Alas, Alack! Revisited

In Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book 4, Chapter XVIII through XXI, Pantagruel and his men are facing a dreadful storm at sea. One of the sailors, Panurge, is convinced of impeding death and spends all four chapter blubbering. While he lets loose with a few boo-hoo-hoo s and a few well-placed woe is me! woe, woe! s and the like, most of interjections are highly original, packed with logological curiosities

Railway station development in post-industrial Rotterdam - path dependency and shifting priorities

The combined effects of industrial decline and the development of a service economy currently bring about a change in urban economies. Accessibility, proximity and an attractive urban climate are considered important factors of urban competitiveness. These are all combined in railway station area, which is therefore considered a focus point of urban economic development. The paper investigates the role of station development projects in the perspective of these long-term social and institutional processes in contrast to the continuity found in a city’s estab-lished economic structure, prevailing policy arenas, objectives and cultures. It does so by means of an analysis of station development in Rotterdam, a manufacturing and seaport city now strug-gling to find ways to develop a competitive service economy. The paper draws a comparison with Rotterdam’s rival Amsterdam, showing that differences in present economic performance and urban development are partly rooted in different economic histories. The paper investigates to which extent these differences affect the role of major railway station redevelopment projects in both cities, and the way these projects are implemented.

An internal model approach to (optimal) frequency regulation in power grids with time-varying voltages

This paper studies the problem of frequency regulation in power grids under unknown and possible time-varying load changes, while minimizing the generation costs. We formulate this problem as an output agreement problem for distribution networks and address it using incremental passivity and distributed internal-model-based controllers. Incremental passivity enables a systematic approach to study convergence to the steady state with zero frequency deviation and to design the controller in the presence of time-varying voltages, whereas the internal-model principle is applied to tackle the uncertain nature of the loads.Comment: 16 pages. Abridged version appeared in the Proceedings of the 21st International Symposium on Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems, MTNS 2014, Groningen, the Netherlands. Submitted in December 201

Individuals charts and additional tests for changes in spread

Some authors recommend the use of an additional test for detecting increases in the spread, when using a control chart for individual observations. We examine this recommendation both in a practical situation and theoretically. Both studies show that the additional test gives somewhat more power for detecting a 25% increase of the process variation. For nearly all other deviations from the in-control state the test is more likely to cause confusion. From a practical viewpoint we therefore advise against its use.

Urspelerpes, U. brucei

Number of Pages: 3Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Merriam-Webster: Voice of Authority

Since 1909, the three editions of Webster\u27s New International Dictionary (henceforth to be referred to as N11, N12, and N13) have been the most widely accepted references for the coverage of American English. Their reputation is deserved; not only are they through in their coverage of modern words, they are scholarly in their treatment of obsolete terms,important to readers of older literature. (The coverage of obsolete terms in N13 is not as full as in N11 or N12, however.) Their appeal is to both the scholar and the layman. Unlike earlier dictionaries in both England and America, the N1s have done little to actually shape modern American English: lexicographers have grown to understand, however, that no modern dictionary does have a significant effect on the language. This realization has signaled a trend from prescriptive dictionaries (such as early Websterian ones) to descriptive ones (most notably N13). Although the N1s do not significantly affect the language, they provide an excellent mirror by which to examine the changes and progress of American English in the twentieth century

Damage Control: Adapting Transportation to a Changing Climate

Sea level rise, extreme weather events, and other problems caused or exacerbated by a changing climate present the most serious long-term threats to transportation worldwide. Recent disasters have carried a hefty price tag, and forecasts call for more frequent and more costly damage to infrastructure and disruptions of services that are central to trade, jobs, food access, national security, health, and personal mobility. It is essential to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to lessen future damage to transportation; however, even if emissions are cut drastically at this point, the impacts of a changing climate will continue for decades. As a result, efforts must be made to plan for and adapt to a changing climate in order to minimize the financial burden and severity of impacts. Such efforts, though, have lagged. Although some important steps have been taken, much remains to be done to protect and enhance the resilience of freight and passenger transportation. A host of potential policies and practices are available at the federal, state, regional, and local levels to reduce the climate risk to transportation, including assessing and retrofitting existing infrastructure, modifying design standards for new projects, promoting a broader range of transportation options, and curbing new projects that encourage development in vulnerable areas. Policies and projects should be chosen to ensure an equitable distribution of investments in adaptation measures. In addition, priority should be given to efforts that not only help adapt to a changing climate, but that simultaneously reduce the significant greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. This Article summarizes key aspects of climate change and examines the growing damage and threat to transportation. It then explores some of the efforts to begin adapting transportation to a changing climate and identifies policy steps that can reduce future damage and risk