20. Pressing user keys in a program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can effectively 'press' a red key on exit from a program, by inserting the right code into the keyboard buffer. In this example, 128 corresponds to key , 129 would be etc.. The key is code 138, and note that this method does not actually cause a Break; this would require the key to be physically pressed by hand. 10 *KEY0 LIST|M 20 *FX138,0,128 30 PRINT"Here is a Listing..." 40 END


September 24, 2017
Financial Quotes
" I don't like money, actually, but it quiets my nerves. "

Joe Louis

Exchange Rate
The Canadian Dollar - CAD is the official currency of Canada.The Canadian Dollar - CAD exchage rates provided below are for information only. The currency exchange rates database is updated every hour from trusted sources. The following table provides Canadian Dollar - CAD to other currencies exchange rates.

Canadian Dollar - CAD exchange rates currencies from Europe for today

Sunday, September 24 2017
The Canadian Dollar - CAD uses the following currency graphic symbol (currency sign) :
The exchange rate of two currencies is the rated at which the currencies are exchanged. The term is also known as FX, forex rate or foreign exchange rate. The exchange rates of most currencies various from bank to bank but the main currency is set by each country national bank. The currency pair is the the quotation of the relative value of a currency unit against the unit of another currency in the foreign exchange market. For example if CAD/USD is 0.982 this means that 1 CAD = 0.982 USD. The inverse follows the same pattersn, if USD/CAD is 1.018 it means that 1 USD = 1.018 CAD.
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Task force takes on plight of city’s homeless

For many communities nationwide, homelessness can take on different forms. Whether individuals or families become evicted and lose a job or get addicted to drugs and alcohol, homelessness can happen under a number of circumstances.
In Bristol, the picture of homelessness has not yet been painted completely. Furthermore, the question of how to help those without a home has not been answered completely either. That’s why the United Way of West Central Connecticut recently joined a number of local organizations, civic groups, city staff, and other individuals to study the issue of homelessness further in Bristol.
From representatives of Bristol Community Organization  and Bristol Youth Services to St. Vincent DePaul to Bristol Housing Authority, many individuals in the city form the Ending Homelessness Task Group, working together to address a problem that cannot be solved on its own.
Many of the organizations involved in the group have either worked with homeless clients or systems that involve homelessness. Other members also offer knowledge and facilitation skills, including United Way and the Main Street Community Foundation
Donna Osuch, president and CPO of United Way of West Central Connecticut, said the long-term goal is to develop a ten-year plan to end homelessness, which could potentially bring in federal funds to help tackle the issue.
“The two goals of the committee right now are to better understand who is homeless and why people are homeless right now…and to create a plan for some of the urgent needs of people, especially heading into this winter,” said Osuch, adding the task group is concerned about homeless individuals having a safe and warm place during the winter.
Osuch said she hopes homelessness is a temporary state for people, and is not necessarily their fault, as many factors can cause the issue, such as the loss of a job or a fire.
“It’s a complex issue, a complex problem,” said Osuch, adding that stereotypes of homelessness still exist in the community. “Nobody…wants to be homeless—they want the same American dream everyone else wants, but something got in the way of that, usually it’s totally out of their control.”
Eileen McNulty, director of Youth & Community Services who also serves on the Task Group, said many families were displaced for a number of different reasons. She said the different needs people have are very complex.
“In order to ask for the resources, we need to know what the need is,” said McNulty, adding how other communities like Torrington have studied the issue of homelessness.
Osuch said the task group formed after months ago when the Youth and Community Services Office saw an increase in the number of people who were either homeless or being displaced by evictions, fires, or condemnations. Feeling overwhelmed by the case load it was handling at the time, the office sought help.
The Task Group further formed as a subcommittee under the Bristol Sub-Continuum of Care, which serves under the larger umbrella of the larger Continuum of Care, a structure that brings community agencies and organizations together that serve homeless people and to develop the services needed to end homeless, said Phillip Lysiak, executive director of St. Vincent DePaul Mission of Bristol, Inc.
Osuch said the task group formed to assess who really is homeless in the community, and the current status of homelessness in Bristol.
“We weren’t having in-depth dialogue on what [the crisis] meant and to address it, what we could do differently,” said Osuch. “We suggested that a subcommittee form of the Continuum of Care to…address the immediate crisis, especially for this winter.”
McNulty said different categories of homelessness exist, such as chronic, imminent, and literal.
“There are people who all of a sudden become literally homeless, and then there are people who are imminently homeless [who may have] gotten notice to quit or they already had to leave their apartment, but doubled up with a friend who took them in, but they can’t stay with that friend,” said McNulty, adding that these individuals may face barriers that make it difficult to receive housing, such as criminal records and substance abuse.
Currently, the task group is collecting data through a “homelessness survey form” to gain a better sense of who is homeless in Bristol and what homelessness looks like. Over the past 30 days or so, different organizations have gathered the data and completed the survey, which looks for information regarding the homelessness status, duration/frequency of homelessness, and the cause of homelessness to name a few.
During a recent meeting held last Tuesday, the task group reviewed a pool of data that served as a “preliminary count” of homeless people on the street (not living in transitional shelters).
About five agencies have collected data from the end of September to the end of October. For instance, Bristol Youth and Community Services reported 55 homeless clients served during that time frame. McNulty said nine of 55 clients were children, and the Bristol Board of Education logged 23 children. Many of the clients counted in the data also used other agencies, said McNulty. In total, 135 homeless individuals (among five agencies) have been counted in Bristol for one month. For the Task Group, the data serves as a “snapshot” of what homelessness looks like in Bristol to date, as these numbers are subject to change. The task group plans to continue collecting more data from other local organizations, such as Wheeler Clinic.
After meeting with people who were homeless, Rose Bourgoin, who formerly worked at BCO, said the community still has many misconceptions of homelessness, which most people find to be an issue that does not really exist.
Bourgoin added that many of the homeless people are living outside because of illness, and mental health or substance abuse issues.
“There’s a need for the city of Bristol to really step up [to help these individuals] get permanent housing,” said Bourgoin, adding how ‘mind-boggling’ it feels to see the way these individuals are living. “When I started the survey, I already knew there was a tremendous amount of homeless people living in the city, not housed…and especially in the spring time and summer time, living outside in a tent or in the woods.”
McNulty said the data also includes people who were “literally homeless” living on the street or in the woods, as well as those were “imminently homeless,” doubled up or in a shelter.
“For the people who were literally homeless, we heard about encampments and tents—they do exist,” said McNulty, adding that those individuals living in tents are now starting to disperse by doubling up with other people or finding a home.
“People who have chronic substance abuse—it makes it difficult for them to choose between wanting to be in a house and maintaining a job [and] their addiction,” said McNulty.UWWCCT logo new jpg web ready


A new theory of a living cell

Scientists from the University Bill Martna Dusseldorf and Neil Lane of University College London, offered an interesting theory of living cells with a variety of bio-energy properties. In their view, the emergence of life is a by-product of the reaction energy development.

The first proto needed a huge amount of energy for metabolism and replication because the enzymes that catalyze this specific reaction, appeared later. Chances are, most of the energy not used protocell and simply dissipated.

In the course of his research, Bill Martin and Nick Lane tried to figure out how protocells able to use the energy to sustain their lives. They also considered the question of where this energy came from and why it is accumulated by living cells. As explained scientists biochemical processes take place in cells closed "compartments." The presence of the membrane is one of the key factors that enabled protocells in the course of evolution to become a full-fledged living cells.

Living cells are stored in the received power at its respiratory membranes in the form of ion gradients. This fact also is peculiar to them, as the genetic code. During his studies Lane and Martin showed that the carbon and energy metabolism of the bacteria growing on carbon dioxide and hydrogen are very similar to the chemistry of processes which occur in deep-sea thermal vents.

Realized measuring researchers proved that the natural proton gradient, through the thin wall of the sulfur and iron, can provide the assimilation of organic carbon. The result could be formed proto initially deprived of their own skins and living in the stone cells. Minerals, according to scientists, acted as a catalyst for the ancient metabolism. After a while, got his own proto-membrane and left the stone shelter.

Thus, scientists have for the first time were able to trace the entire path leading from the rocks, carbon dioxide and water in the formation of today’s living cells.

Scientists are trying to recognize the language of bats
Nimble caterpillars mimic each other to escape from predators
Recipe of special glue scientists suggested porcupines
Top botanical discoveries of 2010
The spread of fungal diseases among frogs worries scientists


Try taking swings from the opposite side to improve your game. If you are a lefty address the ball from the opposite side for a while. You should have a better swing when you return to your usual stance.

Stand so that your left hand is in front of the ball when preparing to putt. Attempt to maintain the position for the duration of your swing. This will minimize the chance the ball will skip off the face of your club at impact, and makes it easier to maintain control of your stroke.

To be the best golfer you can be, it is important to master your putting technique. You must make sure to swing the club so that it doesn’t hit the ball unevenly. If your swing is off by even just a tiny bit, your ball isn’t going to end up in the desired place.

If you miss a shot, remember not to beat yourself up about it! Not only is it important to be a good sport, but becoming angered could also jeopardize your level of focus. Golf is supposed to be a relaxing game, after all, so try not to develop an overly competitive mindset.

