text:
1) A CHAZAKAH MADE BY USING ANOTHER PERSON'S PROPERTY
QUESTION: The Mishnah describes acts through which a person is able to make a Chazakah on the property of another person, and that Chazakah serves as proof to his claim that he purchased the rights to use the other person's property for that purpose. The RASHBAM explains that the Mishnah refers to acts done for three years on or with the property of the other person, and the Mishnah means that if one does such acts for three years, then he has a Chazakah of three years.
The Rashbam seems to contradict what he writes earlier. The Rashbam earlier (41a, DH Kol Chazakah), as well as RASHI (or the Hagahah in Rashi, 6b) and TOSFOS (6b, DH v'Iy Chavrei), write that a Chazakah made through the usage of someone else's object takes effect immediately, as soon as the owner fails to protest the usage of his object, and the Machzik can claim that he purchased the rights of usage of that object from the owner. Why, then, does the Rashbam here explain that the Chazakah made through the usage of someone's object is only a Chazakah after three years of usage?
ANSWER: The TUR (CM 153) explains that the Rashbam maintains that when one gives permission to someone to use his property for small usages, it is not the practice to write a Shtar. Therefore, the Chazakah takes effect immediately if the owner does not protest, and the person using the property is believed to claim that he bought the rights to use the property for that purpose. In contrast, it is the practice to write a Shtar for large usages, such as those mentioned in the Mishnah. Therefore, the Machzik can claim only that he bought the rights to that usage after he has used the property for three years, because within three years the owner can demand to see the Shtar.
2) TAKING A SPIRITUALLY DANGEROUS ROUTE
QUESTIONS: The Gemara cites the verse in Yeshayah (33:15) which praises a person who "closes his eyes from viewing evil." Rebbi Chiya bar Aba explains that this refers to a person who does not gaze at women while they are standing at the wash pool washing clothes (when they have to expose parts of their legs to enter the pool). The Gemara asks what situation Rebbi Chiya bar Aba is discussing. If he is discussing a situation in which there is another route to take, then even if the person closes his eyes, he is considered a Rasha for taking this route in the first place! If there is no other route to take, then why does he need to close his eyes? He is an "Ones," and the Torah exempts him! The Gemara answers that, indeed, there is no other route to take, and nevertheless he is required to force himself not to look at the forbidden sites and to turn his head away and close his eyes.
(a) The Gemara says that when there is another route for him to take, he is a "Rasha" for taking the path with the forbidden sites, even if he closes his eyes. The CHAFETZ CHAIM (Sefer Chafetz Chaim, Klal 6, Be'er Mayim Chaim #14) asks that the Gemara in Pesachim (25b) rules that a prohibited form of Hana'ah (pleasure) is permitted when a person could have avoided it, as long as he does not have specific intention to benefit from it ("Efshar v'Eino Mechaven"). Why, then, does the Gemara here call the person a "Rasha" when he could have avoided walking along the path but did not intend to derive pleasure from the forbidden sites there?
(b) The Gemara says that when there is no other route for him to take, he is an "Ones" and there is no reason for the verse to require him to close his eyes. RAV MOSHE FEINSTEIN zt'l (Igros Moshe EH 1:56) asks, why does the Gemara exempt the person with the rule of "Ones"? If there is no other route to take other than the one which contains forbidden sites, then let the person not go at all! Even if he needs to go in order to earn money or for other needs, such necessities do not permit the transgression of Isurim.
(a) The CHAFETZ CHAIM answers that the Isur of Arayos is different, because a person has a strong lust for such Isurim (Chagigah 11b, Makos 23b), and therefore a person must be especially stringent to avoid temptation. Even though he feels that right now he has no desire for such pleasure, nevertheless his Yetzer ha'Ra might overcome him later and, Chas v'Shalom, he might have forbidden thoughts because of the sites that he saw. The IGROS MOSHE (loc. cit.) adds that the Torah itself prohibits one from seeing things which later will cause him to have forbidden thoughts, and it warns a person not to rely on himself to say that he will not have such thoughts: "v'Nishmarta mi'Kol Davar Ra" (Devarim 23:10).
(b) RAV MOSHE FEINSTEIN answers that the problem here is not that the person, by walking there, will certainly sin, but merely that there is a possibility that the person might have forbidden thoughts. Therefore, since it is not a certainty, when there is no other route to take a person is permitted to rely on himself to remove his mind from the forbidden sites, and he is not obligated to lose his money as a result. Only when there is no pressing need for him to walk there is he prohibited to rely on himself to remove his mind from forbidden thoughts.


text:
Synthesis of speech and song: commonalities and differences, style versus individuality
Takeshi Saitou, Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) Hideki Kawahara, Wakayama University
This seminar will feature two distinguished guests from Japan. Dr. Takeshi Saitou of Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) will present his method for Morphing audio from speech to song, by which a text recorded by a speaker can be reprocessed into a song, preserving phonetic realism, with melody and other attributes of singing added.
To follow, Professor Hideki Kawahara of Wakayama University, inventor of the well-known STRAIGHT algorithm for voice synthesis, will present a project on speech analysis and modification method based on an elaborated VOCODER and a morphing procedure. He will then moderate an open discussion of possible ways of handling singing/speaking style and individuality separately.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Calculate Mushrooms, white, microwaved calories from carbohydrates, fats and proteins based on weight
Gravels and Substrates
Materials and Substances
What is rem heavy particles?
Rem (Roentgen Equivalent Man) is the derived unit of any of the quantities expressed as the radiation absorbed dose (rad) equivalent. The dose equivalent in rems is equal to the radiation absorbed dose in rads multiplied by the quality factor. The quality factor is unique to the radiation type. Various radiation types have different biological effect, even for the same amount of radiation absorbed dose (rad). Rem heavy particles expresses the radiation absorbed dose in human tissue to the effective biological damage caused by exposure to heavy particles.read more...»
What is linear density or linear mass density measurement?
The linear density (μ) of a one-dimensional object, also known as linear mass density, is defined as the mass of the object per unit of length. The derived SI unit of the linear density measurement is kilogram per meter (kg/m). The linear density is a property of strings and other one-dimensional objects.read more...»

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


You are here: Home / Tags / Kinship + Dogs / All Categories
Tags: Kinship + Dogs
All Categories (1-6 of 6)
 1. Dialogic dogs and phatic felines: speaking to and through our pets
 Contributor(s):: Nicole M. Dufour
 2. 'Doing good by proxy': human-animal kinship and the 'donation' of canine blood
 Full-text: Available
 | Contributor(s):: Ashall, V., Hobson-West, P.
 This article demonstrates the relevance of animals to medical sociology by arguing that pet owners' accounts of veterinary decision‐making can highlight key sociological themes which are important to both human and animal health. Based on semi‐structured interviews, the article argues...
 3. Understanding our kinship with animals: Input for health care professionals interested in the human-animal bond
 | Contributor(s):: Fine, Aubrey H., Beck, Alan M.
 4. Bitch, Bitch, Bitch: Personal Criticism, Feminist Theory, and Dog-writing
 | Contributor(s):: McHugh, Susan
 5. "This Dog Means Life": Making Interspecies Relations at an Assistance Dog Agency
 | Contributor(s):: Edminster, Avigdor
 6. Another Perspective on Dogs
 | Contributor(s):: Baenninger, Ronald


Pardon me, but the concentrated sulphuric acid does not give off any fumes - you've probably mistaken it for nitric or hydrochloric acid. In chemistry labs, the large dessication jars are filled with H2SO4 in their lower part, so it takes water from, say, filters being dried.
Quote Originally Posted by Struan Gray
On the other hand, Sulphuric acid is usually sold in concentrated form, and then you have the fumes and the hydrophilia to cope with. Not a big deal if you treat it with respect, but I wouldn't have it anywhere that young kids can get at.


Containers & Kubernetes
Exploring container security: Use your own keys to protect your data on GKE
At Google Cloud, we already encrypt data at rest by default, including data in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). However, we understand that you may need additional controls over encryption in GKE, especially for sensitive data that is used or accessed by applications running there.
Today, we're releasing two features to help you protect and control your GKE environment and support regulatory requirements: the general availability of GKE application-layer Secrets encryption, so you can protect your Kubernetes Secrets with envelope encryption; and customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) for GKE persistent disks in beta, giving you more control over encryption of persistent disks.
On Kubernetes Engine, your data is already encrypted at rest by default, including both the disks attached to GKE nodes, and Kubernetes secret objects stored in the control plane database. These features give you control over the encryption keys used to encrypt your data.
Persistent disks in Kubernetes
Persistent disks in GKE are already encrypted at the hardware layer by default, if you have a need to add additional encryption where you manage the encryption keys, read on.
The Container Storage Interface (CSI) provides a standard for exposing arbitrary storage systems to workloads running in Kubernetes. CSI is generally available as of Kubernetes v1.13. This allows third-party storage providers to easily develop plugins for new storage systems without having to touch the core Kubernetes code—giving you more storage options. This is what lets us use encrypted Compute Engine persistent disks in Kubernetes!
To encrypt persistent disks in GKE, you must use the GCP Persistent Disk CSI plugin, which lets you protect disks in GKE with a key that you manage in Cloud KMS—by creating a StorageClass referencing a key. This encryption key is used to encrypt the disks created with that StorageClass. If your organization is required to manage its own key material, the CSI plugin provides the same functionality available in traditional CMEK for persistent disks in GKE.
First you will need to create a Cloud KMS key to use for encryption, then you can create a StorageClass that specifies the Cloud KMS key KMS_KEY_ID to use to encrypt the disk:
kind: StorageClass
 name: csi-gce-pd
 type: pd-standard
 disk-encryption-kms-key: KMS_KEY_ID
Storage volumes provided via CSI can be automatically created or deleted using dynamic provisioning. When you create a PersistentVolumeClaim, this triggers the dynamic creation of a new PersistentVolume using the specified StorageClass. (The CSI external volume plugin provisions a new PersistentVolume, and Kubernetes binds it to the PersistentVolumeClaim and makes it ready for use.)
To create a PersistentVolumeClaim using the above StorageClass:
 kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
 name: podpvc
 - ReadWriteOnce
 storageClassName: csi-gce-pd
 storage: 6Gi
Then, to create a CMEK-protected persistent disk, deploy the PersistentVolumeClaim on your GKE cluster:
 kubectl apply -f pvc.yaml
Note that you can only use CMEK to protect data on new persistent disks attached to nodes in your cluster—you cannot use it to protect existing persistent disks. Nor can you use CMEK to protect node boot disks or control plane disks. To use CMEK with regional clusters, you must use GKE version 1.14 or higher, and the GCE PD CSI driver version 0.5.1 or higher.
Secrets in Kubernetes
The GKE control plane stores API objects, including Kubernetes secrets, inside the etcd database, which sits on a disk encrypted with a Google-managed key.
To add more protection for secrets, Kubernetes has allowed for application-layer envelope encryption of Secrets with a KMS provider since v1.10. A local key is used to encrypt the Secrets (known as a "data encryption key"), and the key is itself encrypted with another key (a "key encryption key") stored in a key management service, not in Kubernetes. This model allows you to regularly rotate the key encryption key without having to re-encrypt all the Secrets.
Application-layer Secrets encryption is now generally available in GKE, so you can protect Secrets with envelope encryption: your Secrets are encrypted with a local AES-256-CBC data encryption key, which is encrypted with a key encryption key that you manage in Cloud KMS.
You can use application-layer Secrets encryption with new clusters and existing clusters. To enable it, specify the --database-encryption-key flag as part of your cluster creation/update, with your Cloud KMS key KMS_KEY_ID:
 gcloud container clusters update [CLUSTER_NAME] \
 --database-encryption-key [KMS_KEY_ID]
Note that you can also use HSM-backed keys as the key encryption key! The only restriction is that you must use a Cloud KMS key in the same location as your cluster.
Support for application-layer Secrets encryption and customer-managed encryption keys provides new levels of assurance to organizations that want to use GKE to process sensitive data. To get started today, check out the documentation on using customer-managed encryption keys for GKE and application-layer Secrets encryption
The GKE team's David Zhu, Software Engineer, and Alex Tcherniakovski, Security Engineer, both contributed to this post.


