Tar Heel beaches rank third in U.S.
Since 2008, North Carolina has had some of the cleanest beaches in the nation — and 2012 was no exception.
A report released last week by the Natural Resource Defense Council detailed the environmental health of thousands of vacation beaches nationally and rated them depending on how safe they were for swimmers.
Rated third in the nation, out of 30 states, North Carolina’s monitored beach samples exceeded national standards in 2012 only 2 percent of the time, according to the report, “Testing the Waters.”
The nation’s worst state in the report, Ohio, had samples that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards 21 percent of the time, according to Jon Devine, the NRDC’s senior water attorney, in a conference call.
In North Carolina, elevated bacteria levels on beaches led to beach closings or advisories for 91 days in 2012, down from 126 days in 2011, according to the report.
Erin Bryan-Millush, an environmental specialist with the N.C. Department of Natural Resources who monitors beaches, attributed the clean water to proactive local governments and lower rain amounts than usual in 2012.
Storm water runoff and sewer overflow are two of the top contaminators of beach water nationwide, Devine said.
Both are more of a problem in years where hurricanes batter the North Carolina coast, Bryan-Millush said.
Across the state, only 14 percent of monitored beaches exceeded state standards in 2012, while none exceeded more than 10 percent of state standards, according to the report.
Statewide, 60 percent of contamination stemmed from storm water runoff, 48 percent from wildlife and 9 percent from unknown contamination sources.
Concerns over EPA funding of beach monitoring programs also highlighted the NRDC’s presentation of the report.
“For the relatively small federal investment of less than $10 million, 30 states are monitoring their coastal and Great Lakes beaches,” Devine said. “That’s an investment we should keep.”
Bryan-Millush said that if EPA funding were cut to the state’s Beach Water Quality Program, her staff would go from monitoring 240 sites to less than 100.
“Statewide, North Carolina generally has pristine water,” she said.
2012 fast facts
n North Carolina beaches are third cleanest in the nation
n 2 percent of samples exceeded national standards for designated beach areas in 2012
n 1 percent of samples exceeded the state’s daily maximum bacterial standard for the 229 reported beaches
North Carolina percent of samples exceeding the state’s daily maximum bacterial standard for 229 beaches reported in 2008-2012:
2008: 1 percent
2009: 2 percent
2010: 2 percent
2011: 1 percent
2012: 1 percent
Source: Natural Resource Defense Council 2012 beach water quality report, ‘Testing the Waters’


Singapore: population, cities
According to Countryaah website, Singapore has around 5.5 million residents.
Chinese descent: around 77%
Malay descent: around 14%
Indian ancestry: around 8%
Others: around 1%
affiliation Buddhists around 43%, Muslims 15%, Taoists 8%, Hindus 4%, Catholics 5%, other Christians 10%, other religions 1%, atheists 14%
The four official languages are: English, Chinese (Mandarin), Tamil and Malay.
Singapore’s population is multilingual. Almost everyone speaks English alongside their mother tongue.
Many even speak more than two languages!
Singapore is a melting pot of diverse cultures. The state has largely succeeded
in creating a great deal of equality between the various groups through laws, public housing, the educational program and conscription. It is also promoted when getting married, as the newly wed couple receives an apartment with a welcome bonus as a cash gift. The background is that the current birth rate is only 1.29 children per woman (2008).
The largest ethnic groups even have their own city districts. These are, for example, “Chinatown” or “Little India”. With their temples and mosques it is worth a visit!
The religious influence is not only reflected in the architecture, but also in the food.
The capital of the city-state is Singapore and is identical to the state. According to Abbreviation Finder, SGP stands for Singapore in English. Click to see other meanings of this 3-letter acronym.
Singapore: geography, map
Singapore is located south of Malaysia, the southernmost state on the Asian mainland, on the infamous Strait of Malacca. The city-state covers an area of around 712.4 km². This area is expected to grow to 800 km² by 2030 through land reclamation measures. Check topmbadirectory for politics, flags, famous people, animals and plants of Singapore.
- ForestAround 5% of the country is forested.
- Arable land and fieldsAround 3% of the land is used as arable land or fields.
- Built-up areasAround 92% of the country is built-up.
National borders, length of coast
Due to its island location, Singapore has no direct land borders.
The neighboring countries are Malaysia and Indonesia, which are separated from Singapore by the South China Sea and the Gulf of Singapore. Singapore has a sea coast with a length of around 193 km.
Longitude and latitude
Singapore is roughly at the following latitude (abbreviation φ) and longitude (abbreviation λ):
|φ = around 01 ° north latitude λ = around 104 ° east longitude|
This means that the country is in the tropics and almost on the equator.
You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.
For Singapore, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET), i.e. the time (without summer time) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. A minus sign means that it is earlier there, a plus sign that it is later than CET:
|Δt (CET) = + 7 h|
Further and detailed explanations of the time can be found under Time zones, time.
The highest point of the sun in Singapore
Singapore lies at a north latitude of around φ = 01 ° and is therefore almost on the equator. If the declination δ of the sun has a value of around 01 °, and so the image point of the sun is exactly above the city, the sun is perpendicular there. This happens exactly twice a year, roughly 4 days after March 21st and 4 days before September 21st.
If the image point of the sun and thus the declination δ is north of the latitude of Singapore, the sun is not in the south at noon, as in our latitudes, but in the north. In this case, the sun moves from east to north to west, where, like us, it sets.
The highest point in the country is the Timah with a height of 166 m.
The longest river in the country is the Seletar with a length of only around 15 km.
There are no natural lakes in Singapore, but there are a number of artificial water reservoirs.
Singapore consists of the main island and 63 other smaller islands, such as:
Johor Street, Strait of Singapore
Singapore is located south of Johor Street, which separates Malaysia from Singapore. The Strait of Johor has an average width of about one kilometer.
Strait of Singapore
The Strait of Singapore connects the Strait of Malacca with the South China Sea. It also separates the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Singapore from the Indonesian Riau Islands.
It has a length of around 105 km and a width of 20 km.


About this book
The study of animal behaviour, particularly from evolutionary and ecological viewpoints, has been one of the major growing points in biology over the last 10 to 15 years. The degree of quantitative rigour in theoretical, observational and experimental approaches to behaviour has increased dramatically. As more of the rapidly growing research literature be comes a basic requirement for students reading animal behaviour at undergraduate level, there is a need for a readily comprehensible text, covering all major aspects of behaviour study, to accom pany their courses. This book, based on my first, second and third year under graduate lectures at the University of No ttingham , is designed to meet that requirement. The book begins with a discussion of the physiological and anatomical bases of behaviour: the relationship between nervous system structure and function and behaviour; hormonal effects on behaviour; biological c1ocks; perceptual mechanisms; and stimulus filtering. This leads to a consideration in Chapter 2 of how the animal integrates internal and external stimuli in making decisions about its behaviour and the way natural selection has shaped decision-making processes and the organisation of motivation. The first two chapters therefore deal with the instigation or causation of behaviour within the animal. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with developmental aspects of behaviour. Chapter 3 discusses behaviour genetics, inc1uding the relationship between specific genes and behaviour, the heritability of behaviour patterns, the site of gene action in the body and the evolutionary consequences of a genetic basis to behaviour.
behavior biological biology decision-making development ecology evolution experiment gene genes genetics natural selection nervous system structure system


