text:
This photo of the Campbell's Covered Bridge Marker was captured by Vincent Flores of Greer in 2010. The inscription on the marker reads:
This bridge, built in 1909, is the last extant covered bridge in S.C. Built by Charles Irwin Willis (1878–1966), it was named for Alexander Lafayette Campbell (1836–1920), who owned and operated a grist mill here for many years. Measuring 35 feet long and 12 feet wide, it is an excellent example of a four-span Howe truss, featuring diagonal timbers and vertical iron rods.


text: Figure 1. Sequences containing Affinity Plus show identical annealing properties to locked nucleic acid sequences from another manufacturer. The percentages of duplex melted base pairs are plotted as a function of temperature. The 15-mer sequence, GGTCCT+T+A+CTTGGTG, was synthesized with either Affinity Plus or other locked nucleic acid modifications incorporated at the +T, +A, and +C sites. These oligos were mixed with the complementary DNA strand (1 µM each strand) in 1 M Na+ buffer (pH 7). Melting curve analyses were performed as described in Owczarzy, et al. The plots of duplex melted base pairs were averaged from at least 7 heating and cooling melting curves. Melting temperature was measured to be 67.7 ± 0.3°C for the Affinity Plus oligo and 67.9 ± 0.3°C for the other locked nucleic acid oligo. Free energy of duplex hybridization at 37°C was determined to be -18.1 ± 0.9 kcal/mol for the Affinity Plus oligo and -18.7 ± 0.9 kcal/moI for the other locked nucleic acid oligo. These results demonstrate the identical annealing properties of both sources of locked nucleic acid sequences.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
In order to act more decisively in case of an environmental incident, a policy support team that can quickly provide advice is desirable.
Responding to environmental incidents requires quick advice that takes the various factors involved and the impact on people, animals, the environment and food safety into account as much as possible. The former Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment formed the Policy Support Team for Environmental Incidents (BOT-mi) in 2005. BOT-mi is an interdepartmental group of experts that provides advice following the occurrence of environmental incidents. The team's advice is preferably based on the integrated assessment of the opinions of various institutes that can in some situations be contradictory.
RIKILT, which is part of Wageningen UR, contributes via the group of experts to:
- the optimisation of the organisation of BOT-mi
- the provision of joint advice on the risks resulting from environmental incidents
- the provision of joint advice on possible measures
- the expansion of knowledge on specific types of incidents in order to optimise future advice
The way in which BOT-mi is organised is continually developing. An example of this is the work carried out on the optimisation of the integrated website (ICAWEB). In addition, BOT-mi takes part in exercises and gives advice when incidents occur.
In a separate project, RIKILT conducts analyses by order of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment (via the MOD). Depending on the type of incident, RIKILT performs a limited number of additional analyses in order to obtain more insight into the substances formed in fires and that form a potential risk to people and animals. This also involves the use of bioassays to detect any as yet unknown contaminants.
BOT-mi consists of a group of experts that can advise local government authorities following environmental incidents and fires. In order to carry out its role, the organisation must run and prepare optimally for incidents. This is accomplished through regular consultations, training courses and exercises. When incidents occur, advice regarding the situation is given in conjunction with other partners. In addition, a number of analyses can be carried out via this project to determine whether harmful substances have entered the food chain.


text:
Performance Evaluation Policy
The Performance Evaluation process is initiated by the Human Resources Office, which is responsible for issuing the appropriate forms and instructions. The procedure is as follows:
- Supervisors and employees are notified of the time schedule of the annual review process and are given the cost-of-living adjustment and the merit adjustment rates, if applicable.
- Supervisors are provided with evaluation forms for each employee in their department. The immediate supervisor prepares the evaluation and signs it. The evaluation form is then submitted to the appropriate Senior Cabinet Officer by the supervisor.
- The Senior Cabinet Officer reviews the form and discusses any concerns with the supervisor. Upon determination that the evaluation is fair and appropriate, the Senior Cabinet Officer signs the form and returns it to the immediate supervisor.
- The supervisor schedules a meeting with the employee to discuss the evaluation, allowing several days' advance notice in order to give the employee time to prepare for the discussion. A copy of the completed evaluation is given to and retained by the employee as part of the evaluation process.
Performance evaluation forms can obtained at:
Exempt Employees: eval_exempt.doc |eval_exempt.pdf
Non-Exempt Employees: eval_non_exempt.doc


text:
We've worked out an exclusive deal for our members to bring you this product at a price lower than what everyone else pays anywhere on the internet!
The definitive answer to correct lip-sync error for up to four sources!
When you watch TV or movies, do you ever notice how picture and sound are sometimes OUT OF SYNC? The presenter's lips don't move quite at the same time as their voice? Irritating isn't it. This is known as lip sync error.
Even if you haven't consciously noticed lip-sync error (we avoid this impossibility by subconsciously looking away) b]research at Stanford University[/b] discovered it causes a negative impact on our perception of the characters and story.
Lip sync error affects a huge number of displays, including modern plasma TVs, LCD screens, DLP TVs and digital projectors.
The Felston DD740 solves the frustrating problem of lip sync error for anyone with an A/V amplifier or home theater system.
What causes lip sync error?
There are many causes but most boil down to the video signal being delayed more than the audio signal allowing speech to be heard 'before' the lip movement that produced it is seen.
Digital image processing within broadcasts and within modern displays delays video and allows audio to arrive too soon.
Sound "before" the action that produces it can never occur in nature and is therefore very disturbing when the brain tries to process this conflicting and impossible visual and aural information.
Most people initially only notice lip-sync error when it exceeds 40 to 75 ms but this varies enormously and really depends upon the individual's defence mechanism - how far he can look away from the moving lips so as to ignore the increasing lip-sync error. We call the value at which it is noticed consciously their "threshold of recognition".
An individual's "threshold of recognition" falls greatly once it has been reached and lip-sync error has been noticed. At that point their defence mechanism can no longer compensate and the sync problem enters their conscious mind. The same person who was never bothered by a 40 ms lip-sync error may, after noticing 120 ms error, become far more sensitive and notice errors only a small fraction of their previous "threshold". Many people can "see" lip-sync errors as small as "one milli-second" and some can even detect 1/3 ms errors.
How do you fix lip sync error?
The only way to correct lip-sync error caused by delayed video is to delay audio an equal amount.
The Felston DD740 digital audio delay solves lip-sync error by letting you add an audio delay to compensate for all the cumulative video delays - no matter what their cause - at the touch of a button on its remote.
It connects between four digital audio sources and your AV receiver (or digital speaker system) allowing you to delay the audio to match the video achieving "perfect lip-sync".
Unlike the audio delay feature found in most a/v receivers, the DD740 is designed for easy "on-the-'fly" adjustment while viewing with no image disturbance. This makes fine tuning for perfect lip-sync practical as it changes between programs or discs, and the DD740's 680ms delay corrects larger lip-sync errors common in HDTV.
Why doesn't HDMI 1.3+ fix this?
The widely misunderstood "automatic lip-sync correction" feature of HDMI 1.3 does nothing more than "automatically" set the same fixed delay most receivers set manually. It does nothing to correct a/v sync error already in broadcasts or discs which changes from program to program and disc to disc. Ironically, it can make lip-sync error "worse" when audio arrives delayed.
Does the Felston DD740 work with HD lossless audio found on Blu-ray discs?
No. The Felston DD740 is a S/PDIF coax/toslink device. Lossless audio such as DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD found on Blu-ray discs is only available over HDMI.
Does the Felston DD740 work with HD lossless audio found on Blu-ray discs?
We are not aware of any similar audio delay boxes that accept HDMI. There are other manufacturers of s/pdif delay boxes similar to the Felston DD740 but both are over twice the price and don't offer as many features (neither has numeric pad delay entry, 36 presets, or 1/3 ms adjustment). An HDMI delay box would need to an HDMI "repeater" (often called a splitter) since the HD Audio is HDCP encrypted along with the video. It would require an HDMI "receiver" chip (like TV's have) to decrypt the audio and video data and a "huge" memory to store it for delay but it would also require an HDMI "transmitter" chip (like a Blu-ray player has) to HDCP encrypt the re-aligned audio and video for output. If an HDMI delay box ever comes to market it will no doubt be expensive but like our other products we would offer it to our members at the best price on the internet.
Felston DD740 Features
680ms delay (340ms for 96kHz signals)
On-the-fly adjustment with no image overlay
Tweaking in 1ms and 1/3ms steps
36 preset delays for instant recall
Fully featured remote control with numeric keypad for discrete delay entry
Discrete input switching, with input's last delay restored
Automatic optical-to-coax/coax-to-optical conversion
4 digital audio inputs, 2 digital audio outputs (optical and coax)
Adjustable display brightness
Discrete IR commands for integration with learning remotes
No effect on audio quality thanks to bit-perfect reproduction
The Felston digital audio delays solve lip-sync error by allowing you to delay the digital audio signal to match the delay* in the video signal thereby restoring perfect lip-sync.
The delay unit is inserted in the digital audio path between your video source (DVD/Blu-ray disc player, DVR, etc.) and your AV receiver as in the diagram above. Since the DD740's "bit-perfect reproduction" does not change the digital audio signal, it is compatible with PCM and all present and future s/pdif surround sound formats at both 48 KHz and 96 KHz.
Since there is nothing in the video or audio signal to define when they are in sync it is a subjective adjustment and this is where the remote control excels. It remembers the last delay setting used on each input and includes 36 presets where common delays can be stored for instant recall. But most importantly, the + and - buttons allow dynamic "on-the-fly" delay adjustments while watching with no image disturbance - an essential feature allowing tweaking for "perfect-sync". These are necessary features for true lip-sync correction and not generally available on even the most expensive AV receivers that claim a lip-sync delay feature.
At first thought it might appear the DD740 audio delay could not correct for "already delayed audio in the arriving signal" but in conjunction with the video delay of your LCD, DLP, or plasma display it actually can - up to the display's video delay. That is, if your display delays video 100 ms your DD740 will correct lip-sync errors from 100 ms audio lagging to 580 ms audio leading.
* Normally lip-sync error is due to video delays in both the arriving signal as well as in the display allowing audio to arrive too soon but when broadcasters over-correct for the video delay they added the arriving signal might have audio delayed instead of video.
Using the DD740
In standby mode, audio passes through with no delay while coax to optical and optical to coax conversion remains active. When the DD740 is switched on, the signal is output with your last selected delay.
When you notice lip-sync error, correcting it is simply a matter of adding or subtracting audio delay. The plus and minus delay buttons allow adjustment in 1 ms steps (or even 1/3 ms). You adjust while watching your program and there is no image disturbance at all as you press the buttons and shift the audio into alignment with video.
As you use your DD740 you will notice that different sources, different discs, and different broadcasts require different delays for perfect lip-sync so the DD740 includes 36 delay presets (9 per input) to remember these commonly used settings making it easy to get to the optimum delay quickly.
It also features direct numeric entry so if you know the desired delay you just enter the numbers. That feature is even more valuable when used with programmable learning remote controls (e.g. Pronto, Harmony, URC, etc.) since it allows full control of the DD740 using its comprehensive discrete IR commands.
A/V receivers do not offer all these DD740 features but the most important and overriding advantage of the DD740 is the ease of delay adjustment while watching with no image overlays to disrupt your viewing.
With an A/V receiver that forces you to use a set-up menu overlaying your image every time you need to adjust the delay, perfect lip-sync just isn't practical.
But my amplifier only has an optical input!
No problem. The DD740 transmits the selected source to both outputs simultaneously. This means an a/v amplifier with just one input (optical or coax) can be used with four digital audio sources (two coax and two optical).
Which types of audio signal can the DD740 delay?
In order to solve lip sync issues, the DD740 delays digital audio signals passing between your source equipment (e.g. disc player, set-top box) and your home theater amplifier via a DIGITAL AUDIO CABLE. Digital audio cable is either optical (toslink) or a coax cable fitted with a single RCA phono socket at each end.
NOTE: The DD740 is not directly compatible with ANALOG (stereo) audio signals. Analog audio signals use a pair of leads that connect to two RCA phono sockets (usually one with

