Digital technology is redefining our world in many ways, but perhaps the most important change is how it's driving inclusivity for previously marginalized groups.
If we are to unleash the full power of innovation in the years ahead, we must first ensure that people from all walks of life are able to make their mark.
As a mother of three children, including a 12-year-old son who is on the autistic spectrum, I am extremely passionate about combining creativity and technology to produce stronger, more inclusive communities.
Despite often having the desired skills, around 80% of adults with a disability are discriminated against and not employed.
The solution to bridging this employment gap is twofold. Firstly, we must cultivate inclusivity by bringing children from special educational needs schools and mainstream schools closer together. Secondly, we must create a careers pipeline by engaging with prospective employers.
Digital can play a vital role in achieving this, but equally important is creating environments and 'safe spaces' to have dialogue and play, on and off-line. We must also prioritize the basic human skills of teaching empathy and critical thinking in a fun and interactive way.
In this amazing era of digital transformation, we must combine technology and human interaction in our classrooms, so we can lay the foundations for a sustainable future.
My career has taken me from looking at how we design interiors to how we design communities. What I have realized along the way is that we must harness technology, along with creativity, from an early age to develop critical skills.
Young children of primary school age are instinctively creative – unfortunately this innate creativity is diluted over the years within most high school institutions, as academic pressures take their toll.
We need to think carefully about how we can encourage our children to maintain this creativity and link it with the digital world. It's important to offer them something beyond just gaming, so they can explore and develop their critical thinking and social skills, while maintaining good mental health and well-being.
This is why I decided to launch the Analogue to Digital initiative. This is essentially an interactive digital and creative workshop. It brings together vulnerable young people and those from special educational needs schools, with those who are within mainstream education.
The relationship between the two groups was very organic because they were working together in small teams. Everything that the children from the mainstream schools could do, the children from the special needs school could also achieve with little guidance. Right through from learning and allowing them the space to develop their storytelling techniques, to creating 3D designs to print on the computer.
Two weeks after our initial pilot workshop, I personally delivered to the schools the 3D printed name badges and keyrings that the children had made. The sense of achievement from all of them was wonderful to behold.
If we are to build a digital future that promotes sustainability and inclusivity, then we must make sure the education our children receive is fit for purpose. Schools must start prioritising science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) studies.
Analogue to Digital started two years ago to shine a light on this issue and our work is already beginning to bear fruit. From planting the seed, to planning and running the pilots, we're now starting to implement our methods within schools. In September one of the schools that we've worked with will open a 'STEAM Lab' and we will play a role in shaping this.
Another important facet of Analogue to Digital is about preparing our children for this digital future. Our 'youthpreneurs' initiative is all about how we're teaching our youngsters how to connect with entrepreneurs and businesses.
This might involve an afternoon trip to see a technology firm, or perhaps it's simply being inspired by a local entrepreneur. This gives young people a different perspective on the world around them and it also encourages critical thinking and contributes to developing an entrepreneurial mindset. Ultimately, this could serve as a springboard to future careers for our youngsters.
Meanwhile, I'm also looking at the positive and challenging links between digital and mental health and well-being. I recently went to a presentation by an expert in the mental health field, who stated that over 40% of youth in the Flanders region suffer from a mental-health-related issue.
Analogue to Digital started in Belgium, with pilots hosted in Brussels and Flanders, but we have high hopes for the project and intend to roll it out internationally.
I am hopeful we will soon be able to take the program to countries including Scotland and some countries in Asia. I've also had some interest from African nations. Of course, the fact that this is a non-profit organization will have some bearing on our international presence as we rely heavily on local partners to help fund the scheme.
Another area of development is the creation of a program for teachers because they must also be exposed to technology and the wider digital transformation.
For me this is a very personal and emotional project inspired by my son. I feel passionate about education, and the opportunity to help shape a more inclusive digital education in communities around the world is a tremendously exciting proposition.


Americans will have to say goodbye to standard incandescent light bulbs and get accustomed to more pricey alternatives that use a lot less electricity.
The era of incandescent light bulbs has come to an end in 2014.
While the newest bulbs give consumers a much longer-lasting light and use a lot less electricity, some people seem reluctant to switch. One reason may be the higher cost of the new bulbs. CFLs cost a few dollars, and LED bulbs may cost $10 or $20, while incandescent bulbs are only about 70 cents, USA Today says.
Of course, once the selection of incandescent bulbs runs out, you'll have no choice but to go with the energy-efficient bulbs. In this video, Money Talks News money expert Stacy Johnson explains how to go about making the switch.
What are your thoughts on the phaseout of old-fashioned light bulbs, which produce a lot more heat than they do light? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.


