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All about Egypt

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All about Egypt

The Arab Republic of Egypt, commonly known as Egypt is located primarily in North-Eastern Africa.

It covers an area of about 1,020,000 square kilometers and includes the Sinai Peninsula, but the majority of the country is located in North Africa. It shares land boundaries to the west with Libya, to the south with Israel on the northeast. It is bordered by the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

to the north and east

The majority of Egypt’s population lives along the banks of the Nile River where the land is rich and fertile. However, a significant percentage of the land is part of the Sahara Desert and so has very few inhabitants.

Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world’s most stunning ancient monuments. The Pyramids at Giza, the Temple of Karnak and the Valley of the Kings attract many visitors. The southern city of Luxor contains an exceptionally large number of ancient artifacts. Today, Egypt is widely regarded as the main political and cultural center of the Arab and Middle Eastern regions.

Contents

1 Ancient Egypt

1.1 History of ancient Egypt:

1.1.1 History of Greek and Roman Egypt: 332 BC to 639 AD

1.1.2 History of early Arab Egypt: 639 to 1517

1.1.3 History of Ottoman Egypt: 1517 to 1805

2 EGYPTOLOGY

3 Egyptian Art

3.1 Art

3.2 Architecture

3.3 Papyrus

3.4 Pottery

3.5 Statues

3.6 Hieroglyphs

3.7 Literature

3.8 Paintings

4 Egyptian Antiquities

4.1 Shabtis

4.2 Amulets

4.3 Cosmetics

4.4 Egyptian Museum

5 Ancient Egyptian Food

6 Egyptian Mythology

6.1 Egyptian Gods

6.2 Death

6.3 The monotheistic period

6.4 Temples

7 Egyptian Mysticism

8 Egyptian Pyramids

9 Mysteries of the Pyramids

9.1 Mastabas and Step Pyramids:

9.2 Bent Pyramid:

9.3 Smooth-sided pyramids:

Ancient Egypt

Egypt has the longest continuous history, as a unified state, of any country in the world. The need to have a single ruler to manage the waters of the Nile led to the creation of the world’s first state about 3000 BC. Its geography made it a difficult country to attack, and during the days of the pharaohs, Egypt was independent and self-contained.

Once Egypt did succumb to foreign rule, however, it proved unable to escape from it, and for 2,300 years Egypt was governed by a long list of foreign governments: Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks and British.

History of ancient Egypt:

The history of Ancient Egypt proper started sometime around 3300 BC. As an independent state it lasted until about 1300 BC. Nevertheless, archaeological evidence indicates that there may have been an advanced Egyptian culture for a long time. A grain-grinding culture was replaced along the Nile in the 10th millennium BC by one of the hunters, fishermen and gathering peoples using stone tools. Research also testifies to human habitation in the southwest corner of Egypt, near the Sudan frontier, before 8000 BC.

The changes in temperature and/or overgrazing around 8000 BC caused the drying out of Egypt’s fertile fields, finally creating the Sahara Desert around 2500 BC. Early tribes migrated naturally to the Nile where they established a prosperous agricultural economy and a more organized society. There is evidence of cereal production in the East Sahara during the 7th century BC. By 6000 BC, ancient Egyptians were herding cattle in the southwest corner of Egypt, and building large buildings using mortar by 4000 BC.

The Dynastic Periods: 3000 BC to 332 BC

Egyptian history is broken into a number of different periods according to the dynasty of the ruling pharaoh.Egyptian chronology is in a constant transitional state, with most of the terms in question, and dates in disputeHere are the main dynastic periods:

Predynastic Period (Prior to 3100 BC)

Early Dynastic Period (1st–2nd Dynasties)

Old Kingdom (3rd–6th Dynasties)

First Intermediate Period (7th–11th Dynasties)

Middle Kingdom (12th–13th Dynasties)

Second Intermediate Period (14th–17th Dynasties)

New Kingdom (18th–20th Dynasties)

Third Intermediate Period (21st–25th Dynasties) (also known as the Libyan Period)

Late Period (26th–31st Dynasties)

History of Greek and Roman Egypt: 332 BC to 639 AD

When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC, Greek influence took root for the next 900 years. Then after 300 years, Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire and ruled first from Rome and then from Constantinople. In 639 AD, the Arabs took over.

History of early Arab Egypt: 639 to 1517

From 639 to 1517 Egypt was part of the Arab world, ruled at first by governors acting in the name of the Umayyad Caliphs in Damascus. In 747 the Umayyads were overthrown and the unity of the Arab world was broken. Although Egypt remained under the Abbasid Caliphate, the Tulunids and the Ikhidis were able to establish semi-independent dynasties. Cairo was established as capital in 969 when Egypt was conquered by the Tunisian Ismaili Shia Fatimid dynasty. This dynasty lasted until 1174, when Egypt came under Saladin ‘s rule, the Ayyubid dynasty of which lasted until 1252. The Ayyubites were defeated by their Turkish bodyguards, known as the Mamluks, who ruled under the Abbasid Caliphs regime until 1517, when Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire.

History of Ottoman Egypt: 1517 to 1805

Egypt was conquered by the Ottomans in 1517, but it was always a difficult province for the Ottoman Sultans to control. It remained dominated by the semi-autonomous Mamluks until it was conquered by the French in 1798. After the French were expelled, Albanian Muhammad Ali of Egypt and his descendants pulled Egypt even further out of Ottoman control. It lasted until 1882 when the British invaded and Egypt became a colony of Britain.

The reign of Mehemet Ali and his successors was a period of rapid reform and modernization. Egypt became one of the most developed states outside of Europe. Unfortunately, massive government expenditures led to bankruptcy, and Egypt fell under the control of the British.

History of Modern Egypt: since 1882

The History of Modern Egypt is generally considered as beginning in 1882, from the time it became a British colony. In 1922, Egypt was officially granted independence, but British troops remained in the country and true self-rule did not occur until 1952 when Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser rose to power. Nasser’s one party state has seen many changes but has remained in place, firstly under Anwar Sadat, and until the present day, under Hosni Mubarak.

EGYPTOLOGY

Egyptology is the scientific study of Ancient Egypt. Someone who studies Ancient Egypt is an Egyptologist. Egyptology explores Ancient Egyptian culture – its language, literature, history, religion, art, economics, and ethics, from the 5th millennium BC up to the end of Roman rule in the 4th century AD.

Modern Egyptology is generally thought of as beginning in the year 1822. That was when Jean-François Champollion first deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics. He used the Rosetta Stone, a dark granite stone which provided modern researchers with translations of ancient text. Since 1802, the stone has been kept in the British Museum since.

Egyptian archeology is in a constant state of transition, with differences of opinion as to dating and terminology. Archeologists may suggest solutions to many of these questions; others may never be solved.

Here are some of the questions that Egyptologists are trying to answer:

Who were the first pharaohs of Egypt?

Where did the Egyptians come from?

Was the Pharaoh really seen as a god or was the position he held just viewed as divine?

What were the pyramids used for? How were the pyramids built?

Are the Pyramids of Giza lined up with stars?

How old is the Sphinx?

What was the purpose of the Sphinx?

Which pharaoh was the Sphinx meant to resemble?

Why did the Egyptians mummify their dead?

Is there a connection between Moses and Akhenaten?

Why did the Egyptians use hieroglyphs?

Why did Plato write about Atlantis?

Egyptian Art

Art

Ancient Egyptian art refers to two-dimensional and three-dimensional art produced from 3000 BC in Egypt and used until the 3rd century. It is the symbolism of the past expressed in paintings and sculptures.

There was a strict set of rules about how to represent three-dimensional forms. More important to follow the rules than to make a pretty picture, the intention of most of the artwork was to provide company for the deceased in the Other World. An artist’s job was to paint everything of the present time as clearly and permanently as possible. Through these vivid works of art, we are able to experience vicariously the life and times of Egyptians who lived thousands of years ago. Over decades, the Egyptian way of portraying man, nature and the world remained much the same and a revered artist was who duplicated the most beloved styles of the past.

Architecture

Ancient Egyptian architects used bricks, fine sandstone, limestone, and granite, both sun-dried and kiln-baked. Wood was not used as a building material because there were very few trees available. Without the use of mortar, stones had to fit precisely together. As the height of the construction grew, ramps were necessary to move people and materials up. When the structure at the topwas completed, the artists decorated from the top down, removing the ramps as they descended.

As the time passes, primitive structures of clay and reeds evolved into magnificent monumental structures of granite, with very thick walls. The massive sloping exterior walls of pyramids contained only a few small openings. Brilliantly colored hieroglyphs and carvings decorated the structures, and included many motifs, like the scarab, sacred beetle, the solar disk and the vulture.

The belief in the existence of life beyond death resulted in a mammoth architectural style to house the mummified bodies. Construction of a burial monument was initiated as soon as a pharaoh was named, and it continued until he was deceased. The longer a pharaoh lived, the larger his tomb would be. King Tutankhamen’s tomb is fairly small – he died at a young age. Another amazing aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture is that there was no structural support, except the strength and balance of the structure itself.

Papyrus

The word “paper” comes from “papyrus,” a plant cultivated in the ancient Nile delta. The papyrus plant processing produced sheets of paper which were up to 30 feet long. The papyrus crafting method has been lost over time, and then rediscovered by an Egyptologist in the 1940s.

On papyrus are depicted all facets of ancient Egyptian life, including literary, political, historical and administrative records.

Pottery

Ancient Egyptians used steatite or soapstone to carve small pieces for vases and amulets, as well as images of gods and animals. They also discovered how to cover pottery with enamel, which they also used on some stonework.

Some pottery items represented interior parts of the body, and were deposited in burial chambers of the dead – the heart and lungs, liver and small intestines, which were removed before embalming. Smaller objects in enamel pottery in large number of were also deposited with the dead. They contained the names, titles, and offices of the deceased, as well as stories about them.

Statues

The ancient Egyptian sculpture art evolved in physical form to represent the ancient Egyptian gods and pharaohs, the divine kings and queens.

Very strict rules were followed while crafting statues: male statues were darker than female ones; in seated statues, hands were required to be placed on knees and specific rules governed the appearance of every Egyptian god. For example, the sky god, Horus, was to be represented with a falcon’s head, the god of funeral rites, Anubis, was to be shown with a jackal’s head. Artistic works were ranked according to exact compliance with all the conventions, which were followed so strictly that over three thousand years, very little changed in the appearance of statutes.

Hieroglyphs

A hieroglyphic script is made of a number of images and symbols. In Egyptian hieroglyphs, some symbols had independent meanings, and some were used in combination. In a similar fashion to the Roman alphabet, some hieroglyphs were used phonetically, or to convey multiple meanings. The script was composed in three ways: from top to bottom, left to right, and right to left. The ancient Egyptians continued to use this type of writing, from 3300 BC until the third century AD. Many of the period’s works of art contain hieroglyphs, and hereoglyphs themselves form an impressive part of ancient Egyptian art.

Literature

Ancient Egyptian art and literature were recorded on papyrus or on wall paintings.

Included, were subjects like hymns to the gods, mythological and magical texts, and mortuary texts. Biography, history, science, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and stories, also tied art and literature together. A number of such stories from ancient Egypt have survived thousands of years. The most famous is Rhodopis, the oldest version of the story we call “Cinderella” today.

Paintings

We are fortunate to have Ancient Egyptian paintings which survived in the extremely dry climate. The purpose of the paintings was to make the afterlife of the deceased a pleasant place. Protective deities, introductions to the gods of the afterworld, beautiful scenes of life in the afterworld, were all subjects to be explored with paints and brushes.

Egyptian Antiquities

The history of Egypt is written in its artifacts. A timeframe of more than 3,000 years showcases diverse and detailed works of jewelry and sculpture. A variety of materials were used during different stages, from the polychrome (red, blue/green, yellow, black) decorations used on some shabtis (statuettes) around the end of l8th Dynasty and in the Ramesside Period, to the dark hard stone probably of the Middle Kingdom or 25th Dynasty,

Shabtis

The ancient Egyptians believed that for many, the afterlife would likely require them to labor in the fields. Those who could afford it, took funerary statues (shabtis, shawabtis and ushabtis) along to perform their tasks. In the Ramesside Period, the number of shabtis increased to include one for each day of the year, plus 36 overseers. Tutankhamun’s tomb had an additional 12 monthly overseers.

Amulets

Some amulets held magical properties that could be conferred on the wearer. They would be taken along to the afterlife to provide assistance on the journey, or give protection.

An animal shaped amulet could inspire particular qualities or behaviors the wearer wished to possess. Or, if it were molded like part of the anatomy, it might give special related powers in that way. Amulets also portrayed symbols of power such as the pharaoh’s scepters. The eye of Horus was a very powerful Egyptian amulet, worn by both living and dead, which could protect everything behind it from evil.

Amulets were made from a variety of materials including glass, semi-precious stones, bronze, gold, silver, and a ceramic composed of crushed sand or quartz called Egyptian faience.

Cosmetics

Egyptians lived in a land of intense sun, where it was necessary to keep their skin oiled so it would not dry out. To prevent the sun from scorching their hair, it was treated with a lump of moisturizing cream that would gradually melt and give the wearer a pleasant fragrance. Many of the containers in which the oils and creams were stored can be found in museum collections.

Egyptian Museum

In Cairo, Egypt, the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, generally known as the Egyptian Museum, is home to the world ‘s largest collection of pharaonic antiques. This has 136,000 items on display, with several hundreds of thousands more in the storerooms in its basement.

The Egyptian Museum is an outgrowth of the effort by the Egyptian government to limit the looting of antiquities sites and artifacts, by establishing the Egyptian Antiquities Service in 1835. The museum opened in 1858 in an annex of the palace of Ismail Pasha of Giza, who had retained Auguste Mariette, the French archaeologist, to assemble the collection. In 1900 the museum moved to its present location, a neoclassical structure on Tahrir Square in Cairo’s city center.

The highlight of the collection is often considered to be the tomb artifacts of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, whose almost intact tomb Howard Carter found in the Valley of the Kings in 1923. The Royal Mummy Room, containing 27 royal mummies, is also highly prized.

Ancient Egyptian Food

Egypt’s Ancient Land was one of the world’s most rich plains, so it housed one of the world’s strongest cultures. Rich soil, created by the annual floods of the canal, deposited dense silt over the land often supplying two, or sometimes three, harvests a year. Herodotus, a famous Greek historian, once wrote that Egypt was the Gift of the Nile.

In most Egyptians, bread was the staple diet. The average kitchen was normally located on the back of the house, or on the roof. It was mostly outdoors but may have been partly shady. Egyptian food was cooked, using wooden utensils, in simple clay pots and stored in jars.

Beer became the popular beer, and made from barley as well. The Egyptians would add spices to improve the flavor and it has usually been preserved in labelled clay pots. The importance of beer to the ancient Egyptians should not be underestimated since it was so highly esteemed that it was regularly offered to the gods as a libation.

The wine was made from nearby vineyards for the upper classes. The workers would stomp the grapes after the harvest had been processed, and the juice would have been extracted. They made other wines from pomegranates or plums.

Though Ancient Egypt’s people in poverty enjoyed a relatively balanced diet including vegetables , nuts, and fish. But it was just the bigger farms that were feeding the livestock, mostly because the ordinary farmer had to use his small land to grow crops. Poultry was grilled to the table for the most part, but meat remained the luxury of the wealthy. Contains seasoning: cinnamon, pepper, cumin , coriander, sesame, dill, fennel, fenugreek, seeds etc.

All the great festivals of the year were religious and were organized by the priests of the temple. The biggest of these was the god Amun festival which lasted an entire month. The ritual parade would have followed songs, dancers, singers, acrobats, and jugglers. Much feasting and partying continued with the consumption of a lot of wine and beer. There would be; dancing, poetry, laughter and the visitors would dance to entertain the younger members of the party.

Even though the ancient people did not write down their recipes or use cook books, it is well known the ingredients required to produce most of the dishes, many of which are still used in Egypt today.

Egyptian Mythology

Egyptian mythology is how we describe the succession of beliefs held by the people of Egypt until the coming of Christianity and Islam. For nearly three thousand years, the Egyptians were, for the most part, believers in many gods.

