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Global connectedness

These days, we live in a global community where little is done in isolation. A global community has the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty. A globalised world can enable advances in human development: in education, health, and the environment. Digital technologies play a crucial role in enabling learners to connect with, contribute to and learn from those in other parts of the world. We are also increasingly becoming aware of the challenges that are emerging, in the form of cybersecurity, changing behaviour patterns and the influence of multinational tech corporations on the way we connect.

This global connectedness trend is driven by the changing demographics in our nation and our schools, a global marketplace, competition from emerging economies, rising inequity and the power of digital technologies to empower learners who connect to learn and grow. Increasingly, there is a demand for access to information and resources that are dependent on this networked world - and which therefore drives technological development. Witness the rise of Amazon and the slow decline of postal services, for example.

In this globally connected world, our challenge as educators is to prepare our learners to not only take advantage of all that this offers, but also to encourage them to question, investigate and act as global citizens.  There is a plethora of opportunities, for both students and teachers, in being part of a global village of learning, information-sharing and creation opportunities. Developing the digital literacies required to usefully and purposefully navigate this environment remain a strong learning focus.

In New Zealand and beyond, we are seeing schools connecting for learning through initiatives such as LEARNZ virtual field trips, Over the Back Fence, using Skype in the Classroom and Flat Connections. There is often a focus on social action and the value of diversity through relating to others.   For teachers, there are online professional learning opportunities (Connected Educator Month, Enabling e-Learning webinar, Empower courses from CORE) and a host of Twitter chats and online communities.


San Diego Festival Chorus

Video Moments

Travel Videos

In 2016 the Chorus travelled on a concert tour to Alaska aboard Princess Cruises' Coral Princess. Here are excerpts from our Salute to America concert that we performed on the ship.

Concert Videos

The Chorus performs a variety of music at each concert. The first half of each program is devoted to classical choral music from composers such as Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, and Dvorak. The second half of each program concentrates on a different popular style, such as musical theater, Christmas carols, patriotic, or gospel music.

Here are a few selections from our concerts:

Mozart's Te Deum

Beethoven's Choral Fantasy


Q&A: UNHCR teams reach out to vulnerable Syrian refugees across Jordan

Mobile field teams travel to towns and cities to assess the needs of urban refugees, give advice and counselling, arrange for them to register as refugees, and much more.

UNHC's field worker, Huda Al-Shabsogh, holds a newly born Syrian refugee in Irbid.  © UNHCR/A.Purvis

AMMAN, Jordan, April 3 (UNHCR) - Most of the global media's coverage of Syrian refugees in Jordan has focused on Za'atri, a camp carved out of the harsh desert landscape in northern Jordan. The many images of Za'atri show row upon row of tents in what is now a small city. But some three-quarters of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Jordan live outside the camps, in villages, towns and cities across the country. Many are housed in one bedroom apartments, basement studios or rooftop dwellings, often with two or three families sharing. In comparison to a camp situation, where services and assistance are provided, refugees in cities and towns can be almost invisible, many of them struggling to survive. UNHCR has deployed field teams to reach out to these refugees in the capital, Amman, and across the country. Many of these vulnerable people are at risk of eviction. The members of the UNHCR mobile teams, such as Field Associate Huda Al-Shabsogh, assess the needs of the urban refugees, give advice and counselling, arrange for them to register as refugees, and more. Al-Shabsogh, a native of Amman and mother of three, started working for UNHCR in 2007. The qualified lawyer talked recently with Regional Public Information Officer Reem Alsalem. Excerpts from the interview:

Describe a typical day in your life as an emergency worker

My day normally starts very early. At 5:30a.m. I help my children get ready and then I go to the office. We visit refugee communities on Sundays and Wednesdays and usually head out at 7:00 am so that we can make the most of the day. From the moment we arrive at the destination for the day, around 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning, we start meeting with refugees. Normally we work in groups of two. As a team, we see a minimum of 200 families a day, sometimes 300.

What do you do when you meet the refugees?

I am part of what we call the help desk. We counsel refugees on all sorts of issues: how to register; how to enrol their children in school; what to do if their children get sick or are sick. And we give them appointments to register with UNHCR in Amman or to renew their registration. We also provide these services in Ramtha, Zarqa and Mafraq.

We have similar activities for urban refugees in Amman, Irbid and, more recently, Maan in the south of Jordan. We will go there twice a month - more regularly if the need increases. This is great news because Maan is very far from Amman and it would be difficult for refugees to come to us.

Even though we have many families to attend to during an average day, there is never enough time. During the interviews, the refugees take the opportunity to ask us many questions, and not just about basic services. Even though UNHCR has telephone hotlines, the refugees prefer to have the face-to-face interaction. They feel more at ease. Also, our lines are often busy. We answer up to 700 calls a day - most of them from Syrians.

Why is registration so important in Jordan?

It's important because it allows those registering to get assistance from UNHCR, WFP [World Food Programme] and other humanitarian partners and also to access public services. With the certificate, they can get medical treatment in state-run hospitals and clinics in Jordan and also enrol their children in schools. Most police respect the document and are aware of it. Many officers even encourage the refugees to register as a form of protection. Then there are people who have registered and have the necessary documentation but need to renew it. This is because the registration certificate is only valid for six months. We also help these people by arranging a date for them to renew their registration, which can only be at our offices in Amman and Irbid.

Tell us about the challenges you face

Allocating interview times for people is one of them, but it gets easier the more time we spend in a given city and get to know the environment and the refugees. We normally give more than 200 appointments a day. If more come, we take down their names and prioritize them for the following week. If an urgent case comes along during the day, we would of course also give that person immediate priority.

We are often asked to fast-track applications, especially by Jordanians who are friends or relatives of the Syrian refugee applicants. We have to explain to them why this cannot be done and why they have to wait their turn. It puts a lot of pressure on us. Not everyone takes it well and we are used to aggression and emotions running high. Sometimes they insist, but when they see that we also stick to our position, they accept it.

Also, it's difficult having to deal with so many families, each with their own tough story. That affects you a lot. On the way back from work, we talk about the difficult cases we have seen. It is a way for us to let off steam and to share, because sometimes emotionally it is too much to keep it inside.

What else is different about being in emergency mode?

Every week we have an action plan, but so many new issues come up that we don't necessarily follow that plan. For example, if we hear about a group of urgent medical cases in Ramtha, we would go there instead of the town we were planning to visit. We know they need to be registered if they are to receive medical assistance. The unpredictability of our days has become so normal that even when I am scheduled to stay in the office for some days, I come in casual clothes because I almost always have to go out and visit refugees and host families.

Is there any refugee family that has particularly moved you?

Yes. One day, I was approached by a Syrian family who said that their 21-year-old son was very sick and that I had to go and visit him because he was unable to come to the registration room. When I reached their home, I was expecting to see a tall and fit young man. What I saw took my breath away and shocked me. He was lying on a mattress under a lot of blankets. He had become so emaciated that it was difficult to spot him under all the covering - he was just skin and bones.

The boy had been on the back of a motorbike, trying to escape the gunfire, when he was shot by a sniper. He fell off the bike and was badly concussed when his head hit the ground. His parents were too scared to take him to hospital and decided to treat him at home. They told me that in the first few weeks after the incident, he was drifting in and out of consciousness and they had to feed him through a tube. In the end they decided to take him to Jordan and he was carried to the border on the back of a Syrian man who was also fleeing.

UNHCR helped get the boy admitted to hospital, but it was too late. Four months later, he died. It was heartbreaking to see his suffering and that of his family. This is just one tragic tale, but we come across so many every day in our work.

Despite all the suffering you see, are you glad you joined UNHCR?

Yes, absolutely. I feel we have an important mandate. It is not just a job. I feel that through the work I do, I can help people. Before I joined, I used to read about UNHCR in the local newspapers - that it worked with refugees. That was back in the days of the Iraqi refugee crisis. Then one day I saw an ad in the newspaper saying they needed a staff member. I consulted a friend who was working there and she advised me to join. I have a law degree. I felt that it was what I was looking for.


It's just a figure of speech. There are plenty of other figures of speech that would be even more "offensive" if we applied this unreasonably strict standard to them.

From "Bright Lights, Big City," I believe the protagonist uses the term "emotional paraplegic."


My Totem - 2015 Learning Event Five

Welcome to Learning Event Five of the #WalkMyWorld Project 2015.

The "short URL" to share this page is

Can you be in two places at once? Where is your "place", the one space that you belong or identify with most? Do you have a family, identity, or culture that always calls you back "home"?

As life evolves, and we try to progress with it, we're sometimes drawn away from things that are meaningful to us. This could be a place, a space, people, food, or culture. When we think of "home", or a place that calls back to us, that might not always be the current place that we're living, loving, learning, or working within.

