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A Q&A with John Carty, anthropologist and co-curator of our new exhibition, Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route.
John is currently Research Associate at the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University. He was kind enough to talk to us about Yiwarra Kuju, providing us with some fascinating insights into an already fascinating exhibition.
Q: What is this exhibition about?
John: At first glance, you'd assume the exhibition is about the Canning Stock Route, an 1800 kilometre droving track that ran through the heart of Western Australia and was created to provide another avenue for bringing cattle from the north to the south of the state.
But the stock route, the way it was made, and its impact on desert waters and people, has had a complicated legacy for desert people to this day.
As surveyor, Canning's job was to find water at regular intervals – a days walk apart – to bore wells for the cattle to drink from. To do this, he needed Aboriginal guides. Some were willing helpers, but several of these guides were used against their will.
The manner in which the water was located and secured for white colonial commerce cast a shadow longer and wider than the route itself. It is one that people express in their art today. While none of the artists in this exhibition were alive in 1906 when Canning first went through, most of them grew up in the desert watching these strange white men and their cattle passing through their Country.
Yiwarra Kuju tries to show that Aboriginal beliefs and values are not as mysterious or far removed from the average punter as they are often portrayed. We want to move people beyond the notion that Aboriginal Country is just landscape. And to give them an intimate understanding of Country – of the waterholes that people paint, as 'home', as a part of themselves.
Yiwarra Kuju means 'one road' in the Martu language. We've used 'one road' to bind the art, people and story of the Western Desert together. We use the Canning Stock Route as the meeting point, as the cross-cultural scaffolding on which to develop an understanding of Aboriginal Country, and the shared history that happened within it.
Q: What can visitors expect when they enter?
John: A visually stunning, and technologically pioneering exhibition. It is not what you would expect of a fine art show, and it's probably not what people would expect of a museum show either.
We make paintings the visual stars, but not at the expense of story. The two go together, they need each other. If anything, it is a museum show wrapped in a fine art show. And it is driven at every point by the voices of the Aboriginal artists and professionals involved in the project.
Q: What do you hope visitors take away from the exhibition?
John: Visitors, regardless of their levels of understanding of Australian History, Aboriginal art or Aboriginal Culture, can expect to be surprised, entertained by the playful and interactive qualities of the show, but also, we hope, a little challenged.
It's a great entry point for tourists, or people visiting Australia, as it provides an introduction to Aboriginal Culture, Aboriginal Art and Australian History all in one.
It's also wonderful show for kids, and families, because we've created some pioneering technology (basically a 10 meter long IPAD touch-screen which allows kids to explore their interests, or just play, in their own way), which captivates younger audiences in ways that basic social histories rarely do.
It's an exhibition for people who think they know nothing about Aboriginal art. Unlike so many exhibitions in fine art galleries, it invites you in and gives you a range of different ways of learning how to see and read these paintings.
That said, it is also an exhibition for people who think they know a lot about Aboriginal art, and particularly desert art. Yiwarra Kuju, because we took the importance of Country so seriously in curating the show, challenges a lot of the tired platitudes and preconceptions that govern the display of Aboriginal art at the moment.
Q: What are some of the highlights in your opinion?
John: Obviously the touch screen technology I mentioned before is a huge highlight of the exhibition, but my personal highlight is probably Patrick Tjungurrayi's big pink painting, Canning Stock Route Country.
It might not be the best painting in the show, everyone has their tastes, but for me it is without doubt the most interesting work of art. During the research for the Canning Stock Route project, Patrick accompanied this painting, as he was painting it, with a series of oral histories that illuminate his Country and artistry in revelatory ways.
The top line of white squares is actually the Canning Stock Route, the bottom line is the Dreaming. As he unfolded this line out into the painting, he also unpacked his memory as we were driving through the desert rolling and unrolling it each day and painting it at different sites along the Canning Stock Route during the project.
Most people don't paint these great dreaming narratives over vast distances. Most people don't document multiple historical events in one painting and most people don't feel authorised to paint this much. However, everyone paints combinations of this kind of content when they paint their Country, because the dreaming is inseparable from the land, from family, from history and the currents of your own life.
Q: How did this exhibition come to be?
John: It began with a series of workshops run through the FORM Canning Stock Route project, the principal expression of which was the enormous Return to Country trip we undertook in 2007.
On this trip we sought to invert the processes of history by bringing all the artists and storytellers who had left that Country back to the Canning Stock Route to tell their stories. We travelled along the Route for a month or so, visiting sites, and recording Aboriginal oral histories of that Country. And at various places we would stop for a few days and the artists for that Country would paint.
As this process unfolded, we realised that people were painting far more than just a history of the stock route from an Aboriginal perspective, they were offering a radically different perspective on history itself.
So when we translated and transcribed all the stories, and connected them to the paintings that had been produced, it was clear we weren't telling an Aboriginal history of the stock route, but a bigger story about the Country, about family and Dreaming and the world the stock route cut across.
I think it was around late 2008 when the National Museum of Australia decided that the collection might need a bigger audience too. Through the vision of people like Mike Pickering, they acquired it. But we still had to find a way to structure the story, to anchor all that complexity into an experience that audiences could relate to. We spent a couple of years working through this curatorial problem with our cross-cultural team.
The logic of the show will change slightly in different venues, but the main objective was to create an experience so that when you're inside the exhibition, you are walking around inside the country. You start in the southern end of the stock route, and wend your way north up the Kimberley, passing through people's country and the history that unfolded there. History happens where it happens.
Q: You have worked extensively throughout the Western Desert and Kimberleys – what drew you to this area?
John: I was drawn to work in the desert initially by the same kinds feelings that underscore this exhibition. There was a story out there, a story in which I was implicated just by being Australian, a story that I knew nothing about.
It's ridiculous; I somehow managed to get a degree in Anthropology without knowing anything about the people of my home Country. I wanted to know more, I wanted to find a way in to understanding the people of this country, their story of Australia, but I guess like many people I didn't know where to begin.
I think its a really common feeling – particularly among older generations who never had access to Aboriginal history in school. Art was my window, my way in.
So I set out to write my PhD on the Balgo artists, many of whom are represented in the Yiwarra Kuju exhibition. I spent three years living in Balgo learning about what it is that people paint, but more importantly learning about the people who are doing the painting.
That work in Balgo, and my familiarity with desert artists and languages, lead to my involvement in the FORM Canning Stock Route project. Tim Acker and Carly Davenport were developing the project in 2006, and asked me if I'd come along the stock route for a month or so to record the artists stories and make cups of tea.
A few weeks ago I was in Perth for the opening there, where all the CHOGM delegates got to see the show, and I was still fetching cups of tea. Nothing much has changed, except that now, there's an exhibition travelling around the Country that tells an important story, an exhibition I can take my kids to and know that they won't grow up ignorant in the same way I did.


text:
By Li Xuehua
According to German media reports, the Defense Ministers of Germany and the Netherlands signed an agreement in Brussels recently to build "Tactical Edge Networking" (TEN) between the two countries.
The first shared military network in the world
It is reported that the TEN is the world's first trans-national military sharing Internet. Germany and the Netherlands will make use of this network to achieve the digital exchanges of multinational military information.
The German magazine Forbes said NATO hoped that its members would share military networks in the future and use improved joint network standards in a unified way to achieve the ultimate goal of military integration.
However, due to concerns in politics, security, etc., NATO members are reluctant to do so. Even Germany and the Netherlands which often work together on overseas missions have problems of poor information exchanges. It is for this reason that the two countries agreed to merge certain military networks and establish shared information channels, which surprised the outside world.
No longer restricted military e-communications between two countries
Headquartered in Koblenz, Germany, TEN's design and prototype center will reside at the Bernard Barracks in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.
As the first part of integration, communications between the Bundeswehr land-based operations (D-LBO) of German Ground Force and the 'FOXTROT' tactical communications program of Dutch Ministry of Defence will be unified. At that time, the two systems will be integrated and used jointly by the German and Dutch militaries.
In order to ensure the smooth operation of the combined network, the two countries will also equip the same hardware such as computers, radios, tablets and telephones for the troops accessing the TEN.
European defence experts said that since 1949, NATO has been pursuing the interconnection of military information among members, but it has not been properly resolved.
The TEN may promote the network integration among NATO members and promote the development of NATO military integration.
The TEN is only a sharing network at the tactical level. Through this network, Germany and the Netherlands will realize tactical sharing in Ultra High Frequency(UHF) and Very High Frequency (VHF) bands without country restrictions or entry barriers.
European defense experts said, "This will help the two countries communicate more smoothly in the battlefield, so as to ensure that they occupy and maintain an active position in a rapidly changing battlefield."
German media said that if the TEN operates successfully, Berlin and Amsterdam will promote the further development of the network. By 2030, the pair will realize military network sharing at all levels and truly realize unrestricted electronic communications.
The move to build a "De-Americanized Internet"
Philip Ingram, a retired colonel in British military intelligence, said that the European members of NATO had been dreaming of building an independent military Internet for many years, but for political reasons, the shared military Internet had not been built.
He believes that the current global Internet is largely controlled by the United States, "Americans reserve backdoors on the Internet, which poses a great threat to the security of network users.
At present, there is a trend of 'De-Americanization in internet' in major countries of the world. They are developing their own computer operating system to replace the American Windows system".
The forthcoming Dutch-German TEN will also maximize the localization of operating systems and hardware devices.
Once the TEN is successfully established, NATO's European members would be able to get rid of the influence and control of the United States in the field of network.
In this regard, European defence experts believe that this would meet the need for national and regional security.
(The article was published in Chinese on the Chinese Defense Newspaper on July 9, 2019.)

