text:
Recently I explained how we in the Education Department measure the impact of our LACMA On-Site program through various activities in the classroom, at libraries, and here at the museum. Today I'm going to share some recent statistics from the thorough evaluation of that program.
After an eleven-month evaluation of the program, we learned that art and artists are a part of students' daily use of what they know and their expanded viewpoints of the world. In addition to being engaged in thinking, talking about, and making art, schoolchildren have been positively impacted in ways that have fundamentally changed how they use language to talk about art and the artistic process. Through this program children and adults have found personal and meaningful connections with works of art. Parents, classroom teachers, school administrators, and librarians value the program and recognize the importance of the arts in children's lives.
Here are six key findings:
The program makes a positive impact in language development for participants. Students are using art vocabulary and noting details in their language, and are able to express themselves using descriptive language. In LAUSD's diverse population, the program also supports language development for English Language Learners. And teachers report that students' use of descriptive language continues beyond the art workshops. One of the most significant benefits of the evaluation was identifying ways more students could have a chance to voice their ideas in short instructional settings by providing opportunities for students to work in small groups and pairs during instruction.(1)
Participants are using and exploring a range of new art materials not readily available to them, including collage, watercolor painting, oil pastel, and clay. Students and families are learning and applying specific skills and techniques related to these art media, which expands their understandings of those techniques and materials. (2)
Program participants overwhelmingly find personal and meaningful connections between their own lives and LACMA's permanent collection as seen in their artwork. In particular, teens engage in library workshops because the content is relevant to their lives and families and librarians relate to concepts that resonate with their communities. (3)
The program content resonates with participants and administrators. In the schools, students and teachers relate that they are using LACMA arts curriculum for further development of critical thinking skills and other core academic areas. For example, the program fosters the development of students' analytical skills through the process of expressing and supporting their opinions when talking about art. Teachers integrate the curriculum for varying purposes, connecting vocabulary words, art concepts, and workshop themes with their ongoing instruction. (4)
Classroom teachers, school administrators, librarians, and parents place a high value on the program and desire to continue the experience. Teachers recommend it to their colleagues, librarians value the program's emphasis on family learning, and principals value the quality of LACMA's staff, teaching artists, resources, and support. Both teachers and librarians note specific reasons to continue the collaboration with LACMA and see it as an integral component of the school curricula or library community programming.
In addition to achieving its short-term goals, the program has made strides in achieving longer-term goals, including increasing levels of action around art education by school administrators and sustaining arts engagement in the LAUSD elementary and middle schools.
The evaluation also documents a well-known, but sometimes overlooked, aspect of arts education: arts learning provides English Language Learners, students falling behind in traditional classroom settings, and students with special needs with opportunities to excel and often exceed their teacher's expectations.
What does it take to provide meaningful, effective, large-scale programming in an urban and widespread area such as Los Angeles? These evaluation findings help to identify a programming model that can be transferred to other areas of the country, using shared outcomes and teaching strategies. Formal documents that share the evaluation findings, both in print and on LACMA's website, will be available this summer.
(1) Across all grade levels, specific and descriptive language expanded. In the libraries, children used descriptive words to talk about art.
(2) Of particular significance, over 90 percent of all participating K-5 students applied skills in using art materials and over 80 percent of middle school students applied skills in using art materials. 92 percent of children participating in the library program applied an art skill or technique as well. Typically reticent in these situations, 51 percent of adults are applying arts skills or techniques for the first time.
(3) Across all programs, over 90 percent of participants are including personal content in their own artwork.
(4) At the elementary and middle school levels, 93 percent of teachers saw connections with other subjects.
Elizabeth Gerber, Manager, School & Teacher Programs


text: The intricate tapestry of the rising economy, population, and resource demands underscore the need for shared social responsibility and global collaborative efforts in climate-food-water-energy nexus. In the heart of this nexus lies the recognition of these essential elements in deeply intertwined wholesome perspectives rather than isolated entities. Thus, this demands diverse (both cultural and ecological) skills, experiences, perspectives, and innovations which are pivotal to shaping the sustainable solution in the quest for clean water and energy, food insecurity, and waste management. Interestingly, research aspirants across five out of six habitable continents are working together in our research group to unify these multifaceted aspects for a resilient and sustainable future. In our research, we developed a novel water quality improvement product from industrial and agricultural waste – Biochar and applied it to capture nutrient loss from agricultural wastewater. Biochar can be further used as a soil amendment and slow-release fertilizer to reduce chemical use and promote agricultural sustainability. The objects in the image represent a) Clean Water b) Soil c) Food (carrot) d) Fertilizer e) Biochar.

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


6
I've just stated working in haskell semi-explicit parallelism with GHC 6.12. I've write the following haskell code to compute in parallel the map of the fibonnaci function upon 4 elements on a list, and in the same time the map of the function sumEuler upon two elements.
import Control.Parallel
import Control.Parallel.Strategies
fib :: Int -> Int
fib 0 = 0
fib 1 = 1
fib n = fib (n-1) + fib (n-2)
mkList :: Int -> [Int]
mkList n = [1..n-1]
relprime :: Int -> Int -> Bool
relprime x y = gcd x y == 1
euler :: Int -> Int
euler n = length (filter (relprime n) (mkList n))
sumEuler :: Int -> Int
sumEuler = sum . (map euler) . mkList
-- parallel initiation of list walk
mapFib :: [Int]
mapFib = map fib [37, 38, 39, 40]
mapEuler :: [Int]
mapEuler = map sumEuler [7600, 7600]
parMapFibEuler :: Int
parMapFibEuler = (forceList mapFib) 'par' (forceList mapEuler 'pseq' (sum mapFib + sum mapEuler))
-- how to evaluate in whnf form by forcing
forceList :: [a] -> ()
forceList [] = ()
forceList (x:xs) = x 'pseq' (forceList xs)
main = do putStrLn (" sum : " ++ show parMapFibEuler)
to improve my program in parallel I rewrote it with par and pseq and a forcing function to force whnf evaluation. My problem is that by looking in the threadscope it appear that i didn't gain any parallelism. Things are worse because i didn't gain any speedup.
Threadscope observation
That why I have theses two questions
Question 1 How could I modify my code to exploit any parallelism ?
Question 2 How could I write my program in order to use Strategies (parMap, parList, rdeepseq and so on ...) ?
First improvement with Strategies
according to his contribution
parMapFibEuler = (mapFib, mapEuler) 'using' s 'seq' (sum mapFib + sum mapEuler) where
 s = parTuple2 (seqList rseq) (seqList rseq)
the parallelism appears in the threadscope but not enough to have a significant speedup
enter image description here
2
 - 1
 The parallel package is greatly improved in GHC 7, so you might also consider upgrading. – Don Stewart Mar 17 '11 at 23:09
 - You could memoize your fib functions in order to gain some speed up... – Hai Mar 18 '11 at 11:02
6
Your parallelism is far too course-grained to have much beneficial effect. The largest chunks of work that can be done in parallel efficiently are in sumEuler, so that's where you should add your par annotations. Try changing sumEuler to:
sumEuler :: Int -> Int
sumEuler = sum . (parMap rseq euler) . mkList
parMap is from Control.Parallel.Strategies; it expresses a map that can be done in parallel. The first argument, rseq having type Strategy a, is used to force the computation to a specific point, otherwise no work would be done, due to laziness. rseq is fine for most numeric types.
It's not useful to add parallelism to fib here, below about fib 40 there isn't enough work to make it worthwhile.
In addition to threadscope, it's useful to run your program with the -s flag. Look for a line like:
SPARKS: 15202 (15195 converted, 0 pruned)
in the output. Each spark is an entry in a work queue to possibly be performed in parallel. Converted sparks are actually done in parallel, while pruned sparks mean that the main thread got to them before a worker thread had the chance to do so. If the pruned number is high, it means your parallel expressions are too fine-grained. If the total number of sparks is low, you aren't trying to do enough in parallel.
Finally, I think parMapFibEuler is better written as:
parMapFibEuler :: Int
parMapFibEuler = sum (mapFib 'using' parList rseq) + sum mapEuler
mapEuler is simply too short to have any parallelism usefully expressed here, especially as euler is already performed in parallel. I'm doubtful that it makes a substantial difference for mapFib either. If the lists mapFib and mapEuler were longer, parallelism here would be more useful. Instead of parList you may be able to use parBuffer, which tends to work well for list consumers.
Making these two changes cuts the runtime from 12s to 8s for me, with GHC 7.0.2.
0
7
The reason you aren't seeing any parallelism here is because your spark has been garbage collected. Run the program with +RTS -s and note this line:
 SPARKS: 1 (0 converted, 1 pruned)
the spark has been "pruned", which means removed by the garbage collector. In GHC 7 we made a change to the semantics of sparks, such that a spark is now garbage collected (GC'd) if it is not referred to by the rest of the program; the details are in the "Seq no more" paper.
Why is the spark GC'd in your case? Look at the code:
parMapFibEuler :: Int
parMapFibEuler = (forceList mapFib) 'par' (forceList mapEuler 'pseq' (sum mapFib + sum mapEuler))
the spark here is the expression forkList mapFib. Note that the value of this expression is not required by the rest of the program; it only appears as an argument to par. GHC knows that it isn't required, so it gets garbage collected.
The whole point of the recent changes to the parallel package were to let you easily avoid this bear trap. A good Rule of Thumb is to use Control.Parallel.Strategies rather than par and pseq directly. My preferred way to write this would be
parMapFibEuler :: Int
parMapFibEuler = runEval $ do
 a <- rpar $ sum mapFib
 b <- rseq $ sum mapEuler
 return (a+b)
but sadly this doesn't work with GHC 7.0.2, because the spark sum mapFib is floated out as a static expression (a CAF), and the runtime doesn't think sparks that point to static expressions are worth keeping (I'll fix this). This wouldn't happen in a real program, of course! So let's make the program a bit more realistic and defeat the CAF optimisation:
parMapFibEuler :: Int -> Int
parMapFibEuler n = runEval $ do
 a <- rpar $ sum (take n mapFib)
 b <- rseq $ sum (take n mapEuler)
 return (a+b)
main = do [n] <- fmap (fmap read) getArgs
 putStrLn (" sum : " ++ show (parMapFibEuler n))
Now I get good parallelism with GHC 7.0.2. However, note that @John's comments also apply: generally you want to look for more fine-grained parallelism so as to let GHC use all your processors.
1
 - Thanks very much for this; it explains some behavior I was wondering about while looking at this problem. – John L Mar 18 '11 at 14:23
1
Hmmm... Maybe?
((forceList mapFib) 'par' (forceList mapEuler)) 'pseq' (sum mapFib + sum mapEuler)
I.e. spawn mapFib in background and calculate mapEuler and only after it (mapEuler) do (+) of their sums. Actually I guess you can do something like:
parMapFibEuler = a 'par' b 'pseq' (a+b) where
 a = sum mapFib
 b = sum mapEuler
About Q2: As I know strategies - is the "strategies" to combine data-structures with those par and seq.
You can write your forceList = withStrategy (seqList rseq)
As well you can write your code like:
parMapFibEuler = (mapFib, mapEuler) 'using' s 'seq' (sum mapFib + sum mapEuler) where
 s = parTuple2 (seqList rseq) (seqList rseq)
I.e. strategy applied to tuple of two lists will force their evaulation in parallel, but each list will be forced to be evaluated sequentially.
2
 -


