The purpose of present site is to demonstrate how Cascading Style Sheets can be used in scientific web publishing. In particular, site shows how to format mathematical articles with CSS. Style sheets listed here can be used in distant learning projects, web publishing, on math forums and in other cases when one needs to embed mathematical expression in XML. Below are some examples of real mathematical articles formatted with CSS, demo pages that reveal some capabilities of CSS, annotated style sheets and XML DTDs that describe conceptual mathematical markup language that admits universal CSS2.1 based style sheet.
Using CSS one can specify general layout of mathematical articles, perform automated numbering of equations, lists, headers, theorems, propositions, format tables, render mathematical expressions etc. In other words one can control formatting of articles in details. The main advantage of CSS comparing to XSL and DSSSL style languages is its simplicity. It is convenient and widely used. Historically CSS was mainly used to format web pages however as CSS support grows stronger, area of its applications starts to spread beyond webdesign and currently CSS slowly enters into desktop publishing. When it comes to scientific publishing, one nontrivial question emerges: can CSS render complex mathematical expressions? To answer it one has to specify what is CSS and what do we mean by complex expression. At the moment there are three levels (versions with growing capabilities) of CSS: CSS1, CSS2 and CSS3. CSS1 is the simplest style language that can be used to format simple web pages, it is supported by all major browsers, but its capabilities are very far from being sufficient for needs of scientific publishing. CSS2 (2.1) is general purpose style language with more powerful capabilities. It does not contain any mathematics oriented properties, but it turned out that its general, text oriented, visual formatting model is capable to render complex mathematical expressions obtained by combining and nesting subscripts, superscripts, prescripts, under and over scripts, fractions, operators, matrices, vectors, determinants, cases, fences and radicals. Unfortunately CSS2.1 is not fully supported by current browsers, however browser developers claim that they will implement it.
CSS3 is the most powerful version of CSS that currently is under construction, it will contain several modules like math module, advanced layouts, generated content that will significantly boost markup processing and formatting capabilities of CSS and allow us to render even more complex mathematical expressions then we do today. But CSS3 is not the matter of near future (in spite of the fact that some of its parts like selectors and paged media are already supported by some rendering engines). So we will focus on CSS2.1 that is realistic style language expected to gain good browser side support in near future (for some unbounded values of 'near').
A lot of things can be done just using CSS2.1. Below are some examples of XML articles formatted in this way. You can try them in your browser.
This articles contain mostly simple math formulae formatted with CSS2.1. CSS generated content used to number equations, lists, theorems etc.
This demo page contains collection of math expressions intended to check different nesting patters. Some expressions are really complex and go far beyond the needs of average mathematician. It illustrates possibilities of CSS2.1 and works in recent versions of Opera (9), Mozilla and other Gecko based browsers (latest nigthly builds, march 2007) and versions 5-6 of Prince formatter.
This demo page is analogue of MathML torture tests, but uses XML MAIDEN 2.1 instead and is rendered using CSS only. At the moment only Opera 9, latest nightly builds of Mozilla (after inline-block and inline-table were implemented by David Baron) and Prince 5-6 managed to afford CSS version of these tests.
The fact that XML MAIDEN was designed to be mathematical markup for XML + CSS framework by no means does not imply that other styling options like XSLT + XSL FO or DSSSL are not available. It is possible to render XML MAIDEN 2.1 (excluding overscripts with complex base) using XSL in formatters that support fo:inline-container (for example Antenna XSL Formatter 4). Examples include XML MAIDEN input and XSL FO output.
Style sheets are gradually updated as CSS support in browsers grows stronger. At this stage it is better to use universal stylesheet. The rest have to be updated to reflect recent changes in Gecko.
When designing universal math style sheet it turned out that existing mathematical markup languages in general and MathML 2.0 in particular do not fit well in the scope of CSS2.1 visual formatting model in sense that none of them admits existence of single universal style sheet that would be able to replace native browser side support and in this way would allow CSS rendering engines to format mathematical formulae without implementing additional mathematics oriented formatting mechanism. As a result need in new markup emerged and was addressed by designing XML MAIDEN markup language (XML Manuscript Authoring, Interchange and Delivery Environment). See annotated DTDs listed below for description of markup language.
Article that describes mathematical part of XML MAIDEN 2.1. Available in XML and PDF formats.
Mathematical part of XML MAIDEN 2.1 DTD. Markup can be used to represent complex formulae obtained by nesting and combining common mathematical expressions such as indices (arbitrary complex subscripts, superscripts, prescripts, under and over scripts), fractions (including arbitrary deeply nesting ones), operators (with arbitrary complex, multiple under and over scripts), fences, radical, matrices (including deeply nested ones, with markers), determinants, vectors and cases. Scope and capabilities of mathematical part of DTD are roughly aligned with those of Electronic Manuscript Standard and presentational part of MathML. This DTD captures basic structure of mathematical articles and admits universal CSS2.1 style sheet that can imitate native support without imposing limitations on nesting of mathematical expressions. Plain text version, as well as plain and annotatded DTDs are also available.
Document part of XML MAIDEN 2.1 DTD. It describes elements used capture general structure of scientific articles written in XML MAIDEN 2.0 (front matter, headers, sections, statements, paragraphs, references etc). Certain restricted subset of XML MAIDEN DTD is interoperable and suitable for rendering in current browsers. Full DTD however requires stronger CSS2.1 support. There is brief DTD tutorial for those who are not familiar with XML DTD. Plain text version, plain DTD and annotatded DTD are available too.
Mathematical part of XML MAIDEN 2.0 DTD. Plain DTD without annotations is also available. Both annotated DTD and plain DTD are available from OASIS schema registry.
General part of XML MAIDEN 2.0 DTD. Plain DTD without annotations is also available. Both annotated DTD and plain DTD are available from OASIS schema registry.
Old version of XML MAIDEN (1.1) imposes strict limitations on nesting of mathematical expressions. Versions 1.1 and 2.0 can be considered as completely different markup languages as DTD was rewritten from top to bottom in order to remove nesting restrictions. Annotated version of old DTD is also available.
Some common questions about math oriented CSS style sheets, XML MAIDEN markup language and related stuff.
Latest news from math front. Project status updates and information on related CSS activities.
Some examples of XML MAIDEN documents with explicit document type declaration are available.
Here we decided to collect some side products of XML MAIDEN project that are either based on XML MAIDEN, use the same rendering technique or are related otherwise.
Experimental version of MathML UserJS implementation. Can be used to simulate MathML support in Opera 9.0 or later. At this stage it is incomplete, but recent changes in Presto that may end up in Kestrel release should drastically simplify formatting of maths with CSS and allow us to ship UserJS with better MathML support.
XHTML extension with limited capabilities that can handle only for simple fractions, simple indices and operators (no matrices, no nesting). Good toy to play with, otherwise not much useful.
Experimental LaTeX to XML convertor that uses XML MAIDEN as output format. Converter is written in EcmaScript + DOM and can be used offline. Only limited subset of LaTeX notations used today is supported, low level TeX commands are not recognized.
The idea behind XSL-TeX was to develop experimental LaTeX like mathematical markup that fits well in X(HT)ML + XSLT + CSS, X(HT)ML + XSLT + XSL FO and X(HT)ML + JS + CSS frameworks. Basically it is just experiment intended to find out whether it is worth to send non-XML input to browsers, as well as CSS and XSL formatters. It seems like it is not worth, at least both XSLT and JS covertors are too slow.