DearCupid.ORG relationship advice
Whats the difference between cum and sperm?
Question - (1 August 2009) 6 Answers - (Newest, 26 August 2009)
A female United States age 18-21, anonymous writes:
hey there, ok so this is a simple question
what is the difference between cum and sperm??
i'm a girl so that's why i don't know. i also wanted
to know what does ejaculated mean??? thanks =]
View related questions: ejaculate, sperm
<-- Rate this Question
Reply to this Question
A male reader, anonymous, writes (26 August 2009):
To answer your questions directly, "cum" is a slang term, and it can mean two things: it can mean "coming to climax" (referring to both male & female orgasm--although spelled this way it usually refers to males only), or it can mean "semen". Sperm are contained in the semen. You cannot see sperm with the naked eye, and they do not change the appearance of semen.
"Ejaculated" means just what it says. Semen, containing sperm, has been ejaculated from a penis.
Let's clear up the myths and misinformation here. "Pre-cum" comes from a set of glands near the base of the penis, and are not connected with the other glands that produce/supply sperm-containing semen. Pre-cum, in and of itself, cannot get you pregnant. HOWEVER, the following scenario has a chance of getting you pregnant. Let's say that the guy has ejaculated recently (within the last few hours) and has not urinated since then. He begins having sex, and some pre-cum is released. Since he MAY have traces of sperm-containing semen left in his penis, this could make its way out with the pre-cum (or even by itself if there is no pre-cum released) and enter into the vagina. So, even if you plan on using the "pull out" method, which I DO NOT recommend, a guy could already have introduced semen into his girl's vagina--unrelated to his impending ejaculation--and get his girl pregnant. The odds of her getting pregnant are not as great as if he ejaculated directly into her vagina, but is possible and has been documented.
To go a little further: Guys don't produce "tiny bits of cum" while having sex. If anything leaks out at all, it'll be pre-cum. The nervous system has to cause a seminal emission (phase one of an ejaculation)--where semen, containing sperm, is released into the urethra. At this moment, even before the expulsion phase takes place (phase two of an ejaculation, where semen squirts out of a penis), which should normally follow in a few seconds, some semen CAN leak out of the penis. THIS IS WHAT MAKES "PULLING OUT" RISKY. Please use a condom EVERY TIME! :)
<-- Rate this answer
A male reader, anonymous, writes (3 August 2009):
Cum ( or Pre Cum ) is a sort of lubrication that slowly is pumped through the penis. Like is also clear. Sperm is the White sticky substance that comes after male orgasm and the sexual climax. Don't assume that pre cum can't get a female pregnant cause it is possible.
<-- Rate this answer
A male reader, Sandman United States +, writes (1 August 2009):
Sandman agony auntWell...
Cum is actually used interchangeably as both a noun and a verb. As a noun, "cum" is slang for a man's ejaculate - or semen (ejaculate also being both a noun and a verb. Ejaculate being the fluid that comes out of the penis during orgasm. Ejaculate also being the action of what takes place during orgasm). Cum is also a verb, an action word used to describe orgasm (i.e. "I'm gonna cum!"). Men and women both use the word "cum" when approaching, nearing, or having an orgasm.
Sperm is the microscopic component of semen, cum, or ejaculate that causes pregnancy. In about 5ml (one teaspoon) of cum there are about 100-300 million sperm produced! Yep. A whole lotta sperm. There are reasons why men have to produce so much sperm with each ejaculate but that's a long story. Just know that it only takes one of those sperm cells to fertilize an egg.
Semen gives sperm the nourishment it needs to be able to travel its long journey to the egg. Without the energy provided by semen to the sperm, the sperm would die off pretty fast after ejaculation.
Hope this helps!
<-- Rate this answer
A male reader, anonymous, writes (1 August 2009):
cum,sperm,semen,it's all the same and it'll all get you a kid, and for the record,there's this stuff called precum or jiz and that will still get you a kid on the way even though its clear and thin instead of thick and white, if it gets anywhere near the vag opening, you can get knocked up! google and be careful!
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A female reader, Emilysanswers United Kingdom +, writes (1 August 2009):
There is no difference. People just have lots of words for it.
Sperm are the cells that contain his DNA. The little fishy ones. If comes out as a white substance at the moment or orgasm. People call it cum, jiz, and lots of other things.
Sometimes he can produce tiny bits of cum while he is having sex. It leaks out and acts as a lubricant. This can contain sperm and is why people who use the withdrawal (pull out) method have LOTS of kids. ALWAYS USE A CONDOM AS SOON AS HE GETS NAKED!!! People sometimes call this precum.
Ejaculation is basically the proper word for when a boy has an orgasm or cums. Sperm is actually known as the ejaculate in medical terms.
Yes you are a girl but why isn't your school teaching you this? If you aren't getting sex education then you might want to google it online and get some for yourself.
One of the main causes of teen pregnancy is ignorance.
Good Luck!! xx
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A reader, anonymous, writes (1 August 2009):
When a man ejaculates, he shoots a thick white liquid out of his penis. This liquid is semen, also called cum. Contained in semen are sperm. Sperm are male reproductive cells.
If you check out wikipedia, they have some pretty graphic descriptions and media....if that's what you're looking for.
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text:
Automatic Darkening Welding Filter
Definition - What does Automatic Darkening Welding Filter mean?
An automatic darkening welding filter contains a shutter module that is operated electronically. This module contains ultraviolet (UV) and infra red (IR) filters. The UV and IR filters do not need electricity to operate. The liquid crystal light valve, though, is operated electrically.
Safeopedia explains Automatic Darkening Welding Filter
The liquid crystal (LC) light valve is operated electrically. When the voltage is applied, the crystals re-orient themselves, which are separated by two separate sheets of glass. When the bright light from the welding operation strikes the light valve, the control module darkens the LC valve shutter. The liquid crystal is not sensitive to light itself, and it does not change the shade independently. It depends on the control circuit to change the tint of it.


