Luggage locks

Entries Tagged as '5'

Spread

Spread may refer to:

Spread (food), an edible paste put on other foods
the score difference being wagered on in spread betting
the measure of line inclination in rational trigonometry
Two-page spread a redundant term, also simply called “spread”, referring to two adjacent, facing pages in a magazine or other publication with conjoined or connected content
In finance, the difference in price between related securities,
- Bid/offer spread, between the buying and selling price of a commodity or security
- Spread trade, between two related securities or commodities
- Option adjusted spread, on mortgage backed securities where the borrower has the right to repay in full
- Yield spread, difference in percentage rate of return of two instruments
- Yield curve spread, on mortgage backed securities
a term used for speed reading in American high school debate.

The laying of Tarot cards in a certain manner

Database dump

For information on obtaining the Wikipedia database, see .

A database dump contains a record of the table structure and/or the data from a database and is usually in the form of a list of SQL queries. A database dump is most often used for backing up a database so that its contents can be restored in the event of data loss. Corrupted databases can often be recovered by analysis of the dump. Database dumps are often published by open source projects, to allow reuse or forking of the database.

References

External links

mysqldump — A Database Backup Program

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Strict two-phase locking

In computer science, strict two-phase locking (Strict 2PL) is a locking method used in concurrent systems.

The two rules of Strict 2PL are:

If a transaction T wants to read/write an object, it must request a shared/exclusive lock on the object.
All exclusive locks held by transaction T are released when T commits (and not before).

Here is an example of Strict 2PL in action with interleaved actions.

<math>

D = \begin{bmatrix}
T1 & T2 \\
S(A) & \\
R(A) & \\

      & S(A)   \\
      & R(A)   \\
      & X(B)   \\
      & R(B)   \\
      & W(B)   \\
      & Commit \\

X(C) & \\
R(C) & \\
W(C) & \\
Commit &
\end{bmatrix}
</math>

or in text form:

T1: S(A), R(A); T2: S(A), R(A), X(B), R(B), W(B), Commit; T1: X(C), R(C), W(C), Commit

where

S(O) is a shared lock action on an object O
X(O) is an exclusive lock action on an object O
R(O) is a read action on an object O
W(O) is a write action on an object O

Strict 2PL prevents transactions reading uncommitted data, overwriting uncommitted data, and unrepeatable reads. Thus, it prevents cascading rollbacks, since eXclusive locks (for write privileges) must be held until a transaction commits.

Strict 2PL does not guarantee a deadlock-free schedule

Avoiding deadlocks can be important in real time systems, and may additionally be difficult to enforce in distributed data bases, or fault tolerant systems with multiple redundancy.

A deadlocked schedule allowed under Strict 2PL:

<math>G = \begin{bmatrix}

T1 & T2\\
X(A) & \\

 & X(B) &  \\

X(B) & \\

& X(A) \end{bmatrix}</math>

Text:
T1: X(A) T2:X(B) T1:X(B) T2: X(A)

T1 is waiting for T2’s lock on B to be released, while T2 is waiting for T1’s lock on A to be released. These transactions cannot proceed and both are deadlocked.

There is no general solution to the problem of deadlocks in computing systems, so they must be anticipated and dealt with accordingly. Nonetheless, several solutions such as the Banker’s algorithm or the imposition of a partial ordering on lock acquisition exist for avoiding deadlocks under certain conditions.

Even more strict than strict two-phase locking is rigorous two-phase locking, in which transactions can be serialized by the order in which they commit. Under rigorous 2PL, all locks (shared and exclusive) must be held until a transaction commits. Most database systems use strict 2PL.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Gongoozler

Gongoozlers are people who enjoy watching activity on the canals in the United Kingdom. The term is also often used in a more general way to describe those who have an interest in canals and the canal life, but do not actively participate.

Etymology

“Gongoozler” may have been canal workers’ slang for an observer standing apparently idle on the towpath. Although it was certainly used derisively in the past there is only very mild derision attached to the term today, and it is regularly used, perhaps with a little irony, by gongoozlers to describe themselves and their hobby.

The word may have arisen from words in Lincolnshire dialect: gawn and gooze, both meaning to stare or gape. Although it might be presumed that such an expression would date from the nineteenth century, when canals were at their peak, the word is only recorded from the end of that century or the early twentieth. It was given wider use by the late L T C Rolt, who used it in his book about canal life, Narrow Boat, in 1944.

Aspects of Gongoozling

Gongoozling, much like trainspotting, is a hobby that can extend to all aspects of canals.

Canal artwork

The collection or creation of canal related artwork is a common pastime amongst Gongoozlers. This includes paintings, postcards and photographs.

Canal locks

Canal locks often attract spectators, including Gongoozlers, because the operation of manual canal locks is a complex affair, with a number of opportunities for mistakes to be made. Some observers have been known to heckle or harass the boat crews, whilst others carry “lock keys” and actively wish to help boat crews with their passage.

Canal history and technology

Whilst trainspotting is commonly associated with identifying engine makes, it is rare for Gongoozlers to do likewise. However an interest can occur for the history of a section of canal, or the operation of locks and alternative devices such as inclined planes, water slopes, and boat lifts with types like the Anderton boat lift, the Falkirk Wheel and the Strépy-Thieu boat lift.

Notable locations

Fradley Junction is a popular place to observe canal traffic, as are many other junctions, due to the occasional need for three boats to pass.

Staircase locks, which can hold many boats at once, are very popular amongst gongoozlers, making Foxton Locks an ideal location for Gongoozling.

Some locations have became known for their Gongoozlers thanks to local events that encourage an increased number of observers. Princess Street lock on the Rochdale Canal in Manchester city centre is normally quite quiet, however it becomes a popular attraction during the Manchester Mardi Gras (actually held in late August).

The Falkirk Wheel is a huge and spectacular feat of engineering, which attracts very large numbers of Gongoozlers.

The eight locks of Fonserannes on the Canal du Midi attract so many Gongoozlers that they have become the third most popular tourist attraction in Languedoc.

References

External Links

www.gongoozler.org - the online presence of the Canal Card Collectors Circle

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Two phase locking

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.

Fort La Reine

Fort La Reine, one of the forts of the Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye western expansion, was built in 1738. It was located on the Assiniboine River where present day Portage La Prairie stands. It served as a fur trading post and was the base of operations for much exploration north and west. From Fort La Reine, the explorers made their way onto Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan River.

Fort Dauphin, Fort Bourbon, Fort Paskoya, and Fort de la Corne all resulted from exploration carried out from this location by Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye, the youngest La Verendrye son.

External links

Manitoba Historical Society
Manitoba Historical Society
Manitoba Historical Society

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Network architecture

In computing, network architecture is the design of a computer network.

In telecommunication, the term network architecture has the following meanings:

The design principles, physical configuration, functional organization, operational procedures, and data formats used as the bases for the design, construction, modification, and operation of a communications network.
The structure of an existing communications network, including the physical configuration, facilities, operational structure, operational procedures, and the data formats in use.

With the development of distributed computing, the term network architecture has also come to denote classifications and implementations of distributed computing architectures. For example the applications architecture of the telephone network PSTN has been termed the Advanced Intelligent Network. There are any number of specific classifications but all lie on a continuum between the dumb network (e.g. Internet) and the intelligent computer network (e.g. the telephone network PSTN). Other networks contain various elements of these two classical types to make them suitable for various types of applications. Recently the context aware network which is a synthesis of the two has gained much interest with its ability to combine the best elements of both.

Access Methods

The function of methods is to determine how a computer will send data over the cable and how it determines successful delivery or failed delivery. Each machine residing on the computer network must share the same type of access method in order to successfully communicate. To address the issues of collisions on a network a set of rules, channel access methods, have been defined. Channel access methods ensure delivery of packets by preventing more than one computer sending data across the cable that may end in collision. The major types of access methods in networking are contention, lan switching, token passing, demand priority, and polling.