|Programmer's Guide to the Oracle7 Server Call Interface||
This chapter discusses the following topics:
Your OCI program stores data in variables, whose types are predefined by the language you are using. When you transfer data between Oracle and your program, you need to specify the format of the data in your program. For example, if you are processing the SQL statement
SELECT sal FROM emp WHERE empno = :employee_number
and you want the salary to come back as character data, rather than in a binary floating-point format, specify an Oracle external string datatype, such as VARCHAR2 (code = 1) or CHAR (code = 96) for the FTYPE parameter in the ODEFIN call. You also need to declare a string variable in your program and specify its address in the BUF parameter.
If you want the salary information to be returned as a binary floating-point value, however, specify the FLOAT (code = 4) external datatype. You also need to define a variable of the appropriate type for the BUF parameter.
Oracle performs most data conversions transparently. The ability to specify almost any external datatype provides a lot of power for performing specialized tasks. For example, you can input and output DATE values in pure binary format, with no character conversion involved, by using the DATE external datatype (code = 12). See the description of the DATE external datatype for more information.
To control data conversion, you must use the appropriate external datatype codes in the bind and define routines, such as OBNDRA or ODEFIN. You must tell Oracle where the input or output variables are in your OCI program and their datatypes and lengths.
To convert a bind variable to a value in an Oracle column, specify the external datatype code that corresponds to the type of the bind variable. For example, if you want to input a character string such as `25-JAN-64' to a DATE column, specify the datatype as a character string (1) and set the length parameter to nine.
It is always the programmer's responsibility to make sure that values are convertible. If you try to INSERT the string `MY BIRTHDAY' into a DATE column, you will get an error when you execute the statement.
For a complete list of the external datatypes and datatype codes, see Table 3 - 2 .
|Internal Oracle Datatype||Maximum Internal Length||Datatype Code|
|LONG RAW||2^31-1 bytes||24|
See "Character Strings and Byte Arrays" for more information about the VARCHAR2 internal datatype.
The maximum precision of a NUMBER value is 38 decimal digits; the magnitude range is 1.0E-129 to 9.99E125. Scale can range from -84 to 127. For example, a scale of -3 means the number is rounded to the nearest thousand (3456 becomes 3000). A scale of 2 means the value is rounded to the nearest hundredth (3.456 becomes 3.46).
When you specify precision and scale, Oracle does extra integrity checks before storing data in the column.
You can use the OFLNG routine to retrieve a portion of a LONG (or LONG RAW) column, starting at any offset in the column.
You can also use the piecewise capabilities provided by ODEFINPS, OBINDPS, OGETPI and OSETPI to perform inserts, updates or fetches involving LONG columns.
Note: The maximum length of LONG and LONG RAW columns is 2^31-1 bytes in an Oracle7 database. In Oracle Version 6 and earlier it is 65535 bytes.
Restrictions: You can use LONG columns in UPDATE, INSERT, and (most) SELECT statements, but not in expressions, function calls, or certain SQL clauses, such as WHERE, GROUP BY, and CONNECT BY. Only one LONG (or LONG RAW) column is allowed per database table, and that column cannot be indexed.
The internal size of an Oracle ROWID is six bytes. However, ROWIDs are not accessible in their internal format; the OCI program handles them in a binary or character external format. The size of the binary representation is operating-system dependent and is returned by a describe operation on a ROWID select-list item. The size of the character representation also varies. For additional information, see the discussion of VARCHAR2 and ROWID in the section "External Datatypes" .
When a DATE column is converted to a character string in your program, it is returned using the default format mask for your session, or as specified in the INIT.ORA file.
If you need additional date information on a query, such as the time, or a date in Julian days, apply the TO_CHAR function to the date and use a format mask. Be sure to set the length of the output parameter in the ODEFIN routine to accommodate the additional characters. See Oracle7 Server SQL Reference for more information about TO_CHAR and format masks. Unless you want date information in the Oracle internal format (see the "External Datatypes" section ), always convert DATE columns and expressions to and from character strings using external character datatypes, such as VARCHAR2 or STRING.
The maximum length of a RAW column is 255 bytes.
When RAW data in an Oracle table is converted to a character string in a program, the data is represented in hexadecimal character code. Each byte of the RAW data is returned as two characters that indicate the value of the byte, from `00' to `FF'. If you want to input a character string in your program to a RAW column in an Oracle table, you must code the data in the character string using this hexadecimal code.
You can use the piecewise capabilities provided by ODEFINPS, OBINDPS, OGETPI and OSETPI to perform inserts, updates or fetches involving RAW (or LONG RAW) columns.
See the section "Character Arrays and Strings" for more information about the CHAR internal datatype.
In standard Oracle, you can define a column using the MLSLABEL datatype. However, the only valid value for the column is NULL. In Trusted Oracle7, you can insert any valid operating system label, in any valid format, into a column having the MLSLABEL datatype. Trusted Oracle implicitly converts the data to the binary format of a label.
CHAR, VARCHAR2, and LONG columns normally hold character data. RAW and LONG RAW hold bytes that are not interpreted as characters, for example, pixel values in a bit-mapped graphics image. Character data can be transformed when passed through a gateway between networks. For example, character data passed between machines using different languages (where single characters may be represented by differing numbers of bytes) can be significantly changed in length. Raw data is never converted in this way.
It is the responsibility of the database designer to choose the appropriate Oracle internal datatype for each column in the table. The OCI programmer must be aware of the many possible ways that character and byte-array data can be represented and converted between variables in the OCI program and Oracle tables.
When an array holds characters, the length parameter for the array in an OCI call is always passed in and returned in bytes, not characters.
In a non-blank-padded comparison, the strings are compared until a difference occurs or the end of the shorter string is reached. If two strings are equivalent up to the end of the shorter string, the longer string is considered greater. If two strings of equal length have no differing characters, they are equal.
Blank-padded comparisons are used whenever both of the strings are fixed length. See Chapter 3 of the Oracle7 Server SQL Reference for additional information about string comparison.
|EXTERNAL DATATYPE||TYPE OF PROGRAM VARIABLE|
|NUMBER||2||unsigned char||PIC X(21)||LOGICAL*1(21)|
|8-bit signed INTEGER||3||signed char||PIC S9(3) COMP||LOGICAL*1|
|16-bit signed INTEGER||3||signed short, signed int||PIC S9(4) COMP||INTEGER*2|
|32-bit signed INTEGER||3||signed int, signed long||PIC S9(9) COMP||INTEGER*4|
|FLOAT||4||float, double||PIC S9(n)V9(n) COMP-1,2||REAL*4, REAL*8|
|VARNUM||6||char||PIC X(22)||LOGICAL*1 (22)|
|PACKED DECIMAL||7||n/a||PIC S9(n)V9(n) COMP-3||n/a|
|VARCHAR||9||char[n+slen]||PIC X(n+slen) VARYING||LOGICAL*1(n+slen)|
|VARRAW||15||unsigned char[n+slen]||PIC X(n+slen)||LOGICAL*1(n+slen)|
|RAW||23||unsigned char[n]||PIC X(n)||LOGICAL*1(n)|
|LONG RAW||24||unsigned char[n]||PIC X(n)||LOGICAL*1(n)|
|DISPLAY||91||n/a||PIC S9(n) PIC S9(n)V9(n)||n/a|
|LONG VARCHAR||94||char[n+ilen]||PIC X(n+ilen)||LOGICAL*1(n+ilen)|
|LONG VARRAW||95||unsigned char[n+ilen]||PIC X(n+ilen)||LOGICAL*1(n+ilen)|
|CURSOR VARIABLE||102||struct cda_def|
If the PROGVL parameter is greater than zero, Oracle obtains the bind variable value by reading exactly that many bytes, starting at the buffer address in your program. Trailing blanks are stripped, and the resulting value is used in the SQL statement or PL/SQL block. If, in the case of an INSERT statement, the resulting value is longer than the defined length of the database column, the INSERT fails, and an error is returned.
Note: A trailing null is not stripped. Variables should be blank-padded but not null-terminated.
If the PROGVL parameter is -1, the character array is scanned for a null terminator character. If a null terminator is found in the first 2001 bytes of the array, the array elements up to, but not including the null terminator, are used as the bind variable value. If a null terminator is not found, Oracle returns an error. When the BUFL parameter is -1, trailing blanks (blanks immediately preceding the null terminator) are not stripped.
If the PROGVL parameter is zero, Oracle treats the bind variable as a null, regardless of its actual content. Of course, a null must be allowed for the bind variable value in the SQL statement. If you try to insert a null into a column that has a NOT NULL integrity constraint, Oracle issues an error, and the row is not inserted.
When the Oracle internal (column) datatype is NUMBER, input from a character string that contains the character representation of a number is legal. Input character strings are converted to internal numeric format. If the VARCHAR2 string contains an illegal conversion character, Oracle returns an error and the value is not input.
If you omit the RLEN parameter of ODEFIN, returned values are blank-padded to the buffer length, and nulls are returned as a string of blank characters. If RLEN is included, returned values are not blank-padded. Instead, their actual lengths are returned in the RLEN parameter.
To check if a null is returned or if character truncation has occurred, include an indicator parameter in the ODEFIN call. The indicator parameter is set to -1 when a null is fetched and to the original column length when the returned value is truncated. Otherwise, it is set to zero. If you do not specify an indicator parameter and a null is selected, the fetch call returns the error 1405.
Warning: If you are connected to an Oracle7 database, and you set the LNGFLG parameter of the OPARSE call to zero, then selecting a null with no indicator parameter defined does not cause an error to be returned. This is for Oracle Version 6 compatability.
Output to a character string from an internal NUMBER datatype can also be made. Number conversion follows the conventions established by National Language Support for your system. For example, your system might be configured to recognize a comma rather than period as the decimal point.
Special Considerations for ROWID When an OCI program is connected to a non-Oracle data manager via an Oracle Open Gateway, the Oracle ROWID field in the CDA is not valid. In this case, ROWIDs must be explicitly SELECTed from the table into a character array.
The maximum length of the array is 255 bytes. To do dynamic memory allocation of the output buffer for a ROWID, you can call the ODESCR routine for a ROWID select-list item. When ODESCR returns datatype code 1 in the DBTYPE parameter, the DBSIZE parameter contains the correct size of the non-Oracle ROWID.
When you are connected to a non-Oracle data manager, you must use the VARCHAR2 external datatype code (1) in the FTYPE parameter of the bind or define call for all ROWIDs.
For maximum portability of your OCI application, Oracle recommends that you use explicit ROWIDs, rather than depending on the Oracle ROWID field of the CDA. In this case, always bind and define ROWIDs using the VARCHAR2 external datatype.
Oracle stores values of the NUMBER datatype in a variable-length format. The first byte is the exponent and is followed by 1 to 20 mantissa bytes. The high-order bit of the exponent byte is the sign bit; it is set for positive numbers. The lower 7 bits represent the exponent, which is a base 100 digit with an offset of 65.
Each mantissa byte is a base 100 digit, in the range 1..100. For positive numbers, the digit has 1 added to it. So, the mantissa digit for the value 5 is 6. For negative numbers, instead of adding 1, the digit is subtracted from 101. So, the mantissa digit for the number -5 is 96 (101-5). Negative numbers have a byte containing 102 appended to the data bytes. However, negative numbers that have 20 mantissa bytes do not have the trailing 102 byte. Because the mantissa digits are stored in base 100, each byte can represent 2 decimal digits. The mantissa is normalized; leading zeroes are not stored.
Up to 20 data bytes can represent the mantissa. However, only 19 are guaranteed to be accurate. The 19 data bytes, each representing a base 100 digit, yield a maximum precision of 38 digits for an Oracle NUMBER.
If you specify the datatype code 2 in the FTYPE parameter of an ODEFIN or ODEFINPS call, your program receives numeric data in this Oracle internal format. The output variable should be a 21-byte array to accommodate the largest possible number. Note that only the bytes that represent the number are returned. There is no blank padding or null termination. If you need to know the number of bytes returned, use the VARNUM external datatype instead of NUMBER. See the description of VARNUM for examples of the Oracle internal number format.
Because the internal format of an Oracle number is decimal and most floating-point implementations are binary, Oracle can represent numbers with greater precision than floating-point representations.
Note: You may get a round-off error when converting between FLOAT and NUMBER. Thus, using a FLOAT as a bind variable in a query may return an ORA-1403 error. You can avoid this situation by converting the FLOAT into a STRING and then using datatype code 1 or 5.
ORA-01480: trailing null missing from STR bind value
If the length is not specified in the bind call, an implied maximum string length of 2000 is used.
The minimum string length is two bytes. If the first character is a null terminator and the length is specified as two, a null is inserted in the column, if permitted. Unlike types 1 and 96, a string containing all blanks is not treated as a null on input; it is inserted as is.
A null select-list item returns a null terminator character in the first character position. An ORA-01405 error is possible, as well.
Table 3 - 3 shows several examples of the VARNUM values returned for numbers in an Oracle table.
|Decimal Value||Length Byte||Exponent Byte||Mantissa Bytes||Terminator Byte|
|1234567||5||196||2, 24, 46, 68||n/a|
SELECT rowid, ename, sal FROM emp FOR UPDATE OF sal
In this case, you use the returned ROWID in further INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statements.
Also, after INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE, and SELECT FOR UPDATE statements are executed, the Oracle ROWID field in the CDA can contain a binary representation of the ROWID for the row that was just changed or selected. However, this field is valid only if the OCI program is connected to an Oracle database. See the "Special Considerations" section , in the description of the external datatype VARCHAR2, for more information.
The size of the binary representation of a ROWID is system dependent. One way to determine the binary ROWID size on your system is to describe, using ODESCR, a SQL statement such as
SELECT rowid FROM dual
Whenever ODESCR returns the datatype code 11 in the DBTYPE parameter, the DBSIZE parameter contains the size in bytes of the binary ROWID.
Never attempt to construct a ROWID and use it in subsequent DML statements. Use only ROWIDs returned by Oracle.
|Example (for 30-NOV-1992, 3:17 PM)||119||192||11||30||16||18||1|
When you input a date in binary format using the DATE external datatype, the database does not do consistency or range checking. All data in this format must be carefully validated before input.
Note: There is little need to use the Oracle external DATE datatype in ordinary database operations. It is much more convenient to convert DATEs in character format, because the program usually displays (on a query) or inputs in a character format, such as `DD-MON-YY'.
Note: The entire contents of the buffer (PROGVL chars) is passed to the database, including any trailing blanks or nulls.
If the PROGVL parameter is zero, Oracle treats the bind variable as a null, regardless of its actual content. Of course, a null must be allowed for the bind variable value in the SQL statement. If you try to insert a null into a column that has a NOT NULL integrity constraint, Oracle issues an error and does not insert the row.
Negative values (especially -1) for the PROGVL parameter are not allowed for CHARs.
When the Oracle internal (column) datatype is NUMBER, input from a character string that contains the character representation of a number is legal. Input character strings are converted to internal numeric format. If the CHAR string contains an illegal conversion character, Oracle returns an error and does not input the value. Number conversion follows the conventions established by National Language Support settings for your system. For example, your system might be configured to recognize a comma (,) rather than a period (.) as the decimal point.
If you omit the RLEN parameter of ODEFIN, returned values are blank padded to the buffer length, and nulls are returned as a string of blank characters. If RLEN is included, returned values are not blank padded. Instead, their actual lengths are returned in the RLEN parameter.
To check if a null is returned or if character truncation has occurred, include an indicator parameter or array of indicator parameters in the ODEFIN or ODEFINPS call. An indicator parameter is set to -1 when a null is fetched and to the original column length when the returned value is truncated. Otherwise, it is set to zero. If you do not specify an indicator parameter and a null is selected, the fetch call returns an ORA-01405 error.
Note: If you are connected to an Oracle7 database, but you set the LNGFLG parameter of the OPARSE call to zero, selecting a null with no indicator parameter defined returns no error.
Output to a character string from an internal NUMBER datatype can also be made. Number conversion follows the conventions established by the National Language Support settings for your system. For example, your system might use a comma (,) rather than a period (.) as the decimal point.
On input, the length parameter must indicate the exact length including the null terminator. For example, if an array in C is declared as
char my_num = "123.45";
then the length parameter when you bind my_num must be seven. Any other value would return an error for this example.
After binding the program cursor to a PL/SQL cursor variable, you can execute the PL/SQL block. Then you can use the variable cursor as a regular program cursor. For example, you may then describe the select-list items, bind them to program variables (using ODEFIN or ODEFINPS), fetch rows, and close the cursor.
For more information see the section "Cursor Variables" .
The internal length of MLSLABEL is between two and five bytes.
|EXTERNAL||1 VARCHAR2||2 NUMBER||8 LONG||11 ROWID||12 DATE||23 RAW||24 LONG RAW||96 CHAR||105 MLSLABEL|
|Notes: (1) For input, host string must be in Oracle 'BBBBBBBB.RRRR.FFFF' format. On output, column value is returned in same format. (2) For input, host string must be the default DATE character format. On output, column value is returned in same format (3) For input, host string must be in hex format. On output, column value is returned in same format. (4) For output, column value must represent a valid number. (5) Length must be less than or equal to 2000. (6) On input, column value is stored in hex format. For output, column value must be in hex format. (7) For input, host string must be a valid OS label in text format. On output, column value is returned in same format. (8) For input, host string must be a valid OS label in raw format. On output, column value is returned in same format.||Legend: I = input only O = output only I/O = input or output|
Copyright © 1997 Oracle Corporation.
All Rights Reserved.