A helpful tip when it comes to golf is to know the names for each type of score per hole. This way you will know what you are talking about when playing and talking about golf. A score of 1 under par is a birdie, and 2 under is an eagle. Each score over par is considered a bogey.

When holding your club, utilize a neutral grip. If the golf club is gripped too tightly, shots will generally veer to the right. On the other hand, holding your golf club with a grip that is too loose will tend to send your ball towards the left. By watching the way your shots go, you can start to fix your grip.

When you are golfing and you find yourself stuck in a sand trap, make sure that you hit the ball with the same force that you would use to throw a handful of sand out onto the green from wherever you are positioned. This will ensure you will get out!

Are you having trouble slicing the ball away from you? Did the ball leave you in the shape of a banana? This is easy to fix with a few simple steps. Close your club face. Twist the club in your hands until the top of the club points slightly down to the ground.

When golfing align your body properly in the initial set-up position to ensure a smooth swing and consequently a fulfilling round of golf. Establish your target line and then make sure that all crucial parts of your body are aligned in a parallel fashion to the line. This includes your hips and forearms, as well as your feet, toes, knees, shoulders and line of sight.

Be sure to wear a hat when you are golfing in the winter time. In addition, you should get some special golf gloves for winter and some thermal mittens for golf. You can’t really play in these, but they will keep your hands warm between holes as you walk the course.

Here is a golf tip! Scooping the ball is caused by hitting up on the ball instead of down on the ball. This causes the club to pass the hands before actually hitting the ball, resulting either way in a bad shot. Focus on hitting down on the ball, keep your body level, and let your swing take over.

Swing with your whole body. If you swing only using your arms you are only getting a fraction of the power you could get in your swing. As you pull your arms back to swing, turn your hips and legs and keep your hands straight. When you hit the ball, and in your follow through, your hips and legs should move along in one motion with your club towards the ball.

Remember that men, women and children all use different kinds of golf clubs. If you are a small woman, it does not go without saying that a child’s set of clubs will work for you. There are differences in shaft length, angle, and the strength with which you can hit the ball that all make it very important to get exactly the right set of golf clubs for you.

To teach your child golf, don’t be too technical. Your little one is not going to understand a lot of golf jargon, and s/he won’t really care about form; however, hitting the ball into the hole is bound to be very motivating. Start out with miniature golf and add a few trips to the putting range to teach your child to love golf.

Don’t wear sneaker-style golf shoes if you’re going to be playing on early-morning, wet grass. Although you can find sneaker-style shoes that have waterproofing, most do not have this feature, and they will be thoroughly wet by the end of your game of golf.

Here is tip that will make the flight of your ball lower. This is useful in windy conditions. Before swinging, move the ball back a little from its usual place in the middle of your stance. Moving the ball back will cause it to be struck at an earlier point in the arc of your swing. This means that the head of the club gives the ball much less upward lift than normal.

Do you now understand what makes golf? Do you know about clubs and how to use them? Do you now know what it takes to make a great golf swing? If you have an idea of how to answer these questions now, then you have read and understood what it takes to become a better golfer.


Think big, in a practical way

I left for Italy in mid-August feeling pretty discouraged. Most of the recent discussions I had heard about financial literacy were focused on cost. This is clearly an important concern, but, in practice, when people talk mostly about costs, it often means they are not interested in “buying” it. And while the cost of improving financial literacy is a very legitimate concern, how about the cost of this financial mess we’re in. How about that?

The discussion around some financial education programs was also not a mood booster. Some of the papers I saw presented this summer covered programs in which individuals—often impoverished and with little education—were brought to a classroom and given a few hours of “financial education.” The expectation was that those few hours would transform people into savvy entrepreneurs or investors. And what was the main discussion around this? How much these programs cost!

This dominant concern about cost obscures the fact that we face a very important and challenging problem in need of a solution. But we need to think big; we need creative ideas that can help overcome big barriers. Lack of financial knowledge is not something that can be tackled by bringing the adult population back to a classroom for a lecture or two on financial education. We need to be practical, too, regarding what can be implemented. As my college friend—a successful entrepreneur I get together with every time I return to Italy—put it: "think big, in a practical way."

Being in Italy, with a break from my daily routine, allowed me to focus on big ideas, and I have some recommendations, that are also practical, to at least start the discussion, and I would like to hear from others.

Big Idea #1: TEACH THE YOUNG. Financial literacy needs to be implemented in schools. It is too difficult to reach the adult population and it is hard to do any teaching if there is little or no base to start from. Also, we need people to be financially literate before rather than after they engage in financial transactions. There will and should be costs of educating the young. It is meaningless to mandate financial education without, for example, training the teachers to teach those courses. Mandates do not make people any smarter, but having a well-developed curriculum that is followed by trained teachers might.

Big Idea #2: FOCUS ON WOMEN. Women have low levels of financial literacy (lower than men), but they also know that they lack knowledge. Moreover, they want to be “treated”; in most financial programs I have been involved with or read about, the majority of participants have been women. It is going to be much easier to reach and deliver to a population who is interested in financial literacy. This is a simple truth that has been mostly ignored. There are costs of only thinking about costs!

Big Idea #3: MAKE IT SIMPLE. Some financial decisions are truly complex, but there are universal concepts that are at the basis of most financial decisions and that can and should be explained in very simple ways. I am talking about the power of interest compounding, the effects of inflation, and the benefits of risk diversification. In fact, even this is economic jargon we can get away from. Let’s use plain English and explain these ideas in very simple ways. We can even come up with ways to tell stories to teach the concepts so that even a five-year-old could learn them.

Speaking of five-year-olds and of being practical, I was given the following test to see whether one can think practically. Here it is: How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator? The answer is at the end of the post, but please do not look before you come up with your own solution. I thought about it for five minutes and came up with a method about as simple as putting a man on the moon. That evening, I saw my little niece Giorgia drawing a picture of the family dog, depicting him with 9 legs and 2 enormous eyes. I thought she would be an ideal person for the giraffe test, so I asked her very innocently: “Giorgia, how do you put a giraffe into a fridge?” She looked up, gave me a big smile, jumped from her chair, and ran to the fridge. Moral: you can never beat the creativity of a five-year old!

Question: How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator? Answer: You open the door and put the giraffe in.


London: Probability of cheating is more in creative people than in the non-creative lot, a new study has suggested.
According to the research, this is possibly because of the talent possessed by the original thinkers, which increases their ability to rationalize their actions.

"Greater creativity helps individuals solve difficult tasks across many domains, but creative sparks may lead individuals to take unethical routes when searching for solutions to problems and tasks," said lead researcher Francesca Gino, PhD, of Harvard University.

Gino and her co-author, Dan Ariely, PhD, of Duke University, conducted a series of five experiments to test their thesis that more creative people would cheat under circumstances where they could justify their bad behaviour.

The researchers used a series of recognized psychological tests and measures to gauge research subjects' creativity.

They also tested participants' intelligence. In each of the five experiments, participants received a small sum for showing up. Then, they were presented with tasks or tests where they could be paid more if they cheated.

The experimenters also told participants they would be paid more for more correct answers and led them to believe that they could cheat without detection when transferring their answers. However, all the papers had unique identifiers.

The results showed the more creative participants were significantly more likely to cheat, and that there was no link between intelligence and dishonesty - i.e., more intelligent but less creative people were not more inclined toward dishonesty. The study has been published online in APA's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.


Accessibility in HTML WG (30th May 2007)

In the tasks and interests survey, very few respondants mention accessibility:

That’s just 9 mentions out of 74 respondants (12%). There are currently 460 participants, so only 16% of them have responded to this survey. If just 12% of all participants care at all about accessibility, we could have a hard task even keeping accessibility at the HTML4 level for HTML4 features. Let alone improving it and ensuring new features are accessible.

So far, less than 2% of all participants have registered an interest in accessibility.

However, the charter says there will be liasons with the WAI. Accessibility should become better represented as the WG finds its feet. Already the WAI PFWG is looking into headers.

Writing a big specification is a long process. I’ll continue my table accessibility examples and get involved when I’ve got a more complete collection.


Mark Schmitt has an informed post on the topic of the Senate stock profits story that’s getting lots of play pretty much everywhere. His conclusion is that the statistical anomaly between the returns on Senators’ investments and those of everybody else are the result of the study’s small sample size as much as anything else.


Time to eat(CODEEVAL)

It’s amazing how fast time flies by and we don’t even realize it. As we are getting older, time seems to move so much faster than it did in the past. Perception of time is relative to how fast our heart rate is. An unborn baby’s heart rate is incredibly fast and as we age, it slows. Metabolic rate of an organism determines its perception of time. Organisms like cats and dogs have a very high metabolic rate; thus, the breaks between their meals seem to be shorter than humans have. At codeeval.com, we have a cat called Kitty. She loves eating, and it seems like she can eat anything any time. We want to keep Kitty fit, so we feed her according to a schedule. Planning her daily meals, we need to see when Kitty will eat starting with the latest meal in the evening to the earliest morning snack. So, your task is to sort timestamps in the schedule in a reverse chronological order.

The first argument is a path to a file. Each line includes a test case: a schedule containing unsorted timestamps in HH:MM:SS format.

02:26:31 14:44:45 09:53:27
05:33:44 21:25:41

Sort timestamps in each schedule from the biggest to the smallest one.

