The radiation detector known as a Geiger counter uses aclosed, hollow, cylindrical tube with an insulated wire along itsaxis. Suppose a Geiger tube, as it's called, has a1.0-{\rm mm}-diameter wire in a tubewith a 25 {\rm mm} inner diameter. The tube isfilled with a low-pressure gas whose dielectric strength is1.0\times 10^6 {\rm{ V/m}}.
What is the maximum potential difference between the wire and thetube?
\Delta V_{\rm max} =___________kV


Work with placeholders in labels and tooltips 17 Dec 2019
Each shape in a diagram can contain metadata or custom properties - extra information about those shapes.
These custom properties can also be used to define placeholder values, acting like variables in a computer program. Placeholders can be used in shape labels and tooltips to show the value of the custom property of that shape, the container shape it is inside, or an ancestor in a multi-group shape.
When you move a shape that contains a placeholder into a container shape with a matching property, the label that contains the placeholder (or tooltip) will be updated automatically.
Note: As an advanced feature, placeholders are not enabled by default - you need to explicitly tell you want to use them.
But first, you need to add a property to the shape or container shape you want to reference.
Add a custom property
You can add custom properties to any shape, connector, container shape, swim lane, etc.
 1. Select a shape, and in the Arrange tab of the format panel, click on Edit Data. Alternatively, right-click on the shape and select Edit Data from the context menu, or select the shape and press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+M on Windows or Cmd+M on MacOs.
 2. The dialog lists the custom properties you have added. To add a new one, enter a name for the custom property, then click Add Property.
 Add a property name to your shape
 3. Now enter a value for the custom property in the text field next to the name you just entered, and click Apply.
 Enter the property value for the new property you just added
When you hover over that shape, the custom properties that you added and their values are displayed in a tooltip, unless you have added a custom tooltip property - then only the tooltip value is displayed. To see how to define a tooltip, and use custom properties as placeholders within the tooltip, keep reading.
Custom properties are displayed by default in a tooltip when you hover over the shape
Tip: Properties can be set globally, working similar to global variables in a programming language. Make sure nothing is selected, then click on Edit Data in the format panel to see the global custom properties.
Use a property as a placeholder
Once you have added a custom property to your shape, you can use it as a placeholder in the shape's label or tooltip text.
Turn a shape into a container
If you want to use the properties defined in a parent shape as a placeholder, you need to turn the parent into a container shape.
 1. Select the parent shape, and expand the shape Properties in the format panel on the right.
 2. Make sure the Container checkbox is enabled.
Add a placeholder to a shape label
To display the value of a shape's property in a label, write the property name surrounded by % signs. For example, if you have added a property called group to the shape, write %group%.
 1. Right-click on a shape and select Edit Data from the context menu, make sure the Placeholders checkbox is selected, then click Apply.
 Edit the shape's data, and enable the Placeholders checkbox
 2. Edit the text label of the shape to include the property name surrounded by % signs.
 Add a placeholder to a shape label, for example %group%
There are a number of predefined placeholders where you can add the date and time in a variety of time formats, page number or title, and more to labels and tooltips.
Troubleshooting tips
If the property name does not exist for that shape, the value of the matching property name of the nearest ancestor (container shape or group) is used. If not found, the text is printed as is.
If a property isn't found and the placeholder text appears with the % signs, edit the shape data (Ctrl+M or Cmd+M) of both the shape and its ancestor, double check the property name is correct and make sure that the Placeholders checkbox is enabled.
Note that the diagram itself can have custom properties that can be referenced by placeholders. Make sure nothing in you diagram is selected, then click Edit Data in the format panel on the right to see these 'global' custom properties.
Note that there are a few special shape property names:
 - tooltip: If you define a tooltip property, only this text will be displayed when you hover over a shape (and no other custom properties).
 - placeholder: This turns the entire shape label into a placeholder, without needing to add a property name to the shape's label manually. See how to use the placeholder custom property
Add a placeholder to a tooltip on a shape
Select a shape and you can add a tooltip to it via Edit > Edit Tooltip or by using the keyboard shortcut Alt+Shift+T. By entering a tooltip this way, it simply adds it to the list of custom properties.
You can define a tooltip with a placeholder directly:
 2. Add a new property with the name: tooltip.
 3. In the blank field next to the tooltip property, add your tooltip text, putting % symbols around the placeholder you want to use in it. Then click Apply.
 Add a tooltip property, and write the tooltip text - include a placeholder by surrounding the property name with % signs
Now, when you hover over the shape, the tooltip text will appear, and the placeholder will be replaced with the value of the property it references.
How the example tooltip with a placeholder appears when you hover over the shape
Use placeholders to automate your diagramming
Looking at a somewhat more practical example - you can use placeholders in labels in your infrastructure diagrams. Then, when you change the address of the subnet group, the individual node IP addresses will update automatically.
In the example below, the labels on the individual nodes inside the subnet use a placeholder which references the custom subnet property of the containing oval shape. This makes it easy to update the IP addresses in that subnet.
Placeholders in the the labels of nodes in an infrastructure diagram
Open this example in
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text: A groundbreaking biography that recreates the cosmopolitan world in which a wine merchant's son became one of the most celebrated of all English poets More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life—yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer's adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination.Uncovering important new information about Chaucer's travels, private life, and the early circulation of his writings, this innovative biography documents a series of vivid episodes, moving from the commercial wharves of London to the frescoed chapels of Florence and the kingdom of Navarre, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side. The narrative recounts Chaucer's experiences as a prisoner of war in France, as a father visiting his daughter's nunnery, as a member of a chaotic Parliament, and as a diplomat in Milan, where he encountered the writings of Dante and Boccaccio. At the same time, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of Chaucer's writings, taking the reader to the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde, the gardens of the dream visions, and the peripheries and thresholds of The Canterbury Tales.By exploring the places Chaucer visited, the buildings he inhabited, the books he read, and the art and objects he saw, this landmark biography tells the extraordinary story of how a wine merchant's son became the poet of The Canterbury Tales.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


A Sapper's Lullaby
Introduced by Virginia Haussegger, ABC News presenter, Canberra.
But it's his second career as a musician that came to the fore in Uruzgan province, when he wrote a song about the death of Australian soldier Ben Ranaudo.
"Dust in Uruzgan" captured the hearts of many serving in Afghanistan and a second song, "Sapper's Lullaby" has become an anthem for soldiers and their families.
Now, with Australian forces about to depart Afghanistan, this is the story of a diplomat with a difference.
A Sapper's Lullaby - Transcript


text:
At each location, placement of the cube (an actual cubic foot frame made of quarter-inch stainless steel rod) was critical—once it was in place it was not to be moved. Scientists specializing in each location assisted the photographer and his assistant in finding the best spot and identifying the creatures.
- Common Name: Eastern Gray Squirrel
- Scientific Name: Sciurus carolinensis
- Size: 7.09" (18 cm) body length.
- Location: Observed in the Central Park Cube

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Article Image
IPFS News Link • Drones
Shift handles the camera work for drone pilots
That's why Perceptiv Labs developed Shift. It's a system that allows a DJI or 3D Robotics quadcopter's motorized camera to automatically keep a tagged subject centered in the frame, letting the user concentrate on flying.
The Shift hardware consists of a processor that is mounted on the drone (and plugged into its autopilot system) along with a "Shift Eye" that is mounted adjacent to the camera lens – that Eye lets both the processor and the user see what the camera is seeing. The combined weight of the two components, including battery, is less than 200 g (7 oz). One charge of the battery is good for about an hour of use.


