invasion of privacy the right of privacy is a common - law ( court - made ) cause of action that is a fairly new legal development. the u. s. constitution contains no direct references to the right of privacy. there are few statutes that affect privacy and most invasion of privacy lawsuits that publishers may face are of the common - law type. an action for invasion of privacy is actually comprised of four distinct torts ( legal wrongs ). these are : intrusion upon seclusion ; appropriation of name or likeness ; publicity given to private life ; and publicity placing the person in a false light. each separate cause of action is addressed below. note : to sue successfully for invasion of privacy, a plaintiff only has to prove one of the four torts, not all of the four torts. the right of privacy competes with the freedom of the press as well as the interest of the public in the free dissemination of news and information, and these permanent public interests must be considered when placing the necessary limitations upon the right of privacy. pennsylvania courts have held that an action based on such right must not become a vehicle for establishment of a judicial censorship of the press. back to top. intrusion upon seclusion one who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. to be liable for intrusion upon seclusion, the plaintiff must prove the following elements : 1. invasion of a secluded place or privacy : the defendant ( the offender ) must invade the plaintiff ' s ( the person suing ) personal or private space. the definition of this invasion is very broad. invasion may be : by physical intrusion into a place where the plaintiff has secluded himself. by use of the defendant ' s senses to oversee or overhear the plaintiff ' s private affairs ( such as eavesdropping or spying with a telescope ), or some other form of investigation or examination into plaintiff ' s private concerns ( such as illegally obtaining someone ' s credit report ). 2. objectionable intrusion : the intrusion must be of a type that would be highly offensive to the ordinary reasonable person. 3. invasion of private affairs or matters : the interference with the plaintiff ' s privacy must be substantial ( however, if the event reported occurs in public, there is no expectation of privacy ). examples of intrusion upon privacy include placing microphones or cameras in someone ' s bedroom or hacking into their computer.


with the plaintiff ' s privacy must be substantial ( however, if the event reported occurs in public, there is no expectation of privacy ). examples of intrusion upon privacy include placing microphones or cameras in someone ' s bedroom or hacking into their computer. however, where the information that is reported pertains to the public interest as well as a party ' s private interest, that individual ' s right of privacy will be weighed against the public interest. if the event being reported is in the public interest ( a newsworthy event ), it will, in all likelihood, be immune to an invasion of privacy lawsuit. an example of this would be a car accident. although it involves the personal affairs of a few people ( or even only one person ), the accident is reportable because it is a newsworthy event. therefore, a person cannot sue a newspaper for invasion of privacy over a story about a car accident that includes the driver ' s name. photographs taken in public are also not violative of one ' s privacy. back to top. appropriation of name or likeness appropriation of name or likeness occurs when someone appropriates the name or likeness of another for their own use or benefit. action for misappropriation of right of publicity protects against commercial loss caused by appropriation of an individual ' s personality for commercial exploitation. it gives the individual exclusive right to control the commercial value of his or her name and likeness to prevent others from exploiting that value without permission. it is similar to a trademark action with the person ' s likeness, rather than the trademark, being the subject of the protection. courts have denied plaintiffs lawsuits unless there is a finding that the defendant obtains an economic benefit from using the plaintiff ' s name. additionally, the courts are unlikely to find that there has been an appropriation of the plaintiff ' s likeness unless the unauthorized use was part of an advertisement or a promotion. if such an appropriation is for a newsworthy event, the person ' s right to privacy is not violated. an example of this is if a photograph of someone patronizing a new restaurant is published as part of a story publicizing the opening of the restaurant. the patron cannot sue the newspaper for appropriation of name or likeness because the photograph is being used for a newsworthy event. however, if a store is using someone ' s picture to advertise a new line of clothes, and they have not received permission from that person to use the picture, that person ' s likeness has been wrongly appropriated. back to top. publicity given to


if a store is using someone ' s picture to advertise a new line of clothes, and they have not received permission from that person to use the picture, that person ' s likeness has been wrongly appropriated. back to top. publicity given to private life one who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that : 1. would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and 2. is not of legitimate concern to the public. the main determination in a publicity given to private life lawsuit is whether the matter being publicized is public or private. if the matter is one of public concern, there is no invasion of privacy. first amendment rights protect the publication of items of legitimate public interest. however, if the matter is not one of public concern, and it is one that people would find offensive, there is an invasion of privacy. an example of publicity given to private life would be publicizing the fact that your neighbor has failed to pay his credit card bill for three months. sometimes there is difficulty in determining whether something really is of legitimate public concern. courts have held that a claim that a person violated the law is relevant and newsworthy, even though it was latter proven that the substance of the complaint was false. the example of a drunk - driving one - car accident is also illustrates this point. although the driver may have an interest in keeping the fact that he was driving while intoxicated private, the accident occurred in public and is a newsworthy event. the public ' s interest in knowing about the accident outweighs the driver ' s interest in keeping the accident private. additionally, matters that are of public record are not protected. if a journalist publishes a story disclosing facts that were obtained from a police press release or a court opinion, the matter is of public record and no lawsuit for publicity given to private life will be successful. public figures ( those persons who, by their accomplishments or place in life, give the public a legitimate interest in their affairs, such as politicians, professional athletes, and even personal injury claimants ) face a somewhat lessened right to privacy because more of their actions are of legitimate public concern than they would be if the public figure were an ordinary person. because of this lessened expectancy of privacy, a newspaper can publish a biography of a public figure without fear of being sued for invasion of privacy. no permission is needed to do such a story. additionally, the newspaper can include


an ordinary person. because of this lessened expectancy of privacy, a newspaper can publish a biography of a public figure without fear of being sued for invasion of privacy. no permission is needed to do such a story. additionally, the newspaper can include some facts that would otherwise be an invasion of privacy for a person who is not a public figure. care must be taken that these otherwise private facts are within the scope of the story. examples of these facts would be a public figure ' s familial background, associates, or specific events in their life that shape them into the person that they are, or that shed light as to their guilt or innocence. public figures ( those persons who, by their accomplishments or place in life, give the public a legitimate interest in their affairs, such as politicians, professional athletes, and even personal injury claimants ) face a somewhat lessened right to privacy because more of their actions are of legitimate public concern than they would be if the public figure were an ordinary person. because of this lessened expectancy of privacy, a newspaper can publish a biography of a public figure without fear of being sued for invasion of privacy. no permission is needed to do such a story. additionally, the newspaper can include some facts that would otherwise be an invasion of privacy for a person who is not a public figure. care must be taken that these otherwise private facts are within the scope of the story. examples of these facts would be a public figure ' s familial background, associates, or specific events in their life that shape them into the person that they are, or that shed light as to their guilt or innocence. back to top. publicity placing the person in a false light one who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy if the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. examples include a newspaper publishing an innocent person ' s picture as part of a story about convicted felons or including reporting that someone was involved in a domestic dispute when, in fact, there was no such dispute. publicly placing a person in a false light also includes falsely stating someone ' s views, such as saying that someone is a member of the ku klux klan. an important exception is when the published matter is in the public interest ( newsworthy ), such as an item dealing with an accident or the background of a candidate for public office. when the published matter is in


member of the ku klux klan. an important exception is when the published matter is in the public interest ( newsworthy ), such as an item dealing with an accident or the background of a candidate for public office. when the published matter is in the public interest, the plaintiff must show that the publisher acted with malice ( that they either had a reckless disregard for the truth or they knew the report was false but published it anyway ). for example, if a newspaper published a story reporting that a candidate for mayor embezzled money from his previous employer, but never attempted to verify the accuracy of the information, the newspaper can be held liable for publicly placing the candidate in a false light. it is important to keep in mind that malice can be found if the information published is without probable cause or the newspaper never checked for truth by the means at hand. for more information about malice, see : libel back to top. special notes on invasion of privacy for a successful lawsuit, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant ' s actions caused his or her privacy to be invaded. therefore, the newspaper cannot be sued for invasion of privacy if a newspaper publishes a story based upon a report that was made by someone who invaded the plaintiff ' s privacy. note : the newspaper may be held responsible if the newspaper encourages someone to invade the plaintiff ' s privacy. additionally, in some invasion of privacy cases, the newspaper may also be held liable for libel. unlike libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy. only the plaintiff holds the right to privacy. it is a personal right. it does not survive the plaintiff ( the defendant cannot be sued for invasion of privacy actions that occur after the death of the person whose privacy was invaded ), nor can it be asserted on behalf of family members. invasion of privacy lawsuits cannot be brought by, or on behalf of, corporations. successful plaintiffs may recover damages for harm to their interest in privacy, mental / emotional distress, and special damages caused by the invasion of privacy. back to top.


