Excel Store Sales Data
Pipeline for the demonstration of Datrics' abilities to preprocess and aggregate historical data from different files related to different departments' store sales. The main goal is to align data and create one united dataset on a store level for further processing.
Problem Statement
As an input, we have 4 CSV files appr. 50k of rows each with historical data from 4 different countries with data from stores within each of them. All files contain the same data with alike column names and mixed data types.
Data Processing Scenario
Each file contains data related to the store, department, regional activity for the given dates, and total weekly sales. After aligning column names each file contains the following fields:
 - Country - the country id
 - Store - the store number
 - StoreSize - the store size
 - Department - the department number
 - Date - the first day of the week
 - Temperature - average temperature in the region
 - FuelPrice - cost of fuel in the region
 - MarkDown1-5 - anonymized data related to promotional markdowns that the store is running. MarkDown data is only available after Nov 2011 and is not available for all stores all the time. Any missing value is marked with an NA.
 - CPI - the consumer price index
 - UnemploymentRate - the unemployment rate
 - IsHoliday - whether the week is a special holiday week
 - WeeklySales - total amount of sales
The second step is to filter columns that are needed for further union and aggregation. As we want to have sales data on a store level, columns such as MarkDown1-5 are filtered.
The next step is to unite all the data in one dataset and align the data types within it, and aggregate the dataset to get weekly data for each store.
All bricks are logically gathered into three sub-groups: preprocessing, aggregating, and visualizing data.
notion image
Final dataset can be visualised using Pivot Table.
notion image


text:
Bioaugmentation enhances dark fermentative hydrogen production in cultures exposed to short-term temperature fluctuations
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review
|Number of pages||11|
|Journal||Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology|
|Publication status||Published - 21 Nov 2019|
|Publication type||A1 Journal article-refereed|
Hydrogen-producing mixed cultures were subjected to a 48-h downward or upward temperature fluctuation from 55 to 35 or 75 °C. Hydrogen production was monitored during the fluctuations and for three consecutive batch cultivations at 55 °C to evaluate the impact of temperature fluctuations and bioaugmentation with synthetic mixed culture of known H2 producers either during or after the fluctuation. Without augmentation, H2 production was significantly reduced during the downward temperature fluctuation and no H2 was produced during the upward fluctuation. H2 production improved significantly during temperature fluctuation when bioaugmentation was applied to cultures exposed to downward or upward temperatures. However, when bioaugmentation was applied after the fluctuation, i.e., when the cultures were returned to 55 °C, the H2 yields obtained were between 1.6 and 5% higher than when bioaugmentation was applied during the fluctuation. Thus, the results indicate the usefulness of bioaugmentation in process recovery, especially if bioaugmentation time is optimised.

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


text: Programmable optical circuits form a key part of quantum technologies today, ranging from transceivers for quantum communication to integrated photonic chips for quantum information processing. As the size of such circuits is increased, maintaining precise control over every individual component becomes challenging, leading to a reduction in the quality of the operations performed. In parallel, minor imperfections in circuit fabrication are amplified in this regime, dramatically inhibiting their performance. Here we show how embedding an optical circuit in the higher-dimensional space of a large, ambient mode-mixer using inverse-design techniques allows us to forgo control over each individual circuit element, while retaining a high degree of programmability over the circuit. Using this approach, we implement high-dimensional linear optical circuits within a complex scattering medium consisting of a commercial multi-mode fibre placed between two controllable phase planes. We employ these circuits to manipulate high-dimensional spatial-mode entanglement in up to seven dimensions, demonstrating their application as fully programmable quantum gates. Furthermore, we show how their programmability allows us to turn the multi-mode fibre itself into a generalised multi-outcome measurement device, allowing us to both transport and certify entanglement within the transmission channel. Finally, we discuss the scalability of our approach, numerically showing how a high circuit fidelity can be achieved with a low circuit depth by harnessing the resource of a high-dimensional mode-mixer. Our work serves as an alternative yet powerful approach for realising precise control over high-dimensional quantum states of light, with clear applications in next-generation quantum communication and computing technologies.


text:
From the very first track, "Body," one can hear how the physicality of the instruments have imbued the sound's texture. The physical characteristics of the metal strings create a layer of dynamic juxtaposition to the grinding timbres emerging around them. The broody "Ascent," features the album's clearest call-and-response between the stringed instrument and the drum, barking and thudding back and forth at one another. Evident in tracks such as "Border" and "Speak," Emptyset uses basic rhythmic structures drawn from an array of broad cultural practices, expressed neutrally and without overemphasis on the source. Taken as a whole Borders distills the duo's inspirations to their essence and the resulting music is as raw as it is captivating.
(και σταματας και παιρνεις 2 κουλουρια απο την κυρια στη βενιζελου)

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
A convoy of 21 vehicles left Xining, capital city of Qinghai Province, on Friday for a scientific mission to the Hol Xil Nature Reserve in northwest China's Qinghai Province.
This will be the country's largest scientific inspection of the nature reserve since 1990, and also the first one since the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway on July 1 this year.
The 61-person inspection team consists of scientists, journalists and volunteers.
The 50-day mission's aim is to better understand the formation of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, its effect on China's and the world's climate, as well as the distribution and migration of the nature reserve's rare animals.
Hol Xil is home to Tibetan antelopes, an endangered species which are protected by the Convention on the International Trade.
The population of Tibetan antelopes has dropped from several million to below 100,000 in the past two decades due to extensive poaching and human encroachment of their habitat.
The team will also collect samples of the area's plants to establish a gene databank and try to chart the area's ecological and environment trends over the past 15 years, said the team's head Ding Lin, a researcher with the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
(Xinhua News Agency October 14, 2006)

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Angina - chronic and Umbilical erythema
Summary:
Umbilical erythema is reported only by a few people with Angina - chronic.
The study analyzes which people have Umbilical erythema with Angina - chronic. It is created by eHealthMe based on 1 person who has Umbilical erythema and Angina - chronic from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is updated regularly.
Phase IV trials are used to detect adverse drug outcomes and monitor drug effectiveness in the real world. With medical big data and AI algorithms, eHealthMe is running millions of phase IV trials and makes the results available to the public. Our original studies have been referenced on 600+ medical publications including The Lancet, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and Nature.
On Jan, 30, 2023
1 person who has Angina - Chronic and Umbilical Erythema is studied.
What is Angina - chronic?
Angina - chronic (chest pain chronic) is found to be associated with 2,587 drugs and 1,868 conditions by eHealthMe.
What is Umbilical erythema?
Umbilical erythema (redness at umbilical site) is found to be associated with 88 drugs and 85 conditions by eHealthMe.
Number of Umbilical erythema in Angina - chronic reports submitted per year:
Would you have Umbilical erythema when you have Angina - chronic?
Gender of people who have Angina - Chronic and experienced Umbilical Erythema *:
 - female: 100 %
 - male: 0.0 %
Age of people who have Angina - Chronic and experienced Umbilical Erythema *:
 - 0-1: 0.0 %
 - 2-9: 0.0 %
 - 10-19: 0.0 %
 - 20-29: 0.0 %
 - 30-39: 0.0 %
 - 40-49: 0.0 %
 - 50-59: 100 %
 - 60+: 0.0 %
Common co-existing conditions for these people *:
 1. Type 2 Diabetes: 1 person, 100.00%
 2. Ovarian Cancer (cancer of ovary): 1 person, 100.00%
 3. Oedema Peripheral (superficial swelling): 1 person, 100.00%
 4. Muscle Spasms (muscle contraction): 1 person, 100.00%
 5. Insomnia (sleeplessness): 1 person, 100.00%
 6. Hypomagnesaemia (electrolyte disturbance in which there is an abnormally low level of magnesium in the blood): 1 person, 100.00%
 7. Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (a condition in which stomach contents leak backward from the stomach into the oesophagus): 1 person, 100.00%
 8. Dyslipidaemia (abnormal amount of lipids): 1 person, 100.00%
 9. Abdominal Pain: 1 person, 100.00%
Common symptoms for these people *:
* Approximation only. Some reports may have incomplete information.
Do you take medications and have Umbilical erythema?
Check whether Umbilical erythema is associated with a drug or a condition
How to use the study?
You can discuss the study with your doctor, to ensure that all drug risks and benefits are fully discussed and understood.
Related studies
Treatments, associated drugs and conditions:
COVID vaccines that are related to Umbilical erythema:
All the drugs that are associated with Umbilical erythema:
All the conditions that are associated with Umbilical erythema:
How the study uses the data?
The study is based on Umbilical erythema and Angina - chronic, and their synonyms.
Who is eHealthMe?
With medical big data and proven AI algorithms, eHealthMe provides a platform for everyone to run phase IV clinical trials. We study millions of patients and 5,000 more each day. Results of our real-world drug study have been referenced on 600+ medical publications, including The Lancet, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and Nature. Our analysis results are available to researchers, health care professionals, patients (testimonials), and software developers (open API).
WARNING, DISCLAIMER, USE FOR PUBLICATION
WARNING: Please DO NOT STOP MEDICATIONS without first consulting a physician since doing so could be hazardous to your health.
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If you use this eHealthMe study on publication, please acknowledge it with a citation: study title, URL, accessed date.
Recent studies on eHealthMe:


text:
National Energy Conservation Centre (Enercon) Assistant Chief (Buildings) Abrar Malik stated this at a seminar on 'Cool Roofs: Solar Radiation Management (SRM) Techniques to Combat Climate Change and Energy Crisis' organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
Abrar said: "We need to cultivate a new energy culture focusing on achieving sustainable development through conservation and efficient use of energy resources. SRM techniques such as cool roofs can be a viable alternate, he said. He highlighted initiatives taken by Enercon for energy conservation such as buildings energy audits, energy efficient housing improvement by roof slabs, awareness campaigns, appointment of energy managers and amendment in building bylaws of building control authorities and utility providers.
Advisor Climate Change and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Syed Amjad Hussain said that cool roofs could typically reduce summer air-conditioning energy use by 10% to 20%. He gave example of Masdar city while talking about reducing carbon emission to combat climate change around the world. Masdar city, he said, is a 15 billion dollars initiative by government of UAE which had zero carbon emission where everything is greener, cleaner, recycled and environmentfriendly.
Former National Programme Coordinator, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Tenveer Mehmud, said that CDM allows industrialised countries to invest in emission reductions wherever it is cheapest globally. He said that there is an opportunity for developing countries like Pakistan to take measures towards cleaner environment while earning valuable resources at the same time.
Farzana Yasmin from SDPI said that SRM techniques increase the reflectivity of the build environment by painting the roofs, roads and pavements with bright reflective white. It, she said, provides a cooling effect as the white roofs in tropical regions absorb about 70 per cent less sunlight than an ordinary roof and hence counteracting the warming influence of increasing greenhouse gases.
Started in year 2010, 'Climate Himalaya' initiative has been working on the mountain and climate related issues in the Himalayan region of South Asia. In the last two years this knowledge sharing portal has become one of the important references for the governments, research institutions, civil society groups and international agencies, those have work and interest in Himalayas. The Climate Himalaya team innovates on knowledge sharing, capacity building and climatic adaptation aspects in its focus countries like Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan. Climate Himalaya's thematic areas of work are mountain ecosystem, water, forest and livelihood. Read>>


