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Fourth of July Hours: 9AM - 9PM; Closing early for inventory Sunday, July 10: 9AM - 6PM
603 N. Lamar Blvd Austin, TX 78703 512-472-5050 Open 9AM - 11PM The largest independent bookstore in Texas!
Books On Our Site May Not Be Available In-Store
Is This Book In Stock? Be Savvy! Check availability details beneath the blue "Add to Cart" button.
In this lively and fresh introduction to the scriptures of ancient Israel (what Christians call the Old Testament and Jews call the Tanakh), two preeminent biblical scholars, Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levine, combine their passion and expertise to examine not just what the Bible says but what it means. Through their eyes we see anew the Bibles literary brilliance, moral profundity, historical settings, and implications for our faiths and our future.
Passed down for generations, compiled between 500 and 100 BCE, and finalized around the time of Jesus, the various accounts in the Hebrew Bible took shape under a variety of cultures. Drawing on their extensive biblical scholarship, Knight and Levine explore this diverse history and equip us with the critical tools necessary to understand what the ancient texts originally meant. With long experience in teaching candidates for the ministry as well as undergraduate and graduate students, they also explore the possible meanings the texts hold today for churches, synagogues, and anyone interested in the Bibles legacy.
Knight and Levine begin with the broader biblical storyits historical context, literary artistry, and geographical setting. They then turn to the major biblical themes with which modern readers continue to wrestle: law and justice, human evil and Gods response, belief and practice, chaos and creation, war and peace, gender and sexuality, politics and economics, practical wisdom and apocalyptic vision. For each topic, they provide both general overviews and specific analyses of select biblical passages, explaining how and why their approaches reveal new insights and offering various strategies for informed interpretation.
Throughout, Knight and Levine inspire us to ask new questions and develop a deeper understanding of one of the greatest collections of literature known to humankindas illuminating today as it was two thousand years ago.
Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University and affiliate faculty at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge, UK. Levine is the author of The Misunderstood Jew and served as co-editor of The Jewish Annotated New Testament.
"Amy-Jill Levine and Douglas A. Knight have combined to write a book on the Bible that is as academically brilliant as it is marvelously entertaining. By placing our scriptures into their original Jewish context they have opened up startling and profound new insights. This is a terrific book."
-John Shelby Spong, author of Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World
"More than random facts about the Hebrew Bible . . . more than a historical overview . . . [t]hey are aiming for true understanding of the life, culture, and practices of the ancient Israelites."
"A winsome, accessible introduction to the theological thought of the Hebrew Bible. This sort of irenic, thoughtful linkage of criticism and interpretation within a confessing tradition is exactly what we most need in Scripture reading."
-Walter Brueggemann, Professor Emeritus, Columbia Theological Seminary
"From its superb introduction to its perfectly worded conclusion, this book does it all. Whether your interest in the Bible is historical or literary, specific texts or broad themes, this book has it—and conveys its relevance for today. "
-Richard Elliott Friedman, author of Who Wrote the Bible? and The Bible Now
"Provides new knowledge on the Bible's rich diversity of teaching on sexuality, familial and ethnic discord, political corruption, religious infidelity, economic exploitation as well as the nature of God, faith, love, and social justice. It is both enlightening and inspiring."
-Peter J. Paris, the Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary
"A book we have needed for years - learned and accessible, clearly organized by the topics readers care about, and fully engaged with current discussions of deep and broad significance."
-William Brosend, Executive Director, the Episcopal Preaching Foundation
"If anyone thinks the fruit of biblical scholarship is esoteric and heavy reading, direct that person to this book. In it, Knight and Levine demonstrate both their scholarly proficiency and their expertise as seasoned educators. This book should appeal to a broad audience."
-Dianne Bergant, CSA, Catholic Theological Union
"Knight and Levine have done a marvelous job of taking very sophisticated material and presenting it in an illuminating and thoroughly engaging way that bespeaks of excellent scholarship by two distinguished teachers."
-Carol J. Dempsey, OP, Ph.D, Professor of Theology, University of Portland, and author of Reading the Bible, Transforming Conflict
"A highly accessible . . . survey that is in tune with current scholarship."
-Library Journal


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Digital Marketing Report, Q3 2013 – Social and Mobile
As ever, our research around mobile devices and social media for the latest Digital Marketing Report has uncovered interesting changes and trends. Watch as Craig Zagurski discusses some key points from this report.
And if you haven't already, don't forget to download the Digital Marketing Report, Q3 2013.
Craig Zagurski: Hello, and thank you for tuning in for another video on the RKG blog. I'm Craig Zagurski and I'm an SEO Copywriter at RKG. For today's video, I'm presenting our findings from the Digital Marketing Report Q3 in the areas of mobile devices and social media, and how each of those contribute to search traffic.
The big news from mobile in Q3 was Apple's release of iOS 7 which replaces Google with Bing as the default search engine for Siri voice search. Granted, the launch came with only a couple of weeks of Q3 remaining, but Google still held a whopping 84 percent share of iOS 7 clicks which was, in fact, 3% more than iOS 6 clicks. Maybe Siri's not a huge fan of arranged marriages.
Adoption of Apple's new operating system has been quite strong so far, as iOS 7 needed only two weeks to outpace its predecessor in organic search visits. As for the other iOS devices category, market research shows that primarily most of those are iPhone 1s docked at an iHome by the hot tub pumping Fergalicious. I'm looking at you, Grandpa.
Mobile devices overall combine to account for 28% of organic search visits with iPad leading the way at nearly 10%, and Android devices not too far behind at nearly 8 percent. And we have a new leader in the mobile share of organic search. In Q3, Yahoo saw 1% more of its searches on mobile than Google.
And while Yahoo's climb has been steady over the past year, we aren't ruling out the possibility that the position change may be due to Google generating more paid clicks from mobile.
And now, social.
Game Show Host: Welcome back. Craig, you lead the board. Make your selection, please.
Craig: I'll take reefers for $1,000, Alex.
Game Show Host: Right. That's referers. And the answer is Facebook, which continues to lead all social channels and referred site visits. Craig.
Craig: Who is your daddy?
Game Show Host: That's correct.
Yes, Facebook still dominates social visit share at 52%, but Pinterest gained hefty ground at 14% by the end of Q3. And for those of you who may be tracking any of the games from the social site who also happens to control the SERP's puppet strings, Google+ is generating a solid 1% of the social visit share. And finally, this interesting bit of trivia, 30% of visits to social media sites happen on mobile devices, which is double the social visit share from a year ago.
Heck, you might be liking, pinning, sharing, commenting, tweeting, plussing this video on your mobile device right now. That's so Q3.
And that about does it for the mobile and social parts of the third quarter. Thank you very much for watching. If you haven't yet, please be sure to check out our other videos on the RKG blog for the Digital Marketing Report. And if you haven't downloaded the report yet, there is lots of other hot off the press information you'll find interesting. So please grab yours right away. Thanks for watching.

subset: commoncrawl


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Anne Hathaway & Hugh Jackman Sing in Extended Les Miserables First Look (VIDEO)
There's a brand new extended preview for Les Miserables, starring Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe.
The epic musical, based on the famed novel and Broadway show, also features Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne and Helena Bonham Carter as they deal with the pains and passions of 19th-century France.
Les Miserables opens on Christmas Day.
Are you looking forward to it?
Check out the video below!


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Career Assessments
FOCUS is a self-paced, online career guidance tool used to assist you in self-assessment and career exploration. Users of FOCUS learn to make more realistic decisions about their goals and plans, how to self-manage their careers and the importance of adaptability in these times of change.
• First time users, register here (access code: trumpet).
• Registered users, log in.
Do What You Are (Myers-Briggs)
Come to Career Services in Harter Union, and we'll instruct you on the test-taking process. We'll arrange for you to take this online assessment and come back to go over your results.
Strong Interest Inventory
Looks at individual strengths, aptitude and characteristics and matches students to with potential majors and occupations. The Strong Interest Inventory is a great tool administered by Career Services staff.
Strengths Finder
Valuable for identifying personal strengths. Learn about yourself and your strengths to determine a major and find the perfect career. Contact Career Services for an appointment.


