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Retention / Allotment

The number of shares during an IPO granted to each participating underwriter for sale. When a company is going public and is going to hold an initial public offering, the IPO must be underwritten by financial institutions. It is common for two or more underwriters to be involved in an IPO. Allotment refers to the number of shares that each underwriter receives to sell.

Allotment can also refer to any instance in which company directors issue new shares and set a certain amount aside for predetermined shareholders. An IPO is the most common example of new shares being offered, but they can be issued at any time. In nearly all cases, this is done to raise money to raise capital for expenses or expansion.

A social media site decides to go public after explosive growth and popularity. There are four financial institutions underwriting the initial public offering, and each underwriter is given an allotment of shares.


The genesis of the motor vehicle

The first of eight exhibition rooms examines the various pioneering developments of the late 19th century. The exhibits show how the muscle-powered two-wheeler of Herr Drais evolves into the first motorised vehicles, how the internal combustion engine prevails over its steam and electrically powered competitors and how the invention of pneumatic tyres makes bicycles, motorcycles and automobiles lighter, faster and more comfortable. The items on display reflect a time of unbridled belief in progress which inspires numerous inventions in every area of human endeavour. In the years leading up to the First World War, enterprising engineers transform coaches with engines into automobiles (e.g. the Benz Victoria) and bicycles with auxiliary engines into motorcycles (e.g. the Hildebrand & Wolfmüller). The increasingly busy and dangerous traffic leads to the first legal regulations and road signs. A photo opportunity with a historical penny-farthing awaits photogenic and nostalgically minded visitors.


Kula Grad Series: The Relevance of the Niyamas in Modern Yoga.

By: Mary Saunders

The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali are an ancient text of spiritual enlightenment, and one of the primary texts of yoga philosophy studied by yogis. These texts provide us with wisdom, knowledge, and guidance through yogic theory, methods and practice to reconnect to our true selves and attain liberation. Although the yoga sutras are ancient, the wisdom contained within them is still incredibly relevant and important for modern yogis to study and integrate into their lives.

Within the Yoga Sutras Book II, the Sadhana Pada, The Ashtanga Eight Fold Path is outlined, which is the essence of the Path of Raja Yoga, the path of meditative absorption. Much of what we consider modern styles of yoga is considered to be Raja Yoga.

he eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga as defined by Patanjali contain an immense amount of wisdom, including Asana, which is the physical practice which many people consider yoga to be! However, as I began my study of the Ashtanga eight fold path in the Yoga Sutras, I found the guidelines and wisdom of inner attitude to improve ourselves to be fascinating and relevant. In studying the five Niyamas, it provides a deeper understanding of the self and therefore a deeper understanding of Yoga.

The Niyamas are principles of inner self-improvement, observations, and self-adjustments that allow us to become the best versions of ourselves. The first Niyama is Sauca, which means purity and cleanliness in thoughts, words, and actions. This relates to the ability to clear and cleanse the mind of thoughts that do not serve you. As a yoga teacher, it is very important to have purity in intention, because if it is not you will most likely carry that energy into your classes with you and your students will pick up on it. As a teacher it is important to be able to cleanse and purify yourself of thoughts, words, actions, and habits continually in order to attain an elevated consciousness and strive towards love and balance.

The second Niyama is Santosha, which is the inner peace of contentment. Santosha is such a beautiful lesson because it teaches us to find satisfaction in where we are in the present moment and accepting it fully as it is. Santosha is an excellent practice for modern yogis to accept things as they are, not as you want them to be. Santosha teaches us that we are exactly where we need to be. One of the most valuable aspects is to not seek outside ourselves for happiness, but that happiness exists within us, here and now.

The third Niyama is Tapas, which can be interpreted as self-discipline. Tapas literally means “heat” or “to burn” and can be thought of as the fire of cleansing and purification. Tapas can teach us to remain strong in our true center while being drawn from outside sources. As example of discipline or tapas is fasting. Although it is uncomfortable and you are hungry and in pain, it helps to burn toxins and cleanse ourselves. In doing this practice it refines and purifies us, keeping us sharp and discerning.

The fourth Niyama is Svadhyaya, which is self-study and devotion to personal development. Svadhyaya is practiced through the study of sacred texts, repetition of mantra, self-inquiry, and self-study in all aspects of life. The continuous focus on self-improvement and learning is so important as a yogi so that you may always stay humble and realize that the journey of learning and growth is never over.

The fifth Niyama is Isvara Pranidhana, which means dedication to the divine. The translation from Sanskrit means “fully surrendering your commitment and worship to God.” God can also be understood as Universal Spirit or expression of Universal Love. This wisdom is so powerful in the study of yoga, for cultivating and understanding your own personal relationship to spirituality. In surrendering to pure universal awareness we learn to see the divine love within us, embody it, and share that love outwards with anyone we encounter.

The last three Niyamas: discipline, self-study, and dedication to the divine are considered to make up Kriya Yoga, or yogic action. They are also called the “Three Wise Men.” These three Niyamas provide a solid foundation to build a yoga practice and life of consciousness and awareness. Patañjali writes that in practicing these three Niyamas, it is a path of action towards realizing freedom and liberation.

n diving into the study of the Niyamas within the Yoga Sutras, I have come to many realizations about why these ancient texts continue to be so relevant in modern times. They contain deep wisdom that as yogis, we seek to live and embody. The devotion to purity, self-study, discipline, personal growth and development, contentment, and spiritual devotion, all help us to become the truest version of ourselves. In devoting ourselves to these practices we may embody our highest self and universal love.

About Mary:

Mary Saunders received her 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification with the Kula Collective at the Yoga Forest in Guatemala. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Some of Mary's passions include sacred movement through yoga and dance, cacao plant medicine, writing and travelling. She believes that through yoga we are able to connect to our true selves and lift each other up, creating conscious expansion and growth for all.


Lecture Notes on Power Electronics

lecture notes on power electronics and drives and lecture notes on advanced power electronics, what is electronics power supply what is power electronics and its applications
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Datasheet 7107 meters to kilometers

Datasheet meters

Datasheet 7107 meters to kilometers

1 meter equals to 3. Datasheet 7107 meters to kilometers. Modify it to accept 0 to kilometers 1. Now that you know that the driving distances from Namur to Kabul is 7107. This datasheet Measurement Worksheet may be printed downloaded , home school, saved , , used in your classroom other educational environment to help someone learn math. Convert current into mV 7107 by using a suitable kilometers conditioning resistance to measure D.

999 volt by using suitable multiplier. 8 km, would you like to view a more detailed map? Hi 7107 Rohit the basic meter is designed to measure 0 – 199. 001 Converting a meter length measurement to a kilometer measurement involves multiplying the length by the conversion ratio to find the result. ICL7107 datasheet triacs, kilometers ICL7107 data sheet : INTERSIL - 3½ Digit, Semiconductors, Datasheet search datasheet site for Electronic Components , diodes, integrated circuits, LCD/ LED Display, , datasheet, ICL7107 circuit, alldatasheet, A/ D Converters other semiconductors. A meter , metre, is the fundamental unit of length in the metric system from which all other length units are based. Meter ( metre) is a metric system base length datasheet unit 792, defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/ 299 458 of a second.
Converting Meters Kilometers ( A) Welcome to The Converting Meters Kilometers kilometers ( A) Math Worksheet from the Measurement Worksheets Page at Math- Drills. Convert meters to kilometers with this simple formula: kilometers = meters × 0. Well there are a few different ones that you can view which provide a bird' s eye view of the terrain on the road map from Namur to Kabul.

Kilometers datasheet

The method to convert kilometers to meters is demonstrated in this worked example problem. Kilometer To Meters Conversion Problem Express 42. 88 kilometers in meters. single power supply operation ( ICL7106), enables a high performance panel meter to be built with the addition of only 10 passive components and a display. The symbol of kilometers in SI Unit is " km".

datasheet 7107 meters to kilometers

One kilometer is equal to 1000 meter. Meters to Kilometers ( m to km) : It is a free online meter to Kilometers ( m to km) length converter.


Setting up a small site of community engaged art making

At our Art Hives Symposium in June, we were all asked if there was anything we would like to share from our experience of setting up small site of community engaged art making.

I thought about what I could share after years of helping Janis start community studios (aka Art Hives) in various locations across the country. Every space requires a different set of parameters but how each space is set up has a major impact on what art is made there. For example, a carpeted space will not invite messy painting to occur or a dimly lit space will not welcome small scissor cutting.

Here’s what I came up with so far.

Preferably the studio should be visible from the street. Ideally, with plenty of foot traffic to present the idea to many people and increase the curiosity of potential participants. This idea came from our research on the 100 community art studios that popped up in the 1930’s in the US as a WPA response to the Great Depression.  The officials made requirements to each state to provide a storefront location and the government at that time provided the paid artistic staff to facilitate the studio.

Think ‘barrier free’. The easier it is to enter the Hive, the more likely it will be entered. Door widths, ramps and accessible washrooms are worthy concerns when thinking about who may be coming. The standards are from the US. , since Canada doesn’t have a national disability policy. They are worth looking at for increased awareness.

