mangrove zones on reducing surge amplitudes are nonlinear with large reduction rates (15–30%) for initial width increments and small rates (<5%) for subsequent width increments.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Botanical Museum
Botanical Museum
This element belongs to the categories: Museums, University of Cagliari (Official Department)
Opened in 2008, it was created with the intent to combine the visits to the Botanical Gardens with in-depht monographs. The ancient art of wax carving comes back to life through model of mushrooms, flowers, carnivorous plants, insects and pollen.
The Botanical Museum was opened in November 2008. It was created with the intent to incorporate visits to the Botanical Gardens with monographic and thematic analisys. To prepare certain sections were made botanical models in three dimensions that, thanks to the passion of Dr. Cristina Delunas, manager of the structure, reproduce in a modern and renovated way, the ancient art of wax modeling. A combination of art and science, well known in the past centuries, which had as illustrious character C. Susini and L. Inkwells, best known for the anatomical waxes and that, after E.Tortori's death(1893), fell into disuse and was almost forgotten. In this small museum the ancient art rises again: mushrooms, flowers, carnivorous plants, pollen and insects take shape, completely created by hand over the flame of an alcohol lamp. Unique pieces, made in the belonging laboratory. The museum houses scientific instruments used in the Departement during past centuries, such as microscopes, precision balances and dryers. It preserves an important collection of herbal preparations in formalin which has about 200 pieces. Historically important for the place where the Garden and then the Museum rise, is a small collection of archaeological finds from the Roman period ( first and second century. D. C. ) found in the Garden itself. A showcase is dedicated to the history of herbal medicine.
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text:
(The). A possession which invariably brought ill luck with it. Hence the Latin proverb "Ille homo habet equum Seianum." Cneius Seius had an Argive horse, of the breed of Diomed, of a bay colour and surpassing beauty, but it was fatal to its possessor. Seius was put to death by Mark Antony. Its next owner, Cornelius Dolabella, who bought it for 100,000 sesterces, was killed in Syria during the civil wars. Caius Cassius, who next took possession of it, perished after the battle of Philippi by the very sword which stabbed Caesar. Antony had the horse next, and after the battle of Actium slew himself. Like the gold of Tolosa and Hermione's necklace, the Seian or Sejan horse was a fatal possession.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
More on Seian Horse from Infoplease:

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Related issues: Issue DEFSTRUCT-SLOTS-CONSTRAINTS-NAME
Edit history: V1, 11 May 90, Sandra Loosemore
V2, 29 May 90, Sandra Loosemore (cross-references)
The use of non-keywords for slot names in _TAG_ reader/printer
syntax is ugly. The standard ought to encourage a cleaner
(1) Deprecate the use of non-keywords to name slots in _TAG_ syntax
for reading structures.
(2) Require that _TAG_ syntax for printing structures print slot
names as keywords.
This encourages a cleaner style while maintaining backward
compatibility for users.
Some implementations already use keywords for printing
structures, while some use unqualified symbols. Practice among
users is also mixed. Many users tend to follow the example of
whatever implementation they use most frequently.
Cost to Implementors:
The actual implementation cost of changing the _TAG_ printer
is trivial, but there may be more work involved in updating
Cost to Users:
Cost of non-adoption:
Using keywords is probably slightly more efficient than using
unqualified symbols, at least on the reader end.
The use of non-keywords to name slots in _TAG_ syntax is ugly.
Technically, there is no reason now why both users and
implementors cannot use keywords, but the fact that CLtL
goes out of its way to explain that it's not necessary to
do so, and that all of the examples of _TAG_ syntax use non-keywords,
has encouraged both users and implementors to follow this style.
Proposal DEFSTRUCT-SLOTS-CONSTRAINTS-NAME:DUPLICATES-ERROR made
it clear that DEFSTRUCT slot names must have unique
symbol-names. Therefore there is no possibility for conflicts
if the slot names are printed as keyword symbols.
Several people have voiced support for at least changing the
examples in the standard to use keywords, to encourage both
users and implementors to adopt the style.
Dan Pierson says:
Yes, YEs, YES! I've been wanting this fix for bogus implementations
since CLtL came out and ******lisp interpreted it the other way.


text:
I need to convert utterance strings into vectors where each dimension of the vector represents a unique word, while reading the script from an m.file. So for example if I have, out='hello''my' 'name' 'is''sam'. I want a vector with binary numbers where hello is true and everything else is false.
Solution would be output=[1,0,0,0] How can I do this? Here is what I have so far
>> splitstring=textscan(ans, '%s');
No products are associated with this question.


Query stub information in Docker images and containers
After you build a Docker image, you can query that image to see stub information such as the stub name, its ID, and its exposed port. In addition, after the image is running as a container, you can query the container to retrieve information as to what stubs are running within it.
Docker images
The Docker images that are built from a Dockerfile and build context files that are published from HCL OneTest™ API contain a file that is named stubs.info with basic information for the stubs that are included. To view the file contents within the image, use this Docker command:
docker run --entrypoint cat stubimage /stubs.info
where stubimage is the name(tag) for the stub image. An example of the output follows:
NAME ID EXPOSED_PORT
myStub 1f8b3e1a:150a97ea022:-7cdb 8081
Docker containers
To query stub information when the image is running as a container, from the docker host, you can use the curl command:
curl http://:7820
where is the IP address of the container, not the host. To get the IP address of the container, use this Docker command:
docker inspect -- format '{{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress}}'
The port 7820 is used by default. If you want to, you can override this port assignment when you run the container by specifying an environment variable named STUB_INFO_PORT. For example, add the -e option with this environment variable to the docker run command:
The output of the query is text in JSON format. An example of output follows:
 "stubs": [
 "id": "1f8b3e1a:150a97ea022:-7cdb",
 "name": "myStub",
 "activities": [
 "exposedPort": "8081",
 "rule": "Path: /test AND Port: 80 AND Method: POST AND (Host: _URL_ OR Host: OR (source host= AND (Host: localhost OR Host: OR Host: 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1)))"
 "started": "true"


