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Bitcoin 2.0 (XBTC2) Sponsorship Offer for Australian National Review.

SHIB Is the 5th Most Held Token on the Entire Ethereum Network

SHIB Is the 5th Most Held Token on the Entire Ethereum Network

By Jordan Major

Shiba Inu (SHIB), the decentralized meme coin built on Ethereum (ETH) as a competitor to Dogecoin (DOGE), thanks to its growing popularity, is now the fifth-ranked token by the number of holders on the entire network.

According to data acquired by Finbold, as of November 24, 2021, SHIB has the fifth-largest number of holders out of a total of 470,782 ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum network tracked by At the time of publication, Shiba Inu had a total of 995,285 holders. Consequently, SHIB is fewer than 5,000 holders away from reaching the 1 million holder mark.

Notably, Tether US (USDT) is in first place with 4,148,775 holders of the stablecoin, followed by Livepeer Token (LPT) in second place with 2,525,810. In third, there is CarLive Chain (IOV) in with 1,846,990, while USD Coin (USDC) rounds out the top five in fourth place with 1,296,978 holders.

Notably, despite a slight decrease on November 19, which was the first decline since October, the number of Shib holders has continued to increase.

Following its recent meteoric rise to record highs, the meme cryptocurrency Shiba Inu is presently experiencing high volatility, which looks to be influencing the number of people who own the cryptocurrency.

We recently reported that SHIB was 9,000 holders away from reaching 1 million SHIB investors milestone with 991,306 as of November 22.

Price holder correlation

Notably, the token has fallen below the crucial $0.00004 level and, in turn, dropped further down the rankings is now the 13th ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Currently, the dog meme token is down 5.53% on the day, a further 19.56% in the last week, taking its market cap to $21.8 billion, as per CoinMarketCap statistics.

SHIB 7 day price chart.

Furthermore, the currency is now trading at $0.00003989. Uncertainty exists over whether the fervor of the army of retail traders who helped it soar by more than 535% to a record high of $0.00008854 earlier this year has dissipated.

However, even if the price is falling, the number of holders has continued to rise, implying that more individual investors are entering the market to take advantage of another speculative meme bubble.

The fact that the coin is still not featured on prominent trading platforms Robinhood and Kraken might imply that more retail investors predict another rise in the near future. For example, following its listing on Coinbase, the token recorded an inflow of $870 billion within 24 hours.

Start investing In cryptocurrency with Bitxchange. If you’re new to the world of crypto, and figuring out how to buy cryptocurrencies, then cryptocurrency exchanges like Bitxchange help you to easily buy and sell crypto.

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If you donate to the Resistance you will receive major incentives.

Such as the following in Our World Coin which lists January 22nd 2022

Plus if you donate over $2500 you will also receive 20% in Bitcoin 2.0 and

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02:17 - Source: CNN
Hilary Rosen: Ann Romney 'never worked'

Editor’s Note: Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist, is a CNN political contributor. Follow her on Twitter.

CNN —

My Twitter feed was on fire after an appearance Wednesday night on CNN’s AC360, where I said that I thought it was wrong for Mitt Romney to be using his wife as his guide to women’s economic struggles when she “had never worked a day in her life.”

Democrat’s comment about Ann Romney creates Twitter firestorm

Oh my, you should read the tweets and the hate mail I got after that. The accusations were flying. I don’t know what it means to be a mom (I have 2 children). I obviously don’t value the work that a mother does and how hard it is (the hardest job I have ever had); and I absolutely hate anyone who doesn’t have the same views as I do (hate is a strong word).

Spare me the faux anger from the right who view the issue of women’s rights and advancement as a way to score political points. When it comes to supporting policies that would actually help women, their silence has been deafening. I don’t need lectures from the Republican National Committee on supporting women and fighting to increase opportunities for women; I’ve been doing it my whole career.

Sound off: What do you think about Rosen’s comments?

If they want to attack me and distract the public’s attention away from their nominee’s woeful record, it just demonstrates how much they just don’t get it.

My favorite tweet was from someone who said that Republicans like Ann Romney so much more than Mitt that by attacking her (which I didn’t), I got people to defend him in a way they never would. That last one, I can actually understand.

Now let’s be clear on one thing. I have no judgments about women who work outside the home versus women who work in the home raising a family. I admire women who can stay home and raise their kids full time. I even envy them sometimes. It is a wonderful luxury to have the choice. But let’s stipulate that it is not a choice that most women have in America today.

Why does this even matter? It matters purely because Mitt Romney put the issue of his wife’s views squarely on the table.

As Ruth Marcus noted in her column yesterday in the Washington Post, Romney, when asked last week about the gender gap, twice said he wished his wife could take the question.

“My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me,” Romney told newspaper editors, “and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy.”

So it begs the question, is Ann Romney Mitt’s touchstone for women who are struggling economically or not? Nothing in Ann Romney’s history as we have heard it – hardworking mom she may have been – leads me to believe that Mitt has chosen the right expert to get feedback on this problem he professes to be so concerned about.

I have nothing against Ann Romney. She seems like a nice lady who has raised nice boys, struggled with illness and handles its long-term effects with grace and dignity. I admire her grit in talking about her illness publicly.

What is more important to me and 57% of current women voters is her husband saying he supports women’s economic issues because they are the only issues that matter to us and then he fails on even those.

Let’s put aside for a moment his views on women’s health issues – such as his pledge to repeal funding for Planned Parenthood or repeal Title X – which provides important health services for poor women, and true anecdotes (such as when he was a Bishop in his church, he actually went to a congregant’s hospital room and told a young single mother who had just given birth that she was shaming the church and should give her baby away). Let’s put those issues of respect and health dignity away.

Let’s just focus on his economic record on behalf of women. When Romney ran Bain Capital, less than 10% of the senior workforce were women. And he said in his 1994 Senate race that it was because he had trouble finding qualified women to be executives. Is there a woman alive who believes that?

I personally believe that women hate the way our health issues were made a political football by the Republicans in the last several months. But I am pragmatic enough to believe that the economic issues do matter greatly to women and men alike. But the only way that Mitt Romney will succeed in closing the wide gender gap between him and President Obama is if he stops pretending that it doesn’t exist.

Follow CNN Opinion on Twitter: @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Hilary Rosen.

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text:
02:06 - Source: CNN
How does ISIS govern its territory?

Story highlights

A new United Nations report sheds light on the extent of civilian suffering in Iraq as the country battles ISIS

Nearly 19,000 civilians have been killed in 21 months, while 3,500 are being held in slavery

The report says ISIS is abducting hundreds of children for religious or military training

CNN —

Nearly 19,000 civilians were killed in Iraq between January 2014 and October 2015 – a toll the United Nations calls “staggering” in a new report.

The report, released Tuesday, outlined the horrific impact that Iraq’s ongoing conflict is having on its civilian population.

Much of the suffering was attributed to ISIS, the brutal Islamist terror group which has declared an Islamic caliphate across the vast stretches of territory it holds in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The report also estimated that ISIS holds about 3,500 slaves and said it continues to subject women and children to sexual violence, particularly in the form of sexual slavery.

Other numbers in the report are mind-boggling. In the 21-month period in Iraq:

• At least 18,802 civilians were killed, about half of them in Baghdad.

• Another 36,245 were injured.

• About 3.2 million people were internally displaced, including a million school-aged children.

The actual figures could be much higher, the report said.

ISIS crimes: ‘Possibly genocide’

The report also documented alleged abuses by Iraqi security forces and allied groups fighting ISIS, but attributed much of the suffering to ISIS itself.

“The so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) continues to commit systematic and widespread violence and abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law. These acts may, in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide,” the report said, using another name for ISIS.

The group, which has controlled Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, since June 2014, employed horrifying methods of killing, the report said, including beheading, bulldozing, burning alive and throwing people off the tops of buildings.

However, improvised explosive devices – including explosives worn by suicide bombers and those carried in vehicles – were the deadliest tactic used against civilians, it said.

The report was prepared by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and was based largely on testimony obtained directly from survivors or witnesses of rights violations, including interviews with internally displaced people.

3,500 slaves held by ISIS, report says

The report noted that ISIS continued to target ethnic and religious minorities, such as the Yazidis, systematically persecuting them with the apparent goal of suppressing, permanently expelling or destroying the groups.

The 3,500 slaves that ISIS is estimated to have, mainly women and children, came primarily from the persecuted Yazidi community, but a number hailed from other ethnic and religious minorities, it said.

Yazidi activists have previously told CNN of similar numbers of the community being abducted by the group.

Report: Women killed for refusing sex

The report detailed a number of specific incidents regarding the enslavement of women in Iraq.

