text:
Delta V question
delta v
By Engineering101,
March 27, 2016 in KSP Discussion
Engineering101
So, I looked up delta V and apparently its basically synonymous with acceleration.
So what is all the fuss with Delta V readouts etc? Why are Delta V readouts necessary?
Kerbart
About me: Mun Marketeer
In space there's no friction. That means it doesn't cost you anything to maintain your speed. That also means it does cost you energy to slow down. DV is how much speeding up/slowing down you can do for maneuvering.
Consider DV a measure for "how many miles you have in the tank." For instance, it will take you between 3,000 and 3,500 m/s DV to get into Kerbin low orbit (depending on how efficient your launch is). It will take roughly an additional 800 m/s to get a Mun encounter, and another, say, 400 m/s to turn that encounter into an orbit. If you want to return from that orbit to Kerbin it'll take another 200 m/s. So in total you'll need about 5,000 m/s DV to launch, orbit the Mun, and return. DV read-outs will tell you in advance if you're going to complete your mission, or run out of propellant along the way (assuming you don't waste any of it).
HebaruSan
The orbit you're in depends on where you are currently plus how fast you're going in what direction. To go places, you need to go from one orbit to another at the right point, and so on. To do that, you need to use your engines to thrust the right amount in the right direction. Delta V is a measure of how much your ship's engines can thrust. So delta V is important because it tells you what missions your craft can and can't do.
Borrowing one of Kerbart's examples for a moment, if you're in a low orbit around Kerbin, you have to be going at least 2250 m/s just to avoid falling into the atmosphere, simply due to Kerbin's size and mass, so you need to expend at least that much delta V to launch into such an orbit. But you also have to get up above the atmosphere in the first place, as well as push through the atmosphere. Adding those things together gives the 3000-3500 range he mentioned.
pincushionman
About me: Junior Rocket Scientist
1 hour ago, Engineering101 said:
So, I looked up delta V and apparently its basically synonymous with acceleration...
Not exactly. Acceleration is the instantaneous change in velocity of your vessel; the second derivative of position with respect to time:
a = dV/dt.
Detla-V, on the other hand, is a measure of either: (1) the vector difference between two velocity vectors through a point, describing a maneuver to move from one orbit to the other, or (2) the maximum magnitude of such a vector difference that a vessel can achieve.
dV = dV.
Yes, it's the same dV as in the acceleration equation above. So it's a part of the acceleration. Strictly speaking, though, when we deal with dV we assume a maneuver of zero time. We're describing the result of a change in velocity; not the time evolution of the change itself.
Brofessional
Delta means change, and V means velocity, so it literally means "change in velocity"
No matter how big or small your spacecraft is, it will always take the same X amount of delta-v to go from A to B. (assuming the mission profile is executed the same)
However, a big heavy craft will require much more fuel to make the same change in velocity than a small light craft, and different engines can use that fuel more or less efficiently than others.
Edited March 27, 2016 by Brofessional
federicoaa
Just to mention, it is called delta-V for the greek letter delta (looks like a triangle), which in mathematics is used to denote a change in value.
So delta-V is just initial velocity minus final velocity.
OhioBob
11 hours ago, Engineering101 said:
Δv readouts come with some mods such as KER or MechJeb. What the readout does is it tells you the amount of Δv your rocket/spacecraft is capable of producing. You need to make sure that your vehicle can produce at least as much Δv as it will take to complete the mission you plan to fly. Determining the amount of Δv you need is generally done using a Δv map, such as this one.
Let's say you want to orbit Mun and return. According to the Δv map, this should take 3400+860+310+310 = 4880 m/s. If you build a vehicle in the VAB and your KER readout says it can produce 4500 m/s, then you don't have enough to complete the mission you want to fly. You have to start redesigning you vehicle until the readout gets up to at least 4880 m/s (and preferably a bit more to give you a safety margin). If you get your readout up to, say, 5000 m/s, then you should have a vehicle capable of orbiting Mun.
Of course you also have to learn to fly efficiently. If you do things poorly, you can waste a lot of Δv. If you are doing something for the first time and are not entirely sure how it will go, you should probably carry a large margin to play it safe.
Kyrt Malthorn
About me: Rocketry Enthusiast
12 hours ago, Brofessional said:
@Engineering101, this is the crux of why dV is "all the fus" if you're looking for the most plain-english answer. dV in real rocketry became the norm exactly because it describes the maneuver, without any of the variables that would be specific to a given craft - it's mass and engine efficiency. It's a common launguage.
Let's say Starship A is a huge ship. It launches Shuttle B. They are both in the same orbit and going to the same place today. Shuttle B starts with a full tank and performs a course correction, and then reports to Starship A that they have used 5 liters of their fuel. But if Starship A expends only 5 liters, its course is barely shifted at all.
If instead Shuttle B tells Starship A their change in velocity was 400 meters per second (distance divided by time is acceleration) then Starship A can calculate they need to use more like 1000 liters of fuel to achieve that 400 m/s change in velocity. If Shuttle B also gives them a vector (the direction they pointed) then Starship A can perform the same maneuver precisely.
Fun fact: since we said their engines are identically efficient, then if the shuttle were parked in the starship, the maneuver would have cost the starship 1005 liters - the starship's expendature plus the shuttle's expendature.
Edited March 27, 2016 by Kyrt Malthorn
Foxster
About me: Pretentious? Moi?
dV=range
(A tad over-simplified but good enough to get started with).
Edited March 27, 2016 by Foxster
PanzerAce
31 minutes ago, Foxster said:
Except that's wrong in literally every particular....
1 hour ago, PanzerAce said:
Except it isn't.
If you are starting out in KSP and want to know what measure you need to change to increase a craft's range from reaching the Mun to reaching Duna then it is dV.
Sure, you can wrap dV in some maths or technical description but how is that going to help someone starting out in KSP?
bewing
About me: 1st Lunar Colonist
One thing nobody has seemed to mention so far is: since your rocket gets lighter as you burn its fuel -- the real deltaV of your rocket is always a bit more than what the instantaneous readouts tell you.
Renegrade
About me: Sir Wingsalot
16 minutes ago, bewing said:
Uh, no, the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is taking that into account. If it did not, they would be HORRIBLY wrong. That's why it has a natural logarithm with a mass ratio stuck in the middle - that's the calculation.
The calculation is correct. It's the maneuver nodes which are somewhat optimistic about a typical craft acceleration (wildly optimistic when ions are involved).
NB: One does not require a read-out to calculate delta-v. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is rather trivial to enter into a calculator - just pre-multiply the specific impulse in seconds with 9.80665 (9.8 for laziness, but I never want to see any scripts or programs that aren't 9.80665), and then multiply that by the current mass divided by dry mass (for an LF/OX rocket, every 90 units of fuel is 1t with it's accompanying 110 oxidizer). That can be updated at will when the current (or wet) mass changes.
5t ship with 180 fuel = 5t wet, 5t - (180 fuel / 90 fuel/ton=2 tons of fuel) 2 = 3t dry. Say the ship has a 909, which gives it 345 specific impulse, and thus (345*9.80665) ~ 3,383.3 exhaust velocity. 3,383.3 * ln(5/3) =~ 1728.3 delta-v.
14 hours ago, Renegrade said:
One does not require a read-out to calculate delta-v. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is rather trivial to enter into a calculator - just pre-multiply the specific impulse in seconds with 9.80665 (9.8 for laziness, but I never want to see any scripts or programs that aren't 9.80665), and then multiply that by the current mass divided by dry mass (for an LF/OX rocket, every 90 units of fuel is 1t with it's accompanying 110 oxidizer). That can be updated at will when the current (or wet) mass changes.
Solving the Tsiolkovsky rocket is the easy part, getting the numbers to enter into the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is the hard part. The VAB tool that comes with the stock game provides the total vehicle mass only. It doesn't break it down by stage and it doesn't give the propellant mass. To get the stage breakdown we have to start disassembling the rocket stage by stage and note how much the mass changes. The mass is also given only to the nearest 0.1-ton, which many times isn't precise enough. And the propellant mass must be added up by hand from the contents of each fuel tank. In other words, it's a real pain in the neck to do it without using something like KER. KER not only computes the dV, but it also adds up all the bits and pieces that goes into the calculation. It's the latter part that is the biggest convenience and time saver.
Edited March 28, 2016 by OhioBob
On 3/27/2016 at 2:49 PM, Kerbart said:
Riiiight I get it now. Yup, I can see why that would be very useful.
Smorfty
On 2016-03-26 at 6:41 AM, Engineering101 said:
Delta-v means velocity change. And the way you change your velocity is by applying acceleration so yeah, they're pretty much the same thing.
Knowing how much dV it takes to get somewhere is like a golfer knowing how hard he needs to hit the ball to reach the hole (how much acceleration he needs to apply to the ball).
A dV readout like Mechjeb or Kerbal Engineer will basically tell you your golf ball hitting budget.
soulsource
On 28.3.2016 at 4:20 AM, OhioBob said:
Solving the Tsiolkovsky rocket is the easy part, getting the numbers to enter into the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is the hard part. The VAB tool that comes with the stock game provides the total vehicle mass only. It doesn't break it down by stage and it doesn't give the propellant mass. To get the stage breakdown we have to start disassembling the rocket stage by stage and note how much the mass changes. The mass is also given only to the nearest 0.1-ton, which many times isn't precise enough. And the propellant mass must be added up by hand from the contents of each fuel tank. In other words, it's a real pain in the neck to do it without using something like KER. KER not only computes the dV, but it also adds up all the bits and pieces that goes into the calculation. It's the later part that is the biggest convenience and time saver.
