text:
The target species, i.e., the species subject to protection, was chosen based on Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and is the Sardinian discoglossus (Discoglossus sardus). It is a medium-sized amphibian that lives mainly in ponds and marshes up to 1200 m above sea level and is the target beneficiary species.
The actions of the project aimed at improving the habitats of the Sardinian discoglossus will indirectly produce benefits also for other species that populate the same habitats, i.e., the species of vertebrates and invertebrates that live in those habitats, using them as a refuge, to feed, to rest during migrations and to reproduce themselves. Among these animals we find:
- Sylvia undata. Dartford warbler. It is an insectivorous bird close to the threat of extinction due to the continuous erosion of its habitat along the coasts.
- Lanius collurio. Red-backed shrike. It is a bird that can be recognized very easily thanks to its "bandit mask" on its head. It lives in meadows and cultivated fields and feeds on insects and even other birds that have just come out of the nest. The Italian population is classified as "vulnerable" by the IUCN due to the transformation of the habitat.
- Caprimulgus europaeus. European nightjar. Although not yet threatened according to the IUCN, this species is listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive (79/409/EEC). It is a medium-sized bird with nocturnal habits that feeds mainly on insects. The name "nightjar" derives from an ancient belief according to which this animal feeds on the blood of goats and other grazing animals. In reality, the nightjar is often found near these animals due to the presence of insects associated with them.
- Ficedula hypoleuca. European pied flycatcher. It is a small bird that feeds on insects and prefers wooded environments. The male, in its summer dress, has the upper part of the body completely black, including the wings, which carry a small white band like the lower part of the body. It is easy to recognize but due to its living habitats it is difficult to spot.
- Ficedula albicollis. Collared flycatcher. Unlike the European pied flycatcher, this small bird features a white collar that breaks up the black colour of the upper body. It too is listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive (79/409/EEC) and is a fairly rare species, albeit homogeneously distributed in Italy.
- Phylloscopus (Various species). These birds are also called "luì" in Italian for their classic sound.
- Euleptes europaea. European leaf-toed gecko. It is a small gecko, the smallest in Europe. It lives in rocky areas, on dry stone walls and in abandoned farmhouses. It comes out mainly at night to hunt larvae and adult insects and small molluscs. This species is listed in Appendix II of the Bern Convention and in Appendix II, IV of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC). Protected by regional laws in Liguria and Tuscany
As regards the plant world:
- Brassica procumbens. Cavolo prostrato (in Italian). Species with North African and South European distribution, present in Europe in two locations only (Corsica and the Giglio Island)
- Gagea granatelli var. obtusiflora. Plant with a yellow flower commonly called in Italy "cipollaccio giallo di Granatelli" (yellow onion of Granatelli). It is a perennial herbaceous plant with underground bulbs distributed in various regions of Italy.
- Quercus ilex and Q. rotundifolia. They are two large oaks, commonly called holm oak and holly oak, which constitute evergreen woods typical of Mediterranean environments.


text:
Diving into the world of real estate investment in Houston, even without a substantial cash reserve, might seem like a daunting endeavor. The common misconception is that financial limitations equate to closed doors. However, seasoned investors have a few hidden tactics up their sleeves, allowing them to navigate the real estate market without relying solely on their cash reserves. Let's explore three pro secrets that can empower you to make deals in Houston's real estate market, even without immediate access to significant funds.
Secret #1: Seller Financing – Unlocking Creative Options
The traditional image of real estate transactions involves exchanging a sum of money for ownership rights. Yet, an alternative avenue exists – one that often goes unnoticed. Enter seller financing, a strategy that mirrors a mortgage but eliminates the need for a traditional bank.
Seller financing involves negotiating terms with the seller, where you make regular monthly payments directly to them until the property is fully paid off. This approach is a win-win: sellers receive a steady income stream, and you gain access to an investment property without a hefty upfront payment. The key lies in initiating conversations with sellers about this option, as many might not realize it's a viable choice. This creative approach expands your investment potential beyond the confines of your immediate cash resources.
Secret #2: Bartering – A Creative Exchange of Value
Innovative solutions often arise from thinking outside the conventional framework. When faced with a situation where funds are limited, consider the art of bartering. Imagine a scenario where a homeowner wishes to downsize and retire. Instead of a straightforward monetary transaction, explore alternative arrangements.
For instance, if you own a small apartment building, propose the idea of them moving into one of your units, with the funds earmarked for purchasing their property redirected toward rent. Alternatively, offer your services in lieu of a portion of the purchase price. Whether it's assisting with moving, cleaning, or renovations, finding common ground can open doors to investment opportunities that would have otherwise remained closed.
Secret #3: Partnering for Success with OPM
The concept of "Other People's Money" (OPM) is a potent strategy employed by savvy investors. This method involves identifying a lucrative deal and then partnering with individuals who have the capital but lack the time, expertise, or inclination to seek out opportunities themselves. As the intermediary, you facilitate the acquisition, creating a mutually beneficial arrangement.
For instance, if you locate a promising property, connect with a potential investor who has the financial resources. Collaboratively, you structure the deal, allowing them to fund the investment while you contribute by identifying and managing the property. The returns generated are then shared between you based on the terms you agree upon. This strategy not only unlocks access to investments without substantial cash but also capitalizes on the strengths of both parties involved.
By embracing these three insider secrets, a world of real estate investment opportunities unfolds in Houston. These strategies exemplify the ingenuity and flexibility that thrive in the realm of real estate, showcasing that with the right approach, financial constraints need not hinder your journey to becoming a successful investor.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
07 3289 2832
44 Mount Glorious Road, Samford Village, 4520
- This event has passed.
June 10, 2018 @ 9:00 am - August 12, 2018 @ 9:00 am
PRISON BREAK SERIES
Many years ago, I remember starting a lunch-time bible study group for students in a Christian School. I noted that a number of students who were attracted to this group were those who had some social and emotional development problems. They struggled to form meaningful and lasting friendships with other students. In addition, there were other students who came along who had other challenges in their lives. These were students were struggling with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, anger management and addictions. What amazed me about these two groups of students were that in terms of bible knowledge and prayer, they were quite confident and spiritually 'well-literate'. I soon discovered that it was possible to have a high spiritual/biblical IQ and yet struggle with social/emotional and mental ill-health.
Presently, as most of you understand, our western society is suffering the effects of mental ill-health in epidemic proportions. Many in our own church family are struggling with mental health issues as life seems to place more and more pressure on all of us.
The good news is that the bible has many answers to these growing social problems that are literally crippling both the lives of individuals and families. Jesus Christ came for the purpose of setting the 'captives free' and to bring lifelong healing to many. The Prison Break Series is a practical series of bible-based messages aimed at helping people work through common personal issues as described above.
At the start of June, we will commence this 10 week preaching series. In addition to the weekly sermons, discussion sessions will be available to our small groups if they wish to engage at a deeper level.
Lastly, I would like to encourage each church member to take the opportunity to reach out and personally invite your friends, neighbours and family members to church as these sermon topics could be very relevant to them. Let's pray that God will use the Prison Break Series to bring hope, healing, freedom and justice to many people who feel like they are living a life bound up in a prison.

