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mutantsrisingrpg · 5 years ago

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Congratulations DAISY! You’ve been accepted as NIX.

I did my waiting... twelve years of it... until we finally got our Nix! Daisy, let me start this off with how happy I was to see an app for Luke in our inbox and that happiness only grew when I read through it. At the very end of your details section you said that Luke is contradictory to a fault - which is the very much something I was looking for with him. Luke is a danger, yes we all know this, but regardless of that he wants to protect his family and he has everything as his fingertips that could make him “holy.” I’m so excited to see where you take him!

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: Daisy

PRONOUNS: She/Her

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST // I work a few part-time jobs, so my free time is mostly reserved to the evenings and weekends, but once I have muse for a character and find a great writing community, I really commit to the rpg! I would give myself a 7/10, with some weeks dipping down to a 6 just because of work schedules and such. If there’s ever a time I can’t be on for longer than usual, I’ll definitely let you know!

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Luke Espinosa / Nix

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cisgender male & he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS: This is where you show us who the character is to you! The format of this doesn’t matter, whether it’s in bullet points or in para form, and can be as long as you’d like it to be. Feel free to get creative!

Luke — “light giving” / Espinosa — From the Spanish word, “espino,” which means “hawthorn”

It’s an irony that’s not lost on him, a simple name bestowed on him by a simple man, yet perfectly matched to his own particular talents. Privately, he smiles at the memory of his mother calling him ‘Luca,’ a nickname he’s revealed only to Isabel. (Naturally, she’s the only person he’d allow to call him that now.) Still, there’s a certain saintliness to the name that he feels is an ultimate disconnect to the man he believes himself to be: hateful, spiteful, and altogether brutal — in other words, totally undeserving of anything remotely ‘holy’. The hawthorn tree is often thought to symbolize love and protection, and are often beloved by birds for their many branches and fruits to aid in nest-making and hatchling development. Personally, I feel as though Luke wouldn’t give much thought to his surname, given the memories of the man who gave it to him. Still, I can’t help but think that this last name suits him exceedingly well, especially when I consider the arc I’d like to see him go through. Currently, Luke is someone full of anger; he’s bitter, rages often and relatively indiscriminately, and rejects responsibility out of semi-unfounded fears. He’s a weapon even though he wants to be a shield, too destructive to truly protect anyone from the wrath of the world — or worse, his own. He’s not a simple man, per se, but the outside world would be forgiven for thinking him little more than a bad-tempered, ill-mannered creature of habit, forever searching for something to destroy whether through punch or power. And yet, he manages to be more than all the red that typically surrounds him, and rather evidently, too; there’s rarely a day that he doesn’t return to the apartment if only to whip up a quick boxed dinner for Isabel and Isaac and bask in their company, sharing a laugh over Isaac’s latest mishap. He’s someone who will fight for his family, die for his family, even though he never wanted, expected, or asked for them. He struggles to balance the undeniable need to protect them against his utter lack of faith in himself and the world around them. It’s not that he doubts his powers; truly, he knows exactly how dangerous he can become, how all-consuming his light can be when his internal state reaches somewhere overwhelmingly dark. So, on the days he truly needs to get away, it’s not in the boxing rings of The Jungle or the bar at The Green Mill that call to him, but instead the rooftop of some nearby building, as close to the sun as the smokey city will allow, recharging and resetting in silence. Within the Blackburn Syndicate, he’s tough, some might even call him brave — and it’s partially true, though not because of some gallant side to his personality usually cast aside in favor of sulking in the shadows. Rather, his bravery displays itself largely in times of fear; scared for the safety of someone else, he’ll often volunteer to be put in harm’s way, though not without throwing some wayward remark about the other person’s inability to handle their job. Luke knows he’s an asset, a machine, a means to an end for the Syndicate. He’s quick to protect by means of a fierce onslaught of attack — which happens to make him the perfect weapon. He’s built his career, if not his whole life, on being menacing, on instilling fear into a person in any way he can and beating whatever’s left, out. Simply put, it’s just what he knows. In terms of truly unleashing the full extent of his powers, there are so few lines he’d be unwilling to cross. Still, when the question of family comes up, it’s not hard to imagine him setting the world alight just to keep them safe. In short, although the baseline of his personality could default to a simple ‘angry boy’ trope, I think Luke is so much more than just that. I see him as someone so craving of stability, that the fear of not having it makes it impossibly easy for him to run away; someone with the power to absorb light, yet utterly incapable of providing it for himself; a shield with no defense — contradictory to a fault.

BIO:

[ TW for violence, death, marital/family abuse, alcohol ] Fighting had always been in his blood, and he knew it. When he closes his eyes, he still remembers coming home from school to find his precious mother, still heavily pregnant with his unborn sister, bloodied and battered on the floor, bruises formed all over her body and cuts marring her pretty face. And his father, gruff and hulking, liquor evident from his smell and the arrhythmic steps of his heavy feet, ordering the young boy to help clean up – i.e., get rid of – his fatally wounded mother. He was nine then. A boy by all measures, but the ‘monster’ within claimed his youth, clawing from the depths of his grief as he clung to his mother’s life-drained body. At a moment so dark, his body emanated light and heat, overwhelming and blinding as his tears shed freely until the world around turned black with ash and fear. At ten, he was a child trapped in a plastic prison hundreds of feet underground, blocking out all sources of natural light after enough tests determined he drew his power from the sun. His body grew weak — no, he was made to be weak, forced by human powers greater than his own — though his appetite for destruction only augmented with each passing day. When the scientists deemed him feeble enough that he’d have little chance of full-powered recovery, he was placed into a foster home with fellow mutants. Fortunately for Luke, they vastly underestimated his body’s ability to At best, their foster parents saw each of them as little more than the monthly check; at worst, they saw their ‘children’ as nightly entertainment, watching with eager abandon as the kids with control of their powers beat up the ones whose powers hadn’t fully manifested. Unlike some of the other kids, it wasn’t the pink hair he’d seen first, nor the trembling fingers he’d recognized all too well — a trademark of someone not fully in control of their powers, yet still grasping at some invisible force in the hopes they would come back. He saw the fear in her eyes, the silent plea for help in a moment of desperation, and on instinct, he stepped in front of Isabel, shielding her from the cruelty of kids competing for a love they wouldn’t receive from ‘parents’ who were anything but. They weren’t fast friends, exactly, but something deeper: family. In a world where choice had been so quickly taken away from them simply by the nature of their genetic makeup, this act of protection without care, of love without thought, was the loudest kind of rebellion two kids confused by the world around them could muster. Soon enough, their powers grew in harmony, working with each other to learn new tricks that complemented each other’s skills. And at twelve, after enough foster homes to last a lifetime, they arrived in Chicago with nothing but a backpack between the two of them, holding little precious trinkets they’d collected or — in Luke’s case — stolen along the way. Isabel caught notice of the Blackburn Syndicate shortly after they’d settled in the snow-strewn streets. He was hesitant and prideful, believing he’d be able to provide for the both of them through whatever means necessary. He knew his aptitude for fighting could land him some money, even if it meant getting some teeth knocked out every now and then, but when he saw her knowing fear and constant shiver, he conceded once more, letting her dreams dictate their future. His apprehension for yet another home claiming to welcome them and treat them kindly remained even after Alma agreed to take them in; the distaste only grew when it was clear ‘impressing’ the woman came in the form of Isabel fainting from over-exerting her powers and an altogether destructive showing of his own. Isabel assimilated quicker than he did, finding her footing well before him; half-scared to commit himself to this new environment and half-terrified that he’d lose her if he didn’t, Luke accepted menial jobs within the Syndicate as he worked on mastering his powers. When he turned eighteen, he took an under-the-table job at The Jungle, taking and encouraging bets for certain fighters in exchange for proper lessons. Here, he studied the best of the best until he was ready for the ring himself, and by twenty-four, he carved a reputation for being quite the fearsome fighter. “The Silent Striker,” the crowds dubbed him, when his quick but quiet fighting style emerged supreme against fighters twice his size. For the past few years, he’s kept the extent of his fighting a secret from Isabel and Isaac, telling them that he liked to go just to watch, or because he was on a special assignment from the Director. It’s not that he doesn’t trust them — on the contrary, he trusts them a little too much and believes that admitting to liking, perhaps even needing The Jungle as a form of release and rush would scare them away or cause them unnecessary concern. As much as they were his saving grace, they could also be his undoing and, in turn, his desire to protect Isabel and Isaac often meant shielding them from the truth of his being — the harsh cruelty he inflicted on others in order to make sure they’d all be taken care of, outside of the confines of the Syndicate. After all, the havoc he wreaked with just his hands was nothing compared to what he could do if he let light consume him, and when all was said and done, it was safer to have them wonder, “What is he doing?” rather than “What won’t he do?” Then again, when the question of family comes up, it’s not hard to imagine him consuming the world in order to keep them safe.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

ISABEL ACOSTA: He might never say it out loud, but she is most definitely his saving grace. She’s more than a friend, more than family. Isabel is the first person who chose him, who saw him for what he was and didn’t shy away from it but instead welcomed him — hell, even needed him. He might not have known it at the time, but he needed her just as much, and certainly needs her now. When push comes to shove, he will follow Isabel no matter the consequence, no matter the reward because he knows there is no greater advantage than having her by his side. In terms of future ideas, I’d of course love to explore the depths of his relationships with Isaac and Isabel more. The concept of ‘found family’ comes with the territory of choice, which, for a man shuffled from one house to another and utilized as a weapon for about as long as he can remember, is something precious, if not nearly divine. I’d love to see these relationships tested and tried, and really pull and poke at the bonds those characters share just for Luke to realize the depth of his choice and see the lengths he’d go to ensure their safety. I’m a sucker for angst and tension and, naturally, would love to see Luke’s faith in his family falter, to play out possible betrayals or missteps if only to see him inevitably find his way back home.

CAIN DOUGLAS: The great shame of any fighter’s life is knowing that fighting is simply in their lifeblood, something they can’t escape and something that they won’t necessarily accept, either. When he enters the ring to fight Cain, it’s exhilarating, enthralling, and ultimately exhausting. Each match between them is an excuse to learn and train, each new bruise and bloodstain practice for the ultimate fight that’ll come between the two of them, somewhere outside of The Jungle and upon the unending concrete of the city. In my head, Luke wears some sort of mask/head covering when he fights in order to separate this exceedingly brutal side from the calmer, safer person he needs to be around Isabel and Isaac. The only reason that Cain knows his identity is because he once bested him in the ring and part of his reward was unmasking the other man. From that moment, Cain’s known his identity, which pushes Luke to train harder and harder until he can defeat the man both in and out of the ring, potentially with the intent of silencing him forever. He knows that The Jungle is mostly safe for mutants, but it’s the threat of exposing his family to something so dark, so uncontrollable, so all-consuming that scares him to his core.

EXTRA: Here’s my insp tag for Luke! (The second post in that collection gives me such Luke vibes.) And here are some headcanons:

For obvious reasons, he’s weakest in the winter. During this season, he spends most of his free time around plants, which have their own special way of storing energy from the sun, as limited as the exposure is. Luke was born and ‘raised’ in a veritable ghost town somewhere in the southwest United States, and still speaks with a kind of southern drawl. He has a sweet tooth like no other and regularly starts his day off with a hot chocolate, add two sugars. Luke doesn’t know how to drive and typically relies on Isabel to get him anywhere that the city’s transportation system can’t reach.

ANYTHING ELSE: None, thank you! But if there’s anything you need to discuss about my app, please feel free to contact me @nfwmb !!

#accepted: nix

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stalen00bsblog · 6 years ago

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Introduction

With TypeScript we get a unified class construct in JavaScript. The syntax is based on the ES6 version, preparing TypeScript to remain a full superset of JavaScript even with ES6 implementations. Of course TypeScript compiles down to ES3 or ES5, which means that this class construct will be decomposed to something that is available right now: again the prototype mechanism. Nevertheless, what remains is code that is readable, cross-implementation (ES3 / ES5) safe and agrees on a common base. With my own approach (oop.js) no one besides me did know what was going on without reading the helper code. With TypeScript a broad set of developers uses the same pattern, as it is embedded in the language.

