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thehistoricalimperative
History, policy, higher education and public life
Presented papers
Post-Brexit, we must make the case for scholarship, not just science…
06/07/2016 06/07/2016 ~ alixrgreen	~ Leave a comment
Credit: Billy Frank
The vast majority of UK academics supported Remain. The free movement of ideas and people is vital to what we do. EU colleagues have brought expertise, students fresh perspectives, and, of course, the UK benefitted disproportionately from EU funding programmes. Despite this near unanimity, there is a divide in UK academe that I fear Brexit will only sharpen.
Throughout the pre-referendum ferment and into the frankly frightening aftermath, I was one of many non-scientists who followed Scientists for EU. It's a great initiative – probably the most active and visible academic campaign. Everyone knows (or at least says) science matters, right? It's easy for a campaigner on the doorstep, or a Minister on TV to talk the talk of celebrating UK science and the need to protect investment, if only as some kind of marker of international prestige when few others come to mind (whether they walk the walk is, of course, another thing…)
The problem is – and this is no criticism of Scientists for EU – that it's not just science at stake here. Of the ten most vulnerable subjects to EU research funding, six fall outside the STEM designation. Beyond money, there's an intellectual case too. The lone scholar in the humanities is a prevalent but only a partial picture – and a potentially damaging one. All disciplines thrive on collaboration and conversation, even if (and even when) our labour is often solitary. Sustaining a meaningful, productive community of enquiry in the humanities means people meeting, talking, sharing, debating and generally pushing against the boundaries of what we think we know. Scholarship is always a collective endeavour. There is more we have in common within academe than divides us along disciplinary boundaries.
But leaving both those arguments aside, perhaps the most powerful case from a policy perspective for dealing with scholarship rather than just science is that, when it comes to solving problems, it's the mix that matters. In the UK, we're just starting to think about how to deal with one of the most complex, divisive and unstable set of social, economic and political problems. Whatever the toxic views that were peddled about experts in the lead-up to the referendum, we should surely be drawing on all the cognitive resources we can possibly access as we tackle its consequences. That includes the humanities. In my recent book, I argue that 'policy is multi-dimensional, messy, uncertain, ambigious, shifting and contested because so too are the human beliefs, commitments, decisions and interactions at the core of the exercise of power.' The humanities give us insights into and purchase on the inescapably human dimensions of life – including constitutional crises…
It worries me that in a context where STEM subjects are perceived as the only useful forms of knowledge, science becomes a proxy for the total research base as the impact of Brexit is evaluated and policy responses formulated. There is an opportunity now for advocacy groups such as Scientists for EU to defend science not just in its own terms, but also as part of a broader collaborative effort to make the case for scholarship and evidence in the broadest sense (even if people in this country had indeed 'had enough of experts' before the vote, they seem to be grasping for expertise now). And it should be in scientists' interests that the UK maintains a vibrant mix of intellectual activity. Dynamic trans-, multi- and interdisciplinary work relies on active, sustainable, ambitious and confident disciplinary cultures.
This agenda also means historians, philosophers and linguists (i.e. all of us humanists) being willing to engage with greater commitment, and to take a platform in the way Scientists for EU have done. My sense is we have much to learn from the ways they used social media to take an active role in public debate, including tweeting and vlogging on Facebook and Youtube. We too need to be open to pressing not just for the value of our own fields, but for a genuinely rich ecosystem of enquiry and expertise.
No policy issue is ever purely technical and no one discipline can ever produce all the answers. As scholars, we need to see science, social science and the arts and humanities as complementary forms of knowledge rather than as competing in some zero-sum policy and funding game. Advocacy groups have a core purpose in their own domain, but that shouldn't preclude some timely and targeted joint efforts. It's both/and rather than either/or. Surely now of all moments we should be making common cause?
History, Policy and Public Purpose Historians and Historical Thinking in Government | History and Policy
10/06/2016 ~ alixrgreen	~ Leave a comment
Reblogging here my post from History and Policy #HistoriansBooks section – and please see details of a mini symposium and book launch on 24th June below…
The use, mis-use and neglect of the past by policymakers is an irresistible target. Whether it's Margaret Thatcher's insistence on the dangers of German reunification, Tony Blair's disregard for the complexities of Iraqi history or Boris Johnson's comparison of the EU's aims with Hitler's, political leaders have drawn historians' ire. The privileging of quantitative evidence, with its illusory assurance of 'what works', and the dominance of the short-term over the long view have further widened the perceived 'history gap' in politics. At least, so the caricature goes. But what happens if we pause to check our assumptions?
Most historians would now hesitate to use the word 'truth' to describe what emerges from our work, at least to academic audiences. Even those determined to present a particular account as definitive must acknowledge the provisional nature of any historical interpretation and the existence of multiple perspectives and approaches. And yet we seem comfortable with the notion of 'speaking truth to power', and the implied entitlement to inform, correct and admonish those charged with political decision-making. The emerging field of public history has been championing co-production and shared authority with museums, heritage organisations and community groups, and yet collaboration with policymakers remains beyond the pale.
It's no great insight to observe that how we define a problem is important – it influences our approach and what options we consider. If we think, for example, that the problem of the 'history gap' in government is one of cultural difference from academe – exacerbated by tight timescales, electoral pressures and a preference for the apparent certainty of numbers – then a certain range of solutions present themselves. We would need to package the 'truth' in accessible language and succinct formats – policy papers and consultation responses rather than journal articles and books. We would seek to build bridges with policy communities, holding workshops and expert seminars to connect the two tribes and territories.
But can we define the history gap as just an issue of communication and translation? Historians are master debunkers when it comes to myths and assumptions, or so we like to tell ourselves. So it should perhaps give us pause for thought that 'speaking truth to power' (even in policy-friendly briefing notes) is a rather neat and convenient notion – at least for us. It's only used, of course, by those who believe themselves to be in possession of the truth and under a moral obligation to share it. But can we content ourselves with a sermonising model – instructing policymakers, otherwise liable to neglect or distort the past – without at least some critical reflection on our own scholarly attitudes, values and practices?
History, Policy and Public Purpose emerged from a recognition that connecting history and policy was as much about 'historianship' – why, how, where and for whom we 'do' history – as about policymaking. Perhaps counter-intuitively, I had become much more conscious of my historical habits of mind while working in policy roles in government and higher education. At the same time, I developed an appreciation of the constraints and pressures with which civil servants, advisers, MPs, committees and ministers have to operate. The book engages with the intellectual and methodological issues related to historical thinking and practice, while taking the contextual realities of policymaking seriously. Critiques from the 'outside', however well-founded, timely and judicious, are unlikely on their own to exert an on-going influence on political decision-making.
The book revolves around the second chapter, in which I explore how history could work effectively within those cultural and structural realities, and contribute to the processes of policy formulation. The key manoeuvre I propose is a shift in emphasis from historical 'content' (what we produce) to 'process' (how we work). Historians certainly have much to offer as expert mediators with the past, seen as a repository of potentially illuminating perspectives or an archive of analogies and long views. The 'pitch' for history's relevance to policy usually rests on such claims, and the History and Policy archive of over a decade's worth of policy papers is a unique collection that shows how pertinent and powerful such insights can be.
Without undermining the value of these interventions, we can recognise that they form only part of the solution. A focus on 'content' requires historians to establish policy relevance on a case-by-case basis. The process by which historians think and work, the conceptual tools and what educational psychologists have called 'cognitive moves' of disciplinary-history, are not so constrained. I suggest that historians have something important to offer as part of the 'collective puzzling' at the heart of policymaking. We may be 'content' experts – in foreign relations, health or welfare policy, for example – but we also bring distinctive habits of mind as historians, ways of questioning, seeking and reading evidence, checking assumptions and building arguments. So my sense is that we need to move to a model of thinking with history in policy, rather than one focused only on bringing historical perspectives to the notice of policymakers.
That's not to say that historical thinking is somehow the key to 'better' policymaking (tempting as that claim may be). History is no more the master discipline than economics. In the context of highly complex policy problems, I emphasise the centrality of collaboration – rather than competition – between different specialisms. If we want scholarship and informed debate to exert a greater influence on policy, we will all surely need to be advocates not just for the merits of our own disciplines, but for a genuinely rich ecosystem of expert advice.
An obvious line of criticism of the proposals in the book is that they're idealistic. So, it's all very well to place historians as 'insiders' in government, but ministers would never listen. Or, mixed policy teams that bring together economists and historians or philosophers make sense in theory, but in practice they would never exert the same level of influence. Such criticisms are valid, but my response would be 'yes, and?'. If we want to be heard, to be part of the most important conversations about policy, critique is not enough. We can recognise the scale of the challenge, while pursuing a policy of pragmatic persistence – policy is surely too important for historians to take any other course. Indeed, the injunction made in 1984 by Oxford historian, Avner Offer, is perhaps even more pressing today: 'neither detachment nor defiance will do.'
On 24th June 2016, there will be a symposium on 'Connecting History, Policy and the Public' and book launch, 2-8pm. All welcome but please register your interest!
It's in room 349, Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU.
Confirmed contributors: Andrew Blick (King's College London), Justin Champion (Royal Holloway), Owen Davies (University of Hertfordshire) Alix Green (University of Central Lancashire), Paul Lay (History Today), Edward Madigan (Royal Holloway), Steve Poole (University of the West of England), Graham Smith (Royal Holloway), John Tosh (Roehampton), Anna Whitelock (Royal Holloway)
Why would anyone not want to be a [insert your job]?
Eiffel Tower construction from 1889 World's Fair
'I can't believe that anyone would not want to be an engineer. It's baffling to me' said Naomi Climer, the new President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology on The Life Scientific. As the head of a guild (her term) she's in advocacy mode, and rightly so. Many of us share that sentiment. We often have strong beliefs about the merits of our own profession ('I feel the same about physics' Jim Al-Khalili added) and its value and importance to life, the universe and everything. But it doesn't necessarily follow that it's baffling for anyone else to want to do and be something different.
Does being a 'serious' engineer, historian or economist mean acquiring a kind of tunnel vision that only sees one's own field and methods of enquiry? I'm not suggesting for a moment that Climer was actually suggesting that engineering was the only profession worth pursuing, but it's interesting that she reached for that turn of phrase to express commitment to and enthusiasm for her discipline. It makes me think of Jacobs' notion of 'explanatory imperialism' that it's all too easy to fall into*. It blinds us to the ways in which different forms of knowledge can combine to answer the complex questions of life, the universe and everything more productively, creatively, insightfully etc.
That's why it's important that historians do more than raise the 'History Matters' banner. History does matter, and in all kinds of ways that are underexplored and underappreciated. But my sense is that the 'case for history' will be most cogently and convincingly made by showing how historical modes of thought and ways of working interlock with those from other disciplines in the making of meaning. We should be looking for complementarity not competition. Collective puzzling can happen alongside individual scholarship.
History doesn't matter more than literature or sociology or chemistry – it matters with, alongside and in conversation with them (and always has – history is always 'history of…', its eclecticism and reach are sources of strength). I'd like to think we can all get beyond bafflement and develop boundary-crossing communities of enquiry that really appreciate the distinctive contributions of their members. Engineers welcome.
* J. Jacobs, 'Theory, practice, and specialization: The case for the humanities' in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, vol. 11, no, 3, pp. 206-223.
Dismantling the professions? Rethinking expertise
An Allegory of Learning c. 1500-1525 Credit: Getty Images
A press release on a book that's just come out gave me pause for thought: The future of the professions: how technology will transform the work of human experts. OK, so press releases aren't the best way of appraising books, but it was an interesting piece of writing in its own right – so I'm offering here a few reflections on it from the perspective of someone interested in history as a profession and a form of expertise 'in public'.
The main argument in the piece was that technology will dismantle the professions and 'feasible alternatives' will take their place (enabling people to diagnose health problems, access the news, enforce the law online…) The internet enables expertise to be shared, rather than held by the few.
The authors, Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, give a range of examples of the power of the internet. The rise of email, and the transformative effect this has had on how lawyers and clients communicate, seemed unconscionable in the mid-1990s but is now unremarkable. A 'technology-based internet society', they argue, has replaced a 'print-based industrial society'.
The print/internet distinction seems to me to work only if you focus on 'content', so, the provision and communication – the display – of knowledge. That's the currency in which the traditional professions trade. For sure, 'content' is becoming increasingly accessible to the 'recipients and beneficiaries of the work of the professions', but is it truly available?
So what's the difference? The argument that the internet is an inherent democratiser has been applied to the public history/digital history interface. It seems a self-evident truth. But having access to online worlds is not the same thing as being an active, reflective, engaged, productive, creative navigator of them – as many academics teaching students about digital sources and methods will know. By content being truly available, I mean: can it be understood, assimilated, interpreted, manipulated, appropriated, adapted and put to effective use?
If the expertise of the professional were just the possessing of content knowledge, then the 'technology-based internet society' would constitute a major challenge. But the expertise of the professional is surely not content knowledge in itself, but instead the cognitive capacity to acquire, process and make meaning from it (so, to be active, reflective, engaged, productive, creative navigators of content).
It's understandable that we tend to emphasise 'content' – after all, it is visible in a way 'process' rarely is. This is particularly true for historians. The intellectual labour of research has tended to be largely hidden from view and it is the final product – the book, journal article, film or exhibition – that is published, discussed, reviewed, acclaimed (or otherwise). Perhaps the most important dimension of public history has been the emergence of co-production, whereby people are actively involved in this labour of making history and take ownership of their own pasts.
But this shared authority doesn't undermine history as a profession, rather it strengthens, expands and animates it. Rather than be threatened by this brave new world, perhaps historians and other professionals have a vital, dynamic role to claim – if we can see expertise not as a possession, but as a quality (a public good?) that develops in relationships through the exchanges and engagements we have with others in pursuit of a collective endeavour.
A Skeptical Note on Policy-Prescriptive Political Science
Jay Ulfelder's recent 'skeptical note' on the 'actionability' of political science research makes some essential points about the problematic assumptions underpinning policy recommendations. In Britain, the Blairite manifesto pitch 'what counts is what works' subdues the complexities of research method that might, at best, conclude 'what works here' (with further caveats about target population and other central aspects of the design).
I'm not sure, however, that scholars of any discipline should therefore refrain from proposing recommendations or, even more cautiously, withdraw from offering expert advice.
One of the important problems Ulfelder identifies is the uncertainties that are involved in the space between research and policy. How can a scholar answer the 'so what?' question that follows from any finding? There are two issues that we can unpack here.
The first is the inevitability, indeed, the necessity, of uncertainty. Policy is messy, unstable and contested because it involves human beings and their beliefs, habits, commitments, decisions and relationships – in the exercise of power, the exertion of influence, in policy implementation and debate. Instead of searching for the definitive research design to address all the assumptions about the transferability of findings – or indeed, just leaving it to 'elected officials and bureaucrats' to do the interpretation – we should be bringing together different disciplines with complementary insights. Given the uncertainties of anything involving human beings, the humanities need to be in there too, rather than ignored as irrelevant, if not ornamental.
The other issue is the 'so what?' question. I agree it's hard for scholars to come up with policy recommendations, but that's at least in part due to their lack of experience of policymaking in practice. In the UK, there is far less interchange between higher education and government than in the USA and the academic career is still pretty intolerant of periods spent in other settings, something that needs to change. Taking a look over the fence and trying to prescribe policy interventions based on research designed for academic purposes seems foolish at best, if not rather arrogant as well as misguided. Humanities scholars may be largely ignored, but we can often be too concerned to preserve our integrity by not allowing policy concerns to 'sully' our work.
This seems a rather self-defeating formula. Policymakers don't get access to an ecosystem of expertise. Scholars remain on the far side of the fence lamenting the intellectual illiteracy of political rhetoric and decision-making.
But does it need to be this way? I don't think so. But there's no easy policy prescription for fixing it, as it involves major shifts in perspective among scholars – towards actively looking for cross-disciplinary approaches – and in policy communities that often have limited conceptions of 'relevant' evidence.
Being honest in response to a request for expert advice is not just about admitting the limits of one's own expertise but also the limits of one's own discipline. It's the mix that matters, but it's not easy for the expert to admit it.
Dart-Throwing Chimp
My sometimes-colleague Michael Horowitz wrote a great piece for War on the Rocks last week on what "policy relevance" means for political scientists who study international affairs, and the different forms that relevance can take. Among the dimensions of policy relevance he calls out is the idea of "policy actionability":
Policy actionability refers to a recommendation that is possible to implement for the target of the recommendation. Most academic work is not policy actionable, fundamentally. For example, implications from international relations research are things such as whether countries with high male-to-female ratios are more likely to start military conflicts or that countries that acquire nuclear weapons become harder to coerce.
As Michael notes, most scholarship isn't "actionable" in this way, and isn't meant to be. In my experience, though, there is plenty of demand in Washington and elsewhere for policy-actionable research on international affairs, and there is a subset of scholars…
The Humanities, the public intellectual and human flourishing | Arts and Humanities in Higher Education
'Imaginary Boundary' Credit: DarkFrame
'Something needs to be done – urgently. We are agreed – right? But what?' stands the heading introducing a recent issue of the journal Arts and Humanities in Higher Education. We are given a peak at Robert Garland's contribution, 'The Humanities: plain and simple', in which he proposes that all humanists 'have a duty to be active in exporting our expertise beyond the gates of the academy' as part of assembling a 'coherent justification' for the importance of our fields to society. The ways he suggests contributing to the 'quality of human life' are writing for popular journals or magazines, offering pro bono online and outreach courses and participating in humanities-related festivals.
All good stuff and a debate that we need to have – to which I'd add a couple of comments (disclaimer: admittedly based on the summary rather than the full article – the irony of a debate about public intellectuals conducted behind journal paywalls).
First: the case for the public value of the humanities is often premised on 'outreach'. We take our expertise out into the world, make it accessible, engaging and relevant for a range of audiences. Important work – and Garland's call for 'the application of knowledge in the service of the public good' is well-made (it's also remarkably close to definitions of public history – I recently tried to line up academic citizenship and public history for reasons similar to Garland's).
But the basic model that divides 'inside' and 'outside' the university remains. We still hold the authority. The universities are still the knowledge-generators and the wider world the beneficiaries. In the case of public policy, for example, I'm not convinced that's enough – we can't expect to influence it (or convince policymakers of the merits of the humanities) on an outreach basis. Policymakers may listen, but will they (or should they) think historically or philosophically as part of the decision-making process once the historian or philosopher has left the building? Can we really 'export our expertise' or do we need to be integrating it in active ways with other forms of expertise inside public institutions? And what does an academic career look like if we 'do time' outside the university as part of a mission to serve the public good?
Second: we tend to accept the marginalisation of the humanities as an inevitable state of affairs. Policymakers 'naturally' want 'hard' evidence and prioritise economic growth over any sense of cultural value. They certainly seem to, but it this really an inevitable state of affairs?
One of the most important characteristics of the humanities disciplines is self-consciousness – we inspect our assumptions, attend carefully to our terms and appreciate complexity and ambiguity. But the need to defend the humanities seems to have left us little space for practising our crafts to examine the context in which they need defending. How can we, as humanists, understand the emergence and persistence of a political culture that privileges such narrow notions of value?
Each discipline has a distinctive perspective to bring to this effort. If we can recognise, for example, these beliefs about the value of different forms of knowledge as historical phenomena rather than self-evident truths, we can free our intellectual imaginations to conceive of other, future, contexts in which different beliefs are possible – and how we might contribute to bringing such contexts into being.
I absolutely agree with Garland's call for academics to take on public roles. The question is: and then what?
See: The Humanities, the public intellectual and human flourishing | Arts and Humanities in Higher Education.
Taking ownership of 'transferable' skills?
29/04/2015 29/04/2015 ~ alixrgreen	~ 3 Comments
Credit: Jon Luty
One thing I've noticed in working on my book* is that blogging work has quickly fallen down the agenda. Time is a major factor, but it's not the only one. The problem has also switching registers from writing something relatively well-developed and formal to a thinking 'out loud' and working through ideas in their formative stages. Both types of writing are, or should be, conversational, in that you're engaging with your imagined audiences and considering how they might respond. But I've tended to see them as calling on a different frames of mind – keeping both going has been hard.
This led me to think about the skills involved. Tutors are increasingly setting new forms of writing as assessment alongside the essay: commentaries, policy papers, blogs, briefing notes, journalism, exhibition guides, for example. This is routine for public history modules, but certainly not confined to them. The rationale for these assignments is often presented in terms of transferable skills. Students, few of whom will go on to be academic historians, will need to be able to write skilfully for different purposes and in different contexts (or so the narrative goes).
So far, so neat: 'proper' academic history writing, represented by the essay and dissertation, on the one hand, 'new' writing tasks, for the life after history, on the other. But does this division hold up?
Research networks can start on Twitter as people find others with complementary interests; the power of the retweet to bridge several degrees of separation is remarkable. Conference discussions can be already well underway before the opening plenary through blog platforms that promote the central themes and questions. The newspaper article finds future advocates and collaborators in different fields.
All of these kinds of writing can contribute to scholarship: not the self-conscious attempt at 'public engagement' or 'impact', but the kind that takes an innovative and ambitious view of the whole process of 'doing history'. My brilliant former colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire, Dr Ciara Meehan and Dr Jennifer Evans, demonstrated this well with the Perceptions of Pregnancy conference, now an international research network. Public History Weekly, backed by the German publishing house, Oldenbourg Verlag, is blending academic journal, blog and research network. The first conference of the core authors from around the world is being held in Basel later this year.
Calling the skills involved 'transferable' is a problem for at least two reasons. It suggests to students and to academics that these skills are, at best, marginal to the discipline and to the real business of being a historian. It's also misleading, and underplays the extent to which historians call on a whole range of skills, insights, understandings, experiences and reference points during their work, often unconsciously. We need all kinds of writing – not because (or not just because) we think we ought to be 'out there', but because we can do challenging, intellectually stimulating history in ways and with people we wouldn't otherwise.
So perhaps rather than keeping a judicious distance between the book and the blog, can we let them occupy a shared space? Maybe they're best seen as different features on the same landscape – allowing us to map out the terrain and describe the routes between them, not just for ourselves, but also for our students, readers and collaborators.
* For those who are interested, it's due out later this year as a Palgrave Pivot, provisionally entitled Historians on the inside: talking history in the corridors of power
Last Jews of the Delta: public history and communities in decline
A moving travelog from Johnny Diamond on BBC Radio 4 – Broadcasting House, 29/12/2013 explored the dwindling but active Jewish communities of the Mississippi Delta. Once numbering in the hundreds, their numbers declined as children, having served in the war, stayed away. New lives were built in the cities, the younger generation often joined by their parents.
Only 9 Jews are now left in Greenwood, the remaining members afraid 'not to gather': the community ceasing to exist feels a real and immediate possibility. In Vicksburg, Stan Klein talks of his concern about the on-going care of the cemetery: 'we're planning for the future of our congregation, when we can no longer physically be here to do it ourselves. We're nearing the end and we know it'.
The roving rabbi serving these communities sees his role as 'to help them navigate what will be very difficult realities in a way that honours that history and ensures their continued legacy'. In essence, he's helping them manage their decline. But might there also in such efforts be a role for the public historian, capturing oral histories, gathering and cataloguing important items such as photographs and diaries, documenting the history of spaces such as the cemetery and synagogue to inform future preservation and respond to future interest?
If so, how do historians find and build the kind of connections to make this happen? Not that such endeavours are unproblematic. They raise many issues, such as authority over and ownership of the past, the tension between the interests and agendas of community members and historians, what is done with the 'products' of the collaboration. These are, however, all issues with which public history is fundamentally concerned and public history projects are tackling them on a routine basis. We also need to think about how we train our students, not just with the skills required but perhaps also with a certain activist mindset to want to take on the challenges involved?
Anyway, I commend the programme to you (it starts at 23′) and would be interested to hear people's views on it, and on the issues it raises for public history.
Parallel tracks 2: Academic/professional divides in universities
I blogged back in March about how the development of intellectual capacity and that of employability skills are too often regarded as parallel tracks in higher education. Such false dichotomies often create impasses, and impasses inhibit the ability to adapt, respond and innovate.
Another such divide is that between academic and other staff in universities. In newer institutions, such staff may be called 'professional' rather than 'support' staff as a way of capturing their 'different but equal' status in the running of the organisation. Many other companies and organisations have taken similar measures. As a symbol of corporate-level recognition of the contributions different roles make to the whole, this is to be welcomed. Moves towards equalisation of pay and conditions often follow (such as the single pay spine in HE).
There is certainly more to be done to realise a university culture in which the different roles are truly valued and respected, but to see this just as an HR issue is to miss an important dimension.
As Paul Marshall, ABS Chief Executive, reminded the assembled Hertfordshire Business School in a keynote last week, we live in a VUCA world: Volatile; Uncertain; Complex and Ambiguous (and Higher Education feels to many particularly VUCA). It wouldn't be saying anything new to suggest that such an environment calls on a wider range of skills, experience and capacities in leaders than were needed in more stable times.
'It's time to end the myth of the complete leader,' Ancona et al argued in the Harvard Business Review back in 2007, a call that resonates to an even greater extent now. The modern executive's role is 'to cultivate and coordinate' – not 'command and control' the actions of others. By seeing themselves as incomplete, they can then start to rely on others to 'make up for their missing skills.'
So we're back to complementarity. In an HE setting, this means building management teams with expertise in different aspects of university activity. Many universities, particularly the newer ones, do indeed have directors of key services at the top table. Such arrangements imply recognition of the complementarity of academic and professional roles. But recognition solidifies those categories – and the lines of demarcation between them. 'Different but equal' makes sense in theory, but in practice it makes rigid and definite what could productively be flexible and fuzzy, particularly in the VUCA world of HE.
An alternative (and complementary) way of looking at complementarity in terms of skills for HE management is to think about the individual. An individual with an 'academic' role could develop complementary skills, knowledge and insights through a secondment internally, or into a company, government department or local council; one with a 'professional' role could do so through undertaking doctoral study, teaching or contributing to a collaborative research project. One route that has worked is from professional practice (such as nursing, law or business) into academe. But those transitions tend to be one-time (and therefore one-direction) movements. They also seem to be coming under pressure from demands for academic accreditation and research activity in many universities.
Assembling such a portfolio of experience may not be for everyone. But why would we not want our leaders to be so equipped given the uncertainties and volatilities of the future? It wouldn't make them 'complete' of course, but it might make the incompleteness more conscious and therefore productive. Building a team, developing strategy, making decisions – these processes could all draw not just on an intellectual awareness of the need for complementary skills but a real ability to identify with the questions, concerns and priorities of the functional areas that hold those skills.
The transformation of the 'support staff' to the 'professional', even though nominally based on parity of esteem, addressed the symptoms not the problem. Those symptoms badly needed treating, and we must finish the course. But we shouldn't forget the underlying problem: parallel tracks. Maybe it's up to each of us to be an entrepreneur in our own careers – just like Darlene Roth's public historian – but then at least the environment needs to be conducive to innovation. Why shouldn't university policies support 'academics' to bring discipline-level nuance to website development and marketing, or 'professionals' to undertake the advanced studies that allow them to bring their specialist knowledge to students' learning? Why shouldn't hybrid or dual roles be more common, even encouraged? We need a new kind of blended learning and a new, more open and flexible approach to progression and recognition to help develop the incomplete leaders of tomorrow's universities.
Complementarity between disciplines 2: policy advice
In the domain of public policy advice, the case for an approach based on the complementarity of disciplines and professions should be a strong one. Only very few policy problems lie within the domain of one community, as Macrae and Whittington emphasise in their work on Expert Advice for Policy Choice. Cooperation and division of labour – involving reading each other's literature, contributing jointly to technical debates and working together on projects – should be good practice in marshalling expertise, which can then be fed into an iterative process of formulating and assessing policy alternatives.
Economists, statisticians and social researchers have established specialist pathways in the civil service, suggesting that the range of professional inputs into policy development is rather limited. Admittedly, it emerges that Macrae and Whittington have the quantitatively-oriented disciplines in mind, and so the structure would fit with their model in that sense. However, the book does raise the question as to whether a broader and more genuinely interdisciplinary approach would be to the benefit of our public policy.
To give just one example, political mapping and scenario development would be greatly enhanced by a historical mindset. In essence, they're describing a version of Neustadt and May's "placement": the development of a contextualised understanding of actors (both individuals and organisations) to enable their later positions and actions to be anticipated in a more informed and nuanced way.
There is much to be taken from the Macrae/Whittington book in terms of challenging the inclinations of the "basic disciplines" to regard "user" values and priorities as of less relevance or importance than those of their own communities. The call for responsiveness and collaboration in addressing the questions posed by policymakers is well-made. But there is much more to be done to convince not only policymakers, but also the specialist groups that currently have a privileged position with regards to policy advice, that historians have an important, complementary contribution to make.
This is a blog about the interfaces and intersections between history, policy, education and public life (and any others I come across).
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text:
The Happytime Murders (2018) - Movie Review
on Friday, 24 August 2018 15:59
There's a fairly early scene in The Happytime Murders that sets the twisted tone for what's to follow. It takes place in a seedy area of Los Angeles in an even seedier sex shop where we witness – through a pulled back curtain into a darkened back room – an octopus violently stimulating a cow's udder as milk sprays all over the place.
The film is rated R, so we know what we're getting into, right? In actuality, we have no idea. That's not because of the graphic violence, harsh language, or even the explicit sexuality, but rather, due to the fact that the film really doesn't even know what it is getting itself into. One minute we're watching a man having passionate, aggressive sex with a woman as he begins violently shooting white silly string into the air, then, the next minute we're trying to gather ourselves and reconcile the film's gallant themes that take on bigotry, domestic violence, and racial inequality. Oh, did I mention that the cow, octopus, and the copulating couple are puppets? Yes, actual furry puppets.
It's just a shame that we grow tired of the gag before the filmmakers do.
The film's main conceit is that humans and puppets populate the same world. But they don't necessarily get along with each other. You see, the puppets are looked down upon and treated as second-class citizens enduring discrimination and violence as they try to make their way through the world.
That's the part of the story that writer Todd Berger hopes is strong enough to support his incessant barrage of puppet jokes and vulgar sight gags. Unfortunately it isn't. The jokes are indeed funny. I mean really funny, and you'll laugh. A lot. In fact, it's a done deal that we are all going to hell for the things we laugh at here. There's something deliciously unsettling about seeing someone punch a puppet in the face, or hearing a puppet rattle off a string of F-bombs while giving someone the middle finger. But the comedy quickly outstays its welcome and the shallow plot never offers enough to counter.
You won't actually see Grover doing drugs, Big Bird flipping the bird, or Miss Piggy and Kermit having sex (or any of the real Sesame Street Muppets for that matter), but if you view through squinted eyes, you will see the next closest thing as the puppets are constructed with the utmost care by Brian Henson (son of legendary Muppet creator Jim Henson) and his team of creative animators over at Henson Alternative.
Their story is set in Los Angeles and centers on the contentious relationship between a pair of estranged cops, Det. Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) a brash veteran of the force, and Phil Phillips (voiced by Bill Barretta), her one-time partner but since retired and now working as a Private Eye. Connie has a wicked habit for sweets while Phil keeps a flask of bourbon in his desk drawer and a floozy always at the ready.
When the cast members of a once-popular puppet sit-com called The Happytime Gang begin turning up dead, Phil and Connie are paired once again to help bring the perp to justice before the entire cast turns up burned, maimed, decapitated, or worse. What follows is just a loosely tied-together series of raunchy one-liners and vulgar skits including a re-creation of the famous Basic Instinct leg-crossing scene… from a purple-haired puppet. Hey, you were warned and it is rated R.
From a technical standpoint, The Happytime Murders is an aspiring puppeteer's wet dream. The felt characters are beautifully imagined and seamlessly integrated into the human world they inhabit. We totally buy in to the world of duality they are selling. But the film is billed as a noir, and while it does incorporate many of the genre's story elements, they just didn't get the look and feel right. It is simply too brightly lit and perfectly polished to totally fit the feel they were going for.
To its credit though, the film always stays committed to its premise and takes a worthy stab at social relevance with all the things it has to say about the state of race relations in our country today. The filmmakers – including Brian Henson who directs – know that a bunch of puppets doing vile vulgar things can only work for so long, so the backstory is a much-appreciated attempt to stretch 15-minute's-worth of material into feature-length runtime. But at nearly 90 minutes, the gag gets old long before the credits roll.
Speaking of credits, there's a series of mid-credit outtakes and bloopers that is nearly as much fun as anything that made the final cut. We see the puppeteers working on green screen, flubbing lines, and joking around on the set. Great to see that everyone had such a good time on set. It's just a shame that we grow tired of the gag before they do.
MPAA Rating: R for strong crude and sexual content and language throughout, and some drug material.
Director: Brian Henson
Writer: Todd Berger
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudolph
Genre: Comedy | Crime
Tagline: Sex. Murder. Puppets.
Memorable Movie Quote: "Hey handsome, looking for some rotten cotton?"
Theatrical Distributor: STX Entertainment
Official Site: www.thehappytimemurders.movie
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: October 11, 2016
Synopsis: No Sesame. All Street. THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS is a filthy comedy set in the underbelly of Los Angeles where puppets and humans coexist. Two clashing detectives with a shared secret, one human (Melissa McCarthy) and one puppet, are forced to work together again to solve the brutal murders of the former cast of a beloved classic puppet television show.
No details available.
See Full Trailer for Paul Rudd's Comedy OUR IDIOT BROTHER
UPDATED: The Muppets are Back with New Trailer and Poster
Man on a Ledge - Blu-ray Review
The Muppets - Blu-ray Movie Review
Our Idiot Brother - Blu-ray Movie Review
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The bots of this type use Machine Learning Algorithms and Natural Language Processes, so they can understand not only specific commands, but a human language, because they learn more from the communication with users.... You will learn by building 2 bots for Facebook Messenger: a parrot bot and a bot for your favorite football team. We teach you how to Build a Bot in 2 Ways: Coding : In the Coding Section, you will be making a Parrot Bot in Node.js using our sample code.
This can be your own personal account, or you can create a new Twitter account altogether. Keep in mind, if you create a new Twitter account solely for the bot, your personal information will still need to be verified – like phone number and email address.
2. Botsify. Botsify is another popular Facebook Messenger chatbot platform using drag and drop template to create bots. Features people want to create chatbots like Easy integrations via plugins, Smart AI, Machine learning and analytics integration are available.


