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May the batteries be with you.
For information about available battery types, take a look at the Hardware Features chapter above.
Please see the Battery Powered Linux Mini-HOWTO and the TuxMobil battery page for further information. A survey of other means to supply power for mobile computers e.g. solar energy is available at TuxMobil. For general information about batteries see the Battery FAQ.
Stephen Rothwell proposed a patch that will add multiple battery support to the kernel APM.
From the mobile-update page (modified by WH): Discharge the battery. If your battery runs only for about 20 minutes, you probably suffer from memory effects. Most laptops do not discharge the battery properly. With low powered devices like old computer fans they can be discharged completely. This removes memory effects. You should do so even with LiIon batteries, though they don't suffer much from memory effect (the manual of an IBM™ Thinkpad says to cycle the batteries through a full charge/discharge cycle 3 times every few months or so).
Try this at your own risk! Make sure the voltage of the fans is compatible to your battery. It works for me.
In the US, this company has most batteries for anything and can rebuild many that are no longer manufactured: Batteries Plus, 2045 Pleasant Hill Road, Duluth, GA 30096 +1 770 495 1644.
The battery-stats package collects statistics about the (lack of) charge on laptop batteries. It also contains a simple graph utility to show the battery charge over time or detect a misbehaviour of the battery which might announce a coming end of batterylife. Battery-stats knows nothing about electrochemical stuff going on inside batteries - hence it will not try to make any predictions whatsoever. But somebody with knowledge of batteries should be able to tell whether they are behaving OK. This package uses APM; there is no support for ACPI yet.
IBAM (Intelligent BAttery Monitor) is an advanced battery monitor for laptops, which uses statistical and adaptive linear methods to provide accurate estimations of minutes of battery left or of the time needed until full recharge. This package uses APM; there is no support for ACPI yet.
A hacked rclock . Booker C. Bense has hacked the rclock program to include a simple battery power meter on the clock face.
xbatstat . A battery level status checker for Linux and X.
The sbsutils package is a set of utilities programs to handle the Smart Battery on laptops, it offers Linux kernel & ACPI support for the Smart Battery System found in some laptop computers.
These are the most important factors which have influence on the battery uptime. Please see the appropriate chapters for power saving tips:
Section 3, "CPU" CPU
Section 22, "Memory" memory
Section 6, "Graphics Chip"graphics card
Section 33, "Hard Disk" hard disk drive
Section 32, "Optical Drives (CD/DVD)" optical drive
Getting your computer to use the least amount of power can be problematic. Intel's http://www.linuxpowertop.org/index.php project provides information on reducing power usage, tips, and tricks for Intel-based computers running Linux. As a first step, Intel has released PowerTOP, a tool that helps you find what software is using the most power. By fixing (or closing) these applications or processes, you can immediately see the power savings in the tool. You'll also see the estimated time left for battery power if you are running a laptop. The Tips & Tricks page has fixes for a lot of the issues that are already found.


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The central hot star, O Herschel 36 (upper left), is the primary source of the ionizing radiation for the brightest region in the nebula, called the Hourglass. Other hot stars, also present in the nebula, are ionizing the extended optical nebulosity. The ionizing radiation induces photo-evaporation of the surfaces of the clouds (seen as a blue "mist" at the right of the image), and drives away violent stellar winds tearing into the cool clouds.
Analogous to the spectacular phenomena of Earth tornadoes, the large difference in temperature between the hot surface and cold interior of the clouds, combined with the pressure of starlight, may produce strong horizontal shear to twist the clouds into their tornado-like appearance. Though the spiral shapes suggest the clouds are "twisting", future observations will be needed, perhaps with Hubble's next generation instruments, with the spectroscopic capabilities of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) or the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), to actually measure velocities.
This Hubble picture reveals a variety of small scale structures in the interstellar medium, small dark clouds called Bok globules, bow shocks around stars, ionized wisps, rings, knots and jets.
Hi-res version of this image (318k),
b/w image (273k)
The Lagoon Nebula and nebulae in other galaxies are sites where new stars are being born from dusty molecular clouds. These regions are the "space laboratories" for the astronomers to study how stars form and the interactions between the winds from stars and the gas nearby. By studying the wealth of data revealed by HST, astronomers will understand better how stars form in the nebulae.
These color-coded images are the combination of individual exposures taken in July and September, 1995 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) through three narrow-band filters (red light -- ionized sulphur atoms, blue light -- double ionized oxygen atoms, green light -- ionized hydrogen).
This work is based on public data retrieved from the HST Archive, cosmic-ray cleaned, calibrated and combined by Adeline Caulet (Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility, European Space Agency). The data were collected as part of a scientific HST program by the WFPC2 Science Team.
Hi-res version of this image (344k),
b/w image (290k)
Credit: A. Caulet (ST-ECF, ESA) and NASA
Last Modification: February 13, 2005

