Luggage locks

With reference to a database transaction, a nested transaction occurs when a new transaction is started by an instruction that is already inside an existing transaction. The new nested transaction is said to be nested within the existing transaction, hence the term.

Changes made by the nested transaction are not seen by the ‘host’ transaction until the nested transaction is committed. This follows from the isolation property of transactions.

The capability to handle nested transactions properly is a prerequisite for true component based application architectures. In a component-based, encapsulated architecture, nested transactions can occur without the programmer knowing it. A component function may or may not contain a database transaction (this is the encapsulated secret of the component. See Information hiding). If a call to such a component function is made inside a BEGIN - COMMIT bracket, nested transactions occur. Since popular databases like MySQL do not allow nesting BEGIN - COMMIT brackets, a framework or a transaction monitor is needed to handle this.
When we speak about nested transaction,it should be made clear that this feature is RDBMS dependent and is not available for all databases.

This article: [[1]] introduces the fundamental theorem for nested transations similarly to the one for flat transactions.

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Computer vision syndrome (CVS) is a temporary condition resulting from focusing the eyes on a computer display for protracted, uninterrupted periods of time. Some symptoms of CVS include headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, fatigue, eye strain, dry, irritated eyes, and difficulty refocusing the eyes. These symptoms can be further aggravated by improper lighting conditions (ie. bright overhead lighting or glare) or air moving past the eyes (ie. overhead vents). CVS has not been proven to cause any permanent damage to the eye.

One may be able to mitigate the risk of CVS by adhering to the “20-20-20 rule”: every 20 minutes, focus the eyes on an object 20 feet (6 meters) away for 20 seconds. Also, the use of over-the-counter artificial tear solutions and computer glasses can reduce the effects of CVS.

See also

• Asthenopia
• Repetitive strain injury

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Document Structure Description, or DSD, is a schema language for XML, that is, a language for describing valid XML documents. It’s an alternative to DTD or the W3C XML Schema.

An example of DSD in its simplest form:

<dsd xmlns="http://www.brics.dk/DSD/2.0"
 xmlns:my="http://example.com">
  
 <if><element name=”my:foo”/>
  <declare>
   <attribute name=”first”/>
   <attribute name=”second”/>
   <contents>
    <element name=”my:bar”/>
   </contents>
  </declare>
 </if>
  
 <if><element name=”my:bar”/>
  <declare>
   <contents>
   </contents>
  </declare>
 </if>
  
</dsd>

This says that element named “foo” in the XML namespace “http://example.com” may have two attributes, named “first” and “second”. A “foo” element may not have any character data. It must contain one subelement, named “bar”, also in the “http://example.com” namespace. A “bar” element is not allowed any attributes, character data or subelements.

One XML document that would be valid according to the above DSD would be:

<foo xmlns="http://example.com" second="2">
 <bar/>
</foo>

Current Software store

• Prototype Java Processor from BRICS

External links

• DSD home page
• Full DSD specification
• Comparison of DTD, W3C XML Schema, and DSD

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A statute of limitations is a statute in a common law legal system that sets forth the maximum period of time, after certain events, that legal proceedings based on those events may be initiated. In civil law systems, similar provisions are usually part of the civil code or criminal code and are often known collectively as “periods of prescription” or “prescriptive periods.”

Applications

A common law legal system might have a statute limiting the time for prosecution of crimes called misdemeanors to two years after the offense occurred. In that statute, if a person is discovered to have committed a misdemeanor three years ago, the time has expired for the prosecution of the misdemeanor. Or a contract can only be sued upon for breach of performance from six years after the contracted performance became due.

By contrast, Canada has a criminal-limitations period only for summary (less serious) offences. The period is six months from the date of the offence. Thus, for instance, a Canadian can be charged only with an “indecent act” within six months of the time of offence, unless both the Crown and the defence agree. In the case of indictable (more serious) offences, for example if a hypothetical assailant committed sexual assault, the assailant could be charged any time in the future—even if the crime happened twenty years ago.