14:44:45 09:53:27 02:26:31
21:25:41 05:33:44

  1. Each schedule may have from 2 to 20 timestamps.
  2. Timestamp 23:59:59 - biggest and 00:00:01 the smallest one.
  3. The number of test cases is 40.

My Code

#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w

ARGF.each_line do |line|
  timestamps = line.chomp.split.sort.reverse
  puts timestamps.join(" ")


Sitatunga - Tragelaphus spekii

Sitatunga are related to bushbuck and kudu with whom they share spirally twisted horns and body stripes but they have a hunched appearance, a dark shaggy coat and narrow face. Only males carry shallow-spiraled and keeled horns. The average horn length is 600 mm. The world record is 924 mm. The pelage of ewes is a dark to reddish-brown with a black band running down the center of the back, and with pale vertical stripes on the sides, as well as lateral white bands and spots on the haunches. Both sexes have a white band between the eyes, and white spots on the cheeks. They also have two distinct white patches on the body, one above the chest and one on the throat, below the chin. The tail is black tipped, brown above and white below. Another characteristic feature of Sitatunga, is the much elongated and splayed hooves and enlarged false hooves, covered with a swollen leathery pad. This is an obvious adaptation to the soft, muddy substrate of its habitat. Feeding preference is for freshly sprouted reed tips, but will also take aquatic grasses such as Eragrotis inamoena. Extremely specific in their habitat. They are only found in dense and extensive reedbeds of Papyrus, Phragmites and Typha. Because of the dense nature of ideal habitats, and even with high sitatunga densities, observations are understandably rare and intermitted. One is extremely lucky to even get a glimpse of this species. They live almost permanently in water and have evolved splayed hooves to allow them to move easily in mud. The best chances of seeing this shy animal, other than from the air, is to cruise quietly in a mokoro or walk around island fringes in early morning and at dusk. The permanently flooded areas of the Okavango south of the panhandle are the most rewarding areas.


Recently in the Astrochemistry Category

Sometimes it takes a lot of trees to see the forest. In the case of the latest discovery made by astronomers at the University of Arizona, exactly 732,225.

A team of astronomers has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to detect glowing oxygen in a distant galaxy seen just 700 million years after the Big Bang.

A new survey of hot, X-ray-emitting gas in the Virgo galaxy cluster shows that the elements needed to make stars, planets and people were evenly distributed across millions of light-years early in cosmic history, more than 10 billion years ago.

By analyzing the light of hundreds of thousands of celestial objects, Johns Hopkins astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have created a unique map of enigmatic molecules in our galaxy that are responsible for puzzling features in the light from stars.

Scientists from Leiden University have shown in the laboratory how Buckyballs -- molecular soccer balls -- form in space.


Madagascar is a huge island nation off the southeast coast of Africa. It’s home to thousands of animal species, such as lemurs, found nowhere else, plus rainforests, beaches and reefs. Near the busy capital, Antananarivo, is Ambohimanga, a hillside complex of royal palaces and burial grounds, as well as the “Avenue of the Baobabs,” a dirt road lined by massive centuries-old trees.


Discovering the most beautiful Cities of Campania

Capri with its coastline overlooking the sea, Naples with its millenarian history, Ischia with its relics of the Napoleonic period, Ercolano with its exhibits of Roman times and the Peninsula of Sorrento with its ancient villages.

naples underground tour

The Beauty of subsoil A special journey through the time of 2400 years of the Naples underground tour starting from one of the alleys of the old city “Vico S. Anna di Palazzo” through an underground route that offers the opportunity to tell the story of the city, through a parallel between Naples surface and the

capri and amalfi coast

A breathtaking route Capri and Amalfi Coast are renowned worldwide for its natural beauty and its coastline with a length of about seventeen Kilometres. The island has a millennial history that left a legacy of many churches, monasteries and villas such as that of Augustus who was the first to build it in 29 BC,

naples history

Worshiped by Magna Grecia Naples history, darling of the Magna Graecia, with a succession of foreign dominations, has played a very important status not only in Italy but also in Europe. In the seventh century with the collapse of the Roman Empire, the city was just a duchy, from the thirteenth century and for six

The beauty of the volcano The volcanic island of Ischia Italy is located at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples with nearby Procida and Vivara. Several finds of the Neolithic period were discovered including the discovery of a farm Greek wealthy farmers in the first settlement dates back to around 790, 780 BC.

ercolano ruins

Roman Town Ercolano ruins are located in the Province of Naples, its ancient origins dates back to IV century BC. It participated in the social war won and conquered in the ‘89 BC later becoming a Roman town, controlled by Rome. It was loved by the educated and wealthy Romans especially in suburban Villa of

Scenery overlooking the sea The peninsula of Sorrento in Campania covers nine municipalities located in the Province of Naples and twelve in the Province of Salerno. The landscape of unparalleled beauty is nestled between hills and mountains that with expert human touch have been transformed into cozy terraces that thrive onto the sea. Meta, Piano


Purpose of a Punnett's Square
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Purpose of a Punnett's Square

A punnett's square is a technique that was created to help aid in determining the probability outcomes of various physical characteristics. To aid in generating a simple punnett square that focuses on the probability outcome of just one trait, this article serves as a tutorial. In this case, this punnet square practice is based on determining the color outcome of cross pollinating two flowers.

Did you ever wonder if it was ever possible to determine the physical characteristics of a pretty flower's offspring? Perhaps you may have wanted to give yourself a uniformed garden of all pink and red flowers. This can be done by cross-pollinating two flowers. In order to do this, you must take the pollen of one flower and place it on the stigma of another. Once this is done, a tool that can help you determine the possible physique outcomes of the flowers is a punnett's square. A punnett square is based on the genetic codes of living things that encode for various phenoytypes- these are the physique determining factors of the flowers. In order to compose a punnett square, you need to label individual traits of the flower as dominant or recessive homozygous/ heterozygous. Dominant homozygous traits are traits that show up in a huge majority amongst the flowers (i.e pure red petals). They are represented by two capital letters (i.e; DD) Recessive traits are characteristics that only show up in a few of the flowers and are represented by two lower case letters (i.e dd). Often times, you will run across various traits that aren't exactly the majority or the minority of traits, they may be just below or above being just that. These traits are considered to be heterozygous and are often represent by one capital letter and one lower case letter (i.e Dd). Once an individual trait has been assigned to each parent plant, a punnett square can be generated.

         First, you must draw a box with four squares. Above the top two squares, you must write one letter of the parent trait above each of the two boxes. Then, next to the two boxes on the left hand side, write one letter of the second parent’s trait beside each of the two boxes. At your first square at the top left hand corner, write in the letters that intersect at that square; the letter from direct above the square and the letter directly to the left of that square. Repeat the process for the remaining three squares. Once each square has two letters within them, you can now determine what the majority or minority physiques of your flowers will be if you cross two specific flowers. The majority physical traits that appear is what is most likely to appear when the two selected flowers are cross pollinated.

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The tilt towards June

There is a hesitant tone to markets towards the end of the week. The two factors contributing to this are the G7 meeting taking place in Japan and a scheduled speech by FOMC Chair Yellen later today. Both have the potential to shape the outlook for currencies going forward. Overnight, the G7 were pretty downbeat on the prospects for the economy should the UK choose to leave the EU next month. That should not be surprising given the comments heard previously from the US. Still, they don’t vote, so the impact on sterling was pretty minimal, but the overall tone remains positive, despite cable struggling to push above the 1.4770 3rd May high. With regards to Yellen, today’s event is more a Q&A session, so not the traditional format for steering monetary policy expectations, but nevertheless markets will be sensitive given the recent indications from other FOMC members that June is a live meeting.

Ahead of Yellen, we see further detail and revisions for US GDP data. The first quarter fell to the soft side, expanding at the weakest pace for two years. Some upward revisions are anticipated this time around. In contrast, weaker CPI data in Japan failed to have a material impact on the yen overnight, with markets doubtful of the potential for the Japanese authorities to enact further stimulus. We’ve seen stocks rise during the Asia session, with emerging currencies also doing well. The sense of caution on majors is likely to remain until the G7 meeting is out of the way.

Did you know?

Currency trading and exchange are no new practices. In fact, money-changing people can be traced back to the Biblical times. Using city-stalls, they would help others change money and take a commission or charge a fee for their services.

Word of the day
"Index" - An imaginary portfolio of securities that are reflective of the relative health of a market or sector of the economy.
Pro Tip

Pips are important because they determine your profits or losses.


Letter persuading employees to avoid eatables on work floor

  1. If you wish to get the reader's attention through a persuasive memo, you must keep his/her feelings in mind. Think how the reader will react to what you say and how can you convince him/her. You should carefully decide that how much emotional appeal will be suitable and to what extent you should use logical arguments.
  2. Highlight the issue in the beginning.
  3. State what action you expect from the reader.
  4. Give reasons about why the reader should follow your suggestion. State what the reader will gain from cooperating with you.
  5. Give a call to action and provide more information.

[Senders Name]
[Address line]
[State, ZIP Code]

[Letter Date]

[Recipients Name]
[Address line]
[State, ZIP Code]

Dear [Recipients Name],

The nature of our job entails heavy focus and keen attention to detail. Every distraction will be avoided to ensure efficiency.