Are they experienced? Experience is important in this field, especially when it comes to anything like implants. You want to work with a doctor who has not only done hundreds of these procedures in the past, but can also properly advise you on what to expect, how to best maintain and care for them and more.
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What else can they do? If you love their work, wouldn't you want to use them for other services? That's why you always want to look at the additional options that are available like gum treatment, whitening, root canals, full mouth rehabilitations and more.
Dental implant restoration is an investment in yourself, your health and your smile. For whatever reason you needed implants, you spent a lot of time and money getting them put in. Over the years, like anyone's teeth, they've received their fair share of wear and tear. Now it's time to work with the best dental implant dentist in Miami to address this wear and tear and restore your implants to their previous glory. Remember, it doesn't matter how old you are, you have the right to healthy and beautiful smile and our goal is to help you accomplish that.
Confidence in your smile is important. It gives a person confidence and a psychological push to take on the day. That's why, along with being the best dental implant dentist, we also specialize in facial rejuvenation, full mouth rehabilitation and other services that help our patients accomplish the smile they want as quickly as possible. We've seen time and time again the demeanor of a patient change from when they walk into our office compared to when they leave. The reason? Because when they leave, they feel and look younger, healthier and more confident and that's something we are very proud of.
Dr. Dison dental implant restoration services are reliable, safe and get the results you want. Along with other dental services offered, patients of all ages can count on our team for exceptional care. Browse our site to learn more about these services and call us to schedule an appointment for your next cleaning or checkup today so that we can show you exactly how you can get the smile of your dreams.
As the best dental implant dentist in Miami, Dr. Dison and her team focus on educating their patients about the best treatment techniques, not only in the office, but things that you can be doing at home. We want our patients using the best products and methods to maintain their oral health and that's why we will sit down for a consultation to show you what you can do. In the case of implants, it's important that you maintain them as anyone would their regular teeth. That means making sure that you brush twice a day and floss.
Mouthwash is also important, and you do not want to make the mistake of neglecting your mouth because you think that the implants are stronger than regular teeth. That's actually not the case and they are subject to the same problems, wear and tear and ability to carry plaque. In fact, you need to try and brush after every mean. Neglect in care can also lead to gum disease, something you should try to avoid. When we are asked for dental implant restoration assistance, the first thing we do is look at what is causing these issues and how they can be remedied. We are more than happy to take care of these issues and provide full mouth restoration assistance. However, the more we can help you to better maintain and care for your mouth, the happier we are.
If you need to work with a dentist who specializes in dental implants, a great place to start is with picking up the phone and calling us to schedule an appointment. We will not only provide you with the best care and the latest treatment options, but we will make sure that you are also getting the best advisement on how to improve your oral care at home.
Dr. Julia Dison prides herself in being the best dental implant dentist in Miami with a proven track record that stretches back for years. However, it is her commitment to her patients that truly separates her from the rest. If you would like to schedule an appointment feel free to give us a call today.