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


text:
The Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 (commenced 27 June) allowed the detention of an individual by a policeman of rank lieutenant-colonel or greater. Terrorism was very broadly defined in the Act and included most common criminal behaviour. People could be held indefinitely since the act allowed detention until all questions were satisfactorily answered or until no further useful purpose would be achieved by keeping the person in detention. Those held under the act were only permitted to be visited by a magistrate one every two weeks. No one else was allowed access (except the police and security services, of course).
Unlike the previous 90-day (General Law Amendment Act No 37 of 1963) and 180-day (Criminal Procedure Amendment Act No 96 of 1965) detention laws the public was not entitled to information about people held, including their identity this meant that people could effectively 'disappear' for official legal reasons.
In order to cover those arrested for the Rivonia trial and for anti-Apartheid acts in both South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) the Act was applied retroactively to 27 June 1962.
Repealed by the Internal Security and Intimidation Amendment Act 138 of 1991.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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Standard Concentration Curve and Absolute Concentration Determination
A standard concentration curve can be generated for absolute quantitation experiments using increasing concentrations of the "heavy peptide" in the presence of a constant amount of the biological sample of interest. The biological sample of interest, termed "matrix" contains the "light" version of the same peptide and therefore acts as a constant internal standard. For cases where we do not have matrix containing endogenous light peptide we synthesize a non-isotopic version termed "light" and use this as the constant internal standard in the curve. Our typical concentration curves contain five heavy peptide serial dilutions, a blank (no heavy peptide with constant light peptide), and double blank (matrix only) and each sample is run in triplicate for a total of 21 runs. Data from all 21 runs are imported into AB Multiquant Software where a linear calibration curve with a weighting of 1/x is used. Once the calibration curve is generated, the biological samples (unknowns) can be processed, measuring the amount of the endogenous 'light' peptide present in each sample. The "heavy" peptide is added into each biological sample at a fixed concentration and acts as the internal standard for these samples. Using the calibration curve generated above, the actual concentration of peptide in the biological sample can be computed from the ratio of the endogenous peptide (light) to the added internal standard (heavy).

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
During the Alissé mission, ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang (SE) flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery STS-128 mission to the ISS in August 2009, spending nearly 14 days in space. He was accompanied by NASA astronauts Frederick Sturckow, Kevin Ford, Patrick Forrester, José Hernández, John Olivas and Nicole Stott.
Selected from around 190 suggestions, the winning name for Fuglesang's mission was proposed by Jürgen Modlich from Baierbrunn, Germany. The name refers one of the most famous trade winds, the alizé (or alize), used by 15th century explorers who used the winds to follow Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. Alize is a steady north-easterly wind that blows across central Africa to the shores of America. By changing the letters 'iz' to 'iss', the target of today's explorers is encompassed in the mission name: Alissé.
The patch for the Alissé mission features a bird's wing enclosing images of the ISS and Shuttle, either side of two sets of horizontal lines. The horizontal lines symbolise different aspects of the mission: two lines represent the two spacewalks to be undertaken by Fuglesang during the mission. Another two symbolise the Shuttle and ISS in their separate orbits as they close for docking. They also represent the two ESA astronauts on the ISS during the mission. The four lines
together represent the four space agencies of the astronauts on the ISS during the mission. The letters 'ISS' are highlighted in the mission name after mission's target.


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Effect of Cable Diameter on Soil Drying
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Effect of Cable Diameter on Soil Drying
In the case of a cable installed underground, one mechanism by which heat is removed from the cable is the conduction of heat through surrounding soil drying. The amount of heat generated in the cable is determined by the current and varies with the square of the current. In the case of a cable installed underground there are three mechanisms by which heat is removed from the cable: conduction of heat through surrounding soil, removal of heat by vaporizing soil moisture which then migrates away from the cable, and absorption of heat by the surrounding soil thereby increasing the soil temperature. The first two methods are the most important.
Since the cable has a maximum temperature limit, its ampacity will be determined by the rate at which heat is carried away. The conductive heat rate is dependent upon the thermal resistivity of the soil; the lower the resistivity the faster the heat will be conducted away. The resistivity, in turn, is principally controlled by the amount of moisture in the soil.
Higher moisture content results in lower thermal resistivity because water fills in the air voids between soil particles aiding the conduction of heat between particles. In addition to heat conduction, part of the heat is carried away by vaporizing the soil moisture in contact with the cable. This vapor migrates away from the cable thereby drying the soil in contact with the cable. Unless this moisture can be replenished from the surrounding soil quickly enough, the soil in contact with the cable will dry and increase in thermal resistivity. This reduces the conduction of heat away from the cable causing it to overheat.
Some sources have found that rather than changing in resistivity gradually as the soil is heated, it may change suddenly. In some cases a soil may exhibit a wet resistivity value which is constant until a point called the "effective drying time". At that point the soil resistivity quickly increases in value and rapidly attains a dry resistivity value, which may be many times larger than the wet resistivity. The same sources also suggest that the time it takes soil to effectively dry after the application of heat is based on the square of the cable diameter.
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Effect of Cable Diameter on Soil Drying


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1.The cohesive quality of this products is produced from static adsorption, so it won't produce secondary pollution when using as packing materials.
2.Due to the high transparency, it can make the packaged products looks more beautiful. It protects the packed goods from being polluted ,corroded and scratched during the process of transporting and straggling.
3.PVC Cable Wrapper film is soft ,self-adhesive ,water soluble and good in tensile capability, retraction strength ,bears the
puncture capability well.


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Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed a novel iPhone application that may enable persons with Parkinson's disease and certain other neurological conditions to use the ubiquitous devices to collect data on hand and arm tremors and relay the results to medical personnel.
The researchers believe the application could replace subjective tests now used to assess the severity of tremors, while potentially allowing more frequent patient monitoring without costly visits to medical facilities.
The program – known as iTrem – could be offered later this year by the App Store, an Apple Inc. website that sells iPhone applications. But iTrem will first undergo a clinical study at Emory University and must receive any required approvals from the Food and Drug Administration.
"We expect iTrem to be a very useful tool for patients and their caregivers," said Brian Parise, a research scientist who is principal investigator for the project along with Robert Delano, another GTRI research scientist. "And as a downloadable application, it also promises to be convenient and cost-effective."
iTrem utilizes the iPhone's built-in accelerometer to collect data on a patient in his or her home or office. The application directly tracks tremor information currently, and in the future will use simple puzzle games to record tremor data, which will then be processed and transmitted.
The researchers expect the clinical trial to show that data gathered by the program would allow physicians to remotely monitor the degree of disability, progression and medication response among patients with tremor-related conditions. In addition, iTrem offers a social component that allows people to share stories, pictures and data.
iTrem's developers are working with the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) to form a startup company based on iTrem and future applications that might take advantage of iPhone capabilities. ATDC is a startup accelerator based at Georgia Tech that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful technology companies.
The GTRI team plans ongoing development of iTrem's interface, based on responses from doctors and patients. They're also investigating other consumer technologies with diagnostic potential, including the tiny gyroscopes now available in some cellular phones.
Future developments will include the addition of several other Parkinson's related tests and investigation of gait analysis in a joint effort with the University of South Florida and the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, Fla. Additional developments may utilize the phone for detecting and analyzing dyskinesia, a movement disorder.
More than 10 million people in the U.S. have tremor-related disease, including Parkinson's, essential tremor and multiple sclerosis, Delano said. Data collected by iTrem could enhance research on tremor disorders, in addition to supporting treatment for current patients, he added.
Most current measurement techniques used by doctors are subjective and are performed infrequently, Delano said. Complex diagnostic procedures such as electroencephalography and electromyography are objective and thorough, but are rarely performed because they're lengthy, expensive and require a clinical setting. The result is that little data about tremor has been available to track the effectiveness of medication and therapy over time.
By contrast, he said, the ease of gathering tremor data with iTrem could help lead to a significant expansion of research in this area, as a wealth of objective data is collected and analyzed.
"Even factoring in the cost of an iPhone, using iTrem is likely to be more convenient and less expensive for patients than office visits, and the data are accurate and abundant," Delano said.
A clinical study involving iTrem use is expected to start soon at Emory University's Movement Disorder Clinic. The study will be led by Dr. Stewart Factor, a researcher in the field of Parkinson's disease at the Emory School of Medicine.
The GTRI development team presented a paper on iTrem in January at the 2011 International Conference on Health Informatics.
Delano explained that the development of iTrem was linked to his own diagnosis with Parkinson's disease several years ago. He eventually became frustrated with the subjective approaches commonplace in the characterizing of patient tremor symptoms.
"Currently, doctors observe tremor during office visits and rate it on a subjective scale of zero to four. That approach seemed outdated to me, considering all the technology now available," Delano said. "My wife Heather, who's an engineer, remarked that maybe that we could try putting some accelerometers on my arm. That made me think of the accelerometer in the iPhone – and here we are."
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Quick Answer: What Does Heaped Spoonful Mean?
What size is a tablespoon?
A metric tablespoon is exactly equal to 15 mL (0.51 US fl oz)..
How much does a tablespoon of flour weigh in ounces?
How many spoons is an ounce?
2 tablespoons1 US fluid ounce (oz) is equal to 2 tablespoons (tbsp).
What does crouched mean?
Meaning of crouched in English to bend your knees and lower yourself so that you are close to the ground and leaning forward slightly: She saw him coming and crouched (down) behind a bush.
Is a heaped tablespoon an ounce?
A rounded tablespoon means there is as much of the product you are measuring above the top edge of the spoon as there is in the "bowl" of the spoon. A heaped tablespoon means as much as you can get on the spoon without it falling off. … A stick of butter is equal to half a cup, 4 ounces, 8 tablespoons or 113 grams.
What is a heaped teaspoon?
Dry ingredients A rounded teaspoon is a larger but less precise measure, produced by heaping the ingredient as high as possible without leveling the ingredient off. A heaping or heaped teaspoon is an even larger inexact measure consisting of the amount obtained by scooping the dry ingredient up without leveling it off.
Which spoon is a table spoon?
A plastic tablespoon and teaspoon. A tablespoon is a unit of measure equal to 1/16 cup, 3 teaspoons, or 1/2 fluid ounce in the USA. It is either approximately or (in some countries) exactly equal to 15 mL. "Tablespoon" may be abbreviated as T (note: uppercase letter), tbl, tbs or tbsp.
How much does a tablespoon of sugar weigh in ounces?
0.44 ozOne tablespoon of granulated sugar converted to ounce equals to 0.44 oz. How many ounces of granulated sugar are in 1 tablespoon? The answer is: The change of 1 tbsp ( tablespoon ) unit in a granulated sugar measure equals = into 0.44 oz ( ounce ) as per the equivalent measure and for the same granulated sugar type.
What does Wise mean?
adjective, wis·er, wis·est. having the power of discerning and judging properly as to what is true or right; possessing discernment, judgment, or discretion. characterized by or showing such power; judicious or prudent: a wise decision.
Should a teaspoon be heaped?
It is inherently less precise than a level teaspoon. 1 heaping tsp means you pretty much try to get as big a pile of sugar onto the spoon as you can, without spilling it. It's a little over a smidgen more than a rounded teaspoon. Helpful hint: Don't try to measure a heaping teaspoon when dealing with liquids.
What does heaped mean?
1 : a collection of things thrown one on another : pile. 2 : a great number or large quantity : lot. heap. verb. heaped; heaping; heaps.
How many tablespoons are in a scoop?
1.5 tablespoons(about 1.5 tablespoons per scoop).
How many teaspoons are in a heaping teaspoon?
1 1/3 tspThe exact answer will depend on the teaspoon you are using, but with mine, 1 heaped teaspoon is around 1 1/3 tsp, or just under 7ml.
What does heaping cup mean?
A heaping cup is 1 cup plus 1-2 tablespoons (for liquid measures it is called a generous cup) and a scant cup is 1 cup minus 1-2 tablespoons. We have already posted some basic conversions from cups to weight for common items like flour and sugar.