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MV Jasim (for registration)
Muroor Street (near main bus/taxi terminal) Call +971 643 7377 for directions assistanceAbu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates24° 28' 14.4336" N, 54° 22' 48.6048" E
Calling all Advanced Open Water Divers and above. After a recent excursion to the M/V Jasim we encountered excessive amounts of Ghost nets entangled on the boats wreckage. The M/V Jasim is a popular dive site so the risk to not only the divers that dive on the wreck but also the natural inhabitants of the wreck is greatly increased by the nets left by careless fishermen.... We would like to organise a Ghost Net Removal Exercise on the 30th Dec to try and rid ourselves of this un-nessary risk to divers and to the local aquatic life. If you are interested in this worthy exercise please email Darren on email@example.com or call on +971561606748 help us make this beautiful dive site even more spectacular.....keep bubbling


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A recent article was published giving the opinion of a Jeremy Ranch home owner on the effects of nightly rentals. The article, entitled "Nightly rentals seen as nightly annoyance," explained his frustrations with a home across the street from his home. The resident asserted allegations of "a driveway packed with vehicles," "vehicles lining the street" and "being awakened to noise and constant activity."
Let's take a look at the perspective of the 2nd home owner and the management company in this case.
In general, nightly rentals have an enormous positive effect on our community. Park City is a ski resort and many home owners are 2nd home owners. The real estate market flourishes with sales of this type. Many 2nd home owners would not be allotted the benefits of owning and vacationing in Park City without the offset of costs by nightly rentals.
In our experience, most rental guests are respectful family groups. Nightly rental homes allow these families to stay together and enjoy each other, with the benefits of cooking in a fully equipped kitchen and gathering together in a common area for movies, games or other activities. There are many other benefits that would not be available to these guests when staying in a hotel. These benefits draw vacationing families to our community and the private homes that offer nightly rentals.
There are also county and state benefits with the income that is generated by 2nd home property taxes (approximately 40% higher than primary resident taxes) transient rental taxes, sales and use taxes and licensing fees.
The economic gain, created by nightly rental homes, is enormously beneficial for Park City, Summit and surrounding counties and the state of Utah.
Particularly, our company follows all licensing guidelines and requirements. We are licensed in the different counties where our homes are managed and each individual home is licensed. It is our goal to rent only to respectful guests that will take care of the home and respect the neighboring residents and community.
All of our guests sign a thorough rental contract and are all notified with the following statement:
"IMPORTANT: Please keep in mind that many neighboring homes host full time residents. It is important that their peace and privacy be respected at all times "
We are certainly not asserting that all nightly rental guests will treat the home or surrounding neighbors with respect. It is very possible that the resident mentioned in the previous article has been disturbed on occasion due to rental guests. Still, to assert that there has been "18 months of unhappiness" and "constant activity" due to the hosting of nightly rentals is a certain exaggeration. In fact, the home has only been renter occupied 72 nights of 2014, to date.
On another note, a 2nd home owner that offers nightly rentals is incentivized more than most to keep the home in pristine condition, inside and out, to encourage rental guests. A lease tenant may not keep up the home as well and if a lease tenant or a permanent resident causes neighborhood disturbances, those disturbances could continue for 12 months or more, whereas a nightly rental guest that isn't a neighborhood favorite will be checked out in a typical 3 to 7 nights.
We have, and will continue to do whatever is necessary to maintain the home, commotion and noise levels to that of a family neighborhood standard by only allowing respectful guests, notifying the guests of the importance of the peace and privacy of the neighbors and by being available to address any concerns as they arise.
With a properly licensed home and a responsible management company, the disturbances are the exception, not the rule.
Nightly rentals may always be an area of contention with permanent residents and 2nd home owners.
Regardless of the individual argument, there is no question that economically, the business of nightly rentals is a benefit that is not likely to be banished. Therefore, we should all try to work together instead of against each other to find a common ground; a compromise that will result in harmony for each side.


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May 12, 2011 11:55 AM
Wedding season is right around the corner, and we're looking out for our engaged girls. You have more important things to do than look for toasting flutes or find the perfect pair of backup flats for dancing the night away. Let us round up some detail pieces for your big day in our new feature, Bliss Blush, while you go get a massage or enjoy a glass of celebratory champagne - you can never have too many!
Flowers at weddings are a given, but why stop at a bouquet? Feminine and flirty floral embellishments in your ensemble will give you some extra oomph. Whether you tend more towards woodland nymph or sophisticated socialite, you can work in some pieces inspired by Mother Nature for a nice touch.
1. Dolce Vita Felice Sandal ($140)
2. B.P. Platinum Medina Sandal ($70)
3. Lauren Jones Blossom Pump ($100)
4. Alexis Bittar Flora Primrose Cuff ($395)
5. Nadri Cutout Floral Hinged Bangle ($158)
6. Tasha Perfect Veil Headband ($58)
7. J. Crew Jeweled Flower Sash ($45)
8. Cara Accessories A Flower to Remember Hair Clip ($38)
If you've got a product or service that you'd like to promote on Outblush, click here to find out about our advertising opportunities.
Outblush is a blog for girls who love to shop. Our staff digs up the best clothes, home stuff, beauty items, and more. New items are posted every day — bookmark us and check out:


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What do shorebirds eat? In the wild they rely heavily on bugs and crustaceans they find on the beach, mainly in the wrack, or seaweed, that washes up and is found along the high tide line. In our exhibit, however, it would be a lot of work to constantly haul 50 pounds of wrack into the everyday and we might not know how much the birds are eating.
The public often thinks that we let the birds forage around in the exhibit for their food, and they're partly right. Carefully hidden behind rocks, logs and dunes are dishes for the birds to forage in. We load them up twice a day with a prepared diet called Flamingo Fare (flamingos also eat bugs and crustaceans so it's a great food for shorebirds too) and "live foods" like mealworms. Notice the carrots the mealworms are eating on the left. By "gut loading" our insects first we can assure the birds are getting even more nutrition.
Wax worms are their favorite. These moth larvae have the highest fat content of anything we serve them, I like to think of it as the ice cream of the bug world. No wonder these little inch-long bugs are what they pick out of their dishes first!
We also release a jar of crickets into the exhibit a few times a day and then you can really see the birds forage!
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A little background: I'm a CPA, I work *alot*, 50 hours a week during the off season, 65-75 hours a week during busy season. Not to mention the fact that I work at home after hours a decent amount. My husband is a recent SAHD, which has made our life sooooo much better. I have two daughters, one is 13, the other is 18 months. All sets of grandparents live about an hour away.
In my first daughter's 13 years, she has stayed overnight with my parents maybe 20 times. She has never stayed at my husband's parents' house because she has some food allergies, and I don't trust them because they are clueless. She has slept over at friends houses quite a few times, but never because I needed a babysitter. My 18 month old has never spent the night away from home, partially because she never sleeps consistently through the night.
I get a lot of strange looks and comments from people at work because I don't drop my kids off with the grandparents a few nights a week or at least a few nights a month. (these co-workers also work 50+ hours a week). I just feel like I spend enough time away from the kids, I don't need any more time away. If it doesn't bother me and my DH that we haven't had a vacation away from our kids in 13 years, why the heck should it bother them?!? Since when is wanting to be with your kids a bad thing? Am I just crazy???


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- Home
- Gallery
- About the Builder
- Green Built
- La Luz del Sol
- Legends at High Desert
- Parade of Homes Model Fall 2015
Las Ventanas Homes is where experience, quality and pride can be seen in every detail of every home we build. With three generations of homebuilding experience we know how to deliver high–end finishes, modern day amenities and exceptional value. We start with great communication and innovative design and finish with a comfortable, earth-friendly home that is built to last.
At Las Ventanas Homes, we believe that a new home is a reflection of who you are and how you choose to live. We take pride in building high quality and environmentally friendly homes with distinctive finishes. Our innovative home designs and careful planning result in a home that you will be proud of for years to come. Whether you are building your first home or downsizing from an older home, we offer the experience and attention to detail that make your dream home become a reality.
At Las Ventanas Homes building a home isn't just about a house. It's about value, quality and detail…
It's about you and the way you want to live.


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Caribbean Cup: Reggae Girlz whip Bermuda 9-1
Jamaica's Reggae Girlz trounced Bermuda 9-1 in the Group A Caribbean Cup game at the Ato Boldon Stadium on Thursday.
Shakira Duncan scored four times for Jamaica, while Donna-Kay Henry struck twice. Captain Alicia Wilson, substitute Venicia Reid and an own goal from a Bermuda defender completed the scoring for Jamaica. On Tuesday, Jamaica won their opening game against Puerto Rico 4-1.
The Reggae Girlz will meet main group rivals Haiti on Saturday.


