, books, equipment, food, institutional costs, and other miscellaneous expenses. With all costs factored in, traditional administrative assistant associate programs are typically more expensive than their digital counterparts.
As a whole, inclusive of online and certificate programs, the average tuition fees of undergraduate administrative assistant programs are $4,157 for residents and $9,161 for out-of-state learners (College Tuition Compare, 2020). Meanwhile, graduate programs cost $8,688 in-state and $12,726 out-of-state.
Is an online administrative assistant degree worth it?
An online administrative assistant degree is certainly worth it. The variety of skills a student learns, from clerical work to accounting principles, can land them a job in pretty much any industry. Their career path is also clear-cut, as administrative assistants can eventually become executive assistants, office administrators, office managers, and project managers.
The same can be said for holders of industry-specific administrative assistant degrees. In fact, medical administrative assistants have been proven to foster efficiency in the workplace, which is why the position is currently in demand.
This is echoed in "Implementing Resident Team Assistant Programs at Academic Medical Centers: Lessons Learned" published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education. According to the researchers, the employment of resident assistants has "positively impacted the administrative task burden and job satisfaction of the residents while maintaining high acceptability from the hospital staff, patients, families, and community pediatricians. They have been considerably feasible in terms of costs and effort by the institutions (Takei et al., 2020)."
Source: College Tuition Compare 2021
What are the requirements of an online administrative assistant associate degree?
The requirements of online degrees tend to vary by institution. Some barely have any while others are similar to traditional degrees. But in a lot of cases, the requirements for online administrative assistant associate degrees are fewer than traditional ones.
Admission Requirments
In many cases, applicants will have to submit their transcript of grades and a high school diploma or its GED equivalent, but there are also institutions, like some community colleges, that forego those and focus on performance requirements. To be safe, it is better to have a copy of the transcript and diploma beforehand in case they are needed. Applicants can also submit letters of recommendation written by former teachers and/or employers. A resume might be required for applicants who have held jobs previously.
In addition, applicants could need to demonstrate their proficiency through one or a combination of tests.
 - Accuplacer score of at least 71 to 100 in reading, 50 in mathematics, and 5 in writing
 - A high score in the SAT or ACT
 - Minimum TOEFL score of 550 (paper-based) or 79 (internet-based), with 20/30 grades on reading and writing (for international applicants)
 - Cambridge English Scale score of 180 in reading and writing (for international students)
 - IELTS score of 6.5 in reading and writing (for international students)
Besides U.S. territories, countries that predominantly use the English language might be exempted from submitting English proficiency scores. In this scenario, the school will evaluate an applicant's English and reading proficiency through their transcript.
Should students wish to pursue a bachelor's degree later in the same institution, they need not resubmit the aforesaid requirements in most cases. They can also leverage the credits they earned during their associate program so that they do not need to retake the same classes as they take up a bachelor's degree. It is a likely outcome considering that a slight majority (27%) of executive assistants and administrative assistants hold bachelor's degrees (Zippia, 2021).
TOEFL exam score requirement
General Requirements
Students looking to become administrative assistants must possess or hone a certain set of skills. These enable them to perform their coursework with ease as well as become competitive in the industry as they enter the workforce. Some examples include:
 - Communication skills. The job of an administrative assistant entails quite a lot of written and verbal communication. This can range from composing emails, answering calls, preparing speeches, drafting memos, to taking calls, and participating in meetings. As such, it is critical that you have mastery of grammar, practice proper pronunciation, have clear diction, and have an innate skill for using the right tone for every workplace situation.
 - Organization skills. Administrative assistants are the right-hand of executives. They need to manage an array of tasks to enable higher-ranking officials of an organization to perform their duties seamlessly. This involves filing paperwork, planning, maintaining schedules, and the like. So, administrative assistants should have strong organizational skills that will allow them to serve as extensions of executives.
 - Technological know-how. As an assistant, you will most likely handle correspondence on the computer, prepare documents, and schedule calendars. As such, you are expected to know your way around word processors, spreadsheet platforms, and other office productivity tools.
What are the technological requirements of students for 0nline learning?
A student should have the necessary equipment to be able to take online classes. After all, a lot of institutions leverage some of the best LMS for schools, and these platforms may require fairly new computers, updated operating systems, and high-speed internet. These requirements include:
 - PC or Mac desktop or laptop computer
 - Monitor
 - Speakers
 - Webcam
 - Headset
 - Microphone
 - Windows 8.1 or higher/OS 10.14 or higher
 - Internet download speed of 10 Mbps
 - Upload speed of 2 Mbps
Source: Zippia 2021
Courses to Expect in an Online Administrative Assistant Associate Degree
Administrative assistants own a wide range of competencies, and this is reflected in the roster of online degree courses offered by most schools. Some programs have a more in-depth approach to certain courses but the types of subjects taken are often similar. So what exactly are these courses?
 - Principles of Accounting/Bookkeeping: This course imparts knowledge of the basic accounting cycle typically used by retail and service businesses. The topics covered include recording transactions, preparing financial statements, identifying and analyzing business transactions, and payroll procedures.
 - Business Communications: This course covers the modes of communication that administrative assistants handle like writing and composing letters, memos, business reports, business cards, and brochures. It emphasizes proper grammar, punctuation usage, and, in some cases, corporate vernacular.
 - Business Office Management: Administrative assistants offer support in a lot of ways, and they will be tackled in this course. Students will learn general knowledge of organizing workspaces, setting and organizing meetings, time management, transcription, and producing office documents.
 - Desktop Publishing: In conjunction with learning proper business communication is its computerized application. This course teaches students how to write various documents and the application of graphics for posters and presentations. Moreover, it introduces the mechanics of widely used desktop publishing software.
 - Business Mathematics: Reports, presentations, and other pertinent documents will require math. This course covers this along with the rationale behind each.
 - Public Speaking: Presentations, meetings, and team tasks require oral communication. As such, this course covers the preparation and delivery of different types of speeches and the process of oral communication in a professional setting.
 - Supervisory Leadership: Some schools include leadership training in their curricula since administrative assistants are likely to become managers in the long run. With this, the course tackles the different kinds of leadership, their application, and how they can increase productivity. Also included are lessons on delegation, evaluating performance, and motivation.
Besides the aforesaid courses, there are other major subjects that will be taken up should a student enroll in an industry-specific administrative assistant program. For instance, legal administrative assistant degrees have basic law courses while medical administrative assistant degrees carry medical subjects.
Upon mastering the courses, learners can apply their skills in a wide variety of industries, including high-paying ones. An ideal landing spot for graduates is to become an executive secretary, with an annual wage of $63,110, or a legal administrative assistant ($48,980), but similar positions in other industries also pay well.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021
Things to Look for in an Online Administrative Assistant Associate Degree
While a lot of post-secondary institutions offer online administrative assistant associate degrees, there are programs that cater to the specific needs of certain learners, from accessibility to the financial requirements and support provided. Meeting one's personal standards certainly enhances the learning experience.
Availability and Accessibility
Mobility is currently a big deal given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the need for distance learning, especially for learners who reside in areas that were hit hard. Thankfully, purely online administrative assistant associate degrees are widely available, as are administrative assistant certificate programs. There are also institutions that offer hybrid degrees to those who prefer to have a mix of online and classroom exercises. The lessons typically do not require immersive labwork or fieldwork so taking the program online does not compromise learning.
A lot of online administrative assistant programs are open to international students while the degrees awarded are recognized internationally. International applicants, however, should keep in mind that they need to take and pass standardized tests that ascertain their proficiency in the language of instruction. For instance, applicants should score at least 20/30 in the TOEFL reading exam.
Hidden Costs and Support Services
Some institutions might not reflect additional charges on top of their listed tuition fees nor, for those that charge high rates, immediately provide a breakdown of costs. It is important to note that online education has its own set of expenses. For instance, charges are added to accommodate teachers and to train them for online instruction. Technical support also merits expenses. Furthermore, some


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Visualizing the Fourth Dimension:
In order to visualize the 4th dimension one must start at the beginning, the 0th dimension. The 0th dimension can be visualized as a single point in 3 dimensional space.
Then take this point in stack it upon itself infinitely many times. This creates a 1 dimensional space, a line.
This like can then be taken and stacked upon itself infinitely many times. This creates a 2 dimensional space, a plane.
This plane can then be taken and stacked upon itself infinitely many times. This creates a 3 dimensional space, a cube.
|\ \
| \___\
\ | |
This is where you need to start to use your imagination. So now that we have built the 3rd dimension we are very close to the forth, all that needs to be done is to take the cube and stack upon itself infinitely many times.
But this presents us with a problem. How do we represent a 4 dimensional object in a 3 dimensional world? To do this I suggest that instead of stacking the cubes we place infinitely many cubes at the same spot and always have the new cube bigger than the previous cube. This creates an infinite space that is filled with infinite spaces.
Visualizing the Fourth Dimension with Respect to Time:
So many people like to claim that the fourth dimension can be seen as time, I agree with this standpoint but feel it is misleading, in order to visualize time as the 4th dimension we must start at the beginning.
Imagine the 0th dimension as a point moving across a plane in a straight line. This is the 0th dimension moving through time. Now if time is taken as the next dimension, the 1st dimension, then the point moving through time can be represented as a line. This line represents 1 dimensional space or 0 dimensional space moving through time.
The same concept can be used to construct 2nd and 3rd dimensional spaces.
Now if this concept is then applied to a cube moving through 3 dimensional space it can be seen as a long line of cubes. These cubes can then be taken and pressed together until all that exists is a single cube filled with an infinite number of cubes. Which turns out to be the same space created earlier.
If you find this topic interesting I suggest you check out the book Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott.