this site is used for testing new functionality and bug fixes. things may not always work the way you expect. for the production site, please go to http : / / www. pdb. org looking at structures : dealing with coordinates the primary information stored in the pdb archive consists of coordinate files for biological molecules. these files list the atoms in each protein, and their 3d location in space. these files are available in several formats ( pdb, mmcif, xml ). a typical pdb formatted file includes a large " header " section of text that summarizes the protein, citation information, and the details of the structure solution, followed by the sequence and a long list of the atoms and their coordinates. the archive also contains the experimental observations that are used to determine these atomic coordinates. when you start exploring the structures in the pdb archive, you will need to know a few things about coordinate files. major topics are included here. atoms and hetatms a typical pdb format file will contain atomic coordinates for a diverse collection of proteins, small molecules, ions and water. each atom is entered as a line of information that starts with a keyword : either atom or hetatm. by tradition, the atom keyword is used to identify proteins or nucleic acid atoms, and keyword hetatm is used to identify atoms in small molecules. following this keyword, there is a list of information about the atom, including its name, its number in the file, the name and number of the residue it belongs to, one letter to specify the chain ( in oligomeric proteins ), its x, y, and z coordinates, and an occupancy and temperature factor ( described in more detail below ). this information gives you a lot of control when exploring the structure. for instance, most molecular graphics programs enable you to color identified portions of the molecule selectively - - for example, to pick out all of the carbon atoms and color them green, or to pick one particular amino acid and highlight it. the left image shows myoglobin ( pdb entry 1mbo ) using the default representation in mbt protein workshop. it shows a ribbon diagram for the protein, and ball - and - stick for the small molecules. in the right image, we have changed the representation to show all atoms, using the information in each atom record to color the molecules differently. this clearly shows the heme group in bright red, and a bound oxygen molecule in turquoise. tip : by default,


right image, we have changed the representation to show all atoms, using the information in each atom record to color the molecules differently. this clearly shows the heme group in bright red, and a bound oxygen molecule in turquoise. tip : by default, many molecular graphics programs do not display the water positions in a pdb file, even though they are often important to the function and interaction of biological molecules. most of these programs have a way to display them, if you use their methods for atom selection. chains and models biological molecules are hierarchical, building from atoms to residues to chains to assemblies. coordinate files contain ways to organize and specify molecules at all of these levels. as described above, the atom names and residue information are included in each atom record. the higher - order information is identified by keywords that separate blocks of atom records, such as ter and model. protein and nucleic acid chains are specified by the ter keyword, as well as a one - letter designation in the coordinate records. the chains are included one after another in the file, separated by a ter record to indicate that the chains are not physically connected to each other. most molecular graphics programs look for this ter record so that they don ' t draw a bond to connect different chains. pdb format files use the model keyword to indicate multiple molecules in a single file. this was initially created to archive coordinate sets that include several different models of the same structure, like the structural ensembles obtained in nmr analysis. when you view these files, you will see dozens of similar molecules all superimposed. the model keyword is now also used in biological assembly files to separate the many symmetrical copies of the molecule that are generated from the asymmetric unit ( for more information, see the tutorial on biological assemblies ). two useful coloring schemes allow you to explore the different chains in any given pdb file. first, you may color each chain differently to show the packing of different chains in the molecule as shown in the bottom image. then, you can color each chain using a rainbow of colors from one end of the chain to the other to highlight its folding characteristics as shown at the top. both of these methods are available in most molecular graphics programs. the molecule shown here is hemolysin from pdb entry 7ahl. if we were able to hold an atom rigidly fixed in one place, we could observe its distribution of electrons in an ideal situation. the image would be dense towards the center with the density falling off further from the nucleus. when you look


by the temperature factors. high values, indicating lots of motion, are in red and yellow, and low values are in blue. notice that the interior of the protein has low b - values and the amino acids on the surface have higher values. you can click on the picture for an interactive jmol view. tip : temperature factors are a measure of our confidence in the location of each atom. if you find an atom on the surface of a protein with a high temperature factor, keep in mind that this atom is probably moving a lot, and that the coordinates specified in the pdb file are only one possible snapshot of its location. occupancy and multiple conformations macromolecular crystals are composed of many individual molecules packed into a symmetrical arrangement. in some crystals, there are slight differences between each of these molecules. for instance, a sidechain on the surface may wag back and forth between several conformations, or a substrate may bind in two orientations in an active site, or a metal ion may be bound to only a few of the molecules. when researchers build the atomic model of these portions, they can use the occupancy to estimate the amount of each conformation that is observed in the crystal. for most atoms, the occupancy is given a value of 1, indicating that the atom is found in all of the molecules in the same place in the crystal. however, if a metal ion binds to only half of the molecules in the crystal, the researcher will see a weak image of the ion in the electron density map, and can assign an occupancy of 0. 5 in the pdb structure file for this atom. occupancies are also commonly used to identify sidechains or ligands that are observed in multiple conformations. the occupancy value is used to indicate the fraction of molecules that have each of the conformations. two ( or more ) atom records are included for each atom, with occupancies like 0. 5 and 0. 5, or 0. 4 and 0. 6, or other fractional occupancies that sum to a total of 1. the two images shown are taken from the high - resolution structure of myoglobin in entry 1a6m : glutamine 8 is on the left, and tyrosine 151 on the right. in both cases, the depositors interpreted the experimental data as showing two conformations of the amino acid, with occupancies of


thinking and reasoning 2 ( 1 ) : 33 – 49 ( 1996 ) | abstract | | we postulate the testing principle : that individuals ' ' act like statisticians ' ' when they face uncertainty in a decision problem, ranking alternatives to the extent that available evidence allows. the testing principle implies that completeness of preferences, rather than the sure - thing principle, is violated in the ellsberg paradox. in the experiment, subjects chose between risky and uncertain acts in modified ellsberg - type urn problems, with sample information about the uncertain urn. our results show, consistent with the testing principle, that the uncertain urn is chosen more often when the sample size is larger, holding constant a measure of ambiguity ( proportion of balls of unknown colour in the urn ). the testing principle rationalises the ellsberg paradox. behaviour consistent with the principle leads to a reduction in ellsberg - type violations as the statistical quality of sample information is improved, holding ambiguity constant. the testing principle also provides a normative rationale for the ellsberg paradox that is consistent with procedural rationality. | | keywords | | no keywords specified ( fix it ) | | through your library | | configure | similar books and articles edward e. schlee ( 1997 ). the sure thing principle and the value of information. theory and decision 42 ( 1 ) : 21 - 36. ronald n. giere ( 1970 ). an orthodox statistical resolution of the paradox of confirmation. philosophy of science 37 ( 3 ) : 354 - 362. patrick maher ( 1999 ). inductive logic and the ravens paradox. philosophy of science 66 ( 1 ) : 50 - 70. horacio arlo - costa & jeffrey helzner, iterated random selection as intermediate between risk and uncertainty. jeffrey helzner ( 2009 ). on the application of multiattribute utility theory to models of choice. theory and decision 66 ( 4 ) : 301 - 315. katie steele ( 2007 ). distinguishing indeterminate belief from “ risk - averse ” preferences. synthese 158 ( 2 ) : 189 - 205. horacio arlo - costa & jeffrey helzner ( 2010 ). ambiguity aversion : the explanatory power of indeterminate probabilities. synthese 172 ( 1 ). jurgen eichberger & david kelsey ( 1999 ). e - capacities and the ellsberg paradox. theory and decision 46 ( 2 ) : 107 - 138. pr


an important discovery has been made with respect to the mystery of “ handedness ” in biomolecules. researchers led by sandra pizzarello, a research professor at arizona state university, found that some of the possible abiotic precursors to the origin of life on earth have been shown to carry “ handedness ” in a larger number than previously thought. the work is being published in this week ’ s early edition of the proceedings of the national academy of sciences. the paper is titled, “ molecular asymmetry in extraterrestrial chemistry : insights from a pristine meteorite, ” and is co - authored by pizzarello and yongsong huang and marcelo alexandre, of brown university. pizzarello, in asu ’ s department of chemistry and biochemistry, worked with huang and alexandre in studying the organic materials of a special group of meteorites that contain among a variety of compounds, amino acids that have identical counterparts in terrestrial biomolecules. these meteorites are fragments of asteroids that are about the same age as the solar system ( roughly 4. 5 billion years. ) scientists have long known that most compounds in living things exist in mirror - image forms. the two forms are like hands ; one is a mirror reflection of the other. they are different, cannot be superimposed, yet identical in their parts. when scientists synthesize these molecules in the laboratory, half of a sample turns out to be “ left - handed ” and the other half “ right - handed. ” but amino acids, which are the building blocks of terrestrial proteins, are all “ left - handed, ” while the sugars of dna and rna are “ right - handed. ” the mystery as to why this is the case, “ parallels in many of its queries those that surround the origin of life, ” said pizzarello. years ago pizzarello and asu professor emeritus john cronin analyzed amino acids from the murchison meteorite ( which landed in australia in 1969 ) that were unknown on earth, hence solving the problem of any contamination. they discovered a preponderance of “ left - handed ” amino acids over their “ right - handed ” form. “ the findings of cronin and pizzarello are probably the first demonstration that there may be natural processes in the cosmos that generate a preferred amino acid handedness, ” jeffrey bada of the scripps institution of oceanography, la jolla, calif., said at the time. the new pnas work was made