% 15.6% 53.4% 30.0%
80 0.3% 8.3% 47.8% 43.6%
The second level perk of the Dynasty Legacy "Kin" states "Dynasty members get better education". In the game code this is achieved by setting the education variable for the ninth and final roll to success equaling three points and failure equaling two points. In essence the Legacy Perk provides the child a guaranteed two education variable points, with the final Education Roll providing an opportunity to earn one extra point. This Perk means a child will need to have successful Education Rolls on seven of the eight rolls to earn a four star education trait.
Education Trait Level Chances with Level 2 Kin Dynasty Perk
Success (%) 1 2 3 4
50 14.1% 49.2% 32.8% 3.5%
60 (Base) 4.9% 35.6% 48.8% 10.6%
63 3.3% 30.4% 52.1% 14.1%
66 2.2% 25.1% 54.3% 18.4%
70 1.1% 18.3% 55.1% 25.5%
75 0.4% 11.0% 51.9% 36.7%
80 0.1% 5.5% 44.0% 50.3%
Traits factor[edit]
The game bases the education success chance on the Success Factor and the Failure Factor.
The Base Success Factor is 60, and increased by positive traits of the child and the guardian, the education matches with childhood trait, and the attributes of the guardian.
The Base Failure Factor is 40, and increased by negative traits of the child/guardian, the education mismatches the childhood trait, and when he doesn't have a guardian.
The outcome will be the formula below.
or a default 60% chance when there's no additional factors involved.
For instance, a child with the "Genius" congenital trait adds 20 to the Success Factor. Under this circumstance, the Genius trait increases the odds of a successful Education Roll from 60% to 66.6%. The example math is provided below.
A guardian with the intelligence trait of Genius provides a Success Factor of 15. If a genius child (20) is being educated by a genius guardian (15) the chances of a successful Education Roll becomes 70.4%, with the example math provided below.
At the age of 3 each child is assigned a Childhood Trait. If the child's Focus does not match the Trait there is a factor of 20 added to the Failure Factor. For instance, if a child has the trait "Bossy" and the focus is Diplomacy, the child would receive the factor of 20 to Failure Factor. In this circumstance, the chance of a successful Education Roll drops to 50%.
The positive Traits a child and guardian can have that increase the Success Factor are provided in the chart below.
Trait Child Trait Factor Guardian Trait Factor
 Genius 20 15
 Intelligent 15 10
 Quick / Shrewd 10 5
Childhood trait Matching 20 N/A
The negative Traits a child and guardian can have that increase the Failure Factor are provided in the chart below.
Trait Child Trait Factor Guardian Trait Factor
 Slow / Dull 10 5
 Stupid 15 10
 Imbecile 20 15
Childhood trait Not Matching 20 N/A
No Guardian N/A 20
Attributes factor[edit]
The success of the Education Roll is also determined by the guardian's relevant attribute points. The "Primary Attribute" for a guardian (more important attribute) is the one which matches the focus of the child, and is determined by that value times 0.4. A guardian's Diplomacy attribute is part of the Factor for a child with a diplomacy focus. The "Secondary Attribute" is the guardian's Learning, which is multiplied by 0.2. The formula is shown below.
For instance a child with a focus in Diplomacy has a guardian with a 10 Diplomacy Attribute and a 15 Learning Attribute will provide a Success Factor of +7.
Guardian Attribute Quick Math
Guardian Attribute Child Focus Learning Factor
5 2 2 2 2 2 1
10 4 4 4 4 4 2
15 6 6 6 6 6 3
20 8 8 8 8 8 4
25 10 10 10 10 10 5
30 12 12 12 12 12 6
The Education Roll bonus provided by guardians with congenital traits of Genius, Intelligent and Quick (or the non-congenital Shrewd) are significantly more important than the attributes of the guardian alone. Under these circumstances an "underachieving" Genius guardian can provide equal value with a character with amazing stats.
Therefore the most important factors when choosing a guardian are:
 1. Someone you trust not to kill your child
 2. Genius
 3. Intelligent
 4. Quick / Shrewd
 5. Value of Primary Attribute (which matches child's focus)
 6. Learning Attribute
A Genius guardian with 5 Diplomacy and Learning Attributes will provide a Factor of +18 (15 + 2 + 1) and successful Education Roll chance of 66% on a average child, while a guardian with 30 Diplomacy and 30 Learning Attributes will provide a Factor of +18 (12 + 6) and successful Education Roll chance of 66%.
Hypothetical Guardian Attributes
Guardian Congenital Trait
Guardian 1 Genius 5 4 2 3 5
Guardian 2 None 30 33 32 28 30
Prowess trait[edit]
Children undergoing a Martial education can also receive a Prowess education trait when they come of age. To qualify, the child's culture or the educator's culture[6] must have the Knighthood innovation and the child must be of a gender that can become knights. The system that determines which Prowess trait the child gets is completely separate from the other education traits. The perks, spouse or universities don't influence the outcome.
When the child finishes their education, the game creates a temporary score for them, which starts equal to the Martial education level they obtained. Then, the game changes this score depending on the child's physical traits (multiple traits stack):
Trait Prowess Factor
 Herculean +3
 Robust, Strong, Giant +2
 Hale +1
 Delicate, Spindly, Wheezing, Hunchbacked, Inbred, Bleeder -1
 Frail, Weak, Dwarf -2
 Feeble -3
Lastly, there's a 25% chance the score increases +2, 25% chance it decreases by -2, and 50% chance it stays unchanged.
The final score is then the child's Prowess education level.
Each character in the game has a hidden "weight" value which ranges from -100 to 100. If your weight is -50 or below, you gain the Malnourished modifier, and the "Gain Weight" decision becomes available to you. If your weight is 50 or above, you gain the Obese modifier, and the "Lose Weight" decision becomes available to you.[7] Being obese or malnourished gives −1 Health.
In addition to a character's current weight, each character also has a hidden "target weight" value, based mostly on traits, which is the weight they are drifting toward. Every year, your real weight will drift closer to your target weight. When you feast, your target weight[8] increases by 7[9], and when you hunt, your target weight[10] decreases by 4[11]. Afterward, your weight will eventually drift back toward your target weight. The "Lose Weight" decision decreases your target weight, and the "Gain Weight" decision adds to your target weight. Ending those decisions brings your target weight back to what it was before.
Switching to a Martial lifestyle will move your target weight closer to 0 (so that if you are underweight, your target weight will increase somewhat, and if you are overweight, your target weight will decrease somewhat). Being a Novice Hunter, Hunter, or Master Hunter, will also move your target weight closer to 0 by successive amounts.
The following traits and events also affect a character's target weight:[7]
Effect on target weight Traits / Events
Large increase Gluttonous, Lazy, Comfort Eater, "Gain weight" decision
Moderate increase Drunkard, Hashishiyah, Gregarious, Greedy, Calm, Trusting, Legendary Reveler
Slight increase Patient, Arrogant, Ambitious, Eager Reveler, Famous Reveler
Slight decrease Shy, Humble, Zealous, Craven, Temperate
Moderate decrease Imprisoned, Diligent, Wrathful, Leper, Impatient, Content, Fickle, Vengeful, Generous
Large decrease Consumption, Cancer


of \(\vecs{F}\) has a hole at the origin, and therefore the domain is not simply connected. Since the domain is not simply connected, The Cross-Partial Property of Conservative Vector Fields does not apply to \(\vecs{F}\).
 Key Concepts
 - A vector field assigns a vector \(\vecs{F}(x,y)\) to each point \((x,y)\) in a subset \(D\) of \(ℝ^2\) or \(ℝ^3\). \(\vecs{F}(x,y,z)\) to each point \((x,y,z)\) in a subset \(D\) of \(ℝ^3\).
 - Vector fields can describe the distribution of vector quantities such as forces or velocities over a region of the plane or of space. They are in common use in such areas as physics, engineering, meteorology, oceanography.
 - We can sketch a vector field by examining its defining equation to determine relative magnitudes in various locations and then drawing enough vectors to determine a pattern.
 - A vector field \(\vecs{F}\) is called conservative if there exists a scalar function \(f\) such that \(\vecs \nabla f=\vecs{F}\).
 Key Equations
 - Vector field in \(ℝ^2\)
 \(\vecs{F}(x,y)=⟨P(x,y),\,Q(x,y)⟩\)
 or
 \(\vecs{F}(x,y)=P(x,y) \,\hat{\mathbf i}+Q(x,y) \,\hat{\mathbf j}\)
 - Vector field in \(ℝ^3\)
 \(\vecs{F}(x,y,z)=⟨P(x,y,z),\,Q(x,y,z),\,R(x,y,z)⟩\)
 or
 \(\vecs{F}(x,y,z)=P(x,y,z) \,\hat{\mathbf i} +Q(x,y,z) \,\hat{\mathbf j}+R(x,y,z) \,\hat{\mathbf k}\)
 Glossary
 conservative field
 a vector field for which there exists a scalar function \(f\) such that \(\vecs ∇f=\vecs{F}\)
 gradient field
 a vector field \(\vecs{F}\) for which there exists a scalar function \(f\) such that \(\vecs ∇f=\vecs{F}\); in other words, a vector field that is the gradient of a function; such vector fields are also called conservative
 potential function
 a scalar function \(f\) such that \(\vecs ∇f=\vecs{F}\)
 radial field
 a vector field in which all vectors either point directly toward or directly away from the origin; the magnitude of any vector depends only on its distance from the origin
 rotational field
 a vector field in which the vector at point \((x,y)\) is tangent to a circle with radius \(r=\sqrt{x^2+y^2}\); in a rotational field, all vectors flow either clockwise or counterclockwise, and the magnitude of a vector depends only on its distance from the origin
 unit vector field
 a vector field in which the magnitude of every vector is 1
 vector field
 measured in \(ℝ^2\), an assignment of a vector \(\vecs{F}(x,y)\) to each point \((x,y)\) of a subset \(D\) of \(ℝ^2\); in \(ℝ^3\), an assignment of a vector \(\vecs{F}(x,y,z)\) to each point \((x,y,z)\) of a subset \(D\) of \(ℝ^3\)
 Contributors and Attributions
 - Gilbert Strang (MIT) and Edwin "Jed" Herman (Harvey Mudd) with many contributing authors. This content by OpenStax is licensed with a CC-BY-SA-NC 4.0 license. Download for free at _URL_.
 This page titled 5.2: Vector Fields is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by OpenStax via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.