Graphics files JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and so on are graphics file formats that require the data to be formatted in a certain way.
Text and data The presentation layer can translate data into different formats such as American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) and the Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC).
Sound/video MPEGs, QuickTime video, and MIDI files all have their own data formats to and from which data must be converted.
Another very important function of the presentation layer is encryption, which is the scrambling of data so that it can't be read by anyone other than the intended recipient. Given the basic role of the presentation layerthat of data-format translatorit is the obvious place for encryption and decryption to take place.
Application Layer (Layer 7)
In simple terms, the function of the application layer is to take requests and data from the users and pass them to the lower layers of the OSI model. Incoming information is passed to the application layer, which then displays the information to the users. Some of the most basic application-layer services include file and print capabilities.
The most common misconception about the application layer is that it represents applications that are used on a system such as a Web browser, word processor, or a spreadsheet. Instead, the application layer defines the processes that enable applications to use network services. For example, if an application needs to open a file from a network drive, the functionality is provided by components that reside at the application layer.updated


This article from the Newspaper Archives is about the experiments Nikola Tesla began to do with X-rays during 1896.
The Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, page 9. Friday, March 13, 1896.
EXPERIMENTS MADE BY NIKOLA
Shoulder of a Man Taken Through His
Clothing--Chalky Deposits Infal-
Mr. Tesla also states that the refraction of the Crooke's tubes used in these experiments may be increased by electrical means to any degree desirable far beyond that obtainable by mechanical appliances. This method he describes. In regard to the nature of the X rays, he says:
"It is now demonstrated beyond any doubt that small metallic objects, or bony or chalky deposits can be infallibly detected in any part of the body."
Tesla has also secured radiographs showing the bony structure of birds and rabbits, even to the hollow bones. He has secured a radiograph of a rabbit after an hour's exposure, in which not only details of the skeleton are visible; but also a clear outline of the abdominal cavity, location of lungs and the fur are shown. Radiographs of large birds show the feathers distinctly; in another instance an exposure of forty minutes gave a radiograph of the human skull, showing clearly not only the outline, but the cavity of the eye, chin, cheek, nasal bones, the lower jaw and connection to the upper one, the vertebral column and connections to the skull, the flesh and even the hair.
"By exposing the head to a powerful radiation, strange effects have been noted. For instance, I find that there is a tendency to sleep, and the time seems to pass away quickly. There is a general soothing effect, and I have felt a sensation of warmth in the upper part of the head. An assistant independently confirmed the tendency to sleep and a quick lapse of time. Should these remarkable effects be verified by men with keener sense of observation, I shall still more firmly believe in the existence of material streams penetrating the skull. Thus it may be possible by these strange appliances to project a suitable chemical into any part of the body."


