7. Conducting EIA in Conflict Affected Areas - Aung Kyaw SoeEthical Sector
MCRB, together with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Conservation (MONREC) and Vermont Law School, with support from Heinrich Boll Foundation, held a workshop for local Environmental Impact Assessment Consultants with a focus on assessing social impacts – i.e. impacts on people - and the value of public participation and consultation in identifying these.
Read more: http://www.myanmar-responsiblebusiness.org/news/consultants-biggest-challenge.html
Identifying MMORPG Bots: A Traffic Analysis ApproachAcademia Sinica
MMORPGs have become extremely popular among network gamers. Despite their success, one of MMORPG’s greatest challenges is the increasing use of game bots, i.e., autoplaying game clients. The use of game bots is considered unsportsmanlike and is therefore forbidden. To keep games in order, game police, played by actual human players, often patrol game zones and question suspicious players. This practice, however, is labor-intensive and ineffective. To address this problem, we analyze the traffic generated by human players vs. game bots and propose solutions to automatically identify game bots.
Taking Ragnarok Online, one of the most popular MMOGs, as our subject, we study the traffic generated by mainstream game bots and human players. We find that their traffic is distinguishable by: 1) the regularity in the release time of client commands, 2) the trend and magnitude of traffic burstiness in multiple time scales, and 3) the sensitivity to network conditions. We propose four strategies and two integrated schemes to identify bots. For our data sets, the conservative scheme completely avoids making false accusations against bona fide players, while the progressive scheme tracks game bots down more aggressively. Finally, we show that the proposed methods are generalizable to other games and robust against counter-measures from bot developers.
Finding Self-Similarities in Opportunistic People NetworksAcademia Sinica
Opportunistic network is a type of Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN) where network communication opportunities appear opportunistic. In this study, we investigate opportunistic network scenarios based on public network traces, and our contributions are the following: First, we identify the censorship issue in network traces that usually leads to strongly skewed distribution of the measurements. Based on this knowledge, we then apply the Kaplan-Meier Estimator to calculate the survivorship of network measurements, which is used in designing our proposed censorship removal algorithm (CRA) that is used to recover censored data. Second, we perform a rich set of analysis illustrating that UCSD and Dartmouth network traces show strong self-similarity, and can be modeled as such. Third, we pointed out the importance of these newly revealed characteristics in future development and evaluation of opportunistic networks.
The success of Skype has inspired a generation of peer-to-peer-based solutions for satisfactory real-time multimedia services over the Internet. However, fundamental questions, such as whether VoIP services like Skype are good enough in terms of user satisfaction, have not been formally addressed. One of the major challenges lies in the lack of an easily accessible and objective index to quantify the degree of user satisfaction.
In this work, we propose a model, geared to Skype, but generalizable to other VoIP services, to quantify VoIP user satisfaction based on a rigorous analysis of the call duration from actual Skype traces. The User Satisfaction Index (USI) derived from the model is unique in that 1) it is composed by objective source- and network-level metrics, such as the bit rate, bit rate jitter, and round-trip time, 2) unlike speech quality measures based on voice signals, such as the PESQ model standardized by ITU-T, the metrics are easily accessible and computable for real-time adaptation, and 3) the model development only requires network measurements, i.e., no user surveys or voice signals are necessary. Our model is validated by an independent set of metrics that quantifies the degree of user interaction from the actual traces.
Online gaming is one of the most profitable businesses on the Internet. Of all the genres of online games, MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) have become the most popular among network gamers, and now attract millions of users who play in an evolving virtual world simultaneously over the Internet. To gain a better understanding of game traffic and contribute to the economic well-being of the Internet, we analyze a 1, 356-million-packet trace from a sizeable MMORPG called ShenZhou Online. This work is, as far as we know, the first formal analysis of MMORPG server traces.
