Type 97 Chi-Ni medium tank

The Experimental Medium Tank Chi-Ni (試製中戦車 チニ "Shisei-chū-sensha chini") was a prototype Japanese medium tank. Initially proposed as a low-cost alternative to the Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank, it was eventually passed over by its competitor.
History and development.
In 1935 news had reached Japan of the United Kingdom's development of a new tank, the A6 medium tank. A multi-turreted design that mounted a 47 mm tank gun and was capable of reaching speeds of 50 km/h. In comparison, Japan's tank force had not undergone any significant changes in tactics or organization in six years. The country's widely fielded medium tank, the Type 89 I-Go, while popular with troops and tank crews had begun to show its age, attempts to update the design with the Type 89B I-Go Otsu were made in 1934, but no fundamentally new design was undertaken. In comparison, the A6 was seen as having superior offensive and defence capabilities over the Type 89 I-Go. Britain's new tank design, along with reports from Manchuria of the Type 89's inability to keep up with other motorized vehicles–given its inadequate 25 km/h top speed–brought about plans for a replacement.
Tank designers recommended research on a new tank design, a medium tank capable of going 35 km/h and weighing 15 tons with offensive and defensive abilities greater than the Type 89 I-Go. The Chief-of-Staff Operations was not enthusiastic for the project as it was peace-time and the military had a limited budget. The army thus issued peace time requirements for a new tank design. Rather than focusing on performance improvements, the Chief-of-Staff Operations made a lighter weight the main requirement in order to lower production costs. The finalised requirements were for a lighter weight tank that was capable of going 35 km/h, and armed with a 57 mm main gun. The Engineering Department believed that it was highly regrettable that their efforts would be devoted solely to weight reduction, so instead, two concurrent projects were built. The first plan was for a lower-weight, low-cost medium tank that was to be made by the Osaka Army Arsenal, which would become the Chi-Ni. The second plan was contracted to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for a higher performance medium tank, which would become the Chi-Ha.
Design.
The initial design requirements for the two prototypes were:
The Chi-Ni was envisioned as a smaller, lighter alternative to the Chi-Ha, a medium tank closer to the original Chief-of-Staff Operations preference for more "lightly armored infantry support vehicles". The hull was of a monocoque design and welding was used more extensively than previous tanks. This was unlike previous Japanese tanks, which were all riveted around a framework. The Chi-Ni also shared the same bell crank scissors suspension as the Chi-Ha that would continue to be used by later Japanese tanks until the end of the Second World War. The hull was designed with a streamlined silhouette to protect from shell damage. The crew of the Chi-Ni, unlike the Chi-Ha was only made up of three men, with the tank commander acting as both a gunner and loader in the small, single-man turret. The turret did not have room for any coaxial machine gun. The driver was seated in the hull on the left hand side, with the third crew member, a machine gunner, was seated to right of the driver. The tank was initially planned to be armed with the Type 89 I-Gos Type 90 57 mm gun, but a new tank gun was being designed at the time to replace the lower velocity gun. This improved tank gun was the Type 97 57 mm tank gun. A single, forward firing, 7.7×58mm Arisaka Type 97 machine gun was mounted in the hull. The diameter of the turret ring for both tanks was made as large as possible to allow for any future up-gunning of the tanks. The tank was powered by a Mitsubishi 135 hp diesel engine. There are also documents stating that the Chi-Ni was tested with a 120 hp Mitsubishi A6120VDe air-cooled diesel engine from a Type 95 Ha-Go. The Chi-Ni was equipped with a 'tadpole tail', a tail extension attached to the back of the tank to allow it to better cross trenches. Both prototypes were completed and tested in early 1937.
Production.
During the time of the Chi-Ni and Chi-Ha trials, the China Incident occurred on 7 July 1937, sparking a war with China. With the out-break of hostilities the peacetime budgetary limitations were removed and the more capable and expensive Mitsubishi Chi-Ha model was accepted as the new Type 97 medium tank by the army. The Type 97 Chi-Ha would go on to be the most numerically important Japanese medium tank of the Second World War. Only a single Chi-Ni prototype was built. Even though the Chi-Ni was passed over in favour of the Chi-Ha, several individuals in the Japanese military, such as Japanese Army tank designer Lieutenant General Tomio Hara, believed that there was still potential in the design and the tank could be reused in the future as a light tank.


Direct analysis in real time

In mass spectrometry, direct analysis in real time (DART) is an ion source that produces electronically or vibronically excited-state species from gases such as helium, argon, or nitrogen that ionize atmospheric molecules or dopant molecules. The ions generated from atmospheric or dopant molecules undergo ion-molecule reactions with the sample molecules to produce analyte ions. Analytes with low ionization energy may be ionized directly. The DART ionization process can produce positive or negative ions depending on the potential applied to the exit electrode.
This ionization can occur for species desorbed directly from surfaces such as currency, tablets, bodily fluids (blood, saliva and urine), polymers, glass, plant leaves, fruits & vegetables, clothing, and living organisms. DART is applied for rapid analysis of a wide variety of samples at atmospheric pressure and in the open laboratory environment. It does not need a specific sample preparation, so it can be used for the analysis of solid, liquid and gaseous samples in their native state.
With the aid of DART, exact mass measurements can be done rapidly with high-resolution mass spectrometers. DART mass spectrometry has been used in pharmaceutical applications, forensic studies, quality control, and environmental studies.
History.
DART resulted from conversations between Laramee and Cody about the development of an atmospheric pressure ion source to replace the radioactive sources in handheld chemical weapons detectors.DART was developed in late 2002 to early 2003 by Cody and Laramee as a new atmospheric pressure ionization process, and a US patent application was filed in April 2003. Although the development of DART actually predated the desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) ion source, the initial DART publication did not appear until shortly after the DESI publication, and both ion sources were publicly introduced in back-to-back presentations by R. G. Cooks and R. B. Cody at the January 2005 ASMS Sanibel Conference. DESI and DART are considered as pioneer techniques in the field of ambient ionization, since they operate in the open laboratory environment and do not require sample pretreatment. In contrast to the liquid spray used by DESI, the ionizing gas from the DART ion source contains a dry stream containing excited state species.
Principle of operation.
Ionization process.
Formation of metastable species.
As the gas (M) enters the ion source, an electric potential in the range of +1 to +5 kV is applied to generate a glow discharge. The glow discharge plasma contains and short-lived energetic species including electrons, ions, and excimers. Ion/electron recombination leads to the formation of long-lived excited-state neutral atoms or molecules (metastable species, M*) in the flowing afterglow region. The DART gas can be heated from room temperature (RT) to 550 °C to facilitate desorption of analyte molecules. Heating is optional but may be necessary depending on the surface or chemical being analyzed. The heated stream of gaseous metastable species passes through a porous exit electrode that is biased to a positive or negative potential in the range 0 to 530V. When biased to a positive potential, the exit electrode acts to remove electrons and negative ions formed by Penning ionization from the gas stream to prevent ion/electron recombination and ion loss. If the exit electrode is biased to a negative potential, electrons can be generated directly from the electrode material by surface Penning ionization. An insulator cap at the terminal end of the ion source protects the operator from harm.
DART can be used for the analysis of solid, liquid or gaseous samples. Liquids are typically analyzed by dipping an object (such as a glass rod) into the liquid sample and then presenting it to the DART ion source. Vapors are introduced directly into the DART gas stream.
Positive ion formation.
Once the metastable carrier gas atoms (M*) released from the source, they initiate Penning ionization of nitrogen, atmospheric water and other gaseous species. Although some compounds can be ionized directly by Penning ionization, the most common positive-ion formation mechanism for DART involves ionization of atmospheric water.
Although the exact ion formation mechanism is not clear, water can be ionized directly by Penning ionization. Another proposal is that water is ionized by the same mechanism that has been proposed for atmospheric pressure chemical ionization
Ionized water can undergo further ion-molecule reactions to form protonated water clusters ().
The stream of protonated water clusters acts as a secondary ionizing species and generates analytes ions by chemical ionization mechanisms at atmospheric pressure. Here protonation, deprotonation, direct charge transfer and adduct ion formation may occur.
Negative ion formation.
In negative-ion mode, the potential of the exit grid electrode can be set to negative potentials. Penning electrons undergo electron capture with atmospheric oxygen to produce O2−. The O2− will produce radical anions. Several reactions are possible, depending on the analyte.
The negative ion sensitivity of DART gases varies with the efficiency in forming electrons by Penning ionization, which means that the negative ion sensitivity increases with the internal energy of the metastable species, for example nitrogenᐸneonᐸhelium.
Instrumentation.
Source to analyzer interface.
Analyte ions are formed at ambient pressure during Penning and chemical ionization. The mass spectrometry analysis, however, takes place at high vacuum condition. Therefore ions entering the mass spectrometer, first go through a source - to - analyzer interface (vacuum interface), which was designed in order to bridge the atmospheric pressure region to the mass spectrometer vacuum. It also minimizes spectrometer contamination.
In the original JEOL atmospheric pressure interface used for DART, ions are directed to the ion guide through (outer) і and (inner) іі skimmer orifices by applying a slight potential difference between them: orifice і : 20 V and orifice іі : 5 V. The alignment of the two orifices is staggered to trap neutral contamination and protect the high-vacuum region. Charged species (ions) are guided to the second orifice through an intermediate cylindrical electrode ("ring lens"), but neutral molecules travel in a straight pathway and are thus blocked from entering the ion guide. The neutral contamination is then removed by the pump.
The DART source can be operated in surface desorption mode or transmission mode. In the ordinary surface desorption mode, the sample is positioned in a way, which enables the reactive DART reagent ion stream to flow on to the surface while allowing the flow of desorbed analyte ions into interface. Therefore this mode requires that the gas stream grazes the sample surface and does not block gas flow to the mass spectrometer sampling orifice. In contrast, transmission mode DART (tm-DART) uses a custom-made sample holder and introduces the sample at a fixed geometry.
Coupling with separation techniques.
DART can be combined with many separation techniques. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) plates have been analyzed by positioning them directly in the DART gas stream. Gas chromatography has been carried out by coupling gas chromatography columns directly into the DART gas stream through a heated interface. Eluate from a high-pressure liquid chromatograph (HPLC) can be also introduced to the reaction zone of the DART source and analyze. DART can be coupled with capillary electrophoresis (CE) and the eluate of CE is guided to the mass spectrometer through the DART ion source.
Mass spectra.
In positive ion mode, DART produces predominantly protonated molecules [M+H]+ and in negative-ion mode deprotonated molecules [M-H]−. Both negative and positive modes of DART provides relatively simple mass spectra. Depending on the type of analyte, other species may be formed, such as multiple charged adducts. DART categorized under soft ionization technique. Fragmentation can be rarely observed for some molecules.
Use of DART compared to traditional methods minimizes sample amount, sample preparation, eliminates extraction steps, decreases limit of detection and analysis time. Also it provides a broad range sensitivity, simultaneous determination of multi-drug analytes and sufficient mass accuracy for formulation determination.
The DART ion source is a kind of gas-phase ionization, and it requires some sort of volatility of the analyte to support thermally assisted desorption of analyte ions. This limits the size range of the molecules that can be analyzed by DART i.e. "m/z 50" to 1200. DART-MS is capable of semi-quantitative and quantitative analysis. To accelerate sample release from the surface, the DART gas stream is usually heated to temperature in the range 100-500 °C and this operation can be employed for temperature-dependent analysis.
Applications.
DART is being applied in many fields, including the fragrance industry, pharmaceutical industry, foods and spices, forensic science and health, materials analysis, etc.
In forensic science, DART is used for analysis of explosives, warfare agents, drugs, inks and sexual assault evidence. In clinical and pharmaceutical sector, DART is utilized for body fluid analysis such as blood, plasma, urine etc. and study traditional medicines. Also DART can detect composition in medicine in a tablet form as per there is no need for sample preparation such as crushing or extracting.
In food industry, DART assures the quality and authenticity assessment of food. It is also used in the analysis of mycotoxins in beverages, semi-quantitative analysis of caffeine, monitoring heat accelerated decomposition of vegetable oils and many other food safety analysis. In the manufacturing industry, to determine the deposition and release of a fragrance on surfaces such as fabric and hair and dyes in textiles, DART is often utilized.
DART is used in environmental analysis. For example, analysis of organic UV filters in water, contaminants in soil, petroleum products and aerosols etc. DART also plays an important role in biological studies. It enables studying chemical profiles of plants and organisms.


