Click here to Skip to main content
Click here to Skip to main content
Controlling The Screen Saver With C#
, 8 Jan 2007 CPOL
Rate this:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
A C# class for monitoring, activating, deactivating, closing, and changing the timeout of the screen saver.
Display Properties Dialog
Introduction
Presented here is a C# class useful for monitoring and controlling the Windows screen saver. The class provides methods for getting information about the screen saver, such as whether or not it is active, it is running, and its time out setting. Additional methods are provided to change these settings and to terminate the screen saver if it is running.
Background
Some things aren't always as straight forward as you might think going in. Such was the case on a recent project where one of the requirements called for killing the screen saver on the occurrence of a real time event. The project involved a radio dispatch console, and in this case the real time event was a dispatch operator pressing the push-to-talk button on a radio handset. Also, the screen saver time out needed to be reset if the screen saver wasn't actually running when the button was pressed, similar to the action of a key press or mouse event.
The SystemParametersInfo API provided by the user32.dll supports a set of functions for accessing screen saver settings, including getting and setting activation, the time out value, and checking to see if the screen saver is running. However, there doesn't seem to be a function for terminating the screen saver if it is running. The SPI_SETSCREENSAVERRUNNING function oddly doesn't do the job as one might think, which instead is suggested as an obscure technique to disable task switching under Windows 95 and 98. Ultimately, the solution was found in another knowledge base article discussing user32.dll functions which can be used to find the running screen saver application and then force it to close. The main task now was to implement a class to call these unmanaged functions using C#.
Using the code
To use the code, just copy the class ScreenSaver into your program and call the exposed methods, which for the most part are just wrappers to the user32.dll functions:
 - bool GetScreenSaverActive( ) - returns TRUE if the screen saver is activate (but not necessarily running)
 - void SetScreenSaverActive( int Active ) - pass in 1 to activate, 0 to deactivate
 - int GetScreenSaverTimeout( ) - returns the current timeout setting
 - void SetScreenSaverTimeout( int Value ) - pass in the desired timeout value
 - bool GetScreenSaverRunning( ) - returns TRUE if the screen saver is running
 - void KillScreenSaver( ) - terminates the screen saver
 - IntPtr GetForegroundWindow( ) - returns the handle of the current foreground window
Here is the entire ScreenSaver class:
public static class ScreenSaver
{
 // Signatures for unmanaged calls
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 private static extern bool SystemParametersInfo(
 int uAction, int uParam, ref int lpvParam,
 int flags );
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 private static extern bool SystemParametersInfo(
 int uAction, int uParam, ref bool lpvParam,
 int flags );
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 private static extern int PostMessage( IntPtr hWnd,
 int wMsg, int wParam, int lParam );
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 private static extern IntPtr OpenDesktop(
 string hDesktop, int Flags, bool Inherit,
 uint DesiredAccess );
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 private static extern bool CloseDesktop(
 IntPtr hDesktop );
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 private static extern bool EnumDesktopWindows(
 IntPtr hDesktop, EnumDesktopWindowsProc callback,
 IntPtr lParam );
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 private static extern bool IsWindowVisible(
 IntPtr hWnd );
 [DllImport( "user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
 public static extern IntPtr GetForegroundWindow( );
 // Callbacks
 private delegate bool EnumDesktopWindowsProc(
 IntPtr hDesktop, IntPtr lParam );
 // Constants
 private const int SPI_GETSCREENSAVERACTIVE = 16;
 private const int SPI_SETSCREENSAVERACTIVE = 17;
 private const int SPI_GETSCREENSAVERTIMEOUT = 14;
 private const int SPI_SETSCREENSAVERTIMEOUT = 15;
 private const int SPI_GETSCREENSAVERRUNNING = 114;
 private const int SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE = 2;
 private const uint DESKTOP_WRITEOBJECTS = 0x0080;
 private const uint DESKTOP_READOBJECTS = 0x0001;
 private const int WM_CLOSE = 16;
 // Returns TRUE if the screen saver is active
 // (enabled, but not necessarily running).
 public static bool GetScreenSaverActive( )
 {
 bool isActive = false;
 SystemParametersInfo( SPI_GETSCREENSAVERACTIVE, 0,
 ref isActive, 0 );
 return isActive;
 }
 // Pass in TRUE(1) to activate or FALSE(0) to deactivate
 // the screen saver.
 public static void SetScreenSaverActive( int Active )
 {
 int nullVar = 0;
 SystemParametersInfo( SPI_SETSCREENSAVERACTIVE,
 Active, ref nullVar, SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE );
 }
 // Returns the screen saver timeout setting, in seconds
 public static Int32 GetScreenSaverTimeout( )
 {
 Int32 value = 0;
 SystemParametersInfo( SPI_GETSCREENSAVERTIMEOUT, 0,
 ref value, 0 );
 return value;
 }
 // Pass in the number of seconds to set the screen saver
 // timeout value.
 public static void SetScreenSaverTimeout( Int32 Value )
 {
 int nullVar = 0;
 SystemParametersInfo( SPI_SETSCREENSAVERTIMEOUT,
 Value, ref nullVar, SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE );
 }
 // Returns TRUE if the screen saver is actually running
 public static bool GetScreenSaverRunning( )
 {
 bool isRunning = false;
 SystemParametersInfo( SPI_GETSCREENSAVERRUNNING, 0,
 ref isRunning, 0 );
 return isRunning;
 }
 // From Microsoft's Knowledge Base article #140723:
 // _URL_
 // "How to force a screen saver to close once started
 // in Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003"
 public static void KillScreenSaver( )
 {
 IntPtr hDesktop = OpenDesktop( "Screen-saver", 0,
 false,DESKTOP_READOBJECTS | DESKTOP_WRITEOBJECTS);
 if( hDesktop != IntPtr.Zero )
 {
 EnumDesktopWindows( hDesktop, new
 EnumDesktopWindowsProc( KillScreenSaverFunc ),
 IntPtr.Zero );
 CloseDesktop( hDesktop );
 }
 else
 {
 PostMessage( GetForegroundWindow( ), WM_CLOSE,
 0, 0 );
 }
 }
 private static bool KillScreenSaverFunc( IntPtr hWnd,
 IntPtr lParam )
 {
 if( IsWindowVisible( hWnd ) )
 PostMessage( hWnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0 );
 return true;
 }
}
The more interesting code here is the KillScreenSaver( ) method. Beginning with Microsoft Windows NT, you cannot simply make a call to close the foreground window as you could under previous releases of Windows. Windows NT introduces the concept of separate desktops. Applications can run on one desktop, and screen savers can run on another. For example, under Windows XP, if you check the "On resume, display Welcome screen" option in the Screen Saver tab of Display Properties, the screen saver will be running on a desktop other than the one for your application. In this case, you need to find the screen saver desktop and close its foreground window to terminate the screen saver. If this option is not checked, the screen saver is running on the same desktop as your application, and may be killed merely by closing the foreground window in that


text:
William P. MacConnell Aerial Photograph Collection, ca.1950-2000ca.24,000 items
In the 1950s, William P. MacConnell (Class of 1943), and his photogrammetry students in the Dept. of Forestry began using aerial photography to map forests, agricultural fields, wetlands, and other land cover in Massachusetts. Their work was eventually expanded to include the mapping of all land use for Massachusetts, making this state the first in the nation to be completely mapped in this fashion, and laying the foundation for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory.
The MacConnell Collection includes a comprehensive set of stereopair photographs derived from multiple transects of the state taken between 1950 and 2000. In addition to some original field notes, a stereoscope, and other project materials, the collection includes the following series:
- 1951: Massachusetts, black and white prints (1:20,000 scale)
- 1971: Massachusetts, black and white prints (1:20,000)
- 1985: Massachusetts and Rhode Island, infrared transparencies (1:25,000)
- 1990: Boston, Cape Cod, Buzzard's Bay, infrared transparencies (1:12,000)
- _PHONE_: Massachusetts, infrared transparencies (1:40,000)
- _PHONE_: Merrimack River Valley, North Shore, MDC-1, infrared transparencies (1:12,000)
- 1993: Massachusetts, Cape Cod, MDC-2, Nantucket, Dukes and Plymouth Counties, Naushon, West Metro, infrared transparencies (1:12,000)
- 1999: Massachusetts. infrared transparencies and prints (1:25,000)
The collection is housed in the Map Collection on the 2nd Floor of the library.
- Land use--Massachusetts
- MacConnell, William Preston, 1918-
- Aerial photography

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
What does MOB mean in Community?
This page is about the meanings of the acronym/abbreviation/shorthand MOB in the field in general and in the Community terminology in particular.
Men Of Bordentown
Find a translation for MOB in other languages:
Select another language:
What does MOB mean?
- mob, rabble, rout(noun)
- a disorderly crowd of people

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Title: Alternative Materials in Cementitious Composites for Noise Control
Author(s): Lucas S. Batista, Fabiana M. da Silva, Luísa A. Gachet, and Rosa C. C. Lintz
Publication: Materials Journal
Appears on pages(s): 129-138
Keywords: acoustic properties; alternative materials; lightweight aggregate; lightweight cementitious composites; microstructure; residues
Expanded vermiculite and tire rubber are low-density materials and can be used as lightweight aggregates in the production of mortar and concrete. In this research, the properties of cementitious composites containing expanded vermiculite and tire rubber in partial replacement of the sand were studied to verify the potential effect on impact noise control. The ratios of tire rubber in the composites were 10,
20, and 30% varying the ratios of vermiculite by 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50%. With the increase of the rubber and vermiculite contents, it was observed that the density decreases in the range of 9 to 26% and the compressive strength in the range of 37 to 75%. There was a reduction in ultrasound pulse velocity by 28% and dynamic modulus by 61%. Cementitious composites containing vermiculite and tire rubber can be a sustainable alternative for lighter structures, promoting a reduction of impact noise in buildings.

