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NON-BONDAGE EROTICA TITLES BY ARGUS
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Club Girl
Kirsten is a rich call girl looking for an investment. And what better investment for a woman in her profession than a private club for men, with all the amenities? There will be fine food and wine, exercise and music, and of course, beautiful young women. But to save money she decides to recruit young amateurs and train them up to her standards, young girls just out of high school with no future, and nothing to fall back on but beautiful faces and perfect bodies. Appealing to their greed, she sets about training wide-eyed young suburban girls. Laurie, the lovely young blonde who wants to go to Juilliard, but can't afford it, Courtney, who wanted to be a lawyer, but whose breasts were much bigger than her test scores, and Amy, the high school flirt who discovered the joy of uninhibited sexual freedom were among the first group Kristen trained to be Club Girls.
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Hot In The City
Erin was a conservative young woman, or thought she was. She'd only ever had sex with one man, her loving, handsome husband Tom. And if their sex life left a little to be desired, well, they were both putting in far too many long hours at the office. But when Tom and his best buddy conspire to seduce her to the wild life she is helplessly aroused, and is soon sleeping with not just another man, but his wife! And that was just the start. This is the story of how an ordinary young woman's routine life turns to one of thrills and wild excitement as she exposes herself - and her body - the pleasures of sensual desire.
Rebel In A Thong
Jessie was a good girl, daddy's girl, always obedient, always respectful, doing her best to help her politician father maintain his image as a family man. Until the day she realized just what manner of sleazy, adulterous lecher he was. From that day on Jessie vowed to cast aside her inhibitions, to go wild and enjoy all the lewd and exciting things she'd never had a chance for. Buying a motorcycle and seducing a biker were just the first in a long string of actions she took to outrage her father, as she heads off on a thrill ride down the highway, an easy rider, if ever there was one.
Allison Munro is frustrated. Her first year at college is over, and there was no fire, no awakening. Two paltry and ordinary sexual experiences have not given her the wild times she wants to remember when she's old and gray. And then, quite unplanned, on a hot steamy night, she and her best friend begin to make out in the quiet of a darkened park, and her world changes. As each new sexual experience opens her eyes wider she sheds her inhibitions and becomes more and more wild and daring, seducing her girlfriend's brother, then father, then mother, then reaching out to others around her, filled with the thrill of sexual conquest, the pride of a beautiful nymphet, and the heat of wicked desire
How does a shy Irish virgin become a stripper?
Alexandra O'Shaughnessy is a co-ed barely getting by on what her old fashioned Irish father sends her. When he tries to for@e her to give up college and come home she rebels and takes a job waitressing. But the tips her revealing outfit brings aren't enough as he cuts her allowance further and further. And Alex finds, much to her shock, that she likes showing herself off to the hungry men she serves. As her shyness and innocence fade, so too do her inhibitions. She reluctantly takes a job as a topless dancer, and then plunges further into the sordid, yet exciting world of sex, becoming a stripper and lap dancer.
It started on the bus, as giggles turned to passion and she and her seat mate engaged kissing, mutual masturbation and daring lovemaking.
For Taylor had a long hot summer ahead of her as a camp counsellors at a summer camp, and she was going to have a summer she would never forget. Away from home, with no fear of gossip, she would tempt the fates in every way, living out her sexual fantasies with counsellors and campers alike, seducing and being seduced with glee, and becoming the most notorious camp slut in Camp Hiawatha' history.
The Case Of The Virgin Whore
It was an easy adultery case for Radford. And with his hi powered camera he had no problem getting great pictures of a cheating husband and his lovely mistress. What he hadn't counted on was the gorgeous little nymphet next door doing a strip tease in front of her window, or the killer who tried to drown her in her own tub. The next day two beautiful women marched into his office. The first was the lovely, naive young virgin whose life he had saved, determined to hire him. The second was the sleek, sensuous, and arrogant Alexandra Conroy, a PI hired by the girl's father and determined to keep him away from her.
Radford's tasks were clear. He had to find the hoods trying to kill the girl, and get both his charge and his rival into his bed - preferably together.
The Co-ed Exhibitionist
Melissa was a shy college girl with a secret desire. She loved to be looked at, loved to be wanted. Unable to help herself, she begins running around the campus at night, naked but for a mask. She masturbates in front of her sleeping roommate, and poses before her window. When she finds a pair of men watching her masturbating one night the lid comes off, and her sexual desires become unquenchable. Soon she is posing for nasty photos, then videos, and then the kinky co-ed is doing live sex shows on weekends and being gang-banged by frat boys during the week. But when she streaks the football game and masturbates in front of the crowd her college life will come to a screaming end.
Samantha practiced for her upcoming college interview. She picked out just the outfit to wear, and got a new hairstyle. Then she mixed up the days and when the interviewers arrived they found her in a thong bikini getting some sun. Of course, covered in tanning lotion, she couldn't sit on her aunt's antique furniture so had to kneel on the floor at their feet! Then when she blurted out why, the stern faced, but beautiful blonde woman, and the eye-poppingly handsome man reminded her she'd claimed the house as her principal residence. Caught in a lie, she had to give in to their punishment. A sound spanking! She endured most of the rest of her interview naked on her knees with her wrists bound behind her! And then the couple took her into the shower to rinse off the oil, and things really got wild!
The Street Kid
She had almost forgotten her name. They called her CD because she used to steal and sell them for food, back when she hid from the pimps and dealers, sleeping in alleys and under stairs. But she wasn't hiding any more. Now she was the scourge of the street, tall blonde and dangerous, with a gun and a license to find the runaways littering the dirtiest streets of New York. But tough as she was she had a fatal weakness, for the streets had made her an unreformed slut and exhibitionist, and not all of the men she taunted and tempted with her lush, beautiful body could be denied, no matter how wild and dangerous the ride.
The Vice Principal's Discipline
Nicole was two weeks away from graduation when the urge came over to her to display her contempt for cheerleaders and her new high school by mooning the camera while it was taking their picture. She hadn't thought she could possibly get caught, but when she did, Vice Principal Ramirez gave her a choice between expulsion and his own discipline. Eighteen year old Nicky affected a jaded, cynical view of life, and thought herself sophisticated. But she was about to discover just how innocent she was about the perversity of grown men, and the intensity of dark excitement and passion she could feel while submitting to their punishment and use.
Contains discipline scenes, sex and oral sex.
The Wolf Girl
Kenzie had not had an easy life. She had faced numerous challenges and overcome them all. But being attacked by a werewolf one night caused too many problems to handle on her own. For one thing, she could break thick wooden tables by accident. For another, she had a nearly insatiable hunger, both for meat, and for men. And when the full moon came, Kenzie found the freedom of becoming a wolf, a massive white wolf prowling through the forest. That was, until the other wolves came for her, and she found herself irresistably attracted to Colin, an alpha wolf with enough arrogance to fill the world, and the incredible sexual power to drive her out of her mind. Back at their compound, Kenzie was introduced to the world of werewolves, to the rules of dominance, rivaly and power, and the metaphysical link between them all which would mean she would never be alone again. But her most difficult task was to conquer herself, her inner wolf, and the wild, feral heat which took her whenever an alpha male was in sight.
Wild In Wyoming
It wasn't much of a ranch, but it was all Holly had after her parents died, and there wasn't anywhere else she would rather be, even if she could have gotten there. But living alone wasn't her idea of an ideal life. And then one day Hunter appeared - on four paws, saving her from a wolf which had killed one of her herd. Holly had never had anything to do with werewolves, before, but there didn't seem to be much option but to let him carry her home, given her sprained ankle. That he had no clothes made things a little more uncomfortable than it might have been, of course. But she was soon to get used to his visits, and to his powerful body. He filled her with a kind of heat she had never imagined possible, and she writhed to his touch, wrapped in a fever dream of hunger and passion. But was there more to their relationship then hot, torrid sex, and what danger was she facing given the fear and hatred her neighbors had for he and his people?
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Kim, Byeon, Song, and Lee: Availability of preoperative anxiety scale as a predictive factor for hemodynamic changes during induction of anesthesia
Availability of preoperative anxiety scale as a predictive factor for hemodynamic changes during induction of anesthesia
Won-Sung Kim1, Gyeong-Jo Byeon2, Bong-Jae Song1, Hyeon Jeong Lee1
1Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, Pusan National University, Busan, Korea.
2Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Masan Medical Center, Masan, Korea.
Corresponding author: Hyeon Jeong Lee, M.D., Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, Pusan National University, 10, Ami-dong 1-ga, Seogu, Busan 602-061, Korea. Tel: 82-51-240-7399, Fax: 82-51-242-7466, lhjksk@pusan.ac.kr
Received December 28, 2009 Revised January 22, 2010 Accepted January 26, 2010
The current study evaluated whether the level of preoperative anxiety assessed by the state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI) affects cardiovascular response during anesthetic induction. Furthermore, we evaluated the utility of the preoperative anxiety scale as a predictive factor for hemodynamic changes.