You can just right click the tanks of the stage in question and remove the fuel to get the dry mass of said stage. Still, that's rather inconvenient and gets annoying as soon as you deal with a bigger multi-stage craft. Also, it's pretty easy to forget to refill a tank before launch...
And no, Delta-v and acceleration are two very different beasts. Delta-v is what you get when you accelerate for a certain time, or mathematically written: , where a(t) is acceleration at time t, t0 is the time when you start to accelerate, and t1 denotes the end of acceleration. For a constant acceleration a=const, this formula simplifies to .
And since nobody cared to write the Rocket equation down yet, here it is, in all its gory glory:
Or rewritten, to give Delta-v:
The derivation is actually pretty straightforward, and follows directly from the conservation of (linear) momentum. During the burn, the rocket expels mass at a given rate, and at a given exhaust velocity. Observed from an inertial frame of reference (a frame of reference that itself isn't subject to any acceleration - this makes calculations a lot easier, as accelerated frames of reference would require us to take into account fictitious forces), the momentum carried away by this expelled material is given by
where vrocket is the rocket's velocity at time t, vexhaust is the velocity relative to the rocket at which the propellant is expelled (assumed to be constant), and dm/dt is the mass flow rate (in mass units per time, for instance in kg/s if one is using the international system).
This means that the rocket's momentum has to change by the same amount:
Now using the product rule of calculus, we get:
Of course the change of mass of the rocket is just the negative value of the mass flow:
This gives:
what can be factorized to yield
This can now easily be integrated, as on the left hand side we just have the rate of change of v(t) divided by a constant, and on the right hand side we have the rate of change of m(t) divided by m(t), what is, as one learns in basic calculus, just the rate of change of ln(m(t)).
What is now missing to get the form of the Rocket Equation given above, is that the specific impulse is just a way to measure exhaust velocity in a unit that is part of both, the international unit system (as used by NASA) and the old unit system (used by some of NASA's component suppliers). It's related to the exhaust velocity simply by , where g is the gravitational acceleration at sea level of earth (measured in whatever fancy units one uses).
Edit: On the use of Delta-v in spaceflight:
One cool thing about gravity is that it's proportional to mass (F=G*M*m/r²), the same mass that's responsible for inertia. This means that in Newton's equation of motion (F=m*a) the mass of the craft cancels out. A consequence of this is, that no matter how your craft looks like and how heavy it is, if it has a certain velocity and position (both as vectors, meaning magnitude + direction) within a gravitational field, its path is defined. Therefore, the flight path of a craft can be perfectly reproduced with any other craft by changing the velocity in exactly the same manner (magnitude+direction) at exactly the same points. So, when planning a mission, one first sums up (the magnitude of) all velocity changes (Delta-v) required for the trip. Once one knows this sum and has the desired payload, one can start dimensioning the required fuel tanks using the Rocket Equation.
As Delta-v is such a useful quantity, certain diagrams, known as Delta-v subway maps, have been drawn:
Delta-V map for the Kerbin System
Delta-V map for the real solar system
The values for transfers between planets/moons are more or less exact, the values for landing/launching are based on experience, as the actual numbers depend on your craft design (TWR on non-atomspheric bodies, while on bodies with an atmosphere atmospheric drag will also play a role).
It's also not too hard to calculate those numbers yourself. The transfers themselves are calculated as Hohmann transfers, and one also has to take into account Oberth Effect.
I just realized that the terms of use of the service I'm using to render the equations require a link back, so, if anyone else would like to write LaTeX equations online, have a look at their website: http://www.codecogs.com
Edited April 10, 2016 by soulsource
Added link to LaTeX equation renderer.
rkman
About me: Capsule Communicator
On 26-3-2016 at 6:41 AM, Engineering101 said:
Where you can get to in space is largely a matter of how much velocity your ship can make, also known as delta-v.
But the d-v number does not tell you how long it takes to reach that velocity, so it is not equivalent to acceleration. Two ships can have the same d-v but different acceleration, and vice versa.
Equivalent to acceleration is thrust-to-weight ratio (TWR).
Edited March 28, 2016 by rkman
Red Iron Crown
About me: Common Denominator
The easy way I remember it:
Delta-V is the amount of velocity change.
TWR (and acceleration) is the rate of velocity change.
(A bit of an oversimplification, but helpful for understanding the concepts.)
13 hours ago, OhioBob said:
That's true, but it's not that hard to add up the propellant masses - the tanks are doubling in a binary fashion until you get into the NASA parts. In upper stages, it's quite easy. When you get to the lower stages, it does get to be a bit of a pain, but that can be amortized by re-using those launch stages. Improvements to the subassembly system makes this a lot easier. I played this way at first for a long time until I understood the way the equation worked, and it wasn't particularly onerous.
Note also that when I started, there was no mass indicator in the VAB at all, but it was quite easy to launch to launchpad, take notes there, and recover the vehicle. The indicator in flight (map->craft info) is significantly more accurate. That's not really necessary though, as one can simply add 0.1 to the mass of the craft and over-engineer slightly. Note that my example craft above with a .1 added to it goes from 1728 to 1684 - a three percent difference.
That being said, I wouldn't mind a more accurate readout that also gave wet/dry mass per stage..might actually be workable post-1.1 as I understand staging has been re-written (it was a Charlie Foxtrot in the past, which can confuse said mods at times).
2 hours ago, soulsource said:
Actually, it's g0, or standard gravity, which is a defined number that may or may not be like gravity at sea level, depending on where you are. It won't make a big difference in hand calculations, but the correct value for any programs, scripts, or spreadsheets is 9.80665 (in metric/SI units - meters/sec^2). KSP used to use 9.82 for some boneheaded reason, but that was corrected back in 0.90 or earlier.
Edited March 28, 2016 by Renegrade
About me: Peace, Love, and the R-7 Family
I found the easiest way to find the mass ratio in the VAB, without tools, was to note the mass and then remove all fuel from the tanks and note the mass again. Fairly easy to do if you keep the number of individual tanks to a minimum, something KSP is bad at in general. In the toy solar system it's not critical to get the calculations exact since everything requires less and all the tanks are Lego-like constructs. In RO/RSS, using procedural tanks, I don't play without aids.
Edited March 28, 2016 by regex
5 minutes ago, Renegrade said:
I agree that it is not exceedingly difficult to get the information, but it is certainly inconvenient. And getting the information to plug into the equation is by far the more time consuming part of the process than is solving the equation, which was my point.
Like you, I started using the mass indicator in the map view. I'd send my rocket out to the pad, switch to map view, note the mass, and then revert to the VAB. Then strip away the first stage, and do it again to get the starting mass for the second stage. Ditto again if there was a third stage, and so on. Then I'd have to add up the propellant mass for each stage. There is nothing especially difficult about all that, but it takes time and it's sure not what I consider to be fun. And we haven't even mention the situation were we have a liquid core with strap-on SRBs. First we have to compute the combined Isp, then we have to compute how much liquid propellant is remaining after the SRBs are jettisoned. I did all of that for months before I finally surrendered and said screw it and installed KER.
I think it is a really good exercise for somebody to figure out how to do all of that. I'm all for learning. But once somebody learns it, it seems rather pointless to have to go through the grind time after time. I love math, but for even me having to do all that detracted from the enjoyment of the game.
1 minute ago, OhioBob said:
Yeah, once you've learned it and .. well, grok it, there's no need to keep on doing it. My main points where A) it's possible and not too onerous to do it, and B) it's a good learning experience. Well, and once you know it, it can help when your utility of choice doesn't understand a rapier in LF/OX mode or isn't available in the current version (Hello 1.1 bug squishing party!) etc.
I started doing it by hand, then I moved to scripts I wrote, then I used KER, then KER+VOID, and now just VOID with the occasional assistance from my script or quick calculation by hand if VOID gets confused or I'm trying to do something weird like calculate remaining RCS delta-v... (the script has built-in constants for LF/OX from either an LF or OX readout, monoprop, solid fuel, xenon, and even Karbonite for some reason heh)
BTW, VOID might not be as capable, but it's HUDs are much more compact and are less uh.. intrusive than KER's...
wumpus
Calculating the delta-v for simple craft is trivial. Strap on some SRBs (while the main [liquid] rocket is also firing and you will either need to download KER or dig into the derivation to figure out where to plug in all the changes). Note that the equation will naively insist on using low-Isp fuels first, without any checking on the efficiency changes due to the TWR changes. This is pretty critical to understanding where delta-v fits in importance. It is more or less everything between bodies (assuming you are willing to perform Mangalyaan maneuvers to get there) but you must balance TWR for take-off and (powered) landings.
Once you understand delta-v, get a load of this:
Pretty much a complete guide to the Kerbol system. Just remember ULA's recent launch and have a good sized fuel margin.