47.6. Logical Decoding Output Plugins
An example output plugin can be found in the contrib/test_decoding subdirectory of the PostgreSQL source tree.
47.6.1. Initialization Function
An output plugin is loaded by dynamically loading a shared library with the output plugin's name as the library base name. The normal library search path is used to locate the library. To provide the required output plugin callbacks and to indicate that the library is actually an output plugin it needs to provide a function named _PG_output_plugin_init. This function is passed a struct that needs to be filled with the callback function pointers for individual actions.
typedef struct OutputPluginCallbacks
 LogicalDecodeStartupCB startup_cb;
 LogicalDecodeBeginCB begin_cb;
 LogicalDecodeChangeCB change_cb;
 LogicalDecodeCommitCB commit_cb;
 LogicalDecodeMessageCB message_cb;
 LogicalDecodeFilterByOriginCB filter_by_origin_cb;
 LogicalDecodeShutdownCB shutdown_cb;
} OutputPluginCallbacks;
typedef void (*LogicalOutputPluginInit)(struct OutputPluginCallbacks *cb);
The begin_cb, change_cb and commit_cb callbacks are required, while startup_cb, filter_by_origin_cb and shutdown_cb are optional.
47.6.2. Capabilities
To decode, format and output changes, output plugins can use most of the backend's normal infrastructure, including calling output functions. Read only access to relations is permitted as long as only relations are accessed that either have been created by initdb in the pg_catalog schema, or have been marked as user provided catalog tables using
ALTER TABLE user_catalog_table SET (user_catalog_table = true);
CREATE TABLE another_catalog_table(data text) WITH (user_catalog_table = true);
Any actions leading to transaction ID assignment are prohibited. That, among others, includes writing to tables, performing DDL changes, and calling txid_current().
47.6.3. Output Modes
Output plugin callbacks can pass data to the consumer in nearly arbitrary formats. For some use cases, like viewing the changes via SQL, returning data in a data type that can contain arbitrary data (e.g., bytea) is cumbersome. If the output plugin only outputs textual data in the server's encoding, it can declare that by setting OutputPluginOptions.output_mode to OUTPUT_PLUGIN_TEXTUAL_OUTPUT instead of OUTPUT_PLUGIN_BINARY_OUTPUT in the startup callback. In that case, all the data has to be in the server's encoding so that a text datum can contain it. This is checked in assertion-enabled builds.
47.6.4. Output Plugin Callbacks
An output plugin gets notified about changes that are happening via various callbacks it needs to provide.
Concurrent transactions are decoded in commit order, and only changes belonging to a specific transaction are decoded between the begin and commit callbacks. Transactions that were rolled back explicitly or implicitly never get decoded. Successful savepoints are folded into the transaction containing them in the order they were executed within that transaction.
Note: Only transactions that have already safely been flushed to disk will be decoded. That can lead to a COMMIT not immediately being decoded in a directly following pg_logical_slot_get_changes() when synchronous_commit is set to off. Startup Callback
The optional startup_cb callback is called whenever a replication slot is created or asked to stream changes, independent of the number of changes that are ready to be put out.
typedef void (*LogicalDecodeStartupCB) (
 struct LogicalDecodingContext *ctx,
 OutputPluginOptions *options,
 bool is_init
The is_init parameter will be true when the replication slot is being created and false otherwise. options points to a struct of options that output plugins can set:
typedef struct OutputPluginOptions
 OutputPluginOutputType output_type;
} OutputPluginOptions;
output_type has to either be set to OUTPUT_PLUGIN_TEXTUAL_OUTPUT or OUTPUT_PLUGIN_BINARY_OUTPUT. See also Section 47.6.3.
The startup callback should validate the options present in ctx->output_plugin_options. If the output plugin needs to have a state, it can use ctx->output_plugin_private to store it. Shutdown Callback
The optional shutdown_cb callback is called whenever a formerly active replication slot is not used anymore and can be used to deallocate resources private to the output plugin. The slot isn't necessarily being dropped, streaming is just being stopped.
typedef void (*LogicalDecodeShutdownCB) (
 struct LogicalDecodingContext *ctx
); Transaction Begin Callback
The required begin_cb callback is called whenever a start of a committed transaction has been decoded. Aborted transactions and their contents never get decoded.
typedef void (*LogicalDecodeBeginCB) (
 struct LogicalDecodingContext *,
 ReorderBufferTXN *txn
The txn parameter contains meta information about the transaction, like the time stamp at which it has been committed and its XID. Transaction End Callback
The required commit_cb callback is called whenever a transaction commit has been decoded. The change_cb callbacks for all modified rows will have been called before this, if there have been any modified rows.
typedef void (*LogicalDecodeCommitCB) (
 struct LogicalDecodingContext *,
 ReorderBufferTXN *txn
); Change Callback
The required change_cb callback is called for every individual row modification inside a transaction, may it be an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE. Even if the original command modified several rows at once the callback will be called individually for each row.
typedef void (*LogicalDecodeChangeCB) (
 struct LogicalDecodingContext *ctx,
 ReorderBufferTXN *txn,
 Relation relation,
 ReorderBufferChange *change
The ctx and txn parameters have the same contents as for the begin_cb and commit_cb callbacks, but additionally the relation descriptor relation points to the relation the row belongs to and a struct change describing the row modification are passed in.
Note: Only changes in user defined tables that are not unlogged (see UNLOGGED) and not temporary (see TEMPORARY or TEMP) can be extracted using logical decoding. Origin Filter Callback
The optional filter_by_origin_cb callback is called to determine whether data that has been replayed from origin_id is of interest to the output plugin.
typedef bool (*LogicalDecodeFilterByOriginCB) (
 struct LogicalDecodingContext *ctx,
 RepNodeId origin_id
The ctx parameter has the same contents as for the other callbacks. No information but the origin is available. To signal that changes originating on the passed in node are irrelevant, return true, causing them to be filtered away; false otherwise. The other callbacks will not be called for transactions and changes that have been filtered away.
This is useful when implementing cascading or multidirectional replication solutions. Filtering by the origin allows to prevent replicating the same changes back and forth in such setups. While transactions and changes also carry information about the origin, filtering via this callback is noticeably more efficient. Generic Message Callback
The optional message_cb callback is called whenever a logical decoding message has been decoded.
typedef void (*LogicalDecodeMessageCB) (
 struct LogicalDecodingContext *,
 ReorderBufferTXN *txn,
 XLogRecPtr message_lsn,
 bool transactional,
 const char *prefix,
 Size message_size,
 const char *message
The txn parameter contains meta information about the transaction, like the time stamp at which it has been committed and its XID. Note however that it can be NULL when the message is non-transactional and the XID was not assigned yet in the transaction which logged the message. The lsn has WAL position of the message. The transactional says if the message was sent as transactional or not. The prefix is arbitrary null-terminated prefix which can be used for identifying interesting messages for the current plugin. And finally the message parameter holds the actual message of message_size size.
Extra care should be taken to ensure that the prefix the output plugin considers interesting is unique. Using name of the extension or the output plugin itself is often a good choice.
47.6.5. Functions for Producing Output
To actually produce output, output plugins can write data to the StringInfo output buffer in ctx->out when inside the begin_cb, commit_cb, or change_cb callbacks. Before writing to the output buffer, OutputPluginPrepareWrite(ctx, last_write) has to be called, and after finishing writing to the buffer, OutputPluginWrite(ctx, last_write) has to be called to perform the write. The last_write indicates whether a particular write was the callback's last write.
The following example shows how to output data to the consumer of an output plugin:
OutputPluginPrepareWrite(ctx, true);
appendStringInfo(ctx->out, "BEGIN %u", txn->xid);
OutputPluginWrite(ctx, true);
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Thinking about good practice at Enterprising Communities
"The purpose of this guidance is to help trustees comply with their legal trustee duties when overseeing their charity's fundraising. It sets out 6 principles to help them achieve this.
It focuses primarily on matters within the Commission's regulatory remit. It is not a guide to the wide range of laws and regulations that apply to specific types and aspects of fundraising, but it provides links to sources of information about these rules".
Source: Fundraising for Trustees CC20 The Charity Commission.
Trustee fundraising guidance cover image and link
Trustee fundraising guidance – full details (pdf)
We detail the key principles of Trustee responsibility here
 1. Planning effectively
 This is about you and your co-trustees agreeing or setting, and then monitoring, your charity's overall approach to fundraising. Your fundraising plan should also take account of risks, your charity's values and its relationship with donors and the wider public, as well as its income needs and expectations.
2. Supervising your fundraisers
This is about you and your co-trustees having systems in place to oversee the fundraising which others carry out for your charity, so that you can be satisfied that it is, and remains, in your charity's best interests. It means delegating responsibly so that your charity's in-house and volunteer fundraisers, and any connected companies, know what is expected of them. If you employ a commercial partner to raise funds for your charity, the arrangement must be in the charity's best interests and comply with any specific legal rules and standards that apply.
3. Protecting your charity's reputation, money and other assets
This means ensuring that there is strong management of your charity's assets and resources so that you can meet your legal trustee duty to act in your charity's best interests and protect it from undue risk. It includes ensuring that there is adequate consideration of the impact of your charity's fundraising on its donors, supporters and the public, making sure that your charity receives all the money to which it is entitled, and taking steps to reduce risk of loss or fraud.
4. Identifying and ensuring compliance with the laws or regulations that apply specifically to your charity's fundraising
The legal rules that apply to various types of fundraising can be detailed and complex. They cover compliance in important areas such as with data protection law, licensing, and working with commercial partners. There are new rules in the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016 which affect some charities that fundraise. You should make sure that your charity has access to sufficient information and appropriate advice to ensure that its fundraising complies with all relevant legal rules.
5. Identifying and following any recognised standards that apply to your charity's fundraising
These are in the Fundraising Regulator's Code of Fundraising Practice. The Code outlines both the legal rules that apply to fundraising and the standards designed to ensure that fundraising is open, honest and respectful. The Commission expects all charities that fundraise to fully comply with the Code.
6. Being open and accountable
This includes complying with any relevant statutory accounting and reporting requirements on fundraising and using reporting to demonstrate that your charity is well run and effective. In your fundraising communications it is about being able to effectively explain your fundraising work to members of the public and your charity's donors and supporters.
Trustee fundraising check list - image and link
Trustee fundraising check list…(pdf)
The Commission has also published an accompanying check-list for Trustees around fund-raising too.
You can view, print or download a copy of this important reference tool here.
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Helping community enterprise flourish


Chapter 13
Defining Value in the Relevant Context: Definitions of Value
Business valuation normally occurs in context: a specific value or range of values in a given set of defined parameters that, among other factors, include the legal universe in which the value is being considered, the organization of the business, and the particular rights and responsibilities of the ownership stake within that business, all as of the date of the valuation.
Identifying the correct definition of value in the legal context is a crucial beginning step in an appraisal. The belief that "value lies in the eye of the beholder" is not helpful when there is a legal need for a definition of value. Value is defined differently in different legal contexts, and the quest...
Get Analyzing Complex Appraisals for Business Professionals now with O'Reilly online learning.


