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## MomenTech, United States

### Bio

MomenTech is an experimental production studio based in New York City, founded in 2010 by Filipino-American conceptual artist Reynard Loki and Polish-American multimedia artist Maciej Toporowicz. American filmmaker Mika Johnson joined in 2013. Inspired by transnational progressivism, cosmology, post-humanism, ecology, neo-nomadism, futurism and more, MomenTech has created pop culture remixes, instructional works, site-specifc installations, public space interventions and user-generated content pieces, developing over 35 projects and participating in 18 group exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Greece, South Africa, China and the Philippines.

momentech.blogspot.com/

### On-hiatus Proposal Summary

As of November 1, 2013, MomenTech is on hiatus from any and all creative production for a six-month period as they engage fully with our proposed on-hiatus activity: a daily meditation practice.

MomenTech's hiatus residency also includes meditation research, data collection and progress updates posted to the RFAOH website.

This investigation into meditation continues MomenTech's interest in the practice, which began in 2010 with Field Experiment, an interactive, site-specific audiovisual project that explores meditation, self-hypnosis, the media and our cosmic origins (via Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or CMBR) by asking participants to imagine a field after having stared into live television static for a period of 10 seconds. Field Experiment was selected by the Behring Institute of Medical Research to be a part of their first publication for "Placebos for Art," a long-term research project investigating the influence of "art-based placebos" on public health.

Meditation was also a theme in MomenTech's 2011 project Mandala-Tanque, in which pétanque competitors are invited to play a game on the surface of the pétanque court on which a Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala has been drawn. The project was selected for inclusion at the 2011 Dumbo Arts Festival.

MomenTech will resume its normal production schedule on May 1, 2014.

To contact MomenTech, please email: m01123581321345589144@gmail.com.

### Final Report

Reynard Loki:

Being the primary writer in MomenTech, the task of composing the group's response to the exit questionnaire naturally fell on me. My suggestion to my fellow collaborators was that I would draft a response from the group as a whole and Mika and Maciej would add their own thoughts. But the more I thought about what we "should" express as a group, the more I realized that it was a bit of a fool's errand. It makes sense: Meditation—the daily practice of which was the main activity of MomenTech's residency—is ultimately an individual journey.

Of course, group meditation is a common practice; I have participated in several such gatherings at the Tibet House in New York during our residency as part of my own exploration into the various styles of meditation. But in the end, meditation is an intensely personal activity that can lead to intensely personal revelations, even as it may help to strip away what is to be one of humans' heaviest burdens: the ego.

The initial structure of our residency was straightforward: Each of MomenTech's three members would engage in an individual daily meditation practice for the residency's six-month period. But while the design of our residency may have been rather simple, its goals were anything but: to "develop mindfulness, concentration, insight, wisdom." That's pretty heavy-duty stuff.

Did we develop any of these aspects? I'd like to say yes, but who can really know? Meditation is not so much a "fix-it" therapy as it is a lifestyle, a way of being present in the world. Perhaps that movement towards "being present" and "being in the present" affected MomenTech's ability to plan for future events around the residency. For example, at the outset, we were all gung-ho about hosting weekly online open meditation sessions via Google Hangouts. That plan never materialized until the very end. (We hosted an open meditation on Google Hangout on the last day of our residency.)

One thing is for sure, MomenTech really did go on hiatus and for the first time in our four-year history, took a break from making art; or rather, taking a break from producing the things MomenTech produces (MomenTech, as a rule, avoids using the terms "art" and "artists.") But is that even possible? Art is often compared to life. And if art, like life, is a continual process, then can an artist truly avoid "making art"? Perhaps MomenTech did not think about, design and build a "product," per se, but the experiences we had, both individually and as a group, during our six month hiatus will forever be a part of all our future work in some fundamental way.

Our residency did "create" one kind of important thing: questions. And perhaps the best thing about our residency with RFAOH. Some of the best effects that meditation can call forth have to do with a growth in awareness. And part of becoming aware is to challenge one's status quo, to continually ask questions. What is art? What does it mean to create it? Can an artist take a break from making art? Is meditation an art form? Conversely, can making art be meditative?

I asked my fellow MomenTechnicians to email me a few lines of thoughts and observations a few days after the residency ended.

Maciej Toporowicz:

"Having a surgery and recovery during the residency taught me that meditation has its limits, at least for me," Maciej said. "I wasn't able to meditate, because the post-surgery stress was too much." He added that "having opportunity to meditate more often than usually moved me closer to solving my personal koan, the one I have been trying to solve since a while."

Mika Johnson:

"The main challenge the residency posed for me was in relation to self-discipline. On some days finding time to meditate was not an issue, whereas on other days it was almost interruptive, even frustrating. Undoubtedly, this was partly because the residency was not in a physical space, with a community of artists or meditation practitioners working toward a common goal. However, in the end, this absence of a physical space and community made my practice stronger, in the sense that I had to learn to integrate my meditation time with my normal routines and responsibilities, which is also a useful approach to art making as well.

"In the beginning, we had originally set out to answer short daily and weekly questionnaires. We took a lot of time formulating these questions, which were later abandoned. My guess is that the practice immediately became something very personal, which in many ways was difficult to comment on, at least by questionnaire. I responded similarly to the blog, in the sense that I found it challening to write about something that felt entirely personal. I simply didn’t feel I had much to contribute, as the content of that practice was my own subjectivity, not something that I could generalize about or even articulate. In retrospect, I do wish MomenTech had agreed to do one spontaneous drawing before and after each meditation session, as it would have physicalized that response, without rationalizing it. We did this on the last day and all found it surprisingly interesting and satisfying."

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through," wrote French author Anais Nin. "Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."

Could taking a break from "creating art" help to avoid a kind of "artistic death"? Perhaps. One thing is for sure, for six months, a residency with RFAOH changed the normal "elected" state of MomenTech. The decision to meditate during our hiatus only heightened the experience.

Finally, on behalf of MomenTech, I would like to thank Matt and Shinobu, the founders of RFAOH, for making this all possible. We are fortunate to have been a part of this program. Through our residency, MomenTech sowed important seeds for the future.

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### November 30, 2013 Indra´s Net

After reading a recent post, “Reality and Illusion”, by a fellow member of MomenTech, I was sitting and reminded of two things, the first connected to a haiku by Koboyashi Issa (1762 – 1826), which in Japanese reads:

tsuyu no yo wa
tsuyu no yo nagara
sari nagara

Donald Keene’s translation:

The world of dew
Is a world of dew, and yet
And yet…

Following the stream, Issa’s hiaku in turn reminded me of the Buddhist concept of Indra’s Net: a visual image for the idea that all phenomena are intimately connected. In “Vermeer’s Hat”, a history book by Timothy Brook, he describes it.

When Indra fashioned the world, he made it as a web, and at every knot in the web is tied a pearl. Everything that exists, or has ever existed, every idea that can be thought about, every datum that is true—every dharma, in the language of Indian philosophy—is a pearl in Indra’s net. Not only is every pearl tied to every other pearl by virtue of the web on which they hang, but on the surface of every pearl is reflected every other jewel on the net. Everything that exists in Indra’s web implies all else that exists.

In one sense, Indra’s Net appears a perfect metaphor for the idea that reality is an illusion since nothing actually exists without everything else. Self is illusory as is all else that appears permanent or stable. Quotes like these from the Buddha “A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering” seem to affirm this. At the same time, seen from a different perspective, Indra’s Net also expresses something entirely opposite: that the world is not an illusion and that escaping suffering is not possible. I will explain.

I first heard of Indra’s Net from a teacher who did not use the image of a pearl, at every node, but of a dewdrop. She said that each dewdrop could be thought of as a person; and that if you looked closely at each dewdrop, you could see tiny reflections of all the surrounding dewdrops (others); looking still closer, you could see all the reflections within reflections, to infinity, of all the dewdrops that exist. The same was true for the cosmos.

And so I return to Issa who wrote “The world of dew” after his daughter, Sato, died of smallpox when she was just over a year old. Knowing the poem’s context, the meaning changes.

The world of dew
Is a world of dew, and yet
And yet…

This leads me to think that the idea that the world is an illusion is only one interpretation that comes from the idea that the self is an illusion and that everything is connected, concepts that arise mutually. Seen from a different perspective, the world is very real. This is because  as long as there are people or animals suffering in the world, so are we. Not because we feel their pain but because we are them, much like a hall of mirrors. The same could be said for the planet as a whole. When a forest or ecosystem die, so does a part of us since like Indra’s Net all of life is woven together. This feeling / understanding is what motivates activists worldwide. It is also what allows us to understand our greif when we lose someone or something we love.