In this regard, we are requesting you not to bring cellphones and food on the floor and in your respective work area. We also request you not to browse non-work related sites while on duty.

For more clarifications on this matter, please approach your designated team leaders.

[Senders Name]
[Senders Title] -Optional-

[Enclosures: number] - Optional -
cc: [Name of copy recipient] - Optional -

Letter persuading employees to avoid eatables on work floor.

Further things to consider when writing persuasive letters to employees

Further things to consider when writing persuasive letters to employees

Persuasive Letters

Persuasive letters are letters written to persuade others towards accepting the senders' issues, perspectives, or interests. Such letters are meant to influence the recipients' thoughts and actions. The recipient can be organizations such as banks, schools, and NGOs, or individuals such as CEOs, government officials, directors, etc. Whether you want to solve a problem with your bank or you want someone to help you or do something for you, Persuasive letters can get the job done. All you need to do it to convince the recipient to agree with your side of the story.

Before writing persuasive letters you need to brainstorm what you want, why you want it, and any arguments against you. Be brief and use clear, uncluttered sentences. State your main points in the opening statements. Go straight to the point and emphasize the importance of your request. Support your request with logical information. If necessary, provide a few testimonials that relate to your argument. Be friendly, polite, and factual, and refrain from using overly emotional language and judgmental statements. Agree to meet in the middle or compromise. End the letter with a powerful statement that persuades the recipient to be on your side.

Letters to Employees

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They are self sentard and nice. Turtles for the most part are not aggressive to people. Most turtles are like people or any other pet you have they have there own personalities and temperamets some of ours are aggressive. if you pull them out of the water, yet docile in the water and do not attempt to bite some of the others are quite different they will try to run if you .remove them from the tank. Yet if you place your hand inside the water...Well.

Habitat & Diet

Sea turtles live in almost every ocean basin throughout the world, nesting in tropical and subtropical waters. They can travel long distances to feed, and they often swim entire oceans to do so. Some loggerheads nest in Japan and migrate to Baja California Sur, Mexico to forage before returning home again (read about Adelita, the first turtle tracked across the Pacific). Leatherbacks are capable of withstanding the coldest water temperatures (often below 40˚F) and are found as far south as Chile and as far north as Alaska.

They spend their entire lives at sea, except when adult females come ashore to lay eggs several times per season every 2 to 5 years. After about sixty days, baby sea turtles (known as "hatchlings") emerge from their sandy nests and make their way to the ocean —attracted to the distant horizon. The juvenile turtles spend their first few years in the open oceans, eventually moving to protected bays, estuaries, and other nearshore waters.

Each species relies on a different diet: greens eat sea grasses; leatherbacks feed on jellyfish and soft-bodied animals; loggerheads eat heavy-shelled animals such as crabs and clams; hawksbills rely on sponges and other invertebrates; and the Kemp’s ridley prefers crabs.

Leatherback_sea_turtle.jpgexternal image images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS_RH9vV9xAbPEPxeukYQrxb8NUzh_AvWqu84Di7DzXFDAKVimn77MqF4RzLg

Facts about Sea Turtles.

From leatherbacks to loggerheads, six of the seven species of sea turtles that swim the world’s oceans are threatened or endangered largely at the hand of humans. Sadly, they face many dangers as they travel the seas — including accidental capture and entanglement in fishing gear (also known as bycatch), the loss of nesting and feeding sites to coastal development, intentional hunting (poaching), and pollution.

These creatures are well-adapted to their ocean environment though they require air to survive. Their size varies greatly, depending upon species — from the small Kemp’s ridley, which weighs between 80–100 pounds, to the enormous leatherback, which can weighs more than 1,000 pounds.

when the eggerlings hach thay haf to find there own way home.
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Sea Turtle Life Cycle

The life cycle of a sea turtle starts when a female lays its eggs on a nesting beach, usually in the tropics. From six weeks to two months later (depending on the species), a tiny hatchling makes its way to the surface of the sand and heads to the water, dodging every predator imaginable. From the time they take their first swim until they return to coastal waters to forage as juveniles may be as long as a decade. This period of time is often referred to as the "lost years" since following sea turtles movements during this phase is difficult and their whereabouts are often unknown.Following the "lost years", when they have grown to approximately the size of a dinner plate, their pelagic (open ocean) phase comes to an end and they return to coastal waters where they forage and continue to mature. During this time, these reptiles are highly mobile, foraging over large areas of ocean.
As sub-adults and adults, sea turtles are more easily studied using a variety of techniques which enable scientists to have a better picture of their habitat, behavior, and distribution. The time to sexual maturity (when they are able to reproduce) varies among species but ranges between approximately 10-50 years.
Once they reach sexual maturity they will migrate to nesting areas to breed. Only females will come ashore to lay eggs, generally in the area where they were born. Most species will nest multiple times during a nesting season at intervals of 2-4 years over the course of their lifetime.

It is not known exactly how long sea turtles live in the wild, but scientists think their life span may be as long as a century. Unfortunately though, turtles face a multitude of threats related to human activities. For more information about the challenges they face, see our pages about threats.
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by zach.m and daniel.r


September 24, 2017
Financial Quotes
" Too much money is as demoralizing as too little, and there's no such thing as exactly enough. "

Mignon McLaughlin

Exchange Rate
The Moldovan Leu - MDL is the official currency of Republic of Moldova.The Moldovan Leu - MDL exchage rates provided below are for information only. The currency exchange rates database is updated every hour from trusted sources. The following table provides Moldovan Leu - MDL to other currencies exchange rates.

Moldovan Leu - MDL exchange rates currencies from Europe for today

Sunday, September 24 2017
The Moldovan Leu - MDL uses the following currency graphic symbol (currency sign) :
The exchange rate of two currencies is the rated at which the currencies are exchanged. The term is also known as FX, forex rate or foreign exchange rate. The exchange rates of most currencies various from bank to bank but the main currency is set by each country national bank. The currency pair is the the quotation of the relative value of a currency unit against the unit of another currency in the foreign exchange market. For example if MDL/USD is 0.081 this means that 1 MDL = 0.081 USD. The inverse follows the same pattersn, if USD/MDL is 12.412 it means that 1 USD = 12.412 MDL.
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salmon fish

Salmon live along the coasts of both the North Atlantic (one migratory species Salmo salar) and Pacific Oceans (approximately a dozen species of the genus Oncorhynchus), and have also been introduced into the Great Lakes of North America. Salmon are intensively produced in aquaculture in many parts of the world.

 danube salmon/huchen (endangered)
atlantic salmon
 Chinook salmon

coho salmon
chum salmon

cherry salmon


The Renaissance period represented a surge of exploration, discovery, creativity and innovation that began as the people of Europe discovered, or in many instances rediscovered, novel ways of thinking and experimented with their application across all aspects of their lives. To borrow a term from innovation historian James Burke, it was “the day the universe changed” — a point at which thinking altered so drastically that the entire universe appeared completely different.

In the Renaissance environment, the surge of exploration and discovery not only created tangible progress but also fostered a widespread belief in a better and brighter future. It is small wonder, then, that the modern university system began during the Renaissance era. In today’s campus environment, exploration, discovery, creativity and innovation are mainstays. The very act of investing in a college education is a manifestation of a belief in a better and brighter future that will come through exploration and discovery. College students represent the next generation as well as the hope for a better and brighter future, and their time on campus is when they lay the foundation for the lives they will lead as they become part of the communities they chose to live in as adults.

Yet, as many in the Jewish community consider the future of the Jewish people, they cannot help but feel concerned. Surveys show lower levels of emotional attachment to Judaism and Israel among young American Jews than among their parents and grandparents. One factor that has been linked to declining levels of emotional attachment, the rate of intermarriage, has increased over time, suggesting that the long-term unabated trend could be that levels of emotional attachment will continue to fall.

Additionally, anecdotes and data accumulating for the past several decades reflect decreased involvement in traditional social structures in general society as well as in the Jewish community. The phenomenon documented in the book “Bowling Alone” affects traditional Jewish social structures as much as it does other traditional structures in American society. Among some, there is a creeping fear that Judaism may be on the losing side of history — that Judaism represents a form of tribalism that is increasingly outmoded and irrelevant in a more diverse, open, multicultural and modern world.

The Jewish community’s concern reaches the work of campus Israel advocates as well. Increasingly, there is an appreciation that Israel’s greatest challenge on American college campuses is not the ineffectual attempts of a handful of fringe elements to disparage Israel politically, but rather a growing sense of the irrelevance of Israel in the worldviews of Jewish and non-Jewish students alike. This commonly gets reported as “apathy” — students who don’t attend events or become involved in activities because they see no personal stake in the issues those activities and events represent.

To be sure, students frequently display equal degrees of apathy to the partisan politics of their own country, much less when Israel is framed as a political issue. Yet the trend that anecdotes and some data support is that many, although certainly not all, Jewish and non-Jewish students perceive an ever-diminishing relevance of Israel to their lives. Understood in these terms, it becomes clearer why one of the American Jewish community’s most visible struggles regarding Israel and young Jews — around the limits of public criticism and behavior regarding Israel and politics — misses the mark. The key issue is not whether there are adequate avenues for young American Jews to express political criticism of Israel, but rather whether young American Jews feel a personal stake in the success of the future of the Jewish enterprise. Far too many do not.