text:
Nigeria Virtual Jewish History Tour
World Map North America Central America Caribbean South America Europe Africa Asia Oceania
World Map|North America|Central America|Caribbean|South America|Europe|Africa|Asia|Oceania
According to oral traditions, the Ibo have resided in "Iboland," a region of modern-day Nigeria, for over 1500 years. Before that, the tradition asserts that they were migrants from ancient Israel. There exist a number of theories that explain from whom the Ibo are descendant, and how they came to reside in Nigeria. One theory contends that the Ibo are the descendants of one of the lost tribes. Paul Obi-Ani, a history professor who is himself Igbo, says Igbo Jews and the ancient Israelites share "cultural trait resemblances" but that there's little "established historical evidence" of any connection to the ancient Israelites.
Within the Ibo, there exist three ethnic sub-identities. They are Benei Gath, Benei Zevulun and Benei Menashsheh,
Ibo Jews
The Ibo of Benei Gath are said to have descended from Gath (Gad), the eighth son of Jacob. The lineage traces itself through Gath's son, Eri ben-Gath. A number of Ibo clans claim this identity. They are the Aguleri, Umuleri, Oreri, Enugwu Ikwu, Ogbunike, Awkuzu, Nteje and Igbariam.
The Ibo of Benei Zevulun trace their ancestry to Jacob's fifth son, Zevulun. Tradition holds that a descendant of Zevulun named Zevulunu married Oji, a descendant of the tribe of Judah. They had a son: Ozubulu ben-Zebulunu. Ozubulu had four sons who are said to have settled in various areas located in what is now Nigeria. The resulting ethnic sub-identities are the Neni, Egbema Ugwuta, and Ohaji Egbema.
The Ibo of Benei Menashsheh are believed to be descendant from Meneshsheh (Menashe), the son of Joseph, Jacob's eleventh son. The Amichi, Ichi and Nnewi-Ichi ethnicities trace their lineage to Menashe.
There exist other theories that explain how the Ibo Benei-Yisrael are the descendants of ancient Israelites. One such theory postulates that the Ibo are descendants of Levitical migrants. The theory contends that the Levites left Judah in the periods of destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. They are said to have settled in Jerban, Tunisia. A more likely theory states that the Ibo Benei-Yisrael are the descendants of clans of ancient Israelis and Judeans that fled the Levant before and during the Assyrian and Babylonian sieges. This particular theory explains how individual Ibo sub-ethnicities would have oral traditions that link them to specific tribes.
According to 9th-century Jewish traveler Eldad ben-Mahli (Eldad the Danite), the Ibo Benei-Yisrael may be descendants of members of several of the "Lost Tribes of Israel." He contended that the Jews of Africa came from the tribes of Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher, who had fled the Land of Israel so as not to participate in the civil war between Judah and Israel during the time of Jereboam's succession and reign over the Northern Kingdom (922-901BCE or 931-910 BCE). Eldad contended that these Jews originally settled in Havilah, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. With them, they had a copy of the Tanach, less the books of Esther and Lamentations. These Jews had no knowledge of the Mishna or Babylonian Talmud, but had devised their own Talmudic tradition, in which all the laws were credited to Yehoshua bin Nun, who received them from Moses.
Just as there exist a number of theories about from whom the Ibo are descendant, there are as many theories as to how they came to reside in Nigeria.
One theory holds that ancient Hebrews and later, ancient Israelis migrated west from the Arabian Peninsula through Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan. No one is certain when ancient Hebrews first emigrated from the Middle East and settled in West Africa. It is thought that they began to arrive before 202 BCE, the date associated with the arrival of iron working civilizations in West Africa (e.g. the Nok).
An additional theory states that North African Jews traded and traveled within the West African Kingdoms of Mali, Songhai and Kanem-Bornu. Jews are believed to have been a prominent demographic in these empires. It is even thought that several rulers of the Songhai empire had Jewish roots. It appears however that Judaism in the West African empires came to an abrupt end when Askia Muhammad came to power and in 1492, ordered that all Jews convert to Islam or face expulsion.
Another theory maintains that Jews traveling with trade caravans from Northeast Africa moved through West Africa. According to certain accounts, such as Travels in North Africa by Nahum Slouschz, Jewish identity can be found in North Africa since the founding of Carthage, specifically, descendants of the tribes of Zevulun and Asher.
Persecution and trade have been the major influencing factors in how the Jews migrated through Africa. During periods of Islamic persecution and for the purposes of trade, Jews moved from communities in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tunisia and Morocco to more remote regions of North and West Africa. Trade routes to West Africa may have been established as early as the period in which David ruled Israel, and the term Tarshish, found in the Tanach, may refer to the Ivory Coast of West Africa.
The decline of the Jewish communities of West Africa can be traced to the arrival of Muslim invaders in the 14th and 15th centuries. North and West African Jews banded with other local communities of Berbers, Christians and Greeks to ward of the invaders, but eventually succumbed. Many were forced to convert to Islam, sold into slavery or simply massacred. In the face of this persecution written traditions, such as the Torah, were lost. The Ibo Benei-Yisrael, though having no written evidence of their Jewish heritage, maintained a strong oral tradition and practiced many Jewish customs in secret. Records of these medieval Jewish communities, found in the Timbuktu, Mali Islamic Library, indicate the presence of Jewish families in the region before the arrival of Islam in the 1300's CE.
In modern-day Nigeria, the Ibo Bnei-Yisrael practice a number of customs borne of Jewish tradition. Males are circumcised on their 8th day of life, women are separated during their menstrual cycles, the cross-breeding of plants and animals is forbidden, as is the consumption of non-kosher animals. Even Yom Kippur and Sukkoth are celebrated. There has been a resurgence of Jewish learning among the Ibo Benei-Yisrael. There are currently 26 Ibo and non-Ibo synagogues in Nigeria and Hebrew and Torah study have increased as well. The Ibo continue to work with researchers to better trace their history, so that they may be recognized as Jews by Israel, and therefore be eligible for Israel's Law of Return.
Rabbi Howard Gorin made several visits to Nigeria starting in 2003 after he was invited by a leader of the Nigerian-Jewish community and he observed that many Ibo consider themselves ethnically Jewish, but practice Christianity – what is known as "Messianic Judaism." There are also some Yoruba who claim to have Jewish roots, but amongst the Hausa this is not a common occurrence.
Nigerian Jews may observe kosher dietary laws and keep the Sabbath, and some also maintain a belief in Jesus. Fully practicing Jews are known as Orthodox. The Jewish population has doubled since 2015. Rabbi Gorin estimates that less than 10,000 of these Jews live in all of Nigeria. This figure is far from the estimate of 100 Nigerian Jews by Sergio DellaPergola in the American Jewish Yearabook. The larger number is based on self-definition ratther than whether the person has a Jewish father or mother or has converted to Judaism.
The number of synagogues has also doubled from roughly 10 to 20. Nigerian Synagogues are often dual-purpose common meeting rooms in the middle of a housing compound. Several Torahs circulate in the small community.
Jews in Nigeria can be faced with ostracization, discrimination, and can be cut off from their family if they convert to Judaism. This attitude comes mostly from Nigerian Christians as Islam, despite being the dominant religion in Northern Nigeria, is not very prevalent in Southeastern Nigeria; where the majority of Nigeria's Jews are. Rabbi Gorin argued that for the Ibo Jewish community to be accepted by the larger community, they would need to show their commitment to Judaism through a conversion ceremony.
The wider Jewish world began taking more notice of the Ibo in 2012 when filmmaker Jeff Lieberman released the documentary, "Re-emerging: The Jews of Nigeria," and Northeastern University professor William F.S. Miles published, "The Jews of Nigeria: An Afro-Judaic Odyssey."
Jews have also been caught up in the internecine politics of Nigeria. The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is a separatist movement led by Nnamdi Kanu, a British-Nigerian political activist who is Jewish. Most Nigerian Jews live in the southeast where the Biafra movement is based. The association with the IPOB has led to attacks on Jewish institutions. More than 50 Jews were arrested in 2018 after they called for a separate Biafra. Nigerian police have also raided synagogues and arrested worshippers. At least 28 Jews were killed in 2016. "People are afraid of identifying with Jews because of the persecution," says Yermeyahu Chukwukadibi, a Hebrew teacher and rabbi who heads a synagogue in Port Harcourt.
See also Israel-Nigeria Relations
Sources: The Ibo Benei-Yisrael Jews of Nigeria;
Hanging Haman with the Igbo Jews of Nigeria, Times of Israel, (April 30, 2013);
Orji Sunday, "How Nigeria's Jews Are Getting Caught In A New Separatist War," Ozy, (August 4, 2019).
Information gathered via personal interview with Rabbi Howard Gorin, 7/17/2015;
Be'chol Lashon;
DellaPergola, Sergio. 2018. "World Jewish Population, 2018," in Arnold Dashefsky and Ira M. Sheskin (eds.), The American Jewish Year Book, 2018, Volume 118. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 361-452;;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Category Dreams of Other Worlds
Science in the Matrix of Culture
Posted by admin in Dreams of Other Worlds	on November 3, 2015
No longer the stuff of science fiction, black holes pervade all facets of culture. Wallace and Karen Tucker, in recounting the history of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, note that the telescope has offered "substantial observational evidence for the existence of black holes," which they claim have since "become part of the popular literature as a metaphor for an irretrievable loss of material, time, money, and so on."46 In the hands of English novelist Martin Amis, in Night Train (1988), black holes become a metaphor for death.47
But black holes are understood in the public arena as far more substantial than a mere metaphor. In 2008, it was reported that physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider could produce miniature black holes that in a runaway scenario might swallow the Earth. In fact, public concern over the possibility of scientists manufacturing microscopic black holes led to the facility posting an information and safety web page that reassures general audiences of the following:
Speculations about microscopic black holes at the LHC refer to particles produced in the collisions of pairs of protons, each of which has energy comparable to that of a mosquito in flight. Astronomical black holes are much heavier than anything that could be produced at the LHC. According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Einstein's relativity, it is impossible for microscopic black holes to be produced at the LHC. There are, however, some speculative theories that predict the production of such particles at the LHC. All these theories predict that these particles would disintegrate immediately. Black holes, therefore, would have no time to start accreting matter and to cause macroscopic effects.48
A year later J. J. Abrams's film Star Trek (2009) depicted Romu – lans generating, at will, miniature black holes that could devour starships and planets. Actually Star Trek and black holes have a history that goes back to the same year Wheeler started using the term. The idea of a collapsed or black star was floated in the first season of the original Star Trek series in an episode titled "Tomorrow is Yesterday," first aired in January 1967, in which the starship Enterprise encounters a "black star of high gravitational attraction."49 As Captain Kirk and the crew attempt to escape its gravity well, their ship is slung into a time warp that sends them plunging back through time. The Enterprise ends up adrift in Earth orbit in 1968, just days prior to the first manned Moon mission. Though not referred to as a black hole, the black star that triggers their adventure was the product of Einstein's singularity and Oppen – heimer and Snyder's collapsed star.
From space artists like David A. Hardy to amateur astronomers like Stephen Cullen, many have speculated what Cygnus X-1 might actually look like.50 Hardy's rendering depicts powerful X-ray jets shooting from the poles of the binary system's black hole. Cullen actually photographed those jets in May 2009. "Luckily, Cygnus X-1 inhabits a region of space thick with gas that emits specific kinds of radiation when hit by shock waves, energetic particles, and relativistic jets from black holes," writes Cullen, who notes that astronomer David Russell, and a team working with him, had already obtained "visual evidence of a jet-powered nebula caused by the northern jet slamming into the interstellar medium." But Cullen thought there might be a powerful jet emerging from the southern pole, and there was. "Unlike the northern region, the images did not show a well-defined shell of shocked gas," he recalls. "What I did see, however, was a diffuse, fan-shaped glow that traced a path directly back to Cygnus X-1."51 Having obtained clear images of the previously undetected jet, Cullen subsequently invited Russell's comments and together the astronomers collaborated to publish Cullen's results. The discovery demonstrates the extent to which the Chandra Observatory has prepared astronomers to anticipate what might be explored in wavelengths beyond visible light.
Not only have Chandra's X-ray observations demonstrated profound aspects of the high-energy universe otherwise unavailable to telescopes, but its images have opened the universe for visually impaired readers as well. In 2007, astronomy educator Noreen Grice and astronomers Doris Daou and Simon Steele published Touch the Invisible Sky in which Braille text and especially prepared Braille images detail discoveries by Chandra, Spitzer, and other telescopes that reveal the universe in electromagnetic wavelengths not visible to the human eye.52 In that text and other NASA
Braille books, readers can experience the infrared, ultraviolet, and X-ray universe, through their fingertips.53
The popular fascination with black holes seems hinged on the fact that a singularity and its event horizon contort our wildest imaginings about the physical universe. We think we can wrap our minds around just about any natural phenomena, but black holes defy all logic at the point of the singularity and leave unanswered questions regarding the physics at its core. Kip Thorne asserts that black holes have much to tell us about the birth and the future of the universe: "Gravitational-wave detectors will soon bring us observational maps of black holes, and the symphonic sounds of black holes colliding—symphonies filled with rich, new information about how warped space-time behaves when wildly vibrating. Supercomputer simulations will attempt to replicate the symphonies and tell us what they mean, and black holes thereby will become objects of detailed experimental scrutiny."54 Like the music of the universe discussed in the chapter on WMAP, the universe has more to tell us in the narratives or symphonies we are yet to learn from black holes. One thing at least seems certain. The new understandings of massive black holes that Chandra is unfolding will inevitably be woven into the matrices of human culture and language, poetry and music, and even our dreams.
MAPPING THE INFANT UNIVERSE
Awareness of the size and age of the universe is hard-won knowledge that has taxed scientists for the past 2,500 years. To ancient cultures, the sky was a proximate canopy that circled overhead, and there was no sense of the vast distance to the stars, let alone the idea that something might lie beyond those pinpoints of light. The ancient Greeks were the first civilization to spawn a class of philosopher-scientists, who applied logic and mathematics to their observations of the sky.
Cosmology has its root in the Greek idea of "cosmos," or an orderly and harmonious system. In the Greek view, the antithetical concept of "chaos" referred to the initial state of the universe, which was darkness or an abyss.1 Thus, order emerged from disorder when the universe was born. Pythagoras is believed to be the first to use the term cosmos, and the first to say that the universe was based on mathematics and numbers, although in truth, so little is known about Pythagoras and his followers that direct attribution of these ideas is impossible. Pythagoras is also credited with "harmony of the spheres," a semi-mystical, semi-mathematical idea that simple numerical relationship or harmonics were manifested by celestial bodies, with the overall result having commonality with music. Pythagoreans didn't think the music of the spheres was literally audible.2
Aristotle's geocentric cosmology dominated Western thought for nearly two millennia, but Aristarchus developed a heliocentric
cosmology that implied large distances to the stars, so as not to observe a parallax shift from one season to another. Mapping the stars in the third dimension didn't become possible until parallax was measured in the nineteenth century, giving William Herschel an inkling of the extent of the system of stars that we inhabit. Twin foundational discoveries by Edwin Hubble early in the twentieth century—the distances to the nebulae, or galaxies, and the universal recession velocities of galaxies—set the stage for modern cosmology. By the mid-twentieth century, the universe was known to be billions of years old and billions of light-years in extent.
The Enigmatic Center of Our Galaxy
