Copyright (c) Arvin S. Quist
INTRODUCTION TO CLASSIFICATION
THE NEED FOR CLASSIFICATION
A government is responsible for the survival of the nation and its people. To ensure that survival, a government must sometimes stringently control certain information that (1) gives the nation a significant advantage over adversaries or (2) prevents adversaries from having an advantage that could significantly damage the nation. Governments protect that special information by classifying it; that is, by giving it a special designation, such as "Secret," and then restricting access to it (e.g., by need-to-know requirements and physical security measures).
This right of a government to keep certain information concerning national security (secrets) from most of the nation's citizens is nearly universally accepted. Since antiquity, governments have protected information that gave them an advantage over adversaries. In wartime, when a nation's survival is at stake, the reasons for secrecy are most apparent, the secrecy restrictions imposed by the government are most widespread,[*] and acceptance of those restrictions by the citizens is broadest.[†] In peacetime, there are fewer reasons for secrecy in government, generally the government classifies less information, and citizens are less willing to accept security restrictions on information.
MAJOR AREAS OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
The information that is classified by most democracies, whether in peacetime or wartime, is usually limited to information that concerns the nation's defense or its foreign relations--military and diplomatic information. Most of that information falls within five major areas: (1) military operations, (2) weapons technology, (3) diplomatic activities, (4) intelligence activities, and (5) cryptology. The latter two areas might be considered to be special parts of the first three areas. That is, intelligence and cryptology are "service" functions for the primary areas--military operations, weapons technology, and diplomatic activities. From a historical perspective, the classification of weapons technology became widespread only in the 20th century. Classification of information about military operations and diplomatic activities has been practiced for millennia.
Examples of military-operations information that is frequently classified include information concerning the strength and deployment of forces, troop movements, ship sailings, the location and timing of planned attacks, tactics and strategy, and supply logistics. Obviously, if an enemy learned the major details of an impending attack, that attack would be less successful than if it came as a surprise to the enemy.* Information possessed by a government about an adversary's military activities or capabilities must be protected to preserve the ability to predict those activities or to neutralize those capabilities. If the adversary knew that the government had this information, the adversary would change those plans or capabilities. Military-operations information is usually classified for only a limited time. After an operation is over, most of the important information is known to the enemy.
Weapons technology is classified to preserve the advantage of surprise in the first use of a new weapon,† to prevent an adversary from developing effective countermeasures against a new weapon,‡ or to prevent an adversary from using that technology against its originator (by developing a similar weapon). A major factor in that latter reason for classifying weapons technology is "lead time." Classifying advanced weapons-technology information prevents an adversary from using that information to shorten the time required to produce similar weapons systems for its own use. Consequently, assuming continued advancements in a weapons technology by the initial developer of that technology, the adversary's weapons systems will not be as effective as those of the nation that initially developed that technology, and the adversary will be at a disadvantage.
With respect to lead time, when weapons systems can be significantly improved, then information on "obsolete" weapons is much less sensitive than information on newer weapons. Thus, information on muzzle-loading rifle technology was not as sensitive as that on breech-loading rifle technology, which was not as sensitive as information on lever-action rifle technology, . . . semiautomatic rifle . . . automatic rifle . . . machine gun. However, with respect to nuclear weapons, a "rogue" nation or terrorist group can probably achieve its objectives just as easily with "crude" kiloton nuclear weapons that might require a ship or truck to transport as with sophisticated megaton nuclear weapons that might fit into a (large) suitcase. Thus, "obsolete" nuclear-weapons technology should be continue to be protected, especially with respect to technologies concerning production of highly enriched uranium or other nuclear-weapon materials.
Weapons technology includes scientific and technical information related to that technology. World War I marked the start of the "modern" period when science and technology affected the development of weapons systems to a greater degree than any time previously. That interrelationship became even more pronounced in World War II, with notable scientific and technological successes: the atomic bomb, radar, and the proximity fuse. World War II, particularly with respect to the atomic bomb, marked the first time that the progress of military technology was significantly influenced by scientists, as contrasted to advances by engineers or by scientists working as engineers.
With respect to classification, the more that applied scientific or technical information is uniquely applicable to weapons, the more likely that this information will be classified. Generally, basic research is not classified unless it represents a major breakthrough leading to a completely new weapons system. An example of that circumstance was the rigid classification during World War II, and for several years thereafter, of much basic scientific research related to atomic energy (nuclear weapons).
The need for secrecy in diplomatic negotiations and relations has long been recognized. A nation's ability to obtain favorable terms in negotiations with other countries would be diminished if its negotiating strategy and goals were known in advance to the other countries.* The effectiveness of military-assistance agreements between nations would be impaired if an adversary knew of them and could plan to neutralize them. In New York Times v. United States, the "Pentagon Papers" case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stewart recognized the importance of secrecy in foreign policy and national defense matters:
It is elementary that the successful conduct of international diplomacy and the maintenance of an effective national defense requires both confidentiality and secrecy. Other nations can hardly deal with this Nation in an atmosphere of mutual trust unless they know that their confidences will be kept . . .. In the area of basic national defense the frequent need for absolute secrecy is, of course, self evident.
During the term of the first
president, it was established that some need for secrecy in diplomatic matters would remain even after negotiations were completed. President Washington, in 1796, refused a request by the House of Representatives for documents prepared for treaty negotiations with U.S. and gave the following as one reason for refusal: England
The nature of foreign negotiations requires caution, and their success must often depend on secrecy; and even when brought to a conclusion a full disclosure of all the measures, demands, or eventual concessions which may have been proposed or contemplated would be extremely impolitic; for this might have a pernicious influence on future negotiations, or produce immediate inconvenience, perhaps danger and mischief, in relation to other powers.
It has been said that President Nixon initially was not going to attempt to stop the New York Times and other newspapers from publishing the "Pentagon Papers." However, the executive branch was then in secret diplomatic negotiations with
, and Henry Kissinger "is said to have persuaded the president that the Chinese wouldn't continue their secret parleys if they saw that China couldn't keep its secrets." Washington
Intelligence information includes information gathering and covert operations. Collecting military and diplomatic information about other nations involves the use of photoreconnaissance airplanes and satellites, communication intercepts, the review of documents obtained openly, and other overt methods. However, information gathering also includes the use of undercover agents, confidential sources, and other covert methods. For those covert activities, secrecy is usually imposed on the identity of agents or sources, on information about intelligence methods and capabilities, and on much of the information received from the covert sources. Few clandestine agents could be recruited (or, in some instances, would live long) if their identity were not a closely guarded secret. Information provided by a clandestine agent must frequently be classified because, if a government knew that some of its information was compromised, it might be able to determine the identity of the person (agent) who provided the information to its adversary. Successful intelligence-gathering methods must be protected so that the adversary does not know the degree of their success and is not stimulated to develop countermeasures to stop the flow of information. Intelligence information from friendly nations is generally classified by the recipient country. Allies would be less willing to share intelligence information if they knew that it would not be protected against disclosure.
Cryptology encompasses methods to code and transmit secret messages and methods to intercept and decode messages. Writing messages in code, or cryptography,* has been practiced for thousands of years. One of the earliest preserved texts of a coded message is an inscription carved on an Egyptian tomb in about 1900 B.C. The earliest known pottery glaze formula was written in code on a Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet in about 1500 B.C. The Spartans established a system of military cryptography by the 5th century B.C. Persia later used cryptography for political purposes. Cryptography began its steady development in western civilization starting about the 13th century, primarily in
. By the early 16th century, Italy 's ruling Council of Ten had an elaborate organization for enciphering and deciphering messages. Venice
Restrictions on cryptologic information are necessary to protect
communications. Diplomatic negotiations could not successfully be conducted at locations other than the seat of government if safe communications could not be established. Cryptologic information must also be protected to prevent an adversary from learning of a nation's capabilities to intercept and decode messages. If an adversary learns that its communications are not secure, it will use another method, which will require additional time and effort to defeat.[‡] The Allies' World War II success in breaking the German codes contributed to shortening that war. That success was kept secret until 1974, about 34 years after the German code had been broken and about 29 years after World War II had ended. The U.S. Army's success in breaking a World War II U.S.S.R. code (the Venona project, which began in 1943 and continued until 1980) was not made public until about 1995. That was about 50 years after the first such message had been deciphered (and about 45 years after the U.S.S.R. had learned through espionage of the Army's success). U.S.
BASIS FOR CLASSIFICATION IN THE UNITED STATES
The need for governmental secrecy was directly recognized in the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Sect. 5, of the Constitution explicitly authorizes secrecy in government by stating that "Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as in their Judgment require Secrecy." Also included in the Constitution, in Article I, Sect. 9, is a statement that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time." A U.S. Court of Appeals has determined that the phrase "from time to time" was intended to authorize expenditures for certain military or foreign relations matters that were intended to be kept secret for a time.
The Constitution does not explicitly provide for secrecy by the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. However, the authority of that Executive Branch to keep certain information secret from most
citizens is implicit in its executive responsibilities, which include the national defense and foreign relations. This presidential authority has been upheld by the Supreme Court in a number of cases. Judicial decisions have also relied on a common-law privilege for a government to withhold information concerning national defense and foreign relations. Congress, by two statutes, the Freedom of Information Act and the Internal Security Act of 1950, has implicitly recognized the president's authority to classify information (see Chapter 3). U.S.
At this time in the
, information is classified either by presidential authority, currently Executive Order 12958, or by statute, the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (Atomic Energy Act). Classification under Executive Orders and under the Atomic Energy Act is extensively discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, respectively. United States
CLASSIFICATION AND SECURITY
Classification has been variously described as the "cornerstone" of national security, the "mother" of security, and the "kingpin" of an information security system.,,, Classification identifies the information that must be protected against unauthorized disclosure. Security determines how to protect information after it is classified. Security includes both personnel security and physical security.
The initial classification determination, establishing what should not be disclosed to adversaries and the level of protection required, is probably the most important single factor in the security of all classified projects and programs., None of the expensive personnel-clearance and information-control provisions (physical security aspects) of an information security system comes into effect until information has been classified; classification is the pivot on which the whole subsequent security system turns (excluding security for other reasons, such as to prevent theft of materials). 19 Therefore, it is important to classify only information that truly warrants protection in the interest of national security.
Since the mid 1970s, several classification experts have remarked on the increasing emphasis by some government agencies on physical-security matters, which has been accompanied by a decreased emphasis on the classification function. One of the founders (and the first chairman) of the National Classification Management Society (NCMS), who was also an Atomic Energy Commission Contractor Classification Officer, has expressed concern about the tendency to emphasize the word "security" at the expense of the word "classification" with respect to security classification of information.17 In the mid 1980s another charter member of the NCMS pointed out that, although the status of classification still remained high in the Department of Energy (DOE), the situation had changed within the Department of Defense, where Classification Management had been organizationally placed under Security. Even the NCMS, founded as a classification organization, appears to be changing to become increasingly oriented towards security matters rather than classification matters. It is noteworthy that the marked emphasis by the U.S. Government in recent years on physical-security measures has not been accompanied by any significant increased emphasis on classification matters.
The previous paragraph was written in 1989, and the trend described in that paragraph has continued. The classification function at DOE headquarters is now a part of the security organization as is the classification function at many DOE operations offices and DOE-contractor organizations. That function generally used to be part of a technical or other non-security organization. The NCMS has also continued to become more security-oriented.
With respect to classification as a profession (or lack of recognition thereof), it is interesting to note some comments and a recommendation in the Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. In this 1997 report, that Commission noted the "all-important initial decision of whether to classify at all," and that "this first step of the classification management process . . . tends to be the weakest link in the process of identifying, marking, and then protecting the information." The Commission further stated that "the importance of the initial decision to classify cannot be overstated." However, the Commission then stated that "classification and declassification policy and oversight . . . should be viewed primarily as information management issues which require personnel with subject matter and records management expertise." Although recommending that "The Federal Government . . . [should] create, support, and promote an information systems security career field within the Government," the Commission made no similar recommendation for security classification of information as a profession or career. Res ipsa loquitur.
[*] "When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right" [Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919) (J. Holmes)].
[†] Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, the United States considers itself to be in a war against terrorism. One consequence has been a significant shift in opinion, not only of the general public but also of some strong supporters of freedom-of-information matters, towards favoring more control of information that might aid terrorists. This increased control, especially pertaining to weapons of mass destruction, includes (1) establishing broader criteria for identifying information that is classified or "sensitive"; (2) permitting reclassification of declassified information, and (3) restricting further governmental distribution of documents already released to the public.
*However, during the Greek and Roman eras in the Mediterranean, when the infantry was paramount and both sides were approximately equally equipped with respect to weapons, many battles were fought without attempts to maintain secrecy of troop movements or with respect to surprise attacks (B. and F. M. Brodie, From Crossbow to H-Bomb, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind., 1973, p. 17).
†"Secret" weapons have proven decisive in warfare. One example of the decisive impact of a new weapon was at the battle of Crecy in 1346. At this battle, the English used their "secret" weapon, the longbow, to defeat the French decisively. Although the French had a two-to-one superiority in numbers (about 40,000 to 20,000), the French lost about 11,500 men, while the English lost only about 100 men (W. S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol. 1, Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1961, pp. 332-351; B. and F. M. Brodie, From Crossbow to H-Bomb, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind., 1973, pp. 37-40).
‡In World War II, the Germans developed an acoustic torpedo designed to home in on a ship's propellers. However, the Allies obtained advance information about this torpedo so that when it was first used by the Germans, countermeasures were already in place (B. and F. M. Brodie, From Crossbows to H-Bombs, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind., 1973, p. 222).
*In 1921, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan held a conference to limit their naval armaments. The United States had broken Japan's diplomatic code and thereby knew the lowest naval armaments that Japan would accept. Therefore, U.S. negotiators had merely to wait out Japan's negotiators to reach terms favorable to the United States (J. Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1982, pp. 9-10).
*The breaking of codes is termed cryptanalysis.
[‡] Even "friendly" nations get upset if they know that one of their codes has been broken. As noted earlier in this chapter, the United States deciphered Japan's diplomatic code in 1921. Herbert O. Yardley, who was principally responsible for breaking this code, wrote a book, The American Black Chamber, published in 1931, which included information on this matter. Yardley's book did not contribute to developing friendly United States-Japanese relations. A consequence of this revelation was enactment of a U.S. statute that made it a crime for anyone who, by virtue of his employment by the United States, obtained access to a diplomatic code or a message in such code and published or furnished to another such code or message, "or any matter which was obtained while in the process of transmission between any foreign government and its diplomatic mission in the United States" (48 Stat. 122, June 10, 1933, codified at 18 U.S.C. Sect. 952.)
 B. and F. M. Brodie, From Crossbow to H-Bomb, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind., 1973, p. 172. Hereafter this book is cited as "Brodie."
 Brodie, p. 233.
 New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 728 (1971).
 J. D. Richardson, A Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents. 1789-1897, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., Vol. I, at 194-195 (1896).
 Richard Gid Powers, "Introduction," in Secrecy--The American Experience, by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1998, p. 32.
 D. Kahn, The Codebreakers, MacMillan, Inc., New York, 1967, p. 71. Hereafter cited as "Kahn."
 Kahn, p. 75.
 Kahn, p. 82.
 Kahn, p. 86.
 Kahn, p. 106.
 Kahn, p. 109.
 See, for example, F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, Harper & Row, New York, 1974.
 Halperin v. CIA, 629 F.2d 144, 154-162 (D.C. Cir., 1980).
 U.S. Constitution, Article II, sect. 2.
 See, for example, Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105 (1875); United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1952); Weinberger v. Catholic Action of Hawaii, 454 U.S. 139 (1981).
 F. E. Rourke, Secrecy and Publicity: Dilemmas of Democracy, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1961, pp. 63-64.
 D. B. Woodbridge, "Footnotes," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 12 (2), 120-124 (1977), p.122.
 R. J. Boberg, "Panel--Classification Management Today," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 5 (2), 56-60 (1969), p. 57.
 E. J. Suto, "History of Classification," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 12 (1), 9-17 (1976), p.13.
 James J. Bagley, "NCMS - Now and the Future," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 25, 20-29 (1989), p. 28.
 T. S. Church, "Panel--Science and Technology, and Classification Management," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 2, 39-45 (1966), p. 40.
 W. N. Thompson, "Security Classification Management Coordination Between Industry and DOD," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 4 (2), 121-128 (1969), p. 121.
 W. N. Thompson, "User Agency Security Classification Management and Program Security," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 8, 52-53 (1972), p. 52.
 Department of Defense Handbook for Writing Security Classification Guidance, DoD 5200.1-H, U.S. Department of Defense, Mar. 1986, p. 1-1.
 F. J. Daigle, "Woodbridge Award Acceptance Remarks," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 21, 110-112 (1985), p. 111.
 D. C. Richardson, "Management or Enforcement," J. Natl. Class. Mgmt. Soc. 23, 13-20 (1987).
 Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, S. Doc. 105-2, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Chairman; Larry Combest, Vice Chairman, Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1997. Hereafter cited as the "Moynihan Report."
 Moynihan Report, p. 19.
 Moynihan Report, p. 35.
 Moynihan Report, p. 44.
 Moynihan Report, p. 111.


