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Neurophilosophy

Neurophilosophy or the philosophy of neuroscience is the interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy that explores the relevance of neuroscientific studies to the arguments traditionally categorized as philosophy of mind. The philosophy of neuroscience attempts to clarify neuroscientific methods and results using the conceptual rigor and methods of philosophy of science.

Specific issues
Below is a list of specific issues important to philosophy of neuroscience:
 * "The indirectness of studies of mind and brain"
 * "Computational or representational analysis of brain processing"
 * "Relations between psychological and neuroscientific inquiries"
 * Modularity of mind
 * What constitutes adequate explanation in neuroscience?
 * "Location of cognitive function"

Indirectness of studies of the mind and brain
Many of the methods and techniques central to neuroscientific discovery rely on assumptions that can limit the interpretation of the data. Philosophers of neuroscience have discussed such assumptions in the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), dissociation in cognitive neuropsychology,  single unit recording, and computational neuroscience. Following are descriptions of many of the current controversies and debates about the methods employed in neuroscience.

fMRI
Many fMRI studies rely heavily on the assumption of localization of function (same as functional specialization).

Localization of function means that many cognitive functions can be localized to specific brain regions. An example of functional localization comes from studies of the motor cortex. There seem to be different groups of cells in the motor cortex responsible for controlling different groups of muscles.

Many philosophers of neuroscience criticize fMRI for relying too heavily on this assumption. Michael Anderson points out that subtraction-method fMRI misses a lot of brain information that is important to the cognitive processes. Subtraction fMRI only shows the differences between the task activation and the control activation, but many of the brain areas activated in the control are obviously important for the task as well.

Rejections of fMRI
Some philosophers entirely reject any notion of localization of function and thus believe fMRI studies to be profoundly misguided. These philosophers maintain that brain processing acts holistically, that large sections of the brain are involved in processing most cognitive tasks (see holism in neurology and the modularity section below). One way to understand their objection to the idea of localization of function is the radio repairman thought experiment. In this thought experiment, a radio repairman opens up a radio and rips out a tube. The radio begins whistling loudly and the radio repairman declares that he must have ripped out the anti-whistling tube. There is no anti-whistling tube in the radio and the radio repairman has confounded function with effect. This criticism was originally targeted at the logic used by neuropsychological brain lesion experiments, but the criticism is still applicable to neuroimaging. These considerations are similar to Van Orden's and Paap's criticism of circularity in neuroimaging logic. According to them, neuroimagers assume that their theory of cognitive component parcellation is correct and that these components divide cleanly into feed-forward modules. These assumptions are necessary to justify their inference of brain localization. The logic is circular if the researcher then uses the appearance of brain region activation as proof of the correctness of their cognitive theories.

Reverse inference
A different problematic methodological assumption within fMRI research is the use of reverse inference. A reverse inference is when the activation of a brain region is used to infer the presence of a given cognitive process. Poldrack points out that the strength of this inference depends critically on the likelihood that a given task employs a given cognitive process and the likelihood of that pattern of brain activation given that cognitive process. In other words, the strength of reverse inference is based upon the selectivity of the task used as well as the selectivity of the brain region activation.

A 2011 article published in the New York Times has been heavily criticized for misusing reverse inference. In the study, participants were shown pictures of their iPhones and the researchers measured activation of the insula. The researchers took insula activation as evidence of feelings of love and concluded that people loved their iPhones. Critics were quick to point out that the insula is not a very selective piece of cortex, and therefore not amenable to reverse inference.

The neuropsychologist Max Coltheart took the problems with reverse inference a step further and challenged neuroimagers to give one instance in which neuroimaging had informed psychological theory. Coltheart takes the burden of proof to be an instance where the brain imaging data is consistent with one theory but inconsistent with another theory.

Roskies maintains that Coltheart's ultra cognitive position makes his challenge unwinnable. Since Coltheart maintains that the implementation of a cognitive state has no bearing on the function of that cognitive state, then it is impossible to find neuroimaging data that will be able to comment on psychological theories in the way Coltheart demands. Neuroimaging data will always be relegated to the lower level of implementation and be unable to selectively determine one or another cognitive theory.

In a 2006 article, Richard Henson suggests that forward inference can be used to infer dissociation of function at the psychological level. He suggests that these kinds of inferences can be made when there is crossing activations between two task types in two brain regions and there is no change in activation in a mutual control region.

Pure insertion
One final assumption is the assumption of pure insertion in fMRI. The assumption of pure insertion is the assumption that a single cognitive process can be inserted into another set of cognitive processes without affecting the functioning of the rest. For example, to find the reading comprehension area of the brain, researchers might scan participants while they were presented with a word and while they were presented with a non-word (e.g. "Floob"). If the researchers then infer that the resulting difference in brain pattern represents the regions of the brain involved in reading comprehension, they have assumed that these changes are not reflective of changes in task difficulty or differential recruitment between tasks. The term pure insertion was coined by Donders as a criticism of reaction time methods.

Resting-state functional-connectivity MRI
Recently, researchers have begun using a new functional imaging technique called resting-state functional-connectivity MRI. Subjects' brains are scanned while the subject sits idly in the scanner. By looking at the natural fluctuations in the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) pattern while the subject is at rest, the researchers can see which brain regions co-vary in activation together. Afterward, they can use the patterns of covariance to construct maps of functionally-linked brain areas.

The name "functional-connectivity" is somewhat misleading since the data only indicates co-variation. Still, this is a powerful method for studying large networks throughout the brain.

Methodological issues
There are a couple of important methodological issues that need to be addressed. Firstly, there are many different possible brain mappings that could be used to define the brain regions for the network. The results could vary significantly depending on the brain region chosen.

Secondly, what mathematical techniques are best to characterize these brain regions?

The brain regions of interest are somewhat constrained by the size of the voxels. Rs-fcMRI uses voxels that are only a few millimeters cubed, so the brain regions will have to be defined on a larger scale. Two of the statistical methods that are commonly applied to network analysis can work on the single voxel spatial scale, but graph theory methods are extremely sensitive to the way nodes are defined.

Brain regions can be divided according to their cellular architecture, according to their connectivity, or according to physiological measures. Alternatively, one could take a "theory-neutral" approach, and randomly divide the cortex into partitions with an arbitrary size.

As mentioned earlier, there are several approaches to network analysis once the brain regions have been defined. Seed-based analysis begins with an a priori defined seed region and finds all of the regions that are functionally connected to that region. Wig et al. caution that the resulting network structure will not give any information concerning the inter-connectivity of the identified regions or the relations of those regions to regions other than the seed region.

Another approach is to use independent component analysis (ICA) to create spatio-temporal component maps, and the components are sorted into those that carry information of interest and those that are caused by noise. Wigs et al. once again warns that inference of functional brain region communities is difficult under ICA. ICA also has the issue of imposing orthogonality on the data.

Graph theory uses a matrix to characterize covariance between regions, which is then transformed into a network map. The problem with graph theory analysis is that network mapping is heavily influenced by a priori brain region and connectivity (nodes and edges). This places the researcher at risk of cherry-picking regions and connections according to their own preconceived theories. However, graph theory analysis is still considered extremely valuable, as it is the only method that gives pair-wise relationships between nodes.

While ICA may have an advantage in being a fairly principled method, it seems that using both methods will be important to better understanding the network connectivity of the brain. Mumford et al. hoped to avoid these issues and use a principled approach that could determine pair-wise relationships using a statistical technique adopted from analysis of gene co-expression networks.

Dissociation in cognitive neuropsychology
Cognitive neuropsychology studies brain damaged patients and uses the patterns of selective impairment in order to make inferences on the underlying cognitive structure. Dissociation between cognitive functions is taken to be evidence that these functions are independent. Theorists have identified several key assumptions that are needed to justify these inferences:
 * 1) Functional modularity – the mind is organized into functionally separate cognitive modules.
 * 2) Anatomical modularity – the brain is organized into functionally separate modules. This assumption is very similar to the assumption of functional localization. These assumptions differ from the assumption of functional modularity, because it is possible to have separable cognitive modules that are implemented by diffuse patterns of brain activation.
 * 3) Universality – The basic organization of functional and anatomical modularity is the same for all normal humans. This assumption is needed if we are to make any claim about functional organization based on dissociation that extrapolates from the instance of a case study to the population.
 * 4) Transparency / Subtractivity – the mind does not undergo substantial reorganization following brain damage. It is possible to remove one functional module without significantly altering the overall structure of the system. This assumption is necessary in order to justify using brain damaged patients in order to make inferences about the cognitive architecture of healthy people.

There are three principal types of evidence in cognitive neuropsychology: association, single dissociation and double dissociation. Association inferences observe that certain deficits are likely to co-occur. For example, there are many cases who have deficits in both abstract and concrete word comprehension following brain damage. Association studies are considered the weakest form of evidence, because the results could be accounted for by damage to neighboring brain regions and not damage to a single cognitive system. Single Dissociation inferences observe that one cognitive faculty can be spared while another can be damaged following brain damage. This pattern indicates that a) the two tasks employ different cognitive systems b) the two tasks occupy the same system and the damaged task is downstream from the spared task or c) that the spared task requires fewer cognitive resources than the damaged task. The "gold standard" for cognitive neuropsychology is the double dissociation. Double dissociation occurs when brain damage impairs task A in Patient1 but spares task B and brain damage spares task A in Patient 2 but damages task B. It is assumed that one instance of double dissociation is sufficient proof to infer separate cognitive modules in the performance of the tasks.

