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Herguan University
Herguan University is a private, unaccredited, university and alleged visa mill in Sunnyvale, California operated by Dr. Ying Qiu Wang. As of 2019, its domain names herguanuniversity.edu and herguanuniversity.org appear to be abandoned.
Dr. Ying Qiu Wang also founded the University of East-West Medicine (UEWM), which according to its website was founded in 1997 and operates where Herguan University was located.
Accreditation status
Herguan University is unaccredited.
Herguan University was formerly accredited by ACICS. ACICS lost its status as recognized accreditor on December 12, 2016. ACICS revoked Herguan University's accreditation on Sept. 12, 2017.
At one time, Herguan University was on the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization list of unaccredited colleges.
Operating status
The University's MBA, MSCS, and MSEE programs operate with approval from the California Department of Consumer Affairs' Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. The Bureau is not an accreditation agency and does not confer accreditation status to educational institutions.
On August 2, 2012, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) served Herguan with a notice of intent to withdraw its SEVP certification. Herguan's CEO has been indicted on visa fraud charges.
On September 18, 2012, ICE revoked Herguan's SEVP approval, but rescinded that decision a day later. According to ICE, Herguan's lawyer had sent the response to a wrong email address. The San Jose Mercury News reported on evidence that Herguan officials tried to get help from local and state politicians regarding the ICE investigation.
On April 9, 2015, Herguan's former CEO, Jerry Wang, pleaded guilty to visa fraud.
On April 10, 2015, ICE moved to revoke Herguan's SEVP approval.
On September 14, 2015, Herguan's former CEO, Jerry Wang, was sentenced to 12 months in prison and forfeiture of $700K for his role in a student visa fraud scheme at Herguan.
On October 6, 2016, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revoked Herguan's SEVP approval, terminating their ability to enroll foreign students.
Enrollments
The enrollment practices of Herguan have been compared to Tri-Valley University, whose founder had previously worked as an adjunct faculty member at Herguan. The Chronicle of Higher Education claims Herguan targets international students looking for full-time or part-time internships. The enrollment as of August 2012 is around 450 people, of which 400 are from India.
Other practices
Herguan obtained government approval to admit foreign students based on an application that included letters purporting to be from accredited colleges stating that they would accept credits from Herguan for transfer students. However, the letters were disclaimed by those colleges. An official at another college stated that Herguan staff offered payments in exchange for recognition. However, as recently as late 2010, most of Herguan's students were employed outside of California in full-time jobs, an apparent violation of the condition of their visas requiring them to be full-time students taking no more than one on-line class each term. This practice may have been curtailed in December 2010 when Herguan's president sent letters to all students requiring them to return to California. The president, however, backtracked later, and offered students $500 to return for classes for six days.
Several Herguan staff claimed that otherwise failing students had been able to buy passing grades by paying more money to the school. Prospective students have claimed students get paid $1200 for each student who they refer to the school. The school also maintained "educational consultants" who were paid for students they referred, most of whom were based in Hyderabad, India.
Notes
Category:Educational institutions established in 2008
Category:Universities and colleges in Santa Clara County, California
Category:Education in Sunnyvale, California
Category:2008 establishments in California |
TESTIMONIALS
Read what people are saying about us
“Little Oaks is the most amazing Pre-School and we have loved every minute of our journey through it.”
“I am sure that all of the parents feel the same way – that their child is special to the staff and that is testament to how extremely wonderful you all are! He has always been excited to go to school – a fantastic grounding for big school and for setting up a love of learning for life.”
“Little Oaks is a fantastic early years setting, the staff are dedicated, professional and passionate about all aspects of my children’s learning journey.“
“I’ve really enjoyed serving on the committee and feel that Little Oaks is in a great position to continue to thrive – I’m confident that it’s the best setting in the area. I’m sure I’ll see many of you ‘at the school gate’ soon!”
“Thank you all for making the playgroup and Pre-School experiences an enriching and joyful one. She started such a shy little girl and it is lovely to see how she has grown in confidence. She loves you all and all of the friends she has made, we wish you all the best for the future!”
“After two wonderful years at Little Oaks our son would like to say thank you to all of you for your kindness and attention, helping make his time with you so special and productive. We hope you have a lovely restful summer and thank you again for everything you’ve done for all the children at Little Oaks and everything you’ll continue to do.”
“I cannot recommend Little Oaks Pre School enough!
I am a single mother to one precious little girl and Little Oaks have always been very supportive and comforting and I have always known my child is in a safe and happy learning environment.
My daughter started at Little Oaks when she was only 2, not knowing any of the other children, she was a bit shy and would often play by herself. The very friendly and professional staff really brought her out of her shell and she has continued to grow in to her own very confident, bright, clever, friendly, happy little girl. She has formed strong relationships with many of the other children and I just love hearing all about her day and the new things she has learnt. She often comes home singing or with creative sculptures, paintings or very tasty cooking which we both enjoy.
The staff at Little Oaks are lovely, very friendly, professional and easy approachable. They have tailored to my daughters’ development needs and have given me regular reports, feedback and support.
I will be very sad to see her leave Little Oaks and move on to Primary School in September. My little girl is more and more each day her own independent little person and although none of her friends from Little Oaks will be going to her new Primary School (as we now live in another town) I am confident that she has the confidence and has learnt the right skills and knowledge to ease the transition.
Keep up the great work Little Oaks.“
“Thank you for all for the wonderful ways you are with all of the children. I feel so lucky to have such a fantastic provision for the little people of Brackley. He always comes home happy and fulfilled from his time at Pre-School. He adores each and every one of the adults he encounters – and I know that that would be the case if he felt truly loved!”
“I just wanted to thank you for making this week and Rorys start to ‘formal’ edcuation so easy for him and for me as an emotional wreck! You all work so hard and are so professional yet manage to strike the fine balance with being compassionate and caring too.
I was sure that I was going to cry this morning when I left him for the first time but I didn’t, and I realise that that’s because I couldn’t have left him in a better place, with lovelier people. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful setting with such wonderful staff for our children. I know it’s not an easy job, the pays not great and Ofsted like to make you jump through hoops at times but I just want you all to know that you are very much valued and appreciated, not only by the children who adore you but by their familes too.
With very best wishes and greatful thanks
Vic x
A poem kindly written for the Little Oaks team…
It’s been a long time now from when we came to you;We gave you our children for you to see them through;You’ve done a fab job helping them start school;They all came away saying Little Oaks is ‘cool!’They all had their wobbles and shed a few tears;But came out smiling after conquering their fears;With this we owe lots of thanks to you;You’ve been a great team and we will all miss you!
Thanks for everything Little Oaks staff.
Contact Little Oaks
If you have any questions, we would be more than happy to help. Please feel free to call our office on: |
Q:
What's wrong with this find condition
The following works, it gives me all data where deleted is null:
$conditions = array('OR' => array(
'Task.deleted' => null,
)
);
$this->set('tasks', $this->Task->find('all', array('recursive' => 2, 'conditions' => $conditions)));
Similiar the following gives me all data where deleted is 0
$conditions = array('OR' => array(
'Task.deleted' => 0,
)
); //...
But If i combine it like the following, it gives me the data where deleted is null, but not where deleted is 0.
$conditions = array('OR' => array(
'Task.deleted' => 0,
'Task.deleted' => null
)
);
A:
You are trying to set the PHP array key 'Task.deleted' twice, overwriting it. Do either of the following:
'Task.deleted' => array(0, null)
or:
'OR' => array(
array('Task.deleted' => 0),
array('Task.deleted' => null)
)
|
Prevalence of Common Surfactant Groups and Individual Surfactants in Contact Allergen Management Program.
Surfactants are common ingredients in topical products, which can cause both irritant and allergic contact dermatitis. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of 12 common groups of surfactants and 12 common individual surfactants in each product category in the American Contact Dermatitis Society Contact Allergen Management Program (CAMP). The American Contact Dermatitis Society CAMP was queried for the 12 surfactant groups and the 12 individual surfactants. The laureth/pareth sulfate group was the most prevalent surfactant group in CAMP (17.9%). Laureth/pareth sulfates were the most common surfactant group in all product categories, except household and eye care products. The betaine/sultaine group (13.5%) and glucosides (10.0%) were also found in a significant proportion of CAMP products. Oleamidopropyl dimethylamine has the highest positive reaction rate (3.5%) but was tied for the lowest prevalence (0.20%) of the 12 individual surfactants studied. In contrast, cocamidopropyl betaine has a lower positive reaction rate (1.6%) with a higher prevalence (10.4%). Surfactants were commonly found across all product types in CAMP. This study provides important information on allergen and irritant exposures in care products. |
G.O.D. Pt. III
"G.O.D. Pt. III" is the third single from Mobb Deep's Hell on Earth album. The song contains an interpolation from "Tony's Theme" by Giorgio Moroder from the 1983 film Scarface, and a drum-loop from "Fool Yourself" by Little Feat. The title is a reference to The Godfather Part III. The chorus features Infamous Mobb member Godfather Pt. III.
The song is included on the best of album, Life of the Infamous: The Best of Mobb Deep.
The music video (directed by Steve Carr) takes place in an Opera House. Prodigy and Havoc take turns doing verses in different locations of the Opera House. The music video features a cameo appearance by Method Man
Track listing
Side A
"G.O.D. Pt. III" [Clean Version]
"G.O.D. Pt. III" [Instrumental]
Side B
"G.O.D. Pt. III" [Dirty Version] (4:07)
"G.O.D. Pt. III" [Acappella]
Charts
Category:1997 songs
Category:Mobb Deep songs
Category:Hardcore hip hop songs
Category:Loud Records singles
Category:Songs written by Havoc (musician)
Category:Songs written by Prodigy (rapper) |
Q:
Highcharts with Rails 6
I have a scatter chart made with Highcharts. I now need to add an image to the chart. The image should stick to the top right corner. I'm not sure if this is the best way to add an image, but I've managed to get an image on my chart using this code (this is not the acutal image, just a sample):
function (chartt) {
chartt
.renderer
.image('https://www.highcharts.com/samples/graphics/sun.png',0,0,50,50)
.add();
}
However, if I move the image close to the top right corner, when I resize the chart, the image disappears off of the right side. How can I add this image to the top right corner and have it stick there, even if the chart is resized? Also, how can I make the image appear underneath the plot points so the plot point color still shows? Here is the rest of my code from Highcharts:
<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/highcharts.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/highcharts-more.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/modules/exporting.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/modules/coloraxis.js"></script>
<script>
Highcharts.chart('chart-cont', {
chart: {
type: 'scatter',
marginLeft: 0,
marginRight: 0,
marginTop: 0,
marginBottom: 0,
backgroundColor: {
linearGradient: { x1: 0, y1: 0, x2: 1, y2: 1 },
stops: [
[0, '#2a2a2b'],
[1, '#3e3e40']
]
},
},
},
// add image to chart
function (chartt) {
chartt
.renderer
.image('https://www.highcharts.com/samples/graphics/sun.png',0,0,50,50)
.add();
});
</script>
A:
You can add this img inside the render events which triggers every time chart was resized.
events: {
render() {
var
chart = this,
imgWidth = 50;
//delete old image
if(chart.customImg){
chart.customImg.destroy();
}
chart.customImg = chart.renderer
.image('https://www.highcharts.com/samples/graphics/sun.png', chart.chartWidth - imgWidth, 0, imgWidth, imgWidth)
.add();
}
},
Demo: https://jsfiddle.net/BlackLabel/ybdt4mn8/
API: https://api.highcharts.com/highcharts/chart.events.render
Also, how can I make the image appear underneath the plot points so the plot point color still shows?
For me, it looks like the custom image has lower zIndex than point and appears underneath.
If you have any additional questions - feel free to ask.
|
Resection of small bowel adenocarcinoma metastases: Results of the ARCAD-NADEGE cohort study.
Data are lacking with regard to curative resection of metastasis from small bowel adenocarcinoma (SBA). This study evaluated outcomes and prognostic factors in patients with curatively resected metastatic SBA. A series of 34 patients undergoing resection of metastatic SBA from January 2009 to November 2014 at French centers were included into this cohort study. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS). Secondary endpoints were recurrence-free survival (RFS) and prognostic factors. Univariate analyses were performed to determine prognostic risk factors. The sites of SBA metastases were peritoneal (29.4%), liver (26.5%), lymph nodes (11.8%), lung (2.9%), multiple (14.7%), and other (14.7%). Thirty (88.2%) patients received adjuvant or perioperative chemotherapy, mainly was oxaliplatin-based (76.5%). The median OS was 28.6 months and RFS was 18.7 months. Fourteen (41.2%) patients survived for more than 36 months. In univariate analysis, poor differentiation (P = 0.006), invaded margins (P = 0.003), and lymphatic invasion in the primary tumor (P = 0.039) were associated with decreased OS. Overall survival of patients after resection of metastatic SBA remains poor, but long-term survivors are observed. Resection of metastatic SBA should be consider if patients are expected to be operated on with curative intent and have moderately or well-differentiated tumors. |
Introduction
============
Lung cancer has a high mortality rate worldwide and is also one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in Taiwan, accounting for \\~9,000 deaths annually or 20% of all cancer-related mortalities.[@b1-ndt-15-753]
Chemotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses chemical agents to destroy all dividing cells. Despite its efficacy in cancer treatment, chemotherapy remains associated with a variety of adverse effects, including nausea, vomiting, and fatigue.[@b2-ndt-15-753] Moreover, treatment-related neurocognitive dysfunction in patients with lung cancer has become a matter of heightened concern.[@b2-ndt-15-753]--[@b5-ndt-15-753] A number of studies on small-cell lung cancer patients have demonstrated that diminished verbal fluency, verbal memory, visuospatial ability, and executive function are frequently found before or after chemotherapy.[@b6-ndt-15-753]--[@b8-ndt-15-753]
Although non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 85% of all lung cancers,[@b9-ndt-15-753] only a handful of studies have examined the impact of cancer treatment on neurocognitive function in NSCLC patients. Kaasa et al (1988) found that mild cognitive decline was more closely associated with chemotherapy patients than with patients in the radiotherapy group.[@b10-ndt-15-753] Whitney et al (2008) observed that \\>60% of NSCLC patients exhibited noticeable cognitive impairments both before and 1 month after chemotherapy.[@b11-ndt-15-753] Simó et al (2015) demonstrated that NSCLC patients performed significantly worse in verbal memory before chemotherapy than patients with small-cell lung cancer or healthy controls.[@b8-ndt-15-753] These findings suggest that the neurotoxic effect of chemotherapy medications may be one possible mechanism underlying cognitive changes.
Instead of extensively destroying cells, a form of molecular medicine known as targeted therapy has been developed. Targeted therapy works by specifically blocking certain aspects of signaling pathways associated with carcinogenesis and tumor growth.[@b12-ndt-15-753] It should thus be able to reduce treatment-related neurotoxicities and adverse effects in patients with lung cancer. However, it remains unclear whether targeted therapy is less likely than conventional chemotherapy to induce neurocognitive deficits in patients with NSCLC.
Both objective and subjective measures are necessary because each provides information relevant to the functioning of cancer patients.[@b13-ndt-15-753] However, it has been well documented that the complications of psychiatric disturbances (especially anxiety and depression) significantly affect perceived cognitive impairments in patients with lung cancer,[@b13-ndt-15-753]--[@b16-ndt-15-753] and this should be appropriately addressed when assessment is performed. In view of the aforementioned matters, this cross-sectional study was designed to compare objective and perceived cognitive performance as well as psychiatric disturbances among patients with NSCLC who were either previously untreated or treated with chemotherapy or targeted therapy.
Patients and methods
====================
Subjects
--------
The study protocol was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the institutional ethics committee of Chiayi Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (approval number CGMH 105-2485C), one of the largest medical centers in southern Taiwan. Written informed consent was obtained upon enrollment from all participants, who were recruited from the CCGMH's outpatient departments of hematology and oncology and pulmonary medicine. Patients were eligible if they had a histologically proven diagnosis of NSCLC, whereas those with any organic brain diseases, a history of mental retardation, psychiatric disorders, premenopausal status, medication affecting the central nervous system, or age older than 80 years were excluded. Moreover, to obtain the greatest possible number of samples, we enrolled NSCLC patients of all stages (I--IV), except for those with metastases. A total of 113 patients with NSCLC were thus enrolled and then classified into three groups based on their cancer treatment type. The untreated control and chemotherapy groups each contained 40 patients, and the targeted therapy group 33 patients. On average, the participants completed all neuropsychological evaluations either within 6 months after diagnosis (for the untreated group) or about 18 months after treatment.
Objective cognitive assessment
------------------------------
The Chinese versions of tests of each domain were translated and adapted for the Taiwanese population by testing normal subjects. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was employed to assess global cognitive function, including orientation, attention, memory, and language.[@b17-ndt-15-753],[@b18-ndt-15-753] In addition, selected subtests -- Vocabulary, Digit Span, and Digit Symbol Substitution -- of the Mandarin version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III were used to measure language, working memory, and psychomotor speed, respectively.[@b19-ndt-15-753]
Executive function was evaluated using the Color Trails Test,[@b20-ndt-15-753],[@b21-ndt-15-753] which comprises two parts. The first contains numbers only and evaluates the tracking ability, whereas in the second part, participants must switch between numbers and colors to assess their executive function through cognitive flexibility. The number of errors (irrespective of type) and the completion time (in seconds) were both recorded. Please see Supplementary material S1 outlining the details of the aforesaid cognitive tests.
Subjective cognitive measure
----------------------------
Subjective cognitive functioning was assessed using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy--Cognitive Function (FACT-cog) scale.[@b22-ndt-15-753] The scale consists of 37 items, with overall cognitive function as the sum of four subscales, namely, perceived cognitive impairments, impact on quality of life, comments from others, and perceived cognitive abilities. Higher scores indicate superior cognitive function (ie, lower subjective cognitive impairment).
Psychological assessment
------------------------
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was used to assess the severity of depression and anxiety symptoms.[@b23-ndt-15-753] It is divided into two seven-item subscales, one of which specifically focuses on anxiety (HADS-A) and the other on depression (HADS-D). This scale has been widely used in clinical settings and psycho-oncological investigations. Participants with score ≥8 were considered as suffering from HADS-defined anxiety and depression disorder.
Statistical analysis
--------------------
All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 19. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare total FACT-cog scores and demographic data among the three groups. Analysis of neuropsychological test results included descriptive statistics, namely, means, SDs, frequencies, and percentages. An individual neuropsychological test was regarded as indicating abnormality if the result's SD was ≥1.65 below the normative mean (ie, below the fifth percentile of normative samples).[@b24-ndt-15-753] Similarly, overall performance was defined as "impaired" if any of the test scores were abnormal. The chi-squared (*χ*^2^) test was used to determine group differences in the proportion of patients with abnormal cognitive performance. Finally, the relationship between cognitive tests and psychiatric measures was assessed using a two-tailed Pearson correlation analysis. *P*-value \\<0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.
Results
=======
Demographic data
----------------
As shown in [Table 1](#t1-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table"}, one-way multivariate analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in age and education among the three groups. However, group differences were found for disease duration (F~(2,\\ 110)~=11.28, *P*\\<0.001). Post hoc comparisons performed using Fisher's least significant difference test indicated that the chemotherapy group's mean years of disease duration were significantly longer than those of the untreated (*P*\\<0.001) and targeted therapy (*P*=0.013) groups. Moreover, disease duration in the targeted therapy group was significantly longer than in the untreated group (*P*=0.049).
Neuropsychological test results
-------------------------------
The results of individual neuropsychological tests are detailed in [Tables 2](#t2-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table"} and [3](#t3-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table"}. As seen in [Table 3](#t3-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table"}, 35% of untreated NSCLC patients had impaired performance in at least one cognitive domain, with a comparable proportion found in the chemotherapy (35%) and targeted therapy (30%) groups. The proportion of patients with impaired psychomotor speed was the highest (10%--15%) across the various cognitive domains. Moreover, a significant proportion of NSCLC patients (15%--20%) had borderline or higher scores for depression or anxiety. However, no significant group differences were found for either perceived cognitive performance or the proportion of patients with abnormal objective cognitive performance.
Associations between cognitive performance and psychiatric disturbances
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
As shown in [Table 4](#t4-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table"}, significant correlations were found between total FACT-cog scores and the HADS-A subscale across the three groups. Except for in the targeted therapy group, the HADS-D subscale was also significantly associated with total FACT-cog scores. However, no significant correlations were noted between the majority of objective cognitive tests and the HADS-A and HADS-D subscales. Similarly, there was no significant correlation between total FACT-cog scores and the majority of the objective cognitive tests.
Discussion
==========
This prospective, cross-sectional pilot study was intended to compare the effects of chemotherapy and targeted therapy on neuropsychological performance and psychiatric symptoms in patients with NSCLC. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore such therapies in an NSCLC population.
Overall, this study showed that 35% of untreated NSCLC patients had impaired performance in at least one cognitive domain, with a comparable proportion (30%--35%) found in post-chemotherapy groups. Despite the lower proportion of patients with abnormal cognitive performance, our results are similar to those of another study that found cognitive impairments in \\>60% of NSCLC patients both before and 1 month after chemotherapy.[@b11-ndt-15-753] Differences in the evaluation of cognitive domains and selection of cognitive tests may account for this discrepancy.
Regardless of the nonsignificant group differences, the proportion of patients with impaired psychomotor speed was the highest (10%--15%) across the various cognitive domains. Several lesion and neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that impaired psychomotor speed is strongly associated with white matter damage.[@b25-ndt-15-753]--[@b27-ndt-15-753] Accordingly, NSCLC patients with psychomotor speed impairment may also exhibit white matter lesions. This assumption is partly supported by Simó et al (2015), who investigated cognitive and brain structure changes in patients with lung cancer and found that NSCLC patients exhibited verbal memory defi-cits and widespread white matter damage, compared with healthy controls.[@b8-ndt-15-753] Due to clinical time constraints and patient fatigue, we employed the MMSE to assess various domains of cognitive function, including verbal memory. However, it has been suggested that the MMSE lacks sensitivity to very mild cognitive impairments.[@b28-ndt-15-753] A short but comprehensive neuropsychological battery focusing specifically on certain cognitive domains is thus recommended for future research.
The present study also found no significant differences among the three groups in the proportion of patients with abnormal performance in both objective and subjective cognitive tests. Whitney et al (2008) found that NSCLC patients exhibited cognitive declines at a 1-month follow-up, but those problems apparently dissipated by 7 months of post-treatment,[@b11-ndt-15-753] thus suggesting that cognitive declines during cancer treatment were only temporary. The mean disease duration of each therapy group in our study was \\>12 months, which may explain why chemotherapies did not significantly increase the number of patients with cognitive impairments relative to the untreated group. Furthermore, the proportion of patients with abnormal cognitive performance did not significantly differ between the chemotherapy and targeted therapy groups, although the latter tended toward a lower number. A longitudinal study exploring the effects of chemotherapy and targeted therapy on cognitive function is warranted.
Consistent with other studies using HADS,[@b29-ndt-15-753],[@b30-ndt-15-753] our results indicated that a significant proportion of NSCLC patients (15%--20%) exhibited borderline or even higher scores for depression or anxiety, which were also significantly associated with subjective cognitive performance. Moreover, we found that objective and perceived cognitive performances were unrelated. These findings support the observation of Hutchinson et al (2012) that perceived impairment may be an indicator of psychological distress rather than cognitive impairment.[@b13-ndt-15-753] In summary, the clinical implication of these findings is that both treated and untreated patients with lung cancer may suffer from psychological disturbances. Therefore, clinicians should pay greater attention to patients who are susceptible to depression and provide prompt treatment to improve their cognitive performance.
There are several limitations to our study. First, given its cross-sectional design, this study could not determine the impact of both cancer and cancer treatments on cognitive function over time. Second, because patients' treatment histories were not considered in this study, we could not entirely exclude the potential influence of other chemotherapy medications on patients' performance. A longitudinal study is required to address this question. Finally, this study did not assess and match participants closely for intelligence level, which could confound patients' performance on neuropsychological tests. Therefore, consideration of this factor in future research is warranted.
Conclusion
==========
Our study demonstrated that 1) a substantial proportion of NSCLC patients exhibited cognitive impairments (especially regarding psychomotor speed) and psychiatric disturbances; 2) there were no significant differences between the three patient groups for any subjective and objective measure of cognitive deficit; and 3) perceived cognitive impairment was significantly associated with depression and anxiety. Prompt treatment of psychiatric disorders to minimize their impact is therefore recommended.
Supplementary materials
=======================
Supplementary S1 Description of cognitive tests
-----------------------------------------------
The Vocabulary subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III):
It comprises 33 words that are listed in order of difficulty. The participants are asked for definitions of words. One or two points are given for each acceptable definition, depending on its accuracy and aptness.
The Digit Span subtest of the WAIS-III:
It comprises two different tests, Digits Forward and Digits Backward, each of which involves different mental activities. Both tests consist of pairs of random numbers of increasing sequence length that the examiner reads aloud. The number of correct repetitions is measured.
The Digit Symbol Substitution subtest of the WAIS-III:
It consists of digit-symbol pairs followed by a list of digits. Under each digit, the participants should write down the corresponding symbol as fast as possible. The number of correct symbols within the allowed time (120 seconds) is measured.
The Color Trails Test (CTT):
It comprises two parts, each involving numbered circles that are printed with vivid pink or yellow backgrounds. For the CTT Part 1, the participants use a pencil to rapidly connect circles numbered 1 through 25 in sequence. For the CTT Part 2, the participants rapidly connect numbered circles in sequence, but alternates between pink and yellow colors. The length of time (in seconds) to complete each trial is recorded, along with qualitative features of performance indicative of brain dysfunction, such as near-misses, prompts, number sequence errors, and color sequence errors.[@b31-ndt-15-753]
This study was supported by grants from Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan (grant number: CMRPG6F0321, CORPG6G0101, CORPG6G0141). The funder had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
**Author contributions**
All the authors contributed to data analysis, drafting, and critical revision of this paper, approved the final version for publication and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the research.
**Disclosure**
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.
######
Characteristics of demographic variables
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Years Non-treatment n=40\\ Chemotherapy n=40\\ Targeted therapy n=33\\ *F* *P*-value
Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD)
------------------ --------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------ -----------
Age 59.05 (6.17) 58.10 (8.64) 57.82 (8.20) 0.26 0.77
Education 10.00 (3.37) 9.68 (3.19) 10.09 (3.66) 0.16 0.86
Disease duration 0.60 (1.72) 1.85 (1.21)[a](#tfn1-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1.15 (1.15)[b](#tfn2-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 11.28[\\*\\*\\*](#tfn3-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.00
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Notes:**
Chemotherapy group\\> non-treatment group and targeted therapy group;
Targeted therapy group\\> non-treatment group;
*P*\\<0.001.
######
Neuropsychological performance in patients with different types of cancer treatment
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-treatment n=40\\ Chemotherapy n=40\\ Targeted therapy n=33\\
Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD)
----------------- --------------------- -------------------- ------------------------
MMSE 28.35 (1.75) 28.28 (2.26) 28.03 (2.05)
Vocabulary 10.03 (1.40) 9.55 (1.96) 10.33 (2.43)
Digit Span 10.23 (2.66) 9.40 (2.27) 10.03 (3.20)
DSS 8.78 (2.86) 8.70 (2.72) 9.30 (3.18)
CTT1
Completion time 70.90 (26.75) 68.15 (18.90) 69.92 (22.30)
Errors 0.05 (0.22) 0.07 (0.35) 0.03 (0.17)
CTT2
Completion time 130.12 (40.70) 125.16 (20.68) 129.06 (40.39)
Number errors 0.02 (0.16) 0.05 (0.24) 0.06 (0.24)
Color errors 0.25 (0.68) 0.32 (0.59) 0.24 (0.76)
HADS total 8.70 (8.13) 7.85 (8.57) 7.06 (7.64)
Anxiety 4.75 (4.62) 3.45 (4.84) 3.18 (3.88)
Depression 3.95 (3.99) 4.40 (4.31) 3.88 (4.33)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Abbreviations:** CTT, Color Trails Test; DSS, Digit Symbol Substitution; HADS, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination.
######
Comparison of the three groups for various measures according to either mean score or proportion of patients with abnormal test performance
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-treatment\\ Chemotherapy\\ Targeted therapy\\ *χ*^2^ or F *P*-value
n (%)\\ n (%)\\ n (%)\\
Mean (SD)[\\*](#tfn5-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} Mean (SD)[\\*](#tfn5-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} Mean (SD)[\\*](#tfn5-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"}
---------------------- ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ ------------- -----------
MMSE 0 2 (1.8) 2 (1.8) 2.332 0.312
Vocabulary 0 0 0 Nil Nil
DSS 6 (15) 4 (10) 5 (15.2) 0.577 0.749
Digit Span 0 2 (5) 1 (3) 1.960 0.375
CTT1
Completion time 5 (12.5) 2 (5) 4 (12.12) 1.582 0.453
Errors 2 (5) 2 (5) 1 (3.03) 0.214 0.898
CTT2
Completion time 2 (5.4) 1 (2.5) 3 (9.09) 1.523 0.467
Number errors 1 (2.5) 3 (7.5) 2 (6.06) 1.047 0.593
Color errors 3 (7.5) 3 (7.5) 2 (6.06) 0.074 0.964
Overall performance 14 (35) 14 (35) 10 (30) 0.235 0.889
HADS-A 8 (20) 6 (15) 6 (18) 0.351 0.839
HADS-D 8 (20) 6 (15) 5 (15) 0.450 0.799
FACT-cog
Total score 118.88 (9.75) 113.90 (14.07) 113.94 (16.25) 1.757 0.177
PCI 66.80 (6.41) 64.28 (8.84) 64.27 (8.57) 1.296 0.278
CFO 15.63 (1.00) 15.43 (1.68) 15.64 (1.58) 0.262 0.770
PCA 21.13 (3.41) 19.33 (3.68) 19.91 (4.90) 2.108 0.126
QOL 15.33 (1.86) 14.88 (2.54) 14.12 (3.90) 1.666 0.194
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Note:**
the results of the FACT-cog are presented in Mean (SD).
**Abbreviations:** CFO, comments from others; CTT, Color Trails Test; DSS, Digit Symbol Substitution; FACT-cog, Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy--Cognitive Function; HADS-A, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale--Anxiety; HADS-D, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale--Depression; PCA, perceived cognitive abilities; PCI, perceived cognitive impairments; QOL, quality of life; MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination.
######
Pearson correlations between various study instruments
Test/group Disease duration MMSE Vocabulary DSS Digit Span CTT1-CT CTT1-error CTT2-CT CTT2 Number error CTT2 Color error FACT-cog Total score HADS-A HADS-D
---------------------- --------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- ------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- --------
Disease duration
I 1
II 1
III 1
MMSE
I 0.208 1
II 0.044 1
III −0.081 1
Vocabulary
I −0.056 0.122 1
II −0.137 0.364[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
III 0.406[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.342 1
DSS
I 0.087 0.165 0.212 1
II 0.212 0.143 0.392[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
III 0.056 0.559[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.536[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
Digit Span
I 0.03 0.335[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.238 0.269 1
II 0.311 0.451[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.502[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.439[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
III 0.305 0.443[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.449[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.525[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
CTT1-CT
I −0.031 0.249 −0.152 −0.271 0.212 1
II 0.025 −0.15 −0.099 0.07 −0.06 1
III 0.044 0.18 0.372[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.074 0.056 1
CTT1-error
I −0.20 −0.246 −0.087 −0.144 0.024 0.100 1
II −0.094 −0.124 −0.024 −0.084 0.026 0.093 1
III −0.180 0.172 −0.025 0.096 −0.170 −0.195 1
CTT2-CT
I −0.172 0.096 −0.204 −0.228 0.032 0.692[\\*\\*\\*](#tfn10-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.015 1
II −0.172 −0.265 0.115 −0.039 −0.178 0.513[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} −0.026 1
III 0.009 −0.109 0.027 −0.088 −0.257 0.662[\\*\\*\\*](#tfn10-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} −0.274 1
CTT2-Color error
I 0.196 0.033 −0.007 0.137 0.111 −0.155 −0.087 −0.082 1
II −0.251 −0.061 0.149 0.161 −0.145 −0.317 −0.018 −0.092 1
III 0.029 0.015 0.211 −0.045 −0.172 0.200 −0.058 0.362[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
CTT2-Number error
I −0.083 −0.404[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} −0.118 −0.214 −0.135 −0.009 0.698[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.039 −0.061 1
II 0.274 −0.077 0.017 0.032 0.076 −0.476[\\*\\*](#tfn9-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} −0.062 0.019 0.095 1
III 0.078 −0.192 −0.300 −0.187 −0.285 −0.205 −0.045 0.345[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.432[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
FACT-cog Total score
I 0.254 0.064 0.055 −0.255 −0.214 −0.255 −0.092 −0.373[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.217 −0.048 1
II 0.254 −0.059 −0.152 −0.146 −0.081 −0.057 0.038 0.271 −0.361[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.139 1
III 0.031 −0.023 −0.071 −0.081 −0.014 0.073 0.199 0.067 −0.055 −0.023 1
HADS-A
I −0.232 −0.046 0.27 0.081 0.319[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.095 −0.189 0.022 −0.178 −0.167 −0.329[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
II −0.312[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} −0.131 0.014 −0.091 −0.087 −0.056 −0.081 −0.174 0.352[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} −0.126 −0.648[\\*\\*\\*](#tfn10-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
III 0.057 0.199 0.202 0.11 0.234 −0.123 −0.101 −0.234 −0.123 −0.212 −0.205 1
HADS-D
I −0.196 0.128 0.316[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.026 0.315[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.236 −0.114 0.068 −0.264 −0.120 −0.324[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.783[\\*\\*\\*](#tfn10-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
II −0.278 −0.269 −0.057 −0.363[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} −0.137 −0.139 −0.003 −0.125 0.158 −0.049 −0.345[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.755[\\*\\*\\*](#tfn10-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
III −0.021 0.352[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.191 0.298 0.188 −0.080 −0.161 −0.182 −0.164 −0.142 −0.399[\\*](#tfn8-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.735[\\*\\*\\*](#tfn10-ndt-15-753){ref-type="table-fn"} 1
**Notes:** I, Untreated group; II, chemotherapy group; III, targeted therapy group;
*P*\\<0.05;
*P*\\<0.01;
*P*\\<0.001.
**Abbreviations:** CT, completion time; CTT, Color Trails Test; DSS, Digit Symbol Substitution; FACT-cog, Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy−Cognitive Function; HADS-A, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale−Anxiety; HADS-D, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale−Depression; MMSE, Mini−Mental State Examination.
[^1]: These authors contributed equally to this work
|
YOUR CART
Before you know it the new harvest season has begun. The Shimlali were especially early to ripen this year, but the volunteers were arriving only around November 1. Fortunately the Habonim workshop, a group from North America (and one Englishman!) in Israel for the year, were happy to come help for a day. It's amazing what 17 people can get done. Thanks Rox for organizing a great weekend. So the Shimlali is all picked and pressed, although the yield is much smaller than last year. Now we are picking the Suri and some of the Nabali as well. The Barnea, which usually has the highest yields, has virtually no olives on the trees. At this rate we should be finished with the harvest in 2-3 weeks. But there's always pruning and other work to be done. Can't wait to taste the fresh oil!
Click on the above RSS Feed if you want to be notified of blog updates!Who's writing this stuff anyway?
I'm Dani Livney, a member of Kibbutz Gezer, and the manager of the Gezer olives. I love it! I also work as a lawyer, focusing on environmental projects and promoting environmental empowerment and education. |
January 2007: 100 Very Best Restaurants
No. 51: Bombay
At first glance, there’s little to distinguish this shopping-plaza storefront from scores of Indian curry shops and restaurants. Small and brightly lit, its main decorative motif is an array of Indian watercolors. The cast of characters is familiar, too: large families, cab drivers, young sari-swathed women. But bite into one of the flaky samosas or malai kofta, vegetable balls dunked in a velvety sauce of almonds and cream, and you realize this is no ordinary address.
Before moving to the area, chef Anthony Binod Gomez, who hails from Calcutta, owned an Indian restaurant in Queens, home to New York’s top Indian eateries; the fiercely competitive environment forced him to hone his repertoire. His dishes may sound familiar, but they don’t taste it. The curries are unusually layered and complex, with subtle, spicy depths and an almost rustic quality to the gravies, which teem with whole mustard seeds, curry leaves, chilies, and cardamom pods. Biryani, an Indian fried rice, is full of fluffy, distinct grains—and is virtually greaseless. And chicken tikka masala, also known as Butter Chicken, shimmers with a pronounced, tomatoey tang.
Befriending the waitstaff is worth a try—service can be standoffish. The pace in the kitchen is harder to influence. The solution? Order a round of those samosas or, a relative rarity, deep-fried cheese pakoras stuffed with mint and partnered with a vivid cilantro-mint dipping sauce, and nibble on them until the fabulous curries arrive.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Logan Circle. |
The present invention relates to the use of a polymer in a method of treatment in which it is introduced into a body cavity under conditions whereby insoluble polymer is deposited in the body cavity. In the invention polymer having pendant zwitterionic groups is used, whereby biocompatibility is optimised.
The current chosen method for the treatment of aneurysms involves the packing of the aneurysm with platinum coils. Some work has been performed on the coating of these coils to provide a surface with increase thrombogenicity and render it biologically active by enabling the release of cellular growth factors and the like (German Patent DE-A-19647280). Others have concentrated on the use of polymer systems for embolising aneurysms, often simply by precipitating the polymer from a solution in a biocompatible solvent (WO-A-9745131). Specifically, a Japanese Group has had some success using a liquid composition containing a hardening polymer (cellulose acetate), with an X-ray contrast agent in a solvent such as DMSO. The polymer is caused to precipitate in-situ within the aneurysm when contacted with blood (JP-A-06-107549, J. Neurosurg., 83(3), 531, 1995). Another approach has been to directly polymerise monomers in-situ, an example of which is a iron-acrylic compound which polymerises rapidly and is non-toxic (J.Neurosurg., 47(2), 137, 1977). Yet another approach described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,894 is to introduce a coil and a polymeric composition which is melted by incident radiation and re-solidified in situ in the aneurysm. Examples of polymers are polyalkenes, poly(meth)acrylates, polyesters, polyamides and polysaccharides.