text:
Q: When you're grateful, what exactly are you full of?
A: You're full of gratitude, of course. But what you're really asking is, what is "grate"?
The "grate" that a "grateful" person is full of, according to John Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins, "is a now obsolete adjective, meaning 'pleasing' and 'thankful.' "
The old modifier—derived from gratus, a Latin adjective meaning agreeable, pleasing, or thankful—had its heyday in the 1500s and 1600s, according to citations in the Oxford English Dictionary.
"Grateful is a curious sort of adjective," Ayto writes. "It is unusual for adjectives ending in -ful themselves to be formed from adjectives, and it has been suggested in this case that the related Italian gradevole 'pleasing' may have had some influence."
The OED notes that the Italian word was also spelled gratevole, and that the English usage may have been influenced by "an accidental resemblance" between the Italian -vole and the English "-ful" endings.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Oxford says, "grateful" was one of several new words that showed up in English with adjectives attached to the suffix "-ful." Others were "direful," "tristful," and "fierceful."
The Latin adjective gratus has given English several other words, including "gratify," "gratitude," and "gratuity." And the related Latin noun gratia (grace, kindness) has given English "grace" and "gratis."
Check out our books about the English language

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


EBF 483
Introduction to Electricity Markets
8.4 LMP on a Three Node Network, Constant Marginal Cost
8.4 LMP on a Three Node Network, Constant Marginal Cost
Now that you've seen the basic idea of LMP calculations, we'll move on to the three node network. This will be more complicated because we'll need to use our power flow adjustment calculations as we did in a previous lesson. We will go through a couple of different versions - one with constant marginal costs and one with linear marginal costs.
Our example with constant marginal costs is based on the three node network in the figure below. The marginal cost of Generator A is $5/MWh and the marginal cost of Generator B is $2/MWh. In this example we will impose some capacity constraints on the generators - Generator A can produce at most 10 MW and Generator B can produce at most 7 MW. Demand at Node C is 10 MWh.
3 node network labeled A,B,C, equal resistance. Node 1: MC = $5. capacity= 10MW, Node 2: MC = $2, Capacity = 7MW. Node 3: Demand = 10MWh
Figure 8.6: A three node Network
Source: This image by S. Blumsack © Penn State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
First, we will clear the market and calculate flows without imposing any limits on the transmission lines. The market-clearing solution is for Generator B to produce 7 MWh and Generator A to produce 3 MWh. The SMP is $5/MWh. Flows in the network are calculated as:
F BC = 1 3 G A + 2 3 G B =5 2 3 MW F AC = 2 3 G A + 1 3 G B =4 1 3 MW F AB = 1 3 G A - 1 3 G B =- 4 3 MW
Since there is no transmission congestion in the network, we have that the LMPs are all identical and equal to $5/MWh.
Now we will impose congestion on the system by assuming that the maximum possible flow on Line (B,C) is 5 2/3 MW (which was our flow solution above). We will also assume that demand increases to 11 MWh, so we need to redispatch the generators to avoid overloading Line (B,C). We calculate the redispatch as follows, using the same technique as in Lesson 4:
ΔF BC = 1 3 ΔG A + 2 3 ΔG B =0
 = 1 3 ΔG A + 2 3 ( 1-ΔG A )=0
 - 1 3 ΔG A + 2 3 =0
 ΔG A =+2MWh, ΔG B =-1MWh
We now have GA = 5 MWh and GB = 6 MWh. Since marginal costs are constant, we have:
LMP(A) = $5/MWh; LMP(B) = $2/MWh
LMP(C) = 2 × $5 + (-1 × $2) = $8/MWh
The LMPs at the generator nodes (A and B) are equal to the generator marginal costs. The LMP at Node C reflects the costs of the actions needed to deliver an additional MWh to Node C (increasing generator A by 2 MWh, which imposes a cost of $5/MWh; and reducing output at generator B by 1 MWh, which saves $2/MWh).


Prof. Pierre Boyer, Ph.D.
Project: A2, C5
SFB Associate A2, C5
École Polytechnique
Department of Economics
Route de Saclay
FR-91128 Palaiseau
Tel.: +33 (0) 1-6933-3035
Email: pierre.boyer
Pierre is an assistant professor of economics at CREST-Ecole Polytechnique (Paris). His research interests include public economics, political economy, european integration, and banking regulation.. This involves working projects that explore how the political economy forces shape the policy instruments observed in practice (e.g. the income tax schedule, or the level of publi debt). His previous research has been published in leading journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Journal of Public Economics.


text:
An air cleaner temperature sensor is not overly common on newer vehicles. This is because in order to ensure that your car engine operates the way it should, several electronic sensors may actually be needed. However, if you drive an older model car, your vehicle almost certainly has an air cleaner temperature sensor. It is located inside the breather housing, and operates mainly as a vacuum sensor, although it does also contain some electronic components.
The air cleaner temperature sensor has only one function – it delivers information to your car's computer so that it can ensure that the air/fuel mix is right, regardless of the speed at which you are traveling. This means that as soon as you start up your car, the air cleaner temperature sensor begins to work.
The air cleaner temperature sensor is not a part that is replaced after a certain number of miles, or after so many years. It has no specific lifespan, and could last the life of your vehicle. However, as is the case with all parts that contain electronic components, the air cleaner temperature sensor can be vulnerable to corrosion, and it can also be damaged easily because of its location inside the breather housing – just changing an air filter places the sensor at risk of impact.
Signs that your air cleaner temperature sensor needs to be replaced include:
- Check Engine Light is on
- Car idles rough or stalls when cold
You can still drive if your air cleaner temperature sensor is failing, but performance will suffer. If you think that it needs to be replaced, consult a qualified mechanic. A mechanic can find out why your vehicle is idling rough or stalling, and if necessary, replace the air cleaner temperature sensor.


text:
Egyptomania 4: Animals
Part 4 of a four-program series. See details under Egyptomania 1: Introduction to Daily Life.
Why were so many Egyptian gods part-human and part-animal? This lesson explores how ancient Egyptians observed animal behavior and ascribed animal characteristics to their gods. Students participate in a game to help them classify and link animals with their natural environment.
Teacher Information Packet will be mailed.
- Open with discussion on students' previous knowledge on Egyptian figures.
- Explain that animals were metaphorical to the Egyptians.
- View example of animal representations in sculpture and painting and discuss depiction of gods in the guise of animals.
- Discuss what characteristics of certain animals might have related to the gods they represent.
- Classification of animals in graphic organizer interactivity throughout videoconference.
- Students will explore how ancient Egyptians observed animal behavior and ascribed animal characteristics to their gods.
- Students will learn how animals were used in Egyptian stories and myths to explain human behavior and the workings of the universe.
- Students will be able to identify an animal's physical traits that link it to its natural environment.
- Students will classify animals found in ancient and modern Egypt by their scientific family.


text:
Chapter 7 Analysis of Aromatic Hydrocarbons
Pages: 3 Published: Jun 1998
THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL analyses of aromatic hydrocarbons began in the 1920s when the production of benzene from coke by-products became commercially viable. By the 1930s, the rapid growth in demand for benzene as well as the commercial production of heavier aromatics led to the formulation of a considerable number of empirical analytical procedures. At this time, ASTM Committee D16 on Aromatic Hydrocarbons was formed. In the more than 50 years that this group has been active, the changes in analytical techniques have progressed hand-in-hand with the advancements in process technology and the expansion in the demand for high-purity aromatic products.
Paper ID: MNL10828M
ASTM International is a member of CrossRef.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Established causes of diabetes do not fully explain the present epidemic. High-level arsenic exposure has been implicated in diabetes risk, but the effect of low-level arsenic exposure in drinking water remains unclear. The researchers sought to determine whether long-term exposure to low-level arsenic in drinking water in Denmark is associated with an increased risk of diabetes using a large prospective cohort.


