text:
Assessment |
Biopsychology |
Comparative |
Cognitive |
Developmental |
Language |
Individual differences |
Personality |
Philosophy |
Social |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Cognitive Psychology: Attention · Decision making · Learning · Judgement · Memory · Motivation · Perception · Reasoning · Thinking - Cognitive processes Cognition - Outline Index
Cognitive control is a term synonymous with Executive Function, see Executive system, and used by psychologists and neuroscientists to describe a loosely defined collection of brain processes whose role is to guide thought and behaviour in accordance with internally generated goals or plans. Often, cognitive control is invoked when it is necessary to override responses that may otherwise be automatically elicited by stimuli in the external environment. For example, on being presented with a potentially rewarding stimulus, such as a tasty piece of chocolate cake, the automatic response might be to take a bite. However, where this behaviour conflicts with internal plans (such as having decided not to eat chocolate cake whilst on a diet), cognitive control might be engaged to inhibit this response. The neural mechanisms by which cognitive control is implemented is a topic of ongoing debate in the field of cognitive neuroscience.
Historical perspectiveEdit
Although research into cognitive control and its neural basis has increased markedly over the past 5 years (the medical citations index Pubmed reveals a steadily growing number of citations for the search term 'cognitive control' from 1995 to 2006), the theoretical framework in which it is situated is not new. In the 1950s, the British psychologist Donald Broadbent drew a distinction between 'automatic' and 'controlled' processes, and introduced the notion of selective attention, to which cognitive control is closely allied. Nor is the term itself of recent provenance: in 1975, the US psychologist Michael Posner published a book chapter entitled 'Attention and cognitive control' [1]. The work of influential researchers such as Michael Posner, Joaquin Fuster, Tim Shallice and their colleagues in the 1980s laid much of the groundwork for recent research into cognitive control. For example, Posner proposed that there is separate 'executive' branch of the attentional system, which is responsible for focussing attention on selected aspects of the environment[2]. The British neuropsychologist Tim Shallice similarly suggested that attention is regulated by a 'supervisory system', which can override automatic responses in favour of scheduling behaviour on the basis of plans or intentions [3]. Throughout this period, a consensus emerged that this control system is housed in the most anterior portion of the brain, the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
Miller & Cohen's (2001) modelEdit
More recently, in 2001, Earl Miller and Jonathan Cohen published an influential article entitled 'An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function' in which they argue that cognitive control is the primary function of the PFC, and that control is implemented by increasing the gain of sensory or motor neurons that are engaged by task- or goal-relevant elements of the external environment [4]. In a key paragraph, they argue:
'We assume that the PFC serves a specific function in cognitive control: the active maintenance of patterns of activity that represent goals and the means to achieve them. They provide bias signals throughout much of the rest of the brain, affecting not only visual processes but also other sensory modalities, as well as systems responsible for response execution, memory retrieval, emotional evaluation, etc. The aggregate effect of these bias signals is to guide the flow of neural activity along pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task.'
Miller and Cohen draw explicitly upon an earlier theory of visual attention which conceptualises perception of a visual scene in terms of competition among multiple representations - such as colors, individuals, or objects [5] Selective visual attention acts to 'bias' this competition in favour of certain selected features or representations. For example, imagine that you are waiting at a busy train station for a friend who is wearing a red coat. You are able to selectively narrow the focus of your attention to search for red objects, in the hope of identifying your friend. Desimone and Duncan argue that the brain achieves this by selectively increasing the gain of neurons responsive to the color red, such that output from these neurons is more likely to reach a downstream processing stage, and consequently to guide behaviour. According to Miller and Cohen, this selective attention mechanism is in fact just a special case of cognitive control - one in which the biasing occurs in the sensory domain. According to Miller and Cohen's model, the PFC can exert control over input (sensory) or output (response) neurons, as well as over assemblies involved in memory, or emotion. Cognitive control is mediated by reciprocal connectivity between the PFC and both sensory, limbic, and motor cortices. Within their approach, thus, the term 'cognitive control' is applied to any situation where a biasing signal is used to promote task-appropriate responding, and control thus becomes a crucial component of a wide range of psychological constructs such as selective attention, error monitoring, decision-making, memory inhibition and response inhibition.
Experimental evidenceEdit
Much of the experimental evidence for the neural structures involved in cognitive control comes from laboratory tasks such as the Stroop task or the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST). In the Stroop task, for example, human subjects are asked to read color names presented in conflicting ink colours (for example, the word 'RED' in green ink). Cognitive control is needed to perform this task, as the relatively overlearned and automatic behaviour (word reading) has to be inhibited in favour of a less practiced task - naming the ink color. Recent functional neuroimaging studies have shown that two parts of the PFC, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), are thought to be particularly important for performing this task. However, functional neuroimaging studies alone cannot prove that a given (activated) brain region is critical for task performance - that requires neuropsychology, e.g. [6] as well as other loss-of-function studies using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, e.g. [7]
Context-sensitivity of PFC neuronsEdit
Other evidence for the involvement of the PFC in cognitive control comes from single-cell electrophysiology studies in non-human primates, such as the macaque monkey, which have shown that (in contrast to cells in the posterior brain) many PFC neurons are sensitive to a conjunction of a stimulus and a context. For example, PFC cells might respond to a green cue in a condition where that cue signals that a leftwards saccade should be made, but not to a green cue in another experimental context. This is important, because the optimal deployment of cognitive control is invariably context-dependent. To quote an example offered by Miller and Cohen, a US resident might have an overlearned response to look left when crossing the road. However, when the 'context' indicates that he or she is in the UK, this response would have to be suppressed in favour of a different stimulus-response pairing (look right when crossing the road). This behavioural repertoire clearly requires a neural system which is able to integrate the stimulus (the road) with a context (US, UK) to cue a behaviour (look left, look right). Current evidence suggests that neurons in the PFC appear to represent precisely this sort of information. Other evidence from single-cell electrophysiology in monkeys implicates ventrolateral PFC (inferior prefrontal convexity) in the control of motor responses. For example, cells have been identified which increase their firing rate to NoGo signals [8] as well as a signal that says "don't look there!" [9].
Evidence for attentional biasing in sensory regionsEdit
Electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging studies involving human subjects have been used to describe the neural mechanisms underlying attentional biasing. Most studies have looked for activation at the 'sites' of biasing, such as in the visual or auditory cortices. Early studies employed event-related potentials to reveal that electrical brain responses recorded over left and right visual cortex are enhanced when the subject is instructed to attend to the appropriate (contralateral) side of space[10]. The advent of bloodflow-based neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) has more recently permitted the demonstration that neural activity in a number of sensory regions, including color-, motion-, and face-responsive regions of visual cortex, is enhanced when subjects are directed to attend to that dimension of a stimulus, suggestive of gain control in sensory neocortex. For example, in a typical study, Liu and coworkers[11] presented subjects with arrays of dots moving to the left or right, presented in either red or green. Preceding each stimulus, an instruction cue indicated whether subjects should respond on the basis of the colour or the direction of the dots. Even though colour and motion were present in all stimulus arrays, fMRI activity in colour-sensitive regions (V4) was enhanced when subjects were instructed to attend to the colour, and activity in motion-sensitive regions was increased when subjects were cued to attend to the direction of motion. Several studies have also reported evidence for the biasing signal prior to stimulus onset, with the observation that regions of the frontal cortex tend to come active prior to the onset of an expected stimulus[12].
Connectivity between the PFC and sensory regions during cognitive controlEdit
Despite the growing currency of the 'biasing' model of cognitive control, direct evidence for functional connectivity between the PFC and sensory regions during cognitive control is to date rather sparse[13]. Indeed, the only direct evidence comes from studies in which a portion of frontal cortex is damaged, and a corresponding effect is observed far from the lesion site, in the responses of sensory neurons[14],[15]. However, few studies have explored whether this effect is specific to situations where control is required. Other methods for measuring connectivity between distant brain regions, such as correlation in the fMRI response, have yielded indirect evidence that the frontal cortex and sensory regions communicate during a variety of processes thought to engage cognitive control, such as working memory[16], but more research is required to establish how information flows between the PFC and the rest of the brain during cognitive control.
Top Down Inhibitory ControlEdit
Aside from facilitatory or amplificatory mechanisms of control, many authors have argued for inhibitory mechanisms in the domain of response control [17], memory [18], selective attention [19], and emotion [20].
More recent contributionsEdit
In the 6 years which have elapsed since the publication of Miller & Cohen's article, other important evidence for cognitive control processes in the prefrontal cortex have been described. One widely-cited review article[21] emphasises the role of the medial part of the PFC in situations where cognitive control is likely to be engaged – for example, where it is important to detect errors, identify situations where stimulus conflict may arise, make decisions under uncertainty, or when a reduced probability of obtaining favourable performance outcomes is detected. This review, like many others[22], highlights interactions between medial and lateral PFC, whereby posterior medial frontal cortex signals the need for increased cognitive control and sends this signal on to areas in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that actually implement control. Another prominent theory [23] emphasises that interactions along the perpendicular axis of the frontal cortex, arguing that a 'cascade' of interactions between anterior PFC, dorsolateral PFC, and premotor cortex guides behaviour in accordance with past context, present context, and current sensorimotor associations respectively.
- ↑ Posner, M.I., & Snyder, C.R.R. (1975). Attention and cognitive control. In R. Solso (ed.), Information Processing and Cognition: The Loyola Symposium. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- ↑ Posner, M.I. & Petersen, S.E. (1990) The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25-42
- ↑ Shallice, T., Venable, N., Rumiati, R.I. (1988). From neuropsychology to mental structure, Cambridge: CUP.
- ↑ Miller, E.K. & Cohen, J.D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annu Rev Neurosci. 2001;24:167-202
- ↑ Desimone R, Duncan J (1995). Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1995;18:193-222.
- ↑ Fellows LK and Farah MJ. Is anterior cingulate cortex necessary for cognitive control? Brain. 2005 Apr;128 (Pt 4):788-96. Epub 2005 Feb 10.
- ↑ Rushworth MF et al. Role of the human medial frontal cortex in task switching: a combined fMRI and TMS study. J Neurophysiol. 2002 May;87(5):2577-92
- ↑ Sakagami M et al. A code for behavioral inhibition on the basis of color, but not motion, in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex of macaque monkey. J Neurosci. 2001 Jul 1;21(13):4801-8.
- ↑ Hasegawa RP et al. Prefrontal neurons coding suppression of specific saccades. Neuron. 2004 Aug 5;43(3):415-25.
- ↑ Hillyard SA, Anllo-Vento L (1998). Event-related brain potentials in the study of visual selective attention. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95:781-7
- ↑ Liu T, Slotnick SD, Serences JT, Yantis S (2003). Cortical mechanisms of feature-based attentional control. Cereb. Cortex 13:1334-43.
- ↑ Kastner S, Pinsk MA, De Weerd P, Desimone R, Ungerleider LG (1999). Increased activity in human visual cortex during directed attention in the absence of visual stimulation. Neuron 22:751-61
- ↑ Miller BT, D'Esposito M (2005). Searching for "the top" in top-down control. Neuron 48:535-8
- ↑ Barcelo F, Suwazono S, Knight RT (2000). Prefrontal modulation of visual processing in humans. Nat Neurosci. 3:399-403
- ↑ Fuster JM, Bauer RH, Jervey JP. 1985. Functional interactions between inferotemporal and prefrontal cortex in a cognitive task. Brain Res. 330:299–307.
- ↑ Gazzaley A, Rissman J, D'esposito M (2004). Functional connectivity during working memory maintenance. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 4:580-99
- ↑ Aron AR & Poldrack RA (2006). Cortical and subcortical contributions to stop signal response inhibition: role of the subthalamic nucleus. Journal of Neuroscience 26 2424-2433
- ↑ Anderson MC, Green C (2001) Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control. Nature 410:366-369.
- ↑ Tipper SP (2001) Does negative priming reflect inhibitory mechanisms? A review and integration of conflicting views. Q J Exp Psychol A 54:321-343.
- ↑ Ochsner KN, Gross JJ (2005) The cognitive control of emotion. Trends Cogn Sci 9:242-249
- ↑ Ridderinkhof KR, Ullsperger M, Crone EA, Nieuwenhuis S (2004). The role of the medial frontal cortex in cognitive control. Science 306:443-7
- ↑ MM Botvinick, TS Braver, DM Barch, CS Carter, JD Cohen (2001). Conflict monitoring and cognitive control. Psychological Review 108: 624-52
- ↑ Koechlin E, Ody C, Kouneiher F (2003). The architecture of cognitive control in the human prefrontal cortex. Science 302:1181-5
|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).


