Phi3 Ceti

Phi3 Ceti is a solitary, orange-hued star in the equatorial constellation of Cetus. It is faintly visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 5.31. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 5.92 mas as seen from Earth, it is located roughly 550 light years from the Sun, give or take 30 light years.
This is an evolved K-type giant star with a stellar classification of K5 III. The measured angular diameter of Phi3 Ceti is . At the estimated distance of the star, this yields a physical size of about 44 times the Sun's radius. It has about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun and radiates 429 times the solar luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 3,940 K.
References.
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Dror Feiler

Dror Elimelech Feiler (; born 31 August 1951) is an Israeli-born Swedish musician, artist and left-wing activist. He is married to the artist Gunilla Sköld-Feiler.
Early life and career.
Feiler was born in Tel Aviv in 1951 to Eliezer and Pnina Feiler, and moved with his family to kibbutz Yad Hana in 1967. His father, Eliezer Feiler, was a left-wing activist. In 1978, he and others secretly met with a group of Palestine Liberation Organization representatives in Bucharest while it was still illegal. Eliezer Feiler was tried and eventually sentenced to six months of community service and a 4,000 Israeli lira fine. The fine was paid, but the sentence was never served because, while the legal process was ongoing, the law had changed and it was no longer illegal to meet with members of the PLO. His mother, Pnina Feiler, born 1923, was among the founders of Yad Hana. She worked with mobile health centrals in Palestinian villages in the West Bank that have to travel far to get access to health-care and other services until 2015, when she stopped due to her advanced age. Dror Feiler served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces.
Feiler went abroad in the early 70s to pursue his musical studies in Sweden, where he met his wife. Swedish law at that time did not recognize dual citizenship, and Feilor had to relinquish his Israeli rights in order to become a citizen of Sweden.He studied avant-garde music and its interpretation at the Fylkingen Institut for New Music from 1975 to 1977, musicology at Stockholm University from 1977 to 1978 and composition at the Music Academy of Stockholm from 1978 to 1983.
Feiler also plays saxophone in the jazz band Lokomotiv Konkret, and founded the Too Much Too Soon Orchestra. In January 2004 he and Gunilla Sköld-Feiler made international news with their art installation "Snow White and The Madness of Truth", which referred to female suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat, which was vandalised by the then Israeli ambassador to Sweden Zvi Mazel. The installation consisted of a long pool of water coloured blood red, upon which floated a small white boat named "Snövit" ("Snow White") carrying a portrait of Hanadi Jaradat. She had blown herself up in October 2003 in an attack on Maxim's restaurant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing 21 people and injuring 51.
Feiler is now the chairman of the Swedish organization Jews for Israeli–Palestinian Peace (JIPF) and the European organization European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP). He is also a member of the editorial board of the New Colombia News Agency (ANNCOL).
He runs the artspace TEGEN 2 in Stockholm together with Gunilla Sköld Feiler.
He is active as a composer of modern music, which includes composition music for symphonic orchestras, opera, chamber music and electro-acoustic music. In April 2008, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra dropped the world premiere of his composition "Halat Hisar" (State of Siege), after musicians complained that the music, which includes machine gun sounds, was so loud that it gave them ear problems and headaches.
On 31 May 2010 Feiler was aboard one of the ships involved in the Gaza flotilla raid and sustained some minor injuries to the face during the raid. For his participation in the raid, Feiler was banned from entering Israel for 10 years. In July 2010, he flew to Israel together with Swedish MP Mehmet Kaplan, who had also received a 10-year entry ban over his participation in the Gaza flotilla, planning to lodge a complaint with the Israel Police over the flotilla raid. They were refused entry at Ben Gurion Airport and deported. In 2011, Feiler was involved in the Freedom Flotilla II, and was among the 15 activists arrested by Israeli authorities aboard the boat Dignité. He was subsequently deported from Israel.
In the 2010 Swedish general election, Feiler was a candidate for the Left Party () in Stockholm. He obtained 1,784 personal preference votes in Stockholm Municipality (4.51% of the Left Party votes, the second most voted candidate on the list after party chairman Lars Ohly) and 629 personal preference votes in Stockholm County (1.99% of the Left Party votes).
Feiler took part in Freedom Flotilla III, aboard the Swedish vessel "Marianne". The ship was intercepted by the Israeli Navy on June 29, and Feiler was arrested.
Attempts to visit his mother.
In 2013, Feiler appealed this ban in order to visit his ailing 90-year-old mother. His mother, then 90, had to fly to Sweden to meet up with her son, though bsubsequently, due to health problems, that option ceased to be available. She therefore repeatedly requested the Israeli Ministry for the Interior to lift his ban, without success. In 2018, after Swedish law dropped its ban on dual citizenship, Feiler asked for his citizenship to be restored on the basis of his right to make aliyah and be with his aging mother. No reply was forthcoming. In response to a petition by the family's attorney in December 2019, the director of the Population and Immigration Authority Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef in January 2020 conceded permission for a 2 week visit on condition he post a $28,910 bond. This condition was appealed and, in September, a judge extended his visa by a further 2 weeks, since, were he to visit, he would have to stay in quarantine for 14 days, given the Covid19 crisis. That crisis had also affected Feiler's concert schedule, depriving him of adequate financial means to post the bond.


Remote Differential Compression

Remote Differential Compression (RDC) is a client–server synchronization algorithm that allows the contents of two files to be synchronized by communicating only the differences between them. It was introduced with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, is included with later Windows client and server operating systems, but by 2019 is not being developed and is not used by any Microsoft product.
Unlike Binary Delta Compression (BDC), which is designed to operate only on known versions of a single file, RDC does not make assumptions about file similarity or versioning. The differences between files are computed on the fly, therefore RDC is suitable for efficient synchronization of files that have been updated independently, where network bandwidth is small, or where the files are large but the differences between them are small.
The algorithm used is based on fingerprinting blocks on each file locally at both ends of the replication partners. Since many types of file changes can cause the file contents to move without other significant change (for example, a small insertion or deletion at the beginning of a file can cause the rest of the file to become misaligned to the original content) the blocks used for comparison are not based on static arbitrary cut points but on cut points defined by the contents of each file segment. This means that if a part of a file changes in length, or blocks of the contents get moved to other parts of the file, the block boundaries for the parts that have not changed remain fixed related to the contents, and thus the series of fingerprints for those blocks do not change, they just change position. By comparing all hashes in a file to the hashes for the same file at the other end of the replication pair, RDC is able to identify which blocks of the file have changed and which have not, even if the contents of the file have been significantly reshuffled.
Since comparing large files could imply making large numbers of signature comparisons, the algorithm is recursively applied to the hash sets to detect which blocks of hashes have changed or moved around, significantly reducing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted for comparing files.
Later versions of Windows support cross-file RDC, which finds files similar to the one being replicated, and uses blocks of the similar files that are identical to the replicating file to minimize data transferred over the WAN. Cross-file RDC can use blocks of up to five similar files.
RDC is similar in many ways to the older (1996) rsync protocol, but with some useful innovations, in particular the recursive algorithm and cross-file RDC.
RDC is implemented in Windows operating systems by a DLL file, MSRDC.DLL, which will be present in the %SYSTEMROOT%\System32 directory if and only if RDC is enabled. Very little software is available which makes use of it, particularly on non-server systems. According to Internet rumor, enabling RDC significantly slows local file transfers, and it should not be enabled; a Microsoft TechNet web page disputes this in great detail, despite frequent anecdotal posts of its removal having worked to restore transfer speeds.
Discontinuation.
With the release of Microsoft's Windows Server 2019, RDC support was included in the section "Features we’re no longer developing" (which may be removed from a future update), with the comment "This support isn’t currently used by any Microsoft product".


2929 Harris


Gramm (record label)

Gramm was an Icelandic record label created by Ásmundur Jónsson and Einar Örn Benediktsson in 1981.
Located in Reykjavík, Gramm’s first release was a 10-track 7" vinyl titled "Tilf" by Purrkur Pillnikk, a punk group led by Einar Örn.
Besides releasing all Purrkur Pillnikk's records, Gramm also issued works of artists like the English experimental group Psychic TV, Björk's first band Tappi Tíkarrass and Kukl (featuring Björk and Einar Örn). Rock band Þeyr and punk groups such as Vonbrigði were also associated with Gramm.
In 1987, Gramm went bankrupt. Ásmundur and some of the musicians who were playing in Kukl created Smekkleysa, which ultimately became Bad Taste, known worldwide by the Sugarcubes.


Tau Piscium

Tau Piscium (τ Piscium) is an orange-hued star in the zodiac constellation of Pisces. With an apparent visual magnitude of +4.52, it is a dim star but visible to the naked eye. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 19.32 mas as seen from Earth, it is located around 169 light years from the Sun. It is most likely (96% chance) a member of the thin disk population.
This is an evolved K-type giant star with a stellar classification of K0.5 IIIb. It is about 2.27 billion years and is a red clump star on the horizontal branch, which indicates it is generating energy through helium fusion at its core. The star has 1.7 times the mass of the Sun and has expanded to about 10 times the Sun's radius. It is radiating 45 times the Sun's luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,624 K.
Naming.
In Chinese, (), meaning "Legs", refers to an asterism consisting of τ Piscium, η Andromedae, 65 Piscium, ζ Andromedae, ε Andromedae, δ Andromedae, π Andromedae, ν Andromedae, μ Andromedae, β Andromedae, σ Piscium, 91 Piscium, υ Piscium, φ Piscium, χ Piscium and ψ¹ Piscium. Consequently, the Chinese name for τ Piscium itself is (, .)