may be natural processes in the cosmos that generate a preferred amino acid handedness, ” jeffrey bada of the scripps institution of oceanography, la jolla, calif., said at the time. the new pnas work was made possible by the finding in antarctica of an exceptionally pristine meteorite. antarctic ices are good “ curators ” of meteorites. after a meteorite falls - - and meteorites have been falling throughout the history of earth - - it is quickly covered by snow and buried in the ice. because these ices are in constant motion, when they come to a mountain, they will flow over the hill and bring meteorites to the surface. “ thanks to the pristine nature of this meteorite, we were able to demonstrate that other extraterrestrial amino acids carry the left - handed excesses in meteorites and, above all, that these excesses appear to signify that their precursor molecules, the aldehydes, also carried such excesses, ” pizzarello said. “ in other words, a molecular trait that defines life seems to have broader distribution as well as a long cosmic lineage. ” “ this study may provide an important clue to the origin of molecular asymmetry, ” added brown associate professor and co - author huang. source : arizona state university explore further : university of illinois biophysicists measure mechanism that determines fate of living cells


industrial pipe systems are inaccessible and narrow. the pipes can be vertical and have junctions. just as challenging, leakage points in the water system must be located, the condition of oil and gas pipelines must be checked and ventilation systems need to be cleaned. in the main, today ’ s robots are not that clever. they cannot climb or navigate in vertical pipes – and very few have active joints. cybernetics and optical measurement scientists at sintef are working on a solution. navigation by light and image with experience and knowledge acquired with snake robots anna konda and aiko as a starting point, a team is now developing an intelligent pipe inspection robot on wheels that will be able to climb, navigate intersections and at any given time know its location in the pipe system. the inspection robot will be able to move in pipes of various diameters, right down to 20 cm. cybernetics scientists are developing the propulsion system while a team of optics scientists is working on the new robot ’ s visual system. “ we are currently developing the vision system than will enable the robot to navigate, ” says jens thielemann at sintef ict. “ in the meantime, we are using the lego robot mindstormer to collect the data to train the vision system. this lego robot has a camera attached and moves around the pipe following a pre - programmed map. the next step will be to utilise the vision system as input to control the actual snake robot we are going to develop. ” the camera that will provide the new robot ’ s vision is an off the shelf time - of - flight camera that provides a bathymetric chart of the pipe system using inflected light. “ combined with our algorithms, the robot will be able to navigate and move forward on its own, ” says thielemann. “ the robot knows when a left or right turn is approaching and also contains a built - in path description detailing what tasks it should carry out in different situations. functions as a train “ given our previous work on snake robots, we have become good at controlling mechanisms that are linked, ” says sintef cybernetics scientist erik kyrkjebø. “ we now want to develop a robot with 10 - 11 joint modules, each with an identical pair of wheels cast in plastic. the weight must be well distributed between the joints. for example, can we put the camera and accelerator motor in two different joint modules? the robot will function as a train when operating horizontally. such robots already exist, but we want to develop a


. the weight must be well distributed between the joints. for example, can we put the camera and accelerator motor in two different joint modules? the robot will function as a train when operating horizontally. such robots already exist, but we want to develop a robot that can climb too. ” the scientists have designed several versions of the pipe inspection robot and have tested different solutions in order to make the new robot both mobile and compact. they have now come up with a design they have faith in. when the robot enters a vertical pipe, it lifts its head in the pipe and meets the pipe wall. it can then either move sideways with its abdomen against the pipe and twist itself upwards or it can topple backwards, attach itself to the pipe wall, in the same way as we would put our feet against a shaft wall to hold on, and then roll upwards. the scientists emphasise that the project is at the design stage. in june, two of the 11 joint modules will be tested to verify the concept and they hope to demonstrate a prototype model by the end of the year. this comprises just phase one of an industrial development, but the enthusiastic scientists are confident of succeeding in the foreseeable future. the final version of the robot will be constructed of aluminium and is planned to be 1. 5 m long. source : aase dragland explore further : nasa : austin, calling austin. 3 - d pizzas to go


this summer, mount diablo unified school district ' s governing board will make sure district policies on bullying comply with state legislation known as seth ' s law, which went into effect on july 1. named for seth walsh, a 13 - year - old in tehachapi, calif. who hanged himself in 2010 after being bullied for being gay, ab 9 requires public schools to have clear rules about preventing and punishing bullying. here ' s the definition of bullying mt. diablo unified staff shared with the school board in june : no student or group of students shall through physical, written, verbal, or other means harass, sexually harass, threaten, intimidate, cyberbully, cause bodily injury to, or commit hate violence against any other student or school personnel. unwilling to force new costs on cash - strapped school districts, state lawmakers nixed language in the original bill that would have required staff to attend trainings on bullying. it falls on the california department of education to make sure school districts are following the new law, but with resources scarce, it will likely be difficult for the cde to do much in the way of enforcement. that means administrators, teachers, parents and students will ultimately be responsible for addressing the problem of bullying in individual schools. what do you think about the culture in pleasant hill ' s secondary schools? does school staff take bullying seriously? do gay and lesbian students feel respected and safe? tell us in the comments below. suspensions for bullying, violence, intimidation or sexual harassment in 2010 - 2011 total suspensions in 2010 - 2011 57 113 source : california department of education during the 2010 - 2011 school year, researchers for the california healthy kids survey asked around 5, 600 secondary students in mount diablo unified how they feel about their schools. the findings below are from the questions related to bullying. mean rumors spread about you 2 or more times sexual comments or jokes directed at you 2 or more times been made fun of for the way you look or talk 2 or more times 7th graders 23 percent 28 percent 27 percent 9th graders 33 percent 34 percent 25 percent 11th graders 20 percent 36 percent 24 percent been pushed shoved or hit 2 or more times been afraid of being beaten up 2 or more times been in a physical fight 2 or more times 7th graders 24 percent 12 percent 12 percent 9th graders 15 percent 9 percent 9 percent 11th graders 9 percent 7 percent 8 percent source : california healthy kids survey, 2010 - 2011 want pleasant hill news delivered straight to your inbox? sign up for our newsletter.


railroads and ferries brought prosperity | a. b. safford memorial museum in cairo, illinois, built in 1883 | cairo, illinois, is at the extreme southern tip of illinois, at the point where the ohio and mississippi rivers converge. i always have mixed feelings as i drive through cairo ( pronounced " kay - roh ". ) sadly, the town has endured a long period of hard times and population loss. in the business district, empty lots suggest that many deteriorated buildings have been bulldozed and hauled away. some old buildings, still standing, are candidates for the next demolition list. | i ' m not sure if this church is in use. | cairo became an important railroad hub after the civil war, and the town enjoyed several decades of great prosperity. train cars ( and other vehicles ) were ferried across the rivers, and the ferry business was as important to local fortunes as the railroad and river - shipping businesses. | the riverlore in cairo, illinois | then in 1889, the illinois central railroad completed the cairo rail bridge across the ohio river ( image, another image ). it was a masterpiece of engineering. the metal bridge itself was nearly 2 miles long and the entire structure including the wooden approaches was almost 4 miles long. freight from chicago could travel directly to new orleans via the cairo rail bridge - - a revolution in rail shipping, but a blow to cairo. | more mansions in cairo | vehicles traveling in the cairo area still used the ferries until two highway bridges were built - - the mississippi river bridge ( leading to missouri ) in 1929, and the ohio river bridge ( leading to kentucky ) in 1937. the bridges and roads connected a short distance south of cairo, so travelers could quickly cross both rivers without even entering town. the loss of the railroad and ferry industries was significant, but it alone did not kill the town. by the early 1900s, other serious problems ( racism, corruption, violence, crime ) were well - established in cairo. over the next century, these evils had a slow - but - deadly effect on the town. you can read about the darker side of cairo ' s history at " cairo, illinois, death by racism. " | overgrowth and disrepair, too! | a photo i took inside the customs house some years ago seen at wickliffe, kentucky | ohio river bridge, just south of cairo |


this page is being updated... | finedust | house dust mites and especially their pellets are held responsible for certain allergies and asthma. what is known? claims that carpets were breeding grounds for dust mites have proven false. in carpets, dust mites can easily be kept under control with regular ventilation and proper cleaning. carpet is not the ideal habitat for mites. carpet prevents the allergic material from being released into the atmosphere by holding the fine allergen particles in the pile until next vacuuming. hard surfaces, on the contrary, allow the allergens to become easily airborne with the slightest draught or vibration. thus, carpet improves the quality of life of allergic persons. it is not the floor covering, but the temperature and humidity that make the difference. the map on the next page shows that conditions in northern europe do not favour mite growth, and yet, that ’ s where carpet has been considered wrongly a problem. in southern countries mites do survive, even on hard floors and tiles. despite this, no problems have been reported. ( source : bronswijk j. e. m. h. van, schober g. geoklimatische verteilung von innenraumallergenen. in : jorde w., schata m., eds. monchengladbacher allergieseminar band 5. innenraumallergene. dustri - verlag, munchen - deisenhofen. 1993 : 69 - 84. ) distribution of mites in houses of mite - allergic patients bedding offers ideal living conditions for dust mites, because they are not dependant upon the relative humidity of the bedroom itself : bedding is warm, dark, and damp after sleep and contains discarded skin scales. dust mite allergen in mattresses can be 1. 5 times greater than in dust from bedrooms placed carpet. dust mites are almost not found in offices. in a study comparing carpets in 27 randomly selected offices with 30 bedrooms in homes, mite allergen levels were found to be 0. 32 μ / g in offices vs. 18. 4 μ / g in bedrooms. it was concluded that mite exposure in offices does not seem to be a risk for neither allergic ( atopic ) nor for non - allergic ( non - atopic ) employees. ( source : v. freund, f. lieutier - colas, m. ott, a. vrot, g. paul


