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MTA—Subways and Buses
If you can't walk to your destination, mass transit is the next-best way to get around. The City's rail and bus system is run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and known as MTA New York City Transit. It's inexpensive, environmentally friendly and a great way to see sights throughout the five boroughs—and it operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The system is accessible to passengers with visual, hearing and mobility disabilities. For more information, consult the MTA's accessibility guide and its list of accessible subway stations. Consult as well our article on accessible transportation in NYC.
Purchasing a MetroCard is your first step to getting around on subways and buses; you must put a minimum value of $5.50 on the card, not including the card fee ($1), when initially buying it. You can do so at subway stations, from either automated machines (large machines accept cash, ATM bank cards and regular credit cards; the small machines do not accept cash) or booth attendants (cash only). If you already have a card, keep it and refill it to avoid paying a new card fee.
When you use a pay-per-ride MetroCard, a single subway or local bus ride costs $2.75. An Express Bus ride costs $6.50. Riders can buy a pay-per-ride card, an unlimited MetroCard or a SingleRide card—the latter of these costs $3 (cash only), is sold only at vending machines and must be used for a subway or bus ride (it allows for a bus-to-bus transfer but not a transfer between subway and bus) within two hours of purchase. An unlimited MetroCard allows users to ride as often as they like within a fixed time period: options include cards that last for seven days ($32) or 30 days ($121). The MTA offers a 50 percent discount for seniors (65 or older) and disabled riders (you must apply for and be approved to receive this Reduced-Fare MetroCard, which features your name and photograph), as well as a "bonus" credit of 5 percent for purchases of $5.50 or more on pay-per-ride cards. Also, up to three children with a maximum height of 44 inches each can get on subways and buses for free when they are traveling with a fare-paying adult; children under 2 can ride express buses for free if they sit in the lap of an accompanying adult. For the most up-to-date information on MetroCard prices, visit mta.info.
The easiest and quickest way to travel around NYC is by the subway. Riding the subway is also a fantastic way to feel like a local during your stay in New York.
• Subway trains operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• For $2.75 (the cost of a single ride when using a pay-per-ride MetroCard), you can use the system citywide and transfer to other subway lines as many times as you need, as long as you don't exit through a turnstile.
• You can transfer from subway to local bus or vice versa within two hours of using your pay-per-ride MetroCard (all transfers are free with an Unlimited Ride MetroCard, but it cannot be used at the same subway station or on the same bus route for at least 18 minutes, nor can it be used on an express bus).
• Subway stations on the same line are generally about 8 to 10 blocks apart on local lines (the stops on express trains are usually farther apart).
• The subway does not travel to Staten Island. To get there, board the free Staten Island Ferry or take a bus.
You can get a free subway map from booth attendants or at the Official NYC Information Center, or download one from our Maps & Guides section. You can also use the MTA's Trip Planner for a customized route (but it's still a good idea to carry a subway map when you're out and about). The Trip Planner offers routes for MTA bus lines as well. Sometimes subway routes change or trains temporarily stop running—especially on weekends and late nights during weekdays—so be sure to check for up-to-date MTA service information at mta.info or by calling 511 or 718-330-1234.
Public buses are a scenic way to see the City and reach destinations not convenient to a subway stop. It's also worth noting that mass transit is central to New York City's efforts to become more environmentally friendly, and a growing number of NYC's buses are hybrid-electric and electric models. The MTA even announced in 2018 plans to have an all-electric bus fleet by 2040.
• All city buses accept the MetroCard and exact coin change (no pennies or paper money).
• Check the route sign on the front of the bus before boarding, and make sure you know if it's making all stops or only "limited" stops (the limited buses don't make all stops along the route).
• Enter and pay at the front of the bus. The exception to this is on SBS (Select Bus Service) routes, where payment kiosks are on the sidewalk next to the bus stop.
• A single fare will take you any distance until the end of the route (and you can transfer for free from one local bus to another within two hours of paying your initial fare); you may be able to remain aboard, however, if the driver is beginning the route again and isn't scheduled to return to the bus depot.
• Many buses are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but be sure to check whether your route offers overnight service. A schedule and route map posted at the bus stop indicate when the bus should arrive and where it will go.
• Buses run about every five to 15 minutes, or at longer intervals, depending on the time of day.
• Locate your bus stop's six-digit stop code on the sign posted and text that plus the route number to 511123—or, if you have a smartphone, you can scan the QR code that's also posted or visit the MTA Bus Time page—to receive information about when the next bus is expected to arrive.
• Buses generally stop every other block on avenue routes and every block on cross-street routes. Late at night and early morning, from 10pm to 5am, drivers for local and express buses will stop wherever you ask them to—as long as they can stop safely (and, if it's an express bus, only when they are dropping off passengers).
• MTA service information is available at mta.info or by calling 718-330-1234.
The MTA's Trip Planner is the most reliable source for up-to-date information about routes and fares.
The Roosevelt Island Tram
With the swipe of a MetroCard, the Roosevelt Island Tram gives you an aerial view of Midtown East along its path from East 60th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan to Roosevelt Island, located in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. The tram got its start in 1976. It provides direct service seven days a week (Sun.–Thurs., 6am–2am; Fri.–Sat., 6am–3:30am) for more than 2 million riders annually, with free transfers available to and from MTA subways and buses. Up to three children with a maximum height of 44 inches each can ride the tram for free when they are traveling with a fare-paying adult. For more information, visit rioc.ny.gov.
The City's fleet of yellow taxicabs and green Boro Taxis are licensed and regulated by the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. Grabbing a cab can be ideal when tired feet, heavy luggage or shopping bags weigh you down.
• Taxis are available 24 hours a day.
• Hail taxis whose numbers are illuminated on top—they're on duty.
• Board and exit the cab curbside.
• Hotel doormen can hail a cab for you; a $1 tip is customary for this service.
• Minimum metered fare is $2.50, which increases 50 cents every fifth of a mile or every minute, depending on how fast you're traveling.
• There is also an MTA state surcharge of 50 cents per ride and a 30-cent improvement surcharge.
• An additional $1 surcharge is added to the meter Monday through Friday, 4–8pm (excluding holidays), and a 50-cent surcharge is added daily at night and early morning, 8pm–6am.
• All taxis accept cash and credit, debit and prepaid cards.
• Tip 15–20 percent at the end of a trip; bridge and tunnel tolls are extra and added to the metered fare.
• Yellow taxicabs pick up street-hailing passengers anywhere in NYC. Green taxis provide street hail service and prearranged service in northern Manhattan (above E. 96th St. and W. 110th St.) and in the other boroughs. Visit the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) website for more information.
• Dial 311 in NYC to inquire about lost items or other concerns; visit the TLC website for more info and the organization's fare information page for additional fare details as well as specifics regarding different destinations.
• Drivers are required to take passengers to any destination in New York City. It is against the law for drivers to refuse a person based on race, disability or destination within the five boroughs. If you believe you have been subject to discrimination, file a complaint by calling 311 or visiting nyc.gov/311.
In addition to cabs, there are numerous local car services, as well as popular app-based options like Uber and Lyft, to get you from place to place. For airport transport, choices include Kidmoto, which guarantees car seats for those with kids.
If you're planning to drive around the City, use Google Maps to help you navigate New York City roads; there are also apps like Waze to help you get around. Make sure you know where to park. You may want to use an app like SpotHero to compare parking rates and locations and make reservations. If you need to rent a car (note that all the major car rental companies have locations at the airports and elsewhere within the City), it may be worth considering Zipcar and Enterprise, which offer car-share programs that allow members to book vehicles for as little as an hour and as long as a week (for Enterprise) or 14 days (for Zipcar), 24 hours a day. With use of either program, the City offers designated parking spaces—a pilot program running through mid-2020.
Walking and public transit are excellent ways to get around New York, but you can also travel the City by bike, pedicab, ferry or even helicopter if you so desire. Take a different route, and you just might see the City from a whole new angle.
NYC by Bike
Biking the City is good for the environment and your body, and can often be faster and cheaper than fuel-powered transportation. Cycling hot spots like Central, Riverside and Prospect Parks are great options for hitting the City on two wheels, as are bike paths along the Hudson and East Rivers and on many bridges—but just about all of NYC is bikeable. The NYC Department of Transportation publishes a downloadable bike map and a guide to biking in the City, and Transportation Alternatives provides additional resources for bicyclists.
Citi Bike is New York City's bike-sharing system, and it has gained a quick adoption since its inception in May 2013. There are about 10,000 bikes at around 600 stations, available 24/7 every day of the year. Unlock a bike at any station, ride wherever you want and check in the bike at any other station. Daily, three-day and annual passes are available.
Plenty of operations rent bikes by the hour, two hours, half-day and full day, with many such companies located near the major biking destinations mentioned above. Some, like Bike and Roll New York and Blazing Saddles, also offer guided tours or suggested itineraries for independent exploration.
If you want someone else to do the pedaling for you, hop in a pedicab (sometimes called a "bike taxi" or "bicycle rickshaw"). You won't have to look too hard in the busier parts of Manhattan—the drivers aren't shy about offering their services.
NYC by Ferry
As a waterfront city, New York is home to an extensive ferry system that can get you uptown or downtown in Manhattan and across the rivers to Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey.
The Staten Island Ferry, operated by the City since 1905, is a staple of many morning and evening commutes—and taking a ride on it is a must-do on any sightseeing itinerary. In use since 1905, the route between Staten Island and Manhattan's Whitehall Ferry Terminal is a glorious 5-mile, 25-minute mini-cruise with great views of the Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor and Lower Manhattan—and it's free.
NYC Ferry is an extensive waterway transportation network, with East River docks at 34th Street and Wall Street, multiple stops in Brooklyn and Queens as well as Roosevelt Island, Governors Island and Rockaway Beach. NYC Ferry is hoping to launch two additional ferry routes—one that stops in the Soundview section of the Bronx and in two parts of the Upper East Side and another with stops at Stuyvesant Town and Corlears Hook—by the summer of 2018. You can take a boat ride for the cost of a subway ride (and there is a 50 percent discount for senior citizens and those with disabilities)—and children under 44" ride for free. For the route map and schedule, visit the NYC Ferry website.
NY Waterway operates four commuter ferry routes between points in Manhattan (along the Hudson River at West 39th Street and at World Financial Center and Pier 11, near Wall Street) and various points in New Jersey, and various harbor and sightseeing cruises. Free shuttle buses in Midtown and downtown Manhattan and in New Jersey transport riders to and from ferry terminals.
