Low-voltage differential signaling
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|Low-voltage differential signaling|
|Speed||655 Mbit/s (rates up to 1-3 Gbit/s possible)|
Low-voltage differential signaling, or LVDS, also known as TIA/EIA-644, is a technical standard that specifies electrical characteristics of a differential, serial communications protocol. LVDS operates at low power and can run at very high speeds using inexpensive twisted-pair copper cables. Since LVDS is a physical layer specification only, many data communication standards and applications use it but then add a data link layer as defined in the OSI model on top of it.
LVDS was introduced in 1994, and has become popular in products such as LCD-TVs, automotive infotainment systems, industrial cameras and machine vision, notebook and tablet computers, and communications systems. The typical applications are high-speed video, graphics, video camera data transfers, and general purpose computer buses. Early on, the notebook and LCD display vendors commonly used the term LVDS instead of FPD-Link when referring to their application, and the term LVDS has mistakenly become synonymous with Flat Panel Display Link in the video-display engineering vocabulary.
Differential vs. single-ended signaling
LVDS is a differential signaling system, meaning that it transmits information as the difference between the voltages on a pair of wires; the two wire voltages are compared at the receiver. In a typical implementation, the transmitter injects a constant current of 3.5 mA into the wires, with the direction of current determining the digital logic level. The current passes through a termination resistor of about 100 to 120 ohms (matched to the cable's characteristic impedance to reduce reflections) at the receiving end, and then returns in the opposite direction via the other wire. From Ohm's law, the voltage difference across the resistor is therefore about 350 mV. The receiver senses the polarity of this voltage to determine the logic level.
As long as there is tight electric- and magnetic-field coupling between the two wires, LVDS reduces the generation of electromagnetic noise. This noise reduction is due to the equal and opposite current flow in the two wires creating equal and opposite electromagnetic fields that tend to cancel each other. In addition, the tightly coupled transmission wires will reduce susceptibility to electromagnetic noise interference because the noise will equally affect each wire and appear as a common-mode noise. The LVDS receiver is unaffected by common mode noise because it senses the differential voltage, which is not affected by common mode voltage changes.
The fact that the LVDS transmitter consumes a constant current also places much less demand on the power supply decoupling and thus produces less interference in the power and ground lines of the transmitting circuit. This reduces or eliminates phenomena such as ground bounce which are typically seen in terminated single-ended transmission lines where high and low logic levels consume different currents, or in non-terminated transmission lines where a current appears abruptly during switching.
The low common-mode voltage (the average of the voltages on the two wires) of about 1.2 V allows using LVDS with a wide range of integrated circuits with power supply voltages down to 2.5 V or lower. In addition, there are variations of LVDS that use a lower common mode voltage. One example is sub-LVDS (introduced by Nokia in 2004) that uses 0.9 V typical common mode voltage. Another is Scalable Low Voltage Signaling for 400 mV (SLVS-400) specified in JEDEC JESD8-13 October 2001 where the power supply can be as low as 800 mV and common mode voltage is about 400 mV.
The low differential voltage, about 350 mV, causes LVDS to consume very little power compared to other signaling technologies. At 2.5 V supply voltage the power to drive 3.5 mA becomes 8.75 mW, compared to the 90 mW dissipated by the load resistor for an RS-422 signal.
|GND||1.0 V||1.4 V||2.5–3.3 V||1.2 V|
LVDS is not the only low power differential signaling system in use, others include the Fairchild Current Transfer Logic serial I/O.
LVDS became popular in the mid 1990s. Before that, computer monitor resolutions were not large enough to need such fast data rates for graphics and video. However, in 1992 Apple Computer needed a method to transfer multiple streams of digital video without overloading the existing NuBus on the backplane. Apple and National Semiconductor (NSC) created QuickRing, which was the first integrated circuit using LVDS. QuickRing was a high speed auxiliary bus for video data to bypass the NuBus in Macintosh computers. The multimedia and supercomputer applications continued to expand because both needed to move large amounts of data over links several meters long (from a disk drive to a workstation for instance).
The first commercially successful application for LVDS was in notebook computers transmitting video data from graphics processing units to the flat panel displays using the Flat Panel Display Link by National Semiconductor. The first FPD-Link chipset reduced a 21-bit wide video interface plus the clock down to only 4 differential pairs (8 wires), which enabled it to easily fit through the hinge between the display and the notebook and take advantage of LVDS's low-noise characteristics and fast data rate. FPD-Link became the de facto open standard for this notebook application in the late 1990s and is still the dominant display interface today in notebook and tablet computers. This is the reason IC vendors such as Texas Instruments, Maxim, Fairchild, and Thine produce their versions of the FPD-Link chipset.
The applications for LVDS expanded to flat panel displays for consumer TVs as screen resolutions and color depths increased. To serve this application, FPD-Link chipsets continued to increase the data-rate and the number of parallel LVDS channels to meet the internal TV requirement for transferring video data from the main video processor to the display-panel's timing controller. FPD-Link (commonly called LVDS) became the de facto standard for this internal TV interconnect and remains the dominant interface for this application in 2012.
The next target application was transferring video streams through an external cable connection between a desktop computer and display, or a DVD player and a TV. NSC introduced higher performance follow-ons to FPD-Link called the LVDS Display Interface (LDI) and OpenLDI standards. These standards allow a maximum pixel clock of 112 MHz, which suffices for a display resolution of 1400 × 1050 (SXGA+) at 60 Hz refresh. A dual link can boost the maximum display resolution to 2048 × 1536 (QXGA) at 60 Hz. FPD-Link works with cable lengths up to about 5m, and LDI extends this to about 10m. However, Digital Visual Interface (DVI) using TMDS over CML signals won the standards competition and became the standard for externally connecting desktop computers to monitors, and HDMI eventually became the standard for connecting digital video sources such as DVD players to flat panel displays in consumer applications.
Another successful LVDS application is Camera Link, which is a serial communication protocol designed for computer vision applications and based on the NSC chipset called Channel Link that uses LVDS. Camera Link standardizes video interfaces for scientific and industrial products including cameras, cables, and frame grabbers. The Automated Imaging Association (AIA) maintains and administers the standard because it is the industry's global machine vision trade group.
More examples of LVDS used in computer buses are HyperTransport and FireWire, both of which trace their development back to the post-Futurebus work, which also led to SCI. In addition, LVDS is the physical layer signaling in SCSI standards (Ultra-2 SCSI and later) to allow higher data rates and longer cable lengths. Serial ATA, PCI Express, RapidIO, and SpaceWire use LVDS to allow high speed data transfer.
Intel and AMD published a press release in December 2010 stating they would no longer support the LVDS LCD-panel interface in their product lines by 2013. They are promoting Embedded DisplayPort and Internal DisplayPort as their preferred solution. However, the LVDS LCD-panel interface has proven to be the lowest cost method for moving streaming video from a video processing unit to a LCD-panel timing controller within a TV or notebook, and in February 2012 LCD TV and notebook manufacturers continue to introduce new products using the LVDS interface.
Comparing serial and parallel data transmission
LVDS works in both parallel and serial data transmission. In parallel transmissions multiple data differential pairs carry several signals at once including a clock signal to synchronize the data. In serial communications, multiple single-ended signals are serialized into a single differential pair with a data rate equal to that of all the combined single-ended channels. For example, a 7-bit wide parallel bus serialized into a single pair that will operate at 7 times the data rate of one single-ended channel. The devices for converting between serial and parallel data are the serializer and deserializer, abbreviated to SerDes when the two devices are contained in one integrated circuit.
As an example, FPD-Link actually uses LVDS in a combination of serialized and parallel communications. The original FPD-Link designed for 18-bit RGB video has 3 parallel data pairs and a clock pair, so this is a parallel communication scheme. However, each of the 3 pairs transfers 7 serialized bits during each clock cycle. So the FPD-Link parallel pairs are carrying serialized data, but use a parallel clock to recover and synchronize the data.
Serial data communications can also embed the clock within the serial data stream. This eliminates the need for a parallel clock to synchronize the data. There are multiple methods for embedding a clock into a data stream. One method is inserting 2 extra bits into the data stream as a start-bit and stop-bit to guarantee bit transitions at regular intervals to mimic a clock signal. Another method is 8b/10b encoding.
LVDS transmission with 8b/10b encoding
LVDS does not specify a bit encoding scheme because it is a physical layer standard only. LVDS accommodates any user-specified encoding scheme for sending and receiving data across an LVDS link, including 8b/10b encoded data. An 8b/10b encoding scheme embeds the clock signal information and has the added benefit of DC balance. DC balance is necessary for AC-coupled transmission paths (such as capacitive or transformer-coupled paths). There are also DC-balance encoding methods for the start bit/stop bit embedded clock, which usually include a data scrambling technique. The key point in LVDS is the physical layer signaling to transport bits across wires. It is compatible with almost all data encoding and clock embedding techniques.
LVDS for very high data-throughput applications
When a single differential pair of serial data is not fast enough there are techniques for grouping serial data channels in parallel and adding a parallel clock channel for synchronization. This is the technique used by FPD-Link. Other examples of parallel LVDS using multiple LVDS pairs and a parallel clock to synchronize are Channel Link and HyperTransport.
There is also the technique to increase the data throughput by grouping multiple LVDS-with-embedded-clock data channels together. However, this is not parallel LVDS because there is no parallel clock and each channel has its own clock information. An example of this technique is PCI Express where 2, 4, or 8 8b/10b encoded serial channels carry application data from source to destination. In this case the destination must employ a data synchronization method to align the multiple serial data channels.
The original LVDS standard only envisioned driving a digital signal from one transmitter to one receiver in a point-to-point topology. However, engineers using the first LVDS products soon wanted to drive multiple receivers with a single transmitter in a multipoint topology. As a result NSC invented Bus LVDS (BLVDS) as the first variation of LVDS designed to drive multiple LVDS receivers. It uses termination resistors at each end of the differential transmission line to maintain the signal integrity. Double termination is necessary because it is possible to have one or more transmitters in the center of the bus driving signals toward receivers in both directions. The difference from standard LVDS transmitters was increasing the current output in order to drive the multiple termination resistors. In addition, the transmitters need to tolerate the possibility of other transmitters simultaneously driving the same bus.
Bus LVDS and LVDM (by TI) are de facto multipoint LVDS standards. Multipoint LVDS (MLVDS) is the TIA standard (TIA-899). The AdvancedTCA standard specified MLVDS for clock distribution across the backplane to each of the computing module boards in the system.
MLVDS has two types of receivers. Type-1 is compatible with LVDS and uses a +/- 50 mV threshold. Type-2 receivers allow Wired-Or signaling with M-LVDS devices. For M-LVDS:
|Min.||0.3 V||0.480 V||−1.4 V|
|Max.||2.1 V||0.650 V||3.8 V|
The present form of LVDS was preceded by an earlier standard initiated in Scalable Coherent Interconnect (SCI). SCI-LVDS was a subset of the SCI family of standards and specified in the IEEE 1596.3 1995 standard. The SCI committee designed LVDS for interconnecting multiprocessing systems with a high-speed and low power interface to replace positive emitter-coupled logic (PECL).
The ANSI/TIA/EIA-644-A (published in 2001) standard defines LVDS. This standard originally recommended a maximum data rate of 655 Mbit/s over twisted-pair copper wire, but data rates from 1- to 3-Gbit/s are common today on high quality transmission medium.
- Low-voltage positive emitter-coupled logic
- List of device bandwidths
- FPD-Link, a popular implementation of LVDS
- CML Current mode logic competitive standard
- display controller – IC that produces the signal
- M-LVDS Application Reports
- LVDS Application and Data Book, Texas Instruments, SLLD009, November 2002.
- An Overview of LVDS Technology, Texas Instruments, AN-971, July 1998.
- LVDS Owner's Manual, Texas Instruments, 4th Edition, 2008.
- Introduction to M-LVDS (TIA/EIA-899), Texas Instruments, SLLA108, February 2002.
- "Scalable Low-Voltage Signaling SLVS-400" JEDEC Standard, JESD8-13, October 2001.
- LVDS circuits testing
- LVDS Compatibility with RS422 and RS485 Interface Standards, Fairchild Semiconductor, AN-5023, July 2002.