References

Federal Standard 1037C
MIL-STD-188
the seven layer OSI model
Guide to Networking Essentials[1]

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Sol de Fatima

Sol de Fátima is a Spanish language Catholic devotional magazine.

It is published by the Blue Army of Our Lady and is devoted to the message of Our Lady of Fatima.

It caused controversy in the September 1985 issue when it reported that one of the Fatima visionaries, Sister Lúcia dos Santos claimed that the Vatican had not complied with the Virgin Mary’s request to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This was reported to be because there was no specific mention of Russia. It was also claimed that she said that “many bishops attached no importance to it”.

It is claimed that the Virgin Mary promised that the Consecration of Russia would lead to Russia’s conversion and an era of peace. Many, believe Pope John Paul II fulfilled this request in 1984 by giving a blessing over the world, including Russia, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is commonly believed that Sister Lúcia verified that this ceremony fulfilled the requests of the Virgin Mary.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Fobney Lock

Fobney Lock is a lock on the River Kennet in the Small Mead area of Reading in the English county of Berkshire.

Fobney Lock was built between 1718 and 1723 under the supervision of the engineer John Hore of Newbury, and this stretch of the river is now administered by British Waterways and known as the Kennet Navigation. It has a rise/fall of 7 ft 8 in (2.24 m).

There have been ongoing plans to turn Fobney Island, adjacent to the lock, into a wetlands nature reserve.

References

Duty of Loyalty

Duty of Loyalty is a term used in corporate law to describe a fiduciary’s loyalty to a corporation.

Section 8.60 of The Model Business Corporation states there is a conflict of interest when the director knows that at the time of a commitment that he or a related person is 1) a party to the transaction or 2) has a beneficial financial interest in the transaction that the interest.

Conditions of self-dealing transaction

A key player and the corporation are on opposite sides of the transaction
The key player has helped influence the corporation’s decisions to enter the transaction
The key player’s personal financial interest are at least potentially in conflict with the financial interests of the corporation.

Definition: General duty imposed on a person with power

Ways the proponent of a self-dealing transaction can avoid invalidation

By showing approval by a majority of disinterested directors
Showing ratification by shareholders (MBCA 8.63)
Showing transaction was inherently fair (MBCA 8.61)

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Thiru Edu-Vasippu

Thiru Edu-Vasippu is the Indian ayyavazhi festival of melodiously reading the contents of Akilattirattu Ammanai, celebrated in Pathis and Nizhal Thangals. It is read for periods of three days, five days, ten days or seventeen days. But in the Pathis, strictly, it was read for seventeen days and hence completed every year; Thiru Edu was scheduled according to that.

The part which was read on the first day was called Akilam one and the part read on day two was called Akilam two, and so on. Since it was read for seventeen days it was scheduled up to Akilam seventeen.

Gowda

Gowda ( Gauda or Gowdru) is usually the name given to the head of the family or family group in the state of Karnataka in India. It is similar to Goundar or Kaoundar of Tamilnadu

It is derived from Archaic Tamil-Kannada term Kavunda denoting a village or family head. People belonging to certain castes and communities in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu use it as a surname. Gowda or Gowdar is commonly used as surnames by people belonging to Kuruba, Lingayat,Vokkaliga, Ediga,Madiga communities. Many more people of different communities use Gowda as surnames. Communities like Vokkaliga, Ediga, Kuruba, Yadava, Golla, Uppaara, Nayaka, Madiga have similar culture and food habits (eg. non-vegetarians by diet, Hindus by religion). However there are certain Gowda’s sect that are strictly vegetarians. For example Namadhary Vokkaliga Gowdas are strict vegetarians. Some sects of lingayats in Karnataka use Gowda as surname and they are also very strict vegetarians.

Vokkaliga Gowda is the second largest community in Karnataka after the Lingayats. Vokkaliga Gowda community has played an important role in the economy of karnataka and India.

Kuruba Gowda Community is the third largest community in Karnataka after Lingayats and Vokkaligas.

Popular Vokkaliga Gowda personalities are; S M Krishna, Kengal hanumantaiah, Kuvempu, H D Devegowda, Venkatachalaiah, Hamsalekha, Actor Jaggesh, H D Kumara swamy, Sri Kempegowda, Actor turned politician Ambareesh, Ex (and late) Chief Justice Hombegowda, Bala Gangadhara Swamiji, G K Veeresh, Purna Chandra Tejaswi etc.

External Links

VPA Vokkaligara Parishat of America

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Absolute deviation

In statistics, the absolute deviation of an element of a data set is the absolute difference between that element and a given point. Typically the point from which the deviation is measured is the value of either the median or the mean of the data set.

<math>|D| = |x_i-\overline{x}| </math>

where

|D| is the absolute deviation,

x_i is the data element

and <math>\overline{x}</math> is the chosen measure of central tendency of the data set.

The average absolute deviation (or simply average deviation) of a data set is the average (or expected value) of the absolute deviations and is a summary statistic of statistical dispersion or variability.

The average absolute deviation of a set {x₁, x₂, …, x_n} is

<math>\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n |x_i-\overline{x}|</math>

The choice of measure of central tendency has a marked effect on the value of the average deviation. For example, for the data set {2, 2, 3, 4, 14}:

Measure of central tendency	Absolute deviation
Mean = 5	2 - 5\| + \|2 - 5\| + \|3 - 5\| + \|4 - 5\| + \|14 - 5\|}{5} = 3.6</MATH>
Median = 3	2 - 3\| + \|2 - 3\| + \|3 - 3\| + \|4 - 3\| + \|14 - 3\|}{5} = 2.8</MATH>
Mode = 2	2 - 2\| + \|2 - 2\| + \|3 - 2\| + \|4 - 2\| + \|14 - 2\|}{5} = 3.0</MATH>

The average absolute deviation from the median is less than or equal to the average absolute deviation from the mean. In fact, the average absolute deviation from the median is always less than or equal to the average absolute deviation from any other fixed number.

The average absolute deviation from the mean is less than or equal to the standard deviation. One way of proving that relies on Jensen’s inequality.

The mean absolute deviation is the average absolute deviation from the mean and is a common measure of forecast error in time series analysis. It should be noted that although the term mean deviation is used as a synonym for mean absolute deviation, to be precise it is not the same; in its strict interpretation (namely, omitting the absolute value operation), the mean deviation of any data set from its mean is always zero.

The mean absolute deviation of a sample is a biased estimator of the mean absolute deviation of the population.

External links

Advantages of the mean absolute deviation

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Mental accounting

A concept first named by Richard Thaler (1980), mental accounting attempts to describe the process whereby people code, categorise and evaluate economic outcomes. Mental accounting theorists argue that people group their assets into a number of non-fungible mental accounts.

One detailed application of mental accounting, the behavioural life cycle hypothesis (Shefrin & Thaler, 1988), posits that people mentally frame assets as belonging to either current income, current wealth or future income and this has implications for their behaviour as the accounts are largely non-fungible and marginal propensity to consume out of each account is different.

Mental accounting, utility, value and transaction

In mental accounting theory, framing means that the way a person subjectively frames a transaction in their mind will determine the utility they receive or expect. This concept is similarly used in prospect theory, and many mental accounting theorists adopt that theory as the value function in their analyses.

Another very important concept used to understand mental accounting is that of modified utility function. There are 2 values attached to any transaction - acquisition value and transaction value. Acquisition value is the money that one is ready to part with for physically acquiring some good. Transaction value is the value one attaches to having a good deal. If the price that one is paying is equal to the mental reference price for the good, the transaction value is zero. If the price is lower than the reference price, the transaction utility is positive.

Mental accounting cost

More generally, a mental accounting cost or mental transaction cost, a kind of transaction cost, is the cost of making a useful decision, especially of a consumer making a useful decision to buy, and may set a lower bound on useful price granularity in a market. In a software engineering context the latter phrase refers to the cost to the user of making a useful selection in the user interface, in contrast to a computational transaction cost such as CPU, memory, or network usage.