text:
Ribbon Techniques with the iRock Tool
The iRock Tool by Imaginisce, which was featured in the November/December 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, is used to heat set rhinestones, but it also has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Check them out and see how it can make your ribbon work easier.
1. Iron Out Ribbon Kinks
Use the hot end of the iRock tool to smooth out wrinkles in your ribbon.
2. Prevent Frayed Edges
To keep the cut ends of your ribbon from fraying, run the hot end of the iRock tool over the ends to create a seal.
Note: This tool gets hot. Please approach all of these techniques with caution.
For more on the iRock tool, check out the November/December 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine.
Appeared in:
|To comment on this article you must be logged in. Not a member?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Recently I read an exchange of views between freethinkers about whether there was a historical Jesus that gave rise to the legends, or whether the Jesus character was entirely mythical. I found myself entirely unmoved.
I went through the four gospels to collect everything Jesus is reported to have said about what we should DO, all of his alleged ethical teachings. I wrote up my findings here:
I don't see, or feel, any necessity to dispute the existence of a historical Jesus. I find that debate beside the point.
The "synoptic" gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, present one picture of Jesus and his teachings, and the fourth gospel, John, presents a starkly different one. The synoptics present a Jesus who expected Judgment Day and the end of the world Real Soon Now, certainly within the lifetime of his contemporaries. Further, very few were to be saved when the Earth was destroyed; almost everyone would be going to a fiery Hell. It makes perfect sense that his ethical teachings, what he told his followers to DO, were radically unworldly. Abandon all your Earthly ambitions. Abandon your Earthly family and give your loyalty to your fellow believers. Sell everything you own and use the money to do good works. Avoid getting any Earthly reward for your good works. Follow the entire Law of Moses, follow the spirit of the Law as well as the letter. Overfulfill the Law, inside and out; not only abstain from killing but also from anger, not only abstain from adultery but also from lust. Love your enemies, Practice strict nonviolent pacifism. Do not judge others, that is not your job, Judgment Day will come soon enough. Concentrate on purifying your own character, strive to "Be perfect, even as your father in Heaven is perfect". This was asking a lot.
The gospel of "John" was apparently written AFTER that generation HAD passed away. The apocalyptic prophecies are removed, all of the radically unworldly ethical teachings are removed; the writers of John did an Apocalypsectomy. Since John, organized Christianity has not been about following Jesus' teachings, it has been about believing certain stories and creeds.
All this is evident from reading the texts; it really matters not at all if the texts were inspired by the experience of the writers listening to a real man named Jesus. The literary Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, he expected the end of Earth soon, and told his followers to take radical action to prepare, to rack up as much credit as they could in the little time remaining, in the hope of being among the very few who would be saved. He was, apparently, wrong about that.
So there is no reason why we should bother disputing the exact origin of these texts.
Views: 281
One can look at the gospels differently as well if they just take the scriptures literally (but in a different way) than the theists do.
EXAMPLE ONE: It is said that the genology of Jeus is traced both through Mary and Joseph depending on which gospel you read. If this is so, why would Joseph's lineage be listed unless he was the father?
EXAMPLE TWO: Many were present at the baptism of Jesus. A bird lit upon him and a voice from the heavens declared him to be the son of God, and told everybody to listen to him. I'm sure that many there that day ran off to declare what they had heard, and the word spread. Why then was Jesus executed for claiming to be the son of God? In a short time it would have become common knowledge.
EXAMPLE THREE: The devil took Jesus up into a high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world. What mountain would be so high?
EXAMPLE FOUR: The "high mountain" incident appears to have occured after the 40 days fast in the wilderness. What person in their right mind would except religious dogma from someone as deluded as a person would be after a 40 day fast?
Oh, well. Just thinking here, but many in the religious world apparently are not.
Good post and great word--"Apocalypsectomy"!!
© 2019 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: The Nexus Group. Powered by


text:
Shop by Category
Shop by Age
Encourage your children to explore their talents with the help of charming toy instruments. Whether she wants to shred the electric guitar or he wants a shiny drum set of his very own, parents can find kid-sized items at Kmart to inspire any young musician. Enjoy musical performances in your own living room with kids' instruments.
Children will feel like rock stars with toy instruments that are designed just for them. Your little girl can strum the nylon strings of a painted acoustic guitar or jam on a tiny electric model with a glossy finish. Your young man will have a blast while hitting the snare and twirling the sticks on his first drum set. If they'd prefer to practice vocals, karaoke machines can take care of the backing track while your kids belt out the latest hits. Connect an MP3 player and grab the microphone for a personalized concert.
Keyboards and woodwinds are great tools to introduce the fundamentals of music. A wooden recorder is simple to learn, but rewarding to play. These tiny instruments are easy to tote from room to room or even outdoors for a practice session. Toy keyboards and pianos are sized to fit small musicians, so they can easily reach every note of the scale. Try an elegant wooden piano for a traditional feel or an electronic keyboard with a spot for headphones for quietly practicing any time of the day. Help your children explore their artistic side with kids' instruments from Kmart.


