Hacking Darwin - Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity

"A gifted and thoughtful writer, Metzl brings us to the frontiers of biology and technology, and reveals a world full of promise and peril." ― Siddhartha Mukherjee MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene Passionate, provocative, and highly illuminating, Hacking Darwin is the must read book about the future of our species for fans of Homo Deus and The Gene. After 3.8 billion years humankind is about to start evolving by new rules…

From leading geopolitical expert and technology futurist Jamie Metzl comes a groundbreaking exploration of the many ways genetic-engineering is shaking the core foundations of our lives ― sex, war, love, and death.

At the dawn of the genetics revolution, our DNA is becoming as readable, writable, and hackable as our information technology. But as humanity starts retooling our own genetic code, the choices we make today will be the difference between realizing breathtaking advances in human well-being and descending into a dangerous and potentially deadly genetic arms race.

Enter the laboratories where scientists are turning science fiction into reality. Look towards a future where our deepest beliefs, morals, religions, and politics are challenged like never before and the very essence of what it means to be human is at play. When we can engineer our future children, massively extend our lifespans, build life from scratch, and recreate the plant and animal world, should we?

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The Book of Investing Wisdom

The Book of Investing Wisdom is an anthology of 46 essays and speeches from the most successful, well-known investors and financiers of our time. In their own words, these legends of Wall Street share their best investment ideas and advice. You'll hear from Bernard Baruch on stock market slumps, Peter Bernstein on investing for the long term, Joseph E. Granville on market movements, John Moody on investment vs. speculation, Otto Kahn on the New York Stock Exchange and public opinion, William Peter Hamilton on the Dow theory, and Leo Melamed on the art of futures trading, to name just a few. Offering practical advice, strategic wisdom, and intriguing history, The Book of Investing Wisdom will inspire and motivate everyone from the professional money manager to the do-it-yourself investor to the business student.

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Analyze Text Connections

1. Domes have a long history. Domes occur in nature. Lava domes form when viscous magma from deep below Earth's crust erupts and hardens. Weathering and erosion shape natural domes. Salt even forms domes when it breaks through surface rock layers. For example, Avery Island in Louisiana is a salt dome.

2. For centuries, native peoples have built huts shaped like domes. The nomadic Inuit built domes for dwellings. They cut snow into blocks and piled them in a spiral shape, leaning in slightly, to form a dome.

3. Domes as architectural elements proliferated after about 100 A.D., when the Romans realized that an arch form could be turned into three-dimensional space. Before the Romans, buildings looked like squares or rectangles with pillars to hold up the heavy roofs. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is a good example of architecture based on pillars. The ancient Greeks built the Parthenon using 46 outer pillars and 23 inner pillars.

4. Compared to the Greek method of using pillars for support, Roman domes derived support from rotunda walls. The domed ceiling of the ancient Roman Pantheon is intact today, although it was built using heavy concrete.

5. The architectural dome, simply defined, is  type of roof structure. In appearance, it resembles a huge bowl. Domes were built taller over time and therefore heavier. Builders tried various methods to reduce the weight, including iron or tension rings to reduce stress and prevent collapse.

6. A breakthrough came in 1420 A.D. when an obscure goldsmith named Filippo Brunelleschi won a commission to design the heavy dome that still sets atop the Santa Maria del Fiore design puzzled architects until the twentieth century, when a professor discovered Burnelleschi's diagram that showed a bricklaying pattern resembling a series of flowers.

7. The latest breakthrough came in the 1940s, when R. Buckminster Fuller designed the geodesic dome. Fuller conceived the dome as a series of triangles. The configuration of the triangles reduce stress. As a result, geodesic domes not only look different but they are also much stronger in comparison to past domes that evolved from the arch. Spaceship Earth at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center is often cited as a modified geodesic dome.

8. Domes are common architectural features today. They appear on churches, synagogues, and government buildings. Many sports arenas are shaped as domes.

