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futureteacher · 3 years

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Putting the 'Fin' in Finished

27 April, 2021

Practicum Final Blog

Today’s blog is the final one. I have done my 45+ hours of observation and will be graduating with my associates degree in just a couple weeks. That being said, this blog will be a little different than the last ones. We are going to do a review of my Intro to Ed class and see if I actually learned anything. Let’s all hope so.

Basically, I have this big long list of the things I should have learned about this semester. I have gone through and picked the ones I think are the most important. I would like to note that all of the things we have learned are important in some way, or we wouldn’t have learned about them. Right? Anyway, I chose ten (or fourteen and then deleted four randomly) I thought all teachers needed to know about. For each one, I will give you a description, an example, and what I think about the concept. Simple enough. I struggled to put these in any sort of ranking, so they’ll just be in alphabetical order.

1. Academic Engaged Time

· Academic engaged time is when the students are spending time being academically engaged. “The time a student spends on academically relevant activities or materials while experiencing a high rate of success.”

· In my experience, a lot of teachers use academically engaged time for review. For example, in high school, I had an English teacher that would play a team version of Jeopardy to review for any of our tests. We were all engaged, having fun, and wanting to be a part of the experience. He was evaluating if there was anything we should go over in more detail before the test.

· I love the idea of academically engaged time. The students are having fun. For some activities, they can be up and out of their seats. When the students are having fun, teaching is more fun. Plus, the students really absorb the information so much better when they are engaged, and not being lectured to.

2. Bloom’s Taxonomy

· Bloom’s Taxonomy is a chart that helps teachers with their lesson plans. Basically, it is broken into six different steps of learning, and for each there are a bunch of verbs to build your lesson plan with. For example, if your students are just starting to learn a subject, you want them to first remember the information (knowledge). You would want them to define terms, memorize a passage, or label a diagram. However, if they are more advanced in the subject, maybe just about to move on to a new subject, they should be at the create stage. They can collaborate with others on a project, compile information for a research project, or test their hypothesis.

· Bloom’s taxonomy is important and definitely something every teacher needs to understand and utilize. Mrs. E.’s exact words were: “Every teacher should use Bloom's Taxonomy. At the college we have to write our objectives (they call them course outcomes) for the syllabus using action verbs from Bloom's… Some teachers may not understand Bloom's or utilize the idea that students need to progress from lower order to higher order thinking, but they SHOULD understand it and be able to take almost any concept and write an objective at each level for it.”

· I used Bloom’s taxonomy for each of the lesson plans that I built. For me, it really did help to understand where my students should be in their understanding of a subject, and what sort of activities they may be able to do at that point.

3. Differentiated Instruction/ Scaffolding

· This is actually technically two different things, but they work so well together I couldn’t not include one of them. Differentiated instruction is “a variety of techniques used to adapt instruction to the individual ability levels and learning styles of each student in the classroom.” Scaffolding is one of these techniques. “Providing assistance-some structure, clues, help with remembering certain steps or procedures, or encouragement to try-when a learner is on the verge of solving a problem but cannot complete it independently.”

· I recently attended an online symposium/ caucus thing for KNEA in which there were two guest speakers, both of whom were special education instructors, who talked about how they implement differentiated instruction and scaffolding in their classrooms. One of them spoke about giving their students a ‘Love Language’ test at the beginning of the semester, keeping that info on file, and using it whenever the students need that help. This means the students who are Words of Affirmation need to hear “great job” and “I can tell you’re really working hard and I appreciate that”. Students who are Receiving Gifts may need gold stars and an award system. Either way, differentiated instruction and scaffolding are about getting to know your students as individuals and building a learning plan tailored to them.

· This one seems like one of those things that will begin as hard work but will turn into a “Why didn’t I do this sooner” kind of thing. Does that make sense? Students of all ages can tell when their teacher cares and when they are just collecting a paycheck. This one does take some effort, but will be worth it.

4. Diversity (In general and specific issues)/ Inclusion

· Having diversity in the classroom means to include students from all ethnic and demographic backgrounds. Basically, everyone has the right to an education and that means all kinds of students are going to mix together to learn and to teach. Inclusion, on the other hand, is often associated with students with disabilities (physical or learning). I have put them together on the list because I don’t think you can talk about one without talking about the other.

· When I was first assigned my practicum teachers, I noticed that two of them were English teachers with inclusion classrooms and the other was an English Special Education class. I was honestly a little nervous because Special Education is not something I had ever considered teaching. However, I loved the way the students in AA’s class. They felt more open to having discussions with each other and with AA. They were the only students who actually talked to me. AA does a great job tailoring her class lessons to include time to answer questions, she is patient in reviewing the information, and the students were excited to learn.

· Here’s the thing: I grew up in a mostly white town. Diversity (of any sort of demographic) wasn’t really discussed or something I ever really thought about until I moved into a larger city and worked with a wider range of people. Being able to meet these people and be exposed to these different cultures has really been a learning experience for me, one I wouldn’t trade. I love learning about the different places in the world and the different people out there. I really think exposing children to this kind of melting pot learning experience is important and shouldn’t be a novel idea. The world includes all kinds of humans, so many ethnicities, backgrounds, or even disabilities. Shouldn’t we be teaching our kids as soon as possible that all humans have value and should be included?

5. Lesson Planning

· To be honest with you, lesson planning may possibly be the most boring part of teaching. It is important, obviously, but it is kind of time consuming and monotonous as well. Lesson planning is sitting down with your curriculum, breaking it down to a day-to-day plan, and then breaking that down into daily activities and objectives. A lesson plan should include: a title, subject, rationale/goal, lesson’s learning objective (which needs to be written in a certain format), assessment/evaluation, introduction, teaching and learning activities, a check for understanding, closure/ conclusion, and your list of materials needed. It is how you, as a teacher, can be as prepared as possible for the day. Or, heaven forbid, you get sick and need a substitute, the lesson plan should be detailed enough for them to use.

· I haven’t actually seen a lot of examples of this in my practicum or in my student career. Because my practicum was online, I wasn’t able to see all of the materials the teachers used. I can tell which teachers used more detailed versions of them though. RG always knew how much time she could use on each task, was great with transitions, and had good classroom management skills. If I had to guess, she was the one who had the most detailed lesson plan. AA and I spoke briefly about her lesson plan. She told me she mostly uses the same ones she has used in previous years, just tweaking them as needed. Her lessons are structured a little more loosely, and you can tell sometimes one group will not be at the same point another group will be at. I know when you are making sure all of your students understand the lesson, each group may be a little different, but I can tell her lesson planning is a little more loosely structured.

· Lesson planning is boring and monotonous, but it must be done. It is important to know how one lesson is going to tie into the next, at what stage of learning your students are at, and what would happen if you needed a substitute. I am going to spend the next couple of years figuring out a way to make it fun, or at least more entertaining. Challenge accepted!

6. Philosophies of Educations

· A philosophy of education is basically a teacher’s letter to their future employers about what kind of teacher they will be. How they think, learn, instruct, and their values. A philosophy of education can be broken down into four basic schools of philosophy: Perennialism, essentialism, romanticism, and progressivism. There is technically also eclecticism, but that one means to systematically take pieces from the other philosophies until you are satisfied with your own style.

· I asked WG about her own philosophy of education, after we wrote ours in class. She told me she hadn’t written one since she got hired at her current job, a couple decades ago.

· From talking to WG, writing my own philosophy of education, and observing my practicum teachers, I believe each teacher’s philosophy is always changing. It is like the Constitution: a living, breathing document. It changes as needed. Teachers are constantly learning from their students, colleagues, and administration. They see the world in new ways with each new experience. Their philosophy of how to teach their students will change with their students. I don’t necessarily believe it will be easy to keep up on writing out a new philosophy every year, but maybe every couple of years evaluating yourself would be a good idea.

7. Planning/ Implementing/ Evaluating Decisions

· As we discussed, having a plan is important. Being able to implement it, and evaluate how well it works is a whole other beast. You need to be able to look at what you are doing, how well the students are doing, what administration sees, and then shift whatever isn’t working. It can be difficult to look at the plan you worked so hard on and then change it, but if it isn’t working for your students, then it isn’t working.

· WG and I had a great discussion about this a couple months ago. I asked her how she feels about evaluations from herself, administration, and her students. She told me that she loves what she does, has a mutual trust with the administration, and believes they will make the right decision for her students. The administration will give her constructive feedback that she can improve on and help her students. She also told me she isn’t great at purposeful reflection and tends to just change her plan in the moment instead of reflecting on it. Her students usually evaluate her pretty favorably, but sometimes it is hard for them to see the big picture of what she is teaching and why.

· I know that each teacher must be evaluated by their administration, and self-evaluation is something I do pretty regularly. However, the idea of having my students evaluate me intrigues me. Of course, I want them to like me, but whether or not they are learning is what I need to know. I think having my students fill out an anonymous survey, maybe once a month or so, to give general evaluations would be an interesting idea. Not necessarily a good idea, but we will see. Knowing how to critically, but kindly, evaluate others and themselves is a good skill to learn, right?

8. Relationship with Students

· A relationship with students is exactly what it sounds like. You need to have a relationship with your students. Now, every teacher takes a different approach to this, but the goal is to be friendly enough that they trust you, but not too friendly that they do not see you as an authority figure. You are their teacher, after all.

· AA has a great relationship with her students. They are very good at communicating openly with her during discussions, she can always tell when one of them is having an off day, and she knows which ones need special attention.

· I had some great teachers, and some not-so-great teachers, when I was younger, so I have some examples of what things to do and not to do. Be kind. Do not be overly friendly. Be respectful. Do not be their friend. Get to know them. Do not be condescending. Be the teacher you needed when you were their age.

9. Subject Matter

· Teachers need to understand the subject they are teaching well enough to analyze and convey their elements, logic, possible uses, and social biases. Teachers need to be able to understand the content of the school curriculum that pupils are expected to follow. Effective teachers must show pedagogical content knowledge, the knowledge that bridges content knowledge and the pedagogical.

· I think WG is a great example of this. I have made it pretty clear in the last several blogs how much I enjoy Oedipus and Julius Caesar. They are both great plays with the weirdest nonsense. I love them, but it was really clear WG does too. She is able to link the plays with an overall theme for her semester, and make it clear to her students what they mean. For Julius Caesar, she had a constant dialogue about the ethos, logos, pathos, and Kairos. That isn’t easy, but she has a thorough understanding of her subject material, so she is able to make these connections in a way her students understand.

· As I stated earlier, I am just about to graduate with my associates. This means I have two more years before I get to be a real teacher. Over the next couple of years, I will have to take all of the English courses. I have three just next semester. It will be my job to know what I am talking about. How can I expect my students to want to learn something if I didn’t take the time to learn it?

10. Teacher’s Attitude Toward Self, Students, Peers, Parents, and Subject Matter

· This one is a little complicated because there are so many parts to it. Despite that, they all break down to the basic treat others how you would want to be treated. That sounds cheesy, but it works. A teacher having the expectation that all of their students can and will succeed makes a difference in the students’ achievement. Reflection, study, and evaluation can determine the attitude you have with yourself. Using collaboration and open communication can determine the attitude you have with colleagues and parents. Your attitude toward subject matter, as we discussed, should be passionate and enthusiastic. Your positive can-do, not yet attitude will be contagious to your students and set high expectations for them.

· I have a mixed bag of examples for this one. All of the teachers I observed treated their students with respect. AA was great about joking with her class or setting the tone when they needed to be serious. You can tell her students respect her as well and want to succeed. In contrast, WG told me about the struggle she has had this year with communicating with parents. Especially since so many students have had to learn remotely, many of them are not paying attention in class or keeping up with their work. She sends out emails once a week to the students and the parents about missing assignments, but has a hard time getting back any replies with substance. I think this just goes to show that sometimes communication is difficult. WG is doing what she can to get the information to her students and their guardians, and they should show the same kind of respect by communicating with her as well.

· Both of these teachers are good examples of trying your best to have a good attitude, in and out of class, even when it is difficult. The pandemic has been difficult on students and teacher. Period. Everyone has had to work harder and learn differently. Being understanding of others’ circumstances, having mutual respect, and open communication are all vital to having a positive attitude with everyone you will be working with.

Those are my top ten most important things I have learned this semester. This is not a career that just anyone would be good at. I do not agree that ‘those who can’t, teach.’ I believe teaching is hard work. It is a labor of love, though.

#Future Teacher

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mariebenz · 4 years

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Data-Driven AI May Help Predict Severity of Coronavirus

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Anasse Bari PhD Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science Department, New York University, New York, and Megan Coffee MD PhD Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Department of Medicine New York University, Department of Population and Family Health Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Coffee and Bari: This work is led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, in partnership with Wenzhou Central Hospital and Cangnan People's Hospital, both in Wenzhou, China. This is a multi-disciplinary team with backgrounds in clinical infectious disease as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and computer science. There is a critical need to better understand COVID-19. Doctors learn from collective and individual clinical experiences. Here, no clinician has years of experience. All are learning as they go, having to make important decisions about clinical management with stretched resources. The goal here is to augment clinical learning with machine learning. In particular, the goal is to allow clinicians to identify early who from the many infected will need close medical attention. Most patients will first develop mild symptoms, yet some 5-8 days later will develop critical illness. It is hard to know who these people are who will need to be admitted and may need to be intubated until they become ill. Knowing this earlier would allow more attention and resources to be spent on those patients with worse prognoses. If there were ever treatments in the future that could be used early in the course of illness, it would be important to identify who would most benefit We present in this study a first step in building an artificial intelligence (AI) framework, with predictive analytics (PA) capabilities applied to real patient data, to provide rapid clinical decision-making support. It is at this point a proof of concept that it could be possible to identify future severity based on initial presentation in COVID-19. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: Clinical data from a line listing was used to predict risk of ARDS. Although there were only 53 patients (all of whom have now been discharged), we were able to develop a model that can learn from this data. AI often identifies features a doctor would not; ALT, myalgias, and hemoglobin all stood out as the most predictive. The findings are dependent on the data from our colleagues in Wenzhou, China where the case severity was less than is being seen now in New York City. We are at very early stages of developing this framework, we still need to do further do more validation and we need large datasets. We are now looking into expanding the work with New York hospitals and medical institutions around the world. MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? Coffee and Bari: First, it should be noted that this model needs to be validated in different contexts before it could be used clinically, but we think this is a first step to using AI when the clinical workload is immense. AI is increasingly able to act as an extension to human intelligence. The experimental tool we developed, once deployed, could serve an extension to the work being done by doctors, to help them know early which cases will need more attention and resources. The tool will help doctors make data-driven decisions. We are not trying by any mean to replace doctors. Instead, we are tying to relieve doctors who have high caseloads and limited resources by identifying those patients that need them the most. Instead of scanning tables of data, the algorithm can help go through the data using learning from historical data, to identify which patients need the most clinical attention. In the end, though, the doctor must make the final decisions. Like any other AI, there is a continuous process of learning; doctors and new data sets will help correct and re-train the AI. At this point the model points to clinical features a doctor might not consider as important. That's what's interesting about machine learning; it acts as a second opinion, so to speak. Small increases in liver tests and hemoglobin (red blood cells) appeared to predict severe disease more than other expected characteristics like age and gender. Moreover, characteristics that help diagnose coronavirus - low white blood cell count, chest imaging findings, fevers - did not appear to correspond to more severe disease. MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work? Coffee and Bari: It will be important that any tools using Artificial Intelligence are not black boxes. Clinicians need to be involved throughout the process so that any tools developed are clinically relevant. We used ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) as this is the clinical finding most associated with poor outcomes in COVID-19. Mortality can vary when resources are stretched but ARDS is an outcome that we can't yet prevent and its development should not be affected by the availability clinical resources. It is important that such endpoints have clinical significance for patients and healthcare providers. What we have built is still in R&D mode (Research and Development), but we see this as a first step towards a fully functional software with AI capabilities. Most importantly we will need more data to fine-tune and validate this work. We will need more resources so that this can go live. The analytics process we have in place is very promising. It follows a full predictive analytics lifecycle that include data architecture, data preparation, modeling and validation. The most important next step, though, is to use data from hospitals in the US and elsewhere to retrain the algorithms in order for this to be able to be used in different settings. Citation: Xiangao Jiang, Megan Coffee, Anasse Bari, Junzhang Wang, Xinyue Jiang, Jianping Huang, Jichan Shi, Jianyi Dai, Jing Cai, Tianxiao Zhang, Zhengxing Wu, Guiqing He, Yitong Huang. Towards an Artificial Intelligence Framework for Data-Driven Prediction of Coronavirus Clinical Severity. CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, 2020 DOI: 10.32604/cmc.2020.010691 The information on MedicalResearch.com is provided for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to diagnose, cure, or treat any medical or other condition. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health and ask your doctor any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. In addition to all other limitations and disclaimers in this agreement, service provider and its third party providers disclaim any liability or loss in connection with the content provided on this website. Read the full article

#AI #artificialintelligence #ColumbiaSPH #coronavirus #COVID-19 #epidemic #medicalresearch #NYULangone #pandemia

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forbidden-sorcery · 7 years

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The Bridge To Body Island

(re: @skograt regarding the terrible film adaptation) Background: in 2006, author Robert D. Schneck released a collection of strange American tales titled The President's Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America.

