Escape from Noise

Escape from Noise is the fourth studio album by Negativland. It marked the band's first release on an established independent record label, SST Records. On the album, they continued to develop their experimental style, as well as incorporating elements of pop music with shorter tracks and more conventional melodies. "Christianity Is Stupid", a track featuring samples from the propaganda movie "If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?," proved to be an enduring signature song: the band and the release gained widespread attention a year later due to a SST press release falsely implying that murderer David Brom had listened to the song before killing his family members.
Release.
The original album came with a yellow bumper sticker with black letters reading "Car Bomb", and a booklet outlining the history of the band, along with photos of band members and reviews of previous releases. In the booklet, Crosley Bendix (Don Joyce) describes how Negativland's studio/apartment and recording equipment were destroyed in a two-alarm fire discovered by Negativland member Mark Hosler at 11:50 pm late on "Friday the 13th of February, 1987".
The fire started in Smart Laundry, a dry cleaning business located at street level below Negativland's apartment, 10028 San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito, California. When he saw flames leaping up past their kitchen window, Hosler yelled to his friend Tera Freedman in the next room to call 9-1-1 to notify the fire department. Hosler and Freedman collected the finished master tapes and artwork for "Escape from Noise" and quickly left the building, just as fire crews arrived. Cleaning solvents in the laundry accelerated the fire and caused extensive damage to the building before fire crews gained control. Afterward, the band grimly assessed the total destruction of the recording equipment and the materials from previous releases. Together, they traveled to Los Angeles to meet with SST executives and "reaffirm their album commitment".
In 1999, Seeland Records reissued the album in a new "un-remixed" edition, adding no bonus tracks and blowing up the photo on the LP to fill the entire CD front cover and the original LP cover's words from Bendix were moved into the booklet. A sticker was placed on the album, saying:
An old album from Negativland: Digitally exacto-remastered 33 rpm compact disc re-issue of Negativland's classic 1987 LP with no added bonus tracks of any kind!
Don't let the new cover design fool you – your audiophile friends might think that such classics as "Car Bomb" and "Christianity Is Stupid" sound crisper and cleaner on this newly un-remixed edition, but they're dead wrong! And even though there are no longer eleven time zones in the Soviet Union (and no Soviet Union, either) this re-release sounds "exactly" the same as the original. The only thing different is the sticker you are reading right now.
The original LP is still in print on SST Records, even though the band re-released the record in 1999 on Seeland.
In 1988, the group released a mock press release to suggest that the song "Christianity Is Stupid" was connected to murders by David Brom, and that the group was forced to cancel a planned tour in support of "Escape from Noise". However, there were no connections with the murders, and the tour was cancelled only due to shortage of funds and free time. Their next album, Helter Stupid, made use of the event by sampling news reports of the controversy surrounding Negativland.


Thanatopsis (film)

Thanatopsis is an experimental short film by Ed Emshwiller, produced in 1962.
Description.
"Thanatopsis" features images of a motionless man (Mac Emshwiller) and an indistinct dancing woman (Becky Arnold). The film's soundtrack includes a heartbeat and a hacksaw. The title is from the Greek "thanatos" ("death") and "-opsis" ("sight"), the word often translated to mean "meditation on death". "Thanatopsis" is one of several Emshwiller films to feature dance passages, with others including "Lifelines", "Dance Chromatic," "Fusion," "Totem," "Chrysalis", and "Film With Three Dancers."
Reception.
Peter Lev described "Thanatopsis" as the most fascinating and technically accomplished of Emshwiller's early dance films, and a "disturbing contemplation on death." Jenelle Porter thought the film "visually unadorned yet supercharged by vibrating visual effects and [its] soundtrack."


Chi (angle)


Feet per minute


Basic access authentication

In the context of an HTTP transaction, basic access authentication is a method for an HTTP user agent (e.g. a web browser) to provide a user name and password when making a request. In basic HTTP authentication, a request contains a header field in the form of codice_1, where credentials is the Base64 encoding of ID and password joined by a single colon codice_2.
It is specified in from 2015, which obsoletes from 1999.
Features.
HTTP Basic authentication (BA) implementation is the simplest technique for enforcing access controls to web resources because it does not require cookies, session identifiers, or login pages; rather, HTTP Basic authentication uses standard fields in the HTTP header.
Security.
The BA mechanism does not provide confidentiality protection for the transmitted credentials. They are merely encoded with Base64 in transit and not encrypted or hashed in any way. Therefore, basic authentication is typically used in conjunction with HTTPS to provide confidentiality.
Because the BA field has to be sent in the header of each HTTP request, the web browser needs to cache credentials for a reasonable period of time to avoid constantly prompting the user for their username and password. Caching policy differs between browsers.
HTTP does not provide a method for a web server to instruct the client to "log out" the user. However, there are a number of methods to clear cached credentials in certain web browsers. One of them is redirecting the user to a URL on the same domain, using credentials that are intentionally incorrect. However, this behavior is inconsistent between various browsers and browser versions. Microsoft Internet Explorer offers a dedicated JavaScript method to clear cached credentials:
<script>document.execCommand('ClearAuthenticationCache');</script>
In modern browsers, cached credentials for basic authentication are typically cleared when clearing browsing history. Most browsers allow users to specifically clear only credentials, though the option may be hard to find, and typically clears credentials for all visited sites.
Protocol.
Server side.
When the server wants the user agent to authenticate itself towards the server, the server must respond appropriately to unauthenticated requests.
To unauthenticated requests, the server should return a response which contains a "HTTP 401 Unauthorized" status line and a "WWW-Authenticate" header field.
The "WWW-Authenticate" header field for basic authentication is constructed as following:
codice_3
The server may choose to include the "charset" parameter from :
codice_4
This parameter indicates that the server expects the client to use UTF-8 for encoding username and password (see below).
Client side.
When the user agent wants to send authentication credentials to the server, it may use the "Authorization" header field.
The "Authorization" header field is constructed as follows:
For example, if the browser uses codice_5 as the username and codice_6 as the password, then the field's value is the Base64 encoding of codice_7, or codice_8. Then the codice_9 header field will appear as:
codice_10


805 Hormuthia

805 Hormuthia is a minor planet orbiting the Sun. This asteroid follows an elliptical orbit through the main asteroid belt that reaches perihelion just outside the Kirkwood gap at 2.5 AU. Its estimated diameter is 73 km, and it is one of the 500 largest asteroids. 805 Hormuthia was discovered by Max Wolf in 1915, at the University of Heidelberg. The planet is named after Hormuth Kopff, the wife of astronomer August Kopff.


Project Mooncircle

Project Mooncircle is an Independent record label based in Berlin, Germany. Focusing on organic and electronic music.
History.
Project Mooncircle was founded in 2002 by Gordon Gieseking, as an offshoot of experimental electronic Miami label "Beta Bodega". In 2004 Gieseking formed a partnership with the vinyl and clothing mail-order company Hip Hop Vinyl, and when Beta Bodega ceased operations in 2005, Project Mooncircle became HHV.DE’s official imprint.
Respectively in 2009 and 2010, Project Mooncircle took up two sub-labels, dub techno imprint "Project Squared" and blog/label "Finest Ego", and in 2014 it was featured in the XLR8R readers poll on the best independent record labels, behind Ninja Tune and Warp Records.


Gujarat Common Entrance Test

Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET) is an annual common entrance exam for MBA and MCA studies in Gujarat, India, since 2002. Every year it is conducted between March to August. Gujarat Technological University was inaugurated in October 2007. Then, it started conducting GCET.
MBA programmes.
Admission and exam pattern.
There two types of admissions seats covered under GCET:
The written test comprises sections on quantitative ability, reasoning, data interpretation, reading comprehension, verbal ability, and general knowledge. Examinees can take the test in English or Gujarati.
Institutes covered.
Few prominent institutes are:
GCET 2009.
5,429 MBA admissions were given. Out of it, 3,298 admissions were from Open/General category; while 1,463 from SEBC category. 7% seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste, 15% for Scheduled Tribes and 27% seats are for Socially & Educationally Backward Classes (including widows and orphans).


Col legno

In music for bowed string instruments, col legno, or more precisely col legno battuto (, ), is an instruction to strike the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings.
History.
The earliest known use of "col legno" in Western music is to be found in a piece entitled "Harke, harke," from the "First Part of Ayres" (1605) by Tobias Hume, where he instructs the gambist to "drum this with the backe of your bow".
Sound.
The percussive sound of "col legno battuto" has a clear pitch element determined by the distance of the bow from the bridge at the point of contact. As a group of players will never strike the string in exactly the same place, the sound of a section of violins playing "col legno battuto" is dramatically different from the sound of a single violin doing so.
The wood of the bow can also be drawn across the string — a technique called "col legno tratto" ("with the wood drawn"). This is much less common, and the plain marking "col legno" is invariably interpreted to mean "battuto" rather than "tratto". The sound produced by "col legno tratto" is very quiet, with an overlay of white noise, but the pitch of the stopped note can be clearly heard. If the sound is too quiet, the bow can be slightly rolled so that a few bow hairs touch the string as well, leading to a slightly less "airy" sound.
Equipment.
Some string players object to "col legno" playing as it can damage the bow; many players have a cheaper bow which they use for "col legno" passages, or for pieces which require extended passages of "col legno". Some players tap the strings with pencils instead of bows, producing a further percussive, lighter sound.
Examples.
Some notable examples are:


2957 Tatsuo


Foot per second squared

The foot per second squared (plural "feet per second squared") is a unit of acceleration. It expresses change in velocity expressed in units of feet per second (ft/s) divided by time in seconds (s) (or the distance in feet (ft) traveled or displaced, divided by the time in seconds (s) squared). The corresponding unit in the International System of Units (SI) is the metre per second squared.
Abbreviations include ft/s2, ft/sec2, ft/s/s, ft/sec/sec, and ft s−2.