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Follow Us
Ennis & Ennis, P.A. Continues to Offer Free Nationwide Confidential Hip Replacement Lawsuit Consultations to Patients with DePuy ASR Hip Implants who have suffered severe side effects like metallosis or have needed a revision due to a hip defect or failure.
- Ennis & Ennis, P.A.
11/07/2012 - As metal on metal hip replacements continue to fail, DePuy and other manufacturers of hip replacement parts can expect increased litigation over the high failure rates and resulting injuries. Data indicates that the recalled DePuy ASR XL hip device showed a 21% revision rate at four years and a 49% revision rate at six years. [1] With nearly half of all DePuy ASR XL hips expected to fail, consumers will continue to suffer various injuries, including metallosis, periprosthetic osteolysis and/or high levels of cobalt-chromium ions. Unfortunately up until recently, all metal implants accounted for nearly one-third of the 250,000 hip replacements performed each year in the United States. [2]
Even more disturbing is that DePuy's parent company, Johnson & Johnson, knew about defects in the DePuy hip products for years but failed to correct the problem or warn patients of the dangers. [3] As far back as August 2009, an email from a DePuy vice president to senior J&J management stated the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had refused to approve the DePuy ASR XL hip because of "significant numbers of premature failures." [4]
The majority of DePuy cases are consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio before the Honorable David A. Katz. However, there are states court cases filed throughout the country as well. These cases involve significant injuries, including loosening of the hip implant which may fracture the surrounding bone, chronic pain/swelling/inflammation, necrosis of the tissue surrounding the hip implant and release of metal particles. These metal particles, primarily cobalt and chromium, can enter the bloodstream and migrate to other parts of the body. This has been associated with neurological dysfunction and increased incidence of certain cancers. [5] The costs of all the metal hip replacement implant failures will be substantial. "Medical and legal experts estimate the hip replacement failures may cost taxpayers, insurers, employers and others billions of dollars in coming years, contributing to the soaring cost of health care." [6]
If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of a defective metal on metal hip replacement implant you may be entitled to compensation. Our experienced Hip Replacement Lawsuit Attorneys are here to answer any questions you may have about a hip replacement lawsuit or a possible hip replacement class action lawsuit. Fill out the free hip replacement lawsuit case evalution form on this page or contact our Hip Replacement Recall Lawsuit Lawyers directly by calling toll-free: 1.800.856.6405.
1.British Orthopaedic Ass'n, Large Diameter Metal on Metal Bearing Total Hip Replacements, wwwbritishhipsociety.com/pdfs/BHS_MOM
2.Barry Meier, The Implants Loophole, N.Y. Times, Dec. 16, 2010, at B1
3. Barry Meier, Hip Maker Discussed Failures, N.Y Times, Feb. 22, 2012, at B1.
4. Id.
5.Alison J. Smith, Paul Dieppe, Martyn Porter & Ashley W. Blom, Risk of cancer in first seven years after metal-on-metal hip replacement compared with other bearings and general population: linkage study between the National Joint Registry of England and Wales and hospital episode statistics, BMJ, Apr.2012;344: e2383
6. Barry Meier, The High Cost of Failing Artificial Hips, N.Y. Times, Dec. 27, 2011, at A1.


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Does anybody have any stats/reports/trends about the use of 'Request a call back' forms on websites and whether they are effective?
How often are they used? Are they better than a standard contact form? What alternatives are best for this type of delegated CTA?
Interested to hear any insights the community has.


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Given the function $f: \frac{\mathbb Z}{mn\mathbb Z} \rightarrow \frac{\mathbb Z}{m\mathbb Z} \times \frac{\mathbb Z}{n\mathbb Z}$ defined by $f([a]_{mn}) = ([a]_m, [a]_n)$.
I must:
Show that $f$ is well-defined.
Show that if $m=6$ and $n=10$ that $f$ is neither injective nor surjective.
Show in general that if $m,n$ have a common divisor $d>1$, then $f$ is neither injective nor surjective.


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Every animal on the planet has adapted to survive in their environment. From the frigid arctic to the world jungles each species evolved their senses to live in their area. Some of these adaptations are quiet unique and surprising.
Ants have the ability to feel movement as far as two-and-one-half inches away and they can also see concentrated light. Bees have 5,500 lenses in every eye and worker bees have a magnetic detector for navigation. Butterflies can see two points as close together as thirty microns or one millionth of a meter. A cockroach can feel movement as little as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
Bats use echolocation to find their way and capture their prey, They have a flap of skin on their noses called a "nose leaf" that can feel the warmth of the animals they hunt more than six inches away. Cats have acute hearing. Dogs can smell odors as far as 185 feet.
Chameleons have independent eye sockets. Iguanas can feel temperature of sand within two degrees so they know when to lay their eggs. Snakes use their tongues to accumulate odors and transfer them to the smell and taste pits in their mouth known as "Jacobson's organs."
Jellyfish have twenty-four eyes. Octopi have taste receptors on their tentacles. The arms of a starfish are covered with light sensors. Most fish have a sense organ to feel water pressure.
Buzzards can see a rodent from 15,000 feet in the air. Hawks can see four times as far as humans. Penguins have flat cornea to see clearly underwater. Pigeons can feel very low sounds. Sparrows have 400,000 receptors in their retina.
Milwaukee area residents can visit the Milwaukee County Zoo to observe these adaptions.


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Return to News - Data: a resource more valuable than gold?- All Images - US National Science Foundation (NSF)


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Added by Katheryn Harlan on April 10, 2010 at 2:15pm — 1 Comment
Hi there, as a cancer survivor, I would like to find out, if there is anybody out there who can recommend one of the yoga bear videos. This is my second week of bilateral mastectomy, with disection of the lymph nodes on my left arm and followed by breast reconstruction. I am doing Ok and gaining my strenght everyday. But I am just wondering if I should be looking for special exercises in the future to help me go back on track? Even though my doctor told me limited movement for a month, but I…Continue
Added by Marissa Katsock on April 9, 2010 at 10:46am — 2 Comments
Join us for the 12-day (at-home) Yoga Challenge! Every day starting next Monday, April 12th, we will post a short yoga video with a pose and description. We invite you to participate and do one pose each day with us. Leave your reflections in the comments to win fun prizes and a free DVD!
Added by Moran Serr Hirsch on April 8, 2010 at 11:48pm — 4 Comments
Added by Jean Di Carlo-Wagner,MA,E-RYT500 on April 6, 2010 at 4:30am — 4 Comments
Added by Francesca Vanegas on April 5, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments
Hurt Yourself No More Copyright © 2010
by Francesca Vanegas…Continue
Added by Francesca Vanegas on April 3, 2010 at 7:30pm — 5 Comments
Added by alicia barry on April 3, 2010 at 3:04pm — 1 Comment
Added by Moran Serr Hirsch on April 1, 2010 at 6:27pm — No Comments
Added by Katheryn Harlan on April 1, 2010 at 4:55am — No Comments


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Today we share the last of our writers' introductions. Today we share the story of our lovely Alexandra.
Today was the second day of school for my three children. My first two were already dropped off for the day, and I only had my youngest left with me in the car. I like to joke with him that I save "the best for last."
We were smiling at this corny joke as I pulled up to an open parking spot, where another mom ready for drop off had also just arrived. I stepped out of my car and walked around to open the van door for my son. There was a little boy getting out of the car in front of us at the same time.
"Hi, Auggie!" a friendly little voice shouted and waved to us. "Hi!" my son greeted back. I shouted out to the mom, "What a beautiful morning, isn't it?" She looked up briefly, and gave me a tight lipped smile, but no words were returned.
Our two families walked side by side to the school's entrance, with me stabbing at light topics on the long block walk. "How's your son liking school?" and "Anything special packed for his lunch today?" were both answered with one word: "Fine." and "No."
I was thinking this mom may just not be a morning person. I didn't take anything to heart, until we arrived at the school's entrance. As if hit by Cupid's arrow, the drawn face she had with me broke out into a glorious tooth filled grin. "Hi, everybody!" she rang out in 125 decibels across the school's front yard. And, if that personality shift weren't enough to stun me like a fish dropped into cold water, she then began to hand out pretty flowered 3×5 party invitations. She handed them to every mother there in the small group, but glossed over me.
I became silent, and put on a soul-sucking fake smile for my son, "Have a great day at school, Auggie! I love you."
"Love you, too, mama!" and he went running in through the doors that were propped open for the morning.
I watched my little boy go in for the day, and I stood there alone. My head was filled with the question of how someone could not know just how hurtful it was to pass out invites to all except me. My thoughts then went to, "It's me. It's something about me. Something's wrong with me.
I knew this, at this very moment, would be my post for Just.Be.Enough.
We are enough to ourselves; we are enough. I do not have to be included in things, or be popular, or in a clique, or in a group that excludes, to be enough.
I am enough because I am there for me. I am enough because I have been there for others. I am enough because I seek the company of others who get the reason we are on this planet together.
I am enough, and I am grateful to have a place to have these words said publicly. I am grateful for Just.Be.Enough, and the readers/contributors/followers we are amassing here.
We are all enough. And we cannot let others make us feel any differently.


