text:
Talk:Sharon Kay Penman

Move
Here Be Dragons has a short page/article with synopsis. Falls The Shadow is a stub page. I propose moving both pages into the main Sharon Kay Penman page and then adding synopses for each of her books. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Individual Articles
Should each book have their own article (at least of stub-class)? The Forest House does. Esper rant  04:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Other people's stuff; please use
== tags for creating your own topic.==

I've long felt that the image of a book cover used to "illustrate" this article adds nothing of value to our knowledge of the author (especially as it's from an American edition, minus the cover art of British editions). In view of the recent resolution to be more careful about the use of images, what would other people's feelings be about deleting it and looking around for a picture of the author to replace it? Deb 18:35 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)

"Penman's twist on history is to take a minor figure who really existed, but of whom nothing is known beyond their name, and make them the central character in the story, observing major historical events from a distance."

I don't recall any examples of this; the central characters of The Sunne in Splendor and the Welsh trilogy were significant historical figures. When Christ and His Saints Slept and Time and Chance include an entirely fictional character as a central character, but that isn't the same thing. Everyking 01:09, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

--

I have read many history books about the period when the stuggle between Stephen and Maude for the throne of England caused such havoc throughout the country. Penman's "When Christ and his Saints Slept" seems to bring together most of the available information in a fascinating novel. 700 pages that I couldn't put down. A brief two line summary of each book would be a welcome additionKenand1 17:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

- Why should Penman's mononucleosis be mentioned? Hardly an encyclopedic fact, I think. Soczyczi 17:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Penman does not have the ordinary mononucleosis; she has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that sometimes affects her ability to do research and writing.Susan/sef127 02:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not an argument to include it in her biography. Soczyczi 16:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

- It certainly is an argument if it affects her ability to research and write. Penman often writes about this condition on her website and how it prevents her from working they way she would like.--Susan/sef127 22:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Copy vio
Found the following from this source: " Penman received her bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin, she majored in history, and also received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Rutgers University School of Law, and later worked as a tax lawyer. Penman suffered from an eighteen month bout with mononucleosis.

Penman's twist on history is to take a minor figure who actually existed, but of whom little is known beyond their name, and makes them the protagonist in the story. Her research is thorough; most of the events she describes have a basis in historical sources and mentions in the author's note if they are otherwise untrue.

The Sunne in Splendour, a novel about Richard III of England is one of the most popular books on the Historical Novel Society's list of best historical novels. In 1996, following the success of When Christ and His Saints Slept (which dealt with the Anarchy and the early career of King Henry II of England), Penman ventured into the historical whodunnit with four mysteries set in the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine during the reign of Richard I. The mysteries did not enjoy the same success as her "straight" historical novels, to which she returned in 2002, with Time and Chance, again covering the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II. " which is a copy vio, so I'll rework the entire top of the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by Truthkeeper88 (talk • contribs) 23:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Assessment comment
The article needs a lead that properly summarizes its content. Regards Hekerui (talk) 10:16, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I made some changes to the article and the edit summary became too long, so here it is: put infobox to the top and use infobox writer, date linking is deprecated, no reason for novel names to be fattened, move wikiquote to external links, sort categories, add category, rm redundant categories, rm external links not associated with the article subject per WP:ELNO. All the best Hekerui (talk) 23:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Ref name error
Hey, one of the refs broke when you readded that big swath of text. Can you repair it? It's number 26 now.Sadads (talk) 22:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Sharon Kay Penman


text:
Satellite modem

A satellite modem or satmodem is a modem used to establish data transfers using a communications satellite as a relay. A satellite modem's main function is to transform an input bitstream to a radio signal and vice versa.

There are some devices that include only a demodulator (and no modulator, thus only allowing data to be downloaded by satellite) that are also referred to as "satellite modems." These devices are used in satellite Internet access (in this case uploaded data is transferred through a conventional PSTN modem or an ADSL modem).

Satellite link
A satellite modem is not the only device needed to establish a communication channel. Other equipment that is essential for creating a satellite link include satellite antennas and frequency converters.