347 Pariana

347 Pariana ("prov. designation": "or" ) is a metallic background asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt. It was discovered by French astronomer Auguste Charlois at the Nice Observatory on 28 November 1892. The M-type asteroid has a short rotation period of 4.1 hours and measures approximately in diameter. The origin of the asteroid's name remains .


Two-sample hypothesis testing

In statistical hypothesis testing, a two-sample test is a test performed on the data of two random samples, each independently obtained from a different given population. The purpose of the test is to determine whether the difference between these two populations is statistically significant.
There are a large number of statistical tests that can be used in a two-sample test. Which one(s) are appropriate depend on a variety of factors, such as:
Relevant tests.
Statistical tests that may apply for two-sample testing include:


Shaker (testing device)

A shaker is a device used in vibration testing to excite the structure either for endurance testing or modal testing.


694 Ekard

694 Ekard is a minor planet orbiting the Sun that was discovered by American astronomer Joel Hastings Metcalf on November 7, 1909.
Photometric observations of this asteroid gave a light curve with a period of 5.925 hours and a brightness variation of 0.50 in magnitude. Measurements of the thermal inertia of 694 Ekard give a value of around 100–140 J m−2 K−1 s−1/2, compared to 50 for lunar regolith and 400 for coarse sand in an atmosphere.
13-cm radar observations of this asteroid from the Arecibo Observatory between 1980 and 1985 were used to produce a diameter estimate of 101 km. Four separate stellar occultation events involving this asteroid were observed from multiple sites in 2009. The resulting chords matched a least squares equivalent diameter of .


Alexander (satellite)

Alexander, also known as PhoneSat 2.0 Beta or PhoneSat v2a is a technology demonstration satellite operated by NASA's Ames Research Center, which was launched in April 2013. Part of the PhoneSat programme, it was one of the first three PhoneSat spacecraft, and the first Phonesat-2.0 satellite, to be launched.
A PhoneSat-2.0 satellite, "Alexander" was built to the single-unit (1U) CubeSat specification, and measures in each dimension. The satellite is based on an off-the-shelf Samsung Electronics Nexus S smartphone which serves in place of an onboard computer. The satellite is equipped with a two-way S-band transponder and solar cells for power generation. The spacecraft uses the phone's gyroscopes, along with a GPS receiver, to determine its position and orientation, and a system of reaction wheels and magnetorquer coils for attitude control.
"Alexander" was named after Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. The two other PhoneSat spacecraft launched aboard the same rocket were named "Graham" and "Bell". The three PhoneSat spacecraft, along with the commercial Dove 1 satellite, were launched as secondary payloads aboard the maiden flight of the Antares launch vehicle; flight A-ONE. The primary payload was the Cygnus Mass Simulator.
Liftoff occurred at 21:00 UTC on 21 April 2013, from Pad 0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), following attempts on 17 and 20 April which had been scrubbed due to an umbilical problem and high-level winds respectively. The launch was conducted by Orbital Sciences Corporation, however the CubeSats were launched under a contract with Spaceflight Services, using dispensers produced by Innovative Solutions In Space (ISIS). "Alexander", "Graham" and "Bell" were deployed from a single ISIPod dispenser, while Dove 1 was deployed from a second such dispenser.
On 27 April 2013, the satellite was confirmed to have burned up in the atmosphere, with instruments still running up until then.


944 Hidalgo

944 Hidalgo is a centaur and unusual object on an eccentric, cometary-like orbit between the asteroid belt and the outer Solar System, approximately in diameter. Discovered by German astronomer Walter Baade in 1920, it is the first member of the dynamical class of centaurs ever to be discovered. The dark D-type object has a rotation period of 10.1 hours and likely an elongated shape. It was named after Mexican revolutionary Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla.
Discovery and naming.
"Hidalgo" was discovered by German astronomer Walter Baade on 31 October 1920 at Bergedorf Observatory in Hamburg, Germany. It is named for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811), who was responsible for declaring Mexico's independence in 1810 and the ensuing Mexican War of Independence. German astronomers who were in Mexico to observe a total eclipse on 10 September 1923 had an audience with President Álvaro Obregón. During this meeting, they asked his permission to name the asteroid after Hidalgo ().
Orbit and classification.
"Hidalgo" orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.9–9.5 AU once every 13 years and 9 months (5,024 days; semi-major axis of 5.74 AU). Its orbit has a high eccentricity of 0.66 and an inclination of 43° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation on 31 October 1920.
With a semi-major axis between that of Jupiter (5.2 AU) and Neptune (30.1 AU), "Hidalgo" is a member of the dynamically unstable population of centaurs, located between the classical asteroids and the trans-Neptunian objects. The Minor Planet Center classifies it both as main-belt asteroid and unusual object due to an orbital eccentricity higher than 0.5. "Hidalgo" has traditionally been considered an asteroid because centaurs were not recognized as a distinct class until the discovery of 2060 Chiron in 1977. Alternatively, cis-Neptunian object and distant object are more generic terms that also includes objects further out the Solar System.
"Hidalgo" orbit takes it to the inner edge of the asteroid belt and as far out as to the orbit of Saturn (9.0–10.1 AU), a characteristic normally associated with Saturn's family of comets. Some astronomers therefore suspect that it was once a comet. It is a Jupiter- and Saturn-crosser. Strictly speaking, "Hidalgo" is a Saturn-grazer rather than a crosser as its aphelion does not clear Saturn's. The object's severe orbital inclination is suspected to be the result of a close encounter with Jupiter. Even as recently as 1922, "Hidalgo" passed within 0.89 AU of Jupiter. Its orbit has a Jupiter minimum orbit intersection distance of only .
It is unlikely there are any large satellites orbiting Hidalgo larger than about 15 kilometers across. Observations from the Very Large Telescope in 2003 ruled out any secondary objects brighter than V=19.5 further than 200 kilometers from the asteroid. However, smaller moons have not been ruled out.
Physical characteristics.
In the Tholen and Bus–DeMeo classification, "Hidalgo" is a dark, carbonaceous D-type asteroid.
According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Hidalgo" measures 52.45 and 61.4 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a low albedo of 0.042 and 0.028, respectively. The prominent JPL Small-Body Database currently gives a diameter of 38 kilometers taken from the publication "Hazards due to Comets and Asteroids" (Tom Gehrels, 1994). The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" assumes a standard albedo for a carbonaceous asteroid of 0.057 and derives a diameter of 44.6 km based on an absolute magnitude of 10.48, while Johnston's archive adopts Akari's diameter of 52 km with an albedo of 0.042.
In the late 1990s, a network of astronomers worldwide gathered lightcurve data that was ultimately used to derive the spin states and shape models of 10 new asteroids, including "Hidalgo". The authors describe the shape model as having 'very large flat areas and a "rectangular" pole-on silhouette, which are strong indications of a highly nonconvex shape'. Some of the light curves show sharp minima, which indicates the object shape may have two lobes. Lightcurve data has also been recorded by observers at the Antelope Hills Observatory in Colorado, United States. When Pluto was discovered "Hidalgo" was the furthest known minor planet from the Sun.


Stem-and-leaf display

A stem-and-leaf display or stem-and-leaf plot is a device for presenting quantitative data in a graphical format, similar to a histogram, to assist in visualizing the shape of a distribution. They evolved from Arthur Bowley's work in the early 1900s, and are useful tools in exploratory data analysis. Stemplots became more commonly used in the 1980s after the publication of John Tukey's book on "exploratory data analysis" in 1977. The popularity during those years is attributable to their use of monospaced (typewriter) typestyles that allowed computer technology of the time to easily produce the graphics. Modern computers' superior graphic capabilities have meant these techniques are less often used.
This plot has been implemented in Octave and R.
A stem-and-leaf plot is also called a stemplot, but the latter term often refers to another chart type. A simple stem plot may refer to plotting a matrix of "y" values onto a common "x" axis, and identifying the common" x" value with a vertical line, and the individual "y "values with symbols on the line.
Unlike histograms, stem-and-leaf displays retain the original data to at least two significant digits, and put the data in order, thereby easing the move to order-based inference and non-parametric statistics.
Construction.
To construct a stem-and-leaf display, the observations must first be sorted in ascending order: this can be done most easily if working by hand by constructing a draft of the stem-and-leaf display with the leaves unsorted, then sorting the leaves to produce the final stem-and-leaf display. Here is the sorted set of data values that will be used in the following example:
Next, it must be determined what the stems will represent and what the leaves will represent. Typically, the leaf contains the last digit of the number and the stem contains all of the other digits. In the case of very large numbers, the data values may be rounded to a particular place value (such as the hundreds place) that will be used for the leaves. The remaining digits to the left of the rounded place value are used as the stem.
In this example, the leaf represents the ones place and the stem will represent the rest of the number (tens place and higher).
The stem-and-leaf display is drawn with two columns separated by a vertical line. The stems are listed to the left of the vertical line. It is important that each stem is listed only once and that no numbers are skipped, even if it means that some stems have no leaves. The leaves are listed in increasing order in a row to the right of each stem.
It is important to note that when there is a repeated number in the data (such as two 72s) then the plot must reflect such (so the plot would look like 7 | 2 2 5 6 7 when it has the numbers 72 72 75 76 77).
Rounding may be needed to create a stem-and-leaf display. Based on the following set of data, the stem plot below would be created:
For negative numbers, a negative is placed in front of the stem unit, which is still the value X / 10. Non-integers are rounded. This allowed the stem and leaf plot to retain its shape, even for more complicated data sets. As in this example below:
Usage.
Stem-and-leaf displays are useful for displaying the relative density and shape of the data, giving the reader a quick overview of the distribution. They retain (most of) the raw numerical data, often with perfect integrity. They are also useful for highlighting outliers and finding the mode. However, stem-and-leaf displays are only useful for moderately sized data sets (around 15–150 data points). With very small data sets a stem-and-leaf displays can be of little use, as a reasonable number of data points are required to establish definitive distribution properties. A dot plot may be better suited for such data. With very large data sets, a stem-and-leaf display will become very cluttered, since each data point must be represented numerically. A box plot or histogram may become more appropriate as the data size increases.


