Built-in Collections - Report and Group Variables References (Report Builder)

When you have a complex calculation that is used more than once in expressions in a report, you might want to create a variable. You can create a report variable or a group variable. Variable names must be unique in a report.

Report Variables

Use a report variable to hold a value for time-dependent calculations, such as currency rates or time stamps, or for a complex calculation that is referenced multiple times. By default, a report variable is calculated once and can be used in expressions throughout a report. Report variables are read-only by default. You can change the default to enable a report variable as read-write. The value in a report variable is preserved throughout a session, until the report is processed again.

To add a report variable, open the ReportProperties dialog box, click Variables, and provide a name and a value. Names are case-sensitive strings that begin with a letter and have no spaces. A name can include letters, numbers, or underscores (_).

To refer to the variable in an expression, use the global collection syntax, for example, =Variables!CustomTimeStamp.Value. On the design surface, the value appears in a text box as <<Expr>>.

You can use report variables in the following ways:

  • Read-only use Set a value once to create a constant for the report session, for example, to create a time stamp.

    Because expressions in text boxes are evaluated on-demand as a user pages through a report, dynamic values (for example, an expression that includes the Now() function, which returns the time of day) can return different values if you page forward and backward by using the Back button. By setting a the value of a report variable to the expression =Now(), and then adding the variable to your expression, you ensure the same value is used throughout report processing.

  • Read-write use Set a value once and serialize the value within a report session. The read-write option for variables provides a better alternative than using a static variable in the Code block in the report definition.

    When you clear the Read-Only option for a variable, the Writable property for the variable is set to true. To update the value from an expression, use the SetValue method, for example, =Variables!MyVariable.SetValue("123").

    You cannot control when the report processor initializes a variable or evaluates an expression that updates a variable. The order of execution for variable initialization is undefined.

    For more information about sessions, see Previewing Reports in Report Builder.

Group Variables

Use a group variable to calculate a complex expression once in the scope of a group. A group variable is valid only in the scope of the group and its child groups.

For example, suppose a data region displays inventory data for items that are in different tax categories and you want to apply different tax rates for each category. You would group the data on Category and define a Tax variable on the parent group. Then you would define a group variable for ItemTax for each tax category and assign each of the different Category subgroups to the correct group variable. For example:

  • For the parent group based on [Category], define the variable Tax with a value [Tax]. Assume the category values are Food and Clothing.

  • For the child group based on [Subcategory], define the variable ItemsTax as =Variables!Tax.Value * Sum(Fields!Price.Value). Assume the subcategory values for the category Food are Beverages and Bread. Assume the subcategory values for Clothing are Shirts and Hats.

  • For a text box in a row in the child group, add the expression =Variables!ItemsTax.Value.

    The text box displays the total tax for Beverages and Bread using the Food tax and for Shirts and Hats using the Clothing tax.

    To add a group variable, open the Tablix Group Properties dialog box, click Variables, and provide a name and a value. The group variable is calculated once per unique group value.

    To refer to the variable in an expression, use the global collection syntax, for example, =Variables!GroupDescription.Value. On the design surface, the value appears in a text box as <<Expr>>.

See Also

Built-in Collections in Expressions (Report Builder and SSRS)
Expression Examples (Report Builder and SSRS)


About ACCESS (old)

The Amsterdam Centre for Cross-Disciplinary Emotion and Sensory Studies provides a platform for cooperation between scholars from the humanities, the social sciences, and the life sciences.

Recently the scholarly interest in the emotions and the senses has gained momentum through the ‘affective turn’ informing many new studies in different disciplines. ACCESS aims to enhance this momentum, creating an interdisciplinary platform between historians, cultural anthropologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers and other scholars interested in the cultural production and expression of the emotions and the operations of the senses.

Our research rests on the presumption that both the experience and expression of the emotions and the senses are culturally informed. Different communities shape different sensory and emotional ‘regimes’. To quote Oliver Sacks: ‘culture tunes our neurons’.


False History, Real Genocide: The Use and Abuse of Identity in Rwanda

Posted: January 13, 2011 in Genocide Denial

By Michelle–April 06, 2009

The roots of the Rwandan genocide stretch far back from that horrible day in April 1994, when Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down over Kigali and the country’s armed forces and Interahamwe militia launched a systematic campaign, driven by hateful Hutu Power propaganda, to exterminate the country’s Tutsis and anyone who dared to sympathize. One hundred days, over 800,000 deaths, and the history of a country, the fabric of a society, the lives of families, divided into “before” and “after.”

History can, indeed, be deadly. When power-lust meets and manipulates a distorted historical narrative, identity can become a tool of dominance and oppression: The ideology that fed the genocide in Rwanda, which began on April 6, 1994, was firmly rooted in a misconception of history that cast Tutsis as historical oppressors and the Hutu government as stalwarts of freedom.

A single account can never do full justice to the various complex factors that led into the Rwandan genocide, and I make no pretense of doing so here. However, this post (which is less blog post, and more resource/background material) attempts to give at least a basic explanation of the manipulation of identity and history in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide — the briefest of explanations of how identity and history became tools in the hands of the power-hungry. A subsequent post will address the genocide itself.

What does it mean to be Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa?

Significant controversy exists over the origin of Rwanda’s Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa ethnic groups. The long-held belief that Tutsis descended on Rwanda from the north has now been dispelled by experts. Indeed, as Elizabeth Neuffer wrote in The Key to My Neighbor’s House:

“Hutu and Tutsi, by most anthropologists definitions, are not different ethnic groups at all: They speak the same language, share the same customs, have the same religion, have intermarried.”

According to Alison Des Forges, the growth of the Rwandan state resulted in a more clearly defined elite group in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Given that cattle served as the measure of wealth, the terms ‘Hutu’ and ‘Tutsi’ at first referred to the status of an individual: ‘Tutsi’ indicated a cattle-holder and became the term for the elite, power-holding group, and ‘Hutu’ indicated subordinates or followers, the “mass of ordinary people.” Although these terms originally stem from occupational and social status differences, historian Catherine Newbury rejects describing the groups as “castes,” as they were not so rigid or clearly-defined, nor were they religiously or ideologically sanctioned, and their discussion as such neglects variations and complexities in Rwandan history. “Tutsi” and “Hutu” became hierarchical designators of proximity to power, with social relations crystallized as ethnic-like identities before the arrival of European colonists.

Enter: The Europeans

When German colonists arrived in 1897, they found a highly developed state. Influenced by the “Hamitic hypothesis,” the theory that a “Caucasoid” race (the Tutsi) migrated from the north (in this case, Ethiopia) to bring culture and civilization to Africans, the Germans set up a system of indirect rule based on the essentialist belief that Tutsi domination was the natural, traditional order of Rwanda. Colonial rule thus served solidify Rwandan identities — what had previously been at least somewhat flexible now became racialized, and thus, unchangeable.

To make matters worse, after World War I, the Belgians — who acquired Rwanda as a trusteeship — simplified Rwanda’s previously complex system of governance into a single hierarchical structure purged of almost all Hutu chiefs. By also closing off Hutu access to higher education and thus to administrative jobs, Hutus were essentially denied political representation and economic opportunities. Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa identities were firmly solidified of ethnic identity cards beginning in 1926. As Des Forges writes, “The very recording of ethnic groups in written form enhanced their importance and changed their character. No longer flexible and amorphous, the categories became so rigid and permanent that some contemporary Europeans began referring to them as ‘castes.’ The ruling elite…increasingly stressed their separateness and their presumed superiority. Meanwhile Hutu, officially excluded from power, began to experience the solidarity of the oppressed.”

While the political ethnic groups existed before the colonial period, the racist ideology of the Europeans had drastic implications, creating the idea of a superior race which was solidified via colonial policies and internalized by Rwandans themselves. Hutu and Tutsi identities were thus further developed and strengthened according to inclusion or exclusion in the colonial power apparatus, with the racist ideology of the Europeans creating a divisive, false political memory.

Independence, and After

Belief in this racialized version of Rwandan history is clearly seen in the 1957 Hutu Manifesto, a document produced on the eve of independence demanding democracy and freedom from rule by the Tutsi aristocracy. Referring to Tutsi rule as “colonialism,” an idea derived from the erroneous belief (rooted in the Hamtic hypothesis) that the Tutsi population migrated or invaded Rwanda from Ethiopia, this document reveals the internalization of this false history its characterization of Hutu and Tutsi identities.