text:
Nicolaas Pieter Johannes "Siener" van Rensburg (August 30, 1862 – March 11, 1926) was a Boer from the South African Republic -also known as the Transvaal Republicand later a citizen of South Africa who is seen by some as a prophet of the Boere (or Afrikaners). Therefore his nickname soon became Siener, which is Afrikaans for "seer" or "soothsayer". His seemingly accurate predictions of future events were typically wrapped in religious patriotism.
The nature of his visions invariably concerned the welfare of the Boere and Germany and were experienced by him as visual imagery to be interpreted afterwards. When the image of the Sisal plant occurred in his visions, he for instance interpreted this as a portend of an important meeting, assembly or parliament. He is believed by some to have made many accurate predictions of local events, including foretelling the death of Koos de la Rey, a general in the Second Boer War, and the political transition of South Africa after his own death. At times his visions also concerned international events, among which the start of World War I and the rise of Communism. He was unable to interpret some of his own visions. These, written down, are still open to interpretation, and believed by some to pertain to future events.
He was born in the district of Potchefstroom. He only received 20 days of formal school training and spent much of his youth as a cattle herder. At age 16 he participated in a government expedition against the rebellious tribal leader Mapog. He settled near Wolmaranstad in the then western ZAR, and married Anna Sophia Kruger in 1884.
Participation in wars
Nicolaas van Rensburg participated in the second Anglo-Boer War under General du Toit. When time allowed, he then revealed the visions to those around him. He returned to his farm before the end of the war. When the Union of South Africa came out in support of the Allied Powers in World War I, Nicolaas van Rensburg joined the rebels. The rebellion received a fatal blow even before it started, when the influential general Koos de la Rey was accidentally killed on September 15, 1914. The rebellion petered out and most rebels, van Rensburg included, were eventually captured and imprisoned for two years.
[Read more →]

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


public safety departments around the world have implemented next-generation work centers that combine multiple data sources into a single, unified image using new technology and data analysis software. This will allow public security officials to assess the situation in real time and make appropriate decisions.
The definition of next-generation job centers is an example of real-time crime centers (RTCCs). Public safety departments can use data visualization, analytics, and artificial intelligence tools in RTCC to gain insights from old and real-time inputs. This skill allows for more accurate and faster decision making.
A cognitive engine, an artificial intelligence application capable of processing unstructured data from a variety of sources so that users – in this case public safety departments – can easily extract functional data, is a crucial enabling technology for this type of research. Law enforcement can use these cognitive engines to destroy and evaluate body camera material, edit multimedia, create transcripts, and more.
In the RTCC regulations, analysts and researchers can access 15-20 separate sources of information to identify a person of potential interest. Cognitive engines go through all of these sources and compile the data into aggregation displays and mapping systems, providing faster, more concise information to enable decision-making. Cognitive engines are also useful for law enforcement to improve transparency with the public outside of response functions. Cognitive engines can help authorities disclose information about police encounters with people more easily.
A cognitive engine is an artificial intelligence program that takes unstructured data, analyzes it, and then produces a structured result. Cognitive engines are used for many purposes. For example, there are engines for language recognition, translation, content detection, summary, emotional analysis and more, for example in the field of text analysis. Target recognition, license plate recognition, and optical character recognition are used for video analysis.
Benefits of cognitive engines for public safety
The use of cognitive motor technology in RTCC benefits public safety departments in many ways. One is enhanced transparency. The faster the evidence can be properly processed and corrected, the faster it can be released to the public. Cognitive engines are also force factors. They help reduce the resources and time staff need to analyze the evidence. Staff need to focus on more valuable work instead of time-consuming but low-value tasks such as editing and transcription
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text:
A study of the energy performance of two buildings with lightweight and heavyweight facades – Energy & Environmental Assessment
Research with Atelier 10 shows that Traditional buildings are more sustainable than the modernist alternative.
ADAM Architecture formed a consortium of house-builders, a planning consultant and Atelier 10, the leading environmental engineers, to provide a properly tested comparison between a largely glass-walled lightweight building and a traditional dense-walled building with punched window openings and traditional materials. The research demonstrates the clear relative benefits of the traditional building type as against the glass-wall type, and confirms what all environmental engineers know but most architects would rather ignore: that traditional buildings are the most sustainable type.
If you would like a full copy of the research report document, please contact us on: _EMAIL_


Nuclear Pools
How does Nuclear Insurance work?
To best address the unique insurance needs of the civil nuclear industry, NRI's model centres on the 'pooling', or grouping, of capacity by many insurers to allow a joint underwriting of risks.
Nuclear pools, established in the mid-1950s, were formed to insure civil nuclear risks within their national market, and to provide interpool reinsurance (reciprocation). Reciprocation is arranged on a 'net' of Treaty or Facultative reinsurance basis given that nuclear is a general exclusion within the insurance market. Net capacity is pooled from insurers and reinsurers who are willing to expose their balance sheet to civil nuclear risks.
Pools were established in the spirit of a bilateral relationship between the newly forming sector, governments and the insurance market.
A pool is a mechanism whereby a number of insurers, through association, jointly underwrite a technically challenging type of risk. Pools are typically formed when a risk is high in severity and low in frequency and other examples include terrorism and natural catastrophe. Pools are further categorised by insufficient capacity being attracted to a class of business (from individual insurance companies), due to risk appetite, technical underwriting challenges and costs of doing business.
A pool in Country A insures a civil nuclear risk domestically and then via reciprocation shares that risk with other nuclear insurance pools B and C etc. within the international pooling system thereby spreading and diversifying the potentially catastrophic risk.
Nuclear Insurance Business Flow
As one of the most internationally diversified pools in the world, NRI writes risks in all nuclear countries, with the exception of countries where sanctions apply.
Nuclear Pools
Many international nuclear pools of insurance have been modelled along similar lines to NRI structure.
Today, over 300 insurance companies in 31 countries pool their net capacity in this way, which is then used to insure domestic civil nuclear risks and to provide interpool reinsurance (reciprocation).
In the absence of nuclear pools, the finite insurance capacity that exists could not be accessed efficiently or at all. Consequently, nuclear pools provide an essential service to civil nuclear operators and are an enabler to the operators' 'social licence' by satisfying their complex insurance needs.


Prisoner Zero
Prisoner Zero
Prisoner Zero
First Seen In:
The Eleventh Hour
Day of the Moon
Prisoner Zero
Main Actor:
Olivia Colman
Main Voice Actor:
William Wilde
Other Actors:
Marcello Magni
Matt Smith
Caitlin Blackwood
Eden Monteath
Merin Monteath
click on images to enlarge
Prisoner Zero was a multi-form shape-shifting alien, held prisoner by the Atraxi for certain crimes. He escaped to Earth when the TARDIS explosion caused cracks throughout time and space, hiding in an extra room of Amelia Pond's home for twelve years until he was tricked into revealing himself by the freshly regenerated Eleventh Doctor and recaptured by his jailers to be executed. Before being taken away, he warned The Doctor against the Silence.
In 1996, Prisoner Zero was a captive in an Atraxi extra-dimensional prison. When a crack in the universe opened into Amelia Pond's bedroom wall, Prisoner Zero escaped through to Amelia's house in Leadworth. It hid in a room in Amelia's house, placing a perception filter on the room's door so it would not be found. It hid on Earth for twelve years, watching Amelia grow up. It sometimes ventured into the village, posing as comatose people in Royal Leadworth Hospital whom it had established a psychic link with, a process that took months. If the person it was copying was dreaming about having someone else with them, Prisoner Zero would appear to be multiple lifeforms touching each other. It was actually one creature with many limbs and orifices.
The forms it took were of comatose people. In 2008, Rory Williams, who worked at the hospital as a nurse, took pictures of them with his mobile phone, knowing the people he saw shouldn't be up and about. It was during this time that Prisoner Zero established a psychic link with Amelia (later Amy) Pond.
The Eleventh Doctor belatedly returned to Amelia's house to save her from the multi-form. After Amy had seen its natural form, Prisoner Zero took a shape-shifted form but was confused as to which voice to use for each form. The Atraxi, who had followed The Doctor, broadcasted a global warning that they would incinerate "the human residence", Earth, if Prisoner Zero did not surrender. After escaping from Prisoner Zero, The Doctor and Amy went into the village square, where residents of Leadworth were taking pictures of the Sun, obscured because the Atraxi had put a force field around the Earth. The Doctor noticed that Rory was facing the other way, taking a picture of Prisoner Zero, who was disguised as a man with a dog. The Doctor attempted to draw the Atraxi to Prisoner Zero by overloading all the electrical devices in the surrounding area with his extraterrestrial sonic screwdriver, but the screwdriver burnt out and Prisoner Zero escaped again.
Prisoner Zero went to the hospital and killed all The Doctors and nurses. It took the form of a woman with two children to fool Amy and Rory, but gave itself away by talking with the woman's voice through a child's mouth. It snarled at Amy and Rory and chased them down the corridors. The Doctor arrived through the window just in time, and revealed his master plan to Prisoner Zero.
Believing that surrender would mean execution, Prisoner Zero said it was prepared to die in flames with the whole planet. The Doctor suggested Prisoner Zero open another crack to escape, but Zero said the cracks were not its doing, but cracks in the skin of the universe. It taunted The Doctor about his lack of knowledge. "The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know." It added that "the Pandorica will open. Silence will fall". When cornered by The Doctor, who had given the Atraxi Prisoner Zero's location and pictures of all its previous disguises, it tried to avoid Atraxi detection by using a psychic connection with Amy to imitate her younger self and the Doctor. The Doctor thwarted this by stimulating Amy's recent memory of Prisoner Zero and forcing it to take on its own form. The Atraxi detected and secured Prisoner Zero, as it gave its final warning: "Silence, Doctor. Silence will fall". (The Eleventh Hour)
Much later, the Eleventh Doctor would later muse that while he foiled the mysterious plans of Prisoner Zero, he never actually learned what Prisoner Zero's plans were. (The Day of the Doctor)
 - In an issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan referred to Prisoner Zero as a "Face Tendril". Steven Moffat also referred to it as such, as did the trading card.
 - Despite being the first villain of the Matt Smith era, Prisoner Zero wasn't seen in any trailers or publicity images.
 - Steven Moffat's DVD commentary on The Eleventh Hour reveals that there was originally a line of dialogue establishing that Prisoner Zero had impersonated an army and invaded a planet, but the line was cut. Moffat states that he was never quite happy with the explanation and it is better left to the imagination..
 Prisoner Zero's entire body in its true form is never seen, always trailing off-screen.
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Lattice Energy
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ChemHelp.png This article is part of the ChemHelp Tutoring Wiki
Lattice energy is the energy required to convert one mole of crystal into its constituent ions in the gas phase at infinite separation. Ionic energy can also be defined to the energy released when a ions form an ionic solid.
M+(g) + X-(g) --> MX(s)
where M is a cation and X is an anion
Two trends when observing lattice energies:
1. The larger the ionic radii of the ions (cation or anion), the farther the electrons are from the nucleus, the easier it is to transfer electrons to form a solid, thus, less energy is required.
This can also be explained by Coloumb's Law
Therefore, lattice energy decreases from right to left and towards the bottom of the periodic table.
2. The divalent ions require a larger lattice energy to form a solid than monovalent ions. This is because twice as much energy is required to remove the second electron from a cation.