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Make Inferences and Use Text Evidence as Support

1. When thinking about genuine United States currency, what bill comes to mind? Most people believe it is the one-dollar bill; however, when it comes to American currency, no other bill currency is more genuine than the two-dollar bill. In fact, the Continental Congress authorized the first two-dollar bills in 1776, nine days before the Declaration of Independence was printed. Those first bills were known as Continentals.

2. More than a half dozen public figures have appeared on the two-dollar bill. In 1862, a profile of Alexander Hamilton was on the front of the bill. The back of the bill featured a seal in the center and a large 2 in each corner. In 1917, Thomas Jefferson appeared on the two-dollar bill and the old Capitol building was pictured on the back of the bill. This version was the largest of the two-dollar bills; it was 40 percent larger than the size of bill currency currently in use. Today, Thomas Jefferson is on the front of the two-dollar bill and John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence, is on the back. The original painting included 47 men at the signing, but that was too many people to squeeze onto the back of the bill! The painting was adapted and only 42 of the original 47 men appear on the back of the note.

3. The U.S. Treasury has included the two-dollar bill in its currency for all but ten years of its history. The bills were taken out of a circulation in 1966 and did not return until 1976. Bank teller and cashier drawers did not have a slot for two-dollar bills. Accepting the bills created havoc in the drawers. The use of a two-dollar bill to buy a snack from a vending machine was not possible either. The machines were not programmed to accept that denomination. The same was true at ticket kiosks for purchasing bus or train tickets. It became apparent that few places wanted to accept the two-dollar bills, so people will not want to carry them in their wallets.

4. The two-dollar bill returned as legal currency in 1976. Why bring back something that had been so unpopular? The answer is simple. It costs money to print money. At the time, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, an agency within the U.S. Treasury, spent about a nickel for each one-dollar bill it printed. They could print a two-dollar bill for the same amount, but they would only need half as many bills. The treasury issued 400 million two-dollar bills that year.

5. At first, banks reported a great demand for the bills, but after a week, interest dropped sharply. People were not requesting them to use like their other currency. They were tucking the bills away in drawers and boxes or giving them to their children or grandchildren as a special gift. Circulation of the bills was sluggish at best. The same problems existed with cash drawers and vending machines. In addition, since the bills had been out of circulation for a decade, many store clerks would turn the bills away believing they were counterfeit or fake currency.

6. The treasury has not totally given up on the two-dollar bill, though. There are still more than 1.5 billion dollars of them in circulation. The last printing was in 1995. One-dollar bills have a life span of about 18 months. The two-dollar bills do not get out much though, so they last about six years. The longer life means fewer bills are destroyed, so new two-dollar bills need to be printed less often.

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Determine Main Idea and Summarize Part 2

1. Many people start each day by eating a crisp, delicate waffle dripping in melted butter and warm maple syrup. If you are one of these people, you can thank Cornelius Swarthout for this delicious breakfast food. Swarthout invented the first stovetop waffle iron. This Troy, New York, resident received a patent for his invention on August 24, 1869. Swarthout described his invention as a device to bake waffles.

2. Waffles existed long before Swarthout's invention. Ancient Greeks cooked an early version of waffles. The flat cakes were cooked by pouring batter between two hot metal plates. The flat cakes were then eaten with herbs and cheese.

3. By the 1200s, waffles were a part of European diets. A grid pattern was added to the metal plates, which made the cakes look much more like the waffles we eat today. The pilgrims brought their waffle plates with them when they came to America in the 1600s. Thomas Jefferson is rumored to have been a big waffle fan who held "waffle frolics." He would serve sweet and savory waffles at these parties.

4. Swarthout's invention made waffle-making easier and safer. Cooking with the old-style heated metal plates often resulted in burned fingers and hands. The waffle iron allowed cooks to flip their waffles without touching the heated plates. Cooks removed a plate from the top of their coal-burning stove. The waffle iron fit into the opening. The cook poured batter onto one side of the iron and closed the lid. After a few minutes, the cook used the long handle to turn the iron over to cook the other side. A clasp on the iron kept the waffle from falling out as it was turned.

