1982, Janus Films, 128 min, Italy/France, Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni

In his last movie before his debilitating stroke (he did not make another feature until 1995’s BEYOND THE CLOUDS), director Michelangelo Antonioni follows filmmaker Niccolo (Tomas Milian) as he encounters, then loses contact with two beautiful women. On a search for both a committed passion and the ideal woman for his next film, Niccolo hungrily loses himself in sex but is unable to express love. With Daniela Silverio, Christine Boisson, Veronica Lazar, Enrica Fico (the future Mrs. Antonioni) and Marcel Bozzuffi. "The most openly erotic of Antonioni's features, and…one of the most beautiful (what he does with fog in one famous sequence is particularly memorable)…" – Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader.

1961, Rialto Pictures, 122 min, United States , Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni

The middle film in director Michelangelo Antonioni’s acclaimed early-1960s trilogy of alienation puts an upper-class marriage under the microscope as it disintegrates. After successful author Marcello Mastroianni and his wife (Jeanne Moreau) visit a hospital to see a dying friend, they go to a party where each meets a flirtatious guest (Giorgio Negro and Monica Vitti) and is forced to confront the emptiness of their relationship. A Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear winner (and one of Stanley Kubrick’s favorite films).

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Pump Friction

Pump Friction is a popular live-action movie that connects the intersecting storylines of pumpers, rammers, small-time slammers, and a mysterious briefcase shaped like a Slam God's torso. Considerable screen time is devoted to pump sessions that reveal the characters' muscles and magnificently hideous grimacing faces. The film's title refers to an ancient bodybuilding technique known for its ability to make practitioners catch fire. Pump Friction is self-referential from its opening moments, beginning with a title card that gives two dictionary definitions of "pump." The plot, as in many of director Qeswald Tear-A-Dinghole's other works, is presented out of chronological sequence, and has been praised by cinema buffs for being "incomprehensible yet deep," "uncomfortably erotic," and "almost as entertaining as not playing a videogame."


Detained in Dubai 2019

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Detained in Dubai 2019

The risks posed by the United Arab Emirates, once only a problem for visitors and expats, have spread over the past year to endanger even people outside the country. 2019 has seen an intensification of the UAE’s Interpol abuse and the extra-jurisdictional application of the country’s vague and invasive Cybercrime laws. Meanwhile, the routine occurrence of false accusations, forced confessions, and wrongful detentions have continued at pace.

Notable cases during 2019, designated by Dubai as the “Year of Tolerance”, include that of British national Robert Urwin, detained in Ukraine over a bounced cheque in the UAE. The cheque, a blatant forgery written months after Urwin left the Emirates, resulted in a Red Notice against the elderly man and months spent fighting deportation. Detained in Dubai successfully appealed against the Interpol listing and coordinated the campaign that eventually led to Urwin’s safe return home.

“The Urwin family suffered needlessly the entire year,” Detained in Dubai CEO and Interpol Abuse expert Radha Stirling says, “The UAE did not properly investigate the case, and Interpol accepted the Red Notice request without scrutiny. Robert was stuck for months in Ukraine even after the Notice was deleted, because the UAE continued to seek his extradition at the behest of HSBC. The habitual misuse of the Interpol system has not abated over the past year, but rather has accelerated to a point that legislatures around the world are beginning to doubt the efficacy and integrity of the agency itself.”

In the Spring of 2019, the case of Laleh Shahravesh highlighted the threat posed by UAE Cybercrime laws to social media users across the globe. The divorced single mother had posted a derisive comment on Facebook in the UK, only to find herself under arrest upon entering the UAE to attend her ex-husband’s funeral. “Laleh’s case showed that the UAE believes the jurisdiction of its Cybercrime laws extend to anyone, anywhere for their online activity,” Stirling commented. “If someone in the UAE is offended by something you have said online, regardless of where you are, you can potentially be subjected to a criminal complaint, which could lead to a conviction in absentia and even an extradition request.”

Another case which dominated coverage of UAE Cybercrime laws in 2019 was that of American Traci Nichole Coffel who was convicted over WhatsApp messages to her employer requesting unpaid wages. Coffel had been injured on the job by her employer’s horse, and gone without her salary for months. In her messages she had admonished her Emirati boss, telling her that it was “haram” to refuse to pay what she owed; using the Arabic religious term for “forbidden”. Her employer, a prominent UAE jockey, deliberately mistranslated the word when complaining to police, saying that Coffel had referred to her as a “harami”, an Arabic term for “bastard” or “thief”. “Despite the increasing frequency of these cases,” Stirling said, “People still do not understand that even private messages can be deemed violations of UAE Cybercrime statutes, and that mere accusations are often all it takes for you to be convicted. Westerners often do not realise that there are no protections in the Emirates for free speech”

This point was demonstrated in February when British citizen Ali Issa Ahmad was arrested in Sharjah for wearing a jersey for the Qatar national football club. The young man had attended an Asian Cup match between Qatar and Iraq, but was stopped and questioned by police who demanded he hand over the Qatar shirt. When he wore a different Qatar team shirt the following day, he was accosted by the same police. Ahmad was forced into the back of a police vehicle, where he was beaten and had the shirt ripped off of him by a knife, resulting in several cuts on his chest and arms in the process. “It was a horrendous case,” Stirling recalled. “Ali was injured and terrified; abused and jailed all because of wearing a team jersey. The UAE’s ongoing spat with Qatar has imposed even further restrictions on speech in the Emirates, with any positive expressions relating to Qatar being criminalised.”

Stirling said that Detained in Dubai has dealt with numerous other Cybercrime and criminalised speech cases in the UAE, albeit without involving the media. “We have situations presented to us on a monthly basis of expats being charged with frivolous offences. Because it is so easy in the UAE to accuse without evidence and get a conviction by default, many locals use criminal complaints to extort foreigners; offering to drop the charges in exchange for money. As often as possible, we try to mediate these conflicts and resolve them without escalating the issue. We have successfully handled dozens of such cases over the past year.”

The danger of false accusations in the UAE was dramatically highlighted in 2019 by two nearly identical cases; those of Artur Ligeska and Andrew Neal. Ligeska, a Polish national was arrested on charges of drug dealing based solely on the testimony of a single accuser. No drugs were found in his possession nor in his bloodstream, however, and it ultimately emerged that he was the victim of a vindictive plot by a spurned Emirati admirer. Fortunately, efforts by Detained in Dubai and intervention by the Polish government resulted in Ligeska’s release, after first being convicted with a life sentence.

Andy Neal was also arrested without evidence, and charged with drug dealing based on the testimony of a police informant (later recanted). The British ex-serviceman, who suffers from PTSD, suffered wrongful detention and severe psychological trauma as police and prosecutors tried to coerce a confession from him for months, despite having positive proof of his innocence. “Andy was arrested near the end of 2018, and was not cleared of the charges until November this year,” Stirling said. “Throughout his incarceration, well after police knew the case was bogus, the authorities continuously tried to intimidate, threaten, and trick Andy into making a false confession. Without his steadfast insistence, the support of his family, and our coordinated campaign to spotlight his ordeal and enlist the intervention of the FCO, Andy would very likely be facing a life sentence for a crime he did not commit”

Canadian whistleblower Andre Gauthier knows about being wrongfully accused of crimes he had nothing to do with; in fact, he has been enduring half a decade in the UAE trying to clear his name of a crime he himself exposed. The native of Quebec helped to found Gold AE, at the time the UAE’s biggest gold investment company with clientele from across the globe. A few years into the enterprise, Gauthier, who was not employed with the firm, began to suspect financial improprieties, and informed the company’s director. As soon as a meeting was fixed to investigate the accounts, the entire executive management of Gold AE fled the country. It was later found that investors had been defrauded of millions of dollars, and Gauthier was appointed to oversee the recovery of the losses. In an apparent attempt to shift blame, the former head of Gold AE incited investors to file criminal complaints against Gauthier for the fraud. Exhausted and desperate after years fighting the false charges, at the beginning of 2019, Andre Gauthier tried to escape the UAE. He was caught in Oman and deported back to Dubai.