Data to be transmitted are transferred to a modem from data terminal equipment (e.g. a computer). The modem usually has intermediate frequency (IF) output (that is, 50-200 MHz), however, sometimes the signal is modulated directly to L band. In most cases, frequency has to be converted using an upconverter before amplification and transmission.

A modulated signal is a sequence of symbols, pieces of data represented by a corresponding signal state, e.g. a bit or a few bits, depending upon the modulation scheme being used. Recovering a symbol clock (making a local symbol clock generator synchronous with the remote one) is one of the most important tasks of a demodulator.

Similarly, a signal received from a satellite is firstly downconverted (this is done by a Low-noise block converter - LNB), then demodulated by a modem, and at last handled by data terminal equipment. The LNB is usually powered by the modem through the signal cable with 13 or 18 V DC.

Features
The main functions of a satellite modem are modulation and demodulation. Satellite communication standards also define error correction codes and framing formats.

Popular modulation types being used for satellite communications:
 * Binary phase-shift keying (BPSK);
 * Quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK);
 * Offset quadrature phase-shift keying (OQPSK);
 * 8PSK;
 * Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), especially 16QAM.

The popular satellite error correction codes include:
 * Convolutional codes:
 * with constraint length less than 10, usually decoded using a Viterbi algorithm (see Viterbi decoder);
 * with constraint length more than 10, usually decoded using a Fano algorithm (see Sequential decoder);
 * Reed–Solomon codes usually concatenated with convolutional codes with an interleaving;
 * New modems support superior error correction codes (turbo codes and LDPC codes).

Frame formats that are supported by various satellite modems include:
 * Intelsat business service (IBS) framing
 * Intermediate data rate (IDR) framing
 * MPEG-2 transport framing (used in DVB)
 * E1 and T1 framing

High-end modems also incorporate some additional features:

 * Multiple data interfaces (like RS-232, RS-422, V.35, G.703, LVDS, Ethernet);
 * Embedded Distant-end Monitor and Control (EDMAC), allowing to control the distant-end modem;
 * Automatic Uplink Power Control (AUPC), that is, adjusting the output power to maintain a constant signal to noise ratio at the remote end;
 * Drop and insert feature for a multiplexed stream, allowing to replace some channels in it.

Internal structure
Probably the best way of understanding how a modem works is to look at its internal structure. A block diagram of a generic satellite modem is shown on the image.

Analog tract
After a digital-to-analog conversion in the transmitter, the signal passes through a reconstruction filter. Then, if needed, frequency conversion is performed.

The purpose of the analog tract in the receiver is to convert signal's frequency, to adjust its power via an automatic gain control circuit and to get its complex envelope components.

The input signal for the analog tract is at the intermediate frequency, sometimes, in the L band, in which case it must be converted to an IF. Then the signal is either sampled or processed by the four-quadrant multiplier which produces the complex envelope components (I, Q) through multiplying it by the heterodyne frequency (see superheterodyne receiver).

At last the signal passes through an anti-aliasing filter and is sampled or (digitized).

Modulator and demodulator
A digital modulator transforms a digital stream into a radio signal at the intermediate frequency (IF). A modulator is generally simpler than a demodulator because it doesn't have to recover symbol and carrier frequencies.

A demodulator is one of the most important parts of the receiver. The exact structure of the demodulator is defined by a modulation type. However, the fundamental concepts are similar. Moreover, it is possible to develop a demodulator that can process signals with different modulation types.

Digital demodulation implies that a symbol clock (and, in most cases, an intermediate frequency generator) at the receiving side has to be synchronous with those at the transmitting side. This is achieved by the following two circuits:
 * timing recovery circuit, determining the borders of symbols;
 * carrier recovery circuit, which determines the actual meaning of each symbol. There are modulation types (like frequency-shift keying) that can be demodulated without carrier recovery, however, this method, known as noncoherent demodulation, is generally worse.

There are also additional components in the demodulator such as the intersymbol interference equalizer.

If the analog signal was digitized without a four-quadrant multiplier, the complex envelope has to be calculated by a digital complex mixer.

Sometimes a digital automatic gain control circuit is implemented in the demodulator.