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


A quarter-century ago Ludmila Javorova was a secret locked inside another secret. She was an ordained Roman Catholic priest inside the secret underground church in Czechoslovakia.
More on Ludmila
Ludmila's Story
Becoming a priest is something she prepared for all her life
Did a Female Pope Exist?
"Pope Joan" may be more than a legend
"A Woman of Power"
An interview with Donna Woolfolk Cross, author of the book, "Pope Joan"
The underground church, known as Koinotes--from koinonia, a Greek word for a tightly knit group of believers--operated at great risk, barely beyond the repressive gaze of the Czech communist authorities.
In the 1970s and '80s, Javorova's story was as remote as information buried in a time capsule. In a sense, that's what the secret was. Javorova did not want it revealed. Yet over the course of one decade, the 1990s, American enterprise and determination--and chance--decided otherwise.
In 1990, NCR staffer Tim McCarthy was in the Czech Republic to write about the sweeping changes taking place in Central and Eastern Europe.
In September of that year, in a lengthy article datelined Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, McCarthy revealed that married men had been ordained priests secretly in that country from the 1960s on.
Even more startling, informants told McCarthy that Bishop Felix Maria Davidek had ordained at least one woman. But McCarthy's sources did not know who or where she was, and their story "could not be confirmed."
Despite McCarthy's first twist on the time lock, the secret remained. The woman at the center, Ludmila Javorova, did not want it revealed. She had her reasons, though she had no doubts about her priesthood. She knew she had been legitimately ordained, in part because of the circumstances of the time, by Davidek, a legally instituted and recognized Roman Catholic bishop.
In December 1991, The New York Times picked up on the story and reported that three Czech women had been ordained.
The next twist on the time lock had taken place.
Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick, then national coordinator of the U.S. Catholic Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) put together a small delegation to travel to the Czech Republic. Before they left, she learned there was a former Koinotes priest in the United States and contacted him. He knew one of the women: Ludmila Javorova. Her name was out.
The delegation, which included Quixote Center's co-director Dolly Pommerlau and others, went to Prague, then Brno. In Brno, 18 local people gathered to listen to the visitors during a discussion about the church in the United States. Javorova, unidentified, was present. Later that evening, Javorova decided to be introduced to the Americans. They urged her to go public with her story. She declined.
Four years later a second delegation went to Brno and invited Javorova to the United States for a private visit. The delegation was co-sponsored by the Women's Ordination Conference and the Quixote Center, a faith-based social justice center in Washington.
In October 1997, Javorova visited for two weeks. She was accompanied by an ordained woman deacon from Slovakia, the deacon's sister and an interpreter. Not a word of this visit leaked out. Among events lined up for Javorova was a gathering of Future Church in Cleveland.
Seventy minutes flying time away, in Hartford, Conn., Sr. Miriam Therese Winter, composer, professor and director of Hartford Seminary's Women's Leadership Institute, was invited to the meeting by her friend, St. Joseph Sr. Chris Schenk, the executive director of FutureChurch.
There Winter met Javorova, a tall woman, perhaps 5-foot-7, slender, quiet, "deeply introverted but centered, very present to the moment." Winter, with her work at Hartford in mind, took some notes, some photographs and flew home. She typed up the notes and put them away.
A week later, Winter rode the Amtrak to Philadelphia. After its New Haven, Conn., stop, the train was packed. Even so, Winter could hear people talking in a language she did not understand, yet recognized--she'd been listening to it the previous weekend. There, across the aisle in the same car, was Javorova and her traveling companions.
"Ludmila shrieked in delight, she was so grateful to see a familiar face," said Winter. "They were on their way to Washington, but they wanted to make a quick stop in New York, just to see it. They were babes in the wilderness. They had bags and purses and coats, and I said, 'Omigod, getting off in New York you're going to be dog meat.' So I got off with them, got their gear into lockers, but couldn't stay."
Winter went on to Philadelphia. Not longer after, in Detroit for the Call to Action meeting, Winter was talking to the then-executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, Andrea Johnson, who said she'd been trying to convince Javorova to tell her story. They were pressing, but not too hard. The American women tried to convince Javorova to at least put her story down on paper. They explained that if she did not, after her death it would all disappear as if it had never happened.
Winter advised Johnson to contact Crossroad, the publishing house that publishes Winter's books. "The one thing I believe absolutely essential," Winter said, "is that when Ludmila tells her story, she needs to tell it to someone who receives it in such a way they treat it as sacred."
As Winter candidly said to NCR later, "Look, I had a concern about our feminist agenda. I'm a feminist. Honestly and sincerely, if you're about your task, you try to do it objectively. Even though there's a certain feminist filter, you try to watch over it. I also think, even without manipulation, you hear things differently if your primary objective is to lift up or pursue women's ordination which is, of course, critically important.
"But sometimes," Winter said, "how you ask the question determines how you get the information.
"When I'd been With Ludmila [in Cleveland]," she said, "I'd sensed something very deep there. I couldn't put it into words. I simply said she can't just go ahead with one European male writer who's close to the Czech Republic who comes in and says tell me your story. I'm so used to women's work. You need to have a safe circle of supporters as you tell the story."
Winter returned to her duties, but the task she'd laid out stayed with her. A couple of days later she woke up in the middle of the night and said, "I have to do this story." That morning she called Michael Leach (then at Crossroad, now at Orbis), and told him, "You won't believe want happened last night." He replied, "You won't believe what happened this morning." At their meeting they'd said, "If only we could get M.T. Winter to write this book."
In August 1999, during six days of conversation conducted through two interpreters, Winter learned a little of what it meant to be a secret locked inside a secret. "When you've lived 40 years under totalitarian rule, World War II Nazis and then the communists, everything is secret," Winter said "Then you have this underground church movement. It has to be very guarded. You don't tell anybody anything they don't need to know.
"And these are life patterns," said Winter. "Even when your psyche wants to override it. There were so many things in her life she'd never talked about, never said aloud even to herself. There was no sense of now we start at the beginning and go on to the end. Her recounting was all over the place. Many times I'd asked evocative questions to try to get to the narrative, and not just theory. Even dates. I had to do a lot of external work on the time line: If German bombs fell on Brno this year, Ludmila was a little girl and probably that age."
In March 2000, Winter was back in Brno again. She decided to write the first draft while living and working in the culture. In May 2000, she was in Brno for a five-week writing stint. Halfway through came word that Winter's mother was dying. She made it home just in time, but could not return to the Czech Republic.
"Thank God for e-mails, and that we found two wonderful interpreters/translators," said Winter. In December 2000, Winter was back with Javorova checking the facts. Up until that point Javorova still had not agreed to publication in her lifetime. "I'd sensed in the fall that she might," said Winter, "and in December she agreed."
Oddly, that is not the end of the account that leads to Winter's book, reviewed on this page and excerpted on page 39. In Winter's view, the process of telling the story changed Winter, changed Javorova, and changed the context in which women's ordination is discussed.
Winter explains. "It is not easy to put Ludmila in a box, which we'd like to do. A stereotype--'She's a woman priest, therefore...' She crosses back and forth. She was doing things that were post-Vatican II way back when


text:
This mini-series is about using Power Platform to help streamline healthcare providers' work and increase patient safety.
Part 2 of this mini-series covered using Power Automate to extract lab result values from a response object and used them to check which entity conditions are true and send them to the Power App. Part 1 covered how to set up your database – creating entity tables.
In this section, you will be using Power Apps to build out this app's front end. You will create a dialog box pop up for the user to enter patient information, which will trigger the Power Automate flow. Once the flow has completed its run, it will return the patients' lab work results. The Power App will then display the results and display a dynamic checklist of directions for the healthcare provider.
You can find links to previous parts below:
- Applying Power Platform to the Healthcare Industry – Part 1: Setting Up Entities in Microsoft Dataverse
- Applying Power Platform to the Healthcare Industry – Part 2: Using Power Automate to create back-end logic.
Setting up the dialog box:
- Insert rectangle to cover the whole screen
- Change the color > transparency property to slight transparency so you can see what is under the rectangle.
- Insert another rectangle but smaller and centered. This will be the actual dialog pop-up.
- Set color> transparency property to opaque
- Insert a text box, a text input, and a button
- In this example, the text property on the button is set to "Submit."
- Make sure to set the default text property on the Text Input.
It should look something like the screenshot below.
To have all the dialog box elements appear and function as one, you will need to select all the elements from the Tree View panel and group them together. Once you do this, you can control the entire "Dialog Box" element as one. This is an alternative to using Components since you won't be reusing the dialog box in this example.
Next, you will want to set the visible property for your new group to your choosing variable.
- You will get an error because the variable has not been defined yet. To fix this, click on the App icon in the Tree view and in the formula bar for OnStart.
Note: You will make the dialog box conditionally visible later in this section
Call the flow on Dialog Submit and Pass in User Input:
Now that you have a dialog box, you want to take in user data and submit it to the flow.
- First, you will connect the power automate to our Power App.
- You need to go to your power automate and initialize a variable. This will let the Power App know you need parameters in your Flow.Run() call
- Set its value to "Ask in Power App" from the Dynamic Content Pop up
- You can initialize as many variables as you need. This will let Power App know how many parameters to require.
- Next, in your Power App go to Action > Power Automate.
- Find your flow from the list of existing flows and select it.
- Fill in the parameter with the dialog box's text input.
When you click the submit button, this will trigger the flow, and the inputted text will be passed into the Power Automate flow and stored as the variable you initialized.
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Note: In this example, you are getting input as a string. If you need to process this value as a float or integer in the Power Automate, please refer to Part 2, which covers this in detail: Applying Power Platform to the Healthcare Industry – Part 2: Using Power Automate to create back end logic.
- If you want your dialog box to disappear after clicking submit, make sure you set your DialogBox_Visible Boolean variable to false after running the flow in the buttons OnSelect property.
Displaying the Data from Power Automate:
Now that you are triggering the flow, this section will show you how to display the lab results from Power Automate inside the PowerApp and process the condition set values to show the correct directions in a checklist.
- To easily work with the values returned from the power automate, you should set what is returned by the Flow.Run() function in a variable. This way, you can easily access each returned variable
- Next, you want to set up our Power App to display values from the Power automate. In this example, the values returned from the Power Automate are stored in the variable called FlowValues. You simply need to use dot-notation to access the variables outputted by the Power Automate.
Create a dynamic checklist of directions to display conditional directions from Power Automate:
Now you want to display the correct set of directions, depending on values returned from the flow. You will do this by using Power App's local collections and the built-in Collect() functions.
Inside the submit buttons OnSelect property, after the flow.Run() call you will be processing the results returned from the flow, aka the FlowValues.condition values.
- Split the comma-separated values and delimit them by the comma
- ClearCollect into your first collection, let's call it collection1
- Loop through collection1 and filter all the Direction Entity where 'Condition ID.'Value = Result and store the Direction value in a new Collection (let's call it collection2)
Now that you have the data from the power automate processed let's understand what exactly happened.
Run the app and submit a patient's name. Then go to File > Collections to see what was stored in our new collections:
- In Collection1, you can see two values were returned from the flow 01 and 09. These correspond to high calcium and high Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN) values.
- In Collection 2, you can see that there are tables stored in the value columns. This is because, in collection2, you iterated through each item in collection1 and filtered the Directions entity for each value where the Condition ID column value equals the current item being iterated on from Collection1. The filter function returns a table.
- Drill down into the first item in Collection2. You can see that this table contains two items, the Directions values where Direction.ConditionID = 01 (aka high calcium). In our entity, 2 such rows satisfy this condition, so you have these two values.
- In the second table in Collection2, you can see similarly where Direction.ConditionID = 09 aka high Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)
- In the last Collect, you extracted the Values from Collection2 and stored them in another Collection called FinalDirections so you can easily access these directions in the next step.
In this final section, you will display the dynamically built list of directions stored in the collection (in this example, FinalDirections) in a checklist.
- First, insert a blank vertical gallery object with FinalDirections as the data source.
- Add Checkboxes inside the gallery with ThisItem.Direction as the text property
- It should look something like the screenshot below (where each item in FinalDirections has its own checkbox)
There you have it! You've built a Power App that displays various healthcare values and a dynamic checklist of directions based on inputted values using entities and Power Automate.


text:
On Monday, 2 February, at 16:30, in an open meeting of the Medical Promotion Council of Rīga Stradiņš University which will take place in the Hippocrates Lecture Theatre (Rīga, 16 Dzirciema Street), Marija Rusaka will defend her doctoral thesis "Acute and Transient Psychotic Disorder (ATPD) Dynamic Development and Peculiarities in Diagnostics and Treatment in Latvia".
Acute and transient psychotic disorders (ATPD) are characterized by acute psychosis (general term for the type of mental state, often involving a loss of contact with reality), varied symptomatology, and rapid resolution. Currently the role of researches on ATPT becomes increasingly significant, as scientists get involved in active discussions on the options to change the classification of ATPT diagnosis in the next revision of the International Classification of Diseases.
The aim of the study was to examine early symptoms of acute and transient psychotic disorders and the stability of the diagnosis, to describe early peculiarities of hospitalisation in ATPD patients and patients, who later were diagnosed with schizophrenia, to investigate possible relation of ATPD with stressful events before the first ATPD episode and personality profiles, as well as to identify treatment tactics in Latvia.
One of the conclusions of the research: clinical symptoms of the first psychotic episode in ATPD patient group and ATPD patients, who later were diagnosed with schizophrenia differs. The main prognostic indicators of the diagnosis were mental disorders during the first psychotic episode. General stability of the diagnosis was around 50%. It was established that a great part of ATPD patients experienced stressful events before the first psychotic episode. The relation of ATPD diagnosis with personality traits was not established.