Marco Papiro

Marco Papiro is a Swiss-Italian experimental musician, electronic music producer, sound artist and graphic designer born in Basel, Switzerland
Biography.
Classically trained from early age, he played violin, synthesizer and bass guitar in several bands before creating and releasing his own self-produced music as Papiro. His influences are numerous and audible: drone, minimal, folk from all times and places, psychedelic, contemporary classical, industrial – but also easy listening, pop and even new age music. His compositions are generally instrumental, meditative and hypnotic, but at times also bizarre and humorous. Papiro is a multi-instrumentalist with a fondness for synthesizers from the pre-programmable era – the EMS VCS3, the Moog Sonic Six, the Roland Jupiter 4 and the Serge Modular among others.
Marco Papiro has collaborated with various musicians such as Mani Neumeier, Hans Koch or Gyða Valtýsdóttir, and has been a „sound carrier“ for Damo Suzuki on several occasions. He is also a regular guest with Swiss garage-psych band Roy & the Devil's Motorcycle. In 2005 he founded the noise band Mir, together with Daniel Buess and Michael Zaugg (later also Marlon McNeill and Yanik Soland). Until Daniel Buess' death in 2016, the band played over a hundred shows in Europe, Brazil and Japan. As a producer he has initiated the re-release of "Herzschlag Erde / Verdunkelt die Sinne" and "Die singende Sternlaterne / Folklore des Weltalls 1982" by Swiss underground musician and outsider artist "Die Welttraumforscher", of whom he is a big admirer.
Papiro is also active as an unorthodox DJ. Together with Markus Stähli of Roy & the Devil's Motorcycle they host a monthly night were they expand their eclectic sets by using various speeds, additional instruments, prepared tapes and effects.
Marco Papiro has studied graphic design at the Basel School of Design from 1995 to 1999. As a graphic designer Marco Papiro is mostly known for the posters and album covers he has created for related artists such as Sun Araw, Spacemen 3 / Spectrum(with Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom), Panda Bear, Z'EV, Antoine Chessex, Oren Ambarchi and many others. He teaches at the Basel School of Design since 2006.


Sagami Trough

The also Sagami Trench, Sagami Megathrust, or Sagami Subduction Zone is a long trough, which is the surface expression of the convergent plate boundary where the Philippine Sea Plate is being subducted under the Okhotsk Plate. It stretches from the Boso Triple Junction in the east, where it meets the Japan Trench, to Sagami Bay in the west, where it meets the Nankai Trough. It runs north of the Izu Islands chain and the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc (IBM).
Megathrust earthquakes associated with the Sagami Trough, known as Kantō earthquakes, are a major threat to Tokyo and the Kantō Region because of the proximity to a population center (with over 36 million living in Tokyo's metro area, with a total of 43 million living in the Kanto Region) and the magnitude the Sagami Trough can create.
Earthquakes.
The Sagami Trough megathrust generated the 1703 Genroku earthquake, which was the greatest rupture along the trough in the last thousand years, and the 1855 (Ansei) and 1923 (Great Kanto or Taisho) earthquakes.


Woof (label)

Woof Records is a British independent record label founded by English musicians Tim Hodgkinson and Bill Gilonis in London in 1980.
Background.
Tim Hodgkinson and Bill Gilonis began experimenting with tape collages in 1979 and recorded "I Do – I Do – I Don't – I Don't", an 18-minute collection of songs. Hodgkinson and Gilonis then created Woof Records to release the title on a 7-inch EP in 1980. They continued to release titles on the label, subject to the restriction that at least one of them had to play on, engineer, or produce each record. Between 1980 and 1994, 15 titles were released on the label.


List of longest ring roads

Here are the list some of the longest ring roads in the world.


G-sharp major

G-sharp major is a theoretical key based on the musical note G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E and F. Its key signature has six sharps and one double sharp.
Its relative minor is E-sharp minor (usually replaced by F minor), its parallel minor is G-sharp minor, and its enharmonic equivalent is A-flat major.
The G-sharp major scale is:
\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
\relative c" {
 \clef treble \key gis \major \time 7/4 gis4 ais bis cis dis eis fisis gis fisis eis dis cis bis ais gis2
</score>
Although G-sharp major is usually notated as the enharmonic key of A-flat major, because A-flat major has only four flats as opposed to G-sharp major's eight sharps (including the F), it does appear as a secondary key area in several works in sharp keys, most notably in the Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp major from Johann Sebastian Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier", Book 1. The G-sharp minor prelude (and, in some editions, the fugue) from the same set ends with a Picardy third, on a G-sharp major chord.
G-sharp major is tonicised briefly in several of Frédéric Chopin's nocturnes in C-sharp minor. A section in the second movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 is in G-sharp major, although the key signature has four sharps. The end of the exposition of the second movement Charles-Valentin Alkan's "Grande sonate 'Les quatre âges"', subtitled "Quasi-Faust", is in G-sharp major, albeit written with a six-sharp key signature (the movement opens in D-sharp minor and ends in F-sharp major).
The final pages of "A World Requiem" by John Foulds are written in G-sharp major with its correct key signature shown in the vocal score including the F. The key signature is shown as in the LilyPond example with the scale above, starting with the C and ending at the F.