Twenty years ago, evidence began to accumulate that the center of the Milky Way galaxy contained a dark mass that could not be accounted for as normal stellar remnants.55 Star motions in the center were so rapid they indicated a huge black hole, about four million times the mass of the Sun. The evidence for this supermassive black hole is now better than for the more conventional black holes that result from the death of a massive star. The mass is not just based on stellar velocities but on tracking the entire stellar orbits as they loop around the central dark object.56
Chandra did not contribute the evidence that cemented the case for a large black hole in the galactic center, but it showed that the black hole was unusually anemic, emitting far less high-energy ra-
Figure 10.3. At the center of the Milky Way galaxy, 27,000 light-years away, in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation, is a very dense star cluster. In this X-ray image, spanning 3 light-years, the bright regions represent hot gas from overlapping supernova remnants and to the lower left of the bright region, dynamical evidence indicates a black hole about 4 million times the mass of the Sun. The actual center of the galaxy is marked and is an ultra-compact radio source called Sag A* (NASA/CXC/MIT/F. Baganoff).
diation than other massive black holes. Even as it devours 1019 kg of material each second, it radiates energy a million times less efficiently than a set of stars of equivalent mass. Yet, while the black hole in the galactic center is very feeble, it's not boring. Ten years ago, an X-ray flare was seen coming from the vicinity of the black hole and since then, hundreds of flares have been seen, occurring almost daily.57 They raise the level of X-ray emission tens or hundreds of times above the quiescent state (figure 10.3). Such rapid flares must be created within ten times the event horizon scale, close to the point of no return. The galactic center also harbors a source of energy intense enough to create anti-matter in the form of positrons.58
The real mystery is the inactivity of the galactic center. The center of our galaxy harbors a massive star cluster with star densities thousands of times higher than those seen in the solar neighborhood, and there is plenty of gas available within 10-20 light-years. So why is the black hole so quiet? The best guess is that it's currently starved because explosive events have cleared away much of the gas from around it. Chandra has provided evidence for this explanation. There are lobes of X-ray emission that indicate the black hole was more active 5,000 or so years ago, and blobs of plasma emerging from the center argue for quasi-periodic activity. Remarkable observations a few years ago saw a cloud of gas near the black hole brighten and fade in only a few years, responding to an X-ray pulse that had traveled for three hundred years to get there. We can infer that the black hole was a million times brighter three hundred years ago, when Queen Anne had just ascended to the throne in England and the largest town in her American colonies was Boston, with a population of seven thousand.59 However, the galactic center is about 27,000 light-years from Earth, so all of this action really happened in the late Stone Age before humans settled down into civilizations and the information is just reaching us now.
A Beginning for the Universe
It was only in the most recent seconds of human existence, comparatively speaking, that the universe began to take shape in the human imagination. For the vast majority of the 200,000 years since the emergence of Homo sapiens, the reaches of the depths of space were unfathomable. In just the last hundred years humans began to discover the universe and develop a basic understanding of its mass and age. One key to unfolding our current view was detection and mapping of the cosmic microwave background, the remnant light and heat of the big bang. The temperature of the vacuum of space is 2.725 K, a trace above absolute cold, exactly what the universe should have cooled to if it had expanded to its current size from a hot and dense initial state 13.8 billion years ago. NASA's COBE and WMAP spacecraft have mapped this signature of the moment when the abyss of space and everything in it came into being.
Prior to and throughout the first third of the twentieth century, most people, even most astronomers, simply assumed that the universe always existed. Science historian Helge Kragh comments, "The notion of a universe of finite age was rarely considered and never seriously advocated."3 Astronomers knew very little about the depths of space before the 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena became operational. At that time, they intensely debated whether the Milky Way comprised the entire universe, or whether the nebulae might lie far beyond our gal-
axy. On an October night in 1923, American astronomer Edwin Hubble, working with the 100-inch, then the largest telescope in the world, observed a variable star in M31, the Andromeda Nebula, which ultimately confirmed that it was millions of light-years beyond the Milky Way. The announcement of Hubble's result in 1925 radically altered the scientific and public understanding of our place in space. Just a few years later, in 1929, Hubble and his assistant Milton Humason again rocked the world by reporting that remote galaxies were racing away from the Milky Way at 700 miles per second or faster. Their observations indicated that the universe was expanding, a seemingly preposterous idea that Albert Einstein himself initially refused to believe.
Given that relativity theory recognized space and time as inseparable, the Belgian astronomer and Jesuit priest Georges Lemai- tre interpreted Hubble and Humason's findings of the "runaway" galaxies as meaning only one thing. The universe itself was expanding, which in turn suggested that the universe must have been smaller, denser, and hotter in the distant past. Among Lemaitre's many contributions to cosmology, three of his most simple and yet profound ideas were that the universe had a beginning, that both relativity and quantum theory were needed to explain this origin in terms of expanding space-time, and that Edwin Hubble's receding galaxies were evidence of this cosmic expansion.
Lemaitre was the first to suggest that Hubble and Humason's redshifted nebulae indicated the expansion of space-time itself.4 In 1931, in the journal Nature, Lemaitre offered a short proposal for what English astronomer Fred Hoyle later derogatorily dubbed the big bang. In that article, Lemaitre postulated "the beginning of the universe in the form of a unique atom, the atomic weight of which is the total mass of the universe."5 He theorized inflation of the cosmos from a "primeval nebula" or "primeval atom" of dense matter. Working from Einstein's theory of general relativity as well as emerging theory in quantum mechanics of elementary atomic particles, Lemaitre proposed that the universe inflated from a dense, highly compacted soup of subatomic particles that at a moment of quantum instability resulted in the unfolding of space. "What's remarkable about his Nature letter," writes John Farrell, "is that—apart from discussing the idea of a temporal beginning of the cosmos—it marks the first time that a physicist directly tied the notion of the origin of the cosmos to quantum processes."6 Even before the neutron had been discovered, Lemaitre understood that the beginnings of the universe could be explained in part via quantum theory and argued that "all the energy of the universe [was] packed in a few or even in a unique quantum." By Lemaitre's estimation space and time or space-time could "only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the [universe] happened a little before the beginning of space and time."7 Lemaitre depicted the early universe as analogous to a "conic cup," the bottom of which represents "the first instant at the bottom of space-time, the now which has no yesterday because, yesterday, there was no space."8
In 1934, in "The Evolution of the Universe," Lemaitre outlined his "fireworks theory of evolution" in which the stars and galaxies, having evolved over billions of years, were merely "ashes and smoke of bright but very rapid fireworks."9 He described our situated view from Earth, scanning the night skies, as we look back toward the primordial past: "Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the slow fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."10 Lemaitre additionally intuited that a fossil light would be the signature of the universe's beginning. As James Peebles, Lyman Page, and Bruce Partridge point out: "One learns from fossils what the world used to be like. The fossil microwave background radiation is no exception."11 Lemai – tre expected evidence of a fossil radiation from the early stages of the universe could be detected. Thinking in 1945 that cosmic rays were the signatures of this fossil light, Lemaitre supposed that these "ultra-penetrating rays" would reveal the "primeval activity of the cosmos" and were "evidence of the super-radioactive age, indeed they are a sort of fossil rays which tell us what happened when the stars first appeared."12 Just weeks before his death in 1966, Lemaitre celebrated learning of the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, the fossil light he had anticipated. Throughout his career, he debated with Einstein whether or not his cosmological constant was a repulsive force that "could be understood as a vacuum energy density."13 Cosmologists now regard Einstein's cosmological constant as indicative of the effects of dark energy contributing to the universe's expansion (figure 12.1).
Billions of years from now
Figure 12.1. The recession of galaxies implies the universe is expanding; using general relativity, the expansion history can be calculated. The curves show the past and future expansion of the universe in terms of matter content (Dm) and dark energy content (D). Observations agree with the upwards curving dashed line. The expansion history of the universe was dominated initially by dark matter and more recently by dark energy (Wikimedia Commons/BebRG).
Supermassive Black Holes
In the 1960s, long before the Milky Way was known to have a supermassive black hole, violent activity was seen in the centers of some distant galaxies. The manifestations were gas motions a hundred times faster than would be seen in a normal stellar system, intense radio emission concentrated in a tiny region of the galactic nucleus, and radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays. Some of the strongest X-ray sources in the sky are galaxies hundreds of millions of light-years away, which means they have an X-r ay emission thousands of times stronger than a galaxy like the Milky Way. Rapid variability of the radio, optical, and X-ray emission localized the intense activity to regions light-days across, only ten times bigger than the Solar System. No star cluster can pack so much radiation into such a small volume; the only plausible explanation was a gravitational engine: a black hole.60
Imagine a city like Los Angeles viewed from high above in a helicopter, where every streetlight, every house light, and every car light is standing in for a star. There are probably 100 million lights in the greater Los Angeles area, so in this analogy each light represents a thousand stars. Los Angeles is like the disk of a spiral galaxy. Now imagine a light one inch across in the city center that emits a hundred times more radiation than all the city lights put together. That's the intensity of an active galactic nucleus. It would be clearly visible from an immense height, long after the individual lights in the city had faded from view. We can see an incredibly bright point of light but the surrounding galaxy is too faint to see. That's a quasar.
Through the 1990s astronomers realized that every galaxy contains a black hole, with a mass that scales with the mass of the old stars in the center of the galaxy.61 Moreover, these black holes are not active most of the time, so are not feeding and spewing out the energy that makes them easy to detect. The Milky Way is a medium-size galaxy with a 4-million-solar-mass black hole that's currently inactive. The brightest quasars harbor black holes a thousand times larger, or a few billion times the mass of the Sun. These extraordinary gravitational engines form and grow quite naturally as galaxies form and grow but steadily consume matter, and by occasional mergers. It's remarkable that nature makes black holes spanning a factor of a billion in mass, from a few times the mass of the Sun to the mass of a small galaxy. Their sizes range by the same factor of a billion, but they all share the properties of having an event horizon and (it is supposed) a central singularity. Strange as it might seem, massive black holes do not represent an extremely dense state of matter. The size of the event horizon is proportional to mass, but the volume increases by the cube of the size, so the more massive a black hole is the less dense it is within the event horizon. The 3-billion-solar-mass beast at the heart of the elliptical galaxy M87 is not much denser than water! Modest density does not, however, reduce their intrinsic strangeness (figure 10.4).
Figure 10.4. M87 is a giant elliptical galaxy with a "super-volcano" of X-ray activity originating from a black hole about 3 billion times the mass of the Sun at its center. The black hole sends out jets of material along the poles of its spin axis that create shock waves and interact with the intergalactic medium in a way analogous to a large volcano interacting with Earth's atmosphere (NASA/ CXC/KIPAC/N. Werner/E. Million).
Chandra has played a vital role in telling the story of supermassive black holes and their behavior. In nearby galaxies it has detected vast bubble-like cavities and wavelike ripples in hot gas near the center, signs of "blowback" from the central engine.62 X-rays provide evidence of repetitive explosive activity, where mass falls onto the black hole, sparking it into activity and triggering jets of high-energy particles, which then evacuate the nearby volume and starve the black hole until new material accumulates. In this way, a massive black hole can be inactive most of the time. Chandra has also seen binary black holes in the centers of merging galaxies.
In one case, two huge black holes are only 3,000 light-years apart and will merge in the next hundred million years, provoking a cataclysm of gravity waves and new activity and yielding a single galaxy with a larger black hole.63 This is direct evidence for the manner in which galaxies and their embedded black holes have grown by mergers and acquisitions over billions of years.
Black holes and galaxies evolve on cosmic timescales of billions of years, so to figure out how they change the strategy is to make deep surveys that capture the census of active and inactive black holes at a range of distances or redshifts. The Chandra Deep Field was stared at for 2 million seconds, over three weeks, to create the deepest X-ray image of the sky ever made. This deep field, covering a patch of sky smaller than a postage stamp held at arm's length, is combined with a shallower but wider survey to tell the full story.64 One of us (CDI) has participated in this research, with a survey of active galaxies in a two square degree region that netted more than two thousand supermassive black holes, and showed their evolution in cosmic time. This survey was sensitive enough to catch feeble accretors and black holes similar in size to the one in the Milky Way.
The broad conclusion of these surveys is that star formation and black hole growth in a galaxy are tightly linked. The heaviest black holes, a hundred million times the Sun's mass or larger, ate voraciously in the first few billion years after the big bang, and have been grazing or fasting since then. Black holes ten to a hundred million times the Sun's mass had a more well-regulated diet, and because they consume smaller proportions of their gas and dust early on, they continue to grow even today. X-rays are crucial to telling this story, since they can penetrate regions that would extinguish optical and ultraviolet radiation.65 The typical size of a galaxy forming a supermassive black hole of a particular mass reduces with cosmic time, so the biggest black holes formed first. Massive galaxies in the far-flung universe misspent their youths by building monstrous black holes. This result is apparently at odds with the hierarchical mode of formation of structure in the universe, where small objects form first and gradually grow into larger objects. This unexpected phenomenon has been called "downsizing."66
A by-product of this research is the solution to an old mystery of the X-ray sky. When the first X-ray satellites took their data in the 1960s and 1970s they saw a faint diffuse glow that spanned the entire sky. This X-ray "background" was unexplained. Surveys with Chandra and XMM-Newton show that the background is actually composed of a myriad of pinpoints of X-ray emission from active galaxies 3-8 billion light-years away. Also, a majority of the emission is from galaxies where the nuclear activity is shrouded by dust and would not have been visible to an optical telescope. These surveys have also shown that black holes in the most massive galaxies are "green." By comparing the available fuel with the energy required to evacuate cavities in the central regions, the efficiency can be calculated. It's high because the mass is accreted slowly and smoothly and the energy is extracted very close to the event horizon of the black hole. If a family car was as efficient as one of these supermassive black holes, it would get a billion miles to a gallon of gas.
The Hot Big Bang
Pivotal roles in science are often taken by outsiders. The "father" of the big bang model was a part-time lecturer at the Catholic University of Leuven when he published a paper in a journal that was little read outside Belgium. George Lemaitre was a Catholic priest who had moved from civil engineering into physics and astronomy. Einstein was initially skeptical, but at a seminar by Lemaitre in Princeton in 1935, he expressed his admiration for the beauty of the theory.