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Getting buyers for your fashion line can be tough but as fashion week approaches its important to focus on laying out a plan for commercial growth. When setting goals for your brand to engage buyers its important to learn how to build on current season sales before the next market. Setting such goals will give you a opportunity to ensure that wholesale targets can be met. So here are some helpful tips designers can use to engage buyers. Keep in mind once you get buyers its important to have a reliable delivery, thorough quality control, advantageous trading terms, ease of repeats, and great customer service.
Here are some tips on getting buyers for your brand
Build a strong sales team- make sure you have a great sales team that understand your brand and know what they are selling. Remember you are not selling the product itself.
Relationship building- this is vital because you want those wholesale orders so it makes sense that relationship building is key. So be sure to make time to visit the stores your brand fit, invite buyers to lunch or coffee to discuss how thing are going be forward not pushy showing interest just beyond the sale itself. Feel free to keep them in the loop on upcoming shows and events.
Make those Sample work-create a organize structure for your brand samples, prepare in-store product training events and sale incentives this will make sale team excited about selling your product and push your brand.
Think outside the box- Fashion shoots, Fashion on Film videos, collaborations as well as pop up shops. Other ideas include sale incentives, trunk shows, hiring brand ambassadors, sale or return, online shopping sites and social media which includes sites like Pinterest and Instagram which are all becoming useful tools that create a buzz, build an audience and make sales.
Buyers Etiquette-mind your manners buyers love the hottest and current trends in fashion. Keep it professional, to the point and polite a well put together introductory email to the buyers, also draft an introductory sample email for your sales team and set a standard email communication template to ensure all correspondence throughout the company is consistent.
For more info on branding go to http://getthebuzz716.moonfruit.com/
Twitter: getthebuzz716
Facebook: getthebuzz716


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Dogs can experience a runner's high.
Let's take a closer look at Dilophosaurus, an off-kilter dino that 'Jurassic Park' turned into a Mesozoic celebrity.
Here are 15 references to the original stories that you might have missed.
In the wake of People magazine's announcement of its choice for this year's "Sexiest Man Alive," our thoughts, naturally, turn to the unusual syntax of this phrase.


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EEOC v. Product Fabricators, Inc., No. 11-1241 (8th Cir. 2012)Annotate this Case
Justia Opinion Summary
The EEOC alleged that under Product Fabricators' drug policy, Product Fabricators made unlawful medical inquiries of employees, failed to keep confidential their medical information, and discharged a shear operator employee because of his disability and/or as a result of an unlawful application of the drug policy - all in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12112(a). The district court subsequently rejected a proposed decree to ensure compliance with the ADA on the ground that the EEOC did not identify a basis for the court to continue jurisdiction over the case for two years. The court concluded that the district court gave no consideration to the strong preference for settlement agreements as a means of protecting the federal interest in employment discrimination cases, or to the fact that jurisdiction was a usual component of such agreements, in part due to its deterrent effect. The district court also improperly gave significant weight to Product Fabricators' contention that its acts of discrimination were insufficiently widespread to justify continuing jurisdiction in the face of the EEOC's allegations. As a result, the district court did not explain why continuing jurisdiction was not fair, reasonable, and adequate, and thus abused its discretion.
Court Description: Civil Case - Americans with Disabilities Act. The district court's rejection of a proposed consent decree entered between EEOC and Product Fabricators, Inc. to ensure compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act, including a provision for continuing jurisdiction, is reversed. The district court failed to give consideration to the strong preference for settlement agreements and the usual component of continuing jurisdiction, and improperly gave significant weight to Product Fabricators' contention that the acts of discrimination were insufficiently widespread. The district court did not explain why continuing jurisdiction was no fair, reasonable and adequate.
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United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT ___________ No. 11-1241 ___________ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, * * * Appellant, * * Dennis Anderson, * Appeal from the United States * District Court for the Plaintiff-Intervenor, * District of Minnesota. * v. * * Product Fabricators, Inc., * * Appellee. * ___________ Submitted: November 14, 2011 Filed: January 31, 2012 ___________ Before WOLLMAN, MURPHY, and BENTON, Circuit Judges. ___________ BENTON, Circuit Judge. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Dennis R. Anderson agreed with Product Fabricators, Inc. to propose a decree to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101-213; 47 U.S.C. §§ 225, 611. The district court rejected the proposed decree on the ground that the EEOC did not identify a basis for the court to continue jurisdiction over the case for two years. Jurisdiction being proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), this court vacates and remands. For at least 15 years, Product Fabricators drug policy required employees to report to their supervisor when they took any medication causing dizziness or drowsiness, or otherwise affecting their senses, motor ability, judgment, reflexes, or ability to perform their jobs. Failure to comply could result in termination. In September 2007, Anderson, a shear operator, did not work for several days due to back pain. His doctor said he could return to work with no restrictions on September 17. He returned to work in a position that was less physically strenuous. On September 18, he left work early, due to a sore back. He did not work the next two days. On September 20, he reported an injury from September 18, adding he was medicated while working on the 17th and 18th. On September 21, Product Fabricators terminated Anderson for violating the drug policy. The EEOC alleges that under the drug policy, Product Fabricators made unlawful medical inquiries of employees, failed to keep confidential their medical information, and discharged Anderson because of his disability and/or as a result of an unlawful application of the drug policy all in violation of the ADA. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 12112(d), 12112(a). The parties presented a consent decree to the district court, which requested justification for continuing jurisdiction. After receiving letters from the parties on the issue, the district court denied the EEOC s Motion for Approval of Consent Decree with Injunctive Relief and Continuing Jurisdiction. The proposed decree requires the destruction of records containing unlawfully-obtained medical information within 30 days, annual employee training about the ADA, posting of an agreed-upon notice -2- to employees, and annual reporting of company compliance and employee complaints to the EEOC. It also enjoins: an ongoing pattern or practice of medical inquiries that violate the ADA, further use of medical information collected through those inquiries, and other forms of disability discrimination and retaliation. The proposed decree would remain in effect for two years. This court reviews a district court s acceptance or rejection of a proposed settlement for abuse of discretion. United States v. BP Amoco Oil PLC, 277 F.3d 1012, 1019 (8th Cir. 2002). An abuse of discretion occurs when a relevant factor that should have been given significant weight is not considered; when an irrelevant or improper factor is considered and given significant weight; and when all proper factors, and no improper ones, are considered, but the court, in weighing those factors, commits a clear error of judgment. Kern v. TXO Prod. Corp., 738 F.2d 968, 970 (8th Cir. 1984). Consent decrees should: spring from and serve to resolve a dispute within the court s subject-matter jurisdiction; come within the general scope of the case from the pleadings; and, further the objectives of the law on which the complaint was based. Local Number 93, Int l Ass n of Firefighters v. City of Cleveland, 478 U.S. 501, 525 (1986). A consent decree must be formulated to protect federal interests. Frew v. Hawkins, 540 U.S. 431, 437 (2004). The adopting court is free to reject agreed-upon terms not in furtherance of statutory objectives. Angela R. by Hesselbein v. Clinton, 999 F.2d 320, 324 (8th Cir. 1993). To be sure, a federal court is more than a recorder of contracts from whom parties can purchase injunctions . Local Number 93, 478 U.S. at 525 (citation omitted). When reviewing a proposed consent decree, the trial court is to review the settlement for fairness, reasonableness, and adequacy. United States v. -3- Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer Dist., 952 F.2d 1040, 1044 (8th Cir. 1992). Product Fabricators reliance on the standards for post-trial relief is misplaced. See EEOC v. Siouxland Oral Maxillofacial Surgery Assocs., L.L.P., 578 F.3d 921 (8th Cir. 2009) (reviewing denial of injunction after jury trial). The law strongly prefers settlement agreements, especially in employment discrimination cases. See Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 450 U.S. 79, 88 n.14 (1981) ( Cooperation and voluntary compliance were selected [by Congress] as the preferred means for achieving [nondiscrimination]. ), citing Alexander v. Gardener-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 44 (1974). The district court did not object to any substantive term of the proposed decree, but thought that it was unreasonable because the EEOC point[ed] neither to present nor to past instances of Defendant s conduct that would render continuing jurisdiction appropriate. The district court seemingly agreed with Product Fabricators that the allegations involve isolated acts of discrimination insufficient for continuing jurisdiction. The district court s order does not mention the drug policy, addressing only discrimination against Anderson. This fails to accord the federal interest the significance it deserves. The Supreme Court says that the private right of action remains an essential means of obtaining judicial enforcement . . . , concluding that [i]n [discrimination] cases, the private litigant not only redresses his own injury but also vindicates the important congressional policy against discriminatory employment practices. Alexander, 415 U.S. at 45. The EEOC emphasizes that the drug policy would be a longstanding ADA violation. The EEOC s memorandum in support of its consent decree pointed to two longstanding and ongoing patterns or practices of violations of the ADA s medical inquiries and confidentiality provisions. See International Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 336 (1977) (stating that a pattern or practice of -4- violations means that discrimination was the company s standard operating procedure . . . . ). The district court also rejected continuing jurisdiction based on the EEOC s statement that it did not expect to engage the court to enforce the decree.1 The district court failed to consider the rest of the EEOC s statement: Nevertheless, the ability of the EEOC or another party to move quickly to enforce the consent decree remains an essential mechanism to protect the integrity of the decree and ensure compliance. Continuing jurisdiction is the norm (and often the motivation) for consent decrees. See Local No. 93, 478 U.S. at 524 n.13 ( Public law settlements are often complicated documents designed to be carried out over a period of years, . . . so any purely out-of-court settlement would suffer the decisive handicap of not being subject to continuing oversight and interpretation by the court. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). A consent decree offers more security to the parties than a settlement agreement where the only penalty for failure to abide by the agreement is another suit. SEC v. Randolph, 736 F.2d 525, 528 (9th Cir. 1984) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The district court believed that the consent decree s dispute resolution clause also rendered continuing jurisdiction inappropriate. That clause requires the EEOC to give Product Fabricators notice of alleged noncompliance 20 business days before initiating any enforcement. The 20 days permit Product Fabricators to comply with 1 In doing so, the district court acknowledged that implementing the consent decree would not require much assistance from the court. Cf. Hesselbein, 999 F.2d at 326 (noting injunctions can be denied if doing otherwise would impose unreasonable burden on court); Little Rock Sch. Dist. v. Pulaski Cnty. Spec. Sch. Dist. No. 1, 921 F.2d 1371 (8th Cir. 1990) (same). -5- the decree. Contrary to the district court s belief, continuing jurisdiction enhances the deterrent effect of the notice-to-comply clause through the court s potential enforcement. In sum, the district court gave no consideration to the strong preference for settlement agreements as a means of protecting the federal interest in employment discrimination cases, or to the fact that continuing jurisdiction is a usual component of such agreements, in part due to its deterrent effect. The court also improperly gave significant weight to Product Fabricators contention that its acts of discrimination were insufficiently widespread to justify continuing jurisdiction in the face of the EEOC s allegations. As a result, the district court here did not explain why continuing jurisdiction was not fair, reasonable, and adequate, and thus abused its discretion. ******* The judgment of the district court is vacated, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. ______________________________ -6-