A crime (in the case of a criminal prosecution) or a cause of action (in a civil lawsuit) is said to have accrued when the event beginning its time limitation occurs. Sometimes this is the event itself that is the subject of the suit or prosecution (such as a crime or personal injury), but it may also be an event such as the discovery of a condition one wishes to redress, such as discovering a defect in a manufactured good, or in the case

An idea closely related, but not identical, to the statute of limitations is a statute of repose. A statute of repose limits the time within which an action may be brought and is not related to the accrual of any cause of action; the injury need not have occurred, much less have been discovered. Unlike an ordinary statute of limitations which begins running upon accrual of the claim, the period contained in a statute of repose begins when a specific event occurs, regardless of whether a cause of action has accrued or whether any injury has resulted. This often applies to buildings and properties, and limits the time during which an action may lie based upon defects or hazards connected to the construction of the building or premises. An example of this would be that if a person is electrocuted by a wiring defect incorporated into a structure in, say, 1990, a state law may allow his heirs to sue only before 1997 in the case of an open (patent) defect, or before 2000 in the case of a hidden defect. Statutes of repose can also apply to manufactured goods. Manufacturers contend they are necessary to avoid unfairness and encourage consumers to maintain their property. Consumer groups argue that statutes of repose on consumer goods provide a disincentive for manufacturers to build durable products and to notify consumers of product defects as the manufacturers become aware of them. Consumer groups also argue that such statutes of repose disproportionately affect poorer people, since they are more likely to own older goods.

Expiration

Once the statute of limitations on a case runs out, if a party raises it as a defense any further litigation is foreclosed. Most jurisdictions provide that limitations are tolled under certain circumstances. Tolling will prevent the time for filing suit from running while the condition exists. Examples of such circumstances are if the aggrieved party (plaintiff) is a minor, or the defendant has filed a bankruptcy proceeding. In those instances, in most jurisdictions, the running of limitations is tolled until the circumstance (i.e. the injured party reaches majority in the former or the bankruptcy proceeding is concluded in the latter) no longer exists.

There may be a number of factors which will affect the tolling of a statute of limitations. In many cases, the discovery of the harm (as in a medical malpractice claim where the fact or the impact of the doctor’s mistake is not immediately apparent) starts the statute running. In some jurisdictions the action is said to have not accrued until the harm is discovered, while in others the action accrues when the malpractice occurs, but an action to redress the harm is tolled until the injured party discovers the harm. An action to redress a tort committed against a minor is generally tolled in most cases until the child reaches the age of majority. A ten-year-old who is injured in a car accident might therefore be able to bring suit one, two or three years after he turns 18.

It may also be inequitable to allow a defendant to use the defense of the running of the limitations period, such as the case of an individual in the position of authority over someone else who intimidates the victim into never reporting the wrongdoing, or where one is led to believe that the other party has agreed to suspend the limitations period during good faith settlement negotiations or due to a fraudulent misrepresentation.

Generally speaking, in the case of private, civil matters the limitations period may be shortened or lengthened by agreement of the parties. However, under standard agreement with the Court of Law, you are to be let free, and limitations for you will cease to exist. Under the Uniform Commercial Code the parties to a contract for sale of goods may reduce the limitations period to not less than one year but may not extend it.

While such limitations periods generally are issues of law, limitations periods known as laches may apply in situations of equity (i.e., a judge will not issue an injunction if the party requesting the injunction waited too long to ask for it), such periods are not clearly defined and are subject to broad judicial discretion.

For US military cases, the Uniform Code of Military Justice states that all charges except for those facing general court martial (where a death sentence could be involved) have a five year statute of limitation. This statute changes once charges have been prepared against the service member. In all supposed UCMJ violations except for those headed for general court martial, should the charges be dropped, there is a six month window in which the charges can be reinstated. If those six months have passed and the charges have not been reinstated, the statutes of limitation have run out.

See also

• Equitable tolling
• Laches
• Statute of repose
• Tort reform
• Limitation Act 1980 (England and Wales)
• Duane “Dog” Chapman (Extradition hearing)

External links

• Statute of Limitations with regards to debt collection

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For a life insurer, even if profitable business is written, the value of the company may appear worsen (when viewed from a regulatory basis, for example) because of new business strain. This is a concept dealt with regularly by actuaries.

New business strain occurs because the initial outgo (such as commission, expenses, reserves, etc.) will take place when the policy is written, and thus have an immediate negative impact on company’s financial position. Over the life of the contract, future income (premiums, investment income, etc.) is expected to repay this initial outlay. However under some accounting regimes, the insurer may not take credit for such future surpluses.

The impact is thus an immediate hit to solvency and profitability when a policy is written, with large surpluses in later years - to pay this back.

New Business Strain is artificial in that it is a function of how a regulatory body, for example, might look at a life insurer’s financial position. This tends not to be realistic, but rather conservative - because that is the role a regulator plays. Realistically speaking, a company’s solvency and profitability actually increases when a new policy is written.

Depending on what reporting basis is being used, new business strain can be eased by the use of Zillmerisation or a Deferred acquisition cost asset. As a result, local GAAP accounting and IFRS accounting tends to show much lower levels of new business strain than regulatory accounting.