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


text:
The season you are born in influences a wide range of things, from lifespan, to height, and even risk of allergic disease. But little is known about how a one-time exposure like the season of birth has such lasting effects.
Now, researchers at the University of Southampton have found specific markers on DNA that link the season of birth to risk of allergy in later life.
Their study did epigenetic scanning on DNA samples from a group of people born on the Isle of Wight. They found that particular epigenetic marks of DNA methylation were associated with season of birth and were still present 18 years later.
The research team was also able to link these birth season epigenetic marks to allergic disease, for example people born in autumn had an increased risk of eczema compared to those born in spring. The results were validated in a cohort of Dutch children.
Influence on Gene Expression
John Holloway, Professor of Allergy and Respiratory Genetics at the University and one of the study's authors, says:
"These are really interesting results. We know that season of birth has an effect on people throughout their lives. For example generally, people born in autumn and winter are at increased risk for allergic diseases such as asthma. However, until now, we did not know how the effects can be so long lasting.
Epigenetic marks are attached onto DNA, and can influence gene expression (the process by which specific genes are activated to produce a required protein) for years, maybe even into the next generation. Our study has linked specific epigenetic marks with season of birth and risk of allergy. However, while these results have clinical implications in mediating against allergy risk, we are not advising altering pregnancy timing."
The team says that further research is needed to understand what it is about the different seasons of the year that leads to altered disease risk, and whether specific differences in the seasons including temperature, sunlight levels and diets play a part.
First author Dr Gabrielle Lockett, of the University of Southampton, adds:
"It might sound like a horoscope by the seasons, but now we have scientific evidence for how that horoscope could work. Because season of birth influences so many things, the epigenetic marks discovered in this study could also potentially be the mechanism for other seasonally influenced diseases and traits too, not just allergy."
More study is also needed on the relationship between DNA methylation and allergic disease, and whether other environmental exposures also alter the epigenome, with potential disease implications.
Gabrielle A. Lockett, et al. Association of Season of Birth with DNA Methylation and Allergic Disease Allergy, 2016; DOI: 10.1111/all.12882
Image: Taylor Schwartz, Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health


To use a Dropbear's key in OpenSSH, you will have to convert it:
dropbearconvert dropbear openssh ./id_rsa ./id_rsa_openssh
This procedure can be done vice versa to obtain a key in Dropbear's format:
dropbearconvert openssh dropbear ./id_rsa_openssh ./id_rsa_dropbear
Using the SFTP
Package OpenSSH provides a tool for accessing remote hosts over SFTP. This will allow you to work with files in same way as via FTP but with better security.
Connecting to Termux (sshd listening on port 8022):
$ sftp -P 8022 192.168.1.20
Connecting to somewhere else (sshd listening on standard port):
$ sftp sftp.example.com
However, to use command line SFTP client you should know some basic commands:
 - cd PATH - change current directory to 'PATH'.
 - get REMOTE [LOCAL] - download file 'REMOTE' and rename it as 'LOCAL' (optional).
 - mkdir PATH - create directory 'PATH'.
 - ls [PATH] - list files in directory 'PATH'. If no argument, files in current directory will be listed.
 - put LOCAL [REMOTE] - Upload file 'LOCAL' and rename it as 'REMOTE' (optional).
 - rm FILE - Delete file 'FILE'.
This is not a complete list of SFTP commands. To view all available commands, consider to view man page (man sftp) or view short help in interactive SFTP session by issuing command 'help'.
MOSH
Mosh is a remote terminal application that allows roaming, supports intermittent connectivity, and provides intelligent local echo and line editing of user keystrokes.
Usage example
Important note: Mosh should be installed on both client and server side.
Connecting to remote host (sshd listening on standard port):
mosh _EMAIL_
Connecting to Termux (sshd listening on port 8022):
mosh --ssh="ssh -p 8022" 192.168.1.25
Rsync
Rsync is a tool for synchronizing files with remote hosts or local directories (or drives). For better experience of using rsync, make sure that package 'openssh' (or 'dropbear') is installed.
Usage example
Sync your photos with PC:
$ rsync -av /sdcard/DCIM/ user@192.168.1.20:~/Pictures/Android/
Get photos from remote Android device:
$ rsync -av -e 'ssh -p 8022' 192.168.1.3:/sdcard/DCIM/ /sdcard/DCIM/
Sync local directories (e.g. from external sdcard to Termux home):
$ rsync -av /storage/0123-4567/myfiles ~/files
You may want to see man page ('man rsync') to learn more about it's usage.
Accessing Termux from the Internet
It is possible to access your device over the Internet even if you are behind NAT device (e.g. Wi-Fi router or on mobile network). There are some ways to achieve this, but will require installing additional software and a bit of configuration.
Tor
Accessing device via Tor is the most secure and effective method - offers strong end-to-end encryption (onion services don't use 'exit' node), virtual ports (e.g. 80 port without root), your service won't be visible on plain Internet.
However, this method requires setting up a Tor Onion Service.
Installing needed packages
The main package is tor. Install it by running this command:
pkg install tor
You may want to install a 'torsocks' for accessing the Tor Network:
pkg install torsocks
Setting up Onion Service
You will have to modify the default configuration file of tor ($PREFIX/etc/tor/torrc). Here is an example of configuring SSH Onion Service:
## Enable TOR SOCKS proxy
SOCKSPort 127.0.0.1:9050
## Hidden Service: SSH
HiddenServiceDir /data/data/com.termux/files/home/.tor/hidden_ssh
HiddenServicePort 22 127.0.0.1:8022
Then you need to make a directory where information about Hidden Service will be stored:
mkdir -p ~/.tor/hidden_ssh
Now you can execute in console tor. If start was successfull, you can get your onion service hostname:
cat ~/.tor/hidden_ssh/hostname
Output should be like this: g3yv3tvqrbow7koz.onion
Accessing your service
First of all make sure that on client device 'tor' is running and you have all necessary software for accessing Tor Network (in this case package 'torsocks').
To access the onion service created in previous step, run this:
torsocks ssh g3yv3tvqrbow7koz.onion
If everything is ok, the output should be like this:
The authenticity of host 'g3yv3tvqrbow7koz.onion (127.42.42.0)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:WGualHEq7SJdvVeXgy8a+btPQCd7uxTeXjlWdHHLwLc.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
Remember, 'tor' should be running on both (client/server) sides, otherwise you will get connection errors. You can configure other servers (e.g. Nginx) in the same way as shown in above example for SSH.
Learn more about Onion Services
Better explanation about Onion Services and other Tor-related things you can found at torproject.org.
Ngrok
Homepage: _URL_
Warning: this service may intercept and analyze your traffic.
Ngrok is a service for exposing your local ports to the Internet. Software is closed source, but still can be executed on Termux.
Restrictions
Ngrok is a paid service, but it provides a free plan with some restrictions. Depending on your requirements, these restrictions may be unsuitable for you.
What is available on free plan:
 - HTTP/TCP tunnels are only on random URLs/ports
 - 4 tunnels per account
 - 40 connections per minute
Installation
Go to the Ngrok downloads page, and choose a binary with architecture correct for your device. You can follow instructions available on the downloads page, but for better experience you can follow these instructions that will install binary to the Termux environment.
In these instructions will be assumed, that yours architecture is AArch64 (i.e. arm64), and Ngrok's version is 2.2.8.
1. Unzip downloaded archive:
unzip ngrok-2.2.8-linux-arm64.zip
2. Move binary to the right place:
mv -i ngrok $PREFIX/bin/
3. Set executable permissions:
chmod 700 $PREFIX/bin/ngrok
4. You need to authorize your ngrok installation. Here will be assumed that you registered an account on _URL_ so you can proceed with:
ngrok authtoken {your auth token}
Note that authentication token should be retrieved from your account's page. The token is similar to this string: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU_VWXYZabcdef1234567890.
Usage example
In this example will be shown how to forward SSH port via Ngrok. Before proceed, make sure that Ngrok is installed and authenticated, otherwise you will get errors.
Type in your console this:
ngrok tcp 8022
You should see an output similar to this:
ngrok by @inconshreveable (Ctrl+C to quit)

Session Status online
Account XXXXXX XXXXXXXX (Plan: Free)
Version 2.2.8
Region United States (us)
Web Interface http://127.0.0.1:4040
Forwarding tcp://0.tcp.ngrok.io:13766 -> localhost:8022

Connections ttl opn rt1 rt5 p50 p90
 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Here, a string tcp://0.tcp.ngrok.io:13766 represents an URL of your service (in this case SSH) available on the Internet.
You can verify if it works by doing:
ssh -p 13766 0.tcp.ngrok.io
Serveo.net
Homepage: _URL_
Warning: this service may intercept and analyze your traffic.
A free service for exposing your local ports to the Internet. Since it uses SSH to forward ports, it does not require any configuration. Everything that you need is a running server on your device, for example Nginx, and package OpenSSH or Dropbear.
Usage example
Here will be assumed that you have a web server running on port 8080 and you want to share it over Internet. Make sure that SSH client is installed. Note that in case of web service, serveo.net will provide access via both