text:
Intel parts company with OLPC
Posted on January 4, 2008 by jjn1
Now there's a surprise! John Markoff of the NYT reports that:
Intel said Thursday that it had chosen to withdraw from the One Laptop Per Child educational computer organization, which it joined in July after years of public squabbling between Intel's chairman, Craig R. Barrett, and the group's founder, Nicholas P. Negroponte.
The low-cost laptop, originally priced at $100, has captured the public imagination but also created intense controversy because it was viewed as a potential competitor for both Intel and Microsoft in the developing world.
The machine, which is based on the freely available Linux operating system and comes with educational software, is now built with a microprocessor made by Intel's archrival, Advanced Micro Devices. The PC, called the XO, is being sold for about $200 apiece to governments and institutions.
On Thursday an Intel spokesman said the company shared with O.L.P.C. the vision of putting computers into the hands of children, but the two were not able to work out what he described as "philosophical" differences.
Intel did not attend a recent board meeting of the group in Florida, according to a person familiar with the events, who asked not to be named because he had not been given authority to describe the events. That set off a bitter private dispute, which led to the Thursday announcement.
"We've reached a philosophical impasse," said Chuck Mulloy, the Intel spokesman. "Negroponte had asked us to exclusively support O.L.P.C.-based platforms."
This entry was posted in Digital Divide, OLPC by jjn1. Bookmark the permalink.


