text:
The NanoFrazor Explore has been developed for researchers who want to have easy and flexible access to high-resolution nanometer-sized geometries of almost any kind. It is based on Thermal Scanning Probe Lithography, a technology developed at IBM Research Zurich, which uses an ultra-sharp tip to evaporate a thermally sensitive resist. The tool has a wide range of applications in the fields of nanophotonics, nanooptics, nanomagnetism, nanoelectronics, plasmonics, etc.
The NanoFrazor Explore is specifically designed for R&D, and incorporates all key features of Thermal Scanning Probe Lithography including 3D patterning of nanostructures with high resolution and simultaneous in-situ metrology. The technology is compatible with standard pattern transfer processes like reactive-ion etching, electroplating and lift-off.
The housing has all necessary components integrated, and can be installed in any laboratory or clean-room. Vacuum and high-voltages are not required, keeping the requirements on infrastructure very low. The tool is easy-to-use, basic skills for patterning and imaging can be learned within a day.


text:
The Lambton Kent District School Board (LKDSB) commemorates Treaties Recognition Week on November 2-6, joining school boards across the province in promoting education and awareness about treaty rights and treaty relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Ontario.
This year, the LKDSB Indigenous Education Team is continuing to focus on increasing awareness and understanding of Wampum Belts and their importance to understanding treaties and treaty relationships in Canada. During Treaties Recognition Week, students and staff will engage in curriculum activities ranging from painting with local Indigenous artist Moses Lunhum to presentations that address how Wampum Belts are used to communicate agreements and provide a mutual understanding of land stewardship and resource sharing.
"As part of an ongoing commitment to supporting Indigenous Education and increasing knowledge and understanding throughout the LKDSB, staff and students will participate in curriculum activities during Treaties Recognition Week to build on staff and students' understanding of Wampum Belts, treaties and treaty relationships in Canada," said Director John Howitt.
The LKDSB recognizes the traditional land of Aamjiwnaang First Nation; Eelŭnaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation), Kettle & Stony Point First Nation; and Walpole Island (Bkejwanong) First Nation. The LKDSB appreciates the ongoing support and partnership of the four First Nations to collectively promote education and mutual understanding of Indigenous histories and perspectives.
For more information about LKDSB's Indigenous Education, visit: _URL_
For additional information contact:
Jane Bryce, Chair of the Board, _PHONE_
John Howitt, Director of Education, _PHONE_, Ext 31297
Helen Lane, Superintendent of Education – Superintendent of Education – Indigenous Education, Leadership and Equity, _PHONE_, Ext. 31263
For reference information contact:
Heather Hughes, Public Relations Officer, _PHONE_, Ext. 31262
October 30, 2020

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Windows 10 is highly customizable and provides plenty of options for adjusting your Start Menu. Start menu can be completely customized including color, size, tiles layout etc.
- Change the size of start menu:
The vertical and horizontal size of start menu in Windows 10 can be changed easily by just moving the cursor on its top or right edges and dragging it in a particular direction. By default, the tile structure in start menu is based on two columns, but the number of columns can be increased or decreased by resizing the start menu horizontally.
- Customizing the tiles:
Tiles in the start menu can also be customized. This can be tile size, turning the live tiles off and removing the tiles from the menu. All of this can be done just by right clicking on any tile you want to customize.
- Changing the start menu color:
Changing the start menu color is pretty easy and straight forward in Windows 10. Right Click on the desktop and choose "Personalize". From "Personalization Settings", select the "Color" option from the left sided list, turn off the "Automatically pick an accent color…" setting and choose another color from the list. To set the color on the start menu and taskbar, turn on "Show color on Start taskbar…" option and there you go.


text:
Bannerman's Castle, one of today's modern ruins and one of the few castles left in the United States. Finished in 1918 this castle was home to the world's largest arms dealer and was his home and warehouse. Francis Bannerman is known to have bought most of the military surplus left after the Spanish-American War. This castle was his legacy.
"Resting in the Hudson River, on Pollepel Island, is a crumbling hulk of intricate concrete and brickwork that was once Bannerman's Arsenal. In 1900, Francis Bannerman VI bought the island to store ammunition for his prosperous military surplus business; more specifically, when he bought 90% of the US army surplus after the Spanish-American War ended and needed a place outside of New York City to store it all. The arsenal (sometimes referred to as "Bannerman's Castle") was constructed from 1901 to 1908, and was modeled similar to the architecture of an old Scottish castle.
A storm in 1950 sunk the ferryboat that served the island, Pollepel, and the arsenal was left more or less abandoned since then. On August 8th, 1969 a large fire destroyed much of the buildings. Neglect of the already burned and rotting wood roofs caused the deterioration of almost all the buildings except for the remaining stone walls. Submerged bulkheads and other structures make the surrounding area very dangerous for boaters; the island remains private property and is watched closely by preservation groups."
Some of the black and white photos are taken by photographer Shaun O'Boyle whose work consists of photographing abandoned edifices, or Modern Ruins as he calls them. Others have been taken fron the Bannerman Castle Trust archives.Bannerman Castle Trust: _URL_

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Using DTR (data terminal ready) and RTS (request to send) pins of a PC serial port (RS-232) without actually using the serial data pins, we can interface at least two relay devices with a computer. Windmeadow Labs has an excellent article on how to achieve this using a bipolar transistor (BJT). Here I will show you a similar relay control circuit built using an opto-isolator and a MOSFET.
Here is the circuit diagram:
An Isolated MOSFET Serial Port Relay Controller
The benefit of using an opto-isolator is that the rest of the controller circuit is totally isolated from the serial port and thus prevents the port from accidentally being damaged by wrong wiring or current surge due to a failed component. And by replacing the drive circuitry from using a BJT to a MOSFET, the switching capability is improved dramatically, making switching higher current load more reliable and more efficient.
Here is a picture of the finished board:
Circuit Board
Circuit Board
And here is a simple program that toggles the relay on and off at an interval of 0.5 second.
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define _SERIAL_PORT "/dev/ttyS0"
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
 int fd, status = 0, cmd = 0;
 if ((fd = open(_SERIAL_PORT, O_RDWR | O_NDELAY)) < 0) exit(1);
 while(1) {
 if (cmd) cmd = 0; else cmd = TIOCM_DTR;
 ioctl(fd, TIOCMSET, &cmd);
 ioctl(fd, TIOCMGET, &status);
 if (status & TIOCM_DTR) puts("ON"); else puts("OFF");
 usleep(500000l);
 }
 close(fd);
}
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5 Thoughts on "An Isolated MOSFET Serial Port Relay Controller"
 - hi kerry,
 i m a student of electronic communication and i have a very low knowledge on computer programming.
 i have an electronic project that required me to turn on and off an light and buzzer by using serial port from dos window.
 from the above project it is the perfect circuit for me because of the cause and the functionality. but i could not get it to run using the script you give above. is the above script written in c++ or linux? can i run those script in dos? or what software do i have to use to complier it?
 please help me out here, many thank in advance.
 Thank,
 Alan
 - Dear Kerry,
 I am Ashish from Mauritius, I work for MCA The Mauritius college of the air,An organisation under the ministry of tertiary education of my country.
 We essentially produce Television programs for schools and colleges.
 We are actually in the process of making a Quiz contest for colleges.We have purchased a quiz kit from Buzzgold with wireless slammers.
 Production people want to have a lamp that lights in front of the team that answer first. The slammer produces a code in notepad.Eg(/901)
 How can i possibly use the the code with the serial port or a usb to light up the bulb.surely i need an interface.
 There will be two teams with three contestants each each having his slammer.
 Each slammer generates a different code.(/901,/902,/903….)
 Could you kindly give me some hints how to come up with a suitable circuit for it to work.I have seen your work for the isolated MOSFET serial port relay controller and can that be possibly be used.
 Thank you in anticipation
 ashish
 - hi Kerry,
 do you have such code in vb2008.
 i have already mount a circuit like this and working fine with free software available on the net, but i would like to write my own in VB2008 Express.
 thanks
 Belal
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text:
Grundfos CU301 Controller for Communication with SQE Pumps
CU 301 are designed for communication, monitoring and control of SQE submersible pumps in constant pressure applications.
The Grundfos CU 301 is a control and communication unit developed for the SQE submersible pumps for applications where a constant pressure is required.
The CU 301 provide full control of the SQE pumps and enables the system to maintain a constant pressure within the maximum pump performance in spite of a varying water consumption. The pressure is registered by the pressure sensor and transmitted to the CU 301. The CU 301 adjusts the pump performance accordingly.
The CU 301 control unit provides the following:
- Two-way communication with the SQE pumps.
- Possibility of adjusting the pressure.
- Alarm indication of pump operation by diodes on the front.
- Possibility of starting, stopping and resetting the pump simply by means of a push-button.
The CU 301 communicates with the pump via mains-borne signaling (Power Line Communication), meaning that no extra cables are required between the CU 301 and the pump.
The CU 301 indicates the following alarms:
- No contact,
- Dry running,
- Speed reduction,
- Sensor alarm.
The CU 301 incorporates the external signal input for pressure sensor and connection to an operating relay for enabling aeration or chlorination during pump operation. As well a safety relay to disconnect the SQE submersible pump during communicating failure, it will then operate in pressure switch mode if the pump is still running and until communication to the pump has been restored.

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


text:
|| Checking for direct PDF access through Ovid
This study was performed to determine the effect of the dietary inclusion of various sources of green tea on growth, body composition and blood chemistry of the olive flounder. Twenty-five juvenile fish were distributed into each of 15 180 l flow-through tanks. Five experimental diets with triplicates were prepared: control, raw leaves, dry leaves, by-product and extract. The 5% various sources (raw leaves, dry leaves and by-product) of green tea were included in the experimental diets at the expense of 5% wheat flour. The extract was diluted with water and mixed with the ingredients to maintain 5% green tea at the same concentration as in the other diets. Weight gain and specific growth rate of fish fed the control diet and experimental diet containing extract were higher than those of fish fed the diets containing raw and dry leaves and by-product. Feed and protein efficiency ratio for fish fed the control diet and diet containing extract was higher than for fish fed the diets containing raw leaves and by-product. The level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol of fish fed the control diet was higher than that of fish fed the other diets containing various sources of green tea. The glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GPT) concentration of fish fed the diets containing raw leaves and extract was lower than that of fish fed the control diet. Crude lipid content of liver in fish fed the control diet was higher than that in fish fed the diets containing raw and dry leaves and by-product but was not significantly different from that of fish fed the diet containing extract. Dietary inclusion of extract was the most effective way to improve growth and feed utilization of the olive flounder among the various sources of green tea, and all sources of green tea were effective in lowering serum LDL cholesterol and GPT of the fish.