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You must fill your spirit and your mind with the ballast of the Word and the Spirit, so that you may weather out the storms of life. The more ballast you have, the steadier you will be, and the more able to stay on your chosen course.
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Penn's Landing is the place to be on Thursday nights – Spruce Street Harbor Park presents local artists for a free summer concert series in its awesome waterfront space, and tonight is one not to miss. Hip hop sensation Chill Moody will perform with The Bul Bey, and it is sure to be an evening of chill and breezy summer vibes. For more information, click here. Continue reading →
September 21st, 2010 | 1:40PM | By The Key
Tonight's Concert: Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band at Johnny Brenda's
It's easy to imagine Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band sitting around the living room and having a serious band talk after a particularly rough practice. After all, tensions rise in any band sooner or later, at which point a little cooling off and airing of grievances is probably a good idea for everyone involved. But this Seattle quartet is a special case: It's an almost-all-in-the-family band composed of guitarist Benjamin Verdoes, his wife, keyboardist Traci Eggleston, and Verdoes' adopted little brother, 15-year-old drummer Marshall. (Oh, right, we said quartet: pity poor bassist Jared Price, the only one who isn't part of the family—and who has probably had to play peacemaker on more than one occasion.) We're sure all is fine and dandy in the Verdoes/Eggleston household, but there's something about the band's latest album—Where The Messengers Meet (released last month on Dead Oceans)—that troubles us. Maybe it's the gloomy line in the press release that states, "The recording of Where The Messengers Meet was a patient process, conducted over eight months, in part during Seattle's darkest and rainiest time of year." Or perhaps it's just that, compared to the band's poppy, 2009 self-titled debut, Messengers seems like kind of a joyless (but no less accomplished) affair. Here's to hoping there are no family spats on stage when Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band opens for The Boxer Rebellion and Amusement Parks On Fire at 8:30 p.m. at Johnny Brenda's; tickets to the 21+ show are $10-$12.
December 31st, 2018 | 4:20PM | By John Vettese
Your top 50 XPN songs of 2018
Brandi Carlile | photo by Alysse Gafkjen | courtesy of artist
Year-End Mania is the Key's annual survey of the things below the surface that made 2017 incredible. In this installment, WXPN's listener-voted best songs of 2017.
We played songs, you listened. You voted, we listened. After tallying up the numbers and playing back the jams, we are delighted to bring you a recap of your top 50 XPN songs of 2018.
December 31st, 2018 | 8:00AM | By John Vettese
Listen to XPN's 25 most-played songs of 2018
Death Cab for Cutie | photo by John Vettese for WXPN // Leon Bridges | photo by Michelle Montgomery for WXPN // Natalie Prass | photo by Senia Lopez for WXPN
Beginning at noon today, WXPN will count down its listener-voted top 50 best songs of the year…but before we get to that, let's take a look at the station's most played songs of the year.
The programming staff crunched the numbers and came up with 25 artists that were in the mix the most this year; XPNFest vets (David Byrne, Natalie Prass, Courtney Marie Andrews), Philly favorites (The War on Drugs, Dr. Dog), and generally awesome artists (Courtney Barnett, Leon Bridges, Neko Case, Caroline Rose). Take a listen below, and tune in for the top 50 beginning at noon. Continue reading →
December 14th, 2018 | 1:51PM | By Rachel Barrish
Weezer takes on the extravagant Met Philly with a nonstop hit-parade
Weezer | photo by Rachel Barrish for WXPN
On Wednesday night, Los Angeles rockers Weezer landed on North Broad Street to perform at the newly opened Met Philly. The four-piece group dropped in on tour in advance of their upcoming album, the black album coming in March 2019.
Weezer has always been the band in the back of your mind that you think of as an eclectic cornucopia of genres — rock 'n roll, surf rock, alternative, pop, but always leaning on the indie rocker vibes. Their songs have resonated with so many since the mid '90's self-titled (blue) album came out. Many of those classics were also played in the grand room at The Met. Already a unique venue to see a "legacy alternative rock" band, and having just held its opening night concert with Bob Dylan the week before, it was actually the perfect space for this performance. Because many Weezer fans have been intimately listening to the band since they were teenagers, the large-scale, extravagant venue felt like a better fit than a Frankford Hall or Fillmore. Continue reading →
September 17th, 2018 | 9:34AM | By Bruce Warren
Just released: Live At the World Cafe, Volume 44
Hot off the presses, Live At the World Cafe, Volume 44 is available now for a donation. The 17 song collection includes Cafe performances from Brandi Carlile, Margo Price, Moby, Natalie Prass, Mt. Joy, Nathaniel Ratefliff and the Night Sweats and many more.
You can get a copy of the new collection of World Cafe tracks by donating here. Check out the full track list below.
Live at the World Cafe, Volume 44
1. Brandi Carlile "The Joke"
2. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats "A Little Honey"
3. Margo Price "Heart Of America"
4. Natalie Prass "Short Court Style"
5. Mt. Joy "Silver Lining"
6. Lo Moon "Loveless"
7. First Aid Kit "You Are The Problem Here"
8. Lake Street Dive "Musta Been Something"
9. Blind Boys Of Alabama "I Can See"
10. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds "Holy Mountain"
11. Sunflower Bean "I Was A Fool"
12. Moby "The Sorrow Tree"
13. Courtney Marie Andrews "Kindness Of Strangers"
14. Darlingside "Eschaton"
15. Lizz Wright "Singing In My Soul"
16. Sunny War "If It Wasn't Broken"
17. Jen Cloher "Analysis Paralysis"
September 5th, 2018 | 4:02PM | By Sarah Hojsak
Petal covers Tom Petty's "You Got Lucky" for Devinyl Splits
Petal | photo by Katie Krulock | courtesy of the artist
Petal has been showcasing her songwriting recently with release of her new album Magic Gone, but her latest project takes her fully into cover song territory. Kiley Lotz has teamed up with Brooklyn songwriter Kevin Devine for the latest in his Devinyl Splits series, which periodically releases 7″ splits featuring songs by Devine and different guest artists.
Petal's half of the split is a rendition of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "You Got Lucky," the lead single from their album Long After Dark. Minus the psychedelic synths of the 1982 original, Petal's version takes the song in a new direction that is both heavy and sparse at the same time, with toned-down acoustic guitar and Lotz's emotion-filled powerhouse vocals at the forefront. Continue reading →
#XPN5050: 2000
PRESS PLAY: 5 New Albums out July 12th!
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We are a High End Mens Sock Brand, "The Ivy League"
Our prime clientele are elite high net-worth individuals with a decerning attention to detail. We are looking for a Logo that we can create our brand around and also include on product packaging.
We make luxury high-end socks, What I want is a logo which is the text "The Ivy League".
Preferably on a black background with white text but I am open to suggestions. The logo should incorporate an Ivy Leaf somewhere.
eg: Ralph Lauren Polo Horse or the Lacoste Crocodile.
The Logo will be put on the Sock packaging so it should be clear and most importantly make people want to buy the item!
Any other sort of design/layout schemes for the e-commerce retail website would be much appreciated also!