It was therefore just natural to convert the Mario5 project to TypeScript. What makes this worth an article on CodeProject? I think it is a nice study how to convert a project. It also illustrates the main points of TypeScript. And finally it gives a nice introduction to the syntax and the behavior. After all, TypeScript is easy for those who already know JavaScript and makes it easier to approach JavaScript, for those who do not have any experience yet.

Background

More than a year ago Anders Heijlsberg announced Microsoft's new language called TypeScript. This was a surprise for most people, as Microsoft (and especially Anders) seemed to be against dynamic languages, in particular JavaScript. However, it turned out, that Microsoft realized what a big opportunity the centralization of general purpose programming to web programming is. With JavaScript for Windows Store apps, the ongoing hype with node.js and the NoSQL movement with document stores that use JavaScript for running queries, it is obvious that JavaScript is definitely important.

Remark: Anders joined the TypeScript team at some point (v0.8) in the development. It is unclear if he invented the language or if somebody else came up with the idea. Nevertheless the team is currently lead by Anders and given his experience and expertise, it is certainly good to have him in charge of the project.

The realization did influence the decision on the design of a new language. Instead of creating a new language from the ground up (like Google did with Dart), Anders decided that any language that may be still established has to extend JavaScript. No solution should be orthogonal. The problem with CoffeeScript is that it hides JavaScript. This may be appealing for some developers, but for most developers it is an absolute exclusion criterion. Anders decided that the language has to be strongly typed, even though only an intelligent compiler (or transpiler to be more correct) will see these annotations.

So what happened? A true superset of ECMAScript 5 has been created. This superset has been called TypeScript to indicate the close relationsship with JavaScript (or ECMAScript in general), with the additional type annotations. Every other feature, such as interfaces, enums, generics, casts, ... follows from these type annotations. In the future TypeScript will evolve. There are two areas:

Embracing ES6 to remain a true superset of JavaScript

Bringing in further features to make JS development easier

The primary benefit of using TypeScript is two-fold. On the one side we can take the advantage of being informed of potential errors and problems during compile-time. If an argument does not fulfill a given signature, then the compiler will throw an error. This is especially useful when working with larger teams or an a bigger project. The other side is also interesting. Microsoft is known for their excellent tooling with Visual Studio. Giving JavaScript code a good tooling support is tedious, due to the dynamic nature of JavaScript code. Therefore even simple refactoring tasks such as renaming a variable cannot be performed with the desired stability.

In the end TypeScript gives us great tooling support combined with a much better idea about how our code will work. The combination of productivity plus robustness is the most appealing argument for using TypeScript. In this article we will explore how to convert existing projects. We will see, that transforming a code to TypeScript can be done incrementally.

Converting the existing project

TypeScript does not hide JavaScript. It starts with plain JavaScript.

The first step in utilizing TypeScript is of course to have TypeScript source files. Since we want to use TypeScript in an existing project, we'll have to convert these files. There is nothing to do here as a requirement, however, we'll just rename our files from *.js to *.ts. This is just a matter of convention, nothing that is actually required. Nevertheless, as the TypeScript compiler tsc usually considers *.ts files as input, writing *.js files as output, renaming the extension ensures that nothing wrong happens.

The next subsections deal with incremental improvements in the conversion process. We now assume that every file has the usual TypeScript extension *.ts, even though no additional TypeScript feature is used.

References

The first step is to supply references from single JavaScript files, to all other (required) JavaScript files. Usually we would only write single files, which, however, (usually) have to be inserted in a certain order in our HTML code. The JavaScript files do not know the HTML file, nor do they know the order of these files (not to speak of which files).

Now that we want to give our intelligent compiler (TypeScript) some hints, we need to specify what other objects might be available. Therefore we need to place a reference hint in the beginning of code files. The reference hint will declare all other files, that will be used from the current file.

For instance we might include jQuery (used by, e.g., the main.ts file) by its definition as via:

/// <reference path="def/jquery.d.ts"/>

We could also include a TypeScript version of the library, or the JavaScript version, however, there are reasons for including the definition file only. Definition files do not carry any logic. This will make the file substantially smaller and faster to parse. Also, such files will usually contain much more / better documentation comments. Finally, while we would prefer our own *.ts files to *.d.ts files, in case of jQuery and other libraries the original has been written in JavaScript. It is unclear, if the TypeScript compiler is satisfied with the source code. By taking a definition file, we can be sure that everything works.

There are reasons to write plain definition files ourselves, as well. The most basic one is covered by the def/interfaces.d.ts file. We do not have any code, which would make a compilation irrelevant. Referencing this file on the other hand makes sense, since the additional type information provided by the file helps in annotating our code.

Annotations

The most important TypeScript feature is type annotations. Actually, the name of the language indicates the high importance of this feature.

Most type annotations are actually not required. If a variable is immediately assigned (i.e. we define a variable, instead of just declaring it), then the compiler can infer the type of the variable.

var basepath = 'Content/';

Obviously, the type of this variable is a.string This is also what TypeScript infers. Nevertheless, we could also name the type explicitly.

var basepath: string = 'Content/';

Usually we do not want to be explicit with such annotations. It introduces more clutter and less flexibility than we aim for. However, sometimes such annotations are required. Of course the most obvious case appears, when we only declare a variable:

var frameCount: number;

There are other scenarios, too. Consider the creation of a single object, that may be extended with more properties. Writing the usual JavaScript code is definitely not enough information for the compiler:

var settings = { };

What properties are available? What is the type of the properties? Maybe we don't know, and we want to use it as a dictionary. In this case we should specify the arbitrary usage of the object:

var settings: any = { };

But there is also another case. We already know what properties might be available, and we only need to set or get some of these optional properties. In that case we can also specify the exact type:

var settings: Settings = { };

The most important case has been omitted so far. While variables (local or global) can be inferred in most cases, function parameters can never be inferred. In fact function parameters may be inferred for a single usage (such as the types of generic parameters), but not within the function itself. Therefore we need to tell the compiler what type of parameters we have.

setPosition(x: number, y: number) { this.x = x; this.y = y; }

Transforming JavaScript incrementally with type annotations therefore is a process, that starts by changing the signature of functions. So what about the basics of such annotations? We already learned that number, stringand any are built-in types, that represent elementary types. Additionally we have boolean and void. The latter is only useful for return types of functions. It indicates that nothing useful is returned (as JS functions will always return something, at least undefined).

What about arrays? A standard array is of type any[]. If we want to indicate that only numbers can be used with that array, we could annotate it as number[]. Multi-dimensional arrays are possible as well. A matrix might be annotated as number[][]. Due to the nature of JavaScript we only have jagged arrays for multi-dimensions.

Enumerations

Now that we started annotating our functions and variables, we will eventually require custom types. Of course we already have some types here and there, however, these types may be less annotated than we want to, or defined in a too special way.

Sometimes there are better alternatives offered by TypeScript. Collections of numeric constants, for instance, can be defined as an enumeration. In the old code we had objects such as:

var directions = { none: 0, left: 1, up: 2, right: 3, down: 4 };

It is not obvious that the contained elements are supposed to be constants. They could be easily changed. So what about a compiler that might give us an error if we really want to do nasty things with such an object? This is where enum types come in handy. Right now they are restricted to numbers, however, for most constant collections this is sufficient. Most importantly, they are transported as types, which means that we can use them in our type annotations.

The name has been changed to uppercase, which indicates that Direction is indeed a type. Since we do not want to use it like an enumeration flag, we use the singular version (following the .NET convention, which makes sense in this scenario).

enum Direction { none = 0, left = 1, up = 2, right = 3, down = 4, };

Now we can use it in the code such as:

setDirection(dir: Direction) { this.direction = dir; }

Please note that the dir parameter is annotated to be restricted to arguments of type Direction. This excludes arbitrary numbers and must use values of the Direction enumeration. What if we have a user input that happens to be a number? In such a scenario we can also get wild and use a TypeScript cast:

var userInput: number; // ... setDirection(<Direction>userInput);

Casts in TypeScript work only if they could work. Since every Direction is a number, a number could be a valid Direction. Sometimes a cast is known to fail a priori. If the userInput would be a plain string, TypeScript would complain and return an error on the cast.

Interfaces

Interfaces define types without specifying an implementation. They will vanish completely in the resulting JavaScript, like all of our type annotations. Basically they are quite similar to interfaces in C#, however, there are some notable differences.

Let's have a look at a sample interface:

interface LevelFormat { width: number; height: number; id: number; background: number; data: string[][]; }

This defines the format of a level definition. We see that such a definition must consist of numbers such as,widthheight, background and an.id Also, a two-dimensional string-array defines the various tiles that should be used in the level.

We already mentioned that TypeScript interfaces are different to C# interfaces. One of the reasons is that TypeScript interfaces allow merging. If an interface with the given name already exists, it won't be overwritten. There is also no compiler warning or error. Instead the existing interface will be extended with the properties defined in the new one.

The following interface merges the existing Math interface (from the TypeScript base definitions) with the provided one. We gain one additional method:

interface Math { sign(x: number): number; }

Methods are specified by specifying parameters in round brackets. The usual type annotation is then the return type of the method. With the provided interface (extension) the TypeScript compiler allows us to write the following method:

Math.sign = function(x: number) { if (x > 0) return 1; else if (x < 0) return -1; return 0; };

Another interesting option in TypeScript interfaces is the hybrid declaration. In JavaScript an object is not limited to be a pure key-value carrier. An object could also be invoked as a function. A great example for such a behavior is jQuery. There are many possible ways to call the jQuery object, each resulting in a new jQuery selection being returned. Alternatively the jQuery object also carries properties that represent nice little helpers and more useful stuff.

In the case of jQuery one of the interfaces looks like:

interface JQueryStatic { (): JQuery; (html: string, ownerDocument?: Document): JQuery; ajax(settings: JQueryAjaxSettings): JQueryXHR; /* ... */ }

Here we have to possible calls (among many) and a property that is directly available. Hybrid interfaces, therefore, require that the implementing object is, in fact, a function, that is extended with further properties.

We can also create interfaces based on other interfaces (or classes, which will be used as interfaces in this context).

Let's consider the following case. To distinguish points we use the Point interface. Here we only declare two coordinates, x and y. If we want to define a picture in the code, we need two values. A location (offset), where it should be placed, and the string that represents the source of the image.

Therefore we define the interface to represent this functionality to be derived / specialized of the Pointinterface. We use the extends keyword to trigger this behavior in TypeScript.

interface Point { x: number; y: number; } interface Picture extends Point { path: string; }

We can use as many interfaces as we want, but we need to separate them with commas.

Classes

At this stage we already typed most of our code, but an important concept has not been translated to TypeScript. The original codebase makes use of a special concept that brings class-like objects (incl. inheritance) to JavaScript. Originally this looked like the following sample:

var Gauge = Base.extend({ init: function(id, startImgX, startImgY, fps, frames, rewind) { this._super(0, 0); this.view = $('#' + id); this.setSize(this.view.width(), this.view.height()); this.setImage(this.view.css('background-image'), startImgX, startImgY); this.setupFrames(fps, frames, rewind); }, });

Unfortunately there are a lot of problems with the shown approach. The biggest problem is that it is non-normative, i.e. it is no standard way. Therefore developers who aren't familiar with this style of implementing class-like objects, cannot read or write code as they usually would. Also the exact implementation is unknown. All in all any developer has to look at the original definition of the Class object and its usage.