The use of polyion complexes in medical applications has been suggested for many years. Indeed, Michaels made reference to the use of such complex solutions for potting or encapsulating aneurysms, commenting that the materials were reasonably well tolerated by the tissue. Ioplex 101 (a complex poly(triethyl-(3 and 4)-vinylphenylammonium bromide) and poly(sodium vinyl benzenesulphonate)) has been examined intensively for biomedical usage (Vogel et al. J.Macromol. Sci., Chem., 4, 675, 1970; Marshall et al., J. Biomed Mater. Res., 4, 357, 1970; Bruck et al., Ann. N.Y. Acad Sci., 283, 332, 1977). Analogues of this system have been studied to determine the effect of charge and structure on the complex and their behaviour towards blood platelets (Kataoka et al., Makromol. Chem., 179, 1121, 1978 and 181, 1363, 1980) and have been used as encapsulating agents in the development of artificial liver support systems (Kataoka et a., Jinko Zoki (Artificial Organs), 8 296, 1979).
Nakabayashi et al. have previously described the use of polyion complexes of polymers having zwitterionic pendant groups for the selective adhesion of platelets (J. Biomed. Mater. Res., 28(11), 1347, 1994 by Ishihara, K. et al. Adv. Biomat. Biomed. Eng. Drug Delivery Syst. (1995) 227-228 by Ishihara, K. et al., and Japanese Patent JP-A-7-238124). Their invention claims specifically the use of a ternary polymer system consisting of 2-methacroyoyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC), butyl methacrylate (BMA) and sulfopropyl methacrylate (SPM) or trimethyl ammonium propyl methacrylate (TPM). Further to this, they define the compositions in which the MPC:BMA molar ratio is between 2:98-50:50, and the ratio of these two components to the ionic monomer (SPM or TPM) is between 98:2-80:20. These systems seem to have been designed to produce coatings with weak ionic interactions that have favourable properties in terms of platelet binding and activation. The polyion complexes described in these references are tested as coatings on glass beads and one of the products is said to be under test for use to encapsulate activated charcoal used for an artificial liver support system.
In the present invention there is provided a new use of a charged polymer in a method of manufacture of a composition for use in the method of treatment of a human or animal by therapy or diagnosis in which the charged polymer containing composition is introduced into a body cavity and is contacted with a separate composition comprising a polyvalently charged counterion whereby the polymer is rendered insoluble in the body cavity, and is characterised in that the charged polymer has zwitterionic pendant groups.
The present invention also includes the method of treatment itself.
In the present invention, the insoluble polymer is deposited as a gel in the body cavity. The polymer should be insoluble in situ, so that it remains in situ over a period of time, for instance at least several hours, days or weeks. A gel comprises a matrix of polymer and solvent distributed throughout the matrix. Preferably the solvent in the gel is aqueous and substantially free of organic solvent.
The gel depot may be used as a vehicle for delivery to the body cavity of therapeutically active agents, or diagnostic agents such as contrast agents. Contrast agents may, for instance, be introduced to allow medical practitioners to visualise the position of the insoluble polymer, which itself may be providing a therapeutic benefit, or diagnostic utility in a patient. According to a preferred aspect of the invention therefore the insoluble polymer is, in the body cavity, combined with a therapeutically active or imaging agent.
The gelled polymer may be a coating, or encapsulating agent, on particulate or non particulate solid material which is opaque to electromagnetic radiation (possibly radio frequency). The opaque material may, for instance, be an imaging agent such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,667,767 such as tantalum, tantalum oxide and barium sulphate, or as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,695,480 including gold, tungsten and platinum. The opaque agent may be particulate or may be a solid material having a discrete physical shape, for instance being 1 mm or larger in size such as a metallic coil, filament, wire, mesh or tube. For instance coils as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,994,069, 5,122,136, 5,226,911 or U.S. Pat. No. 5,702,361 may be included.
The present invention is particularly useful for embolising blood vessels, or for packing aneurysms. The polymer is thus used in methods analogous to those described in the prior art discussion above. The invention may also be used as a therapeutic or cosmetic filler, for instance for use following tumour excision, for enhancing lips or breasts, for improving muscle control, for instance sphincter muscles to control incontinence, for endoluminal gel paving, for the treatment of patent ductus arteriosus, or for replacement or supplement of synovial fluid.
The charged polymer is prior to insolubilisation, soluble, in the composition in which it is introduced into the body cavity. That composition is preferably aqueous. The polymer is thus preferably water-soluble. The counterion is also preferably soluble in the separate composition in which it is introduced into the body cavity. It is most convenient for the separate composition to be aqueous, so that it is preferred for the counterion to be introduced in a water-soluble form, in solution in an aqueous composition.
The two compositions may be mixed in the body cavity or immediately before being introduced into the body cavity. Preferably they are introduced using a catheter designed for the purpose, which has separate lumens for each composition and means for allowing contact and mixing of the compositions immediately before delivery of the insoluble, usually gel form, polymer from the catheter into the desired location in a body cavity.
The counterion may be inorganic or organic. It may be a di- or tri-valently charged soluble ion, for instance a metal cation, or a multivalent oxyanion. Calcium ions are suitable multivalent cations.
Preferably in the invention, the counterion is a polyelectrolyte. The counterionic charges of the two polymers attract one another when the polymers are intimately mixed, thereby insolubilising (gelling) the blend. This blend is consequently a polyion (or polyelectrolyte) complex. At least one of the polymers forming the polyion complex should have zwitterionic pendant groups. Preferably both polymers have zwitterionic pendant groups. The charged polymer which has an essential feature pendant zwitterionic groups, may be anionic or cationic but is preferably anionic. The counterion is thus preferably cationic.
In some embodiments of the present invention, a polycationic polymer will have permanently cationic pendant groups. These may be quaternary ammonium or phosphonium or tertiary sulphonium groups. In other embodiments, the cationic group may not be a permanent cation. It may be a weak or a strong base. For instance it may be selected so as to provide pH sensitivity whereby the degree of attraction between the two first polymers may be controlled by the pH.
Likewise, the anion may be the anion of a weak or strong acid, selected so as to be pH sensitive or insensitive within a predetermined pH range, as desired.
A suitable cationic group is a group N+R13, P+R13 or S+R12
in which the groups R1 are the same or different and are each hydrogen, C1-4-alkyl or aryl (preferably phenyl) or two of the groups R1 together with the heteroatom to which they are attached from a saturated or unsaturated heterocyclic ring containing from 5 to 7 atoms. Preferably the cationic group is permanently cationic, that is each R1 is other than hydrogen. Preferably the cationic group is N+R13 in which each R1 is C1-4-alkyl, preferably methyl.
Suitable anionic groups are carboxylate, carbonate, sulphonate, sulphate, phosphonate or phosphate. Preferably the anionic group is monovalent. A sulphonate group is particularly convenient.
In a polyion complex used in the invention, the polycationic polymer and polyanionic polymer are preferably used in ratios so as to provide a ratio of equivalents of cationic groups and anionic groups in the range 2:1 to 1:2. Preferably the anions are present in approximately equivalent amount to the cation so that the ratio is preferably in the range 1.5:1 to 1:1.5, or preferably 1.2:1 to 1:1.2, for instance about 1:1.
In the gelled condition the level of zwitterionic groups is preferably in the range 1 to 75 mole %, preferably 20 to 50%, based on the total moles of monomer from which the polymer(s) forming the insoluble polymer are formed (in the preferred embodiment where the charged polymer(s) is formed from ethylenically unsaturated monomers including zwitterionic monomer).
The amount of ionic monomer in an ionic polymer comprised in the charged polymer is preferably at least 1 mole %, more preferably at least 5 mole %, for instance at least 10 mole %. Where the amount is higher than about 30 or 40 mole % (and the counterionic charges in a PIC are approximately balanced) the or each polymer should preferably also include at least 20%, preferably at least 30% zwitterionic monomer.
For the preferred embodiment in which the charged polymer comprises at least one ionically charged polymer including zwitterionic pendant groups, the ratio of zwitterionic ionic groups is preferably in the range 5:1 to 1:5, preferably 2:1 to 1:3.
The total content of ionic and zwitterionic monomer in the charged polymer and in preferred counterion is preferably at least 25 mole %, more preferably at least 30%, more preferably at least 40%, up to 100%, more preferably up to 80%, most preferably in the range 50 to 70%. The remaining components of the polymer(s) are non-ionic monomer, which may act primarily as diluent or may confer desirable physical properties on the polymer(s). A non-ionic, monomer may comprise a hydrophobic pendant group.
The ratio of anionic to cationic polymer and the relative amounts of zwitterionic and hydrophobic diluent groups in a polyion complex may be judged by determining the gel properties of a gel, usually an aqueous gel formed by mixing the counterionic polymers from solutions each containing one of the polymers. A suitable technique for investigating the gel properties is described in Example 3 below.
The zwitterionic pendant group of the polymer used in the invention may have an overall charge, for instance by having a divalent centre of anionic charge and monovalent centre of cationic charge or vice versa or by having two centres of cationic charge and one centre of anionic charge or vice versa. Preferably, however, the zwitterion has no overall charge and most preferably has a centre of monovalent cationic charge and a centre of monovalent anionic charge.
Preferably the centre of cationic charge in the zwitterionic group is permanent, that is it is preferably a quaternary ammonium or phosphonium or a tertiary sulphonium group. Preferably the anion is permanent, that is it is substantially completely ionised at in vivo pH""s, for instance at pH""s in the range 5 to 8. It is preferably a phosphate, phosphonate, sulphate or sulphonate anion.
The zwitterionic group may be a betaine group (ie in which the cation is closer to the backbone than the anion), for instance a sulpho-, carboxy- or phospho-betaine. A betaine group should have no overall charge and is preferably a carboxy- or sulpho-betaine. If it is a phosphobetaine the phosphate terminal group must be a diester, i.e., be esterified with an alcohol. Such groups may be represented by the general formula I
xe2x80x94X2xe2x80x94R2xe2x80x94N.(R3)2xe2x80x94R4xe2x80x94V⊕xe2x80x83xe2x80x83I
in which
X2 is a valence bond, xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Sxe2x80x94 or xe2x80x94NHxe2x80x94, preferably xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94;
V is a carboxylate, sulphonate or phosphate diester(monovalently charged) anion;
R2 is a valence bond (together with X2) or alkanediyl, xe2x80x94C(O)alkanediyl- or xe2x80x94C(O)NHalkanediyl preferably alkanediyl and preferably containing from 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkanediyl chain;
the groups R3 are the same or different and each is hydrogen or alkyl of 1 to 4 carbon atoms or the groups R3 together with the nitrogen to which they are attached form a heterocyclic ring of 5 to 7 atoms; and
R4 is alkanediyl of 1 to 20, preferably 1 to 10, more preferably 1 to 6 carbon atoms.
One preferred sulphobetaine monomer has the formula II
where the groups R5 are the same or different and each is hydrogen or C1-4 alkyl and n is from 2 to 4.
Preferably the groups R5 are the same. It is also preferable that at least one of the groups R5 is methyl, and more preferable that the groups R5 are both methyl.
Preferably n is 2 or 3, more preferably 3.
Alternatively the zwitterionic group may be an amino acid moiety in which the alpha carbon atom (to which an amine group and the carboxylic acid group are attached) is joined through a linker group to the backbone of polymer A. Such groups may be represented by the general formula III
in which
X3 is a valence bond, xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Sxe2x80x94 or xe2x80x94NHxe2x80x94, preferably xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94,
R6 is a valence bond (optionally together with X3) or alkanediyl, xe2x80x94C(O)alkanediyl- or xe2x80x94C(O)NHalkanediyl, preferably alkanediyl and preferably containing from 1 to 6 carbon atoms; and
the groups R7 are the same or different and each is hydrogen or alkyl of 1 to 4 carbon atoms, preferably methyl, or two of the groups R7, together with the nitrogen to which they are attached, form a heterocyclic ring of from 5 to 7 atoms, or the three group R7 together with the nitrogen atom to which they are attached form a fused ring structure containing from 5 to 7 atoms in each ring.
Preferably the zwitterion has the formula IV
in which
the moieties X4 and X5, which are the same or different, are xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Sxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94NHxe2x80x94 or a valence bond, preferably xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, and
W+ is a group comprising an ammonium, phosphonium or sulphonium cationic group and a group linking the anionic and cationic moieties which is preferably a C1-12-alkanediyl group.
Preferably W contains as cationic group an ammonium group, more preferably a quaternary ammonium group.
The group W+ may for example be a group of formula xe2x80x94W1xe2x80x94N+R83, xe2x80x94W1xe2x80x94P+R93, xe2x80x94W1xe2x80x94S+R92 or xe2x80x94W1-Het+ in which:
W1 is alkanediyl of 1 or more, preferably 2-6 carbon atoms optionally containing one or more ethylenically unsaturated double or triple bonds, disubstituted-aryl, alkylene aryl, aryl alkylene, or alkylene aryl alkylene, disubstituted cycloalkyl, alkylene cycloalkyl, cycloalkyl alkylene or alkylene cycloalkyl alkylene, which group W1 optionally contains one or more fluorine substituents and/or one or more functional groups; and
either the groups R8 are the same or different and each is hydrogen or alkyl of 1 to 4 carbon atoms, preferably methyl, or aryl, such as phenyl or two of the groups R8 together with the nitrogen atom to which they are attached form a heterocyclic ring containing from 5 to 7 atoms or the three groups R8 together with the nitrogen atom to which they are attached form a fused ring structure containing from 5 to 7 atoms in each ring, and optionally one or more of the groups R8 is substituted by a hydrophilic functional group, and
the groups R9 are the same or different and each is R8 or a group OR8, where R8 is as defined above; and
Het is an aromatic nitrogen-, phosphorus- or sulphur-, preferably nitrogen-, containing ring, for example pyridine.
Preferably W1 is a straight-chain alkanediyl group, most preferably 1,2-ethanediyl.
Preferred groups of the formula IV are groups of formula V:
where the groups R10 are the same or different and each is hydrogen or C1-4 alkyl, and m is from 1 to 4.
Preferably the groups R10 are the same. It is also preferable that at least one of the groups R10 is methyl, and more preferable that the groups R10 are all methyl.
Preferably m is 2 or 3, more preferably 2.
Alternatively the ammonium phosphate ester group V may be replaced by a glycerol derivative of the formula VB, VC or VD defined in our earlier publication no WO-A-93/01221.
Preferably the polymer or polymers having a pendant zwitterionic group are wholly synthetic, although under some circumstances it may be desirable to use derivatives of natural polymers. Preferably the polymer(s) is formed from radical polymerisable ethylenically unsaturated monomers including a monomer of the formula VI
YBXxe2x80x83xe2x80x83VI
wherein
B is a straight or branched alkanediyl, alkanediyloxaalkanediyl or alkanediyloligo(oxaalkanediyl) chain optionally containing one or more fluorine atoms up to and including perfluorinated chains or, if X or Y contains a terminal carbon atom bonded to B, a valence bond;
X is the zwitterionic group; and
Y is an ethylenically unsaturated polymerisable group selected from
xe2x80x83CH2xe2x95x90C(R)xe2x80x94CH2xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, CH2xe2x95x90C(R)xe2x80x94CH2OC(O)xe2x80x94, CH2xe2x95x90C(R)OC(O)xe2x80x94, CH2xe2x95x90C(R)xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, CH2xe2x95x90C(R)CH2OC(O)N(R11)xe2x80x94, R12OOCCRxe2x95x90CRC(O)xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, RCHxe2x95x90CHC(O)Oxe2x80x94, RCHxe2x95x90C(COOR12)CH2xe2x80x94C(O)xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94,
xe2x80x83wherein:
R is hydrogen or a C1-C4 alkyl group;
R11 is hydrogen or a C1-C4 alkyl group or R11 is xe2x80x94Bxe2x80x94X where B and X are as defined above; and
R12 is hydrogen or a C1-4 allyl group or BX where B and X are as defined above;
A is xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94 or xe2x80x94NR11xe2x80x94;
K is a group xe2x80x94(CH2)pOC(O)xe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pC(O)Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pOC(O)Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pNR13xe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pNR13C(O)xe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pC(O)NR13xe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pNR13C(O)Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pOC(O)NR13xe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pNR13C(O)NR13xe2x80x94 (in which the groups R13 are the same or different), xe2x80x94(CH2)pOxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94(CH2)pSO3xe2x80x94, or, optionally in combination with B, a valence bond and p is from 1 to 12 and R13 is hydrogen or a C1-C4 alkyl group;
Preferably Y is a group CH2xe2x95x90C(R)COAxe2x80x94, in which R is H or methyl, preferably methyl, and in which A is preferably O.
B is preferably an alkanediyl group of 1 to 12, preferably 2 to 6 carbon atoms, most preferably group (CH2)q in which q is 2 to 6.
Where the polymer having a zwitterionic group is part of a polyion complex, the polymer is formed by including in the ethylenically unsaturated monomers an ionic monomer of the formula VII
Y1B1Qxe2x80x83xe2x80x83VII
in which
Y1 is selected from the same groups as Y;
B1 is selected from the same groups as B; and
Q is an ionic group or ionisable.
Q may be a cationic group Q1 or an anionic group Q2. A cationic group Q1 is preferably as described above. An anionic group Q2 is preferably selected from the groups listed above.
Another suitable type of cationic monomer copolymerisable with ethylenically unsaturated monomers is diallyl dialkyl ammonium halide, for instance diallyl dimethyl ammonium chloride.
The ethylenically unsaturated monomers preferably further comprise nonionic monomer. The nonionic monomer may be selected so as to confer desired solubility, hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity properties upon the polymer bearing zwitterionic pendant groups. The nonionic monomer may also confer on the polymer physical characteristics which affect the mechanical characteristics of the insoluble polymer in situ. For instance hydrophobic groups may provide inter or intramolecular interactions with other hydrophobic groups, or with substrates or biological compounds in situ which render the insoluble polymer particularly suitable for the desired application.
Preferably a nonionic monomer has the general formula VIII
Y2R14xe2x80x83xe2x80x83VIII
in which
Y2 is selected from the same groups as Y; and
R14 is a nonionic organic group which is an optionally substituted C1-24-alkyl or -alkenyl group. Optional substituents in the alkyl or alkenyl group are hydroxyl groups; halogen atoms, alkoxy and oligo-alkoxy groups, in which the alkoxy groups have 1-6, preferably 2 or 3 carbon atoms; aryl groups, preferably optionally substituted phenyl groups; optional substituents in a phenyl group being hydroxyl, halogen atoms or alkyl groups; acyl groups, especially C1-6-alkanoyl groups; acyloxy groups, especially C1-6-alkanoyloxy groups; acylamino groups, especially C1-6-alkanoyl amino, in any of which alkanoyl groups there may be substituents selected from halogen atoms and hydroxyl groups, and alkoxy groups. Preferred groups R14 are C1-24-unsubstituted alkyl, more preferably C4-18-alkyl.
A nonionic monomer is preferably present in the ethylenically unsaturated monomers from which the charged polymer and/or the counterionic polyelectrolyte are formed in a molar amount in the range 1-75%, preferably 20 to 70%, more preferably 30-50%.
A particularly preferred use of the invention is in the treatment of aneurysms. The charged polymer and counterion could be mixed via a catheter, in the form of aqueous solutions or dispersions, to form a gel in situ within the aneurysm void. Once filled the aneurysm would have no void space for the blood to occupy and the danger of rupture of the blood vessel would be removed.
The zwitterionic groups of the gelled (insoluble) polymer are believed to confer biocompatibility, minimising response from the inner lining of the aneurysm or other tissue or biological fluids in contact with the second polymer in the body cavity. |
Fan organs of crayfish enhance chemical information flow.
Animals as well as autonomous robots need to acquire environmental signals in order to adjust their activity in time and space. Some information is accessible to the sensors only as a result of specific behaviors for stimulus acquisition. Due to the slow rate of molecular diffusion, dispersal of chemical stimuli depends on fluid flow. Aquatic crustaceans can generate directed water currents by specialized appendages. Here I describe the crayfish fan organs, which are feathered flagella of the mouthparts, and their activity in sending and receiving chemical signals in environments with stagnant flow conditions. During the power-stroke, the fan opens and displaces water; during the return stroke, it collapses and thereby minimizes drag. These organs can create a variety of flow fields including water jets, and in many different directions. Bilateral upward fanning draws water horizontally from all directions toward the anterior chemoreceptors. Unilateral upward fanning draws water from only one side towards the body. The versatility of the crayfish fan organ makes it a candidate for biomimetic reconstruction and use in autonomous robots that can search chemical sources. |
As computing devices have increased in capabilities and features, demand for data storage devices has grown. Data storage devices have been used, for example, to store program instructions (i.e., code) that may be executed by processors. Data storage devices have also been used to store other types of data, including audio, image, and/or text information, for example. Recently, systems with data storage devices capable of storing substantial data content (e.g., songs, music videos, etc.) have become widely available in portable devices.
Such portable devices include data storage devices (DSDs) that have small form factors and are capable of operating from portable power sources, such as batteries. Some DSDs in portable devices may provide non-volatile memory that is capable of retaining data when disconnected from the power source. Portable devices have used various non-volatile data storage devices, such as hard disc drives, EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read only memory), and flash memory.
Flash memory has become a widely used type of DSD. Flash memory may provide a non-volatile memory in portable electronic devices and consumer applications, for example. Two types of flash memory are NOR flash and NAND flash. NOR flash typically provides the capacity to execute code in place, and is randomly accessible (i.e., like a RAM). NAND flash can typically erase data more quickly, access data in bursts (e.g., 512 byte chunks), and may provide more lifetime erase cycles than comparable NOR flash. NAND flash may generally provide non-volatile storage at a low cost per bit as a high-density file storage medium for consumer devices, such as digital cameras and MP3 players, for example.
Typical flash memory stores a unit of information by storing an electrical charge in each memory cell at a voltage representative of a digital data value. Single level cells store one bit of information based on the cell being charged to a “high” voltage, or being discharged to a “low” voltage. NAND flash memory has been developed that stores up to two bits of information in a single cell by decoding the charge as being within one of four different voltage ranges. NOR flash memory has been developed that can store up to 8 bits of information in a single cell by decoding the charge as being within one of 256 different voltage ranges. |
Implementing the DICOM Grayscale Standard Display Function for mixed hard- and soft-copy operations.
The aim of this work was to implement the DICOM Grayscale Standard Display Function (GSDF) at all stages of image presentation for computed radiography (CR) and direct digital radiography (DR) modalities. Cathode-ray tubes (CRT) were calibrated according to vendor procedures. Printer look-up-tables (LUT) were measured. Custom LUTs were created and loaded. Fuji CR gradation processing parameters were adjusted to accommodate a GSDF printer LUT. Conformance to the GSDF for hard-copy and soft-copy displays was measured with DICOM Part 14 procedures. One system was intended to completely incorporate the GSDF, although the hard-copy result was correct. The CR systems required creation of custom GSDF printer LUTs, adjustment of gradation processing parameters, and/or calibration of CRT luminance response at the quality control station. The picture archiving and communication system workstations from one vendor required third-party software for calibration. Current implementations of DICOM GSDF by vendors may be inconsistent or nonexistent. Significant effort by in-house staff must be expended to properly incorporate the GSDF. |
Barringtonia longisepala
Barringtonia longisepala grows as a tree up to tall, with a trunk diameter of up to . Bark is dark grey or greyish brown. Flowers are yellow. Fruit is oblong, up to long. Habitat is hillside and swamp forests. B. longisepala is endemic to Borneo.
References
longisepala
Category:Endemic flora of Borneo
Category:Trees of Borneo
Category:Plants described in 1967 |
Contaminants in fish tissue from US lakes and reservoirs: a national probabilistic study.
An unequal probability design was used to develop national estimates for 268 persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals in fish tissue from lakes and reservoirs of the conterminous United States (excluding the Laurentian Great Lakes and Great Salt Lake). Predator (fillet) and bottom-dweller (whole body) composites were collected from 500 lakes selected randomly from the target population of 147,343 lakes in the lower 48 states. Each of these composite types comprised nationally representative samples whose results were extrapolated to the sampled population of an estimated 76,559 lakes for predators and 46,190 lakes for bottom dwellers. Mercury and PCBs were detected in all fish samples. Dioxins and furans were detected in 81% and 99% of predator and bottom-dweller samples, respectively. Cumulative frequency distributions showed that mercury concentrations exceeded the EPA 300 ppb mercury fish tissue criterion at nearly half of the lakes in the sampled population. Total PCB concentrations exceeded a 12 ppb human health risk-based consumption limit at nearly 17% of lakes, and dioxins and furans exceeded a 0.15 ppt (toxic equivalent or TEQ) risk-based threshold at nearly 8% of lakes in the sampled population. In contrast, 43 target chemicals were not detected in any samples. No detections were reported for nine organophosphate pesticides, one PCB congener, 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or 17 other semivolatile organic chemicals. |
87 U.S. 189 (____)
20 Wall. 189
PAHLMAN
v.
THE COLLECTOR.
Supreme Court of United States.
*194 Mr. W.B. Scales, for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. G.H. Williams, Attorney-General, and Mr. S.F. Phillips, Solicitor-General, contra.
*196 *197 Mr. Justice STRONG delivered the opinion of the court.
The question is whether, by the act of Congress under consideration, the assessor and his assistant, in estimating the true producing capacity of a distillery, are empowered to fix, as the true fermenting period, any other than that which the distiller in his notice to the assessor, required by the sixth section, has declared he would use for fermentation, and which he actually did use.
That the producing capacity of a distillery is conclusively determined by the survey and estimate made under the tenth section of the act (that survey, however, being subject to revision by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue), was ruled in Collector v. Beggs.[*] In that case we said "the survey and estimate of producing capacity made under the tenth section were conclusive while they remained, though subject to revision under the direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. And the extent of liability to taxation was, by the act of Congress, directed to be measured, not by the actual product of spirits, but by what should have been the product of the materials used according to the estimate made under the tenth section." And this is very plainly the intention of the law, for by that section, the only one which expressly provides for the ascertainment of the producing capacity, it was made the duty of the assessor, with the aid of some competent and skilful person to be designated by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to make survey of each distillery registered, or intended to be registered, for the production of spirits in his district, not only to estimate, but to determine its producing capacity. Of this estimate and determination the assessor and his assistant are required to make a written report in triplicate, signed by them, one original of which is to be furnished to the distiller, one retained by the assessor, and the third is to be *198 transmitted to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. It is also provided that if the commissioner shall at any time be satisfied that such report of the capacity of a distillery is in any respect incorrect, or needs revision, he may direct the assessor to make another survey. Thus a measure of taxation is fixed, and the distiller is notified of it before he commences distilling. All this leaves no doubt that the reported survey was intended by Congress to be conclusive until corrected by direction of the commissioner.
But while this is not denied by the plaintiffs in error as a general proposition, it is insisted that in estimating and determining the producing capacity of the distillery, the assessor must be controlled by the notice which the distiller is required to give him by the sixth section of the act, and must base his calculations upon the period of fermentation fixed in that notice. It is said he has no power to adopt any other period of fermentation, even though ordered to do so by the commissioner, and, if he does, that his estimate and determination are not conclusive. In this objection we cannot concur. It is founded, we think, upon a misapprehension of the statute. The sixth section requires every person engaged in, or intending to be engaged in, the business of a distiller, or rectifier, to give notice in writing to the assessor of the district within which he proposes to carry on the business, stating therein his name, his associates, if any, and his proposed place of business. If he be a distiller, he is required to state in his notice the kind of stills and the cubic contents thereof, the number and kind of boilers, the number of mash-tubs and fermenting-tubs, and the cubic contents of each tub, the number of receiving cisterns and the cubic contents of each cistern, together with a particular description of the lot or tract of land on which the distillery is situated, with the size and description of the buildings thereon, and of what material constructed. The distiller is also required to state in his notice the number of hours in which he will ferment each tub of mash or beer, and the estimated quantity of distilled spirits which the apparatus is capable of distilling every twenty-four hours.
*199 The object of these requirements is too plain to be misunderstood. Clearly it is not to enable the distiller to determine for himself the producing capacity of his distillery, and thereby partially fix the extent of his liability to taxation. It is to furnish protection against frauds, and possibly to assist in the ascertainment of the quantity of spirits actually distilled. If intended at all to bear upon the estimate of the producing capacity of the distillery, it can only be regarded as suggestive, not as controlling. It is after this notice has been given that the assessor and his skilled assistant are required, as by the tenth section of the act, to make an estimate and determination of the producing capacity. They are no more required to take the fermenting period designated in the notice as the true fermenting period than they are controlled by the distiller's statement of the number and cubical contents of the stills, mash-tubs, and cisterns he intends to use, or by his estimate of the capability of his apparatus. They are required to calculate and report what the distillery can produce, not what the distiller proposes to produce, or what the apparatus would produce, if employed in a particular manner. To enable them to discharge this duty the provisions of the ninth section were enacted. That section requires the distiller to furnish to the assessor an accurate plan of the distillery and distilling apparatus, showing the location and mode of construction of the apparatus and the cubical contents of each vessel. Undoubtedly the main elements necessary for a determination of the producing capacity are the size of the stills, mash-tubs, and cisterns, and the duration of the fermenting period. There is unquestionably, in the nature of things, a true fermenting period, dependent on the operation of natural processes, a period, which may be variant from that selected by a distiller. This period may vary somewhat in different latitudes, but it is everywhere ascertainable, and the commissioner, we think, is authorized by the second section of the act to prescribe regulations for ascertaining it. By that section he is authorized to adopt and prescribe for use such hydrometers, saccharometers, weighing and gauging instruments, *200 meters, or other means for ascertaining the quantity, gravity, and productive capacity of any mash, wort, or beer used or to be used in the production of distilled spirits, as he may deem necessary. This is inconsistent with the idea that the notice of the distiller is to determine the producing capacity. And though in his notice he is required to state the time in which he will ferment his mash, and also an estimate of the quantity of distilled spirits which the apparatus is capable of distilling every twenty-four hours, that is his estimate. Nowhere in the act is any provision made that his statement and estimate shall be obligatory upon the assessor and his skilled assistant. Nor is there to be found in the act any rule by which the producing capacity of a distillery is to be determined, except that the commissioner of internal revenue is, by the second and one hundred and third sections, empowered to make necessary regulations. The declaration shows that such regulations were made, and they were followed by the assessor. The survey was made accordingly. If instead of following the instructions given by the commissioner, the assessor must adopt a period for fermentation given to him by the distiller a period which may, or may not, be a true one; that is, the period within which complete fermentation takes place it is obvious there can be no certainty in the ascertainment and determination of the actual producing capacity of the distillery, and the object which the law has in view will be defeated. At most, all the assessor and his assistant can do will be to ascertain the actual product. The possible product cannot be ascertained; yet, as we have had occasion to say heretofore, when giving a construction to this act of Congress, both the producing capacity and the quantity of spirits actually produced are made by the law measures of taxation, and provision is made for the determination of each.[*]
But without pursuing the subject farther, we have said sufficient to show that in our opinion the notice given by the distiller of the time he will ferment each tub of mash or beer does not control the survey. The assessor must determine *201 and report the true actual capacity, and not what the distillery will produce in the distiller's proposed mode of running it. There is, therefore, no well-founded objection to the conclusiveness of the survey in this case, and as the tax assessed and collected was in accordance with the survey, the plaintiffs have no right of action to recover it back.
Nor is there any such hardship as is suggested. We have seen that a report of the surveyor's determination of producing capacity is by the law required to be placed in the hands of the distiller before he commences business. If dissatisfied with it, he may apply to the commissioner for another survey. He is thus informed of the extent of his liability to taxation. He has, therefore, little reason to complain, when he commences distilling, and does not produce at least eighty per cent. of what his distillery can produce, as determined by the survey, if he is taxed according to a standard which is not false, and of which he had thus early notice.
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.
NOTES
[*] 17 Wallace, 182.
[*] United States v. Singer, 15 Wallace, 111.
|
{#sp1 .102}
{#sp2 .103}
{#sp3 .104}
{#sp4 .105}
{#sp5 .106}
{#sp6 .107}
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The present invention relates to a composition for use as an agent or concentrate for the preservation of wood and wood materials on the basis of or with the additional use of 1-aryl-3-hydroxy -3-alkyl-4-(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)-butane derivatives of the formula ##STR1## wherein X is halogen, alkylthio having 1 to 4 carbon atoms or halogenoalkoxy having 1 or 2 carbon atoms and 1 to 5 halogen atoms and Alkyl is an alkyl group having 1 to 4 carbon atoms, and/or acid addition salts thereof and metal salt complexes thereof, and at least one solvent, diluent and/or additive.
The said 1-aryl-3-hydroxy-3-alkyl-4-(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)-butane derivatives are known from German Offenlegungsschrift 3,621,494 and are used as agents having a fungicidal action for the protection of engineering materials from damage or destruction by microorganisms.
Wood preservatives, however, have to meet requirements which go beyond the purely fungicidal activity. |
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Nevertheless, She Persisted
The sky is not my limit. I am. --T. F. Hodge
A couple years ago this nasturtium crawled across our yard, into the neighbor's yard, and over their walking path. Sadly, the gardeners cut it down. Not to be deterred, the plant snaked into the foundation, twined up a basement wall, and found its way back to the light through a tiny crack in the siding. From my window the plant appeared to be floating like one of those gurus who levitate above the ground. But this isn't an illusion. This flower succeeded simply because it persisted. It was not in its nature to give up.
Eighteen years ago I started a novel about a psychic little girl born into an Evangelical Christian family who is shunned for her intuitive gifts. I queried and found an agent who liked my other, more contemporary work-in-progress better. She shopped it around but she didn't sell it and eventually stopped communicating. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. But I was facing other challenges and my writing suddenly took a back seat to Life. I got sidetracked by a divorce, a move, my busy massage practice and being a single parent.
Both of my earlier manuscripts languished in a desk drawer for several years. I continued to facilitate journaling workshops but it wasn't until I donated a kidney to a stranger that I fully returned to writing, publishing a memoir in 2014 about my experience as a living donor. Lost in Transplantation did pretty well for an unknown self-published author but relating one's experience in book form is a lot different than creating setting, characters and story from scratch.
I wrote the memoir to educate people about living donation. Writing a novel is a whole 'nother ballgame with different rules, a different audience, and a much more competitive playing ground. This plant, though. Just look at it. Somebody cut it down and it defied that somebody in ways that confounded and amazed me. The more I stared at it, the more I wanted to be like it. I eventually found the courage to show my original ms to my editor/beau. And then I held my breath while he read it, knowing he would be kind but he'd also be brutally honest.
Turns out he loved it. And he worked with me to make it even better. Several months later I queried a list of reputable agents and in December of 2015, signed with one who sold the ms in a 2-book deal. THIS I KNOW releases around Mother's Day of 2018, a timely coincidence for a story with a mother who features prominently in this emotional story of a family torn apart by fear and judgment but ultimately, the redemption of acceptance and forgiveness.
A few weeks ago my publisher sent me a sneak-peak at the cover and I admit that I succumbed to shiver-me-timbers of joy when I saw my protagonist captured on the cover image. Grace Carter is no longer a figment of my imagination. My precocious little redhead now belongs to the world. Coincidentally, I just finished the next book and sent it to my agent for notes. Now the process starts all over with a new cast of characters, a distinct landscape, and a very different story. The work doesn't get easier but for the most part, fear and self-doubt have transformed into anticipation and optimism.
My point is that persistence pays off. To those of you struggling with uncertainty or who feel like quitting: Don't. Why choose to stunt your creative pursuits with self-limiting beliefs? Tunnel your way into the center of your dreams and plant yourself there with vigorous intention. Manifesting is awesome but it isn't magic. It's a combination of dreaming, surrounding yourself with people who support your dreams, a lot of work, and a little bit of good luck. The march to success is a team event. Each triumph, no matter how small, finds me jumping up and down in solidarity with every one of you. Without each other, without our mentors and believers and champions, this journey would be a lonely road. And so I remain deeply grateful to all you wonderful humans who continue to be my cheerleaders. Believe me when I say, I am also yours. |
Porter Kilbert
Porter Kilbert (June 10, 1921 – October 23, 1960) was a jazz alto and tenor saxophonist.
In September 1942, he replaced Preston Love as lead alto saxophonist in Nat Towles' band, before going on to spend two years with Benny Carter's band, playing in line-ups including Willard Brown, Curly Russell, Max Roach, Oscar Bradley, Ulysses Livingston, Sonny White, Teddy Brannon, Bumps Myers, Gene Porter, Alton Moore, J.J. Johnson, Shorty Haughton, Claude Dunson, Snooky Young, Freddie Webster, Gerald Wilson, and Jake Porter.
After a brief spell with Roy Eldridge's band, he joined Red Saunders' band in New York in September 1946. The band later took up residency at Chicago's Club DeLisa, and Kilbert would remain with the Saunders band until January 1952, when he left to form his own band.
In December 1946, he was in a line-up led by Coleman Hawkins, recording for Prestige, with Fats Navarro, Milt Jackson, JJ Johnson, Hank Jones, Curley Russell and Max Roach.
In 1947, he led an orchestra backing Clarence Samuels recording for Aristocrat.
In 1954, he was a member of the Horace Henderson big band and in 1955 and 1956, he participated in a series of "battles of the saxes" with Tom Archia at the C&C Lounge.
In 1960, having recorded the previous year for bandleader Quincy Jones, featuring as soloist on some of the tracks, he toured Europe with Jones' big band (with fellow altoist Phil Woods).
Discography
As leader/co-leader
1957: "Swinging with a Mombo"/"Lee's Bounce" – with Porter Kilbert and Orchestra (Porter Kilbert; Fip Ricard; Hobart Dotson; Lewis "Bill" Ogletree (tp); Johnny Avant (tb); Eddie Williams; McKinley "Mac" Easton (bars); Billy Wallace (p); Eddie Calhoun; Vernel Fournier (Ping Records)
As sideman
1957: The Colorful Strings of Jimmy Woode – Jimmy Woode
1959: The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones – Quincy Jones (Mercury)
1959: Something to Swing About - Carmen McRae (Kapp)
1960: I Dig Dancers - Quincy Jones (Mercury)
References
Category:American jazz tenor saxophonists
Category:American male saxophonists
Category:American jazz alto saxophonists
Category:1921 births
Category:1960 deaths
Category:20th-century American musicians
Category:20th-century saxophonists
Category:20th-century American male musicians
Category:Male jazz musicians |
[Changes in the mechanical properties of the femur and jaws in dogs with osteoporosis due to a single acute whole-body irradiation].