In May, it said, a 24-year-old Yazidi woman was killed while trying to escape from ISIS captivity in Nineveh province, her body left on the side of the road.

In June, 42 Yazidi women were abducted from the same region and taken to ISIS-held Deir Ezzor in Syria, it said. Some of the women were reportedly sold to ISIS fighters there for $500 to $2,000, it said.

And in August, ISIS reportedly killed 19 women in Mosul for refusing to have sex with its fighters.

The report also documented an ISIS-run Quran recitation contest in the city, which advertised sex slaves as prizes for the winners.

The report’s authors also referred to verified reports that 800 to 900 children in Mosul had been abducted by the terror group for religious education and military training.

There were also reports that child soldiers who had fled fighting on the front lines in Anbar had been killed, it said.

Brutal Sharia punishments

The report said that ISIS targeted those perceived to be opposed to its ideology and rule; people affiliated with the government, including police officers and public officials; doctors; lawyers; journalists; and tribal and religious leaders.

Many were then sentenced in ISIS-run courts, where they faced punishments including death, stoning or amputation.

A number of mass graves had been uncovered in Iraq, the report said.

World’s support needed

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein warned that the civilian death toll may be much higher and said action is urgently needed to deal with a situation where most perpetrators of violence face no consequences.

“Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq. The figures capture those who were killed or maimed by overt violence, but countless others have died from the lack of access to basic food, water or medical care,” he said.

“This report lays bare the enduring suffering of civilians in Iraq and starkly illustrates what Iraqi refugees are attempting to escape when they flee to Europe and other regions. This is the horror they face in their homelands.”

The report’s authors also noted “concerning” reports of unlawful killings and abductions by groups associated with Iraq’s government, which may have been reprisals against people perceived to be supporting the terror group, it said.

“Despite their steady losses to pro government forces, the scourge of ISIL continues to kill, maim and displace Iraqi civilians in the thousands and to cause untold suffering,” said Jan Kubis, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Iraq.

He called on the international community to enhance its support to the Iraqi government’s stabilization and reconstruction efforts in areas liberated from ISIS, “so that all Iraqis displaced by violence can return to their homes in safety and in dignity and that affected communities can be reestablished in their places of origin.”

After some humiliating losses to ISIS, Iraqi government forces have launched offensives to recapture territory. An assault last month on the key city of Ramadi, in Anbar province, saw government forces regain much of the city in a morale-boosting victory.

READ MORE: Expelling ISIS from Ramadi – why it matters

CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.


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Sports and activewear - Sports Polo

We offer sewing threads in fine sizes which have high levels of tenacity and strength which helps to avoid costly needle damage to the fabrics.

Approximate thread consumption for men's sports polo shirts is 150 meters. For ladies' sports polo shirts is 120 meters. For children's sports polo shirts is 90 meters. Alternative thread types may be used depending on required final quality. The thread size will determine the choice of needle size.

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We can tailor the product application guide to show you the exact information you require, please select the necessary options from the filter below. Below are recommended stitch types for this end use item.

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    The recommendations in the table apply to all of these stitch types. The choice of which thread to use for top cover is determined by the appearance required. Popular top covering threads include; Gramax, Epic and Sylko.

    In order to avoid damage to the fabric during the sewing of knitted garments, ball point needles are generally recommended.

    Where two Tex sizes of thread have been suggested the choice will be determined by the demands of the stitching operation, the amount of load / demand placed on the seam and the type and weight of fabric being sewn.

    While Epic Tex 24 or 30 has been selected for the overlock and coverseam looper elements in the above table, manufacturers sometimes favor the use of textured polyester sewing thread for these elements.
    Where this is the case our recommendation would be for Gramax Tex 18.

    The sewing thread recommendations laid out above are intended as a guide to aid the construction of garments with good quality seams. As garments of the same generic type differ in terms of fabric substrate and construction, and both making up methods and post make up processing can greatly vary, these recommendations should be viewed as a good starting point for thread selection.

    Garment specific recommendations for thread and needle selection as well as accurate thread consumption figures and on-site technical support can be obtained by contacting your local Coats' office.

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All About Test Part 2 - Testing Stateful System

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21 Jan 2013CPOL16 min read
How to manage state and simulate behavior against the system under test.

In this article, I will explore how to do integration test of systems with state using model-based techniques. We will take the outset in a simple state machine model and move on to a place-transition model, reap the benefits of working in an integration scenario add the combinatorial test design from the first article in the series and finally sprinkle with a dependency analysis and add support for asynchronous environments. What you get from this is an approach to integration test where you can leave the tedious work of setting up preconditions to the computer. On top of that you get a framework that is easily leveraged into a load simulation and where iterating the test improves test coverage.

In my previous article about combinatorial test, I explored how to abstract data using categorization with BVA and ECP and discussed how the concept of covering arrays reduces the amount of necessary tests and provides an empirically based estimate of coverage. This works fine for stateless functions, but as you have probably realized the real world is very often stateful.

State Machines

As the working example throughout this article I will use a bug report in a bug tracking system.  What characterizes a bug report? It’s got some details like the affected system, component, version, platform, and so on, and then it has a status field. Usually something like New, Verified, Fixed, Confirmed, Rejected and Closed depending on how you set it up. The status (or the state which I will call it from now on) determines what you can and must do to the bug report: There are limitations on how you can change between states and there may be requirements on what you must do in other states (like add a comment). The natural model for this is a state machine like this:

 Image 1

It is clear that we must at least add one test for each arch above. With one test per arc, we achieve 0-switch coverage, which is only sufficient if you are sure that history has no impact: Consider the arc from Confirmed to Rejected. If there is only one test of this transition there is no telling how the bug report got to the “Confirmed” state, it can get there from either New, Fixed or Verified. If history is a concern, more tests are required to achieve a higher switch coverage. With 1-switch coverage the test takes one historic state-change into account, 2-switch considers two changes etc.

Assume for a moment that we implement a simple state-machine and hook up all the arcs to a method that would change the state and validate, then we would have achieved a simple model-based test. Whenever the machine reaches a state with more than one outgoing arc the machine has to choose what arc to follow. If it uses a deterministic approach like graph colouring we can be sure it terminates, but it can then only guarantee 0-switch coverage. On the other hand, if it simply takes a random path we cannot be sure that it terminates, but the longer it runs the more paths are tested and the switch coverage will increase. This is known as a Markov Chain Statistical Test or MCST.

The downside is that state machines respond poorly to complexity (i.e. number of factors or different state variables to represent). The number of states grows exponentially with the number of factors while the number of arcs grow with the square of the number of states, so state machines get bad fast.

P/T Nets

Something better is needed if we want to handle real scenarios, so let‘s modify the figure:

Image 2

What we have here is a Place/Transition net also known as a Petri net. I looks like a state machine with labels but is very different. Where a state machine is concerned with the state of a single object and how it can transition between states, the nodes in the P/T net are placeholders for multiple objects. The labels (called transitions) are actions that can fire whenever the input node contains an object. Transitions can consume any number of objects from any number of places and can similarly output any number of objects to other places.

In the figure, I added a “Create” transition that does not require any input and initially this is the only transition that can fire. Once fired there will be an object in the place “New” that can be consumed by either the “Reject”, “Confirm” or “Fix” transitions, and once any of these have fired, other transitions are enabled etc.

P/T nets like this are great for simulation: In each iteration determine the enabled transitions, pick one at random and fire it, then repeat. It will also work concurrently so if you implement such a simulator and pay a bit of attention to performance and threading you have yourself a load simulator.

P/T nets easily cope with transitions that require multiple objects like associating bug reports with each other:

Image 3

Whenever there is an object in the “Confirmed” place and another object in the “Fixed” place, the “Associate” transition becomes enabled and ready to fire.

Cool right? You can do powerful testing with such a simulator and the stochastic element has the nice property that the longer you let the simulation run, the more different sequences it covers.

P/T Nets with Dependency Resolution

As long as the simulation is entirely stochastic, you cannot be sure that all transitions (i.e. all tests) will fire, but that is not too hard to fix. Assume you need to ensure that “Fix” against a “Confirmed” bug is fired. To do that we need a “Confirmed” bug that we can get either by confirming a “New” bug, or reopening a “Fixed” or “Verified” bug. Which should we choose? A rank based dependency analysis will do the trick: Apply ranks to all transitions and let rank 0 be those actions that do not consume any tokens such as the “Create” transition. Rank 1 is all transitions that are enabled by the output of the actions in rank 0 and so on.