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
This webpage displays some of my results for the Brown University CS 1430: Introduction to Computer Vision Hybrid Images Project. Hybrid images are static images that appear to be two different images wen viewed from far away and close up. In a hybrid image, the high frequencies of one image are blended with the low frequencies of another image. The human eye blurs very high frequencies in order to avoid aliasing of the information. This means that from far away, the eye can only see the low frequencies, whereas in close proximity, the high frequencies dominate the visual allocation of resources in the visual system. This leads to the illusion that there are two different images when you are standing at different distances
I formed the images using a combination of Gaussian and Laplacian pyramids. I first constructed the pyramids for both images by using a Gaussian filter, downsampling the image by 2, and subtracting the Gaussian image from the "original" image at that level of the pyramid in order to obtain the Laplacian image for that level. I iterated through this N times. This resulted in a Gaussian pyramid of size N+1 and a Laplacian pyramid of size N. Then, I started with the smallest (blurriest) of the Gaussian images from the low frequency image on level N. With this image I upsampled, blurred and added the Laplacian of the low frequency image. I repeated these steps until hitting the first cutoff frequency. When I hit the second cutoff frequency, I started adding the Laplacian of the high frequency image. Depending on the cutoff frequencies, this sometimes led to an overlap when two Laplacian pyramids were being added. The combination of these steps resulted in the hybrid image.
|A brown bear in the wild....or is it?|
|President Ruth Simmons!?|
|She has so much love for Brown that sometimes she morphs into a Brown Bear on the weekends when she goes out on the town.|
|(When you look at the large image from a great distance, it looks really cool, but you have to be very far away.)|


From Encyclopedia of Scientonomy
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Accept the definition of compatibility, as the ability of two elements to coexist in the same mosaic. Also replace the zeroth law with the compatibility corollary.
The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Patrick Fraser and Ameer Sarwar on 28 January 2018.1 The modification was accepted on 3 June 2020.
The current zeroth law of scientific change is problematic in many respects. First, it pertains only to epistemic elements that are part of the mosaic, and says nothing about the compatibility of elements outside the mosaic. In addition, unlike the other accepted laws of scientific change, it attempts to explain the process of scientific change from a static perspective that deals with the state of the scientific mosaic at some particular point in time, rather than a dynamic perspective that describes the actual mechanics of the process of scientific change. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the current zeroth law is tautological, as it pretty much restates what is implicit in our notion of compatibility. While there is currently no explicitly accepted definition of compatibility, it can roughly be explicated as the ability of two elements to coexist within a particular mosaic. If this is what we currently mean by compatibility, then the formulation of the current zeroth law is a direct consequence of it, which means that the law lacks empirical content. For all these reasons, a series of modifications are necessary, including the replacement of the zeroth law with a new definition of compatibility, and the compatibility corollary, which collectively preserve the gist of the current zeroth law.
Theories To Accept
Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018).png
Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018).png
Theories To Reject
Questions Answered
This modification attempts to answer the following question(s):
The modification was accepted on 3 June 2020. While the modification induced a few comments on the encyclopedia, it became accepted as a result of discussions that took place mostly offline. It was agreed that the modification "comes to remedy one of the glaring omissions" in the current zeroth which doesn't "say much above and beyond what is already implicit in the notion of compatibility"c1 as it "is lacking in empirical content, and should be replaced with a definition of compatibility".c2 It was also noted that the proposed "definition of compatibility criteria... captures the gist of the concept as it has been used in our community".c3 It was also agreed that "the compatibility corollary follows from this definition".c4 c5 Finally, the community accepted that the definition and the corollary "recover the content of the Zeroth Law".c6
Click on the Discussion tab for comments.
 1. ^ Fraser, Patrick and Sarwar, Ameer. (2018) A Compatibility Law and the Classification of Theory Change. Scientonomy 2, 67-82. Retrieved from


text:
for National Geographic News
Parents across the globe usually take their role as providers very seriously. But in an unusual role reversal, paper wasp queens beg their young for a meal.
When they get peckish, the queens wag their abdomens across their nests, creating vibrations that "ask" for a nutritious saliva snack.
"She does it when she's hungry, not when the larvae are hungry. So the adult is begging for food back from the larvae," said Bernard Brennan, the postdoctoral researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who made the discovery.
Paper wasps (Polistes dominulus) are among the best studied insects in the world. But the reason for the queens' wagging behavior remained a mystery until Brennan started researching it as a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
The evolutionary biologist presented his most recent findings last week at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society in Snowbird, Utah.
Brennan's research shows how the wasps manage their food supply between the queen and her young. It also unmasks the surprisingly active role the young wasps play in the relationship: They control how much saliva they give up.
"This is certainly a fascinating example of parent-offspring communication, in a context where adults are not only feeding the young, but also being fed by them," Rex Cocroft wrote in an e-mail to National Geographic News. Cocroft is a biologist who studies animal communication systems at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Like all adult wasps, bees, and ants, adult paper wasps are limited to liquid diets, because a section of their bodies between the head and the abdomen is extremely narrow. Solid chunks of food just wouldn't fit through.
"All digestion occurs in the abdomen, so their food has to get through this constriction," Brennan, the Yale biologist, said.
But wasp larvae, which are shaped more like fat worms, are able to eat a wider range of food.
Adult paper waspsusually queensexploit this difference by capturing caterpillars and feeding them to larvae in the nest. The larvae digest the caterpillars and produce nutrient-loaded saliva that is fed back to the adults.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES


text:
Construction of the Utah State Capitol began December 12, 1912.
The architect was Richard Kletting, whose design was selected from a number of entries in a state competition. The Capitol is a Beaux Arts Classical design.
The building was completed in 1916, at a cost of $2,739,538. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986.
A major renovation completed in 2008 gave the building a seismic retrofit while maintaining and restoring the original historic fabric of the building.
James W. Shipler founded Shipler Commercial Photographers when he moved to Salt Lake City in 1890. His son Harry joined the firm a few years later. State History acquired the Shiplers' negative collection in 1988, and the studio, then on Main Street near 100 South, closed in 1989.
The Shiplers often documented change over time, as they did during the construction of Utah's State Capitol. More than 150 glass plate negatives, from glass plate negatives, document its construction from groundbreaking to completion.


text:
Lasers with cylindrically symmetric polarization states are predominantly based on whispering-gallery modes characterized by high angular momentum and dominated by azimuthal emission. Here, a zero-angular-momentum laser with purely radial emission is demonstrated. An axially invariant, cylindrical photonic-bandgap fibre cavity8 filled with a microfluidic gain medium plug is axially pumped, resulting in a unique radiating field pattern characterized by cylindrical symmetry and a fixed polarization pointed in the azimuthal direction. Encircling the fibre core is an array of electrically contacted and independently addressable liquid-crystal microchannels embedded in the fibre cladding. These channels modulate the polarized wavefront emanating from the fibre core, leading to a laser with a dynamically controlled intensity distribution spanning the full azimuthal angular range. This new capability, implemented monolithically within a single fibre, presents opportunities ranging from flexible multidirectional displays to minimally invasive directed light delivery systems for medical applications.
Comparison of radial and whispering-gallery modes. Schematic drawing of the radially emitting fibre laser structure and energy density plot for a high-Q TE0n fibre cavity laser mode. The outgoing, radially directed red arrows denote the direction of laser emission
Microfluidic laser system.
Preform and fibre structure.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks


Different Types of Ice Cubes Made By Ice Makers
Different Types of Ice Cubes Made By Ice Makers
Ice is ice, you might be thinking. What does it matter what shape or color it's in? You'd be surprised to know that many food industry establishments, businesses, and private homes consider the shape and clarity of the ice they want when purchasing an ice maker. It's not simply about aesthetics; it comes down to the fact that different ice cubes melt differently in your glass.
Cloudy vs. Clear
Most ice makers on the market produce cloudy, or opaque, ice. This kind of ice isn't white and cloudy because it's dirty or impure; rather, the water is frozen at a much greater speed, leaving small air bubbles trapped inside the cubes. Many restaurants appreciate cloudy ice because it's soft and porous, absorbing the taste of the drink it sits in. It also has the benefit of cooling drinks immediately. Many people enjoy soft ice because it's light and crunchy, making it appealing to those who chew ice as a habit; fortunately, they won't damage their teeth as badly as they would with hard, clear ice.
Some ice makers are designed specifically to create clear ice by removing all the air and impurities from the ice during the freezing process. More formal restaurants choose hard ice, which is clear, odorless, and tasteless. Drinks do not penetrate hard ice; on the contrary, hard ice takes longer to melt, does not dilute drinks, and only provides cooling from the outer surface. Clear ice makers are generally the most expensive type on the market.
Different Shapes
Portable, undercounter, and commercial ice makers all produce ice cubes of different shapes.
 - Crescent shaped ice is the most common form of ice you'll see produced by your refrigerator and undercounter ice makers. Flat on one edge and rounded on the other, it's typically cloudy in appearance.
 - Bullet shaped ice looks the way its name suggests: like a cylindrical bullet with a rounded hole in the flat end. Also opaque in color, bullet ice is commonly made by portable ice makers.
 - Flake ice is usually completely white and is one of the cheapest forms of ice to make in great quantities. It cools drinks quickly and is convenient for packing and storing food, making it a favorite choice of many restaurant establishments.
 - Nugget, or pellet, ice is clear, crisp, and popular as a chewable ice. Because it melts slowly and doesn't dilute drinks, many people see it as a refreshing option for their soft drinks. Several Scotsman ice maker models produce nugget ice.
Related Top 10 Lists
Top 10 Icemakers
Top 10 Icemakers
You can find some ice makers that produce about 12 pounds of ice a day for a couple hundred dollars; these models may be sufficient for the average family. The larger ice makers with greater ice production and special controls typically cost… [more]
Filed Under: AppliancesIce Makers


Mirepoix (pronounced as Mir-pwa) is a French (if I'm not mistaken!) term to describe a combination of onions, carrots and celery. It is commonly used as a base ingredients to add flavour to soups, stews, and sauces, either used raw, buttered or roasted.
The other combination consisting of capsicum, celery and onions is known as Trinity. It is not so common in comparison to Mirepoix.
For both cases, you can use any types of onions but I chose red onions over others because it has a stronger taste and mildly sweet unlike yellow onions which are too sweet but good for onion soups. Celeriac could be used in place of celery and there is of course no substitute for carrots.
As for proportions, many said that it is a 1:1:1 ratio but I have always use a 2:1:1 ratio. As simple as it might sound, all you need is a food processor or a blender to make this. Believe it or not, 1 celery and 1 carrot each is half the weight of one red onion!
So, in my opinion, the 1:1:1 ratio is not referring to weight, but the number of each of them is used.
That's just my two cents and now everyone knows what's mirepoix :)
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text:
Santanu Banerjee, Soumen Shaw, Basudeb Mukhopadhyay
The present paper deals with the memory response on thermal disturbances emanating from a cylindrical cavity in an unbounded thermoelastic solid. Here we have theoretically demonstrated the memory response of thermal disturbances in the generalized magneto-thermo-elastic materials. Firstly, the characteristics of thermoelastic disturbances originated from the cavity in an unbounded elastic solid under the light of generalized magnetothermoelasticity theory with memory dependent derivatives (MDD). For numerical computation, cylindrical-polar coordinate system with radial symmetry subjected to two different types of heat sources into the cavity are considered. An integral transform method and, while in inverse transformation, an efficient and pragmatic NILT (Numerical Inverse Laplace Transform) is adopted. Finally, parameter studies are performed to evaluate the effect of the kernel function and time delay. For thermal wave the results show appreciable differences with those in the usual magneto-thermoelasticity theory.
Thermal memory, Memory dependent derivatives, Generalized magneto-thermoelasticity, Heaviside function, Delta function, Eigen function expansion method
Cite this paper
Santanu Banerjee, Soumen Shaw, Basudeb Mukhopadhyay. (2020) Memory Dependent Thermal Response in Generalized Magneto-thermoelastic Medium Having a Long Cylindrical Cavity. International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, 5, 70-81


text:
Simple rates are of the form
X is a number of requests
u is a unit from this list:
(For example, you can read
5/s as "five per second.")
You may also specify a number of units, i.e.:
Y is a
number of units. If
u is omitted, it is presumed to be seconds. So,
the following are equivalent, and all mean "one hundred requests per
New in version 0.5.
Rates can also be callables (or dotted paths to callables, which are
assumed if there is no
/ in the value).
Callables receive two values, the group and the
request object. They should return a simple rate string, or a tuple
(count, seconds). For example:
def my_rate(group, request): if request.user.is_authenticated: return '1000/m' return '100/m'
def my_rate_tuples(group, request): if request.user.is_authenticated: return (1000, 60) return (100, 60)
Callables can return
0 in the first place to disallow any requests
(0, 60)). They can return
None for "no


text:
The working and contractual conditions of FRA staff are based on the Staff Regulations (SR) and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities (CEOS).
The Agency has no permanent officials, but is staffed mainly by Temporary Agents and Contract Agents recruited through open selection procedures.
FRA contracts for Temporary Agents have an indefinite duration, following a probationary period of nine months.
Temporary Agent posts are classified according to the nature and importance of the duties required in:
- Administrators' function group (AD): comprises twelve grades from AD 5 to AD 16 corresponding to technical, administrative, advisory, linguistic and scientific duties
- Assistants' function group (AST): comprises eleven grades from AST 1 to AST 11 corresponding to executive, technical and clerical duties
The duration of contracts for Contract Agents varies according to the needs of the Agency. At the FRA, most Contract Agents have a contract's duration of 2 years. The contract can be renewed for a second fixed-term period of 3 years, and upon its second renewal converted into a contract of indefinite duration.
Contract Agent posts are classified in four function groups corresponding to the duties and responsibilities involved:
- Function group IV: comprises six grades corresponding to administrative, advisory, linguistic and equivalent technical tasks
- Function group III: comprises five grades corresponding to executive tasks, drafting, accountancy and other equivalent technical tasks
- Function group II: comprises four grades corresponding to clerical and secretarial tasks, office management and other equivalent tasks
- Function group I: comprises three grades corresponding to manual and administrative support service tasks
Contract Agents whose contract is concluded for a duration of at least one year are required to serve the following probationary periods:
- 6 months if employed in function group I
- 9 months if employed in function group II-IV
If the duration of the contract is less than twelve months, Contract Agents may be exempted from the requirement to serve a probationary period.