Between the years 900 and 1100, Chinese painters created visions of landscape that depicted the sublimity of creation. Viewers are meant to identify with the human figures in these paintings. In Summer Mountains, travelers make their way toward a temple retreat. The central mountain sits in commanding majesty, like an emperor among his subjects, the culmination of nature’s hierarchy. The advanced use of texture strokes and ink wash suggests that Summer Mountains is by a master working about 1050, a date corroborated by collectors’ seals belonging to the Song emperor Huizong (r. 1101–25), whose paintings catalogue records three works entitled Summer Scenery by the otherwise unknown artist Qu Ding.


By Allison Lichter
Young children who can sit still and focus are more likely to graduate from college than children who are easily distracted, according to a new study from Oregon State University.
Researchers made use of data that spanned 25 years, tracking a group of 430 preschool-age children through age 21. Parents were asked to rate their children on such behaviors as “playing with a single toy for long periods of time,” or “gives up easily” when a task or games gets hard.
“We were interested in identifying early predictors of later success,” said Megan McClelland, early childhood research core director at OSU’s Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families, and a lead author on the study.
“We know that early academic skills predict later academic stills,” she said. “But the ability to pay attention and focus are foundational skills that help kids persist through difficult tasks when they need to.”
She was quick to add that academic skills are critical, and that “aptitude part is part of the equation.”
Still, she said, “There are a lot of very smart people who have difficulty finishing tasks.”
Of course, a lot transpires in a person’s life between age 4 and age 21. While researchers couldn’t control for all variables, McClelland said, they were able to control for some of the most important predictors of academic success: including parents’ education level, the child’s cognitive ability, and childhood vocabulary.
Teachers and parents can help young children develop the qualities of persistence and self-discipline by adding new rules to some familiar games. For example, McClelland suggested playing “Red Light, Green Light,” but changing the rules so that “red” means go, and “green” means stop.
“Kids ask me all the time, ‘Are you trying to trick me?’ I tell them, ‘No, we want you stop and think about what you’re doing first.’”
Another simple activity to help build the concentration muscle is a dance game in which children are told they have to dance slowly when the music is fast, and dance quickly when the music is slow.
“When kids have to control their bodies, it’s more challenging for them,” McClelland said. “They actually have to stop their movements and do something different. It requires a lot of thinking.”
McClelland is also the mother of a 3-year-old son. She acknowledges it takes time to help kids practice ways to focus and get engaged in things they are interested in.
“He will sit there for 15 or 20 minutes doing a Thomas the Train puzzle.” While putting it together, McClelland will sometimes ask ‘How many pieces have we used?’ to build her son’s aptitude for counting.
But she says, “I’m also helping him focus and persist.”