individual differences | methods | statistics | clinical | educational | industrial | professional items | world psychology | it is caused by the presence of three — instead of two — chromosomes 18 in a fetus or baby ' s cells. the additional chromosome usually occurs before conception. a healthy egg or sperm cell contains 23 individual chromosomes - one to contribute to each of the 23 pairs of chromosomes needed to form a normal cell with 46 chromosomes. numerical errors arise at either of the two meiotic divisions and cause the failure of segregation of a chromosome into the daughter cells ( non - disjunction ). this results in an extra chromosome making the haploid number 24 rather than 23. fertilization of these eggs or sperm that contain an extra chromosome results in trisomy, or three copies of a chromosome rather than two. it is this extra genetic information that causes all the abnormalities characteristic of individuals with edwards syndrome. as each and every cell in their body contains extra information, the ability to grow and develop appropriately is delayed or impaired. this results in characteristic physical abnormalities such as low birth weight ; a small, abnormally shaped head ; small jaw ; small mouth ; low - set ears ; and clenched fists with overlapping fingers. babies with edwards syndrome also have heart defects, and other organ malformations such that most systems of the body are affected. edwards syndrome also results in significant developmental delays. for this reason a full - term edwards syndrome baby may well exhibit the breathing and feeding difficulties of a premature baby. given the assistance offered to premature babies, some of these infants are able to overcome these initial difficulties, but most eventually succumb. the survival rate for edwards syndrome is very low. about half die in utero. of liveborn infants, only 50 % live to 2 months, and only 5 - 10 % will survive their first year of life. major causes of death include apnea and heart abnormalities. it is impossible to predict the exact prognosis of an edwards syndrome child during pregnancy or the neonatal period. as major medical interventions are routinely withheld from these children, it is also difficult to determine what the survival rate or prognosis would be for the condition if they were treated with the same aggressiveness as their genetically normal peers. they are typically severely to profoundly developmentally delayed. the rate of occurrence for edwards syndrome is ~ 1 : 3000 conceptions and 1 : 6000 live births, as 50 % of those diagnosed prenatally with the condition will not survive the prenatal period. although women in their 20 ' s and 30


rate of occurrence for edwards syndrome is ~ 1 : 3000 conceptions and 1 : 6000 live births, as 50 % of those diagnosed prenatally with the condition will not survive the prenatal period. although women in their 20 ' s and 30 ' s may conceive edwards syndrome babies, there is an increased risk of conceiving a child with edwards syndrome as a woman ' s age increases. a small percentage of cases occur when only some of the body ' s cells have an extra copy of chromosome 18, resulting in a mixed population of cells with a differing number of chromosomes. such cases are sometimes called mosaic edwards syndrome. very rarely, a piece of chromosome 18 becomes attached to another chromosome ( translocated ) before or after conception. affected people have two copies of chromosome 18, plus extra material from chromosome 18 attached to another chromosome. with a translocation, the person has a partial trisomy for chromosome 18 and the abnormalities are often less than for the typical edwards syndrome. features and characteristicsedit symptoms and findings may be extremely variable from case to case. however, in many affected infants, the following may be found : - growth deficiency - feeding difficulties - breathing difficulties - developmental delays - mental retardation - undescended testicles in males - prominent back portion of the head - small head ( microcephaly ) - low - set, malformed ears - abnormally small jaw ( micrognathia ) - small mouth - cleft lip / palate - upturned nose - narrow eyelid folds ( palpebral fissures ) - widely - spaced eyes ( ocular hypertelorism ) - dropping of the upper eyelids ( ptosis ) - overlapped, flexed fingers - underdeveloped or absent thumbs - underdeveloped nails - absent radius - webbing of the second and third toes - clubfeet or rocker bottom feet - small pelvis with limited movements of the hips - short breastbone - kidney malformations - structural heart defects at birth ( i. e., ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus ) - stenson, carol m. ( 1999 ). trisomy 18 : a guidebook for families. university of nebraska medical center. isbn 1 - 889843 - 29 - 6. - barnes, ann m. ( 2000 ). care of the infant and child with trisomy 18 or 13 : medical problems, reported treatments and milestones. university of nebraska medical


scientific investigations report 2005 - 5232 the carbonate - rock aquifer of the great basin is named for the thick sequence of paleozoic limestone and dolomite with lesser amounts of shale, sandstone, and quartzite. it lies primarily in the eastern half of the great basin and includes areas of eastern nevada and western utah as well as the death valley area of california and small parts of arizona and idaho. the carbonate - rock aquifer is contained within the basin and range principal aquifer, one of 16 principal aquifers selected for study by the u. s. geological survey ’ s national water - quality assessment program. water samples from 30 ground - water sites ( 20 in nevada and 10 in utah ) were collected in the summer of 2003 and analyzed for major anions and cations, nutrients, trace elements, dissolved organic carbon, volatile organic compounds ( vocs ), pesticides, radon, and microbiology. water samples from selected sites also were analyzed for the isotopes oxygen - 18, deuterium, and tritium to determine recharge sources and the occurrence of water recharged since the early 1950s. primary drinking - water standards were exceeded for several inorganic constituents in 30 water samples from the carbonate - rock aquifer. the maximum contaminant level was exceeded for concentrations of dissolved antimony ( 6 μg / l ) in one sample, arsenic ( 10 μg / l ) in eleven samples, and thallium ( 2 μg / l ) in one sample. secondary drinking - water regulations were exceeded for several inorganic constituents in water samples : chloride ( 250 mg / l ) in five samples, fluoride ( 2 mg / l ) in two samples, iron ( 0. 3 mg / l ) in four samples, manganese ( 0. 05 mg / l ) in one sample, sulfate ( 250 mg / l ) in three samples, and total dissolved solids ( 500 mg / l ) in seven samples. six different pesticides or metabolites were detected at very low concentrations in the 30 water samples. the lack of voc detections in water sampled from most of the sites is evidence thatvocs are not common in the carbonate - rock aquifer. arsenic values for water range from 0. 7 to 45. 7 μg / l, with a median value of 9. 6 μg / l. factors affecting arsenic concentration in the carbonate - rock aquifer in addition to geothermal heating are its natural occurrence in the aquifer material and time


. 7 μg / l, with a median value of 9. 6 μg / l. factors affecting arsenic concentration in the carbonate - rock aquifer in addition to geothermal heating are its natural occurrence in the aquifer material and time of travel along the flow path. most of the chemical analyses, especially for vocs and nutrients, indicate little, if any, effect of overlying land - use patterns on ground - water quality. the water quality in recharge areas for the aquifer where human activities are more intense may be affected by urban and / or agricultural land uses as evidenced by pesticide detections. the proximity of the carbonate - rock aquifer at these sites to the land surface and the potential for local recharge to occur through the fractured rock likely results in the occurrence of these and other land - surface related contaminants in the ground water. water from sites sampled near outcrops of carbonate - rock aquifer likely has a much shorter residence time resulting in a potential for detection of anthropogenic or land - surface related compounds. sites located in discharge areas of the flow systems or wells that are completed at a great depth below the land surface generally show no effects of land - use activities on water quality. flow times within the carbonate - rock aquifer, away from recharge areas, are on the order of thousands of years, so any contaminants introduced at the land surface that will not degrade along the flow path have not reached the sampled sites in these areas. first posted february, 2006 part or all of this report is presented in portable document format ( pdf ) ; the latest version of adobe reader or similar software is required to view it. download the latest version of adobe reader, free of charge. schaefer, d. h., thiros, s. a., and rosen, m. r., 2005, ground - water quality in the carbonate - rock aquifer of the great basin, nevada and utah, 2003 : u. s. geological survey scientific investigations report 2005 - 5232, 41 p. description of study area study design and methods appendix 1. water - quality constituents analyzed in ground - water samples from wells and springs in the carbonate - rock aquifer, nevada and utah