Importantly, these two ways of seeing the world are not in contradiction. They even compliment one another. In one sense, the world is deeply real. But in another, it is very much an illusion. Balance is knowing the difference.

Maciej wrote on Jan 6:

As it is often we touched a hot subject. There is a remarkable essay in New Yorker Dec 23-30 2013 titled The Intelligent Plant. It present the most recent update on science of plants.

"More likely, in the scientists’ view, intelligence in plants resembles that exhibited in insect colonies, where it is thought to be an emergent property of a great many mindless individuals organized in a network. Much of the research on plant intelligence has been inspired by the new science of networks, distributed computing, and swarm behavior, which has demonstrated some of the ways in which remarkably brainy behavior can emerge in the absence of actual brains".

"Our “fetishization” of neurons, as well as our tendency to equate behavior with mobility, keeps us from appreciating what plants can do. For instance, since plants can’t run away and frequently get eaten, it serves them well not to have any irreplaceable organs. “A plant has a modular design, so it can lose up to ninety per cent of its body without being killed,” he said. “There’s nothing like that in the animal world. It creates a resilience.”

"One of the most productive areas of plant research in recent years has been plant signalling. Perhaps the cleverest instance of plant signalling involves two insect species, the first in the role of pest and the second as its exterminator. Several species, including corn and lima beans, emit a chemical distress call when attacked by caterpillars. Parasitic wasps some distance away lock in on that scent, follow it to the afflicted plant, and proceed to slowly destroy the caterpillars. Scientists call these insects “plant bodyguards.”

"The hypothesis that intelligent behavior in plants may be an emergent property of cells exchanging signals in a network might sound far-fetched, yet the way that intelligence emerges from a network of neurons may not be very different. Most neuroscientists would agree that, while brains considered as a whole function as centralized command centers for most animals, within the brain there doesn’t appear to be any command post; rather, one finds a leaderless network. That sense we get when we think about what might govern a plant–that there is no there there, no wizard behind the curtain pulling the levers–may apply equally well to our brains."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/23/131223fa_fact_pollan?currentPage=1

shinobu wrote on Jan 2:

plus, plants taste WAY better than animals - I know it by heart as I was born and raised in Japan. No kidding

Lilith wrote on Dec 18:

Anonymous is correct. It is impossible to tell what an eaten apple feels. However, it is possible to tell what an animal feels when you kill it. We know that and that is why there is a big difference.

anonymous wrote on Dec 18:

How possiibly any one can tell what eaten apple felt while being eaten alive and coated with stomach acid?
We are the part of ONE realm. We are not divided into humans, animals, plants, planets, galaxies, etc. This is the essence of the Eastern thought.

Rory wrote on Dec 18:

Gandhi's famous quote is "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Not "the way its fruits and vegetables are treated."

Lilith wrote on Dec 17:

Plants don't feel pain. Animals do. Big difference. Easy to draw the line...

Frances wrote on Dec 17:

Plants and animals are very different in terms of morality and ethics. In the philosophy of animal rights, sentience implies the ability to experience pleasure and pain. Any sentient being (this does not include plants) is entitled, at a minimum, to the right not to be subjected to unnecessary suffering. It is a very simple moral concept.

anonymous wrote on Dec 17:

Yes, the world is very real indeed. I experienced it today while eating apple. My teeth tearing into crunchy green matter only to be swallowed down to the black hole of stomach, where it was attacked by acid. Just like aliens. We don't need to be afraid of them, because we are the Aliens.
Empathy towards animals is correct. But what about fruit and vegetables?
Where do we put a dividing line what to eat and not? Meat, fish, plants, water is all alive. It is morally and conceptually risky to be only content while refusing meat .
All the spiritual systems promise a white open space full of light. However according to my insights it is often a feeling of being a part of boiling chunk of matter moving in a space. Destination unknown. Being so highly manufactured as species, we loose perspective. We built our own illusions to stay sane.
Living in comfort zone not much different than our hero from the movie Truman Show.

### November 30, 2013 Nirvana, the Waterfall.

I went to Yosemite National Park, and I saw some huge waterfalls. The highest one there is 1,340 feet high, and from it the water comes down like a curtain thrown from the top of the mountain. It does not seem to come down swiftly, as you might expect; it seems to come down very slowly because of the distance. And the water does not come down as one stream, but is separated into many tiny streams. From a distance it looks like a curtain. And I thought it must be a very difficult experience for each drop of water to come down from the top of such a high mountain. It takes time, you know, along time, for the water finally to reach the bottom of the waterfall. And it seems to me that our human life may be like this. We have many difficult experiences in our life. But at the same time, I thought, the water was not originally separated, but was one whole river. Only when it is separated does it have some difficulty in falling. It is as if the water does not have any feeling when it is one whole river. Only when separated into many drops can it begin to have or to express some feeling. When we see one whole river we do not feel the living activity of the water, but when we dip a part of the water into a dipper, we experience some feeling of the water, and we also feel the value of the person who uses the water. Feeling ourselves and the water in this way, we cannot use it in just a material way. It is a living thing.

Before we were born we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called “mind-only,” or “essence of mind,” or “big mind.” After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling. You have difficulty because you have feeling. You attach to the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created. When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life.

When the water returns to its original oneness with the river, it no longer has any individual feeling to it; it resumes its own nature, and finds composure. How very glad the water must be to come back to the original river! If this is so, what feeling will we have when we die? I think we are like the water in the dipper. We will have composure then, perfect composure. It may be too perfect for us, just now, because we are so much attached to our own feeling, to our individual existence. From us, just now, we have some fear of death, but after we resume our true original nature, there is Nirvana. That is why we say, “To attain Nirvana is to pass away.” “To pass away” is not a very adequate expression. Perhaps “to pass on,” or “to go on,” or “to join” would be better. Will you try to find some better expression for death? When you find it, you will have quite a new interpretation of your life. It will be like my experience when I saw the water in the big waterfall. Imagine! It was 1,340 feet high!

Shunryu Suzuki. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

### November 25, 2013 Reality and illusion

Thomas Demand/Spruth Magers Gallery, London

A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. – The Buddha

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Albert Einstein

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
Master Zhuang

H.Kappen wrote on Dec 4:

The Einstein quote is a real twister. Once you make it your everyday koan, it makes your head feel like a luftballon.

### November 20, 2013 Study: Progression of Alzheimer´s Slowed by Yoga and Meditation

Currently, there are no FDA-approved medications that can stop the cognitive deteriorating associated with Alzheimer’s disease. But that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done.

A new study conducted at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center shows that practicing meditation and yoga can slow the progression of Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

After eight weeks practicing mindfulness through yoga and meditation for at least two hours per week, the study group experienced less overall atrophy in the hippocampus and better connectivity in other parts of the brain responsible for memory than the control group, which received regular care.

Read the full story on Huffington Post.

shinobu wrote on Dec 1:

Yey! And any more of those visual and audio data of your meditation?? To see if there's any improvement?! (;

Mika wrote on Nov 28:

Coming soon

shinobu wrote on Nov 20:

where are the images of you guys meditating?!

### November 19, 2013 The Night

Most of the descriptions of enlightenment refer to a sensation of nothingness – no time. no space, no thoughts. It seems to be a positive place. Most of Buddha figures have a slight and enigmatic smile. Well, one can also visit a different place where you find yourself as a punctum vibrating in a black never ending space.

It emphasizes the radical contradiction of the human condition itself, between the subject as nothing, as the evanescent punctuality versus the horizon of our world. Here is an extraordinary quote from Hegel. One can only imagine that it was experienced by him in person.
“The human being is this night, this empty nothing, that contains everything in its simplicity—an unending wealth of many representations, images, of which none belongs to him—or which are not present. This night, the interior of nature, that exists here—pure self—in phantasmagorical representations, is night all around it, in which here shoots a bloody head—there another white ghastly apparition, suddenly here before it, and just so disappears. One catches sight of this night when one looks human beings in the eye—into a night that becomes awful.”

—  G. W. F. Hegel, Jenaer Realphilosophie (1805)

### November 17, 2013 Sculpting in Time

I know of no other filmmaker, before or after Tarkovsky, that devoted so much of their artistic practice to understanding time. The theme is present from his first film on. His book about cinema and art in general is even titled “Sculpting in Time”. About halfway through his career, or at least from “Solaris” on, Tarkovsky began to embed long scenes which double as meditative rituals, both for the viewer and the filmmakers working under his direction. This video, from “Nostalgia”, is one such scene and it does not, thankfully, spoil the ending, which to me is one of the most spiritual moments ever captured on film.