In many scenarios you are interested in knowing how a given caller or callee was connected to the network, i.e. was it a wired or wireless connection. The information is contained in the columns CallerNetworkConnectionType and CalleeNetworkConnectionType in the MediaLine table. It is then easy to use those columns in your SQL queries. However you need to understand what values you can see in those columns and what they mean. To make it a bit more complex there are differences between the Lync 2010 and Lync 2013 QoE schemas on this point.
The Lync 2010 QoE Schema use NetworkConnectionType directly (I'll use this term to refer to both CallerNetworkConnectionType and CalleeNetworkConnectionType) and it can have the integer values 0 for wired and 1 for wireless. You can use those values directly in your SQL queries. For instance if you want to see all audio streams, where both caller and callee were connected via a wired connection, you can use a query like below:
SELECT
 *
FROM [Session] s WITH (NOLOCK)
 INNER JOIN [MediaLine] AS m WITH (NOLOCK) ON
 m.ConferenceDateTime = s.ConferenceDateTime
 AND m.SessionSeq = s.SessionSeq
 INNER JOIN [AudioStream] AS a WITH (NOLOCK) ON
 a.MediaLineLabel = m.MediaLineLabel
 and a.ConferenceDateTime = m.ConferenceDateTime
 and a.SessionSeq = m.SessionSeq
WHERE
 (m.CallerNetworkConnectionType = 0 and m.CalleeNetworkConnectionType = 0)

The Lync 2013 QoE Schema introduces a new table call NetworkConnectionDetail to store information about network connection type and the MediaLine columns for NetworkConnectionType are now indexes into this table. The actual network connection type values are stored as strings in the NetworkConnectionDetail column in the new table. Values you'll most likely see are 'wired', 'wifi' and 'Ethernet'. The 'Ethernet' string was introduced with Lync 2013. If you want to get the same list of wired audio streams in Lync 2013, you can use a query like below:
SELECT
 *
FROM [Session] s WITH (NOLOCK)
 INNER JOIN [MediaLine] AS m WITH (NOLOCK) ON
 m.ConferenceDateTime = s.ConferenceDateTime
 AND m.SessionSeq = s.SessionSeq
 INNER JOIN [AudioStream] AS a WITH (NOLOCK) ON
 a.MediaLineLabel = m.MediaLineLabel
 and a.ConferenceDateTime = m.ConferenceDateTime
 and a.SessionSeq = m.SessionSeq
 INNER JOIN [NetworkConnectionDetail] AS CallerNcd WITH (NOLOCK) ON
 CallerNcd.NetworkConnectionDetailKey = m.CallerNetworkConnectionType
 INNER JOIN [NetworkConnectionDetail] AS CalleeNcd WITH (NOLOCK) ON
 CalleeNcd.NetworkConnectionDetailKey = m.CalleeNetworkConnectionType
WHERE
 CallerNcd.NetworkConnectionDetail in ('wired','Ethernet')
 and CalleeNcd.NetworkConnectionDetail in ('wired','Ethernet')

So now alarm bells should be going off, when you read the above, because you'll ask yourself: will all my existing queries using the filter directly on the MediaLine columns (as above) have to be changed? Yes and No is the answer J
No, because if you are only testing on 0 and 1, the NetworkConnectionDetail table is pre-populated with two rows: index 0 = 'wired' and index 1 = 'wifi'. This is done for backwards compability reasons.
Yes, you'll have to change your queries, because the 'Ethernet' strings was introduced in Lync 2013 and many components use that to specify a wired connection. For portability between deployments it is also more correct to use the string comparison filter than filtering directly on index values.


text:
posted by michelle on.
How do you draw the structure of the reaction of 1-hexene with h2o in the presence of acid
If you mean the acid is a catalyst, then the major product will be 2-hexanol, because Markownikoff's Rule predicts the -OH group will go to the carbon atom with
fewer H atoms (#2 carbon in this case) and the H group goes to the C atom
with more hydrogens (#1 in this case).


@ARTICLE{M. Rezaiee-Pajand and M.R. Salari, author = {M. Rezaiee-Pajand and M.R. Salari, and }, title = {Discrete Direct Sensititivity Analysis Method of Bending Element with Six Degree of Freedom}, volume = {15}, number = {1}, abstract ={This paper is about discrete sensitivity analysis. A triangular bending element with constant moment and six degrees of freedom is used. The required derivatives for sensitivity analysis are calculated explicitly. These formulations, finite element method and sequential linear programming are utilized to find shape optimization of plate bending structures. The numerical examples, which show the ability of the derivatives, are presented. }, URL = {_URL_ eprint = {_URL_ journal = {Journal of Computational Methods In Engineering}, doi = {}, year = {1994} }


text:
Differentiate between Minor, Medium and Major Irrigation Schemes. Bring out their relative importance.
Hint: Major irrigation schemes are those schemes which have a Cultural Command Areas of More than 10,000 hectares. The Medium Irrigation Schemes have a CCA of 2,000-10,000 hectares. Minor Schemes: Those with Culturable command areas up to 2000 hectares.
Relative Importance: Minor irrigation schemes are environment friendly and provide gainful employment opportunities to the rural population, resulting in optimum utilization of resources. Major/ medium schemes and CAD projects form the backbone of the country's water and agricultural economy. Their contribution to national food security is vital and hence sustainable improvement in their utilization and management is critical for national water security.


text:
UWHARRIE NATIONAL FOREST
The Uwharrie National Forest, located's Piedmont region, is a vast expanse of natural beauty spanning over 50,000 acres. This forest offers an array of recreational activities including hiking on its extensive trail system that includes the renowned Uwharrie Trail and Dutchman's Creek Trail; camping at developed campgrounds or dispersed campsites; hunting for deer and turkey among other game species; fishing in clear streams teeming with bass and trout. The landscape features rolling hills covered by mixed hardwoods interspersed with pine forests while also boasting rich biodiversity which makes it a haven for wildlife enthusiasts. It holds historical significance as well due to remnants from gold mining operations dating back to the late 1800s scattered throughout this serene wilderness area.
1. Badin Lake Campground: This is a popular camping spot with 34 sites for tent or RV camping, all of which come equipped with grills and picnic tables.
2. Arrowhead Campground: It has 48 campsites that are suitable for both tents and trailers/RVs, each site comes complete with outdoor grills, lantern posts and picnic tables.
3. Uwharrie Hunt Camp: A primitive campsite designed specifically to accommodate hunters during hunting season but open to general public as well when it's not hunting season.
4. West Morris Mountain Primitive Camping Area: Ideal place if you're looking for more remote experience in the forest; there are no amenities here so be prepared!
5. Canebrake Horse Camp: If you have horses this campground offers horse:friendly facilities including stalls & riding trails.
6. Yates Place: Another primitive option located near several trailheads making it an ideal basecamp location.
7. Kelly's Kitchen Hunt: Located on Dutch John Road off NC Hwy109 North about two miles from Troy.
8. Art Lilley Memorial (Camp): The Art Lilley Memorial Complex consists of three separate areas within close proximity offering different types of recreational opportunities such as hiking,horseback riding etc.
9. Alcoa Game Land Ponds: These ponds offer fishing opportunity along side beautiful views . There aren't any designated spots but dispersed camping is allowed around these area.
10. Badin Group Site: Perfect choice if traveling in large group since its capable accommodating upto fifty people at once time.
Uwharrie National Forest is located near Albemarle, Asheboro and Monroe
1. Uwharrie National Recreation Trail: This is the longest trail in the forest, stretching over 20 miles from north to south through a variety of terrains and ecosystems. It's well-marked with white blazes and offers moderate difficulty levels.
2. Dutchman's Creek Trail: A moderately difficult loop trail that spans around 12 miles, it intersects with part of the Uwharrie National Recreational Trail offering hikers beautiful views of creekside scenery as well as dense forests.
3. Badin Lake Hiking Trails: These trails are located near New London consisting mainly two loops - one about six miles long (Lake Shore Loop) which follows along lake shorelines providing stunning water vistas; another shorter loop called King Mountain Loop for those looking for less strenuous hikes but still want to enjoy nature beauty.
4. Birkhead Mountains Wilderness Area Trails: The area has three main hiking trails - Hannahs Creek, Robbins Branch and Thornburg Farm- totaling approximately ten miles combined length traversing old homestead sites while showcasing diverse flora & fauna native to North Carolina Piedmont region.
5. Supertree Topo Bike/Hike Pathway: An easy-to-moderate level pathway spanning roughly five-mile round trip ideal both bikers or walkers who can take pleasure in observing wildlife habitats created by man-made structures known Supertrees designed mimic natural tree cavities used various species nesting purposes.
6. Densons Creek Nature: Located at Yates Place Campground this short yet scenic interpretive path meanders alongside Denson's creek perfect families young children elderly individuals seeking leisurely stroll amidst serene surroundings.
7. Wood Run Road Multi-use: A network interconnected multi-purpose paths including Keyauwee White Tail Woodrun totaling nearly fifteen mile stretch suitable mountain biking horseback riding addition regular trekking activities.
8. Fall Mountain: The Fall Mountain trial provides challenging terrain for experienced hikers and mountain bikers. It is a 4.7 mile loop that offers scenic views of the lake.
9. Morrow Mountain Trails: Located in Morrow State Park, which lies adjacent to Uwharrie National Forest, these trails offer additional hiking options with varying degrees of difficulty and length.
10. Kings Mountain Point Day Use Area Trail: This easy trail circles around Badin Lake providing beautiful water vistas along its two-mile stretch ideal picnics family outings.
11. Sugarloaf Mountain Nature: A three miles long trial located within Morrow Mountains state park offering panoramic view from summit including Pee Dee River valley.
1. Start by heading onto I:85 South if you are coming from the north or I-73/74 if you are traveling from the south.
2. Take Exit 61 for NC Highway 49 towards Asheboro and go east on NC:49.
3. Continue driving on NC:49 East for approximately 12 miles until you reach a roundabout intersection with US Highway 220 Business (North Fayetteville Street).
4. Enter the roundabout and take the second exit to stay on NC:49 East / US Hwy 220 Bus N.
5. Drive straight through another small roundabout after about half a mile, continuing along this road.
At this point, there will be multiple access points depending on which area of Uwharrie National Forest you wish to visit:
For Eldorado Outpost Access:
6a: After passing Badin Lake Road (SR1134), continue straight ahead for around two more miles before turning right into Eldorado Outpost entrance.
For Wood Run Trailhead Access:
6b: Instead of taking SR1134/Badin Lake Road turnoff mentioned above, keep going straight past it while staying on Old State Route Rd S/Pee Dee Church Rd/SR1150/Old Salisbury-Concord Rd SE/E Main St/Morrow Mountain Park Rd/Cove Boat Ramp Dr/Woodrun Trl - all part of one continuous route that leads directly into Wood Run Trailhead parking lot.
For West Morris Mountain Campground & Trails Access:
7c: Keep following signs indicating "West Morris Mtn CG" as they appear intermittently alongside roads previously described under step #6b; eventually leading visitors toward campground/trailheads located within western section(s)of national forest property itself!