What does the studio need to operate safely and efficiently?

For example: I have had to install utility sinks in most of the community art studios we have started or helped to start. Utility or laundry sinks are best because they are substantially deeper and wider than a regular kitchen sink and you can clean a greater variety of things in them. Mostly we would re-use a sink that had been discarded. Adding a sprayer or laundry faucet will increase the versatility even more.

Deciding where to locate the sink depends on a number of factors. Where should it be to provide easy access but not be in the way of the flow of traffic in the space? How difficult is it to connect to the water supply and to the drain? Are there previous existing plumbing connections that could be used?

Once your sink is installed you may want to have a shelf and a large bar of laundry soap near the sink for quick brush washing!

These are just a few of my initial thoughts to respond to space needs. Your particular Hive may have different issues. I would be happy to help in your planning. Please send your questions or space concerns and I will post future blogs as needs are identified.

Contact me at:

Happy ‘Hive’ creating.

Images: WPA Federal Art Center at the Municipal Auditorium in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Website designed and maintained by Percolab


Study identifies link between DNA-protein binding, cancer onset

Understanding when and where proteins bind to DNA may be the ticket to identifying cancer at the cellular level, according to researchers at Stanford.

The research focuses on chromatin, the DNA-protein complex where all genes reside. Specifically, it evaluates chromatin’s relationship to transcription factors — proteins that play a crucial role in managing which genes are activated within cells. Certain genes are turned on or off based on how transcription factors bind to specific parts of the chromatin. The study found that these binding patterns and the resulting gene activation act like a key to different cancer typesallowing the researchers to understand the biology of cancer at its most basic level.

A paper detailing the research was published Oct. 26 in Science. The senior authors are Howard Chang, MD, PhD, professor of dermatology and of genetics, and William Greenleaf, PhD, associate professor of genetics. Postdoctoral scholar Ryan Corces, PhD, and graduate student Jeffrey Granja share lead authorship.

However, diseases that once seemed intractable now have functional treatments, said Chang, who is also the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Genomics. “So, with continued work, cancer is something we can actually make sense of,” he added.

A disease of genes gone awry

Corces said that cancer is “a disease of genes gone awry.” But in order to understand where these harmful genes come from, the researchers had to look inside the nucleus to the cell’s transcription process.

Transcription occurs when the cell takes information encoded in a gene and rewrites it in the form of messenger RNA. The DNA within a cell’s nucleus is tightly wound together with certain proteins into a threadlike structure known as chromatin, and that chromatin is further coiled to form a larger structure called a chromosome. Because of this coiling, only certain areas of the chromatin sequence are accessible to the cell’s transcription machinery. When a transcription factor finds an available section of chromatin and binds to it, that region of the DNA sequence unzips, allowing transcription to occur. However, in the case of cancer, the transcription process malfunctions, resulting in a change in gene activation.

These switches that determine gene activity were our missing component.

“These switches that determine gene activity were our missing component,” Chang said. “We can now find how these switches are changing cancer, including mutations that make the switch get stuck in the on position.”

The tip of the iceberg

The vast amount of genetic research is focused on the 2 percent of our DNA that is used to create proteins. In the current study, Chang wanted to explore the other 98 percent. Called the “noncoding” section, this part of our DNA is used to make crucial regulatory components that control gene behavior and activation. It also includes information that is pertinent to cancer.

Beyond its potential clinical impact, Corces said he believes the research provides valuable knowledge about cancer gene regulation.“Other people are undoubtedly going to use this chromatin accessibility data to further understand how networks of genes effect cancer,” he said.

Other Stanford co-authors of the paper are postdoctoral scholar Seung Woo Cho, PhD; graduate student Maxwell Mumbach; research associate Shadi Shams; technician Bryan Louie; research scientists Jose Seoane, PhD, and Ansuman Satpathy, PhD; and assistant professor Christina Curtis, PhD.

Researchers from several other institutions were co-authors of the work and are listed in the paper.

Chang is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Greenleaf is a Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub investigator. They are both members of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Cancer Institute, the Stanford Neurosciences Instituteand the Stanford Child Health Research Institute

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants R35Ca209919, P50HG007735, K99AG059918, 1U24CA210974, 1U24CA210949, 1U24CA210978, 1U24CA210952, 1U24CA210989, 1U24CA210990, 1U24CA210950, 1U24CA210969 and 1U24CA210988) and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

Stanford’s departments of Genetics and of Dermatology also supported this work.

Leading in Precision Health

A Legacy of Innovation


Solution Advisory

Our belief is that the success of Logistics Execution Systems implementation primarily depends on high level of logistics business knowledge combined with superior project management skills and the perseverance to implement best practice solutions.

We have been implementing warehouse management systems for the past seven years in retail, FMCG, 3PL, spare parts and freight forwarding industry and so we know from our experiences how best to configure a solution that works well with less errors at high volumes with high system performance.

Our solution implementation process adapts to each project’s uniqueness and we go through the steps such as business process design after extensive interaction with customer business and it personnel, business process review with customer , identify gaps and address them optimally with workarounds or customization, set up test environments, configure processes and modify based on team input that would improve efficiency in the long term, test thoroughly multiple scenarios of varying loads and finally prepare extensive clear documentation that assists customers when needed so we remain dispensable.


Creation Within Creation
butterfly butterfly

"Without tracking progress, one would never know if one's moving forward"

Defining Progress / Improvement

There is the saying that practice makes perfect.

Yes it is true that if one continually practices one's art, one will gradually improve. But realize that there is always a way to make the improvement more efficient and ways to accelerate it and this is by Knowing what exactly creates improvement - the core essentials that needs to be addressed for improvement to happen.

So let us look at this in more depth and see how improvement can be created in all areas of our lives.

Progress In Depth

*The key to improvement is the intention to grow."

For there to be growth, one first needs to have the intention to grow.

Without the intention to grow then there will be no growth.

That is why there is a section “Importance” In all of the articles on this website which is about developing the awareness of the importance of addressing each sufferings

Improving oneself is like attending to a seed. Perhaps this seed is a skill that one wishes to grow for instance learning martial art, learning a particular language, learning how to compose music and so forth. But without giving it water and attending to its care every day, every month, every year, then the seed will not grow.

To speed up the progress, we also have to know what kind of learning method will suit us better because we all learn differently: some learn better visually, some learn better physically, some learn better aurally. To find the best learning method will thus require every individual to take the journey of better understanding themselves.

Usually the best method to improve upon a skill will be the practices which creates passion in the subject rather than extinguishing it. Realize that we cannot learn/grow when we are in a state of boredom much like a plant cannot grow if it’s given something it does not want.

And to find the best methods will always require us to try all different methods until we find the ones suitable for us. Thus it is through opening ourselves to all kinds of practices and teachings until we can eventually find the right one for us. The wisdom here is to not judge before we have experienced the methods ourselves. This is how we can allow ourselves to open up to new methods of learning.

However, no matter how much you practice that skill, you can only grow as high as your roots can go. Thus your foundation must be strong.

How do we Strengthen our Foundation?

To create a strong foundation, we have to know our weaknesses.

Because it is by addressing our Weaknesses that we can naturally Strengthen ourselves from the core.

For instance, if we are learning martial arts and want to improve our kicking strength then we can practise kicking day after day. But one day we may reach a limit when we can no longer improve.

So how can we go beyond the threshhold?

In this case, if we wish to improve even more we will have to address the cause of the inability to improve further and this will always trace back to our weaknesses - It may be core muscles that are weak, it maybe a lack of flexibility around the joints and so forth. If these are the weaknesses, by working on strengthening them is how to break through any plateaus. Perhaps the practice of Yoga and Taichi would help one's kicking strength. Thus working on one's weaknesses will help to make the practice more efficient, and it may mean to work on something seemingly unrelated.

Let us use another example such as learning a foreign language. When one does not address their weaknesses then they won't improve. I.e. perhaps one has a fear of speaking a foreign language in front of native speakers in fear of embarrassment. If this is the case, no matter how much amount of memorizing words and studying the language they will see little improvement unless they work on their fear of judgement.

Realize that nothing grand can be built on top of a weak foundation.

Thus improvement begins with Intention.

And we can only improve as much as our weaknesses allow us to.

Importance Of Knowing Progress

In whatever Path one takes in life one must know how to measure progress on such a Path.

Without Knowing the means to measure progress on a Path one may not know whether or not one's moving forward or simply stagnating. It is by knowing the means to measure progress one can then one can know whether or not this Path is a beneficial Path that will take to one's desired destination.

Also, in whatever Path one takes in life one must also be able to know how to create progress on such a Path. Without Knowing what exactly creates progress one may end up using their energy in an efficient way - creating wastes instead of progress.

Path Of Creator

Progress In Relation To The Path Of Creator

The journey begins first with understanding what creates improvement and what impedes improvement.

If one wishes to improve even more, then one will have to work on their weaknesses i.e. what is preventing improvement from happening. The cause will always be traced back to our physical, emotional and mental weaknesses.

