The Knavesmire Primary School is located in Knavesmire Road, on the southern end of Campleshon Road.<|endoftext|>40] propose to assign higher weight to rare colors, an idea very similar to the Inverse Document Frequency (IDF) in image search. In this scenario, this paper proposes an unsupervised method which requires a minimal amount of labeling or training effort.

Datasets Market-1501 RAiD [3] CUHK03 [23] VIPeR [8] i-LIDS [45] CUHK01 [22] CUHK02 [21] CAVIAR [2]
# identities 1,501 43 1,360 632 119 971 1,816 72
# BBoxes 32,643 6920 13,164 1,264 476 1,942 7,264 610
# distractors 2,793 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
# cam. per ID 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 2
DPM or Hand DPM hand DPM hand hand hand hand hand
Table 1: Comparing Market-1501 with existing datasets [23, 8, 45, 22, 21, 2].

On the other hand, the field of image search has been greatly advanced since the introduction of the SIFT descriptor [26] and the BoW model. In the last decade, a myriad of methods [15, 44, 36, 47, 39] have been developed to improve search performance. For example, to improve matching precision, Jégou et al. [15] embed binary SIFT features in the inverted file. Meanwhile, refined visual matching can also be produced by index-level feature fusion [44, 36] between complementary descriptors. Since the BoW model does not consider the spatial distribution of local features (also a problem in person re-identification), another direction is to model the spatial constraints [47, 39, 13]. The geometry-preserving visual phrases (GVP) [39] and the spatial coding [47] methods both calculate the relative position among features, and check the geometric consistency between images by the offset maps. Zhang et al. [38] propose to use descriptive visual phrases to build pairwise constraints, and Liu et al. [25] encode geometric cues into binary features embedded in the inverted file.

For ranking problems, an effective reranking step typically brings about improvements. Liu et al. [24] design a “one shot” feedback optimization scheme which allows a user to quickly refine the search results. Although it is shown to yield consistent improvement, reranking based on user feedback is not always desirable or accessible. In rigid object search, RANSAC [29] is typically used in post-processing. In [33], the top-ranked images are used as queries again and final score is the weighted sum of individual scores. When multiple queries are present [1], a new query which integrates the original queries can be formed by average or max operations.

3 The Market-1501 Dataset

3.1 Description

In this paper, a new person re-identification dataset, the “Market-1501” dataset, is introduced. During dataset collection, a total of six cameras were placed in front of a campus supermarket, including five 12801080 HD cameras, and one 720576 SD camera. Overlapping exists among these cameras. This dataset contains 32643 bounding boxes of 1501 identities. Since it is an open environment, images of each identity are captured by at most six cameras. We make sure that each annotated identity are captured by at least two cameras, so that cross-camera search can be performed. In fact, even within same camera, images of same identity still take on distinct appearance. Overall, the Market-1501 dataset has the following featured properties.

First, while most existing datasets use hand-cropped bounding boxes, the Market-1501 dataset employs a state-of-the-art detector, i.e., the Deformable Part Model (DPM) [7]. As is shown in Fig. 1, misalignment as well as body part missing are very common among the detected images.

Second, in addition to the false positive bounding boxes, we also provide false alarm detection results. We notice that the CUHK03 dataset [23] also uses the DPM detector, but the bounding boxes in CUHK03 are relatively good ones in terms of DPM detector. In fact, a large number of the detected bounding boxes would be very “bad”. Considering this, for each detected bounding box to be annotated, a hand-drawn groundtruth bounding box is provided (similar to [23]). Different from [23], for the detected and hand-drawn bounding boxes, the ratio of the overlapping area to the union area is calculated. In our dataset, if the area ratio is larger than 50%, the DPM bounding box is marked as “good” (a routine in object detection [7]); if the ratio is smaller than 20%, the DPM bounding box is marked as “distractor”; otherwise, the bounding box is marked as “junk” [29], meaning that this image is of zero influence to the re-identification accuracy. Moreover, some obvious false alarm bounding boxes on the background are also marked as “distractors”. In Fig. 1, examples of “good” images are shown in the top two rows, while “distractor” and “junk” images are in the bottom row.

Third, each identity may have multiple images under each camera. Therefore, during cross-camera search, there may be multiple queries and multiple groundtruths for each identity. A comparison with existing datasets is shown in Table 1.

Figure 2: A toy example of the difference between AP and CMC measurements. True matches and false matches are in green and red boxes, respectively. For all three rank lists, the CMC curve remains 1. But AP = 1, 1, and 0.41, respectively.

3.2 Evaluation Protocol

Current datasets typically use the Cumulated Matching Characteristics (CMC) curve to evaluate the performance of re-identification algorithms. CMC curve shows the probability that a query identity appears in different sized candidate lists. This evaluation measurement is valid only if there is only one groundtruth match for a given query (see Fig. 2(a)). In this case, the precision and recall are the same issue. However, if multiple groundtruths exist, the CMC curve is biased because “recall” is not considered. For example, CMC curves of Fig. 2(b) and Fig. 2(c) both equal to 1, which fails to provide a fair comparison of the quality between the two rank lists.

For Market-1501 dataset, there are on average 14.8 cross-camera groundtruths for each query. Therefore, we use mean average precision (mAP) to evaluate the overall performance. For each query, we calculate the area under the Precision-Recall curve, which is known as average precision (AP). Then, the mean value of APs of all queries, i.e., mAP, is calculated, which considers both precision and recall of an algorithm, thus providing a more comprehensive evaluation.

Our dataset is randomly divided into training and testing sets, containing 750 and 751 identities, respectively. During testing, for each identity, we select one query image in each camera. Note that, the selected queries are hand-drawn, instead of DPM-detected as in the gallery. The reason is that in reality, it is very convenient to interactively draw a bounding box, which can yield higher recognition accuracy [23]. The search process is performed in a cross-camera mode, i.e., relevant images captured in the same camera as the query are viewed as “junk”. In this scenario, an identity has at most 6 queries, and there are 3363 query images in total. On average, there are 4.5 query images for each identity, and each query has 14.8 groundtruth images. Queries of two sample identities are shown in Fig. 3.

Figure 3: Samples query images. In Market-1501 dataset, queries are hand-drawn bounding boxes. Each identity has at most 6 queries, one for each camera.

4 Our Method

4.1 The Bag-of-Words Model

For three reasons, we adopt the Bag-of-Words (BoW) model. First, this model well accommodates local features, which are indicated as effective by previous works [27, 40]. Second, it enables fast global feature matching, instead of exhaustive feature-feature matching [42, 41]. Third, by quantizing similar local descriptors to the same visual word, the BoW model achieves some invariance to illumination, view, etc. We describe the individual steps below.

Feature Extraction. As a baseline, we employ the Color Names (CN) descriptor [34]. Given a pedestrian image normalized to 12864 pixels, patches of size 44 are densely sampled. In our experiment, the sampling step is 4, so there is no overlapping between patches. For each patch, CN descriptors of all pixels are calculated, and are subsequently normalized followed by operator [32]. The mean vector is taken as the descriptor of this patch (see Fig. 4).

Figure 4: Local feature extraction. We compute the mean CN vector for each 44 patch. These local features are quantized, and then pooled in a histogram for each horizontal stripe.

Codebook. For Market-1501 dataset, we generate a codebook on the training set. For other datasets, the codebook is trained on the independent TUD-Brussels dataset [37]. Standard -means is used, and codebook size is .

Quantization. Given a local descriptor, we employ Multiple Assignment (MA) [15] to find its near neighbors under Euclidean distance

40] propose to assign higher weight to rare colors, an idea very similar to the Inverse Document Frequency (IDF) in image search. In this scenario, this paper proposes an unsupervised method which requires a minimal amount of labeling or training effort.

Datasets Market-1501 RAiD [3] CUHK03 [23] VIPeR [8] i-LIDS [45] CUHK01 [22] CUHK02 [21] CAVIAR [2]
# identities 1,501 43 1,360 632 119 971 1,816 72
# BBoxes 32,643 6920 13,164 1,264 476 1,942 7,264 610
# distractors 2,793 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
# cam. per ID 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 2
DPM or Hand DPM hand DPM hand hand hand hand hand
Table 1: Comparing Market-1501 with existing datasets [23, 8, 45, 22, 21, 2].

On the other hand, the field of image search has been greatly advanced since the introduction of the SIFT descriptor [26] and the BoW model. In the last decade, a myriad of methods [15, 44, 36, 47, 39] have been developed to improve search performance. For example, to improve matching precision, Jégou et al. [15] embed binary SIFT features in the inverted file. Meanwhile, refined visual matching can also be produced by index-level feature fusion [44, 36] between complementary descriptors. Since the BoW model does not consider the spatial distribution of local features (also a problem in person re-identification), another direction is to model the spatial constraints [47, 39, 13]. The geometry-preserving visual phrases (GVP) [39] and the spatial coding [47] methods both calculate the relative position among features, and check the geometric consistency between images by the offset maps. Zhang et al. [38] propose to use descriptive visual phrases to build pairwise constraints, and Liu et al. [25] encode geometric cues into binary features embedded in the inverted file.