### November 17, 2013 Meditation and Singularity

The term “Singularity” has been been popularized by well-known futurist Ray Kurzweil, who argues that with advances in computing and medical and nano-technology, we will be able to transfer our brain (and our consciousness) onto a super-human computer (or computer chip, or other computing device), allowing us to effectively live forever on silicon rather than biology.

Naropa (1016-1100) was a Buddhist scholar. He realized the illusory nature of physical reality and finally achieved liberation by seeing the true nature of consciousness and how it attaches to and detaches from the physical body. He systemized the Six Yogas of Naropa and taught them to his disciples.  The Six Yogas, which have been taught primarily in secret over the years, are all about what happens to our consciousness when we go to sleep and when we die.

Two of the Yogas, that of Consciousness Transference and Forceful Projection, are directly related to transferring the consciousness of a person who is dying out of the body to “somewhere else” so that it can “live on” in the physical world. According to the literature, adepts at this Yoga were able, at exactly the time of their death, to “transfer” their consciousness out of their body and “forcefully project” it into another living “host” nearby.

So, it seems to me that before we barge ahead trying to transfer our brain’s neural patterns to a physical device, we might want to invite in the experts at consciousness (Tibetan and Indian Yogis) and see if we can learn something from them about how consciousness works both while we’re alive and when we die.  Once we can reproduce the Yoga of forceful projection in a laboratory setting, we could then move on to how we might project our minds onto a superintelligent computing device.

This text is loosely based on Wikipedia and writing by Zen Enterprenuer

lotus wrote on Nov 20:

Right on anonymous. We are all stardust. It is intuitive feeling felt by some of us. Meditation brings us closer to it.

anonymous wrote on Nov 17:

Love this short piece. After studying Buddhism, Yoga, and Shamanism, I think that people who believe that advances in technology will provide a solution to death are generally unaware of this research above. They also seem unaware that the system we're born in to, which includes death, is already perfect. There is nothing to overcome in my opinion, except this idea of individual identity. We already live forever, just not within one form. Maybe in the end, we get to be everything, at least once, or maybe we already are. So futurists like Kurzweil are simply attached to saving one identity, like wanting one leaf on one tree to last forever without embracing the beauty of the cycle that is the seed and the forest. It seems as banal as that version of heaven where one imagines that they will live on, much like they did on Earth, but in some "other world", forever. Why not just embrace and take care of this one? We might be coming back. Biologically speaking, it would be impossible for you to leave. Your teeth and bones are made of stars.

### November 16, 2013

When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment. (No need for incense or sitting in uncomfortable positions.) [TED Talk]

### November 16, 2013

“There is certainly nothing more important in life than what we do at the present moment. A person’s entire life consists of nothing more than one moment piled on top of another, over and over again. Once enlightened to this, the warrior has nothing else to worry about, because he realizes that he has only to live in the present moment with the utmost intensity.”

Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

If the warrior does not feel alone and sad, then he or she can be corrupted very easily. In fact, such a person may not be a warrior at all. To be a good warrior, one has to feel sad and lonely, but rich and resourceful at the same time. This makes the warrior sensitive to every aspect of phenomena: to sights, smells, sounds, and feelings. In that sense, the warrior is also an artist, appreciating whatever goes on in the world. Everything is extremely vivid. The rustling of your armor or the sound of rain drops falling on your coat is very loud. The fluttering of occasional butterflies around you is almost an insult, because you are so sensitive.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Every morning a warrior should recommit himself to death. In morning meditation, see yourself killed in various ways, such as being shredded by arrows, bullets, swords, and spears, being swept away by a tidal wave, burned by fire, struck by lightening, dieing in a earthquake, falling from a great height, or succumbing to overwhelming sickness.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

### November 14, 2013 Brainwave: Lou Reed + Rob Hogendoorn

Lou Reed took part in the Rubin Museum of Art’s very first Brainwave in 2008 in which he talked about composing, meditation and tai chi. This is a video of highlights of that session.

Veevee wrote on Nov 17:

RIP Lou, what an amazing mind and soul he was...and I had no idea he was so into meditation and tai chi!

### November 14, 2013 Want to Achieve Computer-Brain Meld? Try Yoga and Meditation

Training in mind/body awareness through practices like yoga or meditation allows people to learn a brain-computer interface faster. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.

“Increasingly, we’re turning to systems that connect brains with computer systems…but the length of training has been a major obstacle to success,” said lead author Bin He, PhD, Director of the Center for Neuroengineering at the University of Minnesota. “This research tells us that we can significantly cut this time with practices like yoga and meditation.”

Training in mind/body awareness takes many forms, from yoga and meditation to Reiki, but all are designed to direct awareness to specific areas of the body. This ability to direct attention to discrete areas might be an important aspect of how we learn to manipulate objects using systems that connect our brains with computers.

The researchers took 12 participants who practiced mind/body awareness, and 19 who practiced no form of mind/body awareness, and trained them on an electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain-computer program. This experiment used monitors on the scalp to pick up electrical impulses from the brain. The participants had to imagine moving their hands, and the EEG program interpreted the brain activity as they imagined and translated the electrical signals into the movement of a cursor on the screen.

Scientists found that participants who practiced mind/body awareness learned the brain-computer interface faster than those who did not, with 75 percent of them achieving competence versus 42 percent of controls. This suggests that training in mind-body awareness could aid in the learning of brain-computer interfaces.

Research was supported with funds from the National Science Foundation.

[Excerpted from “Yoga and Meditation May Help Achieve Computer-Brain Meld,” Society for Neuroscience, November 10, 2013.]

### November 14, 2013 Rear Mirror

“The most important thing is, whatever is past, just let it go. Your mind should be like a mirror, not a camera. Whatever goes into camera is recorded there: the reflection in a mirror vanishes when the object moves away.”

Chan Master Sheng Yen

“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”

Marshall McLuhan

“Zen activity is activity which is completely burned out, with nothing remaining but ashes. This is the goal of our practice. This is what Dogen meant when he said, “Ashes do not come back to firewood.” Ash is ash. The firewood should be firewood.”

Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki

### November 13, 2013 ZEN of salmon poaching.

“In Zen practice we want our intuition — our universal self — to come forth,” says Berkeley Zen Center abbot, Sojun Mel Weitsman Roshi. “When you’re doing simple tasks [like peeling broccoli or breaking lettuce into bite-size bits], your body, mind, the broccoli, the knife, your hand, the breath, are all involved. When you keep bringing your attention back to what you’re doing — when you are simply one with your activity — it’s the same as sitting zazen.”

### November 13, 2013 Lady Gaga Practicing Meditation Using the Abramovic Method

August 8—Known for her performance artistry and most recently seen in Jay Z‘s Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film, Marina Abramovic has linked up with none other than Lady Gaga to bring awareness to the Marina Abramovic Institute. Shot over the course of a three-day retreat in upstate New York, the piece sees Gaga practicing the eponymous Abramovic Method – “a series of exercises designed to heighten participants’ awareness of their physical and mental experience in the present moment,” and a method that ultimately prepares participants for both performance and observation of long duration work. Certainly eye opening, the resulting piece sees Gaga performing vocal exercises, meditation and more. A full breakdown of the Marina Abramovic Institute can be perused via the establishment’s Kickstarter page while Gaga will make her long-awaited ARTPOP reveal with a performance of her upcoming single at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. (source: T.S. Fox, Hypebeast)

Richard B. Wax wrote on Nov 13:

Remarkable stamina on part of Marina. From impoverished performance artist from communist Yugoslavia to the Queen of Art. What next? Sky is the limit. I can see her following path of Ray Kurzweil and joining Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company. In the event of death body will be perfused with cryoprotectants, vitrified in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to repair tissues and revive it.

Rocco Granata wrote on Nov 13:

Mi sono innamorato di Marina.
Una ragazza mora ma carina.
Ma lei non vuol saperne del mio amore.
Cosa faro' per conquistarle il cuor.

### November 12, 2013

“..our sense of time comes from the endless succession of thoughts and images passing through our minds. This flow of experience also gives rise to a sense of a separate self. If you could cease the march of thoughts through your mind, and fix on just one constant thought…, time would freeze. If you could then forget even that thought, time would dissolve”.