Image 4

If you need to execute a rank 3 transition that is not enabled then you need to find a rank 2 or lower transition that produces an enabling object and so on. It is easy to do recursively and if the transition requires multiple objects simply repeat the procedure one object at a time. Further, if you cannot rank a transition this way, it means that there is no way of producing the required input for it and it is dead. With this in place, it is straightforward to ensure that all live transitions fire at least once.

Adding dependency resolution to the P/T net provides some cool opportunities: You can select a transition (i.e. a test) and have the simulator set up all the prerequisites automatically – no more tedious arrange code! With a bit of bookkeeping you can also extend the simulator to do a frequency based load simulation where you just state the percentages of a few select transitions (like 50% Confirm, 20% Fix, 30% reject) and let the simulator figure out the in-betweens to achieve the specified load scenario. This is a lot easier and far more realistic than the usual approach of setting up detailed flows. Like for the state machine variant, this is also an instance of a Markov Chain Statistical Test (MCST).

Using the Code

Up until now, everything is straightforward and building a simple stochastic P/T net simulator is not much work. I have added the code for a P/T net simulator with the article that you can use as basis for your own work. It loads a network specified in XML and contains the rank analysis, dependency resolution and support MCST / frequency-based scenarios I discussed above. The code works by building a “Fixture” containing all acquired arguments for the method call so far. When all arguments are bound, the fixture is ready to execute. You will need to add error handling in case your (test) methods throw exceptions, and for heavy load you will need to make it multi-threaded. That should be straight-forward.

That’s it then? Model-based testing explained and we are ready to set of testing whatever comes our way? For simple scenarios and small nets then yes, but once complexity increases in terms of network size, non-determinism, asynchronous behavior and dependencies between data, maintaining an explicit model becomes cumbersome.

What follows next is conceptually simple but requires a lot of work to turn into a useful application. This is what I have done with the product Quality Gate One Studio and the rest of this article is to some extent specific for  that tool.

Auto Generating P/T Nets

That’s it then? Model-based testing explained and we are ready to set of testing whatever comes our way? For simple scenarios and small nets then yes, but once complexity increases in terms of network size, non-determinism, data inter-dependencies and asynchronous behavior, maintaining an explicit model becomes cumbersome.

What follows next is conceptually simple but requires a lot of work to turn into a useful application. This is what I have done with the product Quality Gate One Studio and the rest of this article is to some extent specific for that tool.

Take a step back and consider what the P/T net consists of:

  • Places
  • Transitions
  • Input arcs (arcs leading from a place to a transition)
  • Output arcs (arcs leading from a transition to a place)

Then revisit my first article in the series that walks you through analytical test design and combinatorial test. The crux of this article is to apply categorization to the input parameters of a test method. The result being that each parameter to any given test belongs to exactly one category, or in P/T net terminology belongs to exactly one place. With this, we can pin three out of the four items a P/T net consists of:

  • A Place corresponds to the category of a parameter in a single test
  • A Transition corresponds to a test. That is, a binding between a test method and specific categories for each parameter.
  • An Input Arc corresponds to the binding of a specific category (a Place) to one specific parameter of a test method.

That leaves the output arcs, but if it is possible to inspect an object (e.g. by using reflection) and determine what category / place it belongs to, if any, and it is possible to inspect what objects come out of a transition, then output arcs can be observed simply by executing transitions as they become enabled.

  • An Output Arc corresponds to the place where an output of a transition ends up.

The discovery process proceeds as follows:

Image 5

Initially no output arcs are known, but rank 0 transitions are by definition enabled. Firing these transitions provide enough information to identify rank 1:

Image 6

The process continues like this until all transitions have been ranked or identified as dead:

Image 7

Image 8

Image 9

Using Combinatorial Test Design to Define the Net

In the previous section, I explained how to discover output arcs by firing the transitions in rank order, but that saved less than half the work of setting up the network since places, input arcs and transitions remain. To nail these, consider the relationship between a test method and a transition. The test method is the code that calls the system under test and validates results, while the transition is just a binding between the method and a specification of parameter characteristics. If we can get the specification part into a compact form that expands into multiple transitions, we are done since places and input arcs are directly derivable from the transitions.

The first thing we need to do is to fix the representation of parameter categories and I choose to do this by adding Boolean and enum-type properties to the classes used for parameters in test methods. An example from the first article in the series is the abstract representation of a DateTime instance:

public class MDateTime
    #region Category definitions
    public enum YearCategory { Min, CommonYear, LeapYear, CommonCentury,
                               LeapCentury, Max }
    public enum MonthCategory { Jan, Feb, Jun, Jul, Aug, Dec }
    public enum DayCategory { First, SecondLast, Last }
    public enum TimeCategory { Min, Mid, Max }
    #endregion Category definitions
    #region Factors
    public YearCategory Year { get; set; }
    public MonthCategory Month { get; set; }
    public DayCategory Day { get; set; }
    public TimeCategory Hour { get; set; }
    public TimeCategory Minute { get; set; }
    public TimeCategory Second { get; set; }
    public TimeCategory Millisecond { get; set; }
    #endregion Factors

If there is state involved like for the bug report example above, simply add another factor to represent the state and leave it to the test method to update the state as appropriate.

The class and the combined properties together, e.g. [Year.CommonYear, Month.Feb, Day.Last, …] defines the overall category of the object and hence the place where it belongs. The tuple / text representation is fine for the specification of input while the property representation lends itself well for reflection. Now there is sufficient information to represent the constituent parts of the P/T net, but a long list of explicitly defined tuples is not, in general, a compact representation. The solution I developed for Quality Gate One Studio is a general-purpose expression language supporting set operations, relational functions, Covering Arrays and more.

The net result being a system where you need to concern yourself with the following:

  • Data modelling (mainly defining categories and factors)
  • Implementing general purpose parameterized test methods
  • Defining what to test.

The system then executes tests by observing output and doing dependency resolution as needed.

Image 10

When you download QS there is a sample illustrating how to drive and test a stateful system.

Testing Asynchronous Systems

So far, the model has been synchronous and a transition is fired right away when it is selected for execution. To deal with asynchronous systems we need to support asynchronous execution. If you look at the code for the P/T net simulator, you will find a class called “Fixture” that represents a transition with a (partial) binding of parameters.  The first step to support asynchronous execution is to use a queue to separate selection of fixtures and the execution of fixtures, next to provide a mechanism to put a fixture on hold until some event releases it.

What can put a fixture on hold? One option is to add a “ReadyAt” timestamp to the objects stored in the places of the P/T net. This facility supports the following scenario: Submitting an order (e.g. in a web shop) produces a separate email confirmation that arrives within two minutes. The solution is to let the transition submitting the order emit an “ExpectedEmail” object that is time-stamped to be ready two minutes after submitting the order. When the next transition that checks for emails, picks up the ExpectedEmail object, the related fixture goes on hold until it is ready.

This approach works only when the expected side effect is observable within the provided time frame  and with only that mechanism at hand, you must use worst-case time frames to prevent false negatives in the test.

To speed things up we need a mechanism to provide normal-case time frames and a mechanism to retry the transition later if the first time frame was too optimistic. Thus, the second mechanism we need is the ability to retry a transition and put it back in the queue. In QS you can achieve that through a call to TestContext.TryLater().

The above provides the basis for polling and while it can support most asynchronous scenarios it complicates the test method code and has a rather clumsy feel.

Many asynchronous systems support completion callbacks. That is, calling a delegate supplied by the user when the asynchronous operation completes. To support this we need to be able to fire a transition (to set off the asynchronous operation), suspend it and resume it once we receive a completion callback. For QS I chose to support continuations which work as follows: Before the asynchronous operation is initiated, a delegate to the code to execute on completion (this is the continuation code such as validation code) is supplied to a method CreateContinuation() that returns another delegate to use as callback. When the callback is invoked, it passes any parameters to the continuation and releases the associated fixture. Continuations lead to more elegant user code and superior scheduling.

The above mechanisms support asynchronous operations initiated by firing a transition / calling a test method, but what about unsolicited events such as timer events or events from a live data feed? I have not found a good solution for this problem yet: It is simple enough to monitor for such events and add an object such as “NewsUpdate” to a place and then wait for a transition to consume the object and do its validation. The problem is that we do not know in advance the category of the received data, we do not know when we will receive the event, and if we monitor for multiple categories we do not know if we ever will receive data for all categories. Maybe that is just the way it is, but any thoughts on how to deal with it are most welcome!

Sometimes a transition is not fully deterministic. It emit output to different places on each call and it is not reliable to determine all output arcs from the transition. In this case, it is important to remember that only the dependency analysis needs deterministic output arcs. It is sufficient that the outputs go into the right places at run time, as long as there are sufficient deterministic output arcs that the dependency resolver can enable all transitions. For this reason, QS distinguishes between checked and unchecked output, where only the checked output must be deterministic.