Taking a Look at Scottish Golf
If there is one sport that is the most popular in America today, it has to be golf. Golf is a popular club-and-disc sport where people use different clubs to shoot balls into a series of holes in a specific course as few strokes as humanly possible. When you first play a game of golf, you stand at the starting line and use a golf club to hit a ball that is shaped like a golf club. You then use a set of clubs that have different ends to hit different balls. There are many different types of clubs that you can play with, but in this article I'm only talking about the ones that are commonly used by professional golfers. If you want to learn more about the history of golf, or even how you can pick up a nifty new trick for swinging the club better, read on!
Golf was actually developed in Scotland, specifically in what is now known as the Highland Country. The first golf course was built at a place called Duncraig Park. This was actually the first golf course built in Scotland and the first one to be open to the public. The public loved the golf course, so many came, and since then, there have been several golf courses built in the area. Scotland is truly a golf heaven.
Golf has always been a popular sport in Scotland. In the early 15th century, King James I (yes, the king of England) personally visited his buddy John Bissard (yes, the same guy who introduced beer to the world back in the 15th century). Bissard had invited the king and his entourage to the golf course at his country estate of Balblair Castle. Here, they played a lot of golf, and the game really became popular. From there, golf spread all over Scotland, with most courses being public.
When Scotland first hosted the British Royal Tour in 1875, it was in Stratchclyde Country Park. This golf course was immediately popular, and so was David Mulligan's new course at Stratchclyde. Golf courses started springing up everywhere in Scotland, and the popularity just kept on growing. Golf courses were built in Stratchclyde Country Park, Stratchclyde High Street and even into town. Golf courses just got bigger in the following years, and now, there are literally hundreds of golf courses open throughout Scotland.
Golf courses started getting built on golf courses. David Mulligan built the very first private golf course, in Ayrshire. The Pee Dee golf course was built by John White, and later, there were also public golf courses built in Ayrshire and other parts of Scotland. With the popularity of golf, more companies started offering golf-related services in Scotland. Service companies such as Scottish Power offered electrical services, plumbing services, as well as other services related to golf courses.
In the coming years, Scotland became the birth place for many of the world's most popular tourneys. The practice of golf courses spread all across the country. This practice brought about a huge influx of tourists who wanted to learn how to play golf. As a result, new golf courses started springing up all over Scotland. The golf courses became huge tourist attractions.
Because of all these new developments, the golf courses started competing against each other. Golf courses started offering luxurious amenities to their visitors. They started to build hotels that could accommodate their guests. They also built golf resorts that were meant solely for golfers. Today, Scotland is known for its top quality golf courses.
There are still many golf courses that aren't as luxurious as they used to be. Some have only basic amenities. But because of the new developments, golf courses in Scotland have become some of the best in the world. These courses are known for being challenging, and they are an enjoyable way to spend a day on the course.
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text:
Oprah's Definition of Luck: Where opportunity and preparation meet.
Every year the Emperor Penguin goes through an incredible ordeal in preparing for the season of mating opportunity in Antarctica. With no certainty that their attempt will produce offspring, the male and female emperor penguins travel between 31 and 75 miles inland at −40 °F to conduct courtship and mate. The female then lays the egg and carefully transfers it to the underbelly of the male before returning to the sea to feed for two months. The male penguin stays behind with the egg for two months without ever allowing the egg to touch the ice below, keeping both him and the egg warm by huddling against all of the other male penguins. The male endures about 115 days of fasting and the loss of roughly 40 pounds of body weight with no guarantee that the egg will actually hatch. Around the time that the egg is supposed to hatch, the mother returns and takes over care and feeding of the hatchling while the father walks back to the ocean and feeds himself back to health. If the egg does not hatch, the couple dissipates and each returns back to the ocean in preparation for the next mating season.
Let's take a moment to really think about this awe-inspiring act: two penguins spending roughly four months in the below-freezing Antarctic winter and losing up to 45% of their body weight in order to breed and hatch an egg. The journey is so perilous that many attempts at breeding are not successful, and yet they continue to put themselves through this journey year after year. Would you be willing to do so?
Oprah's Definition of Luck
Preparing for something that is guaranteed in the near future is not difficult because you know that your energy and time spent in preparation will not be wasted. But focusing time and energy on something that may or may not happen is a much more difficult feat. After all, no one wants to waste their limited resources.
Oprah's definition entails preparing for an opportunity that may or may not come. Yet preparation for the unknown in our lives is so important. Think about all of the ways that we prepare for the future: we educate ourselves for that future career, we save money for our future lives, and we invest in a retirement fund that will not occur for another 20, 30, even 40 years from now. We do all of this because, as Oprah points out, without proper preparation we may not be able to take advantage of the opportunities that do come our way. But in order to continue to prepare for the opportunities that will come our way—thus making us "lucky"—we need something more. We need a motivating force.
The Missing Element
While we cannot necessarily control opportunity, we can control the amount of preparation that we do in our lives. Yet, who would be willing to do the same thing day in, day out, year after year, without some sort of motivation other than preparing for future opportunities that may never come? The penguins may be driven in their preparation out of a primal instinct, but where is the drive to make people endure seemingly aimless preparation when an outcome is not guaranteed? The missing element to Oprah's definition of Luck is truly the human element to all of this. It is hope. Hope is an integral part to this equation as it is the motivating factor for us to do our part to ensure that 'Luck' finds us. Without hope, we lose sight of everything that we want, everything that we are willing to sacrifice, and we stop doing the work. Opportunity may finally come one day, but the preparation will not be there and so once again we will label ourselves as "unlucky". Without it, we may not even be able to recognize the opportunities that do come our way, much less feel that we can take advantage of them. Hope is what keeps our engines running.
There are beautiful examples of this motivating force everywhere, both among people and in nature. Hope is what kept the trees in our front yard—slowly dying from the exceptional drought last year—poised towards the sky with several buds that were ready to burst open and germinate should the rains come (and they eventually did). It's what keeps working parents driving their children to music lessons or soccer games or spelling bees after working full-time and surviving their commutes. Hope is setting up social media buttons on blogs that only our mother and father currently read in preparation that when we write something one day that is so unique and wonderful, the tools are there to make our work go viral. Hope is getting ourselves out of debt so that we can open ourselves to the opportunity of helping others in the future, or to the many other opportunities that will surely come our way.
Hope will lead us towards our luck.
Do you have hope for your future? What kind of preparation are you doing in your financial life to be able to take advantage of future opportunities when they come your way?


text: 1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data Points on an elliptical orbit where the speed is equal to that on a circular orbit? 2. Relevant equations 3. The attempt at a solution I have attempted this question and my calculations show that at points on minor and major axes, the radial component of velocity is zero. Hence at these points, the velocity of an orbiter in an elliptical orbit will be equal to that on a circular orbit. Is it correct? In circular orbit, velocity is always along theta direction and r component of velocity is zero. r-component of velocity is simply time derivative of magnitude of r. So setting dr/dt equal to zero and solving the resulting equation, we can find points at which Vr is zero. Please see the attached picture. I placed origin of the coordinate system at the "centre" of the ellipse. What will happen if I move the centre of coordinate system to focus of ellipse? Will the results change?


text:
Long Term Stability Assessment and Monitoring of Flooded Shafts
The main objective of the EU project STAMS is to develop robotic inspection technologies to monitor and assess the stability of flooded shafts over 2 km deep during long periods of time. This objective will be achieved taking periodic and continuous measurements.
For the continuous measures, a sensor network will be installed along the shaft, and a robot for fixing the sensors will be developed. All the changes and measures will be analyzed in real time, and in situ with a software control


Random Seed in JavaScript and Node.js
 - March 26, 2021
 - 2 min read
Random seed is a method of initializing random number generators using an initial seed value. Random generators with the same seed will output the same pseudo-random results.
I found this method to be particularly useful when developing a game I'm working on, which has a random 'Daily Challenge'. In this case, random seed can be useful to select a random game using the current date as a seed.
So, here's how to create a random seed in Node.js, using the seedrandom NPM package:
// In Node.js
const seedrandom = require('seedrandom');
const generator = seedrandom('[your seed here]');
const randomNumber = generator();
And if you're on the client-side:
// On The Browser
const generator = new Math.seedrandom('[your seed here]');
const randomNumber = generator();
In both of these code snippets, the generator function will return a new random number each time, given the seed the generator was initialized with.
If you're running on Node.js, download the seedrandom package as follows:
npm install seedrandom
Or using Yarn:
yarn add seedrandom
If you're writing client-side code without webpack, you can either download the file from seedrandom's GitHub repository, or use a CDN by adding the following code snippet at the end of your tag:
Random seed is one of a few features that is present in most major programming languages but is not available out-of-the-box in JavaScript. It can be incredibly useful in a wide array of cases, both on the web and running on the server-side using Node.
I hope this helps, and thanks for scrolling.
— Gabriel Romualdo, March 26, 2021


text:
10. Archeological Excavations at the Platte River
Campground Site (20BZ16), Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore,
Richner, Jeffrey J.
The Platte River Campground archeological site (20BZ16) is located along
the Platte River, within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan.
The site was discovered in 1985 and was also tested in that year. In 1987,
the Midwest Archeological Center conducted archeological excavations at the
site in advance of a planned campground redevelopment program which will
impact portions of the site. Important information on site age and
artifact assemblages was obtained. The site is multicomponent, with
evidence of repeated prehistoric occupations over both the Middle and Late
Woodland Periods in addition to late historic Euro-American uses. Emphasis
in this report is placed upon the prehistoric components.


text:
Metal Detectors Aid Archaeologists in Collecting Field Data
Minelab Americas was chosen to work with leading archaeologists to aid in the proper documentation and recovery of historical artifacts at the James Madison Montpelier Estate. Located in in Montpelier Station, VA, the property was the lifelong home of James Madison, the 4th President of the United States.
At the estate, Madison studied past democracies and envisioned the system of government that our nation follows to this day. Minelab has been afforded a rare opportunity to work with leading archaeologists to uncover new ways to properly collect field data. Metal Detectors like the Minelab E-Trac and the Minelab GPX series were used to aid in identifying the location of artifacts around historic structures on the site. Areas of the site were marked off in grid like patterns and then metal detectors were used to aid in the location of the buried artifacts.
In this video Minelab Metal Detectors are used in a methodical manner to mark the location of artifacts for proper recovery and preservation. This collaborative effort demonstrates the unique ways in which the metal detecting community can aid archaeologists in the preservation of history.