Many theorists criticize cognitive neuropsychology for its dependence on double dissociations. In one widely cited study, Joula and Plunkett used a model connectionist system to demonstrate that double dissociation behavioral patterns can occur through random lesions of a single module. They created a multilayer connectionist system trained to pronounce words. They repeatedly simulated random destruction of nodes and connections in the system and plotted the resulting performance on a scatter plot. The results showed deficits in irregular noun pronunciation with spared regular verb pronunciation in some cases and deficits in regular verb pronunciation with spared irregular noun pronunciation. These results suggest that a single instance of double dissociation is insufficient to justify inference to multiple systems.

Charter offers a theoretical case in which double dissociation logic can be faulty. If two tasks, task A and task B, use almost all of the same systems but differ by one mutually exclusive module apiece, then the selective lesioning of those two modules would seem to indicate that A and B use different systems. Charter uses the example of someone who is allergic to peanuts but not shrimp and someone who is allergic to shrimp and not peanuts. He argues that double dissociation logic leads one to infer that peanuts and shrimp are digested by different systems. John Dunn offers another objection to double dissociation. He claims that it is easy to demonstrate the existence of a true deficit but difficult to show that another function is truly spared. As more data is accumulated, the value of your results will converge on an effect size of zero, but there will always be a positive value greater than zero that has more statistical power than zero. Therefore, it is impossible to be fully confident that a given double dissociation actually exists.

On a different note, Alphonso Caramazza has given a principled reason for rejecting the use of group studies in cognitive neuropsychology. Studies of brain damaged patients can either take the form of a single case study, in which an individual's behavior is characterized and used as evidence, or group studies, in which a group of patients displaying the same deficit have their behavior characterized and averaged. In order to justify grouping a set of patient data together, the researcher must know that the group is homogenous, that their behavior is equivalent in every theoretically meaningful way. In brain damaged patients, this can only be accomplished a posteriori by analyzing the behavior patterns of all the individuals in the group. Thus according to Caramazza, any group study is either the equivalent of a set of single case studies or is theoretically unjustified. Newcombe and Marshall pointed out that there are some cases (they use Geschwind's syndrome as an example) and that group studies might still serve as a useful heuristic in cognitive neuropsychological studies.

Single-unit recordings
It is commonly understood in neuroscience that information is encoded in the brain by the firing patterns of neurons. Many of the philosophical questions surrounding the neural code are related to questions about representation and computation that are discussed below. There are other methodological questions including whether neurons represent information through an average firing rate or whether there is information represented by the temporal dynamics. There are similar questions about whether neurons represent information individually or as a population.

Computational neuroscience
Many of the philosophical controversies surrounding computational neuroscience involve the role of simulation and modeling as explanation. Carl Craver has been especially vocal about such interpretations. Jones and Love wrote an especially critical article targeted at Bayesian behavioral modeling that did not constrain the modeling parameters by psychological or neurological considerations Eric Winsberg has written about the role of computer modeling and simulation in science generally, but his characterization is applicable to computational neuroscience.

Computation and representation in the brain
The computational theory of mind has been widespread in neuroscience since the cognitive revolution in the 1960s. This section will begin with a historical overview of computational neuroscience and then discuss various competing theories and controversies within the field.

Historical overview
Computational neuroscience began in the 1930s and 1940s with two groups of researchers. The first group consisted of Alan Turing, Alonzo Church and John von Neumann, who were working to develop computing machines and the mathematical underpinnings of computer science. This work culminated in the theoretical development of so-called Turing machines and the Church–Turing thesis, which formalized the mathematics underlying computability theory. The second group consisted of Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts who were working to develop the first artificial neural networks. McCulloch and Pitts were the first to hypothesize that neurons could be used to implement a logical calculus that could explain cognition. They used their toy neurons to develop logic gates that could make computations. However these developments failed to take hold in the psychological sciences and neuroscience until the mid-1950s and 1960s. Behaviorism had dominated the psychology until the 1950s when new developments in a variety of fields overturned behaviorist theory in favor of a cognitive theory. From the beginning of the cognitive revolution, computational theory played a major role in theoretical developments. Minsky and McCarthy's work in artificial intelligence, Newell and Simon's computer simulations, and Noam Chomsky's importation of information theory into linguistics were all heavily reliant on computational assumptions. By the early 1960s, Hilary Putnam was arguing in favor of machine functionalism in which the brain instantiated Turing machines. By this point computational theories were firmly fixed in psychology and neuroscience. By the mid-1980s, a group of researchers began using multilayer feed-forward analog neural networks that could be trained to perform a variety of tasks. The work by researchers like Sejnowski, Rosenberg, Rumelhart, and McClelland were labeled as connectionism, and the discipline has continued since then. The connectionist mindset was embraced by Paul and Patricia Churchland who then developed their "state space semantics" using concepts from connectionist theory. Connectionism was also condemned by researchers such as Fodor, Pylyshyn, and Pinker. The tension between the connectionists and the classicists is still being debated today.

Representation
One of the reasons that computational theories are appealing is that computers have the ability to manipulate representations to give meaningful output. Digital computers use strings of 1s and 0s in order to represent the content. Most cognitive scientists posit that the brain uses some form of representational code that is carried in the firing patterns of neurons. Computational accounts seem to offer an easy way of explaining how human brains carry and manipulate the perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions of individuals. While most theorists maintain that representation is an important part of cognition, the exact nature of that representation is highly debated. The two main arguments come from advocates of symbolic representations and advocates of associationist representations.

Symbolic representational accounts have been famously championed by Fodor and Pinker. Symbolic representation means that the objects are represented by symbols and are processed through rule governed manipulations that are sensation to the constitutive structure. The fact that symbolic representation is sensitive to the structure of the representations is a major part of its appeal. Fodor proposed the language of thought hypothesis, in which mental representations are manipulated in the same way that language is syntactically manipulated in order to produce thought. According to Fodor, the language of thought hypothesis explains the systematicity and productivity seen in both language and thought.

Associativist representations are most often described with connectionist systems. In connectionist systems, representations are distributed across all the nodes and connection weights of the system and thus are said to be sub symbolic. A connectionist system is capable of implementing a symbolic system. There are several important aspects of neural nets that suggest that distributed parallel processing provides a better basis for cognitive functions than symbolic processing. Firstly, the inspiration for these systems came from the brain itself indicating biological relevance. Secondly, these systems are capable of storing content addressable memory, which is far more efficient than memory searches in symbolic systems. Thirdly, neural nets are resilient to damage while even minor damage can disable a symbolic system. Lastly, soft constraints and generalization when processing novel stimuli allow nets to behave more flexibly than symbolic systems.

The Churchlands described representation in a connectionist system in terms of state space. The content of the system is represented by an n-dimensional vector where the n= the number of nodes in the system and the direction of the vector is determined by the activation pattern of the nodes. Fodor rejected this method of representation on the grounds that two different connectionist systems could not have the same content. Further mathematical analysis of connectionist system revealed that connectionist systems that could contain similar content could be mapped graphically to reveal clusters of nodes that were important to representing the content. However, state space vector comparison was not amenable to this type of analysis. Recently, Nicholas Shea has offered his own account for content within connectionist systems that employs the concepts developed through cluster analysis.

Views on computation
Computationalism, a kind of functionalist philosophy of mind, is committed to the position that the brain is some sort of computer, but what does it mean to be a computer? The definition of a computation must be narrow enough so that we limit the number of objects that can be called computers. For example, it might seem problematic to have a definition wide enough to allow stomachs and weather systems to be involved in computations. However, it is also necessary to have a definition broad enough to allow all of the wide varieties of computational systems to compute. For example, if the definition of computation is limited to syntactic manipulation of symbolic representations, then most connectionist systems would not be able to compute. Rick Grush distinguishes between computation as a tool for simulation and computation as a theoretical stance in cognitive neuroscience. For the former, anything that can be computationally modeled counts as computing. In the latter case, the brain is a computing function that is distinct from systems like fluid dynamic systems and the planetary orbits in this regard. The challenge for any computational definition is to keep the two senses distinct.

Alternatively, some theorists choose to accept a narrow or wide definition for theoretical reasons. Pancomputationalism is the position that everything can be said to compute. This view has been criticized by Piccinini on the grounds that such a definition makes computation trivial to the point where it is robbed of its explanatory value.

The simplest definition of computations is that a system can be said to be computing when a computational description can be mapped onto the physical description. This is an extremely broad definition of computation and it ends up endorsing a form of pancomputationalism. Putnam and Searle, who are often credited with this view, maintain that computation is observer-related. In other words, if you want to view a system as computing then you can say that it is computing. Piccinini points out that, in this view, not only is everything computing, but also everything is computing in an indefinite number of ways. Since it is possible to apply an indefinite number of computational descriptions to a given system, the system ends up computing an indefinite number of tasks.