With TypeScript a unified way of creating class-like objects exists. Additionally it is implemented in the same manner as in ECMAScript 6. Therefore we get a portability, readability and extensibility, that is easy to use and standardized. Coming back from our original example we can transform it to become:

class Gauge extends Base { constructor(id: string, startImgX: number, startImgY: number, fps: number, frames: number, rewind: boolean) { super(0, 0); this.view = $('#' + id); this.setSize(this.view.width(), this.view.height()); this.setImage(this.view.css('background-image'), startImgX, startImgY); this.setupFrames(fps, frames, rewind); } };

This looks quite similar and behaves nearly identical. Nevertheless, changing the former definition with the TypeScript variant needs to be done in a single iteration. Why? If we change the base class (just called Base), we need to change all derived classes (TypeScript needs classes to inherit from other TypeScript classes).

On the other hand, if we change one of the derived classes we cannot use the base class any more. That being said, only classes, that are completely decoupled from the class hierarchy, can be transformed within a single iteration. Otherwise, we need to transform the whole class hierarchy.

The keywordextends has a different meaning than for interfaces. Interfaces extend other definitions (interfaces or the interface part of a class) by the specified set of definitions. A class extends another class by setting its prototype to the given one. Additionally, some other neat features are placed on top of this, like the ability to access the parent's functionality via.super

The most important class is the root of the class hierachy, called Base. It contains quite some features, most notably

class Base implements Point, Size { frameCount: number; x: number; y: number; image: Picture; width: number; height: number; currentFrame: number; frameID: string; rewindFrames: boolean; frameTick: number; frames: number; view: JQuery; constructor(x: number, y: number) { this.setPosition(x || 0, y || 0); this.clearFrames(); this.frameCount = 0; } setPosition(x: number, y: number) { this.x = x; this.y = y; } getPosition(): Point { return { x : this.x, y : this.y }; } setImage(img: string, x: number, y: number) { this.image = { path : img, x : x, y : y }; } setSize(width, height) { this.width = width; this.height = height; } getSize(): Size { return { width: this.width, height: this.height }; } setupFrames(fps: number, frames: number, rewind: boolean, id?: string) { if (id) { if (this.frameID === id) return true; this.frameID = id; } this.currentFrame = 0; this.frameTick = frames ? (1000 / fps / setup.interval) : 0; this.frames = frames; this.rewindFrames = rewind; return false; } clearFrames() { this.frameID = undefined; this.frames = 0; this.currentFrame = 0; this.frameTick = 0; } playFrame() { if (this.frameTick && this.view) { this.frameCount++; if (this.frameCount >= this.frameTick) { this.frameCount = 0; if (this.currentFrame === this.frames) this.currentFrame = 0; var $el = this.view; $el.css('background-position', '-' + (this.image.x + this.width * ((this.rewindFrames ? this.frames - 1 : 0) - this.currentFrame)) + 'px -' + this.image.y + 'px'); this.currentFrame++; } } } };

The implements keyword is similar to implementing interfaces (explicitely) in C#. We basically enable a contract, that we provide the abilities defined in the given interfaces within our class. While we can only extend from a single class, we can implement as many interfaces as we want. In the previous example we choose not to inherit from any class, but to implement two interfaces.

Then we define what kind of fields are available on objects of the given type. The order does not matter, but defining them initially (and most importantly: in a single place) makes sense. The functionconstructor is a special function that has the same meaning as the custom methodinit before. We use it as the class's constructor. The base class's constructor can be called any time via.super()

TypeScript also provides modifiers. They are not included in the ECMAScript 6 standard. Therefore I also do not like to use them. Nevertheless, we could make fields private (but remember: only from the view of the compiler, not in the JavaScript code itself) and therefore restrict access to such variables.

A nice usage of these modifiers is possible in combination with the constructor function itself.

class Base implements Point, Size { frameCount: number; // no x and y image: Picture; width: number; height: number; currentFrame: number; frameID: string; rewindFrames: boolean; frameTick: number; frames: number; view: JQuery; constructor(public x: number, public y: number) { this.clearFrames(); this.frameCount = 0; } /* ... */ }

By specifying that the arguments are public, we can omit the definition (and initialization) of x and y in the class. TypeScript will handle this automatically.

Fat arrow functions

Can anyone remember how to create anonymous functions in C# prior to lambda expressions? Most (C#) devs cannot. And the reason is simple: Lambda expressions bring expressiveness and readability. In JavaScript everything is evolving around the concept of anonymous functions. Personally, I only use function expressions (anonymous functions) instead of function statements (named functions). It is much more obvious what is happening, more flexible and brings a consistent look and feel to the code. I would say it is coherent.

Nevertheless, there are little snippets, where it sucks writing something like:

var me = this; me.loop = setInterval(function() { me.tick(); }, setup.interval);

Why this waste? Four lines for nothing. The first line is required, since the interval callback is invoked on behalf of the window. Therefore we need to cache the original this, in order to access / find the object. This closure is effective. Now that we stored the this in me, we can already profit from the shorter typing (at least something). Finally we need to hand that single function over in another function. Madness? Let's use the fat-arrow function!

this.loop = setInterval(() => this.tick(), setup.interval);

Ah well, now it is just a neat one-liner. One line we "lost" by preserving the this within fat-arrow functions (let's call them lambda expressions). Two more lines have been dedicated to preserving style for functions, which is now redundant as we use a lambda expression. In my opinion, this is not only readable but also understandable.

Under the hood, of course, TypeScript is using the same thing as we did before. But we do not care. We also do not care about MSIL generated by a C# compiler, or assembler code generated by any C compiler. We only care about the (original) source code being much more readable and flexible. If we are unsure about the wethis should use the fat arrow operator.

Extending the project

TypeScript compiles to (human-readable) JavaScript. It ends with ECMAScript 3 or 5 depending on the target.

Now that we basically typed our whole solution we might even go further and use some TypeScript features to make the code nicer, easier to extend and use. We will see that TypeScript offers some interesting concepts, that allow us to fully decouple our application and make it accessible, not only in the browser, but also on other platforms such as node.js (and therefore the terminal).

Default values and optional parameters

At this stage we are already quite good, but why leave it at that? Let's place default values for some parameters to make them optional.

For instance ,the following TypeScript snippet will be transformed...

var f = function(a: number = 0) { } f();

... to this:

var f = function (a) { if (a === void 0) { a = 0; } }; f();

The void 0 is basically a safe variant of undefined. That way these default values are always dynamically bound, instead of default values in C#, which are statically bound. This is a great reduction in code, as we can now omit essentially all default value checks and let TypeScript do the work.

As an example consider the following code snippet:

constructor(x: number, y: number) { this.setPosition(x || 0, y || 0); // ... }

Why should we ensure that the x and y values are set? We can directly place this constraint on the constructor function. Let's see how the updated code looks like:

constructor(x: number = 0, y: number = 0) { this.setPosition(x, y); // ... }

There are other examples, as well. The following already shows the function after being altered:

setImage(img: string, x: number = 0, y: number = 0) { this.view.css({ backgroundImage : img ? c2u(img) : 'none', backgroundPosition : '-' + x + 'px -' + y + 'px', }); super.setImage(img, x, y); }

Again, this makes the code much easier to read. Otherwise, the propertybackgroundPosition would be assigned with default value consideration, which looks quite ugly.

Having default values is certainly nice, but we might also have a scenario, where we can safely omit the argument without having to specify a default value. In that case we have still to do the work of checking if a parameter has been supplied, but a caller may omit the argument without running into trouble.

The key is to place a question mark behind the parameter. Let's look at an example:

setupFrames(fps: number, frames: number, rewind: boolean, id?: string) { if (id) { if (this.frameID === id) return true; this.frameID = id; } // ... return false; }

Obviously ,we allow calling the method without specifying the id parameter. Therefore we need to check if it exists. This is done in the first line of the method's body. This guard protects the usage of the optional parameter, even though TypeScript allows us to use it at free will. Nevertheless, we should be careful. TypeScript won't detect all mistakes - it's still our responsibility to ensure a working code in every possible path.

Overloads

JavaScript by its nature does not know function overloads. The reason is quite simple: Naming a function only results in a local variable. Adding a function to an object places a key in its dictionary. Both ways allow only unique identifiers. Otherwise we would be allowed to have two variables or properties with the same name. Of course there is an easy way around this. We create a super function that calls sub functions depending on the number and types of the arguments.

Nevertheless, while inspecting the number of arguments is easy, getting the type is hard. At least with TypeScript. TypeScript only knows / keeps the types during compile-time, and then throws the whole created type system away. This means that no type checking is possible during runtime - at least not beyond very elementary JavaScript type checking.

Okay, so why is a subsection dedicated to this topic, when TypeScript does not help us here? Well, obviously compile-time overloads are still possible and required. Many JavaScript libraries offer functions that offer one or the other functionality, depending on the arguments. jQuery for instance usually offers two or more variants. One is to read, the other to write a certain property. When we overload methods in TypeScript, we only have one implementation with multiple signatures.

Typically one tries to avoid such ambiguous definitions, which is why there is are no such methods in the original code. We do not want to introduce them right now, but let's just see how we could write t tohem:

interface MathX { abs: { (v: number[]): number; (n: number): number; } }

The implementation could look as follows:

var obj: MathX = { abs: function(a) { var sum = 0; if (typeof(a) === 'number') sum = a * a; else if (Array.isArray(a)) a.forEach(v => sum += v * v); return Math.sqrt(sum); } };

The advantage of telling TypeScript about the multiple calling versions lies in the enhanced UI capabilities. IDEs like Visual Studio, or text editors like Bracket may show all the overloads including the descriptions. As usual c,alls are restricted to the provided overloads, which will ensure some safety.

Generics

Generics may be useful to tame multiple (type) usages, as well. They work a little bit different than in C#, as well, since they are only evaluated during compile time. Additionally ,they do not have anything special about the runtime representation. There is no template meta programming or anything here. Generics is only another way to handle type safety without becoming too verbose.

Let's consider the following function:

function identity(x) { return x; }

Here the argument x is of type any. Therefore the function will return something of type any. This may not sound like a problem, but let's assume the following function invocations.

var num = identity(5); var str = identity('Hello'); var obj = identity({ a : 3, b : 9 });

What is the type of num, str and obj? They might have an obvious name, but from the perspective of the TypeScript compiler, they are all of type any.

This is where generics come to rescue. We can teach the compiler that the return type of the function is the calling type, which should be of the exact type that has been used.

function identity<t>(x: T): T { return x; } </t>

In the above snippet we simply return the same type that already entered the function. There are multiple possibilities (including returning a type determined from the context), but returning one of the argument types is probably the most common.

The current code does not have any generics included. The reason is simple: The code is mostly focused on changing states and not on evaluating input. Therefore we mostly deal with procedures and not with functions. If we would use functions with multiple argument types, classes with argument type dependencies or similar constructs, then generics would certainly be helpful. Right now everything was possible without them.

Modules

The final touch is to decouple our application. Instead of referencing all the files, we will use a module loader (e.g. AMD for browsers, or CommonJS for node) and load the various scripts on demand. There are many advantage to this pattern. The code is much easier to test, debug and usually does not suffer from wrong orders, as the modules are always loaded after the specified dependencies are available.

TypeScript offers a neat abstraction over the whole module system, since it provides two keywords (import and export), which are transformed to some code that is related to the desired module system. This means that a single code base can be compiled to AMD conform code, as well as CommonJS conform code. There is no magic required.