After a bloody Hutu uprising in 1959, approximately ten thousand Tutsi went into exile; groups of exiles tried to attack and re-enter the country eleven times between 1961 and 1967, leading to reprisal killings of Tutsi within Rwanda, who were accused of aiding the invaders, by the newly-independent Hutu regime. Like fear-mongering regimes are wont to do, the attacks were used to strengthen a sense of Hutu solidarity. This memory of oppression and revolution, aided by the false historical context constructed by the European colonizers, ensured the persistence of Hutu and Tutsi as ethnicities — with a distinctly political flavor — in the post-independence era. Furthermore, the status of Hutu and Tutsi as political identities ensured their survival as such, even through increased intermarriage in the post-colonial period, as their relevance as a tool for politicians (frequently for the purposes of scapegoating) kept the ethnicities in place.

This post was adapted from papers written in college and graduate school by me, drawing on a variety of sources, and including my own general knowledge of the the subject (after several years of study)

Source: http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/false_history_real_genocide_the_use_and_abuse_of_identity_in_rwanda

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The Big Applesauce Moderators ([personal profile] applesaucemod) wrote2020-11-17 04:52 pm

Please be respectful to other players and the mods at all times!
This is a judgement-free place. Racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, fatphobia, transphobia, etc, and in general hate and bashing will not be tolerated. We operate under Dreamwidth's diversity statement.

IC ≠ OOC. That is to say, don't get personally offended if someone else's character is mean to yours. Characters may discriminate and judge based on the aforementioned things, but try to maintain a good tone between players.

If you have any problems with another player, a mod, or anything in the game, please, contact a mod. We would appreciate you coming forward, as long as it's in a respectful manner, and we want to do what we can to make the playing experience better for you. The mods can't be everywhere, so we appreciate your help.

No Godmoding.
You control your characters and yours alone. You may not write out someone else's character doing or saying something, or have your character do something drastic to someone else's character, unless you have permission to do so.

Canon-puncture is okay as long as the other player is okay with it. Don't make someone's character aware of their status as a fictional character unless it's been expressly allowed by the player. (Check their 'permissions' page.)

Fourth-walling (i.e. referring to player/game in narration) is okay as long as the other player is okay with it. (Check their 'permissions' page.)

Use warnings for mature subjects
Please include warnings in the post or start of thread your thread contains mature subjects, as well as the nature of subject, such as sexual activity, excessive violence, gore, body horror, rape, abuse, character death, etc. Please be sensitive and treat these subjects with maturity and the gravity they deserve. While it can be interesting to play, other players may find it very traumatic to stumble upon such subjects.

Swearing is fine; we're all adults, here.

Proper spelling and grammar. Obey the rules of the English language to the best of your ability. Posts should be in third person, present tense, and at least a paragraph or two long. Posts made to the network may reflect your character's writing habits, and include things like bad grammar, chatspeak and emoticons. Check each community's profile page for more details.

Threadjacking is something you ask about before you do. Interrupting someone's scene can be very rude. Always ask before you join an on-going thread, unless the post is marked as open for threadjacking.

Single-thread vs. multi-thread. It can get really confusing if you have multiple characters reacting to the same situation as if the first character to respond doesn't exist. Single-threads are the default, so please include in your post if you are open for multiple threads for a post. If your character is planning to sit in a bar all night, it makes sense that multiple characters might approach them.

Ingame actions have ingame consequences. If your character crosses someone, some form of retaliation can be expected. In situations such as these, we encourage players to discuss expected outcomes with one another, both in order to avoid godmoding and in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.

Please tag posts you participate in with your character name. The mods will create a tag for you when your character has been accepted or when you make your first post. This rule applies to the network and dreaming as well as to the main game.

  • All characters must be fictional. Fictionalized versions of historic figures from established media can also be acceptable, but at the mods' discretion.

  • Since we're a small game, we have a four-person cap on characters from any one canon.

  • OCs are welcome, as are CRAU characters from previous games.

  • There is no limit on how many characters an individual player can play, so long as they can keep up with them all.

  • Applications are always open unless otherwise noted.

  • If you're brand new to the game: before applying, we ask that you participate in one of our monthly Dream Parties, which can be found under our party post tag. This is a great way to voice-test, get a feel for the group, and see how writing styles and characters gel. Party posts tend to go up at the end of the month and slow down after a couple of weeks. If it's mid-month and you don't want to wait for the next one, drop the mods a line and we'll let everyone know there's a new thread to dogpile. Dream party threads can be used as your writing sample.

  • Before apping a character with existing canon-mates in the game, talk to the players behind those characters. Our game is riddled with cross-canon CR, long-running character arcs, and ongoing development, so your canon-mates might not be quite the same people your character remembers. It's important to make sure all players are on the same page before introducing an old face from home.

PBs. When you provide a character icon for the cast list, it should preferably be a photorealistic PB (played-by). If your character is from a different medium (comics, animated films, etc.), icons taken from that medium are great.

Powers will be considered on a case by case basis. Excessively powerful characters who can have major effects on the city without much effort will lose some of their powers due to rift activity. Given the wide variety of powers available across different media, it is difficult to provide a set rule on exactly how much power is too much power; if in doubt, ask a mod. Strong technological advantages are considered powers for the purpose of this rule: as an example, Iron Man and Loki of the Marvel canon would be equally unlikely to be allowed to retain their full powers.

In many cases, previously “normal” characters will gain powers or be physically transformed through contact with the rift. If you want your original or canon character to gain a power in this fashion, please detail this in the application. Ridiculous and/or useless powers are encouraged, and powers that in some way reflect your character's personality, goals, or inner self are extra awesome.

Time-sensitive powers, such as monthly were-creature transformations, should be managed in consultation with the in-game calendar. Please be consistent with your character's powers. Powers CAN change over time (or be discovered/developed later), but please discuss this with a mod first.

As a general rule: no one is more powerful than the rift. And if your character gets a little too out of hand, the rift might just knock them down a peg or five.

Applications to play native characters are open to anyone, but keep in mind that native characters should already be familiar with the world and the strange happenings in New York (though they will not necessarily be entirely aware of the underground war between Romac and the rebels).

Native characters can come from anywhere on the Earth on which the game takes place, and can be normal humans or people changed by the rift. Native characters will always be original, not from fandom.

Character death is usually permanent, though there are certain exceptions. Rebooting a character (i.e. playing them as if they've never been in the game) will of course mean they're alive again. Resurrection is not impossible, but will always come with a price. There might be other characters or possibly NPCs who can help. This must always be discussed with a mod, however. Characters with regeneration/immortality abilities may be killed more freely, but if their return to life involves significant character changes, discuss with a mod.

Activity checks are essentially non-existent. We all have lives, and we understand that assorted real-life pressures and distractions can make it difficult to maintain a constant, active presence in the game. Rather than hound anyone for failing to meet a tag quota, the mods will put up periodic 'what are your characters up to' posts in the OOC comm. These will allow players to update one another on what their characters have going on, and brainstorm things to do if they've hit a slow patch and want to pick things up.

Hiatus notices should be posted in the OOC comm, and tagged as 'hiatus', so the mods and other players are aware of what's going on and don't worry that you've died. Plus points for figuring out an in-game reason for your character to be busy/away.

Plots are awesome. Sometimes there might be mod-driven plots, but they're not mandatory and will usually be opt-in. Player-driven plots are what games like this thrive on, so go wild! Just make sure that you discuss them with any players whose characters will be involved, and discuss with the mods if it will have a significant impact on the city/game, or if you require our help through particular NPCs or anything else.

Communication is key, between both players and mods. The OOC comm is a hub for discussions, ideas, plots, socialising, in addition to introductions and game notices, or you can contact us and other players privately. AIM, as old-fashioned as it is, is where most of the action happens. This game has already formed a few friendships, and we'd love it to continue that way!

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Friday, January 10, 2014

Those in Need

There are a lot of these people. You could almost argue that everyone is in need of something. Lately, I've found myself getting into listening to various podcasts and such. It's an interesting scene, that of the internet celebrity. Specifically, I listened to a podcast by a comedian named Chris Hardwick that goes by the title of Nerdist. The last episode that I listened to was one in which Chris and his guests (Jonah Ray, Matt Myra, and Chloe Dykstra) were reflecting on what had happened over the past year. Now, I think a lot of what I say is a general reflection and reaction to this specific episode, but I think that it would also be a good reflection in general, well perhaps a reflection of people in the modern media who are oft influential in modern media (or just very visible in general to the public).


Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Big Bang

Big Bang: The beginning of the Universe

The Big Bang model

          Since humans appeared, the world around is always a mystery. Thanks to explore the world around that people know things and phenomena and their laws. The human understanding about the world around is called knowledge. From knowledge of many are aggregated into knowledge of humanity.
           Because human knowledge is limited by the perception of the world should not know what the very remote, vast and abstrate sothat human beings have supernatural like the God, Budda and the divines…created the world and the universe. Thus, humans have always believed that supernatural powers available plan for all things in the nature and people only to comply with and not allowed to know.
          Therefore, the theocracy exited millions of years and humanity under the lull may not know about the world. Today many people still believe in the supernatural power as in the religions. People think that there is the the supernatural creator that created all natural things including human races, the world and the universe as they knew.
          The scientific understanding and to create tools for scientific research that humanities have made discoveries about the world around, including of space and the universe based on the scientific basis.
         Thanks to scientific knowledge that humanities has know about the world around them, about the structure of land warrants, the space around Earth, the Solar system and to galaxy…
          To learn about space, the universe… reqires a vast amount of knowledge of humanities. First is the theory posed by exploring the results of the scientists, and then proven true test of that theory. The conclusions from proven theories would add to knowledge base of humanities. Understanding the origin of the universe is also in this rule.
             To understand the origin of the universe is a great discover of humanities. With scientific basis we need to understand the world around us and the universe that we inhabit. First we learn about the Big Bang theory, an event began to shape the universe based on science, not based on blind trust from the spirit and religious rights, including the explanation prevailing religions of the world.
       The history of the Big Bang theory began with the Big Bang's development from observations and theoretical considerations. Much of the theoretical work in cosmology now involves extensions and refinements to the basic Big Bang model.

The Big Bang Expansion process

History of discovering Big Bang theory

In 1910s
             Observationally, in the 1910s, Vesto Slipher and later, Carl Wilhelm Wirtz, determined  that most spiral nebulae were receding from Earth. Slipher used spectroscopy to investigate the rotation periods of planets, the composition of planetary atmospheres, and was the first to observe the radial velocities of galaxies. Wirtz observed a systematic Redshift of nebulae, which was difficult to interpret in terms of a cosmology in which the Universe is filled more or less uniformly with stars and nebulae. They weren't aware of the cosmological implications, nor that the supposed nebulae were actually galaxies outside our own Milky Way.
              Also in that decade, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity was found to admit no static cosmological solutions, given the basic assumptions of cosmology described in the Big Bang's theoretical underpinnings. The universe (i.e., the space-time metric) was described by a metric tensor that was either expanding or shrinking (i.e., was not constant or invariant). This result, coming from an evaluation of the field equations of the general theory, at first led Einstein himself to consider that his formulation of the field equations of the general theory may be in error, and he tried to correct it by adding a cosmological constant. This constant would restore to the general theory's description of space-time an invariant metric tensor for the fabric of space/existence. The first person to seriously apply general relativity to cosmology without the stabilizing cosmological constant was Alexander Friedmann
In 1920s
           In 1922 Friedmann derived the expanding-universe solution to general relativity field equations.
        In 1924 Friedmann's papers included "Über die Möglichkeit einer Welt mit konstanter negativer Krümmung des Raumes" (About the possibility of a world with constant negative curvature) which was published by the Berlin Academy of Sciences on 7/1/ 1924. Friedmann's  equations describe the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universe.
        In 1927 Georges Lemaître (1894-1966) was a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor  of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven. He was the first person to propose the theory of the expansion of the Universe.
The famous work of Lemaître, G. (1927) was "Un univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques". Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels 47A: 41. (French). (Translated in: "A Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Growing Radius Accounting for the Radial Velocity of Extragalactic Nebulae").
              Georges Lemaître proposed an expanding model for the universe to explain the observed redshifts of spiral nebulae, and forecast the Hubble law. He based his theory on the work of Einstein and De Sitter, and independently derived Friedmann's equations for an expanding universe. Also, the red shifts themselves were not constant, but varied in such manner as to lead to the conclusion that there was a definite relationship between amount of red-shift of nebulae, and their distance from observers.
                This discovery was the first observational support for the Big Bang theory.
           In 1929Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) provided a comprehensive observational foundation for Lemaître's theory. Hubble's experimental observations discovered that, relative to the Earth and all other observed bodies, galaxies are receding in every direction at velocities (calculated from their observed red-shifts) directly proportional to their distance from the Earth and each other.
           Hubble and Milton Humason formulated the empirical Redshift Distance Law of galaxies, nowadays known as Hubble's law, which, once the redshift is interpreted as a measure of recession speed, is consistent with the solutions of Einstein’s General Relativity Equations for a homogeneous, isotropic expanding space. The isotropic nature of the expansion was direct proof that it was the space (the fabric of existence) itself that was expanding, not the bodies in space that were simply moving further outward and apart into an infinitely larger preexisting empty void. It was this interpretation that led to the concept of the expanding universe. The law states that the greater the distance between any two galaxies, the greater their relative speed of separation. This discovery later resulted in the formulation of the Big Bang model.
          Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally  proportional to their Redshifts - an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927. Hubble's observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity.
             Hubble formulated the empirical Redshift Distance Law of galaxies, nowadays termed simply Hubble's law, which, if the redshift is interpreted as a measure of recession speed, is consistent with the solutions of Einstein’s equations of general relativity for a homogeneous, isotropic expanding space.
           So the discovery by Edwin Hubble that the Universe is in fact expanding at enormous speed was revolutionary. Hubble noted that galaxies outside our own Milky Way were all moving away from us, each at a speed proportional to its distance from us. He quickly realized what this meant that there must have been an instant in time (now known to be about 14 billion years ago) when the entire Universe was contained in a single point in space. The Universe must have been born in this single violent event which came to be known as the "Big Bang."
In 1930s
             Lemaître proposed in his "hypothèse de l'atome primitif" (hypothesis of the primeval atom) that the universe began with the "explosion" of the "primeval atom" - what was later called the Big Bang. Lemaître first took cosmic rays to be the remnants of the event, although it is now known that they originate within the local galaxy. Lemaître had to wait until shortly before his death to learn of the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, the remnant radiation of a dense and hot phase in the early Universe.
           In the 1930s Hubble was involved in determining the distribution of galaxies and spatial curvature. These data seemed to indicate that the universe was flat and homogeneous, but there was a deviation from flatness at large redshifts. According to Allan Sandage.
            During the 1930s other ideas were proposed as non-standard cosmologies to explain Hubble's observations, including the Milne model, the oscillatory Universe (originally suggested by Friedmann, but advocated by Albert Einstein and Richard Tolman) and Fritz Zwicky's tired light hypothesis.

In 1940s
             After World War II, two distinct possibilities emerged. One was Fred Hoyle's steady state model, whereby new matter would be created as the Universe seemed to expand. In this model the Universe is roughly the same at any point in time. The other was Lemaître's Big Bang theory, advocated and developed by George Gamow, who introduced big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and whose associates, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). Ironically, it was Hoyle who coined the phrase that came to be applied to Lemaître's theory, referring to it as "this big bang idea" during a BBC Radio broadcast in March 1949. For a while, support was split between these two theories. Eventually, the observational evidence, most notably from radio source counts, began to favor Big Bang over Steady State.
             In 1949 Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the term Big Bang during a 1949 radio broadcast (on 28/3/1949, on the BBC Third Programme).

In 1950s
                Hoyle repeated the term in further broadcasts in early 1950, as part of a series of five lectures entitled The Nature of The Universe. The text of each lecture was published in The Listener a week after the broadcast, the first time that the term "big bang" appeared in print.
              As evidence in favour of the Big Bang model mounted, and the consensus became widespread, Hoyle himself, albeit somewhat reluctantly, admitted to it by formulating a new cosmological model that other scientists later referred to as the "Steady Bang".
              For a number of years, the support for these theories was evenly divided, with a slight imbalance arising from the fact that the Big Bang theory could explain both the formation and the observed abundances of hydrogen and helium, whereas the Steady State could explain how they were formed, but not why they should have the observed abundances. However, the observational evidence began to support the idea that the universe evolved from a hot dense state. Young objects such as quasars were only observed at the very edges of the universe, indicating that such objects only existed in times long past, whereas the Steady State predicted that young galaxies should be scattered all over the universe, both near and far.
            Before the late 1960s, many cosmologists thought the infinitely dense and physically paradoxicalsingularity at the starting time of Friedmann's cosmological model could be avoided by allowing for a universe which was contracting before entering the hot dense state, and starting to expand again. This was formalized as Richard Tolman's oscillating universe. In the sixties, Stephen Hawking and others demonstrated that this idea was unworkable, and the singularity is an essential feature of the physics described by Einstein's gravity. This led the majority of cosmologists to accept the notion that the universe as currently described by the physics of general relativity has a finite age. However, due to a lack of a theory of quantum gravity, there is no way to say whether the singularity is an actual origin point for the universe, or whether the physical processes that govern the regime cause the universe to be effectively eternal in character.
In 1960s
          In 1964 After the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) was found to match that of thermal radiation from a black body, most scientists had become fairly convinced that some version of the Big Bang scenario must have occurred.
          The discovery and confirmation of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 196 4 secured the Big Bang as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos. Much of the current work in cosmology includes understanding how galaxies form in the context of the Big Bang, understanding the physics of the Universe at earlier and earlier times, and reconciling observations with the basic theory.
            In 1965 In addition, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 was considered the death knell of the Steady State, although this prediction was only qualitative, and failed to predict the actual temperature of the CMB. After some reformulation, the Big Bang has been regarded as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos.
In 1990s
          Significant progress in Big Bang cosmology have been made since the late 1990s as a result of advances in telescope technology as well as the analysis of data from satellites such as COBE, the Hubble Space Telescope and WMAP. Cosmologists now have fairly precise and accurate measurements of many of the parameters of the Big Bang model, and have made the unexpected discovery that the expansion of the Universe appears to be accelerating.
          Huge advances in Big Bang cosmology were made as a result of major advances in telescope technology in combination with large amounts of satellite data, such as that from COBE and the Hubble Space Telescope
In 2000s
         In 2003NASA's WMAP took more detailed pictures of the universe by means of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The images can be interpreted to indicate that the universe is 13.7 billion years old (within 1% error) and that the Lambda-CDM model and the inflationary theory are correct. No other cosmological theory can yet explain such a wide range of observed parameters, from the ratio of the elemental abundances in the early Universe to the structure of the cosmic microwave background, the observed higher abundance of active galactic nuclei in the early Universe and the observed masses of clusters of galaxies.