The authors studied the condition of the mineral component and the mechanical properties of different parts of the femur and jaws in 27 dogs; 12 of these dogs were exposed to a single acute total irradiation by a dose of 4.0 Gy. The development of osteoporosis and diminished firmness of the femoral spongy structures were revealed: no marked changes occurred in the cortical bone tissue due to the relative inertness of its metabolic structures. Signs of osteoporosis were found in the region of the frontal and masticatory teeth of the mandible. |
The invention relates to an arrangement of various axles in a grinding machine, which make it possible to precisely guide a grinding wheel. while at the same time sealing off the guide mechanism from the dirt and contamination formed during the operation of the device.
Grinding machines of the type described herein are used for grinding of, for example, slots, threads, exterior and interior diameters or front surfaces of workpieces.
In the conventional grinding machines, the grinding wheel is guided on a sliding carriage. This sliding carriage can be in the form of a saddle having a dove-tailed key and slot or a shaft slidably mounted in a mating bore. These guiding means have the drawback, that they may not be sufficiently tightly mounted to seal off the guiding means from the grinding dust or other contaminations that occur in grinding machines. Furthermore, these guiding means can only carry out the guiding in a predetermined direction. When it is necessary that the grinding disc be guided in more than one direction, then a plurality of guiding arrangements are required. The grinding dust and dirt that is produced penetrates into a guide path and prematurely reduces the precision of the guiding and thereby the operational precision of the grinding machine. |
A retired 70-something follows a dream around the planet. I'm traveling the world to study and experience the only thing that really makes me tick: rare and antique timepieces. I want this blog to become a forum for all clock enthusiasts, young and old, as well as a journal of my experiences.
Jun 14, 2011
And the same park today. This shot is taken from the top of the blue thing on the right:
Winter:
Today:
Winter:
Today:
And just as the harsh Russian winter inevitably turns to spring, I have shed my hideous Russian leather coat and become an American. This post, like the last, is just a photo collection. I'm home again, where life is pleasant but not worth blogging about. For example, recently I went to the T-Mobile store to buy a new charger, because it turns out my Russian phone won't work on their system. I'm disappointed, because it had a ton of features I liked, including "Fake Call," where you hold the phone to your ear and pretend to talk in order to avoid an unpleasant situation:
Life at home is much like I remembered it, and much unlike Russians imagine it. My car isn't registered so I have to take care of that; there's a family of red squirrels in the attic that we need to trap and remove. God bless America.
Or as this unknown Russian put it, USA FOR EVER NEW JERSEY WEST PATERSON.
A little research shows that West Paterson, NJ is now called Woodland Park, NJ, and is apparently Shangri-La to at least one resident of the Republic of Adyghea.
And so, even in this remote corner of the Russian Federation, American culture looms large. Here is Bruce Willis, vouching for his favorite Russian bank:
Russian advertising often comes off as a clumsy, unsubtle imitation of ours. Unless there's some nuance I'm missing, the caption reads "I'm cool. So is Trust Bank." It might as well say, "I'm famous. You're not. Do as I say."
~~~
Today's Russia is sometimes called a 'transition' economy - not quite capitalist, but a long way from socialist. This also manifests itself in advertising. They know how to sell, but they don't know how to compete:
"After a long day of rustling cattle, I unwind with the bold flavor of any brand of cigarettes."
~~~
As you've probably noticed, the ever-fashionable English language is everywhere in Russia, but usually in some distorted form. It's like a game of telephone, where American products travel to China and then to Russia before they reach me again. This shirt says "YOU GIVE YOUR LOVE TO LOVE TO CAPTURE THE THE DELAY." Two 'the's in a row. I translated it into Russian, but she kept telling me I must be translating it wrong:
This was my grading book for my students, bought at the school stationary store. It's part of an extensive 'metal' series, which celebrates seemingly random objects made from metal:
~~~
As I understand it, Russia imitates what it imagines the West to look like. This isn't just in advertising - at first glance, much of Russia observes the same rules and standards that we do. But like always, it comes out a bit funny. For instance, all grocery products have packing and expiration dates on them, they just aren't observed and don't mean anything. For instance, this yogurt expired the day it was packed:
Here's a tip for visitors: dates in Russia, like in Europe, go day/month/year, as opposed to the American month/day/year. This is especially important to remember when buying food. If a jar of spicy Uzbek peppers expired on 03/09/2007, an ignorant American might think it's been bad since March of that year, when really it only expired in September. Boy was I relieved.
~~~
A few times throughout this semester, we've followed the life of the little green man in the walk signal. I wanted to post his last two adventures, before the photographs lost all context. Here he is tempting fate, crossing a Russian street in a thick fog:
And this one is perhaps the most interesting of all. It's a relic from the winter of 1942, when Nazi forces briefly occupied Maikop. Our green glowing hero is permanently stuck in an emphatic fascist goose step:
For obvious reasons, this walk signal touches a lot of nerves in the city. Here is a rally of local Communists at Lenin Square on Victory Day, petitioning to have the green Nazi removed. The big banner reads "DO NOT CROSS, FASCIST OCCUPIERS!"
~~~
And so, another adventure in Russia is wrapped up, and with it my blog. I never made it to the beautiful national park outside the city, which remains my biggest regret from this trip. Otherwise, Russia was good to me, and it's only a matter of time until I return. For my part, I feel satisfied with my language progress, and all signs indicate that I did a fine job teaching. I'll leave you with these words of gratitude from one of my students:
Don't ask me about Russia when you see me; I have nothing further to say about it as of the end of this sentence. |
Montville Township, Geauga County, Ohio
Not to be confused with Montville Township, Geauga County, Ohio.
Montville Township is one of the sixteen townships of Geauga County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2010 census the population was 1,990,
Geography
Located in the northeastern part of the county, it borders the following townships:
Thompson Township - north
Trumbull Township, Ashtabula County - northeast corner
Hartsgrove Township, Ashtabula County - east
Windsor Township, Ashtabula County - southeast corner
Huntsburg Township - south
Claridon Township - southwest corner
Hambden Township - west
LeRoy Township, Lake County - northwest corner
No municipalities are located in Montville Township, although the unincorporated community of Montville lies at the center of the township.
The Cuyahoga River begins in Montville Township.
Name and history
Statewide, the only other Montville Township is located in Geauga County.
The township includes a house that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad. The house still stands on the southeast corner of the intersection of U.S. Route 6 and State Route 528.
Government
The township is governed by a three-member board of trustees, who are elected in November of odd-numbered years to a four-year term beginning on the following January 1. Two are elected in the year after the presidential election and one is elected in the year before it. There is also an elected township fiscal officer, who serves a four-year term beginning on April 1 of the year after the election, which is held in November of the year before the presidential election. Vacancies in the fiscal officership or on the board of trustees are filled by the remaining trustees.
Education
Montville Township formerly fell under the Ledgemont School District but was absorbed by the Berkshire School District in Burton.
References
External links
Montville Township official website
County website
Category:Townships in Geauga County, Ohio
Category:Populated places on the Underground Railroad
Category:Townships in Ohio |
Q:
Prove that every group of order $4$ is abelian as follows.
Can you please check my logic and maybe suggest some other strategies for the following problem:
Prove that every group of order $4$ is abelian as follows: Let $G$ be any group of order $ 4$, i.e., $|G| = 4$.
(1) Suppose there exists $a \\in G$ such that $o(a) = 4$. Prove that $G$ is abelian.
(2) Suppose that no element of $G$ has order 4. Prove that $\\forall x\\in G$, $x^2 = 1$.
(3) Suppose that no element of $G$ has order 4. Prove
that $G$ is abelian.
What I got so far:
(1) If there exists $a \\in G$ such that $o(a) = 4$,
Case 1: $a\\cdot a=b$. Then $a\\cdot a\\cdot a=c$ and $a\\cdot a\\cdot a\\cdot a=1$. Algebra... G is abelian.
Case 2: $a\\cdot a=c$... $G$ is abelian.
(2) Let $x\\in G$. If $o(x) \\neq 4$, we can clarify that an element cannot have an order greater than $4$ in a group of order $4$ and that the only element that has an order of $1$ is $1$. Therefore the other three elements must have an order of $2$, so $x^2=2$ for all $x \\in G$.
(3) No ideas yet :(
A:
Another strategy to 1)
If there exist some $a \\in G$ such that $O(a) = 4$ then $G = \\{e,a,a^{2},a^{3} \\}$
Thus $c,d \\in G \\implies c= a^{i}, d = a^{j} \\implies c\\cdot d = a^{i} \\cdot a^{j} = a^{i+j} = a^{j} \\cdot a^{i} = d\\cdot c$
3) Suppose there no exist $a \\in G$ such that $O(a) = 4$
Then if $a \\in G, a \\not= e \\implies O(a) = 2$
Let $a,b \\in G$ then $a \\cdot b \\in G \\implies (a\\cdot b)^{2} = e \\implies (a\\cdot b)(a\\cdot b) = e \\implies a\\cdot b \\cdot a \\cdot b = e $
Thus $a \\cdot (a\\cdot b \\cdot a \\cdot b) \\cdot b = a \\cdot e \\cdot b = a \\cdot b \\implies a^{2}\\cdot b \\cdot a \\cdot b^{2} = a\\cdot b \\implies e \\cdot b \\cdot a \\cdot e = a \\cdot b$
$ \\implies b \\cdot a = a \\cdot b $
Then $G$ is an abelian group.
|
Comparison of supervised and unsupervised exercise training after coronary bypass surgery.
Functional capacity and cardiovascular responses to serial graded treadmill testing ( GXT ) were compared in 180 patients who performed prescribed unsupervised exercise and 24 patients who were referred for supervised exercise after coronary artery bypass surgery (CABS). The groups were men similar in age range, number of bypass grafts, preoperative left ventricular impairment and number of days hospitalized. All patients received similar predischarge exercise monitoring and began a progressive home walking or cycling program. Initial GXT (T1) was performed 44 +/- 9 days postoperatively. Both groups were instructed to continue prescribed exercise at 75 to 85% maximal heart rate (HR) for 30 to 40 minutes 3 days (supervised) or 5 days ( unsupervised ) per week. The second GXT (T2) was performed 115 +/- 27 days after CABS. In each group there were significant (p less than 0.01) increases in exercise capacity and HR from T1 to T2. However, there were no significant differences in maximal exercise capacity and HR between groups at T1 or T2. Improvement in functional capacity was not influenced by therapeutic beta blockade. These findings indicate that prescribed unsupervised exercise can be performed safely and results in similar functional improvements compared with supervised exercise after uncomplicated CABS. |
Zlib in yo' browser.
|
Aparthotels in Amsterdam
Aparthotels Amsterdam is committed to delivering a high level of expertise, customer service, and attention to detail to it’s clients. We offer the best and unique selection of the finest Hotel Apartments in Amsterdam with 24/7 concierge service for all your comforts during your extended or short stay in Amsterdam. |
Q:
How can i make .put(float f ) take a Float[ ]?
elcipes is telling me that my vertBuff.put(vertices); --- This method .put(float f) in The Type FloatBuffer is not applicable for the arguments (Float[]). How do i fix this error?
heres the code that has the vertBuff.put()
`public class Object {
private float rgbaVals[] = { 1, 1, 0, .5f, .25f, 0, .85f, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1 };
private FloatBuffer colorBuff;
private FloatBuffer vertBuff;
public short[] pIndex = { 0, 1, 2 };// this is the array for the drawing
// order
private ShortBuffer pBuff;
public void Line(Float vertex, Short Index){
Float vertices = vertex;
Short pIndex = Index;
}
public Object(Float[] vertices) {
ByteBuffer bBuff = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(Float.SIZE * 4);
bBuff.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder());
vertBuff = bBuff.asFloatBuffer();
vertBuff.put(vertices); <--------------this is where the problem is at.
vertBuff.position(0);
ByteBuffer pbBuff = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(Short.SIZE * 2);
pbBuff.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder());
pBuff = pbBuff.asShortBuffer();
pBuff.put(pIndex);
pBuff.position(0);
ByteBuffer cBuff = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(rgbaVals.length * 4);
cBuff.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder());
colorBuff = cBuff.asFloatBuffer();
colorBuff.put(rgbaVals);
colorBuff.position(0);
}
public void draw(GL10 gl) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
gl.glFrontFace(GL10.GL_CW);
gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY);
gl.glVertexPointer(2, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, vertBuff);
gl.glColorPointer(4, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, colorBuff);
gl.glDrawElements(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, pIndex.length,
GL10.GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT, pBuff);
gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY);
gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
}
}`
Heres the MainActivity class
public class MainActivity extends Activity implements OnClickListener {
public ArrayList<Short> indexP = new ArrayList<Short>();
public ArrayList<Float> linep = new ArrayList<Float>();
public Float coords = (float) 0;
public short p = 0;
public int l = 0;
GLSurfaceView ourSurface;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.cad);
ourSurface = new GLSurfaceView(this);
FrameLayout v = (FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.display);
v.addView(ourSurface);
ourSurface.setRenderer(new GLRenderer());
Button line = (Button) findViewById(R.id.line);
final Button enter = (Button) findViewById(R.id.enter);
EditText cl = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.cl);
final String value = cl.getText().toString();
try {
coords = Float.parseFloat(value);
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
}
;
line.setOnClickListener(this);
enter.setOnClickListener(this);
}
public void onClick(View v) {
Short Index[];
Float vertex[];
TextView info = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.info);
switch (v.getId()) {
case R.id.line:
info.setText("Input X");
case R.id.enter:
switch (l) {
case (0):
linep.add(coords);
l++;
info.setText("Input Y");
break;
case (1):
linep.add(coords);
indexP.add(p);
l = 0;
p++;
vertex = linep.toArray(new Float[linep.size()]);
Index = indexP.toArray(new Short[indexP.size()]);
break;
}
}
}
public void Setvertex() {
}
@Override
protected void onPause() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onPause();
}
@Override
protected void onResume() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onResume();
}
}
A:
Float is not the same thing as float; the former is an autoboxing type - it's an Object that wraps a primitive so it can be passed as an Object and used as a Generic type.
Declaring / passing in your array as Float[] vertices means you have an array of Float objects. You can't use it as a float[] which is an array of the primitive float - autoboxing does not extend to an array object.
FloatBuffer has a method put(float[]). You need to be using float[] rather than Float[] for your vertices.
|
Macrophage-derived insulin-like growth factor-1 affects influenza vaccine efficacy through the regulation of immune cell homeostasis.
The level of antibody production induced by a vaccine involves a variety of host factors. One of these, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), plays an important role in lymphocyte maturation and antibody expression. Here, we investigated the role of macrophage-derived IGF-1 in the induction of influenza vaccine-specific antibodies using macrophage-derived IGF-1 gene knockout (MIKO) mice. The titers of vaccine-specific total immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgG1 after immunization were about two- to fourfold lower in MIKO mice than in WT mice. Moreover, MIKO mice showed a relatively weak booster effect of repeated immunization. In contrast, antigen-nonspecific total IgG was about threefold higher in MIKO mice than in WT mice. After viral challenge, the viral titer and the pathological damage in lungs of MIKO mice were higher than those in WT mice despite vaccination. Interestingly, the proportions of proinflammatory immune cells including M1 macrophages, Th1 and Th17 cells was higher in unvaccinated MIKO mice than in unvaccinated WT mice. This suggests that nonspecific activation of immune cells may paradoxically impair the response to the vaccine. In addition, although the proportions of T follicular helper (Tfh) cells and GL-7+ germinal center (GC) B cells were higher in MIKO mice than in WT mice, the population of CD138+B220+ antibody-secreting plasmablasts was lower in MIKO mice, which may be a cause of the low influenza-specific antibody titer in MIKO mice. Taken together, these results suggest that macrophage-derived IGF-1 might play an important role in the vaccine-triggered immune response by regulating immune cell homeostasis. |
Q:
why draggable elements aren't responding to snap options when snap object is being shown and hidden during draggable events?
Don't know if the title is clear enough, but I wanted to make a draggable element snap to a few guides that are hidden in the first place, when i start dragging the element, they are shown... but the element doesn't snap to them... it's like, it doesn't recognizes it around it.... why is it?
I Made this Fiddle
http://jsfiddle.net/cLs7mq4p/
Code is really simple
$(".block").draggable(
{
snap: ".guide",
snapTolerance: 10,
//grid: [10,10],
start: function(event, ui) {
$(".guide").show();
},
stop: function( event, ui) {
$(".guide").hide();
}
});
Where the HTML is like this;
<div class="h-line guide" style="top: 100px"></div>
<div class="h-line guide" style="top: 400px"></div>
<div class="v-line guide" style="left: 80px"></div>
<div class="v-line guide" style="left: 400px"></div>
<div class="block"></div>
A:
I got helped by Jquery UI since it was a bug and this feature was never asked by any other person before... so this is an alternative to make it work :)
By using the on mousedown event.
$(".block").draggable({
snap: ".guide",
snapTolerance: 10,
stop: function( event, ui) {
$(".h-line").css("display", "none");
}
}).on( "mousedown", function() {
$(".h-line").css("display", "block");
});
Here's the fixed JSFiddle by jQUery UI Support and the comment they made:
Hi msqar, Thanks for taking the time to contribute to jQuery UI You
can get the behavior you're looking for by using a mousedown listener
so that the showing/hiding occurs before draggable's snap logic runs:
http://jsfiddle.net/tj_vantoll/cLs7mq4p/2/. This isn't something we
intend to add support for in the library as the snap option is not
being preserved in the draggable widget rewrite. Also this behavioris
something no one has asked for before.
Hope it works for other people too :)
|
Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia in renal transplant recipients occurring after discontinuation of prophylaxis: a case–control study.
A case-control study was conducted to identify risk factors for Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP) in renal transplant recipients. Eleven cases of PCP were matched with 22 controls. Cases occurred a median of 18 months after transplantation, and none of the recipients was receiving prophylaxis. Univariate analysis showed that graft rejection, duration of steroid use, use of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors and lymphocytopenia at the time of prophylaxis discontinuation were risk factors for PCP. In the multivariate model, only graft rejection (OR 8.66, p 0.017) remained significantly associated with PCP. In patients with a history of graft rejection, PCP prophylaxis should be maintained, especially among those with lymphocytopenia. |
The greatest mystery of our time is the truth behind Bob Costas' pink eye that became the biggest media story of the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Did Bob splash some tainted Sochi water in his face? Did he touch a doorknob and rub nasty germs in his eyes? Some experts claimed it was a virus that was very similar to the common cold.
None of those are juicy, interesting gossip. A botched Botox procedure being the root cause certainly is, though.
The New York Post and the infamous Page Six has a source that told the paper it was a Botox injection gone wrong that caused the most famous case of pink eye in world history. Of course, NBC vehemently denied the report..
NBC’s prime-time Olympics host, who had to take a six-day absence after coming down with viral conjunctivitis in both eyes, contracted the infection after a Botox procedure to smooth out wrinkles prior to the Olympics. Our source said, “Bob’s eye infection was due to botched Botox. This isn’t the first time he’s had it.”
NBC strongly denies that Costas — who arrived to host the games in Sochi with a forehead smoother than the Olympic luge track — developed the infection from a Botox procedure.
A spokesperson from NBC Sports insisted to us, “This has zero truth to this. Zero.”
Well, if it is Botox, we know one of the secrets to Costas' anti-aging formula. I don't think Costas, NBC, or the team of highly paid doctors who treated him are revealing what really happened any time soon. But it sure is fun to wonder and speculate.
My guess? Costas had his drink spiked by Vladimir Putin to have his eyes turn the color of watermelons and show American weakness on the world stage. |
When asked how he found Bat Boy, he answered, “A package arrived at my agent’s office for me, with the return address merely reading ‘CAVE’. I opened it up to find a CD case caked in bat guano. I mean, how avant garde is this kid?! The CD was just 80 minutes of shrieking and squealing. Real early Yoko Ono stuff. I had to have him.”
In regards to recent exploitation accusations, the band’s manager clarified that per Bat Boy’s request, he will be paid in jars of mosquitoes and sleep in the recording studio’s basement. |
Erica Sadun has the scoop on the first developers accepted by Apple into the iPhone SDK program:
Five iPhone limit. For anyone hoping to find a back door way to distribute software, tough luck. You may develop for up to five iPhones and that’s it. So no distribution sans Apple.
Test devices are iBricks — so to speak. Adding the pre-release iPhone OS to your iPhone seems to kill actual phone functionality. Update: We have unconfirmed reports that some developer phones continue to work as expected; as soon as we can clarify this we will.
A small handful of developers have told me they got golden tickets yesterday or today, too. |
Copper belt mines now being hit with power cuts
Zambia's Copperbelt Energy Corp. , which supplies power to the country's copper and cobalt mines, has cut back supply following disruptions in electricity imports, a senior CEC official said on Wednesday. |
Quantitation of a novel metalloporphyrin drug in plasma by atomic absorption spectroscopy.
A bioanalytical method to quantify cobalt mesoporphyrin (CoMP), a novel therapeutic agent, in plasma has been developed and validated. The approach involves atomic absorption spectroscopy to determine total cobalt in a sample and a back-calculation of the amount of compound present. Endogenous plasma cobalt concentrations were small ( <0.2 ng/ml(-1) Co in rat plasma) in comparison to the quantitation limit (4.5 ng/ml(-1) Co). The inter-day imprecision of the method was 10.0% relative standard deviation (RSD) and the inter-day bias was +/- 8.0% relative error (RE) over a standard curve range of 4.5- 45.0 ng/ml(-1) Co. Because it quantifies total cobalt, the method cannot differentiate between parent drug and metabolites, but negligible metabolism allows reliable estimates of the actual parent drug concentration. A correlation study between the atomic absorption method and 14C-radiometry demonstrated excellent agreement (r = 0.9868, slope = 1.041 +/- 0.028, intercept = 223.7 +/- 190.0) and further substantiated the accuracy of the methods. Methodology was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of CoMP in rat, with pharmacokinetic parameter estimation. The elimination half-lives, after intra-muscular and subcutaneous administration, were 7.7 and 8.8 days, respectively. |
Q:
Sum of values in list of dictionaries
I want to get the sum values for each key in all dictionaries of a list, and if a key is not present in one of the dictionaries, then its value is considered 0.
Suppose I have two dictionaries as such:
d1 = {'a' : 2, 'b' : 1, 'c' : 1}
d2 = {'a' : 3, 'b' : 1.1, 'd' : 2}
mylist = [d1, d2]
and I would like to define a sum function such that
>>> sum(mylist)
{'a' : 5, 'b' : 2.1, 'c' : 1, 'd' : 2}
If I only have two dictionaries, I can do
>>> for key, value in d2.items():
... try:
... d1[key] -= value
... except KeyError: #if the key isn't in d1
... d1[key] = -value
>>> d1
{'a' : 5, 'b' : 2.1, 'c' : 1, 'd' : 2}
But this is not extendable to an arbitrary number of dictionaries.
I also tried
>>> {k: sum(e[k] for e in mylist) for k in mylist[0]}
{'a' : 5, 'b' : 2.1, 'c' : 1}
But this doesn't give me the sum for elements that aren't in the first list (I'm missing the sum for 'd' in my example).
I could create a dictionary with all of the possible keys and add it to the front of my list
>>> d0 = {'a' : 0, 'b' : 0, 'c' : 0, 'd' : 0}
>>> newlist = [d0, d1, d2]
>>> {k: sum(e[k] for e in newlist) for k in newlist[0]}
{'a' : 5, 'b' : 2.1, 'c' : 1, 'd' : 2}
But creating d0 will be tedious.
I could also use Counter from collections
>>> counterlist = [Counter(d) for d in mylist]
>>> result = Counter()
>>> for c in counterlist:
... result.update(c)
>>> dict(result)
But I'm not too happy about switching back and forth to Counter.
Or, I could implement an 'update-like' function
>>> def add(e, f):
... for key, value in f.items():
... try:
... e[key] -= value
... except KeyError:
... e[key] = -value
>>> result = dict()
>>> for d in mylist:
... add(result, d)
>>> result
{'a' : 5, 'b' : 2.1, 'c' : 1, 'd' : 2}
But this makes me feel like I'm reinventing the wheel.
Is there a more pythonic way of doing this?
A:
First get all keys and set up a new dictionary from your list of dictionaries:
d1 = {'a' : 2, 'b' : 1, 'c' : 1}
d2 = {'a' : 3, 'b' : 1.1, 'd' : 2}
mylist = [d1, d2]
sum_dict = dict.fromkeys(set().union(*mylist), 0)
After that that is simple to just iterate over the list of dictionaries and the keys:
for d in mylist:
for k in d.keys():
sum_dict[k] += d[k]
|
Q:
Starting a thread as the last statement of the constructor of a final class
I understand that in general it is a bad idea to start a new thread in a constructor because it could let this escape before it is fully constructed. For example:
public final class Test {
private final int value;
public Test(int value) throws InterruptedException {
start();
this.value = value;
}
private void start() throws InterruptedException {
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
new Thread(new Runnable() {
@Override
public void run() {
System.out.println("Construction OK = " + Boolean.toString(Test.this.value == 5));
}
}).start();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
Test test = new Test(5);
}
}
This prints (obviously not the same every run):
Construction OK = false
Construction OK = false
Construction OK = false
Construction OK = false
Construction OK = false
Construction OK = false
Construction OK = false
Construction OK = true
Construction OK = true
Construction OK = true
Now IF the start method is the last statement of the constructor AND reordering is prevented by using a synchronized block around the final value initialisation, is there still a risk associated with starting threads from the constructor?
public Test(int value) throws InterruptedException {
synchronized (new Object()) { // to prevent reordering + no deadlock risk
this.value = value;
}
start();
}
EDIT
I don't think this has been asked before in the sense that the question is more specific than just "Can I start threads in a constructor": the threads are started in the last statement of the constructor which means the object construction is finished (as far as I understand it).
A:
Yes there is, because Test could be subclassed and then start() will be executed before the instance is created. The subclasses constructor may have something more to do.
So the class should be final at least.
A:
In this particular case I would consider marking value as volatile (or use AtomicBoolean) and start the threads after the value is set:
this.value = value; // this.value.set(value) if using AtomicBoolean
start();
If going for this slightly dodgy solution, I would make the class final as well, to avoid the problem described by Andreas_D.
Regarding your edit:
[...] which means the object construction is finished (as far as I understand it).
That's right, but consider the following scenario:
Your test-threads are slightly more complex, and accesses a list testList of tests. Now if you do
testList.add(new Test());
the thread started in the constructor may not find the associated test in the list, because it has not yet been added. This is avoided by instead doing
Test t = new Test();
testList.add(t);
t.start();
Related question:
calling thread.start() within its own constructor
|
<?php
namespace App\\Http;
use Illuminate\\Foundation\\Http\\Kernel as HttpKernel;
class Kernel extends HttpKernel
{
/**
* The application's global HTTP middleware stack.
*
* These middleware are run during every request to your application.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $middleware = [
\\Illuminate\\Foundation\\Http\\Middleware\\CheckForMaintenanceMode::class,
\\Illuminate\\Foundation\\Http\\Middleware\\ValidatePostSize::class,
\\App\\Http\\Middleware\\TrimStrings::class,
\\Illuminate\\Foundation\\Http\\Middleware\\ConvertEmptyStringsToNull::class,
\\App\\Http\\Middleware\\TrustProxies::class,
\\Barryvdh\\Cors\\HandleCors::class,
];
/**
* The application's route middleware groups.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $middlewareGroups = [
'web' => [
\\App\\Http\\Middleware\\EncryptCookies::class,
\\Illuminate\\Cookie\\Middleware\\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse::class,
\\Illuminate\\Session\\Middleware\\StartSession::class,
// \\Illuminate\\Session\\Middleware\\AuthenticateSession::class,
\\Illuminate\\View\\Middleware\\ShareErrorsFromSession::class,
\\App\\Http\\Middleware\\VerifyCsrfToken::class,
\\Illuminate\\Routing\\Middleware\\SubstituteBindings::class,
],
'api' => [
'throttle:60,1',
'bindings',
'auth:api',
],
];
/**
* The application's route middleware.
*
* These middleware may be assigned to groups or used individually.
*
* @var array
*/
protected $routeMiddleware = [
'auth' => \\Illuminate\\Auth\\Middleware\\Authenticate::class,
'auth.basic' => \\Illuminate\\Auth\\Middleware\\AuthenticateWithBasicAuth::class,
'bindings' => \\Illuminate\\Routing\\Middleware\\SubstituteBindings::class,
'can' => \\Illuminate\\Auth\\Middleware\\Authorize::class,
'guest' => \\App\\Http\\Middleware\\RedirectIfAuthenticated::class,
'throttle' => \\Illuminate\\Routing\\Middleware\\ThrottleRequests::class,
];
}
|
Q:
Promise all finishing early when dynamically adding to promises array
This code works as expected:
services.map(async svc => {
promises.push(new Promise(async (resolve) => {
html += `<h2>${svc}</h2>`;
let journeyDetails = await admin.database().ref(`data`).once('value');
resolve();
}));
});
await Promise.all(promises).then(() => {
return res.send(html);
})
Why does the code below not work? In my eyes it's the same, but the execution order is now incorrect.
Promise.all([
services.map(async svc => {
new Promise(async (resolve) => {
html += `<h2>${svc}</h2>`;
let journeyDetails = await admin.database().ref(`data`).once('value');
resolve();
})
})
]).then(() => {
// done - called before finished in this version
}).catch(() => {
// err
});
A:
I believe the primary reason that your code doesn't work is that you are passing an array of arrays ([services.map(...)]) to Promise.all, not an array of promises.
However, the code is unnecessarily complex. There is no need to create a promise inside an async function, async functions always return a promise. It should just be:
Promise.all( // <- note the removed [...]
services.map(async svc => {
html += `<h2>${svc}</h2>`;
let journeyDetails = await admin.database().ref(`data`).once('value');
// more code here
})
)
|
A care package can mean a lot to a soldier who is deployed or posted far from home, and Just Our Solders Helpers ( J.O.S.H.) has invited Longwood residents to participate in a fundraiser to help it in preparing some of these boxes.
Hydroponics is a soil-free method of growing plants for food or other reasons, and a Longwood workshop will equip those who participate with skills they need to use this method to grow lettuces for themselves.
Hydroponics is a soil-free method of growing plants for food or other reasons, and a Longwood workshop will equip those who participate with skills they need to use this method to grow lettuces for themselves. |
The osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis.
To describe the practice of and recent developments in the osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis. Formal psychological assessment and support have been described. A sub-aqua system for fashioning the osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis lamina; adoption of thicker laminae; use of bisphosphonate drugs; advances in laminar imaging; and use of bone augmentation and bone morphogenetic protein have been described for prevention, detection, and management of laminar resorption. Two systems of optical cylinders available commercially. A stepladder approach to buccal mucous membrane overgrowth onto the optical cylinder has been described, including use of mitomycin-C. Orbital decompression has been used for cosmetic improvement. Detection of glaucoma may be aided by an intraocular pressure sensor, whereas surgical treatment is mainly by way of glaucoma drainage devices, as endolaser ciliary ablation and recti muscle disinsertion and reinsertion not having prolonged and significant long-term beneficial effect. Sublingual timolol has been described. The use of endoscopy has been proposed for preoperative evaluation of the posterior segment, ciliary ablation and for vitreoretinal surgery although wide-angle viewing systems remains standard practice. The osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis is the procedure of choice for rehabilitation of corneal blindness for end-stage ocular surface disease, serving a completely different patient group to the Boston Type 1 KPro. |
Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display panels have been widely used in flat surface illumination applications such as certain design lamps and warning lights. The lighting films of flat surface illumination applications often have squared shapes, rectangular shapes, or circular shapes. Currently, to improve the yield of lighting surface used in such illumination applications, the illuminating region of a lighting surface is often divided into a plurality of small sub-regions. The dividing process is referred as a pixelating process. A pixelated lighting surface is less susceptible to short circuit issues and failure of the entire illuminating region caused by a single impurity.
After the lighting surface of the flat surface illumination applications is pixelated, dynamic voltage drop or voltage drop often occurs on the positive electrode and the negative electrode. The lighting of the lighting surface can be less uniformed. To improve the uniformity of the lighting, positive electrodes and negative electrodes are often alternatingly arranged in a circuit. For example, positive electrodes and negative electrodes may be arranged at the four corners of a lighting surface to reduce the impact of voltage drops. However, in such an arrangement, it may be more difficult to connect the positive electrodes and the negative electrodes to power supply. |
Warriors 115, Bobcats 100
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP)
David Lee had another big game in what Golden State coach Mark
Jackson believes is already an All-Star worthy season for the
Warriors veteran forward.
Lee was impressed the way his teammates bounced back from a
disappointing loss two nights earlier.
On a night when Stephen Curry set a career high with eight
3-pointers, Lee put together one of his best all-around
performances of the season with 23 points, 11 rebounds and a
career-high 11 assists to help the Warriors extend the Charlotte
Bobcats' losing streak to 14 games with a 115-100 victory on Friday
night.
It's the 11th consecutive game in which Lee has had 20 points or
more and his 11th with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, tops in
the NBA.
''You can pencil in 20 and 10, and then sprinkle in some other
stuff around the tree,'' Jackson said of Lee. ''He's been that good
all year long. Stef was again spectacular. Those are my leaders and
they are doing a great job of setting the tone.''
Lee did that with his third career triple-double - second with
the Warriors while Curry became the first player in franchise
history to make seven or more 3s in consecutive games. Golden
State's guard finished with 27 points.
That combo was enough to offset a solid night from Charlotte's
tandem of Gerald Henderson and Kemba Walker, who combined for 39
points.
It also got Jackson to talking about the All-Star game. Before
and after the game, Golden State's coach said both Lee and Curry
deserved consideration, though Lee isn't quite ready to get into
that discussion just yet.
''The biggest argument for me on that is we just have to keep
winning games,'' said Lee, who went 11 of 16 from the floor.
''That's the way I'm going to get to Houston or Stef's going to get
to Houston, is we just keep winning. A lot of that becomes
political and we can't do a whole lot about that, but winning games
makes our best case.''
Henderson had a season-high 23 points for the Bobcats while
Walker had 16 points and six assists.
''I thought we just kind of went cold,'' said Walker, who went 6
for 17 from the floor. ''Those guys, they just made the right plays
on offense and did a great job of moving the basketball and really
getting us out of position.''
Klay Thompson added 20 points while Carl Landry and Draymond
Green had 11 apiece for the Warriors, who have won eight of 10.
Golden State led by double digits the entire second half and
never trailed following a 14-3 run late in the first quarter.
The Bobcats, who haven't won since Nov. 4, had five players in
double figures but lost to the Warriors for the second time in 11
days despite committing only seven turnovers.
The way Golden State was shooting it didn't matter.
The Warriors (18-9) shot 51.9 percent from the floor and made a
season-high 14 3-pointers after getting 13 in Wednesday's loss to
Sacramento.
Curry, who had seven 3s against the Kings, led the perimeter
attack while Thompson went 4 for 8 from beyond the arc. That helped
Golden State complete its first season sweep of Charlotte since
2004-05, the Bobcats' first year in the league.
Charlotte, making its third stop on a four-game road trip, made
one brief run after falling behind 39-25 early in the second
quarter but didn't do much else.
Walker, who went to the bench briefly in the first quarter after
running hard into a screen attempt by Golden State center Andris
Biedrins, scored five points as part of an 11-0 run then made his
fourth 3-pointer of the first half to pull the Bobcats within
44-43.
That was as close as they could get.
''We played hard but when you get down to execution ... there's
a two-point disparity and the next thing you know it's eight,''
Charlotte coach Mike Dunlap said. ''(Lee and Curry) have presence.
They're going to have presence all year long, and we're not the
only ones that are going to struggle defending them.''
Curry, coming off a 32-point night in the Warriors' 131-127 loss
to Sacramento on Wednesday, made a pair of 3s over the final 3:40
and had 15 points before halftime to help Golden State pull
away.
Notes: Golden State committed seven turnovers in the first
quarter but only four over the final three. ... Charlotte fell to
2-12 against the Western Conference. ... The Bobcats played without
guard Ben Gordon, who sat out with soreness in his right knee. ...
New York Yankees ace and Bay Area native CC Sabathia was among
those in attendance.
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Bactericidal activity of amphipathic cationic antimicrobial peptides involves altering the membrane fluidity when interacting with the phospholipid bilayer.
Amphipathic cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) TC19 and TC84, derived from the major AMPs of human blood platelets, thrombocidins, and Bactericidal Peptide 2 (BP2), a synthetic designer peptide showed to perturb the membrane of Bacillus subtilis. We aimed to determine the means by which the three AMPs cause membrane perturbation in vivo using B. subtilis and to evaluate whether the membrane alterations are dependent on the phospholipid composition of the membrane. Physiological analysis was employed using Alexa Fluor 488 labelled TC84, various fluorescence dyes, fluorescent microscopy techniques and structured illumination microscopy. TC19, TC84 and BP2 created extensive fluidity domains in the membrane that are permeable, thus facilitating the entering of the peptides and the leakage of the cytosol. The direct interaction of the peptides with the bilayer create the fluid domains. The changes caused in the packing of the phospholipids lead to the delocalization of membrane bound proteins, thus contributing to the cell's destruction. The changes made to the membrane appeared to be not dependent on the composition of the phospholipid bilayer. The distortion caused to the fluidity of the membrane by the AMPs is sufficient to facilitate the entering of the peptides and leakage of the cytosol. Here we show in vivo that cationic AMPs cause "membrane leaks" at the site of membrane insertion by altering the organization and fluidity of the membrane. Our findings thus contribute to the understanding of the membrane perturbation characteristic of cationic AMPs. |
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Arslan Khalimbekov
Arslan Sharaputdinovich Khalimbekov (; born 21 August 1967) is a Russian football manager and a former player. He is an assistant coach with FC Ufa.
Personal life
His son Rustam Khalimbekov is a professional football player.