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Sudatorium, the term in architecture for the vaulted sweating-room (sudor, sweat) of the Roman thermae, referred to in Vitruvius (v. 2), and there called the concamerata sudatio.

In order to obtain the great heat required, the whole wall was lined with vertical terra-cotta flue pipes of rectangular section, placed side by side, through which the hot air and the smoke from the suspensura passed to an exit in the roof.

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Locks-and-keys is a solution to dangling pointers in computer programming languages.

The locks-and-keys approach represents pointers as ordered pairs (key, address) where the key is an integer value. Heap-dynamic variables are represented as the storage for the variable plus a cell for an integer. When a variable is allocated, a lock value is created and placed both into the variable’s cell and into the variable’s ordered pair. Every access to the pointer compares these two values, and access is allowed only if the values match.

When a variable is deallocated, the key of its ordered pair is modified to hold a value different from the variable’s cell. From then on, any attempt to dereference the pointer can be flagged as an error. Since copying a pointer also copies its cell value, changing the key of the ordered pair safely disables all copies of the pointer.

See also

• Tombstone (programming)

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Rowde is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire.

History

The village now mainly consists of modern brick built houses, but a number of 17th century buildings still remain in the centre of the village including the George and Dragon public house. The George and Dragon was predated in the village by another pub, a timber framed thatched building that was destroyed by fire in 1938, a replacement The Cross Keys now stands in its place.

On the outskirts of Rowde is the site of the Caen Hill flight of locks of the Kennet and Avon Canal. The canal rises 237 feet by means of 29 locks, 16 of them in a straight line at Caen Hill. The Kennet and Avon Canal was constructed between 1794 and 1810 and served to link Devizes with Bristol and London. The canal fell into disuse after the coming of the railway, but has been restored, and is now used for leisure purposes.

Local government

Rowde is a civil parish with an elected parish council. It falls within the areas of Kennet District Council and Wiltshire County Council. All three councils are responsible for different aspects of local government.

In the 2001 census, the district ward of Bromham & Rowde had a population of 2880.

Location

Position:

Nearby towns and cities: Devizes, Calne, Melksham, Chippenham, Swindon

Nearby villages: Bromham, Seend

See also

• List of places in Wiltshire
• List of civil parishes in England

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Fourteen Locks is a series of locks on the Crumlin arm of the Monmouthshire Canal at Rogerstone in Newport, South Wales. Widely regarded as Britain’s most remarkable staircase lock system , the canal level was raised 160 ft (50 m) in just 800 yd (740 m). Only the top lock is currently in water. The rest of the flight is part of a restoration programme.

External links

• Newport City Council Guide

References

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In geometry, Rodrigues’ rotation formula (named after Olinde Rodrigues) is a vector formula for a rotation in space, given its axis and angle of rotation.

Say u,v <math>\in</math> R³ and we want to obtain a representation for the rotation v_rot of the vector v around the vector u (which is assumed to have unit length) by an angle θ in the counterclockwise (i.e. positive) direction. Rodrigues’ formula reads as follows:

<math>
\mathbf{v}_{rot} = \mathbf{v} \cdot \cos\theta + \mathbf{u} \times \mathbf{v} \cdot \sin\theta

 + \langle \mathbf{u}, \mathbf{v} \rangle \mathbf{u} \cdot (1 - \cos\theta).

</math>

Proof of the formula

Take the vector w = v − <u,v>u, which is the projection of v on the plane orthogonal to u, and the cross product of the vectors u and v: z = u×v. Turn the vector w by the angle θ around the base of the vector u to obtain the projection of the rotated vector v_rot:

<math>
\begin{align}
\mathbf{w}_{rot} &= \mathbf{w} \cdot \cos\theta + \mathbf{z} \cdot \sin\theta \\
&= (\mathbf{v} - \langle \mathbf{u}, \mathbf{v} \rangle \mathbf{u}) \cdot \cos\theta
+ \mathbf{u} \times \mathbf{v} \cdot \sin\theta.
\end{align}
</math>

Notice that both the vectors w and z have the same length: |w|,|z| = |v - <u,v>u|, because the vector u is of unit length. To get the rotated vector v, we have to add back the adjustment <u,v>u. Hence

<math>
\begin{align}
\mathbf{v}_{rot} &= (\mathbf{v} - \langle \mathbf{u}, \mathbf{v} \rangle \mathbf{u}) \cdot \cos\theta
+ \mathbf{u} \times \mathbf{v} \cdot \sin\theta + \langle \mathbf{u}, \mathbf{v} \rangle \mathbf{u} \\
&= \mathbf{v} \cdot \cos\theta + \mathbf{u} \times \mathbf{v} \cdot \sin\theta
+ \langle \mathbf{u}, \mathbf{v} \rangle \mathbf{u} \cdot (1 - \cos\theta),
\end{align}
</math>

which is exactly what we were looking for.