5242 Kenreimonin


302 Clarissa

Clarissa (minor planet designation: 302 Clarissa) is a typical main belt asteroid. The asteroid was discovered by the French astronomer Auguste Charlois on 14 November 1890 in Nice. The origin of the name is unknown. In 1991, 302 Clarissa was being considered as a possible fly-by target for the Cassini spacecraft, but was later removed from consideration.
This body is orbiting the Sun with a period of and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.11. The orbital plane is inclined by 3.4° to the plane of the ecliptic. There are no major planetary resonances near the orbit of 302 Clarissa. It has a retrograde spin with a rotation period of 14.4797 hours. Stellar occultation data provides a size estimate of , while IRAS data gives a diameter of . It is classified as a F-type asteroid and is probably composed of carbonaceous material.
302 Clarissa provides the eponym for a small collisional asteroid family of mostly C-type asteroids. This group consists of 179 bodies with orbits clustered around 302 Clarissa. The family has a small extend of semimajor axis values, suggesting this is a young group; its estimated age is  Myr. 70–90% of the objects in this family have a retrograde spin, suggesting the parent body may have possessed a similar rotation. This family is one of five that are candidate sources for the near Earth asteroids 101955 Bennu and 162173 Ryugu.
Spacecraft visits.
At present, "Clarissa" has not been visited by any spacecraft. As of 1991, mission planning for the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft included a Flyby (spaceflight) of "Clarissa" while leaving the inner solar system in November 1998, however due to delays, the launch of Cassini-Huygens was moved from November 1995 to October 1997, thus negating the option to pass near "Clarissa". Cassini-Huygens passed by asteroid 2685 Masursky on 23 January 2000 instead.


Cold Spring (label)

Cold Spring is an independent record label based in Northamptonshire, England, specialising in "all forms of extreme media, but particularly: Dark ambient, Neo-classical/Neo-folk, Orchestral, Power Electronics/Noise, Japanese Noise, Minimal, Death Industrial, Dark Soundtracks, Experimental, obscure electronics from Russia, China, Japan, Poland and others."
History.
Beginnings.
The label is owned, and run, by Justin Mitchell who had been working for Thee Temple Ov Psychic Youth", a radical occult group from the 1980s. Mitchell had started out listening to early electronic music around the late 1970s, early 1980s. This included bands like Soft Cell and The Human League. From listening to this genre of music Mitchell progressed into the different fields of electronic and experimental music including artists like Genesis P-Orridge. Mitchell began getting involved in the music industry after be involved in re-issuing some cassette releases from his project Satori. These releases originated from around 1984 and were released by another label.
1990-1999.
Cold Spring began releasing recordings in 1988 by mail order, then in 1997 began selling and distributing releases on the internet.
After releasing a handful of cassette releases by artists such as The Grey Wolves and Genesis P-Orridge. Cold Spring released their first vinyl compilation album "...And the Wolf Shall Lick The Jewels From Your Belly" (CSR 1LP). This was in 1990 and featured artists such as The Grey Wolves, Crash Worship and The Hafler Trio.
The next planned release, (CSR 2LP) would have been a split album between Alan Moore and Psychic TV but was withdrawn due to major label pressure. It wasn’t until 1992 that Cold Spring released their next release "Asesinos" by Crash Worship. This would be the first CD release by the label.
In 1999 Cold Spring released the Genesis P-Orridge / Merzbow project titled "A Perfect Pain". The album was an enormous success for Cold Spring, and one of the label’s most requested titles.
2000 – present.
An untitled collaboration between American artists Boyd Rice and Z'EV produced a two track vinyl release in September 2008. The following year, EV released an album titled "Sum Things". It consisted of archive material reflecting his take on the dark ambient genre of music. The tracks were recorded between December 2005 and March 2006.
2009 also saw Cold Spring re-release Anni Hogans "Kickabye". The original EP was re-packaged including ten extra tracks; "Kickabye" featured artists such as Marc Almond and Nick Cave.
In 2010 former Siouxsie and the Banshees member, Steven Severin released his debut album for Cold Spring titled "Blood of a Poet". The album is a recording of his soundtrack for a 1930 silent movie by Jean Cocteau.


Jean D. Gibbons

Jean Dickinson Gibbons (née Dickinson, born 1938) is an American statistician, an expert in nonparametric statistics and an author of books on statistics. She was the first chair of the Committee on Women in Statistics of the American Statistical Association, and the Jean Dickinson Gibbons Graduate Program in Statistics at Virginia Tech is named for her.
Life.
Despite her parents' expectations that she become a nurse or teacher,
Gibbons graduated magna cum laude in mathematics in 1958 from Duke University, and continued at Duke for a master's degree,
with a master's thesis on "Judgments Concerning Applications of Measures of Central Tendency".
She went on to do graduate study at Columbia University,
but completed her PhD in 1962 from Virginia Tech.
Her dissertation was "The Small-Sample Power of some Nonparametric Tests".
After teaching at Mercer University and the University of Cincinnati, she was hired by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. She followed her husband to the University of Alabama,
where she remained despite separating from him and remarrying, until her early retirement in 1995 at age 57.
Books.
Gibbons is the author of ten books. They include:
Awards and honors.
Gibbons became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1972, becoming "probably the youngest female ever elected as a fellow".
In 2015, the graduate program in statistics at Virginia Tech was named in her honor.


Evening Independent

The Evening Independent was St. Petersburg, Florida's first daily newspaper. The sister evening newspaper of the "St. Petersburg Times", it was launched as a weekly newspaper in March 1906 under the ownership of Willis B. Powell. In November 1907, it became a daily paper as the "St. Petersburg Evening Independent".
The newspaper was known for its "Sunshine Offer", which was first enacted in 1910 by Major Lew Brown as a way to publicize St. Petersburg as "The Sunshine City". The paper offered copies free following days without sunshine in St. Petersburg. From 1910 until the paper folded in 1986, the "Evening Independent" made good on its offer 296 times.
The "Evening Independent" was acquired by the "Times" in 1962, when its previous owner, the Thomson newspaper chain, threatened to close it down. Roy Thomson had originally bought the "Independent" so he would have a place to moor his yacht.
The "Evening Independent" was merged into the "Times" in November 1986, initially as part of the "Times"'s "City Times and Independent" section; the "Independent" name would soon be dropped.
Every issue of the "Evening Independent", along with the "Times", is available for viewing on Google News Archive.


