The process also helps establish trust and reliance between the two. That is one of the cornerstones of creating a mutually beneficial long-term relationship.
This is why this process is best understood as an interview. Both parties have the ability to slow and renegotiate the conditions at any time. They are checking the other's acceptability. And if the process fails, they abort the process and return to the "group" (dating pool). Both people have the ability and right to end the interview at any time if the other person does not "pass." What is important to realize is this interview process is indigenous to human beings. And it extends across all cultures on this planet.
It is our theory when this interview goes awry it often results in date rape. Return to top of page
The Bonding Process
The bonding process is described by Dr. Desmond Morris in his book Intimate Behavior. What follows is our interpretation of his works. However, we highly recommend you go the source for further information(1). Although Morris's works are a cornerstone of what is presented here, these conclusions are an amalgamation of findings and research into psychology, body language, communications and biology.
Restating the purpose, the bonding process is how humans interview each other and establish long lasting intimacy. It is a process of mutual consent, establishing trust and communications. If anywhere along the way one of the parties decides that the other has sent an unacceptable message (thereby failing the interview) he or she may decide to abort. This break can come at any time.
Ideally when this process works, it should go like this:
 Stage Corresponding action Key point
1) Eye to body
First look Someone catches your eye
2) Eye to eye Preening gestures Yes/no signal (given by the female)
3) Voice to voice Talking Verbal screening
4) Hand to hand
(or shoulder)
Initial physical contact Usually initiated by female
 To this point these behaviors occur publicly or in social settings
5) Arm to shoulder Bodies closer together Possible isolation
6) Arm to waist More intimate contact Likely while withdrawing from public
7) Mouth to mouth Kissing Less likely to be in public between an unbonded pair
8) Hand to head/face Probable isolation
9) Hand to body Sexual contact Isolation
10) Mouth to breast Foreplay Isolation
11) Hand to genitals Isolation
12) Intercourse Isolation
Repeat steps three through 12. In bonded pairs up to stage 8 often publicly displayed indicating bonding
(Return to Stopping the Process)
This is a process that humans unconsciously follow. It cannot be stressed enough that it is an act of mutual consent, participation and trust. Although apparently sexual, its real purpose is getting to know and establishing intimacy, trust and commitment with another person.
It should also be noticed that the woman controls the primary stages. It is at her initial signal of acceptance or interest that gives the male the "go ahead" to approach her. If the female has not sent the signal and the male approaches her anyway, he will probably be rebuffed. (It is not uncommon for socially inept men to misread the innocent actions of a woman as such a signal or to simply decide not to wait. This does result in a lot of unwanted attention).
Furthermore, it is the woman who usually initiates the first physical contact, thereby telling the man that she is sufficiently interested in pursuing this interview. If the male attempts to initiate it, he will often fail the interview and be perceived as too aggressive or grabby.
Initially isolation is an important issue in the process, however, after intimacy has been established. Behavior up to stage 8 is commonly displayed publicly to indicate an 'exclusive bonding.' These are the most overtly displayed body language and positioning of the pair that serve as a clear indication of involvement with each other. In other words when you see this kind of behavior displayed, you know you are looking at a "couple." Both are "off the market." But you won't publicly see such behavior until the couple has gone through the primary cycle.(2).
It is the fact that isolation is so critical to this process that leaves women vulnerable to someone whose intention is to corrupt it. Return to top of page
Sexual Misinterpretation
Although sexual intercourse is part of the process, it is not the goal of the process. But the selfish often ignore that. To such people, sex is the only goal. In the same vein, the socially inept also can fail to understand that the interest must be mutual. A combination of such misunderstandings and ego can create a dangerous combination.
And that is where you will run into problems -- both with rape and sexual harassment.
During the initial stages of the bonding process, there is a combination of small grooming movements that are often called "preening gestures." These are a significant indicator of interest. When combined with patterns of eye movement, eye contact and facial expressions, they constitute the yes or no signal a woman sends to indicate she wishes to open communications with the male. And once communication is established, she will continue to send these signals to encourage him. The male will be sending similar signals.
Because these signals are a combination of several otherwise normal gestures and actions that are done within a very specific context, they are often a source of confusion. The problem is that these signs and combinations are subtle. A study on sexual harassment several years ago discovered 27 different gestures that women regularly make in the office that men tend to find sexually attractive. It isn't until you realize that these moves also are commonly used as female "preening" gestures that you can begin to see the roots of miscommunication. This is why many men defend their actions by saying the woman was coming on to them. He was misinterpreting normal grooming (or unconscious) actions as preening gestures.
And example is a woman brushing her hair off her forehead with her fingertips. Let's look how this can be used as a preening gesture. The signal for indicating that she is interested in the male would be a combination of this act, plus a particular pattern of eye movement and facial expression. An interested woman might brush her hair back and run her eyes up and down the male's body with a pleased expression on her face. Her hand might also linger longer than normal around her face or caress her cheek as she withdraws it. This would be a clear indication of interest on her part.
However, without those secondary actions, she's just getting the hair out of her face. That's all it means. It is a self-adjusting action, not a preening gesture.
Unfortunately, many socially inept males will ONLY see the hair brushed back and interpret it as a preening gesture. Having missed the lack of all the other signals, he will think he has been given the go-ahead. Or as is often the case, his interest is so great that he will ignore the lack of other signals and choose to believe that he can impress her anyway. In this case, he will intentionally misread her action as a go ahead signal.
This is just one example of many. A full list of behaviors, their implications and uses are beyond the scope of this Web page, but you can find references on the bibliography page. It is important to understand that a major part of the interview process to find an "acceptable" mate is that your understanding and use of body language is similar enough that you both feel comfortable.
Another important issue in the bonding process is that you proceed apace. In other words, both the female and male are on the same schedule during the process.And this holds true even if the goal of both parties is just sex. The procession of events MUST be acceptable to both parties. This synchronicity can quite literally be the difference between rape and tearing-each-other's-clothes-offfurniture-breaking-fun sex. With the first, you have only one person who is forcing the pace -- regardless of the other person's desires. In the other, both are active and willing participants.
Let's take a close look at that last sentence. It is when the male tries to force the process faster than his partner's desires/wishes/ comfort that you move from mutual benefit and into selfishness. And into the legal definition of rape. Return to top of page
Stopping the Process
Unfortunately this process designed to establish intimacy leaves women vulnerable to rape –- especially in the later stages.
This is because an inherent part of the process is for the pair to go off alone. Take a look at the table again and see how much occurs in isolation. Somewhere during the initial cycle, both will want to withdraw from the public (or the rest of the group) so this interview process can continue uninterrupted. That's right, we just said: You will find yourself willingly going off with an interviewee and away from the group. You both want to get away and find out more about each other. All during the process, there will be verbal communication (screening) by both parties, so you might not even notice this withdrawal. And the process can occur over time -- in some cases months. During this period, you could find yourself isolated with such a person while doing errands, riding together to a destination or working late. You may not have thought of it as withdrawing from the group, but you find yourself with someone in isolation
It is it important for women to realize that if the process begins to go awry: WITHDRAW FROM THIS ISOLATION!
Move to a public place or return to the social environment from which you withdrew. Do not try to alter, change or dictate his behavior! Do not stay there and ARGUE with him. Your immediate goal is to get out of isolation. Return to the safety of the group, where he must behave