Egyptian Gods

The early beliefs can be split into 5 distinct localized belief groups:

* the Ennead of Heliopolis, whose chief god was Atum

* the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, where the chief god was Ra

* the Chnum-Satet-Anuket triad of Elephantine, where the chief god was Chnum

* the Amun-Mut-Chons triad of Thebes, where the chief god was Amun

* the Ptah-Sekhmet-Nefertem triad of Memphis, unusual in that the gods were unconnected before the triad was formalized, where the chief god was Ptah.

As the leaders of the different groups gained and lost power, so the major beliefs merged and mutated. First, Ra and Atum became Atum-Ra, with Ra the dominant of the two, and then Ra became absorbed in his turn by Horus and Ra-Herakty. Ptah, on the other hand, was absorbed into Osiris after he had become Ptah-Seker, becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris. The goddesses fared no better, with Hathor absorbing the details of the other goddesses initially, but ultimately absorbed into Isis. Meanwhile, the villains similarly assimilated, with Set, who was initially a hero, absorbing all the aspects of the other evil gods, which he was doomed to do after having been chosen as the favored god of the Hyksos.

By the time the Greeks influenced Egypt, all that remained was the trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and their enemy, Set, as exemplified by the Legend of Osiris and Isis. The trinity had absorbed so many of the prior cults, that each had its own center of worship – Abydos for Osiris, Dendera for Isis, and Edfu for Horus. Even at this stage, the amalgamation was continuing, with Osiris all but an aspect of Horus (and vice-versa), and heading rapidly towards monotheism. Nevertheless, monotheism had briefly existed before, as, in the 13th century, Akhenaten had attempted to introduce the monotheistic worship of Aten, the sun-disc itself, although it was ultimately rejected.

Death

Egyptians practiced embalming and mummification in order to preserve the individual’s identity in the afterlife. Originally, the dead were interred in reed caskets in the searing hot sand, which caused the remains to dry quickly, preventing decomposition. and were then buried. Later, wooden tombs were constructed, and the extensive process of mummification and associated burial rituals and rules began.

Embalming was developed by the Egyptians around the 4th Dynasty. All soft tissues were removed, and the cavities washed and packed with natron, a white, crystalline mineral salt.Then the body outside was buried also in natron. Because it was a stoneable offence to harm the pharaoh ‘s body, even after death, the person who made the cut with a rock knife in the abdomen was chased away ceremonially and had rocks thrown at him.

After coming out of the natron, bodies were coated inside and out with resin to preserve them, then wrapped with linen bandages, embedded with religious amulets and talismans. Royalty was usually placed inside a series of nested coffins, the outermost of which was a stone sarcophagus. The intestines, lungs, liver, and stomach were separately preserved, and stored in canopic jars protected by Horus’ Four Sons. Other creatures were also mummified, usually the representations of the Gods. Ibis, crocodiles, cats, Nile perch and baboons can be found in perfect mummified forms.

The Book of the Dead was a series of almost two hundred texts, songs and pictures written on papyrus and individually customized, which was buried alongside the body, or painted on the tomb walls, in order to ease passage into the underworld. One of the best examples of the Book of the Dead is The Papyrus of Ani, created around 1240 BC, which also contains many pictures of Ani and his wife on their journey through the land of the dead, in addition to the texts themselves.

Later on the belief emerged that the heart of the deceased’s soul would be weighed against a feather, and if found wanting in morality, would be eaten by the demon Ammit.

The monotheistic period

During the reign of Akhenaten a brief period of monotheism (Atenism) existed, centered on the Egyptian sun god Aten. Akhenaten banned all other god’s worship, and founded a new capital (Amarna). The religious reform only lasted until Akhenaten ‘s son, Tutankhamun, died, and then soon returned. In addition, removals of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun from the Wall of Kings are likely to be linked to the drastic religious reform.

According to some Egyptologists, it is incorrect to regard this period as monotheistic. tThese researchers state that people did not worship the Aten but worshiped the royal family as a pantheon of gods who received their divine power from the Aten. It is critical to determine this time as monotheistic, according to other Egyptologists.. A recent alternative interpretation resulting from interpreting specific knowledge items relating to biblical and Egyptian history (by Ahmed Osman) suggests that Moses and Akhenaten were the same entity.

The original Egyptian pantheon survived more or less as the dominant faith after the fall of the Amarna dynasty, until the establishment of Coptic Christianity and later Islam, even though the Egyptians continued to have relations with other monotheistic cultures ( e.g. Hebrews). Egyptian mythology put up surprisingly little resistance to the spread of Christianity, sometimes claiming that Jesus was originally based primarily on Horus, with Isis representing Mary.

Temples

Many temples are still standing today. Some remain in ruins with wear and tear, while some are completely destroyed. Pharaoh Ramses II was a particularly prolific builder of temples.

Some known temples include:

* Abydos (Great Temple of Abydos) – Adoration of the early kings, whose cemetery, to which it forms a great funerary chapel, lies behind it.

* Karnak – Once part of the ancient capital of Egypt, Thebes.

Egyptian Mysticism

Egyptian Mysticism is a complex set of rituals and behaviors which looks for strength and guidance from a variety of otherworldly beings. These “gods” are the representations of human characteristics and qualities, and provide the practitioner with a way of understanding and living within the world.

Ancient Egyptian Mysticism includes the “magic circle,” which is familiar to European Pagans, Hebraic Kabalists, Native Americans, and every other mystic. Participants stand in a circle to honor the four directions and the deities they worship, those of Egypt having been called, as a group, Neteru – to the East is Tuameteutev; to the South is Amset; to the West is Qeb Suv; and to the North is Hapi.

There are three cradle gods – Shai, Renenet, or Meskhenet – which can be invoked to assist with good fortune, luck, or new life.

Other rituals include efforts to integrate or resolve karmic issues brought from past lives or unconscious living. According to the Ancient Egyptians we live in nine dimensions, many so nebulous that we can only experience them during dreams. We can call forth an opportunity to learn and grow in this fashion.

There are rites for assisting others to find their paths as well as one’s own. Totems play a very important role in the Egyptian Mystical practices. Totems are “composite creatures,” or archetypes, containing living elements of Nature embedded within our Psyches or Souls. In the American Indian tradition, there are many totems, such as bear, raven, frog, and eagle.

The Egyptian list of totems is very extensive, and includes:

Heru, the Falcon of Spiritual Victory, is the totem for those who possess Christ-consciousness. Het-Heru, the Cow Goddess Of Spiritual Blessing, is for those who are deeply devoted to a life of blessing others.

Anpu, the Jackal of Soul-Guidance, looks over those who are natural-born counselors, therapists and Spiritual guides. Apis, the Bull of Fertility, is the symbol of security, wealth and fatherhood. Tehuti, the Ibis-headed Record-Keeper, is the one who keeps accurate records, who writes everything down. Amun, the Goat Of Everlasting Creativity, is profoundly connected to sexuality and creates solutions out of thin air. Nut, the Sky-Goddess, embodies everything revered about mothering and motherhood. Geb, the Earth-God, is the good and loyal husband. Ptah, the Great Designer, organizes and envisions great designs and is the patron of freemasonry. Bastet, who personifies the Maternal Instincts of the Cat, is the patroness of childhood and nursing. Ksheper, the Scarab-Beetle of Immortality, is the patron of inventors and creative writers. Nephthys, at the Altar Of Mercy, lovingly supports nuns, ministers, monks, and those who take care of our spiritual needs. Ra, the Eagle Of The Sun, represents the victory of light over darkness.

There are certain gods of destruction – Set, Osiris, Isis, and many others- which should never be invoked, because they are associated with death and annihilation.

Egyptian Pyramids

The Egyptian Pyramids are some of the largest man-made constructions ever built. They are one of the most impressive and abiding symbols of Ancient Egyptian civilization. Although in an Egyptian pyramidno ancient Egyptian rulers have been found buried, most archaeologists generally accept that they were constructed as burial monuments. The majority were completed during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods. Egyptian homes were built on the east bank of the Nile River, the land where the Sun rises. The pyramids were built on the west bank of the river, where the sun sets, because the Egyptians believed it was the land of the dead.

Since antiquity, the pyramids at Giza are probably the world’s most popular tourist destination. They were popularized in Hellenistic times when the Great Pyramid was listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Today out of all, it is the only one of the ancient Wonders still in existence.

Giza, lies on the southern outskirts of Cairo and is the location of the three most famous pyramids. The Pyramid of Khufu is known as the “Great Pyramid,” or the “Pyramid of Cheops.” The Pyramid of Khafre is somewhat smaller, as is the modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure. This is also the location of a number of smaller “queens” pyramids, as well as the Great Sphinx.

Mysteries of the Pyramids

The pyramids of Egypt are considered to be the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world. No one can say for sure when they were built. At any given time many archaeologists are studying them to try and unlock their secrets.

There are some who study the effects of pyramids on animate and inanimate objects. They postulate that the center of a pyramid has energy that affects whatever is held there. Razors stay sharper, foods stay fresh longer, even injuries heal more quickly. People who meditate claim that sitting in a pyramid while doing so, brings many benefits, from more energy to greater feelings of peace and tranquility. You can easily find plans to build your own pyramid. If you do, you will have the opportunity to see for yourself if these assertions are true.

Since the late 1890s there have been people who believed that the Great Pyramid of Giza holds the secrets to understanding Biblical prophecy. John Taylor, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Martin Gardner, Robert Menzies, Madame Helena Blavatsky, Charles Taze Russell, Erik von Daniken, and Edgar Cayce, each had theories as to the purpose of the pyramids and how they were constructed.

Throughout history people have had special places to bury their dead. Caves and mounds were some of the earliest. Then in Egypt and elsewhere, larger structures appeared. We call them pyramids, and they take three distinctive shapes.

Mastabas and Step Pyramids:

The first large structures built in Egypt were called mastabas made of dried mud bricks that looked like raised flat beds. Most of them have crumbled. About 2650 B. C., Imhotep, an architect, physician, master sculpture, scribe, and astronomer, built the first known pyramid for King Zoser. It began as a simple mastaba, but was added to twice more to give it six layers. At a height of 200 feet, this step pyramid looked like a series of giant terraces. It took several design changes for it to take its final form. Today the Saqqara Pyramid still stands where the ancient city of Memphis was.

Bent Pyramid:

The second type of pyramid is called the Bent Pyramid. The builder of the Bent Pyramid is thought to have been the Pharaoh Snefru (2680-2565 BC), who was the first ruler of the 4th Dynasty.

The unique feature of the Bent Pyramid is the angle change. The base of the Bent Pyramid rises at an angle of 52˚, but the upper half is changed to 43.5˚. No one knows for sure why, but it may have been that the builders wanted to reduce the volume and get finished faster. Or perhaps they realized that it would not be a safe structure. It was abandoned after being worked on for twenty years. The Bent pyramid is located in southern Saqqara among the pyramids of Dahshur.

Smooth-sided pyramids:

Smooth sided pyramids were built starting about 2600 B. C. The first, at Medum, began as a stepped pyramid. Later, the steps were filled in with loose rubble. Finally, the whole thing was encased in smooth limestone. This pyramid collapsed because the casing was not bonded strongly enough to the core. Medum lies approximately 40 miles south of Giza.

The most famous pyramids are those at Giza. They stand on the west bank of the Nile River outside Cairo. The ten pyramids at Giza include those of Kings Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure.

Khufu’s pyramid is called the Great Pyramid and a study of it shows how these gigantic structures were built. Since the ancient Egyptians had no machinery or iron tools, they used copper chisels and saws to cut huge limestone blocks. The limestone came from nearby, as well as from across the Nile River, and other distant quarries.

It took thousands of men to drag the blocks to the pyramid sites and begin the first layer. They built long ramps to drag the stones up to the next layer, until they reached the top. The whole thing was then covered with white casing stones laid so closely that the remarkable result was the look of a single white stone. Most of the coverings are gone now, but some remain at the bottom of the Great Pyramid.

#Ancient Egypt #Egypt #Egyptian Antiquities #Egyptian Art #Egyptian Food #Egyptian Museum #EGYPTOLOGY #Facts &amp; Paradoxes

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blockheadbrands · 6 years ago

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Ed Rosenthal’s Guide To Understanding Nutrients

High Times Reports:

Feeding pot plants properly is essential for growing clean and flavorful cannabis. In this excerpt from Marijuana Garden Saver, the “Ganja Guru” showcases deficiencies and how to treat them.

When plants cannot get the nutrients they need, they do not function properly, adversely affecting growth and yield. This can occur in any growing medium, while using any planting mix or technique—coir, rockwool, soil, soilless, hydroponic or aeroponic. Plant disorders are characterized by their symptoms, which appear more quickly in hydroponic gardens than in planting mixes or soil.

An overabundance of nutrients can result in nutrient burn or toxicity and can also lock out other ingredients. Unless the damage is slight, individual leaves do not recover from nutrient deficiencies. Some nutrients are mobile and are translocated from older to new growth, so the damage is seen in older leaves, not in new growth. Other nutrients are not mobile. Their deficiencies are apparent in new growth.

All fertilizer packages list three numbers that identify the N-P-K ratio. They usually appear as three numbers with dashes between them such as 25-10-10. The first number represents nitrogen (N), which is responsible for foliage or leaf development. Fertilizers that promote heavy leaf growth have a higher first number (N) than the other two. The second number represents phosphorus (P), which is important for strong stems and flowering. The third number is potassium (K), which promotes healthy metabolic function. Sometimes micronutrients are listed after the macronutrients: These are calcium (Ca), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn).

All nutrients are required to be present for proper metabolic function. Most growers use premixed nutrient systems and faithfully follow the manufacturer’s feed schedules, and they never see deficiencies before they flush their plants. Two deficiencies that may appear when using commercial fertilizers are calcium and magnesium. On the other hand, organic living soil and outdoor plants that do not receive supplemental nutrition are more often subject to deficiencies, but only because living soil systems have more variables involved in delivering nutrients compared with concentrated nutrient products.

The pH level is a logarithmic measure of the acid-alkaline balance in soil or water. A pH level of 1 is the most acidic solution. 7 is neutral and 14 is the most alkaline. When the pH level is within the 5.8-6.3 range, slightly acid, the nutrients dissolve well and are available to the plants. As the pH level rises above or falls below those numbers, some nutrients precipitate out of solution. Plants cannot absorb nutrients when they are precipitated. Plants can only “drink” them when they are in solution, so even if nutrients are present, they are only available to the plants when they are dissolved. As a result, even though sufficient nutrients may be present, if plant roots do not have access to them the plants will indicate deficiencies. Plants that are growing in water or soil outside the proper pH range grow very slowly.

Different species of plants have adapted to living with different pH levels. Marijuana has been grown in hydroponic solutions with a pH level as low as 5.5, but it does best when grown in soil or water within a pH range of 5.6-63, slightly acidic. This is the pH level of good garden soils. All plant nutrients are water-soluble in this range, so they are readily available to the plants. Outside this range, some become less available.

The pH level can be viewed as a seesaw. As fertilizers are added, the pH level can drop or rise rapidly. It’s up to the grower to keep it stable. It is important to measure pH after adding nutrients. When pH levels are out of the “safe” range, nutrients fall out of solution and are unavailable to the plants. The pH level is important for both soil and hydroponic gardening. Failing to monitor it can lead to disastrous results. The pH level directly affects a plant’s ability to absorb nutrients. When the pH level rises above 6.2, some micronutrients precipitate out of solution and are less available. Below 5.5, boron (B), copper, manganese and phosphorus become too available. This can result in toxicity.

The only accurate way to adjust the pH level is by using a pH meter or pH test papers. Guesswork won’t do.

Adjusting Your pH Outdoors & In

Outdoors, if you are adjusting the soil’s pH level before planting, use powdered sulfur if the soil is too alkaline or lime if it is too acidic. Check with a knowledgeable local nursery staff or agricultural-extension agents familiar with local soils. They can give you advice on correct proportions since soils vary in their reaction to adjustments. It takes several months after the addition of these minerals for the soil to adjust.

