Edward S. Knotek, II

              Okun’s Coefficient in Expansions and Recessions

特殊免疫研究所

人類の進化はアフリカ中部で15万年以前まで続いていました。チンパンジーも勿論その時代に同じ場所に棲息していました。そしておそらくB型肝炎ウイルスの祖先もそのころから存在しいて、人類とチンパンジーに人畜共通感染していた可能性があります。
人類は、アフリカ中部で進化した後、南北の二方向に移動し、アフリカ南端には12万年以前に到着しました。北方へはまずユーラシア大陸に、そしてアジアとヨーロッパの東西二方向に分かれ、アジアからは南にオーストラリアまで、北はベーリング海峡に達しました。そして、ベーリング海峡が陸続きであった2万年以前には新大陸に渡り、北アメリカを経て南アメリカの先端に到達したのは1万年前のことです。これは、勿論有史前の先住民がたどった足跡で、戦略と貿易を目的とした有史後の民族移動は含みません。
人類が農耕を始めたのは、僅かに5千年以前のことで、それまでは狩猟が主な生存手段だったのでしょう。特に火を入手した1万年以前からは、食肉調理の方法が大幅に改良したはずです。
人類は移動した先々で、野生の類人猿を狩猟し摂食する課程で、彼らに感染していた土地固有のB型肝炎ウイルスに感染する機会があったものと思われます。その総合的な結果として、人類の中で7種の遺伝子型を持ったB型肝炎ウイルスが進化しました。

A. A. Milne

読売新聞

競馬の馬券配当で得た所得を申告せず、２００９年までの３年間に約５億７０００万円を脱税したとして、所得税法違反に問われた会社員男性（３９）が大阪地裁の公判で無罪を訴えている。
男性の弁護人らによると、男性は０７～０９年の３年間に計約２８億７０００万円分の馬券を購入。計約３０億１０００万円の配当を得ており、利益は約１億４０００万円だった。
大阪国税局は税務調査の結果、配当額から当たり馬券の購入額を差し引いた約２９億円を一時所得と認定したとみられ、無申告加算税を含む約６億９０００万円を追徴課税し、大阪地検に告発。地検が在宅起訴した。
今月１９日にあった初公判で、検察側は「男性は確定申告が必要と認識していた」と違法性を主張。男性は「多額な所得を得た事実はない」とし、弁護側は「外れ馬券も含めた購入総額こそが必要経費。一生かかっても払えない過大な課税は違法性があり、無効だ」と反論した。
男性の弁護人らによると、男性は会社員としての年収が約８００万円。０４年頃、競馬専用の口座を開設して約１００万円を入金し、競馬予想ソフトを使って、過去の戦績などから勝つ確率の高い馬を選ぶ方法を独自に開発した。馬券の購入にはインターネットを利用し、仕事のない土日に全国の中央競馬のほぼ全レースで馬券を買い、配当収支の黒字が続いていた。
その配当金は自転車操業的に次の購入資金に充てており、口座には週明けに馬券の購入総額と配当総額の差額が入金。このため残高が数十億円単位になることはなかったという。

The Daily Puppy

Joseph D. Becker

Unicode is intended to address the need for a workable, reliable world text encoding. Unicode could be roughly described as "wide-body ASCII" that has been stretched to 16 bits to encompass the characters of all the world's living languages. In a properly engineered design, 16 bits per character are more than sufficient for this purpose.
The idea of expanding the basis for character encoding from 8 to 16 bits is so sensible, indeed so obvious, that the mind initially recoils from it.
The major catch is simply that the 16-bit approach requires перестройка (perestroika), i.e. restructuring our old ways of thinking. Rather than struggling to salvage obsolete. 8-bit encodings via horrendous "extension" contrivances, we need to recognize that the current absence of a standard international/multilingual encoding is a unique opportunity to rethink and revitalize the design concepts behind text encoding.

iPass

Bring your own device (BYOD) is a recurrent theme for the most productive members of the workforce. An increasing number of mobile workers are relying on their own devices, and are using these tools to connect to corporate networks to access work applications-often with great frustration. The dawn of BYOD appears to link strongly with mobile workers who’ve revealed that they are a resourceful group and will do anything to ensure ubiquitous connectivity, including work-arounds that could unwittingly threaten the security of a company. However, they also feel a sense of responsibility and care deeply for what they do. They are far more willing to use their personal devices for work, but much less willing to use their work devices for personal reasons. The impact on IT departments can be onerous, but we have some suggestions on how IT can tackle both security and productivity issues and become the company heroes they ought to be.

InfoExpress

The reality of today’s networks is that a large percentage of the devices connected to it are unknown to administrators. These may consist of mobile devices, WAPs, or user owned machines attaching to the network. This trend is growing as the number of tablets, phones, personal notebooks, ebooks, and even game systems attach to the network and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies become the norm.
Because administrators do not manage user owned devices, the applications and operating systems range from the latest betas to very old versions with commensurate security vulnerabilities. In today’s networks, administrators are faced with a disparate set of endpoint configurations that do not meet corporate security policies.
User owned devices are not the property of the organization, so intrusive security software running on the devices cannot be mandated by IT. Therefore, organizations that deny access to the devices face loss of productivity, and organizations that allow the devices open up potential threats to the network.
Ideally, unknown devices should not have access to the network until they are registered, either by the users or administrators, and access should be limited to just what’s necessary. However, networks that provide access for BYOD devices must also provide broader access for employee computers connecting to servers and other enterprise resources.