External links
Category:1967 births
Category:Footballers from Makhachkala
Category:Living people
Category:Soviet footballers
Category:Russian footballers
Category:FC Anzhi Makhachkala players
Category:Russian football managers
Category:Association football midfielders |
Model # QF-6814
Internet #205559350
Fangio Lighting
57 in. Mission Bronze Metal Floor Lamp with Wood Tray
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Mr. Lamp and shade's #QF-6814 57 in. floor lamp infuses a touch of elegance into any room with its Mission Bronze finish. This lamp is sure to compliment any decor by meeting the expectations of style and functionality together. Topped with a designer Cream empire linen hardback shade and easy to use 3-Way switch makes this an instant favorite. This item is UL Approved.
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The amount of data available for making business and personal decisions has grown rapidly as networking and other communications media have enabled access to large stores of information. To make use of this information, a class of workers, called “information workers” has developed. Information workers are tasked with developing analysis techniques that can be applied to data so that the data can be presented in a way that supports informed decision making.
In some instances, information workers use documents to capture information and knowledge about analysis of that data. Such documents may be of different types. For example, a word processing document may be primarily organized according to paragraphs or sections. Though, a word processing document may include objects, such as tables. In contrast, a spreadsheet document may be organized as a table with rows and columns of cells. Each cell may contain text or numbers. In some instances, cells contain formulas that can compute a value based on values in other cells or other spreadsheets.
These documents can incorporate “visualizations.” A visualization may be a graphical object linked to a data set. Values in the data set may control the appearance of visual characteristics of the graphical object when it is rendered on a graphical user interface. Charts are one example of visualizations. For example, the EXCEL spreadsheet program allows a chart to be linked to data in cells of the spreadsheet such that the data is displayed graphically as an embedded object in the spreadsheet.
In some instances, the visualization may be interactive. The visualization may include a control that a user may manipulate to change some aspect of a data set associated with the interactive visualization. A slider is one example of an interactive visualization. The slider may be positioned based on a value in the data set. By interacting through the graphical user interface with the slider, the user may specify a new value for that value in the data set.
Regardless of the specific format of the document, once created, it may be distributed to others who may use it for analyzing data and making decisions. For example, an information worker may create a spreadsheet that captures knowledge about running a department in a large company. The spreadsheet may be distributed to managers of various departments, who may then enter data into cells of the spreadsheet. Each manager may then gain insights related to their department by viewing graphs that have been incorporated into the spreadsheet by the information worker. As one example, managers may view a chart showing profitability of their departments. |
That is so cute, what a great idea! I have tile and grout... my 5 yr old ( when she was 4) used to use "bath time finger paints", but it did stain the grout. I compained one day, so she decided that from then on she would scrub the grout for me afterwards.
Hmmm, maybe I should have let her paint the whole shower area?
I had a friend who liked to set her toddler up on nice days outside with paper and pudding, and let her kid finger paint with it. Then she'd strip him down and let him run through the sprinkler. :D
I think I have rainbow-colored grout in my future -- I'm never smart/patient enough to test the paint first before letting the little ones at it.
I have some bathtub paints that I haven't pulled out becuase I fear the carnage. The problem is that I'm quite sure the twins won't manage to contain themself and the paint in the tub -- the whole bathroom will end up with a bit of extra color, and perhaps some other rooms as well.
That was one of the presents I gave the kids this year, from Baby Einsteins. It's a combo soap and paint, so it washes right off! I'll have to remember about the diaper for the baby when she gets a little older, just put her in the tub and let her get creative!!Thanks for the tip! |
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|
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<doc>
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<name>Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform</name>
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<member name="T:Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.CSharpCodeProvider">
<summary>
Provides access to instances of the .NET Compiler Platform C# code generator and code compiler.
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<member name="M:Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.CSharpCodeProvider.#ctor">
<summary>
Default Constructor
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<summary>
Gets an instance of the .NET Compiler Platform C# code compiler.
</summary>
<returns>An instance of the .NET Compiler Platform C# code compiler</returns>
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<summary>
Provides access to instances of the .NET Compiler Platform VB code generator and code compiler.
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Default Constructor
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Gets an instance of the .NET Compiler Platform VB code compiler.
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<returns>An instance of the .NET Compiler Platform VB code compiler</returns>
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|
Ask HN: How do you read programming books? - pvsukale3
How do you read a programming book? By programming books, I mean books which teach a language/framework/tool.<p>Do you read it in one go and later try examples or go through entire book by trying all examples?<p>Do you read the entire book or just the part to get the job done?<p>What methods/techniques have you found useful while reading such books?
======
oceanghost
I'm going to give away the secret of autodidactic learning here. I developed
this technique in college. Although there was no such thing as YouTube back
then, iTunes etc.
I get at least two, preferably three data sources on the same subject. Read
them all in Parallel and take notes. Getting multiple perspectives is
critical.
What works for me is two well-made textbooks and a Youtube series, iTunes
university, etc course.
““In almost all textbooks, even the best, this principle is presented so that
it is impossible to understand.” (K. Jacobi, Lectures on Dynamics, 1842-1843).
I have not chosen to break with tradition.”
–V. I. Arnold, Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics [5], footnote, p.
246
~~~
aj7
Exactly how I aced high school. And got into MIT. Much less useful to me in
college. Even less useful now. I must have 100 programming books in Google
drive.
The only way to learn something (and certainly programming) at a high level is
to force yourself to write down a well- defined, closed-end problem, and then
sit down and solve the motherf_____r. You learn what you need to learn, build,
and invent along the way, and that survives longer than the original problem.
~~~
scoggs
Right. I think learning this way forces yourself to solve the problem by
teaching the discipline to yourself. It's always said that you don't truly
understand something until you are able to teach it to another so in that
sense you a sort of "tricking" yourself into teaching it to yourself as you
learn it. It's a round about way of thinking / doing things but those mental
gymnastics feel necessary to me to absorb such unnatural and abstract (to me)
topics.
------
jasode
1) Make sure you're reading a quality book. Sturgeon's Law[1] is true -- 90%
of everything is crap including programming books. Check amazon reviews, forum
recommendations for consensus of quality books. (E.g. many of OReilly "Head
First" series of books have cute cartoons but they actually don't have quality
content.)
2) Most programming authors do not write about _tradeoffs_. They write about
language syntax or library features and end up being (inadvertent)
evangelists. All languages have warts and problems that books don't talk
about. To supplement book reading with a dose of real-world realities, always
corroborate with forum discussions, stackoverflow, etc.
3) Instead of reading 1 book, go through 2 in parallel from different authors.
E.g. read about monads chapter in 1 book and find the same topic in another
book. Different authors explain concepts in different ways which can help
reinforce the learning
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law)
~~~
andrewstellman
Head First book author here -- I wrote Head First C#, Head First PMP, and Head
First Agile (and three other, non-Head First O'Reilly books) -- and I wanted
to push back on your first point. We work really, really hard to include
quality content. But I understand why people sometimes make the point that you
made; I did the same thing myself at first.
It's easy to dismiss one of our Head First books as less-than-serious if
you're not used to the format. There are a lot of pictures. There's a LOT of
whitespace. There's redundancy; we'll say the same thing more than once. And
most of all, when we do our job right they're not boring -- which, to many
people, reads as non-serious. But we find that when people approach Head First
books with an open mind, they find that it's actually a really effective way
to get a lot of information into your brain quickly and easily.
We also know that while a lot of people love the informal and highly visual
format, some people just can't stand it. There are some people who just want a
dense, concise, terse book that they can absorb all at once. Readers like that
just won't like Head First books. That's why every Head First book starts with
an introduction that says who the book is for and who it's not for.
Coincidentally, my coauthor, Jenny Greene, and I just did an interview on Dave
Prior's "Drunken PM" podcast, and the first question he asks us is about this
"Who this book isn't for" section: [https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-
post/34188/Head-First...](https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-
post/34188/Head-First-Agile-with-Andrew-Stellman-and-Jenny-Greene)
Short, shameful confession: I had a similar reaction to yours when I first saw
Head First Design Patterns; I dismissed it out of hand, ostensibly because
there were some less-common design patterns from GoF that it didn't cover, but
really because I just didn't "get" the format. A year later, when our editor
at O'Reilly floated the idea of writing Head First PMP, I went back to it and
_really_ read it, this time with a much more open mind (for example, I
actually _did_ all of the code exercises instead of just reading them). I
realized why I'd made my earlier mistake in dismissing the book -- and gained
a lot of respect for how much work Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Robson, Kathy
Sierra, and Burt Bates had put into it. They were really careful about what
they chose to cover, and covered those topics really thoroughly. They give you
several different chances to "get" each concept, showing it to you from
different angles so that you really absorb the full context. They put a lot of
care into managing the pace of the book so it's a steady stream of learning
and not a flood. They repeated things that needed repeating. And it all works.
Really, really well.
I thought I'd understood design patterns pretty well before I _really_ read
Head First Design Patterns. afterwards, I was actually better at using them in
code in real life. When I'm not writing books or training teams, I'm writing
code both professionally with teams and as outside of work. The incredible
quality of the content in their book helped me understand design patterns
better.
Jenny and I strive to bring the same care to our Head First books. I think
we've done a pretty good job of including quality content that's worth our
readers' time; I hope they agree.
~~~
jasode
_> There are a lot of pictures. [...] highly visual format, _
Thank you for your response. To clarify, I'm not an elitist that rejects
cartoons and informal style. For example, I think the _" Calculus for
Dummies"_[1] with the cartoons is a good math book.
I'm also not really not talking about the visual "clutter" that others
complain about either.
Cartoons are fine but I prefer that the drawings/illustrations really _impart
knowledge or insight_ rather than "decorate" a book's page like wallpaper.
For example, I looked at "Head First Networking"[2]. Using Amazon's _" Look
inside"_ feature to browse some pages:
\\- page 1: the clipart of the man and woman and the thought bubbles do not
reward the user with quality knowledge in relation to the space they take up
\\- page 19: the clipart of the tourist with the arrows and thought bubble does
not actually teach a networking concept
My point is: just _because_ a book has cartoons & unserious style doesn't mean
it has good presentation of teaching. It might be a suboptimal book that just
happened to use cartoons.
Another way to put it: Comics can be a very powerful way to illustrate
concepts but their power is _underutilized_ in the Head First books. The
cartoons are often "jokes" instead of teaching.
_> which, to many people, reads as non-serious_
Similar to cartoons, I have similar complaints about "conversational style"
that many authors think helps with pedagogy but it really doesn't. (You can
explain things terribly while using a conversational tone, and likewise,
explain things clearly with a serious tone.) I'll save that criticism of that
for another essay.
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Dummies-Lifestyle-Mark-
Ryan/...](https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Dummies-Lifestyle-Mark-
Ryan/dp/1119293499/)
[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Networking-Brain-
Friendly-...](https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Networking-Brain-Friendly-
Guide/dp/0596521553/)
~~~
BeetleB
>Similar to cartoons, I have similar complaints about "conversational style"
that many authors think helps with pedagogy but it really doesn't. (You can
explain things terribly while using a conversational tone, and likewise,
explain things clearly without a serious tone.) I'll save that criticism of
that for another essay.
If "you can explain things terribly while using a conversational tone, and
likewise, explain things clearly without a serious tone", then does it not
suggest the tone is not a good signal for quality?
David Griffith's Intro to EM book is written in conversational style. And is
by far the best book I've seen on introductory EM (and I've read a bunch).
~~~
jasode
_> , then does it not suggest the tone is not a good signal for quality?_
You highlighted my spelling mistake and I updated the post to correct it. My
examples were meant to be opposites.
There are many bad books out there with a conversational style. There are good
ones too. The problem is that readers are mislead by the easy-going tone of
the first few pages and therefore lulled into thinking it's a quality book
_because_ of its chattiness and informality.
Likewise, many authors writing in a conversational style think they wrote an
easy-to-understand book _because it 's conversational._ That cause & effect
isn't true. One can write a beginner book that has clear teaching with or
without a conversational style.
------
jonstewart
There are two kinds of programming books. Some are technical references
covering a specific technology (usually a tool, library, or framework); I
generally find these to have a short shelf-life and to be lower in quality.
New versions of software can quickly result in their obsolescence, and
sometimes the examples and precise details are not accurate even when
published. However, I have found such books to be _essential_ when learning an
emerging technology, where maybe there's API documentation but very little (or
very poorly written) conceptual/overview documentation. Often the book's
author is elbows-deep in the implementation of the technology and can explain
some of the essential concepts. I typically buy these kinds of references only
when I know I need to come up to speed on something, often a new fresh open
source hell with its own jargon (looking at you, Angular), and then I make a
dedicated attempt to power through the book and the examples. You can go broke
if you buy this sort of book and don't put in the effort for an immediate
return; also, you can skip whole chapters that aren't applicable to your
situation.
The second kind of programming book covers a broader topic and/or more mature
technology. They can vary from an academic orientation to almost a sly anti-
intellectual style (e.g., the Camel Book). Here you learn core concepts that
will be more-or-less evergreen. These are books you will want to read cover to
cover and then return to again and again, for years in the future. These books
vary in their tone, some serious, some silly, but they all should be fun to
read due to the clarity of their prose and presentation of essential concepts.
The ultimate example is TAOCP.
~~~
Ace17
Spot on ; we might need a name for this second category of books ("technology-
agnostic"?).
These are the books I want to search for in a bookstore ... without getting
polluted by the unlimited variations of "Teach Yourself
<SomeShortLivedTechnology> in 7 days" or "Learn <SomeUsefulTechnique> with
<SomeBloatedFramework>".
~~~
jonstewart
Well, I'm not sure I'd say "technology agnostic". I would include Programming
Perl or Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language in the second category.
Parts of both are now dated, the accidental noise of APIs and so on, but the
essential concepts are explained so fundamentally that you'd have no problem
adapting to current APIs.
Sometimes, though, you just really need help coming up to speed on a bunch of
accidental syntax and incantations to get the job done.
------
MilnerRoute
I've heard studying "sinks in" when you're recalling what you learned earlier.
So I spread out the reading of the book, trying to remember the next day what
I'd read the previous day (before checking in the book to see how well I've
remembered it).
I've also heard people say that you have to learn by doing. So I try to play
around with whatever I've learned from the book. Doing the examples is good,
but dreaming up your own fun variations can be even better.
Someone once suggested that re-typing the examples is actually really helpful
too. Your whole brain is engaged -- fingers moving, keypads being chosen --
and whatever patterns there are in the language start to emerge.
I think the most important thing is just "be gentle with yourself." It's
possible to push too hard to learn something big and complicated all at once.
It wouldn't hurt to Google up a few online discussions, just to get a little
extra context for what you're reading in the book -- and a supportive
community.
~~~
mailx
Did you take "Learning How to Learn" by Barbara Oakley?
------
itamarst
Build a mental map of where to find things, and then refer back for details as
needed:
1\\. Skim the whole book. The goal here is to learn basic concepts, keywords,
and the structure of the book.
2\\. Start coding, refer back to the book as I encounter things I don't
understand.
This works better with paper books, because it's easier to remember where I
saw something ("upper corner of left-hand page next to diagram, towards the
end of chapter 10").
~~~
walterbell
More on skimming:
Start with table of contents (topology) then index (vocabulary) if present.
Read summary of each chapter, starting at back of the book, working to front
of book.
Based on that survey, deep dive into new/interesting (to you!) chapters in
order of priority. Reference earlier chapters as needed.
~~~
awa
OT: The book "How to read a book" drives home the importance of skimming a
book and how to do it well.
------
Scarblac
I learn something first by using it, applying tidbits from blogs, online
tutorials, Stack Overflow and just trying to figure out how to get it to do
what I want.
_Then_ I read a book on it, cover to cover.
It's much easier to get everything to "click" when you've already tried to
solve the relevant problems yourself.
Then continue working with it, and every now and then read another book cover
to cover, for important things.
~~~
RGS1811
I agree with this approach. My experience has been that having a primitive
mental framework in place really helps with retention (and interest) when
you're doing in-depth reading on a topic (which you probably are if you're
reading a book). Start superficial, mess around, and then things not only make
more sense, but are also more exciting and easier to remember, when you really
dive in.
------
fpisfun
Lately I've been just reading and reading and reading without actually trying
any coding. Mainly I've been reading about functional programming, languages I
haven't used before, etc. The way I got into programming was through
constantly trying to build things, without much formal education. I think once
you have a certain amount of real word experience it's important to sometimes
take a step back and just try to learn about new things without the
distraction or pressure of trying to build something right away. This all
depends on a person's point in their career and goals though of course.
~~~
thedoops
I'm in sort of the same place, I'm in a reading frenzy to build up a
vocabulary and learn category theory, functional concepts, etc.. While this is
good I know I ought to spend some time practicing algorithms or building toys
to really make what I'm learning intuitive.
------
muzani
I treat programming as a language. You understand it by going in hard and not
trying to understand. If you learn it by trying to dictionary lookup every
word, it's really slow.
Instead, you try to understand the context of a sentence, and then the words
back from there.
So what I do is I read the table of contents and intro. Intro usually covers
what makes the book different and has instructions on how to use it.
You'll find a few pillars. Like if you're reading an algorithm book you'll see
Big O notation mentioned a few times. Focus on those pillars. Spend more time
on them.
Maybe from Big O, it will give binary search as an example. Then skim the
chapter on binary search and return to Big O until you master it.
You'll transverse the more important parts of the book better this way. Many
books are not strictly meant to be linear.
I also recommend transversing content in this way as fast as possible once, in
one go. Set aside about an hour to skim the entire book.
You'll get the "skeleton" of the book, what holds it together.
Then you focus on the pillars of the book. And once you're done with that, you
can do the rest of the content you skipped.
Once you read something, explain it to yourself differently to prove you've
mastered the concept. This might involve doing an exercise on it. If you're
familiar with it, just drawing a figure might be good enough.
Also I agree with what the others have said: compare with other books on the
topic and make sure it's a good one before you read anything.
------
fshaun
For learning a new language, if I have enough time, I read through the entire
book. This helps me learn the terminology and names for concepts. It's much
easier to search for more information when you know the right jargon. Reading
everything helps to gauge the scope of the language and map it to or from
known concepts. This is how I read TC++PL and Ada as a Second Language, which
I think worked because their of their breadth.
Sometimes there's not enough time to do that, like when you're thrown into an
unfamiliar code base or need to interface with a new API. Then I thoroughly
read enough chapters to get the syntax and skim the start of other chapters,
plus the index/glossary, again minly to learn terms. The required depth
depends on what you're doing. If there's an unfamiliar concept heavily used in
the code, of course read those sections more.
I usually avoid exercises because I already have a project or goal, so I work
up my own examples that advance those needs but still use the idea or
technique of the exercises. I highly recommend trying out a new technique with
a small test before applying it at large, or assuming its use as part of the
software architecture. You don't want to discover late in the game that the
way you planned to use Java generics or C# Pinvoke won't work.
Sometimes the goal is to learn a new technique or dive deeper into the
language. I've immensely enjoyed books by Meyers, Alexandrescu, and Sutter,
that have more self-contained sections. I still find it useful to read the ToC
or skim the chapter introductions, but my mindset is usually more "how can I
apply this?", and reading everything straight through doesn't give me enough
time to focus on specific things.
------
OliverJones
I read a mess of these books. I subscribe to the Safari service put out by Tim
O'Reilly and his krewe.
I look at the table of contents carefully.
I then read the whole book quickly to get oriented. At that point I make a
judgement whether it's worth more time and effort.
Still here? Then I reread any chapters that relate to performance, because
those chapters usually give a clear view of interesting issues in the subject
system.
Then I do one or two of the problems / examples / demos. I do my best to avoid
downloading and running them; rather I take the time to type them over; it
helps me cognitively to understand what I'm doing.
Then I evaluate whether the material I'm learning will help me solve current
problems, or give me ideas about solving future problems, or not.
I put the book in my Safari queue if it's relevant to either current or future
problems. Then I go use what I've learned.
I wish I could say I wrote a quick personal review of every book. But I don't.
This works pretty well for me. Safari is a great way to read tons of books,
because, well, "tons of books." They don't take up shelf space or have to be
moved, or recycled if they turn out not to be useful.
------
kerneldeveloper
I will read the first few chapters to learn the basic knowledge. In the
meantime, I will try my best to understand every example and run it. And then
I will do something interesting such as writing a more complex program.
Practice is my motivation to learn advanced topics. If I only read the book, I
will lose interest quickly because this is very boring, especially for some
difficult chapters.
After I think I have mastered the basic chapters, I will continue reading the
subsequent contents. I won't try to understand everything in the advanced
parts. Instead, I just read some useful content and treat other content as a
technical dictionary so I can refer to it in the future.
I like learning a language/tool as quickly as possible, and then try to use it
more skilled.
------
smilesnd
With a beer in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
Typically I read the book a chapter or 2 at a time mattering how much
information it covers. Mattering how technical it is I will write down every
word I either don't know or second guess.
I will read over the code examples fully. At the end of the chapter I will try
to recall the code example in my head, and see if I can replicate it.
Mattering how good or bad that goes I will then move on or write the code out.
I keep notes the entire time I am reading. It helps keep me focus on the
subject matter. My mind loves to wonder to much, and I have to beat it like a
alien from the fourth dimension.
Also the notes act as long term reference as well I can review them every
night for roughly a month to make sure it all sticks.
------
TomJohnson70
I have read ALL the comments below. They are ALL excellent. I have a BS in
Engineering, 1976, with only Fortran IV from the card key-punch days. Ugh!
Worked on a defense software program and learned JOVIAL and VAX/VMS at work
and C and some Unix at home. Prior, I had read Wirth's Algorithms + Data
Structures = Programs. Pascal = JOVIAL = ADA. C seemed to have the real power
with access to the underlying computer via & and *. C++ appeared to fix many
of C's short-comings and added many concepts (RAII). Eventually, C -> C++ ->
Java. With GNU Project and Yet Another Compiler Compiler (YACC), languages
proliferated. Without a CS degree, and all the new languages, I backed off
programming and switched to medicine (MD). Years later and retired, I found
that I really like sw. I realized that I had gone to, possibly, the only
college in the US that did not have C/Unix. You folks that studied C/Unix are
very fortunate, and I envy you. From 01 July 2013 to 30 June 2014, I read 3060
pages on sw. Soon after, a legacy OS company came out with a major change to
their paradigm, so I switched to Linux Mint. I love C, Unix, Linux, Linux
Mint, C++. This past summer, I had two (2) weeks to teach my 12yo grandson, my
son's son, programming. We took an old laptop, installed a new 500gb hd,
installed Linux Mint 17.3-64bit, and off we went. In 8 days, he was creating
his directory structure, text editing, compiling (gcc name.c -g -o name), and
debugging. It was great fun. I bought him a used copy or K&R and K&R2. Next
summer I am teaching my other grandson, my daughter's son, the same stuff. I
read K&R in 1983. In 2013 I reread K&R. I read K&R2 every year (4 times now).
There are many ways to study, some more efficiently than others. Just do it.
My technique is to read the entire book, highlight text, take notes, work
examples, and write programs. My first short-term suggestion for a newbie is
to buy and read "The C Programming Language", 2nd Edition, by Kernighan and
Ritchie (K&R2). My second short-term suggestion is to download for free and
install a free Linux distribution. I like Linux Mint. My third long-term
suggestion is to pursue a degree in computer science (CS), or computer
engineering from an accredited college.
~~~
copperx
What do you mean by 'sw'?
~~~
jacquesm
Software.
~~~
copperx
Thanks. The initialism on this site is making me crazy. Please just type the
full words, it's not hard.
~~~
jacquesm
yw ;)
~~~
senorsmile
Lol
------
Retric
Just start reading the entire thing front to back. Remember, you gain little
from a book sitting on your shelf. The goal is not to do specific exercises,
but have an index of ideas I can refer back to. Focus on new ideas / benefits
and think about how I could have used them in the past. This helps to add
mental hooks to keep things interesting and aid recall.
That said, I may skim sections that are less relevant to what I want to know.
For completely new languages / API's I am going to need to do some coding, but
'exercises' seem to be their more so people will use books as textbooks than
directly useful on their own.
------
fao_
Let's be honest: I don't.
They sit on the shelf gathering dust until I eventually make a project needing
some of the knowledge contained within. I then dust it off, scour the index
for references to, say, "lock-free multithreaded programming", and read as
many sections as I can about that, and as many supplementary chapters as are
needed.
A few years back, in my teenage years, I read a programming book about
compilers cover to cover, I don't remember much about the contents, just one
or two lexing techniques and something about directed acryllic graphs.
------
keithnz
99% of the time I don't anymore. I used to read a lot, now I just pull
information from the net, I have feeds of information exposing me to new
ideas. Most technical frameworks have a ton of information readily available.
The only books I go to are Math and Algorithm books I have on my bookshelf
when I know something obscure I want is in them.
Learning falls into two categories for me
- Things you don't know you don't know
- Thing you know you don't know
I also learn things well when I do active experimentation.
First one is the trickiest as you need ways to be exposed to something you
don't know and being able to recognize its importance amoungst the flood of
things you are exposed to. Things like HN are helpful.
Second one I keep notes on things I know I don't know. These often are things
that I kind of have a fuzzy idea of what it does, but haven't really spent
time on understanding exactly what it is. For instance, webpack is on my list,
I use it a lot, I modify configs and get stuff done. I have a fuzzy idea of
how works. But I haven't spent any time understanding it from the ground up
and don't know how to set something up from scratch. But at some point webpack
will bubble to the top of my things where I have knowledge gaps. So when I
work on my chosen knowledge gap, I read a bunch of things, conduct a bunch of
experiements, look on stackoverflow and look to answer questions, see how
other people have solved existing problems.
~~~
jmnicolas
> _Things you don 't know you don't know_
Is Donald Rumsfeld a parent of yours ? ;-)
------
jesperlang
I try to avoid programming books. When reading I prefer being disconnected,
laying down in a comfy sofa/bed with a hot beverage. Programming books doesn't
work very well for me because they make me want to try out the things I read
about, forcing me to be at the computer. Some of them even assume you are
sitting at the computer, ready to run examples..
If the goal is to improve as a programmer and books being the medium I choose
books that doesn't necessarily have an obvious link to programming but benefit
my thinking around it. Books on design, architecture, media and education
being my favourite. I don't follow any particular techniques but have grown
into some habits (reading ~50 books a year). I read multiple books at the same
time (~3-4), usually very different in style/topic, alternating between them.
This way I never get bored. The new books I choose for reading has to spark
some excitement/passion in me, otherwise I'm never going to finish it. It
could be as simple as some concept in a book that triggers curiosity, then I
just follow the reference/bibliography and further do some quick research
(amazon/goodreads) to see whether it looks like a promising book.
Reading about product design will make you a better software designer..
Reading about media will make you see how your application fits in a bigger
picture.. ..and so on.
------
cdevs
When I started out it took a couple of books "c,c++,java" to realize most
started from scratch and taught you functions and loops over and over and
walked you through a simple program but I needed to find my own way to
challenge myself. Eventually I just decided I wanted to build things and
fought my way through documentation and the internet to get it done learning
the challenges and problem solving. These days I look for more books on theory
and from people who solved large problems.
------
munificent
Generally, cover to cover, going as quickly as I need to in order to avoid
losing interest and abandoning it. This is probably not the most effective way
to absorb the material. I would learn _more_ by doing the exercises, taking
notes, etc. But when I've tried to do that, I usually don't get more than a
couple of chapters in before I run out of willpower.
So these days, I figure absorbing half of the whole book is better than
absorbing all of only a small prefix of it.
------
danielvf
I think I’ve followed the same method for decades.
1\\. Read the whole book in one sitting, to get the big picture in my head, and
build a mental model of the thing.
2\\. Implement a toy project using the thing. Maybe an hour or two. Go back to
the book for details as needed.
3\\. Look up something once or twice when building my first real project.
4\\. Never read the book again.
In spite of the short time I spend with them, it’s so valuable to be able to
read at high speed, on paper, a comprehensive bunch of code and concepts.
------
extrememacaroni
With books that teach a _language_ or advanced stuff about a language, like,
say, C# in Depth, I read from start to finish, without actually doing any
exercises or really anything else.
I trust my memory enough to rely on remembering that "C# in Depth was talking
about this thing", when I run into something IRL. Then I go back to the book
and see what it had to say.
------
acgIssues
If the book is documentation, I only read as needed.
> Do you read it in one go and later try examples or go through entire book by
> trying all examples?
I do a few of the examples until I learn and figure out how the <topic> works.
I won't be doing all the examples, if they're just teaching the syntax or
simply showing stuff that can be found at the documentation like functions
parameters.
> Do you read the entire book or just the part to get the job done?
I only read the whole book if I'm completely naive and want to deeply learn
about the <topic>. I usually jumps chapters which have content I've used
before and is not difficult to me.
> What methods/techniques have you found useful while reading such books?
Write your own cheatsheet or take notes as you go. Also use the official
documentation for functions definitions and similar stuff.
------
hugja
1\\. Preview / Questions - Take a gander at the chapter by reading the
introduction, headings, sub-headings, diagrams, images, example code, summary,
exercises, questions, etc. Also, write down questions as I preview for myself
to answer after step 2.
2\\. Read / Recall - After previewing I start reading in full. During code
examples I like to soak them in without running them. Then I'll close book and
try to recall the code by typing.
3\\. Teach / Explain - I follow up with pretending to teach / explain the code
examples and my exercise solutions out loud. This helps me figure out what I
didn't really understand.
4\\. Project - I try and apply what I've learned from book to a personal
project.
------
Clubber
I have a bookshelf full of ones from the 90s and early 2000s, but I haven't
read one in years. I mostly learn from internet articles now.
Back then, when I would get a book on a subject I was familiar with, lets say
C#, I would skip to the chapters I felt I needed more understanding of or what
interested me at the time. (technique #1)
If it's a brand new technology, I'll read the intro chapters that go over the
basic stuff (technique #2) to help me get accustomed to the syntax and nuances
of the technology, then apply technique #1 (which could be the rest of the
book for new stuff).
------
potta_coffee
I've never actually gotten through an entire programming book. I'm too hands
on. I usually get to building stuff before the book is through. This is good
and bad. I'm self-taught and I really want to get through this algorithms
book, but I keep getting distracted.
Books are great but many times, they spend so much time on information that I
don't need instead of the practical stuff.
------
weego
Skim the book making notes of key parts with pen and paper. The act of making
the notes is usually enough for me to commit enough of it to memory to know
what to look for when I need it so I get generally don't need the notes again.
Then I get going on a simple project that is of relevance to me rather than
the one in the book and use the book for reference as necessary.
------
antoaravinth
I believe its important to interact or ask your doubts upfront instead of
keeping it to yourself. I'm currently reading Haskell and I use freenode irc
channel to ask my queries. The channel community is so helpful in clearing my
doubts, in fact they could give much more easy / right approach for the
problem than the text book solutions.
------
jimmaswell
I've almost never used books to learn programming. I read a bit of SICP a few
times but lost interest. Otherwise all I do is just follow whatever "x
guide/tutorial/introduction" I find on google, or the language's official
documentation if it serves as a good learning resource, like for Python and
Microsoft properties.
------
narag
Long time I haven't, but when I did, I usually read three or four first
chapters in a row, then jumped to certain chapters that I specifically needed.
Also most of the times, the intro and the very first chapters are optional,
motivational.
------
literallycancer
Choose a good book. Read a chapter or two before breakfast. Run all the code
examples in your head (probably not needed, just my OCD -- same thing with
being reluctant to trust calculations without redoing them myself).
------
akashpaul
By not stopping at chapter 1. Depends on the framework to go all in or chapter
by chapter. Also a GitHub repo for each book is an excellent idea.
------
ncfausti
Check out How To Read A Book by Mortimer Adler. Great resource for techniques
for understanding many different kinds of books.
------
chrisgd
if you spent an hour each day, 40 mins is taking notes on a legal pad,
reading, trying stuff, etc. The remaining 20 mins is writing in a notepad the
key concepts, summarizing from the other 40
------
cgag
sometimes read it all and intend to go back and do exercises, sometimes read
it all and actually do them on the way. Probably not all of them.
------
janci
I don't.
|
While the specter of "spies" eagerly trying to obtain the defense information of various countries is very much still present in the defense and intelligence community, an equally massive threat now exists from technological or commercial "spies" who desire to obtain commercial and technical information from competing companies. These agents use sophisticated means similar to those used by the defense and intelligence community in order to obtain commercially valuable information that reveals the plans and commercial activities of competitors thereby allowing the aggressor company to obtain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Theft of commercially valuable information is a very real and ever present threat.
To combat this type of commercial spying, various complex systems have evolved to protect company proprietary information. These systems involve physical controls over personnel as well as over the data flowing in and out of a company. For example, most computer systems used within companies require a password to be entered before the system can be accessed. It is frequently the case that confidential or company proprietary information must be passed electronically from one location to another in order to convey that information within the company in a timely fashion. Such electronic communication is easily susceptible to interception if not protected in some other form.
Cryptographic systems have evolved to fill the needs of companies and individuals wanting to protect the proprietary commercial information of a company from competitors and those who generally should not have that information.
Encryption of data is therefore a critical requirement in denying access to confidential information from those who are not so authorized. Cryptographic "keys" are an essential part of the information encryption process. The cryptographic key, or "key" for short, is a sequence of letters, numbers, or bytes of information which are manipulated by a cryptographic algorithm to transform data from plain (readable) text to a series of unintelligible text or signals known as encrypted or cipher text. The key is then used by the receiver of the cipher text to decrypt the message back to plain text. However, for two people to communicate successfully using keys, each must use the same key, assuming that the same encryption/decryption algorithm is used on both ends of the communication.
Simple encryption of data being communicated between two points only provides one level of security, however. Encryption limits data communication to those who have the key. Anyone who has the key is privy to any communication at any location. That is, if a group of people are working on a particular project, they will all presumably share a key for decrypting information relating to the project. Some of the project group may be working in one location, while the rest of the group may be located in a distant city. If one member of the group wants to send a communication to a particular member in the other city, the key will afford him no protection because everyone in the project shares the same key. Likewise, if someone wants to communicate a message to a subset of the group, for example, only to management personnel, this key would again provide her with no extra security. In another case, someone may want to send a message that is capable of being read only at a particular computer terminal, or of being printed only at a particular printer. In these and other cases, multilevel multimedia key access, or individual keys issued to each person, would provide a solution, albeit one that is quite unwieldy, inflexible, and difficult to manage by a security officer or key administrator.
A secure method of labelling files or messages that are sent from a sending user to a receiving user over a network can provide a level of protection in addition to cryptographic protection. A file "label" for purposes of this invention means a series of letters or numbers, which may or may not be encrypted, separate from but associated with the sending of a message, which identifies the person, location, equipment, and/or organization which is permitted to receive the associated message. Using a secure labelling regimen, a network manager or user can be assured that only those messages meant for a certain person, group of persons, and/or location(s) are in fact received, decrypted, and ready by the intended receiver. Thus, a sending user can specify label conditions that limit access to the transmitted message. For example, many people within a company may have the key necessary to read a data file that a sender may transmit from his computer terminal to other terminals at another sits within his company. The sender may, however, wish to restrict reception to those persons present at a particular terminal. By employing a secure labelling technique in addition to encryption, the sender can be assured that people having the correct key to decrypt the message but working at different terminals will not receive or be allowed to access the communication. Access may be limited to particular people as well.
A system such as that described above is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/009,741, the specification of which is incorporated by reference herein.
A system that can limit access on an object level would be more flexible and would offer still more protection. Access could be specified on an object-by-object basis, and objects could be embedded within other objects, providing an access hierarchy for users.
The ability to cryptographically secure objects ensures the authentication and data integrity of the particular object or objects in question. If a device were able to cryptographically control an object(s) or nested object(s), then that device would have total control over the entire object and all other objects within it. This type of control over the knowledge/information flow would allow for clear data separation, and at some levels could become a transparent method. A system that is able to do this would be able to achieve multi-level multimedia security. |
Q:
$x^{6}+30x^{5}-15x^{3}+6x-120$can't be written as products of two polynomials of rational coefficients and positive degrees.
Prove that $x^{6}+30x^{5}-15x^{3}+6x-120$ can't be written as a product of two polynomials of rational coefficients and positive degrees.
A:
Suppose $f(x) = x^{6}+30x^{5}-15x^{3}+6x-120$ is not irreducible in $\\mathbb{Q}[x]$.
Then it is not irreducible in $\\mathbb{Z}[x]$ by Gauss's lemma.
However it is irreducible in $\\mathbb{Z}[x]$ by Eisenstein's criterion using the prime number $3$. This is a contradiction. Hence $f(x)$ is irreducible in $\\mathbb{Q}[x]$
|
It was the dawn of the 22nd dynasty. In the delta region
of Lower Egypt, just southwest of Tanis on the River Nile, the capital city
of the nome of Am-Khent rose to prominence, becoming the royal residence of
Pharaoh Shoshenq I, and by extension, the power center of the ancient world.
This was Bubastis, the center of worship for the cat goddess Bast.
Within the greatest temple dwelt the Mau-im-dwo, what the Greek
settlers came to call the Oracle of Bast. Within the innermost
sanctum, the priests of Bast learned a language, the Mau-im-dwo, by which
they could speak with divine and mortal cats… assuming, of course, the cats
were in the mood.
Near the end of the 26th dynasty, a cat which called itself
Apekteina Pontiki condescended to explain the very complex and very specific
feline dogmas of right and wrong. The priests were utterly mystified.
The nuances that were so obvious to cats seemed, to them, nonsensical
contradictions: It was natural and permissible to kill a mouse, a bird, an
insect, and any other creature whose size and speed was such that it could
be killed. In some cases, it was permissible—and even laudable—to play
with one’s prey, prolonging its demise and torturing it with false hope. At
other times, this was the most grievous of sins. There was one set of
rules for morning, one for night, and none at all for midday, for nothing
that hunted under a high sun was fit to call itself a cat. There was
one rule if your belly was empty and another if it was full. There
were rules for the flooding season, for the season of planting and for the
harvest. Yet the priests could never understand which rules took
precedence. If your belly was full, but it was evening and during the
drought, but you were outdoors and the moon was waning, didn’t that mean you
were both required and forbidden to kill and ignore the mouse
in the doorway but not the lizard on the well?