Ancient Macedonian language recognized as Greek dialect
Ancient Macedonian language has been recognised as a Greek dialect.
Specifically, the ISO XMK has the following specification:
Language Name: Ancient Macedonian
Alternate Name(s): Macedonian
Once Spoken in: Greece F.Y.R.O.M
Language Code: xmk (Former code: XMK )
Status: Extinct
Family: Indo-European
Subgroup: Macedonian
Subgrouping Code: Indoeuropean Greek Branch
Brief Description: The ancient language of the Macedonian kingdom in N. Greece and modern Macedonia during the later 1st millennium BC. Survived until the early 1st millennium AD. NOT to be confused with the modern Macedonian language, which is a close relative of the Slavic Bulgarian.


Best reform-school castle
Preston Castle
photo by bobby mull
.ContentInfoBox { display: none; }
Driving southeast on Highway 104, approaching the small town of Ione, there's something unexpected, maybe even out of place, piercing through the canopy of trees. But this 100-foot tall tower has been presiding as the highest point of Preston Castle for 120 years. Although the stately red-orange sandstone structure that looks like it belongs on the East Coast, not rural Northern California is now called a castle, royalty didn't live here: It was a reformatory for young boys who got in trouble with the law.
These days, nobody lives in its ruins other than some bats, birds and mice that have left ample sprinklings of their waste, but this formidable building was once the centerpiece of the Preston School of Industry, where the boys learned practical skills and made their own food and clothes. Before opening in 1894, the youngsters were incarcerated at Folsom or San Quentin state prisons, which seems like it would be traumatic for a 12-year-old. But being dragged around in Preston's basement-level, bone-chillingly cold pool of lye and bleach that was used to delouse new wards seems also traumatic.
These days, the pool is filled with ancient debris. In 1960, the state shut down the facility and swiped the slate roof (among other building materials) to "upcycle" it for other projects, resulting in years of water damage that has washed away the interior's plaster and, in some areas, rotted two stories of wood, leaving treacherous holes where a floor used to be. The site's current keepers, the Preston Castle Foundation, have taken on the task to restore the edifice, so for $10, the curious can tour the decay—and see where some of the school's staff members were murdered. Or pony up $100 and a dose of courage to spend the night there.
Despite being a supernatural jackpot, according to some folks, the building is becoming more integrated into the community these days, with events such as a wine tasting, a paranormal convention, the annual Halloween Haunt and an Old Tyme Christmas, which makes the grand structure feel less out of place. Hopefully, the ghosts don't mind sharing their space. 900 Palm Drive in Ione, _PHONE_,


text:
Making SYMLINK without any parameters using MKLINK command
Making SYMLINKD using MKLINK /D command
Making HARDLINK using MKLINK /H command
Making JUNCTION using MKLINK /J command
When you are using this command you should know that …
- When using without any parameters it makes symlink between two files … Files are accessible only localy on same machine.
- When using with /D parameter it creates symlinkd link between two folders … linked folder is accessible only localy.
- When using with /H parameter it creates hardlink between two files … This file is normaly accessible over the network and localy.
- When using with /J parameter it creates so called Directory junction that makes folder accessible using different name… It works localy and over the network.
So now you are able to share a folder in which you can put Directory junction folders, that normaly are not shared…


text:
Images and Documents:
The Image and Document Management module supports image types including JPG, TIF, GIF, BMP, PDF and Word documents. Printed documents as well as clinical images (PACS) can be easily scanned and imported directly into the patient chart without any disruption to the workflow.
Images can have notation directly annotated on them.
PatientClick is fully compatible with picture archiving and communication system (PACS).
- Computed radiography (CR)
- Computed Tomography (CT)
- Digital radiography (DR)
- Endoscopy (ES)
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
- Mammograms (MG)
- Positron emission tomography (PET)
- Ultrasound (US)
- and other imaging sources
We use the universal format for PACS image storage and transfer which is DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine).
Additional types of image formats are always being added.


text:
Kamishibai (纸 芝 居) means "drama of paper." It is a form of storytelling that originated in Buddhist temples in Japan in the twelfth century, where monks were accustomed to use Emaki (scrolls that combine images with text) to combine stories with moral lessons for mostly illiterate audience.
Activity in the Festival:
Representations of Kamishibai during the two days of Festival.
Agurtzane Macías, Gaito Kamishibaya
In October 2005 Agurtzane began studying theater in "Bilbao Escena", a set of three courses or annual levels, in collaboration with the theater group Gaitzerdi. At the beginning of 2008, she changes deeply her approach to the theater when discovers the art of kamishibai. Since then, she has been working with this narrative format, using materials imported from Japan, and taking part in numerous events held in the Basque Country, among which It's worth highlighting: regular representations in several schools and in the Civic Center of Otxarkoaga (2008 -2009), representation at the Festival of Japan (La Casilla, April 2009), in the Ibilaldia (2009), in the Hall of Comic and Manga of Getxo (2009), Barakaldo and so on. In addition to this, her work has appeared in a documentary produced by Tokyo TV for the "Japan All Stars" popular program. Today she is in the process of creation and development of stories and illustrations through Kamishibai style.
More information about Kamishibai:
- The International Kamishibai Association of Japan
- International forum on kamishibai
- Doshin-sha Publishing House
- Pamplona-Iruña Kamishibai Project


text:
A memorable and enriching stay can extend well beyond our hotels. That's why The Ritz-Carlton proudly offers Impact Experiences, providing inspiring opportunities for our guests to contribute to the local community. Impact Experiences are compelling social and environmental impact activities where there is one constant – each program makes a lasting and authentic difference.
Impact Experiences offers on-property activities that can be incorporated in the conference agenda during lunch breaks, receptions and coffee breaks, including:
- Partnering with the hotel's culinary team to prepare the ingredients for a regionally adapted dish for donation to a local hunger relief organization;
- Assembling school supplies and art materials in backpacks for donation to students whose academic success is threatened by poverty;
- Collaborating in teams to assemble emergency preparedness kits for shipping to a disaster relief facility or community organization;
- Designing and creating greetings and birthday cards for children in a local pediatric healthcare facility or children's organization.
- Impact Hour, a platform for leaders from The Ritz-Carlton Community Footprints partner organizations to showcase how they are successfully addressing social and environmental issues.
Additionally, Signature Impact Experiences invite our group guests to take part in an off-site volunteer activity, unique to the destination.


text:
WGS 440 • Roots of Social/Economic Justice-England Maymester
This course teaches students about the historical roots of the professionalization of helping others and the profession of social work. The course will also focus on the governmental social services delivery system and the impact on client populations, and the diverse cultures living in London that provide the context for social services. The course will be taught through cultural immersion in ethnic neighborhoods, field visits, and seminars. The purpose of this course is to deepen students' understanding of the rights and responsibilities of being a good citizen in an increasingly global society, to promote cross-cultural learning, and to expand the critical appreciation for the social framework in which we live as it relates to the moral and ethical problems encompassed by social justice. There is a 10-hour volunteer opportunity with Toynbee Hall, or other social service agency. Historic Toynbee Hall, established in 1873, is the first settlement home and could be considered the birthplace of social work.


Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Amron Omar, satu lagi nama yang tidak asing dalam dunia seni tanahair...beliau yang terkenal dengan karya-karya figura yang realistik dan hebat...melanjutkan pengajian di Institut Teknologi Mara, Amron Omar merupakan salah seorang pelukis figura yang terbaik di asia...kebanyakan karya-karya beliau menggunaka bahan cat minyak di atas permukaan kanvas.
Abdullah Ariff was born in Penang in 1904. He was a self-taught artist and was an art teacher at the Anglo-Chinese School,Penang (presently known as Methodist Boy's School). In the 1920s, there was no local art group and the only organised art group at that time consisted of expatriate Europeans (mostly English housewives ) who called themselves the " Penang Impressionists ". Asians were not allowed to join the exclusive group which was a reflection of the prevailing colonialistic imperialism then. However Abdullah Ariff was admitted into the group in the mid-30s because his services as an art instructor were needed. The " Penang Impressionists " disbanded before the beginning of the 2nd World War, never to be reformed.
Abdullah Ariff was acknowledged with Yong Mun Sen, as a pioneer of watercolour painting in Malaysia. He was especially well-known for his meticulous masterful handling of the medium. Compared to Mun Sen, his works are more 'European' in outlook and approach, and his paintings appear to have more crowded details. A dedicated teacher, he was well-respected amongst the artistic community in the northern states.
There was a break in his stay in Penang as he went to Kuala Lumpur in 1945 to work as a cartoonist for The Straits Echo. He returned to Penang in 1947 and became active in politics and was a committee member of UMNO. In 1955, he served as a city councillor and had the rare distinction of having a road in Penang named after him ( Jalan Abdullah Ariff ), an honour that no other artist in Malaysia has been accorded since. In 1955, he established the Ariff Advertising Agency.
In 1954, he held one-man shows at North Carolina, and the Mint Museum of Art at Charlotte, New York, U.S.A. In 1955, he participated in the "United Society of Artists" group exhibition at the galleries of the Royal Society of British Artists, London. There, he was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Art (F.R.S.A.) England.
In 1956, he was invited to take part in "Le Salon" of the Society of French Artist at the galleries at Grand Palai des Champs-Elysees, France.
In 1957,one of his paintings was chosen as a personal gift to be presented to Tungku Abdul Rahman,Malaysia's first Prime Minister on the occasion of the Merdeka (Independence) celebrations.
Abdullah Ariff passed away in 1962, leaving behind a legacy of excellent watercolour paintings. According to one of his ex-student, Tan Lye Hoe, Abdullah Ariff's philosophy of art is "Art knows no barriers"


Interoperability between Eclipse (EMF) and Microsoft (Oslo and DSL Tools) modeling tools
In the AtlanMod group we have been recently working on a model-driven solution to improve tool interoperability, specially focusing on the challenging problem of interoperability between tools with variable metamodels (i.e. tools that are able to manipulate data conforming to different metadata specifications; in this situation, data interoperability needs to interchange not only the data but also the metadata between the tools so that the target tool can correctly interpret the imported information).
With our approach, the internal
schema/s (i.e. metamodel) of each tool are explicited and used as basis
for solving syntactic and semantic differences between the tools. Once
the corresponding metamodels are aligned, model-to-model transformations
are (semi)automatically derived and executed to perform the actual
data interchange. Details of our approach can be read in our paper:
"Hugo Brunelière, Jordi Cabot, Cauê Clasen, Frédéeric Jouault, Jean Béezivin: Towards Model Driven Tool Interoperability: Bridging Eclipse and Microsoft Modeling Tools" (available from my research page, direct link ),
recently accepted at the Sixth European Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications (ECMFA'10).
We have used our approach TO CREATE a SET OF
bridges BETWEEN the Eclipse (EMF) AND Microsoft (SQL Server modeling (SSM), formerly Oslo, AND
DSL Tools) modeling technologies. The bridges allow TO automatically
open AND manipulate IN Microsoft tools ANY model AND metamodel defined IN
EMF (AND the other way around). The approach allows TO CREATE ALL possible bridges BETWEEN the tools but so far we have implemented the following ones:
Note that a bridge TO exchange (meta)models BETWEEN the two Microsoft modeling tools (DSL tools AND SQL Server Modeling) can be derived by transitivity FROM the existing bridges.
With these bridges we can CREATE a Simple PetriNet metamodel IN Ecore AND sample PetriNet models USING EMF
and port them TO Microsoft so that we can, FOR instance, OPEN AND manipulate them FROM within DSL tools. AS an example, the following figure shows the results OF importing IN DSL tools the previuos PetriNet EMF metamodel AND model example.
Roughly speaking, this IS done by implementing the following generic bridging SCHEMA consisting OF the following five major steps (again, see the paper referenced above FOR the FULL details):
 1. Metamodel discovery: The internal metametamodel OF each variable metamodel tool IS explicited
 2. Transcription: Metametamodel B IS expressed IN terms OF metametamodel A
 3. Syntactic TRANSLATION: Metamodels instance OF B ARE reexpressed USING the metametamodel B rewritten IN A. This steps solves syntactic differences BETWEEN A AND B that ARE now IN the same technical SPACE.
 4. Semantic Alignment: Metamodels conforming TO B ARE now expressed AS native metamodels IN A. After this step, we ARE already able TO migrate metamodels FROM A TO B (AND the other way around)
 5. DATA Interchange: The previous alignment IS used TO generate the actual transformations that import/export models BETWEEN A AND B
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When you use the Open With context menu, Windows 2000 records the program used to open the file extension.
If you accidentally opened a file with the wrong program, you can remove the entry:
1. Use Regedt32 to navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\<.extention>\OpenWithList.
2. Each entry uses a value name that is a letter, as in a, and a data string which is the program that opened the file, like Notepad.exe. Locate the program that you wish to delete and record the value name. Delete this value name.
3. Edit the MRUList value name and remove the letter that you deleted.


03-May-2021 - University of South Australia
Espresso, latte or decaf? Genetic code drives your desire for coffee
How much coffee we drink is likely to be an indicator of our cardio health
Whether you hanker for a hard hit of caffeine or favour the frothiness of a milky cappuccino, your regular coffee order could be telling you more about your cardio health than you think.
In a world first study of 390,435 people, University of South Australia researchers found causal genetic evidence that cardio health - as reflected in blood pressure and heart rate - influences coffee consumption.
Lead researcher and Director of UniSA's Australian Centre for Precision Health, Professor Elina Hyppönen says it's a positive finding that shows our genetics actively regulate the amount of coffee we drink and protect us from consuming too much.
"People drink coffee for all sorts of reasons - as a pick me up when they're feeling tired, because it tastes good, or simply because it's part of their daily routine," Prof Hyppönen says.
"But what we don't recognise is that people subconsciously self-regulate safe levels of caffeine based on how high their blood pressure is, and this is likely a result of a protective genetic a mechanism.
Facts, background information, dossiers
More about University of South Australia
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 Bowel cancer survival rates could be improved if chemotherapy drugs were delivered via tiny nanoparticles to the diseased organs rather than oral treatment. That's the finding from Indian and Australian scientists who have undertaken the first study, using nanoparticles to target bowel canc... more
 A silver lining like no other
 Vaccinations are the world's frontline defence against infectious diseases yet despite decades of interventions, unsafe injection practices continue to expose billions of people to serious infection and disease. Now, new technology from the University of South Australia is revolutionising s... more
 Dieting for obese mothers just before pregnancy may not be enough
 While there is never a bad time to address one's own obesity, if you're hoping to lose weight before conception for the sake of your child, here's some bad news: Some of the epigenetic damage might have already been done, even if you lose the weight just before conception. According to new... more


text:
This collection contains documents pertaining to the ownership of Rancho de la Nacion in the second half of the nineteenth
century. These include land petitions and grants, deeds, land surveys, mortgages, property taxes, and maps.
Leading up to the nineteenth century, the area that was to make up Rancho de la Nacion was used by the Spanish as cattle grazing
lands. The Spanish had called it Rancho del Rey. In 1821, when the Mexican government secured independence from Spain, the
name of the area was changed to Rancho de la Nacion.
0.25 Linear feet
The San Diego History Center (SDHC) holds the copyright to any unpublished materials. SDHC Library regulations do apply.