text:
Traffic Signal Warrants
Traffic signals are valuable devices for the control of vehicle and pedestrian traffic. However, because they assign the right-of-way to the various traffic movements, signals exert a profound influence on traffic flow. Properly located and operated control signals may provide for the orderly movement of traffic, increase the traffic-handling capacity of an intersection, and reduce the frequency of certain types of accidents. After extensive study and analysis, the Federal Highway Administration developed the 8 traffic signal warrants contained within the Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).
Eight Warrants from the Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
These 8 warrants define minimum conditions under which signal installations may be justified. The Manual suggests that traffic control signals should not be installed unless one or more of the signal warrants are met. However, the satisfaction of a warrant or warrants is not in itself justification for a signal. Every situation is unique and warrant guidelines must be supplemented by the effects of specific site conditions and the application of good engineering judgment. Installation of a traffic signal should improve the overall safety and/or operation of an intersection and should be considered only when deemed necessary by careful traffic analysis and after less restrictive solutions have been attempted.
Warrant 1 - Eight-hour vehicular volume - at a location where a large volume of intersecting traffic exist for each of any 8 hours of an average day, is the principal reason to consider installing a traffic control signal.
Warrant 2 - Four-hour vehicular volume - at a location where traffic conditions are such that for a minimum of 1 hour of an average day, the minor street suffers undue delay when entering a major street.
Warrant 3 - Peak hour vehicular volume - at a location where traffic conditions are such that for a minimum of 1 hour of an average day, the minor street traffic suffers undue delay when entering or crossing the major street.
Warrant 4 - Pedestrian volume - at a location where the traffic volume on a major street is so heavy that pedestrians experience excessive delay in crossing the major street.
Warrant 5 - School crossing - at a location where school children cross the major street, is the principal reason to consider installing a traffic control signal.
Warrant 6 - Coordinated signal system - progressive movement in a coordinated signal system sometimes necessitates installing traffic control signals at intersections where they would not otherwise be needed in order to maintain proper platooning of vehicles.
Warrant 7 - Crash experience - at location where the severity and frequency of crashes are the principal reasons to consider installing a traffic signal.
Warrant 8 - Roadway network - at location where it might be justified to encourage concentration and organization of traffic flow on a roadway network.
Listed below are general characteristics of traffic signals:
Traffic control signals that are properly located, operated and maintained may have one or more of the following advantages:
- Signals may provide for the orderly movement of traffic by assigning right-of-way to conflicting movements of traffic.
- Signals may increase the traffic-handling capacity of an intersection by permitting conflicting streams of traffic to share the same intersection.
- Signals may reduce the frequency of certain types of accidents, especially right-angle (broadside) collisions.
- Signals may provide for continuous movement and progression of traffic through coordination with surrounding traffic signals.
- Signals may interrupt heavy traffic to allow both vehicular and pedestrian traffic to cross.
Traffic control signals may have one or more of the following disadvantages:
- Signals may increase delay - both overall intersection delay and/or specific movement delay.
- Signals may encourage the use of alternate and/or less adequate routes by drivers wishing to avoid the signal.
- Signals may encourage increased volumes of traffic on the minor street by drivers wishing to use the signal.
- Signals may encourage disobedience and disregard of traffic control devices. (During periods of lesser volume on the main street, drivers on the minor street may have sufficient gaps to cross and/or enter traffic, but be prohibited from doing so by the signal.)
- Signals may cause an increase in the frequency of certain types of accidents, especially rear-end collisions.


Comics as Music in The Wicked + the Divine
There are many of definitions of comics out there. One French theorist Thierry Groensteen decided to not define comics, but instead create a system for them. Part of this system is the frame. The frame is a panel and its boundaries including the margins and gutters. The frame has various (actually six) functions. One of the functions of a frame is the rhythmic function. This is the part of the frame that deals with time and temporality. Groensteen compares this function of the frame to Jean-Luc Godard's famous definition of film, which is "making music with painting". Both comics and music have a similar kind of temporality. When one reads music, there are different time signatures as well as types of notes, rests, measure etc. to say how fast one should play the music and many other things. This kind of temporality can be found in comics with panels in a frame, which can be a page or double page spread. The size of the panel, its place in the frame as well as the number of word balloons, text boxes etc show the dual nature of time in both the story world and the reading world. With the rise of decompression, these are extremely different. For example, the eight issue DC Comics event Blackest Night takes place over a single, restless night in the DC Universe, but the recent Vertigo comic Bodies skips between four time periods (1890s, 1940s, present day, 2050) with four different art styles and detectives with four different personalities solving the same murder case. A comic that goes beyond this temporal duality and creates of kind of musical comic is the recent Image Comics series The Wicked + the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie.
Throughout their collaborations, it's an understatement to say that music has been a big element of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's work. Their first comic Phonogram (Image Comics; 2006-2010) is centered around the theme that music (especially Brit-pop) is magic), and their run on Marvel's Young Avengers concluded in a huge dance party featuring Marvel Boy (the Kree Noh-Varr) on turntables. Their latest comic The Wicked + the Divine is about various gods reincarnating every 90 years as young people and only living for two people. This time the gods are pop stars ranging from Daft Punk helmet wearing Wodan to the Rihanna-esque Egyptian cat goddess Sekhmet and the main divine character Luci, a female, David Bowie inspired version of Lucifer. However, Gillen and McKelvie don't just use the physical images of pop music; they make use of the rhythmic function of panels to create their own "single" in comic book form.
snap 2
From the first pages of The Wicked + the Divine #1 (which are set in the 1920s), the "1-2-3-4" count and the 4/4 time signature that most pop music is written in are huge parts of the writing, art, and panel structure of the comic as well as its plots and characters. It starts innocuously enough with a full page splash followed by four skinny rectangular panels showing the young gods of the Jazz Age. In four beats, Gillen and McKelvie introduce what are presumably the protagonists of this comic. But a few pages later, they introduce the literal "1-2-3-4" count via a four panel square grid then four smaller panels with snaps. Then, there is an explosion, and this generation of gods are over. This format introduces the musical nature of the gods as well as visually showing their short life-spans, which is ironic because most gods are considered to be immortal. (Unless you've read the "Brief Lives" arc of The Sandman.) These opening pages are the first of many times that Gillen and McKelvie use the rhythmic function of the frame in their panel structures to give their comics a musical quality and to show the glory and tragedy of their gods, who happen to be pop stars. (The connection between popular music and divinity is easy to make; just listen to "I am A God" by Kanye West.)
I think a shared sense of rhythm and timing can connect music and comics. And creators other than Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie have explored this connection. Off the top of my head, there is the beloved Scott Pilgrim series by Bryan Lee O'Malley which has its own universe of indie bands of varying musical talent and the scene in Asterios Polyp where Kalvin Kohoutek talks to Asterios about his multi-layered, polyphonic symphony. If there are any comics with music as a part of its story as well as panel structure and frame, please comment below so I can spend all my money on them.
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text:
MHT File Photo
Carroll County Almshouse and Farm
500, South Center Street, Westminster, Carroll County
The Carroll County Farm Museum consists of a complex of 15 buildings including the main house and dependencies. Most of these are original; two, however, are new structures and two are rebuilt from old materials. The most prominent of the buildings is the 30-room brick main house, around which the others are arranged. Originally designed and constructed for use as the county alms house, it is a long, three-story, rectangular structure, nine bays wide at the first and second floor levels of both front and rear façades. The main entrance of both elevations is located in the fourth bay in from the west end; a centered door on the second floor levels opens onto what were once the galleried roofs of the one-story farm porches. The nine eyebrow windows just below the roof cornices frame casement sash of 2/2 panes; the remaining windows have flat arches and frame sash of 6/6 panes. The gable roof is covered with tin and a single flush chimney stands at each end of the ridge. Centered on the roof is a simple frame cupola sheltering a farm bell. A separate building set at a right angle to the main house now houses the original summer kitchen, wash room, and baking room, and may have once housed farm and domestic help. It is a two-story brick structure containing 14 rooms and has a recessed two-story galleried porch across its west side, the last regionally characteristic architectural feature. In addition to these two buildings, there is also a brick, one-story dairy with a pyramidal roof dominated by a pointed finial of exaggerated height with Victorian Gothic "icing" decorating the eaves; a large frame and dressed stone bank barn of excellent quality and one of the better examples of its era and type in the region. a blacksmith's shop, springhouse, smokehouse, icehouse, and numerous other sheds and dependencies of various and sundry types, all in good repair and all used as a part of the working farm museum activities.
The Carroll County Farm Museum's significance is twofold; the preservation of the original Carroll County Almshouse founded in 1852 and the creation of the Farm Museum established in 1965 as a tribute to the great agricultural heritage of the County and the State of Maryland and as a monument to those early pioneers who created this great enterprise. The Museum is a working farm with many fine buildings that rank among central and western Maryland's best examples of pre-Civil War farm architecture. Each of the farm outbuildings has been utilized to display antique tools, and vehicles or to demonstrate crafts of yesteryear. With the exception of the log cabin, the museum remains much as it did in the 1850 period.


text:
Definition of capsaicin
n. - A colorless crystalline substance extracted from the Capsicum annuum, and giving off vapors of intense acridity. 2
The word "capsaicin" uses 9 letters: A A C C I I N P S.
No direct anagrams for capsaicin found in this word list.
Words formed by adding one letter before or after capsaicin (in bold), or to aacciinps in any order:
s - capsaicins
All words formed from capsaicin by changing one letter
Browse words starting with capsaicin by next letter


text:
Lea County, New MexicoEdit This Page
From FamilySearch Wiki
Revision as of 03:20, 28 February 2013 by Mmsabey
|Lea County, New Mexico|
Location of New Mexico in the U.S.
|Founded||March 7, 1917|
|Address|| [ Lea County Courthouse]|
100 N Main Avenue
PO Box 4C;
Lovington, NM 88260
_URL_ County Website]
- Up until 1821 - New Spain controlled land that later would become New Mexico and Arizona. Some records of early settlers may have been sent to an archives in Seville, Spain, or to archives in Mexico City.
- From 1821 until 1846 - Mexico had jurisdiction over the land that later would become New Mexico and Arizona. Some records of this period may have been sent to archives in Mexico City. Starting in 1846 United States forces occupied New Mexico during the Mexican-American War.
- 1848 - Land that became Lea County formally became a part of the United States when the Mexican-American War ended with ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
- Andrews County, Texas
- Cochran County, Texas
- Gaines County, Texas
- Loving County, Texas
- Winkler County, Texas
- Yoakum County, Texas
For tips on accessing Lea County, New Mexico census records online, see: New Mexico Census.
Societies and Libraries
Family History Centers
- Introduction to LDS Family History Centers
- Hobbs New Mexico Family History Center
- Hobbs, New Mexico.
- USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
- Family History Library Catalog
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Handybook for Genealogists: United States of America, 10th ed. (Draper, Utah: Everton Pub., 2002), Lea County, New Mexico page 474, At various libraries (WorldCat); FHL Book 973 D27e 2002.
|This New Mexico-related article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.
While this page is under construction, may we suggest Cyndi's List.
New to the Research Wiki?
In the FamilySearch Research Wiki, you can learn how to do genealogical research or share your knowledge with others.Learn More