In relation to developing greater happiness in life, our weaknesses will always be about addressing our suffering states of mind, i.e. to address our patterns of thinking which create unhappiness within.

Thus to improve our happiness even more, we will have to address the cause of our unhappiness i.e. - our limitations, our confusions, our fears, our negativities - Our Sufferings.

The destination is in developing the knowing of what practices one help one to best improve oneself and this is not knowledge gained from books but rather wisdom accumulated from one's experiences.

Develop Experienced Knowledge

Ask youself everyday,

"Am I making progress in my life?"

"How can I make progress in my life?"

The Creator's Meditation
Link here

The progress of the Creator's Meditation is not defined by the quality of experience i.e. pleasure or pain that one experiences within the meditation. But rather it is by how quickly one can drag themselves back to the state of Stillness and maintain that State.

As one ventures into more Stillness one will discover more Unstillness so sometimes it is easy to believe that one has fallen backwards but realize that this is not the case.

Courses On Progress

Currently Unavailable

Infinity Sign


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  • Oren — Power, Faith, and Fantasy

    Posted by James McCormick on July 12th, 2007 (All posts by )

    As can be seen by the Table of Contents listed below, the first phase of America’s involvement with the Middle East was triggered by the loss of British protection from the piratical activities of the Barbary Coast (North Africa). The moment American trading vessels stopped flying the British flag, they were subject to increasing predation. North Africans supplemented their galleys (which were rowed) with modern European ocean-going vessels. The threat to shipping was severe within the Mediterranean, and increasingly widespread in the Atlantic. America’s eastern shoreline was the plausible next target. Captured Americans vessels and cargoes were sold in the Middle East. Sailors were held hostage and/or enslaved. Their treatment, barbaric far beyond even the rough standards of Europe, became the subject of increasing popular anger and commentary in the new American states.

    Relentless demands for tribute from a series of North African city-states were to plague successive American administrations until a consensus formed about the need for an overseas US defense. Structuring this unified response to piracy awaited a reformation of the relations between the States … and the development of a formal Constitution in 1789. Having successfully, painfully, created a Constitution, the lines of national authority and responsibility became clearer. The debate about whether gold or gunpowder was the best solution to the Barbary pirates went on for many years. Here we see the first of many echoes of American foreign policy in our time.

    At its worst, annual expenditures for buying hostages or buying peace in North Africa approached 20% of the US national budget. A permanent American navy was finally approved by legislation and subsequent appropriation. American attitudes became more actively vindictive toward the North African states as that navy became more effective at the turn of the 19th century. Punitive raids, rather than painful supplication, became the norm and a permanent American fleet patrolling the Mediterranean was born.

    Oren notes that for the first forty years of its existence, European nations did little to assist America and its merchants in the Mediterranean. It was only with the growing American ability to project permanent force into the Mediterranean that the US was treated with respect by European naval powers. The War of 1812 disrupted efforts to protect American shipping in the region but at its conclusion, a newly sophisticated and muscular American fleet emerged which was able to reassert itself. From that point forward, the Americans presented themselves as an independent and confident trading alternative to the Europeans (primarily the French and British). The various provinces of the Ottoman Empire responded accordingly. They dropped their demands for payment and shifted instead to leveraging American commercial interests against the Great Power squabbles of the European continent. In an echo of later eras, America was “far away” and therefore preferred as a source of Western trade goods without the associated imperialist baggage.

    For ante-bellum America, having reached sufficient naval strength to limit North African piracy, commercial sights shifted further east … to Istanbul and to the newly accessible Egypt and Levant. American traders had little compunction in competing to open trade with an autocratic Ottoman Empire since they’d received so little support or acknowledgement from the Europeans in earlier years. Trade expanded quickly.

    At the same time, America was experiencing another wave of religious fervour (the so-called Second Great Awakening). Millennial beliefs in America for the first time began referencing events in the Holy Land … involving conventional conversion of the peoples there to American variants of Christianity, or the “restorationist” beliefs which increasingly saw the return of the Jews to Jerusalem as the final step in the End Times.

    Both streams of religious belief (proselytization and colonization-before-Second-Coming) were to send a growing numbers of American Christians into the Levant, and into an Ottoman Empire that had long maintained control over religious groups through carefully prescribed rights (the millet system for managing dhimmi).

    Needless to say, almost everyone in the region (ruler and ruled) was antagonistic or, at best, indifferent to the arrival of religiously fervent Americans … Americans determined to upset the status quo of “heathens, infidels, and apostates.” Americans were subject to banditry and assaults and vindictiveness from the full range of other religious communities that were living on sufferance in the Ottoman Empire.

    Those seeking to live in the Middle East to be on hand for Christ’s Second Coming were largely unsuccessful in establishing the agricultural stations that would support them. Disease, violence, and local ecological and economic collapse had kept regional populations very low … shockingly so by modern standards. In this impoverished environment, idealistic Americans with North American expectations were at a distinct disadvantage.

    For those Christian missionaries seeking to convert the populace, the political environment was just as tenuous. Ottoman rule was relatively decentralized so local rulers could quickly shift their attitudes toward American Christian activity as local circumstances and popular attitudes demanded. Despite a great deal of investment and effort by the American Board of Commissioners, American missionary conversions were almost non-existent.

    In the course of establishing these missions, however, two American obsessions were to have momentous impact on Middle Eastern history: modern medicine and education. Indeed, the roots of American influence in the region can largely be traced to the even-handed provision of health care and modern education to the local peoples of the Middle East by the missionaries of this era. The origins of the Middle East’s current educational and medical infrastructure have been largely obscured for political reasons but America’s role was significant in most parts of the Ottoman Empire. Missionaries were never really safe in the Middle East, however, and Oren provides accounts of their difficult lives, and often traumatic deaths, throughout much of his book. For better or worse, these folk did set standards and expectations for the educated classes which remain to this day. Their efforts, far into what is now eastern Turkey and Iran, positively influenced almost all the various Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sects of the region.

    Finally, under the category of “fantasy,” new ship technology meant that restless Americans could explore or play the tourist in the Middle East to an extent never before possible. A new bowdlerized translation of the Arabian Nights triggered yet another wave of fantasizing amongst the literati of America. The French occupation of Egypt had exposed the world to the very ancient culture there. In initiating the field of Egyptology, they’d also started a European interest in the aesthetic elements of Egyptian art and architecture. Educated Americans were not immune to the widespread “wishful thinking” about the Middle East that took place as Europe was increasingly able to force its will on the different far-flung portions of the Ottoman Empire.

    By the 1830s, the romanticism about the area had evolved to the point where Algerian dress became fashionable for elite European soldiers (the so-called Zouave style), and, a decade or two later, American civil war units were to die by the hundreds in North African pantaloons and loose jackets.

    As America drifted toward civil war, its involvement in the Middle East was reinforced by technological events (the development of the steamship and the rapid growth of American industrialization). Andrew Jackson had created formal relations with the Ottoman Empire, showing only limited concern for the constant antagonism in the region towards the religious Americans, now settling there in greater numbers.

    The Ottoman Empire sought to counterbalance European power by congenial relations with the one industrialized country without apparent ambitions to dismember it. Through much of the 19th century, America was variously seen as the champion of both minority interests and of Ottoman independence. While the friction between American religious aspirations and its commercial and geopolitical interests persisted, American influence in the area was generally seen as benign.

    Just as the War of 1812 was to disrupt American involvement in the Middle East, the outbreak of the American Civil War disturbed relations with Europe. Perhaps the most immediately disruptive effect was the self-imposed embargo of Confederate cotton and an associated Union blockade. Egypt had been expanding its cotton industry since the 1820s but still lagged the southern United States in productivity because of its primitive farming methods. With Southern cotton off the world’s markets, Egypt reaped an immense but temporary financial boom for its ruler, the Albanian Muhammad Ali. Ali’s efforts to modernize Egypt, and the post-Civil War crash in Egypt’s cotton industry were set the stage for that nation’s relations with Europe and America for several generations.

    The Ottoman Empire, returning the Jacksonian favour of earlier years, supported the North … reflecting its own preference for stability and the integrity of its Empire. Dithering European powers attempted to maintain as much neutrality as possible. Only the British had the naval wherewithal to maintain a real independence from Union attempts to control Confederate shipping (cf. the Trent affair).

    As the Civil War concluded, America stood out as the pre-eminent military power of the Americas, on a rapid pace to match or exceed the technological and military expertise of Europeans. A huge number of experienced soldiers and generals were released from service and they became a natural resource for the Ottomans … offering European-style military expertise without the imperial dangers of hiring actual Europeans. American shipbuilders and armorers were to find welcome markets in the Middle East, especially in the temporarily flush Egyptian autocracy.

    Oren offers a fascinating chapter on the role of Yankee and Confederate generals in Egypt’s short-lived 19th century attempt at independent modernization. Generals of the stature of Sherman and Grant made triumphant tours through the region. Accounts of the luxurious accommodations of the Pasha …and the dire poverty, filth, and disease of the ordinary Egyptians were repeated theme in memoirs.