Do you have a heritage, or culture that draws you back to another place? Do you have other people(s) that call you back "home"? Do you have a totemA totem is a being, spirit, or symbol that serves to unite and bring us back to our place or home. Sometimes there is no written language for this other place that you belong. Sometimes there is only oral storytelling and dreams to bind you to that group. What is your story? What is their story?

Your response for the fifth learning event

Play, create, and share a digital representation of your totem. This could be an image, video, text, audioclip, or mashup that reflects the place and space that you most strongly identify with. You may chose to link this totem to other links and maps to share more information.

Tweet this response to the #WalkMyWorld hashtag. Be sure to stay active on the #WalkMyWorld hashtag to see what other totems people share during the week. You might feel moved and motivated to be creative and challenge yourself by reviewing what others share.

A guiding example

Last year, one of our organizers, Ian O'Byrne created a found poem and some GIFs created using family photos.

The found poem was constructed using two poems that were used at the prompt for the seventh learning event of 2014. Ian shared the poem and GIFs as a way to document and share an important part of the places and spaces that he identifies with.

You can review the post and work that he shared by clicking here.

Top image CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Zedzap
Middle image CC BY-NC 2.0 Judy and Ed
Bottom image CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 soilse


Home  Find alternative websites

Alternative websites for 500kmh.com

1. Result for 500kmh.com

UK Ultraspeed was a proposed high-speed magnetic-levitation train line between London and Glasgow, linking 16 stations including Edinburgh, Birmingham, ...
Alternative for en.wikipedia.org
Sep 3, 2010 ... Magnetically levitating trains are faster and quieter than high-speed trains, use less energy and take up a lot less space. So why is this ...
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Nov 19, 2013 ... High Speed 2 hasn't even been built yet and it looks old-fashioned compared to Japan's maglev trains - but, like Concorde, their futuristic ...
Alternative for newstatesman.com
May 1, 2015 ... While Japan is building floating trains, British politicians are promising (slightly) lower fares.
Alternative for spiked-online.com
Hover Trains. There have been three hover train systems in the UK, two experimental and one commercial. Experimental MAGLEV. The first operational ...
Alternative for hows.org.uk


Evolution of Clarity - Self organization in vowel systems

This project was done by Steijn Kistemaker and Nadya Peek during the class Evolution of Speech taught by Bart de Boer in spring 2008.

We use an agent-based evolutionary model of the vowel system. This model uses genetic algorithms which selects agents on clarity - or mutual understanding - which is tested with an imitation game. The individual vowel systems thus converge to a global common which allows the agents to best understand each other. The articulatory space that the agents use to produce the vowels also evolves to better accommodate clarity. We have found that during evolution the agents ﬁnally reach an optimal articulatory space which allows for maximal clarity without needing to increase in size.

Imitation Game in Vowel Systems
An example of an imitation game. On the left, we see agent 1 communicating the vowel circled in red. Agent 2 on the right interprets the vowel and attempts to imitate it. If the imitation leads to an interpretation with agent 1 which is the same as the vowel agent 1 initially communicated, there is success.

Language is both individual and global. Children begin to speak at an early age,
but the utterances they make are only understood by a select group of individuals-
those who speak the same language. If a child would begin to make sounds that
are very distinct and easy to tell apart, then that may be considered as a more clear
language, but no one in the community would understand the child. If the child
was born into a community with a language consisting of sounds which are very
similar, then communication might fail because the sounds are not easy to distinguish. The child cannot change the language of its community by himself, but
perhaps the language will evolve itself to allow for more clarity in the community.
How do sets of phonemes evolve in the ﬁrst place though? How did communities begin to distinguish sounds, and group them to form words? What is the
starting point for a system of sounds which then makes up a language? In this
paper we will research how a set of sounds can develop within a community of
language speakers, and how the speaker may change the articulatory space they
use to make the sounds.

Though there have been simulations of the optimal distribution of vowels in the
literature, these simulations all consider a ﬁxed size for
the articulatory space of the agents. Whether the articulatory space should coevolve with the localization and focalization of the vowels has not been extensively
simulated yet. In this paper we will therefore present a model for the simulation
of the localization of vowels in variable articulatory spaces by a community of
agents. Using this model and an evolution schema of genetic algorithms, we will
experimentally determine whether the articulatory space of agents will coevolve
with the localization of the vowels. We expect the articulatory space to grow as
the agents evolve to more salient distributions of vowels, which require distance
within the articulatory space.

Our model consists of two main parts; the communication cycle and the evolution-
ary cycle. In the communication cycle the agents aim to understand each other.
If the communication is successful, the ﬁtness of the communicating agents in-
creases. Fit agents then pass successful traits on to their offspring in the evolution

We used agents with vowel systems with between 2 and 10 vowels, and evolved the societies to evaluate the final positioning of the vowels.

Vowel systems in fixed articulatory spaces
Above on the x-axis we have the first formant, and on the y-axis the second formant. The vowels are shown as blue dots

Above we can see the migration of the vowels within a fixed articulatory space for 2, 3, 4 and 5 vowels. The positioning is not mathematically optimal, but it is perceptually sufficiently distinct.

Variable articulatory space
Here the articulatory space that the agent is able to produce vowels in is determined by the pink lines. The vowel systems therefore must exist within this space.

The articulatory space grows for more clarity as evolution proceeds, but it does not do so indefinitely. Once sufficient perceptual contrast is reached, the articulatory space remains at a particular size. This size is defined by the amount of noise that is possible when communicating a vowel.

More information on this project can be found in the project paper.

infosyncratic.nl is by nadya peek. she'd love to hear from you.


Sawtooth Basin and Stanley Area Lakes

There are few things better than basking in the sun at the base of the Sawtooths with your feet in the clear, cool water of a lake. The Sawtooth Basin is dotted with mountain lakes. Like with many of the features in the Sawtooth Valley, most of these lakes were formed by glaciation. The glaciers of a different time left enough cracks, hollows, and depressions to create over 300 beautiful mountain lakes in the Sawtooth Basin.  There are big, deep lakes accessible from the car, small shallow lakes a two-days hike away, and everything in between.

Whatever the intention, there is a lake for everyone.  So don’t forget that swimsuit!

Suggested Lakes:

Redfish Lake: 10 minutes south of Stanley on Highway 75. This glacial lake is nestled between two tall glacial moraines. When hiking on the ridge of either moraine, one can almost see how the U-shaped valley was once filled with ice. From the lake, there are stunning views of the Sawtooths, shoreside food options and lodge and camping options.

Alturas Lake: 45 minutes south of Stanley on Highway 75. Alturas is another lake formed by glacial moraines. There are less people at Alturas than Redfish with the same beautiful views.  There are camping options.

Alice Lake: This is the largest lake in the Sawtooth Wilderness. It is a moderate 5.5-mile hike from Petit Lake.  Though well known, the hike deters many people. With jagged steep peaks at a backdrop, Alice Lake is the most scenic day hike lake, hands down.

Sawtooth Lake: From Iron Creek trailhead, a moderate 5-mile hike. This lake is pooled at the bottom of incredibly chiseled u-shaped granite valley. Unlike the earthy moraines of Red Fish and Alturas, the glacial evidence at Sawtooth Lake is from the carving of stone by ice.  This hike may have less people than Alice Lake.


LOCATING, SECURING AND INDEXING relevant information in whatever format it exists is a major challenge in any complex litigation.  We focus on reducing the costs of discovery while reducing risk and ensuring that your project stays on schedule.

Our team includes certified project managers who will coordinate the entire project, IT specialists who use the latest techniques to find data wherever it may be stored, and trained document review specialists who will identify and index the documents that matter to your case.

eDiscovery is a major part of what we do at Verus.  We have assisted clients with accessing and interpreting data compiled using database technologies of every flavor, including programs that have not been used since the early 1980s.  We have tracked down documents stored in abandoned mines, remote offices, and far-flung warehouses all over the U.S. and quickly secured, imaged, and indexed document sets numbering the tens of millions of pages.


How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

Learn how plants respond to higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations

Click to locate material archived on our website by topic

Model Biases Leading to a Double Intertropical Convergence Zone

Paper Reviewed
Wang, C.-C., Lee, W.-L., Chen, Y.-L. and Hsu, H.-H. 2015. Processes leading to Double Intertropical Convergence Zone bias in CESM1/CAM5. Journal of Climate 28: 2900-2915.