text:
Extractor: The Original Wide Blade Cutout Tool
Extractor: The Original Wide Blade Cutout Tool
Pneumatic, electric, or cordless, the Extractor line of auto glass removal tools has consistently proven invaluable to the auto glass and auto-body industries.
In addition, Extractor tools are also very useful for removal of commercial and residential glazing, and a wide variety of other applications.
About the Tool
Is the tool powerful enough to cut through thick urethane?
Yes, it's by far the most powerful cordless cut out tool that I've ever used.
How many windshields can you cut out on a fully charged battery?
I can extract five or six windshields on a full charged battery.
How well does the tool/blade work on an extremely curved windshield?
The blades are very sturdy yet flexible enough for any type of curved glass.
Is the tool light enough to control and heavy enough to reduce back lash on the technicians arm?
With proper use and lubrication the tool works very smoothly and backlash is minimal.
Does the tool have longevity?
With proper lubrication and by keeping the blades sharp the Extractor has extraordinary longevity.
What do you use the tool for?
I use it exclusively for auto glass but can see that it probably has countless other uses and applications where it could be very helpful.
About the blades;
How durable are the replacement blades? - Extractor has the most durable blades available on the market.
Are the blades long enough to reach deep set urethane beds? (bottoms)
The new XXL blade is definitely long enough for the deepest of bottom extractions yet amazingly sturdy while still flexible.
Would different blade configurations help do your job?
The blades are sufficient, the only thing missing is a quick release application. (Easier said than done I'm sure)
Do you find any benefits using the swivel shaft?
The Swivel Shaft adapter is a helpful tool that lends to good ergonomics.
What is the greatest feature of the tool in your opinion?
The rigidity of the tool as a whole, the shaft and blades are very strong and stable.
Would you recommend it to other professional installers?
All of our technicians are equipped with Extractor electric cut out tools, we use them every day.


text:
Mark Zuckerberg lost $5.9 billion on Facebook's initial public offering. Shareholders lost billions of their own.
But there was one group of people that befitted from Facebook going public: Menlo Park homeowners.
Real estate site Zillow put together an infographic that shows how the real estate market has ballooned during the three month lead up to Facebook's IPO last month.
The study shows that the number of listings for million dollar homes in the city nearly doubled ahead of the IPO.
Zillow also said that median Silicon Valley home values are up 15 times over the median U.S. home value.
The graphic also looks at neighboring cities and how they fared when other tech companies went public, such as Yelp, LinkedIn and Zynga.
You can see the full graphic below.


text:
When it comes to Halle Berry, mom's the word.
The Oscar-winner and her fiance, actor Olivier Martinez, are expecting their first child together, and--as E! News revealed last week--the actress is pregnant with a boy and is reportedly about 12 weeks along.
Just days after word spread that Berry will be giving her 5-year-old daughter, Nahla, a little sibling, the star is speaking out for the first time about being on the baby way once again--an experience, she says, that's been both immensely joyous and tremendously shocking.
PHOTO: Halle Berry debuts baby bump
"I feel fantastic," the 46-year-old tells CNN.
"This has been the biggest surprise of my life to tell you the truth," she adds. "I thought I was kind of past the point where this could be a reality for me. So it's been a big surprise and the most wonderful."
Berry, however, played it coy when it came to talking about the baby's gender.
"I don't know, I don't know," she said when asked whether she was having a son, stressing that all she wanted was for the baby to be "healthy."
PHOTO: See pregnant Halle as she shops in New York City
Berry sat alongside "Project Runway" czar Michael Kors as the two spoke on behalf of the U.N. World Food Programme--an initiative that bears even deeper even resonance with Berry now that she's expecting another child.
"Especially now, being a pregnant woman and already having a child, that it's so important: what happens to the baby while they're in utero," she explains.
"And the first 1,000 days is fundamental. Good nutrition during that time period is fundamental for your baby to develop properly and normally and to live a normal life."


text:
Be sure to check out the pet businesses near you!
Be sure to check out the dog parks near you!
These beautiful pewter leash hooks are perfectly designed for the hallway of a pet lover. You will never misplace your keys or leash again.
Pet podcast #32 features an interview with dog trainer – dog whisperer Doug Simpson of Tenderfoot Training. In this podcast we talk about what is a dog whisperer? These days we hear the term 'whisperer' used loosely (dog whisperer, horse …
Copyright © 2000-2019 Pets.ca. All Rights Reserved. | Copyright & Legal Statement | Privacy Policy & Security


text:
The wrenching experience of thousands of New York's public housing residents following Hurricane Sandy revealed vulnerabilities of physical structures and human services. Volunteers, tenant associations, social service providers and NYCHA technicians all stepped in to do what they could through the worst of the aftermath. What did we learn? What about next time? What will a carefully planned and managed disaster response look like in New York City's low-lying, low-income neighborhoods?
A conversation with: John Rhea, chairman, New York City Housing Authority (NYHCA) Wally Bazemore, Red Hook community organizer Jennifer Jones Austin, executive director, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology, NYU and New Yorker contributer Constantine Kontokosta, founding director, NYU Center for the Sustainable Built Environment
Moderated by: Andrew White, director, Center for New York City Affairs at The New School
[youtube width="640" height="360"]http://youtu.be/h4bRNFQl8rk[/youtube]
The Center's public policy forums are made possible thanks to the generous support of the Milano Foundation.