Frequently Asked Questions
WakaTime only tracks your coding activity when you're typing or changing things in your text editor or IDE. The plugins "ping" our api with heartbeat events when you're using your IDE. When the heartbeats stop, that tells us you stopped using your IDE or text editor. Set a timeout value (default 15 minutes) to tell us how long until we mark you as AFK. When you're not using your text editor for longer than your timeout value, we stop counting you as active.
For example, if you took a 10 minute break and your timeout is set to the default 15 minutes, the 10 minutes where you were AFK will be logged. However, setting your timeout to 5 minutes would not log your 10 minute break.
WakaTime accurately detects the time you code in each file and project, down to the second.
This high-level state machine shows how:
 1. WakaTime starts a timer when you begin editing a file.
 2. The timer is stopped when you go AFK by reaching your timeout setting. When you go AFK, WakaTime rewinds the timer until the time you last edited the file.
 3. The timer is also stopped when you switch to editing a different file. In this case, WakaTime saves the time from when you started editing the original file until when you switched to the new file. The time is reset and we start over at step 1 with the new file.
Your public profile uses the default 15 minute timeout value with a time range of Last 7 Days from Yesterday.
We also subtract coding activity from language Other.
The leaderboards use the same formula as your public profile.
Setting your preferences to the defaults, matching the leaderboard time range, and subtracting coding activity categorized as language Other will show the same coding activity as your dashboard.
When working offline your coding actiity is saved in an sqlite3 database at $HOME/.wakatime.db. The next time you use your IDE when online, your coding activity is syncronized.
Data & Privacy
WakaTime sends heartbeat events triggered from user actions inside your text editor to the WakaTime API.
Heartbeat events contain data such as:
 - absolute path of current file [1]
 - current time as a UNIX epoch float (seconds.milliseconds)
 - whether the event was triggered from writing to a file
 - current project from a supported revision control
 - current branch from a supported revision control
 - total number of lines from the file as an integer
 - current cursor position as an integer
 - syntax language guessed from the file, for example Python or JavaScript
 - libraries and frameworks detected from the file, for example Flask or Rails
 - your computer's hostname, like MacbookPro.local or HOME-PC
Heartbeat events are sent:
 - every 2 minutes if you are actively using your text editor
 - when you switch between files
 - every time you write to a file
The easiest way to hide files/folders from WakaTime is adding them to the exclude array in your $HOME/.wakatime.cfg file.
For example, to prevent tracking all folders named private:
[settings] exclude = /private/
For Windows use escaped backslashes:
[settings] exclude = \\private\\
You can list multiple paths in your config file, and each path is a POSIX regular expression:
[settings] exclude = ^/var /private_\d+/
The above example excludes any path starting with /var and also any folder named private_123 where 123 can be any number.
You can also configure WakaTime to obfuscate file names by adding hidefilenames = true to your $HOME/.wakatime.cfg file.
This means only your project names will be sent to the website, so you can not see coding activity per file.
The hidefilenames setting also accepts a list of folders instead of just true or false, for example:
hidefilenames = /path/to/private/folder/ /another/folder[\d+]/matched/by/regex/
Note: Sublime Text users won't have a $HOME/.wakatime.cfg file, so create one using this example config.
Yes, you can export all your coding activity in JSON format here.
No, your coding history is saved even on the free plan. The dashboard limitation is to prevent overwhelming our servers with having to process too much data. However, your coding activity is kept and made available if you choose to upgrade sometime in the future.
WakaTime creates projects for you automatically, based on your coding activity.
This means you don't need to manually create a project, just use your IDE or text editor like normal.
WakaTime is a passive reporting dashboard, and automatic project detection fits with the philosophy of never getting in your way.
WakaTime recognizes the project's name one of four ways:
 1. Revision control software (Ex: Git, Mercurial, or Subversion):
 To set the project name for a folder, go to that folder in a terminal and type:
 git init
 Files inside that folder will be assigned to a project with that folder's name.
 * only renames projects for new coding activity
 2. Create a.wakatime-project file inside your project directory. Type the project name as the first line of this file and WakaTime will use that project name for all files inside this directory.
 * only renames projects for new coding activity
 3. Adding the project directory to your ~/.wakatime.cfg file under the [projectmap] section.
 * only renames projects for new coding activity
 4. As a last resort use custom rules:
 * Warning: this will rename projects from past coding activity. Use with caution!
To exclude projects from being logged in the future, add the project's path to your ~/.wakatime.cfg file under the exclude setting.
To delete a project, you must first remove it's coding activity using the Coding Activity Delete Tool.
After removing a project's coding activity, you can delete the project by visiting the project's dashboard and clicking the trash icon.
Make sure the plugin is correctly installed in your editor. ( Look for a WakaTime menu under File/Tools )
Check when your editor was last heard from using the User Agents API Endpoint.
If one editor isn't listed or hasn't been "seen" in a while, look for error messages in that editor's log file or in the common ~/.wakatime.log file.
If you use multiple computers, find when a computer's hostname was last heard from using the Machine Names API Endpoint.
The value is the Hostname and ip is the IP Address of your machine.
To see your recent raw coding activity, use the Heartbeats API Endpoint.
Please create a new issue in the appropriate GitHub repo with any error messages.
 1. All WakaTime plugins use a common core (wakatime-cli) for communicating with the API.
 This common core writes errors to $HOME/.wakatime.log.
 2. Errors from the editor plugin go to your IDE's log file:
 Locating your IDE's log file
 3. Please create a new issue in the appropriate GitHub repo with your error messages.
To generate a new api key on the website, go to your API Key page.
Make sure to update your api key in $HOME/.wakatime.cfg(for plugins using wakatime cli) or WakaTime.sublime-settings(for Sublime Text) with your newly generated api key.
Yes, all WakaTime plugins play well together. You can switch between multiple supported editors and your coding activity will be syncronized correctly. If you use revision control software, your project will be detected even when using multiple editors.


text:
Textile fibres are estimated to be the single largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the fashion industry. Spinnova is at the forefront of helping brands significantly reduce their emissions and has now verified its climate impact with an expert assessment with the help of an external climate business consultancy. Their assessment shows that Spinnova's carbon footprint is 1.28 kg CO2e/kg fibre which is 72% lower compared to conventional cotton (4.6 kgCO2e/kg fibre).
The only by-product of Spinnova's first commercial factory is carbon neutral surplus heat, which will be reused in a local district heating network, reducing 3.2 kg CO2e/kg of emissions that would otherwise be produced in generating district heat. Taking this into account, Spinnova's production actually saves more CO2 emissions than it emits. The emission savings of Spinnova's annual production correspond to driving almost 14 million kilometres, or 350 times around the globe.
"The results confirm what we have expected: that SPINNOVA® is an extremely climate positive textile fibre. It supports our brand partners' exceptionally sustainable products, achieving their carbon neutrality targets and a winning competitive advantage for both them and Spinnova", comments Spinnova's Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Juha Salmela.
When replacing conventional cotton with SPINNOVA®, fashion brands can save 6.5 kg CO2e/kg of fibre produced. This positive climate impact is called the carbon handprint, and it compares the climate impact of two products intended for the same use. In this case, SPINNOVA® fibre produced at the first commercial factory in Jyväskylä was compared to the average climate impact of conventional cotton production from cradle-to-gate – so from farming the raw material, wood or cotton, to the end of the fibre production process. The calculation methodology has been developed by the Finnish Technical Research Centre VTT and LUT University.
"The carbon handprint methodology was developed to holistically evaluate and communicate positive climate impacts of solutions tackling climate change. Spinnova is setting an example with their impressive result and transparent reporting", says Sari Siitonen, CEO and founder of climate business consultancy Clonet, who calculated Spinnova's carbon handprint.
Low-emission technology and surplus heat as main drivers of positive climate impact
Spinnova's low-emission technology includes use of CO2-free energy and smart energy systems. The factory only uses wind power and heat recovered from its own process as its energy sources. The surplus energy recovered from Spinnova's process with heat pumps is recycled into the local district heating network, reducing the local energy provider Alva's emissions by replacing energy sources such as peat. The heat pump facility recovering and reusing energy from Spinnova's process is being built by energy systems supplier Calefa. Valmet, the supplier of fibre drying technology for the factory, has also been involved in planning and supplying technology for the energy solutions.
Because we use wind power, the carbon footprint of Spinnova's process is already very small, but we've wanted to push our technology even further. The energy solutions we have developed together with our partners further improve this process from both a sustainability and efficiency viewpoint. We are very proud of this and our climate impact overall, Salmela adds.
Important milestone on Spinnova's commercialisation journey
The calculations are based on the emissions of Spinnova's technology and production process used at the company's first commercial-scale factory in Jyväskylä, expected to be completed at the end of this year. The calculations are based on known quantities and, as the factory is not yet operational, some assumptions. The opening of the factory is a major milestone on Spinnova's commercialisation journey and important part of Spinnova and its joint venture partner Suzano's scaling target of producing one million tonnes of SPINNOVA® fibre annually within the next 10-12 years.
By scaling its fibre production using low-emission technology, Spinnova helps its brand partners to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their value chains. The other key environmental benefits of SPINNOVA® include minimal water use, zero microplastics, biodegradability, and that no harmful chemicals are used in the manufacturing process.
Carbon handprint calculation
The carbon handprint calculations were made according to the carbon handprint methodology developed by the Finnish Technical Research Centre VTT and LUT University, and they are based on the ISO 14067:2018 standard. Clonet made the calculation on their OpenCO2.net platform with widely used methodologies and emissions databases.


text:
Help > Getting Started with Commander
To get started quickly with Commander, you should perform the following primary tasks
For release notes and installation information, see Setup.
- Configure Active Directory Integration and/or Configure LDAP Integration
Integrate with directory services for Commander user accounts and for assignment of owners to specific resources.
- Configure Email Integration (SMTP)
Allow email notification for scheduled reports, service request policy alerts, and application lifecycle management alerts.
- Create Organizations
Create distinct organizations for your users. This allows you to segregate data for different consumer groups, set up distinct cloud automation configurations, and delegate administrative tasks.
- Add Cloud Accounts to Commander
Add a cloud account. This can be an AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Azure, Microsoft SCVMM, or VMware vCenter cloud account. You can also add a Terraform workspace to Commander.
- Set Resource Ownership with Policies
Assign resource ownership to organizations and users, so that costs are properly allocated.
- Retrieve Public Cloud Billing Data or vCenter Historical Events
Retrieve additional information from your public and private clouds for use in reporting, trending, and cloud expense management.
- Sync Public Cloud Tags and Commander Custom Attributes
Sync tags and attributes for Tag Compliance Policy enforcement, reporting, and power schedule recommendations.
- Repeat steps 4-7 for each cloud account.
After going through the above steps for each cloud account, consider doing the following:
- Learn about Commander role-base access control and determine what access to give administrators and service users. See Commander Access Control
- Go through the basic cloud automation steps to configure a user self-service request process. See Getting Started with Cloud Automation.
- Learn about the configuration steps required to begin managing cloud expenses through Commander. See Get started with cloud expense management.