text:
namespace mcld {

class Module;
class LinkerConfig;
class IRBuilder;
class Relocation;
class RelocationFactory;
class Relocator;
class Layout;
class ArchiveReader;
class ObjectReader;
class DynObjReader;
class BinaryReader;
class ObjectWriter;
class DynObjWriter;
class ExecWriter;
class BinaryWriter;
class LDFileFormat;
class LDSymbol;
class LDSection;
class SectionData;
class Input;
class GOT;
class MemoryArea;
class MemoryAreaFactory;
class BranchIslandFactory;
class StubFactory;
class ObjectBuilder;

//===----------------------------------------------------------------------===//
/// TargetLDBackend - Generic interface to target specific assembler backends.
//===----------------------------------------------------------------------===//
class TargetLDBackend
{
  TargetLDBackend(const TargetLDBackend &);   // DO NOT IMPLEMENT
  void operator=(const TargetLDBackend &);  // DO NOT IMPLEMENT

protected:
  TargetLDBackend(const LinkerConfig& pConfig);

public:
  virtual ~TargetLDBackend();

  // -----  target dependent  ----- //
  virtual void initTargetSegments(IRBuilder& pBuilder) { }
  virtual void initTargetSections(Module& pModule, ObjectBuilder& pBuilder) { }
  virtual void initTargetSymbols(IRBuilder& pBuilder, Module& pModule) { }
  virtual void initTargetRelocation(IRBuilder& pBuilder) { }
  virtual bool initStandardSymbols(IRBuilder& pBuilder, Module& pModule) = 0;

  virtual bool initRelocator() = 0;

  virtual Relocator* getRelocator() = 0;

  // -----  format dependent  ----- //
  virtual ArchiveReader* createArchiveReader(Module&) = 0;
  virtual ObjectReader*  createObjectReader(IRBuilder&) = 0;
  virtual DynObjReader*  createDynObjReader(IRBuilder&) = 0;
  virtual BinaryReader*  createBinaryReader(IRBuilder&) = 0;
  virtual ObjectWriter*  createWriter() = 0;

  virtual bool initStdSections(ObjectBuilder& pBuilder) = 0;

  /// layout - layout method
  virtual void layout(Module& pModule) = 0;

  /// preLayout - Backend can do any needed modification before layout
  virtual void preLayout(Module& pModule, IRBuilder& pBuilder) = 0;

  /// postLayout - Backend can do any needed modification after layout
  virtual void postLayout(Module& pModule, IRBuilder& pBuilder) = 0;

  /// postProcessing - Backend can do any needed modification in the final stage
  virtual void postProcessing(MemoryArea& pOutput) = 0;

  /// section start offset in the output file
  virtual size_t sectionStartOffset() const = 0;

  /// computeSectionOrder - compute the layout order of the given section
  virtual unsigned int getSectionOrder(const LDSection& pSectHdr) const = 0;

  /// sizeNamePools - compute the size of regular name pools
  /// In ELF executable files, regular name pools are .symtab, .strtab.,
  /// .dynsym, .dynstr, and .hash
  virtual void sizeNamePools(Module& pModule) = 0;

  /// finalizeSymbol - Linker checks pSymbol.reserved() if it's not zero,
  /// then it will ask backend to finalize the symbol value.
  /// @return ture - if backend set the symbol value sucessfully
  /// @return false - if backend do not recognize the symbol
  virtual bool finalizeSymbols() = 0;

  /// finalizeTLSSymbol - Linker asks backend to set the symbol value when it
  /// meets a TLS symbol
  virtual bool finalizeTLSSymbol(LDSymbol& pSymbol) = 0;

  /// allocateCommonSymbols - allocate common symbols in the corresponding
  /// sections.
  virtual bool allocateCommonSymbols(Module& pModule) = 0;

  /// mergeSection - merge target dependent sections.
  virtual bool mergeSection(Module& pModule, LDSection& pInputSection)
  { return true; }

  /// updateSectionFlags - update pTo's flags when merging pFrom
  /// update the output section flags based on input section flags.
  /// FIXME: (Luba) I know ELF need to merge flags, but I'm not sure if
  /// MachO and COFF also need this.
  virtual bool updateSectionFlags(LDSection& pTo, const LDSection& pFrom)
  { return true; }

  /// readSection - read a target dependent section
  virtual bool readSection(Input& pInput, SectionData& pSD)
  { return true; }

  /// sizeInterp - compute the size of program interpreter's name
  /// In ELF executables, this is the length of dynamic linker's path name
  virtual void sizeInterp() = 0;

  // -----  relaxation  ----- //
  virtual bool initBRIslandFactory() = 0;
  virtual bool initStubFactory() = 0;
  virtual bool initTargetStubs() { return true; }

  virtual BranchIslandFactory* getBRIslandFactory() = 0;
  virtual StubFactory*         getStubFactory() = 0;

  /// relax - the relaxation pass
  virtual bool relax(Module& pModule, IRBuilder& pBuilder) = 0;

  /// mayRelax - return true if the backend needs to do relaxation
  virtual bool mayRelax() = 0;

protected:
  const LinkerConfig& config() const { return m_Config; }

private:
  const LinkerConfig& m_Config;
};

} // End mcld namespace

#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Lookup tables and performance I am using 6 lookup tables in my mysql database. There will be frequent insert,update and delete queries in the db. Will that badly affect the performance. Do I need to save the data as it is without using lookup tables?

A: If you are doing a look-up to these reference tables for every DML statement, it could be a performance issue - depending on many things (hardware allocated to your database, volume of data being manipulated, volume of reference data, number of look-ups per DML, indexing on reference tables, whether or not you can combine a simpl look-up in another DML statement,...) that I just don't know about your system.
One strategy to avoid such problems is to cache the data from look-up tables in your application when the application starts up. Then your application doesn't have to make a database call, it can do the look-up in a local hashtable (or some other structure with very good look-up time). You could also use something like memcached to store the reference data. It's also sometimes useful to add functionlity to your application so that the caches can be reloaded from the reference tables "live" (while the application is already running). This is very useful when testing changes that are dependent on the reference data in an application that has a long start-up time.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I have three Eid outfit looks. I was going to put them all in one blog post, but you would have scrolled down forever. Haha! The struggle is real when you have too many good shots.
Anyways here is LOOK 1 featuring Secret Garden Scarf (only one left btw!) GET IT!