NGC | Catalog
CatalogModelsVisual ChangeNet Segmentation - (Research-only)
Visual ChangeNet Segmentation - (Research-only)
Logo for Visual ChangeNet Segmentation - (Research-only)
Description
Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation (Research-only)
Publisher
-
Latest Version
visual_changenet_levircd_trainable_v1.0
Modified
October 16, 2023
Size
134.17 MB
Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation Model Card (Research-only)
Model Overview
The model described in this model card detects building change maps from a pair of co-registered remote sensing images (RSI). The inputs are a pair of co-registered pre-change golden image and a post-change test image of the same area under observation captured using RSI and the output is a binary segmentation change map denoting the change between the two images.
Model Architecture
Visual ChangeNet is a state of the art transformer-based Change Detection model. Visual ChangeNet is based on Siamese Network, which is a class of neural network architectures containing two or more identical subnetworks. The training algorithm works by updating the parameters across all the sub-networks in tandem. In TAO, Visual ChangeNet supports two images as input where the end goal is to either classify or segment the change between the "golden or reference" image and the "test" image. TAO supports the FAN backbone network for both Visual ChangeNet architectures. For more details about training FAN backbones, see the Pre-trained FAN based ImageNet Classification. In TAO, two different types of Change Detection networks are supported:
 - Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation - for segmentation of change between to input images.
 - Visual ChangeNet-Classification - for classification of change between to input images.
Visual ChangeNet-Classification is specifically intended for change classification. In this model card, the Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation model is leveraged to demonstrate building change detection using LEVIR-CD dataset for remote-sensing imagery. The model uses a pretrained FAN backbone, trained on NVImageNet dataset, and then fine-tunes on the LEVIR-CD dataset.
Training
This model was trained using the visual_changenet entrypoint in TAO. The training algorithm optimizes the network to minimize the cross-entropy loss for every pixel of the mask.
Training Data
Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation model was trained on open-source remote sensing (RS) building change detection dataset called LEVIR-CD. The training dataset consists of 10,192 pair-wise co-registered images. LEVIR-CD is a building CD dataset that contains RS image pairs of resolution 1024 × 1024. From these images, we crop non-overlapping patches of size 256 × 256. They are randomly split into three parts to make train, val, and test sets of samples 7120, 1024 and 2048 respectively.
Dataset No. of images
LEVIR-CD 10,192
Following is a sample image showing a changed scenario.
Performance
Evaluation Data
The model performance was evaluated on a validation dataset which had a total of 2048 images.
Methodology and KPI
The performance of the Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation model is mainly measured using overall accuracy and precision, recall and IoU score for the change class.
Model Model Architecture Testing Images Precision Recall IoU F1 Overall Accuracy
Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation Siamese Network 2048 93.75 89.78 84.7 91.72 99.17
Real-time Inference Performance
The inference is run on the provided unpruned model at FP16 precision. The inference performance is run using trtexec on Jetson AGX Xavier, Xavier NX, Orin, Orin NX and NVIDIA T4, and Ampere GPUs. The Jetson devices are running at Max-N configuration for maximum GPU frequency. The performance shown here is the inference only performance. The end-to-end performance with streaming video data might vary depending on other bottlenecks in the hardware and software.
Platform BS FPS
Orin Nano 8GB 16 15.19
Orin NX 16GB 16 21.92
AGX Orin 64GB 16 55.07
How to Use this Model
These models need to be used with NVIDIA hardware and software. For hardware, the models can run on any NVIDIA GPU including NVIDIA Jetson devices. These models can only be used with Train Adapt Optimize (TAO) Toolkit, or TensorRT.
The primary use case intended for these models is for Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation using RGB component level images. The model is a Siamese Network which outputs semantic change maps denoting pixel-level change between the two images.
These models are intended for training and fine-tune using TAO Toolkit and user datasets for image comparison. High-fidelity models can be trained to the new use cases. A Jupyter notebook is available as a part of the TAO container and can be used to re-train.
The models are also intended for edge deployment using TensorRT.
Input
Two imput images:
Pre-Change: RGB Image of dimensions: 256 X 256 X 3 (H x W x C)
Post-Change: RGB Image of dimensions: 256 X 256 X 3 (H x W x C)
Channel Ordering of the Input: NCHW, where N = Batch Size, C = number of channels (3), H = Height of images (256), W = Width of the images (256)
Output
Segmentation change map with the same spatial resolution as the input images: 256 X 256 X 2 (H x W x C), where C = number of output change classes.
Input Image
Here is a sample image for a pre and post change images along with ground-truth segmentation change map side-by-side.
Using the model with TAO
To use these models as pretrained weights for transfer learning, please use the snippet below as template for the model and train component of the experiment spec file to train a Siamese Network model. For more information on the experiment spec file, see the TAO Toolkit User Guide - Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation.
model:
 backbone:
 type: "fan_small_12_p4_hybrid"
 pretrained_backbone_path: null
evaluate:
 model_path: "???"
Limitations
Expecting Co-registered Remote Sensing Imagery
The Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation Network model was trained on pair-wise co-registered RS imagery and might not perform well for mis-aligned image pairs not captured using RSI.
Model Versions
 - changenet_levircd_trainable_v1.0 - FAN-Hybrid Base Visual ChangeNet-Classification model LEVIR-CD trainable.
 - changenet_levircd_deployable_v1.0 - FAN-Hybrid Base Visual ChangeNet-Classification model LEVIR-CD deployable to deepstream.
References
Using TAO Pre-trained Models
Technical Blogs
Suggested Reading
License
License to use this model is covered by CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0. By downloading the unpruned or pruned version of the model, you accept the terms and conditions of these licenses.
Ethical Considerations
NVIDIA Visual ChangeNet-Segmentation model detects changes between pair-wise images. NVIDIA's platforms and application frameworks enable developers to build a wide array of AI applications. Consider potential algorithmic bias when choosing or creating the models being deployed. Work with the model's developer to ensure that it meets the requirements for the relevant industry and use case; that the necessary instruction and documentation are provided to understand error rates, confidence intervals, and results; and that the model is being used under the conditions and in the manner intended.


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International Journal of Intelligent Systems
The Role of User Models in Cooperative Interactive Systems
January 1, 1989
For interactive systems to communicate in a cooperative manner, they must have knowledge about their users. This article explores the role of user models in such systems, with the goal of identifying when and how user models may be useful in a cooperative interactive system. User models are classified by the types of knowledge they contain, several user modelling characteristics that serve as dimensions for an additional classification of user models are presented, and user model representations are discussed. These topics help to characterize the space of user modelling in cooperative interactive systems — addressing how they can be used—but do not fully address when it is appropriate to include a user model in an interactive system. Thus, a set of design considerations for user models is presented, while a final example illustrates how these topics influence the user model for a hypothetical investment consulting system.
Downloads: 1240 downloads


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What can reduce the itch?
Massage and moisturising
Massaging the healed area with non-perfumed moisturising cream can help to keep it soft and supple, and can also help prevent itching. The service that treated your child's burn will give specific advice on your child's scar massage regime.
"You need a humongous wad of cream because you don't do a little bit, you work it in loads and loads. You really work it! A palm full at least, and that would just be for one area."
When it is not possible to massage the area to alleviate itching, your child could try gently pressing, tapping or pinching their scar until the urge to scratch has passed.
Wearing pressure garments can help to reduce itching. They can reduce the itch but also prevent your child from damaging the delicate skin. Speak to the service that treated your child's burn if you have any questions about pressure therapy or your child's pressure garments.
"Pressure garments really helped, they really pushed down the itch."
Help your child to concentrate on something else. This can prevent them from noticing that their scar is itching.
They might find it helpful to clench their fists or squeeze a squidgy ball for 30 seconds. Your child might also find it helpful if you suggest things that they can do to alleviate the itch. For example, say, "tap your skin" or "squeeze your fists tight", instead of saying things like "don't scratch" or "stop scratching".
Other things that might distract children from the itch include: watching TV, playing with friends, singing songs, playing computer games or on iPads, painting or crafts. Their imagination might also help them to overcome the urge to scratch.
Talk to your child's burn service if they are really struggling with itch. There may be medication that they can take which can help to reduce the itch.
"He was scratching it so much is was drawing blood a little bit and so they said enough. They would never let that kid be in any discomfort, they just said 'right, let's find a treatment and sort it out'."
Relaxation is a skill, just like playing a musical instrument, a sport, or reading. It gets better the more it is practiced. Learning to relax will help your child to relax their muscles and mind so that they can escape the tense feelings and frustration caused by itching.
Relaxation can also help them to fall asleep at night and to get back to sleep if they wake up during the night. Your child might find listening to their favourite music or story relaxing.
Many children like a story to help them to relax because it is fun and takes their mind away from how their scar feels. It can be any story they like, they just need to imagine a place and all the sights, sounds, textures, and smells that are there.
Another way to help them to relax is using the relaxation recording below.
Click here to download the script for the exercise above. Read it slowly to your child whilst they lie on their bed or sit in a comfortable chair.


