Coup en passant; indirect

Monday, May 5th, 2008

Coup en passant is a type of coup in contract bridge where trump trick(s) are “stolen” by trying to ruff a card after the player who has the master trump(s).

Just as the trump coup resembles a direct finesse, except that trumps are not the suit led, so the coup en passant similarly resembles an indirect finesse:

In this example, spades are trump, and declarer (South) takes two tricks by playing hearts first. Then, with clubs led from the dummy, declarer ruffs if and only if East does not. South’s diamond loser will go under East’s ace of spades on one of the last two tricks, and South’s king will take the other trick.

Here both players have the same number of trumps, but the hand would play the same way if either or both had a small trump in place of the small diamond. The important thing is that declarer must have few enough trumps that dummy can be entered at the critical time.
Coup en passant can be performed even with several high trumps in the opponent’s hand. In the example, South would lose all remaining tricks if the lead were in East’s hand. However, if a heart is played from dummy, and East ruffs, South will discard the losing diamond (what is, in effect, a Loser on loser play). If East discards, South will ruff, “stealing” a trick.


See also

  • Trump promotion


External links

  • BridgeGuys Glossary

False consensus effect; and beliefs;

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

The false consensus effect refers to the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them. People readily guess their own opinions, beliefs and predilections to be more prevalent in the general public than they really are.

This bias is commonly present in a group setting where one thinks the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. Since the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way.

One of the most notable examples is the possibly apocryphal quip by The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, who reportedly said she couldn’t believe Nixon had won since no one she knew had voted for him.

There is no single cause for this cognitive bias; the availability heuristic and self-serving bias have been suggested as at least partial underlying factors.


See also

  • Attributional bias
  • Overconfidence effect
    • Lake Wobegon effect
    • List of cognitive biases


References

  • Ross L., Greene D. & House, P. (1977). The false consensus effect: an egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 13, 279-301.
  • Fields, James M., and Howard Schuman, (1976-77) “Public Beliefs about the Beliefs of the Public,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 40: 427-448.


External links

  • Changing minds: the false consensus effect

Revealed preference; bundle that

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

Pioneered by American economist Paul Samuelson (1915- ), revealed preference theory is a method by which it is possible to discern the best possible option on the basis of consumer behaviour. Essentially, this means that the preferences of consumers can be revealed by their purchasing habits. Revealed preference theory came about because the theories of consumer demand were based on a diminishing marginal rate of substitution. This diminishing MRS is based on the assumption that consumers make consumption decisions based on their intent to maximize their utility. While utility maximization was not a controversial assumption, the underlying utility functions could not be measured with great certainty. Revealed preference theory was a means to reconcile demand theory by creating a means to define utility functions by observing behavior.

Contents


Theory

If a person chooses a certain bundle of goods (ex. 2 apples, 3 bananas) while another bundle of goods is affordable (ex. 3 apples, 2 bananas), then we say that the first bundle is revealed preferred to the second. It is then assumed that the first bundle of goods is always preferred to the second. This means that if the consumer ever purchases the second bundle of goods then it is assumed that the first bundle is unaffordable. This implies that preferences are transitive. In other words if we have bundles A, B, C, …., Z, and A is revealed preferred to B which is revealed preferred to C and so on then it is concluded that A is revealed preferred to C through Z. With this theory economists can chart indifference curves which adhere to already developed models of consumer theory.


The Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference

More formally, let pA be the price of apples and pB be the price of bananas, and let the amount of money available be m=5. If pA =1 and pB=1, and if the bundle (2,3) is chosen, it is said that that the bundle (2,3) is revealed preferred to (3,2), as the latter bundle could have been chosen as well at the given prices.

The Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference (WARP) is often invoked in consumer theory. It relates to the case that the optimal choice of a consumption bundle is, for any price system, unique, and it postulates for different bundles A and B the following: If A is revealed preferred to B, it is not the case that B is revealed preferred to A. In other words: The weak axiom of revealed preference rules out that, in cases where A and B are available, sometimes A is chosen, and sometimes B. If A is chosen in one of these cases, B can never be chosen.


References

  • Nicholson, W. (2005) Microeconomics, Thomson, Southwestern.
  • Varian, H. (1992) Microeconomic Analysis, Third edition, New York: Norton, Section 8.7
  • Samuelson, P. (1938). A Note on the Pure Theory of Consumers’ Behaviour. Economica 5:61-71.