Study finds one-stop flights are a big contributor to global connectivity.
Every time you’ve seen a plane take off or land at a hub airport, you’ve seen the world growing more connected, according to a new model developed by researchers at MIT.
In a study published in the journal Transportation Research Part E, the MIT team outlines a model that determines the degree to which regions around the world are connected via air transportation.
The researchers, at MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment (LAE), analyzed flight schedules between 1990 and 2012 from more than 1,100 airlines connecting over 4,600 airports around the world. They also looked at 1.2 million tickets to gauge passenger behavior — such as the detours that passengers were willing to make to get to their final destination.
They observed that in 1990, airports in the U.S. were, by far, the best-connected. By 2012, thousands of airports around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia, emerged as access points to the global air transportation network, increasing global connectivity, or the links between regions, by 140 percent.
This exploding growth in global connectivity is due largely to the increasing availability and quality of indirect connections, in which passengers have to switch to a connecting flight to continue on to their destination.
While overall, passengers generally prefer nonstop over one-stop flights, the researchers found that the number and quality of indirect connections grew faster than nonstop flights over this period. In part, they attributed this growth to increasing cooperation between airlines: Between 1990 and 2012, global airlines began to team up into multi-airline alliances, such as Oneworld, Sky Team, and Star Alliance. These alliances offer “code-sharing” flights — connecting flights involving two airlines, sold to passengers on a single ticket.
The researchers note that such code-sharing provides global “seamless travel” options for passengers at the point of sale. For example, to get from Newark, N.J., to Singapore, a passenger might purchase a ticket through United Airlines, which is part of an alliance that includes Lufthansa. The ticket may involve a connection in Frankfurt where the passenger switches from a United aircraft to a Lufthansa aircraft — so the cooperation between those two airlines connects Newark to more destinations throughout the world.
Robert Malina, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and LAE’s associate director, says the rising impact of connecting flights on global connectivity is a somewhat counterintuitive and surprising one.
“Even if you take into account that one-stop flights have a lower value for passengers because they involve additional travel time, we still find that one-stop flights become more important over time in connecting regions,” Malina says. “It’s easier to transfer these days, because the airlines are cooperating better than they were in the ’90s. So we get a lot of indirect connectivity. That’s a striking result.”
Malina’s co-authors on the paper are MIT postdoc Florian Allroggen and PhD student Michael Wittman.
For their model, the researchers analyzed 1.2 million ticketed flight itineraries, as well as flight schedules at over 4,600 airports. The flight schedules gave them an idea of the direct and indirect routes available to passengers, while ticket sales were used to measure passenger preferences — such as with respect to the maximum detour, or the most out-of-the-way connection, they were willing to accept in order to get to their destination.
Malina and his colleagues also evaluated the economic quality of the markets that surround destination airports, taking into account per-capita gross domestic product, the number of people, and their spatial distribution around the airport.
The group’s model computes a “global connectivity index” score for each airport in the years between 1990 and 2012. This score indicates the degree to which an airport is connected to the global air transport network; the researchers plotted how these connectivity scores changed over the period.
“It’s an interesting time period, because there was a lot of change in the global transportation network,” Malina says. “Let’s take Europe as an example: Back in the early 1990s, you had highly regulated markets. So if you were an Irish airline, you were able to fly from Ireland to other countries, but you were not able to offer services from Spain to Germany, for example.”
Indeed, the researchers’ results showed that in 1990, global nonstop and one-stop connectivity was highly concentrated at North American airports. By 2012, this concentration dropped, especially as European and Asian countries opened up their markets and were better integrated into the global air transport network.
“During this period, we particularly observed the rise of Asia,” Malina says. “Airports like Dubai and Beijing in the 1990s played no role whatsoever in generating global connectivity, and now they’ve become more important.”
Jan Brueckner, a professor of economics at the University of California at Irvine, says the team’s new metric for air transport connectivity improves on existing models, as it uses 20 years’ worth of data to track all possible trips out of a given city, and also measures the “value” of each destination.
“No researchers have produced such a comprehensive index spanning a large range of years,” says Brueckner, who was not involved in the research. “The study shows that connectivity is growing, and an important implication is that it will continue to grow. A policy implication of the study concerns the benefits of international airline alliances, whose ability to stimulate connectivity should be appreciated and fostered by regulators.”
Looking ahead, Malina hopes to apply the model to examine how certain changes in deregulation affect global connectivity, as well as how air transportation affects economic growth. The model may also help to understand how airlines enter and exit certain regional markets.
“For example, we can look at all the markets that United has opened up in the last couple years, and can look at the destination quality, and we might be able to tell that United only enters markets that have certain properties,” Malina says. “So there are a lot of applications for transportation science, regional economics, and also for management scholars.”
The research was funded in part by the German Research Foundation and MIT’s Airline Industry Consortium.
(Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office)


There are on average about ten deaths each year caused by avalanches. They are still among the least deadly natural disasters.
An avalanche by definition is a rapid movement of a mass of snow on a slope that can be caused by a break in the snowpack. It can vary according to different criteria:
* mass: this can vary, it can be minimal (tens of cubic meters) or enormous (hundreds of cubic meters);
* the speed: it depends on the mass moved but also on the slope (between 30 and 55°), it can therefore vary from 10 to 400 km/h.
There are three types of avalanches:
- The avalanche in aerosol: it is due to an accumulation of fresh snow such as powder snow. This type of avalanche can go very fast from 100 to 400 km/h, creating a thick and wide cloud of snow;
2. Wet snow avalanche: created at the end of the winter season with rising temperatures and more intense precipitation. This will slowly drag the entire snowpack along, the speed will be around 20 km/h;
3. Slab avalanche: this is the sliding of a slab of snow by the wind on a small part of the snowpack. On this snowpack, there may be blocks of snow or another friable plate. It can become dangerous in strong winds.
An avalanche can be created spontaneously or be provoked voluntarily or involuntarily (explosive, skiers, etc.). However, there are two fundamental factors that trigger it:
* the temperature: during the winter, if there is a long period of snowfall followed by a very cold period, the snowpack will not be able to consolidate, unlike a warmer period which will allow it to to stabilize. But if temperatures and precipitation increase (spring), the snowpack will be unstable as a result of wet and therefore heavier snow.
* the wind: it affects the stability of the snowpack because it can promote the creation of slabs and therefore avalanches.
With the monitoring of avalanches over the years, the reinforced monitoring of certain areas, the control of urbanization, as well as the forecasting and information of citizens are measures to be implemented in any risk area.
Nevertheless, these measures do not make it possible to stop these avalanches, it is necessary to add other complementary measures:
* temporary: establishment of trivialization of risk areas or triggering of an artificial avalanche with controlled explosives;
* permanent: equipment to limit the departure of avalanches with nets or barriers as well as diversion, braking or even stopping structures.
It is also advisable for any hiker or off-piste skier to bring a device allowing their geolocation in the event of an avalanche (transmitter / receiver device for assistance in the search for victims of avalanches (ARVA).


Today, we view a new land from above. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
You and I find little novelty in looking down on a city from an airplane. But as late as the 1930s few people had yet flown. Most of us still dreamt of rising into the air to gaze down on the city around us. In fact, the dream was much older than flight. Artists have been trying to take us into the sky since the late 1400s.
The new medium of printed books soon tried to include imagined aerial views of cities. Perspective was badly understood, and those early block prints were pretty surealistic.
Then, when Leonardo da Vinci took up perspective, the first thing he did was to sketch fine aerial views of imaginary buildings. So we've been trying to create aerial views of our cities for at least 500 years.
Bird's eye views really took off just after the first French balloons. But, oddly enough, it wasn't because of flight. Rather, it was the invention of lithography -- printing done with stone slabs. Lithography was cheap and effective, and it soon suited itself to making color plates as well.
Lithography whipped up a new hunger for pictures. I suppose it also drove the invention of photography, but that's another story. Lithography was in place by 1825. The next 75 years gave us two to three thousand aerial views of American cities. Of course those views were all drawn down on the ground.
The American West really took to the new medium. Itinerant artists went from town to town making bird's eye views. They were immensely popular with settlers who'd just built a new town.
I count only 46 buildings in an 1840 lithograph of "Austin the New Capital of Texas" -- even fewer in Monterey, California, two years later. But the few buildings of Monterey are joined by a rich record of the variety of ships and boats in the harbor.
As we follow bird's eye views down through the 19th century, the towns grow. The bird has to fly higher, and the magic of what he sees fades. The bird's eye view works best when the town is small enough to let you pick out buildings -- your house, my house, the mayor's house.
These old drawings leave a stunning, and usually accurate, record of that sort of detail. The old cities of Helena, Oregon City, and San Francisco live, very much as they once did, in these old prints. And they hold some surprises -- like smokestacks and factories on the "Streets of Laredo" in 1892.
So we built cities and immediately dramatized what we'd done. And it's peculiarly appropriate that we assumed a bird's wings of freedom to tell about the new America we were creating.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.
Reps, J.W., Cities on Stone: Nineteenth Century Lithograph Images of the Urban West, Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1976. (This is the catalog of a traveling exhibit of bird's eye views mounted by the Amon Carter Museum.)
I am grateful to Margaret Culbertson and Ellen Beasely for urging this subject on me and to Margaret Culbertson for making her copy of the Reps catalog available to me.
For a find collection of Birds Eye views of Texas towns, see: http://www.birdseyeviews.org/