As an example the file constants.ts won't be referened any more. Instead, the file will export its contents in form of a module. This is done via:

export var audiopath = 'Content/audio/'; export var basepath = 'Content/'; export enum Direction { none = 0, left = 1, up = 2, right = 3, down = 4, }; /* ... */

How can this be used? Instead of having a reference comment, we use the require() method. To indicate that we wish to use the module directly, we do not write var, but import. Please note, that we can skip the *.tsextension. This makes sense, since the file will have the same name later on, but a different ending.

import constants = require('./constants');

The difference between var and import is quite important. Consider the following lines:

import Direction = constants.Direction; import MarioState = constants.MarioState; import SizeState = constants.SizeState; import GroundBlocking = constants.GroundBlocking; import CollisionType = constants.CollisionType; import DeathMode = constants.DeathMode; import MushroomMode = constants.MushroomMode;

If we would write var, then we would actually use the JavaScript representation of the property. However, we want to use the TypeScript abstraction. The JavaScript realization of Direction is only an object. The TypeScript abstraction is a type, that will be realized in form of an object. Sometimes it does not make a difference, however, with types such as interfaces, classes or enums, we should prefer import to var. Otherwise we just use var for renaming:

var setup = constants.setup; var images = constants.images;

Is this everything? Well, there is much to be said about modules, but I try to be brief here. First of all, we can use these modules to make interfaces to files. For instance the public interface to the main.ts is given by the following snippet:

export function run(levelData: LevelFormat, controls: Keys, sounds?: SoundManager) { var level = new Level('world', controls); level.load(levelData); if (sounds) level.setSounds(sounds); level.start(); };

All modules are then brought together in some file like game.ts. We load all the dependencies and then run the game. While most modules are just objects bundled together with single pieces, a module can also be just one of these pieces.

import constants = require('./constants'); import game = require('./main'); import levels = require('./testlevels'); import controls = require('./keys'); import HtmlAudioManager = require('./HtmlAudioManager'); $(document).ready(function() { var sounds = new HtmlAudioManager(constants.audiopath); game.run(levels[0], controls, sounds); });

The controls module is an example for a single piece module. We achieve this with a single statement such as:

export = keys;

This assigns the export object to be the keys object.

Let's see what we got so far. Due to the modular nature of our code we included some new files.

We have another dependency on RequireJS, but in fact, our code is more robust and easier to extend than before. Additionally, all dependencies are always exposed, which removes the possibility of unknown dependencies drastically. The module loader system combined with intellisense, improved refactoring capabilities and the strong typing added much safety to the whole project.

Of course not every project can be refactored so easily. The project has been small and was based on a solid code base, that did not rust that much.

In a final step we will break apart the massive main.ts file, to create small, decoupled files, which may only depend on some setting. This setting would be injected in the beginning. However, such a transformation is not for everyone. For certain projects, it might add too much noise than gain clarity.

Either way, for the Matter class we would have the following code:

/// <reference path="def/jquery.d.ts"/> import Base = require('./Base'); import Level = require('./Level'); import constants = require('./constants'); class Matter extends Base { blocking: constants.GroundBlocking; level: Level; constructor(x: number, y: number, blocking: constants.GroundBlocking, level: Level) { this.blocking = blocking; this.view = $('<div />').addClass('matter').appendTo(level.world); this.level = level; super(x, y); this.setSize(32, 32); this.addToGrid(level); } addToGrid(level) { level.obstacles[this.x / 32][this.level.getGridHeight() - 1 - this.y / 32] = this; } setImage(img: string, x: number = 0, y: number = 0) { this.view.css({ backgroundImage : img ? img.toUrl() : 'none', backgroundPosition : '-' + x + 'px -' + y + 'px', }); super.setImage(img, x, y); } setPosition(x: number, y: number) { this.view.css({ left: x, bottom: y }); super.setPosition(x, y); } }; export = Matter;

This technique would refine the dependencies. Additionally, the code base would gain accessibility. Nevertheless, it depends on the project and state of the code, if further refinement is actually desired or unnecessary cosmetics.

Credit

Florian Rappl

Florian lives in Munich, Germany. He started his programming career with Perl. After programming C/C++ for some years he discovered his favorite programming language C#. He did work at Siemens as a programmer until he decided to study Physics. During his studies he worked as an IT consultant for various companies. After graduating with a PhD in theoretical particle Physics he is working as a senior technical consultant in the field of home automation and IoT. Florian has been giving lectures in C#, HTML5 with CSS3 and JavaScript, software design, and other topics. He is regularly giving talks at user groups, conferences, and companies. He is actively contributing to open-source projects. Florian is the maintainer of AngleSharp, a completely managed browser engine.

Repository at GitHub

Points of Interest

One of the most asked questions in the original article has been where to acquire the sound / how to set up the sound system. It turns out that the sound might be one of the most interesting parts, yet I decided to drop it from the article. Why?

The sound files might cause a legal problem (however, the same could be said about the graphics)

The sound files are actually quite big (effect files are small, but the background music is O(MB))

Every sound file has to be duplicated to avoid compatibility issues (OGG and MP3 files are distributed)

The game has been made independent of a particular sound implementation

The last argument is my key point. I wanted to illustrate that the game can actually work without strongly coupling it to a particular implementation. Audio has been a widely discussed topic for web applications. First of all, we need to consider a series of formats since different formats and encodings only work on a subset of browsers. To reach all major browsers, one usually needs at least 2 different formats (usually consisting of one open and one proprietary format). Additionally, the current implementation of the HTMLAudioElement is not very efficient and useful for games. That is what motivated Google to work on another standard, which works much better for games.

Nevertheless, you want a standard implementation? The GitHub repository actually contains a standard implementation. The original JavaScript version is available, as is the Type'd version. Both are just called.SoundManager One is in the folder Original, the other one in the Scripts folder (both are subfolders of src).

#article #javascript #tutorial

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theresawelchy · 6 years ago

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Advances in GANs

A summary of the latest advances in Generative Adversarial Networks

Bharath Raj

Jan 31

Written by Bharath Raj with feedback from Rotem Alaluf

Art by Lønfeldt on Unsplash

Generative Adversarial Networks are a powerful class of neural networks with remarkable applications. They essentially consist of a system of two neural networks — the Generator and the Discriminator — dueling each other.

GANs in action. (Source)

Given a set of target samples, the Generator tries to produce samples that can fool the Discriminator into believing they are real. The Discriminator tries to resolve real (target) samples from fake (generated) samples. Using this iterative training approach, we eventually end up with a Generator that is really good at generating samples similar to the target samples.

GANs have a plethora of applications, as they can learn to mimic data distributions of almost any kind. Popularly, GANs are used for removing artefacts, super resolution, pose transfer, and literally any kind of image translation, as shown below:

Image translation using GANs. (Source)

However, they are excruciatingly difficult to work with, owing to its fickle stability. Needless to say, many researchers have proposed brilliant solutions to mitigate some of the problems involved with training GANs. However, the research in this area evolved so fast that, it became hard to keep track of interesting ideas. This blog makes an effort to list out some popular techniques that are commonly used to make GAN training stable.

Drawbacks of using GANs — An Overview

GANs are difficult to work with for a bunch of reasons. Some of them are listed below in this section.

1. Mode collapse

Natural data distributions are highly complex and multimodal. That is, the data distribution has a lot of “peaks” or “modes”. Each mode represents a concentration of similar data samples, but are distinct from other modes.

During mode collapse, the generator produces samples that belong to a limited set of modes. This happens when the generator believes that it can fool the discriminator by locking on to a single mode. That is, the generator produces samples exclusively from this mode.

The image at the top represents the output of a GAN without mode collapse. The image at the bottom represents the output of a GAN with mode collapse. (Source)

The discriminator eventually figures out that samples from this mode are fake. As a result, the generator simply locks on to another mode. This cycle repeats indefinitely, and this essentially limits the diversity of the generated samples. For a more detailed explanation, you can check out this blog.

2. Convergence

A common question in GAN training is “when do we stop training them?”. Since the Generator loss improves when the Discriminator loss degrades (and vice-versa), we can not judge convergence based on the value of the loss function. This is illustrated by the image below:

Plot of a typical GAN loss function. Note how convergence cannot be interpreted from this plot. (Source)

3. Quality

As with the previous problem, it is difficult to quantitatively tell when the generator produces high quality samples. Additional perceptual regularization added to the loss function can help mitigate the situation to some extent.

4. Metrics

The GAN objective function explains how well the Generator or the Discriminator is performing with respect to its opponent. It does not however represent the quality or the diversity of the output. Hence, we need distinct metrics that can measure the same.

Terminologies

Before we dive deep into techniques that can aid performance, let us review some terminologies. This will simplify explanations of the techniques presented in the next section.

1. Infimum and Supremum

Put simply, Infimum is the largest lower bound of a set. Supremum is the smallest upper bound of a set. They differ from minimum and maximum in the sense that the infimum and supremum need not belong to the set.

2. Divergence Measures

Divergence measures represent the distance between two distributions. Conventional GANs essentially minimize the Jensen Shannon divergence between the real data distribution and the generated data distribution. GAN loss functions can be modified to minimize other divergence measures such as the Kulback Leibler divergence or Total Variation Distance. Popularly, the Wasserstein GAN minimises the Earth Mover distance.

3. Kantorovich Rubenstein Duality

Some divergence measures are intractable to optimize in their naive form. However, their dual form (replacing infimum with supremum or vice-versa) may be tractable to optimize. The duality principle lays a framework for transforming one form to another. For a very detailed explanation about the same, you can check out this blog post.

4. Lipschitz continuity

A Lipschitz continuous function is limited in how fast it can change. For a function to be Lipschitz continuous, the absolute value of the slope of the function’s graph (for any pair of points) cannot be more than a real value K. Such functions are also known as K-Lipschitz continuous.

Lipschitz continuity is desired in GANs as they bound the gradients of the discriminator, essentially preventing the exploding gradient problem. Moreover, the Kantorovich-Rubinstein duality requires it for a Wasserstein GAN, as mentioned in this excellent blog post.

Techniques for Improving Performance

There are a plethora of tricks and techniques that can be used for making GANs more stable and powerful. To keep this blog concise I’ve only explained techniques that are either relatively new or complex. I’ve listed out other miscellaneous tricks and techniques at the end of this section.

1. Alternative Loss Functions

One of the most popular fixes to the shortcomings of GANs is the Wasserstein GAN. It essentially replaces the Jensen Shannon divergence of conventional GANs with the Earth Mover distance (Wasserstein-1 distance or EM distance). The original form of the EM distance is intractable, and hence we use its dual form (calculated by the Kantorovich Rubenstein Duality). This requires the discriminator to be 1-Lipschitz, which is maintained by clipping the weights of the discriminator.

The advantage of using Earth Mover distance is that it is continuous even when the real and generated data distributions are disjoint, unlike JS or KL divergence. Also, there is a correlation between the generated image quality and the loss value (Source). The disadvantage is that, we need to perform several discriminator updates per generator update (as per the original implementation). Moreover, the authors claim that weight clipping is a terrible way to ensure 1-Lipschitz constraint.

The earth mover distance (left) is continuous, even if the distributions are not continuous, unlike the Jensen Shannon divergence (right). Refer to this paper for a detailed explanation.

Another interesting solution is to use mean squared loss instead of log loss. The authors of the LSGAN argue that the conventional GAN loss function does not provide much incentive to “pull” the generated data distribution close to the real data distribution.

The log loss in the original GAN loss function does not bother about the distance of the generated data from the decision boundary (the decision boundary separates real and fake data). LSGAN on the other hand penalizes generated samples that are far away from the decision boundary, essentially “pulling” the generated data distribution closer to the real data distribution. It does this by replacing the log loss with mean squared loss. For a detailed explanation of the same, check out this blog.

2. Two Timescale Update Rule (TTUR)

In this method, we use a different learning rate for the discriminator and the generator (Source). Typically, a slower update rule is used for the generator and a faster update rule is used for the discriminator. Using this method, we can perform generator and discriminator updates in 1:1 ratio, and just tinker with the learning rates. Notably, the SAGAN implementation uses this method.

3. Gradient Penalty

In the paper Improved Training of WGANs, the authors claim that weight clipping (as originally performed in WGANs) lead to optimization issues. They claim that weight clipping forces the neural network to learn “simpler approximations” to the optimal data distribution, leading to lower quality results. They also claim that weight clipping leads to the exploding or vanishing gradient problem, if the WGAN hyperparameter is not set properly. The author introduces a simple gradient penalty which is added to the loss function such that the above problems are mitigated. Moreover, 1-Lipschitz continuity is maintained, as in the original WGAN implementation.