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15-887*: Planning, Execution, and Learning
Schedule, Notes, Readings
Fall 2014
Monday, September 8: Introduction
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Planning is equivalent to "problem solving," formalized in terms of states, goals, and actions.
Planning is "thinking" and not executing. It needs
of states and actions.
Execution performs the actions of a plan, and monitors their applicability on the perceived states.
Learning improves planning and execution through experience.
Different planning problems require different assumptions about state and actions, which can make a problem easier or harder to solve.
No assigned readings besides lecture notes.
Wednesday, September 10: Representation and Search
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Many ways to represent states and actions, significantly affecting the planning expressiveness and complexity
Strips-assumption (add/delete lists) deals with Frame Problem
Many ways to find solutions to planning problems -- differ in complexity and how well they scale with respect to size of search space
People bring lots of real-world knowledge to bear when they solve planning problems; most planners do not have that luxury
Writing a planning domain in terms of a set of predicates, variables, and operators is a hard task.
Planners are characterized in terms of soundness, completeness, optimality, and computational efficiency
No assigned readings besides lecture notes.
Monday, September 15: Plan-Space Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Search space is space of partial plans; search actions modify plans (refine them)
Partial-order planners work by adding causal links from effects of one action to precondition of another, and then by eliminating threats. Threats can be eliminated by promotion, demotion, or separation. Backtracking occurs if a threat cannot be eliminated.
Use of Least Commitment -- delaying choices of temporal constraints and parameter bindings unless forced.
Partial-order planners can easily (and often optimally) deal with goal interactions
Modal Truth Criterion: A proposition p is necessarily true at a step s iff two conditions hold: There is a step t equal or necessarily previous to s in which p is necessarily asserted; and for every step C possibly before s and every proposition q possibly codesignating with p which C denies, there is a step W necessarily between C and s which asserts r, a proposition such that r and p codesignate whenever p and q codesignate.
An introduction to least-commitment planning,
Daniel Weld.
Artificial Intelligence Magazine
, 27-61, Winter 1994.
Planning for Conjunctive Goals,
David Chapman.
Artificial Intelligence
, 1987.
Wednesday, September 17: State-Space Linear and Nonlinear Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
State-space planning is about committing to changing the state of the world while planning: "apply an applicable operator/action."
Linear planning maintains the state and a goal stack: it's efficient but can generate unoptimal solutions, and it is incomplete.
Nonlinear state-space planning uses a set of goals, backtracks over plan orderings decisions. It's complete.
Prodigy4.0 is a nonline state-space planner that uses a set of goals, and also has a choice point on either to apply an applicable operator, or to continue subgoaling on still pending goals.
State-space planning commits on plan step orderings with the main goal of getting an updated state and hopefully a "closer" state to the goal. Such commitments may lead to backtracking, but may also lead to informed state-based choices of actions.
Integrating planning and learning: The Prodigy architecture,
(Sections 1 and 2)
Manuela M. Veloso, Jaime Carbonell, M. Alicia P\'erez, Daniel Borrajo, Eugene Fink, and Jim Blythe.
Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence,
7(1):81--120, 1995.
Monday, September 22: Graph-Based and Sat-Based Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Graphplan has two phases: forward extension and backwards plan search.
Exclusivity relations key to the efficiency of Graphplan.
Graphplan is optimal in terms of number of time steps.
SatPlan relies on propositional encoding and stochastic search for satisfiability.
Fast planning through planning graph analysis,
Avrim Blum and Merrick Furst.
Artificial Intelligence
, 90:281--300, 1997.
Pushing the envelope: Planning, Propositional Logic and Stochastic Search,
Henry Kautz and Bart Selman.
Proceedings National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Portland, OR, 1996.
Wednesday, September 24: Comparison of Planners - State, Plan, Graph
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Planning involves search. Search means choices points. Commitments are made at choice points. When search fails, planners backtrack to choice points and select alternative commitments.
State-space planning commits on plan step orderings with the main goal of getting an updated state and hopefully a "closer" state to the goal. Such commitments may lead to backtracking, but may also lead to informed state-based choices of actions.
Plan-space planning does not commit on plan step orderings, until it
to solve threats. It is therefore seen as a
search approach. Plan-space planning does not backtrack over threat resolution.
Plan-space planning commits to
causal links
leading to linkability problems and to the need to backtrack over linking commitments. In the linkability sense, plan-space planning is a strong-commitment planner.
Linkability: Examining causal link commitments in partial-order planning,
Manuela M. Veloso and Jim Blythe.
Proceedings of the Second International Conference on AI Planning Systems
, pages 170-175, June 1994.
Monday, September 29: Heuristic Planning I
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Heuristics applied to a state return the estimated length of the plan from that state to the goal.
There are several ways to compute the heuristic value of a state. We talked about the additive heuristic, used by HSP, and the FF heuristic based on the number of actions returned by a Graphplan on the relaxed problem corresponding to the actions with no delete effects.
For the "Planning as Heuristic Search" reading, focus on sections 4 and 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 Blocksworld.
For the "FF Planning" reading, focus on sections 3, 4 (4.1), and 5. And 6 if interested in further efficiency.
Planning as Heuristic Search,
B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Artificial Intelligence, Special issue on Heuristic Search. Vol 129 (1-2) 2001.
Admissible Heuristics for Optimal Planning
P. Haslum H. Geffner. Proc. 5th Int. Conf. on AI Planning and Scheduling (AIPS 2000).
The FF Planning System: Fast Plan Generation Through Heuristic Search
, J. Hoffmann, B. Nebel.
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
, vol 14, pp. 253-302, 2001
Wednesday, October 1: Heuristic Planning II - Landmarks
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Landmarks are formulae that must hold in any plan to achieve a given set of goals
Finding all landmarks is intractable, but good polynomial algorithms exist
Landmarks can be used as either subgoals or heuristic estimates
Admissible heuristics can be constructed from landmarks
Ordered Landmarks in Planning
J. Hoffmann, J. Porteous, L. Sebastia, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, vol 22, pp 215-278, 2004.
The LAMA Planner: Guiding Cost-Based Anytime Planning with Landmarks,
S. Richter and M. Westphal. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, vol 39, pp 127-177, 2010.
Monday, October 6: Explanation-Based Learning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Guidance to the planner about its choices can be represented as "control rules" that use the state of the planner as preconditions of the rules. The rules can select, reject, or prefer choices.
Control learning "explains" a search episode and outputs an explanation that can be used by the planner "to speed up" its search for solutions to problems.
Generating "correct" explanations is hard, as it may require additional knowledge about the domain for the generalization part.
HAMLET learns control rules without proving that they are correct by generalizing from a single example, but it inductively revises its set of rules from multiple incremental examples.
Lazy incremental learning of control knowledge for efficiently obtaining quality plans,
Daniel Borrajo and Manuela Veloso.
AI Review Journal. Special Issue on Lazy Learning
, 10:1-34, 1996.
Wednesday, October 8: Planning under Uncertainty I - Conditional and Conformant Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Uncertainty arises from state uncertainty, non-deterministic effects, and sensor noise.
Uncertainty can be represented through
possible worlds
Sensing actions can be used to represent
knowledge effects
that distinguish between different possible worlds
Conformant planning produces non-branching plans that deal with uncertainty by forcing the world into known states
Conditional planning produces branching plans that use sensing actions during execution to determine which branch to take
Graphplan can be easily extended to reason about possible worlds
There are three BDD-based planning algorithms to understand: strong, strong cyclic, and optimistic.
Conformant Graphplan,
D. Weld and D. Smith, Proceedings of AAAI, July 1998.
Extending Graphplan to Handle Uncertainty and Sensing Actions,
D. Weld, C. Anderson and D. Smith, Proceedings of AAAI, July 1998.
Automatic OBDD-based Generation of Universal Plans in Non-Deterministic Domains
, A. Cimatti, M. Rovero, P. Traverso.
In Proceedings of AAAI-98
Orienting Polygonal Parts without Sensor
Kenneth Goldberg.
10:2-4, pp. 201-225, 1993.
Monday, October 13: Planning under Uncertainty II - Replanning and Decision-Theoretic Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Planning by determinizing and replanning during execution can be effective, though incomplete.
Different determinization approaches have different strengths and weakneesses
Pruning using plan dominance is effective strategy in planning to maximize expected reward/utility
Optimal strategy is to work on plan with highest upper bound
FF-Replan: A Baseline for Probabilistic Planning
S. Yoon, A. Fern, R. Givan.
In Proceedings of ICAPS 2007
Probabilistic Planning via Determinization in Hindsight
S. Yoon, A. Fern, R. Givan, S. Kambhampati.
In Proceedings of AAAI 2008
Efficient Decision-Theoretic Planning: Techniques and Empirical Analysis,
Peter Haddawy, AnHai Doan and Richard Goodwin , In Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, (UAI-95), Montreal Canada, Aug. 1995
Wednesday, October 15: Markov Decision Processes
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Russell and Norvig, Chapter 16.
Monday, October 20: Reinforcement Learning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Reinforcement learning is an online learning method that learns a policy to control an agent in a world that is assumed to be an MDP.
Model-free RL learns a Q function that captures both unknown reward and state transition functions.
An online RL agent balances exploitation and exploration.
Chapter 13 - Machine Learning, Tom Mitchell
Reinforcement Learning: A Survey
L.P. Kaelbling, M. Littman, A. Moore, JAIR vol 4, pp 237-285, 1996
Wednesday, October 22: Planning by Analogy and Policy Reuse
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Policy reuse slides are directly from Fernandez&Veloso paper.
Flexible strategy learning: Analogical replay of problem solving episodes
Manuela M. Veloso. In
Proceedings of AAAI-94, the Twelfth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
, pages 595-600, Seattle, WA, August 1994. AAAI Press.
Probabilistic policy reuse in a reinforcement learning agent,
Fernando Fernandez and Manuela Veloso. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems , Hakodate, Japan, May 2006.
Monday, October 27: POMDPs I
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
POMDP is an extension of MDP with uncertainty over the state one is in
POMDP can be transformed into continuous-space MDP (over belief space)
POMDP policy (alpha vectors) can be represented as upper surface of linear subspaces, which represent taking some action and following fixed policy afterwards
POMDPs are highly intractable to solve
POMDPs for Dummies.
Anthony Cassandra, 2005.
Planning and Acting in Partially Observable Stochastic Domains.
L.P. Kaelbling, M.L. Littman, and A.R. Cassandra, Artificial Intelligence, Vol 101, 1998.
Wednesday, October 29: POMDPs II
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Focusing on reachable beliefs improves efficiency tremendously
Using tree-search and heuristics improves efficiency significantly
Greedy methods solve underlying MDP, assume that world is observable after one step lookahead
Point-based value iteration: An anytime algorithm for POMDPs.
J. Pineau, G. Gordon, and S. Thrun. In
Proceedings IJCAI-03
, Acapulco, Mexico. August 2003.
Heuristic Search Value Iteration for POMDPs
T. Smith and R. Simmons. In
Proceedings of UAI
, July 2004.
Monday, November 3: Path Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
PRM "discretizes" a continuous space by sampling points in the space.
RRT searches the space by sampling towards the goal and to random points building a connected tree as found needed.
Replanning is needed when execution fails.
Given a plan that failed on a step, the two alternatives for replanning are: to plan from scratch to the goal from the new state; and to plan from the new state to try to reach one of the steps of the past plan. Both options are not ideal.
ERRT with a search bias to the past plan is the perfect solution for replanning:
E-RRT expands the search tree to the goal with probability p, to a past found waypoint for reuse, with probability q, and a random target with probability 1-p-q.
Real-time randomized path planning for robot navigation
James Bruce and Manuela Veloso.
Proceedings of IROS-2002
, Switzerland, October 2002.
Wednesday, November 5: Variable Level of Detail Planning and Short-Sighted Probabilistic Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Planning models can change as a function of the planning "distance" to the state.
Short-sighted probabilistic planning bridges the gap between policy planning and replanning.
Depth-based Short-sighted Stochastic Shortest Path Problems
, Felipe Trevizan and Manuela Veloso. Artificial Intelligence Journal, pages 179-205, July 2014
Variable Level-of-Detail Motion Planning in Environments with Poorly Predictable Bodies
, Stefan Zickler and Manuela Veloso. In Proceedings of ECAI'10, the 19th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
Monday, November 10: Multi-Robot Team Planning
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Coordination between robots can be represented as multi-robot plays.
Plays as team plans for coordination and adaptation,
Michael Bowling, Brett Browning, and Manuela Veloso.
Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-04)
, Vancouver, June 2004.
Wednesday, November 12: Multi-Robot State Estimation and Coordination
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Robots can communicate and share state in order to locally make their role assignment.
Prioritized Multi-Hypothesis Tracking by a Robot with Limited Sensing,
Paul E. Rybski and Manuela M. Veloso.
EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing
, Vol. 2009, Article ID 284525, 2009.
Dynamic multi-robot coordination,
Douglas Vail and Manuela Veloso,
In Multi-Robot Systems: From Swarms to Intelligent Automata, A. Schultz, L. Parker, and F. Schneider (eds.), Volume II, pages 87--100. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
Monday, November 17: Multi-Robot Planning with Transfers
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Scheduling for Transfers in Pickup and Delivery Problems with Very Large Neighborhood Search,
Brian Coltin and Manuela Veloso. In Proceedings of AAAI'14, the Twenty-Eighth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Quebec City, Canada, July 2014.
Wednesday, November 19: Execution Architectures
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Robotics Systems Architectures and Programming
D. Kortenkamp and R. Simmons, In
Handbook of Robotics
, Sicillano and Khatib (eds.), Springer 2008.
Monday, November 24: Execution Monitoring and Diagnosis
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Approaches: Fault models, violated expectations (exceptions)
Approaches for detecting exceptions: Geometric, model-based, probabilistic
Many exceptions are subtle - need statistical models to detect effectively
A Model-based Approach to Reactive Self-Configuring Systems
B.C. Williams, P.P. Nayak, U. Nayak, In
Proceedings of National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
, 1996.
Particle Filters for Rover Fault Diagnosis
V. Verma, G. Gordon, R. Simmons, S. Thrun,
IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
, June 2004.
Focused Optimization for Online Detection of Anomalous Regions
J.P. Mendoza, M. Veloso, R. Simmons, In
Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation
, 2014.
Wednesday, November 26: Thanksgiving, No Class
Monday, December 1: Real-Time Heuristic Search
Lecture Notes
Points to remember from the discussion in class:
Learning to Act Using Real-Time Dynamic Programming
A.G. Barto, S.J. Bradtke, S.P. Singh,
Artificial Intelligence
, 72:81-138, 1995
Labeled RTDP: Improving the Convergence of Real-Time Dynamic Programming
B. Bonet, H. Geffner, In
Proceedings National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
, 2003.
Focused Real-Time Dynamic Programming for MDPs: Squeezing More Out of a Heuristic
T. Smith, R. Simmons, In
Proceedings National Conference on Artificial Intelligence
, 2006.
Wednesday, December 3: REID+MMV - Review
No Lecture Notes