NYC by Helicopter
Seeing New York by air is an unforgettable experience, and the City offers helicopter tours for the adventurous and just plain curious. Here are some choices:
Liberty Helicopters (800-542-9933) runs several tours of the City and even special private flights for proposals and marriage ceremonies; Helicopter Flight Services, Inc. (212-355-0801), offers a few ways of seeing NYC from above, including The Deluxe Tour (one of the longest around, clocking in at 25 to 30 minutes of flight time); and New York Helicopter Charter, Inc. (212-361-6060), allows you to choose from three options: the Liberty Tour, the Central Park Tour and the Grand Tour, which combines the first two tours and also flies over other essential NYC attractions.
NYC Cruise Information
New York City is one of America's top cruise ports. Passengers from New York City can cruise to the Caribbean year-round and may also cruise to the Northeast, Canada, Bermuda, England and many other destinations.
Recent infrastructure improvements ensure smooth sailing for the cruise passengers who pass through New York City. In Manhattan, the renovated Manhattan Cruise Terminal welcomes some of the world's most prestigious ships, while the state-of-the-art Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook is the port for Cunard and Princess Cruise ships, including the luxurious Queen Mary 2 and the Regal Princess. Below is a listing of information for each terminal.
Manhattan Terminal
711 Twelfth Ave. (at W. 55th St.)
Brooklyn Terminal
Pier 12, Building 112 (at Clinton Wharf)
72 Bowne St. (at Ferris St.)
If you're bringing a dog or cat along on your NYC adventure, you'll have no trouble getting around—but it's important to know the rules.
Only pets enclosed in containers or carriers are allowed on MTA buses, subways and trains, as well as in taxis. Properly harnessed service animals are also permitted on mass transit. Taxi drivers may, at their discretion, pick up passengers who have dogs without carry cases. The City is also home to several pet-taxi companies that can help transport pets, especially those that are not allowed on ordinary public transit.
Pet Chauffeur: 212-696-9744
K9 Cars: 718-683-2152
For more information, see our detailed guide on visiting NYC with your four-legged friend.
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Nick Cannon is Racist, Water is Wet, Everyone's Dumb
In high school and my first year of college, I was a raging liberal. But even then, the idea that the definition of racism changed based on who was perpetrating and who was victimized never really made sense to me. People would say over and over that "black people couldn't be racist, and white people couldn't experience racism" and I remember trying to rationalize it and wrap my mind around it to no avail. No matter how many different ways I flipped it, racism was still racism to me — no matter who was on the receiving end.
Granted, an insistence on identity politics have paved the way for some white people to seek racism and oppression where it isn't, just like so many people of color do. I can't take anyone seriously that points to BET or the Wayans Brothers' infamous White Chicks as examples of racism against white people. That line of thinking has always demonstrated an infantile aversion to context and nuance to me.
But there's something just as infantile about the willful delusion and mental gymnastics people subject themselves to in denying the existence of racism against white people, and the complete ignorance or indifference people have to its consequences.
We live in a world where people are not only completely ignoring a multimillionaire categorizing an entire race of people as "closer to animals" or "less capable of compassion" based on their skin color, but rationalizing it.
Make no mistake — Nick Cannon wasn't fired for anything he said about white people. Every major headline I've seen, and critical tweet from the Left focused entirely on his remarks about Jews. He issued an apology to Jewish people but still hasn't said anything about white people.
The left is facilitating an environment where it's acceptable to demonize ONE group of people. It's acceptable to be racist to them because some professor decided it didn't actually count as racism if it targeted this one group. It's branded as social justice, but it's just short sighted, misguided wrath disguised as wokeness.
I remember watching footage from when Ruby Bridges was first attending her integrated school. I remember the sheer vitriol in the white rioters' voices. "We're the white people, they're the negroes. Well, he said negroes but I call them niggers because that's what they are." They were so blinded by their hatred that they couldn't see the monsters they were becoming. Or maybe they just didn't care. And I fear that history is repeating itself in a horrible way. Nick Cannon's comments applied to any other race could have easily come from a grand wizard. If the only way you can justify something is with a separate set of rules for one group of people, it's racist by default.
I know that because I'm black, and because I stand where I do politically, people will dismiss my point of view as that of a sellout; unworthy of any serious discussion or thought. Many on the left will use the same tired characterizations to disparage my opinions. They'll say I'm seeking white acceptance, or that I hate myself and my race.
But my opinions come from my experiences, my observations and my research. And no logical, serious or objective person can expect one group of people to be held to a drastically different standard and accept it as fair. And I'd rather be a "sellout" or "coon" than have to pretend I believe stupid things.
White people committed heinous atrocities throughout history, and they still do today. As do black people, as do Asians, as does every race under the sun.
Ascribing a "lack of compassion" or an inherent moral deficiency to an entire race of people is racist. This shouldn't be a controversial statement. Ironically enough, it's still racist whether you're using the real definition of racism or the woke definition of racism because the aggressor is a multi millionaire who 1000% has the privilege and power to deny white people opportunities.
Woke R Us is obsessed with race. It's all they ever want to talk about. But too many of them think the only conversation that should be had about race is a lecture. Just them yelling whatever they want at white people for as long as they feel like. And they can't be held accountable or chastised for their unhinged bigotry, because they wrote the rule book with the sole purpose of validating their world views, and vilifying one scapegoat.
It's not right, and it's not sustainable.
Nick Cannon deserved to be fired — not just for what he said about Jews, but for what he said about white people. And every person that came to his defense while he ranted and raved like someone handing out pamphlets outside of a bus station is just as guilty as he is.
Deep down, I think on some level most people know it's wrong. But they'd rather uphold their flawed dogmas than assume any responsibility for discourse, or allow an avenue for honest and open dialogue because they know it will require shutting up and accepting the possibility of being wrong.
But the longer we pretend racism against white people doesn't matter or doesn't exist, the more resentment our society will foster, and the more danger our republic will be in.
You either oppose hate or you don't. If you're picking and choosing when to care about prejudice based on the group affected, you're a hypocrite that lacks compassion — not because of your melanin but your individual ethical bankruptcy.
nick cannonracism
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Ducey proposes law to allow elected county officials to be removed from office
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey favors a law that would allow elected county officials to be removed from office. (Photo by Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services)
By Howard Fischer, for the Miner | azcapmedia
Originally Published: October 22, 2019 5:11 p.m.
GOODYEAR – Arizona needs some sort of law or procedure to oust elected county officials as necessary, Gov. Doug Ducey said Tuesday.
But the governor does not favor turning some of these offices into appointed positions.
Ducey repeated his call on Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen to resign following his arrest stemming from his operation of an international adoption business.
He faces charges in Arizona of defrauding the state by having pregnant women who were willing to give up their babies flown from the Marshall Islands to Arizona and then enrolling them in the state's Medicaid program. There are similar charges pending in Arkansas and Utah as well as federal charges of human smuggling.
Petersen remains in federal custody, meaning he has not been to his county office since the indictments were announced earlier this month.
There is a state law which allows county supervisors to suspend the assessor – and the treasurer – for "defalcation or neglect of duty." The former refers to misappropriation of funds which is not an issue; the latter could be a factor if Petersen does not show up at work.
Even that law, however, has limits, the most notable being that any suspension can last only 120 days unless there is a move to remove that person based on a criminal conviction.
"I have called on Paul Petersen to resign," Ducey said Tuesday. "The people's business, of course, needs to be done."
There are remedies in law when the person at the center of a probe is a state official. That includes the ability of the Legislature to impeach the governor or any other statewide elected official as well as all Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and superior court judges.
And lawmakers themselves are subject to expulsion by their colleagues. There is, however, no similar remedy for county elected officials.
"What happened to Paul Petersen is a real anomaly in terms of municipal government," Ducey said. "There likely should be a remedy in the law to fix a situation like this."
The governor had no specific idea of how best to do that.
"I think there's a couple of different ways to solve it," he said.
"It's probably best done with some coordination between state, municipal and city people talking about what a remedy would be in this type of once-in-a-generation type situation," Ducey continued. "But it is a situation we have to address."
The governor did not specify what kind of actions he believed should trigger removal. And press aide Patrick Ptak refused to answer any questions to clarify Ducey's views.
None of this would be necessary if county "row officers" like the attorney, sheriff, assessor and others were selected the same as they are in cities: by the elected members of the city council. That empowers council members to remove those officers for neglect or abandonment of their jobs.
Ducey said that's an interesting question.
"I have an opinion on all of this and how we could restructure and make it more effective or more efficient," he said. But he wouldn't provide any hints to his thoughts.
"That's not my role as governor," Ducey said. "It's to be the chief executive of the state government."
Still, Ducey made it clear he was not willing to lead any sort of charge to change the selection process.
"I'm not looking to take the vote away from the people," he said.
"That's how the framers of the Arizona Constitution set it up in 1912," the governor explained. "And it's my job to then execute the laws in that framework.
And Ducey said anyone who wants to alter that is "more than welcome to go to the ballot."
There already is one legal option: recall.
That's what happened in 1994 when Pima County voters ousted Alan Lang in the middle of his four-year term amid various allegations, including complaints of sexual harassment and a sharp increase in home valuations.
In the case of Petersen, however, recall appears not to be a realistic option. Given the time it would take to gather and verify the signatures, a recall election likely could not take place before the already scheduled August primary where the Republican assessor could be beaten by a challenger.
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In part 1, 2 and 3 we have defined script outline, set up configuration and defined helper functions. Now will discuss error handling. It is amazing that almost none of scripts I have seen have none. It is really simple, just look at code snippet bellow.
debug "ERROR" "We have an error. Handle it. !!!!"
With _ERROR=$? we have stored the exit code of the last command executed to variable _ERROR. In Linux world all commands return 0 on success or positive integer on failure.