To Keep Fit Take A Dog As Walking Companion
Dog walking was highest among the young and educated, with 18 to 24 year old owners twice as likely to walk the dog as those over 65, and college graduates more than twice as likely as those with less education.
Younger dogs were more likely to be walked than older dogs. While larger dogs (20 kgs. or more) were taken for longer walks than smaller dogs.
Researchers from Michigan State University said that among dog owners who took their pets for regular walks, 60 percent met United States government criteria for regular moderate or vigorous exercise. Nearly half of dog walkers exercised an average of 30 minutes a day at least five days a week.
The dog walkers had higher overall levels of both moderate and vigorous physical activity than the other subjects, and they were more likely to take part in other leisure time physical activities. On average, they exercised about 30 minutes a week more than people who didn't have dogs.
Several studies now show that dogs can be powerful motivators to let people moving and keep fit. Not only are dog owners more likely to take regular walks, but new research shows that dog walkers are more active overall than people who don't have dogs.
Human walkers often complained about the heat and talked each other out of exercise, but that people who were paired with dogs didn't make those excuses, according to Rebecca A. Johnson, director of the human-animal interaction research center at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine.
A study of 41,500 California residents found that dog owners were about 60 percent more likely to walk for leisure than people who owned a cat or no pet at all. That translated to an extra 19 minutes a week of walking compared with people without dogs.


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The Nested DFX design methodology moves the HD.RECONFIGURABLE property down and up through the hierarchy. Implementation tools follow standard DFX design rules based on what cells are currently defined as reconfigurable. This holds true for write_bitstream as well; partial bitstreams will only be created for cells currently holding the HD.RECONFIGURABLE property.
With any fully routed design checkpoint open in Vivado, use write_bitstream to generate full and partial bitstreams. Remember, by default this command will generate a standard full bitstream for the entire device and a partial bitstream for each cell defined as reconfigurable. Two options can limit results to one or the other:
- The -cell option will generate ONLY a partial bitstream for the requested cell.
- The -no_partial_bitfile option will generate ONLY a standard full device bitstream.
If the full design image you need a full device bitstream for, use a combination of open_checkpoint and read_checkpoint -cell (and update_design -black_box if necessary) to assemble a complete routed design, filling in each module one at a time with routed RM checkpoints. Use report_route_status to confirm that the design is complete.
For example, to create all bitstreams possible for the above design configuration, follow these steps. These commands assume that checkpoints for each module alone (each routed, and some locked) have been created using the same naming conventions as the A1 variants.
open_checkpoint top_A2_Y1_Z1_routed.dcp update_design -black_box -cell A/Y read_checkpoint -cell A/Y Y2_routed.dcp write_bitstream top_A2_Y2_Z1.bit
This last command will create three bitstreams:
- top_A2_Y2_Z1.bit, which is the full design bitstream for the entire device
- top_A2_Y2_Z1_pblock_Y_partial.bit, which is the partial bitstream for Y2 only
- top_A2_Y2_Z1_pblock_Z_partial.bit, which is the partial bitstream for Z1 only
Note that the names for the partial bitstreams are automatically generated. The name always starts with the base name you provided, followed by the RP pblock name, followed by partial. If you would like to have names that show the name of the current RM (for example Y2), then call write_bitstream on the target RP directly:
write_bitstream -cell A/Y top_A2_Y2_partial.bit write_bitstream -cell A/Z top_A2_Z1_partial.bit
Partial bitstreams can only be generated for cells currently marked as HD.RECONFIGURABLE. In order to create a partial bitstream for RP A, pr_recombine must be called before write_bitstream.
pr_recombine -cell A write_bitstream -cell A A2_Y2_Z1_partial.bit
A full device bitstream for this image would be identical to one generated prior to pr_recombine, as the full device bitstream does not have any special programming indicating that later that device will be partially reconfigured.


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Nuclear Science and Engineering / Volume 144 / Number 3 / July 2003 / Pages 200-210
A new numerical method for computing first-flight collision, escape, and transmission probabilities in three dimensions is described. The method consists of subdividing the domain into parts called elements and assuming, as an approximation, that the interaction between a source element and a sink element takes place only along the path that joins their centers of mass. The calculation is repeated with the number of elements increased successively and Richardson extrapolation to an infinite number of elements applied to the sequence of results until convergence to the desired degree of accuracy is attained. Solutions to some test problems indicate that, in general, four steps of repeated Richardson extrapolation are sufficient to yield results with an accuracy comparable to that of existing codes.


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8 oz Natural HDPE Plastic Spray Bottles (Red/White Trigger Sprayer) - 32108-X301R
- 8 oz Natural HDPE Plastic Spray Bottles
- Includes Red/White Trigger Sprayer
- FDA Compliant, BPA Free*
Item # 32108-X301R
Our 8 oz. Natural (HDPE) Plastic Spray Bottle is ideal for many uses. Great for household and industrial-strength cleaners, air and fabric fresheners, just plain water and much more. This Natural color bottle comes with a well-constructed Red/White trigger sprayer.
*Bisphenol A is a chemical sometimes used in the manufacture of certain plastics. Bisphenol A was not used in the manufacture of this item.
- Container withstands autoclaving - sterilizing by achieved through high-pressure saturated steam and heat.
- BPA Non-Intent means BPA was not an intentionally added substance to the manufacturing process.
- Case Packed in a convenient re-shipper carton with carboard dividers, reducing damage and ideal for reuse.
- Child-resistant items are engineered & tested to reduce risks of children under 5 accessing harmful amount of contents, while being user-friendly for seniors.
- Dishwasher safe containers withstand high temperatures, water pressure, and detergents present in dishwashers.
- Products engineered to reduce negative environmental & economic impacts over their life cycle, from the raw materials to the final disposal.
- Constructed of FDA-compliant materials suitable for contact with food.
- Factory Mutual has tested & certified this product to ensure it meets rigorous loss prevention standards.
- Product is suitable for storing in freezer.
- Product has the ability to resist degradation under extreme heat.
- Container is suitable for high pressure processing.
- Containers engineered to prevent leaks and unplanned evacuation of contents. Must be used with cap provided to ensure leakproof performance.
- Product is suitable for microwave use.
- National Sanitation Foundation certifies this product & its manufacturing process comply with standards for safety, quality, sustainability or performance.
- Product is 100% recyclable.
- A tamper-evident container has one or more barriers to entry which if missing shows visual evidence the container was tampered with.
- Packaging engineered & rigorously tested to meet government standards for the shipment of regulated substances. Consult 49 CFR for proper use & labelling.
- US Dept. of Agriculture Approved. Visit _URL_ for more information.
- Provides varying degrees of protection from UV light. Test to ensure packaging meets product protection requirements.
- Learn about the Benefits of E-Commerce Ready Packaging


text:
The DICT Development Group
2 definitions found
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :
Newfoundland \New"found*land'\ (?, often?), prop. n.
1. An island on the coast of British North America, famed for
the fishing grounds in its vicinity.
2. A Newfoundland dog. --Tennyson.
Newfoundland dog (Zool.), a breed of large dogs, with
shaggy hair, which originated in Newfoundland, noted for
intelligence, docility, and swimming powers.
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) :
n 1: a breed of very large heavy dogs with a thick coarse
usually black coat; highly intelligent dogs and vigorous
swimmers; developed in Newfoundland [syn: Newfoundland,
2: an island in the north Atlantic
_EMAIL_ Specification=RFC 2229


text:
Welcome to Lesson 1 of the Advanced Microsoft Word Tutorial. In this lesson we will cover moving around the document. I hope you enjoy the lesson.
Moving Around Your Document
Step 1: View the Bland Document Window
The program window opens along with a blank document window. Usually, both windows are maximized. The program window fills the whole screen, and the document window fills the program window. If your program window isn't maximized, click its Maximize button. To minimize the program window to a button on the Windows taskbar, click the Minimize button.
Step 2: View the Title Bar
The title bar tells you what is in the window. When the document window is maximized, it has to share the title bar with the program window, so the title bar contains the names of both the program (Microsoft Word) and the file. (Document1 is a temporary name for your document. When you save it for the first time, you will replace that name with a name you choose).
Step 3: Use the Menu Bar
The Word menu bar contains menus, which in turn contain all the available Word commands. All the tasks you need to perform are available through menu commands. To use the menu commands, click the menu name to display the menu and click the command you want.
Step 4: Use the Standard Toolbar
By default, Word displays the Standard and Formatting toolbars side-by-side onscreen. The Standard toolbar appears on the top, as shown in this figure. The Standard toolbar contains shortcuts for frequently used commands such as those to open, save, and print documents, and to undo mistakes. To activate a toolbar button, click it. To see a button name, hover the mouse pointer over the button for a moment; a ScreenTip appears with the button name.
Step 5: Use the Formatting Toolbar
The Formatting toolbar, located next to the Standard toolbar, contains shortcuts for commands that change the appearance of the document. To activate a toolbar button, click it. To view the name of the button, point at the button to reveal a ScreenTip.
Step 6: Use the Ruler
The ruler shows you where your margins are, and it lets you set tabs and indents. If you don't see the ruler, you can display it by opening the View menu and choosing Ruler.
Step 7: Use the Work Area
The typing area in a new document is the large blank space bordered by vertical and horizontal scrollbars. The insertion point (a vertical, blinking line, also known as the cursor) shows you where the next character you type will appear. When the mouse pointer is placed over the typing area, it resembles an I-beam.
Step 8: Use the Scrollbars
The vertical and horizontal scrollbars allow you to view different portions of your document. Use the arrows on the scrollbars to scroll in the appropriate direction or drag the scroll box. Use the Previous Page and Next Page buttons (at the bottom of the vertical scrollbar) to jump quickly from one part of your document to the next.
Step 9: Viewing the Status Bar
The status bar indicates the current page, the total number of pages, and the location of your insertion point on the page. As you use Word, the status bar sometimes displays other information as well.


text: The optical methods of disperse media investigations are widely used today in many branches of physics from biophysics to environmental science and astronomy. Scatterers one meets in the fields are commonly known to have complex shape and structure, and many theoretical methods to treat the interaction of radiation with such particles have been developed. However, most of these approaches are still too computationally demanding for proper modelling of the optical properties of disperse media contain in non-spherical inhomogeneous scatterers.The main idea of the book is to provide a reader with thorough information and various tools to solve the problem. The authors plan to review the contemporary light scattering methods, to introduce efficient versions of the fast exact methods as well as of some approximate ones, to summarise theoretical studies of the applicability ranges of the methods and to formulate and illustrate the principia effects of scatterer shape and structure variations on the optical properties. As applications cosmic dust, atmospheric aerosols, nanosensors and other scatterers will be considered.