text:
Integrating water cycle management into urban design
Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) is a key component of any new development design.
WSUD should be completed during the design phase of a project in conjunction with architects and landscape designers. This is to ensure that the design can be well integrated into the overall project.
WSUD is increasingly becoming a regulatory requirement for developments in order to mitigate impact on stormwater infrastructure and the environment. Clause 56.07 of the State Planning Policy requires new residential subdivisions of two lots or more to meet best practice water flow and treatment requirements.
To deliver the design, we undertake site visits, catchment analysis, options assessment concept design and detail design through to supervising construction.


text:
EXPENSE REPORTING POLICY
Expense Reporting Requires Compliance
With ExpenseVisor, each business expense report can incorporate it's own set of expense reporting policy compliance statements. You can also incorporate company guidelines and your complete travel and entertainment expense reporting handbook online and have it available online for each employee.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) is part of current business for U.S. public corporations. Compliance is essential to maintaining shareholder confidence and avoiding penalties. In the U.S. SOX is the most important corporate governance and disclosure legislation in over 70 years.
Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act mandates company management must demonstrate that adequate internal controls exist to ensure compliance in the accuracy of all financial reporting.
How Does ExpenseVisor Help With Expense Policy Compliance?
ExpenseVisor helps regulatory expense reporting policy requirements and reduces your risk of fraud by detecting many erroneous expense entries.
ExpenseVisor does not allow exact duplicate expense reports and exact duplicate expense items are rejected even if entered on different reports.
When ExpenseVisor'sniffs out' similar expense items, users are alerted. If they believe the item is legitimate and submit it for payment, the system will alert your accounting department of the duplication for their review.
Optimized Expense Reporting
The ExpenseVisor experience provides the following as well as options and customizations:
- Mobile and Desktop
- Simplified and intuitive user interface
- Unlimited accounts, projects, vendors, etc
- Receipt imaging via mobile app
- Credit card pre-population
- Currency conversion
- Automated approval paths
- Management reports and graphs
- Business rules for policy enforcement
- Automatic notifications via external emails
- Built-in audit trails
- Seamless integration
How Does ExpenseVisor Limit Risk, Improve Accountability?
ExpenseVisor provides you with the following expense reporting policy benefits and controls:
- Expense allocations based on defaults or option.
- Expense types selected from pre-defined list.
- Automated audit trail of every expense report.
- Expense controlled by spending limits and rules.
- Automatically prompts and requires expense detail.
- Pre-allocation of corporate credit card expenses.
- Requires/allows comments for each expense item.
- Automatically checks for duplicated expenses.
- Receipt rules can be set per expense type.
- Allows for authorized proxy submitters and approvers.
- All corporate policies are highlighted at entry.
- Automated email to approvers and originators.
- Aging parameters alert approvers to timely approvals.
- Optional pre-authorized trip or expense approval.
- Expense reports flagged if rules violated.
- Flexible approval path allows for correct approval routing.
- Expense policies are configurable and easily customized.
- Seamless integration into 3rd party software.
- Expense charged correctly to G/L and business unit.
- Restricts users from selecting incorrect expense types.
- Provides complete history of every expense.
- Flags spending violations.
- Reduces duplicated or mis-allocated expense.
- Capture expense simply and correctly.
- Documents any exceptions to travel policy.
- Prevents reimbursements for duplicated expenses.
- Requires users to certify and include receipts.
- Audit trail records all proxy transactions.
- Ensures users are aware of potential policy violations.
- Reduces processing time and workflow.
- Eliminates slow approval and processing.
- Assures expenses are pre-approved before they occur.
- Approvers act on rules violations.
- Approval paths meet your corporate criteria.
- System customizes to your spending policies.
- Eliminates duplicated work and reduces error.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Moldy mouse food postpones SpaceX launch
SpaceX has postponed its cargo launch to the International Space Station until Wednesday after mold was found on food bars for a mouse experiment bound for the orbiting outpost, NASA said.
The launch was initially set for Tuesday. The new time is 1:16 pm (1816 GMT) Wednesday.
"The launch was moved to Wednesday after mold was found on food bars for a rodent investigation prior to handover to SpaceX," NASA said in a statement late Monday.
"Teams will use the extra day to replace the food bars."
Some 40 mice are part of the experiment aimed at studying the effects of microgravity in the immune system.
The launch will be the 16th for SpaceX, as part of an ongoing contract with NASA to send supplies to the astronauts living at the space station.
Some 5,600 pounds (2,500 kilograms) of food, experiments and other gear is packed onto the unmanned Dragon cargo ship, which will blast off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
© 2018 AFP


text:
Educational ELA Tablet Game for iOS
Sentence Sensibility is a word game that encourages players to learn varied, complex grammatical structures. The game has two modes. In the first mode, players are given a set of words with which they must form as many sentences as possible within a time limit. Players score more points for longer, more complex sentences. In the second mode, players use a set of words to recreate a quotation from a great work of literature. Both modes encourage experimentation with word order and syntax while providing immediate, corrective feedback to hone grammar skills
Role: Creative Direction
Published by Amplify
Developed by Schell Games
Available in the App Store.


text:
Quantifying Properties and Variability of Expansive Soils in Selected Map Units
A study of 12 expansive soils in four major physiographic provinces in Virginia was initiated to examine and quantify the relationship between shrink-swell potential, shrink-swell indices, and soil properties. The mineralogy classes, soil series, and (physiographic provinces, parent materials) examined include smectitic -- Jackland and Waxpool (Triassic, diabase), Iredell (Piedmont, hornblende); vermiculitic -- Kelly (Triassic, thermal shale); kaolinitic -- Cecil (Piedmont, granite gneiss), Davidson (Triassic, diabase); and mixed -- Carbo and Frederick (Valley and Ridge, limestone), Craven and Peawick (Coastal Plain, fluvial and marine sediments), and Mayodan and Creedmoor (Triassic, sandstones). Three sites in each of the 12 map units were described and major horizons sampled for physical, chemical, and mineralogical laboratory analysis. An expansive soil rating system, termed the Expansive Soil Index (ESI), was developed using the soil properties best correlated with shrink-swell potential. The sum of swelling 2:1 minerals, swell index, liquid limit, and CEC gave expansive soil potential ratings (ESI) for each soil series. The higher the ESI, the greater the shrink-swell potential.
Smectite distributions within the soil profiles were investigated. Smectite concentration in the clay fraction increases with depth in soils formed from diabase and thermally altered shale. Smectite weathers to kaolinite and hydroxy-interlayered vermiculite with increasing proximity to the soil surface thus accounting for the observed decrease in smectite toward the soil surface. The highest amount of smectite from the granite gneiss, limestone, sandstones and shales, and Coastal Plain sediments were in the Bt2 horizon where maximum expression of the argillic horizon occurs. Smectite contents decrease away (upwards and downwards) from the maximum in the Bt2 horizon.
A satellite study focused on locating and quantifying the variability within five map units in the Culpeper (Triassic) Basin in northern Virginia. Variability of the shrink-swell indices and related properties are high in all map units. Dissimilar inclusions could adversely affect foundations if a home is sited on both moderate and high shrink-swell soils. Although there is extreme variability in the map units, the variability occurs within the delineations of each map unit. Each delineation within an individual map unit contains similar levels of variability.