If an output arc is strictly required for the dependency resolution but the transition is non-deterministic and sometimes provide the required output and sometimes not, it is possible for the test method to signal to QS whether the required output was available or not. In that case, QS can call the method again with new input until it observes the required output.

In this article, I have examined state-machines and P/T nets as models to drive a test. State machines respond poorly to complexity while P/T nets have better characteristics and provide some interesting opportunities. Introducing dependency resolution to the P/T net model enables us to pick any live transition (i.e. test case) and have the network decide the sequence of steps needed before it can execute. In integration scenarios, this means that you no longer need arrange code. Further, the dependency resolution enables sparse specification of load scenarios, again a lot easier to use than using traditional hardwired sequences. The type of sequence and load testing achieved using this technique is known as a Markov Chain Statistical Test (MCST). Compared to the common approach in MCST, with a P/T net with dependency resolution it is not necessary to specify all transition probabilities.

The attached code sample contains a P/T net simulator capable of MCST, but the raw model provided in the sample has scaling and maintenance issues and lacks support for asynchronous systems and non-determinism. I further discussed how the tool Quality Gate One Studio handles these issues by introducing formal test design techniques and leveraging these for automated discovery of network topology. This greatly improves scaling properties and makes both combinatorial testing, model-based testing and MCST available to systems of real life complexity.

I hope you enjoyed the article and that it provided you new insights and inspiration. For me, testing started as a rather dull chore that lead into a challenging journey across many different fields of Computer Science.

My next article in the series (and the last one so far) will be about performance testing, intricacies of high-speed timing, what statistics to use and what not, concurrency and more.

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

About the Author

Simeon Sheye
Denmark Denmark
I started programming as a kid and went through basic, C and assembler. I got a MSc.CS from University of Aarhus in 1998 and have maintained an interest for computer science ever since, that I enjoy applying to the problems I come across. I have worked in different roles as a programmer, architect, project manager and consulting in many different areas including databases, cryptography, server architecture and distributed systems. I am currently focussing on the testing done during development and seek to improve this through a combination of approach, skill and technology.

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7 Quality Tips to Get Your First Job as a Web Developer

Written by Shan Shah
Published on August 18, 2021
6 mins read
how to get your first job as a web developer without experience

Finding a first job as a web developer without experience in today's market, where competition is tough, can be challenging, especially if you are beginning your career.

We'll show you some simple ways to get your first job as a web developer in reality!

Here are 7 tips that can be helpful if you are looking for your first job as a web developer:

Set a Goal, Determine your Aim and Objectives

Keep in mind that no task is ever easy, and to reach somewhere in your career, you have to start somewhere.

By realizing what you want to do and determining your aim, you have already taken the very first step on the ladder of your success.

Focus on your goal, do your research, start thinking about what steps you can take today to help you build your desired career as a web developer in the future.

By visualizing your goal, you will start tracking your progress which will ultimately help you land your dream job.

Key Tips:

  • Read different articles on how you can start your career as a web developer.
  • Find out what is common among them and match your skillset accordingly.
  • Learn what is required to become a web developer and acquire the necessary skills.
  • Make a step-by-step outline on how you can achieve your goal based on your skills, time management, resources, etc.

Make an online portfolio

When a client looks for a web developer, they look for someone with skills.

Clients are spending their money, and they look for someone who can deliver, so they visit different websites and search on Google for freelancers who provide their skills at a reasonable cost.

As a beginner web developer, you can share your skills publicly by creating an online portfolio.

It can be a personal blog or a professional resume website to show potential clients your skills, projects, and experience.

By creating a portfolio, you can show a client what you can and prove your worth. To make a good impression on a client, you need to have a convincing portfolio.

Key Points:

  • Make your portfolio simple so that users can navigate through it easily.
  • Put up your best works, summarize your skills and expertise.
  • Do not brag; keep it clean and concise.
  • Publish content regularly, maintain it, improve it along the way.
  • Use keywords and highlight your skills.
  • Share links to your social media sites to get more exposure.
  • Make sure your portfolio is up-to-date with all your latest projects together with your correct contact details.

Gain experience and learn

No matter what job you are seeking, employers want you to have experienced most of the time.

When looking for a job, experience is a valuable key, but fresh candidates who find their first jobs do not always have the required experience.

Fortunately for web developers, whether you are just starting your career or a skilled programmer, there are many ways to put your skills to good use to gain valuable experience.

Work as a freelancer

As a web developer, freelance work will help you set up your career by building your credibility.

Check sites like Fiverr, UpWork, People per Hour, etc., to pick up freelance projects and approach small companies to see if they need your skills.

Do freelance work for friends and family for free. Create professional websites for small businesses.

Help someone improve their websites. It will help you gain experience.

Contribute to open-source projects

An open-source is a publicly available project for anyone to use, study, and modify.

Open source projects are great for new web developers to practice their skills and gain valuable experience by helping other developers.

It will build up your profile as a web developer and give you insight into other developers' minds and increase your creativity and problem-solving skills.

When you do good work on open source projects, it will also help you build your reputation in the online community.

Key Points:

  • Programming is a process of constant learning; practice what you have learned.
  • Do freelance work but keep in mind that you are not doing it to get paid but build up your reputation.
  • Develop projects for non-profit organizations, help them get their websites up and running without any cost. This approach will help you to create your portfolio strong.
  • Communicate with friends and family, check with local businesses to see if they are looking for software development services.
  • Jump to GitHub to find open source projects or start a project of your own and make it open source.
  • Make coding a hobby for pure joy.
  • The more projects you will work on, the more experience you will gain!

Create a Network

While amazing skills and experience can take you a long way in your career, creating a network is equally important in increasing your online exposure.

When you do freelance work for local companies and small businesses, you build connections with them.

People are more likely to trust someone recommended by a friend than the one they find online.

Social connections can be very impactful for your career growth. Testimonials and recommendations play a major role in getting a job, as they can give your reputation as a freelance developer a major boost.

Key Points:

  • Grow your professional network as early as possible.
  • Add testimonials from your clients into your portfolio.
  • Be sure to enter the client's name and company. (Any potential future clients who have heard of them will be more inclined to hire you for work).
  • Result-focused feedback will increase the value of your work.

Become Part of Community

Be a part of a community, as digital or physical.

Join different blogs and tutorial websites to stay in the knowhow. Participate in online communities to learn and gain information regarding your field and any new job opportunities.

Attend offline meetups and conferences as well and share your viewpoints with others of the same field.

It also gives you the perfect opportunity to share your ideas with community members and be inspired by them - it's a great chance for the great feedback and continuous improvement.

Key Points:

  • Subscribe to technical blogs and tutorial websites.
  • Join online communities like Stack Overflow, WordPress, etc.
  • Be open to any interaction online as well as offline.
  • Always be willing to learn new things.

Market yourself

Marketing is very important when you are starting your career. If you make a new project or a website, don't be afraid to market it; otherwise, it will not reach the expected audience.

Suppose you create something new use social media sites to market your ideas.

You can spread the word out on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc., so people all over the internet can see how awesome your new website is.

Key Points:

  • Share your work in your portfolio.
  • Add your website to your social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
  • Use email marketing to point subscribers to your website by using monthly newsletters, event promotions, and discounts, educational tips, and tricks.
  • Attend meetups and promote yourself by sharing your knowledge.
  • Be active online, be open to being contacted by recruiters.
  • Share your code on GitHub to expand your skills, and be sure to include your links to your resume.
  • Make your resume stand out.

Dedicate Enough Time and Stay Motivated

Many job seekers feel demotivated by the arduous process of finding a new job.

Feel confident in your skills and achievements and go into the process of searching with the understanding that persistence is the key.

Your search will require a long time each day, considering the increasing competition in the online job market.

As long as you stay persistent and dedicate your time and passion to your work, you will be successful.

You may feel discouraged, disconnected, or demotivated at first but keep in mind that drawbacks and failure are also a part of success as you gain experience from them. The more experience you will gain, the more valuable your skills become.

Job hunting as a new web developer can be challenging, but as long as you tackle your smaller goals one by one and keep on track towards your main goal, you will discover that there's plenty to celebrate.

Your achievements and learning experience will be rewarding in themselves in the long run.

Key Points:

  • Manage your time and schedule.
  • Just remember that chances are you won't be successful overnight. Success is a journey, not a destination. Your persistence will pay off well as long as you don't give up!
  • Always acknowledge your achievements.
  • Find ways to turn your achievements into advantages that will help you in the future.