In the past, sitting in front of the TV intrinsically implied staring at the TV programs utilizing a TV. Today, a TV isn't the main stage accessible to stare at the TV programs. The present gatherings of people in the world are living in a multiplatform domain. Diverse video stages, including TV, the Internet on a PC, and cell phones, are accessible for watching video content.
The dynamic changes in the video commercial center may undermine parties related to customary TV, including communicate/link systems, communicate stations, and link and satellite TV specialist co-ops. Be that as it may, the pervasive utilization of long-range informal communication destinations may be a chance to help TV use on the planet.
The ubiquity of long range interpersonal communication destinations has brought about a developing marvel called social TV: individuals share what they watch with others in various areas by means of person to person communication locales.
Buying a TV can be baffling on the off chance that you don't have a clue what you're searching for. From cylinders to plasma, there are a larger number of models on store racks than fronts of magazines. Before investigating simple versus computerized, SDTV, HDTV, and EDTV investigate the sorts of TVs in the present purchaser showcase. Here's a rundown of TVs types you'll find in stores crosswise over North America.
Otherwise called direct view, a cylinder TV is the nearest thing to the one gen X-ers watched when they were kids. The envisioned gadget is a cathode beam tube, which is a particular vacuum tube. With or without science, CRTs come in all shapes and sizes up to around 40-inches. They highlight a decent picture from all points, the best dark dimension, and are essentially lower in cost than different TVs. Regardless of their massive and overwhelming form, tube TVs are enduring and acclaimed for holding a decent picture all through its life expectancy, which can be decades.
Advanced Light Processing was imagined in 1987 by Texas Instruments. It is named for its capacity to process light carefully with the guide of an optical semiconductor called a Digital Micromirror Device or DMD chip. The DMD chip is contained more than one million mirrors. The span of each mirror is under 1/5″ the width of a human hair. At present, more than fifty makers produce somewhere around one model of a DLP TV. DLP's come in the back and front projection. They are not defenseless to consume in, however, a few people do see a glitch called Rainbow Effect.
Regardless of whether it's a level board or back projection, there are a huge amount of decisions available for LCD or Liquid Crystal Display TVs. Level board shows are by a long shot the most famous LCD TV due to their flimsy, lightweight development, which is advantageous for individuals who need to utilize their LCD as a TV and PC screen. LCDs are not powerless to copy in. LCDs with moderate reaction times can demonstrate a ghosting impact, while different LCDs can have a screen entryway impact. This is the reason it is critical to see the LCD screen before purchasing to check whether the screen addresses your issues.
Plasma is the kind of TV most connected with the top of the line home hardware. This is essentially in light of the fact that they get a ton of promoting that reveals to us plasma has the best picture cash can purchase. All plasma TVs arrive in a level board assortment. Most are measured in the 40-49″ territory. They are aggressively valued against LCD level board TVs and highlight a dazzling picture that places you amidst the activity. Plasmas gauge more than LCD's, however nothing extra backings couldn't deal with. They are vulnerable to consume in yet in spite of gossipy tidbits despite what might be expected, the gasses that control the image cannot be refilled. While they are excessively youthful to precisely gauge, plasma TVs should last somewhere in the range of 10-20 years.


text:
Articles about Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Little Black Number and Leather Boots
Quartet no. 4 by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker through the eyes of its performers — By Inès Piovesan
Dancing Bartók, Beethoven and Schönberg
Interview with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker — By Felipe Sanguinetti
Music in the blood
Meeting Georges-Elie Octors and Tom De Cock — By Solène Souriau
Dressing for a ballet
An interview with Dries Van Noten — By Numéro
Do what you do
Steve Reich on Drumming Live — By Trax Magazine
Podcast Drumming Live
"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" - by France Musique — By Stéphane Grant
A shot of energy
Drumming Live in rehearsal — By Aliénor de Foucaud and Juliette Puaux
Drumming Live enters the Paris Opera Ballet's repertoire
A photo reportage — By Octave
Drumming Live: An invitation to dance
Encounter with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker — By Solène Souriau and Simon Hatab
All the same, men and women alike
Interview with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker — By Wannes Gyselinck
Podcast Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker


text:
#include <aws/autoscaling/model/DescribeAutoScalingGroupsRequest.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/StringUtils.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/memory/stl/AWSStringStream.h>

using namespace Aws::AutoScaling::Model;
using namespace Aws::Utils;

DescribeAutoScalingGroupsRequest::DescribeAutoScalingGroupsRequest() :
    m_autoScalingGroupNamesHasBeenSet(false),
    m_nextTokenHasBeenSet(false),
    m_maxRecords(0),
    m_maxRecordsHasBeenSet(false)
{
}

Aws::String DescribeAutoScalingGroupsRequest::SerializePayload() const
{
  Aws::StringStream ss;
  ss << "Action=DescribeAutoScalingGroups&";
  if(m_autoScalingGroupNamesHasBeenSet)
  {
    unsigned autoScalingGroupNamesCount = 1;
    for(auto& item : m_autoScalingGroupNames)
    {
      ss << "AutoScalingGroupNames.member." << autoScalingGroupNamesCount << "="
          << StringUtils::URLEncode(item.c_str()) << "&";
      autoScalingGroupNamesCount++;
    }
  }
  if(m_nextTokenHasBeenSet)
  {
    ss << "NextToken=" << StringUtils::URLEncode(m_nextToken.c_str()) << "&";
  }
  if(m_maxRecordsHasBeenSet)
  {
    ss << "MaxRecords=" << m_maxRecords << "&";
  }
  ss << "Version=2011-01-01";
  return ss.str();
}


Employees and Subcontractors at the Toronto Pearson International Airport Terminal 3 project celebrated safety which featured, MySafeWork founder and workplace safety champion Rob Ellis, EllisDon president and CEO Geoff Smith, and Kieran Hawe, EllisDon senior vice president and area manager for Toronto.
The event focused on EllisDon's Journey of Safety Excellence. EllisDon and their Subcontractor partners "took the pledge" by signing both the Prime Minister's and EllisDon's Jersey of Courage, committing to collectively improving workplace safety, finding and sharing new ideas and innovations for safety strategies and transferring safety knowledge and experience to the next generation and to families in our local communities.
The company's commitment to safety was also celebrated at the event, sharing the recently-won Canada's Safest Employer Award trophy with its GTAA (Greater Toronto Airports Authority) project team members.
EllisDon continues to support Rob Ellis of MySafeWork, promoting and sharing safety knowledge and expertise. To learn more about Rob Ellis' story and the Jersey of Courage, visit mysafework.com.
EllisDon is active throughout industry-based safety committees which provide staff, subcontractors and owners the best resources to achieve the safety performance.


text:
Starting the conversation: the Irish Funds Fintech Working Group Speaker Series
My introduction to the world of technology was not a typical one; the year was 1990 and I had recently returned from a year living in Spain when a friend asked me if I would be interested using my rudimentary Spanish to test localised software. I leapt at the chance and found myself earning good money while learning how to use a mouse and acquiring basic computer skills by following the test scripts.
By 1996 I had moved to project management and the "browser", which allowed users to interact with internet content across the World Wide Web, had begun to herald the beginning of a revolution. The "dot.com" boom followed quickly and web and ecommerce applications proliferated with fortunes being made, and lost, through harnessing, or failing to harness, the potential offered by these new technologies.
It was an exciting time with new emerging technologies transforming how we thought about managing people and process to deliver the results our customers wanted. With the changed paradigm a brand new vernacular also emerged and those who could understand the concepts and translate them into action plans, for both their work environment and their personal careers, thrived.
The key to this success was for individuals and companies to establish a broad understanding of what emerging technologies could offer, how they might transform their operational world, and to acquire a shared vocabulary allowing them to usefully articulate how best to exploit these opportunities to become more efficient and productive.
This lesson is pertinent to the funds industry today as a combination of exponential growth in processing power, the low relative cost of storage, and the emergence or coming of age of new technologies (such as Distributed Ledger Technology, Augmented Intelligence, Ontologies and Semantics, and Robotic Process Automation) reveal huge opportunities to bring the business into the 21st Century.
The Irish Funds Fintech Working Group Speaker Series
The Irish Funds Fintech Working Group Speaker Series aims to contribute to this journey by providing a forum where experts with knowledge of emerging technologies and their use cases impart knowledge of the basics in simple straightforward language to start the conversation about the possibilities they afford.
Three sessions have been held so far with very good turnouts. The successes of the Speaker Series Events to date are reflected in the positive survey responses from attendees and it would appear there is a big appetite from the industry for more of this kind of event.
It is planned to continue to hold sessions monthly with details of topics and venues being finalised for Dublin on the 2nd and 30th of May; a Q3 Cork event in also in planning.
Hopefully you can make it to one or all of these, I look forward to starting the conversation with you there.
Dáire Lawlor, Chair of Irish Funds Fintech Working Group and Head of Consultancy Services Group for State Street Global Services in Ireland
Dáire Lawlor is Chair of the Irish Funds Fintech Working Group and Head of Consultancy Services Group for State Street Global Services in Ireland.


We are always looking for qualified volunteers to assist with training nurses in Africa.
We will gladly accept donations of training literature, surgical instruments or even Canadian Tire Money.
We accept monetary donations directly on our web site.
We offer several items for sale to assist in our fundraising efforts.