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Delonix Regia Red Royal Ponciana Flamboyan Rojo 20 seeds
The flowers are large, with four spreading scarlet or orange-red petals up to 8 cm long, and a fifth upright petal called the standard, which is slightly larger and spotted with yellow and white. The naturally occurring variety flavida (Bengali: Radhachura) has yellow flowers. Seed pods are dark brown and can be up to 60 cm long and 5 cm wide; the individual seeds, however, are small, weighing around 0.4 g on average. The compound leaves have a feathery appearance and are a characteristic light, bright green. They are doubly pinnate: Each leaf is 30–50 cm long and has 20 to 40 pairs of primary leaflets or pinnae on it, and each of these is further divided into 10-20 pairs of secondary leaflets or pinnules.
Package contains 20 Flamboyant seeds


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The Evidence Integration Triangle for Management of Behavioral Psychological Symptoms of Dementia
AuthorAnderson, Courtney E.
MetadataShow full item record
Other TitlesEIT-4-BPSD Manuscript
AbstractProblem and Purpose Behavioral Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) are described as symptoms of apathy, agitation, inappropriate vocalization, aggression, wandering, and resistance to care. Incorrectly managing BPSD can lead to the improper administration of psychotropic medications, which can negatively impact the health and quality of life for residents with dementia. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement the Evidence Integration Triangle for Management of Behavioral Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (EIT-4-BPSD) in a nursing home. The Evidence Integration Triangle is a four-step implementation framework that includes participatory implementation processes, provision of practical, evidence-based interventions, and pragmatic measures of progress towards goals. Methods The EIT-4-BPSD was implemented over a ten-week period. The four steps included: Step 1: Assessment of the environment and policies; Step 2: Education of staff; Step 3: Establishing person-centered care plans; and Step 4: Mentoring and motivating staff. Outcomes were evaluated pre and post-implementation. Resident outcomes were obtained from the Minimum Data Set National Database and included: use of psychotropic medications and falls. Staff outcomes included knowledge of person-centered behavioral approaches for BPSD based on a 10-item multiple-choice test. Facility outcomes included evaluation of a random sample of five de-identified care plans to evaluate for evidence of incorporation of person-centered approaches to managing BPSD. Results Patient outcomes revealed a 12.5% decrease in the administration of psychotropic medications and a 5.6% decrease in falls. Nurse's post-test knowledge of person-centered management of BPSD increased from 63.5% to 70% post-implementation. Evidence of established personcentered care plans increased from 40% at baseline to 90% post-implementation. Conclusion The EIT-4-BPSD intervention was practical to implement and provided the staff with information and resources to help integrate person-centered behavioral approaches into care plans and routine clinical care. Ongoing work by the nurse champion is needed to continue to maintain the focus on the use of person-centered behavioral approaches.
Keywordbehavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia
evidence integration triangle (EIT)


code and also reduce the number of bugs found later during testing.
For more information on PreFast, please see PREfast Step-by-Step.
Digitally Sign your Control
A digital signature on your control enables users to verify the control's publisher and ensures that it has not been tampered with since being published. Digital signatures help users make better trust decisions when determining if they should install a control and help identify your control in the Internet Explorer's Add-on Manager.
Digitally signing controls is a vital step if you want users to be able to easily install your control. Users are strongly discouraged from installing unsigned controls, and unsigned controls are blocked from installation by default.
Internet Explorer's Manage Add-Ons dialog displays information about all of the controls on a user's system. (To open the dialog, choose Manage Add- Ons from the Tools menu.) Signing your control will ensure that the Publisher field displays correctly in this list. As you can see in the image below, some of the publishers appear as "(Not Verified)"—these are controls which have not been signed.
The IE7 Mangage Add-Ons dialog box.
If your control is installed by a CAB file or another executable, you must be sure to sign both the installation file (to enable installation) and the .dll or ocx file containing the ActiveX control (to ensure your publisher name shows up without the "Not verified" notice).
For more information, please see the following resources.
Set a Language-Specific Control Name
The name displayed in the Name Field of the Manage Add-Ons dialog is taken from the following registry setting.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
CLSID
{Control CLSID}
AppName="contoso.exe"
(Default)=(REG_SZ)"Control Name"
LocalizedString=(REG_SZ) @%SystemRoot%\system32\contoso.exe,-1060
The LocalizedString value is a REG_SZ string and consists of an "at" sign (@), the full path to a .dll or .exe file, a comma, a minus sign, and a decimal integer (no space between the comma and minus sign). The integer is the ID of a string resource contained within the .dll or .exe file whose value is to be displayed to the user as the name of this client. Note that the file path does not require quotation marks, even if it contains spaces. Manage Add-ons checks this value first, and uses it if it exists. If the localized string does not exist, Internet Explorer falls back to the default English name.
For more information, see Using Registry String Redirection.
How to Judge control Security
The security of a control is ultimately a subjective judgment. The following questions are designed to help you think about the security of your control. You can use them as part of your larger security review.
 - Can you limit domain usage or zone usage? See the section on site-locking your control for more information.
 - Are you exposing the user's private information over the network or to other users?
 - Can you read, write, create, detect or delete arbitrary persisted data either on the file system, the registry, a buddy list, or a camera or other USB devices?
 - Does this control enable data to passing from one Internet site to another? From the intranet to the Internet? From the local computer to the Internet?
 - Can this control host mobile code or script? If so, where does the code or script come from?
 - Does the control cause arbitrary operations or programs to execute on behalf of the user without notice?
 - Does this control circumvent/defeat a specific security feature in the browser, operating system, or another application?
 - Can a Web page use this control to cause the system to become unstable or stop responding?
 - Can this control be used to spy on the user without their knowledge?
 - Is there a possibility for cross-site scripting attacks using this control?
 - Does this control load its own data format? Does this data type have its own security implementation? Does this data type allow macros?
 - Is history, statistical, or debugging information persisted on the local computer? Can a privacy conscious user clear this information? Is the information ever sent over the network? Are globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) used to track users?
These are some other general questions that you should consider as you design your control.
 - Are strings from the network validated, parsed, or filtered? What happens with the strings? What would happen if they contain script? What happens to the strings after they are passed on to another component?
 - Where might there be buffer overruns? Have you done full testing for buffer overruns on all methods, properties, and events?
 - What are you doing to stop an extraneous Web site from invoking the control?
 - If you don't mark the control "safe for scripting" or "safe for initialization", does that disable the purpose of the control? Controls are marked as not safe for scripting or data initialization by default. Don't implement them unless the functionality of the control is hampered without them.
 - Does the control present information to the user such that they can always identify its authenticity? Do you digitally sign the control?
In addition, it is a good idea to document the following information about your control for reference.
 - Methods
 - Properties
 - CLSID
 - Events
 - Owner
 - DLL/OCX name and version
Secure Testing Practices
Validate the control for security using the following four practices.
Create Test Cases based on Threats Identified in the Threat Model
For each threat identified in your threat models, you should create a test case. The test cases should confirm that the identified threat has been mitigated by the design or implementation of your control. While design and developer documentation can describe how a control should behave, only testing can confirm how a control actually does behave.
Penetration Testing
Penetration testing is security testing in which testers aim to circumvent the security features of an application, or in this case, an ActiveX control. Penetration testing includes, but is not limited to, denial of service, stress testing of all network interfaces and fuzz testing of all file formats used by the control. Penetration testing should verify any explicit access controls, such as ACLS and also verify correctness in all code which processes untrusted data. You should also test any security mitigation you may have included in the control. For example, if you site-locked your control, you should do testing of the control on other Web sites to insure that site-locking was properly implemented.
Fuzz Testing
Fuzz testing should be performed on any ActiveX control that handles data. The idea behind fuzz testing is to provide structured but invalid inputs to your control. This kind of testing requires a high volume of test cases, with many variations and mutations in the data that you test the control with. Most often, fuzz testing is done using automated tools. The objective of fuzz testing is not to ensure that your control acts in an expected manner on the invalid data but to ensure that your control acts in a safe manner when given invalid data. Your control should not crash or cause a buffer overrun when handling invalid data.
Fuzz Testing should be done on the following areas of your control.
 - Any methods within the control
 - All parameters used by the control
 - Any data from a remote source, for example if you have a property that takes a URL you should fuzz test the URL itself but you should also fuzz test the file that is downloaded from the URL.
There are two different parameters to consider when choosing the fuzz data you test your control on. The first consideration you might make is whether to use a smart or dumb form of data generation. The differences in these two forms are similar to the difference between black box and white box testing. Dumb data generation, similar to black box testing, generates input without knowledge of the intended data format or processing functions. Smart data generation, similar to white box testing, generates input based on knowledge of the correct data structure and how it is processed in the control. A second consideration when generating data is whether to generate new data or to mutate valid data. Generating new invalid data may be more appropriate when you are doing dumb fuzz testing. Mutating valid data so that it becomes invalid may be more appropriate when you are doing smart fuzz testing. For most controls you will want to use a combination of dumb and smart fuzz testing and generate some of the test data while also mutating other data.
Regression Testing
Regression testing ensures that new changes in the code have not broken any functionality which was previously working. Regression testing needs to be done at every major milestone in the development cycle. It is important to regression test not only on the functionality of your controls but your security test cases as well.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following for their help in preparing and reviewing this article: David Ross, Philip Nachreiner, Eric Lawrence, Mike Friedman, Patrick Mann, Levent Besik, Cullen Sauls, Josh Cain, and Madhuvan Gupta.
Sharon Cohen and Rob Franco are program managers on the Internet Explorer team.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Desaturate an image -- without JavaScript + client side + cross browser
so how to grayscale an arbitrary image at client side?
in Internet Explorer it's a one CSS liner:
_TAG_ { filter: gray }
In webkit and firefox there is currently -- in 2010 -- no way to desaturate an image solely with CSS.
So for a client side solution there is only 2 ways left: canvas and SVG. While the canvas solution is perfectly valid i feel the SVG solution to be more elegant, because with the SVG solution it's only html and css thus only markup language.
The solution
so how do i use SVG to desaturate my image?
basicaly it's only the following 3 snippets of code:

 0.3333 0.3333 0.3333 0 0
 0.3333 0.3333 0.3333 0 0
 0 0 0 1 0"/>

and following CSS code:
_TAG_ { filter:url(_TAG_) }
put the SVG filter element at any position in your html code, but be sure that it's displayed. so amongst others don't use "display: none". in order to hide the SVG element you can use height="0" and width="0" instead.
for firefox becarefull to use the right namespace for your SVG elements. hence be sure to use xhtml or to use the functions createElementNS and setAttributeNS.
If you go the xhtml way don't forget to:
-add following attributes to your html element:
-set the extension of your html file to.xhtml
Arbitrary SVG effect on arbitrary html element?
what about using an arbitrary SVG effect on an arbitrary html element?
in firefox you can simply style any html element with any svg effect using CSS, see _URL_
in webkit you could use the element but unfortunately not all SVG effects works on embeded objects, e.g. see _URL_
in internet explorer use the CSS filter property.
in webkit and firefox use a SVG filter element for the desaturation then use a SVG image element to load your image and finally apply the filter on the image with CSS.
for firefox and webkit you can see a live example on dooity.com -- look at the twitter and facebook icons in the footnote.
 1. very nice blog, man! continue to help us out with your nice articles, Birtoull!
 2. This is awesome, more posts like this one :)
 3. This comment has been removed by the author.
 4. Hey man. Great post!
 I put together a tutorial that explains how to do this using only CSS/HTML. It makes use of the opacity and transition style declarations. With this, two images can create a "transition illusion" between themselves using the :hover pseudo-selector.
 Check it out and let me know what you think. You can find the tutorial here.
 5. after practice, still not worked for blogger...hehehe
 but i can fixed...hohohoho
 ty ty ty


text: This later nineteenth-century tabernacle frame of ebony-veneered soft wood was designed to house reverse-painted glass. The technique of reverse painting on glass, often called "verre eglomisé", dates to the Roman era, and was widely practiced in Europe by the early sixteenth century. Essentially, an image is painted on the back of a transparent glass or polished rock crystal support and meant to be viewed through it, the substrate becoming an integral part of the painting. The Lehman glass panels were probably painted in Lombardy in the second half of the sixteenth century.This tabernacle house altar has a semicircular pediment and rock crystal columns with silver-gilt Corinthian capitals and bases. A cast silver-gilt relief of God the Father in Benediction fills the pediment, which is surmounted by an agate urn with silver-gilt mounts flanked by two pointed agate finials. Cast silver-gilt appliqués decorate the entablature, the columns and the predella. The reverse-painted central arched panel represents the Adoration of the Shepherds while below, a narrow frieze of smaller vertical plaques shows the Adoration of the Magi in the center, flanked by the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin of the Annunciation. The outer panels show the Eucharistic host, chalice, and paten on the left and the "Arma Christi" on the right.Although its style dates from the early seventeenth century, the wooden framework for this house altar was built in the nineteenth century, probably by Reinhold Vasters (_PHONE_) or someone in his workshop. Vasters was a highly skilled German silversmith and goldsmith who for a time served as restorer at the Aachen Cathedral treasury. There, in the spirit of nineteenth-century historicism, he not only restored but also replaced worn or damaged liturgical objects. It is likely that the Lehman tabernacle house altar was made expressly to house a set of sixteenth-century reverse-painted panels. The unified program and the similarity of the style of the painting on the ten rock crystal panels suggest that they were scavenged from a single piece.


Progressive Broadening
From Eclipsepedia
Jump to: navigation, search
How it works
How long it takes
 - telling: 10 minutes
 - asking: 20 minutes
 - discussion: 30 minutes
A facilitator can have an idea of what stories each participant can tell and what ones would be most interesting. Some ordering decisions can be made on the fly with the help of the audience. A facilitator might ask, "do people think it would be better to explore A or B now considering that we have only 45 minutes until lunch?"
Planning an event
Plan an event by chooing an event duration, from a few hours to a few days, suitable for the subject of interest. Solicit participants by asking for position statements relevant to the subject. Use these statements, which could be as simple as a pragraph, to select participants and order conversations.
This format has been adapted from the conference style pioneered by the Los Altos Workshop on Software Testing.


text:
Marine archaeologist to discuss effort to find Civil War gunship
Marine archaeologist Gordon Watts will be in Savannah on Thursday to speak about the search for the Water Witch, a Civil War gunship that served both the Union and Confederate navies.
Watts, a veteran diver and the founder of Tidewater Atlantic Research, found the wreckage of the gunboat last fall. The 2007 effort to find the Water Witch, which was built in 1851 by the U.S. Navy, was funded by the Georgia Department of Transportation.
The DOT was surveying the route for the next phase of the Truman Parkway, which will bridge the Vernon River, when archaeologists requested an extension to look for the wreckage.
"We had a fair idea of where it was," said deputy state archaeologist Christopher P. McCabe.
The Water Witch sank into the waters of the Vernon River in late 1864, ending a "story that even Hollywood couldn't have written," McCabe said.
The ship was part of the Union naval force that was blockading Savannah and was captured by Confederate forces after a daring night-time attack on May 3, 1864. About 130 southern sailors, including African-American pilot Moses Dallas, rowed out to the Water Witch with muffled oars and gained control after a short, but bloody, struggle.
The Confederates thus had possession of the Water Witch but were never able to sail it into Savannah. Several months later, as Union forces approached, Confederate sailors burned and then sank it.
A state historical marker commemorating its capture was erected in Vernonburg in 1957.