Thursday Throwing Tips –How to Throw a Curve Ball
The debate whether throwing curve balls is bad for the young arm or not will rage forever, I assume. Regardless, at some point kids need to learn how to throw a curve ball correctly. Additionally, it is important for most position players to stay on top with their throws. This does not mean that throwing with a three quarter delivery is not OK, but it is important for kids that throw sidearm to learn to get on top more, at least for position players.
how to throw a curve ball.
how to throw a curve ball
Baseball Drill for How to Throw a Curve Ball
I have players bring an empty, plastic water bottle to practice. Players pair off and begin throwing their bottles to each other at the same time. This way they are getting more reps and there is no danger if the bottles collide. The object is to have the bottles thrown to where they spin head over head in a twelve to six rotation. This should be practice with the regular fastball grip with twelve-six rotation and with a curve ball hand action with the same spin. Once players get the feel of spinning the bottle correctly with both the fastball (hand behind) action and the curve ball (Hand on side like throwing a football), players try the same with a regular baseball, but with only one thrown at a time.
Coaches can also have players count the number of twelve six rotations they can get with the empty bottles. This how to throw a curve ball drill helps players understand the pitch, too, a good first step to perfecting the pitch.
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I'm sure you've seen this question asked before but there's no definitive answer.
Microwaves are used to heat food, and they also cook food at high temperatures.
So if you put something in a microwave, it should get hot.
But microwaved avocados don't seem to soften up.
Why is that?
Does Microwaving Avocados Speed Up Ripening?
Microwaving avocados does not soften them but it speeds up the ripening process. This is because microwaved avocados absorb moisture from the air faster than unmicrowaved avocados. So if you want to get the maximum benefit of microwaving avocados, place them in a paper bag and leave them in the fridge overnight. Then remove them from the fridge and put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Let them sit for another 10 minutes and enjoy!
What Happens When You Microwave An Avocado?
Avocados are very perishable fruits and should be eaten within two days after being purchased. However, you can extend their shelf life by placing them in the refrigerator. To help preserve the avocado's flavor, cut off the stem end and peel away the skin. Next, slice the avocado lengthwise into quarters. Remove each quarter from the shell and cut each half into three pieces. Place the slices in a medium bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
How Long Should You Put An Avocado In The Microwave?
Microwaving avocados is not recommended because it damages the fruit's nutrients. It is better to eat the avocado raw.
Avocados are very perishable fruits, and if left unrefrigerated, they quickly go bad. To avoid this, store them in the refrigerator. However, if you're planning on eating them right away, you can put them in the microwave for 30 seconds every other minute until they're soft enough to eat. 1-minute intervals
Can You Bake An Avocado In The Oven?
You can bake an avocado in the oven, but it's not recommended. Baking avocados actually dries them out and makes them harder to peel. Instead, try these two methods to soften them up. Method 1: Cut the avocado in half lengthwise, remove the pit, and scoop out the flesh into a bowl. Mash the avocado with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste. Method 2: Slice the avocado in half lengthways. Remove the pit and scoop out the flesh. Place the avocado halves cut side down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Microwave on medium power for about 5 minutes, or until the avocado is softened.
Although "baked avocados" aren't going to replace
Baked avocados aren't going to replace real avocados any time soon. But if you're looking for a way to enjoy the fruit without having to peel it, this method works well.
Although baked avocados aren't really going to replace real avacado's anytime soon, they can still be a fun snack or appetizer. To bake an avocado, simply cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh into a bowl. Mash the avocado with a fork until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spread the mashed avocado onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or foil. Bake at 400 degrees F 200 C for about 10 minutes, or until warmed through. Serve immediately.
Baked Avocado – This recipe is from "Cooking Light" magazine. It's a great way to serve baked potato chips. Ingredients: 2 medium-sized ripe avocados about 1 pound
Can A Toaster Oven Replace A Microwave?
Yes! A toaster oven can replace a microwave. Many people think that a toaster oven cannot be used to bake breads, but it can. Breads can be placed directly into the toaster oven and baked. Baking breads in a toaster oven is very easy. Just place the bread in the toaster oven, set the timer, and walk away. The bread will be done when the timer goes off.
A toaster oven can replace any other appliance in your kitchen. It is a great way to save money because you only pay for what you use. It is also a good option if you don't have enough counter space for a full sized oven.
How Long Do Avocados Take To Soften?
Avocados take about 30 minutes to soften. This is why you should always buy avocados from a store where they know how long they will last.
How Do You Soften Avocados Quickly?
To quickly soften avocados, place them in a bowl filled with ice cold water. After 10 minutes, remove the avocado from the water and let it sit until it reaches room temperature. Then peel off the skin and slice the avocado.
Should You Refrigerate Avocados?
Avocados should never be refrigerated. This is because avocados are extremely perishable and if stored in the refrigerator, they will spoil very quickly. Instead, store them in a cool, dark area away from direct sunlight.
California's avocado experts
If you live in California, you know that avocados are not only delicious but also healthy. In addition, avocados are rich in nutrients such as vitamin C, potassium, fiber, folate, and monounsaturated fats. However, avocados are prone to bruising and ripening faster than other fruits. To avoid these problems, you should store avocados at room temperature about 70 degrees Fahrenheit and place them in a paper bag.
, unripe avocados may never fully ripen if you put them in the fridge.
Avocado is a fruit that grows in tropical climates. It is native to Central America and Mexico. Avocados are very popular because of their creamy texture and smooth flavor. Avocados are available year round but peak season is from September to December. Avocados are usually sold in supermarkets and grocery stores. Avocados are classified into two types – Hass and Fuerte. Hass avocados are larger and sweeter while Fuerte avocados are smaller and firmer. Avocados are used in many different ways. They are eaten raw, sliced, mashed, blended, fried, grilled, baked, and even turned into guacamole. Avocados are also used in salads, sandwiches, soups, desserts, and sauces.
How Long Do Avocados Last In The Refrigerator?
increases in size when it feels the rise in temperature and this is the reason for rice cooker boils over. The first reason is due to excess water causes boils over. If you add more amount of water in the cooker it will cause trouble and your rice may come out overcooked. Another reason is over the rise in temperature causes the rice cooker boiling over.
Ripe, unpeeled avocados
Avocado lifespan depends on how ripe they are. Ripe avocados last longer than unripe ones. Unripe avocados start to ripen after about 2 weeks in the refrigerator. Once they reach full maturity, they can stay in the fridge for several months.
Can You Freeze Avocados?
Yes, you can freeze avocados. To freeze avocados, cut them into halves or quarters and place them in a freezer bag. Make sure to label the bag with the date and contents. Place the bag in the freezer until frozen solid. Once frozen, transfer the avocado pieces to a storage container. Store the container in the freezer for up to 3 months.
You can freeze avocados for long-term storage, but
To freeze avocados, you can follow the same steps above. However, instead of cutting the avocados into halves or quarters, slice them thinly. This way, you won't lose any of the flavor. Transfer the slices to a freezer bag and freeze until frozen solid. Transfer the bag to a storage container and store in the freezer for up three months.
If you're looking for a new appliance, we've got you covered! Check out our top picks below.
Are Ziploc Bags Airtight?
Ziploc bags are great for keeping food fresh and airtight. However, if you put something into a ziploc bag and leave it outside, the contents could get wet from rain or snow. This could ruin the contents of the bag. What Is the Best Way to Store Food?
So, Is Nuking Avocados A Kitchen No-No?
Nuking avocados is not recommended because it damages the avocado's skin and flesh. It is better to cut off the top of the avocado and store it in the refrigerator. How To Keep Your Coffee Cold? How To Make Homemade Ice Cream Without An Ice Cream Maker?
How do you ripen avocados in 10 minutes?
To ripen avocados, place them in a paper bag with ripe bananas. This helps to ripen the fruit faster.
What is the fastest way to ripen an avocado?
Ripening avocados is a very easy process. Simply place the fruit in a paper bag and leave it in a warm area about 85 degrees for about 2 days. This method works well for any type of avocado. It


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Contact: Les Lang
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Caption: Angelman syndrome is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutation or deletion of the maternally inherited copy of Ube3a (blackened region of the chromosomes). The paternally inherited copy of Ube3a is intact but epigenetically silenced in neurons (grey neuron, green chromosomal region). A high‑content screen with mouse primary cortical neurons identified several topoisomerase I and II inhibitors (white flurries covering pink neuron) that unsilence the paternal copy of Ube3a. This study highlights a role for topoisomerase enzymes in epigenetic gene regulation and suggests a novel approach for restoring Ube3a function in patients with Angelman syndrome.
Credit: Illustration by Janet Iwasa.
Usage Restrictions: None
Related news release: UNC study could lead to a treatment for Angelman syndrome


text: The assumed mode method is widely used in the dynamic modeling of single flexible structures such as beams, bars, cables and plates. However, its application is limited when dealing with the vibration problems of combined structures because it cannot reflect the coupling between components. The approximate dynamic model of the combined structure can be established by using the assuming modes, and then the natural frequencies and corresponding eigenvectors of the system can be obtained by using the approximate model. Based on this approach, the global modes of the system can be obtained effectively. In this paper, a simply supported beam with multiple elastic supports in the middle span is taken as an example, and the global modes of the system are extracted by assuming mode weighting, so as to establish the dynamic model of the system. The results of the intrinsic characteristics analysis of the system show that the global mode of the system can be easily obtained by assumed model weighting. The results of dynamic response analysis of the system show that the nonlinear dynamic model based on the proposed global mode can effectively reflect the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the system.