4396 Gressmann


766 Moguntia

766 Moguntia is a minor planet orbiting the Sun. It is named after Mainz, ancient "Moguntiacum".


Outlier

In statistics, an outlier is a data point that differs significantly from other observations. An outlier may be due to variability in the measurement or it may indicate experimental error; the latter are sometimes excluded from the data set. An outlier can cause serious problems in statistical analyses.
Outliers can occur by chance in any distribution, but they often indicate either measurement error or that the population has a heavy-tailed distribution. In the former case one wishes to discard them or use statistics that are robust to outliers, while in the latter case they indicate that the distribution has high skewness and that one should be very cautious in using tools or intuitions that assume a normal distribution. A frequent cause of outliers is a mixture of two distributions, which may be two distinct sub-populations, or may indicate 'correct trial' versus 'measurement error'; this is modeled by a mixture model.
In most larger samplings of data, some data points will be further away from the sample mean than what is deemed reasonable. This can be due to incidental systematic error or flaws in the theory that generated an assumed family of probability distributions, or it may be that some observations are far from the center of the data. Outlier points can therefore indicate faulty data, erroneous procedures, or areas where a certain theory might not be valid. However, in large samples, a small number of outliers is to be expected (and not due to any anomalous condition).
Outliers, being the most extreme observations, may include the sample maximum or sample minimum, or both, depending on whether they are extremely high or low. However, the sample maximum and minimum are not always outliers because they may not be unusually far from other observations.
Naive interpretation of statistics derived from data sets that include outliers may be misleading. For example, if one is calculating the average temperature of 10 objects in a room, and nine of them are between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius, but an oven is at 175 °C, the median of the data will be between 20 and 25 °C but the mean temperature will be between 35.5 and 40 °C. In this case, the median better reflects the temperature of a randomly sampled object (but not the temperature in the room) than the mean; naively interpreting the mean as "a typical sample", equivalent to the median, is incorrect. As illustrated in this case, outliers may indicate data points that belong to a different population than the rest of the sample set.
Estimators capable of coping with outliers are said to be robust: the median is a robust statistic of central tendency, while the mean is not. However, the mean is generally a more precise estimator.
Occurrence and causes.
In the case of normally distributed data, the three sigma rule means that roughly 1 in 22 observations will differ by twice the standard deviation or more from the mean, and 1 in 370 will deviate by three times the standard deviation. In a sample of 1000 observations, the presence of up to five observations deviating from the mean by more than three times the standard deviation is within the range of what can be expected, being less than twice the expected number and hence within 1 standard deviation of the expected number – see Poisson distribution – and not indicate an anomaly. If the sample size is only 100, however, just three such outliers are already reason for concern, being more than 11 times the expected number.
In general, if the nature of the population distribution is known "a priori", it is possible to test if the number of outliers deviate significantly from what can be expected: for a given cutoff (so samples fall beyond the cutoff with probability "p") of a given distribution, the number of outliers will follow a binomial distribution with parameter "p", which can generally be well-approximated by the Poisson distribution with λ = "pn". Thus if one takes a normal distribution with cutoff 3 standard deviations from the mean, "p" is approximately 0.3%, and thus for 1000 trials one can approximate the number of samples whose deviation exceeds 3 sigmas by a Poisson distribution with λ = 3.
Causes.
Outliers can have many anomalous causes. A physical apparatus for taking measurements may have suffered a transient malfunction. There may have been an error in data transmission or transcription. Outliers arise due to changes in system behaviour, fraudulent behaviour, human error, instrument error or simply through natural deviations in populations. A sample may have been contaminated with elements from outside the population being examined. Alternatively, an outlier could be the result of a flaw in the assumed theory, calling for further investigation by the researcher. Additionally, the pathological appearance of outliers of a certain form appears in a variety of datasets, indicating that the causative mechanism for the data might differ at the extreme end (King effect).
Definitions and detection.
There is no rigid mathematical definition of what constitutes an outlier; determining whether or not an observation is an outlier is ultimately a subjective exercise. There are various methods of outlier detection. Some are graphical such as normal probability plots. Others are model-based. Box plots are a hybrid.
Model-based methods which are commonly used for identification assume that the data are from a normal distribution, and identify observations which are deemed "unlikely" based on mean and standard deviation:
Peirce's criterion.
It is proposed to determine in a series of formula_1 observations the limit of error, beyond which all observations involving so great an error may be rejected, provided there are as many as formula_2 such observations. The principle upon which it is proposed to solve this problem is, that the proposed observations should be rejected when the probability of the system of errors obtained by retaining them is less than that of the system of errors obtained by their rejection multiplied by the probability of making so many, and no more, abnormal observations. (Quoted in the editorial note on page 516 to Peirce (1982 edition) from "A Manual of Astronomy" 2:558 by Chauvenet.)
Tukey's fences.
Other methods flag observations based on measures such as the interquartile range. For example, if formula_3 and formula_4 are the lower and upper quartiles respectively, then one could define an outlier to be any observation outside the range:
for some nonnegative constant formula_6.
John Tukey proposed this test, where formula_7 indicates an "outlier", and formula_8 indicates data that is "far out".
In anomaly detection.
In various domains such as, but not limited to, statistics, signal processing, finance, econometrics, manufacturing, networking and data mining, the task of "anomaly detection" may take other approaches. Some of these may be distance-based and density-based such as Local Outlier Factor (LOF). Some approaches may use the distance to the k-nearest neighbors to label observations as outliers or non-outliers.
Modified Thompson Tau test.
The modified Thompson Tau test is a method used to determine if an outlier exists in a data set. The strength of this method lies in the fact that it takes into account a data set's standard deviation, average and provides a statistically determined rejection zone; thus providing an objective method to determine if a data point is an outlier.
How it works:
First, a data set's average is determined. Next the absolute deviation between each data point and the average are determined. Thirdly, a rejection region is determined using the formula:
where formula_10 is the critical value from the Student distribution with "n"-2 degrees of freedom, "n" is the sample size, and s is the sample standard deviation.
To determine if a value is an outlier:
Calculate formula_11.
If "δ" > Rejection Region, the data point is an outlier.
If "δ" ≤ Rejection Region, the data point is not an outlier.
The modified Thompson Tau test is used to find one outlier at a time (largest value of "δ" is removed if it is an outlier). Meaning, if a data point is found to be an outlier, it is removed from the data set and the test is applied again with a new average and rejection region. This process is continued until no outliers remain in a data set.
Some work has also examined outliers for nominal (or categorical) data. In the context of a set of examples (or instances) in a data set, instance hardness measures the probability that an instance will be misclassified ( formula_12 where is the assigned class label and represent the input attribute value for an instance in the training set ). Ideally, instance hardness would be calculated by summing over the set of all possible hypotheses :
Practically, this formulation is unfeasible as is potentially infinite and calculating formula_14 is unknown for many algorithms. Thus, instance hardness can be approximated using a diverse subset formula_15:
where formula_17 is the hypothesis induced by learning algorithm formula_18 trained on training set with hyperparameters formula_19. Instance hardness provides a continuous value for determining if an instance is an outlier instance.
Working with outliers.
The choice of how to deal with an outlier should depend on the cause. Some estimators are highly sensitive to outliers, notably estimation of covariance matrices.
Retention.
Even when a normal distribution model is appropriate to the data being analyzed, outliers are expected for large sample sizes and should not automatically be discarded if that is the case. The application should use a classification algorithm that is robust to outliers to model data with naturally occurring outlier points.
Exclusion.
Deletion of outlier data is a controversial practice frowned upon by many scientists and science instructors; while mathematical criteria provide an objective and quantitative method for data rejection, they do not make the practice more scientifically or methodologically sound, especially in small sets or where a normal distribution cannot be assumed. Rejection of outliers is more acceptable in areas of practice where the underlying model of the process being measured and the usual distribution of measurement error are confidently known. An outlier resulting from an instrument reading error may be excluded but it is desirable that the reading is at least verified.
The two common approaches to exclude outliers are truncation (or trimming) and Winsorising. Trimming discards the outliers whereas Winsorising replaces the outliers with the nearest "nonsuspect" data. Exclusion can also be a consequence of the measurement process, such as when an experiment is not entirely capable of measuring such extreme values, resulting in censored data.
In regression problems, an alternative approach may be to only exclude points which exhibit a large degree of influence on the estimated coefficients, using a measure such as Cook's distance.
If a data point (or points) is excluded from the data analysis, this should be clearly stated on any subsequent report.
Non-normal distributions.
The possibility should be considered that the underlying distribution of the data is not approximately normal, having "fat tails". For instance, when sampling from a Cauchy distribution, the sample variance increases with the sample size, the sample mean fails to converge as the sample size increases, and outliers are expected at far larger rates than for a normal distribution. Even a slight difference in the fatness of the tails can make a large difference in the expected number of extreme values.
Set-membership uncertainties.
A set membership approach considers that the uncertainty corresponding to the "i"th measurement of an unknown random vector "x" is represented by a set "X"i (instead of a probability density function). If no outliers occur, "x" should belong to the intersection of all "X"i's. When outliers occur, this intersection could be empty, and we should relax a small number of the sets "X"i (as small as possible) in order to avoid any inconsistency. This can be done using the notion of "q"-relaxed intersection. As illustrated by the figure, the "q"-relaxed intersection corresponds to the set of all "x" which belong to all sets except "q" of them. Sets "X"i that do not intersect the "q"-relaxed intersection could be suspected to be outliers.
Alternative models.
In cases where the cause of the outliers is known, it may be possible to incorporate this effect into the model structure, for example by using a hierarchical Bayes model, or a mixture model.


Philippine units of measurement

A number of units of measurement were used in the Philippines to measure various quantities including mass, area, and capacity. The metric system has been compulsory in the country since 1860, during the late Spanish colonial period. A mixture of Spanish units and indigenous units were used alongside American units in the 1900s.
Mass.
Measurements of Mass
Area.
Measurements of Area
Volume.
Measurements of Volume:


All fourths tuning

Among alternative tunings for the guitar, all-fourths tuning is a regular tuning. In contrast, the standard tuning has one irregularity—a major third between the third and second strings—while having perfect fourths between the other successive strings. The standard tuning's irregular major-third is replaced by a perfect fourth in all-fourths tuning, which has the open notes E2-A2-D3-G3-C4-F4.
Among regular tunings, this all-fourths tuning best approximates the standard tuning.
In all guitar tunings, the higher-octave version of a chord can be found by translating a chord by twelve frets higher along the fretboard. In every regular tuning, for example in all-fourths tuning, chords and intervals can be moved also "diagonally". For all-fourths tuning, all twelve major chords (in the first or open positions) are generated by two chords, the open F major chord and the D major chord. The regularity of chord-patterns reduces the number of finger positions that need to be memorized. Jazz musician Stanley Jordan plays guitar in all-fourths tuning; he has stated that all-fourths tuning "simplifies the fingerboard, making it logical".
Among all regular tunings, all-fourths tuning E-A-D-G-C-F is the best approximation of standard tuning, which is more popular. An advantage of standard tuning is that it has many six-string chords, unlike all-fourths tuning. All-fourths tuning is traditionally used for the bass guitar; it is also used for the "bajo sexto".
Allan Holdsworth stated that if he were to learn the guitar again he would tune it in all-fourths.
Relation with all-fifths tuning.
All-fourths tuning is closely related to all-fifths tuning.
All-fourths tuning is based on the perfect fourth (five semitones), and all-fifths tuning is based on the perfect fifth (seven semitones). The perfect-fifth and perfect-fourth intervals are inversions of one another, and the chords of all-fourth and all-fifths are paired as inverted chords. Consequently, chord charts for all-fifths tunings may be used for left-handed all-fourths tuning.