"Chatter": Language and History in Kierkegaard
Stanford University Press (1993)
|Abstract||'Chatter' cannot always be taken lightly, for its insignificance and insubstantiality challenge the very notions of substance and significance through which rational discourses seek justification. This book shows that in 'chatter' Kierkegaard uncovered a specifically linguistic mode of negativity. The author examines in detail those writings of Kierkegaard in which he undertook complex negotiations with the threat - and also the promise - of 'chatter', which cuts across the distinctions in which the relation of language to reality - and above all, the reality of 'existence' - is stabilized, and it therefore releases historical understanding from its established conventions. Chatter situates as well as takes the measure of the seminal importance of Kierkegaard for many of today's unresolved debates about the relation of language and philosophy to history.|
|Keywords||Language and languages Philosophy History Philosophy|
|Buy the book||$13.00 used (48% off) $227.35 new Amazon page|
|Call number||B4378.L35.F46 1993|
|External links||This entry has no external links. Add one.|
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Using the same pool of data, the researchers identified a significant drop in overall daily calorie consumption as people got older. The median energy intake among men age 81 and older was 1,733 calories a day, compared to 2,668 calories per day ingested by men in the age group 19 to 30. For women, median energy intake showed a 28 percent reduction from the youngest to the oldest age group, from 1,844 calories a day to 1,325 calories daily.
Based on the results, the scientists concluded that “new approaches to increasing the frequency and level of calcium supplement use to enhance calcium density may be necessary to reduce osteoporosis risks among older Americans.”
Jane E. Kerstetter, a professor of allied health sciences at UConn and a co-investigator on the study, says that calcium plays a fundamental role in promoting bone health and forestalling osteoporosis. In light of evidence that energy (food) intake declines with aging, calcium-dense foods and calcium supplements become vital factors in maintaining adequate calcium intake across the lifespan.
In November 2010, the Institute of Medicine issued new guidelines for daily calcium intake. The current guidelines recommend that men and women ages 19 to 50 consume 1,000 mg of calcium a day; however, after age 51 men are recommended to continue to consume 1,000 mg daily, while women are recommended to increase consumption to 1,200 mg daily.
Kerstetter adds that calcium intake from the diet should come first and foremost.
Typically, one serving of dairy (1 cup of milk, 6 ounces of yogurt, or 1.5 ounces of cheese) provides 300 milligrams of calcium. If a person consumes three servings of dairy daily they will ingest 900 milligrams of calcium, which is often supplemented by an additional 300 milligrams from a variety of other non-dairy foods if the person is on a well-rounded diet. A total of 1,200 milligrams of daily calcium is sufficient to meet recommended guidelines for most people, says Kerstetter.
Those who can’t tolerate dairy products should consider calcium-fortified foods, such as orange juice or over-the-counter nutrition supplements containing calcium, which are best absorbed during meals due to increased acid production in the stomach. Or, dietitians also suggest choosing low-fat or fat-free lactose-free milk and drinking smaller amounts of milk at a time as key strategies to obtain dairy nutrients.
However, individuals should consult a medical professional before starting a new calcium supplementation regimen.
The lead author for the study was Kelsey Mangano, a registered dietitian and UConn doctoral student in the Department of Nutritional Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Anne M. Kenny, a geriatrician at the University of Connecticut Health Center who studies osteoporosis, served as a co-investigator. Karl Insogna, a professor of internal medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale University and an endocrinologist specializing in bone diseases, also participated in the research.