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BOULDER, Colo. — Researchers and students from the University of Colorado Denver and University of Colorado Boulder are competing in a subterranean challenge by building underwater drones.
It's all thanks to a $4.15 million grant the group received allowing them to design and create drones that will be able to search far off places such as tunnels, mines and caves.
The goal is for the drones to be able to locate disaster survivors, chemical leaks and more.
While most are familiar with drones that fly, drones that submerge underwater are far different.
According to instructors at CU Denver, underwater drones have to deal with faulty communication systems, tight spaces and poor vision.
"As humans we use vision to do 99 percent of our navigation. So if you take the visual component away we have to rely on all these different multi-module sensing schemes," said explained Sean Humbert, professor of mechanical engineering.
The competition is part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Subterranean Challenge. The challenge will span three years.AlertMe


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In this lesson students will attempt to recreate a journal that traces a typical draftee's path from recruitment, training, deployment and assimilation to home using background knowledge of WWI and conditions in the segregated south.
Click here to download the full lesson with attached handouts. The Red Hand Division
The 371st Infantry Regiment in WWI was an all-Black army unit that fought in WWI. "This African American unit was trained at Camp Jackson in Columbia, SC, and fought alongside French troops using French weapons and equipment. The 157th French Division to which they were attached became known as the "Red Hand Division" under the command of French General Mariano Goybet. Enlisted members (African American) of the 371st earned 12 American Distinguished Service Crosses, and 89 French Croix de Guerre. The 371st fought consistently on the front lines during WWI and consistently drove back the German lines resulting in the "Red Hand" moniker."
Emmett J. Smith was a personal adviser and speech writer to Booker T. Washington, and served in Woodrow Wilson's administration as an adviser on black affairs. During that time he published two reports on conditions facing African Americans during the period, which were published as The American Negro in the World War (1919) and Negro Migration during the First World War (1920). The link below is to an excerpt in The American Negro in the World War (1919) focusing on the 371st Regiment.
South Carolina Social Studies Support Document, Grade 8, 2008 _URL_
South Carolina Standards
8-6.2 Explain the impact of World War I on South Carolina, including the building of new military bases and the economic impact of emigration to industrial jobs in the North.
- Students will analyze and gather information from primary and secondary sources.
- Students will attempt to recreate a journal that traces a typical draftee's path from recruitment, training, deployment and assimilation to home using background knowledge of WWI and conditions in the segregated south
Time Required Recommended Grade Level
1 week (Homework/Classwork Project) Middle/High School
- E.J. Scott-Chapter on experiences of 371st Regiment with primary quotes from unit members.
- Image of unnamed soldier from 371st. Note "Red Hand" shoulder patch.
- Download the picture "Unknown African-American Soldier and Daughter" from the University of South Carolina's Digital Collections Library.
- Print Journal Questions to hand out to students.
- Project the image of the Unknown Soldier to the class.
- Have students analyze the photograph by asking the following questions and getting verbal responses:
- Describe what you see in the photograph.
- What do you notice first?
- What if any words do you see?
- What other details can you see?
- What do these details tell you about the photograph?
- When do you think this picture was taken?
- If someone took this photograph today, what would be different? What would be the same?
- Which branch of the military do you think the gentleman was in? Explain your response.
- What do you wonder about? (Have students write these questions down. They will need to keep track of the answers they find that answer their own questions.)
- Explain to students that they will be working on a project for the next week that will help them better understand who this man was and what his role was in WWI.
- Their goal is to create a fictitious journal tracing the path of a typical African American draftee in the 371st Regiment.
- Provide students with the guided inquiry below.
- Explain grading procedures and deadlines.
- When students have turned in their projects allow them ½ of a class period to debrief, sharing with the class what they learned. During debriefing, students should share answers to the questions they had at the beginning of the project.
25 points for each journal section
Lesson Extension Options
Have students research to find other photographs related to the Red Hand Division. Offer as extra credit
Digital Collections Information
This lesson plan is based on images and/or documents derived from the University of South Carolina's Digital Collections Library.


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- About ACTFL
- Convention & Expo
- Assessment & PD
Educate the Local Board of Education and Other Local Stakeholders
Often language educators think about standing up for their programs only when the inevitable axe is ready to fall. However, pro-active and ongoing advocacy addressing the benefits of articulated and academic PK-16 language education including multiple languages is much more effective than relying just on reactive or crisis advocacy.
TIP: Get on the agenda for a local board meeting, local PTA meetings, school accountability committee meetings at the district and/or school level, community organizations such as Rotary International. At the postsecondary level, see if you can make a presentation at a meeting of your university's Board of Trustees. Show clips of your students in action using the language, or invite your students to do a skit, sample class, or some other demonstration using their language skills. In your presentation, show how your program is aligned with local, state and national guidelines and mention the cognitive benefits of language education that can lead to increased overall achievement in school. [Note: You can find this research online at _URL_.] This approach to local stakeholders and decision-makers allows for an objective presentation that validates the current language program or sets the groundwork for program expansion. Above all, know your audience, meet them where they are in terms of their awareness about language learning, and customize your presentation to further their knowledge of the benefits of language education.


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Emerging Technology for Agriculture Webinar Series
Technology in Forage-based Beef Production Systems
10:00 am–11:00 amLocation: Zoom Webinar
Presented by Mitch Stephenson, assistant professor, Agronomy and Horticulture, and Travis Mulliniks, assistant professor, Animal Science.
This event originated in School of Natural Resources.
Ballot Initiatives: Election Day 2020
Farm and Ranch Management Webinar
12:00 pm–1:00 pmLocation: Online (via Zoom)
With Dave Aiken, professor and agricultural law specialist, Department of Agricultural Economics.
This event originated in Center for Agricultural Profitability.


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Milestones:Yosami Radio Transmitting Station, 1929
Yosami Radio Transmitting Station, 1929
In April 1929, the Yosami Station established the first wireless communications between Japan and Europe with a long wave operating at 17.442 kHz. An inductor-type high-frequency alternator provided output power at 500 kW. The antenna system used eight towers, each 250m high. The facilities were used for communicating with submarines by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1941 to 1945 and by the United States Navy from 1950 to 1993.
Establishment of wireless communications in Japan
Before the First World War, Japan did not have its own overseas communication networks and depended on the wired networks operated by a foreign company. After the First World War, the Japanese government recognized that its own communication network was indispensable for dealing with the increasing amount of trade and diplomatic negotiations
and decided to establish the long wave wireless transmitting stations for communications between Japan and the US and between Japan and Europe. The station for communication with US was established in 1927 in Iwaki, north of Tokyo, and the station for Europe in 1929 in Yosami near Nagoya.
Long wave generation using machine-senders
In the 1920s when there was no vacuum tube with high output power, long waves (continuous carrier waves) with high output power were generated by machine-senders, i.e., high frequency (HF) generators. Two types of generator were proposed for the machine-senders, as described in the following item (h). In the Yosami station, an inductor-type alternator was selected with the idea of high output power. The station started communications to Warsaw in Poland on April 15, 1929 as the first destination with a long wave of 17.442kHz and output power of 500kW. Communications to Berlin, Paris and London followed in turn. By using the generator with such high output power, the long wave could cross a long distance of 9000km, i.e., the Eurasian Continent. Long wave stations around the world in the 1920s are shown in Table 1.
Long wave transmitting stations around the world in the 1920s.
Area Name of Station Wavelength (km) Output Power (kW) Country
North Rocky Point, NY 16.12/16.45 200/200 USA
America Coram Hill, NY 17.5 200 USA
New Brunswick [N.J.] 13.75/13.265 200/200 USA
Marion [Mass.] 11.62/13.505 200 USA
Tuckerton [N.J.] 15.9 200 USA
Barnegat [N.J.] 16.7 200 USA
Bolinas [Calif.] 13.345 200 USA
Kahuku [Hawai] 16.3/16.975 200/200 USA
South Rio de Janeiro 19 400 Brazil
America Monte Glande 12.65 500 Argentina
Buenos Aires 16.8 500 Argentina
Europe Nauen 13/18.06 400/400 Germany
Eilvese 14.65 200 Germany
Carnarvon 14.1 200 United Kingdom
Rugby 5 150 United Kingdom
St.Assise 19.675/14.3 400/400 France
Lafayette 19.1 400 France
Torrenuova 14.45 500 Italy
Kootwiyk 17.85 500 Holland
Verberg 17.4 200 Sweden
Stavanger 12.14 100 Norway
Warsaw 18.28 200 Poland
Ruysselede 18.52 500 Belgium
Asia Marabar 15.6 500 Java
Saigon 20.55?? Indochina
Iwaki 14.6 500 Japan
Yosami 17.2 500 Japan
Oceania Sydney???? Australia
Africa Abu Zabal 11 500 Egypt
* Grimeton long wave transmitting station in Verberg of Sweden was registered as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2005.
Advancement of short wave technology
In those days, short wave communication technologies had rapidly advanced, because short waves reflect at the ionosphere and enables long-distance communications with smaller power than long waves transmitted as ground waves. Within several years after completion of the Yosami Station, therefore, its long wave facilities became auxiliary
ones for periods when short waves could not be used because of fluctuations of the ionosphere in winter. Due to the success of the short waves, the Iwaki long wave transmitting station for communications with the US was dismantled and many other long wave stations in the world were also replaced with the short wave stations.
Submarine communications using long waves
As soon as the Second World War began, long waves were highlighted again.
Electromagnetic waves penetrate more deeply into water with lower frequency; the
penetration depth is almost 10-20m in the region of long waves. Due to this feature,
the long wave facilities in the Yosami Station came to be used for submarine
communications by the Japan Navy during the War. After the War, the US Navy reused
the Station for submarine communications during _PHONE_.
Yosami was opened as the first long wave wireless communications station between
Japan and Europe in 1929 and operated for more than 60 years in spite of
advancements in short wave technologies. In these periods, the Station served for trade
and diplomatic negotiations between Japan and Europe before the Second World War
and for the submarine communications during and after the War. Now, the main long
wave facilities once used at the Station are preserved in the newly-built Yosami Memorial
Museum next to the original site and open to the public.