Apekteina Pontiki looked on the befuddled priests of Bast, and she pitied
them. The word spread among the cats of the temple and then to the
ones beyond: the two-footed creatures were nice enough, but they could not
wrap their simple minds around the complexities of the Feline Way.
That same Feline Way that governed the torment of mice dictated that Man
could not be taunted with a wisdom he could never understand. With
heavy hearts, the cats resolved to spare him the frustration. As one,
they stopped acknowledging the language of Mau-im-dwo.
It took the priests a while to notice, for the cats often pretended not
to understand. You just had to wait for the right day and approach
them in just the right way… Then the Persians invaded, and the priests, like
the rest of Bubastis, had other things on their mind.
Two thousand years later, very little had changed. The woman who
was born Selina Kyle had so embraced her feline nature that she was, in
every way that mattered, a cat-woman. She too had a very complex and
very specific code of right and wrong. She didn’t care any more than
the cats of old that her rules were different from other people’s, nor that
they would never be able to grasp it if she tried to explain. She only
knew that her code worked for her: Her right was right, and she would keep
it. Her wrong was wrong, and she wouldn’t do it. So it was and
would ever be, meow and amen.
It was fine to live on the proceeds of her thefts; they were hers.
She had taken those paintings, jewels, statues, and other valuables.
She had bested Batman most of the time to get away. She had converted
the goods to cash through her own paw-selected fences, and she had the
proceeds safely tucked away in her Zurich accounts. Meow.
But to profit from Oswald Cobblepot’s crimes, that was another matter
entirely. That was just wrong.
Okay, Vault had temporarily replaced the Iceberg, she understood that.
She was the de facto “Oswald” of Vault, she accepted that, although
nobody quite understood it. (The fact that her old Cat-Tales
set was displayed behind the bar as part of the themed décor undoubtedly
figured in somehow, but even Batman was unable to reconstruct exactly how
the dominoes had fallen.)
Since Vault’s opening, everyone had apparently gone on paying the house
its cut of whatever they did on the premises. It was news to Selina
when she discovered it, but it certainly made sense: Gotham crooks were
creatures of habit, and if you were supposed to be paying off somebody,
it was better to be safe than very, very—HAHAHAHA! Closed casket due to the
death smile—sorry.
On the same death-avoidance premise, Sly had apparently been converting
all this ill-gotten gain into gems and gold bars, replacing the faux riches
of her old Cat-Tales set with the real thing.
It left her with a very tricky problem: what to do with it?
She had a sultan’s ransom of well-laundered riches on her hands.
Spiriting it off to Zurich to join the proceeds of her own crimes seemed
wrong, just plain wrong. Leaving it for Oswald, on the other hand,
went beyond wrong into criminally negligent homicide. With a
war chest like that, Oswald could wipe out the other mobs, tearing up half
the city in the process and creating ten kinds of hell for Batman. He
could also postpone that intermediary step and go after Batman immediately.
There were other scenarios, other variations, and each one ended with
either Batman, the entire city, or both placed in very serious danger.
She couldn’t just sit back and let it happen.
Somehow, she had to make all those riches go away.
Still raining. It was no “dark and stormy night” of cliché-bound
fiction, it was a cold, persistent drizzle. In daylight, it might be
called a Hawaiian blessing. At night, in the open hours after Batman’s
early patrol, it was just a nuisance. It was just cold enough and just
wet enough for just long enough that most perps didn’t bother. The
psychopaths didn’t care about such things, of course, but psychopaths
generally didn’t start the day at two o’clock in the morning.
It was a dark and boring night. All Batman had to show for
his early patrol was the Plymouth townhouse, and he’d been entirely
superfluous there. He had seen two police units pulling up to the
building and the officers rushing out with their guns drawn. He
ascertained from the police band that they were responding to a 10-10, shots
fired, and he stood by to assist… but the lead officer had already entered
the townhouse and found what is euphemistically called “a domestic
disturbance” in progress. He had disarmed the wife before Batman could
fire a line, and by the time Batman reached the street, a stretcher was
emerging from the front door. It was the husband being carried to the
waiting ambulance… not much blood… a superficial wound to the upper calf…
One of the senior patrolmen sneeringly suggested that Batman could make
himself useful giving the ambulance an escort to the hospital.
It was a dark and boring and frustrating night. The rain was
getting heavier. There was no logical reason not to make an early
night of it. He could start the late patrol at once and make it a
quick one, go home early and... Hell, there wasn’t much reason even to
do that. If he skipped the second patrol entirely, would Gotham even
care?
Except he didn’t WANT to go home early. He wanted action.
He wanted to fulfill his purpose. He wanted… apparently he wanted to
stop crimes that were not happening at the moment, and he couldn’t
quite bring himself to wish a crime into being just so he could smack the
perpetrator around.
A dark, boring, and infuriating night.
Until…
Amber lights. Blinking.
He spotted dim, amber lights blinking on and off in the lobby of an old
office building. That meant an alarm had been tripped, but there
weren’t any police or fire responding. It looked like an older
building, not one with a phalanx of on-site security guards. It was
even possible the lights were part of some antiquated alarm that was no
longer programmed to call in an alert. Batman swung down to the street
to investigate.
There was a time when Gotham National Bank would launder illicit funds,
as much as you wanted and as fast as you needed. With the cover of a
legitimate bank servicing the biggest corporations in the city, they could
handle greater sums than any other operation before or since.
Of course, it was that same corporate cover that proved their undoing
once Wayne Enterprises got involved. Selina didn’t know it at the
time, but looking back now… yep, once you knew Bruce Wayne was Batman, the
speed with which he acted was just astonishing. From the point where
he would have learned what they really were to the point where he shut them
down, it just—reowrl—boggled the mind. He really was the best.
Which was, unfortunately, beside the point. GNB was no longer a
money-laundering institution… and for that matter, Selina didn’t really need
the money laundered. Sly had done that on his own. It was
cleaned, pressed, folded neatly, and stored away in her old Cat-Tales set.
She didn’t need it laundered. She needed it GONE.
Liberty One Insurance had gone bankrupt in the early 1970s. The
building that had once been their corporate headquarters was now rented to a
dance studio, a community center, a political action group, and a
telemarketing firm. None had anything of particular value: a few
computers in the PAC office, a boom box and CDs in the dance studio, basket
balls in the community center. Not much to interest burglars, and the
groups’ presence brought enough activity to the building to discourage
squatters and undesirables from moving into the vacant floors. The
original locks were thought sufficient to protect what little was there, and
it took Batman all of ten seconds to demagnetize them and gain access to the
lobby.
His cape dripped on the highly polished floor, and his boots made a
rubbery squelch that echoed eerily. There was a cavernous emptiness to
the place, and the blinking security lights gave off a soft, eerie echo of
their own as they clicked on and off. That lifeless heartbeat was
disquieting enough on its own, but the blinking lights also made it harder
for Batman’s eyes to adjust… It was brighter. It was dimmer.
It was brighter. It was dimmer… A poorly designed system,
considering its purpose.
Batman made his way to the elevators at the far end of the lobby.
There were only two, probably considered plenty when the place was built.
There were only eight or ten floors, after all. Batman moved beyond
these to the stairwell, then turned back sharply—was that a noise? A
fluctuation in the rhythmic echo in the lobby? Or just a
crimefighter’s instinct that something was wrong?
He quickly returned to the lobby, senses quivering with that vague
feeling of… wrong. Something here was wrong. Something
was not what it should be. And his senses strained to find what it…
was.
Batman swallowed hard as the image registered.
“Lenses engage,” he graveled, looking up at… at… how could he have missed
this?
He was looking up at a giant coin set in a perfectly recessed niche
behind the reception desk. A Liberty head silver dollar, with a
positive trench carved deep and savagely across her cheek.
The image glowed brighter and dimmer as the amber lights flicked on and
off.
Brighter… and dimmer…
There was no mistaking that image.
Brighter… and dimmer…
Two-Face’s coin.
Brighter and…
Something else there is no mistaking: the grinding clack of the safety on
a double-barreled shotgun clicking off behind your head.
…dimmer…
Batman dropped and rolled as the first shot of two whizzed past his cowl.
He redirected his momentum as soon as he hit the floor to avoid rolling into
the path of the second. He regained his feet as his only half-glimpsed
assailant snapped the barrels closed on two fresh shells, and Batman raced
towards the stairwell just ahead of the next shots. He needed the
vertical plane more than the cover. As soon as he could swing UP, he
could fire a batarang at his assailant’s hands from a safe angle. The
last thing you wanted was to dislodge a shotgun on-level and risk—
It was the last conscious thought Batman had before the grapnel pierced
some kind of tank suspended above him in the stairwell, between the railings
of the second floor stairs. A shower of oily petroleum ooze rained
down on him while he was still in motion, but with the grapnel ascent
stymied and the assailant’s footsteps closing in behind him, Batman could
only shift his momentum, trying to regain his footing with nowhere to really
go. He shifted his balance towards the stairs—but kept going in a
twisting skid he could barely control. He found himself turning, which
would at least allow him to face his attacker coming through the doorway, a
surprise assault—
Except his feet kept turning on the hopelessly slicked surface,
and before he could counter, his balance was gone and his legs were
airborne.
Batman lay sprawled on his back and flailing in the oil when the looming
figure stepped into the doorway, silhouetted in the rhythmic amber flicker,
brighter then dimmer… brighter then dimmer…
Two-Face.
“We wanted to go the extra mile, Sport, seeing as it’s been two
long.”
Then the butt of the shotgun came crashing down on his skull.
Once upon a time, Catwoman came across a dockside warehouse full of cash.
Back then, theme criminals were few and far between, and Batman’s war on
crime was principally a war on organized crime. He’d shut down
every means Carmine Falcone had to launder his illegal income, forcing him
to stockpile it like so many pre-printed t-shirts advertising a cancelled
concert tour.
A warehouse full of cash, stacked in bundles of bundled bundles: some
long and low, like the tables in a dining hall; some tall, at least the
height of a man; and some towering more than thirty feet high. Just
how much was there, Catwoman couldn’t guess. Ten million?
Twenty? Thirty?
Selina Kyle had not become Catwoman out of greed. There was nothing
to tempt her in a warehouse of untraceable cash. There was no style in
such a theft. No challenge, no romance, and no triumph. And
nothing to feed the empty place that moved her to steal in the first place.
But there is one appetite that all cats share: mischief. If the
money had no value as currency, it was beyond price in its mischief-making
potential. What on earth would Batman make of it if she brought him
such a prize? Carmine Falcone would be none too happy, and that would
be fun too. But it was the Batman side of the equation that Catwoman
found irresistible.
She arranged for him to spot her… chase her… catch her… and be terribly
manly in all his terrifying crimefighter intensity once he had her pinned.
Then, she oh, so sweetly purred her secret into his ear: of course, she
had allowed him to find her, she had much to tell.
It was delicious. Beyond words, beyond thought, beyond a pulsing
tingle between her legs… all that intensity, the purest essence of Batman
turned in on itself because of her. He was flummoxed, utterly
flummoxed, the thoughts racing and twisting behind those fiery eyes, burning
to find the answer… all because of her. All hers. All that
essence of pure, mainline Batman, hers. What a rush. No
mere money could buy that.
Batman… because of her… meow.
He was trying so hard to hide that inferno of bewilderment raging
in his mind, he had no mental resources left to hide what he usually tried
to hide. While she played lightly with words, drawing whimsical
distinctions between “helping” and “being helpful,” his tongue had slipped
ever so briefly between his lips, and his index finger slid lightly against
his thumb while his eyes were riveted on her breasts.
Meow. Worth every dollar of the ten or twenty million. Meow.
Meow. Meow.
What actually became of the money, she never really cared.
Several years later, Harvey told her that, back when he was D.A., he had
gone with Batman to a warehouse full of Falcone cash. He said the two
of them doused it with gasoline and burned it to ash. She and Harvey
been swapping tall tales all night and she never quite believed the story,
but still…
Tipping Batman to the Vault treasure didn’t seem like a hot idea.
Batman awoke chained in a spread eagle position over the X on the Liberty
head coin.
“Two pounds of C4,” Two-Face explained (unnecessarily), pointing to a
canister beneath Batman’s feet. “Double blasting cap, naturally.”
He indicated this, flicking it lightly with his thumb and middle finger.
“And of course, you will have two minutes,” he said, setting the timer.
“And twenty-two seconds,” Batman said grimly.
Two-Face considered this, unable to refute the logic, and added
twenty-two seconds to the timer. Batman strained to get a better look
at the figure’s features, but his angle was too high. The unscarred
side certainly seemed to have Harvey Dent’s hair, but so did a quarter of
the men in Gotham.
He risked a direct question:
“Harvey, is that really you?”
“We’ve no time for chit-chat, Batman. We have a great deal of
missed coin flips to make up for. Why, in the time since we last saw
each other, we have come up with no fewer than eighteen ways to kill you,
this being the best of the lot.”
He clicked the timer, set it down, and walked across the lobby.
When he reached the door, he paused. He took out a coin, flipped it,
and turned back to Batman as he said:
“To be scrupulously honest, Bats, we came up with nineteen ways to
kill you. But as a matter of principle, we have chosen to ignore the
last, rather like lopping off the high score from the East German judge.”
With that he winked—a markedly Harvey “the Dentmeister” wink—and left.
Giving the money away, while obvious, was problematic.
First and foremost, it had a distinct whiff of remorse. The
cat’s sense of smell is highly developed, and the thought of Catwoman
prowling around the city, breaking into penthouses she had once burgled in
order to leave a gold bar or a diamond tiara when she had previously
relieved them of a Chagall, that had a very definite odor, the odor of a
tabloid’s crimefighter making up for past wrongs. No.
Charities were problematic too. While she had nothing against
orphans, she wouldn’t want to give money to an orphanage and appear to
validate those demeaning lies about her origins. For the same reason,
any kind of city sponsored help-the-poor projects would have to exclude the
East End. Talk about the stench of the Gotham Post!
An experienced escape artist could have freed himself from the coin
shackles in two minutes, leaving him scant seconds to run from the blast.
But Batman had settings in Zogger to prepare for just this kind of
situation. He was free in under sixty seconds, leaving him ample time
to stop the timer and disconnect the detonator.
Only then did he allow himself to breathe a sigh of relief, and only then
did he consider the contracting knot in his stomach as the implication sunk
in.
Was it Harvey?
He had only seen the face twice—and he winced at that irony—and also at
the growing throbbing under his cowl. The latter was from the blow
from the shotgun. What had been only a dull ache, not worth
considering in the face of an imminent explosion, was now coming to the
forefront. Bitterly, Batman reflected that, even though he’d lost
consciousness on the initial hit, Two-Face had undoubtedly struck him a
second time.
He summoned the Batmobile remotely and croaked “home” once he was behind
the wheel, the headache and growing nausea making it impossible to drive.
It was a concussion, no doubt of it, and if his vision blurred while he was
trying to drive… He even considered stopping at Leslie’s clinic; it was
closer than home.
Was it Harvey?
He had only seen the face twice: in the split second before the shotgun
came crashing down on his head, and when Two-Face was clear across the lobby
and turned back with that crack about the East German judge. Neither
was enough for a positive identification. It looked like Harvey,
yes—or at least, there was nothing that jumped out at him in those scant
seconds that absolutely ruled out the possibility of its being Harvey.
That was not enough for a positive identification, even from Batman.
Of course, he had heard a lot more of the voice, and that definitely
sounded like the Two-Face of old. But voices were tricky.
Azrael could simulate the Bat-gravel so well, he had once fooled
Commissioner Gordon.
Was it Harvey?
Batman trusted his judgment. As much as any man alive, he trusted
his eyes, and he trusted his mind, and he knew how the one could lie to the
other. He wanted it to be someone other than Harvey Dent; he
was perfectly aware of that bias. Wanting could make the eyes lie, and
wanting could make the mind refuse to see what the eyes were showing it.
But that was not happening here.
Bruce was not ready to say that the man he had seen was Harvey, not
because he didn’t want it to be Harvey, but because what little he saw was
not enough to be certain… and he had just made his headache ten times worse.
These circular thoughts hurt more than the blow from the shotgun.
Giving to the arts was a possibility.
When she was actively stealing, Selina thought nothing of
supporting the opera, the ballet, and even the museum’s acquisition fund.
There was nothing to prove back then. Big donations brought
invitations to the big fundraisers, access to the dowagers and their diamond
necklaces, and it put more and better paintings on the walls of the Gotham
museums… It was self-interested altruism for the thinking cat burglar,
meow.
But now it was tricky for the same reason breaking into random penthouses
and leaving gold bars on their pillows was tricky: that vague hint of
remorse. She had used the symphony and opera galas as hunting grounds,
and she’d taken so much from the museums over the years, it might seem like
she was making restitution.
Environmental causes came perilously close to using the money for the
Catitat, and that was just like mingling it with the proceeds of her own
thefts, pocketing Oswald’s money for herself. No. You don’t mix
the bounty from Catwoman’s thefts, the product of feline cunning, grace, and
panache, with the payoffs from any Dick, Harry, or Tomcat that schlep
through Vault with the proceeds of their brainless strongarm robberies.
It wasn’t done. It would be like hanging Dogs Playing Poker in Bruce’s
penthouse between a Picasso and a Cezanne.
That left diseases, and that required some serious investigation into
what research was most deserving and most in need of funding. The
problem there was that the Wayne Foundation had already done that
investigating and did it better than she could hope to. The simplest
method, by far, was to turn the money over to the Wayne Foundation to use it
where it would do the most good.
Except Bruce would have an aneurysm.
The Batmobile returning home on autopilot always set off an alert as it
crossed electric eye omega. The alert sounded discreetly in Alfred’s
room, and he hurried to the Batcave. He would normally open a com
channel to the Batmobile to ascertain if the master was conscious, but in
this case it was unnecessary, since the car was already pulling into its
hangar. The hatch opened as soon as it reached a full stop, and Master
Bruce got out on his own power.
“Concussion. Nothing serious,” he said.
Alfred glared, relief battling with preemptive frustration. Of all
the injuries he’d treated in his years as Batman’s personal medic, there was
none where the patient was so difficult and quarrelsome.
“The former diagnosis I accept, sir, as you were undoubtedly in a
position to know. The latter is for me to determine after a thorough
examination.”
“Fine. After the lo—” Batman started to argue.
“Now, Master Bruce. The logs will wait.”
Bruce had long ago accepted the futility of I’m-Batman declarations with
Alfred. The man who said “now” when it was a skinned knee or a
bee sting could say it still, and the duty logs, the Mad Hatter’s escape
from Arkham, or the Justice League’s assault on the Ice Reefs of Symbia 8
were relegated to the same “When I say you can and not before” status as a
game of stick ball when Bruce was ten. He removed his cowl and headed
for the med lab, muttering his gratitude that at least Alfred didn’t wake
Selina before coming down to the cave.
Explanations followed while Alfred checked his reflexes, looked for any
bleeding or bruising, checked for related neck injuries, and finally,
applied ice. By the time he was ready to declare Master Bruce free of skull
fractures or brain injuries, Bruce had finished the chronicle of his
Two-Face encounter.
“Of course, it wasn’t Harvey,” he pronounced at the end of the tale.
He was thinking much clearer now, and he could see how his earlier musings
had been colored by the shock of seeing any Two-Face, and also by the
physical pain of the concussion.
“Indeed, sir?”
It was said without much inflection, but Bruce detected a note of
skepticism. He knew the tone as well as he had known that ‘the logs
will wait’ tenor only moments before. Alfred had found a few lapses in
Bruce’s logic and would proceed to play devil’s advocate until those lapses
were addressed. Bruce unpacked his thesis:
“For one thing, Harvey’s Two-Face would have taken my utility belt while
I was unconscious. Any experienced rogue knows I’ve got a dozen tools
in there to help get out of whatever it is they’ve put me into. To let
me keep it is an amateur mistake.”
“Or one betraying a subconscious desire to help you escape, sir.
There was an episode with Miss Se– with Catwoman, that is. I seem to
recall your expounding at great length on the significance of her leaving
you in possession of the belt when she surely knew it guaranteed your
swift—”
“Alfred, really. That is not the point.”
“It is not a parallel case, sir, I agree. I merely remind
you of it in order to illustrate a certain flaw in your reasoning.
There are a number of reasons this Two-Face may have left you the belt, one
of which is not inconsistent with his being Harvey Dent. Mr. Dent’s
good half would surely not desire your death.”
Bruce grimaced. He had opened up to Alfred in much the same way he
would have related the incident in the logs—the difference being, the logs
did not argue.
“Maybe on its own the belt isn’t that significant, Alfred, but there is
more evidence to consider. The blow came from the right,” he said,
indicating the lump on his left temple. “When Harvey was Face, he
always swung from the Face-side, the left.”
“Master Bruce, really. Having spent the last thirty minutes
examining the injury in question, I must inform you that the direction in
which it was struck can only be described as down. To use any
other word merely perverts the language. I fear you must consider,
sir, that a significant amount of wishful thinking is presently tainting
your analysis.”
“You’re wrong. As a detective and man of logic, I have to admit
that the possibility exists that it could be Harvey. Simplest
explanation, Ockham's razor, and all that.”
“I sense a ‘but’ awaiting expression, sir.”
“But, the only reason to even consider that Two-Face might be
Harvey is because he was Two-Face before.”
“Yes, sir,” Alfred said emphatically. “The fact that Harvey Dent
was Two-Face, and is, in fact, the only person who has ever been Two-Face,
would seem to be a powerful argument.”
“An argument isn’t evidence, Alfred. And that argument in
particular loses weight given the other copycat psychopaths I’ve gone up
against over the years.”
Bruce sighed lightly as his demeanor softened. “Besides, Harvey was
doing so well. Why on Earth would he—”
“Begging your pardon, Master Bruce, but how would you know how Mister
Dent is doing? How long has it been since you've even spoken with
him?”
Bruce grunted.
“And even so,” Alfred continued, “how the gentleman ‘is doing’ is a
subjective matter, at best, whereas the dictates of logic and deduction
would appear to call for objective and quantifiable evidence. Should I
perhaps arrange a meeting with him, sir? Invite him back out to the
manor for brunch?”
“That would certainly settle it one way or the other,” Bruce murmured,
rubbing his head wearily. “Either he shows up with one face, or he
doesn't.”
It’s not like she’d be asking him to launder dirty money. She
didn’t want it back, she just wanted it to go off into the world where she
wouldn’t have to worry about Oswald using it to buy a fleet of urban assault
vehicles…
“Oh, you’re still up.”
Selina froze, finger poised on the corner of the book she wasn’t reading
as she once might have done on the edge of a rooftop skylight. As on
that long ago rooftop, she responded to the disapproving gravel without
turning to look at him.
“You make it sound like ‘those jewels don’t belong to you.’ In
fact, I can think of at least four ‘those jewels don’t belong to me’ and
three ‘the museum closed five hours ago’ when you sounded happier to see me
than you did just now. Guess I don’t have to ask how your night went.”
“It’s not you,” Bruce said, peeling off the kimono before getting into
bed. “There’s a… Alfred is making a call for me. He’s going to
make a call. It’s a little too early. Nothing to do for a few
hours until he can make the call…”
“Did you hit your head?”
“I didn’t hit my head. Someone else hit my head, hard
and repeatedly. I didn’t want to go into that with you until I heard
from Alfred.”
“Ah. So grumbly disapproving battitude is because I’m awake before
you’re ready for me. At least that’s settled. I don’t mind being
the cause of that look on your face, but when I am, I like to know why.”
“And to have done it on purpose,” he noted with a lip twitch as he
reached to turn out the light.
They dozed… although Bruce’s dreams were plagued with double images and
distorted reflections. The foppish playboy blundered over rooftops,
and Psychobat tore up a cocktail party at the Knickerbocker Club. When
the dream turned to Crime Alley, it was coins that fell to the pavement
instead of pearls, and when he woke, he was clutching Selina’s wrist the way
Batman did when her teasing had gone too far.
Luckily, she was asleep and didn’t know. He placed her hand
gingerly back on the bedsheets, and stared at the ceiling until the faint
yellow-white glow appeared at the top of the curtains. Selina woke and
stretched, and after the requisite good mornings, he cleared his throat.
“Have you, um, talked to Harvey recently?” he asked, introducing the
subject as casually as possible without drifting into the fop.
Selina shook her head.
“No, but I was just thinking about him a few nights ago. Funny you
mention it… oh, of course, you probably thought of it for the same reason.
Tuesday the 22nd. The gang at Vault were all ‘remembering’
him. It was a little off-putting, actually, they way they were
carrying on. It was practically a wake.”
“Understandable. From their point of view, he is essentially… eh,
dead. I can see where that would be… uh, disconcerting for you.”
Selina scowled. He’d begun the statement with clinical detachment,
the crimefighter expounding on the Rogue mindset he knew so well.
Then, halfway through, he glanced up at her and segued into a very
un-Batmanlike shilly-shallying.
“Disconcerting to me specifically, you mean.”
“Yes, to you.”
“Because if Two-Face is dead because Harvey reformed, then, technically,
I think Catwoman is a vampire.”
Bruce stared as he always had in the face of feline logic, phrases like
“those jewels don’t belong to you” and “the museum is closed” as useless now
as they had always been.
“Not to change the subject, Handsome, but do you remember back when the
world was young when I gave you a heads up on that warehouse full of mob
cash?”
Bruce raised a slow, suspicious eyebrow before he said “Yes.”
“Good,” Selina continued with gusto. “Harvey told me a story once;
it can't possibly be true, but... You didn’t, eh, burn it up, did you?”
“Of course,” he said instantly. “While you supposedly get to a
normal man’s heart through his stomach, to get to a man like Carmine
Falcone, you go through the wallet.”
“Now don't you start reminiscing like he's dead, too. We’ll invite
him for brunch and catch up this weekend…”
While Selina was drawing a mental line through the idea of telling Batman
about her Vault riches, Alfred came in with the breakfast tray. He and
Bruce exchanged looks, and then Alfred mentioned casually that he had tried
several times but received no answer. He would keep trying.
“Damn,” Bruce said. It sounded exactly like Selina’s “Fuck” a
moment before, and she knew it meant the same thing: a plan being
overturned.
“This isn’t a casual talk we’ve been having,” she said when Alfred had
left the room. “Something’s up your nose about Harvey.”
“It’s… it’s nothing. It’s the concussion. There are
just some things I need to check out.”
“Check out about Harvey? And what does that have to do with your
concussion?”
“No, not with Harvey. It’s… I mean... the concussion is
making it hard to focus. I’ve got about 22 things rummaging around in
my brain at the moment and—” |
Q:
How can you have more than 10 colors represented in the graph and legend in highcharts?
I currently have 12 lines representing 12 different people in a spline graph. I noticed that once it goes beyond ten, the colors and shapes repeat. This makes it hard to distinguish between different people. In the future I will probably have more than 12, which will make this default behavior an even bigger problem.
Is there any way to extend the default number or perhaps to decide on the colors for a pre-set number of people beforehand? This last option would not be ideal if it couldn't be responsive to dynamic numbers of people.
A:
YOu can define colors in array: http://api.highcharts.com/highcharts#colors
|
Restaurant sector expects growth in 2012
Restaurant sector expects growth in 2012 Signs are surfacing that the US economy is improving, albeit slowly. One supportive sign comes from the nation's restaurant industry. According to the National Restaurant Association's 2012 Restaurant Industry Forecast, growth is expected for the year ahead.
Total restaurant industry sales are expected to reach a record $632 billion this year. That’s 3.5 percent over 2011, and the second consecutive year for industry sales to exceed $600 billion, The NRA report projects the restaurant industry to continue to fuel US employment as the nation’s second largest private sector employer. Overall restaurant industry employment will reach 12.9 million in 2012, representing 10 percent of the total US workforce, NRA said.
“As our nation slowly recovers from the economic downturn, restaurants continue to be a vital part of American lifestyles and our nation’s economy,” said Dawn Sweeney, NRA’s president and chief executive officer. “We expect the nation’s nearly 1 million restaurants to post sales of $632 billion this year. Combine that with the fact that restaurant job growth is expected to outpace the overall economy for the 13th straight year, and it’s clear that the restaurant industry is once again proving to be a significant economic stimulant and strong engine for job creation.”
But 2012 will not be without challenges. In the report, restaurateurs cited the sluggish economy, rising food costs and maintaining sales volume as top concerns.
“Because about one-third of sales in a restaurant go to food and beverage purchases, food prices are a crucial component for operators,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the NRA's Research and Knowledge group. “Last year, we saw wholesale food prices post their strongest annual increase in more than three decades. In 2012, we will see continued increases in the cost of some commodities, while price pressures will ease for others.”
Another trend influencing the restaurant industry is the influx of technologies spurred by growth in smartphone and iPad usage. The NRA report said consumers have expressed an interest in services such as at-table electronic payment options, smartphone apps for restaurant menus and reservations, and online orders for takeout and delivery. |
Q:
Trouble launching Samsung SDK TV Emulator
For some reason, my Samsung TV emulator versions 2.5.1 (2011) and version 3.5.2 (2012) work fine except for version 4.0 (2013). When I open it, it says
Emulator for Windows has stopped working. A program caused the program to stop working...
I installed the following on my machine and still doesnt seem to work:
Visual C++ Redistributable 2005 x86 and x64
Visual C++ Redistributable 2010 x86 and x64
Microsoft .NET 4.5 Latest
Java JDK (including JRE)
Latest Direct X from
(http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35)
Any ideas why it shows this message? Thanks. I am on Windows 7 64 bit.
A:
You may need to install fonts for Emulator. Open C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Samsung\\Samsung TV SDK 4\\Emulator\\Emulator2013_v4\\bin\\, open *.ttf files and select Install.
|
February Release - Deployment on Feb 9th
2016-02-05 14:38By CCP Phantom
The EVE Online February release will be deployed during a regular downtime on Tuesday, February 9, 2016.
We are excited to present the brand new feature of Skillpoint trading between players giving players additional control and power over their own fate. Furthermore we will deliver improved camera controls including a first person view, enhanced graphics (physically based rendering for Caldari and Gallente Tech-3 ships), combat music during engagements and more. Several minor tweaks and bug fixes will be deployed as well.
The February release will be deployed during a regular downtime starting 11:00 UTC. The Tranquility server cluster will be back online and accepting connection again at 11:30 UTC.
For a full breakdown of the new features and changes coming to EVE Online this Tuesday, please take a look at the patch notes! |
Acousto-optic modulators as unidirectional devices in ring lasers.
Acousto-optic modulators can act as optical diodes and force the unidirectional single-axial-mode operation of ring lasers. We explain this effect in terms of the Doppler shift of the scattered light beams and present results of experiments in support of this theory. |
The present invention relates to a method of making a dual-faced corrugated paperboard which has at least one reinforcing strip located within the paperboard layers and product therefrom, and more particularly, to such a method and product requiring the use of only a single adhesive station.
Corrugated board is available in various grades of thickness, including single-, double-, or triple-walled, as well as in single- or double-faced configurations. A single-faced corrugated board has one smooth liner board side adhered to an opposite exposed corrugated side. Due to certain packaging and shipping requirements, it is sometimes desirable to produce corrugated board with discrete regions of reinforced thickness. This structure affords increased resistance to crushing forces in those areas protecting fragile contents therein, yet minimizes the additional material costs of reinforcing the entire carton.
A cardboard carton may be strengthened thus by selectively inserting strips of a reinforcing material between layers of corrugated board and facing liner in only those regions where additional strength is desired. However, as such a reinforced corrugated board is currently manufactured in the prior art, multiple gluing stations are required, which unnecessarily duplicates production steps and requires additional manufacturing materials. |
Sir,
Nipple-areola complex reconstruction, which is the final step in breast reconstruction surgery, is extremely important for good aesthetic outcomes and improved patient satisfaction.^[@R1]^ Among the many procedures reported,^[@R2]^ nipple-areola complex reconstruction using a local flap or nipple graft in combination with medical tattooing is widely used today. However, only a few studies have reported its procedural details and modifications.^[@R3]^ Here, the authors report our 4 innovative modifications of medical tattooing that enhance cosmetic outcomes of nipple-areola complex reconstruction.
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tokyo Women's Medical University. Subjects were 56 breasts of 56 patients who underwent nipple-areola complex reconstruction using medical tattooing at the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Tokyo Women's Medical University between April 2014 and October 2016. Our modified medical tattooing technique was performed using a Permark UltraEnhancer (PMT Corp., Minn.), a \\#18 needle (PMT Corp.) and several pigments (PMT Corp.). All medical tattoos were performed by a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. The time required for the procedure was about 30 minutes. The first of the 4 modifications was blurring the margin of the areola to create a natural appearance by depositing pigments in irregular alignment for a gradation effect. A needle angled perpendicular to the skin was used to ensure the finest micropigmentation, together with a scratch micropigmentation method. The degrees of gradation created were adjusted for individual patients (Fig. [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}A). The second modification was creating the illusion of the uneven surface (bumps) of the areola due to the Montgomery glands. A polka dot pattern was created using either a darker or a lighter shade of pigment based on close examination of the contralateral healthy areola, to maintain similar appearances in individual cases (Fig. [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}B). The third modification was adjustment of the areola position so that the breasts looked as symmetric and natural as possible. The conventional method that determines the areola position in relation to the apex of the reconstructed breast or the nipple would have emphasized asymmetry when breast reconstruction did not provide good symmetry. Instead of opting for conventional approaches such as determining the areola position in relation to the apex of the ipsilateral breast or the reconstructed nipple, the provisional position of the areola was marked for evaluation by using that of healthy side, and the final position, agreed with by the patient, was determined after fine adjustment in this study (Fig. [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}C). The fourth modification was creating the illusion of the height of the transplanted or reconstructed nipple, by adding a shadow effect such as a trick art; the top and root of the nipple was covered by a lighter shade and a darker shade of pigment, respectively (Fig. [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}D). The appropriate combinations of each of these 4 modifications was determined individually for each patient, resulting in successful nipple-areola complex reconstruction without complications (eg, cutaneous ulceration) in all patients (Fig. [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). Patient satisfaction, which was not examined in this study, needs to be studied in the future. Also, the optimal timing of tattooing, long-term follow-up results, pigment preparation methods, and the necessary number of tattooing sessions need to be elucidated in future studies.
{#F1}
{#F2}
Published online 14 September 2018.
**Disclosure:** The authors have no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this article. The Article Processing Charge was paid for by the authors.
|
#evil
Monsanto to Stop Promoting Genetically Engineered Seeds in Europe
What had been brewing for weeks following various hints and tips was finally confirmed last week when Monsanto announced it would cease the marketing of new genetically engineered seeds (GE) in the European Union.
The world`s largest seed company had already sent signals in May that it would no longer lobby the EU to approve cultivation of its GE seeds, but we were waiting for an official confirmation before we could really believe it.
Monsanto and other biotech industries have tried for years to make us believe that GE crops are the answer to many of the world`s problems, such as hunger and climate change. However, these GE seeds have been nothing more than empty promises giving us mainly crops that have further increased reliance on pesticides without any clear gains in the amount of food produced.
There is also growing resistance around the world against the use of GE products. A recent poll in the EU shows that 95 percent of EU citizens ... |
Khamand
Khamand () is a village in Deraz Kola Rural District, Babol Kenar District, Babol County, Mazandaran Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 79, in 20 families.
References
Category:Populated places in Babol County |
// RUN: %clang_cc1 -std=c++11 -fsyntax-only -verify %s
// expected-no-diagnostics
template<typename T> int &f0(T&);
template<typename T> float &f0(T&&);
// Core issue 1164
void test_f0(int i) {
int &ir0 = f0(i);
float &fr0 = f0(5);
}
|
# Copyright (c) Yiming Wang
#
# This source code is licensed under the MIT license found in the
# LICENSE file in the root directory of this source tree.
from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from omegaconf import II
from typing import List
import torch.optim.lr_scheduler
from fairseq.dataclass.utils import FairseqDataclass
from fairseq.optim.lr_scheduler import register_lr_scheduler
from fairseq.optim.lr_scheduler.reduce_lr_on_plateau import ReduceLROnPlateau
@dataclass
class ReduceLROnPlateauV2Config(FairseqDataclass):
lr_shrink: float = field(
default=0.1,
metadata={"help": "shrink factor for annealing, lr_new = (lr * lr_shrink)"},
)
lr_threshold: float = field(
default=1e-4,
metadata={
"help": "threshold for measuring the new optimum, to only focus on significant changes"
},
)
lr_patience: int = field(
default=0,
metadata={
"help": "number of epochs with no improvement after which learning rate will be reduced"
},
)
warmup_updates: int = field(
default=0,
metadata={"help": "warmup the learning rate linearly for the first N updates"},
)
warmup_init_lr: float = field(
default=-1,
metadata={
"help": "initial learning rate during warmup phase; default is args.lr"
},
)
final_lr_scale: float = field(
default=0.01,
metadata={"help": "final learning rate scale; default to 0.01"},
)
start_reduce_lr_epoch: int = field(
default=0,
metadata={"help": "start to reduce lr from the specified epoch"},
)
# TODO common vars at parent class
lr: List[float] = II("params.optimization.lr")
@register_lr_scheduler('reduce_lr_on_plateau_v2')
class ReduceLROnPlateauV2(ReduceLROnPlateau):
"""Decay the LR by a factor every time the validation loss plateaus, starting
from the epoch specified as args.start_reduce_lr_epoch.
We also support specifying a final lr which will be kept until the max number
of epochs is reached.
"""
def __init__(self, args, optimizer):
super().__init__(args, optimizer)
self.lr_scheduler = torch.optim.lr_scheduler.ReduceLROnPlateau(
self.optimizer.optimizer, patience=args.lr_patience, factor=args.lr_shrink,
mode='max' if args.maximize_best_checkpoint_metric else 'min',
threshold=args.lr_threshold, min_lr=args.final_lr_scale * args.lr[0]
)
@staticmethod
def add_args(parser):
"""Add arguments to the parser for this LR scheduler."""