FEC coding
Error correction techniques are essential for satellite communications, because, due to satellite's limited power a signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver is usually rather poor. Error correction works by adding an artificial redundancy to a data stream at the transmitting side and using this redundancy to correct errors caused by noise and interference. This is performed by an FEC encoder. The encoder applies an error correction code to the digital stream, thereby adding redundancy.

An FEC decoder decodes the Forward error correction code used within the signal. For example, the Digital Video Broadcasting standard defines a concatenated code consisting of inner convolutional (standard NASA code, punctured, with rates $$1/2$$, $$2/3$$, $$3/4$$, $$5/6$$, $$7/8$$), interleaving and outer Reed–Solomon code (block length: 204 bytes, information block: 188 bytes, can correct up to 8 bytes in the block).

Differential coding
There are several modulation types (such as PSK and QAM) that have a phase ambiguity, that is, a carrier can be restored in different ways. Differential coding is used to resolve this ambiguity.

When differential coding is used, the data are deliberately made to depend not only on the current symbol, but also on the previous one.

Scrambling
Scrambling is a technique used to randomize a data stream to eliminate long '0'-only and '1'-only sequences and to assure energy dispersal. Long '0'-only and '1'-only sequences create difficulties for timing recovery circuit. Scramblers and descramblers are usually based on linear-feedback shift registers.

A scrambler randomizes the transmitted data stream. A descrambler restores the original stream from the scrambled one.

Scrambling shouldn't be confused with encryption, since it doesn't protect information from intruders.

Multiplexing
A multiplexer transforms several digital streams into one stream. This is often referred to as 'muxing.'

Generally, a demultiplexer is a device that transforms one multiplexed data stream into several. Satellite modems don't have many outputs, so a demultiplexer here performs a drop operation, allowing to the modem to choose channels that will be transferred to the output.

A demultiplexer achieves this goal by maintaining frame synchronization.

Applications
Satellite modems are often used for home internet access.

There are two different types, both employing the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard as their basis:
 * One-way satmodems (DVB-IP modems) use a return channel not based on communication with the satellite, such as telephone or cable.
 * Two-way satmodems (DVB-RCS modems, also called astromodems) employ a satellite-based return channel as well; they do not need another connection. DVB-RCS is ETSI standard EN 301 790.

There are also industrial satellite modems intended to provide a permanent link. They are used, for example, in the Steel shankar network.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Satellite modem


text:
Alluvium

Alluvium is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is typically geologically young and is not consolidated into solid rock. Sediments deposited underwater, in seas, estuaries, lakes, or ponds, are not described as alluvium. Floodplain alluvium can be highly fertile, and supported some of the earliest human civilizations.

Definitions
The present consensus is that "alluvium" refers to loose sediments of all types deposited by running water in floodplains or in alluvial fans or related landforms. However, the meaning of the term has varied considerably since it was first defined in the French dictionary of Antoine Furetière, posthumously published in 1690. Drawing upon concepts from Roman law, Furetière defined alluvion (the French term for alluvium) as new land formed by deposition of sediments along rivers and seas.

By the 19th century, the term had come to mean recent sediments deposited by rivers on top of older diluvium, which was similar in character but interpreted as sediments deposited by Noah's flood. With the rejection by geologists of the concept of a primordial universal flood, the term "diluvium" fell into disfavor and was replaced with "older alluvium". At the same time, the term "alluvium" came to mean all sediment deposits due to running water on plains. The definition gradually expanded to include deposits in estuaries and coasts and young rock of both marine and fluvial origin.

Alluvium and diluvium were grouped together as colluvium in the late 19th century. "Colluvium" is now generally understood to mean sediments produced by gravity-driven transport on steep slopes, while the definition of "alluvium" has switched back to an emphasis on sediments deposited by river action. There continues to be disagreement over what other sediment deposits should be included under the term "alluvium."

Age
Most alluvium is Quaternary in age and is often referred to as "cover" because these sediments obscure the underlying bedrock. Most sedimentary material that fills a basin ("basin fill") that is not lithified is typically lumped together as "alluvial". Alluvium of Pliocene age occurs, for example, in parts of Idaho. Alluvium of late Miocene age occurs, for example, in the valley of the San Joaquin River, California.

title: Alluvium