Wilfried von Engelhardt

Wilfried Baron von Engelhardt (11 September 1928, Liebenberg – 24 January 2015, Linz, Austria) was Chief Test Pilot of MBB, first flight of Bölkow Bo 46 and Bo 105. Fellow SETP. Member of the French Académie de l'air et de l'espace.
Life.
Wilfried “Fred” Baron von Engelhardt was born in the Castle of Liebenberg (north of Berlin, Germany) as the great-grandson of Fürst Philip zu Eulenburg. Through his step-father, C.A. von Schoenbeck, who flew as a pilot in WW I in the famous squadron of the „Red Baron“ and who was later the Commander of the German Flight Test Center in Rechlin, Fred early on developed a passion for aviation. Young Fred often met with famous German pilots - Hanna Reitsch and Ernst Udet to name a few. While his step-father frequently piloted a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch and would sometimes land on the Castle's estate, Fred got attached to helicopters. Back then helicopters were in their infancy. The rotorcraft aerodynamics, not well understood these days, the much more complex mechanism as such and the versatility of helicopters attracted him more than fixed wing aircraft.
Nevertheless, Fred started out fixed wing. At age 16 he was trained as a glider pilot – the first step towards a seat in a fighter aircraft of the German Luftwaffe. Fred was trained on SG38 and Grunay Baby. He earned his wings in the “Kranich”. By October 1944 he held the A,B and C-privileges in his Glider license.
Towards the end of the WWII he continued training and was supposed to fly the Heinkel He 162 “Volksjäger”. However, events turned. The lack of aviation fuel in the last days of the war forced Fred to stay out of the Heinkel.
His family had to flee to Austria after the war had ended and Fred earned his high school diploma in Linz in 1947. He would definitely have opted for an aerospace program; however; the Allies banned courses on aeronautical engineering at German and Austrian universities. Fred completed a training to become hotel manager instead.
At the time his step-father had the German dealership for Hiller Helicopters. Fred moved to Paris, was taught French at Sorbonne and eventually became an aircraft mechanic. This likely was the most important step towards his professional career as a test pilot.
From 1955 to 1956 Fred then worked as an aircraft mechanic in the Netherlands. It was a small enterprise and he lived on a very small salary. In return, he was allowed to fly the Hiller 12B and eventually became the first commercial helicopter pilot in the Netherlands and Germany. His log book shows his first flight in a Hiller H12B, registration PH-NFL, on August 2, 1954 (Fred had flown fixed wing aircraft before, mainly gliders and – not official - his step-father's “Fieseler Storch”. When starting official fixed wing flight training his flight instructor would let him solo after only 20 minutes of dual instruction).
Fred progressed to flight instructor in 1956 in Paris and earned his living as a flight instructor, for both civilian and military pilots, flying Bell 47 and Djinn helicopters until 1960.
Looking at his flight log the next step in his career brought him to Dutch New-Guinea. He worked there as an operational helicopter pilot from September 26, 1961 to August 3, 1962. In these days Fred worked for S.G.O.N.N.G., flying the Aloutte II to remote locations in a remote part of the world.
Because of his technical background Fred was invited to join the newly created group around Ludwig Bölkow. His mentor was the engineer Hans Derschmidt, a member of the Bölkow group who developed a swept rotor system with variable sweep and who recommended Engelhardt to the company owner Mr. Boelkow (“he is not only a pilot – he also has some solid understanding of helicopter technology”). Boelkow was in need for a test pilot for his Bo 46 project (the Bo 46 employed a novice rotor concept with variable sweep main rotor blades so to achieve higher speeds in forward flight. After his inventor this rotor system is named “Derschmidt Rotor”).
Fred went to Test Pilot School in Istres. In his spare time on weekends he tested French helicopters as a volunteer and graduated as best of class on July 1, 1966 with test pilot certificate No 31. He served as the Chief Test pilot at MBB from 1962 to 1973.
After his career as a test pilot Fred worked as Head of Sales, then Head of Customer Training. This position took him into many parts of the world, among other, Africa and Middle East and he would now pass on his knowledge to younger pilots.
First flights.
Wilfried “Fred” von Engelhardt's First Flights:
Achievements.
Together with Sigi Hoffmann, Fred was the first holder of an instrument rating for helicopters in Germany.
Fred has held SETP functions in the European part of the society in the past. Despite of his high age he showed great interest in the activities of the society.
Last flights.
Wilfried “Fred” von Engelhardt's Last Flights
After his retirement Wilfried dedicated himself to helping people, in particular those who were disabled. He was an active member in Church and developed and supported an S.O.S Kinderdorf for homeless children. Fred took courses in theology at Linz University and completed an education as a medical professional in Traditional Chinese Medicine. He was very active in the field of anthropology as well.


6233 Kimura


Variable pathlength cell

A variable pathlength cell is a sample holder used for ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy or infrared spectroscopy that has a path length that can be varied to change the absorbance without changing the sample concentration.
Equations.
The Beer-Lambert law states that there is a logarithmic dependence between the transmission (or transmissivity), T, of light through a substance and the product of the absorption coefficient of the substance, α, and the distance the light travels through the material (i.e. the path length), ℓ. The absorption coefficient can, in turn, be written as a product of either a molar absorptivity of the absorber, ε, and the concentration c of absorbing species in the material, or an absorption cross section, σ, and the (number) density N of absorbers. (see Beer Lambert Law link for full derivation)
Spectroscopy with a variable pathlength cell takes advantage of Beer-Lambert law to determine concentrations of various solutions. By knowing the molar absorbtivity of the material and varying the path length, absorption can be plotted as a function of path length. See sample plot to the right:
By taking a linear regression of the linear plot above an expression relating Absorbance, A, slope, m, pathlength and concentration can be derived.
A linear equation of two variables can be derived,
by equating in terms of units we get,
Since the slope of the line is in units of Abs/Pathlength, slope can be expressed as,
by inserting into Beer’s Law we get,
This is the slope spectroscopy equation.
Applications.
Variable pathlength techniques can be applied in any situation where Beer’s law can be applied. It provides an analytical method that averages out minor variations in sample preparation consistency. It also provides a means to calculate concentrations without calibrations curves or serial dilution of samples.
Variable pathlength absorption spectroscopy is typically used when highly reproducible data is a necessity. This can be in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, pharmacology, and drug discovery. It is particularly useful in the protein purification stage of biotechnology where accurate concentrations of various proteins are required or in crystallography.
Determining the relative ratio of protein to DNA is common practice and can be calculated by finding the slope at the corresponding absorption peaks and taking their ratio. This method is used to find the purity of a sample containing these two types of molecule.
Experimental methods.
In ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy or spectroscopy in general a 1 cm pathlength cuvette is used to measure samples. The cuvette is filled with sample, light is passed through the sample and intensity readings are taken. The slope spectroscopy technique can be applied using the same methods as in absorption spectroscopy. With the advent of accurate linear stages, variable pathlength absorption spectroscopy is easily applied experimentally.
Other experimental methods include using ratios of slopes to build extinction coefficient spectra. This is possible because application of slope spectroscopy allows the scientist to keep concentration levels constant and vary path lengths.
Background subtraction.
Variable pathlength absorption spectroscopy uses a determined slope to calculate concentration. As stated above this is a product of the molar absorbtivity and the concentration. Since the actual absorbance value is taken at many data points at equal intervals, background subtraction is generally unnecessary. The image on the right is a linear plot showing both the background corrected data and the raw data.
This shows that the absorbance values on the plot are offset by an equal amount and the slope of the two plots are equal. Thus, the concentration calculated from the two plots is equal. Other scalar components that contribute to the absorbance of a given sample like contaminants on the cuvette or a different cuvette material also are averaged out during the slope measurement.
The technique is also applicable for in line measurements for TFF and chromatography applications.


3730 Hurban


Monotone likelihood ratio

A monotonic likelihood ratio in distributions formula_1 and formula_2
The ratio of the density functions above is increasing in the parameter formula_3, so formula_4 satisfies the monotone likelihood ratio property.
In statistics, the monotone likelihood ratio property is a property of the ratio of two probability density functions (PDFs). Formally, distributions "ƒ"("x") and "g"("x") bear the property if
that is, if the ratio is nondecreasing in the argument formula_3.
If the functions are first-differentiable, the property may sometimes be stated
For two distributions that satisfy the definition with respect to some argument x, we say they "have the MLRP in "x"." For a family of distributions that all satisfy the definition with respect to some statistic "T"("X"), we say they "have the MLR in "T"("X")."
Intuition.
The MLRP is used to represent a data-generating process that enjoys a straightforward relationship between the magnitude of some observed variable and the distribution it draws from. If formula_1 satisfies the MLRP with respect to formula_2, the higher the observed value formula_3, the more likely it was drawn from distribution formula_11 rather than formula_12. As usual for monotonic relationships, the likelihood ratio's monotonicity comes in handy in statistics, particularly when using maximum-likelihood estimation. Also, distribution families with MLR have a number of well-behaved stochastic properties, such as first-order stochastic dominance and increasing hazard ratios. Unfortunately, as is also usual, the strength of this assumption comes at the price of realism. Many processes in the world do not exhibit a monotonic correspondence between input and output.
Example: Working hard or slacking off.
Suppose you are working on a project, and you can either work hard or slack off. Call your choice of effort formula_13 and the quality of the resulting project formula_14. If the MLRP holds for the distribution of "q" conditional on your effort formula_13, the higher the quality the more likely you worked hard. Conversely, the lower the quality the more likely you slacked off.
Families of distributions satisfying MLR.
Statistical models often assume that data are generated by a distribution from some family of distributions and seek to determine that distribution. This task is simplified if the family has the monotone likelihood ratio property (MLRP).
A family of density functions formula_25 indexed by a parameter formula_26 taking values in an ordered set formula_27 is said to have a monotone likelihood ratio (MLR) in the statistic formula_28 if for any formula_29,
Then we say the family of distributions "has MLR in formula_28".
Hypothesis testing.
If the family of random variables has the MLRP in formula_28, a uniformly most powerful test can easily be determined for the hypothesis formula_34 versus formula_35.
Example: Effort and output.
Example: Let formula_13 be an input into a stochastic technology – worker's effort, for instance – and formula_37 its output, the likelihood of which is described by a probability density function formula_38 Then the monotone likelihood ratio property (MLRP) of the family formula_11 is expressed as follows: for any formula_40, the fact that formula_41 implies that the ratio formula_42 is increasing in formula_37.
Relation to other statistical properties.
Monotone likelihoods are used in several areas of statistical theory, including point estimation and hypothesis testing, as well as in probability models.
Exponential families.
One-parameter exponential families have monotone likelihood-functions. In particular, the one-dimensional exponential family of probability density functions or probability mass functions with
has a monotone non-decreasing likelihood ratio in the sufficient statistic "T"("x"), provided that formula_45 is non-decreasing.
Most powerful tests: The Karlin–Rubin theorem.
Monotone likelihood functions are used to construct uniformly most powerful tests, according to the Karlin–Rubin theorem. Consider a scalar measurement having a probability density function parameterized by a scalar parameter "θ", and define the likelihood ratio formula_46.
If formula_47 is monotone non-decreasing, in formula_3, for any pair formula_49 (meaning that the greater formula_3 is, the more likely formula_51 is), then the threshold test:
is the UMP test of size "α" for testing formula_55
Note that exactly the same test is also UMP for testing formula_56
Median unbiased estimation.
Monotone likelihood-functions are used to construct median-unbiased estimators, using methods specified by Johann Pfanzagl and others. One such procedure is an analogue of the Rao–Blackwell procedure for mean-unbiased estimators: The procedure holds for a smaller class of probability distributions than does the Rao–Blackwell procedure for mean-unbiased estimation but for a larger class of loss functions.
Lifetime analysis: Survival analysis and reliability.
If a family of distributions formula_57 has the monotone likelihood ratio property in formula_28,
But not conversely: neither monotone hazard rates nor stochastic dominance imply the MLRP.
Proofs.
Let distribution family formula_64 satisfy MLR in "x", so that for formula_65 and formula_66:
or equivalently:
Integrating this expression twice, we obtain:
First-order stochastic dominance.
Combine the two inequalities above to get first-order dominance:
Monotone hazard rate.
Use only the second inequality above to get a monotone hazard rate:
Uses.
Economics.
The MLR is an important condition on the type distribution of agents in mechanism design. Most solutions to mechanism design models assume a type distribution to satisfy the MLR to take advantage of a common solution method.