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Somewhat new to using standard SQL databases (currently working with MySQL mostly) I haven't run across many usages of this as of yet.
When and why is it useful to have negative (or rather signed) keys indexing a table?
share|improve this question
first off, whoever is downvoting without leaving feedback, you're doing a disservice. Next up, the answer to this excellent question. – jcolebrand May 23 '11 at 21:20
This subject is intriguing. I have personally never heard of this concept. This question should never have been downvoted. +1 from me for introducing this concept. – RolandoMySQLDBA May 23 '11 at 21:48
3 Answers 3
up vote 10 down vote accepted
All a primary key is is a value that we have determined is the value that is of utmost importance in a record. Whether that key is a signed int, an unsigned int, a string, a blob (actually, there are limits) or a UUID (or whatever name it takes today), the fact still stands that it is a key, and that it is the thing of utmost importance.
Since we're not constrained to use only positive oriented numbers for our keys, it makes sense to consider that a signed int will only go to ~2 billion, whereas an unsigned int will go to ~4 billion. But there's nothing wrong with using a signed int, setting the initial value to ~ -2 billion and setting an increment of one. After ~2 billion records you'll hit "zero" and then you'll continue to ~2 billion.
As to why it would be helpful to have "negative keys" in a table, that's the same question as "why is it helpful to have keys in a table". The "value" of a key has no impact on its status as a key. A key is a key is a key.
What is important is if the key is valid.
As to why it would be useful to allow keys that were negative, I can suggest some reasons:
What if you wanted to indicate returns in a sales system as negative sales order numbers, that matched the positive sales order number, thus making correlation easy (this is naive, and poorly designed, but it would work in a "spreadsheet" sense).
What if you wanted to have a users table, and indicate that the ones with negative numbers were system controlled (SO does this very thing, for chat feed users).
I could go on, but really the only reason why the number being negative is of importance is if you or I assign importance to it. Aside from that, there is no great reason for the value of a key to have any bearing on the key itself.
share|improve this answer
Edited out the 'niche occurrence' bit, as it is more than likely a misunderstanding due to inexperience. Interesting read. I was somewhat imagining there would be a situation where the negative value of the key was somehow useful in coding (i,e without deciding it means a particular thing) but this is very useful thinking when you have a strong division into two groups and don't want to use an extra bool :p – Garet Claborn May 23 '11 at 21:41
_USER_ ~ So you make a good point: "the value of the key was somehow useful in coding" and I do make use of my keys from time to time in just that manner, but that has nothing to do with the database aspect. The database is a storehouse. The application that consumes the data, on the other hand, cares about the values. But yeah, that +/- boolean is a neat trick, I've seen it used many a time for just such an effect. – jcolebrand May 23 '11 at 22:02
-1 for implying that dual purposing values like this is anything other than a bad idea. You need an int and a bool? Use an int and a bool. – Jack Douglas May 24 '11 at 6:24
_USER_ I don't recall encouraging people to do that, I strictly recall implying that the field and it's data are two different things. Thanks for at least offering constructive feedback on your downvote, but I can't say that that observation means anything in light of the concept of the "what are negative keys used for" since that is an application logic problem, not a database layer problem. I did want to highlight how those things are used in the application layer, but in the database layer they don't have any significance. – jcolebrand May 24 '11 at 6:33
"What if you wanted to have a users table, and indicate that the ones with negative numbers were system controlled" - sounded like an endorsement to me. If it wasn't meant to be perhaps you could re-word and I'll be very happy to remove the down-vote. – Jack Douglas May 24 '11 at 6:49
If we're on about identity or autonumber columns, the value itself should have no meaning. (sometimes it does, as per SO's chat users nentioned by drachenstern, which I've done before myself)
However, generally you'd lose half of your range if you're using signed integers.
See: What to do when a field in a table approaches the max signed or unsigned 32 bit integer?
Another example: In small replication scenarios, using negative values for one site and positive for another gives some implicit knowledge of the source of any given row.
share|improve this answer
and make sure you are somehow constraining the values input at each site otherwise you will end up in a horrible mess when your "implicit knowledge" turns out to be wrong. – Jack Douglas May 24 '11 at 6:26
_USER_: you'd use NOT FOR REPLICATION to avoid generating values on the wrong site – gbn May 24 '11 at 6:55
along with check constraints? Also, is there a MySQL (or other) analog of NOT FOR REPLICATION that you know? – Jack Douglas May 24 '11 at 7:06
_USER_: sorry, not sure about non SQL Server – gbn May 24 '11 at 7:45
+1 for giving a practical use of unsigned primary keys. – StanleyJohns May 25 '11 at 14:41
Not all database systems even support unsigned integer types, MSSQL being one of those that doesn't. In these cases negative values are possible in integer key fields simply because they are possible in the type (you could use rules or triggers to block them, as shown in this example, but there is probably no need add the overhead of enforcing such rules to every inters/update).
As far as the database is concerned the actual value of a primary key does not matter as long as it is unique within the table. To it -42 and 42 are just two different numbers in the same way 42 and 69 are - meaning will only be imparted on the negativeness or not of the value by your code.
Not supporting unsigned integer types is probably a design decision based on reducing complexity - i.e. not wanting two different 32 bit integer type to worry about checking ranges on when assigning values between them. It does limit the number of indexes possible in an auto increment field starting an 0 or 1 to half what would be possible in an unsigned type (~2e9 rather than ~4e9) but this is rarely a significant issue (if you are likely to need a number of key values of that magnitude you probably went for a 64-bit type anyway especially if using a 64-bit architecture where such values are processed no less efficiently then 32-bit ones) though if you might want the full range and need to stick to 32-bit for space reasons you could start the increment at -2,147,483,647.
share|improve this answer
Yup, I think we've covered that ground before ;) tehehe dba.stackexchange.com/questions/983/… – jcolebrand May 24 '11 at 14:40
tinyint is unsigned (0.. 255). I usually create a check constraint on integer columns to ensure values are nonnegative, since inevitably code will be written that implicitly assumes it and strange bugs will arise if somehow a negative value creeps in. – Ed Avis Aug 16 at 13:20
Your Answer


Jingle All the Way
"Jingle Bells" has been staple song of the holiday season in the United States for decades if not longer. Dozens of artists have recorded the song — often as part of Christmas albums — underscoring its popularity this time of year. And while that list of artists features the Beatles, Andrea Bocelli, and even the Three Stooges, none of those recordings are as historically significant as the one performed on December 16, 1965.
With history accomplished, the crews of the two Gemini spacecraft separated their ships from one another to prevent accidental collision and went off to sleep. But before they all called it a night, astronaut Walter Schirra of Gemini 6 came over the radio with a report. He purported to have just seen something weird — an unidentified object entering the Earth's atmosphere, as recounted by the logs (pdf):
Bonus Fact: While Jingle Bells is an iconic Christmastime tune, it wasn't intended to be. It was originally written in the 1850s (it's unclear when or where the composer, James Lord Pierpont, devised the song) and according to Reader's Digest, was intended to be used for a Thanksgiving celebration.
From the ArchivesHere Comes Santa Claus: How the U.S. military saved Christmas from Sears' screw up.
RelatedAnimal-shaped jingle bells.


Folklore says that "Time waits for no one." Time is so precious, and we should adequately use it. But it's so hard. Everyone struggles with it. But, we can always improve how we handle our time, especially every month. You can use a schedule for that. If you don't have one, you can try our useful collection of Ready-Made Monthly Schedule Templates in Word. These are easily editable, printable, and 100% customizable. You can also quickly change their colors. Their suggestive headings can help you. What are you waiting for? Download one of these templates and use your month efficiently.
How to Create a Monthly Schedule in Microsoft Word
Scheduling is important. Mind Tools says that if you use a schedule, it can help you prioritize the essential tasks. If you have a lot of things to catch up or have goals for a month, you can use a monthly schedule. The thing is, it's not going to be as hard if you put your mind into it. And creating one is also simple. You don't need a lot of things to make a schedule. All you need is a pen, paper, software, and patience. But scheduling isn't going to be so effective if you don't use it correctly. However, if you only focus on using it religiously, you can excel with all your tasks and priorities. So, to make your months more productive than ever, here are some easy steps that you can use in making a monthly schedule:
1. Identify Your Priorities
The first thing you should do is to identify your priorities for the month. After doing so, you can grab a pen and paper and list them. For example, you can list a priority like a bill payment. You can list your goals and upcoming events. Don't forget to include the dates of these events. You can list each date beside each priority. Your priorities should be the first on the list since they are the things that you should focus on. If you think that there are still upcoming tasks, but you don't have any idea about them, it's okay. You can always list them anytime and use your schedule like a planner.
2. List Other Events or Tasks
After listing your top priorities, you should also list other things as well. Your life isn't only about finishing your priorities, but you also need time for other things. You can set dates for your free time and other emergencies on your simple schedule. This is vital because you need time for yourself. You also need time to prepare for emergencies.
3. Make a Calendar
There are actually a lot of different ways on how you can make your timetable look. If you want to make it look simple, you can try to make a blank calendar. Start with the month you want your schedule to have. You can open MS Word and start creating a calendar there. You can also create a calendar for the upcoming months, too.
4. Fill the Calendar with Your Tasks and Events
After that, you can now fill the calendar with your priorities, events, and other things. Place the task or event on a specific day. You should include organizing in your checklist. Your calendar has to look as neat as possible. This way, when you glance at it as your guide, you will not have a hard time reading it.
5. Download a Template
If you wish to quicken the process of creating a schedule, you can download a template. Since templates are ready-made, they can give you a time-advantage than creating one from scratch. For that, choose any template above. Those templates are highly-editable in Microsoft Word. You can customize and list your events, priorities, and others in it. Enjoy your monthly schedule!
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Women do better on math tests when they fake their names
Image for article titled Women do better on math tests when they fake their names
There's a pernicious myth that says women aren't as good at math as men. And disturbingly, reminding women of this stereotype just before they write a math test will have a detrimental affect on their performance. So what would happen if a woman could pretend to be someone else while writing the test?
Unsurprisingly, and as the title of this post already suggests, women do indeed perform better on math tests when they assume a name other than their own — and this happens regardless of whether they take a male or female name.
As a recent study by Shen Zhang has shown, using another person's name is a kind of hack to overrule the self-reputational threat — the fear some women have of doing poorly when they're concerned that it'll be taken as proof of a stereotype. But removing this pressure seems to alleviate the fear and the distraction.
For the study, Zhang recruited 110 women and 72 men — all of them undergrads — and had them answer 30 multiple-choice math questions. Prior to the test, and in an effort to instill the stereotype threat, all participants were told that men typically outperform women at math. Some of the volunteers were told to write the test under their real name, but some were told to complete the test under one of four different aliases, either Jacob Tyler, Scott Lyons, Jessica Peterson, or Kaitlyn Woods.
When the results were in, men outperformed the women. Thank you, self-reputational threat.
But women who assumed an alias, whether it be male or female, performed better than the women who did not. And — importantly — they did just as well as the men.
"These findings suggest that women's impaired math performance is often due to the threat of confirming a negative stereotype as being true of the self," conclude the researchers.
The researchers recommend the use of non-name identification procedures in testing, as well as coping strategies that "allow stigmatised individuals to disconnect their self from a threatening situation," which they say will disarm negative stereotypes.
Or, we could finally stop telling women that they suck at math. How's that for a novel idea?
Read the entire study at Self and Identity, "L'eggo My Ego: Reducing the Gender Gap in Math by Unlinking the Self from Performance."
Image: Minerva Studio/Shutterstock.
If the women in the study were really worried (even subconsciously) about their performance reinforcing a stereotype about women and math, why did taking a different feminine name improve their performance just the same as taking a different masculine name?
If this really were about the threat to "all women", I would expect that only taking a different masculine name would improve their performance. It seems like anonymity, not gender-identity, made the difference for the female participants.