ReduceLROnPlateau.add_args(parser)
# fmt: off
parser.add_argument('--final-lr-scale', default=0.01, type=float, metavar='N',
help='final learning rate scale; default to 0.01')
parser.add_argument('--start-reduce-lr-epoch', default=0, type=int, metavar='N',
help='start to reduce lr from the specified epoch')
# fmt: on
def step(self, epoch, val_loss=None):
if epoch < self.args.start_reduce_lr_epoch:
self.lr_scheduler.last_epoch = epoch
self.optimizer.set_lr(self.args.lr[0])
return self.optimizer.get_lr()
return super().step(epoch, val_loss)
|
---------------------- Forwarded by Darron C Giron/HOU/ECT on 10/30/2000
12:46 PM ---------------------------
Enron North America Corp.
From: B Scott Palmer 10/30/2000 12:22 PM
To: Kam Keiser/HOU/ECT@ECT, Phillip M Love/HOU/ECT@ECT, Darron C
Giron/HOU/ECT@ECT, Jennifer Bagwell/NA/Enron@ENRON, Jackson
Logan/HOU/ECT@ECT, Victor Guggenheim/HOU/ECT@ECT, Dawn C Kenne/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: FW: For you professional drinkers!!
This is sweet.
---------------------- Forwarded by B Scott Palmer/HOU/ECT on 10/30/2000
12:19 PM ---------------------------
Enron North America Corp.
From: B Scott Palmer 06/13/2000 10:39 AM
To: B Scott Palmer/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: FW: For you professional drinkers!!
---------------------- Forwarded by B Scott Palmer/HOU/ECT on 06/13/2000
10:38 AM ---------------------------
Enron North America Corp.
From: Rebecca S Mize 07/21/99 04:22 PM
To: Jessica V Moreno/HOU/ECT@ECT, Kathryn Cordes/HOU/ECT@ECT, B Scott
Palmer/HOU/ECT@ECT, Dianne J Swiber/HOU/ECT@ECT, Stephanie Sever/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: FW: For you professional drinkers!!
---------------------- Forwarded by Rebecca S Mize/HOU/ECT on 07/21/99 04:21
PM ---------------------------
Enron Capital & Trade Resources Corp.
From: "Mize, Jeffrey N." <jmize@utmb.edu> 07/21/99
12:19 PM
To: "'Carla Homer'" <chomer@capstonefinancial.com>, "Bell, Carole"
<cbell@EMAIL.UTMB.EDU>, "Johnson, Jana B." <jbjohnso@EMAIL.UTMB.EDU>, "'Jimbo
Chambers'" <james.chambers@compaq.com>, "Boysen, Karl"
<kboysen@EMAIL.UTMB.EDU>, "Swift, Lauren" <lsswift@EMAIL.UTMB.EDU>, "Kowis,
Lisa R." <lkowis@EMAIL.UTMB.EDU>, "Rhame, Liz" <lrhame@EMAIL.UTMB.EDU>,
"'Michelle Birsinger'" <mrb@bcm.tmc.edu>, "Peikert, Quintin W."
<qpeikert@EMAIL.UTMB.EDU>, Rebecca S Mize/HOU/ECT, "'David Grissom'"
<sq6dave@aol.com>
cc:
Subject: FW: For you professional drinkers!!
Here's something useful.
> <<100pr.exe>>
- 100pr.exe |
Tell me what your company does - HappyKasper
https://medium.com/@kasperkubica/for-the-love-of-god-please-tell-me-what-your-company-does-c2f0b835ab92
======
nickstefan12
> the more expensive the service a B2B company provides, the more
> incomprehensible its website
> I think the big companies do it to get you on the phone — so they can
> upsell.
I was thinking these things, and then BOOM, he says what I'm thinking haha.
These are sales oriented companies. By contrast, B2C is quantity oriented.
They need more customers buying their mostly undifferentiated price tiers.
Selling expensive pants vs regular pants isn't worth high touch sales.
However, in B2B, selling "really really expensive enterprise plan" vs "regular
enterprise plan" is definitely worth high touch sales. They want to do
everything they can to get you "interested, but confused" and pick up the
phone.
~~~
cerved
It's an answer that provides a possibly logical reason for the behavior but I
don't buy it.
Firstly because inbound phone calls are incredibly rare. Maybe it's more
common for people to pick up the phone in the states but in my three years
selling B2B SaaS (enterprise and startup) I never received a hot inbound lead
on the phone. It's a bit different if your market leader but most companies
and products aren't so I don't think it's a valid strategy.
Secondly because if you are doing a proper inbound strategy you need to entice
people with content, product demonstrations or trials (ie showing the
product).
Finally, if you want to obfuscate your offering, you don't need to hide it
behind a bunch of mumbo jumbo. People rarely understand exactly what your
product does even if you give them full access to it for a month.
I think the reason is simpler. A mixture of incompetence - B2B companies don't
have the marketing savvy of FMCGs - and the fact competitors don't do a much
better job. It's harder to write a clear, concise and enticing description of
what you do than just generating buzzwordy corporate bs. It looks marketingy,
so the copy is going to be signed off by everyone. Besides, everyone else in
the industry is throwing around the same buzzwords, so you get this bubble of
nonsense speak and everyone just rolls with it.
~~~
adambyrtek
B2B startups don't rely on inbound phone calls, they want you to leave your
email, phone number, and company size in order to "receive a case study",
"book a product demo", or "subscribe to a newsletter", and that's when the
real sales process starts.
They put a lot of money and effort into sales and marketing, and you
underestimate them by thinking that it's a sign of incompetence.
~~~
cerved
Bro, read my comment.
We're talking about why a lot of B2B tech companies have a lot buzzwordy
nonsense instead of descriptions of what they can do for their customers (this
is not unique to tech companies, I would say this goes for most B2B) and the
theory put forward was that it's to get people to pickup the phone so they can
understand what the fuck the product does. This is what I debunked.
I literally worked as a salesrep at a fairly big B2B marketing startup and one
of the largest enterprise software companies.
What you refer to is content marketing to generate inbound leads. Those leads
would then be put on a mailing list and and an outbound process would start.
Except the "book a demo" (inbound lead) which I never recall leading to a good
deal.
If you are a small stage startup with a small sales team you can probably get
by on inbound but you have to go outbound to saturate the market. Even then,
having poor description is going to hurt your Google fu so I don't buy the
strategy.
If your the market leader, like salesforce in crm, you're going to see a lot
of inbound but that's because people know your product and you're gartner
quadrant status. Even then you'd still do maybe 50/50 inbound outbound.
In either case, the "it's shit because it works" argument still doesn't really
hold up.
They put a lot of money into sales, they put a lot of money into going to
conferences. They do not, however, seem to put really any money into a decent
copywriter.
~~~
adambyrtek
All very good points. I was just saying that in my opinion they might be
intentionally abstract to make you feel like they can solve all your problems,
and vague enough to convince you to leave your contact details to find out
more, but the ultimate goal is to get you into the funnel. I think we agree on
most points, I just think it's not necessarily a sign of incompetence.
~~~
cerved
That might be the case but vagueness doesn't sell.
I'm not saying the message should be an engineering manual of the ins and outs
the product but it should be clear, concise and entice customers to give the
product further attention.
Consider seo description field of HubSpot
>HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies
attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers.
Vs. Optimizely
> Be brave, experiment everywhere, and transform your customer experience with
> Optimizely.
Seriously WTF
------
Retr0spectrum
I came across this recently:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l644fAxGzlw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l644fAxGzlw)
Don't waste your time watching it. It's a promo video for yet another a very
scammy looking ICO.
I watched through the entire 3 minute video, only because I found it
increasingly amusing how long they were taking to "get to the point". As it
turns out, this video is 3 minutes of stock videos of Dubai with a pseudo-
inspirational voiceover about nothing in particular, followed by their logo
being shown for a mere 10 seconds at the end.
I couldn't believe that this wasn't a parody (at least, I don't think it is),
it's exactly like something out of HBO's Silicon Valley show.
~~~
kaffeemitsahne
"The First A.I. Big Data Marketing Cloud for BlockChain"
This is pure comedy.
~~~
rdiddly
OK granted it has AI, big data, cloud and blockchain, but is it social? That's
what I wanna know. Never forget social, because that's what leads to viral.
Also engine. We need an engine. If it was a viral AI bigdata social marketing
cloud engine for blockchain, then you'd have something.
~~~
redler
Call one of our solutioneers or successsmiths to arrange a Webex demo.
------
rsp1984
So much this. Another perfect example:
[https://databricks.com](https://databricks.com)
They just raised a $140m round of financing so apparently they have some good
stuff going on. If you look at the website though:
_The Unified Analytics Platform. Accelerate innovation by unifying data
science, engineering, and business._
Sorry, what? Click on "learn more about the platform":
_DATABRICKS IS A TRULY UNIFIED APPROACH TO DATA ANALYTICS AT SCALE. Founded
by the team who created Apache Spark, Databricks provides a Unified Analytics
Platform that accelerates innovation by unifying data science, engineering,
and business._
I still have no clue what exactly TF the product is but I sure got my weekly
dose of BS buzzwords.
~~~
avip
This is hilarious! I'm a paying customer of databricks, a useful service that
can, and should, be described in a single medium length sentence.
~~~
Illniyar
How will you describe it?
~~~
Consultant32452
Databricks provides a Unified Analytics Platform that accelerates innovation
by unifying data science, engineering, and business.
~~~
Terr_
... username checks out.
------
jack9
The bait-sunk-cost approach = get em talking however you need to (including
them asking what the hell you actually do) to tell you what they want and sell
your solution as a possibility or the best approach.
I hate this transparent attempt to trick (me) the customer. IBM has done this
to me when I'm drilling down into technical requirements like I'm some middle
manager who doesn't know the actual needs. I always suspected that IBMs bread
and butter is to move the sunk cost of contact into an actual sunk cost of
technical debt, but I have firsthand experience now. The sign of a bad culture
and lazy marketing.
~~~
stuartaxelowen
Holy crap, this totally explains MongoDB's success.
------
continuations
My startup is focused on customer-oriented experiential personalized
relationship-building solutions by leveraging distributed smart reactive coin
offerings powered by unsupervised blockchain adversarial deep learning
supported by containerized self-driving car clouds.
Investors plz line up, take a number, and contact me thru PM.
~~~
christophilus
So, I'm confused. Is it the Uber of Facebooks, or the Facebook of Ubers?
~~~
continuations
It's the Uber of Initial Facebook Offering. I thought that was painfully
clear.
------
a_d
There are possibly a few things happening that explain this:
1\\. Fear of not communicating "everything" that you do. The fear is of being
perceived as a very narrow solution when it does a lot more.
2\\. Advice that says "communicate the benefits" not "what you do". This advice
could manifest itself in the wrong kind of (flowery) language. So instead of
saying "export payroll reports for QuickBooks automatically" websites say
"free up for time" [made up example]
3\\. Internal decision-making by committee.
4\\. Copying some website that you like - instead of thinking and reasoning
from ground-up about 'what is it that I _really_ want to say'.
5\\. Pretending to be a big/legit company when you are small
6\\. Big company with so many features that it would rather just show you the
entire sales deck - the website is just _there_ because it needs to be, but
plays a tiny role in conversions. [why focus on something that doesn't add
value - in this case, the website e.g. SAP.com]
This is a good article. Everyone who is running an online would benefit from
thinking hard about this.
~~~
scrollaway
I suspect at least part of it is sites being sold to companies by contractors
who use the same tricks as mediums: be generic, make vague statements that
apply to anyone.
Contractors are the least well positioned people to know how to describe what
a company does. So when the company calls them and asks them for a rockstar
ninja site, they get generic stuff and execs go "oh yeah, that's such a
perfect description of what we do" with no regard for those that might not
already know.
------
dyim
Just to play devil's advocate:
Whenever I'm seriously considering purchasing an enterprise B2B product, I
mostly know what they do before visiting their website. I've heard of them
already, either through word of mouth, or by explicitly asking friends for
recommendations. I suspect that I'm not too different from most purchasers.
If a company's targeting a landing page for someone like me, perhaps they
shouldn't optimize for clarity; they should optimize for signaling
reliability. So, the "Web 20.17 parallax-ed boots[t]rap-ed responsive home
page" serves a purpose - it reminds me of all the other Web 20.17... B2B
services I've happily used in the past.
I'm probably ascribing way too much significance to the semiotics of B2B
homepages [1]. But I find it tough to believe that (e.g.) Optimizely hasn't,
well, optimized their homepage for _something_.
[1] Also, take what I say with a huge grain of salt. My business' homepage
needs a lot of work...
~~~
nicodjimenez
Agreed. Probably for some B2B companies, getting people talking about your
product and then having a vague but fancy landing page makes sense. Landing
pages need to be optimized to create sequences of actions that lead to "buy"
decisions. So maybe: 1) Developer at company X hears good things about Y from
Hackernews 2) Cost of product for X is high enough that it needs to be
approved by senior people at the company 3) These senior decision makers may
not be engineers, and they may just look at the landing page as a marker of
how well capitalized the company is / if they give the impression that if
customization is required, company Y will be willing to step outside the
bounds of "shrink wrapped software" to accommodate company X's needs.
------
rdtsc
Maybe this is the equivalent of the scammers claiming they are from Nigeria
even if they are not. That's how scammers filter out automatically all those
who are smart enough to see through the bullshit and only get the suckers to
respond. These companies filter out those who see through the bullshit and
only get the suckers, too?
Startup marketing is not necessarily geared for customers (end-users). They
are just as much geared towards VCs who are courted and who are expected to
bankroll the company. Some non-negligible number of startup founders jumped on
the bandwagon with the goal not necessarily make a product, get customers, but
really just to be CEOs and play "startup". That can be done by fooling a few
angels. Depending on who these prospective VCs are the message and marketing
can be adjusted to appeal to them. Just because someone has a lot of money
doesn't mean they can't be fooled or taken advantage of. They probably hear
and see all this startup activity, unicorns left and right so they are eager
to play the game. And so they are matched up with just as eager "founders" who
also want to play the startup game.
The last paragraph was from experience. The person fooled some older wealthy
guys to invest in their silly idea. They burnt though millions in a few years
renting an office in SV, hiring lots of workers, going to conferences,
rewriting their thing with the latest frameworks. And yes eventually it all
failed, because they had 0 paying customers. But it also didn't fail, because
now they speak at conferences and put ex-SV CEO and founder on their title and
so on.
The idea is, if you just dig a bit deeper, it is easy to see things a bit more
clear.
------
orblivion
I can understand avoiding clickbait, but it seems that HN has a policy of
making sure titles are sufficiently boring. Originally this post's title
matched the blog post's title:
> For the love of God, please tell me what your company does
Adds some flair. Expresses the sentiment of the article. Now it simply says:
> Tell me what your company does
On the other hand, HN is an impressively effective, open minded atmosphere for
discussion. The bit of pruning that is done must be working. I wonder if this
policy somehow leads to success overall.
~~~
jv22222
I've been wondering the same thing. It does, sometimes, seem to come across a
bit like the thought police...
~~~
orblivion
I've seen people earnestly discuss climate skepticism here, which is a pretty
taboo opinion to have these days, at least (let's say) in tech circles. So I
don't think it's thought police. More like fun police.
------
mhewett
I've been trying for several years to determine the company size at which we
will be forced to turn our understandable site into marketing buzzwords and
incomprehensible sentences. 50 people? $5 million/year in revenue? What is the
turning point and who drops by to force us into incomprehensibility?
~~~
pmiller2
I don't know, but there are phrases on my company's website that literally
don't mean anything to me, and I work on the product it's supposed to be
referencing. We have about 100 employees.
------
cperciva
I want to see this guy review the Tarsnap website. For all that some people
don't like my web design, I'd like to think that it's _very_ easy to figure
out what Tarsnap is.
~~~
peacelilly
The web design is indeed ugly, but at least it is functional.
Here are some easy to implement design suggestions: You should change the
title of the first heading so it's not the same as the banner. I think "What
is Tarsnap?" is a good choice. Speaking of the banner, vectorize it. Finally,
please remove the bars from the asides.
Your product is good, so transferring a little attention to its web presence
is worth the effort.
~~~
megous
Ugly is subjective. I like it. It's actually readable and easy to navigate.
On small width device the menu will be on the bottom, so there's no
duplication. (website seems to be responsive)
I like that the menu is on the bottom and not hidden behind a hamburger
button.
~~~
cperciva
Not just on small width devices! The navigation menu is at the bottom if you
look at the website in lynx, too (with a link to it at the top).
------
csense
Anytime I go onto a company's website and I either can't figure out what they
do, or pricing information isn't available, I think "Right, their business
model is to overcharge folks who have more money than sense" and I promptly
leave.
~~~
cagenut
I felt that way in my 20's too. I have since grown up and made a lot of money
realizing I was wrong, but I still _feel_ that way.
~~~
Xcelerate
So... why is he wrong?
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
There are a number of reasons some websites do not list prices:
1\\. Pricing sets the wrong expectation for the true price you may actually pay
once you get all the features you need and may not be aware of thus making the
sale more difficult.
2\\. Pricing sets a transactional tone vs a mutually beneficial relationship
3\\. Pricing anchors your mind set to how much something costs vs how much
value / ROI you get out of that product or service.
All of these do disservice to seeker and provider.
~~~
Aloha
Yes - perhaps - but If I'm a small business looking for a thing that does X -
I want to know if this is in the ballpark for me - or perhaps this is targeted
at someone bigger. Price is a helpful way to determine that - because god
knows, you can't figure that out from the marketing gobbledygook on the
website anymore. The ROI doesn't matter if you can't afford the investment in
the first place.
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Then those websites are not targeting you and could care less what your needs
are.
------
sgustard
My company squeezes juice out of bags. That was easy to explain, but didn't
seem to help. Pretty sure we should have gone with "scalable antioxidant
delivery systems."
~~~
samstave
Socially connected Intelligent nutrient extraction at you fingertips
------
glandium
Kind of related: Many sites have a footer with links like "About us", etc.
which would seem like what people may want to check out right? Well, some of
them also have infinite scroll, and the footer is not visible without
scrolling, so you scroll down, see the footer for a brief moment, until more
content is loaded and pushes the footer out of the view . Rince. Repeat. It's
as if they don't want you to ever use that footer.
------
nathan_f77
This inspired me to redo the landing page for my side project:
[https://formapi.io/](https://formapi.io/)
Would appreciate some feedback. Is the purpose clear enough? I know it won't
make sense unless you're a developer, but it's a tool for developers.
It's just a rough draft, so it probably won't be that sparse when I launch. I
need to add a proper pricing page, and a tab bar at the top. I'm also planning
to add a demo API request that you can run, similar to mailgun.com.
~~~
pdimitar
I would use a bigger font, and probably another font face as well -- maybe
Avenir (although it's paid). I'd also make the 3 bullet points bigger since
they are the only textual representation of how to use your product.
Outside of that the website is pretty good and serves its purpose!
~~~
nathan_f77
Thanks for the feedback! I love Avenir, and was using it until I realized it
wasn't free. I might switch to Lato from Google Fonts, which is pretty
similar, and I'll make the text bigger.
------
Clubber
I've thought it was because they needed to fill up a large blank area with
copy (words), otherwise the page will look weird.
It might be because the adage, "don't sell a product, sell an emotion," but
taken to an inconceivable level.
Or maybe it's like legalese, it's not necessary, but looks good if you are
billing at $500 an hour.
------
Kiro
I thought Meltwater's flagship product was media monitoring, which their
slogan kind of captures:
> Welcome to Outside Insight
> Billions of online conversations, freshly filtered.
The title of their landing page is even more to the point:
> Media Intelligence, Media Monitoring, and Social Monitoring
I thought Optimizely was an A/B testing tool, which makes their punchline OK:
> Optimizely lets you experiment on everything—from design choices to
> algorithms. That way the best ideas always win, and the best customer
> experiences get even better.
I suppose this only adds to his argument though, it's hard to tell what
companies do.
~~~
HappyKasper
You're right, Meltwater and Optimizely aren't as bad as it gets (84.51
definitely is). And after spending some time on those websites, you're able to
get a pretty good sense for what they do.
My main point is that it shouldn't ever be difficult for a potential customer
to quickly get to that understanding, and I do believe these sites could do a
far better job at quickly and clearly explaining their companies' function...
just like you did.
"Meltwater's flagship product is media monitoring". "Optimizely is a website
A/B testing tool". Boom.
~~~
smelendez
I think they want to be able to pivot and add new services without having to
retract how they previously labeled themselves.
For instance, Optimizely has a website A/B testing tool. They also support
smartphone app A/B testing, and I think some backend/server-side testing. If
smart watches or VR take off, they'll probably try to support those as well.
They also recently added automated content generation: I know they can
generate product and page recommendations, and there may be other options as
well.
They're a relatively young company and probably aren't ready to be typecast as
"website A/B testing," in case another offering really takes off.
------
trgv
I always assumed this is just the result of the people who design the site not
knowing what the company does.
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Designers have nothing to do with it. Most designers unless specifically hired
to also write copy, use placeholder text. It's usually the inhouse marketing
person who has marketing language fatigued drilled down from their bosses that
can't think straight to get the right words out. I don't blame those people, I
feel sorry for them.
------
paultopia
Also, PUT THE PRICES ON THERE. Even more infuriating than a company that won't
tell you what they do is a company that tells you what they do and then
demands you contact them to be salespersoned at before they'll tell you the
price. Fuck you, no.
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
You don't understand anything about business do you?
~~~
flukus
I understand they aren't getting my business without prices listed. I don't
get to make any multi-million dollar decisions (except maybe in the extreme
long term) but several times I've been tasked with research problems where
commercial software or external services may be part of the solution. The ones
with no prices get taken out of the evaluation process because I can't
evaluate if they're feasible or not.
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
I feel sorry for your employer then.
------
nicolasehrhardt
I blame A/B testing actually. Too many folks run experiments without choosing
which metric to optimize carefully. Here, marketers probably monitor click-
through rates of their main homepage buttons. And unfortunately, if you change
the landing page text from a few actually descriptive sentences to the BS
described in this article, you probably end up with higher click through rates
on your buttons.
~~~
inthewoods
Most of the B2B companies I've worked for don't have enough traffic to perform
an A/B test in anything short of 6 months.
------
Micoloth
[[pro tip- a lot of startup companies actually do not do anything]]
------
lou1306
This is some Silicon-Valley-the-HBO-show-grade stuff. I wonder whether the
people designing these website still think they're being hip or they just have
to cater to some blissfully unaware managers.
------
Frondo
Yep, this is the end-game of "customers buy benefits, not features" marketing
writing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully on board with the idea of marketing your
benefits, not features, but so very much of the marketing writing you see out
there now takes the concept to this unhelpful extreme.
I ride my bike past a shop every few days that's called something like
"Shelter Solutions," but in smaller print they say "We rent equipment for
commercial and residential roofing need". Boom, done, that's what I care
about.
Or some lady who gave me a fistful of business cards at a networking event
(she apparently has five thriving gigs, eyeroll), one of which was
"telecommunications solutions consultant"\\--talking to her, she has some cell
phone MLM program she's a part of.
Customers buy benefits, but if you're not telling them what the features are,
you've failed at writing clear copy. Most people do.
~~~
TeMPOraL
I sometimes feel like I'm an alien on this planet. I can't imagine how
"customers buy benefits, not features" could possibly work.
What I mean is this - I'm not going to buy a product that I don't understand,
period. Be it a piece of software (from kitten photo apps to CAD software) or
an appliance, I only buy (and ever imagine buying) things for which I at least
clearly understand what inputs and outputs are. I can use this software to
upload JPGs to friends. I put dirty dishes in this appliance, add some
consumables, and clean dishes pop out. Those are "features", not "benefits".
On the other hand, when I see people selling on "benefits", I immediately
assume they're dishonest and steer away. The listed benefits usually are, at
best, a serious abuse of some cherry-picked words, and at worst outright lies.
It's one of the strongest negative signals for me when evaluating companies
(especially when I don't have third-party information on their actual
products).
Do most people really live their lives looking for something to buy that will
make their lives "connected", or their company "full of streamlined cloud
synergy" or something?
~~~
Retra
Given how the sales and marketing people at my place of employment respond to
corporate announcements... they'll probably do anything to arrange words and
phrases into something that triggers a "sounds like a corporate executive"
response from their superiors.
------
mrkurt
There are two ways to tell people what a company does:
1\\. Explain the value of what you do 2\\. Explain how it's implemented
The Optimizely example in this article is the former, though the headline is
not great. The subhead is pretty decent.
Optimizely could easily say "we're an application for testing different
versions of your app", which is true and explains what they literally do.
In my experience, if you care about conversions, "explain the value" wins.
People who believe they need experimentation don't mind digging for
implementation. But they want to know you'll make them more money, or do
something else to improve their lives.
This is weird for people like me, I'd usually rather read the README version
of a product. But I'm not the one making buying decisions for Optimizely or an
agency.
------
draaglom
There's a good reason for this, and it's not (directly) to get you on the
phone & up-sell you.
These landing pages are optimised for conversion, which means they're targeted
at the niche who are most likely to convert already - and for bigger,
specialist firms, that niche quite likely already knows the essence of what
the company does.
Because these users are also likely evaluating competitors at the same time,
the pressure is on the company to differentiate - and one way to do that is to
tout your high level values.
"We're not just an X, we are an X which _gets_ your need for Y unlike
$competitor"
All of this isn't to say that incomprehensible websites are good, of course.
There are ways to express how you're way up maslow's heirarchy without being
completely confusing.
------
Animats
The amusing thing is when a web site for a company that does real stuff ends
up looking like one of those. I mentioned Continental in a self-driving car
discussion. Here's their web site.[1] Someone commented that it looked like a
fake company. The rearing-horse logo, "The future in motion" as a slogan, and
the vague name looked suspicious. The pictures look like clip art. The top of
the home page rotates through four large banners - "Making Mobility a Great
Place to Live", "Let your Ideas Shape the Future", "Continental Pledges
Support in Response to Hurricane Harvey", and "First 48V drive for electric
bikes". The last at least mentions a product. The entire initial screen does
look vague.
(Continental is one of the world's largest auto parts makers, over a century
old, based in Germany, and with over 200,000 employees. They make everything
from tires to self-driving car sensor integration units. Not a fly-by-night
startup.)
Look at General Electric.[2] Their home page has "The Digital Industry Company
- Imagination at Work", clip art of some enormous piece of machinery, and a
search box. Of course, GE probably made that enormous piece of machinery. But
there's no indication of what they do. For that, you have to use the "GE
Businesses" drop-down menu. It may take a while to find out that GE is
prepared to sell you a jet engine or a locomotive.
What seems to be happening is that startups are emulating big-company sites.
Badly.
[1] [https://www.continental-corporation.com/en](https://www.continental-
corporation.com/en) [2] [https://www.ge.com/](https://www.ge.com/)
~~~
mrisoli
When companies get this big they usually can't just say what they do on their
website with two sentences, so IMO, this is the case where these artsy vague
landing pages are passable.
I mean, GE was formed by Thomas Edison himself, they have everything from jet
engines to self-driving cars. I suppose if you are the person responsible for
shopping around for jet engines for your company you are not going to ge.com
for specs.
Considering their size, I'd expect them to try to lure individuals(career and
jobs) through their website instead of potential customers.
------
yodon
Marketing is hard. Writing compelling advertising copy is hard. Figuring out
what people want and need to know about your product is hard.
Getting some designer with a great visual portfolio to make your website isn't
the same thing as having a marketing plan or a marketing strategy, but it's a
whole lot faster and cheaper and unfortunately most people don't know the
difference.
Oh, and as awesome as Simon Sinek's Ted talk[0] is, you're not Apple and
potential customers actually do care whether your product is useful for people
like them.
[0]
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA)
------
hough
I think a pretty good example of how to describe what you do on your site is
[http://verily.com](http://verily.com) (owned by Alphabet/Google).
'We create tools that put health data into action' hits you right in the face
when you visit the page. Then you scroll down and see good descriptions of
their products.
As someone who visited their site after looking through similar sites filled
with marketing crap, I found it a relief to see something so simple. Use this
as a startup website template instead!
------
mrspeaker
It reminds me of Gavin Volure (Steve Martin) on 30 Rock. After getting busted
as a fraud he says "It's not a real company. You watch our commercials, we
never actually say what we did." and then it cuts to this beautiful corporate-
speak ad
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlymNLAAzUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlymNLAAzUM)
I feel like I've hit that company 50-odd times in my life while searching for
vendors.
------
dvdhsu
I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption.
If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to
start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and
enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people,
and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed
decision.
If you're going top-down, your deal size is larger, and your goal is to get a
few high-paying customers. You want to maximize the # of people who you can
talk to (and convince) over the phone, as well as extract the highest $ value
out of. So you filter for the people who are a) serious about the problem, and
b) can make the decision. As a developer or engineer, your discretionary
budget probably isn't high enough for these companies to care about you. In
fact, they probably don't even want to talk to you!
So companies that mostly rely on top-down sales have very vague landing pages.
Their goal is to find specifically the people who have so much pain that
they're willing to take a 25-minute sales call. And if you're willing to spend
25 minutes, it probably means that you have the budget that they care about.
[edit: removed stuff about my own startup]
~~~
jasonrhaas
If I have to get on a "sales call" just to see what the product is or demo it,
I am not interested. Let me try it for free, and tell me what it does... I
really don't have time or patience for sales calls.
~~~
dvdhsu
Then you're probably not the right customer for us! Do you have problems with
internal tooling that you'd pay thousands of $ / month to have solved?
For now, that's who we're looking for. And a "request a demo" is a pretty good
way of finding exactly those people.
------
pillowkusis
Some other reasons why B2B sites are incomprehensible, along with “get them on
the phone at all costs”:
\\- What you do is totally opaque and requires a massive amount of context to
explain. Yes, it’s 5 sentences, but only after both you and the user are in
the same context trying to solve the same problem. Try to explain a randomly-
selected B2B company’s model to your grandma. Impossible. Instead let’s focus
on company branding and positive sounding platitudes.
\\- Once you’re selling to businesses, you’re selling to VPs and C-level
executives. They don’t care about the problem you solve. You're solving some
lower-level employee’s problem, or a systemic problem nobody experiences
directly. Since the buyer (the VP) isn’t feeling any of the pain, the only way
to justify the purchase is to focus exclusively on the high-level benefits of
your service. They’re in charge of marketing. promise them perfect marketing.
They’re in sales. Promise them better sales. Focus on the outcomes, not the
“how”, at all costs.
\\- A lesser factor might be that companies love to align workers with an
affirmation that the work these employees do 40+ hours a week is making the
world better. B2B organizations have an especially hard time proving this
because there’s no clear evidence their business does make the world better.
No consumers who sing your praises or products that solve a problem the worker
can empathize with. I suspect the large amount of mental gymnastics needed to
justify “our company is a net good in the world” sometimes leaks into to
marketing material which leads to weird-sounding empty affirmations that are
more suited to internal employee “values” documents than actual marketing
content. (“We make people’s lives easier”, for instance.)
------
hoodoof
[http://camel.apache.org/](http://camel.apache.org/)
Front page of the Camel website:
Camel empowers you to define routing and mediation rules in a variety of
domain-specific languages, including a Java-based Fluent API, Spring or
Blueprint XML Configuration files, and a Scala DSL.
This means you get smart completion of routing rules in your IDE, whether in a
Java, Scala or XML editor.
Apache Camel uses URIs to work directly with any kind of Transport or
messaging model such as HTTP, ActiveMQ, JMS, JBI, SCA, MINA or CXF, as well as
pluggable Components and Data Format options. Apache Camel is a small library
with minimal dependencies for easy embedding in any Java application. Apache
Camel lets you work with the same API regardless which kind of Transport is
used - so learn the API once and you can interact with all the Components
provided out-of-box.
Apache Camel provides support for Bean Binding and seamless integration with
popular frameworks such as CDI, Spring, Blueprint and Guice. Camel also has
extensive support for unit testing your routes.
------
teabee89
Reminds me of "I am Pied Piper": [http://siliconcali.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/I_AM_PIED_...](http://siliconcali.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/I_AM_PIED_PIPER_Billboard_SiliconCali.jpg)
------
smb06
I have looked at this website for a long time, my colleagues have looked at
it, friends have looked at it, and we still can't figure out what they do.
[http://www.thit.com/](http://www.thit.com/)
~~~
Retr0spectrum
From the sound of it, they don't know either:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/socialmedia/comments/11d8tt/can_som...](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialmedia/comments/11d8tt/can_someone_explain_to_me_what_thit_is_or_if_it/c6lsgam/)
_" it is up to you to browse the site and create your own interpretation of
it"_
------
dredmorbius
This also applies to far too many non-companies as well. Free software
projects are notorious for this.
For both I generally prefer Wikipedia to their own webssites.
My own similar rant, as an HN comment, remains among my more popular
contributions here. "Please forward to marketing".
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_forward_to_marketing_how_to_present_your/)
------
chiefalchemist
If I visit a site and they can't manage to tell me - clearly - what they do, I
presume they don't know either. I quicky move on.
The whole "it's free to try" routine is tiring at best. It's your
product...communicate to me why I should care. If you don't know why that
might be, it's not my job to figure it out for you (or for me).
The problem is, such tactics (artificially) inflate the new users KPI.
Retention? Actually using the product? Ha! Who cares!! No one ever asks about
that.
------
mbesto
Ugh, here we go again...
If you're complaining that the copy on a successful tech company is not
speaking to you, then it's likely that you aren't the intended audience.
------
gwbas1c
I suspect this happens when companies forget what they do!
------
eneveu
This also applies to some open source projects, like Apache Karaf (
[http://karaf.apache.org/](http://karaf.apache.org/) ):
_Upgrade to the Enterprise class platform.
Karaf provides dual polymorphic container and application bootstrapping
paradigms to the Enterprise. Focus on your business code and application,
Karaf deals with the rest_
------
rconti
Anybody remember when the Infiniti car brand launched in the US, and all of
their ads were nonsensical and had no apparent relation to cars?
Best I can find:
[http://articles.latimes.com/1989-08-26/business/fi-897_1_ad-...](http://articles.latimes.com/1989-08-26/business/fi-897_1_ad-
campaign)
------
bluetwo
If you want to learn how to do it better, I can't recommend this book enough,
"So What?" by Mark Magnacca.
[https://www.amazon.com/So-What-Communicate-Matters-
Audience/...](https://www.amazon.com/So-What-Communicate-Matters-
Audience/dp/0137158262/)
Spend the $10 and become a better communicator.
------
dqv
Websites like that are "websites for the record". There are certain markets
who think it's weird that a company doesn't have a website, but don't really
care about the content or how it looks.
A lot of the text seems to be placeholder/written by a designer who asked
about what the company wanted for the content and never got a response.
------
bjarneh
> Yet for a few thousand dollars a year, Meltwater will give you reporters’
> emails and phone numbers
It's quite hard to describe their business model without using the words
"verified emails"; which is closely related to spam marketing I guess. A few
thousand dollars a year also sounds very expensive for those email
addresses/phone numbers
------
user5994461
Most websites don't sell anything directly. They don't need to be
understandable.
To take the previous examples, continentals and general electrics websites
have nothing to sell to you whatsoever. The website is used to publish general
company information online like: financial reports, global news, official
contacts and addresses, job offers.
------
brongondwana
Hrm... and checking out our brand new site:
[https://www.topicbox.com/](https://www.topicbox.com/)
We're pretty close, but there's nothing there saying "this is a mailing list
product" as such. I'll go see what can be done about that without ruining the
pretty story.
------
acomjean
a coworker left my company to go work at pega-systems. They've been around for
a while as a company but I visited their website to figure out what they do.
Its a little better now, but...
"Pegasystems Inc. is the leader in software for customer engagement and
operational excellence. Pega’s adaptive, cloud-architected software – built on
its unified Pega® Platform – empowers people to rapidly deploy, and easily
extend and change applications to meet strategic business needs. Over its
30-year history, Pega has delivered award-winning capabilities in CRM and BPM,
powered by advanced artificial intelligence and robotic automation, to help
the world’s leading brands achieve breakthrough business results."
[https://www.pega.com/about](https://www.pega.com/about)
~~~
jpatokal
So, um, what do they actually do? The only words in that that make any sense
are CRM (customer relationship management) and CPM (business process
management), and those are also hopelessly waffly business bingo buzzwords.
~~~
acomjean
I'm still not entirely sure. I think they just make business software for
businesses. Seems like something abstracted way too much..
I once did an in house mobile timekeeping app that interfaced with a big
company accounting system that we could only talk to with xml directly.
(Javascript on blackberry oddly...) It should have been so simple, but we had
to do a lot of weird things because the accounting system was very obtuse.
Reminds me of that.
------
shurcooL
Contrast that with a site like this:
[https://gotools.org](https://gotools.org)
It tells you exactly what it does in one sentence, and that sentence is the
only one on the page. Despite that, it's probably not as popular as the vague
sites being complained about here.
------
yalogin
My take is these companies are elusive in their descriptions because they sell
data and/or harvest data. So they are worried about privacy people getting on
their backs. So they try to not be direct and to get their through word of
mouth or through their sales channels.
------
crispinb
SV/tech sector narcissism and associated managerial credulity is going to
provide fodder for much epic and wonderful satire. Which is admittedly minor
compensation for this vast waste of human and other resources at a time when
we are facing so many genuine challenges.
------
karmakaze
Another frustrating trend is landing pages without sign in links. Optimizing
for the acquisition/activation funnel is fine, but at least put in this one
element for existing paying customers. Tooo often I find myself googling for
"<name> login"
------
echelon
Off-topic: since when did Medium ask readers to "sign in to get the full
experience" with a giant modal? Is anyone else getting this, or are they A/B
testing?
I hope they don't go down a route of blocking non-subscribers from reading
their content like Quora.
~~~
fauigerzigerk
I'm not getting it.
------
adora
One-liners are hard.
One problem is people trying to pack ALL the features and ideas into that
summary. So in the pursuit of wanting everyone to get the entire vision, the
"what you offer right now" is lost.
As a company's product offerings expand into many, this gets even harder.
------
macawfish
marketing is a god damned religion
------
yaseer
This is typical of the "Enterprise" B2B sales approach, as apposed to selling
to small and medium sized businesses and startups.
Enterprise sales has developed its own absurd language and culture that is now
indistinguishable from parody.
------
nunez
I think that in the world of B2B, the website isn't meant to sell product;
it's meant to start a conversation/look legitimate. Sounding like your
competitors == legitimacy.
All of the real sales and marketing is done offline
------
hoodoof
My theory is that if you can possibly do it, have no "explainer page", instead
just BOOM you are now using the software.