text:
iWork for iCloud opens iWork for iOS and iWork for Mac files up to 1 GB in size. Documents stored in iCloud use your iCloud storage, so the size of all your files on iCloud.com can't be more than your total storage limit.
You can add GIF, JPEG, and PNG images up to 10 MB each from iWork for iCloud. If you add images larger than 10 MB using iWork for Mac or iOS, you can still see those images in iWork for iCloud apps.
Shared documents can be viewed and edited by up to 100 people at the same time. As long as your document isn't password protected, additional people can view the document without making changes.
Each Pages document can have an unlimited number of characters. You can paste about 2 million characters into a document at a time.
You can create as many sheets in a Numbers document as you want. Each table can have up to 255 columns, 65,536 rows, and about 130,000 cells with data. You can change up to 100,000 cells at the same time.
Features that behave differently when you import a document
These features behave differently in iWork for iCloud. They don't change in the original copy of your iWork for iOS or iWork for Mac document.
All iWork apps
- 3D charts appear as 2D charts. They remain 3D in iWork for iOS and iWork for Mac.
- You can view a movie's poster frame and view an icon that represents an audio file. You can't play or edit movies or audio files.
- You can view connection lines, but you can't edit them.
- You can view conditional highlighting on table cells, but you can't edit conditional highlighting rules. You can edit rules in iWork for Mac.
- You can open and view a Pages document that has Track Changes turned on in Pages for iCloud, but the document can't be edited. If the document is yours, you can turn off Track Changes using Pages for Mac or Pages for iOS.
- You can't view or edit builds, but they remain in the document and are visible and editable on Mac and iOS.
- Transitions that aren't supported in Keynote for iCloud appear as Dissolve. The original transitions remain in the document and are visible and editable in Keynote for Mac and Keynote for iOS. See Using Keynote for iCloud with Internet Explorer for more information.
- The soundtrack (audio set to play for the duration of a slideshow) doesn't play on iCloud. The soundtrack remains in the document and plays in Keynote for Mac and Keynote for iOS.
- Recorded audio (voiceover narration) doesn't play on iCloud. It remains in the document and plays in Keynote for Mac and Keynote for iOS. Editing your document in Keynote for iCloud might make the recording out of sync with the slideshow.
- The setting to automatically play a slideshow when it's opened is ignored.
- The setting to restart a slideshow on idle is ignored.
- Forms in a Numbers for iOS spreadsheet are hidden when you open the spreadsheet in Numbers for iCloud.
- In Numbers for iCloud you can edit a table linked to a form and your edits appear in the form when you open the spreadsheet in Numbers for iOS.
- In Numbers for iCloud, deleting a table linked to a form clears the form. Merging cells in a table linked to a form might clear the form.
You can also open your iWork for iCloud documents in iWork for Mac or iWork for iOS, if you're using the required versions of iWork, OS X, and iOS.


text:
This tutorial will guide you how to trigger a popup on clicking a button in WordPress. You can use the popup to display an email opt-in or newsletter subscription form, promote new products, deliver special offers or show videos to your visitors.
There are 4 steps in this tutorial:
- Step 1 - Install WordPress plugin Wonder Popup
- Step 2 - Create a popup
- Step 3 - Enable the popup on pages or posts
- Step 4 - Add HTML code to trigger the popup
A demo created with this tutorial is as follows:
Step 1 - Install WordPress plugin Wonder Popup
First please install the plugin Wonder Popup. You can download the Free Version from the product homepage, try it, make sure it works for you before upgrading to the commercial version.
For how to install a plugin from the downloaded plugin ZIP file, please view this tutorial: How to install a WordPress plugin from a ZIP file.
Step 2 - Create a popup
After you have installed the WordPress plugin Wonder Popup, in your WordPress backend, left menu, goto Wonder Popup -> Add New.
In the New Popup page, you can select from 4 types of forms:
- Lightbox: Create a lightbox popup that displays in the center of the web browser
- Embed: Embed the form into pages, posts or sidebar widgets
- Slide In: Create a popup that slides in from corner
- Notification Bar: Create a bar that displays on top or bottom of the web page
Step 3 - Enable the popup on pages or posts
In the popup editor, step 3 Display Rules -> Display Rules tab, make sure the popup is enabled on the page or post that you are going to add the button.
If you don't like the popup to show up automatically, in the popup editor, step 3 Display Rules -> Display Time, uncheck all options.
Step 4 - Add HTML code to trigger the popup
In the page or post that you are going to add the button, switch to Text edit mode, add the following code to create a button that will tigger the popup on click.
Show Popup
Please make sure to change value of
data-popupid to the ID of your own popup.


Valle de la Orotava
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Valle de la Orotava DO in the province of Tenerife, in the region of canary Islands, Spain
Valle de la Orotava is a Spanish Denominación de Origen (DO) for wines located on the north-western coastline of Tenerife, (Canary Islands, Spain), and acquired its DO in 1995.
This area was one of the first one planted to vines when the Canary Islands were occupied by Spain in the 15th century. The area given over to vines has diminished steadily over during the course of the 20th century due to increasing competition from banana plantations.
The vineyards are located on the fertile slopes of the Teide, a volcano and extend down to the port of Puerto de la Cruz. There are 671 ha registered with the DO.
The Valle de la Orotava (Orotava Valley) is not strictly speaking a valley at all, but the local name for the lower slopes of the Teide. The vineyards are at an average height of around 800 m above sea-level.
70% of the soil is volcanic, 20% clay and the remaining 10% is volcanic rock. The soils are light, permeable, rich in minerals and slightly acidic.
The climate is hot and humid due to the influence of the Atlantic Ocean, with a high index of annual sunlight hours. Temperatures are high in summer and the vineyards are often shrouded in mist caused by the humidity bearing trade winds which blow all year round. This allows the vines to thrive though at times they are affected by sudden storms and strong gusts of wind.
The preferred authorized varieties are as follows:
Also authorized:
External links[edit]


O'Reilly Hacks
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Windows XP Hacks
By Preston Gralla
February 2005
More Info
Generating Folder and File Listings for Printing or Editing
Longtime PC users and former Mac users alike are often shocked when they realize that there's no easy, built-in option to print a list of files in a folder. This hack creates a context-menu right-click option to create such a list, which you can then edit, copy, paste, and—most usefully—print
Contributed by:
[09/03/03 | Discuss (34) | Link to this hack]
How many times have you been browsing through directories in Windows Explorer and wished you could generate a text file or printout listing the files and folders? It seems like such a simple request that it's amazing the option isn't available. You don't believe me? Right-click on a folder and see for yourself if there is an option to list or print the structure. There isn't, but there is a workaround that doesn't require any third-party software. Here's how to create a context menu item that, when clicked, generates a printable (and editable) text-file listing of the selected directory.
dir /a /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt
The name of the.txt file can be whatever you like. In this example, I've used filelisting.txt, but it could just as easily be filelist, listoffiles, namedfiles, or even Wally if you enjoy the bizarre in your filenaming schemes. Once you've decided on the filename, create the file in Notepad, as shown in.
Figure 1. Creating a batch file in Notepad
Save the file in your WINDOWS folder as shown in, making sure to use the.bat extension and not the default.txt extension. It's important to set "Save as type" to All Files and "Encoding:" to ANSI.
Figure 2. Saving file listing.bat
Now that we have the.bat file created, the next step is to make it functional and easily accessible by integrating it into the context menu that opens when a right click is executed. Open Windows Explorer and choose Tools → Folder Options → File Types tab → Folder → Advanced → New, to open the New Action box shown in.
Figure 3. Creating a new action for the context menus
Figure 4. The revised Edit File Type box with your new action
That's it! Congratulations. You've created a new item on the context menu that's ready to go to work. So, now that's it there, what can you do with it?
Open up Windows Explorer. Navigate to whatever folder you want to use as the basis for the file list, and right-click to open the context menu. Click on the Create File Listing item (see ), and the list will be generated and displayed at the bottom of the open Notepad window as filelisting.txt. shows the file listing generated from the Sample Music folder shown in. Since it is a text file, it can be fully edited, copied, pasted, printed, and so on for any purpose.
Figure 5. Your new context-menu action: Create File Listing
Figure 6. The generated file listing, all ready for editing and printing
If for any reason you want to remove the Create File Listing entry from the context menu, you must edit the Registry [Hack #68]. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Create_File_Listing and delete the Create_File_Listing key in the left pane. Close regedit and reboot to complete removal.
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text: Image-based localization or camera re-localization is a fundamental task in computer vision and mandatory in the fields of navigation for robotics and autonomous driving or for virtual and augmented reality. Such image pose regression in 6 Degrees of Freedom (DoF) is recently solved by Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). However, already well-established methods based on feature matching still score higher accuracies so far. Therefore, we want to investigate how data augmentation could further improve CNN-based pose regression. Data augmentation is a valuable technique to boost performance on training based methods and wide spread in the computer vision community. Our aim in this paper is to show the benefit of data augmentation for pose regression by CNNs. For this purpose images are rendered from a 3D model of the actual test environment. This model again is generated by the original training data set, whereas no additional information nor data is required. Furthermore we introduce different training sets composed of rendered and real images. It is shown that the enhanced training of CNNs by utilizing 3D models of the environmen... mehrt improves the image localization accuracy. The accuracy of pose regression could be improved up to 69.37% for the position component and 61.61% for the rotation component on our investigated data set.