Gradient penalty added as regularizer, as in the original WGAN-GP paper. (Source)

The authors of DRAGAN claim that mode collapse occurs when the game played by the GAN (i.e. discriminator and generator going against each other) reaches a “local equilibrium state”. They also claim that the gradients contributed by the discriminator around such states are “sharp”. Naturally, using a gradient penalty will help us circumvent these states, greatly enhancing stability and reducing mode collapse.

4. Spectral Normalization

Spectral normalization is a weight normalization technique that is typically used on the Discriminator to enhance the training process. This essentially ensures that the Discriminator is K-Lipschitz continuous.

Some implementations like the SAGAN used spectral normalization on the Generator as well. It is also stated that this method is computationally more efficient than Gradient Penalty (Source).

5. Unrolling and Packing

As stated in this excellent blog, one way to prevent mode hopping is to peek into the future and anticipate counterplay when updating parameters. Unrolled GANs enables the Generator to fool the Discriminator, after the discriminator had a chance to respond (taking counterplay into account).

Another way of preventing mode collapse is to “pack” several samples belonging to the same class before passing it to the Discriminator. This method is incorporated in PacGAN, in which they have reported decent reduction of mode collapse.

6. Stacking GANs

A single GAN may not be powerful enough to handle a task effectively. We could instead use multiple GANs placed consecutively, where each GAN solves an easier version of the problem. For instance, FashionGAN used two GANs to perform localized image translation.

FashionGAN used two GANs to perform localized image translation. (Source)

Taking this concept to the extreme, we can gradually increase the difficulty of the problem presented to our GANs. For instance, Progressive GANs (ProGANs) can generate high quality images of excellent resolution.

7. Relativistic GANs

Conventional GANs measure the probability of the generated data being real. Relativistic GANs measure the probability of the generated data being “more realistic” than the real data. We can measure this “relative realism” using an appropriate distance measure, as mentioned in the RGAN paper.

Output of the discriminator when using the standard GAN loss (image B). Image C represents how the output curve should actually look like. Image A represents the optimal solution to the JS divergence. (Source)

The authors also mention that the discriminator output should converge to 0.5 when it has reached the optimal state. However, conventional GAN training algorithms force the discriminator to output “real” (i.e. 1) for any image. This, in a way, prevents the discriminator from reaching its optimal value. The relativistic method solves this issue as well, and has pretty remarkable results, as shown below.

Output of a standard GAN (left) and a relativistic GAN (right) after 5000 iterations. (Source)

8. Self Attention Mechanism

The authors of Self Attention GANs claim that convolutions used for generating images look at information that are spread locally. That is, they miss out on relationships that span globally due to their restrictive receptive field.

Adding the attention map (calculated in the yellow box) to the standard convolution operation. (Source)

Self-Attention Generative Adversarial Network allows attention-driven, long-range dependency modeling for image generation tasks. The self-attention mechanism is complementary to the normal convolution operation. The global information (long range dependencies) aid in generating images of higher quality. The network can choose to ignore the attention mechanism, or consider it along with normal convolutions. For a detailed explanation, you can check out their paper.

Visualization of the attention map for the location marked by the red dot. (Source)

9. Miscellaneous Techniques

Here is a list of some additional techniques (not exhaustive!) that are used to improve GAN training:

Feature Matching

Mini Batch Discrimination

Historical Averaging

One-sided Label Smoothing

Virtual Batch Normalization

You can read up more about these techniques in this paper, and from this blog post. A lot more techniques are listed in this GitHub repository.

Metrics

Now that we have established methods to improve training, we need to quantitatively prove it. The following metrics are often used to measure the performance of a GAN:

1. Inception Score

The inception score measures how “real” the generated data is.

The Inception Score. (Source)

The equation has two components p(y|x) and p(y) . Here, x is the image that is produced by the Generator, and p(y|x) is the probability distribution obtained, when you pass image x through a pre-trained Inception Network (pretrained on the ImageNet dataset, as in the original implementation). Also, p(y) is the marginal probability distribution, which can be calculated by averaging p(y|x) over a few distinct samples of generated images (x). These two terms represent two different qualities that are desirable on real images:

The generated image must have objects that are “meaningful” (objects are clear, and not blurry). This means that p(y|x) should have “low entropy”. In other words, our Inception Network must be strongly confident that the generated image belongs to a particular class.

The generated images should be “diverse”. This means that p(y) should have “high entropy”. In other words, generator should produce images such that each image represents a different class label (ideally).

Ideal plots of p(y|x) and p(y). Such a pair would have a really large KL divergence. (Source)

If a random variable is highly predictable, it has low entropy (i.e. p(y|x)must be a distribution with a sharp peak). On the contrary, if it is unpredictable, it has high entropy (i.e. p(y) must be a uniform distribution). If both these traits are satisfied, we should expect a large KL divergence between p(y|x) and p(y) . Naturally, a large Inception Score (IS) is better. For a deeper analysis on the Inception Score, you can checkout this paper.

2. Fréchet Inception Distance (FID)

A drawback of the Inception Score is that statistics of the real data are not compared with the statistics of the generated data (Source). Fréchet distance resolves the drawback by comparing the mean and covariance of the real and generated images. Fréchet Inception Distance (FID) performs the same analysis, but on the feature maps produced by passing the real and generated images through a pre-trained Inception-v3 Network (Source). The equation is described as follows:

FID compares the mean and covariance of the real and generated data distributions. Tr stands for Trace. (Source)

A lower FID score is better, as it explains that the statistics of the generated images are very similar to that of the real images.

Conclusion

The research community has produced numerous solutions and hacks to overcome the shortcomings of GAN training. However, it is difficult to keep track of significant contributions due to the sheer volume of new research. The details shared in this blog is not exhaustive for the same reason, and may become outdated in the near future. Nevertheless, I hope this blog serves as a guideline for people looking for methods to improve the performance of their GANs.

DataTau published first on DataTau

#Technology #Finance

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skintactix · 4 years ago

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Free Radical Damage

The following information explains how our skin ages. Because acne generates a volume of free radical activity, people with acne tend to have prematurely aged skin. The more severe the acne, the greater the damage or aging process. Since benzoyl peroxide is a free radical, its use also adds to the rapid aging process of the skin.

In a very simplified explanation, human beings are composed of specialized cells that perform specific functions (i.e. skin cells, heart cells, muscle cells, etc). After years and years these cells become more and more damaged. Eventually, the collective cells that make up organs become so damaged the organ fails to function, such as the loss of vision or hearing as people age. This process of damage and dysfunction of the vital organs eventually leads to death.

Most of this damage is caused by free radicals. Free radicals are minute chemical particles (atoms or groups of atoms) which are frequently the by-products of chemical processes. For example, when two chemicals join together to form another chemical, some particles are eliminated and these can be free radicals. Free radicals have at least one unpaired electron, causing the chemical particle to be unstable. To become stabilized the particle must obtain an electron from some another chemical. By taking an electron from another chemical, the free radical becomes a stable chemical, but the other chemical now becomes a free radical and its chemical structure is changed. It must then steal an electron. Thus the chain reaction (of atoms stealing electrons) continues and can be thousands of events long.

Free radicals can steal an electron and break down another biomolecule such as loose proteins, sugars, fatty acids, etc. that are NOT part of a larger chemical structure. In these cases the free radical does little damage. If a free radical steals an electron from one of the proteins that is contained in a strand of collagen (rather than a loose protein), it causes a change in the chemical structure of the collagen at that point and causes a break in the collagen strand. This is damage. Once a bundle of collagen has multiple points of damage which occurs over years, the strand of collagen becomes dysfunctional and loses its elastic quality. The skin begins to sag. Over time free radical damage happens to the various components of the body and this damage is progressive.

Free radicals chip away at cell walls, molecule by molecule, making holes. The cells leak and lose their chemical balances. Subsequent free radicals are able to chip away at DNA, making cells dysfunctional. If this damage affects cellular DNA, the cell may malfunction and this is what happens cell by cell over the lifetime of a human being, ultimately causing entire organs to malfunction, because their cells malfunction. If the DNA of basal keratinocytes, for example, are damaged the cells may become dysfunctional and the basal cells will reproduce cells that are equally as damaged and dysfunctional, resulting in the aging and dysfunction of the skin and its various components. Aging is simply the progression of damage, caused by free radicals.

The major creators of free radicals in the skin are (1. normal chemical processes such as producing and using energy, producing skin components such as lipids, and other daily chemical processes that give off free radicals as a natural byproduct (2. unprotected sun exposure, (3. products applied to the skin that produce free radicals and (4. pollution. When acne is involved, acne becomes another creator of free radicals and in the case of moderate to severe acne, assumes the second position, ahead of unprotected sun exposure.

The way to slow the process of skin aging is as easy as reducing the volume of non-essential free radical activity in the skin. If one source of free radical production is addressed (for example unprotected sun exposure) there will be a slowing of skin aging process and if two or three sources of free radical production are addressed (such as acne control, unprotected sun exposure and free radical producing skin care products such as benzoyl peroxide) there will be a greater degree of slowing the skin aging process. These actions can become anti-aging options. Sun protection is discussed on the Sunscreen page. Other subjects are covered on this page.

Most of the chemical processes that occur in the skin, emit free radicals. In the body, the processing of food, producing energy and using energy creates free radicals. Breathing and using our muscles to perform functions creates free radicals. Manufacturing collagen or lipids or pigment produces free radicals. These free radicals can create damage to the components of the skin as they steal an electron from another component to make themselves complete and stable. When acne infections occur, the skin generates hydrogen peroxide to kill bacteria. Hydrogen peroxide is a free radical and damages the components of the skin.

The infections destroy skin components and all of these components must be repaired or reproduced. This again generates volumes of chemical processes that generate additional volumes of damaging free radicals.

Antioxidants are chemicals that are able to donate an electron to a free radical, stabilizing the free radical and stopping the chain of chemical reactions and potential damage. Antioxidants are able to donate the missing electron to a free radical without the antioxidant becoming a free radical. In this manner antioxidants prevent free radical damage or in other words, they slow the aging process.

In its own defense the body manufactures antioxidants, such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, etc. If, for example, extra genes for the production of these manufactured antioxidants are placed into the DNA of fruit flies, significantly increasing their production of these antioxidants, the fruit flies can live 30% longer than normal fruit flies. This demonstrates the benefits of adding antioxidants to the body and skin, as an anti-aging mechanism. Therefore the youthful appearance of the skin can be sustained longer by increasing the presence of antioxidants.

It is estimated that each keratinocyte (cells in the skin's outer epidermal layer) in our skin has 5,000 exposures to free radicals every day. As a result, the skin has the potential to age faster than any other organ in the body, and because of a decreased supply of antioxidants, the aging process becomes faster every year.

Eating a diet that is rich in antioxidants is an excellent anti-aging strategy for the entire body. It is estimated that only about 2-3% of the antioxidants we eat, get to the skin because of the body's demand for antioxidants. Topically applied antioxidants in an absorbable form can reduce skin damage significantly by putting the anti-aging mechanisms directly into the skin. This is especially true of the epidermis which has no direct supply of blood to provide antioxidants and has the greatest exposure to sun and pollution generated free radicals. The skin can tolerate and benefit from an infinite supply of antioxidants which will slow the skin's aging process to a trickle, provided the skin is protected from sun damage, and free radicals are not applied to the skin.

Skintactix uses key antioxidants as ingredients in many of its products and all products contain antioxidants. Several Skintactix products are so rich in therapeutic ingredients which are potent antioxidants, that these products are classified as powerful anti-aging agents. For example Skintactix Treatment Moisturizer is a powerful anti-aging product. Following is an ingredient list and powerful antioxidants are underlined: Deionized Water, Capryl Glycol, Avocado, Cecyl Oleate, Hydrocotyl (Gotu Kola), Safflower, Soybean, Evening Primrose, Chamomile, Green Tea, Betaglucan, Adenosine Triphosphate, Vitamin B, Hyaluronic Acid, Bisabolol, Xanthan Gum, Vitamin E.