South Africa – Pongrácz Champagne
South Africa is not only famous for its diamonds, but also for its grapes, wines and sparkling wines produced there. If you visit the Stellenbosch wine region, you may come across a Hungarian name.
Pongrácz Champagne is the most famous and one of the most popular champagne brands in the country. It was named after Dezső Pongrácz: a Hungarian nobleman, an outstanding figure in South Africa's wine and sparkling wine industry.
Dezső Pongrácz, or as he is known in South Africa: Desiderius Pongracz, fought as a soldier in World War II. After World War II, he was captured by Russia, where he spent more than 10 years in a labor camp. After the labor camp, he returned to Hungary for a while, but after the outbreak of the revolution of 1956, he reached the African country on his adventurous journey.
After arriving in South Africa, he began working on farms and then climbed up the ladder until he had acclimatized there such popular species like Chardonnay, Sauvignon or Pinot Noir.
He also dealt with wine and sparkling wine from a scientific point of view, and has published many studies and books throughout his life, and is still regarded by many as the founders of South African sparkling wine. At the age of 61, he died in a car accident while delivering wine to a friend.
Published by


Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council (WHBC) is committed to making Welwyn Hatfield a safe place to live where residents and visitors are not adversely impacted by the effects of crime and anti-social behaviour.
The term anti-social behaviour (ASB) can relate to a range of activities from serious criminal activity to communal or environmental nuisance. For the purpose of this strategy we refer to Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, relating to our responsibilities as a Local Authority and as a housing provider, which defines ASB as being:
(a) conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm distress to any person,
(b) conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person's occupation of residential premises, or
(c) conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.
The ASB Strategy will be supported by an ASB Policy and an ASB Action Plan to ensure that the key commitments are delivered operationally within the lifetime of the Strategy.
PDF icon
Published 03/31/2020


iPhone Life magazine
How do I speed up text entry with the built-in keyboard?
iPhone, iPod touch, iPad
The iPad's version of the built-in software keyboard is relatively large and easy to use, but the iPhone/iPod touch version can be a bit challenging. Here are some things you can do to make text entry less demanding on all iOS devices.
 - Keyboard FeaturesThe keyboard customization features are turned on by default. You can check these at Settings >General >Keyboard. If they are not activated, turn on all of them. They include Auto-Capitalization, Auto-Correction, Check Spelling, Enable Caps Lock, and the "." Shortcut. Auto-Correction is particularly useful. When it's activated, your iOS device will suggest an alternate word if the one you are entering is misspelled or if it's not in the built-in dictionary. In most cases, the word it suggests is the one you meant to enter. Just keep typing and it will replace the misspelled word. In addition, Auto-Correction will "guess" the word you are entering based on the first few letters you enter. If it guesses correctly, hit the space bar, the return key or any punctuation mark, and it will enter the complete word automatically.
 - Turn your device sideways. When the screen switches to horizontal viewing mode it displays a slightly larger keypad.
Customize keyboard features in the Settings >General >Keyboard screen.
Forget mistakes (and apostrophes)—just keep typing!
 With Auto-Correction turned on, your iOS device will offer suggestions for misspelled words. Instead of stopping to look at the suggestions and accepting them individually, just keep typing. The corrections will be entered automatically and you can review the sentence or paragraph after you're finished to check them. This can speed up text entry quite a bit (or give you a good laugh if the words don't make sense).
 Normally, when you want to enter an apostrophe in a contraction (words like don't, can't, etc.) you have to tap the ".?123" key to switch to the symbol/number keyboard and tap the apostrophe key. With Auto-Correction on you can forget that. Just type the word without the apostrophe. The vast majority of the time, your device will recognize it as a mistake and suggest the correct word with the apostrophe. Just keep typing!


text:
|OELCHECK test instrument:||Back-lit photo station|
|Test result:||particles > 25 µm|
|Analysis for:||all oils, coolants, greases|
|Brief description:|| |
The filled sample racks are heated in an oven at 60 °C along with their transparent OELCHECK bottles for at least 20 minutes "upside down" i. e. standing on their lids. Any foreign substances in the oil fall to the white inner surface of the lid and are easily recognisable when the bottle is turned back and opened.
Immediately after the sample bottle is quickly turned on its head and opened, attention is turned to the white inner surface of the lid seal for diagnostic purposes. Abnormalities in the lubricant can be recognized as particles.
Photos are then taken of the inside of the lid and the well-lit opened sample bottle together using a camera and assigned to the sample number.
After the photograph is taken, an initial assessment is made of the appearance of the oil sample and any sediments in the lid by means of a comparative estimate.
|Statement:||A visual evaluation (under the magnifying glass) of the residues which settle in the white lid of the sample bottle after 30 minutes of resting gives indications of overall pollution, smear formation and murkiness.|
|Underlying test standard:||OELCHECK test method OPM 041|


text:
The impact of leisure on personal development and subjective well-being makes it a critical issue in women's studies. Leisure time gives women the space in which they can experiment with different lifestyles, as well opportunities for identity development. However, strong gender divisions in leisure opportunities and involvement exist. The paper documents how young women's leisure is constrained by virtue of the female's role in Maltese society, including domestic responsibilities, the dual shift, time fragmentation and childcare and, even more importantly, women's own perceptions of appropriate leisure time and activities. Within the Maltese cultural context, women continue to face enormous challenges in participating in the social, economic, political and cultural fields. The role culturally perceived to be most important for a woman is that of mother and consequently women often find themselves confined to the limited space of the family and home and deprived of more engaging social roles. 18 women participated in qualitative in depth interviews, which were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. A constant comparative approach was used to inductively develop themes. The analysis focuses on young married women's perceptions and experiences of leisure, and identifies those aspects of their situation which facilitate or constrain their opportunities for leisure, the meaning that leisure has for them and their feelings regarding this matter. The text illustrates that young married women in Malta experience a substantial decrease in their leisure time once they become mothers, and that this decrease may be attributed to cultural ideologies and the maintenance of traditional gender stereotypes.
Volume 3 Number 1
- Intrasite Spatial Analysis of a Late Upper Paleolithic French Site Using Geographic Information Systems
- The social construction of 'self" and Womanhood in a Hindu village of Bangladesh
- A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Practices Relating to Widowhood and Widow-Inheritance Among the Igbo and Yoruba in Nigeria
- Leisure & Young Married Women in Malta
- Civilization, Transformation and Collapse


What is sailing?
Sailing is a sport that uses wind to power sails and propel the sailing boat forward. There are two types of sailing – racing and cruising. Racing is a type of yachting you will identify from the Olympics, however cruising is more of a recreational activity.
How can I sail?
Sailability is a national program developed through the Royal Yachting Association that enables people with disabilities to try sailing and take part regularly. You don't need to be able-bodied, or even a strong swimmer to get into sailing. The variety of approved Sailability sites will have boats and facilities to cater for everyone.
 Further Information
For more information view the RYA Sailability webpage or email:
Alternatively for more information on Sailing specific to your visual impairment, email


16 Fascinating Facts About Sharks in Hawaii Every Local Should Know
In honor of Shark Week, here are 16 facts you may not know about sharks in Hawaii.
Photo: Wikipedia
(page 1 of 4)
It's shark week! Even if you're aren't watching the Discovery Channel every night this week from 7-8 p.m., sharks probably cross your mind now and then. Between the 8-foot aggressive Galapagos shark spotted at Kaimana Beach this March and the stormy weather that's known to attract them, even the bravest among us are shark-leery. That's why we came up with this handy list of 16 facts you may not know about sharks in Hawaii.
1. 40 Species in Hawaii
We have 40 species of sharks in the ocean surrounding our islands (there are 350 known species of sharks in the world). Most of them are harmless.
2. 4 of the Most Common Species
There are four species of sharks common in the ocean near our shores--these are the sharks you're most likely to see at places like Kaimana Beach. The most frequently spotted include the white-tip reef shark, the sandbar shark, the scalloped hammerhead and occasionally the terrifying tiger shark.
From left to right, clockwise: white-tip reef shark, sandbar shark, tiger shark, hammerhead shark.
Photo: DLNR
3. The Most Dangerous...
Tiger sharks are the most dangerous sharks in Hawaii. Great white sharks are also very dangerous, but are rarely seen in Hawaii. They might be more common than you think.
PHOTO: Wikipedia
4. The Most Aggressive...
The most aggressive reef sharks in Hawaii are the tiger shark and the Galapagos shark.
a galapagos shark in Hawaii.
Photo: Wikipedia
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text:
As Canadian painter Jock Macdonald (1897–1960) began to experiment with abstraction in the 1930s, he created a series of paintings he called "modalities," something he defined as "thought idioms in nature" or "expressions of thought in relation to nature." Of these, Fall is the most monumental. Despite his decision to keep these experimental works secret—he had recently returned to Vancouver after over a year dedicated to painting and living off the land in Nootka Sound—Macdonald remained preoccupied with his search for a uniquely personal abstract expression in his work. Like many of the others from this period, Fall, one of several "modalities" representing the seasons, is strongly geometric, linear, and decorative in style and composition.
The central motif of the painting is a triangle that appears to aspire to the heavens. Its elongated peak seems to continue its upward ascent beyond the horizontal element of the frame. Abstract forms are disposed evenly across the surface. The only suggestions of representation are the curvilinear Art Deco designs of tree, leaf, and butterfly. The complicated colour harmony suggests autumnal richness. Calling on his experience as a textile designer, Macdonald succeeded in creating a stage in which every element is strongly tied to the surface of the canvas. In the pattern of the central striated area in the lower third of the canvas, however, the painting speaks to the infinite and timeless world—the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions—which Macdonald sought to capture in his art.
This Spotlight is excerpted from Jock Macdonald: Life & Work by Joyce Zemans.