    In support of such recollections were books like Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, which did much to make his reputation, and was a largely satirical description of his travels through the Holy Land in the company of religious pilgrims just after the Civil War. The recurring pattern of American beguilement with the exotic, followed by disillusionment with the corrupt, cruel, and impoverished is found in much American literature of the time. American romanticism about the Middle East during this period was also to find expression in the creation of the Shriners … best known in America for their parade go-karts and a North American network of free hospitals for children. Surely the “Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine” must stand as one of the great modern anachronisms of American culture.

    On a playful tangent, Oren recounts how Frederick Bartholdi’s initial attempt to create a giant female statue for the Egyptian Khedive in 1871 (Egypt (or Progress) Bringing Light to Asia) for the entrance of the new Suez Canal was morphed 15 years later into Lady Liberty on Bedloe’s Island off New York City.

    The Canal’s completion in 1869 was to place a new geopolitical importance on Egypt, and a new burden on Egyptian leadership to maintain fiscal and political stability around the canal. By 1882, European responded to the insolvency of the Egyptian autocracy with invasion. This not only placed local Americans at great immediate risk from Egyptian reprisal on all Westerners but inevitably concluded significant American involvement in the military modernization of the Egyptian military. The generation of Civil War vets who’d made the Middle East home traveled back to America in anonymity.

    The tail-end of the 19th century was a time of American prosperity and burgeoning power. It was the high-water mark for Protestant faith (and associated self-confidence) in the nation, and included American ambivalence about the propriety of imperialism. The destitution of much of Asia and Africa was highlighted by reports from American trading enterprises and missionaries across the planet. Americans were the sole industrialized nation who’d yet to participate in the European imperialism sweepstakes of the era. But what religious and moral and social obligations did the nation have, blessed as it was by God and Nature?

    The dramatic growth of the US Navy, the Spanish-American War, and subsequent American aggressiveness in the Caribbean and Philippines were to spell new opportunities and obligations for American power, faith, and fantasy. Most ironically, it was US naval strategist Alfred Mahan who coined the term “Middle East” in a 1902 paper meant to distinguish the East generally, from the geopolitical significance of the Arabia, Persia, and the Gulf.

    From its earliest days, America had engaged Jewish citizens as emissaries and diplomats in the region. It should be recalled that Hebrew studies at America’s institutions of higher learning were considered central for Protestant clergy of the established denominations. By the mid-19th century, American Jews such as Edwin de Leon and Uriah Levy (the first Jew to reach commodore rank in the US Navy) were actively engaged in protecting American interests (commercial and religious) in the Middle East.

    The changing demography of the America during the end of the 19th century was also to signal a shift in the role American Jews would play in the Middle East. The “restorationist” enthusiasms of many Protestant sects lent indirect support for a new social movement, Zionism. The anti-Semitism of Europe led many commentators (including Mark Twain) to focus for the first time on the utility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

    As the twentieth century dawned, American Christian activities in the Middle East continued to focus on education and medicine (conversion had continued to be very unsuccessful). Americans were to be initial bystanders at the two great events of the era – the butchery of Greeks and Armenians that is associated (controversially) with the Young Turks, and the Great Power struggle of the First World War which dictated the structural demise of the Ottoman Empire. America’s initial neutrality was to partially protect its citizens from harm but these experiences … deep humanitarian concern for minorities in Europe and the Middle East, and widespread domestic loathing of European imperialism, … were to frame the American political paradox ever after.

    Self-determination on the other side of the Atlantic always seemed to come at the existential peril of religious and ethnic minorities. And there would be American diplomats, businesspeople and missionaries on hand at every turn to document the horrors in detail.

    America’s late participation in the Great War meant that its public focus remained on genocidal events in Anatolia through 1914 and 1915. Americans donated generously to the relief work and US Navy ships were to deliver aid for a widespread famine in the region at the time. Nonetheless, in passages reminiscent of later commentary on the holocaust of WW2, individual Americans despaired at their inability to ameliorate (let alone halt) the savagery. They took their own lives, died of broken health or after torture in Turkish prisons. The commitment of these individuals to the welfare of local peoples (who’d completely rejected American religious beliefs over the course of a century) is something worth remembering.

    One of the most challenging issues for President Wilson before America entered the war was the British intention to create an international mandate over the Holy Land, and to engage the support of American Jews by supporting a Jewish national home. Even before America had joined WW1, Wilson had responded to the plan negatively. How did one oppose colonialism while simultaneously supporting a Jewish national home? Indeed, how were Americans generally (both Christian and Jew) able to reconcile their religious beliefs about the centrality of Jerusalem and their secular commitment to self-determination.

    For a number of prominent American diplomats and regional experts, the quandary could not be resolved. They were determined to convince the President that any statement in support of Zionism was dangerous and should never be made. British intentions were made clearer, and US presidential ambiguity was swept aside, with the Balfour Declaration, and American Jews departed for Canadian boot camps, unimpeded, to serve in WW1.

    America’s late entry to the trenches of WW1 ensured its role in “making the peace” in Europe but since its troops had never fought in the Middle East, America was a bystander to the British/French negotiations which attempted to slice the Ottoman Empire into functional fiefdoms. All the compromises, hypocrisies, and inadequacies of the process were immediately evident, however, to the many people in the region who’d been educated in the network of American educational institutions. The wave of nationalist belief in the Middle East, reinforced by the success of the Japanese in setting their own course earlier in the century, was the stepchild of American values of modernity taught by Christian missionaries.

    Allied with these efforts was a new era of American fantasy manufactured by the post-war reminiscences of American reporter, Lowell Thomas. Reputedly spending all of two days in the desert, Thomas recast T.E. Lawrence as an American-style champion of Arab independence. Lawrence’s book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, published widely after his death in 1935, is well-regarded to this day. Orientalism of the Lawrence of Arabia variety continued well into the Sixties. One contemporary of Lawrence was heard to say that the only accurate thing about the David Lean movie was “the sand and the camels.”

    Post-war settlements in the Middle East satisfied no one, and brought only constant discord amongst its peoples. They did, however, spell the beginning of a new era in the Middle East … as American domestic consumption of petroleum products outstripped supply and a new American consortium of oil companies (the Iraq Petroleum Company, formed in 1921, muscled into the European monopoly. Americans got their oil (23.75% of all petroleum extracted from the Middle East) without the headaches of mandates and administration.

    Meanwhile, Christian missionaries (against great odds) had continued to provide modern medical care to the populace of what is now Kuwait. Amongst their patients, by 1914, were the men of Abd al’Aziz ibn Saud. Over time, their role in caring for Gulf Arabians created much goodwill. Some twenty years later, when it was ibn Saud’s desire to circumvent the exclusive club created by Anglo-French companies to control Middle East oil, he turned to American businessmen and oil explorers.

    On June 1st 1932, engineers from the Standard Oil Company of California (SOCOL) struck oil on the barren island of Bahrain. On that basis, intensive negotiations over exploration rights began that were ultimately won by SOCOL and sealed with gold bullion loaned from a British bank. SOCOL became CASOC (California Arabian Standard Oil Company) now Chevron which became Aramco and then Saudi Aramco. With the discovery of Dhamman Number 7 in 1938, the era of Saudi Arabia dominance of the oil industry began.

    It was to be the children of Middle Eastern missionaries who dominated the American diplomatic and oil business cadres of the region for many years. The merging of religious and economic interests in the southern Gulf was to recast the region, yet again, as an American story – of exploration, perseverance, and missionary fervour.

    At the beginning of World War II, America was firmly ensconced in Saudi Arabia, Germany was making belated offers of gold to ibn Saud, and American obligations to keep the Saudis happy (with money and broader geopolitical influence) were to enter a new phase.

    Events in Palestine had gotten increasingly tense but America was, by and large, able to escape responsibility for any of them. By the time that the three Allied leaders met in February of 1945 at the Yalta Conference, it was clear that the US would have a central role in how the post-war Middle East would be managed despite the fact that the topic was largely ignored there.

    In one of the most unsettling portions of Oren’s book, an ill, almost giddy, Roosevelt equivocates with ibn Saud about America’s support for Zionism during a face-to-face meeting on the USS Quincy in February of 1945. Promising “ibn Saud never to assist the Jews at the Arab’s expense” and proffering “assurances for Saudi Arabia’s defense, to do everything ‘short of war,’ to strengthen Syrian and Lebanese independence,” Roosevelt had attempted to square the circle in light of the imminent need to resettle thousands of displaced Jews from Europe.

    Roosevelt’s comments on the meeting left the impression that it had been colourful but insignificant. Contemporary observers weren’t so sanguine. As we now know, the President could not have been more wrong. Access to oil and support for Zionism could not be easily reconciled.

    Post-World War II efforts by America to assist the people of North Africa and the Middle East to gain independence from European powers were successful but they created their own set of expectations and first among them was that America would solve the region’s problems, soonest.