One hundred twenty patients who were scheduled to undergo elective surgery under general anesthesia were enrolled in this prospective study. The patients were asked to fill out STAI questionnaires the night before the day of surgery. For 5 minutes after tracheal intubation, changes in vital signs were recorded. The correlation between STAI scores and the percent changes in vital signs during the induction of anesthesia for each subgroup was assessed. In addition, the predictability of the 20% change in vital signs by STAI scores was analyzed using receiver operating characteristics curves.
The state anxiety scores of patients 45 years of age or older showed a significant correlation with percent changes in mean blood pressure and heart rate, whereas the state anxiety scores in other subgroups showed no significant correlation with changes in vital signs during the induction of anesthesia. Furthermore, the state anxiety scores in patients 45 years of age or older were shown to be useful in predicting a 20% change in vital signs during anesthetic induction.
The state anxiety scores of patients 45 years of age or above could be a useful tool for predicting changes in vital signs during anesthetic induction. Thus, physician should be mindful of preoperative anxiety.
Keywords: Anesthesia; Anxiety; Hemodynamics; Intratracheal intubation; State trait anxiety inventory.
It is common for patients to feel anxious before surgery. The frequency varies depending on the measuring method of anxiety. Recently, Boker et al. [1] reported that 60% of patients who present for elective surgery are known to experience anxiety. Preoperative anxiety not only requires larger amounts of anesthetics [2,3] but also increases the patient's catecholamine secretion, and catecholamine causes tachycardia, hypertension, and arrhythmia [4,5]. Moreover, preoperative anxiety affects the level of recovery and postoperative pain [6]. The prevalence of preoperative anxiety depends on the patient group. According to studies, a high prevalence is found in females, relatively young patients, patients who ask many questions about the surgery, and patients without prior surgery experience. Gender and age especially have a correlation with preoperative anxiety [3,7-9]. Most anesthesiologists have negative experiences with preoperative anxiety affecting patients; therefore, to reduce preoperative anxiety, anesthesiologists make preoperative visits, administer preoperative sedatives, and use many other methods. Even though the negative effects of preoperative anxiety are widely known, no studies even to the present day have been conducted on the correlation of the level of preoperative anxiety and hemodynamic changes during anesthetic induction.
There are many reported ways to measure a patient's anxiety level. Spielberger's state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI) is one of the most commonly used anxiety tests among the subjective self-measuring tests. At first, it was developed as a tool for measuring the anxiety level in mean healthy people, but then the test was found to be useful in measuring anxiety in patient groups. Therefore, the STAI is now the standard tool for measuring preoperative anxiety [7]. The STAI measures anxiety with the state subscale and the trait subscale. The state subscale measures temporary anxiety. The value has variations for individuals for subjective feelings of tension, concern, and worries depending on the situation. The trait subscale is relatively stable in showing personal differences in how individuals differently experience anxiety [10].
The authors used the STAI to evaluate the correlation between patients' preoperative anxiety and their hemodynamics during anesthetic induction. As age and gender are known to affect anxiety, we also aimed at finding out how age and gender play a role in the correlation. In addition, we aimed at discovering whether the STAI can be used as an indicator to predict hemodynamic changes after anesthetic induction.
This research received the approval of the clinical research ethics committee and then received the consent of the patient subject groups. The patient subjects included 120 patients from age 18 to 65 who fell under ASA Class I & II and were due for elective surgery under general anesthesia. Patients were excluded from the study if they had a history of psychiatric illness, a frequent intake of sleeping pills or sedatives, a disease of the central nervous system, pregnancy, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, or other cardiopulmonary diseases, or if they were Mallampati classification III or above and predicted to have difficult tracheal intubation.
The day before the surgery, the anesthesiologist visited patients around 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. to explain the purpose of the research study and get their consent. The patients were made to fill out the STAI themselves. No patients were administered preoperative drugs. On the day of the surgery, an ECG, a noninvasive automatic hemodynamometer, and a peripheral oximeter (IntelliVue MP40, Philips, Eindhoven, Netherlands) were attached to the patient. Blood pressure and heart rate were measured 3 times, and the means were used as the base blood pressure and the base heart rate. With 100% oxygen 5 L/min, the patient was made to breathe deeply 5 times. After preoxygenation, anesthesia was induced. Thiopental sodium 5 mg/kg was intravenously infused. When the loss of the patient's eyelid reflex was checked, rocuronium 0.6 mg/kg was injected intravenously. Manual ventilation was performed for 2 minutes. Then tracheal intubation was performed. When manual ventilation was initiated, the noninvasive hemodynamometer was put in stat mode and was continuously checked. The highest blood pressure and heart rate within 5 minutes after tracheal intubation were recorded and defined to be the patient's highest blood pressure and highest heart rate. They were then compared to the base blood pressure and base heart rate. The amount of change was recorded in percentages. After measurements were taken for 5 minutes, sevoflurane 2 vol% and remifentanil 0.25-0.5 µg/min/kg were used for anesthetic maintenance. Tracheal intubation was performed by an anesthesiologist with 2 years of experience. If tracheal intubation was not successful on the first attempt, the patient was excluded from the research study.
For statistical analysis, MedCalc® 10.0 (Mariakerke, Belgium) was used. The results are shown in the mean ± standard deviation. The patient's level of anxiety and the correlation to the changes in blood pressure and pulse rate was checked with linear regression analysis. The primary objective of the research study was the correlation analysis. In a preliminary experiment, the correlation factor was found to be 0.285. Assuming α = 0.05 and β = 0.2, the minimum sample size was 94 patient subjects. The receiver operation characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate if the patient's anxiety scores found with the STAI could help in predicting 20% or more hemodynamic changes during anesthetic induction. P < 0.05 was considered statistically meaningful. In a preliminary experiment, the AUC was found to be 0.5. If 0.7 or more AUC had predictability of 20% or more hemodynamic changes, the minimum sample size was 78 patients. We included 120 patients in our study to compensate for the expected exclusion of certain patients.
Out of 120 patients, 9 patients were excluded because they needed 2 attempts at tracheal intubation or because they declined to participate in the study. Table 1 shows the patients' age, gender ASA class, weight, height, and the name of their surgery for this study. Data on preoperative anxiety scores, length of surgery in hours, changes in percentages of pre/post tracheal intubation blood pressure, and pulse rate was analyzed by gender and by age. In the age subgroups, patients age 45 or older were grouped together, and patients below age 45 were grouped separately. There were significant differences between the age groups in state anxiety scores, blood pressure changes, and heart rate changes. However, no such differences were found between the genders (Table 2).
When the data by total patient group was analyzed, the changes from the base blood pressure and base pulse rate measured in the calm state to the highest blood pressure and the highest pulse rate in 5 minutes were not correlated to the patients' state anxiety scores and trait anxiety scores. When the data was sorted into the age subgroups 45 years of age or older or below 45, the state anxiety scores of those who were 45 years of age or older and their changes in pulse rate showed a significant correlation (P = 0.047 by Pearson correlation). But when the data was sorted by gender, the anxiety scores of neither the males nor the females showed a correlation with the changes in blood pressure and pulse rate (Table 3).
In the analysis to see if the state and trait anxiety subscale could predict a 20% or more change in blood pressure and pulse rate during anesthetic induction, the ROC analysis on the total patient group showed that state and trait anxiety scores were not appropriate predictors of hemodynamic changes related to anesthetic induction. This was the same for the gender-based analysis between the STAI scores and hemodynamic changes during anesthetic induction.
However, in the age-based analysis, the state anxiety scores of patients who were 45 years of age or older showed not only a close correlation with the change in heart rate (Table 3) but also that the scores could be used to predict a 20% or more change in blood pressure during anesthetic induction (AUC = 0.729, P = 0.024) and 20% or more change in heart rate (AUC = 0.767, P = 0.049) (Table 4).
STAI scores usually range from 20 to 80. Anxiety is present when the score is above 50. In the current study, the mean state anxiety and trait anxiety scores were 43.8 and 42.7, respectively. Forty-eight patients scored 50 or more for state anxiety (48/111, 43%), and 31 patients scored 50 or more for trait anxiety (31/111, 28%). Because cancer patients, except thyroid cancer, were excluded from the study and the surgeries were relatively short and had low morbidity, the scores were slightly low. These scores were lower than what Boker et al. [1] reported but were not very different from what Kindler et al. [11] and Badner et al. [12] reported. Preoperative anxiety reportedly occurs 11% of the time at the minimum [13], or up to 80% of the time at the highest [14]. However, these reports had unclear anxiety scales and uncontrolled preoperative measures and other factors. Therefore, the frequency in the current experiment was closer to the frequency found in controlled studies.