References

Benartzi, S. and Thaler, R. H. “Myopic loss-aversion and the equity premium puzzle” (1995) Quarterly Journal of Economics, CX , 75-92.
Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., Thaler, R. H. “Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem” (1990) Journal of Political Economy, 98(6) , 1325-1348.
Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., Thaler, R. H. “Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias” (1991) Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1) , 193-206.
Shefrin, H. H. and Thaler, R. H. “The behavioral life-cycle hypothesis” (1988) Economic Inquiry, 26 , 609-643.
Thaler, R. H. “Towards a positive theory of consumer choice” (1980) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1, 39-60
Thaler, R. H. “Mental accounting and consumer choice” (1985) Marketing Science, 4 , 199-214.
Thaler, R. H. “Saving, fungibility and mental accounts” (1990) Journal of Economic Perspectives, 4 , 193-205.
Thaler, R. H. “Mental accounting matters” (1999) Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12(3) , 183-206.

External links

The three main components of Mental Accounting.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Linus Yale, Jr.

Linus Yale, Jr. (14 April 1821 - 25 December 1868) was an American mechanical engineer and manufacturer, best known for his inventions of locks, especially the cylinder lock.

Linus Yale, Jr. was born in Salisbury, New York. Yale’s father, Linus Yale, Sr., opened a lock shop in the 1840s in Newport, New York, specializing in bank locks. His son joined him in the business in 1850, and introduced some combination safe locks and key-operated cylinder locks around 1862. Then in 1868, he and Henry Robinson Towne founded the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company in the South End section of Stamford, Connecticut to produce cylinder locks. Yale died later that year.

Yale & Towne Lock Company later became so successful that Stamford was later nicknamed “Lock City.”

Yale’s cylinder lock, also called a pin-tumbler lock, was based on a principle similar to that of the first key-operated lock invented by the Egyptians around 2000 B.C.

Inventions patented by Linus Yale, Jr. and his estate from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:

Patents

6 May 1851 Pat. #8,071 - Newport, New York
19 Oct 1852 Pat. #9,350 - Newport, New York
21 Dec 1852 Pat. #9,497 - Newport, New York
12 July 1853 Pat. #9,850 - Newport, New York
12 Jul 1853 Pat. #9,853 - Newport, New York
3 Jun 1856 Pat. #15,031 - Newport, New York
19 Oct 1858 Pat. #21,861 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
9 Nov 1858 Pat. #22,048 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
12 Jun 1860 Pat. #28710 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
29 Jan 1861 Pat. #31,278 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
14 May 1861 Pat. #32,331 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
27 Jun 1865 Pat. #48,475 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
27 Jun 1865 Pat. #48,476 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
6 Feb 1866 Pat. #52,484 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
19 Nov 1867 Pat. #71,110 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
7 Jan 1868 Pat. #73,152 - Cooperstown, New York
4 Feb 1868 Pat. #74,025 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
15 Sep 1868 Pat. #82,192 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
4 Jan 1870 Pat. #98,536 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
19 Sep 1871 Pat. #119,212 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
24 Oct 1871 Pat. #120,177 - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts

Publication

R. H. Yale, Yale Genealogy and History of Wales (Beatrice, Neb., 1908)

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Devil’s coup

The Devil’s Coup is a declarer play in Bridge that prevents the defense from taking an apparently natural trump trick. A typical example is when the defense holds Qx opposite Jxx in trumps.

The aim is to come to a position similar to that shown below. Spades are trumps and the lead is in dummy (North):

The 3 is lead. If East ruffs low, then declarer overruffs low and cashes the Ace and King of spades. If East ruffs high, declarer overruffs with the K and finesses West for the Q to make the remaining two tricks.

Devil’s coups are fairly rare: not only the trump suit but the side suits must lie well for declarer.

Algoma (provincial electoral district)

Algoma was a provincial electoral district in northern Ontario, Canada that elected one member to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It existed from 1867 to 1884, 1902 to 1934 and from 1967 to 1999. In 1999, the riding was abolished into Algoma—Manitoulin.

Members of the Legislative Assembly/Members of Provincial Parliament

This riding elected the following members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

Frederick William Cumberland, Conservative (1867-1874)
Simon James Dawson, Liberal (1875-1878)
Robert Adam Lyon, Liberal (1878-1884)

William Smyth, Conservative (1902-1908)
Albert Grigg, Conservative (1908-1915)
John Robb, Conservative (1915-1934)

Bernt Gilbertson, Progressive Conservative (1967-1975)
Bud Wildman, New Democrat (1975-1999)

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Code momentum

In computing, code momentum is the situation where large amounts of code dependency are repeated in programming code creating a stubborn dependency. That is a sort of momentum. The more things are done one way, the more definitely you’re headed in that direction, and the harder it is to change course. Some claim that minimizing dependencies limits momentum and makes it easier to change course.

Code momentum is alleged to be an example of an anti-pattern.

Criticism

However, coding to an API with multiple implementations to choose from is not necessarily harmful. For example, JDBC is the de-facto standard for communicating with relational databases in Java (when not using object-relational mapping). Although using JDBC creates a dependency on JDBC, that is not necessarily a big deal - as opposed to using some non-standard, vendor-specific extensions or SQL syntax, which does create a dependency on one database and makes it harder to shift.

Moreover, trying to reduce external dependencies too much may result in Not invented here syndrome, which can be counterproductive.

References

Code Momentum from Perl Design Patterns Book

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Days Go By

“Days Go By” is a song by the band Dirty Vegas from their eponymous album. The song became a radio hit in 2002 and received the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. “Days Go By” received significant public exposure in a commercial for a Mistubishi car that year as a 2003 model. The music video for the song is unusual in that it largely consists of two dancers representing one character performing a routine of popping, locking, the robot and breakdancing in front of a restaurant in East Los Angeles, California. The video was also filmed there. The young dancer in the video is Garland Spencer.

Pop culture occurrences

In a commercial for the 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse in which a young woman dances while in the passenger seat.
- The Eclipse commercial was in turn parodied by a skit on Chappelle’s Show in which Dave Chappelle leaves the dancer by the side of the road. This was for the 2004 Eclipse.
In the video game DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution
On the November 28 2006 episode of Standoff entitled Peer Group, the acoustic version of Days Go By (which was featured on Dirty Vegas’ self-titled album as a bonus track) was played at the end of the episode.
In 2006 a promotional video for HBO featured the acoustic version of the song.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

ISAM

ISAM stands for Indexed Sequential Access Method, a method for storing data for fast retrieval. ISAM was originally developed by IBM for mainframe computers and today forms the basic data store of almost all databases, both relational and otherwise.

In an ISAM system, data is organized into records which are composed of fixed length fields. Records are stored sequentially, originally to speed access on a tape system. A secondary set of hash tables known as indexes contain “pointers” into the tables, allowing individual records to be retrieved without having to search the entire data set. This is a departure from the contemporary navigational databases, in which the pointers to other data were stored inside the records themselves. The key improvement in ISAM is that the indexes are small and can be searched quickly, allowing the database to then access only the records it needs. Additionally modifications to the data do not require changes to other data, only the table and indexes in question.

Relational databases can be easily built on an ISAM framework with the addition of logic to maintain the validity of the links between the tables. Typically the field being used as the link, the foreign key, will be indexed for quick lookup. While this is slower than simply storing the pointer to the related data directly in the records, it also means that changes to the physical layout of the data do not require any updating of the pointers — the entry will still be valid.

ISAM is very simple to understand and implement, as it primarily consists of direct, sequential access to a database file. It is also very inexpensive. The tradeoff is that each client machine must manage its own connection to each file it accesses. This, in turn, leads to the possibility of conflicting inserts into those files, leading to an inconsistent database state. This is typically solved with the addition of a client-server framework which marshals client requests and maintains ordering. This is the basic concept behind a DBMS (Database Management System), which is a client layer over the underlying data store.