text:
Car sunscreen - Light stabilizer
In the automotive industry, the role of modified plastics is becoming more and more obvious.
Most of the interior and exterior accessories of cars are made of modified plastics, such as PP ABS PA, PC POM, PBT, PRT and PVC, which are widely used in all automotive plastics. The highest score is PP, which accounts for 37%, followed by PA which accounts for 17.3%, and ABS resin which accounts for 12.3%.
Because PP TPU ABS overall accounted for over 50%, and because of the PP structure side methyl ABS structure of unsaturated double bonds in its material itself compared to other modified plastics more easily aging, so the car modification material stabilizing treatment mainly revolves around these three materials can block or absorb ultraviolet energy, quenching singlet oxygen and hydrogen peroxide into the active substances, and other functions, make the polymer under the radiation of light, can eliminate or reduce possibility of photochemical reaction, prevent or delay the aging process, light so as to achieve the aim of extending the service life of the polymer products.
In order to get better protection of the car in the hot summer, the stabilizer is the essential sunblock stabilizer in the automobile industry.
JADEWIN UV 2908 through the capture mechanism of free radical in the process of hot working process and moderate warming has antioxidant activity, the polymer can be effectively protected, and excellent compatibility and low color change appears low volatile, low toxicity and phenolic phosphite antioxidants and series of hindered amine light stabilizer used jointly, in order to improve the outdoor weatherability of the product can effectively eliminate polymer of hydrogen peroxide, and uv absorber and antioxidants have better synergy because of its unique properties, so have a great effect in car sunscreen.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Rethinking Mission 2: Being a guest
I'm a poor host but I'm learning to be a better guest.
Nothing has struck me as forcefully about the need to rethink how we approach mission than the idea of the missionary as a guest. Perhaps it's my western hero complex that wants to go to another country to 'make a difference' but going to serve should mean going as a guest.
So what is it about being a guest that is noteworthy?
 1. The guest comes because they are invited, or at least only stays because they are welcomed.
 2. Relying on an invitation means we might not get one.
 3. While some cultures honour you, you are expected to follow the host cultures food, manners and ways of doing things.
 4. The host decides the rules and sets the boundaries.
 5. Guests have an attitude of gratitude to their hosts. They welcome the host showing them around and don't start changing things around because they can improve it.
 6. Sometimes you are invited with an agenda (because you can help the host with something), more often you are invited to build a relationship.
 7. Becoming a guest changes the power dynamics, it means we give up control. It might not change the power dynamic of money but reminds us to be careful to use it wisely. When we go for a meal it may be appropriate to take a small gift, but it would seem very strange to give a car.
There are some biblical ideas to help us think like this in terms of mission:
The road to Emmaus: it was when the travellers urged Jesus to stay and eat with them that they were able to recognise him. Indeed Jesus often choose to eat with others (and didn't normally invite himself).OK, hospitality was particularly important in the culture, but willingness to be a guest and his attitude towards people are noteworthy.
When Jesus sends out the seventy two they don't raise funds for the mission trip, they don't take clothes and other things to 'bless' the villages with, they go with nothing and rely on people's hospitality. They went out as lambs among wolves, not as people from strong passport countries.
Paul's 'missionary journeys' depended on being hosted. He usually started among his own people in the Synagogue before moving to live in someone's house (or household).
John's gospel starts with the promise that those who receive (or welcome) the Word have the right to be children of God. Our adoption into the family of God comes from our welcome not from Jesus' imposition.
486px-andrej_rublëv_001Abraham's hospitality to the three visitors at Mamre was the setting for Rublev's famous icon of the Trinity. The link between God, our relationship with him and hospitality has a long history. Our willingness to be welcomed is just as important for gospel witness as our willingness to welcome.
Some may want to counter that the Bible doesn't tell us to be guests but it doesn't tell us to 'go on missions' either. But going as guests captures something of the way that we need to think of ourselves and about our witness to the gospel in different contexts.
As I waited for my flight home the other day I had several hours to wait at Amsterdam Airport. As I often do after an 11 hour flight I spent time walking around and came across a small group of people sitting huddled on some chairs. It soon became clear that this was a group from an English speaking country who were going on a mission trip to a 'developing' country. Now I've led mission teams, I get the need for preparation but as I listened I couldn't help but wonder how different it might be if they thought of themselves as going as guests rather than going to 'love on' them, 'teach these dear ones about Jesus' and 'help these people who have nothing'.
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I've been working towards packaging my domain logic at my current job so I can reuse it in multiple implementations. The code snippets below were an abandoned experiment for a php Laravel project. I have recently put together a simple way to build a query from an array.
So, instead of something like this:
$post = Post::isPublished()
 ->where('id', $id)
I create an array ['isPublished', 'id' => $id] that is passed to a function defined in a trait.
protected function buildQuery(array $attributes)
 if (count($attributes) == 0) {
 $query = (new $this->model);
 foreach ($attributes as $key => $value) {
 $method_name = camel_case(!is_numeric($key)? $key : $value);
 $scope_method_name = camel_case('scope'.$method_name);
 // Call a local scope method on the model or resume
 // with normal where equals clause.
 if (method_exists($this->model, $scope_method_name)) {
 $query = call_user_func([$query, $method_name], $value);
 } else {
 $query = $query->where($key, $value);
 return $query;
This then allows me to call local scopes and also have a default functionality of $query->where('column', $value) if not using a local scope. The resulting call could look something like...
$attributes = [
 'id' => $id
$post = $this->posts
At the end of the day, an ORM is your friend. So in this case, I still end up using Eloquent over this.


Senso Minds
Is your child a Chewer? Here's how you can support them.
Has your child come home from school with shirt collars that are malformed and ruined? Are your child's shirt sleeves and cuffs are widened and mangled with teeth marks? Your child may be a chewer, but you probably already knew that.
Before we delve deeper, for parents, it is important to understand the context of these chewing behaviour.
Under what circumstances does your child chew?
Does your child chew often?
Does your child chewing habits interfere with their lives?
Understanding your child's unique needs is the first step to better supporting them. If you are ever concerned, consulting a healthcare professional is always recommended and will better educate you on how to best support your child's needs.
Why does your child chew?
You may still be asking though, why does my child chew on their clothing (or any item for that matter). Well usually, children chew to satisfy a need. Excessive chewing is a common behavior within the sensory processing disorder (SPD) realm.
All children require stimuli for their sensory needs. For children on the spectrum, they may require more stimulation than normal. For these children, chewing is required to help satisfy this craving, calming them down. The key takeaway is to provide a means to curve those needs to chew.
How to support a chewer
Luckily, if you have a child who chews, regardless if they are on the spectrum, there are multiple resources and products available on the market.
Sensory chewing necklaces are a great option for chewers. Made of BPA free, safe silicone material, the necklace design allows a child to suffice their sensory needs at any time. Sensory chew necklaces also come in different textures and are visually appealing. Our best selling line of chew necklaces come in 5 different vibrant colours.
As parents of a chewer, embracing your child's chewing tendencies and encouraging them to meet that need safely is the best way to improve the situation. Knuckle and shirt collar chewing exposes your child to germs and dental damage. Tending towards your child's chewing needs is one of the first steps to truly supporting them as they enter the world. Instead, have your child safely chew on SensoMind chew necklaces.
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Water: Brought to you by Camille Champion, Right-of-Way Specialist
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CAP Employee Camille Champion
CAP employees work each day to ensure Arizona's allotment of Colorado River water flows through our 336-mile aqueduct to reach our municipal, agricultural, industrial and tribal customers. Learn more about Camille from our Lands and Survey Department via her words below and by watching this video.
Q: In a nutshell, what do you do for CAP?
A: I am a Right-of-Way Specialist.
As you travel along the 336 miles of the CAP canal, you will see a multitude of utilities like transmission lines, communication towers, roads and bridges that cross the canal. There are also numerous underground utilities like fiber optic cables, sewer and water lines that also cross the canal. These were constructed by companies such as Arizona Public Service, Cox Communications, Arizona Department of Transportation, just to name a few. My job is to license/authorize these facilities and manage their long-term use on the property. The process involves a knowledge of land rights using various resources like survey data, GIS maps, county assessor's data, plat/tract drawings, etc.
With the increase of urban growth, I also authorize temporary water withdrawal licenses that allow customers to use CAP water for activities related to construction projects like dust control. I also manage temporary water authorizations to livestock users.
My job requires a high level of coordination among CAP's engineers, inspectors, water operations, legal and safety to review, analyze and find solutions that will ensure that the proposed use of CAP property will not adversely impact the canal.
In addition, because we manage the canal on behalf of Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) there is constant coordination between each organization on our lands cases.
Q: How did you get into this line of work?
A: I studied Geology and Environmental Sciences, starting my career as a geologist at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). While working for the BLM, I did crossover work with the right-of-way specialists on land rights for large-scale powerline and gas line projects. At some point I was doing more of that work than geology and the rest, as they say, is history. This job combines a little bit of everything I've learned from both education and work history.
Q: How does the work you do on a daily basis affect our water supply?
A: It's really more of an indirect impact. The canal is located in areas of major development requiring infrastructure – utilities, roads, etc. In many of these cases we collect land use fees (rental) which is used towards the repayment for the construction of the canal.
With the introduction of these facilities crossing the canal, both over and under, I work to find solutions that will allow all parties to operate successfully without interfering with CAP's operations and overall mission.
Q: What are some of the technical advances that allow you to do your job more effectively and efficiently?
A: Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Google Earth or any mapping system. It's great to have current information at your fingertips. Before the technical advances, you would use rolls of maps that were hand drawn, cross your fingers and hope for the best. With mapping systems like GIS, you can get the true representation of what's happening on the ground. Of course, there will always be a need to complete field work for survey, etc. but it's a great resource for baseline data.
Q: What's the most challenging part of your work?
A: One of the most challenging parts of my job is that CAP does not own all the land in fee. As a result, there are more complex issues to resolve while managing the various land rights. Research, consulting multiple resource experts and some level of subjective interpretation is usually required. It seems like a treasure hunt to find all the information to piece the mystery together.
Q: What's the most gratifying part of your job?
A: I am fortunate to work with a team of individuals with various backgrounds that value everyone's input and perspective; being free to share thoughts, ideas and frustrations alike with no judgments or criticisms.
There is a level of professionalism and comradery that makes me truly appreciate my work. Our hearty discussions come from a place of passion for the work and a genuine desire to do the right thing the right way, whatever that may be. I am always learning from others and would like to think that I can rub off on them as well.
Q: What is your favorite part about working at CAP?
A: I love when I have family or friends that visit from out-of-state and as we drive by the canal I explain to them about CAP and the magnitude of facets it takes to operate so that water is delivered. It really impresses them and it makes me appreciate being a part of it.