It is time for a conceptual shift — for a “day the universe changed” — in the Jewish community, and to recognize that the involvement of young Jews is not the problem but instead a very real part of the solution. The first step in that conceptual shift is to ask the question: Why do young American Jews appear more apathetic about Israel and Judaism than their parents and grandparents?

The Renaissance Era represented an explosion of creativity and innovation.

The Renaissance Era represented an explosion of creativity and innovation. (David image via Shutterstock)

I have never met an apathetic young Jew. Young Jews are passionate, driven and excited about the future. They are full of energy, creativity and curiosity about the world around them. They are devoted to exploration, discovery and innovation. However, few young American Jews have ever been invited to bring that energy, creativity and curiosity to bear on the future of the Jewish people. Instead, the community has invited them to join and passively support the structures and institutions that their parents and grandparents created. Rarely if ever does the Jewish community make a serious invitation to the next generation to lend a hand to shaping the future — their future — of the Jewish community.

It’s a telling contrast between the experience of the American Jewish community and that of the Israeli Jewish community. Issues of apathy and disengagement appear far less commonly and in much different forms among young Israelis, if only for the simple fact that young Israelis’ country and their existence require them to contribute much to the future of the Jewish people. Most young Israeli Jews serve their country in the military; all of them share in the burden of supporting a Jewish state through their participation in civic society. Young Israeli Jews are a dynamic, energetic, and involved part of the largest single concentration of Jews anywhere in the world. As a result of that youthful energy and creativity, Israeli society constantly re-engineers, explores and evolves. Not for nothing is Israel considered the “start-up nation.” New structures and new forms of Jewish expression and involvement appear continually. Because young Israeli Jews have no choice but to contribute to the future of the Jewish people, they are understandably more engaged and committed as a group than their American cousins.

But as many discover through the experience of Birthright Israel, young American Jews have much in common with their Israeli cousins, and have much to offer them as well. Like young Israelis, young American Jews are full of optimism, hope, potential and passion. If young American Jews were invited to contribute meaningfully to the re-engineering of the Jewish people, many would bring some knowledge and experience of Judaism and Israel, although more would not. But those who did not bring such knowledge or experience would instead bring knowledge, experience and passion in science, law, art, philosophy and the pursuit of hundreds of other fields that inform their worldviews. To both their Israeli peers and their parents and grandparents they would bring insights that come uniquely from the perspective and experience of modern life as a minority in a multicultural society that places a premium on diversity, inclusivity, and pluralism.

In the campus environment, the knowledge, passions, and life experience of students already meet and collide in an explosion of ideas and new horizons. Those who regularly work with Jewish college students, like those in the network of Hillel professionals, know first-hand that the passion and vision that students can bring with them can drive remarkable results. When brought together, the outpouring of creativity among students is unrivaled.

Young Jews on campuses across America are uniquely positioned to serve as the research and development department of the Jewish people — the Bell Labs, Skunk Works, Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury and Silicon Valley for Judaism, all rolled into one. Jewish students can bring to Judaism, as a whole, their knowledge and experience, as well as their spirit of exploration, discovery, creativity and innovation. All that the community needs to do is to commit sincerely to these researchers, these explorers, these innovators, and invite them to participate in creating a Jewish Renaissance.

The Jewish community needs to expand its channels of communication to foster the development of a Jewish future that includes and involves deep connections between American Jewish students with their peers, particularly in Israel and around the world; that presents to them the questions and problems that the community seeks to solve; and invites them to tackle addressing those problems with the vigor they bring to all of their other endeavors — not just to create their own individual projects, but to offer solutions for the community as a whole.

An investment in Jewish renaissance in this way also necessarily means more involvement with Israel and young Israelis, who bring their own experience and perspectives as part of a thriving Jewish culture. With this conceptual shift, the community simultaneously invests in both the prescription and the cure for the apathy that it perceives among the next generation.

If the community invests in inviting Jewish students to bring their exploration, discovery, creativity and innovation to bear on Jewish life, then stand back — and watch the universe change.


We need to know every factor which determines lifespan.

Lifespan factors often but not always originate from defined genetic elements. They are not just genes, by definition they can be anything for which a Classifications schema can be build for that is related to the regulation of lifespan, such entities may include Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism, transcript variants, proteins and their complexes, compounds (i.e. small molecules like metabolites and drugs), etc. A factor should be based on a defined molecular entity or genomic position and been classified. It shall be highly flexible and scalable Concept.

While individual lifespan factors within each species or precise defined molecular entities will be captured within the Lifespan App, Data Entries of the Data App may summarize for instance the relevance of each factor class (e.g. homologous group; chemical derivate of related structure and properties, etc.) as well as draw overall conclusions. o

  • Types: + -
  • symbol name observation species
    daf-16 Abnormal DAuer Formation DAF-16, fork head-related transcription factor (daf-16) Mutations in daf-16 suppresses life-extension caused by mutations in daf-2 [8247153]. daf-16 is required for lifespan extension by mutation of daf-2 or age-1 [8247153]. RNAi against daf-16 decreases lifespan of wild-type, daf-2 or glp-1 mutants [22509016; 16530050]. Loss of function alleles of daf-16 shorten lifespan, but some alleles have lifespan equal to wild-type [8247153]. daf-16 mutation significantly reduces lifespan under AL (-20%), but does not prevent lifespan extension by sDR. In another experiment daf-16 mutation totally suppresses lifespan extension by sDR [16720740]. sDR does not stimulate DAF-16 translocation to the nucleus, but daf-16 mutation cancels out the ability of sDR to extend lifespan and to delay the decline in locomotor activity [17900900]. DR by bacterial dilution extends lifespan of daf-16 mutants [17538612]. daf-16 mutation decreases lifespan under AL, but fails to prevent bDR to further extend lifespan [18331616]. IF-induced lifespan-extension by either 24h/48h/72h per 4 days is significantly diminished in null mutants of daf-16. All these regimens extend lifespan of daf-16 to a lesser extent than that of wild-type. daf-16 partially mediates IF-induced longevity [19079239]. Glucose or glycerol does not shorten lifespan of daf-16 mutants [19883616]. daf-16 mutation cancels out the lifespan extension effect of sDR and PD, regardless of the concentration of bacteria or peptones. bDR significantly extends lifespan of daf-16 mutants, but to a lesser extent than that of wild-type. eat-2 mutation extends the lifespan of daf-16 mutants to the same extent than that of wild-type. Resveratrol extends lifespan of daf-16 mutants [19239417]. daf-16 RNAi completely blocks the lifespan extension by daf-2 mutation, but only partially by bDR. daf-16 RNAi attenuates protection against oxidative stress by bDR. daf-16 expression is induced by bDR [19924292]. Knockdown of daf-16 decreases mean and maximum lifespan by 50% and 54%, respectively [22509016]. DAF-16 reduces expression of rsks-1 and daf-15 [15253933; 22560223]. daf-16(mgDf47) decreases mean (18-37%) and maximum (29%) lifespan [18828672]. Overexpression of wild-type DAF-16 modestly increases lifespan by 20% [11747825], while overexpression of constitutive nuclear forms of DAF-16 increases lifespan only slightly [11381260]. daf-16(mu86) mutation decreases mean (44%) and maximum (18%) lifespan [15905404]. daf-16(mgDf47) decreases mean (18-37%) and maximum (29%) lifespan [18828672]. daf-16 mutants are dauer defective [7219552] and completely suppress all the phenotypes of daf-2 and age-1 mutations, including lifespan extension, dauer arrest, reduced fertility, and viability defects [8247153; 7789761; 9504918; 7789761]. Mutations in daf-16 also suppress lifespan extension of animals that have a germ line ablation [10360574]. Sex-specific lifespan potential requires daf-16 [10747056]. daf-16 mutation suppresses enhanced UV resistance as well as increase longevity of daf-2, daf-23, spe-26, and clk-1 mutants. Mutation in daf-16 does not alter the reduced fertility in spe-26. daf-16 mutants are more fertile than wild-type [8807294]. Nematode
    Sirt1 sirtuin 1 (silent mating type information regulation 2, homolog) 1 (S. cerevisiae) Whole-body deletion of Sirt1 in the adulthood results in mice which are seemingly normal in every way. When mice were given low doses of resveratrol after Sirt1 was disabled, there were no discernible improvement in mitochondrial function or any parameter, while mice with normal Sirt1 function given reservatrol showed dramatic increases in energy, mitochondrial biogenesis and function, AMPK activation and increased NAD+ levels in skeletal muscle. When mice lacking Sirt1 were given low doses of reserveratrol, AMPK was unaffected. When doses were significantly increased in these mice, AMPK was activated in a SIRT1-indepent manner, but still no benefit to mitochondrial function resulted [22560220]. Sirt1 overexpression mimicks the effect on reservatrol on mitochondrial function, but failed to extend lifespan [22560220]. SIRT1 knock-out mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) have a significant greater replicative capacity in culture. p19ARF levels are significantly reduced in SIRT1 knock-out MEFs [16054100]. Sirt1-null mice do not exhibit lifespan extension upon Dietary Restriction [18335035]. Sirt1 is required for high-magnitude circadian transcription of several core clock genes. It deacetylates Per2, Arntl and histones of clock-controlled genes [18662546]. SIRT1 directly [21187328] and indirectly [20450879] prevents telomere shortening. House mouse
    • 2 factors
    Factors are an extension of GenAge and GenDR.