The most common view of computation is the semantic account of computation. Semantic approaches use a similar notion of computation as the mapping approaches with the added constraint that the system must manipulate representations with semantic content. Note from the earlier discussion of representation that both the Churchlands' connectionist systems and Fodor's symbolic systems use this notion of computation. In fact, Fodor is famously credited as saying "No computation without representation". Computational states can be individuated by an externalized appeal to content in a broad sense (i.e. the object in the external world) or by internalist appeal to the narrow sense content (content defined by the properties of the system). In order to fix the content of the representation, it is often necessary to appeal to the information contained within the system. Grush provides a criticism of the semantic account. He points out that appeal to the informational content of a system to demonstrate representation by the system. He uses his coffee cup as an example of a system that contains information, such as the heat conductance of the coffee cup and the time since the coffee was poured, but is too mundane to compute in any robust sense. Semantic computationalists try to escape this criticism by appealing to the evolutionary history of system. This is called the biosemantic account. Grush uses the example of his feet, saying that by this account his feet would not be computing the amount of food he had eaten because their structure had not been evolutionarily selected for that purpose. Grush replies to the appeal to biosemantics with a thought experiment. Imagine that lightning strikes a swamp somewhere and creates an exact copy of you. According to the biosemantic account, this swamp-you would be incapable of computation because there is no evolutionary history with which to justify assigning representational content. The idea that for two physically identical structures one can be said to be computing while the other is not should be disturbing to any physicalist.

There are also syntactic or structural accounts for computation. These accounts do not need to rely on representation. However, it is possible to use both structure and representation as constrains on computational mapping. Oron Shagrir identifies several philosophers of neuroscience who espouse structural accounts. According to him, Fodor and Pylyshyn require some sort of syntactic constraint on their theory of computation. This is consistent with their rejection of connectionist systems on the grounds of systematicity. He also identifies Piccinini as a structuralist quoting his 2008 paper: "the generation of output strings of digits from input strings of digits in accordance with a general rule that depends on the properties of the strings and (possibly) on the internal state of the system". Though Piccinini undoubtedly espouses structuralist views in that paper, he claims that mechanistic accounts of computation avoid reference to either syntax or representation. It is possible that Piccinini thinks that there are differences between syntactic and structural accounts of computation that Shagrir does not respect.

In his view of mechanistic computation, Piccinini asserts that functional mechanisms process vehicles in a manner sensitive to the differences between different portions of the vehicle, and thus can be said to generically compute. He claims that these vehicles are medium-independent, meaning that the mapping function will be the same regardless of the physical implementation. Computing systems can be differentiated based upon the vehicle structure and the mechanistic perspective can account for errors in computation.

Dynamical systems theory presents itself as an alternative to computational explanations of cognition. These theories are staunchly anti-computational and anti-representational. Dynamical systems are defined as systems that change over time in accordance with a mathematical equation. Dynamical systems theory claims that human cognition is a dynamical model in the same sense computationalists claim that the human mind is a computer. A common objection leveled at dynamical systems theory is that dynamical systems are computable and therefore a subset of computationalism. Van Gelder is quick to point out that there is a big difference between being a computer and being computable. Making the definition of computing wide enough to incorporate dynamical models would effectively embrace pancomputationalism.

List of neurophilosophers

 * Kathleen Akins
 * Ann-Sophie Barwich
 * William Bechtel
 * Patricia Churchland
 * Paul Churchland
 * Andy Clark
 * Francis Crick
 * Daniel Dennett
 * Sam Harris
 * William Hirstein
 * Christof Koch
 * Humberto Maturana
 * Thomas Metzinger
 * Jesse Prinz
 * Heidi Ravven
 * Francisco Varela

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The Science Project
I've started a sort of newsroom for WikiProjects called Wiki Praxis. It's intended to help all of the diverse WikiProjects, especially the ones with high-level portals - those that link to the main page - to align themselves with the new category structures and with each other. For example, I've noticed some interest in a WikiProject_Computer science project-portal section and Wikipedia sure has a lot of quality articles in that arena. It like many others could use exposure in the portal tree.

By 'high-level' I don't mean to set up some sort of cabal with a hierarchy of editors; rather the intention is to set up a logical division of labor and content alignment structure. We don't want to inhibit self-organization but it would be nice to get on board with the efforts to make Wikipedia more usable through the directives found in Browse. This document can act as a center of gravity to align WikiProjects and Wikiportals according to the rules of logic and reason, which are conversant here in the Wikipedia Science Division.

To help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world, drop in at Wiki Praxis  and let get this engine of editorial torque lubed up and purring like a kitten!

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful leadership in this matter. Quinobi | Community Builders Task Force | 6 July 2005 17:59 (UTC)

Merging WikiProjects
Any suggestions on how to merge projects without losing anything? (or anybody). If we could put instructions in WikiProject/Merging it would be helpful. Also please see the Community_hash for some overview stuff and Wikipedia_talk:Community_hash for a directory of relevant discussions. Quinobi 3 July 2005 23:56 (UTC)

The UPPER LEFT-HAND CORNER of WikiProject
I just realized that WikiProject badly needed an Upper left-hand corner!
 * Well, Here ya go! WikiProject_Wikiportals

Have fun! Quinobi 15:40, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject_Main_Page
The Logical next step could be to create WikiProject_Main_Page for the management of Main_Page. This would be the first child of WikiProject_Wikiportals - presented to the Village pump as a gift from Wikiproject.

Please think about this schema and discuss it with the developers and those who manage the Main_Page and the Village_pump. Quinobi 15:40, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject_Wikiportals|your|Wikiportal
Classifying Wikipedia content for the Reader should be near the top of the agenda for all WikiProject managers. Please help WikiProject to get its act together and Clean this place up. WikiProject_Community is here to help. Thank you in advance for your kind consideration of these ideas. Quinobi 15:40, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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Aricia agestis

Aricia agestis, the brown argus, is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It is found throughout the Palearctic realm, north to northern Jutland (Denmark) and east to Siberia and the Tian Shan.

Subspecies

 * A. a. agestis southern and central Europe
 * A. a. calida Chavignerie Sicily, Italy, Asia Minor
 * A. a. azerbaidzhana Obraztsov, 1935 Transcaucasia, Caucaus Major
 * A. a. nazira (Moore, 1865) Darvaz, western Pamirs, north-western Himalayas

Description in Seitz
L. astrarche Bgstr. (= medon Hufn., agestis Schiff., idas Gerh. (?), nazira Moore) (79 k). Above similar to the preceding,[ L. anteros ]  deep dark brown, with strongly marked discocellular spot, especially in the male. Typical specimens have this spot black and bear red spots at the outer margin. Underside with numerous ocelli, the hindwing with a pale smear from the apex of the cell to the centre of the outer margin. From Scandinavia to the Sahara and northern India, and from the Canary Isles to the island of Askold in the Pacific, ascending in the mountains up to 10,000 ft. (Doherty). — Besides accidental aberrations in the usual directions of variation, a number of seasonal and geographical forms have been established. If the spring-brood of the Central European form is regarded as name-typical astrarche, ab. aestiva Stgr. is the name for the second brood, which occurs regularly in the south and more rarely in the north and which connects astrarche with calida Bell. (79 k, 80 a) [A. a. calida (Bellier, 1862). The latter has a much darker, almost coffee-brown, under-side, with a broader band of red spots. Egg pale green, flattened, with the top concave and the surface minutely reticulate (Tutt, Harrison, Gillmer). Larva light green, with a purple dorsal stripe and a similar stripe along the sides, between them oblique pale smears; in spring and summer (in the south throughout the year) on various plants, such as Helianthemum, Centaurea, Erodium, etc. Pupa pale yellowish green, sometimes with a brown dorsal stripe, on or near the ground. The butterflies are on the wing in May and again from July onward, in the south the whole summer until the autumn, in several broods. They fly everywhere, in fields, on field-paths, on rocky hills, even in gardens, always close to the ground and belong to the very commonest butterflies. During the hours of flight they settle with spread wings on blades of grass, blossoms, or clods of earth, while they sleep with closed wings generally hidden under umbels and the inflorescences of grasses.

Appearance and biology (Great Britain)

 * Note that information on this species applies to Great Britain and some details may not be consistent with the species in other parts of its range.

Although one of the "blues", both sexes are brown on the uppersides with a band of orange spots at the border of each wing. They can be mistaken for other female blues but the brown argus never has any blue scales at the base of the wings like other female blues often do. It could also be mistaken for the northern brown argus (Aricia artaxerxes) were it not for the fact that their ranges do not overlap in the UK, unlike on continental Europe. The underside has the typical "blue" pattern of a greyish/brownish ground colour with black spots outlined in white and a row of orange spots along the border. The pattern of the black spots is the best way to distinguish this species from female common, chalkhill and Adonis blues as they lack the black spot found near the base of the forewing which is present on these three species. This species has seen an expansion in its range in recent years and is widely distributed across south-east England and most of the Midlands with colonies occurring in Wales and as far north as Yorkshire. These northern sites have seen a lot of confusion in recent years with genetic studies looking at various colonies to separate the two Aricia species. Until a few years ago, these northern colonies were thought to be the northern brown argus and more colonies may yet be found to be misidentified. Like other blues it is common on the chalk downlands of southern England but will also use other habitats such as woodland clearings, coastal grasslands and heathland. It is not closely related to the Scotch argus.

Life cycle and food plants

 * Note that information on this species applies to Great Britain and some details may not be consistent with the species in other parts of its range.

Common rock-rose (Helianthemum nummularium) is the favoured food plant on calcareous soils. In other habitats dove's-foot cranesbill (Geranium molle) and common stork's-bill (Erodium cicutarium) are used and possibly other Geranium species as well. Eggs are laid singly on the underside of leaves. The typically slug-like lycid larvae are green with a pale line along each side and always attended by ants. They hibernate as fully-grown larvae and pupate the following spring. There are two broods a year in the southern colonies with adults on the wing in May and June and again in late July till mid-September but further north they are single brooded and fly in June and July.