Chi (unit)

The chi is a traditional Chinese unit of length. Although it is often translated as the "", its length was originally derived from the distance measured by a human hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger, and is similar to the ancient span. It first appeared during China's Shang dynasty approximately 3000 years ago and has since been adopted by other East Asian cultures such as Japan ("shaku"), Korea ("ja/cheok"), and Vietnam ("thước"). Its present value is standardized at around , although the exact standards vary among the mainland of the People's Republic of China, its special administrative region of Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
In its ancient and modern forms, the chi is divided into 10 smaller units known as cun (the "Chinese inch"). 10 chi are equal to 1 zhàng.
Modern values.
In the People's Republic of China "chi" has been defined since 1984 as exactly 1/3 of a metre, i.e., . However, in the Hong Kong SAR the corresponding unit, pronounced "chek" in Cantonese, is defined as exactly .
The two units are sometimes referred to in English as "Chinese foot" and "Hong Kong foot".
In Taiwan, "chi" is the same as the Japanese "shaku", i.e., .
Historical values.
The study of ancient rulers and other artifacts whose size in the contemporary "chi" was known allowed modern researchers to surmise that during the 2nd century BC to 3rd century AD the (Qin Dynasty to Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period), the value of the "chi" varied between . Even earlier, during the Warring States era, the value of "chi" was essentially the same.
It is thought that the ancient Chinese astronomers also used "chi" as an angular unit; modern analysis of historical records indicates that it may have been equal to one degree.
In the 19th century, the value of the "chi", depending on the part of the country and the application, varied between . According to an 1864 British report, in most of China the "chi" used by engineers in public works was equal to , the surveyors' "chi" was , while the value generally used for measuring distances was . In Guangzhou, however, the "chi" used for local trade varied from – i.e., very close to the modern "chek". The value fixed by a Sino-British treaty for the purposes of customs duties in Hong Kong was .
Usage in Chinese language.
Due to its long history and its widespread usage, "chi" (along with "cun") has also seen metaphorical usages in the Chinese language. For example, "chi cun" (), a word made up of the units "chi" and "cun", refers to the dimensions of an object, while the idiom "dé cùn jìn chǐ" () means "extremely greedy".
In informal use in China, "chi" is also sometimes used to refer to the US or imperial foot.


Buttonwood Agreement

The Buttonwood Agreement is the founding document of what is now New York Stock Exchange and is one of the most important financial documents in U.S. history. The agreement organized securities trading in New York City and was signed on May 17, 1792 between 24 stockbrokers outside of 68 Wall Street. According to legend the signing took place under a buttonwood tree where their earliest transactions had occurred. The New York Stock Exchange celebrates the signing of this agreement on May 17, 1792 as its founding.
History.
In March 1792, twenty-four of New York's leading merchants met secretly at Corre's Hotel to discuss ways to bring order to the securities business. Two months later, on May 17, 1792, these men signed a document called the Buttonwood Agreement, named after their traditional meeting place under a buttonwood tree – not because it was signed there.
There were too many brokers involved to meet under a tree. Business was conducted in various offices and coffee houses. In 1793, they coordinated their business inside the Tontine Coffee House on the corner of Wall and Water streets.
The document is now part of the archival collection of the New York Stock Exchange.
Document agreement.
In brief, the agreement had two provisions: 1) the brokers were to deal only with each other, thereby eliminating the auctioneers, and 2) the commissions were to be 0.25%. It reads as follows:
Signers.
The twenty-four brokers, known as "Founding and Subsequent Fathers", who signed the Buttonwood Agreement were (including business location):


List of tools for code review

This is a list of collaborative code review software that supports the software development practice of software peer review.


John Kostuck

John T. Kostuck (October 7, 1892 – August 2, 1960) was an American salesman, piano tuner, and legislator.
Born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Kostuck was blinded at age fourteen in a blasting accident while working on a farm. Kostuck went to the Wisconsin School for the Blind for his high school education. Kostuck then went to University of Wisconsin–Madison and then taught high school at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind in Staunton, Virginia. He then became a salesman and piano tuner in Stevens Point.
Political life.
Kostuck ran in the 1926 Republican primary election for Wisconsin's 8th congressional district against incumbent Edward E. Browne, in a district so Republican that neither the Democrat nor the Socialist had the right to appear on the general election ballot; he came in a distant third in a three-way race. He tried again in 1928, receiving 22.3% of the vote in a head-to-head contest with Browne.
In 1930 he chose instead to run for the Republican nomination for the Portage County seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly as a progressive. He won his party's nomination, and unseated Democratic incumbent Michael Mersch, becoming the first blind member of Wisconsin's legislature. He would be re-elected fourteen times to that seat, the first time (1930) as a Republican, the next four times (1934-1940) as a member of the newly created Wisconsin Progressive Party. In 1942, he switched his affiliation to the Democratic Party, and ran unopposed in both the primary and general elections, as he would in every subsequent election through 1958. He died in Stevens Point in 1960 while still in office and was succeeded by fellow Democrat Norman Myhra (himself disabled; he had lost both hands in combat during World War II)


Noise-canceling microphone

A noise-canceling microphone is a microphone that is designed to filter ambient noise.
Technical details.
The development is a special case of the differential microphone topology most commonly used to achieve directionality. All such microphones have at least two ports through which sound enters; a front port normally oriented toward the desired sound and another port that's more distant. The microphone's diaphragm is placed between the two ports; sound arriving from an ambient sound field reaches both ports more or less equally. Sound that's much closer to the front port than to the rear will make more of a pressure gradient between the front and back of the diaphragm, causing it to move more. The microphone's proximity effect is adjusted so that flat frequency response is achieved for sound sources very close to the front of the mic – typically 1 to 3 cm. Sounds arriving from other angles are subject to steep midrange and bass rolloff. Commercially and militarily useful noise-canceling microphones have been made since at least 1935 (Amelia Earhart used one on her 1935 flight from Hawaii to California) and have been made since the 1940s by Roanwell, Electro-Voice and others.
Alternative technologies.
Another technique uses two or more microphones and active or passive circuitry to reduce the noise. The primary microphone is closer to the desired source (like a person's mouth). A second mic receives ambient noise. In a noisy environment, both microphones receive noise at a similar level, but the primary mic receives the desired sounds more strongly. Thus if one signal is subtracted from the other (in the simplest sense, by connecting the microphones out of phase) much of the noise is canceled while the desired sound is retained. Other techniques may be used as well, such as using a directional primary mic, to maximize the difference between the two signals and make the cancellation easier to do.
The internal electronic circuitry of an active noise-canceling mic attempts to subtract noise signal from the primary microphone. The circuit may employ passive or active noise canceling techniques to filter out the noise, producing an output signal that has a lower noise floor and a higher signal-to-noise ratio.


