text:
Folklore and Fact About Underdeveloped Areas
By Stacy May
Courtesy Reuters
SINCE the end of World War II the literature of international politics and economics in America and Western Europe has concerned itself more and more with the problems of the world's underdeveloped areas. Although the definition of what constitutes underdevelopment is far from precise, the term generally has been applied to most of the political entities of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia --with their combined populations of well over a billion people, or about two-thirds of the inhabitants of the free world.
There is little doubt that one important reason why Western interest has thus focussed on the problems of the underdeveloped areas has been the obvious turn of Soviet strategy, which singles out the areas of relatively low industrial activity and appalling low per capita incomes as the vulnerable point of attack. The engulfment of China, and successively of North Korea and Northern Vietnam, conjured up for the West the specter of the possible alienation of other great areas in which there exist similar disparities between low economic standards and high national aspirations. The undercurrent of unrest in a major part of the underdeveloped areas, and the overt political upheavals in a large number of the nations or dependencies of these regions, have given such fears a reality that cannot be ignored. Although history provides no assurance that economic progress promotes political stability and international concord, there has been a growing conviction in the industrialized West that opportunity for the satisfaction of the aspirations of the peoples of the underdeveloped areas for economic growth had better be provided within the orbit of the free world. Frustration of their hopes, it is believed, strengthens the Soviet drive to alienate them.
Quite apart from such imperatives of Western defensive strategy there has arisen in addition an increasing awareness that the economic dynamism of the highly industrialized nations of the free world is genuinely dependent upon the achievement of a comparable dynamism in the underdeveloped economies. In 1952, one-third of the combined exports of the United States, Western Europe and Canada found outlets in the markets of underdeveloped countries. Something like 40 percent of their total exports of manufactured goods were also marketed in these areas. No business interest can afford to be complacent about future prospects in such an important segment of its markets.
The degree of interdependence is shown even more conclusively by the amount of supplies the industrialized nations draw from these regions. The records show (also as of 1952) that the United States, Western Europe and Canada are dependent upon the underdeveloped areas for 50 percent of their combined imports of industrial raw materials and 48 percent of crude foodstuffs. Since these import needs of the industrialized nations have been steadily expanding, and promise to increase at an accelerated pace, growth in the underdeveloped economies is obviously to the interest of the West.
These three imperatives--the strategic considerations, the quest for access to expanding export markets, and the need to assure an increasing source of primary products--impel the industrialized West to forward the development in the backward sectors of the free world.
Clearly there are non-material motivations as well--humanitarian and moral--which have an important weight in the traditional American attitude toward other peoples. One of the major impediments to the development of a coherent and effective United States policy in this field has been the tendency here and abroad to regard the various motives as necessarily in conflict with one another, so that those who are influenced by one kind must regard the others as spurious, or ignoble or "soft-minded."
In particular, programs which give weight to factors of defense or trade have been vociferously attacked by those to whom another motivation carries the greater appeal, and these criticisms seem often to be based more on folklore than fact. The resultant discord has engendered suspicions and fears in the underdeveloped areas, many of which are newly emerged from colonial status or are striving to emerge from it. And such misgivings have, of course, been skillfully abetted by those whose major aim is to convince the peoples of the underdeveloped areas that their aspirations for economic betterment can be achieved only if they detach themselves from the political procedures and the economic orbit of the Western democracies. In the babel of conflicting counsel, the fundamental consideration is lost sight of. It is simply that the fulfillment of each of the different objectives, and of all of them combined, depends upon forwarding the same end--the prompt achievement of economic growth in the underdeveloped areas.
The analysis presented here will be restricted to the implications of only one of the three material motivations listed above --the necessity of promoting growth in the underdeveloped economies to assure an adequate supply of primary products for growth in the economy of the free world. The emphasis needs to be placed on that factor because the rôle of the underdeveloped areas as producers and exporters of crude foodstuffs and, particularly, of industrial raw materials, has been so consistently misinterpreted. The misunderstanding threatens seriously to impair the economic advancement that can take place in such areas if their potential as producers of primary products is properly used.
There has been a voluminous literature in recent years illustrating the prevailing misconceptions about the rôle of primary products in economic development. One quotation--and a relatively moderate one--from a recent book[i] dealing with development problems must suffice to establish the flavor of existing sentiment:
While extractive industries provide a fine source of employment, of local expenditures, and of royalties to the government, they cannot and do not contribute as much to over-all development as do manufacturing, service and distributive industries. As the local people are very well aware, the oil and mining companies are after all primarily engaged in taking wealth out, not in bringing it in.
This observation, offered in a context that discounts the importance of the contribution to development of direct foreign investments in petroleum and mining activities, would not be entitled to serious consideration if it did not mirror a viewpoint widely prevalent in the underdeveloped areas themselves. Their understandable rejection of the rôle of "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the industrialized world has in a number of cases been carried to the point of actively discouraging the further expansion of primary products. At least one nation which through agricultural exports had achieved a per capita income level comparable to that of many industrialized nations adopted a policy in the postwar period which seemed deliberately designed to make agricultural enterprise unattractive. The step was taken as a means of promoting industrialization, but the result was that a healthy growth was effectively arrested: agriculture was depressed, and sufficient industrial activity to compensate for this loss was not achieved.
The jaundiced view held by most underdeveloped areas toward the part which primary production can play in their economic development is mainly the result of outside influences. To be explicit, it is based largely on the findings of research carried out in America, in Europe, and by United Nations agencies. There are indeed huge gaps in our knowledge of the field, particularly with respect to industrial raw materials, where we have not even a reasonably accurate summation of the over-all production in recent years or of how it is divided geographically. But there has been a veritable flood of analyses tending to make raw materials the whipping boy of underdevelopment. The popular folklore which has been developed as a result is held with a tenacity almost in inverse ratio to the amount of convincing supporting evidence. The preconceptions now current as "common knowledge" may be summarized as follows:
1. The so-called underdeveloped, or primary-producing areas, are the major producers and exporters of primary products, including industrial raw materials.
2. In their exchange of primary products for the manufactures of the highly industrialized nations, the underdeveloped countries have been seriously handicapped by the exceptionally erratic demand and pattern of prices for their exports, in comparison to the comparatively stable prices and demand for manufactured goods in international trade.
3. Because of the comparatively violent fluctuations of the foreign exchange earnings of the primary producing areas, and of doubt that future prices of primary products will hold their own with manufacturing prices, there is a strong case for the establishment of intergovernmental controls to stabilize the relationship between the prices of primary products and manufactures in international trade and to regularize the demand for the former.
4. Since manufacturing demonstrably brings higher per capita income returns than does primary production considered as a whole, and since there are other undoubted advantages in a broad rather than an overly specialized pattern of national production, underdeveloped areas should focus their efforts on developing manufacturing enterprise. Available domestic capital and additional foreign capital should be channeled to that purpose; foreign capital investment in further raw materials production should be discouraged since it is "exploitative" rather than "constructive" and tends to perpetuate a colonial pattern.
The stakes at issue for the entire free world are of sufficient importance to warrant a careful winnowing of these preconceptions to separate the fact from the folklore.
First, let us examine the common belief that the underdeveloped areas are the major producers and exporters of primary products, as the description "primary producing areas" suggests.[ii] The free world production of primary products in 1950 was of the general dimension of 120 billion dollars, of which industrial raw materials accounted for about 46 billion dollars. The so-called industrialized areas, with about one-third of the free world's population, produced well over two-thirds of its industrial raw materials, and their industries processed more than 90 percent of the free world total. Estimates of the incidence of production and consumption of crude foodstuffs are less adequate, but from the known fact that the great bulk of this category of primary products is consumed in the areas where it is produced, and from estimates that establish per capita calory consumption in the underdeveloped areas at about two-thirds that of the industrialized countries, it may be inferred that the production of crude foodstuffs is more or less equally divided between the two.
When trade in primary products between the industrialized and the underdeveloped countries is examined on the basis of a representative sample, it is found that, through trade among themselves, the nations of the industrialized areas supplied each other with 50 percent of their combined industrial raw material imports and with a slightly higher percentage of their combined food imports. Furthermore, they exported to the underdeveloped areas primary products valued at more than one-fourth the value of the primary products they drew from these areas.
The term "primary producing nations," as applied to the underdeveloped economies, needs careful interpretation. The industrialized nations actually produce more primary products than the underdeveloped nations do, and their total exports of such products bulk somewhat larger in international trade. It is true, however, that their manufactures are overwhelmingly larger, both with respect to production and exports. The underdeveloped economies may properly be referred to as "the primary producers" only in the sense that a disproportionately large share of their total economic effort is devoted to the production of foods and industrial raw materials. And they may be called "the primary exporters" only in the sense that something like 90 percent of their foreign exchange earnings from Western Europe, the United States and Canada are derived from exports of primary products, while only 35 percent of the combined foreign exchange earnings of those industrialized countries are earned by shipments of food and industrial raw materials.
Thus, clearly, if the long-term record of international trade showed that foreign exchange earnings derived from exports of crude foodstuffs and raw materials suffered much more severe yearly declines than the export revenue from manufactures and semi-manufactures, this would be evidence that the underdeveloped areas were suffering disproportionate hardship.
However, this is not the case, as becomes plain when we examine another preconception. This is the preconception, fostered by a variety of recent studies,[iii] that short-term fluctuations in the pattern of demand and price of internationally-traded primary products, as compared with fluctuations in the price of manufactures, have worked a particular disadvantage to exporters of primary products. The case made out for this appears formidable. But its weaknesses stem from the fact that most of the documentation is based on a limited list of selected commodities; that fluctuations upward are weighed along with downward fluctuations to establish a record of instability; and, generally, that the documentation fails to examine in detail the record of either individual manufactured articles or of the category as a whole in terms of price and volume fluctuations and foreign exchange earnings.
From another recent study, "International Trade--1952," published by GATT, a quite different picture is derived. This study has the advantage of being much more comprehensive, in that its indexes cover production, trade and prices for all primary products and manufactures. Its principal limitation is that it presents data for only 18 years; it begins with 1925 and runs to 1951, but the war and immediate postwar years 1939-1947 are omitted. The chief finding from this study is that neither in the case of production nor trade was the record of values for primary products (i.e. volumes multiplied by prices) more volatile than that for manufactures. For the period 1925-1938, the values of the two moved in essentially the same pattern. For the postwar years, the curves again were similar, with manufactures moving to slightly higher levels than primary products in terms of production, and primary products moving ahead somewhat in trade.
Thus, on the crucial question of the comparative exchange earnings from international trade, it may be stated flatly that for the period covered there is no evidence that the realized exchange earnings from primary product exports were characterized by greater downswings than those realized from manufactured exports. On the score of prices alone, primary products did fall off somewhat more sharply than manufactures in the first four years of the depression thirties, but recovered much more dramatically in the postwar years.
Fortunately, it is possible to make a comparison over a far longer period of the dollar exchange provided by the United States market through its imports of crude materials and crude foodstuffs on the one hand, and its imports of finished manufactures, semi-manufactures, and manufactured foodstuffs on the other. Here the record has been examined from 1900 through 1953, which provides a 53-year experience of annual fluctuations. It is relevant to note that the U.N. studies, mentioned above, cite the United States market as a particularly flagrant contributer to exchange instability in the underdeveloped areas. The evidence is to the contrary. United States imports of primary products afforded their suppliers a greater return than was realized in the previous year in 35 years, a lesser return in 18 years. Imports of manufactured goods yielded the suppliers a greater return in 37 years, less in 15 years; in one year there was no measurable change. For both categories the percentage of decline in the years of lesser profits was 16 percent. In the case of primary products, the average increase in the years of advance was almost 20 percent, as against 16.5 percent for manufactures.
