Question: Is Okay Formal Or Informal?
Is OK or OK?
In correct spelling/ grammar, the word should be capitalized "OK".
I've experienced this problem myself.
"Okay" is just another way of spelling the word, which is OK to use.
There are also other forms of the same word like "O.K" or "O.K." and those are also acceptable, but are used rarely in everyday life..
What is an example of informal English?
Is Okay polite?
Most people don't spell it out, so "ok" is OK! If you want to be polite and sincere, write "ok, thanks!" Or "ok, thank you very much. "
Is Nevermind rude?
Never mind isn't rude on its own, but you do want to be sure you are using the right tone of voice when you say it. If you say "never mind" rudely, then it's obviously going to come across badly. There are so many different ways that you could use "never mind" in a situation.
How do you say yes in a cute way?
Creative Ways to Say "Yes"Okey-dokey!I'm at your behest.Aye aye, captain!I was born for this!That would be a Y-E-S!You just stole the words out of my mouth.Right on, brother/sister.Definitely not NO.More items…•
How do you say OK in English?
30 Different Ways to Say OK in EnglishGreen light.Agree to.Go.Yep.Certify.Moderate.Respectable.Pleasing.More items…
Is Okay formal?
So, what's the bottom line? Both "okay" and "ok" are acceptable spellings in formal writing; which one you should use simply comes down to your preferred style guide (or, if you aren't tied to one, your personal preference).
Is Alright formal?
People are often surprised to learn that alright is not an accepted spelling of all right. Although the one-word spelling of alright is seen in informal writing, teachers and editors will always consider it incorrect. To use the expression with impunity, it is best to spell it as two words: all right.
What is OK short for?
Roger Thomas is correct in that OK is short for oll korrect, but it is not of military origin. It started as a comical abbreviation during a fad in New England in the 1830s. Others were OW (oll wright), KY (know yuse, or no use), and NS ('nuff said).
Is OK informal?
Is saying OK rude?
More words in general sound more polite Gretchen McCulloch, an internet linguist and author of the upcoming book Because Internet, said OK is not inherently rude but the length of a reply matters. "Anything that's shorter can sound curter, anything that's longer can sound more polite," McCulloch said.
What is the reply of Nevermind?
e.g. "I don't understand you" "Never mind – it wasn't important anyway". If someone does something wrong and says "sorry" to you, you can say in response "It's OK", "Don't worry" or "Never mind" in a friendly way.
How do you say nevermind nicely?
Synonyms fordon't bother.don't concern yourself.drop it.ignore doesn't matter.let it go.nothing.stop.
Is nevermind a negative word?
What other words can I use instead of okay?
Is OK a sentence?
In English, yes, no and okay are common pro-sentences. … Pro-sentences are sometimes seen as grammatical interjections, since they are capable of very limited syntactical relations.
Is KK rude?
How do you say OK in email?
That sounds great, thank you!Great Plan, looking forward do it!Okay that sounds great to me, let me know if anything changes in the mean time.Perfect! Thank you for your work on this!Okay that sounds great! See you then!Okay, that works for me. Thanks again!Okay, thank you for letting me know.Okay, I agree.More items…


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In Louhi the program development environment is managed using the modules package. For example, user's shell environment variables for different compiler suites, software packages and libraries are set up using the module tool.
Currently loaded modules are listed with command
The environment changes induced by a particular module are shown with command
module show PrgEnv-pgi
The example above shows the effects of the default version of PGI programming environment. All available modules are listed with command
Loading and unloading modules files is done with module commands load and unload. Changing from the PGI programming environment to GNU programming environment, for example, is accomplished with the command
module swap PrgEnv-pgi PrgEnv-gnu
This, among other things, sets the Cray wrapper scripts to launch GNU compilers and link appropriate libraries for them. More examples of using the modules are provided in the chapter Program development of this User's Guide.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


The COVID19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the daily operations and strategic goals of civil society organisations and the non-profit sector. At the same time, many funders and donors have responded by shifting priorities towards emergency funds and short-term needs.
As vaccines are being rolled out across Europe, it is time to reflect and prepare for what is coming next. The return to what has been before is unlikely.
So how can organisations prepare and strategise for the transition to the post-COVID19 world?
The interactive online discussion panel aims to open a dialogue between donor organisations and activists, civil society and change-making organisations on working together to meet future challenges effectively.
The expert presentations aim to build capacity within civil society to help them prepare and manage the transition successfully.
Organised with the support of the European Youth Forum.
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hash is correct.
 2. Payload size is correct.
 3. Signature chain is valid.
 4. Source NKN address and public key match the first element of the signature chain.
 5. Destination NKN address and public key match the last element of the signature chain.
So far, we have covered the NKN data packet, signature chain and its verifiable design. Now , it is time to introduce the NKN's proof of relay (PoR) mechanism. As demonstrated in Figure 6, we use NKN packet with payload field removed as a proof of relay work for all relay nodes along the route. It satisfies our verifiable, unforgeable and untamperable requirements such that everyone is able to verify the validity of a signature chain, while no one can forge or modify a valid signature chain without controlling (have private keys) of all nodes in the route.
Signature chain cannot be forked because each element contains the NKN address and public key of the next node. If a node on the route is malicious and removes or modifies some previous elements on the chain when generating his signature, the chain is no longer valid. Similarly, If a partially signed signature chain is intercepted by a malicious party, no valid signature chain can be generated without the private key of the designated next node.
On the other hand, considering the need to put the PoR mechanism into practice, it is necessary to consider the efficiency. Therefore, every NKN packet has a proof which can be used as a receipt to generate transactions from source to relayers. However, it is inefficient to create a transaction for every packet transmitted in the NKN. Instead, only packets whose last signature on the signature chain is smaller than a threshold are eligible for transactions.
The last signature on the signature chain is verifiable to everyone, while still being unpredictable and uncontrollable unless all nodes along the route including source and destination are controlled by the same party. The last signature is essentially deterministic given the payload and the full path, but cannot be computed in advance without all the private keys along the route.
With an ideal hash function, the last signature on the signature chain is random across packets. Thus, selecting only packets with small enough last signature for transactions (with adjusted price per packet) does not change the expected rewards for relay nodes but introduced some variation in pricing and rewards. The threshold should be chosen to balance the need for less transactions and smaller reward variation.
As with all public blockchains facing complex open environments, NKN needs to ensure the security of PoR in the case of malicious attacks. Signature chain in NKN packet is unpredictable and uncontrollable as long as the private key of at least one node is kept secret. However, if a malicious party controls all nodes on the route including source and destination, the party is able to predict and create valid signature chain and NKN packet without actually transmitting the packet. To solve this problem, we differentiate two classes of signature chain. One class, which is mathematically shown to have trivial probability to be controlled by a party, can be used to gain more benefits such as mining rewards. The other class has no additional benefits so that nothing but economic loss can be gained by creating signature chains. For more details on PoR security, please refer to the NKN Github wiki page (_URL_ . This includes how to design secure paths, session-based data transfer modes, etc.
Consensus and Blockchain
NKN draws on the Cellular Automata (Ising model) to achieve a consensus to improve the scalability of the network. Mathematical proofs and simulation results for consensus between nodes using the majority voting cellular automaton (MVCA) algorithm were described in the NKN white paper (_URL_ MVCA is efficient in both time and message count as only a few iterations of communications between neighbors are needed to reach consensus, as shown in the whitepaper.
Information required for consensus (e.g. next block) is sent to all participating nodes at the beginning of the consensus through a gossip-like protocol that takes up to O(logN) time, which is the main time cost for consensus process. Such time can be reduced to O(logN/logk) by having up to k times more neighbors similar to Kademlia DHT as we may implement in our future version.
The consensus algorithm can be implemented by an event-driven protocol triggered by consensus messages. Every consensus message has a topic id identifying what is being agreed on. For each consensus message received from a neighbor regarding a binary state (e.g. accept or reject a block), the following procedures are executed:
 1. If it's the first message with the topic id, then compute self initial state and send the state to neighbors.
 2. Update sender's state for the topic id.
 3. If more than half of the nodes choosing self as neighbor have the other state from self state for the topic id, then change self state to the majority state and send the state to neighbors.
The consensus process for a topic id stops after a fixed amount of time since first receiving messages with the same topic id. The correctness and convergence of the MVCA algorithm is shown in our whitepaper.
The production process of the block in NKN is also very characteristic. New block is added to the blockchain by first selecting a "leader" that proposes the new block. The leader selection is uncontrollable but verifiable. The expected probability that a node is elected as leader is proportional to the data relayed by the node on secure paths. The selected leader proposes the next block and sends it to the network for confirmation. The proposed block will be added to the blockchain as the next block if consensus among nodes is reached.
A leader is selected by first selecting a signature chain on a secure path. The signature chain being selected is the one that has the lowest last signature value. As discussed before, signature cannot be predicted or forged until a malicious party has controlled all nodes in the chain. On the other hand, any malicious party has a very low probability to control all nodes on a secure path. These two properties combined guarantees that selecting the signature chain with lowest last signature on secure paths is effectively randomly selecting signature chain on secure paths and the selection cannot be predicted or controlled by any party.
To select the signature chain with lowest last signature, each node who signs the last signature checks if the last signature is smaller than a threshold. If the last signature is smaller than the threshold, the node sends out the signature chain to the network as a candidate for the lowest last signature. The threshold is chosen so that with high probability, the lowest last signature is smaller than the threshold. Let t be the threshold in unit of largest possible signature value, and the signature is distributed uniformly from 0 to the largest value. The probability that all last signature are above the threshold is (1 — t)^L, where L is the number of signature chain. We need (1 — t)^L < e where e is small enough. For small t we have t > — (log e) / L. We choose t = — (log e) / L to minimize the number of candidates. L can be estimated from the average number of signature chains in a number of previous blocks.
Nodes reach consensus about signature chain selection after receiving candidates. The initial choice of each node is the signature chain candidate with lowest last signature. If all nodes receive the same candidates, then consensus is trivial as all honest nodes will make the same initial choice. Otherwise the same signature chain (but not necessarily the one with global lowest signature if initially it is not received by enough nodes) will be guaranteed by the consensus protocol.
When consensus about the signature chain is reached, leader is chosen deterministic from the signature chain. Let S be the last signature of the signature chain. Relay nodes on the signature chain are labeled from 0 to L-1, where L is the number of relay nodes. Then the leader is the node with label S mod L on the signature chain.
Finally, a block is proposed by the selected leader in each round. Proposed block is sent to all nodes for verification and consensus. During consensus phase, each node sends to its neighbors the hash of the block (in case the leader sends out different blocks to different neighbors) and if it is accepted or not. When consensus is reached, all nodes should have the same accepted block or none if rejected. Proposed block is added to the blockchain if accepted.
Relay Path Validation (RPV)
Although signatures in a signature chain guarantee that it is signed by the claimed relayers, they do not guarantee the correctness of the relay path, where a path is defined as correct if it is the designated path of our distributed data transmission network (DDTN). Being able to validate the correctness of a path is crucial for the security of signature chains, otherwise attackers could break the assumption that each hop leads to a random node by selecting specific node as next hop, and a malicious party could construct signature chains fully under control by relaying packets only to nodes under control. Signature chain fully controlled by a party is no longer unpredictable by the party, and can be computed by the party without actually transmitting any data. The malicious party can then gain unfair economic advantage by producing more signature chains than it should, increasing its chance to get mining rewards.
The validity of any relay path should be consensus among all nodes as it is a prerequisite to select globally unique mining node for each block. There are two ways to achieve the consensus: 1. nodes use global information (e.g. previous blocks) that has already be agreed on; 2. nodes use their own local information, and reach consensus later. We choose the first approach as it does not require extra communication between nodes and is much