The Big Bang Theory

The Premise
           The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe
        According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the Universe to cool and resulted in its present continuously expanding state. According to the most recent measurements and observations, the Big Bang occurred approximately 13.75 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the Universe.
      After its initial expansion from a singularity, the Universe cooled sufficiently to allow energy to be converted into various subatomic particles, including protonsneutrons, and  electrons. While protons and neutrons combined to form the first atomic nuclei only a few minutes after the Big Bang, it would take thousands of years for electrons to combine with them and create electrically neutral atoms. The first element produced was hydrogen, along with traces of helium and lithium. Giant clouds of these primordial elements would coalesce through gravity to form stars and galaxies, and the heavier elements would be synthesized either within stars or during supernovae.
        The Big Bang is a well-tested scientific theory which is widely accepted within the scientific community because it is the most accurate and comprehensive explanation for the full range of phenomena astronomers observe. Since its conception, abundant evidence has arisen to further validate the model.
        The framework for the Big Bang model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions such as homogeneity and isotropy of space. The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann
         Extrapolation of the expansion of the Universe backwards in time using general relativity yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past. This singularity signals the breakdown of general relativity. How closely we can extrapolate towards the singularity is debated-certainly no closer than the end of the Planck epoch. This singularity is sometimes called "the Big Bang",but the term can also refer to the early hot, dense phase itself, which can be considered the "birth" of our Universe. Based on measurements of the expansion using Type Ia supernovae, measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, and measurements of the correlation function of galaxies, the Universe has a calculated age of 13.75 ± 0.11 billion years, The agreement of these three independent measurements strongly supports the ΛCDM model that describes in detail the contents of the Universe.
        The earliest phases of the Big Bang are subject to much speculation. In the most common models the Universe was filled homogeneously and isotropically with an incredibly high energy density and huge temperatures and pressures and was very rapidly expanding and cooling. Approximately 10−37 seconds into the expansion, a phase transition caused a cosmic inflation, during which the Universe grew exponentially. After inflation stopped, the Universe consisted of a quark–gluon plasma, as well as all other elementary particles. Temperatures were so high that the random motions of particles were at relativistic speeds, and particle–antiparticle pairs of all kinds were being continuously created and destroyed in collisions. At some point an unknown reaction calledbaryogenesis violated the conservation of baryon number, leading to a very small excess of quarks and leptons over antiquarks and antileptons—of the order of one part in 30 million. This resulted in the predominance of matter over antimatter in the present Universe.
          A few minutes into the expansion, when the temperature was about a billion (one thousand million; 109; SI prefix giga-kelvin and the density was about that of air, neutrons combined with protons to form the Universe's deuterium and helium nuclei in a process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Most protons remained uncombined as hydrogen nuclei. As the Universe cooled, the rest mass energy density of matter came to gravitationally dominate that of the photon radiation. After about 379,000 years the electrons and nuclei combined into atoms (mostly hydrogen); hence the radiation decoupled from matter and continued through space largely unimpeded. This relic radiation is known as the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Evidence for the Theory

          The major evidences which support the Big Bang theory are:
 1-First of all, we are reasonably certain that the universe had a beginning.

Big Bang under NASA's Vision

          Astronomers combine mathematical models with observations to develop workable theories of how the Universe came to be. The mathematical underpinnings of the Big Bang theory include Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity along with standard theories of fundamental particles. Today NASA spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope continue Edwin Hubble's work of measuring the expansion of the Universe. One of the goals has long been to decide whether the Universe will expand forever, or whether it will someday stop, turn around, and collapse in a "Big Crunch?"

Background Radiation

          According to the theories of physics, if we were to look at the Universe one second after the Big Bang, what we would see is a 10-billion degree sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons, and neutrinos. Then, as time went on, we would see the Universe cool, the neutrons either decaying into protons and electrons or combining with protons to make deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). As it continued to cool, it would eventually reach the temperature where electrons combined with nuclei to form neutral atoms. Before this "recombination" occurred, the Universe would have been opaque because the free electrons would have caused light (photons) to scatter the way sunlight scatters from the water droplets in clouds. But when the free electrons were absorbed to form neutral atoms, the Universe suddenly became transparent. Those same photons - the afterglow of the Big Bang known as cosmic background radiation - can be observed today.

Missions Study Cosmic Background Radiation

        NASA has launched two missions to study the cosmic background radiation, taking "baby pictures" of the Universe only 400,000 years after it was born.
            The first of these was the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE).
         In 1992, the COBE team announced that they had mapped the primordial hot and cold spots in cosmic background radiation. These spots are related to the gravitational field in the early Universe and form the seeds of the giant clusters of galaxies that stretch hundreds of millions of light years across the Universe. This work earned NASA's Dr. John C. Mather and George F. Smoot of the University of California the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics.
       The second mission to examine the cosmic background radiation was the Wilkinson Microware Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). With greatly improved resolution compared to COBE, WMAP surveyed the entire sky, measuring temperature differences of the microwave radiation that is nearly uniformly distributed across the Universe. The picture shows a map of the sky, with hot regions in red and cooler regions in blue. By combining this evidence with theoretical models of the Universe, scientists have concluded that the Universe is "flat," meaning that, on cosmological scales, the geometry of space satisfies the rules of Euclidean geometry (e.g., parallel lines never meet, the ratio of circle circumference to diameter is pi, etc).
         A third mission, Planck, is led by the European Space Agency with significant participation from NASA. Launched in 2009, Planck is making the most accurate maps of the microwave background radiation yet. With instruments sensitive to temperature variations of a few millionths of a degree, and mapping the full sky over 9 wavelength bands, it measures the fluctuations of the temperature of the CMB with an accuracy set by fundamental astrophysical limits.
The Universe's "baby picture". WMAP's map of the temperature of the microwave background radiation shows tiny variations (of few microdegrees) in The 3K background. Hot spots show as red, cold spots as dark blue.
            One problem that arose from the original COBE results, and that persists with the higher-resolution WMAP data, was that the Universe was too homogeneous. How could pieces of the Universe that had never been in contact with each other have come to equilibrium at the very same temperature? This and other cosmological problems could be solved, however, if there had been a very short period immediately after the Big Bang where the Universe experienced an incredible burst of expansion called "inflation." For this inflation to have taken place, the Universe at the time of the Big Bang must have been filled with an unstable form of energy whose nature is not yet known. Whatever its nature, the inflationary model predicts that this primordial energy would have been unevenly distributed in space due to a kind of quantum noise that arose when the Universe was extremely small. This pattern would have been transferred to the matter of the Universe and would show up in the photons that began streaming away freely at the moment of recombination. As a result, we would expect to see, and do see, this kind of pattern in the COBE and WMAP pictures of the Universe.
          But all this leaves unanswered the question of what powered inflation. One difficulty in answering this question is that inflation was over well before recombination, and so the opacity of the Universe before recombination is, in effect, a curtain drawn over those interesting very early events. Fortunately, there is a way to observe the Universe that does not involve photons at all. Gravitational waves, the only known form of information that can reach us undistorted from the instant of the Big Bang, can carry information that we can get no other way. Two missions that are being considered by NASA, LISA and the Big Bang Observer, will look for the gravitational waves from the epoch of inflation.
Dark Energy

The future of theory

In the past and current time
         In the past, there was much discussion as to whether the Big Bang would need to be completely abandoned as a description of the universe, but such proponents of non-standard cosmology have become fewer in number over the last few decades.
          Much of the current work in cosmology includes understanding how galaxies form in the context of the Big Bang, understanding what happened at the Big Bang, and reconciling observations with the basic theory. Cosmologists continue to calculate many of the parameters of the Big Bang to a new level of precision. Observations suggest that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating, a fact that is not yet explained, and may call for modifications of the underlying theory.