coastal and marine geology program the swinomish channel in la conner, washington. inset shows u. s. geological survey instrument tripod used to measure circulation and water - column properties. ( photographs by e. grossman and a. stevens, u. s. geological survey. ) time - series and spatial measurements of nearshore hydrodynamic processes and water properties were made in the swinomish channel to quantify the net direction and rates of surface water transport that influence habitat for juvenile chinook salmon along their primary migratory corridor between the skagit river and padilla bay in northern puget sound, washington. during the spring outmigration of skagit river chinook between march and june 2007, currents measured with fixed acoustic doppler current profilers ( adcp ) at the south and north end of the swinomish channel and with roving adcp revealed that the currents are highly asymmetric with a dominant flow to the north ( toward padilla bay ). maximum surface current velocities reached 1. 5 m / s and were generally uniform across the channel near mcglinn island causeway. transport times for surface water to travel the 11 km from the southern end of swinomish channel at mcglinn island to padilla bay ranged from 2. 1 hours to 5. 5 days. the mean travel time was ~ 1 day, while 17 percent of the time, transport of water and passive particles occurred within 3. 75 hours. surface water in the swinomish channel during this time was generally very saline 20 - 27 psu, except south of the rainbow bridge in the town of la conner where it ranged 0 - 15 psu depending on tide and skagit river discharge. this salinity regime restricts suitable low salinity ( < 15 - 20 psu ) surface waters for fry chinook salmon to the southernmost 2 km of the channel. the mean change in salinity along the channel was 10 - 13 psu. the high northward current velocities have the capacity to transport chinook fry into less suitable, high - salinity waters toward padilla bay within hours. the rapid transport times of 2. 1 to 3. 75 hours between mcglinn island and padilla bay that occur 17 percent of the time, are considerably less than the time considered adequate for juvenile chinook to acclimate and produce a temporal salinity gradient for pre - smolt salmon that can exceed 4 psu / hour during high northward current flow. download this


ten thousand people were killed and 10 to 15 million left homeless when a cyclone slammed into india ' s eastern coastal state of orissa in october 1999. in the aftermath, care and the catholic relief society distributed a high - nutrition mixture of corn and soy meal provided by the u. s. agency for international development to thousands of hungry storm victims. oddly, this humanitarian act elicited cries of outrage. " we call on the government of india and the state government of orissa to immediately withdraw the corn - soya blend from distribution, " said vandana shiva, director of the new delhi - based research foundation for science, technology, and ecology. " the u. s. has been using the orissa victims as guinea pigs for gm [ genetically modified ] products which have been rejected by consumers in the north, especially europe. " shiva ' s organization had sent a sample of the food to a lab in the u. s. for testing to see if it contained any of the genetically improved corn and soy bean varieties grown by tens of thousands of farmers in the united states. not surprisingly, it did. " vandana shiva would rather have her people in india starve than eat bioengineered food, " says c. s. prakash, a professor of plant molecular genetics at tuskegee university in alabama. per pinstrup - andersen, director general of the international food policy research institute, observes : " to accuse the u. s. of sending genetically modified food to orissa in order to use the people there as guinea pigs is not only wrong ; it is stupid. worse than rhetoric, it ' s false. after all, the u. s. doesn ' t need to use indians as guinea pigs, since millions of americans have been eating genetically modified food for years now with no ill effects. " shiva not only opposes the food aid but is also against " golden rice, " a crop that could prevent blindness in half a million to 3 million poor children a year and alleviate vitamin a deficiency in some 250 million people in the developing world. by inserting three genes, two from daffodils and one from a bacterium, scientists at the swiss federal institute of technology created a variety of rice that produces the nutrient beta - carotene, the precursor to vitamin a. agronomists at the international rice research institute in the philippines plan to crossbreed the variety, called " golden rice " because of the color produced by the beta - carotene, with well - adapted local varieties and distribute the resulting plants


agronomists at the international rice research institute in the philippines plan to crossbreed the variety, called " golden rice " because of the color produced by the beta - carotene, with well - adapted local varieties and distribute the resulting plants to farmers all over the developing world. last june, at a capitol hill seminar on biotechnology sponsored by the congressional hunger center, shiva airily dismissed golden rice by claiming that " just in the state of bengal 150 greens which are rich in vitamin a are eaten and grown by the women. " a visibly angry martina mcgloughlin, director of the biotechnology program at the university of california at davis, said " dr. shiva ' s response reminds me of... marie antoinette, [ who ] suggested the peasants eat cake if they didn ' t have access to bread. " alexander avery of the hudson institute ' s center for global food issues noted that nutritionists at unicef doubted it was physically possible to get enough vitamin a from the greens shiva was recommending. furthermore, it seems unlikely that poor women living in shanties in the heart of calcutta could grow greens to feed their children. the apparent willingness of biotechnology ' s opponents to sacrifice people for their cause disturbs scientists who are trying to help the world ' s poor. at the annual meeting of the american association for the advancement of science last february, ismail serageldin, the director of the consultative group on international agricultural research, posed a challenge : " i ask opponents of biotechnology, do you want 2 to 3 million children a year to go blind and 1 million to die of vitamin a deficiency, just because you object to the way golden rice was created? " vandana shiva is not alone in her disdain for biotechnology ' s potential to help the poor. mae - wan ho, a reader in biology at london ' s open university who advises another activist group, the third world network, also opposes golden rice. and according to a new york times report on a biotechnology meeting held last march by the organization for economic cooperation and development, benedikt haerlin, head of greenpeace ' s european anti - biotech campaign, " dismissed the importance of saving african and asian lives at the risk of spreading a new science that he considered untested. " shiva, ho, and haerlin are leaders in a growing global war against crop biotechnology, sometimes called " green biotech " ( to distinguish it from medical biotechnology, known as " red biotech " ). gangs of anti - biotech vandals with cute moniker


haerlin are leaders in a growing global war against crop biotechnology, sometimes called " green biotech " ( to distinguish it from medical biotechnology, known as " red biotech " ). gangs of anti - biotech vandals with cute monikers such as cropatistas and seeds of resistance have ripped up scores of research plots in europe and the u. s. the so - called earth liberation front burned down a crop biotech lab at michigan state university on new year ' s eve in 1999, destroying years of work and causing $ 400, 000 in property damage. ( see " crop busters, " january. ) anti - biotech lobbying groups have proliferated faster than bacteria in an agar - filled petri dish : in addition to shiva ' s organization, the third world network, and greenpeace, they include the union of concerned scientists, the institute for agriculture and trade policy, the institute of science in society, the rural advancement foundation international, the ralph nader - founded public citizen, the council for responsible genetics, the institute for food and development policy, and that venerable fount of biotech misinformation, jeremy rifkin ' s foundation on economic trends. the left hasn ' t been this energized since the vietnam war. but if the anti - biotech movement is successful, its victims will include the downtrodden people on whose behalf it claims to speak. " we ' re in a war, " said an activist at a protesters ' gathering during the november 1999 world trade organization meeting in seattle. " we ' re going to bury this first wave of biotech. " he summed up the basic strategy pretty clearly : " the first battle is labeling. the second battle is banning it. " later that week, during a standing - room - only " biosafety seminar " in the basement of a seattle methodist church, the ubiquitous mae - wan ho declared, " this warfare against nature must end once and for all. " michael fox, a vegetarian " bioethicist " from the humane society of the united states, sneered : " we are very clever little simians, aren ' t we? manipulating the bases of life and thinking we ' re little gods. " he added, " the only acceptable application of genetic engineering is to develop a genetically engineered form of birth control for our own species. " this creepy declaration garnered rapturous applause from the assembled activists. despite its unattractive side, the global campaign against green biotech has had notable


application of genetic engineering is to develop a genetically engineered form of birth control for our own species. " this creepy declaration garnered rapturous applause from the assembled activists. despite its unattractive side, the global campaign against green biotech has had notable successes in recent years. several leading food companies, including gerber and frito - lay, have been cowed into declaring that they will not use genetically improved crops to make their products. since 1997, the european union has all but outlawed the growing and importing of biotech crops and food. last may some 60 countries signed the biosafety protocol, which mandates special labels for biotech foods and requires strict notification, documentation, and risk assessment procedures for biotech crops. activists have launched a " five - year freeze " campaign that calls for a worldwide moratorium on planting genetically enhanced crops. for a while, it looked like the united states might resist the growing hysteria, but in december 1999 the environmental protection agency announced that it was reviewing its approvals of biotech corn crops, implying that it might ban the crops in the future. last may the food and drug administration, which until now has evaluated biotech foods solely on their objective characteristics, not on the basis of how they were produced, said it would formulate special rules for reviewing and approving products with genetically modified ingredients. u. s. rep. dennis kucinich ( d - ohio ) has introduced a bill that would require warning labels on all biotech foods. in october, news that a genetically modified corn variety called starlink that was approved only for animal feed had been inadvertently used in two brands of taco shells prompted recalls, front - page headlines, and anxious recriminations. lost in the furor was the fact that there was little reason to believe the corn was unsafe for human consumption - only an implausible, unsubstantiated fear that it might cause allergic reactions. even aventis, the company which produced starlink, agreed that it was a serious mistake to have accepted the epa ' s approval for animal use only. most proponents favor approving biotech crops only if they are determined to be safe for human consumption. to decide whether the uproar over green biotech is justified, you need to know a bit about how it works. biologists and crop breeders can now select a specific useful gene from one species and splice it into an unrelated species. previously plant breeders were limited to introducing new genes through the time - consuming and inexact art of crossbreeding


it works. biologists and crop breeders can now select a specific useful gene from one species and splice it into an unrelated species. previously plant breeders were limited to introducing new genes through the time - consuming and inexact art of crossbreeding species that were fairly close relatives. for each cross, thousands of unwanted genes would be introduced into a crop species. years of " backcrossing " - breeding each new generation of hybrids with the original commercial variety over several generations - were needed to eliminate these unwanted genes so that only the useful genes and characteristics remained. the new methods are far more precise and efficient. the plants they produce are variously described as " transgenic, " " genetically modified, " or " genetically engineered. " plant breeders using biotechnology have accomplished a great deal in only a few years. for example, they have created a class of highly successful insect - resistant crops by incorporating toxin genes from the soil bacterium bacillus thuringiensis. farmers have sprayed b. t. spores on crops as an effective insecticide for decades. now, thanks to some clever biotechnology, breeders have produced varieties of corn, cotton, and potatoes that make their own insecticide. b. t. is toxic largely to destructive caterpillars such as the european corn borer and the cotton bollworm ; it is not harmful to birds, fish, mammals, or people.


