Koreans in Vancouver: A Short History

The Korean-Canadian community in Vancouver is relatively new, compared to older Asian-Canadian communities such as the Chinese-Canadian and the Indo-Canadian communities. However, Koreans now constitute one of the more visible minority communities in the area. A rapid increase in immigration from Korea led to Koreans establishing churches and restaurants throughout the Vancouver area, and identifying those churches with Korean-language signs. The rise in the number of Koreans living in the southwestern corner of the BC mainland has also led to the emergence of a cluster of stores and offices in the middle of Metro Vancouver that is large enough to merit the label "Koreatown." In addition, downtown Vancouver is filled with students who have come from Korea to study English, further heightening awareness of a substantial Korean population in the Vancouver area. In just a few decades, Korean-Canadians have emerged as a significant component of the multi-cultural landscape of British Columbia.La communauté coréenne-canadienne de Vancouver est relativement nouvelle, comparativement aux autres collectivités asiatiques plus anciennes, telles que celles des Canadiens chinois et des Indo-Canadiens. Cependant, les Coréens représentent maintenant une des communautés minoritaires les plus visibles de la région. Une augmentation rapide de l’immigration coréenne a mené ce groupe à établir des églises et des restaurants dans la région de Vancouver et à marquer ces églises de panneaux en coréen. L’accroissement de la population coréenne dans le sud-ouest continental de la Colombie-Britannique a aussi conduit à l’émergence d’un noyau assez vaste de commerces et de bureaux au centre de l’agglomération de Vancouver pour mériter l’étiquette de Koreatown (village coréen). De plus, le centre-ville de Vancouver est rempli d’étudiants venus de Corée pour étudier l’anglais, ce qui a pour effet de sensibiliser la population de la région à la présence coréenne. En l’espace de quelques décennies, les Coréens canadiens ont surgi comme un élément important du paysage multiculturel de la Colombie-Britannique

A study on the reproducibility of counting vesicles in volcanic rocks

Vesicle size distributions in two and three dimensions of two samples were independently measured by three different researchers to investigate whether or not such measurements are reproducible. Additionally, two different software programs were used to measure the three-dimensional vesicle size distributions: the 3D Object Counter plugin for ImageJ and Blob3D. Manual thresholding by each of the authors produced similar results for both samples using both programs; however, use of the automatic, maximum entropy technique for thresholding produced measurably different results because it did not discriminate between vesicles and plagioclase crystals in one case and between vesicles and some cracks in another. Use of asymmetric erosion and dilation processes on the images is shown to affect the vesicle size distribution, but it does not have a significant effect on the power-law exponent that describes intermediate-sized vesicles or on the vesicle number density in these samples. However, such a technique is not recommended

Collaborative Task Completion for Simulated Hexapod Robots Using Reinforcement Learning

There is growing interest in developing autonomous systems capable of exhibiting collaborative behaviors. Using methods such as reinforcement learning is another way to train multiple robots for collaborative task completion. This study was able to successfully in simulation train multiple hexapod robots to push a target to a designated goal collaboratively. This required each robot to learn how find the target and push that target to a goal. This work suggests that using reinforcement learning for collaborative task completion for hexapod robots may simplify the complexity of the software and improve the decisions that they make

Chain saw safety

"Chain saws are coming out of the backwoods. Although once used only by professional lumberjacks, chain saws are now popular among an increasing number of homeowners and farmers. Homeowners use them to cut firewood and to do gener-al tree trimming around their homes. Farmers find them very useful for such jobs as clearing land, trimming trees and cutting firewood. However, in the hands of a careless or inexperienced operator, chain saws can be very hazardous. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that in 1979 approximately 50,000 people required hospital treatment for injuries associated with chain saws. Most accidents were caused by the operator coming into contact with a moving chain saw blade. Injuries from a chain saw are usually serious because of the jagged cut they leave."--First page.David E. Baker (Extension Safety Specialist, College of Agriculture), Don Day (Area Agricultural Engineering Specialist, University of Missouri-Columbia)New 12/81/10

The Approximate Invariance of the Average Number of Connections for the Continuum Percolation of Squares at Criticality

We perform Monte Carlo simulations to determine the average excluded area $$of randomly oriented squares, randomly oriented widthless sticks and aligned squares in two dimensions. We find significant differences between our results for randomly oriented squares and previous analytical results for the same. The sources of these differences are explained. Using our results for$$ and Monte Carlo simulation results for the percolation threshold, we estimate the mean number of connections per object $B_c$ at the percolation threshold for squares in 2-D. We study systems of squares that are allowed random orientations within a specified angular interval. Our simulations show that the variation in $B_c$ is within 1.6% when the angular interval is varied from 0 to $\pi/2$

Muting the noise cone in near-surface reflection data: An example from southeastern Kansas

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from "http://library.seg.org".A 300-m near‐surface seismic reflection profile was collected in southeastern Kansas to locate a fault(s) associated with a recognized stratigraphic offset on either side of a region of unexposed bedrock. A substantial increase in the S/N ratio of the final stacked section was achieved by muting all data arriving in time after the airwave. Methods of applying traditional seismic data processing techniques to near‐surface data (200 ms of data or less) often differ notably from hydrocarbon exploration‐scale processing (3–4 s of data or more). The example of noise cone muting used is contrary to normal exploration‐scale seismic data processing philosophy, which is to include all data containing signal. The noise cone mute applied to the data removed more than one‐third of the total data volume, some of which contains signal. In this case, however, the severe muting resulted in a higher S/N ratio in the final stacked section, even though some signal could be identified within the muted data. This example supports the suggestion that nontraditional techniques sometimes need to be considered when processing near‐surface seismic data