During this SOFREP exclusive interview, former Navy SEAL Eric Davis reveals his second book, titled "Habits of Heroes." Eric explains his interest in animal behavior studies and behavior change, and how they are now being applied to humans. Eric suggests that humans have an underlying design and overall purpose, and when we live outside of that purpose we can develop destructive behavior.
If you look at the habits of a group of people, such as people who we recognize as "heroes," those who, for the most part, feel like their lives are fulfilled and are serving the purpose for which they were created, they don't have poor coping mechanisms or destructive habits.
You can order Eric Davis's first book, "Raising Men: Lessons Navy SEALs Learned from Their Training and Taught to Their Sons," on Amazon now.


text:
A bear sits inside an enclosure at the Vietnam Bear Rescue Center in Tam Dao, Vietnam, in Oct. / Mike Ives, AP
TAM DAO, Vietnam (AP) - Bears, some of them blinded or maimed, play behind tall green fences like children at school recess. Rescued from Asia's bear bile trade, they were brought to live in this lush national park, but now they may need saving once more.
The future of the bears' sanctuary has been in doubt since July, when a vice defense minister ordered the nonprofit group operating the $2 million center not to expand further and to find another location. U.S. politicians and officials in other countries are among those urging the military to back off.
The defense official wrote, without elaborating, that the Chat Dau Valley is of strategic military interest, but environmentalists allege that vested interests have urged an eviction. They point to documents showing that the daughter of the park's director is involved in a proposed ecotourism venture that wants to lease park land.
Conservation groups say the dispute in Tam Dao National Park is emblematic of conflicts brewing across Vietnam's protected areas. When developers want the land, they say, environmental safeguards disappear.
Vietnamese laws adhere to international environmental standards, but in practice are "minor considerations" in land-use and infrastructure-planning decisions, the World Bank said in a report last year.
Vietnam is among the most biologically diverse countries on earth, comprising less than 1 percent of the world's land but about 10 percent of its species. But the report noted that its protected areas are suffering from deforestation and habitat loss.
"It doesn't matter if the forests are protected by law or not," said Trinh Le Nguyen, executive director of People and Nature Reconciliation, one of Vietnam's few locally based conservation groups. If officials and community groups are not vocal enough, "then the private sector will try (to get) wealthier and wealthier."
Conservationists cite the example of northern Ba Be National Park, where pollution from ore mining is said to threaten a freshwater lake that has received accolades from an international environmental convention. Scientists and hundreds of residents have protested that the pollution is causing the lake's water quality to deteriorate, state media reported last year. A local Communist Party official also has called for a probe into what the state-run Vietnam News Agency calls "rampant deforestation" by loggers inside the park.
Elsewhere, a proposal to develop two hydropower plants in Cat Tien National Park in the south has triggered opposition because the dams would inundate forests.
"It took generations to establish and maintain our national parks," said former park director Tran Van Thanh, who is calling for the proposal to be scrapped. "It would be a waste if we have to surrender parts of our forests for economic development."
Vietnam first established protected lands in the 1960s, and the network has grown to include 30 national parks and scores of other protected areas spanning forests and wetlands. But experts say local development agendas often trump larger conservation goals as officials sell off protected territory for mines, hydropower dams and infrastructure or real estate projects.
Tensions between conservation and development have only increased over the last decade in Vietnam. Land developers have become wealthy, powerful and ambitious on the back of rapid economic growth. Protected areas are typically under the control of local officials, who receive little funding for conservation and view the areas as potential sources of revenue.
"Vietnam is at a real crossroads where it has to make some hard decisions about whether or not it values biodiversity conservation," said Pamela McElwee, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University who conducts research in Vietnam's protected areas. "The majority of folks working in the protected-area system are genuinely dedicated... but they're facing really powerful interests."
Vietnam's poor enforcement of environmental laws is adding to international criticism of its ruling Communist Party, which is castigated for its human rights record and its handling of a sagging economy.
Ten conservation groups, several foreign embassies and U.S. politicians have written to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in recent weeks urging him to not close the Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre, which lies 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of the capital, Hanoi.
They were alarmed by Vice Defense Minister Do Ba Ty's July letter to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. He directed the center not to expand further and to find an alternate site in partnership with local officials. He wrote that the Chat Dau Valley is of "strategic importance to national defense."
"The expansion of the bear rescue center in this valley will have direct impact on military projects," the letter said, according to a copy given to the Associated Press by the sanctuary's nonprofit operator, Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation. The letter did not explain why the land was of strategic importance.
Seven Democratic U.S. representatives urged Dung to protect the sanctuary in a Nov. 5 letter. "The claim that the land is an area of national defense significance is questionable," they said, noting that the bear center has operated since 2005 and the park has welcomed tourism since 1996. The lead signer was Rep. Sam Farr of California.
Animals Asia says an eviction would leave 104 rescued bears homeless and waste its $2 million investment, which was funded entirely by international foundations, corporations and private donors. It says after an initial trial period, the prime minister in 2008 approved its plan to build facilities on about 11 hectares (27 acres) inside the roughly 39,000-hectare park, and that the center has so far expanded to half those 11 hectares.
The group rescued bears that were being used to produce bear bile, which has historically been used in China and other Asian countries to treat fevers, pain, inflammation and other ailments. Bears are typically captured in forests and transported to farms, where the green bile is sucked from their gall bladders in a painful process that sometimes kills them.
In recent weeks, Animals Asia has waged a public relations campaign alleging park director Do Dinh Tien has a personal stake in an ecotourism venture proposed for the park by the Hanoi company Truong Giang Group.
Animals Asia's Vietnam director, Tuan Bendixsen, said he believes the ecotourism project would be built on the undeveloped half of the bear center's 11 hectares. Documents show the company in March sent a team of surveyors to evaluate that parcel and other park land for development.
"He wants to take half the land, and he can't get it, and that's why he's creating all this trouble for us," Bendixsen said of the park director.
In September 2011, Do Dinh Tien asked the agriculture ministry to approve separate plans by three companies, including Truong Giang, to develop ecotourism in Tam Dao's national park, according to documents given to the AP.
Documents show that days earlier, Truong Giang had asked Tien for permission to lease 48 hectares of land in Tam Dao for an "ecological tourism and entertainment project." Truong Giang's registration papers list Tien's daughter, Do Thi Ngan, as one of its four shareholders.
Ngan and officials at the agriculture and defense ministries declined to comment.
In an interview, Tien declined to discuss his daughter's relationship to the company, saying he has not yet discussed the matter with her. But he insisted he has never lobbied for the company's interests.
"From my perspective, the bear center can go ahead if it follows procedures," Tien said recently at park headquarters. "But I can't speak for the Ministry of Defense."
State media say the agriculture ministry is working with the central government to resolve the dispute. The prime minister has final say over the bear center's fate.
National Assembly Deputy Duong Trung Quoc was quoted by online newspaper Vietnamnet Wednesday as saying evicting the bear center could anger the international community.
"It would do harm to our country's image," he said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read the original story: Vietnam may evict bears from 'protected' park land


text:
It is pertinent to note that there is essentially no difference between prostitution and sex work. This would be expatiated upon in the course of this paper. Sex Work in Nigeria is illegal in all Northern States that practice the Islamic Penal Code. In the Southern part of Nigeria, the activities of pimps, underage prostitution and the ownership of brothels are penalized under Sections 223 to 225 of the Nigerian Criminal Code. This Article examines the history and prevalence of Sex Work in Nigeria, its causes, its effects, both positive and negative. It further seeks to examine the disposition of several jurisdictions towards Sex Work and Constitutional provisions protecting sex workers with regards to their freedom of choice, freedom from discrimination, among others. In entirety, this paper attempts an appraisal of the need to decriminalize and subsequently regulate sex work in Nigeria and not criminalize or victimize sex workers.
To read the full article, click here.
UNILAG Law Review, (2020) Volume 4 Edition 1
About the Author
Shadare Oluwasemilore Enoch is a 500-level law student the University of Lagos He has a special interest in ADR, and he is an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC), Nigeria.


Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have script that has some functions.
Can I run one of the function directly from command line?
something like
myScript.sh func()
share|improve this question
4 Answers 4
up vote 11 down vote accepted
If the script only defines the functions and does nothing else, you can first execute the script within the context of the current shell using the source or. command and then simply call the function. See help source for more information.
share|improve this answer
Well, while the other answers are right - you can certainly do something else: if you have access to the bash script, you can modify it, and simply place at the end the special parameter $@ - which will expand to the arguments of the command line you specify, and since it's "alone" the shell will try to call them verbatim; and here you could specify the function name as the first argument. Example:
$ cat test.sh
testA() {
 echo "TEST A $1";
testB() {
 echo "TEST B $2";
# call arguments verbatim:
$ bash test.sh
$ bash test.sh testA
$ bash test.sh testA arg1 arg2
TEST A arg1
$ bash test.sh testB arg1 arg2
TEST B arg2
share|improve this answer
../myScript.sh && func()
First register it in the context, then call the functions in the shell scripts.
share|improve this answer
Briefly, no.
You can import all of the functions in the script into your environment with source (help source for details), which will then allow you to call them. This also has the effect of executing the script, so take care.
There is no way to call a function from a shell script as if it were a shared library.
share|improve this answer
Your Answer


Take the 2-minute tour ×
I need to have a dictionary which might have same names for some keys and return a list of values when referencing the key in that case. For example
print mydict['key']
share|improve this question
No, but you can use mydict = {'key':[1,2,3,4]} – Artsiom Rudzenka Jul 25 '11 at 8:47
keys are added at runtime – b9107007 Jul 25 '11 at 8:49
5 Answers 5
For consistency, you should have the dictionary map keys to lists (or sets) of values, of which some can be empty. There is a nice idiom for this:
from collections import defaultdict
d = defaultdict(set)
(A defaultdict is like a normal dictionary, but if a key is missing it will call the argument you passed in when you instantiated it and use the result as the default value. So this will automatically create an empty set of values if you ask for a key which isn't already present.)
If you need the object to look more like a dictionary (i.e. to set a value by d["key"] =...) you can do the following. But this is probably a bad idea, because it goes against the normal Python syntax, and is likely to come back and bite you later. Especially if someone else has to maintain your code.
class Multidict(defaultdict):
 def __init__(self):
 super(Multidict, self).__init__(set)
 def __setitem__(self, key, value):
I haven't tested this.
share|improve this answer
You can also try paste.util.multidict.MultiDict
$ easy_install Paste
from paste.util.multidict import MultiDict
d = MultiDict()
d.add('a', 1)
d.add('a', 2)
d.add('b', 3)
>>> {'a': [1, 2], 'b': 3}
>>> [1, 2]
>>> [3]
Web frameworks like Pylons are using this library to handle HTTP query string/post data, which can have same-name keys.
share|improve this answer
You can use:
myDict = {'key': []}
Then during runtime:
if newKey in myDict:
 myDict[newKey] = [value]
Edited as per _USER_'s comment:
myDict = {}
myDict.setdefault(newKey, []).append(value)
share|improve this answer
Its' more idiomatic to day myDict.setdefault(newKey, []).append(value) – Ben Ford Jul 25 '11 at 9:38
Sure, thank you _USER_ – Artsiom Rudzenka Jul 25 '11 at 9:45
def toMultiDict(items):
 def insertMulti(d, kv):
 k, v = kv
 d.setdefault(k, []).append(v)
 return d
 return reduce(insertMulti, [{}] + items)
should create a dict from key to a list of values:
In [28]: toMultiDict(zip([1,2,1], [4,5,6]))
Out[28]: {1: [4, 6], 2: [5]}
I couldn't put insertMulti into a lambda, because the lambda needs to return the dict again.
share|improve this answer
This is an ideal place to use a defaultdict object from the collections library
from collections import defaultdict
mydict = defaultdict(set)
mydict['key'] += set([1,2,3,4])
mydict['key'] += set([4,5,6])
returns [1,2,3,4,5,6]
In the case where a key is referenced that has not been implicitly assigned, an empty set is returned.
returns []
Using setdefault on a dict from the standard library would require a significant change in your syntax when assigning values and can get rather messy. I've never used Multidict, but it also looks like a significant change in the way assignments are made. Using this method, you simply assume that there may already be a value associated with this key in the dictionary and slightly modify your assignment operator by using the '+=' operator when assigning key values.
FYI - I am a big fan of using the NoneType as the default which results in any access of an invalid key returning None. This behaves properly in most cases including iterating and json dumps, but for your specific need the default should be of type set unless you want to enable having duplicate values stored in the key. Then use a list. In fact, anytime you have a homogenous dictionary the default should be of that type.
mydict = defaultdict(lambda: None)
share|improve this answer
Your Answer


text:
Is your company utilizing an accurate, repeatable measurement for assessing current development practices?
The International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) is a global non-profit organization based in the United States. The organization consists of function point analysis users and offers a set of standard counting practices for professional use along with certification opportunities. IFPUG function point standards are used globally to determine software quality, risk, compliance, productivity, and complexity. IFPUG owns Function Point Analysis (FPA), as defined in ISO standard 20296:2009, which specifies the definitions, rules, and steps for applying the IFPUG's functional size measurement (FSM) method. FPA can be traced to the work of Allan Albrecht of IBM who pioneered functional sizing in 1979, which derived a functional size of product value distinct and disassociated from lines of code, technology, or software language.
IFPUG maintains the Function Point Counting Practices Manual (CPM) and the SNAP Assessment Practices Manual, the recognized industry standards for functional and non-functional sizing. IFPUG provides testing and certification for the Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS), the Certified Function Point Practitioner (CFPP), and the Certified SNAP Practitioner (CSP). Generally, certification is for three years, although the CFPS has a certification extension program.
IFPUG benchmarking offers the ability to create a standard measurement process to assess software development and compare it to industry standards. Benchmarking helps companies understand where their application development practices are relative to industry peers, so they can determine process or skill gaps and form the basis for improvement. IFPUG benchmarking helps organizations to:
A number of factors should be benchmarked to properly evaluate current development practices and implement improvement efforts. IFPUG benchmarking allows companies to develop a base measurement for evaluating:
These base measurements make it possible for an organization to know how many hours were required to complete each business function within an application (i.e. Delivery Rate). When combined with testing data, they can help determine the number of defects per function point injected into an application during a specific release.
How can your organization obtain the benefits offered by IFPUG benchmarking? Automated analysis solutions measure an application based on the number of business functions or function points required by end users. This type of measurement provides a base measurement that enables organizations to continuously monitor new or existing applications efforts – whether they are enhancements or maintenance projects.
CAST Application Intelligence Platform or AIP is the only automated solution capable of assessing multiple languages in a complex, multi-tier infrastructure. It is an enterprise software analytics solution that automates IFPUG's function point analysis – enabling fast, accurate benchmarking at one tenth the cost of manual counting.
With AIP, your organization will be able to:


text:
We show how to efficiently simulate the sending of a single message \(M\) to a receiver who has partial information about the message, so that the expected number of bits communicated in the simulation is close to the amount of additional information that the message reveals to the receiver. This is a generalization and strengthening of the Slepian-Wolf theorem, which shows how to carry out such a simulation with low amortized communication in the case that \(M\) is a deterministic function of \(X\). A caveat is that our simulation is interactive. As a consequence, we prove that the internal information cost (namely the information revealed to the parties) involved in computing any relation or function using a two party interactive protocol is exactly equal to the amortized communication complexity of computing independent copies of the same relation or function. We also show that the only way to prove a strong direct sum theorem for randomized communication complexity is by solving a particular variant of the pointer jumping problem that we define. This paper implies that a strong direct sum theorem for communication complexity holds if and only if efficient compression of communication protocols is possible. In particular, together with our result, a recent result of Ganor, Kol, and Raz implies that the strongest version of direct sum for randomized communication complexity is false.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Information Systems
- Computer Science Applications
- Library and Information Sciences