Greenridge Guest house offers accommodation in Peterhead. Every room comes with a flat-screen TV. Some units have a seating area where you can relax. You will find a kettle in the room. Greenridge Guest house features free WiFi .


text:
Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Quickening
by CoramDeo
Bashir: "There is no cure. The Dominion made sure of that. And I was so arrogant, I thought I could find one in a week."
Dax: "Maybe it was arrogant to think that, but it's even more arrogant to think there isn't a cure just because you couldn't find it."
By nature I love brevity: Maybe I'm in the minority here, because nobody ever seems to talk about this one among the great episodes of the show, but this has always been one of my favorites of all of DS9. Perhaps a little rough around the edges, especially near the end, but the characters, emotions, and message are just right.
Episodes revolving around Bashir vary dramatically. Some, like 'Our Man Bashir,' are generally beloved, while others, such as 'The Passenger,' are typically recognized as abysmal. The writers eventually began to fall into a pattern of pairing him with either O'Brien or Garak, both of which worked wonderfully for many episodes over the course of the series. What that meant, though, was that the character rarely got to shine on his own. That's a shame, because this is a perfect example of the great things you can do with Bashir.
Bashir can be easily described as an arrogant genius. All of his character's material revolves around these things, but rarely are they portrayed with such depth as it is here. Scenes like the one in which he tells Ekoria about his 'first patient,' teddy bear Kukalaka, do a wonderful job of showing his humanity underneath all the brilliance, and his struggle here is very real and relatable. What do you do when you are the only person who is good enough to do the job, and how do you react? Bashir's tendency, of course, is toward bravado and confidence, but these are the very things that he recognizes as flaws in himself. These are the very things he is trying to overcome. But in this case, Bashir's unwavering confidence in himself is the only thing keeping hope alive for people who have none.
Because of course, Bashir isn't the only one in this story. The Teplan homeward is populated with a few remarkably compelling supporting characters, each of which represents a different approach to their horrible situation.
We'll start with Epran, the typical member of the population. Epran is initially skeptical that Bashir might be able to do something about the Blight. This is indicative of the state of mind of the Teplans, who have been let down so many times before and who have lived with this disease for so long that they have lost all hope that anything can be done. It is not just the Blight that has made the Teplans' life miserable. As long as they were working to solve their problem, they were not in misery. But as soon as they began to give up, the misery really began. Life without hope is the worst part of the Teplans' situation.
This is further supported by Ekoria, a woman who refuses to live without hope, and is so much happier as a result. Ekoria, rather than give up on her life, found something to live for. She latched onto the hope that her baby gave her and refused to let go. It helps that we are made within a few scenes to care about Ekoria. She works from every angle, from Naren Shankar's script to Rene Auberjonois' direction to Ellen Wheeler's beautiful performance. I really think Ekoria makes this episode.
Last we have Trevean, the man who took it upon himself to ease his people's suffering. I see Trevean as a man who used to be just like Bashir, but has been hardened and beaten down by the drudgery of failure. But Trevean never stopped looking to help people. Even when he had given up hope, he helped them in the only way he saw: he ended their misery. It's the natural reaction of a man who has no more hope, but sees a need and is unable to sit by and do nothing. Trevean is perhaps the saddest of the supporting characters, because he is ultimately contributing to the misery of Teplan life out of a need to be useful.
The message of 'The Quickening' is wonderful, and one I support wholeheartedly. The episode comes to a close when Ekoria's baby is born Blight-free because of all of Bashir's inoculations. Ultimately, the source of hope comes not from a cure for the sickness, but a promise of new life after it. It's a brilliant way to provide a source of hope without being untrue to the story. If Bashir had found a cure and been able to save all the Teplans, it would have undermined the weight of all that had come before it. This way, the episode can give Bashir his lesson while also providing hope to the miserable Teplans. I love it.
Strange New Worlds:
The Teplan planet is located just outside Dominion space. It lies in ruins since the Jem'Hadar destroyed much of the Teplan infrastructure.
New Life and New Civilizations:
The Teplans are a species that lives in the Gamma Quadrant. They used to be technologically advanced, before the Dominion came and brought the Blight. The Blight is a disease that kills everyone who has it, most before they can have children. Its telltale symptom is a network of painful lesions all over a person's body.
Pensees:
-Rene Auberjonois felt he really came into his own as a director on this episode.
-I love the opening bit, where Quark has put his own advertisements into the station's replicators and monitors. Worf's reaction is the best.
-I mentioned Ellen Wheeler's performance earlier, but both Dylan Haggerty (Epran) and Michael Sarrazin (Trevean) also do fantastic work here.
-This is a favorite of both Alexander Siddig and Terry Farrell.
-The later stages of the Blight were done in post-production using motion-capture. This was long before mo-cap came into common use as a regular effect.
-Rene Auberjonois approached this episode from a religious standpoint, often framing Ekoria like the Virgin Mary in classic paintings.
-Ira Steven Behr originally conceived this episode with a metaphor for AIDS, but this was dropped by Naren Shankar when he wrote the script. Star Trek would later tackle the AIDS metaphor in the Enterprise episode 'Stigma.'
Quark's jingle: "Come to Quark's, Quark's is fun! Come right now, don't walk, run!"
Kira: "If all your little advertisements aren't purged from our systems by the time I get back from the Gamma Quadrant, I will come to Quark's, and believe me, I will have fun."
Bashir: "I thought you were a healer!"
Trevean: "I am. I take away pain."
Bashir: "The first thing I have to do is run a bio-spectral analysis on an asymptomatic individual."
Dax: "Loosely translated, that means he needs a volunteer. Great. Now, if you'd like to take a seat, the doctor will be with you in a moment. They love to keep you waiting. It makes them feel important."
Epran: "I canceled my death for you. I was really looking forward to it."
6 out of 6 Kukalakas.
CoramDeo got a new job climbing the walls.
Star Trek DS9 season 4
Star Trek DS9 home
Tags: CoramDeo, Star Trek Deep Space Nine


text:
Q: Does this scroll effect have a name? I'm looking to find the name of this scrolling effect.
As you scroll, the text on the screen changes, as if you were going through a slideshow. The gif is from this website.
I have an idea of how to implement it, but would prefer to use some js library (ideally for react, but not required) that already implements it. Does anyone have an idea of the name, or some library that has it? Thank you!

A: It's just called scroll-linked animations.
Typically for website animations, you would want to use CSS keyframes, as it is more performant than using javascript. Though you can always trigger CSS keyframe animations with javascript, and tie it to scroll events to create the above effect.