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CBSE Class 11-science Biology Stem, Leaf, Inflorescence
- define inflorescence
- A tendril is not seen in tall trees. Why
- What is the difference between dorsoventral and isobilateral leaf
- What is meant by acropetal and basipetal order?
- Define stem.
- What are nodes and internodes?
- Name the plants whose stems are modified to store food.
- State the function of stem tendrils.
- What are thorns? Give one example of a plant in which thorns are found.
- Define leaf.
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text:
According to a new study conducted by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, it was revealed that may be obese teens are more intense with risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking and use of drugs; they also have risky sexual and suicidal behaviors.
The study, which was conducted by Zeller and colleagues, involved almost 9,000 teens.
The study is unexpected of the thoughts that social seclusion and shame does not let them involve in such stuff. Even, the study revealed that girls are more likely to have sex while they are drunk and high.
The study explained that obese girls are more likely to indulge in smoke and tobacco in comparison to the healthier girls.
Researchers urged physicians to take some steps for the prevention of obese people from the risky behaviors. They explained that obese teens need a better understanding of their mental and physical states.
Meg H. Zeller, Ph. D., said, "It's critical to understand them in the broader context of adolescence and what kind of care they're going to need in the long term".
The study explained that overweight girls before the age of 13 may get involve in sex with multiple sexual partner.


Question: What Are Two Lines That Intersect To Form Right Angles Called?
What are opposite angles called?
Another word for opposite angles are vertical angles.
Vertical angles are always congruent, which means that they are equal.
Adjacent angles are angles that come out of the same vertex.
Adjacent angles share a common ray and do not overlap..
When two lines intersect they create a?
Two intersecting lines form a pair of vertical angles. The vertical angles are opposite angles with a common vertex (which is the point of intersection).
When two lines intersect four angles are formed called?
Vertical Angles When two lines intersect, they create four angles. The angles opposite one another are called vertical angles. Vertical angles are equal to each other. Here 1 = 2, and 3 = 4.
When two lines intersect the opposite angles are?
Vertical angles are pair angles formed when two lines intersect. Vertical angles are sometimes referred to as vertically opposite angles because the angles are opposite to each other.
What do you call the lines that never intersect?
In geometry, parallel lines are lines in a plane which do not meet; that is, two straight lines in a plane that do not intersect at any point are said to be parallel. Colloquially, curves that do not touch each other or intersect and keep a fixed minimum distance are said to be parallel.
Is there a symbol for intersecting lines?
Straight lines that cross each other at some point are called intersecting lines. These lines will intersect at one point only over their entire length. There is no symbol to use when naming intersecting lines.
What are two lines in the same plane called?
Two lines, both in the same plane, that never intersect are called parallel lines. Parallel lines remain the same distance apart at all times.
What is the symbol for parallel lines?
Geometric SymbolInterpretation||Parallel⊥PerpendicularCongruentSimilar6 more rows
What are the types of angles in parallel lines?
Angles that are in the area between the parallel lines like angle H and C above are called interior angles whereas the angles that are on the outside of the two parallel lines like D and G are called exterior angles. Angles that are on the opposite sides of the transversal are called alternate angles e.g. H and B.


Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Michaels Divorce - The Iconic Gay Couple Separate
American rock singer-songwriter and musician Melissa Etheridge, who has won two Grammy Awards and one Academy Award, has separated from her wife Tammy Michaels after nine years of marriage. The parties have 3 year old twins together, Miller and Johnie Rose. Etheridge says the most difficult part of her separation from her wife was telling the children and the subsequent effect it had on them. Sources claim that the parties would like to jointly parent the children.
Split Custody vs. Shared Custody in Ontario
First it is important to note that 'custody' does not necessarily refer to physical custody of the children. In Ontario, custody involves the right to make important decisions affecting the child's welfare on matters such as health, religion, education and general upbringing. Each case is decided on its individual merits in determining who will get custody and who will have access of the child and the Court will consider theoverall best interests of the children.
Split custody refers a situation where Melissa would have greater then 60% of the time with one of the twins and Tammy would have greater then 60% of the time with the other twin. Unfortunately when split custody is ordered the children are divided from one another and the courts may be of the view that this is not in the children's best interests.
With respect to child support in a split custody situation, the courts will look at the Federal Child Support Guidelines. The Guidelines provides a "formula" for determining child support in situations of split custody. The amount that is ordered is the difference between the amounts that each parent or spouse would otherwise have had to pay if a child support order were sought against each of the parents.
In the alternative, Melissa and Tammy may seek shared custody of the children. Shared custody refers to the amount of time the children spends with each parent and it is relevant to child support since it does not affect the custodial parent's rights and responsibilities with respect to decision-making. If for example, Melissa and Tammy have joint custody of the child (i.e. a joint right to make decisions regarding the children's upbringing) the access parent may still have shared custody if the child spends at least 40% of the time with him or her (may include weekends, overnight visits and parts of vacations).
The Federal Child Support Guidelines give the court the discretion to reduce the amount of child support payable once the 40% threshold requirement is met.
Parents should always be aware of the effect of divorce on the children. A divorce can be difficult on them and it is important for Melissa and Tammy to address any questions and/or concerns the children have about the divorce, especially if they are being separated from one another. Given that the children are only 3 years old they may be too young to fully understand the situation, however as they get older signs of the effects of the divorce may surface. If possible, the parties should work together in addressing the children's concerns and more importantly, they should ensure that they do not expose the kids to adult conflict or speak ill of one another in front of the children.


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The number of households with at least one person aged 16 to 64 in which no-one was in work was 3.7 million in 2012, down 153,000 on a year earlier
There were 5.02 million people aged 16 to 64 living in workless households and a further 1.75 million children aged 0 to 15
The main reason for worklessness was being disabled or sick. Around 1.45 million people gave this reason, accounting for 29 per cent of those in workless households. The second most common reason was unemployment, accounting for 1.03 million, or around 1 in every 5.
Around 45 per cent of council/housing association households were workless, compared with 4 per cent of households buying their home through a mortgage
The majority of children aged 0 to 15 in the UK lived with couples, 8.75 million of the estimated total of 11.64 million. However the majority of the 1.75 million children living in workless households lived with lone parents, 1.16 million, or 2 in every 3 children.
Source: Office for National Statistics
Details of the policy governing the release of new data are available by visiting _URL_ or from the Media Relations Office email: _EMAIL_
These National Statistics are produced to high professional standards and released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.


Skip to definition.
Noun: Othman I
 1. The conqueror of Turkey who founded the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman dynasty that ruled Turkey after the 13th century; conquered most of Asia Minor and assumed the title of emir in 1299 (_PHONE_)
 - Osman I
Type of: ameer, amir, emeer, emir
Encyclopedia: Othman I