Which brand of CPU and GPU that currently sells the best, and how does the parameters of the hardware affect the price?
When someone wants to check out a newly released hardware, Newegg.com is always the right place to go. The broad product line, great deals and good service makes this online retailer very popular among computer fans. The highly organized web structure also makes it well-suited for getting and comparing hardware parameters. Therefore I decided to scrape this website for all the data needed for analysis.
CPU and graphic card, in my opinion, are top-2 hardware in a desktop that directly determine its computing power. Hundreds of channels can be found on Youtube that benchmarking the gaming performance for each CPU and graphic card product everyday. Besides video gamers, data scientists need good computers too. A good CPU and save great amount of computation time when working on a relatively large dataset. More interestingly, GPU computing via graphic cards is going mainstream at this moment. The reason behind this is that a modern GPU will have far more cores than a CPU, thus make GPU well-suited for parallel computing. Today more and more people use high-end graphic cards to perform heavy computational work, like training models for neural network.
As shown above, when searching for a type of desktop components, a page consisting of 36 products will be displayed. The URL contains the information like page number, number of products in a page, and the criteria for sorting the products. The main panel consists of 36 icons. When clicking the "View Detail" bottom, you will be directed to single product page. In this page, most of the parameters can be found under "Specification" tab.
Generate a list of URLs ranging from the first page to the last page.
At each page, grab the customer rating data, generate a ranking number for each product, filter the undesired (Refurbished and Open box) item, and extract the URL for each product.
Go to each product page, grab the hardware parameters under "Specification" Tab, and yield the item info.
It should be noted that the product information becomes less organized in the latter pages. Such case are handled by multiple "try/except" statements. The complete code for web scraping can be found here.
After web scraping from Newegg.com, the data were cleaned using this R script.
Other variables like L3/L2 cache for CPU, and memory clock/interface for graphic cards are not included in data analysis.
In this part, exploratory graphs are drawn to visualize the selling trend of CPUs and graphic cards. In terms of the overall market distribution, AMD and Intel are competing for dominance in CPU area, while AMD and Nvidia are two biggest GPU chip manufacturers.
First let's look at the customer rating distribution of CPU and graphic card that are currently selling on Newegg. For CPU, the customer ratings is ranging from 4 points to 5 points, indicating that CPU is overall reliable for nearly all products. On the other hand, some graphic card get rated only 1 points and 3 points, meaning the quality for graphic cards varies from product to product. When looking at the overall markets distribution, the number of Intel products is greater than AMD CPU. As for graphic card market, AMD fall behind Nvidia.
From the barplot above, there are 10 companies sharing the graphic card markets. Some of them, like Powercolor and Sapphire, stand on the AMD side, while others like EVGA and PNY adopt Nvidia GPUs only. It is interesting to note that for companies that use both GPUs, they tends to have more Nvidia chip products over AMD chip.
From the figure above, we can see that in top-100 best selling CPUs, although the average price of Intel product is higher than it opponent AMD, it is still leading in popularity.
Above is the product price plotting against selling rank for top-50 CPU products. The average price increases from $200 to $500 as the rank increases to around 25, and drop below 200 when reaching rank 50. There are three Intel products ranking between 20 and 30 that are selling at above $1000 dollars, thus pulling up the average price in this region.
As shown from the boxplot above, a positive correlation can be observed between price and number of cores. We can also clearly observe the price gap between two CPU manufactures, and such gap becomes more clear at higher number of cores.
In this section, the relationship between the price of CPU products and their parameters is explored. First let's look at the correlation plot including all numeric variables in the CPU dataset.
Figure 9. Correlation plot of CPU dataset.
It is interesting to note that the price of CPU almost has no correlation with the operating frequency, meaning that the operating frequency no longer reflects the computing power. Today CPU manufactures direct their attention on cores, threads and inner architecture to increase the performance, instead of simply adding clock speed.
Now let's see if we can use linear regression to model the price of CPUs against other variables. First let's check the normality of the price distribution.
From the Q-Q plot above, the prices are not quite normally distributed. Therefore we do a box-cox transformation.
From figure 11, we take the natural log of response value to increase the normality. For variable selection, CPU brands, series, number of core, power consumption and operating frequency are selected as the full model. Then AIC was applied to select the best linear model via step function in R. The variables for final model are series, power and number of cores.
Increasing of the power consumption will slightly increase the price, and CPU will cost a lot more when adding more cores to it. According to the p-value of the F-test, the overall regression model is significant, where 87% of the variability can be explained.
In summary, all CPU and graphic card product information was scraped from Newegg.com using Python Scrapy module. the data showed that the price of the CPU have a negligible correlation with the operating frequency. When looking at both CPU and graphic card data, although AMD has a wide range of product line, it is dominated by Intel and Nvidia in CPU and GPU market, respectively. A linear regression model is selected to model the natural log of price using CPU series, core and power consumption as predictors, which can explain 87% percent of variability.
Build an interactive app to allow others to explore and subset the dataset.
Scrape more features from the web, like product release date and customer reviews.
Apply machine learning algorithms to predict the user rating of a product based on the hardware parameters and reviews.


Things To Put In Mind When Selecting A Dentist Who Is Right For You.
The experience can either be a good one or a bad one when it comes to the selection of a dentist, and this should be known by individuals. The expectation of an individual while selecting a dentist is to get the best as he is putting his trust on dental requirements to an individual.
Individuals are aware that various individuals will claim that they can perform the role of a dentist. A challenging task, it becomes for the individuals in knowing who is the best dentist and one who they can trust on their dental requirements. With this mentioned, it is of a need for individuals to ensure that they are careful when it comes to the selection of a dentist. To achieve this, is of need to alert such individuals that they are required to consider some aspects when they are in the process of choosing the best dentist. Someone who will meet their dental requirements making them have a good experience will be the result of this.
It is important for individuals to be aware that a license is an essential factor to consider when choosing a dentist. A proof that someone took a course, training and passed the exams is a license. The only time that one will be given a license is if he has passed the exams.
A license is a proof that one has the required skills as well as knowledge to handle a patient with dental problems. When choosing a dentist, it is of a need to let individuals know that they need to consider experience. During your first meeting with the dentist, it will be a good thing if you can inquire from the dentist on the years that he has been in the industry. By being in the industry for a long time, it means that the individual has been able to learn new ways on how to approach the task.
If an individual can choose a dentist for a good reputation clinic, then it is an advantage. Quality and satisfying services are offered by clinics with a good reputation. You, therefore, need to consider it as one that can offer you quality services that will satisfy your needs. Choosing a dentist that one is comfortable with is important. You need to ensure that you are confident with them when telling your problems as you trust them.
If you are comfortable with a dentist, it means that you cannot fear to ask him any question. You will be able to ask him about the method that he is using to treat you as well as the expected result. On the best dentist to choose, it is of a need to consult from friends and family members. Since they might have used the services of the dentists; it is good to note that they are the best people to recommend on the best dentist.


How High Could Prices for Apple Products Go?
It's become an annual tradition, of sorts: as summer turns to fall, Apple unveils its latest product updates in a highly choreographed keynote affair, an event that Steve Jobs once presided over to the thrill of the company's fans and followers, who speculated wildly over what was in store.
These days some grumble the fanfare has become a little long in the tooth. With so many leaks leading up to the event, the opportunity for real surprise is minimal.
On the eve of this year's launch ー Apple's first as a $1 trillion company ー most expect the company to unveil three new iPhone models at various price points and an updated Apple Watch, said Quartz's deputy editor Mike Murphy.
With slowing growth in the company's signature smartphone and an escalating trade war with China ー Apple told the government last week that another $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese products coming into the U.S. may cause the company to raise its already-steep prices ー those different price points are increasingly important. The company has managed to ring out more revenue from its existing customers by jacking up prices every year, said Murphy.
"The crazy thing is this cheaper model is expected to come in at $700," which is what the high-end iPhone cost just a couple of years ago.
Apple's iPhone pricing is "increasingly ridiculous," Murphy added.
He said 2016's iPhone SE, which is the real "budget" option starting at $399, will likely stick around, at least for this product cycle.
But Apple is betting that people want bigger phones and is happy to push them. Andrew Keene, founder of AlphaShark Trading, said in a separate interview on Cheddar that a phone with a new, larger screen (6.5 inches, reportedly, compared to 5.8 inches for the iPhone X) is a smart reading of the market.
"They need something that's going to be a game-changer, and the game-changer's going to be that bigger screen," Keene said. "I think that's what's really going to make the stock go higher."
But further segmenting its most important product line would mark a notable shift for the company, which used to pride itself on building few products really well and have them, as Steve Jobs loved to say, "just work," according to Quartz's Murphy.
Indeed, as Apple has expanded its offerings, the company has seen an increase in problems that it once avoided ー from broken keyboards to throttling laptops.
"It's going to be very difficult to have the quality control they used to have," Murphy said. "I'm starting to wonder if Apple just doesn't really know what exactly people want."