According to Sun et al. [9], patient groups of 40 years of age and younger have increased prevalence of anxiety compared to other groups. The current study used the age 45 as the divider for the 2 age groups. A significant difference between the 2 groups was in their state anxiety scores. Unlike Sun et al.'s report, in this study, the older group had higher state anxiety scores. This difference may be due to the fact that the report by Sun et al. used a visual analog scale to measure the preoperative anxiety and may have defined anxiety more broadly. The current study used the STAI to distinguish state anxiety from trait anxiety and measured them separately, and this study aimed at seeing what affects a specific event, such as surgery, has on state anxiety. According to Spielberger et al., a specific event such as surgery has a close correlation with state anxiety [15]. Although the current study used age 45 as the dividing age for the 2 age groups, Sun et al. qualified the younger group as 20 to 39. These differences in how the groups were defined may have played a part in the difference observed in the analysis results.
In the older age group, the increase in mean arterial pressure was greater. In the lower age group, the increase in pulse rate was greater. This may be because the older the patient is, the more of a varying effect the increase in catecholamine has on the cardiopulmonary system. Catecholamine increase in heart rate occurs more commonly in younger age groups. But in older groups, the rise in catecholamine increases mean arterial pressure even more noticeably [16,17]. However, the hemodynamic response was not proportional to the increase in the patient's age. The hemodynamic change due to tracheal intubation is greatest if the patient's age is between 40 and 50, according to Ismail et al. [18], or 35 to 50, according to Bullington et al. [19]. We chose age 45 as the dividing mark for the 2 ages groups after carefully reviewing Sun et al.'s report on anxiety and Ismail et al. and Bullington et al.'s reports on hemodynamic responses. At age 45 or above, the change in heart rate and the state anxiety was statistically significant. This means that an event like surgery can show that state anxiety, unlike trait anxiety, has a strong correlation with hemodynamic changes.
In the older age group, the analysis on whether state anxiety can predict hemodynamic changes during anesthetic induction showed that state anxiety proved to be valuable in predicting the change in mean arterial pressure and heart rate. This proves that patients with high preoperative state anxiety have high occurrences of hemodynamic changes during anesthetic induction. In a clinical practice, older patients with high state anxiety scores may experience great hemodynamic changes, so it is important to prepare for this. In older patients, the mean arterial pressure change does not show a correlation with state anxiety but appeared to be a significant predictor. This may be due to the method of statistical analysis.
In many other reports, females have been shown to have higher preoperative anxiety. In the current study, females had a higher mean STAI score than the males; however, no statistical significance was observed (mean state anxiety score; male = 42.1 < female = 45.3, mean trait anxiety score; male = 42.0 < female = 43.4). In addition, there was no difference between the genders in terms of hemodynamic change. This may be because there was no difference between the genders in the levels of anxiety. Or it may be because the difference in hemodynamic changes following anesthetic induction may not be related to gender. This requires further research.
To measure the patient's preoperative anxiety, the authors visited patients around 9-10 p.m. the night before their surgery and gave them questionnaires to fill out. The STAI has 40 questions, which takes too much time just before entering the operation room. Thus, conducting the STAI before entering the operation room was difficult. Lichtor et al. [20] stated that a patient's anxiety level in the afternoon of the day before surgery was not different from the anxiety level of the patient before entering the operation room on the day of surgery. They stated that the anxiety level in the afternoon the day before surgery can predict the anxiety level of the day of surgery. Therefore, the measurements of anxiety levels in the current study may be seen as measurements right before surgery.
Patients with Mallampati classification III, who were assumed to have difficult tracheal intubation, were excluded, and the intubations were performed by one doctor. But the physical force used for each patient may have been different. However, according to Suh et al. [21], the difference in the amount of force put on the soft tissue is irrelevant to the level of the circulatory system's response after laryngoscope manipulation. The reflex is caused by more than the threshold amount of stimuli. Therefore, variances in the patients' tracheal intubation environment causing misinterpretation of results do not have to be considered.
One of the limitations of the current study is that the change in blood pressure during tracheal intubation was not measured continuously. The stat mode was used, and blood pressure was not measured in real-time, so there was a time lapse when blood pressure was measured. However, tracheal intubation caused hemodynamic changes to occur within 10 seconds to 2 minutes [22]. The exact highest blood pressure during tracheal intubation may not have been measured, but the current study measured the highest mean blood pressure within 1 minute after tracheal intubation. Direct arterial blood pressure measurement may have been more accurate and could have shown real-time results. However, since most patients in the study were healthy and did not require invasive blood pressure monitors, we could not take invasive measurements. In addition, the other problem was that the current study could not eliminate other factors affecting preoperative anxiety besides age and gender. Moreover, information on patients with past surgical experience and the varying levels of curiosity of the patients who had many questions on the surgery were not included in the research study, which limited the analysis. However, the sample number of patient subjects was adequate, so the authors think that the effects of the limitations on the results were low.
The current study illuminated the relationship between patients' preoperative anxiety and hemodynamics in tracheal intubation, and found the utility of state anxiety as a predictor of hemodynamic responses. Past studies focused on anesthetic maintenance as the measuring point of hemodynamics. However, the current study was different in that it focused on the anesthetic induction period when there is greater variance in hemodynamics. In addition, the current study found that, in predicting hemodynamic responses, state anxiety was more useful than trait anxiety.
In conclusion, the state anxiety of patients 45 years old and older was found to have a strong connection with the hemodynamic change during anesthetic induction and discovered to be an important predictor. Therefore, preoperative anxiety, especially the patient's state anxiety, should be given more attention. Older patients with high preoperative anxiety can be predicted to have more exaggerated hemodynamic responses, so more proactive measures in reducing these patients' preoperative anxiety should be taken. Attention should be given to hemodynamic responses during anesthetic induction to keep the patient safe from complications.
This reseach was supported by the 2010 Pusan National University Hospital clinical research funding.
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Values are mean ± SD or number of patients.
Spielberger's State-trait Anxiety Inventory and Hemodynamic Changes
Values are mean ± SD or number of patients. % MBP is [(maximum mean arterial pressure in 5 min / average mean arterial pressure before induction) - 1] × 100 (%). % HR is [(maximum heart rate in 5 min / average heart rate before induction) - 1] × 100 (%). *P value < 0.05.
Correlation Coefficient between Spielberger's State-trait Anxiety Inventory Scale and Mean Blood Pressure/heart Rate during the Induction of Anesthesia
SA = state anxiety, TA = trait anxiety, SA and TA scales were acquired from state trait anxiety inventory. % MBP is [(maximum mean arterial pressure in 5 min / average mean arterial pressure before induction) - 1] × 100 (%). % HR is [(maximum heart rate in 5 min / average heart rate before induction) - 1] × 100 (%). *P value < 0.05.
Analysis of Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curves and Determination of the Thresholds Spielberger's State-trait Anxiety Inventory Predicting the Occurrence of 20% Changes in mean Blood Pressure and Heart Rate during the Induction of Anesthesia
SA = state anxiety, TA = trait anxiety, % MBP is [(maximum mean arterial pressure in 5 min / average mean arterial pressure before induction) - 1] × 100 (%). % HR is [(maximum heart rate in 5 min / average heart rate before induction) - 1] × 100 (%). *P value < 0.05.

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A number of environmental problems are international in nature, including many water management issues. Rivers, for example, do not recognize political boundaries. Therefore, pollution generated in one country can affect neighboring countries, while water extraction in an upstream country can affect water flow and water availability in a downstream country. The situation creates an interdependency among countries, which might lead to disputes over the management of transboundary water. Therefore, coordination among the countries is necessary for effective management of these transboundary resources.
The focus of a recently published study (Khachaturyan and Schoengold, 2018) is the transboundary Kura-Araks Basin (see Figure 1 for its location), which is a major river system in the South Caucasus, with about 11 million people living in the basin. The countries in the basin are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Turkey, with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia having over 80 percent of the streamflow. The Kura-Araks Basin is a primary source of water for agricultural, industrial, and municipal uses in the South Caucasian countries. The study determines whether there are economic benefits to be gained from cooperation in the management of the Kura River (shared between Azerbaijan and Georgia), and under what conditions cooperation is an achievable outcome. Azerbaijan withdraws about 35 percent of the total available renewable water resources while Georgia only withdraws about three percent.
Figure 1. The Kura-Araks Basin in the Caucasian countries.
Source: Vener and Campana (2010), the basin is enclosed in blue line.
The development and expansion of irrigated agriculture increased water use in the Kura River Basin of Azerbaijan. The reductions of natural flow, caused by the overuse of some rivers, worsen the conditions in the basin. In addition to water quantity, water quality is also of significant concern in the region. Water quality degradation occurs from a variety of sources, including municipal and industrial wastewater, extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture, and wastewater from mining activities. Given the existing challenges for water management in the basin, it is important to evaluate the feasibility of cooperation between the countries to improve outcomes. Game theory offers a powerful set of tools that can be used to analyze economic and political incentives for cooperation, the strategies of the parties involved, and the possible outcomes in various strategic contexts, including transboundary resources. Therefore, it is frequently used to analyze international agreements. Linking issues can help achieve cooperation and build trust, since a country that benefits from cheating on one issue may cooperate when another country can credibly cheat on another issue in retaliation.