text:
following workflow allows to track the statuses of checked tasks, i.e. when
Administrator, the owner of the task or any other stakeholder needs to verify
the task during the process of its accomplishment. The example of checked task
can be as follows: you have a task Send contract". Certain resource is
responsible to complete the document. Once it is done, the task will be
forwarded to resource who is responsible to check the contract content. If it
is approved, the responsible resource can proceed further.
workflow includes the following statuses:
"Create" shows that the responsible resource created the task in VIP Task
"Work in Progress" notifies that the task is in the process of being
If the task
is in "Pending Review" status, it means that the assigned resource finished the
task and the responsible resource needs to review the performed work.
If the work
on the task was done correctly and the reviewer doesnt have any objections,
the task can be set to "Complete" status.
Task statuses of
Custom Workflow 57 on Task List
custom workflow using the statuses described above, please follow the steps
- Go to: Tools/Custom workflow
- Click "New Workflow" button.
- In Name field enter custom
field name, for example, "Workflow 57".
- Click "Ins" button, enter the
status name "Create" in Name field and click "Ok" button.
- Add other statuses: "Work in
Progress", "Pending Review" and "Complete".


The best Grass Seed for your baseball field
Seed for your Baseball Field
The right sports turf seed makes all the difference
Choices and Decisions
Do you seed or sod? This section covers seeding new areas or overseeding existing turf.
Check local agriculture experts for type of grass most suited for your climate. But here's the basics for baseball field seed:
90/10 blue fescue mix.
This is 90% fescue and 10% bluegrass. This is a nice mix for outfield grass and common at most fields maintained by a park district. After mowing, this usually is 2 inches or longer.
80/20 blue rye mix.
This is 80% perennial rye and 20% bluegrass. It is sometimes called sports turf mix. This mix is good for infields if not the entire field. This can be mowed as short as an inch long.
bermuda grass seed.
In the hot climates this works for the entire field and can be mowed to 3/4 inch long.
Sources and Suppliers
Suppliers I've used and am satisfied with: Horizon, Sierra Pacific Turf Supply. There are others of course, but these folks provide bulk supplies to landscapers and park districts and I've found that they understand what baseball fields need.
Tips & Hint for seeding
 1. In the northern climates the cooler grasses work best - rye, bluegrass, fescue.
 2. In the southern climates the hot grasses work best - bermuda.
 3. In the transition climates it is sometimes a combination depending on the time of year. For example, bermuda in the hot summer, but overseeded with perennial rye throughout the season and heavily before winter. Pro teams use Chaparral perennial rye.
 4. Seed needs to be kept moist and in contact with dirt to germinate. That's why you drag the infield turf after seeding in the 10 step turf maintenance program. This works the seed and topdressing together and down to the soil. Keep the top 2 inches of topsoil moist for the seedlings.
 5. When seeding a larger area, till in topsoil/compost, roll flat, lightly rake to scarify, spread seed, lightly rake, roll flat, fertilize, and then start a watering program. Keep the seeds moist. Once they germinate and sprout you can cut back on watering a bit.
 6. Overseed rate is 6 to 8 pounds per thousand square feet. One 50 pound bag is good for a high school size infield. One 50 pound bag can overseed 2 little league infields.
 7. Apply seed to new areas at double the rate as overseeding.
Mistakes to avoid
 1. Don't just lay the seed on top of bare spots. It will float to the edges when you water or the birds will eat it. Either way you still have a bare spot.
 2. Find the best lawn in your neighborhood. Quite often the maintenance and growing practice there is NOT what you'd do for a sports field. You not only want your turf to look nice, but it needs to stand up to competitive play. Home lawns rarely are the same as a sports field.
bag of fescue grass seed
50 lb bag of blue/fescue
for the outfield area
grass seed up close
blue/fescue up close
bag of rye grass seed
50 lb bag of sports turf
80/20 blue rye
thin turf to overseed
thin area that is
raking top soil before seeding
raking the top soil and
compost smooth before
putting out seed and
rolling it
rolling newly seeded area
rolling a newly seeded
area at second base
Baseball Field Products
Home | Free Newsletter | Contact Us | FAQs | Baseball Blog


Nat (spirit)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Nat oun (Suxorimus) hung on a post in a house.
The nats (နတ်; MLCTS: nat; IPA: [naʔ]) are spirits worshipped in Burma (or Myanmar) in conjunction with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 Great Nats and all the rest (i.e., spirits of trees, water, etc.). Almost all of the 37 Great Nats were human beings who met violent deaths (စိမ်းသေ, lit. "green death"). They may thus also be called nat sein (နတ်စိမ်း; lit. green spirits). The word'sein', while meaning 'green', is being used to mean 'raw' in this context. There are however two types of nats in Burmese Buddhist belief.
Nat spirits are termed lower nats or auk nats (အောက်နတ်), whether named or unnamed, whereas ahtet nats (အထက်နတ်) or higher nat dewas inhabit the six heavens.[1] Much like sainthood, nats can be designated for a variety of reasons, including those only known in certain regions in Burma. Nat worship is less common in urban areas than in rural areas, and is practised among ethnic minorities as well as in the mainstream Bamar society. It is however among the Buddhist Bamar that the most highly developed form of ceremony and ritual is seen.[2]
Every Burmese village has a nat sin (နတ်စင်) which essentially serves as a shrine to the village guardian nat called the ywa saung nat (ရွာစောင့်နတ်). An offertory coconut (နတ်အုန်းသီး) is often hung on the main southeast post (ဥရူတိုင်) in the house, wearing a gaung baung (headdress) and surrounded by perfume, as an offering to the Min Mahagiri (Lord of the Great Mountain), also known as the ein dwin (အိမ်တွင်းနတ်) or ein saung (အိမ်စောင့်နတ်) (house guardian) nat. One may inherit a certain member or in some instances two of the 37 Nats as mi hsaing hpa hsaing (မိဆိုင်ဖဆိုင်; lit. mother's side, father's side) from one or both parents' side to worship depending on where their families originally come from. One also has a personal guardian spirit called ko saung nat (ကိုယ်စောင့်နတ်).[3]
Nat worship and Buddhism[edit]
A nat kadaw dressed as U Min Gyaw at a nat pwè in Mingun, August 1989
Some disagreement in fact exists in academic circles as to whether Burmese Buddhism and Burmese spirit worship are two separate entities or just different dimensions of a single entity. Many Burmese themselves would say it is merely superstition and tend to downplay its role in society. Since the institution of the official 37 Nats was founded by King Anawrahta (1044–1077) of Bagan, albeit with later alterations, it has been argued that this may be interpreted as a process of Burmanisation and establishment of Bamar supremacy in the Irrawaddy valley after the unification of the country and founding of the First Burmese Empire was achieved by the king.[2] Worship of nats predates Buddhism in Burma. With the arrival of Buddhism, however, the nats were merged, syncretistically, with Buddhism.
Nat worship and ecology[edit]
Mount Popa from Kyaukpadaung road, the smaller precipice Taung Kalat with its nat shrines atop to left of picture
The widespread traditional belief among rural folks that there are forest guardian spirits called taw saung nats (တောစောင့်နတ်) and mountain guardian spirits called taung saung nats (တောင်စောင့်နတ်) appears to act as a deterrent against environmental destruction up to a point. Indiscriminate felling particularly of large trees is generally eschewed owing to the belief that they are dwellings of tree spirits called yokkazo (ရုက္ခစိုး) and that such an act would bring the wrath of the nat upon the perpetrator.[4]
Popular nat festivals[edit]
Mount Popa and Taung Kalat to left of picture seen from a distance across a dry riverbed
Offerings of alcohol and liquor to Min Kyawzwa at a nat pwe in Amarapura
The most important nat pilgrimage site in Burma is Mount Popa, an extinct volcano with numerous temples and relic sites atop a mountain 1300 metres tall located near Bagan in central Burma. The annual festival is held on the full moon of the month of Natdaw (December) of the Burmese calendar.[5] Taungbyone, north of Mandalay, is another major site with the festival held each year starting on the eleventh waxing day and including the full moon in the month Wagaung (August).[6] Yadanagu at Amarapura, held a week later in honour of Popa Medaw ("Mother of Popa"), who was the mother of the Taungbyone Min Nyinaung ("Brother Lords"), is also a popular nat festival.[3]
Nats have human characteristics, wants, and needs. They are flawed, having desires considered derogatory and immoral in mainstream Buddhism. During a nat pwè, which is a festival during which nats are propitiated, nat kadaws (နတ်ကတော် "lord-consort",[7] i.e. "medium, shaman") dance and embody the nat's spirit in a trance. Historically, the nat kadaw profession was hereditary and passed from mother to daughter. Until the 1980s, few nat gadaws were male. Since the 1980s, persons identified by outsiders as transgender women or gay male transvestites have increasingly performed these roles.[7]
Music, often accompanied by a hsaing waing ("orchestra"), adds much to the mood of the nat pwè, and many are entranced. People come from far to take part in the festivities in various nat shrines called nat kun or nat naan, get drunk on palm wine and dance wildly in fits of ecstasy to the wild beat of the Hsaing waing music, possessed by the nats.[5]
Whereas nat pwès are annual events celebrating a particular member of the 37 Nats regarded as the tutelary spirit in a local region within a local community, with familial custodians of the place and tradition and with royal sponsorship in ancient times, hence evocative of royal rituals, there are also nat kannah pwès where individuals would have a pavilion set up in a neighbourhood and the ritual is generally linked to the entire pantheon of nats. The nat kadaws as an independent profession made their appearance in the latter half of the 19th century as spirit mediums, and nat kannahs are more of an urban phenomenon which evolved to satisfy the need of people who had migrated from the countryside to towns and cities but who wished to carry on their traditions or yo-ya of supplicating the mi hsaing hpa hsaing tutelary spirit of their native place.[2]
List of official nats[edit]
Traditional offerings of bananas and coconut at a nat shrine
King Anawrahta of Bagan (1044–1077) designated an official pantheon of 37 nats after he had failed to enforce a ban on nat worship. His stratagem of incorporation eventually succeeded by bringing nats to Shwezigon Pagoda portrayed worshipping Gautama Buddha and by enlisting Śakra, a Buddhist protective deity, to head the pantheon above the Mahagiri nats as Thagyamin.[5][8] Seven out of the 37 Nats appear to be directly associated with the life and times of Anawrahta.[8]
The official pantheon is made up predominantly of those from the royal houses of Burmese history, but also contains nats of Thai (Yun Bayin) and Shan (Maung Po Tu) descent; illustrations of them show them in Burmese royal dress. Listed in proper order, they are:
 1. Thagyamin (သိကြားမင်း)
 2. Min Mahagiri