text:
||What is SMS routing?
It is a process that is used to make decision about where an SMS should end
Messages can end up in a mobile network or at a user or an application. The
term SMS routing actually covers two areas: outbound SMS routing and inbound
SMS routing. Outbound SMS routing is used to control which mobile network is
used to send a message to a mobile handset. It is used for mobile terminated
(MT) SMS messages. Inbound SMS routing is used to control which application will
receive an SMS message sent from a mobile phone. It is used for mobile
originated (MO) SMS messages.
Routing decisions are made based on conditions, such as sender phone number,
recipient phone number, sender or recipient phone number prefix, or the content
of the message text. For example a routing decision can be based on a keyword
in the message: e.g.: if the keyword "red" is in the message route it to
destination "A" otherwise route it to destination "B".
SMS routing can only be applied if more then one mobile network connection
(or SMS service provider connection) and more then one SMS application is
available is used in a system.
||What is outbound SMS routing and
how can I use it?|
Outbound SMS routing refers to a process
that is used to decide which SMS service provider connection will be used to
send an SMS message.
Outbound SMS routing is only relevant if more then one SMS service provider
connections are available in your system and each SMS service provider
connection can be used to pass messages to the mobile network. In this case
you can setup outbound routing to achieve various goals. For example you can
configure backup SMS routing, which means
that out of two or more connections one connection will be used only for
backup purposes. Another setup could be used to route messages to the
appropriate connection based on telephone number prefix to save costs.
This is called least cost
routing. You can also use outbound
routing to do load balancing to increase
||What is inbound SMS routing and
how can I use it?|
Inbound routing is a process
that is used to decide which user or application will receive an incoming
Inbound SMS routing is only relevant if more then users or applications are
configured in your system. In this case you can setup inbound routing rules
to define which user or application will receive a copy of the incoming SMS
Inbound routing decisions can be based on sender and recipient phone number
(or phone number prefix) or message content and if you have more then one
service provider connection then, the connection itself can also be used as
the base for decision making.
Inbound routing decisions can be configured in the inbound routing table of an
SMS gateway application.
||How can I send SMS messages reliably
to different global destinations?|
You should setup several SMS service provider connections, and you should
configure backup routing.
When you use multiple service provider connections, each connection has a name.
In the routing table you can refer to this name when you create outbound routes.
Outbound routes determine which connection will be used to send a particular
If you want to increase reliability, you need at least two service provider
For example one can be an IP SMS connection and another can be a GSM
modem connection. To configure the GSM modem connection as the backup connection
for the IP SMS connection, you need to configuring the name of the IP SMS
connection as backedup connection in the routing
rule of the GSM modem connection in the outbound SMS routing table.
Backup SMS routing will
make sure, that if the IP SMS connection stops functioning, the GSM modem
connection will take over and your messages will be sent.
||Is there any way I can tell if an
incoming SMS message is a reply to my previously sent SMS?|
The SMS technology does not provide any way to check if an incoming message is
a reply to a previously sent SMS or not. All you can do is put some identifier
into the message text itself, or rely on the timestamp of the sent and received
messages to do the matching. Of course this matching will probably not be
In most cases keywords are used to distinguish between incoming messages. If you
tell your mobile user to include a certain keyword in the messages text and you
a proper inbound route, with this keyword in Condition #3 (message text), you can
have some clue on which message was replied to. Of course this solution suggests
that the user will include the appropriate keyword in the response SMS.
||Can I change message parameters
You can modify telephone numbers and the message content itself during routing.
This is useful if you want to add certain telephone number prefixes or postfixes
to a number, or you would like to extend the message text with an advertisement.
||How can I reject certain messages
starting with a specified telephone number prefix?|
You have to configure the outbound routing table.
If you want to prevent your customers to send messages to certain destinations,
you have to setup a "dummy service provider connection". For this purpose an
HTTP server SMS service provider connection
is a good choice.
After this connection is setup, you should add a new rule to the outbound
routing table, that will route messages with the defined prefix to this dummy
service provider connection. This way messages, that are destined for the defined
destination, will not go to your normal SMS service provider connection. Instead
they will be routed to this dummy connection and they will be dropped.
To specify the prefix, when you create the new rule in the outbound routing
table, you should define Condition 2 (Recipient phone number). This condition
should match be a regular expression, that matches your telephone number
prefix. For example if you wish to prevent messages to be sent to prefix 123,
put the following pattern into the field:
||How can I change the recipient field
to a fixed mobile number so all texts submitted go to that mobile?
You need to create a route in the outbound
routing table, and you need to define a replace condition for the recipient.
The outbound routing table allows you to modify message content and telephone
numbers on the fly. When you create an outbound route, you can define conditions
for sender, receiver and message text. In the condition field, you can put
a replacement rule, that will be applied to the SMS message, that matches the
given pattern. Information on replacement and content manipulation can be found
in the SMS content modification during routing
To replace the recipient number of each SMS to a specific number (e.g:
to +123456), you should enter the following replacement pattern into Condition
#2 when you create the outbound routing rule: s/^.*/[+]123456/
Is there a way to define outbound
rules by phone ranges. I want to route a certain prefix to a certain carrier,
is this possible?
Yes. You can define phone number prefixes and any other matching pattern
in the outbound routing table using regular expressions.
You can define a regular expression for both sender and recipient phone numbers
in the routing condition. I suspect, that you would like to route outgoing
messages based on recipient phone number prefix. In this case you should put
the following regular expression into "condition 2" when you define an outbound
Note that the condition is surrounded by slashes (/). This tells the Ozeki
software to treat the condition as a regular expression. The first character ^
that the matching should start on the first character. [+] means that the
phone number starts with a + sign and 3620 means that the phone number starts
with +3620. Note that the.* wildchar means that any phone number can follow.


text:
10 Oct Why do you have 2 teachers in a classroom with twice as many kids? Would it not be easier to split classes and have 1 teacher and half as many kids?
Yes, it is probably easier for the master schedule. However, we have found you give up 50% of the connections that can be made by having a math and a CTE teacher in the same classroom. It is the connections that make this class exciting for the students.


Saturday, 11 December 2010
Word Ladders
Word Ladders were invented by Lewis Carroll as a form of word play. The idea is that you start with a word, change one letter at a time, and end up with a new word. All words in the chain must be valid words in the dictionary (otherwise it'd be a bit rubbish). For example, you can turn beer into wine with the following
Let's write a simple program that calculates word ladders for a simplified version of the game where each change can only change a single letter at a time (rather than allow deletes and inserts too). Finding a word ladder can be thought about as a graph problem. Each node is a word, and each edge represents a connection to another valid word. The graph below is a partial representation of the graph starting with BEER. The real graph is much more complicated!
First things first, how do we build the graph? For starters we need to know if two words are neighbours or not. The following simple functions determine the difference between two strings. Remember that I'm only working on the simplest possible distance metric at the moment, that is allowing a single character to change.
neighbour :: String -> String -> Bool
 neighbour x y = difference x y == 1
 difference :: String -> String -> Int
 difference [] [] = 0
 difference (x:xs) (y:ys) | x == y = difference xs ys
 | otherwise = 1 + difference xs ys
 difference _ _ = error "Two strings must be the same length"
Next thing we need to grab is a huge list of words. We'll store these words in a Set because we'll want to test for membership frequently (an O(lg(N)) operation. An alternative would be to use a perfect hash (this is an option because the dictionary is fixed). This would give O(1) lookup times, and it looks like there is (as almost always) a library on Hackage that does just that. The simple distance metric chosen means we can limit the number of words based on the size of the input word.
import qualified Data.Set as S
 type WordSet = S.Set String
 wordListPath :: String
 wordListPath = "/usr/share/dict/british-english"
 createDictionary :: Int -> IO WordSet
 createDictionary n = do
 file <- readFile wordListPath
 return $ S.fromList $ filter (\x -> length x == n && all isAlpha x) (map (map toLower) $ words file)
Once we've got a dictionary, all we need to do is build the graph. Since Haskell is lazy, we don't need to worry about the space complexity of the graph - we'll just build it lazily and only the bit that is explored will be resident in memory.
Each node contains the word it represents and the links to the child elements. The graph is built by starting at a root, and filling all the valid neighbours. Each time we place a word in the graph we remove it from the dictionary, otherwise we'll get cycles in the graph.
data Node = Node String [Node] deriving Show
 buildGraph :: WordSet -> String -> Node
 buildGraph wordset top = Node top (map (buildGraph smaller) neighbours)
 neighbours = S.toList (S.filter (neighbour top) smaller)
 smaller = S.delete top wordset
The graph is *huge*, so we need to find some way to limit the search space. The most obvious way is to give a restriction on the depth of the search. A word ladder that is 10000 words rungs high is probably not much fun to complete. We can also cut the search short if the word is too many changes away given the maximum depth (for example, if 4 characters need to change in a 5 letter word and the maximum left to search is 3 then we can prune this search branch).
search :: Node -> Int -> String -> [String]
 search graph maxDepth goal = search' graph maxDepth goal []
 search' :: Node -> Int -> String -> [String] -> [String]
 search' (Node end children) maxDepth goal path
 | end == goal = end : path
 | null children = []
 | length path >= maxDepth = [] -- too deep
 | difference end goal >= maxDepth - length path = [] -- too much difference
 | otherwise = first
 childRoutes = filter (not. null) $
 map (\child -> search' child maxDepth goal (end : path)) children
 first | null childRoutes = []
 | otherwise = head childRoutes
 quickest | null childRoutes = []
 | otherwise = minimumBy (comparing length) childRoutes
The way we search the children is important. In this case we've used first gone for the first available route that satisfies the depth guarantee, but isn't guaranteed to be the shortest route. quickest on the other hand calculates all child routes and finds the minimum length part.
Finally, we can put this all together and write a simple search search function.
makeLadder :: Int-> String -> String -> IO [String]
 makeLadder maxDepth start end
 | length start /= length end = error "Only two strings of equal length are currently supported."
 | otherwise = do
 dict <- createDictionary (length start)
 if (S.member start dict && S.member end dict)
 then return $ search (buildGraph dict start) maxDepth end
 else return []
The complete code for this version available on my git hub repo here. This version has several problems.
 1. It's too slow - searching for the minimal path can take considerable time
 2. It's not very flexible
(this part completely edited from the original post, thanks to insightful comment about something *very* daft I was doing) Let's fix that. In order to be flexible, we need to support various distance metrics. For example, it'd be nice to allow insertions and deletions as well as character transposition. We just need a generic function that calculates the distance between any given strings. In order to improve performance, instead of searching the entire dictionary to see whether any are neighbours, we can generate the neighbours and find out which ones are in the dictionary. That means we need both a distance metric and a way of calculating the edits.
 data DistanceMetric = DistanceMetric (Word -> Word -> Int) (Word -> WordSet)
 difference :: Word -> Word -> Int
 difference x y
 | length x /= length y = 999999
 | otherwise = sum $ zipWith (\c1 c2 -> if c1 == c2 then 0 else 1) x y
 transposeChar :: Word -> [Word]
 transposeChar [] = []
 transposeChar (x:xs) = map (:xs) (validChars \\ [x])
 deleteChar :: Word -> [Word]
 deleteChar [] = []
 deleteChar (x:xs) = [xs]
 insertChar :: Word -> [Word]
 insertChar [] = []
 insertChar (x:xs) = map (\y -> y:x:xs) validChars
 differenceEdit :: Word -> WordSet
 differenceEdit x = edit' x [transposeChar]
 editDistanceEdits :: Word -> WordSet
 editDistanceEdits x = edit' x [insertChar,transposeChar,deleteChar]
 edit' :: Word -> [Word -> [Word]] -> WordSet
 edit' w fns = S.fromList $ concat $
 zipWith (\x y -> map (\z -> x ++ z) (concatMap (\x -> x y) fns))
 (inits w) (tails w)
 simple :: DistanceMetric
 simple = DistanceMetric difference differenceEdit
 edits :: DistanceMetric
 edits = DistanceMetric editDistance editDistanceEdits
This gives two distance functions and two ways of generating edits. The Levenshtein distance of 1 is generated by transposing, deleting and inserting characters from the original word. This gives us the flexibility, because another distance metric could be put in place (anagrams perhaps?). Next to performance.
 buildGraph :: DistanceMetric -> WordSet -> Word -> Node
 buildGraph d@(DistanceMetric dist edits) wordset top = Node top (map (buildGraph d smaller) neighbours)
 possibleNeighbours = edits top
 neighbours = S.toList (smaller 'S.intersection' possibleNeighbours)
 smaller = S.delete top wordset
 search :: DistanceMetric -> Node -> Int -> Word -> [Word]
 search (DistanceMetric dist _) graph maxDepth goal = search' graph []
 search' (Node end children) path
 | end == goal = end : path
 | dist end goal >= maxDepth - length path = [] -- too much difference
 | otherwise = first
 -- Find the best node to search by comparing it against the goal
 costForNextChild :: [(Int,Node)]
 costForNextChild = zip (map (\(Node x _) -> dist x goal) children) children
 bestFirst = map snd $ sortBy (comparing fst) costForNextChild
 -- Best first search
 childRoutes = filter (not. null) $ map (\child -> search' child (end : path)) bestFirst
 first | null childRoutes = []
 | otherwise = head childRoutes
Two things have changed