As background for their most interesting study, Wang et al. (2015) write that "although the double intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is an observed phenomenon in the tropical central-eastern Pacific during boreal spring, it is often overemphasized in general circulation models (GCMs) and is a common bias that has plagued GCMs for a few decades." And, therefore, they set about to revisit the issue by analyzing the double ITCZ bias in a set of simulations produced by the Community Atmosphere Model version five (CAM5) and the Community Earth System Model version one (CESM1). And what did they discover by so doing in terms of relevant problems?

The four researchers from Taiwan report that in CAM5 alone they found a (1) "weaker-than-observed equatorial easterly in the tropical eastern South Pacific" that leads to (2) "weaker evaporation" and (3) "an increase in local sea surface temperature," that (4) "the shallow meridional circulation overly converges in the same region in the CAM 5 stand-alone simulation," that (5,6) "the planetary boundary layer and middle troposphere are too humid," that (7) "the large-scale subsidence is too weak at the middle levels," and that these problems (8) "may result from excessive shallow convection behavior in CAM5."

In the ocean model (CESM1), they found that (9) "the South Equatorial Current is underestimated," that (10) "the North Equatorial Counter-current is located too close to the equator," which causes (11) "a warm SST bias in the southeastern Pacific," and (12) "a cold bias in the northeastern Pacific." In addition, Wang et al. note that (13) "these sea surface temperature biases feed back to the atmosphere and further influence convection and the surface wind biases in the coupled simulation," with the ultimate end result of these many model errors and deficiencies being the erroneously-predicted Double Intertropical Convergence Zone.

Posted 17 July 2015


A latex modified concrete (LMC) overlay delays the onset of corrosion by slowing movement of chlorides to the reinforcement. Slow LMC strength development, however, causes problems. Conventional LMC overlays must be cured 4 to 7 days before being opened to traffic. To avoid the slow cure problem, the Virginia Transportation Research Council developed a high early strength LMC (LMC-HE) that can be subjected to traffic in less than a day. Note the following differences between LMC and LMC-HE:

  1. The LMC-HE mix contains Type III cement and the LMC mix contains Type II cement.
  2. The LMC-HE mix uses more cement than the LMC mix.
  3. The LMC-HE mix has a lower water-cement ratio.

Test results showed that LMC-HE reached a compressive strength of 3000 psi within 24 hours, while typical LMC takes about 7 days to reach this level. The laboratory prepared LMC-HE mix had a higher permeability at early ages than the standard LMC. After about 26 weeks, high early strength latex modified concretes made in the laboratory have about the same chloride permeability as standard latex modified concretes.

The study results show that it is practical to accelerate LMC overlay construction by using Type III cement and a higher cement content. Under normal conditions, workers should be able to install the overlay on a weekend and open the road to traffic within a day.


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All you need to know about the Netherlands' general election

world news

All you need to know about the Netherlands' general election

He wants to halt Muslim immigration, close all mosques and ban a Koran that he compares to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Geert Wilders’ policies may seem extreme, but they are, arguably, hitting home in The Netherlands ahead of parliamentary elections set for Wednesday, March 15.

The 53-year-old’s Party for Freedom (PVV) movement has been jostling for top-spot in opinion polls, despite his conviction in December of inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans.

Here we explain how the Dutch election will work and look at Wilders’ impact and his chances of getting into power.

Why is this election important?

The prospect of far-right firebrand Wilders coming first in the Dutch election could cause further unease over the border in Brussels, already fighting to contain the fallout from the biggest shock to the European project, Brexit.

Wilders triumphing would continue the trend, after Brexit and Trump, of so-called anti-establishment forces rocking the boat and hand a major boost to far-right parties vying to cause similar upsets in France and Germany later this year.

Who are the main runners and riders?

One of the firmest facts about Dutch politics is the extent to which it’s fragmented. Its proportional representation system, see below, tends to help smaller, fringe parties.

The current coalition government consists of the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the centre-left Labour Party (PvdA).

Wilders’ anti-Islam and anti-EU Party, PVV, who had been leading the polls, slipped to second in the rankings on March 1, two weeks ahead of the vote.

There is also the Christian Democrats (CDA), struggling in recent years compared to past performance; the pro-European D66, comparable to the UK’s Liberal Democrats; the environmentalists GroenLinks (GL); and the Socialist Party (SP).

On the fringes are parties such as Denk, who campaign for migrants and their descendants and 50Plus, a party representing older people.

How does the Dutch election system work?

It is based on proportional representation. So a party that gets 9 percent of the national vote, gets 9 percent of seats in the Dutch parliament, Tweede Kamer. There are no electoral districts, the Dutch vote in a single, nationwide constituency.

The Dutch parliament has 150 seats, so 76 are needed for a majority and hence a viable coalition to run the government.

Could Wilders really be the Netherlands’ next prime minister?

Many experts [here, here and here] even while acknowledging the shocks of Brexit and Trump, think not. The very system that allows parties like Wilders’ to have a voice also provides a mechanism against parliament being dominated by one party.

“I think the headline reporting that suggests Wilders is about to takeover The Netherlands is misleading, that is definitely not the case,” Gijs De Vries, a former Dutch politician, now working at the London School of Economics’ European Institute. “Numerically at least, as much as we can trust the polls, he’s not getting above 20 percent of the vote.

“Secondly he will have great difficulty joining a government coalition. The other parties have so far claimed they would not wish to join in a coalition that included Mr Wilders.”

Prime minister Mark Rutte, leader of the governing VDD party, says he cannot imagine his movement joining forces with Wilders in a coalition.

But, adds De Vries, Rutte has changed his mind on some key issues before, for example sending EU aid to Greece and respecting the outcome of the EU-Ukraine referendum.

“Wilders is very unlikely to be in government, unless everyone else flat-lines in voting,” Euroscepticism specialist Simon Usherwood, from the University of Surrey, told Euronews. “There’s a strong sense of wanting to exclude him [Wilders], even if that means a big coalition and other compromises on policy. It also suits Wilders more to be on the outside, criticising.”

How is Wilders influencing the campaign?

“Wilders’ discourse is increasingly being copied and rehashed by his competitors,” De Vries told Euronews. “Mr Rutte [current PM] wrote an open letter in a major Dutch newspaper, which, between the lines said ‘if foreigners don’t behave the way, we, the original Dutch want, they had better pack their bags’.

“The Christian Democrats leader, not to be outdone, has just said he would be happy to tear up the [EU’s} treaty with Ukraine [which the Dutch rejected in a referendum], pandering to the anti-EU sentiment in part of the population.

“Wilders’ competitors compete with him by embracing some of his ideas without the extremism Wilders purports.”

What role is the issue of Muslims and immigration playing?

The debate around the role of Islam in Dutch society was electrified by two murders earlier this century, said De Vries

Outspoken film-maker Theo van Gogh, who produced a film criticising Islam, was killed by a militant Islamist in 2004. That followed the murder of anti-immigrant populist Pim Fortuyn in May 2002 by an animal rights activist.

“At local level most people get along with their neighbours,” said De Vries. “Muslims, Christians, non-believers or Buddhists.

“But I think there are many genuine concerns from people who feel their neighbourhoods are no longer the environment they knew when they grew up as children.

“That is a feeling many people have and it’s genuine and it should be taken very seriously. At the same time it’s also clear you have a number of politicians who actively fan the flames of xenophobia. And it’s obvious Mr Wilders is one of them. If you go into the elections saying you will close all Islamic schools, even though you want Christians to be free to form their schools, you are clearly trying to exploit a divide. He’s got support but many people find he’s going much too far.”

Dutch Muslims make up around 5 percent of the country’s population. More than one-in-three respondents from The Netherlands said they had an unfavourable view of Muslims in a Pew Research Survey.

Regarding the EU’s refugee influx, The Netherlands received around 33,000 asylum requests in the year to September 2016, according to Eurostat.

What are the other issues on voters’ minds?

The economy is an issue, even though some of the country’s indicators are positive. Unemployment, for instance, was 5.4 percent in December 2016. But, said De Vries, there are concerns, particularly among young people, that a lot of employment is insecure because of temporary positions and zero-hour contracts.

Health is also important for voters, he added, even though The Netherlands topping the Euro Health Consumer Index.

De Vries said the concern that people have is that they have to pay more to access the healthcare system and that is the classic ideological debate between the left, who want to increase investment, and right who says it’s becoming too costly.

world news

€5,000 jackets, €2,500 trousers; but Francois Fillon’s bank account might not support his rich tastes


John Graham calls the following advice his "Coach's Corner" – more can be found in his books and educational products. Some of the following advice comes from Giraffe Heroes - the change agents honored by the Giraffe Heroes Project for sticking their necks out for the common good (these people know what they're doing!) Some of it comes from his fifteen years as a negotiator and problem-solver for the US Foreign Service. Most of it comes from his subsequent three decades as a citizen activist, and writer, speaker, blogger and coach on the subject of creating change. The Coach's Corner series starts below. Your comments are welcome after each piece.