How Medicaid Recovers the Cost of Long-Term Care From Your Estate After You Die
If Medicaid pays for nursing home care, the state can try to collect reimbursement for these costs from the person's assets after he or she dies.
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Medicaid will often pay for nursing home care even for those who have assets that could be used to pay for care. This is possible because Medicaid does't count assets such as a house or car (these are called noncountable assets). But after the person's death, the state Medicaid program can try to collect medical costs from the deceased person's estate. This is called "estate recovery."
Medicaid Estate Recovery
The federal government has an established policy requiring that all states must try to recover the costs paid on behalf of those who received certain types of Medicaid coverage during their lifetime. All states attempt to recover long-term care costs, including home health services and hospitalizations while in long-term care, and some try to recover regular Medicaid costs as well (though they can generally only recover costs paid for those who were 55 or older or institutionalized when they received Medicaid benefits).
When an individual becomes eligible for Medicaid, federal law requires that the state send the individual a written notice describing the rights of the state to recover Medicaid-paid medical costs following the individual's death.
Ways States Recover Costs
While individual state laws on estate recovery vary, they all boil down to two different ways to recover costs paid: recovering from the deceased person's estate and putting liens on the person's property.
Recovering From the Estate
The first method states use is to seek repayment from the estate of a deceased Medicaid beneficiary. Each state defines the term "estate" -- meaning what type of property Medicaid will go after -- differently. Some states are fairly conservative about what they will try to take -- they have the right to recover costs from real estate, personal property, and other assets only if they are included within the deceased person's "probate estate." A probate estate includes only assets that were owned solely by the individual at the time of death, where there is no beneficiary or joint owner designated. Joint accounts, payable on death accounts, and contracts that have designated a beneficiary are not included in the probate estate.
Other states use a broader definition of the term estate that includes any assets an individual had legal title to or interest in at the time of death, including property that bypasses probate. In these states, the estate includes assets that the individual attempted to convey to a survivor, heir, or assign through an arrangement such as a joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, or living trust.
To recover expenses paid under the probate definition of estate, the state files a claim in the probate estate of the decedent just as would any creditor. Under the more expansive definition of estate, the state must enforce its rights by notifying heirs of its rights under state law.
Lien on Real Estate
The second method for recovering Medicaid costs paid is to place a lien on any real property owned by the person who received Medicaid coverage. During the person's lifetime, the state places a lien on the person's property. When the property is sold, either before or after the person's death, the state can collect repayment from its share of the sale proceeds, as would any other lienholder.
When States Can't Recover Costs
Even though the states must recover for costs paid when appropriate, there are certain prohibitions that states must follow. States cannot recover Medicaid-paid costs in the following situations.
 - Surviving spouse. The deceased person's spouse is still living, regardless of where that spouse lives.
 - Minor, blind, or disabled child. There is a surviving child under the age of 21, blind, or disabled, regardless of where that child lives.
In addition, states cannot recover costs from the former home of the deceased person in the following situations.
 - Sibling caregiver. There is a sibling who resided in the home for at least one year prior to the institutionalization of the deceased and who continues to reside in the home and has an equity interest in that home.
 - Child caregiver. There is a child who resided in the home for at least two years prior to the institutionalization of the deceased, who continues to reside in the home, and can demonstrate that the care they provided delayed the institutionalization of the deceased.
When States Can Forego Cost Recovery
One situation where a state may "waive recovery" (decide not to try to collect repayment) is when the deceased person's heirs can prove that recovery of Medicaid costs will impose an "undue hardship." Most states consider undue hardship to be when when the deceased person's inheritors have limited income and the estate is their sole income-producing asset (for example, a family farm or other family business that produces a limited amount of income).
The state must notify the deceased person's inheritors of its recovery rights and allow them an opportunity to claim an exemption from estate recovery (such as undue hardship or being a sibling caregiver).
A state can also waive estate recovery when it is determined that it would be too expensive to try to collect repayment from the estate. Each state is allowed to establish its own rules on what is not cost-effective.
Limit on Amount That Can Be Recovered
There is a limit on how much can be recovered by the state. States cannot recover more than the total amount spent by Medicaid on the individual's behalf at or after age 55. Also, states may not recover more than the amount remaining in the estate after claims of other creditors are fully satisfied. The order of payment by which creditors are paid is set forth in state law.
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text:
Destruction of the myelin sheath in the central nervous system (CNS) is prominent in many clinico-pathologic conditions. Among animal models that reproduce the pathological features of deand remyelination processes, the mouse model of cuprizone administration is widely used. Both hyperactivity and motor impairment have been reported upon cuprizone exposure. The aim of the present study was to assess behaviour in mice after CPZ withdrawal.To summarize, animals showed hypo-activity and deficits in motor coordination when they were subjected to acute demyelinating insult while minor exploratory activity, impairment in motor coordination and lower anxiety levels emerged when remyelination was reached following cuprizone withdrawal. A recovery period of 6 weeks after removal of CPZ was not accompanied by a similar return of normal activity indicating long lasting behavioural effects caused by this neurotoxicant. Specifically, the recovery group showed impairments in neurological functions involved in sensorimotor, neuromuscular, motor coordination and the capacity to cope with a stress-inducing event.
Keywords: Cuprizone; Demyelination; Motor coordination and anxiety; Neurobehavioral screening; Remyelination.
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


Directly to word page Vague search(google)
Home > Devastate in a sentence
Devastate in a sentence
 up(1) down(3)
Sentence count:34Posted:2016-12-14Updated:2016-12-14
Synonym: destroyruinwreckSimilar words: devastatingstateestatereinstatestatementnation-statechief of statestate of affairsMeaning: ['devəsteɪt] v. 1. devastate or ravage 2. overwhelm or overpower.
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1. Disapproval would at first enrage and then devastate him, and these warning messages apparently arrived visually.
2. And without it, a trade war could devastate already shaky world economies.
3. The Eclipse was also intended to devastate entire worlds.
4. Earthquakes can also cause tsunamis, which devastate coastal regions.
5. What exactly happens when I hit the Devastate button?
6. In what ways is Devastate better than Sunder Armor?
7. They intended to devastate the town at one stroke.
8. The Maoists, however, have done more to devastate schooling.
9. Devastate damage - per - sunder increased to 35.
10. Situations that would devastate others may be dealt with in constructive ways.
11. Devastate deals more damage ( and threat ) as your gear improves.
12. A fire or blood devastate and precious paper - historical documents completely.
13. Devastate damage ( and threat ) benefits from damage - increasing talents.
14. Devastate can crit and therefore generate added threat from the extra damage.
15. Corruption, organized crime[Sentence dictionary], and terrorist activities threaten to devastate the process.
16. This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in the north.
17. Oil spills devastate the natural environment, endanger public health, imperil drinking water and disrupt the economy.
18. Historically, governments feared opium because they saw it devastate China.
19. Does Devastate generate more threat per hit than Sunder Armor?
20. In India, massive habitat loss continues to devastate Bengal tiger populations.
21. Critics say it's encroaching on the green belt and would devastate local villages.
22. Because his mockery or contempt on top of everything else would devastate her.
23. There is in fact an optimum height for airbursts, at which they devastate the maximum amount of area on the surface.
24. Tourist souvenirs like furs, ivory, animal skins, coral necklaces and shells can devastate wildlife.
25. Even a modest aerial explosion like the fifteen-megaton Tunguska event would utterly devastate a modern city.
26. Is there any reason at all to use Sunder Armor when you have Devastate?
27. The best plan is a broad plan, so that a failure devastate.
28. Any prolonged injury to Rooney or Saha, in particular, would devastate United.
29. The Lurker focuses on spies, cloaks and subterfuge to devastate opponents.
30. The upshot is that we're horrifyingly nonchalant at the prospect that rising carbon emissions may devastate our favorite planet.
More similar words: devastatingstateestatereinstatestatementnation-statechief of statestate of affairscrevassevastdeviateevacuateevaluatestatusstatuestaticpastastatutea stageecstaticcast awaycoastalstaticallystatus quostatutorycast aboutstatisticscast asidestatisticalcast about for
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text:
John Wesley distinguished between essential doctrines on which agreement or consensus is critical and opinions about theology or church practices on which disagreement must be allowed. Though today few people join churches based on doctrinal commitments, once a person has joined a church it becomes important to know the historic teachings of that church's tradition.
In Methodist Doctrine: The Essentials, Ted Campbell outlines historical doctrinal consensus in American Episcopal Methodist Churches in a comparative and ecumenical dialogue with the doctrinal inheritance of other major families of Christian tradition. In this way, the book shows both what Methodist churches historically teach in common with ecumenical Christianity and what is distinctive about the Methodist tradition in its various contemporary forms. Documents examined include The Twenty-Five Articles of Religion, The General Rules, Wesley's Standard Sermons and Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, The Methodist Social Creed, and the Apostles' Creed.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