If crude materials alone are compared with finished manufactures alone, the former show a somewhat greater instability--19 years with an average decline of 19 percent, against 16 with an average decline of 13 percent. The difference was not very great; and the average advance in the favorable years was 23 percent for crude materials against 14 percent for manufactures.
It may be worth while, as a further check, to compare the relative stability of United States exports of manufactured goods as an earner, rather than a provider, of foreign exchange. There were increases in 37 out of 53 years, and decreases in 16, with the averages of the former 26 percent and of the latter 21 percent. For cotton manufactures alone, there were 20 years of lowered earnings, averaging 22 percent in magnitude; in the case of iron and steel mill products (from 1900 to 1952), there were 22 years in which exchange earnings fell by an average 23 percent; and in the category of machinery of all classes there were 14 years of decline also averaging 23 percent.
The conclusion from the evidence, which could be amplified, is that there has been considerable instability in foreign trade markets, but that the earnings from exports of primary products have not been subject to declines markedly more extreme than those from manufacturing exports. Contemporary scholarship has done a disservice by describing one side of the coin and neglecting an adequate examination of the other. This has had at least two unfortunate results. The first is a set of solutions which have gained wide advocacy, but which, if workable at all, would promise to benefit the major importers of primary products, rather than the underdeveloped areas in whose name the proposals were put forth. The second misfortune is that the underdeveloped nations have been encouraged to neglect their possibilities as producers and exporters of primary products--possibilities that may well hold the key to the achievement of a rounded economy and the realization of all their aspirations. These proposals, so uncritically taken up by many men of good will, need examination in some detail.
In 1952, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution urging national governments to coöperate "in establishing multilateral as well as bilateral agreements or arrangements relating to individual primary commodities as well as groups of primary commodities and manufactured goods, for the purpose of:
(a) Ensuring the stability of the prices of the said commodities in keeping with an adequate, just and equitable relationship between these prices and those of capital goods and other manufactured articles;
(b) Safeguarding the continuity of the economic and social progress of all countries, those producing as well as those consuming raw materials."
The United States did not support this resolution, which passed by a vote of 36 to 4, with 20 nations abstaining. There is certain to be continuing agitation for programs to put this recommendation into force.
International control over commodity allocation has been practised in times of emergency--during World War II, and again after Korea, when an International Materials Conference was organized, on a voluntary basis, to allocate scarce materials in an equitable fashion. But the control of primary products trade upon a broad scale and under other than emergency conditions presents many problems. Three variant types of procedure are generally considered possible, and there is a record of experience with at least two of them in limited application, though with less than conclusive results.
The first procedure calls for the use of restrictive quota agreements. Prices are controlled by means of agreed limitations on the production and export of a commodity on a quota basis, varied to equate supply with demand. The international sugar agreement of 1953 is of this type. The second device, the use of long-term contracts, is typified by the international wheat agreement under which exporting countries agree to supply a fixed minimum amount at a given ceiling price, and importing countries agree to purchase a fixed minimum amount at a given floor price. When the free market is functioning between the floor and ceiling prices the guaranties are inoperative. The third procedure, which calls for control over commodity markets through the operation of international buffer stocks, has never been tried. Purchases and sales from such buffer stocks would be depended upon to regulate prices.
There are cogent reasons to question the workability of any of these devices, particularly if an attempt were made to apply them to a broad list of commodities. One unsolved problem that is basic to all is that of finding a way to make them effective in modifying short-term price fluctuations of undue severity without interfering with the longer term trends that are depended upon to adjust supply to demand, eliminate inefficient producers and allocate resources between alternate uses. Another difficulty is how to obtain managing personnel sufficiently wise and objective to operate the controls in the common interest, and as effectively as through the workings of the free market.
Each device raises a number of special problems; but there is one more general question that is fundamental. Who would benefit if any of these expedients were adopted and could be made to work? The Assembly resolution mentions the interests of both producers and consumers of raw materials; but its case was documented and supported largely as a measure to remove the alleged disabilities of the underdeveloped countries which concentrate upon primary production and trade. The same resolution suggests that the control should operate to preserve "an adequate, just and equitable relationship" between the prices of primary and manufactured goods, presumably in international trade.
The record of price movements for various categories of goods in international trade shows that the postwar level of raw mateterials prices as a whole has an entirely different and much higher relationship to the prices of manufactured goods than in the prewar period. The much longer record of U.S. prices shows the same phenomenon. If the proposed program had been in existence over a 25-year period, would the earlier relationship have been considered "adequate, just and equitable?" Is the relationship now existing, after a relatively deeper fall of raw materials prices in 1952 and 1953 and a subsequent movement toward rebalancing, the best that the market is likely to afford to raw materials in the years ahead? The United Nations economic studies find no persuasive evidence to suggest a further improvement in the relative prices of primary products, but other economists do. Before discussing that, however, I would like to register my own conviction that to peg prices of primary product prices to the prices of manufactured goods would be more likely to benefit the net purchasing areas for these products than the underdeveloped areas which are net exporters.
The last of the preconceptions deals with the widespread conviction that underdeveloped areas should turn away from the production of raw materials in order to develop economies based on manufacturing. To keep the record straight, let us start with an unqualified endorsement of heroic efforts to broaden the base of underdeveloped economies. Certainly this calls for an expansion of domestic manufacturing, as fast as capital, equipment, labor and managerial skills, materials and market outlets can be mobilized. It calls, too, in most underdeveloped areas, for a vast improvement in agricultural production, which means at the least a greater degree of mechanization and increased use of fertilizers and chemical weed and insect controls. It calls for improved transport and power facilities, which again means more equipment.
The "value added" to the gross national product by manufacturing is generally greater per person employed than that in the case of agriculture (though not more than is contributed by the extractive industries). This is another reason for developing manufactures. A third reason is that a broad economic activity based on a domestic market can help to cushion the shock of declines in export demand, which, as we have shown, are of considerable dimension for primary products and manufactures alike.
But to start manufacturing activities, to mechanize agriculture, to establish transport and power facilities in underdeveloped areas--all these require equipment. Most such equipment has to come from abroad; it is necessarily the product of an established and complex industrial economy. There are only three ways in which it can be acquired in substantial quantity. It can be purchased for cash--and that requires foreign exchange as well as locally mobilized capital. It may be purchased on credit or through loans--but repayment calls for foreign exchange. It may be brought in as a capital contribution by foreign investors--but such investment will not be made unless there is prospect of both business profit and sufficient foreign exchange from some source to cover the remittance of earnings and amortization. Equipment is an essential key to industrialization, and foreign exchange is an essential key to equipment.
How can the underdeveloped countries get the requisite foreign exchange of the major industrial countries? In the past, they have earned the great bulk of their foreign exchange by exports--54 percent from exported industrial raw materials and 34 per cent from exported foods. Primary products are likely to be their main source of earning power for some time, although increased local processing of export products at least to the semi-manufactured stage is desirable and should be progressively feasible.
Since it can be stated with assurance that an increase of the tempo of industrialization calls for an increase in exports in its early stages, it is relevant to appraise the outlook of the underdeveloped countries for increased exports in the field of their greatest opportunity--industrial raw materials. Future projections are always hazardous, but development planning necessarily calls for a long view and must be based upon a reading of prospects.
Upon a reasonable estimate from past trends, we can say that the free world consumption of industrial raw materials may increase from about 46 billion dollars in 1950 to about 80 billion (at 1950 price levels) by 1975-80. The international trade in these commodities may increase from 27 billion dollars to about 50 billion in the same period. Such an increase in consumption should afford presently underdeveloped areas an opportunity to increase their combined production of industrial raw materials from the 14.5 billion dollars of 1950 to something like 31.5 billion within 25 years, and their exports in this field from 13.5 billion dollars to about 28.5 billion. Increases of this magnitude, almost double the expected population increases, would exert a markedly stimulating effect upon the underdeveloped economies. It is quite possible that if a sufficiently vigorous and enlightened effort were made, the share of the underdeveloped areas in both the production and the export of industrial raw materials might increase by even more than the amounts indicated. To date they have made far less drastic inroads upon their known and potential stores of such resources than have the industrialized countries, especially on resources that can be produced at low costs.
The opportunities for increased exchange revenues from larger food exports are also considerable and should be fostered. though they are by no means correspondingly large. There is equal urgency for expanded agricultural output, but chiefly to improve the woefully inadequate nutritional levels that prevail in most underdeveloped countries, and to save the exchange now spent on imported foodstuffs.
In summary, there is need for a reorientation of current thinking about the rôle of primary products, and particularly of industrial raw materials, in the economic planning of underdeveloped areas. It is much to the advantage of the underdeveloped areas to take vigorous advantage of the opportunities for increased production and trade in raw materials offered by an exceptionally favorable outlook in demand and price. They possess the most economic stores of supply. They should exploit these advantages to increase the initial processing stages of raw materials in their own countries, and thus promote industrial development in the field where they have the clearest competitive advantage. They should employ the need of manufacturing nations for raw materials imports as a lever to pry from them a major part of the capital funds upon which increased output depends, and thus conserve their limited local capital for developments of less appeal to foreign investors. Above all, they should use the increased foreign exchange earnings obtainable in this field to buy the equipment needed to broaden their domestic industrial base.
Finally, I think it is justifiable to suggest a thorough overhauling of the scholarship that, in recent analyses of the problems of underdevelopment, has so consistently disparaged the rôle that raw materials can play. The production and export of raw materials should not be regarded by underdeveloped nations as the terminus of their economic aspirations; nevertheless, it is a way station that cannot be bypassed. To seek to persuade the peoples who possess these resources that they should make less than the maximum feasible use of them is absurd in theory and disastrous in practice. If this counsel is followed, it will deprive the underdeveloped areas of their single most promising opportunity for attaining the broad, sound and vigorous economic growth that is central to their own objectives and essential to the strength and security of the entire free world.
[i] Jonathan B. Bingham, "Shirt Sleeve Diplomacy." New York: John Day, 1954, p. 149.
[ii] The conclusions summarized here are based on estimates set forth in a paper, "The Outlook for Industrial Raw Materials Demand in 1980 and Its Relation to International Development," presented by the author of this article at the World Population Conference, Rome, September 1954. Other conclusions drawn in later sections of this article are documented in the same paper.
[iii] See particularly the studies of the United Nations, Department of Economic Affairs: "Instability in Export Markets of Under-Developed Countries," New York, 1952, and "Commodity Trade and Economic Development," New York, 1953.
You are reading a free article.
Subscribe to Foreign Affairs to get unlimited access.
Paywall-free reading of new articles and a century of archives
Unlock access to iOS/Android apps to save editions for offline reading
Six issues a year in print, online, and audio editions
STACY MAY, Director of the Bureau of Research and Statistics, Council of National Defense, 1940-43; Director of the Bureau of Planning and Statistics, War Production Board, 1943-44; author of "Costa Rica, a Study in Economic Development"
More By Stacy May
Economic Development Political Development
Most-Read Articles
What Putin Really Wants in Ukraine
Russia Seeks to Stop NATO's Expansion, Not to Annex More Territory
Dmitri Trenin
America Needs a Bolder Biden
A Year In, His Foreign Policy Is Too Cautious and Conventional
Emma Ashford
America's Coming Age of Instability
Why Constitutional Crises and Political Violence Could Soon Be the Norm
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way
The Overstretched Superpower
Does America Have More Rivals Than It Can Handle?
Hal Brands
In-depth analysis delivered weekly.