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Common Chickweed
Did You Know?
A few facts:
 - Can be used as a salad green or an herb
 - Has several medicinal purposes
 - Grows most actively in the late winter
How to get rid of Common Chickweed:
 - Remove easily by hand-weeding or hoeing
 - Treat with herbicides
A Hated Weed, Yet Delicious Wild Vegetable
Common chickweed (Stellaria media) is typically considered to be a winter annual that is prevalent in most temperate regions, but it sometimes grows as a biennial or short-lived perennial and has adapted to other regions of the world. The seeds usually germinate in fall, followed by smaller extents of germination in spring and summer, and can remain viable in the soil up to 30 years. Common chickweed usually prefers moist and fertile soils with near neutral pH values, but it can grow under a wide range of environmental conditions. It is a member of the Caryophyllaceae (pink) family.
Common Chickweed Identification
A single plant of common chickweed can produce up to 30,000 seeds that are stored in capsules. Chickweed likely got its name because it was a preferred feed for chickens and other birds.
Common chickweed usually has a low growing habit and tends to spread making them appear like mats or patches. That mat-like growth habit helps keep soil covered especially during winter months to reduce erosion. It has a slender stem and leaves that are both smooth and shiny, unlike those of mouse-ear chickweed (Cerastium fontanum), a related species, which are characterized by fine hairs on both surfaces. Both chickweed species produce tiny star-shaped white flowers with five petals. The petals of common chickweed are deeply lobed, giving them the appearance of 10 petals, while those of mouse-ear chickweed have shallower lobes.
As a weed, common chickweed can outcompete or interfere with lawns and gardens and could be a serious pest in certain small grains, such as wheat and barley. In pastures or hayfields, it can form mats, shading out the desirable species from establishing early. It also can serve as a host plant for certain insect pests, such as the Western tarnished plant bug, and for diseases, such as Tomato spotted wilt virus.
Common Chickweed Uses
Although common chickweed is considered a pest in lawns and gardens, it is an edible plant. Its tender leaves can be readily used as a salad green or boiled as a potherb. It can be used as a famine food, especially during late winter months when it actively grows. However, if grazed in large quantities, it can cause problems related to nitrate toxicity to livestock.
Common chickweed is used as a medicinal herb due to its cooling and anti-inflammatory properties, and salves made from the stem or leaves are used to treat common skin ailments. Tinctures made from the plant were used to treat bladder, kidney and urinary tract ailments. Many other ailments are said to be cured by common chickweed due to the secondary metabolites, such as flavonoids, saponins, vitamin C and linolenic acids, present in it. Some herbalists even considered "chickweed water as an old wives' remedy for obesity!"
Controls for Common Chickweed
Common chickweed can be easily hand-weeded or hoed during the early stages of growth by taking advantage of their shallow root system before they become dense mats. In cool-season lawns, effective pre-emergent herbicides include isoxaben (Gallery), pendimethalin (Pendulum) or oxadiazon (Ronstar).
In established landscape plantings and ornamentals, apart from the above herbicides, those that contain indaziflam (Marengo), prodiamine (Barricade) or metolachlor (Pennant Magnum) are effective before it germinates. After germination, it is susceptible to selective herbicides, such as dicamba, triclopyr and mecoprop, during early stages in lawns. In landscapes or other plantings, careful directed application of glyphosate, glufosinate (Finale), diquat (Reward) or pelargonic acid (Scythe) is effective.
Author: Rakesh Chandran, WVU Extension Weed Science Specialist
Last Reviewed: June 2020


text:
TR â€" Your picture shows the general type that regularly turns up in Britain in two sizes, a small one that could be 11cm x 7cm that is unmarked, and is often attributed to Sowerby, and a much larger platter, that could be 11" x 7", that is much more scarce, and might carry the Sowerby TM. If they are Sowerby, that colour dates from the introduction of their Tynesyde
glass in the late 1920s at the earliest.
If you are certain about your family tradition, then the simplest explanation is a replacement for a broken piece.
Religious artifacts are difficult, generally unmarked, and rarely appearing in trade catalogues as they were sold in bulk to religious wholesalers.


text:
Key words Colloidal stability
dextran-modified latex particles
Springer Online Journal Archives _PHONE_
Chemistry and Pharmacology
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Traffic Engineering, Precision Mechanics
Abstract The colloidal stability of the dextran-modified poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) latex particles toward adsorption of a carbohydrate-binding protein, concanavalin A (Con A), is primarily controlled by the charge neutralization mechanism. Formation of a crosslinked network structure via the specific affinity interactions between the dimeric Con A molecules and the dextran molecules anchored onto different latex particles may also have an impact on the coagulation kinetics. Judging from the data of coagulation kinetics, the colloidal stability of the latex particles toward added Con A in the decreasing order is: latex particles without dextran modification〉latex particles with a dextran content of 2.15%〉latex particles with a dex-tran content of 1.24% based on total polymer weight (PMMA+grafted dextran). The coagulation mechanisms involved in the adsorption of Con A onto the latex particles have been proposed to explain these experimental data. Charge neutralization of the negatively charged latex particles by adsorption of the positively charged Con A is the predominant destabilization mechanism. The ratio of the number of dextran active sites to that of Con A molecules plays an important role in the formation of the crosslinked network structure. The electrolytes in water cause a reduction in the electrostatic repulsion force among the interactive latex particles, but this ionic strength effect is not significant in comparison with charge neutralization.
Type of Medium:


text:
What is Blue Flag programme?
AD Marina Bar has been awarded a Blue Flag in June 2017. The Blue Flag is an environmental award
given to marinas making a special effort to implement sound management with respect to the local
environment and nature, and providing users with information on environmental issues. To attain the Blue Flag, the marina has to comply with a number of criteria concerning environmental information and education, environmental management, safety and service facilities, and water quality.
The Blue Flag is awarded by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), a non-governmental environmental organisation and is represented by national organisations in each of the participating
countries around the world.
- The Blue Flag is an environmental award for beaches and marinas
- The Blue Flag is concerned with four main areas:
- Environmental education and information
- Environmental management
- Safety and service facilities
- Water quality
- The Blue Flag is only awarded for one season at a time and the award is only valid as long as the criteria are fulfilled. When this is not the case, the persons responsible at the local level must remove the Blue Flag;
- The national FEE organisation conducts control visits to the Blue Flag sites during the season.
You can help the programme by also taking action to protect the environment:
- Follow instructions of the code of conduct at the marina
- Use environmentally-friendly products for paints, detergents, chemicals etc. Report any pollution or other violations of environmental regulations to the authorities
- Save water, electricity and fuel
- Encourage other sailors to take care of the environment.


Banner Day For Apple Patents Includes 3D Apple TV Remote Control
The latter patent is probably the star of the bunch. It describes an Apple TV that could detect a remote control using a motion sensor, which you could use to scale images, zoom in or out, navigate channels, and even navigate, change channels and lower and raise the volume. It sounds less like a Kinect (which in mind is what I usually think of when I think of 3D remote controls) and more like a Nintendo Wii. Perhaps it would open similar opportunities for gaming?
Apple's other patents are a little more mundane, mostly notable for the sheer volume which were granted. One describes the original MacBook Pro unibody design, while another lays claim to a method of integrating a camera window in glass, like on the back of the iPhone 5 or iPhone 4s.
The rest are even less understandable and more exotic, but are probably useful weaponry to have in case Samsung (or other competitors) come a-knocking. You can check them all out at the link below.
Source: Patently Apple


leanify_r6 moves the content of an R6::R6Class's functions to an environment, usually the package's namespace, to save space during serialization of R6 objects. leanify_package move all methods of all R6 Classes to an environment.
The function in the class (i.e. the object generator) is replaced by a stump function that does nothing except calling the original function that now resides somewhere else.
It is possible to call this function after the definition of an R6::R6 class inside a package, but it is preferred to use leanify_package() to just leanify all R6::R6 classes inside a package.
leanify_r6(cls, env = cls$parent_env)
leanify_package(pkg_env = parent.frame(), skip_if = function(x) FALSE)
Class generator to modify.
The target environment where the function should be stored. This should be either cls$parent_env (default) or one of its parent environments, otherwise the stump function will not find the moved (original code) function.
:: environment
The namespace from which to leanify all R6 classes. Does not have to be a package namespace, but this is the intended usecase.
:: function
Function with one argument: Is called for each individual R6::R6Class. If it returns TRUE, the class is skipped. Default function evaluating to FALSE always (i.e. skipping no classes).