Chromaticism

Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism and modality (the major and minor, or "white key", scales). Chromatic elements are considered, "elaborations of or substitutions for diatonic scale members".
Development of chromaticism.
The following timeline is abbreviated from its presentation by Benward & Saker:
As tonality began to expand during the last half of the nineteenth century, with new combinations of chords, keys and harmonies being tried, the chromatic scale and chromaticism became more widely used, especially in the works of Richard Wagner, such as the opera "Tristan und Isolde". Increased chromaticism is often cited as one of the main causes or signs of the "breakdown" of tonality, in the form of increased importance or use of:
As tonal harmony continued to widen and even break down, the chromatic scale became the basis of modern music written using the twelve-tone technique, a tone row being a specific ordering or series of the chromatic scale, and later serialism. Though these styles/methods continue to (re)incorporate tonality or tonal elements, often the trends that led to these methods were abandoned, such as modulation.
Types of chromaticism.
David Cope describes three forms of chromaticism: modulation, borrowed chords from secondary keys, and chromatic chords such as augmented sixth chords.
The total chromatic is the collection of all twelve equally tempered pitch classes of the chromatic scale.
List of chromatic chords:
Other types of chromaticity:
Chromatic note.
A chromatic note is one which does not belong to the scale of the key prevailing at the time. Similarly, a chromatic chord is one which includes one or more such notes. A chromatic and a diatonic note, or two chromatic notes, create chromatic intervals.
A chromatic scale is one which proceeds entirely by semitones, so dividing the octave into twelve equal steps of one semitone each.
Linear chromaticism, is used in jazz: "All improvised lines ... will include non-harmonic, chromatic notes." Similar to in the bebop scale this may be the result of metric issues, or simply the desire to use a portion of the chromatic scale
Chromatic chord.
A chromatic chord is a musical chord that includes at least one note not belonging in the diatonic scale associated with the prevailing key, the use of such chords is the use of chromatic harmony. In other words, at least one note of the chord is chromatically altered. Any chord that is not chromatic is a "diatonic chord".
For example, in the key of C major, the following chords (all diatonic) are naturally built on each degree of the scale:
However, a number of other chords may also be built on the degrees of the scale, and some of these are chromatic. Examples:
Chromatic line.
In music theory, "passus duriusculus" is a Latin term which refers to chromatic line, often a bassline, whether descending or ascending.
From the late 16th century onward, chromaticism has come to symbolize intense emotional expression in music. Pierre Boulez (1986, p. 254) speaks of a long established "dualism" in Western European harmonic language: "the diatonic on the one hand and the chromatic on the other as in the time of Monteverdi and Gesualdo whose madrigals provide many examples and employ virtually the same symbolism. The chromatic symbolizing darkness doubt and grief and the diatonic light, affirmation and joy—this imagery has hardly changed for three centuries." When an interviewer asked Igor Stravinsky (1959, p. 243) if he really believed in an innate connection between "pathos" and chromaticism, the composer replied "Of course not; the association is entirely due to convention." Nevertheless the convention is a powerful one and the emotional associations evoked by chromaticism have endured and indeed strengthened over the years. To quote Cooke (1959, p. 54) "Ever since about 1850—since doubts have been cast, in intellectual circles, on the possibility, or even the desirability, of basing one's life on the concept of personal happiness—chromaticism has brought more and more painful tensions into our art-music, and finally eroded the major system and with it the whole system of tonality."
Examples of descending chromatic melodic lines that would seem to convey highly charged feeling can be found in:
Connotations.
Chromaticism is often associated with dissonance.
In the 16th century the repeated melodic semitone became associated with weeping, see: passus duriusculus, lament bass, and pianto.
Susan McClary (1991) argues that chromaticism in operatic and sonata form narratives can often be understood as the "Other", racial, sexual, class or otherwise, to diatonicism's "male" self, whether through modulation, as to the secondary key area, or other means. For instance, Catherine Clément calls the chromaticism in Wagner's "Isolde" "feminine stink". However, McClary also points out that the same techniques used in opera to represent madness in women were historically highly prized in avant-garde instrumental music, "In the nineteenth-century symphony, "Salome"'s chromatic daring is what distinguishes truly serious composition of the vanguard from mere cliché-ridden hack work." (p. 101)


Canada (unit)

The canada () was the unit of liquid volume of the ancient Portuguese measurement system. It was used in Portugal, Brazil and other parts of the Portuguese Empire until the adoption of the metric system. It was equivalent to 4 "quartilhos" (pints). The exact value of the canada varied from region to region, the canada of Lisbon being equivalent to 1.4 litres.
In the Portuguese metric system officially adopted in August 1814, "canada" was the name given to the unit of liquid volume. This metric canada was equivalent to 1 litre.
The canada is still used in some rural areas of Portugal and Brazil to indicate a liquid volume of between 1.5 and 2.0 liters.


Harmonic minor scale


Evening Express (Scotland)

The Evening Express is a daily local newspaper serving the city of Aberdeen, Scotland.
History.
It was first published in November 1879. It was a tabloid during the 1930s to the 1950s until it resumed as a broadsheet in November 1958, six days a week. By September 1989, The Saturday edition returned to a tabloid with the broadsheet formula during the weekdays. It became a tabloid six days a week in February 1995.
There was also a Saturday night paper called the Green Final which ended in June 2002 after many years in which it was printed on green paper instead of the usual white. It showed progress on how Aberdeen FC did in their matches as well as a full check on the day's football results. For many years, the Green Final was a broadsheet until it became a tabloid from 1988 till the end. The name occasionally reappears when the paper features junior football reports.
To celebrate its 40,000th edition, the Evening Express held a competition for one of its readers to win 40,000 one penny pieces – totalling £400.
Publication and circulation.
The paper along with the "Press and Journal" is published by Aberdeen Journals Ltd. It has a circulation of 17,111.
Columnists.
Moreen Simpson, Scott Begbie the entertainments editor, former Grampian TV presenter Frank Gilfeather. In the Weekend section, every Saturday, TV critic Ewan Cameron gives his rundown on the week's programmes.
"Evening Express" Sports Editor Charlie Allan, Former Aberdeen F.C. footballers Stewart McKimmie and Joe Harper have columns in the sport pages. Another former Don Willie Miller has recently joined them. Sports reporter Sean Wallace also has a weekly column.
Coverage of Trump International Golf Links controversy.
The paper was a staunch supporter of the building of a highly controversial golf resort by Donald Trump at the Menie Estate in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire. The development was against the wishes of many local residents, and on an area designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. In 2007, the Evening Express (Scotland) ran pictures of seven councillors who voted against the application under the headline "You Traitors". In 2009, the newspaper announced it would not report anything said by the protest group "Tripping Up Trump", saying it was not "bona fide". In contrast, opponents complained, the DC Thomson papers in Aberdeen, the "Evening Express" and the "Press and Journal" gave a large amount of positive press to Donald Trump and the real estate development. In 2013, "Press and Journal" editor Damian Bates, who was formerly editor at the "Evening Express", married the executive vice president and press spokeswoman for the Trump International project.
Fallout with Aberdeen Football Club players.
As of 29 February 2008 the players of Aberdeen Football Club stated that they would no longer give interviews to the Evening Express. The players cited perceived negative reporting on the part of the paper as their reason for the move. Sports Editor Charlie Allan proposed a meeting with Scott Severin, but this was declined by the captain. Allan instead met with club media officer Dave Macdermid, who gave a short interview to the Evening Express.
Aberdeen FC manager Jimmy Calderwood did not observe the silence of his players, saying that he felt the players had made a mistake in ceasing to communicate with the Evening Express. He did however state, as did Macdermid, that the players had taken particular offence to the paper's speculation that a number of them would be leaving the club in the summer. Calderwood said that the Evening Express had been "naughty" to do so.
In early March [when?] the ban on giving interviews to the Evening Express was lifted, and the players resumed normal communications with the paper.


Electron phenomenological spectroscopy

Electron phenomenological spectroscopy (EPS) is based on the correlations between integral optical characteristics and properties of substance as a single whole quantum continuum: "spectrum-properties" and "color-properties". According to these laws the physicochemical properties of substance solutions in ultraviolet (UV), visible light and near infrared (IR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum are in proportion to the quantity of radiation absorbed. Such aspects of electron spectroscopy have been shown in the works of Mikhail Yu Dolomatov and has been named "electron phenomenological spectroscopy" because the integral characteristics of the system are studied. Qualitatively, new laws appear on the integral level.
Unlike conventional spectroscopic methods, the EPS studies substances as a comprehensive quantum continuum without separating the spectrum of the substance into characteristic spectral bands on certain frequencies or wavelengths of individual functional groups or components.
New physical phenomena appear in consideration of the integral systems which absorb radiation. For example, EPS is based on the regularities of the correlation of physico-chemical properties and integral spectral characteristics for UV or (and) visible regions of the electromagnetic spectrum (so-called law "spectrum-properties"). Color is also an integral characteristic of a visible spectrum. Therefore, the consequence of this is so-called law "color-properties". All this allow the use of EPS methods for studying individual and complex multicomponent substances.
Methods of EPS were developed after 1988 by the group of Mikhail Yu Dolomatov.
The EPS methods belong to number of new effective techniques of monitoring and control and can be used in petroleum and petrochemical industries, environmental monitoring, electronics, biophysics, medicine, criminalistics, space exploration and other fields.


353 Ruperto-Carola

353 Ruperto-Carola ("prov. designation": "or" ) is a background asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt. It was discovered by German astronomer Max Wolf at the Heidelberg Observatory on 16 January 1893. It is named after the Ruprecht Karls University (University of Heidelberg), whose Latin name is Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis.


2056 Nancy

2056 Nancy, provisional designation "", is a stony background asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 15 October 1909, by German astronomer Joseph Helffrich at Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. The S-type asteroid has a tentative rotation period of 15.0 hours. It was named for Nancy Marsden, wife of British astronomer Brian G. Marsden.
Orbit and classification.
"Nancy" is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population. It orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 1.9–2.5 AU once every 3 years and 4 months (1,206 days; semi-major axis of 2.22 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.14 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation at Heidelberg in October 1909.
Naming.
This minor planet was named after Nancy Lou Zissell Marsden, wife of British astronomer Brian G. Marsden, who established the asteroid's identification, and after whom another minor planet, 1877 Marsden, was previously named. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 April 1978 ().
Physical characteristics.
"Nancy" is a common S-type asteroid in the SMASS classification.
Lightcurves.
As of 2018, only a single fragmentary lightcurve of "Nancy" has been obtained from photometric observation. Analysis of the rotational lightcurve gives a period of 15 hours with a brightness variation of 0.08 magnitude ().
Diameter and albedo.
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Nancy" measures between 7.783 and 11.19 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.16 and 0.351. The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 10.30 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.3.