For ranking problems, an effective reranking step typically brings about improvements. Liu et al. [24] design a “one shot” feedback optimization scheme which allows a user to quickly refine the search results. Although it is shown to yield consistent improvement, reranking based on user feedback is not always desirable or accessible. In rigid object search, RANSAC [29] is typically used in post-processing. In [33], the top-ranked images are used as queries again and final score is the weighted sum of individual scores. When multiple queries are present [1], a new query which integrates the original queries can be formed by average or max operations.

3 The Market-1501 Dataset

3.1 Description

In this paper, a new person re-identification dataset, the “Market-1501” dataset, is introduced. During dataset collection, a total of six cameras were placed in front of a campus supermarket, including five 12801080 HD cameras, and one 720576 SD camera. Overlapping exists among these cameras. This dataset contains 32643 bounding boxes of 1501 identities. Since it is an open environment, images of each identity are captured by at most six cameras. We make sure that each annotated identity are captured by at least two cameras, so that cross-camera search can be performed. In fact, even within same camera, images of same identity still take on distinct appearance. Overall, the Market-1501 dataset has the following featured properties.

First, while most existing datasets use hand-cropped bounding boxes, the Market-1501 dataset employs a state-of-the-art detector, i.e., the Deformable Part Model (DPM) [7]. As is shown in Fig. 1, misalignment as well as body part missing are very common among the detected images.

Second, in addition to the false positive bounding boxes, we also provide false alarm detection results. We notice that the CUHK03 dataset [23] also uses the DPM detector, but the bounding boxes in CUHK03 are relatively good ones in terms of DPM detector. In fact, a large number of the detected bounding boxes would be very “bad”. Considering this, for each detected bounding box to be annotated, a hand-drawn groundtruth bounding box is provided (similar to [23]). Different from [23], for the detected and hand-drawn bounding boxes, the ratio of the overlapping area to the union area is calculated. In our dataset, if the area ratio is larger than 50%, the DPM bounding box is marked as “good” (a routine in object detection [7]); if the ratio is smaller than 20%, the DPM bounding box is marked as “distractor”; otherwise, the bounding box is marked as “junk” [29], meaning that this image is of zero influence to the re-identification accuracy. Moreover, some obvious false alarm bounding boxes on the background are also marked as “distractors”. In Fig. 1, examples of “good” images are shown in the top two rows, while “distractor” and “junk” images are in the bottom row.

Third, each identity may have multiple images under each camera. Therefore, during cross-camera search, there may be multiple queries and multiple groundtruths for each identity. A comparison with existing datasets is shown in Table 1.

Figure 2: A toy example of the difference between AP and CMC measurements. True matches and false matches are in green and red boxes, respectively. For all three rank lists, the CMC curve remains 1. But AP = 1, 1, and 0.41, respectively.

3.2 Evaluation Protocol

Current datasets typically use the Cumulated Matching Characteristics (CMC) curve to evaluate the performance of re-identification algorithms. CMC curve shows the probability that a query identity appears in different sized candidate lists. This evaluation measurement is valid only if there is only one groundtruth match for a given query (see Fig. 2(a)). In this case, the precision and recall are the same issue. However, if multiple groundtruths exist, the CMC curve is biased because “recall” is not considered. For example, CMC curves of Fig. 2(b) and Fig. 2(c) both equal to 1, which fails to provide a fair comparison of the quality between the two rank lists.

For Market-1501 dataset, there are on average 14.8 cross-camera groundtruths for each query. Therefore, we use mean average precision (mAP) to evaluate the overall performance. For each query, we calculate the area under the Precision-Recall curve, which is known as average precision (AP). Then, the mean value of APs of all queries, i.e., mAP, is calculated, which considers both precision and recall of an algorithm, thus providing a more comprehensive evaluation.

Our dataset is randomly divided into training and testing sets, containing 750 and 751 identities, respectively. During testing, for each identity, we select one query image in each camera. Note that, the selected queries are hand-drawn, instead of DPM-detected as in the gallery. The reason is that in reality, it is very convenient to interactively draw a bounding box, which can yield higher recognition accuracy [23]. The search process is performed in a cross-camera mode, i.e., relevant images captured in the same camera as the query are viewed as “junk”. In this scenario, an identity has at most 6 queries, and there are 3363 query images in total. On average, there are 4.5 query images for each identity, and each query has 14.8 groundtruth images. Queries of two sample identities are shown in Fig. 3.

Figure 3: Samples query images. In Market-1501 dataset, queries are hand-drawn bounding boxes. Each identity has at most 6 queries, one for each camera.

4 Our Method

4.1 The Bag-of-Words Model

For three reasons, we adopt the Bag-of-Words (BoW) model. First, this model well accommodates local features, which are indicated as effective by previous works [27, 40]. Second, it enables fast global feature matching, instead of exhaustive feature-feature matching [42, 41]. Third, by quantizing similar local descriptors to the same visual word, the BoW model achieves some invariance to illumination, view, etc. We describe the individual steps below.

Feature Extraction. As a baseline, we employ the Color Names (CN) descriptor [34]. Given a pedestrian image normalized to 12864 pixels, patches of size 44 are densely sampled. In our experiment, the sampling step is 4, so there is no overlapping between patches. For each patch, CN descriptors of all pixels are calculated, and are subsequently normalized followed by operator [32]. The mean vector is taken as the descriptor of this patch (see Fig. 4).

Figure 4: Local feature extraction. We compute the mean CN vector for each 44 patch. These local features are quantized, and then pooled in a histogram for each horizontal stripe.

Codebook. For Market-1501 dataset, we generate a codebook on the training set. For other datasets, the codebook is trained on the independent TUD-Brussels dataset [37]. Standard -means is used, and codebook size is .

Quantization. Given a local descriptor, we employ Multiple Assignment (MA) [15] to find its near neighbors under Euclidean distance in the codebook. We set MA = 10, so a feature is represented by the indices of 10 visual words.

TF


 ICS software and systems supplier that has a number of critical vulnerabilities, that they have decided to ignore and thus are selling know to be critical vulnerable systems.

The fact that ICS-CERT's Marty Edwards has basicaly decided not to make the vulnerabilities concerned a public reporting function of ICS-CERT (but the "favourd few" get told) means that the major supplier is under no real preasure to mend it's broken systems.

I fully expect this ridiculous state of affairs to get considerably worse and for the likes of ICS-CERT to effectivly become pariahs as the industry realises they are being hung out to dry by the overly politicized idiots.

Now one thing that is known that malware that exploits vulnerabilities has a habit of turning up in unexpected places. Stuxnet was supposadly highly directed but poped up in all sorts of unintended places. Stuxnet was supposadly written by "experts", so if the supposed experts get it badly wrong what does it say about other malware written by people not so expert, which would be the majority of malware writters.

Thus any cyber-weapon written by the US to be used against other countries is likley to come back at US organisations using ICS who are not part of the "favourd few" as well as US allies and totally uninvolved bystanders. Some of these non target nations may well suffer major harm and thus will regard the US malware as a serious attack on their Sovereignty, which for those who don't know is "a decleration of war by deed" and against many international treaties.

Now a Sovereign nation could respond in many ways some by direct action against US persons within their borders, some by direct economic action of seizing all US assets, and some by retaliating in kind, which will lead to rapid escalation which is not good for anybody, potentialy the economic effects would be worse than a limited scale nuclear war.

The problem for the US is it is probably the number one "Internet dependent" nation in the world so the US gets it worse than any other nation...

Put simply for the US it is more in their interest to ensure all ICS systems are secure than for any other nation, this appears to be a point lost on the "war hawks".

Then there is the question of who comprises the "favourd few" and why, I sincerly doubt that anybody in the US DHS has actually sat down and worked out what the "true critical infrastructure" is. Modern manufacturing and society are so intermeshed it is difficult to determine exactly what would happen if an ICS cyber-weapon touched down in the US. For instance we know the "utility" organisations are considered critical, but what about "food producers", "medical supply producers", "iron and steel producers", etc, etc.

What do you thing would happen if tommorow 30% of the processed food producers could not produce their goods?

Depending on who you beleive something like half of US households do not know how to cook beyond the very very basics, certainly not enough to be able to make bread or pastry or cook meat safely. This is radicaly different to just a generation or so ago, and is largely due to the rapid increase in "single member house holds" in the "proffesional classes and the asy availability of "ready-meals". Oh and don't say they could go to a restaurant, the major chains (ie fast food outlets) are all criticaly dependent on ICS to industrialy produce food to the point where it can be "cooked in store". Then there's the canning and botteling plants...

So rather than,

The more industrialised the nation the worse off it will be and the number one vulnerable nation is the US currently, so not "No problem" but "Big problem".

Oh and "certain countries" like China can bring the US to near economic colapse just by being a bit awkward over shipping certain goods in a timely manner. And they can do this at any time just by deciding to "improve customs checks".

And we know China are well aware of this, and are acting in a way to make the situation worse for the US and other western nations, just look at what is going on with the likes of rare earth metals which is one of their more blatent tactics...