FIRST CLONED HUMAN EMBRYO; the Picture That Marks Another Leap Forward in Science - but Is Sure to Fuel the Moral Debate
Byline: IAN COBAIN
IT could be a shot of a lunar landscape or a piece of 1960s pop art.
But this is a picture of the first human embryo to be cloned by scientists.
The mass at the centre is a 12-day-old male embryo consisting of almost 400 cells. Invisible to the naked eye, it had to be photographed through a microscope which magnified it 200 times. Two days later it was incinerated by the American scientists who created it. The breakthrough will fuel disquiet over the apparently unstoppable rush of biotechnology. It also raises starkly the key question of just what constitutes a human being.
The highly-respected firm which created the embryo, Advanced Cell Technology, insist they have no intention of trying to produce a cloned baby.
But there are fears that the technology could be used to do exactly that.
Dr Robert Lanza, ACT's director of tissue engineering, says the embryo cannot be seen as a person because it is less than 14 days old, the age at which a human embryo implants itself into the wall of the womb and starts to develop a nervous system.
The ACT programme is aimed at producing human body tissue to treat patients with a range of conditions, including nerve damage, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
Although Dr Lanza's team have yet to publish full details of how they created the embryo, experts in the field say there is no reason to doubt their claim.
The methods involved were similar to those which produced Dolly the sheep at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh. The American scientists first isolated the DNA-loaded nucleus of a human cell, part of a skin sample from a man's leg. Then they took the egg of a cow, inserted a tiny needle, and extracted the nucleus and all DNA material, leaving only the outer protein.
The human nucleus was inserted into the cow's egg which was placed in a laboratory dish and soaked in a chemical solution which 'tricked' it into thinking it was a newly-conceived embryo.
In a process identical to the days following natural conception, the cell repeatedly doubled itself and could, theoretically, have developed into a recognisable human foetus.
But in the first 14 days, all the cells are a type known as stem cells, each of which has the potential to develop into nerves, blood, skin or bone, but has not begun to do so.
These are the cells the scientists want to cultivate. The aim is to manipulate them so that they grow into skin, nerves, or even organs.
These can be transplanted into the donor of the original cell with a high chance of success, because the DNA makeup will be his own and his body should accept the new tissue.
ACT perfected the process of creating human embryos last November, when the picture was taken, and is thought to have made many since then, incinerating them all, in line with U.S. research rules, before they reached the age of two weeks.
The company issued the picture, it says, with the aim of dispelling concern about the artificial conception of human life.
ACT president Michael West, a former truck dealer who turned to medical research and joined the Massachusetts company after setting up two …
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: FIRST CLONED HUMAN EMBRYO; the Picture That Marks Another Leap Forward in Science - but Is Sure to Fuel the Moral Debate. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: Daily Mail (London). Publication date: June 17, 1999. Page number: 1. © 2007 Daily Mail. COPYRIGHT 1999 Gale Group.
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A covenant is a legal and/or religiously binding agreement between two or more parties based on a promise (or promises) made. Biblical covenants underpin the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and are significant in the self-consciousness of these religions. These scriptural covenants imply God's concern for humanity and are often tied to the ideas of faith, obedience and a chosen people or elected group.
The term “covenant” is used in the Bible more than three hundred times and is found in both the Old and New Testaments. The Hebrew term for covenant is berith (ברית,), which means “agreement” and “arrangement,” although its etymological origins are closely associated with the partaking of a meal as well as with the concept of “cutting,” as in to “cut” a covenant. The Latin translation of this term, “testament,” led to the term "New Testament" for the books of the "new covenant."
Covenants have legal contractual conditions: there may be property rights or access; a time limit (a perpetual covenant for instance); a curse or penalty for breaking the covenant; a responsibility or duty imposed; renewal options; intermarriage requirements; or any other conditions suitable to the covenanting parties. Covenants were often concluded in the presence of witnesses, and symbols were usually created to mark a covenant and to commemorate it at later dates. Quite often a ritual meal was required to seal the covenant, involving the use of salt or blood. Sometimes sacrificial animals were cut into halves and the participants stood between them while they ratified their agreement.
According to Biblical tradition, there have been several covenants throughout history, although the precise number is disputed. Each one marked a new departure in God's relationship with his chosen people. Christian theologians are in disagreement over whether the newer covenants renew and transform the earlier divine covenants or that the earlier covenants are still active.
In the ancient world, there were many forms of covenants or legal agreements. The nations surrounding the Hebrews routinely entered into suzerainty treaties between rulers and their subjects. Typically, this type of covenant involved an asymmetrical relationship between ruler and subject whereby one party dictated the covenant while the other party obeyed its conditions. In other instances, ‘parity covenants’ between nations or tribes were either negotiated or offered.
The Biblical covenant tradition resembles this ancient legal concept, but it takes on an explicitly greater significance since one of the covenanting parties is deemed to be God. When God is the partner or signatory, the conditions and terms of the covenant take on a grander scale, often including all of humanity in their scope.
Scholars disagree as to the exact number of Biblical covenants, and the list varies from five to eight or more. It is said that some covenants have been renewed for various reasons. The Biblical covenants deemed to be of greatest significance are described below in order of their alleged invocation:
According to the Book of Genesis, God's first covenant with humanity is found at the end of the creation account in the Garden of Eden. Humans are explicitly given dominion over creation and are held responsible for its well-being because “God looked at everything he had made, and had found it very good” (Gen. 1:31). Humankind is special for it was created “in his image” and God bears responsibility for what he has created. To insure the ability of humans to undertake and accomplish such a responsibility, God then instituted the seventh day as a day of rest and regeneration. This covenant is a clear indication of the concern God has for what he creates.
While this covenant seems to lack parity between the parties, God’s desire to create and commune with his creatures softens the ruler/subject distinction found in the earlier non-Biblical covenants. God is generous and powerful and can sustain those he has appointed to have dominion over the lesser objects of his creation.
The story of Noah's ark and the flood (deluge) are significant for the Biblical understanding of Covenant. Once again, this covenant is found in the Book of Genesis. Noah, and his family, have maintained obedience to God by following his commandment to build an ark, and gather animals as instructed. Due to their obedience, Noah and his family's offspring survived the flood; those who mocked Noah were barred from the covenant and perished.
In this story we see the covenant paradigm in action: blood was invoked in the covenant from the slaying of humankind due to human disobedience. Once the blood sacrifice was provided, God entered into a perpetual covenant with Noah and those who followed him. God promised “that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood; there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth” (Gen. 9:11). As a covenantal symbol, God “set [a rain]bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between [him] and the earth” (Gen. 9:14) The covenant is not only perpetual, but it extends to all of creation- God, creation, and humanity. The symbol of the rainbow joins God and humans in a reminder of the price for disobedience but reminds us that faith ensures forgiveness. (For Christians, the ark, as the first savior of all of humankind, is also a foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus Christ as their savior.)
According to Talmudic sources, this covenant’s extension to all peoples includes seven conditions variously considered laws or commandments. Jews believe all non-Jews must live according to them to be among the righteous. Some nations have implicitly inculcated them in their own national psyche and even in their law codes. These Noahide Laws compose various orders of the following list: first, prohibitions against: 1) murder, 2) theft, 3) false gods, 4) sexual immorality, 5) eating of the flesh of an animal when such flesh has been deliberately torn from the animal, 6) blasphemy against God, and 7) the requirement to establish systems of justice and courts to administer them. Various subsets of laws have been developed that expand this list, much like the expansion of the original Ten Commandments into numerous laws and regulations.
God's covenants with Abraham are also very significant in the development of the Abrahamic religions, of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Abraham was a prosperous herdsman who despaired of having offspring because of his and his wife’s great age. However, according to Biblical tradition, God had plans to use Abraham as a means of populating the earth with whom he would continue the God-human relationship. However, the plan hinged on the acceptance of Abraham to leave his familiar territory and strike out into the unknown at the request of God. In return, the faith shown by Abraham would be rewarded with three great blessings: Abraham will be made into a great nation, his very name will be great and a blessing, and this blessing will extend to all the communities of the earth.
This Abrahamic Covenant is recorded in Genesis 15, which reaffirms God's promise of progeny. Sacrificial animals are cut into two parts and God’s presence passes between them in the form of “a smoking brazier and a flaming torch” (Gen. 15:17). However, the completion of this covenant is almost thwarted by the presence of birds of prey (representing evil) that swoop down on the carcasses, although Abraham drove them away. This covenant confirms the numerous descendants promised earlier, but, as foreshadowed by the birds, it also forewarns the Egyptian captivity and eventual release described in the Book of Exodus. The future territories to be awarded to God’s chosen people, Abraham’s descendants, are detailed in this covenant. This theme will surface in later covenants.
The third Abrahamic Covenant, also known as “The Covenant of Circumcision,” is detailed in chapter 17 and takes place when Abraham is 99 years old. God asks Abraham to “walk in my presence and be blameless” (Gen. 17: 1). Once again, the theme of relation and righteousness before God becomes a covenantal component. God has observed Abraham’s faith and right conduct and builds upon his earlier promises of progeny by extending the promise to include “a host of nations” (Gen. 17: 5) that will issue from Abraham. This covenant is also associated with land and a symbol. The land is the entire land of Canaan and the symbol is the act of circumcision. Here we see that conditions are being imposed by God on the party and future parties of the covenant. They must have no other gods in their lives, and male descendants must show they have only one God by being circumcised. Any potential heathen marriages will be stymied by this sign in the flesh of the Israelites for all generations. This covenant that remains consistent with the properties found in earlier covenants in so far as ritual blood and cutting are involved. Abraham is immediately obedient and ratifies the covenant by circumcising his whole male household.