text:
BACKGROUND IMAGE: iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
- FeatureSurvey Says: Data classification on the distant horizon
- FeatureBig three apps adjust to disk-based backup
- FeatureExchange protection goes real-time
- FeatureFine-tune storage networks
- FeatureVoice apps can strain storage
- FeatureiSCSI moves up the ranks
- FeatureNew life for InfiniBand
- FeatureNew DLT drive tops a terabyte
- FeatureFinding Data
- FeatureMicrosoft to support boot from iSCSI SAN
- FeatureWhat data classification can do for you
- FeatureSnapshot: Do you have a data archive?
- FeatureSMB backup: To tape or not to tape?
- FeatureUser needed more than SAN management tools could give
- FeatureThe winners of Storage magazine's Products of the Year were surprising
- FeatureDeploying Intelligent Information Management applications
- FeatureMisplaced priorities
- FeatureStandards or product development?
iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
Fine-tune storage networks
How key SAN components, principally host bus adapters and switches, are configured will determine overall SAN performance. If you know what to look for and how to make adjustments, performance issues can be greatly reduced.
Maximum SAN performance requires key components--host bus adapters and Fibre Channel directors--to work in harmony.
SANs are among the most mission-critical enterprise networks, so organizations tend to overbuy and overallocate SAN capacity to avert performance problems. Buying more capacity might work sometimes, but it isn't always an option. Storage administrators need to find ways to wring more value out of their SANs, and performance tuning is the place to start.
|SAN tuning checklist
Use this checklist as a guide for performance tuning.
Host bus adapters (HBAs)
All SAN hardware vendors offer tools that configure, monitor and collect performance data for their devices. For example, Emulex Corp.'s HBAnyware allows administrators to discover host bus adapters (HBAs) and collect data about their status, attributes and performance. Brocade Communications Systems Inc.'s optional Advanced Performance Monitoring tool collects SilkWorm director performance data, which can be viewed in its Fabric Manager or exported to Microsoft Excel. EMC Corp.'s Navisphere Analyzer, an add-on to its Navisphere Management Suite, allows Clariion users to gather performance data and identify trends. Yet the key to SAN performance tuning is knowing what device settings to monitor--for HBAs, Fibre Channel (FC) directors, arrays or tape libraries--and when their parameters need adjusting (see "SAN tuning checklist").
FC HBAs
Appropriately configuring an HBA before it's connected to the SAN is the best way to ensure that the HBA isn't the source of a SAN performance problem. Initial considerations when selecting and configuring an HBA include:
- Number of HBA ports
- Number of HBAs on the server
- Placement of HBAs on the server
- What load-balancing and path failover software to use
- Version and type of HBA driver and firmware
- Internal HBA settings
However, if a server supports VMware and multiple Windows partitions, it might make sense to deploy an HBA with four FC ports and have a port reserved for each Windows instance. It's generally recommended to deploy one high-performance application on a VMware server along with several lower performance applications; this way, the four-port card can be configured to give a lower performing application its own port with minimal or no impact to the higher performing application sharing the HBA.
The number of HBAs and where they're placed in the server can also affect performance. When using more than one HBA in a server, the HBAs must share the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus and its allotted throughput.
"Sometimes the bus becomes a bottleneck," says Mike Smith, Emulex's executive vice president of worldwide marketing, limiting the HBA port's ability to transfer data between the host and storage. If multiple PCI devices share the same Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended (PCI-X) bus, the clock speed of each slot may be reduced, affecting the throughput capabilities of a particular slot. The telltale signs are a general slowdown in server applications and longer transaction latencies.
The use of path failover and load-balancing software should enhance server performance and availability. Software such as EMC's PowerPath and Symantec Corp.'s Dynamic Multipathing (DMP) identifies available HBA ports and then spreads I/O across the ports to increase the traffic flow between the server and the storage array. This software also helps to increase the server's availability. If an HBA fails, or one of the paths associated with it through the SAN becomes unavailable, the software labels the failed HBA as unavailable and reroutes traffic to other HBAs under its management. The main shortcoming of these products is that they generally work with only a limited number of storage arrays or require other foundational products, such as Symantec's Volume Manager.
You should also verify that the latest firmware and appropriate drivers are loaded on the HBAs before they're put into service. This ensures that the latest HBA-tuning features are installed and that the HBA is compatible with the various devices in the SAN environment. Most operating systems like AIX, Sun Solaris and Windows include HBA drivers that automatically detect and configure HBAs. But these drivers don't include optimized settings that some HBA vendors offer for certain vendor's storage arrays; they also don't alter the HBA's internal settings for performance-intensive applications.
Modern HBAs are automatically configured based on the number of target logical unit numbers (LUNs) they detect. For instance, the queue-depth setting--the number of pending I/Os an HBA can hold while waiting for responses from the target LUNs--is managed dynamically by the HBA's firmware. Initially set at 32, the queue-depth setting is adjusted as users add or remove LUNs.
But for high-performance environments, users need to configure the HBA's I/O coalescing setting. HBA vendors find that with most HBAs deployed in low-performance environments, this option is turned off even though each I/O generates a server CPU interrupt. Turning it on allows the HBA to pool I/O requests and bundle them. Once the bundle or buffer is full, only one server CPU interrupt will be generated for each bundle when it's sent, rather than producing one CPU interrupt for each I/O.
|Performance tips for arrays and tape drives
Fibre Channel (FC) storage arrays
FC directors
While configuring and tuning FC HBAs often occurs during the initial install, FC directors require more ongoing changes as the SAN evolves. Application, server and storage growth, backup configuration changes and connecting SAN islands creates a more dynamic environment for FC directors. Though FC directors usually provide ample bandwidth and throughput, performance may deteriorate as changes occur because:
- Multiple applications are accessing the same storage port
- A zone includes too many server ports
- Server placement is on edge and core SAN switches
Resolving this issue requires access to the director zoning information and possibly a performance-measurement tool. The director management software will identify all of the HBAs zoned to a specific storage port and which port they're plugged into on the FC SAN. With the ports identified, you can determine which application is the culprit and take corrective action.
If an informal review doesn't immediately reveal the offending application, each FC director vendor offers tools that capture and monitor information from specific FC ports. Brocade's SAN Health, Fabric Watch, Fabric Manager and Advanced Performance Monitoring tools can help identify the problem. SAN Health is a free download from Brocade's Web site and can be used on any vendor's FC director to take a performance sample. Brocade's Fabric Watch product can be configured to send an alarm if a port exceeds a certain performance threshold, while its Fabric Manager tool provides historical performance data. The Advanced Performance Monitor tool provides more advanced diagnostics on how FC traffic moves through the fabric and how the SAN is designed; it only needs to be used if the other tools can't pinpoint the performance problem.
|When to use an SRM tool
Storage resource management (SRM) tools such as Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Storage Essentials and EMC Corp.'s ControlCenter offer optional features that collect and correlate performance data from SAN devices. In some cases, the tool can manage the devices or even dynamically tune them based on pre-set policies. Yet when compared to the free or low-cost tools that ship with storage devices, it's sometimes difficult to justify their purchase. Here are some tips to help you decide if and when deploying an SRM tool is warranted:
In a large environment with multiple SAN devices, the hassle of learning and managing each vendor-specific tool makes a comprehensive SRM application that's capable of tuning all of the devices a cost-effective alternative.
Check to see if the SRM tool can act as a dashboard that launches device-specific management tools.
The biggest benefit of an SRM tool is its ability to visualize, correlate and analyze performance data from all of the SAN devices that the application data touches or passes through.
SRM tools generally operate under the assumption that one IT group has control of all the devices in a SAN--from the host down to the storage array. This may not be the way your shop operates.
While SRM vendors provide flexible product licensing, you'll still have to negotiate. Consider deals that tie SRM licensing to the total number of managed SAN ports or total amount of managed storage capacity--those are the numbers that tend to outstrip server and CPU growth over time.
Too many server ports in the same zone can also degrade SAN performance. This will most likely occur during server boot ups, and while probing the SAN for new storage ports or existing storage ports for new LUNs. When the server initiates these probes, the server HBA starts to probe each port it has access to on the SAN. Although the server HBA software should recognize the difference between server HBAs ("initiators") and storage and tape HBAs ("targets"), some HBA drivers are problematic and probe server HBAs until they timeout, delaying server boots and new volume discoveries. The best way to avoid this is to keep each server HBA in its own zone with its own set of targets.
How and where application servers are attached to a growing SAN can also affect performance. Administrators may be tempted to simply attach new servers to a new FC switch or director, connect the new switch to an existing SAN director using an inter-switch link (ISL) and allocate storage. This is a bad idea for two reasons. First, new directors will generally have higher performance characteristics, and storage and tape devices generally should have first dibs on the highest performing ports. Second, the technology on new servers may support higher levels of SAN performance, such as 2Gb/sec or 4Gb/sec speeds, and if forced to access storage on the core SAN director via an ISL, performance will degrade to the level of the slowest component in the storage path.
With Cisco Systems Inc. SANs, the MDS 9000's SAN-OS remote switched port analyzer (RSPAN) functionality can identify these types of performance bottlenecks. The RSPAN utility mirrors traffic from one or more FC interfaces to another port in the fabric, and monitors traffic without the insertion of a probe. The traffic may also be captured and encapsulated by Cisco's optional Port Analyzer Adapter and sent to a PC for SCSI I/O and FC frame-level analysis.
The best way to avoid these performance problems is to keep the highest performing technology at the core. This typically involves moving the highest performing application servers, storage arrays, virtual tape libraries and tape drives to the new core director and relocating lower performing applications to edge switches. When allocating core director ports, priority should be given to the highest performing applications, such as backup, databases and file servers.
An ongoing process
Of course, SAN tuning is a work in progress. You need to constantly monitor and tinker with your storage fabric (see "Performance tips for arrays and tape drives," and "When to use an SRM tool") on a regular basis to get the best performance. By taking simple steps to tune SAN components before they're installed in the SAN, and knowing which ones to analyze first when performance hiccups occur, the number of performance issues will be greatly reduced down the road.


text:
Friday, December 11, 2009
Uncle Dale: Traveling Man
After twenty years of soul-searching, Dale finally returned to Green Bay the night of January 26, 1997… the night of the Packers Super Bowl win. I'll never forget because the whole family was doing the Beer Barrel Polka in Grandma's living room and yipping like hyenas gone mad in celebration. I was hopped up on Mad Dog 20/20 and Voodoos (Vodka + Mountain Dew) and was showing off my classic breakdance moves like the robot and the worm (aka "the dolphin" aka "the caterpillar") to everyone's delight. As I was coming back for a second pass across the carpet, I heard Grandma exclaim, "It's Dale!". Sure enough in the doorway stood a skinny little weathered man vaguely reminiscent of a picture I had seen somewhere in the house. Dale shrugged off the attention ("yeah, yeah, yeah, it's Dale") and tolerated some of the inevitable hugs.
As we fed him a million questions as to his whereabouts and doings as well as many libations, Dale finally admitted that he worked random jobs such as a roofer and vacuum salesman here and there and everywhere. His stories all came back to a diamond-in-the-rough Packer bar he frequented. There was Howie's Sports Page in Albuquerque, where the owner was originally from Fond du Lac, Town Hall in North Dakota where the bar was literally split down the middle – half watched the Packers, the others the Queens.
Dale's favorite place of all was Rum Runner's Tavern in Houston. Apparently it was as close to Green Bay as you can imagine. People dressed up in green and gold, bratwurst was served, and they even performed Lambeau Leaps. I looked it up and this Texas mecca of Packer Pride actually exists – check it out. Turns out the only criteria Dale had in choosing his next place to call home was that it had a Packer bar. Now that's having your priorities straight. See you Sunday, Dale? Thought so.
10 comments:
Isn't Donald Driver from Houston? I think he mas a bar in Houston. I'm probably wrong, and too lazy to look it up.ReplyDelete
Welcome back Dale.
I think he is, IronMan.ReplyDelete
When outside the friendy confines of WI, there is no better place to watch a Packer game than at a tried and true Packer bar.
I frequent this one often:
See all your family had given up on poor uncle Dale. You probably did hear mutterings that his priorities were all out of wack. Little did they know his ducks were all in a row and he had what was important to him, Da Pack.ReplyDelete
Nice story thanks for sharing.
P.S. I have a run-a-way 45 year old cousin who dresses as a woman and teaches at Purdue. He is not a packers fan so clearly his priorities are out of wack, at least worse than your Uncle Dale...ReplyDelete
Nothing like the middle-aged "runaway". I guess every family has one. Hell, I might turn into one myself someday --- there's hundreds of Packer bars across the country --- you'll never find me!ReplyDelete
Actually, the name of the bar in Houston that your uncle Dale loves isn't The Rum Runner, it's called Nicks Sports Bar. Perhaps he had one too many shots of blackberry brandy there and it slipped his mind. Nicks has been home to the Cheddarhead Pack of Houston for 8 years, and really is as Packer-centric as he says.ReplyDelete
My sister from Milwaukee came to visit once and announced "This place is more Wisconsin than Wisconsin!" I think we scared her a bit with our Packer fervor!
Check us out if you are ever in Houston. And, Dale, say hi when you're in town!
Thanks Tuna! Sounds like a LOT of fun. I was in awe from the pictures. This is definitely going to be a hot topic at X-Mas with ol' Dale.ReplyDelete
Oops! Your uncle is smarter than I am (guess I need to lay off the blackberry shots). I was not aware that the Rum Runner is the new home for our CHPH North chapter in northern Houston.ReplyDelete
Both bars feature the same kind of craziness, fun and Green Bay Packer pride. Twice the reasons to visit Houston!!!
Nice, I was hoping there would be more than one good thing aboout Houston.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 29, 2010 at 7:21 PM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.ReplyDelete