    Comment on This Data Unit


Home > Science > Medicine

Man's pacemaker data leads to arson and insurance fraud charges

Man's pacemaker data leads to arson and insurance fraud charges. Science & Technology World Website

Authorities from Ohio arrested a man named Ross Compton and charged him with arson and insurance fraud based on his pacemaker data. Compton told the police that when he saw his house burning on September 19th last year, he packed his suitcases, threw them out his bedroom window and carried them to his car. However, since has a serious heart condition and other medical issues that would have made it extremely difficult for him to do all those, the cops were able to secure a search warrant for his pacemaker data.

According to court documents, a cardiologist who reviewed his heart rate, pacer demand and cardiac rhythms before, during and after the fire said:

That data became a key piece of evidence that allowed law enforcement to indict the accused, though they also detected gasoline on his shoes and clothing. The fire ended up causing $400,000 in damages. Whether or not Compton is truly guilty, Electronic Frontier Foundation staff lawyer Stephanie Lacambra told SC Magazine that cases like this "could be the canary in the coal mine concerning the larger privacy implications of using a person's medical data."

She explained:

"Americans shouldn't have to make a choice between health and privacy. We as a society value our rights to maintain privacy over personal and medical information, and compelling citizens to turn over protected health data to law enforcement erodes those rights."

ICP:09019593 Network Management No:20110200020

Operation license of appreciation telecom service:B-2-4-20100139


There’s Now a Robot That Can Flip Burgers

Mar 14, 2017

A California burger chain is installing a new robot as a replacement short-order cook. CaliBurger hired a robot dubbed "Flippy" at the joint's Pasadena location. Creators at Miso Robotics call Flippy a "kitchen assistant," meaning chefs and cooks will collaborate with the robot. The robot uses cameras, sensors, and artificial intelligence to see what it's cooking. Once a burger is cooked, Flippy picks it up and puts it on the bun. Miso Robotics has not revealed a price for its Flippy robot. If testing in Pasadena goes well, CaliBurger says it will put Flippy in 50 locations by the end of 2019.


Total Solar Eclipse 2016

Total Solar Eclipse 2016 March 1st 16th.

People in parts of Southeast Asia will see the sun in a new light on March 8th, 2016 EST (March 9th, local time), during a total solar eclipse that will last over a minute in every location on its path.As the moon passes precisely between the sun and Earth – a relatively rare occurrence that happens only about once a year because of the fact that the moon and the sun do not orbit in the exact same plane – it will block the sun’s bright face, revealing the tenuous and comparatively faint solar atmosphere, the corona.


The Beginner’s Guide to Experts

Hiring a Commercial Painting Contractor Finding a painter most especially the person who can be able to fully understand and be able to fulfill the whole requirements, is considered to be the most difficult task to perform when it comes to the renovation of the house. You will start to search, bargain, and can select for them. Reasons like time delay and non-standard work of the painter can be the…

July 31, 2017


The Conversari Congruence Model

In chemistry, matter derives its weight and solidity from the alignment of its molecules. When molecules aren’t aligned, matter falls apart with minimal environmental stress. When all elements are aligned, matter can have the strength of a diamond. The chemistry of organizations follows the same principle. When organizations have their key elements aligned, it provides them with the strength to withstand risks, adapt to changing environments, and inspire trust among its employees, clients and suppliers.

We call this quality congruence.

Conversari Congruence Model

A methodology that contemplates ROI from the beginning

Every organization is different, which is why our 4-step process ensures our programs’ success:

1. Understand

Detect needs, determine objectives and establish measurable indicators of success.

2. Design

Create a custom program comprised of one or more of our 8 programs – in English or Spanish.

3. Train

Emphasize immediate application of new skills based on state-of-the-art theory.

4. Measure

Follow-up training by demonstrating ROI in productivity, image and/or effectiveness.

Soft skills can yield hard results

Conversari strives to make the best use of resources and demonstrate long-lasting results, focusing on Return on Investment in Training & Development (ROITD) in one or more of the following three areas:

Time saved due to clear and concise internal communication, brief and effective meetings, and less time spent preparing and assimilating information.

The impact of projecting world-class professionalism.

Integrated teams equipped with effective feedback skills and more convincing emails, documents and presentations.

Return on Investment

Read more about our team, our clients, or contact us to discuss how we can help your organization achieve its goals.


Data loss for businesses can be a nightmare especially when you don't have a recent backup system. Critical data that is lost can even ruin your business causing loss of client contacts, financial information and other business data. Apart from being proactive about data backup, businesses should also be prepared for data recovery plans in case of a disaster.

What are some of the frequent causes of data loss?

Power Failure
Power failure is probably the single most of data corruption and loss causing damage to both hardware and data. The most common scenario this happens is when a power failure occurs when the physical storage media such as a DVD or USB memory stick or Hard Drive is being written to.

Hardware Failure
Hardware failure due to frequent use or many years of use can cause irrecoverable data loss. A hard drive failure means that critical data is lost. Bad Sectors need to be immediately marked using a tool such as ScanDisk or the disk should be replaced in order to prevent further damage.

Software Failure
Software that write to disks such as partitioning software, disk formatting software can cause a disk to become corrupt, if stopped in the middle of an operation or if the very disk software itself is buggy.

Human Errors
Human error is also another common cause of data loss. For example a file or folder could be deleted by mistake because of a wrong keystroke.

Viruses and Malware
Viruses and malware infecting the PC can also delete data or overwrite existing data with junk or malicious code.

How to recover lost data?

Depending on the type of data loss, there are many solutions available to recover lost data. Some of these are software based solutions while some require the help of an expert to analyze the problem and use semi-automated recovery procedures. A data recovery company will usually set expectations beforehand that data recovery is not a guaranteed option.

When a data loss occurs, its good to plug out the disk or drive so that further data loss doesn't occur.


Competency-Based Assessment: From Conceptual Model to Operational Tool

Competency-Based Assessment: From Conceptual Model to Operational Tool

Mohammed Khalidi Idrissi (Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco), Meriem Hnida (Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco) and Samir Bennani (Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0531-0.ch004
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Competency-based Assessment (CBA) is the measurement of student's competency against a standard of performance. It is a process of collecting evidences to analyze student's progress and achievement. In higher education, Competency-based Assessment puts the focus on learning outcomes to constantly improve academic programs and meet labor market demands. As of to date, competencies are described using natural language but rarely used in e-learning systems, and the common sense idea is that: the way competency is defined shapes the way it is conceptualized, implemented and assessed. The main objective of this chapter is to introduce and discuss Competency-based Assessment from a methodological and technical perspectives. More specifically, the objective is to highlight ongoing issues regarding competency assessment in higher education in the 21st century, to emphasis the benefits of its implementation and finally to discuss some competency modeling and assessment techniques.
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Educational systems have always benefited from technological advances to explore new research areas and improve the teaching-learning process. Over recent years, there has been an increased interest in incorporating competencies into educational curriculum to insure the teaching meets industry-required needs. A Competency-based Education (CBE) focuses on the outcomes of learning by defining goals and processes to achieve them (El Falaki et al.,2011). It contributes to student’s career readiness since the main goal is to let students progress at their own pace and measure their achievement against a standard of performance. Educational programs based on CBE describe skills and capacities that one needs to achieve and should be align with both industry and academic standards (Johnstone & Leasure, 2015). CBE involves a methodology to describe, model and assess competencies. However, developing educational programs with a focus on competency as student’s characteristic is challenging and needs further attention when it comes to learners’ cognitive skills which are considered as unobservable traits, hard to conceive and objectively measure (Hnida, Idrissi, & Bennani, 2014). The research question addressed in this chapter is: how competencies are modeled and assessed within an e-learning platform.

The starting point of developing a competency assessment model is defining and modeling students’ attributes to be measured. Based on our literature review, it seems that competencies still subject to different modeling and scales, and have suffered from a variety of interpretations and implementations within e-learning systems: (1) different conceptions of learner profile (2) various approaches promoting either knowledge, skills or attitudes, (3) different assessment strategies to meet specific needs. The variety in competency modeling and assessment techniques could be explained, then, by the fact that existing models and standardized tests don’t follow the extremely rapid change.

In the above situation and in order to assess competencies in an online educational system, we need to clearly set a competency assessment model. This category of assessment is viewed as putting students on a competency scale in order to compare them, more specifically, it tends to pinpoint where their understanding is strong and where their understanding is less strong. For tutors, assessing student competencies help them generating concept maps, with understood concepts and misunderstood ones, that need further explanations or more practices in real contexts. This highlights the need to develop a guideline explaining how to effectively implement Competency-based Assessment.