subset: commoncrawl


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Most docs OK with medical marijuana, survey says
(HealthDay)—Three-quarters of doctors who responded to a survey about medical marijuana said they would approve the use of the drug to help ease pain in an older woman with advanced breast cancer.
In a February issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors were presented with a case vignette, as well as arguments both for and against the use of medical marijuana. Doctors were then asked to decide whether or not they would approve such a prescription for this patient.
The results now appear in the May 30 edition of the journal.
Seventy-six percent of the 1,446 doctors who responded said they would give the woman a prescription for medical marijuana. Many cited the possibility of alleviating the woman's symptoms as a reason for approving the prescription.
"The point of the vignette was to illustrate the kinds of patients that show up on our doorstep who need help. This issue is not one you can ignore, and some states have already taken matters into their own hands," said Dr. J. Michael Bostwick, a professor of psychiatry at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Bostwick wrote the "pro" side for the survey, but said he could've written the "con" side as well, because there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue.
"There are no 100 percents in medicine. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that this is something we should study more. Forgive the pun, but there's probably some fire where there's smoke, and we should investigate the medicinal use of marijuana or its components," Bostwick said.
Marijuana comes from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa. It's a dry, shredded mix of the plant's leaves, flowers, stems and seeds. It can be smoked as a cigarette or in a pipe, or it can be added to certain foods, such as brownies.
The case presented to the doctors was Marilyn, a 68-year-old woman with breast cancer that had spread to her lungs, chest cavity and spine. She was undergoing chemotherapy, and said she had no energy, little appetite and a great deal of pain. She had tried various medications to relieve her pain, including the narcotic medication oxycodone. She lives in a state where the use of medical marijuana is legal, and asks her physician for a prescription.
Dr. Bradley Flansbaum, a hospitalist at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City, said he sided with the majority for this particular case.
"I think there's some context that needs to be considered," Flansbaum said. "This was a woman with stage 4 cancer who wasn't responding to [anti-nausea medications]. I'm not saying let's legalize marijuana, but this is a woman at the end of her life, so what's the downside, given that there might be a benefit. In a different situation, medical marijuana might not be so well embraced."
For his part, Bostwick said that while he approved the use of medical marijuana in this case, he feels it's important that the prescription of marijuana as medicine only be done within the confines of an already-established doctor-patient relationship.
"My concern is doctors who see someone once and give them a prescription for medical marijuana. That's bad medicine," Bostwick said.
While many physicians felt as if there was no harm in allowing the breast cancer patient to try marijuana to see if it helped, Dr. Gary Reisfield, who co-wrote the "against" side for survey, expressed concern about a patient with lung disease smoking marijuana.
"Marijuana smoke irritates the airways," he said. The smoke can also cause airway inflammation and symptoms of bronchitis, and decreases the ability of the lungs to fight off fungal and bacterial infections, said Reisfield, chief of pain management services at the University of Florida's department of psychiatry.
What's more, marijuana isn't as safe a drug as many believe it to be. "Heavy marijuana use is associated with numerous adverse health and societal outcomes including psychomotor, memory and executive function impairments; marijuana use disorders; other psychiatric conditions such as psychosis; poor school and work performance and impaired driving performance," he said.
Many of the physicians who responded pointed out that drugs already approved and in use also have the potential for addiction, such as narcotics. "Similar arguments could be made against alcohol, opiates and stimulants," Bostwick said.
For his part, Reisfield pointed out that there are two FDA-approved prescription cannabinoid pills—dronabinol (Marinol) and nabilone (Cesamet)—that don't begin working as quickly as smoked marijuana, but provide longer symptom relief without the high of marijuana. They also don't appear to have any addictive properties, he said.
What many doctors would like to see, according to the survey, is more evidence on the use of marijuana as medicine, so they could make a better-informed decision one way or the other.
More information: Learn more about marijuana and its potential for medical use from the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
Health News Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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For Jews, Gross Case is Complicated: Revelations Deepen Concerns About Contractor Jailed in Cuba
News from Cuba | Sunday, 26 February 2012
By Paul Berger writing in Forward
The American Jewish community has always seemed uneasy about the case of Alan P. Gross. On the one hand, he is an American citizen, a Jew from suburban Washington who was arrested in Cuba in 2009 for doing nothing worse - so Gross's supporters claim - than trying to improve telephone and Internet services for Cuba's tiny Jewish community. Which Jewish organization would not want to do everything in its power to help Gross, who at 62 years of age is facing a 15-year jail sentence and has a mother and a daughter battling cancer?
Communal reticence to turn Gross into a cause célèbre - and there has been some, despite claims to the contrary - stems, in part, from the fact that Gross's mission was not altogether altruistic. He was in Cuba on a $500,000 contract from a subcontractor of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Despite claims from the American government that Gross was doing nothing illegal, revelations in early February that he was carrying high-tech satellite equipment commonly distributed by the CIA and the Defense Department did little to allay suspicions that Gross's mission, whether he knew it or not, was more than simply humanitarian. Evidence that Gross may have compromised members of at least two American Jewish humanitarian trips to Cuba, now identified by the Forward, appears only to have made matters worse.
Suspicion of Gross's actions has always lurked in the background. Although Gross's legal team has painted him as a naive American contractor unaware of the consequences of his actions, and although the Anti-Defamation League and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations protest that Gross was only trying to help the Cuban-Jewish community, executives at some major Jewish organizations say they have been skeptical for some time. "We had heard some rumors of something like this," said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the Latino and Latin American Institute of the American Jewish Committee. But "when it came out with so much detail, it did surprise us."
Those details, revealed by The Associated Press, included extracts from reports that Gross filed so that USAID could track his progress. Gross's USAID contract in Cuba fell under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which was designed to foster "democracy-building" in the communist nation. The Cuban regime perceives all Helms-Burton programs as a threat and deems all USAID programs in Cuba illegal. That's why Gross allegedly told Cuban immigration officials that he was conducting Jewish humanitarian work when he was actually working for the American government. "This is very risky business in no uncertain terms," Gross wrote in one report that filtered back to USAID. "Detection of satellite signals will be catastrophic," he wrote in another.
Some Jewish executives see this as further proof that Gross's case was never a Jewish issue. Because Gross was in Cuba working on an American government program, they argue it is the American government's responsibility to free Gross. Some still chafe at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2010 appeal to the Jewish community to take up Gross's cause. "It was total bullshit by Hillary," said one high-ranking Jewish executive, who did not wish to be named for fear of offending the American government. "Everybody had been begging the State Department to speak up, and when she does, she does so by saying, 'You guys need to be loud.'"
The Jewish case for Gross is weakened further by the fact that Cuba's Jewish community had access to the Internet and to an intranet before Gross began his Cuban missions in 2009. Two years earlier, World ORT, a Jewish educational and vocational training group, funded an intranet linking six Jewish communities in Cuba. During the past decade, World ORT funded computer labs in Havana and Santiago. When Gross arrived in Cuba with his computer equipment, so goes one argument, the Cuban-Jewish community saw him as no different from just another representative from a foreign Jewish group, like B'nai B'rith International and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which regularly bring to Cuba "humanitarian supplies" such as religious articles, medicine and educational materials.
Arturo Lopez-Levy, a former secretary of Cuba's B'nai B'rith Maimonides Lodge who now lives in the United States, said that no Cuban Jew would risk his freedom or that of the Cuban-Jewish community for an American democracy-building program. Cuban Jews can visit Israel or even immigrate there if they wish. Cuba and Israel enjoy close ties. "We have achieved a modus vivendi with the Cuban government," Lopez-Levy said of the Cuban-Jewish community. "We have freedom of religion, Birthright trips. Why do we have to risk our status for this?"
But at least one member of the Cuban-Jewish community may have known what Gross was doing, according to one of Gross's reports to USAID, which noted that a community leader "made it abundantly clear that we are all 'playing with fire.'"
American Jewish activities in Cuba may have been jeopardized, too. Although most of the equipment that Gross brought into Cuba was legal, the volume of smart phones and other gadgets appears to have given him sufficient concern to distribute some items among American Jews who were traveling on humanitarian missions and instructed to drop off the devices at Gross's hotel room. Gross asked at least two Americans to do this, according to a Cuban court document obtained by Cafe Fuerte, a Miami blog.
The Forward was unable to verify the authenticity of the document. However, the Jewish Federation of Broward County, whose former senior vice president Suzanne Andisman was named in the document as having transported an item for Gross, did not deny the allegation when asked on February 15. Richard Klein, an executive at the Jewish Federations of North America, was also named in the document. When reached at his home February 21, Klein said he was "not allowed" to discuss the matter. William Daroff, the JFNA's vice president of public policy, declined to comment on Andisman and Klein. "I have no confirmation independent of your reporting of any of the information you are relaying," Daroff said in a February 21 email. When asked if the JFNA could contact Klein for confirmation, Daroff did not respond.
The JFNA gave Gross's wife, Judy Gross, a prominent platform at the closing session of its 2011 General Assembly, where she made an impassioned plea on her husband's behalf. Judy Gross described her husband's lifelong commitment to humanitarian work, and told of the terrible emotional and physical toll his incarceration has taken on him and on his family, including Gross's mother, who "is heartbroken that she may never see her son again."
"Alan and we are desperate for him to return home," Judy Gross said.


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Doctors Without Borders staffers 'seized' in Syria
The staffers were taken from the organization's house in northern Syria, and have been out of contact since Thursday
Five staffers of the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders have been taken in for questioning in northern Syria, the group said Friday.
The five staffers were taken "allegedly for questioning" from a Doctors Without Borders house in northern Syria, and have been out of contact since Thursday evening, said Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for the aid group.
He did not say whether the missing staffers had been taken by government forces or rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad, and refused to give further details out of concern for the missing workers' safety.
Karin Ekholm, a spokeswoman for the Swedish branch of the organization, said those seized were Swedish, Danish, Swiss, Belgian and Peruvian nationals.
The Danish branch confirmed a Dane was among those taken.
"We are doing all we can to do re-establish contact with our colleagues," the Danish branch said in a statement.
Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had stormed a hospital in the northwestern province of Latakia and taken all of its doctors to an unknown location. Others were taken from their homes by ISIL members, he added.
Abdurrahman said it was not clear whether the Doctors Without Borders members were among those taken in Latakia.
Opposition-held areas of northern and eastern Syria have seen a wave of kidnappings over the past six months that has targeted journalists, aid workers and activists. Al-Qaeda-linked rebel factions are suspected of being behind many of the abductions.
In October, several members of the International Committee of the Red Cross were briefly abducted in northwestern Syria. Many Syrian activists have fled the country after threats by ISIL and the killing of a number of citizen journalists.
Also Friday, activists reported heavy clashes between Syrian opposition fighters and ISIL members in the northern provinces of Aleppo of Idlib.
More than 130,000 people have been killed so far in the war, now in its third year, according to the Observatory. The group closely monitors the violence in Syria through a network of activists across the country. The U.N. said in July that 100,000 Syrians have been killed, and has not updated that figure since.
Millions of Syrians have been uprooted from their homes because of the fighting.
The crisis began as an uprising against President Bashar Assad's government but later turned into a civil war. Over the past years, clashes between rival opposition groups became common in rebel-held areas.
The Observatory said Friday's fighting was concentrated in the city of Aleppo and the nearby town of Atareb. Fighting between rebel factions and ISIL, which has many foreign fighters in its ranks, has been common in areas under opposition control.
The Aleppo Media Center reported clashes between the ISIL and the Mujahedeen Army in rebel-held western parts of Aleppo.
Tension has been rising between rebel groups and ISIL of late, especially after Tuesday's killing of a senior rebel by the al-Qaeda-linked group. The Observatory said the slain rebel, doctor Hussein Suleiman, was found dead after being shot several times and his ear was cut "with a sharp object."
The newly created Islamic Front, an umbrella group of powerful, mostly ultra-conservative Islamic fighters, issued a statement ordering ISIL to hand over Suleiman's killers so they can stand trial. Clashes later erupted between the groups.
A video released by activists showed dozens of people marching in Aleppo and chanting "Free Syrian Army forever, against ISIL and Assad."
The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting of the events depicted.
In Damascus, meanwhile, the Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources, Suleiman al-Abbas, said "terrorists" attacked a gas pipeline in the area of al-Baitaryeh outside Damascus, causing a massive fire and a power outage in the capital and southern Syria. He said terrorists also targeted a gas line that supplies the Banias Power Station in the area of al-Zara outside the central city of Homs.
The government refers to those trying to topple Assad as terrorists.
UK doctor who died in Syria held for 'unauthorized activities'
While the regime claims he committed suicide, family claims murder Middle East -
Jordan jails Jihadist, doctor for aiding Syria rebels
A Jordanian court on Wednesday jailed a jihadist and a doctor for going to ... Middle East -
Doctors group says Syria's health system shattered
A Nobel Peace Prize-winning medical group says Syria's health system has ... Middle East