External links

  • Revealed Preference, review by Hal R. Varian, 2005, prepared for Samuelsonian Economics and the 21st Century.

Little North Western Railway; Bentham

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
For articles about other railway companies named North Western Railway, see North Western Railway (disambiguation).

The North Western Railway (NWR) was a British railway company. often known as the Little North Western Railway to distinguish it from the larger London and North Western Railway. It was absorbed by the Midland Railway in 1874. The section between Skipton and Wennington is still open. Beyond Wennington, traffic contines on what was the Furness and Midland Joint Railway to Lancaster

The first passenger service between Lancaster and Morecambe was on 12 June 1848; on 31 October 1849 Tatham Bridge near Wennington was connected, reaching Wennington on 17 November. A horse omnibus service operated to Skipton. On the 2 May 1850 saw passenger traffic between Wennington and Bentham, with the final link completed 1 June. It was originally a single line, the line was doubled in 1889.

The First section of track was built by a different company.


External links

  • http://www.railscot.co.uk/North_Western_Railway/frame.htm
  • http://www.residentialrail.co.uk/page.php?domain_name=residentialrail.co.uk&viewpage=history

Strength reduction; function for

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

Strength reduction is a compiler optimization where a function of some systematically changing variable is calculated more efficiently by using previous values of the function. In a procedural programming language this would apply to an expression involving a loop variable and in a declarative language it would apply to the argument of a recursive function. E.g.

f x = … (2**x) … (f (x+1)) …

becomes

f x = f’ x (2**x)

where

f ‘ x z = … z … (f’ (x+1) 2*z) …

Here the expensive operation (2**x) has been replaced by the cheaper 2*z in the recursive function f’. This maintains the invariant that z = 2**x for any call to f’.

Norway at the 1976 Summer Olympics; A qualification

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Norway was represented at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal by the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports.

Contents


Medals

Norway finished in 21st position in the final medal rankings, with one gold medal and one silver medal.


Gold

  • Alf Hansen and Frank Hansen — Rowing, Men’s Double Sculls


Silver

  • Finn Tveter, Rolf Andreassen, Arne Bergodd, and Ole Nafstad — Rowing, Men’s Coxless Fours


Results by event


Archery

In the second appearance by the nation in the archery competition at the Olympics, Norway was represented by only one man. A veteran of the 1972 Summer Olympics, Jan Erik Humlekjær shot two points less than his performance of four years before. Nevertheless, he moved up eight places in the ranking.

Men’s Individual Competition:

  • Jan Erik Humlekjær — 2337 points (→ 24th place)


Athletics

Men’s 1500 metres

  • Lars Martin Kaupang
  • Heat — 3:44.59 min (→ did not advance)

Women’s 1500 metres

  • Grete Waitz
  • Heat — 4:07.20 min (→ advanced to the semi final)
  • Semi final — 4:04.80 min (→ did not advance)

Men’s 5000 metres

  • Knut Kvalheim
  • Heat — 13:20.60 min (→ advanced to the final)
  • Final — 13:30.33 min (→ 9th place)

Men’s 10.000 metres

  • Knut Børø
  • Heat — 28:23.07 min (→ advanced to the final)
  • Final — did not finish (→ no ranking)

Men’s High Jump

  • Terje Totland
  • Qualification — 2.16 m (→ advanced to the final)
  • Final — 2.18m (→ 9th place)
  • Leif Roar Falkum
  • Qualification — 2.16 m (→ advanced to the final)
  • Final — 2.10m (→ 14th place)

Women’s High Jump

  • Astrid Tveit
  • Qualification — 1.70 m (→ did not advance)

Men’s Discus Throw

  • Qualification — 61.30 m (→ advanced to the final)
  • Final — 63.06 m (→ 7th place)

Men’s Javelin Throw

  • Terje Thorslund
  • Qualification — 82.52 m (→ advanced to the final)
  • Final — 78.24 m (→ 11th place)
  • Bjørn Grimnes
  • Qualification — 80.32 m (→ advanced to the final)
  • Final — 74.88 m (→ 14th place)


Cycling

Men’s Individual Road Race

  • Thorleif Andresen — 4:49:01 (→ 38th place)
  • Geir Digerud — 5:04:42 (→ 55th place)
  • Pål Henning Hansen — did not finish (→ no ranking)
  • Stein Bråthen — did not finish (→ no ranking)