Integral Theory and Project Management–the Concept of A Holon (tenet #1)
1. Introduction
In his magnum opus Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality, Ken Wilber lays out the 20 fundamental tenets that he postulates for holons, which are entities that are at once a) wholes that are composed of parts, and b) parts that comprise larger wholes. This concept of a holon is fruitful in that it bridges the divide in the history of philosophy between theories that postulate the primacy of the many vs. those that postulates the primacy of the one.
Ken Wilber, in his book A Brief Theory of Everything explicates the 20 tenets of holons in a format that is easier to read and understand, meant for people who are looking for an introduction to his other philosophical works. In this post, I go through the first of these 20 tenets regarding the concept of a holon, and show how it can be applied to the practice of project management.
So it may seem like arcane philosophical discourse at first, but it has very important real-world consequences, and that is why I am interested in studying it in depth, as a kind of philosophical underpinning to project management.
1. Tenet #1: Reality is Composed of Whole/Parts, or "Holons"
A familiar example to explain this concept is that of a cell. It is composed of organelles, so it is a whole which contains parts or components. But a cell is of course a part of a larger whole, such as an organ of the body. A project's objectives are broken down into components called work packages, so a project contains parts or components as well. However, a project is also a part of a larger whole called a program (a series of related projects which share certain resources).
Likewise, a program is part of a larger whole called a portfolio (a series of programs which share certain business goals). And a portfolio is part of the business operations of an organization.
So going from smaller to larger, you have
work packages (deliverables) → project → program → portfolio → organization
The implication for a project manager is that you have to be able to change your focus to look both "downward" and "upward", if by "downward" we mean from the scope of the project as a whole to the details of its smallest components, the work packages which produce the deliverables of the project, and if by "upward" we mean from the project as a part of a larger program, which in turn may be part of a larger portfolio, all undertaken by the organization.
As a project manager, you have to on a regular basis transmit the status of your project as a whole, and sometimes include the details of some of its components (particularly if there are problems pertaining to them), to the larger organizational units within the company starting with the program manager.
These perspectives sometimes create a tension, an example of which I illustrate below.
As a project manager, your goal is to achieve a schedule performance index of 1.00 (meaning the project is being completed by the deadline) and a cost performance index of 1.00 (meaning the project is being achieved within the budget allotted to it). Ideally, you would like to have a schedule and a cost performance index greater than 1.00, which would mean you are coming in UNDER budget and BEFORE the deadline.
But what happens if, say, you get a schedule and a cost performance index of 2.00? That would mean that it took the project took only half the time you were allotted and it only half as much as the budget you were allotted. That would make you look like a real hero to the program manager, right? Well, perhaps, but the program manager, remember, has OTHER projects to be concerned about as well. If you completed the project using only half the resources you were allotted, then that means that, from the program manager's point of view, half the resources that you didn't use were locked up in your project unable to be used by any other project. That, from his standpoint, would be a waste of resources that could have been used productively elsewhere in his or her program.
So this example shows that you have to be sensitive not just to the many parts which you, like an orchestra conductor, weave into the symphony of activity called a project, but you must be sensitive to the various organizational units of which your project is merely a part.
Let's consider the stakeholders you must deal with on a project. Stakeholders can be broken out into categories that also can be explained using the concept of a holon. A project manager might have to deal with stakeholders who are a) internal to the project and internal to the organization (the project team, for example), b) external to the project and internal to the organization (the management sponsor of the project), or c) external to the project and external to the organization (suppliers, customers, regulatory agencies, etc.). Thus a project manager is dealing with a series of nested entities which he or she must take into account when running the project. This is one reason why I was attracted to integral theory, because it elucidates these hierarchical relationships you must often contend with. The other reason is that it facilitates the understanding of different perspectives, which is also necessary when you deal with many different types of stakeholders from each of the three categories mentioned above.
Next week I will discuss the second tenet of the concept of a holon, and its implication for project management.
Leave a Reply
You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )
Google photo
Twitter picture
Facebook photo
Connecting to %s
%d bloggers like this:


The first few things one may have in mind when thinking about Zakat are money, silver, gold and the zakat or sadaqah of fitr after Ramadan.
Nevertheless we find that zakat must also be paid from some kinds of cereals and some kinds of cattle etc. while it is excluding others for example I couldn't find any statement saying that we must pay zakat from horses while Allah says:
were almost all these things are mentioned and all these things are not only enjoyment of worldly life, but also considered as wealth.
For example having a stable full of horses or having a garage full of cars looks like a big wealth on which zakat would be a profit for many poor Muslims. But it seems paying zakat from horses is explicitly rejected in the sunnah and a qiyas (analogy) on cars wouldn't therefore make sense.
Is there any explanation for the concept of what makes an item due to zakat and what not?
Certainly most of these things are predefined in the sunnah and some in the Qur'an. But why for example is there no application of qiyas in cases such as platinum or diamonds which both are also considered as wealth and some may even consider platinum as the new "gold".
I know that for a person who is earning from selling these would need to pay zakat so these kinds of examples should be excluded as indirect Zakat on these items.
Maybe a better formulation of my question is:
Why some kinds of wealth are due for zakat while others are not? And to what extent can some become a due via analogy (qiyas)?
Your Answer
Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.


View All Jobs/Careers
Mobile emory-healthcare Logo
Job Information
Emory Healthcare/Emory University Post Doctoral Fellow, Machine Learning Researcher in Atlanta, Georgia
Discover Your Career at Emory University
We at the HITI (Healthcare Innovations and Translational Informatics) lab pride ourselves in working collaboratively with multiple researchers to bring innovation into healthcare. Our broad themes of work are on datasets curation, testing of machine learning models, developing AI models for computer vision and natural language processing, and exploring fairness, explainability and bias of algorithms. With 6 core faculty in radiology, perception/psychology studies and computer science, we push the boundaries of our research work to ensure we support the AI ecosystem to grow and develop AI products that are clinically useful.
For example, we are curating a large diverse mammographic dataset of 100,000 patients that has imaging, pathology and clinical outcomes for AI model development and inference. We are developing a fusion model combining EHR data and imaging data for COVID-19 management, and are translating the models into clinical care for triage. We are also curating a large dataset for hepatocellular carcinoma using semantic labeling across multiple institutions. We are an implementing center for the American College of Radiology ACR AI lab, which provides a platform to perform federated learning across multiple sites in the USA. We are also a core research center for the newly funded MIDRC initiative to curate large ML datasets with RSNA and ACR. Our work with Georgia Tech with Dr Mark Riedl is pushing the application of socio technical approach to AI explainability, allowing us to prioritize human values in the design of AI systems. Working with Dr Ayer Turgay from Georgia Tech, we are analyzing large datasets to advance operations research and policy work like trauma care in the USA. With Dr Purkayastha from Indiana University we are funded by the NSF to explore the future of work, and are applying the concept of machine teaching with assemblage learning to explore the future of work augmented with AI systems. With Dr Lungren and the Stanford AIMI lab we provide an opportunity for frequent conversations on current AI topics, as we work together on joint dataset curation and global health informatics. With Dr Leo Celi from MIT we are pushing the boundaries where we use our expertise to assess bias in clinical systems and look at trust and the healthcare experience for patients. As we survive 2 pandemics, one for COVID and another for systemic racism, we have refocused our efforts on studying bias in algorithms, and are excited for our collaborations with Dr Ziad Obermeyer to get better algorithmic measures that reduce bias in AI algorithms.
We are seeking a highly motivated Ph.D./postdoc candidate to work in one of the following areas of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning for Healthcare:
-Human-machine interaction for decision making
-Use of knowledge representation and data curation for ML in Healthcare
-Computer Vision in Radiology imaging.
-Natural language processing in Radiology reports and clinical notes
We look favorably on applicants who can demonstrate a knowledge of computer vision, machine learning, data curation using semantic web, ontologies, knowledge graphs, and who have strong programming and mathematical skills
Emory Supports a Diverse and Inclusive Culture
Connect With Us!
Connect with us for general consideration!
Job Number 57832
Job Type Regular Full-Time
Division School Of Medicine
Department SOM: Rad: Interventional
Location : Name Emory University Hospital


text:
> Do you know places where I can find precise border for small countries like Singapore?
Search the internet for shp files containing information about Singapore. I briefly searched data.gov.sg and found 294 shp files on Singapore from census data, municiple planning areas, and lots of different maps.
- Go to the 2010 census link above, download the zip file; unzip all files.
- Add the folder containing Region_Census2010.shp to your MATLAB path using addpath(...)
- Run the code below to see the map produced below. Note, these data break Singapore into Central, West, North, North-East, and East regions but is also includes at least some of the island borders.
- See notes in code below for more info.
First let's look at the shape info
info = shapeinfo('Region_Census2010.shp')
struct with fields:
Filename: [3×108 char]
BoundingBox: [2×2 double]
Attributes: [8×1 struct]
CoordinateReferenceSystem: [1×1 projcrs]
projcrs with properties:
GeographicCRS: [1×1 geocrs]
ProjectionMethod: "Transverse Mercator"
ProjectionParameters: [1×1 map.crs.ProjectionParameters]
The ProjectionMethod is "Transverse Mercator" which is "tranmerc" in Matlab if you choose to use map axes (eg, axesm('tranmerc')).
The coordinate reference system is not a geocrs object so this dataset does not use geographical coordinates (lat/lon) as described here. If you need Lat/Lon you'll either need to find a different sph file or perhaps these values can be converted.
S = shaperead('Region_Census2010.shp','UseGeoCoords',true)


text:
Some push factors that causing Labor turnover In Private University Education in Iraq -A case study for a number of private colleges
2020, Volume 39, Issue 126, Pages 111-131
AbstractThe faculty member is considered an essential axis in the success of the private university education.. In view of the high turnover rate in the private university education sector in Iraq, as it reached nearly 40% in some colleges, which makes it a phenomenon that must be studied by researchers. Accordingly, the research aims to find out what are the reasons that push the faculty member in private university education to leave his job and move to another place, which is called push factors. The researcher followed the descriptive approach in collecting theoretical information and the survey and analysis approach in collecting field data using a questionnaire that included, in addition to personal information, questions for thirteen reasons that could be cause of labor turnover send to those who left the work( Post Exit) in a sample of private colleges through Personal interview or by sending it via electronic means of communication. The data was analyzed using the statistical program SPSS version 24.The research found that the thirteen reasons were statistically significant as a reason for labor turnover, the most important of which is the lack of security and job stability in private university education. The research also presented a set of recommendations that can contribute to reducing the phenomenon of labor turnover for faculty members in private university education in Iraq.
- Article View: 40
- PDF Download: 69


text:
Monday, February 1, 2010
Professors and Golf Course Superintendents Recognized for Turfgrass Phosphorus Fertilizer Training Program
The Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture has recently awarded two University of Minnesota Professors, Drs. Brian Horgan and Carl Rosen, along with Mr. Rick Traver, Jr.,CGCS and Mr. Scott Turtinen of the Minnesota Golf Course Superintendents' Association, for their dedicated service to the Turfgrass Phosphorus Fertilizer Training Program.
Dr. Horgan is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota and Turfgrass Extension Specialist. He travels around the world giving lectures on nutrient fate, fertilizer management, water conservation strategies and general turfgrass management. His research focuses on creating common sense solutions for the practitioner of today and future turfgrass managers.
Dr. Rosen is a Professor and Extension Soil Scientist in the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate at the University of Minnesota and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Horticultural Science. Since 1983, his extension and research programs at Minnesota have focused on improving nutrient use efficiency in a variety of crops with particular emphasis on nutrient management in irrigated crop production. Efforts in recent years have also focused water quality issues related to fertilizer use and agricultural/horticultural use of municipal and industrial by-products as soil amendments.
Below is the letter of appreciation signed by the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, outlining the reach and accomplishments of the Turfgrass Phosphorus Fertilizer Training Program in the North Central agronomic region. Congratulations to all four gentlemen!
Letter of Appreciation-1.pdf