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Keywords: palladium preconcentration, biosorption, slurry sampling, ETAAS, bakers yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry, water pollution
Slurry sampling electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometric determination of palladium in water using biosorption with inactive baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Inactive cells of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae were used for palladium preconcentration. The conditions for biosorption of palladium and its determination in yeast cells by slurry electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) were optimised. The best sensitivity of measurements and stability of slurry were obtained by using a mechanical agitation (10 minutes) and a mixture of 0.3 mol l−1 thiourea – 1 mol l−1 HCl – 0.5% Triton X-100 as suspension medium. The repeatability of the measurements of Pd in yeast slurry was 6.5% (n = 10). For the quantification of analyte in spiked water samples, the standard addition method was used.


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Next: Example Systems
Up: Blackboard systems
Previous: Implementation issues
The following iterative steps occur in typical blackboard solving activities:
- A knowledge source makes a change to a blackboard object.
- Each knowledge source indicates the contribution it can make to the new
solution state -- either dynamically or a priori based.
- A scheduler decides a focus of attention.
- A control module prepares the focus of attention for execution:
- If the focus of attention is a knowledge source -- a blackboard object
is chosen to serve as its context (knowledge centred scheduling).
- If the focus of attention is a blackboard object -- a knowledge source
to process that object is chosen and instantiated with the object as its context
(event centred scheduling).
- If both a blackboard object and a knowledge source are the focus of
attention an instance of the knowledge source is made ready for execution with
the object as its context.
- The problem solving process continues until a knowledge source has
indicated that it should stop:
- either an acceptable solution has been found, or
- lack of knowledge or data prohibits further action.


- United Transportation Union - _URL_ -
Acting for impaired Railroad Retirement beneficiaries
Posted By rob On February 12, 2013 @ 2:54 pm In Alumni Association News,Amtrak/Commuter News,Recent Updates | Comments Disabled
According to Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) policy, every annuitant has the right to manage his or her own benefits. However, when physical or mental impairments make a railroad retirement annuitant incapable of properly handling benefit payments, or where the RRB determines that the interests of the annuitant so require, the agency can appoint a representative payee to act on the annuitant's behalf.
A representative payee may be either a person or an organization selected by the RRB to receive benefits on behalf of an annuitant.
The following questions and answers provide information for family members, or others, who may have to act on behalf of an annuitant.
1. Does the RRB have legal authority to appoint a representative payee for an annuitant?
The Railroad Retirement Act gives the RRB authority to determine whether direct payment of benefits, or payment to a representative payee, will best serve an annuitant's interest. The RRB can appoint a representative payee regardless of whether there has been a legal finding of incompetence or commitment and, depending on the circumstances in a particular case, the RRB can select someone other than the individual's legal representative to be the representative payee.
2. What if a person has been given power of attorney by a beneficiary?
Power of attorney is a legal process where one person grants another the authority to transact certain business on his or her behalf; but the RRB, like the Social Security Administration, does not recognize power of attorney for purposes of managing benefit payments for a beneficiary. For this purpose, the RRB uses the position of representative payee.
3. Why doesn't the RRB recognize power of attorney?
The Railroad Retirement Act protects a person's right to receive benefits directly and to use them as he or she sees fit by prohibiting the assignment of benefits. Power of attorney creates an assignment-like situation that is contrary to the protections given by this law. The Act likewise gives the RRB exclusive jurisdiction in determining whether to appoint a representative payee for an annuitant. If the RRB recognized power of attorney, it would be deferring to a designation made by someone outside of the agency and would, in effect, be abdicating its responsibility to the annuitant.
Also, events often occur which may affect an annuitant's eligibility for benefits. The responsibility for reporting these events to the RRB is placed, by law, directly on the annuitant or the annuitant's representative payee. When benefits are accepted, the annuitant or his or her payee attests to a continued eligibility for such benefits. And if payments are misused, they can be recouped from the payee. This is not true with power of attorney.
4. How are these representative payees selected?
Generally, the RRB's local field offices determine the need for a representative payee and interview potential payees. The field office also advises the payee of his or her duties, monitors the payee, investigates any allegations of misuse of funds, and changes the method of payment, or the payee, when appropriate.
The RRB provides 15 days' advance notice to an annuitant of its intent to appoint a representative payee, and the name of the payee, in order to allow the annuitant a period of time in which to contest the appointment.
5. What are the primary duties and responsibilities of a representative payee?
The payee must give first consideration to the annuitant's day-to-day needs. This includes paying for food, shelter, clothing, medical care and miscellaneous personal needs. Beyond day-to-day needs, railroad retirement benefits may be used for other expenses.
The payee is also responsible for reporting events to the RRB that affect the individual's annuity, and is required to account for the funds received on behalf of the annuitant.
In addition, since railroad retirement benefits are subject to Federal income tax, a representative payee is responsible for delivering the benefit information statements issued each year by the RRB to the person handling the annuitant's tax matters.
Periodically, the payee will be asked to complete a report which includes questions regarding how much of the railroad retirement benefits available during the year were used for the support of the beneficiary, how much of the benefits were saved, and how the savings were invested. In order to complete the questionnaire correctly, a payee must keep current records of the railroad retirement benefits received and how the benefits were used. The records should be retained for four years.
6. What are a representative payee's primary responsibilities for an annuitant's Medicare coverage?
When an annuitant requires covered medical services, the payee must have the annuitant's Medicare card available. The payee must also keep records of the services received and the expenses incurred or paid, just as for any other usage of railroad retirement benefits.
7. What if an annuitant is confined to an institution?
When annuitants are in a nursing home, hospital or other institution, their railroad retirement benefit payments should be used to meet the charges for their current maintenance. Current maintenance includes the usual charges the institution makes for providing care and services.
The payee should use the benefit payments to aid in the annuitant's possible recovery or release from the institution, or to improve his or her living conditions while confined. Payments may be used to provide such items as clothing, personal grooming supplies, transportation of relatives to visit the patient, trial visits to relatives, medical and dental care, and reading materials and hobby supplies.
8. How should railroad retirement benefits not immediately required to meet an annuitant's needs be handled?
Benefit payments which will not be needed in the near future must be saved or invested unless they are needed for the support of the annuitant's legally dependent spouse or child, or to pay creditors under certain circumstances. It is recommended that conserved funds be held in interest-bearing accounts. Preferred investments are Federally-insured or State-insured accounts at financial institutions and obligations of, or those backed by, the Federal Government, such as U.S. Savings Bonds.
Funds should not be kept in the home, where they may be lost or stolen, nor can they be mingled with the payee's own funds or other funds.
9. How can a person get more information about being appointed as a representative payee, or whether the use of railroad retirement benefits for a particular purpose would be proper?
More information is available by visiting the agency's website, _URL_, or by calling an RRB office toll-free at _PHONE_. Persons can find the address of the RRB office servicing their area by calling the RRB's toll-free number or at _URL_.
Article printed from United Transportation Union: _URL_
URL to article: _URL_
Copyright © 2011 United Transportation Union. All rights reserved.