A few plant extracts are capable of stimulating the body's production of it's own antioxidants. For example, hydrocotyl (centella asiatica / gotu kola) is a very powerful antioxidant. It stimulates the increased production of catalase (a powerful antioxidant produced by our body to protect itself from damage) and the anti-aging benefit of this ingredient is remarkable. Hydrocotyl is also used as a wound and injury dressing because it has a direct stimulatory affect upon fibroblast cells, stimulating them to produce collagen. Hydrocotyl is in Treatment Moisturizer.

Because of their antioxidant content the follow Skintactix products are powerful anti-aging agents: Treatment Moisturizer, Titanium / Zinc Sunscreen, Glycolic Exfoliator, Green Tea Poultice, and Inhibiting Gel.

The use of skin care products that are rich in antioxidants is a key and highly effective anti-aging strategy for the skin and it simply makes no sense to use products that do not provide this benefit.

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chongcomeau30 · 5 years ago

Text

Interesting Ways the World is using Solar – Solar Roofed Bike Lane

Source – http://grinity.in/

Through our series of Interesting Ways the World is using Solar, we bring you the most cutting edge application of solar in modern times. We have previously written about how technological advancements have been made in the form of solar cars, solar-powered roads, solar space-stations and even solar-powered clothes.

Which brings us to another interesting use of solar, and this week we are going to introduce you to – Solar Panel Roofed Bike Lanes.

32 km Bike Lane Shaded with Solar Panels in South Korea

There is a solar bike lane which runs 20 miles, approximately 32 kilometres, from the city of Daejeon to the city of Sejong. Running right through a regular highway between the cities, the bike lane, which is also accompanied with three lanes of traffic on either side, has been roofed with solar panels throughout the highway.

What makes the installation of these solar panels on the bike lane truly remarkable is the multifaceted benefits that it provides to the drivers on the highway. While the panels provide shade from the sun and protection from the rain to the cyclists on their 20 miles long two-way ride, the panels also generate enough electricity needed to power the lights along the highway and charging stations for electric vehicles moving on the road.

Here’s a glimpse of the bike lane and its long stretch

This bike lane in South Korea is not a singular example showcasing the innovative use of solar technology on roads. Solar roads in China and solar bike paths in the Netherlands are few other examples that have portrayed similar successful applications of solar on roadways; the energy from which is already being used to power billboards, surveillance cameras, tolls, street lights, local households and etc along the road.

MYSUN’s take

The solar panel covered bike lane is a truly wonderful use of solar technology which is a great example of the importance of a sustainable, comfortable and healthy living. It reinstates not only the need but also the auxiliary benefits that solar energy can provide to the entire human civilization which traditional energy sources cannot, i.e. monetary benefits along with ecological stability. Not to forget that the application of solar using superstructures, like in this case, ensures that the area below the structure can continue to be used. We encourage all our readers to make solar a part of their daily life and enjoy its various benefits.

The post Interesting Ways the World is using Solar – Solar Roofed Bike Lane appeared first on Rediscover the Sun with MYSUN - Solar Power Company in India.

from Solar Energy https://www.itsmysun.com/cbike-lane-covered-with-solar-panels-south-korea/

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jamesgraybooksellerworld · 5 years ago

Text

Author INDEX

J.B. 346J

Mary Barber 377J

Mary Barber 373J

Madam De Bellefont 572G

Susanna Centlivre 347J

Susanna Centlivre 357J

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon 348J

[Martha Hatfield].362J

Mary De La Riviere Manley 122F

Katherine Philips 103G

Mary Pix 376J

Madam Scuddery 296J

Madeleine Vigneron 323

•)§(•

346J J.B. Gent.

The young lovers guide,

or, The unsuccessful amours of Philabius, a country lover; set forth in several kind epistles, writ by him to his beautious-unkind mistress. Teaching lover s how to comport themselves with resignation in their love-disasters. With The answer of Helena to Paris, by a country shepherdess. As also, The sixth Æneid and fourth eclogue of Virgil, both newly translated by J.B. Gent. (?)

London : Printed and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London, 1699. $3,500

Octavo, A4, B-G8,H6 I2( lacking 3&’4) (A1, frontispiece Present; I3&’4, advertisements lacking ) inches [8], 116, [4] p. : The frontispiece is signed: M· Vander Gucht. scul:. 1660-1725,

This copy is bound in original paneled sheep with spine cracking but cords holding Strong.

A very rare slyly misogynistic “guide’ for what turns out be emotional turmoil and Love-Disasters

Writ by Philabius to Venus, his Planetary Ascendant.

Dear Mother Venus!

I must style you so.

From you descended, tho’ unhappy Beau.

You are my Astral Mother; at my birth

Your pow’rful Influence bore the sway on Earth

From my Ascendent: being sprung from you,

I hop’d Success where-ever I should woo.

Your Pow’r in Heav’n and Earth prevails, shall I,

A Son of yours, by you forsaken die?

Twenty long Months now I have lov’d a Fair,

And all my Courtship’s ending in Despair.

All Earthly Beauties, scatter’d here and there,

From you, their Source, derive the Charms they bear.

Wing (2nd ed.), B131; Arber’s Term cat.; III 142

Copies – Brit.Isles : British Library

Cambridge University St. John’s College

Oxford University, Bodleian Library

Copies – N.America : Folger Shakespeare

Harvard Houghton Library

Henry E. Huntington

Newberry

UCLA, Clark Memorial Library

University of Illinois

Engraved frontispiece of the Mistress holding a fan,”Bold Poets and rash Painters may aspire With pen and pencill to describe my Faire, Alas; their arts in the performance fayle, And reach not that divine Original, Some Shadd’wy glimpse they may present to view, And this is all poore humane art Can doe▪” title within double rule border, 4-pages of publisher`s advertisements at the end Contemporary calf (worn). . FIRST EDITION. . The author remains unknown.

)§(§)§(

An early Irish female author

2) 377[ BARBER, Mary].1685-1755≠

A true tale To be added to Mr. Gay’s fables.

Dublin. Printed by S. Powell, for George Ewing, at the Angel and Bible in Dame’-street, 1727.

First edition, variant imprint..[Estc version : Dublin : printed by S.[i.e. Sarah] Harding, next door to the sign of the Crown in Copper-Alley, [ca. 1727-1728] 7pp, [1]. Not in ESTC or Foxon; c/f N491542 and N13607. $4,500

[Bound after:]

John GAY

Fables. Invented for the Amusement of His Highness William Duke of Cumberland.

London Printed, and Dublin Reprinted for G. Risk, G. Ewing, and W. Smith, in Dame’s-street, 1727.

First Irish edition. [8], 109pp, [3]. With three terminal pages of advertisements. ESTC T13819, Foxon p.295.

8vo in 4s and 8s. Contemporary speckled calf, contrasting red morocco lettering- piece, gilt. Rubbed to extremities, some chipping to head and foot of spine and cracking to joints, bumping to corners. Occasional marking, some closed tears. Early ink inscription of ‘William Crose, Clithero’ to FEP, further inked-over inscription to head of title.

Mary Barber (1685-1755) claimed that she wrote “chiefly to form the Minds of my Children,” but her often satirical and comic verses suggest that she sought an adult audience as well. The wife of a clothier and mother of four children, she lived in Dublin and enjoyed the patronage of Jonathan Swift. While marriage, motherhood, friendship, education, and other domestic issues are her central themes, they frequently lead her to broader, biting social commentary.

Bound behind this copy of the first edition of the first series of English poet John Gay’s (1685-1732) famed Fables, composed for the youngest son of George II, six-year-old Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, is Irish poet Mary Barber’s (c.1685-c.1755) rare verse appeal to secure a Royal pension for Gay, who had lost his fortune in bursting of the South Sea Bubble.

Barber, the wife of a Dublin woollen draper, was an untutored poet whom Jonathan Swift sponsored, publicly applauded, and cultivated as part of his ‘triumfeminate’ of bluestockings. She wrote initially to educate the children in her large family. Indeed this poem, the fifth of her published works, features imagined dialogue of a son to his mother, designed to encourage, specifically, the patronage of Queen Caroline:

‘Mamma, if you were Queen, says he, And such a Book were writ for me; I find, ’tis so much to your Taste, That Gay wou’d keep his Coach at least’

And of a mother to her son:

‘My Child, What you suppose is true: I see its Excellence in You. Poets, who write to mend the Mind, A Royal Recompence shou’d find.’

ESTC locates two variant Dublin editions, both rare, but neither matching this copy: a first with the title and pagination as here, but with the undated imprint of S. Harding (represented by a single copy at Harvard), and a second with the imprint as here, but with a different title, A tale being an addition to Mr. Gay’s fables, and a pagination of 8pp (represented by copies at the NLI, Oxford, Harvard and Yale). This would appear to be a second variant, and we can find no copies in any of the usual databases.

Mary Barber was an Irish poet who mostly focussed on domestic themes such as marriage and children although the messages in some of her poems suggested a widening of her interests, often making cynical comments on social injustice. She was a member of fellow Irish poet Jonathan Swift’s favoured circle of writers, known as his “triumfeminate”, a select group that also included Mrs E Sican and Constantia Grierson.

She was born sometime around the year 1685 in Dublin but nothing much is known about her education or upbringing. She married a much younger man by the name of Rupert Barber and they had nine children together, although only four survived childhood. She was writing poetry initially for the benefit and education of her children but, by 1725, she had The Widow’s Address published and this was seen as an appeal on behalf of an Army officer’s widow against the social and financial difficulties that such women were facing all the time. Rather than being a simple tale for younger readers here was a biting piece of social commentary, aimed at a seemingly uncaring government.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries it was uncommon for women to become famous writers and yet Barber seemed to possess a “natural genius” where poetry was concerned which was all the more remarkable since she had no formal literary tuition to fall back on. The famous writer Jonathan Swift offered her patronage, recognising a special talent instantly. Indeed, he called her “the best Poetess of both Kingdoms” although his enthusiasm was not necessarily shared by literary critics of the time. It most certainly benefitted her having the support of fellow writers such as Elizabeth Rowe and Mary Delany, and Swift encouraged her to publish a collection in 1734 called Poems on several occasions. The book sold well, mostly by subscription to eminent persons in society and government. The quality of the writing astonished many who wondered how such a simple, sometimes “ailing Irish housewife” could have produced such work.

It took some time for Barber to attain financial stability though and her patron Swift was very much involved in her success. She could have lost his support though because, in a desperate attempt to achieve wider recognition, she wrote letters to many important people, including royalty, with Swift’s signature forged at the end. When he found out about this indiscretion he was not best pleased but he forgave her anyway.

Unfortunately poor health prevented much more coming from her pen during her later years. For over twenty years she suffered from gout and, in fact, wrote poems about the subject for a publication called the Gentleman’s Magazine. It is worth including here an extract from her poem Written for my son, at his first putting on of breeches. It is, in some ways, an apology and an explanation to a child enduring the putting on of an uncomfortable garment for the first time. She suggests in fact that many men have suffered from gout because of the requirement to wear breeches. The first verse of the poem is reproduced here:

Many of her poems were in the form of letters written to distinguished people, such as To The Right Honourable The Lady Sarah Cowper and To The Right Honourable The Lady Elizabeth Boyle On Her Birthday. These, and many more, were published in her 1755 collection Poems by Eminent Ladies. History sees her, unfortunately, as a mother writing to support her children rather than a great poet, and little lasting value has been attributed to her work.

•)§(•

3) 379J BARBER, Mary 1685-1755≠

Poems on Several Occasions

London: printed [by Samuel Richardson] for C. Rivington, at the Bible and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-Yard 1735 $4,500

First octavo edition, 1735, bound in early paper boards with later paper spine and printed spine label, pp. lxiv, 290, (14) index, title with repaired tear, very good. These poems were published the previous year in a quarto edition with a list of influential subscribers (reprinted here); this octavo edition is less common. Barber was the wife of a Dublin clothier and her publication in England was helped by Jonathan Swift, who has (along with the authoress) provided a dedication in this volume to the Earl of Orrery. Constantia Grierson, another Irish poetess, contributes a prefatory poem in praise of Mary Barber.