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Jeanne Lanvin

Jeanne-Marie Lanvin (1 January 1867 – 6 July 1946) was a French haute couture fashion designer. She founded the Lanvin fashion house and the beauty and perfume company Lanvin Parfums.

Early life
Jeanne Lanvin was born in Paris on 1 January 1867, the eldest of 11 children of Constantin Lanvin and Sophie Deshayes. She became an apprentice milliner (hat maker) at Madame Félix in Paris at the age of 16. She trained with Suzanne Talbot and Caroline Montagne Roux before becoming a milliner on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1889.

Career
In 1909, Lanvin joined the Syndicat de la Couture (fr), which marked her formal status as a couturière. The clothing Lanvin made for her daughter began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children. Soon, Lanvin was making dresses for their mothers, and some of the most famous names in Europe were included in the clientele of her new boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris.

From 1923, the Lanvin empire included a dye factory in Nanterre. In the 1920s, Lanvin opened shops devoted to home décor, menswear, furs and lingerie. Her most significant endeavour was the creation of Lanvin Parfums SA in 1924. Her signature fragrance, Arpège, introduced in 1927, was inspired by the sound of her daughter Marguerite practicing her scales on the piano. (Arpège is French for arpeggio.)

In 1922, Lanvin collaborated with celebrated French designer Armand-Albert Rateau in redesigning her apartment, her homes and her businesses. The living room, boudoir and bathroom of the apartment was reassembled in 1985 in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. For this home, Rateau designed some remarkable 1920–22 furniture in bronze.

The pair developed a friendship. Rateau came aboard Lanvin's empire as manager of Lanvin-Sport, designing the Lanvin spherical La Boule perfume flacon for Arpège, originally produced by the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres. To this day, Arpège perfume globe, designed by Rateau, are imprinted with Paul Iribe's gold image (rendered in 1907) of Lanvin and her daughter Marguerite. Rateau also managed Lanvin-Décoration, an interior-design department established in 1920, in the main store on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

Personal life, death and legacy
In 1895, Lanvin married Count Emilio di Pietro, an Italian nobleman. Two years later she gave birth to a daughter, Marguerite (also known as Marie-Blanche) (1897–1958). The couple's only child, Marguerite di Pietro became an opera singer. She married the Count Jean de Polignac (1888–1943). On the death of her mother, she became the director of the Lanvin fashion house.

Lanvin and di Pietro divorced in 1903. Lanvin married Xavier Melet in 1907, a journalist at the newspaper Les Temps and later the French consul in Manchester, England.

Lanvin died on 6 July 1946. Her original office is preserved in Lanvin's corporate offices at 16 Rue Boissy d’Anglas in Paris.

Awards

 * Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur, to Jeanne Lanvin, 1926
 * Officier de l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur, to Jeanne Lanvin, 1938

title: Jeanne Lanvin


text:
MindPlay

MindPlay was a technology designed to monitor blackjack players' actions while playing in a casino, first released in 2003 and discontinued in 2007.

Monitoring a person's play traditionally is done visually, by the dealer, floorperson, pitboss, and the eye in the sky (video surveillance). If one of these observers notices something unusual in a person's play, they will do what they can to either
 * 1) determine if the person is a cheat or a card counter, or
 * 2) change the game to turn the odds back in favor of the casino, through more frequent card-shuffling or other methods, or
 * 3) bar a player they think is a card counter, even though the practice is legal.

Operation
MindPlay utilizes a specially-designed blackjack tabletop that incorporates many features to monitor players' actions:

 * Specially encoded playing cards, using invisible ink and barcodes; see card marking.
 * 14 tiny cameras built into the dealer's chip tray (which is now slightly elevated to account for the cameras). These cameras can read every card in play by reading the invisible ink printed on them.
 * Special chips, so that sensors embedded in the table can automatically calculate each player's bet more accurately than a dealer or pitboss could visually.

As MindPlay monitors every card that has been played along with players' betting habits, it is also counting cards just as a card counter would do while sitting at the table. If MindPlay notices that bets are changing dramatically at the same time that a card counter would typically make those bets, MindPlay will notify casino officials that they may want to investigate further.

MindPlay tables cost around 20,000 USD.

Results
Because MindPlay tends to thwart their efforts to beat a blackjack game, card counters generally avoid casinos which use the system and its competitors, and often circulate news of such installations on various Internet sites. Some card counters have tried to make the general public aware of the use of these systems, in an effort to convince others not to patronize the games. Indeed, MindPlay has been somewhat slow to spread among American casinos, partly because of the cost (which must be weighed against that of card-counters) and partly because of negative reaction by players. On the other hand, there were many problems with the systems and some players were able to exploit them.

Problems and end of support
In 2007 Bally stopped supporting MindPlay. The product was plagued by a host of problems, from the cameras not staying calibrated, to the controller boards malfunctioning. These technical problems along with the need for constant software maintenance by Bally staff contributed to the phasing out of this system.

title: MindPlay


text:
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry

Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (born 12 December 1948) is a Pakistani jurist who served as the 20th Chief Justice of Pakistan over three non-consecutive terms from 29 June 2005 to 11 December 2013.

Chaudhry began practice as an advocate of the Sindh High Court in 1976, before shifting to his native Quetta and later serving as Advocate General of Balochistan, Pakistan. He was elected as president of the Balochistan High Court Bar Association, Quetta in 1986 and was elected twice as member of the Bar Council. He was appointed Advocate General of Balochistan in 1989. He also discharged duties as Banking Judge Special Court for Speedy Trials, Judge Customs Appellate Court as well as Company Judge. He was appointed as Chairman of the Balochistan Local Council Election Authority in 1992 and thereafter for a second term in 1998. He ascended as a senior advocate at Supreme Court before taking a government law assignment in Quetta. In 1990, he was appointed as an additional judge at the Balochistan High Court. He was appointed as Chairman Provincial Review Board for the Province of Balochistan on the recommendations of Hon’ble Chief Justice of Pakistan. He was appointed twice as Chairman of Pakistan Red Crescent Society Balochistan by the Government of Balochistan. In 1999 he was nominated as Chief justice of the Balochistan High Court by the President Rafiq Tarar. The same year, he controversially took oath under Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf, validating the LFO ordnance No. 2002, and ascended to the Supreme Court in 2002. On 30 June 2005, President Musharraf appointed Chaudhry as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

On 9 March 2007, Musharraf asked Chaudhry to resign, which he refused to do, and was suspended from office. The resultant civil disorder led to the Lawyers' Movement, which succeeded in the restoration of Chaudhry as Chief Justice on 20 July 2007. However, Musharraf declared a state of emergency in November, arresting Chaudhry as well as suspending 60 other judges from the judiciary. Following the lifting of the emergency in December and the general elections in 2008, the government was routed, and Musharraf resigned under threat of impeachment. Asif Ali Zardari succeeded Musharraf as president, but also postponed Chaudhry's restoration. This led to the Lawyers' Movement culminating in the Long March by Zardari's political rival Sharif, and the restoration of the Chaudhry-led judiciary on 22 March 2009. Chaudhry stepped down on 12 December 2013.

The movement for Chaudhry's restoration garnered world attention, while his term as Chief Justice witnessed unprecedented judicial activism, including the suo motu notice of controversial privatization of the Pakistan Steel Mills, leading the case of missing persons in Balochistan, arguing and issuing orders against the New Murree project regarding as environmental catastrophe, and ruling the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) as unconstitutional and irrelevant. After proceeding the notice of contempt against the Prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani who forcefully refused to direct a letter to Swiss authorities over President's hidden assets in Swiss Banks, Chaudry retroactively discharged and ousted Gillani and his government on 26 April 2012. He retired on 12 December 2013 as Chief Justice.

Chaudhry's legacy is described as having "repurposed a once supine judiciary as a fiercely independent force", but he has also been criticized for judicial overreach and allegations of misuse of office.

On 25 December 2015, Chaudhry announced the formation of the Pakistan Justice Democratic Critic Party headed by himself.

Early life and family
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was born on 12 December 1948 into Rajput family in Quetta, Balochistan Province, Pakistan. His father, Chaudhry Jan Muhammad, was a police constable. Before the independence in 1947 Chaudhry Jan Muhammad was posted from Jalandhar, India to Quetta, Baluchistan. He spent the rest of his life in Quetta, Baluchistan. Chaudhry lived in Quetta before moving to Islamabad, when he was elevated judge of Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2000. Chaudhry has three brothers who are settled abroad and he is the second eldest child of his parents.

Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is married to Faiqa Iftikhar and has five children. His two sons are Arsalan Iftikhar Chaudhry and Ahmed Balach Iftikhar. He has three daughters, Ayesha Iftikhar, Ifrah Iftikhar and Palwasha Iftikhar.

Rana Sanaullah Khan is a cousin of former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Chaudry Iftikhar is fluent in Urdu, English, Balochi, Brahui, Punjabi and Pashto.

Career in law
Chaudhry has a Bachelors in Arts and Bachelors in Law (LLB) from the University of Sindh, Jamshoro. He joined the bar in 1974. He was enrolled as an Advocate of the High Court in 1976 and as an Advocate of the Supreme Court in 1985. In 1989 he was appointed Advocate General, Balochistan by Akbar Bugti, the then Chief Minister of Balochistan. He was elevated as Additional Judge, Balochistan High Court on 6 November 1990 until 21 April 1999. On 22 April 1999 he became Chief Justice of the Balochistan High Court. Besides remaining as Judge of the High Court, he discharged duties as Banking Judge, Judge Special Court for Speedy Trials, Judge Customs Appellate Courts and Company Judge. Chaudhry also remained President of High Court Bar Association, Quetta, and was elected twice as a member of the Bar Council. In 1992 he was appointed as Chairman of Balochistan Local Council Election Authority and thereafter for a second term in 1998. He also worked as Chairman of the Provincial Review Board for the province of Balochistan and was twice appointed as Chairman of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, Balochistan.