Why get involved in trying to solve problems in your community or beyond? Why spend all that time and perhaps risk criticism, conflict and failure?

Good questions.

The organization I work with—the Giraffe Heroes Project—honors people who stick their necks out for the common good. These “Giraffe Heroes” are men and women, young and old, from every ethnic and economic background, tackling every kind of public problem you can think...

Some time ago I went back for a reunion to the high school in Tacoma I graduated from. Nearly all my classmates were leading comfortable lives in business or the professions. They talked about their houses and their investments and how well their kids were doing in college. To be blunt, I was bored to death. Except by one man. I’ll call him Tom. He’d been the "slow one" in our class, the butt of jokes. But for 30 years he’d been directing a...

You’ve found a problem you care enough about to get involved. Maybe it’s local or maybe it’s global, but whatever it is, you’re ready to get to work. Now what?

The first step is to do your homework. Yes that sounds boring—but I can’t tell you how many well-intentioned people I’ve seen fail because they jumped into action on their issue before learning enough to guide their steps wisely. You don’t need to become an expert at this point,...

Choosing the problem you want to work on answers the question “What do I care about?” “Violence in my kid’s school” and “Global warming” are examples of problems.

But problems are often broad and diffuse--great for inspiring action but not so great for providing detailed guidance. So after you’ve done basic research on the problem, the next step is to create a specific projectthat helps solve it--something you can plan and implement...

A vision is a mental picture of the result you want to achieve---a picture so clear and strong it will help make that result real. A vision is not a vague wish or dream or hope. It’s a picture of the real results of real efforts. It comes from the future and informs and energizes the present. Visioning is the most powerful tool I’ve witnessed in over twenty years of helping organizations and individuals get the results they want.

In the last Coach’s Corner (#5), I said that a vision is a mental picture of the result you want to achieve--a picture so clear and strong it will help make that result real. I explained why a vision is important and then listed the qualities a vision needs to succeed.

In this article, you’ll learn how to guide a group in creating and communicating a vision for its project. The instructions assume one group all working on the same...

You’ve got an issue, defined a project and created a vision for its success. You’re ready to act. No, not yet. Being a successful agent for change is about more than making the right moves. It’s also about making the moves right.

Public problem solving works best when people deliberate with respect, integrity, and concern for the common good. But that conduct is not what we usually see in the public arena—at any level—and it’s not the...

Coach’s Corner #7 made the point that successful citizen activism often depends on individual people and/or small groups sticking their necks out to trust when no one else seems ready to take that risk. But how do you do that, especially if the people you’re up against are difficult?

Competence builds trust because it sets a standard. Both your allies and your opponents recognize your skills and experience; this makes miscalculations...

Most of the public problems that cry for solutions today are complex and time-consuming. While change efforts are usually started by one or a few motivated people, long-term progress usually requires more than that. And it isn’t just the additional help that’s important. Given the power of the forces any citizen activist may confront, it’s simply too easy for one person to be marginalized. If you’re pursuing a cause by yourself, sooner or...

Nobody wants more structure on a team than is necessary. If overdone, it stifles both energy and creativity. But the need for structure grows with the size and complexity of the work. It’s crucial, early on, for the team to reach agreement on the five elements listed below:

• choosing leadership

• internal communications

• external communications

• decision making

• record keeping

The agreement doesn’t have...

The most important and most difficult aspect of managing a team is dealing with the people on it.

Focus first on relationships. How people get along can be crucial to the success of any team effort, especially if the task you’ve taken on includes stress-producing conflicts or obstacles. The minimum goal is to create working relationships good enough to promote open discussion and ready cooperation.

If all the members of your group...

It’s useful for team members early on to talk to the whole team about what...

This essay and the next are addressed to a team of activists. The information here, however, works equally well if you are on your own.

I’m assuming that you’ve identified a problem and created a project. You’ve formed a vision of the results you want. Now what?

Visions are about what you want. What’s still missing is how to get it. A vision that remains only a concept can do more harm than good, by raising expectations that will...

Budgets. If your project requires money, then the funding goal in your action plan must be based on a budget, as in estimated expenses matched against estimated sources of cash income. Here’s a stunner: unless you’re the federal government, the cash income must equal or exceed the expenses. A budget should also list items given to you (in-kind contributions).

All foundations and many major donors will ask to see a budget before they...

Sticking your neck out as an active citizen is no video game---if things get tough, you can’t just press the reset button and start over. Taking a risk for the common good always means daring to act in the face of the unknown and always includes the possibility of hurt or loss. Reactions from peers can be cruel, and conflicts with people who like things the way they are can get nasty, especially if those people are in positions of authority....

There are smart ways and not-so-smart ways to take risks. Smart is better.

Lower the Risks by Getting Better Information about Them

You may find out that some perceived risks aren’t risks at all, or are less significant than you first thought. People were afraid of eclipses when they thought eclipses were caused by an angry god. The risks disappeared when people learned that eclipses were predictable effects of the orbits of the...

Finding common ground with other people does not mean finding absolute agreement. Common ground is shareable ground whose boundaries are marked by a range of actions that all can live with. You and your neighbor may not vote for the same political candidate, for example, but your shared belief in elections, free speech, and the democratic process is common ground.

Negotiating is a rational process for resolving differences and for...

In Coach’s Corner #17 we began looking at some general principles for negotiating and resolving conflicts, including:

1. Winning at the Expense of Others Is a Poor Solution

2. Look below the Waterline.

Next up:

3.You’re in Charge of Your Emotions, No Matter What the Provocation

An out-of-control reaction increases your provokers’ control over you---and may cause a similar response in them, sending all of you over...

resolve conflict2.jpg

In Coach’s Corner #17 and #18, we discussed these general principles:

1. Winning at the Expense of Others Is a Poor Solution

2. Look below the Waterline.

3. Building Trust Is Often the Key to Success

Next up:

4.You’re in Charge of Your Emotions, No Matter What the Provocation


Plain of Jars: An Introduction

The most significant attraction in the region is the mysterious ‘Plain of Jars’. Hundreds of large stone jars lie scattered across an elevated plateau of rolling grassland, to the south and west of Phonsavan.

The origin and purpose of these huge, spooky jars is unclear, but it is generally accepted that most date back at least 2000 years. They range between one and three metres long, and each weigh several tons.

Laos legend tells us that the jars were created by a race of giants, whose king needed somewhere to store his rice wine. Others believe that they were placed there to collect monsoon rainwater.

Science suggests that the jars were created by an iron age civilisation. When they were excavated, many contained jewellery and burial items. This lead archaeologists to surmise that they were giant funeral urns. The theory is upheld by a recent discovery of underground burial chambers, and by the stone gravemarkers found nearby.

Whatever their purpose, the jars will have you pondering all the way back to your hotel.

Until 2003 it was considered risky to visit the area, due to small pockets of guerilla activity and attacks by bandits on the roads in and out of Phonsavan, but in the last five years visitors have been coming in safety to marvel at the jars.

We're sure there’s a sensible, perhaps even logical, explanation to the Plain of Jars... we just don't want to know what it is.


The PCUSA’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness (ACSWP) has released a report entitled Lift Every Voice: Democracy, Voting Rights, and Electoral Reform. It’s a fairly lengthy item (21 pages), so I can’t go into all of it, but there are a few excerpts from it that I think are worth examining:

The United States, the oldest constitutional democracy in the world, is one of only eleven (of the estimated 120 democracies) that do not guarantee to their citizens the right to vote. Article I of the Constitution allows each state to define for itself which of its citizens have the right to vote in both state and national elections. While the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments prohibit states from denying the franchise on the basis of race, sex, ability to pay a poll tax, or being eighteen years of age or above, states are still able to deny voting rights to selected groups, most notably to prison inmates and to persons with a prior felony conviction.

Most states allow felons to petition for restoration of their right to vote, and I agree that those that don’t should. But the report seems to suggest that such restoration should be automatic, which I think assumes a lot about the rehabilitative abilities of our prison system. Far more odd is the suggestion that there is something wrong with the idea of depriving prison inmates the right to vote. The franchise is a responsibility of citizenship, and once one has demonstrated contempt for the law by committing a prison-worthy crime, it seems that losing the right to vote is a way for society to express its disapproval of criminal behavior.