text:
THE XÈTÁN ANGELS
The Xètán Angels are a magnificent group of human beings who reside in the Kingdom of Xètá situated in the outer regions of the Universe. The Kingdom of Xètá is a very large planet that is home to multiple groups of Angels known as 'Angels of Light'. They are an ancient civilization that pre-dates the Universe who are known for their magical abilities and for their enchanting history.
The Xètán Angels are responsible for the introduction of several children's fables to this planet and these are Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves all of which are loosely based on actual events that took place on Xètá over a thousand millennia ago. The Xètán Angels are also responsible for introducing several breeds of cats to our planet and they are Persian, Siamese and Egyptian Mau.
There are several Xètán Angels who will soon be acknowledged for their significant contributions to this planet and they are Xètán Angels Zé, Jorat and Phillyda.
The Xètán Angels have a pivotal role in our planet's enlightenment transition alongside the Andromeda Angels, the Árian Angels, the Fárian Angels and the Ômega Angels.
Reference: The Age of Enlightenment
Copyright © Cynthia A. Silk 2018. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Are there holes in "doughnut economics"? Kate Raworth takes on a major critic
Doughnut economics - the idea that we should seek to situate our economies and societies in the zone between the smaller domain of human needs, and the upper domain of the planet's environmental limits - has rightly become an inspiring analysis and metaphor (we've profiled it a few times already on A/UK - positively and critically).
But we really enjoyed Kate's response to a strong critique of her thesis from the rising star economist Branko Milanovic. Some selections from her response below - in which she has helpfully summarized Branko's original points. It's open for debate, so watch as it develops.
Branko, you argue that Doughnut Economics fails to convince for four reasons:
1. It does not acknowledge that global GDP must rise significantly to end poverty.
2. Current 'green' innovations are marginal and their progress is minimal compared to 'what needs to happen'.
3. The book portrays globalized capitalism as entering a 'more cooperative and gentler' phase – but in fact people are embracing ever greater commodification, leading to a self-centred, moneyand success-oriented society.
4. The book conveys a world that is 'devoid of major social contradictions', and refers to a 'we' of 7.3 billion people that doesn't exist: in reality, different class and national interests are fighting each other.
I will respond to each in turn, using our initials (BM and KR) to make things clear.
BM: 1st critique: "The book doesn't acknowledge that global GDP must rise significantly to end poverty."
KR: I disagree. The central premise of Doughnut Economics is that humanity's 21st century goal should be to end poverty for all, and do so within the means of the living planet. Ensuring everyone in the world lives well above the Doughnut's social foundation (in terms of healthcare, education, housing, food, water, energy use, mobility, and so on) will obviously lead to an increase in economic activity and hence global GDP. As I write in the book,
Across lowand middle-income countries (where national income is less than $12,500 per person per year) a higher GDP tends to go hand-in-hand with greatly increased life expectancy at birth, far fewer children dying before the age of five, and many more children going to school. Given that 80% of the world's population live in such countries, and the vast majority of their inhabitants are under 25 years old, significant GDP growth is very much needed and it is very likely coming.
BM 2nd critique: "Current 'green' innovations are marginal and their progress is minimal compared to 'what needs to happen".
KR: I couldn't agree more. If I thought 'green' innovation was already taking place on anything like the scale needed, I probably wouldn't have felt compelled to write the book. But five facts (or views) of the world drove me to do so:
- Ending poverty and deprivation worldwide will likely lead to a significant increase in resource use.
- Humanity's collective pressure on many of Earth's life-supporting systems is already critical or excessive.
- High-income countries and individuals have a moral obligation to create ecological space so that others have the chance to lead lives free of deprivation, while protecting Earth's life-supporting systems, which are fundamental for conditions conducive to human thriving.
- There is no evidence that any high-income country is decoupling its pursuit of endless GDP growth from resource use and ecological impacts on anything like the scale required.
- The mainstream economic mindset – taught in universities and practiced in institutions worldwide – still fails to face up to this conundrum.
- Together these five claims create the central challenge of the book. If you disagree with any of them, I'd be curious to know which one(s). And if you agree with them all, I'd sincerely like to understand how you proposing resolving the challenge they create.
My attempt at resolving it, as you know, is to advocate an economic mindset focused on creating economies that are regenerative and distributive by design and, simultaneously, to overcome the structural dependence of high-income countries on endless GDP growth.
Yes, I think this growth addiction is the mother of all long-term economic challenges, and I certainly don't have all the answers, but I tried to address it in the book because it doesn't go away if we simply don't confront it.
BM 3rd critique: "The book portrays globalized capitalism as entering a 'more cooperative and gentler' phase – but in fact people are embracing ever greater commodification, leading to a self-centred, moneyand success-oriented society."
KR: I certainly don't think capitalism is entering, as you put it, 'a gentler and more cooperative phase' (you must be joking!). Instead, I see alternative forms of economic organizing emerging – running counter to the extractive drive of capitalism – such as in open-source design, platform cooperativism, and the creative commons.
You describe people as 'acquisitive and money-grubbing beings' and that 'we accept and promote commodification in our personal lives', moving us further towards a 'self-centred, money and success-oriented society' of 'hyper-commercialized capitalism that leads us more and more to value only monetary incentives and disregard others'.
Ouch. Branko, I'm starting to worry you that lived for too long in Washington DC…but seriously, look to the literature. If empirical research into human behavior has told us anything over the last 30 or so years, it tell us that we, Homo sapiens, are far more nuanced than this.
We are conditional cooperators and altruistic punishers (Bowles and Gintis), with a common set of universal values (Schwartz), influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations (Crompton and Kasser), and able to self-organize effectively not only through markets but also through the commons (Ostrom). Indeed I see you've been engaged in this discussion about human nature, behaviour and morality in this recent really engaging blog debate at Evonomics (_URL_
Perhaps the nub of our difference in view is this: you think humanity is so far gone into capitalism that people have become irredeemably motivated by self-interest alone. I simply disagree, and see evidence to the contrary every day, in the street and in the worldwide news.
Since you amusingly likened my worldview to Giotto's paintings of St Francis (I very much hope not – it looks far too male-dominated for me), then I'll stick with the high-art analogies and say your dismal view of humanity reminds me of Rodin's Gates of Hell. "Abandon every hope, who enter here". I chose a different gateway to the future and I think many millions of others do too.
BM: 4th critique: The book describes a world that is 'devoid of major social contradictions', and refers to a 'we' of 7.3 billion people that doesn't exist: in reality, different class and national interests are fighting each other.
KR: I have to disagree: the book absolutely acknowledges the pervasive role of power relations between social groups. As I write in the book,
Power is at play in myriad places throughout the economy and society: in daily household decisions about who cares for the kids; in boss-versus-worker wage negotiations; in international trade and climate-change talks; and in humanity's domination over other species on the planet. Wherever people are present, so too are power relations... When it comes to the workings of the economy, one power relationship in particular demands attention: the power of the wealthy to reshape the economy's rules in their favour.
And yes, at the same time, I very much believe there is a 'we' of 7.3 billion people: it is the 'we' of Homo sapiens, the most dominant species on the planet, whose collective activities have given rise to a new epoch on Earth, the Anthropocene.
Rather than avoiding social contradiction, I think the book actually goes beyond and takes on the major social-ecological contradiction of our times. As I write in Chapter 7:
No country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy
And no country has ever ended ecological degradation with one.
...Related to this, you were irritated that I used the word thrive / thriving over 50 times in the book (53 times to be exact). But you didn't seem to notice, or weren't bothered, that I used the word growth / growing over 180 times.
Growth-centric thinking is so deeply ingrained in economics that it has become the water we swim in – but, as I argue in the book, I think it profoundly influences economic worldviews and creates an expectation of and belief in the possibilities of endless GDP growth, even in the richest of countries, and even though there is no evidence that it can be made compatible with preserving the integrity of Earth's life-supporting systems on which we (yes, we) all depend.