Men’s 1.000m Time Trial

  • Harald Bundli — 1:08.093 (→ 7th place)

Men’s 4.000m Individual Pursuit

  • Jan Georg Iversen — 7th place
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Conservative Libertarianism; to distinguish between

Monday, April 21st, 2008


Conservative libertarianism has a number of different meanings related to libertarianism:

  • It can be used to distinguish libertinism from other forms of libertarianism
  • It can be a synonym for classical liberalism
  • It can be used to refer to libertarians that hold some conservative views, such as Republitarians and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Proof of insurance; that would provide

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Proof of insurance (POI) is any type of documentation that a person can provide to another individual proving that the person has valid insurance with an insurance company.

The most common form of a POI is a paper card provided by the insurance company listing policy information and effective dates.

Many states require that a person carry proof of insurance in their automobiles or on their person while driving. If a person is questioned by a law enforcement official, they must provide proof of insurance. A citation is generally issued if the person cannot provide such documentation.


See also

  • no fault insurance

Shame society; not. Expectation

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

A shame society is one in which the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining control over adults is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism. A shame society is to be distinguished from a guilt society in which control is maintained by creating and continually reinforcing the feeling of guilt (and the expectation of punishment now or in the hereafter) for certain condemned behaviors. Recently this distinction has been criticised as nothing more than a semantic existentialism.

The society of traditional Japan was long held to be a good example of one in which shame is the primary agent of social control. (Ancient Greece has also been described as a shame society. The first book to cogently explain the workings of the Japanese society for the Western reader is The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. This book was produced under less than ideal circumstances since it was written during the early years of World War II in an attempt to understand the people who had become such a powerful enemy of the West. Under the conditions of war it was, of course, impossible to do field research in Japan. Nevertheless, depending on the study of members of that culture who were available for interview and study in the West, namely war prisoners at detention centers, as well as literary and other such records pertaining to cultural features, Ruth Benedict drew what some regard as a clear picture of the basic workings of Japanese society. Her study has been challenged and is not relied upon by anthropologists of Japan today, but one that has stood the test of time as an inspiration and starting point still useful for many purposes.

Contemporary Western society uses shame as one modality of control, but its primary dependence rests on guilt, and, when that does not work, on the “criminal justice system.”

Paul Hiebert characterizes the shame society as follows;

Shame is a reaction to other people’s criticism, an acute personal chagrin at our failure to live up to our obligations and the expectations others have of us. In true shame­oriented cultures, every person has a place and a duty in the society. One maintains self­respect, not by choosing what is good rather than what is evil, but by choosing what is expected of one. Personal desires are sunk in the collective expectation. Those who fail will often turn their aggression against themselves instead of using violence against others. By punishing themselves they maintain their self­respect before others, for shame cannot be relieved, as guilt can be, by confession and atonement. Shame is removed and honor restored only when a person does what the society expects of him or her in the situation, including committing suicide if necessary. (Hiebert 1985, 212)


See also

  • Honor
  • Shame
  • Lose face
  • Seppuku


References

  • Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, 1946.
  • Hiebert, Paul G., Anthropological Insights for Missionaries, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985
  • Christopher Shannon, “A World Made Safe for Differences: Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” American Quarterly 47 (1995): 659-680.

Market structure; market conditions.

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

In economics, market structure (also known as market form) describes the state of a market with respect to competition.

The major market forms are:

  • Perfect competition, in which the market consists of a very large number of firms producing a homogeneous product.
  • Monopolistic competition, also called competitive market, where there are a large number of independent firms which have a very small proportion of the market share.
  • Oligopoly, in which a market is dominated by a small number of firms which own more than 40% of the market share.
  • Oligopsony, a market dominated by many sellers and a few buyers.
  • Monopoly, where there is only one provider of a product or service.
  • Natural monopoly, a monopoly in which economies of scale cause efficiency to increase continuously with the size of the firm.
  • Monopsony, when there is only one buyer in a market.

The imperfectly competitive structure is quite identical to the realistic market conditions where some monopolistic competitors, monopolists, oligopolists, and duopolists exist and dominate the market conditions.

These somewhat abstract concerns tend to determine some but not all details of a specific concrete market system where buyers and sellers actually meet and commit to trade.