Can Solar Backpacks Get Wet?
Before investing in a good piece of gear like a solar backpack, it makes sense that you want to make sure it will hold up. There are a lot of different rumors, stories, and claims about how solar backpacks handle water. This article is here to answer all of your questions on the topic.
Solar backpacks are water resistant, but not waterproof. The solar panels will not be damaged from water or rain. So it's perfect fine for solar backpacks to get wet, but as with any pack you don't want an exposed electronic charging when the rain is pouring down and you're soaked.
raindrops on solar panel
Solar Power Must Be Weather Resistant
Considering that solar power by definition needs to be used outdoors, it seems odd to me that so many people wonder if solar backpacks can handle rain.
Solar backpacks are just as durable as your average backpack and many times even more so. While no backpack is likely to be 100% waterproof, solar packs are almost certainly going to be water-resistant.
KEY POINT: Basically questions about solar backpacks usually revolve around how the panels hold up. Solar panels themselves are waterproof, resilient, and designed to get through any weather!
That being said, it is important to take certain precautions. In the same way you wouldn't just jam your laptop into a backpack with no raincoat or protective poncho over the top when it was pouring rain outside, you should take all precautions when using a solar pack.
That has to do with water soaking through backpack material, not whether a pack is solar or not.
As for charging electronics while going through rain, if you have a full cover poncho so no rain is getting through then you should be fine.
Believe it or not, the solar backpacks are still pulling in solar energy during cloudy or rainy weather.
The amount being pulled in is much lower than on a sunny day, but the panels are still working to pull what little energy they can even during inclement weather.
This is a pleasant surprise for many people, as is finding out that portable solar panels can charge via LED lights indoors.
But the solar panels you will find on modern backpacks are designed to go through the wear and tear that they will see through everyday life and use.
Solar Power Made Practical Use
Solar power backpacks are meant to be reliable. Because of the long-time negative news campaigns run against solar power decades ago, there's an unfair (and normally not true) perception of solar as being unreliable.
Which means solar gear needs to work at a higher standard just to get the benefit of the doubt.
So when people ask are solar backpacks reliable the answer needs to be far more enthusiastic than a tepid yes.
This is why many items that are solar powered are built as good or even better than the standard non-solar equivalents.
Your solar backpack will be fine in the rain as long as you take the regular precautions you would with any other backpack.
Quality of Backpack Matters
As with regular backpackers, the quality of the brand of backpack you buy matters when seeing how well your solar backpack will function and hold up.
If you pay for cheap you will get cheap.
The top brand solar backpacks are exceptional. There are even companies that really focus on making solar packs for hikers and backpackers. Obviously these must be able to hold up against inclement weather.
The chances of hiking for three months without getting caught in the rain are going to be next to nothing.
Unless you're doing a desert hike, in which case you wouldn't be worrying about how rain proof or water resistant your pack is.
But if you go with a quality solar backpack, you won't have to worry about that.
We talk about some of our favorite picks for solar backpacks in the "Are solar backpacks reliable?" that we linked to a bit further up.
If you're lazy the picks basically are (with links to up to date Amazon listings):
A good solar backpack will be water resistant and the solar paneling will be just fine no matter how much the water comes down.
How Resilient Solar Panels Are in Storms: A Personal Experience
We survived the horrific Derecho in Cedar Rapids, IA back in 2020. To put the short summary, including those asking "What the heck is a Derecho?" Imagine a category 3 hurricane at full force for two to three hours slamming into the middle of the Midwest of the United States.
A place not exactly known for hurricanes, to put it mildly.
The city was smashed, and large chunks had no power for three weeks. Virtually every house within five blocks had roof damage. At least the ones that still had roofs.
Ours was undamaged. Even the "I don't know how much I trust that structure much less roof" garage (which also has some solar panels on it).
Those solar panels were like Viking shields. Terrifying new weather condition unlike any ever seen in Iowa's history?
Wind, rain, giant tree branches, the panels couldn't care less.
Granted – those are full scale solar panels for homes and buildings versus the smaller portable solar panels put onto backpacks.
But it goes to show that solar panels in all their forms aren't considered about rain, sleet, or snow.
If this seems amazing keep in mind they have already developed solar panels that harvest additional energy from rain drops.
As anyone who has watched solar grow over the past 20 years, the technology is only going to continue to get better and better.
The Verdict: Solar Backpacks Work Well in Rain
The only major difference between solar backpacks and regular packs is that the solar packs give you the option of harnessing solar power in order to charge electronics like smartphones, laptops, or tablets.
These will be just as water resistant as most well built backpacks while helping you to keep important electronics charged even when you're a long way from the nearest charging port.
As long as you stay with the proven dependable solar backpack brands you can rest easy knowing that your solar backpack will function just fine in the rain.
Hi, I'm Shane! I've always felt a passion for two worlds: one in technology and one for the great oudoors away from it. The amazing advances in solar power in my lifetime have really opened up the possibilities, and both my brother and I are deeply passionate about where solar power meets outdoor gear!
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Much has been written about the challenges churches faced in maintaining corporate worship during the pandemic, but little has been reported on the changes brought about in religious education.
Yet a new national study from Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows key elements of church-based religious education suffered greatly and have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.
While these challenges affected all age levels, the greatest changes appear to have been in programming for preschoolers, children and youth. As one indicator, vacation Bible school took a severe hit and even this year will not return to its pre-pandemic levels.
Prior to the pandemic, 36% of churches offered VBS or some similar form of church day camps during the summer. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, only 17% of congregations offered VBS. That number rebounded back to 36% in summer 2021, but this year, only 31% of churches say they plan to offer VBS in 2022.
Across the board, however, churches responded with creativity to the limitations on in-person gatherings created by COVID-19.
"Religious education leaders showed considerable originality using online tools, strengthening at-home DIY efforts, hosting intergenerational activities with COVID precautions, and creating novel approaches like Pizza Church or Dungeons and Dragons clubs," said principal investigator Scott Thumma.
The new study, Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations: Innovation Amidst and Beyond Covid-19 study is a collaborative, five-year research project funded by Lilly Endowment and led by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.
While most U.S. churches shut down all in-person religious education and worship events during the first months of the pandemic, worship came back online much sooner than religious education, the study found. One reason is that worship services are more easily offered in an online or hybrid format than children's Sunday school, for example.
"Our earlier studies from summer and winter 2021 provided an indication that although worship was being held in person in at least 90% of churches, religious education was still far from normal," the researchers noted. "It is precisely these types of religious educational programs and activities for children and youth that dramatically shape the next generations of church participants, suggesting that these pandemic challenges and adaptations will have much longer-term consequences for religious communities."
In short, the researchers said: "It is clear that religious educational programming has been slow to adapt and recover from the pandemic. Our initial survey of the study conducted in summer 2021 showed that the participation of children and youth had decreased for 60% of churches and adult involvement in religious education dropped in 51% of congregations. As the most recent March 2022 survey shows, while 46% of congregations surveyed agreed that their education programming had continued without major disruption, half had faced major disruption."
But as with nearly every other pandemic-related trend, these challenges were not felt equally by all congregations: "Smaller churches, those in the mainline tradition, and churches that did not quickly return to a modified in-person education program suffered more during the past two years. It is also clear that virtual religious education did not work well for younger children and youth, though it has benefited adult education efforts. Based on open-ended comments, religious education is being reconceptualized for a significant group of churches, discontinued for a smaller percentage, and is back to 'business as usual' for the remaining congregations."
The net effect, two years later, is that the number of congregations reporting a "strong emphasis" on children's religious education has dropped from 57% before the pandemic to 43%.
Notably, nationwide involvement in children's programming at U.S. churches has dropped 30%, while involvement in youth education has declined 40%.
Among multiple factors, a key driver is less availability of volunteers to teach or lead these classes.
"Overall volunteering has been significantly down since the pandemic, from roughly 40% of the membership in early 2020 to 20% in March 2022."
"Throughout the pandemic, many congregations have struggled to cultivate consistent and reliable volunteers for ministry programming," the report explains. "Overall volunteering has been significantly down since the pandemic, from roughly 40% of the membership in early 2020 to 20% in March 2022.
"Given this pattern and the fact that lay volunteers make up the bulk of children's and youth education programming, it is not surprising that 57% of churches agreed they had volunteer challenges in the education program during the past two years."
Again, the situation has been more severe in smaller churches than in larger churches, which have a larger pool of potential volunteers.
Adult religious education has proved more flexible and has endured the storm better, researchers found.
"In our pre-pandemic 2020 survey, all but 4% of congregations reported offering religious education for adults and 60% of faith communities gave this activity 'a lot of emphasis.' Based on our most recent survey, churches were better equipped to carry this support of adult education into a COVID situation than the aforementioned programming for younger audiences. Fewer churches put their adult education programs on pause compared to their children's programs, with roughly two-thirds of congregations moving classes online or to a hybrid context.
"By the summer of 2021, adult religious education participation had declined for about half (51%) of the churches surveyed, but only 18% stopped outright. Sixteen percent of programs even saw an increase in participation. In our November 2021 survey, adult programs looked relatively the same as they had six months before, with 17% growing and 50% having decreased.
"Our March 2022 survey showed that adult education participation as a whole had the smallest losses compared to pre-pandemic levels, and many churches' adult programs remained even (23%) or grew (25%) since 2019."
Most comprehensive study yet of COVID's impact on churches finds uneven results
In a world of haves and have-nots, America's churches should capitalize on their strengths, religion researcher says
Another major study confirms: Most American congregations are small, but most churchgoers attend large congregations


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, or theBecause of the loss of face, she completely severed communications with me, even though she was supposedBut we have to learn diplomacy to show there is no loss of face in having basic skills improved, and 1) Face to Face Communication Creates More Motivation.Face to face communication is particularly suitable for discussion as there is immediate feedback from the listener.Free Communication Skills Resources.
Definition of face-to-face - English Dictionary.B1 directly, meeting someone in the same place: Weve spoken on the phone but never face-to-face. She came face-to-face with her attacker in the courtroom.


Rachmaninoff the most innovative composer ever...says computer
Sergei Rachmaninoff came top of the computer model's rankings
Sergei Rachmaninoff came top of the computer model's rankings Credit: Alamy
Rachmaninoff was officially the most innovative of all the great composers, a computer has declared.
Scientists in South Korea have built an algorithm which they claim is capable of judging objectively the extent to which 19 of the best known composers brought the art form forward.
They developed a computer model which divided each of the musicians' compositions into "codewords", which were then used to compare hundreds of pieces of music both against the composers' previous works and the wider cannon.
It found Sergei Rachmaninoff, a giant of the late Romantic period, scored the highest, followed by J.S. Bach, Brahms and Mendelssohn.
Beethoven - on most critics' shortlist of the best composer of all time - only featured in the lower half of the innovation rankings, but the scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology still acknowledged the Germa to be one of the most "influential".
"Our model allows us to calculate the degree of shared melodies and harmonies between past and future works and to observe the evolution of western musical styles by demonstrating how prominent composers may have influenced each other," said Juyong Park, who worked on the study.
The exercise has been criticised by a leading Cambridge University musicologist as "trite" and incapable of quantifying and comparing musical quality.
Dr David Trippett an expert on 19th Century music, said: "Originality and creativity are inherently resistant to quantification.
"I wouldn't want to discourage scientists.
"The potential is that one day we might put all musical parameters into a magic pot and use the power of artificial intelligence to cook them up, but we're no way near that yet.
"These are baby steps."
A brilliant performer on the piano, Sergei Rachmaninov is best known for his piano compositions.
He was born in Russian in 1873, emigrating to the United States following the Russian revolution.