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From the 2 April 1999 pages of Science Magazine
COPENHAGEN--A bitter row has broken out at the University of Copenhagen, which has been forced to cut its scientific staff to close a yawning budget gap. The university science department decided in January that, instead of assessing who were its least productive researchers and firing them, it would simply not fill any junior tenured positions that became vacant--in effect blocking the career path of young tenure-track researchers. As the consequences of that policy have begun to bite, aspiring young scientists say they now have little prospect of advancement and a whole generation of young researchers will either have to leave academic science or pursue a career abroad. "There is an atmosphere of hopelessness among students and postdocs whose possibilities for embarking on an academic career at the university now seem extremely limited," says plant molecular biologist Lars Østergaard, a postdoctoral fellow.
The crisis was precipitated late last year when the Danish government cut overall funding to Denmark's five universities. The science department at Copenhagen--the country's largest--was hit especially hard because it was already running a budget deficit. Forced to cut 15% of the tenured science positions--which translates into 70 people--the administration eliminated about 12 posts by offering early retirement to older faculty members and will cut the rest over time by not filling junior positions. "[It's] outrageous to prevent the necessary staff renewal and infusion of new ideas by forcing out young, talented, tenure-track scientists," says molecular biologist Olaf Nielsen, an associate professor.
The new policy is likely to exacerbate a simmering age problem in Danish universities. During the 1960s and '70s, the university system expanded rapidly and a large number of tenured positions were created. That generation of scientists is now approaching retirement age. "There will be an acute need for replacements when 30% to 40% of the currently tenured staff retire in 5 to 10 years," says associate professor of zoology Peter Arctander. "But because of what is happening now, there will be a lack of qualified young scientists."
Dean of science Henrik Jeppesen defends the policy. Although "it is sad that a number of young researchers have to leave," he says, "it would have created a very bad atmosphere to fire faculty members who have worked here for many years." This view is supported by university president Kjeld Møllgaard, who says it would be "an unfair personnel policy to simply get rid of the least productive as if it were a horse race." Jeppesen and Møllgaard both acknowledge, however, that the reaction of Denmark's powerful unions was a consideration. Per Clausen, president of the academics' union, the Magisterforeningen, says: "In principle we regard the science department's handling of the situation as the only proper response, but at the same time it is clear that blocking staff renewal will badly hurt the university and its research."
Indeed, research is already hurting. Several research groups have been reduced to the point that ongoing projects have effectively come to a halt. For example, one group in the department of genetics investigating the silencing of chromatin has been shut down after 4 years of successful work because the tenure of its leading assistant professor has been canceled. Science teaching will also be seriously hit, because courses are largely taught by assistant professors and junior associate professors. Leif Søndergaard, an associate professor of genetics, says that "because of the cuts, many courses will no longer be offered every year and others will be generating waiting lists."
Young researchers are now beginning to make their voices heard. Østergaard has sent a highly critical letter, signed by 90% of the graduate students and postdocs in the department of molecular biology, to the Copenhagen University Journal. Among other things Østergaard describes a widespread feeling that "the university is shooting itself in the foot by not identifying and getting rid of those researchers whose scientific contribution is minimal."
Lone Frank is a writer in Copenhagen, Denmark.


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- addle (v.)
- 1712, from addle (n.) "urine, liquid filth," from Old English adela "mud, mire, liquid manure" (cognate with Old Swedish adel "urine," Middle Low German adel, Dutch aal "puddle").
Used in noun phrase addle egg (mid-13c.) "egg that does not hatch, rotten egg," literally "urine egg," a loan-translation of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous loan-translation of Greek ourion oon "putrid egg," literally "wind egg," from ourios "of the wind" (confused by Roman writers with ourios "of urine," from ouron "urine"). Because of this usage, from c.1600 the noun in English was taken as an adjective meaning "putrid," and thence given a figurative extension to "empty, vain, idle," also "confused, muddled, unsound" (1706). The verb followed a like course. Related: Addled; addling.


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The Friends of the Rye Public Library and the Rye Historical Society worked cooperatively to secure a New Hampshire Humanities Council grant allowing for the presentation of this fascinating program. Join us as Dr. Robert Goodby, Professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce University, recounts his archaeological explorations of New Hampshire in search of the record of Abenaki culture.
Abenaki history has been reduced to near invisibility as the result of conquest, a conquering culture that placed little value on Indian experience, and a strategy of self-preservation that required many Abenaki to go "underground". The true Abenaki identity has been concealed for generations, but archeological evidence shows their deep presence in New Hampshire, inches below the Earth's surface!
Dr. Robert Goodby, Ph.D. Anthropology, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce University, New Hampshire, is our guide on this historic journey. A veteran of archaeological field research in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and author of more than 50 technical reports on New England prehistoric archaeology, Goodby is well prepared for this task. Goodby is also director of the Monadnock Archaeological Project, a long-term program of archaeological field research focusing on the prehistory of the upper Contoocook and Connecticut River valleys of southwestern New Hampshire.


What is GTIN, MPN, UPC, EAN, and ISBN on eBay? - Sellbrite
There are a lot of different acronyms involved in listing an item for sale on eBay, many of which you may not know. From MPNs and UPCs to ISBNs and EANs, keeping track of them can seem complicated, but their purpose is to simplify the eBay buying and selling process.
These product identifiers are a series of numerical or alphanumerical digits that signify specific items, creating a universal system that allows products to be identified. These various codes make it easy for shoppers to find items both on eBay and through search engines like Google, and they can boost your listings' visibility.
So what is MPN on eBay? And what about all those other acronyms? And how can they help your eBay sales? Let's take a look at what each of these identifiers means and how they can help you improve your eBay listings and make sales.
What is GTIN?
"GTIN" stands for global trade item number, an identifier assigned to any product by GS1, a not-for-profit organization that develops international standards for business communication.
These unique numbers help identify which products in one database correspond with products in another database across international borders and organizational boundaries, and they're issued to manufacturers and retailers for a fee. They were created to establish a single standard for product identification, and they incorporate other product identifiers, including UPC, EAN, MPN, and ISBN, which are all types of GTINs.
What is MPN?
"MPN" stands for manufacturer part number and is a series of numbers and/or letters that a manufacturer assigns to individual products.
MPNs help buyers find specific parts, and they identify which companies made those parts. They're more common in industries that make interchangeable parts, like the automobile, machinery, hardware, and computer industries.
For example, let's say an eBay shopper is looking for a specific hard drive.
search ebay by MPN
They can search for the item's MPN, such as "WL4000GSA6472E," as illustrated above.
ebay hard drives for sale
The shopper will then get a variety of search results, such as in the example above, that display only items with that exact MPN.
What is UPC?
"UPC" stands for universal product code, and it consists of a 12-digit numeric code and a corresponding machine-readable barcode that can be assigned to any product.
These are common in the United States and Canada and are primarily used for tracking inventory and scanning items at the point of sale. A unique UPC can identify a product by brand, name, item, color, and other factors.
What is EAN?
"EAN" stands for European article number, and it's essentially the European version of a UPC. These 13-digit codes are also known as international article numbers.
If your eBay listings are available to international buyers, including an EAN as a product identifier is essential.
What is ISBN?
"ISBN" stands for international standard book number, a 13-digit product identifier exclusively for books.
They're used primarily by publishers, booksellers, and libraries, but are commonly employed by Internet retailers to identify titles. Each variation of a book title — including the edition, the language, and the book format, such as print, audio, or e-book — has a unique ISBN.
What About SKUs?
"SKU" stands for stock-keeping unit, and it is a type of product identifier. However, SKUs are created by individual businesses for internal use and aren't actually standard codes.
eBay does have a "custom label (SKU)" field for sellers to enter SKUs, which allows you to include these internal identifiers to help you track inventory, ship orders, and ensure your listings are correct, but they won't be visible to buyers.
How Should eBay Sellers Use Product Identifiers?
When listing an item for sale on eBay, you'll always be prompted to enter product identifiers, such as the UPC or ISBN, for example, as illustrated below.
ebay product identifiers field
The purpose of these identifiers is to allow for product-based shopping and to make it easy for consumers to find the specific product they're interested in.
While eBay doesn't require product identifiers for product category — such as certain collectibles — they are essential for most eBay product categories. You can view the full list of qualifying and required categories here.
What are the Benefits of Product Identifiers on eBay?
As mentioned previously, using product identifiers in eBay listings simplifies the product-based shopping process for eBay users by allowing them to quickly and easily identify items. But there are several other benefits to including these codes in your listings:
 - They make creating listings easier by matching items with products already in eBay's catalog. For example, if you're selling a box set of Harry Potter paperback books and enter the ISBN "9781408856772," eBay can easily identify the product from previous listings and fill in a lot of essential information for you, as illustrated in the screenshot below.
harry potter boxset for sale on eBay
 - They make pricing more accurate.
 - They improve placement and visibility in search results on both eBay and in search engines.
 - They enable eBay to alert you when your listings are below the item's trending price.
 - They make your listings eligible for inclusion in eBay promotions.
Check out this article for tips for increasing your sales from successful eBay sellers.
Include 'Item Specifics'
Not every item you list for sale on eBay will necessarily have a specific product identifier, such as an MPN, a UPC, or an EAN. For example, event tickets and certain collectibles will typically lack this information, but you can still list these items for sale on eBay.
But you can still include what eBay calls "item specifics" in your listings, like the brand name and the physical details of what you're selling, such as size, make, model, and color. This information makes it easy for buyers to find your listings through search and determine whether your item is the one they're looking for.