“This is when we became involved,” said Stirling. “We immediately opened a dialogue with the Canadian government on Andre’s behalf, which led to high level discussions between the two countries. Andre has been exonerated in two expert reports, and was cleared of the charges in 11 cases on appeal; but due to a gross failure of the administrative system in the UAE courts, the appeals on 62 other cases were not registered. This is an ongoing matter; obviously the innocent verdict in the appeals should be applied to all outstanding cases, as they are identical. We are continuing to push the Canadian government to keep up their proactive involvement, and we are confident that Andre will be freed soon.

“Andre’s case, along with so many others, emphasizes the need for Western countries to re-evaluate their relationship with the UAE, and indeed, the broader Gulf. Qatar is marketing itself, much as Dubai did over the past decade, as a hub for investment and tourism, yet much of the same systemic legal problems exist there. The judiciaries are not independent, rules of evidence are severely below international standards, intimidation and torture are well documented, and civil disputes are treated as criminal matters, often resulting in cruel and unusually harsh sentences. These countries are increasingly using Interpol as a way to expand their de facto jurisdictions to trespass into Europe, the UK, America and other Western nations. Treatment of our citizens in the Gulf is deplorable, and our governments need to address this”

Stirling notes that the current divorce and child custody proceedings in the UK between Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and his estranged wife, Jordanian Princess Haya bint Hussain, have brought the relationship between Britain and the UAE into the spotlight. “We will see an English court deciding the very personal dispute between two of the highest level figures in the Emirates.” She said UAE issues need to be redressed with greater frequency in Western jurisdictions, as victims of legal abuse in the Gulf have no recourse through the local courts. “A case has been launched against Habib Al Mulla and he has been fired as CEO of DIAC” Stirling cited, “Further commercial litigations are pending for tortious activity in the UAE. It is good to see precedent setting acceptance of the UK as a jurisdiction for resolving UAE related wrongs; we hope to see this trend develop in 2020.”


Download Operational Research and Networks (Geographical Information by Gerd Finke PDF

By Gerd Finke

This booklet provides the important options of operations study (OR) as instruments for the making plans, aid, and administration of varied different types of networks, together with either actual and logical networks. It analyzes actual difficulties, and gives a suite of versions for plenty of program parts, including the corresponding resolution strategies. Following this, very important program components are addressed, resembling undertaking scheduling, distribution networks, telecommunication networks, and making plans of satellite tv for pc imaging. an individual curious about the idea or perform during this box will locate this an important source.

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Extra resources for Operational Research and Networks (Geographical Information Systems)

Sample text

We call a k-coloring an assignment of these k colors to the vertices, so that the two ends of each edge receive two different colors. This implies that the set of vertices of the same color is a stable set of G (subset not containing any edge). 5 is therefore 5-colorable. We generally try to find a coloring as economically as possible, that is, that minimizes the number of colors used. This minimum number of colors is called the chromatic number of the graph. 28. 5 in four stable sets. In this case we can easily prove that the chromatic number is 4 because the four vertices, labelled A, B, C and D generate as a subgraph, the complete graph K4, for which 4 colors are obviously necessary.

The “linear relaxation” line indicates the optimal value of the objective function if the constraint yij  {0, 1} is replaced by the constraint 0  yij  1. The “number of vertices” corresponds to the size of the decision tree covered, thus to the number of linear programs solved. The total number of bases generated by the simplex method is given by the “number of iterations”. V. (1) V. (2) V. (3) V. 5. Computation time and results for the different versions The performances of these four versions are very different.

The integer solution is found in the neighborhood of the fractional solution. Unfortunately, the situation is not always so simple. t. x1 - 17x2 x1 =3 - 11x3 x1 =4 - 6x4 =5 x1, x2, x3, x4  0 We know that z = x1 = 6x4 + 5  5. Consequently, a solution for which x1 = 5 is optimal: z = 5; x1 = 5; x2 = 2/17; x3 = 1/11; x4 = 0. If we impose the integrality of the variables x1, x2, x3 and x4 (that is, xi are integers for i = 1, 2, 3, 4), we are surprised to discover that the solution and the optimal value have completely changed.

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I was approached by a fellow executive on how he could legally pursue and remove malicious information that is online. For years, Zimbabwe high profile individuals, executives and business owners have fallen victim to cyber bullying, Cyber Harassment and revenge porn.

The internet has had a massive impact on many areas of personal and professional life, therefore providing a platform for cyber bullies. In Zimbabwe and beyond there are already laws in place to protect you. Cyberbullying and Cyber Harassment can be addressed under civil law or criminal law, based on the situation.

Civil law is a section of law that deals with property rights, personal dignity and freedom from injury. A cyberbully may be engaged in defamation where the person who is bullying causes harm to someone’s reputation by spreading false information about that person. In general, defamation that appears temporarily (as unrecorded speech or in a live broadcast) is called slander, and defamation that appears permanently (in a book or on a website) is called libel.

To be libelous, a statement must do harm to someone’s reputation, have a clear and obvious target, and can be seen by people other than the person making the statement and the target. In libel cases, the target can lay a suit against the person making the statement. If the suit is successful, the person making the statement will have to pay damages (money) to the target.

A person accused of libel may defend himself or herself by saying that the statement was true, that it was a fair comment (a genuine criticism, not a personal attack), or that he or she innocently reproduced the statement without knowing what it was.

Criminal law is a section of the law that determines which actions are crimes against the state. In criminal law, there are two approaches to cyberbullying: Harassment is a crime under the Criminal Codification.

Harassment is when something a person says or does makes someone fear for his or her safety, or for the safety of others. Even if the perpetrator did not intend to frighten someone, she or he can be charged with harassment if the target feels threatened. Criminal harassment is punishable in Zimbabwe.

Defamatory libel is a crime under the Criminal Codification. It is most often treated as a crime if the libelous statement is directed against a person in authority and could seriously harm his or her character and/or reputation.

Defamatory libel is punishable by up to five years in prison.

There is also a case were individuals have had their nude photos shared online without their permission and basically could not do anything about it. According to one study done in the United States, over 50% of all adults have engaged in sexting, and 70% admit to having received a nude photo online or over the phone. And yet, despite the fact that we all (or at least more than half of the adult population in the USA)do it, there is still this weird, persistent, harmful notion that if your naked pictures get leaked or shared maliciously by an ex online, it is your fault for taking them in the first place. I took the research from the US since I do not have any research findings in Zimbabwe.

As of September 2014, in the US, putting someone else’s illicit photos online without their consent was illegal but not only is it typically impossible to prosecute the perpetrator, they note, it’s impossible to legally compel websites to take the images taken down most of the time. Another search engine, Bing just unveiled a brand-new reporting system that allows victims to identify their images and request they be rendered unsearchable.

The reason why I am focusing on the US is because majority of websites that publish nude photos of Zimbabwe countrymen and women have the extension .com and are hosted in the US. This information will empower them to know their legal rights.

Engineer Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi

Chairman of the ICT Divison of Zimbabwe Institution Engineers (ZIE), Member of the Engineering Council of Zimbabwe (ECZ), Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Member of Institute of Directors (IOD)


Text #9775

Venning. A Chronology of the Roman Empire

Strife over tribunes Mecilius and Metilius’ unsuccessful bill to confiscate all land conquered from Rome’s enemies for general settlement by the people, which would include much land taken since it was annexed for aristocratic estates.


Action Research in Organisations

On Friday October 11, 2019, up to 30 researchers participated in an interactive and in-depth discussion on “Action Research in Organisations”, organised by EAPRIL’s Clouds 11, 13 and 14. More specifically, via a fishbowl set-up, the following aspects were of discussion.