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Two women spacecraft commanders: the meaning of the meetingby James Oberg
Perhaps the greatest tribute to shuttle commander Pam Melroy and station commander Peggy Whitson, and other women astronauts, is that an examination of their technical credentials couldn't give a clue as to their gender. |
Another route had always been possible, and the Soviet Union followed it, much to the applause of shortsighted and easily-fooled people around the world: select and fly women on "first-ever" missions solely because they were female, so that the symbolism could be exploited for political propaganda purposes. Meanwhile, the reality could be allowed to diverge, and women who were simply competent and capable (instead of "special cases" for show) could be essentially locked out of the mainstream Russian human space program, as they always have been, to this day. The image could triumph over reality, and it is sad how successful this gimmick has been in many circles around the world.
After all, the first woman to really "command" a space mission was Valentina Tereshkova, launched solo aboard Vostok-6 in June 1963. But her flight was also the last Soviet woman-in-space mission for almost twenty years, until the impending advent of women astronauts who had earned their way into the space shuttle program once again impelled the Soviets to produce more for-show stunts.
NASA, too, had considered (but wisely rejected) such superficial one-off missions. After resisting political pressure at the dawn of the Space Race to select a civilian female pilot for a show-off space orbit, NASA followed the fair path of gender-free credentials. Then, officials in the late 1990s briefly considered organizing an all-woman shuttle mission that never got beyond the talking stage. Arguments still rage over whether those decisions to forego such missions were correct, but such public debate helps understand the pluses and minuses of such different approaches to gender-neutral space access.
Emotionally, the reality that women have earned their place in space, in the United States if not in Russia, can also be sensed in the public reaction to the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters, on both of which women were among the dead. The Russians expressed horror that America would risk the lives of women on dangerous missions ("We protect our women," was the boast). But nowhere in the outpouring of emotions in the US, in 1986 or in 2003, was there any expression of the idea that "we shouldn't have allowed women to fly". Acceptance of their right to fly was unanimous, a right they had paid for, those times, in blood.
The best example of such a gimmicky "space stunt" is probably the planned Soviet all-woman Soyuz crew in 1985. Conceived as a propaganda trump for the growing number of American women then flying on space shuttles, the mission would probably have been designated Soyuz T-14 and would have lasted one week. During that time the women would have docked their Soyuz to the Salyut 7 space station (occupied by three male cosmonauts) and then returned to Earth in the men's older Soyuz, allowing the men to stay in space another six months.
The mission commander was to have been Svetlana Savitskaya, an aerobatics pilot and veteran (by then) of two previous space missions. Chosen both for her flying skills and for her regime loyalty, she remains active today as a leading figure of the post-Soviet communist Party of Russia.
According to an authoritative new book Russia's Cosmonauts (Praxis, 2005), by European space historians Rex Hall, David Shayler, and Bert Vis, Savitskaya was originally selected in 1980 for cosmonaut training due to "the desire to fly another female before the Americans flew one on the Shuttle (women had been picked in 1978). There was pressure on the Soviet mission planners to upstage the Americans again."
Several women were selected, but Savitskaya was chosen ("perhaps because her father was a Marshall within the Soviet Army and she had a great deal of very high political support," writes the new book). She was launched on Soyuz T-7 in August 1982 (ten months before Sally Ride's flight) for a routine one-week support mission to the Salyut-6 space station. Shortly afterwards, she and the other women were deactivated from the cosmonaut program.
Another route had always been possible, and the Soviet Union followed it: select and fly women on "first-ever" missions solely because they were female, so that the symbolism could be exploited for political propaganda purposes. |
Then, a year later, according to her own autobiography, she was called out-of-the-blue by the cosmonaut center with orders to return to training. Officials there had just read an article in Aviation Week magazine that NASA had assigned Kathryn Sullivan to a planned three-and-a-half-hour spacewalk on an upcoming shuttle flight—the first-ever spacewalk for a woman. Moscow officials decreed that the accomplishment must be upstaged by a Soviet woman, and assigned Savitskaya to a compressed training program to upstage Sullivan.
Along with two male cosmonauts, she was launched on Soyuz T-12 in July 1984, and carried out a spacewalk that, with a length of 3 hours and 35 minutes, turned out to be five minutes longer than the announced US woman's spacewalk. Three months later, Sullivan's mission occurred as scheduled on STS-41-G in October. Her walk lasted the planned three and a half hours —she could have stayed out longer, but nobody in mission control could recall how long Savitskaya had spent outside, nor thought it important enough to really care. But as the Russians had intended, Savitskaya had been "first" again.
Pleased with the propaganda benefits of her two missions, and anticipating more routine assignments for American women, Moscow decided on the next woman-in-space stunt: Savitskaya would pilot a routine support Soyuz mission the following year. Her backup on Soyuz T-12, engineer Yekaterina Ivanova, was added to the crew, along with Yelena Dobrokvashina, a medical doctor. All three crewmembers, then, would be women.
The flight never occurred. First, it was delayed by major breakdowns on the Salyut-7 space station that required a repair team be sent up—all men—in the Soyuz craft that had been assigned to the all-woman mission. Then one of the crew had to be medevacked back to Earth. By the time the station was again operational, old-guard Soviet leadership had literally died off, and Mikhail Gorbachev was in charge. The no-nonsense administrator was skeptical of pointless, expensive space stunts, and Kremlin support evaporated. The women again received their retirement notices.
Last May, the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh culminated a special campus-wide reading program in space history with a graduation exercise honoring the "Mercury 13", a group of women who, according to the project's website, "trained in secret to be astronauts" before NASA officials cancelled the program in 1961. The goal of the group's leader, Jerrie Cobb, was to become the first woman in space and score a world record for America, and she campaigned in public and with Congress to set aside the training for the seven male Mercury astronaut and slip a woman's flight in first. Women were better qualified for going first, she argued, because they were smaller and lighter and could fit into cramped space capsules.
Despite the assertions on the university's website, the women had never trained as astronauts (and there had been 14 of them, not 13, a number apparently selected by a writer because it sounded neater). NASA had never been involved: it was a private medical experiment by Dr. Randy Lovelace of Albuquerque (who had, in order to get the women to volunteer, misrepresented the effort to them as a step towards becoming a real astronaut). But, so the website claims, "Due to the prejudices of the times, the project was cancelled." In May 2007, UW awarded them all honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of their pioneering status, anyway.
Reports from the ceremonies appeared to describe a political posturing that took significant liberties with history. One speaker made fun of the opponents of the idea (presumably a male chauvinist pig) who pooh-poohed the idea of recruiting women for space because "we have enough men" to be astronauts (the audience jeered derisively, as no doubt the speaker intended). What the speaker concealed—and let the audience misjudge—was that the source of the quote was Jackie Cochran, founder of the women's pilot auxiliary in World War 2 and nobody's patsy or second-class citizen. Her comment was based on her perception of the need to get an American—of any gender—into orbit as soon as possible in the space race with the Soviet Union, not divert resources for an empty gesture that probably wouldn't work anyway (no matter when the US would have scheduled a woman's flight, Moscow policy had made it clear to their space managers that they would go first). For this effort, she argued, there already was an adequate supply of fully-qualified astronaut trainees already well along in preparation, with no need for a female supplement, as there had been in World War 2.
The idea of assembling six or seven experienced women astronauts—commanders, pilots, spacewalkers, robot arm operators, and any and all other required specialties—made a certain kind of sense, in that they deserved highly-visible public recognition of what they had already achieved. |
Recent interest in the controversy over adding women to the Mercury program appears to be more political than historical, especially considering the highly fictionalized versions that have become so widespread (See "The Mercury 13: setting the story straight", The Space Review, May 14, 2007). Even some of the arguments used in the debate came from Hollywood, not Cape Canaveral or Houston. For example, the alleged female advantage of lesser weight comes straight from the plot of the B-grade sci-fi movie "Project Moonbase" (1953), in which a woman pilot named Briteis (pronounced "bright eyes") is chosen for America's first human orbital flight "because she weighed only ninety pounds and therefore fit in the spacecraft." (See "Sex and rockets", The Space Review, July 9, 2007) She later is given command of the first human flight around the Moon.
Nevertheless, almost forty years later, some NASA officials gave serious consideration to designing a space crew based on gender. The idea circulated in Washington in 1999, the year that Eileen Collins made her space flight as commander of a satellite deploy mission, the first woman to command a multi-person spacecraft crew. Some thought was given to what could come next, and the idea of an all-woman shuttle team was bandied about.
The idea was not without merit as an inspirational reminder of actual status in the astronaut program. Not long before, a three-woman crew had taken the Alvin submersible down to the ocean bottom on a routine mission. The US Air Force had assembled an all-woman crew to fly several C-5 transport missions. In both cases, women were already trained and experienced in the required duties, and pulling them together for a specific joint mission involved no shortcuts or special waivers. Instead, the missions were positive demonstrations of the level of access that women had already earned in those professions.
This was opposite the policy followed by the USSR with Tereshkova's flight (she was a textile factory worker with some sports parachuting experience, not a pilot), and contrary to the policy urged in 1961 by the champions of the "Mercury 13", that they be given waivers of test pilot experience requirements in order to be "first" with a stunt. In those cases, the "symbolism" was hollow, however spectacular. In stark contrast, for the US all-women crews of the 1990s, the symbolism was a realistic reflection of reality already attained by women.
Under those terms, the idea of assembling six or seven experienced women astronauts—commanders, pilots, spacewalkers, robot arm operators, and any and all other required specialties—made a certain kind of sense, in that they deserved highly-visible public recognition of what they had already achieved. If not a full crew, then perhaps an all-woman spacewalk could be "helped along" by minor adjustments to the crew selection process.
The concept only began running into significant political problems when the idea became attached to flying near the November 2000 presidential election as a gimmick for inspiring special interest groups and constituencies, and for raising more contributions and votes. Even the suspicion that this might happen (arguably a well-founded one, based on previous similar events) was enough to scuttle any hope of going through with the project.
Instead, a few years later, we now are being treated to an even more powerful demonstration of the reality well worth celebrating. Two women have been tested and judged by the harshest standards of all—reality—and have passed. No special favors or behind-the-scenes adjustments will tarnish the well-earned pride of those who have struggled to open full gender-free access to the front lines of space exploration.