ISAM was replaced at IBM with a methodology called VSAM (Virtual Storage Access Method). Still later, IBM developed DB2, which, as of 2004, IBM promotes as their primary database management system. VSAM is the physical access method used in DB2.

MySQL implements and extends ISAM as MyISAM.

The RMS file system included with the OpenVMS operating system is one example of an ISAM file system. Borland Paradox is another.

Nisir

The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal claimed that he had been to Mount Nisir and saw the boat of Utnapishtim. His army and he then took artifacts from the boat and put them in his museum of ancient artifacts. However, this museum has long since been destroyed so archaeology doesn’t know how much truth there is in the story. Mount Nisir is supposedly in modern-day Iran.

The word nişir (spelled with a dot under the s) may have come from the Akkadian word nişirtu which, with reference to localities, had the “connotation of hidden, inaccessible, secluded” and also meant arcane and secret.Brinkman and others (editors), The Assyrian Dictionary, University of Chicago (1980), vol Š-2, page 22, upper left column. In other words, nişir could be descriptive, in addition to being a proper name. The partly translated sentence in line 141a of the Gilgamesh flood myth is “KUR-ú KUR ni-şir held tight the boat.” The first KUR is followed by a phonetic complement -ú which indicates that KUR-ú is to be read in Akkadian as šadú (hill). The second KUR without the complement is read mātu (country). Since šadú (sha-doo) can mean mountain as well as hill, and scholars were familiar with the expression Mount Ararat, it has become customary to translate “KUR-ú KUR ni-şir” as Mount Nisir or Mount Nimush.

This noun phrase was probably derived from an earlier Sumerian edition and was first written in clay about 2600 BC when the only written language was the Sumerian language. Therefore, we should read KUR as a Sumerian word, not as Akkadian. In Sumerian, KUR did not mean mountain. The Sumerian word for mountain was HURSAG. In Sumerian, KUR meant land, or hill, or country, especially a foreign country. Hence the sentence “KUR-ú KUR ni-şir held tight the boat” should be read as “A mound in an inaccessible country held the boat tight.”Robert M. Best, Noah’s Ark and the Ziusudra Epic (1999), page 277. A sand bar in a marsh would qualify.

References

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Av drive

An Av drive is a hard disk drive which is designed specifically for audio and video purposes. They were used in the late 1990s for sustained media transfers: they delayed thermal recalibration so it would not interfeer with the transfer.

They are now obsolete, as normal hard drives are designed to handle realtime media through servo calibration to monitor head alignment and through the use of larger memory buffers.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Luxembourgish language

Luxembourgish (, , , ), also spelled Luxemburgish, is a West Germanic language spoken in Luxembourg. It was proclaimed one of the three official languages of Luxembourg in 1984 (along with French and German for judicial and administrative purposes).Mémorial A no. 16 (27 February 1984), pp. 196–197: “Loi du 24 février 1984 sur le régime des langues”.

There are about 300,000 people who speak Luxembourgish worldwide.

Language family

Luxembourgish belongs to the West Central German group of High German languages, and is the primary example of a Moselle Franconian language.

Usage

Luxembourgish is also spoken in small parts of the surrounding countries of Belgium (in the Province of Luxembourg near Arlon), France (in small parts of the Lorraine) and Germany (around Bitburg and Trier). In Germany and Lorraine it is simply considered as the local German dialect. Since the Second World War, however, the language has not been taught in these countries, with the result that use of Luxembourgish is largely restricted to the older generations.

Furthermore, the language is spoken by a few descendants of Luxembourg immigrants in the United States, and a closely related variety is spoken by emigrants to Transylvania, Romania (Siebenbürgen).

Varieties

There are several distinct dialect forms of Luxembourgish including Areler (from Arlon), Eechternoacher (Echternach), Kliärrwer (Clervaux), Minetter, Miseler (Moselle), Stater (Luxembourg city), Veiner (Vianden) and Weelzer (Wiltz). Further small vocabulary differences may be seen even between small villages.

Increasing mobility of the population and the dissemination of the language through mass media such as radio and television are leading to a gradual standardisation towards a “Standard Luxembourgish” which has been labelled koine.

Surrounding languages

There is no distinct geographic boundary between the use of Luxembourgish and the use of other closely related High German dialects (for example Lorraine Franconian); it instead forms a dialect continuum of gradual change.

Spoken Luxembourgish is relatively hard to understand for speakers of German who are not familiar with Moselle Franconian dialects, though they can usually read the language. For Germans who are familiar with Moselle Franconian dialects, it is relatively easy to understand Luxembourgish, but more difficult to speak it properly because of the French influence. Even literary German, as it is written in Luxembourg, tends to include many French words and phrases.

There is no mutual intelligibility between Luxembourgish and French or any of the Romance dialects spoken in the adjacent parts of Belgium and France.

Written Luxembourgish

Standardisation

A number of proposals for standardising the orthography of Luxembourgish can be documented, going back to the middle of the 19th century. There was no officially recognised system, however, until the adoption of the “OLO” (ofizjel lezebuurjer ortografi) on 5 June 1946.[1] Mémorial A no. 40 (7 September 1946), pp. 637–641: “Arrêté ministériel du 5 juin 1946 portant fixation d’un système officiel d’orthographe luxembourgeois”. The proponents of this orthography were less interested in imposing a standardised spelling for the language than in providing a system for speakers of all varieties of Luxembourgish to transcribe words the way they pronounced them. Furthermore, the rules were evidently designed so that these phonetic transcriptions would resemble the corresponding German (or French) words as little as possible. For example:

fiireje, rééjelen, shwèzt, veinejer (cf. German vorigen, Regeln, schwätzt, weniger)
bültê, âprê, Shaarel, ssistém (cf. French bulletin, emprunt, Charles, système)

The political motivations behind certain decisions (e.g., never to use “ö” and “ä”, or not to capitalise nouns as in German) are easy to imagine, but this proposed orthography was a failure precisely because it distanced itself so drastically from existing “foreign” standards that people were already familiar with.

A more successful standard eventually emerged from the work of the committee of specialists charged with the task of creating the Luxemburger Wörterbuch, published in 5 volumes between 1950 and 1977. The orthographic conventions adopted in this decades-long project, set out in Bruch (1955), provided the basis of the standard orthography that became official on 10 October 1975.Mémorial B no. 68 (16 November 1976), pp. 1365–1390: “Arrêté ministériel du 10 octobre 1975 portant réforme du système officiel d’orthographe luxembourgeoise”. Modifications to this standard were proposed by the Conseil permanent de la langue luxembourgeoise and adopted officially in the spelling reform of 30 July 1999.[2] Mémorial A no. 112 (11 August 1999), pp. 2040–2048: “Règlement grand-ducal du 30 juillet 1999 portant réforme du système officiel d’orthographe luxembourgeoise”. A detailed explanation of current practice for Luxembourgish can be found in Schanen & Lulling (2003).

Alphabet

The Luxembourgish alphabet consists of the 26 Latin letters plus three modified letters: “é”, “ä”, and “ë”. In loanwords from French and German, other diacritics are usually preserved:

French: Boîte, Enquête, Piqûre, etc.
German: blöd, Büro, Bühne, etc.

Eifeler Regel

A striking phonological process in Luxembourgish causes the deletion of final in certain contexts. This phenomenon was originally documented in the late 19th century for the dialect of the Eifel region, hence the name Eifeler Regel (Eifel Rule).Kiehl, Johannes. (2001) Regularität und Variabilität der n-Tilgung im Lëtzebuergeschen (”Eifeler Regel”). Ein unüberwachtes, induktives Lernverfahren. Magisterarbeit im Fach Computerlinguistik, Universität Trier.