Steve JonesNovember 24, 2011 2:28 PM

never mind FALSE ALARM
(read the follow up news stories)

not unusual for the monthly SCADA cyber panics

a huge industry and lots of government money funding now funding it

unfortunately, still having trouble finding a real example of SCADA hacking

one particular consultant, same guy reporting this attack, is still batting 1000

MelegarDecember 15, 2011 9:03 PM

"Never mind that if the report hadn't become public, the report would have never been revealed as erroneous."

How do you know this? It seems to me ICS-CERT and the FBI investigated and responded to the erroneous report as quickly as possible... The report existed for about a week before they refuted it. You can't assume that the only reason they investigated was because it went public. I have a feeling ICS-CERT and the FBI investigate all potential cyber attacks targeting US critical infrastructure and they would have discovered this one as false even if it had not gone public.

Leave a comment

Photo of Bruce Schneier by Per Ervland.
<|endoftext|>Tuesday, July 26, 2016

The image on the right, from the IPCC, shows the effect on extreme temperatures when (a) the mean temperature increases, (b) the variance increases, and (c) when both the mean and variance increase for a normal distribution of temperature. This shows how a relatively small temperature rise can result in a dramatic rise in the occurrence of hot and record hot weather.

The 'Misery Index' is the perceived air temperature as a combination of wind chill and heat index (which combines air temperature and relative humidity, in shaded areas). As temperatures and humidity levels keep rising, there comes a point where the wind factor no longer matters, in the sense that wind can no longer provide cooling. The thermodynamic wet-bulb temperature is determined by temperature, humidity and pressure (hPa), and it is the lowest temperature that can be achieved by evaporative cooling of a water-wetted ventilated surface. Once the wet bulb temperature reaches 35°C, one can no longer lose heat by perspiration, even in strong wind, but instead one will start gaining heat from the air beyond a wet bulb temperature of 35°C.

The above combination of 37.1°C at 72% at a pressure of 1013 hPa translates in a wet bulb temperature of 32.43°C. Had humidity risen to 87% while temperature remained at 37.1°C, the wet bulb temperature would have risen above 35°C. Alternatively, had the temperature risen to 39.9°C while humidity remained at 72%, the wet bulb temperature would also have risen above 35°C.

This goes to show how close the world is to unbearable heat. After all, this event occurred in Missouri, i.e. at some distance from the Equator, implying that, as temperatures and humidity levels keep rising, it could be unbearably hot in many places within a few years time. As discussed in a recent post, the world could be 10°C or 18°F warmer in ten years time.

- Climate Plan

- Wet-bulb temperature

- What is Wet Bulb temperature? By Steven Sherwood

- NOAA wet bulb calculator

- Dry Bulb, Wet Bulb and Dew Point temperatures

- Heat Index

- NOAA Heat Index calculator

- Wind chill

- NOAA Meteorological Conversions and Calculations

- The Deadly Combination of Heat and Humidity

- Researchers find future temperatures could exceed livable limits

- A Global Temperature Rise Of More than Ten Degrees Celsius By 2026?

- WMO examines reported record temperature of 54°C in Kuwait, Iraq

1 comment:

  1. From Paul Beckwith
    20% of the global warming happened last year.
    We must declare a global emergency to fight warming.<|endoftext|>Madiun is situated on the main road to Yogyakarta and Jakarta.<|endoftext|>Never had a boyfriend...

Discussion in 'Family, Friends and Relationships' started by closertolove, Aug 15, 2009.

  1. closertolove

    closertolove Well-Known Member

    ... and it gets super lonely. how is it that all the girls around me have all the luck with guys? i never seem to attract anyone, least of all who i want to

    the last guy i had anything with had a girlfriend he didn't tell me about; im sick of trying to let myself be vulnerable with someone to have it blow up in my face again

    how come im always alone =(
  2. necrodude

    necrodude Well-Known Member

    ive read so many posts like this...
    theres no 1 answer i dont think. but if there is its a long one :) but seriously, its not easy to be alone, but if we cant be happy flying solo how can we be happy with someone else?
  3. Confusticated

    Confusticated Well-Known Member

    I know you probably get told this alot, and may or may not believe it, but someone will come along soon. There

We already know of atleast one major ICS software and systems supplier that has a number of critical vulnerabilities, that they have decided to ignore and thus are selling know to be critical vulnerable systems.

The fact that ICS-CERT's Marty Edwards has basicaly decided not to make the vulnerabilities concerned a public reporting function of ICS-CERT (but the "favourd few" get told) means that the major supplier is under no real preasure to mend it's broken systems.

I fully expect this ridiculous state of affairs to get considerably worse and for the likes of ICS-CERT to effectivly become pariahs as the industry realises they are being hung out to dry by the overly politicized idiots.

Now one thing that is known that malware that exploits vulnerabilities has a habit of turning up in unexpected places. Stuxnet was supposadly highly directed but poped up in all sorts of unintended places. Stuxnet was supposadly written by "experts", so if the supposed experts get it badly wrong what does it say about other malware written by people not so expert, which would be the majority of malware writters.

Thus any cyber-weapon written by the US to be used against other countries is likley to come back at US organisations using ICS who are not part of the "favourd few" as well as US allies and totally uninvolved bystanders. Some of these non target nations may well suffer major harm and thus will regard the US malware as a serious attack on their Sovereignty, which for those who don't know is "a decleration of war by deed" and against many international treaties.

Now a Sovereign nation could respond in many ways some by direct action against US persons within their borders, some by direct economic action of seizing all US assets, and some by retaliating in kind, which will lead to rapid escalation which is not good for anybody, potentialy the economic effects would be worse than a limited scale nuclear war.

The problem for the US is it is probably the number one "Internet dependent" nation in the world so the US gets it worse than any other nation...

Put simply for the US it is more in their interest to ensure all ICS systems are secure than for any other nation, this appears to be a point lost on the "war hawks".

Then there is the question of who comprises the "favourd few" and why, I sincerly doubt that anybody in the US DHS has actually sat down and worked out what the "true critical infrastructure" is. Modern manufacturing and society are so intermeshed it is difficult to determine exactly what would happen if an ICS cyber-weapon touched down in the US. For instance we know the "utility" organisations are considered critical, but what about "food producers", "medical supply producers", "iron and steel producers", etc, etc.

What do you thing would happen if tommorow 30% of the processed food producers could not produce their goods?

Depending on who you beleive something like half of US households do not know how to cook beyond the very very basics, certainly not enough to be able to make bread or pastry or cook meat safely. This is radicaly different to just a generation or so ago, and is largely due to the rapid increase in "single member house holds" in the "proffesional classes and the asy availability of "ready-meals". Oh and don't say they could go to a restaurant, the major chains (ie fast food outlets) are all criticaly dependent on ICS to industrialy produce food to the point where it can be "cooked in store". Then there's the canning and botteling plants...

So rather than,

The more industrialised the nation the worse off it will be and the number one vulnerable nation is the US currently, so not "No problem" but "Big problem".

Oh and "certain countries" like China can bring the US to near economic colapse just by being a bit awkward over shipping certain goods in a timely manner. And they can do this at any time just by deciding to "improve customs checks".

And we know China are well aware of this, and are acting in a way to make the situation worse for the US and other western nations, just look at what is going on with the likes of rare earth metals which is one of their more blatent tactics...

Steve JonesNovember 24, 2011 2:28 PM

never mind FALSE ALARM
(read the follow up news stories)

not unusual for the monthly SCADA cyber panics

a huge industry and lots of government money funding now funding it

unfortunately, still having trouble finding a real example of SCADA hacking

one particular consultant, same guy reporting this attack, is still batting 1000

MelegarDecember 15, 2011 9:03 PM

"Never mind that if the report hadn't become public, the report would have never been revealed as erroneous."

How do you know this? It seems to me ICS-CERT and the FBI investigated and responded to the erroneous report as quickly as possible... The report existed for about a week before they refuted it. You can't assume that the only reason they investigated was because it went public. I have a feeling ICS-CERT and the FBI investigate all potential cyber attacks targeting US critical infrastructure and they would have discovered this one as false even if it had not gone public.

Leave a comment

Photo of Bruce Schneier by Per Ervland.
<|endoftext|>Tuesday, July 26, 2016

The image on the right, from the IPCC, shows the effect on extreme temperatures when (a) the mean temperature increases, (b) the variance increases, and (c) when both the mean and variance increase for a normal distribution of temperature. This shows how a relatively small temperature rise can result in a dramatic rise in the occurrence of hot and record hot weather.

The 'Misery Index' is the perceived air temperature as a combination of wind chill and heat index (which combines air temperature and relative humidity, in shaded areas). As temperatures and humidity levels keep rising, there comes a point where the wind factor no longer matters, in the sense that wind can no longer provide cooling. The thermodynamic wet-bulb temperature is determined by temperature, humidity and pressure (hPa), and it is the lowest temperature that can be achieved by evaporative cooling of a water-wetted ventilated surface. Once the wet bulb temperature reaches 35°C, one can no longer lose heat by perspiration, even in strong wind, but instead one will start gaining heat from the air beyond a wet bulb temperature of 35°C.