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We should remember that... of the 6,000 stars [that] the average human eye could see in the entire sky, probably not more than thirty – or one-half of one percent – are less luminous than the Sun; that probably, of the 700-odd stars nearer than ten parsecs, at least 96% are less luminous than the Sun. There is not even ONE real yellow giant – such as Capella, Pollux, or Arcturus – nearer than ten parsecs1 and only about four main sequence A stars.
– Dutch astronomer Willem Jacob Luyten (1899 - 1994)
The closest star to us is, of course, our own Sun. It's unusual because it's a solitary yellow dwarf, while most of the stars nearby are in binary or even multiple systems. What makes our star really special though, is that it provides the energy for the only life in the Universe that we know of.
Less Than Ten Light Years
The nearest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri (also known as alpha Centauri C), which is a red dwarf, and is 4.2 light years2 distant. It has two stellar companions, the yellow dwarf Rigil Kentaurus (alpha Centauri A) and an orange dwarf, alpha Centauri B. They take up joint second place in our list, at 4.35 light years.
Barnard's Star, a red dwarf, is just under six light years away. Next comes Wolf 359, another red dwarf. Yet another red dwarf, Lalande 21185, was thought to be the fourth-closest star when its co-ordinates were published by Joseph-Jérôme Lefrançais de Lalande (1732 - 1807) in 1801. This was before Barnard's Star and Wolf 359 were discovered. Lalande 21185 cannot be seen by the naked eye because at 7th magnitude it is too dim; however, it counts as sixth-closest to the Sun at 8.3 light years.
The seventh-closest is a star most denizens of Earth would recognise: Sirius (alpha Canis Majoris), with eighth place taken by its companion Sirius B, sometimes referred to as 'the Pup'. Sirius B is classified as a white dwarf, but it is one of the biggest known: in fact, its mass is comparable to that of our own Sun.
Completing the top ten stellar neighbours are BL Ceti, a red dwarf flare star, and its binary partner UV Ceti3, which are 8.7 light years away from our Sun. Flare stars unleash bright flashes of light as well as streams of charged particles. Some of the stars studied have flares of such enormous intensity that they can increase the brightness of the star by up to 10%. The flares are only brief, like a camera flash, but would be detrimental to any nearby planets.
Next in line is Ross 154, one of many discovered in 1925 by American astronomer Frank Elmore Ross (1874 - 1960). Ross 154 is a UV Ceti-type flare star 9.7 light years distant, and is the last of the stars within ten light years of our Solar System.
|Star||Other Name or |
|#1||Proxima Centauri||alpha Centauri C||Red dwarf||Centaurus||4.2|
|#2||Rigil Kentaurus||alpha Centauri A||Yellow dwarf||Centaurus||4.35|
|#2||alpha Centauri B||HD 128621||Orange dwarf||Centaurus||4.35|
|#4||Barnard's Star||Proxima Ophiuchi||Red dwarf||Ophiuchus||5.98|
|#5||Wolf 359||CN Leonis||Red dwarf||Leo||7.7|
|#6||Lalande 21185||HD 95735||Red dwarf||Ursa Major||8.3|
|#7||Sirius||alpha Canis Majoris||Blue-white|
|#7||Sirius B||alpha Canis Majoris B||White dwarf||Canis Major||8.5|
|#9||BL Ceti||Luyten 726-8 A||Red dwarf|
|#9||UV Ceti||Luyten 726-8 B||Red dwarf|
|#11||Ross 154||V1216 Sgr||Red dwarf|
Between Ten and Twelve Light Years
At 10.3 light years is another one on the Ross catalogue: Ross 248, a red dwarf flare star. Due to the wide variety of periods that this star flares (4.2 years, 120 days, and five other catalogued outbursts between 60 and 291 days apart), astronomers suspect that Ross 248 has an undetected companion which is causing the erratic flaring. Next on is Epsilon Eridani, which has a dust disc4 and a suspected extrasolar planet system, the closest detected up to the time of writing, 2012. The two candidate planets are not thought to be hospitable to life (as we know it) because their proposed orbits are so far from the star. If the planets do exist, they are likely to be frigid worlds like our outermost planet Neptune5.
The French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713 - 62) went on a 1751-4 expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, effectively a blank canvas sky for him to map. Using the planet Mars as a point of reference, his observations were the foundations for working out the lunar and solar parallax. Finding himself somewhat of a celebrity upon his return to Paris, de Lacaille hid from public attention in Mazarin College, writing up his findings. Barely taking care of himself, de Lacaille suffered from gout and was prone to over-working to the point of exhaustion. Unfortunately his catalogue, Coelum Australe Stelliferum, which described 14 new constellations and 42 nebulous objects among almost 10,000 southern stars, wasn't published until after he died at the age of just 49 years. One of those stars, Lacaille 9352, ranks as the 14th-closest to our Sun at 10.7 light years distance.
EZ Aquarii is a triple star system situated at 11.3 light years away. EZ Aquarii A, B and C are all red dwarfs, and they may all be flare stars; however, not much is known about the smallest component (B). They are so dim (magnitude +13) that specialist equipment is required to view them. The system was labelled Luyten 789-6 by Dutch astronomer Willem Jacob Luyten, whose interest in astronomy had been sparked by viewing the predicted return of Halley's Comet in 1910, as an 11-year old schoolboy. In 1925 Luyten lost an eye in an accident but this tragedy did not wreck his chosen career. He was already working at the Harvard College Observatory, having been offered a post by the new director Harlow Shapley, whose own profile had been raised due to his participation in the Shapley-Curtis Debate of 1920. Luyten 'observed and measured more stellar images than anyone else', according to his biography at the National Academy of Sciences. He took up teaching at the University of Minnesota in 1931, and when he retired in 1967 he was given the title of Astronomer Emeritus which he held until his death at the ripe old age of 95.
Procyon is a binary system which registers at +0.3 magnitude. The system consists of a yellow-white main sequence subgiant star, Procyon A, and a white dwarf companion, Procyon B, which was detected by Arthur von Auwers in 1862.
|Star||Other Name or |
|#12||Ross 248||HH Andromedae||Red dwarf|
|#13||Epsilon Eridani||Sadira||Orange dwarf||Eridanus||10.5|
|#14||Lacaille 9352||HD 217987||Red dwarf||Piscis Austrinus||10.7|
|#15||Ross 128||FI Virginis||Red dwarf|
|#16||EZ Aquarii A||Luyten 789-6 A||Red dwarf|
|#16||EZ Aquarii B||Luyten 789-6 B||Red dwarf||Aquarius||11.3|
|#16||EZ Aquarii C||Luyten 789-6 C||Red dwarf|
|#19||Procyon A||alpha Canis Minoris||Yellow-white|
|#19||Procyon B||alpha2 Canis Minoris||White dwarf||Canis Minor||11.4|
The binary system 61 Cygni has two orange dwarf components of 6th magnitude at 11.41 light years away. Its distance was the first to be measured of any star. These two stars claim joint 21st place in our list of close stellar neighbours. Another pair of red dwarf stars, Struve 2398 A and B, positioned at just 11.5 light years distant, are the next nearest. They were studied by Russian-German astronomer Prof Friedrich von Struve (1793 - 1864), director of the Dorpat Observatory (now the Tartu Observatory) in Estonia, who listed them in his Catalogus novus stellarum duplicium (Double Star Catalogue) of 1827.
Groombridge 34 are twin variable red dwarfs. Newly-discovered variable stars are given upper case capital letters, so Groombridge 34 A and B are also known as GX Andromedae and GQ Andromedae respectively. The Epsilon Indi system is fascinating because it contains the closest-known brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are approximately the same size as Jupiter6, but their mass is at least ten times greater, possibly up to 50×. These bodies are neither star nor planet, but 'failed' stars. Other titles have been proposed, as it's hardly encouraging to keep referring to them as 'failed stars'. Suggestions so far include planetar (which sounds like something from the science fiction genre) and substar (that 'sub' prefix isn't much of an improvement). Since 2004, planets have been discovered orbiting brown dwarfs, (although not, as yet, in the Epsilon Indi system), so their profile has been raised. Hopefully they are in line for a better class in the future.
DX Cancri is a solo red dwarf flare star which expands to five times its usual brightness during flare activity. It is thought by some astronomers that DX Cancri is a member of the Castor Moving Group which was suggested in 1990 by JP Anosova and VV Orlov at the Astronomical Observatory in Leningrad State University, Russia. A moving group is the term for a collection of stars which share the same origin. Although they are not gravitationally bound to each other they are on the same path on their journey through the galaxy, like an unravelled, stretched-out cluster. The Castor Moving Group is named after the luminary of Gemini, and includes the stars Alderamin (alpha Cephei), Fomalhaut, Vega, psi Velorum and Zubenelgenubi (alpha Librae).
Tau Ceti is one of the few nearby stars which are visible to the naked eye, albeit in the dim constellation Cetus, the Whale. Tau Ceti shot to fame in 1960, when Frank Drake launched Project Ozma, aiming to detect non-natural signals from space. Drake chose two stars which were similar to our Sun, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, for his project, which evolved to become SETI, the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence. In December 2012, it was announced that five planets had been discovered orbiting Tau Ceti, with one of them possibly residing in the system's habitable zone.
Red dwarf GJ 1061 in the southern constellation Horologium is the last of the stars within 12 light years. GJ 1061 is really small, even on the dwarf star scale: it registers just over ten percent of the Sun's mass. It is so dim (+13 mag) that you'd need a decent-sized telescope to view it, but just in case you ever get the opportunity, its co-ordinates are 03h 36m RA, −44° 30' 46" Dec.
|Star||Other Name or |
|#21||61 Cygni A||V1803 Cyg A||Orange dwarf||Cygnus||11.41|
|#21||61 Cygni B||V1803 Cyg B||Orange dwarf||Cygnus||11.41|
|#23||Struve 2398 A||NSV 11288||Red dwarf||Draco||11.5|
|#23||Struve 2398 B||Gliese 725 B||Red dwarf|
|#25||Groombridge 34 A||GX Andromedae||Red dwarf||Andromeda||11.6|
|#25||Groombridge 34 B||GQ Andromedae||Red dwarf||Andromeda||11.6|
|#27||Epsilon Indi||HD 209100||Orange dwarf +|
two Brown dwarfs
|#28||DX Cancri||LHS 248||Red dwarf|
|#29||Tau Ceti||HD 10700||Yellow dwarf||Cetus||11.88|
|#30||GJ 1061||LHS 1565||Red dwarf||Horologium||11.99|
Nearby Stars in Fantasy and Science Fiction
Stars which are close to our own Solar System have inspired imaginative writers going back hundreds of years. Here is just a sample:
Proxima Centauri: the 1990s TV series Babylon 5 featured the planet Proxima III, which hosts an Earth Alliance colony.
Alpha Centauri A: prolific author Isaac Asimov wrote about the water world Alpha of the Alpha Centauri A system in the Foundation and Earth book of his Foundation series.
Alpha Centauri B: Witburg is a rocky planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B in the 2002 online role-playing game Earth & Beyond.
Barnard's Star: Timemaster, a 1992 novel by Robert L Forward, bases its plot in the Barnard's Star system.
Wolf 359: Star Trek fans will recognise Wolf 359 as the system where Starfleet's armada was practically wiped out by the hive-minded Borg.
Lalande 21185: in the 1951 novel Rogue Queen penned by L Sprague de Camp, the planet Ormazd which orbits Lalande 21185 is investigated by Earth's space authority.
Sirius: Micromégas is one of the earliest known science fiction stories, it was written in 1752 by François-Marie Arouet (better known by his pen name Voltaire). The Micromégas of the story was an extremely tall7 alien visitor to Earth who hailed from one of the planets in the Sirius system.
Sirius B: in Seed of Light, a 1959 novel by Edmund Cooper, the Sirius A star is barren but Sirius B has a hospitable planet, Sirius B III, out of its five attendant worlds. The plot revolves around the people sent there to save the human race after the Earth has been devastated.
BL Ceti: Larry Niven wrote A Gift From Earth in 1968, a part of his Known Space collection of multiple works. The plot involves the twin red dwarf stars BL Ceti and UV Ceti, which are important signposts for the eventual destination.
UV Ceti: a space station called Eldorado, part of the 'Great Circle' route, is based at UV Ceti in the 1981 story Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh.
Ross 154: the planet Tei Tenga in the Ross 154 system is where the United Aerospace Armed Forces (UAFF) had a couple of military research bases in the video game Doom.
Ross 248: Diadem is an icy world in orbit around Ross 248 in Alastair Reynolds's story Glacial. Following a failed attempt at human colonisation, an investigation a century later reveals that the planet is sentient and it uses cold-blooded annelids, burrowing through its ice-mantle, to 'think'.
Epsilon Eridani: Les Grognards d'Éridan (The Napoleons Of Eridanus), written by French author Claude Avice in 1970, features a detachment of soldiers from the Napoleonic era who are abducted by aliens and transported to the Epsilon Eridani system to fight their battles for them. Also, Epsilon Eridani was the parent star of the planet Reach in the extremely successful Xbox game Halo: Reach.
Lacaille 9352: in the fictional universe of the Hyperion Cantos dreamed up by Dan Simmons, the inhospitable planet Sibiatu's Bitterness orbits the star Lacaille 9352.
Ross 128: Across the Sea of Suns, written in 1984 by Gregory Benford, features a race of alien aquatic creatures which live under the ice-mantle of the frozen world Pocks, a member of the Ross 128 system.
EZ Aquarii A, B and C: the character Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory regularly lists 'the closest stars to me' when ascending and descending stairs. Once, in disguise, he spoke the words 'EZ Aquarii B, EZ Aquarii C,' while passing Amy on the stairs, and was dismayed that she recognised him.
Procyon A/B: His Master's Voice was written by Polish author Stanislaw Lem in 1968. This book focuses on the attempts by highly intelligent Earthlings to understand a message from the Procyon system.
61 Cygni: The region surrounding 61 Cygni is known as the 'Darkling Zone' in the popular TV series Blake's 7.
Groombridge 34: The Groombridge 34 system features in the Halo series of Xbox games.
Epsilon Indi: New New York on Epsilon Indi III has a portal to the Earth, via a created wormhole, in the 1996 Starplex book by Robert J Sawyer.
Tau Ceti: Time for the Stars, written in 1956 by Robert A Heinlein, explores the telepathic bond between twins over the vastness of space. Tau Ceti III, in the Star Trek universe, is a hospitable M-class planet. One of the bountiful fruits which grows there is the Kaferian apple. While they can be eaten raw, they are much more tasty stewed with Talaxian spices and served in a pie, as recommended in the vegetarian options at Quark's Bar on the space station Deep Space Nine.