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BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic formal right hepatectomy remains a technical challenge. We propose that the procedure can be accomplished efficiently with standard laparoscopic techniques, in ordered sequence, using smaller incisions, and having identical outcomes as the open procedure.
METHOD: We reviewed 25 consecutive video recordings of formal laparoscopic right hepatectomy performed over a 4 month period. Instruments include 3 – 4 trocars, and a wound protector-hand port (Gelport). Bipolar (Ligasure) and monopolar cautery, and ultrasonic shears are the primary energy sources. Instruments consist of atraumatic graspers and fine-tip dissectors. The 30- and 45-degree angled videoscope are used. Hepatic vessels are ligated with grey-load endoscopic staplers and white-load staplers are used for liver parenchyma. The technique is parceled into five sequences: (1) hilar dissection to divide cystic duct/artery, right hepatic artery, right portal vein, (2) release ligamentous attachments laterally and superiorly, (3) divide retro-hepatic veins to IVC, (4) isolate/ligate right hepatic vein, (5) divide liver parenchyma. All staplers and sutures are pre-loaded.
RESULTS: In all cases of formal right hepatectomy, we have consistently adopted this approach and sequence of dissection for efficiency and teaching. Each case requires two surgeons and total operative times range from 120 – 150 mins (average time requirements for the five major sequences are: hilar dissection 20 mins, attachments 10 mins, retrohepatic veins 15 mins, right HV 10 mins, parenchyma 10 mins). Typically, 4 grey-load staplers and 5 white-load staplers are used in a case, depending on the size of the liver. The liver lobe and gallbladder are removed through a 7 cm protected midline incision.
CONCLUSIONS: Efficiency of laparoscopic-assisted formal right hepatectomy with vascular isolation can be enhanced with a consistent approach and sequence. We advocate deconstructing this major operation into smaller parcels for instructional purposes, which also enables the team to prepare and anticipate requirements for each sequence.
Program Number: P429


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Bandwidth usage analysis of service location protocol
A resource discovery protocol allows networked embedded processors and handheld devices to discover each other's capabilities. Service Location Protocol (SLP) has been proposed by the IETF for that purpose. The usage of bandwidth, or the amount of traffic, that such a protocol makes is a characteristic that is particularly relevant when devices are mobile and wireless. Protocols that are less chatty are more desirable because wireless bandwidth is a scarce resource as well as mobile device power. The goal of this work is to characterize the usage of bandwidth SLP makes and to contrast it with the usage of bandwidth that JINI makes, which is another resource discovery protocol. We present equations characterizing the usage of bandwidth made by SLP and JINI.
|Conference||International Workshops on Parallel Processing, ICPP 2000|
Barbeau, M. (2000). Bandwidth usage analysis of service location protocol. Presented at the International Workshops on Parallel Processing, ICPP 2000. doi:10.1109/ICPPW.2000.869087


Literary Fiction
The Tiger's Wife – Téa Obreht
27 July 2019
The Tiger's Wife Book Cover The Tiger's Wife
Téa Obreht
June 23, 2011
'Having sifted through everything I have heard about the tiger and his wife, I can tell you that this much is fact: in April of 1941, without declaration or warning, the German bombs started falling over the city and did not stop for three days. The tiger did not know that they were bombs...' A tiger escapes from the local zoo, padding through the ruined streets and onwards, to a ridge above the Balkan village of Galina. His nocturnal visits hold the villagers in a terrified thrall. But for one boy, the tiger is a thing of magic - Shere Khan awoken from the pages of The Jungle Book. Natalia is the granddaughter of that boy. Now a doctor, she is visiting orphanages after another war has devastated the Balkans. On this journey, she receives word of her beloved grandfather's death, far from their home, in circumstances shrouded in mystery. From fragments of stories her grandfather told her as a child, Natalia realises he may have died searching for 'the deathless man', a vagabond who was said to be immortal. Struggling to understand why a man of science would undertake such a quest, she stumbles upon a clue that will lead her to a tattered copy of The Jungle Book, and then to the extraordinary story of the tiger's wife.
The Tiger's Wife is an outstanding ambitious book of depth and meaning that draws links between a troubled aftermath in a war-torn region with the backdrop of superstition and myths. There is a theme adopted throughout the book that opposing positions are regularly confronted, such as modern technology and medicine, with fables and folklore. This contrast also relates to the novel's location which is within former Yugoslavia but with families now spread across two unspecified countries where borders have been defined with bloodshed.
Natalia is a young doctor visiting the region on a humanitarian mission to establish a clinic at an orphanage and inoculate the children. She faces the task of administering modern antibiotics to the children while the villagers are digging over a field seeking the bones of a relation, buried 12 years earlier. Rather than feel secure with medical treatment, they feel they need to focus on collecting all the bones and ceremoniously bury the body so the illnesses that have befallen their village can be lifted.
Natalia is soon informed of her Grandfather's death and her memories of him as a doctor and the stories he regaled her with, come to the fore, and she sees the dichotomy of a man of medicine with a belief in fables as she holds onto his cherished copy of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.
"Everything necessary to understand my grandfather lies between two stories: the story of the tiger's wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life. … One which I learned after his death, is the story of how my grandfather became a man; the other, which he told me, is of how he became a child again."
The background to the stories is told at different time periods and the grandfather's connection with them is fascinating and thought-provoking.
The deathless man was the nephew of death himself, who came to heal but ended up carrying the souls of the dead to the other side. A story that possibly resonated with his medical profession and the contrast is once again evident to see, between healing and death.
An escaped tiger after months of roaming the countryside took refuge just outside the little village of Galina. Sometimes coming closer but mainly staying out of reach. The butcher of Galina, Luka, had a wife who was known as "the deaf-mute girl," a wife he subjected to vicious beatings. After Luka died from what is believed to have been the tiger, his wife became known as "the tiger's wife" and she is known to frequent a barn where the tiger has been seen. When she is recognised as being pregnant the villagers claim that she's carrying the tiger's baby. Natalia's grandfather as a young boy knows the tiger's wife and is the only villager unafraid of the tiger but he has a secret that he maintains from everyone. He sees the manifestation of Shere Khan from The Jungle Book and his imagination like many of the villagers is set to proffer another myth.
The novel is unique and wonderfully delivered with exceptional story-telling from Téa Obreht. It achieved a wonderful balance of interfacing religion, culture, new and old, reality and superstition, war and peace, destruction and rebuilding, contemporary medicine and traditional healing. A story where the reader can interpret the meaning as they wish and project deeper meaning into the two fables.
I would highly recommend reading this book and I feel it is a worthy prize-winner.
Peter Donnelly
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Paper Chain Connections is a fun literacy activity for the holidays! Students make connections while reading, and they write their connections on slips of paper. They link their connections together to form a long paper chain that can be used to decorate a Christmas tree. Great for literacy centers! You can grab it from my TpT store absolutely free!
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Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
by Marc Deisenroth and Yicheng Luo
We will implement the PCA algorithm using the projection perspective. We will first implement PCA, then apply it to the MNIST digit dataset.
Learning objectives
 1. Write code that implements PCA.
 2. Write code that implements PCA for high-dimensional datasets
Let's first import the packages we need for this week.
In [1]:
import numpy as np
import timeit
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt'fivethirtyeight')
from ipywidgets import interact
from sklearn.datasets import fetch_mldata
In [2]:
from sklearn.datasets import fetch_openml
images, labels = fetch_openml('mnist_784', version=1, return_X_y=True)
In [3]:
%matplotlib inline
Now, let's plot a digit from the dataset:
In [4]:
plt.imshow(images[0].reshape(28,28), cmap='gray');
Before we implement PCA, we will need to do some data preprocessing. In this assessment, some of them will be implemented by you, others we will take care of. However, when you are working on real world problems, you will need to do all these steps by yourself.
The preprocessing steps we will do are
 1. Convert unsigned interger 8 (uint8) encoding of pixels to a floating point number between 0 and 1.
 2. Subtract from each image the mean $\boldsymbol \mu$.
 3. Scale each dimension of each image by $\frac{1}{\sigma}$ where $\sigma$ is the stardard deviation.
The steps above ensure that our images will have zero mean and one variance. These preprocessing steps are also known as Data Normalization or Feature Scaling.
1. PCA
Now we will implement PCA. Before we do that, let's pause for a moment and think about the steps for performing PCA. Assume that we are performing PCA on some dataset $\boldsymbol X$ for $M$ principal components. We then need to perform the following steps, which we break into parts:
 1. Data normalization (normalize).
 2. Find eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors for the covariance matrix $S$. Sort by the largest eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenvectors (eig).
After these steps, we can then compute the projection and reconstruction of the data onto the spaced spanned by the top $n$ eigenvectors.
In [5]:
def normalize(X):
 """Normalize the given dataset X
 X: ndarray, dataset
 (Xbar, mean, std): tuple of ndarray, Xbar is the normalized dataset
 with mean 0 and standard deviation 1; mean and std are the
 mean and standard deviation respectively.
 You will encounter dimensions where the standard deviation is
 zero, for those when you do normalization the normalized data
 will be NaN. Handle this by setting using 'std = 1' for those
 dimensions when doing normalization.
 mu = np.zeros(X.shape[1]) # <-- EDIT THIS, compute the mean of X
 std = np.std(X, axis=0)
 std_filled = std.copy()
 std_filled[std==0] = 1.
 Xbar = X # <-- EDIT THIS, compute the normalized data Xbar
 return Xbar, mu, std
def eig(S):
 """Compute the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors
 for the covariance matrix S.
 S: ndarray, covariance matrix
 (eigvals, eigvecs): ndarray, the eigenvalues and eigenvectors
 the eigenvals and eigenvecs should be sorted in descending
 order of the eigen values
 return (None, None) # <-- EDIT THIS to return the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors
def projection_matrix(B):
 """Compute the projection matrix onto the space spanned by 'B'
 B: ndarray of dimension (D, M), the basis for the subspace
 P: the projection matrix
 return np.eye(B.shape[0]) # <-- EDIT THIS to compute the projection matrix
def PCA(X, num_components):
 X: ndarray of size (N, D), where D is the dimension of the data,
 and N is the number of datapoints
 num_components: the number of principal components to use.
 X_reconstruct: ndarray of the reconstruction
 of X from the first 'num_components' principal components.
 # your solution should take advantage of the functions you have implemented above.
 return X # <-- EDIT THIS to return the reconstruction of X
In [6]:
## Some preprocessing of the data
X = (images.reshape(-1, 28 * 28)[:NUM_DATAPOINTS]) / 255.
Xbar, mu, std = normalize(X)
In [7]:
for num_component in range(1, 20):
 from sklearn.decomposition import PCA as SKPCA
 # We can compute a standard solution given by scikit-learn's implementation of PCA
 pca = SKPCA(n_components=num_component, svd_solver='full')
 sklearn_reconst = pca.inverse_transform(pca.fit_transform(Xbar))
 reconst = PCA(Xbar, num_component)
 np.testing.assert_almost_equal(reconst, sklearn_reconst)
 print(np.square(reconst - sklearn_reconst).sum())
The greater number of of principal components we use, the smaller will our reconstruction error be. Now, let's answer the following question:
How many principal components do we need in order to reach a Mean Squared Error (MSE) of less than $100$ for our dataset?
We have provided a function in the next cell that computes the mean squared error (MSE), which will be useful for answering the question above.
In [8]:
def mse(predict, actual):
 """Helper function for computing the mean squared error (MSE)"""
 return np.square(predict - actual).sum(axis=1).mean()
In [ ]:
loss = []
reconstructions = []
# iterate over different numbers of principal components, and compute the MSE
for num_component in range(1, 100):
 reconst = PCA(Xbar, num_component)
 error = mse(reconst, Xbar)
 # print('n = {:d}, reconstruction_error = {:f}'.format(num_component, error))
 loss.append((num_component, error))
reconstructions = np.asarray(reconstructions)
reconstructions = reconstructions * std + mu # "unnormalize" the reconstructed image
loss = np.asarray(loss)
In [ ]:
import pandas as pd
# create a table showing the number of principal components and MSE
We can also put these numbers into perspective by plotting them.
In [ ]:
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(loss[:,0], loss[:,1]);
ax.axhline(100, linestyle='--', color='r', linewidth=2)
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(1, 100, 5));
ax.set(xlabel='num_components', ylabel='MSE', title='MSE vs number of principal components');
But numbers dont't tell us everything! Just what does it mean qualitatively for the loss to decrease from around $450.0$ to less than $100.0$?
Let's find out! In the next cell, we draw the the leftmost image is the original dight. Then we show the reconstruction of the image on the right, in descending number of principal components used.
In [ ]:
_USER_(image_idx=(0, 1000))
def show_num_components_reconst(image_idx):
 fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(20., 20.))
 actual = X[image_idx]
 # concatenate the actual and reconstructed images as large image before plotting it
 x = np.concatenate([actual[np.newaxis, :], reconstructions[:, image_idx]])
 ax.imshow(np.hstack(x.reshape(-1, 28, 28)[np.arange(10)]),
 ax.axvline(28, color='orange', linewidth=2)
We can also browse throught the reconstructions for other digits. Once again, interact becomes handy for visualing the reconstruction.
In [ ]:
_USER_(i=(0, 10))
def show_pca_digits(i=1):
 """Show the i th digit and its reconstruction"""
 actual_sample = X[i].reshape(28,28)
 reconst_sample = (reconst[i, :] * std + mu).reshape(28, 28)
 plt.imshow(np.hstack([actual_sample, reconst_sample]), cmap='gray')
2. PCA for high-dimensional datasets
Sometimes, the dimensionality of our dataset may be larger than the number of samples we have. Then it might be inefficient to perform PCA with our implementation above. Instead, we can implement PCA in a more efficient manner, which we call "PCA for high dimensional data" (PCA_high_dim).
Below are the steps for performing PCA for high dimensional dataset
 1. Compute the matrix $\boldsymbol X\boldsymbol X^T$ (a $N$ by $N$ matrix with $N \ll D$)
 2. Compute eigenvalues $\lambda$s and eigenvectors $V$ for $\boldsymbol X\boldsymbol X^T$
 3. Compute the eigenvectors for the original covariance matrix as $\boldsymbol X^T\boldsymbol V$. Choose the eigenvectors associated with the M largest eigenvalues to be the basis of the principal subspace $U$.
 4.