the stated mission of sage is to be viable free open source alternative to magma, maple, mathematica, and matlab. sage ’ s predecessors, known as hecke and manin, came about because william stein needed to write them as part of his research in number theory. started by william in 2005 during his time at harvard university, sage combines best - of - breed free open source mathematics software, packaging and unifying them through a common interface. many researchers in number theory, including william himself, use this common interface to build upon and extend the functionalities of underlying packages for number theory research. such software packages include givaro, mpir, ntl, pari / gp, and many others too numerous to list here. students, teachers, professors, researchers throughout the world use sage because they require a comprehensive free open source mathematics package that offers symbolic and numerical computation. most of the time, people are happy with what sage has to offer. as is common throughout the free open source software ( foss ) world, many people often identify cases where sage lacks certain mathematics functionalities that they require. and so they delve into the underlying source code that comprises sage in order to extend it for their purposes, or expose functionalities of underlying packages shipped with sage in order to use their favourite mathematics software packages from within sage. the sage - combinat team is comprised of researchers in algebraic combinatorics. the team ’ s stated mission is to improve sage as an extensible toolbox for computer exploration in algebraic combinatorics, and foster code sharing between researchers in this area. for detailed information about why sage exists, see william ’ s personal mathematics software biography. in the first few years of sage ’ s existence, the project was called “ sage ”. this acronym stood for “ software for algebra and geometry experimentation ”. starting around 2007 and early 2008, the name “ sage ” was widely adopted. think of “ sage ” as a name for a free open source mathematics software project, just as “ python ” is a name for a free open source general purpose programming language. whenever possible, please use the name “ sage ” instead of “ sage ” to avoid confusing the sage project with a computer project called sage. you pronounce “ sage ” similar to how you would pronounce “ sage ” which refers to a wise person, or “ sage ” which refers to a plant. some people pronounce “ sage ” as “ sarge ”, similar to how you would pronounce debian sarge


would pronounce “ sage ” which refers to a wise person, or “ sage ” which refers to a plant. some people pronounce “ sage ” as “ sarge ”, similar to how you would pronounce debian sarge. however you pronounce “ sage ”, please do not confuse the sage project with an accounting software by the same name. sage is a volunteer based project. its success is due to the voluntary effort of a large international team of students, teachers, professors, researchers, software engineers, and people working in diverse areas of mathematics, science, engineering, software development, and all levels of education. the development of sage has benefited from the financial support of numerous institutions, and the previous and ongoing work of many authors of included components. a list of direct contributors can be found on the sage development map and the history of changes can be found in the high - level changelog. refer to the acknowledgment page of the sage website for an up - to - date list of financial and infrastructure supporters, mirror network hosting providers, and indirect contributors. a standard rule in the mathematics community is that everything is laid open for inspection. the sage project believes that not doing the same for mathematics software is at best a gesture of impoliteness and rudeness, and at worst a violation against standard scientific practices. an underlying philosophical principle of sage is to apply the system of open exchange and peer review that characterizes scientific communication to the development of mathematics software. neither the sage project nor the sage development team make any claims to being the original proponents of this principle. the development model of sage is largely inspired by the free software movement as spearheaded by the free software foundation, and by the open source movement. one source of inspiration from within the mathematics community is joachim neubuser as expressed in the paper and in particular the following quotation from his paper : you can read sylow ' s theorem and its proof in huppert ' s book in the library without even buying the book and then you can use sylow ' s theorem for the rest of your life free of charge, but... for many computer algebra systems license fees have to be paid regularly for the total time of their use. in order to protect what you pay for, you do not get the source, but only an executable, i. e. a black box. you can press buttons and you get answers in the same way as you get the bright pictures from your television set but you cannot control how they


you do not get the source, but only an executable, i. e. a black box. you can press buttons and you get answers in the same way as you get the bright pictures from your television set but you cannot control how they were made in either case. with this situation two of the most basic rules of conduct in mathematics are violated : in mathematics information is passed on free of charge and everything is laid open for checking. not applying these rules to computer algebra systems that are made for mathematical research... means moving in a most undesirable direction. most important : can we expect somebody to believe a result of a program that he is not allowed to see? moreover : do we really want to charge colleagues in moldava several years of their salary for a computer algebra system? similar sentiments were also expressed by andrei okounkov as can be found in in particular the following quotation : computers are no more a threat to mathematicians than food processors are a threat to cooks. as mathematics gets more and more complex while the pace of our lives accelerates, we must delegate as much as we can to machines. and i mean both numeric and symbolic work. some people can manage without dishwashers, but i think proofs come out a lot cleaner when routine work is automated. this brings up many issues. i am not an expert, but i think we need a symbolic standard to make computer manipulations easier to document and verify. and with all due respect to the free market, perhaps we should not be dependent on commercial software here. an open - source project could, perhaps, find better answers to the obvious problems such as availability, bugs, backward compatibility, platform independence, standard libraries, etc. one can learn from the success of tex and more specialized software like macaulay2. i do hope that funding agencies are looking into this. sage was not written from scratch. most of its underlying mathematics functionalities are made possible through foss projects such as an up - to - date list can be found on the page for the standard packages repository. the principle programming languages of sage are python and cython. python is the primary programming and interfacing language, while cython is the primary language for optimizing critical functionalities and interfacing with c libraries and c extensions for python. sage integrates over 90 foss packages into a common interface. on top of these packages is the sage library, which consists of over 700, 000 lines of new python and cython code. see oh


c libraries and c extensions for python. sage integrates over 90 foss packages into a common interface. on top of these packages is the sage library, which consists of over 700, 000 lines of new python and cython code. see ohloh. net for source code analysis of the latest stable sage release. the following is an incomplete list of institutions and projects that use sage. if any institution or project is missing, please let us know by reporting to the sage - devel mailing list. sage has two very active email lists : there is also a very active irc channels : # sage - devel on freenode. many developers also actively blog and also post other sage - related tutorials and talks. see http : / / www. sagemath. org / help. html for a listing of these resources. this topic has been discussed over and over again. so before you resume the discussion, ensure you have read and understood the arguments below. sage is a distribution of over 90 foss packages for symbolic, numerical, and scientific computation. in general, the combinatorial explosion of configurations to debug is way too large. it is next to impossible to find any linux distribution ( e. g. arch, centos, debian, fedora, gentoo, mandriva, ubuntu ) where the version numbers of packages that sage depends on even remotely match. the majority of people who contribute to sage do so in their free time. these are people who hold day jobs that are not directly related to computer programming or software development. it is next to impossible for anyone to track down the correct versions of packages, configure and compile them on linux, mac os x, solaris, or windows, just so that they could start using sage or start working on their first contribution to sage. while the sage project aims to be useful to as wide an audience as possible, we believe that sage first needs to be as easy as possible to install by anyone with any level of computer experience. if you want to help sage realize this goal, please email the sage - devel mailing list. any software package contains bug. with something as complex as sage, neither the sage community nor the sage development team make any claims that sage is free of bugs. to do so would be an act of dishonesty. a sage release cycle usually lasts for about 3 to 4 weeks. each release cycle is usually chaired by a single release manager who looks after the sage merge tree


that sage is free of bugs. to do so would be an act of dishonesty. a sage release cycle usually lasts for about 3 to 4 weeks. each release cycle is usually chaired by a single release manager who looks after the sage merge tree for the duration of the release cycle. during that time, the release manager often needs to devote the equivalent of full - time work to quality management and actively interacts with an international community of sage users, developers, and potential contributors. there have been a number of cases where two sage contributors paired up to be the release managers for a sage release cycle. however, it is often the case that few people have the equivalent of 3 weeks ’ worth of free time to devote to release management. if you want to help out with release management, please subscribe to the sage - release mailing list. since the beginning of the sage project, sage contributors have tried to listen and think about what would increase the chances that serious potential contributors would actually contribute. what encourages one contributor can discourage another, so tradeoffs need to be made. to decide that a stabilization release would merge patches with bug fixes, and only fix bugs, would likely discourage someone from contributing when they have been told in advance that their positively reviewed patches will not be merged. the sage community believes in the principle of “ release early, release often ”. how the sage project is organized and run differ greatly from that of a commercial software company. contributors are all volunteers and this changes the dynamic of the project dramatically from what it would be if sage were a commercial development effort with all developers being full - time employees. to download the sage standard documentation in html or pdf formats, visit the help and support page on the sage website. each release of sage comes with the full documentation that makes up the sage standard documentation. if you have downloaded a binary sage release, the html version of the corresponding documentation comes pre - built and can be found under the directory sage _ root / devel / sage - main / doc / output / html /. during the compilation of sage from source, the html version of the documentation is also built in the process. to build the html version of the documentation, issue the following command from sage _ root : $. / sage - docbuild - - no - pdf - links all html building the pdf version requires that your system has a working latex installation. to build the pdf version of the documentation, issue the following command from sage _ root : $. / sage - docbuild all pdf