Company school
Indian art
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c. 1750 - c. 1800
Company school, also called Patna painting, style of miniature painting that developed in India in the second half of the 18th century in response to the tastes of the British serving with the East India Company. The style first emerged in Murshidabad, West Bengal, and then spread to other centres of British trade: Benares (Varanasi), Delhi, Lucknow, and Patna.
The paintings were executed in watercolours on paper and on mica. Favourite subjects were scenes of Indian daily life, local rulers, and sets of festivals and ceremonies, in line with the "cult of the picturesque" then current in British artistic circles. Most successful were the studies of natural life, but the style was generally of a hybrid and undistinguished quality.


text:
Animal colors board books
Printing paper: white cardboard
Process: four-color printing, rounded design, thick cardboard
Animal colors board books are suitable for children aged 0-5 years old.
Animal colors board books are designed according to the shape of the animal. The child remembers the animal characteristics by touching and flipping. Interesting drawing, vivid color matching, attract children's attention, improve reading cognitive interest.
High-quality prepress ctp system, providing accurate outlets, which is the basic guarantee of good printing result.


John Hodge (politician)
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Hodge in the mid 1900s
John Hodge (29 October 1855 – 10 August 1937) was a Coalition Labour party politician in the United Kingdom, and was the first Minister of Labour and the second Minister of Pensions.
Early life[edit]
Hodge was born in Linkeyburn, Ayrshire and attended Ironworks School and Hutcheonstown Grammar School. When he was thirteen Hodge left school to become a solicitor's clerk and then worked a grocer's shop before joining the local iron works as a puddler—the same job as his father.
Hodge first became involved with trade unionism while at the local iron works. Hodge helped form the British Steel Smelters' Association in 1885, of which he would be elected secretary, because their bosses at Colville. They were informed by works in Motherwell that their wages would be twenty per cent lower than before. The BSSA was a success and by the summer of 1886 practically every smelter in Scotland had become a member and by 1888 the BSSA had members joining from England and Wales and become affiliated with the TUC. The BSSA rarely organised strikes, but Hodge was successful at negotiating increases in wages.
Political career[edit]
Hodge was a member of the Manchester City Council from 1897 to 1901. After failed attempts to get elected,
General Election 1900 Gower District of Boroughs[1]
Electorate 12,267
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal John Aeron Thomas 4,276 52.6
Independent Labour John Hodge 3,853 47.4
Majority 423 5.2
Turnout 66.3
Liberal hold Swing
Hodge was elected at the 1906 general election as a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Manchester Gorton. When the United Kingdom declared war and entered World War I in 1914, Hodge took a very patriotic stance and criticised other Labour politicians for opposing it. From 1915 to 1916 Hodge was Acting Chairman of the Labour Party.
In 1916 he was part of the Mesopotamia Commission of Inquiry. He was also elected as president of the British Iron, Steel & Kindred Trades Association which he had helped to form with other iron and steel unions. From December 1916 to August 1917, Hodge was the first Minister of Labour and had a seat in the Cabinet. At this job Hodge claimed that all strikes during war-time were acts of treason and Hodge successfully made striking boilermakers to go back to work by threatening to charge them with the Defence of the Realm Act.
From August 1917 to January 1919, Hodge was Minister of Pensions in the Lloyd George Coalition Government. In 1919 he appeared in the film Broken in the Wars directed by Cecil Hepworth to advertise a fund set up for ex-servicemen.
The Labour Party was not pleased with Hodge's anti-strike and patriotic actions and therefore put up a candidate against him in the general election of 1918 but failed to unseat Hodge. Hodge kept his seat in the general election of 1922 but retired from Parliament at the general election of 1923. Hodge continued to argue against strikes during the General Strike of 1926 and retired from the presidency of the British Iron, Steel & Kindred Trades Association in 1931.
Hodge was turned down for military service because he was too old. Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, who served under Hodge, called him a "fat, rampaging and most patriotic Tory working man".[2]
 1. ^ British parliamentary election results, _PHONE_ (Craig)
 2. ^ Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, Memoirs (1925), p. 207.
External links[edit]
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Ernest Frederic George Hatch
Member of Parliament for Manchester Gorton
Succeeded by
Joseph Compton
Political offices
Preceded by
Thomas Burt
President of the Trades Union Congress
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Succeeded by
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text: This article examines shifts in attitudes and changes in provision with regard to never–married mothers within three broad chronological periods. The first section considers attitudes towards these mothers in the period 1918–45, when the issue was conceptualized as one of public health and moral welfare. Second, the article examines the period between 1945 and 1970, when the dominant professional view of never-married mothers focused on identifying individual pathology, but when significant continuities in treatment can nevertheless be found. Third, the article looks briefly at the substantial change in policy and provision for what were then called 'one-parent families' during the 1970s. In conclusion it argues that while there were substantial changes in terms of the way in which unmarried motherhood was defined, from the point of view of the unmarried mothers themselves the continuities have been more striking. Unmarried mothers have been persistently singled out and labelled a social problem and, in all but a brief period during the late 1960s and 1970s, also as a moral problem.


- Palgrave Macmillan
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Kelly Forrest
KELLY FORREST is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, Tacoma, USA. Kelly is a licensed mental health counsellor in Washington State and a certified coder of the Adult Attachment Interview. Her research interests include identity, trauma, dissociation, attachment, narrative and memory.
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text:
How to Memorize the 12 British Monarchs
How to Memorize the 12 British Monarchs 10X Faster
If you'd like to remember and recall all the British monarchs, this video will make you do exactly that in only a few minutes.
Human memory is predominantly visual, and you can take advantage of that by visualizing what you need to remember and connecting it to something you already know. And that's what I'll do in this video. Picture each image in your head, and I'll connect them for you using a crazy story.
When you want to recall the names of all the British monarchs, here's what to visualize.
Picture the royal throne where the monarch sits. You know it's the throne of the British monarch because the British flag – the Union Jack – is on the wall behind it.
- Sitting on the throne is a queen ant. The first British monarch after the mergers of the kingdoms of England and Scotland was Queen Anne. Queen ant sounds very similar to Queen Anne, so when you picture the ant sitting on the throne, that will link in your mind straight away to Queen Anne, the first British monarch.
- The second British monarch was King George, or George the 1st. George one sounds like judge nun. Imagine a judge walks up to the queen ant and introduces a nun. He's a traditional English judge wearing the long black gown and white wig, and the nun is wearing the traditional black and white habit. When you visualize the judge and nun talking to the queen ant, you'll remember George I.
- After George the 1st was George the 2nd or George 2. Two sounds like shoe, so let's visualize the judge pulls off one of his shoes, and places it on his head. The shoe is all the colours of the rainbow, very bright. Kind of a weird thing to do when you're in the presence of the queen, but at least now when you picture the judge holding a shoe on his head – judge shoe – you'll remember George II.
- You'll never guess who came after George the 2nd – it was George the third. The judge takes the shoe off his head and throws it through the air and it hits another judge sitting in a tree. Why is this other judge sitting in a tree? Because judge tree, sounds like George 3, and that's how you'll remember George the 3rd.
- The line of King George's continued on and the next British monarch was George the 4th or George 4. That sounds like judge door, so we'll use that. The judge falls out of the tree and lands on the ground in front of a door. The door is covered in ornate decorations, and is bright pink, just to make it stand out in your mind. Create a clear mental image of the judge landing on the ground in front of the door – judge door – and you'll remember George IV.
- After George 4th was William 4th or William four. This time we'll use will-yam-snore. The bright pink door bursts open to reveal a yam with arms and legs, holding a long will. It's a will yam. The will yam is standing up but it's asleep, and there's a speech bubble with 'zzzz' because the will yam is having a snore. Now when you imagine that will yam having a snore, that will link in your mind to William IV.
- The next monarch after William the 4th was the iconic Queen Victoria. To remember Victoria, we'll link it to victory. The yam wakes up and climbs onto the top step of a podium, where it has a winner's wreath put around its neck, and holds its fingers in the V-for-victory sign. It is victorious. Clearly imagine this scene of victory, and it will prompt you to recall Queen Victoria.
- Following Queen Victoria was Edward 7th or Edward seven. To remember that we'll use head wood heaven. Out of the sky falls a head made of wood. It hits the yam and knocks it to the ground, and then the wooden head settles on the podium. Behind the head are clouds and pearly gates, like the stereotypical description of heaven. Visualize in your mind an image of the head of wood with heaven in the background – head wood heaven – and you'll remember Edward VII.
- Next, we're back to another King George again, George five this time. Another judge picks up the head, tucks it under his arm and takes a big dive through the air. Dive rhymes with five. Imagine the judge diving through the air, judge dive, and you'll remember George V, or King George the 5th.
- After George the 5th was King Edward the 8th or Edward 8. Let's go with head wood plate. The head of wood grows arms and legs, escapes from the clutches of the judge, and jumps on a plate that flies through the air like a magic flying carpet. Create a clear mental image of the head of wood on a plate – head wood plate – and that will prompt you to recall Edward VIII, or King Edward the 8th.
- Continuing on, and the next British monarch was King George the 6th. For George 6 we'll use judge bricks. Yet another judge appears in our story and throws bricks at the wooden head on the plate. Not a particularly friendly thing to do. Bricks rhymes with six, so when you imagine the judge throwing bricks, you'll be reminded of George VI.
- Following King George the 6th was Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. Elizabeth two sounds similar to lizard bed shoe, and that's what we'll visualize. The bricks thrown by the judge crash into the bed of a lizard. The lizard is lounging back in bed, and it's wearing a shoe on its head. Picture that little scene – lizard bed shoe – and you'll instantly recall Elizabeth II or Queen Elizabeth the 2nd.
And there you have it, you've just memorized the names of the 12 British monarchs from Queen Anne to Queen Elizabeth the 2nd.
Now, when you think of British monarchs, you'll picture the royal throne with the British flag, the Union Jack, behind it.
- Sitting on the throne is a queen ant, reminding you of Queen Anne
- A judge walks up to the queen with a nun – judge nun – George I
- The judge takes off a shoe and puts it on his head – judge shoe – George II
- The shoe is thrown through the air and hits another judge in a tree – judge tree – George III
- The judge falls out of the tree and lands on the ground in front of a door – judge door – George IV
- The door opens to reveal a yam holding a will and having a snore – will yam snore – William IV
- The yam climbs to the top of a podium to receive the spoils of victory – victory links to Victoria
- A head of wood falls out of the sky and lands on the podium, with heaven behind it – head wood heaven – Edward VII
- A judge picks up the head like a football and takes a big dive – judge dive – George V
- The wooden head escapes and jumps on a flying plate – head wood plate – Edward VIII
- A judge starts to throw bricks at the plate – judge bricks – George VI
- And the bricks crash into a lizard bed where the lizard is wearing a shoe on its head – lizard bed shoe – Elizabeth II
The 12 British monarchs, memorized in only a few minutes.
If you're a student, there are a LOT of things you need to memorize for exams.
You might need to remember numbers, formulas, dates, essays and there are different techniques you can use for each of them. If you'd like to learn some best-practice memorization techniques that will help you crush your exams, sign up for your FREE video training.
Please give this video a like and share, leave a comment below and tell me if you can recall the 10 longest rivers right now.
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text:
To identify the atomic number of superheavy nuclei produced in 48Ca-induced fusion-evaporation reactions, an experiment aiming at measuring characteristic X-rays is being prepared at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany. The gas-filled separator TASCA will be employed, sending the residues towards the multi-coincidence detector setup TASISpec. Two ionoptical modes relying on differing magnetic polarities of the quadrupole magnets can be used at TASCA. New simulations and experimental tests of transmission and background suppression for these two focusing modes into TASISpec are presented.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Physics and Astronomy(all)