  1. The objective: What are the goals and aims of action research in organisations? Goals that are oriented to knowledge, change, creating or learning?
  2. How: How is action research related to organisational learning? What is learnt via action research, and by who, when, and how?
  3. Methodological choices: Which opportunities and challenges occur when executing action research in organisations? How do in-depth research, practical relevance, and ethical considerations interrelate?

Furthermore, the following statement was intensively discussed: As action researcher you are always a change manager. It became clear that there are various perspectives to take into account when talking about the ‘action researcher’.

  1. When action research has primarily a knowledge-oriented aim, we notice that the action researcher relies on change management competencies to come to knowledge development.
  2. When action research has primarily a change-oriented aim, we notice that the action researcher uses research as an intervention.
  3. When action research has both a knowledge- and change-oriented aim, we notice that both roles of the action researcher become inseparable, i.e. researcher and change manager.

As a result, it may be concluded that, regardless of the goals and role of the research, the combination of research and change management asks for specific and high-level competencies of the researcher. Furthermore, competencies that allow him to deal with chaos are vital for action researchers.

It is clear that we are all learning and disentangling action research as such. While experiencing what it means to be an action researcher, the following statement may serve a fruitful further discussion.

“The combination of researching and changing asks for a personal maturity and leadership of the researchers. As a result, action research asks for a high level of research maturity.”

A more detailed reflection on the above statements and conclusions can be consulted in the (Dutch) blog by Ann Van der Auweraert

By Ann Van der Auweraert – Ann is a Researcher and Senior Advisor Research in Education, affiliated to the Learning and Innovation Center of Avans Hogeschool, the Netherlands.


Recipes for the Design of Experiments/Chapter 1: One Factor, Two Level Experiments

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1.1 One Factor, Two Level Experiments (Shamus W, Alexis Z)

In experimental design, the number of factors and levels dictate how effects are calculated and which statistical inference tests are used. A one factor two level experiment studies the effect of only one independent variable on the response of a dependent variable. Only two levels of the factor are studied in this experiment.

A main effect is the effect that the change in level of a factor has on the response. In a one factor, two level experiment, the main effect is the difference in the average of the response variable caused by the change of the factor from one level to the other level. An interaction effect is when the difference in response variable for one factor's levels is dependent on the levels of the other factor. In one factor experiments, there are no interaction effects.

Normal Distribution

To be able to make inferences about a population, samples of the population are taken. These samples should be randomly selected and randomly assigned to a treatment, and the experimental runs should also be randomized. It is also assumed that the data are from a normal distribution. A normal distribution is when the probability distribution of a sample can be defined by the equation in the figure on the right:

Equation for t-test statistic.

For one factor, two level experiments, a t-test is used to indicate whether the difference between the two sample response averages is due to a difference in the effect of the two levels, or randomization. T-tests are commonly used when sample size is small.  The formula for a t-Test test statistic is provided on the right:

To determine whether we can reject the null hypothesis the test statistic needs to be compared to the critical t-value. The degrees of freedom and significance level are used to calculate the critical value. The critical t-value and test statistic can both be plotted on a distribution of test statistics. On this distribution, the “upper tail” region of the curve is region under the curve that is greater than the critical t-value. For the Null Hypothesis, we assume the variance of each sample (μ) is equal, μ1 is equal to μ2. If the test statistic is lower than the critical t-value, we accept the null hypothesis.

1.2 Main Effects (Liang Z, Joonhyuk B)

In this section, we would like to discuss about the Main Effects in experimental design. Especially, when our treatments have a factorial structure, we could utilize a factorial analysis of the data. The main concepts of this factorial analysis are main effects and interactions. When we design an experiment to analyze the problems we meet, we cannot avoid thinking about the effect relationships. For example, when economists study the difference of average hourly earnings (AHE) among people, they need to consider whether it is their education level, gender, or other effects causing the difference. In pharmaceutical science, scientists need to consider whether a particular medicine works for people. Furthermore, in a tennis racket experiment discussed during the class, we could change all factors of string tension, racket mass, balance of racket, and hardness of ball at the same time in order to check power (main effects). However, we cannot guarantee research results without interaction effects between factors. we are not sure which combination of factors has the greatest power because the paper does not consider interaction effects between factors. In this chapter, we start from the beginning – One Factor, Two Level Experiments. We will see what main effects are and how we test them.

1.2.1. Concept of Main Effect

A Main Effect is the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable across the levels without considering other effects. In other words, Main effects are differences in means over levels of one factor collapsed over levels of the other factor. For example, the main effect of Method is simply the difference between the means of final exam score for the two levels of Method, ignoring or collapsing over experience. In One Factor, Two Level Experiments, we consider only one factor, and two levels. For instance, in AHE example above, if we want test whether studying in college has effect on AHE difference, we have one factor – College Degree, and two levels (Bachelor = 1, High School or Below =0). If we study latter chapters, we may also consider other factors such as gender, district difference, etc. We may not conclude them in this chapter.

1.2.2. Experiment Design

Right now, you may have a question. How can we design the experiment and get the result close to the truth? You may have note that other effects may bias our test result if we do not deal with them properly. Here, we can use complete randomized design (one-factor). In a completely randomized design, there is only on factor, and subjects are randomly assigned to treatments. Here we do not need to consider the effect of individual difference, and it is a one-way experimental treatment, such as the effect of fertilizer on wheat production, etc. We can use t-test if the factor has 2 levels, and F-test if the factor has 3 levels. This method will be discussed in detail in later section in this chapter. In our AHE example above, we may randomly pick people who go to the college and who does not, and then analyze their salary difference. In pharmaceutical science example, we may pick people and separate them into two groups randomly, one with medicine and another with placebo. For another example, let’s look at a research in which 10-year-olds and 17-year-olds are given IQ tests. These students will be selected completely at random, without regard to their actual test scores, to see if teacher expectations alone have an impact on student performance. We include age as another factor to see if teacher expectations have a different effect depending on the age of the student. This would be a 2 (teacher expectations: high or average) x 2 (age of student: 10 years or 17 years) factorial design.

1.3 Interaction Effects (Andreas V, Prasanna D)

Interaction describes the failure of one factor to generate the same influence on response at varying levels of another factor. This is a major issue with one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) approach. The interaction effect between factors can be either substantial or virtually non-existent, and it is important to determine which factors influence each other at varying levels of severity. Factorial experiments are designed to negate the interaction effects in a scientific experiment. An example of high interaction effect could be racket weight vs. power, and an example of a very weak or no interaction effect may be the type of hat worn by a golfer and the type of driver used.

Let us understand the significance of interaction effects and their computation by the means of an example. Let us say we have a group of 100 students which have been randomly divided into four groups of 25 students each as follows:

  • Group 1 studies during the day and gives a math test, obtaining a mean score of 13.
  • Group 2 studies during the day and gives a social science test, obtaining a mean score of 9.
  • Group 3 studies at night and gives a math test, obtaining a mean score of 9.
  • Group 4 studies at night and gives a social science test, obtaining a mean score of 11.

As can be seen here we have two factors: 'Study Time' and 'Subject'. 'Study Time' has two levels: 'Day' and 'Night', and 'Subject' has two levels: 'Math' and 'Social Science'. The mean effect for both 'Study Time' and 'Subject' is -1. The interaction effect can be computed as follows:

  1. Take the mean of (Night, Math) and (Day, Social Science), which is equal to 9.
  2. Take the mean of (Night, Social Science) and (Day, Math), which is equal to 12.
  3. Take the difference of (2) from (1), which is equal to 9 - 12 = -3.

Thus, in this example, the interaction effect is much greater than either of the two main effects.