Additive model

In statistics, an additive model (AM) is a nonparametric regression method. It was suggested by Jerome H. Friedman and Werner Stuetzle (1981) and is an essential part of the ACE algorithm. The "AM" uses a one-dimensional smoother to build a restricted class of nonparametric regression models. Because of this, it is less affected by the curse of dimensionality than e.g. a "p"-dimensional smoother. Furthermore, the "AM" is more flexible than a standard linear model, while being more interpretable than a general regression surface at the cost of approximation errors. Problems with "AM" include model selection, overfitting, and multicollinearity.
Description.
Given a data set formula_1 of "n" statistical units, where formula_2 represent predictors and formula_3 is the outcome, the "additive model" takes the form
or
Where formula_6, formula_7 and formula_8. The functions formula_9 are unknown smooth functions fit from the data. Fitting the "AM" (i.e. the functions formula_9) can be done using the backfitting algorithm proposed by Andreas Buja, Trevor Hastie and Robert Tibshirani (1989).


Times Square (Neuhaus)

Times Square, often referred to as the hum or the Times Square Hum, is a permanent sound art installation created by Max Neuhaus in Times Square in New York City. Originally installed in 1977, it was removed in 1992 and reinstalled in 2002. It is maintained by the Dia Art Foundation, who consider it one of the eleven locations and sites they manage.
History.
Max Neuhaus was a contemporary music maker and artist credited with being the first person to use sound as their primary medium in contemporary art. "Times Square" was one of a grouping of sound art pieces he created throughout the 1970s in public places in New York City. Other works from the same time period include "Walkthrough", in what is now Jay Street–MetroTech station, and "A New Work (Underground)" in the Museum of Modern Art's garden. The work to create "Times Square" specifically began when Neuhaus entered negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Consolidated Edison (ConEd) in 1973 about installing the piece. These negotiations stretched over four years largely due to the MTA's refusal to collaborate with a private individual. Neuhaus had to form a non-profit, which he named "Hybrid Energies for Acoustic Resources" (HEAR), before the state agency would begin discussions.
Once the negotiations were completed, Neuhaus constructed homemade electronic sound generators to be used specifically for this piece. He opened the street grate on a pedestrian island between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, between 45th and 46th Streets, and climbed down into a steam escape vent shaft that is visible through the grate. Here he installed both the generator and a loudspeaker. From the beginning, powering the work proved troublesome as the voltage internal to the subway system was too high to power the piece, and ConEd refused to join a line to MTA property. To rectify this, Neuhaus hired an independent maintenance company to connect the piece to a nearby street lamp through an improvised connection.
From 1977 through the early 1990s, "Times Square" continued to play, but supplying power was an ongoing problem. Neuhaus began getting more commissions in Europe and moved abroad, so keeping up with the maintenance on the piece became impossible. For this reason, the piece was disconnected in 1992, but Neuhaus's reputation continued to grow. In 2002, Christine Burgin, a New York City gallery owner, conceived of bringing "Times Square" back. By working with Neuhaus, the MTA, the Times Square Business Improvement District, and the Dia Art Foundation, Burgin managed to relaunch the piece. The main difference in the new incarnations of the work is a higher volume to overcome the increase in noise in Times Square. Subsequently Neuhaus donated "Times Square" to the Dia Art Foundation, who currently maintain the piece.
Between the 2002 relaunch and Neuhaus's death in 2009, Neuhaus built additional fail-safe measures into the work so that it would not turn off accidentally. He also watched the area over webcam and worked to discourage street performers as he was worried their sounds would interfere with "Times Square".
For about a year between 2015 and 2016, due to the multi-year pedestrianization of Times Square construction, "Times Square" was inaccessible but, according to the director of communications at the Dia Art Foundation, was never turned off. During this construction granite seating was added next to the grate "Times Square" emanates from. Also in 2016 New York introduced "Designated Activity Zones" throughout Times Square where street musicians and costumed characters are allowed to perform for tips. One of these zones was marked out with teal paint next to the "Times Square" grate as well.
"Times Square" remains the only public installation of a work by Neuhaus in the United States, and is active and can be heard 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Design.
"Times Square" is located in Times Square, on the north side of what was once a triangular pedestrian island, but is now a pedestrian plaza, created by the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, between 45th and 46th Streets. There is no signage or marking to denote the piece as a work of art per Neuhaus's request. The sound simply emanates from a grate over a steam vent. Neuhaus stated it is intended for the sound to be "plausible", dismissed as an "unusual machinery sound from below ground" and to be overlooked repeatedly until it is discovered by the viewer in a serendipitous way.
The sound itself is described by Neuhaus as "resembling the after ring of large bells," but has also been described as a "deep and slightly pulsating drone" by Dia, "a rich harmonic sound texture" by the MTA, and "a deeply resonant and mildly undulating drone, its tone suggestive of low-pitched chimes or church bells," by "The New York Times". While it is a singular wavelength, Dia notes that the perceived sound changes in "pitch, timbre, and tone relative to human movement.
The surrounding area has changed drastically since the work was first installed in 1977. Neuhaus described the area in 1977 saying, "The aural and visual environment is rich and complex. It includes large billboards, moving neon signs, office buildings, hotels, theaters, porno centers and electronic game emporiums. Its population is equally diverse, including tourists, theatregoers, commuters, pimps, shoppers, hucksters and office workers." As of 2020 the area is largely a tourist area populated with "desnudas" and costumed characters performing for tips.


Rug plot

A rug plot is a plot of data for a single quantitative variable, displayed as marks along an axis. It is used to visualise the distribution of the data. As such it is analogous to a histogram with zero-width bins, or a one-dimensional scatter plot.
Rug plots are often used in combination with two-dimensional scatter plots by placing a rug plot of the x values of the data along the x-axis, and similarly for the y values. This is the origin of the term "rug plot", as these rug plots with perpendicular markers look like tassels along the edges of the rectangular "rug" of the scatter plot.


2053 Nuki


Sequential estimation

In statistics, sequential estimation refers to estimation methods in sequential analysis where the sample size is not fixed in advance. Instead, data is evaluated as it is collected, and further sampling is stopped in accordance with a pre-defined stopping rule as soon as significant results are observed.
The generic version is called optimal Bayesian Estimator, which is the theoretical underpinning for every sequential estimator (but cannot be instantiated directly). It includes a Markov-Process for the state propagation and measurement process for each state, which yields some typical statistical independence relations. The Markov-Porcess describes the propagagion of a probability distribution over discrete time instances and the measurement is the information one has about each time instant, which is usually less informative than the state. Only the observed sequence will - together with the models - accumulate the information of all measurements and the corresponding markov process to yield better estimates.
From that, the Kalman Filter (and its variants), the particle filter, the histogram filter and others can be derived. It depends on the models, which one to use and requires experience to chose the right one. In most cases, the goal is to estimate the state sequence from the measurements. In other cases, one can use the description to estimate the parameters of a noise process for example. One can also accumulate the unmodeled statistical behavior of the states projected in the measurement space (called innovation sequence, which naturally includes the orthogonality principle in its derivations to yield an independence relation and therefore can be also casted into a Hilbert space representation, which makes things very intuitive for a smaller audience) over time and compare it with a threshold, which then corresponds to the aforementioned stopping criterion. One difficulty is to setup the initial conditions for the probabilistic models, which is in most cases done by experience, data sheets or precise measurements with a different setup.
The statistical behaviour of the heuristic/sampling methods (e.g. particle filter or histogram filter) depends on many parameters and implementation details and should not be used in safety critical applications (since it is very hard to yield theoretical garanties or do proper testing), unless one has a very good reason.
If there is a dependence of each state on an overall entity (e.g. a map or simply an overall state variable), one typically uses SLAM (simultenous localization and mapping) techniques, which includes the sequential estimator as a special case (when the overall state variable has just one state). It will estimate the state sequence and the overall entity.
There are also none-causal variants, that have all measurements at the same time, batches of measurements or revert the state evolution to go backwards again. These are then, however, not real time capable (except one uses a really big buffer, that lowers the throughput dramitcally) anymore and only sufficient for post processing. Other variants do several passes to yield a rough estimate first and then refine it by the following passes, which is inspired by video editing/transcoding. For image processing (where all pixels are available at the same time) these methods become causal again.
Sequential estimation is the core of many well known applications, e.g. the viterbi decoder, convolutional codes, video compression or target tracking. Due to its state space representation, which is in most cases motivated by physical laws of motion, there is a direct link to control applications, which led to the use of the Kalman Filter for space applications for example.


Theta Ceti

Theta Ceti, Latinized from θ Ceti, is a solitary, orange-hued star in the equatorial constellation of Cetus. It is visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 3.60. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 28.66 mas as seen from Earth, it is located about 114 light years from the Sun. At that distance, the visual magnitude is diminished by an extinction factor of 0.10 due to interstellar dust.
With an age of about 2.2 billion years, this is an evolved, K-type giant star with a stellar classification of K0 III. It is a red clump star on the horizontal branch, which means it is generating energy through helium fusion at its core. The star has an estimated 1.8 times the mass of the Sun and has expanded to 10 times the Sun's radius. It is radiating 53 times the solar luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,660 K.
Name.
In the catalogue of stars in the "Calendarium of Al Achsasi Al Mouakket", this star was designated Thanih al Naamat (ثاني النعامات - "thānī al-naʽāmāt"), which was translated into Latin as Secunda Struthionum, meaning "the second ostrich". This star, along with η Cet (Deneb Algenubi), τ Cet (Thalath Al Naamat), ζ Cet (Baten Kaitos)and υ Cet, were Al Naʽāmāt (النعامات), the Hen Ostriches.
In Chinese, (), meaning "Square Celestial Granary", refers to an asterism consisting of θ Ceti, ι Ceti, η Ceti, ζ Ceti, τ Ceti and 57 Ceti. Consequently, the Chinese name for θ Ceti itself is (, .)