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University of Queensland researchers have planted five hectares of Pongamia trees at Hope Vale, north Queensland in a bid to create a commercially viable plantation for sustainable regional development and biofuel production in northern Australia.
In conjunction with Cape York's traditional land owners and partners, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research (CILR) is aiming to plant a further 3000 hectares within the first three years of the partnership, which will ultimately yield an estimated 10 to 15 million litres of biofuel.
The seeds from the oil-rich Pongamia pinnata (also called Millettia) tree provide a sustainable solution to the production of biofuel, which in turn, will help alleviate the environmental ramifications caused by automotive, aviation, mining, energy, and marine industries.
Director of the CILR Professor Peter Gresshoff is UQ's driving force behind the seven year project and believes the initial stages will demonstrate the utility of local biofuel production.
It's a native species that has already grown in the area for thousands of years, he said.
More and more communities will be able to adopt our research and potentially support nations outside of Australia.
But if that's not enough of a reason, the tree requires minimal nitrogen fertiliser, grows fast, shows a strong tolerance to drought and salinity, plus it won't complete with prime agricultural land.
The seeds are also inedible, which makes the crop worry free when it comes to the controversial food-for-fuel debate.
John McIntyre of Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation says that project partners are also committed to indigenous employment as well as ensuring community and commercial success.
Approximately 80 new jobs will be created in the first five years, he said.
Over the next decade bio-based products will increasingly play a pivotal role in the global shift from fossil fuel dependent economies to a greener and cleaner future.
Despite this promise, extensive research is needed for optimal genetic material suited to specific regions, innovative management and harvesting procedures and down-stream conversion and utilisation.
Australia's current diesel requirement is about 20 billion litres a year.
Professor Gresshoff said pongamia-derived biodiesel was thought to initially meet 20 per cent of the demand with only 7000 square kilometers of plantations.
It was an unlimited possibility considering the country has close to one million square kilometres where Pongamia trees could flourish.
Explore further: Rice blast research reveals details on how a fungus invades plants


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Infineta has announced a first-ever 10Gbps WAN Optimization system, along with $15 million in Series B Funding, and received ESG Lab Validation on the new product.
Data Mobility Switch
Infineta announced the general availability of its new product, the Infineta Data Mobility Switch (DMS), which is designed to speed the traffic flow of huge amounts of data between large data centers. The company says the DMS provides instant 5-10x bandwidth capacity gains, IP traffic acceleration, and critical application prioritization over multi-gigabit WAN links. The DMS combines QoS (quality of service) controls, advanced network layer acceleration technologies and the Velocity Dedupe Engine (VDE). VDE is a hardware-based data deduplication system.
"Supporting massive volumes of inter-data center traffic generated by critical applications such as replication requires large WAN connections, often spanning significant distances," said Joe Skorupa, research vice president of data center transformation and security, Gartner. "Moving large amounts of traffic over a high capacity WAN can be expensive and consuming, increasing the importance of high-speed data reduction and transport optimization."
The Data Mobility Switch addresses what Infineta refers to as the Hyper-scale WAN, where inter-data center performance relies on scalability for critical applications, and move big data over expensive WAN circuits. DMS features wire speed, high-efficiency data reduction, extremely high per-flow throughput at any distance, packet loss/congestion avoidance, future-proof scalability and their unique dedupe algorithm.
$15 million in funding
Infineta also announced that it has closed a Series B funding round in the amount of $15 million led by Silicon Valley-based Rembrandt Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Alloy Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners. The new funding bringing their total backing to $30 million. The company plans to use the capital to expand sales, marketing, and engineering teams as it addresses the strong market demand for its products.
"Both emerging and established companies are adopting new technologies at a brisk pace to keep up with data growth, while seeking ways to expedite data collection, analysis, and distribution to generate more revenue, gain competitive advantage, and shorten time to market," said Raj Kanaya, co-founder and CEO of Infineta Systems. "We are pleased to receive this investment and validation from Rembrandt Venture Partners, along with our existing investors, who clearly recognize this rapidly growing market opportunity. We look forward to helping our customers manage their Hyper-scale WAN workflows more efficiently and cost-effectively using our groundbreaking product offering."
ESG Lab Validation
Infineta announced that the Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) has released a product test report based on hands-on testing of their Data Mobility Switch. "Infineta's DMS provides enterprise level optimization to satisfy the growing data-hungry replication between data centers," stated Ginny Roth of ESG Lab. "ESG Lab's tests revealed impressive acceleration and data reduction for bandwidth intensive applications. With a design that is simple to deploy in the data center and at a cost that is a fraction of other solutions, Infineta has made a powerful entry into the WAN optimization market."


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Discusses relationship between two countries Interest rates and Exchange;Rates. The Difference between Interest rates in two countries has a known;and predictable relationship with Exchange Rates.;Formally Stated;The Interest Rate differential between two countries, that do not have restrictions;on Capital flows, should equal the difference between the Spot and Forward;Exchange rates.;Example;Consider two countries, Say England and U.S.A.;Let the current Exchange rate be;Spot Rate 1 Pound = 1. 5 dollars;Let Annual Interest Rate of Risk free security in England be: 8%;Let Annual Interest Rate of Risk free security in USA be;4%;What should the three month Forward Exchange Rate be?;As per this theory [IRP], the forward exchange Rate should be;1 pound = 1.4853 dollars.;Why this should be so is explained by this theory.;Problem;We examine this from the perspective of an Investor in England.;Let us assume that one person in England has a 1 million pounds to invest on April;1, 2013. He wants to invest for 3 months till July 1, 2013. He has two choices.;Choice 1;He can invest in England on April 1, 2013 and get a return of 2%.;[Annual Return = 8%, Hence, three month Return = 2%];On July 1, 2013 he would have 1.02 million pounds.;Choice 2;Alternatively, he can convert his money to U.S. dollars on April 1, 2013. Given that;the Spot Exchange rate is 1 pound = 1.5 dollars, he would get, 1.5 million dollars.;He can then invest it in USA risk free securities for 3 months. He would get a return;of 1%. On July 1, 2013 he would have 1.515 million dollars.;This amount he can convert it back to British pounds. Since he can lock in the;forward exchange rates on April 1, 2013 itself, he can convert it to England at the;predetermined, locked-up exchange rate. The lock in exchange rate hence should be;at: 1 pound = 1.4853 dollars, Thus, and hence he will receive, 1.02 million pounds.;Spot Rate (dollar for pound);Forward Rate (dollar for pound);Forward Exchange Rate changes by;=;=;=;1.5;1.4853;2% - 1%;= 1%;FIRST VERSION Multiplying Spot Exchange Rate by this we arrive at the;SPOT EXCHANGE RATE 1 Pound = $ 1.5;Domestic Interest Rate = (UK 3 Month Rate) = 2%;Foreign Interest Rate = (USA 3 Month Rate) = 1%;Interest Rate Differenentials = Domestic Interest Rate Foreign Interest Rate;= [ 2 % -- 1 % ] = 1%;The New Forward Exchange rate, three months from today should be;Spot Exc. Rate x (100 difference in Interest) = Forward Exchange Rate;THEORETICAL EQUATION ONE;Switching Sides;Forward Exchange Rate = Spot Exc. Rate x (100 difference in Interest);PRACTICAL solution in the above problem from perspective of a British Investor;=;=;=;=;1.50 x (100% 1%);1.50 x (99%);1.50 x (99/100);1.485;LIMITATIONS: Other thing being Equal.;Important Note;This example is constructed from a British investor point of view. We can use the;same example from an American investor point of view. Then what we see as a;Forward Discount will become a Forward Premium;WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE FORWARD RATE IS NOT 1.4850?;You have potential for Arbitrage, Make Riskless money;Say the three month forward rate is also 1.50 like the spot rate.;Say either you or your friend wants to invest $3,000,000 in US T.Bill market.;Instead of investing in USA T. Bill market ($3,000,000) in the USA, you;Convert the money to British Pounds, at the spot Exchange rate of 1.50, Get;2,000,000 British pounds, Invest it in UK for three months at the risk free;rate at 2%, Get 2,040,000 at the end of three months. At the same time you;Lock in the Forward Rate of 1.50 today. At the end of 3 months, you convert;your accumulated British Pounds to US Dollars. You will get $3,060,000.;Alternatively, If you had invested at USA T. Bill market you would have;gotten only, 1% return and you would have only $3,030,000.;You have made $30,000 extra money.;Covered Interest Rate Parity;No Risk Involved, all positions are locked up before entering into transactions.;Uncovered Interest Rate Parity;Risk involved, do not lock up the forward exchange rates.;Limitations to IRP;1.;2.;Transactions Costs imposed by Traders;Capital Controls imposed by Nations;STEPS IN SOLVING INTEREST RATE PARITY PROBLEM;1. Identify a country as Home Country and another as Foreign Country;2. Solve the problem from the perspective of Home Country Investor;3. Identify the Domestic Interest Rate for the time period in question;4. Identify the Foreign Interest Rate for the time period in question;5. Identify the Current Spot Rate;6. Solve for the Forward Rate;OTHER VERSIONS OF INTEREST RATE PARITY;IRP has been widely developed by many researchers and various formulations exist.;Here below we examine three different ways of calculating IRP and the Forward;Exchange rates. However, in problems use any one of the versions. You do not need;to use all of them. They all should give you the same results, Remember that some;are approximations and there may be small (very minute) differences.;[Why are we looking at Four different ways of doing the same thing?! Because some;books, or researchers use a different method, and I just wanted to make sure that;you recognize that it is the same concept, but analyzed and detailed a differnet way].;SECOND VERSION: Theoretical Interest Rate Parity is;[Spot Exc. Rate / Forward Exc. Rate] (1 + Forgn Int. Rate);= (1 + Dom Int. Rate);Rewriting the Equation;[Spot Ex. Rate / Forward Ex. Rate];=;(1 + Dom Int Rate) / (1 + Foreign Int Rate);Rewriting the Equation to Solve for Foreign Exc. Rate;Spot Ex. Rate [1 + Forgn Int. Rate] / [ 1 + Dom Int Rate] = Forward Ex. Rate;THEORETICAL EQUATION TWO;Switching Sides;Forward Exc. Rate = Spot Exc. Rate [1 + Forgn Int. Rate] / [ 1 + Dom Int Rate];PRACTICAL solution in the above problem from perspective of a British Investor;Solving for Forward Rate =;[Spot Exc. Rate x 1.01] / [1.02];= (1.50 x 1.01) / 1.02 = 1.485294;THIRD VERSION: Approximately: Interest Rate Parity is;THEORETICAL EQUATION THREE;(Forward Ex. Rate Spot Ex. Rate) / Spot Ex. Rate = Foreign Int Rate Dom Int Rate;Forward Ex. Rate Spot Ex. Rate = [Foreign Int Rate Dom Int Rate] X (Spot Ex. Rate);Forward Ex. Rate = [(Foreign Int Rate Dom Int Rate) X (Spot Ex. Rate)] + Spot Ex Rate;PRACTICAL solution in the above problem from perspective of a British Investor;Forward Ex. Rate = [(1% -- 2%) X (1.50)];+ [1.50];= [(-- 1 %) X 1.50] + 1.50;= - 0.015 + 1.50;= 1.4850;FOURTH VERSION;THEORETICAL EQUATION FOUR;Forward Exchange Rate Discount, or Premium = Difference in Interest Rates;If the difference is Positive, Your currency has appreciated;If the difference is Negative, Your currency has depreciated.;PRACTICAL solution in the above problem from perspective of a British Investor;Difference in Interest Rates = Foreign Interest Rates Domestic Interest Rates;= 1%;- 2 % = - 1%;Forward Exchange Rate therefore depreciates by 1% and goes to 1.485;Optional Homework Problem;1.;2.;3.;4.;5.;6.;Identify the Interest Rate for Brazil;Identify the Interest Rate for South Korea;Examine whether Interest Rate Parity Theorem holds for the last year?;What are the implications of this How do you make money?;What data do you need?;Where would you get the data?
Paper#34088 | Written in 18-Jul-2015Price : $57