When Will Kittens Eyes Change Color
Posted on
Cat Eye Colors An Amazing Range Of Shades Cat eye
In the weeks that follow, kittens will develop their senses even more, namely, their sense of smell, hearing, and their sense of sight. Vet Info states that sometime between three weeks and two months of age a kitten's eyes may begin to change color from a foggy blue to a darker shade. Often, this change can be spotted with the appearance of brownish, amber, yellow, or greenish flecks of color.
When will kittens eyes change color. Kittens' eyes: What to know about the first month. The first step to answering, "When do kittens' eyes change color?" is to know that their eyes aren't even open at birth. Upon exiting the womb and entering the whelping box, a newborn kitten's eyes are sealed shut and functionally useless. Like their coatless bodies and closed ears. A kitten's eyes start to change colour if they are going to, when they are anything from 3 to 6 months old. The most important thing is for them to process light so their vision is good before the colour of their eyes finally change to the colour they will be for the rest of their lives. So, when do kittens' eyes change color? By week 6 or 7, a kitten's eye color begins to change. The iris, the colored part of the eye, contains melanocytes. Once the eye is sufficiently mature, these melanocytes begin producing melanin, pigment that gives the eye its mature adult coloration.
At this age, the adult eye color will begin to emerge. Kittens' eyes will change from baby blue to the eye color they will keep permanently. Kittens with grey, green, or yellow eyes are likely 7 weeks or older. When does kittens' eye color change? Kittens undergo a lot of changes in just a short period of time. At around 6 to 7 weeks of age, a kittens eyes may begin to gradually change color. What color their eyes will end up being is a result of the amount of pigment within the tapetum lucidum. Most of the time, a kitten's eyes will be permanently changed into their adult color by the time they reach 12 to 16 weeks. There is physics behind the answer to the question, which may displease some readers and I'll understand why! By six or seven weeks of age a kitten's eyes begin to change colour from blue to
Blue eyes have virtually no melanin present, as young kittens don't produce a lot of melanin. But as they grow and age, the kitten's body produces more melanin, triggering the eye color change, which occurs around 4 weeks of age and progresses until about 10 weeks of age. Nope! At about 8 weeks, your kittens eye have come full circle. If you are wondering when do kittens' eyes change color or if they will change color again, no they don't. at this point, they are fully mature and fully functional. Even though your kittens eyes have now matured, that doesn't mean they are safe from the kittens own clumsiness. So, when do kittens' eyes change color? By week 6 or 7, a kitten's eye color begins to change. The iris, the colored part of the eye, contains melanocytes.
Blue eyes are associated with all kittens under 6-8 weeks of age. If blue is your favorite color and cats with this magnificent eye color are a must have, then you should go for felines who are known to maintain the color to old age, such as Snowshoe, Ragdoll, Balinese, Javanese, Himalayan, Tonkinese, Persian, and Siamese.Plus, the Ojos Azules is a unique cat breed that can present blue-eyed. Beautiful Blue Eyes. Most kittens, when their eyes open at about 2 weeks old, have light blue eyes, and Johnson said that over the next month or two the eye color changes to the color it will be throughout her adult life. Most adult cats' eyes are somewhere on the color continuum from green to yellow to orange to copper. Look into your cat's eyes. What color are they? The vast majority of adult cat eye colors exist on a spectrum ranging from green, gold and yellow on one side to orange, copper, and brown on the other, with a host of variations and shades between. But what about cats with blue eyes? All kittens are
As beautiful as blue is, most likely, your kitten's eyes will change color. All kittens are born with blue eyes (however, you won't be able to see their baby blues for a few days as they are born with their eyes closed!). For the first seven to 13 days, they depend on smell and, of course, mom in order to survive. Once your kitten's eyes have changed color from the bluish-gray that she was born with, her eyes should not change color after that. If you do notice a sudden change, like if they seem unusually brown or dark yellow, that may signal a serious underlying condition caused by anything from trauma to the eye to feline leukemia. However, feline eye color changes may also indicate serious health concerns that warrant medical attention. Consequently, it is important to understand when and why a cat's eye color may change. Kitten Eye Color. Most kittens are born with blue eyes. As a kitten's sense of sight develops over the next several weeks, his eyes begin to take.
All British Shorthair kittens are born with blue eyes. Gradually, as they mature, the eyes turn to their actual colour. This transition starts when they are around 6-8 weeks old and continues until they are around 2 years old, when they finally reach their full colour. Cat eyes can come in a variety of colors. Kittens are born blind. The eye is blueish as it first starts to develop, gradually becoming the final adult color at three months. The eyes may be of two different colors, sometimes in the same eye! If your adult cat's eyes suddenly change color or appearance medical intervention will be necessary. When kittens begin opening their eyes, the eyes are bright blue in color, regardless of what color their eyes turn later as they grow up. If you have an older kitten and you notice her eyes beginning to change color, she is likely around 6-7 weeks old. At this time, the irises will begin to transition to their permanent, mature color.
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text:
Specifies whether the ReportListener will be passed a handle to the image source when the image is loaded by an object reference or from a General field. Does not apply to images loaded by filename.
ReportListener.SendGDIPlusImage Property [= iExpr]
Integer data type.
Note that the property is set to integer type, not logical, to allow for the possibility that a derived class might use other integer values to represent providing the image in other ways besides a graphics handle. For example, a derived class might recognize a value of 2 to indicate "load all file-based images from their original files, and copy them to a different location or different format."
The following lists the values for iExpr recognized by the baseclass ReportListener.
- 0 or any negative integer value
- (0 is Default) The ReportListener baseclass does not provide a handle to GDI+ images to derived classes in the Render method.
- 1 and higher integer values
- The ReportListener baseclass provides a handle to GDI+ images to derived classes in the Render method.
Applies To: ReportListener Object.
This property value has no meaning for baseclass ReportListener objects; it has no effect on native print and preview rendering capabilities. However, ReportListeners providing other types of output can set the property to 1 and receive a handle to the graphics object representing rendered images that come from General fields or the PictureVal property of an Image control, rather than file-based sources.
By default, for performance reasons, this information is not provided to derived classes.
|When you have a reference to a GDI+ graphics handle, you use the GDI+ API to manipulate it. Visual FoxPro ships with a number of Foundation Classes designed to make working with the GDI+ API easier to use. For more information, see GDI Plus API Wrapper Foundation Classes.|
This property value does not affect the ReportListener's handling of file-based images. Derived classes receive the appropriate filename as an argument to the Render method, so no other handle is required.
The following code fragment, showing three ReportListener methods, is similar to the internal methods of the XMLDisplayListener derived class. See ReportListener XML Display-Style Foundation Class for more information about this class and how it handles images.
In the BeforeReport event, the code in this example saves the current value of the SendGDIPlusImage. Then it checks to see if the report contains any General fields. If it finds any references to images in the layout information, it sets SendGDIPlusImage to 1 for the duration of the report.
_TAG_ LISTENER_SEND_GDI_IMAGE_HANDLE 1 PROCEDURE BeforeReport() THIS.oldSendGDIPlusImage = THIS.SendGDIPlusImage IF (THIS.SendGDIPlusImage < LISTENER_SEND_GDI_IMAGE_HANDLE) ; AND THIS.checkReportForGeneralFields() THIS.SendGDIPlusImage = LISTENER_SEND_GDI_IMAGE_HANDLE ENDIF DODEFAULT() ENDPROC PROCEDURE checkReportForGeneralFields() LOCAL liGeneralFields, llOpened THIS.SetFRXDataSession() IF USED("FRX") * check,because * the method might be called * in the LoadReport() as well as BeforeReport() SELECT FRX ELSE USE (THIS.CommandClauses.File) SHARED NOUPDATE ALIAS FRX IN 0 SELECT FRX llOpened =.T. ENDIF COUNT FOR ObjType = FRX_OBJTYP_PICTURE AND ; Offset = FRX_PICTURE_SOURCE_GENERAL TO ; liGeneralFields IF llOpened USE IN FRX ENDIF THIS.SetCurrentDataSession() RETURN ( liGeneralFields > 0 ) ENDPROC PROCEDURE AfterReport() DODEFAULT() THIS.SendGDIPlusImage = THIS.oldSendGDIPlusImage ENDPROC