5. The waffle iron made it easier for people to enjoy waffles at home. As a result, the dish became more popular. Today in the United States, people enjoy waffles with butter and syrup, fruits and whipped cream, and other sweet combinations. Savory waffle combinations, such as chicken and waffles, are also popular. Around the world, people enjoy different waffle varieties. For example, the Dutch eat stroopwafel, syrup sandwiched between two thin waffles. In Scandinavia, people enjoy heart-shaped waffles with cheese or cream and jam. Hong Kong is home to waffles spread with butter, peanut butter, and sugar. No matter how you want to enjoy your waffles, take a moment to appreciate the man who made them possible-Cornelius Swarthout.

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Determine Main Idea and Summarize Part 1

Read the passage. Then answer questions 1 through 6

1. When it comes to watching sports, football reigns supreme in the United States. However, when it comes to number of participants, football takes a back seat to fitness sports. Fitness sports include activities such as walking, running, and weightlifting. The most popular option is walking. About 60 percent of American adults walk for fun and exercise. It is most common in the West and Northeast; however, the number of recreational walkers in the South is on the rise.

2. These are numerous articles on the health benefits of walking. Medical experts say to get the most health benefits from walking and you should walk at least two and a half hours a week. Individual walks should last at least ten minutes. A brisk pace will result in the walker breathing harder, which leads to healthier heart and blood vessels. The benefits of following this advice include achieving and maintaining a healthy weight and lowering your risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, and even some cancers.

3. Walking has become so popular that many city and community planners are now designing areas with walking paths. Studies show only about half the walkers in the United States walk the recommended amount of time each week. Access to safe and convenient places to walk encourages people to increase their walking time and encourages more people to participate in this fitness sport. Cities and communities are responding to this need for safe walking paths.

4. Walking has also become big business. Most Americans have at least one or two pairs of walking sneakers in their closet. Tracking the steps or miles walked has become a popular by-product of the sport. Electronic pedometers and distance tracking phone apps provide walkers with a record of how far they have gone, as well as a comparison to past achievements. Many millions of dollars are spent each year on fitness apparel and electronics related to walking.

5. Walking also has the benefit of being able to be completed on an individual basis or with a group. A solitary walk provides walkers with a chance to clear their minds and recharge their batteries. Many walkers form walking groups with friends and neighbors. Not only these groups provide social interaction for the participants but members also encourage each other to extend their distance to increase their pace. Individuals should choose whichever method helps them to meet the recommended walking time and pace standards each week.

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YOUMARES 9 - The Oceans: Our Research, Our Future

This book is the final product of the YOUMARES 9 conference, held from 12 to 14 September 2018 in Oldenburg, Germany. From all areas of marine sciences, bachelor, master, and PhD students were asked to contribute. The oral and poster presentations of this conference represent the most recent research in marine sciences. All presentations were part of a topical session, which were also organized and moderated by early career scientists. Apart from handling the presentation abstracts, all session hosts were given the opportunity to write a review article on a topic of their choice in their area of research. These peer-reviewed articles and the corresponding abstracts are compiled in this book.

The 2018 edition of the YOUMARES series started with an icebreaker event at the State Museum for Nature and Man in the city center of Oldenburg. All participants were welcomed by Prof. Ursula Warnke (State Museum for Nature and Man), Prof. Oliver Zielinski (Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, ICBM), and Prof. Dieter Hanelt (German Society for Marine Research, DGM). Some introductory games, food, and drinks indeed broke the ice, especially for the people who have not already been part of the YOUMARES family.