If you like this guide, don't forget to share it with others.

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A group of authors have an open-access paper in the journal People and Nature, a publication of the British Ecological Society: Tapping birdwatchers to promote bird-friendly coffee consumption and conserve […]

Revised on October 6, 2021

The Bird-Friendly website at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has made it easier to find local and online retailers of Bird-Friendly certified coffee. There is an interactive map to find […]

Some time ago, I wrote a detailed post about “land sharing” versus “land sparing“, two agriculture strategies. In a nutshell, land sharing is the use of cover crops, interplantings, and […]

Revised on March 8, 2021

In 2017, Rainforest Alliance announced they would merge with Utz (another certification), retain the Rainforest Alliance name, and develop a new standard — the set of rules and criteria required […]

Do not use Rainforest Alliance certification as an indication that coffee was shade-grown or even particularly eco-friendly. And the new proposed rules will make it even less likely.

Revised on July 28, 2020

Rainforest Alliance and UTZ (Certified), two major certifiers of coffee and other products, are merging.

Revised on November 29, 2020

A new standard for Rainforest Alliance certification has been issued. Here, the changes to the “shade” criteria are explained.

Revised on December 7, 2020

The Power of Organic Coffee

by JulieCraves on December 8, 2016

This article originally appeared in the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s member publication, the SCAA Chronicle.

Revised on November 14, 2019

Studies in the Rainforest Alliance impacts reports hint at why some criteria in the proposed standard may be weaker.

Revised on November 24, 2020

The Rainforest Alliance impacts report says 82% of coffee farms comply with current shade requirements. Yet they have said that most farms do not fully implement these requirements, and that’s why they proposed weakening this requirement. What’s going on?

Revised on November 14, 2019

An update on the upcoming revision of the Rainforest Alliance standard.

Revised on July 28, 2020

[Updates: Since this post, the standard revision, and the merger with UTZ, many of the links in this post have been eliminated; I’ve replaced them with archived links that will […]

Revised on March 14, 2021

In return for financial support that represents a tiny fraction of profits, large corporations are receiving ”endorsements” in the form of product badges promoting health benefits or sustainability efforts — despite the fact that many of these corporations have rotten sustainability records.

Revised on March 14, 2021

Keurig Green Mountain is buying more and more coffee, but less of it is eco-certified.

Revised on November 29, 2020

Revised Code of Conduct weakens encouragement for shade coffee, emphasizing that this is not an “eco-certification.”

Revised on July 28, 2020


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Five Years of Presidency, What Should be Remembered of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner?

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Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected to presidential office in 2007 with the assumption she would be a mere puppet to her husband, Néstor, the previous president. Since then, after being unexpectedly widowed, she has proven those criticisms to be grossly off the mark. Cristina has proven herself to be a strong and determined leader of Argentina, comparable to the iconic female political figures of Eva Perón and Hillary Clinton, recognizable women who have shaped the political process of a continent. In 2012, Forbes magazine named Kirchner 16th on its list of the world’s 100 most powerful women. [1] She has shown that her decisive changes to Argentine politics have rippled throughout Latin America. This is perhaps most evident in the nationalization of the formerly private Spanish oil company YPF, done in the hope of revitalizing the Argentine economic sector. While foreign critics have dismissed this reform as a desperate move, Argentina’s economy appears to be growing with the country greatly supporting the measure. [2]

Source: The Americas Postes

Early Politics

Cristina became politically active in the 1970s by joining the Peronist Youth movement of the Justicialist Party. During this period, Cristina married Néstor Kirchner, both of whom graduated with law degrees from the National University of La Plata. However, Cristina was forced to step away from politics due to the persecution of political activists under the military junta from 1976-1983. As a result, the Kirchner couple opened a prosperous law practice in the province of Santa Cruz to continue engaging with community affairs. In 1989, Cristina once again entered into politics when she was elected to Santa Cruz’s provincial legislature, winning a second term in 1993. After serving at the provincial level, Cristina represented Santa Cruz in the Argentine Senate. Cristina was the first of the Kirchner couple to move to politics at the national level. After time in the Senate, she won election to the Chamber of Deputies, Argentina’s lower house, after which she returned to the Senate in 2001.

Cristina was a strong supporter of her husband’s bid for the presidency in 2003, which he won after a run-off election against incumbent Carlos Menem. She used her position as senator to promote her husband’s administration and help pass his measures in legislation. During this period, Cristina’s “combative speech style polarized Argentine politics and drew comparisons to Eva Perón,” according to the New World Encyclopedia. [3] In October 2005, Cristina once again won election to the Senate to represent the province of Buenos Aires in a heated race against Hilda Gonzaléz de Duhalde. While many believe that Cristina rode to power on the coattails of her husband, they fail to recognize that she was the first to enter the national arena.

One of the toughest obstacles Cristina has had to overcome in her political career is the prevalence of machismo. For many, machismo, “a strong or exaggerated sense of masculinity,” is seen as an integral part of Argentine national identity. [4] Although machismo pervades Argentine culture, the participation of women in politics has been promoted through the Ley de Cupo (quota law), which mandates that a certain percentage of candidates for political posts must be women. [5] While this law makes it easier and more acceptable for women to enter politics, there is still an assumption that there is a man pulling the strings. This was especially true during Cristina’s first campaign for the presidency. Many voters assumed that Néstor would be acting as the overseer of if she won, and thus supported Cristina’s campaign. However, Cristina cultivated a political identity unique from her late husband while still providing continuity in the executive branch.

Throughout her presidency, Cristina has overcome gender discrimination within the political community. Critics often bemoan her as outspoken and vain because of her strong rhetoric and perceived obsession with her appearance. Instead of downplaying her gender, as other female politicians have strategized, Cristina has used it to her advantage.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Cristina’s first campaign for presidency was based largely on the promise to expand the economic and social reforms that her husband started. This provision of continuity helped her win the election with a 22 percent margin. With her history of legislative experience and interest in foreign affairs, many believed the new leader would improve diplomatic relations with other nations, such as the United States and Europe, an area in which her husband’s critics portrayed him as weak. [6] Throughout her first term, la presidenta continued the work of her husband by reestablishing and taking control of Argentina’s economic and political foundations.

Rising inflation and mounting protests against changes in agricultural policies led to a fall in Cristina’s approval ratings during the first term of her presidency. As she approached re-election, public disenchantment with the economic policy, combined with accusations of an establishment of a dynastic regime, proved to be a significant challenge in her reelection campaign. Néstor’s sudden death, at first quieted these concerns, but continued to actively campaign, during which Néstor was a constant presence in Cristina’s public speeches.

Amidst these difficulties, Cristina continued with her campaign and won a second term with 54 percent of the vote.

As her second presidential term unfolded, Cristina continued many of her husband’s policies. She continued to focus on adding to agricultural exports, as well as increasing import regulations and encouraging local manufacturing. Through the increase of exports and strict regulation of imports, Argentina experienced significant economic growth under the Kirchner presidency. Between 2002 and 2007, the industrial sector experienced an overall increase in production of 52 percent, a positive sign for the administration. [7] This increase in industrial production allowed the country to expand its exports, which led to a fall in unemployment levels. Moreover, in this six-year period, unemployment also decreased by 5.9 percent. Most significantly, between 2000 and 2005, Argentina’s GDP grew at a rate of 9.2 percent. [8] During her first term, Cristina adopted a more conciliatory position towards investment by reopening negotiations with the Paris Club, an informal group of financial officials, to pay off defaulted debt. At the same time, she invited the IMF back into Argentina, signifying a promising change to foreign investors. However, the recent nationalization of YPF, while popular with the Argentine people, has discouraged foreign investment. Still, the overall strong economic turnaround has buoyed Cristina’s presidency. Two years after she took office, unemployment shrank from 10.6 percent in 2005 to 7.9 percent. [9] Although this figure was significantly lower than its 2001 peak of 25 percent, by the time Cristina ran for re-election, unemployment decreased once again to 7.3 percent, the lowest rate in the past two decades.

Source: AP

However, the increase in capital has primarily remained with large enterprises at the top of the economic pyramid. [10] While other left-leaning countries in the region, such as Bolivia, have utilized their economic growth to redistribute wealth, Argentina’s gains remain severely stratified. At the end of Néstor’s first year in office, for example, 51 percent of the population lived below the poverty line and the level of extreme poverty continued to increase. [11] It was not until 2009 that serious efforts were made to improve this imbalance through the Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH), a conditional cash transfer program. This program provides school-aged children and their families with financial incentives to encourage school attendance. Moreover, this program promotes regular vaccination by providing monthly payments of up to $180 USD per child to unemployed and low-income workers. The AUH program is administered by the National Security Administration (ANSES), which has reported a significant drop in poverty and indigence due to the program [12]. In a report by the Universidad de la Plata, the AUH is called the “most transcendent social policy decision in a long time.” [13] However, many schools lack the necessary tools to accommodate an influx of such children. The schools in these poor areas are outdated and dilapidated, and classrooms are unfit to handle student expectations. This lack of funding to the schools perpetuates the stratification between the social classes and is an area in which the Argentinian administration will need to continue making reforms.