text:
The recombination mechanism is not important for our calculations. Recombination probabilities γ used for determination of radicals are therefore averaged probabilities for both mechanisms.
Because the probe is exposed to fluxes of both O atoms and carbon monoxide (CO) molecules, the released power on the surface of the probe can be simply and roughly described by the following Equation:
The fluxes jO and jCO are defined as follows:
The probe heating can be calculated as follows:
Recombination probability γO2 is well known and for nickel surfaces it is 0.27, while the recombination probability for γCO2 is not known. Most studies take into account the average heterogeneous surface recombination probability or assume γO2 = γCO2. We made the same assumption in the present paper.
The results as calculated from Equation (8) are summarized in Figure 5, where the density of O atoms is plotted against the pressure at different distances along the narrow tube. The corresponding graph of nO against the distance is presented in Figure 6.
Finally, the dissociation fraction of CO2 molecules can be calculated from the following equation:
The results reveal some interesting behaviors that can be summarized as follows:
the order of magnitude for the dissociation fraction is about 1%;
the dissociation fraction exhibits a rather broad maximum at 60 Pa;
the O atom density also exhibits a maximum but it is slightly shifted to higher pressure compared to the dissociation fraction;
there is a sharp drop in both the dissociation fraction and atom density in the first few centimeters along the narrow tube exhaust.
The dissociation fraction of CO2 molecules in the early afterglow is rather low, especially when compared with experiments performed in pure O2 or hydrogen (H2) under very similar discharge conditions [21,22]. The value obtained in the present study was at least an order of magnitude lower than those obtained in the earlier studies. For example, in pure O2 the neutral O atom density exceeded 5 × 1021 m−3. The differences between our results and those in the earlier studies can be explained either by different production or loss rates of radicals. Because the plasma density is practically the same as those in experiments with O2, the only explanation for the reduced O atom production is a lower dissociation rate. The dissociation energies of O2, H2, and CO2 molecules are 5.2, 4.5 and 5.5 eV, respectively. Because the dissociation energy of carbon molecules is not much larger, it cannot be the reason for poor production. CO2 dissociation can occur by electron impact dissociation, dissociative recombination of positive ions, and dissociation stimulated by vibrational excitation of molecules as follows:
Reaction (11) can be ignored in the present study because of a very low ionization fraction in the plasma, where the estimated value according to measurements by the double probe is approximately 10−6. Two other mechanisms definitely contribute to the dissociation phenomenon. According to classical work, the mechanism in Reaction (12) is often the most effective channel for CO2 dissociation in a non-equilibrium plasma. Namely, the rate coefficient of CO2 vibrational excitation by electron impact reaches a maximum value of >10−8 cm3 s−1. At the same time, the loss of vibrational energy by superelastic collisions, or V-T relaxation, is relatively slow. As a result, rather high vibrational temperatures are achieved in CO2 plasmas. The cross-section for direct dissociation of the CO2 molecule in the ground state Reaction (10) is very low at the electron temperature of a few electron volts so it could probably be ignored. Another mechanism worth mentioning is dissociation of CO2 molecules found in metastable electronic states, such as CO2 (1B2) and CO2 (3B2). The densities of such states are unknown in our case, so it is difficult to discuss the contribution of this channel to dissociation of CO2 molecules. In any case, there are quite a few possible mechanisms of dissociation by collision with an energetic electron, and the rate of CO and O production in CO2 plasma is thought to be similar to the rate of O production in O2 plasma. The production mechanisms are therefore not responsible for the rather low dissociation fraction as determined in our experiments for the early afterglow.
Another reason for a rather poor dissociation fraction could be loss rates. An important mechanism for the loss of radicals in the gas phase is recombination by three body collisions. Such a collision is required because the energy and momentum have to be preserved. At around 60 Pa, where the experiments were performed, the probability for three body collisions is low, and gas phase reactions are easily neglected. Radical loss mechanisms that are more important occur on the surfaces. Many authors have shown that the probability for heterogeneous surface recombination of O atoms on glass surfaces is around 10−4[12,20]. Less work has been performed on recombination of CO on glass surfaces. Most studies have investigated the average recombination probability for the reactions O + O → O2 and CO + O → CO2[18,21]. Sepka et al. managed to separate the reactions and found out that the dominant surface reaction on a quartz surface in an O2-CO mixture was O + O → O2. Kolesnikov et al. proposed the average catalytic efficiency for both reactions was about 2.5 × 10−5 at 300 K for silica-based surfaces. Bykova et al. obtained much higher values for quartz surfaces of about 2 × 10−3. The difference between the results obtained by Kolesnikov and Bykova is two orders of magnitude. There could be several reasons for this difference, in addition to the simple explanation that the coefficients are not determined precisely. Another, more probable explanation for this difference is the diverse surface properties of the materials investigated by these two groups.
The dissociation fraction is defined as the ratio between the density of a particular radical (e.g., CO) and the density of the stable parent molecules (e.g., CO2). The density of the parent molecules is determined from the pressure in the afterglow chamber using Equation (9). The dissociation fraction should therefore decrease with increasing pressure. This has been observed in many afterglow experiments, but was not the case in the present study and Figure 7 shows a well-defined maximum on the curve. Some mechanism must prevent a high dissociation fraction at low pressure. This mechanism should exclude any gas phase reactions, because their probability usually increases with increasing pressure. Therefore, the reasons for the rather poor dissociation rate at lower pressure could be explained by surface loss mechanisms. Again, there are several mechanisms for this, including Reactions (1) and (2), but because the coefficients for Reaction (2) are not known, a quantitative calculation could not be performed. However, it is possible to discuss the relatively low dissociation fraction qualitatively in view of the high probabilities for heterogeneous surface oxidation of CO (by Reaction (2)). As mentioned in earlier studies, much higher dissociation fractions were found in detailed characterizations of pure O2 afterglows. The anomalous behavior of the CO2 afterglow must therefore occur because of the presence of particles other than O or O2. In the afterglow of CO2 weakly ionized plasma, the only candidate is CO. The recombination coefficient of the CO molecules on borosilicate glass should obviously be higher than the coefficient for recombination of neutral O atoms.
From this point of view, we can also discuss the results presented in Figures 5 and 6. Because the probability for heterogeneous surface recombination of CO molecules in the presence of neutral O atoms is unknown, the results presented in Figures 5 and 6 cannot be very accurate. In fact, the results in these figures were obtained by assuming the probability for recombination of CO molecules on the probe tip was the same as the probability for recombination of neutral O atoms Reaction (1). To estimate the error made by this assumption, we have to reconsider Equation (8) and take into account the extreme cases. The recombination coefficient is by definition somewhere between 0 and 1. The O atom density as calculated from Equation (8) obviously depends on the recombination coefficient for Reaction (1) and on the recombination coefficient for Reaction (2). Figure 8 represents the possible range of O atom densities taking into account any value of the recombination coefficient for Reaction (2). The lower limit of the atom density is represented by the highest possible recombination coefficient (i.e., γCO2 = 1). The upper limit is set by taking into account the lowest recombination coefficient (i.e., γCO2= 0). As can be seen from Figure 8, the differences between the lowest and the highest O atom densities were not small. Somewhere in between we can observe the values of the O atom density by taking into account the most probable value of the recombination coefficient (i.e., γCO2= 0.27). Although there is a difference of almost one order of magnitude between the extremes presented in Figure 8, the accuracy of the O atom density determined from the catalytic probe measurements should be good. As stated by Kolesnikov et al., the typical recombination coefficient for metals like nickel is between 0.1 and 1. From this point of view, the approximation usually used by all authors, which is that the recombination coefficient for Reaction (2) is equal to the recombination coefficient for Reaction (1), is not only convenient but also justified. The limits of the shaded area in Figure 8 should therefore be taken only as theoretical limits for the worst-case conditions.
The results summarized in Figures