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This week, researchers from Norway have reported that people who take part in or attend 'cultural' activities tend to have better physical and mental health. And cultural activities are defined as creative – such as playing music or drawing; and they're defined as receptive – such as going to the theatre, a museum and watching sport.
Publishing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Koenraad Cuypers and his team sent surveys to tens of thousands of people in a rural region of Norway asking questions about their activities, happiness and perceived health. The researchers then took the results, ran some statistical tests and found this association between cultural activities and health.
Cuypers, who's from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, found that it was especially men in whom this relationship was most apparent. More than females, males reported higher levels of satisfaction, happiness and better perceived health if they took part in the receptive activities such as watching sport or going to a museum.
They also found that people in lower socioeconomic groups were less likely to attend either type of cultural activity, and that women were especially happy if they took part in more creative forms of culture. In addition, people tended to take part in more cultural activities the older they became up until they reached their forties, when it started to decline again.
The researchers stress they can't identify a causative relationship; they don't know if a bit of culture makes you happier or if happier/healthier people tend to involve more culture in their lives.


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A study of the velocity structure in a marine boundary layer : instrumentation and observations
Tochko, John Steven
MetadataShow full item record
KeywordRemote sensing; Oceanographic instruments; Boundary layer; Turbulence; Turbulent boundary layer; Ocean bottom
The design and operation of a unique flow measuring instrument for bottom boundary layer studies in the marine environment is documented. The effectiveness of the instrument in acquiring data with which models of near bottom flows in the ocean can be tested is demonstrated by the results of a field experiment in Vineyard Sound. The instrument uses four sensors which measure the mean and fluctuating parts of the three components of the velocity vector at four heights above the sea bed. The sensors employ the acoustic travel time difference technique, and are designed to minimize sensor-induced flow disturbances. BASS, an acronym for Benthic Acoustic Stress Sensor, has a resolution of.033 cm/sec per least bit, a range of ±62 cm/sec, noise of.07 cm/sec in 10 sec, and an estimated accuracy of ±.5 cm/sec, referred to an in situ zero point. A complete set of velocity measurements is made every.750 seconds, each measurement being the vector component averaged over 15 cm. The data is internally recorded on digital cassette tape. Eight hours of continuous data can be recorded. BASS was deployed in a tidal flow in Vineyard Sound at a depth of 10 m where a time series of u, v, and w velocities at 26 cm, 46 cm, 96 cm, and 210 cm above the bottom was recorded. The mean velocity was determined by fitting each 6 hour series with a sixth order polynomial and the deviations from the polynomial, the fluctuating velocity components, were correlated to produce Reynolds stress profiles. The stress series shows very few negative stress events while the dominant positive events have an average duration of 5 seconds and exceed 30 dynes/cm2. Zero offset was removed from the mean by assuming a log profile at maximum ebb. Deviations from a log profile developed when the current dropped below 40% of maximum, i.e., when the flow could no longer be considered steady. A break in the Reynolds stress profile at 1 m suggested a larger length scale than the 1 cm bottom roughness was present in the flow. A value of u* was determined by using the quadratic drag law (u* = 1.56 cm/sec), the log profile method (u* = 1.60 cm/sec), and the eddy correlation method (u* = 1.91 cm/sec). Integral length scales of 5 m cross-stream, and 2.5 m vertically were identified by correlation calculations. Two length scales were present in the downstream direction, 5 m within 1 meter of the wall and 8 m further from the wall.
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1978
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
Development of the BASS rake acoustic current sensor : measuring velocity in the continental shelf wave bottom boundary layer Morrison, Archie T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1997-06)Surface swell over the continental shelf generates a sheet of oscillatory shear flow at the base of the water column, the continental shelf wave bottom boundary layer. The short periods of surface swell sharply limit the...
Shaw, William J. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1999-09)The bottom boundary layer is an important dynamical region of shallow water flows. In this thesis, the problem of turbulent mixing in the coastal bottom boundary layer is investigated with a unique set of field measurements...
Fredericks, Janet J.; Trowbridge, John H.; Williams, Albert J. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1998-07)Electromagnetic fluctuations and turbulent vorticity fluctuations were measured over a nine month period in the strong tidal flows of the Strait of Juan De Fuca off the coast of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington....


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Emerging economies and India's mining industry
The mining industry had borne the brunt of the global recession.
However, higher economic growth, good quality resources and growing domestic demand has induced the shifting of mining activity to emerging economies. Our report provides an insight into India's mining industry and how our professionals can address a wide spectrum of issues, such as:
- Regulatory and tax policy
- Risk management
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Process improvement
- Human capital
- Financial modelling
- Capital raising
India currently produces around 89 minerals under different groups, with fuel minerals, metallic minerals, non-metallic minerals, atomic minerals and minor minerals.
Global mining overview
The rapid pace of growth that the mining industry had been enjoying for over a decade was arrested in 2008–09, with the advent of global recession. World economic growth decelerated quickly, adversely affecting both developed and emerging economies.
Some of the significant factors governing the global mining industry during this period include:
- Volatile and uncertain scenario
- Financial institutions and markets losing credibility
- Diminishing confidence of counterparties
- Effective stagnation of the interbank market
- Heavy economic slowdown
- Cost inflation
- Capital raising and investments
Emerging economies: the future growth engine
Emerging markets have played a significant role in the global mining and metals sector, particularly since the last decade. Emerging countries have stepped in to incrementally meet the growing global demand for minerals and in the process gained increasing market share in global minerals trade.
- Exploration trends: Emerging economies' share of exploration expenditure has increased from around 40% at the beginning of the decade to around 60% in recent years.
- Major mining markets:
- In 2012, Latin America was the most popular global exploration spending destination, accounting for a 25% share, mostly targeted toward gold exploration.
- Africa's share of global exploration spending rose to 17%, making it the second-most preferred destination for exploration in 2012.
- Among other emerging market economies, China and Russia, along with Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Finland and Turkey, accounted for the fourth-largest budget share.
- M&A trends: Emerging markets have accounted for a significant portion of inbound M&A deals in mining and metals targeting assets in emerging economies rising during 2007–2012.
- Significant mineral reserves: Emerging economies hold almost all of the minerals reserves of platinum group metals (PGMs) (98%) and tin (95%).
Why the shift of mining activity to emerging economies?
Various factors have contributed to the growth of the mining sector in emerging markets, such as:
- Commodity demand and price boom
- Liberalization of mineral policies
- Technological advancement
- Mining reforms
- Increased privatization
Mining in India
India currently produces around 89 minerals under different groups, with fuel minerals, metallic minerals, non-metallic minerals, atomic minerals and minor minerals. The country has immense potential for mining resources and reserves and is currently among the top 10 global producers of many minerals.
India's global position in mineral production
Source: Annual report FY13, Ministry of mines, Government of India
After growing at more than 8% for many years, the Indian economy registered a GDP growth of 5% in FY13, the lowest in almost a decade. The on-going slowdown has had an impact on demand for metals across all of the major consuming sectors. In line with the overall trend, the index of mineral production for FY13 is estimated to be 121.91 as compared to 128.45 for FY12, registering a negative growth.
Impact of currency depreciation
- The Rupee's depreciation is on balance and is positive for the Indian mining sector. Most of the mining companies in India are net exporters and would experience a positive impact on bottom lines.
- The ban on iron-ore mining in Karnataka and Goa resulted in a current account deficit, making it imperative for the government to curb imports and promote exports.
- Hikes in export duty, and restriction on mining and blanket bans have prevented the government from earning forex revenue on exports.
Challenges in India's mining sector
Social license to operate
Sharing the benefits
Margin protection and productivity improvement
Capital project execution
Competition for land usage
Fraud & Corruption
Future of the mining industry in India
- Despite the slowdown, India is still the second-fastest growing economy, after China.
- Demand for minerals, as well as for mining services, is robust in the country.
- Mining in India is becoming more structured, and companies have started outsourcing part of the project to mining service companies.
- The largest mining company in India, i.e., Coal India Limited (CIL), plans to invest around INR254 billion during the Twelfth FYP (2012–17).
- Contract mining could prove to be a solution to the on-going current coal deficit in country.
- As the industry focuses on adapting international levels of technology, there exists untapped potential in the Indian mining equipment sector.