.0.
* Default: 0.25
reduce_freq = <integer>
* When the specified number of chunks is reached, attempt to reduce
 the intermediate results.
* When set to "0": Specifies that there is never an attempt to reduce the
 intermediate result.
* Default: 10
remote_reduce_limit = <unsigned long>
* The number of results processed by a streaming search before a reduce
 is forced.
* NOTE: this option applies only if the search is run with --runReduce=true
 (currently only Splunk Analytics for Hadoop does this)
* When set to "0": Specifies that there is no limit.
* Default: _PHONE_
unified_search = <boolean>
* Specifies if unified search is turned on for hunk archiving.
* Default: false
Status
 This section contains settings for search status.
status_cache_size = <integer>
* The number of status data for search jobs that splunkd can cache in RAM.
 This cache improves performance of the jobs endpoint.
* Default: 10000
status_period_ms = <integer>
* The minimum amount of time, in milliseconds, between successive
 status/info.csv file updates.
* This setting ensures that search does not spend significant time just
 updating these files.
 * This is typically important for very large number of search peers.
 * It could also be important for extremely rapid responses from search
 peers, when the search peers have very little work to do.
* Default: 1000 (1 second)
Timelines
 This section contains settings for timelines.
remote_event_download_finalize_pool = <integer>
* Size of the pool, in threads, responsible for writing out the full
 remote events.
* Default: 5
remote_event_download_initialize_pool = <integer>
* Size of the pool, in threads, responsible for initiating the remote
 event fetch.
* Default: 5
remote_event_download_local_pool = <integer>
* Size of the pool, in threads, responsible for reading full local events.
* Default: 5
remote_timeline = [0|1]
* Specifies if the timeline can be computed remotely to enable better
 map/reduce scalability.
* Default: 1 (true)
remote_timeline_connection_timeout = <integer>
* Connection timeout, in seconds, for fetching events processed by remote
 peer timeliner.
* Default: 5.
remote_timeline_fetchall = [0|1]
* When set to "1" (true): Splunk fetches all events accessible through the
 timeline from the remote peers before the job is considered done.
 * Fetching of all events might delay the finalization of some searches,
 typically those running in verbose mode from the main Search view in
 Splunk Web.
 * This potential performance impact can be mitigated by lowering the
 "max_events_per_bucket" settings.
* When set to "0" (false): The search peers might not ship all matching
 events to the search head, particularly if there is a very large number
 of them.
 * Skipping the complete fetching of events back to the search head will
 result in prompt search finalization.
 * Some events may not be available to browse in the UI.
* This setting does NOT affect the accuracy of search results computed by
 reporting searches.
* Default: 1 (true)
remote_timeline_max_count = <integer>
* Maximum number of events to be stored per timeline bucket on each search
 peer.
* Default: 10000
remote_timeline_max_size_mb = <integer>
* Maximum size of disk, in MB, that remote timeline events should take
 on each peer.
* If the limit is reached, a DEBUG message is emitted and should be
 visible in the job inspector or in messages.
* Default: 100
remote_timeline_min_peers = <integer>
* Minimum number of search peers for enabling remote computation of
 timelines.
* Default: 1
remote_timeline_parallel_fetch = <boolean>
* Specifies whether to connect to multiple peers at the same time when
 fetching remote events.
* Default: true
remote_timeline_prefetch = <integer>
* Specifies the maximum number of full eventuate that each peer should
 proactively send at the beginning.
* Default: 100
remote_timeline_receive_timeout = <integer>
* Receive timeout, in seconds, for fetching events processed by remote peer
 timeliner.
* Default: 10
remote_timeline_send_timeout = <integer>
* Send timeout, in seconds, for fetching events processed by remote peer
 timeliner.
* Default: 10
remote_timeline_thread = [0|1]
* Specifies whether to use a separate thread to read the full events from
 remote peers if "remote_timeline" is used and "remote_timeline_fetchall"
 is set to "true".
 Has no effect if "remote_timeline" or "remote_timeline_fetchall" is set to
 "false".
* Default: 1 (true)
remote_timeline_touchperiod = <number>
* How often, in seconds, while a search is running to touch remote timeline
 artifacts to keep the artifacts from being deleted by the remote peer.
* When set to "0": The remote timelines are never touched.
* Fractional seconds are allowed.
* Default: 300 (5 minutes)
timeline_events_preview = <boolean>
* When set to "true": Display events in the Search app as the events are
 scanned, including events that are in-memory and not yet committed, instead
 of waiting until all of the events are scanned to see the search results.
 You will not be able to expand the event information in the event viewer
 until events are committed.
* When set to "false": Events are displayed only after the events are
 committed (the events are written to the disk).
* This setting might increase disk usage to temporarily save uncommitted
 events while the search is running. Additionally, search performance might
 be impacted.
* Default: false
timeline_freq = <timespan> or <ratio>
* The minimum amount of time, in seconds, between timeline commits.
* If specified as a number < 1 (and > 0), minimum time between commits is
 computed as a ratio of the amount of time that the search has been running.
* Default: 0
TTL
 This section contains time to live (ttl) settings.
cache_ttl = <integer>
* The length of time, in seconds, to persist search cache entries.
* Default: 300 (5 minutes)
default_save_ttl = <integer>
* How long, in seconds, the ttl for a search artifact should be extended in
 response to the save control action.
* When set to 0, the system waits indefinitely.
* Default: 604800 (1 week)
failed_job_ttl = <integer>
* How long, in seconds, the search artifacts should be stored on disk after
 a job has failed. The ttl is computed relative to the modtime of the
 status.csv file of the job, if the file exists, or the modtime of the
 artifact directory for the search job.
* If a job is being actively viewed in the Splunk UI then the modtime of
 the status.csv file is constantly updated such that the reaper does not
 remove the job from underneath.
* Default: 86400 (24 hours)
remote_ttl = <integer>
* How long, in seconds, the search artifacts from searches run in behalf of
 a search head should be stored on the indexer after completion.
* Default: 600 (10 minutes)
ttl = <integer>
* How long, in seconds, the search artifacts should be stored on disk after
 the job completes. The ttl is computed relative to the modtime of the
 status.csv file of the job, if the file exists, or the modtime of the
 artifact directory for the search job.
* If a job is being actively viewed in the Splunk UI then the modtime of
 the status.csv file is constantly updated such that the reaper does not
 remove the job from underneath.
* Default: 600 (10 minutes)
check_search_marker_done_interval = <integer>
* The amount of time, in seconds, that elapses between checks of search marker
 files, such as hot bucket markers and backfill complete markers.
* This setting is used to identify when the remote search process on the
 indexer completes processing all hot bucket and backfill portions of
 the search.
* Default: 60
check_search_marker_sleep_interval = <integer>
* The amount of time, in seconds, that the process will sleep between
 subsequent search marker file checks.
* This setting is used to put the process into sleep mode periodically on the
 indexer, then wake up and check whether hot buckets and backfill portions
 of the search are complete.
* Default: 1
srtemp_dir_ttl = <integer>
* The time to live, in seconds, for the temporary files and directories
 within the intermediate search results directory tree.
* These files and directories are located in $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk/srtemp.
* Every 'srtemp_dir_ttl' seconds, the reaper removes files and directories
 within this tree to reclaim disk space.
* The reaper measures the time to live through the newest file modification time
 within the directory.
* When set to 0, the reaper does not remove any files or directories in this
 tree.
* Default: 86400 (24 hours)
Unsupported settings
 This section contains settings that are


Ministry reforms school entry rules
This is a new point in the ministry's recently announced draft circular on university enrolment. The move aims to ensure quality of teacher training institutions and relieve public concern, especially after many students with low examination results were recently admitted to teacher training institutions. The change will also mean that more students will have opportunity to attend universities. Universities, especially private ones or less popular ones, should find it easier to enroll enough students. Besides using high school exams for university admission, universities and colleges could organize their own exams to select students suitable to their needs and goals. According to the draft, teacher training institutions can consider university admission to students with good performance in 12th grade. Colleges and vocational schools can consider admission to students with average studying performance. Students from high schools for gifted students can be admitted to teacher training institutions if they earned first, second or thirds prizes in contests at province, national or international levels. In previous years, only students with national or international prizes received the incentive. Another new regulation in this year's university enrollment is that universities, colleges and vocational schools are not allowed to enroll if they don't publicize how many of their students get jobs within 12 months of graduating. They also have to publicize information on their facilities including classes, labs, equipment and their staff. In Vietnam, students are classified into three areas to get extra points for their high school graduation and university entrance exams based on… [Read full story]
Link and


text:
Unlike the other phases, only the first player acts in the Mythos Phase (check the first sentence about the Mythos phase in the rulebook page 9)
In your example you'd have 10 turns each before the GOO (Great Old One) awakens. Some caveats:
- 10 is just a sample number, various GOO's have between 7 and 14 tokens allowed.
- Not all Mythos cards open a gate (Rumors for example).
- There may already be a gate there (no Doom token is placed).
- Gates can open via other circumstances (these also generate a Doom token).
You can never be quite sure how many turns you have left. That's one of the great things about Arkham Horror.
The terror track is completely different. The main way that it advances is due to having too many monsters in the outskirts. It is pretty rare to fill the terror track, but you will see a building or two close fairly often.
For two players, you are allowed 6 monsters in the outskirts; if there are any more, then dump them and increment the terror track. (Note that 8 less the number of players is always the maximum number of monsters allowed in the outskirts.)