Georgia and Azerbaijan have an upstream-downstream relationship. Hence, actions taken by Georgia, the upstream riparian, have an effect on Azerbaijan, the downstream riparian. However, for cooperation to occur, there need to be benefits of cooperation for both countries. To design an effective treaty that is relevant to policy-makers and negotiators, we need to first identify the strength of each player. In the current analysis, the strength for Georgia is defined to be a large amount of water and its upstream position (as Azerbaijan is dependent on its upstream neighbor for both quality and quantity of waters entering its territory), while the strength of Azerbaijan is greater economic resources and large amounts of oil and natural gas resources. The analysis will consider water quantity and water quality, as both are critical issues in the region.
As the upstream riparian, Georgia is well-positioned to provide more water to Azerbaijan. While its total and per-capita water withdrawals are lower than Azerbaijan, it has almost twice the estimated renewable water available. More water will allow Azerbaijan to expand both its agriculture and industry sectors and will allow some diversification beyond the energy industry. Given Azerbaijan's downstream position and dependency on Georgia to receive a continuous and sufficient flow of water, Azerbaijan needs to offer something attractive to Georgia in return for such flow. With more economic resources due to its status as an energy exporter, Azerbaijan has the economic resources to provide better irrigation technology that can increase water use efficiency in Georgia. Due to the higher cost of drip irrigation, we focus on a switch from flood to sprinkler irrigation, which has an average efficiency improvement of 20 percent.
Azerbaijan has two strategies to provide efficient water use technology (e.g., drip irrigation) to save water or not: technology or no technology. Providing technology means providing financial and technical assistance in order to increase the efficiency of water use in Georgia. Georgia has two strategies: more wateror less water. An agreement between the two countries will specify the technology investment supplied by Azerbaijan and the amount of water supplied by Georgia.
The payoffs associated with this agreement are in Table 1. Each cell has two values, the first corresponding to Azerbaijan's payoff and the second to Georgia's payoff. The cell with strategies no technology and less water is the status quo situation. The payoff (0, 0) is used for the status quo to provide a baseline for comparison with alternative agreements. Technology and more water is the cooperative outcome with an associated payoff of (15.22, 1.04) (payoffs are measured in billions of dollars). However, strategies no technology and less water is the predicted outcome, since each country has an incentive to cheat (and earn more money) with the cooperative result.
The Kura River is polluted in the industrial part of eastern Georgia from industrial and domestic untreated waste. Much of the nation is served by wastewater treatment plants that were installed during the Soviet era. Many of those plants do not work or only provide basic treatment. Given the high dependence of Azerbaijan on Georgia for water resources, water pollution problems in Azerbaijan are primarily the result of upstream agricultural and industrial activity combined with poor treatment facilities. Construction of water filter treatment plants would improve water quality in both Georgia and in Azerbaijan, leading to health benefits. Diarrhea is one of the main diseases caused by contaminated water. The death rate of diarrheal diseases in 2008 was 9.5 and 3 per 100,000 people for Azerbaijan and Georgia, respectively. In contrast, death rates in some countries with high-quality water are the following: USA 1.2, Canada 1.6, Netherlands 0.5, France 0.9, Germany 0.6, Sweden 0.5, and Norway 2. If Georgia builds or renovates the treatment facilities, water pollution will decrease and diseases caused by contaminated water will decrease as well.
In contrast to the water quantity game, where the upstream country (Georgia) incurs the cost in order to benefit the downstream country (Azerbaijan), improving water quality in Georgia provides benefits in both countries. But, it is unrealistic for Georgia to make the costly investment in water treatment on its own. Georgia has fewer economic resources to pay for improving treatment facilities. In 2016, per-capita GDP in Azerbaijan and Georgia were $17,400 and $10,000, respectively. In addition, the rate of waterborne disease is higher in Azerbaijan; thus, it suffers more from the polluted water than Georgia does. Finally, poor water quality and poorly maintained treatment facilities have been common in Georgia for years, and politicians have not yet responded to the pollution. Thus, Azerbaijan must provide some additional benefit to Georgia for improving water quality. As a significant exporter of natural gas, Azerbaijan can provide a discount on a portion of Georgia's natural gas imports.
Azerbaijan has two strategies: to provide natural gas to Georgia for a reduced price or not: cheaper gas or no cheaper gas. Georgia used to buy gas from Russia, but since 2006 has purchased Azerbaijani gas diversifying its importers. In 2016, Georgia imported approximately 90 percent of its natural gas from Azerbaijan and only about 10 percent from Russia. The strategy cheaper gas means selling natural gas at a discount relative to current prices. Georgia has two strategies: to invest in pollution reduction technology to provide cleaner water to Azerbaijan or not: clean water or not clean water. It is costly to clean water since water is heavily polluted from industrial, municipal, and agricultural uses. This game is presented in Table 1. The cell with the strategies no cheaper gas and no clean water is the status quo situation.
Issue Linkage and the Interconnected Games: The interconnected game is presented in Table 2. With the interconnected game, each country has four possible strategies. The countries can choose to cooperate on both issues, not to cooperate on both issues, or to cooperate on only one issue. The first number in the cell represents a payoff for Azerbaijan as a result of Azerbaijan's and Georgian's strategies. For example, the payoff in the first upper cell is (17.01, 1.505). This outcome, which is the fully cooperative one, corresponds to Azerbaijan choosing technology and Georgia choosing more water in the water quantity game, with the result being (15.215, 1.04) payoff, and Azerbaijan choosing cheaper gas and Georgia choosing clean water in the water quality game, with the result being (1.795, 0.465) payoff. The payoff in the cell corresponding to the third row and fourth column is (-0.325, 4.28). This payoff corresponds to Azerbaijan choosing technology and Georgia choosing less water in the water quantity game, and Azerbaijan choosing no cheaper gas and Georgia choosing no clean water in water quality game with the result being (0, 0) non-cooperative outcome.
Table 2: Interconnected game for water quantity and water quality between Azerbaijan and Georgia: Parameter Values.
Note: Parameter values are based on secondary data about the value of water consumption, the cost of improved irrigation technology, the value of health impacts from poor water quality, water treatment costs, and the use of natural gas in Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Results: Our results show that interconnected games are welfare improving because they ensure that the cooperative outcome is incentive compatible (i.e., achievable). Intuitively, this result occurs because one country has a highly dominant strategy in one game, while the other has a highly dominant strategy in the other. Since each game requires a fixed investment as a strategy for one country, and a repeated benefit for the other country, full cooperation is not achievable in either independent game, since each country has an incentive to cheat in one game. Thus, while linking issues does not expand the set of economic outcomes, it assures that each country has the fully cooperative outcome instead of the status quo (no agreement). The political feasibility of our results, which is crucial to policymakers who may want to use these issues as a starting point for negotiations, are reasonable in comparison to each nation's economy. The estimated values show a greater gain to Azerbaijan from cooperation than to Georgia ($17.01 billion versus $1.51 billion). However, these values are much closer when examined relative to each country's GDP. Since Georgia's GDP is approximately one-fifth of Azerbaijan's GDP, these values represent about 20 and 9 percent of GDP for Azerbaijan and Georgia, respectively. Since the payoffs are calculated as the net present value of a stream of future benefits, the annual benefit as a percent of GDP is lower (about 1 to 2 percent). Thus, the results are reasonable, since the benefits are large enough to be of relevance to national policymakers, but not so large to be unrealistic. This information can be useful for policymakers when considering potential negotiation on transboundary waters between the countries, without the use of direct financial transfers.


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Blair's Sales Down, Income Up During First Half
Blair Corp. said yesterday that net sales for the second quarter ended June 30 totaled $120.8 million compared with $127 million last year.
The Warren, PA-based multichannel marketer of women's and men's apparel and home products attributed $5.7 million of the $6.2 million reduction to the previously announced closing of its Crossing Pointe catalog, which was completed in March.
Though sales were down, Blair's net income fared better in the quarter. The company's net income totaled $6.1 million versus $5 million last year.
Results for the first half of 2005 were similar. Blair's net sales for the six months ended June 30 totaled $228.4 million compared with $255.6 million last year. Gross sales from the Internet totaled $48.6 million in the first half of 2005 versus $45.6 million last year.
In the first half, net income was $6.7 million, up from $5.6 million for the same period last year.
In the second quarter, Blair announced plans to initiate a stock tender buyback of 4.4 million shares of its outstanding common stock at $42 per share, or $185 million.
Blair recently closed on $200 million in financing from PNC Financial Services Group Inc., which will be used to help pay for the stock tender buyback in conjunction with $40 million of Blair's cash reserves. Blair said it intends to pay down this credit facility with proceeds from the previously announced sale of its credit card portfolio to Alliance Data Systems Corp.