text:
Let us know if there's anything we may do to make your experience even better.
Thanks for your feedback. Enjoy!
Please let us know anything we can improve upon.
Thanks for your feedback!
We're working hard to improve. :-)
Arrowhead Delivery now powered by Bite Squad! Login with the same credentials, and don't forget to get the app for iOS and Android!
Get your favorite foods delivered from the most popular restaurants in Boone, Blowing Rock, Vilas and Banner Elk. Local delivery favorites include Mexican, Burgers, Chinese, American and Pizza. Get any food that suits your mood.
32 Restaurants.
Order minimums & booking fees vary by distance from restaurant.
Capone's Pizza
Italian, Pizza, Salad
Booking Fee: $2.99
Five Guys - Boone
Burgers, Fast Food
Booking Fee: $3.99
New China Buffet
Tucker's Cafe
Cafes, Desserts, Soup
Taste Grill
Asian Fusion, Chinese, Japanese
Los Arcoiris
Bella's Italian
Pepper's Restaurant and Bar
American (Traditional)
Osaka - Southgate Dr
Chinese, Japanese, Sushi
The Rock
American (Traditional), Chicken Wings
Taqueria El Paso
Pedalin' Pig
Dan'l Boone Inn
Saks Grill
Hot Dogs, Salad, Sandwiches
Mike's Inland Seafood
Sagebrush Steakhouse
10 High Country Lanes
Mint Indian Cuisine - Boone Heights Dr
Makoto's Sushi & Teppenyaki
Japanese, Steakhouses, Sushi
Barberitos - Boone
Fast Food, Mexican, Tex-Mex, Wraps
The Local - Boone
Rivers Street Ale House
American, Wings
Mellow Mushroom - Boone
Pizza, Sandwiches
Chick-fil-A - Boone
American, Dessert, Dinner, Lunch, Salad, Sandwiches, Vegetarian
Red Onion Cafe
The TAPP Room
Carolina Pizza Co
American (Traditional), Pizza
Our Daily Bread
Beer, Wine & Spirits, Delis, Salad
Ben & Jerry's - King St.
Ice Cream
Elevation 3333
American (Traditional), Burgers
Casa Rustica
J&M General Store and Grill
American (New), American (Traditional), Burgers, Deli
Booking Fee: $4.99
Copyright © 2019 BiteSquad.com - Food Delivery


text:
Jumping Bottle
A downloadable game for Android
Arcade games is probably the most common theme when it comes to make arcade jumping games. itch.io App Store is full of arcade jumping games but it's still hard to find a good free jumping game for Android to live the real adventure with it, Isn't it string!
But it's not the case for you today, Welcome to "Jumping Bottle", so be ready for a jumpy game experience. Jump games has a classic in arcade jumping game-play, with stunning and clean graphics and sounds.
Why are you still reading this and wasting your time. It's time to stop reading and start downloading this free jumping adventure. Oh you want some more details about it? Here you go then!
How to Play Jumping Bottle:
It's simple to play but hard to master, you have to be a good player to master it. Touch the screen to jump, and try to avoid falling. That's all.
Feature of Jumping Bottle:
So are you ready to hit the game and live the adventure?
It's a perfect and a must have this jumping game if you are bored with playing regular jumping games. Just download Jumping Bottle and start your own adventure. Have fun !
Don't forget to leave us rating and review to let us know what you think about Jumping Bottle. We always want to continue to deliver some of the best and most fun jumping games for your Android. Your feedback plays an important role to be able to achieve this goal.


text:
According to a press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, dated Oct. 22, 2012:
On 10-20-2012, approximately 7:45 p.m. the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office received a 911 cell phone transfer from the Trinity County Sheriff's Office. The 31 year old female caller told the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office Dispatcher that she and her 16 year old daughter were lost. The call was dropped during the conversation. The dispatcher attempted several call backs with the victim to determine where they were at. The dispatcher was able to get a GPS Coordinate however off the cell phone and sent deputies to locate them. Deputies responded to the area of the GPS Coordinates and located the lost females on a roadway. The deputy had to drive into Trinity County via Van Duzen River Road and then back into Humboldt County to access the location near Coffee Pot Road, the Blocksburg Area of Humboldt County. Both females were found by the deputy curled up in the roadway trying to stay warm. They were in good health and required no medical assistance. They were transported by the deputy to their vehicle. They had been hunting in the area and became separated from their party. Meantime their cell phone's battery had died during the calls to a friend and 911 seeking assistance.
The Sheriffs Office would like to remind hunters and hikers to tell family and friends where they are hiking, when they expect to return, bring appropriate equipment and clothing. This time of year the weather conditions can change rapidly. A cell phone, map or GPS is also very helpful. Keep in mind not all rural areas have cell phone coverage and a cell phone batteries need to be fully charged.
Use the player below to hear an interview with Lt.Steve Knight of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office regarding this incident. The interview was aired on the KMUD Local News by KMUD Newscaster Dave Brooksher on Oct. 22, 2012.


text:
Skip to Main Content
Your browser does not support iFrames.
OLB Enrollment
Browser Requirements
Mobile Banking
Mobile Terms & Conditions
Quick Links
Contact Us | Hours | History | ATM Locator
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us one of the following ways
Established in 1906, First Bank of Boaz is Marshall County's oldest independent community bank. Owned and operated by seventy local stockholders, First Bank is able to make decisions locally and that means a customer is still treated as an individual, not as a number. With $200 million in assets and 16% in capital, the bank is large enough to handle all your banking needs and strong enough to be here for you during even the most difficult times.
First Bank of Boaz offers fair interest rates on loans, competitive rates on deposits and is proud to offer the lowest service fees in the area.
If you thought banking had changed and you didn't have any choices, try First Bank of Boaz. You will find banking the way you remember it to be.
We now have MoneyPass which means;
You now have access to cash at over 20,000 ATM locations nationwide, surcharge free.
Go to moneypass.com or go to the app store on your I-Phone or "Android Market " on your droid phone and download the free app.
Locate ATMs and connect to google maps to get directions any where in the country.
There are 50 ATMs within a 50 mile radius of Boaz.
If you don't have a computer or applicable phone call us at 256-593-8670 and we will help you locate them.
124 S. Main St Boaz Alabama 35957 | Phone: 256.593.8670 | Fax: 256.593.6488 | Toll Free: 1.855.593.8670


text:
The sidecar companion piece to Rear View Auto Show. I'm on a roll, rolling down the highway...
© 2008 by EllaRegina
While he was teaching me how to drive a stick I would grasp Alberto's flaccid cock in bed at night and review the day's lesson, using his flesh to move from first into second gear, then to third, idling in neutral, by which time he was usually hard and would fuck me well beyond fifth gear.
Sometimes, when Alberto was behind the wheel, I would reach across and try to pull his cock out and tease it as I had in bed. Were he not such an excellent driver we would have been killed several times, or arrested by the Carabinieri. Once, on the Autostrada del Sole, I leaned over Alberto's busy hand, coaxed his fat prick out of his baggy pants, put it between my lips and sucked him until he had to pull onto the shoulder and stop the car. If my skull had a blowhole Alberto would have spouted some Abstract Expressionism onto the soft ceiling upholstery.
The round-knobbed black leather stick shift on Alberto's Fiat was so inviting that I slid it into myself—once I'd sufficiently mastered the gears—using my pussy to shift up or down while Alberto manned the wheel and pedals. I was very happy to relinquish the clutch. We somehow managed this vehicular collaboration and tooled around most of Tuscany one summer quite successfully in this fashion—a shaft of leather and metal rammed inside me as I rode shotgun—my pussy driving the car. It was a great feeling, knowing how to work a stick.
Copyright 2008 EllaRegina. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without prior written permission from the author.