On 4 February 2000 he was nominated as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. On 30 June 2005 he became the Chief Justice of Pakistan. He is said to be the youngest Chief Justice of Pakistan, who will be serving the longest period that any chief justice has ever served in the history of Pakistan's judiciary. At present, Justice Iftikhar is also functioning as Chairman of the Enrollment Committee of Pakistan Bar Council and as Chairman of the Supreme Court Building Committee.

Oath taking under PCO 1999
After the proclamation of PCO, on 26 January 2000 an order (Oath of Office (Judges) Order, 2000) was issued that required that judiciary take an oath of office under PCO. Four judges, including Chief Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, refused to take an oath under the PCO, and therefore no longer remained part of the Supreme Court. To fill the positions in the Supreme Court, Musharraf appointed other judges, including Chaudhry. Musharraf's extra-constitutional acts were legitimized by this new Supreme Court, and the new parliament which was elected under Musharraf legitimized everything including this Supreme Court.

Suspension and reinstatement, 2007
On 9 March 2007, Chaudhry was suspended by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Chaudhry was summoned to Army House and was asked to resign in the presence of five Army generals, including heads of intelligence services. Chaudhry refused to resign so Musharraf decided to file a presidential reference against Chaudhry for misconduct. Upon Chaudhry's refusal to resign, Musharraf forwarded the case to Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) as per procedure in constitution of Pakistan.

It was the first time in the 60-year history of the Pakistani Supreme Court that a Chief Justice was suspended. The suspension was made on the grounds of complaints against Chief Justice Chaudhry for violating the norms of judicial propriety, corruption, seeking favours and misbehaving with senior lawyers. He was also accused of interfering in the working of the executive branch. On the other hand, Chaudhry too decided in the first time of the history of Pakistan to challenge Musharraf and his reference in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Musharraf could not swallow this as he had plans to get rid of Chaudhry by sending the reference to SJC. He did not want Chaudhry to remain Chief Justice as he was an independent judge and had blatantly refused to facilitate Musharraf in his plans to get another five-year mandate through the Supreme Court as his predecessors had done. Chaudhry, on sensing that the judges of SJC were doing what was dictated to them by Musharraf, refused to have his case heard in SJC and hence decided to challenge these dubious allegations in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Chaudhry's petition was taken up by the thirteen member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday. Chaudhry was represented by five top lawyers of Pakistan, Aitzaz Ahsan, Hamid Khan, Munir A. Malik, Ali Ahmad Kurd and Tariq Mehmood. This panel of lawyers was termed a 'dream team', who fought valiantly for Chaudhry, inside and outside the court.

After his suspension, there was unrest in the country with regard to the validity of the allegations against Chaudhry, as well as doubt as to whether Musharraf technically had the power to suspend the Chief Justice under the circumstances. There was a great outpour of public on roads to greet Chaudhry when he traveled to address bar associations. On 4 May 2007, as he headed towards Lahore from the capital Islamabad, masses of the population lined the 250 km-long-highway to greet him. An otherwise four-hour journey took 24 hours. On 5 May 2007, Chaudhry with his counsel and politician friend Atizaz Ahsan reached the Lahore Bar Association in morning a dinner the association was holding in his honour.

On 20 July 2007, Chaudhry was reinstated to his position as Chief Justice in a ruling by the thirteen-member bench of Pakistan's Supreme Court headed by Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday. His counsel of five lawyers represented him against 16 senior lawyers representing the Federation. The ruling combined 25 constitutional petitions filed by various parties, but referred most of the issues raised by the 24 petitions not filed by Chaudhry himself to lower courts for extended adjudication. All thirteen of the sitting justices agreed that Musharraf's action had been illegal, and ten of the thirteen ordered Chaudhry was to be reinstated and that he "shall be deemed to be holding the said office and shall always be deemed to have been so holding the same."

2007 state of emergency
On Saturday, 3 November 2007, General Pervez Musharraf, who was the President and Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan at the time, declared a state of emergency and suspended the nation's constitution and parliament at the same time. He locked all the judges up in order to take revenge on them for giving a judgement in Chaudhry's favour. The declaration accused the judges of violating article 209 of the Constitution of 1973. In addition, Musharraf put not only Chaudhry and all the judges under house arrest but also Chaudhry's young children. Chaudhry's youngest son, Balach, required physiotherapy that too was not provided. His daughter had to take her A Level exam at home, held under the supervision of British Council Pakistan.

On 15 November Geo News reported that Chaudhry had ordered the Islamabad Inspector General of Police to take action against his and his family's house arrest and their possible relocation to Quetta. According to the channel, Chaudhry held the interior secretary, the commissioner, the deputy commissioner and the assistant commissioner responsible for his house arrest. He said he was still the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the official residence was his by right.

Reinstatement, 2008–09
Just after general elections in February, on 24 March 2008, on his first day of premiership the Pakistani PM Yousaf Raza Gillani ordered Chaudhry's release from house arrest.

In October 2008, Chaudhry visited the Supreme Court building.

The Lawyers' Movement announced a "long march" for the restoration of the judges, especially Chief Justice Iftikhar from 12 to 16 March 2009. The government of Pakistan refused to reinstate the judges and declared section 144 in effect in three of the four provinces of Pakistan thereby forbidding any form of gatherings of the "long march". Arrangements were made to block all roads and other means of transport to prevent the lawyers from reaching the federal capital, Islamabad. Workers of the main political parties in opposition and the lawyers' movement as well as other known persons from the civil society were arrested. Despite these efforts, the movement continued under the leadership of Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and was able to break through the blockade in Lahore en route to Islamabad in the night between 15 and 16 March 2009. A few hours later, on the morning of 16 March 2009, the prime minister of Pakistan restored Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as chief justice of Pakistan through an executive order, after which the opposition agreed to stop the "long march".

Pakistan Steel Mills privatization
Chaudhry surprised the whole country when he suspended the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) on the plea of the PSM workers' union. It did not merely embarrass the government but jeopardised the whole privatisation process. Chaudhry, who was heading the bench, observed that the main objectives of the privatisation policy were poverty alleviation and debt retirement, but these were not given due weightage in the mills' privatisation deal. He objected to the fact that the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation took the Privatisation Board's recommended price of Rs 17.20 per share for granted, and consequently, shares were sold at the low rate of Rs 16.81.

Other important cases
Some very important cases were heard in the Supreme Court in 2007. Decisions have been taken in some:
 * The 'New Murre' housing project was an environmental catastrophe. Despite protests by the civil society and environmental groups, the military government refused to budge since many top politicians and some generals had a stake in this real-estate venture. Chaudhry ordered to shelve this project. He started earning respect for his 'judicial activism'. He took suo motto actions on human rights, women rights cases besides offering relief to trade unions in some cases.
 * Another sensitive issue was disappeared activists from Baluchistan province. Hundreds of nationalist activists, including journalists and poets, have disappeared. When the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan moved the Supreme Court against these disappearances, Chaudhry accepted the plea.

 * Karachi law and order case
 * NICL scam - billions of rupees were recovered; the Chief Justice criticized the Federal Investigation Agency and National Accountability Bureau's performance
 * Hajj corruption case
 * Power Rental Case - the Supreme Court took action against Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and directed the National Accountability Bureau to recover billions of rupees
 * National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court headed by 17 judges

Dismissal of petition challenging Legal Framework Order (LFO) 2002
Just prior to the holding of the October 2002 general elections a five-member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which Chaudhry was a member of, dismissed a petition which challenged the promulgation of the Legal Framework Order (LFO) 2002 by President Musharraf. Under the LFO Musharraf announced amendments to the constitution which restored executive powers to the President, including the right to dismiss the National Assembly and appoint governors and service chiefs, and created a National Security Council (NSC). The main controversy started in 2009 after the restoration of all judges. The oath taking of judges on PCO in the past was then declared a crime by the same judges who had taken oaths on PCO in the past.

Judgement on the 17th Amendment and President's Uniform Case 2005
On 13 April 2005, in the "Judgment on 17th Amendment and President's Uniform Case", Chaudhry was one of five Supreme Court judges who dismissed all petitions challenging President Musharraf's constitutional amendments. In a wide-ranging judgement they declared that the Legal Framework Order (LFO) instituted by General Musharraf after his suspension of the constitution, the 17th amendment which gave this constitutional backing, and the two offices bill which allowed Musharraf to retain his military uniform whilst being President were all legal because the Parliament had approved the amendments.

Supreme Court justices
On 30 July 2009, a 14-member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that all the judges who had taken an oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), were removed from office and were facing the Supreme Judicial Council. Two days later an ordinance signed by President Asif Ali Zardari officially removed all PCO judges from office.

Political affiliation
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been criticised by some notable academics, journalists and others for his judicial activism and over-involvement in day-to-day affairs of the government. He is accused of being in alliance with Pakistan Pakistan Muslim League (N), Nawaz Sharif against Pakistan military establishment.