1.4 Simple Two-way Comparative Experiments (Trilce E, Bjarke H)

Simple two-way comparative experiments evaluate the effects of two different treatments on subsets of a population. The subjects of the experiments are then grouped into pairs, based on some blocking variable. By assuming that the two groups are probabilistically equivalent, we can use random assignment to select the individuals or samples that receive the treatment within each pair. Consider the example of a study conducted by a Portland cement mortar[1]. The engineer in charge of the study has created two populations of 10 samples each, with one set of experiments receiving the treatment. In this case, he added a polymer latex emulsion to determine if this impacts the curing time and tension strength of the mortar.

The factor is the mortar formulation and the two levels are: "modified" and "unmodified". The observations are shown in the following box plot.

Link to box plot:

In order to evaluate the treatment effect, the statistical technique of hypothesis testing allows the comparison of two formulations to be made on objective terms. By using hypothesis testing, such as either t-test, one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), as well as confidence interval procedures, we can compare the two treatment means to determine whether the populations differ due to the effect of the treatment of due to random chance.

1.5 The t-test and the 1-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)(TC)

A t-test is an inferential statistic which is used to “draw conclusions about the properties of populations from related properties of the sample.” (Dunn, 10/16, Introduction to the Design of Experiments) The paired t-test is the gold standard procedure for testing null hypotheses. The formula for a one sample t-test can be found in the following link A t-test is generally utilized while determining if two datasets are significantly different from one another.

ANOVA, which stands for Analysis of Variance, is Fisher’s statistical method of analysis for factorial experiments. It takes into account all possible combinations of factors and levels, each in solitary experimental runs. ANOVA can be used to aid in the determination of main effects. One-way ANOVA is a specialized model for computing main effects of factors on response variables. In other words, “with ANOVA, an inference procedure is included to assess the likelihood that there is a model relationship between the factor(s) and response variable that is something other than randomization.” (Dunn, 10/16, Introduction to the Design of Experiments)

1.6 Sample Recipes

This is the collection of R recipes for the analysis of one factor, two level experiments. Each of these recipes are structured in the Setting, Design, Analysis paradigm and the Design portion is structured in four parts: Exploratory Analysis, Testing, Estimation and Model Adequacy Checking.

The Setting, Design, Analysis Paradigm

The Project Outline

  1. Exploratory Analysis
  2. Testing
  3. Estimation (of Parameters)
  4. Model Adequacy Checking

Sample Recipes

-> These data are a collection of various measures, including variables such as elevation, temperature (surface and air), ozone, air pressure, and cloud cover. For this section, a t-test was conducted to explore whether a statistically significant difference existed between the two temperature variables. The H0 was that no difference existed between the mean temperature values of both factors, whereas the HA was that a statistically significant difference existed between the two factors. Based on the results of the test, the H0 was rejected W.R.T. an alpha value of .05. However, after model adequacy checking was performed, the results were invalidated due to the fact that the t-test assumes normality, and the Shapiro-Wilks normality test confirmed that the data are not normal. Further steps to "coerce" the data to be normally distributed include performing data transformations, but this action has not yet been completed.

-> The following is an analysis of a data set which includes a collection of wind speed, barometric pressure, longitude, latitude and time points for a large number of storms recorded by NASA. In my analysis I decided to examine if there was a significant statistical difference in the wind speed and pressure readings between hurricanes and extratropical storms. This analysis was performed through the use of a t-test and a QQ plot as a check for model adequacy.

-> Using fuel economy data from the EPA collected from 1985-2015, a one-factor, two-level experiment is performed to see if the “make” of a vehicle has a statistically significant effect on the fuel economy of that vehicle. The two “makes” that are considered in this analysis include ‘Toyota’ and ‘Audi’. Additionally, this analysis separately considers two different metrics for measuring fuel economy, including both highway fuel economy [in mpg] (“hwy”) and city fuel economy [in mpg] (“cty”). Upon performing this analysis, it was determined that the fact that these two vehicles are classified by different “makes” likely does appear to have an effect on the average city fuel economy that is achieved when driving either “make” of vehicle. However, the fact that these two vehicles are classified by different “makes” does not appear to have an effect on the average highway fuel economy that is achieved when driving either “make” of vehicle. - Brendan Howell

-> The following analysis is conduced based on the EPA fuel economy data from 1985 to 2015. To explore the effect of vehicle engine power (number of cylinders) on fuel economy, a one factor (number of cylinders), two level (cyl = 4 and cyl = 6) experiment was carried out and a linear regression model is estimated to quantify the marginal effect. The result shows that the vehicle fuel economy decreases with the number of cylinders in the vehicle.

-> The html file below utilizes fuel economy data that has been collect by the EPA from 1985 to 2015. Specific data is analyzed to conduct a one-factor, two-level experiment to determine if the variation in the make of a vehicle is responsible for the variation in highway gas mileage. The factor, "make," is grouped into two levels, "Toyota" and "Honda," with a response variable of "hwy" (the highway mileage). An unpaired, two-sample t-test, with a null hypothesis that the highway mileage means of both vehicle makes are equal, will be conducted.

This analysis utilizes ‘nycflights13’ data set containing all information about flights that departed from NYC (JFK, EWR and LGA) in 2013. There are 336,776 flights in total. In order to study the underlying causes of flight delay an experiment was conducted which can be termed as ‘one factor- two level’ experiment. Here ‘time-delay’ is the factor and ‘departure time-delay’ and ‘arrival time-delay’ are two levels. We conduct a t-test to test the null hypothesis , ‘mean of the departure time delay is equal to the mean of the arrival time delay’. This is essentially to try and test whether there are other factors that contribute to the delay of an aircraft apart from the delay in its take-off time. For this purpose we take a sub-set of the data (only UA flights departing from JFK). Our t-test experiment leads to the rejection of the null hypothesis. However, our exploratory data analysis as well as diagnostic check leads us to the conclusion that the data is not normally distributed. Therefore the assumption based on which we conduct the t-test is flawed. This leads us to the conclusion that our t-test is not valid for our current data set.

The following analysis is based on the data set called 'nasaweather' collected from National Hurricane Center. It takes the classification of different types of storms and their respective air pressure measurement to perform a t-test. As you will see in the analysis, the results show that we reject the null hpothesis that the means of Tropical Storms does not equal the means of Hurricanes.

The following analysis investigates if electric/hybrid cars are actually more fuel efficient than cars with more traditional gasoline engines. This analysis looked at both highway and city driving where the data was derived from an EPA fuel economy dataset from 1985 to 2015. Individual analyses of highway and city driving were conducted in a one-factor, two-level manner using t-tests. Cars with electric/hybrid engines were determined to get significantly better gas mileage than cars with traditional gasoline engines on the highway as well as around the city.

->The following link utilizes the R data "storms" from the "nasaweather" package. "Storms" includes 4 observations a day for every storm named from 1995 to 2000. The storm name, year, month, day, hour, latitude, longitude, pressure, wind speed, and type of storm were recorded for each observation. This analysis will focus on only two of the observations a day (hour 0 and 12) and one factor, two level testing to examine if the variation in wind could be explained by the hour of each day. Exploritory data analysis, a t-test, and normality testing is performed. There is also a section at the end that covers contingencies if the assumptions are broken.

The following analysis is based on the 'nycflights13' dataset which contains information of flights from NYC, including JFK, EWR and LGA. Also plane information and weather condition are recorded in this dataset. It is known to all that several airlines are usually not on time, and this analysis is in order to test effect of airlines on time delay and help passengers choose the best one. We take test for Delta Airline as an example, considering it as a 'one factor - two level' model, where 'departure delay' and 'arrival delay' are two levels. To block possible cofounding factros we only select flights from JFK. T-test shows there is no relationship between two factors, however, following tests reveal that data is not normally distributed, therefore it is not correct to conduct t-test in this case. This analysis is the first version, it is still needed to be improved in the future.

-> The following is an experiment designed to investigate the relationship between year and storm wind speed from the 'nasaweather' dataset. The experiment will look into the normality of the data and also attempt to discover whether or not there is a significant difference between of the means via two-sample t-test.

