The Very Definition of Folly: Saving the Earth from Environmentalists

Global heating is the greatest challenge of our time. While we know what is causing the global heating problem, and we know how to fix it, certain environmentalists pose a severe threat to the great hope of renewable energy that must be part of the solution to global heating. All across the United States those claiming to speak for the environment are filing legal actions against developers of solar and wind projects. They are using environmental laws, zoning laws, and anything else they can latch onto to fight renewable energy projects. This is the very definition of folly. We environmental lawyers have perfected the art of slowing down, burdening, and questioning to death developers. It was a great strategy for fighting the bad guys. But it is now presenting one of the biggest threats to the good guys, and to our environment. We now need to learn how to say “yes.

Analysis of Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol

Sensor network consists of tiny sensors and actuators with general purpose computing elements to cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, pressure, etc. Wireless Sensor Networks are uniquely characterized by properties like limited power they can harvest or store, dynamic network topology, large scale of deployment. Sensor networks have a huge application in fields which includes habitat monitoring, object tracking, fire detection, land slide detection and traffic monitoring. Based on the network topology, routing protocols in sensor networks can be classified as flat-based routing, hierarchical-based routing and location-based routing. These protocols are quite simple and hence are very susceptible to attacks like Sinkhole attack, Selective forwarding, Sybil attack, Wormholes, HELLO flood attack, Acknowledgement spoofing or altering, replaying routing information. Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is an energy-efficient hierarchical-based routing protocol. Our prime focus was on the analysis of LEACH based upon certain parameters like network lifetime, stability period, etc. and also the effect of selective forwarding attack and degree of heterogeneity on LEACH protocol. After a number of simulations, it was found that the stability region’s length is considerably increased by choosing an optimal value of heterogeneity; energy is not properly utilized and throughput is decreased in networks compromised by selective forwarding attack but the number of cluster-heads per round remains unaffected in such networks

Behind The Curve: The National Media\u27s Reporting on Global Warming

In July 2004, eight States, the City of New York and three land trusts filed suit against five electric power corporations for contributing to global warming. The complaints allege that the defendants are the largest global warming polluters in the United States. The plaintiffs seek an injunction under the federal common law of public nuisance, or in the alternative, under state nuisance law, to require the power companies to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide. Press coverage of the plaintiffs’ global warming case so far has been mixed. The press has generally failed to understand several of the important legal principles involved, including the legal doctrine of public nuisance. The legal case takes place against a backdrop of a long campaign of distortion by industry relating to the science of global warming that has affected the reporting on global warming generally. Historically, the press has unwittingly distorted coverage of global warming science by uncritically accepting the industry view that the science is in dispute

Students’ conception of set theory through a board game and an active-learning unit

We investigated whether two different learning interventions, Setarea board game and an active-learning unit, can promote the concepts of set theory in secondary students. Setarea was developed to help students learn set theory through the game’s components, mechanics, and missions. The game contained various decks of cards (collections), while its mechanics allowed players to perform different actions on the sets of cards (operations). The game’s missions required students to solve problems both individually and cooperatively. In the active-learning unit, a series of tasks related to set theory were provided. Students also cooperatively completed the provided tasks. The formal definitions and notations were introduced only in the active-learning unit. Seventh graders (have not learned), 9th graders (about to learn), and 11th graders (have learned) were recruited. For each grade, students were separated into two groups, engaging in the different learning interventions. We employed a pre-test–intervention–post-test design. In addition, we examined the students’ flow experiences which included three main dimensions: enjoyment, concentration, and control. A total of 183 Thai secondary students voluntarily participated in this study. The results revealed that both interventions significantly improved the students’ understanding, although no statistically significant differences between the two groups were found. Additionally, for each grade level, the students’ overall flow experiences from the board-game group were higher than those from the active-learning group, indicating that the board game was more immersive than the active-learning unit

Spontaneous bowel perforation due to norovirus: a case report

Norovirus is the leading cause of epidemic gastroenteritis worldwide but the disease is usually self-limiting and generally only causes serious health problems in the young, elderly and immunocompromised. The authors report a case of bowel perforation in an elderly Caucasian lady with confirmed infection with Norovirus genogroup II and no other presumptive cause. To the authors' knowledge this is the first such case of bowel perforation due to Norovirus. Viral gastroenteritis should be considered in the list of differentials when no obvious cause of bowel perforation can be identified to minimise morbidity and mortality

Market Segmentation Analysis and Visualization Using K-Mode Clustering Algorithm for E-Commerce Business

Today all business organizations are adopting data driven strategies to generate more revenue out of their business. Growing startups are investing a lot of money in data economy to maximize profits of business organizations by developing intelligent tools backed by machine learning and artificial intelligence. The nature of BI tool depends on factor like business goals, size, model, technology etc. In this paper architecture of business intelligence tool and decision process has been discussed with a focus on market segmentation, based on user behavior analysis using k-mode clustering algorithm and user geographical distributions. The proposed toolkit also incorporates interactive visualizations and maps