Who are you calling a dumb animal?
Sitting on the floor, surrounded by an assortment of objects and utensils, Kanzi the bonobo pauses for a moment, a look of contemplation flickering across his warm brown eyes, before picking up a knife with his left hand and beginning to chop the onions in the bowl in front of him.
He has done exactly what the researcher asked him in English, in much the same way as one might expect a toddler to react to a series of basic commands.
Next, the ape, which is a close cousin of the chimpanzee, is asked to 'put the salt on the ball'. It may not be a particularly useful skill, but nevertheless Kanzi understands the sentence and begins to sprinkle salt on the multi-coloured beach ball beside him.
In exactly the same manner, he carefully executes a series of other requests - from 'put the soap in the water' to 'could you take the television outside please?'.
Kanzi has an extensive vocabulary - 384 words at the last count - and not all of them easy nouns and verbs such as 'toy' and 'run'. He understands what the researchers call 'concept words' - words such as 'from' and 'later' - and he can cope with grammar, differentiating for example between past tense and current.
Kanzi cannot exactly talk - his voice, though loud, finds difficulty in forming words. So when he wants to communicate with his keepers, he does so by pointing at the hundreds of colourful symbols on three laminated place-mat-like sheets that represent all the words he has learned.
Twenty-nine-year-old Kanzi has been taught English at the research centre of the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. He is one of seven apes there, and their incredible progress is forcing us to reassess everything we thought we knew about animals and intelligence.
But Kanzi is not the only reason for such a reassessment. Only this week, Canadian researchers at Glendon College, Toronto, reported that orangutans use mime to act out elaborate messages to other apes - and, indeed, to people - to get them to do what they want.
Dr Anne Russon's team of scientists examined 20 years of recorded data on orangutans moved from captivity to semi-wild forest conditions in Indonesian Borneo and recorded countless incidents of mime.
In one of them, a female named Siti used a stick to mime cutting a coconut to her human companion, to indicate that she wanted the coconut sliced open with a machete. Another female acted out how a researcher had dressed her foot when it had been cut, perhaps to show that she remembered the incident.
Mime was most often used when an initial attempt at communication failed. The scientists said this might explain why it happened so often with human interactions.
'My impression is that they think we are idiots for not getting a perfectly clear request, and then a bit disgusted that they actually have to spell it out for us,' Dr Russon said.
Whatever the reason, it is clear that these orangutans have cognitive abilities which hitherto have been considered uniquely human.
We have, of course, been communicating with animals and bewitched by the question of their intelligence ever since they were first domesticated.
And a fascinating article in the current issue of Time magazine examines animal intelligence in the light of Kanzi's extraordinary ability. It points out that the Great Ape Trust raises apes from birth, with spoken and sign language as a constant feature of their existence.
In much the same way as we human parents take infants on walks and chatter to them about what we see around us - even though the baby does not yet understand - so do the scientists at the trust chat away to their bonobos.
Kanzi is the first ape to have acquired language as children do, simply by being exposed to it. And it is clear this total immersion method is helping the apes to communicate with us better, faster and with a greater degree of complexity than ever before.
Some of the 'speech' of the Iowa apes is astonishing. When primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh asked Kanzi 'Are you ready to play?' after a delay in finding the ball he liked playing with, the bonobo pointed to the symbols for 'past' and 'ready', displaying a near-human talent for sarcasm.
When Kanzi tried the vegetable kale for the first time, he found that it took longer to chew than the lettuce he was familiar with - and pointed to his laminated glossary and dubbed it 'slow lettuce'.
Another of the Iowa bonobos, Nyoto, loved to get kisses and to eat sweets, so he worked out a way to ask for both. Pointing at the words 'feel' and 'kiss', then 'eat' and 'candy', he got what he wanted.
As a group, the apes worked out a term to describe the flooding they had seen in Iowa, pointing to 'big' and 'water'. And when it comes to their favourite meal of pizza, the apes simply point to the symbols for 'bread', 'cheese' and 'tomato'.
Until now the view was that man alone possessed true abilities for rational thought, culture, morality and language. But Kanzi and the apes like him are forcing us to rethink our long-held assumptions.
The assumption has typically been that animals don't suffer in the way we do. They don't think in any meaningful way and they don't worry. They have no sense of the future or of their own mortality.
However, over the years, our preconceptions about the animal kingdom are being washed away one by one.
We used to think humans were the only species to use tools, now we know birds and apes and other mammals can do so, too. Otters have mastered the pretty basic art of smashing molluscs with rocks to get the meat inside. But corvids, the class of bird that includes crows and magpies and jays, are astonishingly adept with tools.
In experiments, crows have bent wires to create hooks so they can fish a basket of food from the bottom of a plastic tube. Last year, a zoologist at Cambridge University found that a rook could work out how to drop stones into a pitcher partly filled with water in order to raise the level so that it could drink.
More astonishingly, the bird seems to have grasped Archimedes' principle. It selected the larger stones first, understanding that they would raise the water level fastest.
We have always believed that intellect falls as brain size diminishes. Killer whales have huge brains at 12lb, and dolphins very large ones at 4lb, compared with the human brain of 3lb.
brain of the Etruscan shrew weighs just 0 . 1 grams , but relative to the shrew’s body it is bigger than a human brain.
And how do you explain the fact that corvids are among the most adept tool users in the animal kingdom? Their brains are tiny.
Time after time, science suggests we have deeply underestimated the intelligence of animals.
they can remain close to a dead elephant for days. They show extraordinary interest — even respect — when encountering elephant bones, gently examining them, paying special attention to the skull and tusks.
Even rats show empathy for each other, says Marc Hauser, professor of psychology and anthropological biology at Harvard. ‘When rats are in pain and wriggling, other rats will start wriggling in parallel,’ he explains.
And a 2008 study by primatologist Frans de Waal, at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta, showed that capuchin monkeys exhibited generosity.
or at least well-known to them.
The Yerkes scientists concluded that this was due in part to the simple sense of pleasure experienced in giving. This is consistent with studies of the human brain which show activity in the reward centres of the brain after subjects give to charity.
And now the final barrier between humans and the animal world appears to be blurring with the revelation that apes can indeed communicate using speech.
Scientists are learning that some of the things they thought animals could not do were simply things hey had not been given the opportunity to perfect.
that someone has information to share and that your attention is being draw to it so that you can learn, too.
opportunity to practise because baby apes rarely let go of their mothers, clutching her abdomen as she knuckle-walks from place to place.
Kanzi, by contrast, who was raised in captivity, was often carried in human arms, leaving his hands free for communication. ‘By the time Kanzi was nine months old, he was already pointing at things,’ says Savage-Rumbaugh.
explain, say, satisfaction, if the word didn’t exist.
Psychologist David Premack, of the University of Pennsylvania, found that when chimps were taught symbols for ‘same’ and ‘different’, they later performed better on analogy tests comparing whether certain objects were similar or dissimilar.
What then does all this teach us humans? The truth is that the research into the subject of animal cognisance is only just beginning.
But it is already clear that we have grossly underestimated how innately intelligent so many species are.
more about their thoughts, let us hope it will lead to a better relationship between man and beast.


Can Governors Help Make Regulation Effective?
In a state where rate levels have made headlines, a reporter asked me, "Since the commission is independent, what can the governor do?" My answer was, "Plenty."
by not making "lower rates" the immediate answer, because just as cutting education to save money means higher costs later (as workers are less productive and citizens less engaged), cutting rates now while avoiding the long-term reasons for high rates won't solve the problem either.
Real leadership is recognizing that solutions aren't simple and that it's worth the political risk to say so.


Is Now the Time to Buy Bunzl?
Today I am looking at Bunzl to determine whether you should consider buying the shares at 1,274 pence.
Price Earnings Growth (PEG): Does the share look like a good value factoring in predicted growth?
The consensus analyst estimate for this year's earnings per share is 76 pence (6% growth) and dividend per share is 30.7 pence (9% growth).
Trading on a projected P/E of 16.8, Bunzl appears cheaper than its peers in the support services sector, which are currently trading on an average P/E of around 19.6.
Unfortunately, Bunzl's P/E and growth rate give a PEG ratio of around 2.8, which implies the share is expensive for the near-term earnings growth the firm is expected to produce.
Bunzl offers a 2.2% yield, which is just above the sector average of 2.1%. Nonetheless, Bunzl has a three-year compounded dividend growth rate of 21%, implying the yield will continue to stay above that of its peers.
Indeed, the dividend is around two-and-a-half times covered by earnings, giving Bunzl plenty room for further payout growth.
So, is now the time to buy Bunzl?
Bunzl is a global distributor to a variety of industries, supplying a wide range of products such as food labels, paper towels, surgical gloves and ear defenders.
Given the diverse range and everyday nature of the products distributed, the company's progress can be sensitive to the status of the global economy. However, as my table above shows, Bunzl's earnings have actually grown 19% over the past three years.
So it seems Bunzl's operations are relatively resilient to the economic environment and I believe this is due to the company's diversification. You see, Bunzl's broad customer base includes what I'd describe as some highly defensive sectors. In particular, during 2012, almost one third of Bunzl's group revenue came from the supply of products to the grocery sector, which included supermarket bags and food packaging.
Indeed, Bunzl's diversification and the company's growth over that past five years has really impressed investors and, since the beginning of the year, Bunzl's share price has gained around 28%, almost 20% more than the FTSE 100 as a whole.
However, this rapid rise in Bunzl's share price over such a sort period leads me to believe the company currently looks overvalued. So overall, despite Bunzl's strong growth and current discount to peers, I believe now does not look to be a good time to buy Bunzl at 1,274 pence.
Although I feel now may not be the time to buy Bunzl, I am more positive on the FTSE 100 share highlighted within this exclusive free report.
The article Is Now the Time to Buy Bunzl? originally appeared on Fool.com.