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The Atlantic Croaker is one of the most popular fish in the Chesapeake Bay region. This hard fighting, great tasting member of the drum family is frequently caught from the end of April until the beginning of September. Though sometimes considered a panfish, it isn't unusual to catch some exceeding 12 inches. The world record croaker weighed over nine pounds.
Pier and motor boat anglers rely on the tried and true double hook bottom rig. The advantage, other than the ability to catch two fish at the same time, is to try two different baits at the same time. Squid is the universal bait for croaker. Bloodworm tends to work well early in the season. Peeler and hard crab work better in the summer. Anglers have had good luck with shrimp, nightcrawlers, and cut bait. Because croaker are bottom feeders, scented lures and synthetic baits are effective as well.
Most anglers refuse to use anything lighter than a 6 foot medium action rod and reel combo with 12 to 20 lb test. This is due in part to the strength and the way these fish fight. Unlike popular freshwater species, croaker make hard, intentional bites and try to stay on the bottom. I enjoy kayak and wade fishing with lighter tackle and lures for more thrilling battles.
The Friends of York River State Park invite you to put your skills to the test at their annual Saltwater Fishing Tournament. It will be held on Saturday, May 14 at the Croaker Landing section of the park. The grand prize is $500 with other prizes awarded and a fried chicken lunch for participants. Click on the link or call (757)566-3036 for more details.
Tournament angler or fishing for fun, fresh croaker for dinner is a great prize. Use your favorite breader and hot oil. For a low calorie treat, season and broil them with a squeeze of a lemon wedge. We hope you will visit our state parks and pursue the favorite fish in the region.