3020 Naudts


Mister Heartbreak

Mister Heartbreak is the second album by avant-garde artist, singer and composer Laurie Anderson, released in 1984.
Like its predecessor, it contains reworked elements of Anderson's "United States" ("Langue d'Amour", "Kokuku", based on musical elements from "Rising Sun", and "Blue Lagoon"). However, Anderson also introduced new material ("Sharkey's Day"/"Sharkey's Night" and "Gravity's Angel") while "Excellent Birds", written in collaboration with Peter Gabriel, was written for a 1984 project for video artist Nam June Paik called "Good Morning, Mr. Orwell".
Background.
"Gravity's Angel" borrows imagery from Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow". Anderson had "wanted to make an opera of that book ... and asked him if that would be OK... He said, 'You can do it, but you can only use banjo.' And so I thought, 'Well, thanks. I don't know if I could do it like that." "Blue Lagoon" contains allusions to other tales of the sea (William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (Ariel's song) and Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick").
Considered more mainstream than its predecessor, "Big Science", the album's lead track, "Sharkey's Day" formed the basis of a popular music video. Author William S. Burroughs read the lyrics of the closing track, "Sharkey's Night", while Peter Gabriel provided vocals on "Excellent Birds", an alternate version of which, titled "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)", also appeared on his album "So". According to Anderson, she and Gabriel "could never agree on what a bassline was. (I think I probably don’t hear so well down there.) I wanted to learn from him, but it turned into a standoff and so we each put out our own version of the song." A third version of the song can be heard in the music video version, directed by Dean Winkler.
Most of the songs on this album were later performed in Anderson's 1986 concert film "Home of the Brave". Burroughs appears in that film and appears in two brief segments reciting lines from "Sharkey's Night", although it is Anderson herself who performs a complete version of the song at the film's conclusion. "Sharkey's Night" featured in the Australian short documentary film "Ladies Please!" (1995).
It has sold 44,000 copies in France.
Track listing.
All songs written by Laurie Anderson except as indicated.
Charts.
Album


HTML5 Chinese Interest Group

The HTML5 Chinese Interest Group, is part of the HTML Working Group Activity, its mission of is to facilitate focused discussion of the HTML5 specification and of specifications closely related to HTML5.
The HTML5 Chinese IG will not produce Recommendation-track deliverables but may produce Interest Group Notes on HTML5 and related technologies, currently the Chinese IG has over 1000 members.
The Group's initial chair was Zi Bin Cheah.


Equivalent Martingale Measure


Optimistic replication

Optimistic replication, also known as lazy replication, is a strategy for replication, in which replicas are allowed to diverge.
Traditional pessimistic replication systems try to guarantee from the beginning that all of the replicas are identical to each other, as if there was only a single copy of the data all along. Optimistic replication does away with this in favor of eventual consistency, meaning that replicas are guaranteed to converge only when the system has been quiesced for a period of time. As a result, there is no longer a need to wait for all of the copies to be synchronized when updating data, which helps concurrency and parallelism. The trade-off is that different replicas may require explicit reconciliation later on, which might then prove difficult or even insoluble.
Algorithms.
An optimistic replication algorithm consists of five elements:
There are two strategies for propagation: state transfer, where sites propagate a representation of the current state, and operation transfer, where sites propagate the operations that were performed (essentially, a list of instructions on how to reach the new state).
Scheduling and conflict resolution can either be syntactic or semantic. Syntactic systems rely on general information, such as when or where an operation was submitted. Semantic systems are able to make use of application-specific information to make smarter decisions. Note that state transfer systems generally have no information about the semantics of the data being transferred, and so they have to use syntactic scheduling and conflict resolution.
Examples.
One well-known example of a system based on optimistic replication is the CVS version control system, or any other version control system which uses the copy-modify-merge paradigm. CVS covers each of the five elements:
A special case of replication is synchronization, where there are only two replicas. For example, personal digital assistants (PDAs) allow users to edit data either on the PDA or a computer, and then to merge these two datasets together. Note, however, that replication is a broader problem than synchronization, since there may be more than two replicas.
Other examples include:
Implications.
Applications built on top of optimistic replicated databases need to be careful about ensuring that the delayed updates observed do not impair the correctness of the application.
As a simple example, if an application contains a way of viewing some part of the database state, and a way of editing it, then users may edit that state but then not see it changing in the viewer. Alarmed that their edit "didn't work", they may try it again, potentially more than once. If the updates are not idempotent (e.g., they increment a value), this can lead to disaster. Even if they are idempotent, the spurious database updates can lead to performance bottlenecks, especially when the database systems are processing heavy loads; this can become a vicious circle.
Testing of applications is often done on a testing environment, smaller in size (perhaps only a single server) and less loaded than the "live" environment. The replication behaviour of such an installation may differ from a live environment in ways that mean that replication lag is unlikely to be observed in testing, masking replication-sensitive bugs. Application developers must be very careful about the assumptions they make about the effect of a database update, and must be sure to simulate lag in their testing environments.
Optimistically replicated databases have to be very careful about offering features such as validity constraints on data. If any given update may or may not be accepted based on the current state of the record, then two updates (A and B) may be individually legal against the starting state of the system, but one or more of the updates may not be legal against the state of the system after the other update (e.g., A and B are both legal, but AB or BA are illegal). If A and B are both initiated at roughly the same time within the database, then A may be successfully applied on some nodes and B on others, but as soon as A and B "meet" and one is attempted on a node which has already applied the other, a conflict will be found. The system must, in this case, decide which update finally "wins", and arrange for any nodes that have already applied the losing update to revert it. However, some nodes may temporarily expose the state with the reverted update, and there may be no way to inform the user who initiated the update of its failure, without requiring them to wait (potentially forever) for confirmation of acceptance at every node.


Room synchronization

The room synchronization technique is a form of concurrency control in computer science.
The room synchronization problem involves supporting a set of "m" mutually exclusive "rooms" where any number of users can execute code simultaneously in a shared room (any one of them), but no two users can simultaneously execute code in separate rooms.
Room synchronization can be used to implement asynchronous parallel queues and stacks with constant time access (assuming a fetch-and-add operation).


2382 Nonie


William C. Hetzel

Dr. William C. Hetzel is an expert in the field of software testing. He compiled the papers from the 1972 Computer Program Test Methods Symposium, also known as the Chapel Hill Symposium, into the book "Program Test Methods." The book, published in 1973, details the problems of software validation and testing.
The International Conference and Exposition on Testing Computer Software, which is the first conference with a focus on software testing, is convened in 1984 by the US Professional Development Institute (USPDI) in Washington, D.C. Hetzel and Dr. David Gelperin are the joint program chairs.
Hetzel and Dave Gelperin co-found the Software Quality Engineering consultancy firm in 1986. Their motto was, "Test, then code." Together they worked to establish software testing as a stand-alone computer discipline. In 1988 they classified the phases and goals of software testing into the following stages:
In 1988 Gelperin and Heztel write the article The Growth of Software Testing. In it they discuss four major models for software testing. The first two are Phase Models, and the second two are Life Cycle Models.
Hetzel's book "The Complete Guide to Software Testing" which provides methodologies, testing techniques, and the principles of software testing, is released in 1988. The book is released in a 2nd edition later the same year, and several other printings are made through 1994.
In 1992 Gelperin and Hetzel firm organized the first "Software Testing, Analysis & Review," the "STAR" conference, in Las Vegas, Nevada and in 1993 introduced a European equivalent, the EuroSTAR Conference. The US-based conferences are now produced by TechWell Corporation which is the new name for their Software Quality Engineering company.
Gelperin and Hetzel developed the STEP methodology for implementing the original IEEE-829-1998 Standard for Software and System Test Documentation. Their firm was instrumental in gaining recognition for testing as a separate discipline within the software industry.


2446 Lunacharsky


Surendranath Evening College

Surendranath Evening College, established in 1961, is an undergraduate college in Sealdah, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It is affiliated with the University of Calcutta.
Accreditation.
Surendranath Evening College is recognized by the University Grants Commission (UGC).