text:
Home / Manitoba News
6 Deaths, 251 Cases
WINNIPEG - The province is reporting six new deaths today from COVID-19, three of them in Winnipeg.
There are 251 new cases of the virus today, including 142 in Winnipeg.
3,600 cases are active, 48,963 people have recovered, for a total of 53,650 cases so far.
286 people are in hospital, including 64 in intensive care. 30 are in ICUs in other provinces.
The five day test positivity rate in the province is 11.1 per cent. Winnipeg's rate is 11.6. 2,593 tests were done in the last 24 hours for a total of 795,068 since the pandemic began.
The death toll now sits at 1,087.
TOPICS: Manitoba News

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
See all Sport
Rugby Union home
Formula 1 home
Racing home
How Pakistan turned from a fielding joke to one of the best sides in the world
By Tim Wigmore 30 May 2018 • 3:15pm
Pakistan's fielding was of a notably high standard in the first Test at Lord's Credit: reuters
On Saturday afternoon at Lord's, Joe Root played a beautiful square cut into the ground. Fielding at backward point, Imam-ul-Haq dived to intercept the ball with his outstretched arms, and grabbed the ball cleanly. In a split-second of athleticism, four runs became none, prompting the entire Pakistan team to run to give Imam a high five.
It was a microcosm of the transformation in Pakistan's fielding. Imam, like all of Pakistan's young players, is dynamic in the field; rewind 15 years, and his uncle, the brilliant batsman Inzamam, would reach down to field balls with the air of a man rather insulted at being asked to do so.
After an England Test defeat as abject as Lord's, fingers have inevitably been pointed at Twenty20 - for England's shoddy shot selection, the marginalisation of the County Championship, and probably the inclement May weather too. But ask Pakistan about the impact of T20, and their answer will be very different: the shortest format has done more than anything else to improve the standards of Pakistani fielding.
To understand the roots of Pakistan's brilliant fielding performance at Lord's - when they did not drop a single catch and, until a couple of pieces of poor ground fielding on the third evening, barely missed a ball either - it is necessary to understand the impact that the Pakistan Super League has had on cricket in the country.
Pakistan cricket's nine years in exile have cost the board about $200 million (£151million), because of the extra costs of playing their home matches in the UAE instead and the loss of ticket revenue. For the next generation, it has also deprived them of the opportunities of learning from foreign coaches, as few have been willing to stay in Pakistan for long.
How the IPL changed cricket
The PSL, which launched in 2016, changed all this. For one month a year in the UAE, Pakistan's best young players play for leading foreign coaches and with leading international stars. As this is in the format of the game which most demands athleticism, fielding has been emphasised like never before. A measure of this shift is that a higher proportion of catches are taken in the Pakistan Super League than Australia's Big Bash.
At Lord's, England did not just glimpse the batting and bowling skills of a team being regenerated, but also saw a new generation of effervescent fielders. Shadab Khan is both in keeping with the stereotypes of Pakistani cricket - he is a brilliant teenage legspinner - and also completely removed from them: he is a vivacious fielder too and, indeed, a genuinely three-dimensional player of the ilk that Pakistan have seldom produced. Shadab was known as a precocious fielder even before the PSL but the tournament honed his athleticism, just as it did for Imam and Faheem Ashraf.
When elevated to the national squad, these players sharpened their fielding and fitness methodically and meticulously. After Mickey Arthur was appointed head coach in 2016, he appointed the Australian Steve Rixon as fielding coach. "What we've done, again, is that uncompromising way we've worked with fielding and fitness standards," Arthur explained before Lord's.
Pakistan are placing more emphasis on fitness than ever before Credit: getty images
Before his very first tour - the series in England in 2016 - the team trained with the army; the sight of Pakistan's players doing press-ups on the Lord's outfield two years ago was an acknowledgement of how this had helped. This time - as he has made the norm - Arthur oversaw a pre-series camp in Pakistan and, during the early tour matches and the Test in Ireland, honed the side's slip fielding. Asad Shafiq's diving catch from second slip on the first day, to account for Jos Buttler, amounted to stunning vindication.
Playing in Dubai, Arthur believes, has forced Pakistan to achieve new heights of fitness. "You get to Dubai and you get to 50, and it's 40 degrees, you have guys throw their wickets away. Well now their fitness standards allow them to go on and get 80s and 100s."
Mickey Arthur has played a crucial role in Pakistan's transformation Credit: Reuters
Arthur was not the first foreign coach to stress the importance of fielding. In many ways he shares many of the same qualities as Bob Woolmer, who also coached South Africa before doing the Pakistan job: the demeanour of an amiable uncle, a determination to improve Pakistan in their historical weaknesses without impinging upon their traditional strengths and his embrace of Pakistan as a country as well as a cricket team.
During his celebrated stint as Pakistan coach, from 2004 to 2007, Woolmer brought a new emphasis to fielding as a core skill, not merely a nice garnish on the side, introducing a rigour to fielding sessions. If there was only so much that could be done to make Inzamam more agile, Woolmer pushed the elevation of more dynamic fielders, like Shoaib Malik and begun a broader cultural shift in Pakistani cricket.
Arthur is completing the revolution that Woolmer started. Since he took over as Pakistan coach, they have taken 80 per cent of catches in Tests; only New Zealand and South Africa have been better. Pakistan have always been capable of out-batting and out-bowling opponents. Now, they routinely out-field them too.
Pakistan Cricket Team
More from Cricket
Inside England's all-night party: From cans in the dressing room to 6am lagers on the terrace
By Isabelle Westbury 18 Jan 2022, 11:44am
Graham Thorpe facing England sack after police break up 6am drinking session
England players are entitled to a drink - but their all-night session proves regime change is needed
Nick Hoult 18 Jan 2022, 9:53am
Yorkshire eye Younis Khan and Allan Donald for new coaching line-up alongside Ottis Gibson
By Tom Morgan 17 Jan 2022, 3:47pm
Ben Stokes will pull out of Indian Premier League to focus on England Test commitments
By Nick Hoult 17 Jan 2022, 12:00pm
'Fat shaming', drinking culture and not enough talking: the inside story of England's Ashes disaster
By Nick Hoult 17 Jan 2022, 10:38am
Schuh discount code
Sky discount code
Adidas discount code
JD discount codes
Wiggle promo codes