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Canucks top Blues on OT power play
The Vancouver Canucks kept it close, then pounced.
Daniel Sedin scored a power-play goal 46 seconds into overtime to give the Canucks a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night in a matchup for first place in the Western Conference.
The Canucks prevailed despite getting outshot 33-21 by the upstart Blues, who have missed the playoffs five of the past six seasons. The shot total matched a season low for Vancouver, second in the NHL with 33 road points.
''It's a sign of a good team when you can have so-so games and still come out on the right side,'' Sedin said.
Alexandre Burrows had two goals and drew the decisive penalty for the Canucks, who have an NHL-best 59 points - three more than St. Louis. David Backes was whistled for boarding with 19.9 seconds to go in regulation, and the Blues were in disarray in overtime after defenseman Roman Polak broke his stick shortly before Sedin beat Brian Elliott from the right faceoff dot.
''Their guy went to get his stick, and it opened up a passing lane from Hank (Sedin) to me,'' Sedin said. ''It wasn't the best shot, but we'll take it.''
Forward T.J. Oshie gave his stick to Polak but stayed on the ice for several seconds before responding to calls from the bench waving him over. Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said it was the wrong move, but didn't blame Oshie.
''We don't want to do it 4-on-3,'' Hitchcock said. ''He shouldn't have been called off.''
Jason Arnott scored both goals for the Blues, who lead the Central Division by a point, despite the end of a four-game winning streak. Hitchcock thought Burrows was a fine actor, and added from his viewpoint Burrows had turned so hadn't been checked from behind.
''I didn't agree with the penalty at all, not one bit,'' Hitchcock said. ''I saw what I saw. A hockey play.''
Snow and icy conditions likely prevented a sellout with attendance of 18,231 less than 1,000 shy of capacity.
The goal was the 700th career NHL point for Daniel Sedin, who assisted on the Canucks' first goal.
Henrik Sedin had two assists, including one on his twin brother's game-winner. Alex Edler also had two assists for Vancouver, which wrapped up a 3-1 trip with the next six at home. It was a grueling stretch, with four games in six days.
Arnott and Burrows both posted their first two-goal game of the season. Arnott has scored in three straight games, and Burrows has four goals in five games.
All of the Blues thought they should have scored a lot more.
''We've got to learn to play with a lead,'' Arnott said. ''It hasn't been our positive suit this year, but we're getting better at it. Hopefully it continues, we learn from this and move on.''
Early pressure by the Canucks led to Burrows' first goal off assists from both Sedins, which snapped St. Louis' shutout streak at 148 minutes, 54 seconds. The Blues beat Montreal 3-0 and Colorado 4-0 in their two previous games, with Elliott and Jaroslav Halak both having shutouts.
The Blues tied it a minute later when Arnott tapped the puck into an empty net off a pass from Jamie Langenbrunner. St. Louis then took the lead early in the second after Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo made a mistake. After stopping Arnott's drive, Luongo whirled as if uncertain of the puck's location, and dropped it into the net.
''As I turned around to try to find it I saw it behind the goal line,'' Luongo said. ''I think it might have gotten caught in my jersey or trickled down my back, I'm not sure exactly.''
Burrows scored his 18th goal on a deflection of Edler's shot from the point at 17:52, and Luongo kept it tied, stopping short-handed breakaways by Backes and T.J. Oshie near the end of the second.
NOTES: Wayne Gretzky, who played for the Blues at the end of the 1995-96 season, watched the first period from the third row just behind the St. Louis net. He was in town to visit family. ... Blues D Alex Pietrangelo has eight points during a career-best, five-game point streak. ... Blues F Alex Steen missed his seventh game because of concussion-like symptoms but is expected back in the lineup Saturday against Minnesota. ... The Canucks lead the NHL with 50 first-period goals.


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Darkfall: Unholy Wars Review
Wonderful Concept. . .
. . . Less than desirable result. Darkfall: Unholy Wars is the leviathan sequel of Darkfall, a PC PVP MMO. Greenlit by the Steam Community, this title (in celebration of its one year anniversary) gave all players, new and old, a free weekend to log on and see just what Darkfall is all about, to bring back old players, and perhaps snare some new ones. In this interesting title, you pick a race and a class that suits your playstyle. You are given a primary and secondary skillset and you pick two of the three available. It's a fairly unique concept, not seen in very many MMOS (except one of the last titles I reviewed, the alpha of Albion Online) these days.
Players can construct their own fortresses and cities, and rule there for as long as the player clans are capable of keeping it in their grasp. The game itself is level-free, similar to Albion, in that you grow stronger via "Renown." Renown is gained in doing virtually everything in the game, from chopping wood and gathering wool, to destroying the undead in graveyards. You can play this game by yourself, but it is not recommended. It would be much wiser to join a clan, and participate in their events, waging war against others. If that is not something you wish to do, I would consider overlooking this title. It is really only for the hardcore PVP gamer.
What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen
One of the most horrific things I have seen in this game is the UI. If you do not do the entirety of the tutorial, you may actually wind up missing parts of the UI for your own use. Not that that is a bad thing in and of itself, but it is hard to see many things; the icons are tiny on default, and useful, important information is printed on the top of the screen in a tiny, almost 4pt font. I had no idea I was even farming wood until I glanced at the top of my screen. Progress is measured in this UI, as you can see your feats there, which show what you have done or not done just yet. Simply killing an enemy creature displays in bold letters across your screen that have you slain something; it is as if they want you to feel like it is an accomplishment, but don't be mistaken. Every kill is an accomplishment. Resulting in another oversized pop-up ad nausea. Not like World of Warcraft's huge trash packs (groups of unimportant enemies in small clumps).
The map is atrocious; this I cannot say enough. It is a blob of colors and tiny icons, a contrast from the sharp details one might see in the regular world. It is crude, and hazy, not what a map ought to be. It's terribly unclear, and if you don't click on the icons to add them to your map, you might never know where you are. The tutorial does make mention of how to do it, but I'm personally of the opinion that certain important landmarks should actually be on a map. That's why there are maps in the first place!
If you accidentally click it away, the social tab does hide something very useful. One great positive I can highlight is the Mentor system. This is a system where a new player is paired with a veteran who signs up, and they will (in theory) teach them the workings of the game. As long as student and master are both willing and able, this is a fantastic idea, as the game feels pretty complex, and there are a myriad of things one can be doing while playing.
There are positives about Darkfall: Unholy Wars. The idea of it being pure-PK may not be for everyone, but gamers in this niche will love the concept of murdering an enemy clan in thousands on thousands PVP, utterly wiping them out in order to take their hard-earned money and equipment. The thought of setting so many people back weeks and months of real game time may not appeal to you, but consider this: it is a truly ever-changing world. In this setting, cities can be started, stolen, and torn asunder. I feel that this concept's time has come. Other MMOs have tried this in the past, and not many have really succeeded. Albion is attempting something similar, but I think this is a grander portrayal, based on looks. The graphics are wholly grungy and dark, but they are fairly sharp.
But this is still, at its core, Pure Hardcore PVP. It is unforgiving and cruel, and as a new player, I would expect to die, and die often. It is highly recommended to gain membership of a clan as soon as possible, and farm a bunch of spare parts in your bank for when you perish in the meantime. There are safe havens where you may not be killed, but should you venture into the territory of another clan, or into a conflicted zone, be wary. You could be on the fast track to a corpse run; but, since they will be no doubt looting everything you own and love, it will be a trip back to the trees and brush to farm new materials.
What Is Most Important In Life?
Clans make up most of the action and excitement in Darkfall. Clans can take over an area in the world and exert their influence over it, creating a holding there. From there, you have a heap of rubble and barren emptiness, so the next logical step would be to build! Going from a hamlet to even a city, your clan works together, coming up with the correct building materials including wood, stone, and more. This of course is pending on being given the clan permission to erect structures in your clan's name. The clan screen has the list of structures you can build, and provided you have the necessary components, you can use the "edit holding" button to add on to make something unique and comfortable for your fellows to call home.
If you should decide however, that this is not enough, and your clan needs some "elbow room," or maybe they're simply angry and aggressive, you can challenge another clan to their holding. There are a series of challenges that are undertaken, and any clan that is aggressive or at war with the challenged may help; this can create some fantastic alliances, and terrific wars that take up several days of non-stop action. You can tear down walls of your opponent's hold, and eventually overtake their binding stone, holding their fortress until they are strong enough to take it back.
Which leads me to combat. Combat is brutal and fast-paced, and if you aren't prepared with both twitch skills and knowledge of the popular attacks, you could be in for a great deal of unpleasantness. Your left and right click mouse buttons do the brunt of the work, but you can use the scroll wheel to re-equip items that are in a slot on your "paper doll," on your equipment screen. There are also skills that may or may not have a cast time. Aiming can be incredibly frustrating with arrows and spellcasts, as your enemy is no doubt going to keep moving, and skillshots (aiming and firing without a guarantee of a hit) is how this game works. To keep up with all of your skills that you acquire, there is a radial wheel that you can access in game to swap skills on the fly. This is handy, as there are lots of different situations where you may want to cast spells, or use your giant axe to pound away at your foes.
There are a few combat types as well. Melee fighters have the usual axes and swords to play with. Bows and arrows offer rapid ranged fighting while those with a calm hand and trusted allies may take to the stave to cast ranged spells. If you are on a ship or boat, you can attach and fire cannons from them to blast your foes asunder. Mounted combat is also available if you have a mount of your own. Mounts can attack from the front or behind on the fly with a quick push of the "T" key.
Conclusion: Good (3/5)
This is a title that I still feel needs quite a bit of polish, despite its predecessor being out for over five years. It is going in the right direction, and I feel it attracts the right audience. There are of course, toxic elements. That is bound to happen in any MMO, but in this environment, it's not really going to be a shock or surprise. Body looting and killing is a natural aspect of the game, and it is made painfully apparent to you if you do any reading at all. So, there is no way for a player to not know unless they are purposefully misled; the Mentor system cuts back on that. Plus, with the mentor system, the person who taught the newbie is rewarded: 10% of all renown they get goes to their Mentor, so it's not like they do it for free. I do like the idea a great deal, but I feel more needs to happen here.
Graphics: 3/5
The graphics are not groundbreaking by any means. They convey the sense of hopelessness and chaos in the world, sure. But rivers of molten fire flowing next to rivers of water? That just doesn't mesh with me. I could walk less than a few paces and likely see both. Movement animations don't feel fluid in this game either. All in all, not terrible, but not award-winning by any stretch of the imagination. It feels very much as though it crawled out of 2005, or one of the earlier Elder Scrolls titles.
Controls: 2/5
I have to say Darkfall: Unholy Wars has terrible controls. Melee is not bad, and feels as good as it possibly can. But having to mouse down at shorter targets can become annoying, even if accurate. What really did me in was being a spellcaster, and firing my spell bolts from a range. It takes time to charge the spell bolt, and the movement of the staff felt incredibly jerky, and more often than not, I'd miss.
Features/Gameplay: 3/5
There is a fair amount to do in this game besides murder your fellow man. Most of it feels like it is required to get anywhere. You will farm more than you probably ever have before, even if you work in the agricultural field. This is a game that requires a lot of time investment, though the payoff usually matches the investment. One annoyance though is the AI of the NPC bad guys is really momentous. I was starting to think I was fighting an army of psychic rock piles at times. It blew my mind how I could be a hilltop or two away, and zombies would shamble angrily in my direction. It did not feel as though I could break threat at any distance. They chase, until I turn and kill them or die in the process.
Music/Sound: 4/5
Music is good, sound effects are certainly on point. The sizzling of magic, and the clank of steel on bone is fantastic. It really fits the mood of the game, I feel, to listen to the booming music of Darkfall. Even the subtle footsteps of boots upon gravel, sand, or brick differ, and I really appreciate that sort of attention to detail.
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Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of the GOP's biggest bomb-throwers, isn't known for his warm embrace of the nation's downtrodden—or the government institutions that support them. On Monday night, he told Fox News that "there will always be those who slip through the cracks" and won't have access to affordable health insurance. He asserted the next day that repealing Democratic health reform would leave "less than 4 percent" of the population uninsured—which, he insisted, wouldn't be the end of the world. "They still have access to health care, they just don't have a health insurance policy," King told reporters on Tuesday.
But when pressed to explain what he'd tell vulnerable citizens who'd lose invaluable protections if the GOP repealed reform, King relented—and even explained how he was responsible for creating a government program to help them. "We have SCHIP—the state children's health insurance program—and that's set at 300 percent of poverty," King said, adding later: "I helped put that policy in place when I was in the state senate."
The Iowa Republican did point out that he opposed raising the qualifying poverty rate for SCHIP to 400 percent, as some Democrats had proposed in 2007. But King admitted that there was, in fact, a definite role for government in providing health care for the nation's poorest. "There is at the lower level and the poverty level, and I've supported that in the past," he said.
With the GOP in full throttle against the "government takeover of health care" this week, it's easy to forget how integral Republicans were to the very creation of entitlement programs like SCHIP. While King was supporting the children's insurance program on the state level, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) teamed up with Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to pass federal SCHIP in 1997. Since then, though, the GOP has become increasingly unwilling to support the program: President Bush vetoed the expansion of SCHIP twice, and it only passed in the early months of the Obama administration.
Meanwhile, Republican members like King have conventiently ignored their past support for government health care as they've ramped up incendiary attacks on such programs. In a recent interview with Human Events, King accused Democrats of possessing "an irrational leftist lust for socialized medicine." But when pressed to justify health care repeal to the most vulnerable members of society, even he seems to recognize the need for government support in certain instances.