Since Luxembourgish orthography strives for phonetic accuracy, this deletion of n is also reflected in writing. Nowadays the Eifeler Regel is presented as a spelling rule, but its correct application still depends on a knowledge of spoken Luxembourgish. The rule targets words ending in -n or -nn, and since this is an extremely common ending for verbs, plural nouns, and function words (e.g. articles, pronouns, prepositions) in Luxembourgish, its effects are widespread. The basic rule can be described as follows (see Schanen & Lulling 2003):

Final -n(n) is deleted before another consonant.

(between words) den + Ball → de Ball (”the ball”), wann + mer ginn → wa mer ginn (”when we go”)

(in compound words) Dammen + Schong → Dammeschong (”women’s shoes”)

<li>It is not deleted, however:

den Tuerm (”the tower”), wann hien drénkt (”when he drinks”)

Gromperenzalot (”potato salad”), fënnefandrësseg (”35″)

<li>before a vowel

den Apel (”the apple”), wann ech ginn (”when I go”)

Ouerenentzündung (”ear infection”)

<li>at the end of a sentence or before a punctuation mark

Ech hunn (wéi gëschter) vill geschafft. (”I have (like yesterday) done a lot of work.”)

<li>Deletion is optional before the following function words beginning in s: säin, si/se/s’, sech, seng, sou (and perhaps others).
</ul>

It is important to know that many words ending in -n or -nn are not affected by the Eifeler Regel:

proper nouns: Schuman, Johann, München
loanwords: Roman, Maschin(n), nouns ending in -ioun
the prefix on-: onvergiesslech (”unforgettable”)
many nouns and adjectives (for historical reasons): Mann (man), dënn (thin), Kroun (crown), Loun (salary), blann (blind), Reen (rain), …

In fact, n as a stem consonant (as opposed to part of a grammatical ending) is generally stable in content words, with notable exceptions such as Wäi(n) (wine), Stee(n) (stone), geschwë(nn) (soon).

When final -n is dropped from a plural noun whose singular form also ends in -e, a diaeresis must be used to distinguish the plural:

Chance (singular), Chancen (plural, full form), Chancë (plural + Eifel Rule)

Grammar

Nominal syntax

Luxembourgish has three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and has three cases (nominative, accusative, and dative). These are marked morphologically on determiners and pronouns. As in German, there is no morphological gender distinction in the plural.

The forms of the articles and of some selected determiners are given below:

nominative/accusative
	singular			plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
definite	den	d’	d’	d’
def. emphatic	deen	déi	dat	déi
demonstrative	dësen	dës	dëst	dës
indefinite	en	eng	en	—
negative	keen	keng	keen	keng
“his”	säin	seng	säin	seng
“her/their”	hiren	hir	hiert	hir

dative
	singular			plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
definite	dem	der	dem	den
def. emphatic	deem	där	deem	deenen
demonstrative	dësem	dëser	dësem	dësen
indefinite	engem	enger	engem	—
negative	kengem	kenger	kengem	kengen
“his”	sengem	senger	sengem	sengen
“her/their”	hirem	hirer	hirem	hiren

Distinct nominative forms survive in a few nominal phrases such as der Däiwel (”the devil”) and eiser Herrgott (”our Lord”). Rare examples of the genitive are also found: Enn des Mounts (”end of the month”), Ufanks der Woch (”at the beginning of the week”). The functions of the genitive are normally expressed using a combination of the dative and a possessive determiner: e.g. dem Mann säi Buch (lit. “to the man his book”, i.e. “the man’s book”). This is known as a periphrastic genitive, and is a phenomenon also commonly seen in dialectal and colloquial German, and in Dutch.

The forms of the personal pronouns are given in the following table (unstressed forms appear in parentheses):

	nominative	accusative	dative
1sg	ech	mech	mir (mer)
2sg	du (de)	dech	dir (der)
3sgm	hien (en)	hien (en)	him (em)
3sgf	si (se)	si (se)	hir (er)
3sgn	hatt (et)	hatt (et)	him (em)
1pl	mir (mer)	äis/eis	äis/eis
2pl	dir (der)	iech	iech
3pl	si (se)	si (se)	hinnen (en)

The 2pl form is also used as a polite singular (like French vous, see T-V distinction); the forms are capitalised in writing. Women and girls can be referred to with forms of the neuter pronoun hatt:

Dat ass d’Nathalie. Hatt ass midd, well et vill a sengem Gaart geschafft huet. (”That’s Nathalie. She is tired because she has worked a lot in her garden.”)

Adjectives

Luxembourgish morphology distinguishes two types of adjective: attributive and predicative. Predicative adjectives appear with verbs like sinn (”to be”), and receive no extra ending:

De Mann ass grouss. (masculine, “The man is tall.”)
D’Fra ass grouss. (feminine, “The woman is tall.”)
D’Meedchen ass grouss. (neuter, “The girl is tall.”)
D’Kanner si grouss. (plural, “The children are tall.”)

Attributive adjectives are placed before the noun they describe, and change their ending according to the grammatical gender, number, and case:

de grousse Mann (masculine)
déi grouss Fra (feminine)
dat grousst Meedchen (neuter)
déi grouss Kanner (plural)

Interesting to note is how the definite article changes with the use of an attributive adjective: feminine d goes to déi (or di), neuter d’ goes to dat, and plural d’ changes to déi.

The comparative in Luxembourgish is formed analytically, i.e. the adjective itself is not altered (compare the use of -er in German and English; tall → taller, klein → kleiner). Instead it is formed using the adverb méi: e.g. schéin → méi schéin

Lëtzebuerg ass méi schéi wéi Esch. (”Luxembourg is prettier than Esch.”)

The superlative involves a synthetic form consisting of the adjective and the suffix -st: e.g. schéin → schéinst (compare German schönst, English prettiest). Attributive modification requires the emphatic definite article and the inflected superlative adjective:

dee schéinste Mann (”the most handsome man”)
déi schéinst(e) Fra (”the prettiest woman”)

Predicative modification uses either the same adjectival structure or the adverbial structure am+ -sten: e.g. schéin → am schéinsten:

Lëtzebuerg ass dee schéinsten / deen allerschéinsten / am schéinsten. (”Luxembourg is the most beautiful (of all).”)

Some common adjectives have exceptional comparative and superlative forms:

gutt, besser, am beschten (”good, better, best”)
vill, méi, am meeschten (”much, more, most”)
wéineg, manner, am mannsten (”few, fewer, fewest”)

Word-order

Luxembourgish exhibits “verb second” word order in clauses. More specifically, Luxembourgish is a V2-SOV language, like German and Dutch. In other words, we find the following finite clausal structures:

the finite verb in second position in declarative clauses and wh-questions

Ech kafen en Hutt. Muer kafen ech en Hutt. (lit. “I buy a hat. Tomorrow buy I a hat.)

Wat kafen ech haut? (lit. “What buy I today?”)

the finite verb in first position in yes/no questions and finite imperatives

Bass de midd? (”Are you tired?”)

Gëff mer deng Hand! (”Give me your hand!”)

the finite verb in final position in subordinate clauses

Du weess, datt ech midd sinn. (lit. “You know, that I tired am.”)

Non-finite verbs (infinitives and participles) generally appear in final position:

compound past tenses

Ech hunn en Hutt kaaft. (lit. “I have a hat bought.”)

infinitival complements

Du solls net esou vill Kaffi drénken. (lit. “You should not so much coffee drink.”)

infinitival clauses (e.g., used as imperatives)

Nëmme Lëtzebuergesch schwätzen! (lit. “Only Luxembourgish speak!”)

These rules interact so that in subordinate clauses, the finite verb and any non-finite verbs must all cluster at the end. Luxembourgish allows different word orders in these cases:

Hie freet, ob ech komme kann. (cf. German Er fragt, ob ich kommen kann.)

Hie freet, ob ech ka kommen. (cf. Dutch Hij vraagt, of ik kan komen.)

This is also the case when two non-finite verb forms occur together:

Ech hunn net kënne kommen. (cf. Dutch Ik heb niet kunnen komen.)