Quick Reference to Basic Market Structures
Market Structure Seller Entry Barriers Seller Number Buyer Entry Barriers Buyer Number
Perfect Competition No Many No Many
Monopolistic competition No Many No Many
Oligopoly Yes Few No Many
Oligopsony No Many Yes Few
Monopoly Yes One No Many
Monopsony No Many Yes One

The correct sequence of the market structure from most to least competitive is perfect competition, imperfect competition,oligopoly, and pure monopoly.

The main criteria by which one can distinguish between different market structures are: the number and size of producers and consumers in the market, the type of goods and services being traded, and the degree to which information can flow freely.


See also

  • Economics
  • Microeconomics
  • Macroeconomics
  • Industrial organization
  • List of marketing topics
  • List of management topics
  • List of economics topics
  • List of accounting topics
  • List of finance topics
  • List of economists

The market form can equally be known to an extent by the barriers on entry and exit.
It is to be noted that in the Perfectly Competitive market, there exists free entry and exit; this applies to prospective/existing buyers and sellers. Though, this is not the case with the Imperfect market structure.


External links

  • Microeconomics by Elmer G. Wiens: Online Interactive Models of Oligopoly, Differentiated Oligopoly, and Monopolistic Competition

Analytical jurisprudence; be mistaken for

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Analytical jurisprudence is a legal theory that draws on the resources of modern analytical philosophy to try to understand the nature of law. Since the boundaries of analytical philosophy are somewhat vague, it is difficult to say how far it extends. H. L. A. Hart was probably the most influential writer in the modern school of analytical jurisprudence, though its history goes back at least to Jeremy Bentham.

Analytical jurisprudence is not to be mistaken for legal formalism (the idea that legal reasoning is or can be modelled as a mechanical, algorithmic process). Indeed, it was the analytical jurists who first pointed out that legal formalism is fundamentally mistaken as a theory of law.

Legal scholar L. Ali Khan supplies a powerful thesis that legal reasoning is more like engaging in artistic creativity rather than conducting a mechanical application of rules or precedents.

Vivian Smith; be mistaken for that

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Vivian Smith (born June, 1933) is an Australian poet who is sometimes mistaken for a female.

Smith’s first book of poetry, The Other Meaning, was published in 1956 and he has since published eight further collections, among which Tide Country won the New South Wales Premier’s Prize for Poetry and the Grace Leven Prize. The most recent collection is Along the Line (Salt, 2007). He is a highly respected critic, having produced key studies on Australian literature and contributed much to the growth and sophistication of criticism surrounding Australian poetry. With his fellow poet and great friend Noel Rowe he published the anthology Windchimes: Asia in Australian Poetry (Pandanus Books 2006).

v

Book (graph theory); bundle <math>x

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

In graph theory, a book (usually written <math>B_p</math>) is a graph consisting of <math>p</math> triangles sharing a common edge (known as the “base” of the book). Given a graph <math>G</math>, one often writes <math>bk(G)</math> for the largest book contained within <math>G</math>.

Note: in the past, this has been referred to as a <math>K_e(2,p)</math> (see Erdos, P: On The Structure of Linear Graphs, Israel Journal of Mathematics, 1 (1963) pp156-160). Let <math>K(m,n)</math> denote the complete bipartite graph with bipartitions of sizes <math>m</math> and <math>n</math>. Then a <math>K_e(m,n)</math> is defined as a <math>K(m,n)</math> with an extra edge in the first partition.


Theorems on books

(here the Ramsey number between two books is denoted by <math>r(B_p,B_q)</math>).

  • If <math>1\leq p\leq q</math>, then <math>r(B_p,B_q)=2q+3</math> (proved by Rousseau and Sheehan).
  • There exists a constant <math>c=o(1)</math> such that <math>r(B_p,B_q)=2q+3</math> whenever <math>q\geq cp</math>.
  • If <math> p\leq q/6+o(q)</math>, and <math>q</math> is large, the Ramsey number is given by <math>2q+3</math>.
  • Let <math>C</math> be a constant, and <math>k = Cn</math>. Then every graph on <math>n</math> vertices and <math>m</math> edges contains a <math>B_k</math>. (see Erdos, P: On a Theorem of Rademacher-Turan, Illinois Journal of Mathematics 6 (1962) pp122-127)