We find that MMORPG and FPS (First-Person Shooting) games are similar in that they both generate small packets and require low bandwidths. In practice, the bandwidth requirement of MMORPGs is the lower of the two due to less real-time game playing. More distinctive features are the strong periodicity, temporal locality, irregularity, and self-similarity observed in MMORPG traffic. The periodicity is due to a common practice in game implementation, where game state updates are accumulated within a fixed time window before transmission. The temporal locality in game traffic is largely due to the game’s nature, whereby one action leads to another. The irregularity, which is unique to MMORPG traffic, is due to the diversity of the game’s design so that the behavior of users can vary drastically, depending on the quest at hand. The self-similarity of the aggregate traffic is due to the heavy-tailed active/idle activities of individual players. Moreover, we show that the arrival of game sessions within one hour can be modelled by a Poisson model, while the duration of game sessions is heavy-tailed.
7. Conducting EIA in Conflict Affected Areas - Aung Kyaw SoeEthical Sector
MCRB, together with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Conservation (MONREC) and Vermont Law School, with support from Heinrich Boll Foundation, held a workshop for local Environmental Impact Assessment Consultants with a focus on assessing social impacts – i.e. impacts on people - and the value of public participation and consultation in identifying these.
Read more: http://www.myanmar-responsiblebusiness.org/news/consultants-biggest-challenge.html
Identifying MMORPG Bots: A Traffic Analysis ApproachAcademia Sinica
MMORPGs have become extremely popular among network gamers. Despite their success, one of MMORPG’s greatest challenges is the increasing use of game bots, i.e., autoplaying game clients. The use of game bots is considered unsportsmanlike and is therefore forbidden. To keep games in order, game police, played by actual human players, often patrol game zones and question suspicious players. This practice, however, is labor-intensive and ineffective. To address this problem, we analyze the traffic generated by human players vs. game bots and propose solutions to automatically identify game bots.
Taking Ragnarok Online, one of the most popular MMOGs, as our subject, we study the traffic generated by mainstream game bots and human players. We find that their traffic is distinguishable by: 1) the regularity in the release time of client commands, 2) the trend and magnitude of traffic burstiness in multiple time scales, and 3) the sensitivity to network conditions. We propose four strategies and two integrated schemes to identify bots. For our data sets, the conservative scheme completely avoids making false accusations against bona fide players, while the progressive scheme tracks game bots down more aggressively. Finally, we show that the proposed methods are generalizable to other games and robust against counter-measures from bot developers.
Finding Self-Similarities in Opportunistic People NetworksAcademia Sinica
Opportunistic network is a type of Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN) where network communication opportunities appear opportunistic. In this study, we investigate opportunistic network scenarios based on public network traces, and our contributions are the following: First, we identify the censorship issue in network traces that usually leads to strongly skewed distribution of the measurements. Based on this knowledge, we then apply the Kaplan-Meier Estimator to calculate the survivorship of network measurements, which is used in designing our proposed censorship removal algorithm (CRA) that is used to recover censored data. Second, we perform a rich set of analysis illustrating that UCSD and Dartmouth network traces show strong self-similarity, and can be modeled as such. Third, we pointed out the importance of these newly revealed characteristics in future development and evaluation of opportunistic networks.
The success of Skype has inspired a generation of peer-to-peer-based solutions for satisfactory real-time multimedia services over the Internet. However, fundamental questions, such as whether VoIP services like Skype are good enough in terms of user satisfaction, have not been formally addressed. One of the major challenges lies in the lack of an easily accessible and objective index to quantify the degree of user satisfaction.
In this work, we propose a model, geared to Skype, but generalizable to other VoIP services, to quantify VoIP user satisfaction based on a rigorous analysis of the call duration from actual Skype traces. The User Satisfaction Index (USI) derived from the model is unique in that 1) it is composed by objective source- and network-level metrics, such as the bit rate, bit rate jitter, and round-trip time, 2) unlike speech quality measures based on voice signals, such as the PESQ model standardized by ITU-T, the metrics are easily accessible and computable for real-time adaptation, and 3) the model development only requires network measurements, i.e., no user surveys or voice signals are necessary. Our model is validated by an independent set of metrics that quantifies the degree of user interaction from the actual traces.