If the plants are already in the ground and the soil is out of the preferred range, adjust the irrigation water using a pH Up mixture to raise alkalinity or a pH Down mixture to increase acidity. Monitor the runoff. For instance, a composed medium had a pH level of over 8, which is very alkaline. It was irrigated with water adjusted to a pH level of 5.1, very acidic. At first the runoff was over 7. Eventually, the runoff tested at 6, and the pH level of the irrigation water was adjusted higher to maintain that pH level in the runoff.

Water should be pH adjusted only after soluble fertilizers are added to it because their ingredients also affect water’s pH level.

Most commercial potting soils and topsoil are already pH balanced. If the plants are to be grown in soil or planting mix, check the pH level using a pH meter or test strips before you plant.

Most indoor planting mediums are not soils at all: They are made using bark, peat moss or coir as the main ingredient. Other materials are added to adjust porosity and water retention. These mixes can be considered disease- and pest-free.

Planting mixes can be adjusted using commercially available pH Up and pH Down mixtures. Home remedies are available but can cause problems. Commercial products tend to be more stable and are concentrated and inexpensive.

Immobile Vs. Mobile Nutrients

One way to diagnose nutrient problems is by their location. Some nutrients are immobile. Once they are set in place in the plant, they cannot move from that location. Other nutrients are mobile. When there is a limited supply, they go where the action is—usually to the top of the canopy.

Immobile Nutrients

Boron, calcium, copper, iron (Fe), manganese, molybdenum (Mb), sulfur (S) and zinc are utilized by the plant in ways that prevent them from being moved, or are only movable on a limited scale. These are called immobile or intermediately movable nutrients. Calcium, for example, is permanently laid down in cell walls and cannot be moved. When these nutrients are deficient, the plant cannot transport them from older leaves, so immobile nutrient deficiency symptoms show up as deformed leaves where new growth occurs. With extreme deficiency, growth may die back. This is most likely to happen with boron and calcium deficiencies.

Mobile Nutrients

Nutrients that the plant can move around are called mobile nutrients. Nitrogen, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium and nickel (Ni) are examples. These nutrients can be cannibalized and moved to support new growth elsewhere in the plant.

When there is a deficiency, plants typically move the nutrients from old growth to the top of the canopy, where they will be utilized most effectively. Deficiency symptoms then show up on the older leaves from which the nutrients are being removed.

Nutrient deficiencies can, at times, serve a purpose—for both the plant and the grower. If you have grown cannabis before and flushed your plants at the end of flowering, you are already familiar with nutrient deficiencies. Flushing removes nutrients from the root zone, cutting the plant off from the materials it needs to grow. Without an incoming supply of nutrients, plants (including cannabis) can adapt to periods of low nutrients and move some nutrients around via the xylem and phloem of the vascular system to support new growth.

Flushing starves the plant of all nutrients, creating multiple simultaneous deficiencies. Both fertilized and non-supplemented grows sometimes experience a single deficiency.

In these cases, the appearance of symptoms among older generations of leaves while new growth remains healthy matches expectations for one or more deficiencies among the mobile nutrients. Deficiency symptoms of immobile nutrients show up in new growth while older leaves remain healthy-looking.

Invest in a Good Set of pH and EC/TDS Meters

Invest in two relatively inexpensive meters: a pH meter and a TDS meter. The pH meter tells whether the soil chemistry is right for good uptake, and the TDS meter quickly tells growers whether there are too little, just enough or too many nutrients in the root zone. Total dissolved solids (TDS) are measured in parts per million (ppm).

A low TDS level suggests a general lack of nutrients. Check the actual readings against the projected numbers printed on the instruction label. Then adjust the strength of the nutrient solution or frequency of delivery.

The TDS meter won’t highlight which nutrients are lacking, just the total amount in solution. The only way to measure the individual nutrient levels on site is by using chemical test kits. Micronutrients are present in such small amounts compared with the major nutrients that all of the minors could be left out of a nutrient batch and the TDS value would still be 98 to 99 percent of the target value.

The only way to accurately determine deficiencies is by recognizing them or by submitting soil or nutrient solution samples to a lab.

pH and TDS meters are available for solutions as well. To measure the pH and TDS levels in the root zone, the grower has to add enough distilled water to the container to get a small amount of runoff liquid out of the bottom of the container. These meters can then measure the pH and TDS levels of that sample.

This is a painful, time-consuming and highly variable process. To measure levels in the medium, use a meter whose probes are inserted into the medium for quick and direct measurements.

Don’t forget the roots when you are checking for symptoms. They should be white and firm. Brown, blackened, mushy or stringy roots are symptoms of problems.

In hydroponic systems, monitor the nutrient/water solution a minimum of once a week. If the numbers haven’t changed much and the plants are growing rapidly, there is usually no reason to change nutrients. If the nutrients need to be changed, rinse the roots at the same time. This helps prevent bacterial or fungal growth that attacks cannabis roots.

A really low EC (electrical conductivity) level suggests a general lack of nutrients. Supplemental growers can then adjust the strength of their nutrient solutions or frequency of nutrient delivery. Unfortunately, the EC level won’t tell you if minor nutrients are deficient because, unlike major nutrients, they are present in such small amounts that they could be left out of a nutrient batch and the EC level would still be 98 to 99 percent of the target value. Aside from visually recognizing deficiency and toxicity symptoms, the only way to absolutely identify a deficiency is by submitting soil and nutrient solution samples to a lab.

Diagnosing Nutrient Deficiencies

Nutrient deficiencies appear without uniformity across a plant’s leaves early. The symptoms are apparent on either newer growth or older growth, so if there is uniformity in symptoms throughout the plant, the problem is not likely to be a deficiency.

If the symptoms are visible only on newer or only on older growth, a nutrient deficiency is highly probable. Once a nutrient problem is confirmed, you need to know how to solve it. Be aware, though, that many of the visual symptoms presented as nutrient deficiencies and toxicities can also be created by disease and environmental factors, which are discussed in depth in my book Marijuana Garden Saver.

Deficiency Samples

Look at the growing points of stems and branches to detect potential nutrient issues.

If older generations of leaves display mottling, yellowing between veins, or drying or dying of mature leaves, the symptoms match those of deficiencies of the mobile nutrients N, P, K or Mg (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium or magnesium). Plants scavenge these nutrients from older leaves. New growth appears healthy while the symptoms appear in the cannibalized leaves.

If new growth appears stunted, deformed, brown or dying, think deficiency of an immobile nutrient. B, Ca, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mb, S and Zn (boron, calcium, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, sulfur and zinc) are immobile, so the plant cannot move them and symptoms appear on new growth.

A yellowing of new-growth leaves matches the description of iron deficiency. A sulfur deficiency, while much rarer, also results in these symptoms.

A purpling of stems may be characteristic of certain strains, a sign of a phosphorus deficiency or just a normal plant response to cool temperatures.

Patterns of chlorosis (yellowing) in leaves suggest deficiencies of both major and minor elements.

For All Deficiency Symptoms:

Review nutrient recipe and mixing protocols to ensure that all the nutrients required are being delivered. For users of commercial concentrated nutrients, this means making sure the manufacturer’s recommendations are followed. Even so, there may be calcium and magnesium deficiencies if runoff, rainwater or reverse-osmosis (RO) water is used. For DIY nutrient mixers, be sure the recipe is complete (all nutrients) and delivering the proper levels.

Review the pH levels of nutrient solutions and the medium if possible to make sure the they do not drop below 5.6.

Plants can be and are being grown successfully outdoors in soils with a pH level as low as 5 or as high as 8, still allowing for adequate uptake of all nutrients even if the level may not be optimal. Growth would be enhanced by lowering the pH level so that more nutrients dissolve. Plants can be grown outdoors in soil with a pH level as low as 5 or as high as 8. Yields will suffer, however.

Diagnosing Nutrient Toxicities

Excessive nutrient levels often result in nutrients bonding with other nutrients to create goopy solids that fall out of solution, making them unavailable for plants to absorb. This can produce any number of other deficiencies with hard-to-predict visual symptoms.

If leaves appear to be significantly darker green and are smaller than usual, think excess nitrogen, possibly due to a general overfertilization. Dark green is not normal for cannabis.

If leaves are dark and hooked downward resembling a claw, think excess nitrogen. Pests can cause hooking, too, no matter what the color, so be sure to check for thrips in particular. If you don’t see pests but the leaves are dark, it is likely excess nitrogen.

If plants are growing poorly, check the roots. If they are blackened and stringy, this is a symptom of highly excessive nutrient delivery. If you find burned roots, remove and destroy all of the affected plants.

Toxicity Symptoms:

For all toxicity symptoms:

Flush with water for two days. Follow this procedure for container and “in the ground” growing.

Review/correct nutrient recipes to ensure proper levels of nutrients and no mixing problems.

Reintroduce fertilization after two days and monitor plant response.

Originally published in the September, 2019 issue of High Times magazine. Subscribe right here.

TO READ MORE OF THIS ARTICLE ON HIGH TIMES, CLICK HERE.

https://hightimes.com/grow/ed-rosenthals-guide-understanding-nutrients/

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cryptonewsworldwide · 6 years ago

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HitBTC Responds To Recent Claims Against Them - After Critics Said The Exchange Is Insolvent, Scamming Users...

We have just received this extended response from HitBTC. If you're catching up, a good summary of accusations can be found here. HitBTC's Statement:

Dear Existing Traders, Future Traders, Cryptomedia who know what they are writing about, those who don’t, those who write for money, and those genuinely enjoying the show, we would like to state our position in a clear way with respect to recent write-ups attempting to portray HitBTC in an unfavorable light. We’d like to address some of these issues and provide context into why they happened and what we are doing to develop our product and the way we communicate. Let’s start with some background:

HitBTC has been in the cryptocurrency market since 2013. We were among the first and one of the most technologically advanced exchanges. When the early crypto enthusiasts built their first matching in Python or JS, we offered our traders a robust high-throughput C++ matching engine.

We are always ready to admit our weaknesses. While focusing on technological and security parts of the product, we have somewhat neglected the Public Communication and PR. We can see that this might have been our major omission. When faced with a trade-off between focusing our company on security of user assets or PR efforts, we have always opted for the former. A day will come when we will achieve both goals.

The Winter of 2017–2018

3.1. The market for digital assets experienced staggering growth during the winter of 2017–2018 which caused explosive growth in the number of our customers. Our technology performed well with this demand showing its superior capability. However, due to the overwhelming demand for our services we encountered major bottlenecks at an operational level. Our Customer Care and Compliance departments were frequently unable to deliver timely responses to clients’ applications and enquiries and a significant number of these cases became public. Substantial investments were made in the aforementioned departments and the issues were solved in successive months. Unfortunately, however, the negative impact to our public perception had already taken place.

3.2. We would like to emphasize that our technology was built by following procedures rooted in the mature financial industry. To ensure the robustness of mission-critical systems, our philosophy dictates that every issue (whether it is daemon lag, lack of 2-step transaction in ADA currency, detection of a transaction stuck in the bitcoin mempool for more than 48 hours due to a low transaction fee, ethereum smart contract vulnerability, etc.) is handled manually and is thoroughly documented. This assures established procedures and workarounds to be in place should the same issue recur. Over the years our dedication to established financial industry practices has guarded us against losses. This a priori more time intensive approach by today has delivered an extremely resilient system, supporting the largest number of assets in the industry without the risks which many platforms may not be able to anticipate.

3.3. Since the beginning of 2018, we have been able to bring the average support response time down to below the 12 hours mark. At the same time, we were the first to create the System Monitor – a tool made available to everyone, and specifically designed to track platform’s performance and status of initiated, pending and completed transactions as well as deposit, withdrawal and trading components status across over 500 assets.

It has always been our core value that the only acceptable mean of expanding our market share is the constant perfection of our product. Apparently, not everyone shares this belief. As a result, besides real cases, which inevitably seem to surface on social media with projects of our scale, we sometimes stumble upon anonymous “cases” and other general allegations lacking substance. We let them slide more often than not since we have always been focused on addressing real cases and foregoing the opportunity of entering into fruitless disputes on the anonymous Internet space. To summarize, the combination of technological advancement and self-imposed communication isolation has repeatedly made HitBTC a target for various provocative statements, both genuine and motivated otherwise. The following recent articles are a vivid illustration of unfounded claims that were casted against HitBTC:

4.1. “HitBTC failed Proof-Of-Keys” saga, January, 2019 CCN article: “Bitcoin Exchange HitBTC Freezes Customers’ Accounts ahead of Proof of Keys Event”

A widely quoted article, in its entirety, is based on only 2 AML cases. One of them was initiated as part of the investigation into the December, 2018 BTCP security breach, at the request of the coin’s core team. Unfortunately, there is no clear indication of the nature of the second case that can be discerned from the article.

The author of the article failed to track the deposit/withdrawal dynamics that did not uncover any irregularities. A simple block explorer or our public System Monitorwould suffice for these purposes.

4.2. “HitBTC insolvency: by @ProofofResearch” saga, May, 2019

BitcoinExchangeGuide article: “HitBTC Appears Insolvent [Blockchain Analysis]”

This article’s case claiming delayed withdrawals is based on 3 AML cases and social media gossip. All quoted AML cases were resolved within 3, 12 and 33 days respectively.

Obviously, a subset of hot wallets’ balances are not representative of exchange’s total assets. This makes the statement in the article look like someone has been motivated to openly harm our reputation.

Since we have touched upon the topic of KYC/AML, let us expand upon it. Against the will of crypto anarchists and early crypto adopters, the crypto market is progressively becoming more like a regular financial market. That makes it the subject to practices common to legacy financial institutions. Among these practices are design and enforcement of prudent AML/KYC policies and procedures.

5.1. Protection of market participants To provide some background: One of the main outcomes from The Great Depression was the establishment of a regulatory framework to protect the general public. As a result, markets became more transparent and protective for its participants which entirely corresponds with our values. The cryptocurrency space will go through a similar process. We foresaw the trend of regulation as an essential factor enabling its mass adoption. We have been setting up an institutional grade infrastructure (KYC/KYT/Market Surveillance/AML and other systems) to protect future mass market participants by following best practice from established financial markets.

5.2. Elimination of bad actors We respect and understand the inevitable trend of increasing regulation. In our capacity as the largest spot crypto market, we are making extreme efforts to shield our users from bad actors. This coincides with our philosophy and we consider it to be the only way for the mass adoption of crypto to take hold. That is why we have been constantly evolving our processes, and have developed our AIA Policy, structured around AML/KYC procedures that have allowed us to become one of the “cleanest” exchanges in crypto. Years ago our AML team were happy to uncover posts on darknet websites advising to “never use hitbtc”.

Our stance has exposed us to allegations related to or in some way implying “inappropriate suspensions or significant withdrawal delays”. In fact, these allegations always fall in one of the following categories:

6.1. AML cases that indicate suspicious activity on a user account and require a manual check. A Security Officer reaches out to the user and requests the necessary documents – a delay from either side during communication might prolong the verification process.

6.2. Bad actors using fake documents or counterfeit materials for verification purposes. Rarely, it happens that a person on the other side of a confirmation video call (which is a part of our extended AML procedure), shows no signs of affiliation with the account.

6.3. Deposits to the wrong address. If a user accidentally deposits digital assets to the wrong address on HitBTC, we can usually rectify the situation. For example, if a user sends BTC to a USDT address – this is a reversible mistake. Our technical and financial specialists can recover it manually if it’s eligible for retrieval. Naturally, it takes time.

6.4. Victims of phishing. Even though we are always on the lookout for sites mimicking our interface for malicious purposes and initiate their shut down, some of them might escape our attention. We do our best to increase the level of protection of customer accounts. In recent years we have implemented a number of additional security features, such as: one of the first-in-the-industry 2FA confirmations, whitelisted addresses for withdrawals and advanced market surveillance systems.

6.5. Rare cases of account suspension due to a law enforcement request in which we are explicitly prohibited from informing the user in question about the matter.