In the health care setting, there is an increasing need for a self-donning surgical gown that health care personnel can don without the need for any assistance. Also, in the context of Crisis Management for the Ebola virus and other severe infectious diseases, use of a gown that can be donned and removed quickly and safely as infection protection to prevent onwards transmission to environmental infection is more important than ever.
The research group led by Kiyokazu Nakajima, professor at the Global Center for Medical Engineering and Informatics, Osaka University, has succeeded in developing a safe and easy self-donning and self-adjusting surgical gown called "Selfgown," which could also minimize environmental infection  from splashes when taking off gloves .
The group has been working on R&D of medical devices and non-medical equipment  to reduce labor burden of medical support staff and to ensure the best use of human resources in order to improve the work environment in health care settings. In this study, the group responded to the strong need to develop a self-donning, self-adjusting surgical gown and succeeded in commercialization after 2 years of R&D.
Conventional surgical gowns are designed to have an assistant tie strings or a belt around the neck, inner gown, and waist to keep arms and hands inside the sterile field. The new gown is comprised of a special spring along the neckline instead of strings.
The inner belt is removed by applying a three-dimensional structure on the rear torso portions to overlap each other. Applying sticky tape on a transfer card for temporary adhesion and forming a special perforation at the end of the waist belt led to the realization of this groundbreaking self-donning, self-adjusting surgical gown.
The notable feature of this gown is that there is practically "zero splashing" of infectious substances from the gloves as the wearer can take off the gown while wrapping the gloves inside-out at the same time, as opposed to a conventional gown where the wearer needs to take off the gloves first in order to undo the strings and the belt.
"We exercised our ingenuity to develop a special ring around the neck and to optimize the structure of rear torso portions to overlap each other," said Nakajima. "We finally established a self-donning, self-adjusting system after 18 months of research, making 41 prototypes while conducting 17 animal experiments, 5 clinical trials and incorporating evaluations from over 100 surgeons in Japan and overseas. We were able to develop this groundbreaking gown through advice from infection control and critical care specialists. We wish to widely promote our achievement."
This gown will prevent medical accidents, which are becoming a serious problem, and provide safe and secure medical care. It will also enable medical professionals to initiate immediately at large-scale disasters, emergency areas, and disease outbreaks . Eventually, it may be adapted into nursing care or even use outside of medical care, such as waste disposal or radioactive decontamination work. This gown is now available
1: environmental infection: environment (floor, wall or door) contaminated with a virus or bacteria from exposure to splash or contact of body fluids such as blood, vomit or stool.
2: glove: surgical glove
3: non-medical equipment: any surrounding instrument or material to be used for diagnostic, therapeutic or prevention purposes for human beings or animals which are not regulated in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Act, as they are not intended to affect any function of the body of humans or any animals.
4: outbreak: a sudden occurrence of cases of disease in a defined area
Remarks: This research was jointly conducted by Daiei Co., Ltd., Tokusen Industry Co., Ltd. and Osaka University.
Saori Obayashi | EurekAlert!
Purdue cancer identity technology makes it easier to find a tumor's 'address'
16.11.2018 | Purdue University
Microgel powder fights infection and helps wounds heal
14.11.2018 | Michigan Technological University
Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have captured a difficult-to-view singular event involving "magnetic reconnection"--the process by which sparse particles and energy around Earth collide producing a quick but mighty explosion--in the Earth's magnetotail, the magnetic environment that trails behind the planet.
Magnetic reconnection has remained a bit of a mystery to scientists. They know it exists and have documented the effects that the energy explosions can...
Biochips have been developed at TU Wien (Vienna), on which tissue can be produced and examined. This allows supplying the tissue with different substances in a very controlled way.
Cultivating human cells in the Petri dish is not a big challenge today. Producing artificial tissue, however, permeated by fine blood vessels, is a much more...
Faster and secure data communication: This is the goal of a new joint project involving physicists from the University of Würzburg. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research funds the project with 14.8 million euro.
In our digital world data security and secure communication are becoming more and more important. Quantum communication is a promising approach to achieve...
On Saturday, 10 November 2018, the research icebreaker Polarstern will leave its homeport of Bremerhaven, bound for Cape Town, South Africa.
When choosing materials to make something, trade-offs need to be made between a host of properties, such as thickness, stiffness and weight. Depending on the application in question, finding just the right balance is the difference between success and failure
Now, a team of Penn Engineers has demonstrated a new material they call "nanocardboard," an ultrathin equivalent of corrugated paper cardboard. A square...
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ANN ARBOR, Mich.—In an effort to keep lakes and streams clean, municipalities around the country are banning or restricting the use of phosphorus-containing lawn fertilizers, which can kill fish and cause smelly algae blooms and other problems when the phosphorus washes out of the soil and into waterways.
But do the ordinances really help reduce phosphorus pollution? That's been an open question until now, says John Lehman, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan.
"It's one of those things where political organizations take the action because they believe it's the environmentally conscious thing to do, but there's been no evidence offered in peer-reviewed literature that these ordinances actually have a salutary effect," Lehman said.
Now, such evidence exists in a study published by Lehman and students Douglas Bell and Kahli McDonald in the journal Lake and Reservoir Management. The paper, published online Aug. 14, shows that phosphorus levels in the Huron River dropped an average of 28 percent after Ann Arbor adopted an ordinance in 2006 that curtailed the use of phosphorus on lawns. Phosphorus is naturally plentiful in southeast Michigan soils, so fertilizing established lawns with the nutrient is generally unnecessary.
Lehman was in an ideal position to assess the effectiveness of the Ann Arbor ordinance because he and undergraduate student Julie Ferris were already studying nutrient levels in the Huron River and two downstream lakes, Ford Lakes and Belleville Lake, for a different research project. Ferris used some of the data from that project in her senior honors thesis, and she and Lehman published a paper on the Ford Lake and Belleville Lake research, but they weren't sure what to do with the rest of the data from the Huron River around Ann Arbor.
"As we were talking about it, I got a phone call from Ann Arbor environmental coordinator Matt Naud, who knew about the work we had been doing," Lehman said. "He said the city council had enacted an ordinance that would reduce the use of phosphorus-containing fertilizers, and he wondered if we would be able to detect any change that might occur as a result."
Using statistical models, Lehman and Ferris figured out how much sampling would be required to confidently detect a 25 percent decrease in phosphorus concentrations. "We came up with the result that for most of the river that runs through Ann Arbor, we should be able to detect a change of that magnitude by sampling once a week for one summer or two summers, depending on the sampling station."
Naud found funding to pay a student to do the work over the next two summers. By that time, Ferris had graduated and gone on to medical school, so Lehman recruited Bell to do the sampling and chemical analyses. When Bell graduated and took a job measuring phosphorus on research cruises around Bermuda, McDonald joined the project.
"Right away, we started to see decreases," Lehman said. After the first year of data collection, it was clear that phosphorus concentrations were lower after the ordinance was enacted than before. But did the ordinance cause the drop? Though that explanation seems likely, public education efforts and general increased environmental awareness among Ann Arbor residents also may have entered in.
At any rate, the study already has attracted the attention of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), which invited Lehman to present the study results at a meeting earlier this year, and may well generate interest beyond Michigan's borders.
"Although the science wasn't difficult, its ramifications in a political sense and in an environmental sense will not be insignificant," Lehman said.
The research was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the city of Ann Arbor.
John Lehman: www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/public/experts/ExpDisplay.php?ExpID=1018
Lehman's project web site: www.umich.edu/~hrstudy
Lake and Reservoir Management: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/07438141.asp
John LehmanLehman's project web siteLake and Reservoir Management


Flipping through the articles of Financial Times on 8th Oct, 14, I was awed by the headline “China leap forward : overtakes USA as the world’s biggest economy”. This news made me ponder on the presence of Indian economy in the world. I quickly browsed through Wikipedia and found that India stands 10th in the nominal GDP ranking and 3rd in the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) ranking.
The nominal GDP measures the market values of the final goods and services a country produced in a year calculated at the government official foreign exchange rates the exchange rates of that year. The nominal GDP does not take into consideration the cost of living (inflation) of different countries and hence the ranking of the countries may greatly vary depending upon the fluctuations in exchange rates. To avoid this ambiguity of fluctuation of exchange rates, the comparison of the countries is done on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP takes into account the relative costs and inflation and hence is considered to be a real measure of the economy.
According to neo classical economists, several factors which contribute to the GDP of a country are consumptions of households, investment in productive assets, government spending on goods and services, exports and imports of the country. The Industrial, agricultural and services sector contributes a major chunk of economy of any country.
According to IMF (World Economic Database, October, 2014) the GDP (PPP) of India in 2013 is 6.77 (Trillion US$).The contribution from Industrial, agricultural and services sector are 20%, 15% and 65% respectively. It can be observed that in the initial phase of the growth of a country, a major contribution is by the manufacturing sectors and then when it establishes its manufacturing units a major contribution comes from services sector. It can be inferred that after the initial stages the manufacturing sector becomes more services centric in order to remain competitive and hence the output and employment at service sector increases.
For China, the contribution in GDP is maximum by the manufacturing and industrial sector (47%) followed by services sector (43%) and agricultural sector (10%). The total GDP of China as per IMF (World Economic Database, October, 2014) is 17.45 (Trillion US$) for the year 2013.If we compare China's economy post World War II we would found that China has undergone a drastic change with 7% increase in its GDP. This significant growth is due to rapid increase in manufacturing of hi-tech goods with large scale hi-tech manufacturing firm like Lenovo, Baidu.com and Huawei Technologies .The infrastructural development in China has also been quite higher than that of India, which has added to the growth of China GDP. In general, it can be inferred that China spends much more in its infrastructural facilities than India. It can also be speculated that these manufacturing sectors in China will augment the services sector in china and in future the services sector contribution might surpass the contribution by manufacturing firms.
The trend of contribution of sectors in USA is quite different from India and China. For the year 2013, GDP of US is 17.56(Trillion US$) as per IMF (WEO, October, 2014).The major contribution in GDP is by the services sector (77%) followed by industrial sector( 22%) and agricultural sector(1%). Information, retail, scientific, technical and professional services form the major parts of services sector. Wholesale and retail trade comes up as the leading business areas in services sectors. Contribution from major retail firms such as Wal-Mart, Sears, Target, McDonald’s etc. has helped to shape the image of America that exists today. This industry has brought in tremendous amounts of revenue and according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2009) the total amount of sales was $4.13 trillion. However if net income is considered, finance and insurance services leads in services sector in USA. The US has the maximum amount of total insurance premiums. These premiums amount for $1.2 trillion, which to put in perspective is about 33.3% of the world market. This sector is a reliable industry and clearly a world leader. The American banking industry is also very competitive industry that is strongly supported by the economy. The banking sector in a way is responsible for the growth of retail sector at US. It has been a backbone of the American economy for many years.
Japan having a GDP (PPP) of 4.66 (Trillion US$) for year 2013 ranks 4th in the world after India (WEO, October, 2014). The key driver of Japan’s economy is the services sector which contributes around 71% to its GDP followed by manufacturing sector ( 27%) and agricultural sector(2%).The major services sector in Japan include banking, insurance, retailing, transportation and telecommunications. Industries in Japan include motor vehicles, electronic equipment, machine tools, steel and nonferrous metals, ships, chemicals, textiles, and processed foods. Japan is the home of major automotive giants like Toyota, Renault-Nissan, Honda, Suzuki, Mazda and Mitsubishi. The automobile sector due to its increasing demand across the world managed a growth of more than 10% in 2009 despite of the global crisis. Japan is also the world’s largest electronics manufacturer with premier companies such as Sony, Casio, Mitsubishi Electric, Panasonic, Canon, Fujitsu, Nikon, Yamaha etc. In the year 2012, India overtook Japan to become third-largest economy in purchasing power parity. This was majorly because of the tsunami at Japan which badly affected hit its growth rate (0.75%) as compared to then growth rate of India (7.24%)
Analyzing the trends of major contributors of the world’s economy, we can infer that contribution of services sector in GDP of India still has a good scope of improvement. The major contribution is by IT services companies of India. Majority of the services companies is dependent of foreign firms for their revenue. To boost the services sector, Indian government is trying to take a series of economic reforms to invite more foreign companies. As per the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report of IMF the GDP of India is expected to rise by 5.6% by the end of this year and to 6.4 % by 2015. An increase in investment and exports are the expected to enhance the economy of India. The new government formation in India has renewed the confidence in market which brings in a lot of hopes to the Indian economy.
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Mapping Fruit Fly Brains: “a technical, multidisciplinary tour de force”
It’s question that has been puzzling neuroscientists for nearly a century: How do patterns of activity in neurons generate behavior? In other words, how does nerve activity in living things, from insects and snails to humans, result in their coordinated movements?
Thanks to work by a team of researchers that included Carey Priebe, a professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, the answer is closer than ever before.
Working with researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University, and using genetic tools, optogenetics and machine learning algorithms, Priebe and the team identified the brain neurons that result in every kind of movement made by fruit fly larvae. This, experts say, opens the possibility that scientists will eventually be able to build a similar neuron-behavior “atlas” in humans, connecting nerve activation not only with movements, but also with emotions and even thoughts.
The team targeted specific neurons in the nervous systems of more than 1,000 different genetic lines of fruit flies and then stimulated them, recording the behavior that resulted. The behavior was documented by thousands of hours of video, showing how almost 40,000 larvae wiggling, hunching and backing up, among other movements. This produced a very large data set to be tackled by Priebe, who used specially developed software to parse the enormous amount of data and sort it into 29 distinct behaviors. The result? A guide linking neurons with every movement larvae make.
The study was published in the April print edition of the journal, Science. A perspective piece on the research, published in the same edition, called the study “a technical, multidisciplinary tour de force.”
Update 12/23/14: Mapping Drosophilia’s Brain