Post University, founded in 1890, is a regionally accredited, degree granting university. It offers classes on its 58-acre main campus in Waterbury, Connecticut, through three off campus "satellite" locations, and through an online degree program, which is the largest online program in the state. The University currently enrolls approximately 10,000 students from across the United States and 35 other countries. Post offers Masters Degrees, Bachelor Degrees, Associate Degrees and Certified programs. Generation continues to hold the investment.


text:
Q: Kohana auth counting get_user as a login? I am messing about with KO3 and the auth module, I have logins working quite well, but I have noticed that every time I refresh the page the login count for my user increments.
I am pretty sure it is coming from this section.
// Check if logged in
if ($this->auth->logged_in())
{
    // Pass user to view
    $this->view->user = $this->auth->get_user(); // Here?
}
else
{
    // Attempt auto login
    $this->auth->auto_login();

    // Check if logged in
    if ($this->auth->logged_in())
    {
        // Pass user to view
        $this->view->user = $this->auth->get_user();
    }
}

Now I am pretty sure it is the line where I pass the users object to the view. The line commented with // Here?.
I just wondered why this would increment the logins. I have checked out the source and all it is doing is reading the session variables.
EDIT
I thought I had this fixed after I had it explained to me. Apparently not. I am not pretty sure it is down to sessions, I have tried using the cookie and session classes from the GitHub repo but that made no difference.
I am not sure where to begin debugging this.

A: You're overseeing the fact that your whole else block is ambigous, because a single call to Auth_ORM::logged_in() causes the following:
Auth_ORM::logged_in()
-> Auth_ORM::get_user()
-> Auth_ORM::auto_login()
-> Auth_ORM::complete_login()
-> Model_Auth_User::complete_login()

So your code would practically do the same looking like this:
// Check if logged in
if ($this->auth->logged_in())
{
    // Pass user to view
    $this->view->user = $this->auth->get_user();
}