Or maybe have an explainer page offered to the user as a dialogue when they
first go to the website.
------
stevekinney
Here is my take on what SendGrid does: Sending an email is pretty easy.
Sending a metric butt ton is hard and so is hooking it into your app. So, we
help you with that because screwing that up could be very bad.
------
CalChris
Bezos was infamous for jealously controlling every pixel on the Amazon landing
page. You could easily imagine a better design but at least you knew what to
do.
------
Terr_
Confusopoly:
[http://dilbert.com/strip/2010-11-21](http://dilbert.com/strip/2010-11-21)
------
hoodoof
Strange how it can be so hard to briefly describe what a company does.
It's often more obvious from the outside.
------
Korean
Most nerds aren't good at communicating.
------
nether
Here's a fun one, from our very own YCombinator:
> The Flex group uses technology to improve the range and fluidity of human
> expression. We invent new concepts and representations that amplify people’s
> ability to create, connect, and understand. We create tools that blur the
> line between using and creating, in order to provide a conversational medium
> for thinking and doing.
What they really do is make graphical programming tools. That's it.
[https://harc.ycr.org/flex/](https://harc.ycr.org/flex/)
~~~
dang
That's not a company, that's a research group. Is that different? I think so.
They're supposed to push the visionary envelope while a company is supposed to
make money. Instant-noodle accessibility is critical to the latter.
(I love that you wrote "our very own YCombinator" though!)
~~~
duncanawoods
> push the visionary envelope
I smiled at that because "we push the visionary envelope" is destined to be
someone's vapid b2b marketing tagline but then realised its been done:
_Americus F. Callahan of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, received
the first patent for a windowed envelope on 10 June 1902. Originally called
the "outlook envelop", the patent initially anticipated using thin rice paper
as the transparent material forming the window, though this material has since
been replaced by clear plastics. The design has otherwise remained nearly
unchanged._
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowed_envelope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowed_envelope)
------
fairpx
I think the main problem is that people assume that in order to sell expensive
products/services, the website needs to have 50 pages and feel like a complex
entity. We sell a B2B UI Design service to web and mobile development
companies, all we have is a simple one pager that doesn't do anything except
explain in plain-english what the service is about. We have people
buying/subscribing to our service sometimes as fast as a B2C product. I
personally wouldn't want to be a slimly salesman on the phone, hide our prices
and have complex copy on the website. The customers that do want that are not
a fit for us. So the question is, what type of a customer are you trying to
attract?
~~~
mrhappyunhappy
It all depends on what kind of business you are running. Your 2k design
package might be great for someone on a budget but a large number of
businesses want value and don't focus on price. Ironically you are attracting
a certain kind of client yourself. You post about attracting 300 clients but
do you talk about the quality of life of your employees? Do hey work minimum
wage? Outsourced to India? I have no idea what kind of quality of life you
create for your employees at your rates. Not to mention you are selling a
commodity not a specialized service so to say that people are blissfully
unaware of affordable companies like yours might be better achieved on junk
showcase sites like dribbble - spew out a bunch of garbage and see what
sticks.
------
gt_
Is this one of those? [http://cameraiq.co/](http://cameraiq.co/)
|
This application is also related to application Ser. No. 396,377 filed Aug. 21, 1989, entitled "A Method And Apparatus For Constructing Circumferentially Prestressed Structures Utilizing A Membrane" which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 06/915,269 filed Oct. 3, 1986 and entitled "A Method And Apparatus For Constructing circumferentially Wrapped Prestressed Structure Utilizing A Membrane," which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,879,859, which in turn is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 559,991 filed on Dec. 9, 1983 and entitled "Multi-Purpose Dome Structure And Construction Thereof," which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,145.
This application is also related to Ser. No. 07/436,479 filed Nov. 14, 1989, entitled "A Method And Apparatus For Constructing Circumferentially Prestressed Structure Utilizing A Membrane Including Seismic Coupling," which is a divisional of application Ser. No. 06/915,269, filed Oct. 3, 1986, which was a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 559,911 filed on Dec. 9, 1983.
There is presently pending Ser. No. 07/444,839, filed Dec. 1, 1989, entitled "Automated Accurate Mix Application System For Fiber Reinforced Structures" which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 050,317 filed May 14, 1987, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,746 and is entitled "Ripple Free Flow Accurate Mix And Automated Spray System" and Ser. No. 07/434,322 filed Nov. 13, 1989, also entitled "Ripple Free Flow Accurate Mix And Automated Spray System," which is a divisional of Ser. No. 07/050,317, filed May 14, 1987 above.
The field of the present invention is of dome structures and their construction which can be used to contain liquids, solids or gases or to provide temporary or permanent shelter.
There has been a need for the facile construction of dome-type structures, as conventional construction of these structures has proven difficult and costly and the structures themselves have had problems with stability and leakage.
Certain of these conventional structures have utilized inflated membranes. Indeed, inflated membranes have been used for airport structures where the structure consists of the membrane itself. Inflated membranes have also been used to form concrete shells wherein a membrane is inflated, and used as a support form. Concrete is placed over the membrane and the membrane is removed after the concrete has hardened. Conventional systems called "Binishells" are systems of this type. These are constructed by placing metal springs and reinforcing over an uninflated lower membrane. Concrete is placed over the membrane and then the membrane is inflated while the concrete is still soft. An upper membrane is placed over the concrete to prevent it from sliding to the bottom as the inflation progresses. After the concrete has hardened the membranes are typically removed. Literature regarding "Binishells" technology is provided under cover of the disclosure statement submitted. It is noted however that the steel springs of the Binishells cannot be used effectively, or economically, in the spring direction (center line of the spring) to restrain tensile forces in, and prestress the concrete. Only bursting forces inside the spring, transverse to the spring direction, can be retained effectively by the wire spiral since the bursting forces will put the wire spiral in tension along the linear direction of the wire. Besides economic considerations which by themselves militate against using springs as prestressing, springs used in the direction of the spring as tensile members, offer excessive strains and creep to be acceptable as prestressing. This coupled with the fact that the spring would not tension the concrete in the axial or linear direction of the wire and indeed forms a sinusoidal pressure pattern, make the subject invention superior to the Binishells system. |
Q:
Html table (text) to image using C#
Can anyone point me to some sample code in C# for converting an html table to image? I know how to convert text to image but i need to create an image of well formatted text. The whole text is formatted in html table.
A:
You can use the WebBrowser.DrawToBitmap method. Here is an example. So what I would do is create a page dynamically with the table you want, and nothing but the table, then use the DrawToBitmap method to save it to an image file.
|
The effect of MAPK inhibitors on arsenic trioxide-treated Calu-6 lung cells in relation to cell death, ROS and GSH levels.
Arsenic trioxide (ATO) can regulate many biological functions such as apoptosis and differentiation. We recently demonstrated that ATO-induced apoptosis in Calu-6 lung cancer cells is correlated with glutathione (GSH) content. Here, the effects of ATO and/or mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) inhibitors on Calu-6 cells were investigated in relation to cell growth, cell death, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and GSH levels. Treatment with ATO inhibited the growth of the Calu-6 cells at 72 hours. ATO induced apoptosis, which was accompanied by the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP; DeltaPsi(m)). While general nonspecific ROS decreased in the ATO-treated Calu-6 cells, the intracellular superoxide anion (O(2)(-)) level including mitochondrial O(2)(-) increased. ATO also induced GSH depletion in the Calu-6 cells. The treatment with MAP kinase kinase (MEK), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 inhibitors intensified the cell growth inhibition, cell death, MMP (DeltaPsi(m)) loss, and GSH depletion in the ATO-treated Calu-6 cells. In addition, the JNK and p38 inhibitors significantly increased the ROS levels including O(2)(-) in the ATO-treated Calu-6 cells. In conclusion, all the MAPK inhibitors slightly intensify cell death in the ATO-treated Calu-6 cells and the changes of ROS and GSH brought about by ATO and/or MAPK inhibitor treatment partially influence cell growth and death in Calu-6 cells. |
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Tending Your Little Spark
Whenever friends ask my advice about making some critical decision I enjoy replying with my favorite quote, “You are only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it!” So said Robin Williams, and the madness to which he refers isn’t insanity or schizophrenia but that rare spark of reckless daring to try something new or the boldness to be different from others. Wisely, the majority of us keep our little spark under a bushel basket safely hidden from the puritanical police of societal respectability. Society does issue special licenses to be mad to artists, musicians, inventors, poets and others, but these arty licenses don’t protect their users from ridicule. When French impressionists displayed their paintings for the first time in 1874 they were judged for their “shear madness,” yet today’s galleries pay millions of dollars for a single one of these rare masterpieces. While the world values creative folly, it strangely fears and yet simultaneously reveres the terrible kind as observed by the poet Alexander Pope, “The worst of madness is a saint run mad!” We venerate “sane” saints like Mother Theresa of Calcutta who wear religious clothing while caring for the poor. The risky insane saints do not dress up in respectable religious garb to daringly live out the Gospel running madly in the footsteps of the Loony Rabbi of Nazareth. “Loony”?—that’s sacrilegious! But he was judged to be insane! Take away his halo and look honestly at his outrageously crazy behavior. Inspired by his small spark of madness he walked off his job as a carpenter to tramp the countryside breaking social & religious rules. He ate and drank with women, synagogue dropouts and societal scabs—tax collectors. He taught radically crazy ideas: always forgive; never be violent or seek revenge; never think angry thoughts; loan money without hope of being repaid; love those who hate and do harm to you. Not surprising then that when gossip of his bizarre behavior and teachings reached his family, they came to seize him saying, “He is out of his mind!” (Mark 3:21). So daily prayerfully huff and puff on your little spark of madness so to dare to live the teachings of the Mad Messiah…and people will think you’re out of your mind!
A Critical Conversion
Too frequently the news of the day is about another disastrous case of a young person who takes his or her own life after being bullied. This merciless harassment of the weaker and more vulnerable members in a group no doubt has existed ever since young men needed to prove their masculinity. Beyond calculation are the unreported occurrences of this ageless persecution since the bully is hidden—inside you! Everyone has one. Since childhood, your hidden oppressor has crudely taunted your weaknesses and bodily deficiencies. Your invisible persecutor enjoys making you feel deficient and to view others as superior to you, constantly pointing out your inability to measure up to that old grade school admonition: Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best! No one can be the best in everything. Your interior chastiser nevertheless relentlessly requires you keep improving your work until it is perfect. After years of this endless persecution, can’t something be done about this bullying? The best thing you can do is to convert your inflictor, and you can begin by going to the dictionary. You will find under the word “bully” that the British use it as an exclamation for anything splendid or excellent. It can also mean “dashing or gallant” and, most important, even “a sweetheart or lover!” Today, begin the transformation of your cruel inner-critic into your lovable friend who in the act of spotlighting your mistakes provides you with realistic feedback. Critical is “realistic” since each of us is our own Minister of Propaganda who endlessly produces excuses for our careless mistakes and procrastinations. Your converted ex-bully—now your friendly adviser—helps you to achieve excellence by critically judging whatever you do. So rejoice in your new rare gift of a personal trainer and critic-coach of excellence.
Beware of Winning the Lottery
Rich people are different! They are not the same simply because they have more money, but because they are more likely to lie, cheat and steal! Researchers conducted experiments of 1,000 people whose average incomes ranged from $16,000 to $150,000 and found those with the most money were also most likely to behave unethically. For example, the rich would cheat to win a $50 prize and would pocket extra change given to them by mistake. A similar difference was found between drivers from wealthy suburbs who drove expensive cars and drivers of cheaper cars. Studies showed rich drivers were four times more likely to cut off other drivers in traffic and to refuse to wait for pedestrians. Clerks who rotate duty in chain stores report customers in their stores in the wealthy suburbs were ruder and more impatient than customers in the stores in the lower income areas of a city. Researches credited this different behavior of the rich to their attitudes of entitlement and lack of needing to be socially acceptable. Now, maybe you’re not wealthy—but you may desire to be rich. You may daydream about winning the lottery and how you would spend your new millions. Don’t! Daydreams of being a millionaire are toxic! Research has shown by simply imagining you are rich makes you unethical and selfish! When low-income volunteers were asked to pretend to be wealthy they behaved just as unethically as the wealthy, eating the candy that researchers had given to them for their children. “Blessed, more polite, more honest, more truthful and ethical are the poor!”
Prophet Pierre de Coubertin
The last Haystack reflection raised the question if competition in sports and daily life is detrimental to your Christian values, like it is to Amish Mennonite Christians. Ah, it’s a complex and thorny question since the very lifeblood of our American society is competition that’s most apparent in sports and the business world. The sports enthusiast Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who in 1890 revived the Olympics, said, “Sports are a kind of religion, with its own church, dogmas and ritual.” Prophetic were those words. Today, thousands of fans crowd into stadium-churches, while hundreds of thousands more at home watch religious services of college ball games on Saturday television and professional games on Sunday. With that reality, let’s examine Coubertin’s statement. Its churches: The giant stadiums and coliseums that are larger than Gothic cathedrals to which come thousands of the faithful liturgically vested in the colors of their team. Its dogmas: The infallibility of the decisions of the umpires and referees. The dogmatically rigid rules for how many players may be on the playing field or court at the same time and what happens when a game ends in a tied score. Its rituals: The elaborate ceremonies to begin the games with flags and the national anthem, as well as the colorful halftime ceremonies. But the central sacramental ritual of every game is the Holy Competition that binds countless thousands together as one in a zealous desire that their team wins. The church prohibition by Amish Mennonite Christians that forbids their children from playing competitive sports because they are contrary to their religious beliefs may seem bizarre, yet the Olympics ended in 393 AD by order of the Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I who banned all pagan cults and rituals! But how can our obsessive competitive nature be converted? Coach Jesus (a more appropriate title than Lord) urged his followers to compete with themselves, not others! Coach Jesus challenges his followers to Olympian heights of being Godlike in the way they love, forgive and care of others, saying, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is superlative, the best, the champion!” (Matthew 5:48)
Edward Hays
Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life. |
Computer vision is a growing research field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding images. The main driving idea in that field is to duplicate the abilities of human vision by electronically perceiving and understanding images of a scene. Notably, one theme of research in computer vision is the depth perception or, in other words, the three-dimensional (3-D) vision.
Time-Of-Flight (ToF) systems, including a camera and data processing means, appeared recently and are capable of capturing 3-D images of a scene by analysing the time of flight of light from a light source to an object. Such camera systems are used in many applications where depth or distance information from a fixed point is required.
The basic operational principle of a ToF system 3, illustrated by FIG. 1, is to illuminate a scene 15 with a modulated light 16, such as pulses. The modulated light 16 is reflected back from objects within the scene 15 and a lens collects the reflected light 17 and forms an image of objects in the scene on an imaging sensor 35, and in particular, on a sensor plane of the sensor. Depending on the distance of objects from the camera, a delay is experienced between the emission of the modulated light, e.g. pulses, and the reception of their reflection at the camera. For example, an object 2.5 m away from the camera causes a time delay of 16.66 ns. By analysing this delay, and in particular by implementing correlation calculation, the distance of said object from the camera can be retrieved.
The distance of objects from camera can be calculated as follows. For clarity purposes, an example of signals is given FIG. 2. A modulation signal 16 (S) is sent towards an object. After reflection on the object, a signal 17 (Sφ) is detected by a photodetector. This signal Sφ is phase-shifted by a phase φ compared to the original signal S, due to the travelling time.
φ is a key parameter for measuring the distance of objects from camera. To measure this parameter, the photodetected signal Sφ, is usually correlated with electrical reference signals named SI, SĪ, SQ and SQ. SI, SĪ, SQ and SQ are electrical reference signals shifted by 0°, 180°, 90° and 270° respectively, compared to the original optical signal S, as illustrated in FIG. 2. The correlation signals obtained are defined as follows:Sφ,I=Sφ·SI Sφ,Ī=Sφ·SĪSφ,Q=Sφ·SQ Sφ,Q=Sφ·SQ. (eq. 1-4)Then, two parameters I and Q are calculated such that:I=AS·α·(Sφ,I−Sφ,Ī) andQ=AS·α·(Sφ,Q−Sφ,Q). (eq. 5-6)AS and α are, respectively, the amplitude change of the photodetected signal Sφ and the efficiency of the correlation.The extraction of φ depends on the shape of the modulation signal S. For example, if S is a sine wave, then
φ = { arctan Q I if I , Q ≥ 0 arctan Q I + π if I < 0 arctan Q I + 2 π if Q < 0 , I ≥ 0 ( eq . 7 - 9 ) Once the phase φ is known, the distance Dφ of objects from camera can be retrieved thanks to the following formula:
D φ = c · ( φ + 2 π · n ) 4 π · f mod ( eq . 10 ) where fmod is the modulation frequency and n is a integer number of .
From equations 1-4, one can notice that, in theory, it should be the same signal Sφ which is correlated with reference signals SI, SĪ, SQ and SQ to obtain Sφ,I, Sφ,Ī, Sφ,Q and Sφ,Q, respectively.
In practice, ToF measurements are generally carried out by ToF sensors comprising an array of ToF pixels. In prior art, each of these pixels comprise generally one or two “taps”. A “tap” is a component comprising a control node and a detection region, used to photogenerate charges when exposed to optical signals such as Sφ. The fact of having only one or two taps per pixel involves that, in practice, the measure of Sφ is time-sequential. For example, a pixel comprising only one tap has to measure successively 4 distinct signals, Sφ 1-4, in order to calculate I, Q and then Dφ. In these configurations, several exposures occur and, if in between each exposure the object has moved, then the depth data Dφ is corrupted.
The fact of using only one or two taps per pixel is problematic for matters of consistency of the depth calculation, but not only. It is also problematic for design reasons. Indeed, if several distinct signals Sφ i are measured, a memory has to be added in pixels, on the sensor or on a system level in order to store the signals Sφ i before calculation steps. The size of ToF systems is then dramatically increased.
Finally, when several taps are comprised in a single pixel, the driving signals used to drive them are often not optimal as the bandwidth required is too high. When a positive potential is applied to a tap with respect to the other taps, the tap is activated and the detectivity is high, meaning the detection region of the activated tap will be receiving the majority of the photogenerated minority carriers in the pixel. With a 4-tap pixel architecture, a straightforward approach is to enable each of the four taps for 25% of the modulation period, as illustrated in FIG. 3. For a sent modulated signal with frequency 50 MHz, the 4-tap device taps will need a response time equivalent to 100 MHz due to the 25% duty cycle of each tap.
Despite what has been presented in prior art, a method and a system remain to be proposed in order to measure non-biased distances of object from ToF system while reducing both the size of the ToF systems and the bandwidth required for the taps. |
China Medical University
There are two institutions called China Medical University.
China Medical University (PRC) (中国医科大学) in Shenyang, Liaoning
China Medical University (ROC) (中國醫藥大學) in Taichung, Taiwan |
University of Holy Quran and Islamic Siences
|
1. Introduction
===============
Marine microorganisms are potentially prolific sources of highly bioactive secondary metabolites that may offer useful leads in the development of new pharmaceutical agents. Based on the fact that some of the bioactive materials isolated from marine animals have been produced by associated microorganisms, we have focused our attention on new antitumor materials from microorganisms isolated from marine organisms \\[[@B1-marinedrugs-13-03231],[@B2-marinedrugs-13-03231],[@B3-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\]. We previously reported that a cytotoxic compound, tandyukisin A (**4**), a novel decalin derivative with an enolic β-ketoaldehyde, was isolated from a strain of *Trichoderma harzianum* OUPS-111D-4 originally derived from the marine sponge *Halichondria okadai* \\[[@B4-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\]. In addition, the known compounds trichoharzin (**5**) and eujavanicol A (**6**) were isolated together with it. Our continuing search for cytotoxic metabolites from this strain led to the isolation of three new decalin derivatives designated tandyukisins B--D (**1**--**3**) ([Figure 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f001){ref-type="fig"}). These metabolites exhibited moderate cytotoxicity against a disease-oriented panel of 39 human cancer cell lines (HCC panel); however, they exhibited selective growth inhibition against central nervous system tumor cell lines. Trichoharzin \\[[@B5-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\] isolated from the same class of fungus, eujavanicols \\[[@B6-marinedrugs-13-03231],[@B7-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\] from *Eupenicillium javanicum*, betaenones \\[[@B8-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\] from *Phoma betae*, stemphyloxin I \\[[@B9-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\] from *Stemphylium botryosum*, fusarielins \\[[@B10-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\] from *Fusarium* sp., pannomycin \\[[@B11-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\] from *Geomyces pannorum*, and australifungin \\[[@B12-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\] from *Spopormiella australis* have been reported as metabolites with a similar alkylated decalin skeleton. They have various bioactivities, such as antifungal, phytotoxic, and antibacterial; however, cytotoxicities of these compounds have not been reported to date. We describe herein the absolute stereostructures and biological activities of **1**--**3**.
{#marinedrugs-13-03231-f001}
2. Results and Discussion
=========================
*T. harzianum*, a microorganism from *H. okadai*, was cultured at 27 °C for six weeks in a medium (70 L) containing 1% glucose, 1% malt extract and 0.05% peptone in artificial seawater adjusted to pH 7.5. After incubation, the EtOAc extract of the culture filtrate was purified employing a stepwise combination of silica gel column chromatography and reverse phase HPLC to afford tandyukisins B (**1**) (3.8 mg), C (**2**) (8.0 mg), and D (**3**) (12.0 mg) as pale yellow oil, respectively.
Tandyukisin B (**1**) had the molecular formula C~26~H~40~O~4~ as established from the \\[M + H\\]^+^ peak in HR FAB-MS. Its IR spectrum exhibited bands at 2958, 1715 and 1651 cm^−1^, characteristic of hydroxy groups, esters, and ketone. Close inspection of the ^1^H and ^13^C NMR spectra ([Table 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-t001){ref-type="table"}) of **1** using DEPT and ^1^H-^13^C correlation spectroscopy (HSQC) revealed the presence of one primary methyl (C-16), two secondary methyls (C-17 and C-18), one tertiary methyl (C-19), one olefin methyl (C-6′), one methoxy group (5′-OCH~3~), five sp^3^-hybridized methylenes (C-1, C-2, C-7, C-15, and C-4′) including one oxygen-bearing carbon (C-1), six oxygen-bearing sp^3^-methines (C-5, C-6, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-13, and C-14) including two oxygen-bearing carbons (C-8 and C-9), three sp^2^-methines (C-11, C-12, and C-2′), one quaternary sp^3^-carbon (C-4), one quaternary sp^2^-carbon (C-3′), three carbonyl groups (C-3, C-1′, and C-5′) including two ester carbonyls (C-1′ and C-5′). ^1^H--^1^H COSY analysis of **1** gave two partial structural units, as shown by the bold lines in [Figure 2](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f002){ref-type="fig"}. The connection of these units with the remaining functional groups was determined on the basis of HMBC correlations, summarized in [Figure 2](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f002){ref-type="fig"}, and the planar structure of **1** was elucidated, as shown in [Figure 2](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f002){ref-type="fig"}. **1** was markedly different from **4** and **5** regarding the position of the esterified hydroxyl group. NOE correlation between H-2′ and H-4′ ([Figure 3](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f003){ref-type="fig"}) revealed that **1** had the same geometrical configuration in the side chain as those of **4** and **5**.
marinedrugs-13-03231-t001_Table 1
######
^1^H and ^13^C NMR Spectral Data for **1**, **2**, **3**, and **5**.
Position 1 2 3 5
----------- ------ ----- ------- ------- ------ ----- ------- ------- ------ ----- ------- ------- ------ ----- ------- -------
1A 3.83 ddd 58.0 \\(t\\) 3.84 ddd 58.0 \\(t\\) 3.83 ddd 58.0 \\(t\\) 3.84 ddd 58.0 \\(t\\)
1B 3.89 ddd 3.90 ddd 3.91 ddd 3.90 ddd
2A 2.66 ddd 41.2 \\(t\\) 2.67 ddd 41.1 \\(t\\) 2.67 ddd 41.2 \\(t\\) 2.67 ddd 41.2 \\(t\\)
2B 2.87 ddd 2.85 ddd 2.86 ddd 2.86 ddd
3 215.2 \\(s\\) 215.2 \\(s\\) 215.2 \\(s\\) 215.5 \\(s\\)
4 52.5 \\(s\\) 52.5 \\(s\\) 52.5 \\(s\\) 52.5 \\(s\\)
5 2.06 t 43.6 \\(d\\) 2.03 t 43.4 \\(d\\) 1.96 t 43.1 \\(d\\) 1.98 t 43.0 \\(d\\)
6 1.82 m 30.3 \\(d\\) 1.73 m 30.5 \\(d\\) 1.59 m 31.4 \\(d\\) 1.62 m 31.5 \\(d\\)
7α 1.86 dt 40.7 \\(t\\) 1.83 dt 40.1 \\(t\\) 1.83 dt 39.1 \\(t\\) 1.87 dt 39.0 \\(t\\)
7β 1.55 td 1.53 td 1.55 td 1.56 td
8 4.13 q 67.6 \\(d\\) 4.28 q 66.7 \\(d\\) 5.26 q 73.3 \\(d\\) 5.26 q 72.7 \\(d\\)
9 4.78 dd 77.4 \\(d\\) 4.55 dd 78.8 \\(d\\) 3.48 dd 74.2 \\(d\\) 3.56 dd 74.4 \\(d\\)
10 2.46 tdd 36.2 \\(d\\) 2.47 brt 36.0 \\(d\\) 2.08 tdd 40.4 \\(d\\) 2.12 tdd 40.3 \\(d\\)
11 5.62 brd 125.0 \\(d\\) 5.69 drd 125.1 \\(d\\) 6.06 dt 125.9 \\(d\\) 6.04 brd 125.8 \\(d\\)
12 5.74 ddd 124.5 \\(d\\) 5.67 dd 124.5 \\(d\\) 5.69 ddd 123.7 \\(d\\) 5.70 ddd 123.8 \\(d\\)
13 1.94 m 52.4 \\(d\\) 1.94 m 52.3 \\(d\\) 1.94 m 52.4 \\(d\\) 1.94 m 52.4 \\(d\\)
14 1.12 m 37.2 \\(d\\) 1.12 m 37.2 \\(d\\) 1.12 m 37.2 \\(d\\) 1.12 m 37.2 \\(d\\)
15A 0.74 m 24.4 \\(t\\) 0.72 m 24.5 \\(t\\) 0.74 m 24.4 \\(t\\) 0.74 m 24.4 \\(t\\)
15B 1.50 m 1.47 m 1.47 m 1.47 m
16 0.76 t 12.5 \\(q\\) 0.75 t 12.5 \\(q\\) 0.76 t 12.5 \\(q\\) 0.76 t 12.5 \\(q\\)
17 0.92 d 19.1 \\(q\\) 0.92 d 19.2 \\(q\\) 0.93 d 19.2 \\(q\\) 0.93 d 19.3 \\(q\\)
18 0.60 d 22.3 \\(q\\) 0.59 d 22.3 \\(q\\) 0.59 d 22.3 \\(q\\) 0.59 d 22.2 \\(q\\)
19 1.26 s 19.4 \\(q\\) 1.26 s 19.3 \\(q\\) 1.25 s 19.3 \\(q\\) 1.26 s 19.4 \\(q\\)
1′ 164.9 \\(s\\) 170.0 \\(s\\) 168.9 \\(s\\) 166.2 \\(s\\)
2′A 5.88 s 118.9 \\(d\\) 3.29 d 39.7 \\(t\\) 5.92 s 118.1 \\(d\\) 5.88 s 119.7 \\(d\\)
2′B 3.77 d
3′ 152.0 \\(s\\) 153.4 \\(s\\) 153.9 \\(s\\) 151.7 \\(s\\)
4′A 3.19 s 45.7 \\(t\\) 5.94 s 118.5 \\(d\\) 3.54 d 39.6 \\(t\\) 3.19 s 45.4 \\(t\\)
4′B 3.73 d
5′ 170.2 \\(s\\) 168.9 \\(s\\) 169.8 \\(s\\) 173.5 \\(s\\)
6′ 2.27 s 19.2 \\(q\\) 2.08 s 27.4 \\(q\\) 2.05 s 26.9 \\(q\\) 2.27 s 19.1 \\(q\\)
5′-OCH~3~ 3.73 s 52.2 \\(q\\)
^a^ ^1^H chemical shift values (d ppm from SiMe4) followed by multiplicity.
{#marinedrugs-13-03231-f002}
The relative stereochemistry of **1** was deduced from NOESY experiments ([Figure 3](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f003){ref-type="fig"}). NOE correlations (H-5/H-7β, H-5/H-9, H-9/H-7β, and H-6/H-10) suggested that the A ring existed in a chair conformation with H-5, H-7β, and H-9 in coaxial arrangements. This evidence and the vicinal coupling constants (*J*~7α,8~ = *J*~7β,8~ = *J*~9,8~ = 2.5 Hz) showed that the esterified side chain at C-9 was oriented *cis* to 8-OH in an equatorial arrangement. NOE correlations (H-10/H-19, H-5/H-15, and H-2B/H-18) in the B ring revealed that it existed in a half chair conformation, and the *sec*-butyl group was oriented *trans* to C-19. For the stereochemistry at C-14 in the *sec*-butyl group, the observed NOE correlations in **1** were equal to those of **5** \\[[@B5-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\], which revealed the stereochemistry at C-14, *i.e.*, NOE correlations (H-5/H-15B, H-2A/H-13, H-2A/H-14, H-13/H-17, H-12/H-17, and H-12/H-16) suggested that the rotation of the *sec*-butyl group in its pseudo-axial arrangement was limited; therefore, the relative configuration for C-14 was deduced as *S*\\* ([Figure 3](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f003){ref-type="fig"}). For the determination of the absolute stereostructure of **1**, alkali-hydrolysis was carried out. The treatment of **1** with NaOH in aqueous MeOH gave a hydrolysis product, which was identical to **6** in terms of ^1^H NMR data and the specific rotation (the hydrolysis product; \\[α\\]~D~ +46.5, **6**: \\[α\\]~D~ +41.1). This evidence led to the absolute stereostructure of **1**, and confirmed the stereochemistry at C-14 derived from NOE correlations.
{#marinedrugs-13-03231-f003}
Tandyukisin C (**2**) was assigned the same molecular formula C~25~H~38~O~7~ as **5** based on HR FAB-MS data. The general features of its UV, IR, and NMR spectra ([Table 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-t001){ref-type="table"}) closely resembled those of **5** except for some of the ^1^H and ^13^C NMR signals (H-8 (Δδ~H~ 0.98), H-9 (Δδ~H~ 1.00), H-10 (Δδ~H~ 0.35), H-11 (Δδ~H~ 0.35), C-8 (Δδ~C~ 6.0), C-9 (Δδ~C~ 4.4), and C-10 (Δδ~C~ 4.2)). At this point, we thought that **2** also had an esterified side chain at C-9 as **1**. However, additional analysis of the NMR chemical shifts at the side chain of **2** showed marked differences from those of **5**, and suggested that its structure must be markedly different. ^1^H-^1^H COSY and HMBC experiments led to the elucidation of the planar structure of **2**, which was the same as those of **1** and **5** except for the esterified side chain C-1′--C-6′. In the HMBC experiments, the correlations (H-9/C-1′, H-2′/C-1′, H-2′/C-4′, H-4′/C-5′, H-6′/C-2′, H-6′/C-3′, and H-6′/C-4′) demonstrated that another carboxylic acid in the side chain, which was dicarboxylic acid originally, condensed to the hydroxyl group at C-9. In addition, a detailed examination of NOESY led to the finding that the geometrical configuration in the side chain was *Z*, while those of **1** and **5** were *E*, *i.e.*, the NOE correlations between H-6′ and H-4′ in **2** were observed instead of those between H-2′ and H-4′ in **1** and **5**. For the stereochemistry of **2**, all NOE correlations except for the above were identical to those of **1** and **5**. In addition, alkali-hydrolysis in the same manner as described above gave a hydrolysis product, which was identical to **6** in terms of spectral data, including the specific rotation (\\[α\\]~D~ +42.7). The above evidence established the absolute stereostructure of **2** as shown in [Figure 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-f001){ref-type="fig"}.
Tandyukisin D (**3**) was assigned the same molecular formula C~25~H~38~O~7~ as **2**, based on deductions made from HR FAB-MS data. Its spectral data were similar to those of the related compounds **1**, **2**, **4**, and **5** isolated to date. Especially, there were marked similarities between **3** and **5** except for the NMR signals of the side chain. On the other hand, the same NMR chemical shifts for the side chain of **3** corresponded exactly to those of **2** ([Table 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-t001){ref-type="table"}). Based on the ^1^H-^1^H COSY and HMBC correlations for **3**, the planar structure esterified at C-8 could be deduced together with the ^1^H NMR chemical shift at H-8 (δ~H~ 5.26); however, an HMBC correlation from H-8 to C-1′ was not observed. In order to examine which of the two carboxy groups in the side chain dicarboxylic acid condensed to 8-OH, we performed methylation of **3**. The addition of trimethylsilyldiazomethane to **3** gave methyl ester derivative **3a**. The HMBC correlation from the methyl group imported newly in **3a** assigned a carboxy group as C-5′, and then another one was assigned as C-1′ condensed to 8-OH. Consequently, the assignment of the NMR signals for the side chain was completed. In the NOESY experiment for **3**, the correlations between H-6′ and H-4′ showed that the geometry in the side chain was *Z*, as that of **2**. A detailed examination of NOESY revealed the relative configuration of the chiral centers, except for the above, which were identical to those of **1**, **2**, and **5**. The absolute stereostructure of **3** was confirmed by alkali-hydrolysis. As expected, the hydrolysis product was identical to **6** in terms of spectral data, including the specific rotation (\\[α\\]~D~ +43.8).
As primary screening for antitumor activity, cancer cell growth inhibitory properties of tandyukisins B--D (**1**--**3**) were examined using a disease-oriented panel of 39 human cell lines (HCC panel) \\[[@B13-marinedrugs-13-03231],[@B14-marinedrugs-13-03231]\\]. The effective concentration (MG-MID), delta value, and range value for **1** did not show significant cytotoxic activity (effective value: MG-MID \\< −5, delta ≥ 0.5, and range ≥ 1.0) ([Table 2](#marinedrugs-13-03231-t002){ref-type="table"}). However, **1**--**3** exhibited slightly selective growth inhibition against the central nervous system cancer SNB-75 cell line in the HCC panel (log GI~50~ values: −4.36, −4.56, and −4.54, respectively).
marinedrugs-13-03231-t002_Table 2
######
Cytotoxity of **1**--**3** against a panel of 39 human cancer cell lines.
Sample 1 2 3
------------ ------- ------- -------
MG-MID ^a^ −4.01 −4.04 −4.01
Delta ^b^ 0.35 0.52 0.53
Range ^c^ 0.36 0.56 0.54
^a^ Mean value of log GI~50~ over all cell lines tested; ^b^ The difference in log GI~50~ value of the most sensitive cell and MG-MID value; ^c^ The difference in log GI~50~ value of the most sensitive cell and the least sensitive cell.
3. Experimental Section
=======================
3.1. General Experimental Procedures
------------------------------------
UV spectra were recorded on a Shimadzu spectro-photometer U-2000 and IR spectra on a JASCO FT/IR-680 Plus. NMR spectra were recorded at 27 °C on Agilent-NMR-vnmrs600 with tetramethylsilane (TMS) as an internal reference. Mass spectra were determined using a Hitachi M-4000H mass spectrometer. ORD were recorded on a JASCO J-820 polarimeters. Liquid chromatography over silica gel (mesh 230--400) was performed in a medium pressure. HPLC was run on a JASCO PU-1586 equipped with a differential refractometer (RI-1531) and Cosmosil Packed Column 5C~18~-MSII (25 cm × 20 mm i.d.). Analytical TLC was performed on precoated Merck aluminum sheets (DC-Alufolien Kieselgel 60 F254, 0.2 mm) with the solvent system CH~2~Cl~2~--MeOH (19:1), and compounds were viewed under UV lamp and sprayed with 10% H~2~SO~4~ followed by heating.
3.2. Fungal Material
--------------------
The fungus *Trichoderma harzianum* was isolated from a piece of inner tissue of the marine sponge *Halichondria okadai* collected at collected in Osaka bay, Japan in October 2008. The fungal strain was identified by Techno Suruga Laboratory Co., Ltd. (Shizuoka, Japan). The sponge was wiped with EtOH and its snip applied to the surface of nutrient agar layered in a Petri dish. Serial transfers of one of the resulting colonies provided a pure strain of *T. harzianum*.
3.3. Culturing and Isolation of Metabolites
-------------------------------------------
The fungal strain was cultured at 27 °C for six weeks in a liquid medium (70 L) containing 1% glucose, 1% malt extract and 0.05% pepton in artificial seawater adjusted to pH 7.5. The culture filtrate was extracted thrice with EtOAc. The combined extracts were evaporated *in vacuo* to afford a mixture of crude metabolites (17.2 g). The EtOAc extract was chromatographed on a silica gel column with a CHCl~3~--MeOH gradient as the eluent. The MeOH--CHCl~3~ (1:99) eluate (1.6 g) was repeated a silica gel column with a *n*-hexane--EtOAc gradient as the eluent. The *n*-hexane--EtOAc (30:70) eluate (323.2 mg) was purified by HPLC using MeOH--H~2~O (73:27) as the eluent to afford **1** (3.8 mg). In the second silica gel column chromatography, another *n*-hexane--EtOAc (30:70) eluate (292.6 mg) was purified by HPLC using MeOH--H~2~O (70:30) as the eluent to afford **2** (8.0 mg) and **3** (12.0 mg).
Tandyukisin B (**1**) Pale yellow oil; \\[α\\]~D~^22^ −27.9 (*c* 0.08, EtOH); UV λ~max~ (EtOH)/nm: 341 (log ε 2.14). IR (neat) ν~max~/cm^−1^: 2958, 1715, 1651. FABMS *m*/*z* (rel. int.): 487 (\\[M + Na\\]^+^, 11.3%) 465 (\\[M + H\\]^+^, 35.1%), 447 (\\[M − OH\\]^+^, 5.3%), 307 (77.1%), 289 (24.4%), 159 (26.8%), 141 (100%). HRFABMS *m*/*z* 465.2859 \\[M + H\\]^+^ (calcd for C~26~H~41~O~7~:465.2852). ^1^H and ^13^C NMR data are listed in [Table 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-t001){ref-type="table"} and [Table S1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-s001){ref-type="supplementary-material"} (SI).