6.6. Law enforcement requires us to freeze assets without explicit prohibition from informing the user in question. One of the recent public cases.

6.7. A third party request claiming their funds are involved in fraudulent activity – user in question’s account is frozen if we have reasonable arguments to back up the claims and we’re obliged to ask a third party to get law enforcement involved.

6.8. Loss of access to 2FA device requires an extended verification process which shouldtake time due to the security policies that aim to protect users that didn’t lose their 2FA keys, but might have someone pretending to be them.

6.9. A separate category of cases that cause deposit/withdrawal delays on a subset of assets have to do with comprehensive custodial security infrastructure and technical issues of daemons (please refer to 3.2 above). They are an artifact of a large system – given the nature and quantity of assets we support, at any point in time, there are some of them that are down for maintenance. We have custodial SLAs that we are constantly improving, and we are confident that they are at the optimal level of security vs performance within the entire industry. We share necessary statistics transparently in our System Monitor.

We would also like to communicate our position with respect to assets being integrated into and occasionally removed from our platform as this has also caught its share of public attention. We are honored to work with a diverse range of blockchains and tokens. Given the fact that the crypto industry was in it’s very early days, some lapses of judgement in assessing our integration partners have occurred despite our best efforts to prevent this. Sometimes, it was that we did not possess a complete understanding of the integration partner’s business; sometimes it was the change of the integrated project’s course over time. As a result, the decision to remove a project from our platform occasionally had to be made. In these circumstances, we inevitably face a tough choice – whether to announce it beforehand, adversely influencing the asset’s price, or carry out the process instantaneously. We considered the second option to be less harmful. Withdrawals for the currency or token that was removed always stay open even after the removal takes place except for cases when the technical team is aware of issues. The vast majority of removal decisions fall into one of the following categories:

7.1. Hacks, security breaches, and critical contract bugs solely on the side of the token or coin issuer. For example:

7.1.1. The MXM Case

On March 26, 2019 04:19 UTC MXM had reached out to HitBTC reporting a “critical vulnerability” in their smart contract. We immediately suspended the withdrawals and deposits.

On March 28 the team reached out to us again asking to list a fork of their token that had been distributed using a snapshot made on March 25, 19:00 UTC”, 9 hours before we were notified.

The resolution proposed by the core team:

HitBTC lists a forked token.

MXM would send to HitBTC custody tokens of the new contract.

HitBTC will exchange the old tokens for the new ones transparently to the users.

MXM team sent the new tokens to our custody.

During the audit, our financial department identified a mismatch between the new tokens received and the quantity required for a one to one conversion for our customers.

Having reached no consensus with the core team, we decided to remove MXM from the platform.

We reversed the transaction of the insufficient amount of tokens transferred to us back to the MXM team.

After negotiations, the MXM team solely took responsibility to convert old tokens for our customers. We carefully monitored this process.

7.1.2. The MORPH Case

June 20, 2018, a security breach was exploited in the MORPH smart contract by malicious actors, that allows anybody to issue an unlimited number of tokens.

June 21, 2018 at 20:06 UTC the MORPH team contacts our sales department with requests to “pause listing”, and “pause trading”, and to be prepared to swap the smart contract with the reason “issues with our smart contract”.

No mention of any security breach was made.

June 22, 2018 at 10:29 UTC. Following established procedures, our sales department initiated negotiations to support the new smart contact as defined by our standard procedure for any regular business activity involving the resources of our tech team.

Independently on June 22, 2018 at 20:46 UTC our AML and security departments’ alarms were set off indicating malicious activity related to MORPH’s smart contract.

Transfers from custodial to trading accounts were suspended immediately to prevent fraudulently issued tokens entering our liquidity pool.

A financial control check found that 19,842,265 compromised MORPH tokens had entered our liquidity pool. We contacted the MORPH team and had provided detailed blockchain transaction data, analytics from our security department and data gathered regarding the malicious activity. We want to stress that during future communication we did not disclose irrelevant data that the MORPH team was requesting.

The MORPH team refused to provide the requested 19,842,265 new MRPH tokens in order to carry out the contract swap procedure with a 1 to 1 rate.

The MORPH team’s values not to admit own mistakes did not align with ours and we made a decision to cease our relationship with them.

Following this case, we thoroughly examined and revised our internal smart contract audit processes and KYC procedures for potential partners.

7.1.3. The BNT Case, an example of a core team acting in good faith when resolving their security breach.

Bancor experienced a security breach leading to a part of their funds being compromised on July 9, 2018.

On 9 July, 2018, the BNT core team moved a part of funds from our custody accounts without our consent*. This action immediately set off our financial control alarm and we closed all deposits and withdrawals of the BNT token. *We realize that the vast majority of tokens are controlled centrally by their respective core teams, and we understand the importance of constructive communication with them.

After discussion with the core team we have reached mutual understanding. Bancor returned the funds retrieved from our custody on July 12, 2018.

7.2. Although we have been constantly improving our internal processes, in the past, a few cases of insufficient review did occur. Here are the most notable of them:

7.2.1. The XMV Case

We made an announcement regarding XMV integration on May 3, 2018.

Resources of technical team were engaged and severe technical problems in XMV daemon and network were discovered.

In parallel a Due Diligence process was conducted. MoneroV failed to provide the set of required documentation.

We rejected XMV integration in early November, 2018.

7.2.2. The AMM Case

As mentioned above, in December 2017, our back office was overwhelmed with requests.

The malicious activity occurred and some accounts were credited with x106 larger amounts than they actually deposited via the blockchain.

We invested a considerable amount of technical and operational resources into dealing with each customer affected on a case-by-case basis.

7.2.3. The HitBTC, McAfee & MTC Case

On May 4, 2018 John McAfee Tweets about the MTC token integration into HitBTC.

On June 28, 2018 McAfee Tweets his disdain for exchanges, targeting HitBTC specifically. “The crypto exchanges have become the thing that we have originally fought against. Their power is immense. Hitbtc, for example, has increased suffering for millions of poor people who cannot afford the minimum buy-in since it is greater than their monthly income. Boycott them.”“@hitbtc I will be your worst enemy until you prove that you are aligned with our community and are truly interested in helping the poor. You have not done shit to help access the only free healthcare in the world.”

Referring to ambiguous McAffee’s critics about the “buy-in” price (a term from poker), on June 30, 2018 we answered with a Tweet explaining our withdrawal fees.

Despite this, John McAfee continued to make significant efforts to create a toxic atmosphere around HitBTC.

We have deep sympathy to John’s beliefs that poor people should have access to new technologies, but we see a different way to achieve that – by building a robust infrastructure for future mass adoption.

7.3. The activity of a coin’s core team negatively affects our customers. For example:

7.3.1. The BTCP Case

On December 30, 2018, after persons with malicious intent exploited a vulnerability in the coin’s code, BTCP made the decision to make a hard fork of their blockchain, burning “shielded” and “unmoved” coins.

The BTCP team’s decision put in danger the unmoved coins stored in our custody system under Segwit BTC addresses. To “move” and protect them from being burned we had to either import cold custody’s BTC private keys to BTCP daemon or implement the BTCP transactions signature ourselves.

As importing keys from the high security segment of our custodial technical infrastructure to any third party daemon fundamentally contradicts our policy, we opted for signature implementation in order to protect our custody funds.

Despite our utmost efforts, we were unable to obtain clear documentation from the BTCP team that would have allowed us to implement the P2SH-P2WPKH signature in time.

We requested that the BTCP team to compensate us for the loss of coins that were burned based on their conscious decision to proceed with a hardfork.

The BTCP team refused to provide any alternatives, that would have prevented damage to the funds in our custody.

We decided to remove BTCP from our platform. You can find more details related to the BTCP case on our blogpost.

Please note that coin burn did not affect coins deposited to our custodial accounts after the BTCP network launch, so none of customers’ assets were affected. Nevertheless, no airdrop of old coins was held.

Let us summarize the key points mentioned above. We believe in a future filled with self-sustainable Internet and virtual reality economies and we have actively been creating its vital infrastructure for many years. During this course we’ve mastered ways to create both a product that can support millions of users and the technology behind it. We have expended substantial effort in complying with the evolving regulations in the digital asset space including the practices necessary to exclude bad actors and establish fast and secure operations among many other aspects of the business in this industry.

However, by keeping our main focus on the things we consider to be fundamental, we perhaps neglected Public Relations as well as the necessity of reacting to public accusations – both fabricated and genuine. We consider it to be an important part of a public product and we are confident in our ability to convey our values and ideals.

We are constantly on the lookout for public communications talent with or without experience in blockchain technologies. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] with any enquiries regarding our values.

Joan Gald Board Member, HitBTC

Ultimately - 3rd party verification and audit will be necessary at this point. There's no way around it. The sooner HitBTC opens the books, the better. Understandably, delaying this process invites increased suspicion. ------- Author: Mark Pippen London News Desk //<![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); //]]>

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melleyvaa-blog · 8 years ago

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PBL 6 Business Plan

FINANCIAL

6.1 What types of companies exist and their pros and cons?

SPECIFIC COMMERCIAL TYPES

The commercial entities are where two or more persons (individuals or entities) contract and unit in a permanent manner to perform a common licit, possible goal of a preponderantly economic nature, constituting commercial speculation, and under certain formalities of incorporation an registry, under one of the following types:

The "Sociedad en Nombre Colectivo" (Company in Collective Name, also known as General Partnership), is a company in firm or trade name (including all the names of all of the partners or where there is a name missing, you are to place the words "and company" or other equivalent), where all of the partners have ancillary / subsidiary, unlimited and joint responsibility for the company's obligations. If you allow your name to be used in the company name, you become liable for the company's obligations. The company capital and/or ownership is not represented by negotiable instruments, instruments payable to the order of a person (stock) or bearer instruments (stock) and which company parts have restricted transferability. This company type description can be abbreviated by the letters "S. en N.C.". This type of company is a personal type company.

The "Sociedad en Comandita Simple" (Company in Simple Silent Partnership also known as a Limited Partnership), is a company in firm name or trade name (including all the names of the "comanditados" partners), and which consists of one or more "comanditado" partners that respond with ancillary/subsidiary, unlimited and joint responsibility for the company obligations and one or more "comanditario" partners that are solely responsible for the payment of their portions attributed to the company. The company capital/ownership is not represented by negotiable instruments, instruments payable to the order of a person (stock) or bearer instruments (stock), and which company parts have restricted transferability. This company type description (at the end of the company name)can be abbreviated by the letters "S. en C.S.". This type of company is a personal type company.

The "Sociedad de Responsibilidad Limitada" (Limited Responsibility Company, also known as the Limited Liability Company) is a company with a firm/trade name or denomination (made-up name), consisting of partners whose only obligation is to deliver their portions (money or assets) attributed to the company, which corporate parts are not represented by negotiable instruments, instruments payable to the order of a person (stock) or bearer instruments (stock) and which company parts have restricted transferability. If the person's name is included in the company name, that person will be liable for the larger of the company partner portions. This company can not have more than 25 partners and the company description (at the end of the name) can be abbreviated by the letters "S. de R. L.". This type of company is a mixed type (personal/assets).

The "Sociedad Anónima" (Limited Liability Stock Company, also known as the corporation) is a company with a denomination (made-up name) consisting of shareholders whose only obligation is to deliver the portions they subscribe to (in the corporate capital) and which are attributable to the company, which parts are represented by negotiable instruments (stock), (no bearer instruments/stock), and which company parts may or may not be of restricted transferability (depending on the company bylaws). This type of company requires a minimum of two stockholders in order to incorporate and exist. This type of company may, (if set in the articles of incorporation) have a variable capital portion which would permit it to raise or lower the variable portion without changing the articles of incorporation or bylaws (however it would require an extraordinary shareholders' meeting). This company type description (at the end of the name) can be abbreviated by the letters "S. A.", or if of the variable capital type then "S.A. de C.V.". This company is a capital type company (no personal) and is the one most commonly used in business in Mexico.

The "Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones" (Company in Silent Partnership by Stock, also known as the Limited Partnership with Shares") is a company subject to the rules that govern the "Sociedad Anónima" company (with exceptions); made up of one or more "comanditado" partners/shareholders with ancillary/subsidiary, unlimited and joint responsibility for the company obligations and one or more "comanditario" partners/shareholders that are only responsible for the payment of the company stock they subscribed.

This company only issues nominative stock and the "comanditado" partners may not sell their stock without the the prior approval of all of the "comanditado" partners and two thirds of the "comanditario" partners.

This company may exist under a firm name or a trade name or a denomination distinct to that of the names of the comanditado" partners. If all of the "comanditado" partners are not in the company name, then the words "and company" must be used in the name. Certain of the collective name company rules apply as well as do certain of the simple silent partnership company rules. This company type description (at the end of the name) can be abbreviated by the letters "S. en C. por A." and it is a mixed type company (personal and assets oriented).

CIVIL LAW TYPES

The "Sociedad Civil" (Civil Company) in Mexico is foreseen and governed by the Civil Codes of the several states of Mexico. This is a company where two or more persons contract and unit in a permanent manner to perform a common licit, possible goal of a preponderantly economic nature, without constituting commercial speculation (therefore not a commercial company). This company type description (at the end of the name) can be abbreviated by the letters "S. C.".

The "Asociación Civil" (Civil Association) in Mexico is foreseen and governed by the Civil Codes of the several states of Mexico. This is a company where two or more persons contract and unit in a permanent manner to perform a common licit, possible goal of a preponderantly non-economic nature, and without constituting commercial speculation. This also known as a common goal company. (Therefore not a civil company). This company type description (at the end of the name) can be abbreviated by the letters "A. C."

http://www.mexicolaw.com/LawInfo04.htm#Sociedad Anonima

6.2 How to create a financial plan in short term?

Companies develop short-term financial plans to meet budget and investment goals within one fiscal year. These plans have a higher degree of certainty compared to long-term plans. Short-term plans often are amended as financial and investment goals change. Businesses and individuals alike use short-term plans to manage short-term cash deficits.

Components

For many businesses, elements of working capital have the largest impact on their short-term cash flows. These elements generally include raw or finished inventory, debtors, creditors and cash. The movement in working capital sometimes creates large voids or deficits of cash that threaten a business’ going concern. This occurs because of the difference in the accounts payable and cash cycles. The accounts payable cycle is the time a company takes to pay for its inventories, and the cash cycle is the time debtors take to pay for products.

Cash Shortages

There are varied reasons that significant cash shortages occur. For example, a business might be following an aggressive marketing policy in which it allows its debtors to pay their dues over a longer period. Such a policy might dent the company’s cash-flows from two perspectives. First, it locks up money in receivables with debtors, and second, the company might fund additional inventories for newer sales, without recourse to business-based cash inflows. Enterprises also face such challenges when they buy new machinery, are assessed heavy court fines or while fighting natural calamities, such as hurricanes.

Cash-Flow Forecast

When it becomes evident that severe cash shortages will occur, a cash-flow forecast becomes necessary. The forecast should estimate total cash collections and total cash payments during each quarter in at least three various scenarios: worst case, most likely and best case. You'll need to know the difference between the total collections and total payments to ascertain whether there is a deficit in any quarter of the year. For each cash-inflow and outflow item, you must account for all relevant increases and decreases. This includes early payment discounts from creditors, deferred expense payments and cash sales.

Funding Shortages

If the cash-flow forecast shows that shortages are likely to occur during the year, you must make arrangements to cover them. One way to fund short-term deficits is through other short-term measures, such as increases in current liabilities, which can include negotiations for longer credit terms and short-term bank loans. You also can sell certain unwanted assets and offer discounts to debtors to encourage quicker payments.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/shortterm-financial-planning-60081.html

6.3 How to document a business transaction?

Business transactions and documentation

In every business a number of transactions and events will take place every day. The role of financial reporting is to effectively measure the effects of those transactions and events, record the effects on the business and summarise those transactions and their consequences in a format that is useful to the users of the financial statements.

The main transactions that take place include sales, purchases (of goods and of services) and payroll related transactions. Others include rental costs, raising finance, repayment of finance, and taxation related costs to name but a few. All of these transactions must be adequately captured by the financial reporting system.