Alternate versions of Invisible Woman

The Invisible Woman (Sue Storm Richards) is a fictional Marvel Comics character, who has had many alternate versions through various media.
1602.
In the miniseries "Marvel 1602", Susan Storm is a member of the Four from the Fantastick, in reference to the ship upon which she and three others gained their powers in the Sargasso Sea. Unlike in the Marvel Universe, she is weightless and cannot become visible. She is related to the alchemical element of air as stated by Neil Gaiman.
At the start of "", Susan is visibly pregnant with Sir Richard Reed's child. He forbids her to join him in his pursuit of Otto von Doom while in this condition, but she goes anyway. Much to Miss Doris Evans' shock, Sir Richard and Susan are not married. She displays the ability to create force fields but becomes visible when doing so.
Adam Warlock.
On Counter Earth, counterparts of the Fantastic Four hijack an experimental spaceship in order to be the first humans in space. Man-Beast negates the effects of the cosmic radiation for all of them except Reed Richards who succumbs to the effects a decade later. When their craft crashes, Sue Storm falls into a coma from which she does not awake.
Age of Apocalypse.
In the alternate reality known as the Age of Apocalypse, Susan never became the Invisible Woman, but instead helped her boyfriend Reed Richards in his attempt to evacuate a large group of humans from Manhattan when Apocalypse came into power. Along with Ben Grimm as the pilot and her brother Johnny as crew, they used one of Reed's prototype rockets to fly off the island. However, a mutant sabotaged the launch and both Reed and Johnny sacrificed themselves to let the others blast off safely.
Susie and Ben join the Human High Council as hired muscle. They are sent to the Eurasian Security Field Command Center to retrieve Bruce Banner, the scientist who worked on the nuclear warhead project that made the Council's pre-emptive nuclear strike possible. They found the facilities barraged by a Thing. The two are able to defeat the monster and retrieve Banner so they can board Mikhail Rasputin's mothership as one of a few select representatives allowed to board the Horseman's vessel as part of a false peace convoy. The humans are hoodwinked and held captive on the ship until Tony Stark, another captive on Mikhail's vessel, short circuits the craft with his mechanized heart. After they are freed, Ben and Susan help with the evacuation of the humans, piloting the ships after Banner to unify all the transfer arks into a single fleet used to flee from Earth.
Age of Ultron.
In the "Age of Ultron" story, Invisible Woman is the only surviving member of the Fantastic Four, and joins a group of surviving heroes. The group goes to the Savage Land to find Nick Fury, with a plan of going forward in time to destroy Ultron in the future, where he is coordinating his attack. Wolverine, however, believes they should go back in time and kill Hank Pym before he creates Ultron, arguing Pym would see a warning not to create the robot as a challenge, and create Ultron regardless.
The group decides against this, and several members go to the future. Wolverine then goes to the past, with the intent of assassinating Pym. Invisible Woman stows away with him in hopes of convincing him otherwise. When Wolverine attacks Pym, Invisible Woman creates a force field to stop the killing blow. Torn between Hank's pleas for help, and Wolverine's reminders of what will happen if he lives, Sue allows Wolverine to kill Pym. After the consequences of this decision were realized, Wolverine went back to this point again and convinced his past self to stand down. The Wolverines and Sue manage to help Pym create a backdoor in Ultron's programming that will stop him before he can launch his attack in the first place.
Age of X.
In the "Age of X" reality where mutants are hunted, Sue is the only free member of the Fantastic Four left after she betrayed the other three to the government for harboring a mutant after the mutant attacked Franklin. Unlike some of her colleagues in the mutant-hunting Avengers, Sue merely wishes to contain mutants rather than kill them, and eventually sacrifices herself to save the mutant retreat from a suicide bombing by her former teammate, the Hulk.
Exiles.
Sue has appeared many times in the pages of Exiles. First, she was married to Black Bolt and helped him defeat that reality's tyrannical dictator Iron Man. More recently, another version of Sue has appeared as Madame Hydra (Empress Hydra), controller of Captain America, Slaymaster, and Wolverine. She has even developed romantic feelings for Wolverine. This version of Sue has killed billions and plans to move onto other Earths. Along with the Exiles, she is opposed by that reality's Reed Richards and Elektra. After the Exiles defeated her, she escaped into another dimension and began recruiting villains defeated by the Exiles across various dimensions to form a team to defeat them. In another reality, she was the only survivor of the test flight that endowed her with her powers. Rescued by Namor, she subsequently marries him and bears him two children, Gambit and Valeria Fen.
Earth-65.
In Ghost-Spider's universe, Susan and Johnny Storm went missing on a trip to Latveria. When they return to New York, they are shown twisted to evil and murderers of their own mother.
Marvel Apes.
In the alternate universe of "Marvel Apes", the Invisible Girl is an ape who unwillingly turns human after gaining her powers. This causes her great distress. She reaches out in friendship to another human, Charles Darwin, also stranded in the ape-verse. Later, she assists in the defense of her universe against zombie invaders. She is flash-fried and consumed by her zombie 'brother'.
Marvel Mangaverse.
In the alternate universe of the Marvel Mangaverse, the Invisible Girl is Sioux Storm. Her half-sister is Jonatha Storm. Sioux has near psychosis-level emotional detachment and may suffer from Borderline personality disorder. In order to get her to fight or show any interest, Reed has programmed her battle suit to inject near-overdoses of battle stimulants and aggressor hormones into her bloodstream. She is a member of the Megascale Metatalent Response Team Fantastic Four. The team uses power packs that allow them to manifest at mecha-sized levels. Sioux projects a tall "invisible friend" constructed from her invisible force fields. The team fights Godzilla-sized monsters from various alien xenocultures that attack Earth in order to put an end to experiments that endanger all of reality. In "Mangaverse" volume 1 the team destroys a mecha-like Annihilus.
In "New Mangaverse" Sioux is murdered by ninja assassins dispatched by the Hand.
Marvel Zombies.
The Marvel Zombies universe's version of Reed Richards deliberately infected his team, including Sue, with the zombie virus, following madness from the murder of their children at the hands of a zombified She-Hulk. The Zombie Fantastic Four subsequently make contact with their Ultimate counterparts, attempting to escape into the Ultimate Marvel universe. Zombie Reed is neutralized when the Ultimate Invisible Girl destroys a chunk of his brain. After a brief period of imprisonment, Sue and the zombie Fantastic Four are killed by Ultimate Doctor Doom and returned to their universe.
MC2.
In the MC2 universe, Sue and Reed recently returned from space, where Sue had been holding back a rift in reality with her force powers. Sue is instrumental in battling Galactus during the "Last Planet Standing" miniseries in which she deployed psionic force fields to prevent a tsunami from leveling New York.
Mutant X.
In the darker reality of Mutant X, Sue does not have superpowers, but wears a high tech "stealth" suit. She is shown dead along with several other super heroes who attempted to stop the Beyonder.
Ultimate Marvel.
The Ultimate Marvel version of Susan Storm is an eighteen-year-old biochemistry prodigy who grew up in the Baxter Building in the gifted and talented program supervised by her father. Though her newfound fame and beauty has brought her unsought attention from the likes of billionaire playboy Tony Stark, the former Baxter Building scientist turned villain, Mole Man, the Atlantean criminal Namor, and even her own friend and teammate, Ben Grimm, she remains romantically attached to Reed Richards despite her concerns about his over devotion to science. Throughout the series, Sue has been a major player in events such as "Ultimate Secret" and "Ultimate Power". In "Ultimate Salem's Seven", Sue Storm leaves Reed Richards and moves to Oregon to study a bizarre sentient organism. It has been shown that this organism is responsible for creating the Salem's Seven. She returns to Oregon to destroy the creature with Namor and the rest of her team. In the ensuing explosion Reed is trapped by molten lava. When Sue saves him with her invisible force field, they reconcile. She would later play a part in the Ultimatum event where she pushes back a tidal wave that floods New York with a colossal psionic field. She saves the city, but the mental strain puts her into a deep coma. She would later be awoken from her coma through the combined efforts of Mole Man and the Thing, during the course of which it is revealed that Ben harbors romantic feelings towards Susan. After the Ultimatum Sue breaks up with Reed and follows in her mother's footsteps after proposing to Ben. She is later assaulted, along with other heroes, by Reed, who had turned to villainy.
This version of Sue Storm is an accomplished scientist in her own right. Reed even describes her as "just a teeny bit smarter than him", but when Reed once mentioned this to Ben, Susan responded with "Reed is an idiot," as she always envies Reed's abilities and considers him the "king of physics". (See ) It is Sue who does research into the biomolecular basis of the Fantastic Four's powers and she manages to understand how Reed's and her brother Johnny's powers as Mister Fantastic and the Human Torch work.
"What If?".
Marvel's "What If?" comic book series featured several alternate versions of Sue Storm and the Fantastic Four.
Spider-Man in the FF.
On the world designated Earth-772, in "What If?", Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four, but his presence resulted in Sue feeling increasingly sidelined in favour of the four male members of the team, resulting in her leaving the team to marry the Sub-Mariner. Although Reed was briefly driven insane and declared war on Atlantis, he eventually recovered and the two apparently reconciled, resulting in the 'Fantastic Five' reforming once again in time to confront Annihilus in the Negative Zone to help Susan give birth.
Vol. I #6.
In "What If?" #6 (Dec 1977), after the team are exposed to cosmic rays, they develop powers based on their personalities. Sue Storm gains the ability to stretch and reshape her body, because her personality caused her to try to fit in with the more dominating friends, while Reed Richards vast intellect causes him to become a giant floating brain. Sue takes the name "Ultra Woman" in this reality.
This version of the Fantastic Four reappeared in the Volume II story arc 'Timestorm', summoned by the Watcher to persuade the man who would become Kang/Immortus not to become a threat. Sue, along with the other members of this alternate Fantastic Four, are killed by Immortus.
Vol. I #11.
In "What If?" Volume 1, #11 (May 1978), an alternate universe is shown wherein the original 1960's staff of Marvel Comics are exposed to cosmic rays Skrulls. Then Marvel Comics secretary Flo Steinberg gains the powers of the Invisible Girl. Together with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Sol Brodsky, she continues to work by day at Marvel Comics, while operating in secret as a member of the Fantastic Four.
Vol. II #11.
In "What If?" vol. 2 #11 (March 1990), the origins of the Fantastic Four are retold, showing how the heroes lives would have changed if all four had gained the same powers as the individual members of the original Fantastic Four.