External links

For another descriptive example see www.d6.com, Chris Hecker, physics section, part 4. “The Third Dimension” — on page 3, section “Axis and Angle, http://www.d6.com/users/checker/pdfs/gdmphys4.pdf

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A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical POS(Point-of-sale) terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways encrypt sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant.

How payment gateways work

A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of information between a payment portal (such as a website or IVR service) and the Front End Processor or acquiring bank; quickly and securely.

When a customer orders a product from a payment gateway enabled merchant, the payment gateway performs a variety of tasks to process the transaction; completely invisible to the customer. For example:

• A customer places order on website by pressing the ‘Submit Order’ or equivalent button, or perhaps enters his/her card details using an automatic phone answering service.
• If the order is via a website, the customer’s web browser encrypts the information to be sent between the browser and the merchant’s webserver. This is usually done via SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption.
• The merchant then forwards the transaction details through to his/her payment gateway which holds the detail of the merchant account transaction. This is often another SSL encrypted connection to the payment server hosted by the payment gateway.
• The payment gateway which receives the transaction information from the merchant forwards it to the merchant’s acquiring bank.
• The acquiring bank then forwards the transaction information to the issuing bank (the bank that issued the credit card to the customer) for authorization.
• The card issuing bank receives the authorization request and sends a response back to the payment gateway (via the acquiring bank) with a response code. In addition to determining the fate of the payment, (i.e approved or declined) the response code is used to define the reason why the transaction failed (such as insufficient funds, or bank link not available)
• The payment gateway receives the response, and forwards it on to the website (or whatever interface was used to process the payment) where it is interpreted and a relevant response then relayed back to the cardholder.
• The entire process typically takes 3-4 seconds
• At the end of the bank-day (or settlement period) the acquiring bank deposits the total of the approved funds in to the merchant’s nominated account. This could be an account with the acquiring bank if the merchant does his/her banking with the same bank, or a scrape account with another bank.

External links

• Six Payment Gateways Reviewed - Side-by-side comparison of six popular payment gateways

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A tubular pin tumbler lock, also known as Ace lock or “axial pin tumbler lock” or “radial lock”, is a variety of pin tumbler lock in which 6-8 pins are arranged in a circular pattern, and the corresponding key is tubular or cylindrical in shape.

J.A. Blake is credited with patenting the first tubular lock in 1833. Walter R. Schlage continued the development of the tubular lock. He was awarded 11 patents, and his improvements made the tubular lock what it is today.

Tubular locks are commonly seen on bicycle locks, computer locks, and a variety of coin-operated devices such as vending machines and coin-operated washing machines.

Security

Tubular pin tumbler locks are generally considered to be safer and more resistant to picking than standard locks, though there are several ways to open them without a key. Even though the pins are exposed, making them superficially easier to pick, they are designed such that after all pins are manipulated to their shear line, once the plug is rotated 1/6 to 1/8 around, the pins will fall into the next pin’s hole, requiring re-picking to continue. As such, picking the lock without using a device to hold its pins in place once they reach their shear line requires over a dozen complete picks to unlock and relock.

Such locks can be picked by a special tubular lock pick with a minimum of effort in very little time; it is also possible to defeat them by drilling with a special “hole saw” drill bit. Standard tubular lock drill bit sizes are .375″ (9.53 mm) diameter and .394″ (10 mm) diameter.[1] To prevent drilling, many tubular locks have a middle pin made of hardened steel, or contain a ball bearing in the middle pin.

In 2004, videos circulating on the Internet demonstrated that some tubular pin tumbler locks could be easily opened with the shaft of an inexpensive ballpoint pen (e.g. BIC brand) of matching diameter. Trade website BikeBiz.com revealed that the weaknesses of the tubular pin tumbler mechanism had first been described in 1992 by UK journalist John Stuart Clark (see Kryptonite lock).

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In Databases and Transaction processing, Two phase locking, (2PL) is a concurrency control locking protocol, mechanism, that guarantees Serializability. It is also the name of a class (set) of transaction schedules. Using locks that block processes, 2PL is subject to deadlocks that result from the mutual blocking of two transactions or more.