Some people love them and some people hate them, but whatever your tastes you should probably know a little about the vignette effect in photography. A vignette photo has edges that fade to either white or black, typically gradually, although it can be an effect that is used dramatically as well. This effect can be created in camera with certain lenses that are known to produce it, sometimes undesirably. Vignettes can also be created in the darkroom during the printing process. However, in this day and age the most common way to create a vignette is during the post-processing phase in a photo editing program such as Photoshop.
Generally in spite of our very wide field of view, our eyes don’t see with perfect focus at all points in a scene. We see the center of a scene with ideal light sensitivity and perfect focus and then focus and brightness will fall off increasingly toward the periphery. Therefore, a vignette more or less mimics the way our eyes actually see a scene. Although a photograph with precise focus and exposure throughout may be desirable in some scenarios, it can also seem very boring, artificial and even too contrived in others.
Vignetting can act as a way to frame the intended subject in a photo in either a subtle or dramatic way and really make it stand out to great creative effect. By causing the periphery to gradually fade away, not only will the photo be more like actual vision, it can immediately draw the eye to the main subject and away from unimportant elements in the background or periphery. It can also be used as a finishing touch on a photo once the exposure and composition are perfect.
Typically a vignette, as previously mentioned, is used in a gradual or subtle way since our eyes don’t actually make the borders of our vision very dark and fuzzy. When used in this way, a vignette will generally not be consciously detectable by the untrained eye. However, there are times when a more dramatic vignette is a useful effect, such as in a black and white landscape to add a touch of drama or in an intense portrait to create a darker mood.
Older cheaper cameras such as Holgas often had poor optics, so many old photos have vignetting that was created in-camera unintentionally. This vintage look, which was previously not desirable, is now often intentionally recreated during post-processing with software like Photoshop.
How to Create a Vignette in Photoshop
There are a few ways to create a vignette in Photoshop but there are a few bits of information that are important to know first. A vignette should always be the very last step in the editing process. Deciding to crop the image post-vignette, for example, can cause the end result to be not desirable since a vignette is used to highlight the subject. If you are not completely sure that you are absolutely done editing your photo in other ways, you can choose to duplicate the original image layer so that you can go back to it if needed.
The easiest way to create a vignette in Photoshop is to first create a new layer and select the elliptical marquee tool. Create a circle or oval shape in the desired area on your photo.
Next you will need to choose to feather your selection anywhere from 50 to 80 pixels by going to Select>Modify>Feather.
You can also choose the square marquee or even use the lasso tool to create a custom and creative shape. At this point you will go to Select>Inverse and fill the center of the selection with black or white depending on the look you ultimately want to achieve. If it is too dark at this point then you can easily lighten it by lowering the layer opacity.
Another easy and quick way to add vignetting to your photos in Photoshop involves the use of the Lens Correction filter.
First you need to open your photo and as previously mentioned, be sure to finish all photo edits prior to adding the vignetting. Open the Lens Correction filter via the following path Filters>Distort>Lens Correction. You will see various options within the Lens Correction menu but we are going to focus on the Vignette sliders. The Amount slider will make the vignette darker or lighter and the Midpoint slider will adjust the mid-point of the vignette.
The first method of vignetting in Photoshop is definitely preferable if you want to place the vignetting in a custom place on the photo for creative effect, meaning not oval and dead center. However, the second method is great for a very precision vignette much like what would be created naturally with a lens.
A Quick Note About Opinions on Vignettes
One thing to be aware of is that there are photographers that “object” to the use of vignetting. Many see it as a form of cheating and as a way to make a bad photograph better. They argue that the composition itself should be what creates all of the emphasis on the subject and not a post-processing technique. However, the viewer of the photo, unless they possess a critical and trained eye, really doesn’t care about why they like a photo. They just do. Ultimately photography is indeed an art form and artists are as varied art itself. The most important thing is to produce the images that you want to produce.
Rachael Towne is a photographer, digital artist and creator of photoluminary.com


In December 1992, Toutatis made a close approach to Earth. At the time, it was an average of about 4 million kilometers (2.5 million miles) from Earth. Images of Toutatis were acquired using radar carried out at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California's Mojave desert. For most of the work, a 400,000-watt coded radio transmission was beamed at Toutatis from the Goldstone main 70-meter (230-foot) antenna. The echoes, which took as little as 24 seconds to travel to Toutatis and back, were received by the new 34-meter (112-foot) antenna and relayed back to the 70-meter (230-foot) station, where they were decoded and processed into images.
The images of Toutatis reveal two irregularly shaped, cratered objects about 4 and 2.5 kilometers (2.5 and 1.6 miles) in average diameter which are probably in contact with each other. These "contact binaries" may be fairly common since another one, 4769 Castalia, was observed in 1989 when it passed near the Earth. Numerous surface features on Toutatis, including a pair of half-mile-wide craters, side by side, and a series of three prominent ridges -- a type of asteroid mountain range -- are presumed to result from a complex history of impacts.
Toutatis is one of the strangest objects in the solar system, with a highly irregular shape and an extraordinarily complex "tumbling" rotation. Both its shape and rotation are thought to be the outcome of a history of violent collisions. "The vast majority of asteroids, and all the planets, spin about a single axis, like a football thrown in a perfect spiral, but Toutatis tumbles like a flubbed pass," said Dr. Scott Hudson of Washington State University. One consequence of this strange rotation is that Toutatis does not have a fixed north pole like the Earth. Instead, its north pole wanders along a curve on the asteroid about every 5.4 days. "The stars viewed from Toutatis wouldn't repeatedly follow circular paths, but would crisscross the sky, never following the same path twice," Hudson said.
"The motion of the Sun during a Toutatis year, which is about four Earth years, would be even more complex," he continued. "In fact, Toutatis doesn't have anything you could call a 'day.' Its rotation is the result of two different types of motion with periods of 5.4 and 7.3 Earth days, that combine in such a way that Toutatis's orientation with respect to the solar system never repeats."
The rotations of hundreds of asteroids have been studied with optical telescopes. The vast majority of them appear to be in simple rotation with a fixed pole and periods typically between one hour and one day, the scientists said, even though the violent collisions these objects are thought to have experienced would mean that every one of them, at some time in the past, should have been tumbling like Toutatis.
Internal friction has caused asteroids to change into simple rotational patterns in relatively brief amounts of time. However, Toutatis rotates so slowly that this "dampening" process would take much longer than the age of the solar system. This means that the rotation of Toutatis is a remarkable, well-preserved relic of the collision-related evolution of an asteroid.
On September 29, 2004, Toutatis will pass by Earth at a range of four times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, the closest approach of any known asteroid or comet between now and 2060. One consequence of the asteroid's frequent close approaches to Earth is that its trajectory more than several centuries from now cannot be predicted accurately. In fact, of all the Earth-crossing asteroids, the orbit of Toutatis is thought to be one of the most chaotic.
High Resolution Goldstone Images
These are 8 of the "high resolution" Goldstone images that are being used to produce a higher-resolution 3D model of Toutatis. (From Ostro et al., Science 270:80-83, 1995--© Copyright 1995 by the AAAS)
High Resolution Image
This is a close up of one of the high-resolution images of Toutatis. (From Ostro et al., Science 270:80-83, 1995--© Copyright 1995 by the AAAS)
Topographic Map of Toutatis
This is a topographic map of Toutatis. It is based upon the shape model of Phil Stooke which he produced using rendered images of the shape model by R.S. Hudson and S.J. Ostro and modified by him to fit the radar images. As with all maps, it is the cartographer's interpretation; not all features are necessarily certain given the limited data available. This interpretation stretches the data as far as possible. (Courtesy A. Tayfun Oner)
Shaded Relief Map of Asteroid 4179 Toutatis
This is a shaded relief map of asteroid 4179 Toutatis. As with all maps, it is the cartographer's interpretation and not all features are necessarily certain given the limited data available. This interpretation stretches the data as far as is feasible. (Courtesy Phil Stooke, NSSDC, and NASA)
4 Views of Toutatis
This image shows four frames of asteroid Toutatis that were obtained on December 8-10 and 13, 1992. On each day, the asteroid was in a different orientation with respect to Earth. One large crater can be seen in the December 9 image (upper right) that measures about 700 meters (2,300 feet) in diameter. (Courtesy JPL/NASA)
Computer Model of Toutatis
These images show a computer model of the Earth-orbit-crossing asteroid Toutatis. These views of the asteroid show shallow craters, linear ridges, and a deep topographic "neck" whose geologic origin is not known. It may have been sculpted by impacts into a single, coherent body, or Toutatis might actually consist of two separate objects that came together in a gentle collision. (Courtesy Scott Hudson, Washington State University)
Spin State of Toutatis
This image shows the shape and non-principal-axis spin state of asteroid 4179 Toutatis rendered at a particular instant. The red, green, and blue axes are the principal axes of inertia; the magenta axis is the angular momentum vector; the yellow axis is the spin vector. If a flashlamp was attached to the short axis of inertia (the red axis) and flashed it every 15 minutes for a month, it would trace out the intricate path indicated by the small spheres stacked end-to-end. If this process was continued forever the path would never repeat. Toutatis's spin state differs radically from those of the vast majority of solar system bodies that have been studied. (© Copyright 1995 by the AAAS)
Spin State of Toutatis on Nine Successive Days
This image shows the non-principal-axis spin state of asteroid 4179 Toutatis at one-day intervals (from left to right, top to bottom). The red, green, and blue axes are the principal axes of inertia; the magenta axis is the angular momentum vector; the yellow axis is the spin vector. Toutatis does not spin about a single axis. Instead, its spin vector traces a curve around the asteroid's surface once every 5.41 days. During this time the object rotates once about its long axis, and every 7.35 days, on average, the long axis precesses about the angular momentum vector. The combination of these two motions with different periods give Toutatis its bizarre "tumbling" rotation. (Courtesy Scott Hudson, Washington State University)


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|Creating and Administering Oracle Solaris 11 Boot Environments Oracle Solaris 11 Information Library|
A boot environment is a bootable instance of the Oracle Solaris operating system image plus any other application software packages installed into that image. System administrators can maintain multiple boot environments on their systems, and each boot environment can have different software versions installed.
Upon the initial installation of the Oracle Solaris release onto a system, a boot environment is created. You can use the beadm(1M) utility to create and administer additional boot environments on your system.
Note - In addition, the Package Manager GUI provides some options for managing boot environments.
Note the following distinctions relevant to boot environment administration:
A boot environment is a bootable Oracle Solaris environment consisting of a root dataset and, optionally, other datasets mounted underneath it. Exactly one boot environment can be active at a time.
A dataset is a generic name for ZFS entities such as clones, file systems, or snapshots. In the context of boot environment administration, the dataset more specifically refers to the file system specifications for a particular boot environment or snapshot.
A snapshot is a read-only image of a dataset or boot environment at a given point in time. A snapshot is not bootable.
A clone of a boot environment is created by copying another boot environment. A clone is bootable.
Shared datasets are user-defined directories, such as /export, that contain the same mount point in both the active and inactive boot environments. Shared datasets are located outside the root dataset area of each boot environment.
Note - A clone of the boot environment includes everything hierarchically under the main root dataset of the original boot environment. Shared datasets are not under the root dataset and are not cloned. Instead, the boot environment accesses the original, shared dataset.
A boot environment's critical datasets are included within the root dataset area for that environment.