The other intellectual parent of the scientific theory of creation was a Russian emigre called George Gamow. This physicist was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the U. S.S. R. at the age of twenty-eight, the youngest person ever to gain that honor. With his student Ralph Alpher, he showed that the early hot universe could have produced the amount of helium we see, which is too much to have been produced by stars. Gamow jokingly had his colleague Hans Bethe listed on the paper so it would read Alpher-Bethe – Gamow, in a pun on the first three letters of the Greek alphabet; Bethe had no other role in the paper.14 In 1948, the same year, Gamow and Robert Herman predicted that the afterglow should have cooled down after billions of years, filling the universe with microwave radiation at a temperature of five degrees above absolute zero, or 5 K.15 However, nobody pursued the prediction, due in part to a lack of widespread awareness of the theory, and in part to the primitive state of microwave technology at the time.
The new theory was given its catchy name by Fred Hoyle in a BBC radio broadcast in 1949.16 Even though he advocated the rival "steady state" theory, which didn't involve a hot and dense early phase for the universe, he claimed the label was descriptive and not pejorative. As Hoyle noted, with typically sardonic wit, the big bang was an audacious theory: the entire universe, holding enough matter to yield more than a trillion trillion stars in many billions of galaxies, somehow emerged instantaneously and without any precedent from an iota of space-time! Steady state theory called for the gradual creation of matter in the vacuum of space between the receding galaxies. Although spontaneous creation of matter was ad hoc physics, it seemed like a more modest proposition.
For fifteen years, the status of the theory remained tentative. The universal recession of galaxies certainly pointed to a time when the universe was smaller, denser, and hotter. The explanation of the fact that the universe is a quarter helium by mass (and 10 percent by number of atoms) was a success, but the difficulty of measuring cosmic abundances of other light elements meant no further progress could be made on testing this idea, called big bang nucleosynthesis. Counts of extragalactic radio sources indicated the population was evolving and argued against the steady state theory. The missing ingredient was a decisive observation that favored the hot big bang. It came by accident in 1964 when two engineers working at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey, detected a microwave signal of equal intensity in every direction in the sky (figure 12.2). NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, is the illustrious descendant of this pioneering experiment.
Waves/centimeter
Figure 12.2. Theorists working with the expanding universe model predicted that the universe should be filled with relic radiation from the big bang, diluted and cooled by the expansion to just under 3 K. NASA's COBE satellite measured the spectrum and shows the radiation had exactly the predicted temperature; the data fit the model so well that the error bars are smaller than the thickness of the curve (NASA/COBE/FIRAS Science Team).
Hunting Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Chandra has also weighed in on two of the profound mysteries of cosmology: the nature of dark matter and dark energy. These two components of the universe account for 95 percent of its behavior, yet the physical basis for them is not known and is not part of standard physics. Dark matter outweighs normal matter by a factor of six and binds galaxies and clusters and stops them from flying apart, as well as causing the expanding universe to decelerate for most of the first two thirds of its existence. Dark energy dominates dark matter by a factor of three and has caused the cosmic expansion to accelerate in the most recent third of the universe's existence.67
Dark matter and dark energy don't interact strongly with normal matter like the atoms in our bodies, so stealth and cunning must be used to ensnare them and measure them. In both cases the laboratories used are rich clusters of galaxies, consisting of thousands of galaxies moving swiftly under the action of gravity and a huge cloud of superhot gas, so energetic that it emits X – rays. In 2006, an object called the Bullet Cluster was used for a convincing demonstration that dark matter actually exists. In the Bullet Cluster, a bullet-shaped cloud of hundred-million-degree gas is produced by a high-speed collision between a large cluster and a smaller one. The hot gas was slowed by the collision, due to a drag force analogous to air resistance. By contrast, the dark matter hardly interacted at all and sailed through during the collision, ending up on either side of the hot gas.68 This result would not have occurred unless weakly interacting dark matter dominated the mass of both clusters. In particular, alternate theories of gravity, conjured up to avoid needing dark matter, fail to explain the observations. It seems we have to live with dark matter.
Dark energy is even more ephemeral, announcing its presence (and ubiquity) only by the effect it has on the cosmic expansion. The long and hard search for independent evidence of its existence settled on clusters of galaxies. In a study that took nearly a decade to complete, researchers showed that rich clusters suffer from "arrested development."69 It's more difficult for clusters to grow when space is being stretched. By comparing the size and age of clusters with simulations of how they should grow under different conditions of cosmology, the results cement the interpretation of dark energy as a universal repulsive agent. They also rule out alterations to gravity theory and confirm that general relativity is a good description of the behavior of matter and radiation on large scales. The enigma of dark energy has not been solved, but its status as the biggest challenge in both physics and cosmology has been enhanced. Whether it is a black hole devouring a companion, massive black holes causing mayhem in the centers of galaxies, or clusters being pulled apart by the accelerating expansion of space, Chandra has provided data to illustrate the violence of the universe we inhabit.
A result of these insights is a new sense of the power of gravity. Stars are powered by gravity, and gravity also governs the nature of the most compact and energetic objects we've ever discovered. Dark forces even govern the expansion of the universe. When we think of other worlds, we think of planets illuminated by stars, where any life that exists is beholden to the energy from the star. But in a fundamental sense, starlight is just the inefficient leakage of radiation from mass-energy conversion by fusion. The true source of the starlight is gravity—a star is a gravitational engine. Black holes and neutron stars have no light but they have intense gravity. While they seem alien and utterly different from our world, given suitable protection or adaptation living creatures might be able to live near these compact stellar husks, using gravity to power their dreams.
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Scientific discovery rarely unfolds smoothly or predictably. Eight years before the theoretical prediction of relic radiation, Andrew McKellar measured the spectra of stars and discovered interstellar material that was excited to a temperature of 2.3 K.17 He had no explanation for the excitation, which is caused by the radiation from the big bang.18 While Gamow's prediction of a universe bathed in cold, microwave radiation sat in the literature, several experimenters had the detection of the radiation within their grasp but either did not control systematic errors well enough or were not aware of the importance of the observation. Robert Dicke at Princeton was, and by 1964 he and his team were hot on the trail of the big bang signature. But as they were preparing a radiometer on the roof of the physics building they got a call from Bell Labs. "Boys, we've been scooped," was Dicke's memorable response.19 The Nobel Prize was awarded in 1978 to Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Labs for their discovery.
What was the nature of the radiation that Penzias and Wilson detected? To understand this involves rewinding the history of the
universe to its very early epochs. The Hubble expansion is a linear relationship between distance and recession velocity: more distant galaxies are moving away from us quicker. Although at first glance this seems to imply that we have a privileged location in the universe, a hypothetical observer in another galaxy would see exactly the same relationship that Hubble saw. In a uniform threedimensional expansion each observer thinks they are the center of the universe. Since all cannot be, none are. Nor can we see an edge to the universe, so we can't place ourselves with respect to a boundary. The Copernican principle holds. There's no discernable center to the universe.
Reversing the expansion projects to a time when all galaxies were on top of each other: the big bang. But a simple backward extrapolation overestimates the age of the universe because matter tugs on other matter, so the expansion rate has slowed since the earliest epochs. In an expanding universe model the major observable is redshift, a stretching of the radiation from distant galaxies due to the expansion of space-time itself. Redshift is simply related to the factor by which the universe has expanded since the radiation was emitted. One plus the redshift is the expansion factor. Ironically, the universe is easier to understand in early times. Before structure forms, the universe behaves just like a simple gas, where the temperature and the average density both increase going back toward the big bang. Once gas starts to collapse by gravity, the physics is very complex. Stars and galaxies started forming when the universe was about ten times smaller than it is now, about 13 billion years ago.20
Extrapolating further backward, there was a time when the universe was much denser than it is now and hot enough that atoms were ionized. Electrons liberated from atomic nuclei interacted with radiation and stopped the photons from traveling freely. It was as if the universe was shrouded in an impenetrable fog. As the universe expanded and thinned out and cooled, it became transparent and radiation could travel without interruption. This special epoch is the earliest time we can "see" into the universe. In a big bang model, the background radiation comes from a time when the universe was a thousand times smaller than it is today, and a thousand times hotter. Infrared photons from 380,000 years after the big bang, when the temperature was about 3000 K, have been stretched a thousand-fold to become microwave photons in a vast and frigid universe with a temperature a little below 3 K.
The picture of the sky in microwaves is an extraordinary baby picture of the universe. Imagine as an adult that you were shown a picture of yourself a few hours old. Since those waves are from the universe as a whole, they permeate space and they travel in every direction through expanding space. There are trillions of relic photons from the big bang in any volume like that of one breath. However, their radiant intensity coming from any direction in space is only 0.00001 Watt or a ten-millionth of a light bulb.21 If you can find an old-fashioned image tube TV and tune it between stations so you see only static, about 1 percent of the white specks on the screen are interactions of the dots of phosphor with those microwaves.22 The big bang is all around us.
The Light of Our Sun
Human eyes, and all vertebrate eyes, are actually protrusions of the brain. Michael Sobel explains, "Embryological studies show that the eyes begin to develop very early as two small buds on the neural tube that eventually becomes the brain."35 We often think of ourselves as the pinnacle of evolutionary adaptation, but the human eye is adapted to detect a very narrow slice of the overall electromagnetic spectrum. This is not at all accidental. Had our Sun been a brown dwarf, emitting most of its light as infrared, our eyes would likely be adapted to infrared wavelengths. Some animals and insects, in fact, can see in wavelengths altogether invisible to us. Pit vipers have a sensory organ located near their eyes that allows them to detect infrared or thermal images of prey. Butterflies are thought to have a wide range of vision and can identify potential mating partners by ultraviolet markings on their wings. Bees, many types of fish, and some birds also see in ultraviolet light. Scientists have recently discovered that flowers and plants, when viewed in ultraviolet light, often display patterns invisible to us and color quite distinct from the color we see. By imaging flowers in ultraviolet light, scientists realized that the patterns revealed in ultraviolet apparently serve as "landing strips" or markers useful in guiding insects to pollinating portions of the flower.36
At least forty to sixty different types of eyes, with up to ten distinct means of forming images, have independently evolved, from simple constructions like a patch of skin acting as a photoreceptor, to the compound eyes of flies and spiders, to the sophisticated eyes of the hawk or squid. "The result is an enormous range of eye types using pin-holes, lenses, mirrors, and scanning devices in various combinations to acquire information about the surrounding world," write Land and Nilsson. "Not all eyes are paired and placed on the head: there are chitons with eyes spread over their dorsal shell, tube worms with eyes on their feeding tentacles and clams with eyes on the mantle edge."37 Various cave-dwelling animals, because of a lack of light, have evolved without eyes. Some lizards, frogs, and fish, though they have complex eyes, also sport at the top or back of the head a third eye, or parietal eye, that at the least can indicate the presence or absence of light caused by the passing of a predator's shadow. Even such a rudimentary eye offers valuable survival information.
At the other end of the spectrum of eye development are box jellyfish that have twenty – four eyes of four different types, two of which are extremely similar to human eyes. Existing for 600700 million years, jellyfish have survived five mass extinctions but they're often incorrectly characterized as not having a brain. Researchers recently found that neurons in jellies occur in neuronal centers distributed throughout their bodies and that they purposefully navigate within their environment. Box jellyfish use the acute vision of their pseudo-human eyes to see under and above water in navigating to and from underwater mangroves in order to feed, as a story in the New York Times reports: "Not only are the eyes equipped with a cornea, lens and retina, as human eyes are, but they are also suspended on stalks with heavy crystals on one end, a gyroscopelike arrangement that ensures the eyes are focused unerringly skyward. . . . Every morning they must return to the roots or risk starvation. They rise toward the surface and their upturned eyes scan the sky, until at last they spy the mangrove canopy."38 Beyond even these complex eyes are those of the cephalopods, like the octopus or squid, believed to be the most sophisticated eyes on the planet. Cephalopods focus their eyes with fine movements of the lens, unlike vertebrates, and they can automatically keep their pupils horizontal and even sense the polarization of light.
THE UNIVERSE IN SHARP FOCUS
Above all scientific projects, the Hubble Space Telescope encapsulates and recapitulates the human yearning to explore distant worlds, and understand our origins and place in the universe. Its light grasp is 10 billion times better than Galileo's best spyglass, and many innovations were needed for it to be realized: complex yet reliable instruments, the ability for astronauts to service the telescope,1 and the infrastructure to support the projects of thousands of scientists from around the world. The facility and its supporters experienced failure and heartache as well as eventual success and vindication.
Hubble's legacy has touched every area of astronomy, from the Solar System to the most distant galaxies. In the public eye, it's so well known that many people think it's the only world-class astronomy facility. In fact, it operates in a highly competitive landscape with other space facilities and much larger telescopes on the ground. Although it doesn't own any field of astronomy, it has made major contributions to all of them. It has contributed to Solar System astronomy and the characterization of exoplanets, it has viewed star birth and death in unprecedented detail, it has paid homage to its namesake with spectacular images of galaxies near and far, and it has cemented important quantities in cosmology, including the size, age, and expansion rate of the universe.2
Ranked by size of the mirror, Hubble wouldn't make it into the top fifty largest optical telescopes.3 Its preeminence is based on three factors associated with its location in Earth orbit. The first
is liberation from the blurring and obscuring effects of the Earth's atmosphere. Ground-based telescopes typically make images far larger than their optics would allow because turbulent motion in the upper atmosphere jumbles the light and smears out the images. Hubble gains in the sharpness of its vision by a factor of ten relative to a similar-sized telescope on the ground. Earth orbit also provides a much darker sky, which affects the contrast and depth of an image. The difference you might see in going from a city center to a rural or mountain setting is only part of the story; natural airglow and light pollution affect even the darkest terrestrial skies. A vacuum can't obfuscate. The last feature of a telescope in Earth orbit is its ability to gather wavelengths of radiation that would be partially absorbed or even quenched by the Earth's atmosphere. Hubble has taken advantage of this by working at infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is well into its third decade of operations, and it's easy to take for granted the beautiful images that are released almost weekly. But it was not an effortless journey for NASA's flagship mission.