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Priority: - Eradicate
Identification and Reproduction
- Baby's breath is a common flower used in floral arrangements.
- It is a flowering plant that grows to a mound of braching stems.
- Stems are slightly swollen at nodes where leaves attach. Leaves are opposite and lance-shaped.
- Its name is derived from its cloud-like appearance when it is flowering. Flowers are white and sometimes light pink. They are made up of five petals and sit on short stalks.
- Reproduces by seed only.
- Single plants can produce more than 10,000 seeds per year.
- Stalks can break and roll like tumbleweed in the wind, further spreading infestations.
Habitat & Ecology
- Common on dry, sandy grasslands.
- They thrive in well-draining sandy or gravelly soils.
- Grows a deep tap root that can extend to depths of 4 m.
- It is drought tolerant.
- Often used in floral arrangements or as an ornamental plant. Seeds often continue to develop in arrangement and this often facilitates spread.
- Seed spreads allows it to disperse quickly across pastures, roadsides and grasslands.
- Reduces forage opportunities for livestock.
- Remove infestations before they set their seeds.
- Cut at the root crown, below the ground to prevent resprout.
- Hand-pulling is difficult as tap roots are deep.
- Ensure plant parts including plants received from floral arrangements are bagged and disposed of properly.
Do not plant this species, considering planting alternative non-invasive plants: download the ISCBC's Grow Me Instead brochure (pg. 7 and 8).
For more details check out the Invasive Species Compendium datasheet on Gypsophila paniculata (baby's breath).
Download the Alberta Invasive Species Council's factsheet on Baby's Breath here.
Header photo (Matt Lavin).


What To Do with A Dead Gerbil
Questions About Gerbils
What To Do with A Dead Gerbil
Not only is it heartbreaking when a pet gerbil dies, but it can also be a time of great confusion. It's not always easy to know what to do with the body.
The most common way to dispose of a dead gerbil is to bury it in the back yard, marking it with a memorial feature. Similarly, vets can take care of your dead gerbil for you, sending it to be cremated. You may also be able to get your gerbil's ashes back. Otherwise, a pet cemetery is a good option if you don't have a back yard.
What you choose to do with your gerbil is up to you. As long as you follow all guidelines and use gloves when handling the body, saying goodbye is an essential part of the grieving process, so it has to be right for you.
How To Check Whether Your Gerbil Is Dead
Before attempting any type of body disposal, you must check that the gerbil's dead first. Gerbils can die suddenly, taking their owners by surprise.
Gerbils also play dead to hide from predators, according to Biological Psychiatry. As a result, you'll need to ensure that your gerbil isn't protecting itself from a larger threat.
When a gerbil dies, it may twitch for a few minutes. While these are normal nerve spasms, they can make it seem like the animal's alive.
Similarly, gerbils sometimes let out a gasp of air when they're moved. Again, this isn't the animal returning to life, but the air is emptying from its lungs.
Pets often empty their bladders or bowels after death as their muscles relax, giving the illusion that the animal is coming back to life.
As a result, some pet owners feel confused as to whether their gerbil is really dead or not. To check, follow these steps:
 - Check for signs of breathing, monitoring whether the body moves up or down. Similarly, hold a mirror close to its nostrils to see whether condensation forms.
 - Feel for a heartbeat, placing two fingers on your gerbil's chest near to where the heart's located. If you don't feel anything, your gerbil has died.
 - Take a look at the eyes to see if they're open. Dead gerbils will stare into space with large, black pupils.
If you've checked the above and there are no signs of life, your gerbil has unfortunately passed away. You'll now need to think about preparing the body for disposal.
How To Dispose Of A Dead Gerbil?
When getting rid of your dead gerbil, you'll need to do it quickly so that there's no risk of disease or contagious conditions spreading to other rodents in the gerbilarium. This is even more crucial if your gerbil died of an illness involving bacteria or parasites.
Similarly, it won't be long before the body begins to give off a foul odor, making living conditions unpleasant for the other gerbils in the enclosure.
While you're deciding what to do with your deceased gerbil, put it into an air-locked bag and place it in the freezer. This prevents bacteria from decomposing the body, making it possible to dispose of the gerbil in one piece. There are many ways you can dispose of your dead gerbil, including:
how to dispose of a dead gerbil
Back Yard Burial
Many owners like to bury their gerbil in their back yard where they can mark the burial spot and visit their deceased pet. This brings comfort to many people, though it's not everyone's disposal method of choice.
When burying a gerbil in the back yard, owners can plant a tree or shrub where their pet rests. Similarly, you could place a bench where the burial site is located, allowing you to visit your pet on a warm day.
To protect your gerbil from other animals, such as foxes and cats, you'll need to dig several feet into the ground. Wrap the gerbil in something biodegradable, such as newspaper or cardboard, and place it gently into the ground. Wrapping it in plastic delays the decomposition process, preventing the body from breaking down naturally.
Once you've covered the gerbil with soil, you might want to put something heavy on top at first to prevent animals from digging. This could be a heavy plant pot or concrete slab.
However, if your gerbil was euthanized or given drugs to monitor a health condition, then you shouldn't bury your pet in your back yard. That's because it poses a health risk to the environment and other animals should they get hold of the body.
Let A Vet Take Care Of It
If your gerbil died at the animal hospital or you took it there to be euthanized, your vet can dispose of your gerbil's body for you. Dead animals are usually picked up by a crematorium and cremated.
If you've opted for a private cremation for your gerbil, the vet will return its ashes to you. While this is more expensive than a group pet burial, it means you'll get only your pet's ashes back.
It's not advised to cremate your gerbil yourself at home. It's a more complicated process than simply setting it alight in a fire-proof pot and can be distressing for pet owners to witness. Similarly, it's also a fire risk.
Pet Cemetery
If you don't have a yard or don't wish to bury your gerbil at home, you can take it to a pet cemetery. Many offer a full burial or cremation service for you to choose between, depending on your personal preference.
You'll also be given an individual grave and marker for your gerbil, allowing you to visit it whenever you like. Pet cemeteries are known to be quiet and peaceful, allowing many owners to find comfort.
Most owners prefer not to dispose of their gerbil this way, but may have no other option. As a result, you can put your gerbil in your waste bin.
Before you do, wrap it in newspaper or place it in a cardboard box to protect it against flies, particularly on a hot day. Otherwise, your bin will become infested with maggots. If you can, wait until bin collection day to place your gerbil in the bin.
While this isn't the most pleasant disposal method, it's cheap and stops the gerbil from decomposing inside your house, which is unhygienic.
What To Do When A Gerbil Dies
Once you've disposed of the gerbil, the work doesn't stop there. You'll need to make sure conditions are sanitary for your other gerbils. This will also prevent them from becoming unwell, particularly if your gerbil died of a contagious health condition. To do so, follow these next steps:
Clean The Cage
According to Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation, gerbils frequently scent mark. As a result, you'll need to do a thorough clean of the gerbil's cage to remove the smell.
Gerbils grieve and can become depressed if they're left on their own for too long, so you should aim to remove all traces of your deceased gerbil to allow the surviving animals to move on.
Once you've removed the dead gerbil's body and disposed of it, clean the cage following these steps:
 1. Place the remaining gerbils in a secure location. You can let them play in a hamster wheel while you clean.
 2. Remove all bedding and dispose of it responsibly.
 3. Clean the entire enclosure, including all play toys, with an antibacterial spray.
 4. Replace the bedding and put your gerbils back into the enclosure.
Keep an eye on your surviving gerbil for any sign of depression and lethargy. This might mean it's feeling lonely, but it could also indicate that the deceased gerbil's smell still lingers. In which case, clean the cage again.
Get A New Gerbil
Gerbils don't do well living alone, even if they're old and at the end of their life. In the wild, they live in large groups that forage and burrow together. When alone in captivity, they become depressed.
Similarly, they also display stereotypes. This is when they carry out behaviors excessively, such as biting or digging. It's not usually a good sign.
As a result, you should try to introduce a new friend to your grieving gerbil. You can do this using the split cage method, where you divide the cage in half using a physical barrier or a split cage.
For the method to work, both gerbils must have access to everything they need, such as bedding, food, water, and toys.
Eventually, once the gerbils are used to each other's presence, you can remove the divider and let them live together, monitoring them for any signs of aggression.
Handle Your Gerbil
To prevent your gerbil from becoming depressed at the loss of its old friend, you'll need to spend lots of time with it with frequent handling and playtimes. This will help it get over the loss quicker and distract it from its sadness.
Eventually, once introduced to its new friend, it'll have fun playing and socializing with it. But while you're separating them, you must provide mental stimulation that they lack from their own kind.
Will A Gerbil Eat A Dead Gerbil?
While this isn't a pleasant thought for many owners, gerbils will eat their dead kin to protect the nest from predators. In the wild, as soon as a gerbil dies, the rest of the colony gets rids of the body by eating it.
Foul odors from decom