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Goto: Documentation Home
To ensure maximum interoperability and simplified handling for implementing systems the rules by which data is passed between systems is clearly defined.
The GNAP protocol uses a standard URL path on GDS Servers, with the majority of request parameters encoded in the request part of the URL. All GDS transactions have a 4 character (A-Z,0-9) transaction code, which is applied after the URL stem of "/GNAP". So to request the BUCK transaction, the formed URL is "/GNAP/BUCK". The /GNAP part should be in uppercase, but servers will accept mixed case, but the BUCK part must be in uppercase.
From the base URL, various conversions and translations can be applied. A transction such as "BUCK" is processed by a generic handler, and these handlers only interface in the binary form of the GNAP protocol, they have no explicit knowledge of the client or how you want the data returned. Therefore you can extend the URL /GNAP/BUCK to include various request options that alter the format of the input and output to this transaction handler, but without the handler actually needing to be involved.
When requesting /GNAP transctions over HTTP link (such as from a browser), the default return format is simplified XML. You can insert a 'Reply Type' conversion between the /GNAP and /BUCK (or whatever transaction you are using) to convert the binary XML format to a format you prefer.
|/GNAP/BUCK||System selected default, which is XML for requests using HTTP on a TCP link|
|/GNAP/x/BUCK||Select XML format response|
|/GNAP/e/BUCK||Select extended XML format, where subpackets are named using an extended format, which can be easier to use in some languages|
|/GNAP/j/BUCK||Select JSON encoded response. There is also a JSON-P response format, described later. (See 'o' request format)
Not all requests can be converted to JSON in a useable form, but this is very rare within GDS transactions, and generally only advanced information (such as decoding time based audit records) that is affected. The problem is that some GNAP data packets contain information in time sequence with variable number of fields, which cannot be represented by the GNAP to JSON convertor. This restriction is unlikely to affect any normal business level requirement.
|/GNAP/t/BUCK||Select Text response format. This format is not fully specified and should be avoided as the result output may change without warning.|
|/GNAP/b/BUCK||Explicitly request GNAP binary format. This might be used by an application (not a browser) that is consuming GNAP data. The result from the transaction handler is sent using the HTTP Content-Type of application/octet-stream.|
|/GNAP/o/BUCK||Extended Options format. This format allows you to specify additional processing arguments beyond what can be given using a single letter as the above options are using.|
The 'o' (for Options) format allows you to specify many more arguments to the formating process. The URL format is /GNAP/o/[arguments]/BUCK
|[mkh,NNN]||Extract the field# NNN from the transaction response, and send that as a complete HTML webpage. mhk is short for "MaKe Html". This is useful where the GNAP transaction returns a complete HTML page in the response. The HTML is not altered from what is contained in the field, no headers or wrappers are applied to the output other than what is already in the transaction response.|
|[jp,NNN]||Convert the response to a format that can be used by JSON-P callback formats. This format is not yet fully specified, however using the form [jp] with no additional parameters will always result in the callback function jp100() being called.|
Where data is held in a multi host system, such that the server can apply the transaction to different input databases, the database itself will have a URL prefix stem, to which the gnap component is applied. Transaction handlers do not have any logic themselves to select different databases, so information about database and security context must be provided external to them.
The RetailMAX example store (a "database") makes some information publicly available. The URL stem for this store is /store/nz/example. Therefore, the gnap request url can be constructed as /store/nz/example/gnap/j/buck?.... This example will request a JSON formatted response, but other output encodings are permitted.
(Advanced, side issue) Technically, the /store/nz/example prefix is constructing a HOST transaction block, and binary request formats, such as direct TCP, can emulate this behaviour with the HOST transaction.
An integer is encoded as a sequence of digits, with an optional leading sign (+ or -). Leading zeros and plus sign (+) are optional and may be discarded. Large numbers are
On input, you can force the GNAP encoding to be 'E' (uppercase E) (4 byte signed integer type) by post fixing the field name with _E (eg "f123_E" or "f123:E")
On output dates are encoded as a pipe delimited list of fields, from year to second. for example, the 1st of March 2008 is delivered as "2008|3|1". For most languages this can be rapidly transformed into native date formats. Time is encoded in 24 hour time. Users are advised that the seconds field can range from 0 to 61 in rare circumstances. (leap seconds)
There are exceptions to this output format for some clients. These apply only to specified client types, such as iPhones being served dates from Meetu4.
On input the formats are slightly more flexible. You can encode in any of the following formats to most servers.
|YYYY|MM|DD|HH|mm|SS|CCC||2008|03|01|13|52|05||Preferred GDS date encoding|
|dd-mmm-yyyy hh:mm:ss.ccc||1-Mar-2008 13:52:05||Textual input format. The month must be encoded using 3 english letter format (jan, feb, etc)|
The format "dd/mm/yyyy" or "mm/dd/yyyy" is expressly forbidden. This format has two digit day and month fields and cannot distiguish between different users intentions. Is "3/1/2008" the 3rd of January, or the 1st of March? This depends on the user and the server cannot reliably interpret this value. Servers are free to report errors whenever this format is used.


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29Bit CAN – Receive message
This block makes it possible to configure a CAN receive message. The block represents the values received recently.
Max. 8 RX messages can be configured. Further messages will be marked as errors.
They can be overwritten multiply during one program cycle f. e.:
- CAN message will be send with 2 ms,
- the cycle of the program task is 10 ms,
- the message is received 4 times, the block gives out the recently received values.
If the output "NewDat" is permanently on High, at least 1 message has been received between 2 program cycles.
Over the parameter dialog (call during implementation of the block or over the context menu):
- the CAN ID (29 Bit),
- an optional description for messages (only for documenting reasons),
- the inputs regarding their data type,
- and an optional description for the regarding input (only for documenting reasons)
can be configured.
Errors during ID giving (decimal/hexadecimal are possible) or configuration of the length of the message (maximum 8 Byte above the assigned data types) are noted accordingly.
Using multiple receive indicator blocks with the same ID is not valid and will be shown as error during download.
Over the error browser the remarked blocks can be searched.
|Data 1-8||O||UCHAR, WORD, LONG, FLOAT||Output signals|


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How to draw wolf step by step. Learn to draw a gray wolf with easy to follow instruction along with images. Again this time is another wild animal or creature tutorial. In this tutorial, we will draw a gray wolf along with its entire body. The gray wolf or grey wolf is the largest extant member of the dog family of mammals. Its body is very similar to common dog. To practice drawing animals is always a good way to explore different forms of anatomy design because of their diverse anatomy and body structures. If you want to be a well rounded concept artist, especially creature concept artist, studying animal drawing is a must. Since different creatures are different in shapes and forms, I usually observe then break it down into simple shapes. This process makes drawing complex structure a lot simpler and easier.
Wolves live, travel and hunt in packs of 4-7 animals on average. Packs include the mother and father wolves, called the alphas, their pups and several other subordinate or young animals. The alpha female and male are the pack leaders that track and hunt prey, choose den sites and establish the pack's territory. Wolves develop close relationships and strong social bonds. They often demonstrate deep affection for their family and may even sacrifice themselves to protect the family unit.
Below are step by step how to draw a wolf. Step one, I started with big circular shape and one oval shape as its snout. Step two, I drew over previous shapes to established a wolf head. Notice that I located the eyes right on top of the smaller oval shape. Then I add more shapes for ears and neck. Step three, I drew over the ears and neck shapes to add fur like detail. Step four, I then add another geometry shape for its body. Step five, I put fur detail on the body then add rough shapes for four legs. Step six, I finished legs drawing and the rest of the wolf body.