text:
Arts festival lines up fun for young visitors
Posted on January 10, 2017 by admin — No Comments
Rollercoastival 2017 programme unveiled
A circus in a suitcase, an exquisite corpse, a Pied Piper and the stories of Roald Dahl will all be on offer for Scarborough youngsters next month.
A list of events and activities aimed squarely at children and young people will form part of this year's Coastival arts festival from 18th to 19th February.
Rollercoastival 2017 will see 10 special events for youngsters alongside the main Coastival festival.
Suitcase Circus at the Scarborough Campus of Coventry University offers youngsters aged over six the chance to learn circus skills with award-winning performer Pete White. Sessions run at 10.30am and 1.30pm on Saturday 18th February. The sessions are free but advance booking is required.
'Exquisite Corpse' is a surrealist drawing game, for youngsters aged over seven. It will be held at Scarborough Library on the Saturday at 9.30am and 12.30pm – again booking is required.
The library is also the venue for interactive and animated storytelling of the Stories of Roald Dahl. Sessions are on the Saturday from 11am to 12noon and 1pm to 2pm, for children over four.
Fancy joining in the writing and performing of a brand new song? Youngsters aged eight to 11 can do just that by joining Songlines, with community musician Sam Dunkley. There's a workshop at the Spa Promenade Lounge on the Saturday from 10.30am to 1.30pm and then a performance at Scarborough Railway Station later the same day, at 3.30pm. Sessions are free but must be booked in advance.
The Pied Piper invites children of all ages to join Adrian Spendlow to pick up an instrument (or make their own) and join in a musical trail with a story at every stop. Sessions, at the Spa, are on both the Saturday and Sunday from 10.30am to 12.30pm and 1.30pm to 3.30pm.
'What's in the Box' offers children over five the chance to create a picture box from their own happy memories at the Spa Regency Room from 10am to 12noon and 1pm to 3pm on both days.
Also in the Regency Room on both days there will be art drop-in sessions with Wendy Belshaw and Katie Braida from 10am to 12noon and 2pm to 4pm.
Storyteller Ian Douglas will present two sessions during the weekend. He'll be in town and at the Spa foyer between 11am and 5pm on the Saturday telling tales for all ages. Then on the Sunday Ian invites youngsters aged over five to meet Madam Bridget and hear tales from her caravan at the Spa foyer from 11am to 12noon and 2pm to 3pm.
Also of interest to youngsters will be two highlights of the main Coastival festival. One will be an exciting and ambitious bid to recreate Scarborough in 3D in the game Minecraft. It is a community effort including schools, colleges, community groups and individuals, painstakingly creating Scarborough in Minecraft and culminating in a huge Minecraft event over the Coastival weekend at the Spa.
On both days of Coastival a Horrid History Walk will set off from the blue police box on Sandside at 4pm for a tour of Scarborough's darker past, for which a ticket will be needed.
Three fringe events have also been arranged. At Wardle and Jones bookshop on Bar Street there'll be fairy-tale telling from 10am to 11am on the Saturday for youngsters aged four to eight and on the Sunday from 11.30am to 12.30pm, a limerick writing workshop with Antony Wootten for children over eight.
On the Sunday from 11am there's an opportunity for anyone over seven to join in with SCAMPS – the Scarborough Accessible Music Project – for a singing and signing taster.
For more information on Coastival visit www.coastival.com
NorthWolds Arts & Music