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Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
12 CFR Part 3
[Docket No. 06-09]
12 CFR Parts 208 and 225
[Regulations H and Y; Docket No.R-1261]
12 CFR Part 325
Office of Thrift Supervision
12 CFR Part 566
AGENCIES: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Treasury; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and Office of Thrift Supervision, Treasury.
ACTION: Joint notice of proposed rulemaking.
SUMMARY: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) (collectively, the agencies) are proposing a new risk-based capital adequacy framework that would require some and permit other qualifying banks1 to use an internal ratings-based approach to calculate regulatory credit risk capital requirements and advanced measurement approaches to calculate regulatory operational risk capital requirements. The proposed rule describes the qualifying criteria for banks required or seeking to operate under the proposed framework and the applicable risk-based capital requirements for banks that operate under the framework.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before [INSERT DATE 120 DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER].
ADDRESSES: Comments should be directed to:
OCC: You should include OCC and Docket Number 06-09 in your comment. You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
- Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
- OCC Web Site: http://www.occ.treas.gov. Click on "Contact the OCC," scroll down and click on "Comments on Proposed Regulations."
- E-mail address: [email protected].
- Fax: (202) 874-4448.
- Mail: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 250 E Street, SW, Mail Stop 1-5, Washington, DC 20219.
- Hand Delivery/Courier: 250 E Street, SW, Attn: Public Information Room, Mail Stop 1-5, Washington, DC 20219.
Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name (OCC) and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this notice of proposed rulemaking. In general, OCC will enter all comments received into the docket without change, including any business or personal information that you provide. You may review comments and other related materials by any of the following methods:
- Viewing Comments Personally: You may personally inspect and photocopy comments at the OCC's Public Information Room, 250 E Street, SW, Washington, DC. You can make an appointment to inspect comments by calling (202) 874-5043.
BOARD: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. R-1261, by any of the following method:
- Agency Web Site: http://www.federalreserve.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments at http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/ProposedRegs.cfm.
- Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
- E-mail: [email protected]. Include docket number in the subject line of the message.
- FAX: 202/452-3819 or 202/452-3102.
- Mail: Jennifer J. Johnson, Secretary, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 20th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20551.
All public comments are available from the Board's web site at www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/ProposedRegs.cfm as submitted, unless modified for technical reasons. Accordingly, your comments will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact information. Public comments may also be viewed electronically or in paper in Room MP-500 of the Board's Martin Building (20th and C Streets, NW) between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on weekdays.
FDIC: You may submit comments, identified by RIN number, by any of the following methods:
- Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
- Agency Web Site: http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/federal/propose.html.
- Mail: Robert E. Feldman, Executive Secretary, Attention: Comments, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 550 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20429.
- Hand Delivery/Courier: Guard station at rear of the 550 17th Street Building (located on F Street) on business days between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
- E-mail: [email protected].
- Public Inspection: Comments may be inspected at the FDIC Public Information Center, Room E-1002, 3502 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22226 between 9 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on business days.
Instructions: Submissions received must include the agency name and RIN for this rulemaking. Comments received will be posted without change to http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/federal/propose.html including any personal information provided.
OTS: You may submit comments, identified by No. 2006-33, by any of the following methods:
- Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
- E-mail address: [email protected]. Please include No. No. 2006-33 in the subject line of the message and include your name and telephone number in the message.
- Fax: (202) 906-6518.
- Mail: Regulation Comments, Chief Counsel's Office, Office of Thrift Supervision, 1700 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20552, Attention: No. 2006-33.
- Hand Delivery/Courier: Guard's Desk, East Lobby Entrance, 1700 G Street, NW, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on business days, Attention: Regulation Comments, Chief Counsel's Office, Attention: No. 2006-33.
Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. All comments received will be posted without change to the OTS Internet Site at http://www.ots.treas.gov/pagehtml.cfm?catNumber=67&an=1, including any personal information provided.
Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to http://www.ots.treas.gov/pagehtml.cfm?catNumber=67&an=1. In addition, you may inspect comments at the Public Reading Room, 1700 G Street, NW, by appointment. To make an appointment for access, call (202) 906-5922, send an e-mail to [email protected], or send a facsimile transmission to (202) 906-7755. (Prior notice identifying the materials you will be requesting will assist us in serving you.) We schedule appointments on business days between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. In most cases, appointments will be available the next business day following the date we receive a request.
OCC: Roger Tufts, Senior Economic Advisor, Capital Policy (202-874-4925) or Ron Shimabukuro, Special Counsel, Legislative and Regulatory Activities Division (202-874-5090). Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 250 E Street, SW, Washington, DC 20219.
Board: Barbara Bouchard, Deputy Associate Director (202-452-3072 or [email protected]) or Anna Lee Hewko, Senior Supervisory Financial Analyst (202-530-6260 or [email protected]), Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation; or Mark E. Van Der Weide, Senior Counsel (202-452-2263 or [email protected]), Legal Division. For users of Telecommunications Device for the Deaf ("TDD") only, contact 202-263-4869.
FDIC: Jason C. Cave, Associate Director, Capital Markets Branch, (202) 898-3548, Bobby R. Bean, Senior Quantitative Risk Analyst, Capital Markets Branch, (202) 898-3575, Kenton Fox, Senior Capital Markets Specialist, Capital Markets Branch, (202) 898-7119, Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection; or Michael B. Phillips, Counsel, (202) 898-3581, Supervision and Legislation Branch, Legal Division, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 550 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20429.
OTS: Michael D. Solomon, Director, Capital Policy, Supervision Policy (202) 906-5654; David W. Riley, Senior Analyst, Capital Policy (202) 906-6669; or Karen Osterloh, Special Counsel, Regulations and Legislation Division (202) 906-6639, Office of Thrift Supervision, 1700 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20552.
- Introduction
- Background
- Conceptual Overview
- The IRB framework for credit risk
- The AMA for operational risk
- Overview of Proposed Rule
- Structure of Proposed Rule
- Quantitative Impact Study 4 and Overall Capital Objectives
- Quantitative Impact Study 4
- Overall capital objectives
- Competitive Considerations
- Scope
- Core and Opt-In Banks
- U.S. Depository Institution Subsidiaries of Foreign Banks
- Reservation of Authority
- Qualification
- The Qualification Process
- In general
- Parallel run and transitional floor periods
- Qualification Requirements
- Process and systems requirements
- Risk rating and segmentation systems for wholesale and retail exposures
- Wholesale exposures
- Retail exposures
- Definition of default
- Rating philosophy
- Rating and segmentation reviews and updates
- Quantification of risk parameters for wholesale and retail
- Probability of default (PD)
- Loss given default (LGD) and expected loss given default (ELGD)
- Exposure at default (EAD)
- General quantification principles
- Optional approaches that require prior supervisory approval
- Operational risk
- Operational risk data and assessment system
- Operational risk quantification system
- Data management and maintenance
- Control and oversight mechanisms
- Validation
- Internal audit
- Stress testing
- Documentation
- Ongoing Qualification
- Calculation of Tier 1 Capital and Total Qualifying Capital
- Calculation of Risk-Weighted Assets
- Categorization of Exposures
- Wholesale exposures
- Retail exposures
- Securitization exposures
- Equity exposures
- Boundary between operational risk and other risks
- Boundary between the proposed rule and the market risk amendment
- Risk-Weighted Assets for General Credit Risk (Wholesale Exposures, Retail Exposures, On-Balance Sheet Assets that are not Defined by Exposure Category, and Immaterial Credit Exposures)
- Phase 1 Categorization of exposures
- Phase 2 Assignment of wholesale obligors and exposures
to rating grades and retail exposures to segments
- Purchased wholesale receivables
- Wholesale lease residuals
- Phase 3 Assignment of risk parameters to wholesale obligors and exposures and retail segments
- Phase 4 Calculation of risk-weighted assets
- Statutory provisions on the regulatory capital treatment of certain mortgage loans
- Credit Risk Mitigation Techniques
- Collateral
- EAD for counterparty credit risk
- EAD for repo-style transactions and eligible margin loans
- Collateral haircut approach
- Standard supervisory haircuts
- Own estimates of haircuts
- Simple VaR methodology
- EAD for OTC derivative contracts
- Current exposure methodology
- Internal models methodology
- Maturity under the internal models methodology
- Collateral agreements under the internal models methodology
- Internal estimate of alpha
- Alternative models
- Guarantees and credit derivatives that cover wholesale exposures
- Eligible guarantees and eligible credit derivatives
- PD substitution approach
- LGD adjustment approach
- Maturity mismatch haircut
- Restructuring haircut
- Currency mismatch haircut
- Example
- Multiple credit risk mitigants
- Double default treatment
- Guarantees and credit derivatives that cover retail exposures
- Unsettled Securities, Foreign Exchange, and Commodity Transactions
- Securitization Exposures
- Hierarchy of approaches
- Exceptions to the general hierarchy of approaches
- Servicer cash advances
- Amount of a securitization exposure
- Implicit support
- Operational requirements for traditional securitizations
- Clean-up calls
- Ratings-based approach (RBA)
- Internal assessment approach (IAA)
- Supervisory formula approach (SFA)
- General requirements
- Inputs to the SFA formula
- Eligible disruption liquidity facilities
- Credit risk mitigation for securitization exposures
- Synthetic securitizations
- Background
- Operational requirements for synthetic securitizations
- First-loss tranches
- Mezzanine tranches
- Super-senior tranches
- Nth-to-default credit derivatives
- Early amortization provisions
- Background
- Controlled early amortization
- Noncontrolled early amortization
- Equity Exposures
- Introduction and exposure measurement
- Hedge transactions
- Measures of hedge effectiveness
- Simple risk-weight approach (SRWA)
- Non-significant equity exposures
- Internal models approach (IMA)
- IMA qualification
- Risk-weighted assets under the IMA
- Equity exposures to investment funds
- Full look-through approach
- Simple modified look-through approach
- Alternative modified look-through approach
- Operational Risk
- Disclosure
- Overview
- Comments on ANPR
- General requirements
- Frequency/timeliness
- Location of disclosures and audit/certification requirements
- Proprietary and confidential information
- Summary of specific public disclosure requirements
- Regulatory reporting
- For simplicity, and unless otherwise indicated, this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) uses the term "bank" to include banks, savings associations, and bank holding companies (BHCs). The terms "bank holding company" and "BHC" refer only to bank holding companies regulated by the Board and do not include savings and loan holding companies regulated by the OTS. Return to text