our cells generate most of the energy they need in tiny structures inside them called mitochondria, which can be thought of as the cells ' powerhouses. mitochondria have their own dna, independent of the cell ' s nuclear genome, which is compelling similar to the dna of bacterial genomes. what this suggests is that many thousands of years ago, mitochondria were not just components of our cells, but were in fact unicellular organisms in their own right. according to this hypothesis – the endosymbiotic theory – mitochondria ( and possibly some other organelles ) originated as free - living bacteria which later became incorporated inside other cells in a symbiotic relationship. like man - made powerhouses, mitochondria produce hazardous by - products as well as useful energy. they are the main source of free radicals in the body – hugely reactive particles which cause damage to all cellular components through oxidative stress. they attack the first thing they come across, which is usually the mitochondrion itself. this hazardous environment has put the genes located in the mitochondrion at risk of mutational damage, and over many years of evolutionary pressure the mitochondrial dna has gradually moved into the cell ' s nucleus, where it is comparatively well - protected from the deleterious effects of free - radicals alongside all of the cell ' s other dna. this is called allotopic expression, and it has moved all but thirteen of the mitochondrion ' s full complement of at least one thousand genetic instructions for proteins into the ' bomb - shelter ' of the nucleus. however, the remaining thirteen genes in the mitochondrion itself are subject to the ravages of free - radicals, and are likely to mutate. mutated mitochondria, as aubrey de grey has identified, may indirectly accelerate many aspects of ageing, not least when their mutation causes them to no longer produce the required energy for the cell, in turn impairing the cell ' s functionality. in order to combat the down - stream ageing damage as a consequence of mitochondrial mutation, de grey believes that the mitochondrial dna damage itself needs to be repaired or rendered harmless. his characteristically bold solution to this problem is to put the mutations themselves beyond use by creating backup copies of the remaining mitochondrial genetic material and storing them in the safety of the cell ' s nucleus. allotopically expressed here, like the rest of the mitochondrial dna, any deletions in the mitochondrial dna can be safely overwritten


creating backup copies of the remaining mitochondrial genetic material and storing them in the safety of the cell ' s nucleus. allotopically expressed here, like the rest of the mitochondrial dna, any deletions in the mitochondrial dna can be safely overwritten by the backup master copy, which is much less likely to mutate hidden away from the constant bombardment of free radicals. there are several difficulties to this solution, not least the fact that the remaining proteins are extremely hydrophobic and so don ' t ' want ' to be moved at all, and additionally the code disparity between the language of the mitochondrial dna and the nuclear dna which makes a simple transplantation without translation impossible. even if this engineered solution to the problem proves impracticable, at the very least the theory is sound. if we can devise a way systematically defend our mitochondria from their own waste products, we will drastically reduce the number of harmful free radicals exported throughout our bodies, thereby reducing preventing a lot of the damage that distinguishes the young from the old, extending and improving the quality of our lives as a result. dr aubrey de grey, a gerontologist from cambridge, believes that ageing is a disease that can be cured. like man - made machines, de grey sees the human body as a system which ages as the result of the accumulation of various types of damage. and like machines, de grey argues that this damage can be periodically repaired, potentially leading to an indefinite extension of the system ' s functional life. de grey believes that just as a mechanic doesn ' t need to understand precisely how the corrosive processes of iron oxidation degrades an exhaust manifold beyond utility in order to successfully repair the damage, so we can design therapies that combat human ageing without understanding the processes that interact to contribute to our ageing. all we have to do is understand the damage itself. de grey is confident that he has identified future technologies that can comprehensively remove the molecular and cellular lesions that degrade our health over time, technologies which will one day overcome ageing once and for all. in order to pursue the active development and systematic testing of these technologies, de grey has made it part of his mission to break the ' pro - ageing trance ' that he sees as a widespread barrier to raising the funding and stimulating the research necessary to successfully combat ageing. de grey defines this trance as a psychological strategy that people use to cope with ageing, fuelled from the incorrect belief that ageing is forever unavoidable. this


to raising the funding and stimulating the research necessary to successfully combat ageing. de grey defines this trance as a psychological strategy that people use to cope with ageing, fuelled from the incorrect belief that ageing is forever unavoidable. this trance is coupled with the general wisdom that anti - ageing therapies can only stretch out the years of debilitation and disease which accompany the end of most lifetimes. de grey contends that by repairing the pathologies of ageing we will in fact be able to eliminate this period completely, postponing it with new treatments for indefinitely longer time periods so that no - one ever catches up with the damage caused by their ageing. to get over our collective ' trance ' it is worth realising that this meme has made perfect psychological sense until very recently. given the traditional assumption that ageing cannot be countered, delayed or reversed, it has paid to make peace with such a seemingly immutable fact, rather than wasting one ' s life preoccupied with worrying about it. if we follow de grey ' s rationale that the body is a machine that can be repaired and restored, we have to accept that there are potential technologies that can effectively combat ageing, and thus the trance can no longer be rationally maintained. telomeres are repetitive dna sequences which cap the ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage and potentially cancerous breakages and fusings. they act as disposable buffers, much as the plastic aglets at the end of shoelaces prevent fraying. each time a cell divides, the telomores get shorter as dna sequences are lost from the end. when telomeres reach a certain critical length, the cell is unable to make new copies of itself, and so organs and tissues that depend on continued cell replication begin to senesce. the shortening of telomeres plays a large part in ageing ( although not necessarily a causal one ), and so advocates of life extension are exploring the possibility of lengthening telomeres in certain cells by searching for ways to selectively activate the enzyme telomerase, which maintains telemore length by the adding newly synthesized dna code to their ends. if we could induce certain parts of our bodies to express more telomerase, the theory goes, we will be able to live longer, healthier lives, slowing down the decline of ageing. every moment we ' re fighting a losing battle against our telomeric shortening ; at conception our telomeres consist of roughly


the theory goes, we will be able to live longer, healthier lives, slowing down the decline of ageing. every moment we ' re fighting a losing battle against our telomeric shortening ; at conception our telomeres consist of roughly 15, 000 dna base pairs, shrinking to 10, 000 at birth when the telomerase gene becomes largely deactivated. without the maintenance work of the enzyme our telomeres reduce in length at a rate of about 50 base pairs a year. when some telomeres drop below 5, 000 base pairs, their cells lose the ability to divide, becoming unable to perform the work they were designed to carry out, and in some cases also releasing chemicals that are harmful to neighbouring cells. some particularly prominent cell - types that are affected by the replicative shortening of telomeres include the endothelial cells lining blood vessels leading to the heart, and the cells that make the myelin sheath that protects our brain ' s neurons. both brain health and heart health are bound to some degree to the fate of cells with a telomeric fuse. the correlation between telomere length and biological ageing has motivated a hope that one day we will be able to prevent and perhaps reverse the effects of replicative senescence by optimally controlling the action of telomerase. the complexity of synthesizing proteins for specific purposes is so great that predicting the amino acid sequences necessary to generate desired behaviour is a huge challenge. mutations far away from the protein ’ s active site can influence its function, and the smallest of changes in the structure of an enzyme can have a large impact on its catalytic efficacy – a key concern for engineers creating proteins for industrial applications. even for a small protein of only 100 amino acids long there are more possible sequences than there are atoms in the universe. what this means is that an exhaustive search through the space of all possible proteins for the fittest protein for a particular purpose is essentially unachievable, just as a complete search through all possible chess games to decide the absolutely optimal next move is computationally impractical. this is true both for scientists and for nature. this means that even though evolution has been searching the space of all possible proteins for billions of years for solutions to survival, it has in fact explored only a minute corner of all possible variations. all evolved solutions are likely to be ' good enough ' rather than the absolute optimum – it just so happens that the ones already ' discovered ' are sufficient to create and maintain the diversity and richness of