Factor analysis is a collection of methods used to examine how underlying constructs influence the responses on a number of measured variables. There are basically two types of factor analysis: exploratory and confirmatory. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) attempts to discover the nature of the constructs influencing a set of responses. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tests whether a specified set of constructs is influencing responses in a predicted way. SPSS only has the capability to perform EFA. CFAs require a program with the ability to perform structural equation modeling, such as LISREL or AMOS.
The primary objectives of an EFA are to determine the number of factors influencing a set of measures and the strength of the relationship between each factor and each observed measure. To perform an EFA, you first identify a set of variables that you want to analyze. SPSS will then examine the correlation matrix between those variables to identify those that tend to vary together. Each of these groups will be associated with a factor (although it is possible that a single variable could be part of several groups and several factors). You will also receive a set of factor loadings, which tells you how strongly each variable is related to each factor. They also allow you to calculate factor scores for each participant by multiplying the response on each variable by the corresponding factor loading. Once you identify the construct underlying a factor, you can use the factor scores to tell you how much of that construct is possessed by each participant.
 Identify the nature of the constructs underlying responses in a specific content area.
 Determine what sets of items ‘‘hang together’’ in a questionnaire.
 Demonstrate the dimensionality of a measurement scale. Researchers often wish to develop scales that respond to a single characteristic.
 Determine what features are most important when classifying a group of items.
 Generate ‘‘factor scores’’ representing values of the underlying constructs for use in other analyses.
 Create a set of uncorrelated factor scores from a set of highly collinear predictor variables.
 Use a small set of factor scores to represent the variable contained in a larger set of variables. This is often referred to as data reduction.
It is important to note that EFA does not produce any statistical tests. It therefore cannot ever provide concrete evidence that a particular structure exists in your data. it can only direct you to what patterns there may be. If you want to actually test whether a particular structure exists in your data you should use CFA, which does allow you to test whether your proposed structure is able to account for a significant amount of variability in your items.
EFA is strongly related to another procedure called principle components analysis (PCA). The two have basically the same purpose: to identify a set of underlying constructs that can account for the variability in a set of variables. However, PCA is based on a different statistical model, and produces slightly different results when compared to EFA. EFA tends to produce better results when you want to identify a set of latent factors that underlie the responses on a set of measures, whereas PCA works better when you want to perform data reduction. Although SPSS says that it performs “factor analysis,” statistically it actually performs PCA. The differences are slight enough that you will generally not need to be concerned about them - you can use the results from a PCA for all of the same things that you would the results of an EFA. However, if you want to identify latent constructs, you should be aware that you might be able to get slightly better results if you used a statistical package that can actually perform EFA, such as SAS, AMOS, or LISREL.
Factor analyses require a substantial number of subjects to generate reliable results. As a general rule, the minimum sample size should be the larger of 100 or 5 times the number of items in your factor analysis. Though you can still conduct a factor analysis with fewer subjects, the results will not be very stable.
 Choose Analyze thengoto Data Reduction thengoto Factor.
 Move the variables you want to include in your factor analysis to the Variables box.
 If you want to restrict the factor analysis to those cases that have a particular value on a variable, you can put that variable in the Selection Variable box and then click Value to tell SPSS which value you want the included cases to have.
 Click the Extraction button to indicate how many factors you want to extract from your items. The maximum number of factors you can extract is equal to the number of items in your analysis, although you will typically want to examine a much smaller number. There are several different ways to choose how many factors to examine. First, you may want to look for a specific number of factors for theoretical reasons. Second, you can choose to keep factors that have eigenvalues over 1. A factor with an eigenvalue of 1 is able to account for the amount of variability present in a single item, so factors that account for less variability than this will likely not be very meaningful. A final method is to create a Scree Plot, where you graph the amount of variability that each of the factors is able to account for in descending order. You then use all the factors that occur prior to the last major drop in the amount of variance accounted for. If you wish to use this method, you should run the factor analysis twice - once to generate the Scree plot, and a second time where you specify exactly how many factors you want to examine.
 Click the Rotation button to select a rotation method. Though you do not need to rotate your solution, using a rotation typically provides you with more interpretable factors by locating solutions with more extreme factor loadings. There are two broad classes of rotations: orthogonal and oblique. If you choose an orthogonal rotation, then your resulting factors will all be uncorrelated with each other. If you choose an oblique rotation, you allow your factors to be correlated. Which you should choose depends on your purpose for performing the factor analysis, as well as your beliefs about the constructs that underlie responses to your items. If you think that the underlying constructs are independent, or if you are specifically trying to get a set of uncorrelated factor scores, then you should clearly choose an orthogonal rotation. If you think that the underlying constructs may be correlated, then you should choose an oblique rotation. Varimax is the most popular orthogonal rotation, whereas Direct Oblimin is the most popular oblique rotation. If you decide to perform a rotation on your solution, you usually ignore the parts of the output that deal with the initial (unrotated) solution since the rotated solution will generally provide more interpretable results. If you want to use direct oblimin rotation, you will also need to specify the parameter delta. This parameter influences the extent that your final factors will be correlated. Negative values lead to lower correlations whereas positive values lead to higher correlations. You should not choose a value over .8 or else the high correlations will make it very difficult to differentiate the factors.
 If you want SPSS to save the factor scores as variables in your data set, then you can click the Scores button and check the box next to Save as variables.
 Click the Ok button when you are ready for SPSS to perform the analysis.
The output from a factor analysis will vary depending on the type of rotation you chose. Both orthogonal and oblique rotations will contain the following sections.
 Communalities. The communality of a given item is the proportion of its variance that can be accounted for by your factors. In the first column you.ll see that the communality for the initial extraction is always 1. This is because the full set of factors is specifically designed to account for the variability in the full set of items. The second column provides the communalities of the final set of factors that you decided to extract.
 Total Variance Explained. Provides you with the eigenvalues and the amount of variance explained by each factor in both the initial and the rotated solutions. If you requested a Scree plot, this information will be presented in a graph following the table.
 Component Matrix. Presents the factor loadings for the initial solution. Factor loadings can be interpreted as standardized regression coefficients, regressing the factor on the measures. Factor loadings less than .3 are considered weak, loadings between .3 and .6 are considered moderate, and loadings greater than .6 are considered to be large.
Factor analyses using an orthogonal rotation will include the following section.
 Rotated Component Matrix. Provides the factor loadings for the orthogonal rotation. The rotated factor loadings can be interpreted in the same way as the unrotated factor loadings.
 Component Transformation Matrix. Provides the correlations between the factors in the original and in the rotated solutions.
Factor analyses using an oblique rotation will include the following sections.
 Pattern Matrix. Provides the factor loadings for the oblique rotation. The rotated factor loadings can be interpreted in the same way as the unrotated factor loadings.
 Structure Matrix. Holds the correlations between the factions and each of the items. This is not going to look the same as the pattern matrix because the factors themselves can be correlated. This means that an item can have a factor loading of zero for one factor but still be correlated with the factor, simply because it loads on other factors that are correlated with the first factor.
 Component Correlation Matrix. Provides you with the correlations among your rotated factors.
After you obtain the factor loadings, you will want to come up with a theoretical interpretation of each of your factors. You define a factor by considering the possible constructs that could be responsible for the observed pattern of positive and negative loadings. You should examine the items that have the largest loadings and consider what they have in common. To ease interpretation, you have the option of multiplying all of the loadings for a given factor by -1. This essentially reverses the scale of the factor, allowing you, for example, to turn an ‘‘unfriendliness’’ factor into a ‘‘friendliness’’ factor.


What if I wanted to paint the sky green?
dawn, what list gave you the assignment? I'm looking for new ideas.