And Model_Auth_User::complete_login() is where the logins count gets incremented.
Your problem is that Auth_ORM::auto_login() is always called (either because of a PEBKAC or your session isn't ok), setting a new token instead of saving the user object into session.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Paul H. Heinnemann
ABENG
Dual-Title Ph.D. and M.S. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and International Agriculture and Development
Dual-Title Ph.D. and M.S. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Operations Research
Agricultural and Biological Engineering offers students the opportunity to gain expertise in areas of engineering for biological/agricultural systems corresponding to their professional interests. Graduate students select research projects (and supporting course work) from a wide range of interest areas that match faculty research expertise. Research projects are available in:
physical properties of biological materials
plant and animal production systems
agricultural structures
agricultural safety
bulk solids handling and storage
agricultural systems engineering
agricultural by-product utilization
forage processing and handling systems
electronics instrumentation
online computer control systems
erosion and sedimentation control
natural resources management and conservation
Excellent facilities, including equipment and instrumentation, are available for research in the designated areas. Among the special facilities are:
field plot areas
a full-scale sedimentation basin test facility
hydraulic flumes
sedigraph
gas and ion chromatography units
atomic absorption unit
rainfall simulators
food properties lab
food equipment and processing lab
microbiological engineering lab
fermentation lab
computer vision systems
hydraulic and pneumatic test stands
fabrication shop
microcomputer laboratory
controlled environment chambers
composite characterization labs
wood structures lab
wood mechanics lab
Collaborative arrangements allow access to a large variety of other resources:
Penn State Institutes of the Environment and Energy
Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences
Materials Research Institute
Materials Characterization Laboratory
Nanofabrication Facility
Penn State Institute for CyberScience
PA Housing Research Center
Center for Food Manufacturing
USDA Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Lab
a mushroom research and demonstration facility
a 1,500-acre agricultural research center for cooperative work with agronomic and horticultural production systems as well as animal production systems
An undergraduate major in engineering is normally a prerequisite to work in the major. Students without an undergraduate engineering degree will be considered for admission on a provisional basis pending the completion of a number of additional credits to be specified on an individual basis. These additional credits will not count towards the program degree requirements.
The language of instruction at Penn State is English. English proficiency test scores (TOEFL/IELTS) may be required for international applicants. See GCAC-305 Admission Requirements for International Students for more information.
All applicants must provide the department with official transcripts from all post-secondary institutions attended, as well as a statement of purpose written by the applicant, and at least three letters of recommendation. Admission into the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Graduate Program is based upon a thorough review of all applicant qualifications, and the best-qualified applicants will be accepted up to the number of students for which department resources are available. GRE scores will not be accepted.
Completion of an undergraduate degree in agricultural or biological engineering or in another related engineering discipline is required for direct admission to the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Graduate Program. Students need at least a 3.0 (4.0 base) junior/senior grade-point average to be considered for admission.
A student with an undergraduate degree in a non-engineering field can be admitted to the M.S. program on a provisional basis, pending the completion of a number of additional credits to be specified on an individual basis. These additional credits will not count towards the M.S. degree requirements. The provision status continues until completion of the engineering undergraduate requirements in mathematics, physics, engineering sciences (thermodynamics, statics, dynamics, strength of materials, fluid-mechanics and electrical circuitry), and 6 credits of 400-level Biological Engineering courses. Upon completion of these preparatory courses with a minimum grade-point average of 3.0, the student will be admitted to the graduate program.
The program requirement for acceptance to graduate study toward a Ph.D. degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering is an M.S. degree with research thesis in an engineering or science discipline with a B.S. degree from an engineering program. Outstanding students interested in direct admission from a B.S. engineering program to the Ph.D. Program should contact the Graduate Program Coordinator. Direct admission will be based on critical evaluation of the student's potential to conduct publishable research, academic record, results of standardized tests, statement of purpose, and reference letters. Students who apply directly to the Ph.D. program but are not qualified will be considered for admission into the M.S. program.
A student with an undergraduate degree in a non-engineering field can be admitted to the Ph.D. program on a provisional basis, pending the completion of a number of additional credits to be specified on an individual basis. These additional credits will not count towards the Ph.D. degree requirements.
All candidates for the M.S. degree must complete a minimum of 30 credits at the 400, 500, 600, or 800 level, with at least 6 credits in thesis research (600 or 610). All candidates for the M.S. must write a thesis. The thesis must be accepted by the advisers and/or committee members, the head of the graduate program, and the Graduate School, and the students must pass a thesis defense.
Official entrance into a Ph.D. program occurs upon successful completion of the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam. Ph.D. degree requirements include successful completion of the following: approved graduate course work, Ph.D. English competency requirements, a comprehensive examination, and final oral examination (the dissertation defense). To earn the Ph.D. degree, doctoral candidates must write a dissertation that is accepted by the Ph.D. committee, the head of the graduate program, and the Graduate School.
No specified number of courses completed or credits earned are required by the department. However, the candidate must complete at least 9 credits of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) course work beyond the baccalaureate degree. Six credits must be 500-level ABE courses (excluding ABE 500, ABE 590, ABE 594, ABE 595, ABE 596); the remaining 3 credits must be in any ABE course 460 or higher. Unless previously taken, all Ph.D. students must complete ABE 500. The student's Ph.D. committee will recommend the minimum requirements in such supporting areas as mathematics, engineering, agricultural/biological sciences, and physical sciences. The candidate is expected to develop a program of study and submit it to the appointed Ph.D. committee for consideration and approval. All Ph.D. students are required to participate in resident education or extension teaching activities for the equivalent of at least one semester during their graduate program. A typical plan of study consists of about 90 credits beyond the baccalaureate degree with about 30 of the total credits for research. All requirements for a Ph.D. degree, whether satisfied on this campus or elsewhere, must be completed within eight years after passing the qualifying examination.
Ph.D. Language and Communication Requirement
The purpose of the communication requirement is to strengthen the student's professional communication skills. The candidate must take a minimum of two courses (a minimum total of 5 credits) and receive a grade of B or better in each course taken. Course selections must be approved by the academic adviser prior to registration. Courses used to satisfy this requirement must include the substantial practice of writing and/or speaking.
Dual-Title M.S. and Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and International Agriculture and Development
Graduate students with research and educational interests in international education may apply to the dual-title program in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and International Agriculture and Development. The goal of the dual-title program in ABENG and INTAD is to enable graduate students from ABENG to acquire the knowledge and skills of their primary area of specialization in ABENG, while at the same time gaining the perspective and methods needed for work in the international agriculture. Graduate study in this program seeks to prepare students to assume leadership roles in science, engineering, outreach, and project management anywhere in the world. Students acquire a broad perspective on how to apply their research findings in the context of the broader international community. Thus, the dual-title will allow students to master their field of specialization from an international perspective so that they can effectively engage in agricultural development activities within various countries and regions.
Students must apply and be admitted to the graduate program in ABENG and The Graduate School before they can apply for admission to the dual-title degree program. After admission to their primary program, students must apply for admission to and meet the admissions requirements of the INTAD dual-title program. Refer to the Admission Requirements section of the INTAD Bulletin page. Doctoral students must be admitted into the dual-title degree program in INTAD prior to taking the qualifying examination in their primary graduate program.
Degree Requirements for the Dual-Title M.S.
To qualify for the dual-title degree, students must satisfy the degree requirements for the M.S. degree, listed on the Degree Requirements tab. In addition, students must complete the degree requirements for the dual-title M.S. in INTAD, listed on the INTAD Bulletin page. Up to 6 credits of INTAD approved courses can be applied to fulfilling ABENG program requirements. Final course selection must be approved by the student's advisory committee.
Degree Requirements for the Dual-Title Ph.D.
To qualify for the dual-title degree, students must satisfy the degree requirements for the Ph.D. degree, listed on the Degree Requirements tab. In addition, students must complete the degree requirements for the dual-title Ph.D. in INTAD, listed on the INTAD Bulletin page. Some courses may satisfy both ABENG program requirements and those of the INTAD program. Up to 6 credits of INTAD approved courses can be applied to fulfilling ABENG program requirements. Final course selection must be approved by the student's Ph.D. committee.
The qualifying examination committee for the dual-title Ph.D. degree will be composed of Graduate Faculty from ABENG and must include at least one Graduate Faculty member from the INTAD program. Faculty members who hold appointments in both programs' Graduate Faculty may service in a combined role. There will be a single qualifying examination, containing elements of both ABENG and INTAD. Dual-title graduate degree students may require an additional semester to fulfill requirements for both areas of study and, therefore, the qualifying examination may be delayed on semester beyond the normal period allowable.
In addition to the general Graduate Council requirements for Ph.D. committees, the Ph.D. committee of an ABENG and INTAD dual-title Ph.D. student must include at least one member of the INTAD Graduate Faculty. Faculty members who hold appointments in both programs' Graduate Faculty may service in a combined role. If the chair of the Ph.D. committee is not also a member of the Graduate Faculty in INTAD, the member of the committee representing INTAD must be appointed as co-chair. The INTAD representative on the student's Ph.D. committee will develop questions for and participate in the evaluation of the comprehensive examination.
Students in the dual-title program are required to write and orally defend a dissertation on a topic that is approved in advance by their Ph.D. committee and reflects their original research and education in ABENG and INTAD. Upon completion of the doctoral dissertation, the candidate must pass a final oral examination (the dissertation defense) to earn the Ph.D. degree. The dissertation must be accepted by the Ph.D. committee, the head of the graduate program, and the Graduate School.
Dual-Title M.S. and Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Operations Research
Graduate students with interests in operations research may apply to the dual-title program in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Operations Research. The goal of the dual-title program in ABENG and Operations Research is to enable graduate students from ABENG to acquire the knowledge and skills of their primary area of specialization in ABENG, while at the same time gaining the perspective and methods needed for work systems analysis and modeling. Graduate study in this program seeks to prepare students to utilize the tools, techniques, and methodology of operations research, while maintaining a close association with areas of application. Operations research is the analysis--usually involving mathematical treatment--of a process, problem, or operation to determine its purpose and effectiveness and to gain maximum efficiency.
Students must apply and be admitted to the graduate program in ABENG and The Graduate School before they can apply for admission to the dual-title degree program. After admission to their primary program, students must apply for admission to and meet the admissions requirements of the OR dual-title program. Refer to the Admission Requirements section of the OR Bulletin page. Doctoral students must be admitted into the dual-title degree program in OR prior to taking the qualifying examination in their primary graduate program.
To qualify for the dual-title degree, students must satisfy the degree requirements for the M.S. degree, listed on the Degree Requirements tab. In addition, students must complete the degree requirements for the dual-title M.S. in OR, listed on the OR Bulletin page. Up to 6 credits of OR approved courses can be applied to fulfilling ABENG program requirements. Final course selection must be approved by the student's advisory committee.
To qualify for the dual-title degree, students must satisfy the degree requirements for the Ph.D. degree, listed on the Degree Requirements tab. In addition, students must complete the degree requirements for the dual-title Ph.D. in OR, listed on the OR Bulletin page. Some courses may satisfy both ABENG program requirements and those of the OR program. Up to 6 credits of OR approved courses can be applied to fulfilling ABENG program requirements. Final course selection must be approved by the student's Ph.D. committee.
The qualifying examination committee for the dual-title Ph.D. degree will be composed of Graduate Faculty from ABENG and must include at least one Graduate Faculty member from the OR program. Faculty members who hold appointments in both programs' Graduate Faculty may serve in a combined role. There will be a single qualifying examination, containing elements of both ABENG and OR. Dual-title graduate degree students may require an additional semester to fulfill requirements for both areas of study and, therefore, the qualifying examination may be delayed on semester beyond the normal period allowable.
In addition to the general Graduate Council requirements for Ph.D. committees, the Ph.D. committee of an ABENG and OR dual-title Ph.D. student must include at least one member of the OR Graduate Faculty. Faculty members who hold appointments in both programs' Graduate Faculty may serve in a combined role. If the chair of the Ph.D. committee is not also a member of the Graduate Faculty in OR, the member of the committee representing OR must be appointed as co-chair. The OR representative on the student's Ph.D. committee will develop questions for and participate in the evaluation of the comprehensive examination.
Students in the dual-title program are required to write and orally defend a dissertation on a topic that is approved in advance by their Ph.D. committee and reflects their original research and education in ABENG and OR. Upon completion of the doctoral dissertation, the candidate must pass a final oral examination (the dissertation defense) to earn the Ph.D. degree. The dissertation must be accepted by the Ph.D. committee, the head of the graduate program, and the Graduate School.
Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) Course List
Know: Graduates will be able to demonstrate mastery of core principles and methods of agricultural and biological engineering professional practice and in-depth mastery of a subfield.
Critical and analytical thinking: Graduates will be able to critically and creatively conceptualize and evaluate engineering problem formulations, analyses, and solutions.
Apply/Create: Graduates will demonstrate proficiency in engineering problem formulation, planning, organization and implementation of appropriate methods of analyses and solutions.
Communicate: Graduates will be able to effectively communicate technical knowledge, including ideas, data analysis, findings, or decision justification in written and oral presentation appropriate to the audience.
Professional Practice: Graduates will demonstrate knowledge of and ability to practice the professional standards of engineering and professional behavior with the highest ethical standards.
Know: Graduates will demonstrate a deep knowledge of principles and methodologies of agricultural and biological engineering which may include the foundational mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering or communications.
Create: Graduates will be able to create new knowledge and develop new solutions to agricultural and biological engineering problems by developing an understanding of the scientific and engineering literature and engaging in scientific research.
Apply: Graduates will be able to apply knowledge of the principles and methodologies of agricultural and biological engineering to the process of creating new knowledge and conducting original scientific research in the field of agricultural and biological engineering.
Critical and analytical thinking: Graduates will be able to independently analyze and critique motivations for conducting research, the research process, research results, and the implications of research and its results to our world.
Communicate: Graduates will be able to actively listen, convey accurately and clearly ideas and results both orally and in writing, and engage in positive, effective deliberation.
Professional practice: Graduates will be prepared to become leaders in our society by being able to apply technical skills for effective decision making in agricultural and biological engineering fields.
Paul Heinz Heinemann
Jeffrey M Catchmark
Wendy J Thomas
105 Agricultural Engineering Building
wjt11@psu.edu