Functional boxplot

In statistical graphics, the functional boxplot is an informative exploratory tool that has been proposed for visualizing functional data. Analogous to the classical boxplot, the descriptive statistics of a functional boxplot are: the envelope of the 50% central region, the median curve and the maximum non-outlying envelope.
To construct a functional boxplot, data ordering is the first step. In functional data analysis, each observation is a real function, therefore, different from the classical boxplot where data are simply ordered from the smallest sample value to the largest, in a functional boxplot, functional data, e.g. curves or images, are ordered by a notion of band depth or a modified band depth. It allows for ordering functional data from the center outwards and, thus, introduces a measure to define functional quantiles and the centrality or outlyingness of an observation. Having the ranks of functional data, the functional boxplot is a natural extension of the classical boxplot.
Construction.
In the classical boxplot, the box itself represents the middle 50% of the data. Since the data ordering in the functional boxplot is from the center outwards, the 50% central region is defined by the band delimited by the 50% of deepest, or the most central observations. The
border of the 50% central region is defined as the envelope representing the box in a classical boxplot. Thus, this 50% central
region is the analog to the "interquartile range" (IQR) and gives a useful indication of the spread of the central 50% of the curves.
This is a robust range for interpretation because the 50% central region is not affected by outliers or extreme values, and gives a
less biased visualization of the curves' spread. The observation in the box indicates the median, or the most central observation which is also a robust statistic to measure centrality.
The "whiskers" of the boxplot are the vertical lines of the plot extending from the box and indicating the maximum envelope of the
dataset except the outliers.
Outlier detection.
Outliers can be detected in a functional boxplot by the 1.5 times the 50% central region empirical rule, analogous to the 1.5 IQR empirical rule for classical boxplots. The fences are obtained by inflating the envelope of the 50% central region by 1.5 times the
height of the 50% central region. Any observations outside the fences are flagged as potential outliers. When each observation is simply a point, the functional boxplot degenerates to a classical boxplot, and it is different from the pointwise boxplots.
Enhanced functional boxplot.
By introducing the concept of central regions, the functional boxplot can be generalized to an enhanced functional boxplot where the 25% and 75% central regions are provided as well.
Surface boxplot.
Spatio-temporal data can be viewed as a temporal curve at each spatial location, or a spatial surface at each time. In the latter case, a volume-based surface band depth can be used to order sample surfaces and leads to a three-dimensional surface boxplot with similar characteristics as the functional boxplots. Similarly, the fences are obtained by the 1.5 times the 50% central region rule. Any surface outside the fences are flagged as outlier candidates. The surface boxplot is a natural extension of the functional boxplot to R3.
Statistics code.
The command fbplot for functional boxplots is in fda R package, and MATLAB code is also available.


Deslandres table

In electronic spectroscopy, constructing a Deslandres table is a useful method to assign vibronic transitions. In such a table, the frequencies of the lines seen in an electronic spectrum of a molecule are collected so that the differences in energy between adjacent columns or rows are all the same (within experimental error). Every line seen in the spectrum corresponds to a transition from the lower-lying electronic energy state to an excited electronic state (molecular electronic transition): associated with this, there are corresponding transitions between the vibrational levels of the two states, that give rise to many closely spaced lines. The intensity of the lines is governed by the Franck–Condon principle.
When a Deslandres table is filled correctly, the columns represent the vibrational energy levels of the lower electronic state ("v""), while the rows represent those for the upper electronic state ("v'"). Clearly, the difference in energy between two successive rows (columns) must remain constant for any column (row) in the table because this represents the energy difference of two given vibrational levels within the same electronic state. Thus, by completing a Deslandres table it is easy to assign the correct vibrational quantum numbers "v"" and "v'" for the transition, allowing important molecular properties to be calculated, such as the dissociation energy.


Parasoft Virtualize

Parasoft Virtualize is a service virtualization product that can create, deploy, and manage simulated test environments for software development and software testing purposes. These environments simulate the behavior of dependent resources that are unavailable, difficult to access, or difficult to configure for development or testing. It simulates the behavior of dependent resources such as mainframes, ERP systems, databases, web services, third-party information systems, or other systems that are out of direct developer/tester control.
The product is used in conjunction with hardware/OS virtualization to provide developers and testers with the resources they need to execute their development and testing tasks earlier, faster, or more completely. Its technologies for automating continuous testing are used as part of continuous delivery, continuous integration, and continuous release.
Background.
In 2002, Parasoft released technology to "create service implementation stubs which emulate critical functionality that cannot be made available for testing.". This technology was introduced in Parasoft SOAtest. Since 2002, the technology was extended with "intelligent stubs [that] emulate the behaviour of a running system, allowing the developer to test services in the context of an application's actual behaviour and not on the live running system.". In 2009, the technology was extended with "application behavior virtualization," which can "create copies of both applications and back-end systems so a developer can reference such applications or systems when developing software."
The technology was extended and released as a separate product in 2011.
Parasoft created a free community edition in 2017 that allows individual users and small projects to use service virtualization at no cost.
Industry recognition.
Parasoft Virtualize was awarded the 2012 Jolt Awards Grand Prize by a panel of Dr. Dobb's Journal-appointed judges. This annual award showcases products that have "jolted" the industry with their significance and made the task of creating software faster, easier, and more efficient. The most recent awards/recognitions received were being named "leader in functional and test automation tools" in Forrester's Functional Test Automation Tools evaluation and "innovation and technology leader" in voke's Service Virtualization Market Mover Array.


5535 Annefrank

5535 Annefrank (), provisional designation , is a stony Florian asteroid and suspected contact binary from the inner asteroid belt, approximately 4.5 kilometers in diameter. It was used as a target to practice the flyby technique that the Stardust space probe would later use on the comet Wild 2.
The asteroid was discovered 23 March 1942, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. It was named after Anne Frank, a victim of the Holocaust.
Orbit and classification.
"Annefrank" is a member of the Flora family, one of the largest collisional populations of stony asteroids in the main-belt. It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.1–2.4 AU once every 3 years and 3 months (1,202 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.06 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic.
The body's observation arc begins at Crimea–Nauchnij in 1978, with its identification as , 36 years after its official discovery observation at Heidelberg.
Physical characteristics.
"Annefrank" has been characterized as a common S-type asteroid.
Diameter, albedo and shape.
On 2 November 2002, the Stardust space probe flew past "Annefrank" at a distance of 3079 km. Its images show the asteroid to be 6.6 × 5.0 × 3.4 km, twice as big as previously thought, and its main body shaped like a triangular prism with several visible impact craters. From the photographs, the albedo of "Annefrank" was computed to be between 0.18 and 0.24. Preliminary analysis of the Stardust imagery suggests that "Annefrank" may be a contact binary, although other possible explanations exist for its observed shape.
Rotation and poles.
In October 2006, ground-based photometric observations were used in an attempt to measure "Annefrank"s rotational period. Analysis of the ambiguous lightcurve gave a period of hours and a brightness variation of 0.25 magnitude with two alternative period solutions of 12 and 22.8 hours, respectively ().
In January 2014, photometric observations at the Palomar Transient Factory gave a rotation period of and hours with an amplitude of 0.17 and 0.20 magnitude, respectively ().
The lightcurve data suggests that "Annefrank" is not Lambertian, meaning that surface features, such as shadows from boulders and craters, play a role in the object's perceived brightness and not just the asteroid's relative size when seen from that orientation.
The body's shortest axis is approximately aligned perpendicular to its orbital plane.
Naming.
This minor planet was named after Anne Frank, the Dutch-Jewish diarist who died in a Nazi concentration camp (World War II). The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 14 May 1995 ().


Hot band

In molecular vibrational spectroscopy, a hot band is a band centred on a hot transition, which is a transition between two excited vibrational states, i.e. neither is the overall ground state. In infrared or Raman spectroscopy, hot bands refer to those transitions for a particular vibrational mode which arise from a state containing thermal population of another vibrational mode. For example, for a molecule with 3 normal modes, formula_1, formula_2 and formula_3, the transition formula_4 ← formula_5, would be a hot band, since the initial state has one quantum of excitation in the formula_3 mode. Hot bands are distinct from combination bands, which involve simultaneous excitation of multiple normal modes with a single photon, and overtones, which are transitions that involve changing the vibrational quantum number for a normal mode by more than 1.
Vibrational hot bands.
In the harmonic approximation, the normal modes of a molecule are not coupled, and all vibrational quantum levels are equally spaced, so hot bands would not be distinguishable from so-called "fundamental" transitions arising from the overall vibrational ground state. However, vibrations of real molecules always have some anharmonicity, which causes coupling between different vibrational modes that in turn shifts the observed frequencies of hot bands in vibrational spectra. Because anharmonicity decreases the spacing between adjacent vibrational levels, hot bands exhibit red shifts (appear at lower frequencies than the corresponding fundamental transitions). The magnitude of the observed shift is correlated to the degree of anharmonicity in the corresponding normal modes.
Both the lower and upper states involved in the transition are excited states. Therefore, the lower excited state must be populated for a hot band to be observed. The most common form of excitation is by thermal energy. The population of the lower excited state is then given by the Boltzmann distribution.
In general the population can be expressed as
where kB is the Boltzmann constant and E is the energy difference between the two states.
In simplified form this can be expressed as
where "ν" is the wavenumber [cm−1] of the hot band and "T" is the temperature [K]. Thus, the intensity of a hot band, which is proportional to the population of the lower excited state, increases as the temperature increases.
Combination bands.
As mentioned above, combination bands involve changes in vibrational quantum numbers of more than one normal mode. These transitions are forbidden by harmonic oscillator selection rules, but are observed in vibrational spectra of real systems due to anharmonic couplings of normal modes. Combination bands typically have weak spectral intensities, but can become quite intense in cases where the anharmonicity of the vibrational potential is large. Broadly speaking, there are two types of combination bands.
Difference transition.
A difference transition, or difference band, occurs between excited states of two different vibrations. Using the 3 mode example from above, formula_9 ← formula_10, is a difference transition. For difference bands involving transfer of a single quantum of excitation, as in the example, the frequency is approximately equal to the difference between the fundamental frequencies. The difference is not exact because there is anharmonicity in both vibrations. However the term "difference band" also applies to cases where more than one quantum is transferred, such as formula_10 ← formula_12.
Since the initial state of a difference band is always an excited state, difference bands are necessarily "hot bands"! Difference bands are seldom observed in conventional vibrational spectra, because they are forbidden transitions according to harmonic selection rules, and because populations of vibrationally excited states tend to be quite low.
Sum transition.
A sum transition (sum band), occurs when two or more fundamental vibrations are excited simultaneously. For instance, formula_4 ← formula_14 and formula_15 ← formula_16, are examples of sum transitions. The frequency of a sum band is slightly less than the sum of the frequencies of the fundamentals, again due to anharmonic shifts in both vibrations.
Sum transitions are harmonic-forbidden, and thus typically have low intensities relative to vibrational fundamentals. Also, sum bands can be, but are not always, hot bands, and thus may also show reduced intensities from thermal population effects, as described above. Sum bands are more commonly observed than difference bands in vibrational spectra


List of railway test tracks

Railway test tracks include:


The Flenser

The Flenser (also known as Flenser Records) is a San Francisco-based record label specializing in experimental music. The Flenser's risk-taking ethos has been rewarded with notoriety in the international heavy metal music community. Notable bands that work with or have worked with The Flenser include: Have a Nice Life, Botanist, Deafheaven, Wreck and Reference, Bosse-de-Nage, and Planning for Burial.