The above combination of 37.1°C at 72% at a pressure of 1013 hPa translates in a wet bulb temperature of 32.43°C. Had humidity risen to 87% while temperature remained at 37.1°C, the wet bulb temperature would have risen above 35°C. Alternatively, had the temperature risen to 39.9°C while humidity remained at 72%, the wet bulb temperature would also have risen above 35°C.

This goes to show how close the world is to unbearable heat. After all, this event occurred in Missouri, i.e. at some distance from the Equator, implying that, as temperatures and humidity levels keep rising, it could be unbearably hot in many places within a few years time. As discussed in a recent post, the world could be 10°C or 18°F warmer in ten years time.

- Climate Plan

- Wet-bulb temperature

- What is Wet Bulb temperature? By Steven Sherwood

- NOAA wet bulb calculator

- Dry Bulb, Wet Bulb and Dew Point temperatures

- Heat Index

- NOAA Heat Index calculator

- Wind chill

- NOAA Meteorological Conversions and Calculations

- The Deadly Combination of Heat and Humidity

- Researchers find future temperatures could exceed livable limits

- A Global Temperature Rise Of More than Ten Degrees Celsius By 2026?

- WMO examines reported record temperature of 54°C in Kuwait, Iraq

1 comment:

  1. From Paul Beckwith
    20% of the global warming happened last year.
    We must declare a global emergency to fight warming.<|endoftext|>Never had a boyfriend...

Discussion in 'Family, Friends and Relationships' started by closertolove, Aug 15, 2009.

  1. closertolove

    closertolove Well-Known Member

    ... and it gets super lonely. how is it that all the girls around me have all the luck with guys? i never seem to attract anyone, least of all who i want to

    the last guy i had anything with had a girlfriend he didn't tell me about; im sick of trying to let myself be vulnerable with someone to have it blow up in my face again

    how come im always alone =(
  2. necrodude

    necrodude Well-Known Member

    ive read so many posts like this...
    theres no 1 answer i dont think. but if there is its a long one :) but seriously, its not easy to be alone, but if we cant be happy flying solo how can we be happy with someone else?
  3. Confusticated

    Confusticated Well-Known Member

    I know you probably get told this alot, and may or may not believe it, but someone will come along soon. There's always things you can do to try and meet


’t not work. I’m just simply not able to.

Not being able to work here (long story involving visas and contracts) is just about driving me crazy. Sure, Pépé and I left our highly stressed and super fast-paced lifestyle, not to mention the long long LONG work hours as cadres* (the 1 RTT* per month just wasn’t worth it) for seemingly laidback Frankfurt (well, it feels laidback compared to Paris), but going from overworked to not working at all just doesn’t sit well with me.

I feel like I should be doing something productive. Sure, learning German is productive, but I feel like I should be climbing some corporate ladder somewhere, sucking up to some ungrateful superior, taking coffee breaks when I’m not supposed to or even just whinging about having to go to work!

Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of things that I can occupy myself with, for example, learning the articles for German nouns (they have 3 genders, 2 just wasn’t enough), but somehow it just feels like I’m idling the hours away. Maybe it’s my Asian upbringing where the constant climb the corporate ladder, climb the corporate ladder, get a career, get a career has been deeply engrained in my entire being, or maybe it’s just that I feel like a …wife. A stay-at-home wife.

After having played the “I am an independent woman, I make my own money, I can kiss arse and I can climb nice shiny corporate ladders as well as any man can” for nearly 10 years, I am now…a wife.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just not used to it.

So if you can excuse me now, I’m going to go Google “How to be a stay-at-home wife”.

* I’m not completely sure how to translate cadre, but in France, it refers to a category of employees, mostly white collar workers who have some kind of diploma to their name. Anyone out there with a better definition?
Anyway, when you’re a cadre, you work more than 35 hours per week but get compensated with 1 RTT (day off) per month.

** RTT = la réduction du temps de travail

dongurigal said...

Wow I can't believe blogspot is still uncensored! Ha ha, I can comment.

I know EXACTLY how you feel. Sorry, being a stay at home wife is dull, no matter how many German articles you master.

I absolutely hate it. It's why I told ole Hubs that next year, I ain't following him to the ends of the earth unless it's to a place where I have equal opportunity for jobs.

matthew said...

whinge whinge whinge.. don't worry your pretty little head over it sweety.. i a sure pepe has it all undercontrol ;-)
I hope you didn't burn his dinner while you were idly typing away
Hmm as for not having things to do.. I am sure there must be some more cleaning to do, are you sure the house is spotless?... Have you made sure that you are looking your best for pepe's return from a hard days work, After he has been at work all day, its fair to say that the last thing he deserves is an unkept wife...

hehehe ;-)

How quickly i have forgotten my feminist studies ;-)

ColourMeCrazy said...

Dongurial: I didn't actually realise that Blogspot is censored for you! Hmm, add that to your no flush day and you must really be living it up over there!
Is Google censored? Maybe you can join me in Googling "How to be a stay-at-home wife" as well! hehe.

Matt: Hmm, why am I even commenting when I have dishes to do??

IslandGirl4Ever2 said...

Oh my!!! I can understand about not speaking the lang... My advice.. go out exploring.. learn the UBAN..like the Metro.. what is it like where you are- village, town, city? Do you like to take pics? Do you like to walk, exercise, shop?? Ask people if they speak English or French.. Make friends.. Go on to blogs of anglophone women married to Germans or Europeans living in Germany.. see if anyone is close.. Learn new recipes, take some German classes..
I DO know what you mean and I understand COMPLETELY!!!!! I sympathize with you.. But you CAN do stuff to NOT be bored.. WHat about German classes? Maybe you can exchange German classes for French or English lessons!!<|endoftext|>Note also that ``not NFL ''implies only that algorithms are inequivalent overall by`` some'' measure of performance.<|endoftext|>Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Ways To End A Phone Conversation

This includes but is not limited to conversations with:
cold callers
annoying friends
irritating exes
and dolphins.

Sometimes you just don't want to hold a conversation.The chit chats mind numbingly boring and you're struggling to keep your eyes open at the words of  an unengaging being. If you've ever been stuck in a situation where it feels like there's no escape from this hell, be assured that you'll face it no more friend. Now commences 'Ways To End A Phone Conversation'. Read at your own risk.

1) Speak gibberish.
Confuffle ( not an actual word) their brains with a mass of made up words. I do it all the time.

2) Start yelling very nice compliments really aggressively to confuse them.

3) Start a conversation and ask about their day.
Completely dismiss the subject at hand and proceed to question them on the goings-on of their life?

4) Pick up the phone and say nothing.
Nothing says I don't want to talk to you more than pure and utter silence.

5) Act really creepy and talk in a deep breathy voice.
If you can accurately imitate the voice of Liam Neeson in this scene, you'll be guaranteed an abrupt end to your conversation.

An alternative to number 5 is to learn the words from this scene and whisper it down the phone.

6) Tattle on them.
In the most petulant voice you can do, scream "I'm telling my mom on you" and squeal. Even if you're 91 and living with cats, this is still effective.

7) Put your cat on the phone.
Nothings creepier than an unexpected meow.

8) Yell things like:
-I'm on to you!!!
-I hate fish cakes!
-Ain't nobody got time for this!
Or continuously repeat these 5 phrases in the most sinister voice you can summon.

9) Ask them really personal questions about their life.
Their age, gender( you can probably infer this already, which is why they won't see the question coming) surname, mothers maiden name, fathers first name. If they've ever had any pets in their lifetime. How many calories they consume in a day. Just a general overview.

10) Recite a sonnet from Shakespeare.
Because lets be honest here, who actually understands this:
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
-I recommend sonnet 87 for it's effectiveness.

11) Act out a scene from a Shakespearean play.
Just like the sonnet, it's equally as baffling.

12) Pretend your a witch and start conjuring spells.
Induce fear in the babbling conversationalist who sits and waits for your input somewhere down the line. Frighten them with your horrid cackles and fearful words.

And if all fails, play this as loud as you can near the phone.

Or maybe just read them this post, they'll be sure to get the message.

So that's how you do it. If you have any other ways that I haven't mentioned, comment them down below. I hope you enjoyed reading this and if you do try any of these out make sure to tell me what you think.

I'm out.

  1. This is quite possibly my favorite post ever.
    I will be trying all of these. xD Especially #5, #6, and #12
    I am most definitely looking forward to being 91 with all my cats screaming "I'M TELLING" into my phone. xD
    (and I can't stop laughing at that last video)

    1. I think it might be my favorite from the ones I've written. You must tell me how it works out for you when you try them. I'm guessing they'll have totally positive outcomes when you do. And it's me and you both then, 91 and living with cats screaming at random people down the phone. It sounds like a good life.

  2. "I'M NO FOOL SON" is the best advice I've ever gotten

  3. Love. This Post. I always have no idea how to end phone calls. EVER. This was

 have to face the 9 to 5 slog on a daily basis. However, I’ve realised that I can’t not work. I’m just simply not able to.