How Central Banks' domestic gold purchase plan can formalise artisanal gold mining
 - Artisanal and small-scale mining has grown significantly since the start of this century.
 - There are various drawbacks of artisanal gold mining, including environmental degradation, money laundering, smuggling, etc.
 - Central banks' domestic gold purchase plan can help countries across the globe to formalise and incorporate best practices into the sector.
Artisanal and small-scale mining has grown immensely in developing countries over the last twenty years. More than 20 million people across the globe are involved in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) practices. Poverty, unemployment, organised crime, lucrative gold prices are some of the leading factors that encourage ASGM activities. Though the ASGM practice is illegal in few countries, it is the second most significant source of livelihood, followed by agriculture.
Good Read: Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX:WBC) Bumps Up Fixed Mortgage Rates
There are various associated ill-effects of ASGM, including substantial environmental degradation, mercury release, soil pollution, child labour, health, safety & environment (HSE) issues, money laundering and smuggling. The limited access of artisan miners to financial institutions also makes them vulnerable to robbery and marginal prices for the mined gold. In most cases, the trading of gold involves middlemen, which significantly reduces the margin of gold miners. Additionally, the gold coming from these sources is probably not going to have an option to fulfil due diligence for global processing plants.
Role of Banking System to implement best practices:
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Gold has become the cornerstone of the modern reserve management. It is the third most broadly held reserve currency, followed by the US dollar and the euro.
Good Read: Is this the Hottest Gold stock on ASX?
Since emerging economies face challenges of currency instability, they try to increase their gold reserves. Central banks in such markets are reinforcing their gold reserves with locally mined gold with the help of artisanal miners. The practice allows banks to buy gold in local currencies, avoiding currency losses. At the same time, the practice also supports the livelihood of artisanal miners.
However, the formalisation of the sector in a responsible way can significantly enhance artisanal miners' lives by incorporating the best practices in the sector.
How a central bank domestic ASGM purchase program can help miners:
Source: © Kjpargeter | Megapixl.com
The World Gold Council (WGC) has highlighted the four countries – Ethiopia, Mongolia, Ecuador and the Philippines – whose central banks followed domestic ASGM purchase program and elaborated how these programs have brought a change in ASGM practices in these countries.
Interesting Read: US Fed maintains status quo on the interest rate, bond purchases
In Mongolia, the central bank promoted the Fairmined Standards. In Ecuador, the bank decided to purchase gold from licensed miners with bank accounts and issue invoices. In the Philippines, the central bank assured the quality of gold through London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) accredited refineries. In the case of Ethiopia, the central bank sells a portion of their purchase to LBMS accredited refineries.
The examples shared by WGC have clearly shown the prospect and potential of widening their use. These initiatives can help countries to formalise artisanal mining practices and limit illegal mining.


theta is always negative for long calls and long put
Discussion in 'P1.T3. Financial Markets & Products (30%)' started by qin841121, May 9, 2012.
 1. qin841121
 qin841121 Member
 This is a statement by schweser and also investopedia. How can it be true?
 For long put, the longer the option, the cheaper it may get as the expected price of stock will be higher due to interest and because of this the put will decrease in value?
 What is wrong with my logic?
 2. Theta for a long call is always negative. True.
 However, Theta of a long put always exceeds the theta of a call by a fixed amount. Hence for out-of-money puts, the theta may be positive also.
 Another concept to be aware of, theta is measured in terms of "time remaining to maturity (T-t)" in contrast to "time passed (t)" - thinking in terms of "time passed" may be akin to reversing the sign of theta.
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text:
Welcome to the Catalog of Bologna Process at KOU and Kurdistan Region Higher Education
The Bologna Process is an intergovernmental cooperation of 48 European countries in the field of higher education. It guides the collective effort of public authorities, universities, teachers, and students, together with stakeholder associations, employers, quality assurance agencies, international organisations, and institutions, including the European Commission, on how to improve the internationalization of higher education.
The main focus is:
the introduction of the three cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate)
strengthened quality assurance and
easier recognition of qualifications and periods of study
For more information, contact: _EMAIL_


ethics Tag - PaganSquare - Join the conversation! Sun, 24 Jan 2021 04:41:47 -0800 Joomla! - Open Source Content Management en-gb Divining The Lines
This post started as notes in preparation for a talk I was planning for the seers group in my tradition. I decided to share it with some modifications to make it more broadly applicable. The following points are offered to encourage mindfulness and dialogue regarding the ethics and best practices for divination, oracular work, and allied disciplines. They do not cover all possible situations and differences in applications or doctrines, so change and adapt what is here to match your needs. I think that it is important for your sake and the sake of those lives that you touch to be clear on your ethical guidelines if you offer readings or oracular sessions of any kind. If you do not agree with any or all of these suggestions, I hope you will work to create your own or consider these a template that you can adjust.
1. Ethics & Morals
Whatever system of ethics and morals you use in other contexts of your life should also be applied in doing readings and offering guidance. Bring your inner compass for right and wrong into play before beginning. Doing divination and/or oracular work is an act of service for both the people to whom it is provided and whatever spirits or divine beings sponsor the work. As a starting point, consider the nature of the social contract involved in both the giving and the receiving of a reading or a consultation.
2. Are You Fit To Provide The Guidance?
Before doing divination or seers' work of any kind, check in with yourself. Do you have the emotional, physical, and spiritual energy to proceed? If illness, exhaustion, life circumstances, or other matter have worn you down, you may not be able to offer your best. Is the nature of the question or the guidance that is being sought pushing your buttons or triggering you in some way? It may be better to refer the person to someone else if your own emotions, memories, or judgments cloud the reading. Additionally, doing too many readings in a short span of time or doing ones whose content and themes are particularly draining can damage your capacity as a reader or oracle. Allow recovery and rebalancing time for yourself.
3. Rules Of Confidentiality Must Be Followed
There is a great deal of personal information that is exposed by this work in both the questions and the answers. People often reveal private details of their lives, details which should be kept in confidence. Often readings will involve other people in the querent's life so the information that you provide may speak of them. The confidentiality and privacy needs of those that are not present but mentioned in a session also matter. If the session has multiple attendees, as in a group channelling, mediumship, oracular ritual, or such, try to impress upon those present the need for confidentiality. If you distrust the ability of some of those present to maintain confidentiality, you may need to modify what you are doing, end the session, or follow-up privately. Depending on the situation, if there is certain danger to others or the person asking the question, you may have to consider whether confidentiality is the highest good or not.
4. People Looking For Guidance Are Often Vulnerable
Many, possibly the majority of people coming to you for guidance are doing so because they are confused, uncertain, under pressure, and so on. It is crucial that you offer compassion, remain present and listen carefully, and foster a sense of serenity. As you listen to their questions and concerns, allow your rational mind and instincts to sort through what is real, what is imagined, and what is skewed. Even if they are fully sincere and forthright, the stress of their circumstances will introduce some distortions to their account. Strive to give answers to the questions they cannot fully form.
There is a danger that some people will become dependent upon readings and consultations. If you did your job well, and gave them relief and useful guidance they may wish to continue to rely upon you. Addiction to getting readings and divination is a real thing. Consider setting firm boundaries on how often they are allowed to seek you out. Also be wary if they keep returning after a reasonable gap in sessions with the same question.
5. Ask For Higher Guidance
Part of the work is science, part of it is art, but deep insight often comes from the unseen if it is asked for. Seek your Higher Self, the other person's Higher Self, and your concept of the Divine in offering guidance. If you work with spirits or other entities, commune with them as well. Be sensitive and aware of their belief system and include it in the work if it is practical to do so. In the end you are accountable for the guidance you offer, regardless of the complexities of the sources of that information.
6. Know The Limits Of Your Knowledge
What you know or don't know about the world can have a powerful impact on the validity and utility of the guidance you offer. How well you can interpret and relay your conclusions and summaries to the querent will depend as much, if not more, on your knowledge of the content material as your spiritual skills. For example, unless you are a health care professional, you may not have the language or the understanding to give good advice even if your divinatory skills are working well on a health related question. Make it clear whether or not you have formal training in the fields discussed during a reading. Also make it clear when you make a statement if you are using divination or if it is a professional opinion if you are qualified to give one.
Sometimes the most important counsel you will give is a referral to a professional in a field in line with the needs of the state of affairs.
7. Be True To What You See In A Reading
It is valuable to communicate the full range of gentle and harsh forces at play in a consultation. Don't sugar-coat and don't scare people when doing a reading lest you become entangled in their choices by providing them with skewed information. Honesty also means admitting when you aren't getting anything useful or need to take some time to process what you are seeing. There are many levels to each reading so different readers will focus on different things in accordance with their training and personalities. You are only responsible for seeing and expressing your truth as clearly and fully as you are able.
8. A Tool For Empowerment
Each session reveals opportunities for growth and the exercise of free will. Try to empower people to seek their personal best and best possible outcomes. Encourage people to talk and to think out loud during a reading so that they take an active role in exploring the possibilities and problem solving. There are many possible futures and the goal is ever to make it possible for the querent to choose between the available options. The goal is for the querent to feel that they have the power to make their own choices.
9. A Commitment To Self-Improvement As A Seer
In addition to a commitment to learn more and to strive for a better command of your preferred methods of divination, work towards understanding other methods as well. Study is good, but regular practice of your skills is necessary to maintain or improve the quality of your efforts. Self-care is also a part of self-improvement.
10. Context Specific Rules And Choices.
Depending upon whether or not you are a solo practitioner, part of an organization, or a business, you may need to create or adopt rules and guidelines specific to your context. For example, I won't do readings for people under 18 without verified parental consent. There may be regulations or policies associated with your geographical location or your organizational affiliation. If there are fees for services provided there should also be guidelines on what is fair and appropriate. If you are working as a part of a collective in service to a community or to members of an organization, there may be differences in how you work in-house rather than the general public. As you can see there are many other considerations beyond the points discussed here.
It is my hope that these points will stimulate further explorations of your approach and principles for not only divinatory work, but other facets of your magickal and spiritual praxis.
Read more]]> (Ivo Dominguez Jr) Studies Blogs Fri, 03 May 2019 07:13:51 -0700
Harm None: Reaching Deeper b2ap3_thumbnail_web3_sm.jpgAny discussion of the meaning of "Harm none" can - and should – generate plenty of questions. That's the nature of determining our ethical behavior: our perspective shifts as we circle the problem at hand. This is necessary. The reason for ethics is to determine how to minimize damage to others, and unless we try to walk for a while in their shoes, to empathize with their viewpoint, its almost impossible to do that. This includes our own viewpoint. If we didn't need to consider our own desire in any given matter, there would be no need for ethics. Which means we need to be very clear about why we want something, and ideally be aware of the consequences of that desire.
We might call this being good neighbors. How would you treat your neighbor if you want to continue – or create – a good relationship? That in no way means that you must be friends with this person, it only means that when you see them in person, that a smile and a wave is easily done. It might be faked, this person may have done something to mildly annoy you, but the fake is easy, and can eventually become a genuine smile if the offense is not repeated.
Lets take the analogy a bit further. If your