In the United States, by contrast, the burden to register to vote (and to maintain that registration) is placed upon the individual citizen, and states and localities differ widely in determining where, how, and when a person can register….A section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was aimed specifically at eliminating tactics used by southern states to prevent blacks from registering, and in 1993 Congress passed the Motor-Voter law intended to ease the registration
burden for all Americans. But only seven states have taken the much more effective step of allowing “same day” registration, allowing citizens to register on Election Day.

Throughout this document, there is the assumption that anything that states do that prevent anyone from voting under any circumstances (registration requirements, ID requirements, disenfranchisement of prisoners, etc.) is an expression of racial animus. The possibility and even existence of voting fraud is dismissed, and the possibility that any requirements laid on voters is chalked up to racism and a desire to keep people from voting. ACSWP proposes “same day” registration as a way of making it easier for voters to register, which raises the question: why is it easier to register to vote on a single day of the year, than during the months ahead of time? They also advocate “universal registration, which would automatically enroll every citizen as a voter:

As noted by FairVote, universal registration would help ensure that the more than fifty
million unregistered Americans, representing nearly one-third of the eligible electorate, would be eligible to vote on election day. Since unregistered voters are disproportionately young, low-income, or people of color, such a move could potentially have a dramatic impact on voter turnout and election results.

The report insists on putting everything in demographic categories, and its assertions may or may not be correct (I simply don’t have the time to research their claims). But even if this is correct, it doesn’t demonstrate that any particular barriers are being placed before the young, the poor, “people of color,” or any other group except those who, for whatever reason, choose not to register and vote. Here’s a philosophical question that ACSWP would probably rather not face: why should we as a society facilitate voting by those who aren’t interested? And why would doing so strengthen democracy?

There are various methods by which universal registration can be accomplished in the United States. One of the more widely supported proposals, which we support, is the registration of high school students—making registration a requirement for graduation or for community
service credit, or registering all students age seventeen and older as part of Constitution Day on September 17 each year.

One almost feels sorry for ACSWP in having to point out that fully one quarter or more of high school students don’t graduate, and relatively few do any form of community service for credit. I’d be willing to bet that the number of non-voters among those who don’t graduate from high school is far higher than the general population, so this idea would do little or nothing to get at what they think is a problem.

Other means that have been proposed to achieve universal registration include automatically
registering citizens as they obtain a driver’s license…

I believe that registering to vote when one gets or renews a driver’s license is available in every state. I know that when I moved to Virginia, I got a new license and registered to vote at the same time, and the latter took far less time (less than ten minutes) than the former. Once again, I’ve got to ask: if folks are so unconcerned about voting that they can’t take advantage of the opportunity afforded to them when they get their driver’s license, why should we make it an easier for them?

The report makes a recommendation that would warm the heart of ACORN and any other vote fraud enabler:

For generations, discriminatory practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests prevented people of color from voting. Today so-called “antifraud” legislation is being introduced in some southern states that will recreate similar filters by requiring voters to produce new types of identification on election day. No longer will documents such as a birth certificate or social security card suffice to prove a prospective voter’s identity. A drivers license or an accepted state-issued alternative will now be required, a burden that will heavily fall on low-income voters, and therefore also persons of color. The elderly will also be disadvantaged.

I like the reference to “southern states,” a not-so-subtle suggestion that having picture IDs to register to vote is simply an extension of Jim Crow. This issue has actually been decided by the Supreme Court, which in a case from Indiana (which, last time I checked, was never part of the Confederacy), said that it wasn’t a burden to ask people to prove that they are who they say they are when they register to vote. And those “state-issued alternative[s]” that will be “a burden that will heavily fall on low-income voters, and therefore also person of color”? They’re free.

There’s a lot more–abolishing the Electoral College, instant-runoff voting, proportional voting (which would effectively change our system into something more closely resembling, for example, Italy, which is a system that surely deserves emulation), etc. Not all the recommendations are bad, though as with the matter of voter ID they frequently are simply echoes of ACORN and Democratic Party activist ideas, and constitute an open invitation to fraud, something ACSWP in its idealism thinks doesn’t even happen in our democracy.


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We caught up with Toronto-based twinsters, Mikky and Alex, who have made electronic musical magic together for their sophomore EP “Popular.” Following up their debut EP “Tres Bien,” the twin sisters have literally been working underground on their underground sound, in their basement studio. 2016 was a big year for the duo as they played their first show ever at the legendary Horseshoe Tavern, DJ’d at Parts and Labour and booked a slot at Canadian Music Week. Aside from making music, these two have a fearless style that slays and a connection that brings out the best in each other.

1)What is your favourite thing to write about, and what influences your songwriting?

Mikky: Lyrically I'm inclined to write about what I'm feeling, my emotions and expressing things I might not normally admit in conversation.

2)Tell us about your term DDM (dark dance music) and what it means to you to have this Pop like aesthetic with a twist. How important is it for you to have this emotional outlet?

Mikky: For me, music has always been an outlet for my emotions and keeping good mental health both as a listener and creator. I've always been one to feel, and register my emotions rather than to hide them away.

3) Do you feel it’s important to lose the stigma around mental health and to embrace your emotions in a positive way I.E your dark dance music?

Mikky: I think it's great that we are finally able to have honest conversations about how we're feeling and embracing creative ways to express ourselves. To me, it’s okay to feel sad; it’s okay to not love everything about yourself; It’s okay to get help. What's important is that we acknowledge our emotions; the healthy and unhealthy and try to move forward and embrace life with open arms. After all, we are only human.

4) Twinsperation - Do you feel like you have any moments where you share the same brain? How is it working with your other half?

Mikky: I think we have really similar thought patterns so it really helps our ideas to be cohesive. Working together is so much fun. We trust our criticisms and learn from our mistakes together. We push one another to be better.

5) How does your personal style differ? Does one of you take more fashion risks? How do you influence each other?

Alex: I think I take more style risks when styling a shoot or performance but in my personal style I tend to wear what I'm comfortable in or what makes me feel good. I think Mikky wears whatever she wants and is willing to take style risks in her personal style. Sometimes she'll walk out of her room wearing PVC pants and a fishnet top and other days she'll wear a vintage tee and our mom's old jeans with running shoes.

Mikky: I think I have a more diverse range of things I like to wear. Some days I'll wear the most out-there outfit and other days I'll wear my grocery store look. That's why fashion is fun. I really see it as a reflection of how you're feeling and how you want to be seen. I see it as an extension of self expression.

6) How do you create your on stage look? Is it important to you to stand out and express yourself through fashion and style?

Mikky: Fashion is so important in the sense that it is one of the only unspoken markers and expressers of one's self. My stage look is primarily driven by me telling myself to wear exactly what I want to wear without a care in the world.

7) What does it mean for you to be a feminist in the music industry?

Mikky: I am so proud to be a feminist. It's pretty crazy to see how much of a boys club the music industry is. One of my favourite questions to answer after our shows is, "Wow, who else produces your music?" I always laugh and explain to them it's just us. Almost always, they are floored. That’s when you realize that we still have a ways to go in being treated equally even in our society.

8) Tell us a little bit about your background. Growing up speaking Cantonese and listening to Cantonese music, did this influence your music? How has this shaped you as adults growing up in Canada?

Alex: The melodies from Cantonese music definitely influenced our ears. It was the only thing we listened to until Britney Spears came out with 'Baby One More Time.' When making music we don't look for other music for inspiration so it hasn't shaped the music sonically but I think having that as a memory influenced us in some way. There's one song in particular called, 'Too Young to Settle' which has Asian influences, like the strings you hear.

9) What is coming up for Mikky and Alex that we should keep an eye out for?

Mikky: We are currently on hiatus. I'm working on a side project called Visual Aesthetic.

Alex: And Mikky is going solo as Mikky Patrick with an upcoming debut Solo EP .

With their unique style both musically and sartorially, we look forward to seeing what the future has in store for Mikky and Alex. If you want to see more check out their website

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An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

فرهنگ ریشه شناختی اخترشناسی-اخترفیزیک

M. Heydari-Malayeri    -    Paris Observatory

<< < -ci cal Cam can car Car cat Cau CDM Cen cen cha cha cha che chr cir cir civ Cla clo clu co- Coc coh col Col col Com com com com com com com Com con con con con con con con con con con coo cor cor cor cos cos cot cou Cra Cre cri cro cub cur cyc cyl > >>

Number of Results: 1223

Fr.: Crétacé

A period of → geologic time which began at the end of the → Jurassic period approximately 145 million years ago and extended to approximately 65 million years ago.

From L. cretaceus, from cret(a) "chalk, clay," + → -aceous, because the geological remains of this period contain heightened chalk deposits.

Gacâsâ, from gac "chalk," Mid.Pers. gac + -âsâ, → -aceous.

Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event
  رویداد ِ خاموشی ِ گچاسا-پارینزاد
ruydâd-e xâmuši-ye Gacâsâ-Pârinzâd

Fr.: extinction Crétacé-Tertiaire

The → mass extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs and a majority of other species on Earth approximately 65 million years ago. This event is believed to have been the impact of a 10 km-size → asteroid or → comet nucleus and its aftereffects, including a severe → impact winter. Same as the → Cretaceous-Tertiary event.

Cretaceous; → Paleogene; → extinction; → event.

Cretaceous-Tertiary event
  رویداد ِ K-T
ruydâd-e K-T (#)

Fr.: événement K-T

See → Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

K, representing the "→ Cretaceous period," and T the "→ Tertiary;" → event.

Fr.: équipage, équipe

A group of persons acting or working together.

M.E. crewe "augmentation, reinforcement, body of soldiers," from M.Fr. crue, from O.Fr. creue "an increase, recruit, military reinforcement," from p.p. of creistre "grow," from L. crescere "grow, arise," → crescent.

Koran, variants korand, korang "a troop, a circle of people" (Dehxodâ).

bazah (#)

Fr.: crime

M.E., from O.Fr. crimne, from L. crimen "charge, indictment, accusation; offense."

Bazah, from Mid.Pers. bazag "crime, misdeed," bazagkâr "evil-doer," Parthian bzg "evil, wicked."

  ۱) بزهی؛ ۲) بزه‌کار
1) bazahi; 2) bazahkâr

Fr.: criminel

1) Of the nature of or involving crime.
2) A person guilty or convicted of a crime.

L. criminalis, → crime; → -al.

Fr.: crise

A decisive stage or turning point in the course of something, especially in a sequence of events or an acute disease.

M.E., from Latinized from of Gk. krisis "turning point in a disease," literally "judgment, selection," from krinein "to separate, decide, judge;cf. " L. cribrum "sieve," crimen "judgment, crime;" → critique.

Paržané, from paržan, present stem of paržanidan "to separate, sift, → critique," + a suffix of relation.

Fr.: net

1) Notably sharp, clear-cut, and clear.
2) Noticeably neat (

M.E, from O.E., from L. crispus "curled," cognate with Walsh crych "curly."

Tuj (Kurmanji Kurd.) variant of tiz, → sharp.

crisp set
  هنگرد ِ توج
hangard-e tuj

Fr.: ensemble net

A classical set that allows only full membership or no membership at all for its elements, as contrasted with a → fuzzy set. Crisp set can be viewed as a restricted case of the more general fuzzy set concept.

sanjidâr (#)

Fr.: critère

A standard or rule that can serve as basis for a judgment or decision.

From Gk. kriterion "means for judging, standard," from krites "judge," from krinein "to separate, distinguish, judge." L. cribrum "sieve" *krei- "to sieve, discriminate, distinguish."

Sanjidâr verbal noun from sanjid- past tense stem of sanjidan "to compare; to measure" (Mid.Pers. sanjidan "to weigh," from present tense stem sanj-, Av. θanj- "to draw, pull;" Proto-Iranian *θanj-) + suffix -âr.

  پرژنکار، پرژنگر
paržankâr, paržangar

Fr.: critique

A person who judges, evaluates, or criticizes.

M.E., from M.Fr. critique, from L. criticus "a judge, literary critic," → critique.

Paržangar, from paržan present stem of paržanidan, "criticize", → critique, + -kâr, -gar suffixes of agent nouns, → -or.

Fr.: critique

1) Of or pertaining to → critics or → criticism.
2) Of, relating to, or being a state or level at which a significant change takes place (

critic; → -al.

critical angle
  زاویه‌ی ِ پرژنی
zâviyeh-ye paržani

Fr.: angle critique

Angle of incidence of light proceeding from a denser medium toward a thinner, at which grazing refraction occurs (angle of refraction 90°).

critical; → angle.

critical Bonnor-Ebert mass
  جرم ِ پرژنی ِ بونور-ابرت
jerm-e paržani-ye Bonnor-Ebert

Fr.: masse critique de Bonnor-Ebert

The upper value of mass that a → Bonnor-Ebert sphere must have in order that → hydrodynamic equilibrium be maintained. This → critical mass is given by: Mcrit = 1.18 (a4/G3/2)Pext-1/2, where a = (kT/m)1/2 is the isothermal → sound speed inside the sphere, G is the → gravitational constant, and Pext the pressure of the external medium (see, e.g., F. H. Shu, 1977, ApJ 214, 488).

critical; → Bonnor-Ebert mass.

critical density
  چگالی ِ پرژنی
cagâli-ye paržani

Fr.: densité critique

1) Cosmology: The average density of matter in the Universe that would be needed to eventually halt the → cosmic expansion. In a spatially → flat Universe, the critical density is expressed by ρc = (3c2/8πG)Ht2, where c is the → speed of light, G is the → gravitational constant, and Ht the → Hubble parameter. The critical density is currently 9.3 × 10-30g cm-3, about 6 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter (for H0 = 70 km s-1 Mpc-1).
2) In → gravitational lensing, the minimum density that would be needed by an intervening object to bend light rays. It is expressed by: Σ = (c2/4πG)(dos/doldls), where c is the speed of light, G is the gravitational constant, dos, dol, and dls represent angular diameter distances between the observer and the source, the observer and the lens, and the lens and the source respectively. It has units of mass per unit solid angle.
3) Radiative processes: The density at which the collisional → de-excitation rate equals the → radiative transition rate. The critical density for level j is given by: nc = Σi < j Aji = Σi ≠ j qji, where Aji is the → Einstein coefficient of → spontaneous emission and qji is the rate for collisional de-excitation of → energy level j, summed over all possible processes. This expression often simplifies to the ratio of two numbers, since in many cases there is a single important path for emission and a dominant collisional de-excitation process. In the low density limit the → emissivity is proportional to the product Ne (electron density) x Ni (ion density), whereas for densities exceeding the critical density, the emissivity is proportional to Ni. Thus, line emission in a nebula occurs most efficiently near the critical density.

critical; → density.

critical mass
  جرم ِ پرژنی
jerm-e paržani

Fr.: masse critique

Of a fissile material (235U or 239Pu), the minimum mass needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction, as in an atomic bomb.

critical; → mass.

critical metallicity
  فلزیگی ِ پرژنی
felezigi-ye paržani

Fr.: métallicité critique

The → metallicity of a → star-forming  → molecular cloud when → cooling → rates by → metals dominate the → gravitational  → heating during → protostellar collapse. The minimum → Jeans mass achieved by gravitational → fragmentation depends on the presence/absence of → coolants in the cloud. Since cooling rate in metal lines is more efficient than in primordial molecular lines (H2 and HD), metals favor fragmentation in gas and formation of → low-mass stars.

critical; → metallicity.

critical opalescence
  اپالستی ِ پرژنی
opâlesti-ye paržani

Fr.: opalescence critique

The strong → scattering that occurs in a fluid near the → critical point. Large density fluctuations bring about inhomogeneities of all sizes. This results in the scattering of light at all wavelengths giving a milky appearance to the fluid.

critical; → opalescence.

critical velocity
  تندای ِ پرژنی
tondâ-ye paržani

Fr.: vitesse critique

1) Velocity of → fluid through a pipe at which the motion changes from → laminar to → turbulent flow.
2) Same as → break-up velocity.

critical; → velocity.

  ۱)، ۲) پرژنش، پرژنکاری، پرژنگری؛ ۳) پرژن
1), 2) paržaneš, paržankâri, paržangari; 3) paržan

Fr.: critique

1) The act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.
2) The act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.
3) A critical comment, article, or essay; → critique (

critic; → -ism.


The body scan exercise

This should take about 15 – 20 minutes. You may want to lie on the floor on a mat making sure you are warm and comfortable, covering yourself with a blanket and resting your head on a cushion or pillow. You can also do this sitting upright. Taking care to ensure you will not be disturbed for the period of the body scan.
1. Firstly checking in with your body just as it is right now noticing the sensations that are present, feeling the contact the body is making with the floor.

2. Then starting to scan the body, sweeping your awareness through different parts of the body, without judging what you are aware of but as best you can bringing attention to your experience moment to moment.

3. Starting with the crown of the head, noticing any sensations here, tingling, numbness, tightness or relaxation. Then including the head , feeling the weight of the head as it rests on the cushion, then including in awareness the forehead, noticing whether or not you can feel the pulse in the forehead, whether there is tightness or ease. Then including the eyes, the nose, cheeks, mouth and chin and finally the ears including any sounds that you notice coming to the ears. Being aware moment by moment the changing pattern of sensations, feelings of warmth, coolness, ease. If you notice your mind wandering then this is perfectly natural and what minds do. Noticing your mind has wandered is a moment of awareness, then just gently guiding your mind back to the part of the body you are focusing on.