Not being able to work here (long story involving visas and contracts) is just about driving me crazy. Sure, Pépé and I left our highly stressed and super fast-paced lifestyle, not to mention the long long LONG work hours as cadres* (the 1 RTT* per month just wasn’t worth it) for seemingly laidback Frankfurt (well, it feels laidback compared to Paris), but going from overworked to not working at all just doesn’t sit well with me.

I feel like I should be doing something productive. Sure, learning German is productive, but I feel like I should be climbing some corporate ladder somewhere, sucking up to some ungrateful superior, taking coffee breaks when I’m not supposed to or even just whinging about having to go to work!

Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of things that I can occupy myself with, for example, learning the articles for German nouns (they have 3 genders, 2 just wasn’t enough), but somehow it just feels like I’m idling the hours away. Maybe it’s my Asian upbringing where the constant climb the corporate ladder, climb the corporate ladder, get a career, get a career has been deeply engrained in my entire being, or maybe it’s just that I feel like a …wife. A stay-at-home wife.

After having played the “I am an independent woman, I make my own money, I can kiss arse and I can climb nice shiny corporate ladders as well as any man can” for nearly 10 years, I am now…a wife.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just not used to it.

So if you can excuse me now, I’m going to go Google “How to be a stay-at-home wife”.

* I’m not completely sure how to translate cadre, but in France, it refers to a category of employees, mostly white collar workers who have some kind of diploma to their name. Anyone out there with a better definition?
Anyway, when you’re a cadre, you work more than 35 hours per week but get compensated with 1 RTT (day off) per month.

** RTT = la réduction du temps de travail

dongurigal said...

Wow I can't believe blogspot is still uncensored! Ha ha, I can comment.

I know EXACTLY how you feel. Sorry, being a stay at home wife is dull, no matter how many German articles you master.

I absolutely hate it. It's why I told ole Hubs that next year, I ain't following him to the ends of the earth unless it's to a place where I have equal opportunity for jobs.

matthew said...

whinge whinge whinge.. don't worry your pretty little head over it sweety.. i a sure pepe has it all undercontrol ;-)
I hope you didn't burn his dinner while you were idly typing away
Hmm as for not having things to do.. I am sure there must be some more cleaning to do, are you sure the house is spotless?... Have you made sure that you are looking your best for pepe's return from a hard days work, After he has been at work all day, its fair to say that the last thing he deserves is an unkept wife...

hehehe ;-)

How quickly i have forgotten my feminist studies ;-)

ColourMeCrazy said...

Dongurial: I didn't actually realise that Blogspot is censored for you! Hmm, add that to your no flush day and you must really be living it up over there!
Is Google censored? Maybe you can join me in Googling "How to be a stay-at-home wife" as well! hehe.

Matt: Hmm, why am I even commenting when I have dishes to do??

IslandGirl4Ever2 said...

Oh my!!! I can understand about not speaking the lang... My advice.. go out exploring.. learn the UBAN..like the Metro.. what is it like where you are- village, town, city? Do you like to take pics? Do you like to walk, exercise, shop?? Ask people if they speak English or French.. Make friends.. Go on to blogs of anglophone women married to Germans or Europeans living in Germany.. see if anyone is close.. Learn new recipes, take some German classes..
I DO know what you mean and I understand COMPLETELY!!!!! I sympathize with you.. But you CAN do stuff to NOT be bored.. WHat about German classes? Maybe you can exchange German classes for French or English lessons!!<|endoftext|>Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Ways To End A Phone Conversation

This includes but is not limited to conversations with:
cold callers
annoying friends
irritating exes
and dolphins.

Sometimes you just don't want to hold a conversation.The chit chats mind numbingly boring and you're struggling to keep your eyes open at the words of  an unengaging being. If you've ever been stuck in a situation where it feels like there's no escape from this hell, be assured that you'll face it no more friend. Now commences 'Ways To End A Phone Conversation'. Read at your own risk.

1) Speak gibberish.
Confuffle ( not an actual word) their brains with a mass of made up words. I do it all the time.

2) Start yelling very nice compliments really aggressively to confuse them.

3) Start a conversation and ask about their day.
Completely dismiss the subject at hand and proceed to question them on the goings-on of their life?

4) Pick up the phone and say nothing.
Nothing says I don't want to talk to you more than pure and utter silence.

5) Act really creepy and talk in a deep breathy voice.
If you can accurately imitate the voice of Liam Neeson in this scene, you'll be guaranteed an abrupt end to your conversation.

An alternative to number 5 is to learn the words from this scene and whisper it down the phone.

6) Tattle on them.
In the most petulant voice you can do, scream "I'm telling my mom on you" and squeal. Even if you're 91 and living with cats, this is still effective.

7) Put your cat on the phone.
Nothings creepier than an unexpected meow.

8) Yell things like:
-I'm on to you!!!
-I hate fish cakes!
-Ain't nobody got time for this!
Or continuously repeat these 5 phrases in the most sinister voice you can summon.

9) Ask them really personal questions about their life.
Their age, gender( you can probably infer this already, which is why they won't see the question coming) surname, mothers maiden name, fathers first name. If they've ever had any pets in their lifetime. How many calories they consume in a day. Just a general overview.

10) Recite a sonnet from Shakespeare.
Because lets be honest here, who actually understands this:
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
-I recommend sonnet 87 for it's effectiveness.

11) Act out a scene from a Shakespearean play.
Just like the sonnet, it's equally as baffling.

12) Pretend your a witch and start conjuring spells.
Induce fear in the babbling conversationalist who sits and waits for your input somewhere down the line. Frighten them with your horrid cackles and fearful words.

And if all fails, play this as loud as you can near the phone.

Or maybe just read them this post, they'll be sure to get the message.

So that's how you do it. If you have any other ways that I haven't mentioned, comment them down below. I hope you enjoyed reading this and if you do try any of these out make sure to tell me what you think.

I'm out.

  1. This is quite possibly my favorite post ever.
    I will be trying all of these. xD Especially #5, #6, and #12
    I am most definitely looking forward to being 91 with all my cats screaming "I'M TELLING" into my phone. xD
    (and I can't stop laughing at that last video)

    1. I think it might be my favorite from the ones I've written. You must tell me how it works out for you when you try them. I'm guessing they'll have totally positive outcomes when you do. And it's me and you both then, 91 and living with cats screaming at random people down the phone. It sounds like a good life.

  2. "I'M NO FOOL SON" is the best advice I've ever gotten

  3. Love. This Post. I always have no idea how to end phone calls. EVER. This was very helpful.


. if we give no particular weight to that distribution why value the efficiency that goes along with it. If the initial distribution were different then individuals' sets preferences would have different power then they currently have and thus the prices of goods and services would change, and along with it market efficient outcomes.

Visitors: check my comments policy first.<|endoftext|>Science books are vanishing from reach

University libraries represent the intellectual bedrock of Britain's academic institutions. They are an essential support to scholarly research and teaching. The last quarter century has seen exponential growth in academic productivity, especially in the sciences, and this has been accompanied by increases in the number and size of scientific, technical and medical journals, such as those published by Reed Elsevier.

But with reduced funding for university libraries, their purchasing power has fallen in relative and absolute terms. Although university budgets have kept in step with inflation since the 1970s, and in many cases outpaced it, the proportion of the budgets allocated to libraries has fallen by about a quarter, from 4% to 3% of total spend.

This is happening at a time when the vital role of science in our economy and culture is beginning to gain the recognition it deserves. Recently, the chancellor told the CBI: "With 1% of the world's population, we have over 11% of the world's most cited scientific papers." He went on to point out that the fastest-growing industries are those that focus on research and development.

Gordon Brown is drawing attention to one of Britain's unsung success stories: the excellence and high productivity of our science sector. In Britain, more original research is being funded and published than ever before - clear evidence of a vibrant scientific community.

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, annual spending by institutions making research grants increased well above inflation, not just here, but across the western world. This rise in the number and scope of scientific research projects has been accompanied by a proliferation of scientific articles.

Publication volume has grown at an average rate of 3% a year, and accelerated in recent years. Today, more than 18,000 journals are published by 2,000 publishers, generating an annual total of 1.2m-1.4m articles. A typical scientific journal today carries 110 articles each year.

Access to scientific, technical and medical material has improved hugely with the advent of electronic publishing, distribution and archiving. At Elsevier, for instance, we have invested more than $400m (£212m) in our Science Direct subscription database, which holds some 6m articles and 80m abstracts from 1,800 journals, making them available to more than 17m researchers. Put another way, that is to more than 90% of all the world's scientific research community. The increasing volume and availability of peer-reviewed literature means that scientists are more widely read than ever.

The use of these powerful new research tools is actively discouraged by a tax regime that charges libraries VAT on digital publications, but not on old-style paper copies. This is despite the evidence that publishing research online has had a tremendous positive impact on productivity in the science community.

Although there is widespread support for the reduction or removal of VAT on digital publishing in universities, the publishing industry and parliament, this tax on modern knowledge persists. It should be abolished now.