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More info on Fondor Shipyards
Fondor Shipyards: Misc
Up to date as of February 04, 2010
From Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki.
"There are more bulk freighters here than fleas on a bantha, Threepio!"
Luke Skywalker
Super Star Destroyer Executor under construction at the Fondor Shipyards.
The Fondor Shipyards were huge starship construction facilities located in orbit of the planet Fondor, in the Fondor system. Numerous capital ships and freighters were in construction here almost all the time.[1]
Galactic Civil War
Rebel Alliance ships undergo maintenance at the Yards shortly after the Battle of Endor.
The shipyards were seized by the Galactic Empire shortly after the Battle of Yavin, and used to construct Darth Vader's Super Star Destroyer, the Executor.[1]
The Rebel Alliance also made an attack against the orbital shipyards in year 3 ABY, which ended in the destruction of a prototype Super Star Destroyer that was equipped with cloaking devices.[2]
After the Battle of Endor, the shipyards were renamed to the Fondor Independent Shipyards and were used by the Alliance to Restore the Republic. A brief supply problem was solved after Han Solo escorted the two Venerated Ones to their home planet of Vandelhelm.[3]
Yuuzhan Vong war
Warships on both sides are destroyed by Centerpoint Station during the First Battle of Fondor during the Yuuzhan Vong War.
Fondor was the location of a crucial battle against the Yuuzhan Vong. Having been deceived by the Vong, the New Republic was caught fatally off guard by the attack at Fondor. Many Republic vessels were lost, most vaporized by an overly hasty firing of Centerpoint Station. Orbital Shipyard 1321, one of the orbiting shipyards, was rammed by several Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers during the battle, and destroyed.[4]
Although the shipyards were largely in ruins, they continued to operate throughout the war. General Garm Bel Iblis later took up station at Fondor after the fall of Coruscant.
Second Galactic Civil War
As of 40 ABY, Fondor had allied with, and was producing ships for, the Confederation, and was soon targeted by Joint Chief of State Jacen Solo. However, the attempt to take the planet, including the yards and other assets, intact, failed, causing Solo to order the bombing of Oridin, a major Fondorian city, with the result being a split in the GA, but a more unified Fondor. During the battle, one of the docks repelled a GA boarding party. Others sustained heavy fire from Imperial and Galactic Alliance ships. It was revealed that the Fondorians had hidden large numbers of ships in the docks by making it appear that the ships were under construction.
Notes and references
 1. 1.0 1.1 Darth Vader Strikes
 2. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
 3. The Vandelhelm Mission
 4. Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
This article uses material from the "Fondor Shipyards" article on the Starwars wiki at Wikia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.
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Given that Thanksgiving has the reputation for being a day of Herculean food consumption, here's a rather strange World War II propaganda cartoon that visualizes such gustatory excess. In the 1942 short "Food Will Win The War," an overexcited narrator begins yelling about how bridges of butter, flour blizzards, and Brogdingnagian obese children will destroy the German army. Wars are won and lost on tubers the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. The statistics get crazy at 1:40.
See also: Weird early Disney educational cartoons and World War I food propaganda, which suggested that the Germans were eating quartz.
[Via Super Punch]


Antenna Length vs Frequency
During the course of my CCNA Wireless, I have become increasingly confused about the relation of length and frequency, and thanks to the community of experts on LinkedIn that confusion was cleared up quite quickly, so I thought I would share my understanding on this blog.
I remember in high school physics, when learning about how to generate a wave, one of the key determining factors was the antenna length – the length of the antenna had to match the wavelength (which can be folded nicely to 1/2, 1/4 wavelength etc) – It's quite logical; Wireless Communication and Sound have a lot in common, and in order to change the note of a length of vibrating material, you change the length.
For example – I always remember this one from an exam in my SATS, grab your nearest a862095c571cae9aa9b02eaf6f003e11ruler and hold it with the end on a desk, and the length hanging over the desk, then twang it.
Change the length of the ruler, you get a different note.
Why? Well, the reason is that the difference in the length of the ruler which is not supported by the table means the it can vibrate up and down less or more (Longer means it can move more freely, and shorter means it can move less) – the amount the ruler moves up and down is its oscillation – and the number of oscillation per second (Hz) is the frequency of the note you hear. The exact same applies to most musical instruments – in a piano its a small hammer hitting strings of different lengths and thicknesses, on a guitar its a finger changing the length of a string – it all applies. The key is that each sound is being generated by an input making an object oscillate at its resonating frequency.
So, back to the subject – how does this apply to wireless networking?
Well, a radio signal being emitted by an antenna is most effective at its resonating frequency. There's a formula for working this out:
Wavelength (Lambda) = Wave Velocity (v in meters per second) / Frequency (f in Hz)
The Wave Velocity, is the same for the vast majority of cases – it's the speed of light in a vacuum: 299792458 m/s.
So, for 2.4GHz channel 1, with a centre frequency of 2412 MHz, the Wavelength is 12.43cm (rounded).
A good and easy calculator can be found here.
Now, as you know, a radio can change frequency, just like a speaker can produce sounds of different notes – well the logic is exactly the same. Now, unlike a ruler, guitar or piano, the determining factor for a frequency with a speaker or antenna is the frequency of the current generated to the radiating element.
To generate a wave at 2412 MHz, the radio generates an Alternating current at 2412 MHz, which reaches the antenna and leaks into the air. Picture it like this, instead of your finger making the 'twang' its AC – that current is set by a radio, so an antenna tuned to that exact frequency would be most effective, but a radio tuned to operate at the entire 2.4GHz band can still leak frequencies for each channel, it just can't do it at is optimum.
Just to finalize, don't forget a heck of a lot of engineering has gone into the radios and the antenna design over decades which ensures these things can jump frequency as effectively as possible, just like a speaker can effectively produce many crisp and clear sounds – but even with speakers you still get Tweeters and Subs, as some frequencies are far better produced on devices which resonate closer to their intended frequency, for the same reason the majority of 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios are separate radiating elements, even with dual band sometimes its just 2 antenna of different characteristics crammed into one aerial!
To summarise – a wave forms better when it matches the physical characteristics of the wave, but it's not the be all and end all.
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CLEAR CREEK, TX (DEWITT COUNTY)
CLEAR CREEK, TEXAS (DeWitt County). Clear Creek was near present Ranch Road 108 ten miles north of Yorktown in western DeWitt County, in an area predominantly settled by Germans. The community center was the Clear Creek school, organized in 1894 and sometimes called Sandgate. The school building also was used as a Methodist church. In 1926 the public school at nearby Nopal was merged with the Clear Creek school, which closed in 1951. By 1961 only Sandgate Cemetery marked the area. An earlier Clear Creek school may have been organized fourteen miles southeast in 1885 and operated until 1898; that building reportedly also doubled as a Methodist church.
Nellie Murphree, A History of DeWitt County (Victoria, Texas, 1962).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Craig H. Roell, "CLEAR CREEK, TX (DEWITT COUNTY)," Handbook of Texas Online (_URL_ accessed May 24, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.


the contact is a master-slave (m-s) contact between joined blocks.
Block Cut Geometry Command
The block cut geometry command can be used to cut out even more complicated shapes. Usually a geometric surface is created with a third-party program (e.g. Rhino3D or Autocad) and is imported into 3DEC. A geometric surface is usually a collection of triangles or quadrilaterals that define some continuous 3D surface. File formats accepted by 3DEC are.dxf and.stl. It is also possible to create a geometry surface from within 3DEC using commands and FISH. See the :ref:'Geometry section in the Program Guide for more details.
Once a geometry has been imported or created, it can be used to cut the 3DEC blocks. Each facet of the geometry surface represents a "joint" and cuts any blocks that it touches. In this way, almost any geometric shape can be cut into a 3DEC model.
WARNING: Complex geometries with a lot of sub-parallel faces will result in a lot of cuts and potentially many thin "sliver" blocks that may cause numerical problems when trying to run the model. It is recommended that geometric surfaces be simplified as much as possible before using them to cut 3DEC models.
Unlike with the tunnel command, blocks cut with the BLOCK CUT GEOMETRY command are not automatically joined. It is up to the user to join "construction" joints after cutting.
An example of using the BLOCK CUT GEOMETRY command is shown below. To use the BLOCK CUT GEOMETRY command, the user must first specify a domain using the domain extent command. The command is followed by lower and upper bounds for the x, y and z dimensions of the model. If only two numbers are givien, it is assumed that the y and z dimensions are the same as the x dimensions. The domain simply needs to be larger than the model. It is required to make the cutting algorithm more efficient. Also with this example, the block tolerance command is used. 3DEC uses a tolerance to decide what blocks can be cut and what blocks cannot be cut. IF two cuts are closer together than the tolerance, than a cut is not made. This is done to prevent the formation of very tiny blocks. By default, the tolerance is 1% of the block size. However for complex shapes such as this one, it is often necessary to reduce the tolerance so that all of the cuts are made. In this case a value of 0.001 is used (the tolerance is in units of length). The geometry to be cut is an ellipsoid as shown in Figure 11. The success of the cutting can be seen in the cross-section view (Figure 12).
model new
model domain extent -10 10
geometry import 'ellipsoid.stl'
block tolerance 1e-3
block create brick -2 2 -2 2 -1 6
block cut geometry 'ellipsoid'
Figure 11: Imported geometry and block before cutting
Figure 12: Imported geometry and cross-section of blocks after cutting


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The objective of the present study was to evaluate the composition of B horizon equilibrium soil solutions from selected Maine forest soils. The B horizon was chosen for evaluation because it (1) best expressed the weathering processes active in the soil, (2) occupied the greatest volume of the solum, (3) had the most complex chemistry of the major horizons, and (4) provided the major corridor in forested ecosystems for subsurface flow and chemical alteration of ground waters.
Life Sciences and Agriculture Experiment Station
soil chemistry, forest soils
Fernandez, I.J., and R.A. Struchtemeyer. 1982. The composition of soil solutions from forest soil B horizons. Life Sciences and Agriculture Experiment Station Technical Bulletin 105.


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On October 9, the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Dario Fo, the Italian playwright who is most known for his attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. His most famous work, "Mistero Buffo" ("Comic Mystery"), was branded by the Vatican in 1977 as the "most blasphemous show in the history of television"; it is not surprising, then, that the Vatican expressed astonishment when it learned that Fo had been given the Nobel Prize.
William Donohue released the following statement on Fo's selection:
"I am well aware of the extent to which literature has become thoroughly politicized and debased in the West. Giving the Nobel Prize in Literature to an anti-Catholic bigot, and to a man who describes his own scatological work as 'grotesque,' settles the issue: the deans of literature enjoy celebrating what the common folk regard as trash.
"It is not accurate to maintain, as one Italian critic did, that this prize means that 'everything changes, even literature changes.' No, for that would suggest that the vector of change in the humanities has been on a course other than decline. Even more unbelievable is the comment by the Swedish Academy that Fo 'has opened our eyes to abuses and injustices.' That this can be said about a man whose defense of Stalinism is as well known as his hatred of Catholicism proves that the ladies and gentlemen who chose Fo have been blinded from reality for decades."