The scientific part of the conference was hosted by the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and its Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM). After some welcome words by Prof. Esther Ruigendijk (University of Oldenburg, Vice President for Early Career Researchers and International Affairs) and Prof. Oliver Zielinski (ICBM), we started a plenary discussion bridging marine sciences with ocean governance and conservation. The vivid discussion was moderated by James G. Hagan (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, VUB). The discussants on the podium were session hosts of the 2018 YOUMARES edition: Meenakshi Poti, Morgan L. McCarthy, Thomas Luypaert, and Liam Lachs (all VUB, experts in the field of environmental conservation), Pradeep A. Singh, and Mara Ort (University of Bremen, representing the field of ocean governance). They were joined by Prof. Zielinski (ICBM, University of Oldenburg) and Dr. Cornelia Nauen (Mundus Maris, Brussels). The opening morning was completed by a keynote talk of Prof. Frank Oliver Glöckner (Max Plank Institute for Marine Microbiology and Jacobs University Bremen) on the “Ocean Sampling Day, an Example for Science 2.0.”

One afternoon was reserved for workshops and excursions. Participants could choose from workshops like “How to turn science into a story?,” “Publishing in Natural Sciences,” and “Knowledge transfer in marine science” as well as guided tours through the city center of Oldenburg or the Botanical Garden of the University Oldenburg and others.

The remaining time was filled with a diverse spectrum of talks and poster presentations of cutting-edge research results obtained by the conference participants. In total, 109 talks and 33 posters were presented in 1 of the 19 sessions. Including session hosts, helpers, presenters, and listeners, a total over 250 people contributed to YOUMARES 9.

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Anatomy 101: From Muscles and Bones to Organs and Systems, Your Guide To How The Human Body Works

The human body has always amazed mankind. Early scientific drawings and diagrams demonstrate the long-standing fascination with the body. Even cave drawings and later hieroglyphs illustrate that people were aware of the complex machinery of the human body. Our fascination continues to the present day, as we dig ever deeper into learning everything we can about the human body. Our understanding has advanced dramatically in just the last 20 years alone.

The study of the human body is divided into two different but closely related disciplines. Human anatomy is the study of the structure of the human body while physiology is the study of its function. Together, they help us understand how the human body works. In this book, you won’t just learn the structure of the human body and the functions of its various parts, you’ll also discover why it does what it does.

Cells, tissues, and organs are often intricately arranged to facilitate many functions simultaneously; complex biochemical processes take place that enable your body to perform those functions. In Anatomy 101, all of these processes and structures of the human body are explained. After reading this book you’ll know the human body inside and out.

The amount of complexity can seem overwhelming when you’re studying anatomy and physiology, especially at first, and particularly if you don’t have a strong background in biology. Don’t be intimidated! This book is designed for the reader who doesn’t already have a PhD in biochemistry. Even if it’s been a the reader who doesn’t already have a PhD in biochemistry. Even if it’s been a few decades since high-school biology, with careful reading, you’ll be able to grasp the principles described in this book. By starting with a solid foundation, you will eventually master the intricacies of the human body. Don’t forget that you already have a head start: you own a human body.

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500 Nail Design - Inspired and Inventive Looks for Every Mood and Occasion

Have you ever seen those beautifully painted salon nails and wished that you could create the same intricate designs yourself? The beautiful thing about nail art is that anyone can do it. Seriously, anyone! All you need is a few simple tools and you’ll be creating gorgeous nail designs in no time. Nail art is the perfect accessory because it can be custom tailored for any personal taste or style. The best thing about nail art is that there is a design for every skill or patience level, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get awesome nails. The keys, as with mastering any skill, are patience and practice. Even if you only have fifteen minutes, you can easily create compliment-worthy nails! This book showcases all levels of nail art, from simple beginner designs, to more complex and complicated designs for the accomplished nail artist.