ECA; consumers is

Monday, April 14th, 2008

ECA can stand for:

in government and government agencies:

  • Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, a part of the United States Department of State
  • Economic Cooperation Administration, a former United States government agency
  • European Chemicals Agency, an agency of the European Union
  • European Court of Auditors, an institution of the European Union
  • United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, a commission to encourage economic cooperation among African countries

in education:

  • ACES Educational Center for the Arts, an arts school in New Haven, Connecticut, USA
  • Edinburgh College of Art, an art school in Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Escola de Comunicações e Artes (School of Communication And Arts), of the University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • Evangelical Christian Academy, a school for missionary children in Madrid, Spain

in medicine and anatomy:

  • ECA stack, a drug combination of ephedrine, caffeine, and aspirin
  • External carotid artery, a major artery

in technology:

  • Embodied Conversational Agent, a type of Embodied agent in artificial intelligence
  • Event Condition Action, a principle to define triggers in a database

in miscellaneous:

  • Easington Catchment Area, a group of natural gas fields in the North Sea
  • Entertainment Consumers Association, an entity representing game consumers
  • Export Credit Agencies, a type of financial institution

Family-friendliness; and thus imply

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

Entertainment or information is called “family friendly” if it considered suitable for the whole family. In particular it means that it is not considered harmful for children, which may imply restrictions on nudity, sex, violence, horror, crude language, etc.

The concept of “family friendly” entertainment or information, or of the media carrying them being so, is an aspect of the family values controversy in American political and social discourse. The moral connotations the concept and terms are used with varies greatly with speaker, and a single speaker may often use them differently privately and publicly.

In arriving at specific consumer decisions, moral connotations of the terms may be secondary or absent, and the denotation may be mainly distinctions about content that are less detailed than entertainment rating systems, rather than drawing lines that would rule a choice out.

In public discussions it is most common for those using the terms and concept to give them positive connotation, suggesting at least that what the speaker labels “family friendly” is desirable, and often suggesting that what the speaker so labels is either in less adequate supply than what is not, more desirable than what is not, or desirable to the exclusion of desirability or toleration of what is not.

Also in public discussions, some with opposing views contest those connotations. Some of them may simply avoid the terms on the belief they misname the concept, so that the terminology begs questions of free expression, access to information, and distinguishing personal judgements on values from condemnations of others’ values. Some in effect give unqualified use of “family friendly” a negative connotation by describing their own views as “real family friendliness”, contrasting their own views with “family unfriendly” ones (in ways that imply those are held by advocates of something “family friendly”), or simply ironic intonation in using the words “family friendly”. What is excluded by the term “family friendly” is not a matter of agreement among those who emphasize its use, so some describe the lack of clear denotation of the terms as helping a user appear consistent in their own statements and those of others, while intending different audiences or individuals in the same audience to infer mutually inconsistent implicit meanings from them.

  • Family Friendly Sites

Public utility; the natural utilities

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

A public utility (usually just utility in British English) is a company that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities often involve natural monopolies, and as a result are often government monopolies, or if privately owned, the sectors are specially regulated by a Public Utilities Commission.

Public utilities can be privately owned or publicly owned. Publicly owned utilities include cooperative and municipal utilities. Municipal utilities may actually include territories outside of city limits or may not even serve the entire city. Cooperative utilities are owned by the customers they serve. They are usually found in rural areas. Private utilities, also called investor owned utilities, are owned by investors. Unlike public companies, private utilities may be listed on the stock exchange. Private, in this context, means not owned by the public or the government.

In poorer developing countries, public utilities are often limited to wealthier parts of major cities, as used to be the case in developed countries in the nineteenth century. However, in some developing countries utilities do provide services to a large share of the urban population, such as in the case of water and sanitation in Latin America.

Examples of utilities are:

  • An electric utility, which in some instances can be electric power transmission or electricity distribution organizations.
  • Drinking water purification and distribution
  • Sewage treatment and disposal
  • Other waste disposal
  • Natural gas distribution
  • District heat generation and distribution
  • Public transport
  • Telecomunications, such as cable television and telephone lines
  • Roads, including tollways

Developments in technology have eroded some of the natural monopoly aspects of traditional public utilities. For instance, electricity generation, electricity retailing, telecommunication and postal services have become competitive in some countries and the trend towards liberalization, deregulation and privatization of public utilities is growing. However, the network infrastructure used to distribute most utility products and services has remained largely natural monopolostic.