ESTC Citation No. T42623 ; Maslen, K. Samuel Richardson, 21.; Foxon, p.45. ;Teerink-Scouten [Swift] 747.

)§(§)§(

4). 572G Léonore Gigault de,; O.S.B. Bellefont (Bouhours)

Les OEuvres spirituelles de Madame De Bellefont, religieuse, fondatrice & superieure du convent de Nôtre-Dame des Anges, de l’Ordre de Saint Benoist, à Roüen.Dediées à Madame La Dauphine.

A Paris : Chez Helie Josset, ruë S. Jacques, au coin de la ruë de la Parcheminerie, à la fleur de lys d’or, 1688 $2200

Octavo 6.25 x 3.6 in. a4, e8, i8, o2, A-Z8; Aa-Qq8 ; *8, **4. This copy is very clean and crisp it is bound in contemporary calf with ornately gilt spine. La vie de Madame de Bellefont”, on unnumbered pages preceding numbered text./ “Table des chapitres . . .” and “Stances” and “Paraphrases” in verse on final 24 numbered pages./ In the “Avant propos” this work is ascribed to “feüe madame Lêonore Gigault de Bellefont”, but most authorities credit Laurence Gigault de Bellefont with authorship See Sommervogel I 1908 #25

)§(§)§(

5) 374J [ Susanna CENTLIVRE,]. 1667-1723

The gamester: A Comedy…

London. Printed for William Turner, 1705. $4,000

Quarto. [6], 70pp, [2]. First edition.Without half-title. Later half-vellum, marbled boards, contrasting black morocco lettering-piece. Extremities lightly rubbed and discoloured. Browned, some marginal worming, occasional shaving to running titles.

The first edition of playwright and actress Susanna Centlivre’s (bap. 1667?, d. 1723) convoluted gambling comedy, adapted from French dramatist Jean Francois Regnard’s (1655-1709) Le Jouer (1696). The Gamester met with tremendous success and firmly established Centlivre as a part the pantheon of celebrated seventeenth-century playwrights, yet the professional life of the female dramatist remained complicated, with many of her works, as here, being published anonymously and accompanied by a prologue implying a male author.

CENTLIVRE, English dramatic writer and actress, was born about 1667, probably in Ireland, where her father, a Lincolnshire gentleman named Freeman, had been forced to flee at the Restoration on account of his political sympathies. When sixteen she married the nephew of Sir Stephen Fox, and on his death within a year she married an officer named Carroll, who was killed in a duel. Left in poverty, she began to support herself, writing for the stage, and some of her early plays are signed S. Carroll. In 1706 she married Joseph Centlivre, chief cook to Queen Anne, who survived her.

ESTC T26860.

•)§(•

An early Irish female author

)§(§)§(

Political satire by An early Irish female author

6) 375J. Sussana Centlivre

The Gotham Election, A farce.

(London 🙂 printed and sold by S. Keimer,1715. $ 1,900

The Gotham Election, one of the first satires to tackle electioneering and bribery in eighteenth century British politics. It proved to be so controversial that, despite Centlivre’s popularity as a playwright, it was supressed from being performed during the turbulent year of 1715. Centlivre was renowned as one of the greatest female playwrights of her day, and her plays, predominately comedies, were responsible for the development of the careers of actors such as David Garrick. However, despite her popularity, she also made enemies in the literary world of the early-eighteenth century. Most notably Alexander Pope, who, in his Dunciad, referred to her as a ‘slip-shod Muse’, possibly in reference to her participation in the work The Nine Muses, which was published in 1700 to commemorate the death of John Dryden.

English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT26854

•)§(•

A collection of Poems and Letters by Christian mystic and prolific writer, Jeanne-Marie Guyon published in Dublin.

7) 348J François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon 1651-1715 & Josiah Martin 1683-1747 & Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon 1648-1717

A dissertation on pure love, by the Arch-Bishop of Cambray. With an account of the life and writings of the Lady, for whose sake The Archbishop was banish’d from Court: And the grievous Persecution she suffer’d in France for her Religion. Also Two Letters in French and English, written by one of the Lady’s Maids, during her Confinement in the Castle of Vincennes, where she was Prisoner Eight Years. One of the Letters was writ with a Bit of Stick instead of a Pen, and Soot instead of Ink, to her Brother; the other to a Clergyman. Together with an apologetic preface. Containing divers letters of the Archbishop of Cambray, to the Duke of Burgundy, the present French King’s Father, and other Persons of Distinction. And divers letters of the lady to Persons of Quality, relating to her Religious Principles

Dublin : printed by Isaac Jackson, in Meath-Street, [1739]. $ 4,000

Octavo 7 3/4 x 5 inches First and only English edition. Bound in Original sheep, with a quite primitive repair to the front board.

Fenélon’s text appears to consist largely of extracts from ’Les oeuvres spirituelles’. The preface, account of Jeanne Marie Guyon etc. is compiled by Josiah Martin. The text of the letters, and poems, is in French and English. This is an Astonishing collection of letters and poems.

“JOSIAH MARTIN, (1683–1747), quaker, was born near London in 1683. He became a good classical scholar, and is spoken of by Gough, the translator of Madame Guyon’s Life, 1772, as a man whose memory is esteemed for ‘learning, humility, and fervent piety.’ He died unmarried, 18 Dec. 1747, in the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, and was buried in the Friends’ burial-ground, Bunhill Fields. He left the proceeds of his library of four thousand volumes to be divided among nephews and nieces. Joseph Besse [q. v.] was his executor.

Martin’s name is best known in connection with ‘A Letter from one of the People called Quakers to Francis de Voltaire, occasioned by his Remarks on that People in his Letters concerning the English Nation,’ London, 1741. It was twice reprinted, London and Dublin, and translated into French. It is a temperate and scholarly treatise, and was in much favour at the time.

Of his other works the chief are: 1. ‘A Vindication of Women’s Preaching, as well from Holy Scripture and Antient Writings as from the Paraphrase and Notes of the Judicious John Locke, wherein the Observations of B[enjamin] C[oole] on the said Paraphrase . . . and the Arguments in his Book entitled “Reflections,” &c, are fullv considered,’ London, 1717. 2. ‘The Great Case of Tithes truly stated … by Anthony Pearson [q. v.] . . . to which is added a Defence of some other Principles held by the People call’d Quakers . . .,’ London, 1730. 3. ‘A Letter concerning the Origin, Reason, and Foundation of the Law of Tithes in England,’ 1732. He also edited, with an ‘Apologetic Preface,’ comprising more than half the book, and containing many additional letters from Fénelon and Madame Guyon, ‘The Archbishop of Cambray’s Dissertation on Pure Love, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the Lady for whose sake he was banish’d from Court,’ London, 1735.

[Joseph Smith’s Catalogue of Friends’ Books; works quoted above; Life of Madame Guyon, Bristol, 1772, pt. i. errata; registers at Devonshire House; will P.C.C. 58 Strahan, at Somerset House.]

C. F. S.

Fénelon was nominated in February, 1696, Fénelon was consecrated in August of the same year by Bossuet in the chapel of Saint-Cyr. The future of the young prelate looked brilliant, when he fell into deep disgrace.

The cause of Fénelon’s trouble was his connection with Madame Guyon, whom he had met in the society of his friends, the Beauvilliers and the Chevreuses. She was a native of Orléans, which she left when about twenty-eight years old, a widowed mother of three children, to carry on a sort of apostolate of mysticism, under the direction of Père Lacombe, a Barnabite. After many journeys to Geneva, and through Provence and Italy, she set forth her ideas in two works, “Le moyen court et facile de faire oraison” and “Les torrents spirituels”. In exaggerated language characteristic of her visionary mind, she presented a system too evidently founded on the Quietism of Molinos, that had just been condemned by Innocent XI in 1687. There were, however, great divergencies between the two systems. Whereas Molinos made man’s earthly perfection consist in a state of uninterrupted contemplation and love, which would dispense the soul from all active virtue and reduce it to absolute inaction, Madame Guyon rejected with horror the dangerous conclusions of Molinos as to the cessation of the necessity of offering positive resistance to temptation. Indeed, in all her relations with Père Lacombe, as well as with Fénelon, her virtuous life was never called in doubt. Soon after her arrival in Paris she became acquainted with many pious persons of the court and in the city, among them Madame de Maintenon and the Ducs de Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, who introduced her to Fénelon. In turn, he was attracted by her piety, her lofty spirituality, the charm of her personality, and of her books. It was not long, however, before the Bishop of Chartres, in whose diocese Saint-Cyr was, began to unsettle the mind of Madame de Maintenon by questioning the orthodoxy of Madame Guyon’s theories. The latter, thereupon, begged to have her works submitted to an ecclesiastical commission composed of Bossuet, de Noailles, who was then Bishop of Châlons, later Archbishop of Paris, and M. Tronson; superior of-Saint-Sulpice. After an examination which lasted six months, the commission delivered its verdict in thirty-four articles known as the “Articles d’ Issy”, from the place near Paris where the commission sat. These articles, which were signed by Fénelon and the Bishop of Chartres, also by the members of the commission, condemned very briefly Madame Guyon’s ideas, and gave a short exposition of the Catholic teaching on prayer. Madame Guyon submitted to the condemnation, but her teaching spread in England, and Protestants, who have had her books reprinted have always expressed sympathy with her views. Cowper translated some of her hymns into English verse; and her autobiography was translated into English by Thomas Digby (London, 1805) and Thomas Upam (New York, 1848). Her books have been long forgotten in France.

Jeanne Marie Guyon

b. 1648, Montargis, France; d. 1717, Blois, France

A Christian mystic and prolific writer, Jeanne-Marie Guyon advocated a form of spirituality that led to conflict with authorities and incarceration. She was raised in a convent, then married off to a wealthy older man at the age of sixteen. When her husband died in 1676, she embarked on an evangelical mission to convert Protestants to her brand of spirituality, a mild form of quietism, which propounded the notion that through complete passivity (quiet) of the soul, one could become an agent of the divine. Guyon traveled to Geneva, Turin, and Grenoble with her mentor, Friar François Lacombe, at the same time producing several manuscripts: Les torrents spirituels (Spiritual Torrents); an 8,000-page commentary on the Bible; and her most important work, the Moyen court et très facile de faire oraison (The Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer, 1685). Her activities aroused suspicion; she was arrested in 1688 and committed to the convent of the Visitation in Paris, where she began writing an autobiography. Released within a few months, she continued proselytizing, meanwhile attracting several male disciples. In 1695, the Catholic church declared quietism heretical, and Guyon was locked up in the Bastille until 1703. Upon her release, she retired to her son’s estate in Blois. Her writings were published in forty-five volumes from 1712 to 1720.

Her writings began to be published in Holland in 1704, and brought her new admirers. Englishmen and Germans–among them Wettstein and Lord Forbes–visited her at Blois. Through them Madame Guyon’s doctrines became known among Protestants and in that soil took vigorous root. But she did not live to see this unlooked-for diffusion of her writings. She passed away at Blois, at the age of sixty-eight, protesting in her will that she died submissive to the Catholic Church, from which she had never had any intention of separating herself. Her doctrines, like her life, have nevertheless given rise to the widest divergences of opinion. Her published works (the “Moyen court” and the “Règles des assocées à l’Enfance de Jésus”) having been placed on the Index in 1688, and Fénelon’s “Maximes des saints” branded with the condemnation of both the pope and the bishops of France, the Church has thus plainly reprobated Madame Guyon’s doctrines, a reprobation which the extravagance of her language would in itself sufficiently justify. Her strange conduct brought upon her severe censures, in which she could see only manifestations of spite. Evidently, she too often fell short of due reserve and prudence; but after all that can be said in this sense, it must be acknowledged that her morality appears to have given no grounds for serious reproach. Bossuet, who was never indulgent in her regard, could say before the full assembly of the French clergy: “As to the abominations which have been held to be the result of her principles, there was never any question of the horror she testified for them.” It is remarkable, too, that her disciples at the Court of Louis XIV were always persons of great piety and of exemplary life.