The Crustor is an aggressive creature and will attack a player on sight. Unlike is smaller shell cousins, the Crustor is always standing and can be seen from afar due to it's large size. The creatures walks slowly towards a sighted player.
Combat and Tactics
The Crustor will not directly attack a player. It will instead slam it's fists on the ground and cause a fiery earthquake that does damage indirectly. When struck a few times, it will recoil on itself and briefly be invulnerable to all damage.
Deals Resists Vulnerable to
Fire Earth Water
The Crustor can be found on the following islands:


text:
This Article argues that Fourth Amendment challenges to camping ordinances can prompt legislative efforts to solve the problem of homelessness in U.S. cities. By properly employing the Supreme Court of the United States' judicial standard for privacy rights, courts should consider the efforts of individual cities' efforts to curb poverty when asking the following question: does society view a homeless person's expectation of privacy as reasonable?
Fourth Amendment Challenges to Camping Ordinances: A Legal Strategy to Force Legislative Solutions to Homelessness,
Rich. J.L. & Pub. Int.
Available at: _URL_


text:
With June's arrival, that means summer is fast approaching and we have a fun summer reading program at the library. I gave you a hint last month: bees. Did you connect bees to a famous nineteenth century sleuth by the name of Sherlock Holmes? If so, then you correctly deduced that we will be reading Sherlock Holmes and two other authors interpretation's of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective. I gave you the clue "bees" because Holmes was a beekeeper at his home in Sussex.
We have wanted to have a mystery book discussion series for a while now, but with so many mystery genres it was hard to pick which genre and authors. Since January I have been reading a lot of mystery books. I did not mind as I like that genre, but I wasn't reading for fun. As I read I kept notes on good character development, plot flow, and discussability of each book.
It wasn't until Alana found out that this year will be the 130th anniversary of the first Holmes publication that the lightbulb went off. It's Elementary: Clues and Deduction: A Summer with Sherlock Holmes begins on Thursday, June 22 at 6:30pm with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. It continues on Thursday, July 20 at 6:30pm with The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz, and the last discussion will be of The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King on Thursday, August 10 at 6:30pm.
A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887 by Ward Lock & Co. in Beeton's Christmas Annual. In 1914 the book was adapted for the silver screen. There have been many renditions of A Study in Scarlet as movies, plays, and television, but the closest interpretation so far has been A Study in Charlotte for the Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu television series Elementary.
In addition to the discussion series, we will offer a Sherlock Holmes trivia game called The Game's Afoot. Each Thursday between June 22 and August 17 a question about Holmes and his world will be released on Facebook, and at the information desk. Submit the answer with your name and telephone number to be placed in a drawing to win a library book bag and a book of your choosing from a selection at the library. The drawing will be held on Thursday, August 17, 2017 with the drawing on Friday, August 18, 2017.
Other events at the library include a summer cookbook discussion of Raising the Salad Bar by Catherine Walthers, Thursday, July 13 6:00-7:30pm. You can browse the cookbook at the information desk and make copies of the recipes you select to prepare and bring to the discussion.
Don't forget to stop in and pick up books for your summer reading. Nothing beats the heat like a good book.


What it contains
This fact sheet contains information about smoke and carbon monoxide from peat fires. It includes what peat fire smoke looks like, what is in peat fire smoke, why we measure carbon monoxide around a peat fire, and general smoke-related health information.
Publication number
Number of pages
Release date
19 February 2020
Reviewed 19 February 2020


text:
What is Colorway?
Colorway is a collaborative canvas allowing you to automate, communicate and publish your product, packaging and graphic design. Using a unique combination of 2D, 3D Vector, and data file support, Colorway allows you to begin interacting with 3D models in a dynamic and connected way. Dragging and dropping color onto a 3D model has never been faster or easier.
Using Colorway, a designer is able to create and color in a familiar interface, while having the power of backend data linked to live or static PDM/ PLM/ PPM systems, simple spreadsheets and text files. The data is presented in Colorway in a practical and interactive way, with an experience closer to using a website to buy a pair of shoes.
Colorway bridges the gap between 2D and 3D design by providing a software solution that allows existing 2D designers to create product visualizations in a photorealistic, 3D space without the need to understand complex 3D modeling tools.
Colorway was developed using Foundry's Academy Award winning engineering team and shares technologies used from decades of motion picture production. The digital compositor used in Colorway is the same engine that powered the film production of Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Beauty & the Beast, plus thousands of other Hollywood blockbusters produced over the past 20 years.
Who Can Use Colorway?
Organizations that have implemented Colorway as part of their digital visualization pipeline have seen an increase in their speed to market with new product, improved color management and an enhanced buy-in for new product.
Here at Foundry, we believe in strong partnerships with premium brands. Our team works closely to understand the needs of users and help create design workflows that provide access to photorealistic 3D models, compliments an existing 2D workflow, and intelligently connects to data that's relevant for the visualization process. It's our primary goal to provide a quantifiable time and cost saving in an organic way.
Foundry is proud that our customers are happy to share their stories on using Colorway as part of their design pipeline.