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Rules for Professional Archers
Over the last three months there have been various discussions about the definition of a professional archer and whether the new definition does cover professionalism sufficiently without adding many pages to the IFAA rules.
The first thing to realise is that professionalism as defined in the IFAA rules only affects the Adult Freestyle Unlimited and the two Adult Freestyle Limited shooting styles.
The IFAA does not recognise professionalism in any of the other shooting styles, even if archers in those styles shoot for professional awards or money in any archery tournament.
Until the IFAA General Assembly accepts a proposal by a full member to extend professionalism to one or more other shooting styles, professionalism is only recognised in the three styles mentioned above.
The second thing to realise is that only IFAA sanctioned events must allow for the professional division. Other events under IFAA rules, such as National events, may not allow for the professional division. In that case professional archers will shoot with the amateur archers in the same division.
The third thing to realise is that other international associations no longer have a distinction between professional and amateur archers, even though they have "professional" events.
One of the purposes of the IFAA states:
The IFAA shall adopt a set of standards which will differentiate between the amateur status and the professional status of archers.
The rules also state that:
Every archer registered as a member of an IFAA member association will be recognised as an Amateur until such time as they become Professionals under the IFAA rules.
Based on these two rules the IFAA cannot simply remove the distinction. It is one of the cornerstones of the IFAA.
Our membership with TAFISA will also complicate the removal of such rules.
The original rule on professionalism ever to be written in the IFAA Book of Rules state:
A Professional is one who claims to be a Professional, or who registers as a Professional at any shoot, or who competes for a Professional cash prize or Professional award at a tournament.
It was always argued that this rule applied for IFAA events only and did not rule on what the archer earned outside the IFAA. This means in fact that we were working with dual standards: An archer could earn thousands of Dollars or Euros as a professional in events that were not hosted by the IFAA, but shoot as an amateur in an IFAA event.
The term Professionalism should be seen as "absolute". A professional archer shoots for financial gain or professional awards, irrespective if this archer shoots IFAA events or any other event. There should not be a dual standard depending on associations.
The new rule therefore is much simplified:
An archer is considered to be a Professional Archer when this archer actively competes in the Professional Archery Circuit.
Where "Circuit" is be seen to be:
"A series of competitions or tournaments in which the same group of players regularly participate."
The rule is not intended to limit professionalism in our sport, but to allow archers with amateur status the opportunity to occasionally shoot in these "professional" events without losing their amateur status.
Therefore the term "actively" is not defined as a globally fixed number. The circuit differs from region to region. The IFAA Executive will rule on each protest and so build up a "standard".
Neither does the rule prevent an archer to register as a professional at an IFAA tournament without previous "professional" experience.
Although registration with the IFAA as a professional archer is not mandatory in terms of the IFAA rules, Professional archers are expected to register with the IFAA Executive Secretary. This can be done by contacting the IFAA or by filling in the IFAA Pro form at the start of a tournament.
It will make our work much easier when the IFAA has built up a list of names for easy reference.
A list of our professional archers will be regularly updated on the IFAA web page.
At registration for a tournament each amateur archer must sign a statement that he/she is not a professional archer under the IFAA rules.
The rule allows an amateur archer to protest against the signed statement of an archer who in his/her opinion is a "professional". But as with a normal protest at IFAA tournaments, the person who files the protest must supply the necessary proof or reason, which will be evaluated and ruled on in a similar manner as a normal protest. If the protest is judged to be fair, the archers will be reclassified as a professional.
Archers who are registered with the IFAA as Pro archers will remain so for at least one year from registration. Thereafter that archer may request amateur status again.
Such a request will only be accepted if the archer did not attend IFAA shoots as a Pro or the "Professional Archery Circuit" for at least a year.
IFAA President


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O'Leary named "Recommended Canadian Author of the Year"
"The award was a complete surprise, as I did not even know I had been nominated," O'Leary said, when informed, on arriving at the Ottawa Congress Centre the following afternoon. "I had only come up to give a workshop."
The CBA Canada booksellers determine the award by a private in-group poll. Results were announced on August 28, 2005.
P.S.: I don't know why the photo you should see in the box on the right is not displaying. I think it's Blogger's problem, not mine. - d.