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ESTIMATION OF RUNOFF FROM MOUNTAINOUS WATERSHED- A CASE OF THIRUVANNAMALAI, TAMILNADU, INDIAK. Santhanam, Marykutty Abraham and Kishan Singh Rawat
The water requirement is increasing to meet the demand of growing population for domestic, industrial and irrigation demands. Surface water potential of Tamilnadu is almost utilised and hence it is essential to assess the surface water potential for the judicious use of the available water resources. Surface runoff of upper Thurinjalar watershed in Tamilnadu, India was estimated in order to find out the total quantum of utilisable water available from surface water source to support the demands of the watershed community and to convert waste land into productive land. The philosophy behind effective rainwater harvesting is that rainwater should be either drained to surface storages or recharged underground. USDAâNRCS model with daily time step was used to estimate surface water potential for upper Thurinjalar watershed for seventeen years. According to the model average annual surface water availability of Upper Thurinjalar watershed having a total area of 323.41 km2 is estimated as 57.50 MCM which is 18.69% of rainfall for the study period. A simple regression model was developed to compute runoff from rainfall based on water balance computations and statistically verified. The average annual runoff computed for the watershed for the study period using regression model was 58 MCM which is 19.27 percent of annual rainfall. It is clear that there is sufficient water available in the watershed and if effectively harvested and a major portion of the waste land can be converted into productive land. The study also proves that simple regression.
Enter your contact information below to receive full paper.


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Scientists have found through research that tomatoes have the power to protect our skin from harmful rays which are emitted by sun. They are very helpful when you have a sunburn. Tomato contains Lycopene, that gives the red color to it. This particular compound helps cure sunburn and protect our skin from cell damage. This also works as a UV block when used on a regular basis.
Now let us see how to use tomato to treat sunburn through a simple DIY method.


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Skip to Main Content
Modern RF/microwave integrated circuits are getting denser and/or compact in terms of number of circuit elements per unit area thereby leading to increased parasitic EM coupling. An efficient and recent CAD model for EM coupling based on circuit theory and deembedding concepts previously applied to passive EM circuit simulation is considered. For the first time, this new CAD technique is applied to EM coupling modeling of a nonlinear RF integrated circuit consisting of both active and passive components. The resulting circuit-level model is shown to be efficient for circuit simulation in terms of CPU-time.


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I use ArcGIS 10.1 and I am dealing with viewshed and least cost path analysis. I would like to generate a path on the basis of a cost surface taking into account the viewshed data as indicated in the paper "On applying viewshed analysis for determining least-cost paths on Digital Elevation Models" by Stucky and Lee. In order to do that the authors say:
To support the computation of the various least-cost paths discussed in this paper, two grids of visibility information should be calculated. The first is a general viewgrid (VG) that records for each cell the number of cells visible. The second is a dominance viewgrid (VD) that holds for each cell the number of cells from which the cell is visible. Both grids are constructed by calculating intervisibility between grid cells using the LoS algorithm. Two matrices are not equal because the number of cells visible from a cell does not always equal the number of cells to which that cell is visible. Next, these two visibility grids are converted to friction surfaces. These surfaces are used as the input grids to the least-cost path procedure. To do this, a few adjustments must be made to create the friction surfaces suitable for calculating viewpaths that we wish to use. For this study, we have implemented a total of four viewpaths. Each of the four viewpaths requires different friction surfaces to be setup from viewgrids.
Does someone know how to create the viewgrids and covert them into friction surfaces?


Apply to U.S. Colleges as an International Student-Athlete
Respond to coaches' phone calls and emails to convey interest as a prospective U.S. student-athlete.
Avoid making simple mistakes that could hurt your chances of becoming an international student-athlete at a U.S. university.
Avoid making simple mistakes that could hurt your chances of becoming a student-athlete at a U.S. university.
The U.S. system for collegiate sports lacks an international counterpart. Where else can you receive a world-class education tailored around a 20-plus hours per week training schedule?
However, the competition for spots is extremely tough across the board and many prospective international student-athletes never make it all the way, often because of trivial mistakes. The following are three important steps student-athletes should take when applying to U.S. schools.
[Apply to college as an international student.]
1. Impress your future coach: While regular students simply seek academic admission, your primary contact will be with the coaches of your sport. Most international athletes need scholarships to finance tuition and living expenses, and athletic scholarships are often decided by the coaching staff alone.
Keep in mind that coaches receive interest from dozens – sometimes hundreds – of young aspiring Olympians each season. To get one of those precious scholarships you have to be extremely eager, driven and on top of things.
When making initial contact you should send a brief letter of introduction that clearly highlights your athletic achievements and future potential. You should express a desire to work extremely hard, to challenge and be challenged and to pursue an academic degree in the meantime.
You should answer every email in a timely manner, always pick up the phone when the coach calls and send required documents the day before you're asked for them. Think about it from the coach's perspective: If you can't even remember to pick up the phone or email a signed form, how are you going to make it through college in a foreign country?
2. Mind your academics: The fact that "student" comes before "athlete" is not just because it sounds better that way. It indicates that you are primarily a student and secondarily an athlete. Your balance of academic abilities and work ethic is crucial.
If you can't produce the SAT or TOEFL scores required, schools won't grant you admission, regardless of whether you have a whole box of Olympic medals stuffed under your bed.
Second, if your grades slip, you lose your eligibility to compete for your team. Poor academic performance can also be enough for your coach to lower your athletic scholarship, if you have one, or even kick you off the team.
[Learn ways to improve scores on the TOEFL.]
3. Take available majors into consideration: Given the demands that you perform in the classroom, you should carefully take into account the offered majors at the colleges you are considering. This may sound like a self-evident thing to do, but to many young internationals chasing athletic excellence, academics often place very low on the list of priorities.
Being a student-athlete is extremely demanding and getting stuck in classes that exceed your academic capabilities or interests – or both – can very easily throw you off and eat into your precious nightly recovery time.
[Avoid the mistakes new international students make.]
4. Understand the geography: So you want to go to college in Florida or California? You are far from alone.
Make sure not to limit yourself to colleges in one given region or state. Many remotely located colleges have produced world-class student-athletes. Failing to realize this may severely impact your ability to land a sizeable athletic scholarship.
Anders Melin, from Sweden, is a former collegiate swimmer for Limestone College and the University of Missouri, where he earned an undergraduate degree in finance. He is now pursuing a master's degree in journalism at New York University.


How to Calculate Standard Deviations in Excel Visual Basic
By Contributor
Updated July 21, 2017
Excel is the spreadsheet program included in the Microsoft Office Suite of productivity software. A spreadsheet program manages data through a series of tables. Each data value is placed within an individual cell within the table. Values can be manipulated through a set of built-in functions. Standard deviation is average deviation from the mean of the values of a set. Simply put, it identifies the precision of a set of values. Standard deviation can be calculated using the built-in function STDEV in Excel, or Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
Built-in Standard Deviation Function
Open Excel and the data set where you want to find the standard deviation.
Type"=STDEV(" in the cell where you want to display the standard deviation. Do not press "Enter."
Holding down shift, select the range of cells containing the data points. If the cells are not continuous, hold down Ctrl while selecting the non-continuous cells. This should place a series of cells names in the formula bar after "=STDEV(".
Type ")" in the formula bar and press "Enter." The standard deviation will be calculated using the unbiased method.
Using Built-in Functions in VBA
This same built-in function can be used in a VBA script to calculate standard deviation. Open VBA and click on the end of the module where you are going to calculate the standard deviation.
Type "Function StDev( Rng As Range)" and then press "Enter." This should also create a new line "End Function."
On the line between "Function..." and "End Function," type "StDev = Application.WorksheetFunction.StDev( Rng)" and then press "Enter."
To calculate the standard deviation in VBA, simply use the function StDev().
This same method can be used to access any of the built-in functions of Excel within VBA.


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Sheffield Contributions to MICE
Sheffield's contribution to the MICE experiment is the design and construction of a target to produce the required muons from the ISIS beam. Since the usual uses of the ISIS beam will continue in parallel to the MICE experiment, the target mechanism must cause as little disruption to the ISIS beam as possible. The beam accelerates protons to a kinetic energy of 800 MeV, with a 50Hz cycle. The protons are injected and accelerated over 10ms before extraction. The MICE target needs to dip into the beam halo by around 5mm for the 2ms (or less) before extraction.
The specifications required for the target are as follows:
|Cycle Time||20 ms|
|Frequency||1 to 50 Hz on demand|
The target will be dipped in and out of the beam using a linear drive. This consists of a shuttle made of magnetic material which sits inside a series of coils. When a current is passed through these coils they induce a force on the shuttle, the direction of which depends on the direction of the current in the wires. In this way it is possible to move the shuttle backwards and forwards inside the coil assembly. The target is attached to the shuttle dipping it into and out of the beam.
The magnetic shuttle
The coil assembly
Two diaphragm springs are used to hold the rod central. These are made from hardened Beryllium Copper. Finite elements analysis has been carried out to ensure that the spring will not fail after the large numbers of repetitions that will be required for the experiment.
The diaphragm spring
A picture of the first prototype fully mounted
In order to have precise knowledge and control of the behaviour of the target mechanism precise position sensing is required. This is provided by an inductive linear measuring system, consisting of a strip containing an etched metal scale and a fixed magnetic read head. The system provides a resolution of 50 micron.