Chan Master Sheng Yen

Erewan Peliculus wrote on Nov 16:

Correct, thanx for pointing it up.

Mark D. wrote on Nov 14:

FYI, his name is Sheng Yen

### November 11, 2013 Meditation for Rural Railroad Crossings by MomenTech

This meditation is designed specifically for the rural driver, when stopped at a railroad crossing. Importantly, the meditation is for freight trains, as passenger trains are too short. It works best at night. Like a temple bell, which signals the beginning of a meditation session, the downward motion of a railroad crossing’s gate, the flashing red lights, and the steady ring signal that the session has begun.

1. Position: as the train’s still distant whistle can be heard, you should already be moving into position. Remove your seat belt so that you are less constricted; move your seat up until your spine is straight; let your muscles relax. Your body should be centered and free of tension.

2. Breath: as the train’s light moves across your field of vision, become aware of your breath. Don’t try to control it, just breath deeply and naturally, centering your attention just below your naval. Attempt to become one with your breath.

3. Vision: lower your gaze to a forty-five degree angle. For example, if you are the first car, you will most likely see just beyond your car’s hood: the crossing’s gate, the wheels beneath the train. As your eyes begin to relax, lights and objects in motion should blur. Soon you field of vision is indistinct, a collage.

4. Sound: allow the sound of the gate’s ringing, the passing train, and environmental sounds to become one indistinct but symphonic river of sound. This will include the car’s engine, heater, air conditioner, and windshield wipers, along with whatever random thoughts you hear in your head. The sound should stream.

5. Awareness: come back to your breath. You are aware of your posture. Your gaze is relaxed. You are listening to this symphony of sound and allowing it do whatever it likes. You are aware of it, not suppressing it. Allow it to exhaust itself.

As the train passes out of view, release whatever thoughts, anxieties, or stresses you would like it to take with it. When the gate goes up, the meditation has come to an end. Put your seat belt back on and drive away.

Carl wrote on Dec 12:

Yes!

Marla wrote on Nov 17:

I will definitely try this, thank you!

Bodhi wrote on Nov 12:

Far out, dude!

### November 10, 2013 Scientific American: How Does Meditation Change the Brain?

Meditation can sharpen attention, strengthen memory and improve other mental abilities. Scientific American editor Ferris Jabr examines the changes in brain structure behind some of these benefits.

Father Jose Feliziano wrote on Nov 11:

This short video clearly identifies benefits of meditations. It includes rewiring brain connections, developing more complex cortex. It also increase volume and density of hippocampus which stores our memory. I won't mention building an indestructible sense of well being...All comes free of charge. It's a winner!

### November 9, 2013 Trataka and the “Thumbprint of God”

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” — Albert Einstein

In his classic 15th-century Sanskrit manual on hatha yoga, Haá¹ha Yoga Pradipika, the yogic sage Svami Svatmarama wrote, “Looking intently with an unwavering gaze at a small point until tears are shed, is known as trataka by the acharyas.”

One form of trataka is called bahiranga tratakaa fixed-gaze meditation method that involves concentrating your vision on some external object or point. This practice seeks to achieve a “blanking out” of visual perception as a pathway to a meditative state.

For my session today, I stared deeply into an image of a Mandelbrot set, an elegant demonstration of the intimate connection between the mathematical and the mystical:

$z_{n+1}=z_n^2+c$

If c = 1, then you get the sequence 0, 1, 2, 5, 26,…, which tends to infinity. Put another way, all possibilities are implicit (i.e., exist in potential form) in the One.

The Mandelbrot set has been called “the thumbprint of God.” It also has a distinct resemblance to classical depictions of Gautama Buddha seated in a Lotus position.

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Liuba wrote on Nov 10:

Wow!

### November 9, 2013 ZEN and art of guacamole making.

“Just let dharma be the same as food, and let food be the same as dharma. Dharma is itself food, food is itself dharma. This dharma is what is received and used by all buddhas in the past and future. This food is the fulfillment that is the joy of dharma and the delight of meditation.”

Eihei Shingi, Zen master Dogen (1200-1253)

Dogen  makes it clear near the beginning of the essay that there is no separation between food and spiritual teaching. “Dharma” in the following passage implies all of the meanings of the original Sanskrit word: primarily the teaching of reality, but also the truth of reality itself, the elements of that realm of reality, and this teaching as means or path to align with that reality.

TAIGEN DANIEL LEIGHTON

### November 9, 2013 Today Is Chaos Never Dies Day

November 9 has been a quite stressful and often chaotic date since the late Middle Ages. In 1456, Ulrich II of Celje, the last prince of Celje principality, was assassinated in Belgrade. In 1494, the Medici Family was expelled from Florence. In 1520, more than 50 people were sentenced and executed in the Stockholm Bloodbath. In 1720, the synagogue of Yehudah he-Hasid in Jerusalem was burned down by Arabs, leading to the expulsion of the Ashkenazim from the city. Fifty years later, during the Battle of Fishdam Ford in the American Revolutionary War, a force of British and Loyalist troops failed in a surprise attack against the South Carolina Patriot militia. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte led the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire ending the Directory government.

November 9 during the 19th century was relatively calm, but then in 1872, the Great Boston Fire engulfed the city in one of the costliest fire-related property losses in American history. Eight years later, a large earthquake hit Zagreb, killing many and destroying the Zagreb Cathedral. Today in 1888 in London, the city residents were gripped with fear as Mary Jane Kelly became the fifth (and possibly final) victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper.

During the 20th century, November 9 was a fairly chaotic date, seeing the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes (destroying 19 ships and killing more than 250 people) and the sinking of the SMS Emden by the HMAS Sydney in the Battle of Cocos the following year. In 1923, in Munich, police and government troops crushed the chaotic Nazi-led Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria.

Forty years later, in 1963, an explosion at a coal mine in Miike, Japan, killed 458 people, and put 839 more in the hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning. Two years after that, several American states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours. Chaos loomed in the United States in 1979, when a nuclear alarm was sounded as NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland, detected a massive Soviet nuclear strike. Thankfully, after reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert was cancelled and chaos was averted. In 1993, Stari most, the “old bridge” in Bosnian Mostar built in 1566, collapsed after several days of bombing during the Bosnian War. In 2005, suicide bombers caused chaos across Amman, Jordan, when they attacked several hotels, killing at least 60 people.

These are just a few of the many chaotic events that have marked November 9 throughout history. So perhaps it’s no surprise that today is also recognized as “Chaos Never Dies Day.”

According to HolidayInsights.com:

“Chaos Never Dies Day recognizes the turmoil in modern, everyday life. Are things a little crazy at home? Is school a little on the wild side? Is your work place hectic and disorderly? We thought so. Just when things seem to calm down at work and home, along comes something to disrupt your life. Yes, disorder is everywhere. Hectic schedules, changes to plans, unexpected tasks and chores, the list goes on and on and on. Today is designed for you. It’s a day to recognize the chaos in your life. You can best celebrate this day, by recognizing that chaos never dies. Rather, its a way of life. You can partake in this special day, by putting just a little order back into your life. You can start, by picking one thing that is really disrupting your life, and change it…for the good.”[1]

Perhaps instead of picking one “disruptor” in your life, you could do something that may tamp down on all disruptors: meditation.

And while November 9 may be the one day a year to recognize the inherent chaos of life, it’s also notable to know that the date is also the birth, in 1522, of German theologian Martin Chemnitz. Considered by many to be the greatest theologian on the 16th century, Chemnitz is second only to Martin Luther in the historical ranks of the Lutheran church, which was undergoing an extremely chaotic period in the late 1500s.

“It was the latter part of the sixteenth century that proved to be one of the greatest battlegrounds for orthodox Lutheranism, which found itself facing many opponents and varied controversies,” writes Lutheran minister Joshua Zarling. “The Catholic Church, newly revitalized from the council of Trent (1545-1563), was now ready to take a decisive stand against the Protestants. John Calvin had come onto the scene…It was in the doctrines of the Lord’s Supper and the Person of Christ that Calvinism posed its greatest threat to Lutheranism…Under the unsteady hand of Melancthon, Wittenberg itself became a hotbed for Crypto-Calvinists…[a]dd to this the Osiandrian controversy, the Synergists and the Anabaptists…it was…turbulent times.”

Chemnitz, who was one of the most important formulators of the Formula of Concord, the authoritative Lutheran statement of faith, knew very well the value of meditation. He said that “tremendously important matters…can be understood better by pious meditation than explained by human language.”