One included story claims to be a true event related to the author, entitled The Bridge To Body Island. (outside of the paranormal ouija spirit shit, I have a lot of family in middle Wisconsin, the “body island” thing is related to reality, there are a bunch of little islands in the Wisconsin river that have occasionally been the resting place of corpses floating down the river over the years.) In 2014, the rights to the story were acquired in order to adapt it into what became this fucking awful movie The Bye Bye Man. I heard this story in the middle of the night when the author was discussing the book on Coast To Coast AM. This is how us small town hicks got our urban legend kicks before creepypasta. Without further apology for the shitty movie, follows the original incarnation:

“At the end of the summer of 1990, three friends living in a small town in Wisconsin carried out an experiment with an ouija board that brought them into contact with a monster. “Eli” wrote this account in third person form. Sun Prairie is in the southern part of the state and is best known as the home of artist Georgia O’Keefe. [She was a painter of big blowers and cow skulls; O’Keefe hated Sun Prairie.] It is surrounded by dying family farms and scattered hamlets like Pumpkin Hollow and Killdeer Creek. It has some of the last one-room schoolhouses in this part of the country, and more importantly for this story, is just three miles from the railroad hub between Chicago and Minneapolis. I had just received a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University Of Stevens Point-Wisconsin and decided to pursue a graduate degree in Madison, Wisconsin. Katherine, my long-time girlfriend, was born and raised in Madison and was working there for the summer. I got a job at a group home in Sun Prairie, working the night shift. It came with a small salary and a smaller apartment in the basement of the house. It was on the outskirts of Sun Prairie, a stone’s throw from Pumpkin Hollow on a dead end street near the county line. I was responsible for watching over three adults who had Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS), a genetic disorder named after two German doctors. People with PWS manifest a number of disturbing symptoms, including stunted growth, limited brain development, and high-pitched voices like cartoon characters, but the most dramatic symptom is their insatiable appetite. PWS patients do not produce the hormones that inform the brain that the body has had enough to eat, so they always feel famished. Since the brain thinks it’s starving, it sends message to the endocrine system that stunt growth and preserve every calorie taken in. A vicious cycle develops, with the body squeezing every last bit of fat out of food while cannibalizing the muscles for more protein. As a result, those with PWS get obese with fewer calories than normal adults, and never feel full no matter how much they eat. In order to satisfy their ravenous appetite, patients will periodically try to escape, break into stores, order huge meals at restaurants, etc. They would eat anything, whole jars of mustard, toothpaste by the tube full, even medications if given a chance. My job was to keep them in the house and out of trouble in the evenings. Katherine’s parents and most of her friends had moved away and she was working part time for a political organization. Her job did not pay enough for her to live in the city, so she moved into the basement with me. I drove to school every day and dropped Katherine off at work; then we rode back to the group home at night so I could work. Between school and the group home’s evening schedule, we didn’t have time to meet new people in the area, so we were very happy when a mutual friend moved there from Stevens Point. John got a job as a dishwasher and took a room in a nearby boarding house run by an old woman. The three of us hung out all the time in Sun Prairie. We took walks in the fields, checked out the local graveyards (some of the oldest in the state), and collected local folk tales and urban legends. (I was studying both anthropology and folklore and previous had done parapsychology work with OBE’s at Stevens Point.) [An O.B.E. or “out-of-body-experience” is the sensation of having left the body. Spiritualists call it “astral projection” and it may or may not be paranormal in nature.] That fall, a childhood friend gave me an ouija board that he’d found in the attic. It was an old wooden board and John and I spent hours trying to get messages, but all we ended up with was gibberish. I convinced Katherine to join me at the board but our results were no better. Then she tried it with John and they immediately started to get results. For the next few days, the three of us spent hours on the board. The messages came from the “Spirit of the Board,” an entity that had never lived and that acted as an interlocutor between other entities and us. These entities had different personalities and individual ways of moving the planchette: some used abbreviations, some were terrible spellers, and others used Latinate words with some skill. Some preferred using the pointed end of the planchette to choose letters while others like the porthole. The Spirit of the Board would control and introduce each of these intelligences, and for weeks we communicated with them. Like the Spirit of the Board, they claimed to not be spirits of the dead but some kinds of archetypes or free-ranging consciousnesses. Each entity had its own personality, but for the most part they concentrated on imparting New-Age wisdom and philosophy. Since the board would only work when Katherine and John used it, I got the job of transcribing the proceedings and carefully filled notebooks with correspondences. I am interested in scientific parapsychology and wanted to find out if some sort of paranormal phenomena was indeed happening, so I started to conduct a number of experiments with John and Katherine. They got messages from the board by touching the planchette with their palms or a single finger, with the ouija board turned around, and wearing blindfolds in a darkened room while I followed the planchette with a flashlight. No matter what innovation I introduced, the results were the same; the entities kept communicating. I suggested automatic writing and even attached a small golf-pencil to the planchette but this did not work. Then we tried for EVP phenomena with similarly disappointing results. [EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomenon are the “spirit voices” caught on recording equipment, especially audiotape.] We also tried pendulums, but again the board was the only method that got results. I decided to add a new twist to the procedure by writing down the questions without saying them out loud. I selected questions that would need to be answered by numbers, words, or letters. Though the answers were vague, as usual, they remained consistent and could be said to correspond with the questions. After weeks of this, John and I were getting bored with the eight or so entities that the Spirit of the Board would let us communicate with and their repetitious philosophy. I was determined to talk to a spirit that had lived, whose existence could be verified, and who would give us information we could check. At one point the board told us that there were indeed other entities we could communicate with, but they might be dangerous, and it encouraged us to continue talking to the other entities. After some digging, we heard about a sinister entity that wanted to communicate with them. They also found out that this entity was not only a human but was still alive. John and I were eager to communicate with whoever it was, but Katherine was adamantly against it. She had a history of paranormal experiences and had been sufficiently spooked by them to not even watch scary movies; she certainly had no interest in deliberately contacting something sinister. Katherine refused for a few days, but the two of us were able to wear her down and she agreed with try again. She was not happy about it but was very close to both of us and we were determined to see it through. At first, to Katherine’s relief, the board simply refused to communicate with the desired entity and instead brought us the same old tiresome folks. The questions that I wrote or asked were now all about the living mind that wanted to reach us. At one point we learned that all of the other entities knew about this person and gave us a name; he was called the Bye-Bye Man. Upon seeing that name spelled out on the ouija board, Katherine panicked and quit the board again. We tried to press on without her, but nothing happened. Katherine was now very clear; she refused to try to communicate with the Bye-Bye Man, but we cobbled together a compromise. We would not communicate with the Bye-Bye Man directly but would try to get some piece of information about him from the other entities, something that could be tracked down an verified. Now we began interrogating the spirits but they refused to cooperate until John got an idea: we would stage a strike. The Spirit of the Board was given notice that we were tired of the entities and their refusal to tell us anything about the Bye-Bye Man, so from now on we were going to be using the Parker Brother’s board that we’d bought for the planchette. We tried the new board for a few days but got nothing. Even Katherine and John got nothing useful. Still, we waited a few more days before picking up the old board and discovered that the strike had worked; when we communicated with the Spirit of the Board again it agreed to tell us about the Bye-Bye Man. The story came out in bits and pieces over several sessions. It began in Louisiana sometime in the 1920s, when an odd little boy was put in an orphanage in Algiers. Nothing is known about his parents but the boy had albinism, a genetic condition that causes a lack of pigments in the eyes, skin, and hair; but it was his behavior that was strange. Maybe part of it was the physical and social isolation that can happen to children with albinism; their unusual appearance, the way they must avoid the sun, and, in this case, ever worsening eyesight. He could not play games and may have been teased or bullied by the other children. As the boy grew older, his behavior grew worse, and there were run-ins with the people who ran the orphanage. Then one day he was arguing with the head nurse in her office when he attacked her with a pair of desk scissors, leaving her an invalid. After this savage assault, he fled. He ran away to the train-yards, and began traveling around the country by jumping freights. The viciousness he’d already shown was now unleashed, and he began carrying out random killings. His eyesight finally failed, but that did not stop the Bye-Bye Man; he created a companion for himself, sewing together pieces of his victims into something named Gloomsinger. Gloomsinger was made from tongues and eyes and endowed with some kind of life. It acted like a hunting dog, sighting the next victim and letting out a whistle that the Bye-Bye Man could hear, which brought him to the scene. In order to keep Gloomsinger in good repair though, it was necessary to sew on new eyes and tongues regularly. The Bye-Bye Man became something of an expert at removing them, and their removal identified his handiwork. The organs of his victims were kept (along with his other belongings) in a seaman’s bag he called his Sack of Gore. At some point, he also developed a kind of telepathy and was able to sense when people were talking, or even thinking about him. As long as they thought about the name “the Bye-Bye Man,” they were psychic beacons and he was able to get a bead on them and slowly track them down. He would travel hundreds of miles by rail to attack unsuspecting gossips, and talk of the murders quickly spread through the rail-yards and hobo camps. The board also gave us some other details. The Bye-Bye Man had long hair and a tattoo on his wrist; he wore glasses that were painted black and wore a wide brimmed hat that covered his white face and something that looked like a pea-coat. And he carried the Sack of Gore. We also got a magic recipe that would help the Bye-Bye Man find us. I don’t remember the details, but we had to take a big green glass bottle, cork the mouth, and go out into the moonlight, Then if we quickly uncorked it and held it to our ears, we would be able to hear Gloomsinger whistling. We also asked where the Bye-Bye Man was now. Chicago, the board said, and coming closer. Katherine became very afraid, and refused to participate in any more sessions. I was not happy because I didn’t think we’d gotten anything worth checking, and preliminary searches produced nothing. John, meanwhile, thought the whole thing had been very interesting. It looked as though the experiment was over and the ouija board was put away. Soon after that, Katherine began waking up in a panic; she had suffered panic attacks as a teenager, but they were back and they always seemed to hit at 3 AM, the “soul’s midnight.” [This refers to the idea that most deaths and suicides take place at 3 AM or between 3 and 4 AM. It would require a statistician to prove whether or not this is true, but the idea is certainly widespread. “My grandfather was in the Merchant Navy in WWII, and he said the worst watch to be on was 3-4 AM because that’s when your soul was supposed to be ‘at its lowest’... “I remember my grandparents (both nurses) referring to 4 AM as “death hour” or something like that, as it was the most common time for patients to die. They put this down to probably being in deepest sleep by that time, and that it’s the coldest part of the night...” “I can also state from personal experience of signing search warrants, that the police still like to raid drug dealers at 3-4 AM as they figure they will be at a low ebb then and less likely to put up resistance.] John’s work schedule had changed so we saw less and less of him. Without the ouija board experiments, the focus returned to normal pursuits like work and school. One day I ran into John at the Student Union at the college, so we had a beer and talked. I was worn out because Katherine kept waking up with panic attacks at 3 AM and when I told this to John he turned grey. He said he had been waking up at the same time with a feeling of great uneasiness (not panic attacks per se) since they stopped using the board. He chalked it up to a change in his work shift. He was taking some kind of vitamin supplement to regulate his sleep, so I got the name of it and bought some for Katherine in hopes that it would help her and me sleep. A week or so after the meeting, I returned to Wausau to see a concert and brought Katherine with me. By this time it was winter, and we had time to kill before the show started, so I took Katherine for a walk downtown. It was Sunday and most of the businesses were closed, so after hanging out at the bookshop and record shop we had run out of distractions. I suggested a walk across the railroad bridge to a little island in the middle of the Wisconsin River, locally known as “Body Island.” The island is down-river from Big Bull Falls, and one explanation for the name comes from this being the place where bodies in the Wisconsin wash up. In the 19th century, many lumberjacks drowned while dislodging logjams, and their remains ended up here. Some say the name comes from a woman that worked at Prange Way in the 1970s. [Prange Way was a department store; today the building is the Eastway Corporate Offices.] She used to cross the trestle bridge as a short cut on her way home until one night when she vanished. After an all-night search, she was found on the tip of the island, staring into the water. She had been stabbed and was in shock and died at the hospital; what made this murder so memorable, though, was that her sister was killed a few years later in the cemetery where this woman was buried. Despite the morbid associations, Body Island is a pretty little preserve of wild grassland and offers a nice view of the city. [Its real name is Barker Stewart Island and it is named after the lumber company that once had a mill there. A few years ago a woman was beaten to death on the shoreline opposite the island.] Katherine and I were walking along the track when something got my attention. I don’t remember what it was, but I climbed down from the bridge to the riverbank to look, while Katherine waited on the wind swept trestle. While she was standing there, she heard a faint noise. At first she feared it was a train whistle - it is an active train bridge - but soon she realized that the whistle sounded more human than locomotive. She felt the familiar sense of fear rising up inside, and when I returned she was having a full-blown panic attack. She said she heard something, but as much as I tried I couldn’t. Then she heard it again, “as if it were right over my shoulder.” Still, I heard nothing, and after we left the bridge Katherine suffered from panic attacks for the rest of the day. Back in Sun Prairie, we found a message from John on the answering machine. He sounded upset, and when I met with him, he told me a strange story. He had come home from work, and when he arrived at his room in the boarding house, had tried to do some drawings (John’s hobby is art.) He couldn’t concentrate, though, and had an “uncanny feeling,” so he decided to call us, not knowing that Katherine and I were out of town. Not finding any of his friends at home, he tried reading, but couldn’t. By this time it was late enough for him to get some sleep, but for some reason he couldn’t stand lying in the bed and decided to sleep on the floor. He fell fast asleep and at some point a knock on the door woke him up. “John,” he heard Katherine say, “let’s go out to breakfast!” We often stopped by to pick up John for breakfast on our way into Madison. It was a common enough thing. He got up and was looking for his clothes when he noticed that it was still pitch black outside. He heard the voice again saying, “John, let’s go out for breakfast.” It couldn’t be us, not that early in the morning, and he was overcome by a fear so intense that he felt limp and laid back down on the floor. The time the voice, still sounding like Katherine, said, “John... open the door!” But he just laid on the floor where he could see hall light through the crack under the door and the shadow of someone standing outside. It went away, but he did not sleep the rest of the night. I told him that it couldn’t have been us because we were in Wausau. He checked with the old woman and the man who lived across the hall to see if they had knocked on his door, but they all said no. The woman kept the front door locked at night, and she was the one who opened it for visitors. No one stopped by that night. John still wonders what would’ve happened if he had opened that door.”