Online gaming is one of the most profitable businesses on the Internet. Of all the genres of online games, MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) have become the most popular among network gamers, and now attract millions of users who play in an evolving virtual world simultaneously over the Internet. To gain a better understanding of game traffic and contribute to the economic well-being of the Internet, we analyze a 1, 356-million-packet trace from a sizeable MMORPG called ShenZhou Online. This work is, as far as we know, the first formal analysis of MMORPG server traces.
We find that MMORPG and FPS (First-Person Shooting) games are similar in that they both generate small packets and require low bandwidths. In practice, the bandwidth requirement of MMORPGs is the lower of the two due to less real-time game playing. More distinctive features are the strong periodicity, temporal locality, irregularity, and self-similarity observed in MMORPG traffic. The periodicity is due to a common practice in game implementation, where game state updates are accumulated within a fixed time window before transmission. The temporal locality in game traffic is largely due to the game’s nature, whereby one action leads to another. The irregularity, which is unique to MMORPG traffic, is due to the diversity of the game’s design so that the behavior of users can vary drastically, depending on the quest at hand. The self-similarity of the aggregate traffic is due to the heavy-tailed active/idle activities of individual players. Moreover, we show that the arrival of game sessions within one hour can be modelled by a Poisson model, while the duration of game sessions is heavy-tailed.
This document discusses communication skills. It provides an overview of key concepts including the types of communication skills like speaking, writing, and listening. It discusses barriers to effective communication and gives tips for improving speaking skills like being clear, concise, and citing opinions positively. Research shows body language accounts for 55% of communication impact. Good communication requires honest listening and understanding rather than just getting a message across. Effective communication flows between a sender and receiver through a message, feedback, and channel.
The document discusses maintaining a product vision in agile environments using metaphors of rabbitducks and pickup trucks. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration between different teams, communicating effectively, making many small decisions rather than single large ones, and focusing on people's capabilities rather than rigid roles or processes. The product owner's role is to provide good advice as both a consumer and trusted merchant.
Abyssinia Love Knot Physical Therapy and Extended Rehabilitation Center plans to convert 400 hotel rooms to provide rehabilitation services. The facility will offer physical therapy, nursing care, physicians, and other services to assist patients discharged from hospitals. It aims to partner with local hospitals to accept patients and expand their services. Located near Detroit, the center sees a demand for extended care and hopes to capture the senior market through partnerships and promotional efforts.
El documento describe las características y hábitos de varios insectos y artrópodos, incluyendo cómo vuelan mariposas y abejas, cómo se alimentan de néctar, cómo cazan y viven polillas, saltamontes, pulgas, grillos, hormigas, piojos y garrapatas. También describe cómo nadan las arañas acuáticas y cazan otros insectos.
El documento describe las características y hábitos de varios insectos y artrópodos, incluyendo cómo vuelan mariposas y abejas, cómo se alimentan de néctar, cómo cazan y viven polillas, saltamontes, pulgas, grillos, hormigas, piojos y garrapatas. También describe cómo nadan las arañas de agua y cómo se camuflan para evadir depredadores.
The document discusses team building training and the stages of team development. It describes forming as establishing roles and trust, storming as conflicts emerging, norming as establishing procedures, and performing as high functioning cooperation. Key aspects of effective teams are clear communication, decision-making processes, balanced participation, and interpersonal relationships. The training emphasizes defining objectives, roles and responsibilities, and providing constructive feedback throughout the stages to build an effective team.
This document provides an overview of membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems for wastewater treatment. MBR systems combine a suspended growth bioreactor with solids removal via microfiltration membranes. This allows for higher biomass concentrations and smaller footprint than conventional activated sludge. The membranes can achieve high removal of contaminants and replace secondary clarifiers. While MBRs have higher capital and operating costs, they offer benefits of better effluent quality, smaller space requirements, and easier automation.