    With the fusing of Palestine and Arabia on the deck of the USS Quincy, we enter territory more familiar to modern readers. Oren’s discussion of the creation of Israel and Harry Truman’s religious values is worth careful review, as is the resistance of much of the State Department. Robert Kaplan’s book The Arabists outlined the role that the descendants of American missionaries in the Middle East played in determining US diplomatic attitudes through the 20th century.

    In any event, Power, Faith, and Fantasy continues to inform for another 120 pages but the tale is entirely familiar, if only in its litany of deaths by violence and misadventure. A grim tale, though well told.

    And Finally

    Oren has largely succeeded in creating a comprehensive history of America’s relations with the Middle East over the last 225 years. Verging on the encyclopedic, it makes its case that the themes of Power, Faith, and Fantasy are effective in organizing the story. Of the three, Fantasy is the most nebulous and therefore the least compelling. The American appetite for the adventurous and exotic has certainly seen expression in the Middle East. Whether it warrants promotion to the same league as commercial and religious interests is debatable.

    Reading about Americans taking their faith really seriously is also a rather disconcerting. Our own era is filled with folk who hold their views deeply unless they might conflict with someone else’s. The self-confidence (if not the self-sacrifice) of American missionaries, explorers, and merchants certainly seems like ancient history.

    Who’s best served by this book? An intelligent high school student or undergraduate, most certainly. A general reader needing a reference work (and a reference to other references) can’t go wrong. Power, Faith, and Fantasy is hardly a leisure read but I did find it compelling enough to make it through from beginning to end (paying some overdue library fines in the process).

    Nor can I claim enough background to critique the content in detail. I’m sure experts in each country, and each time period, would have nits to pick. Oren manages to be pretty even-handed by taking people at their word, but avoiding any attempt to gloss over events as being the “fault” of one side or the other. Choosing his themes, he can work with the realist, idealist, and populist branches of history to good effect.

    In fact, reading Michael Oren’s book has whetted my appetite to re-read WR Mead’s Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed The World. Little wonder that Mead himself provides a glowing back cover blurb. Oren mines the same rich vein of common sense by relating key American appetites (usually contradictory) to the vagaries of history.

    Oren fares less well when he’s required to provide bridging text between the periods of history he describes. His attempts to cast the reader’s mind to earlier periods by drawing parallels are painful to read. His history is great. His poetry and metaphor can perhaps be left to one side.

    As for the author’s ability to form a conclusion about his subject, it certainly felt at times that he knew the Middle East better than America. The American link to British values established during the Glorious Revolution is skipped because of his self-imposed outline. But if you think that American values in 1776 sprung out of the head of Zeus, you miss much of the frame of mind that Americans evidenced till well into the 20th century. Iceland and Cornwall had plenty of experience with Barbary corsairs before Americans were being enslaved in the late 18th century. It seems a fact worth noting. American Protestantism is not exclusively an American story. Reconciling the values of liberty and security have been the Anglosphere struggle for many centuries. Americans have lived out their best hopes, and worst fears, through their vulnerabilities of commerce and the passions of their spirituality, much as their British ancestors. The British role in the Middle East from 1800 onward can certainly be cast as nefarious, but do we see any parallels between British faith and American faith at the time? It’s not a question answered in this book.

    The role of America as victim, partner, teacher, doctor, father, and fixer in the Middle East extends far back beyond our personal recollections. It should give us pause when judging current efforts. Americans were trying to convince 19th Egyptians that impaling their rebellious peasants on fence-posts was counter-productive. They’ve been well-meaning, relentless, self-absorbed, and ultimately more and more powerful throughout the centuries. American power, faith, and fantasy are still at play in the Middle East and the history of those themes, and their depth, is important to consider when reading the papers or a news website.

    Oren quotes Philip Roth: “History is where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable.” We may not be able to anticipate the unexpected but Oren’s Power, Faith, and Fantasy gives us some hope we can predict some inevitable factors in play for America in that troubled land.

    Table of Contents

    Prologue: A Passage to Glory [3]
    Introduction: Recovering a Pivotal Past [9]

    Part One: Early America Encounters the Middle East
    1. A Mortal and Mortifying Threat [17]
    2. The Hostile and Ethereal Orient [41]
    3. A Crucible of American Identity [51]
    4. Illuminating and Emancipating the World [80]

    Part Two: The Middle East and Antebellum America
    5. Confluence and Conflict [101]
    6. Manifest Middle Eastern Destiny [122]
    7. Under American Eyes [149]

    Part Three: The Civil War and Reconstruction
    8. Fission [177]
    9. Rebs and Yanks on the Nile [190]
    10. The Trumpet That Never Calls Retreat [210]
    11. American Onslaught [228]
    12. Resurgence [246]

    Part Four: The Age of Imperialism
    13. Empire at Dawn [257]
    14. Imperial Piety [273]
    15. Imperial Myths [297]
    16. A Region Renamed and Reordered [307]

    Part Five: America, The Middle East, and the Great War
    17. Spectators of Catastrophe [325]
    18. Action or Nonaction? [340]
    19. An American Movement is Born [351]
    20. Arise, O Arabs, and Awake! [367]
    21. The First MIddle East Peace Process [376]
    22. Fantasies Revived [398]

    Part Six: Oil, War, and Ascendancy
    23. From Bibles to Drill Bits [407]
    24. An Insoluble Conflict Evolves [420]
    25. A Torch for the Middle East [446]
    26. The Middle East and the Man from Missouri [475]

    Part Seven: In Search of Pax Americana
    27. Harmony and Hegemony [505]
    28. The Thirty Years’ War [550]
    Epilogue: A Profound and Visceral Gratitude [595]

    One Response to “Oren — Power, Faith, and Fantasy”

    1. Lexington Green Says:

      James, good review. Thank you. I would like to know more about the meeting between FDR and Saud. He tended to not say what he really thought he was doing. Also, he was willing to kick the can down the road. Getting access to Mideast oil was a major goal for his administration. Our oil patch was drying up. His Democrat supporters from Texas and other places wanted to get into the Mideast and develop it maintain their position as big dogs in the oil business. For better or for worse, the ties to the Saudi regime that FDR set in place have been at the foundation of American global power for over 60 years. Few writers on FDR say much about this episode.


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Understanding - and winning - seaside seats

Screen shot 2013-07-01 at 07.26.04
By Mark Wallace
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As one MP representing a coastal constituency put it to me, such seats "often have more in common with each other than they have with their fellow northern or southern seats". In the past this was all the more pronounced, when the tendency of the vast majority of people to holiday within the UK formed towns from Brighton to my own home town, Whitley Bay, with a universally recognisable "seaside resort" mould.

The resemblance between coastal towns may have become more variegated as London's commuter belt expanded in the South and the industrial economy declined in much of the North, but the resulting patchwork still has a lot in common. Cosmetically, the burned out skeletons of old victorian piers are still dotted around the coast, and I defy you to find a seaside town without at least one amusement arcade which has seen better days.

The decline of their traditional tourist economy, the collapse of the British fishing fleet and the inherent tendency to be literally at the end of the line in terms of transport infrastructure have left many seaside constituencies facing similar problems, too.

Poverty, particular caused by the seasonal nature of the remaining tourist trade; a feeling of being neglected by government as a result of rarely sitting on the main road or railway between major cities and even lower educational attainment are all far too common. Only last week Ofsted found that children educated in coastal communities regularly miss out on the benefits of national policy initiatives, which harms their career prospects in often already difficult economic circumstances.

There are political similarities, as well. It was notable in the recent local elections that UKIP performed even better at the coast than elsewhere, for example, building on a long-running trend of seaside euroscepticism.

In towns which were once home to large fishing fleets, it is likely that this trend started with the Common Fisheries Policy's decimation of the British industry. However, it has grown far beyond the ex-fishermen, feeding on a wider sense of disillusionment with politicians who seem focused on cities and don't care about the towns which people once flocked to in hordes every summer. As well as the alienated working class, there are of course still large numbers of people who retire to the seaside, too.

There have been attempts in the past to design a proper strategy for these seats, based on an understanding of what they have in common with each other regardless of their region. Before the last election, data from the Mosaic demographic analysis system helped CCHQ to identify the broad trend. Mark Simmonds, MP for Boston and Skegness (a constituency where, incidentally, UKIP performed extremely way in May) wrote an aptly-titled report: "End of the Line: Our Plan for Coastal Towns" (PDF).

Many of the policies therein were very sensible but, as a number of MPs suggested, the strategy was incomplete - not through any fault on the part of Simmonds or CCHQ, but because there was not enough time to properly understand the data and the issues at hand. The report was published in January 2010, and these were the days of early experiments in combining Mosaic and Merlin data to inform campaigning on the ground.

With so many marginal seats sitting on the coast - be they marginals the Conservatives currently hold or marginals we would like to win - this must be the time to start a more intensive strategy targeted at seaside constituencies.