The future according to the Big Bang theory
        Before observations of dark energy, cosmologists considered two scenarios for the future of the Universe. If the mass density of the Universe were greater than the critical density, then the Universe would reach a maximum size and then begin to collapse. It would become denser and hotter again, ending with a state similar to that in which it started -a Big Crunch. Alternatively, if the density in the Universe were equal to or below the critical density, the expansion would slow down but never stop. Star formation would cease with the consumption of interstellar gas in each galaxy; stars would burn out leaving white dwarfsneutron stars, and black holes. Very gradually, collisions between these would result in mass accumulating into larger and larger black holes. The average temperature of the Universe would asymptotically approach absolute zero - a Big Freeze. Moreover, if the proton were unstable, then baryonic matter would disappear, leaving only radiation and black holes. Eventually, black holes would evaporate by emitting Hawking radiation. The entropy of the Universe would increase to the point where no organized form of energy could be extracted from it, a scenario known as heat death.

Underlying assumptions

         The Big Bang theory depends on two major assumptions: the universality of physical laws, and the cosmological principle. The cosmological principle states that on large scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic.
            These ideas were initially taken as postulates, but today there are efforts to test each of them. For example, the first assumption has been tested by observations showing that largest possible deviation of the fine structure constant over much of the age of the universe is of order 10−5. Also, general relativity has passed stringent tests on the scale of the Solar System and binary stars while extrapolation to cosmological scales has been validated by the empirical successes of various aspects of the Big Bang theory.
                                                                                Hồ Đình Hải

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Eddie, a fictional student in real-life East Harlem math teacher Kay Toliver’s fifth grade class, discovers how people use key math concepts and skills in the workplace. "Eddie" is a fictional character, while his teacher and all the other professionals we meet are real people highlighted in their actual professions. The series includes celebrity guests like Jerry Stiller (Seinfeld), Vincent Schiavelli (Ghosts, The People v.s. Farry Flint), Raymond Cruz (Clear & Present Danger, The Rock), Kamela Dawson (The Burning Season), MTV’s Kevin Seal, New York Yankee Slugger Wade Boggs and many more.Endorsed by NAESP, American Association of School Administrators, National Educational Telecommunications Association, NSTA. More than 20 awards, including Peabody Award and Parents' Choice Awards. Available in either English or Spanish. 16 x 30 Minute.

Hosted by renowned teacher Jamie Escalante, FUTURES show young viewers how math is applied in the real worlds of fashion, space exploration, sports, and other high performance careers. Classroom scenes with Jaime Escalante and his students introduce mathematical and scientific principles then videotaped scenes show the principles being applied in NASA laboratories, sports equipment design firms, fashion showrooms, rock concerts, auto race tracks and other mathematically oriented environments. Specialists in high-tech careers explain why math is so important to getting ahead in today’s world. Guest appearances by celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Olivia Newton-John, track star Jackie Joyber-Kersee, Cindy Crawford and many others describe the benefits of knowing and being able to use math. Scenes with Escalante and his students explain how mathematics helps develop clear and organized thinking, crucial to success in any job, and in science help researchers and technicians provide the technological advancements we need. 26 x 12-15 Minutes.

These engaging documentaries take viewers behind the scenes to discover how professionals in business, the arts. Engineering, sports and science use math to do everything from marketing Levis, designing sunglasses and creating music for TV to saving endangered animals, exploring the ocean and planning trips to distant planets. Two Interactions episodes can be combined to form a unique documentary. Individual shows are often used as exciting fillers that come full circle as they enter into a solve compelling arts and engineering problems. Episodes: Water Resources, Endangered Species, Digital Communication, The Fashion Business, Designing a Product, Voyage to Mars, Solar Energy, Recycling, Making Music, Coaching and Athlete, Building Rover, Deep Sea Missions. Awards:Chris Award, Cindy Award, And many more. 12 x 10-15 Minutes.

Get ready for a breath of fresh air! My Hometown is a cheerful, upbeat dramady created for 8-13 year olds. Set in a quaint and sunny pulp-mill community, it centers around a 13 year old boy named Thomas Thompson, his family and his diverse friends. Their stories bring today's issues forward in a realistic, humorous and often poignant way. Topics include: peer pressure, self-esteem, personal heritage, leaving home, sickness and grief, love and infatuation and drinking and driving. Currently broadcast in over 40 countries. Discussion and Activity Guide also available. 39 x 30 min

A pre-school comedy featuring adorable puppets, toe-tapping music and humor the whole family will enjoy. Gemini Winner for Best Writing in a Children's or Youth Program, Chris Bronze at Columbia Int'l Film Festival. U.S. rights Only. 39 x 30 Min.


Ford and Virginia Tech Work on Autonomous Vehicle Communication

Ford and Virginia Tech are shedding a light on pedestrian and self-driving car communication, and testing it with a clever disguise.

When pedestrians and drivers need to communicate, it’s a simple task. A gesture as subtle as a nod can do the trick. Eye contact, a wave, a flash of the headlights – all easy ways for a driver and a pedestrian to share a very important message. Autonomous cars can’t wave or make eye contact or even nod at a pedestrian. But while connected networks let cars communicate with each other, they still need to communicate with pedestrians, cyclists, and conventional cars.

SEE ALSO: Ford Going Fully Autonomous Route As Engineers Fall Asleep At The Wheel

Ford, along with Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, conducted a study of real users to test a new method of communicating with pedestrians.

“Understanding how self-driving vehicles impact the world as we know it today is critical to ensuring we’re creating the right experience for tomorrow,” said John Shutko, Ford’s human factors technical specialist. “We need to solve for the challenges presented by not having a human driver, so designing a way to replace the head nod or hand wave is fundamental to ensuring safe and efficient operation of self-driving vehicles in our communities.”

The researchers decided that lights are the best way to communicate. Displayed text and symbols were rejected because of the need for all people to understand the same language. The test used three light signals to test the intent of the communication. Two side to side lights means the vehicle is going to yield. A solid white band indicates full autonomous driving, and a blinking light means that the car is going to accelerate from a stop.

The researchers needed to test their theories but didn’t have an actual autonomous car to do it. So they faked one. A staffer put on a special outfit that made them look like an empty driver’s seat. They then drove around Arlington, Virginia, in a Ford Transit Connect van. The faux autonomous Ford covered over 1,800 miles and used the signals more than 1,650 times.

Cameras captured the pedestrian and road user behaviour. Researchers will use that data to understand how road users change their behaviour in response to self-driving vehicles and the signals.

Ford is currently working with other industry organizations including SAE and the International Organization for Standardization to set standards for self-driving car communication. It is also working on alternative systems to communicate with the visually impaired, something the lights are not able to do.

More Hybrid News...


Glossary -   Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA)

These are amino acids that have a chemical structure that looks like branches on a tree. Leucine (leu), valine (val), and isoleucine (ile) are three of the BCAAs. They are found in all foods that contain protein. Large amounts are found in meat, eggs, milk, and other dairy foods. Smaller amounts are found in flour, cereal, and in some vegetables and fruits.


Memory! What is it good for? Absolutely everything!

Memory strategies can sharpen memory!

Learning memory strategies has always interest me. While reading the Tampa Bay Times last week, I came across an interesting article about learning effective strategies to improve memory. This article was so interesting and I believe beneficial to all, especially students, I decided to write about it and share it with my community.

I often think about medical students and the large amounts of information they are required to learn in such a short time. How do they do it? Come to find out, they use memory strategies, such as those shared by Dave Farrow, a memory expert, and founder of The Farrow Method. According to Mr. Farrow, memory strategies do not include rote memory, reviewing or repeating something repeatedly until its memorized. Actual techniques learned in short amounts of time are better.

Three memory techniques by Dave Farrow

In the article, Mr. Farrow shared three techniques he used to become a Guinness record holder at the age of 21 when he memorized and recalled 3,068 cards in order.

  • One technique called the focus technique;  involves writing a story for a full five minutes. He said, “The point is to give something your absolute concentration to determine how much you can accomplish in five-minute intervals.” Mr. Farrow goes on to say that, “… the principal of focus allows the brain to accomplish simple, direct instructions. One is more likely to get it done if it is five minutes.”
  • Additionally,  Farrow says, “When one needs to recall something or a place one has been, ask focused questions about what you’re trying to look for that you know the answer to, such as color, where bought or what is a significant place marker. He says these questions help to get around the mental block.”  Mr. Farrow says, “If a person has trouble remembering something, it is likely there wasn’t a strategy in place to remember it.”
  • Another technique Farrow discussed was rarity, this strategy he said is, “left over from our hunter-gather days.”  In nature, rarity is associated with danger, and this danger association is what a memory is according to Farrow.  Lastly, Farrow says, “Another way to remember something is to look up when trying to recall information. Doing this activates the optic nerve, which helps direct energy in our brains.”