With most transactions a supporting document will be created to confirm the transaction has taken place, when the transaction took place and the associated value of the transaction. This documentation is vital to the financial accountant, who uses the information on the documents as a data source to initiate the measurement and recording of the transactions.

The table below summarises the main types of business documentation and sources of data for an accounting system, together with their content and purpose.

Contents

Purpose

Quotation

Quantity/description/details of goods required.

To establish price from various suppliers and cross refer to purchase requisition.

Purchase order

Details of supplier, e.g. name, address. Quantity/ description/details of goods required and price. Terms and conditions of delivery, payment, etc.

Sent to supplier as request for supply. To check to the quotation and delivery note.

Sales order

Quantity/description/details of goods required and price.

Cross checked with the order placed by customer. Sent to the stores/ warehouse department for processing of the order.

Despatch note (goods despatched note – GDN)

Details of supplier, e.g. name and address. Quantity and description of goods

Provided by supplier. Checked with goods received and purchase order.

Goods received note (GRN)

Quantity and description of goods.

Produced by company receiving the goods as proof of receipt. Matched with delivery note and purchase order.

Invoice

Name and address of supplier and customer; details of goods, e.g. quantity, price, value, sales tax, terms of credit, etc.

Issued by supplier of goods as a request for payment. For the supplier selling the goods/services this will be treated as a sales invoice. For the customer this will be treated as a purchase invoice.

Statement

Details of supplier, e.g. name and address. Has details of date, invoice numbers and values, payments made, refunds, amount owing.Issued by the supplier. Checked with other documents to ensure that the amount owing is correct.

Credit note

Details of supplier, e.g. name and address. Contains details of goods returned, e.g. quantity, price, value, sales tax, terms of credit, etc.

Issued by the supplier. Checked with documents regarding goods returned.

Debit note

Details of the supplier. Contains details of goods returned, e.g. quantity, price, value, sales tax, terms of credit, etc.

Issued by the company receiving the goods. Cross referred to the credit note issued by the supplier.

Remittance advice

Method of payment, invoice number, account number, date, etc.

Sent to supplier with, or as notification of, payment.

Receipt

Details of payment received.

Issued by the selling company indicating the payment received.

The above list is based upon the documents created by a traditional manufacturing company. Not all companies will produce all of these documents. In the same manner some companies may produce alternative forms of documentation, particularly if they operate in the services industry or overseas

http://kfknowledgebank.kaplan.co.uk/KFKB/Wiki%20Pages/Business%20Transactions%20and%20Documentation.aspx

#PBL IB FINANCIALPLAN

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junker-town · 8 years ago

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There is no set of expectations Navy and Ken Niumatalolo won’t defy

Bet against the Midshipmen. Ever. I dare you.

This preview was originally published April 28 and has since been updated.

Technically, I was right.

Technically, when I said in last year’s Navy preview that “Navy's facing more retooling than normal, and Keenan Reynolds was special. You don't simply replace him,” and “I find it difficult to imagine Navy remaining in the S&P+ top 50,” I ended up proven correct. I was right that defensive regression would be an issue, and I was right to think that turnover at QB would impact that win total. Technically, you can chalk one up for the ol’ numbers guy.

The numbers guy, however, definitely needed some technicalities to be right, though. Some quarterback injuries, too.

In 2016, Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo produced his most inspired coaching job yet. He lost the greatest Navy QB in five decades, then lost said QB’s heir apparent in Week 1. He had to deal with turnover and youth in the front and back of his defense. And yet, despite this, his Midshipmen won the AAC West title and began the year 9-2. From the perspective of Off. S&P+, they improved offensively. It was mind-blowing.

It took another quarterback injury to finally drag the Midshipmen down. Will Worth, the backup’s backup in 2015, had rushed for 25 touchdowns and thrown for nearly 1,400 yards out of Niumatalolo’s option attack when he got hurt early against Temple in the AAC title game. His team was already off to an awful start in the game, but Worth’s injury assured there would be no bounce back in an eventual 34-10 title game loss to Temple.

The next week, with sophomore Zach Abey, the third-stringer, behind center, Navy fell to Army for the first time since 2001. And despite an inspired Abey performance (278 combined rushing and passing yards), the Middies lost an Armed Forces Bowl shootout to Louisiana Tech, too. The exhilarating 9-2 start became a 9-5 finish.

Sticking the landing is hard sometimes. All the skills that it took to send you hurtling through the air with grace and elegance — the power, the speed, etc. — are worthless to you, and suddenly the only factors that matter are balance and ankles and geometry. Navy hurtled through the air with unexpected explosiveness, then fell to the ground. What I expected to become a mulligan year of sorts, technically became one. But now Abey’s back with a year of prep time. The offensive line is dealing with a little less turnover than normal. The defense returns almost all of its back eight. And somehow offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper hasn’t been hired away to become a head coach somewhere yet. Niumatalolo and Jasper have mastered every nuance of the triple option, and if they hadn’t proven it before 2016, they had after it.

In last year’s Navy preview, I also said this:

Long-term, Navy will be fine. The program kept Niumatalolo despite interest from BYU, and recruiting and depth of talent probably haven't been this strong in a long while. If there is a step backward, it won't be permanent.

There’s more turnover to deal with, to be sure, but Navy proved its upside last fall. Assuming the Midshipmen haven’t lost any sort of psychological edge following their first loss to Army in a generation, they should again play at a top-50 or top-60 level. They should again frustrate the living hell out of most of the opponents on the docket. And hell, they might even improve offensively once again. Who would bet against it at this point?

(Of course, they might want to figure out how to get that defense under control.)

2016 in review

2016 Navy statistical profile.

With help from the aforementioned injuries, Navy was about the team I expected in the first four games and final three. In the middle seven, however, the Midshipmen established a ridiculously high level of play.

First 4 games (3-1): Avg. percentile performance: 42% (~top 75) | Avg. yards per play: Navy 6.3, Opp 5.6 (plus-0.7) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: minus-0.5 PPG

Next 7 games (6-1): Avg. percentile performance: 70% (~top 40) | Avg. yards per play: Navy 7.3, Opp 6.9 (plus-0.4) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: plus-19.3 PPG

Last 3 games (0-3): Avg. percentile performance: 44% (~top 70) | Avg. yards per play: Navy 6.2, Opp 5.9 (plus-0.3) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: minus-7.8 PPG

All things considered, the iffy start and midseason surge were perfectly timed. The MIdshipmen began the season with three straight teams that ranked in the triple digits in S&P+ — FCS’ Fordham, then UConn and Tulane — and managed to start 3-0 despite inconsistency and a couple of close calls.

Granted, they lost to Air Force, but beginning with the October 8 visit from Houston, this surge in quality coincided with a surge in schedule quality. Navy played five straight teams that ranked 55th or better, and the team that eked by UConn went 4-1 in this stretch.

Of course, any talk of good timing goes out the window when you think about the importance of the games at the end. Navy was already in the process of laying an egg against Temple when Worth got hurt, then completed a winless year against fellow service academies by falling to Army. Still, the midseason surge reinforced Navy’s position within the AAC and took a couple of steps toward further dispelling the notion that joining a conference would be in any way bad for the Midshipmen. Two years in, the AAC partnership has been a rousing success.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

In my recent Air Force preview, I said this about turnover:

My annual S&P+ projections are derived from three factors: recent performance, two-year recruiting, and returning production. Two of those three factors don’t really apply to the Falcons; recruiting matters, but AFA’s rigorous process filters out a lot of commitments before they see the field, and returning production has an almost inverse relationship with Air Force. For the Falcons, losing a ton of last year’s production means the process is working. If you return a lot of last year’s important players, the previous senior class didn’t do its job.

There are obvious parallels between Navy’s and Air Force’s recruiting and retention. And there are obvious reasons why my method of projection for S&P+ is going to automatically downgrade service academies.

Navy has ranked an average of 52nd in S&P+ over the last four years but is projected to fall to 71st this year in part because of drastic offensive turnover. But turnover is just part of the game. The Midshipmen had to replace three of their top four rushers, three of their top four receivers, and three offensive line starters in 2015 and improved from 37th to 23rd in Off. S&P+. The next year, they replaced Keenan Reynolds, four of their top five backs, three of their top four targets, and all five line starters and improved to 17th.

Here’s what Navy has to replace in 2017: Worth, five of the top seven running backs, three of the top four targets, and three all-conference linemen. By comparison, that almost seems too easy. Time for the next batch of juniors and seniors to take over.

No matter the names of the starters, Navy’s attack is relentlessly efficient.

Navy’s success rate was more than five percent higher than anyone else’s in the AAC, and this wasn’t exactly an offense-unfriendly conference.

It would be easy to simply say that Navy’s offense will probably be very similar despite turnover, and such a statement would probably be right. But let’s take a moment to at least look into what might be unique aspects of the 2017 attack:

Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Zach Abey

Zach Abey. Abey was thrown into an impossible situation. His first action came with his team down three touchdowns in the AAC title game, and his first start was in the rivalry game of all rivalry games. But his bowl performance against Louisiana Tech was intriguing — among other things, he went 4-for-6 for 71 yards on passing downs, which almost seems unfair in an option attack — and in a small sample size, his rushing nearly matched Worth’s from an efficiency standpoint while his explosiveness (9.1 highlight yards per opportunity) was off the charts. He took too many sacks and threw four picks to one interception, but the potential is obvious.

Running back depth. Does Navy have any? The Midshipmen are used to losing their starters, but last year’s backups are gone, too. Not including sacks, last year’s top nine rushers gained 4,109 yards on the ground. Those responsible for 2,913 of those yards are gone, and only one returning fullback (Chris High) and one returning slotback (Darryl Bonner) rushed for more than 71 yards. This will test the plug-and-play aspect of Navy’s backfield, perhaps especially from a blocking perspective.

Chris High. That said, the Middies still have a uniquely awesome talent in Chris High. We’re used to explosive slotbacks and fullbacks who average about 5 yards per carry, but High averaged 6.4 last year, and while carrying 224 pounds. Assuming new explosive slotbacks emerge — and it’s worth mentioning that Malcolm Perry and Jahmaal Daniel combined to average 9.4 yards per carry in reserve time — High and Abey should assure that the run game is as dangerous as ever. At least, they will as long as losing the aforementioned all-conference linemen doesn’t hurt too much.

Depth will be tested this fall, especially at slotback. But any offense run by Niumatalolo and Jasper gets the benefit of the doubt.

(Seriously, Every School Looking to Make a Head Coaching Hire at the End of 2017: take a long, hard look at Jasper. He’s ready.)

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Chris High

Defense

When you’ve got a relentlessly efficient offense capable of eating the ball for half a quarter at a time, your opponent is prone to getting restless. According to Niumatalolo’s philosophy, that’s the perfect situation for a bend-don’t-break defense to have success. When you don’t have the natural talent and athleticism to make a ton of plays, let your opponent’s impatience act like a 12th defender. Let them force the issue, and be prepared to take advantage of the mistakes that follow.

Air Force’s Troy Calhoun takes the opposite approach — his Falcon defense is aggressive as hell and has ranked in the Def. S&P+ top 70 for two of the last three years and six of the last 10. But to each their own. Both teams have won 28 games since the start of 2014, so either can work.

Navy’s approach didn’t really work last year, though. After surging to 51st in Def. S&P+ (their first time higher than 83rd since 2009), the Midshipmen plummeted back to 100th. The run defense was effective, but with a freshman and sophomore safety in the back, the pass defense was lacking. Navy ranked 121st in Passing S&P+ and 118th in Passing Downs S&P+. There was no pass rush, and the young safeties were not quite ready to pounce on mistakes in the back. Opponents produced a 156.8 passer rating, Navy picked off only seven balls in 14 games, and five opponents (including Connecticut, of all teams) completed at least 67 percent of their passes.

Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

Tyris Wooten

That’s not going to cut it. Luckily, 2016’s uncharacteristic youth in the secondary could become 2017’s uncharacteristic continuity. Six of last year’s top seven defensive backs return, and they could get a jolt of competition from a pair of former three-star cornerbacks, junior Elijah Jones and sophomore Noruwa Obanor.

In theory, the cornerback position should be fine, especially if Jones and Obanor indeed make a push. Senior Tyris Wooten had plenty of sketchy moments, but he also defensed 12 passes, more than twice as many as anyone else in the secondary.

The safety position, however, faces the onus of improvement. And honestly, improvement should come. Defensive coordinator Dale Pehrson asked a lot of freshman Alohi Gilman last year [update: Gilman has since transferred to rival Notre Dame], and he responded with five tackles for loss (combined, Navy’s safeties had 0.5 TFLs in 2015) and five breakups. If he and junior Sean Williams are steadier, the pass defense could at least improve to closer to 100th. And the return of outside linebacker D.J. Palmore could be key to rejuvenating the pass rush a bit.

If opponents can’t pass as well, they might be forced to think about running. That would be excellent for the Midshipmen. Granted, the defensive line has to replace three of last year’s top four, but end Jarvis Polu is a keeper, and I’m really intrigued by younger players Jackson Pittman (a 315-pound sophomore nose guard) and Anthony Villalobos (a three-star junior end).

The linebacking corps should be capable of cleaning up a lot of messes, too. Six of last year’s top seven return, including Palmore and leading tackler Micah Thomas. Navy’s defense was definitely younger than normal in 2016, and the effects were obvious. But those effects could wear off now that this is again a defense dominated by juniors and seniors instead of sophomores and juniors.

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

D.J. Palmore

Special Teams

Navy’s absurdly precise offense was the main weapon for overcoming defensive issues, but special teams helped. Navy ranked 31st in Special Teams S&P+, either average or excellent in every single category. Dishan Romine was the most efficient kick returner in the nation, and Calvin Cass Jr. wasn’t that far behind in the punt returns department. Alex Barta’s kicks were high and relatively long.

Romine, Cass, and Barta are all gone in 2017, however. That’s a little scary, though there’s reason for hope — backup return men Craig Scott (PR) and Tre Walker (KR) were nearly as effective, and before losing his job in part because of a blocked punt, Erik Harris was booming punts at a 45.1-yard clip. He could be excellent in both the punt and kickoff departments, and place-kicker Bennett Moehring is at least decent: he missed three PATs and two shorter field goals but also boomed in both of his longer field goal attempts. This should still probably be a top-50 unit.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 1-Sep at Florida Atlantic 99 5.5 62% 9-Sep Tulane 94 9.5 71% 23-Sep Cincinnati 75 3.7 58% 30-Sep at Tulsa 77 -1.1 48% 7-Oct Air Force 116 14.1 79% 14-Oct at Memphis 61 -6.5 35% 21-Oct Central Florida 78 4.0 59% 3-Nov at Temple 67 -5.3 38% 11-Nov SMU 81 6.3 64% 18-Nov at Notre Dame 17 -18.3 15% 24-Nov at Houston 49 -7.9 32% 9-Dec vs. Army 102 8.9 70%

Projected S&P+ Rk 71 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 50 / 93 Projected wins 6.3 Five-Year S&P+ Rk 2.1 (59) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 83 / 85 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* 2 / 7.6 2016 TO Luck/Game -2.0 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 53% (32%, 74%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 7.2 (1.8)

You’re not supposed to lose an all-timer at QB, lose two more guys to injury, and produce a top-20 offense. You’re not supposed to recruit at barely a top-90 level but feel disappointed with a No. 52 final ranking. You’re not supposed to win nine games at a service academy and feel underwhelmed. But this is where Ken Niumatalolo has set the bar.

Figuring out where to set expectations in a given year basically requires starting with the S&P+ projection but then applying the Navy adjustment. Returning production doesn’t impact this team the way it does most, and recruiting rankings aren’t in any way as predictive.

Then there’s the Niu adjustment. Based on win expectancy and second-order wins, Niumatalolo’s Navy wins more than a game per year than expected, and that average was calculated before last year’s 1.8-win overachievement.

There are concerns; there always are. The turnover was a little more significant than normal at running back, which could lead to inconsistency and depth issues. And we probably shouldn’t just assume that experience alone will cure what ailed the defense.