159 Word Search Generator
A word search puzzle presents a grid of seemingly random letters and a list of words. The goal of the puzzle is to find and mark all the words from the list hidden within the grid, searching along straight lines (horizontal, vertical and diagonal).
Your task for this week's quiz is to write a Ruby program that generates word search puzzles, given a list of words and the desired width and height for the puzzle. A call to the script will look like this:
genpuzzle.rb words.txt 6x8
The first argument is the list of words, one word per line in a text file. The second argument is the dimensions of the puzzle, width by height.
Your program should output two files. The first file, search.txt, should contain the puzzle itself. All characters should be separated by spaces to allow the puzzle solver room to mark found words. As an example, here is a 6x8 puzzle containing the words from "zero" to "nine".
e a e g g w
e e n i n t
r n o h h f
h q e g i r
t z i v u q
o e e o e l
w r f g e s
t o u s i x
The second file, solution.txt, should contain the same puzzle with the answers marked, like this:
e. e...
| |
e e-n-i-n t
| | /
r n o. h f
| \ / /
h. e g i r
| X / /
t z i v u.
|/ / X
o e e o e.
| | / \
w r f.. s
| |
t o. s-i-x
Adam Shelly was our sole submission this week, so we are going to take a look at his solution to the quiz.
Adam's first bit of code is a simple class, CrossWord:
class CrossWord
 attr_accessor :word, :place, :dir
 def initialize w
 def unplaced?
This class maintains information about each word to be placed into the puzzle, including the word itself but also the direction and placement. The rest of the code works with this class rather than with raw strings.
Let's jump for a moment to the main code.
gridsize = ARGV[1].split('x').map{|v|v.to_i}
g = CharGrid.new *gridsize
puts "unsolvable!" or exit if (words[0].size>gridsize.max)
g.fill words
File.open("search.txt","w"){|f|f.puts g.to_s}
File.open("solution.txt","w"){|f|f.puts g.solution}
Most of this should be fairly obvious work. The dimensions (e.g. "24x20") are retrieved from the second command-line argument, split over the 'x' and converted to integers. These dimensions are then used to construct a new CharGrid object (which will be examined shortly).
The search words are read from the provided file and sorted from longest to shortest. Presumably, the intent here is to place the longest words into the puzzle first; the shortest (and more easily placed) words are placed last.
A quick sanity check is done by comparing the length of the longest word against the longest dimension of the grid. If the word is longer, a puzzle would be impossible to generate. Adam uses a neat, if perhaps confusing, technique to alert the user and exit out. To understand how it works, I had to parenthesize according to operator precedence:
((puts "unsolvable!") or exit) if (words[0].size > gridsize.max)
Now, realizing that the puts statement returns nil, this made sense. So, while this construct both outputs the warning message and exits the program, this might have been clearer:
if (words[0].size > gridsize.max)
 puts "unsolvable!"
Getting back to Adam's main code, the words – now sorted and checked – are handed off to the grid's fill method, which does the bulk of the work. Once done, the final step is to output the two text files as requested, the puzzle itself using the to_s method, and the solution via the solution method.
Most of Adam's code lives in the CharGrid class. The main algorithm is found in the fill method:
def fill words
 iterations = 0
 _USER_ = words.map{|w| CrossWord.new(w)}
 words_todo = _USER_.select{|w|w.unplaced?}
The master list of all words is kept in _USER_, which, as mentioned earlier, is converted and kept as CrossWord instances rather than raw strings). Then Adam loops until his words_todo array is empty. For the first iteration of the loop, this array contains all of the words sorted from longest to shortest.
 until words_todo.empty?
 words_todo.each{|cw| place cw }
The first step is an attempt to place all of the words that have not yet been placed into the puzzle. We'll come back to the place method in a bit.
 words_todo = _USER_.select{|w|w.unplaced?}.sort_by{rand}
Adam reevaluates what words still remain to be placed. Unlike before, where words were sorted from longest to shortest (in an attempt to place the more complex words first), remaining words are now randomized. I imagine this is an attempt to add a bit of chaos where order (i.e. word length) failed, but I question how much of a benefit this is, considering words are placed within the word grid mostly at random.
 if (iterations+=1) %(_USER_+_USER_)==0
 _TAG_ we are getting stuck, try removing some words
 puts "#{togo = words_todo.size} to go..."
 words_done = (_USER_-words_todo).sort_by{rand}
 (togo*2).times{|i| words_todo<< remove(words_done[i]) if words_done[i]}
As per Adam's comment, if the loop continues for a long while without placing all the words in our list, some words are put back into the todo list. togo indicates how many words are currently unplaced, and twice as many are removed from the puzzle and put back into the words_todo list. The hope here is that, when the next loop iteration begins, the code will attempt to place the words remaining, in a location and orientation that differs from prior iterations of the loop.
Let's look at the place method next:
def place cw
 startpt = find_overlap(cw, otherword)
 return if test_place(cw, startpt)
In an effort do provide an interesting puzzle, where words overlap frequently, the word to be placed is checked against all of the other words in random order. If the word is successfully placed, test_place returns a non-false value and the function exits.
def findoverlap cw, testword return nil if testword.unplaced? if (offset = testword.word.index cw.word0) startpt = testword.place offset.times{startpt=nextp(startpt,testword.dir)} else startpt = nil end startpt end
find_overlap determines if the first character of the word to be placed can be found in another, already placed word. If so, the location of that character in the grid is determined by walking along testword using nextp, which calculates the next grid index in a given direction. That index is returned, or nil if the character is not found.
This is certainly a good first step in trying to overlap words, though I think more work needs to be done to create an interesting word search puzzle… but I'll come back to that at the end of this summary.
def test_place cw, suggestion=nil
 start= suggestion || randStart(cw.word[0])
Calling test_place attempts to place the supplied word. A random direction and starting point are chosen; the latter is random if no suggestion was made by find_overlap (i.e. there were no characters in common between the two compared words).
 8.times do
 pt = start
 good = true
The loop will attempt all eight directions to place the word from the starting location (but will exit the function as soon as the first good direction is found).
 good = (_USER_[pt]==?. || _USER_[pt]==chr) && (pt=nextp(pt,dir))
 break unless good
Looking at each character of the word to place, and the corresponding grid spaces, we determine if each character either fills in an empty grid space (currently occupied by periods?.) or matches existing grid characters. As long as all characters of the word fulfill this criteria, the variable good remains true.
 return add(cw, start, dir) if good
After examining the whole word, a true value for good indicates that the word fits into the grid and can be placed. The add method accomplishes this, and we exit test_place early, now that we have actually placed the word.
Finishing the loop, the next direction is tried if the previous direction did not allow the word to fit. If no direction works, nil is returned, and the place method moves onto the next word.
That covers the bulk of the algorithm; the rest of the class is bookkeeping, filling in characters or removing them, checking directions, and more. I'm going to move onto looking at the output, however please take a look at Adam's code if you want to see in more detail how he manipulates the data.
Here now is the solution.txt output from one run of Adam's generator, using the word list provided earlier:
e-x-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n v-i-r-t


text:
IN MATH: 1. 1/100; 1 ÷ 10 ÷ 10; (1/10)²; a tenth of a tenth. EX. A cent is one hundredth of a dollar. Five cents is 5 hundredths of a dollar. How many hundredths are there in 2 dollars? 2. n. the place two places to the right of the decimal in a decimal number. EX. What digit is in the hundredths place in 754.12369?
IN ENGLISH: 1. as defined above.
APPLICATION: (see list 10)
1. How many hundredths of a dollar are there in 2 dollars?
2. What digit is in the hundredths place in 754.12369?
This is a page from the dictionary MATH SPOKEN HERE!, published in 1995 by MATHEMATICAL CONCEPTS, inc., ISBN: 0-_PHONE_-5-1. You are hereby granted permission to make ONE printed copy of this page and its picture(s) for your PERSONAL and not-for-profit use.


text:
Luctor et Emergo" is a heart-warming, true story about the author's parents and their loss of hearing at a young age. The Latin phrase "Luctor et Emergo" means "I struggle and overcome". This simple Latin expression was often quoted by the author's father, Horace E. Dean, and it sums up the theme of the book.
People can overcome the most difficult of circumstances in life if they will persevere. The book details the myriad of challenges the author's deaf parents faced throughout life and their persistent determination to overcome their disability and disappointments with their faith in God. This uplifting and sometimes humorous story of the indomitable nature of the human spirit will encourage young and old alike, especially those persons who are struggling with life's challenges.
show more show less


text:
TeachMeFinance.com - explain intelligence-related activities
intelligence-related activities 'intelligence-related activities' is an military term meaning '(DOD) Those activities outside the consolidated defense intelligence program that: respond to operational commanders' tasking for time-sensitive information on foreign entities; respond to national intelligence community tasking of systems whose primary mission is support to operating forces; train personnel for intelligence duties; provide an intelligence reserve; or are devoted to research and development of intelligence or related capabilities. (Specifically excluded are programs that are so closely integrated with a weapon system that their primary function is to provide immediate-use targeting data.)'.
About the author


text:
Rocky Hill Castle
|Rocky Hill Castle|
Rocky Hill Castle in 1935
|Built for||James Edmonds Saunders|
|Architectural style(s)||Greek Revival, Italianate and Gothic Revival|
Rocky Hill Castle, also known simply as Rocky Hill, was a historic plantation and plantation house between Town Creek and Courtland, Alabama, United States. Once famed in Alabama for its architecture, it was an unusual mixing of neoclassical and picturesque aesthetics in one plantation complex. The house and tower suffered from neglect during much of the 20th century and were subsequently demolished in the 1960s. Much folklore surrounds the site, with Rocky Hill Castle being the subject of numerous ghost stories. The most notable story, "The Ghost of the Angry Architect", was published in Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh's 1969 work 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey.
The plantation at Rocky Hill Castle was founded by James Edmonds Saunders in the mid-1820s, shortly after he and his wife came to Alabama from their native Georgia. Saunders, born on May 7, 1806, was a planter and attorney.
He established his plantation 4 miles (6.4 km) from that of his father, Turner Saunders, and his Saunders Hall plantation. In the years after coming to Lawrence County Saunders practiced law in nearby Courtland. He eventually amassed 640 acres (260 ha), centered on the hill that his house sat upon.
Desiring a grander dwelling, Saunders demolished this earlier house and began building Rocky Hill Castle in 1858. The American Civil War put an end to construction in 1861, although the estate was largely complete by that time. The house served as Confederate hospital during the war, with several soldiers buried nearby in the Saunders' family cemetery.
The plantation passed through many owners following the death of James Saunders in 1896. The last Saunders to own it was James Saunder's grandson, Dr. Dudley Saunders. Dr. Saunders and his family are alleged to have abruptly abandoned Rocky Hill Castle in the 1920s, purportedly after ghostly activity.
Regardless of the accuracy of those events, the plantation was purchased from Dr. Saunders in the 1920s by H.D. Bynum and R.E. Tweedy, who used the farmland but did not reside in the house. This started a long period of decline for the house, which eventually became ruinous. It was finally demolished by a new owner, Gordon McBride, in 1961, after he and his wife had salvaged what they could for their new house in Decatur.
Rocky Hill Castle was built from 1858 to 1861, utilizing a combination of the Greek Revival and Italianate architectural styles. The architect of the main house is unknown, although at least one of the ghost stories alleges that it was a gentleman of French extraction. The two-story house was a rectangular stuccoed brick structure over a raised basement. It featured one-story side wings, one-story Doric porticoes centered on the front and rear, and was topped by a large cupola.
Connected to the house complex on the western side by a high brick wall was a five-story brick Gothic Revival tower crowned with crenelation. The connecting wall was pierced by a Tudor arch. The wall and octagonal tower have been traditionally linked to an itinerant craftsman from Wales, Hugh Jones. The tower, as well as the adjoining brick kitchen building, contained rooms used to house the Saunders' slaves.
The interior of the house featured some of the most elaborate woodwork and plasterwork in the state. Other features of the house were an impressive walnut staircase, double parlors and Italian marble mantles.
- Gamble, Robert (1987). The Alabama Catalog: A Guide to the Early Architecture of the State. University, AL: University of Alabama Press. p. 253. ISBN 0-8173-0148-8.
- Matrana, Marc R. (2009). Lost Plantations of the South. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 112–117. ISBN 978-1-57806-942-2.
- Hauck, Dennis William (1996). Haunted Places: The National Directory: Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, UFO Landings and Other Supernatural Locations. Penguin. p. 225. ISBN 978-0-14-025734-2.
- Connie Thwaite (14 March 2007). "Courtland is town steeped in history". Times Daily. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
- Windham, Kathryn Tucker; Figh, Margaret Gillis (1969). 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. Strode Publishers. pp. 13–21. ISBN 0-8173-0376-6.
- Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (1935). "Rocky Hill, State Highway 20, Courtland vicinity, Lawrence, AL". National Park Service. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2 January 2011.