This document provides guidance on tools and best practices for communication. It discusses basic email, including writing effective emails with proper structure and addressing. It also covers client services, emphasizing quick responses, factual reports, and consultation. Finally, it discusses email marketing and differentiating between mass and personalized marketing approaches. The overall goal is to help people become better communicators by analyzing contexts, setting objectives, considering audiences, writing concisely, determining tactics, and evaluating effectiveness.
This document discusses several popular healing herbs and their key constituents and uses. It provides details on the active compounds in herbs such as alfalfa, bilberry, black cohosh, cayenne, dandelion, echinacea, garlic, ginger, goldenseal, hawthorn, milk thistle, nettles, passionflower, plantain, red clover, rosemary, sage and St. John's wort. These herbs have properties like antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, liver protective, hormone balancing and more. The document focuses on the science behind the traditional uses of these herbs.
The document provides an overview of creative problem solving. It defines creative problem solving as looking at problems in a different way than others. The document outlines the creative problem solving process as 7 steps: 1) defining the problem 2) gathering facts 3) restating the problem 4) identifying alternatives 5) evaluating alternatives 6) implementing a decision and 7) evaluating results. It also discusses tools for creative problem solving like brainstorming, multi-voting, and mind mapping and provides examples of using each tool. Finally, it prompts the reader to consider the greatest challenges their team faces and includes examples of how ordinary people use creative problem solving skills.
Political Malpractice: The Impact of the ACA on American EmployersHuman Capital Media
The document discusses the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on American employers. It outlines challenges facing employers, such as rising healthcare costs, new expensive benefit requirements, and uncertainty around the law's implications. The ACA could force employers to limit coverage, send employees to exchanges, or implement cost-cutting measures like wellness programs. Overall, the document examines problems in the U.S. healthcare system that make reform difficult and opportunities to improve the system and reduce costs for employers.
This document outlines the steps taken to prepare and facilitate a ballet class, including working with a project facilitator to teach the class, lead warm-ups, give corrections, find and edit music, work with students including rehearsing in costume, and finalize details like costumes, hair, and notes to create a finished ballet performance.
The document discusses predictions for the future of houses, energy sources, the environment, and students. Houses will evolve with reduced nuclear power. The hydrogen revolution may end wars over energy. Respecting human ecology will be important for the environment. Electricity and solar energy are discussed as alternative and renewable light and energy sources. The document lists students and their teacher.
This document outlines Bob Rosenschein's experience as the CEO of Answers Corporation. It discusses both the challenges and successes he faced in starting up and growing the company. Some key points include:
- Rosenschein searched for the right business model, eventually finding success with a software subscription model and the launch of Answers.com and WikiAnswers.
- WikiAnswers grew rapidly to receive billions of monthly questions and answers and became a top search result. This helped drive significant growth in advertising revenue.
- However, startup challenges included risks around brand transition, business models, focus on the web, and design. Execution in all areas from development to marketing was critical.
- Lessons learned included
Revenue Acceleration and Increasing Business Opportunity - Enterasys Presenta...Heinz Marketing Inc
This document provides tips and strategies for accelerating revenue and increasing business opportunities. It discusses prospecting upstream before customers are active buyers, using existing resources before spending money, firing lots of marketing bullets, publishing valuable content to attract prospects, and ensuring sales and marketing are integrated. The document also outlines prospect engagement funnels, calculating sales goals and pipelines, customer profiling, content planning, and managing referral sources. Key advice includes understanding customers before planning, engaging prospects early, leveraging existing assets, consistently communicating your message, and not leaving sales and marketing disconnected.