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The Individual with DisabilitiesImprovement Act of 2004 reaffirms the important and necessary role that parents have in supporting their child with special needs in the arduous task of transition from school to adult settings. Assessment of parent perception of their childs present level of performance across transition categories is important for establishing strengths, needs, and areas to address during goal setting, IEP development and transition planning. As student populations have become increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse, parents more frequently speak languages other than English. A transition planning assessment, the Transition Planning Inventory TPI) has been produced in a Spanish Home Form. The primary purposes of the study were: a) to compare Spanish and English translations of the TPI Home Form Clark & Patton, 1997)； b) to determine an index of temporal stability for the Spanish TPI Home Form and subsequently compare stability coefficients between Spanish and English versions； and c) to determine an index of internal consistency and stability for the Spanish TPI Home Form and then compare reliability coefficients between the Spanish and English versions. Results indicated that: a) the observation and analysis of translations by Spanish/English bilingual persons of the TPI Spanish Home Form yielded a 95% degree of agreement between the Spanish version and its translation to English, and b) the Spanish Home Form of the inventory showed a high degree of temporal stability and internal consistency. These results indicate that Clark and Patton 2000) have successfully produced a translation of the original English Home Form into Spanish. They have developed a transition assessment instrument that this investigation indicates has demonstrated item integrity between the English and Spanish Home Forms. Further, inter-item reliability and stability are recognized within the Spanish version and compare favorably to the English version. Therefore, both versions can be useful tools for assessing parent views of student readiness for moving to adult settings.
Monthly Archives: April 2012
An investigation of the content validity, stability, and internal consistency of the Spanish version of the Transition Planning Inventory Home Form (Education Papers posted on April 30th, 2012 )
An examination of social presence in an online learning environment (Education Papers posted on April 30th, 2012 )
The distanceliterature is lacking studies investigating the construct of presence, the value placed on it by online learners, and whether its existence in text-based environments is necessary for learning, satisfaction, and contributing to course retention. The purpose of this study was to explore learner perceptions and experiences of the learning process within the Web-based online learning medium in terms of presence. More specifically, it examines the relationship among learners perceptions of social presence in asynchronous online courses and how it relates to satisfaction with learning, whether course activities perceived as having high levels of social presence also have high levels of satisfaction and quality of learning, and whether perceptions of social presence and satisfaction with learning affects their likelihood of enrolling in future online courses. The research design of this study utilized an online survey administered to 280 students enrolled in online courses of nine disciplines； both undergraduateand graduate-level at a large urban university. Open-ended questions from the online survey were examined as well to help inform and support the findings from the quantitative data. Data were analyzed using correlations, ANOVAs, and hierarchical regression analysis. The findings demonstrated that students perceived social presence was statistically, significantly, and positively related to their overall perceived satisfaction with learning in online courses. Furthermore, students perceived social presence was statistically, significantly, and positively related to their perception of quality of and satisfaction with learning for each of the five course activities examined in this study. The hierarchical regression analysis suggested that perceived social presence contributed substantially more incremental variance to the decision to enroll again in an online course than the satisfaction with learning variable. Overall, the theoretical model including social presence and satisfaction with learning explained 18 percent of the variance in the dependent variable. The potential implications for theory and practice for online course designers and instructors are provided.
Attitudes and perceptions toward inclusion among secondary special and general education teachers working in north Alabama schools (Education Papers posted on April 30th, 2012 )
This study was conducted to investigate the attitudes and perceptions of secondary general and specialteachers toward inclusion of students with disabilities which has been an evolutionary process that can be attributed to landmark legislation, litigation, and policy in the last half of the 20 th century. The SPSS software was used to identify the results from the Opinions Related to Integration (ORI) questionnaire, 129 teachers participated, 66 (51%) were secondary special teachers and 63 (49%) were general education teachers. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the survey responses for the normality of distributions. In addition, an unpaired t-test was used to determine if there were any significant mean differences between secondary special and general educators teaching in an inclusive setting. A statistically significant difference was found in: Benefits of Integration； Perceived Ability to Teach Students with Disabilities； and versus Integrated General. Inclusion Classroom found no statistical difference.
Diglossia in Cape-Verde: Discourses, class, race and the promise of education (Education Papers posted on April 30th, 2012 )
As a fundamental component of identity, language plays a key role in the way humans understand themselves and their environments. Language contact through the process of colonization complexifies the role of language as it relates to the relationship between the individual and society. Having endured 500 years of Portuguese colonization, the Republic of Cape-Verde is today experiencing a state of diglossia instituted through language policies that have historically privileged the colonizer language. In an effort to move beyond structural theories of domination, this seven-month ethnographic study utilized discourse analysis as a methodological tool in examining the intersection between language, class and racial identity as it manifested itself both in and out of the educational sphere. The study makes use of focus group interviews, life history interviews, archival research and classroom observations.
Does eliminating certified school library media specialists make a difference in student reading scores in Minnesota public schools (Education Papers posted on April 30th, 2012 )
The purpose of this study was to explore the question； does eliminating certified school library media specialists make a difference in student reading scores in Minnesota public schools? This study analyzed quantitative data collected from the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments MCA), which recorded public school reading achievement levels. A follow-up portion of the study consisted of interviews with six administrators at schools that were one or more standard deviations above and below the failing mean to explain how they compensated for the loss of the certified library media specialist CLMS). For the purposes of this study, student reading failure rate was defined as the sum of the percentages of students with gaps in knowledge and partial knowledge and skills on the MCA reading exams. The interpretation of the quantitative data suggested that student reading scores did not decline with the removal of the CLMS. Interviews with school administrators identified factors that may contribute to the improvement in student reading achievement. These factors included continuous access to the media center and materials, staffing levels to provide service for students and staff, improved reading programs, and commitment by faculty and staff to ensure students a quality. This study only looked at one small segment of an elementary students, reading test scores. A CLMS has a greater impact on an elementary school than just the reading area, as revealed the Library Impact Studies. These studies indicated that the CLMS performs a multitude of duties, including: collaborating with teachers； providing leadership and expertise in the acquisition and evaluation of information resources； teaching information literacy skills； and establishing policies and procedures of the library media programs. Additional research needs to be conducted to explore the possible impact the elimination of a CLMS on these other areas of students education.
Reason, intuition, and engagement: A trilateral model of adaptive career decision-making (Education Papers posted on April 30th, 2012 )
Vocational theorists have historically emphasized rational processing and unbiased hypothesis testing in career decision-making, advancing a vision of the adaptive decision-maker as scientific, methodical, and unfettered by distortions and emotional distractions. However, in the contemporary world of work, the absence of stable occupations and predictable career paths defies career decision-making models that rely on reason to match individual traits to the requirements of work. Moreover, research issuing fromand cognitive psychology and the realm of neuroscience reveals that decision-making is not the exclusively rational practice we imagined. To be sure, it is likely more accurate to describe it in dialectical terms, with rational and intuitive processes mutually informing decision-making and, ultimately, career adaptability. A trilateral model of adaptive career decision-making is delineated, reflecting the position that decision-making is not an exclusively rational practice and that reason, intuition, and Engagement behaviors contribute mutually to adaptive career decision-making. The Engagement aspect of the model encompasses behaviors that contribute to the career decision-makers fund of information and experience. Engagement is construed as a method by which the rational and intuitive dialectic might be converted into a dynamic that serves adaptive career decision-making. Theoretically, through Engagement, vocational and self-schemas evolve and vocational judgments and decisions are more informed. Results of this study constitute introductory support for the trilateral model. The operationalization of Engagement in the form of the Occupational Engagement Scale for College Students OES-C) ranks among the studys contributions. A face-valid, 24-item, four-factor instrument, the OES-C correlates positively with rational and intuitive thinking styles, Vocational Identity, Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness, and negatively with Neuroticism. As such, it demonstrates convergent validity and discriminant validity and also suggests the validity of the trilateral model as it relates to adaptive career decision-making. The significant contribution of intuition to OES-C scores is particularly noteworthy, lending empirical support to the positions of theorists who have made the case for attending to the intuitive and affective aspects of career decision-making. While the present study in no way settles the matter conclusively


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Correctional travel nursing jobs offer an exciting and unique career opportunity for nurses. This specialized field of nursing involves providing healthcare services to inmates in correctional facilities. It requires nurses to travel to different locations, working in different correctional facilities for a specified period of time.
Why Choose Correctional Travel Nursing?
Correctional travel nursing offers a range of benefits and opportunities that make it an attractive career choice:
1. Diverse Patient Population
Working in correctional facilities exposes nurses to a diverse patient population with a variety of healthcare needs. This allows nurses to enhance their skills and gain experience in dealing with different medical conditions.
2. Competitive Compensation
Correctional travel nursing jobs often come with competitive compensation packages. Nurses can expect higher pay rates, travel allowances, and other perks such as housing and meal stipends.
3. Flexibility and Adventure
Travel nursing offers the opportunity to explore new places while pursuing a rewarding career. Nurses can choose assignments in different locations, allowing them to experience diverse cultures and lifestyles.
4. Professional Growth
Correctional travel nursing allows nurses to expand their professional network and gain exposure to different healthcare systems. This can lead to career advancement opportunities and open doors to other nursing specialties.
Requirements and Qualifications
To pursue a career in correctional travel nursing, nurses must meet certain requirements and qualifications:
1. Nursing License
Nurses must possess a valid nursing license in the state where they plan to work. Some states may require additional certifications or training specific to correctional nursing.
Prior nursing experience is usually required to work in correctional facilities. Nurses with experience in emergency care, mental health, or correctional nursing are highly sought after.
Correctional travel nursing requires a high level of flexibility as nurses are expected to adapt to different work environments and schedules. They must be willing to travel and work in various locations for extended periods of time.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
1. What is correctional travel nursing?
Correctional travel nursing involves providing healthcare services to inmates in correctional facilities. Nurses travel to different locations, working in different facilities for a specified period of time.
2. How long are the assignments in correctional travel nursing?
Assignments can vary in length, typically ranging from a few weeks to several months. The duration depends on the needs of the facility and the agreement between the nurse and the staffing agency.
3. What are the challenges of working in correctional facilities?
Working in correctional facilities can present unique challenges, such as dealing with potentially violent or unpredictable patients. Nurses must undergo specialized training to ensure their safety and the safety of others.
4. Is correctional travel nursing safe?
Correctional facilities have security measures in place to ensure the safety of healthcare providers. Nurses are trained on safety protocols and are provided with support from correctional officers.
5. How can I find correctional travel nursing jobs?
There are several staffing agencies that specialize in correctional travel nursing. Nurses can also search online job boards and professional nursing associations for job opportunities in this field.