->This experiment is testing to see if there are differences in the Mean Surface Temperature from Clear Sky Composite and Mean Near-Surface Air Temperature in the month of January. The Mean Surface Temperature from Clear Sky Composite is the monthly mean temperature based on the energy being emitted from the Earth’s surface under clear sky conditions in K. The Mean Near-Surface Air Temperature is the monthly mean temperature of the air near the surface of the Earth in K. -by Cheryl Tran

-> The following link is an experiment that utilizes flight data from NYC, in particular date of flight, departure and arrival times, departure and arrival times, departure and arrival locations and some information about the plane. The experiment looks to examine the effects of the origin on the departure delay time. The assumption being that the a flight's delay is due to the problems in the departure airport. The study firsts looks to explore the data with summary statistics, box plots and histograms. The data is analyzed using t-tests and the normality of the data is also checked using QQ plots and the Shapiro-Wilk test. Lastly it addresses possible contingencies in the experiment. -By Kevin Toth

-> The following analysis examined flight data from planes leaving from three of New York City's major airports. The data includes factors such as the date, the time of arrival/departure, the arrival/departure delays, the airline carrier, the origin and destination, along with multiple others. In particular, this experiment analyzed delays, and how they are related to the origin and departure city, along with the specific airline carrier responsible for the flights. A one factor, two level t-test was completed for two different airline carriers and two different origin locations. Unfortunately, after completing a Shapiro-Wilks test for normality, it was found that the data is nonparametric, and would therefore need additional testing using nonparametric methods.

-> The following analysis of a one factor two level experiment uses a t-test to test the difference in means of departure delays across two of NYC's airports.

  1. Montgomery, Design & Analysis of Experiment ECE, 8th Edition


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Critical essay examples

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There is a step for writing an essay about the leader, and it begins with structuring the introduction, writing the thesis statement, completing the body of the essay, and finally providing a conclusion for the written work. Discuss your career goals. Other logical structures The logical progression and organizational structure of an essay can take many forms.

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Influence of etching solvent evaporation on the size of micro-via holes in PVP thin films

Via holes are a necessary component in traditional PCBs and IC interconnections. Such structures will also be required in organic electronics to achieve vertical communication between multiple layers. Inkjet printing has demonstrated its applicability in both hole creation and for other pattern generation requirements in various polymeric layers. However, the technique has not been systematically investigated. This paper is focused on a study of the effect of solvent evaporation rate on the size of inkjet-etched via holes for organic electronics, which is part of a more extensive investigation and evaluation of inkjet etching as a via hole fabrication technique. In this work, holes were etched in thin layers of poly(4-vinyl phenol) (PVP), which is a potential dielectric material for organic electronic structures. Ethanol, isobutanol and ethylene glycol were used as the etchants in order to study the effect of solvent boiling point and vapour pressure on the size evolution of via holes with the total number and the frequency of the solvent drops used to dissolve them. Isobutanol and ethylene glycol have higher boiling points than ethanol, leading to slower evaporation, which is believed to allow the dissolved polymer to flow backwards to the central area before complete solvent evaporation, resulting in hole refill. However it will be shown that applying temperatures higher than room temperature can accelerate solvent evaporation and eliminate the refill issue.


Rolfer, Dancer, Teacher

Posts tagged ‘Lindy Hop’

Stepping Away from The Lindy Lab

What This Post Is and Isn’t

Creating a Space to Support the Dance

Teaching From a Radically Different Head Space

Lack of Return Students

Did Not Play Well With Other Instructors

Timing Suuuuucked

Deciding to Quit

Space to Grow

The Hopeful Aftermath

First On The Floor

Use the Buddy System

Have the Band Invite People to Dance

Get Them Chair Dancing First

Ultimately, Let Whatever Happens Happen

Dear friends and fellow dancers,

A little back story

RP’s place as we see it

The situation as it stands

We need your input

Jason & Laura

Engineering a Friendlier Dance Scene

Right Size Your Space

Ask Me To Dance Table

Have a Seat, Make a Friend Area

Let People Make it Their Own

Lessons From Building a Dance Studio

It’s been about 6 months since I wrote a post.  Some of that has come from being legitimately busy building a new dance studio for the Raleigh/Durham swing scene, and then a lot of it lately has been being nearly burned out from said studio construction.  So I felt it might be a good return to writing to say a few things about what I learned in the process of taking over a raw space and upgrading it to a fully realized dance space these last few months.  I’d have to say I learned a great deal from this process and there’s more than a few things I wish I had known (about the process and about myself) going into it.  So for anyone who may find this useful, here’s what I learned from building a dance studio:

It’s hard to please everyone on details, but a comprehensive vision will pay off

Paint SamplesWith any given project, at a certain point I had to stop asking for input.  Starting off with the ideal of making the studio a place to foster community, I had a desire to try and please everyone.  The problem came about when asking more than a few people for their opinions or ideas inevitably seemed to create an ever-widening field of possibilities and preferences.  I spent a lot of time in the first few months of design work worried about getting it “right”, which doesn’t work if you want to follow everyone’s first choice or suggestion.  Wall colors were a prime example of this, everyone had a different baseline suggestion, from orange to purple.  Ultimately I found it helped a great deal to focus the overall vision, things like “vintage feel, classy, energizing” to help make those decisions.  And while even I cringed at some of the detail decisions (the orange walls scared me on the first coat) making decisions with that vision in mind helped pull something together that so far most everyone seems to be happy with even if particular details may not have been their cup of tea (or mine).

Over-buy tools and materials, return the excess after

Many times I got halfway into a project and realized I hadn’t bought enough of something.  Whether it was a lack paint, or lumber, or tools for pulling staples. the resulting extra trips to the store were both a huge pain in the ass and cost me a lot in terms of time and motivation.  Having to take an extra hour in the middle of at least half the projects to make a second (or third or fourth) run to the hardware store started to feel brutal.  By the end, I was just buying probably double what I expected to use and returning the extra and it was so much nicer to be able to roll through a project and return the extra materials at my convenience.  If you aren’t absolutely sure you’ve got enough, I’d recommend just go ahead and buy a bit more.

Everyone will offer to help paint

I haz a brushDon’t get me wrong, I loved all the offers of help, but almost everyone’s first offer was to help paint.  This isn’t a critique so much as an observation.  I think most folks’ first instinct was to offer to help do something they know how to do and are comfortable with.  Asking people to step outside their comfort zone and help me lay tile or reset insulation or other skilled tasks tended to require me to spend a bit more time supervising and directing.  While it did take more time, I found myself enjoying teaching in some cases or making a team effort to figure out how to complete a project in others.  If you’re going to have help from a team of folks, it seems it’s good to figure out what tasks you need done and ask people specifically to help with them.  I got a lot more out of picking particular tasks to get done and throwing a workday or asking specific people to help me than I did from just generally asking for help.

Make work days into events

gal-officespace18-jpgProbably the most successful workday we had was a “Office Space” staple removing party.  I had purchased some old church pews from a local church with the plan of using them for bench seating in the new studio.  Unfortunately, they were upholstered and I wildly underestimated how much effort it would take to fully de-upholster 10 church pews.  That said, getting a bunch of staple removers and offering to show “Office Space” on a big projector screen while we worked produced probably the best attended workday of the whole construction period.  Anything you can do to make it interesting and engaging for people to help is a big bonus.

I dig on intensity, but…

In the course of doing this, I not only was spending the vast majority of my free time on the studio but also experience my busiest two months ever as a Rolfer®.  This meant I was typically spending 10-16 hours a day for those two months working on the studio or on clients.  Looking back, and still recovering on sleep and energy now, I would say I pretty much trashed myself in the process of doing this and while I was aware I was tired, my awareness barely scratched the surface of just how badly I was in sleep (and other necessities) debt.  But something about it at the same time felt so right.  The intensity of it was like a high and between that and a sort of mania to finish the studio so I could rest, I basically took this triumphant 8-year dream and made it such a draining thing that when it was over, I fell apart instead of being able to enjoy it.