text:
Metropolitan Strategies, Psychogeographic Investigations
:: A Drifting Seminar :: Brighton, October 26th, 2010 ::
Starting @ the Cowley Club, 2PM
The notion of psychogeography (as well as many other ideas of the Situationists) appears frequently within political and artistic discussions. Indeed, they circulate to the point of cliché, in the process becoming almost completely emptied of content. The derive is reduced to a leisurely stroll, perhaps accompanied with some secondary musings about the nature of the spectacle, a dash of literary activity, or perhaps some local history. This is a hollowing out of the concept. Psychogeography for the Situationists was primarily not an aesthetic activity, but more than anything a strategic approach to understanding the forces shaping the city and from those finding points of intervention in it. At times it verged on a nearly military framework, working to gain an intuitive understanding of the territory and its layering of images, affects, and circuits of capitalist valorization.
Today we find ourselves in a condition of ever intensified spectacular sociability: all of life put to work in webs of biopolitical production, overwhelming communicative and media flows, and the reshaping of the metropolis through culture led gentrification. More than ever well-developed psychogeographic investigations are needed to comprehend the shaping of the metropolis and the possibilities this offers for political action. But this is not a task for the carefree wanderings of the flaneur, but perhaps better suited for what Ian Sinclair has described as the superseding figure of the stalker, the one who knows where he is going, but not why or how. Continue reading →
Immanent Singularities
Categories: Bruno Gulli, Stevphen Shukaitis
Immanent Singularities: A Minor Compositions Interview with Bruno Gulli
As a philosopher and academic worker, Bruno Gulli is nothing if not untimely. In an era when the labor of thought, the work that creates new concepts, finds itself squeezed by an ever-increasing array of restrictions (from journal and publisher limitations to lack of time from overwork and precarious employment), Gulli bucks these trends in a spectacular fashion. Rather than composing 8000 word chunks of pabulum, simply recycling tired clichés or niceties, Gulli has embarked on composing a three-volume inquiry into the relation between ethics, labor, and ontology. Such an approach might not have seemed all that remarkable fifty years ago, but today to carry out such a fundamental rethinking of our categories of political thought and discourse is paradoxically no longer appreciated, and therefore all the more necessary. Gulli's first book, The Labor of Fire (2005, Temple University Press) led Michael Hardt to comment that the work of Gulli, along with others carrying out similar work, will renew the Marxist tradition. This renewal, he claims, will not be of a scientific, structuralist, or humanist Marxism, but rather a philosophical approach to Marx centered on the concept of labor its power of social transformation. High words of praise indeed. This interview was conducted shortly after the publication of his most recent book Earthly Plenitudes: A Study on Sovereignty and Labor(2010, Temple University Press). Continue reading →
This is Forever: A Exploration of Contemporary Autonomist Politics
An evening with Minor Compositions and the Team Colors Collective.
Thursday, 25 March, 7pm
Red & Black Cafe – 400 SE 12th avenue (at Oak) Portland, OR
Join us for an evening with two autonomist authors and organizers from Portland and London in exploring contemporary politics, the continued imposition of work, current struggles in the University and elsewhere, militant and co-research, and in celebrating the release of their recent books. In the U.S. and across the planet struggles against enclosures, the dismantling of the University, for public and community space, against "the endless imposition of work," and against a form of life that is increasingly precarious – are currently taking place. By "reading" these and neighboring struggles we seek to create a world in which many worlds fit. A discussion on these issues and other topics will follow short talks. Continue reading →
Autonomism, Class Composition, and Cultural Studies
Berkeley, CA – March 18th (as part of the Cultural Studies Association conference)
Organized by Stevphen Shukaitis & Jack Z. Bratich
How do cultural studies and autonomism converge and diverge over matters of power, the state, and subjectivity? Come join us for a series of panels (organized by Stevphen Shukaitis and Jack Bratich) planned as part of the annual Cultural Studies Association conference. They will explore the future behind our backs, focusing on how autonomist politics and analysis can inform cultural analysis and vice versa.
Autonomist political analysis involves something very much like a form of cultural studies, exploring how the grounds for radical politics are constantly shifting in response to how capital and the state utilize social insurgencies and movements against themselves. For instance, the concept of class composition, or the ways in which class formations emerge from social contestation, and the primacy and determining role of social resistance, shares much in common with various strains of thought in cultural studies. Similarly, workers' inquiry as a method of investigating into the conditions of working class life to rethinking its ongoing subversive political potentiality, functions in similar ways to how early cultural studies shifted to an analysis of the everyday based on renewing and deepening radical politics. Continue reading →
Provo, Autonomy, and Ludic Politics
:: December 10th :: The Foundry, 7pm ::
:: Foundry, London :: 86 Great Eastern Street ::
The legendary Dutch anarchist movement Provo staged political and cultural interventions into the symbolic and everyday spaces of Holland from 1965 – 1967. The rise and fall of Provo stretches from early Dutch "happenings" staged in 1962 to the "Death of Provo" in 1967. Although a small group they cast a disproportionately large shadow on the events of the time due to their skillful analysis of social unrest among Dutch youth. By tying their political program to the rich magical heritage of Amsterdam's bohemian subculture they created political street theater that captured the pulse of Amsterdam's population.
Come join us to celebrate the release of Provo: Amsterdm's Anarchist Revolt by Richard Kempton, the first book length English history and analysis of Provo. We will be joined by several of the members of Provo including Hans Plomp, Auke Boersma, Luud Schimmelpennink and Nico van Apeldoorn. The evening will include appearances by members of Radio Joy as well as recently recovered and translated video footage from the period. We will explore the history and activities of Provo, tracing out their legacies and continuing influence in the realm of autonomist politics and ludic interventions in public space. Continue reading →
The Atrocity Organization
The Atrocity Organization: JG Ballard & the Technologies of Psychopathology Management
:: Tuesday November 10th :: 5PM
A kind of waiting madness, like a state of undeclared war, haunted the office buildings of the business park. – J.G. Ballard, Super-Cannes
As a novelist and fiction SF writer, JG Ballard developed one of the most dynamic (and disturbing) exploration of collective psychopathology, excesses in organizational life, and the collapsing of the Western imaginary. From the fetish of the car crash to obscene hidden violence of the business park, internment camps to masochist fantasies directed through the mediated form of Ronald Reagan's body, Ballard's work ventures into territories that are disconcerting to explore, but from which one can learn a great deal. Rather than assuming that disorder and excess is a condition that management and organization must respond to, this event will explore the proposition that what might really be psychopathological is the desire to impose order upon an inherently ungovernable and excessive condition. Continue reading →
Imaginal Machines
Imaginal Machines: Autonomy & Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life
by Stevphen Shukaitis
All power to the imagination? Over the past forty years to invoke the imagination as a basis for radical politics has become a cliché: a rhetorical utilization of ideas already in circulation, invoking the mythic unfolding of this self-institutionalizing process. But what exactly is radical imagination? Drawing from autonomist politics, class composition analysis, and avant-garde arts, Imaginal Machines explores the emergence, functioning, and constant breakdown of the embodied forms of radical imagination.
What does it mean to invoke the power of the imagination when it seems that the imagination has already seized power through the power of the spectacle? Does any subversive potentiality remain? Perhaps it is only honest to think in terms of a temporally-bounded subversive power. It might be that imaginal machines only work by breaking down. That is, their functioning is only possible, paradoxically, by their malfunctioning. By reopening the question of recuperation, the inevitable drive to integrate the power of social insurgency back into the working of capital and the state, we create possibilities for a politics continually reconstituted against and through the dynamics of recuperation: to keep open an antagonism without closure.
"Imaginal Machines explores with humor and wit the condition of art and politics in contemporary capitalism. It reviews the potentials and limits of liberatory art (from surrealism to Tom Waits) while charting the always-resurgent creations of the collective imagination. Shukaitis exhibits a remarkable theoretical breadth, bringing together the work of Castoriadis, the Situationists, and autonomous Marxism to define a new task for militant research: constructing imaginal machines that escape capitalism. Imaginal Machines is truly a book that makes a path by walking." – Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch: Women the Body and Primitive Accumulation
"If you have ever had someone say to you, 'okay it's fine to criticize but what would you do?' this is the book for you. Shukaitis takes us on a raucous ride through actually existing alternative organizations that are anarchic, loving, fun, and best of all they work. We meet people and organizations who imagine a completely different way of being together in the world. And we are never far from a sophisticated theoretical travelogue as we walk these roads with the author. What would you do? Try this, and this, and this!" – Stefano Harney, Chair in Strategy, Culture, and Organization, University of London Continue reading →
Imperceptible Strategies, Unidentified Autonomous Organizations
:: A Drifting Seminar :: London, October 23rd,2009 ::
Anarchist and autonomous politics are often associated, in a kneejerk way, with a celebration of chaos and disorder: a rejection of all forms of organization. The reduction of radical politics to a cheap joke ('anarchist organization, what's that?') comes to substitute for an actual understanding of autonomous organizational practices. Far from rejecting organization all together, the history of autonomous politics contains a wealth of different modes of organizing, from the formation of temporary autonomous zones to affinity group models, maroon communities to networks and collectives.
These are forms of organizing that not always acknowledged as being organizations because they do not conform to what it is assumed organizations necessarily are: durable, static, and hierarchical. This understanding of organization obscures and makes difficult an actual engagement with the merits and weaknesses of different forms of organizing. But what would be found if rather than working from a fixed and unchanging concept of organization, one that excludes temporary forms of organization from consideration, it was attempted to tease out the organizational dynamics from all the temporary alliances and alliances that appear and disappear?
Connective Mutations
Categories: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, Stephen Duncombe, Stevphen Shukaitis
Connective Mutations: Autonomy & Subjectivation in the Coming Century
A Seminar with Franco 'Bifo' Berardi
September 3rd – 6th, 2009 – New York City
Organized by 16Beaver & Minor Compositions
The concept of the subject is crucial for radical philosophy of the second half of the twentieth century. Arguments and debates over the nature of the subject, the location and nature of the revolutionary subject, have vastly shaped radical politics and organizing. The work of Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze changes the frame of this discussion, proposing the concept of subjectivation, or becoming-subject, as a framework to understand the multiple becomings and states of social encounters. This concept of subjectivation overlaps significantly with the concept of class recomposition developed in the 1960s and 70s by autonomist thinkers such as Sergio Bologna, Mario Tronti and Toni Negri. Both strains of thought focus on how forms of social antagonism and resistance give rise to new social positions and possibilities for collective becomings.
Today we find ourselves in a transformed condition, one created by techno-anthropological and connective mutations, marked by overwhelming flows of immaterial labor and information flows that threaten to exceed the limits of the body. Cyberspace may be infinite, but cybertime is not. This intensification and expansion of technological dynamics and automatisms makes problematic the very possibility of collective subjectivation. Have we reached a stated where the immersive flows of information, affect, and desire act to dampen or even preempt the emergence of new collective subjects? Continue reading →
Affective Politics & the Imagination of Everyday Resistance
Recently, "affect" has been a key concept for research in politics, aesthetics, marketing, neuroscience, and sociology. This course seeks to draw together some of the more innovative work within this "affective turn," focusing on the political composition of subjectivities, especially via cultural practices. After a survey of some conceptual foundations of affectivity, we explore its relation to group-formation, labor, technology, value, passions (fear, panic, trauma, joy, love), actions, and creativity. The course will feature guest speakers engaged in affective politics and involve group discussions on the affective nature of practices participants are involved in.
Bluestockings • 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington, NYC •
$35 – 55 – 75 sliding scale
Wednesdays 4– 6 PM from July 15th – August 26th, 2009
Instructors: Jack Z. Bratich & Stevphen Shukaitis Continue reading →