Awards and honors
In the wake of the imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan, on 14 November 2007, the Harvard Law School decided to award its highest honour, the Medal of Freedom, to Justice Chaudhry, following the military crackdown the previous week. He was the first Pakistani to be presented with such honour and the third person in the world to receive this award, along with Nelson Mandela and Oliver Hill.

Chief Justice Chaudhry formally received the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom during his visit to the United States in November 2008. International Jurist Award 2012

The National Law Journal picked Chaudhry as the lawyer of the year for 2007. The Association of the Bar of the City of New York granted Chaudhry an honorary membership on 17 November 2008, recognizing him as a "symbol of the movement for judicial and lawyer independence in Pakistan." In 2012 Chaudhry was named among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

On 29 May 2012, Chaudhry and Indian Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav were awarded the prestigious International Jurists Award 2012.

Chaudhry received the award from Lord Phillips, President of the Supreme Court of the UK, for his "unique and tremendous contribution in the field of administration of justice and for the tireless and fearless endeavours towards administration of justice in Pakistan against all odds." He was also named among the World's 100 Most Influential People 2012

International visits
He attended the 22nd Biennial Congress on the Law of the World, held in Beijing and Shanghai, China in September 2005. He participated in the International Conference and Showcase on Judicial Reforms held in Philippines in November 2005. He also participated in the International Conference and Showcase on Judicial Reforms held in Philippines in November 2005. He visited the United Kingdom in February 2006 in connection with the UK-Pakistan Judicial Protocol on Children Matter.

Special human rights cell
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry worked hard while pursuing his efforts to clear the backlog of cases. He also assumed the additional responsibility of the Human rights cases under his suo moto jurisdiction. He established a separate human rights cell at the Supreme Court that received thousands of human rights complaints from poor victims across the country.

Election reforms
The Supreme Court headed by Ifitikhar took many steps to make Election Commission of Pakistan more transparent and valuable, e.g. nomination forms, appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and election expenses.

The Supreme Court observed that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), having the support of 180 million people of the country, was authorised to hold free and fair elections and stop the corrupt people from getting elected in the forthcoming general elections.

Retirement
Chaudhry retired on 13 December 2013 as Chief Justice. Justice Jilani was to succeed Justice Chaudhry as CJP. In his last speech he focused on human rights and the current Supreme Court position regarding cases. He clarified that now the Supreme Court and law and order are more effective.

title: Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry


text:
User talk:Cyferx

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style

Dave (talk) 20:35, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

PS Good work with fixing typos and stuff. Sometimes I wish Wikipedia had a spellcheck. Hope you enjoy your time here.
 * Who needs a spellchecker when you've got a good new user like Cyferx? :P Keep up the good work mate! - Ta bu shi da yu 10:03, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

 * "Harry" is a nickname, "Dave" is my real name. Talking to people is what user talk pages are for, so you did the right thing when you edited it.  Wikipedia's convention for this sort of thing is to put new posts at the bottom, though (it confused me my first time, too).  You can do that either by hitting the edit button on a talk page and writing at the bottom or by clicking the little "plus" sign to the right of it, which automatically puts the comment at the bottom of the page.  Happy editing! Dave (talk) 21:27, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

 * Ya, welcome from me too :-) I see that Dave has already replied, but if you need any help, give me a holler on my talk page. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:02, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

United States Bill of Rights
Hi, I'm soliciting Peer review comments from people who contributed to the FA on the 1st Amendment, since there doesn't seem to be any response at PR. Many thanks, Kaisershatner 21:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Greyhound
Hi, As a (possible?) fellow greyhound adopter, this userbox is now available:

Best wishes, --Badgernet (talk) 09:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Gates' Law deletion
People are wanting to delete the Wikipedia article "Gates' Law"

The article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates%27_law

I would like there to be more contributors. I don't think there is a balanced vote right now. You can vote here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Gates%27_law

Thanks again.

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:03, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Cyferx


text:
Tranky Doo

The Tranky Doo (also called Trunky Doo) is a jazz dance choreography.

A source states it was choreographed by Frankie Manning himself and ″...named in tribute to the chorus girl who inspired it.″

At that time, it was danced to Tuxedo Junction, however many modern day performances of the dance use other swing jazz songs. It is most common these days to perform the dance with the song "Dipsy Doodle" by Ella Fitzgerald because the dance appears in the Spirit Moves documentary film with a playback of the song. However the film originally had no sound, and the song "Dipsy Doodle" was artificially superimposed on that section of the film. Dipsy Doodle's structure does not fit the structure of the Tranky Doo, since the song is a 12-bar blues structure and the choreography is 32-bar swing structure.

It was common to Lindy hoppers, like the shim sham.

Step List:

Fall off the Log: Kick R on 8, L on 4 - (1) 8 count

Shuffles: step R L R L on +8+1; side-press-lunges: step R on 2, press L on 3, step L on 4 press R on 5, etc. - (1)8 count

Repeat

Forward-press-lunges: Start facing R, step R on 8, press forward on 1, hold 2.3; step L on 4, press forward on 5, clap 6.7 - (1) 8 count

Boogie Forward - (1) 8 count

Repeat

Apple Jacks - (2) 8 counts

Rocks facing R - (1) 8 count

Rocks facing forward - (1) 8 count

Boogie Back - (1) 8 count

Shorty George - (1) 8 count

Boogie Back - (1) 8 count

Break Step - (1) 8 count

Knee Slap, ba-da-dum: Slap R knee on 8 hold for 1, step R L R on +.2.3; repeat to L and R once more. [ala Big Apple] - (1.5) 8 counts

Transition: Cross L over R on 4, step R on 6, clap 7 - (.5) 8 count

Suzie Q: start L on 8 - (1) 8 count

Reverse Break: Kick R across L on 8, rock step 2.3, lock turn 4.5.6.7 - (1) 8 count

Mess Around - (1) 8 count

Fall off the Log turning: Kick R on 8, perform 1/2 the Fall off the Log while turning to the left; plant feet together 3, spread 5, together with weight L on 7. End facing forward. - (1) 8 count

Eagle Slide: Kick-ball-change step scoot step kick-ball-change lock turn. Timing is 8 + 1 2 3 4 5 + 6 7 8

Drop Boogie: R 1.2.3.4; L 5.6.7 together 8 - (1) 8 count

Mambo Walks: Tap R on 2, cross over L on 3, tap L on 4, cross over R on 5, etc. - (1) 8 count

Push Turn (paddle turn): Keep weight on L 1.2.3.4 while pushing out with R on 1 and 3, step R on 5, step L on 6, down on 7, kick R on 8 (turns 360 degrees) - (1) 8 count

Fall off the Log turning: perform 1/2 the Fall off the Log while turning to the left; plant feet together 3, float back on R 4.5.6.7.8 - (1) 8 count

Truckin': Start L on 1 - (2) 8 counts

Float Back on R 1.2.3.4.5.6.7, step L on 8 - (1) 8 count

Low Cake Walk - (1) 8 count

Walk About - (2) 8 counts

Box Step: Start crossing L over R on 1 - (3) 8 counts

Shouts: Pop hips Back 1.2, Forward 3.4, R 5.6, L 7.8 - (4) 8 counts

Clap and Point: Start with weight on L, point R leg out on 1, clap as the knee comes up on 2, etc. - (4) 8 counts

Repeat from the top until music ends.

title: Tranky Doo


text:
Gutenberg College

Gutenberg College is a private, four-year Great Books college in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1994, the school currently has 20 students as of 2018. The college "does not participate in any government-funded financial aid programs."

History
The college occupies a Jacobean building designed in 1927 by Lawrence, Holford, Allyn and Bean. Originally the University of Oregon's Delta Tau Delta fraternity house, the building became Delta Zeta sorority in 1946 when Delta Tau Delta moved across the street. Then in 1985 McKenzie Study Center occupied the building.

Gutenberg College grew out of McKenzie Study Center (MSC), a Christian ministry that has existed in Eugene for 40 years. MSC was founded in 1979 as a ministry to present a biblical worldview to University of Oregon (UO) students; it now serves not only UO students, but the surrounding community. In 1991, after examining prospective curricula and programs, the board of McKenzie Study Center decided a Great Books curriculum would best accomplish their goals of providing a unique and well-rounded education. Gutenberg started in 1994 with four students and graduated its first class in 1998. Gutenberg remains small, with an enrollment of less than fifty students.

Great Books program
The Gutenberg college great books approach is based on the program developed in the mid-1900s at the University of Chicago by Mortimer Adler that later became the Great Books of the Western World of Brittannica, at Rutgers and St John's by Stringfellow Barr, et al. This alternative approach to education emphasizes less the vocational skills and specialization of most undergraduate degrees, seeking instead to produce individuals who are well-read, well-reasoned, articulate, and mature. Personal growth rather than vocational training is emphasized and accomplished through studying the most influential works of Western Civilization in every discipline: philosophy, math, science, theology, literature, and art.

Academics
The curriculum centers on the most influential primary texts of Western Civilization, which students study with "tutors" in round-table discussions. In addition, the curriculum includes the following: a weekly lecture, classes and practicums in science, art, math, foreign language and the reading of difficult texts ("microexegesis"). The curriculum is viewed through a biblical Christian perspective, though the staff and faculty is not associated with any one denomination. Gutenberg offers one degree: a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts.

Coursework includes the following: two years of classical Greek; two years of German; two years of math (ancient and modern); two years of Western Civilization (Great Books readings); two years of Great Conversation (more in-depth Great Books readings), four years of Microexegesis (practicums in reading difficult texts), and several classes and practicums in physics, biology, chemistry, and art.