The fourth Abrahamic Covenant is found in chapter 22 and once again involves faith and obedience. Prior to this covenant, Abraham had a son, Isaac, from his wife, Sarah, and the earlier covenantal promises seem to be on the way to fulfillment. However, as a test of his faith, Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son. Not only is this disheartening from the paternal point of view, but it severely strains his faith in the promise of progeny that will become as numerous as the stars in the heavens. But Abraham is obedient and makes the arrangements, traveling to a place suitable for the sacrifice and preparing his son for the ritual. As he is about to complete the act, however, his hand is stayed by a voice from the Lord’s messenger. (It is said that God supplied Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead.) This covenant also demonstrates faith and obedience, for which Abraham is blessed by God.
Perhaps the most famous covenant in the Hebrew Bible is the story of God's covenant with Moses, who delivered to the Hebrews out of bondage from the land of Egypt. God tells Moses to inform the people “if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5-6). At verse eight is given the response of the people, “Everything the Lord has said, we will do.” Thus there is an understanding here of a special covenantal relationship between the Israelites and God.
The core of this covenant are the conditions found in the Ten Commandments (see Ex. 20:1-17). God, as supreme authority in the lives of the Israelites, sets out a code of conduct and right attitudes that will guide the relations of these people within the community and with God. In traditional Judaism, the Sinaitic covenant includes 613 commandments, most notably the injunctions to keep the Sabbath, perform the daily prayers and observe the dietary rules of kashrut.
Moses ratified this covenant in blood:
Then having sent certain young men of the Israelites to sacrifice young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord, Moses took half the blood and put it in large bowls; the other half he splashed on the altar. Taking the book of the covenant he read it aloud to the people, who answered, “All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do.” Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people [blood brothers], saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all the words of his.” (Ex. 24: 5-8)
According to Biblical tradition, God also made a covenant with King David, the second king of the Israelites, and its promises are extended to David’s subjects. This covenant arises from David’s appreciation of God’s beneficence toward him. He notes the Ark of the Covenant has only a tent while he is enthroned in palatial splendor. God begins this covenant by reminding David that God has been with him and he promises to make David’s name great. The covenant is then extended to the Israelites with a promise that they will dwell in their new lands without interference from their neighbors. David will no longer have to defend the people from attacks. The covenant then establishes the perpetual throne and lineage of David’s kingdom through his heirs. This covenant had great implications for the various prophecies that point to Jesus as the future messiah. God also foretells the greatness of Solomon who will build the temple and perpetuate David’s name. The relationship between this family and God is established and will endure even through their future failings with God’s laws. Thus, the Kingdom of David will endure forever. This covenant reinforces the idea that covenants are not simply legal contracts—they are a state of being between the people and God.
These two covenants have some similarity in that they reaffirm the possession of the promised land by the Israelites. The first is instituted after the giving of the final words of Moses to the people he led out of captivity. Their story is repeated and their legal obligations, along with penalties for violation, are enumerated by Moses. They have received the Law, but they will not always keep it, even though they are about to take possession of their promised land. Moses is prophesying their future periods of disobedience and their dispersals from the land that these will entail. They will be conquered and taken captive again for their occasions of disobedience. But there is an underlying theme of God’s forgiveness and desire to restore the God-human relationship with them. God’s pity will be activated when, in their hearts, they remember what was said and repent, relying once again on God’s guidance in their lives. No matter how far they are scattered they will return to possess this land once again.
Continuing the theme of blood and ‘cut,’ in convenantal terminology, “The Lord your God, will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, that you may love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, and so may live” (v. 6). These words are reminiscent of the giving of the Ten Commandments of the previous covenant and they point to the establishment of an unending kingdom that is enumerated in the Davidic Covenant. Following this promise is the promise of bounty to be given from the fruits of their labors and the promise of offspring of the people and their animals as well as abundant crops. The land and the people will bear fruit as a sign of God’s pleasure when they are obedient.
The New Covenant described by Jeremiah, follows a period of dispersal when the people are returning once again to occupy the land of their inheritance. It again refers to the imagery of the heart. However, this New Covenant unites both the houses of Judah and Israel under a new formula. The former covenant was one of the Law. The Law could not always be fulfilled and required a penalty that was mediated through the priesthood. This new covenant’s laws will be interior; there will be a conversion of attitude that results in loving the Lord instead of fearing him. They will want to follow his guidelines out of recognition for his generosity and concern and not in fear of his retribution for failure. In fact, their transgression of the Law will no longer even be remembered. Additionally, knowledge of God will be extended to all nations.
According to Christianity, the covenants of the Hebrew Bible point to Jesus and are fulfilled in Him. Interestingly, all the elements found in previous covenants are also present in the life of Jesus.
Before his crucifixion (a blood sacrifice), Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist where he proclaimed the completion of his earthly mission. Holding a cup of wine, he told his disciples, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.” Christians believe that this will be the final blood that will be necessary to be spilled to establish and maintain the God-human relationship. There will no longer be any need for a Levitical priesthood to intercede in the sacrificial atonement for sin. This is the establishment of a final covenant not based on law, but on forgiveness and remission of sin.
Many of the books of the New Testament elucidate the Christian view of a new covenant of Christ. For example, 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 contrasts the Old and New Covenants by saying that the veiled face of Moses was a passing condition that was taken away by Christ. A veil remains over the hearts of those who hear the Book of Moses but it is removed when they turn toward the person of Jesus. In Jesus there is the (Holy) Spirit and this is a Spirit of freedom which transforms the faithful into the “same image [of Christ] from glory to glory” (v. 18). Here is the view that the Old Covenants have passed away in their importance and, more important, in their approach to God. The Old Covenants, it is said, were legalistic and underpinned by adherence to the Law, but the New Covenant is a covenant of faith based on love as espoused by Jesus Christ and fulfills the earlier “New Covenant” written in Jeremiah 31:31.
This theme of greater freedom under the New Covenant is brought out in Galatians 4:24-31. This is a comparison between those under the law, represented by Ishmael the son of the slave Hagar, and Abraham’s son Isaac, born of Sarah who was a free woman. This allegory ends at verse 31, which says, “Therefore, brothers, we are children not of the slave woman but of the freeborn woman,” thus maintaining the Old Covenants were restricting while the New Covenant is freeing.
Finally, the entire Book of Hebrews is filled with explanations of the priesthood of Jesus. It also contains covenantal references that bear on the question of the fulfillment of the covenants. Chapter 9 notes the layout of the tabernacle, which the Mosaic Covenant required for the atonement of violations of the Law. The priests were regularly required to enter it to perform the requisite sacrifices. But the high priest had to go inside the inner tabernacle annually to atone for his own sins and those of the people. In other words the priests needed to be reconciled with God in order to perform their duties. However, Christ, as the ultimate high priest, has performed for all time the redemption for sin through the shedding of his own blood. His blood has done more than the blood of all the sacrifices prior to his coming. “But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice” (v. 26). These, and other scriptural references, according to many Christians, point to Jesus Christ as the final covenant of the God-human relationship.
Abraham is the common forefather of the Muslims as well as Jews and Christians. As offspring of Abraham, Muslims are therefore entitled to covenantal privleges. Abraham’s son Ishmael (born of Hagar the Egyptian) is the source from which many of the Arab groups claim their descent (cf. Gen. 16:10-16), and the covenantal lineage can be traced back through Ishmael to Abraham (Qur’an 2:83).
However, Islam claims to have received another revelation from God, newer than Judaism and Christianity, which is presented in the Holy Qur'an. According to Islam, the revelations of the Holy Qur'an are considered to be the fulfillment of all previous revelation and covenants. Indeed, Muhammad is called the "seal" of the prophets designating his esteemed and final position in the lineage of the Abrahamic prophets. As we have seen, it was customary in antiquity to distinguish a covenant by the presence of a seal or sign, and it is significant therefore that Muhammad is called the "seal" of the prophets. Furthermore, Abraham's covenant with God was also represented by the sign of circumcision, which, likewise, is practiced by Muslim males as a sign of their relationship to God.
The idea of covenant raises theological questions about the nature of God's supposed relationship with creation and with humankind. If God enters into a special covenantal relationship with particular chosen people, as Biblical tradition states, then does this suggest that God has favorites? Does the idea of "covenant" imply that God is biased towards certain groups, or does God favor all of humanity equally? This first question is usually met satisfactorily by noting that "chosenness" implies no privilege, but rather merely a designated obligation or responsibility. Benefits and rewards from the realization of covenanental goals or aims always devolve to all humankind.
Other lesser questions persist among those who subscribe to Covenantal Theology including frequent disagreement over how many covenants have existed, their scope, and whether a covenant can be broken or revoked by one (or both) parties, especially if either reneges on its obligations. Finally, there are questions about whether there will be future fulfillment of any covenants deemed unfulfilled. Most important to recall however, despite the appeal of debates and speculation is the core beauty and purpose of covenants that reveal a willingness on the part of both God and His faithful to labor for the welfare of all human beings.
This article began as an original work prepared for New World Encyclopedia and is provided to the public according to the terms of the New World Encyclopedia:Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Any changes made to the original text since then create a derivative work which is also CC-by-sa licensed. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.