text:
Customs and Border Protection Officer (Direct Hire)
- Employer
- USAJobs
- Location
- Washington D.C.
- Posted
- May 23, 2019
- Closes
- May 23, 2019
- Function
- Administrative
- Industry
- Government and Public Services, Federal
- Career Level
- Experienced (Non-Manager)
- Hours
- Full Time
Occasional travel - Travel may be required based on operational needs
Relocation expenses reimbursed No
Firearm Proficiency: Firearm proficiency is required for all CBP Officers and is part of the training provided.
Probationary Period: You must serve a one-year probationary period during the first year of your initial permanent Federal appointment to determine fitness for continued employment.
Selective Service Registration: Males born after 12/31/1959 must verify registration; to verify your registration OR request a Status Information Letter go to https://www.sss.gov/Home/Verification
Formal Training: You will complete a paid pre-academy orientation for approximately 30 days at your home port prior to attending the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) for approximately 17 - 19 weeks at Glynco, GA. Candidates selected for duty locations where they are required to be proficient in reading, writing and speaking Spanish will be required to either pass a Spanish language proficiency examination or attend a 6-week long Spanish immersion class at FLETC.
Uniform: This position requires wearing an officially approved uniform while in a duty status.
Residency Requirement: If you are not a current CBP employee you must meet one or more of the following primary residency criteria for at least three (3) of the last five (5) years, prior to completing an application for CBP employment:
- Resided (lived) in the United States or its protectorate or territories (excluding short trips abroad, such as vacations); or
- Worked for the United States government as an employee overseas in a Federal or military capacity; or
- Been a dependent of a US Federal or military employee serving overseas
Driver's License: You must possess a valid driver's license.
Shift Work/Overtime: You must be willing and available to work rotating shifts. You may also be rotated between assignments and work units. You may be required to work overtime on a regular and recurring basis. Fully trained officers may be compensated up to $45,000 in overtime in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
You must meet job-related medical, fitness, background and drug-testing standards.
All agency employees are required to participate in Direct Deposit/Electronic Funds Transfer for salary payments. The qualification requirements listed below must be met by the closing date of this announcement.
You qualify for the GS-5 grade level (starting salary $33,949 up to $78,949 with potential overtime) if your supporting documentation shows you possess one of the following:
Experience: A Minimum of 3 years full-time general work experience that demonstrates the ability to meet and deal with people and the ability to learn and apply a body of facts; OR
Education Substitution: A bachelor's degree or successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in any field leading to a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university; OR
Will receive a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university within 9 months from the closing date of this announcement and will upload all official or unofficial transcripts before the closing date of this announcement; OR
Combination of Experience and Education: A combination of successfully completed college education AND general work experience. This will be calculated using your resume and official or unofficial college transcripts submitted with your application.
You qualify for the GS-7 grade level (starting salary $42,053 up to $87,053 with potential overtime) if your supporting documentation shows you possess one of the following:
Experience: A minimum of 1 year of specialized full-time work experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level that entails performance of substantive duties in inspections work at borders, seaports, airports or other ports of entry and/or work involving preliminary screening of persons for entry and immigration status, or compliance/regulatory work; OR
Education Substitution: A Bachelor's degree with Superior Academic Achievement, which is based on (1) class standing, (2) grade-point average (i.e., GPA 3.0 or higher of a possible 4.0), or (3) honor society membership. Go to Superior Academic Achievement to see if you qualify under this provision; OR
One full year of graduate level education (equivalent to 18 semester or 27 quarter hours) in a field of study related to law enforcement (e.g., criminology, criminal justice, law enforcement, courts and judicial systems, corrections and rehabilitation, justice studies, homeland security, forensic technology and forensic psychology) from an accredited college or university; OR
Will receive a bachelor's degree with Superior Academic Achievementor one full year of graduate level education (equivalent to 18 semester or 27 quarter hours) in a field of study related to law enforcement (e.g., criminal justice, homeland security, justice studies, law enforcement, courts and judicial systems, forensic technology, forensic psychology, or corrections and rehabilitation) from an accredited college or university within 9 months from the closing date of this announcement; OR
Combination of Experience and Education: A combination of specialized work experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level AND graduate level education completed in a field of study related to law enforcement (e.g., criminology, criminal justice, law enforcement, courts and judicial systems, corrections and rehabilitation, justice studies, homeland security, forensic technology and forensic psychology) from an accredited college or university. This will be calculated using your resume and official or unofficial transcripts submitted with your application.
NOTE: To be eligible for overtime, employees must be fully trained.
If you have previous or current law enforcement or military law enforcement experience, you may qualify at the GS-9 grade level. Please refer to the CBPO GS-9 announcement: Apply Here!
Age Requirement: Effective May 1, 2016, the Commissioner of CBP has approved a temporary increase in the maximum allowable age for original placement into a CBPO position; therefore, candidates must be referred for selection before reaching their 40th birthday (increased from age 37). In accordance with Public Law 110-161, this position is covered under enhanced retirement provisions. However, the age restriction may not apply if you are currently serving or have previously served in a Federal civilian law enforcement (non-military) position covered by Title 5 U.S.C. 8336(c) or Title 5 U.S.C. 8412(d). This measure will increase the statutorily mandatory retirement to an age of up to 60 to allow individuals the opportunity to complete 20 years of Enhanced Customs and Border Protection service (See U.S.C 8425 (b)(1) and 8335 (b)(1)).
The age restriction does not apply if you are a Veterans' Preference eligible. For more information on eligibility as a Veterans' Preference eligible please see the OPM Veterans' Guide.
Current Federal Employees: Current Federal employees who apply to this announcement will be required to serve a probationary period in accordance with 5 CFR 315 and may be required to accept a change to lower grade, which may reduce their salary based on Federal pay regulations. Note: If you are a current GS-12 step 1, your salary may be reduced to a GS-5 step 10, which equates to an approximate $30,466 salary reduction (based on locality). Re-promotion is not guaranteed. Timeframes and grade level re-promotion is at the discretion of the agency and will be subject to a probationary period.
National Service Experience (i.e., volunteer experience): Refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.
Experience as a CBP Explorer may be qualifying if your resume provides sufficient information to credit your experience. To receive full credit for your experience please be sure to describe your duties, roles and responsibilities in detail.
Political Appointees: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must authorize employment offers made to current or former political appointees. If you are currently, or have been within the last 5 years, a political Schedule A, Schedule C, Non-career SES or Presidential Appointee employee in the Executive Branch, you must disclose this information to the Human Resources Office.
Refer to the Qualifications Section for information on education substitution.
Polygraph Examination: The CBP Officer position is a polygraph-required position. You must take a polygraph exam and have favorable results in order to continue in the pre-employment process. For more information and videos about the polygraph process, please see Polygraph Examination.
Polygraph Reciprocity: CBP may accept the results of a prior Federal polygraph exam in lieu of a CBP polygraph exam. You will receive information to request reciprocity in your Background Investigation package.
Polygraph Waiver: Certain veterans may be eligible to obtain a polygraph waiver. You will receive information to request a waiver in your Background Investigation package.
Background Investigation: This position is a sensitive National Security Position and, upon selection, candidates will be required to undergo, and must successfully pass, a Tier 5 investigation or equivalent for placement and retention in this position. For more information, please see Background Investigation.
Misdemeanor Crime of Domestic Violence: The CBP Officer position is a weapons-carrying position. Any person who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence cannot lawfully possess a firearm or ammunition. Therefore, if you have been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, you are not qualified for this position.
Medical/Physical Requirements: This position has medical/physical requirements. Click here for position specific requirements. You must complete the medical screening process and be found to meet the medical standards for the position. Employees in this position may be required to undergo a medical examination/evaluation at the request of the Agency. If you do not meet the medical standards for the position, you may request a waiver of the medical standard by demonstrating with non-medical information that, with or without reasonable accommodation, you can safely perform the essential duties of the position.
Drug Testing Requirements: This is a drug testing designated position. You must complete a drug test as a condition of employment. Employees are subject to drug testing in compliance with the Agency's Drug-Free Workplace Program.
Physical Fitness Screening: You will be required to successfully pass the Pre-employment Fitness Test. Please see the Pre-Employment Fitness Test Readiness Program for additional information. This is a 6-week program designed to assist you in achieving a level of physical fitness that will help you successfully pass the CBP fitness test.
Interview Process: You will be required to pass a face-to-face structured interview (SI).
If you receive a conditional offer of employment for this position, you will be required to complete an Optional Form 306, Declaration for Federal Employment, and to sign and certify the accuracy of all information in your application, prior to entry on duty. False statements on any part of the application may result in withdrawal of offer of employment, dismissal after beginning work, fine, or imprisonment.
Any offers of employment made pursuant to this announcement will be consistent with all applicable authorities, including Presidential Memoranda, Executive Orders, interpretive U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) guidance, and Office of Management and Budget plans and policies concerning hiring. These authorities are subject to change.
You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.
This is a Direct Hire Public Notice. Category Rating, Veterans' Preference and traditional rating and ranking do not apply to this Public Notice.
You will be evaluated based on your passing entrance examination score (external assessments), resume, supporting documents, and responses to the job questionnaire. Test scores prior to August 5, 2018, are no longer valid.
The entrance exam (external assessment) contains the following four (4) assessments: CBP Officer Experience Record, Logical Reasoning, Arithmetic Reasoning, and Writing Skills. To be eligible, applicants must pass the exam with a score of at least 70. Proper test preparation is essential for the successful candidate; therefore, we strongly encourage you to review the CBP Officer Study Guides. You should take the CBP Officer Pre-Test (sample entrance examination). The pre-test will give you a preview of the types of questions you can expect to see on the actual exam. Applying early and scheduling the online entrance exam as soon as possible will ensure the most options for testing. The last day of proctored testing is June 14, 2019. You will not be able to retake the entrance exam for six (6) months, regardless of whether you pass or fail. If you pass the exam and meet minimum qualifications, you will be placed into the pre-employment process.
Reasonable Accommodation Requests: If you believe you have a disability (i.e., physical or mental), covered by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, and Americans with Disabilities Act 1990, as amended, that would interfere with completing the CBP Officer Entrance Exam, click here for more information about the request process: Reasonable Accommodations Request Process. Requests for Reasonable Accommodations for the CBP Officer Entrance Exam must be received before the announcement closes to be considered for this job opening. Decisions on requests for Reasonable Accommodations are made on a case-by-case basis. After notification of the adjudication of your request, you will receive an email invitation to complete the CBP Officer Entrance Exam.
Similar jobs