All students read the same works over the four-year program. Readings progress through the Great Books chronologically and cycle through the history of Western Civilization twice in the four years of study.

To promote lively discussion, classes are kept small, usually five to twelve students. A small number of lectures and secondary sources supplement the classic curriculum. At the end of the first two years, students must pass a series of comprehensive exams in order to progress to the last two years. During the senior year, each student writes an extensive thesis dealing with an issue discussed by two classic authors.

Authorization and accreditation
Gutenberg is a non-profit corporation authorized by the State of Oregon to offer and confer a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts.

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title: Gutenberg College


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Talk:Neurophilosophy

hep
I could use some help with this if anyone wants to contribute. KSchutte 20:38, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Clean up and Elaboration
This page needs a lot of cleaning up and elaboration. At the moment, everything posted here is pure speculation. The links and available information posted are inadequate to prove that this is in fact a scientific field of study at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jansandaas (talk • contribs) 19:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Added NPOV
"This scientific approach contrasts strongly with idealism, and/or the appeal to the existence of a Platonic soul that thinks, feels and desires." This is a complete misrepresentation of philosophy of mind proponents contrary to neurophilosophy. 189.146.4.89 (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC) 189.146.4.89 (talk) 00:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

It's technically accurate. Theories in neurophilosophy do contrast with idealism (nature of reality is based on minds and ideas) as well as Plato's dualism (the immaterial soul/mind is separate from the material body). I agree that it sounds a little biased, so I'm going to take out "scientific", which is implicitly arguing that the facts support neurophilosophy (which may be true, but is beyond the scope of this sentence about contrasts between the approaches). Hopefully this resolves the minor NPOV issue. (It's important to have that contrast; all such contrasts are fundamental if you're taking university-level philosophy of mind, so it should be included in the article.) DoItAgain (talk) 14:10, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Neurophilosophy and the Churchland's: Planned Update
Troped (talk) 22:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC) says:

I second the idea that neurophilosophy is not in contention with any philosophy of the soul. There aren't any serious 21st century philosophers contending that there is a soul or that it is the source of free will. Neurophilosophy is largely aligned against functionalist theories of cognitive philosophy that want to make use of our folk psychology (our intuitive understanding of things like beliefs and desires). Dennett refers to it as the intentional stance. In fact, I don't think Daniel Dennett should be listed here as a proponent of neurophilosophy either; he is mainly a functionalist. Neurophilosophy is an eliminative reductionist position that contends (in brief) that folk psychology is not a theory and is not true; that the only useful language that can come about to discuss mental states will be one based on an understanding of the fundamental physical characteristics of the brain. I'm currently reading the Churchlands' works and if no one objects I would definitely like to fix this page a bit. Another excellent resource on this matter (for anyone who would like to contribute) is the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (consider reading this passage on eliminative materialism - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)
 * Yes, Patricia Churchland and Paul Churchland are more relevant figures than Dennett to neurophilosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a great source.  By all means please edit this article. I'll do my best to pitch in over the next few weeks. Shanata (talk) 14:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite
I have added some bits and removed others where I found it necessary. I think I am able to justify these removals, so please inquire if you feel something of the old text is missing.

Prominence of philosophers is redundant and often highly subjective. A list of names has been provided instead.

The rewrite also includes an attempt at adressing the POV dispute. The eliminative materialist view has been eliminated from the article. It is not a central tenet to the philosophy of neuroscience. It may be added later though as an example of a particular viewpoint. Dualist neurophilosophers do exist, for instance: John Carew Eccles. The notice has been kept though.

Ostracon (talk) 17:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The first sentence
"Empirical (not transcendental) neurophilosophy"

what the heck would transcendental neurophilosophy be? I am not a wikipedian, otherwise I would delete this. It doesn't appear anywhere else on the net, apparent from lifts from this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.2.50.211 (talk) 14:18, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Original research
The article is a huge mess, massive violations of WP:SYNTH including misinterpretationd of the sources cited  and up to outright irrelevant bullshit gobbledygook. I am going to clean this up big time, because obviously nobody was reading this seriously. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:42, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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title: Talk:Neurophilosophy


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Structural differential

The structural differential is a physical chart or three-dimensional model illustrating the abstracting processes of the human nervous system. In one form, it appears as a pegboard with tags. Created by Alfred Korzybski, and awarded a U.S. patent on May 26, 1925, it is used as a training device in general semantics. The device is intended to show that human "knowledge" of, or acquaintance with, anything is partial—not total.

The model
The structural differential consists of three basic objects. The parabola represents a domain beyond our direct observation, the sub-microscopic, dynamic world of molecules, atoms, electrons, protons, quarks, and so on; a world known to us only inferentially from science. Korzybski described it as an 'event' in the sense of "an instantaneous cross-section of a process." Thus the 'event' or parabola represents the sub-microscopic 'stuff' that, at any given moment, constitutes an apple. In other words, the parabola represents the "external" cause of what we experience.

The disc represents the non-verbal result of our nervous systems reacting to submicroscopic "stuff", e.g., the apple that we see, hold, bite into, all on the non-verbal levels of experience. The disc represents what we experience of our surroundings versus what our surroundings actually are.

The labels [usually seven or eight are linked together in a chain, with the last one attached back to the parabola, but here we see just one] are shaped like suitcase labels, and represent the static world of words, e.g., "apple", giving imperfect accounts of dynamic reality. An object called an "apple" left in a jar for months becomes a putrid liquid (because of its underlying, dynamic, sub-microscopic structure), but the label "apple" does not change. The word "steak", at a lower verbal order, may imply "something to eat" at a higher verbal order, but in the sub-microscopic domain, a particular steak may be contaminated with poisons created by harmful bacteria that we could see only on microscopic levels. Thus the differential sets up a hierarchy of order, with the submicroscopic domain of dynamic change coming first, the relatively stable universe conveyed non-verbally by our senses coming next, and then the verbal levels. A label is what we attach to a non-verbal experience in order to identify this experience in verbal terms; when we identify an "apple", we attribute to this identification various non-verbal experiences.

The holes in the figures represent the characteristics that exist at each level. The characteristics that are abstracted to the next level are indicated by the attached strings. The strings that don't make it to the next level represent characteristics left out of our abstractions, as do the holes without strings at all. More is left out of our abstractions at each level than was there at the previous level.

The structural differential was used by Korzybski to demonstrate that human beings abstract from their environments, that these abstractions leave out many characteristics, and that verbal abstractions build on themselves indefinitely, through many orders or levels, represented by seven or eight labels (or less, or more, it is totally arbitrary how many we want to symbolize the higher levels), chained in order. The highest, most reliable abstractions at a date are made by science, he claimed (e.g., science has conveyed the nature and danger of bacteria to us), and that is why he attached the last label back to the parabola. It is science that has told us that the sub-microscopic domain exists, and in general semantics the parabola represents that domain. In general semantics, the natural order of evaluation proceeds from lower orders of abstraction to higher orders of abstraction, and back again in an endless cycle. In these cycles, we return periodically or eventually to "silence on the objective levels" (our ground) before moving on to the higher orders, i.e., before bursting into speech or theory.

General semantics
The general semantics discipline was founded by Korzybski, who gained recognition first with the publication of Manhood of Humanity (1921) and then Science and Sanity (1933). Some of his ideas were popularized by Stuart Chase in The Tyranny of Words in 1938, and by Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, in Language in Action in 1941 (which later became Language in Thought and Action). Also influential was the magazine ETC: A Review of General Semantics, founded in 1943. The name of the magazine, ETC, was a play on a fundamental notion of Korzybski's that names or descriptions do not exhaustively convey all of an object's properties (the word "steak" does not convey the possibility of harmful bacteria, for instance). We can hardly refrain from describing things altogether, but we can bear in mind that we could append to any name or description the word "etc.", to indicate that the label is only a subset of the total set of possibilities. There is always more that can be said about anything. ETC magazine was founded by Hayakawa, who was a professor at San Francisco State College and member of the U.S. Senate during the Carter administration. His Language in Thought and Action, went through several editions and is concerned in part with the confusion of words with reality. Hayakawa's work coincided with the advent of television broadcasting and contained early warnings against the dangers of mediated reality that television embodied.

title: Structural differential


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Talk:Socompa

Socompan microbes
I came to this article hoping to learn more about the microbial ecosystems found on Socompa (the highest such ecosystems in the world, apparently), but they are not even mentioned. All I know is what's in the article I've just linked to. 125.168.127.32 (talk) 04:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I've added it myself now and also made some style-related edits while I was there. 125.168.127.32 (talk) 09:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Etymology
This source suggests it may be an Atacameno name derived from a deity but I don't know if this source is reliable. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:30, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Socompa


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NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division

The NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division is located at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field in the heart of Silicon Valley in Mountain View, California. It has been the major supercomputing and modeling and simulation resource for NASA missions in aerodynamics, space exploration, studies in weather patterns and ocean currents, and space shuttle and aircraft design and development for almost forty years.

The facility currently houses the petascale Pleiades, Aitken, and Electra supercomputers, as well as the terascale Endeavour supercomputer. The systems are based on SGI and HPE architecture with Intel processors. The main building also houses disk and archival tape storage systems with a capacity of over an exabyte of data, the hyperwall visualization system, and one of the largest InfiniBand network fabrics in the world. The NAS Division is part of NASA's Exploration Technology Directorate and operates NASA's High-End Computing Capability (HECC) Project.