.26 ...
country Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Puerto Rico \
gdpPercap_1997 9767.3 2253.02 7113.69 4247.4 5838.35 16999.4
gdpPercap_2002 10742.4 2474.55 7356.03 3783.67 5909.02 18855.6
gdpPercap_2007 11977.6 2749.32 9809.19 4172.84 7408.91 19328.7
country Trinidad and Tobago United States Uruguay Venezuela
gdpPercap_1997 8792.57 35767.4 9230.24 10165.5
gdpPercap_2002 11460.6 39097.1 7727 8605.05
gdpPercap_2007 18008.5 42951.7 10611.5 11415.8
This shows the data that we want, but we may prefer to display three columns instead of three rows, so we can flip it back:
PYTHON
americas_flipped.tail(n=3).T
Note: we could have done the above in a single line of code by 'chaining' the commands:
PYTHON
data_americas.T.tail(n=3).T
Reading Files in Other Directories
The data for your current project is stored in a file called microbes.csv, which is located in a folder called field_data. You are doing analysis in a notebook called analysis.ipynb in a sibling folder called thesis:
OUTPUT
your_home_directory
+-- field_data/
| +-- microbes.csv
+-- thesis/
 +-- analysis.ipynb
What value(s) should you pass to read_csv to read microbes.csv in analysis.ipynb?
We need to specify the path to the file of interest in the call to pd.read_csv. We first need to 'jump' out of the folder thesis using '../' and then into the folder field_data using 'field_data/'. Then we can specify the filename 'microbes.csv. The result is as follows:
PYTHON
data_microbes = pd.read_csv('../field_data/microbes.csv')
Writing Data
As well as the read_csv function for reading data from a file, Pandas provides a to_csv function to write dataframes to files. Applying what you've learned about reading from files, write one of your dataframes to a file called processed.csv. You can use help to get information on how to use to_csv.
In order to write the DataFrame data_americas to a file called processed.csv, execute the following command:
PYTHON
data_americas.to_csv('processed.csv')
For help on read_csv or to_csv, you could execute, for example:
PYTHON
help(data_americas.to_csv)
help(pd.read_csv)
Note that help(to_csv) or help(pd.to_csv) throws an error! This is due to the fact that to_csv is not a global Pandas function, but a member function of DataFrames. This means you can only call it on an instance of a DataFrame e.g., data_americas.to_csv or data_oceania.to_csv
Key Points
 - Use the Pandas library to get basic statistics out of tabular data.
 - Use index_col to specify that a column's values should be used as row headings.
 - Use DataFrame.info to find out more about a dataframe.
 - The DataFrame.columns variable stores information about the dataframe's columns.
 - Use DataFrame.T to transpose a dataframe.
 - Use DataFrame.describe to get summary statistics about data.
Content from Pandas DataFrames
Last updated on 2023-08-29 | Edit this page
Estimated time: 30 minutes
Overview
Questions
 - How can I do statistical analysis of tabular data?
Objectives
 - Select individual values from a Pandas dataframe.
 - Select entire rows or entire columns from a dataframe.
 - Select a subset of both rows and columns from a dataframe in a single operation.
 - Select a subset of a dataframe by a single Boolean criterion.
Note about Pandas DataFrames/Series
A DataFrame is a collection of Series; The DataFrame is the way Pandas represents a table, and Series is the data-structure Pandas use to represent a column.
Pandas is built on top of the Numpy library, which in practice means that most of the methods defined for Numpy Arrays apply to Pandas Series/DataFrames.
What makes Pandas so attractive is the powerful interface to access individual records of the table, proper handling of missing values, and relational-databases operations between DataFrames.
Selecting values
To access a value at the position [i,j] of a DataFrame, we have two options, depending on what is the meaning of i in use. Remember that a DataFrame provides an index as a way to identify the rows of the table; a row, then, has a position inside the table as well as a label, which uniquely identifies its entry in the DataFrame.
Use DataFrame.iloc[..., ...] to select values by their (entry) position
 - Can specify location by numerical index analogously to 2D version of character selection in strings.
PYTHON
import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_csv('data/gapminder_gdp_europe.csv', index_col='country')
print(data.iloc[0, 0])
OUTPUT
1601.056136
Use DataFrame.loc[..., ...] to select values by their (entry) label.
 - Can specify location by row and/or column name.
PYTHON
print(data.loc["Albania", "gdpPercap_1952"])
OUTPUT
1601.056136
Use : on its own to mean all columns or all rows.
 - Just like Python's usual slicing notation.
PYTHON
print(data.loc["Albania", :])
OUTPUT
gdpPercap_1952 1601.056136
gdpPercap_1957 1942.284244
gdpPercap_1962 2312.888958
gdpPercap_1967 2760.196931
gdpPercap_1972 3313.422188
gdpPercap_1977 3533.003910
gdpPercap_1982 3630.880722
gdpPercap_1987 3738.932735
gdpPercap_1992 2497.437901
gdpPercap_1997 3193.054604
gdpPercap_2002 4604.211737
gdpPercap_2007 5937.029526
Name: Albania, dtype: float64
 - Would get the same result printing data.loc["Albania"] (without a second index).
PYTHON
print(data.loc[:, "gdpPercap_1952"])
OUTPUT
country
Albania 1601.056136
Austria 6137.076492
Belgium 8343.105127
⋮ ⋮ ⋮
Switzerland 14734.232750
Turkey 1969.100980
United Kingdom 9979.508487
Name: gdpPercap_1952, dtype: float64
 - Would get the same result printing data["gdpPercap_1952"]
 - Also get the same result printing data.gdpPercap_1952 (not recommended, because easily confused with . notation for methods)
Select multiple columns or rows using DataFrame.loc and a named slice.
PYTHON
print(data.loc['Italy':'Poland', 'gdpPercap_1962':'gdpPercap_1972'])
OUTPUT
 gdpPercap_1962 gdpPercap_1967 gdpPercap_1972
country
Italy 8243.582340 10022.401310 12269.273780
Montenegro 4649._PHONE_._PHONE_.414017
Netherlands 12790.849560 15363.251360 18794.745670
Norway 13450.401510 16361.876470 18965.055510
Poland 5338._PHONE_._PHONE_.506993
In the above code, we discover that slicing using loc is inclusive at both ends, which differs from slicing using iloc, where slicing indicates everything up to but not including the final index.
Result of slicing can be used in further operations.
 - Usually don't just print a slice.
 - All the statistical operators that work on entire dataframes work the same way on slices.
 - E.g., calculate max of a slice.
PYTHON
print(data.loc['Italy':'Poland', 'gdpPercap_1962':'gdpPercap_1972'].max())
OUTPUT
gdpPercap_1962 13450.40151
gdpPercap_1967 16361.87647
gdpPercap_1972 18965.05551
dtype: float64
PYTHON
print(data.loc['Italy':'Poland', 'gdpPercap_1962':'gdpPercap_1972'].min())
OUTPUT
gdpPercap_1962 4649.593785
gdpPercap_1967 5907.850937
gdp


-yl
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The suffix -yl is used in organic chemistry to form names of radicals, either separate or as chemically bonded parts of molecules. It was extracted from the word methyl, whose etymology is described in Methanol#History.
If there is an organic chemical called "X-ic acid", which has an acidic -OH group, "X-yl" often means the radical formed by removing that -OH group: see acyl.
Sometimes words ending in -yl are used with other meanings as a result of ellipsis, for example "vinyl" properly means the monomer radical -CH=CH2, but "vinyl" is often used as short for the polymer poly(vinyl chloride).
Template:Orgchemsuffixes
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Drill down in a graph
Drill down enables you to focus on a specific measurement within your graph and display it according to a desired grouping. The available groupings depend on the graph. For example, the Average Transaction Response Time graph shows one line per transaction. To determine the response time for each Vuser, you drill down on one transaction and sort it according to Vuser ID. The graph displays a separate line for each Vuser's transaction response time.
Note: The drill down feature is not available for the Web Page Diagnostics graph.
The following graph shows a line for each of five transactions.
When you drill down on the MainPage transaction, grouped by Vuser ID, the graph displays the response time only for the MainPage transaction, one line per Vuser.
You can see from the graph that the response time was longer for some Vusers than for others.
To determine the response time for each host, you drill down on one transaction and sort it according to host. The graph displays a separate line for the transaction response time on each host. For more information on drilling down in a graph, see Get more information from graph data.
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called,
 i.e. the function is executed by beginning with the =sign in the active cell.
 The function doubleValue() can be called within other sub or function
 procedures. For example, in the following macro called testDouble(), a call
 to the function doubleValue is made with the line: MsgBox "the value is: "
 & doubleValue(37)
 Sub testDouble()
 MsgBox "the value is: " & doubleValue(37)
 End Sub
 The function doubleValue() can also be used within a cell formula, e.g.
 Take note
 Both the argument passed to the function doubleValue() and the
 return value was declared as being Integer. If you therefore pass a
 non-integer value, the result will not be as expected. For example,
 =doubleValue(3.4) will return 6 (the truncated value).
 This example rewrites the calling subs example from pages 170171, by
 implementing the called procedure as a function instead of a sub. The
 procedures are written in Listings 9.4 and 9.5. To translate the called
 procedure to a function you will see the following changes have been made:
 M The called procedure countValidCells begins with the word Function, and
 an End Function statement is used to terminate it (see Listing 9.5).
 M A range parameter has been passed into the function, and we have designed
 the function such that a string is returned that will contain the number of cells
 in the valid range (see Listing 9.5).
 M The function value is returned in the function by the statement:
 countValidCells = Str(myCount)
 M The function value is returned to the calling procedure by the statement:
 thisCount = countValidCells(Rng)
 M The function value is output in the calling sub procedure using the message
 box statement:
 MsgBox answerString, vbInformation, "Count Cells"
Listing 9.4 Sub GetRange
 Sub getRange()
 Dim thisCount As String
 Dim Rng As Range
 If Rng Is Nothing Then
 MsgBox "Operation Cancelled"
 End If
 thisCount = countValidCells(Rng)
 answerString = "There are "+ thisCount + " valid cell(s)in this selection"
 MsgBox answerString, vbInformation, "Count Cells"
 End Sub
Listing 9.5 Function CountValidCells
 Function countValidCells(Rng As Range) As String
 Dim myCount As Integer
 Dim strCount As String
 myCount = Application.CountA(Selection)
 strCount = Str(myCount)
 countValidCells = Str(myCount)
 End Function
Worked example
 This example function is intended to work with the weeklysales worksheet
 of the SALESMAN.XLS workbook. Its purpose is to find the highest weekly
 sales in the week_sales named range. We have used a function for this
 purpose because we require a value to be returned: i.e., the highest value. The
 function has been named getMaxSales, and searches through all the cells in
 the week_sales range to find the largest value, which will be an integer. The
 function therefore, will return an integer value. No arguments are passed into
 this function. The function definition is shown in Listing 9.6, and the
 screenshot in Figure 9.4 displays the result of 402 when the function is
 executed by calling it in cell G28.
Listing 9.6 Function getMaxSales()
 Function getMaxSales() As Integer
 Dim maxSales As Integer
 Dim Cell As Object
 maxSales = 0 'assume the lowest possible
 For Each Cell In Range("Week_sales")
 If Cell > maxSales Then
 maxSales = Cell 'we've found a bigger sales
 End If
 getMaxSales = maxSales
 End Function
 In the function definition, there are no arguments associated with it  the
 parentheses for the name are empty. However, the return type is an integer
 (i.e. a maximum value of sales).
 The function works by declaring a variable called maxSales that is used to
 contain the largest number in the range week_sales. The initial value
 assigned to maxSales is 0, which is the smallest value that the actual
 maximum can be, and therefore has to be used initially for comparison with
 all cell values in the range week_sales. Each cell in the For loop is examined
 to see if its current value is > maxSales. This comparison is implemented
 using the statement If Cell > maxSales Then maxSales = Cell. This means
 that if a cell value is greater than the current value of maxSales then assign
 the contents of maxSales to Cell, otherwise leave the maxSales value
 unchanged. When the loop is completed, the contents of the variable
 maxSales will contain the maximum sales value in the range. Notice that
 after the loop is completed, then maxSales is assigned to the return value,
 i.e., the function named getMaxSales. We can see this function running using
 the worksheet weeklysales.
 Figure 9.4 Screenshot of Function getMaxSales() Called at cell G28
Using parameters to extend the scope of functions
 Parameters provide a way of transferring data between sub procedures and
 function procedures. We can often extend the capabilities of a function by
 using parameters. For example, suppose we wanted to extend the getMaxSales
 function that was developed in Listing 9.6 to provide the cell address and the
 RepName of the salesperson who recorded the maximum sale. The extended
 function procedure, called GetMaxSalesInfo, is shown in Listing 9.7. Notice
 that in the new function definition, we have passed two arguments: one
 called maxSalesAddress, and the other called thisRepName. The function
 only differs from that of Listing 9.6 in that whenever maxSales > myCell,
 maxSalesAddress is assigned to myCell.Addess and thisRepName is assigned to Worksheets(weeklysales).Cells(myCell.Row, 1).Value. This
 means that the final values of these arguments will contain the cell address,
 and name of the rep giving the highest sales during the period. Notice, this
 function is called using Listing 9.8. This uses a MsgBox to output the
 maximum sales, the cell address, and the corresponding rep name.
Listing 9.7 Function getMaxSales()
 Function GetMaxSalesInfo(maxSalesAddress As String, thisRepName As
 String) As Integer
 Dim maxSales As Integer
 Dim myCell As Object
 maxSales = 0 'initialise to the lowest possible value
 For Each myCell In Range("Week_sales")
 If myCell > maxSales Then
 maxSales = myCell 'we have found a bigger sales
 maxSalesAddress = myCell.Address
 thisRepName = Worksheets("Weeklysales").Cells(myCell.Row,1).Value
 End If
 GetMaxSalesInfo = maxSales
 End Function
Listing 9.8 Calling the extended function
 Sub testMaxSalesInfo()
 Dim theAddress As String
 Dim theRepName As String
 Dim theMax As Integer
 theMax = GetMaxSalesInfo(theAddress, theRepName)
 MsgBox "the maximum is: " & theMax & vbCrLf & _
 "the address is: " & theAddress & vbCrLf & _
 "the rep name is: " & theRepName
 End Sub
Figure 9. 5 Screenshot of Listing 9.8
 Take note
 Since ByRef is the default method for passing parameters, then you could
 omit the ByRef part whenever you use a by reference declaration.
Passing parameters
 If we look at the previous examples of the use of functions, we see that in the
 function doubleValue there was one parameter passed into it, called
 anyNumber, that didnt change within the function: the purpose of this
 parameter was to supply information. On the other hand, when we passed the
 parameters theRepName and theAddess to the function GetMaxSalesInfo
 these could be changed within it, for their purpose was to represent the rep
 name and cell address associated with the maximum sales value. Since the
 maximum sales is a variable, then so are the values of theRepName and
 theAddress and therefore their values could change within the function.
 There are two methods of passing arguments: by reference and by value.
Passing a parameter by references
 When a parameter is passed by reference, a reference to the original
 argument is passed to the calling procedure. The result is that if a change is
 made to the parameter in the passed procedure, then that changed value is
 passed back to the called procedure. In VBA, the default method of passing
 arguments is by reference. That is, if neither ByRef nor ByVal is specified
 then ByRef is assumed. The syntax for declaring a ByRef parameter is to
 insert the keyword ByRef before the parameter list is declared in the
 parentheses following the function name. For example, suppose we