text:
In Which We Get You Writing Something Dark And Very Disturbed
Why and How To Write
Ever since I began my full-length memoir Jesus Was A Pale Imitation of Myself I have been deluged with responses from fans asking me how I start writing. That's a great question, but I usually don't give writing advice for free, just the actual writing. Still many authors have weighed in on this subject and we can learn much from their instruction. This is the first of a four part series. You can read the rest of the series here:
Part One (Joyce Carol Oates, Gene Wolfe, Philip Levine, Thomas Pynchon, Gertrude Stein, Eudora Welty, Don DeLillo, Anton Chekhov, Mavis Gallant, Stanley Elkin)
Part Two (James Baldwin, Henry Miller, Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Margaret Atwood, Gertrude Stein, Vladimir Nabokov)
Part Three (W. Somerset Maugham, Langston Hughes, Marguerite Duras, George Orwell, John Ashbery, Susan Sontag, Robert Creeley, John Steinbeck)
Part Four (Flannery O'Connor, Charles Baxter, Joan Didion, William Butler Yeats, Lyn Hejinian, Jean Cocteau, Francine du Plessix Gray, Roberto Bolano)
Joyce Carol Oates
Stories come to us as wraiths requiring precise embodiments. Running seems to allow me, ideally, an expanded consciousness in which I can envision what I'm writing as a film or a dream. I rarely invent at the typewriter but recall what I've experienced. I don't use a word processor but write in longhand, at considerable length. (Again, I know: writers are crazy.)
By the time I come to type out my writing formally, I've envisioned it repeatedly. I've never thought of writing as the mere arrangement of words on the page but as the attempted embodiment of a vision: a complex of emotions, raw experience.
The effort of memorable art is to evoke in the reader or spectator emotions appropriate to that effort. Running is a meditation; more practicably it allows me to scroll through, in my mind's eye, the pages I've just written, proofreading for errors and improvements.
My method is one of continuous revision. While writing a long novel, every day I loop back to earlier sections to rewrite, in order to maintain a consistent, fluid voice. When I write the final two or three chapters of a novel, I write them simultaneously with the rewriting of the opening, so that, ideally at least, the novel is like a river uniformly flowing, each passage concurrent with all the others.
Gene Wolfe
Every so often I get optimistic and explain the best method of learning to write to students. I don't believe any of them has ever tried it, but I will explain it to you now. After all, you may be the exception. When I read about this method, it was attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who invented and discovered so much. Certainly I did not invent it.
But I did it, and it worked. That is more than can be said for most creative writing classes.
Find a very short story by a writer you admire. Read it over and over until you understand everything in it. Then read it over a lot more.
Here's the key part. You must do this. Put it away where you cannot get at it. You will have to find a way to do it that works for you. Mail the story to a friend and ask him to keep it for you, or whatever. I left the story I had studied in my desk on Friday. Having no weekend access to the building in which I worked, I could not get to it until Monday morning.
When you cannot see it again. Write it yourself. You know who the characters are. You know what happens. You write it. Make it as good as you can.
Compare your story to the original, when you have access to the original again. Is your version longer? Shorter? Why? Read both versions out loud. There will be places where you had trouble. Now you can see how the author handled those problems.
If you want to learn to write fiction, and are among those rare people willing to work at it, you might want to use the little story you have just finished as one of your models. It's about the right length.
Philip Levine
Thirty-five years ago I sat in small room with Robert Lowell, then my teacher, and asked him how I might lift from its doldrums a particular poem. Lowell had spent about fifteen minutes showing me why this poem was horseshit, something I already knew, for I had come to him not for praise but for help. He had just paused in his steady assault on my poem, when I asked him how I might go about making it better. We sat in silence for over a minute. Then he looked at me, a little resigned smile on his face, and said, "You know, it's damned hard to make sense and keep the rhythm."
Nothing was clearer to me than that Lowell was remembering his own experience, and yes, he was exactly right, it is damned hard to make sense, say something worth saying and not said a thousand times before, and keep the rhythm. That was my problem at the time, and of course it still is, and there would be other down the road, problems more difficult to locate and more impossible to deal with, and there would be no Lowell to go to for help.
Thomas Pynchon
I was more concerned with committing on paper a variety of abuses, such as overwriting. I will spare everybody a detailed discussion of all the overwriting that occurs in these stories, except to mention how distressed I am at the number of tendrils that keep showing up. I still don't even know for sure what a tendril is. I think I took the word from T.S. Eliot. I have nothing against tendrils personally, but my overuse of the word is a good example of what can happen when you spend too much time and energy on words alone.
This advice has been given often and more compellingly elsewhere, but my specific piece of wrong procedure back then was, incredibly, to browse through the thesaurus and note words that sounded cool, hip, or likely to produce an effect, usually that of making me look good, without then taking the trouble to go and find out in the dictionary what they meant. If this sounds stupid, it is. I mention it only on the chance that others may be doing it even as we speak, and be able to profit from my error.
This same free advice can also be applied to items of information. Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that the earlier stages of life we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance. Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person's mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well. So as a corollary to writing about what we know, maybe we should add getting familiar with our ignorance, and the possibilities therein for ruining a good story.
Opera librettos, movies and television drama are allowed to get away with all kinds of errors in detail. Too much time in front of the Tube and a writer can get to believing the same thing about fiction. Not so. Though it may not be wrong absolutely to make up, as I still do, what I don't know or am too lazy to find out, phony data are more often than not deployed in places sensitive enough to make a difference, thereby losing what marginal charm they may have possessed outside of the story's context.
Witness an example from "Entropy." In the character of Callisto I was trying for a sort of world-weary Middle-European effect, and put in the phrase grippe espagnole, which I had seen on some liner notes to a recording of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat. I must have thought this was some kind of post-World War I spiritual malaise or something. Come to find out it means what it says, Spanish influenza, and the reference I lifted was really to the worldwide flu epidemic that followed the war.
Gertrude Stein
Every writer must have common sense. He must be sensitive and serious. But he must not grow solemn. He must not listen to himself. If he does, he might as well be under a tombstone. When he takes himself solemnly, he has no more to say. Yet he must despise nothing, not even solemn people. They are part of life and it's his job to write about life.
Be direct. Indirectness ruins good writing. There is inner confusion in the world today and because of it people are turning back to old standards like children to their mothers. This makes indirect writing.
A writer must preserve a balance between sensitivity and vitality. Highbrow writers are sensitive but not vital. Commercial writers are vital but not sensitive. Trying to keep this balance is always hard. It is the whole job of living.
When one writes a thing — when you discover and then put it down, which is the essence of discovering it — one is done with it. What people get out of it is none of the writer's business.
Every writer is self-conscious. It's one reason he is a writer. And he is lonely. If you know three writers in a lifetime, that is a great many.
You do not have to write what the editors want. You can write what you want and if you develop sufficient craftsmanship, you can sell it, too. I want you to write for the Saturday Evening Post. It demands the best craftsmanship.
Roberto Bolaño
Now that I'm forty-four years old, I'm going to offer some advice on the art of writing short stories.
1. Never approach short stories one at a time. If one approaches short stories one at a time, one can quite honestly be writing the same short story until the day one dies.
2. It is best to write short stories three or five at a time. If one has the energy, write them nine or fifteen at a time.
3. Be careful: the temptation to write short stories two at a time is just as dangerous as attempting to write them one at a time, and, what's more, it's essentially like the interplay of lovers' mirrors, creating a double image that produces melancholy.