WiTrack

A WiTrack is a 3-D motion tracking sensor that is capable of monitoring human body movements. This sensor is able to serve three main purposes, such functions being the following: turning on/off home appliances, tracking a lethal fall, and improving gaming experience. This new piece of technology, currently in its developing stages, was developed primarily by Fadel Adib and Dina Katabi at MIT. The WiTrack functions through the use of radio signals, which help perform the task of finding a person's current location, the radio signals not been affected at all by walls and other physical obstacles present.
Technology.
WiTrack functions through the use of radio signals that reflect off a person, this does not require a user to hold on to a wireless device like other previous similar inventions. WiTrack uses a total of four antennas, one antenna is used for transmitting signals and three antennas are used for receiving the signals. Through the use of these antennas, a geometric model is created which is able to calculate the distance between the antennas receiving the signals and the user where the signals derive from.
Time-of-flight estimation.
The time it takes for the signal to travel from the transmitter to the person's body, and back again to the transmitter.
3-D localization.
Through the use of the antennas, a geometric model is created which is able to calculate the distance between the antennas and the person's body.
Fall detection and pointing.
WiTrack classifies a fall as a rapid change on the elevation of a person. WiTrack can track the motion of a person's arm and detect on what direction the arm is pointing at.
Future goals.
The WiTrack was well received, this led to the creation of Emerald. Emerald was an extension to the WiTrack's ability to track falls among the elderly. Just like WiTrack, Emerald tracks the motion of a person through the use of radio signals reflected off the person's body. Once a fall is detected it alerts the person taking care of the elder, or 911. Emerald was presented to President Barack Obama at the White House on August 4, 2015 and was seen as a huge innovation towards tracking falls among the elderly.
Applications.
Controlling home appliances.
A simple gesture, raising your arm and pointing at an appliance, is all it would take in order to transmit a signal. This simple gesture is detected by the use of radio signals, which are then able to turn on/off appliances. This action of turning on and off home appliances doesn't only have to be done in one room, a person is able to control a household appliance even through walls. WiTrack is still able to detect a person's arm gesture even through physical objects.
Identifying dangerous falls among the elderly.
WiTrack's ability to track motion with such ease and simplicity will make it useful in tracking elderly patients at high risk of falling. WiTrack is able to differentiate a fall from sitting down or standing, it's able to recognize a fall as a fast change in the distance between the person and the ground. WiTrack is able to detect a lethal fall with a high accuracy percentage of 96.9%, making it easy and reliable to use.
Gaming.
Gamers are able to roam around the comfort of their home, being able to truly interact with the game. WiTracker gives players the ability to run down real hallways, hide behind furniture, and go into different rooms of their home, all while the game is still going.
Similar inventions.
WiTrack is one of many attempts at 3-D motion tracking technology. This kind of technology has been attempted on both the gaming field and on the field dealing with the tracking of lethal falls among the elderly. Worldwide known gaming consoles, such as the Wii and Xbox Kinect, have long been praised for interacting with their players, involving them in physical activity. These gaming consoles require users to stand at a certain distance and can't stand behind furniture nor behind walls. Current attempts at trying to detect falls amongst the elderly require users to continuously wear sensors or place cameras around their home. These other medical alarms can detect the fall of a person through the use of 3-D motion sensors, similar to the WiTrack.
Issues and improvements.
A challenge would derive from multipath effects, which create errors in mapping the delay of a reflection to the distance from the target. Sometimes the transmitted signal is reflected from walls and any home appliances. A major issue that is currently being fixed is the measuring time of flight is difficult since RF signals travel very fast. The MIT team is currently trying to fix this issue by using a technique named FMCW, which stands for frequency modulated carrier wave.
Another obstacle that stands on the way is the fact that WiTrack is only able to identify one person at a time, but this is being resolved at the time by the MIT team.


Bit slip

In digital transmission, bit slip is the loss or gain of a bit or bits, caused by clock drift – variations in the respective clock rates of the transmitting and receiving devices.
One cause of bit slippage is overflow of a receive buffer that occurs when the transmitter's clock rate exceeds that of the receiver. This causes one or more bits to be dropped for lack of storage capacity.
One way to maintain timing between transmitting and receiving devices is to employ an asynchronous protocol such as start-stop. Alternatively, bit slip can be prevented by using a self-clocking signal (such as a signal modulated using OQPSK) or using a line coding such as Manchester encoding.
Another cause is "losing count", as on a hard drive: if a hard drive encounters a long string of 0s, without any 1s (or a string of 1s without 0s), it may lose track of the frame between fields, and suffer bit slip.
When a pulse of N consecutive zero bits are sent, clock drift may cause the hardware to apparently detect N-1 zero bits or N+1 zero bits—both kinds of errors are called bit slip.
Thus one prevents long strings without change via such devices as run length limited codes.
Many communication systems use linear-feedback shift register scrambling to prevent long strings of 0s (or other symbol),
including VSAT, 1000BASE-T, , etc.
While a scrambler makes the "losing count" type of bit slip error occur far less often,
when bit slip errors do occur (perhaps for other reasons),
scramblers have the property of expanding small errors that add or lose a single bit into a much longer burst of errors.
The optimized cipher feedback mode (OCFB), the statistical self-synchronization mode, and the "one-bit CFB mode" also expand small bit-slip errors into a longer burst of errors, but eventually recover and produce the correct decrypted plaintext.
A bit-slip error when using any other block cipher mode of operation generally results in complete corruption of the rest of the message.


3566 Levitan


Sentence completion tests

Sentence completion tests are a class of semi-structured projective techniques. Sentence completion tests typically provide respondents with beginnings of sentences, referred to as "stems", and respondents then complete the sentences in ways that are meaningful to them. The responses are believed to provide indications of attitudes, beliefs, motivations, or other mental states. Therefore, sentence completion technique, with such advantage, promotes the respondents to disclose their concealed feelings. Notwithstanding, there is debate over whether or not sentence completion tests elicit responses from conscious thought rather than unconscious states. This debate would affect whether sentence completion tests can be strictly categorized as projective tests.
A sentence completion test form may be relatively short, such as those used to assess responses to advertisements, or much longer, such as those used to assess personality. A long sentence completion test is the Forer Sentence Completion Test, which has 100 stems. The tests are usually administered in booklet form where respondents complete the stems by writing words on paper.
The structures of sentence completion tests vary according to the length and relative generality and wording of the sentence stems. Structured tests have longer stems that lead respondents to more specific types of responses; less structured tests provide shorter stems, which produce a wider variety of responses.
History.
Hermann Ebbinghaus is generally credited with developing the first sentence completion test in 1897. Ebbinghaus's sentence completion test was used as part of an intelligence test. Simultaneously, Carl Jung's word association test may also have been a precursor to modern sentence completion tests. Moreover, in recent decades, sentence completion tests have increased in usage, in part because they are easy to develop and easy to administer. As of the 1980s, sentence completion tests were the eighty-fifth most widely used personality assessment instruments. Another reason for the increased usage of sentence completion tests is because of their superiority to other measures in uncovering conflicted attitudes. Some sentence completion tests were developed as a way to overcome the problems associated with thematic apperception measures of the same constructs.
Uses.
The uses of sentence completion tests include personality analysis, clinical applications, attitude assessment, achievement motivation, and measurement of other constructs. They are used in several disciplines, including psychology, management, education, and marketing.
Sentence completion measures have also been incorporated into non-projective applications, such as intelligence tests, language comprehension, and language and cognitive development tests.
Examples.
There are many sentence completion tests available for use by researchers. Some of the most widely used sentence completion tests include:
Data analysis, validity and reliability.
The data collected from sentence completion tests can usually be analyzed either quantitatively or qualitatively. Usually, sentence completion tests can be interpreted in two different ways: subjective-intuitive analysis of the underlying motivations projected in the subject's responses, or objective analysis by means of scores assigned to each completed sentence. Multiple themes can occur in a short test, which gives the examinee multiple opportunities to reveal underlying motivations about each topic during data analysis. Of course, most sentence completion tests are much longer (anywhere from 40 to 100 stems) and contain more themes (anywhere from 4 to 15 topics).
Sentence completion tests usually include some formal coding procedure or manual. The validity of each sentence completion test must be determined independently and this depends on the instructions laid out in the scoring booklet.
Compared to positivist instruments, such as Likert-type scales, sentence completion tests tend to have high face validity (i.e., the extent to which measurement items accurately reflect the concept being measured). This is to be expected, because in many cases the sentence stems name or refer to specific objects and the respondent provides responses specifically focused on such objects.


Benchmark (computing)

In computing, a benchmark is the act of running a computer program, a set of programs, or other operations, in order to assess the relative performance of an object, normally by running a number of standard tests and trials against it.
The term "benchmark" is also commonly utilized for the purposes of elaborately designed benchmarking programs themselves.
Benchmarking is usually associated with assessing performance characteristics of computer hardware, for example, the floating point operation performance of a CPU, but there are circumstances when the technique is also applicable to software. Software benchmarks are, for example, run against compilers or database management systems (DBMS).
Benchmarks provide a method of comparing the performance of various subsystems across different chip/system architectures.
Test suites are a type of system intended to assess the correctness of software.
Purpose.
As computer architecture advanced, it became more difficult to compare the performance of various computer systems simply by looking at their specifications. Therefore, tests were developed that allowed comparison of different architectures. For example, Pentium 4 processors generally operated at a higher clock frequency than Athlon XP or PowerPC processors, which did not necessarily translate to more computational power; a processor with a slower clock frequency might perform as well as or even better than a processor operating at a higher frequency. See BogoMips and the megahertz myth.
Benchmarks are designed to mimic a particular type of workload on a component or system. Synthetic benchmarks do this by specially created programs that impose the workload on the component. Application benchmarks run real-world programs on the system. While application benchmarks usually give a much better measure of real-world performance on a given system, synthetic benchmarks are useful for testing individual components, like a hard disk or networking device.
Benchmarks are particularly important in CPU design, giving processor architects the ability to measure and make tradeoffs in microarchitectural decisions. For example, if a benchmark extracts the key algorithms of an application, it will contain the performance-sensitive aspects of that application. Running this much smaller snippet on a cycle-accurate simulator can give clues on how to improve performance.
Prior to 2000, computer and microprocessor architects used SPEC to do this, although SPEC's Unix-based benchmarks were quite lengthy and thus unwieldy to use intact.
Computer manufacturers are known to configure their systems to give unrealistically high performance on benchmark tests that are not replicated in real usage. For instance, during the 1980s some compilers could detect a specific mathematical operation used in a well-known floating-point benchmark and replace the operation with a faster mathematically equivalent operation. However, such a transformation was rarely useful outside the benchmark until the mid-1990s, when RISC and VLIW architectures emphasized the importance of compiler technology as it related to performance. Benchmarks are now regularly used by compiler companies to improve not only their own benchmark scores, but real application performance.
CPUs that have many execution units — such as a superscalar CPU, a VLIW CPU, or a reconfigurable computing CPU — typically have slower clock rates than a sequential CPU with one or two execution units when built from transistors that are just as fast. Nevertheless, CPUs with many execution units often complete real-world and benchmark tasks in less time than the supposedly faster high-clock-rate CPU.
Given the large number of benchmarks available, a manufacturer can usually find at least one benchmark that shows its system will outperform another system; the other systems can be shown to excel with a different benchmark.
Manufacturers commonly report only those benchmarks (or aspects of benchmarks) that show their products in the best light. They also have been known to mis-represent the significance of benchmarks, again to show their products in the best possible light. Taken together, these practices are called "bench-marketing."
Ideally benchmarks should only substitute for real applications if the application is unavailable, or too difficult or costly to port to a specific processor or computer system. If performance is critical, the only benchmark that matters is the target environment's application suite.
Challenges.
Benchmarking is not easy and often involves several iterative rounds in order to arrive at predictable, useful conclusions. Interpretation of benchmarking data is also extraordinarily difficult. Here is a partial list of common challenges:
Benchmarking Principles.
There are seven vital characteristics for benchmarks. These key properties are:


McCumber relation

The McCumber relation (or McCumber theory) is a relationship between the effective cross-sections of absorption and emission of light in the physics of solid-state lasers. It is named after Dean McCumber, who proposed the relationship in 1964.
Definition.
Let formula_1 be the effective absorption cross-section formula_2 be effective emission cross-sections at frequency formula_3, and let formula_4 be the effective temperature of the medium. The McCumber relation is
where formula_6
is thermal steady-state ratio of populations; frequency formula_7 is called "zero-line" frequency;
formula_8 is the Planck constant and
formula_9 is the Boltzmann constant. Note that the right-hand side of Equation (1) does not depend on formula_10.
Gain.
It is typical that the lasing properties of a medium are determined by the temperature and the population at the excited laser level, and are not sensitive to the method of excitation used to achieve it. In this case, the absorption cross-section
formula_1
and the emission cross-section
formula_2
at frequency formula_10 can be related to the lasers gain in such a way, that the gain at this frequency can be determined as follows:
D.E.McCumber had postulated these properties and found that the emission and absorption cross-sections are not independent; they are related with Equation (1).
Idealized atoms.
In the case of an idealized two-level atom the detailed balance for the emission and absorption which preserves the Planck formula for the black-body radiation leads to equality of cross-section of absorption and emission. In the solid-state lasers the splitting of each of laser levels leads to the broadening which greatly exceeds the natural spectral linewidth. In the case of an ideal two-level atom, the product of the linewidth and the lifetime is of order of unity, which obeys the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. In solid-state laser materials, the linewidth is several orders of magnitude larger so the spectra of emission and absorption are determined by distribution of excitation among sublevels rather than by the shape of the spectral line of each individual transition between sublevels. This distribution is determined by the effective temperature within each of laser levels. The McCumber hypothesis is that the distribution of excitation among sublevels is thermal. The effective temperature determines the spectra of emission and absorption ( The "effective temperature" is called a "temperature" by scientists even if the excited medium as whole is pretty far from the thermal state )
Deduction of the McCumber relation.
Consider the set of active centers (fig.1.). Assume fast transition between sublevels within each level, and slow transition between levels.
According to the McCumber hypothesis, the cross-sections formula_15 and formula_16 do not depend on the populations formula_17 and formula_18.
Therefore, we can deduce the relation, assuming the thermal state.
Let formula_19 be group velocity of light in the medium, the product formula_20 is spectral rate of
stimulated emission, and formula_21 is that of absorption; formula_22 is spectral rate of spontaneous emission. (Note that in this approximation, there is no such thing as a spontaneous absorption)
The balance of photons gives:
Which can be rewritten as
The thermal distribution of density of photons follows from blackbody radiation
Both (4) and (5) hold for all frequencies formula_10. For the case of idealized two-level active centers, formula_27, and formula_28, which leads to the relation between the spectral rate of spontaneous emission formula_29 and the emission cross-section formula_30. (We keep the term probability of emission for the quantity formula_31, which is probability of emission of a photon within small spectral interval formula_32 during a short time interval formula_33, assuming that at time formula_34 the atom is excited.) The relation (D2) is a fundamental property of spontaneous and stimulated emission, and perhaps the only way to prohibit a spontaneous break of the thermal equilibrium in the thermal state of excitations and photons.
For each site number formula_35, for each sublevel number formula_36, the partial spectral emission probability formula_37 can be expressed from consideration of idealized two-level atoms:
Neglecting the cooperative coherent effects, the emission is additive: for any concentration formula_39 of sites and for any partial population formula_40 of sublevels, the same proportionality between formula_41 and formula_42 holds for the effective cross-sections:
Then, the comparison of (D1) and (D2) gives the relation
This relation is equivalent of the McCumber relation (mc), if we define the zero-line frequency formula_45 as solution of equation
the subscript formula_4 indicates that the ratio of populations in evaluated in the thermal state. The zero-line frequency can be expressed as
Then (n1n2) becomes equivalent of the McCumber relation (mc).
No specific property of sublevels of active medium is required to keep the McCumber relation. It follows from the assumption about quick transfer of energy among excited laser levels and among lower laser levels. The McCumber relation (mc) has the same range of validity as the concept of the emission cross-section
itself.
Confirmation of the McCumber relation.
The McCumber relation is confirmed for various media.
In particular, relation (1) makes it possible to approximate two functions of frequency, emission and absorption cross sections, with single fit
Violation of the McCumber relation and perpetual motion.
In 2006 the strong violation of McCumber relation was observed for Yb:Gd2SiO5 and reported in 3 independent journals. Typical behavior of the cross-sections reported is shown in Fig.2 with thick curves. The emission cross-section is practically zero at wavelength
975 nm; this property makes Yb:Gd2SiO5 an excellent material for efficient solid-state lasers.
However, the property reported (thick curves) is not compatible with the second law of thermodynamics. With such a material, the perpetual motion device would be possible. It would be sufficient to fill a box with reflecting walls with Yb:Gd2SiO5 and allow it to exchange radiation with a black body through a spectrally-selective window which is transparent in vicinity of 975 nm and reflective at other wavelengths. Due to the lack of emissivity at 975 nm the medium should warm, breaking the thermal equilibrium.
On the base of the second Law of thermodynamics, the experimental results
 were refuted in 2007. With the McCumber theory, the correction was suggested for the effective emission cross section (black thin curve).
Then this correction was confirmed experimentally.


3494 Purple Mountain

3494 Purple Mountain, provisional designation , is a bright Vestian asteroid and a formerly lost minor planet from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. First observed in 1962, it was officially discovered on 7 December 1980, by Chinese astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanking, China, and later named in honor of the discovering observatory. The V-type asteroid has a rotation period of 5.9 hours.
Orbit and classification.
"Purple Mountain" is a core member of the Vesta family (), a giant asteroid family of typically bright V-type asteroids. Vestian asteroids have a composition akin to cumulate eucrites (HED meteorites) and are thought to have originated deep within 4 Vesta's crust, possibly from the Rheasilvia crater, a large impact crater on its southern hemisphere near the South pole, formed as a result of a subcatastrophic collision. Vesta is the main belt's second-largest and second-most-massive body after . Based on osculating Keplerian orbital elements, the asteroid has also been classified as a member of the Flora family (), a giant asteroid family and the largest family of stony asteroids in the main-belt.
"Purple Mountain" orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 2.0–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 7 months (1,315 days; semi-major axis of 2.35 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 6° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory on December 1951, or 29 years prior to its official discovery observation.
Lost asteroid.
"Purple Mountain" has been a lost minor planet. In November 1962, "Purple Mountain" was observed as at Goethe Link Observatory. A total of three additional observations were taken at Crimea–Nauchnij in 1969 and 1972, when it was designated as and , respectively, but was subsequently lost with no follow-up observations until its official discovery at Nanking in 1980.
Physical characteristics.
Based on the Moving Object Catalog (MOC) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, "Purple Mountain" is a common, stony S-type asteroid, with a sequential best-type taxonomy of SV. The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" (CALL) also assumes it to be a stony S-type.
In the SMASS-I classification by Xu, the asteroid is a V-type. This agrees with its measured high albedo "(see below)" often seen among the core members of the Vesta family. In 2013, a spectroscopic analysis showed it to have a composition very similar to the cumulate eucrite meteorites, which also suggests that the basaltic asteroid has originated from the crust of 4 Vesta.
Rotation period.
In June 2015, a rotational lightcurve of "Purple Mountain" was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers at Texas A&M University, using the SARA-telescopes of the "Southeastern Association for Research and Astronomy" consortium. The 0.9-meter SARA-North telescope is located at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona, while the 0.6-meter SARA-South telescope is hosted at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 5.857 hours with a brightness variation of 0.32 magnitude (). One month later, in July 2015, another period of 2.928 hours and an amplitude of 0.40 magnitude was measured at MIT's George R. Wallace Jr. Observatory (). The results are in good agreement, apart from the fact that the latter is an alternative, monomodal solution with half the period of the former. CALL adopts the longer, bimodal period solution as the better result in its Lightcurve Data Base, due to the lightcurve's distinct amplitude and the small phase angle of the first observation.
Diameter and albedo.
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Purple Mountain" measures 6.507 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.347, while CALL assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from the body's classification into the Flora family – and consequently calculates a larger diameter of 7.82 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.7.
Naming.
This minor planet was named in honor of the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO), an astronomical observatory located in Nanking (Nanjing), China. Built in 1934, the observatory is known for its astrometric observations and for its numerous discoveries of small Solar System bodies. It has played an important role in developing modern Chinese astronomy. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 29 November 1993 ().