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Researchers have proposed a plan to send two atomic clocks deep into space to search for ultralight dark matter, with the goal of better understanding the universe.
Quantum clocks are shrinking, thanks to new technologies developed at the University of Birmingham-led UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing.
Two Weizmann Institute scientists are on a team selected as a finalist for a mission to Triton, Neptune's largest moon. The duo designed a super-accurate clock that will help them study Triton's atmosphere – and even search for life. The mission, called Trident, would launch in 2026.
An ecologist from Stony Brook University, a theoretical physicist from University of Colorado Boulder and a chemical biologist from Harvard University Three female scientists have been named Laureates of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, each receiving $250,000, the…


Tapinauchenius polybotes
Lesser Antilles (St. Lucia)
IUCN Status
Type Locality : Saint Lucia, Lesser Antilles
Etymology : The specific epithet is a noun in apposition, referring to the giant Polybotes originating in the Greek mythology and is in reference to the large size of the species compared to congeners of the genus and subfamily in general.
10780
Male Activity
Based on molecular and morphological phylogenetic analyses a new genus of Theraphosidae is described, Pseudoclamoris gen. n. Tapinauchenius gigas and Tapinauchenius elenae are transferred to Pseudoclamoris and a new species of Pseudoclamoris from the Amazon Region is described: P. burgessi sp. n. Two new species of Tapinauchenius from the Caribbean are described: T. rasti sp. n. and T. polybotes sp. n. Tapinauchenius subcaeruleus is considered a nomen dubium. Psalmopoeinae subfamily is diagnosed based on molecular and morphological phylogenies, and Pseudoclamoris gen. n. and Ephebopus Simon, 1892 are included. A taxonomic key for Psalmopoeinae genera Tapinauchenius, Pseudoclamoris, Psalmopoeus, and Ephebopus is provided.
ZooKeys 784: 59–93
Habitat and Type Locality
Project Contributors
Created by Dimitri Kambas - Photos by Taki Tsonis unless otherwise specified
Copyright © 2022 Tarantupedia™


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The Human Development and Christian Counselling Module is designed to help the caregiver (pastor, lay-counsellor) understand the biophysical, intellectual, social, psychological, and spiritual changes that people undergo throughout their life span: from conception until death. It will practically guide the student through all the phases of development and equip lay and pastoral care-givers with the necessary skills to use human-development-theory as an explanatory model in coming alongside people.
The Introduction to Crisis and Trauma Counselling course is designed to provide the caregiver (lay-counsellor) with a bio-psycho-social-spiritual understanding of crisis and trauma and the practical skills to come alongside those experiencing a crisis and/or trauma.
It will introduce the student to the basic theory and theology of crisis and trauma counselling from a biblically based perspective. Lay caregivers will be equipped with the necessary skills to come alongside people in crisis with compassionate care. Within the boundaries of their training, they will be able to support those in crisis and make appropriate referrals. Attention will be given to all the different crises.
* Please Note: This Introductory Course does not provide training as a Crisis & Trauma Counsellor!
This course is intended for lay counsellors who are interested in exploring a Christian Wellness approach - the interface of Spirituality and current Wellness theory and practices.
Interest in Wellbeing is rapidly growing in our society, as people seek meaning in their lives and a more holistic approach to living, healing, and wellness. Understandably, many lay counsellors do not focus on pathology and therapy for people with moderate to severe mental disorders, but to rather focus on Positive Psychology and Wellness with the goal of moving reasonably well-functioning individuals to optimal functioning. The focus is more on preventing the loss of physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing, than are care, cure and therapy.
It must be understood that a wellbeing approach does not offer a treatment modality for people who are mentally disordered and in need of professional therapy. Neither does 'spiritual directing' offer miraculous healing for those individuals. Wellness Counselling – personal and spiritual growth – can augment therapy for individuals already suffering from mental illness, but its focus is much more directed towards prevention and coming alongside already healthy individuals and helping them be optimally functioning
The Introduction to Wellness Counselling focuses on a wellness approach to Christian caregiving and counselling for lay counsellors.
The course will explore various aspects of spirituality, as it impacts our health at the level of body, mind, and spirit. An integrative bio-psycho-social-spiritual concept of wellbeing is explored.
This course endeavours to equip lay counsellors to come alongside healthy individuals with a prevention and optimally functioning approach - helping individuals grow to peak personal and spiritual wellbeing.
This course will explore the theoretical foundations of Christian counselling. There will be an overview of the major counselling-psychology theories, and the main models of Christian counselling will be reviewed from an integrative theological and psychological perspective. The Paraklesis model is presented as a transtheoretical eclectic and integrative model, that is Christ centered, biblically based, Spirit led, and psychologically sound. This course will build on the foundations laid in the Biblical Basis Introductory course in expanding the basis for an integrative approach to Christian counselling.
This Course will explore the concepts of lay, pastoral, and professional Christian counselling, explain why there is a need for counselling, and provide a practical introduction to the foundations of a biblical approach. Topics covered will include the concept of Christian counselling, the call to the counselling ministry, characteristics of Christian counsellors, the integration of theology and psychology, and an introduction to the Paraklesis model. This Course will lay the foundation for an integrative Christian counselling approach that is Christ centered, biblically based, Spirit led, and psychologically sound.
The Relationships, Marriage and Family Counselling Course is designed to provide the caregiver (pastor, lay and professional counsellor) with a bio-psycho-social-spiritual understanding of singleness, dating and the choosing of a marriage partner, the marital relationships, family relationships, and relationship breakdown.
It will introduce the student to the theory and theology of couples, marriage and family counselling, and provide an understanding of pre-marital, couples, marriage, family, and divorce counselling from a lay and pastoral perspective.
Lay and pastoral care-givers and counsellors will be equipped with the necessary skills to make an assessment of the marital relationship, assist couples with their marital relationship, understand the causes of divorce and remarriage, understand family issues; assist dysfunctional families, and understand sexuality in relationships.
Christian Counsellors will be able to come alongside people with relationship issues with supportive caregiving and will be able to counsel and do therapy within the boundaries of their training.
Practicum-1 Course Description
The Counselling Skills Courses (I & II) are designed to help the Christian Counsellor understand the basic therapeutic process and how change occurs. It will practically guide the student-counsellor through all the phases of care giving and equip them with the necessary counselling micro and therapeutic skills for pastoral, lay-counselling, and professional counselling.
In this Course (CCC2129) the practicum will emphasize basic theoretical assumptions and the helping relationship and will equip the beginning-counsellor with the microskills needed to be a Christian counsellor. The relationship between the caregiver (counsellor) and the counsellee is seen as the foundation of therapeutic change. Attention will be given to the basic communication and microskills needed in establishing an effective helping relationship that would facilitate the client's personal and spiritual growth and development, change or progress towards wholeness in Christ.
The Gerontology and Counselling the Terminally ill Module is designed to provide the caregiver (pastor, lay-counsellor) with a bio-psycho-social-spiritual integrative understanding of ageing and older-adulthood development.
Particular emphasis will be given to the theoretical aspects of gerontology from a multi-systems perspective and the implications this has for the counselling and care of the elderly and chronically ill. The course examines the basic dimensions of the theory and practice of the care and counselling of ageing individuals, and the terminally ill. The course also deals with death and dying, grief, and the grieving process. Attention will be given to the ethical considerations in the care of ageing individuals, societal attitudes, ageism, care facilities, and end of life issues.
The course provides pastors and lay counsellors with the theory and tools to care for and provide counselling for seniors in the local church and/or a community.


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Definition of Dendrite
Dendrite: A short arm-like protuberance from a nerve cell (a neuron). Dendrites from neurons next to one another are tipped by synapses (tiny transmitters and receivers for chemical messages between the cells).
The word "dendrite" means "branched like a tree." It comes from the Greek "dendron" (tree).
See also neuron and axon.Source: MedTerms™ Medical Dictionary
Last Editorial Review: 4/27/2011 5:27:15 PM
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source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Does hunger promote negative feelings?
Being hungry activates a small group of neurons that are involved with negative feelings. Research has found that having a meal stops this brain activity, bringing on a sense of happiness.
Eating, dining and feasting are some of the most rewarding human experiences often bringing about happiness and feelings of comfort. These feelings of happiness and reward after eating are rooted in the human brain and learning creates some of the pathways.
With each meal, neural pathway circuits that link food with good times and experiences are reinforced. Another explanation for the enjoyment associated with food and eating is that when we eat we suppress negative pathways in the brain.
A team of scientists in the US have been following the activities of small subsets of neurons in the brains that produce AGRP (agouti-related protein). Their research is performed on mice.
These neurons fire when a mouse (or human) is hungry. Scientists were able to switch on and off these neurons using highly selective chemicals implanted in the brains of the mice.
When activated, the AGRP neurons made the mice unhappy with them retreating to the corner and not engaging socially. The opposite was true when the AGRP neurons were switched off. In this case the mice went out and explored new places, including unfamiliar objects and generally socialised well with other mice.
This experimental work highlights that being hungry triggers the AGRP neurons and causes negative feelings. It's the root cause of the negative moods associated with being hungry.
Eating switches these neurons off, alleviating these moods and increasing the feeling of happiness and reward. This reiterated how difficult it may be to take on the simple strategy of eating less to lose weight.
A more holistic approach to weight loss may need to be taken including eating nutritious foods that are known to promote satiety and getting plenty of exercise.
Betley JN et al. Neurons for hunger and thirst transmit a negative-valence teaching signal. Nature 2016;521:180-185.
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Bijilo – Weather
Bijilo weather is very hot year-round due to its location in The Gambia. There are two seasons with different rainfall patterns and very high temperatures. The dry season stretches from November to May with a scorching average temperature of 28°C. It's considered the best time to visit Bijilo because the weather is mild and there isn't much rain.
North-easterly winds help keep rainfall low in winter, bringing drier weather to the region in January and much of spring. The sun shines for at least ten hours per day throughout winter with around 13 hours of pure daylight.
The Atlantic Sea remains warm enough to swim in for most of the year and is around 21°C from December to February. Humidity levels are low at just 45%, which is a welcomed change to the damp, humid conditions during the summer.
The wet season begins in June, with the most rain falling throughout August. Temperatures in Bijilo are higher in the summer and often rise above 32°C on an especially hot day. Evenings are very warm and humidity levels are high, making the damp air feel balmy at times.