Furthermore, despite advances in the quantity, breadth and accessibility of scientific literature, university libraries increasingly struggle to cover their costs.

The reduction in the proportion of institutional funding allocated to libraries represents a double blow to university researchers. Decreased library funding means that library collections are stagnating rather than growing, and this is at a time when research output is growing fast. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently described the situation as a "crumbling intellectual foundation".

The House of Commons science and technology select committee recently recommended that the government should commission a study to assess library funding levels and needs. We support this proposal.

It could be that the government needs to lay down guidelines on the proportion of university funds that should be set aside for the acquisition of books and journals, or even increase funding to ensure that universities can buy all the material they need. After all, books and journals are the lifeblood of academic research.

The strength of feeling on this issue among Britain's student population was revealed in a recent opinion poll conducted by Mori for this newspaper. When students were asked how universities should allocate the £3,000 in tuition fees they will receive from them from next year, 31% of them, the largest group, suggested that the funds should be spent on libraries, ahead of security and access to technology.

Britain's universities and colleges spend £82m a year on subscriptions to journals. This is less than 1% of their annual research budget, but it makes scientific articles available to more than 99% of researchers.

But if the shortfall in funding is not addressed soon, access to the scientific literature is likely to begin rapidly to shrink. Reducing opportunities for scientists to access research would result in worse-informed scholarship, making it less likely that work will get published in prestige journals - or indeed be published at all.

The chancellor's comments on the importance of science have been well publicised. His ambition is to make Britain the "home of scientific discovery in the industrial revolution, the country where scientific invention is fully valued and celebrated and, as we break with the short termism of the past, the best place for scientific inquiry and for research and development".

If we are to continue to excel in science and maintain our leading role in this area, we must provide the resources the scientific community needs to foster its dynamic growth. Funding for libraries must not be left to lag behind the needs of researchers.

· Sir Crispin Davis is chief executive of Reed Elsevier<|endoftext|>In November 2016, the FSB and the BIS agreed to a further five-year extension of the agreement from January 2018 to 2023.<|endoftext|>Electricity generation with a bicycle and a car alternator

Experience report Electricity generation by bicycle and a car alternator

Since I had planned to generate 10 KWh of electricity in 2012 and had reached just 6 KWh as of 31.10.2012, a plan B had to be realized.
Unfortunately the provisional generator for the self-construction vertical axis wind turbine proved to be not helpful.

The required wind strength to get to charging voltage is simply too high.
So if the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, only muscle strength still helps.
A person can produce between 100 and 200 watts for a relatively long time.

Examples from the Internet

The energy generation by means of muscle strength is nothing unusual, can be read on the pages of Buch der Synergie.

There are professionally built generators for the montage at the bike, but they cost a little.
Then I looked at Youtube and am found there something helpful.

Some time ago I had found a discarded car alternator and dragged them on suspicion times home.
A little bit in the net searched and a nice description to the three-phase alternator found.
I bought a corresponding V-belt at Ebay.

On 1.11.2012, a frame was then provisionally made, in which the bicycle can be clamped and the V-belt drives the alternator.
After about 5 hours of tinkering, it was possible to step into the pedals and the alternator spinned.

In order to test whether the alternator works at all, I have a 4.5 volt plug-in power supply (was available) closed to the excitation winding and connected to the output side a 6V 21 Watt bulb.
What was immediately noticeable was, that it was hard to step into the pedals. The 21 watt lamp started to light, burned brighter and burned right through.
What a success.

I have as in the video above to see also a switch to turn on the excitation winding attached and the whole test arrangement in the garage next to the 12V battery built up.
When the excitation current was switched on, an extreme resistance was noticeably.
One minute stepping into the pedals and the battery’s charge voltage rose from 12.95V to 13.2V.
But after a minute, my personal performance was at an end.

Ich gehe davon aus, dass ein permanenter (starker) Erregerstrom nicht optimal ist.
Pulse width modulation may be an approach.
I have an ATMega8 microcontroller already in use, to let generated energy consume and to measure how much was consumed.
The ATMega8 microcontroller has 3 PWM outputs, so it can take over this task immediately.

The circuit diagram of the exciter circle is somewhat more complex.
There the current flows with up to 2 amps at max. 14.4 volts. With the ATmega8 with 5V and max. 40mA per output pin this requirement can’t be realized.
On the following circuit diagram for the control and another I oriented myself and finally I purchased at Pollin the SUD45N05-20L.
Tailored to my needs, the schematic should look like this.

[will be continued]<|endoftext|>www.SafeLink.com with wireless free promo codes & contact number

mail internet computer

The United States Government has stepped in with Safelink Wireless, which is a no-contract cellular service in order to help provide phone service through TracFone Wireless. TracFone is the number one and one of the largest no contract cellular phone service in America. This will not require you to have perfect credit. Additionally, you are not required to use your credit at all in order to use this program. There will be some rules for approval for this government program.

 the margins, as what is efficient is relative to an initial distribution. if we give no particular weight to that distribution why value the efficiency that goes along with it. If the initial distribution were different then individuals' sets preferences would have different power then they currently have and thus the prices of goods and services would change, and along with it market efficient outcomes.

Visitors: check my comments policy first.<|endoftext|>Science books are vanishing from reach

University libraries represent the intellectual bedrock of Britain's academic institutions. They are an essential support to scholarly research and teaching. The last quarter century has seen exponential growth in academic productivity, especially in the sciences, and this has been accompanied by increases in the number and size of scientific, technical and medical journals, such as those published by Reed Elsevier.

But with reduced funding for university libraries, their purchasing power has fallen in relative and absolute terms. Although university budgets have kept in step with inflation since the 1970s, and in many cases outpaced it, the proportion of the budgets allocated to libraries has fallen by about a quarter, from 4% to 3% of total spend.

This is happening at a time when the vital role of science in our economy and culture is beginning to gain the recognition it deserves. Recently, the chancellor told the CBI: "With 1% of the world's population, we have over 11% of the world's most cited scientific papers." He went on to point out that the fastest-growing industries are those that focus on research and development.

Gordon Brown is drawing attention to one of Britain's unsung success stories: the excellence and high productivity of our science sector. In Britain, more original research is being funded and published than ever before - clear evidence of a vibrant scientific community.

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, annual spending by institutions making research grants increased well above inflation, not just here, but across the western world. This rise in the number and scope of scientific research projects has been accompanied by a proliferation of scientific articles.

Publication volume has grown at an average rate of 3% a year, and accelerated in recent years. Today, more than 18,000 journals are published by 2,000 publishers, generating an annual total of 1.2m-1.4m articles. A typical scientific journal today carries 110 articles each year.

Access to scientific, technical and medical material has improved hugely with the advent of electronic publishing, distribution and archiving. At Elsevier, for instance, we have invested more than $400m (£212m) in our Science Direct subscription database, which holds some 6m articles and 80m abstracts from 1,800 journals, making them available to more than 17m researchers. Put another way, that is to more than 90% of all the world's scientific research community. The increasing volume and availability of peer-reviewed literature means that scientists are more widely read than ever.

The use of these powerful new research tools is actively discouraged by a tax regime that charges libraries VAT on digital publications, but not on old-style paper copies. This is despite the evidence that publishing research online has had a tremendous positive impact on productivity in the science community.

Although there is widespread support for the reduction or removal of VAT on digital publishing in universities, the publishing industry and parliament, this tax on modern knowledge persists. It should be abolished now.

Furthermore, despite advances in the quantity, breadth and accessibility of scientific literature, university libraries increasingly struggle to cover their costs.

The reduction in the proportion of institutional funding allocated to libraries represents a double blow to university researchers. Decreased library funding means that library collections are stagnating rather than growing, and this is at a time when research output is growing fast. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently described the situation as a "crumbling intellectual foundation".

The House of Commons science and technology select committee recently recommended that the government should commission a study to assess library funding levels and needs. We support this proposal.

It could be that the government needs to lay down guidelines on the proportion of university funds that should be set aside for the acquisition of books and journals, or even increase funding to ensure that universities can buy all the material they need. After all, books and journals are the lifeblood of academic research.

The strength of feeling on this issue among Britain's student population was revealed in a recent opinion poll conducted by Mori for this newspaper. When students were asked how universities should allocate the £3,000 in tuition fees they will receive from them from next year, 31% of them, the largest group, suggested that the funds should be spent on libraries, ahead of security and access to technology.

Britain's universities and colleges spend £82m a year on subscriptions to journals. This is less than 1% of their annual research budget, but it makes scientific articles available to more than 99% of researchers.

But if the shortfall in funding is not addressed soon, access to the scientific literature is likely to begin rapidly to shrink. Reducing opportunities for scientists to access research would result in worse-informed scholarship, making it less likely that work will get published in prestige journals - or indeed be published at all.

The chancellor's comments on the importance of science have been well publicised. His ambition is to make Britain the "home of scientific discovery in the industrial revolution, the country where scientific invention is fully valued and celebrated and, as we break with the short termism of the past, the best place for scientific inquiry and for research and development".