May 20, 2005
To My Cat with an Eating Disorder
by Alice N. Persons
FRIDAY, 20 MAY, 2005
Listen (RealAudio) | How to listen
Poem: "To My Cat with an Eating Disorder" by Alice N. Persons from Never Say Never © Moon Pie Press. Reprinted with permission.
To My Cat with an Eating Disorder
You were thrown out of a moving vehicle
on a dirt road
in chilly winder downeast Maine,
little fur scrap, and I hope you don't
carry that memory with you,
but the hunger, the deep fear
that you'll never see food again
is still there five years later
when you are huge and sleek,
a sumo Buddha of a cat.
I've seen you, after a big meal,
heave yourself from a sound sleep,
pad into the kitchen, launch your bulk
onto the counter, and check the food supply,
then crouch there chewing and chewing,
green eyes empty, concentrating
on your burden, your compulsion,
doggedly eating, whether you want to or not.
There are stories about Holocaust or
Depression survivors whose refrigerators
and pantries are always full, just in case,
how some of them still wake in the night
and check their abundant supplies,
run their hands over the packages,
or eat without hunger, just because they can.
Cat, I stand in the dark kitchen
stroking your broad back,
wishing I could banish the fears
of one small, common creature,
those bad dreams that awaken you,
that hollow place in your memory
which can never be filled.
Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the birthday of novelist and short story writer Samuel Dickson Selvon, born in Trinidad, West Indies (1923). In 1950, he emigrated to England, where he wrote his first novel, A Brighter Sun (1952), the story of racial tension between black Africans and Indians living in the West Indies. It established him as a writer who employed evocative descriptions and authentic language and dialect, and explored the subjects of poverty and discrimination. These themes were continued in his 1956 novel, The Lonely Londoners, about black West Indians living in London after World War Two.
It's the birthday of detective-story writer Margery (Louise) Allingham born in London, England (1904), who is best known as the creator of the witty, bespectacled, aristocratic detective Albert Campion.
It's the birthday of historian and biographer Allan Nevins, born near Camp Point, Illinois (1890), who gained his love of history from his father, a man who did not believe in frivolous reading but had a library of more than five hundred books of economics, science, and world affairs. During his lifetime, Nevins wrote hundreds of essays and book reviews, edited seventy-five books, and wrote fifty books of his own, two of which won Pulitzer Prizes: Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (1933) and Hamilton Fish: The Inner Story of the Grant Administration (1937).
It's the birthday of political economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill, born in London, England (1806). He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a strict disciplinarian, and who, at the age of eight, was reading Aesop's Fables in the original Greek. He is best known for his defense of empiricism in his 1843 book, System of Logic, which espoused that all knowledge is based on information received through the senses and experience of the world, rather than on rational thinking. His two other famous books are On Liberty (1859), which argued for the importance of the individual, and Utilitarianism (1861). He said: "One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests."
It's the birthday of writer Honoré de Balzac, born in Tours, France (1799), who is often credited with creating realism in the novel. In 1830, he published a work under his own name that brought him fame. It was Scenes from Private Life, a series of stories about girls in conflict with parental authority. In 1835, he published one of his best works, Le Pere Goriot. His most famous work was The Human Comedy, which appeared in sixteen volumes over a period of six years. The work included thousands of different characters. The entire series contains a total of 2,470 characters who have names, and 566 without names.
 - "Writing is my dharma." —Raja Rao
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O, What a Luxury


text:
By NoCamels Team What do racism and lack of creativity have in common? According to a new study from Tel Aviv University – quite a lot. As it turns out, people who are of a racist mindset were less creative when put to the test.
"Although these two concepts concern very different outcomes, they both occur when people fixate on existing category information and conventional mindsets," researcher Carmit Tadmor and her colleagues write in an article published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Racism, or "racial essentialism," is basically the view that racial groups possess underlying essences that represent deep-rooted, unalterable traits and abilities. The researchers hypothesized that, once activated, an essentialist mindset would lead to a reluctance to consider alternative perspectives, resulting in a generalized closed-mindedness.
Triggering racism kills creativity
The researchers manipulated participants' beliefs about racial essentialism by having them read one of three articles: one that described fictitious scientific research supporting racial essentialist (racist) beliefs, one that described fictitious research supporting racial nonessentialist beliefs, or one about the scientific properties of water.
The participants then took a commonly used test of creativity called the Remote Associates Test. The participants were given three distinct words and they had to identify a single target word that linked the three words together. So, for example, given the words "manners," "round," and "tennis," the correct answer would be "table."
The researchers found that participants primed with an essentialist viewpoint were less creative, solving significantly fewer of the word problems correctly than participants in the other two groups.
Results may help devise a preemptive strike
A follow up study added further explanation to the results, by showing that racial essentialism and decreased creativity could be explained, at least in part, by an increase in closed-mindedness.
Together, these studies suggest that essentialism exerts its negative effects on creativity by changing how people think, as opposed to changing what they think. This finding fits with previous research on information processing and creativity.
Despite the results being quite preliminary, researchers speculate that there may be a way to implement them for educational purposes. Tadmor and colleagues speculate that it might be possible to use these findings to devise an intervention program that reduces racial essentialist beliefs, thereby leading participants not only to become more socially tolerant but also to unleash their creative potential in the process.
Co-authors on this research include Melody M. Chao of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Ying-yi Hong of Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University and Beijing Normal University; and Jeffrey T. Polzer of Harvard University.
Photo by Daviniodus


text:
Background: Approximately 13% of women experience postpartum depression. Early recognition is one of the most difficult challenges with this mood disorder because of how covertly it is suffered.
Objectives: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to update the findings of an earlier meta-analysis of postpartum depression predictors that had synthesized the results of studies conducted mostly in the 1980s.
Method: A meta-analysis of 84 studies published in the decade of the 1990s was conducted to determine the magnitude of the relationships between postpartum depression and various risk factors. Using the software system Advanced Basic Meta-Analysis, effect sizes were calculated three ways: unweighted, weighted by sample size, and weighted by quality index score.
Results: Thirteen significant predictors of postpartum depression were revealed. Ten of the 13 risk factors had moderate effect sizes while three predictors had small effect sizes. The mean effect size indicator ranges for each risk factor were as follows: prenatal depression (.44 to.46), self esteem (.45 to. 47), childcare stress (.45 to.46), prenatal anxiety (.41 to.45), life stress (.38 to.40), social support (.36 to.41), marital relationship (.38 to.39), history of previous depression (.38 to.39), infant temperament (.33 to.34), maternity blues (.25 to.31), marital status (.21 to.35), socioeconomic status (.19 to.22), and unplanned/unwanted pregnancy (.14 to.17).
Conclusions: Results confirmed findings of an earlier meta-analysis and in addition revealed four new predictors of postpartum depression: self-esteem, marital status, socioeconomic status, and unplanned/unwanted pregnancy.