Weights and Measures Act (Canada)

The Weights and Measures Act (R.S. 1985; ) (long title: "An Act respecting weights and measures") is a Canadian law governing the units of measurements used in Canada.
Originally passed in 1970 as part of the Government of Canada's plan for metrication of Canada from Imperial measures, it was stopped in 1985 and changes were made to the act. The Metric Commission was created by the act and abolished in 1985.
The act sets forth the regulation of measurements and the commerce conducted using measuring devices. The act provides that the International System of measurement be used with what the act calls "Customary units used with the international system" such as hour, minutes, litres, hectares, tonne or metric ton.
In addition, the act allows usage of what it labels as "Canadian units" (the imperial system), such as miles, inches, imperial gallons, and acres. In SCHEDULE III - section 5, the act also provides for the usage of certain French units in what it labels as "UNITS OF MEASUREMENT TO DESCRIBE CERTAIN LAND IN QUEBEC". The five permitted old French units are the foot (the French foot of 12.789 inches), arpent (for both length and area), and perch (for both length and area).


Sumatra Trench

The Sumatra Trench is a part of the Sunda Trench or Java Trench. The Sunda subduction zone (called also: the Sumatra-Andaman subduction zone) is located in the east part of Indian Ocean, and is about from the southwest coast of Sumatra and Java islands. It extends over long, starting from Myanmar in the northwest and ending at Sumba Island in the southeast.
Geological settings.
The Java trench was generated by the oblique subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate into the Sunda plate at a rate of 61mm/y (in the south) and 51mm/y (in the north). The oceanic crust being subducted via this accretionary margin has variable ages (40 to 100 Ma) and structure along the trench. There is also research showing that arc parallel dextral strike-slip fault systems (i.e. the Great Sumatra fault) developed on the landward side of the Sunda forearc to absorb part of the dextral motions associated with the oblique plate convergence. After the disastrous 2004 Sumatran tsunami, more and more researchers begin to study this area. The trench slope is now being considered as a result of folds and faults in the area which were originated from the local seafloor deformation.
Seismic profiles at Sumatra Trench shows that, the down-going Indo-Australian plate has its slip vectors rotate to a NE direction. This indicates that the plate motion is dominated by the dextral shear inside the Indo-Australian Plate in the order of 3.6–4.9 cm/yr. Transpressive deformation of the subducting plate edge is the primary to absorb the shear force. At the southeast section of this area, the Sumatra fault zone bends towards south and merges into the extensional south striking fault system of the Sumatra trait. The Sumatra Trench near the northwestern and western parts of Sumatra are defined as a high hazard region where 6.0 and 7.0 Mw magnitude earthquakes can generate quite often, i.e. every 6–12 and 10–30 years, respectively.
The Sumatra Fault Zone (SFZ) is the most worth noting area on the Eurasian plate near the Sumatra Trench. Within the Sumatra Fault Zone lies the majority of the right-lateral stress from the relative motion between the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates. The Sumatra Fault Zone meets the south trending extensional faulting system in Sunda Strait in Semangka. The fault zone can generate submarine pull-apart grabens.
Structure.
In the convergent margins where accretion plays an important role, prism width varies from 40 km to 350 km. The width at Sumatra trench is controlled by sediment input and accretion rate and history. One distinguishing feature of the Sumatra subduction zone is that it has a relatively 120–140 km accretionary prism and a deep forearc basin (so does the rest of the whole Java subduction zone). However it does vary along the trench. The prism is broad and has a relatively shallow surface slope in the northern part, becomes steep and narrow at the central part, then becomes steep and narrow in the southern area.
Accretionary prism.
The inner part of the prism forms a NW-SE arc ridge offshore Sumatra with Enggano Islands being its highest point. This arc ridge has the widths of 30–60 km and is made up of 5 to 6 southward thrusting imbricated flakes. The flakes can be easily noticed due to their distinctive characteristics such as morphology, synclines, turn-overs and size. A distinctive strip-thrust fold locates on the western boundary of the accretionary wedge occurs on south of Enggano Island. A deformed and relatively thin (0.3–0.8 TWT) sedimentary layer covers almost all the subsurface areas. The scarce but still existing missing of part of the arc ridge offshore is result from extensional tectonic activities together with compression partitioning.
Forearc basin.
All the basement can be easily realized based on strong multiple reflections from the seafloor except some places in the north part because of the existing of some down faulted continental blocks. There is a main normal fault correlated along the Sumatra region. Offshore Sumatra continental basement underlies the seaward propagating wedges. The basin in southern Sumatra is greatly influenced by anticlines and fault zones.
North Sumatra region.
The North Sumatra region is defined here as the segment between 2.4–6°N. Accretionary wedges and forearcs here are very broad. A steep toe also presents. Average accretionary wedge has a width about 155–163 km, and the forearc basin has about 100–140 km thickness. Superficial average slope is about 1.2–1.3° while the outer part (about 50 km) becomes extremely steeper (3.3–3.9°) compare to the rest. Landward vergence of thrust folds, primarily frontal fold vergence is the most ubiquitous tectonic event happens at the prism bottom. Several landward vergences have been transformed into seaward. Seaward vergence is common further into the prism while landward vergent structures are more rare. The unusual structure here results in not only a strong wedge interior, but also tendency of a duplex deformation.
Central Sumatra region.
The central region is from 3°S–2°N in the area near Simeulue island (2–2.5°N). The prism narrows greatly with the increasing of average surface slope. This is an indication of the existence of a transition zone between North and Central Sumatra regions. In the Central Sumatra region, a wide basement high, which has connections with the N-S trending fracture zone, is being subducted and causing the generation of variations in sediment thickness across the oceanic plate. The transition zone in the Central Sumatra region is defined as 2–2.5°N, based on the abruptly changes of structure, morphology and sediment changes. The structure and morphology begin to change at 2.4°N but the sediment thickness remains unchanged until 2°N. Prism width decreases from 150 km to 100 km over less than 100 km strike during the surface slope increases from 1° to 3°. This region has variable oceanic plate topography, sediment component and seafloor hardness. Because as it goes further and further from the Bengal Fan source, the ridge and basement structure together with sediment thickness keep changing. Changes in prism morphology southward are gradual and an alternative boundary can be determined at 4–5°S, at this area the seafloor hardness is decreasing and deformation front heads towards sea.
South Sumatra region.
The South Sumatra region is from 5–7°S. The prism broaden from 115 kn to 140 km in this area, where surface slope decreases to 2°. This transition is gradual from north to south thanks to the decreasing effects of basement topography. From south of Enggano Island (6°S), the prism can be divided into 3 regions along the strike, each of it has shallower landward slope than the next. This is consistent with the presence of the slope break at about 30 km. A similar prism with mixed vergence of prism toe thrust folds exists north of the Enggano island.
Sediment.
Sediment thickness.
The trench sediment thickness is primarily based on three factors: distance from the source, oceanic plate topography and the ability of basement barriers to stop sediment from transporting southward.
It is widely agreed that the sediments on the trench come from the Bengal Fan and Nicobar Fan. So the decreasing water depth from south to north indicates the distance from the source. So the sediment thickness can reflect the proximity of the region to the source in general. But there are some exceptions exist in nearby regions like Andaman where the eastern flank of the Ninety East Ridge can result in the reducing of the sediment thickness. The thickness is minimum at South Sumatra (1–2 km) and maximum at north Sumatra. The thickest sediment at north Sumatra can compare with the Makran Trench, which has the thickest sediment on Earth (7.5 km).
Sediment thickness along the Sumatra Trench varies significantly, which is the result of fracture zones and fossil ridges' influence on basement topography. The thickness is a function of oceanic basement topography in some extent and this feature is extremely distinctive in the part between Simeulue and Siberut Islands (Central Sumatra region 2°N to 3°S) along the trench. This sediment thickness variation then leads to thin and variable sediment cover in many places, sometimes hinders the sediment transportation along the Sumatra Trench. Generally the prism width increases with sediment input, there are a few anomalies in the central Sumatra region due to basement topography, i.e., the current sediment thickness is larger than the long-term average.
There are also many correlations between convergence and thickness. Particular in some places near north Sumatra, where prism toe vergence accompanies with very thick sedimentation. On the other hand, the narrowing and steepening of the prism and toe vergence together often correlate with reduced thickness on Central Sumatra region. This is where structural convergence and distance from the source function together to determine the sediment thickness. Usually when thickness is 3–4 km thick, landward vergence exists; seaward vergence is dominant when it's 1–1.5 km thick; and if thickness is between these two segments, mixed vergence can be observed. As an example of mixed and variable convergence, Central Sumatra region (sediment thickness is ~1–3 km) may has basement topography as a more dominant factor.
Sediment properties.
Sediment properties related not only with sediment rate or source, but also with depth (thickness) related thermal diagenetic and metamorphic reactions, oceanic basement processes. Other factors such as prism structure and morphology also influence sediment properties.
In the north Sumatra region, where sediment is thick and prism wedge is wide, the dip is always shallow and landward vergence in toe is ubiquitous. it can generate high temperatures to dehydrate clays and strengthening the section. In south Sumatra region, topography and basement thickness is also very variable and overlaps with the region where prism is narrow and steep. Overall, the variations of material properties of sediments in Sumatra Trench is a result of structural variations along the trench.


Central Universities Common Entrance Test

The Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) is an all-India test is being organized for admission to various Integrated/Under-Graduate, Post Graduate and Research Programmes in several Central Universities and State Universities of India. From its inception in 2010, the CUCET is conducted/coordinated by the Central University of Rajasthan.
History.
CUCET was first conducted to admission for seven central universities for 1,500 seats in 41 undergraduate, postgraduate and integrated courses from 2010. The application form was filled up through "CUCET-2010" which held on 19 and 20 June 2010 in about 30 examination centres spread across the country.
Exam pattern and structure.
All Question Papers are MCQ based organized into different parts.
Negative marking.
For UI & PG Programmes, negative marking scheme is followed with a deduction of 0.25 marks for each wrong answer. However, the negative marking is not followed for research programmes.
Duration.
2 Hours
Organizing body.
Central University of Rajasthan is coordinating the CUCET in 2020.
Application fees.
Only online applications are accepted for CUCET-2020 and application fees for various categories are listed below.
Participating universities.
Admission in the following universities is done through CUCET.