Tandyukisin C (**2**) Pale yellow oil; \\[α\\]~D~^22^ +16.2 (*c* 0.10, EtOH); UV λ~max~ (EtOH)/nm: 341 (log ε 2.35). IR (neat) ν~max~/cm^−1^: 2960, 1698, 1652. FABMS *m*/*z* (rel. int.): 473 (\\[M + Na\\]^+^, 100%) 451 (\\[M + H\\]^+^, 28.2%), 433 (\\[M − OH\\]^+^, 32.9%), 307 (77.1%), 289 (60.2%), 159 (64.1%), 127 (77.9%). HRFABMS *m*/*z* 451.2703 \\[M + H\\]^+^ (calcd for C~25~H~39~O~7~:451.2696). ^1^H and ^13^C NMR data are listed in [Table 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-t001){ref-type="table"} and [Table S2](#marinedrugs-13-03231-s001){ref-type="supplementary-material"} (SI).
Tandyukisin D (**3**) Pale yellow oil; \\[α\\]~D~^22^ +32.2 (*c* 0.09, EtOH); UV λ~max~ (EtOH)/nm: 341 (log ε 2.72). IR (neat) ν~max~/cm^−1^: 2926, 1698. FABMS *m*/*z* (rel. int.): 473 (\\[M + Na\\]^+^, 7.8%) 451 (\\[M + H\\]^+^, 10.7%), 433 (\\[M − OH\\]^+^, 13.4%), 307 (16.6%), 289 (15.9%), 159 (20.7%), 154 (100%). HRFABMS *m*/*z* 451.2705 \\[M + H\\]^+^ (calcd for C~25~H~39~O~7~:451.2696). ^1^H and ^13^C NMR data are listed in [Table 1](#marinedrugs-13-03231-t001){ref-type="table"} and [Table S3](#marinedrugs-13-03231-s001){ref-type="supplementary-material"} (SI).
3.4. Chemical Transformation
----------------------------
### 3.4.1. The Hydrolysis of **1**--**3**
To a solution of **1** (2.2 mg) in MeOH (0.5 mL) 0.1 M NaOH aq. was added, and the reaction mixture was stirred at room temperature for 30 min. The reaction mixture extracted with diethyl ether thrice, and the organic layer was evaporated under reduced pressure. The residue was purified by HPLC using MeOH--H~2~O (70:30) as the eluent to afford **6** (1.0 mg). Using the same procedure, **2** (8.1 mg) and **3** (2.9 mg) were treated with 0.01 M NaOH aq. and purified by HPLC to afford **6** (1.2 mg and 0.9 mg), respectively.
### 3.4.2. The Methylation of **3**
Trimethylsilyldiazomethane (2 mL) was added to a solution of **3** (1.4 mg) in CH~2~Cl~2~ (0.5 mL), and the reaction mixture was stirred at room temperature for 10 h. The reaction mixture was evaporated under reduced pressure. The residue (1.0 mg) was analyzed as **3a** without purification.
**3a** Pale yellow oil; FABMS *m*/*z* (rel. int.): 465 (\\[M + H\\]^+^, 16.1%), 447 (\\[M − OH\\]^+^, 23.0%), 141 (100%). HRFABMS *m*/*z* 465.2857 \\[M + H\\]^+^ (calcd for C~20~H~41~O~7~:465.2852). ^1^H and ^13^C NMR data are listed in [Table S4](#marinedrugs-13-03231-s001){ref-type="supplementary-material"} (SI).
4. Conclusions
==============
In this study, three novel decalin derivatives with an enolic β-ketoaldehyde, tandyukisins B--D (**1**--**3**), were isolated from a strain of *Trichoderma harzianum* derived from the marine sponge. The chemical structures of these compounds were elucidated by spectral analyses and chemical transformation.
In the screening to search for seeds of antitumor agents, these metabolites did not exhibit significant cytotoxic activity in the HCC panel. However, we suggest that the low-level selectivity demonstrated by them may aid in the development of a new chemotherapeutical agent.
We are grateful to M. Fujitake and K. Minoura of this university for MS and NMR measurements, respectively. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Lastly, we thanks to Screening Committee of Anticancer Drugs supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas, Scientific Support Programs for Cancer Research, from The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan for the antitumor screening.
######
Click here for additional data file.
Conceived and designed the experiments: Maiko Kawashima, Yoshihide Umebayashi, Reiko Tanaka, Takashi Kikuchi, and Takeshi Yamada; Performed the experiments: Maiko Kawashima, Yuma Sugiura, and Takeshi Yamada; Analyzed the data: Maiko Kawashima and Takeshi Yamada; Wrote the paper: Takeshi Yamada.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
|
Q:
Can a Terminal window be resized with a Terminal command?
So that I could resize the window to a certain size from within Terminal.
A:
Yes. Terminal supports escape sequences for manipulating windows, including the size and position, layering, and minimizing. Dimensions can be expressed in pixels or characters. See Xterm Control Sequences for details (search for “Window manipulation”; if you’re not familiar with the notation, “CSI” stands for “Control Sequence Introducer”, which is ESC [).
For example, this shell command will set the window to 100x50 characters:
printf '\\e[8;50;100t'
Minimize the window for a few seconds, then restore it:
printf '\\e[2t' && sleep 3 && printf '\\e[1t'
Move the window to the top/left corner of the display:
printf '\\e[3;0;0t'
Zoom the window:
printf '\\e[9;1t'
Bring the window to the front (without changing keyboard focus):
printf '\\e[5t'
Enabling the Control Sequences in Terminal Emulators
Some terminal emulators ignore these control sequences by default and require configuration to enable them.
To enable these in XTerm, set the following resource to true:
allowWindowOps
To enable these in iTerm2, deselect the following preference:
Preferences > Profiles > [profile] > Terminal > Disable session-initiated window resizing
A:
You could always use AppleScript:
setwidth() { osascript -e "tell app \\"Terminal\\" to tell window 1
set b to bounds
set item 3 of b to (item 1 of b) + $1
set bounds to b
end"; }
A:
Use /usr/X11/bin/resize.
resize -s 30 80 will give you 30 rows and 80 columns.
resize -s 30 0 will give you 30 rows and full columns.
resize -s 0 80 will give you full rows and 80 columns.
|
Landlords Legal Expenses Insurance
Problems with non-payment of rent or disputes with tenants are unfortunately all too common for property owners. When things go wrong with tenants it often ends in court with the landlord footing a legal bill, which can result in lost profit and a great deal of lost time. This is where landlords legal expenses insurance steps in to assist.
CIA Landlords Legal Expenses Cover
Court expenses can be heavy but by taking out legal expenses cover for landlords, you are covered up to £10,000 in the event of a dispute with your tenant. This cover can be increased to up to £50,000 if required – talk to one of our specialist advisers to discuss your needs.
The landlords legal expenses cover is designed to work in tandem with landlords rent guarantee insurance, designed to help ease the worry and stress involved in renting your property. |
The present invention is generally related to cellular telephone systems and more particularly to an improved cellular data telephone system and cellular data telephone for providing data and telephone services.
In the prior art cellular telephone systems, telephone calls between two parties continue until their discussions are completed. Since both parties are continuously listening, either can ascertain that the discussions have been terminated and hang up. However, when making data calls on cellular telephone systems, the user is not continuously listening and, as a result, there may be long periods of time when there is no data activity. Since the user is billed for the actual air time used, the user is being charged at a relatively high rate for such long periods of inactivity. Furthermore, the cellular telephone system is needlessly tied up with data calls that could be disconnected during the long periods of inactivity. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved cellular data telephone system and cellular data telephone that maintain data calls only as necessary to communicate data, thereby substantially eliminating long periods of inactivity. |
Estimating the reduction of urban PM10 concentrations by trees within an environmental information system for planners.
Trees have been widely quoted as effective scavengers of both gaseous and particulate pollutants from the atmosphere. Recent work on the deposition of urban aerosols onto woodland allows the effect of tree planting strategies on airborne aerosol concentrations to be quantified and considered within the planning process. By identifying the potential planting locations in the local authority area, and applying them within a dispersion and deposition model, the potential magnitude of reduction in the ambient concentration of PM(10), achievable through urban tree planting, has been quantified for two UK cities. As part of the Environmental Information Systems for Planners (EISP), flow diagrams, based on planning decisions, have incorporated output from the model to make decisions on land use planning ranging from development plans and strategic planning, to development control. In this way, for any new developments that contribute to the local PM(10) level, the mitigation by planting trees can be assessed, and in some cases, reductions can be sufficient to meet air quality objectives for PM(10). |
Q:
Call specific code on entering app foreground
I'm trying to port following code to xamarin.android from xamarin.iOS:
public HomeView() : base(nameof(HomeView), null) {
NSNotificationCenter.DefaultCenter.AddObserver(UIApplication.WillEnterForegroundNotification, (NSNotification not) => {
if(NavigationController.TopViewController is HomeView)
ScrollToCurrentDay();
});
DispatchQueue.MainQueue.DispatchAsync(() => {
ScrollToCurrentDay();
});
}
How do you call a function whenever a view loads for the first time or when the app enters foreground? I tried using a BroadcastReceiver see here. Is there a simpler and shorter way of doing it?
A:
Call specific code on entering app foreground
As @MilanG said, the Activity's OnResume() method will be called when your app comes foreground from background :
protected override void OnResume()
{
base.OnResume();
ScrollToCurrentDay();
}
As the document said :
When the activity enters the Started state, the system invokes this callback. The onStart() call makes the activity visible to the user, as the app prepares for the activity to enter the foreground and become interactive.
However, the Activity's OnResume() method are also be called when this Activity is open by another Activity.
There isn't any direct approach to get the application status while in the background or foreground, you need add a listener to the Activity's life circle.
Solution 1 :
You could create a BaseActivity to mirror the Activity lifecycle callbacks, every other Activity have to extend this BaseActivity. Then you can track when your activities through their lifecycle and react accordingly. For more detail information, you could read this document. Here is an example :
public abstract class BaseActivity : AppCompatActivity
{
public static bool isAppWentToBg = false;
public static bool isWindowFocused = false;
public static bool isMenuOpened = false;
public static bool isBackPressed = false;
protected override void OnStart()
{
applicationWillEnterForeground();
base.OnStart();
}
private void applicationWillEnterForeground()
{
if (isAppWentToBg)
{
isAppWentToBg = false;
Toast.MakeText(ApplicationContext, "App is in foreground", ToastLength.Short).Show();
}
}
protected override void OnStop()
{
base.OnStop();
applicationdidenterbackground();
}
public void applicationdidenterbackground()
{
if (!isWindowFocused)
{
isAppWentToBg = true;
Toast.MakeText(ApplicationContext, "App is Going to Background", ToastLength.Short).Show();
}
}
//Called when the current Window of the activity gains or loses focus.
public override void OnWindowFocusChanged(bool hasFocus)
{
isWindowFocused = hasFocus;
if (isBackPressed && !hasFocus)
{
isBackPressed = false;
isWindowFocused = true;
}
base.OnWindowFocusChanged(hasFocus);
}
public override void OnBackPressed()
{
base.OnBackPressed();
if (this.GetType() == typeof(MainActivity)) {
} else {
isBackPressed = true;
}
}
}
Solution 2 :
You could register a ActivityLifecycleCallbacks to mirror all the Activity lifecycle callbacks, since you using MvvmCross, it is recommended to use this solution :
[Application]
public class MyApplication : Application
{
public MyApplication(IntPtr handle, JniHandleOwnership ownerShip) : base(handle, ownerShip)
{
}
public override void OnCreate()
{
base.OnCreate();
RegisterActivityLifecycleCallbacks(new AppLifecycleListener());
}
}
public class AppLifecycleListener : Java.Lang.Object, Application.IActivityLifecycleCallbacks
{
private int numStarted = 0;
...
public void OnActivityStarted(Activity activity)
{
if (numStarted == 0)
{
// app went to foreground
Toast.MakeText(Android.App.Application.Context, "App is in foreground", ToastLength.Short).Show();
}
numStarted++;
}
public void OnActivityStopped(Activity activity)
{
numStarted--;
if (numStarted == 0)
{
// app went to background
Toast.MakeText(Android.App.Application.Context, "App is Going to Background", ToastLength.Short).Show();
}
}
}
|
Gustavo Henrique Araújo
Gustavo Henrique Araújo (born 14 September 1992) is a visually impaired Brazilian track and field athlete mainly competing in T13 classification sprint events. .
Personal career
Araújo was born in Uberlandia, Brazil in 1992. In 2009 he was diagnosed with keratoconus, a degenerative eye condition.
Athletics career
Araújo enjoyed athletics before his eyesight began to deteriorate and in 2014 took up parasport. He first represented Brazil at a major international at the 2015 Parapan American Games in Toronto. 2015 also saw Araújo enter the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha. He entered four events in Doha reaching the finals of both the 100m and 200m sprints. He finished 8th in the 200m, but in the 100m he took second place, a silver, his first major international medal.
(Coach) Nile Legania Sr United States
References
Category:1992 births
Category:Living people
Category:People from Uberlândia
Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
Category:Brazilian male sprinters |
C++ Lifetime profile v1.0 posted - nikbackm
https://herbsutter.com/2018/09/20/lifetime-profile-v1-0-posted/
======
Spartan-S63
I don’t know the real narrative driving so much investment in safe C++, but it
does appear that Rust is really driving C++ in this respect.
~~~
steveklabnik
This proposal and Rust's guarantees are different. For example:
> We do not attempt to address all aliasing cases or make concurrency safety
> guarantees. Programmers are still responsible for eliminating race
> conditions.
Some stuff is the same:
> The analysis is local each to function (no whole program analysis),
Some stuff is in the middle:
> We do not currently attempt to check of the internals of Owner types,
> including that we do not attempt to validate the correctness of pointer-
> based data structures.
(Often, pointer-based data structures in Rust are implemented with unsafe,
which isn't checked. Rust's lifetimes also don't interact with owners, in a
sense. But Rust's ownership system does, which is together as one thing in
this paper. But all of this is possibly splitting hairs.)
This is based on a CFG; Rust's historically has been based on lexical scope,
but is moving to a CFG soon (NLL is slated for 1.31.)
Regardless, I'm glad to see anything that makes C++ safer, regardless of
motivations. It's all about making software better, not cheering on the home
team and booing the away team.
~~~
duneroadrunner
> This proposal and Rust's guarantees are different.
A little different, but only in the sense of being, for the moment, less
ambitious (than Rust) about the completeness of the checker's implementation.
But I think it substantially demonstrates a straightforward path to achieving
the same level of memory safety in C++ as Rust.
> For example: > > We do not attempt to address all aliasing cases
It seems to me that a main principle behind the design of the Rust language
was to eliminate the aliasing issue, by imposing the "mutable references are
exclusive" restriction, as a prerequisite to addressing the memory safety
issue. And there was an implication (and sometimes more than that) that as
long as C++ can't address the aliasing issue it can't address the memory
safety issue (like Rust can).
I think the key thing that the lifetime checker demonstrates is that this
premise is not (quite) right. You don't need to completely eliminate the
aliasing issue to achieve (efficient) memory safety, you just need to address
it "enough". And that can be done for C++.
Now, whether the complete elimination of the aliasing issue is, apart from the
memory safety implications, a virtue that's worth the (flexibility) cost of
the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction, is as far as I'm aware,
still a matter of opinion. (Given the existence of the _RefCell_ wrapper in
Rust, and the ease (if not elegance) of implementing an "anti-RefCell" wrapper
in C++, I'm guessing it's mostly a wash.)
> > or make concurrency safety guarantees. Programmers are still responsible
> for eliminating race conditions.
Data races are a separate issue, but relative to the (single-threaded) memory
safety issue, I think there'd be less controversy that it can be addressed in
C++ in vaguely similar fashion to Rust. [1]
But both in the case of Rust and the C++ lifetime checker, I don't think that
the cost of the imposed (compile-time) restrictions in terms of
code/algorithmic flexibility is being adequately acknowledged. For example,
say you have a list (or whatever container) of references to (pre-)existing
objects. In both cases, the restrictions require that all the objects must (be
known to) outlive the list container even if there is a reference to them in
the list for only a short time [2]. Imo this is an impractical restriction. In
C++, you could use run-time checked pointers[3][4] to alleviate the
restriction without sacrificing memory safety [5]. It's not immediately
obvious to me that Rust couldn't have such a run-time checked reference as
well. But others would be more qualified to make that assessment.
[1] shameless plug:
[https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#multithread...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#multithreading)
[2]
[https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul/implications%20of%20the%20lifetime%20checker%20restrictions.md#snippet-4)
[3]
[https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#registered-...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#registered-
pointers)
[4] [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#norad-
point...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#norad-pointers)
[5]
[https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul/implications1.cpp#L92)
~~~
steveklabnik
> I think it substantially demonstrates a straightforward path to achieving
> the same level of memory safety in C++ as Rust.
What path is that? It's not clear to me how this is possible without breaking
backwards compatibility. This statement is directly at odds with
> You don't need to completely eliminate the aliasing issue to achieve
> (efficient) memory safety, you just need to address it "enough"
Safe Rust isn't "enough" safe, it is 100% (proofs pending, of course) safe. A
"safe enough" system is not equivalent.
_Maybe_ if you mean that the existence of Unsafe Rust means that it's
"enough", well fair. I still think it's substantially different; this proposal
doesn't even get to being 100% safe.
That said, as I said above, I very much welcome _any_ sort of incremental
improvement here.
~~~
duneroadrunner
> It's not clear to me how this is possible without breaking backwards
> compatibility.
What do you mean? Presumably most existing sizable codebases will not satisfy
the requirements of the (eventual completed) lifetime checker, even if the
code is actually safe.
> > You don't need to completely eliminate the aliasing issue to achieve
> (efficient) memory safety, you just need to address it "enough"
> Safe Rust isn't "enough" safe, it is 100% (proofs pending, of course) safe.
> A "safe enough" system is not equivalent.
I'm asserting (perhaps mistakenly) that you don't need to address the aliasing
issue as completely as (Safe) Rust does in order to achieve the same memory
safety that (Safe) Rust does. Or maybe "completely" is not exactly the right
word. I'm saying that the universal imposition of the "mutable references are
exclusive" restriction is not a necessary prerequisite to (fully) achieving
the same type of ("zero overhead") memory safety that (Safe) Rust does.
I'm not that familiar with Rust, but for example, if you have a reference to
an element in a dynamic container, like a vector, (Safe) Rust ensures that
that element is not prematurely deallocated by ensuring that there is no
simultaneously existing mutable reference to the container. I.e. the container
is immutable while an (immutable) reference to one of its elements exists.
Right? (I mean, assuming you didn't "split" it first.) And if the reference to
the element is a mutable reference, then the container cannot be referenced at
all, right?
From a memory safety perspective, this is overkill. The container does not
have to be immutable (or inaccessible) while a reference to an element exists,
only its _structure_ needs to be immutable. The C++ lifetime checker imposes
this lesser restriction.
And for simple objects that do not have dynamic structure (or any indirect
references), then the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction provides
no memory safety benefit at all, right?
As I said, even this lesser restriction will presumably break most existing
C++ codebases, and you could (I think legitimately) argue that that makes this
new "Safe" C++ a substantially different language than traditional C++. But
the fact that the restrictions are much less severe than Rust's means that a
lot fewer code modifications will be required than if a Rust-style universal
"mutable references are exclusive" restriction had been adopted.
Am I making sense here? Maybe I'm mistaken and these "lesser" restrictions are
somehow inadequate, but I don't see it.
~~~
steveklabnik
> I'm asserting (perhaps mistakenly) that you don't need to address the
> aliasing issue as completely as (Safe) Rust does in order to achieve the
> same memory safety that (Safe) Rust does.
You need to address the aliasing, or address the mutability. They're two sides
of the same coin.
> only its structure
I am not 100% sure what distinction you're making here, sorry. What's "the
container" vs "its structure"?
> From a memory safety perspective, this is overkill.
Yes, in general, Rust takes a soundness-based approach. If you can't prove
that it's safe, then it's not safe. This takes the other path, which is
totally valid, mind you! But that means it will allow cases that are not safe.
> And for simple objects that do not have dynamic structure (or any indirect
> references), then the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction
> provides no memory safety benefit at all, right?
That's not right. You can have a data race to a plain old integer.
~~~
duneroadrunner
> That's not right. You can have a data race to a plain old integer.
Sure, if your language allows unprotected access to any object from any
thread. Which, I guess traditional C++ essentially does, but presumably a
"Safe" C++ would eventually have an "asynchronous sharing" checker that would
require any shared objects to be appropriately "protected".
> > only its structure
> I am not 100% sure what distinction you're making here, sorry. What's "the
> container" vs "its structure"?
For example:
std::vector<int> vec1 {1, 2};
{
const auto& cref1 = vec1.at(0);
auto& ref2 = vec1.at(1);
ref2 = 3;
auto& ref1 = vec1.at(0);
std::cout << cref1;
ref1 = 4;
// co-existing const and non-const references are permitted and memory safe here
std::cout << vec1.size();
vec1.at(0) = 5;
vec1.clear(); // <---- Rejected by the lifetime checker
// because the clear() call mutates the structure.
// Mutating the data contained in the vector is permitted though.
std::cout << cref1;
}
> Yes, in general, Rust takes a soundness-based approach. If you can't prove
> that it's safe, then it's not safe.
The approach is not that different. The lifetime checker applies (or will
apply) basically the same sorts of restrictions that the Rust compiler does
(and "break" backward compatibility in the process), but only when necessary
to enforce memory safety.
I mean, the way the lifetime checker works is that it basically keeps track,
at compile-time, of the latest possible death-time of every reference and the
earliest possible death-time of the target object (or potential target
objects) that each reference points at, and complains anytime the former is
later than the latter.
~~~
Jweb_Guru
I think you will be disappointed if you expect an approach that doesn't do
roughly what Rust does aliasing-wise, and doesn't do something very
conservative on >1 word sized updates, to be memory safe in the presence of
concurrency. People have been working on that problem for a _really_ long time
and I frankly don't see _any_ approach that is going to work in a C++
environment other than Rust's. For the single threaded case, sure, you can
probably get close with something much more relaxed. But the Rust core team is
not stupid, they didn't insist on such stringent aliasing rules just so you
could use restrict.
------
kvark
> It aims to detect common local cases of dangling
> pointers/iterators/string_views/spans/etc
Hmm, a good tool to have, but wouldn't be quite enough to sleep well, since
it's only for "common cases".
------
usefulcat
"I love C++. I also love safe code and not having to worry about dangling
pointers and iterators and views. So I’ve been doing some work to make my life
less conflicted"
I love the honesty there :)
------
IloveHN84
Good guy Herb!
|
Maiherpri
Maiherperi was an Ancient Egyptian noble of Nubian origin buried in the Valley of the Kings, in tomb KV36. He probably lived during the rule of Thutmose IV, and received the honour of a burial in the Valley of the Kings, the royal necropolis. His name can be translated as Lion of the Battlefield,. Amongst his titles were Child of the Nursery and Fan-bearer on the Right Side of the King. There is speculation that the first title signified that he grew up in the royal nursery as a prince of a vassal territory, or perhaps was the son of a lesser wife or concubine of the pharaoh. He was among the first during the New Kingdom to hold the second title, and was literally true in that he was by the pharaoh's side, likely as an advisor or bodyguard. This same title was also used to denote the Viceroys of Kush later in the New Kingdom.
Tomb of Maiherpri
In Maiherperi's tomb, a papyrus was found depicting him with literally "blackish" skin, leading scholars to believe he was in fact Nubian or of Nubian descent. The papyrus in question was the Book of the Dead, in the eyes of O'Connor and Cline "[c]ertainly the most famous and arguably the most beautiful" Book of the Dead.
The mummy was unwrapped by Georges Daressy in March 1901, revealing a mummy whose dark skin matched that depicted on his copy of the Book of the Dead, and thought that this was likely Maiherperi's natural colour, unchanged by the mummification process. He also had tightly curled, woolly hair, which turned out to be a wig that had been glued to his scalp.
Bibliography
Michael Rice, Who's Who in Ancient Egypt By Michael Rice, Routledge 2001, , p. 104
David B. O'Connor, Eric H. Cline, Amenhotep III: Perspectives on His Reign, University of Michigan Press 1998,
Footnotes and references
External links
The Tomb of Maihirpre - Pictures of the artifacts from Maiherpri's tomb
Maiherpra
Hatshepsut: from Queen to Pharaoh, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Maiherpri (see index)
Category:Officials of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt
Category:Ancient Egyptian mummies
Category:Fan-bearer on the Right Side of the King |
nike dart 10 trainers
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The Dart Board Set is a fun and functional encased dart board set is a ideal present and addition to any home. It comes complete with everything you need to get playing straight away, and is easily shared with friends and family of all ages.
The Dart has been a favourite among runners for years, thanks to its simple and intuitive features: a zippered essentials pocket in the back, and a stretchy pocket on the harness for gels or bars. SPECIFICATIONS COLLECTION: Running ACTIVITY: Run USER: Unisex HYDRATION CAPACITY: 1.5L/50 fl oz HYDRATION TYPE: CRUX™ Reservoir with Standard Exit Port BPA/BPS/BPF FREE: Yes QUICK LINK DISCONNECT:
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FroliCat (tm) Dart Duo(tm) is an automatic rotating toy featuring two lasers for shared playwith multiple cats and dogs. Place the toy on the floor, turn it on, and watch them play! Two lasers move in a circle, darting and switching directions in random patterns. The unpredictable movement entices your pets to dart, pounce, and chase the red dot. Each laser spins in a circle on opposite sides so
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\\Advantix is a topical parasiticide used in the treatment and prevention of fleas; ticks including deer ticks (the major carrier of Lyme Disease), American dog ticks, Brown dog ticks and Lone Star tick\\ |
DENVER, Colorado (CNN) -- A new national poll has a mixed message for Democrats as their national convention gets under way Monday in Denver.
A vendor sells buttons Sunday for the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey out Monday shows that President Bush's approval rating remains extremely low, at 30 percent, which would appear to benefit the Democrats.
But the poll suggests that the public is not convinced that Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, would follow Bush's policies if elected. So Bush's unpopularity may not rub off on the presumptive Republican nominee.
"Voters are divided over whether McCain would continue Bush's policies. That's one reason why McCain is competitive. Imagine what this election would look like if George W. Bush were running for re-election or Vice President Dick Cheney were running to succeed him," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.
The poll indicates that Democrats are more enthusiastic about voting than Republicans this year. But the Republican Party's favorable rating has risen 10 percentage points since April, while the Democrats' favorable number has dropped, leaving a 4 percentage-point gap in the Democrats favor. Watch what to expect from the Democratic convention »
Don't Miss
"The Republican Party and McCain are being by helped by the recent crisis between the Republic of Georgia and Russia. Anything that heightens concern over national security is likely to be good for McCain," Schneider said.
The poll indicates that only a quarter of the public thinks the economy is in good shape.
But the number who say things are going well in the country has gone up a bit since July, when gas prices started to come down.
The poll also indicates that Obama and McCain are tied with the support of 47 percent of voters each, but a majority of registered voters -- 54 percent to 44 percent -- predict Obama will win in November.
The CNN/Opinion Research survey was conducted Saturday and Sunday, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. |
Microbial degradation of phthalate esters.
Nocardia erythropolis rapidly degrades phthalate esters. Phthalate esters were efficiently removed from wastewater by inoculating cells of N. erythropolis into activated sludge. A fluorescent antibody technique was successfully applied for tracing the specified microorganism in a mixed culture system. The metabolic pathway was investigated and enzymes were purified. |
{
"desc": "Option GTM380",
"control": 1,
"data": 0
}
|
2011 AMA National Speedway Championship
The 2011 AMA National Speedway Championship Series was staged over a single round, which was held at Auburn on September 30. Billy Janniro took the title, his third in total, scoring a maximum in the process.
Event format
Over the course of 20 heats, each rider raced against every other rider once. The top eight scorers then reached the semi-finals, with first and second in those semi-finals reaching the final. The final counted for double points, with the overall positions decided upon the total points scored in the meeting.
Classification
30 September 2011
Auburn
References
AMA
United States
Speed
Speed |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information display apparatus, an image taking apparatus, and a method and computer program for controlling displaying information, and more particularly, to an information display apparatus, an image taking apparatus, and a method and computer program for controlling displaying information, in an apparatus such as a camera having a display, capable of controlling the timing of switching information displayed on the display depending on convenience of a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image taking apparatus such as a digital still/video camera or in an information processing apparatus having a display, various processes are performed to display information on a display.
In some information processing apparatus such as a digital still camera having various input devices, a description of how to use input devices or a description of how the input devices function is displayed on the display as required. Specific examples of techniques to control displaying information may be found, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-330181, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-319226, or Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-173029.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-330181, when a particular input device is operated by a user, a function of the input device is displayed on a display. In the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-319226, when a help button is pressed, information indicating an operation performed previously and a related description are displayed. In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-173029, disclosed is a digital camera having an instruction mode in which various descriptions are provided.
However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-330181 and the technique disclosed in the Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-319226, the description of the function of the input device is displayed only for a fixed period after the input device is operated by a user. In the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-173029, the description of the function of the input device is displayed only when the operation mode is set in the instruction mode. |
Yegai
Yegai or Yegavi or Ye Gavi () may refer to:
Yegavi, Izeh
Ye Gavi, Susan |
Q:
Is ehcache as hibernate 2nd lvl cache transactional?
My entities are marked with
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL)
and the application runs (not sure how to verify entities are actually cached).
Hibernate config within spring context:
<prop key="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache">true</prop>
<prop key="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">org.hibernate.cache.ehcache.EhCacheRegionFactory</prop>
Now if a change the cache from ehcache to infinispan I get an exception stating that this is a transactional cache but no transaction manager was found.
Therefore my question: Is the ehcache actually transactional?
A:
As of release 2.1 Ehcache has support for transactional caches... But you do realize that (any) transactional cache with Hibernate requires a full blown JTA environment ?
|
A New Addition To The Family
A New Addition To The Family
I woke this morning to something large coming through the letter box. I’ll admit that my first thought was a DVD, but since I now buy blu-ray and haven’t got any order outstanding, I’ll put it down to the fog of sleep.
What it turned out to be was something much more exciting: The first volume of the British Fantasy Society Journal. Gone are the single paperback publications of Dark Horizons, New Horizons and Prism, replaced with one hardback volume that collects them together.
Now I’m especially excited about this and unless you’ve been ignoring my blog update, Facebook statuses and tweets you’ll know why. Yes, it features my short story ‘Jetsam’. It’s the first story in the book as well (which really means nothing as the book is filled with great writers)
The BFS publications have a very good pedigree so I’m extremely excited and proud to be part of that legacy. If you get to read the story, please do let me know what you think of it.
The story includes the artwork I mentioned earlier this month by Poppy Alexander. It looks brilliant in black and white next to the story but the colour version has added depths. If you’ve not seen it be sure to check it out on Poppy’s site.
The BFS Journal is only available to members of the British Fantasy Society. So if you want a copy, you’ve got to join. Full details can be found over at the BFS site. |
Q:
Changing the background color of a panel inside a frame
So like the title says, I'm trying to set the background color of a panel within a frame so that they'd both have different colors. What I tried so far is using the setBackground method on each alone or at the same time and the result I got is always only one color showing, which is weird because the inner frame shouldn't be able to change the outer frame's settings, right?
code example:
public class frameStuff{
private JFrame frame;
private frame1 in_frame;
@SuppressWarnings("serial")
class frame1 extends JPanel {
frame1(){
super();
}
public void paint(Graphics g){
}
}
/**
* Launch the application.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
frameStuff window = new frameStuff();
window.frame.setVisible(true);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
});
}
/**
* Create the application.
*/
public frameStuff() {
initialize();
}
/**
* Initialize the contents of the frame.
*/
private void initialize() {
frame = new JFrame();
frame.setBounds(100, 100, 500, 350);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.getContentPane().setLayout(null);
// frame.getContentPane().setBackground(Color.GRAY);/*if this line wasn't a comment then everything would be grey instead of white as it's now.
in_frame = new frame1();
in_frame.setBounds(100, 100, 350, 220);
in_frame.setBackground(Color.BLUE);
in_frame.setVisible(true);//this doesn't seem to matter whatever the case
frame.getContentPane().add(in_frame);
}
}
A:
class frame1 extends JPanel {
frame1(){
super();
}
public void paint(Graphics g){
}
}
Should be:
// Should be called a Panel (since it is one) and use correct case
class Panel1 extends JPanel {
Panel1(){
super();
}
// The method to override for custom painting in ANY JComponent
@Override // handy to check we got the method signature right
public void paintComponent(Graphics g){
// paints the background, borders etc.
super.paintComponent(g);
// all custom drawing AFTER this line..
}
}
It seems like adding this one line super.paint(g); to the paint method solves the problem here, do you still suggest doing it as you mentioned?
Yes.
Is it faster this way?
Yes. If only for the fact that you still have to change the method in code and recompile/build the project into something that will render reliably, without strange artifacts. That may be painting correctly for you, now, but it is purely by chance.
|
House for sale
30 Doongalla Road,
Map
SPACIOUS FAMILY HOME WITH VIEWS
Open By Appointment
Doongalla Road is a highly sought-after address in the exclusive riverside suburb of Attadale. The majority of homes on this street are majestic, elevated and boast incredible river, city and hill views with this home being no exception. This solid quality built home has been in the same family since it was constructed in the late 80’s and is still in its prime original condition.
Well ahead of its time... from the soaring ceilings, external architecture, stunning curved staircase and high end fittings - everything in this home was designed in immaculate taste and impeccable design for the era.
This two storey home on a green title 837sqm corner lot is full of natural light, indoor/outdoor interaction and a sense of space, with all bedrooms on the first floor except for the guest suite which is situated on the ground floor towards the rear of the property and alternatively would make an idyllic gym. Please note - this room has had a fake floor and cabinetry/storage installed in the past but can be easily removed – any child would love it as is!
For those who appreciate an outlook, this property offers views of the city skyline along with the Perth hills from the front balcony. Entertain and enjoy these views with friends, share a cocktail at the bar or enjoy a fun family night get together in the massive upper living area significant enough to accommodate a pool table.
If rest and relaxation is more your style, there is a formal living and dining at the front of the home to escape and make the most of the serenity. The family is well catered for with multiple living areas so each member can enjoy some space or alternatively convene together.
The spectacular master suite is a dream retreat with gorgeous views to the city and the hills whilst savouring the utmost privacy. With floor to ceiling built in robes, study nook and a luxurious ensuite there is nothing more to wish for. The two additional queen-sized bedrooms both with their own ensuites and are well positioned with access to a balcony from each.
An additional feature of this home is the front home office. Cleverly positioned near the entrance of the property, this large office could easily be converted to another bedroom as it sits adjacent to a bathroom, potentially converting the property to a five bedroom home.
For family members who enjoy cooking, you will be impressed by the large practical kitchen with additional scullery and walk in pantry. The kitchen has not been modified since new, so this is the perfect opportunity for you to create your own space and add value to the home. Family and friends will naturally gravitate to this delightful meeting place.
The expansive North facing outdoor area on the ground floor would be the ideal blank canvas to install your dream pool and landscape the gardens to create a tranquil retreat, perfect to spend endless hours with the family or with friends and make great memories.
Nestled in an absolutely superb, elevated location just moments from the Swan River, local primary schools, Santa Maria College and local cafes and shops. With plenty of parking and room to expand, there is an abundance of room for the boat, caravan or additional cars.
Upsize your current home to this exclusive location and enjoy a tranquil environment close to the beautiful Swan River. A lifestyle decision you will not regret! |
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For most students who walk the revered halls of Yale School of Drama, their journey is paved with countless hours agonizing over scripts, trekking to casting calls and meeting with acting coaches. And then there's Brian Tyree Henry.
For most students who walk the revered halls of Yale School of Drama, their journey is paved with countless hours agonizing over scripts, trekking to casting calls and meeting with acting coaches. And then there’s Brian Tyree Henry. “I didn’t even know where Yale was,” recalls the 26-year-old, who applied to the school on a whim and graduated in 2005. “I guess I knew it was in the North.”
But after putting down roots in Connecticut, the North Carolina native made up for his initial cluelessness with raw talent, landing the lead role in classmate Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “The Brothers Size.” Three years later, the three-man production is running at The Public Theater (original cast intact) through Dec. 23.
The play follows Oshoosi Size (played by Henry) in the months after having been released from jail. Oshoosi is caught between his brother Ogun, who wants to keep him on the straight and narrow, and Elegba, his friend from prison whose scheming makes it hard for Oshoosi to break his bad habits. “He’s not a bad person,” Henry says of his character. “He’s just really this lively person who wants to live life to its fullest.” In fact, Henry is much the same. “When it came down to the core of it, he’s me. The one always cracking jokes, the one who’s singing when nobody’s really listening.”
In high school, Henry’s extracurricular interests tended toward variations on the performance theme. “I did choir, I was the mascot, I did debate team,” he says. Once at Morehouse College, Henry caught the acting bug when he landed the role of Creon in a production of “Antigone.” Still, Henry wasn’t convinced the drama world was for him. “After graduation, I was planning on getting a job in security in D.C., like for the IRS or something,” he says, “but my adviser grabbed me and said, ‘That’s the stupidest thing you could do. You’re not going to do that.'” He convinced Henry to apply to graduate school drama programs. “And when he mentioned Yale, I laughed in his face.”
Midway through his audition at the Ivy League institution, Henry was met with a rude awakening: “It’s 9:45 at night, I’m sitting in the lobby [of the casting call] and they’re like, ‘You need a song,'” Henry recalls. “I’d been watching ‘Grease’ in my hotel room the night before and ‘Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee’ was the only song that came to mind. They did not laugh at all. I can’t believe they took me after all that.”
Now, three years since he took the stage in “The Brothers Size,” Henry seems ready for a change. “It’s time to let Oshoosi go,” he says. “I’ve got all kinds of things brewing.”
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