text:
View Medieval Travel Lies
As the western Roman empire declined during the fourth and fifth centuries AD, Europe lost contact with the rest of the world. Classical knowledge of the outside world receded, and what emerged in its place was a peculiar mixture of fact and fiction. European scholars inhabited the lands to their east with unicorns, cyclops, and other fantastic creatures. One persistent rumor spoke of the barbarian tribes of Gog and Magog whom Alexander the Great had supposedly imprisoned behind giant brass gates somewhere in the East. It was said that the escape of Gog and Magog would signal the imminent end of the world.
With the gradual revival of commerce during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Europeans once more began to venture beyond their borders and returned to tell of what they had seen. But these travellers, upon their return from faraway lands, seldom gave what we would consider to be factual accounts. Instead, they related bizarre stories that confirmed the existence of the imaginary kingdoms and creatures that Europeans had so long dreamed about and feared. We can only assume that these travel lies were another manifestation of the medieval preference for allegorical truths over literal ones.
Examples of Medieval Travel Lies
The Letter of Prester John
He was a Christian King rumored to have an empire in the East. The crusaders kept waiting for him to ride in with his cavalry and save the day, but for some reason he never showed up.
Did Marco Polo really travel to China, as he claimed? If he did, then why did he fail to notice the Great Wall of China?
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
He's known as the greatest liar of all time. The narrative of his travels certainly stretches credibility.
The Lost Island of Hi-Brazil
For centuries the island of Hi-Brazil existed only in legends. Then someone claimed to have actually found the place.


Text Helper Utility Part 1: C# Coalesce
posted on 27th Feb 2007
I thought that I should start with something simple, yet useful, to get the blogging juices flowing. So I'm going to write about some of the utility and helper classes I deal with on a day to day basis; The TextHelper.
TextHelper is static helper class containing useful methods for dealing with text and strings.
Existing language functionality:
The first method, and the one I use the most, is a spin off of the Transact-SQL COALESCE function. It adheres to the same principle as the SQL version in that it takes a variable number of arguments, and returns the first non-null, and in our case non-empty, argument. The T-SQL version is used along the lines of:
COALESCE([Col0], [Col1], 'None')
Since C# 2.0, we've also had the coalesce operator; a very handy operator, which can save a lot of if ... else statements. It is used to return the first object that is not null like so:
MyObject a = null;
MyObject b = new MyObject();
MyObject c = a ?? b;'
In the example above, b is the first non-null argument, and is assigned to the variable c.
Why another Coalesce method?
The difference between the aforementioned two methods and the TextHelper.Coalesce method is that they only deal with null values, but we often want null and empty to be considered the same when dealing with User Interfaces. Consider the following example of getting a contact number to display.
string phone = TextHelper.Coalesce(customer.Phone, customer.Mobile, "None Avaialble");
Now when the customer has a empty phone number, the mobile number is returned, and if no mobile number is specified, "None Available" is used as an indicator.
Source Code:
Here's the code extract from the text helper class.
public static class TextHelper
{
 public static string Coalesce(params string[] args)
 {
 string value = string.Empty;
 foreach (string arg in args)
 {
 if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(arg))
 {
 value = arg;
 break;
 }
 }
 return value;
 }
}
It's an extremely simple method and simply helps cut down on writing more lines of code than are necessary.
It also makes dealing with configuration "AppSetting" a little simpler too e.g.
string setting = TextHelper.Coalesce(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MyAppSettingKey"], "My Default Value");
What's Next?
Next time I'll be adding another simple method from the TextHelper class that separates cased words. Handy for displaying PascalCased enum strings and the like.


text:
Embarking on an Argentine adventure promises a remarkable tapestry of experiences, blending urban sophistication, natural wonders, and profound cultural immersion.
Heading north from Buenos Aires, you'll find Esteros del Iberá, an expansive wetland paradise that offers a stark contrast to the city's hustle and bustle. Here, amidst the tranquility of the marshes, you can embark on boat safaris, spotting caimans, capybaras, and a myriad of bird species in their natural habitats. It's the perfect escape from urban life, a place to unwind in serene natural beauty!
Continuing your adventure, the awe-inspiring Iguazú Falls beckon. Nestled within a lush rainforest on the Argentina-Brazil border, these magnificent waterfalls are among the world's most impressive. Witness thousands of tons of water cascading over cliffs, a spectacle that is nothing short of breathtaking. Explore the trails leading to various vantage points and don't miss the exhilarating boat ride that brings you up close to the thundering falls, leaving you drenched and in awe.
- Embark on boat safaris to spot caimans, capybaras, and diverse bird species in their natural habitats.
- Witness the natural wonder of Iguazú Falls, nestled in a lush rainforest on the Argentina-Brazil border.
- Experience the sheer power of thousands of tons of water cascading over cliffs and take an exhilarating boat ride for a close encounter with the falls.
- Immerse yourself in Argentine culture, from the passionate tango to the flavorsome cuisine and the warm hospitality of the people.
- Explore the serene marshes of Esteros del Iberá and the lush rainforest surrounding Iguazú Falls, where nature's beauty takes center stage.
- Take part in thrilling activities, like boat safaris and up-close encounters with thundering waterfalls, ensuring that every moment of your journey is filled with excitement.
- Whether you seek relaxation, adventure, or cultural enrichment, this Argentine adventure promises to create lasting memories that will stay with you long after the journey ends.


text:
Archaeologists might have finally found the cave of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, whose solitary 18-year stay on a tiny island off the
California coast inspired the children's classic "Island of the Blue Dolphins."
"The cave had been completely buried under several meters of
sand. It is quite large and would
have made a very comfortable home, especially in inclement weather," Navy archaeologist Steven Schwartz said at the California Islands Symposium last week in Ventura.
One of the most famous people associated with the Channel Islands, the Lone Woman belonged to the Nicoleno, a Native American tribe who lived on the remote wind-blasted island of San Nicolas off the Southern California coast.
The tribe was decimated in 1814 by sea otter hunters from Alaska. By 1835, less than a dozen Nicolenos lived on the island. At that time, the Santa Barbara Mission arranged a rescue operation which brought to the mainland all Nicoleños but the Lone Woman.
The most likely explanation for the abandonment is that a panicked crew, caught by a storm, turned the rescue schooner, named Peor es Nada ("Better Than nothing"), toward the mainland without much head counting.
The woman lived alone on the island until a fisherman and sea otter hunter found her in 1853 and brought her to the Santa Barbara Mission.
"She was found in a brush enclosure on the west end of the island,
but she is believed to have lived in a cave during most of her 18 years of isolation," Schwartz, who has been investigating the island for more than 20 years, said.
Since there is no known habitation cave on the tiny island — which is now a Navy base — the archaeologist concluded that the cavern must have collapsed and been buried.
The search took a new twist recently, when Schwartz obtained a unique document: a government survey map of the island dated from 1879 which pointed to an "Indian Cave" on the southwest coast.
Preliminary excavation revealed a cave which is at least 75 feet long and 10 feet high.
According to Schwartz, ground-penetrating radar might show a layer of relics from the Lone Woman's era — "perhaps even the markings she was said to have made on the walls," he told the Los Angeles Times.
Further evidence for some sort of Robinson
Crusoe struggling existence emerged two years ago from a steep cliff on the north coast of the island in the form of two redwood boxes.
They contained more than 200 objects, including shells, bone tools, harpoon points, bone fishhooks and even a smoking pipe.
It may never be known just who left the boxes, but "it's at least a reasonable hypothesis" that it was the Lone Woman, University of Oregon archaeologist Jon M. Erlandson told the Los Angeles Times.
Although the Lone Woman managed to live alone for 18 years on the wild, tiny island, she did not last long when she came back to "civilization" at a possible age of 50.
She died from dysentery only seven weeks after she arrived to the Santa Barbara Mission, unable to communicate, but totally fascinated by the new life she was discovering.
Indeed, her great fondness for food such as green corn, vegetables and fresh fruit, was probably the cause for her fatal illness.
On her deathbed, the Lone Woman was baptised and christened Juana Maria.
All her personal possession, including the bone tools which had been brought back from San Nicolas Island, became part of the collections of the California Academy of Sciences, but were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
Photo: A photo of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.


User Tools
Site Tools
snapshot
Snapshot
The snapshot block takes a snapshot of a given expression when a discrete events is triggered.
In versions prior to Ecolego 6, this functionality was incorporated in the recorder block.
When creating a snapshot block, you must specify either the name of the object to monitor, or an expression to monitor. This is called the "Target expression". You also select a discrete events which will trigger the snapshot.
Creating a snapshot block
From the Projects window
 - Expand the Project to which you wish to add the snapshot by clicking the + symbol next to it. Right-click on 'Blocks', or a sub-system in 'Blocks', and select Snapshot from the pop-up menu.
From the Matrix window
 - Right click an empty diagonal cell of the matrix and select Snapshot from the the pop-up menu.
From the Blocks window
 - Place the mouse anywhere over the area of this window and right-click on it. Select New | Snapshot from the pop-up menu, or
 - In the title bar, select Snapshot from the Type drop-down list and click on the New button.
Editing a snapshot block
NoteMost block properties can be edited directly in the Blocks window.
The block editor is shown by right-clicking the block in a window and selecting Edit. In the Blocks window, you can also show the block editor by selecting the block and clicking the Edit button, or by double-clicking the right-most "validation" column of the block.
The block editor has three tabs:
Properties
This page lets you edit basic properties such as name, sub-system and base unit. See editing properties for more information.
Appearance
This page lets you edit the visual properties of the block in the matrix window and graph window. See editing appearance for more information.
Values
Dimension - You can specify the dimension of the block by using the Type drop down list. Depending on the dimension the index drop down lists are activated.
Data - The data table let you specify index specific properties like target expression.
 - Indices - For blocks that are non-scalar, the first columns will specify indices from the index lists. This allows you to specify different expressions for different indices.
 - Target expression - Enter either just the ID of an object to monitor, or enter a full expression.
 - Event - Select a discrete event which will trigger the snapshot. The value of the block will then be equal to the current value of target expression.
 - Initial value - Enter an expression for the initial value of the block, until the first snapshot has been taken.
 - Information - By using the Table control button you can display more columns that will help you document your model.
Example: Min/Max, Snapshot
Consider a model which simulates the financial transactions between yourself and your bank. A block named balance contains the current balance of your accounts. You wish to find out the maximum amount of money on your account over the month, and present this value by month.
To achieve this we need a discrete event which at the beginning of each month will
 1. Reset the Min/Max block.
 2. Take a snapshot of the Min/Max block.
The reason that we use a snapshot is because the value of the Min/Max block will change over the month as money are deposited or withdrawn from your accounts.
Assuming that the time unit is years, create a discrete event named Event_new_month with the following values:
Property Value
Left expression time/12-round(time/12)
Direction
Right expression0
Create a min/max block named balance_max, with the operation of Maximum. Give it the following values:
Property Value
Target expressionbalance
Reset Event_new_month
Finally create a snapshot block with the following values:
Property Value
Target expressionbalance_max
Event Event_new_month
See also
snapshot.txt · Last modified: 2019/11/18 13:34 (external edit)