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The ultimate way to relax and unwind is an overnight spa break at Hampshire's finest hotel and spa.
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You may have reached this page due to new security upgrades that have been implemented regarding multiple user logins. For security reasons, only one user is able to be signed in to an account per session. If multiple users at a single site need online access, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com for firm access reduced pricing. If, however, you believe your login information has been compromised, please call customer service at 1-800-451-9998 to determine how to reset your password. Already a paid subscriber but not registered for online access yet? For instructions on how to get premium web access, click here.
Zoning out when maybe we shouldn't be
When we move to a new city, we look into the public school system. We inquire about crime rates. We ask about taxes, housing costs, gasoline prices and the availability of public parks. The information in the zoning ordinance seems just as important as anything else you could know about a community. But who reads manuals?


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Octave is a certified Oracle Enterprise Architect and trusted consulting adviser with extensive experience planning and implementing optimized IT infrastructure solutions. Helping Oracle's largest customers, his enterprise experience includes data center consolidation, high availability clusters, cloud computing, and virtualization.
With 10 years of experience, Octave advises our enterprise clients on how to leverage Oracle's technologies, reference architectures, and best practices to reduce costs, complexity, and risk. Octave also supports the Oracle community by presenting at conferences and user group organizations, and contributes to trade magazines and EA social media.
Key industries:
Areas of expertise:


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|I like points
My name is Haylee, or a lot of people call me Noodle.
I am 19 years old, bisexual and have a deep love of art. My mind has always been creative and somewhat dark at times. I have an insane personality and love making new friends.
I don't really have a specific art medium. I draw, mostly traditional but I'd love to get into more digital. I have a Canon PowerShot S100 so I do some photography. I love sewing and make plushies occasionally. You can expect a lot from me.
The past few years I have dealt with depression. I was with an emotional and verbally abusive boyfriend for two years. I used to cut and smoke but I've gotten past it. During that time I never had the energy to do as much art as I used to. I have almost recovered with the help of art and the love of my life, and hope to become a great artist one day. I am hopefully going to Vancouver Film School in January for Makeup Design for Film and television.
Without my current boyfriend of over a year now Brayden-A7x I don't know where I would be in life. We have helped each other through some really tough times and fallen in love in the process.
I love animals and nature, I have two dogs and my kitty who is my baby. Shes the most idiotic cat I have ever seen but I love her and she has helped me through some tough times.
I am usually open to requests or ideas so just send me a note or email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and we can chat it up. Thanks for visiting my page
point commissions and regular commissions are new and I'm still figuring it out. If you're interested please send me a note or an email. Point commish info here stupidnoodlecat.deviantart.com…


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Global Forum - 2014
Primary tabs
From Ego- to Eco-System Economies: Creating Well-Being for All
The 2014 Global Presencing Forum focused on the global transformation from Ego-system to Eco-system Economies. The Forum was a two-day, highly participatory event that took place at MIT in Cambridge, MA (USA). Watch the plenary sessions of the Forum here.
The 2014 Global Forum brought together 250 leaders and change makers from 28 countries to form a cross-institutional and cross-sectoral platform. By creating such a space for change makers across sectors and boundaries to meet, co-sense, reflect, dialogue, and co-inspire, our intention was to explore how such a platform can lead to collaborative action that generates sustainability and well-being for all.
The Forum combined stories from leading change makers with minduflness practices, dialogue, music, personal reflection, a highly experimental form called Social Presencing Theater, and prototyping sessions. The morning sessions were live streamed to a global audience of 800-1,000, some of whom hosted parallel events in their local communities. You can see their photos and read their reflections on our Groups page.
The Forum was co-sponsored by MIT's CoLab, the Presencing Institute, and the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. It brought together together four different groups of leaders:
Leaders and innovators from business, government, and international organizations
Kang Yoto, Bupati (Regent) of Bojonegoro, Indonesia
Grassroots movement builders and social entrepreneurs who work to empower those whose voices all too often go unheard
Sofia Campos, Board Chair, United We Dream
Thought leaders in transforming the economy toward sustainable well-being
Cylvia Hayes, First Lady of Oregon (USA)
Pioneers in blending mindfulness with cognition science in order to bring about positive social change
(L-R) Otto Scharmer, Presencing Institute; Arthur Zajonc, President, Mind & Life Institute; Peter Senge, MIT/SoL
Many new initiatives were launched at the forum. Equally important are the many new connections forged between existing initiatives and new partners in order to accelerate already existing change initiatives. Keep an eye on our Blog in the coming weeks for updates and further details!
The full list of 2014 Global Presencing Forum speakers and panelists included:
Alice Maggio, Local Currency Program Director, Schumacher Center for a New Economics
Arawana Hayashi, Co-founder Presencing Institute, Social Presencing Theater
Arthur Zajonc, President, Mind & Life Institute
Beth Mount, Person Centered Planning
Bob Massie, President, New Economy Coalition
Caroline Howe, MIT Sloan; Groundswell, Inc.
Claudia Madrazo, La Vaca Independiente
Cylvia Hayes, First Lady, Oregon, founder and CEO of 3EStrategies
Dayna Cunningham, Exec. Director of the Community Innovators Lab, MIT
Denise Chaer, Novos Urbanos (Brazil)
Eileen Fisher, Founder, Eileen Fisher Inc.
Isabel Guerrero, Vice President, World Bank (2008-2013)
Julia Kim, GNH Centre, Bhutan
Juliet Schor, Professor of Sociology, Boston College
Kang Yoto, Bupati, Bojonegoro, Indonesia
Karl Orvik, Violinist
Katherine Trebeck, Research and Policy Advisor, Oxfam GB
Lew Daly, Director of Policy and Research, Demos
Marcelo Bronstein, Rabbi, B'nai Jeshurun
Marcelo Cardoso, Executive Director, Fleury, Brazil
Mariana Velez, Alliances Coordinator, Yucatan Peninsula, The Nature Conservancy (Mexico)
Michelle Long, Exec. Director, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
Niaz Dorry, Coordinating Director, Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance
Ole Thomsen, Director, Central Denmark Healthcare Region
Otto Scharmer, MIT, Co-founder Presencing Institute
Pedro Leitao, Brazil Transformation Hub
Peter Senge, Sr. Lecturer MIT, Founding Chair: Society for Org. Learning
Phil Cass, CEO of the Columbus Medical Association
Phil Thompson, Assoc. Professor, Dept of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
Roberto Benzo, Founding Director of the Breathing and Behavior Laboratory, Mayo Clinic
Sofia Campos, Board Chair, United We Dream
Stan Strickland, Singer, Saxophonist, Flutist, Actor
Tho Ha Vinh, GNH Centre, Bhutan
Yannick Beaudoin, Head of Marine Division, GRID-Arendal
For more details on speakers and panelists click here.
The Global Forum was co-sponsored by MIT CoLab, the MIT Department for Urban Studies and Planning, DOEN Foundation, the GIZ Global Leadership Academy, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Eileen Fisher Community Foundation.
During the Forum, we moved between 'big picture' engagement in plenary and 'deep dive' explorative breakaway sessions or Labs which focused on areas of profound innovation and system transformation. Labs included:
- Collaborative and Conscious Consumption
- Business: Unleashing the Power of Purpose and Compassion
- Cultivating the Commons: a Green Economy in a Blue World
- Movement Building and Shared Prosperity
- Measuring What Matters: "Beyond GDP"
- Strengthening Our Sources of Health
- Education and Mindful Learning
- Arts, Aesthetics, Action
Read more about the Labs here.
*Recordings of the Forum are currently being edited and will soon be available to watch on-demand in shorter clips, so you can more easily find the segment/speaker you are looking for. Stay tuned.