text:
'use strict';

var config = require('../config');
var gulp   = require('gulp');
var del    = require('del');

function clean(cb) {
	return del([config.dist], cb);
}

module.exports = clean;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Personalized cards are a great keepsake of your graduate's special day! Do you need party favors for the graduation party? Or personalized cards for all the graduation parties that you need to attend? Paper Dreams can design favors and cards with your graduate's school colors. Be sure to check out some of the ideas below.


text:
Nolensville town administrator leaves for new post in Thompson's Station
Nolensville's first town administrator is leaving his post for a new position across Williamson County.
Nolensville town administrator leaves for new post in Thompson's Station Nolensville's first town administrator is leaving his post for a new position across Williamson County. Check out this story on Tennessean.com: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/williamson/2019/04/30/nolensville-town-administrator-leaves-new-post-thompsons-station/3617118002/
Elaina Sauber, Nashville Tennessean Published 8:03 a.m. CT April 30, 2019
Ken McLawhon will be Thompson's Station's new town administrator, a position that's been unfilled since last summer, when Joe Cosentini announced he was leaving that job. This week is his last with Nolensville.
Ken McLawhon is the first administrator for Nolensville, which is preparing for an increase in residential and commercial growth. (Photo: Collin Czarnecki / The Tennessean)
A lot has changed since he first started as Nolensville's administrator in January 2015.
For one, the town has grown from about 7,800 to more than 11,000 during that time frame, McLawhon said.
"Commercially, we worked hard to try to build the tax base," McLawhon said. "Now, Nolensville Road is nothing like it used to be, and we're fortunate that it's been so positive."
While Nolensville and Thompson's Station are among the smaller municipalities in Williamson County, Nolensville has a larger staff, including its own police department.
So why work for a smaller town? McLawhon said he wants to help Thompson's Station, much of which is still green and undisturbed by development, grow in a balanced way – and his experience from Nolensville will be a benefit.
"I'm looking forward to the better part of a decade in Thompson's Station to try and help create and foster the type of quality of life and amenities they want, with commercial growth to help with the tax base there," he said.
Some major projects are on the horizon, such as plans for a new town hall building, an upcoming major thoroughfare plan for the town and a revamped wastewater treatment facility.
"All those things will foster community development and interest, which will provide more amenities for people to enjoy," McLawhon said.
Like other communities in Middle Tennessee, Thompson's Station has also experienced some growing pains as officials try to find a balance between residential and commercial growth.
The biggest challenges moving forward, he said, will be maintaining the sense of community residents currently have, while trying to attract commercial development to generate more revenue for the town.
Reach Elaina Sauber at esauber@tennessean.com, 615-571-1172 or follow @ElainaSauber on Twitter.
More: Former Nolensville police officer's federal sexual discrimination suit going to trial
Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/williamson/2019/04/30/nolensville-town-administrator-leaves-new-post-thompsons-station/3617118002/
Lawsuit: Sumner schools failed to protect child sexually assaulted by classmate
Man charged in connection with double-shooting at Gallatin residence
Senate passes anti-LGBT adoption bill
Nashville-to-Atlanta train service? Amtrak pitches Tennessee routes
Five Points post office in downtown Franklin expected to close
Which train route out of Nashville do you want?


A new study carried out by insurer Aviva and Professor Geoff Beattie of the University of Manchester has concluded that Brits undergo a personality change not unlike that described in the novel 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' when behind the wheel of a car.
Of the 4,000 respondents questioned, 16 per cent admitted to adopting a 'racing driver' frame of mind once their engine is switched on, disregarding speed limits and overtaking other drivers in built-up areas.
One-third of motorists confessed to driving at faster speeds to impress others, while one-quarter said they take phone calls while driving.
Male drivers were found to be twice as likely to jump a red light than their female counterparts, while the most risk-taking age group was discovered to be 17 to 21-year-olds.
In related news, research conducted by insurance group Admiral revealed last week that rear-end bumps cost the UK £500 million every year.


Texture ALL. DAY. LONG. Meet Bobbi Boss Micro Locs, the stunning dimensional braids that will have heads turning your direction every time you step outside. Springy, colorful, and easy to install, it's everything you love about crochet braids but miniature. Seriously, if texture and braiding hair went on a blind date, fell madly in love, then had a baby; that baby would look like these micro locks.
Micro locks are in the house! We can't say enough good things about these locks, especially because they just look SO DANG GOOD. They've got all the same features you love about your every-day braids: premade loops, easy installation, and they can be easily set with hot water. BUT these babies have a texture and dimension that just wont quit! Whether you wear these silky soft braids loose or in a fabulous updo we know that you will ROCK this look!
Can these be installed like a single or double ended dread?
Hi Leah! They can, but they are very small so it may be quite tedious. They are typically installed crocheted over cornrows. Please let us know if there's anything else you need!
Are they clip ins? If not how do you put them in your hair? And will they ruin my hair?
They are not clip-ins. They are a type of latch hook hair. They are typically braided in and do not have an effect on your natural hair - these can actually be a protective style if you want to give your hair a break from daily styling.
It says 18pk that means 18in pk? Each pack is 13.95 and I should purchase about 6- 8pks to achieve the look promoted?
Can these be braided in or are they designed (because of the pre-made loop) to be more of a professional extension?
They can be installed by many different methods. :) Braiding in is great.