What i find remarkable and unremarked as well is that this city sat smack on the water as a port. There must be an additional city nearby that is fortified and a few hours inland. In the event this city was located on the route from Italy around the Peloponnese on the way into Athens and Greece proper. It is exactly where an important port would arise.
That means it was part of the Atlantean trade system at least and the organization seen may well be Atlantean inspired. Just not big enough for a Pyramid.
Its demise coincides with 1159 BC as well and may simply have not survived the loss of Atlantis. It certainly informs us that huge Earthquakes were felt in Greece.


Passengers looking out the window of a passenger plane will likely have noticed slats on the leading edge of the wing, along with the flaps on the trailing edge of the wing, being extended during takeoff and landing. These leading edge slats provide the lift necessary at low speeds, with the gap between the wing and the slats directing air from the underside of the wing to the top. Unfortunately, this gap also generates a lot of noise. A team of researchers has now developed a morphing leading edge that eliminates the gap and reduces noise and drag during landing.
The “smart droop nose” developed by researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) working with partners Airbus, EADS Innovation Works and Cassidian Air Systems, literally morphs into a different shape during takeoff and landing so that no separate slats – and no gap – is necessary.
The researchers have tested the system’s operation and performance in in one of Europe's largest wind tunnels at the Russian Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute’s (TsAGI) Zhukovsky research facility south of Moscow and found that the morphing leading edge can be lowered by up to 20 degrees with virtually no loss of lift.
Source: gizmag.comAdded: 18 September 2012