Rote memorization deserving of change.

As an educator, I often employ memory strategies. Rote memorization is a technique I am very familiar with employing with students for certain subject matter (e.g., math facts); however this technique is deserving of change according to Farrow. Especially, when working with certain student populations. Such as those identified as dyslexic or having attention deficit disorder, which identified Farrow while in school. He said, a teacher told him, because his grades were low and he performed poorly in school he would not amount to much, Farrow, out to prove the teacher wrong, became ‘obsessed” with memory tactics to overcome his challenges.  Farrow suggests introducing memorization techniques as early as middle school. I say earlier if techniques and strategies are available

Some final words from the Tampa Bay Times article about improving memory. Mr. Farrow says, “Memory exercises offer a preventive effect on memory loss and dementia. However, not all brain training is brain exercise. Playing Sudoku and crossword puzzles are not brain exercise.” Therefore, when desiring to improve memory, recall information, aid learners-utilize a strategy or technique.

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Brain Region Involved In Empathy May Explain Individual Differences In Altruism

What can explain extreme differences in among individuals, from Ebenezer Scrooge to Mother Teresa? It may all come down to variation in the size and activity of a brain region involved in appreciating others’ perspectives, according to a study published by Cell Press in the journal Neuron. The findings also provide a neural explanation for why altruistic tendencies remain stable over time.

“This is the first study to link both brain anatomy and brain activation to human altruism,” says senior study author of the . “The findings suggest that the development of altruism through appropriate training or social practices might occur through changes in the brain structure and the neural activations that we identified in our study.”

Individuals who excel at understanding others’ intents and beliefs are more altruistic than those who struggle at this task. The ability to understand others’ perspectives has previously been associated with activity in a brain region known as the temporoparietal junction (). Based on these past findings, Fehr and his team reasoned that the size and activation of the would relate to in altruism.

In the new study, subjects underwent a brain imaging scan and played a game in which they had to decide how to split money between themselves and anonymous partners. Subjects who made more generous decisions had a larger TPJ in the right hemisphere of the brain compared with subjects who made stingy decisions.

Moreover, activity in the TPJ reflected each subject’s specific cutoff value for the maximal cost the subject was willing to endure to increase the partner’s payoff. Activity in the TPJ was higher during hard decisions – when the personal cost of an altruistic act was just below the cutoff value – than during easy decisions associated with a very low or very high cost.

“The structure of the TPJ strongly predicts an individual’s setpoint for , while activity in this brain region predicts an individual’s acceptable cost for altruistic actions,” says study author Yosuke Morishima of the University of Zurich. “We have elucidated the relationship between the hardware and software of human .”

Morishima et al.: “Linking Brain Structure and Activation in Temporoparietal Junction to Explain the Neurobiology of Human Altruism.”
Cell Press


Journal article

Calcineurin inhibition in splenocytes induced by pavlovian conditioning

Pavlovian conditioning is one of the major neurobiological mechanisms of placebo effects, potentially influencing the course of specific diseases and the response to a pharmacological therapy, such as immunosuppression. In our study with behaviorally conditioned rats, a relevant taste (0.2% saccharin) preceded the application of the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporin A (CsA), a specific calcineurin (CaN) inhibitor. Our results demonstrate that through pavlovian conditioning the particular pharmacological properties of CsA can be transferred to a neutral taste, i.e., CaN activity was inhibited in splenocytes from conditioned rats after reexposure to the gustatory stimulus. Concomitant immune consequences were observed on ex vivo mitogenic challenge (anti-CD3). Particularly, Th1-cytokine, but not Th2-cytokine, production and cell proliferation were impeded. Appropriate pharmacological and behavioral controls certify that all these changes in T-lymphocyte reactivity are attributable to mere taste reexposure. Furthermore, the underlying sympathetic-lymphocyte interaction was revealed modeling the conditioned response in vitro. CaN activity in CD4(+) T lymphocytes is reduced by beta-adrenergic stimulation (terbutaline), with these effects antagonized by the beta-adrenoreceptor antagonist nadolol. In summary, CaN was identified as the intracellular target for inducing conditioned immunosuppression by CsA, contributing to our understanding of the intracellular mechanisms behind "learned placebo effects."

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Page 1

Sara Jiménez Marta Fernández C–4

INDEX 1.Introduction 2.Geography and Population Clima Demography Languages Religion 3.History 4.Economy 5.Government and Politics 6.Education 7.Culture Architecture Folklore Gastronomy Arts Literature Performing Arts 8.National Symbols 9.Curiosities

1. INTRODUCTION In this project we speak about England: its cities, its climate, its monuments, its styles of food and curiosities.

England is on the island of Great Britain. Scotland is also part of Great Britain, joining the north of England, and Wales on the west. To the east and south, and part of the west, England is bordered by sea. France is in the south-east, separated by the English Channel. The Channel Tunnel under the sea links England and mainland Europe. Ireland is a large island on the west, divided into Northern Ireland which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. Other countries of Europe that are near England are France and Iceland. London is the largest city and the capital. Other large cities are Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol, Nottingham and Liverpool. The longest river in England is the River Severn. Other large rivers are the Thames (which runs through London), the Trent and the Humber. England is not an island, because it does not have water all around it. It is a part of the island of Great Britain.

2.1. CLIMATE England's climate is mild. The temperature is below 0 ยบ C in winter and it has higher temperatures in summer (32ยบC). The climate is very wet, in autumn and winter. It rains very often, specially in the Lakes Region. The coldest months are usually January and February and the warmest month is July. May, June, September and October are the months with the most rainfall throughout the year.

2.2. DEMOGRAPHY According to the 2001 census, England is the most populous country of the United Kingdom with over 51 million inhabitants, which represents 84% of the total population. There are about 395 people per km2. 82,8% -> White British 3,6% -> White Other 2,7% -> Indian 1,9% -> Pakistani 1,5% -> African

2.3. LANGUAGE English is the official language and 95% of the population speak it. Near the border with Wales, people speak Welsh. Welsh speakers are also very funny.

Wrth eu bodd

Unrhyw beth

2.4. RELIGION There are about 10 religions in England. They are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Wicca, Druid

3. HISTORY The name “England” comes from “Angle-land”. The Angle and Saxon people came from Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries, and they called it Angle-land. After them, the Romans lived in England for about four hundred years. They made houses and roads. And they made a town next to the River Thames. And called it Londinium. Today its name is London. The Angles and Saxons came from the Northern Sea and Germany and Denmark. Later, the Vikings came from Denmark and Norway. In 1066, England had a new king. He was William of Normandy, the famous William the Conqueror. When he came to England, many French people came with him. In the nineteenth century, thousands of Irish people came to England and stayed there, and many Jewish families came from Europe and Russia. In the twentieth century, people came to England and made a new life. After the Second World War, many people came from the West Indies, Africa, and Asia. In the 1980s, people from Vietnam came because they wanted to get away from the war in their country. Today, nearly fifty million people live in England, and thousands more come from Pakistan, and Iraq, from Australia, Canada and India, and many other countries. Some are looking for work; some want to be with their families; others are looking for a better life. They brought with them their theatre, food, music, and art.

Agriculture and fishing Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 2% of the labour force. It contributes around 2% of GDP. Around two thirds of production is devoted to livestock, and one third to arable crops. Agriculture is subsidised by the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy.The main crops that are grown are wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and sugar beets. England is one of the world's leading fishing nations. Its fleets bring home fish of every kind, from sole to herring. Kingston upon Hull, Grimsby, Fleetwood, Great Yarmouth, and Lowestoft are the coastal towns that have big fishing industries.

Finances The City of London is England's major financial district, and one of the world's leading financial centres. Service industries, particularly banking, insurance, and business services, account for the largest proportion of GDP and employ around 80% of the working population. Leeds is England's second largest financial centre, with over 30 national and international banks based in the city. Over 124,000 people are employed in banking and financial services in Leeds, and in the wider Leeds City Region. Manchester is the largest financial and professional services sector outside of London and it is the mid tier private equity capital of Europe.

5. Government and Politics England itself does not have a formal government or constitution, and a specifically English role in contemporary government and politics is hard to identify in any formal sense. Historically, the English may be credited with the evolution of Parliament, which, in its medieval form, was related to the Anglo-Saxon practice of regular gatherings of notables. The English may also be credited with the glory of the Revolution of 1688, which affirmed the rule of law, parliamentary control of taxation and of the army, freedom of speech...