The Argentine leader also has made strides in changing the social norms of her society. In July 2010, Argentina became the first country in the region to approve gay marriage. Prior to the passage of the bill, Cristina fought against the Roman Catholic Church, stating that failure to pass the law would be a “terrible distortion of democracy” and that the time had come for the Church to realize that the social mores of Argentina were changing. [14] Cristina has continued to push Argentina in a progressive direction. In July 2012, a ceremony took place to mark the beginning of a groundbreaking new law allowing citizens to have their names and sexes legally changed without undergoing transgender surgery. [16] Cristina has led Argentina in taking steps towards the level of equality that many countries in the region continue to debate.

Despite initial misgivings, Cristina has successfully navigated the obstacles of her presidency. She has improved upon social reform and emerged as a decisive leader in regards to the economic security of her country. Through these decisions she has established herself as a formidable and independent politician. Like most world leaders, Cristina continues to face hardships and obstacles as the downturn of the world economy continues; however, her decisions thus far have shown her to possess enough political courage to break taboos of Argentinian society and become a recognizable leader in Latin America.

Kathleen Bacon,

Research Associate at Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Please accept this article as a free contribution from COHA, but if re-posting, please afford authorial and institutional attribution. Exclusive rights can be negotiated.

[1] Last, Caroline Howard, ed. “The 100 Women who Run the World,” Forbes, August 22, 2012.

[2]Romero, Simon. “Move on Oil Company Draws praise in Argentina, Where Growth Continues,” New York Times, April 26, 2012.

[3]New World Encyclopedia, s.v. “Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.” August 5, 2008.

[4]Merriam Webster Dictionary, s.v. “Machismo:”

[5] Caistor-Arendar,Ana. “Cristina Kirchner’s Moment.” Open Democracy, December 14, 2007.

[6] Hedges, Jill. Argentina: a Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 286.

[7] Petras, James and Henry Veltmeyer, What’s Left in Latin America (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009), 60.

[8] United Nations, 2010 World Statistics Pocketbook Country Profile,

[10] Petras and Veltmeyer, What’s Left in Latin America, 59.

[11] Ibid, 65.

[12] Younker, Kyle, “Asignación Universal por Hijo, One Year Later.” The Argentina Independent, October 12, 2010.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Barrionuevo, Alexei, “Argentina approves gay marriage.” New York Times, July 15, 2010.

[15] Barsotti, Natasha. “Argentina passes progressive gender ID law; will ACT follow?” Xtra! Canada’s Gay and Lesbian News. July 11,2012.


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safe occupancy levels

Occupancy Counting & Real Time Safety Alerting System

Helping Retailers & Venues Comply with Safe Customer Occupancy Limits

Due To The COVID-19 Crisis, The Australian Government Has Imposed Restrictions And Limits On The Number Of People That Can Gather In One Place, Such As Supermarkets, Shops, Pharmacies and Public Facilities.

The latest Cohera-Tech Counting Systems gives you accurate real time people counts  in your building for Social Distancing compliance. You can limit additional entries via passive entrance screen displays and importantly issue instant alerts to relevant staff members when limits are approached or exceeded.

Friendly Real Time Entryway Permission Status Display

how people counting works

smart sensors

Highly Accurate People Counting Sensors are Placed At Entrance And Exit Points plus other strategic points of Value to Your Operation.

Our smart sensors can differentiate between adults and children and the system can even report on Family or other Groups -  as well as the total occupancy level.

Staff can be optionally excluded from Occupancy Counts as required.

secure cloud based analytics

Sensor data is then fed to secure cloud based servers for immediate processing by our world leading analysis and reporting software.

The Cohera-tech system operates in real-time with instant updating of Entrance Signage, PC's, Laptops, Tablets and Mobile Phones.

real time signage updates with instant SAFETY ALERTs to mobile devices

You receive live real time accurate numbers on your customer dashboard.

The system allows your management team to set occupancy limits and entrance signage screens are automatically activated to allow additional customers to be invited to enter when occupancy levels allow.

The system allows for minimal Customer Irritation and Frees Staff For More Productive Roles. no unnecessary Supervision of Entry Queues.

Security Staff need only Become Involved when responding to A Compliance Alert.

safe occupancy levels maintained

Safe Occupancy is Fast and Easy to Deploy in Your Business

Cohera-Tech Safety Count Benefits

real time SAFETY

Real Time Numbers & Alerts ensure Highly Accurate and Safe Occupancy Levels

cost efficient

Reduce Staff Costs by Eliminating the need to monitor entry and exit points.

Full reporting suite and analytics delivered in real time to selected smartphones and PC’s worldwide.

management control

User Defined and Variable Occupancy limits.

Staff Mobile and Tablets receive critical alerts as required for your business

exclude staff from counts

Optionally Include or Exclude Your Staff from Live Occupancy Counts and Reporting

Your Data is retained for record keeping and ongoing analysis

power outages covered

Local Power or PC outages are no problem

More Than People Counting

Your Customisable Dashboard

Get a Quick Overview of all Your Stores or drill down for more detailed analysis at any time and place.

Store Managers can easily monitor and analyse footfall and occupancy data at any time, as well as create reports.

Saved reports can be scheduled to be sent to senior managers and individual stores can receive reports detailing only their particular store metrics.

Possibility exists for full tracking and social distancing analytics, heat maps and queue management for daily usage.

Every user is able to tailor their custom widgets based on Visitors, KPI's, Weather, Events and more

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Arm Yourself with Real Time Data and Alerts plus Historical  Attendance, Reporting & Analytics. Contact us to discover further how other Retailers are benefiting from People Counting and our Advanced Analytics.

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HOTWAX // Slacker - One Hundred Ideas

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Slacker presents his debut LP on Lobster Theremin, out July 2nd. Today we premiere the B1 'One Hundred Ideas' - a banger from start to finish.

“The main idea was to think 'what would an outside observer to our planet think when looking down at this moment in time, what does the moon think when looking down on us?'” he says. “It was a way of me both building another world whilst also expressing the strife of the world that we were living in. I was lucky enough to be quite secluded in the first lockdown around a lot of nature, but then feeling the isolation ten-fold as I was so far away from civilisation. I think that the album has this schism represented in it with the more classically "nice" tracks standing next to the more aggressive and expressive tracks; it is both an escape and capturing of the world we live in.”

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Featured articles about Economic Outlook

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Predict the effect of future human impact on the specified ecosystem.

Powerpoint 6 slides

An ecosystem consists of all the organisms living in a community as well as all the abiotic factors with which they interact” (Campbell & Reece, 2005). There are many different types of ecosystems all over the world. Humans can have a great impact on these ecosystems.

In this task, you will choose a specific ecosystem to research and analyze the impact of humans on that ecosystem. Be specific in your selection. (For example, instead of choosing “desert ecosystem,” select a specific desert ecosystem such as the Mojave Desert.)

Some examples of specific ecosystems are the mangrove swamps of Borneo, the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, the Florida Everglades, the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Costa Rican rainforest, the ephemeral pools in Canyonlands National Park, a particular lake or forest, etc.

A. Create a multimedia presentation (e.g. PowerPoint, Keynote) (suggested length of 6–8 slides) that introduces and describes your chosen ecosystem, analyzes the impact of human activity on the ecosystem, and provides guidelines to help preserve your chosen ecosystem. Do the following in your presentation:

1. Describe the specific ecosystem that you have selected by doing the following:

a. Identify the specific geographic location of the ecosystem.

Note: You can use maps, written description of location, and latitude/longitude to provide the location of the ecosystem.

b. Explain the major biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem.

2. Discuss the impact that humans currently have on the specified ecosystem.

3. Predict the effect of future human impact on the specified ecosystem.

4. Provide guidelines regarding human activities that will aid in preserving the specified ecosystem.

B. When you use sources, include all in-text citations and references in APA format.

Note: When bulleted points are present in the task prompt, the level of detail or support called for in the rubric refers to those bulleted points.

Note: For definitions of terms commonly used in the rubric, see the Rubric Terms web link included in the Evaluation Procedures section.