text:
Orenitram Tablets More Cost-effective Than Uptravi as PAH Treatment, Study Suggests
Treatment with Orenitram (oral treprostinil) is associated with lower healthcare-related costs than treatment with Uptravi (selexipag) in people with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a new study suggests.
The study, "Medication Adherence and Healthcare Costs Among Patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Treated with Oral Prostacyclins: A Retrospective Cohort Study," was published in the journal Drugs – Real World Outcomes.
Prostacyclin is a hormone that relaxes blood vessels, causing them to widen and consequently lower blood pressure. Oral therapies that mimic the action of this hormone, including Orenitram (marketed by United Therapeutics) and Uptravi (marketed by Actelion, part of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies), have become common treatments for PAH in recent years.
Although the safety and efficacy of these therapies is well-established, the relative costs associated with them have not been thoroughly examined.
By analyzing relevant codes, the team identified 130 people with PAH who had been treated with Orenitram, and 126 who had been treated with Uptravi, between 2014 and 2017. For all these individuals, data was analyzed for the six months before and after being prescribed the respective medication.
The two groups were similar in terms of demographic features, including age (average of about 58 years in both groups), and place of residence (all in the United States, slightly more from the southern states than from other regions). There was a greater percentage of males in the Orenitram group (33.1% vs. 16.7% in the Uptravi group).
Before beginning either treatment, baseline total healthcare costs were similar between the two groups.
Medication adherence was examined by calculating the medication possession ratio (MPR) and the proportion of days covered (PDC). Conceptually, they measure how often prescriptions were filled, as compared to how many days those prescriptions should cover. For example, if a person gets a 30-day refill every 45 days, their MPR and PDC would be low, reflecting a low treatment adherence.
A slight, though statistically significant, higher MPR was found for Orenitram than Uptravi (0.89 vs. 0.85); PDC did not differ significantly between the groups.
"[M]edication adherence and persistence with oral prostacyclin therapies were similar in the cohorts," the researchers wrote.
The team also examined hospital visits, and found no difference in number or length of inpatient visits (overnight hospital stays), or in emergency department visits. There was a slight, but significant, higher number of outpatient visits in the Orenitram group (average 22.0 vs. 18.8 in Uptravi group).
"Medical care utilization was similar between the study cohorts receiving oral prostacyclin therapies. Notably, both cohorts reported similar hospitalization rates," the researchers wrote.
The team then looked at healthcare costs in both groups. After statistical adjustment for other variables (age, sex, region, insurance plan type, etc.), Orenitram was associated with 51.4% lower costs, corresponding to a difference of about $73,680. This was driven primarily by differences in pharmacy costs, which were 68.2% lower in the Orenitram group.
"Given that all [healthcare resource use], except for the number of outpatient visits, were similar between the cohorts during the post-index period and relatively similar at baseline, the higher overall healthcare cost can be attributed to treatment with selexipag," the researchers wrote.
The team noted that this is likely attributable to differences in how dosages are priced: Uptravi uses a fixed-price model, where the same price is paid regardless of medication dose. Orenitram price varies depending on the dosage.
"While fixed pricing, regardless of dosage, is often perceived as less costly and predictable, dose-based pricing can result in lower costs with dose reductions," the researchers wrote. "This study showed that, for oral prostacyclin drugs used in patients with PAH, treprostinil dose-based pricing led to lower pharmacy costs than the fixed pricing associated with selexipag."
Of note, the team emphasized that the sample size of the study was relatively small, and the study was conducted in the U.S., "so caution needs to be used while generalizing these results to other PAH populations." Researchers also highlighted the need for further research looking at costs accrued over a longer period of time.
Despite these study limitations, the team said: "This study provides real-world evidence to suggest that, in patients with PAH, treatment with oral treprostinil may be more cost effective than selexipag over a 6- to 12-month period."


text:
Check out this photo of Princeton and Mercer County from the 1920s. Princeton is the only town in the area. It appears as a dense cluster of buildings (imagine how walkable it must have been!!!!) surrounded on every side by farmland. Kingston is there too, a scattering of houses in the lower right-hand corner. West Windsor, Lawrence T'wp, Hamilton T'wp, and the ring of I-95/I-295 are nowhere to be seen. None of them were built yet.
Princeton really stands out as the major town in the area. Even today, Princeton is considered the hub of development in Central Jersey between Trenton and New Brunswick. But somewhere along the way, the area has gone through a big change. Princeton is no longer the only town in the area. It is no longer even the biggest town in the area. It is no longer even the most densely populated town in the area!
Let's look at the statistics. Here are the populations of local towns- 'Princeton'-comprising the combined populations of the former Borough and Township, South Brunswick, Lawrence Township, Plainsboro, West Windsor, and Montgomery. In 1950, several decades after the above photograph was taken, Princeton was still by far the biggest town in the area by population:
By 1970, several decades later, and a time that many of our older residents can clearly remember, Princeton was stillby some distancethe largest town around:
What is the situation today? Princeton has undergone an astonishing drop in population relative to surrounding townships. South Brunswick AND Lawrence T'wp now have larger populations than Princeton, even considering the consolidated population of Princeton.
This graph only shows directly neighboring towns– if we were also to consider Hamilton T'wp and Hightstown-East Windsor, Princeton would be the fifth-largest town in the area. What's more, under current growth rates, Plainsboro and Montgomery Township are on track to overtake Princeton in terms of population, making Princeton potentially the smallest community in the area in terms of population!
Now, we can debate whether this is a good or bad, but one thing is absolutely clear: the historic character of Princeton is being changed. We used to look for ways to accommodate population growth while maintaining the historic aspects of the town. Consider this quote from an article entitled 'A Look At The Future', published in 'Town Topics' in 1960:
The new comprehensive master plan, Mr. McHugh says in his report, is designed to conserve and, if possible, enhance the natural topographical features and the historic places, buildings and institutions, in accordance with the often-expressed desires of Borough residents. However, it is also designed to cope with a population increase which is expected to bring the total population of the Princeton area up to almost 100,000 by 1980.
Historically, Princeton was a growing town and we made provision for population growth. Many current residents of the town would be living some place else if it wasn't for the vision of earlier town planners, who looked for ways to enable population growth:
However, around 1970, the rate of Princeton's population growth sputtered to a halt. Aside from a blip in 2000 (considered to be a Census artifact), Princeton's population has barely budged in forty years, even as surrounding areas have expanded rapidly. This is largely due to resident pressure to prevent change in Princeton. "Preservation of Princeton's historic character" is a central theme of our current Masterplan, and this is invariably interpreted to mean minimal new development. However, this drive to prevent development is the very cause of the change in Princeton's character from being the major community of mid-central Jersey to becoming an elegant, but increasingly chi-chi suburb. Businesses recognize that Princeton is no longer "where it's at" for commerce, as popular retailers such as the Apple Store skip Princeton in favor of a Route 1 mall.
There are other costs associated with deliberately restricting Princeton's growth. A lack of housing has sent property prices through the roof, so that every year the Princeton community becomes increasingly wealthy compared to neighboring towns, and middle-class workers have to look for somewhere else to live. Open land in Central Jersey is being gobbled up to build new, car-dependent developments catering to people who work in Princeton. These commuters fill Princeton with traffic and produce huge volumes of greenhouse gases:
Princeton historically was the vibrant center of mid-central Jersey, had a compact walkable form, provided housing to all sections of society, and maintained its essential character. Regaining these essential characteristics, and avoiding a fate where the town becomes either a charming weekend getaway for rich bankers or a theme park for tourists, requires us to think about ways to add housing in the most efficient way. In future, instead of looking for ways to keep development to an absolute minimum, we should consider how to add extra housing, because it will get Princeton back on track to being a living, vibrant, inclusive town, confident of its primacy in the mid-central Jersey region, and confident of both its outstanding history and its future.


text:
What direction is Israel from California?
Israel is located nearly west side to California. The given west direction from California is only approximate.
What direction is Jerusalem from Los Angeles?
Los Angeles is located nearly east side to Jerusalem. The given east direction from Jerusalem is only approximate.
What direction is Israel from the United States?
Israel is located nearly west side to Usa. The given west direction from Usa is only approximate.
Which direction is Israel from Los Angeles?
Israel is located nearly west side to Los Angeles. The given west direction from Los Angeles is only approximate. The given google map shows the direction in which the blue color line indicates road connectivity to Israel .
How long does it take to fly from California to Israel?
Average direct flight time is 14 hours 38 minutes.
The fastest direct flight from California to Israel is 14 hours 38 minutes.
How far is Jerusalem from California by plane?
How many miles is it from Jerusalem to California. 5907 miles / 9506.4 km is the flight distance between these two places.
How many hours is from USA to Israel?
Distance from Israel to United States is 10,882 kilometers.
The air travel (bird fly) shortest distance between Israel and United States is 10,882 km= 6,762 miles. If you travel with an airplane (which has average speed of 560 miles) from Israel to United States, It takes 12.07 hours to arrive.
How many hours is lax to Israel?
Flight distance from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv (Los Angeles International Airport – Ben Gurion Airport) is 7574 miles / 12189 kilometers / 6581 nautical miles. Estimated flight time is 14 hours 50 minutes.
Is Jerusalem a part of Israel?
|Jerusalem ירושלים (Hebrew) القُدس (Arabic)|
|Claimed by||Israel and Palestine|