What are the branches of the us military
How many branches of the military are there in the US?
six branches
What is the highest branch of the military?
the Army
There are five main branches of the military including the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard. The Army is the main ground force and largest branch of the military. The Army's job is to control and fight on land using land troops, tanks, and artillery.
Which branch of the US military is the best?
What is the hardest military branch?
the Air Force
What branch of military is the easiest?
the Air Force
Which military branch is the safest?
Which US military branch pays the most?
Which military branch has the most females?
You might be interested: What is military discount
What military branch goes in first in a war?
How large is US military?
about 1.3 million
Has anyone ever served in all 4 branches of the military?
Which is the smartest military branch?
The Air Force
Which military branch is best for a family?
Is the Air Force better than the army?
When choosing between the Army or the Air Force, each branch has a number of jobs in similar areas. If you prefer a job that sees more combat, though, the Army may be the right choice for you. If you have more interest in technology, you'll find more opportunities in the Air Force.


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


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Map of flight path and driving directions from Learmonth to Badu Island.
Shortest flight path between RAAF Base Learmonth (LEA) and Badu Island Airport (BDD).
How far is Badu Island from Learmonth?
There are several ways to calculate distances between Learmonth and Badu Island. Here are two common methods:Vincenty's formula (applied above)
- 2037.394 miles
- 3278.868 kilometers
- 1770.447 nautical miles
Vincenty's formula calculates the distance between latitude/longitude points on the earth's surface, using an ellipsoidal model of the earth.Haversine formula
- 2036.672 miles
- 3277.705 kilometers
- 1769.819 nautical miles
The haversine formula calculates the distance between latitude/longitude points assuming a spherical earth (great-circle distance – the shortest distance between two points).
Time difference and current local times
The time difference between Learmonth and Badu Island is 2 hours. Badu Island is 2 hours ahead of Learmonth.
Carbon dioxide emissions
Estimated CO2 emissions per passenger is 222 kg (489 pounds).
Frequent Flyer Miles Calculator
Learmonth (LEA) → Badu Island (BDD).


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In honor of the unique history of Traditional African Black Soap, I've decided to give you some valuable information regarding this wonderful product.
History of Black Soap
In every culture, out a need to clean hair, skin and clothing, homemakers developed a means of combining readily available oils, salts and botanicals to create "soap".
The more I learn about natural soap making, the more I am amazed at this very technical, chemical process, because unlike many other scientific innovations, this was first developed by women working to maintain the household.
In Africa, Ghana specifically, the soap developed centuries ago by women used nearby natural resources to create a soap not only effective as a cleansing agent, but also maintaining healthy skin and hair. So effective, the recipe has not changed much since first formulated. If you look at the soap created by other cultures, it was has been in constantly re-engineered to make it more suitable for use.
Traditional African Black Soap has been used to help relieve acne, oily skin, clear blemishes and various other skin issues. Many swear by it for skin irritations and conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. Traditional African Black soap is been used to achieve beautiful skin as well as for washing hair and bathing.
African Black Soap is known by many names based on the language in the area of Africa. It is also called Ose Dudu or Alata Samina.
How is Black Soap made?
Making African Black Soap begins with plantain skin. Plantains are a natural source of vitamins A & E and iron. (The Plantain is a popular food in Africa, South America & other parts of the world. It can be found in ethnic or international grocery stores such as Latino, Caribbean or African. It looks like banana but much bigger. However, the taste does not resemble that of a banana very much and plantains cannot be eaten raw.) The skin of the plantain is dried in the sun prior to being roasted in a clay oven. The heat must be constant in order to achieve a particular color, texture & smell. In some recipes, Cocoa Pod is used in combination with or instead of plantain skins. Cocoa Pod is the shell of the Cocoa fruit. The cocoa beans are used for making chocolate or cocoa butter among other things. The roasting of the plantains determines the color of the soap. The longer the plantains are roasted, the darker the soap.
The next step in the process is extremely important because if it is not done properly, with the right ingredients, there will be no soap. The roasted plantain skin is mixed water and filtered, then combined with palm oil, coconut oil and/or palm kernel oil to form the soap. For you more experienced soap makers, the ashes of the plantain skins and/or cocoa pod ashes are used as the alkaline agent (potash) in the saponifcation (mixing of alkali and oils to create soap) process. For those who make soap now, it would be the "lye" component. Handling the varying levels of alkalinity in this handmade potash is one of the reasons this recipe is not easily replicated outside of Africa.
The soap is then hand-stirred by local women for at least a day and then set out to cure for two weeks.
The roasting of the plantains determines the color of the soap. The longer the plantains are roasted, the darker the soap. African Black Soap is centuries old, has numerous benefits & is not scented. It can be used by anyone who wishes to improve the quality of their skin. At all costs.
Benefits of Black Soap
- Black soap is also a natural source of vitamins A & E and iron. This helps to strengthen the skin and hair.
- Black soap contains a high amount of glycerin, which absorbs moisture from the air and literally deposits it into the skin, making the skin soft and supple.
- For centuries, Ghanaians and Nigerians have used black soap to help relieve acne, oily skin, clear blemishes and various other skin issues. Many swear by it for skin irritations and conditions such as eczema and psoriasis.
- Men can use black soap in shaving. The high shea butter content leaves the skin smooth and protected.
- African black soap is unique in that it contains no preservatives, color enhancers, or fragrances. African black soap creates a soft lather without the animal fat additives that are commonly used in soaps made in the US.
The Commercialization of Black Soap
As the popularity of black soap and natural soaps increases, some retailers are using the label African black soap for commercially produced cleansers. Many of these soaps are not made based on a Traditional African Soap recipe at all. African Black Soap is soft in texture, sometimes crumbly and varies in color from very dark brown to very pale tan. Most have a marbled color combination of these hues. This variation in color is due in part to the natural nature of the soap, roasting times of the plantain skins and/or cocoa pods, different combinations/levels of natural oils and shea butter in soap.
The easiest Black Soaps on the market to identify as not Traditional African Black Soap are those that are molded into smooth perfectly formed bars. The soft texture and properties of natural African Black Soap are not malleable into perfectly smooth bars. Also, contrary to its name, Traditional African Black Soap is NEVER black in color. Black colored Black Soap is made that way by adding artificial colors or dyes.
However, the best way to make sure the soap you are considering purchasing is Traditional African Black Soap is to read the label. Genuine Black Soap will only have plantain and/or coco pod ash, indigenous oils (palm, palm kernel, coconut) and other natural ingredients such as shea butter, citrus juices (to balance PH), honey (be careful, this is natural but it is NOT VEGAN) which is used as a humectant. Any other chemicals such as SLS, artificial color or triclosan, it can be pretty safe in assuming it is not Natural African Black soap.
Liquid Black Soap
Would you believe that there is no such thing as Liquid Traditional African Black Soap? In actuality, when you see this statement, the truth lies in the fact that there is no way to produce liquid African Black Soap in the way one would produce a liquid soap beginning with alkaline and oils. However, it is possible to liquefy African Black Soap. Traditional African Black Soap's soft and crumbly textures make it ideal for liquefaction.
It is just as important to read the label on Liquid African Black Soap as it is on African Black Soap. The best liquefied versions of Traditional African Black Soap will have a high content of actual African Black Soap in the product, meaning it should be very high on the ingredients list – second only to water would be the ideal. The lower African Black Soap is on the ingredients list, the less actual African Black Soap is contained in the product. Many producers use as little as 5% African Black Soap in their liquid African Black Soap products. Shea Essentials Liquid African Black Soap is 50% pure African Black Soap.
Remember, the ingredients list will also identify any artificial chemical additives, which should be avoided.