It Can't All Be Serious.
I bought the book The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt more than a year ago, after it showed up on my list of recommendations I accumulated during the NCTE conference. If I remember correctly, I heard about the book from another teacher I met early one morning in the hotel lobby. Both of us has been unable to sleep late and had slipped downstairs to read until our roommates woke up and the conference opened. She was almost at the end of a book and crying. so I had to know--when it was appropriate to break in and ask--about the book's title.
I jotted down her name and email, and we talked about books we had recently encountered. All I had in my notes besides the title The Wednesday Wars were the words "Vietnam" and "Shakespeare." Incongruous? Maybe. Maybe not. The book had since been sitting on my shelf waiting its turn when I discovered the audiobook at the local library when I went looking for my next read for the road.
I will confess than I am a great fan of the best of young adult literature, perhaps because I am a fan of young adult readers. I may not be a seventh grade boy, but I can remember being that age. Holling Hoodhood, the narrator, was convincing and complex. His English teacher, who appeared at first to be the antagonist (Mrs. Baker hates my guts, Holling complained routinely in the beginning) turned out to be a great mentor and catalyst for her student's growth.
When he, the lone Presbyterian in his seventh grade class, is left alone in her class room when the other students are either in synagogue school or catechism class on Wednesday afternoons, she tries first to send him back to remediate sixth grade math, and when that fails, she takes it upon herself to have him clear every chalk eraser in the junior high. Eventually, though, she settles on a better plan and begins assigning him readings of Shakespearean plays, beginning with The Tempest. What he believes is a plan to torture him fails because he discovers the plays aren't so bad.
The story is set in 1968, when his high school sister's desire to be a flower child and oppose the war flies in the face of the principles of his father, an ambition architect and the town's 1967 Man of the Year. When Mrs. Baker's husband (Tybalt) is reported missing in action in Vietnam, the war becomes all the more real to Holling and his friends.
The supporting cast of characters--the friends, the teachers, coaches and adminstrators, the intimidating eight graders, and their families--is strong and appealing. As Schmidt leads Holling and Mrs. Baker through the other plays--Macbeth, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, he weaves in Hollings' emerging awareness of the universal truths, the lessons of Shakespeare Mrs. Baker intends.
As if Shakespeare and Vietnam were not enough, Schmidt manages to infuse the book with New York Yankees baseball as well. I kept thinking as I read that this would be a perfect companion to another favorite YA book, Ron Koertge's novel-in-verse Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, the story of a high school baseball player stuck at home with his writer father as he recovers from mononucleosis and the recent death of his mother.
A firm believer myself that the bard writes for everybody and all times, I am glad to have worked my way through a few more of my favorites with Gary Schmidt, Holling Hoodhood, and Mrs. Baker.
Today on the Today Show, authors of different literary genres--chick lit, mystery, detective novels--were sharing their summer reading suggestions, and I'll be honest, I didn't find many to add to my list. I'm a reading snob, but only in the most inconsistent way. I loved Harry Potter, but I just can't get into the Twilight series beyond book one (probably because the two are in no way literarily comparable.) There are some authors I ignore on general principle, although I try to be tactful when others gush about their books.
But I love Celia Rivenbark. Her books could be shelved under humor or under Southern--and honestly, doesn't Southern humor merit its own section in the bookstore? I had read Bless Your Heart, Tramp and We're Just Like You, Only Prettier before she appeared at Hickory's library for a "girls' night out" reading. She was equally entertaining in person. I love to have the real voice for my own internal soundtrack, especially when the author's writing has strong literary voice.
Since then, I buy her new books while they're still in hardback. (Then I give them as gifts to just the right people when they come out in paperback.) I mean no disrespect to Ms. Rivenbark when I say that her books provide the perfect bathroom reading. They sit right there on the back of the tank with the Reader's Digest. I just finished her latest, You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning," the title coming, if I recall correctly, from a cousin's tee shirt. Since some of my friends are about to start out on their second annual RV trip back and forth across America. (Last year's was called "The Big Heads and More" as they headed toward Mt. Rushmore. This year's goal is the Big Ditch--the Grand Canyon.) Rivenbark's observations on camping should make for perfect road reading.
In a week or two, I am attending an engagement party for the daughter of a friend, and the fiance's parents will be in town from Scotland. I don't know what I'll get the happy couple, but I think his mother is going to need a couple of books like these to help her understand the Southern future in-laws and wedding protocol.
The next in my inadvertent detour through nonfiction this summer is William Kamkwamba's memoir The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. This is the simply-told story of a boy from Malawi, the son of a maize farmer whose ambitions for attending secondary school were dashed when drought and famine first nearly destroyed the area, with many literally starving to death, then devastated the family's financial situation. Forced to drop out of school when his family couldn't come up with the requisite fees, William's curiosity led him to the small community library, where he read voraciously, occasionally asking the teacher who worked there for definitions of words he didn't know. He was particularly interested in science and began, with the help of his two best friends Gilbert and Geoffrey, to build a windmill from materials he found at the local garbage dump or scavenged.
The project first provided light to his own home, changing the family's life in much the way Edison's light bulb must have changed those in his world--extending reasonable waking hours past sunset. He learned too that he could charge cell phones for neighbors, and eventually set his eyes on powering a well that would allow his family to grow a second crop each year.
Although the project was first observed warily by his neighbors--some fearing he might be invoking witchcraft--it finally gained him international attention and an opportunity to travel and eventually to get what he had wanted most all along--an excellent education.
Someone who heard Kamkwamba speak after his book's success said the young man had one poignant question: Where was this Google when I was building my windmill?
I'm usually engrossed in a novel or two a week during the summer, since fiction is my favorite, but this summer I've veered toward some other options. I had downloaded a copy of Francine Prose's book Anne Frank back in November after attending the NCTE convention in Philly, but I just got around to reading it on my flight home from Turkey when I just couldn't hang in there with Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I had read one of Prose's books on writing, lent to me by a student in my creative writing class a few years ago. This book takes a fresh look at Anne Frank's famous diary from a literary perspective.
In this book, Prose first disabuses readers of the idea of this book as a one-draft stroke of young prodigy. Evidence of revision, among other things, proves that Anne had intended her writing to have a broader audience that "Dear Kitty." The resulting book by Prose offers something for a wide audience as well. She looks at the book, the play, and the movie that resulted, as well as much of the controversy involved in each. For writers, the book reemphasizes the value of revision and of a sense of one's readers. The last part of the book deals with ways for teachers to use the book--at all education levels. This was for me one of the most valuable sections of Prose's work, but I needed to read the preceding chapters to make this last most useful.
I was reminded of a work of fiction I had encountered a few years ago, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, a work of fiction based on the flawed assumption that Peter might have survived and come to American, choosing to pass as a Gentile--even to his own wife--until the diary's publication strikes him mute. I had also read a most clever essay by David Sedaris first in the New Yorker then in one of his books in which he describes the dilemma of looking for a new apartment and deciding that Anne Frank's house was the perfect place for him to live. He manages to balance his pointed humor with very poignant response to the truth of her story.
The Diary of a Young Girl (which, by the way, was not her chosen title) is one of those classic works that not only stands up to rereading after one's school years, but absolutely demands it. (I put The Good Earth, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Once and Future King in that same category.) The book doesn't change over time, but as a reader matures and experiences life, the book takes on a richer, fuller meaning. Prose has certainly enriched that experience for her readers.
I spent more time at the airport than I really intended on my way to Istanbul this month. Missing about five connecting flights, including three different international flights, I had lots of time for reading. I had intended to report on my reading during my travels, but our hotel (the Lady Diana in Sultanahmet) had three computers, all of which were different and I had the most challenging time finding my punctuation marks. I eventually found most. In fact, my closing my eyes and using my tenth grade touch typing skills (Thank you, Mrs. Aldridge!) I found the comma and period right where they belonged, hidden under symbols I didn't normally use. I eventually had to use cut and paste for the @ symbol--just to check my email--and I never found the apostrophe. I actually considered typing without it and using a little note in the header, but my English teacher in me just couldn't do it. I have a hard enough time typing titles on Facebook without italics. Now without further ado (oh, maybe just a little), here is the first installation in my travel reading report.
On the way to the airport, I finished listening to my current audio book (due back at the library before I return), Anita Shreve's new novel A Change in Altitude. I had read a couple of her novels before and found that what keeps me reading is not her characters but the research. I had read her book A Wedding in December, her attempt at a Big Chill experience, set not at a funeral but at a wedding, and I kept reading for the back story, a historical account of a ship explosion in Halifax, that had me googling for more details. This book had whiny, inconsistent main characters centered around two attempts to climb Mt. Kenya.
On the flight I began reading Anna Quindlen's latest novel, Every Last One, my current book club choice. I have always enjoyed Quindlen's writing, both fiction and nonfiction. I was immediately drawn to the protagonist, a mother just a little younger than me, with children almost ready to leave the nest. The first half was a gentle, engaging story line, but without giving a spoiler, I will say that midway through the book, Quindlen threw a major curve and I couldn't stop reading. Now I am so eager for our book club meeting because I have a genuine need to talk about this book.
My next book on the trip was Joanne Proulx's Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet, a book with an "I couldn't put it down recommendation from one of the younger members of my book club. As the novel opens, the protagonist is in the basement of his best friend's house with several of his stoner buddies when--out of the blue--he predicts, quite accurately, the accidental death the next day of one of the boys in the room. While it might be more natural for me to identify with Quindlen's middle-aged wife and mother, this kid had me. As he deals with his bizarre unwanted gift, he also must wrestle with feelings for his dead friend's charming girlfriend. This is an eerier, less humorous I Love You, Beth Cooper novel. The same actor could play either leading part--an awkward, out-of-the-mainstream teenage boy. Sara was right: I couldn't put it down.
I'll pick up next with more of my wide variety of reading experiences on the road and in the air. Stay tuned.
It's happened again--I'm reading along, traveling vicariously to another part of the world, then zing! I'm back home faster than Dorothy clicking her slippered heels. It happened a few years ago when I read Steve Berry's The Romanov Prophecy (beware of spoiler!) when the title character moved from the former Soviet Union to San Francisco then Richmond then Boone, NC.
Now I've just finished Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel Lacuna, and after spending half the book in Mexico City with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Lev Trotsky, the protagonist Harrison Shepherd ends up, of all places, in Asheville, NC, living on Montford Ave. I forget who said it--I think Richard Peck, the YA novelist, that we all read fiction for a sense of recogniton. I know I do.
Lacuna was a bit of a slow start for me. Anyone who reads Kingsolver's novels--and I've read them all--knows she gives lots of detail--places, colors, plants, food. It all fits in the end, but you have to read through it. This book is told through journals, letters, clippings from the newspaper, and it is, in the end, a satisfying tale.
The protagonist is a young man, a writer, who keeps himself out of the spotlight in his own stories. As a result, I found his secretary Violet Brown the most engaging character of the novel. She is a no-nonsense woman, widowed young, empathetic and wise. She's the one I missed most at the end. I will try to catch a glimpse of her or the home she inherited from Shepherd the next time I visit Asheville.