How energy is hidden in colours—can we use it to power a renewable future?
Credit: Pixabay
'Roses are red and violets are blue' – so says the old poem.
But why are roses red? And why are violets blue? What is it that gives something its colour?
And how could playing with colour give us wearable? This last question is at the core of research being undertaken by Dr Wallace Wong, of the University of Melbourne's Bio21 Institute and School of Chemistry.
As well as working on fascinating science that combines chemistry, physics, engineering and even some agriculture, the carbon-solar researchers of Dr Wong's lab are inspired by a renewable energy future.
But first, to grasp where they are going, you must understand a little more about the science of colour.
You could think of an object's colour as the it rejects. When objects appear to have a particular colour it's because they are absorbing all the other colours of the visible spectrum, while one colour is being reflected.
For example, the petals of a rose appear red because they absorb most of the blue light of the visible spectrum, and much of the green and yellow too. What's left to reflect back at us is dominated by the remaining reddish part of the spectrum.
It's the light that is absorbed, or reflected, that makes roses so red. Credit: Pixabay
Our perception of colour is, then, the rather clever result of our eyes and brains interpreting various combinations of those reflected colours.
Exactly which colours an object absorbs depends on all the complex molecules that make up its surface – in particular on the electrons and atomic bonds within those molecules.
To understand that, you need to know what colour really is. Light is a wave and 'colour' is merely the frequency of that wave.
The 'natural frequencies' of the myriad organic molecules that make up a rose petal correspond with frequencies of light that are – mostly – blue through yellow.
Thus, roses are red.
The Sun emits light of every possible frequency at once, including at frequencies too high or too low for us to see. But the Sun's highest intensity radiation aligns approximately with our visible range – red through blue. That's no coincidence – like all animals on Earth, we have evolved to make best use of the light available.
These days, we can also design materials to 'target' particular frequencies of light. For example, the silicon-based materials of a are tweaked to absorb the most intense frequencies in sunlight. The electrons knocked loose by that light are harvested as an electric current.
While silicon-based materials have dominated solar-cell technology since the 1970s, Dr Wong is working on alternative carbon-based materials that have the potential to allow cheaper, flexible, robust, printable solar panels.
The biggest challenge, Dr Wong explains, is efficiency. Currently, carbon-based solar cells struggle to exceed 12 per cent efficiency, significantly lagging behind the 17 per cent of commercially available silicon cells.
.One technique his laboratory is using to increase efficiency is to harvest power from a wider range of frequencies.
Dr Wallace Wong is working towards cheaper and more robust printable solar cells. Credit: University of Melbourne
By adjusting the chemical properties of the light-absorbing material, the researchers can adjust the amount of energy required to boost electrons from one state to another. When they do that, they force the material to absorb another frequency of light, ie another.
"The more frequencies these materials absorb, the more electricity they can produce," explains Dr Wong.
The ultimate aim is to absorb colours right across the high-intensity, visible part of sunlight's spectrum and a little way beyond, into ultraviolet.
So why bother? What are the advantages of carbon-based solar cells over silicon?
"One of the reasons is cost," says Dr Wong. "Because carbon-based solar cells use only microscopically-thin layers of light-absorbing materials, they should be much cheaper to produce than silicon-based cells."
One advantages of rooftop solar is decentralisation of electricity generation. Transmission infrastructure – mostly poles and wires – must be built to manage peaks, and transmitting electricity is costly.
Rooftop solar panels could be transformed by new technology. Credit: Pixabay
And it's wasteful too – about 10 per cent of Australia's electricity is lost in transmission. The more power that can be generated close to where it's used, the more those costs can be reduced.
Dr Wong says the carbon-based technology promises vastly more options for decentralised solar power generation.
"Because the carbon-based materials can be dissolved in a solvent, they can then be printed onto almost any material of any shape – using even the simplest inkjet printer. The panels are even flexible enough to be printed onto clothing – in the future we could be walking around wearing solar panels printed on our hats, coats and backpacks."
Carbon-based could also be built into or painted onto structures, so that our buildings could incorporate structures that generate power, supplementing or replacing the heavy, rigid, silicon-based solar panels on the roof.
Explore further
Graphene quantum dots can improve the efficiency of silicon solar cells
Citation: How energy is hidden in colours—can we use it to power a renewable future? (2016, July 5) retrieved 24 June 2021 from _URL_
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Thank you for your gift!
With your financial support, Kids Cancer Care is able to provide essential programs to meet the needs of the whole family at each stage in the child's cancer journey — from diagnosis through treatment and beyond. With your continuing support, we have been actively adapting our programs for kids and families during the pandemic when they are more isolated than ever.
Your gift today is helping to:
 1. Give kids with cancer the support they need to cope with the physical, emotional and cognitive effects of cancer and its treatments;
 2. Provide children with cancer-related learning issues the benefit of a one-to-one tutor online or in their home;
 3. Keep children with cancer active through evidence-based therapeutic exercise that helps reduce the long-term side-effects and deconditioning effects of cancer and its treatments;
 4. Give kids a chance to escape the rigours of cancer for a week of outdoor fun and adventure at camp; and
 5. Support research into less invasive therapies that save lives without causing damaging health problems for life.
We believe it is possible to change the course of childhood cancer in our lifetime. Thank you for helping make this a reality.


text:
Anna Salleh from abc.net.au has a superlative piece on the effects of pesticides on the environment. As suspected for many years the pesticide run off from farms may be having a negative affect on the ecology of Australia's river system. The new report says that pesticides could be damaging river biodiversity at levels that have been traditionally regarded as environmentally safe by authorities, suggests a new study.
"Pesticides are having an effect at 10 to 100 times lower concentrations than traditionally thought,"Dr Kefford said.
Kefford goes on to say that when authorities try to protect our streams and rivers from pesticides they rely on thresholds, under which it is assumed pesticides have no effect. For example, the European Union recommends the use of a commonly-used safety factor of 100.
This means if a negative effect on an aquatic organism is only seen at a particular concentration of pesticide, then a safe level of that pesticide is regarded as being one hundredth of this concentration :: Read Anna Salleh's full article at abc.net.au»»»»


Documentation Home >> Headers >> <jss/experimental_future.hpp> Header >> std::experimental::shared_future >> std::experimental::shared_future<>::get Member function
If the associated state contains a deferred function from a call to std::experimental::async then invoke that function and return the result. Otherwise, wait until the asynchronous result associated with an instance of std::experimental::shared_future is ready, and then return the stored value or throw the stored exception.
void shared_future<void>::get() const;
R& shared_future<R&>::get() const;
R const& shared_future<R>::get() const;
Preconditions:
this->valid() would return true.
Effects:
Calls to get() and wait() from multiple threads on std::experimental::shared_future instances that share the same associated state are serialized. If the associated state contains a deferred function then the first call to get() or wait() invokes the deferred function and stores the returned value or thrown exception as the asynchronous result.
Block until the asynchronous result associated with *this is ready. If the asynchronous result is a stored exception then throw that exception. Otherwise return the stored value.
Returns:
If ResultType is void then return normally. If ResultType is R& for some type R then return the stored reference. Otherwise, return a const reference to the stored value.
Throws:
The stored exception, if any.
Header
#include <experimental/future>
See Also


text: One of the enduring symbols of Maharashtra's rich historical past is the Sindhudurg Fort. The fort derives its name from the combination of two words, Sindhu meaning sea and Durg meaning fort. Sindhudurg is just 510 km from Mumbai on the Goa Highway. One can take a ferry from the Malvan Port to the island fort.Also known as the Malvan Fort, this citadel is located half a kilometer away from the mainland port of Malvan. Shivaji wanted to build an impregnable island fort at a considerable distance from the supposedly unbreachable Janjira Fort and thus selected the rocky island of Kurute. The location of the fort was strategically chosen byShivaji to counter foreign forces coming from the shore, as well as for safeguarding the kingdom from neighbouring rulers. It is also believed that the fort was constructed by Shivaji to keep a check on the activities of Siddis of Murud-Janjira, who wanted to destroy his kingdom.The 2 km long ramparts of this fort stretch across the undulating periphery of this large and rocky island. The foundations of the fort were strengthened by using molten lead mixed with mortar. More than 70000 kilos of iron were used for casting. The construction of this fort began in 1664 and took 3 years to complete. It is believed that the great warrior king himself lent a hand in building the fort.Sindhudurg covers an extensive area of 48 acres with almost 2 miles of fortified rampart walls 29 ft high and 12 ft thick, comprising observation towers and 52 enormous semicircular bastions with embrasures for cannons. The top of the ramparts was accessible by stone staircases at various points. Some bastions contain hidden exit ways that lead out of the fort.The entrance to the fort is by the Dilli Darwaja to the north-east. The main gate is so well camouflaged within the folds of the rampart walls that it is visible only at really close quarters. A shrine to Goddess Jarimari guards the entrance to the fort. On the right, perched atop the main gate, is the fort's most prized relic - the footprint and palm impression of the revered Shivaji Maharaj, set on a slab of dry lime.Apart from the customary shrines of Bhawani, Mahadeo, Jarimari and Mahapurush, Sindhudurg enjoys the distinction of having the only temple dedicated to Chhatrapati Shivaji, which was built by his son Rajaram. One does also come across some ruins of ancient temples, wells and cisterns throughout the fort. The Shivaji Jayanti, Ram Navami, Janmashtami, Mahashivratri and Ganesh Chaturthi are some of the prominent festivals celebrated here on a grand scale.Some of the temples are still in use and are maintained by the 20 odd families that live on this island fort. The Sakpal Naik family, the original killedars, still reside in one of the 16 houses within the fort.


text:
A Numerical Study of Sub-Millisecond Integrated Mix-and-Inject Microﬂuidic Devices for Sample Delivery at Synchrotron and XFELs
journal contributionposted on 2021-05-03, 01:30 authored by Majid HejazianMajid Hejazian, Eugeniu BalaurEugeniu Balaur, Brian AbbeyBrian Abbey
Microfluidic devices which integrate both rapid mixing and liquid jetting for sample delivery are an emerging solution for studying molecular dynamics via X-ray diffraction. Here we use finite element modelling to investigate the efficiency and time-resolution achievable using microfluidic mixers within the parameter range required for producing stable liquid jets. Three-dimensional simulations, validated by experimental data, are used to determine the velocity and concentration distribution within these devices. The results show that by adopting a serpentine geometry, it is possible to induce chaotic mixing, which effectively reduces the time required to achieve a homogeneous mixture for sample delivery. Further, we investigate the effect of flow rate and the mixer microchannel size on the mixing efficiency and minimum time required for complete mixing of the two solutions whilst maintaining a stable jet. In general, we find that the smaller the cross-sectional area of the mixer microchannel, the shorter the time needed to achieve homogeneous mixing for a given flow rate. The results of these simulations will form the basis for optimised designs enabling the study of molecular dynamics occurring on millisecond timescales using integrated mix-and-inject microfluidic devices.


text:
Family Support Center
Where Lives Are Transformed
A joint project of the Imperial Heights Community Church and Pacific Southwest District Church of the Brethren based on the following statement: "We believe that as Christians we are committed to 'non-violent peacemaking' in the home, in communities, in the nation, and around the world'.
We feel strongly and are addressing pressing concerns within our community on issues such as:
- Seeking solutions through promoting literacy for both Children and Adults.
- conflict education as an alternative to violent attitudes and acts.
- Dialogue and interchange solutions toward multiculturalism breakdown.
Our aggressive efforts are towards a safe environment for all who desire to embrace the love and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. We are actively involved in:
- Community Outreach
- Conflict Mediation / Resolution
- Community Forums
- Neighborhood Meetings
Keeping Youth Focused and Out of Trouble
Summer Employment / entrepreneurial opportunities
Board Meetings: (TBD)


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We are committed to school equity as a means for creating a stronger community. To achieve these goals, we've developed a short list of principles Montgomery County Public Schools can follow to help close the achievement gap. This isn't a complete list, and we always welcome suggestions.
- EQUITY. Allocate resources according to educational load to ensure that each child receives instruction and supports according to her needs in order to receive a world-class education.
- LEADERSHIP. Competent and effective leadership at all levels, with commitment to accountability, transparency and results.
- ACCESS. Ensure that all students are able to access the excellent opportunities MCPS has to offer, according to ability and desire, and are actively recruited and encouraged to achieve.
- DIVERSITY. Promote hiring practices so that professional staffing reflects student population.
- COMMUNITY. Stimulate (support) use of school facilities as a center of community activities.
- PARTNERSHIP. Actively seek to establish and maintain partnerships with businesses and non-profits for the benefit of students.