Will a little meditation help one to accept, process and/or co-exist with the chaos of life? Most signs point to a resounding yes. As the Mayo Clinic notes, “Spending even a few minutes in meditation can restore your calm and inner peace.”

But meditation does require a good amount of concentration, persistence and—at least where chaos is concerned—a certain level of acceptance. As the Buddha once said, “Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.”

Happy Chaos Never Dies Day…and happy meditating.

image: Martin Chemnitz

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### November 9, 2013 ZEN of osso buco.

“To cook, or to fix some food, is not preparation, according to Dogen: it is practice. You should allow yourself plenty of time; you should work on it with nothing in your mind, and without expecting anything. You should just cook!”

Shunryu Suzuki

### November 8, 2013 Connecting the Dots: Meditation, Pranayama, Yoga and Morality

It’s been a week since I started daily meditation for the RFAOH hiatus. I’ve meditated off and on for many years. Not every day, and certainly never taking notes or recording any thoughts or observations. So this experience—meditating every single day for six months, along with my two MomenTech collaborators as part of a “non-art” residency—is a very new one. As I am a less experienced meditator than my two colleagues—and have a deep curiosity about the practice (in particular, its effect on the brain), I am approaching it with the wide-eyed curiosity of a student. As a student, I will be experimenting with various types of meditation, exploring different techniques, researching the history and practice of meditation and also keying into recent and current scientific studies into the neuroscience behind this practice.

The mental benefits of meditation are well known: increased mental clarity, increased awareness, increased sense of calm. I am interested in seeing how a six-month daily meditation routine engenders such results and more specifically: Will my daily meditation practice have any practical (and measurable) physiological/neurological benefit? There is also another, more expansive, component to my study: I am very interested in investigating the connection between meditation and a “moral self.”

Morality has not played a planned role in my meditation practice, which, for over the past couple of years has centered primarily around the concept of “pranayama.” A portmanteau created from the two Sanskrit words “prana” (meaning “life force” and in particular, “breath”) and “ayama” (meaning “to extend or draw out”), pranayama means “extension of breath.” As a meditation technique, it involves focusing one’s total attention on controlled breathing, i.e., breathing in a set pattern, in order to achieve a meditative state. There are many patterns—some intended to achieve a specific effect, others that are geared for the specific physical conditions of the practitioner (i.e., one pattern may work well for someone, but not for another).

One type of pranayama, knows as Alternate Nostril Breathing (ANB), was shown to have a beneficial effect cardiopulmonary functions, according to a 2008 study conducted by the Department of Physiology at Nepal Medical College in Kathmandu  Specifically, the researchers found that healthy young adults who engaged in a 15-minute ANB exercise every morning for four weeks increased parasympathetic activity and lowered respiratory rate and systolic blood pressure.[1] Essentially, this simple practice helps make the human body more efficient and more relaxed, even after just a short time of practicing it.

Pranayama is an ancient practice, mentioned repeatedly in the Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse scripture that is part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Written by the Sage Ved Vyasa (a revered figure in most Hindu traditions) sometime between the 5th to 2nd century BCE, the Gita features a conversation about a number of theological and philosophical issues between the Pandava prince Arjuna and his guide Lord Krishna. The battlefield setting of the Gita is generally viewed as an allegory for man’s ethical and moral struggles.

So does it follow then that, while pranayama has been shown to have a strong connection to the physical body, there is also a connection between breathing and morality? For that, one should look at pranayama as existing within a larger context. After all, it is only one aspect an expansive ancient practice that joins physical, mental and spiritual disciplines developed with one primary goal in mind: To attain a state of permanent peace. The practice? Yoga. The term is derived from one of either two roots: “yujir yoga” (to yoke, join or bind) or yuj samÄdhau (to concentrate). The term “yoga” (or simply, “yog”) is often interpreted as “union.” In the West, yoga has been considered to be generally a physical exercise, but its origins in ancient India describe a complete life philosophy.

So while my own meditation has been focused primarily on the practice of pranayama, I will be using my six-month hiatus not only to focus on meditation as a subject of academic and quasi-clinical study, including both research and daily practice, but also to use the concept of meditation as a leaping point to investigate the practice within the larger context of yoga. Consequently, my investigation will include a daily yoga practice and an attempt to connect the dots between physical, mental and spiritual realms; specifically understanding the connection between meditation and morality.

One of the thinkers I will be tapping into is Jack Kornfield, an American author and teacher in the Vipassana (i.e., “analytic meditation”) movement in American Theravada Buddhism. Trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India—including as a student of the Thai monk Ajahn Chah—Kornfield has been teaching meditation since 1974 and is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Having also served in the Peace Corps, working at the Public Health Service in northeast Thailand, Kornfield is keenly aware of the connection between meditation and morality.

“Morality as taught by way of rules is extremely powerful and valuable in the development of practice,” he said. “It must be remembered that it, like all the techniques in meditation, is merely a tool to enable one to eventually get to that place of unselfishness where morality and wisdom flow naturally.”

From pranayama to morality, neuroscience to spirituality, it’s clear that meditation is just a piece of a much bigger and quite complex puzzle. It’s a puzzle that I hope to assemble over the next six months.

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### November 5, 2013 Life & Death

Over the past few days I realized that I am highly influenced by anything I watch, hear, or read etc., just prior to my meditation session, which usually begins in the evening. Not long after I sit down and relax into the posture, things begin to repeat: images from films; words from books; a song’s melody. To play with that influence, I decided today to carefully choose something to meditate on, in this case a website I just learned about that shows a graphic of all the reported births and deaths happening in the world, real-time, at any given moment.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/a-real-time-map-of-births-and-deaths/280609/

anonymous wrote on Nov 9:

It depends what kind of meditation you are working with; "purpose" only makes sense in relation to a particular school, philosophy, or style of meditation. There are hundreds and they go back thousands of years. But you could also make up your own. For example, here are some meditation exercises from Tantric Buddhism, which includes Tibetan. First you pick a deity to work with (over time you work with many). Then you do one of the following:
1. See one's body as the body of the deity.
2. See one's environment as the pure land or mandala of the deity.
3. Perceive one's enjoyments as bliss of the deity, free from attachment.

Bababooey wrote on Nov 8:

Yes, I agree. Why would you meditate "on something"? The purpose of meditation is to think about nothing.

Baba Radeesh wrote on Nov 6:

Agreed. One meditates in order to empty mind.

shinobu wrote on Nov 6:

Clearly, I am a meditation amateur - I thought meditation was to meditate on nothing

Franz G. Plum wrote on Nov 5:

Pretty awesome when you look in real time, its like...flickering of stars.

### November 4, 2013

Alpha waves are electromagnetic oscillations in the frequency range of 8–12 Hz arising from synchronous and coherent electrical activity of thalamic pacemaker cells in humans.
Science has established that during times of relaxed awareness our brains are predominant in Alpha wave activity. It induces a state of hemispherical synchronization, where both the left and right hemispheres of the brain balance out in Alpha wave activity.  Zen-trained meditation masters produce noticeably more alpha waves during meditation. This fact has led to a popular trend of biofeedback training programs for everyday stress relief.

I decided to have a short meditation session while listening on headphones to binaural beat at 10 Hz to see what happens. As far as I know, it is never used in traditional ZEN meditation. It would be most likely described as a trick by ZEN master, and I would get hit by bamboo stick. This short session moved me to some isolated place, where even my breath (counting breath is often first step in meditation) vanished somewhere. I don’t think there was much of a benefit for me in this sitting. It felt like being asleep on a spaceship cruising to distant galaxy. However, afer I turned sound off, I sit for another 15 minutes, and I felt very focused and increased concentration. Maybe such a sound can be used as pre-med booster!

### November 3, 2013

Visual and audio data from ZEN meditation on 11.3.2013 at 5:50 AM. There is a noticeable finer granularity of vision field compared with the day before. The recorded audio track simulates a low level white noise heard during meditation.

Matthias Von Ax wrote on Nov 4:

I don't have enough data to say yes or not.

shinobu wrote on Nov 3:

does this mean you are more meditated?

### November 2, 2013

Asa kaze no ka o fukimiyoru kemushi kana.
Morning breezes play in the hair of a caterpillar. – Buson


text:
# Low Dimensional Embedding

Low dimensional embedding is a method which maps the vertices of a graph into a low dimension vector space under certain constraint.

These approaches typically first construct the affinity graph using the feature vectors of the data points, e.g., the K-nearest neighbor graph of data, and then embed the affinity graph into a low dimensional space. However, these algorithms usually rely on solving the leading eigenvectors of the affinity matrices, the complexity of which is at least quadratic to the number of nodes, making them inefficient to handle large-scale networks.