text:
bearing depends on the application. As the preload increases, the amount of deflection under load is reduced ( see Figure 5-13) and the bearing stiffness and natural frequency increase. However, increased preload also leads to higher friction torque. Kaydon's free Reali-Design software can be used to calculate the amount of deflection under an applied load for various amounts of preload. This tool can also be used to calculate the amount of preload needed for any given application.
Clamp Rings: Kaydon recommends that face clamps be used with all bearings. The user should not rely solely on a press fit to hold the bearing in place. Overlapping the clamp rings to form a labyrinth shield, is recommended. This helps keep lubricant in the bearing and contamination out. For bearings used in harsh environments, external seals are recommended.
To provide a uniform clamping force, a large number of small fasteners is preferable to a few large ones. The fasteners should be tightened in a "star" pattern to evenly distribute the clamping force.
Lubrication: Standard open bearings are shipped with preservative oil that is not intended to be a working lubricant. Prior to installation, the bearings should be cleaned and then lubricated with an oil or grease suitable for the loads, speed, temperature, and environment.


text:
Biodex Rehab Balance System SD
Equipment to improve balance, increase agility and develop muscle tone
The Biodex Balance System SD has been designed to meet the needs of everyone looking to improve balance, increase agility, develop muscle tone and treat a wide variety of pathologies. Featuring easy-to-follow touchscreen operation, the Balance System SD is simple to learn and operate, leading the user step-by-step through testing protocols and training modes in both static and dynamic formats. Extremely versatile, it is the only system that provides a fast, accurate Fall Risk Screening and Conditioning Program for older adults; closed-chain, weight-bearing assessment and training for lower extremity patients, and adds the objective balance assessment component to a concussion management program.
The Balance System SD also serves as a valuable training device to enhance kinesthetic abilities that may provide some degree of compensation for impaired proprioceptive reflex mechanisms following injury. Using this unique device, clinicians can assess neuromuscular control by quantifying the ability to maintain dynamic bilateral and unilateral postural stability on a static or unstable surface.
Features and Benefits:
- Static and Dynamic (SD): Offers 12 levels of platform control as well as static force setting.
- Balance Training: Includes proprioception, stabilization, range of motion and weight shift exercises.
- Fall Risk Screening Test Protocol: Standardized protocol that compares balance test results to age-dependent normative data.
- Software and Larger Display: Intuitive navigation, 15.6" touchscreen display for improved user experience. Accommodates external keyboard and mouse.
- Microsoft SQL Database: Allows clinician to easily store and retrieve patient data, multiple tests per patient. Export to Excel® for reporting and analytics.
- Objective Documentation: Printed color reports prove need, track progress and document outcomes – ideal for insurance reimbursement.
- Custom Reporting: Allows entry of unique comments to test results and assignment of CPT codes.
- Concussion Management Protocol: For preseason baseline testing and post-injury return-to-play management. Compare to age-dependent normative data using modified Clinical Test for Sensory Integration of Balance (mCTSIB).
- Normative Data: Healthy populations stored for test comparison of older adults for fall screening and student athletes for concussion management.
- Audio/Visual Biofeedback: Motivates patient by prompting proper balance control in real-time. Allows clinician to easily monitor patient during interactive testing/training.
- Games for Balance: Single and dual-task, and high-repetition balance training games enhance patient engagement and drive better outcomes.
- Vibrotactile Feedback: Enhanced biofeedback for Biodex balance technology.
- Multipurpose Connectivity: Allows connection to larger monitors and projectors to enhance interaction for visually impaired patients.
- Support Handles: Adjustable from 34"- 47" above platform (86 – 19 cm). Handles can be removed when not in use or interchanged with the optional FreeSway Handles.
- FreeSway Handles: Floating handles provide security without impeding balance recovery.
- Locking Surface: Helps ensure patient safety while moving on or off platform.
- Mobility: Transport wheels allow easy relocation between clinic and community for fall screening programs and health fairs.
Call _PHONE_ for more information.


text:
The City of Sarasota on Monday released the final draft of its Climate Adaptation Plan, created to identify infrastructure that is threatened by rising sea levels, extreme heat and precipitation and increasingly dangerous storms. The report was written by city staff and the consulting firm HDR, and examines vulnerable transportation, stormwater, water supply and wastewater facilities, public lands and buildings. The report predicts that the local sea level will rise by between 6.4 inches and 2.4 feet by 2050 and that Sarasota will see up to 60 more days above 95 degrees Fahrenheit each year by 2050. The city is requesting public feedback either online or via email by Monday, Nov. 27.
We Are the Champions
01/12/2024 By Staff
10/03/2023 By Staff
Let's Get Together
10/17/2023 By Cooper Levey-Baker


text:
Traction is a form of treatment that uses some type of sustained mechanical pulling force on a part of your body. This force can be continuous or intermittent, which is designed to stretch, separate or realign body parts.
Traction is used to treat certain muscle and bone conditions, for instance fractures, dislocations and muscle spasms, as well as prevent or correct deformities. And the arms, legs, neck, backbone or pelvis are common body areas treated with traction.
Traction treatment is not recommended for everyone, particularly if you suffer from osteomyelitis. Also, because treatment with traction may require a long period of immobility, you may develop:
When traction is correctly administered, treatment results are typically very good.


text:
Maribel Moreno MartínezCEIP Salvador Dalí (Villalbilla)
As in the present simple, to make questions using "was" or "were" we only have to write "was/were" at the beginning of the sentence and then the subject:Ex. Were you at school yesterday? Was he with you this morning?
Interrogative Was I? Were you? Was he? Was she? Was it?Were we?Were you?Were they?
To form the interrogative form in the past of regular and irregular verbs, we need the auxiliary "did". We write it at the beginning of the sentence. Remember that when we use the auxiliary "did" the main verb in the sentence stays in the infinitive form.Ex. Did he go to school yesterday?
Interrogative Did I run?Did you break? Did he stop? Did she buy? Did it drink?Did we watch?Did you study?Did they see?
Write these sentences inthe interrogative form:1. We were tired yesterday ______________________________2. She broke her leg ______________________________3. John ran for an hour ______________________________4. He danced all night long ______________________________5. The baby clapped his hands ______________________________


text:
The Phoenix Park is the most important site for birds in Dublin City. The expanses of semi-natural habitat offer cover, abundant food supplies and nesting sites. Recent surveys recorded seventy two species in the Park throughout the year, of which forty seven are breeding. The park supports twenty eight species of conservation concern in Ireland including four which are red listed. The total number of species found comprises 35% of the total number of species found in Ireland. The greatest density of birds was found in Dublin Zoo where the wild birds share in the food provided to its permanent residents. The lowest density was recorded along Chesterfield Avenue where noise and disturbance makes the area unattractive for birds.
Important features of bird biodiversity in The Phoenix Park include:
- Presence of fourteen species of conservation concern in Europe
- Presence of four species of bird under threat in Ireland. These are the Shoveller, Golden Plover, Black Headed Gull, and Herring Gull
- Presence of seventeen Amber listed species of medium conservation concern in Ireland. They include Tufted Duck, Coot, Stock Dove, Skylark and Swallow
- Breeding Kestrel and breeding Skylark. It is remarkable to find Skylark so near the city centre
- Presence of Jay and Stock Dove associated with woodlands. These species are an indicator of good old woodlands.
The Phoenix Park is an important site for bats in Dublin as its lakes, ponds, woodlands and grasslands support significant numbers of insects on which they feed, whilst buildings and old trees provide numerous roosting sites. At dusk, bats can be easily seen foraging over the lakes and ponds or along the tree lines or woodland rides within the Park. The greatest amount of bat activity is associated with Dublin Zoo.
Important features of bat biodiversity within The Phoenix Park include:
- Six of the ten bat species found in Ireland are present in the park including species of Pipistrelle not previously recorded in Dublin City. Natterers' and Whiskered Bats are also present.
- Evidence for large roosts at several locations (chimney in St Mary's Hospital Complex, Ordnance Survey Ireland, west of Dublin Zoo).
- Minor roosts in The Cooley Chapel in St Mary's Hospital Complex, The Park Superintendents Lodge and Magazine Fort.
Half of all species of terrestrial mammals found in Ireland can also be found in The Phoenix Park. They are principally found at the western end which is bounded by Farmleigh and Mount Sackville. Hares and red squirrel were present in the recent past but the former were disturbed by dogs and the latter have disappeared through competition with the grey squirrel.
Important features of mammal biodiversity in The Phoenix Park include:
- The established herd of 400-450 fallow deer descend from the original herd introduced in the 1660s.
- The presence of over 20 badger setts which are occupied by at least six social groups. They are concentrated around the edges of the Park. Badgers forage in grasslands and signs of digging for earthworms provide evidence of their presence.
- Other animals abundantly present in the Park include foxes, hedgehogs, rabbits, pygmy shrew, house mice, wood mice and brown rats.
A long established tradition of the use of the Park to support research on mammals and particularly deer. As a result staff, residents and visitors are very aware of mammals and there is considerable baseline data on the status of this group of animals.