text:
March 2013 Women's History Calendar
Edith Claypole (1870–1915)
Born in England, Edith Claypole received her M.D. from UCLA in 1904. She joined UC Berkeley's pathology department as a volunteer and soon after became an associate researcher. She created a test to distinguish pulmonary streptothricosis from tuberculosis. When World War I broke out, Claypole enthusiastically lent her talents to the war effort. She devoted herself to developing a more effective typhoid vaccine for British and French troops. Her intensive work with typhoid bacteria led to her death from typhoid fever at age 45.
A passion for discovery: California women
trailblazers in science and technology
In celebration of National Women's History Month, this online calendar highlights remarkable yet little known women from California history who achieved success in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The calendar is produced by the California State Library, California Research Bureau and California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. Images and biographical material are from the State Library's extensive collection of photos, prints, rare books and ephemera documenting the state's rich history.


text:
Pinwheels for Peace at Timber Point
Students at Timber Point Elementary School in East Islip celebrated the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21 by creating "Pinwheels for Peace" and participating in various other Peace Day projects and activities. According to Principal Lisa Belz, the purpose was to "recognize, understand and help create a culture of peace."
"The fifth grade in particular created their own quotes for peace, listened to and analyzed the words of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, learned how to say 'peace' in many languages, and designed Pinwheels for Peace which are displayed on the bulletin board in the hallway," said Timber Point teacher Carol Wilson.
The International Day of Peace, also unofficially known as World Peace Day, has been observed every Sept. 21 since 1982 and is dedicated to the concept of peace, specifically the absence of war and violence.


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Bandar Abbas
[buhn-der uh-bahs]
Bandar Abbas or Bandar-e 'Abbās (in Persian: بندر عباس; formerly known as Gombroon to English traders and Gamrun to Dutch merchants) is a port city and capital of Hormozgān Province on the southern coast of Iran (Persia), on the Persian Gulf. The city occupies a strategic position on the narrow Straits of Hormuz, and it is the location of the main base of the Iranian Navy. It had an estimated population of 352,173 in 2005.
History and etymology
Ancient history
The earliest record of Bandar Abbas is during the reign of Darius the Great (between 586 and 522 B.C.). Darius's commander, Silacus, embarked from Bandar Abbas to India which is now present Pakistan and the Red Sea
During Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire, Bandar Abbas was known under the name of Hormirzad.
Descendants of Gameronians
In the year 630 CE, Maharaja Derbar Raja of Gemeron was defeated in battle and escaped to Ceylon, and he was later blown off course by a storm to the remote shores of Kuala Sungai Qilah, Kedah (now Malaysia). The inhabitants of Kedah found him to be a valiant and intelligent person, and they made him the king of Kedah. In the year 634 CE, a new kingdom was formed in Kedah consisting of Persian royalty and native Malay of Hindu faith, the capital was Langkasuka. (see Kedah Sultanate and Early history of Kedah)
The Renaissance and Enlightenment
By the 1500s, Bandar Abbas was known as Gamrūn to the Persians. In 1565, a European navigator called it Bamdel Gombruc (that is, Bandar Gümrük, or "Customhouse Port"), citing this as the Persian and Turkish name. In 1612, the Portuguese took the city from Lorestān and transliterated the name to Comorão.
Almost two years later (in 1615), Comorão was taken by 'Abbās the Great after a naval battle with the Portuguese and renamed Bandar-e 'Abbās, or "Port of 'Abbās". Backed by the British navy, 'Abbās developed Bandar-e 'Abbās (known to the English-speaking world as Gombraun) into a major port.
By 1622, the Portuguese and English names had been officially combined to form Combrù or Combu, although the inhabitants still called it Bandar-e 'Abbās. Sir Thomas Herbert said the official English name was Gumbrown, but pronounced "gŏmrōōn". He wrote in 1630 that "some (but I commend them not) write it Gamrou, others Gomrow, and othersome Cummeroon."
By the 1670s, the city was known as 'Gameroon
From 1740 onward, control of the town was sold to various Arab rulers, and from c. 1780 it was controlled by Muscat (now a governorate of Oman). In 1868, during Oman's decline, the town reverted to Persian rule.
Modern history
In the 1980s, the name "Gameron" was changed in favor of "Bandar Abbas", following similar movements with Iranian names (see Iran naming dispute).
Bandar Abbas serves as a major shipping point for mostly imports, and has a long history of trade with India. Thousands of tourists visit the city and nearby islands including Qeshm and Hormuz every year.
Bandar Abbas is situated on flat ground with an average altitude of 9 m (30 ft) above sea level. The nearest elevated areas are Mt. Geno, 17 km (11 mi) to the north, and Mt. Pooladi, 16 km (10 mi) to the northwest of the city. The closest river to Bandar Abbas is the River Shoor, which is rooted from Mt. Geno and pours into the Persian Gulf, 10 km (6 mi) east of the city.
Bandar Abbas has a hot and humid climate. Maximum temperature in summers can reach up to 49 °C (120 °F) while in winters the minimum temperature drops to about 5 °C (40 °F). The annual rainfall is around 251 mm (1 in) and the relative humidity is 66%.
minimum average temperature (°F) 53.8 57.2 63.5 69.6 76.5 82.4 86.5 86.2 81.9 74.3 64.4 56.3
maximum average temperature (°F) 74.3 75.9 81.9 88.9 97.3 101.1 100.8 99.9 98.2 95 86.7 77.9
rainfall (in inches) 1.56 1.87 1.37 0.42 0.19 0 0.02 0.09 0.03 0.05 0.2 0.94
days of rain 3.3 3.1 2.6 1.3 0.2 0 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.4 2.3
Source : World Meteorological Organization
Bandar Abbas International Airport has capacity and facilities for landing large transport airplanes.
Bandar Abbas is accessible via the following highways:
 - Bandar Abbas-Sirjan, 300 km (186 mi) to the northeast.
 - Bandar Abbas-Kerman, 484 km (301 mi) to the northeast.
 - Bandar Abbas-Shiraz, 650 km (404 mi) to the north.
 - Bandar Abbas-Zahedan, 722 km (449 mi) to the east.
Original Bandaris (residents of Bandar Abbas) speak Bandari (بندری), a dialect of Persian. Bandari may be similar to Middle Persian and Balochi. Bandari has loanwords from various European languages (e.g. tawāl, "towel") and Arabic (e.g. atā [اتا], "to come").
 - Transit goods, dates, citrus, tobacco, fishery; Bandar Abbas was formerly famous for its export of Iranian pottery, known as "gombroon".
# Bandar Abbas University of Medical Sciences
# University of Hormozgan
# Islamic Azad University of Bandar Abbas
See also
External links
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text:
Bypass Increases Efficiency and Safety During WWTP Upgrades
Automated electric-driven bypass system used four stages of pumps to scale to dewatering needsView PDF
An Eastern U.S. wastewater treatment plant with planned infrastructure improvements needed a year-long bypass of treated water discharge during its construction process.
The bypass required pumping for up to 56 million gallons a day of treated water from a 2,500 gallon pit. Due to the size of the pit, the plant required a highly sensitive and automatic bypass system that could scale pumping rates up and down on the fly as effluent demanded.
Rain for Rent developed a four-stage automated pumping system triggered by submersible transducers. As water levels in the pit varied, the electric DV400 16" pumps were automatically throttled by variable frequency drives (VFD) controlled by pre-programmed analog data reporting units (AnDRU Boxes).
Treated water was bypassed from the pit and discharged.The automated system allowed construction on the new plant upgrades to proceed as planned, without interruption from increased effluent or storm water.