text:
Online and Blended Learning (distance)
Those on a cognate programme of study of duration over 6 months leading to an award at the University of Manchester are eligible for full access to the Careers Service.
Advice for MBA students and graduates is provided by The Postgraduate Careers Service at The Alliance Manchester Business School, Email postgraduate.careers.service@manchester.ac.uk or ring 0161 275 6472 or make an appointment on the Postgraduate Careers Platform: https://mbs-csm.symplicity.com/students/
Online and blended learning (distance) students Information on how to access services.
If you have taken leave of absence from your degree you will get one year of access to services, and then normal access once you resume your course.
University of Manchester Graduates
Access to services for two years from your course completion date.
Left a University of Manchester degree without completing?
You have access to our services for one calendar year from the date you left your course.
University of Manchester staff
Any member of staff who is currently a student at, or who has completed an Undergraduate or Postgraduate degree within the last 2 years from The University of Manchester is entitled to use the University of Manchester Careers Service.
Additionally or if you are not eligible to access graduate support at the Careers Service you may be able to get a career mentor or a coach via Staff Learning & Development, who also provide a number of workshops on the training calendar around careers topics.
If you need access to event and vacancy information for the purpose of advising students go to www.manchester.ac.uk/careerslink and login as Manchester staff.
If you do not have a staff account contact careerslink@manchester.ac.uk stating: Your job role, University username and reason for needing access.
For some staff working at The University is a stepping stone, while for others academia is the goal. We provide a range of resources on suitable for staff and students who may be looking to progress or make a career move.
Higher education career options
Exploring careers outside academia
Postgraduate researchers
Pathways an annual careers event in Manchester for PhDs and research staff.
PGR life support & training website for the PGR community.
New and prospective students
You have access to most of the information on our website and you may find it useful to start exploring some of the services and options available to you before you arrive.
Alternative sources of guidance
Contact the National Careers Service