Still, this is Navy. Adjustments are necessary. The Midshipmen return only 32 percent of last year’s offensive production? That probably means falling all the way to about 30th, not 50th as projected. And the Midshipmen are projected to win about six games? I’ll set the over-under at 8 then.

Team preview stats

All preview data to date.

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essayquality · 4 years ago

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澳洲网课代上_管理学网课代修_网课作业代写

　　EssayQuality自成立以来累计为数千名学子提供了网课代上、澳洲网课代修、加拿大网课代上、网课作业代写美国、网课代修服务，以及课后作业，随堂任务、测试，论文Assignment/Essay/Report/澳洲网课代上/管理学网课代修/网课作业代写...

These practices are: - 1) job security, (2) recruitment of flour, 3) training and large-scale, 4) the exchange of information, 5) capable teams, 6) also paid a much higher according to the profit and reduce the inequalities in the position of the staff.

6.2 best fit, or approach of emergency

Says that the management of human resources that can perform well when there was a suit involving the required vertical on the performance of human resources management and corporate strategy. There must be a unity between the process closely and human resources and policy with the policy of the foreign company. There are various theories related to vertical integration. For example is life cycle models, that argue in favor of the human resources which according to experts can be easily known in development stage of any organization by its policies and practices that it adopts at development or life cycle process. Some other models of competitive advantage that the idea of Porter on strategic choice. Maps a variety of human resources practices in the organization options for the development of competitive strategy. The third is configurationally models that provide a more accurate assessment depends safe from an organizational strategy to determine the appropriate human resources policies and practices. Wal-Mart is famous for this approach because it is conscious to get the best people to do their job, because they are not many offers, such as previous experiences of the application, it is also strict rules in the second performance evaluations.

Showing 6.3 resources and building

According to some is the basis for modern human resources management, and it focuses mostly on internal organizational resources, and considers how these resources contribute to competitive advantage. And the scarcity of resources is ideal for harmony and human resources management and its central role for the development of human resources organizational value, and this is rare, it is sometimes difficult to replace and organize effectively.

Wal-Mart in the keyword in the field of human resources is a "valid" but the staff who works to meet these goals which are set by organization.

7 Academic theory 学术理论

It is based on the fundamental principle of human beings are not like machines, and therefore any organization needs to have multidisciplinary assessment at their workplace for all staff. Many areas of psychology, for example, sociology, industrial relations, economics, engineering, industrial and monetary theories play an important role and a key. Universities and colleges offer diverse courses in human resources management. Wal-Mart and a good learning approach to build capacity in the area of personnel.

One commonly used way to explain the function of human resources management was developed by Dave Ulrich, which identifies four areas of the role of human resources management

本篇文章转载至优质官网：http://www.essayquality.com

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wikimakemoney · 5 years ago

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Helicopter money

Not to be confused with People’s QE or Basic income.

Helicopter money is a proposed unconventional monetary policy, sometimes suggested as an alternative to quantitative easing (QE) when the economy is in a liquidity trap (when interest rates near zero and the economy remains in recession). Although the original idea of helicopter money describes central banks making payments directly to individuals, economists have used the term ‘helicopter money’ to refer to a wide range of different policy ideas, including the ‘permanent’ monetization of budget deficits – with the additional element of attempting to shock beliefs about future inflation or nominal GDP growth, in order to change expectations.[1] A second set of policies, closer to the original description of helicopter money, and more innovative in the context of monetary history, involves the central bank making direct transfers to the private sector financed with base money, without the direct involvement of fiscal authorities.[2][3] This has also been called a citizens’ dividend or a distribution of future seigniorage.[4]

The name “helicopter money” was first coined by Milton Friedman in 1969, when he wrote a parable of dropping money from a helicopter to illustrate the effects of monetary expansion. The concept was revived by economists as a monetary policy proposal in the early 2000s following Japan’s Lost Decade. In November 2002, Ben Bernanke, then Federal Reserve Board governor, and later chairman suggested that helicopter money could always be used to prevent deflation.

Contents

1 Origins

2 Policy response to the global financial crisis

3 Implementation

4 Controversies

4.1 Differences from quantitative easing

4.2 Implications for central bank balance sheets

5 Supporters

6 Critics

6.1 Inflationary effect

6.2 Would helicopter money be spent?

6.3 “There is no such thing as a free lunch”

6.4 Legality

6.5 Accounting issues

6.6 Threat against central bank independence

7 In the Eurozone

8 In USA

9 In Japan

10 Popular Culture

11 See also

12 References

13 Sources

Origins[edit]

Although very similar concepts have been previously defended by various people including Major Douglas and the Social Credit Movement, Nobel winning economist Milton Friedman is known to be the one who coined the term ‘helicopter money’ in the now famous paper “The Optimum Quantity of Money” (1969), where he included the following parable:

Let us suppose now that one day a helicopter flies over this community and drops an additional $1,000 in bills from the sky, which is, of course, hastily collected by members of the community. Let us suppose further that everyone is convinced that this is a unique event which will never be repeated.

Originally used by Friedman to illustrate the effects of monetary policy on inflation and the costs of holding money, rather than an actual policy proposal, the concept has since then been increasingly discussed by economists as a serious alternative to monetary policy instruments such as quantitative easing. According to its proponents, helicopter money would be a more efficient way to increase aggregate demand, especially in a situation of liquidity trap, when central banks have reached the so-called ‘zero lower bound’.

Friedman himself refers to financing transfer payments with base money as evidence that monetary policy still has power when conventional policies have failed, in his discussion of the Pigou effect, in his 1968 AER Presidential address.[5] Specifically, Friedman argues that “[the] revival of belief in the potency of money policy … was strongly fostered among economists by the theoretical developments initiated by Haberler but named for Pigou that pointed out a channel – namely changes in wealth – whereby changes in the real quantity of money can affect aggregate demand even if they do not alter interest rates.” Friedman is clear that money must be produced “in other ways” than open-market operations, which – like QE – involve “simply substituting money for other assets without changing total wealth.” Friedman references a paper by Gottfried Haberler written in 1952, where Haberler says, “Suppose the quantity of money is increased by tax reductions or government transfer payments, and the resulting deficit is financed by borrowing from the central bank or simply printing money”.[6]

It is noteworthy in light of more recent debates over the separation between monetary and fiscal policy, that Friedman viewed these policies as evidence of the potency of monetary policy. In the same AER address, he is highly critical of the timeliness and efficacy of fiscal measures to stabilize demand.

The idea of helicopter drops was revived as a serious policy proposal in the early 2000s by economists considering the lessons from Japan. Ben Bernanke famously delivered a speech on preventing deflation in November 2002 as a Federal Reserve Board governor, where he says that Keynes “once semi-seriously proposed, as an anti-deflationary measure, that the government fill bottles with currency and bury them in mine shafts to be dug up by the public.” In that speech, Bernanke himself says, “a money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.”[7] In a footnote to that speech, Bernanke also references an important paper by Gauti Eggertson which emphasizes the importance of a commitment from the central bank to keep the money supply at a higher level in the future.[8] The Irish economist, Eric Lonergan, also argued in 2002 in the Financial Times, that central banks consider cash transfers to households as an alternative to further reductions in interest rates, also on the grounds of financial stability.[9] In 2003, Willem Buiter, then chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, revived the concept of helicopter money in a theoretical paper, arguing that base money is not a liability, which provides a more rigorous case for Friedman and Haberler’s Pigouvian intuitions.[10]

Starting from 2012, economists have also called this idea “quantitative easing for the people.”[11][12]

Policy response to the global financial crisis[edit]

In December 2008, Eric Lonergan and Martin Wolf suggested in the Financial Times that central banks make cash transfers directly to households, financed with base money, to combat the threat of global deflation.[13][14] From around 2012 onwards, some economists began advocating variants of helicopter drops, including ‘QE for the people’, and a ‘debt jubilee’ financed with the monetary base.[11] These proposals reflected a sense that conventional policies, including QE, were failing or having many adverse effects – on either financial stability or the distribution of wealth and income. In 2013, the chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FCA), Adair Turner, who had been considered a serious candidate to succeed Mervyn King as Governor of the Bank of England, argued that deficit monetization is the fastest way to recover from the financial crisis in a speech.[15]

Implementation[edit]

Although the original definition of helicopter money describes a situation where central banks distribute cash directly to individuals, more modern use of the term refer to other possibilities, such as granting a universal tax rebate to all households, financed by the central bank. This is, for example, what the United States did with the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. The use of tax rebates explains why some consider helicopter money as a fiscal stimulus as opposed to a monetary policy tool. Helicopter money, however, is not meant to be permanent, and is therefore a different policy option than universal basic income.[16]

Under a strict definition, where helicopter drops are simply transfers from the central bank to the private sector financed with base money a number of economists have argued that they are already occurring.[17] In 2016, the European Central Bank (ECB) launched a TLTRO programme lending money to banks at negative interest rates, which amounts to a transfer to banks. Also, the use of differential interest rates on tiered reserves to support commercial banks’ profitability in the face of negative interest rates, opens up another source of helicopter drop – albeit intermediated by banks.[18]

In the case of the Eurozone, the use of TLTROs is believed by some economists to provide a legal and administratively tractable means of introducing transfers to households.[19] The economist, Eric Lonergan, argued in 2016 that legal helicopter drops in the Eurozone could be structured via zero coupon, perpetual loans, which all European adult citizens would be eligible to receive. The loans could be administered by eligible commercial banks, and under certain conditions the loans would be net interest income positive to the central bank.[20] This idea was revived in 2019 by Frances Coppola, in her book, The Case for People’s Quantitative Easing, and also by researchers at BlackRock, including Stanley Fischer, and also by the French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry.

Controversies[edit]

Many economists would argue that helicopter money, in the form of cash transfers to households, should not be seen as a substitute for fiscal policy. Given the government’s borrowing costs are extremely low at close to zero interest rates, conventional fiscal stimulus through tax cuts and infrastructure spending should work. From this perspective, helicopter money is really an insurance policy against the failure of fiscal policy for political, legal or institutional reasons.[21]

Differences from quantitative easing[edit]

Like all expansionary monetary policies in general, quantitative easing (QE) and helicopter money involves money creation by central banks to expand the money supply. However, the effect on the central bank’s balance sheet of helicopter money is different than with QE. Under QE, central banks create reserves by purchasing bonds or other financial assets, conducting an ‘asset swap’.[22] The swap is reversible. By contrast, with helicopter money, central banks give away the money created, without increasing assets on their balance sheet.

Economists argue that the effect on expectations is different because helicopter money created would be perceived as ‘permanent’ – that is, more irreversible than QE. Economists have pointed out that the effect is not different from a combination of expansionary fiscal policy and expansionary monetary policy conducted at the same time.

Implications for central bank balance sheets[edit]

One of the main concerns with transfers from the central bank directly to the private sector is that in contrast to conventional open-market operations the central bank does not have an asset corresponding to the base money created. This has implications for the measured equity of the central bank because base money is typically treated as a liability, but it could also constrain the central bank’s ability to set interest rates in the future. The accounting treatment of central banks’ balance sheets is controversial.[23] Most economists now recognize that the ‘capital’ of the central bank is not really important.[24] What matters is can whether expansion of base money be reversed in the future, or are there other means to raise interest rates. Various options have been proposed. Oxford professor, Simon Wren-Lewis has suggested that the government pre-commit to providing the Bank of England with bonds if needed. The European Central Bank can, in fact, mandate an increase in its capital, and the introduction of tiered reserves and interest on reserves gives central banks an array of tools to protect their own net income and the demand for reserves.[25]

Supporters[edit]

Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke is known to be one of the proponents of helicopter money when he gave a speech in November 2002 arguing, in the case of Japan, that “a money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.”[26] In April 2016, Ben Bernanke wrote a blog post arguing that “such programs may be the best available alternative. It would be premature to rule them out.”[27] Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen also admitted that helicopter money could be an option in “extreme situations”.[28]

Citigroup Chief Economist Willem Buiter is also known to be a prominent advocate of the concept.[29] Other proponents include Financial Times’ Chief Commentator Martin Wolf,[30] Oxford economists John Muellbauer,[12] and Simon Wren-Lewis, Economist Steve Keen, the political economist Mark Blyth of Brown University, Berkeley economics professor and former Treasury advisor, Brad DeLong,[31][32] UCLA economics professor, Roger Farmer, American macro hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, Irish economist and Fund manager Eric Lonergan,[33] Anatole Kaletsky,[34] Romain Baeriswyl,[35] Martin Sandbu,[36], Jean Pisani-Ferry.[37]

The idea also finds support among central bankers. For example, former governor of the Irish central bank Patrick Honohan said he believes the policy would work while the ECB’s chief economist Peter Praet once said “All central banks can do it”. The Vice-Governor of the Czech Central Bank Mojmír Hampl published a paper in which he writes that “the idea offers many virtues and advantages compared to other forms of unconventional monetary policy, especially obliterating the need to rely on a complicated transmission mechanism, allowing much easier communication to the public, and boosting consumer confidence when most needed.”[38]

Bill Gross, Portfolio Manager of the Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund also argues for the implementation of a basic income, funded by helicopter drops.[39][40]

In August 2019, prominent central bankers Stanley Fischer and Philip Hildebrand co-authored a paper published by BlackRock[41] in which they propose a form of helicopter money.

Critics[edit]

Hyperinflation in Germany in 1923

Inflationary effect[edit]

In the past the idea had been dismissed because it was thought that it would inevitably lead to hyperinflation.[citation needed]

Consequently, a range of concerns include the fact that helicopter money would undermine trust in the currency (which ultimately would lead to hyperinflation). This concern was particularly voiced by German Economist (and former Chief Economist at the ECB) Otmar Issing in a paper written in 2014.[42] Later in 2016, he declared in an interview: “I think the whole idea of the helicopter money is downright devastating. For this is nothing more than a declaration of bankruptcy of the monetary policy”[43] Richard Koo makes a similar argument[44] when saying “if such envelopes arrived day after day, the entire country would quickly fall into a panic as people lose all sense of what their currency is worth.”

This clashes with the argument that people would not spend much of the money they receive (and therefore helicopter money cannot be inflationary).

Would helicopter money be spent?[edit]

Several prominent economist such as central banker Raghuram Rajan are against helicopter money on the grounds that helicopter money would be ineffective because people would not spend the money.[45] In response, Lord Adair Turner argues: “Money financed deficits will always stimulate nominal demand. By comparison debt finance deficits might do so, but might not.”[46]

Contradicting this argument, several surveys conducted in the Eurozone concluded however that between 30 and 55% of the distributed money would be spent by households, in effect resulting in a boost of around 2% of GDP.[47][48][49][50]

“There is no such thing as a free lunch”[edit]

Another range of critics involve the idea that there cannot be such thing as “free money” or as economists say “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. This criticism was notably expressed by Bank for International Settlements researchers Claudio Borio, Piti Disyatat, Anna Zabai.,[51] who claimed that helicopter drops to citizens would necessarily involve for the central bank to pay interests on the extra reserves being supplied.

In a response, the former IMF economist Biagio Bossone challenges the later assumption[52] and argues that “helicopter money is a ‘free lunch’ in the simple sense that, if it works and succeeds in closing the output gap, people won’t have to repay it through higher taxes or undesired (above optimal) inflation.”

Legality[edit]

Other critics claim helicopter money would be outside of the mandate of central banks, because it would “blur the lines between fiscal policy and monetary policy”[53] mainly because helicopter money would involve ‘fiscal effects’ which is traditionally the role of governments to decide on. However advocates of helicopter money such as Eric Lonergan and Simon Wren-Lewis invalidate this argument by observing that standard monetary policy tools also have fiscal effects.[54][55]

The European Central Bank explained, in a letter to MEP Jonás Fernández[56], that “legal complexities could still arise if the scheme could be seen as the ECB financing an obligation of the public sector vis-à-vis third parties, as this would also violate the prohibition of monetary financing”. However this refers to a very unlikely and undesirable case where helicopter money payments by the central bank would substitute to welfare payments (which are a liability of governments).