RE: What is a cleanroom?
What is a cleanroom and why are they called clean rooms?
Add Comment
1 Answers
A cleanroom is a controlled environment where products are manufactured. The cleanroom provides an aseptic environment in which the concentration of airborne particles is controlled to specified limits. These limits are defined by the nature of the process or production happening within the environment. Within the cleanroom environment, air particles are measured in microns or micrometers. Micron-sized particles are smaller than a living cell and can be seen only with the most powerful microscopes. To achieve the required environmental conditions deemed necessary by the cleanroom production, the air in a cleanroom is purified using High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters. Air is forced through the filters, which remove particles as small as 0.5 microns. The filtration system depends upon the required level of cleanliness. Cleanrooms are controlled environments in which contaminants, temperature, pressure, static, humidity or other elements are controlled even if adherence to a cleanroom standard is not required.
Answered on May 17, 2017.
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text:
Date of this Version
The excessive application of manure on cropland areas can cause nutrients to accumulate near the soil surface and increase nutrient transport by overland flow. Inverting soils with high surface nutrient content could reduce runoff nutrient transport. This study was conducted to measure the effects of moldboard plowing on the redistribution of nutrients within the soil profile and nutrient transport by overland flow. Composted beef cattle manure was applied at dry weights of 0, 68, 105, 142, and 178 Mg ha-1 to a silty clay loam soil and then incorporated by disking. Selected plots were moldboard plowed 244 days later to a depth of approximately 23 cm. Soil samples for analysis of water-soluble phosphorus, Bray and Kurtz No.1 phosphorus (Bray-1 P), NO3-N, and NH4-N were collected at depths of 0 - 5, 5 - 15, and 15 -30 cm before and after moldboard plowing. Three 30-min simulated rainfall events, separated by 24-hour intervals, were applied at an intensity of approximately 70 mm hr-1. Dissolved phosphorus (DP), NO3-N, NH4-N, and total nitrogen (TN) content of runoff were measured from 0.75 wide x 2.0 m long plots. No significant differences in runoff and erosion were measured among experimental treatments as a result of the moldboard plowing operation. However, Bray-1 P content at the 0 – 5 cm soil depth was reduced from 200 to 48.0 mg kg-1 and NO3-N content decreased from 9.49 to 2.52 mg kg-1. Consequently, concentrations of DP, NO3-N, and TN in runoff decreased significantly on the moldboard plowed plots.


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In this lesson, we will walk through correcting some of the types of errors that might cause MIRCal to reject your data.
Before you start making corrections, you need to:
- Log on to MIRCal (see Accessing MIRCal in Module 2: Basics for All Users).
- Create the same reporting profile you used when you submitted your data (see Create a Reporting Profile in this module, Lesson 1).
- Determine which edit programs your data failed (see View an Error Summary in this module, Lesson 3).
- Print the edit program Error Reports for the programs your data failed (see View and Print Error Reports in this module, Lesson 3).
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- Identify the errors in your data and determine the best way to correct them
- Correct errors online in MIRCal
- Submit your corrections to OSHPD
Jane works at CBT2, a large hospital in Central California. Following
the submission process described in Lesson 1, she submitted an ED data
file to OSHPD as a test submission. In Lesson 3, she retrieved her
submission results and found that her data was rejected because it
failed the Standard Edit program and there is a record with a
blank or invalid Principal Diagnosis. She printed the Standard Edit error report,
and that is where this lesson begins.


Archives for the Month of August, 2020
Using TypeScript to check for missing cases
TL;DR: use your type system to keep you from forgetting to handle all cases in switch statements and object keys. Often in programming, you have to deal with a list of distinct options. In some languages, this would be expressed by an enum, but in TypeScript it's more common to express them as specific strings: […]


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MafFilter is a program written in C++ with the Bio++ libraries. It is a command line program (that is, without graphical user interface) which uses the Bio++ Options (BppO) syntax. This syntax is of type 'keys'='values', which can be passed directly as arguments of the maffilter program
maffilter option1=value1 option2=value2... optionN=valueN
or more conveniently, stored in an "options" file (specified with param=option_file), or a combination of both:
maffilter param=option_file maffilter param=option_file option1=value1 option2=value2
See the Bio++ Program Suite (BppSuite) manual for more information.
MafFilter typically takes as input a MAF file and a series of commands which determine the output file(s) that will be written and where. Additional input files might be specified, such as gene annotation files (typically in GFF/GTF format). Here is the structure of a minimal option file:
DATA=example.file //A user-defined variable, representing the input maf file, without extension input.file=$(DATA).maf.gz //Input maf file, gzipped input.file.compression=gzip output.log=$(DATA).maffilter.log //Output log file maf.filter= //A coma separated list of filters, here empty (the programs only read the input file and exits).
The list of filters can be split on multiple lines for convenience, providing each line is escaped by a '\' at the end to indicate that the next line is a continuation of the current one:
maf.filter=Filter1,\ Filter2,\ Filter3
Please refer to the Bio++ Program Suite manual for more details, including the use of variables, priority of option values, etc.


European Murder Rates Compared to the United States: Demographics vs Guns
By Dean Weingarten
Gun Crime
European Murder Rates Compared to the United States: Demographics vs Guns
Dean Weingarten
Dean Weingarten
Arizona – -( This has been one of my most popular articles. I wrote it a year ago and published it on the 3 January, 2013 and it is good to take alook again one year later.
It shows the fallacies of comparing murder rates in the United States to Europe.
Link: Homicide Rates Before Guns?
Yale Study Shows Culture the biggest factor in Homicide (2013)
Dean Weingarten
Link to Gun Watch
About Dean Weingarten;
 - 7 thoughts on "European Murder Rates Compared to the United States: Demographics vs Guns
 1. The argument is often phrased as "gun violence" instead of simply "violence." A country that has less gun ownership may have less "gun violence" and yet have more violence overall. The victim does not care if he is robbed at knife point instead of gun point.
 2. I'm ok with this analysis. You could go even deeper with it and attribute the violence to blacks that are of Southern heritage. The South and particularly upper class Southerners value and respect violence as a means to resolve issues. Many Latin cultures have similar cultural values to the old South. Mexico is a culture that values the man on the horse for example, and glorifies violent drug gangsters or guy like Zapata that go down fighting. What is the connection between upper class violent Southern whites and lower class blacks? Easy black slaves adopted the values and vices of their masters including a propensity for violence and other traits such as living in debt, gambling, etc.
 3. There is certain something missing in your report. Its the fact that blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to grow up in poverty than whites. That is a major contributing factor that you have left out of your analysis. As such your analysis does not tell the whole story. A study on Income levels and gun violence would tell a m ore comprehensive story than a simple demographics model. Also if you take a group of people and remove them from poverty, you will likely see in at least some cases that after a few generations their murder (Whether by gun violence or other means) and crime rates would drop significantly to a level similar to what is for nonhispanic whites. If we are to reduce crime in the future we need to address the contributing factors to crime and poverty is a big one.
 1. Excuses for 'criminal behavior' are like 'azzholes', everybody has one! Morality is always left out of the equation.
 4. You are a racist. Your article was reprinted word for word from American Renaissance, a known racist organization. I could not find the DOJ report you referenced. The link went nowhere. You are also a liar and you disgust me!
 1. Wow didn't take long for a liberal to throw the race card. Childish response when facts don't agree with their world view and distorted reality. link works for me. If you look at FBI and USDOJ crime statistics (requires math skills and thinking skills beyond reciting party lines) they show the massive difference in crime/murder rates between races.
 Leave a Reply


Raise A Toast To Building Better Beer Bubbles Through Chemistry
Nov 14, 2012
Scientists may have finally solved a problem that has plagued beer drinkers for ages: Insufficient foam resiliency.
As any beer drinker can tell you, a tall glass of lager without a white, foamy head on top just doesn't look right. And even if you start out with one, it can dissipate fast. And that's just sad.
Now, microbiologists have identified the specific gene in yeast responsible for a beer's head and they say this discovery can lead to stronger, longer lasting, more aesthetically pleasing foam on your favorite brews.
Tom Villa, the chair of microbiology at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, says something called the Carlsbergensis foaming gene, or CFG1, is responsible for the white stuff at the top of your mug. As Villa and his colleagues write in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the gene resides in the yeasts used to ferment beer and it produces a protein that binds to the drink's CO2 bubbles, preventing them from escaping from the glass too quickly.
"The bubbles from the CO2 have to stay as long as possible," Villa says. "The longer they stay, the better the beer, as you know."
Now that we know exactly which gene is responsible for beer foam, Villa says it's possible to manipulate that gene to create beer with foam that lasts longer — potentially for hours and hours, as our colleagues at Science Friday reported.
He also says the same gene responsible for creating the head on a beer is present in wine as well. His team experimented with these genes and came up with a wine that looks like a beer. "It creates a different kind of wine with a lot of foam," Villa says. "You can play around a little bit."
Since most people probably wouldn't be into sipping a frothy merlot, Villa's discovery will mainly impact the world of beer. And even then, he says, this gene has no impact on the flavor of a beer.
How does he know this? Naturally, he called in his students for a little taste-testing experiment.
"It's only the physical aspect of the beer," Villa says. "We all want the foam to stay there, the longer the better. You don't want to drink a beer that when you pour it, the foam collapses the next minute."
So while this discovery may not necessarily lead to better tasting beer, foam is surprisingly important to the overall experience of drinking a beer, so much so that a Japanese company has made a frozen version, as we've previously reported. And anything that improves the beer drinking experience, even if only superficially, is something we here at The Salt will cheer.


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A review was undertaken of how climate change was mainstreamed in the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) of Kenya's 47 County Governments. This review contributed to the development of recommendations of how to improve the mainstreaming of climate change in the 2017 CIDPs. This is particularly relevant with the enactment of the Climate Change Act, 2016, which requires that County Governments mainstream climate change actions and interventions in the their CIDPs (Section 19). This report shows that there is a readiness and an experience to build on to improve the integration of climate change in their new CIDPs.
This report first provides definitions and background on climate change, and then sets out an analysis of climate-relevant sectors, recognizing that climate change is a cross-cutting that that impacts on various sectors that are discussed in CIDPs. The report then reviews the climate change impacts identified in the 47 CIDPs, and identifies mitigation and adaptation priorities. The final section provides recommendations to improve mainstreaming in the 2017 CIDPs.