text:
Prince Philip died with the Queen at his bedside
Sat Apr 10, 2021 at 9:23am ET
By John Thomas Didymus
The Queen was reportedly at Prince Philip's bedside when he passed away. Pic credit: ©Imagecollect.com/StarMaxWorldwide
The Queen was reportedly at Prince Philip's bedside when he died on Friday at the age of 99, only two months before his 100th birthday.
The Queen announced the death of her husband shortly after he died.
"It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh," the statement released by Buckingham Palace read. "His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. Further announcements will be made in due course. The Royal Family join with people around the world in mourning his loss."
Prince Phillip's funeral is reportedly set for next Saturday.
Prince Philip died peacefully on Friday morning with the Queen at his bedside
Prince Philip died on Friday after he returned home to Windsor Castle on March 16, following a month of hospitalization.
The Duke of Edinburgh was admitted to the hospital on February 16 after feeling unwell, Monsters and Critics reported. He was admitted to King Edward VII hospital in London as a "precautionary measure," and later transferred to St. Bartholomew's where he underwent a surgical procedure for a pre-existing heart condition.
Philip's condition deteriorated overnight on Thursday before he died suddenly but peacefully on Friday morning. The Queen was believed to have been at his bedside when he passed away, the Daily Mail reported.
The Queen reportedly dismissed suggestions that the Duke be taken to the hospital despite being "gravely ill" because he wanted to die at home.
"He [the Duke of Edinburgh] spent most of the four weeks he was in hospital trying to get home," a source told The Telegraph. "They operated on his heart in a bid to give him a little longer, maybe with the 100th birthday in mind. But he didn't really care about that…There is no way he would have wanted to die in hospital."
A post shared by The Royal Family (@theroyalfamily)
Philip retired back in 2017
Prince Philip retired from public life and official royal duties in 2017 when he was 96 years old. He conducted his last public engagement in August of that year after he announced his retirement in May, according to the BBC.
He reportedly divided his time between Windsor Castle and the Queen's Sandringham Estate in Norfolk after his retirement.
Prince Philip bio
Prince Philip was born in Greece on June 10, 1921. He was a member of the Greek and Danish royal families. His family was exiled from Greece when he was still an infant and he was raised in the U.K.
He served the British Royal Navy with distinction in World War II.
Philip and Princess Elizabeth first met in 1934. They got engaged in July 1947 after they met again in 1939 and began corresponding. He adopted British nationality before marrying Elizabeth in November 1947.
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne at the age of 27, immediately on the death of her father George VI on February 6, 1952. The official coronation ceremony took place on June 2, 1953, at Westminster Abbey.
The Duke passed away on Friday after he and the Queen celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in November 2020. He was the longest-serving consort in British history.


Licensing can be a complex issue with the potential to have serious consequences for you and your business. The 2003 Licensing Act requires anyone wishing to sell alcohol, hot food or drink after 11pm, or wanting to provide certain forms of entertainment to comply with the requirements of a dual system of both personal and premises licenses.
Different rules can apply to you and your business depending upon the nature of your business and how you operate. It is important to ensure that you are following the appropriate requirements to avoid potentially costly penalties.
Our lawyers at Sills & Betteridge can deal with all aspects of licensing and advise you on the regulations which will apply to you so that you can run your business efficiently.


MILLINGTON, Tenn. — Fire-breathing jet cars, a world famous wheelstander and the Dixie Doorslammers highlight the pro show during the 33rd annual Super Chevy Show at Memphis International Raceway, Millington, Tenn., April 5-7.
Fire-breathing Jet Funny Cars include First Strike and Top Secret. First Strike is the fastest jet funny car in the history of the sport and a world record speed holder at 295.08 mph. Top Secret is recognized as the highest tech jet funny car in the history of the sport.
Gates open at 8 a.m. all three days for participants, vendors and spectators. Pricing for participants ranges from $25 to $65. The cost for one-day admission for spectators is $20 for adults on Friday or Sunday, $25 for adults on Saturday, $10 for children 6-12 any day and free for children 5 and under. The cost for three-day passes is $45 for adults and $20 for children 6-12 years.
Richard Hutchins will be doing some dazzling wheelies in his world famous "Chevy Rebellion" wheelstander during the weekend.
Rounding out the pro show will be the Dixie Doorslammers, known for their exciting racing, long smoky burnouts and great side-by-side action.
The 33rd annual Super Chevy Show is the premier destination for all things Chevrolet, featuring multiple classes of drag racing with cash prizes, an automotive swap meet, a Chevrolet-focused performance marketplace and the largest collection of Chevrolet vehicles in one place from classics to modern—all looking to take home the best in class award and a coveted Super Chevy Show jacket.
Complete details on pricing, event schedule, special features and more are available at www.superchevy.com/show and RaceMIR.com or call (901) WOW-RACE (901-969-7223).


Bitcoin Price Prediction Tracker portal, Bircoin.top, did the maths and explain that Bitcoin needs to grow daily at 0.4840957034310259% per day.to meet McAfee's prediction. Currently, Bitcoin is around $ 8,207 compared to $ 7,171. Cool right? However, to hit McAfee's target, BTC would end the year just over $29k.
Popular Bitcoin forecaster Tom Lee expects Bitcoin to reach $25,000 by mid-2018, more than double its price of about $10,000 in January when the prediction was originally made.
[perfectpullquote align="full" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]"We expect bitcoin's major low to be $9,000, and we would be aggressive buyers around that level," – Tom Lee[/perfectpullquote] Though Bitcoin went below Lee's base of $9,000 (nearing $6,000), it has bounced out reaching in March $11,000. It will take a ride similar to the one we witnessed last year for Bitcoin to reach this mark. To make this happen, Lee is counting on more institutional investors taking on Bitcoin and a steady increase in Bitcoin user base. Lee's target may be half the mark according to fellow crypto-believer.
Finder.com sought opinions of 13 cryptocurrency experts and concluded that Bitcoin price will witness a 300% growth to land at $43,000 by the end of the year. The site also predicted Bitcoin at over $14K by March 1.


text:
Q: How to symlink Mac OS' own folders (Monterey)? I am looking for a way to accomplish the following on Monterey (12.6):
In the past I would symlink some Mac OS system folders (Documents, Downloads and Desktop) to folders already synced to a Synology NAS and have the "links" act like the "original Mac OS folders. What I want is to have these files exist on the NAS and not on the local storage: Two Macs, same (synced) files in the the local folders.
For clarification - my question is not about how to sync stuff with the Syno NAS, it's how to have already synced folders act like the original user folders "Documents", "Downloads" and "Desktop"
Actual setup: The "SynologyDriveFolder" is the permanently synced (remote) folder from the Syno NAS sitting somewhere under ~user/ which is holding the remote folders "Documents", "Downloads" and "Desktop" (via the up and running SynologyDrive service).
They should act as the "real" system folders on each Mac to choose from, especially in the "Save as…" dialogue and I want to place them in the Finder's sidebar as "the only" "Documents", "Downloads" and "Desktop" folders (no issue with saying goodbye to the original Mac OS folder icons for the specific folders)
Under Mojave it was super straightforward: Made Symlink of "remote" folder (in my case  ~user/me/SynologyDriveFolder/Documents/), placed Symlink in Macintosh HD/user/me/  and renamed original "Documents" to something different. Done.
From what I learned (and tried but failed on a test install of Monterey), due to (security) changes made in Catalina or so, nowadays it is not as easy as it was. I did some research but did not find a reliable explanation how to set symlinks (resp. firmlinks I stumbled across) on Monterey.
Can I substitute a folder on the NAS for a local folder in the user's home folder on macOS Monterey?

A: I use Resilio Sync to sync my Documents folder between my Mac Mini and MacBook Pro.
I also have a Synology NAS, and there is a Resilio Sync app for it.
However, there are other loads of other syncing apps out there.
I think syncing between the three things (whether by Resilio, or rsync, or Chronosync, etc) is probably safer than trying to modify the Documents (et al) folders and making the network drive a 'host' -- particularly if you want to take the MacBook for a walk.
(Technically, Desktop, Documents and Downloads are User folders, not System folders.)

A: I personally wouldn't mess with the home folder. A couple apps allow you to locate their "storage" outside the home folder like Photos and Music - so I would move my entire home folder to the external drive / NAS if you can't live with just a couple items outside the local /Users folder which on macOS Monterey (and newer) is at /System/Volumes/Data/Users
Trying other things is more hassle, more debugging, more points of failure than any benefit I've seen or experienced. A few people have pulled it off, but they all had very detailed and long experience in why / how / managing things on both the UNIX and macOS end to succeed.