text:
Document Type : Research Paper
School of Chemical Engineering and Energy, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering, School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
Background: The utilization of methane for production of Poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) not only cuts the emissions of greenhouse gases but also greatly reduces PHB production cost.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the effects of gas-phase conditions on PHB production by Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b.
Materials and Methods: Bacterial cultivation and PHB production were conducted in a series of sealed serum bottles. Nitrogen-free mineral salts medium was used to induce PHB production in the presence or absence of N2 in the headspace.
Results: In the absence of N2, the highest PHB content (i.e., 52.9% of the dry cell weight with a PHB concentration of 814.3 mg.L-1) was obtained at a ratio of CH4:O2=2:1. Further study at different O2 concentrations with a fixed CH4 partial pressure in absence of N2 showed that PHB accumulation by methanotroph could be tolerated high oxygen partial pressure and its respond to the variation of the oxygen concentration depends on the methane partial pressure. In presence of N2, with headspace gas replenished only when oxygen was almost depleted, the degradation of intracellular PHB has appeared. In the regimen of updating headspace gas at the point when the PHB content began to decrease, the highest PHB content (i.e., 55.5% of the dry cell weight with 901.8 mg.L-1 PHB concentration and 12.5 mg.L-1.h-1PHB productivity) was obtained at 0.2 atm O2 and PHB accumulation was depressed with an oxygen concentration greater than 0.3 atm.
Conclusions: The methanotroph responses differentially to the increase in the oxygen partial pressure with regard to PHB accumulation either in the presence or in the absence of N2.


text:
Climate is Changing Our Forests and Plants: New Evidence from Alaska and Our Own Backyard
Kevin L. Griffin, Ph.D.
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Take a walk in the woods. Do the plants and trees look the same as years ago? Kevin Griffin is a biologist who studies the physiology (such as photosynthesis and respiration) of plants, especially as they respond to environmental change. He works both in a Lamont laboratory and at field sites worldwide. Dr. Griffin will describe his research on plant and ecosystem responses to climate change, including results from two of his current field sites: the tundra of Alaska, and forests from New York City to the Catskill Mountains.


text:
Arthur G. Shapiro: "Helix Rotation". American University. USA
The display consists of two columns of dots that move back and forth horizontally. What to do: Put a dark filter over one eye, and keep both eyes open. What to notice: 1. The dots look like a three-dimensional helix. 2. When the dark filter is over the left eye, the helix rotates clockwise; when the filter is over the right eye, the helix rotates counterclockwise. 3. When the viewer uses no filter but blurs the image by squinting both eyes or by using a defocusing lens, motion is upwards for one helix and downwards for the other.


text:
Application of Ensemble Methods for Solving Offshore Wind Farm Layout Optimization Problems
MetadataShow full item record
Wind energy is considered as one of the most promising renewable energy sources. The intent of this dissertation is to assess the application of ensemble methods on offshore wind farm layout optimization. In this regard, four research questions are considered and addressed accordingly each of which are discussed in detail in a separate chapter (chapter 2 to 5). The first research question is focused on choosing appropriate analytical wake model to be used for the wind farm layout optimization (WFLO) problems in this dissertation. The WFLO problem is a complex and non-convex optimization problem. The accuracy of analytical wake models applied in WFLO problems is of great significance as the high-fidelity methods are still not able to handle an optimization problem for large wind farms. Four wake models selected from FLORIS (the abbreviation of Flow Redirection and Induction in Steady State) which is a tool integrated with several classical and innovative wake models by applying three classical WFLO scenarios are compared. The results illustrate that the Jensen wake model is the fastest, but the issue of underestimating the velocity deficit is obvious. The multi-zone model needs additional tuning on the parameters inside the model to fit specific wind turbines. The Gaussian-curl hybrid (GCH) wake model, as an advanced expansion of the Gaussian wake model, does not provide a significant improvement in the current study, where the yaw control is not included. The Gaussian wake model is recommended for the WFLO projects implemented under the FLROIS framework and has similar wind conditions with the present work. As the analytical wake model has been confirmed, the second research question is focused on a comparative study for multi-stage optimization models which are proposed to enhance the performance on searching the optima and convergence speed. Even though many different heuristic algorithms and mathematical programming methods have been tested and discussed, there is not a consensus about which algorithm is the most suitable approach for solving WFLO problems. Every algorithm has its own advantages and disadvantages on solving different problems, thus the ensemble approaches have received attentions. One ensemble approach applied in solving WFLO problems is to apply the multi-stage model as an algorithm in stage 1 to capture a coarse, initial optimized layout and import it to stage 2 as an initial condition for another algorithm for further refinement. Two types of multi-stage methods are compared: The Heuristic-Gradient-based (H-G) model which consists of a heuristic algorithm in stage 1 and a gradient-based algorithm in stage 2; The Discrete-Continuous (D-C) model which consists of a heuristic algorithm in discrete scheme in stage 1 and an algorithm in continuous scheme in stage 2. Annual energy production (AEP) is used as the objective function while the computational time associated with each approach is documented. The results illustrate most of the multi-stage models can improve the optimization procedure both in terms of AEP and computational time. Overall, it is found that the D-C approach is better than the H-G approach. Particularly, the combination of Greedy and Random Search provides the highest AEP and the combination of Greedy and SLSQP provides the lowest computational time. Despite of which approach is applied, solo algorithms or multi-stage models, the optimization relies on wake calculation which consumes the most of computational time. Thus, the third research question is about applying machine learning technique to construct a surrogate model for wake calculations in solving WFLO problems. An approach by neural network (NN) is developed and discussed. The NN can predict the site AEP by inputting the wind rose data and site turbine density. The dataset consists of randomly generated samples as 70% of them are used for training and the remaining samples are used for testing. The dependencies of the prediction quality in order of the variations in hyperparameters are also addressed by comparing different network architectures. The trained NN presents 96.78% as the highest mean accuracy in the testing task. This approach can be applied by an entity when making decisions of selecting potential locations for constructing offshore wind farms as an initial screening process. It can also be applied as the algorithm in the first stage of multi-stage model for solving the WFLO problems containing large number of wind turbines where applying the classical optimization algorithms are still inoperable due to the time consuming. Building floating offshore wind farm in the deep waters is a future demand of renewable energy. Because of the six degrees-of-freedom involved in the concepts, the load analysis should not be omitted in the WFLO for floating offshore wind farms. Finally, the fourth research question is about the joint optimization analysis for floating offshore wind farms with considering transient ambient wind and turbine structural loadings. A small wind farm (wind turbine array) which consists of two 15MW floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) and two 5MW FOWTs is investigated. The semi-submersible floater is adopted. The wake meandering, power production, rotor torque and selected platform motions (surge and pitch) are observed based on the instantaneous simulations in three wind speed scenarios. The simulations are completed by NREL's FAST.Farm software through parallel computing. The observations reveal that wake meandering has strong impacts on the power performance and dynamic responses when the wind speed is low and the distance between turbines is small. The configuration of ABBA type, i.e., two 15MW FOWTs on the sides and two 5MW FOWTs in the middle is more stable than the other as ABAB in power generation and structural responses. In the study, the resonances on platform surge and pitch are observed in the low wind speed scenarios, but they are not functional to the distance between turbines.