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Culinary arts is the art of preparing and cooking foods. The word "culinary" is defined as something related to, or connected with, cooking. A culinarian is a person working in the culinary arts. A culinarian working in restaurants is commonly known as a cook or a chef. Culinary artists are responsible for skilfully preparing meals that are as pleasing to the palate as to the eye. They are required to have a knowledge of the science of food and an understanding of diet and nutrition. They work primarily in restaurants, delicatessens, hospitals and other institutions. Kitchen conditions vary depending on the type of business, restaurant, nursing home, etc. The Table arts or the art of having food can also be called as "Culinary arts".
Careers in culinary arts
Related careers
Below is a list of the wide variety of culinary arts occupations.
- Consulting and Design Specialists – Work with restaurant owners in developing menus, the layout and design of dining rooms, and service protocols.
- Dining Room Service – Manage a restaurant, cafeterias, clubs, etc. Diplomas and degree programs are offered in restaurant management by colleges around the world.
- Food and Beverage Controller – Purchase and source ingredients in large hotels as well as manage the stores and stock control.
- Entrepreneurship – Deepen and invest in businesses, such as bakeries, restaurants, or specialty foods (such as chocolates, cheese, etc.).
- Food and Beverage Managers – Manage all food and beverage outlets in hotels and other large establishments.
- Food Stylists and Photographers – Work with magazines, books, catalogs and other media to make food visually appealing.
- Food Writers and Food Critics – Communicate with the public on food trends, chefs and restaurants though newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books. Notables in this field include Julia Child, Craig Claiborne and James Beard.
- Research and Development Kitchens – Develop new products for commercial manufacturers and may also work in test kitchens for publications, restaurant chains, grocery chains, or others.
- Sales – Introduce chefs and business owners to new products and equipment relevant to food production and service.
- Instructors – Teach aspects of culinary arts in high school, vocational schools, colleges, recreational programs, and for specialty businesses (for example, the professional and recreational courses in baking at King Arthur Flour).
Occupational outlook
The occupation outlook for chefs, restaurant managers, dietitians, and nutritionists is fairly good, with "as fast as the average" growth. Increasingly a college education with formal qualifications is required for success in this field. The culinary industry continues to be male-dominated, with the latest statistics showing only 19% of all 'chefs and head cooks' being female.
Notable culinary colleges around the world
- JaganNath Institute of Management Sciences, Rohini, Delhi, India
- College of Tourism & Hotel Management, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
- Culinary Academy of India, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
- Culinary Academy of India, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
- ITM School of Culinary Arts, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
- Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal, Karnataka, India
- Institute of Technical Education (College West) – School of Hospitality, Singapore
- ITM (Institute of Technology and Management) – Institute of Hotel Management, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
- Apicius International School of Hospitality, Florence, Italy
- Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, France
- École des trois gourmandes, Paris, France
- HRC Culinary Academy, Bulgaria
- Institut Paul Bocuse, Ecully, France
- Mutfak Sanatlari Akademisi, Istanbul, Turkey
- School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology, DIT, Dublin, Ireland
- Scuola di Arte Culinaria Cordon Bleu, Florence, Italy
- Westminster Kingsway College (London)
- University of West London (London)
- School of Restaurant and Culinary Arts, Umeå University (Sweden)
- Camosun College (Victoria, BC)
- Canadore College (North Bay, ON)
- The Culinary Institute of Canada (Charlottetown, PE)
- Georgian College (Owen Sound, ON)
- George Brown College (Toronto, ON)
- Humber College (Toronto, ON)
- Institut de tourisme et d'hôtellerie du Québec (Montreal, QC)
- Niagara Culinary Institute (Niagara College, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON)
- Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver (Vancouver, BC)
- Nova Scotia Community College (Nova Scotia)
- Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (Vancouver, BC)
- Vancouver Community College (Vancouver, BC)
- Culinary Institute of Vancouver Island (Nanaimo, BC)
- Sault College (Sault Ste. Marie, ON)
- Baltimore International College, Baltimore, Maryland
- California Culinary Academy, San Francisco, California
- California School of Culinary Arts, Pasadena, California
- California State, Pomona, California
- California State University Hospitality Management Education Initiative
- Chattahoochee Technical College in Marietta, Georgia
- Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago
- Coosa Valley Technical College, Rome, Georgia
- Culinard, the Culinary Institute of Virginia College
- Cypress Community College Hotel, Restaurant Management, & Culinary Arts Program in Anaheim
- Classic Cooking Academy, Scottsdale, Arizona
- Center for Kosher Culinary Arts, Brooklyn, New York
- Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York
- Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, California
- The Culinary Institute of Charleston, South Carolina
- L'Ecole Culinaire in Saint Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee
- Glendale Community College (California)
- International Culinary Centers in NY and CA which include:
- Institute for the Culinary Arts at Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, Nebraska
- Johnson & Wales University, College of Culinary Arts
- Kendall College in Chicago, Illinois
- Lincoln College of Technology
- Manchester Community College in Connecticut
- New England Culinary Institute in Vermont
- Orlando Culinary Academy
- Pennsylvania Culinary Institute
- The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
- Scottsdale Culinary Institute
- Secchia Institute for Culinary Education: Grand Rapids Community College, Grand Rapids, MI
- The Southeast Culinary and Hospitality College in Bristol, Virginia
- Sullivan University Louisville, Kentucky
- Los Angeles Trade–Technical College
- Texas Culinary Academy
- Central New Mexico Community College, Albuquerque, NM
- AUT University (Auckland University of Technology)
- MIT (Manukau Institute of Technology)
- Wintec, Waikato Institute of Technology
See also
- McBride, Kate, ed. The Professional Chef/ the Culinary Institute of America, 8th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, INC, 2006.
Further reading
- Beal, Eileen. Choosing a career in the restaurant industry. New York: Rosen Pub. Group, 1997.
- Institute for Research. Careers and jobs in the restaurant business: jobs, management, ownership. Chicago: The Institute, 1977.
External links


Consider this article on why white rice would actually be better for you than brown. One of the USRDA "My Plate" and food pyramid biggest fallacies is the over-reliance on grain. However, if you are going to have grain, have a grain that isn't going to hurt you as bad.
As far as eating for health, look at your macro-nutrients first.
- Protein: Unless you have renal problems, protein should be one of the higher proportions of food in your diet. Minimum is 1g per kg of lean weight if you do no exercise. If you do exercise, you will be better served by 1g per pound of lean weight or more. NOTE: 4 Calories per gram of protein.
- Fat: There are several fat soluble vitamins you need--not the least of which is Vitamin D. If you stay with monounsaturated and saturated fats you will do well. You just want to make sure you balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fats are favorable. NOTE: 9 Calories per gram of fat.
- Carbohydrates: Way to over-emphasized in modern diets, but still very necessary. These usually contain the water-soluble vitamins we need. NOTE: 4 Calories per gram of carbohydrates.
A diet that consists of an even split 33% of Calories from each macronutrient is actually a pretty well balanced diet. Another good split is 30/30/40 (protein/fat/carbs). As far as carbohydrates go, the more you de-emphasize grains and emphasize green vegetables the better your diet will be.
Meat is not bad. Fish is probably one of the best choices, usually anti-inflammatory (which reduces blood cholesterol), but prefer a filet over fish balls. Fruits are also good in moderation. Eggs are also good. To put things in perspective, most sources of meat include about 20g of protein per 4oz (closed fist portion) of meat.
As far as meat selection goes, if you favor grass-fed (or natural diet) sources of meat, the fats will have a more favorable balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fats. This will improve your health overall.
The biggest thing I see in your diet, is it seems to emphasize carb sources over protein sources, and possibly not enough fat.
As to your exercise, you will need to do something more than just upper body if your goal is to lose fat and gain muscle. You want to stimulate your whole body. You can do that with body-weight exercises. Burpees, squat-stands, etc. engage your lower half, and can help improve on the work you are doing with the upper half.


With the arrival of cold weather, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is reminding employers to take necessary precautions to protect workers from the serious, and sometimes fatal, effects of carbon monoxide exposure.
Recently, a worker in a New England warehouse was found unconscious and seizing, suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Several other workers at the site also became sick. All of the windows and doors were closed to conserve heat, there was no exhaust ventilation in the facility, and very high levels of carbon monoxide were measured at the site.
Every year, workers die from carbon monoxide poisoning, usually while using fuel-burning equipment and tools in buildings or semi-enclosed spaces without adequate ventilation. This can be especially true during the winter months when employees use this type of equipment in indoor spaces that have been sealed tightly to block out cold temperatures and wind. Symptoms of carbon monoxide exposure can include everything from headaches, dizziness and drowsiness to nausea, vomiting or tightness across the chest. Severe carbon monoxide poisoning can cause neurological damage, coma and death.
Sources of carbon monoxide can include anything that uses combustion to operate, such as gas generators, power tools, compressors, pumps, welding equipment, space heaters and furnaces.
To reduce the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning in the workplace, employers should install an effective ventilation system, avoid the use of fuel-burning equipment in enclosed or partially-enclosed spaces, use carbon monoxide detectors in areas where the hazard is a concern and take other precautions outlined in OSHA's Carbon Monoxide Fact Sheet. For additional information on carbon monoxide poisoning and preventing exposure in the workplace, see OSHA's Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Quick Cards (in English and Spanish).
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit www.osha.gov.