Accounting issues[edit]

Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann also voiced opposition against helicopter money, arguing it would “tear gaping holes in central bank balance sheets. Ultimately, it would be down to the euro-area countries, and thus the taxpayer, to shoulder the costs because central banks would be unprofitable for quite some time.”[57] The National bank of Belgium also released a paper making a similar argument.[58]

Threat against central bank independence[edit]

Endra Curren and Ben Holland of Bloomberg stated “That type of stimulus[Helicopter Money] used to be taboo, in part because it risks eroding the independence from politics that monetary policy makers prize […] History is littered with cautionary tales in which blurring the lines between central bank and Treasury coffers led to runaway inflation.”[59][60]

In the Eurozone[edit]

On March 10, 2016, the idea became increasingly popular in Europe after Mario Draghi the President of the European Central Bank, said in a press conference that he found the concept ‘very interesting’.[61] This statement was followed by another statement from the ECB’s Peter Praet who declared:[62]

“Yes, all central banks can do it. You can issue currency and you distribute it to people. That’s helicopter money. Helicopter money is giving to the people part of the net present value of your future seigniorage, the profit you make on the future banknotes. The question is, if and when is it opportune to make recourse to that sort of instrument which is really an extreme sort of instrument.”

Conference on “QE for People” organised at the European parliament by Positive Money (17 February 2016)

In 2015, a European campaign called “Quantitative Easing for People” was launched[63] and is effectively promoting the concept of Helicopter Money, along with other proposals for ‘Green QE’ and ‘Strategic QE’ which are other types of monetary financing operations by central banks involving public investment programmes. The campaign was supported by 20 organisations across Europe and more than 116 economists.[64]

On June 17, 2016, 18 Members of the European Parliament (including Philippe Lamberts, Paul Tang and Fabio De Masi) signed an open letter[65] calling on the ECB to “provide evidence-based analysis of the potential effects of the alternative proposals mentioned above, and to clarify under which conditions their implementation would be legal.” If it doesn’t consider alternatives to QE, MEPs fear the ECB would leave itself “unprepared for a deterioration in economic conditions.”[66]

In October 2016, a survey showed that 54% Europeans think helicopter money would be a good idea, with only 14% against.[67]

In 2020, politicians, civil society organisations and economists debated issuing helicopter money as a response to the coronavirus pandemic in Europe.[68][69][70][71]

In USA[edit]

In 2020, the US legislative system debated issuing two times a $1,000 check to each eligible adult citizen, described by media as ‘Helicopter Money’, as a response to the US coronavirus pandemic.[72][73] However, this practice cannot be considered as ‘Helicopter Money’ as long as this money distribution is financed by the State (debt) and not by central bank money printing (monetary expansion).

In Japan[edit]

In a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Bank of Japan’s Haruhiko Kuroda in July 2016 it was widely reported[74] that former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke advised the policy of monetizing more government debt created to fund infrastructure projects,[75] ostensibly as a way to drop “Helicopter Money” on Japan to stimulate the economy and halt deflation in Japan. Financial markets began to front-run this stimulus effort days before it was announced when accounts of Bernanke’s visit to Japan were first reported.[citation needed]

Later in the month the Bank of Japan ongoing review of its monetary stimulus program was reported to be considering policies somewhat similar to “Helicopter Money”, such as selling 50-year or perpetual bonds.[76]

Popular Culture[edit]

Comedy heavy metal band Nanowar of Steel cited the helicopter drop monetary policy in their financial-epic-metal song “Tooth Fairy”[77]

See also[edit]

People’s Quantitative Easing

Monetary policy

Universal Basic Income

References[edit]

^ “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative”. Retrieved 5 May 2016..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:”””””””‘””‘”}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png”)no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png”)no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png”)no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png”)no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}

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^ Mainly Macro (March 2016). “mainly macro”. Retrieved 5 May 2016.

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^ “Governments can borrow without increasing their debt”. Financial Times. Retrieved 5 May 2016.

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^ Nanowar of Steel Tooth Fairy – Youtube video

Sources[edit]

Helicopter money: A cure for what ails the euro area?, European Parliamentary Research Service, April 2016

Helicopter Money: Why it works – Always, Willem Buiter, 2014

Helicopter Money reloaded, Bruegel, 2016

Recovery in the Eurozone: using money creation to Stimulate the economy, Frank van Lerven, 2015

What do people mean by helicopter money?, Simon Wren-Lewis, 2012

From Zirp, Nirp, QE, and helicopter money to a better monetary system, Thomas Mayer, 2016

Citizens’ Monetary Dividend – Upgrading the ECB’s Toolkit, Stan Jourdan and Eric Lonergan, 2016

Helicopter money: Views of leading economists. Centre for Economic Policy Research, April 2016

Business and economics portal

source http://wikimakemoney.com/2020/04/15/helicopter-money/

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cryptonewsworldwide · 6 years ago

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We have just received this extended response from HitBTC. If you're catching up, a good summary of accusations can be found here. HitBTC's Statement: Dear Existing Traders, Future Traders, Cryptomedia who know what they are writing about, those who don’t, those who write for money, and those genuinely enjoying the show, we would like to state our position in a clear way with respect to recent write-ups attempting to portray HitBTC in an unfavorable light. We’d like to address some of these issues and provide context into why they happened and what we are doing to develop our product and the way we communicate. Let’s start with some background: HitBTC has been in the cryptocurrency market since 2013. We were among the first and one of the most technologically advanced exchanges. When the early crypto enthusiasts built their first matching in Python or JS, we offered our traders a robust high-throughput C++ matching engine. We are always ready to admit our weaknesses. While focusing on technological and security parts of the product, we have somewhat neglected the Public Communication and PR. We can see that this might have been our major omission. When faced with a trade-off between focusing our company on security of user assets or PR efforts, we have always opted for the former. A day will come when we will achieve both goals. The Winter of 2017–2018 3.1. The market for digital assets experienced staggering growth during the winter of 2017–2018 which caused explosive growth in the number of our customers. Our technology performed well with this demand showing its superior capability. However, due to the overwhelming demand for our services we encountered major bottlenecks at an operational level. Our Customer Care and Compliance departments were frequently unable to deliver timely responses to clients’ applications and enquiries and a significant number of these cases became public. Substantial investments were made in the aforementioned departments and the issues were solved in successive months. Unfortunately, however, the negative impact to our public perception had already taken place. 3.2. We would like to emphasize that our technology was built by following procedures rooted in the mature financial industry. To ensure the robustness of mission-critical systems, our philosophy dictates that every issue (whether it is daemon lag, lack of 2-step transaction in ADA currency, detection of a transaction stuck in the bitcoin mempool for more than 48 hours due to a low transaction fee, ethereum smart contract vulnerability, etc.) is handled manually and is thoroughly documented. This assures established procedures and workarounds to be in place should the same issue recur. Over the years our dedication to established financial industry practices has guarded us against losses. This a priori more time intensive approach by today has delivered an extremely resilient system, supporting the largest number of assets in the industry without the risks which many platforms may not be able to anticipate. 3.3. Since the beginning of 2018, we have been able to bring the average support response time down to below the 12 hours mark. At the same time, we were the first to create the System Monitor – a tool made available to everyone, and specifically designed to track platform’s performance and status of initiated, pending and completed transactions as well as deposit, withdrawal and trading components status across over 500 assets. It has always been our core value that the only acceptable mean of expanding our market share is the constant perfection of our product. Apparently, not everyone shares this belief. As a result, besides real cases, which inevitably seem to surface on social media with projects of our scale, we sometimes stumble upon anonymous “cases” and other general allegations lacking substance. We let them slide more often than not since we have always been focused on addressing real cases and foregoing the opportunity of entering into fruitless disputes on the anonymous Internet space. To summarize, the combination of technological advancement and self-imposed communication isolation has repeatedly made HitBTC a target for various provocative statements, both genuine and motivated otherwise. The following recent articles are a vivid illustration of unfounded claims that were casted against HitBTC: 4.1. “HitBTC failed Proof-Of-Keys” saga, January, 2019 CCN article: “Bitcoin Exchange HitBTC Freezes Customers’ Accounts ahead of Proof of Keys Event” A widely quoted article, in its entirety, is based on only 2 AML cases. One of them was initiated as part of the investigation into the December, 2018 BTCP security breach, at the request of the coin’s core team. Unfortunately, there is no clear indication of the nature of the second case that can be discerned from the article. The author of the article failed to track the deposit/withdrawal dynamics that did not uncover any irregularities. A simple block explorer or our public System Monitorwould suffice for these purposes. 4.2. “HitBTC insolvency: by @ProofofResearch” saga, May, 2019 BitcoinExchangeGuide article: “HitBTC Appears Insolvent [Blockchain Analysis]” This article’s case claiming delayed withdrawals is based on 3 AML cases and social media gossip. All quoted AML cases were resolved within 3, 12 and 33 days respectively. Obviously, a subset of hot wallets’ balances are not representative of exchange’s total assets. This makes the statement in the article look like someone has been motivated to openly harm our reputation. Since we have touched upon the topic of KYC/AML, let us expand upon it. Against the will of crypto anarchists and early crypto adopters, the crypto market is progressively becoming more like a regular financial market. That makes it the subject to practices common to legacy financial institutions. Among these practices are design and enforcement of prudent AML/KYC policies and procedures. 5.1. Protection of market participants To provide some background: One of the main outcomes from The Great Depression was the establishment of a regulatory framework to protect the general public. As a result, markets became more transparent and protective for its participants which entirely corresponds with our values. The cryptocurrency space will go through a similar process. We foresaw the trend of regulation as an essential factor enabling its mass adoption. We have been setting up an institutional grade infrastructure (KYC/KYT/Market Surveillance/AML and other systems) to protect future mass market participants by following best practice from established financial markets. 5.2. Elimination of bad actors We respect and understand the inevitable trend of increasing regulation. In our capacity as the largest spot crypto market, we are making extreme efforts to shield our users from bad actors. This coincides with our philosophy and we consider it to be the only way for the mass adoption of crypto to take hold. That is why we have been constantly evolving our processes, and have developed our AIA Policy, structured around AML/KYC procedures that have allowed us to become one of the “cleanest” exchanges in crypto. Years ago our AML team were happy to uncover posts on darknet websites advising to “never use hitbtc”. Our stance has exposed us to allegations related to or in some way implying “inappropriate suspensions or significant withdrawal delays”. In fact, these allegations always fall in one of the following categories: 6.1. AML cases that indicate suspicious activity on a user account and require a manual check. A Security Officer reaches out to the user and requests the necessary documents – a delay from either side during communication might prolong the verification process. 6.2. Bad actors using fake documents or counterfeit materials for verification purposes. Rarely, it happens that a person on the other side of a confirmation video call (which is a part of our extended AML procedure), shows no signs of affiliation with the account. 6.3. Deposits to the wrong address. If a user accidentally deposits digital assets to the wrong address on HitBTC, we can usually rectify the situation. For example, if a user sends BTC to a USDT address – this is a reversible mistake. Our technical and financial specialists can recover it manually if it’s eligible for retrieval. Naturally, it takes time. 6.4. Victims of phishing. Even though we are always on the lookout for sites mimicking our interface for malicious purposes and initiate their shut down, some of them might escape our attention. We do our best to increase the level of protection of customer accounts. In recent years we have implemented a number of additional security features, such as: one of the first-in-the-industry 2FA confirmations, whitelisted addresses for withdrawals and advanced market surveillance systems. 6.5. Rare cases of account suspension due to a law enforcement request in which we are explicitly prohibited from informing the user in question about the matter. 6.6. Law enforcement requires us to freeze assets without explicit prohibition from informing the user in question. One of the recent public cases. 6.7. A third party request claiming their funds are involved in fraudulent activity – user in question’s account is frozen if we have reasonable arguments to back up the claims and we’re obliged to ask a third party to get law enforcement involved. 6.8. Loss of access to 2FA device requires an extended verification process which shouldtake time due to the security policies that aim to protect users that didn’t lose their 2FA keys, but might have someone pretending to be them. 6.9. A separate category of cases that cause deposit/withdrawal delays on a subset of assets have to do with comprehensive custodial security infrastructure and technical issues of daemons (please refer to 3.2 above). They are an artifact of a large system – given the nature and quantity of assets we support, at any point in time, there are some of them that are down for maintenance. We have custodial SLAs that we are constantly improving, and we are confident that they are at the optimal level of security vs performance within the entire industry. We share necessary statistics transparently in our System Monitor. We would also like to communicate our position with respect to assets being integrated into and occasionally removed from our platform as this has also caught its share of public attention. We are honored to work with a diverse range of blockchains and tokens. Given the fact that the crypto industry was in it’s very early days, some lapses of judgement in assessing our integration partners have occurred despite our best efforts to prevent this. Sometimes, it was that we did not possess a complete understanding of the integration partner’s business; sometimes it was the change of the integrated project’s course over time. As a result, the decision to remove a project from our platform occasionally had to be made. In these circumstances, we inevitably face a tough choice – whether to announce it beforehand, adversely influencing the asset’s price, or carry out the process instantaneously. We considered the second option to be less harmful. Withdrawals for the currency or token that was removed always stay open even after the removal takes place except for cases when the technical team is aware of issues. The vast majority of removal decisions fall into one of the following categories: 7.1. Hacks, security breaches, and critical contract bugs solely on the side of the token or coin issuer. For example: 7.1.1. The MXM Case On March 26, 2019 04:19 UTC MXM had reached out to HitBTC reporting a “critical vulnerability” in their smart contract. We immediately suspended the withdrawals and deposits. On March 28 the team reached out to us again asking to list a fork of their token that had been distributed using a snapshot made on March 25, 19:00 UTC”, 9 hours before we were notified. The resolution proposed by the core team: HitBTC lists a forked token. MXM would send to HitBTC custody tokens of the new contract. HitBTC will exchange the old tokens for the new ones transparently to the users. MXM team sent the new tokens to our custody. During the audit, our financial department identified a mismatch between the new tokens received and the quantity required for a one to one conversion for our customers. Having reached no consensus with the core team, we decided to remove MXM from the platform. We reversed the transaction of the insufficient amount of tokens transferred to us back to the MXM team. After negotiations, the MXM team solely took responsibility to convert old tokens for our customers. We carefully monitored this process. 7.1.2. The MORPH Case June 20, 2018, a security breach was exploited in the MORPH smart contract by malicious actors, that allows anybody to issue an unlimited number of tokens. June 21, 2018 at 20:06 UTC the MORPH team contacts our sales department with requests to “pause listing”, and “pause trading”, and to be prepared to swap the smart contract with the reason “issues with our smart contract”. No mention of any security breach was made. June 22, 2018 at 10:29 UTC. Following established procedures, our sales department initiated negotiations to support the new smart contact as defined by our standard procedure for any regular business activity involving the resources of our tech team. Independently on June 22, 2018 at 20:46 UTC our AML and security departments’ alarms were set off indicating malicious activity related to MORPH’s smart contract. Transfers from custodial to trading accounts were suspended immediately to prevent fraudulently issued tokens entering our liquidity pool. A financial control check found that 19,842,265 compromised MORPH tokens had entered our liquidity pool. We contacted the MORPH team and had provided detailed blockchain transaction data, analytics from our security department and data gathered regarding the malicious activity. We want to stress that during future communication we did not disclose irrelevant data that the MORPH team was requesting. The MORPH team refused to provide the requested 19,842,265 new MRPH tokens in order to carry out the contract swap procedure with a 1 to 1 rate. The MORPH team’s values not to admit own mistakes did not align with ours and we made a decision to cease our relationship with them. Following this case, we thoroughly examined and revised our internal smart contract audit processes and KYC procedures for potential partners. 7.1.3. The BNT Case, an example of a core team acting in good faith when resolving their security breach. Bancor experienced a security breach leading to a part of their funds being compromised on July 9, 2018. On 9 July, 2018, the BNT core team moved a part of funds from our custody accounts without our consent*. This action immediately set off our financial control alarm and we closed all deposits and withdrawals of the BNT token. *We realize that the vast majority of tokens are controlled centrally by their respective core teams, and we understand the importance of constructive communication with them. After discussion with the core team we have reached mutual understanding. Bancor returned the funds retrieved from our custody on July 12, 2018. 7.2. Although we have been constantly improving our internal processes, in the past, a few cases of insufficient review did occur. Here are the most notable of them: 7.2.1. The XMV Case We made an announcement regarding XMV integration on May 3, 2018. Resources of technical team were engaged and severe technical problems in XMV daemon and network were discovered. In parallel a Due Diligence process was conducted. MoneroV failed to provide the set of required documentation. We rejected XMV integration in early November, 2018. 7.2.2. The AMM Case As mentioned above, in December 2017, our back office was overwhelmed with requests. The malicious activity occurred and some accounts were credited with x106 larger amounts than they actually deposited via the blockchain. We invested a considerable amount of technical and operational resources into dealing with each customer affected on a case-by-case basis. 7.2.3. The HitBTC, McAfee & MTC Case On May 4, 2018 John McAfee Tweets about the MTC token integration into HitBTC. On June 28, 2018 McAfee Tweets his disdain for exchanges, targeting HitBTC specifically. “The crypto exchanges have become the thing that we have originally fought against. Their power is immense. Hitbtc, for example, has increased suffering for millions of poor people who cannot afford the minimum buy-in since it is greater than their monthly income. Boycott them.”“@hitbtc I will be your worst enemy until you prove that you are aligned with our community and are truly interested in helping the poor. You have not done shit to help access the only free healthcare in the world.” Referring to ambiguous McAffee’s critics about the “buy-in” price (a term from poker), on June 30, 2018 we answered with a Tweet explaining our withdrawal fees. Despite this, John McAfee continued to make significant efforts to create a toxic atmosphere around HitBTC. We have deep sympathy to John’s beliefs that poor people should have access to new technologies, but we see a different way to achieve that – by building a robust infrastructure for future mass adoption. 7.3. The activity of a coin’s core team negatively affects our customers. For example: 7.3.1. The BTCP Case On December 30, 2018, after persons with malicious intent exploited a vulnerability in the coin’s code, BTCP made the decision to make a hard fork of their blockchain, burning “shielded” and “unmoved” coins. The BTCP team’s decision put in danger the unmoved coins stored in our custody system under Segwit BTC addresses. To “move” and protect them from being burned we had to either import cold custody’s BTC private keys to BTCP daemon or implement the BTCP transactions signature ourselves. As importing keys from the high security segment of our custodial technical infrastructure to any third party daemon fundamentally contradicts our policy, we opted for signature implementation in order to protect our custody funds. Despite our utmost efforts, we were unable to obtain clear documentation from the BTCP team that would have allowed us to implement the P2SH-P2WPKH signature in time. We requested that the BTCP team to compensate us for the loss of coins that were burned based on their conscious decision to proceed with a hardfork. The BTCP team refused to provide any alternatives, that would have prevented damage to the funds in our custody. We decided to remove BTCP from our platform. You can find more details related to the BTCP case on our blogpost. Please note that coin burn did not affect coins deposited to our custodial accounts after the BTCP network launch, so none of customers’ assets were affected. Nevertheless, no airdrop of old coins was held. Let us summarize the key points mentioned above. We believe in a future filled with self-sustainable Internet and virtual reality economies and we have actively been creating its vital infrastructure for many years. During this course we’ve mastered ways to create both a product that can support millions of users and the technology behind it. We have expended substantial effort in complying with the evolving regulations in the digital asset space including the practices necessary to exclude bad actors and establish fast and secure operations among many other aspects of the business in this industry. However, by keeping our main focus on the things we consider to be fundamental, we perhaps neglected Public Relations as well as the necessity of reacting to public accusations – both fabricated and genuine. We consider it to be an important part of a public product and we are confident in our ability to convey our values and ideals. We are constantly on the lookout for public communications talent with or without experience in blockchain technologies. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] with any enquiries regarding our values. Joan Gald Board Member, HitBTC Ultimately - 3rd party verification and audit will be necessary at this point. There's no way around it. The sooner HitBTC opens the books, the better. Understandably, delaying this process invites increased suspicion. ------- Author: Mark Pippen London News Desk // Subscribe to GCP in a reader from THE NEWSROOM - Global Crypto Press - Cryptocurrency News Headquarters... http://bit.ly/2WnOu70