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Part 4: Allocating resources for supporting students Ministry of Education: Managing support for students with high special educational needs. https://oag.parliament.nz/2009/special-education/part4.htm https://oag.parliament.nz/@@site-logo/logo.png
In this Part, we set out our findings about how the Ministry:
allocates funding and resources to support students;
makes sure that students receive timely support; and
trains and supports its staff who provide support for students.
Summary of our findings
The Ministry pools funding for ORRS and School High Health Needs Fund nationally, and distributes it to districts for allocation to students. For the Severe Behaviour and Speech Language Initiatives, districts receive funding allocations based on the total student population of each district. The allocations may not match the level of need in a particular district.
The Ministry had processes for allocating resources and funding to students. These processes and the timeframes for providing services varied across and within the districts we visited. Managing the balance of teacher aide hour allocations for ORRS and the School High Health Needs Fund was putting pressure on some district budgets. The Ministry was implementing a National Moderation Plan to achieve better consistency in its approach to the ORRS and School High Health Needs Fund allocation process. The Ministry was also implementing processes for more timely delivery of its services for Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative support.
Staff capacity problems in some districts caused significant delays in providing Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative support to students. The Ministry was working to improve this through closer contact with schools and RTLBs, and also improving its waiting list data. Ministry staff received regular and appropriate training.
We have made four recommendations in this Part, for the Ministry to improve:
the consistency with which districts allocate and moderate ORRS and School High Health Needs Fund teacher aide hours;
the timeliness with which students receive services;
its checking of the integrity of its waiting list data; and
its management of staff capacity.
Allocating funding and resources to students
At the time of our audit, the Ministry's approach to allocating funding and resources to students receiving support through the four initiatives was not nationally consistent. This meant students with similar needs and circumstances could receive different levels of support in different parts of the country.
Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes and the School High Health Needs Fund
When students are verified as eligible for ORRS and the School High Health Needs Fund, they generate a set funding figure. The Ministry pools this funding, and allocates some funding directly to "fund holder" schools.11
The rest is allocated to the Ministry's district offices. Each district office then allocates funding to students who are assessed as eligible and enrolled at schools in its district. This funding is for specialist services, teacher aide hours, and extra resources and materials.
Districts receive weekly notification from the Ministry's national office, confirming which students are to receive ORRS and School High Health Needs Fund support. District offices then allocate and co-ordinate specialist Ministry staff and teacher aide hours according to staff capacity and the student's level of need.
The individual circumstances of the student are also considered, such as whether resources are already in place in the school for other students with high special educational needs, the degree of support from the student's family, and the student's current learning needs. In districts we visited, the allocation occurred through regular team meetings, or was decided by the service manager, or was agreed at meetings that included staff from different service centres within a district.
Most of the district funding for ORRS students (70%), and all of the funding for School High Health Needs Fund students, is made as a contribution to funding teacher aides to support the student in the classroom.12 The funding supports an estimated 17.5 teacher aide hours each week for a student with very high needs, and an estimated 10 teacher aide hours each week for a student with high needs (for both ORRS and the School High Health Needs Fund). The hours are then pooled at a district level.
The teacher aide hours are allocated by district offices to students each year (usually in October or November) for the next calendar year. This occurs through the Ministry's rating and allocation process (known as "moderation"), which includes these steps:
schools submit requests for teacher aide hours to the Ministry based on the needs of the student, and with the help of the lead caseworker;13
these requests are considered by a team who assess each student's learning, sensory, and physical needs using the Ministry's national descriptors and rating scale, which generates the number of teacher aide hours the student is likely to need;
the Ministry district moderation panel considers the individual student's current needs and circumstances, and decides whether the student needs fewer or more hours than the rating scale has indicated; and
regional moderation meetings compare allocations between districts (further adjustments may then be made by districts).
Students who need fewer hours are called "unders" and those who need more are called "overs". This process allows the district to balance the level of resource for individual students against the regionally moderated level of resource for students with that level of need and in similar circumstances.
At the time of our audit, the approaches to "moderation" were many and varied. Approaches in the districts we visited, and other approaches that were reported to us, included:
in several districts, involving only Ministry specialist and administrative teams;
in one district, involving parents/caregivers, educators, and the student's lead caseworker to a greater or lesser extent;
in some districts, using the student's Individual Education Programme (IEP) plan as the basis for allocation;
in one district, adapting the Ministry's national rating scale; and
in some districts, involving either teams or the whole staff in decisions about allocating teacher aide hours.
The risk of districts using different approaches to allocate teacher aide hours is that students with similar needs in different parts of the country may receive more or fewer hours. The number of hours they receive could depend on how the rating scale has been adapted or interpreted in their district, who has been involved in the rating and allocation process, and whether the student's IEP plan has been used.
In several of the districts we visited, Ministry staff estimated that there were generally more "overs" students in their districts than "unders" students. They told us that in the past few years this had made balancing the distribution of hours difficult within a fixed budget. In some cases, they had relied on the School High Health Needs Fund and other funding sources to supplement the ORRS funding.
In 2008, the Ministry surveyed staff about the arrangements for ORRS, and became aware of variability in nearly all aspects of the funding and moderation processes. The Ministry has now implemented a National Moderation Plan, in response to those survey findings. The National Moderation Plan includes re-establishing national criteria for funding, nationally consistent annual moderation processes and rating scales, and nationally consistent letter templates explaining how teacher aide hours are allocated and what the funding is provided for.
The National Moderation Plan also separates out the School High Health Needs Fund and the ORRS process and funding, which will enable the Ministry to be clear about the differences in figures between projected allocation and actual surpluses or deficits. The Ministry expects that, once national consistency has been established and the next moderation round has been completed in October 2009, it will be able to determine with greater certainty whether districts have a greater number of students needing more teacher aide hours in each district. The National Moderation Plan includes reviewing and co-ordinating district's budget management strategies.
In our view, the Ministry needs to give priority to implementing its National Moderation Plan for ORRS and School High Health Needs Fund funding and moderation processes, to ensure that funding and resources are allocated as fairly and equally to students throughout the country as possible within fixed district budgets. The risk of continuing with varying approaches to rating students' needs is that the number of hours allocated to students with similar needs and circumstances in different districts will be different.
We recommend that the Ministry of Education ensure, through its National Moderation Plan, the consistency and appropriateness of its approach to moderating teacher aide hours for students supported through the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes and the School High Health Needs Fund.
Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative
There are no nationally prescribed processes for funding and allocating Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative support services. However, allocation decisions are usually made in a similar way by district offices, with variation according to budget constraints and demand. Districts receive funding allocations for both initiatives from the Ministry's national office in April of each year, for specialist Ministry staff, based on the district's student population.14 Because it is based on population, the funding allocation for a district may not match the district's actual level of need for these initiatives.
Districts then allocate their specialist services and support worker hours depending on their staff numbers and according to the number of students they are supporting. In most districts, specialists make allocation decisions in consultation with the service manager, according to their caseloads. Referrals are prioritised for allocation to specialist staff according to the level of need, assessed against the national criteria used in that district, and also according to waiting times. The Greater Wellington district also adds a decile weighting to its allocation methods.
The Ministry told us that it balances capacity with quality and quantity of service delivery, to avoid spreading its services so thinly that they are ineffective. For the Severe Behaviour Initiative, the Ministry told us that it considers more intense interventions to be the most effective, and bases the allocation for support on depth and intensity rather than quantity. The Ministry also told us that, as research shows that interventions for severe behaviour are more effective when children are younger, the rating scales used to assess need in the allocation process are weighted toward children in the younger age groups.
District offices have a limited amount of flexibility to determine staffing levels and capacity within their funding allocations. Ministry staff in districts we visited told us that they have, or were setting up, close contact with schools and RTLBs, in accordance with the RTLB–Ministry protocols discussed in paragraphs 3.26 and 3.40. Using this contact to understand likely trends and patterns of need is expected to help districts to prioritise better and avoid the risk of having little or no staff capacity when needs arise.
We encourage the Ministry's district offices to continue to work actively with RTLBs, schools, and early childhood centres, gathering information that will help with more accurate forecasting and planning for funding and resources within district allocations, and staff capacity. This is important for providing a consistent level of support to students receiving Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative support throughout the country.
Making sure that students receive timely funding and resources
At the time of our audit, the Ministry did not have clear or consistent processes to ensure that funding and resources are allocated to students in a timely manner. The Ministry did not have reliable data about the numbers of students on waiting lists for the Severe Behaviour Initiative and the Speech Language Initiative.
All four initiatives
Ministry staff record information about students who have been referred or verified, allocation of staff to cases, services provided, and closure of cases for all four initiatives in the Ministry's national reporting and work outputs database, Te Pātaka.
The district offices we visited managed the allocation of resources differently. They had different schedules for how regularly they met to decide on referrals and the allocation of resources, different methods for making those decisions, and different patterns of communication with early childhood education centres, schools, and RTLBs.
Some district offices we visited had combined early intervention and school teams, and managed the change of support easily when children move from an early childhood education centre to a school. Other district offices had protocols or tools such as "transition plans", which they used with the early childhood centre or the school where the student will go.
Some of the districts we visited were having trouble recruiting and retaining psychologists and speech-language therapists. Educators we talked to as part of the audit commented that they sometimes received services between one and two terms after referrals for support were accepted. By this time, the student's behaviour could have changed, or the student could have left the school.
The Te Pātaka User Manual sets out a 10-day timeframe for acceptance of a referral, but states that cases should not be allocated if services are unlikely to start within six to eight weeks of acceptance.
After our audit, the Ministry introduced an expectation that there be no more than 90 days (about one school term) between referral (or a successful application) and receiving support through ORRS, the Severe Behaviour Initiative, or the Speech Language Initiative. The Ministry is currently working to ensure that students receive services within 90 days of acceptance after referral. (We discuss this further in paragraphs 4.33 to 4.39.)
At the time of our audit, the Ministry had not set a required timeframe for allocating specialist staff time or teacher aide hours to a student eligible for ORRS or the School High Health Needs Fund. However, Ministry staff told us that most Ministry offices did this within two or three weeks, or sooner if the school already had a teacher aide whose hours could be extended to cover the student.
The Ministry provides services through the Severe Behaviour Initiative either as an immediate response to a severe situation or after receiving a referral from its early intervention staff or RTLBs. The Ministry has a policy of responding quickly to requests for severe behaviour support, with a 24-hour response time to a situation that poses safety risks to an individual or group.
At the time of our audit, staff in many district offices and RTLBs worked together in consultation or according to Ministry protocols so that children received support quickly (immediately or within two weeks). As noted earlier, protocols for RTLBs, schools, and the Ministry working collaboratively are now in place nationally. Most districts have interim intervention measures, especially for urgent cases, to provide support while staff consider the referral. staff in the district offices also keep schools informed about waiting lists.
At the time of our audit, the Ministry had not specified how long it should take to allocate a specialist after an eligible student was referred for support through the Speech Language Initiative. District offices took similar amounts of time to process referrals through to their acceptance, but their timeliness in providing support depended on staff capacity and the level of need.
The Ministry has recently implemented a standard timeframe for referral decisions, and the allocation and delivery of support, to ensure that students receive services no more than 90 days after they have been referred.
In our view, the Ministry should ensure that it implements and monitors its standard timeframe for the allocation of funding and resources for all four initiatives, to ensure that all students receive support in a timely manner. If students are not supported within a reasonable timeframe, their situation may worsen and they may be more difficult to manage when support is provided.
We recommend that the Ministry of Education implement and monitor its standard timeframes for allocating funding and resources for all four initiatives, to ensure that all students receive support in a timely manner.
Severe Behaviour Initiative and the Speech Language Initiative
The Ministry has identified three points in the referral process for the Severe Behaviour Initiative and the Speech Language Initiative where referred students might be placed on a waiting list:
after the referral is received and before it is accepted;
after the referral is accepted and before resources are allocated; and
after resources are allocated and before the student receives any services.
Ministry staff are required to enter data into Te Pātaka at each point for each case, and also when cases are closed. At the time of our audit, the Ministry was not able to accurately determine how many students were waiting at any of these points, because the information in Te Pātaka was neither complete nor reliable.
The Ministry was not able to give us reliable waiting list data for all districts. However, it knew that the Manukau district had a particularly high waiting list for the Speech Language Initiative, estimated in mid-2008 at about 800 students. The Ministry told us that this number could include duplicate entries, and the names of students who were no longer in the district.
After our audit, the Ministry told us that it was checking the integrity of the data in Te Pātaka. The Ministry is confident that implementing the Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative referral criteria will result in accurate record keeping and better data within Te Pātaka, and provide the Ministry's national and district offices with accurate waiting list figures.
In July 2008, the Manukau district office made a project of its efforts to reduce its waiting list. It reviewed all the student files on its waiting list, limited the service period, closed some cases, and used private speech-language therapists to deliver services. This reduced the waiting list significantly (by about 75% by February 2009). At that time, it was still the largest waiting list in the country, which reflected the level of need for speech language support in the area, and also the difficulties in finding specialist staff to work in the district.
After our audit, the Ministry put in place monthly monitoring reports based on the upgraded data in Te Pātaka. These reports provide districts with more accurate waiting list figures at each point of waiting. These figures also provide a clearer overall picture for informing management at the national level.
In our view, the Ministry needs to further improve and regularly check the integrity of data held in Te Pātaka, so it has more certainty about the demand for its services. Without this certainty, it is difficult to plan and prioritise resources. The Ministry should also actively review and manage districts where staff capacity to provide support services is not meeting this demand. If district offices are not able to manage staff capacity, services may reduce and the waiting times for students may become unacceptably long.
We recommend that the Ministry of Education further improve and regularly check the integrity of the data held in its national reporting and work outputs database.
We recommend that the Ministry of Education actively review and manage districts where staff capacity to provide support services is not meeting the demand for services.
Training and supporting staff who provide support for students
The Ministry's staff who provide support through the four initiatives are appropriately experienced. The Ministry provides staff with access to appropriate training and support.
The Ministry's specialist staff responsible for providing support to students include educational psychologists, speech-language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, special education advisors, advisors on deaf children, Māori and Pasifika liaison staff, and behaviour and communication support workers. The Ministry's specialists work with students, their schools, and parents/caregivers in both an advisory and facilitative role, particularly when a student is receiving support from other staff, or needs to access support from other agencies.
As part of the audit, we spoke with several Ministry staff who were responsible for providing support for students with high special educational needs. Most staff had many years of experience in special education.
The Ministry prepared service standards in 2006 and provided staff with training about those standards. The Specialist Service Standards document sets out guidance for staff responsible for providing support to students. It includes an expectation about the quality of service that should be provided, professional practice standards, good practice guides for each standard, and specific behaviour standards.
District offices provide induction, training, and study programmes that include training and mentoring for specific disciplinary groups, training in technology and the use of assessment tools, and training for teacher aides and support workers. District offices have also produced guidelines for staff about internal management and managing client cases.
staff are supervised by the service team leader within their service teams, and by the lead practitioner within their specialist discipline. The lead practitioner (there is one for each of the four initiatives) is primarily responsible for practice support for specific students, and training staff on new systems (such as the new speech language assessment criteria).
Ministry staff and educators we talked to as part of the audit told us that there was a lack of training for classroom teachers and teacher aides who teach and support students with high special educational needs. While schools are mainly responsible for the professional development of teachers and teacher aides, the Ministry has run training programmes for teachers, teacher aides, and special educational needs co-ordinators. The Ministry's Positive Behaviour and Learning plan includes providing more robust initial teacher education and teacher development programmes to build teacher competency in effective behaviour management.
Behaviour Support Workers and Communication Support Workers are trained teacher aides whose hours are allocated under the Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative respectively. Ministry staff and educators commented that is important to have adequately trained teacher aides for students receiving ORRS and School High Health Needs Fund support, because the teacher aides are often the main support in class for the students. This was reflected by educators in the 2008 resourcing survey, and is also reflected in the Ministry's Positive Behaviour and Learning plan. Educators told us that they find it hard to attract and retain experienced and trained teacher aides with the funding they are allocated.
We encourage the Ministry to continue to work with schools and training institutions to ensure that classroom teachers and teacher aides are appropriately trained in working with students with high special educational needs, and to improve teacher and teacher aide competence and confidence in this area.
11: About 2000 ORRS-funded students (20% of all ORRS-funded students) receive support through "fund holder" schools.
12: Teacher aides are seen by educators as highly important for ensuring continuity and direct support for the student. The Ministry told us that higher demands for teacher aide hours may reflect the need for schools to "top up" both the hourly rate paid to teacher aides and the number of teacher aide hours, in order to provide the support needed.
13: The lead caseworker is the person (usually a Ministry specialist staff member) designated as the leader for the wider support team that works with a particular student.
14: The funding is based on the targeted population – Year 1 to Year 3 for the Speech Language Initiative; Year 1 to Year 10 for the Severe Behaviour Initiative – and allocated by the district's total student population.