A: My solution:
After having made a trade-off between "heavy" tinkering (much more as it was needed under Mojave) to point only some User folders to my NAS versus treating them as "Favorites", I skipped the Symlink part and made them accessible in the Finder like back in the Mojave days: I colored the synced Documents and Download User folders and added them to the Finder sidebar on the iMac ("* Drive" and color is indicating the remote ones). Same on the MacBook. 2 Macs, identical data.
I can quickly choose them in the "Save" dialogues (see screenshot, Safari example), drag stuff around in the Finder and it's still pretty close to the setup I had in the past.  Thanks to all!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


A new study has found that the best way for women to stick to exercise is to choose something they actually enjoy, rather than for the sole reason of trying to lose weight.
Funded internally by the National Cancer Institute, the new small-scale study asked 40 women aged 22-49 to say what makes them feel happy and successful in life, and how this relates to their exercise goals.
"A new understanding of what really motivates women might make an enormous difference in their ability to successfully incorporate physical activity into their daily routine – and have fun doing it," said Michelle Segar, director of the University of Michigan's Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy Center. The university conducted the study.
The main answers given by women, who were categorised as "high active" or "low active," were connecting with and helping others be happy and successful, being relaxed and free of pressures during their leisure time, and accomplishing goals, which could range from that day's grocery shopping to career goals.
However, the team found that for the inactive women, their ideas about exercise actually prevented them from achieving the things that made them happy and successful, and this demotivated them to exercise.
For example, the inactive women believed that to be a "valid" form of exercise, exercise must be intense and hard work, which conflicted with their desire to feel relaxed during their leisure time.
They also feel pressured to exercise for health or to lose weight, but want to feel pressure-free during their leisure time.
In addition, part of their feeling of success comes from achieving goals; however, if they didn't meet their exercise goals then it stopped them feeling successful.
"The traditional recommendation we've learned to believe is that we should exercise at a high intensity for at least 30 minutes, for the purpose of losing weight or improving our health. Even though there are newer recommendations that permit lower intensity activity in shorter durations most people don't know or even believe it," she added.
The same results were not found for the active participants, who had more flexible views of exercise, and enjoyed it more. These women reported that it "was not the end of the world" if they had to skip a workout, and made exercise a "middle priority" rather than a top priority, reducing their pressure.
Segar now believes that women need to be "re-educated" on how they can get active in a way that they enjoy and doesn't demotivate or exhaust them, adding that the message to women should be that any movement is better than nothing.


Picture yourself entering this well-maintained home and feeling instant relief. All the work is done for you. This custom David Weekley home in the highly-desired, gated community of Arbor Place lives like a one-story with all 5 bedrooms down and a bonus room up. This open concept home boasts an over-sized kitchen island with sink and TWO dishwashers. With a double oven, gas stove and plenty of counter space, this kitchen is a cook's dream. Two garages allow for cars or extra storage. Spacious Master Retreat has a sitting area and separate desk space. Each room flows effortlessly into the next, with ample room sizes, lots of natural light and nice, tall ceilings - there is space for everyone. Large covered back patio with year-round cross breeze and plenty of room to garden. With easy access to highways, shopping and acclaimed Round Rock schools, you can't get much better than this.
I'm interested in 2180 Park Place Circle, Round Rock, Tx 78681 (Round Rock, TX, United States).


Know Newbury Park Class of 1979 graduates that are NOT on this List? Help us Update the 1979 Class List by adding missing names.
More 1979 alumni from Newbury Park HS have posted profiles on Classmates.com®. Click here to register for free at Classmates.com® and view other 1979 alumni.
The Newbury Park High class of '79 alumni are listed below. These are former students from Newbury Park High in Newbury Park, CA who graduated in 1979. Alumni listings below have either been searched for or they registered as members of this directory.


Model-Years 2013-2014 Ford Flex SUVs and Lincoln MKT crossovers built between September 12, 2011, and November 30, 2013.
The problem with the affected vehicles is that a component called "halfshaft retention circlip" may not have been installed correctly. As a result of this problem, the halfshafts may detach from the linkshaft during the drive. What is worse, there is no warning of such kind of a thing happening with the vehicle.
If the halfshaft gets detached from the linkshaft while driving, wheels will no longer get power from the engine. Besides, if the vehicle is parked without the parking brake being applied after the detachment, the vehicle may undergo a roll away risk.
Owners will be notified about this Ford and Lincoln recall starting August 29. The dealers will inspect all affected vehicles and repair them free of charge. Owners of both Ford and Lincoln vehicles can contact Ford at 800-392-3673 for more information about the recall.


text:
Board of Trustees > David Torres
David Torres
The Board of Trustees of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, Inc. (KCEC) appointed David A. Torres to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Trustee Francis Cordova. The appointment was made at the board of trustees meeting held on December 27, 2012. He began trustee duties on January 2, 2013 and will serve out the remainder of Mr. Cordova's term, which is due to expire at the KCEC Annual Meeting in June 2013.
"Mr. Torres brings knowledge of cooperative operations having served on the board of Kit Carson Energy, Inc. since 2009. He began his engineering career as an aerospace engineer working for NASA and Northrop Corporation. He is the Assistant Adjutant General in the New Mexico National Guard, holding the rank of Brigadier General and commands the New Mexico State Defense Force. He previously served in the United States Air Force, having served as Senior U.S. Military Advisor to NATO Commander Headquarters in Sarajevo. He also remains on call as an International Relief Consultant to provide help in natural and man-made disasters. In the past 10 years he has responded to disasters in over two dozen countries around the world.He has also previously worked for the State of New Mexico as Transportation Programs Division Director for the Department of Transportation and as Taos County Public Works Director. He has served on numerous local, state and national boards and continues to be involved in the community."
He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico, an MBA from Pepperdine University and a Masters of Science in Strategic Planning from the United States Air War College. He is married to Kristen who is a Speech Pathologist and they have two children, Carrico who attends Princeton University and G. David who attends Harvard. He is the son of the late Luis O. Torres and Bernice Torres of El Salto.
Mr. Torres was appointed to the Broadband Committee, Solar Committee, and Finance Committee.
THe KCEC Team
Luis A. Reyes Jr. CEO
Richard A Martinez COO
Carmella Suazo Assistant Manager
Bobby Ortega President District 2
Manuel Medina Secratary District 1
Bruce Jassman Treasurer District 5
Cristobal Duran Vice President District 4
Arthur Rodarte District 3
Bernie Torres District 2
Robert Bresnahan District 1
David Torres District 1
Luisa Valero-Mylet District 1
Michael Romero District 4


text:
Regime ready to convict Canadian businessman on questionable charges
According to CTV News, Cy Tokmakjian, a successful businessman, father, and grandfather faces 15 years behind bars if he is found guilty. The 74-year-old Canadian native was arrested in 2011, and has been jailed for nearly three years. Recently, the Cuban government accused Tokmakjian of bribery, fraud, currency trafficking, forgery, tax evasion, and crimes against the Cuban economy.
Tokmakjian's family and business associates have come to his defense, claiming that the charges against him are frivolous and unfounded. Likewise, his supporters have alleged that the Cuban government convicted Tokmakjian in order to assume control of his very lucrative business, Tokmakjian Group. Selling buses, vehicles, and other parts, Tokmakjian Group is among Canada's largest transportation companies and was perhaps the island's most successful foreign business. The firm has been doing business in Cuba since 1988 when Tokmakjian decided to expand the scope of his Ontario-based enterprise. Since then, the company's subsidiary on the island, Tokmakjian Limited, has engaged in transactions amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Tokmakjian has been held at La Condesa prison near Havana since his arrest in 2011, but has visited the hospital several times due to health complications. The businessman's defense team has worked tirelessly to prove his innocence. In response to allegations that Tokmakjian bribed Cuban officials, his defense team accused the government of "spic[ing] up contractual and commercial relations with criminal elements." Likewise, the firm's vice president of finance, Lee Hacker, contends that Tokmakjian is being targeted as "the largest and most successful businessman in Cuba." Tokmakjian Group has filed a $160 million lawsuit against the Cuban government, accusing them of seizing the company and assuming control of its operations. Despite the attention it has received as of late, Cy Tokmakjian's case is not an isolated incident. British businessman, Stephen Purvis, was also arrested and held for 15 months. Like many other businessmen, Purvis has called for reform of the island's foreign investment policy in order to facilitate economic growth.
Cy Tokmakjian's case was documented in the Foundation's recent report "FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN SOCIALIST CUBA: UNCERTAIN REAL PROFITS FOR FOREIGN CAPITAL AND CONTINUED EXPLOITATION OF THE LABOR FORCE."
To read the full report click here.