Academic grading in France
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The French grading system is based mostly on a 20-point grading scale: it is used above all in secondary schools and universities.
The French high school diploma baccalauréat uses the 20-point scale, with the following mentions (honors):
 - 14–15.9: good (bien: B)
 - 12–13.9: satisfactory (assez bien: AB)
 - 0–9.9: fail (insuffisant)
Primary schools generally use a 10-point grading scale or a letter grade like the ECTS grading scale. French universities traditionally use the 20-point grading scale, generally in a stricter way than secondary schools, which means that students are unlikely to receive marks as high as they did in secondary school. The case of the classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles is particular in the sense that class ranking rather than marks usually reflect the student performance. An average mark of 7 can therefore be considered as a satisfactory grade if the student performs to be in the top of his class.
The ECTS grading scale is more and more common in the post-secondary education system, since it is the standard for comparing study performance throughout the European Union. The GPA grading scale is becoming more and more common as well, since it eases the comparison with American students.
Some Grandes écoles use "exotic" systems, like Ecole Centrale de Lille, which uses a three-letter scale system:
 - A: Excellent
 - S: Satisfactory (satisfaisant)
 - I: Fail (insuffisant)
External links[edit]


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Is there a way to find all lines with grep, that contains at least x words?
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2 Answers
up vote 3 down vote accepted
Well, assuming words are separated by spaces, to find lines with >= 5 words, do this:
$ grep -P '\w+\s+\w+\s+\w+\s+\w+\s+\w+'
Grep is not the best tool for the job though, try gawk:
$ gawk 'NF>4'
Gawk's NF variable holds the number of fields, by default fields are defined by spaces, so in a line of text each field is a word. The command above will print all lines containing more than 4 words.
share|improve this answer
But words can also be separated by comma. And at the end of the sentence there is dot. I try this: grep -E "(\w+[,.]+){25,}" and it seems to work allright. – quin61 Sep 5 '12 at 11:01
My gawk command counts fields _USER_, three spaces means four fields. The dot is irrelevant and, in normal text, there is a space after the comma. – terdon Sep 5 '12 at 13:32
add comment
Replace the number "3" if you want lines >= to a different value.
grep -E '^(\w+\b.){3}'
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Your Answer


. In most jurisdictions, the Grand Secretary fulfills these duties.
Lodge of Antiquity No.2 and Royal Somerset House and Inverness Lodge No.IV, in England, are rare examples of lodges that appoint a Chancellor as one of their officers. In Antiquity it tends to be the senior active member of the lodge. In No.IV it appears that when the office was created in the nineteenth century it was intended to be similar to the role of Chaplain.[10] However when revived in the early twentieth century, the role was more directed towards external relations. By the late twentieth century it appears that it had become customary for the office to be awarded to the longest serving member of the Lodge.
Grand Registrar[edit]
In some jurisdictions a 'Grand Registrar' is appointed to be the principal legal officer of a Grand Lodge. The role is generally held by a qualified lawyer or judge. In other jurisdictions, there is no official title given to the holders of these duties.
Grand Superintendent of Works[edit]
When this office exists, the 'Grand Superintendent of Works' is a Grand Lodge officer responsible for the Grand Lodge building, and as such, the office is usually awarded to a qualified architect or builder. Responsibility for individual Lodge buildings usually falls to a committee.
Grand Sword Bearer[edit]
Many Grand Masters are preceded in formal processions by a ceremonial sword. In such cases a 'Grand Sword Bearer' is appointed to carry the sword.
Grand Standard Bearer or Grand Banner Bearer[edit]
Many Grand Masters or Grand Lodges have an official standard which is carried behind the Grand Master in formal processions. In such cases a 'Grand Standard Bearer' or 'Grand Banner Bearer' is appointed.
Grand Pursuivant[edit]
It is the Grand Pursuivant's duty to announce all applicants for admission into the Grand Lodge by their names and Masonic titles; to take charge of the jewels and regalia of the Grand Lodge; to attend all communications of the Grand Lodge, and to perform such other duties as may be required by the Grand Master or presiding officer.
See also[edit]
 1. ^ Lodge Officer Duties
 2. ^ Freemasonry for dummies
 3. ^
 4. ^ Constitution of the Grand Masonic Orient of Ireland
 5. ^ French Wikipedia Officiers de loge maçonnique
 6. ^ UGLE Book of Constitutions, 2012, p. 177, plate 39
 7. ^ Grand Stewards Lodge – history
 8. ^
 9. ^ UGLE Constitutions, Rule 104(f), 119(b)
 10. ^ A W Oxford, 'An introduction to the history of the Royal Somerset House & Inverness Lodge', published by Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 1928, page 245.
External links[edit]


User Data import example
Learn how to import a Customer Segment dimension to track your users' interests.
Importing user metadata, such as a loyalty rating or lifetime customer value, enables you to create highly relevant Segments and Remarketing Audience lists.
In this article:
You want to understand which features on your site are most popular with food and wine enthusiasts, sports enthusiasts, and other customer segments. You maintain a data file outside of Analytics that associates customer IDs with customer segments and you plan to upload this information into Analytics to use as the basis for a Remarketing Audience.
Step One: Decide what data to import
The user IDs that you upload need to match the user IDs that you set in the hits received by your site. Refer to the developer documentation to learn how to set user ID in hits.
Step Two: Create the Custom Dimension
Since Customer Segment doesn't exist as a dimension in Analytics, you'll need to create it as a Custom Dimension.
Custom Dimension Name Scope
Customer Segment User
Step Three: Create the Data Set
 1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
 3. In the PROPERTY column, click Data Import.
 4. Click New Data Set.
 5. Select User Data as the Type.
 6. Name the Data Set: Customer metadata
 7. Select one or more views in which you want to see this data.
 8. Define the Schema:
 Key: Visitor > User ID
 Imported Data: Custom Dimensions > Customer Segment
 Overwrite hit data: Yes
 Click Save.
Step Four: Create the CSV
Generating your upload CSV file is a 2-step process:
1. Get the header for the CSV
In the Data Set table, click Customer metadata. This will display the Data Set schema page.
Click Get schema. You'll see something similar to the following:
CSV header
This is the header you should use as the first line of your uploaded CSV files. The table below identifies the columns:
User ID Customer Segment
ga:userId ga:dimension16
2. Create a spreadsheet and export it as a CSV
Create a spreadsheet that follows the format above. The first (header) row of your spreadsheet should use the internal names (e.g. ga:pagePath instead of Page) provided in the Get schema dialog as shown above. The columns beneath each header cell should include the corresponding data for each header.
ga:userId ga:dimension16
456abc Food/Wine Enthusiasts
383ghz Food/Wine Enthusiasts
323hht Motorsports Enthusiasts
541vvv Motorsports Enthusiasts
 456abc,Food/Wine Enthusiasts
 383ghz,Food/Wine Enthusiasts
 323hht,Motorsports Enthusiasts
 541vvv,Motorsports Enthusiasts
Step Five: Upload the data
You can must now upload the CSV file you created to Analytics. You have two choices for uploading your data: manually, using the Analytics user interface, or programmatically, using the Management API.
Upload manually
 1. In the Data Set table, find the row for Customer metadata.
 2. Click Manage uploads for Data Set.
 3. Click Upload file, select the file, then click Upload.
Upload via the Management API
 2. Click the Data Set name.
 3. Click Get Custom Data Source ID.
 4. Copy the ID to the clipboard (e.g. CTRL-C).
 5. Follow these instructions to upload via the Management API.
Step Six: Analyze and take action
With the component pieces in place it is now possible to analyze the results and take action. For example, to create a Remarketing Audience, complete each of the steps below:
 1. Create a custom report
 2. Create a segment
 3. Create a remarketing audience
Create a custom report
Since Customer Segment is a custom dimension, it does not appear in standard reports. To see the total number of pageviews by Customer Segment, for example, you would create a Custom Report with one metric (Pageviews) and one dimension (Customer Segment).
 1. Click + New Custom Report.
 2. Change the report type to be Flat Table.
 3. Select the Customer Segment custom dimension you created above.
 4. Select Sessions or any other metric you would like to use to measure a user groups behavior.
Create a Segment
Create a segment representing the users you want to target. From the custom report perform the following steps:
 1. Click Add Segment.
 2. Click New Segment.
 3. Click Advanced Conditions.
 4. Change filter from Sessions to Users.
 5. Select the Customer Segment custom dimension you created above.
 6. Add as many conditional groups to the segment as you would like and click Save.
Create a Remarketing Audience
 2. Select the segment you created above.
 - Data imported via processing time data import is not available to a Remarketing list until the user returns to your site after the data is uploaded.
Next steps
Once you've created a Remarketing Audience, you should create a new Google Ads campaign and add your Audience to an ad group. See the Google Ads Remarketing Help Center article for details.
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The dynamics of economies and infectious disease are inexorably linked: economic well-being influences health (sanitation, nutrition, treatment capacity, etc.) and health influences economic well-being (labor productivity lost to sickness and disease). Often societies are locked into ''poverty traps'' of poor health and poor economy. Here, using a simplified coupled disease-economic model with endogenous capital growth we demonstrate the formation of poverty traps, as well as ways to escape them. We suggest two possible mechanisms of escape both motivated by empirical data: one, through an influx of capital (development aid), and another through changing the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare. We find that a large influx of capital is successful in escaping the poverty trap, but increasing health spending alone is not. Our results demonstrate that escape from a poverty trap may be possible, and carry important policy implications in the world-wide distribution of aid and within-country healthcare spending.
Escaping the poverty trap: modeling the interplay between economic growth and the ecology of infectious disease
Georg M. Goerg, Oscar Patterson-Lomba, Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, Benjamin M. Althouse