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3D-Printing Changes U.S. Government Operations and Procurement

Additive manufacturing—also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing—has the potential to fundamentally change the production and distribution of goods. Unlike conventional or subtractive manufacturing processes, such as drilling, which create a part by cutting away material, additive manufacturing builds a part using a layer-by-layer process. Additive manufacturing has been used as a design and prototyping tool, but the focus of additive manufacturing is now shifting to the direct production of functional parts—parts that accomplish one or more functions, such as medical implants or aircraft engine parts—that are ready for distribution and sale.

Support from federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation(NSF) and the Department of Defense (DOD), was instrumental in the early research and development into additive manufacturing. According to the Science and Technology Policy Institute, since 1986 when it firs began funding additive manufacturing, NSF has expended more than$200 million on additive manufacturing research and related activities.

Now, several federal agencies are involved with the research and development of additive manufacturing, including NSF, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NIST, DOD, and the Department of Energy. Within DOD, several research organizations are involved, including the research laboratories of the Army, Navy, and AirForce and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

These federal agencies support research at federal laboratories, academic institutions, and small and large companies, sponsor technical conferences, and participate in standards development. To help guide research and development efforts, federal research and development agencies have supported the development of several technology roadmaps. Further, in August 2012, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, also known as America Makes, was founded as publics-private partnership to accelerate the research, development, and demonstration of additive manufacturing and transition technology to the manufacturing industry in the United States. Its federal partners include the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, and Energy, NASA, and NSF. America Makes is part of a broader National Network for Manufacturing Innovation that is designed to stimulate advanced manufacturing technologies and accelerate their commercialization in the United States. The interagency Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office manages the network and includes participation from all federal agencies involved in U.S. manufacturing. It is designed to enable more effective collaboration in identifying and addressing manufacturing challenges and opportunities that span technology areas and cut across agency missions.

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Spectrum Science

Science is about discovering the reasons why things happen in the universe , so it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that scientific knowledge is gained through reasoning. There’s more than a single way to reason, though, and one plays a much bigger role in science than any other.

Deduction is a form of reasoning that uses broad, generalized facts to draw conclusions about specific questions or events. For example, let’s say you got to bed one night, wakeup at dawn, and the ground is covered in a layer of fresh snow. You also see a line of tiny footprints imprinted on the snow. Using deductive reasoning, you know an animal walked there during the night. You reach this conclusion because, a: animals leave footprints when they walk through snow; and b: the snow fell during the night; therefore, c: an animal walked across the snow during the night. If a and be are true, then c must be true.

Deduction doesn’t really lead to new knowledge, though. When a more general truth is already known, deduction simply proves that more specific instances are true as well. You know that gravity causes objects to fall when they’re dropped, and an apple is an object, so concluding that an apple will fall when it’s dropped isn’t particularly informative.

Science is mainly based on induction, which, in a way, is the opposite of deduction. Inductive reasoning uses specific examples to draw more general conclusions. Going back to the tracks in the snow, induction might lead you to conclude that a possum walked across the yard at night. In five years, you've never observed any animals but possums during the night. The tracks also appear to have been made by a small, four-legged animal. Therefore, it was most likely a possum that crossed the yard. Inductive reasoning leads to most likely conclusions, but there's always a chance, no matter how small, that something else is the answer.

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Space and Time

Does the relativity of motion represent the most defining feature of our Universe? Or is it only a facet, a partial interpretation of a reality that hides different rules and a totally new fundamental mechanism?

Wherever we would gaze into the vastness of space, a lot of cosmic bodies (stars, galaxies, planets) can be seen moving continuously, each one relative to all the others. We cannot pinpoint one of these bodies and say that we found a truly fixed point in space; therefore, it is easy to state that the relativity of motion must be a given of our universe. Consequently, the Theory of Relativity (special) should be able to decipher all the mysteries of motion and to formalize all the laws of physics related to this subject.