Given the financial situation, there is a limit to what the Government can do in policy terms (though the Coastal Communities Fund, financed by the income from the Crown Estate's marine assets, is certainly a good start). But there are a number of other steps we could take to ensure we are well-prepared to fight them on the beaches, as it were:

Ultimately, with deep-seated feelings of disillusionment and resentment of the neglect they have experience at the hands of central government, it will be a long, hard slog to win coastal seats. Trust and votes will only be won by demonstrating commitment and energy to communities which have for many years been let down by politicians. But patient, unstoppable determination is another thing we can learn from the sea.


Thoughts of the Future: How Ephemeral Becomes Solid

Advancements in neurotechnology have the potential to give us the power to directly manipulate the world with our thoughts. But the possibilities only begin there. As society begins to take this heightened agency for granted there’s enormous potential for we as a species to better understand ourselves and the substantial role that thought plays in forging the building blocks of our reality.

Our thoughts will become our hands

Through software such as that being developed by Neurogress, which harnesses advanced AI to learn our thought processes, we will reach a point of having complex and nuanced thought control of devices around us. The distance between wanting something to happen and making it occur will be as small as sending a thought command.

This enhances convenience, but the implications are more far-reaching than mere convenience. We will live in a world that more readily changes and conforms to our will and this will have a huge impact on quality of life.

But it’s not just about wielding more influence over the world

It’s not just about control, however. Through linking minds together we may gain new insights into the thought processes of the people around us. In this sense, neurotechnology offers the possibility that we may all be better understood. The mental mysteries of the person next to you may finally be unraveled. We will enter a world in which our thoughts will be less abstract.

I think this will be particularly exciting in our artistic endeavors. If we are no longer limited to what we can achieve with our hands and the physical media we work with, where can we go next? What does art even look like when the mind itself becomes the brush?

We may be on the verge of finding completely new forms of expression in which art ceases to be a physical “thing” that we produce but rather is the unique, essential spark of inspiration a person is capable of conceiving and then sharing with another person through a brain-computer interface. One prominent cultural futurist asserted, “art today will be viewed in the future as laudable but laughable attempts at telepathic exchange”.

What happens when all this is as natural to us as breathing?

Let’s take this forward to a time when society has grown accustomed to directly manipulating objects with our thoughts and being able to share our emotions like sharing a meal. We may well reach a point where we begin to no longer see such a critical distinction between things that are made of molecules and states of mind which are made of neurons. The boundaries between thought and matter, abstraction and concrete reality may become not just blurred but irrelevant.

Indeed, we may see a reversal where our abstractions become our bedrock. Neurogress’ forays into developing software that can learn how we think represents a decisive leap in that direction. As advanced AI software for reading our brain signals becomes ever more sophisticated we may well reach a point where our thoughts are seen as the most substantial and concrete aspect of our lives.

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Controlling the world with the power of thought.

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Dec 27 2017

As I gradually go over these older images (up to 4 yrs old) I will post some here. If you like an image particularly, I can email you the information about it.
This is the whole image for the first one.

IMG-0040 2016

I was just trying to capture the sky on this one, no attempt to catch a significant foreground. I actually think a bit of the foreground could be removed to feature the sky more and balance the picture. My opinion on it, anyway.


“Prince Edward Island’s unique ‘brotherly love’ community”: Faith and Family, Communalism and Commerce in B. Compton Limited, 1909-1947

Ruth Compton Brouwer

Imbued with the millenarian teachings of a maverick 19th-century Island clergyman and with a desire to provide communally for a close-knit kin group that had experienced economic hardship at the dawn of the 20th century, B. Compton Limited – a utopian community on Prince Edward Island – briefly became an object of widespread interest in the context of the Depression. A visiting rural sociologist noted, for instance, its members’ eccentricity while affirming their strong ties within the Island’s social fabric. This article explores the community’s background, the factors that held it together, and the wartime changes that culminated in its formal dissolution in 1947.

Full Text:

Acadiensis. ISSN: 00445851


Nepali etiquettes you should know

19, Dec 2018 |

A list of useful social etiquettes that will make your visit to Nepal a lot more hassle free.

Before your visit to Nepal, you may have learned how to greet someone with a ‘Namaste’ or thank someone with a ‘Dhanyabad’, but one should know that Nepal is an ancient civilization—rich in history and culture—and even centuries later, the people here follow they’re own set of ideologies and mannerisms. To avoid being disrespectful and embarrass yourself in public, here’s a list of social etiquettes and etiquettes unique to Nepal, which could prove to be helpful in your travel to Nepal.

Don’t Be Gauche, Use This Gestures

When you’re greeting Nepali people, especially those older than you, it’s common courtesy to join your hands and say ‘Namaste’. In Nepal there’s a lot of importance given to which hand you’re using to do what. Generally the right hand is associated with an auspicious aura so it’s good to be cautious when you’re receiving or giving gifts. Even while eating try not to use your left hand as Nepalis tend to enjoy devouring food with their hands. Since the early days, the left hand is considered to be ‘impure’ as it was commonly used to wash off after defecation.

Eating Etiquettes

Like many Asian cultures, eating together is a big part of Nepali culture. If you’re planning to enjoy Nepali delicacies with some of the locals, there’s something you should keep in mind—touching a shared pot of food with a used utensil or sharing the same bottle of water can be considered ‘impure’ and disrespectful to those around you. So, try not to use the same spoon you used to eat to scoop out rice from a pot. And when you’re visiting a restaurant in Nepal, don’t worry about tipping the waiter or waitress as your bill includes a 10% service charge.

‘Atithi Devo Bhava’—Guest is God

Nepalis are naturally friendly, and strongly endorse the Hindu philosophy of ‘Atithi Devo Bhawa’ or ‘The guest is equivalent to God’.  The word Atithi or Guest here extends its meaning to all guests—whether intimate or not. So if you’re a guest, be ready to receive a warm welcome, and friendly hospitality. Guests are generally welcomed with khadas (Buddhist shawls) or garlandsand red tika(tilak) on your forehead. In Nepal, garlands and tilak are seen as an expression of honour when someone arrives. If you have Nepali friends over, welcoming them with a hot beverage and snacks is seen as a symbol of good geniality.

Be a Better Bargainer

While bargaining culture is quite evident in Nepal, you need to know when and where to bargain. Bargaining in inappropriate places could not only turn out to be quite embarrassing, but also considered very disrespectful. So make sure you aren’t bargaining in places like bigger stores and malls. If you’re around the smaller stores, feel free to bargain out the hiked prices.

Road Awareness

The roads in Nepal are quite unpredictable. Roads are busy most of the time, hence causing a lot of traffic jam. Traffic lights are also unavailable in most locations, having you to rely on a traffic police's hand gestures while driving.

As a pedestrian, you have to be especially careful, particularly of the motorcycles dashing at high speeds. While having to cross the roads, a zebra crossing may not always be close by. Even while walking over a zebra crossing, there are no light signals to guide you through. Hence, it is recommended you carefully inspect both sides of the road before crossing. During nighttime, due to the absence of streetlights in small pathways, it is best if you carry around a torchlight if you are not familiar with the roads.

In most urban cities, as the air is heavily polluted, you may consider wearing a surgical mask to protect your lungs from the impurities drifting around.

Visiting religious sites

Temples and religious places are highly valued in Nepal. Visitors are expected to dress decently and act appropriately inside religious and cultural premises. While you may notice some improper behavior from young couples in places such as the Durbar Squares, it is immensely discouraged that you display any kind of intimate behavior.

Some temples also require you to take off your shoes before entering, which may dirty your socks, for which you might want to carry an extra pair.  Also do hide your personal belongings on your visits to the temple, as it may be snatched by monkeys loitering around the temple complex.

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It's previously been assumed that children younger than seven will struggle to answer questions about their emotions. Undeterred, Lagattuta and her colleagues simplified the language used in a popular measure of older children's anxiety and they developed a pictorial scoring system that involved the children pointing to rectangles filled with different amounts of colour. Time was taken to ensure the child participants understood how to use the scale.

An initial study with 228 psychologically healthy children aged 4 to 11 from relatively affluent backgrounds found that the children's answers to oral questions about their experience of worry (including general anxiety, panic, social phobia and separation anxiety) failed to correlate with their parents' (usually the mother's) written responses to questions about the children's experience of worry. Specifically, the parents tended to underestimate how much anxiety their children experienced.

A second study was similar, but this time the researchers ensured the parents and children answered items that were worded in exactly the same way; the parents were reassured that it was normal for children to experience some negative emotion; and the parents were able to place their completed questionnaires in envelopes for confidentiality. Still the children's answers about their own emotions failed to correlate with parents' answers, with the parents again underestimating the amount of worry experienced by their children.

A revealing detail in this study was that parents also answered questions about their own emotions. Their scores for their own emotions correlated with the answers they gave for their children's experiences. "These data suggest that even parents from a low-risk, non-clinical sample may have difficulty separating their emotional perspective from that of their child," the researchers said.

Finally, 90 more children aged 5 to 10 answered questions about their optimism, whilst their parents also answered questions about their own and their children's optimism. Again, parents' and children's verdicts on the children's emotions failed to correlate, with the parents now overestimating their children's experience of optimism. And once more, parents' own optimism was related to how they interpreted their children's optimism.