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About Astro
Astro is a fully-managed SaaS application for data orchestration that helps teams write and run data pipelines with Apache Airflow at any level of scale. The infrastructure to run Airflow is managed entirely by Astronomer, enabling you to shift your focus from infrastructure to using data to grow your business.
This document provides an overview of the architecture and key concepts in Astro that enable your team to make the most of your data pipelines. See Astro Features to learn more about Astro functionality. To get started with Astro, see Start a trial.
Architecture
Astro, also known as Astro Hosted, is built to both simplify and optimize Airflow so you can customize the parts of your environment that matter most to you, with Astro taking care of the rest. Whether you use Astro to power internal analytics or to train machine learning models, learning how Astro works can help you decide which deployment and connectivity model works best for you and enables your team to start running DAGs.
You can work with Astro using the Astro UI in your web browser, the Astro CLI, or the Astro API. Astro makes it easy for Airflow environments, called Deployments, to securely connect to external data services.
The Astro Hypervisor is an Astronomer-managed component of the Astro platform that scales and optimizes your Deployments and the clusters they're hosted on.
The following diagram shows how these components work together to help you manage Airflow on Astro.
Astro Hosted architecture overview
Key concepts
The following sections give a detailed explanation of key concepts that you need to understand in order to work with Astro. You can find definitions for additional Astro-specific terminology in the Astro glossary.
Astro CLI
The Astro CLI is an open source interface you can use to test Airflow DAGs locally, deploy code to Astro, and automate key Astro actions as part of a CI/CD process. Using the Astro CLI to run Airflow locally requires Docker or an alternative container management tool, like Podman.
An Airflow project created with the Astro CLI is also known as an Astro project. It contains the set of files necessary to run Airflow, including dedicated folders for your DAG files, Python packages, utility files, and more. Astronomer recommends that you create a dedicated Git repository for each Astro project. To run a DAG, you add the DAG to your Astro project and deploy your Astro project to Astro.
See Run your first DAG with the Astro CLI to create your first Astro project.
Astro UI
The Astro UI, hosted at _URL_, is the primary interface for accessing and managing Astro from your web browser. You can use the Astro UI to:
 - Manage users, teams, and permissions.
 - Create and configure Deployments, including infrastructure resources and compute.
 - View all of your organization's Deployments, DAGs, and tasks in a single place.
 - Monitor the health of your Airflow environments with a variety of alerts, logs, and analytics interfaces.
 - Stay up to date with the latest Astro features.
 - Create and edit DAGs in the Astro Cloud IDE.
Deployment
An Astro Deployment is an Airflow environment hosted on Astro. It encompasses all core Airflow components, including the Airflow webserver, scheduler, and workers, along with additional tools for reliability and observability. It runs in an isolated Kubernetes namespace in an Astro cluster and has a set of attached resources to run your Airflow tasks.
Compared to an open source Airflow environment, an Astro Deployment is easy to create, delete, and modify through either the Astro UI or with the Astro CLI. You can fine-tune resources and settings directly from the Astro UI, see metrics and analytics for your DAGs, review your deploy history, and more. The infrastructure required to run a Deployment is managed by Astronomer.
To run DAGs in a Deployment, you must either deploy an Astro project manually from your local machine or configure an automated deploy process using a third-party CI/CD tool with the Astro CLI. Then, you can open the Airflow UI from the Astro UI and view your DAGs. See Run your first DAG to get started with examples of either workflow.
Astro Runtime
Astro Runtime is a debian-based Docker image that bundles Apache Airflow with optimized configurations and add-ons that make your Airflow experience reliable, fast, and scalable. Astronomer releases an Astro Runtime distribution for each version of Apache airflow.
Every Deployment and Astro project uses Astro Runtime at its core. Astronomer provides extended support and bug fixes to Astro Runtime versions, so that you can keep your DAGs running for longer without disruption.
See Astro Runtime Architecture and features for a complete feature list.
Workspace
A Workspace is a collection of Deployments that can be accessed by a specific group of users. You can use a Workspace to group Deployments that share a business use case or environment trait. For example, your data science team might have a dedicated Workspace with two Deployments within it. Workspaces don't require any resources to run and are only an abstraction for grouping Deployments and configuring user access to them. All Deployments must belong to a Workspace.
You can assign new users Workspace roles that include varying levels of access to your Deployments.
Cluster
A cluster in Astro is a Kubernetes cluster that hosts the infrastructure required to run your Airflow environments, also known as Deployments in Astro. There are two types of clusters in Astro:
 - A standard cluster is a multi-tenant cluster that's pre-configured by Astronomer. It's the default cluster type and the quickest way to get an Airflow environment up and running on Astro. Each Deployment in a standard cluster exists in its own isolated Kubernetes namespace. To run a Deployment in a standard cluster, you select a cloud provider and region when you create the Deployment. Then, Astro automatically creates your Deployment in an existing standard cluster based on your configuration. See Standard cluster configurations for a list of all cloud providers and regions where you can use standard clusters.
 - A dedicated cluster is a single-tenant cluster that's used exclusively by Organizations with additional security and networking requirements. Compared to standard clusters, dedicated clusters provide more configuration options for cloud providers and regions, as well as private network connectivity and security. Note that due to expanded resource usage, dedicated clusters cost more than standard clusters. See Create a Dedicated cluster to get started with dedicated clusters.
For both cluster types, Astro manages all underlying infrastructure and provides secure connectivity options to all data services in your ecosystem.
Organization
An Astro Organization is the highest level entity in Astro and represents a shared space for your company on Astro. An Organization is automatically created when you first sign up for Astronomer. At the Organization level, you can manage all of your users, Deployments, Workspaces, and clusters from a single place in the Astro UI.
To securely manage user access, you can integrate your Organization with an identity provider (IdP) and set up SCIM provisioning to have new users automatically join Astro with the correct permissions.
Access control architecture
Astro uses role-based access control (RBAC) to define which users are permitted to take certain actions or access certain resources. For example, you can assign a user or automation tool permission to deploy DAGs, but not to delete a Deployment. Roles in Astro are defined at the Workspace and Organization levels.
Each Astro user has a Workspace role in every Workspace they belong to, plus a single Organization role. Users can also belong to Teams, which apply the same role across a group of users. To automate managing user roles or deploying code, you can create API tokens with specific roles to automate most actions on Astro.
Use the following diagram as a reference for how these components interact with each other in Astro.
A diagram showing how all Astro RBAC components fit together
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text:
Food shortages 2023 and what to expect should be of concern to everyone. Food shortages in 2023 will happen and will be easier to detect once the entire supply chain is understood. Predicting upcoming 2023 food shortages becomes relatively easy to comprehend when consumers understand the issues facing farmers, producers, manufacturers, and retailers.
Issues affecting crops, cattle, and supply-chain issues are just the beginning. Stockpiles of corn have been reduced worldwide, with the notable exception of China. China plans to import four times its typical purchase of corn from the US, straining the worldwide supply even more and driving up prices.
China has stockpiled corn, rice, and cooking oils over the last few years. They have also made significant purchases of farmland and food manufacturing plants in the United States and other countries. Also, the war in Ukraine impacts everything from grain production to the supplies of vegetable oil and fertilizer, which greatly influence the prices of many other food items.
Food Shortages 2023 – Corn
Corn is the perfect example of a decrease in supply and an unprecedented price increase. Corn prices soared to an almost 50 % increase in 2022. A bushel of corn costs more than twice what it did at the same time last year.
Corn crops in Brazil and the US have not done well in the last few years, primarily due to weather-related issues. In Europe, the war in Ukraine has had a significantly negative impact on its production. Cornmeal is the raw material in so many products it is impossible to list them all.
Food Shortages 2023 – What To Expect
However, 2023 food shortages can be detected by looking for sharp price increases. The same 32 oz bag of cornmeal that retailed for $9.79 on Amazon in December 2022 is now retailing for almost $12.00 just one month later, proving that the changes have already begun and the price will likely continue to increase in 2023.
2023 Food Shortages – Beef
In the US, ranchers reported a 36% reduction in cattle herds due to drought conditions and the high feed cost, such as corn and other grains. With no resources to feed them, many meat producers sent more beef to market last year, which kept prices down for consumers.
Cattle experts say it will take at least two to three years to replenish herds. This fact is a massive signal that the list of 2023 food shortages will almost certainly include beef. While importing beef from other countries is common, many exporters have had issues with a lack of feed and disease as well. Since supply will continue to diminish, expect beef prices to increase steadily over the next two years if you can find it on grocery store shelves.
Food Shortages 2023 – Chicken and eggs
Chicken and eggs have long been an economical choice for adding protein to your diet. Recently, however, consumers have been met with empty shelves, fewer options, and soaring prices. These are all signs pointing to both chicken and eggs being on the list of 2023 food shortages to come.
The reason for the shortage is easy to pinpoint. This year's Bird flu is considered the worst in decades, is the main factor. This particular strain of bird flu has stayed strong going into winter 2022, which is not normal. Over 160 million birds were killed in 2022, and experts expect the number to worsen in 2023.
The average cost of a dozen eggs in the US is $7.00. Why are eggs so expensive now? Because so many egg-laying hens were destroyed due to disease. As far as 2023 food shortages go, it would be essential to note that as chicken and beef both become more expensive, pork demand is going to increase, so expect the price of pork to start going up as well.
2023 Food Shortages – Citrus
Hurricane Ian destroyed the Florida citrus crop on September 30, 2022. To make matters worse, Florida experienced a devasting freeze in December after already experiencing a 32% decline in production year over year.
The price of oranges rose over 13% in the last quarter of 2022, but they are expected to increase another 40% in 2023 as Florida production declines by almost 80%. This 2023 food shortage directly results from weather-related incidents and will be felt by consumers for the next few years at least.
For example, the jam and jelly industry is also bracing for shortages, and price increases as a 30% increase in the costs of ingredients, containers, and shipping has created slower jam production Prices are expected to increase between 9.5 to 11% during just the first quarter of 2023.
2023 Food Shortage – Bananas
Beware of food shortages 2023, including bananas. "We hope the world will understand that it is impossible to keep banana prices at the same level in this situation of rising costs," said the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to economic leaders. The cost of bananas has already increased by over 14% in 2022, reaching a record high.
Other Latin American banana producers such as Columbia, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Ecuador issued a combined statement that warned of price hikes due to increases in the cost of production and shipping combined with plant fungal disease.
Food Shortage 2023 – Fish Sticks
Fish sticks are also on the list of 2023 food shortages. Due to a massive heat wave last year, Canada reported a staggering 29% drop in the fish population in 2022. Shoppers can expect a decrease in variety and increases in prices as demand for fish sticks steadily increases.
Food Shortages 2023 – What To Expect
The WHO explained that the demand for fish sticks is rising faster than usual worldwide. People facing sharp price increases in other proteins such as meat and chicken often turn to this budget-friendly option. However, due to the significant rise in demand, fish sticks are likely to be on the list of 2023 food shortages.
2023 Food Shortages – Cookie and Crackers
Cookies and crackers prices are going to double in the next year. Pladis, makers of McVitie's, Godiva, and several other well-known brands, warned that the rise in everything from ingredients such as sugar and flour to packaging and shipping costs is to blame.
Again, any time consumers see steep price increases, food shortages are likely to occur. It's the combination of issues resulting in unprecedented supply and cost issues. Cookies and crackers are also some of the most likely products to reduce volume while increasing prices.
2023 Food Shortages – Tomatoes
Rising costs of production, including the cost of fertilizer and crops lost to weather-related incidents, water shortages, pests, and disease, have resulted in a significant reduction in the number of tomatoes produced last year. Also, many commercial growers sell products directly to manufacturers, such as ketchup, pasta sauces, and frozen pizzas.
Food Shortages 2023 – What To Expect
Declining yields for tomato growers have resulted in fewer options left for consumers at major grocery store chains. A significant food 2023 food shortage of tomatoes sparked a 21% rise in price last year alone. And the price is only expected to rise as supplies continue to go down.
According to the World Food Bank, the of people facing starvation has more than doubled since 2019. The UN uses the phrase "acute food insecurity" and states it is escalating at an alarming rate worldwide. Now is the time to prepare for 2023 food shortages.
Read more – Food Shortages in 2022 Surprising Ways to Prepare Now