Le Francais au Pluriel

Juste avant de dormir, un jeune marié demande à son épouse :
“Ma chérie, as-tu connu d’autres amants avant moi ?”
Pas de réponse…
Très très long silence…
Au bout d’un certain temps, le mari chuchote :
“Tu dors ma chérie?”
“Non, je compte ….”

Translation

Explicit knowledge
→　形式知

Tacit knowledge
→　暗黙知

Knowledge
→　ナレッジ

Pierre Bourdieu

La cécité aux inégalités sociales condamne et autorise à expliquer toutes les inégalités, particulièrement en matière de réussite scolaire, comme inégalités naturelles, inégalités de dons.
La reproduction des inégalités sociales par l’école vient de la mise en œuvre d’un égalitarisme formel, à savoir que l’école traite comme “égaux en droits” des individus “inégaux en fait” c’est-à-dire inégalement préparés par leur culture familiale à assimiler un message pédagogique.

Michael Kaplan

For young Wall Street employees who live their lives through social media, working at a big bank can feel as if the plug has been pulled. Most financial firms ban Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, and block most music and video streaming sites.

To watch soccer highlights, one analyst said he translated the names of the teams through Google and looked for them on Rutube, YouTube’s Russian equivalent.

While firms are able to monitor e-mails and instant messages internally, it is impossible to track what one employee among hundreds of thousands is communicating on Twitter or through a Facebook chat. So ...

the Atlantic

浙江温岭最牛钉子户否认已答应签协议
The House in the Middle of the Street

BFM.RU

Комплект оригинальных кукол к мультфильмам про Чебурашку будет выставлен на вечерние торги аукционного дома «Совком» 11 декабря в рамках аукциона «Русское и советское искусство ХХ века», сообщается в релизе организатора торгов.
Это последние сохранившиеся оригиналы кукол известных мультипликационных героев, созданные в 1970-е годы. По оценкам экспертов аукционного дома, стоимость кукол может составить 1,5–2 млн рублей.
Несмотря на то, что куклы создавались в нескольких экземплярах, поскольку ломались и изнашивались во время съемок, представленные на аукционе — единственные оригинальные образцы, сохранившиеся до настоящего времени.

Conflict Kitchen

Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict.     Kubideh Kitchen - Iranian Takeout     Bolani Pazi - Afghan Takeout     Arepas Kitchen - Venezuelan Takeout     Cocina Cubana - Cuban Takeout     (North Korean Takeout is coming soon)

Charlotte Chatelle, Chafik Allal

Dix idées reçues sur la corruption
« La corruption est une question de culture » et neuf autres fausses vérités

1. L’Occident a depuis longtemps lutté contre la corruption
2. Les plus gros volumes de corruption proviennent des pays du Sud
3. La corruption est le facteur prépondérant de la mauvaise gouvernance
4. La corruption est une question de culture
5. Le système démocratique est le plus à même de combattre et diminuer le degré de corruption
6. La corruption pèse négativement sur la croissance au travers d’investissements trop bas
7. La corruption est bonne pour un pays car elle permet une meilleure redistribution des richesses et du pouvoir
8. Les programmes de lutte contre la corruption sont particulièrement efficaces dans les pays fortement corrompus
9. Transparency International est une ONG militante qui mesure le niveau de corruption des pays et élabore des programmes de lutte contre la corruption au sein des populations de base
10. La corruption permet « d’huiler les rouages » d’une administration rigide

Anna Persson, Bo Rothstein, Jan Teorell

If you drive on the beautiful roads in the mountains surrounding Cape Town in South Africa, you will eventually – and in the middle of nowhere – reach a road toll station with a sign on it stating that “This is a corruption-free zone”. Similar signs can be found outside the Ministry of Water and Irrigation in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, on the main campus of University of Nairobi, on the doors of the Kilwa district office and the Mwanza health office in Tanzania, as well as in many other places on the African continent. While these signs do not necessarily tell us the truth, they still give us an important key to understanding the real-life context of many African societies. If you have to explicitly state that a certain place is a corruption-free zone, this should say a lot about how epidemic corruption is perceived to be in society at large. More specifically, this should lead us to suspect that corruption is not the exception to the rule, but the rule.