Ech hunn net komme kënnen. (cf. German Ich habe nicht kommen können.)

Luxembourgish (like Dutch but unlike German) allows prepositional phrases to appear after the verb cluster in subordinate clauses:

alles, wat Der ëmmer wollt wëssen iwwer Lëtzebuerg

(lit. “everything what you always wanted know about Luxembourg”)

Vocabulary

Luxembourgish has borrowed many French words. For example, the name for a bus driver is Buschauffeur (also Dutch), which would be Busfahrer in German and Chauffeur de bus in French.

Some words are different from High German but have equivalents in German dialects. An example would be the word potato, which is Gromper in Luxembourgish, but pomme de terre in French and Kartoffel in High German. Other words are exclusive to Luxembourgish, for example the word for “Match”, which is “Fixfeier”.

Selected common phrases

Note: Words spoken in sound clip do not reflect all words on this list.

Jo. Yes.
Neen. No.
Villäicht. Maybe.
Moien. Hello.
Gudde Moien. Good Morning.
Gudde Mëtteg. Good Afternoon.
Gudden Owend. Good Evening.
Äddi. Goodbye.
Merci. Thank you.
Firwat? Why
Ech weess nët. I don’t know.
Ech verstinn nët. I don’t understand.
Watgelift? or Entschëllegt? Excuse me?
Metzleschjong. Butcher’s son.
Schwätzt dier Däitsch/Franséisch/Englesch? Do you speak German/French/English?
Wéi heeschs du? What is your name?
Wéi geet et? How are you?
Politeschen Anstand. Political Decency
Sou. So.
Fräi. Free.
Heem. Home.
Ech. I.
An. and.
Mäin. my.
Iesel. donkey.
Mat. With.
Kand. Kid/Child.
Wee. Way.
Gromper. Potato.

Neologisms

Neologisms in Luxembourgish include both entirely new words, and the attachment of new meanings to old words in everyday speech. The most recent neologisms come from the English language in the fields of telecommunications, computer science, and the Internet.

Recent neologisms in Luxembourgish include:Lulling, Jérôme. (2002) La créativité lexicale en luxembourgeois, Doctoral thesis, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier III.

direct loans from English: Browser, Spam, CD, Fitness, Come-back, Terminal, hip, cool, tip-top, Websäit (website)
also found in German: Sichmaschinn (search engine), schwaarzt Lach (black hole), Handy (mobile phone)
native Luxembourgish
- déck as an emphatic like ganz and vill, e.g. Dëse Kuch ass déck gutt! (”This cake is really good!”)
- dk, short for décke Kuss (”big fat kiss”), used to sign off emails and texts.
- schnutzi butzi
- zockermausi
recent expressions used by teenagers mainly: oh mëllen! (”oh crazy”), “en décken gelénkt” or “cassé” (”you’ve been owned”)

Academic projects

Between 2000 and 2002, the Luxembourgish linguist, Jérôme Lulling, compiled a lexical database of 125,000 word forms as the basis for the very first Luxembourgish spellchecker (Projet C.ORT.IN.A).

The LaF (Lëtzebuergesch als Friemsprooch – Luxembourgish as a Foreign Language) is a set of four language proficiency certifications for Luxembourgish and follows the ALTE framework of language examination standards. The tests are administered by the Centre de Langues Luxembourg, which is a member of the ALTE.

Footnotes

References

Bruch, Robert. (1955) Précis de grammaire luxembourgeoise. Bulletin Linguistique et Ethnologique de l’Institut Grand-Ducal, Luxembourg, Linden. (2nd edition of 1968)
Schanen, François, and Jérôme Lulling. (2003) Introduction à l’orthographe luxembourgeoise. (text available in French and Luxembourgish)

Books

In English

NEWTON, Gerald (ed.), Luxembourg and Lëtzebuergesch: Language and Communication at the Crossroads of Europe, Oxford, 1996, ISBN 0-19-824016-3.

In French

BRAUN, Josy, et al. (en coll. avec Projet Moien), Grammaire de la langue luxembourgeoise. Luxembourg, Ministère de l’Éducation nationale et de la Formation professionnelle 2005. ISBN 2-495-00025-8.

SCHANEN, François, Parlons Luxembourgeois, Langue et culture linguistique d’un petit pays au coeur de l’Europe. Paris, L’Harmattan 2004, ISBN 2-7475-6289-1.

SCHANEN, François / ZIMMER, Jacqui, 1,2,3 Lëtzebuergesch Grammaire. Band 1: Le groupe verbal. Band 2: Le groupe nominal. Band 3: L’orthographe. Esch-sur-Alzette, éditions Schortgen, 2005 et 2006.

In German

BRUCH Robert, Grundlegung einer Geschichte des Luxemburgischen, Luxembourg, Publications scientifiques et littéraires du Ministère de l’Éducation nationale, 1953, vol. I; Das Luxemburgische im westfränkischen Kreis, Luxembourg, Publications scientifiques et littéraires du Ministère de l’Éducation nationale, 1954, vol. II.

MOULIN, Claudine an Nübling, Damaris (Erausg.): Perspektiven einer linguistischen Luxemburgistik. Studien zu Diachronie und Synchronie., Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg, 2006. This book is published with the support of the Fonds National de la Recherche

GILLES, Peter, “Die Emanzipation des Lëtzebuergeschen aus dem Gefüge der deutschen Mundarten”, in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 117 (1998), 20-35.

BERG, Guy, Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sin: Soziolinguistische und sprachtypologische Betrachtungen zur luxemburgischen Mehrsprachigkeit., Tübingen, 1993 (Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 140). ISBN 3-484-31140-1.

(phrasebook) REMUS, Joscha, Lëtzebuergesch Wort für Wort. Kauderwelsch Band 104. Bielefeld, Reise Know-How Verlag 1997. ISBN 3-89416-310-0.

External links

RTL.lu Radio-Télé Lëtzebuerg
UNIVERSAL - DEKLARATIOUN VUN DE MËNSCHERECHTER
Gefahr oder Chance für das Luxemburgische?
Centre for Luxembourg Studies at the University of Sheffield (UK)
The Centre de Langues Luxembourg page at the ALTE site
Luxembourgish Lesson on Youtube
Conseil Permanent de la Langue Luxembourgeoise

Spellcheckers and dictionaries

Wikipedia article about Luxembourgish Spellcheckers
Spellcheckers for Luxembourgish [3], [4]
Luxdico online dictionary (24.000 words)
Luxembourgish Dictionary with pronunciation, translation to and from English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Fletcher’s checksum

Fletcher’s checksum is one of several types of checksum algorithms, which are relatively simple processes used by computers to check the integrity of data.

The implementation is best described on the page for Adler-32 (a very similar algorithm). Replacing the modulo-65521 operation on large numbers with modulo-65535 gives you the Fletcher algorithm instead of Adler.

It is designed to overcome some of the inadequacies of simply summing all the bytes as in the original checksum.
Fletcher’s checksum, unlike the original checksum, can detect the inserting/deleting of zero value bytes, the reordering of bytes, and the incrementing and decrementing of bytes in opposite directions.

Fletcher’s checksum is described in RFC 1146. You can also find information about generating (as well as verifying) such a checksum in Annex B of RFC 905.