Two phase locking

According to the Two phase locking protocol, locks are handled by a transaction in two distinct, consecutive phases during the transaction’s execution:

Phase 1: Locks are acquired and no locks are released.

Phase 2: Locks are released and no locks are acquired.

The serializability property is guaranteed for a schedule with transactions that obey the protocol. The 2PL schedule class is defined as the class of all the schedules comprising transactions with data access orders that could be generated by the 2PL protocol.

Strict two phase locking

The Strict two phase locking (S2PL) class of schedules is the intersection of the 2PL class with the class of schedules possessing the Strictness property.

To comply with the S2PL protocol a transaction needs to comply with 2PL, and release its write (exclusive) locks only after it has ended, i.e., being either committed or aborted.

S2PL is a special case of 2PL, i.e., the S2PL class is a proper subclass of 2PL.

Strong strict two phase locking

To comply with the Strong strict two phase locking (SS2PL) protocol a transaction needs to comply with 2PL, and release both its write (exclusive) and read (shared) locks only after it has ended, i.e., being either committed or aborted.
A transaction obeying SS2PL can be viewed as having Phase 1 that lasts its entire execution duration, and no Phase 2 (or degenerate Phase 2). Thus, only one phase is actually left, and “two-phase” in the name seems to be still utilized due to the historical development of the concept from 2PL. The SS2PL property of a schedule is also called Rigorousness, and an SS2PL schedule is also called a Rigorous schedule.

SS2PL is a special case of S2PL, i.e., the SS2PL class of schedules is a proper subclass of S2PL (every SS2PL schedule is also an S2PL schedule, but S2PL schedules exist that are not SS2PL).

SS2PL is the concurrency control protocol of choice for most database systems since it provides besides serializability also Strictness, which is instrumental for efficient database recovery, and also Commitment ordering (CO) for participating in environments where a CO based Global serializability solution is employed.

See also

• Serializability
• Lock (computer science)

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In mathematics, an n-set is a set containing exactly n elements, where n is a natural number. Thus, every finite set is an n-set for some specific natural number n. If S is any set, then a subset of S containing k elements is called a k-subset, or a k-combination. The family of all k-subsets of a given n-set has C(n,k) elements, where C(n,k) is the binomial coefficient.

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MINDO, or Modified Intermediate Neglect of Differential Overlap is a semi-empirical method for the quantum calculation of molecular electronic structure in computational chemistry. It is based on the Intermediate Neglect of Differential Overlap (INDO) method of John Pople. It was developed by the group of Michael Dewar and was the original method in the MOPAC program. The method should actually be referred to as MINDO/3. It was later replaced by the MNDO method, which in turn was replaced by the PM3 and AM1 methods.

Reference

• Bingham, R. C., Dewar, M. J. S. and Lo, D. H. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 97, 1285, 1307, (1975).

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Open-ended refers to a situation in poker where the player has four of five cards needed for a straight that can be completed at either end. For example, a player with 3♥ 4♥ 5♣ 6♠ is open-ended, because a deuce or a seven would give the player a straight. This situation is also called an outside straight draw, as the cards needed to complete the straight are cards which are on the outside of the current hand, as opposed to an inside draw such as 2♦ 3♠ 5♠ 6♥, which can only be completed by a four.

The term originated with draw poker, and is really meaningful only in that game where the distinction between an outside and inside draw is critical–outside draws are sometimes playable and inside draws rarely if ever are. But the term is also used in games like Texas Hold’em where it is less relevant, because many inside draws can be played profitably and some outside draws cannot be, other factors usually being more important.

Seven-card games like hold’em and stud also allow the possibility of double belly-buster draws, also called double-inside or two-way draws, which, like an inside draw, a card is needed within a series to fill. But unlike simple inside draws, two ranks can fill the hand. An example of this is A♥ 3♥ 4♣ 5♠7♣, in which a deuce fills the inside straight A2345, and a six would fill the inside straight 34567.

These terms are also used for straight flush draws. 2♥ 3♥ 4♥ 5♥ is a straight-flush draw, since A♥ and 6♥ will create straight flushes. Such hands are optimal drawing hands, since the player has up to fifteen outs (nine cards remaining in the suit, six cards which complete the straight but not the flush).

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is the third single of the J-pop idol group Morning Musume, released on September 9, 1998 as an 8 cm CD. It sold a total of 410,850 copies. In 2004 it was re-released as part of the Early Single Box and again in 2005 as a 12 cm CD. Lead vocals of this single were Natsumi Abe and Asuka Fukuda. It was Morning Musume's first single to reach the #1 position on the Oricon music charts.