only a minute corner of all possible variations. all evolved solutions are likely to be ' good enough ' rather than the absolute optimum – it just so happens that the ones already ' discovered ' are sufficient to create and maintain the diversity and richness of life on planet earth. new ways of efficiently searching this vast space of possible sequences will reveal proteins with properties that have never before existed in the natural world, and which will hopefully provide answers to many of our most pressing problems. directed evolution not only provides a faster way of searching this space than many other methods, but it also leaves a complete ' fossil record ' of the evolutionary changes that went into evolving a specific protein, providing data on the intermediate stages which will offer insight after detailed study into the relationship between protein sequence and function. unlike natural evolution, directed evolution can also explore sequences which aren ' t directly biologically relevant to a single organism ' s survival, providing a library of industrially relevant proteins, and perhaps one day creating bacteria capable of answering worldwide problems caused by pollution and fossil fuel shortage. neo - evolution is factorially faster than normal evolutionary processes. our genetically engineered organisms have already neo - evolved – shortcutting traditional evolution to produce desirable results without the costly time - delay of selection over hundreds or thousands of generations. higher - yielding and insecticide - resistant crops have been engineered through the painstaking modification of individual genes, achieving better results than years of selective breeding in a fraction of the time. genetic engineering of humans, both embryonic and those already alive, will perhaps one day bring the benefits of this new type of evolution to our bodies. at the moment, we simply do not understand how dna sequences encode useful functions, and so genetic engineering remains a tremendously costly and laborious process. it cost $ 25 million and took 150 person - years to engineer just a dozen genes in yeast to cause it to produce an antimalarial drug, and commercial production has yet to begin. the amount of time and money required to effect a beneficial result through genetic engineering – even if it involves relatively simple changes to only a dozen genes – is so costly that the transformative idea of neo - evolved humans has been kept at a safe distance. but there are other ways to neo - evolve that might make the possibility of too - good - to - miss genetic enhancements in humans a reality before long. earlier this year, for instance, the national academy of engineering awarded its draper prize to francis arnold and willem stemmer for their independent work towards ' directed evolution ', a technique which harness


to - miss genetic enhancements in humans a reality before long. earlier this year, for instance, the national academy of engineering awarded its draper prize to francis arnold and willem stemmer for their independent work towards ' directed evolution ', a technique which harnesses the power of traditional evolution in a highly optimized environment to accelerate the evolution of desirable proteins with properties not found in nature. rather than attempt to manually code the strings of individual dna letters necessary to effect a particular trait, directed evolution and its associated ' evolution machines ' take a prototype ' parent ' gene, create a library of genetic variants from it and apply selection pressures to screen for the strains that produce the desired trait, iterating this process with the best of each batch until the strongest remain. this was first evidenced in 2009, when geneticist harris wang used directed evolution to create new proteins in e. coli bacteria that would produce more of the pigment that makes tomatoes red than was previously possible. to achieve this genetic modification without manually fine - tuning each gene, wang synthesized 50, 000 dna strands which contained modified sequences of genes that produce the pigment, and multiplied them in his evolution machine. after repeating the process 35 times with the results of each cycle fed into the next, he produced some 15 billion new strains, each with a different combination of mutations in the target pigment - producing genes. of these new strains, some produced up to five times as much pigment as the original strain, more than the entire biosynthesis industry had ever achieved. the process took days rather than years. there are three distinct possibilities for how technological and medical advancement will impact future human evolution. the first contingency is that the human species will undergo no further natural selection, because we may have already advanced to a position of evolutionary equipoise, where our technologies have artificially preserved genes that would otherwise have been removed by natural selection ; evolution no longer has a chance to select. as a species we already control our environment to such an extent that traditional evolutionary pressures have been functionally alleviated – we adapt the environment to us rather than the other way around. indeed, local mobility and international migration allow populations to genetically integrate to such a degree that the isolation necessary for evolution to take place may in fact already no longer possible. the second possibility is that we will continue to evolve in the traditional way, through inexorable selection pressures exerted by the natural environment. the isolation necessary to allow the impact of any environmental changes to be selected for in the population will now be on the planetary scale,


we will continue to evolve in the traditional way, through inexorable selection pressures exerted by the natural environment. the isolation necessary to allow the impact of any environmental changes to be selected for in the population will now be on the planetary scale, enabled by colonization of distant space. the third possibility is that we will evolve in an entirely new way, guided not by unconscious natural forces but by our own conscious design decisions. in this neo - evolution we would use genetic engineering to eliminate diseases like diabetes, protect against strokes and reduce the risks of cancer. we would be compressing a natural process which takes hundreds of thousands of years into single generations, making evolutionarily advantageous adjustments ourselves. from an economic perspective, cheating is a simple cost - benefit analysis, where the probability of being caught and the severity of punishment must be weighed against how much stands to be gained from cheating. behavioural economist dan ariely has conducted experimental studies to test whether there are predictable thresholds for this balance, and how they can be influenced. in one study, ariely gave participants twenty maths problems with only five minutes to solve them. at the end of the time period, ariely paid each participant one dollar for each correctly answered question ; on average people solved four questions and so received four dollars. ariely tempted some members of the study to cheat, by asking them to shred their paper, keep the pieces and tell him how many questions they answered correctly. now the average number of questions solved went up to seven ; and it wasn ' t because a few people cheated a lot, but rather that everyone cheated a little. hypothesizing that we each have a “ personal fudge factor ”, a point at which we can still feel good about ourselves despite having cheated, ariely ran another experiment to examine how malleable this standard was. before tempting participants to cheat, ariely asked them to recall either ten books they read at school or to recall the ten commandments. those who had tried to recall the commandments – and nobody in the sample managed to get them all – did not cheat at all when given the opportunity, even those that could hardly remember any of the commandments. when self - declared atheists were asked to swear on the bible before being tempted to cheat in the task, they did not cheat at all. cheating was also completely eradicated by asking students to sign a statement to the effect that they understood that the survey falls under the “ mit honor code ”, despite mit having no such code. in an additional


task, they did not cheat at all. cheating was also completely eradicated by asking students to sign a statement to the effect that they understood that the survey falls under the “ mit honor code ”, despite mit having no such code. in an additional variant of the same experiment, ariely tried to increase the fudge - factor and to encourage cheating. a third of particpants were told to hand back their results paper to the experimenters, a third were told to shred it and ask for x number of dollars for x completed questions, and a third were told to shred their results and ask for x tokens. for this last group, tokens were handed out, and the participants would walk a few paces to the side and exchange their tokens for dollars. this short disconnect between cash and token encouraged cheating rates to double in this last group. putting these results in a social context, ariely ran yet another variant of the experiment, to see how people would react when they saw examples of other people cheating in their group. subjects were given envelopes filled with money, and at the end of the experiment they were told to pay back money for the questions that they did not complete. an actor was planted in the group, without the knowledge of the other participants. after thirty seconds the actor stood up and announced that he had finished all of the questions. he was told that the experiment was completed for him, and that he could go home ( i. e. keeping the contents of the envelope ). depending on whether he was wearing a shirt identifying him as from the same university as the rest of the students in the test or not, cheating went either up or down respectively. carnegie mellon students would cheat more if he was identified as a carnegie mellon student, whilst cheating would decrease if he was identified by a university of pittsburgh shirt. ariely ' s results show that the probability of getting caught doesn ' t influence the rate of cheating so much as the norms for cheating influence behaviour : if people in your own group cheat, you are more likely to cheat as well. if a person from outside of your group cheats, the personal fudge factor increases, and the likelihood of cheating drops, just as it did with the ten commandments experiment, reminding people of their own morality. the stock market combines a worrying cocktail of features from these experiments. it deals with ' tokens ', stocks and derivatives and not ' real ' money. stocks are many steps removed from real money, and for long portions of time. this


morality. the stock market combines a worrying cocktail of features from these experiments. it deals with ' tokens ', stocks and derivatives and not ' real ' money. stocks are many steps removed from real money, and for long portions of time. this encourages cheating. any enclaves of cheating will be reinforced by people mirroring the behaviours of those around them, and this is precisely what happened in the enron scandal. here is a syllogism that is deeply embedded in western society. welfare is maximized by maximizing individual freedom. individual freedom is maximized by maximizing choice. welfare increases with more choice. supermarkets are an embodiment of this belief. they are symbols of affluence and empowerment conferred through their superabundance of choice. the range of products they offer is dizzying. so disorientingly so, in fact, that too many options have paralyzing effects, making it very difficult to choose at all – a fact that completely undermines the belief that maximizing choice has unqualified beneficial effects. if we finally do manage to make a decision and overcome this paralytic effect, too much choice diminishes the satisfaction that can be gained compared with choices made between fewer options. this is because if the choice you make leaves you feeling dissatisfied in any way it is easy to simulate the myriad of other choices that could have been better. these imagined alternatives, conjured from the myriad real alternatives, can induce regret which dilutes the satisfaction from your choice, even if it was a good one. the wider the range of options, the easier it becomes to regret even the smallest disappointment in your decision. a wider range of choice also makes it easier to imagine the attractive features of the alternatives that have been rejected, once more diminishing the sense of satisfaction with the chosen alternative. this phenomenon is known as the opportunity cost, the sacrificial loss of other opportunities when a choice is made : choosing to do one thing is choosing not to do many other things. many of these other choices will have attractive features which will make whatever you have chosen less attractive, no matter how good it really is. the maximization of choice leads to an escalation of expectations, where the best that can ever be hoped for is that a decision meets expectations. in a world of extremely limited choice, pleasant surprises are possible. in a world of unlimited choice, perfection becomes the expectation : you could always have made a better choice. when there is only one choice on offer, the