We often get the question, "What is that?" from our patients who are watching us wave this "blue wand" over their mouth while getting fillings.
This "blue wand" is a curing light. This light is used for polymerization of light-cured resin-based composites or, in other words, the white filling that we put in a tooth. There are several materials that are curable by light. These lights can be Tungsten halogen, LED, plasma, and laser. Halogen and the LED are the most popular.
A dental curing light that hardens a white tooth colored filling.
In the 1960's the first light-cured resin composite was developed. This led to the first curing light. They called it the"NUVA." The NUVA used ultraviolet light to cure composites. It was discontinued due to lack of shortened wavelength curing into the resin. Advances were made in the 1980's in the areas of making visible light curing.This next type of light was the halogen bulb. This light had further penetration and replaced the UV light.
Areas of improvement took place in the 1990's. Resin composites were better and the lights became stronger. The plasma light was introduced in 1998. It was a high-intensity light with a fluorescent bulb claiming to cure in 3 seconds. There were negative aspects to this light: high priced, actually cured in longer times than 3 seconds, and it was expensive to maintain. This brought about another light source technology.
Our curing light used at Apple Tree Dental in Rexburg, Idaho.
Today we use the LED light. While the LED lights have been around since the 90's they weren't widely used until the frustrations of the plasma lights were unbearable. LED lights are continually being developed.
Dental curing lights only work on resin composite filling. They are not used for silver fillings, otherwise known as amalgam.
So what is the difference between a resin composite restoration and an amalgam (silver filling) restoration? What are the benefits of each?
The most obvious difference between the two is that an amalgam (silver filling) is not good at hide-and-seek when looking in the mouth, while resin composite can be undetectable to the untrained eye. Thus, for esthetic purposes, many patients opt to use a more organic look for their filling material.
In comparison, amalgam restorations have benefits of their own. Amalgam fillings have been used for over one hundred and fifty years and have (according to one study) been found to be more durable on wear and have greater longevity compared to composite fillings (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3011298/).
While the Amalgam fillings may be considered more durable against wear and tear, they have a tendency to cause leakage into the tooth structure, which will result in tooth discoloration. It's common for more than 90% of amalgam fillings to have decay underneath them! Another hang up for people with amalgam fillings is attributed to the mercury content within the material. This scares many people away from having an amalgam filling. It's important to note that there are different types of mercury: elemental, organic, and inorganic. The mercury used in amalgam fillings is safe and harmless.
Old amalgam filling with leakage and decay around it.
Another problem with amalgam is that it is a metal. It contracts and expands when it is cooled or heated. That same expansion and contraction happens in your tooth as the mouth is heated or cooled. Consider what you eat and drink on a daily basis. You may have ice cream that is freezing cold and later be enjoying a boiling hot soup. Tooth structure is very glassy, so its easy to imagine how that much expansion and contraction stress can cause fractures over time. Not only do fractures occur, but during these expanding motions, the filling gives room for leakage and decay to grow underneath and can lead to more invasive treatment if not detected in time.
Darkening of the teeth due to old amalgam fillings.
Like most dental offices, we don't use amalgam in our office. This is another way we give our patients the best quality and care we can offer. That's the Apple Tree Dental way here in Rexburg, Idaho: Extraordinary Integrity, Care, and Comfort!


he objective of this task is to develop instrumentation methods for Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) based computer systems that will reduce software debug, integration, test and performance assessment difficulties and thereby cost. Improvements in system testing of embedded systems improves overall system quality as has been extensively documented. This technology would produce the core of an instrumentation system capable of monitoring and analyzing all computing elements of a RISC processor based embedded system simultaneously and in real-time with minimal or no intrusion. BENEFITS: Maintenance of embedded real-time systems is by far the largest cost element in the life cycle of these systems. Methods that significantly reduce the time required to understand the cause of problems promise high return. The ability to test a system in its operational environment running at full speed with minimal or no intrusion results in life cycle cost savings and improved system performance relative to design specifications. In particular, this technology will provide visibility into the operation of RISC based systems running in their native environments with minimal or no intrusion that cannot be achieved with current development tools. This technology will be highly portable to other embedded system applications in all markets sectors including Industrial Process Control, Telecommunications, Transportation, Medical, Military, and Aerospace.


Middlebury College's Mahaney Center for the Arts acquired a new Steinway concert grand piano last December, and just last month Saint Michael's College had its older one in the McCarthy Arts Center rebuilt. Given how rare sizable halls with good concert pianos are in Vermont, this is good news for classical audiences — and even better for pianists. After all, that class of musicians is one of the few that cannot perform on their own instruments.
"That's one of the hard things that comes with being a pianist: Everywhere you go, you have to adjust to an instrument," says Middlebury pianist Diana Fanning.
Which raises the question: Where do Vermont pianists most enjoy performing? The best pianos, say the smattering of folks interviewed for this article, are currently at Middlebury, St. Michael's, the University of Vermont Recital Hall, the Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph and the Barre Opera House. Each of these venues has a Steinway D — at nine feet, it's the company's largest, and what is meant by "concert grand."
Of the smaller pianos housed at churches — those rent-free spaces where many local pianists perform — musicians number among their favorites those at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Burlington and the South Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury. The latter's seven-foot Steinway B is used in Judith Rankin and Leslie Gensburg's notable Northeast Kingdom Classical Series.
What makes these pianos a pleasure to play depends on several factors. Newer is better in the piano world; as Montpelier pianist Michael Arnowitt quips, "Pianos are different from violins, which can be played for 300 or 400 years. Pianos are more like cars: They go downhill in a slow progression — though sometimes you can do a kind of transplant." That transplant, or a complete rebuilding, means restringing the piano and replacing its action, the mechanical assembly that allows the hammers to work.
Yet the quality of a piano is often inseparable from the hall in which it sits, say several musicians. UVM's 2003 Steinway is relatively new, but the Recital Hall's acoustics are "wanting," in Arnowitt's opinion. Shelburne pianist Paul Orgel, who helped choose the piano, specifies in an email that "While the hall's reverberance flatters some instruments, it creates a lack of clarity in the piano's sound," often "muddying" it.
Allan Day, the Williston-based piano tuner who replaced the St. Mike's piano's action last month (he restrung it 12 years ago), adds that the instrument comes from a period when the company was producing lower-quality pianos. Having rebuilt numerous pianos, and currently at work on the near-dead one owned by UVM's Alumni Hall, Day judges the new sound of the St. Michael's piano "wonderful."
Sharon-based pianist Annemieke Spoelstra, who teaches piano at St. Mike's, commends the rebuilt Steinway. "The difference [from before] was in the weight of the keys," she noted following her faculty concert, which occurred a week after the rebuilding. "The top part, you had to work really hard to make it shine. Now you can use a softer, finer brush" — an aspect Spoelstra appreciated while performing pianissimo-rich Debussy and Grieg compositions.
Fanning, who has taught at Middlebury for 37 years, led the selection of the college's new Steinway at the Queens, N.Y., factory with a team that included pianists Richard Goode, co-artistic director of the Marlboro Music Festival; and Paul Lewis, a star on the international solo circuit. The factory preselected five grands, identical on paper but slightly different in sound and action. Variations arise because each is crafted by human hands and from different trees, whose "molecules [could be] slightly further apart," Fanning only half-jokingly comments.
Fanning made the same trip to the Queens factory 22 years ago to help choose Middlebury's former concert grand, now housed in Mead Chapel. She confesses she is enamored of both instruments.
"The two have really different personalities," she says, standing beside the new piano, which has just been rolled out from its onstage storage space. "This one is extremely colorful, with a very wide range of sound, and there's a freshness to it. You can do anything on it; it has a very responsive action. It's very close to the ideal.
"With the other," Fanning continues, "I always found that you could get many, many gradations of pianissimo. We had it well maintained."
That instrument was also completely rebuilt less than two years ago.
Fanning sits down at the new piano, its gold-plated double wheels nearly out-glinting its high-gloss finish, and plays Chopin's Prelude in A flat major. A truly magical sound fills the empty hall, seeming to resonate equally from different seats around the circular space, no matter how far from the piano.
Arguably, the Steinway D at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, jointly purchased with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in 2007, is equally fine. But, like many of Vermont's best pianos, it is chiefly used by outside acts that can bring in large audiences, comments Arnowitt. When Vermont pianists perform at the Flynn, he says, they tend to play the Yamaha baby grand in the downstairs FlynnSpace.
Nathaniel Lew, a music professor at St. Mike's, suggests that local pianists looking to perform outside churches avail themselves of the college's piano. Because the college has no regular series, such as the Mahaney's in Middlebury or the Lane Series in Burlington, the piano is easy to schedule, he says.
A more glaring obstacle than the inaccessibility of existing instruments is the simple dearth of dedicated concert venues. "Really, there aren't that many places to play," Fanning comments, mentally scanning the state.
"My own city of Montpelier does not have a good piano," Arnowitt laments. "Vermont College doesn't even have a seven-foot piano."
The state's largest city, Burlington, may have the pianos, but it lacks the right-size venues for classical musicians, comments Natalie Neuert. The Lane Series director notes that UVM's Recital Hall seats 300 and the Flynn 1400. "It's incredible to me. We have the wrong-size halls for the size of our community." A midsize hall "would make a huge difference," she adds.
That would require buckets of what the whole arts world struggles to lay its hands on: money.