4. One must read Horacio Quiroga, Felisberto Hernández, and Jorge Luis Borges. One must read Juan Rulfo and Augusto Monterroso. Any short-story writer who has some appreciation for these authors will never read Camilo José Cela or Francisco Umbral yet will, indeed, read Julio Cortázar and Adolfo Bioy Casares, but in no way Cela or Umbral.
5. I'll repeat this once more in case it's still not clear: don't consider Cela or Umbral, whatsoever.
6. A short-story writer should be brave. It's a sad fact to acknowledge, but that's the way it is.
7. Short-story writers customarily brag about having read Petrus Borel. In fact, many short-story writers are notorious for trying to imitate Borel's writing. What a huge mistake! Instead, they should imitate the way Borel dresses. But the truth is that they hardly know anything about him—or Théophile Gautier or Gérard de Nerval!
8. Let's come to an agreement: read Petrus Borel, dress like Petrus Borel, but also read Jules Renard and Marcel Schwob. Above all, read Schwob, then move on to Alfonso Reyes and from there go to Borges.
9. The honest truth is that with Edgar Allan Poe, we would all have more than enough good material to read.
10. Give thought to point number 9. Think and reflect on it. You still have time. Think about number 9. To the extent possible, do so on bended knees.
11. One should also read a few other highly recommended books and authors— e.g., Peri hypsous, by the notable Pseudo-Longinus; the sonnets of the unfortunate and brave Philip Sidney, whose biography Lord Brooke wrote; The Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters; Suicidios ejemplares, by Enrique Vila-Matas; and Mientras ellas duermen by Javier Marías.
12. Read these books and also read Anton Chekhov and Raymond Carver, for one of the two of them is the best writer of the twentieth century.
translated from the Spanish by David Draper Clark
Eudora Welty
Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn't hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn't my mother's voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice.
I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers — to read as listeners. It may be part of the desire to write. The sound of what falls on the page begins the process of testing it for truth, for me. Whether I am right to trust so far I don't know. By now I don't know whether I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other. My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books. When I write and the sound of it comes back to my ears, then I act to make changes. I have always trusted this voice.
Don DeLillo
I think the scene comes first, an idea of a character in a place. It's visual, it's Technicolor — something I see in a vague way. Then sentence by sentence into the breach. No outlines — maybe a short list of items, chronological, that may represent the next twenty pages. But the basic work is built around the sentence. This is what I mean when I call myself a writer. I construct sentences. There's a rhythm I hear that drives me through a sentence. And the words typed on the white page have a sculptural quality. They form odd correspondences. They match up not just through meaning but through sound and look. The rhythm of a sentence will accommodate a certain number of syllables. One syllable too many, I look for another word. There's always another word that means nearly the same thing, and if it doesn't then I'll consider altering the meaning of a sentence to keep the rhythm, the syllable beat. I'm completely willing to let language press meaning upon me. Watching the way in which words match up, keeping the balance in a sentence — these are sensuous pleasures. I might want very and only in the same sentence, spaced in a particular way, exactly so far apart. I might want rapture matched with danger — I like to match word endings. I type rather than write longhand because I like the way words and letters look when they come off the hammers onto the page — finished, printed, beautifully formed.
When I was working on The Names I devised a new method — new to me, anyway. When I finished a paragraph, even a three-line paragraph, I automatically went to a fresh page to start the new paragraph. No crowded pages. This enabled me to see a given set of sentences more clearly. It made rewriting easier and more effective. The white space on the page helped me concentrate more deeply on what I'd written.
Anton Chekhov
One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake.
I think descriptions of nature should be very short and always be à propos. Commonplaces like "The setting sun, sinking into the waves of the darkening sea, cast its purple gold rays, etc," "Swallows, flitting over the surface of the water, twittered gaily" — eliminate such commonplaces. You have to choose small details in describing nature, grouping them in such a way that if you close your eyes after reading it you can picture the whole thing. For example, you'll get a picture of a moonlit night if you write that on the dam of the mill a piece of broken bottle flashed like a bright star and the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled by like a ball, etc.
In the realm of psychology you also need details. God preserve you from commonplaces. Best of all, shun all descriptions of the characters' spiritual state. You must try to have that state emerge clearly from their actions. Don't try for too many characters. The center of gravity should reside in two: he and she.
When you describe the miserable and unfortunate, and want to make the reader feel pity, try to be somewhat colder — that seems to give a kind of background to another's grief, against which it stands out more clearly. Whereas in your story the characters cry and you sigh. Yes, be more cold. ... The more objective you are, the stronger will be the impression you make.
My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
Mavis Gallant
I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist. If it is child's play, an extension of make-believe - something one is frequently assured by persons who write about writing - how to account for the overriding wish to do just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a racing bike over the Alps? Perhaps the cultural attaché at a Canadian embassy who said to me "Yes, but what do you really do?" was expressing an adult opinion.
The impulse to write and the stubbornness needed to keep going are supposed to come out of some drastic shaking up, early in life. There is even a term for it: the shock of change. Probably, it means a jolt that unbolts the door between perception and imagination and leaves it ajar for life, or that fuses memory and language and waking dreams.
The first flash of fiction arrives without words. It consists of a fixed image, like a slide or (closer still) a freeze frame, showing characters in a simple situation.
Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.
Stanley Elkin
My editor at Random House, Joe Fox, used to tell me, "Stanley, less is more." He wanted to strike — oh, he had a marvelous eye for the "good" stuff — and that's what he wanted to strike. I had to fight him tooth and nail in the better restaurants to maintain excess because I don't believe that less is more. I believe that more is more. I believe that less is less, fat fat, thin thin and enough is enough. There's a famous exchange between Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe in which Fitzgerald criticizes Wolfe for one of his novels. Fitzgerald tells him that Flaubert believed in the mot précis and that there are two kinds of writers—the putter-inners and the taker-outers. Wolfe, who probably was not as good a writer as Fitzgerald but evidently wrote a better letter, said, "Flaubert me no Flauberts. Shakespeare was a putter-inner, Melville was a putter-inner."* I can't remember who else was a putter-inner, but I'd rather be a putter-inner than a taker-outer.
I do have an ideal audience in mind. That ideal audience is a man like Bill Gass, or someone like Howard Nemerov, or any other writer who respects language. But other than that, no notion at all of an audience. I don't think any writer does. I don't think that poor Jacqueline Susann had any notion of an audience. I think she was doing the best she could. There is no such thing as prostitution in writing. One writes what one can write. One writes up, though one man's up is another man's basement.
Like most people of my generation, I fell in love with the philosophy of existentialism. There is no particular religious tradition in my work. There is only one psychological assertion that I would insist upon. That is: the self takes precedence.
You can find the second part of this series here. You can find the third part here.
Faulkner on This Recording Timeline:
1897: Faulkner born.
1950: Faulkner receives Nobel Prize.
1982: Will Hubbard born.
2009: Faulkner named No. 1 writer of all time.
2009: Joseph Blotner weighs in.
2009: Eleanor Morrow on The Long, Hot Summer.
2010: Potentially abrasive but verifiably true article about William Faulkner published.
2012: Faulkner reappears somewhere in Southern Virginia and asks for whatever liquor you have in the house.
2020: Faulkner makes his debut on Dancing With the Stars.
2044: Alex Balk becomes president of the United States.
Part One (Joyce Carol Oates, Gene Wolfe, Philip Levine, Thomas Pynchon, Gertrude Stein, Eudora Welty, Don DeLillo, Anton Chekhov, Mavis Gallant, Stanley Elkin)
Part Two (James Baldwin, Henry Miller, Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Margaret Atwood, Gertrude Stein, Vladimir Nabokov)
Part Three (W. Somerset Maugham, Langston Hughes, Marguerite Duras, George Orwell, John Ashbery, Susan Sontag, Robert Creeley, John Steinbeck)
Part Four (Flannery O'Connor, Charles Baxter, Joan Didion, William Butler Yeats, Lyn Hejinian, Jean Cocteau, Francine du Plessix Gray, Roberto Bolano)