Note: When using sources to support ideas and elements in a paper or project, the submission MUST include APA formatted in-text citations with a corresponding reference list for any direct quotes or paraphrasing. It is not necessary to list sources that were consulted if they have not been quoted or paraphrased in the text of the paper or project.

Note: No more than a combined total of 30% of a submission can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. For tips on using APA style, please refer to the APA Handout web link included in the APA Guidelines section.

Reference List:

Note: This reference list refers only to direct citations in the task above and may be different from those you need to complete the task. Consult your Course of Study for a list of suggested learning resources.

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Amazing view in this home

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3 remaining questions for Penn State wrestling before season opener

Penn State Big Ten Wrestling Championship (Kerkvliet)

Penn State’s Greg Kerkvliet wrestles Iowa’s Tony Cassioppi in the 285-pound at the Big Ten Wrestling Championship on Sunday, March 7, 2021 at the Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, Pa. Kerkvliet lost 4-2 by major decision and placed fourth overall for the 285-pound.

Despite being a perennial powerhouse, there are still a multitude of questions facing Cael Sanderson and Penn State with a new season looming right around the corner.

The blue and white kicks off the 2021-22 season on Nov. 13 with a double header against Sacred Heart and Oregon State.

The preseason No. 2 Nittany Lions welcome back all four of their national champions from last season to the lineup at the same respective weight classes.

Roman Bravo-Young keeps his spot at 133 pounds, Nick Lee at 141 pounds, Carter Starocci at 174 pounds and Aaron Brooks at 184 pounds.

Heavyweight wrestler Greg Kerkvliet is looking for a championship run of his own after a comeback season last year.

However, there are still some question marks going into the season about some of the other, less obvious, weight-class spots.

Here are some of the biggest areas left unanswered for the lineup heading into the season.

What will happen at 149 pounds?

The 149-pound weight class is still a huge mystery leading up to the season opener, as there are two equally good options for the class.

Beau Bartlett and Shayne Van Ness are the two wrestlers who will compete for the position.

Van Ness is the top-ranked overall recruit for the class of 2021, and the incoming freshman could see the mat early to gain some experience.

However, Bartlett already has experience wrestling at 149 pounds, recording an 8-3 record with Penn State last season.

Bartlett’s experience could very well end up as the deciding factor over the freshman Van Ness, but it would not be surprising if Van Ness gets the nod.

Who will claim the highly contested 125-pound spot?

The blue and white’s 125-pound weight class has several options to choose from with no clear-cut starter returning.

Penn State’s 125-pound wrestler from last season, Robert Howard, holds NCAA qualifying experience, as well as Big Ten Tournament experience.

However, senior Bucknell transfer Jake Campbell also is no stranger to wrestling at 125 pounds.

In 2019, Campbell posted a 16-12 record in the weight class, making the competition for the starting spot a little bit tougher.

Incoming freshman Gary Steen could also start right away, similar to Van Ness at 149 pounds.

The first year is another highly ranked wrestler in the class of 2021 and could easily see immediate action in a Nittany Lion singlet.

Marco Vespa and Brandon Meredith are also candidates to potentially earn a little action during the season, but a starting role is pretty much out of reach due to the experience of Howard and Campbell and the addition of a top recruit.

How far can a healthy Greg Kerkvliet go?

Kerkvliet’s 2021 season was a rollercoaster. The fact he even wrestled at all is a feat in itself — let alone wrestling at the NCAA Championships.

The former No. 1 overall recruit did not participate in any athletic activity for two months because of a staph infection followed by two blood clots.

However, he was able to return just a couple weeks before the Big Ten Championships and finished fourth in the conference and seventh in the NCAA.

His performance begs the question — how far can Kerkvliet go this season when healthy?

The 2017 heavyweight Cadet world champion is somewhat of a mystery.

His collegiate career has been injury-riddled thus far, adding on a torn left ACL and MCL on top of the aforementioned health issues.

The potential for Kerkvliet is there, and the 2021-22 season will give him a chance to prove himself as one of the best heavyweights if he can stay on the mat this campaign.

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Ornativalva novicornifrons

Ornativalva novicornifrons

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Ornativalva novicornifrons is a moth of the Gelechiidae family. It was described by Li in 1994. It is found in China.

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SARAT5950 by A America in Oxnard, CA - Bench With Cushion
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New Who Review – “Time Heist”

“Are you in or out?”

The Doctor and Clara wake in the company of two strangers and are quickly told they are to rob a bank.  Everything is planned so well, almost as if the planner knows what’s going to happen, that The Doctor quickly realizes that this isn’t a mere bank heist, but a…

By Steve Thompson and Steven Moffat
Directed by Douglas MacKinnon

The Bank of Karabraxos is the single most secure bank in human history.  A loyal staff, redundant security systems, and a guard dog that literally smells guilt in the customers.  When The Doctor picks up the phone of the TARDIS and suddenly recovers from a blackout in a strange room with two criminals, it’s too tantalizing not to move ahead with.  Being chased by the bank’s security at all times, the quartet must breach unbreachable security, all the while not actually know what they’re supposed to steal.

A solid thriller with questions and puzzles all the way through.  Once again, the idea of breaking into the perfect bank is not new, but with the right character work and a delightful twist at the end, it works wonderfully.

GUEST STAR REPORTKeeley Hawes (Ms. Delphox, Mme. Karabraxos ) is best known to genre fans as the voice of Lara Croft in seven games to date over nearly ten years.  She’s played Lady Agnes Holland on the new version of Upstairs Downstairs, and DI Alex Drake on Ashes to Ashes, the sequel to Life on Mars.

Jonathan Bailey (Pai) appeared with David Tennant in the murder procedural Broadchurch and had the titles role in Leonardo.

THE MONSTER FILESThe Teller is a magnificent beast, both in design and ability.  Unlike a number of creatures in the new series, it was made with practical effects, which meant it was on set with the actors and they didn’t have to imagine what it looked like.  Like the Crooked Man from Hide, the being was driven by the loss of its mate, and once they were reunited, its rage and malice abated.  There have been plenty of telepathic species in the show, though few with such a weaponized form.  The Sensorites could affect the minds of other beings, and their planetary neighbors the Ood could communicate at amazing distances from each other.

THE FACES OF THOSE HE’S WRONGED FLOAT UP AT HIM – In that fast flip of hardened criminals, more than a few recognizable faces can be seen.  There was a Sensorite from the Hartnell adventure, a Tereliptil from the Davison years, an Ice Warrior, a group of Slitheen, and a Weevil and John Hart from Torchwood. But most interesting is a character from the Doctor Who comics – Absalom Daak, Dalek Killer. Created by Steve Moore and Steve Dillon, Daak enjoyed a long run in the Doctor Who Weekly.

BECAUSE IT ORBITS URANUS AND LOOKS FOR KLINGONS – One of the treasures in Madame Karabraxos’ vault is quite valuable to episode director Douglas MacKinnon.  It’s a rocket ship made from a toilet paper tube, made for him by her daughter for Christmas.

ONE CAN DO THE WORK OF TWO – They only made one Teller suit.  Even the last scene as they walk away was a double-exposure, the suit actor playing both the male and female.

“It’s a memory worm” – First seen in The Snowmen, the memory worm is a creature whose slimy coating has the defensive ability to erase the past hour of memory from any being who touches it.  In the aforementioned adventure, Sontaran Strax keeps touching it, as he is a boob.  Here, they’re used to erase the memories of The Doctor’s gang (he has a gang now) before beginning their little expedition.  The effects of the worms seem to have changed a bit, or at least clarified – here it’s shown that the memories are not erased as much as blocked. Not exactly a big change, and effectively no difference when attempting to get away from a predator.

“Why are we not using the TARDIS?” – It’s always fun to get to answer the questions the viewer are already thinking of.  Let’s them know you’re a step ahead.  Solar Storms affected the navigation of the TARDIS in The Rebel Flash, so there’s precedent for keeping away from the interference.  Of course, as we’ll find out later, there’s a more ulterior motive for not using it – to make things more fun.

“He’s gone already, it’s over” – Once again, while the Tennant or Smith incarnations would sweat and suffer over not being able to save someone they’ve not even met, this Doctor is a pragmatist.  Even when it looks like their own compatriots are killed, he moves forward, eyes on the prize. Of course, one could note that Clara seems to have rather quickly gotten over the loss of Psi and Saibra once that big tantalizing vault opens.

“Basically, it’s the eyebrows” – Not to mention the air of knowledge and authority The Doctor gives off.  He uses a trick yr. obt. svt. uses whenever he can – act like you’re supposed to be there.  Nine times out of ten, people take your unspoken word for it, and follow your lead.

