Scaling of cities With urban population increasing dramatically worldwide, cities are playing an increasingly critical role in human societies and the sustainability of the planet. An obstacle to effective policy is the lack of meaningful urban metrics based on a quantitative understanding of cities. Typically, linear per capita indicators are used to characterize and rank cities. However, these implicitly ignore the fundamental role of nonlinear agglomeration integral to the life history of cities. As such, per capita indicators conflate general nonlinear effects, common to all cities, with local dynamics, specific to each city, failing to provide direct measures of the impact of local events and policy. Agglomeration nonlinearities are explicitly manifested by the superlinear power law scaling of most urban socioeconomic indicators with population size, all with similar exponents ( 1.15). Figures Editor: Juan A. Received: May 18, 2010; Accepted: September 16, 2010; Published: November 10, 2010 . Results
The Hidden Message in Pixar’s Films | Science Not Fiction I love Pixar. Who doesn’t? The stories are magnificently crafted, the characters are rich, hilarious, and unique, and the images are lovingly rendered. Popular culture is often dismissed as empty “popcorn” fare. Buried within that constant and complex goodness is a hidden message. Now, this is not your standard “Disney movies hide double-entendres and sex imagery in every film” hidden message. What if I told you they were preparing us for the future? Before we begin, I ask you to watch the video below. People love these films. To understand Pixar films, one must first to go back to Disney before Toy Story was released – to be precise, The Lion King. The Lion King gives us a clean slate. The relationship between humans and the non-human characters is critical to understanding Pixar’s movies. The third rule is that at least one main character is an intelligent being that isn’t a human. You can see where I’m going here. Non-humans are sentient beings.
Architecture Fiction: Rachel Amstrong, “Protocell Shoe” | Beyond The Beyond Protocell Shoe by Dr. Rachel Armstrong The self-repairing sole is a dynamic solution to an everyday problem. The ‘proto-sole’ is suitable for all footwear ranging from mainstream consumer trainers to haute couture footwear. Protocells are a form of organic hardware that is not technically ‘alive’ since they do not possess any DNA. In keeping with Stuart Kauffman’s notion of ‘order for free,’ the protocells are equipped with remarkable emergent properties such as movement, sensitivity and the production of microstructures. In the case of the proto-sole, protocells lay down repair substances that are activated by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which dissolves into the moist sole fabric. Since protocells cannot (yet) self-replicate, a quick top-up of the chamber in the heel is possible by inserting a nozzle through a one-way valve in the heel and squeezing in replenishing fluid, which can be purchased from any supermarket. Dr. Designed and made by MW.
怎样化杂为简 Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide' - The Chronicle Review By Daniel J. Solove When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they're not worried. "I've got nothing to hide," they declare. The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. The nothing-to-hide argument is everywhere. The argument is not of recent vintage. I encountered the nothing-to-hide argument so frequently in news interviews, discussions, and the like that I decided to probe the issue. My response is "So do you have curtains?" On the surface, it seems easy to dismiss the nothing-to-hide argument. One can usually think of something that even the most open person would want to hide. But such responses attack the nothing-to-hide argument only in its most extreme form, which isn't particularly strong. To evaluate the nothing-to-hide argument, we should begin by looking at how its adherents understand privacy. Privacy, in other words, involves so many things that it is impossible to reduce them all to one simple idea. Daniel J.
As Farming Gets More Efficient, We Need It To Do The Opposite Researchers argue agriculture needs to remember its primitive roots. Today’s agriculture’s most important metric is yield: how many cows, bushels, or tons can be grown per acre. This relentless pursuit of efficiency means that U.S. farm output has risen more than 158% since 1948. That’s a good thing in many ways, and vital for feeding a growing population. It works by elevating a few winners (corn, wheat, and Hereford cows) to maximize their output at the expense of most everything else. It also happens to eliminate less efficient, but possibly irreplaceable alternatives. We need these options, say scientists at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in a recent paper. “Policies, subsidies, research, and intellectual property rights promote a few modern commercial varieties and intensive agriculture at the expense of traditional crops and practices,” says lead author Krystyna Swiderska, a senior researcher at IIED. We’ll need both.
Download Download NeuroSolutions Products Most software companies do not allow you try out their programs before you buy them. They may give you a flashy slide show for free, but not a working evaluation copy of the software. Our Neurosolutions download includes NeuroSolutions, NeuroSolutions for Excel, NeuroSolutions Accelerator* and Custom Solution Wizard. "I have recently purchased a copy of NeuroSolutions 4 and am very happy with the software. What You Can't Say January 2004 Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. If you could travel back in a time machine, one thing would be true no matter where you went: you'd have to watch what you said. It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise. Is our time any different? It's tantalizing to think we believe things that people in the future will find ridiculous. The Conformist Test Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. Like every other era in history, our moral map almost certainly contains a few mistakes. Trouble What can't we say? Heresy Time and Space Why
Michelle Borkin: Can astronomers help doctors? | Video on TED.com | more learning Decision and Information Sciences - CEEESA Decision Analysis Tools The Center for Energy, Environmental, and Economic Systems Analysis (CEEESA) provides decision analysis tools that cover a wide range of issues. The table below summarizes the available models. Click on each model name to get more information. Decision Analysis Model (DAM) DAM was developed to aid decision analysts in solving multiple-criteria decision analysis problems. This Windows-based software (1) allows analysts to view a decision problem and find the best solution from different perspectives; (2) performs standard, but time-consuming, tasks quickly and efficiently; (3) offers a range of decision analysis and trade-off methods that cannot be performed manually; and (4) presents results in convenient graphical and numerical formats. For more information about the Decision Analysis Model (DAM), contact CEEESA. Interactive Decision Analysis (IDEA) IDEA is a PC-based software package used for a wide variety of decision problems. Portfolio Analysis Support System (PASS)
How to create a self-fulfilling prophesy. (article) THERE IS A CIRCULAR, self-feeding loop in many aspects of human nature, and you can use them to your advantage — or disadvantage. In many of these self-feeding loops, your thoughts play a major role. For example, a person with indigestion (caused by stress) notices a pain in his stomach, and then worries that maybe something is seriously wrong with him. His thoughts have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A few years ago, I was talking with a client named Stacy. The problem with this kind of thing is that it has a tendency to keep going down because as you feel worse, your point of view becomes more and more narrow and biased toward the negative, which makes you feel even worse, which narrows your point of view even more and makes you see more danger, misery or threat in your world, which brings you down even more, etc. When I was in high school, I had to take a speech class. "I'm really afraid to give speeches," I said. I knew he was right. He went on, "Just treat this the same way.