I don’t want to be Luke Skywalker

It wasn’t until about 2 months after finishing the major construction that I ran across this TED talk on popular kid’s media and how it affects our view of gender roles.  I’ve watched this several times now and the subsequent viewings have really driven it home where I feel like I went wrong in this process.

I set out with every intention of being Dorothy.  I was even resistant to thinking of the studio as “mine” because I wanted the community to feel invested in it, I wanted people to have input, etc.  I can’t quite pinpoint when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I lost that sense and started treating it like My Quest rather than an adventure with friends.

After several months of this, I came out the other end of the projects and realized I had alienated myself not just from the scene in general (had barely danced for 2 months) but also from the people who had been willing to work closest with me.  I had gone into the studio idea hoping to seriously foster community and feel closer to the people and the dance I love.  Instead I created a situation where I felt I had pushed myself further away both from the experience I wanted and the people I most cared about.

Were I to do this over again, this is one of the big pieces I would change about how I worked at it.  I wanted this to be a project suffused with love, and it may have been for a few people, but for myself, I lost that sense.  I don’t know how much to blame ego or exhaustion or trouble with expressing gratitude or whatever else.  But when the wheels came off and I felt buried in the work, I wish I had been more cognizant to know I have people there who wanted to support me and that it would have been ok to just back the fuck off and complete the studio at a more reasonable pace and do it together rather than smashing myself and feeling alone.

Even when it’s over, it’s not over

So it’s about 4 months later now and I’m finally getting to where I feel mostly recovered from the ordeal that I made out of the studio.  Even these past few weeks I have still had a few days where I’ve ended up sleeping 16-18 hours in 24 and it amazes me to see how much strain my body took on.  But for all the rough patches I created for myself, I’m starting to feel really good about it again.

It’s taking a good deal of work and introspection but some of the friendships are getting patched up.  After feeling like I pushed myself into isolation, I’m re-examining some of the things that lead me to that and finding new ways (to me at least) to connect with people.  Not all of the friendships are as patched up as I would like them to be, but some have even gotten deeper as I’ve made amends.

The studio continues to be a project, and probably will be even after the last project is done.  It’s a constantly evolving process and that’s one of the things I loved about the idea starting out.  On the plus side, I’m being a lot more mindful of managing my time and expectations, handling goals in reasonable amounts of time and letting them slide when they don’t make sense for whatever reason (like being scheduled on a day when I ended up sleeping 16 hours).  It’s made the projects a lot more enjoyable to complete and the ones that I’m still getting help from friends on are a lot more enjoyable and a lot more connected when I leave room for joking and chatting along with the work.

There are a lot of things I could have done better in working on the studio, but even having mucked up a portion of it, the space is beginning to thrive and the energy of the dances continues to improve.  And even as beat up as I’ve been this year, I’m starting to find more reasons to smile about the whole thing and more plans to keep making myself and studio awesomer.  For now, I’d like to end 2013 with a quote that someone recently put on the wall at my office, “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”

Following as Active Choice: An Experiment in Wording

A few years ago at The Experiment I had a conversation with a follow who said that while she felt like an equal partner in her marriage, she did not feel like an equal partner in dancing.  My experience dancing with a significant number of follows is that they view the dance as if their part is somehow less important or requires less attention than leading does.  While I have been aware of this issue for years, it has recently occurred to me that some of this attitude could result from the passive language that is often used in teaching follows, especially at early stages.

Over the last few months I have been working intently to  rewrite my teaching language to clearly present following as a role with equal importance in the dance.  I have found that a few key wording changes have produced very different results in the way student followers dance, at least in the short time that I have been experimenting with this.  While I’m aware that these results are by no means a clear indicator of long-term success, given the current national online conversation about gender relations in the swing scene, it seems beneficial to share what I have found so far.  Given the current experimental phase, I figured I would write this up like a high school chemistry experiment rather than a lecture.

I’d also like to give a quick thanks to everyone who has helped me work through how to talk about this, and to all the leads and follows who’ve given me feedback to help me refine ideas to this stage.

Examining Effects of Active Choice In Following

Following in dance is often presented to beginners as a purely reactive role.  Analogies for following often involve passive objects on frictionless surfaces, and follows are told to “wait for the lead.”  More attention is given to leads in most classes and follows often receive praise for doing things as expected rather than for following what was actually lead.  After months or years of working to become a “good follow,” follows may suddenly be thrown the idea that they should start adding creatively to the dance, which can seem counter to the skills they have spent their early dance career developing.  It can be a treacherous cocktail of mixed messages about doing what you’re told while being creative and matching the lead, yet also being yourself.

But what happens if we teach following as a “choice” rather than a “should”?  Instead of presenting following as doing what the lead says, what if we present it as listening for the lead as a suggestion or invitation and choosing how to respond?  By altering language and presenting the role as equally capable of influencing the dynamic of the partnership (rather than exclusively reacting to the movements and signals of the lead) we hope to see a rise in confidence of the follows as well as a greater sense of “team” in dance couples.

In teaching private lessons, both experienced and new follows were presented with the idea that following is a choice.  Of particular note is one follower with several years experience who, while commanding in her daily life, has always seemed to lack confidence in her dancing.  This student was asked to think of following as a matter of interpreting the lead and choosing to execute her interpretation as explicitly as she wanted (i.e., purely following), rather than thinking of following as doing it “right” or “wrong.”

In group classes, focus was placed on the follow’s ability to control their own side of the connection (i.e., their own arm) and their ability to suggest ideas in connection or pulse simply by altering their own movements.  Time was spent asking the leads to dance with no pulse or off time and for follows to exhibit strong pulse and rhythm to influence the lead into matching, bringing the couple on beat together.  Followers were presented with the idea of being able to use stretch in frame to generate energy for their own movement, and both lead and follows were taught that they could stretch their own frame individually and as a means of communication to their partner.

Test wordings and exercises were used over approximately 20 follows in 3 months of classes.

In response to this style of teaching, follows have generally been very appreciative of the use of active wording.  They have also advanced faster and appear to be actively engaged in trying to understand how to follow movements rather than asking “what am I supposed to do?”

Follows have exhibited greater flow of motion and more willingness to put their own energy into movement, plus greater trust of support from the lead.  Multiple follows are also exhibiting spontaneous creativity in following and footwork within the first few months of learning to dance.

Dancesplaining has been nearly non-existent in the classroom setting during this experiment.  There has been more positive partner interaction in rotation, such as discussing how to make a move work rather than assigning blame if it doesn’t.

The most dramatic result occurred with a private-lesson student.  Immediately after introducing the idea of interpretation and choice, the follow’s movements became significantly more confident (or actually read as confident for first time that we ever observed); movements became fluid, and she began to smile and have fun.

Presenting following as an active interpretation and choice to respond appears to help follows feel more confident in their dancing and less nervous about doing it “right.”  They also appear more comfortable with the idea of shared responsibility for creative aspects of the dance.  Preliminary results seem to indicate that they are also more interested in continuing to learn and improve than in past classes which used more passive wording.

This style of wording also appears to reduce pressure on the leads by giving them time to integrate their own material while follows work on new material, and by presenting the dance as a shared creation rather than content purely dependent on the lead.  Leads are also able to focus attention in different places when follows are empowered to share responsibility for concepts like pulse and rhythm.

Overall, dances in this experimental mode have exhibited more teamwork and less “2 people holding hands and dancing around each other.”  Both roles seem more excited, less fearful of each other, and less worried about judgement.  Students appear to be approaching the dance and learning as a team rather than as isolated individuals.