text:
This is a simple and practical stone bladed tool. The original Hoko knife was found at an archaeological site in western Washington near the Hoko River where a native village was snuffed out by a landslide about 2700 years ago, well before any contact with Europeans. Among the artifacts found there was a very simple knife consisting of a very small, sharp stone flake hafted in a split cedar handle which was tied together with spruce root.
Pictures of the original can be seen in "Exploring Washington Archaeology", Ruth Kirk with Richard Daugherty, ISBN 0-295-95610-0.
Over several years of making and teaching people from 9-years-old to adult how to make Hoko knives I have developed several variations. First, cedar and spruce root aren't available where we live (San Francisco Bay area), so consequently we have used green willow (Salix sp.), coastal live oak (Quercus agrifolia) or California bay (Umbellularia California) for the handle and green willow bark or two-ply twined cordage made from dogbane (Apocynum sp.), shredded cattail leaf (Typha sp.), rawhide or anything else you can twine for binding the handle.
Material for the stone cutting blade does not need to be very elegant. Something rough and strong such as basalt is the best for cutting wood. Try to use flakes which have a long, straight cutting edge and are not curved. A curved flake is more easily broken when the handle clamps down on it.
There are several variations on the original. If the handle is held together with only one binding then it makes it easy to change blades. Holding the handle on the side, which is not bound, makes the flake very secure.
Using the Hoko knife:
The original Hoko knives were quite small and delicate. The handles were 5 inches (13 cm.) long and the blades were only thumbnail size. The archaeologists who found them think that they were primarily used for cutting fish, since the replicas which were tried out for cutting basketry willow gave poor results. My opinion is that the concept is sound, but a larger knife is more optimal for wood working. Think of the Hoko knife as a saw or slicing tool.
This project provides valuable additional experience to students
in the following ways:
a. It provides a specific application for a piece of cordage. It is difficult to teach people to make neat, strong cordage unless they have a specific application in mind for the cordage.
b. Another previously made Hoko knife can be used to cut the wood used for the handle, demonstrating the usefulness of the tool.
A possible teaching sequence for a class in Stone Age survival
skills/technology might be:
1. Entire class helps twirl up a fire with a hand drill.
2. Hoko knife is shown to the students. Tell them that they will make their own Hoko knives and use them to cut the notch in the hearth board.
3. Students use sharp rocks to cut wood for handles.
4. Students make twined cordage for binding the handle.
5. Students knock off small flakes from a core to use as blades.
6. Knife is assembled.
7. Student uses knife to saw notch in fire-by-friction hearth board.
E-mail your comments to "Richard A. Baugh" at _EMAIL_
PrimitiveWays Home Page
We hope the information on the PrimitiveWays website is both instructional and enjoyable. Understand that no warranty or guarantee is included. We expect adults to act responsibly and children to be supervised by a responsible adult. If you use the information on this site to create your own projects or if you try techniques described on PrimitiveWays, behave in accordance with applicable laws, and think about the sustainability of natural resources. Using tools or techniques described on PrimitiveWays can be dangerous with exposure to heavy, sharp or pointed objects, fire, stone tools and hazards present in outdoor settings. Without proper care and caution, or if done incorrectly, there is a risk of property damage, personal injury or even death. So, be advised: Anyone using any information provided on the PrimitiveWays website assumes responsibility for using proper care and caution to protect property, the life, health and safety of himself or herself and all others. He or she expressly assumes all risk of harm or damage to all persons or property proximately caused by the use of this information.
© PrimitiveWays 2013


DESX uses whitening to strengthen against brute force attacks. What is an attack one could use to recover DESX's pre-whitening key with only two known ciphertext/plaintext pairs, given that the attacker can successfully disable the post-whitening step?
So far I have come up with this:
 - The attacker could use an active fault injection attack to reduce DESX to return the results after round 1, effectively skipping rounds 2 to 16.
 - Starting from the two ciphertexts, the attacker could then find all inputs to the s-boxes to recover all s-box input candidates.
 - Starting from the two plaintexts, the attacker can find E(whiteningKey) xor roundKey combinations that produce the same s-box input candidates.
My problem now is this: The attacker has no way other than brute force to separate the whitening key from the round key in the equation above. Given the fact that brute force takes on average 2^55 attempts, this would be incredibly slow without special FPGA hardware.
 - 1
 $\begingroup$ Since the point of DESX is to improve security above the 56 bits offered by DES, an attack that's just as expensive as brute-forcing a DES key should still count as an attack. $\endgroup$ – CodesInChaos Nov 27 '17 at 16:47
The goal of DESX is to improve the security above the 56-bit level offered by DES. So an attack that's merely as expensive as brute-forcing the DES key is an attack, even if it's still rather expensive.
Define $E_{K,W}^\prime(P) = E_{K}(P\oplus W)$ and $D^\prime$ as its inverse. Then we can relate the two known pairs $(K_1,P_1)$ and $(K_2,P_2)$:
$$\begin{eqnarray} P_1\oplus P_2 &=& D^\prime(C_1)\oplus D^\prime(C_2) \\ &=& (D_K(C_1)\oplus W)\oplus (D_K(C_2)\oplus W) \\ &=& D_K(C_1) \oplus D_K(C_2) \end{eqnarray} $$
Since $P_1\oplus P_2 = D_K(C_1) \oplus D_K(C_2)$ only involves $K$ and not $W$ we can simply brute-force that 56-bit key, ignoring $W$, showing that using only pre-whitening does not improve security compared to plain DES. A similar argument can be applied to post-whitening. Note that this attack does not rely on the particular structure of DES (except having a key short enough to brute-force) and can be applied to any other blockcipher.
This is in fact a homework question for Christof Paar's lecture "Introduction to Cryptography 1" at the Ruhr University of Bochum.
In another task we had to recover the key (or parts of it) with a fault injection attack. The result was that $IP$ and $IP^{-1}$ was skipped and the output after the first round was the output of the whole encryption.
With that we could easily calculate the key (not the whitening key). We now know two pairs of $$ and the encryption key. To find the whitening key we have to check $2^{64}$ possible keys to check wether $DES(x \oplus k_{whitening}, k_{known}) == y$ for the given pairs $$ and the recovered key.
But this seems harder than the $2^{56}$ keys we would have to check if we wanted to bruteforce the encryption key.
The question stated that Pre(or Post) whitening alone did not improve security. So maybe my thoughts are still wrong somehow.
I found another question but there is no clear answer.
Your Answer


Optimal Detector for Discrete Transmit Signals in Gaussian Interference Channels
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Executive Summary
This paper addresses the design of optimal and near-optimal detectors for a practical interference channel scenario where the transmitters employ discrete modulation schemes. The conventional detectors, which either ignore the interference or successively detect then cancel the interference, typically assume that the desired signal and/or the interference are Gaussian. This paper proposes detectors that explicitly take into account the modulation formats of both the desired signal and the interference. The optimal Maximum-Likelihood (ML) detector that minimizes the probability of detection error for a given set of modulation schemes is derived first.
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text:
Malto meal nutrition is a vital factor to keep in mind when choosing your breakfast cereal. This nutrient-rich food is a great source of simple carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and minerals. It is also low in sodium and can help you reduce your overall sodium intake.
The main ingredients of Malt-O-Meal are malted barley flour and wheat farina from milled wheat. These two ingredients combine to form flour that makes a smooth porridge when mixed with water. In addition, Malt-O-Meal contains several nutritional additives to improve its taste and nutritional value, including iron, folic acid, niacin (vitamin B3), thiamin (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), and pyridoxine (vitamin B6).
Is Malt-O-Meal Gluten Free?
The ingredients in this product may be gluten-free, but the malted barley used in production has gluten. For those on a gluten-free diet, you should avoid this product and look for other hot breakfast cereals that are free from gluten.
How Much Fiber Is in Malt-O-Meal?
Malt-O-Meal is an excellent source of fiber. However, this food is not as high in fiber as oatmeal, which is a good option for those who want to increase their daily fiber intake. Its fiber content is not as high as other grains, so it is not a good choice for those looking to lower their cholesterol levels or prevent heart disease.
Does Eating Malt-O-Meal Cause Constipation?
Because it is a coarse-textured cereal, eating Malt-O-Meal can lead to constipation for some people. If you're concerned about this, you can add milk or fruit to your breakfast for additional fiber.


Lorentz force
physics, mathematical physics, philosophy of physics
Surveys, textbooks and lecture notes
theory (physics), model (physics)
experiment, measurement, computable physics
The Lorentz force is the force excerted in a particle that is charged under the electromagnetic field.
See relativistic particle for details.
In Kaluza-Klein compactifications
If one models the electromagnetic field via the Kaluza-Klein mechanism as a field of gravity on a fiber bundle, then trajectories of charged particles subject to the Lorentz force in the base space of that bundle are euivalently just geodesics on the total space, e.g. (Bleecker 81). An exposition of this fact is in (Bartlett 13).
The generalization to the spinning particle is discussed for instance in
Discussion of Lorentz force from the point of view of the Kaluza-Klein mechanism is in
and exposition is in
Revised on September 22, 2013 19:06:06 by Urs Schreiber (


text:
When any object come down to earth
due to earth's gravitational force, the object has to come through the earth's dense atmosphere. The object come down to the earth
at a great speed that, with the friction of air the object lights with fire and turn to ashes. And at the night when some object come down to the earth and lights up at the earth's atmosphere, a short line of light tear up the night sky. So its called a shooting Star. So there is no star actually flying here and there. The shooting stars
symbolize the sparks of heavenly fire
and divinity. They also represents the messengers and higher life. Its also considered as good omen and birth. Some believe that if you wish something during a shooting star
, then it becomes true.


text:
Legowo, D. Volcanic debris control applied in Indonesia
Most rivers in Indonesia originate in volcanic regions. Volcanic eruptions cause enormous Tows of ash and lava into these rivers. This debris is easily eroded and often turns into lahars after rain. Lahars erode the sediment of river beds and banks and achieve considerable size and enormous energy on the way down the mountain, overflowing and causing considerable damage. The large amount of sediment brought down by Iahars raises river beds and gives rise to flooding. Sediment carried further down to main rivers also causes aggradation, instability of river courses, obstruction of irrigation facilities, and flooding.
Control of excessive volcanic sediment flow has been achieved to a great extent using checkdams built in steep-gradient river beds, but the optimum requirements of these checkdams are still indeterminate. To localise the spread of volcanic material and to safeguard the menaced areas at the foot of a volcano, lahar pockets are built across the streams: As there are no data available regarding the actual nature and mechanism of movement of the volcanic debris, the design of lahar pockets follows experience gained in the past. River courses will be improved at places where the danger cannot be entirely handled solely by such structures for coping with sediment. River course improvement works such as bed excavation, levees, embankments, bank protection works and groynes are therefore provided so that there will be minor river bed fluctuation or meandering or deviation of flow, no flooding or bank collapse, and smooth conveyance of flood waters and sediment downstream.