The first-order proximity in a network is the local pairwise proximity between two vertices. For each pair of vertices linked by an edge (u, v), the weight on that edge, wuv, indicates the firstorder proximity between u and v. If no edge is observed between u and v, their first-order proximity is 0. The first-order proximity usually implies the similarity of two nodes in a real-world network.

 The secondorder proximity between a pair of vertices (u, v) in a network is the similarity between their neighborhood network structures. Mathematically, let pu = (wu,1, . . . , wu, V ) denote the first-order proximity of u with all the other vertices, then the second-order proximity between u and v is determined by the similarity between pu and pv. If no vertex is linked from/to both u and v, the second-order proximity between u and v is 0

# Multidimensional scaling (MDS)

MDS is used to translate “information about the pairwise ‘distances’ among a set of n objects or individuals” into a configuration of n points mapped into an abstract Cartesian space.

Steps of a Classical MDS algorithm:

• Set up the squared proximity matrix $D$
• Apply double centering $B=-\frac{1}{2}JDJ$ with $J=I-\frac{1}{n}11^T$
• Determine the largest k eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors of B, where k is the number of dimensions desired for the output).
• The final feature is $X=E\Lambda^{\frac{1}{2}}$

# isomap

Isomap is one representative of isometric mapping methods, and extends metric multidimensional scaling (MDS) by incorporating the geodesic distances imposed by a weighted graph, instead of purely relies on pairwise distance. A very high-level description of Isomap algorithm is given below.

• Determine the neighbors of each point.
• All points in some fixed radius.
• K nearest neighbors.
• Construct a neighborhood graph.
• Each point is connected to other if it is a K nearest neighbor.
• Edge length equal to Euclidean distance.
• Compute shortest path between two nodes.
• Dijkstra’s algorithm
• Floyd–Warshall algorithm
• Compute lower-dimensional embedding.
• Multidimensional scaling

# Laplacian Eigenmap

Laplacian Eigenmaps uses spectral techniques to perform dimensionality reduction. This technique relies on the basic assumption that the data lies in a low-dimensional manifold in a high-dimensional space. This algorithm cannot embed out-of-sample points.

Assume $W$ is the adjacency matrix, Laplacian Eigenmaps formulates the embedded problem as a generalized eigen problem:

where $D$ is a diagnoal matrix with $D_ii=\sum_j{W_{j,i}}$, $L=D-W$ and $f$ will be the feature of a dimension.

# Locally Linear Embedding (LLE)

• Find neighbours in X space
• Solve for reconstruction weights W
• for i=1:N
• create matrix Z consisting of all neighbours of Xi [d]
• subtract Xi from every column of Z
• compute the local covariance C=Z’*Z [e]
• solve linear system C*w = 1 for w [f]
• set Wij=0 if j is not a neighbor of i
• set the remaining elements in the ith row of W equal to w/sum(w);
• end
• Compute embedding coordinates Y using weights W
• create sparse matrix M = (I-W)’*(I-W)
• find bottom d+1 eigenvectors of M (corresponding to the d+1 smallest eigenvalues)
• set the qth ROW of Y to be the q+1 smallest eigenvector (discard the bottom eigenvector [1,1,1,1…] with eigenvalue zero)

# DeepWalk

DeepWalk is a novel approach for learning latent representations of vertices in a network. These latent representations encode social relations in a continuous vector space, which is easily exploited by statistical models.

DeepWalk uses local information obtained from truncated random walks to learn latent representations by treating walks as the equivalent of sentences.

• generate $\gamma$ random walks for each vertex
• random walk has length t
• the next step is picked randomly from its neighbors
• each walk is represented by a vector of the indices of the nodes in the walk
• find the feature representation maximalizes the likelihood of all the walks

Written on April 22, 2019

format: plain


text:
## F.6 UAType

A UAType is a subtype of the UANode defined in F.3. It is the base type for the types defined in Table F.5.

Table F.5 – UANodeSet Type Nodes

Subtype Description
UAObjectType Defines an ObjectType Node as described in OPC 10000-3.
UAVariableType Defines a VariableType Node as described in OPC 10000-3.
UADataType Defines a DataType Node as described in OPC 10000-3.
UAReferenceType Defines a ReferenceType Node as described in OPC 10000-3.


text:
# Define Logarithms? How Logarithms play an important role in modeling nonlinear regression functions?

Define Logarithms? How Logarithms play an important role in modeling nonlinear regression functions?
You can still ask an expert for help

• Questions are typically answered in as fast as 30 minutes

Solve your problem for the price of one coffee

• Math expert for every subject
• Pay only if we can solve it

Nathanael Webber
Step 1 An algorithm is a set of self-contained instructions or actions that contain finite space or sequences and in a finite amount of time will give a result to a specific problem. Typically nonlinear regression is a curve where the Y values are random variables. Both linear regression and nonlinear regression tracks variable responses. Nonlinear regression can show population growth forecast over time. Step 2 Nonlinear models are more difficult to construct than linear models since the function is generated by means of a sequence of approximations (iterations) thatcan result from trial and error. Mathematicians use a variety of proven methods,such as method Gauss Newton and method Levenberg Marquardt.


text: Question 1Leather Comfy produces leather sofas. There are many other furniture companies thatproduce similar leather sofas. Leather Comfy has collected data on its average variable costsof production for the past 12 months. The costs have been adjusted for inflation by deflatingwith an appropriate price index. Monthly fixed cost is $20,000 per month. The AVC andassociated output data are presented below:Month Q AVC ($)Jan 2010 220 2080Feb 2010 310 2020Mar 2010 310 2060Apr 2010 250 2140May 2010 410 1740Jun 2010 410 2030Jul 2010 450 1720Aug 2010 450 1580Sep 2010 450 1730Oct 2010 620 1700Nov 2010 620 1520Dec 2010 700 1750(a) Plot a scatter diagram of AVC on the vertical axis and Q on the horizontal axis. Fit thescatter diagram with a 2nd degree polynomial trend line. Do you think the scatterdiagram of AVC suggests the functional form: AVC  a  bQ  cQ2 ? Explain briefly.[You could use statistical software, such as Microsoft Excel, SPSS or Statistix, to plotthe scatter diagram before you copy and paste the chart onto your Word document.](10 marks)ECO201e Assignment 2SIM UNIVERSITY Assignment 2 – Page 3 of 4(b) Use a statistical software to run the appropriate regression to estimate the parametersfor the empirical cost function AVC = a + bQ + cQ2. Rearrange the regression outputaccording to the format given in the textbook/lecture notes. Attach your regressionoutput from the statistical software as part of your answer.[To run the regression, you need to first create another column of data for Q-square.Your y-axis variable (or dependent variable) is thus AVC, while your two explanatoryvariables are Q and Q-square.](12 marks)(c) Evaluate the results of your regression. Specifically discuss algebraic signs of theparameters, their statistical significance, and the goodness of fit. Use a 5 percentsignificance level for the test on statistical significance.(8 marks)(d) Present the estimated average variable cost, total variable cost, and short-run marginalcost functions.(9 marks)(e) (i) At what level of output does AVC reach its minimum value?(3 marks)(ii) What is the minimum value of AVC?(2 marks)(iii) Indicate the minimum AVC on the trend line in your scatter plot in (a).(2 marks)(iv) Clearly explain the significance of this point in determining the shut-downcondition.(10 marks)(f) Compute AVC and SMC when Leather Comfy produces 200 units of output.(4 marks)(g) From the result you have obtained in (f), is AVC rising or falling when Leather Comfyproduces 200 units? Briefly explain.(5 marks)(h) Without any further computation and just by looking at your earlier answer(s), at whatlevel of output does SMC equal AVC? How did you get this answer?(5 marks)(i) What is the optimal level of monthly production for Leather Comfy if the marketprice of leather sofas is $2200 per unit? What is the maximum profit (minimum loss)Leather Comfy can expect to earn?(10 marks)ECO201e Assignment 2SIM UNIVERSITY Assignment 2 – Page 4 of 4(j) What is the optimal level of monthly production for Leather Comfy if the marketprice of leather sofas is$1500 per unit? What is the maximum profit (minimum loss)Leather Comfy can expect to earn?(10 marks)(k) Suppose all firms in the leather sofa industry are currently earning economic profit.Explain what will happen in the long run.


text:
# Constructing joint diamonds from a single diamond

Set theory seminarFriday, May 15, 201510:00 amGC 6417

# Constructing joint diamonds from a single diamond

### The CUNY Graduate Center

A joint diamond sequence on a cardinal $\kappa$ is a collection of $\diamondsuit_\kappa$ sequences which coheres in the sense that any collection of subsets of $\kappa$ may be guessed on stationary sets in some normal uniform filter on $\kappa$. This is the direct translation of joint Laver diamonds to smaller $\kappa$ which have no suitable elementary embeddings. In this talk I will show that, as opposed to the large cardinal case, joint diamond sequences simply exists whenever $\diamondsuit_\kappa$ holds.