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studiobowesart · 7 years

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Tools of the Trade and a Quick Tour

-By Paul Bonner

I'll have to base these writings on a couple of assumptions. The first is that it's not very likely that in the near future -or ever - I am going to be conducting brisk and informative tours of my at-home studio. The second assumption, and a possibly even more far fetched one, is that there are actually people out there who would willingly partake in such a bold enterprise. So, throwing caution to the wind, and going along with the second assumption - I will try and give a little tour of the tools of my trade, the place where they gather and the part they play in my actually getting anything done. This little jaunt is only available because not much else is. I am embarked on a couple of creative voyages that forbid me to show anything, and to speak of which, would spell some awful kind of doom. At least for me. So, cup of tea in hand, I make my way down to the cellar where my world sits waiting. Trying to be a little bit chronological, it is my brain that kicks off the process. The same for most of us I suspect. Those flashes of inspiration and tantalising flashes of what might be. So - paper, before they fade. Assuming that I have filled pages of layout pad with scribbles, and progressed on to things that could be called sketches, and then managed to nail the sketches down as something that I would love to paint - it is over to my light table.

It is an ancient, metal monster that bares the brunt of my struggles to make sense of all the scribbles, squiggles and occasional sketches. Once the hard part of defining and drawing the characters is done, I enjoy physically juggling and jigsawing them into place. Suddenly I can see the relationship they have with each other and have a clear mental image of how they will relate to the background. Being the Creator, in my own world, I can toy with my subjects and play with their sizes. The pretty ordinary copy machine that I have is about as hi-tech as I get in my quest for beauty. When dealing with a gaggle of goblins, being quickly able to up and down their individual sizes a few percent to gently push the composition along is invaluable. Not so hi-tech are books. Pride and joy for many of us. And so necessary, for both sparking ideas and checking that a horses' back leg actually looks like you thought it did.

Risky, though, spending too long looking. Too many ideas, and you can visually short circuit, getting lost in a tar-pit of seductive images.Too much relaxed flicking of pages and it,s suddenly lunchtime (no bad thing). It,s best to do short raids. Know what you want. Get in there. And get out again. The final jigsaw of characters is then drawn up onto my water colour paper using the light table again - and then it is left alone to dream of whatever it is that light tables dream of, until it,s services are required again. Stretching the paper requires water from the tap next door - not the neighbours - the room next door. They have big cellars in Denmark. I know there are a lot of assumptions being thrown out here, but I feel relatively safe in assuming that you all know what a tap looks like, so no photo.

However - here is a photo of that little area where, I suspect, like many of us, we spend most of our time - in spite of persistent requests to pay attention to things that need dealing with in the other world outside these walls. Again, like I suspect many of us, my walls and shelves are covered, some might say cluttered, with all sorts of visual stimulus and emotional supplements, to help oil the wheels, and occasionally push the creative juggernaut I,m trying to steer. It,s all stuff I love.Some things go back years, without having lost any of their appeal - visually or emotionally.

This huge Conan poster, I pleaded with the staff at Londons Forbidden Planet to give me. They had it folded up under the counter, and were happy to get rid of it - for free! More than 30 years ago. It,s seen a lot of things, in a lots of different places over the years, hanging on different walls! The Siberian tiger is a more recent arrival. Helps remind me that a big part of my own artistic quest is simply trying to make something beautiful. His beauty helps put on hold depressing thoughts about all the crap going on in the world. The sheer aesthetic perfection of a full grown Siberian tiger very quickly puts mankind's stupid and arrogant fumblings on a back-burner - even though, sadly it is those consistent fumblings that threaten such beauty and conspires to make it even more poignant. Don,t get me started…….. Unless you are one of theses digital folks, it's the same stuff going on in my play area as there is in yours. Pots of brushes. Tubes of paint. And from that tap next door - water.

The paints just live communally in an old box - the warmer colours at one end - the colder ones at the other, though the front lines can get a bit muddled sometimes.

The brushes, of which I have far too many (because you never know - do you?), are sorted vaguely in sizes. They are on constant rotation, as it is quite a job targeting one that will behave and do exactly what I want it to do. At the moment I am stuck in a kind of vicious, hogs-hair no-mans land. The brushes, that through time and use, have evolved into the perfect partner, have recently reached a collective point where they have simply given up. Instead of a willing and eager tool, a rather alarming number of them have seemingly reached a point where they thought it would be better to turn into something that even a dwarf wouldn't use to clean his chimney. So, my entire A-Team of front rank brushes, have opted for career changes, and my all too new recruits are simply not up to the task.

Even the ones on the left had a perfect leaf shape once - many paintings ago. But they are still more useful than the ones on the right!

So - a lot of time is spent picking upon brush after the other, trying to find one that can be bent to it's masters will. Brush-rage. You heard it here first. Not a nice state of mind when you were enjoying yourself and things were coasting along. I make light of this, but it is a problem. New brushes, in spite of their seductive bodies and fine heads of hair - are rarely up to the job, and I,m not ruthless enough in retiring the old guard, convinced their loyalty will help me though just on more painting. Interestingly enough, the new recruits have forced me to work a lot more broadly in the early stages, getting stuff done quicker, and blocking in larger ares with more confidence. I will, however, be glad when they pass basic training and begin to justify their places in my paint pots.

Perched behind me, we can see some anatomic sculptures. Another invaluable aid to quickly checking that the nuts and bolts are understood in that consistently challenging subject of the human body. The skulls are a camel (I found it in the desert and brought all the way in a suitcase from Dubai when my parents lived there. Bet I couldn't do that these days!),and a female elk - or moose, to our American chums.

Music, of course, being another essential to the creative process - and of course, simply as something to be enjoyed in it,s own right. I won't bore you with what I have - but of course - it is an eclectic collection of breathtakingly good taste. Enough said. The more observant amongst you (and I think I can safely assume that observance is a trait that all of us arty types are somewhat known for), may have spotted the big plastic container under the table. The last 25 litres of 75 litres of cider that is almost ready to bottle. Not strictly anything to do with my daily creative routine. Just needed the radiators warmth back in November when it was fermenting. Having said that, though, it,s very comforting hearing the gentle release of bubbles as the natural sugars turn to alcohol. I find myself digressing.

"Recreational"creativity. Making things for orks to run around in. My excuse is father/son stuff……….

Not much more to see really. Got some drawers full of half baked ideas, finished works and things I should have thrown out years ago.

A big mirror is invaluable for quick poses. Folds in clothing. Taking quick photos for reference, especially hands - that,s why they all look the same in my paintings, and checking my hair. The goblin is optional.

Plants - you have to have plants. Of course you do - and not just for giving you fresh oxygen - though that,s a good reason, especially if you are a brave soul who dabbles in oil paints.

Lastly, moving down to floor level we come to my exercise machine. He's called Baldur, and is the latest, top of the range "get the artist off his bum and out of the door" model. And Baldur is the only one who can watch me paint, talk to myself, sing, play air guitar, and occasionally curse - with out getting bored (as far as I can tell). I guess we all lead very sedentary lives' perched on our gluteus maximus all day, so anything that causes us to move is a good thing - and a Baldur is about as good as it gets.

So, I reckon that,s it really. Just a quick little tour. Nothing earth-shattering. No secret techniques - I,ll try and rustle some up for next time. Hope you enjoyed the little tour. If you did, feel free to leave something in the tip-jar on the way out.

from Muddy Colors http://ift.tt/2pi1b2J

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leonarsfrey1991 · 4 years

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How To Grow Big Juicy Grapes Astonishing Ideas

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#How To Grow Big Juicy Grapes Astonishing Ideas #How Fast Do Wild Grapes Grow

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holytheoristtastemaker · 4 years

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In this article, you'll learn all about Software Requirements. You'll get an outline on the topic area, the process, and most importantly what your responsibilities are in this area as a software engineer. You should gain some insight into your role and activities with software requirements. If anything, you'll have something to discuss with colleagues after your next stand-up 😃 This article borrows heavily from the tome that is the IEEE SWEBOK guide. It attempts to distill some of that knowledge, re-purposing it more concisely. In case your wondering, SWEBOK is an acronym for the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge which is maintained by the IEEE Computer Society.

Upfront, Why is this important?

There is a misconception from those not in software engineering that the role of a software engineer is to just "write code." Yes, we're technologists who generally love learning programming. In reality, this is a simplistic view that under-values what a software engineer professional actually does in their day-to-day job and career. It focuses only on a slice of their overall responsibilities. A software engineer's role is to build business solutions at enterprise scale. This includes a large number of responsibilities that aren't related to the code they create. One area of responsibility you have as a professional software engineer is the area of software requirements.

What are Software Requirements?

Software Requirements on the surface sound simple. The software must do X for Y so that Z. Think about it for long enough on any problem that software could solve (or about existing software already solving a problem) and you could probably brainstorm a large number of requirements. Easy right? Well no, in fact, for most enterprise software. How are you gathering your requirements? Are you considering the stakeholders needs and priorities? Is this really a requirement for users of the software? Are there technical limitations of considerations? How do you know when it's done? Does the requirement implementation satisfy a set criterion? And so on... When you start drilling into the idea of Software Requirements, you find that they hide a large and deeper knowledge area. How deep and large a knowledge area? SWEBOK defines the area of Software Requirements as being "concerned with the elicitation, analysis, specification, and validation of software requirements as well as the management of requirements during the whole life cycle of the software product." The size of this area, such as the number of activities and how involved each can be, gave enough credence to devote a branch of engineering known as "requirements engineering" solely focused on the requirements process. Certain organizations may hire specifically for the role of a requirements engineer. You may see this more often in really large organizations who provide system-level solutions, for example, where their proposed solutions to customer problems encompass a total solution of which the software is just a single component. More typically, organizations tend to share requirements engineering responsibility through activities assigned amongst the various other project roles, like designers, business analysts, product owners, offering or client management, technical writers, software architects/engineers, and so on. In general, it is difficult to implement the requirements process in a linear process in practice, like a waterfall methodology. That would require software requirements to be elicited from the stakeholders, classified, allocated, and eventually handed over for implementation by the software development team. This often isn't feasible for long-term at-scale successful solutions. Requirements for those large software projects are never perfectly understood or perfectly specified. Instead, they usually iterate to just enough level of quality and detail that allows for design and procurement decisions to be made. Requirements engineering is distinct from software engineering in the type of work you focus on. It is important you understand your connection with the requirements process as likely you will be generally involved in some requirements activity at some point.

What is involved in software requirements for the software engineer?

Depending on your organization's requirements process and/or the requirement activities the software engineer is responsible for, you may be involved in any or all stages. This could be from gathering requirements right through to verifying their implementation. Areas where you may be involved:

Elicitation - the gathering of requirements for the software

Classification - categorizing the requirement

Validation - confirming the requirement with stakeholders

Development & Implementation - building the software to meet the requirement

Negotiation - dealing with stakeholder conflicts of interest

Verification - evaluating the software function satisfies the requirement

It's worthwhile to note that this isn't a duplicate of the requirements engineering process. They require a deeper level of involvement and types of activity with certain areas, such as the management and documentation of requirements. Managing and documenting requirements won't typically be your responsibility. It will likely be one the other roles sharing requirements responsibility. It is important that you know how to access and use the management system of requirements to assess requirement changes and impact analysis.

Um, there isn't a management system of requirements...

In some cases, the recording and management of requirements may not be in a specialized system. They could be recorded in other types of recording systems, such as issue tracking software, project management tools, or perhaps even the version control system. In other cases, organizations or project teams don't develop a means to document and manage requirements. They instead might rely on the vision of leadership (an individual or team with the common example being the company founder) and/or have limited resources. They can counter-argue that recording or managing requirements isn't necessary. Not recording and managing requirements can potentially be a serious risk to an organization and the software solution process. For example, your organization, which develops solutions for client needs, will have to meet certain legal obligations. They will state that your software component is built to provide certain functionality and is able to give a specified level of service (SLAs). But if a conflict (legal or otherwise) should arise, perhaps a missing piece of functionality, a non-functional requirement wasn't operating as expected, or even time/budget spent on unwanted features, how do you show what was implemented was what was agreed by the stakeholders as required and necessary? Your organization should be able to demonstrate the mapping between the high-level solution requirements (what the client needs as a solution) to the validated software requirements (what the stakeholders agreed as meeting the functional needs of the solution, not necessarily 1-to-1) through to implementation of documentation and recording of acceptance or service level tests that demonstrate the functionality provided. Another more common (and less contrived) example is assessing impact. As your organization or project team grows and evolves, so too does the software you create. Unless the software is meant to be dispensable, it should be envisioned to operate over a period of time and so will be subject to upgrades, new features and maintenance. This new work may negate, impact, or change existing functionality designed to meet a historical requirement in various ways (such as changing the software architecture or design of a component). If so, you will need to revisit old requirements to understand better the motivations that underpin it. For example, why was it implemented in such a way? Does the current work need to change? Is the old requirement still relevant? etc.

Elicitation of Software Requirements

Requirements elicitation refers to the activity that describes how the requirements are gathered or collected. Not all requirements are "gathered" from a customer and may be derived from the system or domain the software operates within (such as operability and reliability for critical systems). From a project management perspective, elicitation is critical to derive the project scope and the deliverables important to the client or user needs, prioritizing the most important needs first.

What is involved in eliciting software requirements?

Depending on the your role's level of involvement in the requirements process, you may need to take requirements from source. Requirements elicitation helps inform the design and architecture of the overall solution. It's important you understand where requirements come from and what techniques are used.

Where do the software requirements come from?

There are many sources to requirements, such as:

Goals (also known as Business Concern, Critical Success Factor, etc.)