Chantal Todé covers catalog and retail news and BTB marketing for DM News and DM News.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
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Creating Coins: Worldbuilding Fantasy Money
by Mac August 20, 2018
When it comes to fantasy currency, it seems to be a little too easy for authors to fall back onto vague, undeveloped forms of money. "Gold pieces" and "silver pieces" are the kinds of meaningless names that an awful lot of writers seem to go for, but they can also be very sterile, unrealistic sorts of terms for characters to use in everyday speech. Of course, you don't need to spend a week creating an entire economic system — don't let your worldbuilding become such an elaborate exercise that it keeps you from ever starting on the actual story! — but a moment's consideration of how money works in your world can help you add the kind of touches that make your world more authentic and tell your readers something about your setting. In this post we'll dive into some considerations for coinage.
Metal coins are a common-sense go-to form of money for fantasy settings, for the same reasons that so many ancient societies also used them: they're portable, durable, can easily be made uniform in design, and can be consistently measured by weight and divided to form smaller denominations. There's a certain charisma inherent in characters trading in mysterious coins earned and pillaged through quest and adventure. Most of the advice here applies to coins, but can also provide you with some things to consider for paper notes.
Establish your basic unit of currency
If you do want to go for a formalized currency, the simplest way to start is with a basic unit. This will make your system easier to understand for your readers, and pretty easy to manage for you. For instance, in many countries today the dollar is the most basic unit. All other forms of currency are either multiples of the dollar ($5 bill, $20 bill, and so on), or fractions of the dollar (a US quarter is 25% of a dollar, a dime is 10% of a dollar, etc).
Once you've got your basic unit, you can create a few multiplications and divisions to give you a little array of coins for your characters to use. You don't need a ton of complicated options; a half dozen is probably more than enough for any fantasy story, unless it's some sort of medieval accountancy story, in which case you probably know more about this subject than I do.
Determine your materials
You might also be considering creating money from materials other than metal or paper. There are a number of things to consider in that scenario, including:
Could your currency be mass-produced sufficiently to meet the country's currency needs? Metal is easily stamped, and paper is easily printed, with the right equipment. Currency made from materials like jade, ivory, or bone would probably need to be individually carved, which would make each coin particularly time-consuming and potentially costly to make.
How scarce a material is it? Scarcity is one of the things that can make a material valuable enough to form currency, but exactly how hard is it for your country to source the materials used in the creation of their money? Does it depend upon good relations with a neighboring territory where the material is actually mined? Does the money require some sort of magic to finish it, which gives the local magicians' guild disproportionate power in the kingdom?
How easy would it be to counterfeit? If your money is made from a material that's freely available, and it doesn't have significant anti-counterfeiting measures, fake currency would quickly run rampant and destroy the value of the currency. How can your citizens tell if the currency they're passed is real or not, and what lengths would counterfeiters go to to create a phony version of your country's currency?
How difficult is it for a lay person to determine the value of the money? If your currency is made from intricately faceted gems, for instance, does everyone carry around a jeweler's loupe at all times to examine the quality of all currency that's passed to them? Have all of the people had to become gemologists just to get by? How do blind people get by in a society that requires measures like these?
How hardy is the material? A coin made of wood could quickly and easily become brittle and snap, or warp and crack due to weather. A material that would be heavily damaged by water, or an ink that runs, would all make unsuitable forms of currency. Bear in mind that whatever your money is made of, it will undoubtedly be handled roughly. A material light enough to scratch, or delicate enough to break, would probably cause more problems than it would solve.
What is the cost of both the material and the conversion of it into money? If a coin costs many more times to produce than it's worth, or requires too specialized a skill to finish, it won't be economical for the government to use.
Naming your nation's coins
When you're naming your nation's coins, and wanting to go beyond the simplistic "gold pieces" (thank you, bless you), you have plenty of options. Coins are named for all sorts of things, including:
Monetary worth
Some coins are simply named for their value. A few easy examples in US currency are the quarter (worth one quarter of a dollar) and the dime, whose essential root comes from the Latin decima pars, or "tenth part." (It wound up as dime after being filtered through both Old French and Middle English.) Similarly, the word cent comes from the Latin for "hundredth," so one cent is a hundredth of a dollar, five cents is five hundredths of a dollar, and so on.
The designs stamped on them
Early coins were essentially tangible items of value — small measures of precious metals that were in themselves considered to have monetary worth — of a very precise weight. So the designs stamped on early coins were most often royal seals, certifying that the coins were genuinely made from the correct metal and were the proper weight. Later designs became more interesting and intricate, and depicted all sorts of subjects: rulers, temples, animals, commemoration of battles and victories, slogans, and culturally significant symbols, among other things.
The common names of these coins often come very simply from what is depicted on those coins. One example you might recognize is the Canadian loonie, the one-dollar coin, so named because they feature a bird called a Common Loon on one side.
Your own fantasy nation's coins could be named after just about anything! And the imagery depicted on a nation's coins might also help show the priorities of the nations or rulers in question. Has a vain, tyrannical king plastered an idealized version of his own face on every coin in his kingdom? Are the people so dedicated to agriculture that their currency is all stamped with different types of crops? Are most of a region's coins little odes to the god of war?
A coin's common name might also come not from what is literally pictured on the surface, but by the public's impression of the coin's artwork. The British King George III "Bull Head" coin, which was simply called a "bull" by the public, didn't picture any form of bovine at all, but the portrait of the king did look very thick and bullish. This half-crown only lasted a couple of years; the king found the portrait — and probably the nickname that came with it — offensive, and had new artwork commissioned for a replacement coin.
The specific commodities they were designed to signify or redeem
The shekel was the name for both a specific weight of barley, and the coin which could be used to collect that weight of barley from the city's warehouse. Shekels eventually became a form of coinage used in several different nations, which could be used simply as a currency to purchase all sorts of things, and was no longer exclusively a "redeem for one bag of barley" token.
Carthaginian shekel (310-290 BC), left; Jerusalem shekel (66-70 CE), right. Photos by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.
Other currency might be known specifically for what it most frequently was used to purchase. At a certain point in English history, horses were mostly bought with guineas; there are still horse races called the 1000 and 2000 Guineas Stakes, and horses are still sold in the UK and Ireland with a price in guineas (though in modern times the standard currency is pounds), for historical reasons that I'll refrain from spending a few paragraphs on. If a coin is used almost exclusively by horse traders, it wouldn't be a surprise for it to end up with a horsey nickname, either.
The country from which it originated
Coins may also be named for the country or government that produced them, or the authority which issued them. This is where names like sovereign and crown come from — the coins were issued with the authorization of the crown. The Spanish real, Iranian rial, and Saudi Arabian riyal all come from the words for "royal," for the same reason.
While the citizens of the country that issues the coin might not refer to it with their own country's name — Americans aren't likely to start calling any of our coins "muricaners," although that would be hilarious and we should — it's entirely possible that citizens of another country that traded with us would refer to our currency in reference to what country it came from. Muricaners it is. Spread the word.
A related category might include currency whose name comes from the region in which the metal used in the coins was mined. The British guinea is one of these, and so is the South African rand. (Even the word dollar has its origins in the region in which the original silver for dollars was mined.)
The material the coin was composed of
A simple example of this before modern currency was the Roman rough bronze, which was a roughly weighed nugget of bronze; its worth was in the bronze itself, which could be used to make quality tools. This was essentially still a barter system, in which an item of value was exchanged for some other item of value, with the bronze just being accepted as something generally useful in that society. Later developments of Roman bronze gave the "currency" a standardized weight, and eventually resulted in bronze coins that weren't meant to be anything other than coins: so their value as a material to be melted down changed over to their value for use in exchange as formalized money. Apparently historians still get into fisticuffs about exactly where in the development of this system the use of bronze switched from a system of barter to a true system of money.
Similarly, some coins have also been named by their weight, or the weight of other coins to which they were equivalent. The English pound, Italian lira and Spanish peso all have names that essentially mean "pound" or "weight." (Obviously the coins themselves don't weigh a pound… in the case of the English pound, it was worth the equivalent of a full pound-weight of pennies.)
Relative sizes of silver Castilian coins. (Public domain, from Wiki.)
One important feature of coins is being able to differentiate them, and this can also provide a little extra richness for the way you handle currency in your world. Coins will usually vary in size, as they were originally made with precious metals, and using different sizes gave them each literally a different value. But it's also incredibly handy for coins to have other unique features: a center hole, a variety of shapes, a textured or notched edge, raised text or numerals, or varying thickness. These kinds of features help people tell coins apart, whether they're visually impaired, or just inclined toward making deals at dark crossroads in the dead of night. Not that I personally know anything about that.
These differences might be used in a single nation or city to create variety in their own coinage, or you might see squared coins from one nation and octagons from another. It's just one more way to add unique details to your world's coins, and another potential source of common names for your coins.
Don't be afraid to mix and match!
In a single country or currency system, it's very likely that the names of coins will be drawn from a combination of these naming conventions, so don't be afraid to mix and match! For instance, the US quarter and dime are named for their value; nickels are named for the metal they were eventually made with, and pennies come with an etymology so complicated that no one seems to be quite sure where the word even comes from.