text:
The Holroyd Arms has a lot to offer and at it's heart it's a traditional English pub. With a large selection of beers, lagers and ciders, it also offers a wide range of wines and spirits.
Pub favourites such as pool and darts are played here and sports are shown on screens in the bar.
With an attractive pub garden there's something for everyone.
More Than Just a Pub
Guildford's premier live music venue
Smokey Joe's
Burgers, Dogs & More Delivered in Guildford
Pieminister
The Pie Delivery Service For Guildford and the Surrounding Areas
The Real Drinks Factory
Drinks Delivery Service For guildford
Drink Responsibly - We Operate a Challenge 25 Policy
"You could say that the Holroyd Arms is a traditional pub in the beating heart of the community, but it is much more than that. It also offers live music from touring acts as well as giving a stage to budding local artists. Add to that a food and drinks delivery service plus a bed and breakfast facility and you have a genuine community asset."
& Suburbs
12pm – 11.30pm Monday to Friday
12pm – 1am Friday and Saturday
12pm – 10.30pm Sunday
10pm – 2pm & 5pm – 11pm Monday to Friday
10am – 11pm Saturday
10am to 10pm Sunday


text:
Azahari is both a given name and surname. Notable people with the name include:

 A. M. Azahari (1929–2002), leader of Brunei People's Party during the 1962 Brunei Revolt
 Azahari Husin (1957–2005), Malaysian engineer believed to be technical mastermind behind 2002 Bali bombing and other terrorist activities

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


"Jack Reacher" book series author Lee Child is teaming with Fremantle-backed producer Dancing Ledge Productions ("Delhi Crime," "The New Pope") to develop a true crime anthology drama series which has been described as "Black Mirror-meets-Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".
Titled "Lee Child: True Crime," the series dramatizes the stories of real-life men and women from around the world who have been driven to stand up and put their lives on the line, fighting for justice in the face of great danger. Researchers have already found stories from the U.S., Canada, El Salvador and Thailand.
A showrunner is now being sought to guide the anthology series before taking it out to broadcasters in the U.S. and around the world.


text:
\section{Introduction}
All strong and electromagnetic decays of the $\eta$ meson are either
suppressed or forbidden to first order. The $\eta$ meson is, in addition,
a $C$ and $P$ eigenstate of strong and electromagnetic interaction. This makes it
well suited for the study of rare processes and the search for forbidden ones.
The subject of this letter is the process
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ via the single-photon intermediate
state $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma^*$ that would violate $C$ parity conservation.
The background for this process would be a two-photon process with an expected
branching ratio not larger than $10^{-8}$ according to theoretical calculations
\cite{Cheng1967,Smith1968,Ng1993}. The present experimental upper limit for the
branching ratio of the decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ is
from the seventies of the last century and amounts only to $4.5\times10^{-5}$ (CL = $90\,\%$) \cite{Jane1975}.
A more stringent upper limit for
the decay channel $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ has been determined
in the analysis presented in this paper.
The data have been collected using the WASA-at-COSY facility and also constituted the basis
for studies of other $\eta$ meson decay channels already published in Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2016}.

\section{Experiment}
The WASA-at-COSY experiment was an internal experiment operated at the
accelerator COSY of the For\-schungs\-zentrum J\"ulich, Germany from 2006 to 2014 \cite{Hoistad2004}.
For the measurements discussed here, a proton beam was accelerated to a
kinetic beam energy of $T_\text{p} = 1\,\mathrm{GeV}$ and collided with
deuterium pellets provided by the internal pellet target.
The $\eta$ mesons were produced in the reaction
$\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$.
\par
The WASA detector setup consists of two main parts: the central detector, which
was used for the reconstruction of the produced mesons and their decay
particles, and the forward detector used for the measurement of the
four momenta of the forward scattered $^3\text{He}$ nuclei.
A more detailed description of the WASA-at-COSY experimental setup can be found in
Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2016,Hoistad2004,Bargholtz2008}.
\par
The data for the studies presented here were obtained in two measurement periods, one
of four weeks in 2008 and one of eight weeks in 2009. For data acquisition
the trigger used required a large energy loss in subsequent scintillator
elements of the forward detector.
Since the $^3\text{He}$ nucleus stemming from the reaction
$\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$ is stopped in the first layer
of the WASA forward range hodoscope, a veto on the signals from the second layer
was used in addition. Due to the trigger relying on information from the forward detector
only, the utilized trigger was unbiased with respect to a decay
mode of the $\eta$ meson.
In total about $3\times10^7$ events containing an $\eta$ meson were recorded
with $1\times10^7$ events originating from the 2008 period and $2\times10^7$ events from the
2009 period \cite{Adlarson2016}.

\section{Data analysis}
The analysis of the decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$
was based on a common analysis chain for $\eta$ decay studies described in
Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2016}. Since only very few events were expected to remain in
the analysis after the event selection, an optimal choice of the selection
conditions is important for the best possible result. These conditions
were determined with the aid of an optimization algorithm based on Monte
Carlo simulations.

\paragraph{Preselection}
Before the selection conditions for the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ were determined, the data collected
in 2008 and 2009 were preselected with conditions common to all recorded
reactions. For instance, conditions on time correlations of the
measured particles were used, as presented in Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2016}.
Furthermore, to reject hits from particles that were wrongly identified as
secondary particles (so-called split-offs) and
electron-positron pairs from conversion of photons at the COSY beam pipe,
two-dimensional cuts were utilized. More details of these
conditions were published in Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2016}.
\par
Besides these general preselection conditions, a cut on the signature of the
decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ was applied requesting at
least one positively and one negatively charged particle detected in the central
detector, as well as at least two neutral particles originating from the
$\pi^0$ meson decay $\pi^0\rightarrow\gamma+\gamma$. The last condition
applied for data preselection requires the maximum considered momenta of the
charged decay particles to be below
$p = 250\,\mathrm{MeV}/c$, since the momenta of the leptons
of the decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ are expected to be
below this value.