text:
Pronunciation: (klam'shel"), [key]
1. the shell of a clam.
a. Also called clam'shell buck"et. a dredging bucket opening at the bottom, consisting of two similar pieces hinged together at the top.
b. a machine equipped with such a bucket.
3. Print.a platen press.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.


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Converting the FileSystemObject's Column Property
Windows PowerShell
Definition: When reading through a line in a text file one or more characters at a time, Column contains the current character position within the line.
PowerShell reads file contents into an array, so the character position can be determined by the array item.
This example returns the character at column 4 (item 3 in the array):
$b = "a string"
An example that more closely maps to the intent of Column would be an example that reads through a line in the text file. Again, the column will be the array index plus 1 (because arrays start at 0).
$a = get-content c:\scripts\test.txt -totalcount 1
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $a.length; $i++)
 "Column is " + ($i + 1)
Note that this solution works only on a single line at a time.
See conversions of other FileSystemObject methods and properties.
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© 2014 Microsoft


14 Fun Facts About Lovebirds
Number one: Lovebirds mate for life
(Courtesy of Flickr user HKmPUA)
It's Valentine's Day. Love is in the air (for some, at least). Humans around the globe will express their love today through chocolate, greeting cards, and a cacophony of stuffed animals.
In the animal kingdom, though, relationships don't often fit with conventional human ideas of love. Female preying mantises feast on their male lovers after sex; red-sided garter snakes mate with multiple partners simultaneously. For most organisms, mating is purely a reproductive strategy to pass on their genetic material to their progeny; in the case of many species, such as voles, even monogamy comes with an evolutionary advantage.
But no animal represents the sentiment of Valentine's Day more than the lovebird. The petite, brightly plumed parrot is a favorite among bird enthusiasts and a popular pet. Lovebirds have inspired scientists and poets alike. Without further ado. here are 14 fun facts about lovebirds.
1. Lovebirds mate for life.
The monogamous birds reach sexual maturity when they're about ten months old. Mating begins with courtship behavior, and can continue throughout their roughly 15-year lifespans. Monogamy is essential to the social stability of flocks and underlies much of their social behavior.
2. Lovebirds pine for each other.
If a mate dies or gets separated from the flock, its companion exhibits erratic behavior that some have likened to depression. Birds kept as pets often don't like being alone and will exhibit similar behavior in captivity.
3. Like overly affectionate couples in restaurants on Valentine's Day, lovebirds feed each other.
Often after a long separation or stressful period of time, breeding pairs of lovebirds feed each other to re-establish their bond. One bird transfers food to the mouth of its mate, a feeding technique reminiscent of affection in humans—hence the inspiration for the parrots' name.
4. There's more than one species of lovebird.
The nine species classified as lovebirds come all from the genus Agapornis. Most lovebirds have a green body and sport different head feather coloration. Their closest relatives are hanging parrots, found in Asia.
5. Lovebirds are from Africa.
Lovebirds are native to the forests and savannas of Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. Fossils of ancient lovebird species have been unearthed in South Africa, dating to as far back as 1.9 million years ago
6. But you might see a lovebird at your backyard birdfeeder.
That's if you live in the American southwest, San Francisco or cities in Africa. These areas are home to feral populations, flocks that likely either escaped from an aviary or are the remnants of an abandoned aviary.
7. Lovebirds live in holes.
Lovebirds are cavity dwellers they make their home in holes in trees, rocks or shrubs in the wild. Some species nest in groups, while others pair off to build their nests away from the flock. In urban settings, they might rely on anything from a tree to a crevice in a building. Peach-faced lovebirds in Phoenix, Arizona, often make their homes in cacti.
Lovebirds cactus
Peach-faced lovebirds nest in a cactus. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Kabunosekai)
8. Different lovebird species build their nests in different ways.
Fisher's lovebirds (Agapornis fischeri) carry single strips of tree bark in their beaks. Peach-faced lovebirds (Agapornis roseicollis), on the other hand, hide bark in their feathers. Scientists believe that the latter's more complex behavior is an ancestral trait, and have used this facet of lovebird nest-building as an example of the intersection of evolved and learned behavior.
9. Some lovebirds are androgynous.
In three species of lovebirds, the males and females have defining characteristics that allow you to tell them apart. For example, among Black-winged lovebirds (Agapornis taranta), males have a crown of red feathers, while females have entirely green plumage. But other species don't have the same degree of sexual dimorphism, making it difficult to determine their sex just from looking at them. In some species, males may be slightly larger than females, but a DNA test is necessary to provide conclusive results.
10. Lovebirds don't eat chocolate.
It might seem like common sense, but save your chocolate and give it to a human. Lovebirds survive on a healthy diet of seeds, berries, fruit, and occassionally insect larva in the wild. In Africa, they're also known as crafty crop pests, as they feast on millet and maize farms.
11. Lovebirds can be mean.
Aggression isn't uncommon in lovebirds. The parrots are territorial, and are known to get along poorly with birds of another species. Within their own kind, lovebirds can also become jealous or hormonal during mating season. In captivity, they've been known to attach both other bird species and other lovebirds, with peach-faced lovebirds the most notorious for aggressive behavior.
12. Lovebirds can carry zoonotic diseases that infect humans.
Some studies suggest that lovebirds can carry yeast bacteria (Cryptococcus neoformans) capable of infecting humans, but they only pick up the bacterial spores if they come into contact with pigeon feces. Other reports find evidence of a parasite called Encephalitozoon hellem in Fishers, peach-faced, and masked lovebirds. The researchers hypothsize that the parasites can spread to humans with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS patients.
13. Some lovebirds might become endangered in the next decade.
The black-cheeked lovebird (Agapornis nigrigenis), native to Zambia and found in parts of Zimbabwe and Botswana, is classified as vulnerable by the IUCN Red Listing of Threatened Species. The biggest problem is drought (possibly driven by long-term climate change), which is drying up regional water sources that flocks rely on. The latest survey puts the black-cheeked lovebird population at around 10,000 birds in total.
14. Lovebirds (sort of) inspired Valentine's Day.
Scholars typically cite a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer as the first evidence of the connection between the religious celebration of Saint Valentine's day and romantic love. The poem, "Parliament of Foules," happens to feature two birds which exhibit all the markings of human love.
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