Arc diagram
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
An arc diagram of the Goldner–Harary graph. The red dashed line segment shows where this graph was subdivided to make it Hamiltonian.
In graph drawing, an arc diagram is a style of graph drawing, in which the vertices of a graph are placed along a line in the Euclidean plane, with edges being drawn as semicircles in one of the two halfplanes bounded by the line, or as smooth curves formed by sequences of semicircles. In some cases, line segments of the line itself are also allowed as edges, as long as they connect only vertices that are consecutive along the line.
The use of the phrase "arc diagram" for this kind of drawings follows the use of a similar type of diagram by Wattenberg (2002) to visualize the repetition patterns in strings, by using arcs to connect pairs of equal substrings. However, this style of graph drawing is much older than its name, dating back to the work of Saaty (1964) and Nicholson (1968), who used arc diagrams to study crossing numbers of graphs. An older but less frequently used name for arc diagrams is linear embeddings.[1]
Heer, Bostock & Ogievetsky (2010) write that arc diagrams "may not convey the overall structure of the graph as effectively as a two-dimensional layout", but that their layout makes it easy to display multivariate data associated with the vertices of the graph.
Planar graphs[edit]
As Nicholson (1968) observed, every embedding of a graph in the plane may be deformed into an arc diagram, without changing its number of crossings. In particular, every planar graph has a planar arc diagram. However, this embedding may need to use more than one semicircle for some of its edges.
If a graph is drawn without crossings using an arc diagram in which each edge is a single semicircle, then the drawing is a two-page book embedding, something that is only possible for the subhamiltonian graphs, a subset of the planar graphs.[2] For instance, a maximal planar graph has such an embedding if and only if it contains a Hamiltonian cycle. Therefore, a non-Hamiltonian maximal planar graph such as the Goldner–Harary graph cannot have a planar embedding with one semicircle per edge. Testing whether a given graph has a crossing-free arc diagram of this type (or equivalently, whether it has pagenumber two) is NP-complete.[3]
However, every planar graph has an arc diagram in which each edge is drawn as a biarc with at most two semicircles. More strongly, every st-planar directed graph (a planar directed acyclic graph with a single source and a single sink, both on the outer face) has an arc diagram in which every edge forms a monotonic curve, with these curves all consistently oriented from one end of the vertex line towards the other.[4] For undirected planar graphs, one way to construct an arc diagram with at most two semicircles per edge is to subdivide the graph and add extra edges so that the resulting graph has a Hamiltonian cycle (and so that each edge is subdivided at most once), and to use the ordering of the vertices on the Hamiltonian cycle as the ordering along the line.[5]
Minimizing crossings[edit]
Because it is NP-complete to test whether a given graph has an arc diagram with one semicircle per edge and no crossings, it is also NP-hard to find an arc diagram of this type that minimizes the number of crossings. This crossing minimization problem remains NP-hard, for non-planar graphs, even if the ordering of the vertices along the line is fixed.[1] However, in the fixed-ordering case, an embedding without crossings (if one exists) may be found in polynomial time by translating the problem into a 2-satisfiability problem, in which the variables represent the placement of each arc and the constraints prevent crossing arcs from being placed on the same side of the vertex line.[6] Additionally, in the fixed-ordering case, a crossing-minimizing embedding may be approximated by solving a maximum cut problem in an auxiliary graph that represents the semicircles and their potential crossings (or equivalently, by approximating the MAX2SAT version of the 2-satisfiability instance).[7]
Cimikowski & Shope (1996), Cimikowski (2002), and He, Sýkora & Vrt'o (2005) discuss heuristics for finding arc diagrams with few crossings.
Clockwise orientation[edit]
For drawings of directed graphs, a common convention is to draw each arc in a clockwise direction, so that arcs that are directed from an earlier to a later vertex in the sequence are drawn above the vertex line, and arcs directed from a later to an earlier vertex are drawn below the line. This clockwise orientation convention was developed as part of a different graph drawing style by Fekete et al. (2003), and applied to arc diagrams by Pretorius & van Wijk (2007).
Other uses[edit]
Arc diagrams were used by Brandes (1999) to visualize the state diagram of a shift register, and by Djidjev & Vrt'o (2002) to show that the crossing number of every graph is at least quadratic in its cutwidth.
 1. ^ a b Masuda et al. (1990).
 2. ^ The application of semicircles to edge layout in book embeddings was already made by Bernhart & Kainen (1979), but the explicit connection of arc diagrams with two-page book embeddings seems tо be due to Masuda et al. (1990).
 3. ^ Chung, Leighton & Rosenberg (1987).
 4. ^ Giordano et al. (2007).
 5. ^ Bekos et al. (2013).
 6. ^ Efrat, Erten & Kobourov (2007).
 7. ^ Cimikowski & Mumey (2007).


Chapel Allerton
Chapel Allerton
A suburb of Leeds, Chapel Allerton has a history dating back to at least the time of the Domesday Book. Though much of Chapel Allerton's buildings are 20th century, there are notable examples of Art Deco and Victorian architecture. The stately home of Harewood House is only 5 miles away.
The first written record of Chapel Allerton comes from the Domesday Book of 1086, where it was called Alreton. The name is a combination of Old English words meaning alder farm. There was an early medieval chapel here, linked to Kirkstall Abbey, situated between the modern byways of Harrogate Road and Church Street.
The first reference to 'Chapel Allerton' as a place name comes from 1427, though for centuries thereafter it was also known as Chapeltown. The chapel itself was torn down in the 18th century.
Initially an area of open countryside and farming, by the 17th century it became a place where the wealthy citizens of Leeds built second homes. It later became a popular place for Irish immigrants to settle.
Historic Buildings
The core of Chapel Allerton is a conservation area, with a wide range of historic buildings, many boasting large gardens. One of the finest buildings is Allerton Hall, a Grade II listed building dating to the 18th century. An early owner was Josiah Oates. One of Josiah's descendants was Captain Laurence Oates, who died in Scott's Polar Expedition of 1912.
Another historic building - though very much a different sort - is the Mustard Pot pub on Stainbeck Lane, which may date to 1653. On the subject of pubs, look for the Nag's Head, a coaching inn built in 1772. In the last decades of the 18th century, the landlord of the Nag's Head was widely rumoured to work with highwaymen.
The parish church of St Matthew is late Victorian, built in 1900 by the prominent 19th-century church architect GF Bodley.


text:
Blue spot is the colour feature of the parhelic circle occurring at the anthelic region of the sky. In addition to the blue, the theory predicts also green, but no red. Yet in several observations also red colour has been reported. However, because the red has never reproduced in photos, the observations have been doubted.
The image here shows two versions of a simulation of plate crystal parhelic circle in the anthelic region of the sky. The upper one has not been processed, the lower one has an overall levels adjustment to enhance colours. It looks like there is red present in addition to blue and green.
So it may be that observations of red may have not been wrong after all and that the theory (and naming) of the blue spot needs to be reconsidered. Lacking of the red in photos may be explained by film and sensor sensitivity issues. Even though the colors are seen with naked eye, they are still weak and some wavelenghts may be more prone than others to be not captured by the photographing equipment.
The simulation was made with a software developed by Jukka Ruoskanen. Sun elevation for the simulation is 25°, the plates have aspect ratio of 0.9 and tilt 3°.


Constantly seeking to expand his movement language, Kristopher Estes-Brown has worked in multiple dance idioms and on many theater arts projects. He has worked as a dancer, teacher, director, technical director, choreographer, and consultant. His interests range from the studio to the stage and every step in the middle.
CoNcept zero
CoNcept zero
American Youth Ballet
American Dance Center
Through the unique aesthetic of Artistic Director Kristopher Estes-Brown, Concept Zero creates theatrical productions that are experienced like a work of art. The contemporary dance idiom is expanded to explore the nature of the 21st century world. The limits of movement are explored as a median to evoke human understanding. Searching out an experience of dance and imagery that is visceral and involuntary.
"Working for Kristopher was such a pleasure of mine. He lead the group of dancers in a professional manner with high expectations, yet was positive and offered moments of comic relief to the intense rehearsals which is always appreciated! He valued each artist's unique sense of movement and choreographed to their strengths without sacrificing his intentions as a choreographer."
-Nadia Iozzo
Alberta Ballet and Kansas City Ballet
A not for profit performance company, the American Youth Ballet is dedicated to presenting quality original dance performances and creating future generations of dance artists. The company consists of pre-professional dancers who aspire to achieve a high level of excellence in performance. Kristopher Estes-Brown and Jennifer Tierney are the founding Artistic Directors of the American Youth Ballet.
"Teaching the American Dance Center students was an absolute joy. they are incredibly strong dancers, daring in their approach to movement and possessing a clear sense of weight and energetic focus. In addition, they pick up material at lightning speeds and exhibit a curiosity and an openness essential to processing new ways of movement. Behind these great young students are their guiding teachers, Kristopher and Jennifer, fighting the great fight in shaping a new generation of professional dancers and artists."
— Katarzyna Skarpetowska,
NYC based freelance choreographer