noun, plural co·mas.
IS YOUR DESERT PLANT KNOWLEDGE SUCCULENT OR DRIED UP?
Origin of coma1
Words nearby coma
Definition for coma (2 of 2)
noun, plural co·mae [koh-mee]. /ˈkoʊ mi/.
- a tuft of silky hairs at the end of a seed.
- the leafy crown of a tree; cluster of leaves at the end of a stem.
- a terminal cluster of bracts, as in the pineapple.
Origin of coma2
Example sentences from the Web for coma
The peace process is in a coma; and ISIS, Hamas, Assad, Hezbollah, and the Iranian mullahs make Israel look like the good guys.The Inside Story of U.S. Meddling in Israel’s Elections|Aaron David Miller|December 4, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Everything changes when Rick slips into a coma after being shot while pursuing a criminal.
For Rick, who awakens from his coma months after the dead have risen, the world changes overnight.
While he was in a coma for seven days, his consciousness entered a series of transcendent realms.
Nine months later, he awakens from his coma with washboard abs and the ability to run really fast.‘The Flash’ Review: Teen Angst Gets a Comic Book Quickie|Sujay Kumar|October 7, 2014|DAILY BEAST
When coma or profound stupor exists, it may become jerking and spasmodic, or even simulate the stertorous respiration of apoplexy.
As though coming out of a coma, it was raising its bizarre head and trying to get on its feet.Astounding Stories, April, 1931|Various
In a condition almost of coma, he had no measure or count of the hours that passed.Two Thousand Miles Below|Charles Willard Diffin
On the following day, there was coma, with indications of extreme debility.
We have seen that a well-developed comet of the normal type usually comprises a nucleus, a head or coma, and a tail.The Story of the Solar System|George F. Chambers
British Dictionary definitions for coma (1 of 2)
noun plural -mas
Word Origin for coma
British Dictionary definitions for coma (2 of 2)
noun plural -mae (-miː)
- a tuft of hairs attached to the seed coat of some seeds
- the terminal crown of leaves of palms and moss stems


The sun is finally start to shine bright, and you’re ready to lather yourself with clean, healthy sunscreen, but finding a safe and effective sunscreen isn’t the only key to sun safety. According to Ken Cook, President and Co-Founder of Environmental Working Group (EWG) and a leader in the environmental health movement, protecting yourself from skin cancer is more than just sunscreen; there’s an entire sun safety protocol to follow. Ken educated the Beautycounter community about his tips and tricks—and we’re sharing his words of wisdom with the Be Well community too.
- Skin cancer, often overlooked in our current “tanning culture,” is a real public health threat.
- During their lifetimes, 40%-50% of Americans who live to 65 will be diagnosed with at least one of two skin cancer tumors.
How To Find Safer Sunscreen
- Many sunscreens use chemical sunblockers like oxybenzone, which soaks through skin, can trigger allergic skin reactions, and may be a hormone disruptor. Look for mineral sunscreens, like our Protect All Over Sunscreen and Dew Skin tinted moisturizer, which use non-nano zinc oxide—an effective, natural, and safer mineral sunblocker.
- Prioritize broad-spectrum sunscreens.
- Find water-resistant brands.
What To Avoid
- Ingredients like oxybenzone and vitamin A (retinyl palmitate)
- Sunscreens with added insect repellent
- Anything above SPF 50, which can give a false sense of security and has unclear added sun protection
- Make sure you’re not using sunscreen as a way to prolong your hours in the sun.
- Wear clothing with SPF, like rash guards, hats, and sunglasses.
- Avoid getting a sunburn—especially children. It’s a significant risk factor in developing skin cancer later in life.
- Read and share EWG’s recently released annual sun safety report.
Our goal is to give you the tools to make better decisions—regardless of whether or not your sun safety solutions include Beautycounter. Together, we can help to protect against skin cancer and create a healthier world for all of us.


Some of them may still occasionally be seen coasting the lower lakes with their frail barks, and pitching their camps and lighting their fires upon the shores; but their range is fast contracting
to those remote waters and shallow and obstructed rivers unvisited by the steamboat.
He scowled horribly, contracting
the scalp strongly over the brows and bringing the hair down from the top of the head until each hair stood apart and pointed straight forward.
You saw with regret the sad habits he was contracting
, I know: and I know you did your utmost to deliver him from them, but without success, until I came to your assistance.
How can you, child, affect to deny that you have considered of contracting
an alliance, when you so well know I am acquainted with the party with whom you desire to contract it?--an alliance as unnatural, and contrary to your interest, as a separate league with the French would be to the interest of the Dutch!
Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting
to a modest and unassuming D.
And I observed, also, that his whole body had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that muscles were softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, and across the shoulders; that the arms were slightly lifted, their muscles contracting
, the fingers crooking till the hands were like talons; and that even the eyes had changed expression and into them were coming watchfulness and measurement and a light none other than of battle.


One way to compare
the branches is to add together the two output measures to
obtain a single measure. The table below shows the combined
outputs with the title transactions. The number of
transactions is simply the sum of the personal
and business transactions shown in the data table.
With only one output and one input we can compare DMU's by
computing the ratio: output/input or transactions per staff
member. The Ratio column
is obtained by dividing the transactions
number by the staff number. This suggests that Croydon is
the best branch because its ratio is larger than all the rest.
For convenience we want a measure
that lies between 0 and 1, so we divide the ratios by the maximum
ratio (9.72). The results for the four branches are in the
column above labeled Efficiency.
Efficiency is a good word for the measure since it divides output
by input and is similar to comparisons made in other fields.
For instance one can speak of the efficiency of a solar
cell by dividing the electrical power produced in the cell
by the light power falling on the cell. Both
input and output power are measured in watts.
The quantities are difficult to measure, but efficiency compares
the result to a standard to obtain a meaningful value. For
instance the record for solar cell efficiency is 42%.
One would expect that solar cell efficiency will never approach
number computed in the table above is not the same. The
value of 1 does not mean Croydon is perfectly translating inputs to outputs.
It only means that Croydon has the best output over input ratio of the four
banks. If one accepts the measure it can be used to rank the four DMU's. The
result is shown in the rank column. The CFO
has the result that she needs. She brings her ranking to a meeting with the
The manager of the Croydon branch is pleased, but the other
branch managers call the ranking unfair. They say the measure
used to obtain the ranking is flawed. Simply adding the outputs
may not be correct. Different efficiencies would be obtained
if a different weight were applied to each measure. One could
say that the personal transactions were not as important as
the business transactions. Someone could propose that each business
transition be given three times the weight of a personal transaction.
This would yield different efficiency values and perhaps a different
The CFO does not want to pursue a policy that alienates
the managers. No one, except the Croydon
bank manager will accept the efficiency as calculated above to compute the
ranking. If the branch managers accept the idea that some ratio of outputs
to inputs can be used for comparison, the problem is to agree on
the best weights for the output factors. Of course, the branch managers
will not agree on the appropriate weights.
The operations analyst attending the meeting suggests to the CFO that the
DEA method might help in seeking agreement. After a private discussion with
the analyst, the CFO announces that the managers may independently weigh the
any way they like. The CFO adds that the managers must each use
the input and output data (from the tables above) and
evaluate the efficiencies for all four branches with the same set of weights.
Each branch must work without interacting with any other branch. The managers
agree to the restrictions and agree to meet in one week to provide
DEA is a method to deal with situations like this. Although it does not solve
the ranking problem directly, the DEA provides some objective measures to obtain
a partial ranking. The DEA add-in embodies the computational tools necessary
to implement the method.The following pages of this section describe the method
along with the add-in features. Only the basics of DEA are presented. There
are many papers and books on the subject as reported in a web site by Emrouznejad.
Several commercial programs provide more detailed analysis than this add-in.
There are many practical questions involved with actual implementations that
are not considered here.