If we are to continue to excel in science and maintain our leading role in this area, we must provide the resources the scientific community needs to foster its dynamic growth. Funding for libraries must not be left to lag behind the needs of researchers.

· Sir Crispin Davis is chief executive of Reed Elsevier<|endoftext|>Electricity generation with a bicycle and a car alternator

Experience report Electricity generation by bicycle and a car alternator

Since I had planned to generate 10 KWh of electricity in 2012 and had reached just 6 KWh as of 31.10.2012, a plan B had to be realized.
Unfortunately the provisional generator for the self-construction vertical axis wind turbine proved to be not helpful.

The required wind strength to get to charging voltage is simply too high.
So if the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, only muscle strength still helps.
A person can produce between 100 and 200 watts for a relatively long time.

Examples from the Internet

The energy generation by means of muscle strength is nothing unusual, can be read on the pages of Buch der Synergie.

There are professionally built generators for the montage at the bike, but they cost a little.
Then I looked at Youtube and am found there something helpful.

Some time ago I had found a discarded car alternator and dragged them on suspicion times home.
A little bit in the net searched and a nice description to the three-phase alternator found.
I bought a corresponding V-belt at Ebay.

On 1.11.2012, a frame was then provisionally made, in which the bicycle can be clamped and the V-belt drives the alternator.
After about 5 hours of tinkering, it was possible to step into the pedals and the alternator spinned.

In order to test whether the alternator works at all, I have a 4.5 volt plug-in power supply (was available) closed to the excitation winding and connected to the output side a 6V 21 Watt bulb.
What was immediately noticeable was, that it was hard to step into the pedals. The 21 watt lamp started to light, burned brighter and burned right through.
What a success.

I have as in the video above to see also a switch to turn on the excitation winding attached and the whole test arrangement in the garage next to the 12V battery built up.
When the excitation current was switched on, an extreme resistance was noticeably.
One minute stepping into the pedals and the battery’s charge voltage rose from 12.95V to 13.2V.
But after a minute, my personal performance was at an end.

Ich gehe davon aus, dass ein permanenter (starker) Erregerstrom nicht optimal ist.
Pulse width modulation may be an approach.
I have an ATMega8 microcontroller already in use, to let generated energy consume and to measure how much was consumed.
The ATMega8 microcontroller has 3 PWM outputs, so it can take over this task immediately.

The circuit diagram of the exciter circle is somewhat more complex.
There the current flows with up to 2 amps at max. 14.4 volts. With the ATmega8 with 5V and max. 40mA per output pin this requirement can’t be realized.
On the following circuit diagram for the control and another I oriented myself and finally I purchased at Pollin the SUD45N05-20L.
Tailored to my needs, the schematic should look like this.

[will be continued]<|endoftext|>www.SafeLink.com with wireless free promo codes & contact number

mail internet computer

The United States Government has stepped in with Safelink Wireless, which is a no-contract cellular service in order to help provide phone service through TracFone Wireless. TracFone is the number one and one of the largest no contract cellular phone service in America. This will not require you to have perfect credit. Additionally, you are not required to use your credit at all in order to use this program. There will be some rules for approval for this government program.

Although the phones are through TracFone but the program from the government is


Ndarray_alloc_contiguous changed so as to never try to free
  memory on a view: new "base" property
* Safer decref behaviour in CudaNdarray in case of failed allocations
* New GPU implementation of tensor.basic.outer
* Multinomial random variates now available on GPU

New features:
* ProfileMode
   * profile the scan overhead
   * simple hook system to add profiler
   * reordered the output to be in the order of more general to more specific
* DebugMode now checks Ops with different patterns of preallocated memory,
  configured by config.DebugMode.check_preallocated_output.
* var[vector of index] now work, (grad work recursively, the direct grad
  work inplace, gpu work)
   * limitation: work only of the outer most dimensions.
* New way to test the graph as we build it. Allow to easily find the source
  of shape mismatch error:
* cuda.root inferred if nvcc is on the path, otherwise defaults to
* Better graph printing for graphs involving a scan subgraph
* Casting behavior can be controlled through config.cast_policy,
  new (experimental) mode.
* Smarter C module cache, avoiding erroneous usage of the wrong C
  implementation when some options change, and avoiding recompiling the
  same module multiple times in some situations.
* The "theano-cache clear" command now clears the cache more thoroughly.
* More extensive linear algebra ops (CPU only) that wrap scipy.linalg
  now available in the sandbox.
* CUDA devices 4 - 16 should now be available if present.
* infer_shape support for the View op, better infer_shape support in Scan
* infer_shape supported in all case of subtensor
* tensor.grad now gives an error by default when computing the gradient
  wrt a node that is disconnected from the cost (not in the graph, or
  no continuous path from that op to the cost).
* New tensor.isnan and isinf functions.

* Better commenting of cuda_ndarray.cu
* Fixes in the scan documentation: add missing declarations/print statements
* Better error message on failed __getitem__
* Updated documentation on profile mode
* Better documentation of testing on Windows
* Better documentation of the 'run_individual_tests' script

Unit tests:
* More strict float comparaison by default
* Reuse test for subtensor of tensor for gpu tensor(more gpu test)
* Tests that check for aliased function inputs and assure appropriate copying
* Better test of copies in CudaNdarray
* New tests relating to the new base pointer requirements
* Better scripts to run tests individually or in batches
* Some tests are now run whenever cuda is available and not just when it has
  been enabled before
* Tests display less pointless warnings.

* Correctly put the broadcast flag to True in the output var of
  a Reshape op when we receive an int 1 in the new shape.
* pydotprint: high contrast mode is now the default, option to print
  more compact node names.
* pydotprint: How trunk label that are too long.
* More compact printing (ignore leading "Composite" in op names)

You can download Theano from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Theano.

efficiently evaluate mathematical expressions involving
multi-dimensional arrays. It is built on top of NumPy. Theano

* tight integration with NumPy: a similar interface to NumPy's.
  numpy.ndarrays are also used internally in Theano-compiled functions.
* transparent use of a GPU: perform data-intensive computations up to
  140x faster than on a CPU (support for float32 only).
* efficient symbolic differentiation: Theano can compute derivatives
  for functions of one or many inputs.
* speed and stability optimizations: avoid nasty bugs when computing
  expressions such as log(1+ exp(x)) for large values of x.
* dynamic C code generation: evaluate expressions faster.
* extensive unit-testing and self-verification: includes tools for
  detecting and diagnosing bugs and/or potential problems.

Theano has been powering large-scale computationally intensive
scientific research since 2007, but it is also approachable

About Theano:

About NumPy:

About SciPy:

Machine Learning Tutorial with Theano on Deep Architectures:

I would like to thank all contributors of Theano. For this particular
release, many people have helped during the release sprint:
(in alphabetical order) Frederic Bastien, James Bergstra, Nicolas
Boulanger-Lewandowski, Raul Chandias Ferrari, Olivier Delalleau,
Guillaume Desjardins, Philippe Hamel, Pascal Lamblin, Razvan Pascanu and
David Warde-Farley.

Also, thank you to all NumPy and SciPy developers as Theano builds on
its strength.

All questions/comments are always welcome on the Theano
mailing-lists ( http://deeplearning.net/software/theano/ )

More information about the NumPy-Discussion mailing list<|endoftext|>
Illustration: Leptoceratops gracilis dinosaur

Leptoceratops gracilis likely survived for about 50 million years before going extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period.

©National Geographic Society

Fast Facts

6 to 9 ft (2 to 2.7 m) long
Did you know?
Leptoceratops means "slim horned face."

Please add a "relative" entry to your dictionary.

Though Leptoceratops was 6 to 9 feet (2 to 2.7 meters) long, it was only 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) high at its hips. This long, slender, low-slung animal browsed on ground cover and other low plants—but it may have been able to extend its reach.

Leptoceratops's front legs were shorter than its hind legs, leading to reasoning that it might have been able to stand or even walk on its hind legs.

Leptoceratops had a very large head for its body size, and this skull often survives as a fossil. Leptoceratops also had a beaklike snout and a smallish neck frill. It did not sport the dramatic horns and large neck frills that are common in its more advanced and better-known relatives, such as Triceratops.

As an individual, Leptoceratops, a smallish herbivore, may have been quite vulnerable to the formidable predators of the Cretaceous period. Leptoceratops roamed western North America between 67 million and 65 million years ago.

Prehistoric Features

  • Picture of carnotaurus

    Bizarre Dinosaurs

  • Picture of dimorphodon flying across the forest in a scene from the movie Flying Monsters 3D

    Flying Monsters 3D

  • Picture of dinosaurs during the Jurassic era

    Prehistoric World

    Discover and explore prehistoric times with galleries, time lines, quizzes, and more.

  • Picture of a theoretical scene of the mass extinction of dinosaurs

    Mass Extinctions

    More than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. Learn how millions of creatures can disappear in a geological blink of an eye—and see what might be next.