text:
The Upshot|A Well-Meaning Job Training Bill That May Hurt More Than Help
A Well-Meaning Job Training Bill That May Hurt More Than Help
It could set off a new wave of exploitation by the same for-profit colleges that have already wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.
For-profit schools dominate cosmetology training, and women are especially vulnerable to the limitations of short-term certificates. CreditCreditScott Morgan for The New York Times
By Kevin Carey
Democrats and Republicans are working together to help poor people get training for better jobs. That might seem hard to believe these days, but it's true.
The Jobs Act, introduced by Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, and Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, attracted 12 bipartisan co-sponsors, including three Democrats who are running for president. Similar legislation was introduced in the House. It could very well become law.
Unfortunately, a raft of research suggests this well-meaning bill may actually hurt the students it is designed to help.
Currently, low-income students can use Pell grants to pay for bachelor's degrees, associate's degrees and shorter certificate programs that last at least 15 weeks. The Jobs Act would drop the minimum to eight weeks for any "job training program" offered by an accredited college. Eligible students would receive up to about $3,000 — half a Pell grant — to pay tuition.
The intent is to modernize the college financial aid system to help students get jobs quickly. "We've perpetrated a myth that post-high school has to be college," Mr. Kaine, the son of an iron worker and welder, said at a Senate Education Committee hearing. "There are all kinds of career and technical programs where there is significant need in the work force."
Mr. Kaine and Mr. Portman promised they would allow the abridged Pell grants to support only "high-quality and rigorous" programs. But the bill doesn't have an effective mechanism for ensuring quality. As written, it could touch off a new wave of exploitation by the same for-profit colleges that have already wasted billions of taxpayer dollars and left some vulnerable students with mountains of debt.
When it comes to quality, the existing Pell grant system largely lets colleges police themselves. There is no accountability for whether students get jobs after they graduate or how much they earn. That's less of a problem for bachelor's degree programs because there is much evidence on the long-term economic benefit of a B.A., especially for low-income students. Even much-maligned liberal arts degrees tend to pay off in the end.
Short-term training programs have only one purpose. If they don't lead to better jobs and wages, they have failed. And study after study finds that too many such programs are, in fact, failing.
The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that while certificate programs increase earnings on average, "there are many certificates — especially in fields of study with high concentrations of women — that do not confer a substantial wage premium over a high school degree."
Who offers these failing programs? Often, for-profit colleges that enroll large numbers of students. An analysis from the left-leaning Center for American Progress found that "of the 15 certificate programs with the most graduates, 10 have typical earnings of $18,000 or less" for students two to four years after they leave school. "This includes the two largest program types — medical assisting and cosmetology — which have typical earnings of $15,309 and $12,272, respectively."
In many states, cosmetology is dominated by for-profit schools. The same is true for medical assisting (with duties like checking vital signs and scheduling appointments). And these dismal results are for programs that last at least 15 weeks. Smaller programs could be even less effective.
In addition to shortchanging women, the limitations of short-term certificates are also stratified by race. Georgetown researchers found that one in six African-Americans report their highest level of education as a certificate, compared with one in nine among Hispanic, Asian, and white Americans. Yet African-Americans get the smallest earnings boost for their short-term credentials.
Nothing in the Jobs Act would change these dynamics. The bill says job training programs must "meet the hiring requirements of potential employers." But it allows individual colleges, including for-profits, to decide whether their own programs qualify. That laissez-faire approach to regulation recently led to widespread fraud and abuse, saddling hundreds of thousands of students with bad loans.
In response, the Obama administration cracked down on the for-profit industry. The Trump administration is in the process of dismantling the Obama rules.
Columbia University researchers have found that the positive benefits of short-term certificates "may fade out within a few years post-college." The benefits of longer-term credentials, by contrast, persist.
Yet only about one in four students whose first credential is a short-term certificate go on to earn an associate's or bachelor's degree within six years. For those over 24, it's closer to one in five.
There are other ways to lift workers who need better jobs. Services like career advising and job search assistance have been shown to help. On-the-job learning can also be effective. But the Jobs Act doesn't fund such assistance, because the Pell grant program wasn't designed to fund job training. Instead, the bill leaves students at the mercy of a higher education market that routinely fails them. The students buy training that, especially for women and students of color, often doesn't work.
All of these issues are likely to play out on a larger stage as Democrats vying for the presidency propose large new federal investments in higher learning, and Congress begins the once-a-decade task of reauthorizing the federal Higher Education Act.
It's appealing to think that for just $3,000, and just eight weeks, students could get enough training to begin better careers. That's probably why so many politicians from both sides of the aisle have signed onto the Jobs Act. But short training programs of wildly uneven quality are already contributing to a growing wealth gap along race and gender lines. Making them even shorter could make that disparity even worse.
Kevin Carey directs the education policy program at New America. You can follow him on Twitter at @kevincarey1.