This function displays the number of bars visible on a chart.
Users have the functions GetAppInfo(AiHighestDispValue) and GetAppInfo(AiLowestDispValue) to determine the highest and lowest values that are currently displayed on a chart. These are useful for positioning custom text on the chart, and also to determine which indicators are close enough to the price action to warrant their display on the chart. With the highest and lowest values known, users can code the vertical position of text as a percentage of total vertical height, to maintain the relative position of the text as the price range on the chart varies.
Similar functions GetAppInfo(AiLeftDispDateTime) and GetAppInfo(AiRightDispDateTime) are available to determine the leftmost bar and the rightmost bar DateTime. However, these are more awkward for use in positioning text horizontally on a chart, since the position must be converted to an "offset" number of bars for the functions Text_New(Date(Offset), Time(Offset), Price, "Text To Display") and Text_SetLocation(Text_ID, Date(Offset), Time(Offset), Price).
If the number of bars displayed on the chart is known, then the offset for the leftmost bar is also known. Once the offset of the leftmost bar is known the user could position text on a chart as a percentage of the horizontal time range as conveniently as the vertical position can now be specified. This would allow the text to maintain it's relative hozontal position if the chart were resized or the density of its bar spacing were altered.
The indicator custom text displays the input parameters used to generate the Bollinger ribbons. The input parameters of this indicator have specified that this custom text should be positioned at the 50% horontal time range of the chart. After function _BarsDisplayed calculates the number of bars displayed in the above chart, the horizontal midpoint bar offset is easily calculated so the custom text can be correctly displayed.
This text will automatically maintain a center position on the horizontal axis, regardless of the size of the chart or the bar spacing density.
Function Method
Function GetAppInfo(AiLeftDispDateTime) is called to determine the DateTime of the leftmost bar of the chart. Once the chart is loaded and a LastBarOnChart condition occurs, a loop walks toward the left from the rightmost bar until the DateTime of the loop's target bar equals the leftmost bar DateTime, and counts the associated offset to the leftmost bar.
Although a binary search method would be faster, it is questionable whether the additional complexity would be warranted, as the _BarsDisplayed function is called once and only once when the chart is either loaded or refreshed.
This method works for all time frames: monthly, weekly, daily, intraday (minute) and tick bars. It produces the correct result regardless of short trading days, holidays, or session length. It's simplicity makes it easy for users to understand and also to modify for other purposes.
 Initially posted version: 05/07/09
Latest Update: 05/17/09
*.ELD files are compiled for TS 8.6
All ELD and code text files packaged here:
Users of earlier versions fo TradeStation may compile the code
from the text files included in the above *.zip file.
The code may be visualized here:
Indicator BarsDisplayed
Function BarsDisplayed


text:
Why is the Duchess of Cornwall replacing Prince Harry at events?
The Field of Remembrance is an important tradition for UK soldiers, honoring those who lost their lives while serving. When the temporary memorial garden opens up the Thursday before Remembrance Sunday, members of the Royal Family traditionally participate in the opening ceremony. In 2020, Camila, Duchess of Cornwall represented the House of Windsor instead of Prince Harry, who usually does the honors.
In previous years, Prince Harry led the commemorations at the opening of the Field of Remembrance. 2020 marks the first year since 2015 Harry wasn't on hand to assist with the ceremonies. While many assume this is because Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took a step back from royal duties, the Field of Remembrance is a special occasion for Harry and other military veterans.
Honoring the fallen soldiers
Since 1928, The Poppy Factory has set up a temporary graveyard honoring fallen soldiers outside St. Margaret's Church near Westminster Abbey. Poppies are used in the UK as a tribute to the military who fought in world wars along with other international conflicts.
The Poppy Factory is a strong supporter of the British Armed Forces. For nearly a century, the company has produced poppy flowers for both The Royal British Legion and the Royal Family in preparation for Remembrance Day. The company is also well known for supporting veterans with mental or physical disabilities and helping them find work once they return from service.
Prince Harry served in the British military from 2005 to 2015, with a focus in the Army Air Corps. Following in his father, uncle, and brother's footsteps, Harry was a helicopter pilot in the Air Corps, becoming a Squadron Leader as well as Lieutenant Commander.
Since ending his short service commission, Harry tends to represent the Royal Family at any military-related engagements. This includes the Field of Remembrance commemorations. Once Harry took over from Prince Philip as the Captain General of the Royal Marines, it was expected of Harry to oversee all military engagements.
Prince Harry is far from the only royal to attend such events. Camila, Duchess of Cornwall was actually supposed to attend last years' Field of Remembrance event alongside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but health issues kept her from going.
Why the Duchess of Cornwall?
Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, Harry wasn't able to come back to the UK in time for Remembrance Day events. Camila, Duchess of Cornwall, recently took over the title of Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles, so this would be her first event serving under her new title. Camila also has a history with the Poppy Factory, serving as a patron of the organization since 2013.
At the event, Camila laid a Cross of Remembrance in front of the "Last Post", on the signal of the bugle. The Duchess of Cornwall was only one of a handful of people invited to the ceremony, as the second lockdown in the UK began on the 5th.
Though Prince Harry isn't participating in any of the Remembrance Day this year, not all traditions are being broken. Prince Philip is still set to place a wreath down on the eleventh hour of Remembrance Day to lead the UK in a moment of silence. The Queen will most likely oversee the ceremony from afar due to COVID-19 as well.
Are you surprised Prince Harry isn't appearing at the Day of Remembrance ceremony this year? Do you believe he would have participated if COVID-19 hadn't halted travel? Let us know in the comments!


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Definition of Bloody sputum
Bloody sputum: Coughed up blood or bloody mucus. Bloody sputum can be caused by infection in the lungs and airways, such as acute bronchitis or pneumonia, or cancer. Whenever bloody sputum is present and cannot be attributed to a curable infectious condition, a complete lung evaluation is warranted, including bronchoscopy, to be certain cancer is not present. Also known as hemoptysis.
Last Editorial Review: 3/19/2012
Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List
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when (number) {
 0 -> println("Zero")
 else -> println("Non-zero")
In this example, the code will print the following:
The purpose of this when expression is to determine whether or not a number is zero. It will get more complex — I promise!
To handle a specific case, you add the value followed by -> which indicates the code that will execute if the condition is met. Then, you use else to signify what should happen for all other values. Unlike other languages such as Java, there is no need to include a break statement in each branch, as the when expression will only use the first matching branch and then return.
Here's another example:
when (number) {
 10 -> println("It's ten!")
This time you check for 10, in which case, you print a message. Nothing should happen for other values.
Of course, when expressions also work with data types other than integers. Here's an example using a string:
val string = "Dog"
when (string) {
 "Cat", "Dog" -> println("Animal is a house pet.")
 else -> println("Animal is not a house pet.")
This will print the following:
Animal is a house pet.
In this example, you provide two values for the first argument, meaning that if the value is equal to either "Cat" or "Dog", then the statement will execute that branch of the expression.
Returning values
You can also give your when expressions more than one branch. And, due to the fact that when is an expression, you can use it to return a value, just like you can with if expressions. You can also ignore the value if you want to just use when as a statement. A when expression will return the value from the first branch with a matching argument.
If you want to determine the name of the number, you can assign the value with a when expression as follows
val numberName = when (number) {
 2 -> "two"
 4 -> "four"
 6 -> "six"
 8 -> "eight"
 10 -> "ten"
 else -> {
 println("Unknown number")
println(numberName) // > ten
In the else branch, you've used braces to include an entire block of code in the branch. The last value in the block is returned from the branch, so if number were not in (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) then numberName would have the value "Unknown".
Advanced when expressions
In the previous chapter, you saw an if expression that used multiple else clauses to convert an hour of the day to a string describing that part of the day. You could rewrite that more succinctly with a when expression, like so:
val hourOfDay = 12
val timeOfDay: String
timeOfDay = when (hourOfDay) {
 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 -> "Early morning"
 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 -> "Morning"
 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 -> "Afternoon"
 17, 18, 19 -> "Evening"
 20, 21, 22, 23 -> "Late evening"
 else -> "INVALID HOUR!"
This code will print the following:
Remember ranges? Well, you can use ranges to simplify this when expression. You can rewrite the above code using ranges:
timeOfDay = when (hourOfDay) {
 in 0..5 -> "Early morning"
 in 6..11 -> "Morning"
 in 12..16 -> "Afternoon"
 in 17..19 -> "Evening"
 in 20..23 -> "Late evening"
 else -> "INVALID HOUR!"
This is more succinct than writing out each value individually for all branches.
When there are multiple branches, the expression will execute the first one that matches. You'll probably agree that this is more succinct and more clear than using an if expression for this example.
It's slightly more precise as well, because the if expression method didn't address negative numbers, which here are correctly deemed to be invalid.
It's also possible to match a branch to a condition based on a property of the value, without any argument being supplied to the when expression. As you learned in Chapter 2, you can use the modulo operator to determine if an integer is even or odd.
Consider this code:
when {
 number % 2 == 0 -> println("Even")
 else -> println("Odd")
This will print the following:
The first branch of this when expression uses the == operator, meaning the argument will match only when a certain condition is true.
In this example, you've designed the argument to match if the value is even — that is, if the value modulo 2 equals 0.
Another example of using conditions in when expressions to great effect is as follows:
when {
 x == 0 && y == 0 && z == 0 -> println("Origin")
 y == 0 && z == 0 -> println("On the x-axis at x = $x")
 x == 0 && z == 0 -> println("On the y-axis at y = $y")
 x == 0 && y == 0 -> println("On the z-axis at z = $z")
 else -> println("Somewhere in space at x = $x, y = $y, z = $z")
Here's what each branch does, in order:
 1. Matches precisely the case where the value is (0, 0, 0). This is the origin of 3D space.
 2. Matches y=0, z=0 and any value of x. This means the coordinate is on the x-axis.
 3. Matches x=0, z=0 and any value of y. This means the coordinate is on the y-axis.
 4. Matches x=0, y=0 and any value of z. This means the coordinate is on the z-axis.
 5. Matches the remainder of coordinates.
The final branch with the else clause is the default; it matches anything, because there are no constraints on any part of the coordinates. Here's an example of a more complex case:
when {
 x == y -> println("Along the y = x line.")
 y == x * x -> println("Along the y = x^2 line.")
Here, you match the "y equals x" and "y equals x squared" lines. Since there is no argument to the when expression, you do not need an else branch, and the when expression will not execute a branch if there is no matching condition. And those are the basics of when expressions!
 1. Write a when expression that takes an age as an integer and prints out the life stage related to that age. You can make up the life stages, or use my categorization as follows: 0-2 years, Infant; 3-12 years, Child; 13-19 years, Teenager; 20-39, Adult; 40-60, Middle aged; 61+, Elderly.
 2. Write a when expression that destructures a Pair containing a string and an integer. The string is a name, and the integer is an age. Use the same cases that you used in the previous exercise to print out the name followed by the life stage. For example, for myself it would print out "Joe is an adult.".
 1. In the following for loop, what will be the value of sum, and how many iterations will happen?
var sum = 0
for(i in 0..5) {
 sum += i
 1. In the while loop below, how many instances of "a" will there be in aLotOfAs? Hint: aLotOfAs.count tells you how many characters are in the string aLotOfAs.
var aLotOfAs = ""
while (aLotOfAs.length < 10) {
 aLotOfAs += "a"
 1. Consider the following when expression:
when {
 x == y && y == z -> println("x = y = z")
 z == 0 -> println("On the x/y plane")
 y == 0 -> println("On the x/z plane")
 x == 0 -> println("On the y/z plane")
 else -> println("Nothing special")
What will this code print when coordinates is each of the following?
val (x, y, z) = Triple(1, 5, 0)
val (x, y, z) = Triple(2, 2, 2)
val (x, y, z) = Triple(3, 0, 1)
val (x, y, z) = Triple(3, 2, 5)
val (x, y, z) = Triple(0, 2, 4)
 1. A closed range can never be empty. Why?
 2. Print a countdown from 10 to 0. (Note: Do not use the downTo method)
 3. Print 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0.
Key points
 - You can use ranges to create a sequence of numbers, incrementing to move from one value