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Empirical Research Background: In constructing a reading ability scale for English, it was necessary to take the constituent testlets, items grouped within a single reading passage, seriously. That posed interesting and challenging problems for the calibration process. Empirical Research Aims: This paper attempts to show how to use the testlets as the main units for the construction of the reading ability scale. The exercise highlighted issues relating to item level and testlet level invariance, which would be interesting and informative for Rasch model applications. Empirical Research Sample: The sample in the study is around 5000 primary and secondary students in Hong Kong. Empirical Research Method: The scale calibration uses a series of linked reading comprehension tests acorss the full spectrum of the Hong Kong primary and secondary education. A three-facet Rasch model was used with testlets as an intermediate levels between items and students. The main issue to be considered is the selection of linking items across levels, giving due consideration to possible variance between levels and to the need to maintain invariance across the scale. The achievement of the latter will be the use of the anchoring of the testlets, while allowing some linking items to vary within the context of the testlet. Empirical Research RASCH: Multi-faceted Rasch models were used in the scale calibration. The exercise raises interesting issues on the definition of what constitutes a facet versus item grouping. Empirical Research Results: The exercise enabled the construction of a reading ability scale for English in Hong Kong. Empirical Research Conclusions: The reading ability scale provides the basis for tracking student reading ability in English across the full spectrum of education in Hong Kong. It has already been used in Macau and will be used in Taiwan.
|Publication status||Published - Jul 2009|


Does 3÷3=0?
Well, what's the opposite of division?
[blink blink]
You can do it. The opposite of division?
[blink blink blink] Multiplication?
So that means if 3÷3=0 then – STOP THAT! Put that calculator away. You don't have to run crazy equations in your head and there's plenty of times to double check your answers but this isn't one of them.
[sigh] But we're allowed to use our calculators.
They didn't mean for this kind of math. I know, I'm a monster. What's the opposite of division?
Right. So if 3÷3=0 then that means 0×3=3. Is that right?
One! It's one!
Ah. So if 3÷3=1 then does 1×3=3? Yes? That's the kind of math you can double check yourself on. You don't need no stinkin' calculator.
Linda hosts Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week's prompt is "starts with cal." Use a word starting with the letters "cal" as your prompt word. Have fun!


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13 Mar 2015
Is your child a fussy eater? We want to hear from you
Loughborough University is on the lookout for parents and carers to share information on their children's vegetable eating habits.
University researcher Clare Holley would like to invite parents and carers of children aged two to four to fill out a short online questionnaire by the deadline of the end of April, which asks how they go about feeding vegetables to their children.
The information will help inform a study that is investigating the barriers which stop pre-school children from eating vegetables. In early to middle childhood, it is very common for children to refuse certain foods. This phase, known as neophobia (fear of the new), serves an evolutionary purpose to stop newly mobile children from eating foods which may do them harm, but we know that vegetables in particular are commonly refused foods. As eating habits established in early childhood can follow us into adulthood, it is important to help children to eat varied, healthy diets early on in life.
The questionnaire should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete. Helpful guidance on what constitutes a portion of vegetables is provided within the questionnaire.
Clare said: "It can sometimes prove a tough challenge for parents and carers to encourage children to eat their vegetables. It is thought that humans may be genetically programmed to be wary of vegetables in particular due to their typically bitter tastes which are historically associated with poisonous fruits.
"Any new information we can collect on this area of study is very valuable as it will help to paint a broader picture of children's eating habits."
Clare is part of the Loughborough University Centre for Research into Eating Disorders (LUCRED) within the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences (SSEHS).


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Your Favourite Photoshop Tutorials in One Place
Create a Fantastic Scene – Car Trapped by Tree
Under Photo Effect, Photoshop Tutorial
To create your imaginative scene, you can arrange various objects together to form a nice extraordinary scenery. Simple objects such as car and tree can be worked out to be a fantastic artwork.
If you have no idea about designing an animal poster, you can refer to this tutorial which used the popular method. It uses lots of animal to form a natural background plus using the color adjustment to turn the main object to be outstanding.
The techniques in this tutorial will teach you how to subtly use Overlay effects and Selective Color to change the mood of your image. You'll also learn how to place shapes to aid visual abstract design, how to use brushes to aid movement through the composition, and how to add depth to the foreground.
This tutorial is going to teach you the process of making intriguing light effects and applying them in your work. This is more a process description of making this illustration, than a detailed step by step how to. I'll give you some good guidance on how to deal with an illustration like this and cover the overall workflow.
You may wonder how to change a normal plant or a tree image into something special. That is not difficult. You can change the plant image into something like from legend. This tutorial will include comprehensive skills about how you can create this special scene.


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Objective: Opioid-based analgesia is routinely used in clinical practice for the management of pain and alleviation of suffering at the end of life. It is well-known that opioid-based medications can be highly addictive, promoting not only abuse but also life-threatening overdoses. The scope of opioid-related adverse events (AEs) beyond these well-known effects remains poorly described. This exploratory analysis investigates potential AEs from drug-drug interactions between opioid and nonopioid medications (ODIs).
Materials and methods: In this study, we conduct an initial exploration of the association between ODIs and severe AEs using millions of AE reports available in FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). The odds ratio (OR)-based analysis and visualization are proposed for single drugs and pairwise ODIs to identify associations between AEs and ODIs of interest. Moreover, the multilabel (multi-AE) learning models are employed to evaluate the feasibility of AE prediction of polypharmacy.
Results: The top 12 most prescribed opioids in the FAERS are identified. The OR-based analysis identifies a diverse set of AEs associated with individual opioids. Moreover, the results indicate many ODIs can increase the risk of severe AEs dramatically. The area under the curve values of multilabel learning models of ODIs for oxycodone varied between 0.81 and 0.88 for 5 severe AEs.
Conclusions: The proposed data analysis and visualization are useful for mining FAERS data to identify novel polypharmacy associated AEs, as shown for ODIs. This approach was successful in recapitulating known drug interactions and also identified new opioid-specific AEs that could impact prescribing practices.
Keywords: adverse drug effects; opioid; opioid-drug interaction.
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association.