However, based on the current model of our universe's birth, the Theory of the Absolute[2]has identified an absolute "point" within this vast expanse of space and tries to harmonize the two interpretations of the cosmic symphony. It starts from the same simple premise, namely the speed of light is a universal constant. As it was previously stated in my Prime Theory series, the intergalactic space (the regions of space that are far away from any cosmic object) provides an ideal, uniform framework in which the movement of a body or a simpler granular structure can have any absolute speed -up to the maximum value c. This limitation also applies to fields and photons of any kind, being determined by the intrinsic characteristics of the spatial granular fluid.

But things are more complex than that, check out Chapter 11 of [3] -"A unique reality". The presence of a body with significant mass (planet, moon, star) produces an important perturbation (sub-quantum fluctuations) to all the gravitational fluxes in the neighborhood and changes the characteristics of space within a large radius around. Practically, this creates a new granularization (on a larger scale) of the spatial fluid from the big sphere circumscribed to the cosmic object, imprinting this whole region with a special feature of local absolute. If a certain cosmic area is populated by several cosmic bodies, there will be the same number of regions (separate or overlapping) with absolute features and each region will follow the trajectory of its source and will inherit its rotational movements.

Once we come very close to a cosmic object and a certain limit is passed, the absolute feature of its surrounding space becomes dominant and will determine all the movements inside this region. The photons, for example, will move at the speed limit c relative to this absolute framework. Consequently, a laboratory placed on the Earth's surface is lying inside its region of absolute space (for now, we will ignore the direct effects of gravitation and planetary rotation). It will rotate in sync with the planet -therefore, with the local absolute -and, for any experience made with light, it may be considered a perfect Absolute Frame of Reference (AFR). This also represents the minimal frame in which we can study the relative motion, considering that one or several Inertial Frames of Reference (IFR) are moving uniformly in regard to it.

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Spectrum Science

Science begins with curiosity. Taking an interest in the world around you and asking questions about how and why things happen is just the first step, though. Scientists depend on a wide range of skills and tools to help them investigate and discover the answers.

As a scientist, you’ll need to know how to use certain tools. Whether it's a scale, a microscope, a laser, or a Bunsen burner, you need to be familiar with each tool’s function and how it’s used safely. Laboratories can be places for discovery, but they can also be places of danger. Being careful, precise, and safe are a scientist’s top priorities in the lab.

The specific tools scientists use each day depend on which scientific discipline they’re involved in and the kind of research they’re doing. However, certain skills are used nearly every day in every kind of science.

One of the most basic skills is careful observation. Observation is the key to all good scientific research. Whether you’re conducting experiments, studying animals in the wild, or digging through the ground in search of ancient bones, you need to observe everything closely and take detailed notes. An event that seems minor or unimportant when it happens may turnout to be the reason an experiment fails or succeeds. If you don’t bother tore cord the event—or even notice it—then your research will be incomplete and your results will be unreliable.

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Trickle-down climate risk regulation

Climate change impacts—including flooding, wildfires, and crop failures—are destroying eco-systems, homes, infrastructure, farms, and businesses. Regulators around the globe are paying increasing attention to what these events mean for banks and the financial system, with several attending not only to bank impacts from, but also bank contributions to, climate change. The European Central Bank, for example, is signaling to banks that they must plan and make their transition away from financing of fossil fuels—to respond not only to their own risks but also to the science pointing to the necessity of this transition for the planet and financial system. Yet in the US, the primary regulators of national and com-munity banks are narrowly zeroing in on risks posed to the largest banks—those with over $100 billion in total consolidated assets—without attention to these banks’ role in financing green-house gas–emitting activities and what they mean for other important financial actors. Such a “trickle-down” approach to regulation—assuming that protecting big banks will protect other, smaller financial entities and the financial system more broadly—obscures the financial crisis that is already underway and inadequately responds to scientific evidence on distinctive features of climate risk and impacts.

Big banks should be worried about climate risks. Loans for fossil fuel–related activities are at risk of rap-idly losing value, causing banks that hold them to suffer major losses. Bank balance sheets will also suffer when property damage creates loan defaults. Still, de-spite promises by most to reach “net-zero” emissions by 2050, big US banks remain the world’s largest fossil fuel financiers, apparently believing they can ditch their fossil assets before the energy transition torpedoes their value and that physical impacts to investments in one location can be offset by safe investments elsewhere.