4. Then letting go of the head and face, moving your awareness into the neck and shoulders, noticing the strong muscles in this part of the body, having awareness of any tension in the neck and throat, perhaps becoming aware of the sensation of air in the throat.

5. Moving your awareness now to the shoulders, the places where there is contact between the shoulders and the floor, stretching your awareness into the arms, elbows, wrists, hands and fingers, aware of what is here in each moment.

6. Shifting the focus now to the chest area, noticing the subtle rise and fall of the chest with the in and out breath, turning your awareness to the ribcage, front and back of the ribs, sides of the ribs, the upper back resting on the floor. Noticing any aches and pains here and seeing if you can bring a sense of gentleness and kindness to these areas.

7. Turning your awareness now to the abdomen and stomach, the place where we feel our “gut feelings” noticing your attitude to this part of your body, seeing if you can allow it to be as it is, taking a relaxed and accepting approach to this part of the body. Then stretching your awareness to the lower back, the lumber spine, feeling the gentle pressure as the back meets the floor before moving your awareness to the pelvis area, the hip bones, and sitting bones, genitals and groin, noticing any sensations or lack of sensations that are here, perhaps being aware of the breath in this part of the body. Bringing a kindly attention here.

8. Now letting go of the torso as the centre of your awareness and moving your attention into the thighs of both legs, feeling the weight of the legs, gently noticing what other sensations there are here, tuning into the skin, bone and muscle of the legs here. If your mind has wandered into thinking, planning, worrying, day dreaming then just gently guiding it back to this part of the body.

9. Next turning your attention gently towards the knees, bringing a friendly attention, notice if there is any discomfort here, and if there is none then noticing what is present already here.

10. Stretching your attention into the calves of both legs, noticing how your muscles feel here, feeling this part of the legs from the inside out, the flesh and bone of the lower legs. And again checking in where your attention is from time to time and noticing the quality of your attention seeing if it is possible to bring a gentleness and kindliness into your awareness, not forcing your self, bringing a lightness of touch to your attention in this part of the body.

11. Finally moving your attention into both feet, the heels of the feet, the instep the balls of the feet , the tops of the feet, skin and bone and finally the toes, seeing if its possible to distinguish one toe from another. Noticing whether there is tension here, sensations, numbness, tingling and allowing any tension to softening as you bring a gentle attention to it.

12. Now taking one or two deeper breaths and widen your focus, filling the whole body with awareness, noticing whatever is present, sweeping the body with your awareness from top to bottom, experiencing the body from the inside out. Noticing whether there is any non acceptance towards any parts of the body as you fill the body with a gentle awareness and seeing if you can have compassion for any judgments or for any tensions or pain that might be present as and when you notice it. Feeling the energy of life flowing through you. And resting in awareness of this amazing body that you have, compassion for its pains and appreciation for its capacities and the wonder of it.

Getting started
No courses at your university or college?
You might want to get started with the help of the guided meditations and resources available on this website. Have a look at the links above for more information and some guided practices, video talks and recommended books .


The Universe Going Green with Intense Glow from Youngest Galaxies

Press Release From: University of California Los Angeles
Posted: Saturday, January 7, 2017

Galaxies in the young universe were forming stars at 10- to 50-times higher rates than their modern-day counterparts, such as our Milky Way. A recent study has found that they were not merely scaled up versions of star-forming regions seen today. Instead, UCLA Professor Matthew Malkan and several collaborators have found that the earliest galaxies were “going green.”

“The discovery that young galaxies are so unexpectedly bright -- if you look for this distinctive green light -- will dramatically change and improve the way that we study galaxy formation throughout the history of the universe,” Malkan said.

The astronomers discovered a startling number of distant galaxies in which the strongest emission line is from doubly ionized oxygen. Its wavelength in the green region of the electromagnetic spectrum makes the striking color that is also seen in so-called “planetary” nebulae (misnamed because their greenish color resembles that of planets Uranus and Neptune, but for completely different reasons).

This was surprising because current star-forming regions, like the nearby Orion nebula, give a pinkish glow, which comes from atoms of hydrogen -- by far the most abundant element in the universe. Newly born stars are embedded in the gas clouds out of which they were recently born. Ultraviolet photons from those young stars irradiate the atoms in the gas, causing them to heat up and lose electrons -- a process called photo-ionization. This hot ionized gas then emits a distinctive pattern of colors of light. The strongest color is nearly always the pink light of heated hydrogen atoms.

But something unusual was going on in the early generations of star formation, only one or two billion years after the Big Bang. The oxygen atoms in their surrounding gas clouds have lost two electrons, rather than the usual one. Knocking off that second electron requires a lot of energy. This can be done by only extremely energetic photons (almost into the X-ray range). Few such high-energy photons are produced by the young stars seen today in Orion or anywhere else in the Milky Way or other modern galaxies.

They ARE produced by a few much hotter stars such as those found briefly in the centers of “planetary” nebula (right hand photograph above). But such extreme conditions are only seen galaxy-wide in less than one hundredth of one percent of galaxies today. Dubbed “green peas,” these greenish dwarf starburst galaxies were discovered by the Galaxy Zoo project. The explanation for why the young universe was going green -- but then stopped -- is still under intensive investigation. Malkan and colleagues suspect it is because young stars were hotter in the earlier phases of galaxy evolution. More of them effectively resembled the very hot (T > 50,000°C) central stars in planetary nebulae (but with very different origins).

A recent analysis of many thousands of distant galaxies in the Subaru Deep Field with graduate student Daniel Cohen found that ALL small galaxies are surprisingly strong emitters of the green emission line of doubly ionized oxygen. By averaging data for such a large number of galaxies, they obtained the first accurate measurements of the dwarf galaxies which are extremely faint, but by far the most common in the young universe. The accompanying figure shows an average of 1,294 of these galaxies at a redshift of z = 3. These are observed 2 billion years after the Big Bang, when the universe was 70 times denser than today. “The O++ emission line (which falls between the two vertical dashed lines) is so strong that it even distorts the entire infrared portion of the galaxy spectrum, which is otherwise starlight,” Malkan said.

The coming generation of space telescopes for cosmological surveys will soon be going for this green. In particular, the launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2018, followed by their WFIRST in 2024 and the 2020 precursor from the European Space Agency, EUCLID, are all designed to survey galaxies in the young universe though this green O++ emission line.

At the high redshifts of interest, seen in the first 500 million years since the Big Bang, this “green” line is shifted even further into the infrared wavelength range, Malkan said. The cold, dark environments of these telescopes, and their new detectors, are highly optimized to provide unprecedented spectroscopic sensitivity to the strong O++ emission at these infrared wavelengths.

“This one line will be the single most powerful probe of galaxy formation, as soon as galaxies form their first stars and supernovae to produce oxygen atoms,” Malkan said. “Detecting and studying the intense green glow from the youngest galaxies (shifted into the infrared) now looks like our best opportunity for learning how the first galaxies evolved.”

Malkan is discussing this research today at the 229th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Grapevine, Texas [].

// end //

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StartupYard is a mentor-driven acceleration program

From our inception, we have been mentor-driven. We’ve had the pleasure of working with 100+ top-level entrepreneurs, investors, technologists and consultants from different segments and countries, all of whom have been helpful, often indispensable, in getting our companies’ businesses up and running. We are very grateful for their participation so far and we look forward to working with them (and new mentors) in the future.

Founders selected in the program will spend many hours with our mentors. You need to be ready to work with them every day, listen to their experience and incorporate their insights and feedback, asking valuable questions. They can become your connectors, advisers, angels, customers, friends.

Here is a small selection of our mentors


About four times a second, someone is born somewhere in the world (Waah!) .

But people die at only about half that rate. This means that the overall human population of planet earth is increasing by about 2 people per second.

If the human population is increasing, that means that the number of available parents (the "parent pool") is increasing. More parents means more babies... which means that if four people are being born every second now, soon that rate is going to be five per second, six per second, ten per second, one hundred per second.... Scientists say that the "rate" by which humans are being added to the earth is not "linear" but rather that population is an example of an "exponentially increasing" process. How can we characterize this type of process?

Well for starters, how do we characterize the growth of "linear" systems?

  1. We can define the increase in size as a function of time in terms of a "rate," that is, by an increase of a constant amount per unit time.

  2. We can graph the population versus time (see for example the graphing applet in the "Gas Particles in Motion" ASPIRE lesson). For a system showing "linear" growth, the relationship between population and time will be a straight line whose slope is given by the "rate".