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He ran a trio of ARCA races and the same number of Busch Grand National events. His best showing in the ARCA races was a qualifying effort of Third at Charlotte. At Daytona, he was running well before dropping a valve. In Busch competition, he qualified for all three races-Darlington, Charlotte, and Rockingham-with an 18th at Charlotte being the best effort. "It's really tough making the transition to pavement," Lanigan says.
He gave pavement one more shot in 1999, running five ARCA races. His best effort was a Second at Charlotte, but he was also leading twice when mechanical gremlins put him down. He also ran a single Busch race, qualifying 17th out of 35 cars. But the dirt was still calling, and it resulted in five wins.
He thinks the fact that he's involved with the cars so closely makes him a better driver. "When something goes wrong with the car on the track, I immediately start analyzing what the problem is," he says. "If the car is pushing, for example, I know exactly what I'm going to do to fix it." On more than one occasion, Lanigan has been seen climbing out of his car and immediately starting work on his machine.
As he looks back over his mostly-dirt career, Lanigan sometimes thinks that it might have been better had he tried racing on pavement earlier. And looking at the family background, it would have been easy to do. "My dad [Porter] owned ARCA cars that mostly ran on pavement, but he got out of that about 10 years before I got started," Lanigan says. And Florence Speedway was nearby, so racing on dirt was a natural choice.
At this point, he is realistic about his chances for doing anything on pavement. "It is so competitive with ARCA and NASCAR, and it's also expensive," he says. "Really, if it came down to running nothing but dirt, I wouldn't be that unhappy."
Lanigan is one of the sport's best "readers" of a dirt track. He'll tell you that it's a super-important skill. "With dirt, the track surfaces are constantly changing over the course of an evening," he explains, "and you have to be able to adjust your car to respond to it. Then too, each track is also different with different types of dirt to deal with. Being able to figure out a particular track can give you that extra little edge to win."
The Lanigan career started with a rush, actually from point zero, right into a dirt Late Model. "There was really nothing racing-wise before I jumped into a dirt car when I was only l5 years old," he says. "In retrospect, it would probably have been better had I started in a Modified before getting into the big power of a dirt Late Model. It definitely took a couple years to get the hang of these cars."
In a sport characterized by rear ends of low-slung machines hanging all over the place in the turns, Lanigan takes a different approach: "I try to keep my car as straight as possible, [and] think I actually get around the track faster. When your rear end is hung out, you have to wait for it to come back around. I think that it really costs you time."
Lanigan says that his style is to have his car tight for the short tracks and loose for the longer ovals. "Having the car right allows me to get the car straight coming out of the corners," which he emphasizes as being important on dirt.
Of course, when it comes to competition on dirt tracks, large or small, Darrell Lanigan is tough to beat.


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AppleScript, Zombies, and Uncanny Valleys
By seapegasus on Jun 18, 2006
I liked HyperTalk, but never got anywhere with AppleScript... I like Pixar but can't warm up to Disney... Now this all makes sense! Ever heard of the Uncanny Valley? No, not the one in California. The Uncanny Valley effect is not strictly a scientific theory, still it explains at least one of the weird things in live pretty well. :-)
In case you didn't have a Mac in the early nineties: HyperCard was an all-in-one tool famous for its English-like programming language, HyperTalk. Even if HyperCard today lost its position to the technologies it had inspired (wiki, hypertext browsers), it was the best a programming beginner with a Mac could get those days. HyperCard was cool cause it gave you the opportunity to also program games instead of only playing them.
Today, MacOSX still comes with an offspring of HyperTalk that was extended to be a AppleEvent scripting language: AppleScript. The fact that AppleScript syntax still resembles the English language seemed the perfect solution for users who didn't want to dig into the details of UNIX shell scripting! Unfortunately, AppleScript turned out to be the opposite of Perl: Easy to read, but hard to write.
tell application "Finder" to set my_list to every item of folder "Documents" of home whose name starts with "A"
Possibly, the concept did not scale to work as a systemwide scripting language: Despite the language being modelled on the English language, the vast majority of users never managed to quickly write a semantically correct AppleScript from scratch... I'm pretty sure that AppleScript even was the major reason for many MacOS X users to learn shell scripting. It definitely was for me. =-) Of course, the bash scripts' front- and backslashes coupled with three different kinds of quotation marks are by no means more readable, but the success rates for getting the script to run in the first place are much higher in bash.
I remembered my short dabbling in AppleScript when I read the Uncanny Valley of AppleScript. Interesting theory: Switching your mindset to communicating in "natural language" changes your expectations toward the conversational partner. And when the partner is only a program, it will certainly not fulfil the expectations. Eventually, the discrepancy between the implicit promise of a natural conversation and the program's stupidity can be very infuriating.
What is this 'Uncanny Valley'? When Masahiro Mori plotted people's acceptance of anthropomorphic robots in a chart, he started out with a box on wheels, and worked his way up to C3PO-like robots. As expected, the subjects' acceptance towards the robot character increased. He was however surprised to find that acceptance flipped over to repulsion at a high point of anthropomorphism: Very life-like robots and CGI animated characters were suddenly considered nothing but horribly wrong zombie-puppets. 8-| That may be just perfect for Terminator and I Robot, but I think at least Tom Hanks had different plans in mind for his main role(s) in Polar Express. (Already horror enough to everone who doesn't like Tom Hanks...) ;-)
Some things start slowly making sense: One of the most well-done animation movies, Final Fantasy was quite a dissapointment at the box-offices. Instead, the crowds flocked to Bugs, Nemo, Monsters and The Incredibles, whose characters do act human, but clearly look like cartoon characters. (As an aside: The most loveable Pixar character of all times is Luxo, the desklamp. No face, no eyes, no feet, nothing. A desklamp!) On the other hand, people loved the very human Cyberpunk character Max Headroom. Wanna know why? He wasn't computer-generated at all, but played by Matt Frewer and then post-edited to look like CGI.
The German wikipedia entry mentions two more examples of potential acute Uncanny Valley syndrome: At the CeBIT convention, visitors totally loved the adorable vacuum cleaner bots. These bots were appearantly driven by very human feelings like hunger and got excited everytime a mean visitor blocked their way to an electrical outlet when they wanted to recharge. On the other hand, adults at the same convention shunned the much more carefully designed humanoid robots, and some children where seen running away crying when the androids approached.
Possibly, there are too many small details we are aware of in Real Healthy Living Humans™. Not only in the Final Fantasy movie but also in the great Diablo II cutscenes, I often found myself pondering strange things like the speed of gestures...? inertia of body parts...? visibility of sinews and muscles...? Are those characters dead, hollow, or suffering from an overdose of Botox...? etc. I get the impression that maybe even speech technology applications suffer from a problem very similar to the Uncanny Valley: Users feel mocked by a speech recognition service that e.g. understands perfectly well that you want to order a train ticket for next Sunday evening, but then politely insists on Novosibirsk instead of Nuremberg. Well, good news is, we can look forward to lots and lots more of speech recognition applications, antropomorphic robots, and live-like animations in the near future — so if there is anything to that Uncanny Valley theory, we will have the proof soon enough...
PS: Another example, this innovative leight-weight Android named Lara from Germany was build not to fall into the Uncanny Valley trap. (Click "Bilderstrecke" to see more detailed photographs.) Interesting, let's see how they will fare.


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Systems of Equations
Systems of Equations Introduction
You are sitting at a table with a few pieces of paper and a box of crayons. You draw a line with a red crayon. You draw another line with a blue crayon to make an X. Congratulations! You just graphed a system of equations and found the intersection. You might even notice the little purple dot of the intersection where the red mixed with the blue. You had no idea that you have been solving systems of equations since you were four years old.
In this chapter, you will learn many things: finding the intersection of two lines, finding the intersection of three planes, and even finding the intersection to two regions. This chapter is all about systems of equations and inequalities, and just to spice things up, there are a lot of matrix operations in here as well to make things easier for solving.
To add to the party, we'll show you how to break polynomials into partial fractions. (Doesn't that sound like fun? We're talking Barrel of Monkeys, here.) But after you get through this, we assure you that this precalculus chapter will be a breeze. You might even feel prepared for calculus or a linear algebra class in college.