Most Frequently Asked Questions about Distance Learning.
Based on educationusa.com, Peterson's Guide to Distance Learning Programs, and other Internet sources.
Distance education is an increasingly popular way to study for everything from a short professional course to a doctoral degree in the United States, and numerous institutions offer graduate degree programs using distance education teaching methods. Under the distance education model, students do not attend classes in a classroom on a campus; instead, classes are delivered "from a distance" through the use of technologies such as the Internet, satellite television, video conferencing, and other means of electronic delivery. For international students this means that they can study for an U.S. degree without leaving their home country, though they may have to go to the U.S. for short periods of face-to-face contact and study on the campus.
How is distance learning courses categorized according to primary technologies they use to deliver instructions?
Print - based courses (correspondence courses) use print materials as the medium of instructions. Students receive materials by mail at the start of the course and return completed assignments by mail. Sometimes fax machine speed up the delivery of assignments, and the telephone can be used if communication between instructor and student is necessary.
Audio - based courses may involve two-way communication, as in audio or phone conferencing; or they may involve one-way communication, including radio broadcast and prerecorded audiotapes sent to students. Audio technologies may be used to supplement the main technology used in the course. For example, in an Internet-based distance education course, students and professors may call one another periodically.
Video - based technologies include two way interactive video conferencing, one-way video with two-way audio, one-way live video, and one-way prerecorded video tapes provided to students. Of these, two-way interactive video and prerecorded videotapes are the most popular.
Internet - based courses (also called online or e-learning) are offered over the Internet. Some online courses use synchronous, real time instruction based primarily on interactive computer conferencing or chat rooms. However, most of Internet-based courses are asynchronous instruction, making use of online course management system, Web sites, e-mail, electronic mailing lists, newsgroups, bulletin boards, and massaging programs. Obviously, students must have a computer with the appropriate software and Internet in order to take an Internet-based course.
What are admission requirements to enter DL programs?
One misconception people sometimes have about DL is that because these programs use nontraditional methods of instructions they also use nontraditional admission requirements. It is not the case. Students who apply to distance -learning programs face the same number of admission requirements (a certain GPA minimum, admission tests (TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, etc), previous degree, etc.) that applicants of other programs have.
What are the most common fields of study taught by distance education?
The five most common fields of study taught by distance education include social sciences, business, education, computer science and health.
I have found the DL program using Yahoo search. Does the fact of its existing in Internet can garantee its quality?
Absolutely Not. Much of the information on the Internet is not filtered or fact-checked. Web sites are not checked with any scrutiny to determine if the site is operating from a scam or legitimate position. Anyone can create a Web site and submit their URL to a master Web directory or engine for indexing. To complicate matters the .edu (education) domain extension on Web and e-mail addresses is not regulated at present either. Do not be misled into thinking that a Web site or e-mail message that has .edu at the end of it MUST be a real educational institution! For these reasons, you cannot assume that because a university has a Web page listed at a popular online site, like Yahoo! or AltaVista, that this fact alone "legitimizes" the college and what it has to offer. You must carefully scrutinize all information that is available on the Internet in order to protect yourself from fraud or from investing in an education that may not meet your personal needs.
What are the most popular DL web sites?
There are hundreds of interesting web sites devoted to DL. Below you will find only some of the many related to that issue.
Search DistanceLearn® to find distance learning opportunities at regionally accredited colleges and universities in the United States and government approved universities abroad. 176 colleges and universities are represented in the database. More than 18,000 distance learning college courses are listed.
Adult Education and Distance Learner's Resource Center. Besides providing informational articles and a free electronic newsletter on distance education topics, one can access a directory of on-line colleges and virtual universities. It has free guidebooks to over 310 accredited online degrees in education, business and tech related areas.
The International Distance Learning Course Finder is the world's largest online directory of e-learning courses from 130 countries. It has information on over 55,000 distance learning courses and programs offered from a multitude of universities, colleges and companies.
Ed-X.Com is a search engine and web resource for distance learning and online education with comprehensive information on over 20,000 online courses and degree programs from 700 online colleges worldwide. Use the Ed-X online education index below to locate online college courses or distance learning certificate and degree programs.
It has a list of alphabetically categorized online Colleges and Universities.
The Distance Learning Exchange is an Internet directory of distance learning activities. It provides information about a variety of distance learning activities such as web quests, satellite teleconferences, electronic field trips, videoconferencing courses and e-mail exchanges.
The site of the Distance Education and Training Council, a non-profit educational association located in Washington, D.C. The association also sponsors a nationally recognized accrediting agency called the "Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council."
Do Most schools offer DL accredited programs?
To defend yourself from the DL programs that take students money but provide no education you should check the accreditation of the programs.
Regional Accreditation. Most reputable universities' DL programs are accredited by one of the Six Regional Boards that accredit universities: MSA - Middle State Association of Colleges & Schools, NASC - Northwest Association of Schools & Colleges, NCA - North Central Association of Colleges & Schools, NEASC - New England Association of Schools & Colleges, SACS - Southern Association of Colleges & Schools, WASC - Western Association of Schools & Colleges.
To have a degree from a regionally accredited university means that your learning is certified by a recognized third party. Regionally accredited universities are the bodies that are widely recognized as being these kinds of third party certifies. Regionally accredited universities recognize each other's degrees and programs as acceptable. If you, for example, have a bachelor's degree from the university accredited by WASC, the university accredited by NCA recognizes it for entering its graduate program. On the other hand, a regionally accredited college or university will rarely accept a bachelor's degree earned at a college that is not regionally accredited.
Accreditation by the Distance Education & Training Council. The Distance Education & Training Council (DETC), formerly National Home Study Council, is the oldest national non-government agency in the US dedicated specially to accrediting programs that are delivered through distance means. While many of the schools it accredits are vocational, such as truck driving, small engine repair etc, the Council is empowered to accredit academic schools offering Associate's, Bachelor's, and Master's degrees. It can't accredit schools offering Doctorate degrees.
The Council has very good reputation for its programs but the degrees and programs earned at DETC schools are not universally accepted by regionally accredited universities.
Programmatic Accreditation. In addition to accreditation, which is granted to an institution as a whole- like regional and DETC designations-special programmatic accrediting agencies (professional groups) can accredit or approve only one specific program or department within a college or university. For example, professional programs could be accredited by the American Psychological Association, by the Accrediting Board for Engineering & Technology or by the National League for Nursing. Employers in certain professional fields could ask for this kind of accreditation.
Unrecognized Accreditors. You should be aware that universities or colleges that have no legitimate accreditation could use an impressive name of accreditors that in fact means nothing (like "accredited worldwide" or "nationally accredited"). Names like "Accrediting Commission for Specialized Colleges", "Alternative Institution Accrediting Association", Council for the Accreditation of Correspondence Colleges" are used to give an accreditation to any schools that pay, but most of these schools are phony.
You need to be very careful that the university is not only accredited, but also accredited by a recognized agency. In the US, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) is the agency that recognizes and works with legitimate accreditors. To avoid deceit from impressive sounding but unrecognized agencies, check the website of CHEA (http://www.chea.org/) that lists the names of recognized accreditors in the US. If an accreditor is not recognized by CHEA, it's not going to be recognized by the higher education community in general.
Do most schools give degrees (BA, BS, MA or MS) or just a certificate of completion for DL program?
Distance learning can offer professional certification as well as awarding of degrees. For teachers, managers, accountants, nurses, engineers, and computer specialists, DL is a good opportunity to meet professional certification requirements. Distance learning courses are also popular in the vocational fields.
There is also the opportunity for students to earn degrees at the associate, baccalaureate, and graduate level. This opportunity has grown over the last few years.
Several reference books outline both possibilities for students. For detailed information about certificate and degree programs, see "Guide to Distance Learning Programs. Peterson's 2000"(calt0026), "How to Get a College Degree Via the Internet."1998, "The Best Distance Learning Graduate Schools"1999 (calt0006), "College Degree by Mail" 1997(calt0028), and "The Electronic University"1993 (calt0012) at our center.
Is the quality of the DL programs generally good?
• How many students have graduated?
• How many students are currently enrolled?
• Are the credit hours and number of courses really enough for getting a degree?
The cost of a reputable distance degree program is generally comparable to or a bit more expensive than its on to-campus counterpart (for out-of-state students the graduate degree by DL could cost close to $20,000 - $30,000). If the price looks too good to be true, it's better to be suspicious about this program. Regarding method of payment (credit card, money order or other opportunities) you'd better ask the program directly.
• Are there academic and career mentoring services for DL students?
• Does university provide free access to its library resources?
Generally, how long does it take to complete a distance education program?
It really depends on the program. The certificate program could be from several days to one or two years. The degree programs should meet the requirements of getting the degree in terms of hours or credits. For undergraduates it usually takes around 128 hours for completing the degree. A graduate degree is determined in terms of credits. For receiving the graduate degree the universities or colleges require 30- 60 credits. You should ask the program if it is necessary to complete the courses by the strict deadline (for example, exactly in two years) or is it possible to have more time for distance students. A lot of programs give a more flexible timeline for receiving the degree (for example, 3-4 years instead of 2 years).
What is the value of DL diploma? Is it difficult to find a job with this type of diploma/certificate? Do employers recognize them as quality education?
Most of the students of DL programs are people of middle age (average-40 years) who could not leave their work to go back to school for professional development. DL programs are a good option for those people who clearly understand the necessity of receiving the professional certificate or degree for their career but have no time or possibility to attend on-campus study. Often an employer will pay for their employee's study. In most cases, the employer recognizes the DL degree or certificate received in an accredited program with a good reputation as a sign of professional growth.
What are the best DL programs in best universities?


This stuffing recipe has been prepared by my family for as long as I can remember. We always used plain old white sandwich bread that sat out for days to get stale. It was then my job to tear it into small pieces rather than cube.
1. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, salt and pepper and sauté until the veggies are softened. Add the poultry seasoning, sage, and parsley and continue to cook a couple of minutes more. Remove from heat and add a cup of broth to cool slightly.
2. Place the cubed bread on a cookie sheet in a 200 degree oven for 20 minutes to dry, stirring a couple of times. Transfer the dried bread cubes to a very large bowl or roaster.
3. Add the eggs and another cup of broth to the vegetable mixture, stir well, then pour over the bread cubes, tossing to coat. If the stuffing seems dry add a little more broth.
4. If desired, line the cavities of the turkey with cheese cloth to make removing the stuffing easier. Pack the stuffing loosely into the turkey to bake. Any remaining stuffing can be baked in a greased casserole dish. Add a little more broth and cover the casserole for the first half of baking. Time will vary depending on the quantity and oven temperature.
5. Note: It is not safe to prepare this stuffing ahead of time. You can prep ahead through step 2, but reheat the vegetable mixture before continuing.