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Before, During and After Wildfire
Before Wildfire
Remove excess trees, dead trees and shrubs, and highly flammable shrubs. (Removing large trees near your house can be very dangerous for both you and your house, and is therefore a job for a skilled contractor.) Rather than plant shrubs near your house, consider landscaping alternatives such as creating a rock garden. Remove leaves and pine needles from roofs, gutters and downspouts. Prune low tree branches and mow-dried grass. Remove combustible items from around the house, such as woodpiles, patio furniture, barbecue grills, etc. Develop a family disaster response plan complete with escape routes and an emergency meeting place. Have an emergency go-kit with supplies readily available. This should include prescription medication and back-up eye glasses/contacts. Review your homeowners/renters insurance policy to ensure you have adequate coverage. If you do not have flood insurance, consider purchasing it by contacting your local insurance agent. Arrange temporary housing outside of the threatened area. Make arrangements for relocation of pets and animals. Place valuable papers and mementos in your car in case of evacuation.
During Wildfire
Stay tuned to your local radio and television stations for updates on evacuations. Seal attic and ground vents. Close all doors inside your home to prevent drafts. Open the damper on your fireplace but close the fireplace screen. Wet your roof and shrubs within 15 feet of your home. Notify relatives and local officials that you have left your home and where you can be reached. Turn on outside lights and leave a light on in every room. This allows the home to be more visible in heavy smoke. Turn off gas and pilot lights.
After Wildfire
Check the roof and the attic immediately for hidden burning sparks. Watch for flare-ups for several hours after the fire. Check with local building officials to verify building codes and recommendations. Continue building defensible space around your home. For more information go to www.firewise.org. Determine the potential for flooding and the need for erosion control. Consider mitigation during home improvements or during the reconstruction process. This could include such items as: Fire-resistant roofing materials such as asphalt shingles or metal roofs Tempered glass on windows, doors and skylights Spark arresters in chimneys Fire-resistant materials on undersides of decks Verify that your driveway bridges and gates will accommodate fire trucks. Develop a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). For more information go to www.ready.gov/community-emergency-response-team. Check with your local fire protection district to see what community-based programs you can join. Consider purchasing flood insurance.


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Part of the indescribable delicacy of Scriptures is when unrighteous people, actions or things are used to describe righteousness or teach how to become righteous. This always reminds me of man's complex nature.
The simple meaning of the parable is that we must not be stingy, and must distribute our wealth to the poor, and as is always the case I our Lord's discourse, there is also something deeper here, which should make our zeal to be generous even greater.
We are capable of stupendous acts of holiness and also fiendish evil. Both possibilities exist and even flourish in the same man! God is simple – He is only good, but we are complex – we are good and bad. Salvation is to become simple – only good - but as we grow to this perfection, we must use imperfect and even evil things to achieve our goal. We must turn our evil into good. I think this is why there are so many examples of the "mammon of unrighteousness" being used to holy purpose.
Dostoevsky, especially, among Christian authors seems to have understood this dichotomy, how man is good and evil, but even the evil can be turned into good. His crowning achievement in this regard is Sophia, the prostitute, in "Crime and Punishment".
Today we have before us a lazy indolent man, the unjust steward. He had wasted his Lord's goods, and was soon to be cast out. Being a lazy man, he had not learned any other trade, and he was too soft to dig (work hard) and too proud to beg.
Does not this describe our condition?
We are lazy and indolent – if we say this in our prayers we had best believe it, because it is true. We have wasted our Lord's goods, the oil of the holy Spirit given to the 10 virgins, the talents given to the servants, the vineyard given to the husbandmen.
What are we to do? We must be like the steward, and act as he put it, "quickly". This is an urgent matter! We must find every opportunity to turn our evil into good.
The Lord praised the steward, not because of his indolence, or incompetence, but because of his repentance, which is symbolized by his crafty use of his Lord's money. There is not only delicious irony in his actions, but also a lesson.
We have no excuses. So we are sinners; this does not excuse us from doing everything we can to do good, to become good. We are stewards of all that God has given us. We own nothing.
1 And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. 2 And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. 3 Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. 4 I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. 5 So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? 6 And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. 7 Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. 8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. 9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. (Luke 16:1-9)
Priest Seraphim Holland 2009[U1] . St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, McKinney, Texas
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Although technology is constantly racing to faster / smaller / more, so many of the fundamentals of how it is made remains similar, if not the same. This interesting 30 minute video clip [thanks to The Computer History Museum] was made in 1967 by Fairchild Semiconductor as a briefing on integrated circuits, and shows the different steps to produce ICs including:
Design, making the photo masks, manufacturing the silicon ingots, preparing the wafers, building of the circuit and its components (like transistors, resistors, and capacitors), testing, and final packaging. Add in some other cool items of interest such as a 1960's pick n place machine, wave soldering, an automatic wirewrap machine, and toss in some retro computer action and it's surely a video worth watching, with something for everyone.
So join us after the break, kick back and enjoy the show!


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This article is more than 1 year old
Company That Can't Be Named slams critics
Twitter ye not
Telco 2.0 STL Partners' twice-yearly Telco 2.0 conference is held under Chatham House rules, which means the press can't attribute quotes to speakers without their permission. It's all about telcos finding new revenue opportunities, and it returned this week. One session starred a Well Known Web Advertising Intermediary very well known to Register readers. For the sake of brevity, we'll call them WKWAI.
The theme, as one presenter put it, was "moving from instrumenting the network, to instrumenting the customer". Data mining our activity for advertisers, in other words. Who better for this than our WKWAI?
The UK CEO of the WKWAI had had a tough year - "apologies to anyone close to our business," he said, bashfully. He was there to remind telcos that they were missing out on huge advertising opportunities - and his WKWAI could help. Over time, the WKWAI would allow advertisers to deliver more targeted and relevant advertising - and telcos and ISPs would see "a significant uplift for close to zero cost once installed".
The MC - and you'll twig that we're not exactly talking about a Jeremy Paxman-style inquisition here - asked the UK CEO of the WKWAI:
"You've had PR trouble this year, some real challenges, partly because journalists who have a short attention span have written stories like, 'INSERT TELCO NAME HERE snooping on their customers'. What have you learned? How do you communicate the opportunity to end-users?"
The UK CEO of the WKWAI replied:
"Yes, we've always maintained we want to be transparent to everybody. We've been very clear. Whether the model is opt-in or opt-out it should be transparent and clear."
"We've been this blue touchpaper for a debate that needed to happen. How do we fund the internet? How do content providers get paid for this? And there's also a privacy debate."
So according to the CEO, it was a bunch of nothing, all got up by the press.
"As the months have gone on the debate has become much more rational," he said. "Yes, there are some extremists out there who will throw stones. It's a complex technology and received understandings have clouded some of the issues."
I was mingling to see what the reaction from telco executives would be. And they're no fools, it turns out. The CEO WKWAI had stressed that the data intercepted by his company wasn't stored, and didn't identify the users.
One attendee scribbled back:
"[WKWAI]'s arguments about three pieces of data are all well and good, but AOL said the same thing when lots of its subscriber data leaked and indivuduals were identified."
There was more interest in getting traditional business intelligence functions to work efficiently, rather than "instrumenting the customer". Telcos know how to spell "churn".
Creepy questions don't solve operational problems
When Telco 2.0 launched it provided cult-like shock treatment (break them down, build them up again) for the reactionary telco mindset. The format, in which anonymous feedback streams back to the stage, helped stimulate some vigorous discussions.
These days it's much more about showbiz. Attendees noted that it was one vendor marketing pitch after another. The questions during the Web Advertising session were so vague, our table felt it impossible to answer them.
I discovered that it's not actually very helpful to attendees when the presenters receive only bumlickycrawly questions. Everyone in the room knew what trouble the WKWAI had got into - because the WKWAI caused its partner ISPs a public relations nightmare. Shooting the messenger suggest that they should do it all over again. That's not much of a Strategic Brainstorm.
Also, when speaking opportunities are set by vendor payola, the quality of speakers suffers greatly. This year they ranged from the brilliant (Page and co debunking The Long Tail) to the inane. I was already heading for the door during the Video Opportunities presentations when I heard the presenter ask:
"Has anyone here heard of Twitter?"
One attendee winked at me on the way out: "You picked a good time to leave," he said. ®