DataScript Constructs
Operators compare or contrast sets of data, and will return as true or false. DataScripts rely on the Lua scripting language for the syntax and supported usage of arithmetic, relational and logical operators. When evaluating strings, DataScript is case sensitive, so "a" does not equal "A".
Arithmetic Operators
 + -- Addition
 - -- Subtraction
 * -- Multiplication
 / -- Division
Relational Operators
 > -- Greater than
 < -- Less than
 >= -- Greater than or equal to
 <= -- Less than or equal to
 == -- Equal to
 ~= -- Not equal to
Logical Operators
 string.find -- Used to search for a string within another string


Can Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) be a Competitive Irrigation System in the Great Plains Region for Commodity Crops?
Citation: 5th National Decennial Irrigation Conference Proceedings, 5-8 December 2010, Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, Arizona USA IRR10-9686.(doi:10.13031/2013.35819)
Authors: Freddie R Lamm, Paul D Colaizzi, James P Bordovsky, Todd P Trooien, Juan Enciso-Medina, Dana O Porter, Danny H Rogers, Daniel M O'Brien
Keywords: Microirrigation, subsurface drip irrigation, irrigation design, irrigation management
Subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) as with all microirrigation systems is typically only used on crops with greater value. In the US Great Plains region, the typical irrigated crops are the cereal and oil seed crops and cotton. These crops have less economic revenue than typical microirrigated crops. This paper will present a case for how SDI can be economically competitive for the lesser value crops of the Great Plains. The case will have 5 sections: 1) How do Great Plains crops respond to SDI? 2) Are there special uses for SDI in the Great Plains? 3) How can SDI system costs be minimized without causing operational and maintenance problems? 4) Can SDI systems have a long life? 5) How does SDI compare economically to alternative irrigation systems?
(Download PDF) (Export to EndNotes)


Aquilea. Aquilea was created by the Spanish author Francisco Camba and appeared in La Sirena Rubia (1926).
Aquilea is a Femme Fatale. She is Spanish but during World War One she spies for Germany in Galicia, near the harbor of Ria Longa. From there she sends signals to German submarines and manipulates English ship captains into falling in love with her and leaving their ships exposed to the U-Boats.


Computers & Engineering Software & Consulting
productssupportdownloadsclient projectscompany Information
GASWorkS uses a Newton-Nodal, iterative method of solution. It supports a number of flow equations including the AGATurbulent, Colebrook, IGT-Improved, Mueller High and Low-Pressure, Oliphant, Panhandle-A, Panhandle-B, Pole LowPressure, Spitzglass High and Low-Pressure, and Weymouth equations.
The solution routine allows the flowing temperature to be calculated based on environmental heat loss and gain. Gas properties at a specific location, including specific gravity, viscosity, ratio of specific heats, and heating value, can be calculated based on the gas composition. Mixed gas properties throughout the system can be calculated based on the flow distribution. Compressibility can be calculated using one of several methods, including the latest revision of AGA 8.


text:
Level: ECE, Primary, Junior
Grades: PreK-5 | Age: 2-11yrs | Written by: Andrea Mulder-Slater
[Andrea is one of the creators of KinderArt.com]
Students will use leaves and twigs to create figures.
What You Need:
What You Do:
- Leaves (all shapes, all sizes, all colors).
- Small twigs.
- Construction paper (diffferent colors).
- Have a look at a small pile of leaves to see if their shapes suggest heads, arms, bodies etc.
- Choose some leaves that resemble people parts and glue the shapes down on construction paper. You may need to do some cutting and rearranging to come up with a pleasing shape.
- If you have the leaves (and the time) you could create a huge leaf person by drawing out a body shape and gluing leaves all over to fill in the shape.
- You can use twigs and construction paper scraps to add details to your leaf person.
This content has been printed from:


kids encyclopedia robot
Dominic O'Brien facts for kids
Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Quick facts for kids
Dominic O'Brien
Dominic O'Brien.jpg
Dominic O'Brien (right)
Born August 10, 1957 (1957-08-10) (age 63)
Known for Author of memory-related books
Dominic O'Brien (10 August 1957) is a British mnemonist and an author of memory-related books. He is the eight time World Memory Champion and works as a trainer for Peak Performance Training.
He began developing his mnemonic techniques in 1987 when he saw Creighton Carvello memorise a pack of 52 playing cards in less than three minutes on the BBC television programme Record Breakers. To memorise numbers, O'Brien developed the mnemonic Dominic system, which is similar to the Major System. He has written books about memorisation techniques such as How to Develop a Perfect Memory, Quantum Memory Power, Learn to Remember, How to Pass Exams, The Winning Hand, and The Amazing Memory Box.
He gives lectures, and has been seen on television programmes such as The Human Body.
Dominic O'Brien had an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for his 1 May 2002 feat of committing to memory a random sequence of 2808 playing cards (54 packs) after looking at each card only once. He was able to correctly recite their order, making only eight errors, four of which he immediately corrected when told he was wrong.
kids search engine
Dominic O'Brien Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.


Monthly Archives: February 2017
Send Monitoring Alerts To Microsoft Teams
When you have a large monitoring setup you need to know when something important is failing or is just offline. If you have setup Microsoft Teams you can send a message to a channel to let the support team repair the service or device with minimal down time.
I have set this up in Labtech to send alerts to the alerts channel. Labtech has the nice ability to inject data in a powershell script before it is run, but we will be demonstrating the script by running it directly in powershell.
First step is to create a webhook in the MS Teams channel you wish to use. At the time of writing you can only create a webhook from the web version of MS Teams, it will not work in the desktop client.
Open the connectors in the channel you want to use for your alerts.
Open the connectors for the channel
Find the "Incoming Webhook" and add it.
Add the Incoming Webhook
Next we need to name the connector and assign an avatar, these settings will change how the sender of the message appears in the channel. I recommend setting the name to the service that will send the messages, and the image to the systems icon or something that is attention grabbing.
Set the name and image the webhook will use when posting.
Once done you will get a url, save a copy of the URL as it is important to the next step.
Copy the Webhook URL for your connector
The next step is to copy the following script, you can also download it from here
# Powershell MS Teams alert template
# This is a template to demonstrate the ability to send notices to
# Microsoft Teams from PowerShell
# Parse the command variables
param (
 [string]$message = "This is a test of the alert system",
 [string]$title = "Test Message",
 [string]$status = "Cleared",
 [string]$monitor = "Testing - monitor",
 [string]$location = "Downtown",
 [string]$system = "labsys01"
# Edit the URI with the webhook url that was provided
$uri = '';
# Build the message Body
$body = ConvertTo-Json -Depth 4 @{
 title = $title
 text =''
 sections = @(
 activityText = $message
 facts = @(
 name = 'Status'
 value = $status
 name = 'System Name'
 value = $system
 name = 'Monitor'
 value = $monitor
 name = 'Location'
 value = $location
_TAG_ the message to MS Teams
Invoke-RestMethod -uri $uri -Method Post -body $body -ContentType 'application/json';
Write-Output "INFO - Message has been sent.";
You will need to edit the $uri line to have the URL that was provided in the Webhook creation step.
$uri = '';
Once done you can execute the script to see the default alert message. To send your own values to the script you can pass variables when run like the following example.
send-msteams-alert.ps1 -message "System is offline" -title "Offline" -status "Critical" -monitor "Offine Check" -location "Downtown" -system "testLab01"
If everything was done correctly you should have a nice message posted to Microsoft Teams like the following.
Message sent to Microsoft Teams from a Webhook


text:
What is Pedagogy?
Search for Define
In Education w/ 100's of Results at WebCrawler
Learn Classroom Teaching Tips. The Latest Lifestyle Advice At
Pedagogy is teaching others how to teach. It comes from an ancient Greek word meaning 'to lead the child'. There is also an academic journal called pedagogy that discusses innovations in teaching strategy.
now and Find it fast on Savenkeep!
Nine ways to master this topic
in the Classroom
What is the Meaning of
What Is Pedagogical Theory?
What Is Andragogy?
What does Pedagogy Mean
Sometimes you simply need a fresh perspective to solve a challenge.
for a random insight from history's great thinkers.
Get more insight here
What does Pedagogy Mean?
What is the Meaning of Pedagogy?
Copyright © 2013 Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.


Is 'laughing gas' a security concern?
September 26, 2014 − by SFS Ltd − in News − Comments Off on Is 'laughing gas' a security concern?
proof-of-age-cardNitrous oxide, also known as 'laughing gas' is a legal drug that becomes popular amongst young people, due to its effects similar to those of hard drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine. Inhaled from party balloons, 'laughing gas' creates hallucinations and a sense of short time euphoria.
According to medical professionals, inhaling 'laughing gas' can have the effect of fainting, regular use of this party drug could be even fatal.
Home Office statistics showed that 'laughing gas' is, after cannabis, the second most popular drug among people aged 16 to 24.
But despite of health warnings and even Home Office recommendations that festivals should crack down on 'laughing gas', the drug remains legal to inhale.
In a BBC investigation, security was criticised that they stood by and did nothing, allowing consumption of laughing gas at one of the UK's top dance festivals.
So, is 'laughing gas' a security concern?
Obviously, even though this is a legal drug, the risk of having customers passing out due to nitrous oxide is a security concern. This can be controlled by conducting searches, not allowing entry to or ejecting those who are expected to inhale the gas.
A "zero tolerance" attitude to drugs is always a good practice, regardless of whether the substance was illegal or not.
Comments are closed.


text:
The Huntington Beach Pump Station Urban Runoff Diversion Project was one of four channel sites chosen for the Urban Runoff Diversion Project within the Talbert Valley and Lower Santa Ana River watersheds; the other three Urban Runoff Diversion Projects were: the Santa Ana River, Talbert Channel, and Greenville - Banning Channel.
The purpose of the Urban Runoff Diversion Projects is to prevent untreated urban runoff from reaching the ocean waters. Urban runoff has been suspected as one of several possible sources that may contribute to high coliform bacteria counts along Huntington State Beach. The projects include the installation of pumps to divert over 95% of the non-storm runoff from the Talbert and Lower Santa Ana River watershed to the nearby OCSD wastewater treatment plant. The proposed projects divert seasonal urban runoff (containing animal waste, fertilizers, waste oils, and other chemicals that are nutrients for bacteria) into the sanitary sewer system at four different locations to reduce water pollution.
This project construction consisted of low flow pumps to divert non-storm water from the pump station wet well to an OCSD trunk sewer line on Adams Ave near Beach Blvd. within the City of Huntington Beach.


Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have a bat script which runs a java application. If I press ctrl+c on it, it the application terminates gracefully, invoking all the shutdown hooks. However, if I just close the cmd window of the bat script, the shutdown hooks are never invoked.
Is there a way to solve this? Perhaps there's a way to tell the bat script how to terminate the invoked applications when its window is closed?
share|improve this question
add comment
3 Answers
up vote 10 down vote accepted
From addShutdownHook documentation:
In rare circumstances the virtual machine may abort, that is, stop running without shutting down cleanly. This occurs when the virtual machine is terminated externally, for example with the SIGKILL signal on Unix or the TerminateProcess call on Microsoft Windows.
So i think nothing to do here, unfortunately.
CTRL-CLOSE signal in Windows Console. Seems non-tweakable.
Quoting above link:
The system generates a CTRL+CLOSE signal when the user closes a console. All processes attached to the console receive the signal, giving each process an opportunity to clean up before termination. When a process receives this signal, the handler function can take one of the following actions after performing any cleanup operations:
 - Call ExitProcess to terminate the process.
 - Return FALSE. If none of the registered handler functions returns TRUE, the default handler terminates the process.
 - Return TRUE. In this case, no other handler functions are called, and a pop-up dialog box asks the user whether to terminate the process. If the user chooses not to terminate the process, the system does not close the console until the process finally terminates.
UPD. If native tweaks are acceptable for you, WinAPI SetConsoleCtrlHandler function opens way for suppressing of default behavior.
UPD2. Revelations on Java signal handling and termination relatively old article, but section Writing Java signal handlers really may contain what you need.
UPD3. I've tried Java signal handlers from article above. It works with SIGINT nicely, but it not what we need, and i decided to carry it with SetConsoleCtrlHandler. The result is a bit complicated and may be not worth to implement in your project. Anyway, it could help someone else.
So, the idea was:
 1. Keep reference to shutdown handler thread.
 2. Set custom native console handler routine with JNI.
 3. Call custom Java method on CTRL+CLOSE signal.
 4. Call shutdown handler from that method.
Java code:
public class TestConsoleHandler {
 private static Thread hook;
 public static void main(String[] args) {
 hook = new ShutdownHook();
 replaceConsoleHandler(); // actually not "replace" but "add"
 try {
 Thread.sleep(10000); // You have 10 seconds to close console
 } catch (InterruptedException e) {}
 public static void shutdown() {
 private static native void replaceConsoleHandler();
 static {
class ShutdownHook extends Thread {
 public void run() {
 try {
 // do some visible work
 new File("d:/shutdown.mark").createNewFile();
 } catch (IOException e) {
Native replaceConsoleHandler:
JNIEXPORT void JNICALL Java_TestConsoleHandler_replaceConsoleHandler(JNIEnv *env, jclass clazz) {
 SetConsoleCtrlHandler(&HandlerRoutine, TRUE);
And handler itself:
BOOL WINAPI HandlerRoutine(__in DWORD dwCtrlType) {
 if (dwCtrlType == CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT) {
 JNIEnv *env;
 jint res = jvm->AttachCurrentThread((void **)(&env), &env);
 jclass cls = env->FindClass("TestConsoleHandler");
 jmethodID mid = env->GetStaticMethodID(cls, "shutdown", "()V");
 env->CallStaticVoidMethod(cls, mid);
 return TRUE;
 return FALSE;
And it works. In JNI code all error checks are omitted for clearance. Shutdown handler creates empty file "d:\shutdown.mark" to indicate correct shutdown.
Complete sources with compiled test binaries here.
share|improve this answer
Yes, I've already read this. I was just wondering whether there's some kind of a shutdown hook in batch files. – Zoltán Feb 14 '12 at 13:35
I've updated answer. Maybe someone will suggest some magic for console. – Mersenne Feb 14 '12 at 13:40
Updated again with link to Chris White's article. – Mersenne Feb 14 '12 at 14:07
This doesn't seem to be true, because when I press ctrl+c to stop my batch script, the shutdown hooks are invoked, but when I just close the window, they're not. – Zoltán Feb 14 '12 at 14:12
Ctrl-C generates different signal. Right now i can't check solution described in article, but i'm concerned now and will look deeper soon. – Mersenne Feb 14 '12 at 14:20
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Though the batch file may be terminated, the console (window) the batch file has been running in may be left open, depending on the operating system, the command processor, and how batch file execution was started (from a command prompt or through a shortcut).
taskkill is a good command for ending a program which is distributed with Windows (I'm assuming you want to stop a DIFFERENT program, not the batch file itself).
It is possible to end programs by process id, executable name, window title, status (i.e. not responding), DLL name, or service name.
Here are some examples based on how you might use this in your batch file:
Force "program.exe" to stop (often the /f "force" flag is needed to force the program to stop, just check whether it is needed for your application by trial and error):
taskkill /f /im program.exe
Stop any non-responsive programs:
taskkill /fi "Status eq NOT RESPONDING"
Stop a program based on its window title (* wildcard is allowed here to match anything):
taskkill /fi "WindowTitle eq Please Login"
taskkill /fi "WindowTitle eq Microsoft*"
You can even use it to stop a program on another computer on your network (although writing the password of an account in a batch file is just not a good idea).
taskkill /s JimsPC /u Jim /p James_007 /im firefox.exe
Another alternative also distributed with Windows is tskill. Although it doesn't have nearly as many options, the commands are a bit simpler.
I am not sure there is. I would think that closing the cmd window is akin to force-closing the app i.e. immediate termination with no further notice. This has the behavior of many applications that, when they are asked to force-close, they actually take a long time to finally terminate. This is because in the OS's efforts to release all resources, some resources (especially certain I/O and/or file resources) don't let go immediately.
IMO, there's nothing Java could even do about it if it wanted to. A force-close happens at the OS level, at which point it releases the memory, file and I/O handles in use, etc. Java does not (nor does any other program) have control over a force-close. At this point, the OS is taking charge.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
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I don't want to stop a program, this is not the issue. The issue is that when I close the cmd window (by pressing on the x in the top-right corner), the batch file terminates my java application in a manner that it doesn't invoke its shutdown hooks. – Zoltán Feb 14 '12 at 13:59
_USER_ See my edited comment above. I'm open to corrections. – Frankline Feb 14 '12 at 14:14
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Further to the above answer of using SetConsoleCtrlHandler, you can also do this using JNA rather than writing your own native code.
You could create your own interface on kernel32 if you wanted, or use the one provided in this excellent framework: _URL_
Some example code:
import com.github.axet.desktop.os.win.GetLastErrorException;
import com.github.axet.desktop.os.win.handle.HANDLER_ROUTINE;
import com.github.axet.desktop.os.win.libs.Kernel32Ex;
private static HANDLER_ROUTINE handler =
 public long callback(long dwCtrlType) {
 if ((int)dwCtrlType == CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT) {
 // *** do your shutdown code here ***
 return 1;
 return 0;
public static void assignShutdownHook() {
 if (!Kernel32Ex.INSTANCE.SetConsoleCtrlHandler(handler, true))
 throw new GetLastErrorException();
Note that I assigned the anonymous class to a field. I originally defined it in the call to SetConsoleCtrlHandler, but I think it was getting collected by the JVM.
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Surrender vs Submission vs Capitulation
Surrendersubmissioncapitulation denote the act of yielding up one's person, one's forces, or one's possessions to another person or power.
Surrender usually implies a state of war and present domination by a victor or by an admittedly stronger power; in addition it often also implies the immediate cessation of fighting
Submission often implies surrender (as of an army, its supplies, and its fortifications), but it stresses the acknowledgment of the power or authority of another and often suggests loss of independence; it is used especially of those who rebel or of those whose weak condition leaves them at the mercy of a stronger power or subject to its threats. Unlike surrender, submission often implies not a previous state of war but a threat of disastrous warfare.
Capitulation also implies surrender, but it suggests a conditional one on terms agreed upon between the parties or the commanders of the forces concerned.


text:
A word about polymorphism
In more conventional OOP languages, you can:
Define two or more methods having the same name either in a given class or up and down the class hierarchy.
If the method names are the same but the argument lists are different
This is commonly referred to as method overloading.
If the methods names and the argument lists are the same
This is referred to as method overriding.