Domain Knowledge

Stakeholders

Business rules

Operational environment

If you're involved in the elicitation from sources, you'll need to:

Pay particular attention to the goals.

These often are generally vague, like "The software must be implemented using best practices" or "The software must be user-friendly"

Assess the relative value to priority of the solution. Study relatively low-cost ways of achieving.

Acquire or have available knowledge about the application domain

This provides you the background information that gives understanding to the reasons behind the requirements.

Development of models of the real-world problem, such as entity relationship models, are key to good software requirements analysis. Try to think using an ontological approach.

Identify, represent and manage the viewpoints of many different types of stakeholders

Requirements may be conflicting, overlapping, or require different motivations in parts from the needs of different stakeholders.

It's important you recognize the different needs, especially in the implementation pre-planning, where the needs are incorporated into the design.

Show sensitivity to the solution's operating environment

The operating environment will be subject to an organization's structure, culture and internal politics.

A general principle your software should strive for is not introducing unplanned or forced changes on the organization's business process.

How do I get the software requirements?

Some principal techniques you may be involved with (providing technical expertise) could be:

conducting stakeholder interviews

outlining scenarios

building prototypes

observation in the problem area

user stories

In building prototypes, a general principle you should try follow is to use low fidelity prototypes more often in these earlier stages. These are preferred to avoid stakeholder fixation on minor or incidental characteristics. A higher-quality prototype can limit design flexibility in unintended ways.

Classification of Software Requirements

When software requirements have been elicited, they can then be classified across a number of categories by the project team. This helps in a variety of ways, such as estimating project effort, identifying components for the solution design, or even simple implementation considerations. Classification types can include:

Functional / Non-functional

Functional requirements describe the functions that the software is to execute. For example, providing a communication channel for a user or transferring data from one format to another. They can also be known as product's features or capabilities.

Non-functional requirements act to enforce certain constraints on the solution, often in terms of quality. These can further classify into the many types of "-ilities" such as availability, reliability, recoverability, maintainability, scalability, performance, security, etc.

Derived / Imposed / Emergent

Does the requirement derive from other requirements?

Is the requirement being imposed explicitly by a stakeholder?

Is the requirement an emergent property? In other words, it cannot be addressed by a single component but depends on how all the software components interoperate.

Process / Product

Is the requirement product-related? (an example, "The software must verify a person's eligibility")

Is the requirement process-related? (an example, "The software must be developed incrementally and use continuous integration and deployment workflows)

Priority

Balancing the cost of development and implementation versus need for delivery.

Can use a fixed-label scale like mandatory, highly desirable, desirable, and optional.

Scope

Used to consider the impact on the software architecture and component designs.

Non-functionals often have a global scope.

Volatility / Stability

The potential the requirement will change during the life cycle of the software.

This will help implement designs that are tolerant of changes

Validation of Software Requirements

Once the software requirements have been elicited and classified, they need to be validated with the stakeholders for accuracy and whether or not they actually fulfill their needs. Requirements that cannot be validated are really just "wishes" by the stakeholders. If you follow an iterative development method, the validation of requirements can be performed regularly, separated by scope around specific solution areas, or undertaken in chunks, or some other type of separation that makes logical sense. Requirement validation usually involves the solution team replaying their understanding of the requirement back to stakeholders. It can also involve an initial design (business or technical, or both) which shows how each of the stakeholder needs will be implemented. These understandings are iteratively created through the planning stages and normally consist of the views of a cross-functional team (designers, business analysts, technical experts). In some cases, the design may need some pre-implementation work to better demonstrate the team's understanding, usually in the form of a functional prototype. During validation, your team may not be able to perfectly satisfy the requirements of every stakeholder. It will be your responsibility as the technical expert to demonstrate and negotiate the tradeoffs that fit the constraints. It will need to be acceptable to the principal stakeholders while also within budgetary, technical, regulatory, and other measures.

Using functional prototypes

Functional prototypes are useful as they allow for:

validating that the requirements are understood

easier interpretation of the engineer's assumptions

feedback which can provide new requirements

You must consider that stakeholders can be distracted by cosmetic or quality problems. You can mitigate this through consistently communicating the real importance of the demonstration - the core underlying functionality. How the prototype is built is determined by your project team. Some advocates prefer prototypes that avoid software altogether (similar to those built when eliciting requirements). Others prefer some type of software display through design tool-kits or a quickly built draft iteration of the software behind a feature control. Whatever choice your team decides upon should consider the speed of building the prototype versus the effectiveness of demonstrating the core functionality.

Development & Implementation of Software Requirements

When the requirement has been validated with stakeholders, you can begin development/implementation of the requirement. In many cases, you will act as software architect because the process of analyzing and elaborating the requirements demand that the architecture/design components that will be responsible for satisfying the requirements be identified. A key interest for your organization is to profit from the software solution. It is your responsibility to try to use methods that reduce the cost of development and maintenance. You can do this, for example, through component reuse (internally or from other products), using well-defined patterns, and working with well-tested and well-documented tools/frameworks. Specific requirements, particularly constraints, can have huge impact on the cost of software. For example if your skill set in the implementation is poor or the perhaps the requirement is counter or doesn't fit with the current architecture. Important tradeoffs among such requirements should be identified to the project team. Throughout the requirements process, an important point you should understand is the expectation that a significant proportion of requirements will change. Recognize the inevitability of change and try take steps in your design to allow for it.

The User Story

A software engineer often works within the context of a user story deliverable. The user story is a natural-word representation of a particular user-type's interaction with the software and the functionality it should provide them. It usually follows the format of:

As a <role> , I want <goal/desire>, so that <benefit>

An example:

As a course administrator, I want to see the number of people enrolled in a course, so that I can see the current course capacity

In some cases, the user story will come with a design or prototype if these were required in the validation stage. It is possible the user story isn't user-centric and instead derives from an emergent property or non-functional requirement. In these cases, you may receive the requirement in a different deliverable context (such as a specification or scenario set). A user story is intended to contain just enough information so that your engineering team can produce a reasonable estimate of the effort to implement it. If your team is unable to produce a reasonable estimate, it could a be a sign of a poor match in knowledge/skills, individual confidence levels, fitting or dependency constraints, or crucially that the user story is lacking in quality. Software engineers are (necessarily) constrained by project management plans, so you must try to take steps to check that the quality of the requirements is as high as possible, given the available resources. Before a user story is implemented, check:

for an appropriate acceptance criteria, written or agreed with the stakeholders, that determines how the goals of the user story can be fulfilled with the implementation.

This will form the basis for the acceptance tests of the feature (in other words, the tests that demonstrate the requirement is fulfilled).

This may also form part of the team definition of "done" or complete.

the prototype design (if made) is feasible and can fit within the current architecture, engineering skills, and tools approved for use in the project.

any assumptions that underpin the requirement.

This can highlight gaps in knowledge, potential problems, or other scenarios/edge cases not considered that require further clarification from the stakeholders.

Negotiation of Software Requirements

In implementing a requirement, it is possible that not every stakeholder interest is satisfied perfectly. This can happen, for example, between functional and non-functional requirements, or where one requirement implementation impacts on another stakeholder interest. In most cases, it is unwise for you to make a unilateral decision. Instead, your responsible for assessing the problem, communicating simply, and negotiate tradeoffs that are acceptable to principal stakeholders while remaining within budgetary, technical, regulatory, other constraints.

Verification of Software Requirements

All software requirements demand the need to be verifiable, as a feature or functional requirement, or at global level as a non-functional requirement. Requirements should be verified against the finished product. An important task for you is to plan how to verify each requirement. A software engineer verifies a requirement using an acceptance test. The acceptance test demonstrates how the requirement has been completed (fulfilling the acceptance criteria) by showing end-user behavior conducting business with the software as defined by the requirement. In requirements where its more difficult to demonstrate the verification, such as non-functional requirements, a constructed simulation may be required. For example, to test the performance load of software implementing an intake process, testing software may be created to simulate hundreds or thousands of applications to the system in a black-box acceptance test. As software evolves over time, the implementation of a new requirement may inadvertently affect the fulfillment of a previously implemented requirement. This regression can be guarded against by automating the acceptance tests. You can find many tools and libraries available for programming languages in general use by enterprises that enable automating acceptance tests. Don't confuse the acceptance test as your sole testing responsibility. Adequately attempt to cover the implementation with other tests besides acceptance, such as unit or integration tests. Acceptance tests vary in the level of complexity depending on the acceptance criteria. Different organizations can also use different terminology and practices, which means it can be confused with other types of testing or referred to by different names, such as end-to-end testing, functional testing, or scenario testing. Your organization may also have strict criteria or formats in which acceptance tests are demonstrated with. Remember that the core of every acceptance test is simply a formal verification that an implemented solution satisfies the software requirement by replicating user behaviors on running application against the end product.

That's it in a nutshell

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strangecollectorcupcake-fan · 5 years

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Hacking and phishing will increase in 2019: What digital marketers need to know

Most people with any knowledge of the online tech industry are aware that cybercrime is a significant problem, but far fewer understand just how big a problem it is.

To give you an idea, next year the cost of cybercrime is projected to surpass a whopping $2 trillion. On top of that, the innovation with which hackers are finding ways to exploit vulnerabilities is evolving at a breakneck speed.

For instance, the World Economic Forum (WEF) stated in their 2018 Global Risks Report that cyber attacks constituted the third largest global threat for 2018, with a prediction those new and more complicated threats would take center stage for the coming year.

Cybercriminals will do much more than simply trying to crack your usernames or passwords. On the contrary, they understand that a great percentage of people know about these tricks and exploits that happen on the web, forcing them to turn to more complicated measures such as faking identities and appearing as genuine individuals in an attempt to get into your data or accounts.

This is exactly why digital marketers must make online security a top priority in 2019. With your company – and potentially even your customer data at stake – the consequences of a large-scale data breach could be death-dealing for your brand.

It’s also precisely why you need to fully understand how examples of cybercrime such as hacking and phishing are going to become even worse threats in 2019. Here’s my hacking and phishing forecast for the new year to help you better understand how to keep your data secure.

Digital assault is growing day by day

Cybercriminals know that the human brain is the weakest link of the chain, so to penetrate an organization they accumulate sensitive and personal information. Here’s the manner by which it works:

The cybercriminal will start by using a fake and seemingly genuine identity (such as that of a customer or client) to reach out to and build rapport with the employee of an organization.

Utilizing this personality, they connect with more members of the organization with phony details and trick them and others into following up on their false guidelines or instructions. All the data they need can be found without much of an effort, and can be found on the web and doesn’t require any extraordinary methods to gather.

They’ll look through your organization’s site, look on LinkedIn to see who works there, and utilize different online services, for example, Facebook and Twitter to assemble and collect data on their target.

When that is done, it’s simply a question of lying their way through the organizational structure to get the exact data they need to execute a digital assault.

Phishing techniques are constantly being improved

While this type of cybercrime has been around for quite a while, individuals keep on falling for it, because cybercriminals are always coming up with new forms of the trick.

Here’s the way they figure out how to do it:

With phishing, a cybercriminal conveys counterfeit messages to a gathering of individuals, requesting that they make an explicit move.

Before these messages looked “underhanded,” were anything but difficult to perceive, and the majority figured out how to maintain a strategic distance from them. In any case, nowadays, cybercriminals are fitting their messages to the beneficiaries.

They’ll address their exploited people by name, utilize the organization logo, a similar organization marking, and will even hack a representative’s email to perceive how they speak with their associates.

These messages look as though they originated from a legitimate organization and a believed individual in their unfortunate casualty’s exchange arrange. Furthermore, since our work days are quick paced and our inboxes full, at a quick look, the vast majority instinctively react to these messages.

It just goes to show that while the security of your website is crucially important, so is the security of your emails as well. Spear phishing is one of the most common forms of phishing emails.

So on the off chance that you (or a colleague) are experiencing a major exchange, if you don’t mind watch out for the email addresses, designing, wording and whatever else.

All things considered, somebody may have taken advantage of your inbox and could be acting like a believed gathering in the exchange organize

Mobile hacking is breaking new ground

As indicated by IDology’s 2018 Fraud Report, 63 percent of organizations saw an expansion in attacks on mobile devices.

That is not astonishing since we for the most part employees talk with one another through messages and telephone calls done on their own devices. The issue is cybercriminals now have three distinctive approaches to assault you on a cellphone.

They’ve likewise paid attention to our daily practices done on our cell phone. Most of what we do on mobile devices is snappy and instinctive. A notice comes through; we open it and react promptly in light of the fact that our data is just a click away.

So if a notification looks genuine, we only occasionally verify whether it could be a fake. Along these lines, we have seen a considerable rise in two sorts of portable misrepresentation: Caller ID manipulation and malware.

Caller ID spoofing

A type of social engineering where a cybercriminal makes a phony telephone number appear on their recipient’s caller ID. This exploit is to a great degree dangerous for you or your business, mostly because it tends to be combined or followed up with different sorts of tricks like old school social engineering.

Take management impersonation, for example.

On the off chance that the target individual gets a telephone call from a person that is higher up than the average level of colleagues who usually call them, you should regularly check after the call to determine whether it was genuine, even if the phone number matches.

That is the thing that makes this sort of extortion difficult to distinguish. Because of all the signs all point towards it being a genuine piece of outreach.

Mobile malware

Not very far in the past, it was expected that you would not get a virus or malware unless you were installing unknown files or .exe’s.

However, malware has turned out to be advanced to the point that on the off chance you open up a contaminated email message, the malware will install and keep running on your phone’s memory.

This means it is harder to identify since most antivirus programs just scan your storage or hard drive. To exacerbate the situation, when you close down or restart your PC, the malware may vanish entirely.

Clients can get assaulted and have no clue this is going on in the background without them knowing. Furthermore, when they attempt to follow where the assault originated from, they won’t know either.

So be cautious when opening up messages from people that don’t normally email you or that you don’t know by name.

Conclusion

Hopefully, with this overview of the current trends for hacking and phishing heading into the new year, you now also have a better understanding of how cybercriminals may attempt to target you and other digital marketers.

Based on that information, you should also have a better idea of what you need to do to protect your data as well. But of course, there’s a lot more information out there for you to learn so don’t end your research here.

More Expert Predictions

20 expert predictions: Here’s what successful marketers will do in 2019

The post Hacking and phishing will increase in 2019: What digital marketers need to know appeared first on Marketing Land.

from Marketing Land https://mklnd.com/2R2H3QE

#Marketing Land

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zipgrowth · 6 years

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When the Stars Align: A New Constellation of Innovation

Innovation is happening all over higher education today—but it is happening in islands, pockets and clusters. Around the country it’s happening at large four-year public institutions like Arizona State University and small two-year colleges like Wayfinding Academy in Oregon. On campuses, it’s happening in the Office of the President, where grand vision’s find their footing, and in the office of an instructional designer, who may be helping a faculty member create their first course integrating VR content. Each of these institutions are home to optimistic changemakers: people who are passionate about supporting engaging, relevant learning experiences that are accessible and affordable to all.

But who are these people?