Competency-based Assessment is an important research topic which might be divided into two open problems: (1) Assessment design, which includes competency modeling by test designers, it is about formulating a competency structure to assess and clearly link each competency to an appropriate situation, problem and material. (1) Assessment implementation by test developers, it includes means and tools used to capture measurable attributes of competency. However, assessing competencies involves a complex range of learners’ characteristics such us: knowledge level, style, abilities, cognitive skills, background, etc.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss and highlight open problems of Competency-based Assessment and issues regarding its implementation in online educational systems. It tends to find a common understanding of competency, reports and discusses competency modeling and assessment techniques and concludes with a set of best practices. The rest of this chapter is organized as follows:

In Section II, we report and analyze competency definition, trying to, first, understand what the term “competency” means and which of the students’ attributes are involved in, and then, to find a form of consensus about how competencies could be defined and what criterion might be used to effectively measure a shown performance. In Section III, we discuss ongoing issues and challenges regarding competency assessment in higher education in the 21st century, then we highlight its benefits for teachers, students, administrators and e-learning systems. Finally, we report some approaches used for assessing competencies in e-learning systems. In section IV, we review related works. Then, we describe the methodology we have adopted to create a competency model. We emphasize the importance of ontology-based competency modeling and show useful steps to follow. An example of implementation of the proposed model within e-learning systems is briefly described. Finally, section V outlines the main conclusion and draws research perspectives.

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Appearance of innermost stable circular orbits of accretion discs around rotating neutron stars [HEAP]

The innermost stable cicular orbit (ISCO) of an accretion disc orbiting a neutron star (NS) is often assumed a unique prediction of general relativity. However, it has been argued that ISCO also appears around highly elliptic bodies described by Newtonian theory. In this sense, the behaviour of an ISCO around a rotating oblate neutron star is formed by the interplay between relativistic and Newtonian effects. Here we briefly explore the consequences of this interplay using a straightforward analytic approach as well as numerical models that involve modern NS equations of state. We examine the ratio K between the ISCO radius and the radius of the neutron star. We find that, with growing NS spin, the ratio K first decreases, but then starts to increase. This non-monotonic behaviour of K can give rise to a neutron star spin interval in which ISCO appears for two very different ranges of NS mass. This may strongly affect the distribution of neutron stars that have an ISCO (ISCO-NS). When (all) neutron stars are distributed around a high mass M0, the ISCO-NS spin distribution is roughly the same as the spin distribution corresponding to all neutron stars. In contrast, if M0 is low, the ISCO-NS distribution can only have a peak around a high value of spin. Finally, an intermediate value of M0 can imply an ISCO-NS distribution divided into two distinct groups of slow and fast rotators. Our findings have immediate astrophysical applications. They can be used for example to distinguish between different models of high-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations observed in low-mass NS X-ray binaries.

Read this paper on arXiv…

G. Torok, M. Urbanec, K. Adamek, et. al.
Tue, 18 Mar 14


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Sunday, December 3, 2017, 3:00 p.m.

LG Arts Center

508, Nonhyeon-ro,

Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Brahms: Violin Sonata no. 3 in d minor, op. 108 (1886-1888)

Brahms: Horn Trio in E-flat Major, op. 40 (1865)

Brahms: String Sextet no. 2 in G Major, op. 36 (1864-1865)

Chamber Music Today’s second concert program celebrates the great Romantic composer Johannes Brahms, whose masterful craftsmanship has rightfully cemented his place among the most revered composers in all of history. Brahms’s final violin sonata, composed for his friend and colleague Hans von Bülow and premiered by Jenő Hubay as the composer’s Opus 108, is a feat of dramatic athleticism for the violinist and exemplifies the rich sonority of the composer’s harmonic language. Composed in 1865 to commemorate the death of his mother earlier that year, the Horn Trio features delightfully unique textures produced by the unusual combination of horn, violin, and piano, and is one of Brahms’s most treasured chamber music masterpieces. Concluding the program is a tour de force performance of the thrilling String Sextet no. 2 in G Major, offering each individual performer ample opportunity to both display their electrifying virtuosity and savor Brahms’s delicious melodies.

(Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, Vienna)

Violin Sonata no. 3 in d minor, op. 108

Composed: 1886–1888

Published: 1889

First performance: December 21, 1888, Budapest

Dedication: Baron Hans Guido von Bülow (1830–1894)

Other works from this period: Detailed in the notes below

Approximate duration: 25 minutes

By the year 1880, Johannes Brahms had risen to global renown as a pianist, composer, educator, and conductor. He had already completed two highly regarded symphonies (no. 1 in 1876 and no. 2 in 1877), two string quartets (published as the Opus. 51 set in 1873), and had more than enough performances and commissions to financially sustain his happily modest lifestyle. In 1881 alone, he played his second piano concerto at Meiningen (alongside conductor Hans von Bülow, with whom Brahms established a flourishing musical partnership) at least 22 times over a three-month period. Brahms even turned down offers for permanent directorship positions at Düsseldorf (1876) and the Cologne Conservatory (1884) in favor of maintaining his flexible touring and compositional life.

The name Joseph Joachim is one that is nearly synonymous with anything Brahms wrote for the violin. A Hungarian violinist and composer, the two met in 1853 when Brahms was a hardly-known composer and became close friends and collaborators.

Their relationship nearly ended in 1881, when Joachim accused his wife Amalie of having an affair with the music publisher Fritz Simrock. During the divorce hearings, Brahms wrote a letter to Amalie declaring his belief in her innocence and scathing Joachim for his groundless suspicions. To Brahms’s surprise, the letter was read aloud in court and was archived as public record. Joachim saw this as betrayal of their friendship, and severed ties with Brahms for six years. As a later peace offering, Brahms wrote his Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in a minor for and dedicated it to Joachim (1887). Though Joachim’s response was lukewarm, the two clumsily repaired their personal and professional relationships, and Brahms soon also composed the Violin Sonata no. 3 for Joachim to debut.

The character of the third violin sonata is much stormier than his previous two, with the violin and piano both displaying intense virtuosity. Another oddity is that the third sonata contains four movements, while all of Brahms’ other sonatas feature just three. Opening with a traditional sonata-allegro form, the work starts as if picking up mid-way through a thought. The violin and piano wind down until the piano introduces a new theme, as if a fresh beginning for the opening movement. A final cadence in D major leads into the Adagio, where a pensive violin melody is guided by a patient piano accompaniment. The playful but brief Un poco presto e con sentimento makes way for the brilliant and often-performed Presto agitato finale.

The work was officially dedicated to pianist Hans von Bülow, who premiered it alongside Joachim. While it is indeed a violin sonata, the difficulty of the piano part is presumed to be the reason the sonata bears the dedication of a pianist instead of a violinist. Nevertheless, Bülow was a natural choice for the role; he was widely considered among the world’s greatest pianists and conductors of the nineteenth century. Brahms met Bülow at Meiningen, where Bülow served as director for five years before moving on to direct the Berlin Philharmonic.

– © 2017, Andrew Goldstein

Horn Trio in E-flat Major, op. 40

Composed: 1865

Publication: 1866

First performance: November 28, 1865, Zurich

Other works from this period: Sonata in f minor for Two Pianos, op. 34bis (1864); String Sextet no. 2 in G Major, op. 36 (1864–1865); Sixteen Waltzes for Solo Piano, op. 39 (1865); Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), op. 44 (1865–1868)

Approximate duration: 28 minutes

Brahms completed his Opus 40 Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano in 1865, months after the death of his mother, with whom he was close. The trio represents a poignant tombeau. (Brahms’s choral masterpiece, Ein deutsches Requiem, is likewise thought to commemorate his deceased mother.) The work’s unconventional instrumentation suggests its deep personal resonance: Brahms studied the horn as a child and may have been nostalgically compelled to substitute that instrument for the more conventional cello.

The first movement Andante begins with a lilting lullaby in the violin, marked dolce espressivo, and soon taken up by the horn. The music becomes more animated with the introduction of an unsettled second theme. The balance of the movement, rather than extensively developing these materials, simply swings back and forth between these contrasting humors.

The scherzo follows, its frenzied opening measures abbreviating the repose of the Andante’s final cadence. The sobering mournfulness of the scherzo’s trio section gives the listener pause, and while the second movement ends with a reprise of the extroverted scherzo, Brahms elaborates on the trio’s downcast character in the third movement. Marked Adagio mesto (“slow and sorrowful”), this movement can only be heard as the composer’s lament for his mother. Brahms instructs the pianist to play una corda, producing a softer, less radiant timbre. Above this haunting piano accompaniment, the violin and horn introduce a ghostly melody. The unaccompanied horn desolately cries out the elegiac second theme; the violin and piano quietly sympathize, as if comforting the bereaved.

Before the Adagio mesto expires, the horn introduces a new melody, taken from the German folk song “In der Weiden steht ein Haus” (“In the Meadow Stands a House”). Evidently a childhood favorite of Brahms that he learned from his mother, the folk song serves here as a nostalgic reminder of happier times. Though only briefly alluded to near the end of the slow movement, the tune erupts as the theme of the rambunctious Allegro con brio. What depths of despair Brahms achieves in the slow movement, he matches with ecstatic joy in the high-flying finale.