Miha Habič is a graduate student at the CUNY GC. He got his Masters Degree in Mathematics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His interests lie in the area of infinitary computability, forcing and large cardinals.

Posted by on May 11th, 2015


text:
# Why avoid dot operator chaining

There are two code snippets:

someObject.getBla1().getBla2().performBlah();

And the second one:

bla1=someObject.getBla1();
bla2=bla1.getBla2();
bla2.performBlah();

I am always told to avoid the first one, and use the second one, where as I feel that The second one is just a pain.

What's the benefit in the second one?

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It's shorter to chain if the function returns the object which the function is called on. But it is better to separate if the function return some other thing. –  nhahtdh Jun 26 '12 at 10:30
You did not specify the language, only the semicolon gives a hint about it. Dot chaining is important and frequently used in Ruby. –  karatedog Jan 18 '14 at 20:06
@karatedog Your comment helps nothing. a he didnt ask about Ruby and b it being frequently used doesn't make it good (or at least unquestionable) practice - he is asking the very question of why some people feel that it should be avoided. Also, its obvious that the language doesnt matter unless you know some language that uses dot to refer to something else than properties/methods of an object (well you could say string concatenation, but then the braces don't fit). –  masterxilo May 9 '14 at 12:01
I didn't answer Ruby, it was only an example. And the accepted answer is a clear proof that this question can be misunderstood. Dot chaining in Ruby works as pipe in Linux/Unix. If you want to grep a file, then modify the result with sed you don't implement a new utility that does both functionality. You chain them. Or you execute one, store the result, and then execute the other. You have to use one form from the OP. Which the accepted answer tells you not to do. Yet, the accepted answer is right, but in a totally different problem domain. Too bad this 1-question user has left SO. –  karatedog May 9 '14 at 20:11

Avoid both forms. The law of demeter is an important guideline when writing software that states

Each unit should have only limited knowledge about other units: only units "closely" related to the current unit.

Each unit should only talk to its friends; don't talk to strangers.

Only talk to your immediate friends.

You're violating this law because someObject knows that bla2 has a performBlah method. If it really does need to have this kind of method them move it to someObject and hide bla1 and bla2 from the outside world.

someObject.getBla1().getBla2().performBlah() would then become someObject.performBlah() and the internal implementation of someObject.performBlah would probably delegate to bla1 which in turn would delegate to bla2 to get the implementation. The important thing is to make sure that each object only knows its immediate friends and doesn't reach out into the wider world (e.g. someObject only knows about bla1, bla1 only knows about bla2).

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thnx +1 for a great answer, Could you please also include an example code snippet? –  user517491 Jun 26 '12 at 10:40

You should avoid dot-chaining like the first example you give because in the case there is any failure like an Exception, you will get the line in which it happened. So, in the first case you have many calls in the same line. This way, you won't be able to know which of the calls thrown the exception (for example a null pointer exception). In the second example, even though it looks less "clean", it's actually easier to spot a failure as you will know exactly what call failed.

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The second provides a clearer understanding of what you're precisely doing, but I see no problem personally with doing the second as long as your objects and methods provide fluent interface.