Rodians hail from the Tyrius System of The Mid Rim, their homeworld humid and choked with heavy rain forests teeming with dangerous life forms. In this hostile environment, the Rodians evolved into brutal hunters and killers to survive. As a result, Rodian culture centers around the concept of "The Hunt." Their art glorifies violence and the art of stalking prey. The more intelligent and dangerous a hunter's prey, the more honorable the hunt. Rodians have numerous annual festivals that exists solely to honor such activities.
Since joining the rest of the galaxy's spacefaring Species, the Rodians have come to view bounty hunting as the most honorable profession in existence, and many have found great success in this field.
Rodian Characteristics[edit | edit source]
Rodian NEGAS.jpg
Personality: Rodians tend to be violent, tenacious, and dedicated.
Physical Description: Rodians are humanoid, with multifaceted eyes, a tapered snout, and deep green skin, the average Rodian stands 1.6 meters tall.
Average Height/Weight: A typical Rodian stands at 1.6 meters tall and weighs 60 kilograms.
Age Groups: Rodians age at the following stages:
1-12 Years 13-15 Years 16-35 Years 36-49 Years 50-59 Years 60+ Years
Homeworld: The industrial world of Rodia.
Languages: Rodians speak, read, and write both Rodese and Basic, and many learn to speak Huttese as well.
Example Names: Andoorni, Beedo, Chido, Doda, Greedo, Greeata, Kelko, Navik, Neela, Neesh, Wald.
Adventurers: Rodian adventurers leave their homeworld to improve their skills, hoping to one day return and claim the title of Hunt Master. To this end, they take on roles that allow them to flex their hunting skills and increase their battle prowess, most commonly working as bounty hunters or mercenaries as Soldiers.
Rodian Species Traits[edit | edit source]
Rodians share the following Species Traits:
 - Ability Modifiers: All Rodians receive a +2 bonus to Dexterity, but they suffer -2 penalties to both their Wisdom and Charisma. Rodians are quick and well coordinated, but often act before thinking things through, and are often rude and try to bully others.
 - Medium Size: As Medium creatures, Rodians have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
 - Speed: Rodians have a base speed of 6 squares.
 - Heightened Awareness: A Rodian may choose to reroll any Perception check, but the result of the reroll must be accepted, even if it is worse.
 - Low-Light Vision: Rodians ignore Concealment (But not Total Concealment) from darkness.
 - Conditional Bonus Feat: Rodians are taught how to track and survive in the wilderness of Rodia from a very young age. A Rodian with Survival as a Trained Skill gains Skill Focus (Survival) as a bonus Feat.
 - Automatic Languages: All Rodians can speak, read, and write both Basic and Rodese.
 Additional Rodian Species Feats[edit | edit source]
Reference Book: Star Wars Saga Edition Rebellion Era Campaign Guide
Rodian characters have access to the following Species Feats. No Species Feats are considered Bonus Feats for any Heroic Class.
Fringe Benefits Reduce the cost multiplier of goods bought on the Black Market.
Hunter's Instincts Reroll Perception checks, always keeping the better result.
Master Tracker Increase the die type when adding Force Points to a Survival check.


Tennis Agility Drills and Speed Exercises
Tennis agility drills deals with the movement, coordination and reaction speed for tennis. Performing a tennis agility drill on a regular basis can improve a player's tennis fitness and endurance on the court.
tennis-agility-drillsTennis agility drills involve the player's fitness and movement around the court.
Top players are also exceptional athletes in today modern tennis game. Any tennis training program will include at least one component of a tennis agility drill to not only improve a player's balance but their explosion and quickness around the tennis court.
Often times, the tennis fitness aspect of the game is overlooked by club players worldwide. This is a shame, because a player that is in good physical shape can outlast a player who has not yet included tennis agility drills into their training regimen. For any good player, tennis agility drills are a big part of their fitness element.
Below are some of the tennis agility drills that help tennis players develop their speed, balance, quickness and coordination. Specifically, these drills aim to develop the players' ability to change direction, footwork flexibility, hip extension, etc.
Tennis Agility Drill #1: The skip for height supplemental
The objective of this series tennis agility drills is to help players increase their hip extension. It also helps the players to strengthen their flexion and to develop ankle stiffness. This drill is just one of the tennis agility drills that a player must follow to gain speed and quickness that is necessary to win tennis matches.
 - Skip with your left or right leg and move forward while doing so. While skipping, you should maintain proper body posture where your spine is in straight position and your body in steady posture. You arm should also be in proper action. When the left leg is up, the right hand is up as well and vice versa.
 - Make sure that the knee of the leg that is up in the air is fully extended and fully flexed. Also, the ankle of the raised leg should level off with the knee of the leg on the ground.
 - When the raised leg is fully up, your foot on the ground should be on plantar flexion movement or the front portion of your foot and the shin is angled at 90 degrees.
 - When your foot lands on the ground, create an explosive but gentle power but never bang it on the ground.
Tennis Agility Drill #2: The 40-yard square carioca tennis agility drill
This is one of the tennis agility drills that aim to develop your ability to quickly change direction. It also helps you enhance your hips and footwork flexibility.
 - Execute this drill with the use of cones. Simply place one cone on every corner of the court.
 - Position yourself at one corner and execute the two point stance. To do this, stand with both of your knees bent and feet staggered (one foot is in front while the other stays back) and put your weight over your front foot. Bend your elbows and then place your arms in front of your chest with your head up.
 - From your present position, sprint towards one corner and pivot in reverse manner when you reach the corner.
 - After you pivot, execute Carioca instead of sprinting to reach the next corner.
 - Then execute another reverse pivot when you reach another corner and go to the remaining corner using Carioca steps.
 - Repeat the drill as many as you can or as prescribed by the coach.
Tennis Agility Drill #3: The quick and wide shuffle with ladder
Same as the other tennis agility drills, this drill help you improve you speed, coordination and balance.
 - Start with a two-point stance position (as described above).
 - Stand in such a way that the ladder is front of you.
 - Then step with your left and right feet on the first step or square
 - Then move out of the ladder laterally. Say move to your right side by a side step using your right foot first then your left foot follows.
 - Then you move in but this time on the next step or square. Move in with your left foot first to be followed by your right foot. As your right foot touches the square, move out you're your left foot quickly (this time to the left side of the ladder) and your right foot follows quickly.
 - Repeat the move in and move out steps as many as you can. Remember to maintain balance when you execute this drill.
 - Once you reach the top of the ladder, you can repeat the drill and start again from the first step or square.
Tennis Agility Drill #4: The 15-yard turn agility drill
In addition to other tennis agility drills, this drill helps you improve your ability to change from one direction to another. It will also make you more flexible in your hips and footwork. To complete this drill, put one marker (cone1) at around five yard forward from the starting your point (which is also the finish point) and another marker (cone 2) five yards to the right of the starting point.
 - Execute the two-point stance posture while you are at the starting point.
 - The next step is for you to sprint towards cone 1. Upon reaching the first marker (cone 1), quickly make a right turn towards the next maker (cone 2).
 - As you reach cone 2, make a quick left turn and sprint towards the starting point or the finishing point. Take note that cone 1 and cone 2 should be in diagonal position.
Tennis Agility Drill #5: The lateral skaters to sprint agility drill
The purpose of this set of tennis agility drills is for the development of your cutting ability and enhancement of first lateral quickness. In addition to other tennis agility drill, this drill must be done regularly to develop your speed and quickness.
 - To start with this drill, stand with straight and steady body posture and bring your left and right feet together. Then push off your body using either of your legs laterally. This means that when you are pushing you body towards you right, it is you left leg that pushes you off, but you land with your right foot.
 - Once you land on the ground or on the floor (make sure that you land with only one foot), pause for three to four seconds and quickly push off again to the other side. This time, you push your body with your right leg and land on your left leg.
 - For this agility drill for be more effective, repeat it as many as you can and at regular basis. After you have completed the reps, sprint around the court.
Tennis Agility Drill #6: The medicine ball agility drill
This is one of the tennis agility drills that enhance your explosive power to help you execute powerful throwing and overhead shots. In this tennis agility drill, all you need is a medicine ball.
 - Stand in front of a wall with your two feet spread at hip-width distance. Keep your body straight and in steady manner, your head up and knees bent.
 - Hold the medicine ball with your both hands and bring it up over your head. With your elbows bent, hit the wall with the ball successively at a very fast pace. Do this as long as possible and do it regularly as well.
 - You can do variations in this drill. One variation is the position of your feet. You can have one of your feet in front while the other stays back. You can also execute this drill while you are in kneeling position.
Tennis Agility Drill #7: The sprint/backpedal agility drill
This tennis agility drill aims to develop your reaction speed and quickness. It also aims to develop your quickness in changing directions, which is vital when playing tennis matches. To complete this drill, make markings on the starting point and the finishing point. The distance between the two points should be around 30 yards.
 - Stand at the starting point and wait for your partner's or coach's signal to start.
 - Once you hear the first whistle, spring quickly towards the finishing marker.
 - When you hear the second whistle, stop and move backwards) at a very fast pace (backpedal.
 - The drill continues where you change directions (forwards or backward movements) after each whistle. The coach on one hand should see to it the interval of each whistle varies. So that the player won't be able to anticipate the whistle and when to stop. In the end, the drill becomes more effective in developing the player's ability to quickly change direction.
 - The player should also not anticipate the whistle and should maintain the same speed all throughout the drill.
Back from Tennis Agility Drills to Tennis Drills