text:
The phrase a cappella is among the most butchered and misunderstood musical terms. The predominant, and most "correct" spelling, is...
Musicologists have fun debating the extent to which a cappella, "in the style of the chapel," can include instrumental accompaniment. Some argue that early sacred a cappella performances would sometimes include instruments that double a human voice part. So, the correct definition of a cappella should be something like "singing without independent instrumental accompaniment."
At Primarily A Cappella, we are trying to popularize this style of music, so we like to keep it simple.
Those of you who are serious singers may say, "my voice is my instrument!" True. But will the general public understand the meaning of "singing without other instruments?" Or the more cumbersome, "singing without non-vocal instruments?"
Some musical dictionaries indicate the Italian a cappella is preferred over the Latin a capella (one "p") yet both are technically correct. Why do those dictionaries muddy the waters with two spellings?
The phrase was first used in Italian Catholic churches, where Latin was the language for sacred text. Thus, the Latin spelling for 'in the style of the chapel' - a capella - has some historical basis. However, most other musical terms - forte, accelerando, and many others - are Italian in origin. Since the Italian spelling is more consistent with other musical terms, it has been used more frequently.
Given the difficulty of spelling our favorite style of music, we'd like to endorse the simplicity of a single spelling:
Joining the two Italian words together to make Acappella is a popular variation in the U.S. For many streetcorner singing fans, Acappella means unaccompanied singing of '50s (and early '60s) songs. There were a series of recordings released in the early 1960's of Mid-Atlantic unaccompanied doo-wop groups called "The Best of Acappella." The liner notes on the first LP noted that Acappella means "singing without music." In this matter we do tend towards being picky - instruments do not alone music make! A cappella (or Acappella) singers make music while they are...
A more recent, second meaning of Acappella has emerged. The Contemporary Christian group Acappella is the first formed by prolific songwriter Keith Lancaster. In the early 1990's he added Acappella Vocal Band (now mostly known as AVB) and "Acappella: The Series" which uses studio singers (plus LOTS of electronic help) to perform songs around specific themes. All of these efforts are now combined in The Acappella Company. The good news is they have sold millions of recordings and have contributed greatly to the awareness of a cappella. The bad news is they have popularized a spelling variation, and through the heavy use of electronically manipulated voice (which can sound like any other synthesized instrument) have chipped away at the idea of...
There's now a third meaning that has emerged on urban music singles - voices without instrument tracks. There are often remixes of the song labelled acappella (or some variation, rarely the traditional spelling). Even on largely rap songs, an acappella mix will stand on its own. It's not really singing, but it's acappella!
This spelling is totally wrong, and yet has been used by those who should know better. The most prominent occurrence is on the re-release of first album by the Singers Unlimited. Originally titled "Try to Remember," this very popular collection of vocal jazz arrangements by Gene Puerling has no doubt led some to misspell, or at least question the correct spelling of...
The Manhattan Transfer sang a song with this title on their debut, eponymous album. Ironically, the whole song is accompanied, as are most of their songs by this group, so one can only guess at the intended meaning. The lyrics "Everything's gonna be mellow, Listen while we sing it occapella" precede a refrain of scat-like harmony (with the band receding into the background but still audible).
Also ironically, The Manhattan Transfer are often the group music lovers think of when they hear the phrase "a cappella." Many people associate "close harmony" with "a cappella," which certainly makes a great deal of sense. Popular 20th century a cappella is characterized by extensive use of close harmony - when voices separated by small intervals (seconds, thirds, fourths) sing the same rhythm and words. The Manhattan Transfer sing great close harmony, but most of it includes instrumental accompaniment. Only a handful of their dozens of songs are performed a cappella.
The Blenders open their second album "From the Mouth" with a schtick by this title. On this brief cut, the group is trying to discuss their new recording with an unenlightened agent, who keeps referring to the style of "Oxapello." Hopefully the next time you run into someone similarly confused, you'll remember to politely tell them:
On the Trenchcoats' second album, "Your Joy," one of the fun originals is "A Cappello Blues." The phrase is sung straight (that is, pronounced incorrectly) until the final chorus, when a hesitating voice-over says "uh, isn't it, a cappella, with an "a"?" By now, hopefully, you've got the correct spelling emblazed in your brain.
Singing without instruments comes in many shapes and sizes. One of the attractions for artists is the nearly unlimited pallet the voice provides. The same singer can sound sultry and sexy one minute, cold and machine-like the next, then change to a trumpet, and morph again to a soft harmonic background "ooooh."
In short, a cappella enables "out of the box" music - art that defies singular categorization.
It's not surprising, then, that the artists who create breathtaking, out of the box a cappella performances sometimes want to add instruments. The vocal pallet does have some limitations, after all. We endorse artistic creativity, and so we include recordings that include accompanied songs along with a cappella performances.
Another issue debated among purists is whether a cappella allows for percussion accompaniment. While we think the Nylons, Acappella and others should be allowed to describe themselves as "singing without instruments" without saying 'but with a drum track,' our 'primarily' moniker allows us to step aside and let customers decide.
Of course, it's not always the artists that choose to add instruments. Recording industry executives by and large don't appreciate the marketing potential of a cappella beyond the token ballad cover. So, many groups performing luscious close harmony capable of standing on its own are told by their record labels in no uncertain terms that the recordings will include instruments. Still, the music is appreciated by the same fans who love pure a cappella... and those fans are our customers, so we want to alert you to great harmony wherever it's found!
Finally, some of the best close harmony in vocal jazz and doo-wop is found on 100% accompanied recordings. Many a cappella aficionados are also fans of the Hi-Lo's, The Four Freshmen and similar groups. We want to be your one-stop shop!
In most of our recording reviews, we mention how many of the songs are unaccompanied by instruments so that you won't be shocked.
So maybe that's a bit more than you wanted to know, but now you know how to spell "it"... right?
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To find a specific song on any recording (or to find recordings by group name or CD title),
pick the search method and type the item you are searching for here:


text:
American journal of physical medicine & rehabilitation, vol.102, no.5, pp.419-426, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program with electromyographic biofeedback compared with the control group on patients with massive rotator cuff tear. DESIGN: Forty-six adults with massive rotator cuff tears, randomly assigned to 2 groups (23 electromyographic biofeedback group vs. 23 control group). The electromyographic biofeedback group (experimental group) performed the exercises under the guidance of electromyographic biofeedback, unlike the control group. All patients underwent a 45-minute training session a day, 3 times a week over a 6-wk duration, and followed up until 1-year. The outcome measures were American Shoulder and Elbow score, shoulder flexion strength, shoulder range of motion, Numeric Pain Rating Scale, and Global Rating of Change Scale. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, the electromyographic biofeedback group demonstrated a significant change in shoulder flexion strength and patient satisfaction from baseline to 6 wks (posttraining) and from baseline to 12-mo follow-up ( F = 4.671, P = 0.005). There were significant improvements in within groups statistics for American Shoulder and Elbow score, shoulder flexion strength, shoulder range of motion, and Numeric Pain Rating Scale in both groups ( P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate that deltoid-focused structured rehabilitation program combined with electromyographic biofeedback can be used to increase shoulder flexion strength and patient satisfaction in conservative treatment of massive rotator cuff tear.