Common classifications of utilities in the United States

  • CWD – County Water District
  • FCWCD – Flood Control and Water Conservation District
  • FWSD – Fresh Water Supply District
  • ID – Irrigation District
  • MWA – Municipal Water Authority
  • MWD – Municipal Water District
  • MUD – Municipal Utility District
  • PUD – Public Utility District
  • WA – Water Agency
  • WCID – Water Control and Improvement District
  • WD – Water District
  • WS – Water System
  • WSC – Water Supply Corporation


See also

  • Off-the-grid
  • Lists of public utilities
  • Public services
  • Liberalization
  • Electricity market
  • Energy
  • Telecommunications
  • Universal service
  • Firm service
  • Common utility duct
  • Utility cooperative
  • NAICS 22

Ghali; desires and beliefs; natural

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

Ghali (Arabic, Persian, Urdu : غالی) is a term used by Muslims for a so-called Shia who believes in the divinity of prophet Muhammad, or divinity of Ali, or divinity of Hussain, or divinity of all Fourteen Infallibles. It is dervied from ghuloo (Arabic, Persian, Urdu : غلو) meaning “to exaggerate” the status of notable religious personalities.
Mainstream Shias (Twelvers) consider them infidels, while the Sunni scholars sometimes use the term Ghali to refer to the whole Shia clan.


Beliefs of Ghalis

The beliefs of Ghalis as recorded from notable Shia and Sunni scholars are:
Ghuloo (exaggeration) about Prophets and Imams may be of the following types:
1. To deem them as divine
2. To deem them as partners in divinity with Allah
3. To say that Allah has entered into their bodies
4. Allah is (physically) united with them
5. They know the facts of ghaib wihout wahi and ilham
6. To deem Imams as Prophets
7. To keep the belief that their spirits transfer to each other’s bodies
8. Their ma’rifat (spiritual knowledge of their status) exempts one from prayer to Allah, and exempts one from avoiding sins.
Keeping one of the above mentioned beliefs results in kufr and ilhad (infidelity), and results in expulsion from religion. … Our imams have kept away from such people, and have pronounced their kufr (infidelity) and have thus, ordered their execution. Thus, if you find any hadith leading to such false beliefs, its meaning should be understood with proper ta’veel (modification), or it should be attributed to Ghalis’ fabrication.”
(Bihar al-Anwar by Allama Majlisi)

Printer Setup Utility; utility for

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

The Printer Setup Utility in Mac OS X serves to allow the user to configure printers physically connected to the computer, or connected via a network. The Utility provides more specific tools than the more user friendly printers pane in System Preferences.

To get even more advanced options when adding network printers, e.g., see this link http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301397 under the “How to manually add a Windows shared printer”-section.

Apple Loops Utility; utility’ must

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

Apple Loops Utility is a small companion utility to Soundtrack Pro, Garageband, Logic Express, and Logic Pro, all made by Apple Computer. It allows users to create loops of audio that can be time-stretched. Audio files can also be tagged with their publishing (Author, Comments, etc) and musical information (Key, Tempo, etc). Multiple files can be tagged at the same time, a process known as batch tagging. Apple Loops Utility can read both AIFF and WAV file formats, but it will convert the latter to AIFF when saved with tagging information.

The most recent version available without purchasing the aforementioned software is 1.3.1, available from Apple’s Developer Web site. Version 1.4, which is the first Universal Binary version of the software, is available with Logic Pro or Express 7.2. 1.4 allows multiple files to have multiple tags added to them. Version 1.4 also allows content merging to occur with Logic Audio Express. Only version 1.4 will work natively with Intel Macs. Version 1.3.1 will appear to allow edits to be made and file information to be saved, but none of the essential tagging information will be retained on an Intel Mac.


External links and references

  • Apple Loops SDK, including Apple Loops Utility (DMG)
  • Apple Loops Utility Manual (PDF)

Malfatti circles; so optimal

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Construct three circles inside a given triangle such that each circle is tangent to the other two and to two sides of the triangle.