Founding
In the mid-1970s, a group of aerospace engineers at Ames Research Center began to look into transferring aerospace research and development from costly and time-consuming wind tunnel testing to simulation-based design and engineering using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models on supercomputers more powerful than those commercially available at the time. This endeavor was later named the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator (NAS) Project and the first computer was installed at the Central Computing Facility at Ames Research Center in 1984.

Groundbreaking on a state-of-the-art supercomputing facility took place on March 14, 1985 in order to construct a building where CFD experts, computer scientists, visualization specialists, and network and storage engineers could be under one roof in a collaborative environment. In 1986, NAS transitioned into a full-fledged NASA division and in 1987, NAS staff and equipment, including a second supercomputer, a Cray-2 named Navier, were relocated to the new facility, which was dedicated on March 9, 1987.

In 1995, NAS changed its name to the Numerical Aerospace Simulation Division, and in 2001 to the name it has today.

Industry Leading Innovations
NAS has been one of the leading innovators in the supercomputing world, developing many tools and processes that became widely used in commercial supercomputing. Some of these firsts include:
 * Installed Cray's first UNIX-based supercomputer
 * Implemented a client/server model linking the supercomputers and workstations together to distribute computation and visualization
 * Developed and implemented a high-speed wide area network (WAN) connecting supercomputing resources to remote users (AEROnet)
 * Co-developed NASA's first method for dynamic distribution of production loads across supercomputing resources in geographically distant locations (NASA Metacenter)
 * Implemented TCP/IP networking in a supercomputing environment
 * Developed a batch-queuing system for supercomputers (NQS)
 * Developed a UNIX-based hierarchical mass storage system (NAStore)
 * Co-developed (with SGI) the first IRIX single system image 256-, 512-, and 1,024-processor supercomputers
 * Co-developed (with SGI) the first Linux-based single-system image 512- and 1,024-processor supercomputers
 * A 2,048-processor shared memory environment

Software Development
NAS develops and adapts software in order to "complement and enhance the work performed on its supercomputers, including software for systems support, monitoring systems, security, and scientific visualization," and often provides this software to its users through the NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA).

A few of the important software developments from NAS include:
 * NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) were developed to evaluate highly parallel supercomputers and mimic the characteristics of large-scale CFD applications.
 * Portable Batch System (PBS) was the first batch queuing software for parallel and distributed systems. It was released commercially in 1998 and is still widely used in the industry.
 * PLOT3D was created in 1982 and is a computer graphics program still used today to visualize the grids and solutions of structured CFD datasets. The PLOT3D team was awarded the fourth largest prize ever given by the NASA Space Act Program for the development of their software, which revolutionized scientific visualization and analysis of 3D CFD solutions.
 * FAST (Flow Analysis Software Toolkit) is a software environment based on PLOT3D and used to analyze data from numerical simulations which, though tailored to CFD visualization, can be used to visualize almost any scalar and vector data. It was awarded the NASA Software of the Year Award in 1995.
 * INS2D and INS3D are codes developed by NAS engineers to solve incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in two- and three-dimensional generalized coordinates, respectively, for steady-state and time varying flow. In 1994, INS3D won the NASA Software of the Year Award.
 * Cart3D is a high-fidelity analysis package for aerodynamic design which allows users to perform automated CFD simulations on complex forms. It is still used at NASA and other government agencies to test conceptual and preliminary air- and spacecraft designs. The Cart3D team won the NASA Software of the Year award in 2002.
 * OVERFLOW (Overset grid flow solver) is a software package developed to simulate fluid flow around solid bodies using Reynolds-averaged, Navier-Stokes CFD equations. It was the first general-purpose NASA CFD code for overset (Chimera) grid systems and was released outside of NASA in 1992.
 * Chimera Grid Tools (CGT) is a software package containing a variety of tools for the Chimera overset grid approach for solving CFD problems of surface and volume grid generation; as well as grid manipulation, smoothing, and projection.
 * HiMAP A three level (Intra/Inter discipline, multicase) parallel HIgh fidelity Multidisciplinary (Fluids, Structures, Controls) Analysis Process,

Supercomputing History
Since its construction in 1987, the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility has housed and operated some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Many of these computers include testbed systems built to test new architecture, hardware, or networking set-ups that might be utilized on a larger scale. Peak performance is shown in Floating Point Operations Per Second (FLOPS).

Disk Storage
In 1987, NAS partnered with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the University of California, Berkeley in the Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) project, which sought to create a storage technology that combined multiple disk drive components into one logical unit. Completed in 1992, the RAID project lead to the distributed data storage technology used today.

The NAS facility currently houses disk mass storage on an SGI parallel DMF cluster with high-availability software consisting of four 32-processor front-end systems, which are connected to the supercomputers and the archival tape storage system. The system has 192 GB of memory per front-end and 7.6 petabytes (PB) of disk cache. Data stored on disk is regularly migrated to the tape archival storage systems at the facility to free up space for other user projects being run on the supercomputers.

Archive and Storage Systems
In 1987, NAS developed the first UNIX-based hierarchical mass storage system, named NAStore. It contained two StorageTek 4400 cartridge tape robots, each with a storage capacity of approximately 1.1 terabytes, cutting tape retrieval time from 4 minutes to 15 seconds.

With the installation of the Pleiades supercomputer in 2008, the StorageTek systems that NAS had been using for 20 years were unable to meet the needs of the greater number of users and increasing file sizes of each project's datasets. In 2009, NAS brought in Spectra Logic T950 robotic tape systems which increased the maximum capacity at the facility to 16 petabytes of space available for users to archive their data from the supercomputers. As of March 2019, the NAS facility increased the total archival storage capacity of the Spectra Logic tape libraries to 1,048 petabytes (or 1 exabyte) with 35% compression. SGI's Data Migration Facility (DMF) and OpenVault manage disk-to-tape data migration and tape-to-disk de-migration for the NAS facility.

As of March 2019, there is over 110 petabytes of unique data stored in the NAS archival storage system.

Data Visualization Systems
In 1984, NAS purchased 25 SGI IRIS 1000 graphics terminals, the beginning of their long partnership with the Silicon Valley-based company, which made a significant impact on post-processing and visualization of CFD results run on the supercomputers at the facility. Visualization became a key process in the analysis of simulation data run on the supercomputers, allowing engineers and scientists to view their results spatially and in ways that allowed for a greater understanding of the CFD forces at work in their designs.

The hyperwall
In 2002, NAS visualization experts developed a visualization system called the "hyperwall" which included 49 linked LCD panels that allowed scientists to view complex datasets on a large, dynamic seven-by-seven screen array. Each screen had its own processing power, allowing each one to display, process, and share datasets so that a single image could be displayed across all screens or configured so that data could be displayed in "cells" like a giant visual spreadsheet.

The second generation "hyperwall-2" was developed in 2008 by NAS in partnership with Colfax International and is made up of 128 LCD screens arranged in an 8x16 grid 23 feet wide by 10 feet tall. It is capable of rendering one quarter billion pixels, making it the highest resolution scientific visualization system in the world. It contains 128 nodes, each with two quad-core AMD Opteron (Barcelona) processors and a Nvidia GeForce 480 GTX graphics processing unit (GPU) for a dedicated peak processing power of 128 teraflops across the entire system—100 times more powerful than the original hyperwall. The hyperwall-2 is directly connected to the Pleiades supercomputer's filesystem over an InfiniBand network, which allows the system to read data directly from the filesystem without needing to copy files onto the hyperwall-2's memory.

In 2014, the hyperwall was upgraded with new hardware: 256 Intel Xeon "Ivy Bridge" processors and 128 NVIDIA Geforce 780 Ti GPUs. The upgrade increased the system's peak processing power from 9 teraflops to 57 teraflops, and now has nearly 400 gigabytes of graphics memory.

In 2020, the hyperwall was further upgraded with new hardware: 256 Intel Xeon Platinum 8268 (Cascade Lake) processors and 128 NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 GPUs with a total of 3.1 terabytes of graphics memory. The upgrade increased the system's peak processing power from 57 teraflops to 512 teraflops.

Concurrent Visualization
An important feature of the hyperwall technology developed at NAS is that it allows for "concurrent visualization" of data, which enables scientists and engineers to analyze and interpret data while the calculations are running on the supercomputers. Not only does this show the current state of the calculation for runtime monitoring, steering, and termination, but it also "allows higher temporal resolution visualization compared to post-processing because I/O and storage space requirements are largely obviated... [and] may show features in a simulation that would otherwise not be visible."

The NAS visualization team developed a configurable concurrent pipeline for use with a massively parallel forecast model run on the Columbia supercomputer in 2005 to help predict the Atlantic hurricane season for the National Hurricane Center. Because of the deadlines to submit each of the forecasts, it was important that the visualization process would not significantly impede the simulation or cause it to fail.

NASA Advanced Supercomputing Resources

 * NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division homepage
 * NAS Computing Environment homepage
 * NAS Pleiades Supercomputer homepage
 * NAS Aitken Supercomputer homepage
 * NAS Electra Supercomputer homepage
 * NAS Archive and Storage Systems homepage
 * NAS hyperwall-2 homepage

Other Online Resources

 * NASA Official Website
 * NASA's High-End Computing Program homepage
 * NASA's High-End Computing Capability Project homepage
 * TOP500 official website

title: NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division


text: Talk:Listener Supported

title: Talk:Listener Supported