Sitting around a table at Meyers Center BOCES in Saratoga, students, teaching assistants, and teachers were busy crocheting. They weren’t making afghans or shawls– but rather, they were turning plastic into possibility. Little did they know they were also making history.
Profiles of 17 human rights defenders from around the globe, with links to accompanying lesson plans.
Browse the curriculum. Download the complete 158-page guide or individual lesson plans.
Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark brings the voices of human rights defenders into your classroom.
Find out how you can support your students in their efforts to defend human rights.
The Speak Truth to Power project will enter the video documentary world with a contest challenging middle and high school students in New York to create a film based on the experience of courageous human rights defenders around the world.
It is with great sadness that the family of Professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25th September, 2011, at the Nairobi Hospital, after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer.
New to the STTP site this month is a lesson plan based on the work of Congressman John Lewis, who has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he described as “The Beloved Community” in America.


How many times did you hear that today? Probably a lot. But why are adults so hung up on hand washing? Why are they so in love with lather?
Washing your hands is the best way to stop germs from spreading. Think about all of the things that you touched today — from the telephone to the toilet. Maybe you blew your nose in a tissue and then went outside to dig around the dirt.
Whatever you did today, you came into contact with germs. It's easy for a germ on your hand to end up in your mouth. Think about how many foods you eat with your hands.
You can't wear rubber gloves all day long, but you can wash your hands so those germs don't get a chance to make you or someone else sick. When germs go down the drain, they can't make anyone sick.
So when are the best times to wash your hands?
when your hands are dirty
before eating or touching food (like if you're helping cook or bake, for example)
before and after visiting a sick relative or friend
Now you have the when and the why of hand washing. But did you know that a lot of people don't know how to get their paws perfectly clean? The next time you're told to step up to the sink and scrub up, remember these handy hints:
Use warm water (not cold or hot) when you wash your hands.
Use whatever soap you like. Some soaps come in cool shapes and colors or smell nice, but whatever kind gets you scrubbing is the kind you should use. Antibacterial soaps are OK to use, but regular soap works fine.
Work up some lather on both sides of your hands, your wrists, and between your fingers. Don't forget to wash around your nails. This is one place germs like to hide. Wash for about 10 to 15 seconds — about how long it takes to sing "Happy Birthday." (Sing it quickly two times or just once if you go nice and slow.)


Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States
GEORGIA, one of the thirteen original United States. Its territory was originally included in the charter of 1662-3 to the lords proprietors of the Carolinas, but was set apart by a royal charter of June 9, 1732, to a company organized by James Oglethorpe to provide homes in America for indigent persons. The boundaries of the new colony were laid down in the charger as follows: "All those lands, countrys and territories situate, lying and being in that part of South Carolina, in America, which lies from the most northern part of a stream or river there, commonly called the Savannah, all along the sea coast, to the southward, unto the most southern stream of a certain other great water or river called the Alatamaha, and westerly from the heads of the said rivers respectively in direct lines to the south seas." this boundary was more precisely defined by the state constitution of 1798 as beginning at the mouth of the Savannah, running up that river and the Tugalo to the headwaters of the latter, thence straight west to the Mississippi, down that river to parallel 31° north latitude, thence east on that parallel to the Appalachicola or Chattahoochee, along that river to the Flint, thence straight to the head of the St. Mary's river, along that river to the Atlantic, and thence along the coast to the place of beginning. June 20, 1752, the charter was surrendered, and the colony be came a royal province.
—The first state constitution was adopted by a state convention, Feb. 5, 1777. It changed the name of parish to that of county, gave the choice of the governor to the legislature, fixed the governor's term at one year, and forbade the election of any person as governor for more than one year in three. A new constitution was formed by a state convention which met at Augusta, Nov. 4, 1788, and was ratified by another convention at the same place, May 6, 1789. Among other changes, it prolonged the governor's term to two years, and directed the senate to elect the governor from three names to be selected by the house. By an amendment adopted by a new state convention at Louisville, May 16, 1795, Louisville was made the permanent seat of government. Another constitution was adopted in state convention at Louisville, May 30, 1798. It abolished the African slave trade, but forbade the legislature to emancipate slaves without the consent of their owners, or to prevent immigrants from other states from bringing their slaves with them. Various amendments to this constitution were made up to and including the secession convention of 1861, the only one necessary to specify here being that of Nov. 17, 1824, which transferred the election of governor to the people. The changes produced by the rebellion will be given hereafter.
—The territory originally claimed by Georgia, extending from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi, was diminished in 1798 by the formation of Mississippi territory, from which the states of Mississippi and Alabama were afterward formed. (See
—In presidential elections the electoral votes of Georgia have always been cast for democratic candidates, except in 1840 and 1848, when they were cast for Harrison and Taylor respectively, the whig candidates. In 1789 and 1792 the Georgia electors voted for Washington for the presidency and for various democrats for the vice-presidency. (See
—The state elections until 1830 were undisputedly democratic, and all political struggles were entirely personal between different members of the same party. From 1796 until 1810 the claim of land companies to the Mississippi lands claimed by Georgia was the controlling issue in state politics, as was the case from 1825 until 1835 with the removal of the Creek and Cherokee Indians from the state. (See
—After 1830 the state elections resulted almost as steadily in democratic success, but with much greater difficulty. Although but one governor, Crawford, was an avowed whig, the whig party in the state disputed every election vigorously, aided in electing at least one governor, Gilmer, in opposition to the national or regular democratic candidate, and frequently controlled the legislature, generally in years not affected by a presidential election. As a general rule the whig vote in the state may be reckoned at from 47 to 49 per cent. of the total, occasionally rising to a majority.
—The formation of the so-called American party in the state reduced the opposition vote to about 40 per cent., and this proportion represents the opposition in 1860-61 both to the election of Breckinridge and to secession. The opposition to the latter measure, as elsewhere-mentioned, was to the advisability, not to the principle, of secession, and ceased when the majority and pronounced the decision. Indeed, the leader of the so-called union party of the state, A. H. Stephens, was almost immediately elected vice-president of the new southern confederacy. (See
—In November, 1860, an act of the legislature provided for a special election for delegates to a state convention, which met at Milledgeville, Jan. 16, 1861. Jan. 16, by a vote of 208 to 89, an ordinance of secession was passed. It repealed the ordinance ratifying the constitution, and the acts ratifying the amendments to the constitution, dissolved the union between Georgia and the other states, and declared "that the state of Georgia is in the full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent state." The minority, however, signed the ordinance, as a pledge that they would sustain their state, with the exception of six; and these yielded so far as to place on the minutes a pledge of "their lives, fortunes and honor" to the defense of the state. Ten delegates were chosen by the convention to represent the state at the organization of the provisional government in Montgomery, and Georgia thus became one of the confederate states. The progress of the war developed a considerable opposition in Georgia to the confederate government. In the leaders it took the form of a sublimated state sovereignty, in opposition to the despotic acts of the executive; but in the mass of voters there seems to have been a strong undercurrent in favor of reconstruction in its first form, that is, re-entrance to the Union on terms. April 30, 1865, the Sherman-Johnson agreement ended the rebellion in Georgia. (See
—June 17, 1865, James Johnson was appointed provisional governor of the state. Under his directions a convention met at Milledgeville, Oct. 25, repealed the ordinance of secession, voided the war debt, and adopted a new state constitution, Nov. 7, which was ratified by popular vote. It recognized the abolition of slavery by the federal government as a war measure, but reserved the right of its citizens to appeal to "the justice and magnanimity of that government" for compensation for slaves; it made the governor ineligible for re-election; it confined the right of suffrage to free white male citizens; and it enjoined upon the legislature the duty of providing by law for "the government of free persons of color." State officers were elected Nov. 15, 1865, the legislature met in December, and the state remained under the new form of government until March, 1867. (See
—The election at which the constitution had been ratified had resulted in the choice of republican state officers, a republican senate, and a democratic house of representatives. In July the new state officers entered on their duties and the legislature ratified the congressional changes in the constitution, but during this and the next month the legislature proceeded to declare negroes ineligible to membership in it, and to admit to membership several persons who, it was alleged, were disqualified to hold office by the 14th amendment. During the year the state supreme court decided in favor of the eligibility of negroes to office, but the action of the legislature provoked an unfavorable feeling to Georgia in congress, and was construed as an effort to avoid the terms of reconstruction. In December, therefore, the Georgia senators were not admitted, and did not obtain their seats until January and February, 1871; the representatives had been admitted July 25, 1868. The Georgia electors, in obedience to a state law passed under the confederacy and not repealed in 1880, voted Dec. 9, 1868, the second Wednesday of December, instead of the first, as required by the federal statute. On this nominal ground a vigorous effort was made in February, 1869, to reject the vote of Georgia, but it was counted "in the alternative." (See
—Nothing, however, could save Georgia from re-reconstruction. The act of Dec. 23, 1869, authorized the governor to reconvene the legislature, with only such members as the reconstruction acts allowed, prohibited the exclusion of qualified members, authorized the use of the army and navy to support the governor, and imposed upon the legislature the ratification of the proposed 15th amendment as a condition precedent to the admission of senators and representatives from Georgia. The seats of the representatives also were thus vacated until January and February, 1871. The organization of the legislature in January and February, 1870, was only effected with great difficulty by the governor, and his irregular course of action was condemned by the senate investigating committee; but the organization was finally accomplished, the conditions fulfilled by the legislature, and the state admitted by act of July 15, 1870. The first election under the new regime took place Dec. 20—22, 1870, and resulted in the choice of democratic state officers, and of five democratic and two republican representatives in congress. At the next election for congressmen, 1872, the state having been re-districted, the republicans lost one congressman and gained one. At the next election, 1872, the democrats elected all the nine congressmen: in two districts the republican vote entirely disappeared, and in all the others it was much reduced. Since that time the state has been democratic in all elections, state and national, and the political contest has been confined to factions of the dominant party. The peculiar state law, requiring electors to vote on thesecondWednesday of December, excited some comment in 1881, but the undisputed republican majority in the presidential election of 1880 allowed the state's electoral votes to be admitted without objection.
—A new constitution was formed by a convention which met at Atlanta, July 11, 1877, and was ratified by popular vote, Dec. 5. Its only noteworthy changes were its location of the state capital at Atlanta, and its limitation of the right of suffrage by prohibiting any one convicted of a penitentiary offense, and not pardoned, from registering, voting or holding office.
—The most prominent citizens of the state in national politics have been William H. Crawford, Herschel V. Johnson, and Alexander H. Stephens. (See those names.) Reference should also be made (see also list of governors) to John M. Berrien, democratic United States senator 1825-9, attorney general under Jackson (see
—The name of Georgia was given to the colony in 1732 in honor of King George II. The prosperity of the state and its vast possibilities of future growth have encouraged its citizens to give it the popular name of the empire state of the south.
—GOVERNORS George Walton (1789-90); Edward Telfair(1790-3); Geo. Matthews (1793-6); Jared Irwin (1796-8); James Jackson (1798-1801); Josiah Tatnall (1801-2); John Milledge (1802-6); Jared Irwin (1808-9); David B. Mitchell (1809-130; Peter Early (1813-15); David B. Mitchell (1815-17); William Rabun (1817-19); John Clark (1819-23); George M. Troup (1823-7); John Forsyth (1827-9); George R. Gilmer (1829-31); Wilson Lumpkin (1831-5); William Schley (1835-7); George R. Gilmer (1837-9); Charles J. McDonald (1839-43); George W. Crawford (1843-7); G. W. B. Towns (1847-15); Howell Cobb (185103); Herschel V. Johnson (1853-7); Joseph E. Brown (1857-65); James Johnson (provisional, 1865); Chaekwa J. Jenkins (1863-7); John Pope and G.G. Meade (military governors, March, 1867-June, 1868); Rufus B. Bullock (June, 1868-October, 1871); Benjamin Coley (acting, October 1871-January, 1872); James M. Smith (chosen by special election, January, 1872-January, 1877); Alfred H. Colquitt (1877-83).
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For the past decade I’ve been developing forensic techniques for determining if an image is a forgery. The general philosophy that I have adopted is to first concede that there is no single technique that can detect all forms of digital manipulation. I have, therefore, been developing a number of different forensic tools each tailored to detecting specific forms of photo manipulation – some of these techniques operate on subtle pixel-level statistics that are invisible to the human eye, and others operate on geometric properties that can sometimes be seen with a trained eye.
For example, in the image shown below, the bottle’s cast shadow is clearly incongruous with the shape of the bottle (as is the shadow on this cover of Time Magazine). Such obvious errors in a shadow are easy to spot, but more subtle differences can be harder to detect.
Shown below are two images in which the bottle and its cast shadow are slightly different (the rest of the scene is identical). Can you tell which is consistent with the lighting in the rest of the scene?
The geometry of cast shadows is dictated by the 3-D shape and location of an object and the illuminating light(s). It turns out, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that there is a simple and intuitive 2-D image-based geometric analysis that can verify the authenticity of shadows.
Locate any point on a shadow and its corresponding point on the object, and draw a line through them. The best points to use are the corners of an object for which it is easier to match shadow and object. Repeat for as many clearly defined shadow and object points as possible. As you do this, you will find that all of the lines should intersect at one point – the location of the illuminating light.
Here is the basic intution for why this image-based construction works. Since light travels in a straight line, a point on a shadow, its corresponding point on the object, and the light source must all lie on a single line. Therefore, the light source will always lie on a line that connects every point on a shadow with its corresponding point on an object. Because under the rules of perspective projection, straight lines project to straight lines, this basic geometry is preserved in the 2-D image of a scene. Notice that this constraint holds regardless of the shape or orientation of the surface onto which a shadow is cast.
Shown below are the results of this simple geometric analysis, which clearly reveals the second bottle to be the fake.
In practice, there are some limitations to a manual application of this geometric analysis. Care must be taken to select appropriately matched points on the shadow and the object. This is best achieved when the object has a distinct shape (the corner of a cube or the tip of a cone). In addition, if the dominant light is the sun, then the lines may be nearly parallel, making the computation of their intersection vulnerable to slight errors in selecting matched points. And, it is necessary to remove any lens distortion in the image which causes straight lines to be imaged as curved lines which will then no longer intersect at a single point.
We are developing a suite of forensic tools that will automate and simplify the detection of fakes, one of which will almost certainly rely on the analysis of shadows.
[CGI model credit to Jeremy Birn, Lighting and Rendering in Maya]