I was invited to Visby, Sweden, for the annual conference arranged by the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation on developments in Eastern Europe. This year's focus was on the Eastern Partnership.
In my contribution, I explained that the Balkan countries, which have fought for an increased freedom of visas to the European Union, will be able to travel freely into the EU member states within a year. For some of the countries, this might come true already from the turn of the year.
Previously, the interior ministers in the EU countries used to block visa reform, referring to security measures, while the ministers for foreign affairs used to argue in favour of it. However, two years ago, the EU decided to state certain criteria for countries aiming for visa freedom. This has been a success. Today, three out of six Balkan countries have already implemented the EU-criteria – Macedonia has fulfilled all the criteria whereas Serbia and Montenegro have managed to realize most of them.
Countries like Georgia and Turkey should try to get the permission to start the same "strict but fair" process.
Among the guests were: Carl Bildt, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgian Minister of Reintegration, and Yuliya Tymoshenko, Ukrainian Prime Minister.


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Best Places to Work Winner: Robert W. Baird & Co.
Milwaukee | Founded in 1919 | 52 money management employees
Ranks 1st among companies with less than 100 employees
Staff photo celebrating the 10th anniversary of Baird Funds
In 2004, Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co. became an employee-owned company, a key reason employees rank it as a Best Places to Work in Money Management.
Mary Ellen Stanek, managing director of the parent firm, director of Baird Asset Management and president of Baird Funds, with a few Baird interns.
The firm hosted a pumpkin carving contest. The photo features Andrew O'Connell, a Baird credit analyst.
From left to right are executives Mary Ellen Stanek, managing director of the parent firm, director of Baird Asset Management and president of Baird Funds, Leslie Dixon, managing director and chief human capital officer, and Paul Purcell, Baird chairman, president and CEO. "If we hire the best people, train the best people, and retain the best people — we will win the long-term war," Mr. Purcell said.