text:
Chip Ward, How Efficiency Maximizes Catastrophe
Posted on July 29, 2007 February 17, 2021
It's true that no single incident or development — no matter how out of the ordinary or startling — can straightforwardly be attributed to climate change. Nonetheless, it seems strange that the massive flooding in England, of a sort last seen more than 60 years ago, led the TV news and made front pages here with hardly a mention of global warming. You certainly won't see a headline like this one from the British Telegraph: "Floods show global warming is here."
And yet this has been "the wettest May to July period for England and Wales since records began in 1766." The recent "Great Flood of July" in southern England followed a somewhat similar June event in the north. As parts of the country are still submerged in the wake of torrential, tropical-style deluges (a month's worth of rain fell in a few hours), while record extremes of heat "roast" central and southern Europe, the subject of climate change is certainly on European minds — and a group of scientists are evidently going to release a study in the journal Nature this week that claims "more intense rainstorms across parts of the northern hemisphere are being generated by man-made global warming."
No American media figure, for instance, has wondered publicly whether, someday, England could become, in Gore-like "inconvenient truth" terms, the partially sunken Florida of Europe (along undoubtedly with Holland and other low-lying areas of the continent). It's no less true that a season of startlingly widespread and fierce wildfires, based on long-term drought in the West, Southwest, and Southeast has been a news leader for months — the TV news just adores the imagery of storms and fires — again, most of the time, with little linkage to larger possible changes underway. We are, it seems, a resistant species when it comes to thinking about the need to truly reorganize ourselves on this fragile, but resilient, planet of ours.
And yet, even when no good TV images are produced and the changes are far more subtle, climate chaos is already pushing stressed ecosystems in new and unpredictable directions. It seems indisputable that, if we are going to weather (literally) the punches Mother Nature throws our way, we will need to do more than improve evacuation routes when storms hit or put more firefighters on the line when parched lands ignite. We will also have to reconsider how we deal with the natural world — at present, largely as a collection of commodities to be endlessly manipulated for profit and convenience or as a set of touring destinations.
So think of Chip Ward's essay that follows as a challenge to just such thinking. It might as easily have been entitled, "Why the Organizing Principle of Industrial Civilization Is Just a Big Misunderstanding." Taking up a recent, startling development in the commercial world of nature — the collapse of bee colonies across the U.S. — it explores ways in which our cult-like devotion to the notion of making all things efficient has become dysfunctional, even dangerous.
Ward, whose most recent Tomdispatch essay on the homeless world of the public library created a modest sensation — he was then just retiring as a library administrator — is well-known in his area as a grassroots activist working on toxic and radioactive waste issues. His early writing, especially his book Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West, focused on how to make polluters accountable. Recently, he moved to the remote wilds of southern Utah where he has had to cope with some of nature's inevitable disturbances — wildfires and flashfloods — that have made him think about how recovery from such disturbance happens and how we might help recovery along (and so help ourselves as well). Tom
Diesel-Driven Bee Slums and Impotent Turkeys
The Case for Resilience
By Chip Ward
Resilience. You may not have heard much about it, but brace yourself. You're going to hear that word a lot in the future. It is what we have too little of as our world slips into unpredictable climate chaos. "Resilience thinking," the cutting edge of environmental science, may someday replace "efficiency" as the organizing principle of our economy.
Our current economic system is designed to maximize outputs and minimize costs. (That's what we call efficiency.) Efficiency eliminates redundancy, which is abundant in nature, in favor of finding the one "best" way of doing something — usually "best" means most profitable over the short run — and then doing it that way and that way only. And we aim for control, too, because it is more efficient to command than just let things happen the way they will. Most of our knowledge about how natural systems work is focused on how to get what we want out of them as quickly and cheaply as possible — things like timber, minerals, water, grain, fish, and so on. We're skilled at breaking systems apart and manipulating the pieces for short-term gain.
Think of resiliency, on the other hand, as the ability of a system to recover from a disturbance. Recovery requires options to that one "best" way of doing things in case that way is blocked or disturbed. A resilient system is adaptable and diverse. It has some redundancy built in. A resilient perspective acknowledges that change is constant and prediction difficult in a world that is complex and dynamic. It understands that when you manipulate the individual pieces of a system, you change that system in unintended ways. Resilience thinking is a new lens for looking at the natural world we are embedded in and the manmade world we have imposed upon it.
In the world today, efficiency rules. The history of our industrial civilization has essentially been the story of gaining control over nature. Water-spilling rivers were dammed and levied; timber-wasting forest fires were suppressed; cattle-eating predators were eliminated; and pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics were liberally applied to deal with those pesky insects, weeds, and microbes that seemed so intent on wasting what we wanted to use efficiently. Today we are even engineering the genetic codes of plants and animals to make them more efficient.
Surprise Happens
Too often we understand the natural systems we manipulate incompletely. We treat living systems as if they were simple, static, linear, and predictable when, in reality they are complex, dynamic, and unpredictable. When building our manmade world on top of those natural systems, we regularly fail to account for inevitable natural disturbances and changes. So when the "unexpected inevitable" occurs, we are shocked. Worse, we often find that we have "all our eggs in one basket," and that the redundancy we eliminated in the name of efficiency limits our options for recovery. This applies to manmade systems, too.
Our efficient energy and food systems are perfect examples of how monolithic and brittle our infrastructure can become. Political turmoil in the Middle East, storms ravaging offshore oil wells, refinery fires, terrorism, and any number of other easily imaginable, even inevitable disruptions send gas prices soaring and suddenly our oil-dependent economy is pitched into a crisis. Because there is no readily available alternative to how we fuel our way of life — no resilience — our dependence on fossil fuels leaves us especially vulnerable to crisis. Our food system is likewise vulnerable, since it is so dependent on oil-based fertilizers and pesticides and relies on cheap and consistent supplies of gas for farm machinery and shipping.
Redundancy — alternative energy sources, for example — would have left us options to fall back on in a time of such crisis. We did not develop those options, however, because they weren't considered "competitive." That is, if one energy source is cheaper to produce than others — ignoring, of course, all the associated and unacknowledged environmental and health costs — then that is the predominant energy source we will use to the exclusion of all others. Decades ago, oil and coal were cheap and so we constructed an entire energy infrastructure around those resources alone. (Nuclear squeaked through the door only because it was so heavily subsidized by government.) Solar and wind couldn't compete according to the rigid market criteria we applied, so those sources hardly exist today. We are still told that we will get them only when they become more competitive.
Our focus on efficiency in building manmade systems has been short-sighted because it fails to anticipate change over the long run. Resiliency is eliminated at each turn by owners, managers, and planners steeped in the cult of efficiency and trained to cut out profit-reducing redundancy whenever it appears. In organizations, this usually works well — at least for a while. But our attempt to maximize the use of natural systems has, in this regard, been an unmitigated disaster.
Most of the technological means we use to overcome nature's inefficiencies seem clever and beneficial until the long-term drawbacks dawn on us. In the Northwest, for instance, dams seemed like a great way to produce electricity and make rivers navigable until, that is, the salmon began to die and an entire Northwest ecosystem that depended on salmon began to unravel. Until they broke under the power of Hurricane Katrina, the levees in New Orleans seemed to be a neat alternative to those messy coastal wetlands and inconvenient barrier islands we had wiped out for keeping storm surges in check.
Bees Drop Dead
The recent collapse of honeybee colonies across the United States provides a compelling example of how we removed resilience from a fundamental ecological service — pollination — to make it more efficient and the unexpected blowback we are now suffering from that. In this case, there is little resilience in the manmade system of food production that relies on healthy populations of commercial bee colonies to pollinate crops and too little resilience left in the natural world for bees to recover quickly from whatever is wiping them out.
Pollination is a fundamental process that happens many ways — birds do it, bees do it, even butterflies and moths do it. But humans who grow food rely almost exclusively on bees; and not the hundreds of species of wild bees either, but one bee, the European honeybee. Sometimes resilience in nature is the availability of diverse options to fall back on in times of disturbance, but even when there is one choice, like bees for pollinating crops, there are still resilient features, redundancies that we eliminate at our peril. For hundreds of years, numerous dispersed and varied bee populations meant that a scarcity of bees here could be compensated for by an abundance of bees there. Not anymore. We have grabbed this key ecological process to maximize its use and have wrung out what resiliency there was.
Although the widespread disappearance of bees from our landscapes sounds like the stuff of melodramatic science fiction, like those movies about Ebola virus or asteroid strikes, the situation is both dire and all too real. Bee-tracking experts estimate that, across 26 states, between a half-million and a million of 2.4 million bee colonies have collapsed this year. Because many fruit, vegetable, and seed crops, worth about $12 billion annually, rely on the most affected bee, the European Honeybee, for pollination, bee loss will translate into increased food costs for consumers and a potential loss of food variety as well.
Nobody knows for sure why bee colonies are collapsing. German researchers recently speculated that the rapid growth in cell-phone use might be a cause, that some kind of tipping point had been crossed where bees could no longer navigate and communicate in an electro-magnetic environment saturated with cell-phone signals. This speculation is based upon experiments in which forager bees abandoned hives next to which cell phones had been placed. But bee populations are collapsing across the nation, including in areas with less cell phone ubiquity.
The suddenness of the collapse is puzzling, but one possibility would be the emergence of some new killer parasite or bee mite — a development that could result in such a precipitous decline. After all, bee pollination is big business. Bees are transported and mixed today in ways never before possible, giving the tiny parasitic critters that bees carry in their guts all sorts of opportunities to find new hosts. But whatever the specific cause of bee colony collapse, the context of this pollinator catastrophe is an old story.
Once upon a time we had lots of small, local farms. Farmers relied on dispersed bee populations to pollinate their crops, enhanced and encouraged by the work of local beekeepers. When monoculture was but a glint in the agricultural eye, when cows, chickens, pigs, and more than one crop was still part of the farming dynamic, a farmer might also keep a hive or two. Before we replaced meadows and prairies with sprawling subdivisions, there was enough habitat for local bee populations to thrive and meet agricultural demands. Not anymore.
Today, when farms are massive and almost invariably dedicated to single crops, there just aren't enough local bees to do the work required. In addition, the crops we grow need to be pollinated at different times. So, for example, vast crops of almonds in California need to be pollinated in February when there aren't enough local bees around, so the growers import bees to do the job.
Diesel-Driven Bee Slums
In fact, we ship billions of bees from here to there and back again in tractor-trailer trucks to pollinate our food crops. Like so many other aspects of modern agriculture, bee pollination has become a business that matches the scale of our food-production system. So, out with the inefficient, inflexible, insufficient local bees and in with diesel-driven colonies of commercial bees that arrive in sufficient numbers where and when we want them. The top beekeeping corporation in America can put 70,000 hives on the road at one time.
What happens to bees in such circumstances is probably similar to what happens to all creatures living in crowded and overpopulated environments — illness can spread quickly. A dairy farmer in Vermont told me that, when you have a hundred cows in the milking barn, you can use antibiotics sparingly. But put a thousand cows together and you're applying antibiotics all the time. Whatever happens in one cow's blood stream tends to go through the whole herd quickly — and the more cows that are crowded together, the more viruses, parasites, and infections are in play.
The same thing happens to chickens and pigs in factory farms, which is why they get antibiotics routinely. Why would bees be an exception to the vulnerability to illness that comes with agriculture conducted on such a massive scale? You can't, however, apply antibiotics to bees the way you can to cows because bees are more likely to trade mites than infections, so new miticides are being developed.
Logically enough, bee vulnerability is increased if the immune responses of the bees are low. A friend of mine drove tractor-trailer trucks filled with bees as a summer job in college. He drove by night when the bees were in their hives and quiet. The goal was to get to his destination before dawn and unload the bees onto the targeted crop before they became busy, uncooperative, and agitated. When the trip was rough, when there were breakdowns or bad weather en route, he said, thousands of bees died. If stress kills bees, it is not unreasonable to assume it lowers immune response.
Bees have to be fed between trips. High fructose corn syrup is hauled to them in tanker trucks, which probably isn't any better for their health than it is for ours. Bees, of course, encounter and incorporate pesticides and herbicides in the fields they pollinate, as well as all the other background pollutants we have put into the environment. Toxic chemicals also lower immune thresholds. Who knows what those genetically modified plants they encounter do to them? Add it all up and you get overcrowded, malnourished, stressed-out, poisoned, possibly cell-phone radiated, disturbed bees. Any — or all — of this could contribute to the present colony collapse, or it could be due to some as yet unknown factor or development. When it comes to resiliency, however, it doesn't matter. What does matter is the missing redundancy in the system.
This sort of colony collapse has happened before. The occasional collapse of bee populations has been recorded over the past couple of centuries, though not in the present widespread form. Obviously, bee populations eventually recovered. Is it reasonable then to expect that they will recover again? Yes, but not right away. Habitat destruction — all those sprawling burbs where bee-flowers once bloomed — mean less room for bees to recover and fewer colonies of dispersed local bees to replenish diminished populations. Lots of viable habitat is also an important aspect of resilience. In other words, natural pollinators are no longer resilient — they cannot quickly recover from a disturbance like an epidemic. If we expect to continue to rely on fossil-fueled bees, packed like Third World slum-dwellers onto trucks, then we can expect future die-offs as well, whatever the cause of this one.
If we understood and appreciated the need for resilience, we would not just rebuild commercial bee colonies as we certainly plan to do, but would also find ways to encourage local beekeepers to grow healthy colonies of dispersed bees. That way we wouldn't have all our bees in one basket. (The scientific term for such a precaution is modularity.). We would conserve or restore bee habitat. We would move away from agricultural models that require pollination on a scale that local bees cannot hope to satisfy and on schedules that are out of sync with what bees can do naturally and locally.
We could focus more on what makes bees healthy than on what makes them convenient and profitable. We might even realize that industrializing bees is not as efficient as we imagined. In the long run, such arrangements only make growers vulnerable to bee-colony collapse. And we would not be so quick to replace an ecological service (a process nature provides for free) that is resilient with an artificial version of the same with next to no resilience.
A World of Impotent Turkeys
When biodiversity is sacrificed to improve efficiency, we lose options and become vulnerable. American farmers, for example, once grew a wide variety of indigenous breeds of turkeys. Today, 99% of all the turkeys raised commercially belong to a single engineered breed. It has a very meaty breast and so is exceptionally efficient in terms of getting the most white-meat bang for the buck, but it must be intensively managed with high protein feed, medication, and climate-controlled housing. That's expensive to do, so just three corporate breeders supply just about the entire world's turkey market.
Sadly, those super-chested turkeys are incapable of reproducing on their own. Without artificial insemination, they would disappear in a single generation. Their genetic base is exceedingly narrow as well, making them highly vulnerable to disturbances. A catastrophic die-off of turkeys is likely sometime in the future. What would make this component of the food system more resilient? You fill in the blanks here — be sure you use the words "local," "dispersed," and "diverse."
We have likewise lost diversity and resiliency in the plants we eat. The diversity of the genetic base of the world's wheat and rice supplies is so diminished by commercial manipulation that these crucial crops are vulnerable to a catastrophic blight if scientists in agro-business labs don't remain one slight step ahead of evolving plant diseases. If, at any point, they falter in that race, widespread starvation and the political and social chaos that accompanies famine will only underscore, in the grimmest way possible, the dangers of imposing artificial notions of efficiency on a dynamic natural process. Untrammeled efficiency turns out to be as risky as it is arrogant.
Crossing Thresholds
Ultimately, the loss of resilience can result in profound and unanticipated changes that happen when thresholds are crossed and ecosystems shift suddenly into new patterns of behavior with no way back. I live in an arid western desert that was once a vast grassland. Pioneers reported that the grass was as tall as the shoulders of their horses. Hundreds of thousands of cows were driven in to graze on the abundant food. Settlers expected that, like the pastures they knew in the east or the Midwestern prairies, the grass would be an annual affair, that it would always return. Not so.
Once it was over-grazed, the grass died out and pinion and juniper trees moved in. Massive erosion followed and today the barbed-wire fences of those original ranches dangle twenty feet above the arroyos that were washed out under them. That, too, is an old story.
How many thresholds were crossed as the ancient forests of the Middle East were turned into parched wasteland by the manmade disturbances of clear-cutting and overgrazing? How many thresholds are we approaching today that we do not see coming? Already, major ocean fisheries have been so depleted that they will likely never recover but will shift instead into new, unrecognizable ecological regimes.
Restoring resilience to manmade systems will require an eye for options, an appreciation for redundancy, and a tolerance for chaos. Messy organizations may also be creative. But, hard as it may be, we will always find it easier to anticipate disturbance and build choices into our manmade systems than to understand how to conserve resilience in the natural systems that support us. To do that, we must grasp the deep underlying relationships between such "slow variables" as weather, soil composition, and plant succession that we often miss. We will have to learn to see how connectivity and feedback loops operate in nature and how futile it is, in the long run, to impose narrow notions of efficiency on natural systems that are profoundly dynamic and inherently unpredictable.
How resilient are we? Crisis is also an opportunity for change. As the bees die, we are getting an unmistakable warning. Without pollination, life as we know it is not possible. Think "tiny canaries in the coal mine." Then think "resilience."
Chip Ward is a former public library administrator and grassroots activist turned writer/advocate. His book, Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West, is an account of his campaigns to make polluters accountable and Hope's Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land explores the cutting edge of America's conservation movement. He writes from Torrey, Utah.
Copyright 2007 Chip Ward
Chip Ward
Chip Ward is a political activist and author of Canaries on the Rim (Verso) and Hope's Horizon (Island Press). He writes from Torrey, Utah, a small village that refuses to go big.