Everton boss Roberto Martinez insisted after his side's 2-1 victory over Southampton that it was merely a "bonus" that Toffees top-scorer Romelu Lukaku had broken his goal drought in the contest.
Lukaku, who is on loan at Everton from Chelsea for the season, struck home what proved to be the winner in the 74th minute of the Barclays Premier League clash at Goodison Park when he converted from James McCarthy's pass.
The goal, the Belgium striker's ninth for the Merseysiders this term, was his first in six games.
But Martinez disagreed after the match with the suggestion that Lukaku "needed" to get back on the scoresheet, with the Spaniard being keen to highlight other aspects of the frontman's game.
"From the outside, yes, you are going to judge a striker by his goalscoring ability and the numbers," Martinez said.
"But for me, if he scores goals, great - but it is a bonus.
"I judge him in terms of all the aspects. I thought he was magnificent against Swansea (a recent 2-1 win) without scoring.
"I couldn't be happier with his finish today, but I think that is an add-on."
Asked if Lukaku had been getting down at all about his run of matches without scoring, Martinez added: "No - we have been working on other aspects of his game.
"We have never been in a position where we were getting a little bit worried and thought that was his only role as a striker.
"You want strikers to score goals, but in the same way, he attracts two or three opposition players at the moment, so it is understandable that other players get that stage - players like Seamus Coleman, who gets into that position really well and takes advantage of it.
"It is a team effort and Romelu has not been down at all - it has been the opposite."
It was full-back Coleman who put Everton ahead in the ninth minute, bursting into the box from the right and unleashing a powerful shot into the top corner of the net.
Southampton substitute Gaston Ramirez equalised in the 71st minute when he beat Toffees goalkeeper Joel Robles, who it appeared should have done better in his attempt to save the effort, with a shot from distance.
Regarding the leveller and Robles, who was making his first Everton Premier League start, Martinez said: "Joel is blaming himself, but I don't think that is the case.
"It is one of those goals where when you watch the replay, you feel the goalkeeper should have had it.
"But I thought when I watched it live, you should probably blame the people who design these footballs.
"If you hit them well, they swerve everywhere and it becomes a gamble for the keeper - it can hit the arms, it could have gone anywhere.
"When you watch it live, I don't think Joel is to blame. I think Gaston Ramirez hit the ball really well.
"I thought Joel had a really good game - he was in control of his box, and showed great understanding with two centre-halves he has never played with before.
"I feel it was a very good debut."
The three points moved Everton up a place to fourth on 37 points, a point and a place above Liverpool who later lost at Chelsea.
And asked for his thoughts on how his team were faring having completed their 19th fixture of the 38-game league campaign, Martinez said: "Thirty-seven points is an outstanding return half-way through the season.
"But I think there is room for improvement and that is the target we have from now until the end of the season.
"I don't think we have fulfilled our potential yet.
"You will always hear me saying it is impossible to set a target in December.
"In the league, all we are doing is taking it game by game, and we are quite happy now to see where we are.
"But we are just trying to get as many points as we can."
Southampton, who remain ninth in the table, certainly had their moments in the match and their boss Mauricio Pochettino felt his side had been unfortunate to end up empty-handed.
"I thought overall it was a very good game, with both teams going forward and playing good, attacking football," Pochettino said.
"But it is a shame, because we leave with nothing and I think we deserved a lot more from this game.
"My team played very well. There were many phases of the game in which we were actually superior to Everton.
"It is clear that we are a young team, but this team has personality and a certain attacking style, and we try to impose this wherever we are playing, always going for the win.
"When we recover some of the players we have missing, it will make us even stronger."


text:
USA.com / Arkansas / Little River County / Wilton, AR
Wilton, AR
Basic InfoPopulation/RacesIncome/CareersHousingEducationOthers
Wilton is located in southwest Arkansas. Wilton is part of Little River County. Wilton has 1.30 square miles of land area and has no water area. As of 2010-2014, the total Wilton population is 498, which has grown 13.44% since 2000. The population growth rate is higher than the state average rate of 10.24% and is higher than the national average rate of 11.61%. Wilton median household income is $37,656 in 2010-2014 and has grown by 18.80% since 2000. The income growth rate is much lower than the state average rate of 28.22% and is lower than the national average rate of 27.36%. Wilton median house value is $35,000 in 2010-2014 and has grown by -1.69% since 2000. The house value growth rate is much lower than the state average rate of 49.31% and is much lower than the national average rate of 46.91%. As a reference, the national Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate for the same period is 26.63%. On average, the public school district that covers Wilton is worse than the state average in quality. The Wilton area code is 870.
Population 498 (2010-2014), rank #306
Population Growth 13.44% since 2000, rank #169
Population Density: 382.22/sq mi, rank #307
Median Household Income: $37,656 at 2010-2014—18.80% increase since 2000, rank #185
Median House Price: $35,000 at 2010-2014—-1.69% increase since 2000, rank #495
Time Zone: Central GMT -6:00 with Daylight Saving in the Summer
Land Area: 1.30 sq mi, rank #340
Water Area: 0.00 sq mi (0.00%), rank #289
State: Arkansas
County: Little River County
School District: , rank #586
Accommodations: Wilton Hotels
Hot Rankings
Fastest / Slowest Growing Cities Nearby
Best / Worst Cities by Crime Rate Nearby
Richest / Poorest Cities by Income Nearby
Expensive / Cheapest Homes Nearby
Most / Least Educated Cities Nearby
Fastest / Slowest Growing Cities in AR
High / Low AR Cities by Males Employed
High / Low AR Cities by Females Employed
Best / Worst Cities by Crime Rate in AR
Richest / Poorest Cities by Income in AR
Expensive / Cheapest Homes by City in AR
Most / Least Educated Cities in AR
Wilton, AR Map, Border, and Nearby Locations
Little River County


text:
Patient Self-Scheduling
Provider Referral Networks
Provider Call Centers
Patient Outreach
Analytics for Providers
Member Referral Coordination
Health Plan Call Centers
Member Self-Scheduling
Member Outreach
Analytics for Health Plans
Tom Cox
Jason Kressel
Chris Lukasiak
Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing, & Partnerships
Chris Yager
Vice President of Technology
Sanju Pratap
Vice President of Account Management
Tom has been the chief executive officer of MyHealthDirect since 2012 where he brings over 20 years of health care experience. Prior to joining MyHealthDirect, he served as the chief operating officer at Healthways, Inc. with responsibility for the company's $650 million domestic business. Prior to joining Healthways in 2006, he served as the President of Concentra Network Services and was past Chairman of the American Association of Preferred Provider Organizations (AAPPO). Tom earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Business Administration from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt.
Jason has been with MyHealthDirect since 2013 and serves as the chief operating officer. In this role, he is responsible for Customer Growth, Product, Data Science and Technology. Prior to MyHealthDirect, Jason was an executive with Accenture where he led technology and business transformation programs with Fortune 100 companies in addition to managing large health care programs in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Jason earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Lehigh University.
Chris joined MyHealthDirect in 2015 and serves as the senior vice president of sales, marketing, and partnerships. He brings more than two decades of experience leading healthcare IT services companies. Prior to MyHealthDirect, Chris served as the vice president of sales at Phytel for eight years, where he helped take the business from a 10-person startup to a $230 million enterprise in the Population Health space within HIT, eventually selling the business to become the foundation of IBM Watson Health. Previously, Chris also served as the vice president of sales for A4 Health Systems and area vice president at Allscripts. He and his team grew the EMR business from 20 to over 400 employees and a $300 million enterprise over seven years resulting in the Allscripts acquisition. Post-acquisition, he was credited with building the fastest-growing division at Allscripts. In addition to his experience in healthcare IT, Chris' background includes two software startups in the library software industry, and enterprise IT training services to Fortune 500 companies with Learning Tree International.
Chris has been with MyHealthDirect since 2015 and serves as the vice president of technology. In this role, he brings over 25 years of experience and is responsible for leading all technology development efforts, quality assurance, and integrations with customers' systems. Prior to joining MyHealthDirect, he served as principle architect at DaVita, Inc. with shared responsibility of a $2B IT budget. Prior to joining DaVita in 2011, he served as the vice president of engineering at GLD Solutions, a logistics company in Huntsville, Al. Chris is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and has been the principle technologist over enterprise solutions in construction, election systems, energy, logistics, and healthcare.
Sanju joined MyHealthDirect in 2015 and serves as the vice president of account management. She is an experienced executive with extensive background in product research, strategy and new product development, and has a deep knowledge of the healthcare ecosystem and the role of technology as an innovative force in this market sector. Previous to MyHealthDirect, she held several product positions at Emdeon, now Change Healthcare, focused on payer & provider solutions across the revenue cycle. She holds a Bachelors in Civil & Environmental Engineering and an MBA from Georgia Tech.
102 Woodmont Blvd Ste 400, Nashville, TN 37205


text:
Q: In-process hosting on .NET Core 2.2 slowed down API response time I have recently upgraded .NET Core web API from 2.1 to 2.2. Microsoft claims that the new InProcess hosting model should be up to 4x faster than OutOfProcess hosting model.
However, when I set IIS hosting model to InProcess <AspNetCoreHostingModel>InProcess</AspNetCoreHostingModel> in .csproj, average API response is 50 - 100ms higher than when I set <AspNetCoreHostingModel>OutOfProcess</AspNetCoreHostingModel>.
Any idea why it's slowing down the API response time (higher ping)?
My Startup.cs:
public class Startup
    {
        public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
        {
            IoCContainer.Configuration = configuration;
        }

        public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }

        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            //Add proper cookie request to follow GDPR
            services.Configure<CookiePolicyOptions>(options =>
            {
                // This lambda determines whether user consent for non-essential cookies is needed for a given request.
                options.CheckConsentNeeded = context => true;
                options.MinimumSameSitePolicy = SameSiteMode.None;
            });