Dynamic Many-Light Sampling for Real-Time Ray Tracing
Monte Carlo ray tracing offers the capability of rendering scenes with large numbers of area light sources---lights can be sampled stochastically and shadowing can be accounted for by tracing rays, rather than using shadow maps or other rasterization-based techniques that do not scale to many lights or work well with area lights. Current GPUs only afford the capability of tracing a few rays per pixel at real-time frame rates, making it necessary to focus sampling on important light sources. While state-of-the-art algorithms for offline rendering build hierarchical data structures over the light sources that enable sampling them according to their importance, they lack efficient support for dynamic scenes. We present a new algorithm for maintaining hierarchical light sampling data structures targeting real-time rendering. Our approach is based on a two-level BVH hierarchy that reduces the cost of partial hierarchy updates. Performance is further improved by updating lower-level BVHs via refitting, maintaining their original topology. We show that this approach can give error within 6% of recreating the entire hierarchy from scratch at each frame, while being two orders of magnitude faster, requiring less than 1 ms per frame for hierarchy updates for a scene with thousands of moving light sources on a modern GPU. Further, we show that with spatiotemporal filtering, our approach allows complex scenes with thousands of lights to be rendered with ray-traced shadows in 16.1 ms per frame.
Pierre Moreau (NVIDIA, Lund University)
Publication Date:
Monday, July 8, 2019
Uploaded Files:


text:
This app is aimed specifically at those with macular degeneration, who still can use their sight to read. It greatly helps those who know the technique of eccentric viewing but this method of training vision and practising should be known before using the app. The fact that it has such a simple interface, customizable configuration and audio usage instructions available make it easy to use and if the user has a monitor or a TV they can take advantage of the advantages of this app and read comfortably through a large screen.View description
The MD evReader is a simple iPad app designed to help people with Macular Degeneration (MD) to read e-books when it is combined with the technique of "eccentric viewing". Eccentric vision is when a person attempts to see by making use of their peripheral visual skills instead of the central ones (macular). The app enables the text (of e-pub documents) to be presented horizontally, from right to left, through the screen. The speed and the direction of the text movement may be controlled using a monitoring panel on the iPad screen. The text may be enlarged and presented in very large fonts on a digital screen through an HDMI port (this requires an Apple HDMI adaptor). The reader must fix their gaze in their preferred position of eccentric vision, far from the text, and read the text without moving their eyes. At present, the app cannot show books that are DRM-protected.


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The Jefferson County Educational Service Center (JCESC) was one of 88 county school districts established in 1914 by the Ohio General Assembly. County school districts were charged with responsibility for elevating the state's system of education to a proper standard, and the work of county staff was primarily regulatory and compliance-driven. Staff developed courses of study, provided teacher inservice training, and supervised classrooms. In 1995, county school districts were renamed educational service centers, a title that appropriately describes a shift in focus from compliance to service and reflects the current work of ESCs.
Today, JCESC embraces a system-wide culture of service that begins with the leadership of the Governing Board and extends across all licensed and classified staff. In response to constituent needs, JCESC
- provides high quality professional development embedded in the National Staff Development Standards, for district administrators and teachers,
- coordinates collaborative programs for constituent districts to eliminate duplication of human and financial resources,
- participates in interagency collaborative programs across Jefferson and Harrison Counties to provide efficient, cost-effective responses to at-risk student issues,
- collaborates with higher education in leadership initiatives,
- provides collaborative, cost-effective direct services for students with disabilities,
- administers the Virtual Learning Academy, an e-learning program that preserves district student and fiscal bases across the State, Country and Internationally, and
- sponsors the The Jefferson Health Plan, a partially self-funded health insurance program serving more than 250 school districts and political subdivisions
Details of these and numerous other programs and services are available on this website.
Click any topic to learn more about the Jefferson County Educational Service Center.


- Biofuture Platform
The Biofuture We Need: a brief video introduction
We are very pleased to announce the release of "The Biofuture We Need", a short video documentary on the pressing need to scale up the low carbon bioeconomy.
The video aims to provide a brief introduction on the main objectives of the Biofuture Platform, within the broader context of the increasing consensus regarding the important role to be played by the advanced lbioeconomy in tackling climate change and promoting a much needed transition to a low carbon future.
The full video can be watched via the following link:
The overview can be watched via the following link:
Biofuture Platform 2016. All Rights Reserved.


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Serving methods and dining environment currently used in successful high school child nutrition programs in Georgia
In-depth case studies, observing actual practice of service methods, service designs, and cafeteria design and decor in Child Nutrition Programs (CNPs) was conducted in five successful Georgia high schools. Successful high school CNP's were defined as programs with lunch participation greater that 60% combined with a fund balance sufficient to cover two months' operating cost and less than 50% of the students qualified for free and reduced-price meals. The schools were identified as successful by the Georgia Department of Education Child Nutrition division. Interviews with managers and directors, historical records and on-site observations were utilized to seek data.;This research found that dining room decor did not appear to be a factor in making the schools successful. With the exception of the two recently built schools, dining decor was basic. The research did reveal that the schools have sufficient seats to accommodate all students during each lunch period. Except for School A the dining rooms were crowded, but a few empty seats were always available.;All five of the successful high schools have an automated point-of-sale system to help provide efficient service. The directors and managers use the related software to assist in materials management, production forecasting and scheduling, service, and monitoring performance. To improve participation and the efficiency of the lunch service the directors had made changes to decrease the amount of time students wait in line. These included offering additional service lines so that students are able to receive their meals more quickly and using remote serving lines throughout the dining area to provide many access points.;Adding to the success of these schools was the presentation of the food on the serving line, temperature, food choices, and portion size flexibility. The schools offered from 5 to 21 entree choices and several side items daily. The entree is served to the student and all other items are self-serve. The managers and directors are proud of the quality of the food served. All five schools prepared hot foods close to service time and continuously during service time to minimize holding. They use a wide variety of resources to solicit input from their students: surveys, taste testing, informal discussion, P.O.S. reports, and informal cafeteria rounds.


text:
A Missal for Children
A Missal for Children will help children to better understand what the holy Mass is, and will guide them through the liturgy to meditate on the mystery of the Eucharist.
Each of the prayers of the Mass is numbered. The same number precedes the explanation of the prayer on the facing page. This way, children can read the text of the Mass on the right-hand page and find its explanation on the left.
All the lovely illustrations will help them to understand the actions of the priest and the deeper meaning of the Mass. Magnificat illustrations.
A Missal for Children is the perfect companion to help your children to participate in the prayers at Mass, prepare for receiving Communion, say a prayer of thanksgiving after Communion, pray every morning and evening on their own or as a family, and prepare themselves to confess their sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
For ages 7 and up.