KFC T20 Big Bash League 2016/17 will kick start on 20 Dec, 2016 and Big Final will be played on 28 Jan, 2017. Matches are schedule in school holiday so families can have the opportunity to watch matches in stadium. Cricket Australia has signed a new broadcast television deal with United States of America and Canada. Broadcast deal includes 10 matches of upcoming edition of KFC BBL 2016-17 to be air live in States and Canada. At the moment broadcast deal is for one year which can be extended in future. NBC Sports Network will telecast 1 match per week of BBL live an on replay on TV channel. BBL matches will be shown to over 85 million houses, since NBCSN is part of basic television channels included in cable network. BBL 16-17 final will be aired on delay.
CA has made these efforts to extend Big Bash League audience. It will be the first time BBL matches will be available to wider mainstream audience. Such move will help further progress of BBL T20 league and will attract US cricket fans. Cricket Australia has also renew broadcast rights with Willow TV channel for next 5 years. Willow TV subscribers will be able to watch live BBL matches through cricket.com dot au.
Cricket Australia has also renewed broadcast rights with Asian Television Network for next 5 years. ATN TV channel will have the right to broadcast all Men, Women and BBL matches live in Canada. ATN subscribers would be able to watch live streaming of Big Bash League 16-17 live on cricket.com dot au.
NBCSN president Jon Miller Willow TV chief executive Vijay Srinivasan were both happy with this deal and were thrilling to be partner with CA. Mr Srinivasan said, "We believe there is still enormous headroom for the US cricket audience to grow both on television and digital and we are excited that Australian cricket will be part of our programming through our next five years of growth."