Some fresh research around leadership is this week’s theme for our research tidbits.
The neuroscience of inspirational leadership
Effective leaders are believed to inspire followers by providing inclusive visions of the future that followers can identify with. In the present study, we examined the neural mechanisms underlying this process, testing key hypotheses derived from transformational and social identity approaches to leadership.
While undergoing functional MRI, supporters from the two major Australian political parties (Liberal vs. Labor) were presented with inspirational collective-oriented and noninspirational personal-oriented statements made by in-group and out-group leaders. Imaging data revealed that inspirational (rather than noninspirational) statements from in-group leaders were associated with increased activation in the bilateral rostral inferior parietal lobule, pars opercularis, and posterior midcingulate cortex: brain areas that are typically implicated in controlling semantic information processing.
In contrast, for out-group leaders, greater activation in these areas was associated with noninspirational statements. In addition, noninspirational statements by in-group (but not out-group) leaders resulted in increased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area typically associated with reasoning about a person’s mental state. These results show that followers processed identical statements qualitatively differently as a function of leaders’ group membership, thus demonstrating that shared identity acts as an amplifier for inspirational leadership communication.
Pascal Molenberghs, Guy Prochilo, Niklas K. Steffens, et al. (2017). The Neuroscience of Inspirational Leadership: The Importance of Collective-Oriented Language and Shared Group Membership.
Journal of Management, 43(7), 2168-2194.
A review and synthesis of leadership process models
In organisational research, studying “processes” is important for uncovering and understanding the underlying causal mechanisms in a predictor-mediator-outcome logic. Processes answer “how” and “why” questions and provide more complete explanations about phenomena.
Our focus in this review is on studies of leadership processes, which we systematically analyse to report on the state of the science. In doing so, we present a two-dimensional target-centric taxonomy to integrate previous research: The taxonomy distinguishes the target’s level (i.e., individual follower, team, organisational, and extra-organisational) as well as the type of leadership processes that affect either the target’s development or leverage of resources.
Our review indicates that the predominantly studied leadership “meta” process model looks at the effect of leader traits or behaviours on performance-related outcomes through cognitive, affective, or behavioural leveraging factors. This “meta” model points to several important and understudied processes, including a leader’s influence on the target’s development or work context.
We also identify two largely overlooked yet critical issues for leadership process research: modelling the role of time and that of multiple processes through which leadership effects manifest themselves in organisations. Using our taxonomy, we provide several reflection points that can guide the development of genuine and thoughtful leadership process theories. We conclude by urging future leadership process research to embrace multiprocess, multilevel, and time-sensitive models.
Thomas Fischer, Joerg Dietz and John Antonakis. 2017. Leadership Process Models: A Review and Synthesis.
Journal of Management, 43(6), 1726-1753.
Varieties of transformational solutions to conflicts in ethics
It is well established within the ethics and institutional theory literatures that institutions can have conflicting logics with ethical dimensions and that there are solutions to the conflicts. Within institutional, ethics, and change leadership theory, quantitative, mixture solutions such as distributive solutions have been frequently considered.
The ethics, institutional, and change leadership theory literatures have recognised that there are qualitative transformational solutions that are different than quantitative mixture solutions. However and for the most part, with the notable exception of the Thornton et al. (Am J Sociol, 105(3):801–843, 2012) typology of solutions, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered typologies of transformational solutions. And more specifically with respect to this article, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered different types of transformational solutions to institutional logic conflicts with ethical dimensions.
This article: (1) develops a typology of transformational solutions; (2) applies the typology with historical examples of conflicting institutional ethics logics within factory, cultural, and institutional social change leadership cases; and, (3) considers practical and theoretical implications for institutional ethics change leadership for achieving and/or resisting different types of transformational solutions.
Richard P. Nielsen and Christi Lockwood. 2018. Varieties of Transformational Solutions to Institutional Ethics Logic Conflicts.
Journal of Business Ethics, 149(1), 45–55.
Synthesising and integrating CR on organisational and societal levels
This article develops an integrative perspective on corporate responsibility by synthesising competing perspectives on the responsibility of the corporation at the organisational and societal levels of analysis.
We review three major corporate responsibility perspectives, which we refer to as economic, critical, and politico-ethical. We analyse the major potential uses and pitfalls of the perspectives, and integrate the debate on these two levels. Our synthesis concludes that when a society has a robust division of moral labour in place, the responsibility of a corporation may be economic (as suggested under the economic perspective) without jeopardising democracy and sustainability (as reported under the critical perspective).
Moreover, the economic role of corporations neither signifies the absence of deliberative democratic mechanisms nor business practices extending beyond compliance (as called for under the politico-ethical perspective). The study underscores the value of integrating different perspectives and multiple levels of analysis to present comprehensive descriptions and prescriptions of the responsibility phenomenon.
Read this Open Access article online for free
Pasi Heikkurinen and Jukka Mäkinen. 2018. Synthesising Corporate Responsibility on Organisational and Societal Levels of Analysis: An Integrative Perspective.
Journal of Business Ethics, 149(3), 589–607.
Determining the antecedents and outcomes of servant leadership
This study utilised social consistency and social exchange theories to propose leadership motivation and self-concept variables as possible antecedents of servant leadership (SL). This is a departure from two past studies which established the leader’s behaviour, experience and personality as antecedents of SL.
The study was based on cross-sectional survey methodology, and data acquired through multi-source to minimise common method variance. Data analysis was carried out using statistical package of social sciences, and the analyses of moments of structure software. Participants were managers and their subordinates from six organisations located in Lagos, Nigeria.
Key findings of the study are self-efficacy (SE) is a critical variable because of its effect on SL and other antecedents; motivation-to-serve (MTS) is an antecedent and the primary motive for enacting SL behaviour; only one dimension of motivation-to-lead (MTL), non-calculative, is an antecedent of SL; and leader-member exchange, organisational citizenship behaviour and job satisfaction are either direct or indirect outcomes of SL.
The tested model explained more variance in the outcomes of SL. Managerial implications include the use of SE, MTS and MTL as selection tools for managers, assigning future leaders as mentees to identified servant leaders through formal mentoring process established by the organisation.
Okechukwu E Amah. 2018. Determining the antecedents and outcomes of servant leadership.
Journal of General Management, 43(3), 126-138.
When authentic and inauthentic leaders feel well
Research on authentic leadership has yielded important insights about its effects on subordinates. However, its consequences for the leaders themselves remain largely unexamined.
This is problematic, as organisations require their leaders to provide guidance and leaders’ mental well-being is a prerequisite for this. Drawing on the theories of ego-depletion and authentic leadership, we investigate the role of authentic leadership in predicting leaders’ mental well-being.
In an experience sampling study, we apply hierarchical linear modeling to analyze 396 observations from 44 executives. Our multilevel moderated mediation analyses reveal that authentic leadership reduces leaders’ stress and increases their work engagement and that these effects are mediated by leader mental depletion.
Moreover, we show that the indirect effects are contingent on the extent to which leaders interact with their subordinates: authentic leaders deplete less with increasing follower interaction, while inauthentic leaders deplete less with decreasing follower interaction.
Matthias Weiss, Stefan Razinskas, Julia Backmann and Martin Hoegl. 2018. Authentic leadership and leaders’ mental well-being: An experience sampling study.
The Leadership Quarterly, 29(2), 309-321.
Protecting older workers’ employability using transformational leadership
Demographic and labour market changes increase the need to enhance the employability of employees across all ages. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of transformational leadership in employees’ employability.
While we hypothesised that age is negatively related to perceived internal and external employability, we expected a positive relationship for transformational leadership, and that transformational leadership would moderate the relationship between age and employability. Hypotheses were tested using a sample of 1006 employees in the German automotive industry.
Results show age to be negatively related to internal and external employability, with both relationships being comparably strong. Transformational leadership was positively related to internal and external employability, with the relationship with internal employability being stronger. Moreover, transformational leadership buffered the negative relationship between age and internal employability.
These results suggest that transformational leadership is crucial in protecting lifetime employability and that it should be promoted.
Katrin Böttcher, Anne-Grit Albrecht, Laura Venz, et al. 2018. Protecting older workers’ employability: A survey study of the role of transformational leadership.
German Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(2), 120-148.


Have you ever found yourself awaiting a text or response from someone anxiously? Do you have a tendency to create a thousand possible scenarios in your head and try to over-analyze everything?
Have you ever worried that you might say something ‘wrong’ or ‘stupid’ in a meeting? Either when you reflect back on the past meeting and concern that you might said something that you shouldn’t have, or you worry that you will say something ‘stupid’ in an upcoming meeting.
If you find yourself in either one of these scenarios, know that these are signs that you are overthinking.
Overthinking is thinking too much about a situation to the point that it holds you back from doing something productive. Keep in mind that thinking and doing things are not the same. When you analyze, comment, judge, or have an idea and you repeat them over and again, instead of acting on it, you are overthinking.
Your mind can trick you. Don’t believe everything you have in mind. Things are not always as what they seem to be.
“Overthinking can bring negative impact on your well-being. It consumed a lot of your energy, makes you feel continually worried, stressed, restless, anxious, and it can disturb your sleeping habit.”
People perceive things differently. What we think and perceive of a situation doesn’t mean that other people think and perceive that situation the same way as we do.
Those unread or never replied to text messages that you’ve been worrying about maybe have been left like that for several reasons. Perhaps, it’s none of the scenarios that you created. Although, it might be one of them too. There’s no guarantee.
And the thing that you think it was a ‘mistake’ or something that you shouldn’t have said in a conversation in the past, there’s a chance that they don’t remember or even realize that you made a ‘mistake’.
Furthermore, how do you know for sure that you’re going to make a ‘mistake’? What if you’ll do just fine?
Sometimes overthinking can bring positive impact. It encourages us to prepare something ahead. For example, you’re overthinking how you are going to perform in a meeting, and that makes you feel anxious and restless. Then, you take an action by preparing and studying the material needed for that upcoming meeting. Since you’re prepared, you’ll feel more in control and more confident.
“it is necessary for you to come back to your thoughts and pay attention to what you actually overthinking about. Sometimes we fail to take care of ourselves and give the attention needed.”
However, overthinking can also bring negative impact on your well-being. It consumed a lot of your energy, makes you feel continually worried, stressed, restless, anxious, and it can disturb your sleeping habit. Thinking too much also wasting your time, makes you lose focus, and end up missing opportunities.
So, how do we know if our overthinking brings us more advantages instead of disadvantages?
A moderate amount of ‘overthinking’ will help you to think ahead, to be more prepared, more cautious, and help you in everyday life without draining so much of your energy and threatening your well-being, if you take an action thereupon. In other words, your thoughts are enough to give you heads-up but you still are the one who controls yourself.
On the other hand, it causes more harm than good when you realize that overthinking is starting to control your life, instead of you being in control of it. You become worried all the time, stressed, anxious, and feeling restless. It started to take most of your energy, ruin your mood, and disturb your quality of sleep.
There are many ways to stop overthinking. One of them is to distract yourself and focus your attention on something that is more important, useful, and helpful. However, for some cases it is necessary for you to come back to your thoughts and pay attention to what you actually overthinking about. Sometimes we fail to take care of ourselves and give the attention needed. Once you understand what the actual problem is, it’ll be easier for you to decide what to do from there.
Here are some activities that I suggest to help you stop overthinking:
This is my current favorite self-care ritual. Every time I catch myself overthinking, I color one or two drawings. It really helps to stop me from overthinking unnecessary thoughts.
Coloring has similar effect to meditation. It trains your brain to focus on the present moment; on the activity that you are doing. Since coloring requires repetition and attention to detail, you’ll be more focus on the activity, rather than your worries. Hence, it gives you a calming effect and relaxes your brain from the daily stress of life.
#2 Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness is observing and becoming aware of what’s happening in the present moment, including the awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and senses. In other words, focusing on one thing at a time.
Two main components of mindfulness are awareness and acceptance.
Awareness: Be aware of your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensation, e.g. your breathing, as it happens. When you become aware of your thoughts, don’t stop them. Instead, notice them and let it flow in your head.
Acceptance: Let the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that you notice be observed in a non-judgmental manner.
For example, if you notice you’re anxious, simply tell yourself: “I notice I am feeling anxious” or if it’s a thought of something that’s bothering you, you can state “I notice I am having the thought of ….” And put these thoughts into categories like:
- Worry thoughts
- Planning thoughts
- Critical thoughts
Do it without giving any judgement (good vs bad) or an attempt to change the feeling. The skill that you learn here is to tell the difference between a thought and a fact.
“Keep on practicing to gain control over your mind. The truth is you can train your brain to do what you want it to do.”
Take a note on what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling as a result of that overthinking. You can write it on a book or on your phone, whatever makes you feel comfortable. The idea is to be aware of the overwhelmed thoughts that you’re having and let them out of your head to make you feel more relax. When your head is clear, you’ll make better decision.
It might be helpful to include the following details:
- Identify the occasion, including if there’s any people involved, in which you begin to indulge patterns of overthinking. For example, you may notice that you tend to overthinking when you are alone; in a party surrounded by a lot of people; or before giving a presentation in front of class.
- Do it in non-judgmental manner. The most important thing is to acknowledge that you are ‘having the thoughts’ again.
Writing will help you to process your thoughts, analyzing patterns of your thinking, and finding ways to move past those thoughts.
#4 Sing your favorite song
Music can change your mood in a positive way. So, instead of wasting your time and energy in overthinking, sing your favorite song! Invite your friend, family, or your pet to sing with you. It’s a better activity to spend your time and energy, plus you can get the chance of bonding with them.
Again, don’t overthink and over-analyze on how you sing. You’re not in a singing contest, so it doesn’t matter if you can’t sing like Beyoncé or Ariana Grande. Just sing! There’s no need to judge yourself.
#5 Get yourself a hobby!
Get yourself involved in a useful and healthy activity. Knitting or sewing, photography, playing music, writing, painting, you name it.
Find what comforts you and grounds you in the present moment and use that activity as often as you need to.
If you’re a believer you can also pray. Praying can give you a sense of peace and it has comforting effect, said a psychologist Crystal Park, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Connecticut in Storrs (via everydayhealth.com). Praying will make you reflect and stop yourself from making destructive decisions, and at the same time will help keep the negative, unwanted thoughts at bay.
Don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t stop overthinking. Over-analyzing and overthinking is a habit. Everybody knows it is not easy to change a habit that has been there forever. So, don’t set yourself up for a failure with an unrealistic expectation since you can’t change a habit overnight.
Keep on practicing to gain control over your mind. The truth is you can train your brain to do what you want it to do.
You can choose one of the above steps to work on. Just be mindful in every action that you take. You are in charge of your yourself and your mind. Trust yourself to get the job done and don’t let your overthinking dictate your decision. Don’t let it prevent you from doing anything that you’ll almost certainly regret it. Success only occurs when you take action.