Ile-de-France's National Orchestra
Île-de-France's National Orchestra attaches great importance to educate all audiences to classical music and the orchestra's repertoire. This is why the orchestra has initiated a partnership with major cultural schools.
These projects were made with Quentin Dufour in a partnership between the ONDIF and the ENS Louis-Lumière.
Fragmentation and unity
Through mosaics, Liza Bodt and Quentin Dufour transcribed dynamism, mobility and the unity of Île-de-France's Orchestra.
Through photographs taken during the passage of the musicians, but also when the place was empty, each mosaic allows us to discover this place both in its architecture and in the occupation of space by the orchestra.
Thus, in these final works, we find the group spirit of the orchestra: a multitude of unique photographs, assembled to recreate a whole, a solid image.
Body and instrument
The purpose of these videographic portraits by Liza Bodt and Quentin Dufour is to value the musician as a person.
Guiding the viewer from one image to another, the split-screen emphasizes the union of the body of the musician and his instrument.
Taken from the orchestra, the artist was able to freely choose their musical discourse and thus express its uniqueness, both in the warm-up and in the piece.


text:
Some current sociocultural trends include the continued growth of connectivity through social media and telecommunications, the growth of cities throughout the world, the increase of green energy technologies and public awareness. Social trends are being driven by advances in technology and the ability to instantly transfer ideas via the Internet.Continue Reading
Sociocultural trends are patterns that are found within human culture and human interaction. The sociocultural trends of a society change over time and are often influenced by environmental, technological and social means. In the past, different regions had their own sets of sociocultural trends. While in some ways that is still the case, the invention of the Internet has led to a growth of interconnectedness, which has resulted in an increased number of sociocultural trends being observed world-wide.
The largest current sociocultural trend is the growth of connectivity through social media and telecommunications. More than ever before, ideas are able to be transferred instantaneously across nations. Ideas that used to be confined to certain hubs are now able to be anonymously displayed on the Internet and spread to the public. This instantaneous and anonymous transfer of information has led to uprisings against authoritarian regimes, such as during the Arab Spring, and has given voices to people who would previously be afraid to speak out against oppression.Learn more about Cultures & Traditions


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Smart Parking – IoT Perspectives
13 December 202121 September 2017 | Software
The pioneering of smart parking
Using the disturbance of the Earth's magnetic field to detect the presence of a vehicle is not a new concept. More than five decades ago, Koerner and Brickner imagined a system where this kind of information can be obtained, centralized and processed. Two use cases of the pioneers in this field, namely parking management and traffic control, appeared to have a high potential and be adopted on a large scale.
Considering that the number of cars was 10 times smaller at that time, the attempts of establishing the technical means for getting traffic information were in the early stages. Knowing the limitations which the geomagnetic transducers had in the '60s and '70s, it becomes clear why equipping too many parking slots with such detectors was not an option.
The phenomenon is illustrated in the following figure, considering that the sensor is placed where the field changes are largest.
Ferrous object + Uniform geomagnetic field = Distorted geomagnetic field
The shape of the distorted lines depends on the geometry and the ferrous composition of the vehicle, each car model determining a unique magnetic fingerprint. The larger the set of measurements, the better the accuracy of detection will be. The place with the largest amount of metal is near the engine block, and there is no guarantee that all cars will park identically.
Therefore, the chosen place for mounting the sensor is in the center of the parking slot. It can be partially buried or simply fixed on the ground when the height is not an obstacle. A sensor serves just one parking slot, the delivered information being either "free" or "occupied". To do so, the detection algorithm must be immune to the presence of other cars in the nearby. The terminals are similar in size and shape to a small mole-hill.
Click here to watch a short film describing the proof of concept.
How it works?
By setting the reliable vehicle detection as the key feature of the device, we can analyze the type of signals and their range of interest. The magnetic field measurable on Earth can take values in an extremely broad range, covering 17 orders of magnitude. For example, the human brain magnetic field is around 10-13 T, while the peak values generated in a controlled environment, by the Z machine at SNL, are around 104 T.
The measurement principle and the constructive type differs from one case to the other. The magnetic field of the planet itself takes values between 22 and 66 µT, when measured on the surface. Eliminating the areas covered by water, and narrowing further this range by considering only the populated zones, the range mentioned above is diminished by 10%.
Two capital cities are worth mentioning for the extremes in this respect: Asuncion, Paraguay – for 22.2 µT, and Hobart, Tasmania for 61.9 µT. The total values measurable in Romania are between 47.4 and 50.0 µT, just 5.9% from the entire worldwide range.
The total value is the result of the North-South, East-West, and down-up components. All of them have small changes in time, the absolute values of the typical rates being 1…100 nT/year. The table below contains these values for Cluj-Napoca, as of 2017.
|Component||Geomagnetic field [µT]||Change rate [nT/yr]|
The change rates are 1000 times smaller than the values of interest to be measured, below the 1-LSB resolution. The RMS noise is covering them, especially during low-power operation modes. That's why the change rates for any component, even if focusing on multiple years, are barely detectable using commercial geomagnetic sensors.
If one design criterion is long battery-life, the low-power mode should be considered for all components supporting it, but this leads to a slightly noisy operation. Fortunately, the change rates are negligible and do not influence the required accuracy for detecting the presence of a vehicle.
By analyzing measurements of the distortions generated by an automobile to the Earth's magnetic field, two immediate conclusions can be depicted. Firstly, one may observe that they can be smaller if compared to the differences given just by changing the location. In short, this means that a detection system designed to use the absolute values will not operate properly when moved to another geographic area. Secondly, most of the sensing values have the same magnitude order as the worldwide geomagnetic field.
To overcome the location issue, one may think of adding extra information such as coordinates, altitude, and look-up tables, but this may not be always feasible due to computing and storage restraints. Even if a few bytes of ROM can be added to the system, the stored content needs to be extremely accurate, based on an absolute measurement performed in that place. Maybe the most critical aspect is that these values are varying in time.
A more flexible approach would be to use relative values, based on offsets given by a self-nulling operation. In this way, the detector can operate properly everywhere in the world, subtracting for each measurement the information characteristic to that specific location. Using this approach, the offsets will contain also the local non-geographic information, such as magnetization of the soil, surroundings etc. This is of particular interest when placing the same type of detector on different surfaces, such as concrete, cement, metal, or plain soil. After all, we are interested only in detecting the arrival and departure of vehicles, separate from all other influences. A higher level of flexibility can be achieved when such a self-nulling can be performed on-demand, using a wireless network. This can be done based on a fixed period – e.g. 6 to 12 months, or when the read data is suspected to be no longer accurate.
Smart vehicle detection from the embedded perspective
We can find over 14 vendors for integrated geomagnetic sensors and, by knowing the design criteria of a specific device, the best one can be filtered out by comparing their key parameters. Among them, one may consider the 3.3 V operation, industrial temperature range, high sensitivity, low current, I2C or/and SPI bus interfaces, self-test capability etc.
The figure below illustrates the current consumption of such a sensor versus the number of readings per second. In power-down mode, it requires less than 1 µA, is of triaxial type, uses the I2C bus and comes in a VFLGA package of 2x2x1 mm.
If sensing the magnetic field can be seen as the heart of the device, then all operations need to be supervised by a brain. The Atmel picoPower family of 8-bit AVR microcontrollers was considered in this respect. It achieves throughputs around 1 MIPS per MHz, the target platform running at 3.3 V and 8 MHz. It can respond to a combination of specific restrictions: capable of long-time battery operation, good balance between resources and computing power, power-down capabilities, industrial temperature range, programmable digital IOs, I2C and UART interfaces, high-level programming support, self-programmable flash memory, and many others. Projects can be developed using Atmel Studio, Atmel AVR8 GNU toolchain, WinAVR, Labcenter Proteus, or Arduino IDE.
The code of the project is written entirely in C++.
The ATmega328P chip is consuming only 0.1 µA in power-down mode, and 3.2 mA in active mode for the specified configuration. An overview of the terminal and its belonging modules is given below.
The terminal is powered by a rechargeable battery, which may consist of 3 to 5 cells of 18650 type. The voltage usually differs after various recharging phases, the role of the low-dropout voltage regulator being to assure that all three chips – sensor, microcontroller and wireless – are always operating at a stabilized voltage of 3.3 V. If the maximum allowed voltage for the mentioned chips is around 3.6 V, then a fully charged battery pack will damage the components if connected directly. A key parameter of the regulator is the dropout value as a function of temperature, as in the following picture.
In this plot, 48.3 mA is the maximum current drawn by all circuits in active mode, the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless module having the largest contribution to this value. Using a power of 8 dBm, it can send data at a maximum indoor range of 60 m. If the transmitter is under a vehicle – which is the case of an occupied slot – this range is reduced due to the massive metallic shielding. The power-down current consumption of the considered transmitter module is less than 3 µA.
It can be observed that at room temperature the dropout is around 100 mV, meaning that a battery of 3.4 V can still drive the circuits. When the required current is close to the lowest possible value – everything set to power-down mode – the dropout voltage decreases to less than 10 mV.
Because one design goal for the terminal is a long battery lifetime, determining fewer direct human interventions to it, let us consider a couple of simple examples for the current budget. The worst-case for the power supply would be running constantly in active mode, with no power-down at all. If the battery capacity is 10 Ah it will be drained in eight days and a half. If everything can be set to power-down mode without interruption, using the same logic for calculating the battery lifetime will lead to unrealistic durations; large temperature variations between seasons will shorten the battery lifetime quicker than the total current of approximately 4.1 µA.
If the battery lifetime goal is set to three years, the resulting current