Tobin-Tax and its Relevance for Financial Markets. Modelling a Scenario including the Transaction Tax in Financial Markets
Master's Thesis, 2017
39 Pages, Grade: 1,7
Table of Contents
2.3.1.lmplication and resulting Dynamics ofa Transaction Tax in Market 1
2.3.2.lmplication and resulting Dynamics ofa Transaction Tax in two relevant Markets
2.4. BRIEF Outline of Market Liquidity and Comparison of both Markets regarding their Liquidity
2.4.1. Market 1 showing a high Level of Market Liguidity before a Tax Imposition
2.4.2. Market 2 showing a low Level of Market Liguidity before a Tax Imposition
2.4.3. Comparison of both Markets after a Tax Imposition
2.4.4. The Enforcement ofa Financial Transaction Tax in Reality
1. Definition and Explanation ofthe Tobin-Tax and its Relevance for Financial Markets
„Finanzakteure müssen durch die Finanztransaktionssteuer zur Verantwortung gezogen werden" (Financial agents must be held accountable by the financial transaction tax) Referring to this quote by Angela Merkel (Neuhaus, 2014), and connecting it to the severe financial shocks the world economy had to recover from several times in the past 40 years, it becomes clear that financial agents sometimes might be responsible for economic disasters that potentiallycould have been prevented by stricterfinancial regulations.
The most recent occurrence of such a disaster was the world financial crisis that began in 2007 in the United States of America as a mortgage crisis and, by destabilizing financial markets all over the world, evolved into a debt crisis. The massive aftermaths can still be seen in countries such as Greece and Portugal (Ozturk, 2014). One thing economic analysts agree on is that there are various reasons that, in combination, created this economic mess. In fact, the financial meltdown was not inevitable contrary to the position of Ben Bernanke [former president of the Federal Reserve], who claimed the crisis as a chain reaction of unfortunate events and unpredictable events (Mildner, 2012). It was rather caused by human actions as well as by grave failures of the government and financial supervision (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2011). Besides, large capital inflows from countries like China allowed American banks to irresponsibly grant loans in an extraordinary manner. The focus also shifts to the authorities overseeing the deregulation of financial markets and therefore fuelling the already existing housing bubble (Mildner, 2012). Another contribution to the financial crisis was the possibility that companies could choose their regulation institution regarding their level of supervision which predominantly ended with the one having the weakest regulations (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2011). These poor regulations stress the trading process (sale/ purchase) of each financial product (credit default swaps - CDS - in that case) for many financial institutions without any boundaries regarding the speed of trading. The extensive system of CDSs will not be elucidated in the following due to the limited scope of this thesis, instead focus will be laid on the trading speed of financial products (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2011). According to Westerhoff (2004), short-term trading (speculative behaviour) destabilizes financial markets and effort should be made to shift incentives from mentioned high-frequency trading to long-run investments that supposedly have stabilizing effects on financial markets. One solution to mitigate this destabilizing behaviour of financial agents and a principle which has been under debate for several years is the introduction of a transaction tax (Effenberger, 2001). The basic concept of transaction taxes goes back to the American economist James Tobin who, in 1978, proposed a taxation of financial transactions particularly in foreign exchange markets (Menkhoff, 1995). Tobin's reason behind a tax burden on trading currencies was to alleviate the enormous volatility [V] generated by speculating on currency exchange rates. Thus, by taxing every currency exchange with 0.1 percent of the amount traded, the incentives of short-run currency trades should be eliminated (The Telegraph, 2009). Even though, the Tobin tax was supposed to reduce speculation regarding currency trades, it can potentially be applied to every kind of financial trade such as on stocks and derivatives. In this case, one refers to it as a financial transaction tax (Haq et al., 1996; Spiegel Online, 2016). Based on the concept of Tobin, the tax will be imposed on every kind of trade and also to every kind of trader. Not only short-term oriented traders will be affected by the introduction of a transaction tax but also long-term oriented traders. In general, short-run oriented, destabilizing traders will be pushed out ofthe markets due to increased costs of trading on a high-frequent level and a fiscal revenue will be gained in addition (Westerhoff, 2003a). This particular effect will be scrutinized in the course of the following thesis. Furthermore, it comes to mind that taxation affects trade in a negative way and that the price building process usually should not be interfered with externally. Defenders of the transaction tax however state that if the percentage with which trades should be taxed is chosen correctly, stability in the relevant market will be improved (Westerhoff, 2003a). Regarding the external interference into the price building process, it can be assumed that if one compares it [the transaction tax] to other financial reform proposals connected to this topic, the level of interfering is by far not as high as one might expect (Menkhoff, 1995). So far, the introduction of a transaction tax might sound reasonable to governments and financial supervisors, but its implementation is a complex process. One factor that hinders the agreement on a transaction tax is the fear of losing national or international competitiveness. Another one is represented by the difficulties in technical execution. (Spiegel Online, 2016; Spahn, 1996). After this brief introduction it becomes clear that the realization of a financial transaction tax would predominantly serve the goal of preventing future financial crises by reducing instability in financial markets (high volatility).
In the following thesis, the author will first set up a model displaying a financial market with two heterogeneous agents to explain to what extent their trading behaviours have an impact on the stability of the relevant market.
In a second step, the model will be extended to two relevant markets the agents can choose to trade in and the effects of an application of a transaction tax will be depicted. Due to the fact that the reaction of financial markets to a tax introduction depends on various factors the main goal of this work will be to test to what extent the market liquidity in combination with an imposed transaction tax has an impact on the price adjustment process across several periods. For this reason, the set-up model will be programmed in'mathematica' where after the output will be interpreted. Furthermore, a possible influence of upcoming political events will be elucidated briefly before the results of the main question are stated and discussed. To represent a succinct perspective there will be a brief analysis about the odds of a tax introduction and a mentioning of possible further research.
2. Modelling a Scenario including theTransaction Tax in Financial Markets
In the upcoming section, the basic financial market model will be set up and explained in detail. The overall aim of the model is to show a set of stylized facts that are common to financial markets and therefore, a suitable tool to represent financial markets in a realistic way. According to Schmitt/Westerhoff (2013), excess volatility, returns that are not normally distributed (i.e. fat tails), bubbles and crashes, uncorrelated returns and volatility clustering can be understood as these stylized facts. The model aims to present the interaction of two types of traders - Chartists and Fundamentalists - whose strategies will be depicted later on. After explicating the dynamics of the basic model, a transaction tax will be introduced into the setup followed by a detailed analysis of its effects on market dynamics. The impact of a possible tax introduction on market liquidity and the resulting price adjustment processes will be exemplified afterwards.
2.1. Introduction of the Model including two heterogeneous Agents
For reasons of simplicity, the following model will first deal with a hypothetical financial market in which agents (also named traders) are able to freely perform speculative actions regarding their price development expectations (Westerhoff, 2003a). According to a study by Menkhoff (1997), there are two types of professional traders following two different set of rules regarding their trading strategies. Both kind of traders are considered to be bounded rational. Following Simon (1955), the available information is incomplete and agents in general are not capable of processing it perfectly. This can be further applied to financial agents as well. On the one hand, there are Chartists who give their orders following a technical analysis [named positive feedback trading (Westerhoff, 2003a)], meaning that they form their orders by relying on price trends from the past. More precisely, they [Chartists] expect prices to reflect all information needed to predict future price trends (Murphy, 1999). In general, technical traders expect the price of an asset to follow a certain trend and try to extrapolate future price developments from past trends. In other words, agents following technical trading rules buy the asset if the price has been increasing in the past because they expect a further rise. Vice versa they [Chartists] sell the


text:
- Rolling - Sphero can roll at a given speed and heading for a given amount of time.
- Colors - Sphero can light up in almost any color.
- Bluetooth - Sphero connects to mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone, and Android phones through bluetooth connections. This allows Sphero to be controlled by multiple apps.
Sphero believes what you play with inspires who you become. With Sphero, the fun extends into the classroom. Kids as young as 8 can learn how to program using Sphero, bringing their work into another dimension and real life application.
- Learning percentages by mixing colors at different levels
- Using Sphero to recreate geometric shapes
- Adjusting Sphero to meet a specific fraction
- Command Sphero to perform a series of logical steps and navigate a course
|Images Courtesy Of SPRK Lesson 1|
The first lesson on measuring distance asks students to experiment measuring speed and distance using the Sphero robot ball and a piece of tape on the floor. Using easy to follow step by step directions, the students will use both experimentation and math to learn about linear relationships and the fact that when something travels twice as long at the same speed, it will travel twice as far.
Some of the features of Sphero that I find most appealing are:
- No charging cables, which can often overwhelm classroom space
- It's waterproof, and durable enough for your pets to play with
- The lessons provided within SPRK are aligned to the common core
- multiple players can interact using multiple Spheros during the same game
- Sphero loves creativity. Currently you can win a Sphero and an iPad for your classroom from Sphero for sharing your creative classroom. Click here to learn more
- Sphero is also an amazing gaming device


text:
Special Committee on Agrochemical Bioscience
Chair: NOGE, Koji
The Agrochemical Bioscience Committee was newly established in 2003 in order to keep agrochemical sciences compatible with the dynamic progresses of contemporary sciences and technologies, such as genome science and combinatorial chemistry. Every year a symposium focusing on emerging issues in agrosciences, including "fusion of post-genome science and crop protection research", "analyses of interactions between organisms", "analyses of organisms-chemical interactions", "-biorational screening of novel agrochemicals", and "metabolism analyses and safety evaluation of agrochemicals from the viewpoint of environmental protection" is held. Our final goal is to contribute to the improvement of crop protection technology scientifically and socially, through active opinion exchanges and discussions among researchers of the related fields.


What is an economic census? Definition and examples
An economic census is a program that some countries have in which they publish a directory of national business statistics. In most countries, the authorities carry out an economic census every five years. They carry out the census at local, regional, and national levels. During a census, they gather valuable information about employers, employees, sales, receipts, and shipments.
The American one, for example, occurs once every five years. In India, on the other hand, the interval between each census varies.
The First Economic Census in India was in 1977, its Second in 1980, its Third in 1990. India's Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Economic Censuses took place in 1998, 2005, and 2013 respectively.
BusinessDictionary.com says the following regarding the US economic censuses:
"The economic census is conducted every 5 years on a local to national level to provide valuable data concerning sales, receipts, shipments, employers, and employees."
Economic Census
According to the US Census Bureau: "The key statistics produced for the Economic Census include Total Number of Establishments; Value of Sales, Shipments, Receipts, Revenue; Primary Business Activity; Number of Employees; Total Annual Payroll; Total First Quarter Payroll; and industry specific statistics."
United States Economic Census
The US Economic Census is an official five-year measure of US business and the national economy. The US Census Bureau carries out the census. By law, if you get a form, you must fill it in, i.e., response is compulsory.
The Census Bureau sends out forms to four million businesses every five years. Small, medium, large, and giant companies receive the forms. They are a good representative sample of all American companies.
Participants must provide a range of performance and operational data.
Policymakers in national, regional, and local government use the census data when making strategic planning decisions.
Wikipedia says the following regarding US Economic Censuses:
"The Economic Census, together with the separately conducted censuses of agriculture and governments, covers virtually the entire economy, excepting only for forestry, agricultural support, rail transportation, and employment by private households."
USA – brief history
Business and economic censuses have existed in the United States for over two hundred years. In 1810, the first census of manufactures occurred.
The US Census Bureau writes:
"From black-smithing to robotics, from muskets to lasers, from an agrarian economy to one increasingly based on services, the Census Bureau and its predecessors have measured our economic activities since the first census of manufactures in 1810."
As the economy grew and became more sophisticated, the censuses began to include wholesalers and mining concerns. Subsequently, there was a constructions industries census. Wholesalers are companies that buy goods in bulk and sell them in smaller batches to retailers and other businesses.
It was not until 1954 that America had what economists call 'a fully integrated census.' That year was also the first time census organizers used an electronic computer (UNIVAC 1) to process data.
The Census of Transportation began in 1963. In 1987, transportation data became more sophisticated and included many different transportation industries.
The final major expansion of America's Economic Census occurred in 1992. In that year, the organizers added more data from transportation industries as well as finance. They also included information on insurance companies, real estate, communications, and utilities.
In this article, 'utilities' refers to providers of water, natural gas, or electricity.