\paragraph{Monte Carlo simulations}
In order to determine optimal selection conditions for the search for the decay
channel $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$, $1.8\times10^8$
Monte-Carlo events of all non-signal $\eta$ decays observed yet were created
with respect to their relative branching ratio \cite{Patrignani2016}, as well as
two million events for the signal decay. These simulations were generated with the
\textsc{pluto++} software package \cite{Frohlich2007} considering the angular
distribution of $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$ at
$T_\text{p} = 1\,\mathrm{GeV}$ according to Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2014}. For the
various $\eta$ decay channels physics models as included in \textsc{pluto++}
were used. The reader is refered to Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2016} for further details.
\par
In addition to the simulations of $\eta$ decays, about $4.3\times10^9$ events
for the direct pion production were created, with most events for the
production reactions $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\pi^0+\pi^0$
and $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\pi^++\pi^-$,
as these contribute most to the non-$\eta$ background at the given kinetic
beam energy. For these two-pion productions the ABC effect was incorporated
into the simulations according to the model discussed in Ref.~\cite{Adlarson2015}.
\par
The simulations for the signal decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$
were generated with two different model assumptions. The first one is a
decay according to pure three-particle phase space. The second is based on the
vector meson dominance (VMD) model for the intermediate virtual photon. The
direct decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma$ violates both $C$ parity and angular
momentum conservation plus global gauge invariance.
Thus, there is no $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma$ on-shell
contribution for the decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$
and the transition form factor for the off-shell contribution
vanishes at zero virtuality, such that the single-photon pole is
completely removed \cite{Bernstein1965,Barrett1966,Bazin1968}.
In Fig.~\ref{fig:etapi0eeIMee} the invariant mass of the $\text{e}^+\text{e}^-$
pair produced in the decay is plotted according to three-particle
phase space (shadowed in orange) and the decay via $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma^*$
according to the discussed model. A more detailed
calculation of the model can be found in Ref.~\cite{Bergmann2017}.
\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{etapi0eeIMee_model.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Invariant mass of $\text{e}^+\text{e}^-$ pairs for the simulated
	decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$.
	Black lined: decay via $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma^*$ considering VMD.
	Shadowed in orange: decay according to three-particle phase space.}
	\label{fig:etapi0eeIMee}
\end{figure}
\par
To simulate the WASA detector responses, the WASA Monte Carlo package \textsc{wmc}
was used, which is based on \textsc{geant3} \cite{Geant1994}. The settings for
the spatial, timing and energy resolution in \textsc{wmc} were set to agree
with the resolution observed in data.
\par
Due to the high luminosities of the WASA-at-COSY experiment, it is possible that
detector responses from one event can overlap with another event. This effect
was considered in the simulations and the amount of event overlap was left as a
free parameter for the fit of the simulations to data (see next paragraph).
\par
All Monte Carlo simulations were preselected with conditions identical to those
for data preselection.

\paragraph{Data description}
The choice of the selection conditions with regard to the decay channel
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ is based on Monte Carlo simulations.
It is necessary to know the contributions of the various reactions to the
collected data for an optimal choice. Therefore, the
2008 and 2009 data sets were fitted separately in distributions of selected
quantities by template distributions of the aforementioned Monte Carlo simulations
to determine the contributions of the individual reactions to the data.
In detail, these distributions are:
\begin{itemize}
	\item the missing mass $m_\text{X}$, corresponding to the invariant mass
	of the proton beam and the deuteron target remaining after the $^3\text{He}$
	four momentum has been subtracted and peaks at the $\eta$ mass for the
	reaction $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$,
	\item the invariant mass $m_{\text{e}\text{e}\gamma\gamma}$ of an
	electron-positron pair candidate and two photons, which peaks at the $\eta$
	mass for the decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ with
	$\pi^0\rightarrow\gamma+\gamma$,
	\item the invariant mass $m_{\gamma\gamma}$ of two photons, which peaks at
	the $\pi^0$ mass for reactions with $\pi^0$ mesons produced,
	\item the invariant mass $m_{\text{e}\text{e}}$ of an electron-positron pair
	candidate,
	\item the smallest invariant mass $m_{\text{e}\gamma}$ of all four possible
	combinations of an electron or positron candidate and a photon and
	\item the missing mass squared $m_\text{Xee}^2$, which is the invariant mass
	squared of the proton beam and the deuteron target remaining after the
	$^3\text{He}$ four momentum and the electron-positron pair candidate momentum
	have been subtracted and peaks at the $\pi^0$ mass squared for the reaction of
	interest.
\end{itemize}
\par
Under the assumption of a branching ratio of the decay below
the current upper limit of $4.5\times10^{-5}$ (CL = $90\,\%$) \cite{Jane1975},
there are less than 150 events expected from the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ in the combined data sets after
preselection, considering the preselection efficiency for the signal decay.
A fit by Monte Carlo simulations including the simulated decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ is consistent with zero events from
this signal decay channel. Therefore, the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ was excluded from the fit.
While the differential
distribution for the reaction $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$
is well known \cite{Adlarson2014}, the differential distributions are known only with high
uncertainties or not at all for direct multi-pion productions. Hence, the data
were divided into ten bins in angular ranges of $\cos{\vartheta_{^3\text{He}}^\text{cms}}$\footnote{
$\vartheta_{^3\text{He}}^\text{cms}$ is the polar scattering angle of the
$^3\text{He}$ nucleus relative to the beam axis in the center of mass system.}.
Monte Carlo simulations were fitted to data in the eight angular bins ranging
from $-1$ to $0.6$. The angular range
$0.6 < \cos{\vartheta_{^3\text{He}}^\text{cms}} \leq 1$ was excluded because of
the lower energy resolution of the forward detector for these forward scattered
$^3\text{He}$ nuclei. Moreover, the relative amount of background from the
direct pion production is larger in this angular range, whereas less than
$3\,\%$ of all $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$ events have a
$\cos{\vartheta_{^3\text{He}}^\text{cms}} > 0.6$.

\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{DataFit_mX_Bin3.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Missing mass
	$m_\text{X} = \left|\mathbb{P}_\text{p}+\mathbb{P}_\text{d}-\mathbb{P}_{^3\text{He}}\right|$
	after preselection for a data sample of the 2008 period fitted by Monte Carlo
	simulations. Only the most common contributions of the various reactions to
	the fit are plotted separately.}
	\label{fig:DataFit_mX}
\end{figure}
\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{DataFit_meegg_Bin3.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Invariant mass of $\text{e}^+\text{e}^-\gamma\gamma$
	after preselection for a data sample of the 2008 period fitted by
	Monte Carlo simulations. For the legend see Fig.~\ref{fig:DataFit_mX}.}
	\label{fig:DataFit_meegg}
\end{figure}
\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{DataFit_mgg_Bin3.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Invariant mass of $\gamma\gamma$
	after preselection for a data sample of the 2008 period fitted by
	Monte Carlo simulations. For the legend see Fig.~\ref{fig:DataFit_mX}.}
	\label{fig:DataFit_mgg}
\end{figure}
\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{DataFit_mee_Bin3.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Invariant mass of $\text{e}^+\text{e}^-$
	after preselection for a data sample of the 2008 period fitted by
	Monte Carlo simulations. For the legend see Fig.~\ref{fig:DataFit_mX}.}
	\label{fig:DataFit_mee}
\end{figure}
\par
The fit of the Monte Carlo simulations to the data was performed simultaneously
for all angular ranges and distributions with identical scaling parameters for the
simulations for all distributions within one angular range. Furthermore, the ratios for the various $\eta$
decays were constrained to the branching ratios according to
Ref.~\cite{Patrignani2016} within the given uncertainties. These were set to be
identical for all angular ranges. Similarly, the amount of event overlap was
included as one global fit parameter. In Fig.~\ref{fig:DataFit_mX},
Fig.~\ref{fig:DataFit_meegg}, Fig.~\ref{fig:DataFit_mgg} and
Fig.~\ref{fig:DataFit_mee} the resulting Monte Carlo fits to the 2008 data
are plotted for $m_\text{X}$, $m_{\text{e}\text{e}\gamma\gamma}$,
$m_{\gamma\gamma}$ and $m_{\text{e}\text{e}}$ for the angular range
$0.2 < \cos{\vartheta_{^3\text{He}}^\text{cms}} \leq 0.4$. According to this fit
most events remaining after preselection originate from the $\eta$ decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0$, the direct
$\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0$ production
and the direct two-pion production reactions. A collection of all fits is
available in Ref.~\cite{Bergmann2017}.