At the end of April, about 130 of these “dreamers, doers, and drivers” gathered for an unconference at Arizona State University’s research center, EdPlus, under the umbrella idea of Shaping the Future of Learning in the Digital Age. The event was brainchild of ASU’s new CIO, Lev Gonick, and co-convened by 13 institutions and organizations, and included representatives from industry as sponsors and thought partners. The backdrop of ASU was a fitting one; Edplus represents arguably the largest innovation hub at any higher ed institution and the university more broadly has been recognized as the most innovative school in the country by US News and World Report, in part for leading the charge for more accessible, affordable education.

The format of the event is worth reflecting on. Intimate events for increased information sharing, network-building, and cross-campus collaboration are becoming more popular. And the unconference format enables participants to engage with major themes—and each other—in ways that deeply resonate with them.

Even in a space where everyone was bound to have their own institutional and personal agendas, we saw several themes emerge, some of which become became fodder for “neighborhood” action-oriented discussions.

1: Innovation in the Neighborhoods

As participants leveraged the power of ideation and design thinking, along with a helpful tool called Ideation360, here are a few of the ideas that bubbled to the top:

How to foster personalized learning environments (PLEs):

Understanding the implications and use cases of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality VR) -- categorized as extended reality (XR), along with artificial intelligence (AI);

More effective understanding of how to use data and analytics to measure learning and drive decision-making;

Applying micro-credentials to recognize all forms of learning;

How to nurture the next generation of diverse, university leaders

Rise of new organizational models for collaboration

Each of these topics shared more questions than answers. A collection of popular tweets represents the ideas that inspired the group:

What is the difference between "personalized" and "individualized"? learning - learning environments? is it agency? "Personalized" is done to you. "Individualized" is done by you? #shapingedu #openpedagogy

— Alexandra M. Pickett (@alexpickett) April 26, 2018

Visual notes of our Lightning talk on #VR #AR #XR and future of education at the Unconference of Dreamers, Doers & Drivers Shaping the Future of Learning @ASU #higherEd @emorycraig @mayaig @DigitalBodies #shapingedu pic.twitter.com/Unqh5a4Ad8

— Maya Georgieva (@mayaig) April 27, 2018

@tjoosten Instead of saying “We have this data so let’s use it to solve a problem” we should be saying “What problems do we have that need to be solved” and then “Do we have data to help solve these problems?” #shapingedu

— anthonynewman (@anthonynewman) April 26, 2018

Additionally, many of these topics have been explored in depth by recent Horizon Reports (annual industry research now under the purview of EDUCAUSE). That shouldn’t be a surprise; many of the unconference attendees contributed to those reports in the past. The difference was the encouragement of design-thinking around these ideas, making for dynamic contributions in real-time with a broader set of perspectives.

2: Forging Authentic, Cross-Institutional Relationships

There is some irony in having conversations about authentic learning in the digital age while packing 130 people into the same room for a face-to-face gathering. And yet, strengthening old relationships and forging new ones is invaluable when there is so much to be shared across institutions —whether they are one or ten thousand miles apart. Participants hailed from as far as Australia, reinforcing the notion that US institutions have something to learn from our fellow post-secondary leaders across the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Events like the unconference at ASU can catalyze the creation of networks. Look no further than the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) to see the power of multiple institutions working together to share data for the purpose of better student outcomes. In fact, Anne Keehn, Founder of Quantum Thinking, based in Washington DC, led discussions to describe how unconference relationships could lead into similar “Academic Innovation Networks.”

One such initiative that recently launched is the CoAction Learning Lab at Penn State, which is incubating and prototyping a global higher education collaboratory of senior leaders, faculty and students to champion the meaningful use of technology for teaching and learning. The Lab seeks to establish a shared set of core values across higher education to inform technology decisions through the creation of an open online library of resources.

In addition, event advisor Bryan Alexander gave a lightning talk on a new community project called FOEcast, which aims to help higher education leaders make sense of technology trends and other evolving facets that comprise the future of education.

Susan Metros, formerly with the University of Southern California, later pointed out that many of the networks and initiatives operate with similar goals—yet remain insular and closed off from one another. She asked the group: what if we substituted “Constellations” for “Networks?” For example, does your “network” include large, Big Ten public universities? Or are you including others, say, community college innovators, library professionals or the biggest employers in your region? Constellations have many more interwoven connection points or nodes where people and organizations with different perspectives spur us to think beyond the familiar.

3: Including Excluded Voices: Students and Employers

A third thread running through the event was a recognition of voices notably absent from the event: students. Could a bunch of 40+ year-olds (with a few millennials peppered in) authentically design learning experiences for 26-year olds (the average age of a US college student)?

Dave Thomas, director of academic technology at University of Colorado Denver, and Instructure Engineer and CU Denver Adjunct Faculty Brian Yuhnke spoke on intergenerational differences, especially around how students have different ways of interacting with technology. Yuhnke recalled asking his students to create a comic that reflected their vision of the future of higher education. One student portrayed education taking place exclusively online—not because of digital developments, but out of fear for the growing number of school shootings. The image provoked audible gasps around the room.

And it’s not just students; much of the conversation about redesigning learning experiences usually has minimal influence from companies. But this event had representatives from the likes of LinkedIn Learning to Adobe to Hypothesis, there were companies present who are trying make products to better support teaching and learning—and who will eventually hire or promote graduates. In addition, there is an opportunity for institutions and industry to partner around continuing professional development in service of lifelong learning ASU’s President Michael Crow described the idea within a Universal Learning framework as “an evolving model of higher education that is capable of being of service to all learners, at all stages of work and learning, from all socioeconomic backgrounds, through educational, training, and skill-building opportunities.”

4: United in Mission

In an event that could have been all about technology and digital tools, there was a clear “people-first” mindset. Michelle Pacansky-Brock, from California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative, introduced the theme of “Humanizing Online Learning.” While the institutional impetus is to increase online enrollments and hybrid models, it is the role of faculty, instructors and learning designers to focus on fostering authentic, interpersonal interactions in course design. Learners come from all backgrounds with different needs so accessibility and equity must be at the core of designing learning experiences.

The unconference was a refreshing reminder that dreamers are already doing and driving this work around innovation today at once tradition-bound institutions around the world. And one more tip off: Even the physical environment inside of EdPlus looks more like a Silicon Valley campus than the classic ivy-bound institutions of the past.

When the Stars Align: A New Constellation of Innovation published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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csd3sign-blog · 6 years

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A Narrative Arc

What is a narrative arc?

In the broadest terms, the narrative arc is shaped by the beginning, middle, and end of a story. You may already be familiar with one classic example of the story arc: boy meets girl, boy fails girl, boy gets girl again. This may sound oversimplified, and it is. Adding complexity to a basic story arc is part of what differentiates one story from another, even when they’re ostensibly dealing with the same ideas.

Boy gets girl, boy ends up on an island with girl.

It’s sometimes useful to think about the story arc as though you’re setting up a simple dramatic play. Ultimately, you’ve got three acts to tell your story.

In Act One, you set the scene and introduce your audience to the characters, the setting, and the seeds of conflict.

In Act Two, your characters grow and change in response to conflicts and circumstances. They set about trying to resolve the Big Problem. Usually, the conflict will escalate to a climax.

In Act Three, characters resolve the Big Problem and the story ends.

What’s the difference between a narrative arc and a plot?

While the plot is comprised of the individual events that make up your story, your story arc is the sequence of those events. Imagine every scene of your novel summarized on notecards: the entire stack of cards is your plot, but the order in which you lay them out is your story arc.

Thinking about your arc is essential around this point. What if your Scene 1 notecard actually belongs in the denouement? What if you have too many scenes based on internal conflict in a row (leaving the external conflict to wither)? Carefully ordering your plot into a cohesive story arc helps readers navigate your story, and sets expectations that you can either satisfy or disrupt.

If the plot is the skeleton of your story, the narrative arc is the spine. It’s the central through-line marking the plot’s progress from beginning to end.

How about the character arc?

The narrative arc is to the story what the character arc is to a character. The narrative arc involves the plot on a grand scale, and a character arc charts the inner journey of a character over the course of the plot.

Another straightforward distinction: while the story arc is external, the character arc is internal, and each main (and sometimes secondary) character will go through an individual arc.

A metaphorical representation of Superman's internal character arc.

Still, narrative and character arcs are part of a symbiotic relationship. Each plot point in the story arc should bring your characters closer to, or further from, their goals and desires. The circumstances and conflicts your characters face are part of the arc, but the way characters meet challenges and change as a result is “character arc” territory.

How do you structure a narrative arc?

So, remember what we said about the three acts that make up a story arc? If you try to visualize the progression of action in your mind, you may see something that builds up and falls as so:

That’s right . . . a pyramid. (One that's set upon a roller coaster, for your viewing pleasure.)

Freytag’s Pyramid

In 1863, Gustav Freytag, a 19th-century German novelist, used a pyramid to study common patterns in stories’ plots. He put forward the idea that every narrative arc goes through five dramatic stages: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Freytag’s Pyramid is a useful tool that reveals the structure of many stories, so it’s the framework we’ll be using in the next few sections. Feel free to use the diagram above as a reference as you follow along, or skip to your preferred stage below.

Exposition Rising Action Climax Falling Action Denouement

Exposition

The de-facto introduction to your book, the exposition is Act One of the story arc. You’re setting the table in the exposition: bringing out your characters, setting up the seeds of conflict, and imparting just enough background information to keep the reader clued in on what’s occurring in the story.

Here’s a brief overview of what else the reader should be able to extract from the exposition of your story (which, incidentally, ties neatly into the 5 Ws):

The characters. Who’s in the cast of characters? How can you differentiate among them?

The setting. Where does your story take place? Don’t forget that setting includes time — when does your story take place? What time period?

The mood. How will you set the tone of the novel in the exposition? A romance that suddenly goes sideways due to an alien invasion is going to confuse readers and cloud your book's genre classification.

The size of the exposition depends on your book. The Count of Monte Cristotakes many thousands of words to set the stage, while P.G. Wodehouse wastes no time galloping past the exposition.

Jeeves & Wooster galloping right past the exposition.

A word of caution: don’t mistake “exposition” for “info dump.” Even while Tolkien is busy introducing the reader to an enormous cast of dwarves in The Hobbit, there’s a booming party going on and poor Bilbo’s scrambling to serve tea! Readers will be interested in background information only when it doesn’t distract or detract from the plot. You must balance action and information if you want them to continue flipping the pages.

What’s a good story without a few (or more) wrinkles?

Usually, the rising action is prompted by a key trigger (also known as the inciting incident), which is what says to the reader, “Here we go.” It’s the moment Romeo sees Juliet, or it’s the split second in which Katniss’s sister, Prim, is picked during the reaping. Whatever the circumstances, the key trigger is the event that rolls the dice and causes a series of events to escalate, setting the rest of the story in motion.

As your exposition already set up your characters and conflict, it’s now the job of the rising action to:

Develop the characters while allowing relationships between characters to deepen.

Escalate the conflict and amp up tension.

In Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, everything that occurs after Hercule Poirot steps foot onto the train — up until the murder of R — constitutes the story’s rising action. In the book, this stage’s function becomes twofold: not only does it strengthen the suspense on the train, but the sequence of events also starts revealing the cast of suspects’ relationships and motives to the reader. How your characters respond to the changing situations in this stage will speak volumes about them.

Climax

A good climax will build upon everything earlier — the storylines, motives, character arcs — and package it all together. It’s both the moment of truth for the protagonist (the peak of the character arc) and the event to which the plot’s built up (the peak of the arc). When the outer and inner journeys come together and click, you know you’ve got the beginnings of a winning climax.

On the flip side, a bad climax is the easiest way for a reader to feel cheated and chuck your book at the wall. They’ll use your book as tissue paper in the future, or — worse! — never pick a book of yours up again. So the climax is one of the most important parts of your story arc. While it’s the beginning that sells ‘this novel,’ it’s the climax that sells ‘the next’ novel.

Falling Action

Okay, so you’ve gone and banged out a climax that knocks the reader right out of the park. What next? Your job definitely isn’t over yet, because the story can’t just grind to a stop. (FYI, that would make it every reader’s Public Enemy #1: the cliffhanger.)

Instead, you can follow this old axiom: what goes up must come down.

Let’s say that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone closes up shop right when Harry passes out after defeating Quirrell. But we need to see Harry wake up in the Infirmary and chat it out with Dumbledore; to feel satisfied, we need to see Dumbledore award Neville Longbottom the 10 House points that win Gryffindor the House Cup. In much the same way, you can show the reader the fruits of the protagonist’s toils. Think of this stage as the bridge between the climax and the resolution. How do you get your characters from the climax to Happily Ever After™?

Here are a few things to keep in mind during this stage of the story arc:

Your characters shouldn’t stop moving just because you’ve checked off the climax. The word “action” does exists in “falling action”; make it count.

Usually, this is the stage where authors start resolving any remaining subplots and mini-conflicts. In Shakespeare’s comedies, this is the stage where everyone merrily pairs off with the right partner. Use this space to tie up any and all dangling threads.

Denouement

And after all that? Well, you’ve made it to the denouement. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy are engaged. Bilbo returns to Bag End. Huck Finn settles down with Aunt Sally to be “sivilized.” Ishmael is rescued from the sea. Everywhere, readers breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Also called the resolution, the denouement is just a fancy way of saying that the book is now going to wrap up.

For an example of this stage’s function, take the old-fashioned detective novel. In the detective denouement, the detective gathers everyone in a room and reveals the whodunnit, explaining everything. All questions are resolved, all ends are wrapped up — and the reader can shut your book with peace of mind. Congratulations! That’s the whole arc business done and dusted. Isn’t it?

Well, sometimes. That begs the question of. . .

Does Freytag’s Pyramid work with every story?

History is dotted with novels that bucked the trend. On the Road possesses virtually no narrative arc while To Kill a Mockingbird arguably possesses twonarrative arcs (the arcs of Tom Robinson and Boo Radley). The Trial builds up to a complete anti-climax in the place of a climax; meanwhile, Catcher in the Rye casually drops a sentence in the denouement about (spoiler warning) Holden going to a mental institution before the book ends, abruptly.

All this is to say, there’s plenty of room within the arc to explore and experiment. Disrupting reader expectations isn’t always a bad thing, but successfully straying from the expected course requires comprehensive understanding of the traditional story arc. After all, you can’t break what you can’t build.

Another item of note: although the popular five-act structure of Freytag’s Pyramid does capture the chronology of many books’ plots, be aware that some authors use a three-act structure. One significant change that will result deals with the placement of your climax, which this post over at Vintage Novels analyzes quite thoroughly, through The Lord of the Rings.