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text: [94] He also believed in the right of each person to the fruits of their own labour and productive investment. This effect occurs even when the tax revenue isn't redistributed. Some jurisdictions impose taxes on financial or capital transactions. In economics, a negative income tax (abbreviated NIT) is a progressive income tax system where people earning below a certain amount receive supplemental payment from the government instead of paying taxes to the government. Most systems provide an upper limit on the amount of wages subject to social insurance taxes.[12]. A request that this article title be changed to, These limits may vary by country and year. Other records are granary receipts on limestone flakes and papyrus. Some countries require withholding by the purchaser of real property. Mathematical Social Sciences 57, no. [3] Generally, the tax authorities publish guidelines for employers to use in determining the amount of income tax to withhold from wages. Geoists (Georgists and geolibertarians) state that taxation should primarily collect economic rent, in particular the value of land, for both reasons of economic efficiency as well as morality. EE . Classes of Income-tax authorities: The following are the classes of income-tax authorities . Arguably a windfall profits tax which is entirely unanticipated can also fall into this category. In some societies, tariffs also could be imposed by local authorities on the movement of goods between regions (or via specific internal gateways). In high-income countries, the highest tax-to-GDP ratio is in Denmark at 47% and the lowest is in Kuwait at 0.8%, reflecting low taxes from strong oil revenues. In the United States, transfer tax is often charged by the state or local government and (in the case of real property transfers) can be tied to the recording of the deed or other transfer documents. The meaning of these terms can vary in different contexts, which can sometimes lead to confusion. This fact can be used as the basis for practical or moral arguments in favor of tax simplification (such as the FairTax or OneTax, and some flat tax proposals). For example, if income is taxed on a formula of 5% from $0 up to$50,000, 10% from $50,000 to$100,000, and 15% over $100,000, a taxpayer with income of$175,000 would pay a total of $18,750 in taxes. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are among the 'hardest' to pay with the Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Guinea and Chad in the bottom 5, reflecting higher total tax rates and a greater administrative burden to comply. Rates of tax may vary or be constant (flat) by income level. It functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance. User fees, such as those charged for use of parks or other government-owned facilities. The body responsible for administering the tax laws of a particular country or regional or local aut ... Is the income tax act applicable only to residents? Paying Taxes 2013: Total tax rate is a composite measure including corporate income tax, employment taxes, social contributions, indirect taxes, property taxes, and smaller taxes e.g. The question of whether they are generally progressive or regressive is a subject of much current debate. Such withholding is known as final withholding. On average, high-income countries have tax revenue as a percentage of GDP of around 22%, compared to 18% in middle-income countries and 14% in low-income countries. Most developed countries operate a wage withholding tax system. {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{1+\tau }}=1-t\Rightarrow t={\frac {\tau }{1+\tau }}}. [citation needed] In the United States, the IRS has about 1,177 forms and instructions,[43] 28.4111 megabytes of Internal Revenue Code[44] which contained 3.8 million words as of 1 February 2010,[45] numerous tax regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations,[46] and supplementary material in the Internal Revenue Bulletin. [53] All large businesses incur administrative costs in the process of delivering revenue collected from customers to the suppliers of the goods or services being purchased. In this way, the state is able to reduce the tax burden on its citizens. Low-income countries tend to have a higher dependence on trade taxes, and a smaller proportion of income and consumption taxes when compared to high-income countries.[61]. Computation of income subject to tax may be determined under accounting principles used in the jurisdiction, which tax-law principles in the jurisdiction may modify or replace. In some, recovery is made by filing a tax return for the year in which the income was received. Indirect taxes are imposed on events, rights, privileges, and activities. Penalties for delay or failure to remit withheld taxes to tax authorities can be severe. The tax may be levied on "natural" or "legal persons.". Governments also obtain resources by "creating" money and coins (for example, by printing bills and by minting coins), through voluntary gifts (for example, contributions to public universities and museums), by imposing penalties (such as traffic fines), by borrowing, and also by confiscating wealth. Europe and North America) tend to rely more on direct taxes, while developing economies (i.e. The substitution effect shows the variation of y good determined by relative prices' variation. The incidence of taxation varies by system, and some systems may be viewed as progressive or regressive. As early as 1920, Arthur Pigou suggested a tax to deal with externalities (see also the section on Increased economic welfare below). However, poll taxes are very unpopular because poorer people pay a higher proportion of their income than richer people. States and their functional equivalents throughout history have used the money provided by taxation to carry out many functions. "A general principal–agent setting with non-differentiable mechanisms: Some examples." Income Tax (IT) Income tax is char ged on the basis of the provisions of the Inland Revenue Act No. For this reason, geoists generally believe that such payment cannot be regarded as a true 'tax', but rather a compensation or fee. Some economic theorists regard hypothecation as intellectually dishonest since, in reality, money is fungible. Furthermore, it often happens that taxes or excises initially levied to fund some specific government programs are then later diverted to the government general fund. The quantities demanded from the various provinces gave a vivid picture of their economic potential. In contrast to ad valorem taxation is a per unit tax, where the tax base is the quantity of something, regardless of its price. Similar taxes may exist on tobacco, pornography, etc., and they may be collectively referred to as "sin taxes". [15] Thus, tax collectors often monitor newspaper articles for stories about wealthy people who have lent art to museums for public display, because the artworks have then become subject to personal property tax. This suggests countries making most progress replacing aid with tax revenue tend to be those benefiting disproportionately from rising prices of energy and commodities. Examples include tuition at public universities and fees for utilities provided by local governments. Therefore, the total effect can be both an increase or a decrease of labor offer, depending on the indifference curve's shape. τ The United Kingdom[4] and certain other jurisdictions operate a withholding tax system known as pay-as-you-earn (PAYE), although the term "withholding tax" is not commonly used in the UK. Researchers for EPS PEAKS [57] stated that the core purpose of taxation is revenue mobilisation, providing resources for National Budgets, and forming an important part of macroeconomic management. A tax effectively changes the relative prices of products. An import or export tariff (also called customs duty or impost) is a charge for the movement of goods through a political border. [81] American libertarians recommend a minimal level of taxation in order to maximize the protection of liberty. Governments also use taxes to fund welfare and public services. The efficiency of using economic rent for taxation is (as economists agree[89][90][91]) due to the fact that such taxation cannot be passed on and does not create any dead-weight loss, and that it removes the incentive to speculate on land. Consumption tax refers to any tax on non-investment spending and can be implemented by means of a sales tax, consumer value-added tax, or by modifying an income tax to allow for unlimited deductions for investment or savings. Supporters argue that allowing taxpayers to demonstrate their preferences would help ensure that the government succeeds at efficiently producing the public goods that taxpayers truly value. For instance, a tax on employment paid by employers will impact the employee, at least in the long run. With the increase of larger tax bases and the diminish of the importance of trading tax, while income tax gains more importance. These are collectively called costs of compliance. A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures. INCOME TAX AUTHORITIES. Some jurisdictions impose different rates or levels of capital-gains taxation based on the length of time the asset was held. buildings), and personal property (movable things). The view that democracy legitimizes taxation is rejected by those who argue that all forms of government, including laws chosen by democratic means, are fundamentally oppressive. However, this distinction does not apply in other jurisdictions; for example, if using this terminology UK inheritance tax would be an estate tax. [36] This tax was exclusively levied on Satrapies based on their lands, productive capacity and tribute levels. Penalties of up to 100% may be assessed against a withholding agent under. Possible Pigovian taxes include those on polluting fuels (like petrol), taxes on goods which incur public healthcare costs (such as alcohol or tobacco), and charges for existing 'free' public goods (like congestion charging) are another possibility. Therefore, the economic rent of land is not the product of one particular individual and it may be claimed for public expenses. = Income tax for the individual for the year is generally determined upon filing a tax return after the end of the year. Proponents of the land-value tax argue that it is economically justified, as it will not deter production, distort market mechanisms or otherwise create deadweight losses the way other taxes do.[14]. Additionally, New Hampshire and Tennessee levy state income taxes only on dividends and interest income. Tax payments should generally be conducted electronically. It's because a high level of consumption means that people are already spending many hours working, so, in this situation, they need more free time than consume and it implies that they have to be paid with a higher salary to work an additional hour. The charge for the stamp is either a fixed amount or a percentage of the value of the transaction. Unlike many other withholding tax systems, PAYE systems generally aim to collect all of an employee's tax liability through the withholding tax system, making an end of year tax return redundant. [83] Objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, and right-wing libertarians see taxation as government aggression (see non-aggression principle). One indicator of the taxpaying experience was captured in the 'Doing Business' survey,[62] which compares the total tax rate, time spent complying with tax procedures, and the number of payments required through the year, across 176 countries. The greatest share of the tax burden tends to fall on the most inelastic factor involved—the part of the transaction which is affected least by a change in price. [13] Many jurisdictions impose estate tax, gift tax or other inheritance taxes on property at death or at the time of gift transfer. Taxes withheld may be eligible for a foreign tax credit in the payee's home country. [15] Any otherwise non-exempt object can lose its exemption if regularly kept outside the household. In most countries, the stamp has been abolished but stamp duty remains. In a competitive market the price of a particular economic good adjusts to ensure that all trades which benefit both the buyer and the seller of a good occur. A proportion of tariff revenues is often hypothecated to pay the government to maintain a navy or border police. For instance, Babylon was assessed for the highest amount and for a startling mixture of commodities; 1,000 silver talents and four months supply of food for the army. Historically, taxes on the poor supported the nobility; modern social-security systems aim to support the poor, the disabled, or the retired by taxes on those who are still working. 10 of 2007, 9 of 2008, 19 of 2009, 22 of 2011, 8 of 2012, 18 of 2013 and 08 of 2014. In France, taxes were lower but the burden was mainly on landowners, individuals, and internal trade and thus created far more resentment. U nder the US-UK tax agreement US citizens are not taxed twice on their income – the US internal revenue service (IRS) will only levy taxes after the British tax authorities have taken their share. Governments may charge user fees, tolls, or other types of assessments in exchange of particular goods, services, or use of property. The fundamental conception of the term is that of a tax on articles produced or manufactured in a country. For example, the seller might drop the price of the product to$0.70 so that, after adding in the tax, the buyer pays a total of $1.20, or$0.20 more than he did before the $0.50 tax was imposed. A general tax on consumption: (Budget constraint: A proportional income tax: (Budget constraint: payments to the government, from taxpayers who have not paid enough during the tax year. 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text:
## LUXE: A new experiment to study non-perturbative QED in $e^{-}$-laser and $γ$-laser collisions

Ruth Jacobs

SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 088 (2022) · published 13 July 2022

DIS2021

### Abstract

The LUXE experiment (Laser Und XFEL Experiment) is a new experiment in planning at DESY Hamburg using the electron beam of the European XFEL. LUXE is intended to study collisions between a high-intensity optical laser and up to 16.5 GeV electrons from the Eu.XFEL electron beam, or, alternatively, high-energy secondary photons. The physics objective of LUXE are processes of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) at the strong-field frontier, where QED is non-perturbative. This manifests itself in the creation of physical electron-positron pairs from the QED vacuum. LUXE intends to measure the positron production rate in a new physics regime at an unprecedented laser intensity. Parasitically, the high-intensity Compton photon beam of LUXE can be used to search for physics beyond the Standard Model.

### Author / Affiliation: mappings to Contributors and Organizations

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Funder for the research work leading to this publication


text:
# Meaning of k in D. E. problem

1. Aug 20, 2011

### diffrac

Hello!

I am currently studying the brachistochrone problem in the Boyce-Di Prima D. E. book. While following their indications on the resolution of the problem for the curve as it passes through the point (x0; y0), i find myself wondering what the constant k really means (physically speaking).

Using the bisection method i was told can find a value for k (replacing values in the function f(θ)=2θ-2"sin" θ+"cos" θ-1) but yet again what does that value represent and how is that a solution to the brach. problem?

I know this sounds a little murky, but that's the state of my understanding...so thanks for any help!

2. Aug 20, 2011

### Dr. Seafood

Where is the symbol "k" in any of those expressions you wrote out? >_>

3. Aug 21, 2011

### diffrac

it's actually in the parametric equations: x= (k^2 (θ-"sin" θ))/2 and
y=(k^2 (1-"cos" θ))/2
for the position in function of time of the particle as it slides along the curve (i think).

4. Aug 22, 2011

### kdbnlin78

The parametric representation you give above is actually the parametrisation of the cycloid. The value of $k$ here (or $k^2$ if you will) represents the "height" of the humps in the equation of the cylcoid itself.

If you are unfamiliar with the cycloid, check Wolfram.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Cycloid.html

5. Aug 22, 2011

### diffrac

So if i say i want the cycloid to pass through the point x0=1 and y0=2 and i resolve the parametric equations until i get f(θ)=2θ-2"sin" θ+"cos" θ-1 and then i replace random values into the function until i get one that will make it equal zero, then k equals it as well (k≅2.193)...and so if i understand correctly 2.193 is what 'makes' the equation 'draw' the arc accurately based on the first point (x0=1 and y0=2) it starts from?

Thanks a lot for the informative wolfram reference!