the action results in a web redirection:
 $this->redirect('otherModule/index');
 $this->redirect('_URL_
note
The code located after a forward or a redirect in an action is never executed. You can consider that these calls are equivalent to a return statement. They throw an sfStopException to stop the execution of the action; this exception is later caught by symfony and simply ignored.
The choice between a redirect or a forward is sometimes tricky. To choose the best solution, keep in mind that a forward is internal to the application and transparent to the user. As far as the user is concerned, the displayed URL is the same as the one requested. In contrast, a redirect is a message to the user's browser, involving a new request from it and a change in the final resulting URL.
If the action is called from a submitted form with method="post", you should always do a redirect. The main advantage is that if the user refreshes the resulting page, the form will not be submitted again; in addition, the back button works as expected by displaying the form and not an alert asking the user if he wants to resubmit a POST request.
There is a special kind of forward that is used very commonly. The forward404() method forwards to a "page not found" action. This method is often called when a parameter necessary to the action execution is not present in the request (thus detecting a wrongly typed URL). Listing 6-12 shows an example of a show action expecting an id parameter.
Listing 6-12 - Use of the forward404() Method
public function executeShow()
{
 $article = ArticlePeer::retrieveByPK($this->getRequestParameter('id'));
 if (!$article)
 {
 $this->forward404();
 }
}
tip
If you are looking for the error 404 action and template, you will find them in the $sf_symfony_data_dir/modules/default/ directory. You can customize this page by adding a new default module to your application, overriding the one located in the framework, and by defining an error404 action and an error404Success template inside. Alternatively, you can set the error_404_module and error_404_action constants in the settings.yml file to use an existing action.
Experience shows that, most of the time, an action makes a redirect or a forward after testing something, such as in Listing 6-12. That's why the sfActions class has a few more methods, named forwardIf(), forwardUnless(), forward404If(), forward404Unless(), redirectIf(), and redirectUnless(). These methods simply take an additional parameter representing a condition that triggers the execution if tested true (for the xxxIf() methods) or false (for the xxxUnless() methods), as illustrated in Listing 6-13.
Listing 6-13 - Use of the forward404If() Method
// This action is equivalent to the one shown in Listing 6-12
public function executeShow()
{
 $article = ArticlePeer::retrieveByPK($this->getRequestParameter('id'));
 $this->forward404If(!$article);
}

// So is this one
public function executeShow()
{
 $article = ArticlePeer::retrieveByPK($this->getRequestParameter('id'));
 $this->forward404Unless($article);
}
Using these methods will not only keep your code short, but it will also make it more readable.
tip
When the action calls forward404() or its fellow methods, symfony throws an sfError404Exception that manages the 404 response. This means that if you need to display a 404 message from somewhere where you don't want to access the controller, you can just throw a similar exception.
Repeating Code for Several Actions of a Module
The convention to name actions executeActionName() (in the case of an sfActions class) or execute() (in the case of an sfAction class) guarantees that symfony will find the action method. It gives you the ability to add other methods of your own that will not be considered as actions, as long as they don't start with execute.
There is another useful convention for when you need to repeat several statements in each action before the actual action execution. You can then extract them into the preExecute() method of your action class. You can probably guess how to repeat statements after every action is executed: wrap them in a postExecute() method. The syntax of these methods is shown in Listing 6-14.
Listing 6-14 - Using preExecute, postExecute, and Custom Methods in an Action Class
class mymoduleActions extends sfActions
{
 public function preExecute()
 {
 // The code inserted here is executed at the beginning of each action call
 ...
 }

 public function executeIndex()
 {
 ...
 }

 public function executeList()
 {
 ...
 $this->myCustomMethod(); // Methods of the action class are accessible
 }

 public function postExecute()
 {
 // The code inserted here is executed at the end of each action call
 ...
 }

 protected function myCustomMethod()
 {
 // You can also add your own methods, as long as they don't start with "execute"
 // In that case, it's better to declare them as protected or private
 ...
 }
}
Accessing the Request
You're familiar with the getRequestParameter('myparam') method, used to retrieve the value of a request parameter by its name. As a matter of fact, this method is a proxy for a chain of calls to the request's parameter holder getRequest()->getParameter('myparam'). The action class has access to the request object, called sfWebRequest in symfony, and to all its methods, via the getRequest() method. Table 6-1 lists the most useful sfWebRequest methods.
Table 6-1 - Methods of the sfWebRequest Object
Name Function Sample Output
Request Information
getMethod() Request method Returns sfRequest::GET or sfRequest::POST constants
getMethodName() Request method name 'POST'
getHttpHeader('Server') Value of a given HTTP header 'Apache/2.0.59 (Unix) DAV/2 PHP/5.1.6'
getCookie('foo') Value of a named cookie 'bar'
isXmlHttpRequest()* Is it an Ajax request? true
isSecure() Is it an SSL request? true
Request Parameters
hasParameter('foo') Is a parameter present in the request? true
getParameter('foo') Value of a named parameter 'bar'
getParameterHolder()->getAll() Array of all request parameters
URI-Related Information
getUri() Full URI 'http://localhost/myapp_dev.php/mymodule/myaction'
getPathInfo() Path info '/mymodule/myaction'
getReferer()** Referrer 'http://localhost/myapp_dev.php/'
getHost() Host name 'localhost'
getScriptName() Front controller path and name 'myapp_dev.php'
Client Browser Information
getLanguages() Array of accepted languages Array( [0] => fr [1] => fr_FR [2] => en_US [3] => en )
getCharsets() Array of accepted charsets Array( [0] => ISO-8859-1 [1] => UTF-8 [2] => * )
getAcceptableContentTypes() Array of accepted content types Array( [0] => text/xml [1] => text/html
* Works with prototype, Prototype, Mootools, and jQuery
** Sometimes blocked by proxies
The sfActions class offers a few proxies to access the request methods more quickly, as shown in Listing 6-15.
Listing 6-15 - Accessing the sfRequest Object Methods from an Action
class mymoduleActions extends sfActions
{
 public function executeIndex()
 {
 $hasFoo = $this->getRequest()->hasParameter('foo');
 $hasFoo = $this->hasRequestParameter('foo'); // Shorter version
 $foo = $this->getRequest()->getParameter('foo');
 $foo = $this->getRequestParameter('foo'); // Shorter version
 }
}
For multipart requests to which users attach files, the sf