Nickels are actually kind of an interesting example all on their own, because they weren't initially made with nickel: they were pure silver, and were called the half-dime. After the American Civil War threw the nation's monetary system into absolute chaos, and created a shortage of the precious metals that had previously been used to make coins, the nickel wound up being made of a combination of nickel and copper, thus the name.
A single type of coin might also have different names for what era or design of coin it is. To use the US nickel as an example again, there's the Shield nickel, Liberty Head nickel, Buffalo nickel, and Jefferson nickel, all named for their various designs and depictions. While the general public might still just refer to all of these as just a "nickel," the common parlance could just as easily have turned to calling the nickel a "shield" or "Liberty head" instead, if the design had remained unchanging.
Local slang and accents
It's also a good idea to imagine how local accents and pronunciation can change the names of your coinage with time. For instance, the British two pence coin is often pronounced as "tuppence," and the three pence as "thruppence." They'd also be abbreviated as 2p and 3p, so they're often also called "two pee" and "three pee," for that reason. You could end up with all sorts of versions and abbreviations for any common form of currency.
To return to our previous Shield nickel example, a coin called a "shield" because of the shield on its face could easily over time become a "sheld" or "shild," or meld two separate words together. Say your country uses a guilder coin, but it's a specific colonial version with a shield on it. "Shield guilder" could easily become "shilder" with the local accent over time.
There's really no limit to where the names of your coins could come from, or what they could become. Perhaps the most important things to consider in the narrative is that your readers understand you're talking about currency (and not like, a literal shield) and that they understand the relative value of that currency well enough to know the situation your characters are in (which is usually done easily enough with context). For example:
Ysolt flipped through the coins in her palm, her fingers curled over to keep the quantity of her currency from the sight of the innkeeper. "I've got five shilders," she said, and if it wasn't all she had, that was her own business.
The innkeeper scowled, waving his meaty hand like he was shooing her away. "Colony money ain't worth but half a real guilder. You give me ten, and you can have your room."
What I think works well in this example is that you know a shilder is a coin, you know it's worth relative to the guilder (or at least how certain people view the value of that currency and the people who hold it), and it's incredibly easy to see that "shilder" is some kind of derivative of "guilder." So you can pack a good amount of info into a pretty brief exchange.
Looking at current coins of the world can be a great source of inspiration; decide what you might call them in your fantasy world!
Figured out what sort of names you want to give your coins? Bust out the thesaurus (dot com) to come up with some potential names that connect to your coin without also confusing your language. The knight-decorated coin heading this article is a great example: if your story features actual knights, calling the coin a "knight" could be confusing (and maybe a little boring). You could always call it a gallant, errant, cavalier, or banneret. A coin with a ship on it, like the one in the photo above, might become a galleon, barge, brigantine, frigate, clipper, or xebec. Maybe the locals have a low opinion of sailors, so they call the coin with a mighty battleship on it a dinghy. Go nuts!
The relative worth of a coin
Like anything else in your fictional world, currency is heavily impacted by war, conquest, and colonialism. You might find coins called "sovereigns" in places that had never had kings, because they've been conquered by people who do. (Britain's Queen Elizabeth II still appears on Canadian coins. Make of that what you will.) Changes in regime can lead to changes in currency, changes in community values, devaluations of old currency, and other complications for your characters.
Your characters' coins wouldn't necessarily be turned away, though, even by merchants in a far-off land. Spanish coins (like the infamous "pieces of eight," so called because they were worth 8 reales) were a worldwide standard for awhile, not just because the Spanish were sailing all over the place conquering things and buying things, but also because their coins were known to be properly weighed and to actually contain the amount of precious metals that they were supposed to, which made them inherently valuable. (Pure silver would always be good for buying power, no matter what nation's stamp it had on it.) So your fantasy nations might easily trade in another country's coins, just because of their reputation for purity. Or your characters' coins could wind up being worthless once they've traveled beyond the boundaries of their own land; it's all a way to complicate your plot and layer your worldbuilding.
Alternatives to a system of cold hard cash
Of course, you don't have to build your model on metal coins or paper bills at all. Entire trade systems have revolved around beads, cowrie shells, and other items that people just find attractive, items that are particularly useful for making something valuable (like the Romans and their bronze), or items that are prized because they're scarce or difficult to obtain. Your society could be a barter system, in which items of value are traded for items of similar value. There's also "money of account," a system based on accounts and ledgers, in which "I owe you" becomes a much more formalized affair. (Today we all know this as "debt" and are buried to our collective necks in it.) Even for actual money rather than barter, there were plenty of options throughout history, particularly for the wealthy and merchant classes. Paper currency was already in use in 11th-century China, and all over the world bank notes, promissory notes, bills of exchange, and credit notes provided merchants with ways to make large transactions without the risks of transporting large quantities of coins and precious metals.
It would also be realistic for different societies in your world to have completely different systems, not just of local currency but of buying and selling in general. If your main character comes from a land with a very clear-cut system of coins and currency, where no one has ever in their entire lives haggled, and they find themselves in a land of bartering where everyone else is a hard-core negotiator, that's going to complicate their life!
Worldbuilding for fun and profit
You might not be interested in writing a medieval bank heist (although now I think about it that absolutely sounds like a movie I'd watch the hell out of), but even a little bit of extra thought or a single line in your story with a slightly more detailed view of the local money can do an awful lot to enrich your worldbuilding.
I've used a lot of American and English coin examples here — colonialism and Western-centrism in action, y'all — mostly because I don't know a ton about the common naming conventions of coinage from other countries. I'm really into coin art but I'm not actually a coin collector. I'd love to hear about the coins where you're from (or just coins you like to collect, or random facts about coins you like to share…) and where their names come from. Hit me with a little coin knowledge in the comments!
How something as simple as the naming of coins can add depth and realism to your fantasy world
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publius June 8, 2019 - 9:40 am
Goodness gracious! This is a subject that REALLY needs more attention. As a coin collector & frequent attendee of SF conventions, one of the things I think really could be useful is a "Ancient & Mediaeval Coins & Currency Systems for Fantasy Writers" panel (not unlike the "Airships for Steampunk Writers" panel I moderated at the 2012 Worldcon). It's something which writers usually either don't think about at all (even Tolkien has people using money in "The Lord of the Rings", clearly without any effort having been put into it), or get completely wrong.
Just as an example, there's a widespread assumption that there's some kind of fixed relation between different monetary metals. WRONG! In mediaeval Spain (indeed down to the 19th Century), the copper maravedi was theoretically 34 to the silver real, & the real 4 to the gold escudo, but in practice, not only did the relative values fluctuate, but you might not even be able to exchange one for another. At one point, the Spanish Crown was issuing new coppers, & counterstamping the old ones to revise the values, literally several times a year in a desperate attempt to stabilize the value relative to silver.
Nancy Brill June 25, 2019 - 8:31 am
During the era directly after WWI, inflation was rampant in Germany. Cities (not the nation) printed their own paper money, sometimes as often as once every couple of months as Te value of the currency changed. In many cases, known artists designed the currency and it was block printed. In some cases, notably the city of Hamlin (where the pied piper piped) each value will be a different scene in the history of the city. This kind of currency is called "Notgeld" and well worth a look
Hi, I'm Mac
I'm a writer and illustrator, and I blog mostly about tools and techniques for writers. Plus random research. And owls.
Today I'm Researching: Condoms in WWII
Mackenzie KincaidFollow
Writer of speculative fiction. Stories in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Zooscape, Gunsmoke & Dragonfire. She/her.
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Kate: cooking is restaurant piracy@ArmyOfMeat·
The rich and privileged aren't inherently better or smarter than others, they just have so many more opportunities to fail and learn from those failures than anyone else. They're in the Groundhog Day perpetual loop of consequence-free attempts so of course they can excel
Karla Ortiz@kortizart·
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The projects summarized below are from the eyr-Global 2013 program. A call for research proposals for the EYR-Global 2015 program will open in April 2015. Please subscribe to the EYR-Global Mailing List for further announcements.
International Networking for Climate
Led by Dean Williams of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), USA, this project compliments the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF), of which Williams also leads. This work offers researchers the ability to access climate data at replication sites around the world. These sites include the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, or PCMDI, at LLNL, USA; the Center for Environmental Data Archival, or CEDA, UK; the German Climate Computing Center, or DKRZ, DE; the National Computational Infrastructure, Australia; and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, or KNMI, NL. The goal is to improve the end-to-end Internet connections between sites to 4 gigabits per second (Gbps) by 2014.
During the Internet2 Global Summit Dean Williams and Mary Hester gave a presentation about this project, you can download the presentations here:
Presentation Dean Williams (LLNL): Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF)
Presentation Mary Hester (ESnet): Data Transfer Performance for the Earth System Grid Federation
Achieving Multidisciplinary High-throughput, Quantitative Behavior Analysis with Advanced Computing and Networking Tools
Led by Stephen Helms of the FOM Institute AMOLF, NL, this project employs modern image analysis techniques. Helms and his team extract data from video files that track the movement of small worms (nematodes) as they perform natural behaviors. This data can then be used to quantitatively define the full behavioral repertoire of animals or empirically build simple models for complex behaviors. Currently researchers are constrained by limited file sharing abilities. They need to share data as it is generated so the team seeks to boost their bandwidth to 10 Gbps, linking AMOLF and the University of Amsterdam in NL with Virginia Commonwealth University in the USA and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan.