text:
A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 2. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1967.
This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved.
10. THE HOUSE OF DOMINICAN FRIARS OF GUILDFORD
Queen Eleanor of Provence, the widow of Henry III., founded a house of Dominican friars at Guildford, on the east bank of the river, a little to the north of the High Street, on the site where the militia barracks formerly stood, at the end of Friary Street, opposite to the royal park across the river; but the exact date of the foundation is not known. The late Father Palmer in his essay on this house (fn. 1) has made it manifest that the Dominicans were not established at Guildford at the time of the death of the young prince Henry, which took place at Guildford on 20 October 1274. Further he has offered fairly satisfactory proof that this house was founded by Eleanor of Provence, in affectionate remembrance of her grandson, and that the foundress listened to the desire of the young prince's mother in the choice of the order, for Eleanor of Castile was the nursing mother of the friar-preachers. The heart of the boy prince was deposited in the church of this priory, and was solemnly exposed as the anniversary of his death came round. On 17 May 1306 the Princes Thomas and Edmund, sons of Edward I. by his second wife, Margaret of France, were present in this church at a mass for the soul of their half-brother, and made an offering of 21d.
On 6 March 1275 Edward I. granted to the friars a road leading from Guildford to the royal park, to be enclosed for enlarging their area. (fn. 2)
Various benefactors were forthcoming to assist the friars in the erection of their church and house. John de Westpurle gave the timber for the dorter and £100 in money to the building fund. Sir Hugh Fitz Otho built the quire, and Lady Clarisan gave the stalls. (fn. 3) The king granted them four oaks fit for timber out of Guildford Park in 1294 as well as two leafless oaks fit for fuel. (fn. 4) In 1298 Edward I. granted them six more leafless trees from the same place for a like purpose. (fn. 5) The king was at Guildford in May 1302, when he gave 4s. to the friars for a day's food on three separate occasions. On 18 May he was present at the mass in their church celebrated for the soul of Sir Arnold Gavaston, and made an oblation of 5s. 4d. Edward II. on coming to Guildford in 1324 gave 8s. to the twenty-four friars for a day's food. Edward III. at visits paid to Guildford in 1331, 1334, 1336 and 1337 made like gifts for a day's food at 4d. a head, according to the number then in residence, which varied from 24 to 17. (fn. 6)
Henry IV. was at Guildford on 12 February 1403. The king and royal family lodged at the friary, and before leaving a gift of 40s. was made to cover the damage done to the house vessels and gardens in entertaining the royal guests. (fn. 7) By letters patent of 4 November 1504, Henry VII. granted to Prior Venables and the convent 40 cartloads for firewood every year out of the royal park at Henley and the common of Worfesdon; in return for this, two masses were to be celebrated every week by two friars at the Lady Altar for the good estate of the king, of Margaret his mother, of Henry, Prince of Wales, and his other children, and for their souls after death. (fn. 8)
In the University Library, Cambridge, is an obituary calendar of Guildford Friary, which gives the names and dates of the death of the priors and other persons connected with the house. (fn. 9)
In the year 1318 Edward II., desirous of carrying out the intentions of his mother to found a monastery of Dominican sisters, formed the economical design of refounding this house and appropriating it to Dominican sisters instead of friars. To further his project he wrote divers letters to Pope John XXII. in 1318-9, and eventually despatched two Dominican friars, Richard de Burton and Andrew de Aslakeby, to Rome to plead in person. (fn. 10) It was proposed to endow this nunnery, intended to support seven Dominican sisters, with the appropriation of the Hampshire rectory of Kingsclere. The Bishop of Winchester was persuaded to support the scheme, and he also wrote to the pope soliciting permission to appropriate Kingsclere to the contemplated nunnery. But the various applications failed, and the friars continued to hold the house according to the original foundation. (fn. 11)
On 20 June 1321 Bishop Asserio licenced Richard de Erberfelde, Thomas de Leddrede, Richard de Guildford, William de Newport, John de Dene, Geoffrey de Godalming and William Mandeville, friars of Guildford, to hear confessions and to preach. (fn. 12)
Pope Benedict XII. in 1336 issued a mandate to the Bishop of Winchester, the abbot of Netley and the prior of St. Denis to carry out ordinances and concessions touching those who left religious orders, having special reference to Arnold Lym, of the order of Friars Preachers, who had left the convent of that order at Guildford, and desired to be reconciled. (fn. 13)
Richard Fitz Alan, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, by will dated 4 March 1393, ordered that the houses of friars should be looked after by his executors, especially those of Arundel and Guildford, as they were bound to pray for the souls of his father, mother, wife and himself. Sir Reginald Bray, knight, was also a benefactor. By his will, proved 28 November 1503, he bequeathed to every house of friars in England 40s. to pray for his soul for two years, and to the friars of the house where his mother lay buried the large sum of £200, at the rate of £10 a year, to say mass for the souls of Dame Katherine his wife, Richard his father and Jane his mother.
Henry VIII. built himself a hunting lodge within the precincts, and professed great love and affection for the friary. Among the privy purse expenses of Henry VIII. in July 1530 is a 'reward' of £5 to the friars of Guildford, and also the large sum (evidently for some special service) of £12 10s., through the Duke of Norfolk, to a friar called Anserois at Guildford. The gift of £5 to the friars was renewed in July 1531. (fn. 14) It has been conjectured that these gifts were in return for the labours of some of the community, who were known to be skilled in horticulture, in laying out the royal gardens and grounds at Guildford as mentioned hereafter.
The treaty with Scotland was ratified by Henry VIII. at the house of the Blackfriars, Guildford, on 2 August 1534, in the presence of Robert, abbot of Kinlos, ambassador of Scotland, the Bishop of Winchester, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Northumberland, Thomas Cromwell and others. (fn. 15)
John Hilsey, Bishop of Rochester, wrote to Cromwell on 10 August 1536, in favour of the friars of Guildford, begging that the king would grant them a perpetual alms for the relief of their poverty. (fn. 16) This was followed by a petition to the Crown direct from the Friars Preachers. They stated that their house, which was now of Queen Jane's foundation and whose first foundress was Queen Eleanor, the wife of Henry III., together with the place of honour that the king had built within their precincts, were now decaying; that they had no property, but lived on alms which had of late much fallen off, so that they often wanted even food, and were unable to serve the king 'in setting out trimming and fashioning ground and gardens about the king's place,' and that they begged the 'grant of some "benefice" prebend, free chapel, corrody, commandry or order and governing over any house of alms and prayers.' (fn. 17)
Sir William, the treasurer of the household, writing to Cromwell on 1 August 1537 from Guildford, which Henry VIII. was about to visit, recommended him to lodge at the parsonage of St. Nicholas 'as the Freres is but a little house and will be sore pestered at the King's being there.' (fn. 18) In October of that year the king, after his sojourn at this friary, granted William Cobden, the prior, and the house of the Black Friars, Guildford, an annuity of 20 marks in pure alms. (fn. 19) The friars had however no enjoyment of this annuity, for the house was 'surrendered' by Prior Cobden and six other friars to the 'lord visitor' on 10 October 1538. (fn. 20)
By 'the lord visitor' is meant Richard Ingworth, the renegade friar, then suffraganbishop of Dover. The visitor sold certain goods to pay the debt of the house, and drew up the following inventory:—
'The Black Freers of Gilforde.'
This Indenture makit


There has been a huge hue and cry about the unavailability of consumer data with the Indian utilities. However, the question that needs to be asked is that whether we have really made an effort to collect the right data set? And if we have, do we have the processes to continuously update the database and maintain it?In this post, I've tried to list down baby-steps that would go a long way in creating a reliable and comprehensive customer database through the Consumer Indexing (CI) process.
# 1 Create consensus on how the data is required across the teams within utility
A lot needs to be done to really come to a common consensus across the utility stakeholders about how the utility plans to use the consumer data, not just to create a database because it's a mandate in the contract. This would also require the utility to project and decide how the data will be maintained finally when the utility operations smoothen up in due course.
Further, one also needs to take a call on what data is the priority and when and how it will be collected
# 2 Create a methodology to collect the data
Now, most widely used methodology currently adopted is the consumer surveys or consumer indexing, as many call it. However, the whole process is extremely tedious and static. One needs to think destructively to really create a methodology which will be, not just fast, but also reliable enough to feed data continuously to the other internal teams.
This could encompass use of social media to really entice and engage the customers to voluntarily post their data and update their data.
What precaution needs to be taken is to adopt a infrastructure to really accept data from multiple sources and consolidate the same into one piece of data.
# 3 Support systems needs to be designed and put in place to receive and organize the customer data
As the process of consumer data upgradation picks up pace, the utility should really be ready to receive huge chunks of data from various sources – viz. legacy systems, new connections, on-field checks, consumer indexing process, social media, etc.
I believe that MS Excel is fairly strong a tool to manage such data, provided the data structure is correctly created. At the same time, appropriate end-to-end integration needs to be done for the data collection methodology.
# 4 Selecting the right tool for the right data
GIS systems, though being one of the latest of technologies adopted by the utilities, has a major drawback. The data once imported into a GIS system is static. A GIS system will always take only that data as input that you'll feed to the system without doing any sanity check.
Now this creates a major loop hole in the system that can only be fixed by selecting a robust tool for data collection. This tool should also take into account that at times, the data might need to be collected from the field. Our experience in the field of customer data collection has proved that even a simple smart phone integrated with web-based forms is good enough. However, a well-designed consumer survey form is the easiest of all techniques used to initially populate the customer database.
Once the base-data is ready, the Billing Centers and Customer Care Centers should be developed to act as the nodal touch-points to gather the customer data on a more regular process.
# 5 Create the right training and monitoring modules
Even with the best of the methods and tools, without a systematic training and monitoring methodology, a good consumer indexing process could go for a toss. Right tools for training, and data audits are indispensable parts of the CI process
One of the speakers at the recently concluded India Utility Knowledge and Networking Conference (12-Feb-2013, New Delhi) pointed out that the utilities will go slow when it comes to adoption of technology and partner with smaller, local players to help them roll out the operations. We believe that there is a whole lot of internal thinking that needs to go in to really ensure that the utilities hit the ground running. Lack of clarity from the utility, coupled with the inefficiencies of the local players could kill the effort spent in the consumer indexing process.
Further readings: Putting your best foot forward – Best Practices in Consumer Indexing
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2010-08-05
Using ref Keyword with Reference Types in C#
One of our developers was using the ref keyword in a method that needed to replace the value of a property of the method's parameter.
In other words...
public class Person
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Email { get; set; }
}
public static class ReferenceExample
{
public static void Main()
{
var person = new Person
{
Name = "Mark",
Email = "_EMAIL_",
};
Save(ref person);
Console.WriteLine(person.ID);
Console.ReadLine();
}
public static void Save(ref Person person)
{
person.ID = 1; // Pretend this saves to a database or something
}
}
The thinking is correct. Person needs to be passed by reference. So why not use the ref keyword, right? Well...Person is already a reference type. So if we are just replacing properties, we don't need the ref keyword. Removing it changes nothing with our code. The program still outputs 1.
This begs the question -- Why even have the ref keyword? The reason for it is to pass the entire parameter by reference. This means that we can redefine a newly instantiated person.
In other words...
public static class ReferenceExample
{
public static void Main()
{
var person = new Person
{
Name = "Mark",
Email = "_EMAIL_",
};
Save(ref person);
Console.WriteLine(person.ID);
Console.WriteLine(person.Name);
Console.ReadLine();
}
public static void Save(ref Person person)
{
person = new Person
{
Name = "Bill",
Email = "_EMAIL_",
ID = 2,
};
}
}
Try running the above with and without the ref keyword. If you use it with the ref keyword, the Person will be "Bill". If you use it without, the person will be "Mark".
Seems simple enough but I'm surprised how many developers don't (or didn't!) realize this difference.
No comments:


text:
electrochemical analysis...reaction occurs, electrons are withdrawn from the electrode (for electrochemical reductions) or donated to the electrode (for oxidations), and a current flows in the external electrical circuit. A voltammogram is a plot of the current as a function of the applied potential. The shape of a voltammogram depends on the type of indicator electrode and the potential ramp that are used. In nearly...
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