An optimized implementation in the C programming language operates as follows:

       const uint16_t *data;  /* Pointer to the data to be summed */
       size_t len;      /* Length in 16-bit words */
       uint32_t sum1 = 0xffff, sum2 = 0xffff;

       while (len) {
               unsigned tlen = len > 360 ? 360 : len;
               len -= tlen;
               do {
                       sum1 += *data++;
                       sum2 += sum1;
               } while (--tlen);
               sum1 = (sum1 & 0xffff) + (sum1 >> 16);
               sum2 = (sum2 & 0xffff) + (sum2 >> 16);
       }
       /* Second reduction step to reduce sums to 16 bits */
       sum1 = (sum1 & 0xffff) + (sum1 >> 16);
       sum2 = (sum2 & 0xffff) + (sum2 >> 16);
       return sum2 << 16 | sum1;

A few tricks, well-known to implementors of the IP checksum, are used here for efficiency:

This reduces to the range 1..65535 rather than 0..65534. Modulo 65535, the values 65535 = 0xffff and 0 are equivalent, but it is easier to detect overflow if the former convention is used. This also provides the guarantee that the resultant checksum will never be zero, so that value is available for a special flag, such as “checksum not yet computed”.
65536 ≡ 1 mod 65535, so the expression (x & 0xffff) + (x >> 16) reduces x modulo 65535. Only doing it once is not guaranteed to be complete, but it will be less than 0x1fffe. A second repetition guarantees a fully reduced sum in the range of 1..65535.
This uses a 32-bit accumulator to perform a number of sums before doing any modular reduction. The magic value 360 is the largest number of sums that can be performed without numeric overflow. Any smaller value is also permissible; 256 may be convenient in many cases.

External links

RFC 1146 - TCP Alternate Checksum Options describes the Fletcher checksum algorithm.
Performance of Checksums and CRCs over Real Data

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Nested transaction

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.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Financial rand

The South African financial rand system was abolished with effect from March 13 1995. The financial rand system was instituted on September 1 1985 in an attempt to control the large outflows of capital from South Africa at that time. These outflows were largely the result of economic sanctions in response to apartheid. The financial rand system provided for two exchange rates for the rand, one for current account transactions, and one for capital account transactions for non-residents. Investments made in South Africa by non-residents could only be sold for financial rand, and limitations were placed on the convertibility of financial rand into foreign currencies. Financial rand had the ISO 4217 currency code ZAL. The financial had a previous life, from January 1979 to February 1983. The 1985 crisis coincided with a default (then called a “standstill”) on foreign debt by the apartheid government.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Soo Locks

The Sault Locks (usually called the Soo Locks) allow ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. The locks are the busiest in the world, passing an average of 12,000 ships (”boats” in Great Lakes parlance) per year. This is achieved in spite of the locks being closed during the winter months, January through March, when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes. The winter months are used to inspect and maintain the locks.

The locks bypass the rapids of the St. Marys River where the water falls 7 meters (21 feet) from Lake Superior. Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced Soo Saint Ma-ree) gives its name to both the Canadian and American cities at the site, in Ontario and Michigan, respectively. The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge between the United States and Canada permits vehicular traffic to pass over the locks.

American locks

The American locks form part of a 1.6 mile (2.6 km) canal formally named the St. Marys Falls Ship Canal. They are owned and maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The first American locks were completed in May 1855.

Davis Lock was built in 1914. It is 411 meters (1350 feet) long, 24 meters (80 feet) wide and 7 meters (23.1 feet) deep. The Davis lock is used rather infrequently to lock light freighters, tour boats, and small craft when traffic warrants. SS James A Farrell was the first vessel to lock through.

Sabin Lock was built in 1919. It is 1350 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 23.1 feet deep. This lock is decommissioned and no longer used.

MacArthur Lock was built in 1943. It is 244 meters (800 feet) long, 24 meters (80 feet) wide and 9 meters (31 feet) deep. This is large enough to handle ocean going vessels that must first pass through the smaller locks in the Welland Canal. First vessel through was the SS Carl D. Bradley.

Poe Lock was re-built in 1968, after the Saint Lawrence Seaway had opened. It is 366 meters (1200 feet) long, 34 meters (110 feet) wide and 10 meters (32 feet) deep. It can take ships carrying 72,000 tons of cargo. The Poe is the only lock that can handle the large lakers used on the upper lakes.

There is a project, as yet unfunded, to built a new large lock to replace the Davis and Sabin locks.

Engineers Day

On the last Friday of every June, the public is allowed behind the security fence and cross the lock gates of the American Locks for the annual Engineers Day Open House.[1] Visitors are able to get close enough to the ships passing through the two operating locks to touch them.

Canadian locks

Canadian lock, the only lock on the Ontario side, was built in 1895. It broke down in 1987 and a new lock was built within the old lock. The lock was reopened in 1998 and is used for recreation and tour boats. It is 76 meters long, 16 meters wide and 3 meters deep.

The Sault locks are a well developed tourist site that offers viewing stands to watch the locks at work and tour boat trips through the locks. It is now designated a National Historic Site of Canada (see: Sault Ste. Marie Canal).

External links

Soo Locks homepage US Army Corps of Engineers Soo Locks page
Web Camera view of the American locks
Aerial photo of locks; note ship in lower lock
Animation of how the Soo Locks work.
Soo Locks Visitors Center website

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Canal pound

A canal pound is the stretch of level water impounded between two canal locks. Canal pounds can vary in length from the non-existent, where two or more immediately adjacent locks form a lock staircase, to many miles.

History

Pounds came into being with the development of Pound locks to replace the earlier flash locks. A key feature of pound locks was that the intervening level between locks remained largely constant, as opposed to the varible levels created by the opening of flash locks.

Types of pound

Pounds can be described in various ways according to their situation;

Summit pound

A summit pound is formed at a summit on the canal, and where all the defining locks descend from the pound. Summit pounds are particularly important in canal design, as every boat entering or leaving the pound causes a loss of water. Summit pounds therefore need an independent form of water supply, which may take the form of weirs on adjacent rivers, reservoirs or pumping stations. Common practice during canal design was to make summit pounds as large as practically possible, in order that losing a lockful of water would not lower the water level too significantly. The Rochdale Canal is a good example of a canal with a relatively short summit pound, which requires restrictions on lock workings at certain times.

Sump pound

The inverse of a summit pound is a sump pound. In contrast to a summit pound, a sump pound is a point where every boat entering or leaving the pound causes an addition of water.

Lock pound

A pound which lies between two locks which lie only a short distance apart. Water levels in the pound are liable to fluctuate as the locks are used.

Side pound

particular type of extremely short lock pound, which is extended sideways to make up for the short distance between locks so as to avoid excessive level fluctuations. Side pounds should not be confused with side ponds (without the u).

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Acceleration clause

An acceleration clause, in the law of contracts, is a term that fully matures the performance due from a party upon a breach of the contract. Such clauses are most prevalent in mortgages and similar contracts to purchase real estate in installments.

Suppose, for example, the contract was for A to purchase Blackacre from B for $100,000, to be paid in 5 monthly installments of $20,000. If A makes the first two payments, but fails to make the third payment, an acceleration clause would require that A must immediately pay B the entire balance of $60,000, or lose his right to purchase Blackacre (without getting a refund of his $40,000).

A sample acceleration clause reads like this:

In the event of default in the payment of any of the said installments or said interest when due as herein provided, time being of the essence hereof, the holder of this note may, without notice or demand, declare the entire principal sum then unpaid immediately due and payable.

External links

Promissory Note - Installment - With Acceleration Clause

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Symmetric difference

In mathematics, the symmetric difference of two sets is the set of elements which are in one of the sets, but not in both. This operation is the set-theoretic equivalent of the exclusive disjunction (XOR operation) in Boolean logic. The symmetric difference of the sets A and B is commonly denoted by

<math> A \Delta B\,.</math>

For example, the symmetric difference of the sets {1,2,3} and {3,4} is {1,2,4}. The symmetric difference of the set of all students and the set of all females consists of all male students together with all female non-students.

The symmetric difference is equivalent to the union of both relative complements, that is:

<math>A \Delta B = (A - B) \cup (B - A),\,</math>

and it can also be expressed as the union of the two sets, minus their intersection:

<math>A \Delta B = (A \cup B) - (A \cap B),</math>

or with the XOR operation:

<math>A \Delta B = \{x : (x \in A) \mbox{ XOR } (x \in B)\}.</math>

The symmetric difference is commutative and associative:

<math>A \Delta B = B \Delta A,\,</math>

<math>(A \Delta B) \Delta C = A \Delta (B \Delta C).\,</math>

Thus, the repeated symmetric difference is an operation on a multiset of sets giving the set of elements which are in an odd number of sets.