Anna Persson, Bo Rothstein, Jan Teorell

With an increased awareness of the detrimental effects of corruption on development, strategies to fight it are now a top priority in policy circles around the world. Since Africa is home to most of the thoroughly corrupt countries in the world, it is no coincidence that the African continent has been the major target of this movement. To date, however, few successes have resulted from the investment. In fact, in some countries corruption even seems to have become more entrenched in step with the efforts to curb it. Contemporary anti-corruption reforms in Africa have largely failed because they are based on a mischaracterization of the problem of corruption in contexts with systematic corruption. While contemporary anti-corruption reforms are based on a conceptualization of corruption as a principal-agent problem, in the African context corruption rather seems to resemble a collective action problem, making the short-term costs of fighting corruption outweigh the benefits. Consequently, even if most individuals morally disapprove of corruption and are fully aware of the negative consequences for the society at large, very few actors show a sustained willingness to fight it.

Forbes

Richest People In Africa 2012 – African Billionaires

• Combined wealth of African billionaires is $4.6 trillion
• Combined GDP of African countries is $1.9 trillion

Central Park Conservancy

Uoy Gnissim

Chen Xin, Xu Junqian

According to the State Administration of Civil Service (SACS) of China, 1.5 million people registered for the 2012 annual national civil service exam; 1.12 million passed the qualification assessment and took the exam; 60,000 people were interviewed.
They are competing for around 20,800 positions in more than 140 State-level government agencies and their affiliated public institutions and local branches.

• 1,500,000 – 1,120,000 = 380,000 (failed the qualification assessment; 25.33%)
• 1,120,000 – 60,000 = 1,060,000 (failed the exam; 70.67%)
• 60,000 – 20,800 = 39,200 (failed the interview; 2.61%)
• 380,000 + 1,060,000 + 39,200 = 1,479,200 (failed; 98.61%)
• 1,500,000 – 1,479,200 = 20,800 (succeeded; 1.39%)

小林祥晃

交際を求める手紙をしつこく手渡そうとしたとして、市川署は２４日、市川市新田１、無職、長田雄容疑者（４１）をストーカー規制法違反（つきまとい）容疑で逮捕した。
容疑は、先月２６日〜今月２２日、県内のコンビニ店を数回訪れ、２０代のアルバイト店員の女性に交際を求める手紙を渡してつきまとったとしている。
同署によると、常連客でもある長田容疑者は先月中旬ごろ、「一緒に遊んでほしい」などと交際を求める手紙を２回渡した。同月２６日に再び店を訪れ、手紙を渡そうとしたが、女性は受け取りを拒否。しかしその後も２回、他の店員に手紙を託すなどしたため、困った女性が今月２２日に同署に相談していた。
同署は、同法の禁じるつきまとい行為や義務のない行為の要求にあたる恐れがあるとして長田容疑者に事情を聴いたところ「気持ちを抑えられなかった」と容疑を認めたという。

Andrew Winning

Les Dreyer

A schoolboy recently asked me if Richard Wagner was a pitcher for the Yankees. At that moment I feared that classical music in America was doomed.
Or is it? The dying of the classical recording industry, which began in the 1990s, is indeed a cause for despair. There seem to be, sadly, other harbingers of the death of classical music in America:

• The recent labor disputes of American orchestras due to decreased budgets and donor support.
• The reduction or outright cancellation of Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic tours and concerts in the parks.
• The demise of classical music radio stations across America.
• The increased media focus on rock and pop superstars, while classical music managements have difficulty booking concerts for their artists.

James Atlas

Looking down Central Park West, I’m thrilled by the necklace of green-and-red traffic lights extending toward Columbus Circle and the glittering tower of One57, that vertical paradise for billionaires. And as I walk past the splashing fountain in front of the museum’s south entrance on West 77th Street, I recall a sentence from Edward Gibbon’s ode to evanescence, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” in which “the learned Poggius” gazes down at the remains of the city from the Capitoline hill: “The public and private edifices, that were founded for eternity, lie prostrate, naked, and broken, like the limbs of a mighty giant; and the ruin is the more visible, from the stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of time and fortune.”
This is our fate. All the more reason to appreciate what we have while we have it.

Joan Baez

On a waggon bound for market, there’s a calf with a mournful eye.
High above him there’s a swallow, winging swiftly through the sky.
How the winds are laughing, they laugh with all their might.
Laugh and laugh the whole day through, and half the summer`s night.
Donna, Donna, Donna, Donna; Donna, Donna, Donna, Don.
Donna, Donna, Donna, Donna; Donna, Donna, Donna, Don.
“Stop complaining!“ said the farmer, who told you a calf to be ?
Why don`t you have wings to fly with, like the swallow so proud and free?“
Calves are easily bound and slaughtered, never knowing the reason why.
But who ever treasures freedom, like the swallow has learned to fly.

松阪肉牛共進会

松阪牛の品評会「第６３回松阪肉牛共進会」が、三重県松阪市であった。最高賞の「優秀賞１席」には、深瀬晃さんの「けいこ」が輝き、２２００万円で競り落とされた。
けいこは、血統や餌の投与データをネット検索できる「松阪牛個体管理システム」に登録された、お墨付きの未経産牛。予選を通過した雌５０頭の中から選ばれた。
競り落としたのは、津市の精肉店「朝日屋」。ここ数年はその年の西暦にちなんだ落札額だったが、今年はデフレをはねのけるように上回った。