text:
Can ethograms be automatically generated using body acceleration data from free-ranging birds?
Sakamoto, Kentaro Q.; Sato, Katsufumi; Ishizuka, Mayumi; Watanuki, Yutaka; Takahashi, Akinori; Daunt, Francis; Wanless, Sarah. 2009 Can ethograms be automatically generated using body acceleration data from free-ranging birds? PLoS One, 4 (4), e5379. 10.1371/journal.pone.0005379Before downloading, please read NORA policies.
SakamotoN007665JA.pdf - Published Version
An ethogram is a catalogue of discrete behaviors typically employed by a species. Traditionally animal behavior has been recorded by observing study individuals directly. However, this approach is difficult, often impossible, in the case of behaviors which occur in remote areas and/or at great depth or altitude. The recent development of increasingly sophisticated, animal-borne data loggers, has started to overcome this problem. Accelerometers are particularly useful in this respect because they can record the dynamic motion of a body in e.g. flight, walking, or swimming. However, classifying behavior using body acceleration characteristics typically requires prior knowledge of the behavior of free-ranging animals. Here, we demonstrate an automated procedure to categorize behavior from body acceleration, together with the release of a user-friendly computer application, "Ethographer". We evaluated its performance using longitudinal acceleration data collected from a foot-propelled diving seabird, the European shag, Phalacrocorax aristotelis. The time series data were converted into a spectrum by continuous wavelet transformation. Then, each second of the spectrum was categorized into one of 20 behavior groups by unsupervised cluster analysis, using k-means methods. The typical behaviors extracted were characterized by the periodicities of body acceleration. Each categorized behavior was assumed to correspond to when the bird was on land, in flight, on the sea surface, diving and so on. The behaviors classified by the procedures accorded well with those independently defined from depth profiles. Because our approach is performed by unsupervised computation of the data, it has the potential to detect previously unknown types of behavior and unknown sequences of some behaviors.
|Programmes:||CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 onwards > Biodiversity > BD Topic 1 - Observations, Patterns, and Predictions for Biodiversity > BD - 1.4 - Quantify and model interactions to determine impacts...|
|Additional Information:||PLoS ONE (eISSN-_PHONE_) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication. The full text of this paper can be viewed on the journal website. _URL_
|NORA Subject Terms:||Zoology
Ecology and Environment
|Date made live:||12 Aug 2009 14:57|
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text:
data on mohair quality was available in the database.
Indices in Angora breeding
The traits are divided into 5 main categories:
Animal's own traits:
Kemp and medullation:
Besides the five main indices and the three sub-indices describing mohair quality, a total breeding index is estimated, the S-index, combining all the indices. Like sheep and beef cattle breeding, Angora goat breeding is characterised by a very limited number of artificial inseminations. Therefore the male breeding animals have only a small number of progeny, often born in one herd. Hence, it is very difficult to estimate breeding values which can be compared, from one herd to another and for animals born in different years. In connection with sale or exchange of breeding stock -and perhaps inseminationsome relationships will be established in other herds. By using the Animal Model, it is thus possible to estimate fairly reliable breeding values.
The Animal Model estimates breeding values, making allowance for the heritabilities of the traits and the known relationships. At the same time, a correction is made for systematic environmental impacts. These corrections allow a comparison between the results collected in different environmental conditions (e.g. herds) and for different categories of animal (e.g. sex and age).
Table 1 shows the average indices of all Angora goats born during the past 6 years. When comparing the results of the different years, the breeding progress achieved can be estimated. According to Table 1, Angora breeding activities have been based on the evaluation of the mohair. Progress has also been achieved in the field of production and fineness, due to the positive correlation between mohair evaluation and mohair quality.
Table 1. Average of indices for birth year and breeding process per year (_PHONE_)
* calculated by means of regression analysis
|1990||1992||1994||1996||1997||Average change per year*|
|Number of animals||651||1824||1584||1408||1387||-|
|Kemp & medullation||99.8||99.7||101.9||103.6||104.0||0.8|
The purpose of estimating the S-index is to increase the total breeding progress in the years to come. It should be possible to greatly improve production figures and fineness while, at the same time, maintaining or moderately improving mothering traits and liveability.
Do we do enough recording?
Jørn Pedersen (pers. comm.) has analysed the number of information recorded on the registered goats. Thirteen thousand two hundred and forty-seven Angora goats have been registered in the Danish Angora database. Eight percent are born in foreign countries and 12 per cent are not registered from birth. The remaining 79 per cent corresponds to 10,488 animals. The following records have been reported, expressed as a percentage of the 10,488 animals in the Danish Breeding database:
Table 2. Registration of traits in Goat Registration Scheme of Angora goats:
Trait recorded Percent records
Kidding ease 86%
Birth weight 80%
Live weight at 2 months 52%
Live weight at 4 months 18%
Mohair yields 1st year 44%
Mohair yields 2nd year 27%
Mohair yields, other years 13%
Objective fibre test 3.1%
Linear classification 4.1%
Original scoring system 4.5%
Table 3. Changes in percentage record collected between 1991 and 1997
Year of birth
Traits recorded _PHONE_ _PHONE_ _PHONE_ 1997
% Fibre test 5.1 3.9 2.0 3.0 3.5 4.8 % -
Original classification system 18.6 11.9 3.9 - - - -
% Linear classification* 0.4 1.4 3.3 9.8 7.2 5.5 -
% Mohair yields 1st year 52 59 44 45 45 50 11
% Mohair yields 2nd year 37 37 27 28 29 26 -
% Mohair yields, other years 23 19 16 18 9 - -
*Only the linear classification system has been used since 1995.
The number of linear classifications and mohair tests have declined over the past years, resulting in very little progress in mohair fineness. The breeders require to make more fibre tests, used on the majority of the best progeny, especially if a cheaper method is available.
Pedersen, J. (1994). Genetic evaluation of Danish Angora goats. In : J.P. Laker & S.C. Bishop (editors). Genetic improvement of Fine Fibre Producing Animals. European Fine Fibre Network No.1.pp89.
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THE GENETIC IMPROVEMENT OF THE ANGORA GOAT IN FRANCE
Daniel Allain1 and André Billant2
INRA, Génétique Animale, Station d'Amélioration Génétique des Animaux, 31326 Castanet Tolosan, France1 and Caprigène France, Section Angora, Agropole, Mignaloux Beauvoir, 87000 Poitiers, France2
The French mohair industry has been developing since 1978. Today, about 8000 pure-bred Angora goats are raised, on about 180 different farms, and produce annually 30 t of mohair. The entire French production is collected, graded and processed under the control of farmer's co-operatives, to produce finished products such as hand-knitted shawls or pure mohair blankets, and marketed directly to consumers by the farmers themselves. A niche market for French mohair has been developed and producers control all the steps from farm to final consumer. French producers are all gathered in different farmers organisations, in order to control the genetic improvement of Angora goats (Caprigène Angora) as well as production (Association Nationale des Eleveurs de Chèvre Angora) and marketing (SICA-Mohair and France Mohair) of mohair produced in France under a common label «Le Mohair des Fermes de France ». A National Selection scheme has been developed with breeders, in order to improve on a national and common basis both quantity and quality of mohair produced by Angora goats. As a breeding objective, an ideal 18-month Angora goat will produce a high clean fleece weight with an average fibre diameter lower than 30µ, without kemp and medullated fibres. Other breeding attributes, including reproductive rate and ability to utilise low-value feed, will be maintained at a reasonable level. This selection scheme is based on an open nucleus population of 1500 breeding does on 50 farms with an on-farm performance recording system, a national genetic database and a buck-testing station. The objectives are to estimate annually breeding value on a common national basis, to help farmers on selection decisions by regular information exchanges between the farmers and the genetic database, and to create and disseminate genetic progress, inside both the open selected nucleus and the whole French Angora goat population. The following institutes and organisations are involved in this genetic improvement programme: a breeder organisation, « Caprigène France section angora », a textile laboratory « Institut Textile de France -Sud » for fibre measurements, « Institut de l'Elevage » the French Breeding Institute for genetic database management and INRA, a Research Institute for breeding value estimation and general purpose of the selection scheme.
The French mohair industry:
The French mohair industry has been developing since 1978. Today, there is around 8000 pure-bred goats, in about 180 farms. Thirty tonnes of mohair are produced each year. The mohair is graded and processed by farmers co-operatives. The final product is sold directly to the consumers.
Producers belong to regional associations. The genetic improvement of mohair is controlled via Caprigène France Section Angora; the mohair production, through the French Association of Angora Goat Breeders (ANECA). The marketing of the fibre is made by Processor Associations (Sica Mohair and France Mohair). The final product is sold under a common label "Le Mohair des Fermes de France".
The French selection scheme:
A National Selection scheme has been developed with breeders, to improve the quantity and quality of the mohair fibre. The breeding objectives for mohair are to have an 18-month old Angora goat producing a high clean fleece weight, with an average fibre diameter lower than 30 microns, free of kemp and medullated fibres. This scheme is based on an open nucleus population, which consist in 1500 breeding females, on 50 farms (a system of on-farm performance recording is implemented), a national database system and a buck-testing station. The objective is to estimate annually the breeding value of the animals on a common national basis, to help farmers taking selection decisions and to create, and disseminate, genetic progress.
Recording system and measurements:
The on-farm performance recording system: On the farm, the farmer records the animal identification, its pedigree and the reproduction data. Every 6 month, he shears and weighs the greasy fleece of the animal. A scoring committee visits the farm and undertakes an animal scoring and fleece assessment on all animals between 15-18 months of age. A fleece sampling is also done. The textile laboratory then measures fleece and fibre characteristics.
Measurements of fleece characteristics:
Objective measurements are done both on the farm and


text:
August 4, 2004
HONOLULU - The public should stay out of streams, coastal, and
standing waters that are contaminated by storm water (usually brown or
murky in color). Storm water can contain harmful micro-organisms
(pathogens), from overflowing cesspools or septic tanks as well as
animal feces washed into streams and storm drains.
Excessive storm water can also contain sewage from overflowing
manholes and overwhelmed treatment facilities or chemicals from
polluted runoff from commercial and industrial facilities.
The Department of Health and the counties monitor water quality and
spills. Warning signs will be posted at beaches and streams if
contaminants from treatment facilities reach those waters or when
People should use caution if the water is brown or murky, regardless
of whether warning signs are posted.
On Oahu, sewage or chemical spills should be reported to the City
and County at _PHONE_. Questions regarding the safety of standing
water, "brown water" in coastal and inland areas, or beach closures
should be directed to the Department of Health Clean Water Branch on
Oahu during normal business hours at _PHONE_.
For more information, contact:
Department of Health
E-Mail: dayukimura _USER_.health.state.hi.us


text:
Advancing Education and Workforce within NH
In recent years it has become difficult for individuals to receive an education and find work in certain regions of the country. The Greater Portsmouth area is aiming to help people get diplomas and find work to lead a successful life. Education is an important conversation that needs to be addressed to both younger and older generations. During the past few months, Frank Edelbult, the commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education, has been working on a number of initiatives to help students reach successful outcomes and build bright futures. One recent initiative is Learn Everywhere, a program that multiplies educational opportunities for students and allows them to receive high school graduation credits outside of the classroom. During this lecture the commissioner will be addressing these initiatives more in-depth and explain how people can enhance thier future with these programs.


text:
7 Things Christians Don't Do:Sunday School WITH A KICK!Faith in MotionThe High-Energy Alternative
A LARGE & DIVERSE RANGE OF TEEN ISSUESCurrent Teen Topics Faith in Motion offers relevant and timely Bible answers to the tough real-life problems today's teens face. A few samples of Faith in Motion lesson topics include - __ Pop Culture __ Friends & Family __ Saying No __ Making an Impact __ Sports __ 7 Deadly Sins __ School __ Pressure __ Decision-Making
A Vast Selection Faith in Motion now offers 140 Sunday School lessons, covering 20 relevant teen themes, with 7 lessons under each topic.
Faith in Motion gives you 3 years of curriculum for your Early Teens (Grades 6 - 8).
ENGAGING CONTENT & DESIGNHigh-Intensity Activities Faith in Motion class activities capture teen attention by confronting them with thorny dilemmas & serious questions... ...and helps find solutions in the Bible. High-Energy Graphics Faith in Motion full-color student materials are produced in a unique slimline format, designed to appeal to teens accustomed to cutting-edge creativity in TV, Internet & video game graphics.
REACHES OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM Faith in Motion is more than class curriculum. Accompanying activities outside the classroom can help build a youth program.
With each 7-week series theme, Faith in Motion includes outside activity plans that tie in to the topic -Theme-Based RetreatsTheme-Based Youth WorshipTheme-Based Field TripsTheme-Based Service Projects CLASSROOM-TESTED WITH RAVE REVIEWS Faith in Motion has been tested and used by Sunday School teachers across the country who give this teen curriculum high marks for -Modern GraphicsEase of TeachingClear Life-Application MessagesYouth Interest & Enjoyment 7 Things Christians Don't DoStudies on the seven deadly sins: Greed, Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, and Sloth.Session Titles Include:
1. How High Does Your Nose Point? 2. Wanting What You Don't Have 3. The One With the Most Toys Wins What? 4. Supersizing Everything? 5. Fighting the Feeling 6. The Life of a Couch Potato 7. Are You Ready to Explode?
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Rent 7 Things Christians Don't Do 1st edition today, or search our site for Scott textbooks. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Abingdon Press.