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ANN ARBOR--Humans have been cooling metal mixtures from liquid to solid for thousands of years. But surprisingly, not much is known about exactly what happens during the process of solidification. Particularly puzzling is the solidification of eutectics, which are mixtures of two or more solid phases.
Ashwin Shahani, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, is working to solve the mystery of eutectic solidification, and his research has revealed an intricate and beautiful universe of nanoscale rods, sheets and spirals that form spontaneously in cooling metal alloys.
We sat down recently to talk with him about his latest paper, "Multi-Step Crystallization of Self-Organized Spiral Eutectics," and how it could lead to a new generation of lightweight alloys and optical products with properties superior to monolithic materials.
What motivated you to study metal solidification?
I think it's one of the most remarkable feats of nature. How can these elaborate patterns form spontaneously from a disordered liquid? Why does nature choose one pattern or configuration over another? A lot of it is just inborn curiosity and the joy of sharing it with my students.
Why is it important to understand how these nanoscale structures form?
A material's nanoscale structure changes its properties. So if we can understand why a given structure forms, we can design a manufacturing process to recreate it, or even change it to build in specific properties that we want. We can make materials that are lighter, or stronger, or that bend light in a certain way, for example.
What could those new materials be used for?
A material that bends light in a certain way could be used to make an invisibility coating. You could engineer a single sheet of metal with properties that differ along its surface--for example an airplane wing that's stronger in some places and lighter in others. You could make lighter and more fuel-efficient automotive components. The possibilities are just about endless.
Why can't we make these materials using existing manufacturing methods?
We can, but it's extremely difficult and time-consuming. If we want to fabricate a nanoscale spiral pattern, for example, we have to use lithography to print each tiny spiral. That's not practical for large-scale manufacturing. But what if you could cause those spirals to self-assemble just by cooling the liquid differently or slightly changing its mix of metals? That would make the process much faster and more scalable.
If humans have been using solidification for so long, why hasn't someone already figured this out?
Because in the past, this kind of research relied on sectioning up a material that has already solidified and looking at it under the microscope. And that gives you a very limited view of how solidification happens.
We're using a unique combination of multiscale and multimodal imaging technologies to create a 3D picture of what's happening in real time during the solidification process. It involves combining a lot of different imaging techniques that can give us a cohesive picture from the scale of micrometers all the way down to individual atoms.
What are some of the challenges of combining all those technologies?
One of the biggest challenges is that high-resolution 3D images are just so data-intensive. That makes this a big data challenge as well as a materials science challenge. Obviously, just having a high level of computing power is important, but we've also introduced some novel strategies. For example, we've begun using machine learning algorithms to comb through our data and find things that are noteworthy.
What's the next step for this research?
Most engineering materials consist of not just two components but a cocktail of elements. So right now, we're looking at how chemistry affects the solidification process. If I add a small amount of another metal to the molten mix, how does that change the nanoscale structures that form? It's another step toward understanding and ultimately controlling these structures.


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Sparse files – what, why, and how
23 May 2008 14 Comments
Sparse files are basically just like any other file except that blocks that only contain zeros (i.e., nothing) are not actually stored on disk. This means you can have an apparently 16G file – with 16G of "data" – only taking up 1G of space on disk.
This can be particularly useful in situations where the full disk may never be completely used. One such situation would be virtual machines. If a virtual machine never fills the disk entirely, then a certain amount of the disk will never have anything but zeros in it – permitting the saving of disk space by using a sparse file.
The operating system (which supports sparse files) knows that the block "exists" but is null, so it provides the zero-filled block out of thin air. As soon as the block contains data, the data is written to disk in the appropriate way and the file on disk grows.
There are problems with using sparse files. The most egregious would be that any utility that does not recognize or utilize sparse files can replicate the entire file on disk, so that a 500M sparse file could suddenly balloon to 6G. Even utilities that can work with sparse files must be told to do so, so this trap is easy to fall into.
Another problem is that everything about disk management is based on how many sectors or blocks are used – and the disk size reported for a sparse file is the full size of the file (not the actual number of blocks on disk). This also means that any utilities that work solely with blocks on disk (e.g., du) will report different amounts than other utilities.
Yet another problem is whether backup programs recognize or preserve sparse files. A backup program that does not recognize (and store) sparse files may well be quite oversized. A restore of this flawed backup – or indeed, a restore that does not recognize properly backed up sparse files – will balloon in size as mentioned before. In a worst case, there would not be enough room on disk to restore the data, if the sparse file expands enough to fill the disk.
To get the ls command to report actual on-disk sizes (instead of just the file size typically reported) use these options:
# ls -ls
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2003 Aug 14 2006 anaconda-ks.cfg
68 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 59663 Aug 14 2006 install.log
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3317 Aug 14 2006 install.log.syslog
12 -rw------- 1 root root 10164 Oct 25 2006 mbox
The blocks used are in the left side column; the bytes used are in their usual column just before the date. In this case, all of the files are using appropriate number of blocks – that is, none of these files are sparse.
Creating a sparse file basically amounts to a simple process: create a file, and seek to the desired end of the file. This can be done at the command line with a command like (to create a 1M sparse file):
dd if=/dev/zero of=sparse-file bs=1 count=1 seek=1024k
Here is an example, run on HP-UX:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=sparse bs=1 count=1 seek=1024k
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
# ls -ls sparse*
2 -rw-r--r-- 1 root sys _PHONE_ May 22 12:58 sparse
Looking at HP-UX (and perhaps other environments), there does not appear to be a wide amount of support for sparse files in the typical utilities (such as tar, cp, cpio, etc.), even as the operating system itself will dutifully create sparse files.
However, GNU cp supports the –sparse option. By default, GNU cp attempts to detect sparse files and recreates them as warranted. A file can be copied into a sparse format using –sparse=always, or into a nonsparse format using –sparse=never. The default, alluded to earlier, is –sparse=auto.
GNU tar uses the –sparse option (or the equivalent -S option) to make tar store sparse files appropriately.
GNU cpio supports the –sparse option, which operates similarly: any suitable length of zeros is recorded as a "empty" and the file is stored or created as a sparse file.
The command rsync, while not a GNU project, does support sparse files. The option –sparse (or -S) will attempt to handle sparse files efficiently, that is, not creating file blocks full of only zeros.
It appears that utilities pax, scp, sftp, and ftp do not in general support sparse files. Using such a utility, then, would make a sparse file balloon in size.
Given this utility support for sparse files, the best native environment is proably Linux or MacOS X, or other open platform. More specifically, any platform where the GNU utilities are available, along rsync.
Recognizing a sparse file can be done at the command line with the previously mentioned ls -ls command. To see a sparse file (right down to the block level), one way would be to write a C program (or other language) to start at the end of the file, and truncate the file one block shorter – if the file on disk becomes shorter, then that block was on disk; if not, then it was a sparse block. Of course, any block that contains data is on disk; it is only blocks with zeros with which there is any question as to whether it is on disk or not. Jonathan Corbet had an article in December of 2007 in the Linux Weekly News that described a method that the Solaris ZFS developers had proposed, and posed the question as to whether Linux should support similar system calls that will seek to the next hole or the next set of data in a file.


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Block Heaters Save Fuel and Help the Environment
Starting a vehicle on a cold winter day can be a chilling experience. It can also be hard on your vehicle, pocketbook and the environment.
You'll use more fuel and create more emissions in the first minutes after a "cold start" than when the engine reaches normal operating temperature. When an engine starts up, it pumps oil throughout the engine block to lubricate moving parts. In a cold engine, the oil is thick and resists flow, so the engine has to work harder to overcome internal friction.
Fuel combustion is also less efficient in a cold engine, and the air-fuel mixture is richer – in other words, there is more fuel and less air in the mixture. (The mixture of fuel vapour and air must be in proper proportion for efficient combustion.) The combined effect is a sharp increase in emissions. On top of everything else, the catalytic converter doesn't work efficiently when it is cold.
You can help reduce the impact of cold starts – and reduce idling time – by using a block heater on cold winter days. This device warms the coolant, which in turn warms the engine block and lubricants. The engine will start more easily and reach its proper operating temperature faster. What's more, it won't have to work as hard to pump oil through the block.
Reduced fuel consumption will do more than save you money. It will also minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to climate change. Carbon dioxide (CO2), the most common GHG, is an unavoidable by-product of burning gasoline. Every time you turn on your vehicle's engine, you generate CO2 – and the more fuel you use, the greater your GHG emissions.
A block heater runs on electricity. To save money, invest in an automatic timer that switches the block heater on two hours before you plan to drive the vehicle (instead of leaving it plugged in all night). Usually this is all the time needed to warm the coolant and the engine.


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Most functional programming languages like Haskell or ML allow to define functions using pattern matching. Instead of testing arguments in the body of a message, this allows to specify case-based function definitions in a very elegant way. An example of such a definition would be the factorial:
fac(0) = 1
fac(n) = n * fac(n - 1)
This package provides an object model to describe such functions, a parser to read the syntax, visitors to transform the code to ordinary smalltalk code and a browser to make it easy to work with. The advantage is, that it is fully integrated into Squeak and allows to be used with any other part of the system. Furthermore it is transparent to any source-management tool and does not require a runtime library.
The goal of this package is to allow the developer to write functions in a more natural way and to transform these functions to ordinary Smalltalk code: The previous example can be written and compiled in the functional browser using a slightly enhanced Smalltalk syntax, as seen below. Note that in this example the order in which you specify your functions is important:
^n * (n - 1) fac
The special thing about this is that the receiver of the message _TAG_ is used to do the pattern matching. In real functional languages there is no concept of receiver, so purists might think that the receiver is just the first argument passed to the function and is matched as any other argument. Of course, if all the functions specified by the programmer fail to match, _TAG_: is evaluated.