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Before the establishment of the Cooperative, the Kilim River Tourism Jetty was under the management of The Fishermen Economy Group. For operation purpose, the group registered a company under the name of KEN Makmur Enterprise. The company operated under the supervision of the Department of Fishery from 2000 to 2010.
However many of the fishermen were facing constraint as they were living in poverty. As a way to overcome the poverty, the fishermen decided to venture into business and this had led to the idea of establishing a cooperative as the vehicle to achieve that mission. After several sessions of discussion, members of the association and Fishermen Economy Group commitee members agreed to set up the Cooperative.
Following up on the establishment of the Cooperative, the management of Kilim River jetty was handed to the Cooperative. Cooperative members consist of villagers of Kilim Village and the membership stands at about 114 members.
To become a leading community-based cooperative and as a focal point of reference at the national and global levels.
- Maintaining the mangroves natural environment, improving the necessary infrastructure and to stay listed as a UNESCO geopark.
- Mangroves conservation activities through mangroves replantation and education.
- Diversifying local tourism activities.
- Organizing activities and programs for the community and tourists.
- Working with government agencies and the private sector in the implementation of activities and related programs.
- Provides good exposure to members and the community on ongoing basis.
- Maintains a dedicated and informative website to promote Kilim Geoforest Park and to be used for reference and studies.
- Provides employment and business opportunities to the Kilim community.
- Improves the living standards of the community with incomes earned through tourism-based economic activities and businesses.
- Reduces and overcome the problem of poverty among the Kilim community.
- Produces successful entrepreneurs in Kilim community.
- Becomes a successful community center that serves as a reference for other cooperatives.
- Provides tourists boat services for exploring Kilim Geoforest Park (Mangrove Tour)
- Management of Kilim River Tourism Jetty.
- Sales of entrance tickets to Bats' Cave.
- Provides vehicles for hire.
- Operates related retail businesses.
- Operates Anjung Lestari Restaurant.


text:
Wet winter weather increases icy road risk
13 November 2012
Hampshire road users are being reminded to take extra care this winter as the saturated ground means that water runoff from fields makes it more likely that rural roads will ice over during cold weather.
According to the Met Office, this summer has officially been the wettest in one hundred years and there appears to be no let up in rain as winter approaches. The Environment Agency has recently released a warning that, following further wet weather in September and October, rivers are full and the ground is saturated, with the result that current groundwater levels in some areas are extremely high and water is seeping onto Hampshire's roads. Roads that would normally dry quickly after precipitation are more likely to remain wet and ice over when the road surface temperature drops below zero.
Councillor Mel Kendal, Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Hampshire County Council said:
"Road users need to take extra care this winter because, due to the saturated ground, even a small amount of rain or snow means that roads are more likely to experience water running on to them which can easily ice over when the temperature freezes. We have recently experienced our first frosts of the winter and our salting teams have been out treating Hampshire's main routes but, although temperatures may rise slightly in the days to come, drivers still need to take care as some roads may be covered with deep puddles.
"Hampshire County Council takes road safety extremely seriously and invests heavily to maintain and improve the 5,000 plus miles of road in the county. Keeping Hampshire Moving is a priority of the Council - the road network is a vital support for our regional economy and people need to be safe when going about their day-to-day business, whatever the weather. We have a long-term strategic programme of road maintenance and enhancement, Operation Resilience, which aims to make our roads more resilient to the damaging effects of weather extremes and increasing traffic levels, as well as to improve the overall condition of the roads."


text:
Fifteenth Annual British Graduate Shakespeare Conference
- 6-8 June 2013
The British Graduate Shakespeare Conference, run by students for students, provides graduates and undergraduates from all over the world with the opportunity to:
- Attend three days of stimulating paper panels relating to all aspects of the study of Renaissance drama and the cultural history of the early modern period.
- Present and discuss your research amongst an active, friendly and supportive community of postgraduate researchers, from all over the world.
- Visit the beautiful and historic town of Stratford-upon-Avon, home to the Royal Shakespeare Company and the newly renovated Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
- Explore the excellent resources of the prestigious Shakespeare Institute Library, and the Shakespeare Centre Library.
- Attend a production at the RSC's Royal Shakespeare Theatre at a group bookings price.
Contact us with questions at: _EMAIL_


There are many cities around the world that seem to be floating on water, such as Venice and Italy, because of all the canals that run through them. The streets are replaced by waterways and there are more boats than cars.
These are some of the best water-based cities on the planet.
1. Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
Venice is filled with water fountains, canals, bridges, gondolas, museums, filigreed churches, palazzos, public squares, and some wonderful architecture. It's probably the most famous and popular of all the floating cities and for good reason. However, the city is being threatened by the rising tide levels so you may want to visit it sooner rather than later.
2. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
Brunei's largest city features a neighborhood that's basically held together by about 20 miles of wooden foot bridges. These bridges connect to a total of 42 smaller villages which contain thousands of stilt structures such as homes, hospitals, firehouses, mosques, gas stations, police stations, schools, and shops. All of the buildings come with modern conveniences including air conditioning, internet access, and indoor plumbing. People in this region have been living just above the water for about 1,300 years now.
3. Hong Kong, China
If you head to Hong Kong's Aberdeen Harbour, you'll find thousands of boats known as junks. Back in the 1960s it was estimated that about 100,000 people lived on these boats, but these days only about 6,000 remain. Many of the boats are still used, but just for fishing instead of living on. They provide an awesome colourful sight and there are numerous restaurant boats in the harbour where you can enjoy some excellent fresh seafood.
4. Amsterdam, Holland
Back in the late 1500s Amsterdam was pretty crowded and there wasn't much room to house the population and expand local businesses. They solved the problem by draining the area's swamps to create a series of canals that went around in circles. It was an amazing and complex engineering feat that changed the face of the city forever. Houses, and other structures were erected in the dry areas and Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful locations in the world today. It's estimated that there are just over 60 miles of canals flowing through the Dutch city.
5. Bangkok, Thailand
Bangkok is known for its floating markets which travel on the water on small, flat-bottomed boats. Each boat tries to attract customers and it's quite a sight to see. Some of the boats sell fresh produce and/or clothes while others are actually floating restaurants. You'll also find some homes in the area that are built on stilts over the river. Bangkok used to have many more canals, but a lot of them were paved over during the past 100 years because of health reasons.
6. St. Petersburg, Russia
The roots of St. Petersburg can be traced back to 1703 when a czar came upon the Neva River anddeclared it was so beautiful that a city should be built there. Today the city features numerous canals and some beautiful architecture and huge stone palaces.
7. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
Fort Lauderdale is home to about 300 miles of canals which reach from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Everglades. They can be explored by sightseeing cruises and water taxis. You can also check them out on your own by kayak or canoe or try out one of the many gondolas.
8. Gold Coast City, Australia
Gold Coast is filled with artificial islands and canals that were created from Queensland swamps. The area is about eight times bigger than Venice. The newest canals opened up in 2007 with more still being dug out today. The Gold Coast is popular kayaking, dinner cruises, and high-speed jet boats. The area is also famous for its beaches and surfing.
9. Suzhou, China
This city's canals flow past pagoda-roofed homes and weeping willows. The town itself dates back about 2,500 years and is very rich historically. There are two major canal streets that run through the city center. Pingjiang Road is 800 years old and Shantang Road is 1,200 years old. Suzhou is known for silk production, classical gardens, and a leaning tower erected in 961 called the Yunyan Pagoda.
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