While it remains to be seen how this will affect dancing in the longer term, preliminary findings show a great deal of promise.  Feedback from each side has been positive, both in terms of how students feel about the dance and how they feel about the instruction.

In Defense of the Rotator Cuff

This post is being written at the request of a lovely Aussie follower who has suffered multiple rotator cuff tears in the course of her dance life. While not all dancers suffer from rotator tears, it’s a fair bet that almost every dance will run afoul of their shoulders at some point. The following ideas should help you minimize your chances of injury in those moments of potential crisis. Note that while I will give some specific lead or follow examples, all of these should hold mechanically true for both leading and following.

A quick note before anyone jumps up to tell me that their instructor told them to do it differently, I’m speaking here from a biomechanical and injury-proofing standpoint, not an aesthetic or stylistic standpoint. I personally find that solid body mechanics tends to translate to great aesthetics for me, and I try to base my dancing first and foremost on things that I think will allow me to keep dancing for the rest of my life. These are the best safe & effectively connecting body mechanics that I have come up with in 11 years and if I develop or encounter a better idea, I’ll definitely post about it.

Anatomy Time!

rotator cuffThe rotator cuff is the group of muscles connecting the top of the upper arm bone (humerus) to the shoulder blade (scapula).  The reason these are important is that the shoulder blade is a relatively mobile and therefore unstable joint. The surface of the shoulder joint (glenoid fossa) is essentially a very shallow bowl that has been overfilled with the head of the humerus. This makes the joint very mobile, but also vulnerable to sliding around or out of the socket (one of the reasons shoulder dislocations are far more common than, say, hip dislocations). The muscles of the rotator cuff are all oriented closely around the joint to rotate the humerus in the joint, provide stability, and protect against injuries like dislocations.

Dancing Based on Natural Angle

Based partly on the rigors of modern life, most of us have become habituated to some less-than-natural positions for our arms. The arms-straight-ahead position that most of us spend a lot of time in (driving, typing, etc.) rolls the shoulder in a way that compresses the front of the joint and, over time, tends to make the shoulders stick forward even when our arms are at our side. Many people, either by instruction or habit from daily life, learn to dance with their arms straight in front of them, reinforcing this compression, and putting the shoulder in an unstable position to deal with strong pushes or pulls. I feel that opening the shoulder up to a neutral and balanced position makes it both more stable and far more functional at handling the demands of swing dancing.

To reacquaint yourself with this position, first hold your arms up around belly button height then slowly move them from reaching straight ahead to straight out to the side. As you swing through this range, you should notice that the level of tension in the shoulder lessens as you move towards the middle of the arc, hits a point of minimal tension, and then the tension starts to increase as you continue towards the end of the arc. You should also notice the position of tensions shift as you pass to either side of that middle point. This point of minimal tension is what I refer to in classes as the natural angle of the shoulder. It is the angle at which the rotator cuff is most relaxed and therefore most able to react to various forces. The exact angle varies from person to person but typically falls somewhere between 30-60 degrees from straight out front and places the hands in a position wider than the shoulders.

When I’m dancing, part of protecting my shoulder is that I consider this angle to be home base for how I orient to my partner. I remember as a newbie being taught things like spotlighting or to “square off” to my partner and it always felt a bit forced. I have found orienting myself to my partner based on the natural angle of my shoulder to be far more connected and comfortable and consequently safer for my shoulder. My hand and arm move to follow or lead my partner and I adjust the angle of my body to keep my shoulder in an open, relaxed and ready position. It can be counter-intuitive to the way many of us orient to our hands, but once you get used to it, it should make a lot of sense for your body.

Chest Up, Shoulders Down

The other typical position that can compromise the rotator cuff is the overhead lift of leading and following turns. Many dancers don’t just bring the hand and forearm up when they turn, they also raise the shoulder blade. Lifting the shoulder blade off the ribs puts the shoulder in a vulnerable position by disconnecting it from the support of the ribs. Without the support of the ribs, it becomes much easier for a pull at the wrong time to bend the shoulder into an angle that will injure it. I have found the next two concepts to be exceptionally helpful in keeping the shoulder in a safe position during spins and turns.

Paint the Fence (aka NO ROTATION)

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????A common stressor that many dancers put on their shoulder is trying to rotate it out as they lift. While I realize it is a fairly common cue, I find the “checking your watch” method of leading turns does not make kinesthetic sense to me. Rotating the arm to look at your wrist forces the elbow above the shoulder blade which then pulls the shoulder up with it. The more the elbow flairs away from the body, the more the shoulder separates from the ribs, reducing both stability and connection.

A far more effective method of raising the arm comes in an approximation of Mr. Miyagi’s paint the fence exercise from The Karate Kid (the original, not the remake). Keeping with the natural angle of the shoulder, the motion of the arm is basically just “Uuuup…, Dooown…” and the torso moves to create the turn.

Unlike Daniel-san, for dance purposes you’ll want to let your elbow be loose, relaxed, and weighted so that it stays low as your arm comes up. But notice in the motion of the movie that this is a whole body motion. You can see the muscles of the chest flex and relax with the motion and you should be able to feel them activating. If you try to same “look at your watch” motion, and feel your pecs, you’ll notice they have almost no activation. Keeping the arm rising and falling and making adjustments with the torso rather than the shoulder rotation will put you in a much safer position and typically keep you more connected to your partner (which also helps you be safer). By maintaining the connection of the arm to the torso, you can also effectively lead turns by initiating small rotations from the chest and spine rather than large motions from the arm.

Scapula as Counterweight (or Turns and Trebuchets)

The other issue I often see putting shoulders in harm’s way is the tendency to think that everything needs to go up. People become so focused on their hand that they forget there is a wrist, elbow, shoulder, and ultimately, spine attached to that hand. So if your only awareness is the hand needs to go up, everything else in that chain tends to go with it. Again, the shoulder rises and you are suddenly in the vulnerable position of having your hand above your head with only your rotator cuff actively holding the shoulder in the socket.

trebuchetWhat has served me best is to bring an awareness of my shoulder blade and to think of it as a counterweight to the arm, similar to but not quite as unbalanced as the counterweighting found in a trebuchet. When I want my arm to rise, I don’t think about taking my hand up, but rather, I think about initiating by allowing the scapula to slide down (inferior) my back and away from my head. This serves to stabilize the shoulder in several ways. One, it insures that my arm does not come up without my scapula being solidly in touch with my ribs and it additionally eases some of the effort of lifting my arm, meaning my hand goes up with less muscular effort and I have more freedom to adjust in case of emergency. One of the easiest ways to experience this is to stand with your back against the wall and try both lifting your shoulder blade as your arm rises or letting it slide downward as your arm rises. With the downward slide, you should feel more of the engagement in your chest and back and your arm should feel much lighter and floaty than when you lift the shoulder blade with it.

incline_pulleyThe counterweight idea is not only useful for turns, but can also be applied to protecting the shoulder from collapsing forward when stretching out in swingouts, tossouts, rocksteps, etc. In a stretch where the arm is not going to come up above shoulder level, think of the shoulder blade as a counterweight to the front of the chest and allow the chest to rise and open as the shoulder blade descends. In the inclined pulley illustration, think of M as the shoulder blade and m as the arm. So long as M is weighty enough, it will resist being pulled up and over the top by m. But if the force of m wins out, then the shoulder blade (M) will be pulled up over the top of the pulley and it will all tumble down the slope. By letting your shoulder blade remain weighty when stretching (at a natural angle) it will prevent a lot of potential strains and sprains that can occur from collapsing and hyper-extending the shoulder.

Keep it Personal

There is no one right way to do this. There is a great deal more variability in human anatomy that a typical textbook will not show and as such, there is a great deal of variability in function as well. The safest angle for one dancer may feel very unstable for another and so on. The more you can create ease in your body, the more ready your muscles will be to keep itself in safe and comfortable positioning. Similar to the non-Newtonian frame concept, the more you are in a fluid, rather than rigid, state to start, the more readily you will be able to react both to potential threats and to communications from your partner. In addition, the safer your body position feels, the more it will free up your attention to try more awesome things. Use the above as suggestions to play with your own angles and ways of conceiving of motion and use whether it feels more tense or less tense as the metric for more vulnerable or less vulnerable.