A new patterning technique for the deposition of sol-gels and chemical solution precursors was developed to address some of the limitations of soft lithography approaches. When using micromolding in capillaries to pattern precursors that exhibit large amounts of shrinkage during drying, topographical distortions develop. In place of patterning the elastomeric mold, the network of capillary channels was patterned directly into the substrate surface and an elastomer membrane is used to complete the channels. When the wetting properties of the substrate surfaces were carefully controlled using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), lead zirconate titanate thin films with nearly rectangular cross-sections were successfully patterned. This technique, called microchannel molding (μCM), also provided a method for aligning multiple layers such as bottom electrodes for device fabrication.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Materials Science(all)
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering


Vibrance vs Saturation can be a confusing topic, especially if you are a newbie in photography. When you import images for editing in any photo editing software, you will have the option to tweak the picture’s vibrance and saturation.
You can get it totally wrong if you don’t understand what these two settings can do. In this guide, I will explain both vibrance and saturation in detail 😇.
Vibrance vs Saturation in Photography
Both vibrance and saturation help to increase the intensity of the colors in the photo. But, they do it differently.
The vibrance affects the less saturated or the mutated colors in the image. So, it gives a subtle pop to the image color.
The saturation will deepen all the color tones in the picture.
The saturation is a stronger effect when compared to the vibrance in terms of color intensity.
If you increase the saturation levels beyond a particular level, you will blow out the colors and details in the image. All the color pixels in the picture get amplified when you increase the saturation level. So, use it carefully.
You need to maintain a perfect balance between these two settings to get the right color intensity for your image.
Vibrance vs Saturation Explained with Example 😎
It is easy to understand the difference between these two with the help of an example.
I will use this image of the Blue-eared Kingfisher, which I have photographed from the Andamans. The image shown above is unedited.
I will apply a vibrance of 70 to this image. You can clearly see that the light tones and the subtle colors have popped up in the picture.
You don’t have to increase the vibrance by this much amount. I have done it to show the effect.
Here, I have not altered the saturation.
Now, I will pull back the vibrance settings to zero.
I will push the saturation settings to 70.
Now, you can see that all the color tones in the image became very intense. So, if you increase the saturation by too much, then the image can become annoying.
If you pull the saturation slider to the extreme left (-100), you will strip all the image colors.
You will get a monochrome image as a result. But, making the vibrance slider to -100 will still retain some color intensity. It will be like a faded color picture.
You need to play with both these sliders according to the image colors to get the desired result.
Saturation vs Vibrance in Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom is one of the most popular photo editing software used by most photographers.
You can view the sliders for adjusting the image’s vibrance and saturation inside the “Develop” module.
It will be under the “Presence” section inside the “Basic” edit section.
👉🏻 READ MORE: Texture vs Clarity vs Dehaze in Lightroom
Vibrance vs Saturation in Photoshop
If you are using Adobe Photoshop for your edits, select the “Image” dropdown menu from the top toolbar.
Select the “Adjustment” option.
You can see the “Vibrance” option in it.
Select it, and a new window will pop up, showing the “Vibrance” and “Saturation” sliders.
If you push the sliders to the right, then you can increase the strength of vibrance and saturation.
Moving the slider to the left will decrease the strength.
When to Use & What Intensity?
You will have to use either of these sliders for all your image edits.
The strength of the sliders will vary with the photography type and the lighting of the scene.
Landscape photos demand good color contrast.
So, you need to maintain the right balance between the saturation and vibrance settings. Here, you will be playing more with the saturation slider than the vibrance one.
Unlike saturation, increasing vibrance will not affect the skin tones. It is good to push the vibrance slider more toward the right side for the portrait shots.
It is better to avoid using a saturation slider for portraits unless it is absolutely necessary.
Increasing the saturation level beyond some levels will make the photo look unnatural.
Now, you know the exact difference between vibrance and saturation. So, start editing your beautiful images by setting the right amount of intensity for these two parameters.


Humans, like almost all animals, are phase-locked to the diurnal cycle. Most of us sleep at night and are active through the day. Because we have evolved to function with this cycle, the circadian rhythm is deeply ingrained and even detectable at the biochemical level. However, within the broader day-night pattern, there are individual differences: e.g., some of us are intrinsically morning-active, while others prefer evenings. In this article, we look at digital daily cycles: circadian patterns of activity viewed through the lens of auto-recorded data of communication and online activity. We begin at the aggregate level, discuss earlier results, and illustrate differences between population-level daily rhythms in different media. Then we move on to the individual level, and show that there is a strong individual-level variation beyond averages: individuals typically have their distinctive daily pattern that persists in time. We conclude by discussing the driving forces behind these signature daily patterns, from personal traits (morningness/eveningness) to variation in activity level and external constraints, and outline possibilities for future research.
Bibliographical noteThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
- Circadian rhythms
- Electronic communication records
- Mobile phones
- Digital phenotyping
- Individual differences