6. Education Full- time education is compulsory for all children between 5 and 16 across England. This can be provided by state schools, independent schools or homeschooling. About 94 per cant of pupils in England, and the rest of UK, receive free education, while 6 per cent attend fee paying schools or homeschooling. There is O-level that pupils get when they finish school at the age of 16. A-level is got at the age of 18. They study different subjects: English, Maths, Science, IT, RE, History, Geography, Art, Music, PE. at key stage 3 they begin to study Foreing languages, too. Classes begin at 8.55 more or less and finish at 3.15. Students have lunch between 12,35 to 1.15 p.m. Schools provided the lunch or there are some students who prefer packed lunch taken from home. Pupils usually wear uniforms. Boys are dressed in grey or black trousers and a white shirt, while girls wear skirts. School holidays 2 weeks at Christmas 2 weeks at spring 6 weeks in summer

7. Culture

7.1. Literature Despite the variety of authors of English literature, the works of William Shakespeare are known in the English-speaking world. Until the early 19th century, the United Kingdom started to produce major writers and works in literature. After World War II writers from the former British Empire also began to challenge writers from Britain. Robert Burns, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Pynchon, V.S. Naipaul and Vladimir Nabokov are considered important writers in the history of English literature.

7.2.Performing Arts Theatre is probably the performing art for which England is best known. Theatrical performance as such includes entertainers, tradicional and ancient folk agricultural ritulas, and dances such as the Morris dance(with its set character parts). Under the influence of Christianity, mumming plays gradully were absorbed by mystery plays (centred on the Psmerged during the Middle Ages in the form of mumming plays, wich borrowed sing of Christ). Inthe 16th century, when Englandâ€™s King Henry VIII rejected Rome and formed a national church, Latin theatrical traditions were also rejected.

8. National Symbols The Union Flag is the symbol of the whole UK, not England alone. The three national symbols of England are as follows. St Georgeâ€™s Cross.

Three lions Emblem.

The oak is the national tree of England.

The red rose.

9. Curiosities – – – – –

English people consume more tea per capita than anybody else in the wold. Bristish police don’t carry guns except in emergencies. The highest temperature recorded in England was 38.5 ºC in August 2003. The telephone booths are a big curiosity for tourists. French was the official language in England from 1066 to 1362.

Description of London

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Volume 5 Supplement 1

Abstracts from the 1st Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) Solutions Day 2014

Open Access

Journal of Clinical Bioinformatics20155(Suppl 1):S11

Published: 22 May 2015

Service/tool, patient recruitment, restricted access.

To help enhance the participation of cancer patients in clinical trials we built an application that aims to support recruitment through the automatic evaluation of the eligibility of patients for trials based on matching the characteristics of the patient population required by the trial to the patient data available for instance in the hospital EHR (electronic health record).

The population to be enrolled in a trial is described by a set of free-text eligibility criteria that are both syntactically and semantically complex, which makes their automatic evaluation on the patient data in order to assess the eligibility of that patient for a set of trials a challenging task. The extraction and representation of the semantics of the trial criteria can be made more efficient by detecting structure and patterns in criteria, by information extraction and annotation techniques and by formalization of criteria.

To automate the evaluation of eligibility of patients for trials, it is necessary to (1) extract and represent the semantics of the eligibility criteria in a machine-processable way and (2) to automatically match each criterion with the relevant data elements available for each patient. We address both aspects and propose a scalable, efficient and pragmatic application enabling automatic evaluation of eligibility of patients for a relevant set of clinical trials (Figure 1). The solution covers the flexible formalization of criteria and of other relevant trial metadata and the efficient management of these representations. Additionally, we rely on our standards-based semantic interoperability solution to provide shared semantics between formalized trial information and care data, and to enable automatic linkage and matching of trial criteria to patient data.
Figure 1

Detailed view of matched criteria for a patient and a clinical trial.

Our approach is generic and flexible, integrating loosely coupled components with well-defined standard interfaces and making use of prominent standards in the healthcare domain, such as HL7 RIM for our Clinical Data Model and BRIDG for the Trial Metadata Repository in which we preserve trial descriptions (e.g. eligibility criteria, associated formalisms and other relevant metadata). We combine the use of formal representations of eligibility criteria with a pragmatic and efficient implementation in which templates are defined, linked to execution logic, and extensively reused. The solution can integrate different formalisms, data representations and models to fit the needs of each new healthcare environment.

Status of development

Version 3 (June 2014). Evaluation and validation at workshop in June 2014, several sessions at clinical sites in September and October 2014.

Oncologists, trial nurses, investigators, clinical researchers.

Authors’ Affiliations

High Tech Campus 11

  1. Bucur A, Van Leeuwen J, Chen NZ, Claerhout B, De Schepper K, Perez-Rey D, et al: Supporting Patient Screening to Identify Suitable Clinical Trials. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2014, 205: 823-827.PubMedGoogle Scholar

© Bucur; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2015


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Foto: Geraldo Silva, 2000

  • Autodenominação
  • Where they are How many

    MT880 (Siasi/Sesai, 2014)
  • Linguistic family

The Yudjá speak a Tupian language that is classified as part of the Juruna linguistic family, which includes the now extinct languages once spoken by the Arupaia, Xipaia, Peapaia, Aoku (not identified), and Maritsawá peoples.  Culturally, they are closely related to groups that speak languages of the Tupi-Guarani family.  Yudjá oral traditions mention the substitution of some words in the Juruna language with ones used by the Shadí people (not identified).  Nimuendajú considered the languages of the Juruna family (as they were later classified) as an impure form of Tupi that had been subjected to influences from Arawak and Carib languages (besides borrowing words from the Língua Geral).

Not all Yudjá men over fifty years old speak Portuguese well, and perhaps only half of the adult women understand it reasonably well.  Probably some women can speak the language, but they never did so in my presence during nearly two years when I lived among them.  Boys begin to speak Portuguese in puberty.  With the introduction of bilingual schools in their villages, the girls' timidity will presumably break down soon, perhaps promoting a reconfiguration of gender relations and especially of the means of communication between Yudjá women and other indigenous peoples, which is currently very low.

In 1989, only one member of the Yudjá group in the Paquiçamba Reservation on the middle Xingu was able to communication in Juruna.  In the early 1970s, there was but one woman who spoke the only other remaining language of the Juruna linguistic family that survived into the twentieth century, Xipaia.  Spurred by the death of her language, she made a gift of personal names to the Juruna leader in the Upper Xingu.


Kimi no Na wa. (Your Name.)

Simply diving into a review immediately after watching a film as devastatingly gorgeous and emotionally affecting as Kimi no Na wa is probably not a great idea, but this is an anime review blog, so here goes.

Kimi no Na wa isn’t just a charming body-swap rom-com, or a time-travelling odyssey, or a disaster prevention caper, or a tale of impossibly cruel temporal and physical distance between two soul mates, or a reflection on the fragility and impermanence of everything from memories to cities, or a tissue-depleting tearjerker.

It’s all of those things and more. And it’s also one of, if not the best, movies I’ve ever seen, anime or otherwise.

After a cryptic prologue, Kimi no Na wa starts out modestly: Miyamizu Mitsuha, Shinto shrine maiden and daughter of a mayor, has grown restless in her small town world, so one night, shouts out tot he night that she wants to be reborn as a boy in Tokyo.

This, mind you, happens after an odd incident in which Mitsuha essentially lost a day, during which all her family and friends say she was acting very strange and non-Mitsuha-y…like a different person.

That’s because she was. She and a boy from Tokyo, Tachibana Taki, randomly swap bodies every so often when they’re dreaming. As such, they end up in the middle of their couldn’t-be-any-different lives; the only similarity being that both of them yearn for more.

Despite just meeting these characters, watching Mitsuha and Taki stumble through each other’s lives is immensely fun. And because this is a Shinkai film, that enjoyment is augmented by the master director’s preternatural visual sumptuousness and realism. Every frame of Mitsuha’s town and the grand vastness of Tokyo is so full of detail I found myself wanting to linger in all of them.

As the body-swapping continues, the two decide to lay down “ground rules” when in one another’s bodies—albeit rules both either bend or break with impunity—and make intricate reports in one another’s phone diaries detailing their activities during the swaps.

Interestingly, Mitsuha makes more progress with Taki’s restaurant co-worker crush Okudera than Taki (she like’s Taki’s “feminine side”), while the more assertive Taki proves more popular with boys and girls when Taki’s in her body.

Taki happens to be in Mitsuha’s body when her grandmother and sister Yotsuha make the long, epic trek from their home to the resting place of the “body” of their Shinto shrine’s god, an otherworldly place in more ways than one, to make an offering of kuchikamisake (sake made from saliva-fermented rice).

While the three admire the sunset, Mitsuha’s granny takes a good look at her and asks if he, Taki, is dreaming. Just then he wakes up back in his own body to learn Mitsuha has arranged a date with him and Okudera—one she genuinely wanted to attend.