2560 Siegma


2567 Elba


4804 Pasteur

4804 Pasteur, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous background asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 20 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 2 December 1989, by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at the ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The asteroid was named after French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur.
Orbit and classification.
"Pasteur" is a non-family asteroid from the main belt's background population. It orbits the Sun in the intermediate asteroid belt at a distance of 2.4–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 5 months (1,612 days; semi-major axis of 2.69 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.12 and an inclination of 9° with respect to the ecliptic.
The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory in March 1956, more than 33 years prior to its official discovery observation.
Physical characteristics.
In the SMASS classification, "Pasteur" is a C-type asteroid. Pan-STARRS photometric survey and SDSS–MFB (Masi–Foglia–Bus) have also characterized the body as a carbonaceous C-type.
Rotation period.
In November 2011, a rotational lightcurve of "Pasteur" was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers at the Oakley Southern Sky Observatory in Australia. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 13.69 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.28 magnitude ().
Diameter and albedo.
According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Pasteur" measures between 15.427 and 21.38 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.05 and 0.1290.
The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" assumes an albedo of 0.10 and calculates a diameter of 15.98 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.1.
Naming.
This minor planet was named after French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), who discovered the principles of vaccination, fermentation and pasteurization. In 1888 the renowned Pasteur Institute was established in Paris. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 21 November 1991 (). The lunar crater "Pasteur", as well as the Martian crater "Pasteur" have also been named after him.


Noise-equivalent temperature

Noise-equivalent temperature (NET) is a measure of the sensitivity of a detector of thermal radiation in the infrared, terahertz or microwave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is the amount of incident signal temperature that would be needed to match the internal noise of the detector such that the signal-to-noise ratio is equal to one. Often the spectrum of the NET is reported as a temperature "per root bandwidth". A detector that measures power is often interested in the analogous noise-equivalent power (NEP). If a relation between intensity and temperature is well defined over the pass band, as in the case of a blackbody, then the NET simply scales with the NEP.
If a detector is limited by either shot noise or Johnson noise then the NET can be decreased by using an increased integration time. The NET of flicker noise limited detectors can not be reduced by increased integration time.
Typically uncooled bolometric detectors have NET figures of 30-200 mK. Cooled photon detecting infrared detectors using materials such as HgCdTe (LWIR or MWIR) or InSb (MWIR) can approach a NET figure of 10 mK. In the microwave radiation region NET values are typically several hundred millikelvins to several kelvins.
For a particular mean signal temperature there is a fundamental limit to NET given by the natural thermodynamic fluctuations of the photon flux from the source under investigation.


Norie Neumark

Norie Neumark (New York City) is a sound and media artist who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She is part of the art group Out-of-Sync, an art collaboration with Maria Miranda.
Work.
Neumark is Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University, Melbourne and Honorary Professorial Fellow, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. She is founding editor of Unlikely Journal for Creative Arts.
She is the founding Director of the Centre for Creative Arts, La Trobe University.
Previously Neumark was Professor of Media Art at University of Technology, Sydney, where she was founding Director of the Centre for Media Arts Innovation (CMAI) at UTS.
Publications.
Books
Voicetracks: Attuning to Voice in Media and the Arts, MIT Press, 2017
Neumark is co-editor of two significant books on voice and media art history:
Voice: Vocal Aesthetics in Digital Arts and Media, Norie Neumark, Ross Gibson and Theo van Leeuwen (eds) 2010 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
At a Distance: Precursors to Internet Art and Activism, Annemarie Chandler and Norie Neumark (eds) 2005 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
In the 1990s Neumark made a series of radiophonic essays for the Listening Room, the premier audio arts program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Several were also broadcast on New American Radio.
In 2003 she initiated and collaborated on the radio/internet drama "Checklist for an Armed Robber". This was an ABC/UTS project.
From the early 1990s Neumark initiated several significant projects in new media art, understanding immediately the enormous potential for sound in the new medias. Initially she made CDROM art, making one of the first Australian art CDROMs, the multi-award-winning "Shock in the Ear", with an innovative use of sound. It was one of the first CDROMs to be funded by the Australian Film Commission (1997). "Shock in the Ear" was included in the international CDROM exhibition Contact Zones: the art of CDROM, curated by Timothy Murray. (1999)
Awards for Shock in the Ear.
"Shock in the Ear" was also a new media installation shown at Artspace, Sydney (1997) and Artemesia Gallery, Chicago (1997).
Other collaborative new media installations.
Dead Centre: the body with organs at The Performance Space, Sydney (July 1999) and in the ABC’s online zine Headspace "in the making".
"Volcano" a new media installation, Artspace, Sydney 2001 and invited to
The Virtual Mine Gegenort, 2001, Germany.
In 2004 Neumark, in collaboration with Maria Miranda, made "Searching for rue Simon-Crubellier", ostensibly a search through the streets and bureaucracies of Paris for the fictive street written about by Georges Perec in his celebrated novel "Life a User’s Manual". This project began a new series of mobile works, with "searching" acting as the frame and motif for performative encounters with strangers. Other mobile works include: "Talking About the Weather", 2006 and "In Search of the Inland Sea" (2008) and "Down the Drain" (2011).
In 2007 Neumark co-curated the exhibition Weather Trouble
In 2010 she co-curated Memory Flows at the Armory, Sydney.
Neumark is the recipient of numerous artist grants and residencies, including the prestigious MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.


HTTP persistent connection

HTTP persistent connection, also called HTTP keep-alive, or HTTP connection reuse, is the idea of using a single TCP connection to send and receive multiple HTTP requests/responses, as opposed to opening a new connection for every single request/response pair. The newer HTTP/2 protocol uses the same idea and takes it further to allow multiple concurrent requests/responses to be multiplexed over a single connection.
Operation.
HTTP 1.0.
Under HTTP 1.0, connections are not considered persistent unless a keep-alive header is included, although there is no official specification for how keepalive operates. It was, in essence, added to an existing protocol. If the client supports keep-alive, it adds an additional header to the request:
Then, when the server receives this request and generates a response, it also adds a header to the response:
Following this, the connection is not dropped, but is instead kept open. When the client sends another request, it uses the same connection. This will continue until either the client or the server decides that the conversation is over, and one of them drops the connection.
HTTP 1.1.
In HTTP 1.1, all connections are considered persistent unless declared otherwise. The HTTP persistent connections do not use separate keepalive messages, they just allow multiple requests to use a single connection. However, the default connection timeout of Apache httpd 1.3 and 2.0 is as little as 15 seconds and just 5 seconds for Apache httpd 2.2 and above. The advantage of a short timeout is the ability to deliver multiple components of a web page quickly while not consuming resources to run multiple server processes or threads for too long.
Keepalive with chunked transfer encoding.
Keepalive makes it difficult for the client to determine where one response ends and the next response begins, particularly during pipelined HTTP operation. This is a serious problem when codice_1 cannot be used due to streaming. To solve this problem, HTTP 1.1 introduced a chunked transfer coding that defines a codice_2 bit. The codice_2 bit is set at the end of each response so that the client knows where the next response begins.
Advantages.
According to RFC 7230, section 6.4, "a client ought to limit the number of simultaneous open connections that it maintains to a given server". The previous version of the HTTP/1.1 specification stated specific maximum values but in the words of RFC 7230 "this was found to be impractical for many applications... instead... be conservative when opening multiple connections". These guidelines are intended to improve HTTP response times and avoid congestion. If HTTP pipelining is correctly implemented, there is no performance benefit to be gained from additional connections, while additional connections may cause issues with congestion.
Disadvantages.
If the client does not close the connection when all of the data it needs has been received, the resources needed to keep the connection open on the server will be unavailable for other clients. How much this affects the server's availability and how long the resources are unavailable depend on the server's architecture and configuration.
Also a race condition can occur where the client sends a request to the server at the same time that the server closes the TCP connection. A server should send a 408 Request Timeout status code to the client immediately before closing the connection. When a client receives the 408 status code, after having sent the request, it may open a new connection to the server and re-send the request. Not all clients will re-send the request, and many that do will only do so if the request has an idempotent HTTP method.
Use in web browsers.
All modern web browsers including Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer (since 4.01), Opera (since 4.0) and Safari use persistent connections.
By default, Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 use two persistent connections while version 8 uses six. Persistent connections time out after 60 seconds of inactivity which is changeable via the Windows Registry.
In Firefox, the number of simultaneous connections can be customized (per-server, per-proxy, total). Persistent connections time out after 115 seconds (1.92 minutes) of inactivity which is changeable via the configuration.