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Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Of strong mettle, having unbreakable spirit, strong of mind and spirit. 2. Brave, courageous.
Notes: I know what you are thinking: this word should mean "nosey, interfering." No, whatever you do, do not confuse this word with meddlesome (or nettlesome "irritating" for that matter). Today's Good Word has to do with our mettle, the stuff our character is made of. It is the adjective of the noun mettle—not to be confused with metal, even though it is little more than a variant spelling of that word (see Word History). Of course, we must also dodge medal and meddle when using this word. (Whew! Is speaking English worth it?)
In Play: Keeping all these words separate poses quite a problem even for native speakers: "Riley received a medal for showing his mettle on the battlefield." He probably spent his time dodging metal shrapnel rather than meddling in other people's business. Mettle is required at all levels of human endeavor: "Now that Farnsworth has two children, we will see how mettlesome he really is."
Word History: It is no coincidence that mettle and metal look similar and sound the same: they were originally the same word. Metal was borrowed from Old French in the 14th century. The French inherited it from Latin, which borrowed it from Greek metallon, which originally meant "mine, quarry" but meant "ore, metal" by the time Latin borrowed it. In the 16th century metal took on a second meaning in England, "the stuff one is made of, one's character". The spelling always varied but it was only in the 18th century that the new meaning attached itself to an alternate spelling mettle. Here we see a hidden advantage in the inconsistencies of English spelling.
Come visit our website at for more Good Words and other language resources!


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Insulin resistance as a marker for the immune-metabolic subtype of depression
Research group Van Someren
Publication year 2021
Published in Journal of Affective Disorders
Authors Eus Van Someren, Annelies Brouwer, Daniël H van Raalte, Femke Lamers, Femke Rutters, Petra J M Elders, Frank J Snoek, Aartjan T F Beekman, Marijke A Bremmer,
OBJECTIVE: Insulin resistance (IR), a marker of metabolic dysregulation and pro-inflammatory state, moderates the antidepressant treatment effect in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and is therefore a potential marker for personalized treatment. Based on data from a light therapy trial (NTR4942), we aimed to evaluate whether 1) depression symptoms differ according to the level of IR, and 2) improvement of specific depression symptoms drive the positive effects of light therapy in those with higher IR.
METHODS: This secondary analysis in 59 individuals with depression and T2D explored differences in depressive symptom profile (30-item Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (IDS)) at baseline and in response to light therapy (versus placebo), between lower and higher IR individuals, using Likelihood Ratio tests and Linear-by-linear association. IR was measured using the gold standard, a hyperinsulinemic-euglycaemic clamp.
RESULTS: At baseline, higher IR individuals reported more symptoms of irritability (p=0.024) anhedonia (no interest in people and activities: p=0.011; absence of pleasure and enjoyment: p=0.021), fatigue (fatigue: p=0.036; physical fatigue: p=0.035) and hypersomnia (p=0.029) relative to persons with lower IR, who reported more insomnia (nightly awakening: p=0.041; early morning awakening: p=0.012). Light therapy led to an improvement across IDS symptoms in higher IR individuals, while in lower IR individuals, light therapy improved early morning awakening (p=0.005) and interest in people and activities (p=0.015), but worsened mood (feeling sad: p=0.001; feeling irritable: p=0.002; interpersonal sensitivity: p=0.014).
CONCLUSIONS: Results add to the hypothesis of an immune-metabolic subtype of depression, and suggest that IR might be a promising focus for precision medicine.
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Water Reclamation Facilities
Water Reclamation Facilities are most prevalent in arid areas. Water reuse receives high priority in the southwest due to the overall scarcity of water.
The quality standards for water reuse in Arizona are strict. The standard for reuse, Class A+, requires turbidity of less than 2 NTU and the absence of fecal coliform bacteria. In order to maintain such high quality effluent on a consistent basis, it is necessary to utilize a high level of treatment prior to water reuse. Processes such as membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology are finding greater use due to their ability to provide a high quality effluent on a consistent basis.


text: Pathological tremor is an involuntary, rhythmic movement that can inhibit the ability of a person to perform everyday tasks. Recent research explores mechanical means of tremor suppression as an alternative to drugs and surgery. However, traditional control methods also suppress voluntary movements due to the close proximity of tremor frequency and the frequency range of typical voluntary motions. Therefore, the controller must identify and suppress the tremor torque with minimal influence on voluntary movement. In addition to the control design, the actuator plays a critical role in the performance and potential for clinical implementation of a tremor suppression system. Dielectric elastomers offer unique actuation capabilities due to their low stiffness compared to traditional engineering actuators. In particular, dielectric elastomers have similar mechanical properties as human tissue, making them ideal for actuation of the human body. This work applies an adaptive notch filter algorithm for vibration attenuation in a narrow frequency range using dielectric elastomer stack actuators. In this controller, an estimation of the tremor frequency ensures suppression of only the tremor motion. The adaptive filter estimates the tremor torque, and a force controller for the dielectric elastomer tracks the specified force. Simulations show excellent tracking of the desired motion for slower voluntary motions and for slowly varying tremor amplitudes. Even though the controller has diminished tremor suppression in the presence of rapid changes in tremor amplitude, it still offers a significant improvement over the uncontrolled case. Altogether, this work demonstrates the potential for the use of dielectric elastomer actuators in a soft orthosis to suppress pathological tremor.


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As summer approaches, you are ready to get your adrenaline fix with some wild rides down the rivers in Colorado and around Summit County. One of the most popular rivers is the Arkansas. Whitewater rafting is an activity that provides epic scenery with some heart pumping action. In Colorado, there are many rivers to choose from and places to explore at all ability levels. If you are new to whitewater rafting, I suggest you read the article on what to expect on a whitewater rafting trip. If you have always wanted to learn more about whitewater kayaking, I suggest reading another article on learn how to whitewater kayak.
If you are new to Colorado rivers & creeks then it is important to get yourself the bible of all whitewater in the state. This book offers you everything you need to know about running the rivers, put-ins and take out information. It is the most informative book I have ever read and if you are a real passion whitewater rafter or kayaker, you must own it.
Colorado is home to many rivers and creeks that are fun to play on when the weather gets warm. The rivers flows are the strongest during the Spring months when the snow begins to melt off the mountains flushing into the nearby streams. Many of the rivers and creeks offer commercial rafting trips or if you are experienced can go with a few others only if educated on river safety and have all the rafting gear. Daily permits are needed for some rivers and can be purchased upon arrival. Most commercial rafting trips will have the permit included in the cost of the trip.
The one river in Summit County that offers commercial Colorado whitewater rafting trips is the Blue River. However the more popular locations for Whitewater rafting and kayaking is on either the Arkansas, Eagle or Colorado Rivers which are the popular whitewater locations are in and around the surrounding area. If you are planning a trip to either Summit or Eagle County, this article helps to highlight the specific rivers and explains a bit on which ones are good based off your ability and comfort level.
Whitewater Rafting near Summit or Eagle Counties:
One of the more popular rivers for rafting, the Arkansas services 30,000 rafters a year and offers a variety of options from beginner float trips to more advanced class IV runs. You can see the sections on google maps.
Granite to Numbers IV – V
The Numbers IV+
Railroad Bridge to BV III
Buena Vista to Frisherman's Bridge III
Stone Bridge to Salida II – III
Salida to Rincon III
Rincon to Pinnacle Rock II -III
Pinnacle Rock to Parkdale III
Parkdale to Canyon City III-IV
If you are looking for a mellow float trip with smaller rapids then choose runs that are class II-III. Class III rivers are fun but straightforward without too many obstacles and not as big drops and whitewater. If you are in for a wild ride filled with many exciting moments then you might want to check out class IV – V. These rivers will be filled with big rapids, holes and waves.
The Blue River Runs from Breckenridge Colorado to Lake Dillion and again from below the Lake Dillion Dam to Green Mountain reservoir. The river continues below the reservoir to the takeout near Heeney. The only commercial trips on the Blue River is the upper blue north of Silverthorne. The popular after work run that is run by private rafters, kayakers and commercial trips is the section that begins about five miles north of Silverthorne named the Upper Blue.
Breckenridge Town Run II – III
Silverthorne Town Run II – III
Upper Blue III
Lower Blue II – III
The section of the Colorado River highlighted is perfect for the beginner rafter offering float trips with Class II with perhaps one Class III rapid.
Pumphouse to StateBridge II (III)
StateBridge to Burns II (III)
Burns to Dosero II (III)
The Eagle River begins in Vail and is where they hold the GoPro Games every year. The section of this river varies from Class V to Class II. The entire river is recommended for intermediate to advanced boaters depending on which section you choose to run.
Camp Hale to Red Cliff IV(V)
Redcliff to Tigiwan Rd IV-V (V+)
Dow Chutes IV
RiverBend Bus Stop to Edwards III
Edwards to Eagle III
Keystone Lodge to Swan mt Rd. IV
Upper IV – V
Lower E.Vail to Eagle III


Thursday, November 24, 2005
What Makes Laptops So Dangerous?:
Almost 22 million people are expected to travel on U.S. airlines during the Thanksgiving holiday period, and wait times at the airport may increase as a result. As usual, airlines are telling passengers they can save time if they remove laptop computers from their carry-on baggage before they get to security checkpoints. Why do computers get so much attention?