Track listing

All songs written by Tsunku.

8 cm CD

1. – 4:26
2. – 4:07
3. Daite Hold on Me! (Instrumental) – 4:22

12 cm CD (Early Single Box and individual release)

3. Daite Hold on Me! (Instrumental)

Members at time of single

• Natsumi Abe
• Kaori Iida
• Yuko Nakazawa
• Asuka Fukuda
• Aya Ishiguro
• Mari Yaguchi
• Kei Yasuda
• Sayaka Ichii

External links

• Daite Hold on Me! entry on the Hello! Project website

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“Curbside Prophet” is a song by Jason Mraz. It was released as part of his first major studio album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, which is one of the lyrics of this song.

A common interpretation of the chorus of this song is that it contains an innuendo towards masturbation, due to the lyrics “I’m just a curbside prophet, with my hand in my pocket, and I’m waiting for my rocket to come”, which could be relating to ejaculation. Some disagree that this is what he means, and that the lyrics and the button on his shirt in the CD booklet that reads “I ♥ SEX” are just pure coincidence.

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Abus may refer to:

• Abuş, a village in Romania
• Abus (locks), a German maker of locks and padlocks
• Abus (river), a large tidal waterway
• Abus, an independent bus operator in Greater Bristol

See also

• Abus Gun
• Abuse

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Memetic algorithms is a population-based approach for heuristic search in optimization problems. For some problem domains they have been shown to be more efficient than genetic algorithms. Some researchers view them as hybrid genetic algorithms or parallel genetic algorithms.

From the view of Genetic Algorithm, if GA is combined with some kinds of Local Search, the algorithm is termed as memetic algorithm.

Memetic algorithms are the subject of intense scientific research and have been successfully applied to a multitude of real-world problems ranging from the construction of university exam timetables, to the prediction of protein structures and the design of spacecraft trajectories.

References

• P. Moscato, On Evolution, Search, Optimization, Genetic Algorithms and Martial Arts: Towards Memetic Algorithms, Caltech Concurrent Computation Program, C3P Report 826, (1989).
• Recent Advances in Memetic Algorithms, Series: Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, Vol. 166, Hart, William E.; Krasnogor, N.; Smith, J.E. (Eds.), 2005
• Special Issue on Memetic Algorithms, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics - Part B, Vol. 37, No. 1, Ong Y.S.; Krasnogor, N.; Ishibuchi H. (Eds.), Feb 2007.
• A tutorial for competent memetic algorithms: model, taxonomy and design issues. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 9(5):474- 488, N. Krasnogor and J.E. Smith. 2005.

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Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology is a greatest-hits compilation from the 80s New Wave rock group The Cars.

Track listing

All songs written by Ric Ocasek unless noted otherwise. Tracks marked with [#] represent songs that are brand new on the set.

Disc One

1. Just What I Needed
2. My Best Friend’s Girl
3. Good Times Roll
4. You’re All I’ve Got Tonight
5. Don’t Cha Stop
6. Moving in Stereo - (Ocasek/Greg Hawkes)
7. Take Me Now [#]
8. Cool Fool [#] - (Ocasek/Elliot Easton)
9. Let’s Go
10. Candy-O
11. Dangerous Type
12. Double Life
13. Got a Lot on My Head
    
14. It’s All I Can Do
15. Nightspots
16. Slipaway [#]
17. That’s it [#]
18. Panorama
19. Gimme Some Slack
20. Don’t Go to Pieces [#] (Ocasek/Greg Hawkes)

Disc Two

1. Touch and Go
2. Don’t Tell Me No
3. Shake it Up
4. Since You’re Gone
5. I’m Not the One
6. Cruiser
7. The Little Black Egg [#] - (Michael Stone)
8. Funtime [#] - (David Bowie/Iggy Pop)
9. You Might Think
10. Drive
11. Magic
12. Hello Again
13. Why Can’t I Have You
14. Breakaway
15. Tonight She Comes
16. You Are the Girl
17. Strap Me in
18. Door to Door
19. Leave or Stay (Demo) [#]
20. Ta Ta Wayo Wayo (Demo) [#]

Personnel

• Elliot Easton – lead guitar, backing vocals
• Greg Hawkes – keyboards, backing vocals
• Ric Ocasek – rhythm guitar, lead vocals on Disc One tracks: 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19; Disc Two tracks: 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
• Benjamin Orr – bass guitar, lead vocals on Disc One tracks: 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20; Disc Two tracks: 2, 6, 8, 10
• David Robinson – drums, percussion

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An upholstery needle is a needle used for upholstery. There is a variety of sizes, but they are usually very heavy and curved.