text:
\section{Introduction}

The currently favored scenarios of hierarchical
galaxy formation in a cold dark-matter (CDM) universe advocate
that a larger galaxy was formed via a successive merging and accretion events
of smaller galaxies like dwarf galaxies.
However, recent high-resolution numerical simulations based on CDM models have
revealed that the properties of CDM-based galaxies disagree with their
properties observed
on a scale smaller than $\sim1$ Mpc (e.g., Navarro \& Steinmetz 2000).
One of the most serious discrepancies is the missing satellite-galaxy problem:
a considerably larger number of
dark-matter clumps with the size of dwarf galaxy, or subhalos,
are predicted to be distributed in the Galaxy-sized dark halo
than the observed dwarf galaxies in the Galaxy,
particularly, at the low-mass end (Klypin et al. 1999; Moore et al. 1999).
This is partly due to the serious imcompleteness in the detection of
Galactic dwarf galaxies.
Alternatively, no stars may be formed in large numbers of low-mass
subhalos because star formation is efficiently suppressed by
the photoionoization from the first stars and active galactic nucleus
(Bullock, Kravtsov, \& Wenberg 2000).
Thus, the search for low-mass dwarf galaxies and the determination
of their stellar content is indispensable on
addressing the missing satellite-galaxy problem.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is an ongoing deep spectroscopic and
multicolor photometric survey.
Previous dwarf-galaxy searches based on the SDSS database
mainly focused on the Galactic
dwarf galaxies with angular sizes of $\sim 10'$,
where fluctuations on scales smaller than a few arcmin were smoothed and
missed (Willman et al. 2002, 2005a; Zucker et al. 2006).
However, Galactic
dwarf galaxies with physical sizes of $\lesssim$ 100 pc at 200 kpc
and M31 dwarf galaxies (Zucker et al. 2004) have
an angular size of a few arcmin, and then their dwarf galaxies
may have still been missed.

Bright red-giant branch (RGB) stars are expected to be an effective probe to
search for distant stellar systems because they have a high intrinsic
luminosity.
In this paper, we search for stellar systems with sizes of a few arcmin
on the basis of the spatial distribution of the RGB stars in the
SDSS Data Release 4 (DR4),
and we report the detection of
a faint old stellar system near the outskirt of the Galactic halo.

\section{Method and Results}

\subsection{Discovery of a faint stellar system}
DR4 provided us with deep imaging data that covered 6670 square degrees
using five broadband filters ($u, g, r, i$, and $z$,
Abazajian et al. 2004).
In the database, the objects with $r<21.5$ mag are confidently
divided into stars and galaxies
on the basis of their light profiles (Ivezic et al. 2000).

We constructed a color-selected sample of
bright RGB stars from the stars with $r<21.5$ mag in the DR4 database
such that they satisfy the following color conditions:
$0.09+1.57(r-i)<g-r<0.59+1.57(r-i)$ and $0.4<g-r<1.2$ mag,
where the colors are corrected for reddening due to Galactic
extinction (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, \& Davis 1998).
If the stars are giants, the selection
corresponds to the stars with effective tempartures in the range of
$3750<T_{eff}({\rm K})<5000$ and with metallicities
in the range of $-5.0<{\rm [Fe/H]}<+1.0$, as shown in Lenz et al. (1998).
Note that the sample still includes dwarf stars with almost similar colors
in Sloan's photometric system (Lenz et al. 1998).

The bright RGB stars were counted using a $5'\times 5'$ cell over the entire
field covered by the DR4 database,
and then we searched for the spatial overdensities that were
5 $\sigma$ and 10 stars above the mean background density.
The overdensities in the widely extended bright galaxies and their
neighborhood were excluded, for the purpose of avoiding a serious
incompleteness in the detection of stars in the galaxies
(Mandelbaum et al. 2005).
We verified the presence of RGB and horizontal branch (HB) in overdensities
in the color-magnitude diagram (CMD),
which are the characterstic features of old stellar systems.
These checks were carried out in order to assess the contribution of dwarf
star contamination (see preceding paragraph).

An unknown spatial overdensity is detected in a field centered
at $(\alpha,\delta)=(194^\circ.29,34^\circ.32)$ in addtion to
known Galactic objects (i.e., dwarf galaxies, globular clusters,
and an open cluster).
Figure 1(a) shows the spatial distribution of DR4's
stars around this overdensity,
and they are symmetrically concentrated within $2'.5$.
In Figure 1(e), the CMD of the overdensity within a circle with a radius of
$2'.5$ has a clear RGB at $0.4<g-r<0.8$ mag, $18.8<r\lesssim 23.0$ mag,
and a clear HB within $-0.35<g-r<-0.05$ mag, $21.5<r<22.0$ mag.
This is in contrast to the CMD of the same-sized control field
at a distance of $1^\circ$  from the center of the overdensity in Figure 1(d).
We allocate the stars in a region enclosed within
$-10(g-r)+25.7<r<-10(g-r)+29.0$ and $18.8<r<23.0$ mag
for RGB stars
and within $-0.35<g-r<-0.05$ mag and $21.5<r<22.0$ mag for HB stars.
Both RGB and HB stars are strongly concentrated in Figures 1(b) and (c)
and their densities in a $5'\times 5'$ field centered at the overdensity
are $5\sigma$ and $9\sigma$
above the mean background stellar density, respectively.
Since these stars belong to old stellar populations,
the overdensity is definitely a stellar system dominated by old stars
(hereafter, SDSS J1257+3419).