This document discusses transforming marketing approaches to focus more on customers. It advocates taking a customer-centric view of marketing performance rather than focusing on individual touchpoints. This involves defining customers and looking at their overall behavior over multiple interactions. It also discusses using data and modeling to better understand customer value, segmentation, experimentation and integrating marketing metrics with other business goals and indicators. The overall message is that marketing needs to move beyond isolated touchpoint views to consider the full customer experience and journey.
Peatlands cover one third of Scotland's land area and store the largest terrestrial carbon store in the UK. They face many pressures including drainage, burning, and development. Current research projects at the Environmental Research Institute are studying how peatland microbial communities and desmid diversity respond to disturbances like drainage, burning, and forestation. They are also examining how peatland-derived dissolved organic matter transports iron from land to sea. There is a need for more research on intact peatlands as baselines and on the impacts of different management practices to help inform sustainable peatland policy and management.
This document discusses communication skills. It provides an overview of key concepts including the types of communication skills like speaking, writing, and listening. It discusses barriers to effective communication and gives tips for improving speaking skills like being clear, concise, and citing opinions positively. Research shows body language accounts for 55% of communication impact. Good communication requires honest listening and understanding rather than just getting a message across. Effective communication flows between a sender and receiver through a message, feedback, and channel.
The document discusses maintaining a product vision in agile environments using metaphors of rabbitducks and pickup trucks. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration between different teams, communicating effectively, making many small decisions rather than single large ones, and focusing on people's capabilities rather than rigid roles or processes. The product owner's role is to provide good advice as both a consumer and trusted merchant.
Abyssinia Love Knot Physical Therapy and Extended Rehabilitation Center plans to convert 400 hotel rooms to provide rehabilitation services. The facility will offer physical therapy, nursing care, physicians, and other services to assist patients discharged from hospitals. It aims to partner with local hospitals to accept patients and expand their services. Located near Detroit, the center sees a demand for extended care and hopes to capture the senior market through partnerships and promotional efforts.
El documento describe las características y hábitos de varios insectos y artrópodos, incluyendo cómo vuelan mariposas y abejas, cómo se alimentan de néctar, cómo cazan y viven polillas, saltamontes, pulgas, grillos, hormigas, piojos y garrapatas. También describe cómo nadan las arañas acuáticas y cazan otros insectos.
El documento describe las características y hábitos de varios insectos y artrópodos, incluyendo cómo vuelan mariposas y abejas, cómo se alimentan de néctar, cómo cazan y viven polillas, saltamontes, pulgas, grillos, hormigas, piojos y garrapatas. También describe cómo nadan las arañas de agua y cómo se camuflan para evadir depredadores.
The document discusses team building training and the stages of team development. It describes forming as establishing roles and trust, storming as conflicts emerging, norming as establishing procedures, and performing as high functioning cooperation. Key aspects of effective teams are clear communication, decision-making processes, balanced participation, and interpersonal relationships. The training emphasizes defining objectives, roles and responsibilities, and providing constructive feedback throughout the stages to build an effective team.
This document provides an overview of membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems for wastewater treatment. MBR systems combine a suspended growth bioreactor with solids removal via microfiltration membranes. This allows for higher biomass concentrations and smaller footprint than conventional activated sludge. The membranes can achieve high removal of contaminants and replace secondary clarifiers. While MBRs have higher capital and operating costs, they offer benefits of better effluent quality, smaller space requirements, and easier automation.
This document provides guidance on tools and best practices for communication. It discusses basic email, including writing effective emails with proper structure and addressing. It also covers client services, emphasizing quick responses, factual reports, and consultation. Finally, it discusses email marketing and differentiating between mass and personalized marketing approaches. The overall goal is to help people become better communicators by analyzing contexts, setting objectives, considering audiences, writing concisely, determining tactics, and evaluating effectiveness.