In the following ASPIRE lab, we will study a system exhibiting exponential growth and try to determine the quantities which characterize this system.

Discuss the following with your partner. Given your experience with scientific notation (for example in the ASPIRE "Theorem Detectives" lab), what characteristics of a number written in scientific notation do you expect to be of importance in analysing exponential growth? How might you use this to represent exponential growth graphically? (Hint: Think about the slope.)

Your mission (should you choose to accept it):

Use the lab setup on the computer, in which you will analyze the growth rate of bacteria over time, to identify a way of graphically interpreting the characteristics of systems exhibiting exponential growth.

What you will see on the computer screen when you start the lab is a petri dish which you can seed with a number of bacteria.

  • To start: Enter a number for the initial population of bacteria (choose a number between 1 and 100). Then enter a number for the growth parameter (choose a number between 1 and 5).

  • To watch the bacteria colony grow, click the "Start Experiment" button.

  • Click the "Record Data" button at various intervals to record the total number of bacteria in the dish as a function of time. You will have 15 hours on the watch to take 15 measurements.

  • Write down the numbers in the table on the right on a sheet of paper.

  • After taking 15 measurements, click the "Graph" button to see what your data looks like.

  • To take another set of data, click the "Start Over" button.

  • After completing several runs of the experiment, move on to the analysis questions below.

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Study the data you have just collected from your trials.

  1. Describe the growth of the population as a function of time, in one or more complete sentences. You might begin with something like this: "As time elapses, the growth of the population...".

  2. What are the relationships between the input parameters (initial number of bacteria, growth parameter) and the growth of the population with time?

  3. What is eventually the cause of the population growth slowing down and stopping? Are there corresponding factors at work in the rate of human population growth?

  4. Can you illustrate the growth of the population graphically? See for example the graphing applet in the ASPIRE "Gas Particles in Motion" lab. Do you experience any difficulties in plotting this data using conventional techniques? Can y.ou think of any techniques that might make graphing such data easier?

Here, we illustrate a different technique for graphing data on exponential growth. Complete the tutorial below, then graph the data collected in your bacterial growth trials using this technique.

  1. Create a graph for each of your trials. Be sure to record the initial conditions (initial number of bacteria, growth parameter) along with your graphs.

  2. What relationship can you see between the starting parameters and the shape of these curves? To what parameters in a "linear" growth curve would these parameters correspond?

  3. All of the curves "plateau" at about the same point, regardless of the initial population and growth parameter. What causes this plateauing? What factors might cause the plateau to lie in a different place? Are there similar factors at work in human populations.

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Galaxy NGC 1300

The Hubble telescope captured a display of starlight, glowing gas, and silhouetted dark clouds of interstellar dust in this amazing image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300. This is a beautiful example of a barred spiral galaxy. Barred spirals differ from normal spiral galaxies in that the arms of the galaxy do not spiral all the way into the center, but are connected to the two ends of a straight bar of stars containing the nucleus at its center.

Galaxy NGC 1300 wallpaper


Tagetik to become a part of Wolters Kluwer    READ MORE

Green Courte Partners is getting numbers quicker and more efficiently.

Tagetik helped Green Courte Partners take their financial reporting to the next level by improving the speed & accuracy of their numbers, and allowing them to analyze the data in many different formats.

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Sentence Examples with the word Herself

When Julie controlled herself she apologized and looked up at me.

Before she became the dauphin's mistress, and that she gave herself to the king in order to obtain the pardon of her father, who had been condemned to death as an accomplice of the constable de Bourbon.

Lana jumped over him and squeezed between two boulders, all but flinging herself towards the object.

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She conceived herself to be specially favoured by Christ, who appeared to her in the most extravagant forms. At last, by dint of fasting and lacerating her flesh, she succeeded in reducing herself to such a state of ecstatic suffering that she believed herself to be undergoing in her own person the Passion of the Lord.

She pushed herself up despite his grip, staring at him hard.

She reached a balcony and lowered herself carefully onto it.

She squeezed her eyes closed, forcing herself to recall the name and face of the men of her guard.

The sound of footsteps running down the hall drew her attention, and she flung herself backwards as the maid with the butcher knife tried to cut her.

He had then to assign her the income of field, or garden, as well as goods, to maintain herself and children until they grew up. She then shared equally with them in the allowance (and apparently in his estate at his death) and was free to marry again.

She crossed herself and bowed her head.


Sentence Examples with the word Osma

This was the dominant idea of the order of friars preachers founded in 1216, on the basis of the Premonstratensian rule, by Dominic of Osma (see Dominic, Saint, and Dominicans).

MANUEL RUIZ ZORILLA, D ON (1834-189J), Spanish politician, was born at Burgo de Osma in 18 3 4.


5 of History’s Most Famous Photography Pranks

April Fools’ Day has origins dating all the way back to the 14th century, and photography can be traced to the 1800s. It only makes sense that the two would intersect and we’d see some shenanigans. Here are a few of the most famous pranks ever played with the aid of a camera.

The Cottingley Fairies

famous photography pranks cottingley fairies

A series of photographs brought to public attention by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) that he used as evidence to support his theories of the existence of fairies and psychic phenomena.

William H. Mumler’s Spirit Photography

famous photography pranks mumler ghosts photos

Mumler started a relatively lucrative career as a spirit photographer after the Civil War (when the deaths of many loved ones was still fresh). He would photograph a living person and doctor the image to have a deceased relative in frame too. The photo above was taken of Mary Todd Lincoln with the “ghost” of her deceased husband, the former president.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

famous photography pranks brown lady ghost

One of England’s most famous hauntings (mostly due to the above photographic “evidence”), the ghost of a Lady dressed in brown haunts a house after her death in the early 18th century. The photo above (which was more likely than not a simple double exposure or a simple superimposition) was taken by Country Life magazine in 1936.

The Loch Ness Monster — “The Surgeon’s Photograph”

famous photography pranks - loch ness surgeons photo

The first photo of the head and neck of the famed Loch Ness monster (taken in 1934) was actually nothing more than a toy submarine with some extra plastic built onto it.

Hippolyte Bayard’s Self Portrait as a Drowned Man

famous photography pranks - the drowned man

Though a little morbid, the first known “staged” photograph belonged to that of an inventor lashing out at the perceived injustice of not being recognized as an inventor of photography (he invented a process known as “direct positive printing”). In 1840, he photographed his own “suicide” by drowning and wrote the following on the back of the image:

H&H Color Lab


Caving in school field-trips

Budapest is home to many school field-trip programs but only a few of these possibilities is as active and adventurous as the underground field-trips. We offer three options:

A, Adventure Caving

This program is organized with the help of several tour guides splitting the class into smaller groups. The groups crawl and climb through almost the same route and they meet in the cave several times. The tour lasts for 2.5-3 hours. During the tour, in the unordinary situations the team spirit of the class developes and the students can learn the karst geography lessons in "real life". During the tour, the guides explain the formation of Budai mountains and its caves, demonstrate the cave formations, concretions and fossils. Each participant gets the necessary equipment (helmet, overalls and light).

Parental approval form

B, Private Cave Walk

2.5-3 hrs private Cave Walk into two caves, both paved and equipped with artificial lighting. The first cave is the ”underground flower garden” of Budapest because of its charasteristic mineral concretions (cave corals, calcite plates) and gypsum crystals. The other cave has calcite and barite crystals and calcite plate deposits originating from former hot-water lakes. Stalactites and stalagmites can also be found there.

This is a private tour with English or German guiding. The caves can be also visited on a lower price by joining the regular Hungarian guided tours (usuallay school groups or families) that starts hourly.

C, Cave walk and Adventure Caving combo

The package contains a 40 minute easy walk into the Szemlő-hegyi-cave and a climbing crawling adventure into the Pál-völgyi-cave system.


Recognition Rites for a New Vision of Aging

Recognition Rites for a New Aging LogoRecognition Rites for a New Vision of Aging is a program founded by Dr. Tom Pinkson that shifts attitudes about aging and older people to the position of respect and reverence that mature cultures demonstrate with their valuation and socially integrative use of their elders. It offers a unique blend of ancient and contemporary knowledge that is the result of Dr. Tom Pinkson’s forty years of work bridging cultures, traditions, belief systems and peoples. Recognition Rites offers hope and a call to action, in a most timely and necessary manner.

Recognition Rites bring people of diverse background and belief systems together for an event that helps break down barriers of separation between races, ages, religions and social class. They build community. They foster greater appreciation of diversity, of older people, of how love and appreciation enrich all our lives. Recognition Rites serve as a seed and stimulus for others in attendance to create celebrations for meaningful elders in their own lives.