Despite the Night

Despite the Night (original title: Malgré la nuit) is a 2015 French-Canadian experimental film directed by Philippe Grandrieux.
Release.
The film premiered at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in October 2015. It was screened at the AFI Fest in November 2016.


Italian units of measurement

A variety of units of measurement were used in the various independent Italian states and Italian dependencies of foreign empires up to the unification of Italy in the 19th century. The units to measure length, volume, mass, etc., could differ widely between countries or between towns in a country (e.g. Rome and Ancona), but usually not between a country and its capital.
The Kingdom of Sardinia included the island of Sardinia and the continental areas of Piedmont (with the capital Turin) and Liguria (with Genoa). The Kingdom of Naples included the island of Sicily (with Palermo). The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia was part of the Austrian Empire, which also shared ruling family with Modena, Parma and Tuscany (capital Florence). The Papal States included the areas of Latium (with the capital Rome), Umbria, Romagna (with Bologna) and the Marches (with Ancona).
Milan adopted the metric system in 1803, during the Napoleonic wars, albeit reusing names of older units. After the Congress of Vienna, the various Italian states reverted to their original systems of measurements.
In 1845 Sardinia passed legislation to introduce the metric system within five years. In 1859 Lombardy (but not Venetia) was annexed. In 1860 Parma, Modena, Tuscany, Umbria, Romagna and the Marches, and the Two Sicilies (Naples) were assimilated into Sardinia and under the "Law 132 of 28 July 28, 1861" the metric system became the official system of measurement throughout the (this year) Italian kingdom. The last to be incorporated were Venetia (1866), and the rest of the Papal States (1870).
For historical Roman measurements see Ancient Roman units of measurement. The following is a list of units before the adoption of the metric system as well as local names for metric-based units.
Over time a lot of unit names were reused for metric units, adding an unnecessary obstacle to the system change. These units are marked with €. They are also placed after the traditional.
Length.
Units varied from one province or city to another. In the north the atomo was the smallest unit.
Dedicated use:  # architect's   † commercial   ‡ mercer's
Mass.
One libbra (pound) differed between 307 and 398 g.
Several countries used both a light and a heavy pound.
Dedicated use:  # gold   ∆ silver   § jewels   † apothecaries'   ‡ silk   @ spices, drugs and pigments   ¥ commercial   ¢ oil     ship cargoes: ∑ grain   flour etc   © salt
Area.
Dedicated use:  # architect's
Volume (dry).
Dry and wet capacity (volume) were usually two separate systems, but a few units were universally handled, mostly in countries that had had experience with the metric system. (One of the sources do not state what subsystem they are handling).
Dedicated use:  # firewood   † grain   ‡ salt   ∆ oats and legumes   ∑ coal
Volume (liquids).
There are also a unit cantara: no specifics.
Dedicated use:  # wine   † spirits   ‡ oil


NYSE Chicago

NYSE Chicago, formerly known as the Chicago Stock Exchange (CHX), is a stock exchange in Chicago, Illinois, US. The exchange is a national securities exchange and self-regulatory organization, which operates under the oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) acquired CHX in July 2018 and the exchange rebranded as NYSE Chicago in February 2019.
History.
1882–1900.
The Chicago Stock Exchange was founded in a formal meeting on March 21, 1882. At this time, Charles Henrotin was elected the chairman and president. In April that year, a lease was taken out at 115 Dearborn Street for the location of the exchange and during that year 750 memberships were sold. On May 15, 1882, the Chicago Stock Exchange officially became public and opened its offices, with Henrotin being the first to promote it along with some business associates.
In 1894, the Chicago Stock Exchange moved its trading floor to the old Chicago Stock Exchange building, designed by the firm of Adler & Sullivan, which was located at corner of Washington and LaSalle streets. The old Chicago Stock Exchange building was demolished in 1972, but the original trading floor and main entrance can now be found at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exchange began to flourish significantly in the late 1880s, with the rate of transactions of stocks and bonds increasing and earning them big profits.
1901–2000.
In July 1914, the Exchange closed as a result of World War I, and remained closed until December 11. In October 1915, the basis of quoting and trading in stocks changed from percent to par value to dollars. On April 26, 1920, the Chicago Stock Exchange Stock Clearing Corporation was established. On October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed, resulting in a very difficult time period for the Chicago Stock Exchange, and the stock market in general.
In 1949, the CHX merged with the exchanges of St. Louis, Cleveland and Minneapolis/St. Paul to form the Midwest Stock Exchange, which kept its headquarters in Chicago. In 1959, the New Orleans Stock Exchange became part of the Midwest Stock Exchange, and in the early 1960s the Midwest Stock Exchange Service Corporation was established to provide centralized accounting for member firms.
In April 1978, the Chicago Stock Exchange launched an Intermarket Trading System (ITS), a system that allowed orders to be sent from one exchange to another to ensure that customers received the best execution available. In the 1980s, the Chicago Stock Exchange made several technological advancements to improve trading. In 1982, the CHX launched the MAX system, which allowed CHX to be one of the first stock exchanges to provide fully automated order execution. In 1987, the CHX implemented programs to trade Nasdaq securities.
In the 1990s, the Exchange had a rebirth, and in 1993 changed its name back to the Chicago Stock Exchange, reflecting its roots and identity within the Chicago financial community. In 1997 the Chicago Stock Exchange began trading exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
2001–present.
At the beginning of the new millennium, several major changes occurred. In 2005, the SEC approved a change of the ownership structure of the CHX from a not-for-profit, member-owned company to a for-profit, stockholder-owned corporation. The CHX now operates as a direct and wholly owned subsidiary of CHX Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Later in 2005, the CHX implemented the Electronic Book trading platform; the predecessor technology of the New Trading Model's Matching System. In 2006, the Exchange announced regulatory and shareholder approval of an investment in CHX by Bank of America Corporation, Bear Stearns (acquired by JP Morgan Chase in 2008), E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corporation, and Goldman, Sachs & Co. In the same year, the CHX announced that it had completed the migration to the New Trading Model platform (the CHX Matching System).
The National Stock Exchange ceased trading operations on May 30, 2014, bringing the number of active stock exchanges in the United States to 11. Wrote "Bloomberg", that left "just one public exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange Inc., that isn't owned Bats, Nasdaq OMX Group or IntercontinentalExchange Group Inc."
On February 5, 2016, Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group, a Chinese-led investment group, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire CHX Holdings, Inc., the parent corporation of the Chicago Stock Exchange, for an undisclosed amount, which is subject to regulatory approvals. The privately held Casin Group was founded in 1997. A minority ownership position is held by Bank of America, E-Trade, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. The acquisition is valued to be less than $100 million. However, the deal was questioned by then-candidate Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. Moreover, Congressman Robert Pittenger urged the United States Department of the Treasury to look into the Casin Group's background. By August 2017, the deal was still pending, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission expressing reservations. The sale was blocked by the government in February 2018.
The New York Stock Exchange's parent company, Intercontinental Exchange Inc., agreed to acquire the 136-year-old market for an undisclosed amount. CHX will continue to operate as a registered national securities exchange till the end of 2019 when CHX will cease to exist.
Trading on the CHX.
The CHX Matching System was designed for full electronic trade matching. Publicly traded companies do not need to be listed on the CHX to be traded at CHX; SEC rules allow the CHX to trade stocks listed on other exchanges.
In 2016, CHX rolled out its on-demand auction product, CHX SNAP (Sub-second Non-displayed Auction Process), which received regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2015 and a thorough review from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. CHX SNAP is designed to facilitate bulk trading of securities on a lit market and to minimize speed and information advantages enjoyed by only a few market participants.