5840 Raybrown


Afghan units of measurement

A variety of units of measurement have been used in Afghanistan to measure length, mass and capacity. Those units were similar to Iranian, Arabian and Indian units. In 1924, Afghanistan adopted the metric system.
Pre-metric Units.
Units similar to those used in Persia, Arabia and India, were used in Afghanistan before 1926. One notable unit used to measure length was the goes, which was equal t 1.16 m (45.67 in).
Narcotics Units.
Narcotics units used in Afghanistan include:
1 Ser = 7 kg (Ser-i-Kabuli) or 14 kg (Ser-i-Mazar - in Mazare Sharif)
1 Kharwar = 80 Ser - 560 kg
1 Khaltar = approximately 7 kg
1 Maan = 4.5 kg (usually for narcotics weight (cannabis, opium and heroin)
1 mon (used in Quetta) = 50 kg
1 Puri = equivalent to just under 1 kg
1 Tulee = typically user's amount of opium, which is a hearty amount of opium to be smoked in a day (This is roughly one AK-47(7.62 × 39 mm) bullet or 10 g. Some Tulee may be up to 30 g.)
1 ha = 5 jerib; 1 jerib = 2000 m2 (land measurement)
1 Biswa = jerib = 100 m2.


644 Cosima

644 Cosima is a minor planet orbiting the Sun.


Inverse second

The inverse second, reciprocal second, or per second (s−1) is a unit of frequency, defined as the multiplicative inverse of the second (a unit of time). It is dimensionally equivalent to:


RareNoiseRecords

RareNoiseRecords is an independent record label based in London, co-founded by Italian entrepreneur Giacomo Bruzzo and Italian musician and producer Eraldo Bernocchi in 2008. The label's mission is to detect and amplify contemporary trends in progressive music, by highlighting their relation to the history of the art-form, while choosing not to be bound by pre-conceptions of genre. It seeks to become a guiding light for all those enamored by exciting, adventurous and progressive sounds. In 2020, Bruzzo described his preferences in music for the label: "I like music that gives me a sense of vertigo, like I'm half a second away from the cliff's edge".
The label released its first albums in 2009. Musicians who have worked frequently with RareNoise include Eraldo Bernocchi, Lorenzo Feliciati, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, Colin Edwin, Cuong Vu, Jamie Saft, Bill Laswell, Joe Morris, Balázs Pándi, Roy Powell, and Pat Mastelotto. RareNoise offers a subscription service, allowing customers to pay for one year's releases in advance.


3762 Amaravella


Intelligent selection testing

The Intelligent Selection testing model is a means of testing job or other candidates on a subset of a high-volume repository of information and attaining a high level of accuracy of assessment of the candidate.
Whereas action selection in Artificial Intelligence attempts to determine a next action based on a predefined and fixed set of possible reactions to a current action, the Intelligent Selection testing model is more similar to a learning agent in that it selects a next question in the same academic category of questions based on the correctness of answers given in a previous question of the same category. However, Intelligent Selection takes advantage of the pattern and trends collected from previous questions answered in order to determine the next selection of question provided to the exam-taker.
This approach uses sampling of data for testing purposes when it is important to gauge an exam taker's understanding of all of the subject matter material but, practically speaking, when there is only enough time to test them on a sample of the subject matter population.
A practical example of this is technical testing of a Java developer. Java software development can be defined into more than 11 categories of technical expertise and more than 40 subcategories within these Java software categories. To technically test a Java developer in this broad a topic is not practical. Intelligent selection in the case of the eScreeningz test narrows the focus of the test for Java developers while retaining the depth of Java technical testing.
The Intelligent Selection testing model would test the exam-taker with one question in a particular category. Based on how well the exam-taker scores in that question, the next question selected in that same category of assessment would be easier, harder or at the same level of difficulty based on how the exam-taker performed. In this manner, the Intelligent Selection testing model is able to assess the candidate with few questions in each category of topic against a mathematically wider range of data due to an "intelligent selection" of following questions and their difficulty range.
Multiple industry examples exist that use the Intelligent Selection testing model, including The GRE General Test and the Graduate Management Admission Test.


Laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is a form of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy that uses a laser as the light source. Photoemission spectroscopy is a powerful and sensitive experimental technique to study surface physics. It is based on the photoelectric effect originally observed by Heinrich Hertz in 1887 and later explained by Albert Einstein in 1905 that when a material is shone by light, the electrons can absorb photons and escape from the material with the kinetic energy: formula_1, where formula_2 is the incident photon energy, formula_3 the work function of the material. Since the kinetic energy of ejected electrons are highly associated with the internal electronic structure, by analyzing the photoelectron spectroscopy one can realize the fundamental physical and chemical properties of the material, such as the type and arrangement of local bonding, electronic structure and chemical composition.
In addition, because electrons with different momentum will escape from the sample in different directions, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is widely used to provide the dispersive energy-momentum spectrum. The photoemission experiment is conducted using synchrotron radiation light source with typical photon energy of 20 – 100 eV. Synchrotron light is ideal for investigating two-dimensional surface systems and offers unparalleled flexibility to continuously vary the incident photon energy. However, due to the high costs to construct and maintain this accelerator, high competition for beam time, as well as the universal minimum electron mean free path in the material around the operating photon energy (20–100 eV) which leads to the fundamental hindrance to the three-dimensional bulk materials sensitivity, an alternative photon source for angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is desirable.
If femtosecond lasers are used, the method can easily be extended to access excited electronic states and electron dynamics by introducing a pump-probe scheme, see also two-photon photoelectron spectroscopy.
Laser-based ARPES.
Background.
Table-top laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy had been developed by some research groups. Daniel Dessau of University of Colorado, Boulder, made the first demonstration and applied this technique to explore superconducting system. The achievement not only greatly reduces the costs and size of facility, but also, most importantly, provides the unprecedented higher bulk sensitivity due to the low photon energy, typically 6 eV, and consequently the longer photoelectron mean free path (2–7 nm) in the sample. This advantage is extremely beneficial and powerful for the study of strongly correlated materials and high-Tc superconductors in which the physics of photoelectrons from the topmost layers might be different from the bulk.
In addition to about one-order-of-magnitude improvement in the bulk sensitivity, the advance in the momentum resolution is also very significant: the photoelectrons will be more broadly dispersed in emission angle when the energy of incident photon decreases. In other words, for a given angular resolution of the electron spectrometer, the lower photon energy leads to higher momentum resolution. The typical momentum resolution of a 6 eV laser-based ARPES is approximately 8 times better than that of a 50 eV synchrotron radiation ARPES. Besides, the better momentum resolution due to low photon energy also results in less k-space accessible to ARPES which is helpful to the more precise spectrum analysis. For instance, in the 50 eV synchrotron ARPES, electrons from the first 4 Brillouin zones will be excited and scattered to contribute to the background of photoelectron analysis. However, the small momentum of 6 eV ARPES will only access some part of the first Brillouin zone and therefore only those electrons from small region of k-space can be ejected and detected as the background. The reduced inelastic scattering background is desirable while doing the measurement of weak physical quantities, in particular the high-Tc superconductors.
Experimental realization.
The first 6 eV laser-based ARPES system used a Kerr mode-locked Ti: sapphire oscillator is used and pumped with another frequency doubled Nd:Vanadate laser of 5 W and then generates 70 fs and 6 nJ pulses which are tunable around 840 nm (1.5 eV) with the 1 MHz repetition rate. Two stages of non-linear second harmonic generation of light are carried out through type Ι phase matching in β-barium borate and then the quadruple light with 210 nm (~ 6 eV) is generated and finally focused and directed into the ultra-high vacuum chamber as the low-energy photon source to investigate the electronic structure of the sample.
In the first demonstration, Dessau’s group showed that the typical forth harmonic spectrum fits very well with the Gaussian profile with a full width at half maximum of 4.7 meV as well as presents a 200 μW power. The performance of high flux (~ 1014- 1015 photons/s) and narrow bandwidth makes the laser-based ARPES overwhelm the synchrotron radiation ARPES even though the best undulator beamlines are used. Another noticeable point is that one can make the quadruple light pass through either 1/4 wave plate or 1/2 wave plate which produces the circular polarization or any linear polarization light in the ARPES. Because the polarization of light can influence the signal to background ratio, the ability to control the polarization of light is a very significant improvement and advantage over the synchrotron ARPES. With the aforementioned favorable features, including lower costs for operating and maintenance, better energy and momentum resolution, and higher flux and ease of polarization control of photon source, the laser-based ARPES undoubtedly is an ideal candidate to be employed to conduct more sophisticated experiments in condensed matter physics.
Applications.
High-Tc superconductor.
One way to show the powerful ability of laser-based ARPES is to study high Tc superconductors. The following figure references refer to this publication. Fig. 1 shows the experimental dispersion relation, binding energy vs. momentum, of the superconducting Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d along the nodal direction of the Brillouin zone. Fig. 1 (b) and Fig. 1 (c) are taken by the synchrotron light source of 28 eV and 52 eV, respectively, with the best undulator beamlines. The significantly sharper spectral peaks, the evidence of quasiparticles in the cuprate superconductor, by the powerful laser-based ARPES are shown in Fig. 1 (a). This is the first comparison of dispersive energy-momentum relation at low photon energy from table-top laser with higher energy from synchrotron ARPES. The much clearer dispersion in (a) indicates the improved energy-momentum resolution as well as many important physical features, such as overall band dispersion, Fermi surface, superconducting gaps, and a kink by electron-boson coupling, are successfully reproduced. It is foreseeable that in the near future the laser-based ARPES will be widely used to help condensed matter physicists get more detailed information about the nature of superconductivity in the exotic materials as well as other novel properties that cannot be observed by the state-of-the-art conventional experimental techniques.
Time-resolved electron dynamics.
Femtosecond laser-based ARPES can be extended to give spectroscopic access to excited states in time-resolved photoemission and two-photon photoelectron spectroscopy. By pumping an electron to a higher level excited state with the first photon, the subsequent evolution and interactions of electronic states as a function of time can be studied by the second probing photon. The traditional pump-probe experiments usually measure the changes of some optical constants, which might be too complex to obtain the relevant physics. Since the ARPES can provide a lot of detailed information about the electronic structures and interactions, the pump-probe laser-based ARPES may study more complicated electronic systems with sub-picosecond resolution.
Summary and perspective.
Even though the angle-resolved synchrotron radiation source is widely used to investigate the surface dispersive energy-momentum spectrum, the laser-based ARPES can even provide more detailed and bulk-sensitive electronic structures with much better energy and momentum resolution, which are critically necessary for studying the strongly correlated electronic system, high-Tc superconductor, and phase transition in exotic quantum system. In addition, the lower costs for operating and higher photon flux make laser-based ARPES easier to be handled and more versatile and powerful among other modern experimental techniques for surface science.