During the Internet2 Global Summit Stephen Helms and Carl Schulz gave a presentation about this project, you can download the presentations here:
Presentation Stephen Helms (AMOLF): Identifying Behavioral Strategies through Large Scale Phenotyping and Statistical Analysis
Presentation Carl Schulz (AMOLF): AMOLF Project Tech
An Advanced Distributed Computing Approach to High-Resolution Climate Modeling
Led by Henk Dijkstra of the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU) at Utrecht University, NL, the project investigates how changes in ocean circulation affect the Earth's climate. To do this, the applicants propose running a Community Earth System Model, CESM, across four different supercomputers in four different countries to obtain results that will allow the researchers to view an unprecedented level of detail, which includes the full resolution of ocean eddies. They are asking for three end-to-end network connections to the participating supercomputers, with a combination of 10 Gbps links and lightpaths between Stampede of Texas Advanced Computing Center, USA; SuperMUC of the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, DE; Cartesius of SURFsara, NL; and Emerald of the Center for Innovation in High Performance Computing, UK. Participating institutions are IMAU and the Netherlands eScience Center, NL; Rutgers University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Miami, USA; the Oxford eResearch Center, UK; Ludwig–Maximillians University, DE.
Cross-site VM Operation
Led by David van Enckevort of the University Medical Center Groningen, NL, this project aims to transfer "virtual machines" (VMs) between computing centers to allow researchers to perform analyses that they could not otherwise do locally. With the advances in technologies like those used for genetic sequencing, data output has grown enormously and researchers are trying to adapt to new storage and compute requirements needed for analysis. This project wants to enable researchers to perform analysis via cloud infrastructures and VMs. The applicants need to transfer the VMs in a timely, secure, and fault tolerant manner between computing centers in FI, NL and the UK. This proposal asks for at least 1 Gbps end-to-end lightpaths to transfer VMs within a 10-minute window. Participating institution are the University of Groningen and SURFsara, NL; Cambridge University and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory—European Bioinformatics Institute, UK; and CSC—IT Center for Science, FI.


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Cases for April 2020
UNITED STATES v. MOORE April 30, 2020 No. 19-6859
UNITED STATES v. FULTON April 30, 2020 No. 19-7604
UNITED STATES v. GRIFFIN April 30, 2020 No. 19-4343
UNITED STATES v. JOHNSON April 30, 2020 No. 19-7028, No. 19-7042
CAREY v. THROWE April 30, 2020 No. 19-1194
UNITED STATES v. ARTIS April 29, 2020 No. 19-7494
UNITED STATES v. BRANCH April 29, 2020 No. 19-4781
UNITED STATES v. WINTER April 29, 2020 No. 19-7156
UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS April 29, 2020 No. 19-4013
HAGANS v. CITY OF NORFOLK April 29, 2020 No. 19-1570
UNITED STATES v. WHITE April 29, 2020 No. 19-7764
UNITED STATES v. HENLEY April 29, 2020 No. 08-5161
UNITED STATES v. MARSHALL April 28, 2020 No. 19-7285
UNITED STATES v. ANDERSON April 28, 2020 No. 19-4696
UNITED STATES v. DEBNAM April 28, 2020 No. 19-7593
MARRON v. CLARKE VA April 28, 2020 No. 19-7721, No. 19-7872
UNITED STATES v. SAPP April 28, 2020 No. 19-7264
COLE v. FAMILY DOLLAR STORES OF MARYLAND INC April 27, 2020 No. 18-2043
UNITED STATES v. DAVIDSON April 27, 2020 No. 19-4708
CECIL v. LARGE April 27, 2020 No. 19-7211
EVANS v. RICHARDSON SC April 27, 2020 No. 19-2407
UNITED STATES v. BECK April 27, 2020 No. 17-4179
CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. KLOPP LLC April 27, 2020 No. 18-1694
UNITED STATES v. PATTERSON April 24, 2020 No. 18-4402
UNITED STATES v. BENSON April 24, 2020 No. 18-4539, No. 18-4540, No. 18-4577
DICKEY v. SCDC April 23, 2020 No. 19-7499
UNITED STATES v. MATTEER April 23, 2020 No. 19-7048
JONES v. ZYCH April 23, 2020 No. 15-7399
UNITED STATES v. CHAMBERS April 23, 2020 No. 19-7104
MU MIN v. CLARKE April 22, 2020 No. 20-6031
UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMSON April 22, 2020 No. 19-7464
UNITED STATES v. MOSS April 22, 2020 No. 19-4161
UNITED STATES v. PIERCE April 22, 2020 No. 19-4601
TAYLOR v. SAUL April 22, 2020 No. 19-2065
UNITED STATES v. SANFORD April 22, 2020 No. 19-4436
UNITED STATES v. JONES April 22, 2020 No. 16-4831
UNITED STATES v. CLARKE April 22, 2020 No. 19-6876
UNITED STATES v. FEREBEE April 22, 2020 No. 18-4266
YATES v. BISHOP April 21, 2020 No. 19-7727
SIMPSON v. CLARKE April 21, 2020 No. 19-7735, No. 19-7841
UNITED STATES v. OKYERE April 21, 2020 No. 20-6071
LEAKE v. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION April 21, 2020 No. 20-1084
XUNXIAN LIU v. BUSHNELL April 21, 2020 No. 20-1042
UNITED STATES v. GAINEY April 21, 2020 No. 19-4724
UNITED STATES v. REED April 21, 2020 No. 19-7738
IN RE: Morris Edward BRIDGERS April 21, 2020 No. 20-1090
WIGGINS v. JOHNSON April 21, 2020 No. 19-7632
UNITED STATES v. BOSTON April 21, 2020 No. 18-4832
COOPER v. STOLLE April 21, 2020 No. 19-7781
UNITED STATES v. COUTHER III April 21, 2020 No. 20-6145
UNITED STATES v. DYCHES April 21, 2020 No. 20-6056
UNITED STATES v. GALE April 21, 2020 No. 19-7730
JONES v. UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INC April 21, 2020 No. 19-1728
NIE v. VIRGINIA April 21, 2020 No. 20-6007
UNITED STATES v. SUGGS April 21, 2020 No. 20-6079
HUBBARD v. ZYCH April 21, 2020 No. 19-7863
SAUNDERS v. CLARKE April 21, 2020 No. 19-7745
UNITED STATES v. CHISHOLM April 21, 2020 No. 20-6161
UNITED STATES v. HUBBARD April 21, 2020 No. 19-7887
UNITED STATES v. NANCE April 21, 2020 No. 18-4585
BAZEMORE v. BEST BUY April 21, 2020 No. 18-2196
DAVIS v. BRITT USAG PRJ PRJ USMS April 20, 2020 No. 19-7651
BEGGS v. AMERICAN BANKERS INSURANCE COMPANY OF FLORIDA GEICO LLC April 20, 2020 No. 19-1859
NGWENYI v. BARR April 20, 2020 No. 19-1805
UNITED STATES v. BLANKS April 20, 2020 No. 19-4432
UNITED STATES v. WORTHY April 20, 2020 No. 19-7212
IN RE: Philip Jay FETNER April 20, 2020 No. 19-2303
CHIEN v. HAULER April 20, 2020 No. 19-2330
GOODWIN v. MACKELBURG April 20, 2020 No. 19-7500
GITTENS v. EQUIFAX April 20, 2020 No. 19-2340
UNITED STATES v. SUMTER April 20, 2020 No. 19-4585
STEPP v. BANK TRUST NATIONAL ASSOCIATION ALG LLC April 20, 2020 No. 19-1067
UNITED STATES v. ATKINSON April 20, 2020 No. 19-4682
SMITH v. PALMETTO DENTURE CARE PA II April 20, 2020 No. 19-2432
SANDLAIN v. RICKARD April 20, 2020 No. 19-7460
UNITED STATES v. TAYLOR April 20, 2020 No. 19-7515
UNITED STATES v. TALLEY April 20, 2020 No. 19-7564
UNITED STATES v. MILLER April 20, 2020 No. 19-7568
UNITED STATES v. INGRAM April 20, 2020 No. 19-7242
UNITED STATES v. AKANDE April 20, 2020 No. 18-6833
UNITED STATES v. THOMAS April 20, 2020 No. 18-4670
UNITED STATES v. RAINEY April 20, 2020 No. 19-7371
CUSTIS v. CLARKE April 20, 2020 No. 19-7398
BEN v. MOSKAL April 20, 2020 No. 19-7548
FELDER v. ORMOND April 20, 2020 No. 19-7299
UNITED STATES v. BYERS April 20, 2020 No. 19-7553
MCMILLAN v. DOE April 20, 2020 No. 19-7537, No. 19-7563
UNITED STATES v. JOHNSON April 20, 2020 No. 19-4330
UNITED STATES v. ROGERS April 20, 2020 No. 19-4476
IN RE: John DOE April 17, 2020 No. 20-1013
ALLEN v. WIRE April 17, 2020 No. 20-1105
UNITED STATES v. HUNT April 17, 2020 No. 20-6173
HAMILTON v. GACHES TSA TSA April 17, 2020 No. 20-1139
SHINE v. SULLIVAN April 17, 2020 No. 20-6055
IN RE: Jonathan Eugene BRUNSON April 17, 2020 No. 20-1087
ALLEN v. JORDAN April 17, 2020 No. 20-1109
IN RE: Anthony ANDREWS April 17, 2020 No. 20-1013


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package com.example.drock.n_corder.units;

public class AccelerationUnits {
    public static final int METERS_PER_SEC_SEC = Units.makeUnit(Units.ACCELERATION, 1);
    public static final int FEET_PER_SEC_SEC = Units.makeUnit(Units.ACCELERATION, 2);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Three Crowns
The Riksdag (Swedish: riksdagen or Sveriges riksdag) is the national legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (riksdagsledamöter), elected proportionally and serving, from 1994 onwards, on fixed four-year terms.