Lagattuta and her colleagues admitted that it's theoretically possible that the children were the ones showing a distorted view of their own emotions, and it's the parents who were painting the true picture. However, they think this is highly unlikely. For starters it's revealing that parents underestimated their children's negative emotion and yet over-estimated their positive emotion, which argues against the idea that the children were simply answering more conservatively, or giving systematically extreme answers in one direction. Moreover, the new findings fit with the wider literature showing how parents tend to have an unrealistically rosy impression of their children's wellbeing. An obvious study limitation is the focus on middle class US participants, so there is of course a need to replicate with people from other backgrounds and cultures.

"From the standpoint of research and clinical practice, this mismatch between parent and child perceptions raises a red flag," the researchers concluded. "Internally consistent self-report data can be acquired from young children regarding their emotional experiences. Obtaining reports from multiple informants - including the child - needs to be the standard."

Lagattuta KH, Sayfan L, and Bamford C (2012). Do you know how I feel? Parents underestimate worry and overestimate optimism compared to child self-report. Journal of experimental child psychology, 113 (2), 211-32 PMID:

Author weblink:

From BPS Research Digest


Australian Pipeline Valve - Installation, Operation and Maintenance Manual 16 API6D THROUGH CONDUIT EXPANDING GATE VALVE - AP400-405 SERIES 8.2.2 Seat Lubrication/Sealant a- Twin secondary sealant injection ports are fitted in the middle of the valve body. In the case of seat sealing surface damage or leakage, a grease gun can be used with an approved sealant to inject the seats. b- The pressure required to fully inject sealant into the seat/gate surfaces should not exceed 3000 psi over the line pressure. There will be some pressure needed to pump the grease through the gun, hose and extended piping. The amount could be several pounds of pressure more in colder weather. Please note the following example: Pressure to pump grease: 13,780 kPa Line pressure: 6,890 kPa Amount required above: 2,067 kPa Total amount in cold weather: 22,048 kPa c- Lubricating the seats on a through conduit gate valve is not necessary however, this will ensure smooth operation. When lubricating the seats and gate surfaces, cycle the gate OPEN and CLOSED several times to evenly lubricant both surfaces. d- Return the gate to either the full OPEN or full CLOSED position and inject an additional amount of lubricant to complete the process. e- APV recommends for buried valves, a minimum of 4 cups of lubricant per valve once extended lines are filled. f- While APV does not generally recommend a lubricant, we do recommend containing Climax Valve Lubricants with the specifics of the product in the line for a lubricant best suited for the intended service. Figure 1: Secondary Seat Lubricant/Sealant Injection System


Complexity Explorer Santa Fe Institute

This course is no longer in session.

Lead instructor:

3.4 Nonlinearity and nonintegrability » Homework

Quiz scores are NOT recorded.

-- Mandatory problems that should be accessible to all students.

In this homework, you'll explore the damped, sinusoidally driven pendulum -- the one in the movie in segment 3.1.  This system is governed by the following system of ODEs:

\dot{\theta}=\omega \\ \dot{\omega}=\frac{-\beta}{mL}\omega-\frac{g}{L}\sin{\theta}-\frac{A}{mL}\sin{\Omega t}

In these equations, Θ is angular position, ω is angular velocity, m is mass,  L is pendulum length, g is acceleration due to gravity, β is the drag coefficient, A is the (drive) amplitude and Ω is the (drive) frequency.  In the driven pendulum in the movie, the amplitude was fixed by the cam follower design and the frequency was controlled by the actuator that drove the motor, but in this problem you'll vary both of those parameters.  For simplicity, we will assume that m = L = 1, which makes the equations look like this:

\dot{\theta}=\omega \\ \dot{\omega}=-\beta\omega-g\sin{\theta}-A\sin{\Omega t}

Now point your browswer to:

Pendulum App

To use this application, which simulates the equations above, you need to set the parameter values and initial conditions in the text fields located in the bottom-right panel, then click "Setup". This should be done any time you change the text field values.

To begin the simulation after doing that setup, either click "Start Animation", which will generate a trajectory one step at a time, or click "Generate Full Trajectory", which will generate an n-point-long trajectory, where n is the "Max Trajectory Length" input.

The "Time" panel (bottom left) shows time-series plots of Θ (angular position, shown in yellow) and ω (angular velocity, shown in blue).  The "Phase" panel (top right) shows a state-space portrait, with ω on the y-axis and Θ on the x-axis.


Normally, Automatic Language Growth (ALG) theory says you do 800 hours of listening, then you start speaking, and you do writing and reading last. The reality is, however, if you are not at the ALG school in Bangkok, it is nearly impossible to arrange these type of lessons for yourself. And it takes two years with strict ALG to learn a category three language, such as Chinese, Thai or Korean. Most people working in a foreign country can’t invest two years into learning, particularly if they are on a one year or two year contract.

So, I modify ALG when I am doing my own learning and writing.

Next, the founders of ALG were concentrated on how to teach Thai to foreigners. In taking ALG out of Thailand and applying it to other countries, my personal feeling is that the game changes a bit because, unlike Thai, Korean is not tonal and the pronunciation is simple consonant vowel, consonant vowel. And second, the Thai writing system is extremely complex and you really shouldn’t learn to read until you have a very functional knowledge of the language. But in the case of Korean, Hangul is one of the easiest and most perfect writing systems ever developed.

Most people can learn Hangul in about a week. After that, you can read literally anything in Korean. Normally, I tell people to read last, because when you read you have an internal monologue which will be imperfect if you haven’t done sufficient listening first.

What I suggest, to speed up the process, but to also learn the language well, you should buy a university level Korean textbook, and hire a private tutor. Korean teachers will generally want to spend the first several lessons on the alphabet. Don’t let them. Don’t worry about the alphabet for a few weeks. It is probably better to hire a young university student who you can intimidate into teaching you the way you want to learn, as opposed to hiring an experienced teacher who only knows one way and will argue and fight with you.

Have your tutor read the dialogues in your book again and again. At home, listen to the audio CDs for the book. Do not start by having the teacher teach you the symbols or the characters of Hangul. Just follow along with your finger while the teacher reads. Do this for two or three weeks. You will begin to make guesses about what the different characters should sound like. You will begin to recognize words. You will slowly gain a rhythm for the language.

After several weeks, then you could spend a single lesson on the alphabet, to ensure that you know what each letter sounds like and how to recognize them. After that, you can read on your own.

At night, follow the written words on the page while you listen to the CDs. You can start writing at this point. It will help reinforce what you are hearing and learning. But remember, listening is still the key to learning a language and to avoid fossilizing mistakes. Never write an assignment and allow the teacher to take it home and mark it. You go over every assignment, verbally with your teacher, a number of times before you go home and write it. The next day, you should go over your homework verbally, with your teacher. Again, the teacher reads and corrects. You just listen and write. Think about your homework as a talking point, something to help you focus and contextualize your listening.

Don’t speak yet.

What I did with the Korean language was I bought as many level-one textbooks as I could find. There are about three or maybe four series of Korean textbooks sold in Korea. So, I bought all of them. I chose one that I only did with my teacher. The others I did on my own. You can get level one textbooks for free; just ask other foreigners who gave up on learning Korean. They will often pass the books on to you. Just write in them and fill them with ink, writing and rewriting each exercise.

My teacher and I went on like this for about a month or six weeks. Everyday, she read for me. In the evenings, I listened to the listening for that book and the listening for the other books which I read on my own.

Eventually, when I started speaking, I only read out my answers from my main textbook while my teacher and I marked my homework.

With the Korean language, the listening/speaking is not difficult in the sense of getting the pronunciation right. Actually, Korean, like Mandarin, has only a couple of sounds that we don’t have in English; but the listening is difficult because of the complex Korean grammar and registers of speech. So, when you first start “speaking” it should really be just reading grammatically correct and appropriate answers from your book. I did this for hours with my teacher. Occasionally, she would ask me something that wasn’t in the book, but I would refuse to answer. You don’t want to start “creating” speech until you are ready. Stick with canned speaking practice for several more weeks.

Finally, you can start speaking. Again, it would be best to wait till the end of 800 hours, but this is not a reality for most people living in the country. So, maybe you start speaking at the end of two months of lessons. My vocabulary was already 2,000 words when I began speaking. And even then, I kept my speaking limited to what was in the book and, eventually, variations of what was in the book. You should move your reading and listening away from the book and into the real world pretty early on. But your speaking needs to stay in the sterile book world or you will create mistakes that you will never, ever be able to shake.

With all of my languages, once my listening gets to an acceptable level, I encourage people in the real world to talk to me in Korean, but I answer in English. The longer you stay at that level and the more total listening you do, the better your Korean will be when you open up your mouth and start speaking.

If you jump right into speaking, as most teachers want you to do, you will most likely never approach fluency. You will make errors of grammar and appropriateness of speech. Depending upon how early you start speaking you may even make mistakes in pronunciation which is truly sad because Korean is so perfect and easy to pronounce.

The keys to language learning are: dedication, hard work, listening, and discipline to avoid giving in to the temptation to speak too early.