The symmetric difference of two repeated symmetric differences is the repeated symmetric difference of the join of the two multisets, where for each double set both can be removed. In particular:

<math>(A \Delta B) \Delta (B \Delta C) = A \Delta C.\,</math>

This implies a kind of triangle inequality: the symmetric difference of A and C is contained in the union of the symmetric difference of A and B and that of B and C. (But note that for the diameter of the symmetric difference the triangle inequality does not hold.)

The empty set is neutral, and every set is its own inverse:

<math>A \Delta \varnothing = A,\,</math>

<math>A \Delta A = \varnothing.\,</math>

Taken together, we see that the power set of any set X becomes an abelian group if we use the symmetric difference as operation. Because every element in this group is its own inverse, this is in fact a vector space over the field with 2 elements Z₂. If X is finite, then the singletons form a basis of this vector space, and its dimension is therefore equal to the number of elements of X. This construction is used in graph theory, to define the cycle space of a graph.

Intersection distributes over symmetric difference:

<math>A \cap (B \Delta C) = (A \cap B) \Delta (A \cap C),</math>

and this shows that the power set of X becomes a ring with symmetric difference as addition and intersection as multiplication. This is the prototypical example of a Boolean ring.

The symmetric difference can be defined in any Boolean algebra, by writing

<math> x \Delta y = (x \lor y) \land \lnot(x \land y) = (x \land \lnot y) \lor (y \land \lnot x) = x \oplus y.</math>

This operation has the same properties as the symmetric difference of sets.

n-ary symmetric difference

As above, the symmetric difference of a collection of sets contains just elements which are in an odd number of the sets in the collection:

<math>\triangle M = \left\{ a \in \bigcup M\ |\ \#\{A\in M|a \in A\}\ \mbox{is odd}\right\}</math>.

Evidently, this is well-defined only when each element of the union <math>\bigcup M</math> is contributed by a finite number of elements of <math>M</math>.

Symmetric difference on measure spaces

As long as there is a notion of “how big” a set is, the symmetric difference between two sets can be considered a measure of how “far apart” they are. Formally, if μ is a σ-finite measure defined on a σ-algebra Σ, the function,

<math>d(X,Y) = \mu(X \Delta Y)</math>

is a pseudometric on Σ. d becomes a metric if Σ is considered modulo the equivalence relation X ~ Y if and only if <math>\mu(X \Delta Y) = 0</math>. The resulting metric space is separable if and only if L²(μ) is separable.

Strict Tempo! (album)

Strict Tempo! is an instrumental album by Richard Thompson released in 1981.

After the modest sales for their 1979 album Sunnyvista, Richard and Linda Thompson found themselves without a record deal. An album produced and financed by Gerry Rafferty (see Shoot Out The Lights for more details) failed to secure them a deal with a major label.

To generate some income, Richard Thompson formed his own record label Elixir Records and recorded this album at a small studio in London.

The album consists of some of the artist’s favourite tunes, all rendered as instrumentals and all arranged for guitar, mandolin, and other instruments played by Thompson. The only other participating player is drummer Dave Mattacks.

Track listing

All songs traditional and arranged by Richard Thompson except where noted.

“New-Fangled Flogging Reel/Kerry Reel”
“Vaillance Polka Militaire/Belfast Polka”
“Glencoe/Scott Skinner’s Rock/Bonny Banchory”
“Banish Misfortune
“Dundee Hornpipe/Poppy-Leaf Hornpipe”
“Do It For My Sake”
“Rockin’ In Rhythm” (written by Duke Ellington)
“The Random Jig/The Grinder”
“Will Ye No Cam Back Again”
“Cam O’er The Stream Charlie/Ye Banks And Braes”
“Rufty Tufty/Nonsuch à la Mode de France”
“Andalus/Radio Marrakesh”
“The Knife-Edge” (written by Richard Thompson)

Personnel

Richard Thompson - guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, mandocello, dulcimer, harmonium, pennywhistle, dobro
Dave Mattacks - drums, piano on Ye Banks And Braes

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Straw man (law)

In law, the term straw man can refer to a third party that acts as a “front” in a transaction (i.e., who is an agent for another) for the purpose of taking title to real property, breaking a joint tenancy, or engaging in some other kind of transaction where the principal remains hidden or to do something else which is not allowed.

A straw man is also “a person of no means,” or one who deliberately accepts a liability or other monetary responsibility without the resources to fulfill it, usually to shield another party.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Nested transaction

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.

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

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

New Business Strain

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.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Sudatorium

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.

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Rowde

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

Fourteen Locks

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

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Banklink

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

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Algorithms for Recovery and Isolation Exploiting Semantics

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

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Optical astronomy

Optical astronomy has two meanings:

In popular culture optical astronomy encompasses a wide variety of observations via telescopes that are sensitive in the range of visible light. Scientists would call this visible light astronomy. It includes imaging, where a picture of some sort is made of the object; photometry, where the amount of light coming from an object is measured, spectroscopy, where the distribution of that light with respect to its wavelength is measured, and polarimetry where the polarisation state of that light is measured.

Scientists use the term optical astronomy to mean astronomy at infrared, visible and ultraviolet wavelengths (i.e. observations using either infrared, visible or ultraviolet wavelengths of light). Observations at these wavelengths generally use optical components (mirrors, lenses and solid state digital detectors).

Tags: Uncategorized by admin
No Comments »

Electronic lock

An electronic lock (also known as a digital lock) is a locking device which uses some form of electronics to authenticate those accessing it, sometimes using two-factor authentication. Electronic locks are typically considered more secure than conventional mechanical locks and can include additional features like logging access attempts, group level access, time-based access and the incorporation of burglar or fire alarms.

Operation

Most electronic locks use a magnetic lock/solenoid bolt to perform the physical component of locking. Older mechanisms can also be found which use electric motors to move a deadbolt. Once the authentication process is successful, the lock is released into opening.

As providing electrical current to a lock within a door can be difficult, a common solution is an electronic strike plate. Using a normal mechanical lock, an electronic striker can also be triggered remotely to free the latch from the door frame.

Authentication methods

Electronic locks offer a variety of means of authentication; those described below are not considered exhaustive.

Numerical codes, passwords and passphrases

Perhaps the most prevalent form of electronic lock is that using a numerical code for authentication; the correct code must be entered in order for the lock to deactivate. Such locks typically provide a keypad, and some feature an audible response to each press. Combination lengths are usually between 4 and 6 digits long.

A variation on this design involves the user entering the correct password or passphrase.

Security tokens

Another means of authenticating users is to require them to scan or “swipe” a

Entries Tagged as '5'

See also

References

External links

Strict 2PL does not guarantee a deadlock-free schedule

Etymology

Aspects of Gongoozling

Notable locations

See also

References

External Links

Two phase locking

Strict two phase locking

Strong strict two phase locking

See also

External links

Access Methods

References

References

See also

Conditions of self-dealing transaction

Ways the proponent of a self-dealing transaction can avoid invalidation

See also

External Links

See also

External links

Mental accounting, utility, value and transaction

Mental accounting cost

References

See also

External links

Patents

Publication

See also

Members of the Legislative Assembly/Members of Provincial Parliament

Criticism

See also

References

Pop culture occurrences

See also

See also

References

Language family

Usage

Varieties

Surrounding languages

Written Luxembourgish

Standardisation

Alphabet

Eifeler Regel

Grammar

Nominal syntax

Adjectives

Word-order

Vocabulary

Selected common phrases

Neologisms

Academic projects

Footnotes

References

See also

Books

In English

In French

In German

External links

Spellcheckers and dictionaries

External links

American locks

Engineers Day

Canadian locks

External links

History

Types of pound

Summit pound

Sump pound

Lock pound

Side pound

External links

n-ary symmetric difference