—© 2017 Patrick Castillo

String Sextet no. 2 in G Major, op. 36

Composed: 1864–1865

Published: N. Simrock, Bonn, 1866

First performance: November 20, 1866, Zürich

Other works from this period: Sextet no. 1 in B-flat Major, op. 18 (1859–1860); Piano Quartet no. 1 in g minor and no. 2 in A Major, opp. 25 and 26 (1861); Piano Quintet in f minor, op. 34 (1862); Cello Sonata in e minor, op. 38 (1862–1865); Horn Trio in E-flat Major, op. 40 (1865)

Approximate duration: 40 minutes

While an unquestionably accomplished symphonist (despite the fourteen-year Beethoven-fueled neurosis that surrounded his First Symphony), Johannes Brahms especially thrived in writing for small forces. Following the death of Schumann in 1856, Brahms emerged as chamber music’s most significant voice. His chamber works, which span the whole of his artistic maturity, reflect the essence of his creativity and embody the spirit of the Romantic period. Musicologist Walter Frisch has written, “Brahms revived chamber music after the death of Schumann…and defined it for the later nineteenth century. Across forty years, from the Opus 8 Piano Trio (1854) to the Opus 120 clarinet sonatas (1894), ranges a corpus of twenty-four complete works that is arguably the greatest after Beethoven.” Brahms’s music represents the fulcrum of the Viennese tradition, successfully integrating the influence of his predecessors—Beethoven, Schubert, and others, not to mention the pre-Viennese influence of Bach and Heinrich Schütz, whose music he studied obsessively—and in turn serving as an important model for Schoenberg and the Second Viennese composers.

Brahms composed his String Sextet in G Major, op. 36, between 1864 and 1865. It is his second essay in the string sextet genre, following the Opus 18 Sextet of 1860. Like the other chamber works of Brahms’s early maturity, the Opus 36 Sextet displays the craftsmanship and sensitivity of an artist fully fledged despite his youth. Brahms’s expert handling of the string sextet sonority prevails throughout the work, as he exploits different instrumental and registral combinations to achieve a broadly expressive sonic palette.

Above a hushed, oscillating figure in the viola, the first violin proclaims the opening movement’s soaring first theme, its heroic melodic contour tempered by Brahms’s instruction to play mezza voce. The delicate balance contained in these measures between fortitude and restraint foreshadows a duality that pervades much of the sextet. The movement also represents the composer’s cathartic response to his ill-fated love affair with the amateur soprano Agathe von Siebold. Dropping the T (and with H used in German notation for the note B-natural), the robust second theme spells “Agathe”.

“Here,” Brahms, the lifelong bachelor, wrote of this passage, “I have freed myself from my last love.”

The scherzo exercises a similar restraint to that of the first theme of the Allegro non troppo. Its wistful manner descends to a whisper as the first violin and viola play a hushed triplet figure in stark octaves, marked tranquillo. The rambunctious country-dance of the trio section emphatically offsets the scherzo’s melancholy.

The Poco adagio is a theme and variations. Given the enigmatic profile of the opening section, the critic and Brahms intimate Eduard Hanslick referred to this movement as “variations on no theme.” A subtle yet striking moment occurs before the music yields to the first variation: a melodic fragment evokes the first theme of the opening movement.

Now in the relative key of e minor, Brahms transforms that musical idea into a melancholy sigh.

Five variations follow, which transfigure the mysterious theme in inventive and unexpected ways.

The finale begins with a breathless gallop of sixteenth notes before quickly settling into a more relaxed musical idea, crooned by the first violin in its lowest register. The cello introduces the billowing second theme beneath a reappearance of the sixteenth-note figure. As if emerging victorious from the introversion and agita of the preceding movements, the effervescence of these two ideas carries the sextet to a spirited coda. Along the way, demonstrating Brahms’s steady craftsmanship and deep admiration of the music of Bach, the movement’s development section features a fugue.

—© Patrick Castillo

Copyright 2016 Casual Classics Co. LTD  I  casualc2011@gmail.com

Web design copyright 2017 Andrew Goldstein


92 breakfast

We came up with this to keep your little angels occupied on the school run.

This made us so happy this morning.

They should’ve done a double-header at the Grammys!

As heard regularly on the show, Catboy’s 4 year old daughter, Betsy Pearl, is wallflower.

Does he know everyone in Scotland? And why is being in a band better than being on a football team? Rod spills it all.

She might not have the power. She might not have the money. But she has got the cuteness factor.

#92Breakfast get the gossip from Mariah… And you won’t believe what she does all by herself!

Not just one for golf fans. This really cracked us up in the studio this morning. Great job!

Catboy is one of these. Sometimes he lets Betsy Pearl play, too.

on air


Roman catholic calendar: liturgical calendar , A complete catholic calender for use with the liturgy of the hours. When leap year? | earth | earthsky, The last leap year was 2016, and the next one is 2020! leap days are extra days added to the calendar to help synchronize it with earth’s orbit around the sun and.

Easter 2016 - calendar-12., Easter 2016 sunday, march 27 (fourth sunday march). check date easter 2018 years.. Julian day - wikipedia, Julian day continuous count days beginning julian period primarily astronomers. julian day number (jdn) integer. Old style style dates - wikipedia, Old style (..) style (..) terms dates calendar convention time .

year to year calendar


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Beacon of Hope Dimming?

Beacon of Hope Dimming?

Making Good on A Promise

Brown v. the Board of Education was an iconic case that was supposed to be a beacon of hope. In America, every child, no matter what their background, would be given the opportunity to use a high quality public education as their path out of poverty. The suit, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, was intended to dismantle a dual system of education, one where it is unconstitutional to run two different school systems. At the time, there was one system serving economically privileged and often predominantly white children and a system of schools reserved for the underserved, mostly students of color, living in poor neighborhoods.

Decades later the question remains. Have we made good on the promise of Brown v. The Board of Education?

A report released last spring by they U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that we have not.

These schools were the most racially and economically concentrated: 75 to 100 percent of the students were Black or Hispanic and eligible for free or reduced-price lunch—a commonly used indicator of poverty. Even more troubling, the GAO’s analysis of Education data also found that compared with other schools, schools in impoverished neighborhoods offered disproportionately fewer math, science, and college preparatory courses.

Does this indicate a trend toward lowered expectations for students in underserved communities? After all, these are the courses that deliver content through the use of complex texts, something many educators say is what leads to success in college and career.

Fidelity to the program resulted in reading gains that were five times greater than those experienced by students taught via other reading strategies

What Everyone Should KNOW

The Common Core standards are meant to address the issue of lowered expectations and so far, the more stringent standards have led to a slight uptick in achievement for underserved students. A new release of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) contains a review of research stressing the importance of students being able to read complex texts. Appendix A states that “while the complexity of reading demands for college, career, and citizenship have held steady or risen over the past half century, the complexity of texts students are exposed to has steadily decreased in that same interval.”

Research indicating the effectiveness of introducing higher literacy standards is not new. In a bid to correct what some called the “knowledge deficit” among New York City public school students in 2010, then Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein implemented a pilot program to overhaul how children in 10 city schools would be taught to read.

The program, called the New York City Core Knowledge Early Literacy Project, was funded with $2.4 million in private donations raised by the Fund for Public Schools. It ran for three years, following kindergarteners at 10 participating schools through the first and second grade. The pilot curriculum was heavily focused on content knowledge, phonics and non-fiction books. The program was based on the belief that when students struggle with reading comprehension in elementary school, middle school and beyond, a large part of the problem is that they lack basic knowledge in subjects like history, science and literature early in their school journey.

The curriculum was developed by E. D. Hirsch Jr.’s Core Knowledge Foundation, the author of “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know,” a book that became quite controversial after its publication in 1987. Although Mr. Hirsch is a liberal, his ideas were attacked as neoconservative.

The pilot program was a departure from the so-called balanced literacy approach, a method that  the Bloomberg administration favored. Under the balanced literacy approach, children are encouraged to select books from classroom libraries that interest them and are at their own reading levels, meaning that in any given classroom, every child may be reading a different book. Critics say that it’s an approach that tends to be less effective in low-performing schools and in places with relatively inexperienced teachers. The approach based on the work of E.D. Hirsch’s “core knowledge” pedagogy stresses nonfiction reading, content knowledge, and decoding skills, and introduces complex texts for students to grapple with.

There were 10 schools participating in the Core Knowledge Early Literacy pilot project and at the end of three years the results were compelling. According to project reports, through early reading instruction and content-rich “read-alouds,” all students—low-income students specifically—gained the “core” common knowledge needed to navigate society.

The pilot reading program tracked 1,000 students in twenty low-income schools in New York City. Ten implemented E.D. Hirsch’s “core knowledge” pedagogy, stressing nonfiction reading, content knowledge, and decoding skills, while the other ten employed reading strategies of the “balanced literacy” sort. Besides tracking scores on pre- and post-tests, the study gathered teacher and administrator survey data and conducted site visits at four CKLA schools, confirming teachers’ fidelity to the Core Knowledge program.

CKLA students across all studied grades (Kindergarten through second) boasted larger gains than their comparison-group peers, and students with lower base achievement saw larger gains. Core Knowledge had the greatest impact on Kindergarteners; fidelity to the program resulted in reading gains that were  five times greater than those experienced by students taught via other reading strategies. Likewise, Core Knowledge students scored higher on science and social studies content-based tests than those using other reading strategies.

After three years of positive results—and gains made since the implementation in New York State of the Common Core, which also favors Core Knowledge-like reading instruction—it seems logical that we should provide complex text literacy interventions as early as possible, for ALL students.

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