\subsection{Basic parameters of SDSS J1257+3419}
We estimate the basic parameters of SDSS J1257+3419, such as its
distance, metallicity, structural parameters, and total absolute magnitude.
First we estimate its distance and metallicity by referring to
the ridge lines of the RGB and HB stars in Galactic globular clusters.
In order to produce the templates of the ridge lines,
we perform photometry with Gunn filters
for a sample of six globular clusters using the 65-cm telescope
at the Gunma Astronomical Observatory.
The clusters, M5, M12, M15, M53, M56, and M92, are selected to include
a wide range of spectroscopically-measured metallicities ([Fe/H]=$-1.48\sim
-2.29$) and of HB morphological-types (the HB ratio$=0.31\sim 0.98$,
which denotes the ratio of the difference in the number of
blue and red HB stars to all HB stars.
Seeing condition was $1''.5\sim2''.5$ in $r$.
Very small color-term coefficients and stable airmass dependence
on the photometric calibration suggest a good recovery
of the CMD of the program clusters;
the distance moduli which are measured
by fitting Padova isochrones (Girardi et al.
2004) to the RGB, are confirmed to be
as accurate as 0.05 $-$ 0.1 mag with the published values.
Figure 1(f) shows the CMD of SDSS J1257+3419 and
the three representative ridge lines of the globular clusters.
The fit of the ridge lines to the HB places SDSS J1257+3419
at a distance modulus of $(m-M)_{0} =20.7 \pm 0.1 $,
corresponding to 150 kpc with a 10\% accuracy.
We limit on the metallicity on the basis of the RGB and HB morphology.
The curvature of the RGB suggests
that metallicity of SDSS J1257+3419 can be infered
coarsely within 0.5 dex for very old single stellar population:
its metallicity is lower than that of the metal-rich entity
M5 ([Fe/H] = $-1.25$), and it is as low as that of the
globular clusters M92 ([Fe/H] = $-2.25$);
fits to the CMD with a slightly metal-rich entity
M53 ([Fe/H]=$-2.0$) is still acceptable.
The HB ratio for SDSS J1257+3419 is 0.86,
where blue and red HB stars are assumed to have $g'-r'<0.0$ mag
and $g'-r'>0.0$ mag, respectively.
Based on [Fe/H] vs. the HB ratio for Galactic globular clusters (Zinn 1993),
we suggest that SDSS J1257+3419 has a
metal-poor nature ([Fe/H]$\lesssim -1.5$).
Note that the ratio estimate is weak due to small number
statistics and the failure to exclude field stars.
Thus, the value of [Fe/H] for SDSS J1257+3419 is less than $-1.5$ and
could be as low as $-2.0$ or $-2.25$.

Next, we estimate the structural properties of SDSS J1257+3419.
We derive its centroid from the density-weighted
first moment of the distribution,
and estimate the average ellipticity by using the three density-weighted second
moments (Stobie 1980).
For tracers of the radial profile, we adopt the stars with
$g-r<0.8$ and $r<23$ mag, which effectively reduce the
foreground stars at each radius.
Figure 2 shows the radial profile of the stars, where
the average densities with elliptical annuli are plotted
after subtracting a constant background level ($0.45 {~\rm arcmin^{-2}}$).
An exponential law with a half-light radius of $r_h=38$ pc approximately
represents the radial profile;
the radius little  depends on the binning size of the profile.

Finally, we roughly estimate an absolute integrated magnitude in the $V$-band,
$M_V$, using two different methods.
This is because photometric data on faint RGB and bright main-sequence stars
and kinematical data for membership identification are not available.
We first estimate its lower bound by summing the luminosities of the
RGB stars and HB stars within $r_h$ and then by doubling the summed luminosity
(e.g., Willman et al. 2005b).
The lower bound is estimated as $M_V=-3.4$ mag,
assuming that the distance is 150 kpc.
We note that this value may be underestimated because of the highly
distributed nature of bright RGB stars beyond the half-light radius
in the stellar system.
We second estimate a rough value of $M_V$ from the number of cluster RGB stars
that are brighter than the HB stars by applying
a loosely defined relation between the number of such RGB stars in the
globular clusters and its $M_V$.
The relation is constructed by performing
a weighted least-squares fitting procedure
(weights being inversely proportional to the poisson noise of the number of
the stars)
for the number of the observed RGB stars of
4 globular clusters (M5, M12, M52, and M92), which are expected to
have small numbers of contamination and of missing RGB stars,
and  their values of $M_V$ corrected for the field of view (Harris 1996).
We find the most likely value of $M_V=-4.8$ mag and
the upper bound of $M_V=-5.8$ mag, which is $1\sigma$ above it.

The estimated basic parameters are listed in Table 1.

\section{Discussion}
We discuss whether SDSS J1257+3419 is a subhalo.
Although the direct way of the discrimination is
the comparison between the total and stellar mass distributions,
the kinematical information to determine the total mass distribution
is not available.
Previous works suggested that the Galactic globular clusters (GCs)
and dwarf galaxies (DGs) are
dominated by stars and dark matter, respectively.
We thus set limits on the existence of the dark matter in SDSS J1257+3419,
by comparing it with GCs and DGs in some photometric and structural properties.

The DGs are relatively well separated from the GCs
in the $r_h$-$M_V$ plot shown in Figure 3.\footnote{We plot the
compilation data of Harris (1996) and Willman et al. (2005b) for the GCs
and that of Mateo (1998), Willman et al. (2005a), Zucker et al. 2006),
and Belokurov et al. (2006) for the DGs.}
The half-light radius of SDSS J1257+3419 is
larger than the GCs and to be smaller than the DGs.
SDSS J1257+3419 also has a luminosity comparable to the
faintest GCs and DGs.
Thus, SDSS J1257+3419 is located near the boundary between the
dwarf galaxies and globular clusters:
it could be a faint, small dwarf galaxy,
or a faint, extended globular cluster.

It should be noted that
another stellar system having such intermediate properties---SDSS J1049+5103---
has been recently detected (Willman et al. 2005).
The follow-up observations showed
that SDSS J1049+5103 is a stellar system with multiple stellar tails at
a distance of $\sim40$ kpc
and that its large spatial extent relative to low-luminosity globular
clusters may be formed as a result of tidal interaction with the Galaxy
during their orbital motions (Willman et al. 2006).
SDSS J1257+3419 is more luminous and more distant than SDSS J1049+5103
($M_V=-2.5$ mag),
and the mass-loss in the former system due to Galactic tides
might not be sufficiently high to explain its large spatial extent.
In order to determine whether it is a dwarf galaxy or a globular cluster,
it is vital to determine the photometric and structural properties
from a large sample of stars down to the turnoff of the main sequence
and to determine the mass distribution from their kinematical information.

Further we discuss the properties of SDSS J1257+3419.
If SDSS J1257+3419 is Galactic DG,
it is the fifth furthest one.
Thus, it is a good tracer of the mass determination of
the Galaxy (Sakamoto et al. 2003).

If SDSS J1257+3419 is a GC, it is the furthest one.
It might not be gravitationally bound to the Milky Way,
but to the Local Group.
Its shape is almost spherical, and it might have a simple dynamical evolution
due to weak Galactic tides.
Thus, it might be a good entity to understand the evolution of an isolated GC.

We set limits on the star formation history.
The known Galactic dSphs exhibit a wide variety of star formation histories
ranging from galaxies that are entirely dominated by very old populations to
dwarf galaxies with considerable fractions of intermediate-age stars
(Mateo 1998; Grebel \& Gallagher 2004).
Assuming no star within $22<r<23$ mag and $g-r<0.4$ mag (see Figure 1(e)),
we find that no star formation occured at least during the last four Gyr.
The absence of a red clump in the CMD strengthen that no sizable fraction of intermediate-age stars are populated in the SDSS J1257+3419.

\section{Conclusion}
We detect a faint old stellar system (SDSS J1257+3419)
with a half-light radius of 38 pc
at a heliocentric distance of $150\pm 15$ kpc on the basis of the spatial
distribution of bright RGB stars in SDSS-DR4.
The rough absolute integrated $V$-magnitude is $-4.8^{+1.4}_{-1.0}$ mag.
When we compared the half-light radius and absolute integrated magnitude with
those of the
known Galactic objects (i.e., dwarf galaxies and globular clusters),
we find that SDSS J1257+3419 is either a faint and small dwarf galaxy or
a faint and widely extended globular cluster.

\acknowledgments
TS would like to thank
Okayama Prefecture and the National Institute of Information
and Communications Technology for their support on high-speed network
connection (Okayama Information Highway and Japan Gigabit Network) for
data transfer and analysis.
TH thanks Y. Kondo and Y. Negishi for their assistance in ridge line
measurements in this study.

Funding for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/.
The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, the Korean Scientist Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Adi-what did he say ??
Lawyer-Zoya so how was ur relationship with pooja?
Adi is not involved in it.
What's your take on Aly Goni's entry in Dil Hi Toh Hai?
bcz of this rajveer to save adi zoya took the blame on her head.so painful.adi sharing the blame was sad.adi's words to zoya were touchy.does adi love zoya now?when did adi realize his love first?