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Psychosocial stress could play a role in the etiology of breast cancer aggressiveness, particularly among minority populations, according to study results presented at the Fourth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held in Washington DC, from September 18-21, 2011.
?We found that after diagnosis, black and Hispanic breast cancer patients reported higher levels of stress than whites, and that stress was associated with tumor aggressiveness,? said Garth H. Rauscher, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology in the division of epidemiology and biostatistics at the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Examining stress levels
Rauscher and colleagues studied patient-reported perceptions of fear, anxiety and isolation, together referred to as psychosocial stress, and associations with breast cancer aggressiveness. He cautioned that patients? stress levels were examined two to three months post-diagnosis.
Higher for black and Hispanic patients
The study included 989 breast cancer patients who were recently diagnosed. Of those, 411 were non-Hispanic black, 397 were non-Hispanic white, and 181 were Hispanic. Results showed that psychosocial stress scores were higher for both black and Hispanic patients compared to white patients. ?Those who reported higher levels of stress tended to have more aggressive tumors. However, what we don?t know is if we had asked them the same question a year or five years before diagnosis, would we have seen the same association between stress and breast cancer aggressiveness?
Cause of association
?It?s not clear what?s driving this association. It may be that the level of stress in these patients? lives influenced tumor aggressiveness. It may be that being diagnosed with a more aggressive tumor, with a more worrisome diagnosis and more stressful treatments, influenced reports of stress. It may be that both of these are playing a role in the association. We don?t know the answer to that question,? Rauscher said.


text: Forwarding this for Lee Rotller, see below. He's had trouble posting in his own name. Probably hitting an anti-spam block by accident. rgb -- Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb at phy.duke.edu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 01:16:10 -0800 From: Lee Rotller <rottler at es.ucsc.edu> To: rgb at phy.duke.edu Subject: Please forward to beowulf.org Hi Robert, I tried unsubscribing then resubscribing with no luck. Here is the message I wanted to post. Murphy's Law says that as soon as you post it the other three tries will make it to the list. :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------ We have a 132 node dual Athlon cluster from Racksaver with high bandwidth SCI interconnect from Dolphin and Wulfkit software from Scali. Component wise it is very similar to Robert's cluster included below. Our Configuration 132 nodes Dual Athlon 1.4 (1500) 1024 MB PC2100 (Corsair) 61.5 Gb IDE HD Tyan dual mobo/w dual NICS 1 frontend server 1 data i/o node (cluster NFS server) Both of these are connected to the cluster via an Intel gigabit card. Initially we had 3Com but had trouble with the supplied linux driver. This may be a red herring since yesterday we discovered that all the memory slots had dual bank DDR sticks leading to all kinds of stability problems independent of the Gb NIC cards. Tyan boards want dual bank memory sticks only in slots #1 and #2. The #3 and #4 slots must have single bank DDR sticks. Sigh. Aside from teething problems I am extremely happy with this machine. Linpack clocked in at 301.8 Gflops running on all 264 processors. One of the user mpi codes was run on 128 processors on this machine and the same # on Seaborg and we were 31.2% faster. Once we have everything configured the way I want it I will run the full Pallas benchmark and report back. We are still in the configuration and testing phase but with regards to heat problems in our 1Us I have not seen any problems. We purchased a 32 node/single cpu Athlon cluster from Racksaver since last March and although there were problems due to the MSI mobo there was not a single heat related failure and do not expect that to be a problem with the dual 1Us. RackSaver has taken alot of care in optimizing the air flow through their boxes to get optimum cooling. In my experience heat is a non issue with RackSaver 1Us. This is only my experience (YMMV). Cheers, Lee R C wrote: > > On Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 11:54:37AM -0600, Steven Timm wrote: > > > > I am just wondering how many people have managed to get a > > cluster of dual Athlon-MP nodes up and running. If so, > > which motherboards and chipsets are you using, and has anyone > > safely done this in a 1U form factor? > > We're in the process of testing our 1U dual athalon nodes from Racksaver. > > Configuration: > 16 nodes > Dual Athalon 1.53 (1800+) > 512 MB PC2100 Reg/ECC (Crucial / Corsair) (We ordered Crucial ram modules > before the price hike) > 20 GB IDE HDs (IBM) > S2462NG (non-scsi version) > > The units themselves are solid, and hefty (roughly 30 lbs). They do draw > quite a bit of power (we are waiting for a 2nd 30 amp drop). No > problems with them so far (24 hour burnin, room temperature approx 75-80 > deg F, above recommended temperature). They are noisy, as one would > expect from 1U units with these processors. Don't put them in an office. > CPU temperatures after 24 hour runs were in the 49-55 C range. > > We haven't gotten our software on all the units yet, but they seem > stable. Once our school actually cut the PO, the order went through > quickly. > > Robert Cicconetti > > PS. Has anyone gotten Wake-on-Lan working on this motherboard? > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beow ulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf -- * Lee Rottler rottler at es.ucsc.edu * * System Administrator/Scientific Programmer Office: (831) 459-5059 * * High Performance Computing FAX: (831) 459-3074 * * IGPP - Earth Sciences *


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Study Edge Statistics
In Statistics, students build on the mathematics knowledge and skills from Kindergarten–grade 8 and Algebra I, broadening their knowledge of variability and statistical processes. Students will study sampling and experimentation, categorical and quantitative data, probability and random variables, inference, and bivariate data. Students will connect data and statistical processes to real-world situations and extend their knowledge of data analysis (TAC §111.47(b)(3)).
This video book is brought to you by TEA and Study Edge. It may be used to teach an entire Statistics course or to supplement traditional Statistics textbooks.
This open-education-resource instructional material by TEA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License in accordance with Chapter 31 of the Texas Education Code.
Please provide feedback on Study Edge's open-education-resource instructional materials.
4 OnTRACK English I Writing: Writing the Expository and Procedural Essay
OnTRACK English I Writing, Module 3, Lessons 1–4. Students write expository and procedural or work-related texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific purposes
7 Chapter 9: Hypothesis Testing
In this chapter, students will learn how to perform a hypothesis test and interpret its results.
3 Chapter 1: Exploring Data
In this chapter, we introduce statistics, how it is used, and the types of data we come across in real life.
4 Chapter 7: Sampling Distributions
In this chapter, students will describe and model variability using population and sampling distributions.
7 Chapter 8: Confidence Intervals
In this chapter, students will learn how to construct and interpret a confidence interval for a population mean and a population proportion.
5 Chapter 10: Comparing Two Groups
In this chapter, students interpret confidence intervals and the results of hypothesis tests for the difference between two means and the difference between two proportions.
5 Chapter 3: Representing Categorical Data
In this chapter, we explore the different ways to display categorical data and draw conclusions based on the representations.
8 Chapter 2: Data Collection, Sampling, and Experimental Design
In this chapter, we explore various methods of data collection and potential problems that may occur when collecting data.
9 Chapter 6: Probability
In this chapter, students explore probability and random variables.
6 Chapter 4: Representing Quantitative Data
In this chapter, we explore different ways to display quantitative data, and draw conclusions based on the representations.
7 Chapter 11: Exploring Bivariate Data
In this chapter, students explore the relationship between two quantitative variables. Students will analyze scatterplots for strength, direction, and form; interpret the correlation coefficient; determine the line of best fit using least-squares regression; use the line of best fit to make predictions for a value of y given a value of x; interpret the slope and the y-intercept; learn about alternative methods of finding the line of best fit, including the median-median line and the absolute value line; and identify outliers and influential points and their effects on the regression line and correlation coefficient.
6 Chapter 5: Measuring Center and Spread
In this chapter, students will learn multiple measures for center and spread, and will be introduced to the normal distribution and the empirical rule.


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Dante Now! A Divine Comedy Celebration
Friday, Sept. 28, from 2-3pm, starting at the Annenberg Auditorium in the Snite Museum of Art and ending at the Grotto. Join the Center for Italian Studies for its annual Dante Now! event, dedicated to performing and understanding Dante's Divine Comedy. This year Professor Christian Moevs will kick off the event with an illustrated public talk that will be broadcast live to participants at Notre Dame's Global Gateway in Rome.
The lecture that gave rise to Dante Now was given over a decade ago and it has been a Game Day event since 2012. For more on Dante Now, see this article published in the Observer on Friday, September 29, 2017, or have a look at the video of the inaugural performance in 2012.
Dante Now!
A Celebration of Dante and the Divine Comedy in Performance
You are invited to join in or just watch for us around campus
September 28, 2018
"What's Wrong With This Picture? How to Read Dante's Hell," an illustrated public talk by Professor Christian Moevs, broadcast live to participants at the Rome Global Gateway
Annenberg Auditorium, Snite Museum of Art
Simultaneous public readings from Dante's Divine Comedy
All across campus on the way to the Grotto
Choral reading of Saint Bernard in Paradise praying to the Virgin
The Grotto
Sponsored by the Devers Family Program in Dante Studies and the Center for Italian Studies.
For further information, contact firstname.lastname@example.com
Originally published at italianstudies.nd.edu.