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Are the languages generated by the regular expressions $(a + b)^*$ and $(b^*a^*)^*$ the same language?
The solution for this problem is yes, but I couldn't figure out why it is true. The first regular expression $(a + b)^*$ generate all strings over alphabet $\{a, b\}$, it makes sense to me. On the other hand, how does the second regular expression generate, say, the string $abbb$? From my understanding, the order of the concatenation of $b$ and $a$ does affect the result of *. Any idea? Thank you.
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$(b^*a^*)^* \to (b^*a^*)(b^*a^*) \to (\epsilon a)(bbb \epsilon) \to abbb$. – Rahul Aug 16 '11 at 14:50
_USER_ Narain: Grea thanks ;)! Would you mind writing it as an answer so that I can accept it. – Chan Aug 16 '11 at 14:52
In my view, Dave Radcliffe's post already answers the question; my comment just applies it to one example. – Rahul Aug 16 '11 at 14:55
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3 Answers
up vote 5 down vote accepted
The Kleene star * allows zero or more repetitions.
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Simple enough - remember that $b^*=\{\varepsilon, b, bb,\dots\}$ so you can think of this as $(b^* a^*)^* =((b^* )+(a^* ))^*$
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I still don't get it. Your interpretation make me feel like the concatenation is actually the union. It would be great if you can generate the string $abbb$ from that regular expression. Thank you. – Chan Aug 16 '11 at 14:43
I'm not sure how you denote generation from a regexp, but the general idea is this: (b*a*)*--> (b*a*)(b*a*) -->(eps a)(b eps)=ab. – Gadi A Aug 16 '11 at 15:07
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$$b^* = \{\varepsilon,b,bb,\ldots\}$$ $$a^*=\{\varepsilon,a,aa,\ldots\}$$ we have to prove $(b^*a^*)^* = (b + a)^*$ and we know $b+a=a+b$
$b^*a^*=a^*$ if we take $b^*=\varepsilon$ string can start with $a$ u can see or $\varepsilon$
$b^*a^*=ba^*$ if we take $b^*=b$ string can start with $b$ u can see
$b^*a^*=ba^*$ if we take $b^*=bb$ string can start with $bb$ ucan see and so on $b^*a^*=bbbbbb.....a^*$ and if do the same thing with a then
$b^*a^*=b^*$ if $a^*=\varepsilon$ can ends with $b$ and $\varepsilon$ $b^*a^*=b^*a$ if $a^*=a$ can ends with $a$ and so on b$^*a^*=b^*.aaaaaaaaaa......$ $(b^*a^*)^*=(b^*a^*).(b^*a^*)$ now we have $(b^*a^*)^*$ we can say any string starts with $\varepsilon$ or $a$ or $b$ and ends with $\varepsilon$ or $a$ or $b$
and have any combination of $a$ or $b$ or both
so we can say that $(b^*a^*)^*=(b+a)^*$ or $(a+b)^*$
or go with this
now $b^*$ has $\varepsilon$ thats why when concatnated with $a^*$,$a$ can come first means if we take one value from $b^*$ which is $\varepsilon$ then $(\varepsilon.a^*)^*=(a^*)^*.......1$ and if we take $a^*=\varepsilon$ then
$(b^*\varepsilon)^*=(b^*)^*........2$
and $(a^*)^*=a^*.a^*=a^*.(a+\varepsilon)^+$...from $1$ and $a^*=(a+\varepsilon)^+$
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For some basic information about writing math at this site see e.g. here, here, here and here. – Julian Kuelshammer Feb 19 '13 at 13:20
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connections in the graph.
Diffusion Maps
Diffusion Maps (DM) [35, 36] start with building a graph G as well, but differ in weighting the edges by the Gaussian kernel function: W ( i, j ) = exp ( x i x j 2 σ 2 ). With the rows being normalized by W ^ ( i, j ) = W ( i, j ) Σ l = 1 N W ( i, l ), the weights W ^ N × N can be seen as a Markov Matrix that defines the probability to move from one sample to another in one time step. The transition probability for t time steps, denoted W ^ ( t ), is given by W ^ t. It can be used to control the local connections among neighbored samples. Here, we set it to t = 1. Diffusion Maps retain a weighted L2 distance, the 'diffusion distance'
D ( t ) ( x i, x j ) = l = 1 N ( W ^ ( t ) ( i, l ) W ^ ( t ) ( j, l ) ) 2 ψ ( x l )
The term Ψ ( x i ) = Σ j W ^ ( i, j ) Σ j l W ^ ( j, l ) leads to stronger weighting of samples from dense areas in the graph. Since the diffusion distance between two points is computed over all possible paths in the graph, Diffusion Maps are more robust to noise.
Locally Linear Embedding
Unlike Isomap and MVU, Locally Linear Embedding (LLE) [24, 37] attempts to preserve local properties of the data. Each sample x i is represented by a linear combination of its k nearest neighbors:
x i = j = 1 k W ( i, j ) x j
. The weights W N×N are estimated by minimizing the reconstruction error
i = 1 N x i j = 1 k W ( i, j ) x j 2
subject to W (i, j) = 0, if x i is not a neighbor of x j, and j = 1 N W ( i, j ) = 1. The last constraint ensures an invariance to translation next to rotation and rescaling. By minimizing
ϵ ( Y ) = i = 1 N y i j = 1 k W ( i, j ) y j 2
the low-dimensional representation that best preserves the weights in the target space is chosen.
Laplacian Eigenmaps
As well as LLE, Laplacian Eigenmaps (LEM) [38, 39] are a local technique. Similar to Diffusion Maps, this method first constructs a neighborhood graph, weighted with values W (i, j) from the Gaussian kernel function. By minimizing a cost function
ϵ ( Y ) = i j y i y j 2 W ( i, j )
for neighbored y i, y j (W (i, j) = 0 otherwise), the distances between the low-dimensional representations are minimized and nearby samples x i, x j are highly weighted, and thus brought closer together. This way, Laplacian Eigenmaps implicitly enforces natural clusters in the data.
Methods of Assessment
Our benchmark (Figure 1) is divided into three parts. First, the studied dimension reduction methods were applied to the complete dataset. The low-dimensional datasets were then assessed by two different approaches, namely classification and cluster validation. To evaluate and compare the performance of each method, the classification accuracies of Support Vector Machines [40] (with Gaussian kernel) and the compactness and distance of clusters within the low-dimensional representations were used. In the following, each step of our benchmark is described in detail.
Figure 1
Benchmark. Our benchmark, consisting of three independent procedures. (1) Dimension reduction: Every dataset is mapped into a low-dimensional target space. All necessary parameters are determined by a loo-cv with a SVM. (2) Classification: Every dataset is classified by a SVM with Gaussian kernel during 100 randomization steps. A gradient descend procedure estimates all SVM parameters. (3) Cluster validation: The Davis-Bouldin-Index measures the distance between labeled clusters within the low-dimensional data.
The methods were tested on ten published microarray datasets as well as on simulated data. Each published dataset was divided into two classes according to a binary variable corresponding to the samples' disease status, the presence of certain molecular mutations or other sample characteristics as shown in Table 1. Since microarray data is technically provided with a more or less high level of noise, we reran the benchmark on the microarray datasets combined with normally distributed noise with zero mean and an increasing variance between 0 and 0.1. Before adding noise, all data was scaled to values between 0 and 1 to overcome the varying means and standard deviations of the datasets.
Table 1 Microarray datasets
The simulated data is based on a 50 sample dataset whose 10.000 gene expression values are normally distributed with zero mean and standard deviation one. The covariances of all genes are given by a block diagonal matrix with coefficients ρ = 0.2 within and ρ = 0 outside the blocks of size 50 × 50. To separate the data into two classes, between 10 and 500 genes were randomly chosen to be differentially expressed by adding a constant of 0.6 to the expression values of the first 25 samples. We generated 100 datasets for testing.
In the same manner as for the ten microarray datasets before, normally distributed noise with zero mean and an increasing variance between 0 and 0.2 was added to the simulated data. We repeated the benchmark on 50 of these noisy artificial datasets. The number of differential features was fixed to 300.
Dimension reduction
All dimension reduction techniques discussed here have one or two free parameters, that influence the embedding and the target dimension. Their determination was done by minimizing the error rate of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) within a leave-one-out cross-validation (loo-cv) schema: For N samples, the dataset was divided N times into a training and a test set. One sample was excluded for testing while the rest was taken for training. The average over all prediction accuracies gives an estimate of the SVMs' generalization error.
This procedure was repeated for every set of parameters within the following ranges:
Target dimensionality: 2 ≤ d ≤ 15
Neighbors: 4 ≤ k ≤ 16
Gaussian kernel: 1e − 1 ≤ σ ≤ 5e 5
If the same loo-cv accuracies were achieved by using different parameter values for the target dimension, the lowest value was taken for reasons of a most simple representation. The same applies to the neighbor/kernel parameters.
After the loo-cv, the whole dataset was reduced in its dimension in an unsupervised manner, i.e. without consideration of class labels.
The first evidence for the quality of the different dimension reduction methods are the accuracies of a Support Vector Machine with Gaussian kernel.
The data was classified repeatedly during several randomization steps:
We randomly split the dataset a hundred times into a set to train the SVM and a test set for classification, and selected the median accuracy of all runs. Within the training set, a loo-cv was performed to determine the SVM parameters. For reasons of performance, a gradient descent procedure as proposed in [41] was used to minimize the loo-cv error. Every time during randomization, the training set consisted of two thirds of the original data and the test set of the remaining samples. The only constraint was to keep the balance between the number of samples in each class. Since SVMs do not restrict the dimension of the input data, the randomization results of the low-dimensional data can be compared to the high-dimensional original data, to see if more or less significant features got lost after the embedding.
Cluster validation
To measure the distances between the labeled clusters, we used the Davis-Bouldin-Index (DB-Index) [42]: Given M clusters C i (i = 1,..., M ) and their centers μ i = 1 | C i | x C i x,
d i = 1 | C i | x C i x μ i
is the average distance of the samples in cluster C i to its center. While R i j = d i + d j μ i μ j reports the compactness of clusters C i, C j related to their distance, the DB-Index
D B = 1 M i = 1 M max { R i j | 1 j M, i j }
averages the worst cases of the clusters' separations. One might expect well separated clusters to have smaller values close to one. In our case, the DB-Index was computed for fixed target space dimensions 2,3,5, and 10.
Implementation details
The presented benchmark was implemented in Matlab 7.8.0 (R2009a). Furthermore, libsvm (version 2.89) [43] served as Support Vector Machine implementation, in conjunction with Automatic Model Selection for Kernel Methods (Apr 2005) [44]. The Dimensionality Reduction Toolbox (version 0.7 - Nov 2008) [45], Isomap package (Release 1 - Dec 2000) [46], LLE routine [45] and MVU implementation (version 1.3) [47] were used for dimension reduction. Because the Isomap and LLE routines performed best in our benchmark, we converted their Matlab implementations for the statistical programming language R [48]. The R-package 'RDRToolbox', also including


Sales Cycle - The Timeline From Making Contact With A Prospect To Finalizing The Sale
Sales Cycle
What is the definition of a sales cycle? A sales cycle is the time from when a salesperson first makes contact with a prospect to the moment when a sale is made or finalized. For example, if a copier sales rep makes a cold call from a list of prospects and reaches one, that is the start of the sales cycle. When she finalizes the deal and makes delivery of the copier that is the end of the sales cycle. The time in between the initial cold call and delivery is the sales cycle.
How long should a sales cycle be? That is a question that cannot be answered without including dozens of other variables. A sales cycle could be one day, or it could be one year or more; it all depends on the industry, the market, the individuals involved, and dozens of other factors.
As a general rule, the larger the deal or the more complicated the product or service, the longer the sales cycle will be. A tire salesman selling tires could go through multiple sales cycles a day, whereas a firm engaged in say, million dollar deals with the government, will face many more challenges, including tendering to RFPs (request for proposals), sales presentations, and reports; a sales cycle like this could last for months or even years.
It is a goal of many sales organizations to move propects through sales cycles as quick as possible. The more efficient the sales cycle, the more prospects will go through, the more sales that will be made. More sales equals more revenue. Thus, an efficient sales cycle provides benefits for the organization and many organizations provide sales training for their staff to help them improve their own personal sales cycle with their cliants and prospects.
A sales cycle is sometimes also referred to as the gestation period.


text:
I was told that the sum of linear and angular momentum is conserved.
Given that angular momentum's direction as a vector is completely arbitrary (I believe there is no physical reason for choosing the cross product going the way it does (that is, perpendicular up or down, it just matters that it's perpendicular), correct me if I'm wrong), and linear momentum is often interchanged into angular momentum, surely the vector sum cannot be conserved?
Or am I wrong, and the meaning is that the magnitude is conserved?
As a sidenote, I suppose this would be a good place to ask why such an odd system was devised for calculating the direction (not magnitude) of angular momentum. Why not have the arrow pointing in the direction of motion, with its base at the point that we are considering angular momentum about? Is it useful simply to compute the conservation of it about a point, as it just involves addition?