FAA Practical Test

A practical test, more commonly known as a checkride, is the Federal Aviation Administration examination which one must undergo in the United States to receive an aircraft pilot's certification, or a rating for additional flight privileges. The name refers to the portion of the examination in which the candidate being examined flies in an aircraft with the Designated Pilot Examiner or other authorized examiner to demonstrate competency in the skills that are required for the certification. Although "checkride" is the most commonly used term, it is considered informal and is technically known as a Practical Test by the FAA and in all its literature, and the specific objectives which the candidate must meet are called the Airman Certification Standards, or ACS. Other positions that often include checkrides include air traffic controllers and flight dispatchers.
In addition to successfully completing a checkride, one must also complete an oral examination (which happens before, and often, to some extent, during the checkride), and meet certain basic aeronautical experience requirements (such as number of hours flown) as well as pass a separate multiple-choice computer-administered test that is quite consistently called the "written test."
During a checkride, an examiner takes on a role more like that of a passenger rather than an instructor. It is the examiner's job to observe that the candidate demonstrates good decision-making skills, rather than teach or to act as a crewmember, although an examiner is likely to offer advice during the ride if inclined. The examiner usually does not touch any of the aircraft controls unless necessary to maintain the safety of the flight, in which case the candidate usually fails the examination instantly, except for the part when the examiner acts as a safety pilot during operations with a view limiting device.
While the Airman Certification Standards outline very specific tolerances that a prospect must adhere to, the examiner has a certain amount of subjective control over whether the student passes or fails.
When a candidate fails a checkride, the examiner has the discretion to end the checkride immediately or to allow the student to complete the remaining objectives of the checkride to and defer the failed task to a retake. The checkride may not continue without the consent of the applicant. During the retake, the examiner is required to test only the previously-failed or uncompleted items but may retest any items previously passed or to fail the candidate again based on them.
If the checkride has to be stopped due to any reason besides student pilot failure, such as weather setting in, the examiner will issue a letter of discontinuance, which will state the maneuvers that have been completed so that the retake checkride can be limited to the maneuvers that have not yet been completed.


Ninth

In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second.
Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its sonority level is considered less dense.
Major ninth.
A major ninth is a compound musical interval spanning 14 semitones, or an octave plus 2 semitones. If transposed into a single octave, it becomes a major second or minor seventh. The major ninth is somewhat dissonant in sound.
Transposition.
Some common transposing instruments sound a major ninth lower than written.
These include the tenor saxophone, the bass clarinet, the baritone/euphonium when written in treble clef, and the trombone when written in treble clef (British brass band music).
When baritone/euphonium or trombone parts are written in bass clef or tenor clef they sound as written.
Minor ninth.
A minor ninth (m9 or -9) is a compound musical interval spanning 13 semitones, or 1 semitone above an octave (thus it is enharmonically equivalent to an augmented octave). If transposed into a single octave, it becomes a minor second or major seventh. The minor ninth is rather dissonant in sound, and in European classical music, often appears as a suspension. Béla Bartók wrote a study in minor 9ths for piano. The fourth movement (an intermezzo) of Robert Schumann's "Faschingsschwank aus Wien", is a constructed to feature prominent notes of the melody a minor ninth above the accompaniment: Alexander Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 9, 'Black Mass' is based around the interval of a minor ninth, creating an uncomfortable and harsh sound. Several of Igor Stravinsky's works open with a striking gesture that includes the interval of a minor 9th, either as a chord: "Les Noces" (1923) and "Threni" (1958); or as an upward melodic leap: "Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra" (1929), "Symphony in Three Movements" (1946), and "Movements for Piano and Orchestra" (1960).
Augmented ninth.
An augmented ninth is a compound musical interval spanning 15 semitones, or 3 semitones above an octave. Enharmonically equivalent to a compound minor third, if transposed into a single octave, it becomes a minor third or major sixth.
See: Dominant seventh sharp ninth chord.
Ninth chords.
Three types of ninth chords may be distinguished: dominant (9), major (M9), and minor (m9). They may easily be remembered as the chord quality of the seventh does not change with the addition of the second scale degree, which is a major second in both major and minor, thus:
 0 4 7 t + 2 = dominant seventh + ninth = dominant ninth chord
 0 4 7 e + 2 = major seventh + ninth = major ninth chord
 0 3 7 t + 2 = minor seventh + ninth = minor ninth chord
The dominant ninth (V9) is a dominant seventh plus a major or minor ninth.


Isomorphic keyboard

An isomorphic keyboard is a musical input device consisting of a two-dimensional grid of note-controlling elements (such as buttons or keys) on which any given sequence and/or combination of musical intervals has the "same shape" on the keyboard wherever it occurs – within a key, across keys, across octaves, and across tunings.
Examples.
Helmholtz's 1863 book "On the Sensations of Tone" gave several possible layouts. Practical isomorphic keyboards were developed by Bosanquet (1875), Janko (1882), Wicki (1896), Fokker (1951), Erv Wilson (1975–present), (2001)https://patents.google.com/patent/US6501011B2/en and Antonio Fernández (2009). Accordions have been built since the 19th century using various isomorphic keyboards, typically with dimensions of semitones and tones. The keyboards of Bosanquet and Erv Wilson are also known as generalized keyboards. The keyboard of Antonio Fernández is also known as Transclado. The Ragzpole is a recently developed cylindrical MIDI controller having dimensions in fifths and major thirds.
Invariance.
Isomorphic keyboards can expose, through their geometry, two invariant properties of music theory:
Theory.
All isomorphic keyboards derive their invariance from their relationship to rank-2 regular temperaments of just intonation. A is generated by two basis vectors. A keyboard lattice generated by two given musical intervals, which are mapped to those basis vectors, is isomorphic with any rank-2 temperament that is also generated by those same two intervals. For example, an isomorphic keyboard generated by the octave and tempered perfect fifth will be isomorphic with both the syntonic and schismatic temperaments, which are both generated by those same two intervals.
Benefits.
Two primary benefits are claimed by the inventors and enthusiasts of isomorphic keyboards:
A third potential benefit of isomorphic keyboards, dynamic tonality, has recently been demonstrated, but its utility is not proven. Using a continuous controller, a performer can vary the tuning of all notes in real time, while retaining invariant fingering on an isomorphic keyboard. Dynamic tonality has the potential to enable new real-time tonal effects such as polyphonic tuning bends, new chord progressions, and temperament modulations, but the musical utility of these new effects has not been demonstrated. One such keyboard that can do this is the Lumatone Isomorphic Keyboard.
Comparisons.
The Dodeka keyboard has its keys arranged along a single direction, while most other isomorphic keyboards have their keys arranged in two dimensions. On the Harmonic and Gerhard keyboards, the two smallest intervals between a key and its six adjacent keys are a minor third (3 semitones) and a major third (4 semitones). On the Wiki-Heyden and Array Mbira, the smallest intervals are a major second (2 semitones) and perfect fourth (5 semitones). On the Park keyboard, the smallest intervals are a major second (2 semitones) and a minor third (3 semitones). On the Jankó keyboard, the smallest intervals are an augmented unison (1 semitone) and a major second (2 semitones).
Isomorphic keyboards can be compared and contrasted using metrics such as the thickness of an octave's "swathe" of buttons on the keyboard and the number of "repetitions" of a given note on the keyboard. Different isomorphic keyboards are suited for different uses; for example, the Fokker keyboard is well-suited to tunings of the syntonic temperament in which the tempered perfect fifth stays in a narrow range around 700 cents, whereas the Wicki keyboard is useful over both this and a much broader range of tunings.