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Marina Gold of the Egalitarianism research group, has recently published a new book at Palgrave Macmillan US, named "People and State in Socialist Cuba; Ideas and Practices of Revolution". The term revolution, is as Gold, states, surprisingly unexplored and her book enters into a highly dynamical aspect of egalitarianism through an analyses of the concept of Revolution. However, to follow the blurb of the book, Revolution is explored "not as a ideology but as form of practice and a fluid set of relations". Through an analysis of urban spaces such as urban agriculture, alternative medicine, migration, and self-employment, this book considers the complex interactions between the Cuban people and the state. These forms of revolutionary praxis also provide spaces of interaction with global environmental movements, international NGOs, and the market. Interrogating the meaning of 'Revolution' raises new questions about the nature of the Socialist state in Cuba today and its engagement with more global phenomena. The overarching themes of this book include the relationship between people and state, and a more categorical concern with the nature of 'the State.'" Thus, Gold orginises her book through chapter. 1. Perpetual Revolution, chapter 2. Accounts of Revolution, chapter 3. Practices of Revolution 4. chapter 4, Discourses on Revolution 5. chapter 5, Limits of Revolution, and chapter 6. Revolution and the State
The term revolution is at the preseent also a focus of another ERC grant at the University College London, named "Comparative Anthropologies of Revolutionary Politics (CARP)" and is led by Martin Halbraad.


Fictional Character
A Different Flesh
POD: C. 2.5-1.3 million years ago;
Relevant POD: c. 1492
Appearance(s): "Trapping Run"
Type of Appearance: Direct
Species: Sim
Date of Birth: Late 18th century
Spouse: Henry Quick ("mate")
Children: Unnamed sim-human cross-breed
Affiliations: Martin's tribe
Sal was a female sim. In the winter of 1814, she took care of the injured trapper Henry Quick. Eventually, the two mated, and Sal became pregnant.
When the various weapons Quick brought to the camp helped escalate a conflict between the group's leader Martin and another male, Caesar, resulting in the crippling of the former and the death of the latter, Sal's affection for Quick vanished.


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Impacts of Climate Change on Water Availability and Reservoir Based Hydropower
A case study from Kulekhani Hydropower Reservoir, Nepal
Keywords:Kulekhani hydro-electric reservoir, climate change impacts, water level
The impacts of climate change (CC) are observed in several sectors, and water resource is one of them. This study explored the impacts of CC on water availability and reservoir based hydropower. It determined the impacts of CC in the reservoir water level and major watershed characteristics and has explored the perception of people on CC impacts in the reservoir. The primary data were collected through questionnaire and field survey and secondary data were gathered from different literatures. The analysis of meteorological data generated from meteorological station. temperature and rainfall data, discharge of Kulekhani River, monthly data of reservoir level and annual energy generation revealed increasing pattern of temperature and decreasing seasonal and annual precipitation in the study area. Similarly, because of the increased sedimentation, the water level of the reservoir has been increasing though the precipitation has been observed declining. Consideration could be taken while designing such hydropowers to hold water year-round, resulting minimal power shortage. A clear institutional direction and strategies could make reservoir based hydropower climate resilient and enable sustainable generation of electricity.
How to Cite
© Institute of Forestry, Pokhara Campus


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Samantha: the Life of a Slave Girl Is Child Slave's Story
Samantha: the Life of a Slave Girl
By Georgia Humphries
Seaburn Publishing Group
52 pp.; illustrations by the author
For an 11-year-old just starting middle school, Georgia Humphries displays a remarkable amount of talent and potential. Her first published work, Samantha: the Life of a Slave Girl, introduces that talent to the world.
Samantha, the child of a slave woman and her white master, leads a secret existence until someone betrays her and she is sold away from her mother and the plantation that has always been her home. She is stolen from her brutal new master by the legendary Harriet Tubman and begins the long journey to freedom in the North by way of the Underground Railroad. Along the way she is reunited with her mother and discovers a sister hitherto unknown to her. She also learns who betrayed and sold her and finds another new addition to her family.
The bare outline of Samantha: the Life of a Slave Girl does not do justice to the descriptions and the excitement of the narrative. Illustrations by the author add in moving the story forward. Humphries possesses insight unusual for someone her age and has a definite gift for dramatic exposition.
The drawbacks to Samantha: the Life of a Slave Girl are more likely to come to the attention of older readers and can be attributed to the young age and relative inexperience of the author. There are some emotions Humphries has not yet felt and any adult who reads this book will be aware of it. That said, Samantha: the Life of a Slave Girl is still an excellent introduction to the institution of slavery from the point of view of a slave who does not truly realize the extent of her enslaved condition until she begins the journey to freedom. Samantha also demonstrates clearly that slavery dehumanizes masters as well as slaves. While the story is told from the standpoint of a child, the effect that being a slave master has wrought upon Samantha's father, also her owner is readily apparent.
Young readers will find Samantha: the Life of a Slave Girl a helpful introduction to a subject which is sometimes glossed over in an effort to avoid raising disconcerting questions about who Americans are as a people and how we came to be what we are today. It is a worthy addition to any elementary school classroom embarking upon the study of the causes of the War Between the States and the effect that slavery had on masters and slaves both. We look forward to seeing more of Humphries' work.


JUNIT Annotations, Commands and Assertions
Annotations
The following annotations are used frequently in Selenium scripts:
@Ignore - test methods that use this annotation will be ignored at run time
@Test - identifies a test method; methods that don't have @Test won' be executed at run time
@Before - method will be run before every JUnit @Test method
@After - method will be run after every JUnit @Test method
@BeforeClass - method will be run once before any methods in that class
@AfterClass - method will be run once after all methods in the class
Commands
Some of the commands may return one or more results depending on the number of HTML elements matched by the XPATH locator.
selenium.open(page's relative path)
usage: opens the page that has the relative path provided as argument
example: selenium.open("/selenium/search.php");
selenium.type(XPATH locator of the HTML element, value)
usage: types the value in the HTML element found through the XPATH value
example: selenium.type("xpath=//input[@name='q']", value);
selenium.click(XPATH locator of the HTML element)
usage: clicks the HTML element found through the XPATH value
example: selenium.click("//a[@title = 'a12345']");
selenium.waitForPageToLoad("30000")
usage: wait for some time for the page to load
selenium.getTitle()
usage: gets the value of the title of the current page
selenium.getText(XPATH locator of the HTML element)
usage: gets the text of the HTML element found through the locator
example: selenium.getText("//p[@class = 'abcdef']");
selenium.submit(XPATH locator of the form)
usage: submits a HTML form found through the locator
example: selenium.submit("//form[@id='HTMLFormElements']");
selenium.check(XPATH locator of the checkbox)
usage: checks a checkbox found through the locator
example: selenium.check("//input[@name='checkboxes[]' and @value='cb2']");
selenium.uncheck(XPATH locator for the checkbox)
usage: un-checks a checkbox found through the locator
example: selenium.uncheck("//input[@name='checkboxes[]' and @value='cb3']");
selenium.getXPathCount(XPATH locator)
usage: returns the number of the HTML elements matched by the XPATH locator
ASSERTIONS
The most important assertions for Selenium are assertTrue and assertEquals.
assertTrue(text displayed if the condition is false, condition)
usage: returns true if the condition returns true
example: assertTrue("No homepage URL found ",matchingCountTotal>0)
assertEquals(text displayed if expected value <> actual value, expected value, actual value)
usage: returns true if the expected value is equal with the actual value
example: assertEquals("the title is not correct", "HTML Form Elements",selenium.getTitle());
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of each sub-chapter can also create awards for specific actions or talents that aren't included in the standard selection. The inclusion of a standardized awards system that has encouraged and advanced the Arts and Sciences in Amtgard.
The most sought after title in Amtgard is that of Knight. Knighthood in Amtgard is broken into four orders: Sword, Serpent, Crown and Rose, each with different criteria with some minor variations from Kingdom to Kingdom. A player that is a Knight may also play the class of Paladin or Anti-Paladin.
A Knight is allowed to choose members to become their pupils. Should a mutual agreement be reached, the member becomes a Squire to the Knight. Squires follow their Knights and assist them to the fullest of their abilities, on the field and off, in exchange for their tutelage. Often a Squire will assist in making garb for their Knight, as well as weapons or armor, and is usually seen assisting their Knight in combat, when they are together. These relationships tend to transcend the game, as much of the mentorship present in the knight/squire relationship is applicable to the outside world. In most kingdoms, when a player becomes qualified for knighthood the knights in that kingdom vote to decide if the player is ready to join the peerage. Knighthood is not guaranteed upon qualifying, as the award is intended to recognize character as well as achievement. A player is not required to be a squire before being knighted, though squiring for a knight in good standing with the kingdoms circle of knights insures that the hopeful player will be well represented.
The kingdoms, along with their primary locations, are:[9]
See also[edit]
Copyright References for Amtgard
External links[edit]


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Neopaganism, polytheistic religious movement, practiced in small groups by partisans of pre-Christian religious traditions such as Egyptian, Greek, Norse, and Celtic. Neopagans fall into two broad categories, nature-oriented and magical groups, and often incorporate arcane and elaborate rituals. Two of the movement's most influential thinkers were Alphonse L. Constant (1810–75) and Gerard Encausse (1865–1916).
See M. Adler, Drawing Down the Moon (1981, rev. ed. 1986); T. M. Luhrman, Pervasions of the Witch's Craft (1989); J. G. Melton and I. Poggi, Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism in America (1992).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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