Kirnberger temperament

Kirnberger temperament is an irregular temperament developed in the second half of the 18th century by Johann Kirnberger. Kirnberger was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach, held great admiration for his teacher and was one of his principal proponents.
The first Kirnberger temperament, "Kirnberger I", had similarities to Pythagorean temperament, which stressed the importance of perfect fifths all throughout the circle of fifths. A complete circle of perfect fifths is not possible, because when the circle comes to an end at the tone it began, it will have overshot its original pitch. Thus, if one tunes C-G, G-D, D-A, A-E, E-B, B-F, F-C, C-G (A), A-E, E-B, B-F, F-C... the new "C" will not be the same frequency as the first. The two "C"s will have a discrepancy of about 23 cents (a comma), which would be unacceptable. This difference between the initial "c" and final "c" that is derived from performing a series of perfect tunings is generally referred to as the "Pythagorean comma". In Kirnberger I, the D-A fifth is reduced by a syntonic comma, making the major thirds F-A, C-E, G-B, and D-F pure, though the fifth based on D is a ratio of 40/27 instead of 3/2. Many tuning systems have been developed to "spread around" that comma, that is, to divide that anomalous musical space among the other intervals of the scale.
Practical Temperaments: Kirnberger II.
Kirnberger's first method of compensating for and closing the circle of fifths was to split the "wolf" interval, known to those who have used meantone temperaments, in half between two different fifths. That is, to compensate for the one extra comma, he removed half a comma from two of the formerly perfect fifths in order to complete the circle. In so doing, he allowed the remaining fifths to stay pure. At the time, however, pure thirds were more valued than pure fifths (meantone temperament had eight pure thirds and sacrificed four entire chords to achieve this end.) So, Kirnberger allowed for three pure thirds, the rest being slightly wide and the worst being three Pythagorean thirds (22 cents wider than pure) on the opposite end of the circle from the pure thirds. To put it graphically:
 C-----G-----D------A-----E-----B-----F#-----C#-----Ab(G#)-----Eb-----Bb-----F-----C
 p p -1/2 -1/2 p p p p p p p p
 |__________pure 3rd______|
 |__________pure 3rd______|
 |_______pure 3rd________|
 |__________Pythag. 3rd_________|
 |_________Pythag. 3rd___________|
 |________Pythag. 3rd___________|
The above table represents Kirnberger II temperament. The first row under the intervals shows
either a "p" for pure, or "-1/2" for those intervals narrowed to close the circle of fifths (D-A), (A-E). Below these are shown the pure 3rds (between C-E, G-B, D-F), and Pythagorean (very wide) 3rds (between B-D, F-A(B), D-F.)
Temperament, however, is a give-and-take situation: none is a perfect solution. It must also be remembered that temperament applies only to instruments with fixed pitch: any keyboard instrument, lutes, viols, and so forth. Wind musicians, singers and string players all have a certain degree of flexibility concerning the exact pitch and intonation of what they play and may therefore be free of such restrictive systems. When the two classes of players come together, it is important when evaluating a temperament to consider the tendencies of the instruments vs. those of the temperament. Kirnberger II would only have been applicable to keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord and organ. The advantages of this system are its three pure major thirds and its ten pure fifths; the disadvantages are, of course, the two narrow "half-wolf" fifths and the three Pythagorean, super-wide thirds. The chords are not unusable but certainly must not be used frequently or in close succession within the course of a piece.
Kirnberger III.
After some disappointment with his sour, narrow fifths, Kirnberger experimented further and developed another possibility, later named the Kirnberger III.
This temperament splits the Syntonic comma between four fifths instead of two. 1/4-comma tempered fifths are used extensively in meantone and are much easier to tune and to listen to. This also eliminates two of the three pure thirds found in Kirnberger II. Therefore, only one third remains pure (between C and E), and there are fewer Pythagorean thirds. A greater middle ground is thus reached in this improvement, and each key is closer to being equal to the next. The drawback is an aesthetic one: fewer chords have pure thirds and fifths. But every temperament system has a give-and-take compromise; each has to find a way of dealing with the comma.


2893 Peiroos

2893 Peiroos is a large Jupiter trojan from the Trojan camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 30 August 1975, by astronomers of the Felix Aguilar Observatory at the Leoncito Astronomical Complex in Argentina. The D-type asteroid has a rotation period of 8.96 hours and belongs to the 40 largest Jupiter trojans. It was named after Peiroos (Peirous) from Greek mythology.
Orbit and classification.
"Peiroos" is a dark Jovian asteroid orbiting in the trailing Trojan camp at Jupiter's Lagrangian point, 60° behind its orbit in a 1:1 resonance "(see Trojans in astronomy)". It is a non-family asteroid in the Jovian background population. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.8–5.5 AU once every 11 years and 8 months (4,269 days; semi-major axis of 5.15 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.08 and an inclination of 15° with respect to the ecliptic.
The body's observation arc begins with its first observation as "" at Heidelberg Observatory in January 1933, more than 42 years prior to its official discovery observation at Leoncito.
Physical characteristics.
In the Tholen classification, "Peiroos" has been characterized as a dark D-type asteroid.
Rotation period.
In October 1989, a rotational lightcurve of "Peiroos" was obtained from photometric observations by German and Italian astronomers. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 8.96 hours with a brightness variation of 0.30 magnitude (). Between 2015 and 2017, photometric observations by Robert Stephens and collaborators at the Center for Solar System Studies in Landers, California, gave two concurring periods of 8.951 and 8.99 hours, both with an amplitude of 0.31 magnitude ().
Diameter and albedo.
According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Peiroos" measures between 86.76 and 87.46 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.0469 and 0.048.
The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" derives an albedo of 0.0588 and a diameter of 87.67 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 8.98.
Naming.
This minor planet was named after Peiroos (Peirous), Thracian war leader from the city of Aenus and an ally of King Priam who fought courageously to defend Troy against the Greek during the Trojan War. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 September 1988 ().


Fan chart (time series)

In time series analysis, a fan chart is a chart that joins a simple line chart for observed past data, by showing ranges for possible values of future data together with a line showing a central estimate or most likely value for the future outcomes. As predictions become increasingly uncertain the further into the future one goes, these forecast ranges spread out, creating distinctive wedge or "fan" shapes, hence the term. Alternative forms of the chart can also include uncertainty for past data, such as preliminary data that is subject to revision.
The term "fan chart" was coined by the Bank of England, which has been using these charts and this term since 1997 in its "Inflation Report" to describe its best prevision of future inflation to the general public. Fan charts have been used extensively in finance and monetary policy, for instance to represent forecasts of inflation.
Implementation.
Predicted future values can be diagrammed in various ways; most simply, by a single predicted value, and an upper and lower range around that (three lines total), or by various future intervals, depicted by varying degrees of shading (darkest near the center of the range, fainter near the ends of the range).
There are several ways to represent the forecast density depending on the shape of the forecasting distribution.
In the Bank of England's implementation it is assumed that the forecast distribution is a two piece normal or split normal density. This density results from joining the two-halves of corresponding normal densities with the same mode but different variances. As a result, the split normal density is non-symmetric and uni-modal. In this case, inflation forecast fan charts are usually accompanied with the balance of risks, the probability that the future inflation falls below its modal forecast. In this way, central banks that employ inflation targeting report to the general public not only the more likely forecasts of the inflation rate "but also its balance of risks"!
The split normal density is completely characterized by three parameters, the mode, variance and skewness. Therefore, the fan chart ranges depend on these parameters only. and
In a central bank that employs inflation targeting, the three moments of the inflation forecast distribution are determined as follows:


5234 Sechenov


Instructions per second

Instructions per second (IPS) is a measure of a computer's processor speed. For complex instruction set computers (CISCs), different instructions take different amounts of time, so the value measured depends on the instruction mix; even for comparing processors in the same family the IPS measurement can be problematic. Many reported IPS values have represented "peak" execution rates on artificial instruction sequences with few branches and no cache contention, whereas realistic workloads typically lead to significantly lower IPS values. Memory hierarchy also greatly affects processor performance, an issue barely considered in IPS calculations. Because of these problems, synthetic benchmarks such as Dhrystone are now generally used to estimate computer performance in commonly used applications, and raw IPS has fallen into disuse.
The term is commonly used in association with a metric prefix (k, M, G, T, P, or E) to form kilo instructions per second (kIPS), million instructions per second (MIPS), and billion instructions per second (GIPS) and so on. Formerly TIPS was used occasionally for "thousand ips".
Computing.
IPS can be calculated using this equation:
However, the instructions/cycle measurement depends on the instruction sequence, the data and external factors.
Thousand instructions per second (TIPS/kIPS).
Before standard benchmarks were available, average speed rating of computers was based on calculations for a mix of instructions with the results given in kilo Instructions Per Second (kIPS). The most famous was the Gibson Mix, produced by Jack Clark Gibson of IBM for scientific applications in 1959.
Other ratings, such as the ADP mix which does not include floating point operations, were produced for commercial applications. The thousand instructions per second (kIPS) unit is rarely used today, as most current microprocessors can execute at least a million instructions per second.
The Gibson Mix.
Gibson divided computer instructions into 12 classes, based on the IBM 704 architecture, adding a 13th class to account for indexing time. Weights were primarily based on analysis of seven scientific programs run on the 704, with a small contribution from some IBM 650 programs. The overall score was then the weighted sum of the average execution speed for instructions in each class.
Millions of instructions per second (MIPS).
The speed of a given CPU depends on many factors, such as the type of instructions being executed, the execution order and the presence of branch instructions (problematic in CPU pipelines). CPU instruction rates are different from clock frequencies, usually reported in Hz, as each instruction may require several clock cycles to complete or the processor may be capable of executing multiple independent instructions simultaneously. MIPS can be useful when comparing performance between processors made with similar architecture (e.g. Microchip branded microcontrollers), but they are difficult to compare between differing CPU architectures. This led to the term "Meaningless Indices of Performance" being popular amongst technical people by the mid-1980s.
For this reason, MIPS has become not a measure of instruction execution speed, but task performance speed compared to a reference. In the late 1970s, minicomputer performance was compared using "VAX MIPS", where computers were measured on a task and their performance rated against the VAX 11/780 that was marketed as a "1 MIPS" machine. (The measure was also known as the "VAX Unit of Performance" or VUP.) This was chosen because the 11/780 was roughly equivalent in performance to an IBM System/370 model 158–3, which was commonly accepted in the computing industry as running at 1 MIPS.
Many minicomputer performance claims were based on the Fortran version of the Whetstone benchmark, giving Millions of Whetstone Instructions Per Second (MWIPS). The VAX 11/780 with FPA (1977) runs at 1.02 MWIPS.
Effective MIPS speeds are highly dependent on the programming language used. The Whetstone Report has a table showing MWIPS speeds of PCs via early interpreters and compilers up to modern languages. The first PC compiler was for BASIC (1982) when a 4.8 MHz 8088/87 CPU obtained 0.01 MWIPS. Results on a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (1 CPU 2007) vary from 9.7 MWIPS using BASIC Interpreter, 59 MWIPS via BASIC Compiler, 347 MWIPS using 1987 Fortran, 1,534 MWIPS through HTML/Java to 2,403 MWIPS using a modern C/C++ compiler.
For the most early 8-bit and 16-bit microprocessors, performance was measured in thousand instructions per second (1000 kIPS = 1 MIPS).
"zMIPS" refers to the MIPS measure used internally by IBM to rate its mainframe servers (zSeries, IBM System z9, and IBM System z10).
"Weighted million operations per second (WMOPS)" is a similar measurement, used for audio codecs.