http://cryptonewsworldwide.blogspot.com/2019/05/hitbtc-responds-to-recent-claims.html

#airdrop #bitcoin #blockchain #btc #CoinDesk #crypto #dodgecoin #DOGE #eth #ethercoin #goodinvestment

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oditile · 8 years ago

Text

R vs Python

Tratto da .....https://gigadom.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/r-vs-python-different-similarities-and-similar-differences/

(This article was first published on R – Giga thoughts …, and kindly contributed to R-bloggers)

R vs Python: Different similarities and similar differences

By Tinniam V Ganesh, gigadom.wordpress.com

Vedi originale

Maggio 22º, 2017

rprogramming

A debate about which language is better suited for Datascience, R or Python, can set off diehard fans of these languages into a tizzy. This post tries to look at some of the different similarities and similar differences between these languages. To a large extent the ease or difficulty in learning R or Python is subjective. I have heard that R has a steeper learning curve than Python and also vice versa. This probably depends on the degree of familiarity with the languuge To a large extent both R an Python do the same thing in just slightly different ways and syntaxes. The ease or the difficulty in the R/Python construct’s largely is in the ‘eyes of the beholder’ nay, programmer’ we could say. I include my own experience with the languages below.

1. R data types

R has 2 data types

Character

Numeric

Python has several data types

Int

float

Long

Complex and so on

2a. Other data types – Python

Python also has certain other data types like the tuple, dictionary etc as shown below. R does not have as many of the data types, nevertheless we can do everything that Python does in R

# Python tuple b = (4,5,7,8) print(b) #Python dictionary c={'name':'Ganesh','age':54,'Work':'Professional'} print(c) #Print type of variable c

## (4, 5, 7, 8) ## {'name': 'Ganesh', 'age': 54, 'Work': 'Professional'}

2.Type of Variable

To know the type of the variable in R we use ‘class’, In Python the corresponding command is ‘type’

#R - Type of variable <-(4,5,1,3,4,5) caprint(class(a))

## [1] "numeric"

#Python - Print type of tuple a a=[4,5,1,3,4,5] print(type(a)) b=(4,3,"the",2) print(type(b))

## <class 'list'> ## <class 'tuple'>

3. Length

To know length in R, use length()

#R - Length of vector # Length of a <-(4,5,1,3,4,5) caprint(length(a))

## [1] 6

To know the length of a list,tuple or dict we can use len()

# Python - Length of list , tuple etc # Length of a a=[4,5,1,3,4,5] print(len(a)) # Length of b b = (4,5,7,8) print(len(b))

## 6 ## 4

4. Accessing help

To access help in R we use the ‘?’ or the ‘help’ function

#R - Help - To be done in R console or RStudio #?sapply #help(sapply)

Help in python on any topic involves

#Python help - This can be done on a (I)Python console #help(len) #?len

7. Getting the index of element

To determine the index of an element which satisifies a specific logical condition in R use ‘which’. In the code below the index of element which is equal to 1 is 4

# R - Which <- (5,2,3,1,7) caprint(which(a == 1))

## [1] 4

In Python array we can use np.where to get the same effect. The index will be 3 as the index starts from 0

# Python - np.where import numpy as np a =[5,2,3,1,7] a=np.array(a) print(np.where(a==1))

## (array([3], dtype=int64),)

8. Data frames

R, by default comes with a set of in-built datasets. There are some datasets which come with the SkiKit- Learn package

# R # To check built datasets use #data() - In R console or in R Studio #iris - Don't print to console

We can use the in-built data sets that come with Scikit package

#Python import sklearn as sklearn import pandas as pd from sklearn import datasets # This creates a Sklearn bunch data = datasets.load_iris() # Convert to Pandas dataframe iris = pd.DataFrame(data.data, columns=data.feature_names)

9. Working with dataframes

With R you can work with dataframes directly. For more complex dataframe operations in R there are convenient packages like dplyr, reshape2 etc. For Python we need to use the Pandas package. Pandas is quite comprehensive in the list of things we can do with data frames The most common operations on a dataframe are

Check the size of the dataframe

Take a look at the top 5 or bottom 5 rows of dataframe

Check the content of the dataframe

a.Size

In R use dim()

#R - Size dim(iris)

## [1] 150 5

For Python use .shape

#Python - size import sklearn as sklearn import pandas as pd from sklearn import datasets data = datasets.load_iris() # Convert to Pandas dataframe iris = pd.DataFrame(data.data, columns=data.feature_names) iris.shape

b. Top & bottom 5 rows of dataframe

To know the top and bottom rows of a data frame we use head() & tail as shown below for R and Python

#R head(iris,5)

## Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species ## 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa ## 2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa ## 3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa ## 4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa ## 5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa

tail(iris,5)

## Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species ## 146 6.7 3.0 5.2 2.3 virginica ## 147 6.3 2.5 5.0 1.9 virginica ## 148 6.5 3.0 5.2 2.0 virginica ## 149 6.2 3.4 5.4 2.3 virginica ## 150 5.9 3.0 5.1 1.8 virginica

#Python import sklearn as sklearn import pandas as pd from sklearn import datasets data = datasets.load_iris() # Convert to Pandas dataframe iris = pd.DataFrame(data.data, columns=data.feature_names) print(iris.head(5)) print(iris.tail(5))

## sepal length (cm) sepal width (cm) petal length (cm) petal width (cm) ## 0 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 ## 1 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 ## 2 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 ## 3 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 ## 4 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 ## sepal length (cm) sepal width (cm) petal length (cm) petal width (cm) ## 145 6.7 3.0 5.2 2.3 ## 146 6.3 2.5 5.0 1.9 ## 147 6.5 3.0 5.2 2.0 ## 148 6.2 3.4 5.4 2.3 ## 149 5.9 3.0 5.1 1.8

c. Check the content of the dataframe

#R summary(iris)

## Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width ## Min. :4.300 Min. :2.000 Min. :1.000 Min. :0.100 ## 1st Qu.:5.100 1st Qu.:2.800 1st Qu.:1.600 1st Qu.:0.300 ## Median :5.800 Median :3.000 Median :4.350 Median :1.300 ## Mean :5.843 Mean :3.057 Mean :3.758 Mean :1.199 ## 3rd Qu.:6.400 3rd Qu.:3.300 3rd Qu.:5.100 3rd Qu.:1.800 ## Max. :7.900 Max. :4.400 Max. :6.900 Max. :2.500 ## Species ## setosa :50 ## versicolor:50 ## virginica :50 ## ## ##

str(iris)

## 'data.frame': 150 obs. of 5 variables: ## $ Sepal.Length: num 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5 5.4 4.6 5 4.4 4.9 ... ## $ Sepal.Width : num 3.5 3 3.2 3.1 3.6 3.9 3.4 3.4 2.9 3.1 ... ## $ Petal.Length: num 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.7 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.5 ... ## $ Petal.Width : num 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 ... ## $ Species : Factor w/ 3 levels "setosa","versicolor",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...

## <class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'> ## RangeIndex: 150 entries, 0 to 149 ## Data columns (total 4 columns): ## sepal length (cm) 150 non-null float64 ## sepal width (cm) 150 non-null float64 ## petal length (cm) 150 non-null float64 ## petal width (cm) 150 non-null float64 ## dtypes: float64(4) ## memory usage: 4.8 KB ## None

d. Check column names

#R names(iris)

## [1] "Sepal.Length" "Sepal.Width" "Petal.Length" "Petal.Width" ## [5] "Species"

colnames(iris)

## [1] "Sepal.Length" "Sepal.Width" "Petal.Length" "Petal.Width" ## [5] "Species"

## Index(['sepal length (cm)', 'sepal width (cm)', 'petal length (cm)', ## 'petal width (cm)'], ## dtype='object')

e. Rename columns

In R we can assign a vector to column names

#R colnames(iris) <- c("lengthOfSepal","widthOfSepal","lengthOfPetal","widthOfPetal","Species") colnames(iris)

## [1] "lengthOfSepal" "widthOfSepal" "lengthOfPetal" "widthOfPetal" ## [5] "Species"

In Python we can assign a list to s.columns

## Index(['lengthOfSepal', 'widthOfSepal', 'lengthOfPetal', 'widthOfPetal'], dtype='object')

9. Functions

product <- function(,){ <- * } cbacbaproduct(5,7)

## [1] 35

def product(a,b): c = a*b return c print(product(5,7))

## 35

Conclusion

Personally, I took to R, much like a ‘duck takes to water’. I found the R syntax very simple and mostly intuitive. R packages like dplyr, ggplot2, reshape2, make the language quite irrestible. R is weakly typed and has only numeric and character types as opposed to the full fledged data types in Python.

Python, has too many bells and whistles, which can be a little bewildering to the novice. It is possible that they may be useful as one becomes more experienced with the language. Also I found that installing Python packages sometimes gives errors with Python versions 2.7 or 3.6. This will leave you scrambling to google to find how to fix these problems. These can be quite frustrating. R on the other hand makes installing R packages a breeze.

Anyway, this is my current opinion, and like all opinions, may change in the course of time. Let’s see!

I may write a follow up post with more advanced features of R and Python. So do keep checking! Long live R! Viva la Python!

Note: This post was created using RStudio’s RMarkdown which allows you to embed R and Python code snippets. It works perfectly, except that matplotlib’s pyplot does not display.

Also see 1. Introducing QCSimulator: A 5-qubit quantum computing simulator in R 2. Re-working the Lucy Richardson algorithm in OpenCV 3. Neural Networks: The mechanics of backpropagation 4. A method to crowd source pothole marking on (Indian) roads 5. A Cloud medley with IBM Bluemix, Cloudant DB and Node.js 6. GooglyPlus: yorkr analyzes IPL players, teams, matches with plots and tables To see all posts click Index of posts

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junker-town · 8 years ago

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There is no set of expectations Navy and Ken Niumatalolo won’t defy

Bet against the Midshipmen. Ever. I dare you.

Technically, I was right.

The numbers guy, however, definitely needed some technicalities to be right, though. Some quarterback injuries, too.

In last year’s Navy preview, I also said this:

(Of course, they might want to figure out how to get that defense under control.)

2016 in review

2016 Navy statistical profile.

First 4 games (3-1): Avg. percentile performance: 42% (~top 75) | Avg. yards per play: Navy 6.3, Opp 5.6 (plus-0.7) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: minus-0.5 PPG

Next 7 games (6-1): Avg. percentile performance: 70% (~top 40) | Avg. yards per play: Navy 7.3, Opp 6.9 (plus-0.4) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: plus-19.3 PPG

Last 3 games (0-3): Avg. percentile performance: 44% (~top 70) | Avg. yards per play: Navy 6.2, Opp 5.9 (plus-0.3) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: minus-7.8 PPG

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

In my recent Air Force preview, I said this about turnover:

No matter the names of the starters, Navy’s attack is relentlessly efficient.

Navy’s success rate was more than five percent higher than anyone else’s in the AAC, and this wasn’t exactly an offense-unfriendly conference.

Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Zach Abey

Depth will be tested this fall, especially at slotback. But any offense run by Niumatalolo and Jasper gets the benefit of the doubt.

(Seriously, Every School Looking to Make a Head Coaching Hire at the End of 2017: take a long, hard look at Jasper. He’s ready.)

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Chris High

Defense

Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

Tyris Wooten

The safety position, however, faces the onus of improvement. And honestly, improvement should come. Defensive coordinator Dale Pehrson asked a lot of freshman Alohi Gilman last year, and he responded with five tackles for loss (combined, Navy’s safeties had 0.5 TFLs in 2015) and five breakups. If nothing else, that provides confidence in Gilman’s upside. If he and junior Sean Williams are steadier, the pass defense could at least improve to closer to 100th. And the return of outside linebacker D.J. Palmore could be key to rejuvenating the pass rush a bit.

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

D.J. Palmore

Special Teams

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Team preview stats

All preview data to date.

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