            //Add SendGrid email sender
            services.AddSendGridEmailSender();

            //Add general email template sender
            services.AddEmailTemplateSender();

            //Add ExcelFileDownloadService
            services.AddTransient<IExcelFileDownloadService, ExcelFileDownloadService>();
            //Add ExcelFileUploadService
            services.AddTransient<IExcelFileUploadService, ExcelFileUploadService>();
            //Add FileUploadService
            services.AddTransient<IUploadFileService, UploadFileService>();

            //CORS
            services.AddCors();

            //Add ApplicationDbContext to DI using MSSQL
            services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
                options.UseSqlServer(IoCContainer.Configuration.GetConnectionString("AspifyConnection")));

            //Store keys to File System
            string path = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + @"\keys\";
            services.AddDataProtection().PersistKeysToFileSystem(new DirectoryInfo(path));

            //Add RepositoryWrapper to DI
            services.AddScoped<IRepositoryWrapper, RepositoryWrapper>();

            //Adds cookie based authentication
            //Adds classes like UserManager, SignInManager, PasswordHashers etc.
            services.AddIdentity<ApplicationUser, ApplicationRole>()
                .AddUserManager<UserManager<ApplicationUser>>()
                //Adds UserStore and RoleStore from this context
                .AddEntityFrameworkStores<ApplicationDbContext>()
                //Adds a provider that generates unique keys and hashes
                .AddDefaultTokenProviders();

            //Add JWT authentication for API clients
            var key = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(IoCContainer.Configuration["JwtSecretKey"]);
            services.AddAuthentication(options =>
            {
                options.DefaultAuthenticateScheme = JwtBearerDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;
                options.DefaultChallengeScheme = JwtBearerDefaults.AuthenticationScheme;
            })
            .AddJwtBearer(options =>
            {
                options.RequireHttpsMetadata = false;
                options.SaveToken = true;
                options.TokenValidationParameters = new TokenValidationParameters
                {
                    ValidateIssuerSigningKey = true,
                    IssuerSigningKey = new SymmetricSecurityKey(key),
                    ValidateIssuer = false,
                    ValidateAudience = false
                };
            });

            services.AddAuthorization(options =>
            {
                options.AddPolicy("RequireAdministratorRole", policy => policy.RequireRole("Administrator"));
            });

            //Change Identity Framework password policy
            services.Configure<IdentityOptions>(options =>
            {
                options.Password.RequireDigit = false;
                options.Password.RequiredLength = 5;
                options.Password.RequireLowercase = true;
                options.Password.RequireUppercase = false;
                options.Password.RequireNonAlphanumeric = false;
            });

            services.AddAntiforgery(options => options.HeaderName = "X-XSRF-TOKEN");

            services.AddMvc(options =>
            {

            }).SetCompatibilityVersion(CompatibilityVersion.Version_2_2);
        }

        public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
        {
            //Setup identity
            app.UseAuthentication();

            UpdateDatabase(app);

            //Allow all CORS
            app.UseCors(x => x
                .AllowAnyOrigin()
                .AllowAnyMethod()
                .AllowAnyHeader()
                .AllowCredentials());

            app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();

            //Force non-essential cookies to only store if the user has consented
            app.UseCookiePolicy();

            //Enable static files in wwwroot folder
            app.UseStaticFiles();

            //set HTTP routes
            app.UseMvc(routes =>
            {

                //Api route
                routes.MapRoute(
                name: "api",
                template: "api/{controller}/{action}/{moreInfo?}");

                //Default route to React
                routes.MapRoute(
                    name: "default",
                    template: "{*path}",
                    defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" });
            });
        }

        private static void UpdateDatabase(IApplicationBuilder app)
        {
            using (var serviceScope = app.ApplicationServices
                .GetRequiredService<IServiceScopeFactory>()
                .CreateScope())
            {
                using (var context = serviceScope.ServiceProvider.GetService<ApplicationDbContext>())
                {
                    context.Database.EnsureCreated();
                }
            }
        }
    }

.csproj:
 <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.2</TargetFramework>
    <RuntimeFrameworkVersion>2.2.0</RuntimeFrameworkVersion>
    <AspNetCoreHostingModel>OutOfProcess</AspNetCoreHostingModel>
    <GenerateRuntimeConfigurationFiles>true</GenerateRuntimeConfigurationFiles>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <Compile Remove="Migrations\20181110121254_rentalInfoLeasingTypeSetNull.cs" />
    <Compile Remove="Migrations\20181110121254_rentalInfoLeasingTypeSetNull.Designer.cs" />
  </ItemGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="EPPlus.Core" Version="1.5.4" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.App" Version="2.2.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors" Version="2.2.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.DataProtection.EntityFrameworkCore" Version="2.2.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design" Version="2.2.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Sendgrid" Version="9.10.0" />
  </ItemGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\Examples\" />
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\Uploads\" />
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\EmailTemplates\" />
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\React" />
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\React\media" />
  </ItemGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <None Include="Views\Home\Index.cshtml" />
  </ItemGroup>
  <ProjectExtensions><VisualStudio><UserProperties appsettings_1json__JSONSchema="" /></VisualStudio></ProjectExtensions>
</Project>

CompaniesController.cs:
    /// <summary>
    /// Get list of all companies without their domains
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>List of companies</returns>
    [Authorize(Roles = "Admin")]
    [HttpGet]
    public async Task<IActionResult> Get()
    {
        List<Company> companies = await _repoWrapper.Companies.GetAllAsync();
        List<CompanyListItemResponse> response = new List<CompanyListItemResponse>();

        foreach (Company company in companies)
        {
            response.Add(new CompanyListItemResponse { Id = company.Id, Name = company.Name });
        }

        response = response.OrderBy(x => x.Name).ToList();

        return Ok(response);
    }

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Managing one's personal finances can be daunting no matter one's income level, particularly with volatility in the stock market. That may explain why more U.S. consumers are taking advantage of financial tools to aid their personal financial planning, as the 2016 Banking and Channels survey in Mercator Advisory Group's CustomerMonitor Survey Series (CMSS) found. Financial institutions (FIs) can forge deeper customer relationships if they take advantage of banking customers' need for financial advice and budgeting. Today, a host of tools is available to analyze personal spending habits, assist in financial management, and support household budgeting, yet precious few teach individuals how to reach their financial goals. Financial institutions are beginning to offer personal financial management (PFM) tools to support these efforts. But many consumers need more personalized help and support for automated savings and investment opportunities.
The 2016 CMSS Banking and Channels survey on personal finance focuses on U.S. consumers' use of financial advisors and their need for financial advice from their primary financial institutions, particularly among the segments of the customer base of high value to financial institutions—young adults, business owners, and those who have wealth management relationships with FIs. This study identifies the demographics of the U.S. consumers most interested in financial advice from their respective financial institutions—namely young adults, high-income earners, business owners, and consumers who consider themselves to have wealth management accounts or relationships with their primary FI. This report, Consumers and Personal Finance: Don't Overlook the Basics, also discusses the ways in which consumers use personal financial management, or PFM, tools, adhere to a budget, and set aside savings to meet their financial goals. In this analysis, we also evaluate how U.S. consumers communicate with their FIs, the types of banking activities they perform online and by mobile, as well as their use of online account opening and interest in personalization. The findings highlight ways in which FIs can enhance the customer experience with services to meet customers' expectations and support their financial goals.


text:
Caesium sulfide (also spelled cesium sulfide in American English) is an inorganic salt with a chemical formula Cs2S. It is a strong alkali in aqueous solution. In the air, caesium sulfide emits rotten egg smelling hydrogen sulfide.

Production
Similar to sodium sulfide, anhydrous caesium sulfide can be produced by reacting caesium and sulfur in THF. It needs ammonia or naphthalene to react.
 2Cs + S → Cs2S
By dissolving hydrogen sulfide into caesium hydroxide solution, it will produce caesium bisulfide, then it will produce caesium sulfide too.。
  CsOH + H2S  →  CsHS + H2O
  CsHS + CsOH  →  Cs2S + H2O

References

Caesium compounds
Sulfides

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Studying abroad opens up new perspectives on the subject you are studying. You can increase your subject knowledge and explore areas that interest you in more depth. At the same time, you learn a new culture of teaching and learning, as well as boosting your language skills. You can arrange to have your study achievements from abroad accredited (German) towards your studies at FAU.
With its numerous foreign partner universities, FAU offers a wide variety of options for studying abroad. With Erasmus+ you can study at FAU partner universities throughout Europe and in selected partner countries. The FAU direct exchange programme (German) offers opportunities for studying in countries outside Europe.
Even if you choose to study abroad as a free mover (German) rather than with one of the exchange programmes offered by FAU, you can find important information on our website to help you organise and prepare (German) for studying abroad.