History

In 1803 Gian Francesco Malfatti conjectured that solving this problem would provide a solution to Malfatti’s problem or the marble problem, of how to cut three marble columns of maximal area out of a triangular wedge of marble. The conjecture is wrong; that some solutions are not optimal was shown in 1930, while Goldberg showed that none of the Malfatti circles are ever optimal in 1967 (Ogilvy 1990). Ogilvy (1990) and Wells (1991) then illustrated specific cases where alternative solutions are clearly optimal. In 1992, V.A. Zalgaller and G.A. Los’ gave a complete solution of the marble problem.


References

  • Dörrie, H. “Malfatti’s Problem.” §30 in 100 Great Problems of Elementary Mathematics: Their History and Solutions. New York: Dover, pp. 147-151, 1965. ISBN 0-486-61348-8
  • Goldberg, M. “On the Original Malfatti Problem.” Math. Mag. 40, 241-247, 1967.
  • Ogilvy, C. S. Excursions in Geometry. New York: Dover, 1990. ISBN 0-486-26530-7
  • Malfatti’s Problem at cut-the-knot

Hugh Price; price

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

The name Hugh Price may refer to:

  • Hugh Bernard Price, U.S. activist for African-American causes
  • Hugh E. Price, former senior official in the Central Intelligence Agency
  • Hugh Price, 16th century Welsh lawyer and cleric; founder of Jesus College, Oxford

Marshallian demand function; utility.

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

In microeconomics, a consumer’s Marshallian demand function specifies what the consumer would buy in each price and wealth situation, assuming it perfectly solves the utility maximization problem. Marshallian demand is sometimes called Walrasian demand instead, because the original Marshallian analysis ignored wealth effects. Milton Friedman, however, argues that Marshall was misunderstood, that he did account for wealth effects, and that therefore, what is commonly called Marshallian demand is no such thing.

According to the utility maximization problem, there are L commodities with prices p. The consumer has wealth w, and hence a set of affordable packages

<math>B(p, w) = \{x : p \cdot x \leq w\}</math>.

The consumer has a utility function

<math>u : \textbf R^L_+ \rightarrow \textbf R</math>.

The consumer’s Marshallian demand correspondence is defined to be

<math>x^*(p, w) = \operatorname{argmax}_{x \in B(p, w)} u(x)</math>.

If there is a unique utility maximizing package for each
price and wealth situation, then it is called the Marshallian demand function. See the utility maximization problem entry for a discussion of this definition.


Example

If there are two commodities, then a consumer that always chooses to spend half of its income on each commodity would have the Marshallian demand function

<math>x(p, w) = \left(\frac{w}{2p_1}, \frac{w}{2p_2}\right).</math>


See also

  • Hicksian demand function
  • Utility maximization problem


References

Mas-Colell, Andreu; Whinston, Michael; & Green, Jerry (1995). Microeconomic Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507340-1

Arlington Assembly; utilities

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Arlington Assembly is a General Motors automobile factory in Arlington, Texas. The plant has operated for more than 50 years, and today manufactures large SUVs based on GM’s GMT900 platform:

  • Chevrolet Tahoe/GMC Yukon
  • Chevrolet Suburban/GMC Yukon XL
  • Cadillac Escalade

The

Arlington plant was opened in 1954 to assemble both automobiles and aircraft, but has focused on the former use for most of its history. The factory was the site of assembly for many large GM cars, including the 1980s Chevrolet Monte Carlo, 1990s Chevrolet Impala, and late-model Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks. The plant occupies 250 acres (1,000,000 square meters). Arlington Assembly was the last GM B-body manufacturing facility prior to the conversion for SUV production.

GMT900 production began on December 1, 2005, six weeks ahead of schedule.


Former vehicles manufactured at Arlington Assembly

RWD GM G platform vehicles

  • Chevrolet Monte Carlo
  • Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

RWD GM B platform vehicles

  • Cadillac Fleetwood
  • Chevrolet Caprice
  • Chevrolet Impala SS (1994-96)

GMT800 sport utilities

  • Chevrolet Suburban
  • Chevrolet Tahoe
  • GMC Yukon
  • Cadillac Escalade


Current vehicles produced

GMT900 sport utilities
GMT900 light trucks

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Prices Fork, Virginia; prices

Friday, April 4th, 2008

Prices Fork is a small traditionally agricultural unincorporated community located in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States. It is located about three miles west of Blacksburg and the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).

The community is a part of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Montgomery County and the cities of Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford for statistical purposes.

P