Open D tuning

Open D tuning is an open tuning for the acoustic or electric guitar. The open string notes in this tuning are (from lowest to highest): D A D F A D. It uses the three notes that form the triad of a D major chord: D, the root note; A, the perfect fifth; and F, the major third.
To tune a guitar from standard tuning to open D tuning, lower the 1st (high-E) string down a full step to D, 2nd (B) string down a full step to A, 3rd (G) string down a half step to F, and 6th (low-E) string down a full step to D.
In this tuning, when the guitar is strummed without fretting any of the strings, a D major chord is sounded. This means that any major chord can be easily created using one finger, fretting all the strings at once (also known as barring); for example, fretting all the strings at the second fret will produce an E major, at the third fret an F major, and so on up the neck.
Open D tuning is very popular with slide guitar (or 'bottleneck') players, as it allows them to play complete chords using the slide. This tuning is also used in regular (non-slide) guitar playing. The full and vibrant sound it produces - particularly on an acoustic guitar - also makes it ideal for fingerstyle playing.
Many new chord shapes and sounds are available with open D tuning. It can offer a strong compositional element that produces tonal qualities markedly different from standard tuning. The full range of major and minor chords, with all their extensions, are available to the player. Many well-known guitarists have used this tuning at some point in their career. Neil Young, Richie Havens, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, Barry Gibb, Jim O'Rourke and Jason Swain have all released recordings featuring this tuning. Elmore James used this tuning heavily. Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam uses this tuning when playing the rhythm guitar on "Even Flow" and "Oceans", from their "Ten" album. Broadbay use this tuning in all their songs. Mumford & Sons also use this tuning on their tracks "The Cave", "Awake My Soul" and "Roll Away Your Stone" from their album "Sigh No More". Needtobreathe used it on some of their songs, most notably "Something Beautiful" from The Outsiders. Laura Marling uses the tuning on the title track of her 2010 album, "I Speak Because I Can". Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine uses this tuning and its variations on many songs. Also, Alessio Frusta uses this tuning on the track "Freedom Island" from his 2015 album "Pen Siero". Additionally, Switchfoot uses this tuning on the track "Daisy" from its 2005 album Nothing Is Sound, albeit lowered a half step (giving an open D tuning with the same intervalic relationships as open D). Mitski uses this tuning for almost all the songs, while guitarists performing with her live often use standard tuning.
Variations.
D-A-D-F-A-C, Open Dmaj7 tuning.
This variant is achieved lowering the high D string a half step to C when tuned to open D. C is the major seventh of the D major scale, hence the name. It also can be used for both fingerstyle and slide guitar work.
D-A-D-F-A-D, Open Dm tuning.
This variant uses an F natural, the minor third.
This tuning has been used by Niko Wenner of Oxbow on the songs "Angel," "Cat and Mouse"; by Ian Thornley of Big Wreck on "Ladylike" and "Overemphasizing" and by Owen Campbell on "Sunshine Road".
DADFAD tuning is ideal for guitarists who are accompanying instruments that are tuned to minor scales, such as the Native American flute.
D-A-D-F-A-E, Open Dmadd9 tuning.
This tuning was used by the progressive metal band Opeth on their album Ghost Reveries.
D-A-D-A-D-D, Open D5 tuning.
This variant is used most notably by Mark Tremonti of Alter Bridge and Creed. Eight of the songs in which it is used are "Are You Ready?", "Faceless Man", "My Sacrifice", "Weathered", "Open Your Eyes", "Ghost of Days Gone By" (half-step down), "Life Must Go On", and “Fortress” (half-step down). It is also used on "Rain", "Brains", and "New Way Out", all tuned down 1 and a half steps (BFBFBB). Mark has mentioned in his instructional DVD that this tuning is one of his favorites because of its simplicity. It is also used by the Goo Goo Dolls in their song "Black Balloon", which was tuned down a half step on the album but played live in Open D5. "Without You", "Emotion Sickness" and "Paint Pastel Princess" by Australian band Silverchair also uses the Open D5 tuning, but down half a step. Fair to Midland use this tuning tuned down 1 full step (CGCGCC) and 1 1/2 steps (BFBFBB).
D-A-D-D-A-D.
A variation on the above Open D5 tuning, is occasionally used by folk guitarists, such as Stephen Stills on the song "4+20". It has the advantage of a ringing pair of identical Ds on the third and fourth strings, which can be used to carry a melody line above a bed of D5 created by the other strings.
D-A-D-A-A-D.
This tuning has been used by:
D-D-D-A-D-F.
Nicknamed the "Wind of Change," this tuning was used by Peter Frampton on his song of the same name. Frampton discovered this tuning while browsing guitars at the home of George Harrison, who had a large collection of guitars in various tunings. When speaking of the tuning in an interview, Frampton said, "The low E and A strings drop down to D, the fourth string remains unchanged, the third string goes up to A, the second string up to D, and the first string up to F , so there's a D triad on top and three Ds on the bottom. It's a very strange tuning, but oh my God, it sounds huge."


Mulling (spectroscopy)

Mulling is the process of grounding up a sample into fine powder through mortar and pestle that is dispersed in a paraffin for IR spectroscopy.
Sample Preparation.
Using a nonporous ceramic mortar and pestle, a small quantity of the solid sample is ground up until the sample is exceedingly fine and has a glassy appearance. A drop of the mulling agent is added to the ground solid in the mortar. The mixture is further ground up until a uniform paste with the consistency of toothpaste is acquired. The resulting paste is transferred to a salt plate (NaCl) with a small flat spatula. The disks are gently pressed together, leaving the sample ready for analysis.
Mulling Agents.
There are a variety of mineral oils used as mulling agents, their differences being the absorption bands in the IR spectra. The most common mineral oil is Nujol , which is essentially a liquid paraffin based solution and when used for mulling, strong carbon to hydrogen bond absorptions are exhibited in the infrared spectrum. The carbon to hydrogen bond absorptions that may be present in the sample itself are masked by those from the Nujol mulling agent. Fluorolube is also commonly used, and is essentially a fluorocarbon based solution and exhibits strong carbon to fluorine bond absorptions from 1300cm^-1 onwards to 400cm^-1 in the Mid IR spectrum. The useful range for observation of a sample in a Mid IR spectrum when using Fluorolube as the mulling agent is 4000 cm^-1 to 1300cm^-1.
Therefore, if possible it is preferable to run a sample as both a Nujol mull and a Fluorolube mull. This allows for all of the spectral features of the sample to be seen in an infrared spectrum, because the regions masked by each specific mulling agent are unaffected in the other spectrum.


Steelyard balance

A steelyard balance, steelyard, or stilyard is a straight-beam balance with arms of unequal length. It incorporates a counterweight which slides along the longer arm to counterbalance the load and indicate its weight. A steelyard is also known as a Roman steelyard or Roman balance.
Structure.
The steelyard comprises a balance beam which is suspended from a Lever/pivot or fulcrum which is very close to one end of the beam. The two parts of the beam which flank the pivot are the arms. The arm from which the object to be weighed (the load) is hung is short and is located close to the pivot point. The other arm is longer, is graduated and incorporates a counterweight which can be moved along the arm until the two arms are balanced about the pivot, at which time the weight of the load is indicated by the position of the counterweight.
Mechanism.
The steelyard exemplifies the law of the lever, wherein, when balanced, the weight of the object being weighed, multiplied by the length of the short balance arm to which it is attached, is equal to the weight of the counterweight multiplied by the distance of the counterweight from the pivot.
History.
According to Thomas G. Chondros of Patras University, a simple steelyard balance with a lever mechanism first appeared in the ancient Near East over 5,000 years ago. According to Mark Sky of Harvard University, the steelyard was in use among Greek craftsmen of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, even before Archimedes demonstrated the law of the lever theoretically. The Latin name "statera" comes from the Ancient Greek "στατήρ" ("statḗr"). Roman and Chinese steelyards were independently invented around 200 BC. Steelyards dating from AD 100 to 400 have been unearthed in Great Britain. Steelyards and their components have also been excavated from shipwrecks of the Byzantine period in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, such as the 7th-century wreck at Yassi Ada, Turkey, and the mid-first millennium shipwreck at Black Assarca Island, Eritrea. The "Oxford English Dictionary" suggests that the name "steelyard" is derived from" steel" combined with "yard", influenced by a "misunderstood" allusion to the Steelyard, the main trading base of the Hanseatic League in London in the 14th century.
Large steelyard balances (known as cart balances), both public and private, were a common feature in agricultural areas in England from the eighteenth century forward. An example of a public cart steelyard remains at Soham, Cambridgeshire and another is to be seen at Woodbridge, Suffolk.
Function.
Steelyards of different sizes have been used to weigh loads ranging from ounces to tons. A small steelyard could be a foot or less in length and thus conveniently used as a portable device that merchants and traders could use to weigh small ounce-sized items of merchandise. In other cases a steelyard could be several feet long and used to weigh sacks of flour and other commodities. Even larger steelyards were three stories tall and used to weigh fully laden horse-drawn carts.
Scandinavia's steelyard.
A Scandinavian steelyard is a variant which consists of a bar with a fixed weight attached to one end, a movable pivot point and an attachment point for the object to be weighed at the other end. Once the object to be weighed is attached to its end of the bar, the pivot point, which is frequently a loop at the end of a cord or chain, is moved until the bar is balanced. The bar can be calibrated so that the object's weight can be read off directly from the position of the pivot. This type is known in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.