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To Soak or not to Soak

Aug 2, 2018
To Soak or not to Soak

Infamous for being the ‘The musical fruit – the more you eat, the more you toot’ pulses have a reputation for increasing bloating and gas. But by soaking and rinsing legumes before they’re cooked, these effects can be greatly reduced, plus it will also cut your cooking times in half.

Surveys show that only 35 per cent of Australians eat pulses regularly, despiterecommendations we should be eating at least 2 - 3serves per week. One reason for the lowintake is that many people avoid pulses in fear of experiencing an increase in gas andflatulence. But this isnt necessarily the case. Michelle Broom, Accredited Practicing Dieticianand Nutrition Program Manager of the Grain & Legumes Nutrition Council explains:
Legumes contain galactooligosaccharides(GOS), a specific type of fibre that is actually verygood for you. Its a natural prebiotic because it feeds the healthy bacteria within your gut. Insome people this type of fibre can cause gas and flatulence, but studies show that after about 4weeks of eating legumes, gas and flatulence dissipates and reduces to the point that mostpeople no longer noticed it.

Soaking pulses before cooking can also reduce these gassy effects because when pulses aresoaked in water the indigestible complex sugars ( galactooligosaccharides) are broken down,making them easier to digest.

1. Wash pulses thoroughly in a colander under running water.
2. Soak according to diagram below.
3. Drain, discard water, and rinse again.
4. Place pulses in a pot with plenty of fresh water (around 5-8cm above the pulses) andcook until tender (see diagram).
5. NOTE: Do not add salt to the cooking water as the beans will become tough and wontcook. Salt can be added once cooked.

Soaking Guide

If you have no time to soak your pulses you can also use the quick method.

Buy Australian grown pulses now:

Burrum Biodynamics
Wits End Pulses


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Perdue veterinarian seeks answers to inconsistent foodborne pathogen load

In a study of 150 farms over the course of 2 years, Perdue found that for Salmonella, some farms rarely had any, some had a lot and others were in the middle with inconsistent patterns. The company noted similar trends with Campylobacter.

by 5m Editor
31 October 2019, at 3:00pm

Taking a closer look at why incidence of Salmonella and Campylobacter varied widely on farms in the same production system helped to demonstrate the importance of management and communication with growers, Bruce Stewart-Brown, DVM, senior vice president, food safety, quality and live production, Perdue Farms, told Poultry Health Today.

“These are [birds from] the same breeder flocks [and] the same breeds, the same feed, coming from the same hatchery, yet they turn out differently” when analyzed for foodborne pathogen trends. “So, there’s something about the farm that’s significant,” Stewart-Brown said.

Fusing NAE, food safety

Perdue, which has been at the forefront of “no antibiotics ever” (NAE) production, has found that managing the flock environment is critical for reducing levels of all bacteria, including Salmonella and Campylobacter.

Houses need to have dry litter with good air quality, Stewart-Brown said. Chickens also need ample space to minimize the buildup of pathogens in the litter.

Good paw quality is especially important, he continued, because it correlates with dry litter and the presence of foodborne pathogens. “Bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter are inhibited or reduced in really dry-litter flocks.”

Still, there are differences in the presence of these bacterial organisms. A house with a low prevalence of Salmonella, for instance, doesn’t necessarily have a low prevalence of Campylobacter, Stewart-Brown noted. Likewise, some live-side interventions are effective against both pathogens but not always. One similarity is that both pathogens dislike dry litter. The same holds true for Escherichia coli.

Perdue has also found that smaller farms tend to have less bacteria, but Stewart-Brown thinks that has more to do with fewer personnel. “It probably wasn’t the size of the farm as much as the number of people working within the context of the number of chickens.” Some big farms are very well-managed and would be in the low range for Salmonella, but it depends on how many people help them and how well their workers are trained.

Scores farms

Stewart-Brown thinks a farm’s bacterial load is directly related to biosecurity and the level of farm management. He said contract farmers need to understand how they can make a difference in flock health and food safety. Toward that end, Perdue created a biosecurity risk-assessment score, which involves posting a number on the barn wall. “And that risk has to do with food-safety organisms as well,” the veterinarian continued.

“One of the things we found is that whenever you give a farmer a score, now you have a little bit of their attention,” Stewart-Brown said. If their number is high, the farmer won’t like having a bad score and will want to know what made the score high. Conversely, farmers with a low score are told, “That’s fantastic…you’re doing a great job.”

These discussions can be part of the conversation about usual production metrics like feed conversion and livability, as well as food safety. Providing growers with feedback about how they’re doing and communicating about what makes a difference is key, he advised.

‘Be simple and clear’

“Be very simple and clear with it. Don’t get too complicated too fast. ‘Look - here’s what I think of your farm as it relates to food safety. Here’s why, and here’s how it could better,’” he said. Then list two or three steps they can take and show them via feedback over time that they’re making a difference. “That’s really a powerful thing.”

To bring live production and processing together toward the common goal of pathogen reduction, leadership from the highest level of the company is necessary, he said.

“We’re looking at this holistically” and use a multi-faceted approach. At the plant, there are multiple interventions aimed at bringing down the prevalence of bacteria. Each is measured and is expected to show a log reduction from beginning to end of that intervention. The same approach is used before processing, Stewart-Brown said, but acknowledged it’s harder to find log reductions on the live side of production.


Writing a narrative for a grant proposal

Also known as a budget detail, budget description, or budget justification, the budget narrative explains what the numbers in the budget table or spreadsheet represent and how you arrived at them. Along with the budget, the budget narrative tells a funder exactly how a nonprofit will spend its investment, item by item. You did your research and that your project costs are reasonable and well thought out. The sooner you start it, the better, is our advice to clients.

Writing a narrative for a grant proposal

The obvious thing is that you will be given a lot of paper writing tasks when you are in college. Another good thing is that you can seek for paper writers to help you write them.

Grant Proposal Writing Classes, Nonprofit & Government Training Programs

An essay tests your level of knowledge. Essays also test your ability to understand a question and give an appropriate response. These papers are meant to test your ability to absorb information from different sources, condense, and make sense out of them.

Papers are also meant to test your argumentative prowess, your English language skills and your time management skills. Whenever you order a paper from us, our online essay writers will work to ensure that we showcase all these skills.

This goes to say that our paper writers will give you materials that will gain an A grade when you buy an essay online. Want to make your first order? Look at the content of the paper.

There are some things that make for a perfect paper, and you must aim to get one that fulfills them from paper writers whenever you buy essays online. You can get a derivative paper that is good, but the only excellent essay is the one that is original.

You can offer even old ideas from an entirely new perspective. That is what we do for you when you order or buy an essay from our online paper writing company. Our core paper writing principles All our papers also come with intelligent debates in a structure that is completely clear.

Preliminary Proposal: In order for a proposal to be considered for funding, a Preliminary Proposal must be submitted via email (Word document or PDF) to the Grants Director, [email protected], at least four weeks in advance of the application deadline.

Sample Grant Proposal: Low-Income Wind Energy Project 6 Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community Consideration As noted above, Washington has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation. In these grant writing classes, you'll learn how to read federal grant application guidelines; determine what is required for a highly competitive written response; conduct statement of needs research, incorporate best practices in your program design, and complete the narrative and budget sections of a federal grant application.

writing a narrative for a grant proposal

Hilsden, MD MSc FRCPC Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences. Training. GPA Approved Trainers can better prepare you to seek and attain grant funds--whether you are a start-up or a well-established organization.

How to Write a Grant Proposal | Nonprofit Grant Writing