Animals A-Z<|endoftext|>Hay was the eldest son of George Hay, 8th Earl of Kinnoull, and Abigail, daughter of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer.<|endoftext|>Volume 08: Proceedings of Applied Energy Symposium: MIT A+B, United States, 2020

Decarbonizing Freight Transport: Mobile Carbon Capture from Heavy Duty Vehicles Christina Reynolds, Christian Lastoskie*, Gretchen Keppel-Aleks

The future of passenger transportation lies in electrification. Freight transportation however has size and weight limitations that make electrification challenging, such that the continued emission of carbon dioxide from the combustion exhaust of heavy-duty vehicles is likely. A carbon capture strategy to intercept CO2 from mobile emission sources, analogous to stationary capture systems for power plants, is therefore attractive to reduce CO2 emissions from freight shipping. The economic and environmental implications of a conceptual technology, utilizing a porous adsorbent bed to selectively remove CO2 from tailpipe exhaust, are examined herein. In the economic evaluation, the hypothetical abatement cost for mobile carbon capture is found to be competitive with stationary capture and with vehicle electrification at about $100 per ton of avoided CO2 emissions. Based on the market potential of land freight shipping, 0.12 to 0.15 °C of avoided warming through the end of the century is achievable by the implementation of mobile carbon capture for long-haul freight vehicles. Collectively, carbon capture from heavy-duty vehicles could provide a practical, cost-competitive, and sustainable contribution to mitigating global greenhouse gas emissions.

Keywords carbon dioxide, separation, economics

Copyright ©
Energy Proceedings<|endoftext|>I was out in the woods with my 6 year old daughter yesterday.  She grabbed a plastic bag that she saw lying on the ground and started filling it with other trash.

in ndarray.
* Fixed slowdown caused by multiple chained views on CudaNdarray objects
* CudaNdarray_alloc_contiguous changed so as to never try to free
  memory on a view: new "base" property
* Safer decref behaviour in CudaNdarray in case of failed allocations
* New GPU implementation of tensor.basic.outer
* Multinomial random variates now available on GPU

New features:
* ProfileMode
   * profile the scan overhead
   * simple hook system to add profiler
   * reordered the output to be in the order of more general to more specific
* DebugMode now checks Ops with different patterns of preallocated memory,
  configured by config.DebugMode.check_preallocated_output.
* var[vector of index] now work, (grad work recursively, the direct grad
  work inplace, gpu work)
   * limitation: work only of the outer most dimensions.
* New way to test the graph as we build it. Allow to easily find the source
  of shape mismatch error:
* cuda.root inferred if nvcc is on the path, otherwise defaults to
* Better graph printing for graphs involving a scan subgraph
* Casting behavior can be controlled through config.cast_policy,
  new (experimental) mode.
* Smarter C module cache, avoiding erroneous usage of the wrong C
  implementation when some options change, and avoiding recompiling the
  same module multiple times in some situations.
* The "theano-cache clear" command now clears the cache more thoroughly.
* More extensive linear algebra ops (CPU only) that wrap scipy.linalg
  now available in the sandbox.
* CUDA devices 4 - 16 should now be available if present.
* infer_shape support for the View op, better infer_shape support in Scan
* infer_shape supported in all case of subtensor
* tensor.grad now gives an error by default when computing the gradient
  wrt a node that is disconnected from the cost (not in the graph, or
  no continuous path from that op to the cost).
* New tensor.isnan and isinf functions.

* Better commenting of cuda_ndarray.cu
* Fixes in the scan documentation: add missing declarations/print statements
* Better error message on failed __getitem__
* Updated documentation on profile mode
* Better documentation of testing on Windows
* Better documentation of the 'run_individual_tests' script

Unit tests:
* More strict float comparaison by default
* Reuse test for subtensor of tensor for gpu tensor(more gpu test)
* Tests that check for aliased function inputs and assure appropriate copying
* Better test of copies in CudaNdarray
* New tests relating to the new base pointer requirements
* Better scripts to run tests individually or in batches
* Some tests are now run whenever cuda is available and not just when it has
  been enabled before
* Tests display less pointless warnings.

* Correctly put the broadcast flag to True in the output var of
  a Reshape op when we receive an int 1 in the new shape.
* pydotprint: high contrast mode is now the default, option to print
  more compact node names.
* pydotprint: How trunk label that are too long.
* More compact printing (ignore leading "Composite" in op names)

You can download Theano from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Theano.

efficiently evaluate mathematical expressions involving
multi-dimensional arrays. It is built on top of NumPy. Theano

* tight integration with NumPy: a similar interface to NumPy's.
  numpy.ndarrays are also used internally in Theano-compiled functions.
* transparent use of a GPU: perform data-intensive computations up to
  140x faster than on a CPU (support for float32 only).
* efficient symbolic differentiation: Theano can compute derivatives
  for functions of one or many inputs.
* speed and stability optimizations: avoid nasty bugs when computing
  expressions such as log(1+ exp(x)) for large values of x.
* dynamic C code generation: evaluate expressions faster.
* extensive unit-testing and self-verification: includes tools for
  detecting and diagnosing bugs and/or potential problems.

Theano has been powering large-scale computationally intensive
scientific research since 2007, but it is also approachable

About Theano:

About NumPy:

About SciPy:

Machine Learning Tutorial with Theano on Deep Architectures:

I would like to thank all contributors of Theano. For this particular
release, many people have helped during the release sprint:
(in alphabetical order) Frederic Bastien, James Bergstra, Nicolas
Boulanger-Lewandowski, Raul Chandias Ferrari, Olivier Delalleau,
Guillaume Desjardins, Philippe Hamel, Pascal Lamblin, Razvan Pascanu and
David Warde-Farley.

Also, thank you to all NumPy and SciPy developers as Theano builds on
its strength.

All questions/comments are always welcome on the Theano
mailing-lists ( http://deeplearning.net/software/theano/ )

More information about the NumPy-Discussion mailing list<|endoftext|>
Illustration: Leptoceratops gracilis dinosaur

Leptoceratops gracilis likely survived for about 50 million years before going extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period.

©National Geographic Society

Fast Facts

6 to 9 ft (2 to 2.7 m) long
Did you know?
Leptoceratops means "slim horned face."

Please add a "relative" entry to your dictionary.

Though Leptoceratops was 6 to 9 feet (2 to 2.7 meters) long, it was only 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) high at its hips. This long, slender, low-slung animal browsed on ground cover and other low plants—but it may have been able to extend its reach.

Leptoceratops's front legs were shorter than its hind legs, leading to reasoning that it might have been able to stand or even walk on its hind legs.

Leptoceratops had a very large head for its body size, and this skull often survives as a fossil. Leptoceratops also had a beaklike snout and a smallish neck frill. It did not sport the dramatic horns and large neck frills that are common in its more advanced and better-known relatives, such as Triceratops.

As an individual, Leptoceratops, a smallish herbivore, may have been quite vulnerable to the formidable predators of the Cretaceous period. Leptoceratops roamed western North America between 67 million and 65 million years ago.

Prehistoric Features

  • Picture of carnotaurus

    Bizarre Dinosaurs

  • Picture of dimorphodon flying across the forest in a scene from the movie Flying Monsters 3D

    Flying Monsters 3D

  • Picture of dinosaurs during the Jurassic era

    Prehistoric World

    Discover and explore prehistoric times with galleries, time lines, quizzes, and more.

  • Picture of a theoretical scene of the mass extinction of dinosaurs

    Mass Extinctions

    More than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. Learn how millions of creatures can disappear in a geological blink of an eye—and see what might be next.

Animals A-Z<|endoftext|>Volume 08: Proceedings of Applied Energy Symposium: MIT A+B, United States, 2020

Decarbonizing Freight Transport: Mobile Carbon Capture from Heavy Duty Vehicles Christina Reynolds, Christian Lastoskie*, Gretchen Keppel-Aleks

The future of passenger transportation lies in electrification. Freight transportation however has size and weight limitations that make electrification challenging, such that the continued emission of carbon dioxide from the combustion exhaust of heavy-duty vehicles is likely. A carbon capture strategy to intercept CO2 from mobile emission sources, analogous to stationary capture systems for power plants, is therefore attractive to reduce CO2 emissions from freight shipping. The economic and environmental implications of a conceptual technology, utilizing a porous adsorbent bed to selectively remove CO2 from tailpipe exhaust, are examined herein. In the economic evaluation, the hypothetical abatement cost for mobile carbon capture is found to be competitive with stationary capture and with vehicle electrification at about $100 per ton of avoided CO2 emissions. Based on the market potential of land freight shipping, 0.12 to 0.15 °C of avoided warming through the end of the century is achievable by the implementation of mobile carbon capture for long-haul freight vehicles. Collectively, carbon capture from heavy-duty vehicles could provide a practical, cost-competitive, and sustainable contribution to mitigating global greenhouse gas emissions.

Keywords carbon dioxide, separation, economics

Copyright ©
Energy Proceedings<|endoftext|>I was out in the woods with my 6 year old daughter yesterday.  She grabbed a plastic bag that she saw lying on the ground and started filling it with other trash.  We always go for the plastic first, before the cans and bottles-