Chemotherapy uses medications given either by mouth or by injection into a vein to kill cancer that may have spread beyond the original tumour. The chemotherapy is usually given in cycles that typically last 21 to 28 days; the average number of cycles ranges from 4 to 8. The medications are usually given in combination, with an average of 2 to 3 different medications taken with each cycle.
Chemotherapy mainly works by killing cells that multiply at a fast pace, like cancer cells. However, the chemotherapy cannot tell the difference between normal cells and cancer cells and therefore it can also kill healthy cells that divide quickly. These cells can include the ones found in your hair, the ones lining your digestive system (from your mouth to your colon), and the ones in your bone marrow. Some chemotherapy agents affect these cells more than others, and the higher the dose of chemotherapy that you receive, the more likely you are to have side effects. For this reason, many people receiving chemotherapy will experience some side effects (discussed in the section on complementary and alternative medicine); however, there are many new medications now that can help to reduce your chances of having some of these side effects or reduce the severity with which you experience them.
Some common chemotherapy agents used for breast cancer include:
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Lumbar Fusion Surgery
Our human vertebral spine absorbs a lot of the effects of gravity do to our unique upright that we assume from when we wake up in the morning, to when we go to bed. Not all of these weights and pressures of the spine are spread evenly throughout the spine. The majority of these weights and pressures are concentrated on the structures of the lumbar spine, due to its location near our center of gravity. To protect against injury, the vertebral bones and the discs between them are and taller than throughout the rest of the spine, and the natural curves or the back, as well as the sacroiliac joints help to absorb a lot of the energy that is driven down upon the spine as we jump, walk, stand, and lift boxes. Yet, the lumbar spine remains the part of the spine that is most vulnerable to injury, particular the lumbar discs and the lumbar-sacral disc. When we are young, healthy, and have avoided a major injury, these discs maintain their height enough the separate vertebral bones and to absorb energy when great weights are placed upon it. We may experience back pain when the discs decrease in height to the point that other structures must now take on added pressures, or when the disc breaks in certain section. Breaks in discs, known as herniations, may allow the material in its nucleus to spill through. When these gel-like materials pill through and impact the spinal canal or the nerve roots, the patient may experience significant low back pain and other associated neurologic symptoms. Patients with this condition may not simply have the option of sucking it up and bearing it, because these associated neurologic symptoms may include numbness, weakness, and burning in the legs and feet. If the herniated disc material compresses the affected discs long enough or hard enough, the muscles could atrophy and you may eventually lose your ability to move your leg. For back pain symptoms such as these, of the failure to experience lower back pain relief, some patients will receive back surgery to remove the material that is compressing the nerve.
Procedure or Procedures: The majority of back surgeries involve the removal of all or part of the spinal structures that are causing the nerves to become pinched. In some cases, the surgeries are relatively minor, especially in cases such as microdiscectomies. A microdiscectomy involves the removal of the part of the disc causing the herniation or nerve root compression. In other cases, the entire disc must be removed. In these cases, the entire disc is removed, and the adjacent vertebral bones are fused together to stabilize the spine at this level. This procedure is known as a discectomy with lumbar fusion surgery. Let's take a closer look at this procedure.
A lumbar spinal fusion surgery is designed stabilize spine at that level where the disc required removal. This procedure may also be performed to stop the motion at a painful vertebral segment, which may help to alleviate lower pain that was caused by the instability of this joint. this procedure involve the use of hardware to hold two or more vertebra in place, as well as a bone graft to create a permanent fusion of the two segments. When the bone graft has successfully fused the segments, it stops motion at that segment, which is expected to alleviate the pain. The fusion between two vertebral bones is called a one-level spinal fusion. When the surgery is complete, the two vertebral bones, as well as the bone graft material taken from one of the large bones of your body (e.g. hip, femur) will then exist as a single fused bone.
There are several variations of lumbar spinal surgery, including:
- Anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF)
- Anterior/posterior spinal fusion
- Posterolateral gutter fusion
- Posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF/TLIF)


24/07/2019· Aurubis: pushing for copper recycling in the circular economy The steadily growing demand for copper is prompting concerns around how this demand can be met in the most sustainable way, and different parts of the mining and metals industry are responding to this challenge in various ways. The circular economy the idea of keeping resources in use for as long as possible and recovering
Information technology, as in other fields, can play a significant role in enhancing the productivity of mining industry. As Information Technology has advanced from mainframes to minicomputers to PCs to the World Wide web, Mining Industry is also absorbing state-of-art technology in its operations.The constantly increasing portfolio of
Copper resources are estimated to exceed 3,000 million tonnes (USGS, 2013), which does not include vast copper deposits found in deep sea nodules and submarine massive sulphides. While current and future exploration will increase both reserves and resources, we must not forget that supplies will also be sourced from the substantial amount of copper that is already in use today.
The life cycle of mining begins with exploration, continues through production, and ends with closure and postmining land use. New technologies can benefit the mining industry and consumers in all stages of this life cycle. This report does not include downstream processing, such as smelting of
02/06/2017· Productivity-enhancing technology is already being deployed in mining operations around the world. Recent expansions in the copper industry, for example, are tapping reserves with an average ore grade of less than 1% copper, a sign of how technology can get more out of less. In another example, Rio Tinto’s mines using automation technology in
Given that around 60% of identified extractable copper is contained in inferred resources, studies that assess the future of copper production are inherently flawed if they do not consider the potential to mine inferred resources. Over time it can be expected that what is currently considered as inferred resources will be upgraded to demonstrated resources (i.e. measured and indicated
Most copper ores contain only a small percentage of copper metal bound up within valuable ore minerals, with the remainder of the ore being unwanted rock or gangue minerals, typically silicate minerals or oxide minerals for which there is often no value. In some cases, tailings have been retreated to recover lost value as the technology for recovering copper has improved.
Diffraction technology, much like the Copper NuWave™, helps identify the amount of useful resources in a given piece of ore, cutting down on wasted hunting by targeting rich materials. Well-known diamond mining group ALROSA is already using diffraction in its mining sites, with others looking to broaden their use of the technology in 2017. With so much of a site's success riding on spending
Brazilian mining company Vale is developing a promising innovative technology in collaboration with the University of São Paulo to recover copper mineral from the tailings using micro-organisms, which if extended to other minerals, would transform the handling of tailings and boost mineral production. The path breaking technology would be immensely helpful in the production of rare minerals
There is no shortage of copper resources. In fact, copper is one of the most abundant of the metallic elements in the earth's crust. The average estimated concentration is between 55 and 70 mg/kg, placing it below chromium (200 mg/kg) and zinc (132) but above tin and lead. Commercially exploited deposits of copper ores are found in many parts of the world, frequently associated with mountain
While the mining industry has profited from a lift in commodity prices and China’s infrastructure growth plans, challenges continue. These difficult conditions could be considered the “new normal,” according to a recent report from the World Economic Forum.However, the report continues, digital technology has the potential to help mining companies contend with these conditions—and it
International Journal of Mining Science and Technology is an English-language journal. Previously entitled Journal of China University of Mining and Technology, it was founded in 1990 and publishes original and forefront research papers and high quality reviews covering recent advances in all fields of mining sciences and technologies.Papers to be published will be peer-reviewed and edited by
Video Resources. The Legacy of Copper Mining in Arizona (Arizona Experience) Copper Mining Video 1 (Engr. Aquil M. Khan) Making History Malachite and Copper (All Histories) Ore to More The History of Copper (Vérité, Inc.) Introducing Copper (University of Nottingham) DIG (Joey Howell) Nearly One Mile Underground (Keith Yaskin) Copper Mining and Refining (Redox) (Bill Grosser) Web
Providing the foundation for digital transformation, Accenture’s Connected Mine solution—enabled by cloud and Internet of Things technology—consolidates and enables visualization of data from mine to market. Now mining operation managers, supervisors, operators and head office can have clear, real-time visibility into their entire production chain. Customized alerts keep employees
Teck operates the Highland Valley Copper mine in British Columbia, Canada, the Quebrada Blanca copper mine in northern Chile and the Carmen de Andacollo copper mine in central Chile. We also have an interest in the Antamina copper/zinc mine in Peru; one of the world's largest base metal mines. In addition, Teck has a pipeline of copper projects in various stages of development. Our customers


Background: Triple A syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by adrenal failure, alacrima, achalasia, and a variety of neurological features. In 70% of the families it is caused by mutations in the AAAS gene. Linkage analyses indicated genetic heterogeneity and exome sequencing revealed two further genes causing triple A-like syndromes.
Objective and hypotheses: To summarise the genotypes and phenotypes of classic triple A syndrome in comparison to two novel triple A-like syndromes.
Method: Clinical and genetic analysis of more than 250 patients with suspected triple A syndrome.
Results: In classic triple A syndrome due to AAAS mutations adrenal insufficiency occurs in 77.1%, achalasia in 85.1%, and alacrima in 89.7% of all patients. Most patients (72.8%) display neurological impairment, most frequently distal muscular weakness, hyperreflexia, nasal speech, and autonomic dysfunction. Mutations in GDP-mannose pyrophosphorylase A (GMPPA) cause a triple A-like syndrome characterized by alacrima, delayed developmental milestones, and speech delay (each 100%), intellectual disability (91.6%) and achalasia (84.6%). None of the worldwide 13 known patients developed adrenal insufficiency. The disorder caused by GMPPA mutations represents a novel congenital disorder of glycosylation. Recently we identified a homozygous splice mutation in a novel gene in four patients from two independent families. These patients suffer from achalasia, alacrima, short stature, developmental delay, seizures, and cerebral atrophy, but also lack adrenal insufficiency. The protein product seems to be important for an intact Golgi apparatus.
Conclusion: There are at least two novel diseases who display overlapping features with classic triple A syndrome. Protein products are involved in different cellular pathways. Clinicians should be aware of this genetic heterogeneity in terms of genetic and clinical counselling. All known patients with triple A-like disorders are still young so that we cannot exclude that they develop adrenal failure at a later time.
Funding: This work was supported by the German Research Society (HU 895/3-3, 3-4, 3-5, 4-1, 5-1, 5-2).
01 - 03 Oct 2015
European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology


NIBIRU FRAGMENT TO STRIKE EARTH
On Monday, NASA identified a rogue celestial object hurtling toward Earth at an alarming 26,000 miles per hour. The anomaly, designated ‘2016 WF9,’ is over one kilometer in diameter and is currently visible in the southern skies. NASA’s brightest minds have failed to reach a consensus as to the origin and nature of the celestial interloper; while 2016 WF9 is dark like a comet, it lacks the characteristic gas and dust cloud that define a comet. They unanimously agree, however, that 2016 WF9 will harmlessly skirt the Earth sometime during the first week of February. Despite these assurances, Russian-born astronomer and Nibiru whistle-blower Dyomin Damir Zakharovich believes otherwise, asserting that the newly identified object originated in the Nibiru system and will strike our planet, surviving its trip through our atmosphere intact, on February 16, 2017.
“NASA is lying through its teeth,” Dr. Zakharovich said. “It is not conceivable that they do not know the truth. We have seen the data! The object they call WF9 left the Nibiru system in October when Nibiru began spinning counter clockwise around the sun. Since then, NASA has known it will hit Earth. But they are only telling people now. And telling lies. That they call it 2016 WF9 proves they are lying. If they just discovered it yesterday, it would have a 2017 prefix.”
According to Dr. Zakharovich, 2016 WF9 was one of trillions of asteroids churning around Nibiru in a cosmic whirlpool. Occasionally, the asteroids collide, bumping one another likes balls on a billiard table, sometimes ejecting one another from orbit. In this case, Dr. Zakharovich said, 2016 WF9 was jettisoned directly toward Earth. Using the “slingshot effect,” it first doubled speed circling the brown dwarf star, then doubled that speed to the third power when it spun behind the dark side of the sun, propelling it toward Earth at transversel velocities.
“The Nibiru system is filled with asteroids and dust. It was only a matter of time before one was hurled in our direction. The object is larger than NASA says. Our preliminary data suggested a 2.2km asteroid that will have no problem penetrating the atmosphere without burning up,” Dr. Zakharovich said.
He says the asteroid is composed of hardened tritium encased in a nickel-iron core; essentially making it invulnerable to the thermilatic shielding that normally protects our planet from small space-borne objects. If correct, 2016 WF9’s impact will cause widespread devastation, striking with the force of a 3,000Mt atomic weapon. An ocean impact would boil the seas and potentially generate catastrophic tsunamis. If it hits land, entire cities will be laid to waste.
“And this is just a precursor to the damage Nibiru will cause when it gets here,” Dr. Zhakarovich said. “NASA probably knows the impact zone. I do not. We are all in peril.”
Although other Nibiru whistle-blowers have echoed Dr. Zhakarovich’s concerns, at least one disagrees with his hypothesis. Astrobiologist Herman Schwartzbaum, for example, says that Nibiru is inhabited by a race of giants, and that they deliberately launched 2016 WF9 in an unprovoked attack, to cripple Earth’s defenses in advance of their arrival later this year.
SOURCE : someonesbones.com


There are some natural ingredients that can be used to treat stomach acid. Ulcer is a disease caused by an excess of acid produced by the stomach acids that cause irritation to the mucous membrane of the stomach, under normal conditions of acid needed to aid digestion in processing the foods we eat.
Aside from excess stomach acid, stomach ulcers or gastritis or gastric ulcer is a disease that attacks the stomach occur due to injury or inflammation of the stomach that causes pain, heartburn, and tenderness in the abdomen other than as a result of inflammation of the stomach.
There are some foods that can cause stomach acid to rise and there are also foods that can overcome the stomach acid. Causes of ulcer disease usually occur due to irregular eating patterns, there are harmful microorganisms, taking certain medications, or other causes such as irregular sleep patterns and stress. Ulcer also can occur when the patient is late to eat, then while eating the ulcer patients eat portions that are too much. For patients who have severe gastritis, ulcer disease is very dangerous.
Characteristic feature of ulcer disease symptoms are as follows:
- Nausea and vomiting
- Often feel hungry
- Abdominal bloating
- Tremendous pain
- out of breath
- head feels dizzy
- tingling radiating to the legs and arms
- frequent colds
- often cold sweat
- heart palpitations
To overcome the stomach acid and avoid ulcer disease by avoiding some foods that can trigger stomach acid. Food taboos ulcer disease, the following is the information that should be avoided or food should not be consumed by people with stomach ulcers include:
- soft drink
- citrus fruit juice
- mixed fruit ice dessert
In addition to the above foods there are many more types of food that can be the cause of stomach acid. Food that may be difficult to digest such as spicy foods, fatty foods, cassava, noodles, corn, and many more. Actually, treatment of ulcer disease is not too difficult, but it takes a fairly long time for a full recovery. You can also use herbal ingredients are proven to be safe and efficacious.
If stomach acid up the majority of our society usually directly taking medication types of antacids to relieve the impact. In addition to medications, there are several types of foods and ingredients that can be used to cope with stomach acid such as honey, milk, organic honey, oatmeal, apple cider vinegar, baking soda and others.


Isoprenes are the 5-C functional units (monomer) of a variety of naturally occurring compounds termed as terpenoids or isoprenoids. Terpenoids are used as precursors for production of sterols and steroids in animals. Some proteins have terpenoid moieties attached to them in order to boost their attachment to membranes. There are two different metabolic pathways exist in various organisms for the synthesis of isoprene units isopentenyl diphosphate and its isomer dimethylallyl diphosphate. They are mevalonate pathway and non-mevalonate (DOXP/MEP) pathway. The mevalonate pathway utilises acetyl-CoA as substrate and produces HMG-CoA and mevalonate as intermediates in the pathway. This pathway takes place in animals, plants and yeast. The non-mevalonate pathway utilises glyceraldehydes-3-phosphate and pyruvate as substrates. In addition to possessing mevalonate pathway, plants also possess chloroplast based non-mevalonate pathway.
The mevalonate pathway is experimentally proven to be absent in Plasmodium falciparum. In addition, the experiments with DOXP-dependent non-mevalonate pathway inhibitors such as fosmidomycin demonstrated the presence of this non-mevalonate pathway. This pathway has also been validated as an effective drug target. As in plants, this pathway also localises to the plastid, apicoplast . The genes for the enzymes of mevalonate pathway are also absent in the genome, whereas the enzymes of non-mevalonate pathway are present and metabolic pathway was reconstructed in MPMP. The non-mevolate pathway of isoprenoid biosynthesis is also present in Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum. The genes for all the enzymes of the non-mevalonate pathway are present in the genomes of Piroplasma species suggesting the presence of this apicoplast-based pathway. The enzymes for the mevalonate pathway are absent in these genomes.
|Enzyme||EC Number||Gene id|
|4-hydroxy-3-methylbut-2-enyl diphosphate reductase||18.104.22.168||TA17670|
|4-hydroxy-3-methylbut-2-en-1-yl diphosphate synthase||22.214.171.124||TA14455|
|1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase||126.96.36.199||TA20470|
|4-(cytidine 5'-diphospho)-2-C-methyl-D-erythritol kinase||188.8.131.52||TA14545|
|2-C-methyl-D-erythritol 4-phosphate cytidylyltransferase||184.108.40.206||TA02505|
|2-C-methyl-D-erythritol 2,4-cyclodiphosphate synthase||220.127.116.11||TA04155|
|Triose phosphate isomerase||18.104.22.168||TA08590|
|Triose phosphate transporter||none||TA05100|
Sources and fates of metabolites
|Substrate||Source pathways||Product||Fate pathways|


Worksheet for Ethical Deliberation
This worksheet has been designed to assist advisers to make professional and ethically responsible decisions, by encouraging them to think about their own ethical standards in a professional context, and reflecting on the following questions:
- What are ethics? Why are they important?
- What ethical behaviours do I think are important to display as an adviser?
- How do my decisions affect my clients and others?
With reference to the flowchart below, write under each heading the relevant points that apply to the ethical situation that you are trying to resolve.
1. Recognise that there is an ethical dilemma
What is the situation?
Do I have choices?
What is at stake?
2. Understand the facts of the situation
What are the facts?
Do I need to find anything out?
3. Understand the options available
What are my options?
Do any laws/professional ethics influence my options?
4. Understand the consequences of the options
What are the consequences of each option?
Who will be affected by each option?
How will the parties be affected by each option?
5. Test the option you plan to take
Which is the best option?
Thoroughly review the preferred option:
Will the preferred option be difficult for others to understand?
Can I justify my actions?
How will I implement the decision?
6. Explain the option you have decided upon
Explain my actions – I should be able to justify them in a logical and straightforward manner
I should have kept records of my decision – now also keep a record of how I communicate my decision to those affected
7. Act on the chosen option
How will I implement my decision?
8. Reflect on the outcome
How did my decision turn out?
Who was affected and how?