Source: https://blog.reedsy.com/narrative-arc/

#ixd304 #ixdbelfast

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generalpandadefendor-blog · 7 years

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Portable Air Conditioner Getting Guideline

Bedrooms, workplaces, garages, and server rooms are frequently hotter than wished-for on account of an absence of right air flow or weak air circulation. This is exactly in which portable air conditioners are available in: They're modest, portable cooling devices that swiftly awesome rooms without the need of entry to central AC. They are also great for spot cooling certain areas like your bedroom, apartment, or office. For easy accessibility to your topics on this information, use our subject record: About Portable Air Conditioners Wistia online video thumbnail - Transportable AC Getting Information - Intro A portable air conditioner is used to give supplemental cooling to certain areas in your home or organization. They don't involve long term installation, but most require a window for air flow or perhaps a different house to immediate the system's exhaust. Most models dehumidify since they cool, and most will also be simply cell. Portable ACs vary by manufacturer, most cooling location, venting configuration, vitality performance, and particular features-like various functioning modes, remote control procedure, programmable timers, and specialized air filters. Wistia video clip thumbnail - Portable AC Obtaining Tutorial - Dimensions An important factor to determine when picking a portable air conditioner could be the size. An air conditioner which is way too smaller won’t sustain with the cooling needs within your ecosystem. If it is too significant, the AC will great the world and shut down right before removing excessive moisture in the area-leaving unwelcome dampness in the air. The subsequent checklist can be an estimate on the coverage area to be expecting based upon a conveyable AC’s BTU (British Thermal Device) ranking, and that is the device utilized to measure cooling electrical power. Utilize the estimates down below to discover an proper product for the home: Portable air conditioners for rooms Little Areas: Moveable air conditioners for rooms as many as 300 square ft tend to be cost-effective and productive. ACs in between 7,000 and ten,000 BTUs can promptly neat areas like bedrooms, compact offices, or one-car garages. Medium-Sized Areas: For living rooms, offices, and workshops, hunt for portable ACs in between ten,000 and 14,000 BTUs. They're normally great for areas between 350 and seven-hundred sq. feet. Big and Commercial Areas: Cooling manufacturing facilities, huge server rooms, and outdoor party areas may be difficult. Commercial-grade moveable air conditioners from KwiKool can manage these huge, hot parts. Observe that you simply must increase the size and electric power of the transportable AC if: Your space has plenty of home windows or heat-generating appliances You reside within a heat, humid state You are cooling a badly insulated place, this sort of to be a garage or workshop Your room has high ceilings If you need help identifying the correct sizing for your personal demands, look at the online video down below or simply call our products professionals at 1 (800) 934-9194 for the cost-free consultation and an authority suggestion. Ventilation and Exhaust Wistia online video thumbnail - Moveable AC Buying Manual - Venting All portable air conditioners vent sizzling air as part with the cooling process. This sizzling air is often vented from the realm becoming cooled utilizing an exhaust hose and will be vented out of a window, fall ceiling, sliding glass door, or through a wall. Most moveable ACs come with window kits or fall ceiling panel kits that come with the wanted exhaust hose and pieces. For additional specific details about ventilation, read through our write-up Ways to Vent Your Moveable AC. Widespread Criteria: Portable AC in Sliding Glass DoorSliding Glass Windows/Doors: Putting together your exhaust hose to operate using a sliding glass window is possible with nearly all moveable ACs. Nonetheless, dependent on the unique design, a window package might not cover the full length of the sliding glass doorway. If this is the case, the gap will need for being crammed with other product like Plexiglas. Window Screens: Lots of our prospects are concerned about window screens when they look at buying a portable AC. Even though incredibly hot air might be exhausted out the window, most screens are unaffected since the exhaust hose does not lengthen out from the window. One or Double Exhaust Hose? Transportable ACs might be single- or double-hosed for exhausting hot air and pulling air in to chill. Some products have both of those exhausting selections. Here's a breakdown of each possibilities: Single-Hose Transportable ACs: A single-hose transportable air conditioner operates by drawing in air within the house, cooling it, and returning most of the air back into your space. A little amount of this air will be utilized to awesome the appliance and will be blown from the air conditioner's exhaust hose. This does build a slight destructive air force because it takes advantage of air from in the area quiet down the compressor. Dual-Hose Moveable ACs:A dual-hose moveable air conditioner pulls in room air, cools it, and after that releases it again into your room. For the reason that device heats up in the course of this process, one consumption hose pulls in air from outdoors to cool down the device. Then, this air is expelled via a next exhaust hose. Therefore, a dual-hose transportable AC will not develop damaging tension inside the home being cooled like single hose types, and it might be much more productive than the usual single-hose portable AC s because the AC won't have to work as tough through the cooling process. Nevertheless, dual-hose units use warmer, unconditioned air to chill their compressors, which often can result in somewhat weakened efficiency. Also, based over the style and design, a dual-hose moveable air conditioner may well use two internal supporters, which may also end result in somewhat bigger electricity utilization. Draining Condensate Wistia online video thumbnail - Portable AC Shopping for Guide - Draining Every time a portable AC cools indoor air, it also functions like a dehumidifier and removes drinking water in the air. Portable ACs have different ways of dealing with this dampness buildup: Thoroughly Self-Evaporative ACs: Some styles are absolutely evaporative, indicating the AC exhausts all condensate and you simply in no way have to dump the collected h2o. They are specially fascinating when you want the freedom to depart them operating unattended. Partially Self-Evaporative ACs: Models can evaporate a lot of dampness into their incredibly hot air exhaust, and there may be little if any drinking water to empty. How frequently you will really need to drain the h2o will rely upon utilization and environmental circumstances. Gravity Drain/Drain Hose: All portable air conditioners assistance the option of a permanent drinking water drain hose relationship. This permits collected water to continually drain out to some nearby floor drain applying the force of gravity-and also implies you will not should drain the h2o manually. Condensate Pumps: Condensate pumps are offered as individual extras that will help pump the collected h2o by way of a drain hose. These pumps can shift water within an upward way to drain water up and away from a place (via a window, for example). Buckets: The only transportable air conditioners have an internal container that holds further drinking water and needs for being manually drained often. Effectiveness Wistia online video thumbnail - Moveable AC Buying Guideline - Effectiveness Portable ACs are likely to be strength productive and will conserve you funds with your month to month electric powered bill. Performance is measured by the moveable AC’s Strength Efficiency Ratio (EER); most of the time, the higher the EER, the greater efficient the model. A score of 10 is often regarded as a really good score for moveable ACs. Examine our Lower your Electricity Monthly bill that has a Portable AC posting for more about moveable air conditioners and performance. Electrical Outlet Needs Most moveable ACs use a standard home 120-volt energy outlet and involve no specific wiring. Nonetheless, some powerful moveable ACs, such as commercial-grade units, might need particular outlets. Examine the products description and technical specs to find out the ability demands when deciding upon a space air conditioner. Sounds Stage Wistia video clip thumbnail - How loud is really a decibel? Moveable air conditioners make noise, for the reason that they use motorized supporters and compressor devices that interesting and flow into the air. Lots of people take into consideration it “background noise,” many others are worried with appliance noise. If you’re concerned about sound in the area, we recommend buying a moveable AC with specific characteristics that limit the audio. Capabilities to search for consist of a programmable timer, various speeds, and also a Rest mode. Some portable air conditioners checklist the decibel score on the program at each lover pace. You can compare these ratings to other indoor appliances, but try to remember audio differs to each individual. Quite a few situations can have an impact on the audio amount, this sort of given that the posture on the unit, if you have carpeting, what sort of furniture you've, as well as enthusiast velocity. For simple reference, make use of the comparison chart down below to receive an idea to the degree of seem a transportable air conditioner will make determined by its decibel measurement. Decibel Comparison Chart - Transportable Air Conditioners Set up and Maintenance Protecting your moveable air conditioner is easy and needs pretty little effort and hard work. Most methods get the job done being a "set it and forget about it" appliance. On the other hand, to have by far the most outside of your investment decision, you ought to keep up on typical maintenance to be sure it has a long lifespan. Suggested routine maintenance contains: Clean up air filters as necessary (generally when every summer time). Make certain it is mounted properly for maximum effectiveness. Drain your portable air conditioner before storing it. Examine your warranty for additional precise info on the areas and expert services covered. Cooling Server and Pc Rooms More cooling is required in several server rooms, and moveable ACs tend to be employed as supplemental or primary cooling systems in these regions. When contemplating an AC, overestimate the amount of BTUs necessary to cool the place; these regions get pretty very hot with electric powered devices jogging. Exhausting your AC is another thing to consider, mainly because a lot of server rooms never present access to windows. Our buyers normally immediate the hot air exhaust hose into a drop ceiling or through a hole during the wall in these scenarios. Look at out our strategies for computer/server place portable ACs. Heating Alternatives Portable ACs offering a Warmth mode make heat either by way of a warmth pump or electrical heater. Electrical heat is suggested for cold, northern climates when warmth pumps operate most effective in reasonable temperatures. In winter season months, a heat pump extracts heat from outside the house air and disperses it during the area. It could reverse its process to cool regions at the same time. Heat pumps often be more successful than electrical heaters because they simply transfer heat. In contrast, units with electric heat transform electrical energy into warmth employing a warmth strip within the device. Although this system makes use of a lot more electrical electricity to warmth than the usual heat pump, in addition, it can handle colder environments. Interested in a conveyable AC with warmth? Check out our bestselling moveable air conditioner heaters. Special Options Wistia video thumbnail - Moveable AC Acquiring Guidebook - Options Numerous portable air conditioners offer you exclusive characteristics that increase your cooling expertise. These capabilities include convenience and save you cash on electricity charges. They consist of: Self-evaporating technological know-how Directional air control Handheld remote control Washable air filters Casters for straightforward mobility Programmable timer Electronic controls Many supporter speeds Carrying manage Further modes: Dehumidify, Fan, Warmth, Computerized, Energy-conserving However Have Inquiries? For additional info on particular transportable air conditioners as well as other indoor air treatment method alternatives, critique our comprehensive merchandise listings and stop by our Know-how Center. Undecided what is greatest to suit your needs? We will take the guesswork out of decision-making. Contact our merchandise professionals toll free of charge at one (800) 934-9194. We would like to help you you make your indoor surroundings a healthier 1. MeasureMeasure Obtenez un compte Evernote gratuit pour enregistrer cet short article et le lire as well as tard sur n'importe quel appareil. Créer un compte

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djgblogger-blog · 7 years

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Imagining Russia post-Putin

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Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the students on July 21, 2017. Alexei Nikolsky/via AP

On July 21, Vladimir Putin was asked at an audience with schoolchildren what he will do when he retires. He replied, “I haven’t decided yet if I will leave the presidency.”

While everyone is obsessed with following the twists and turns of the ties between Putin and President Trump, it is important to bear in mind that the relationship between the two countries will long outlast these two men.

Putin will run again in the March 2018 presidential election, and he is sure to win. His approval rating is above 80 percent, and the opposition has been co-opted, preempted or repressed. Putin’s term would end in 2024, at which point he will be 72 years old.

As a scholar of the Soviet Union back in the 1980s, I saw how the failure to develop an effective mechanism to rotate political leaders contributed to that system’s stagnation and ultimate collapse. Could a similar situation soon unfold?

Follow the leader

Given the problems facing Russia, it is understandable why Putin might not feel comfortable handing over the reins of power to a successor next year. With the global oil price stuck at US$50 a barrel, the Russian economy is barely growing, and Russia remains subject to Western sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. But by 2024, “Project Successor” will surely be back on the agenda of the Russian elite.

The Russian Constitution requires Putin to step down after two consecutive terms. Putin solved that problem in 2008 by moving sideways, becoming prime minister while his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, took over as president. Putin decided to return to the presidency in 2012, presumably because he felt Medvedev was not doing a good enough job.

Now, analysts are divided over whether the political regime Putin has created will survive beyond his tenure. Many believe that power is so deeply embedded in Putin’s web of informal ties that it is impossible to imagine another individual stepping into his shoes. There is so much at stake – so many illegally acquired fortunes that need state protection – that the day after he steps down, the Kremlin could erupt into faction fighting of the sort that ravaged Russia in the 1990s, and which plagues Ukraine to this day.

However, it is important to remember that Putin is not a dictator who wields unchallenged authority. Nor is he the head of a disciplined ruling party, such as the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As the Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar shows, he is a broker, balancing the interests of rival clans – business oligarchs, regional bosses, the heads of the security forces (siloviki) and the technocrats who run the government ministries. These were the men who brought Putin into power, and without whose cooperation nothing in Russia gets done.

Certain rules of the game have emerged. The oligarchs stay out of politics, and in return are mostly protected from the seizure of their assets by the state.

Over the years, Putin has also skillfully won more autonomy for himself, but he is still aware of the limits of his power. Russian analysts speak of the number of individuals around Putin who hold power as the “collective Putin,” or the “Politburo 2.0,” a reference to the ruling Cabinet of the Communist era that represented diverse bureaucratic interests.

But in order to secure his place in Russian history – something that clearly concerns him – Putin faces the challenge of installing a reliable successor. This person will have to guarantee Putin’s personal security and wealth and that of his inner circle. This is apparently what Putin promised his predecessor Boris Yeltsin and his family when he was selected as Yeltin’s successor. Putin will probably try out the person as prime minister before nominating him as president. Indeed, this was the path Putin himself took back in 1999.

Putin’s system does not, however, have any mechanism in place for picking a successor: a major structural flaw. In the 17 years that Putin has been in power, China has smoothly cycled through three leaders. In the oil-rich former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, Gaidar Aliev groomed his son Ilham, who took over the presidency upon his father’s death in 2003. But Putin has no son, only daughters, traditionally not seen as successors to power. Presidents Karimov in Uzbekistan and Niyazov in Turkmenistan, who ruled for decades, also did not have sons to whom they could hand over power.

Nevertheless, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have both experienced fairly smooth leadership transitions in recent years. When Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov died in 2016 he was replaced by the man who had served as his prime minister since 2003. In Turkmenistan in 2006, Saparmurad Niyazov was succeeded upon his death by his former dentist, then serving as deputy prime minister.

Admittedly, those countries are smaller and more homogeneous than Russia, and their leaders wielded far more personal power than Putin. But it is evidence for the argument that the authoritarian regimes that emerged from collapse of the Soviet Union may be more stable than they appear to outsiders, even though they have not developed the institutions of a liberal democracy.

Next president of Russia?

Dmitry Medvedev, the current prime minister, is unlikely to return to the presidency. He is not a popular figure, and was the target of a recent documentary by opposition leader Aleksei Navalny which detailed his personal wealth, including owning a vineyard in Tuscany. Since its release on YouTube in March 2007, it has been viewed more than 23 million times, and Medvedev’s approval rating swung negative, losing 15 points in one month.

There are three men who stand out as more plausible successors to Putin, trusted by the elite and with the potential to be sold to the public as an effective leader.

Sergei Shoigu, currently defense minister, is the second-most popular politician in Russia after Putin (26 percent trust versus Putin’s 55 percent), but he has no experience in business or foreign affairs, having spent most of his career in the civil emergencies ministry.

Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, was formerly the head of the oil-rich Khanty-Mansi province.

Yurii Trutnev, a former regional governor and natural resources minister, currently serves as deputy prime minister, is intelligent and a proven manager.

Shoigu and Sobyanin are both from a mixed ethnic background. Shoigu comes from Tuva on the Mongolian border, and Sobyanin is part Mansi, a people of the Arctic north. This could be a problem, since many Russians harbor negative stereotypes about ethnic minorities and may be reluctant to see one as president of Russia.