The constitutional functions of the Riksdag are enumerated in the Instrument of Government (Regeringsformen), and its internal workings are specified in greater detail in the Riksdag Act (Riksdagsordningen).[2][3]
The seat of the Riksdag is at Parliament House (Swedish: Riksdagshuset), on the island of Helgeandsholmen in the central parts of Stockholm. The Riksdag has its institutional roots in the feudal Riksdag of the Estates, by tradition thought to have first assembled in Arboga in 1435, and in 1866 following reforms of the 1809 Instrument of Government that body was transformed into a bicameral legislature with an upper chamber (Första Kammaren) and a lower chamber (Andra Kammaren).
The most recent general election was held on 9 September 2018.
The Swedish word riksdag, in definite form riksdagen, is a general term for "parliament" or "assembly", but it is typically only used for Sweden's legislature and certain related institutions.[4][5][6] In addition to Sweden's parliament, it is also used for the Parliament of Finland and the Estonian Riigikogu, as well as the historical German Reichstag and the Danish Rigsdagen.[6] In Swedish use, riksdagen is usually uncapitalized.[7] Riksdag derives from the genitive of rike, referring to royal power, and dag, meaning diet or conference; the German word Reichstag and the Danish Rigsdag are cognate.[8] The Oxford English Dictionary traces English use of the term "Riksdag" in reference to the Swedish assembly back to 1855.[8]
The roots of the modern Riksdag can be found in a 1435 meeting of the Swedish nobility in the city of Arboga. This informal organization was modified in 1527 by the first modern Swedish king Gustav I Vasa to include representatives from all the four social estates: the nobility, the clergy, the burghers (property-owning commoners in the towns such as merchants etc.), and the yeomanry (freehold farmers). This form of Ständestaat representation lasted until 1865, when representation by estate was abolished and the modern bicameral parliament established. Effectively, however, it did not become a parliament in the modern sense until parliamentary principles were established in the political system in Sweden, in 1917.
On 22 June 1866, the Riksdag decided to reconstitute itself as a bicameral legislature, consisting of Första kammaren or the First Chamber, with 155 members and Andra kammaren or the Second Chamber with 233 members. The First Chamber was indirectly elected by county and city councillors, while the Second Chamber was directly elected by universal suffrage. This reform was a result of great malcontent with the old Estates, which, following the changes brought by the beginnings of the industrial revolution, was no longer able to provide representation for large segments of the population.
By an amendment to the 1809 Instrument of Government, the general election of 1970 was the first to a unicameral assembly with 350 seats. The following general election to the unicameral Riksdag in 1973 only gave the Government the support of 175 members, while the opposition could mobilize an equal force of 175 members. In a number of cases a tied vote ensued, and the final decision had to be determined by lot. To avoid any recurrence of this unstable situation, the number of seats in the Riksdag was reduced to 349, from 1976 onwards.
Powers and structure
The Riksdag performs the normal functions of a legislature in a parliamentary democracy. It enacts laws, amends the constitution and appoints a government. In most parliamentary democracies, the head of state commissions a politician to form a government. Under the new Instrument of Government[9] (one of the four fundamental laws of the Constitution) enacted in 1974, that task was removed from the Monarch of Sweden and given to the Speaker of the Riksdag. To make changes to the Constitution under the new Instrument of Government, amendments must be approved twice, in two successive electoral periods with a regular general election held in between.
There are 15 parliamentary committees in the Riksdag.[10]
As of February 2013, 44.7 percent of the members of the Riksdag are women. This is the world's fourth highest proportion of females in a national legislature—behind only the Parliaments of Rwanda, Andorra, and Cuba – hence the second-highest in the developed world and among parliamentary democracies.[11] Following the 2014 elections, in which the share of Liberal female members of parliament (MPs) plunged (from 42% to 26%, mainly due to a reduction to a single seat in most constituencies) and the Sweden Democrats more than doubled their seats (though increasing the number of female MPs from three to eight), the figure dropped to 43,5%. Only the Left Party has a majority of female MPs; 12 of 21 as of 2014.[12]
Members of the Riksdag are full-time legislators with a salary of 66 900 SEK (around $7 400) per month.[13]
According to a survey investigation by the sociologist Jenny Hansson, Members of the Riksdag have an average work week of 66 hours, including side responsibilities. Hansson's investigation further reports that the average member sleeps 6.5 hours per night.[14]
The presidium consists of a speaker and three deputy speakers. They are elected for a 4-year term.
After holding talks with leaders of the various party groups in the Riksdag, the speaker of the Riksdag nominates a Prime Minister (Swedish: Statsminister literally minister of state). The nomination is then put to a vote. The nomination is rejected (meaning the Speaker must find a new nominee) only if an absolute majority of the members (175 members) vote "no"; otherwise, it is confirmed. This means the Riksdag can consent to a Prime Minister without casting any "yes" votes.
After being elected the Prime Minister appoints the cabinet ministers and announces them to the Riksdag. The new Government takes office at a special council held at the Royal Palace before the Monarch, at which the Speaker of the Riksdag formally announces to the Monarch that the Riksdag has elected a new Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister has chosen his cabinet ministers.
The Riksdag can cast a vote of no confidence against any single cabinet minister (Swedish: Statsråd), thus forcing a resignation. To succeed a vote of no confidence must be supported by an absolute majority (175 members) or it has failed.
If a vote of no confidence is cast against the Prime Minister this means the entire government is rejected. A losing government has one week to call for a general election or else the procedure of nominating a new Prime Minister starts anew.
Political parties are strong in Sweden, with members of the Riksdag usually supporting their parties in parliamentary votes. In most cases, governments can command the support of the majority in the Riksdag, allowing the government to control the parliamentary agenda.
No single party has won a majority in the Riksdag since 1968. Political parties with similar agendas consequently cooperate on several issues, forming coalition governments or other formalized alliances. Two major blocs existed in parliament until 2019, the socialist/green Red-Greens and the conservative/liberal Alliance. The latter—consisting of the Moderate Party, Liberals, Centre Party, and Christian Democrats—governed Sweden from 2006 through most of 2014 (after 2010 through a minority government). The Red-Greens combination disbanded on 26 October 2010 but continued to be considered the main opposition until the 2014 election, following which the Social Democrats and the Green Party formed a government with support from the Left Party.[15] In 2019, after the 2018 election in which neither bloc won a majority of seats, the Social Democrats and Green Party formed a government with support from the Liberals and Centre Party, breaking the center-right Alliance. In March 2019, the Christian Democrats and Moderate Party signaled a willingness to talk with the Sweden Democrats.[16]
All 349 members of the Riksdag are elected in the general elections held every four years. All Swedish citizens who turn 18 years old no later than on the day of the election are eligible to vote in and stand for elections. A minimum of 4% of the national vote is required for a party to enter the Riksdag, alternatively 12% or more within a constituency. Substitutes for each deputy are elected at the same time as each election, so by-elections are rare. In the event of a snap election, the newly elected members merely serve the remainder of the four-year term.
The electoral system in Sweden is proportional. Of the 349 seats in the unicameral Riksdag, 310 are fixed constituency seats allocated to 29 multi-member constituencies in relation to the number of people entitled to vote in each constituency. The remaining 39 adjustment seats are used to correct the deviations from proportional national distribution that may arise when allocating the fixed constituency seats. There is a constraint in the system that means that only a party that has received at least four per cent of the votes in the whole country participates in the distribution of seats. However, a party that has received at least twelve per cent of the votes in a constituency participates in the distribution of the fixed constituency seats in that constituency.[18]
Parliament House, Stockholm
Referendums in Sweden