Another type of needle used by upholsterers is the button needle, which is a very long needle used to install buttons with heavy twine through pillows, cushions and furniture backs.

An upholstery needle is also used by cosmetologists for the installation of hair weaves.

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Foxton Locks are ten canal locks consisting of two “staircases” each of five locks, located on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal about 5 km west of the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough and are named after the nearby village of Foxton.

They form the northern terminus of a 20-mile summit level that passes Husbands Bosworth, Crick and ends with the Watford flight

Staircase locks are used where a canal needs to climb a steep hill, and consist of groups of locks which open directly into each other. Foxton Locks are the largest flight of such staircase locks on the English canal system.

The Grade II* listed locks are a popular tourist attraction and the county council has created a country park at the top. At the bottom, where the junction with the arm to Market Harborough is located, there are two public houses, a shop, trip boat and other facilities. The area is thus ideal for gongoozlers.

The locks

Building work on the locks started in 1810 and was finished 4 years later in 1814. Little changed until the building of the inclined plane resulted in the reduction in size of some of the side pounds.While the inclined plane was in operation the locks were allowed to fall into decline to an extent and in 1908 the committee released £1000 to bring the locks back into full operation.

On the 26 November 2006 boaters blockaded the locks as part of protests against Defra cutting British Waterways funding.

Foxton Inclined Plane

In 1900 an inclined plane was built to the side of the locks. The aim was partly to speed up the passage of boats, but also as part of an effort to allow the passage of wide-beam barges instead of just narrowboats.

It was designed by Gordon Cale Thomas and had 2 tanks or caissons, each capable of holding 2 narrowboats or a barge. The caissons were full of water, and so balanced each other. The lift was powered by a 25 horsepower (19 kW) stationary engine. The land for the project was purchased for £1,595 and with the entire project costing £39,244 by 24 June 1900.

The inclined plane had a journey time of 12 minutes for 2 boats up and 2 down and improved the speed of passage up the hill tremendously. Unlike the locks, where water flowed downhill every time a boat passed through, on the inclined plane almost the same amount of water went up and down the hill. Only the displaced water is moved, thus saving a great deal of water and giving better control of this vital resource.

There was a plan to build a similar inclined plane at the Watford Locks at the southern end of the canal’s summit level. However, this was never carried through, and as the Watford Locks were never widened, the economic benefits of the plane could not be fully realised. Thus, despite its obvious effectiveness, the Foxton Inclined Plane was mothballed in 1911 to save money. After that date it saw occasional use when the locks were undergoing maintenance

In 1927, dismantling of the incline began, so that it could be sold for scrap. That year the chimney on the engine house was demolished and its bricks used for various canal repairs.

The plane today

The remains of the plane can still be seen, and the site explored by visitors (to a limited extent).

In the building alongside the locks, the former boiler house for the plane’s steam engine, there is a small museum covering the history of the locks and the plane, and other aspects of the local canal.

The mooring bollards from the incline can be found alongside the locks.

Restoration

The site of the Foxton Inclined Plane Boat Lift has been recognised as a Scheduled Ancient Monument and is on the Buildings at Risk Register. This recognition, together with the steady increase in leisure boating on British canals, means its restoration is now considered a key project in the development of the national waterway network.

The cost of full restoration has been estimated at £9 million (2006 figures), and is to be tackled in a series of stages.

Stage 1 of the project — the clearing of the site and restoration of the canal arms above and below the plane — is already underway. A grant for £1.7 million has been received from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the £2.8 million cost of this first stage.

Fund-raising is currently underway to raise the money for a full engineering study to determine the best way of recreating a working boat lift at Foxton.

References

• Uhlemann, H-J., (2002), Canal Lifts and Inclines of the World, Internat Limited, ISBN 0 95431 811 0

External links

• Foxton Locks and Partnership
• Foxton Inclined Plane Trust

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MediaTransparency is a left-wing project begun in 1999 which monitors the financial ties of conservative think tanks to conservative foundations in the United States. Its database tracks over 50,000 grants awarded since 1985, which total more than $3.2 billion USD. It is run by Cursor, Inc. The slogan on their web page is “The Money behind Conservative Media.”

They are dedicated to “news, opinion, analysis and investigative data related to links between conservative philanthropies and the organizations and people they fund, and their influence in the media.”[1]

According to the right-wing World Journalism Institute, and used as a quote by the parent organization Cursor, Inc., to describe MediaTransparency, “MediaTransparency is a left-wing survey of conservative activity. It is valuable for conservative networking and comprehension of the far-left perspective of conservative free speech.” [2]

Cursor.org has not received an Ideological Spectrum Rating from the right-wing Capital Research Center[3]

External link

• MediaTransparency.org

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The balance lock was a type of lock to transport boats up and down a hillside on a canal.