What causes volcanic eruptions and how can we predict them?
Volcanic eruptions threaten tens of millions of people around the globe, but our understanding of their eruption mechanisms and triggers has barely advanced beyond our understanding of what happens if we shake up a bottle of beer and open the lid! Yes, we know that gases exsolve, bubbles form, and that if the pressure of the bubbles exceeds the confining pressure an eruption can occur.
But, many important aspects of volcanic eruptions are still not known. I investigate volcanic processes by performing experiments and computer simulations. I work together with geologists, physicists, chemists, and engineers to apply what we have learned in the lab to field studies of real volcanoes, such as Stromboli and Etna (Movie of Etna's July 2006 eruption). Our goal is to better understand volcanic processes and improve our ability to forecast volcanic eruptions.
We are studying how rapidly bubbles nucleate and grow in many melt compositions by performing experiments at 1 atm and at pressures corresponding to the upper crust using x-ray microtomography (Movie of experimental bubble growth). These experiments allow us to understand bubble growth mechanisms, how the bubble size distributions seen in nature are formed and what they tell us about the conditions under a volcano before its eruption. These experimental measurements are being combined with lattice Boltzmann simulations to investigate how bubble size distributions affect the permeability and thus the explosivity of volcanic systems.
Measurements of gases emanating from volcanoes are often used as monitoring tools for eruption forecasting. We are studying how the gas compositions can be affected by the not-so-subtle interactions between diffusion in the melt and increases in bubble growth rates. Our hypothesis is that changing ratios of gases such as F/S or Cl/S may reflect changes in bubble growth rates and therefore will provide additional information on the probability of an eruption in the near future.
We are studying the behavior of sulfur in volcanic systems because of its importance in volcano monitoring, its potential to affect Earth's global climate, and its potential role in mass extinctions. We are creating new models to calculate the saturation of silicate melts with sulfide and sulfate phases and the partitioning of sulfur between the melt and a coexisting fluid. We also are using x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) studies to understand the atomic-scale structure of S in silicate melts.
We use the experimental equipment in my laboratory to subject rock samples to temperatures and pressures that simulate conditions from the surface vents of volcanoes to depths of more than 100 km. We also perform computer simulation of volcanic processes with a parallel computer cluster. The results of our experiments are analyzed with the state-of-the-art suite of analytical laboratories in the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and together with other colleagues in the GEOTOP-UQAM-McGill research center we can analyze almost any element and isotopic ratio (stable or radiogenic). For other types of analyses, such as XANES and microtomography, we travel to synchrotrons around the world (the Advanced Photon Source, Elettra, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, and the National Synchrotron Light Source).
Publications in the past 5 years:
Papers currently submitted to refereed journals:
Polacci, M., Mancini, L. and Baker, D.R. The contribution of synchrotron X-ray computed microtomography to understanding volcanic processes. Submitted to Journal of Synchrotron Research, June 2009.
Colò, L., Ripepe, M., Baker, D.R., and Polacci, M. Magma vesiculation and infrasonic activity at Stromboli open conduit volcano. Submitted to Earth and Planetary Science Letters, April 2009.
Published papers in refereed journals:
77. Alletti, M., Baker, D.R., Scaillet, B., Aiuppa, A., Moretti, R., Ottolini, L. (2009) Chlorine partitioning between a basaltic melt and H2O-CO2 fluids, Chemical Geology, 263, 37-50.
76. Aiuppa, A., Baker, D.R., and Webster, J.D. (2009) Halogens in volcanic systems. Chemical Geology, 263, 1-18.
75. Baker, D.R., and Balcone-Boissard, H. (2009) Halogen diffusion in magmatic systems. Chemical Geology, 263, 82-88.
74. Balcone-Boissard, H., Baker, D.R. Villemant, B., and Boudon, G. (2009) F and Cl diffusion in phonolitic melts: influence of the Na/K ratio. Chemical Geology, 263, 89-98.
73. Moretti R. and Baker, D.R. (2008) Modeling the interplay of fO2 of fS2 along the FeSMSS or liq-silicate melt equilibrium. Chemical Geology, 256, 286-298.
72. Polacci, M., Baker, D.R., Mancini, L. Favretto S. and Hill, R.J. (2009) Vesiculation in magmas from Stromboli and implications for normal Strombolian activity and paroxysmal explosions in basaltic systems. Journal of Geophysical Research, doi: 10.1029/2008JB005672, 2009.
71. Baker, D.R. (2008) The fidelity of melt inclusions as records of melt composition. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 157, 377-395.
70. Polacci, M., Baker, D.R., Bai, L. and Mancini, L. (2008) Large vesicles record pathways of degassing in basaltic magmas. Bulletin of Volcanology, 70, 1023–1029.
69. Tollari, N., Baker, D.R. and Barnes, S.-J. (2008) Experimental effects of pressure and fluorine on apatite saturation in mafic magmas, with reference to layered intrusions and massif anorthosites. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 156, 161-175.
68. Bai, L., Baker, D.R. and Rivers, M. (2008) Experimental study of bubble growth in Stromboli basalt melts at 1 atmosphere. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 267, 533-547.
67. Alletti, M., Baker, D.R. and Freda, C. (2007) Halogen diffusion in a basaltic melt. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 71, 3570-3580.
66. Dolejš, D. and Baker, D.R. (2007) Liquidus equilibria in the system K2O-Na2O-Al2O3-SiO2-F2O-1-H2O to 100 MPa: II. Differentiation paths of fluorosilicic magmas in hydrous systems. Journal of Petrology, 48, 807-828.
65. Dolejš, D. and Baker, D.R. (2007) Liquidus equilibria in the system K2O-Na2O-Al2O3-SiO2-F2O-1-H2O to 100 MPa: I. Silicate-fluoride liquid immiscibility in anhydrous systems. Journal of Petrology, 48, 785-806.
64. Liu, Y., Samaha, N.-T. and Baker, D.R. (2007) Sulfur concentration at sulfide saturation (SCSS) in magmatic silicate melts. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 71, 1783-1799.
63. Peregoedova, A., Barnes, S.-J. and Baker, D.R. (2006) An experimental study of mass transfer of platinum-group elements, gold, nickel and copper in sulfur-dominated vapor at magmatic temperatures. Chemical Geology, 235, 59-75.
62. Polacci, M. Baker, D.R., Mancini, L., Tromba, G. and Zanini, F (2006) Three dimensional investigation of volcanic textures by X-ray microtomography and implications for conduit processes. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L13312, doi: 10.1029/2006/GL026241, 2006.
61. Baker, D.R., Lang, P., Robert, G., Bergevin, J.-F., Allard, E. and Bai, L. (2006) Bubble growth in slightly supersaturated albite melt at constant pressure. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 70, 1821-1838.
60. Dolejš, D. and Baker, D.R. (2006) Fluorite solubility in hydrous haplogranitic melts at 100 MPa. Chemical Geology, 225, 40-60.
59. Dolejš, D. and Baker, D.R. (2006) Phase transitions and volumetric properties of cryolite, Na3AlF6: Differential thermal analysis to 100 MPa. American Mineralogist, 91, 97-103.
58. Freda, C., Baker, D.R. and Scarlato, P. (2005) Sulfur diffusion in basaltic melts. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 69, 5061-5069.
57. Dolejš, D. and Baker, D.R. (2005) Thermodynamic modeling of melts in the system Na2O-NaAlO2-SiO2-F2O-1. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 69, 5537-5556.
56. Hudon, P., Jung. I. and Baker, D.R. (2005) Experimental investigation and optimization of thermodynamic properties and phase diagrams in the systems CaO-SiO2, MgO-SiO2, CaMgSi2O6-SiO2, and CaMgSi2O6-Mg2SiO4 to 1.0 GPa. Journal of Petrology, 46, 1859-1880. doi:10.1093/petrology/egi037.
55. Ashkenazy, Y., Baker, D.R. and Gildor, H. (2005) Simple stochastic models for glacial dynamics. Journal of Geophysical Research, 110, C02005 doi:10.1029/2004JC002548.
54. Baker, D.R., Freda, C., Brooker, R.A. and Scarlato, P. (2005) Volatile diffusion in silicate melts and its effects on melt inclusions. Annals of Geophysics, 48, 699-717.
53. Consiglio, R., Zouain,R.N.A., Baker, D.R., Paul, G. and Stanley H.E. (2004) Symmetry of continuum percolation threshold in systems of two different size objects. Physica A, 343, 343-347.
52. Peregoedova, A., Barnes, S.-J. and Baker, D.R. (2004) The formation of Pt-Ir alloys and Cu-Pd-rich sulfuide melts by partial desulfurization of Fe-Ni-Cu sulfides: results of experiments and implications for natural systems. Chemical Geology, 208, 247-264.
51. Baker, D.R. (2004) Piston cylinder calibration at 400 to 500 MPa: a comparison of using water solubility in albite melt and NaCl melting. American Mineralogist, 89, 1553-1556.
50. Baker, D.R., Dalpé, C. and Poirier, G. (2004) The viscosities of foods as analogues for silicate melts. Journal of Geoscience Education, 52, 363-367.
49. Hudon, P., Jung, I.H. and Baker D.R. (2004) Effect of pressure on liquid-liquid miscibility gaps: A case study of the systems CaO-SiO2, MgO-SiO2, and CaMgSi2O6-SiO2. Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, B03207, doi:10.1029/2003JB002659.
48. Dolejs, D. and Baker, D.R. (2004) Thermodynamic analysis of the system Na2O-K2O-CaO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O-F2O-1: Stability of fluorine-bearing minerals in felsic igneous suites. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 146, 762-778.