\paragraph{Selection conditions}
The selection conditions for the search for the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ were based on the following quantities:
\begin{itemize}
	\item the missing mass $m_\text{X}$ to identify the production
	reaction $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$,
	\item the invariant mass $m_{\text{e}\text{e}\gamma\gamma}$ of an
	electron-positron pair candidate and two photons to select the decay
	$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-\rightarrow\gamma+\gamma+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$,
	\item the invariant mass $m_{\gamma\gamma}$ of two photons to ascertain the
	decay $\pi^0\rightarrow\gamma+\gamma$,
	\item the invariant mass $m_{\text{e}\text{e}}$ of an electron-positron pair
	candidate,
	\item the $\chi^2$ probability of a kinematic fit with the hypothesis
	$\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\gamma+\gamma+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$
	and
	\item the energy loss $E_\text{dep}^\text{SEC}$ of the charged particles in
	the central detector scintillator electromagnetic calorimeter (SEC) and their momentum $p$ to discriminate
	$\text{e}^\pm$ and $\pi^\pm$ (particle identification, PID).
\end{itemize}
\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{PIDall.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Energy loss of charged particles in the SEC plotted against their
	momentum times charge for the preselected data sets. A graphical cut
	around the electron and positron band is indicated by black lines.}
	\label{fig:PID2009}
\end{figure}
\par
The choice of the cut conditions was performed with $40\,\%$ of the generated
Monte Carlo simulations, where\-as the remaining Monte Carlo data sample was used
later for the selection efficiency determination. While the graphical cut for the particle identification
was chosen beforehand (see Fig.~\ref{fig:PID2009}), as it is a common cut utilized
for PID independent from the analyzed reaction, the selection conditions for
the other five quantities were determined by an optimization algorithm.
This algorithm is based on the relative amount of simulated signal events
$S_\text{R} = N_\text{S}^\text{cut} / N_\text{S}^\text{pres}$ remaining after
all cuts ($N_\text{S}^\text{cut}$) compared to the number after preselection
($N_\text{S}^\text{pres}$) and the relative amount of all simulated background
events $B_\text{R} = N_\text{B}^\text{cut} / N_\text{B}^\text{pres}$ remaining
after all cuts ($N_\text{B}^\text{cut}$) in relation to the number after
preselection ($N_\text{B}^\text{pres}$). In case of the background reactions the
contributions as obtained in the data description were used to downscale the Monte
Carlo simulations and to extract the numbers.
\par
The cut optimization algorithm maximizes the evaluation function
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:evaluationfunction}
	G = S_\text{R} \cdot \frac{S_\text{R}}{B_\text{R}}
\end{equation}
by varying the selection conditions for all chosen quantities.
\par
With the aid of the cut optimization algorithm the following selection
conditions were determined:
\begin{align}
\label{eq:selection}
	0.5414\,\text{GeV}/c^2 &\leq &&m_\text{X} &&\leq 0.5561\,\text{GeV}/c^2\,, \\
	0.507\,\text{GeV}/c^2 &\leq &&m_{\text{ee}\gamma\gamma} &&\leq 0.646\,\text{GeV}/c^2\,, \\
	0.0923\,\text{GeV}/c^2 &\leq &&m_{\gamma\gamma} &&\leq 0.1574\,\text{GeV}/c^2\,, \\
	& &&m_\text{ee} &&\geq 0.096\,\text{GeV}/c^2\,\text{ and} \\
	& &&\chi^2 \text{prob.} &&\geq 0.05\,.
\end{align}

\section{Results}
After applying the selection conditions to the data, three
events were left, whereas two events were expected to remain from the direct two-pion
production $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\pi^0+\pi^0$ according to
Monte Carlo simulations. All other background reaction channels were found to give
no sizeable contribution after applying the cuts.
The invariant mass, $m_{\text{ee}\gamma\gamma}$, for these events are plotted in
Fig.~\ref{fig:Resultmeegg} together with simulated data.
Note that the generated
Monte Carlo events were scaled according to the fit to data after
preselection and that the sum of all Monte Carlo events remaining after all cuts
is equal to two events.
\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{Result_meegg.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Invariant mass of $\text{e}^+\text{e}^-\gamma\gamma$ after all
	cuts for the 2008 and 2009 data sets (black) and for the simulations scaled to
	data according to the fit to data after preselection (red). The blue dashed
	lines indicate the chosen selection conditions.}
	\label{fig:Resultmeegg}
\end{figure}
\par
The overall reconstruction efficiency for the signal decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ was determined to be
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:effvitual}
	\varepsilon_\text{S}^\text{virtual} = 0.02331(7)
\end{equation}
for a decay via $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma^*$ assuming VMD,
whereas the assumption of a decay according to pure three-particle phase space
results in
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:effphase}
	\varepsilon_\text{S}^\text{phase} = 0.01844(7).
\end{equation}
The given uncertainties are purely statistical ones.
\par
In order to calculate the upper limit for the branching ratio
$\Gamma(\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-) / \Gamma(\eta\rightarrow\text{all})$,
the decay channel $\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0$ with $\pi^0\rightarrow\gamma+\gamma$
was utilized for normalization. This is a reasonable choice as this decay
channel has the same signature as the signal decay and, thus, possible systematic
effects introduced by differences of the signature are avoided.
According to the data description by Monte Carlo
simulations there were
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:netaprodced}
	N_{\eta\rightarrow\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0_{\gamma\gamma}}^\text{produced} = (6.509 \pm 0.018) \times 10^6
\end{equation}
events in data, considering already the efficiency correction
determined by Monte Carlo studies. In order to determine a final upper limit for
the branching ratio of $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$,
all uncertainties have to be considered and incorporated into the calculations.

\paragraph{Systematics}
The systematic and statistical uncertainties, which need to be considered for
the upper limit determination, can be separated into uncertainties by
multiplicative effects and uncertainties by offset effects. The former include
an uncertainty of the reconstruction efficiency of the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ and an uncertainty in the number of
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\left(\pi^0\rightarrow\gamma+\gamma\right)$ events
in data. The latter ones are uncertainties of the number of background events
remaining after all cuts.
\par
To determine the systematic uncertainty for the signal reconstruction efficiency,
the resolution settings for the Monte Carlo simulations were varied within the
uncertainties of the individual detector resolutions observed in data.
The extracted square root of the relative variance of the reconstruction
efficiency was found to be
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:varvirtual}
	\sqrt{\text{Var}_\text{rel}^\text{virtual}} = 0.059
\end{equation}
for a decay via $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma^*$ assuming VMD whereas
for a decay according to pure three-particle phase space one finds
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:varphase}
	\sqrt{\text{Var}_\text{rel}^\text{phase}} = 0.057.
\end{equation}
In the following analysis the square root of the variance was considered as
the systematic uncertainty.
\par
The uncertainty for the efficiency corrected number of
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\left(\pi^0\rightarrow\gamma+\gamma\right)$ events
in data was obtained by a comparison to the efficiency corrected number
determined utilizing less strict preselection conditions, namely no cuts to
reject conversion or split-off events, no cut on the momentum of charged decay
particles and less strict cuts on the particles' energies. Hereby a systematic
uncertainty of $2.3\,\%$ was determined.
\par
The uncertainties for the number of background events remaining after all cuts
can be separated into a statistical uncertainty due to the finite number of
Monte Carlo simulations and systematic uncertainties introduced by uncertainties
of the fit of Monte Carlo simulations to data. The latter are dominated by
differences between the Monte Carlo fit parameters for the 2008 and 2009 data
sets, leading to asymmetric uncertainties. Such different fit parameters
for both data sets originated mainly from different experimental settings, which
affected, e.g., the event overlap due to different luminosities. To determine
the overall systematic uncertainty for the number of remaining background
events, the probability density functions (pdf) of the individual uncertainties
were folded. The resulting pdf for the nuisance parameters $\lambda_{2008}$ and
$\lambda_{2009}$ corresponds to the overall relative systematic uncertainty for
the 2008 and 2009 data sets and was incorporated into the upper limit
calculations. In Fig.~\ref{fig:Nuisance} the distribution of the nuisance
parameter is illustrated for the 2008 data set.
\par
\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\resizebox{0.45\textwidth}{!}{
  \includegraphics{Nuisance2008.pdf}
	}
	\caption{Nuisance parameter $\lambda_{2008}$ for the systematic uncertainty
	of the number of background events remaining after all cuts in the 2008 data
	set.}
	\label{fig:Nuisance}
\end{figure}
\par
In order to investigate further possible systematic effects, the selection
conditions used for the analysis were varied and the expectations according to
simulations were compared to the number of events seen in data. Since the
expected number of events agreed with the number of events seen in data within
the statistical uncertainties, no additional systematic effect needs to be
considered.
\par
A detailed description of the uncertainty investigations is available in
Ref.~\cite{Bergmann2017}.

\paragraph{Upper limit}
The upper limit for the relative branching ratio of the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ was calculated with the formula:
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:brformula}
	\frac{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-\right)}
	{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0\right)}
	< \frac{N_\text{S,up}}{N_{\eta\rightarrow\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0}^\text{produced} \cdot \varepsilon_\text{S}}
\end{equation}
with the upper limit $N_\text{S,up}$ for the number of signal events, which
depends on the number of observed events and the number of expected
background events. For the calculation of $N_\text{S,up}$ a Bayesian approach
was chosen as given in Ref.~\cite{Zhu2007} with a flat prior pdf and incorporating
the determined uncertainties and the pdfs for the nuisance parameters.
\par
As a result the relative branching ratio of the decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$
via $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma^*$ and assuming VMD was found to be
\begin{align}
\label{eq:brrelvirtual}
	\frac{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-\right)_\text{virtual}}
	{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0\right)}
	&< 3.28\times10^{-5} \nonumber \\
	&\qquad (\text{CL} = 90\,\%)
\end{align}
whereas the assumption of a pure three-particle phase space distribution of the
ejectiles results in
\begin{align}
\label{eq:brrelphase}
	\frac{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-\right)_\text{phase}}
	{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0\right)}
	&< 4.14\times10^{-5} \nonumber \\
	&\qquad (\text{CL} = 90\,\%).
\end{align}
Considering the branching ratio of the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0$ of
$\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^++\pi^-+\pi^0\right) /
\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\text{all}\right) = 0.2292(28)$ \cite{Patrignani2016},
the new upper limit for the branching ratio of the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$
via $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\gamma^*$ results in
\begin{align}
\label{eq:brvirtual}
	\frac{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-\right)_\text{virtual}}
	{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\text{all}\right)}
	&< 7.5\times10^{-6} \nonumber \\
	&\qquad (\text{CL} = 90\,\%).
\end{align}
For comparison the assumption of a pure three-particle phase space distribution
of the ejectiles would lead to
\begin{align}
\label{eq:brphase}
	\frac{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-\right)_\text{phase}}
	{\Gamma\left(\eta\rightarrow\text{all}\right)}
	&< 9.5\times10^{-6} \nonumber \\
	&\qquad (\text{CL} = 90\,\%).
\end{align}
\par
These values are smaller than the previous upper limit of
$4.5\times10^{-5}$ (CL = $90\,\%$) \cite{Jane1975} by a factor of six and
five, respectively.