Archive for the ‘transcendental geometry’ tag
The modern mathematician finds the space of three dimensions, in which our visible universe is containled, entirely too contracted for his conceptions, and is obliged to imagine a space of “n” dimensions in order that his fancy may find room to disport itself. But it is a new idea, on the part of the novelist, to make the conceptions of transcendental geometry the basis for an amusing story.
The very short article goes on to compare “Flatland” with “Through the Looking Glass” and their use of geometry as speculative and imaginative.
In trying to find more about this term, it appears that sadly the intelligent design crowd has laid claim to it. The most I could find (in an admittedly short search) was this related Wikipedia article on “Complex Geometry“:
In mathematics, complex geometry is the study of complex manifolds and functions of many complex variables. Application of transcendental methods to algebraic geometry falls in this category, together with more geometric chapters of complex analysis.


Child and Adolescent Suicide
Left untreated, depression can lead some youth to take their own lives. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds and the sixth leading cause of death for 5- to 14-year-olds. Attempted suicides are even more common.
Warning signs of suicide
Four out of five teens that attempt suicide give clear warnings. If you suspect that a child or adolescent is suicidal, look for these warning signs:
- Threats of suicide—either direct or indirect.
- Verbal hints such as “I won’t be around much longer” or “It’s hopeless.
- Obsession with death.
- Overwhelming sense of guilt, shame or rejection.
- Putting affairs in order (for example, giving or throwing away favorite possessions).
- Sudden cheerfulness after a period of depression.
- Dramatic change in personality or appearance.
- Hallucinations or bizarre thoughts.
- Changes in eating or sleeping patterns.
- Changes in school performance.
What Should Parents and Other Adults Do if They Think a Child Is Suicidal?
- Ask the child or teen if he or she feels depressed or thinks about suicide or death. Speaking openly and honestly allows the child to confide in you and gives you a chance to express your concern. Listen to his or her thoughts and feelings in a caring and respectful manner.
- Let the child or teen know that you care and want to help.
- Supply the child or teen with local resources, such as a crisis hotline or the location of a mental health clinic. If the child or teen is a student, find out if there are any available mental health professionals at the school and let the child know about them.
- Seek professional help. It is essential to seek expert advice from a mental health professional that has experience helping depressed children and teens.
- Alert key adults in the child’s life—family, friends, teachers. Inform the child’s parents or primary caregiver, and recommend that they seek professional assistance for their child or teen.
- Trust your instincts. If you think the situation may be serious, seek immediate help. If necessary, break a confidence in order to save a life.
This will connect you with a crisis center in your area.
Covenant House Nine Line
This is a 24-hour teen crisis line.
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Association of Suicidology


Alternative Instruction Program
The Alternative Instruction Program (AIP) provides an appropriate educational setting for students with diagnosed learning disabilities and/or attention disorders. While the standard-sized classroom works well for many students, the learning needs of some are better met in a small group environment providing more frequent interaction and closer supervision.
For admission into the AIP, the student must have a recent or updated diagnosis of a learning disability and/or attention disorder. Other data will also be taken into consideration as part of the admissions process such as standardized test scores, academic ability, observations, input from classroom teachers, work samples, and emotional or behavioral factors. Student progress in AIP is assessed regularly to ensure that enrollment in the program adequately meets the student’s educational needs.


The history of Cornell University’s South Asia Collection dates from 1868 when Cornell’s President Andrew D. White went to Europe armed with formidable lists of books and apparatus to be collected. He made large purchases of scientific and literary works. One of the most important of his acquisitions was the library of one of the founders of historical linguistics, Franz Bopp (1791-1867). Fully one-third of Bopp’s approximately five thousand volume collection was comprised of Indological subject matter. Since the beginning, Cornell University has continued to build on the initial strength of the Bopp library, acquiring complete collections of most of the important serials and monographs in this field.
Today, with material from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, the South Asia Collection is the fourth largest in the United States and the largest intershelved collection combining both Indic and Western languages.
Collections in rural sociology, anthropology, communications, education, regional planning and art history are also noteworthy among the South Asia Collection. The holdings include the Gandhi Memorial Library, which Cornell received as a gift in 1949. The South Asia Collection has grown steadily with gifts from the government of India and individuals in this country, as well as substantial library acquisitions.