text:
Is now coach kliff undisclosed location that new returned
in Arizona Cardinals
We were friggin' good tonight, and we didn't get the breaks.The most talented and proven rookie to hit the NBA in years makes the Mavericks a must-watch team.Those seem to be the only two options.Brown, 38, is one of only six FBS coaches with 10 victories in each of the past three seasons.The Avalanche have very few open roster slots.To find all players born within a certain month and year, for example all players born in December of 1985, choose the month and year with the drop down boxes and then choose the 'Month and Year Search' option.
Just seeing him consistently play the way he has in the pass game and the run game, if he can do that, that's why he's playing as good as anybody at that position in this league right now.Tate will, of course, be a part of the effort to replace Odell Beckham Jr., who was traded at a discount to the Browns earlier this week.If they can't get Paul Brown, they decided to get Paul Brown's protégé.History is written by the victors.
The athletic quarterback's completion percentage still hovered around 50 percent , and he missed a few routine pass attempts.There are plenty more names you need to know ahead of the NHL Expansion Draft next month.They're playing great defense.Randolph's attorney enters not guilty plea Dec 31 10 AM An attorney for Blazers forward Zach Randolph entered a not guilty plea to a charge of driving under the influence of intoxicants controlled substance at Randolph's arraignment Tuesday at the Justice Center.Sometimes it was just ball hockey in an arena parking lot.
The rule of thumb is focusing on players in the first five spots.This was a team who gained valuable experience in dealing with and overcoming adversity.WE LIKE Agile handling, great powertrains, great EV range WE DON'T LIKE Tight back seat and modest cargo room There's no tougher ballgame in town than that of the subcompact crossover.Yes, they successfully lobbied to sell beer, but like a kid who just turned 21, now it's up to them to realize that alcohol has a time and a place, and just because you can get your hands on it doesn't mean you always should.The Captain spent 20 years at shortstop for the New York Yankees, ushering in a dynastic return for the club throughout the mid-'90s and late 2000s.
Through a pair of relief appearances this season, Covey has allowed one run one two hits and two walks across 1 innings.In the offseason, they added Panarin, a dynamic forward who has given this team a much-needed offensive threat on a regular basis.With the core of the team under contract for at least one more season, Rivers likely envisions a deeper playoff run in 2019.The Winnipeg Jets stumbled down the stretch, in their final 30 games and losing their lead in the Central Division to the Nashville Predators.
While the identity of the Rays' closer on any given night remains unclear, Alvarado appears to have moved himself back into consideration, having earned save chances on both May 17 and 18 .We'll try to be ready to go whenever the games are scheduled.I'd obviously have liked to have had a better first inning, Moore said.To search for players who were born on a certain date, for example all players born on December 25, choose the month, day and year with the drop down boxes and then choose the 'Full Date Search' option.However, Krejci was banged up last season resulting in just 64 appearances.
Lethal in both transition and pick-and-roll, his 5 assists lead the Big East, while his 20 points slot him third.is going to fly around and do stuff.Shannon is saying a source of his notes the two sides are not close to an agreement and it's hard to how much time Theodore might miss.Their goal is to make each year better than the last.First of all, I try not to read the papers and not even get involved in it, Szczerbiak said.
He finally got his first NHL action in the season finale against San Jose, a 3 loss.A year later, Chadwell moves up again after coordinating the offense in 2017."Give them some credit," Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said.The trade announcement was made at 1 a.m.
Before Phillips was hired as the franchise's fifth head coach a six-year span, the Oilers were downtrodden, having lost 31 of 34 games during one stretch from 1972 to '74.The rest of the feed on this topic is laughter among Oiler fans.
Link contest icon helped guide the jets touch


text:
HD183339 — хімічно пекулярна зоря спектрального класу B8, що має видиму зоряну величину в смузі V приблизно  6,6.
Вона  розташована на відстані близько 1254,4 світлових років від Сонця.

Пекулярний хімічний склад

HD183339 належить до Хімічно пекулярних зір з пониженим вмістом гелію
й в її  зоряній атмосфері спостерігається нестача He у порівнянні з його вмістом в атмосфері Сонця.

Магнітне поле
Спектр даної зорі вказує на наявність магнітного поля у її зоряній атмосфері.
Напруженість повздовжної компоненти поля оціненої з аналізу
наявних ліній металів
становить 1296,2± 465,5 Гаус.

Див. також

 Перелік HgMn-зір
 Ртутно-манганова зоря
 Перелік магнітних хімічно пекулярних зір
 Перелік хімічно пекулярних зір (18h-20h)
 Хімічно пекулярна зоря
 Перелік хімічно пекулярних зір з пониженим вмістом гелію
 Хімічно пекулярна зоря з пониженим вмістом гелію
 Перелік Am-зір
 Am-зоря

Джерела

Хімічно пекулярні зорі
Зорі головної послідовності спектрального  класу B8
Хімічно пекулярні зорі з магнітним полем
3
Хімічно пекулярні зорі з пониженим вмістом гелію

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Asus ZenPad 10 Review – Decent Quality, Annoying Bloatware
Ever since the dawn of the Pixel C and the iPad Pro, convertible tablets are now considered to be all the rage, and perhaps the same can be said about the Asus ZenPad 10. And while it does offer a lot of promise, Asus' entry to the hybrid device market has a relatively reasonable price tag, which is a plus when you consider some of its higher-end rivals like Apple's iPad Pro. Furthermore, there is already a keyboard dock included in the standard package, which is also another plus when comparing it to Apple's contender. In summary, this is a solid choice, if you can deal with the bloatware.
The Asus ZenPad 10 Just Slightly Falls Short of Greatness
In terms of design, the Asus ZenPad 10 won't be winning any awards. For the tablet section, it is purely made out of plastic and it feels noticeably less top-end as compared to similar devices. It has a gray keyboard dock that has a similar traditional feel as compared to the tablet portion. Its plastic material does feel a bit brittle. Both the tablet and the keyboard portion does offer some flex when moderate pressure is applied. Therefore, whenever you're trying to dock the slate to the dock, make sure you do it carefully as apply too much pressure and you might end up breaking the unit.
For its keyboard keys, it has reasonable travel, and the keys do feel solid as compared to other tablet keyboard docks that are within a similar price class. While still on the dock, it does feel weighty enough to ensure that the tablet portion won't topple the connected pieces over, which is the case for the Pixel C. Users will also be happy to know that they can work with the ZenPad 10 resting comfortably on their laps.
As for its 10.1-inch display, it is pretty good even for viewing movies. The screen offers a 1,280 x 800 resolution, which is nothing to write home about. Upon closer inspection, you can even the individual pixels. While a bit low on the pixel resolution, color balance and vibrance are top notch, especially when you consider its price.
The Asus ZenPad 10 is powered by a quad-core Intel Atom x3-C3200 CPU, which does a pretty decent performance in powering up the device. It is mated with 2GB of RAM and comes with the Android Lollipop operating system with the ZenUI installed right off the bat. Speaking of the ZenUI, Asus is not afraid to show you a lot of their homebrew apps because there are a lot of it here. Overall, the device promotes potential, but the bloatware ultimately weighs it down.
2017 Hyundai Elantra 2.0L Automatic Review - A Public Demand
Ever since the dawn of the Pixel C and the iPad Pro, convertible tablets are now considered to be all the rage, and perhaps the same can be said about the Asus ZenPad 10. And while it does offer a lot of promise, Asus' entry to the hybrid device market has a relatively reasonable price tag, which is a plus when you consider some of its higher...Read More
3.9 (78.99%) ratings from 79 users


The title of Cool Nutz latest single, Mine, might sound self-centered, but the emcee has no problem sharing the spotlight. Off of the Oregon emcee's most recent album, Mine not only features the headliner's powerful vocal delivery, but fellow Booth veteran The Grouch, whp adds a smooth, grown man's hip hop verse. Vocalist Arjay provides the hook with his understated vocals, setting off the Jazzy, subtle production by producer Trox. Mine, along with the October-featured, Strange Music assisted, Affiliation, can be found on Portland Ni%#a, out now.


Our research and education activities concentrate on mineralogical process and reactions in natural and technical systems. Based on the formation and modification of hard rocks, we study their chemical and mineralogical composition and the possibilities of their use as resources and materials.
Research is aimed at enhancing the understanding of the processes taking place in the Earth's crust and using this knowledge for the needs of everyday life, for example in the area of properties of mineral materials. This requires on-site work as well as experimental studies and the transfer of this know-how to application-specific problems.
Being a close-to-application division of the Institute of Applied Geosciences, we study the influence of CO2 on the mineralogical composition and, hence, on the stability of fault zones in cap rock formations of underground CO2 stores under the joint project "CO2 impact on fault zones in cap rocks".
In cooperation with KIT's Research Sector and private industry, we strive for an optimized use of minerals as resources, for instance for mold construction, by specifically controlling mineralogical modifications and reactions and, hence, adapting technical properties to the needs of industrial application.
Successful exploration of mineral resources requires a broad understanding of the formation of these inventories. Among others, gold and non-ferrous metals, non-sulfide zinc metallization, and Fe-P-REE(U) reservoirs are studied in the field of deposit research. Our regional focus is lying on Iran at the moment.
Our teaching and research activities result in a number of contact points with other materials sciences and application.
Apart from teaching and research, our group is responsible for the conception and implementation of the "Applied Geosciences" bachelor and master programs introduced in 2006.


text:
Q: time domain reflectometry pulse shape Alot of TDRs use square waves or needle like pulses for length determination. Why are not other pulse shapes like sine or triangle used?

A: In TDR, the two main parameters are pulse length (or rather shortness), to get bandwidth, and pulse power, to get signal to noise ratio. Once you've struggled to produce those, the pulse shape is whatever the mechanism you've used happens to give you.
It's rather like the dog that says 'sausages'. The wonder is that the dog can talk at all, not that its pronunciation is poor.
TDRs tend to use a step recovery diode into a pulse shaping network, for instance a shorted transmission line. All pulses tend to come out looking a bit Gaussian (if you're lucky). Square pulses tend to have their edges rounded off, delta pulses tend to be spread out a bit. As long as the pulse doesn't have a long tail, or ringing, or a double peak, then most users are generally happy with what they get.


No, it should sit against the weatherstripping thus sealing it.
There is a ridge on the rubber on the upper portion, if you look at it closely you will see that it basically matches the angles of the glass. Your side glass should be pretty close to that. Having said that, you need to adjust the side and door glass together to get the best overall seal of both, so where it ends up on the weatherstripping isn't set in stone, it just needs to seal and line up with the door glass.
No problem. I know it can be challenging but take your time and make small adjustments. This will give you a an understanding of exactly what does what and how everything fits together/aligns.