An arms race in Latin America?
The official view in United States and Latin American government circles is that there is no arms race going on in South America, and that most countries are just modernizing their armed forces. Hmmm, I wonder.
Before we get into what various governments say, let's look at the latest figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks military expenditures and arms transfers around the world on an annual basis.
Over the last five years, Venezuela, Ecuador and Chile had the biggest increases in military spending in South America. In constant dollars, Venezuela increased its military spending by 78 percent, Ecuador by 53 percent and Chile by 49 percent.
In Central America, the top spender was Honduras, which increased military spending by 20 percent over the last five years.
Mexico increased its military spending by 15 percent over the last five-year period. Last year, Mexico spent nearly $4 billion on its military, a 13 percent increase over the previous year.
Brazil announced late last year a 50 percent increase in its military budget, and plans to buy conventional submarines and develop nuclear submarines. Last year, it ranked 12th among the world's biggest military spenders.
As a percentage of their respective economies, Colombia spent 4 percent of its gross domestic product on its military last year, followed by Chile with 3.6 percent and Ecuador with 2.3 percent.
Granted, many countries in the region have long neglected their militaries, and both the salaries of their troops and military equipment had fallen behind.
Ecuador, for instance, had cut its military expenditures in half in the late 1990s, and has since focused largely on increasing military salaries, the Swedish institute says. And Colombia is spending on its military because of its internal conflict, it says.
And it is also true that South America is not among the world's regions that spend the most on their militaries.
But Venezuela has raised eyebrows in recent weeks by announcing more than $4 billion in purchases of Russian weapons, including Mi-35 combat helicopters, SU-30 combat aircraft and surface-to-air missiles.
Is there an arms race in South America?, I asked Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.
Stephen Johnson, the U.S. Defense Department's head of Western Hemisphere affairs, agrees.
My opinion: Technically, those who say there is no arms race may be right – the term is generally meant to describe a direct correlation between countries' arms purchases over an extended period of time.
But the latest increase in regional military expenditures should be a cause of alarm and trigger new diplomatic efforts in the region to negotiate a cap on countries' military spending.
Whether you call it an “arms race” or an “increase in military spending,” it's the same phenomenon. In most cases – with exceptions such as Colombia, which is fighting a terrorist insurgency – it is a senseless, and contagious, waste of money in a region that still has some of the world's highest poverty rates.
Oppenheimer can be reached via aoppenheimer@miamiherald.com.


1. This quiz, that is the Current Affairs Quiz 7 September 2018, is meant to be a check for your learning and is meant to serve as a tool for assessment.
2. Current Affairs Quiz 7 September 2018 is designed to check your Current Affairs General Knowledge and provide you with an assessment of the same.
3. Each question in Current Affairs Quiz 7 September 2018 followed by 4 options. Select the most appropriate option for the question.
Question 1: Who is the present US Secretary of State?
The current Secretary of State is Micheal Pompeo. The Secretary of State is a senior official of the federal government of the United States of America, and as head of the United States Department of State, is principally concerned with foreign policy .
Question 2: ______ is the first Gulf Country to offer expatriates a permanent residency status.
Qatar is the first Gulf Country to offer expatriates a permanent residency status.
Question 3: SLINEX-2018 is a joint exercise between Indian and Sri Lankan_________.
SLINEX-2018 is a joint exercise between Indian and Sri Lankan navies.
Question 4: Dr _________ has been appointed as the Regional Director WHO South-East Asia.
Dr Poonam Singh has been appointed as the Regional Director WHO South-East Asia.
Question 5: ___________ Mary Kom is now the Brand Ambassador of BSNL.
Boxer Mary Kom is now the Brand Ambassador of BSNL.
Question 6: i2ifunding.com has received certificate of NBFC-Peer to Peer Lending Platform (NBFC-P2P) from __________.
i2ifunding.com has received certificate of NBFC-Peer to Peer Lending Platform (NBFC-P2P) from RBI.
Question 7: Hriday Hazarika claimed Gold in the men’s _________ air rifle at ISSF World Championships event.
Hriday Hazarika claimed Gold in the men’s 10m air rifle event.
Question 8: India and __________ have signed an implementation agreement on ‘MOBILISE YOUR CITY’ (MYC).
India and France have signed an implementation agreement on ‘MOBILISE YOUR CITY’ (MYC).
Question 9: The _________ edition of Bengaluru Space Expo was inaugurated by K Sivan(ISRO Chairman).
The 6th edition of Bengaluru Space Expo was inaugurated by K Sivan (ISRO Chairman).
Question 10: HRD Minister ___________ has launched book and curriculum on Gandhiji’s Nai Talim(basic education).
Answer: B HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar has launched book and curriculum on Gandhiji’s Nai Talim(basic education).


You are leading a project to build an oil pipeline in a foreign country, and you are looking for local contractors to outsource some of the construction work. You are in the process of preparing the bid package for prospective sellers. Which of the following documents would you leave out of the package?
HINT: To answer this question correctly, you need to consider the flow of information between the buyer and prospective sellers before the procurement selections are made.
Preparing the bid package for prospective sellers implies you are carrying out the Plan Procurement Management process. Bid documents (with the request for proposal (RFP) among them), procurement statement of work (SOW), source selection criteria, independent cost estimates are among the outputs of this process. These documents are also among the inputs to the Conduct Procurements process. However, not all of these documents are provided by the buyer to the prospective sellers. Sometimes, to benchmark procurements, the buying organization develops independent cost estimates either internally or using external resources such as a professional estimator. Buyers do not usually provide these estimates to the prospective sellers since a benchmark range may prejudice the sellers into proposing prices that do not actually work for their business model and resources. The buyer uses these benchmark estimates principally to verify if bids are reasonable, or if a large number of outliers indicate an issue with procurement processes or communications. Thus, of the choices provided, leaving the independent cost estimates out of the bid package makes the most sense and is, therefore, the best answer to the question asked.
Incorrect. The RFP, along with the request for information (RFI), and request for quotation (RFQ) are all bid documents that directly invite prospective sellers to bid for the project so that they may be included in the selection analysis. One of these types of documents should be in the bid package.
Incorrect. The SOW describes in detail the required products, services, or results. Without such detail, prospective sellers may not be able to determine if they can fulfill the requirements. Either the SOW or a similar document, terms of reference (TOR), should be in the bid package.
Correct. The buying organization develops independent cost estimates either internally or using external resources such as a professional estimator. Buyers do not usually provide these estimates to the prospective sellers, because they are primarily for internal benchmarking purposes.
Incorrect. Competitive selection methods may require sellers to invest a large amount of time and resources up front. Therefore, it is a good practice to include the evaluation method in the procurement documents, so bidders know how they will be evaluated.


I think this has to be the hardest time of the year to be trying to lose weight!
I am not sure quite how I am going to handle this festive season, food wise. In Australia we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day. I know a lot of countries celebrate on Christmas Eve but we seem to have our big main Christmas meal for lunch on Christmas Day. Our traditional Christmas meal is a big hot roast turkey, roast vegetables and gravy with Christmas pudding and hot custard for dessert. My family still has this big hot lunch. But many in Australia have moved to a delicious big seafood lunch, lots of prawns (shrimp), lobster, bugs, etc. For those with multiple families, in laws, in laws and parents who have split up and do not mix together, Christmas Day can be spent going from meal to meal.
I remember a few years, my husband and I would spend the entire day eating and driving. His family live about an hour away, mine up the road, none of our parents are still married to each other, so we have 4 meals to do on that day! It was just crazy. We would always have the morning with his family but that meant getting up very early Christmas morning to make the first breakfast over an hours drive away. Once our son was born it was just too much. He would get up in the morning and want to spend the morning opening his presents from Santa, not racing out the door at 6am, long drive, eat, eat again, long drive, eat lunch, drive, dinner, drive home, fall asleep in the car. It was CRAZY!.
How did I put an end to this craziness? We started going away! I do have to admit, we went away with my family, but for the next several years, we went overseas for a white Christmas. It was fantastic, so stress free. I would pack all of Santa''s gifts in the suitcase, our son would hang his Santa sack up outside on the balcony of our hotel room (there was a hook out there, like it was put there for my son's Santa sack). I would pack Christmas trees (just, small, cheap, already decorated ones from the $2 shop) for all of my family. We would have about 4 or 5 hotel rooms, usually on the same floor. We would all put our cheap little trees up, which were so cheap that we could leave them behind and it gave me more room to bring shopping home. We had a small gift limit, so didn't have to drag big gifts home and it was very civilised. We would wake up Christmas morning, my son would find that Santa had been, he would open and play with his presents. We would then all meet up in one of the rooms and have a big present opening session, then would head down to breakfast at the hotel. It was lovely.
We haven't done that in a few years. Now my husband's family seem to do a big Christmas celebration in the weeks leading up to Christmas as the family is so large that many are often going away so it's more convenient to do a celebration and get together before Christmas. Then on Christmas Day we go to lunch at my mothers house and that's it. It is much more relaxing and we have time to actually enjoy the day.
But the whole season, catching up with friends. The whole week from Christmas to New Year seems to consist of eating, drinking, eating, eating and eating. Christmas Day we will be having the big hot turkey lunch, then it's off to dinner at a friends house, hopefully no food required for dinner after the massive lunch.
I hope everybody has a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of laughs, great company and yummy food!