“You can delete your memories?” – Psi’s story is somewhat of a mirror to Captain Jack Harkness’ original backstory, which has since been somewhat forgotten.  While a Time Agent, he had a large part of his memories deleted, and was trying to find who did it, and if possible recover them.

“Don’t think” – Once again, a simple act is made scary. From trying not to Blink, to Clara having to hold her breath at the beginning of the season to trying not to think of anything here, they’re all things that the viewer can’t help but trying not to do along with her as they watch. We can only hope that nobody thought of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

“It’s a neophyte circuit – I’ve only ever seen one once before” – And I’ll lay odds this is the same one. The Doctor set this entire adventure up – the request from Madame Karabraxos could have been done any number of ways, but he chose to set it up in a way that would not only be the most interesting for himself and Clara, but to help cure/repair two people who he’d clearly never met before he did his research and found them.

“I hate the Architect!” – The theme of the episode is the idea of not being able to trust, or even stand, someone who looked exactly like you.  It’s why Saibra couldn’t touch anyone (“Could you trust someone who looked like you, out of your own eyes?”), it’s why Madame Karabraxos’ relationship with her cloned employees was to tense, and why The Doctor thought The Architect was such a bossy prat.  At that point he didn’t know he’d planned all this, he only suspected, based on an analysis of the mysterious man’s personality.  It’s not the first time he’s displayed such a low opinion of himself – once he realizes who the Dream Lord was in Amy’s Choice,  he said there was only one person in the universe who could hate him that much.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – Not much mention of the plot in this episode, save for a brief appearance by Danny Pink, who is certainly (OK, hopefully) not the Big Bad, but is certainly setting up to be important to Clara.

“I’m giving you my telephone number” – At the beginning of the episode, The Doctor once again mentions that there’s only a handful of people who has the phone number to the TARDIS, including a mysterious lady in a shop who gave it to Clara back in The Bells of St. John.  Madame Karakraxos is now a member of that group, which also includes most of of The Doctor’s recent companions (like Martha Jones who used it to call him to stop The Sontaran Stratagem), Winston Churchill (from well before Victory of the Daleks) and, apparently, Marilyn Monroe, whose marriage to The Doctor did not count.  And apparently, he’s STILL been too busy to re-route the line to the control panel, as he asked Handles to remind him to do.

“Beat that for a date” – And right there, all the questions about “Why would The Doctor go through all that rigmarole” are answered.  He set the whole thing up as a game to give himself and Clara something to do that day.  In DC Comics, wealthy socialite Sue Dearborn Dibny would get the ultimate Birthday present for her husband, Ralph Dibny, AKA The Elongated Man.  She would set up an elaborate mystery game for him, usually with the assistance of other members of the Justice League, to give him an adventure he’d not soon forget. It’s entirely likely that’s the motivation for The Doctor here.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – Clara tries to give Danny more of her time, but The Doctor finds a problem that needs solving by any means necessary.  The Caretaker starts his new job this Saturday


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Wired takes a look at doujinshi, visiting ComiKet and the gender-sepaated geek districts of Tokyo:

Higashi-Ikebukoro is one of Tokyo’s outermost neighborhoods, but it’s become a destination for female manga fans because the major manga store branches there specially stock works written by and for women. These specialty shops are six-, seven- and eight-story buildings filled from top to bottom with commercial and doujinshi manga, and tie-in products like figurines, trading cards and stationery. This area has become known as “Otome Road,” the female answer to Tokyo’s geek-centric Akihabara district.

When I visited Ikebukuro’s Mandarake store last week, the crowded aisles were packed with curious, energetic women purchasing all types of manga. There were aisles and aisles of fan-fiction doujinshi, and the women seemed to know exactly what they were looking for — particular characters drawn by particular artists.

Otome Road also includes the famed “Butler Cafes”. Down the road apiece, at the boy-geek hangout, the writer finds…other things…

Akiba’s manga clientele is almost all men, and many of these cry out “geek” in any culture you can name: for example, one guy with his pants pulled up around his rib cage, wearing his cell phone on a lanyard around his neck with a pack of AA batteries stuffed in his shirt pocket.

[Link via Love Manga]

  1. Some people may be surprised to learn that there are similar literary cultures in the West, although it takes place almost entirely on-line, and usually in the form of prose more often than graphic stories.

    The Western analog to doujinshi yaoi is called “slash” by its fan-practitioners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction). I don’t have information concerning the scope of this phenomenon beyond the Wikipedia article, but to give an example, the teen-aged daughter of a friend of mine has written a 60,000-word slash novel portraying a homosexual love affair between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, set against a World War II back-drop.


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“The Grey,” For All Mankind’s second season finale, is about heroism, in all the variety it comes in. The show’s fictionalized version of Sally Ride pulls a gun on Ed, in order to prevent him from firing on the Soviet’s shuttle Buran; Dani refuses to give up on the Apollo-Soyuz (Soyuz-Apollo) docking, disobeying direct orders in order to make a symbolic move for peace; and Tracy and Gordo sacrifice themselves to save Jamestown and the future of Shackleton Crater. Tracy and Gordo’s deaths are arguably the event of the episode, with everyone believing that since they made it back to the airlock after their trek on the surface of the goddamn moon. Why anyone, including themselves, believed they would survive that, I really have no idea. It’s a brutal moment, as their duct tape suits slowly melt onto their skin, causing blood to burst forth.

Tracy Stevens (Sarah Jones) makes the ultimate sacrifice in "The Grey"
Sarah Jones in season two of “For All Mankind,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

There’s also an effort made towards peace with the Soviet Union, after an entire episode and a half of tension, including spending most of the finale at DEFCON 2. Karen and Kelly have a heart-to-heart, which just seems to hit home how useless Karen is at this point: Tracy and Gordo are giving their lives in a brutal way, together, while Karen is considering splitting from Ed for good, for reasons still not entirely clear. Speaking of Ed, after Sally pulls the gun on him and Piscotty pleads with them both not to have a shoot-off in a pressurized Pathfinder, he makes the decision to live in “The Grey,” for once, and shoots down Sea Dragon, the supply vessel which may or may not have had weapons or components for the DoD nuclear reactor at Jamestown.

Oh yes, that’s right, the DoD, under General Bradford, set up a second nuclear reactor at Jamestown, designed to produce plutonium for possible nuclear weapons…on the moon. It feels like an idiotic, pointless decision, and Margo agrees. Considering we lose the great Tracy and Gordo to saving it from meltdown, and peace is declared not too long after, it’s a great device to spur what might be Margo’s next move: becoming a spy for the Soviet Union…or Russia, if the Soviet Union does indeed dissolve in this show’s timeline. The Soviets are certainly going to try to recruit her, especially after she gave up the O-ring problem for Buran. That’s the closing point of the episode–despite all the good Margo’s done, she’s still vulnerable, like everyone else.

Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) and Ellen Wilson (Jodi Balfour) are still in charge in "The Grey"
Wrenn Schmidt and Jodi Balfour in season two of “For All Mankind,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

The end of “The Grey” also skips ahead ten years to 1994 and jumps to Mars, where it would appear Ellen’s goal of getting there has been achieved, with an astronaut of unknown nationality stepping foot on its surface. It’s a big leap, considering we haven’t gotten anywhere near that feat in real life. It also begs the question of whether or not this is a character we’ve seen before: could it be Kelly or Danny, following in their fathers’ footsteps? Ellen, making a return to space? Dani? An unknown cosmonaut? Sally Ride? Ed, defying time and old age? Hey, John Glenn went back into space at the age of 77. The show gives no clues away but seeing as the montage of Tracy and Gordo’s funerals is overlayed with Kelly’s essay to get into Annapolis, I’m guessing it’s her, which is damn exciting.

Dani and her Soyuz counterparts finally get to do their handshake in space, after Dani pushes for it to happen. The handshake literally changes the world, and Dani will hopefully be greeted when she splashes down as the hero she always was. I only wish Gordo had lived to see it. Tracy, too.

There are some dangling plotlines in “The Grey”: whether or not Karen and Ed are truly split or just separated is up in the air, and who knows if Kelly really did get into Annapolis. Molly’s going blind as far as we know, and whether or not the second nuclear reactor on Jamestown is dismantled is anyone’s guess. Ellen’s future is also up in the air–when we see season three in hopefully a year, will she have moved up in the halls of government?

But these are exciting questions, and this season has been even better than season one. Season three is in the works, thank goodness, so it’s only a matter of time before we find out just who landed on Mars, and what 1994 looks like for our favorite characters. The adventure’s only beginning, it would seem.

Watch all of For All Mankind Season 2 on Apple TV+.