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College Admission Process

As you think about the next chapter of your life, you may have visions of what you would like to study or where you would like to go to college. Regardless of where you are at on that journey, it is our goal to help you better understand yourself and the higher education options available in order to make the most of your college experience. Making a great decision today will help with many follow-on decisions down the line. Likewise, eliminating colleges and career choices from your list(s) of consideration will help winnow down decisions to make them more tenable.

What is the best college for you? Please understand finding the best college is like asking someone the best move in chess. The answer to both questions: it depends. We will provide the platform to set you up for success. The work and time to achieve these goals is up to you.

With so much information out there, where do I begin? The beginning of the journey starts with introspection. It requires you to be very candid with yourself and ask some tough questions. Once you have a realistic picture of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and limitations the next steps in the process get progressively easier.

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Power Quality

Electrical power is becoming one of the most dominant factors in our society. Power generation, transmission, distribution and usage are undergoing significant changes that will affect the electrical quality and performance needs of our 21st century industry. One major aspect of electrical power is its quality and stability – or so called Power Quality.

The view on Power Quality did change over the past few years. It seems that Power Quality is becoming a more important term in the academic world dealing with electrical power, and it is becoming more visible in all areas of commerce and industry, be-cause of the ever increasing industry automation using sensitive electrical equipment on one hand and due to the dramatic change of our global electrical infrastructure on the other.

For the past century, grid stability was maintained with a limited amount of major generators that have a large amount of rotational inertia. And the rate of change of phase angle is slow. Unfortunately, this does not work anymore with renewable energy sources adding their share to the grid like wind turbines or PV modules. Although the basic idea to use renewable energies is great and will be our path into the next century, it comes with a curse for the power grid as power flow stability will suffer.

It is not only the source side that is about to change. We have also seen significant changes on the load side as well. Industry is using machines and electrical products such as AC drives or PLCs that are sensitive to the slightest change of power quality, and we at home use more and more electrical products with switching power sup-plies or starting to plug in our electric cars to charge batteries. In addition, many of us have begun installing our own distributed generation systems on our rooftops using the latest solar panels. So we did look for a way to address this severe impact on our distribution network. To match supply and demand, we are about to create a new, intelligent and self-healing electric power infrastructure. The Smart Grid. The basic idea is to maintain the necessary balance between generators and loads on a grid. In other words, to make sure we have a good grid balance at all times. But the key question that you should ask yourself is: Does it also improve Power Quality? Probably not!

Further on, the way how Power Quality is measured is going to be changed. Tradition-ally, each country had its own Power Quality standards and defined its own power quality instrument requirements. But more and more international harmonization efforts can be seen. Such as IEC 61000-4-30, which is an excellent standard that ensures that all compliant power quality instruments, regardless of manufacturer, will produce Preface X the same results when connected to the same signal. This helps reduce the cost and size of measurement instruments so that they can also be used in volume applications and even directly embedded into sensitive loads. But work still has to be done. We still use Power Quality standards that have been written decades ago and don’t match today’s technology any more, such as flicker standards that use parameters that have been defined by the behavior of 60-watt incandescent light bulbs, which are becoming extinct.

Almost all experts are in agreement - although we will see an improvement in metering and control of the power flow, Power Quality will suffer. This book will give an overview of how power quality might impact our lives today and tomorrow, introduce new ways to monitor power quality and inform us about interesting possibilities to mitigate power quality problems.

Regardless of any enhancements of the power grid, “Power Quality is just compatibility” like my good old friend and teacher Alex McEachern used to say. Power Quality will always remain an economic compromise between supply and load. The power available on the grid must be sufficiently clean for the loads to operate correctly, and the loads must be sufficiently strong to tolerate normal disturbances on the grid.

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