Why the Rose-coloured vestments?
The Rose-coloured chasuble beside the Advent wreathWhy rose-coloured vestments on the third Sunday of Advent? Why do some places have a rose-coloured candle in the wreath for that day?
It's a tradition that emerged hundreds of years ago: the introit (the verses from psalm and another portion of scripture which were read as the procession approached the altar) for the third Sunday of Advent began "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." (from Philippians 4.4). In Latin, the words are "Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete." The word rejoice–gaudete–gives the Sunday the name that many call it: Gaudete Sunday. Halfway through Advent, and in the midst of a whole bunch of fairly penitential readings, the introit was seen as lightening in the mood. (There's a similar Sunday in Lent: the fourth Sunday of Lent is called "Laetare Sunday." )
To celebrate that light-ening, the purple vestments warmed to rose; the flowers that had been were forbidden in the season were allowed; and the organ which had been quieted burst into music. Now, many of these things have changed: we keep using the organ, and enjoy flowers each week. At Nativity, we use blue for the vestments and hangings in Advent instead of the purple of Lent. And after all, very few parishes splurge on a set of rose vestments and hangings.
The rector's advent candles, lit all the way through for Christmas.However, in lots of places, some of these customs are kept. Maybe your Advent candles look a bit like mine, with one rose one slipped into the mix. In places that associate the four Sundays of Advent with some of Christ's gifts to us (peace, hope, joy, and love), this third Sunday is for joy–and it got to be that way because of Gaudete Sunday.
May you find joy in your waiting as we long for the one draws near!
And, if you want to know the whole introit, it goes like this: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand;have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have turned away the captivity of Jacob. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. – Philippians 4.4-6 and Psalm 85.1


text:
- scipy.spatial.distance.yule(u, v)¶
Computes the Yule dissimilarity between two boolean 1-D arrays.
The Yule dissimilarity is defined as
where is the number of occurrences of and for and.
u : (N,) array_like, bool
v : (N,) array_like, bool
yule : double
The Yule dissimilarity between vectors u and v.


Opus Sectile
Main Article: mosaics in jewelry
Opus Sectile is a mosaic style where slabs of stone are shaped and fitted together as a jigsaw puzzle. It was popular in early Roman times and revived during the renaissance in Florence, where it became known as pietra dura. In jewelry one will not encounter them before the 19th century.
Opus sectile.jpg
Opus Sectile (Marble Floor Inlay) from the Hadrian's Villa (Piccole Terme) Near Tivoli in Italy.


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In the answer to bibtex vs. biber and biblatex vs. natbib the advantages and disadvantages of Biber vs. BibTeX (and of natbib vs. biblatex) were explained. However, one point was omitted: The question of compatibility of bibliographies between BibTeX and biblatex.
After using BibTeX for a while, you get a collection of bibliographies in BibTeX style. Furthermore, many journals give BibTeX entries for citations on their home page. A lot of bibliography management programs either support BibTeX export, or even manage BibTeX files directly. Also, advanced editors like Emacs have special support for BibTeX bibliographies.
In short, there's a massive infrastructure for creating and managing BibTeX bibliographies and a big stock of existing ones. Moreover, as was noted in the other question, you cannot use Biber together with natbib, which is used by quite a few journals.
Therefore the following question arises: Is the bibliography format of Biber compatible with the bibliography format by BibTeX? Or if not, it there at least an automatic conversion tool?
Note that both directions are interesting: If Biber cannot use existing BibTeX bibliographies, this means that you have to convert every existing BibTeX bibliography, and do so also for BibTeX entries from journals (unless they also offer Biber, but often it's just BibTeX and EndNote) and bibliographies exported from bibliography management programs. On the other hand, if Biber files cannot be used for BibTeX and no conversion exists, it means that any Biber bibliography is useless for journals using natbib, and any programs interpreting directly BibTeX bibliography files cannot be used any more (including editor support).
Also, in case that Biber can read BibTeX files, but not vice versa: Does Biber still have advantages over BibTeX if the files are restricted to BibTeX-compatible ones?
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3 Answers
up vote 24 down vote accepted
To parse BibTeX format files, Biber uses a C library called "btparse" which is, for all intents and purposes, 99.9% compatible with BibTeX. So, You should rarely have problem using Biber as a drop-in replacement for BibTeX. As mentioned by others, the issue is rather the slightly different data model which biblatex has compared with the data model in BibTeX.
So, your question really relates to the difference in data models between plain BibTeX and BibLaTeX, regardless of whether you are using Biber as the biblatex backend. Be aware that in the future, around BibLaTeX 2.x, BibTeX will no longer be supported as a biblatex backend as it has too many limitations. Of course BibTeX format data files will always be supported.
The more important question is, as you mention, what the advantages of Biber might be even if you are not using any of the biblatex data model specifics. Here are some advantages of Biber in this respect (you can get an idea by searching for the string "Biber only" in the biblatex manual), omitting the features which require data source changes:
 - Support of data sources other than.bib (currently, RIS, Endnote XML, Zoter RDFXML)
 - Support for remote data sources (.bib files available via ftp or http)
 - Support of other output formats (in 0.9.8 it will support GraphViz.dot output for data visualisation and conversion to the planned biblateXML format)
 - Full Unicode 6.0 support (including file names and citation keys)
 - A sorting mechanism which I think is probably as good or better than any commercial product - full Unicode, multi-field, per-field case and direction, CLDR aware and completely user configurable. BibTeX doesn't come close in this regard.
 - Automatic name and name list disambiguation. I think this is quite an impressive feature. See section 4.11.4 of the biblatex manual for a very good explanation of this with examples.
 - Completely customisable crossref inheritance rules. BibTeX has a very basic static rule only.
 - Automatic encoding and decoding, including UTF-8 <-> LaTeX macros
 - Very flexible configuration file "sourcemap" option which can be used to change the
 .bib data as it is read by Biber, without changing the actual data source itself. You
 can use this to do all sorts of things like drop certain fields, add fields, conditionally drop/add fields, change fields using full Perl 5.14 regular expressions (see Biber manual section 3.1.2).
This last feature is particularly interesting for you as you can potentially map your pure BibTeX.bib files into the biblatex model on the fly as Biber reads them but without altering the files. It's also very useful for dropping fields like abstract which often cause trouble due to LaTeX reserved characters.
There are also some other features implemented in Biber which are available in BibLaTeX 2.x:
 - Customisable labels
 - Multiple bibliographies in the same refsection with their own sorting/filtering
 - "Related" entries - a general solution to the issue of all these "reprinted as", "translated as" etc. requirements.
I forgot to mention that Biber automatically applies the BibLaTeX field and entrytype mappings (address -> location etc.) mentioned in the documentation. It does this by implementing some driver-level source mappings (see \DeclareSourcemap and its variants in the biblatex documentation).
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Thank you for this answer. So if I understand you correctly, I can use standard bibtex.bib file and augment them with a file of transformation rules for biber/biblatex. So I can still use bibtex in cases where is is required, but yet use all biblatex features through transformation rules. Is that right? In that case, I think I'll revise my previous conclusion. – celtschk Dec 5 '11 at 11:43
Yes, that should be largely possible. – PLK Dec 5 '11 at 12:07
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't think that mapping really helps. Take the example I already mentioned, the bookauthor field. It doesn't exist in bibtex; now if I want to make use of this field in biblatex I have to actually write it in the.bib file. There is no way, to automatically map an author or editor field (which are the only ones traditionally supported by bibtex) into a bookauthor field, biber itself can't decide which editor is actually a bookauthor and which one has to remain an editor in biblatex. Mapping is only possible if a clear equivalent exist. – Simifilm Dec 5 '11 at 12:56
You're quite right - the mapping can only help when adding information if it is static and predictable from the information already in the data. It can't help you with completely new information. But in that case, you can add the new fields anyway and bibtex will ignore them if it doesn't know about them. – PLK Dec 5 '11 at 13:23
Thank you. I've now switched the accepted answer to yours because it contains the most relevant information. – celtschk Dec 5 '11 at 20:24
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As a principle: the more you make use of biblatex/Biber's strengths, the harder it gets to go back to a traditional BibTeX workflow.
If you come with your BibTeX database and want to use it with biblatex/Biber there are only few areas you have to tweak: chapter 2.3 of the biblatex manual lists the following points:
 - The entry type _USER_. See §§ 2.1.1 and 2.3.1 for details.
 - The fields institution, organization, and publisher as well as the aliases address and school. See §§ 2.2.2, 2.2.5, 2.3.4 for details.
 - The handling of certain types of titles. See § 2.3.5 for details.
 - The field series. See §§ 2.2.2 and 2.3.7 for details.
 - The fields year and month. See §§ 2.2.2, 2.3.8, 2.3.9 for details.
 - The field edition. See § 2.2.2 for details.
 - The field key. See § 2.3.2 for details.
Not all of the changes will probably concern you and not all really result in incompatibilities.
The more you delve into biblatex and the more you make use of its unique types, fields and features, the more difficult it gets to go back, of course. The whole question of conversion between between the two actually becomes moot, since it's not really a question of different formats but of biblatex simply offering many things BibTeX has no equivalent for.
Just one example which was important for me: Traditional BibTeX doesn't have a bookauthor field which is a kind of deal breaker in certain areas of humanities. The fact that biblatex has this field was one of the main reasons I originally switched to biblatex. Now since BibTeX doesn't know about this field there's no sensible way to have a useful conversion between the two. The same is true for many other fields. So going to biblatex is a kind of a one way street after you crossed a certain point.


text:
Every Child Counts helps schools to make the best use of their teaching assistants
Most ECC interventions are designed so that a teaching assistant or teacher can deliver them to pupils. In practice, it is usually a teaching assistant (TA). This helps schools in two ways.
1. A structured ECC intervention enables TAs to raise pupils' attainment.
The Education Endowment Foundation's Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants report stated that, while the typical deployment of TAs in schools often has little impact on pupil attainment, "the area of research showing the strongest evidence for TAs having a positive impact on pupil attainment focuses on their role in delivering structured interventions in one-to-one or small group settings."
ECC meets all of the EEF's criteria for an effective intervention, including:
1stClass@Number is the best programme we have ever had for teaching assistants. It was not only effective but children gained an enthusiasm for their maths work.
Nikki de Palma, Deputy Head Teacher, Redlands Primary School, Tower Hamlets
2. The high quality of ECC training helps TAs to become more effective in their wider roles.
The training focuses on subject knowledge that help TAs to understand the difficulties that many children experience with literacy or mathematics and how to overcome them, and they give guidance on generic teaching strategies. It includes extensive discussion of TAs' own experiences, helping them to develop independent problem-solving skills for the benefit of their pupils.
All of these elements enable TAs to become more knowledgeable, skilful and confident at supporting pupils' learning throughout their work at school, not just during the interventions.