Upper GI Tract - Medical Terminology(Adaptive*)

The upper GI tract consists of the oral cavity, esophagus, pharynx, and stomach.

Oral Cavity

Chemical and mechanical processes of digestion begin in the (1) oral cavity (mouth) when food is chewed to make it easier to swallow.

Chemical and mechanical

The suffix -itisrefers to inflammation. It is used in all body systems to describe an inflammation of a particular organ.

The suffixes-dyniaand -algiarefer to pain.

There are three pairs of salivary glands: the (2) sublingual gland, the (3) submandibular gland,and the (4) parotid gland. The salivary glands, whose primary function is to secrete saliva into the oral cavity, is richly supplied with blood vessels and nerves. Label the salivary glands in Figure The upper GI tract.

During the chewing process, salivary secretions begin the chemical breakdown of food. sial/omeans saliva, salivary glands. From sial/ ic(pertaining to saliva), construct the CF for saliva or salivary gland.

The sufix -rrheais used in words to mean discharge or flow. Sial/ o/ rrhea, more commonly called ptyal/ ism or hyper/ salivation, refers to excessive secretion of saliva. Stomat/ o/ myc/ osisis an abnormal condition of a mouth fungus.

Two types of mycoses are athlete’s foot and thrush. log/omeans study of. Recall -logistmeans specialist in study of. Specialists who treat digestive disorders are the gastr/o/logist, enter/o/logist, and gastr/o/enter/o/logist

A dent/ist specializes in the prevention, Dx, and treatment of disease of the teeth and gums. An orth/odont/istis a dent/al specialist who corrects abnormal position and misalignment of the teeth. Crooked, or misaligned, teeth require dental services of an orth/odont/istto correct the deformity.

Another dent/al specialist, the peri/odont/ist, treats abnormal conditions of tissues surrounding the teeth. Gingiv/itis, a general term for inflammation of gums, is usually caused by accumulation of food particles in crevices between the gums and teeth.

Primary symptoms of gingiv/itis are bleeding gums. This condition can lead to a more serious disorder, peri/odont/itis. Gingiv/itis is best prevented by correct brushing of teeth and proper gum care.

Esophagus, Pharynx, and Stomach

Continue labeling Figure The upper GI tract. as you read the material in this frame. After food is chewed, it is formed into a round, sticky mass called a (5) bolus. The bolus is pushed by the tongue into the (6) pharynx(throat), where it begins its descent down the (7) esophagus to the 8) stomach.

In the stomach, undigested food is mixed with gastric juices to break it down further into a liquid mass called chyme. Esophag/itis can be caused by excessive acid production in the stomach.

An ulcer is a lesion of the skin or muc/ous membrane marked by inflammation, necr/osis, and sloughing of damaged tissue. Various aggravations may produce ulcers, including trauma, drugs, infectious agents such as Helicobacter pylori bacterium, smoking, and alcohol.

An insufficient blood supply may result in necr/osis of the ulcerated tissue.necr/omeans death, necrosis. An abnormal condition of (tissue) death is called necr/osis Peptic ulcers are open sores or lesions on the mucous membrane that lines the stomach or duodenum. They usually develop in the highly acidic regions of the stomach or duodenum. Peptic ulcers that occur in the small intestine are called duoden/al ulcers; peptic ulcers that occur in the stomach are called gastr/ic ulcers.

Gastr/ic ulcers may cause severe pain and inflammation of the stomach. Endo/scopy is a visual examination of a hollow organ or cavity using a rigid or flexible fiber optic tube and lighted optical system.

An endo/scope is used to perform endo/scopy. The organ being examined dictates the name of the endoscop/ ic procedure — for example,visual examination of the esophagus is esophag/ o/ scopy, of the stomach is gastr/ o/ scopy, and of the duodenum is duoden/ o/ scopy.

Endo/scopy is used for bi/opsy, aspirating fluids, and coagulating bleeding areas. A laser can also be passed through the endo/scope for endoscopic surgeries. A camera or video recorder is commonly used during endo/scop/ic procedures to provide a permanent record for later reference. When the physician examines the duodenum, the endoscopic procedure is called duoden/o/scopy.

Gastr/o/scopy is visual examination of the stomach. Upper GI endoscopy, also referred to as EGD, includes visualization of the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum. Surgery is the branch of medicine concerned with diseases and trauma requiring an operative procedure.

Whenever you see a suffix or word with tom in it, relate it to an incision. Partial or total gastr/ectomy is commonly performed to treat stomach cancer. Cancer (CA) is a general term used to indicate various types of malignant neoplasms. Most cancers invade surrounding tissues and metastasize (spread) to other sites in the body.

The largest group of carcin/omas are solid tumors derived from epithelial tissue that line many organs, including the digestive organs. Emesis is a term that means vomiting; however, it may also be used as a suffix.

Hyper/emesis is characterized by excessive vomiting. Unless treated, it can lead to malnutrition. Hemat/o refers to blood. A patient with acute gastr/itis or a peptic ulcer may vomit blood. Bleeding in the stomach may be due to a gastr/ic ulcer and may cause vomiting of blood. A Dx of vomiting blood is entered in the medical record as hemat/emesis

Dys/pepsialiterally means painful or difficult digestion and is a form of gastric indigestion. It is not a disease in itself but may be symptomatic of other diseases. Swallowing air, usually followed by belching and gastric distention, is a condition known as aer/o/phagia. Infants have a tendency to swallow air as they suck milk from a bottle, a condition charted as aer/o/phagia.

Medical Terminology(Adaptive*) Topics


On wishes.

When Remi and I found out we were pregnant, we had the idea to leave a wish in the hollowed out space in the back of our antique Quan Yin statue. She serenely watches over us as we sleep from her special perch on our bedroom cabinet.  Remi took a liking to the goddess of mercy & medicine while studding East Asian medicine. She has grown on me now as well.

The statue we have is carved wood and over a hundred years old, one of our lucky antique store finds. The most fascinating feature is the covered hollow space intended for prayers. So some months ago, I ripped off a scrap of decorative paper and carefully wrote down a wish for our baby's future. We tied the tiny scroll off with some string and placed it inside together.

I had forgotten about it until recently. The act of hiding a physical wish may or may not have actually helped it come true, but it did give us something.

Making wishes is commonly something we do in childhood, when we are dependent on others and unable to make many things happen for ourselves yet. Prayers, wishes, hopes. Into adulthood these things carry a heavier weight when attached to something we can hold. A lock on a fence, a paper crane, written on a stone and buried, & whispered into a coin and tossed. They help us to remember to keep going, we can make our wishes come true. They help us to keep loving and believing, miracles are still in the works.

I encourage you to make a wish today, inconsequential or detrimental. Write it down on something. Hide it somewhere, or not. Work towards making it happen for yourself if you can. Whenever you remember that little piece of yourself that you've created and left out into the world, be hopeful.

Also, go ahead and tell someone if you want. Wishes are meant to be shared, don't worry, the magic wont disappear.


Companies starting with C

Delivering a range of payments and services for people at times of major change (Carers, Families, Indigenous Australian, Job seekers, Migrants, refugees and visitors, Older Australians, People with a disability, Remote and rural Australians, Students and trainees)

Combined Probus Club of Point Lonsdale

Combined Probus Club of Queenscliff Inc.

Cosmopolitan Lodge No. 96 - Masonic Lodge

Cottage by the Sea

Cottage by the Sea, is a non government, not for profit organisation that empowers disadvantaged children by supporting them in developing their mind, body and wellbeing by providing leadership and outreach programs in a positive, healthy environment.


Y Technologies and Development, LLC

Y technologies and development, llc

Y tech

Boulder, Colorado

Company Information

Y tech is a startup company founded in 2010.
Y tech is located in Boulder, Colorado.
Y tech is a project dedicated to creating a central location for information, resources, data and communications flow within and beyond the Aerospace community at large.


Questions and Answers about Concentrix

Here's what people have said about working and interviewing at Concentrix.

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If you were to leave Concentrix, what would be the reason?

14 answers

They don't uphold there agreements for 1 and a laundry list of other things including what I have already mentioned

Answered - Adviser (Current Employee) - Oshawa, ON

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Already gone they hire their friends with less training stacking the management support.

Answered - Salesperson (Former Employee) - glace bay

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Low salary

Answered - Customer Service Representative (Former Employee) - Riverview, NB

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Relocation country

Answered - Customer service representative (Former Employee) - India, vadodara

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Better employment, better work environment.

Answered - {manager} Technical support advisor (Former Employee) - Peterborough, ON

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The hours are absolutely brutal

Answered - Customer Service Representative (Current Employee) - London, ON

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I left due to the lack of work

Answered - Customer Service Representative (Former Employee) - Cornwallis, NS

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I did leave because of new management

Answered - Phone support (Former Employee) - Niagara Falls, ON

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No increase in the pay. Regionality feeling.

Answered - Customer care representative (Former Employee) - Peterborough, ON

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To experience new things in life

Answered - Applecare senior advisor (Current Employee) - Montréal, QC

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