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Split-FX Analysis Service
Work with the engineers at Split Engineering to process your pointclouds, run slope stability simulations and write a short report regarding your rock mass. We will consult with you regarding best practices for approaching the LIDAR scanning in the field so that the best possible scan for processing and analysis is obtained.
Pointcloud processing is conducted using the Split-FX® software. This software is designed specifically to extract geotechnical information from point clouds.
For rock mass characterization, important attributes of the geologic structure are extracted from the point clouds, including discontinuity orientation and spacing. The orientation results are plotted on a stereonet and the primary joint sets are determined.
The geologic structure is analyzed using the following steps in the Split-FX program:
- For each section, a meshing direction is identified which is roughly perpendicular to the surface in that section.
- A triangulated surface is created from the point cloud.
- Fracture "patches" are automatically found by finding collections of triangles that conform to a flatness criterion.
- Fractures that appear as traces and not surfaces on the rock slope are extracted by manually delineating the fracture traces on the point cloud.
- The orientation of the fracture patches and traces are plotted on a stereonet, and joint sets are determined. On the FX stereonet, larger fractures are plotted as a larger circle to be able to identify the most persistent discontinuities.
- Data is exported to the modeling software programs for slope stability analysis including plane or wedge failure.
Contact Split Engineering to discuss your project further.
Some key information in order for us to understand your project and formulate a scope of work includes:
- Location to be scanned (state, nearest city, mine or highway mile marker, etc.) and history of the site (old highway being widened, for example).
- Purpose of the scan project (was there a slope failure that we are investigating, for example) and how will this data be used.
- Surface area to be scanned (approximate square meters or square feet of surface area to be scanned).
- Is the scan complete, or does this need to be done? If the scan was already conducted we need information on the type of scanner used, scan point spacing, number of scan positions, among other information.
- What information do you want from the scan:
- Processed point clouds for viewing.
- Rock mass characterization information (fracture orientations, stereonets, fracture spacing, fracture roughness, GSI, etc.).
- Cross sections.
- Slope stability information (factor of safety, probability of failure, for plane wedge and toppling failure).
- Rockfall trajectory analysis.
- Change detection. Note: for this there will need to be "before" and "after" scanning or ongoing periodic scanning.
- Finite element numerical modeling for surface or underground stability analyses.


How to Export Your Mozilla Firefox History as a Dataframe in R
The goal of this post is to export a Mozilla Firefox Browser history and import in R as a dataframe.
Browser history data
Firefox saves your browsing history in a file called places.sqlite. This file contains several tables, like bookmarks, favicons or the history.
To get a dataframe with visited websites, you need two tables from the sqlite file:
 1. moz_historyvisits: it contains all websites you visited with time and date. All websites have an id instead of a readable URL.
 2. moz_places: it contains the translation of the websites id and its actual URL.
More on the database schema:
Import the data into R
sqlite files can be imported with the package RSQLite.
First, find the places.sqlite on your computer. You can get the path, by visiting about:support in Firefox and looking for the Profiles directory.
# connect to database
 dbname = "path/to/places.sqlite",
# get all tables
tables <- dbListTables(con)
# remove internal tables
tables <- tables[tables!= "sqlite_sequence"]
# create a list of dataframes
list_of_df <- purrr::map(tables, ~{
 dbGetQuery(conn = con, statement=paste0("SELECT * FROM '",.x, "'"))
# get the list of dataframes some names
names(list_of_df) <- tables
Extract browser history
Next, we extract the two tables with the information we need, join them and keep only the visited url, the time and the URL id.
There are two caveats:
 1. The timestamps are saved in the PRTime format, which is basically an unix timestamp and you have to convert it in a human-readable format
 2. Extract the domain of a URL using the urltools package, e.g. getting instead of
# get the two dataframes
history <- list_of_df[["moz_historyvisits"]]
urls <- list_of_df[["moz_places"]]
df <- left_join(history, urls, by = c("place_id" = "id")) %>%
 select(place_id, url, visit_date) %>%
 # convert the unix timestamp
 mutate(date = as.POSIXct(as.numeric(visit_date)/_PHONE_, origin = '1970-01-01', tz = 'GMT'),
 # extract the domains from the URL, e.g. '' instead of ''
 domain = str_remove(urltools::domain(url), "www\\."))
2 Kommentare
Hans 2. März 2021 Antworten
Thank you for this interesting post.
Minor comment: For the very last command to execute, I had to load two more packages.
Package dplyr is needed for the command mutate.
Package stringr is needed for the command str_remove.
Katharina 21. März 2021 Antworten
Indeed! 'tidyverse' is my base R 😀
Schreibe einen Kommentar zu Katharina Antworten abbrechen


Question: How Warm Is 63 Degrees?
Is 58 degrees too cold to swim?
Any water temperature below 70 degrees should be treated with caution for those not wearing a wetsuit or drysuit, the National Center for Cold Water Safety warns.
When water temperatures are between 60 and 70 degrees it becomes progressively more difficult to control your breathing..
Is 63 degrees hot or cold?
Is 62 degrees hot or cold?
62 degrees Fahrenheit = 16.67 degrees Celsius How hot is 62°f in Celsius? How cold? Type the information into the input boxes and the degrees in Celsius will update automatically. Once again, 62°f in Celsius is equal to 16.67°c.
Is 60 degrees hot or cold?
What temp is too cold for shorts?
That said, few people will wear shorts when the temperature is 40 degrees. Similarly, someone wearing a winter jacket when the temperature is 90 degrees outside would probably generate a lot of concern or suspicion.
Can you wear shorts at 60 degrees?
Can you wear shorts in 60-degree weather? Some people would say that shorts are not for 60-degree weather. … However, if you are comfortable and you have a high body temperature, you can wear shorts. If you feel that your legs will be cold, you can add tights to lessen the cold.
Is 60 degrees warm enough to swim?
Swimming temperatures are a matter of preference — some people can tolerate much colder temperatures than others. People even acclimatize themselves to swim in the Arctic for short distances. Generally, water cooler than 60 degrees Fahrenheit poses danger to swimmers who go for longer than two hours.
Is it unhealthy to keep your house cold?
Cold homes are bad for health. If you're struggling to pay your heating bills and your home is cold and damp, your health may suffer. Problems and diseases linked to the cold range from blood pressure increases and common colds, to heart attacks and pneumonia.
How cold is too cold to swim in?
77-82F(25-28C) Swimming pool temperature range for Olympic competition. 70F(21C) Water feels quite cold to most people. Treat any water temperature below 70F (21C) with caution. 40F(4.4C) or lower Water is painfully cold.
What is the lowest temperature to set thermostat in winter?
The experts at the Department of Energy share that aiming for a lower interior temp may be the best temperature to set a thermostat in winter. They recommend setting the thermostat at around 68°F or lower during the daylight hours when the home is empty, or at night when everyone is asleep.
Is it cheaper to leave your heating on low?
According to experts at the Energy Saving Trust, the idea it's cheaper to leave the heating on low all day is a myth. … The Energy Saving Trust says if you're keeping the heating on all day you're losing energy all day, so it's better to heat your home only when you need it.
Is 65 degrees too cold for inside?
Do not let it get too cold inside and dress warmly. Even if you keep your temperature between 60°F and 65°F, your home or apartment may not be warm enough to keep you safe. … Set your heat to at least 68–70°F. To save on heating bills, close off rooms you are not using.
Can you swim in 68 degree water?
Anything between 65 and 100 F will not do harm (except particular cases). However, with temperature of the water at 65–70 F or 85–100 F swimming is not comfortable and can be even dangerous. A centigrated and fahrenheit thermometer are placed in a hot water. The water is cooled.
Is 63 degrees warm enough for shorts?
63F is an idea temperature for biking with shorts. Even colder than that would be very pleasant… down to about 50F should be comfortable if you're riding like you mean it. Below that, then in rain or a high wind you might begin to shiver.
Is 63 degrees too cold to swim?
Water Temperature of the Sea Below 8°C (46°F) For swimming this is considered very cold and even the most hardy among us would be foolhardy to venture in for a swim and risk hypothermia if exposed for any more than a few minutes.
Is 68 too cold for House?
Depending on the season, the ideal house temperature for both comfort and efficiency is between 68 to 78 degrees Fahrenheit. In the summer, the recommended thermostat setting is 78 degrees F. In the winter, 68 degrees is recommended for energy savings. However, these temperatures aren't perfect for every situation.
How should I dress at 60 degrees?
What to Wear in 60 Degree WeatherWear light to medium weight fabrics such as cotton, rayon, silk, or merino wool.Start with a foundation layer such as a tank or tee. … For bottoms go with leggings, long pants, or capris. … 60 degrees is still a bit too cold for flip flops and too warm for heavy boots such as Uggs.
How long can you stay in 50 degree water?
How long can a person survive in cold water?Water TemperatureExpected Time Before Exhaustion or Unconsciousness32.5°0.3°< 15 minutes32.5–40°0.3–4.4°15 – 30 minutes40–50°3.3–10°30 – 60 minutes50–60°10–15.6°1 – 2 hours5 more rows•Nov 18, 2015
Is 68 degrees hot or cold?
Is 65 degrees hot or cold?
65 degrees is a comfortable temperature but if it is windy it becomes cold. Everything is relative and whether or not you are acclimated to it.
Is 62 degrees cold for a house?
Recommended Temperature When You Are Home The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends setting your thermostat no lower than 64 degrees (F) in the Winter months while people are in the home. If there are infants or elderly individuals, they recommend keeping the temperature at 70 degrees at a minimum.


Student Thesaurus
One entry found for precise.
Entry Word: precise
Function: adjective
Text: 1 meeting the highest standard of accuracy
Synonyms accurate, close, delicate, exact, fine, hairline, mathematical, pinpoint, rigorous
Antonyms coarse, imprecise, inaccurate, inexact, rough
2 being in agreement with the truth or a fact or a standard -- see CORRECT 1
3 being neither more nor less than a certain amount, number, or extent -- see EVEN 1
4 following an original exactly -- see FAITHFUL 2
5 of a particular or exact sort -- see EXPRESS 1


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Kenya 's Indigenous Forests: Status, Management and Conservation
30 June 1995 | Downloads - publication
Wass, Peter, ed.
IUCN, Forest Conservation Programme ; United Kingdom, Overseas Development Administration
The IUCN Forest Conservation Programme ; no.019
Gland : IUCN, 1995. xi, 204p., maps.
The result of the work of the Kenya Indigenous Forest Conservation programme, this report provides a summary of the existing information about Kenya's indigenous forests. Covers geographical background; assessment of the biodiversity, environmental services, and wood products functions and values; population pressures; utilisation; economic value; policy; legislation; management guidelines and criteria for management planning of such forests.
Note: Includes 14 appendices with lists of endangered bird and mammal species, of trees, of forested protected areas, reports prepared under the KIFCON Programme (Kenya Indigenous Forest Conservation Programme). Includes bibliographic references