This document discusses several popular healing herbs and their key constituents and uses. It provides details on the active compounds in herbs such as alfalfa, bilberry, black cohosh, cayenne, dandelion, echinacea, garlic, ginger, goldenseal, hawthorn, milk thistle, nettles, passionflower, plantain, red clover, rosemary, sage and St. John's wort. These herbs have properties like antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, liver protective, hormone balancing and more. The document focuses on the science behind the traditional uses of these herbs.
The document provides an overview of creative problem solving. It defines creative problem solving as looking at problems in a different way than others. The document outlines the creative problem solving process as 7 steps: 1) defining the problem 2) gathering facts 3) restating the problem 4) identifying alternatives 5) evaluating alternatives 6) implementing a decision and 7) evaluating results. It also discusses tools for creative problem solving like brainstorming, multi-voting, and mind mapping and provides examples of using each tool. Finally, it prompts the reader to consider the greatest challenges their team faces and includes examples of how ordinary people use creative problem solving skills.
Political Malpractice: The Impact of the ACA on American EmployersHuman Capital Media
The document discusses the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on American employers. It outlines challenges facing employers, such as rising healthcare costs, new expensive benefit requirements, and uncertainty around the law's implications. The ACA could force employers to limit coverage, send employees to exchanges, or implement cost-cutting measures like wellness programs. Overall, the document examines problems in the U.S. healthcare system that make reform difficult and opportunities to improve the system and reduce costs for employers.
This document outlines the steps taken to prepare and facilitate a ballet class, including working with a project facilitator to teach the class, lead warm-ups, give corrections, find and edit music, work with students including rehearsing in costume, and finalize details like costumes, hair, and notes to create a finished ballet performance.
The document discusses predictions for the future of houses, energy sources, the environment, and students. Houses will evolve with reduced nuclear power. The hydrogen revolution may end wars over energy. Respecting human ecology will be important for the environment. Electricity and solar energy are discussed as alternative and renewable light and energy sources. The document lists students and their teacher.
This document outlines Bob Rosenschein's experience as the CEO of Answers Corporation. It discusses both the challenges and successes he faced in starting up and growing the company. Some key points include:
- Rosenschein searched for the right business model, eventually finding success with a software subscription model and the launch of Answers.com and WikiAnswers.
- WikiAnswers grew rapidly to receive billions of monthly questions and answers and became a top search result. This helped drive significant growth in advertising revenue.
- However, startup challenges included risks around brand transition, business models, focus on the web, and design. Execution in all areas from development to marketing was critical.
- Lessons learned included
Revenue Acceleration and Increasing Business Opportunity - Enterasys Presenta...Heinz Marketing Inc
This document provides tips and strategies for accelerating revenue and increasing business opportunities. It discusses prospecting upstream before customers are active buyers, using existing resources before spending money, firing lots of marketing bullets, publishing valuable content to attract prospects, and ensuring sales and marketing are integrated. The document also outlines prospect engagement funnels, calculating sales goals and pipelines, customer profiling, content planning, and managing referral sources. Key advice includes understanding customers before planning, engaging prospects early, leveraging existing assets, consistently communicating your message, and not leaving sales and marketing disconnected.
This document discusses transforming marketing approaches to focus more on customers. It advocates taking a customer-centric view of marketing performance rather than focusing on individual touchpoints. This involves defining customers and looking at their overall behavior over multiple interactions. It also discusses using data and modeling to better understand customer value, segmentation, experimentation and integrating marketing metrics with other business goals and indicators. The overall message is that marketing needs to move beyond isolated touchpoint views to consider the full customer experience and journey.
Peatlands cover one third of Scotland's land area and store the largest terrestrial carbon store in the UK. They face many pressures including drainage, burning, and development. Current research projects at the Environmental Research Institute are studying how peatland microbial communities and desmid diversity respond to disturbances like drainage, burning, and forestation. They are also examining how peatland-derived dissolved organic matter transports iron from land to sea. There is a need for more research on intact peatlands as baselines and on the impacts of different management practices to help inform sustainable peatland policy and management.