In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Kubla Khan was the founder of the Mongol Dynasty in China. He ordered a grand palace to be built. The site of the palace was the place through which the sacred river Alph flowed through dark caves to the sea which was so deep where sunlight never reached.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round,
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenry.
The site of the palace was ten miles long. The walls and towers of the palace encircled a large area of beautiful garden with aromatic trees. It was surrounded by primitive forest which was as old as the hills in the area. There were many spots in the forest where sunshine peaked through.
But oh, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover
A savage place, as holy and enchanted
As ever beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover
There was a deep fissure which went down the hill and it was surrounded by thick forest of cedar trees. It was a savage place and it was enchanted too. It was a haunted place, like a place underneath the waning moon. One could hear the cried of witches calling for their demon lover.
Waning moon, witches and demon lover are used to depict an eerie place. The poet has tried to depict a haunted place which is often associated with witchcraft and magic.
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced,
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail
An amid these dancing rocks at once and ever
If flung up momently the sacred river.
There is never-ending turmoil seething from the deep fissure in the ground. It is seething as if the earth is panting to breathe its last. A mighty fountain gushes out intermittently from the chasm, as if venting all the anger hidden inside the earth. Along with the fountain, come out rocks to fall again on the ground, as hailstorm. The poet has compared these rebounding rocks with grains and chaff, which jump and fall when the thresher uses his flail. Sometimes, the river also jumps in the air along with these dancing rocks.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran
Then reached the caverns measureless to man
An sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean,
And amid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war
The sacred river meandered through a maze of channels through the forest and the valley. After that the river reached the caves which are too deep and long to be conceived by human imagination. Then the river sank in the lifeless ocean with a roar. Here, the poet has beautifully juxtaposed two contrasting traits, i.e. of thundering noise when a river falls in ocean and the calm ocean.
Amid all this agitation, Kubla heard that his ancestors were forecasting about a war for which he needs to be ready. Here, the poet means to say that life is not a bed of roses. You get to see many ups and downs in life. Pleasure and challenges are bundled together.
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves
It was a miracle of rare device
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice
The shadow of the grand dome is falling on the waves and is giving an impression that the shadow is floating on the waves. One could hear the music of the nature from the mountains and caves. The poet says that the palace is a fine example of design and architecture. Its dome is warm because it is well lit with the sun. But the inner parts of the palace are cold because of presence of ice underneath.
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played
Singing of Mount Abora
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song
To such a deep delight, ‘twould win me,
A lady is playing a dulcimer and singing a song about Mount Abora. Dulcimer is a string instrument. The lady is from Abyssinia, which means that she has been brought from a distant land. Her song about the Mount Abora signifies that the lady is feeling homesick and hence is singing about her homeland. If anyone could revive that song inside himself, it would be a pleasure to do that.
We can correlate it with the condition of slaves and migrant workers when situation forces them to live and work away from their homeland. In today’s globalised world many people leave their countries to live and work in foreign nations. They often enjoy the fruits of success but they always miss the aroma of their motherland’s soil.
Kumar, Dharmender. "Kubla Khan (Xanadu) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge". Poem Analysis, https://poemanalysis.com/samuel-taylor-coleridge/kubla-khan/. Accessed 7 August 2022.
Copyright © excellup 2014


Wonder why 90% of addictions start in the teen years?1
Change is Certain
You’re going through a lot of changes right now. Especially your brain – which won’t be finished developing until you’re about 24.
It’s proven that the younger you are, the easier it is for your brain to become dependent on things like alcohol and other drugs. Exposing your brain to these substances sooner rather than later results in huge negatives, and could definitely mean a longer road towards recovery.
What Could It Hurt?
Alcohol and other drugs temporarily increase the chemical messenger in your brain called dopamine, which makes you feel good. But this system can be ‘hijacked’ when you use alcohol or drugs while your brain is still developing.
When you use drugs or alcohol, a new neuropathway is built based on reward. As with learning something new, this circuit is easier to build and strengthen in your young and agile brain. The result is that you can become addicted more quickly – and more heavily – than adults do. And, you may not even recognize that you rely on these substances to feel normal – and may need more of them to feel the same effects.
Drugs and alcohol have more permanent and lasting effects on the teenage brain. Even short-term use can interfere with your ability to learn and remember – and impact your academic success.
Using drugs and alcohol interferes with your brain’s ability to produce its own feel good chemicals – so you might not enjoy activities, feel depressed and may not enjoying hanging out with your friends like you used to.
You might not do as well in school – including sports and activities. You could also get in trouble with the law, limiting your future.


While the warming conditions in the Arctic and the continuing seasonal melting of the permafrost will produce increased rates of global warming, the amounts particularly in the latter case are very uncertain. Our best guess is that it will take, perhaps, centuries for the permafrost to fully decay and produce its effects. We really don’t know how long it will take and what its effects will be. The permafrost is like a giant compost heap, not worked at all in the summer months, but active on its hard-to-work surface during the summer when it slowly releases some of its greenhouse gases. Below the surface a foot or so or even as far as 2-3 feet down everything is frozen solid. We’ve no ideas how to work the pile so far, and thus we cannot influence the rate at which microorganisms will affect it and its conversion to a compost that might even be useful in farming. The best we can say is that as decomposition occurs we will add to the greenhouse gas burden of the atmosphere in ways and at levels that are hard to predict. The tree line around the Arctic is starting to advance significantly and may be expected to take up significant carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, but is unlikely to to compensate for permafrost decomposition as it accelerates. We are developing some permafrost experts who will consider the problem more thoroughly; however, for now permafrost decay is a significant wild card in the potential contributors to global warming we can expect to see going forward.
Second and third wild cards are the continuing melting of ice at the poles and in the release of significant block of above sea-level glacial ice in both Greenland and the Antarctic.
Much of the ice in the Arctic will more than likely melt over the next several decades. We will see more open water in summer in the Arctic and a gradual slow increase in average temperature over the Arctic region. This process will also slowly affect temperature and weather globally since the open water and thermal redistribution of the heated atmosphere and heated oceans over the entire planet will be affected. As I noted in a previous post, we understand this process will change weather patterns, but we don’t understand the particulars well enough to predict how and where even the most obvious changes will occur and with what ferocity (if any). In general, when new patterns of temperature equilibration occur in large complex systems, we should expect some unusual and even wildly violent weather to accompany it. But we don’t know when, where or how such patterns will be produced. Thus, we have the chance to be surprised by new kinds of weather patterns which will likely be transient and not represent long-term recurring formations.
Additional north polar sea ice is mostly surface ice and its melting will not significantly alter sea levels. However, an abrupt loss of the Greenland glacier and/or the glacial shelf in the Western Antarctic would be expected to produce major effects. These large above-sea-level edifices would both increase sea level and produce potentially serious though short term effects on ocean salinity as they melt. The salinity changes have the potential to disrupt the ocean conveyer belt currents and thus the efficiency with which heat is transferred off the equator. Such effects could substantially change coastal weather patterns globally, and put coastal regions where major population centers exist under the sudden more extreme effects of storm surges and a permanent flooding treat. While in some cases sea walls may provide protection, the timeline between when it becomes obvious that such protections are needed and when needs are critical may not be very wide.
In general, by slowing the rate of global warming through reduced power generation using fossil fuels, we can diminish or delay the risks of the several wild cards in play. We can slow the melting of Arctic ice and also slow the release of the Greenland or West Antarctic glaciers. Glacial release should be delayed as long as possible. Best case scenarios suggest that increases in sea level by the end of the century will be of the order of 1-2 meters. If either the high end permafrost evolution of greenhouse gases occurs together with the release of one or both of the major glaciers, then all bets are off. Sea level will rise substantially more than predicted, and coastal regions including island nations with abundant population centers may be at substantially increased risk due to violent and unpredictable weather patterns either from further alterations in the more open Arctic or to changes in local ocean salinity due to released glaciers melting in open seas.
The two glaciers and the permafrost decomposition rate are the three major wild cards affecting planet wide changes from global warming in this century.


1. trail - noun
· a track or mark left by something that has passed; "there as a trail of blood"; "a tear left its trail on her cheek"
2. trail - noun
· a path or track roughly blazed through wild or hilly country
3. trail - noun
· evidence pointing to a possible solution; "the police are following a promising lead"; "the trail led straight to the perpetrator"
4. trail - verb
· to lag or linger behind; "But in so many other areas we still are dragging"
5. trail - verb
· go after with the intent to catch; "The policeman chased the mugger down the alley"; "the dog chased the rabbit"
6. trail - verb
· move, proceed, or walk draggingly or slowly; "John trailed behind his class mates"; "The Mercedes trailed behind the horse cart"
7. trail - verb
· hang down so as to drag along the ground; "The bride's veiled trailed along the ground"
8. trail - verb
· drag loosely along a surface; allow to sweep the ground; "The toddler was trailing his pants"; "She trained her long scarf behind her"
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Mental Health First Aid (MHFA)
Mental health disorders are more common than heart disease and cancers combined. The stigma surrounding mental illness often prevents people from seeking treatment, and those that do want help are not sure where to turn.
What is Mental Health First Aid?
It is an evidence-based training that is designed to give ordinary people the skills to help someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis or intervene early to prevent a crisis from occurring. It is a hands-on interactive training where the participants will learn to recognize the symptoms of mental health, how to intervene and connect others to the appropriate professional, peer or self-help care.
The 8-hour course covers a range of common disorders and potential crises such as helping someone who is having a panic attack, contemplating suicide or struggling with substance abuse.
Who should take this Mental Health First Aid course?
This course is beneficial for healthcare workers, law enforcement, probation, court officers & staff, first responders, teachers, social service workers, and any member of the community.
To register for an upcoming training email: email@example.com
Upcoming Mental Health First Aid Trainings
To Learn More About Mental Health First Aid Click Here