Okudera seems to notice the change in Taki from the one Mitsuha inhabited; she can tell his mind is elsewhere, and even presumes he’s come to like someone else. Taki tries to call that someone else on his phone, but he gets an automated message.

Then, just like that, the body-swapping stops.

After having cut her hair, her red ribbon gone, Mitsuha attends the Autumn Festival with her friends Sayaka and Teshi. They’re treated to a glorious display in the night sky, as the comet Tiamat makes its once-every-1,200-years visit.

Taki decides if he can’t visit Mitsuha’s world in his dreams anymore, he’ll simply have to visit Mitsuha. Only problem is, he doesn’t know exactly what village she lives in. Okudera and one of his high school friends, who are worried about him, decide to tag along on his wild goose chase.

After a day of fruitless searching, Taki’s about to throw in the towel, when one of the proprietors of a restaurant notices his detailed sketch of Mitsuha’s town, recognizing it instantly as Itomori. Itomori…a town made famous when it was utterly destroyed three years ago by a meteor created from a fragment of the comet that fell to earth.

The grim reality that Taki and Mitsuha’s worlds were not in the same timeline is a horrendous gut punch, as is the bleak scenery of the site of the former town. Every lovingly-depicted detail of the town, and all of its unique culture, were blasted into oblivion.

Taki is incredulous (and freaked out), checking his phone for Mitsuha’s reports, but they disappear one by one, like the details of a dream slipping away from one’s memory. Later, Taki checks the register of 500 people who lost their lives in the disaster, and the punches only grow deeper: among the lost are Teshi, Sayaka…and Miyamizu Mitsuha.

After the initial levity of the body-swapping, this realization was a bitter pill to swallow, but would ultimately elevate the film to something far more epic and profound, especially when Taki doesn’t give up trying to somehow go back to the past, get back into Mitsuha’s body, and prevent all those people from getting killed, including her.

The thing that reminds him is the braided cord ribbon around his wrist, given to him at some point in the past by someone he doesn’t remember. He returns to the site where the offering was made to the shrine’s god, drinks the sake made by Mitsuha, stumbles and falls on his back, and sees a depiction of a meteor shower drawn on the cave ceiling.

I haven’t provided stills of the sequence that follows, but suffice it to say it looked and felt different from anything we’d seen and heard prior in the film, and evoked emotion on the same level as the famous flashback in Pixar’s Up. If you can stay dry-eyed during this sequence, good for you; consider a career being a Vulcan.

Taki then wakes up, miraculously back in Mitsuha’s body, and sets to work. The same hustle we saw in Taki’s restaurant job is put to a far more important end: preventing a horrific disaster. The town itself may be doomed—there’s no stopping that comet—but the people don’t have to be.

Convincing anyone that “we’re all going to die unless” is a tall order, but Taki doesn’t waver, formulating a plan with Teshi and Sayaka, and even trying (in vain) to convince Mitsuha’s father, the mayor, to evacuate.

While the stakes couldn’t be higher and the potential devastation still clear in the mind, it’s good to see some fun return. Sayaka’s “we have to save the town” to the shopkeep is a keeper.

Meanwhile, Mitsuha wakes up in the cave in Taki’s body, and is horrified by the results of the meteor strike. She recalls her quick day trip to Tokyo, when she encountered Taki on a subway train, but he didn’t remember her, because it would be three more years before their first swap.

Even so, he can’t help but ask her her name, and she gives it to him, as well as something to remember her by later: her hair ribbon, which he would keep around his wrist from that point on.

Both Taki-as-Mitsuha and Mitsuha-as-Taki finally meet face-to-face, in their proper bodies, thanks to the mysterious power of kataware-doki or twilight. It’s a gloriously-staged, momentous, and hugely gratifying moment…

…But it’s all too brief. Taki is able to write on Mitsuha’s hand, but she only gets one stoke on his when twilight ends, and Taki finds himself back in his body, in his time, still staring down that awful crater where Itomori used to be. And again, like a dream, the more moments pass, the harder it gets for him to remember her.

Back on the night of the Autumn Festival, Mitsuha, back in her time and body, takes over Taki’s evacuation plan. Teshi blows up a power substation with contractor explosives and hacks the town-wide broadcast system, and Sayaka sounds the evacuation. The townsfolk are mostly confused, however, and before long Sayaka is apprehended by authorities, who tell everyone to stay where they are, and Teshi is nabbed by his dad.

With her team out of commission, it’s all up to Mitsuha, who races to her father to make a final plea. On the way, she gets tripped up and takes a nasty spill. In the same timeline, a three-years-younger Taki, her ribbon around his wrist, watches the impossibly gorgeous display in the Tokyo sky as the comet breaks up. Mitsuha looks at her hand and finds that Taki didn’t write his name: he wrote “I love you.”

The meteor falls and unleashes a vast swath of destruction across the landscape, not sparing the horrors of seeing Itomori wiped off the face of the earth—another gut punch. Game Over, too, it would seem. After spending a cold lonely night up atop the former site of the town, he returns to Tokyo and moves on with his life, gradually forgetting all about Mitsuha, but still feeling for all the world like he should be remembering something, that he should be looking for someplace or someone.

Bit by bit, those unknowns start to appear before him; a grown Sayaka and Teshi in a Starbucks; a  passing woman with a red ribbon in her hair that makes him pause, just as his walking by makes her pause. But alas, it’s another missed connection; another classic Shinkai move: they may be on the same bridge in Shinjuku, but the distance between them in time and memory remains formidable.

Mitsuha goes job-hunting, enduring one failed interview after another, getting negative feedback about his suit from everyone, including Okudera, now married and hopeful Taki will one day find happiness.

While giving his spiel about why he wants to be an architect, he waxes poetic about building landscapes that leave heartwarming memories, since you’ll never know when such a landscape will suddenly not be there.

A sequence of Winter scenes of Tokyo flash by, and in light of what happened to Itomori quite by chance, that sequence makes a powerful and solemn statement: this is Tokyo, it is massive and complex and full of structures and people and culture found nowhere else in the world, but it is not permanent.

Nothing built by men can stand against the forces of nature and the heavens. All we can do is live among, appreciate, and preseve our works while we can. We’re only human, after all.

And yet, for all that harsh celestial certainty, there is one other thing that isn’t permanent in this film: Taki and Mitsuha’s separation. Eventually, the two find each other through the windows of separate trains, and race to a spot where they experience that odd feeling of knowing each other, while also being reasonably certain they’re strangers.

Taki almost walks away, but turns back and asks if they’ve met before. Mitsuha feels the exact same way, and as tears fill their eyes, they ask for each others names. Hey, what do you know, a happy ending that feels earned! And a meteor doesn’t fall on Tokyo, which is a huge bonus.

Last August this film was released, and gradually I started to hear rumblings of its quality, and of how it could very well be Shinkai’s Magnum Opus. I went in expecting a lot, and was not disappointed; if anything, I was bowled over by just how good this was.

Many millions of words have been written about Kimi no Na wa long before I finally gave it a watch, but I nevertheless submit this modest, ill-organized collection words and thoughts as a humble tribute to the greatness I’ve just witnessed. I’ll be seeing it again soon.

And if for some reason you haven’t seen it yourself…what are you doing reading this drivel? Find it and watch it at your nearest convenience. You’ll laugh; you’ll cry; you’ll pump your fist in elation.

Little Witch Academia – 20

Little Witch Academia – 19

ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka – 04

Hanasaku Iroha 6

Kissuiso has been a bathhouse in decline long before Ohana arrived. Her uncle seems to believe modernization is the key, and that requires a consultant. The consultant has a needlessly dramatic entrance, nearly killing Ohana and Nako and covering them in a cloud of dust, then scolds them for not welcoming her properly. But she’s of little use, suggesting silly gimmicks like tarting up the staff. To be fair though, the manager wants no part of her “consultations”.

This episode makes me wonder what the Japanese definition of “Old-fashioned” entails. Is it so bad that Kissuiso errs on the side of tradition? I’ve been to a TOTO bathroom fixture showroom in Shinjuku, and many of the displays featured Japanese baths, which are pretty much stools with a hose and bucket. This traditional form of bathing actually saves water, because a whole bathtub needn’t be drawn; only a few buckets worth for rinsing. A bath is primarily scrubbing while the water’s off. Thus, it makes sense that a very old-fashioned form of bathing – just like the kind one would do by the river centuries ago – survives in resource-scarce Japan.

So many establishments have decided to go outside their element in an attempt to wrangle customers, but this can easily backfire, as exhibited when Ohana and Nako, dressed in skimpy Chinese dresses, greet a family and end up embarassing the dad (through no fault of his own). Skimpy dresses and other cosplay simply don’t fit with Kissuiso’s image. Ohana’s grandmother isn’t being stubborn simply for stubbornness’ sake; she wants to preserve as traditional a bathhouse as she can; even profits seem secondary to that vision. Rating: 3