Despite the grave problems facing Russia, Putin has undoubtedly brought a degree of stability to Russia, especially when compared to the chaos of the 1990s. In the 17 years since he took office in 2000, living standards have more than doubled, the problem of Islamist terrorism and Chechen secession has been contained, and Russia has reemerged as an influential player on the international stage. In my view, Putin – and Russia – would be best served by his stepping aside sooner rather than later, establishing a precedent for a peaceful transition of power as part of his legacy.

In July 2017 Peter Rutland was a visiting senior fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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michelea198531-blog · 7 years

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Residential property Foreclosure

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When an individual buys a house, he needs to take a lending routinely. The lending institutions, usually banks, keep the title to home collateral in this instance. When the individual is not able to pay the charges and also repayments in time, the ownership of the home is relocated to the lender. Transferring of possession to lender is called Foreclosure. Acquiring repossession has actually been compared with playing texas hold'em. Taking into consideration as a financial investment, it has its very own risks. First the lenders will look into if there are any kind of junior liens. When they discover any pending lendings, they pay off every little thing to ensure that they themselves have clear title to the property. As soon as this is done, the lender accumulates all costs to the loan total up to be recovered, and also once more resells the residential property to ensure that they can convalesce the expenses together with the loan amount. This is a perfect time for investors to purchase such home. Buying a building that has actually been foreclosed already has many gains.The foremost and also well-known advantage is that all residential properties bought from lending institutions will have clear titles and possession rights, consequently saving you the trouble of doing any kind of research study. Following reality is that the repossession is except profit reservation. When the lenders market confiscated property they require their refund, so they are ready to market the property cheaper than what it can have gotten in open market under regular conditions. The initial step of getting foreclosure is to collect details. The best suggestion is to earn a data source in a certain manner to ensure that you will certainly have different information on all the residential properties and also markets in clear collections. The next action is to straight contact the repossession proprietors as well as begin bargaining with them. If you have the address of residential or commercial property but not the name, on-line directories might assist you to locate the relevant names. Purchasing repossession property as a beginner by yourself could be risky as well as if you are shopping such properties get help from representatives. homes for sale roswell ga Among the dangers taking place is that when getting foreclosed home at public auction, provide simply a week to deposit all the cash money, as well as if you fail to do so, you may shed all your down payment at particular times. But as you keep on investing and also earning money, you can obtain experience about poor construction, inadequate dirts, problems with septic tanks etc. Background analysis and pertinent info is exceptionally important before you enter into repossession investing. Repossession regulations in your state, top priority of liens, bidding process at public auctions, title insurance coverage, and also bankruptcy are some crucial locations where you ought to get total understanding. You will have the ability to make better and also safer investments by doing this particularly. Residential property financial investment is not a very easy game, as well as must be played only with care and also care. Little issues for the individual whose property is up for foreclosure are essential for this process. Yet you could quickly lower the process of foreclosures into 3 primary phases. The first stage is pre-foreclosure, second stage is foreclosure auction and also the third as well as final stage is bank possessed repossessions.In general as you move along the timeline of the foreclosure procedure your potential for profit will certainly lessen the last you get to the repossession a residential or commercial property. If you're planning on making a permanent living ultimately from real estate financial investment after that you'll want to find out in baby steps how to get the most out of your effort and time without any question. With that said saying for those that aspire sufficient to do this full time job you need to find out how you can discover pre-foreclosures since they typically supply you miraculous leverage as well as productivity pertinent to the most deep affordable buildings offered through financial institution possessed homes.

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jpagooch-blog1 · 7 years

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Chosen event: The Proms 2018: The proms are a festival that holds a night dedicated to

Some of the best classical music from around the world. This even takes place over an eight-week summer season of daily classical orchestra music is shown, music concerts and other events.

The venue which is used to hold the event at the before that the venue was the queen’s hall.

But the first ever night at the proms was in 1895.

However, during the Second World War the building was destroyed when the bomb hit the roof causing it to catch fire after the impact had occurred.

Audience

The type of people/audience that are most likely to attend this event would be those who have an interest in classical music but not only that but are much older and who have grown up in a different generation to the one we are in right now. However that doesn’t go to say that young people such as teenagers wouldn’t want to go because they have an interest in fine music and they may play an instrument them self’s.

The event is not gender orientated as it is not catered for one but for both as married couples are likely to attend this event.

Going back to the types of people who would not like I would say those who are not interested in classic music or in theatre productions.

Famous classical music composers and other collectives are not just found at the royal Albert hall but are also found at other venues such as Wigmore hall, Cadogon hall. These venues may not have the same kind of reputation as the BBC proms at the royal Albert hall but that does not go to say that it is not worth going to check out.

The wigmore hall looks very bare inside due to the size and the amount of seats but there are some very religious paintings above the stage. They also hold plays and book readings not just classical music performances.

The BBC proms have their own website that has information on opening dates, booking, videos highlighting music and events that have taken place there previously and that are coming up. The interesting thing that the BBC do as well is not only broadcast it so it is on television for people to watch as they do stand for British broadcasting company. But they use a venue at a place named the park where people can watch from there but are still required to pay in order to get in, as it is more expensive to see it live at the actual venue then it is to see it on a big projector or monitor.

The Chelsea flower show/ Hampton court: The event is held for five days, which is there for people to see, how you can change your garden make it your own. This is done by show demonstrations on how to correctly handle flowers when planting them, this year’s trend in what types of flowers you should have in your garden.

Nevertheless, you are able to purchase any kind when your there as it is an informational event which allows you to know more about the world of gardening.

The event has been held in the grounds of the royal hospital Chelsea every year now since 1913.

The name the Chelsea flower show was actually thought of by an exhibitor in 1932 this was due to the amount of rain as it was forecasted that day. It was so severe that one of the display houses fell over and broke in to pieces this is when the exhibitor thought of this name.

In 1957, a limit to the amount of people that were allowed to be at the showground was capped at 157,000 visitors due to how busy it was.

Gardening is not just for women as men such as Alan titch marsh have books and programs that are dedicated to managing your garden and the growth of crops and flowers.

The price of entry costs differently depending on whether you decide there all day, which would be £49 but you, can also choose to stay until 3:30pm or 5:30pm.

The Proms: Font choices.

This font is called “Film Star” Which is created by Dan x Solo. The reason why I have chosen to bring this font up is because of the way its presented as a whole. The way that each letter is positioned within each frame of the film tape. I think that it would fit very well in my design but it only covers one aspect of the proms as its more than orchestras playing the theme or soundtrack to a movie/film.

This font is called “Piano keys” which was designed by Wilson Thomas. Same as I said before the way each letter is placed on the keys is simple but effective. Depending on if you space out the words each key would be individual whilst not spacing the words out at al we allow it to be a complete piano with all of the keys connected to each other.

This font is called “Birmingham new street” created by Paul James Lloyd. This specific font has a certain style to it, which is a classical look, but with a modern twist. After all the proms brings past and present music with different genres all under one roof.

This font is “Bitstream” created by Charles Gibbons. This one caught my eye, as it is a tamer version of the one I have just previously mentioned. The reason I say that is due to how it looks thinner and taller how there are not any elongated tails, which is prominent in the Birmingham new street one. However, I think that this font would fit very well with the design that I am working on now.

The proms poster details.

Date: 14th July- 9th September 2017

Venue: United Kingdom

Location: Royal Albert hall, London

Prices: Centre stall seats £89.00 each

Front circle seats £58.00 each

Email: [email protected]

Website:BBC.co.uk/Proms

Po Box: 105 Rochester, Kent, ME2, 4BE

Social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Work that has influenced me

Whilst coming up with the design of my poster for the proms I took into account existing designs that have been used in the past including the upcoming proms.

I have not copied the design of the previous proms posters in any way the only reason I have looked at these examples is to understand what is already out there. I wanted to make something original and unique yet does not stray too far away, from what already exists as it has its own image.

In terms of the imagery used, I saw a very common theme runs throughout every design that I have looked at. The Royal Albert hall being the main centrepiece with a surreal background consisting of things you would associate with the venue and the event.

Therefore, with mine for instance I have made my centre piece the orchestra conductor’s plinth or stand with the note sheet, which is laid out on a vinyl disc that has been split in two with the union jack flowing above it. In addition, I have made a walkway that of which you would see whilst walking down to the entrance but constructed out of a violin part, which adds to the twisted imagery.

A big factor that has played a role in my design, which was suggested, to me by my tutor was to make the design by placing images/photographs as originally it was designed fully using the pen tool on Adobe illustrator. To be honest looking back at the illustrated design, it was lacking and it was not very eye catching.

I have also looked at similar events to the BBC proms such as the Edinburgh international festival, which has a three-week cycle, which displays Opera, Dance and music, which offers there audience a unique experience. Inviting some of the finest creators and performers from theatres around the world.

Evaluation for Festivals and events

This assignment was about creating a poster for an event on a list. I had a choice to pick from a variety of different events and festivals that will be taking place in 2018 next year.

I must say I was thinking of going with the London film festival or something related to films, However I wanted to try something different to come out of my comfort zone.

Therefore, I decided to go with the “BBC Proms” not just, because I have seen it before but also it is different to what I would normally choose.

Before going into the design stage, I researched the event as much as I could to get a better understanding of what goes on during the event, how long it is held for and the way it compares to other festivals and events that are similar to it.

I also showed this through three different mood boards exploring the Audience, Things that you would associate with the venue or the event in general and events that are very similar to it.

I found the board’s straight forward as it is shown through the research and the event itself.

The design stage was enjoyable, as I have to play around and have fun with the way I can lay the specific instruments and objects. I tried to play around with perspective so with one of my designs I had a stage spotlight, this spot light Shon upon the royal albert hall that was positioned in front of the stage with the walk way surrounding it being the crest designs that which you would find on a violin.

In terms of the inspiration for my designs, I looked at a few events that hold the same sort of event such as the Edinburgh international festival. This event has some unique designs such as the past BBC proms designs that are wacky and surreal.

After having a 1:1 session with my tutor, we finally came to a decision with one of the designs, which I could then move on to, and develop.

The whole design process in both my sketchbook and creating the digitised version of it on illustrator was straightforward as I had a solid design to work from. However, I feel changing the style from purely illustration to images was a very good idea as it emphasised the feeling of being at the event and the surrealism of the design.

However, the process of creating it on illustrator allowed me to try the tools and ways of editing the images in a way that I did not know how to do before. I made sure that each image had no background attached to it, as I wanted it to be presented as its own piece. The reason this was important is so that my background colour and the information would not interfere with it.

Over all I feel that I did a much better than I thought I was going to be and I am happy that I decided to go with the proms as the most popular choices were the Car and film related events.

I do not think I would have changed the designs or the event as it would not have been as eye catching or original.

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type2diabetestreatments-blog · 7 years

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Meet the New Chief Science Guy at the American Diabetes Association

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/meet-the-new-chief-science-guy-at-the-american-diabetes-association/

Meet the New Chief Science Guy at the American Diabetes Association

With the respected Dr. Robert Ratner stepping down at the end of last year, there's now a new mind in town leading the American Diabetes Association's national science and research efforts.

That new leader would be Dr. William T. Cefalu from Louisiana, who's been in diabetes research for over three decades. Leaving what he describes as his dream job at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Dr. Cefalu takes on quite a challenge joining the ADA at a time when the organization is going through a realignment to become more "mission-based."

We're grateful for the opportunity for a phone interview with Dr. Cefalu in late February during his first week in this new ADA role, to learn about his professional background and what he hopes to bring to the country's largest diabetes organization.

An Interview ADA's New Chief Scientific, Medical and Mission Officer

DM) Thanks for taking the time, Dr. Cefalu. To start, can you tell us how you first got involved in the diabetes field?

WC) I’ve been involved in diabetes since medical school and my first project on diabetes and heart disease, and so I guess my interest began in 1979 as a medical student and intern. I did my first research training at University of California Irvine and a research fellowship at UCLA, and that’s where I became interested in diabetes. Working in a research lab, some of the aspects of hormone transports led me to be interested in glucose attaching to the protein and impacting A1C, affecting physiology.

Also at that time in the early '80s, UCLA had a great endocrine section in different diseases, but diabetes at that time didn’t have much to offer (people living) with diabetes. But I realized that diabetes affected just about every organ system, and it gave me an opportunity to do just about anything in research.

I became interested in the fact that there was just so much to do in this disease space. And that led to my first diabetes research project at Tulane, and it took off from there.

You’ve had a particular research interest in insulin resistance… can you expand on that and what the hot buttons are?

We know a lot about insulin resistance in prediabetes, but the real question at this point is trying to move forward and make sure the research can be translated into the population. If we have individuals who are obese and insulin resistant, the big question beyond delaying type 2 progression through interventions is: How do we create large-scale programs that work and make that available on a broad level for people, to really prevent or delay the disease moving forward?

Do you think we need more official recognition of prediabetes, or is the push for a 'pre-diagnosis' label perhaps less useful than we think?

There's a lot of controversy in this area. We know that risk is a continuum, and even the lower (glucose) point set by the ADA identifies a group at risk. Of course, the lower the glucose, the lower you are on the continuum, so the less likely you are to advance to the type 2 stage. But at this point, I look at prediabetes as a chief disease in and of itself. If you have abnormal glucose, blood pressure and lipids, all of those collectively are going to increase your risk. That’s the case we have made recently. As to the label of prediabetes, I think as far as identifying it and the company it keeps as to comorbidities, it needs to be understood and recognized.

When did you first get involved with the ADA?

My involvement with the American Diabetes Association has been ongoing through the years, including participating with diabetes camps. Since I returned to Louisiana in 2003, I’ve been heavily involved in ADA activities – including the medical journals, Diabetes and Diabetes Care.

Can you tell us more about your experience as an editor with those medical journals?

I’ve been involved with the journals for the past five years. What we’ve tried to do with Diabetes Care, in particular, is make it fresh and keep it relevant. We want to make sure the articles we’re publishing are not simply confirmatory, but offer some novel information.

One of the changes we’d made was to the Brief Report, which was not a full-fledged article but limited information. We changed that to something called Novel Communications in Diabetes that outlines proof-of-concept studies. For example, one might look at a higher-risk group but not necessarily a larger amount of patients, but maybe shows some promising results. This was a way for us to include research on the cutting-edge, but not proven definitely for clinical care.

We also added a section called Clinical Images in Diabetes, as a fascinating way to present a case or two of unusual diabetes. You’d present an image, such as a pancreas or MRI image, that may help in clinical care. The idea was to tie in the clinical presentation with a more (visual) look. That’s been a very popular format, as is the Point/Counterpoint section we’ve brought back to explore opposing viewpoints.

Has there been any discussion about adding specific topic focuses, or including more open-source journal entries from the patient community?

We have created more special issues of the journal. The regular monthly issue would include tidbits from every discipline, but what I started doing is bundling manuscripts into special issues – whether it’s devoted to type 1, or mental health, the Artificial Pancreas, cardiovascular disease, or psychosocial most recently in December.

There are so many online journals, and there’s been an explosion of online materials where you can get just about anything published. I think the ADA has done a fantastic job of keeping the hurdles high, to make sure the quality of papers presented in their publications goes through rigorous peer review. In fact, our impact factor for Diabetes Care last year was the highest it’s been in the history of the journal (measured by readers surveys).