Ruth Clark (pollster)

Ruth Clark (1917 – February 20, 1997) was an American pollster and researcher. Her 1979 report "The Changing Needs of Changing Readers" was influential on the renewal of American newspapers, leading to a greater focus on service journalism and local news.
Biography.
Ruth Clark was born Ruth Fine in 1917 in New York City. She graduated from Hunter College in 1936. A Communist in her youth, she moved to Moscow in 1950 with her husband Joseph Clark, foreign editor for the Daily Worker; they became disillusioned with the Soviet regime and returned to the United States in 1953.
Clark worked as a door-to-door interviewer for marketing campaigns during the 1950s. In 1960 she was hired by Louis Harris' firm, working for John F. Kennedy campaign. Clark was credited to introducing exit polls in American election surveys. She became vice-president of Louis Harris and Associates in the 1960s, moving to Yankelovich, Skelly & White around 1970.
The "Changing Needs of Changing Readers" survey.
In 1979, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, concerned about the declining readership of newspapers, commissioned a study for analysing that situation. Clark, vice-president at Yankelovich, Skelly & White, conducted a survey with 120 readers in a dozen focal groups; the readers said they felt alienated by the newspapers' focus on hard national, political news, they wanted more palatable local news stories and everyday tips. Clark's findings were published in the report "The Changing Needs of Changing Readers." The report influenced newspapers in the United States and around the world; its findings translated into innovations in news coverage, like the increased focus on local stories, "news you can use" and the modular layout of pages, which were adopted by several outlets, especially USA Today.
In 1983, Clark left Yankelovich, Skelly and White to found her own firm, Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo. They conducted surveys for newspapers such as The New York Times, The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune.
Clark died on February 20, 1997 of lung cancer.
Personal life.
Ruth Clark was married to Joseph Clark (d. 1988). She had two children: radical activist Judith Clark (born 1949), and Andrew.


Matriculation Certificate (Malta)

The Matriculation Certificate is a qualification awarded to students leaving the secondary school system of Malta and intending to matriculate into the University of Malta. The Matriculation Certificate examinations are equivalent to the British A Level.
Students are required to sit for six subjects from various areas in one session of the examination. The choice of subjects includes a language, a humanities or a business subject, mathematics or a science subject, and any other two subjects. The sixth subject is Systems of Knowledge, which is compulsory. Two of the subjects must be at Advanced level, three at Intermediate level and Systems of Knowledge, which is also rated as an Intermediate level subject. The certificate was first offered in 1997, when it was awarded to 1309 candidates. In 2005 there were 2455 candidates.
In order for a student to be successfully awarded the Matriculation Certificate students must achieve both of following criteria:
Students must be awarded this certificate in order to be accepted into the University of Malta. In addition, some courses at the university also require specific subjects at specific grades. This is the case for courses such as engineering, medicine, science, and commerce.
Choice of subjects.
Subjects are divided into 4 groups. Each group representing Languages, Humanities, Sciences and Practical/Technical subjects. A student must choose one of each of the first three groups, and another two subjects chosen from any of the groups.
items marked * are offered at Intermediate Level only.
Grading.
Grades are given from A-F, with A being the best, and F indicating a Fail. Each grade obtained gives the candidates a number of points, which when added up can be used to give an overall grade.
 Advanced Level Intermediate Level
 Grade A - 30 grade points Grade A - 10 grade points
 Grade B - 24 grade points Grade B - 8 grade points
 Grade C - 18 grade points Grade C - 6 grade points
 Grade D - 12 grade points Grade D - 4 grade points
 Grade E - 6 grade points Grade E - 2 grade points.
After adding up the points, the following may be used to calculate the overall grade:
 Grade A - 80 -100 grade points
 Grade B - 64 - 78 grade points
 Grade C - 44 - 62 grade points


Combolin

The Combolin was invented by Roy Williamson of The Corries in the summer of 1969. The combolin combined several instruments into a single instrument. One combined a mandolin and a guitar (along with four bass strings operated with slides), the other combined guitar and the Spanish bandurria, the latter being an instrument Williamson had played since the early days of the Corrie Folk Trio.
Originally conceived as a way to combine several of the many instruments they carried around on tour - the Corries' long row of chairs behind them on stage bearing instruments is legendary - the combolins in fact became an additional two instruments for the tour van. Most often, Browne played the guitar/mandolin instrument with bass strings, and Williamson the other, which also had 13 sympathetic strings designed to resonate like the Indian sitar. The wood for the instruments was obtained from antique hardwood furniture as well as premium-grade Tyrolean spruce, and featured Williamson's artistic embellishments in silver and mother of pearl.
The Corries' album, Strings and Things (1970), was specifically designed to showcase the new instruments and featured detailed descriptions of them on the rear sleeve. Many consider it their best album. On stage, when the combolins were played, the Corries would swap their seating position around from the conventional Williamson to Browne's right. Usually the combolins were played to accompany long ballads such as The Silkie of Sule Skerry and The Gartan Mother's Lullaby, as well as a number of the compositions of Peebles baker George Weir & Alister Rae, including Lord Yester and Weep ye Weel by Atholl.
During her lifetime, Roy's late daughter, Karen Williamson, would have arguments with her sister Sheena as to who would inherit which of the Combolins when The Corries retired. Apparently, the sisters had decided that the soundholes on the instruments gave one of them a 'sad' look, and the other 'angry', and, as Karen recounted in her biography of Roy, 'Flower of Scotland', hers was to have been the 'sad' one, and the 'angry' one was to have been Sheena's. However, the instruments passed to Roy's friend Davie Sinton instead.
The immense strain on the instruments caused by the multitude of strings meant they needed regular maintenance later in their life, and one of Williamson's best friends, instrument repairer David Sinton, maintained them. After Williamson's death, Sinton was bequeathed the two combolins. He has since issued a CD of tunes played on them, Caledonian Sunset, although it took many years to perfect the playing of these complex instruments, as well as deal with the undoubted emotional difficulty in playing them.


Snap gauge

A snap gauge is a form of go/no go gauge. It is a limit gauge with permanently or temporarily fixed measurement aperture(s) (gaps) which is used to quickly verify whether an outside dimension of a part matches a preset dimension or falls within predefined tolerances.
Details.
The surfaces which define the edges of the aperture are the anvils, which may be made of separate pieces of hard material such as tungsten carbide for wear resistance. Two apertures are frequently used to provide Go/No-Go testing and are often arranged such that a part being measured can pass through the two apertures in sequence; a part that is within tolerance will pass through the first maximum size limit aperture but will not be able to pass through the minimum size limit aperture. A snap gauge usually has a "C" shaped frame with the aperture(s) at the opening of the "C". Snap gauges may be machined and ground out of a single block of metal or adjustable snap gauges, which have movable anvils that may be adjusted over a limited range of sizes, may be used. They may also be of built up construction in which one or more gauge blocks or feeler gauges are sandwiched between two anvils. Adjustable snap gauges may be reset to compensate for wear or re-tasked for measuring a different dimension and can be purchased off the shelf and set rather than needing to be fabricated from scratch when a new gauge is needed. Gauge blocks would typically be used to initially set the width of the measuring aperture(s).
A variation is the snap indicator gauge, which incorporates a dial indicator or electronic digital indicator as one of the anvils. This indicator displays the deviation from the preset dimension and the indicator may have high and low tolerance limits marked by means of two extra needles, alteration of the dial face, or programming into an electronic indicator. Another variation adds, in addition to the dial or electronic indicator, a micrometer adjustment on the anvil opposite the indicator anvil. This may be referred to as a snap gauge or an indicating micrometer and may be quickly preset for short runs of parts.
Snap gauges facilitate making interchangeable parts. Snap gauges have been in existence and referred to by that name since at least 1898. In a manufacturing plant, snap gauges would normally be re-calibrated at scheduled intervals. Often, snap gauges will be calibrated by skilled workers and used by semi-skilled workers; the snap gauge is faster than a micrometer and requires less skill to use correctly.
Some vendors who resell a different measuring instrument, bore gauge, muddy the waters by referring to them as snap gauges, unlike the manufacturer who uses the correct nomenclature. Unlike a snap gauge, these measure inside (bore) dimensions, not outside dimensions, and are usually reset for each part measured.


283 Emma

283 Emma is a large asteroid of the asteroid belt and the namesake of the Emma family. It was discovered by Auguste Charlois on 8 February 1889, in Nice, France. The reason for its name is unknown.
Measurements made with the IRAS observatory give a diameter of 145.70 ± 5.89 km and a geometric albedo of 0.03 ± 0.01. By comparison, the MIPS photometer on the Spitzer Space Telescope gives a diameter of 145.44 ± 7.72 km and a geometric albedo of 0.03 ± 0.01. When the asteroid was observed occulting a star, the results showed a diameter of 148.00 ± 16.26 km.
Satellite.
A companion for 283 Emma was detected on 14 July 2003 by W. J. Merline et al. using the Keck II telescope and is designated S/2003 (283) 1. The announcement is contained in the International Astronomical Union Circular (IAUC) 8165. The satellite orbits at a semi-major axis of about 581 km with an eccentricity of 0.12. Emma has a hill sphere with a radius of about 28,000 km.


Pharmafabrik

Pharmafabrik is an independent record label based in Slovenia and founded in 1993, most noted for their comprehensive and critically acclaimed Fabriksampler compilation albums with artists Final, Lull, KK Null, Alexei Borisov, Nordvargr, Surgeon, Eraldo Bernocchi, Franck Vigroux, Mike Browning, PureH, Chris Wood, Psychedelic Desert, Pharmakustik, P.C.M., Daniel Buess, The Cherry Blues Project and others.


4343 Tetsuya