\section{Summary}
We have presented new studies with the WASA-at-COSY experiment on the $C$ parity violating
$\eta$ meson decay $\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$.
The obtained upper limit for the branching ratio of the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ is smaller than
the previously available upper limit by a factor of five to six \cite{Jane1975}.
The results of the analysis are consistent with no events seen in data, and thus
give no hint on a $C$ violation in an electromagnetic
process. Similarly, no processes from physics beyond the Standard Model are
required to explain the results.
\par
In order to further decrease this value and to continue the search for a $C$ parity
violation in an electromagnetic process, additional data were collected
with WASA-at-COSY utilizing the production reaction
$\text{p}+\text{p}\rightarrow\text{p}+\text{p}+\eta$. Over three periods in
2008, 2010 and 2012 in total about $5\times10^8$ such events were recorded and
are currently being analyzed with regard to the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$.
\par
Besides a decay via one virtual photon, the decay
$\eta\rightarrow\pi^0+\text{e}^++\text{e}^-$ could possibly occur via
a hypothetical $C$ violating dark boson U with $m_\text{U} < 413\,\text{MeV}/c^2$  where the pertinent form factor is even further suppressed (i.e. the second term in its Taylor expansion vanishes) compared with the single-photon mechanism \cite{Kupsc2011}.
Investigations with regard to this decay process are currently ongoing for the
presented $\text{p}+\text{d}\rightarrow{^3\text{He}}+\eta$ data sets and the
$\text{p}+\text{p}\rightarrow\text{p}+\text{p}+\eta$ data sets recorded with
WASA-at-COSY.

\section*{Acknowledgements}
This work was supported in part by the EU Integrated Infrastructure Initiative
HadronPhysics Project under contract number RII3-CT-2004-506078; by the European
Commission under the 7th Framework Programme through the Research Infrastructures
action of the Capacities Programme, Call: FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2008-1, Grant
Agreement N.~227431; by the Polish National Science Centre through the grants
2016/23/B/ST2/00784, and the Foundation for Polish Science (MPD),
co-financed by the European Union within the European Regional Development Fund.
We gratefully acknowledge the support given by the Swedish Research Council,
the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the For\-schungs\-zen\-trum J\"u\-lich FFE
Funding Program. This work is based on the PhD thesis of Florian Sebastian
Bergmann.

Finally we thank all former WASA-at-COSY collaboration members for their
contribution to the success of the measurements, as well as the crew of the
COSY accelerator for their support during both measurement periods.

\section*{References}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


I'm happy today to introduce a new Create Digital Music, a new Create Digital Motion, and a new community called Noisepages.
The design this week represents a collaboration between Richard Bailey (aka musician proem), who designed and coded the site, graphic designer Nathanael Jeanneret, who conceived and designed the new layout and identity and graphics assets, and myself. We've built what I'm already finding a better platform for CDM's stories, one I look forward to seeing every morning. Aside from how it looks, it'll be a vastly more flexible and powerful platform for everything we do.
Groups: Gather with other interested folks and chat on forums, share events, and soon other information.
Blogs: WordPress-based sites where you can chronicle your latest music, VJ reels, Ableton sets, Pd patches, circuit bends – whatever it is.
Social features: Make intelligent connections with other people and stories, and consolidate information from other networks.
Because there are so many excellent specialized forums out there, we hope to make Noisepages a place where we can come together and share. The site will be free and ad-supported; we're also working on pricing for features like additional storage and keeping ads off your site if you don't want them.
Blog data is yours to freely import and export via WordPress, and we want to contribute back to the community the code we develop and the things we learn. That means being relevant to those of you already using your own self-hosted WordPress sites.
For their work on both these sites, special thanks to Jaymis Loveday, who helped conceive Noisepages, to Jaymis, Cal Wilson, and Matt Ganucheau for their development work, and to Wallace Winfrey for helping guide our server infrastructure.
Rollout and adjustment of both CDM and Noisepages will continue over the next few days, and there's plenty more to say, including what we're learning about HTML5 and BuddyPress and how Noisepages works. But for now, I'm excited to have the new site out in the world.
I look forward to what's next.


text:
import rospy
from lg_common import ManagedBrowser
from lg_msg_defs.msg import ApplicationState
from std_msgs.msg import String

if __name__ == '__main__':
    rospy.init_node('browser')

    browser = ManagedBrowser(
        url='https://www.google.com',
        force_device_scale_factor=2,
        user_agent='Mozilla/5.0(iPad; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; ' +
                   'en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) ' +
                   'Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B314 Safari/531.21.10',
        remote_debugging_port=10000,
    )

    # Start the process and converge its window.
    browser.set_state(ApplicationState.VISIBLE)

    # Provide a state topic for debugging.
    rospy.Subscriber('/example_browser/state', ApplicationState,
                     browser.handle_state_msg)

    # Provide a debug socket topic for debugging.
    # i.e. {"id":1,"method":"Page.reload","params":{"ignoreCache":"True"}}
    def handle_debug_sock_msg(msg):
        browser.send_debug_sock_msg(msg.data)
    rospy.Subscriber('/example_browser/debug', String, handle_debug_sock_msg)

    rospy.spin()

# vim: tabstop=8 expandtab shiftwidth=4 softtabstop=4

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Дроморский собор () — один из двух англиканских соборов Церкви Ирландии в диоцезе Дауна и Дромора (второй — собор Святой Троицы в Даунпатрике). Расположен в городе Дромор в Северной Ирландии.

История
Около 510 года святой Колман возвёл первую церковь на этом месте — плетеную глинобитную постройку. Её заменила средневековая церковь, которую разрушили в конце XVI века. Церковь была снова перестроена и в 1609 году Патентной грамотой Якова I получила статус кафедрального собора — собора Христа Искупителя. В 1641 году и это здание было разрушено.

Нынешнее здание было построено при епископе Джереми Тейлоре в 1661 году; это была узкая церковь длиной 30 метров. В 1811 году епископ Томас Перси добавил к нефу короткий придел под прямым углом, таким образом сформировав L-образный план этажа. В 1870 году были пристроены полукруглое святилище и придел для органа. Наконец, в 1899 году был добавлен дополнительный боковой неф, параллельный главному, который завершил традиционный прямоугольный план этажа.

В соборе погребены епископы Дромора Джереми Тейлор (1613—1667) и Томас Перси (1729—1811), которые много сделали для епархии и собора.

Примечания

Ссылки

 Официальный сайт

Даун (графство)
Д
Храмы, построенные в 1661 году


The Total Rewards Manager is responsible for designing, analyzing, communicating, and managing Cars.com's compensation and health & welfare plans. Additionally, this leadership role is responsible for ensuring compliance with various federal and state regulations regarding all compensation and benefit plans including IRS, SEC, 409(A), ACA, HIPAA, COBRA, DOL, ERISA, etc.
Manage the overall compensation function including base compensation, short-term and long-term compensation including equity administration.
Manage the overall administration of the group medical, dental, life, long-term and short-term disability insurance plans, flexible spending accounts, 401(k) Plan and defined benefit plans.
Manage vendors - Responsible for management of day-to-day benefit plan vendor relationships.
Support the analysis and preparation of Compensation Committee materials.
Evaluate plan designs and recommend benefit programs based on overall effectiveness, benchmarks, market assessment, business strategy and cost impact.
Evaluate existing Department processes and procedures and restructure/automate as appropriate.
Ensure compliance with all State and Federal regulations including ACA, HIPAA, COBRA, DOL and ERISA. Understand all components of the Affordable Care Act and ensure Company compliance with regulations and reporting requirements. Manage PCORI, Transitional Reinsurance, 1094 / 1095 C and EEO/VETS reporting and compliance process.
Oversee administration of 401K and defined benefit plans including discrimination testing, financial statement audits, 5500 preparation and annual required employee communications.
People management - manage, coach, and develop 1-2 Total Rewards Analysts.
Partner with People Business Partners to support and implement People projects and processes.
Live the company's core values.
Demonstrated experience analyzing healthcare costs and trends.
Strong analytical skills & mathematical orientation.
Advanced Microsoft Office skills – Excel, Work and PowerPoint.
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Bachelor's Degree in Human Resources or Business or equivalent experience; Master's Degree a plus.
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Darjeeling is a beautiful hill station of West Bengal with vast areas of tea estates and Tibetan influence in their craft, culture and cuisine. Previously it was the summer capital of India under the British Raj and Darjeeling has come off age as one of the most sought after hill stations in India.
Darjeeling is a wow-destination for all kind of tourists. There are so many places to explore in Darjeeling. The toy train, established back in 1881 is still running and delighting the tourists. It is also one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. Significant colonial architecture including mansions and churches made this little town remarkable. Here you can experience the cultural diversity of people from Tibet, Nepal, nearby Indian states and the Gorkhas. The third highest peak of the world and the highest in India, the Kanchenjunga peak is clearly visible from the top of Tiger Hill. Darjeeling is a wonderful place to visit, walk around, explore the tea estates, villages and markets again and again.
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