Why did you want to take on this high-profile post with ADA?

Well, I was in a very comfortable position at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, which has been around since the early '80s and has a primary mission of being the biggest and best diabetes nutrition center in the country. Historically, it’s been involved in nutrition, obesity and diabetes research, and it’s been a center that has been involved in the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and other landmark studies, including working with the Department of Defense on nutrition matters. I was executive director there, had a (endowed) chair and pretty good funding. I thought my job at Pennington was my dream job, but the ADA presented me with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here. It gives me a chance to work with individuals who are as passionate about the disease as I am. I do believe that over time we can make a difference. It’s a way to put into operation what I’ve been passionate about for 35 years now, at a much more global level.

What stands out out to you as working extremely well within ADA?

A lot is working well. Our signature Scientific Sessions meeting in June is incredibly important and is just around the corner. That will continue, and I’ll do whatever I can to help in that regard. Our research program has done extremely well, particularly with the Pathway Program.

What would you like to see the ADA do for mentoring young doctors and researchers?

We need to support individuals who are going to be the next generation of scientists, devoted to diabetes research. I think the ADA has done a very good job in creating the Pathway Program, which was created years ago to do this. We know that there are pressures for young doctors and faculty members to bring in grant dollars, so I think this program is fantastic and takes some of those pressures off. This program, if anything, needs to be expanded to make a difference in diabetes research for the future.

Clearly, quite a lot is happening in the diabetes advocacy space. In your new ADA role, how are you involved with that?

The advocacy program has done a remarkable job at federal and state level, and that will need to continue. This is an ever-changing environment and we need to be very nimble as far as diabetes advocacy and actions. Over the next couple of years, there will be at least some (healthcare system) changes we’ll need to go up against or be aware of. It’s a very challenging time, including for those with diabetes.

As to insulin affordability, it’s a very complicated issue. I think there are many moving parts, and the only way to really solve this is to bring those individuals and components together for discussion. Hopefully, there can be solutions brought to the table. I think the ADA’s role in moving forward is to convene these partners, to have a very transparent discussion on all of this moving forward.

What gets you most excited, as to ADA's new Strategic Plan just released in February?

Now, it’s primarily going to be mission-based. Whether it’s our drive for discovery and research, or programs supporting people with diabetes as far as resources, or raising our voice. With the way the strategic plan is now, we’ll be more mission-based and all of these aspects will be supported throughout the organization. It’s a time of change at ADA where we are going through a realignment to focus more on mission.

OK, but what exactly does “mission-based” mean?

What can you expect, I hope, is to see an approach that gets individuals in science and medicine to work more closely with those in advocacy or in other development programs. It’s about us all being on the same page, about what’s in the best interest of the patient; instead of just having an idea come from one side, we can all vet that idea and contribute more as a team. I hope what you’ll see is a more balanced, comprehensive approach to these issues. There's a lot of excitement and passion about what we’re doing.

In your opinion, what does the ADA need to do better?

It’s often a matter of resources. Research funding is increasing widely this year, and it’ll need to increase even more as we’ve outlined in our new Strategic Plan. The way to solve a big research issue -- let’s say understanding prevention of type 1 or complications of T2 -- these big science questions have to be addressed with major approaches. We need a more translational approach, where you have projects that can have basic science aspects that coordinate with clinical research approaches, and be put in place broadly. That might mean that larger research grants to help address the problem are really the wave of the future.

I don’t think the ADA can do it alone, and this is where combining resources with other sponsoring agencies and groups can help. I think to really solve these major disease issues, it’s not going to be solved in one laboratory, and ADA needs to be a part of that.

Thank you for taking the time, Dr. Cefalu! We're glad to hear about this collaborative approach, and look forward to seeing your contributions as we move forward.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

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kevinthescoutblogger · 7 years

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Kevin V. Hunt

Scouting Historian, Author, Blogger , Speaker, Scouting Veteran, and Camp Director

Recently I had the unique opportunity to showcase some Scouting history at our stake’s Family History Discovery Day. I thought that Scouting and family history actually fit well together. But, a couple of people came to my display tables and acted a bit confused. A couple of people said under their breath – not knowing that I was listening – “What does Scouting have to do with family history?” Good question!

Months before this event I had been invited to be a part of the steering committee for this big stake and community event. I joined the planning committee wearing two hats. One was in my role as the Stake Historian. The committee wanted to have the event well documented in our history for this year. My other requested role (by the committee chairman) was to show some of the Scouting history of the stake. Sure … I could do that!

My display tables – and I had three of them – one for Scouting and two for general personal and family history were kind of unique. And I admit, they did stand out a bit.

This was a major family history conference and displays were plenteous in the large gymnasium and conference room – in the historic Interstake Center in Mesa, Arizona. Many local genealogical and family history groups or organizations had been invited to participate. Most of their displays had a computer as their main feature. And on these computers, volunteers or companies showed off their latest and greatest tools to do family history research. My Scouting table was full of “Scouting stuff” that I have collected through the years. So, the tables did catch a few eyes – but I think a great many people enjoyed browsing it all.

First I’d like to take a moment to define “family history”. When most folks think of family history, I believe they think of Grandma or Great Aunt Clara – who spent their lives researching the family lines and creating pedigree charts and family group records. That is actually how I got started. I was age twelve – when I took up most of my life hobbies and interests – many of them through Scouting leaders. At twelve, I was put into a Sunday School genealogy class that went for six weeks. That was kind of a short class but it was enough to get me hooked. And so for most of my teen years – when I wasn’t doing Scouting – I was doing family history research and created many of those charts which I put into a “Book of Remembrance”. (And Grandma Augusta Hunt and I were a team!)

Over the years, I have come to learn that family history goes way beyond all those charts and family trees. I believe that family history really is creating a record of our lives and those of our ancestors. The family history I have enjoyed the most is when I have been able to find photos and histories for the people on those charts. That is when their lives have come alive for me (even if they have been dead for decades). Also, I now believe that each one of us has the opportunity and even the responsibility to create records of our life and times here on earth. And these records can be for ourselves as well as for our current and future posterity. The Book of Revelation in the Bible says (Rev. 20:12), “… and the books were opened, And another book was opened, which is the book of life …” Joseph Smith expanded on that theme when he taught that “the books spoken of must be the books which contained the record of their works, and refer to the records which are kept on earth. And the book which was the book of life is the record which is kept in heaven …” (D&C 128:7) And then in the next verse, he says, “… Whatsoever you record on earth shall be recorded in heaven, and whatsoever you do not record on earth shall not be recorded in heaven.”

Wow! That is pretty strong. So, yes, records of our lives really are an opportunity and a responsibility. And so, with that background, I believe that we should work hard to create records of our lives – all facets of our lives. But, those records don’t need to be limited to paper and computer files. I think that there are a myriad of ways that we can record our personal histories and those can be different for each individual and family. I would suggest that each one of us figure out some way to use and show our talents in the preservation of our histories.

Our histories can include various chapters of our lives – such as our spouse and families, our education, our life’s work or vocation, our hobbies and interests, and much more. As I look back at my own life, I realize that most of my life has included involvement in Scouting in one way or another. That is probably true for most of us. If we were Cub Scouts and Scouts in our youth, and then served for even a few years as a Scouting volunteer, we soon see that Scouting has been much of our lives – and so well worth documenting as a major chapter of our lives. If it is worth doing, it is worth recording. And that applies to Scouting.

So, how to do it? What can we do to document our Scouting history and heritage? There really is no set way to go about it. Use your imagination and begin to create some interesting records of your Scouting lives. It doesn’t matter what you do … just do something! And begin to do it now.

I might be a bit overboard with history and records and Scouting heritage, but here are some ideas that I have done. I am not saying that you should do them all. Pick a few of them for yourself and begin to document your Scouting life and times. Here are some items that were a part of my Scouting family history display that day:

Personal Journal: I have blogged on this subject many times. But, with a personal journal with daily entries for over forty years, I have much written about Scouting events and good times that I have been a part of through the years. And it is such fun to go back and read those entries. It is almost like doing it all over again.

This past summer my wife and I were on the staff at Camp Newfork – operated by the Trapper Trails Council. I wrote extensive journal entries of the summer experience and added many photos to them. I later blogged these journal entries on The Scouting Trail with the full series summarized in the blog It was Quite the Summer at Camp New Fork.

Walking Sticks: This may sound unique, but I have a hobby of carving walking sticks. I don’t just carve them to be carving but they actually contain a lot of history. I try to carve a new stick at or for each camp that I go to – and each one has carved into it memories about the particular camp. These are great conversation pieces with my children and grandchildren – and Scouts everywhere.

Framed Awards: As I completed my youth phase of Scouting, my mother had me collect all of my badges and she put them into a nice frame for my future enjoyment. She made one for my Cub Scout awards and another for my Boy Scouting years.

Neckerchief Blanket: My wife did a great thing for me. She got all of the neckerchiefs that I had earned or received through the years (including those from when I was a Cub Scout, Scout, camps, and for everything since). She sewed these all together into a giant king-sized (at least) blanket. And then she sewed the patches from the various events – onto the appropriate neckerchief. So, there is a multitude of neckerchiefs and a couple of hundred patches.

Excel Spreadsheet: I created a spreadsheet to document my years of Scouting service. I have a line for each Scouting position and then columns for the positions, when I served, the unit number, the chartered institution, people involved in that role, and more. When I wanted to provide documentation for a major service award, I went back through my journals and recorded information for each position through the years.

Slide Show: I went through the house and collected my Scouting photographs from their various hiding places in closets, drawers, boxes, etc. I then sorted these by date and experience. I then created Word documents for the various Scouting events through my life. I could have used PowerPoint to create these but didn’t. On each page, I had a title, sometimes a brief description of the event, people, etc. And I scanned and inserted into each page four or five photos. And after I created these pages, I then saved each page as a PDF document. This was a major feature of entertainment for a Jubilee Celebration which I recently staged for myself. I showed the slide show at the event but also printed each page and had it bound into a nice book for me and for my posterity.

Scouting Book Collection: Scouting has changed much through the years – yet it is so much the same as ever. And through the years, a plethora of books and handbooks have been generated. I have a major handbook collection. It has my old “Lion” Cub Scout book, my own Scout Handbook, a 1928 “Rally Book” and more. I even have a collection which includes every edition of the Scout Handbook. My son, Rusty, and I created a beautiful red oak with glass doors display case to keep these in. It is magnificent!

Kevin Hunt Scout Handbook Collection in Red Oak Frame

Awards: I am not one to tout or brag about awards that I have received, but I do have them collected in a single spot/box for my own enjoyment.

Uniforms: I have kept my uniforms that I have worn through the years. And some of these are really “vintage” now. I have my old Cub Scout uniform, several of my Scout uniforms, and many uniforms, jackets, hats, etc. that I have worn through the years. When our first daughter was born, my mom even took one of the old uniforms and created a little girl dress that Jackie wore in parades (when we marched with Scouts) and to other places.

Photos: Take photos at every event. You never know when you will want these for a slide show or other special event. Mark the photos with the name of the event, when it was, who is in the photo, etc. And with today’s electronic technology, there are a multitude of great programs or ways to organize and store your photos.

Court of Honor Programs: I created PowerPoint presentations with a lot of photos for each of my three sons on the occasion of their Eagle Scout court of honor programs. These have become valued treasures for them and for me.

Books from Journals and Personal Experiences: I go a bit beyond what most folks would, but I have compiled several books from my Scouting experiences as recorded in my journals and personal memories. I am just now beginning to market and publish these.

Troop Reunions and Histories: I have been the catalyst to stage several troop reunions through the years. “155 … The Best Alive”. At these reunions I take a lot of photos and have old Scout friends record a paragraph or two of their memories. And then I have compiled all of these into a history of the troop through the years. I have created a mini book or history and have shared this with those who came to the reunions – and any others that I’ve run into beyond the reunions.

Letters and Certificates: I am only about half way through this project but I collected all of the certificates, thank you letters, correspondence, and anything paper about my Scouting times and am scanning these and putting them into a book for my own use – and for my own posterity. I will create a printed book – or book of originals for myself – but after it is scanned, I can store it and share it with my posterity.

Traditions: These are not always visible (though you can use the ideas presented here to make them such), but it is important to have strong family Scouting traditions. Keep these alive and keep doing them. For instance … in our family we have a long-standing tradition of becoming Eagle Scouts. And in the case of me and my sons, we each have maintained the tradition of each receiving three or four palms beyond Eagle. Have traditional events, outings, and programs with traditional family or Scouting friends. Document you and your group doing these things.

Oral Histories: Set yourself – or your Scouting parents, wife and children – down and have them tell stories of their Scouting experiences. With today’s electronics there are so many options for recording your histories and memories. FamilySearch.com has some great ways to permanently record your history and your photos. Check it out! You might want to interview and record your old Scoutmaster, Scouting Friends and troop-mates, and others who have been a big part of your Scouting experience. (And don’t forget to do this for yourself!)

Well, again, you may not be able to do all of these things. I have done them … but that it is me and who and what I am. My challenge is to look at your own life of Scouting (and other) experiences and then find the best way(s) – that is so you – and which uses your abilities and talents (and the help of others) to record those great Scouting moments. And when you start doing this, you’ll probably catch the spirit of the whole history thing and you’ll want to do more and more.

And so, back to our original question: What does Scouting have to do with family history? I think it has a lot to do with it … Scouting is a big part of your life so it deserves to be a part of your personal, family and troop histories. Find ways to get the two together … and you will have much joy and happiness through bringing them together. You’ll be glad that you did it – and so will your posterity and Scouting friends. Scouting with family history … what a novel and wonderful idea!

And I would love to help you personally to explore ways to do all of this. Feel free to contact me! I would also enjoy hearing or seeing what you come up with for yourself!

Best wishes along your Scouting Trails … Kevin

See this link for an introduction to Kevin the Scouting Trails Blogger. Blogging articles have excerpts taken from Kevin’s many personal journals and Scouting Trails books including “MR. Scoutmaster!”, “Keys to Scouting Leadership,” “Gnubie to Eagle Scout”, and others at his Scoutingtrails website. Connect with Kevin and read his articles on Scouting blogsites such as The Boy Scout, The Scouting Trail and the Voice of Scouting. Feel free to comment on anything you read! Find Kevin on Facebook at: Scouting Trails Books and Blogs.

To explore or buy Kevin’s books on Amazon, go to: amazon.com/author/kevinhunt

Contact Kevin directly via email: [email protected]

@ 2017 Kevin V. Hunt

What Does Scouting have to do with Family History? Kevin V. Hunt Scouting Historian, Author, Blogger , Speaker, Scouting Veteran, and Camp Director Recently I had the unique opportunity to showcase some Scouting history at our stake’s Family History Discovery Day.

#Family History Discovery Day #Framed Scouting Awards #Neckerchief Blanket #Personal Journals #Scout Uniforms #Scout Walking Sticks #Scouting and Family History #Scouting Awards #Scouting Book Collection #Scouting Rally Book 1928 #Scouting Records #Scouting Service Excel Spreadsheet #Scouting Slide Show #Scouting Traditions

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