text:
You get this error when two or more Oracle APEX applications have the same alias.
When you import the sample application in the same workspace and give it a different ID, the alias is changed automatically so it's unique. However when you import an application in a different workspace, the alias is not being replaced by a unique value, which might result in the error: "The application alias "X" can not be converted to a unique application ID."
There's an easy way to find where those applications are with the same alias by running the following query (as a DBA or a user with the APEX_ADMINISTRATOR_ROLE):
select workspace, application_id, application_name from apex_applications where alias = 'X'
This will give you the workspace, application id, and application name with the specific alias.


text:
Bildtext får vara max två rader text. Hela texten ska högerjusteras om den bara ska innehålla fotobyline! Photo: B. Christensen/Azote
Tame the flames, rule the world
New understanding of power shows important relations between humans and nature
- From a social-ecological standpoint it makes sense to expand the concept of power to include not only humans but also other living creatures
- Power can be used to change the conduct of living beings, as well as the conditions under which they live, for example through managing and controlling landscapes
- Including other living beings in the concept of power can remind us that our responsibilities stretch beyond our own species
Ask academics to define power and the reaction could well be that of panic or sheer confusion. That is because power is a perpetually contested concept in social theory. Power is difficult to define because it exists in many forms, be it economic power, military power, or symbolic power. The famous sociologist Max Weber defined it as "the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests".
Weber's definition highlights that power only exists through social relationships between persons: it is employed by someone and influences others. From a social-ecological perspective, Weber seems to have been missing something.
In a paper recently published in Ecology and Society centre research Wijnand Boonstra argues that power needs to be redefined as including not only dependency relations between people, but also between people and other living beings. His research is timely, because resilience scholars have been relatively silent when it comes to addressing the issue of power relations.
The power of fire
Boonstra illustrates how the concept of power can be used to analyse the interdependency between humans and nature with the example of the domestication of fire. Relations between humans and the natural environment dramatically changed when humans learned to tame the flames and acquired firepower.
"By including humans as well as other living beings in the concept of power, we are reminded that our responsibilities stretch beyond our species"
When early humans came to learn how to use fire, they gained control over a crucial source of power. With fire they could influence the conduct of other people and species, for example by using fire as a source of protection or to chase others away.
But the use of fire also indirectly changed the social and ecological conditions under which both humans and other species lived. Landscape burnings radically changed the habitat in which humans and other species lived. Fire also enabled cooking and so led to human physiological changes that in turn triggered other human abilities.
For maintaining, transporting and handling fire people also had to learn how to collaborate, think ahead, and communicate. The domestication of fire highlights how the use of power sources comes with shifts in interdependencies between people and nature.
With great power comes great responsibility
The story of how humans tamed the flames is important because it helps us understand how power can be used to think about responsibility.
For example, terming the current geological era the Anthropocene in a sense disperses responsibility for human-caused global change to the whole of humanity. However, only a small minority has been responsible for the majority of the activities that drive the 'great acceleration'. The Indian subsistence farmer, the African herder and the Peruvian slum-dweller are grouped together with inhabitants of the rich world, despite playing different roles in ecological devastation and planetary overshoot. In this way, the term Anthropocene points to the power of humans as a species but conceals who is exercising that power and how, where and when.
"The concept of social power that I present is an effort to provide a tool to address the issue of responsibility for this kind of complex and global social-ecological interactions," says Boonstra.
"My effort to conceptualise power is to help tease out whose actions are impacting whose conduct and situation, and to include social-ecological interdependencies. By including humans as well as other living beings in the concept of power, we are reminded that our responsibilities stretch beyond our species," he concludes.
Boonstra, W. J. 2016. Conceptualizing power to study social-ecological interactions. Ecology and Society 21(1):21. _URL_
About the centre author:
Wijnand Boonstra is particularly interested in understanding how individual use of ecosystems aggregates to form so-called regimes of ecosystem use. Describing and explaining the complex set of social and ecological conditions and their interaction at micro and macro scales that cause these regimes to shift, is a key research objective.
Research news | 2021-07-03
Groundbreaking book on methods to study social-ecological systems
Open-access book covers 28 broad groups of methods, featuring contributions from almost a hundred authors in 16 countries
Research news | 2021-06-23
Better scenario building can help curb global threat of invasive species
Invasive species remain largely ignored in current future analyses. Experts present first set ever of alternative futures for global biological invasions
Research news | 2021-06-22
New software helps design sustainable cities
Natural Capital Project have developed a software that shows city planners where to invest in nature to improve people's lives. It will also save billions of dollars
Research news | 2021-06-21
Proximity to green boosts building projects
Proximity to ecosystem services raises the value of residential and commercial areas around cities. Future projects should focus more to keep it that way
Research news | 2021-06-18
How much is the right amount of meat?
Celebrating World Sustainable Gastronomy Day, centre doctoral student Kajsa Resare Sahlin on why we need to better understand how much 'less' meat actually is and what 'better' means
Research news | 2021-06-18
The accidental chef
How a former PhD student's book on food and life in the Pamir Mountains won the world's most prestigious culinary book award


N/a'an ku sê Foundation was founded in 2006 by Dr Rudie and Marlice van Vuuren along with other founding members, with the aim of conserving the land, cultures and wildlife of Namibia.
N/a'an ku sê is first and foremost a conservation organization that sustains its projects through non-governmental funding and responsible conservation tourism. We run several crucial projects to improve the health and well-being of the ancient yet marginalised San Bushmen of Namibia, provide a second chance to countless orphaned, injured and/or conflict animals, work to prevent land degradation, and stand at the forefront of the human-wildlife conflict mitigation by undertaking critical conservation and research projects to ensure a thriving future for Namibia's majestic wildlife.
The vision is an Africa where humans and wildlife can live and thrive together. The mission is to conserve the land, cultures and wildlife of Namibia and rescue species threatened by an ever-shrinking habitat.


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I have been wondering about this question for some time now and would greatly appreciate if anyone had any leads on how to proceed.
Let $\{A_{i}\}_{i \in N}$ such that for, $i \neq j$, $A_{i} \cap A_{j} = \emptyset$ and $\bigcup{A_{i}} = N$. Let $(a_{i})_{i \in N}$ be a sequence in $R$. If, for all $A_{i}$, $\sum_{j \in A_{i}}{a_{j}} \geq 0$ (taking the usual ordering in $A_{i}$), is it true that $\sum_{i \leq n}{a_{i}} \geq 0$ infinitely often?
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up vote 1 down vote accepted
Let $a_0=-1$, $a_1=-1$, $a_2=1$, $a_3=-1$, $a_4=1$, $a_5=-1$, $a_6=1$ and so on. Then all partial sums are negative, alternating between $-1$ and $-2$.
Let $A_0=\{0,2\}$, $A_1=\{1,4\}$, $A_2=\{3,6\}$, $A_3=\{5,8\}$, and so on. Then for any $j$ the sum of the elements of $A_j$ is $0$.
Thus there are quite simple partitions of the natural numbers for which the desired result fails.
Remark: We can produce a convergent series that converges to $0$ with the same property. Let $a_0=-1$. Let $a_1=1/2$, $a_2=1/3$. Adding $1/4$ would make the partial sum $\ge 0$, so $a_3=-1/4$. Now we can go forward again, twice. Let $a_4=1/5$ and $a_5=1/6$. Adding $1/7$ would make the partial sum positive, so $a_6=-1/7$. Continue. Again, we can partition the natural numbers into (finite) parts so that the sum over any part is $\ge 0$.
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Might I ask if the result is still trivial if $\sum_{i \in N}{a_{i}}$ converges? Thanks! – madprob Jul 23 '12 at 21:43
_USER_: sorry, missed your message until now. Start at $-1$. Next is $1/2$, $1/3$. Adding $1/4$ would make us positive. So next is $-1/4$. Then next are $1/5$ and $1/6$. Next would put us over, so next is $-1/7$. Continue. We are making a series with sum $0$, but all partial sums are negative. We can now partition the natural numbers into finite parts with sums $\ge 0$. The parts are now of different and growing sizes, but it's a very similar construction. – André Nicolas Jul 24 '12 at 4:24
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Did you know?
reverse discrimination - definition and synonyms
What are red words?
noun [uncountable] reverse discrimination pronunciation in American English
 1. a situation in which people who traditionally have the most power or advantages are treated less fairly than other people in order to help those people get a share of their power and advantages
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Cost of Service and Tariffs
Determination of the cost of service is essential to have a clear understanding of the actual cost of delivering electricity to various customer categories and therefore ensure businesses make the right development decisions. Economic efficiency in tariff design requires tariffs to be linked to the economic cost of meeting consumers' demand. It includes identifying the efficient, rather than the actual, costs of electricity supply.
We support regulators in developing appropriate tariff frameworks and transitioning to cost-reflective tariffs. We also support utilities in tariff calculation and regulatory submissions.
Key services in this area:
 1. Design of tariff and subsidy regimes.
 2. Economic tariff setting.
 3. Generation and system expansion and long-term planning.
 4. Demand forecasting, business projections and financial analysis.
 5. Regulatory Submissions and Negotiations.
 6. Regulatory Financial Models.
 7. Long-run marginal cost determination.
 8. Opening Losses Calculation and loss reduction strategies.
 9. Billing system and settlement.
 10. Vesting Contract and Balancing Compensation Administration.
 11. Delivering social equity in tariff models and establishment of life-line tariff.
 12. Communicating tariff change to all stakeholders.