Dick Wong Dance+Theatre
We Are Now Six
The Collision of Group and Individuals
Dick Wong Dance+Theatre
We Are Now Six
The Collision of Group and Individuals
As a number, six has an extensive associations and implications in different cultures. In Egypt, six is a cosmic number in the material world, representing time and space. In China, six is the directions of up, down, left, right, front and behind; or up, down, east, west, north and south, meaning the whole of heaven and earth. In Greece, six is a perfect number, also known as the "complete number"; but in the Bible, six represents the mortals and their imperfections, including their weaknesses and sins.
We Are Now Six uses the various combinations of six as an entry point: 1 vs 5 is one being outnumbered by five, the politics of 3 groups of 2 vs 1, 3 groups of 1 on 1, or the natural harmonious whole, or even the singular ones that work on its own, etc. It is the innumerable entanglements of collisions, contrasts, interactions, negotiations, adjustments and compromises of individuals and the crowds, minority and majority, the underprivileged and the mainstream.
Creative Team
Direction, Creation & Performance Dick Wong
Performance Jonathan Hung, Jennifer Mok, Ivy Tsui, Chester Wong
Free seating
Full-time students
 - Running time approximately 60 minutes with no intermission
 - In Cantonese, with no surtitle
 - No latecomers will be admitted, until a suitable break in the performance.
 - Zuni Icosahedron reserves the right to add, withdraw or substitute artists and/ or vary advertised programmes and seating arrangements.
Creative Note
1. I'd remember all the faces. Will the body remember what happened yesterday? How would the distance that I ran yesterday finally turn into a result? Every step comes into being from the former step. The steps I take are the caretaker of my body, letting me remember where I came from.
2. We might not have answers for all the questions arise every day. The answers are like an unfathomable black hole. What is conceivable is not the future, and black holes are everywhere. Darkness cannot eliminate black holes, and there is a breeze at the mouth of the black hole. Let's say farewell embracing the breeze.
3. Sometimes, I don't know what to do, and what I should do, and this makes me ponder on existence itself. I think, therefore I am. What we can do is to see, to listen, to feel and analyse, and then project that with the magic lantern. The magic lantern does not know how to analyse the existence of flowers, and the shadows in the projection keep wavering. I'm standing at the furthest back, and endless layers of people's backs are blocking my view. In order to see what's happening in front that was blocked from me, I must first face up to what is in front of me.
4. In these times, have you shed tears? Are you enraged? As a pawn, how do you feel? As a pawn made to weep, I have no choice. It's the pendulum and footsteps of anger and being trampled. Tears are but the residue of emotions. Can emotions affect strangers existing in the same space through the air? A stranger might be the most likely person who could make you carry on.
5. The leg is the beginning of movement, and seeing and not seeing is the centre of balance, an exercise of possibilities and the unknown. Once you get started, there is no return, forever and ever. The reason for not being able to return is the going forward for the unknown future. Sometimes, we need to go backwards in order to move forth. There can be many possibilities for the direction. One space, endless possibilities.
Dick Wong, Jonathan Hung, Jennifer Mok, Ivy Tsui, Chester Wong
If Hong Kong funnyman Stephen Chow were a dancer, he might have been like this compatriot Dick Wong.
The Straits Times
From uncertainties to comical misunderstanding emerges a common gestural culture, the intelligence of the body.
Centre National de la Danse
Studio Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Studio Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
The Team
Director, Creation & Performance: Dick Wong
Performance: Jonathan Hung, Jennifer Mok, Ivy Tsui, Chester Wong
Runner: Stephy Yeung
Executive Producer: Bowie Chow
Production & Stage Manager: Chow Chun-yin
Deputy Stage Manager: Zeta Chan
Lighting Designer: Zoe Cheung
Sound Designer: Can. Ha
Assistant Stage Manager: Chan On-ki
Wardrobe Assistant: Bonnie Chan
Stage Assistant: Kenneth Chan
Company Manager (Administration and Finance): Jacky Chan
Company Manager (Programme): Doris Kan
Senior Programme Manager: Bowie Chow
Programme Manager: Ho Yin-hei
Assistant Programme Managers: Rachel Chak, Ricky Cheng
Programme and Art Administration Trainees: Megan Hung, Stephy Yeung
Interns: Marco Chan, Fion Lee, Christine Tong
Photo: Liu Chen Hsiang
Graphic Design: Wong San-mun
Graphic Design Assistant: Coco Cheung
Promotional Video: Wing Chan, Fion Lee, Wild Lin
English Translation : Mona Chu, Vicky Leong
Acknowledgement: Verdy Leung, Evi Yang


Why Two 4GB GPUs Isn't Necessarily 8GB
Why Aren't Two 4GB GPUs Really 8GBs?
Open the expanded article to see the transcript, below.
Crossfire and SLI allow games to load-balance across multiple GPUs. It is basically impossible to do this in OpenGL and DirectX 11 otherwise. Vulkan and DirectX 12 provide game developers with the tools to implement it themselves, but they do not address every limitation. Trade-offs always exist.
In the older APIs, OpenGL and DirectX 11, games and other applications attach geometry buffers, textures, materials, and compute tasks to the API's one, global interface. After, a draw function is called to submit that request to the primary graphics driver. This means that work can only be split from within the driver, and only to the devices that driver controls, which prevents cross-vendor compatibility. Lucidlogix created software and hardware that pretended to be the primary graphics driver, loading GPUs from mismatched vendors behind the scenes. It never took off.
With Vulkan and DirectX 12, rather than binding data and tasks to a global state, applications assemble commands and push them onto lists. Not only does this allow multiple CPU threads to create work independently, but these lists can also point to any GPU. This is how OpenCL and other compute APIs are modeled, but Mantle was the first to extend it to graphics. Developers can load-balance GPUs by managing multiple lists with different destinations. This also means that the developer can control what each GPU stores in its memory, and ignore the data it doesn't need.
That said, even though the game developer has full control over tasks and memory, it doesn't mean that it will be any more efficient than SLI and Crossfire. To load-balance, some algorithm must be chosen that can split work between multiple GPUs, and successfully combine the results. The Alternate Frame Rendering algorithm, or AFR, separates draw calls by the frames they affect. If you have three GPUs, then you can just draw ahead three frames at a time. It's easy to implement, and performance scales very well when you add a nearly-identical card (provided the extra frames add to the experience).
Memory, on the other hand, does not scale well. Neighboring frames will likely draw the exact same list of objects, just with slightly adjusted data, such as camera and object positions. As a result, each GPU will need their own copy of this data in their individual memory pools. If you have two, four-gigabyte cards, they will each store roughly the same four gigabytes of data. This is a characteristic of the algorithm itself, not just the limited information that Crossfire and SLI needed to deal with on OpenGL and DirectX 11.
Other algorithms exist, however. For comparison, imagine a fighting game or a side-scroller. In these titles, objects are often separated into layers by depth, such as the background and the play area. If these layers are rendered by different GPUs into separate images, they could be combined later with transparency or z-sorting. In terms of memory, each GPU would only need to store its fraction of the scene's objects (and a few other things, like the layer it draws). A second benefit is that work does not need to split evenly between the processors. Non-identical pairings, such as an integrated GPU with a discrete GPU, or an old GPU with a new GPU, could also work together, unlike AFR. I say could, because the difference in performance would need to be known before the tasks are split. To compensate, the engine could vary each layer's resolution, complexity, quality settings, and even refresh rate, depending on what the user can notice. This would be similar to what RAGE did to maintain 60 FPS, and it would likely be a QA disaster outside of special cases. Who wouldn't want to dedicate a Titan graphics card to drawing Street Fighter characters, though?
Then again, video memory is large these days. It might be better, for quality and/or performance, to waste RAM in exchange for other benefits. AFR is very balanced for multiple, identical GPUs, and it's easy to implement; unfortunately, it could also introduce latency and stutter, and it is inefficient with video memory. Layer-based methods, on the other hand, are complicated to implement, especially for objects that mutually overlap, but it allows for more control in how tasks and memory are divided. VR and stereoscopic 3D could benefit from another algorithm, where two similar GPUs render separate eyes. Like AFR, this is inefficient with memory, because both eyes will see roughly the same things, but it will load-balance almost perfectly for two identical GPUs. Unlike AFR, it doesn't introduce latency or stutter, but it is useless outside of the two nearly-identical GPUs. Other GPUs will either idle, or be used for something else in the system, like physics or post-processing.
In any case, the developer knows what their game needs to render. They can now choose the best algorithm for themselves.


Restoring respect project
Restoring Respect Project
Restoring Respect partners have identified hat, in the EU, the unemployment rate for refugees/migrants is two times more than the number of jobless national citizens.
Many EU tools and policies are still no widely used, mostly due to gaps in a holistic approach, which would include skills identification, labor mapping, accreditation and employability skills training to refugees and migrants.
In this context, RRP will create a innovative tools, which will act as an early intervention program for refugees and migrants, who cannot procure documentary evidence of their qualifications. At the end of the program, refugees and migrants will be empowered with new tools to better certify their knowledge and skills and capabilities.
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Architecture & Engineering
Constructing a building is a complex project, both legally and technically. Consequently, architectural and engineering practice increasingly demands a sound understanding of planning, construction, and commercial law issues. Dr. Benumof works with architects and engineers to help them with the legal aspects of day-to-day architectural and engineering practice and the consequences of the many legal processes and relationships that are part-and-parcel of the construction process. Likewise, Dr. Benumof represents property owners confronted with overlapping issues of law, architecture, and engineering.