Boats were to ride in caissons, essentially bathtubs, of water which were to be hauled up and down the hillside by chain, being balanced by another tub of water. It was patented by James Fussell during his work on the Dorset and Somerset Canal.

External

links

• Dorset and Somerset canal, with information on locks

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A database transaction is a unit of interaction with a database management system or similar system that is treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions. In general, a database transaction must be atomic, meaning that it must be either entirely completed or aborted. Ideally, a database system will guarantee the properties of Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability (ACID) for each transaction. In practice, these properties are often relaxed somewhat to provide better performance.

In some systems, transactions are also called LUWs for Logical Units of Work.

Purpose of transaction

In database products the ability to handle transactions allows the user to ensure that integrity of a database is maintained.

A single transaction might require several queries, each reading and/or writing information in the database. When this happens it is usually important to be sure that the database is not left with only some of the queries carried out. For example, when doing a money transfer, if the money was debited from one account, it is important that it also be credited to the depositing account. Also, transactions should not interfere with each other. For more information about desirable transaction properties, see ACID.

A simple transaction is usually issued to the database system in a language like SQL in this form:

1. Begin the transaction
2. Execute several queries (although any updates to the database aren’t actually visible to the outside world yet)
3. Commit the transaction (updates become visible if the transaction is successful)

If one of the queries fails the database system may rollback either the entire transaction or just the failed query. This behaviour is dependent on the DBMS in use and how it is set up. The transaction can also be rolled back manually at any time before the commit.

Transactional databases

Databases that support transactions are called transactional databases. Most modern relational database management systems fall into this category.

Transactional filesystems

The Namesys Reiser4 filesystem for Linux [1] and the newest version of the Microsoft NTFS filesystem both support transactions [2], but file system transactions are rarely used in practice due to lack of compatibility with older systems.

See also

• Distributed transaction
• Nested transaction
• ACID properties
• Atomic transaction
• Software transactional memory
• Long running transaction
• Transaction processing

External links

• Transaction Processing

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In Australia and New Zealand, BankLink is an accounting service used by more than 200,000 small businesses for their GST and end of year tax. BankLink is available to businesses through their accountants.

The BankLink service electronically delivers bank transaction data from participating banks directly to the accountant. BankLink software then automatically codes as many transactions as possible. The accountant can then find out from the client the nature of any uncoded transactions using any of BankLink’s electronic reports.

BankLink offers business owners of a very cost effective process for completing their own accounts. It is extremely accurate and fast, and provides the security that the accounts have been completed professionally.

External links

• http://www.banklink.com.au
• http://www.banklink.co.nz

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In computer science, Algorithms for Recovery and Isolation Exploiting Semantics, or ARIES is a recovery algorithm designed to work with a no-force, steal database approach. One such algorithm is, ARIES, used by IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server and many other database systems.

Three main principles lie behind ARIES:

• Write ahead logging: Any change to an object is first recorded in the log, and the log must be written to stable storage before changes to the object are written to disk.

• Repeating history during Redo: On restart after a crash, ARIES retraces the actions of a database before the crash and brings the system back to the exact state that it was in before the crash. Then it undoes the transactions still active at crash time.

• Logging changes during Undo: Changes made to the database while undoing transactions are logged to ensure such an action isn’t repeated in the event of repeated restarts.

External references

• C. Mohan, A Transaction Recovery Method Supporting Fine-Granularity Locking and Partial Rollbacks Using Write-Ahead Logging, ACM Transactions on Database Systems, Vol. 17, No. 1, March 1992, pp. 94–162
• C. Mohan, Repeating History Beyond ARIES, Proceedings of 25th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, 1999

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The year 1951 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Computer science

• March 30 - Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

Technology

• July 5 - William Shockley invents the junction transistor.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - John Douglas Cockcroft, Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton
  • Chemistry - Edwin Mattison McMillan; Glenn Theodore Seaborg
  • Medicine - Max Theiler
• Copley Medal: David Keilin
• Wollaston Medal for Geology - Olaf Holtedahl

Births

• September 18 - John Clark (d. 2004), cloner, head of the Roslin Institute

Deaths

• April 6 - Robert Broom (b. 1866), paleontologist
• April 22 - Horace Donisthorpe (b. 1870), British entomologist

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