On the other hand, Madame Guyon’s warmest partisans after her death were to be found among the Protestants. It was a Dutch Protestant, the pastor Poiret, who began the publication of her works; a Vaudois pietist pastor, Duthoit-Mambrini, continued it. Her “Life” was translated into English and German, and her ideas, long since forgotten in France, have for generations been in favour in Germany, Switzerland, England, and among Methodists in America. ”

P.144 misnumbered 134. Price from imprint: price a British Half-Crown. Dissertain 16p and Directions for a holy life 5p. DNB includes this in Martin’s works

Copies – Brit.Isles. : British Library, Dublin City Library, National Library of Ireland Trinity College Library

Copies – N.America. : Bates College, Harvard University, Haverford Col , Library Company of Philadelphia, Newberry, Pittsburgh Theological Princeton University, University of Illinois University of Toronto, Library

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8) 362J James FISHER and [Martha HATFIELD].

The wise virgin: or, A wonderfull narration of the various dispensations of God towards a childe of eleven years of age; wherein as his severity hath appeared in afflicting, so also his goodness both in enabling her (when stricken dumb, deaf, and blind, through the prevalency of her disease) at several times to utter many glorious truths concerning Christ, faith, and other subjects; and also in recovering her without the use of any external means, lest the glory should be given to any other. To the wonderment of many that came far and neer to see and hear her. With some observations in the fourth year since her recovery. She is the daughter of Mr. Anthony Hatfield gentleman, in Laughton in York-shire; her name is Martha Hatfield. The third edition enlarged, with some passages of her gracious conversation now in the time of health. By James Fisher, servant of Christ, and minister of the Gospel in Sheffield.

LONDON: Printed for John Rothwell, at the Fountain, in Cheap-side. 1656 $3,300 Octavo, 143 x 97 x 23 mm (binding), 139 x 94 x 18 mm (text block). A-M8, N3. Lacks A1, blank or portrait? [26], 170 pp. Bound in contemporary calf, upper board reattached, somewhat later marbled and blank ends. Leather rubbed with minor loss to extremities. Interior: Title stained, leaves soiled, gathering N browned, long vertical tear to E2 without loss, tail fore-corner of F8 torn away, with loss of a letter, side notes of B2v trimmed. This is a remarkable survival of the third edition of the popular interregnum account of Sheffield Presbyterian minister James Fisher’s 11-year-old niece Martha Hatfield’s prophetic dialogues following her recovery from a devastating catalepsy that had left her “dumb, deaf, and blind.” Mar tha’s disease, which defies modern retro-diagnostics, was at the time characterized as “spleenwinde,” a term even the Oxford English Dictionary has overlooked. Her sufferings were as variable as they were extraordinary the young girl at one point endured a 17-day fugue state during which her eyes remained open and fixed and she gnashed her teeth to the breaking point. In counterpoise to the horrors of her infirmity, her utterances in periods of remission and upon recovery were of great purity and sweetness; it is this stark contrast that was, and is, the persistent allure of this little book. The Wise Virgin appeared five times between 1653 and 1665; some editions have a portrait frontispiece, and it is entirely possible that the present third edition should have one at A1v, though the copy scanned by Early English Books Online does not. Copies located at Yale, and at Oxford (from which the EEBO copy was made). ONLY Wing F1006.

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122F Mary de la Rivière Manley 1663-1724

Secret memoirs and manners of several persons of quality of both sexes. From the New Atalantis, an island in the Mediteranean.

London: Printed for John Morphew, and J. Woodward, 1709 $4500

Octavo 7 1/2 X4 3/4 inches I. A4, B-Q8, R4. Second edition. This jewel of a book is expertly bound in antique style full paneled calf with a gilt spine. It is a lovely copy indeed.

The most important of the scandal chronicles of the early eighteenth century, a form made popular and practiced with considerable success by Mrs. Manley and Eliza Haywood.

Mrs. Manley was important in her day not only as a novelist, but as a Tory propagandist.

Her fiction “exhibited her taste for intrigue, and impudently slandered many persons of note, especially those of Whiggish proclivities.” – D.N.B. “Mrs. Manley’s scandalous ‘revelations’ appealed immediately to the prurient curiosity of her first audience ; but they continued to be read because they succeeded in providing certain satisfactions fundamental to fiction itself. In other words, the scandal novel or ‘chronicle’ of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Haywood was a successful form, a tested commercial pattern, because it presented an opportunity for its readers to participate vicariously in an erotically exciting and glittering fantasy world of aristocratic corruption and promiscuity.” – Richetti, Popular Fiction before Richardson.

The story concerns the return to earth of the goddess of justice, Astrea, to gather information about private and public behavior on the island of Atalantis. Delarivier Manley drew on her own experiences as well as on an obsessive observation of her milieu to produce this fast-paced narrative of political and erotic intrigue. New Atalantis (1709) is an early and influential example of satirical political writing by a woman. It was suppressed on the grounds of its scandalous nature and Manley (1663-1724) was arrested and tried. Astrea [Justice] descends on the island of Atalantis, meets her mother Virtue, who tries to escape this world of »Interest« in which even the lovers have deserted her. Both visit Angela [London]. Lady Intelligence comments on all stories of interest. p.107: the sequel of »Histories« turns into the old type of satire with numerous scandals just being mentioned (e.g. short remarks on visitors of a horse race or coaches in the Prado [Hyde-Park]). The stories are leveled against leading Whig politicians – they seduce and ruin women. Yet detailed analysis of situations and considerations on actions which could be taken by potential victims. Even the weakest female victims get their chances to win (and gain decent marriages) the more desperate we are about strategic mistakes and a loss of virtue which prevents the heroines from taking the necessary steps. The stories have been praised for their »warmth« and breathtaking turns.

Manley was taken into custody nine days after the publication of the second volume of Secret Memories and Manners of several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes, from the New Atalantis, an island in the Mediterranean on 29 October 1709. Manley apparently surrendered herself after a secretary John Morphew and John Woodward and printer John Barber had been detained. Four days later the latter were discharged, but Manley remained in custody until 5 November when she was released on bail. After several continuations of the case, she was tried and discharged on 13 February 1710. Rivella provides the only account of the case itself in which Manley claims she defended herself on grounds that her information came by ‘inspiration’ and rebuked her judges for bringing ‘w woman to her trial for writing a few amorous trifles’ (pp. 110-11). This and the first volume which appeared in May 1709 were Romans a clef with separately printed keys. Each offered a succession of narratives of seduction and betrayal by notorious Whig grandees to Astrea, an allegorical figure of justice, by largely female narrators, including an allegorical figure of Intelligence and a midwife. In Rivella, Manley claims that her trial led her to conclude that ‘politics is not the business of a woman’ (p. 112) and that thereafter she turned exclusively to stories of love.

Delarivier Manley was in her day as well-known and potent a political satirist as her friend and co-editor Jonathan Swift. A fervent Tory, Manley skilfully interweaves sexual and political allegory in the tradition of the roman a clef in an acerbic vilification of her Whig opponents. The book’s publication in 1709 – fittingly the year of the collapse of the Whig ministry – caused a scandal which led to the arrest of the author, publisher and printer.

The book exposed the relationship of Queen Anne and one of her advisers, Sarah Churchill. Along with this, Manley’s piece examined the idea of female intimacy and its implications. The implications of female intimacy are important to Manley because of the many rumours of the influence that Churchill held over Queen Anne. ESTC T075114; McBurney 45a; Morgan 459.

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9) 103gPhilips, Katherine.1631-1664

Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus

London: printed by W.B. for Bernard Lintott, 1705 $5,500

Octavo,6.75 X 3.75 inches. First edition A-R8 Bound in original calf totally un-restored a very nice original condition copy with only some browning, spotting and damp staining, It is a very good copy.

It is housed in a custom Box.

10) 376J Mary Pix 1666-1720

The conquest of Spain: a tragedy. As it is Acted by Her Majesty’s Servants at the Queen’s Theatre In the Hay-Market

London : printed for Richard Wellington, at the Dolphin and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1705. $4,500

Quarto [A]-K4. First Edition . (Anonymous. By Mary Pix. Adapted from “All’s lost by lust”, by William Rowley)

Inspired by Aphra Behn, Mary Pix was among the most popular playwrights on the 17th-century theatre circuit, but fell out of fashion.

“It is so rare to find a play from that period that’s powered by a funny female protagonist. I was immensely surprised by the brilliance of the writing. It is witty and forthright. Pix was writing plays that not only had more women in the cast than men but women who were managing their destinies.”

Pix was born in 1666, the year of the Great Fire of London, and grew up in the culturally rich time of Charles II. With the prolific Aphra Behn (1640-1689) as her role model, Pix burst on to the London theatre and literary scene in 1696 with two plays – one a tragedy: Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks, the other a farce – The Spanish Wives. Pix also wrote a novel – The Inhuman Cardinal.

Her subsequent plays, mostly comedies, became a staple in the repertory of Thomas Betterton’s company Duke’s at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and later at the Queen’s Theatre. She wrote primarily for particular actors, such as Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle, who were hugely popular and encouraged a whole generation of women writers.

In a patriarchal world dominated by self-important men, making a mark as a woman was an uphill struggle. “There was resistance to all achieving women in the 18th century, a lot of huffing and puffing by overbearing male chauvinists,” says Bush-Bailey.

“Luckily for Pix and the other women playwrights of that time, the leading actresses were powerful and influential. I think it was they who mentored people such as Pix and Congreve.”

Davies believes the women playwrights of the 1700s – Susanna Centlivre, Catherine Trotter Cockburn, Delarivier Manley and Hannah Cowley – “unquestionably” held their own against the men who would put them down. “What’s difficult is that they were attacked for daring to write plays at all,” she says.

One of the most blatant examples of male hostility came in the form of an anonymously written parody entitled The Female Wits in 1696, in which Mary Pix was caricatured as “Mrs Wellfed, a fat female author, a sociable, well-natur’d companion that will not suffer martyrdom rather than take off three bumpers [alcoholic drinks] in a hand”.

While Pix’s sociability and taste for good food and wine was common knowledge, she was known to be a universally popular member of the London literary and theatrical circuit.

“The Female Wits was probably written, with malice, by George Powell of the Drury Lane Company,” says Bush-Bailey. “It was a cheap, satirical jibe at the successful women playwrights of the time, making out they were all bitching behind each others’ backs. So far as one can tell, it was just spiteful and scurrilous.”

Mary Pix (1666 – 17 May 1709) was an English novelist and playwright. As an admirer of Aphra Behn and colleague of Susanna Centlivre, Pix has been called “a link between women writers of the Restoration and Augustan periods”.

The Dramatis personae from a 1699 edition of Pix’s The False Friend.

Mary Griffith Pix was born in 1666, the daughter of a rector, musician and Headmaster of the Royal Latin School, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire; her father, Roger Griffith, died when she was very young, but Mary and her mother continued to live in the schoolhouse after his death. She was courted by her father’s successor Thomas Dalby, but he left with the outbreak of smallpox in town, just one year after the mysterious fire that burned the schoolhouse. Rumour had it that Mary and Dalby had been making love rather energetically and overturned a candle which set fire to the bedroom.

In 1684, at the age of 18, Mary Griffith married George Pix (a merchant tailor from Hawkhurst, Kent). The couple moved to his country estate in Kent. Her first son, George (b. 1689), died very young in 1690.[3] The next year the couple moved to London and she gave birth to another son, William (b. 1691).

In 1696, when Pix was thirty years old, she first emerged as a professional writer, publishing The Inhumane Cardinal; or, Innocence Betrayed, her first and only novel, as well as two plays, Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperour of the Turks and The Spanish Wives.

Though from quite different backgrounds, Pix quickly became associated with two other playwrights who emerged in the same year: Delariviere Manley and Catherine Trotter. The three female playwrights attained enough public success that they were criticised in the form of an anonymous satirical play The Female Wits (1696). Mary Pix appears as “Mrs. Wellfed one that represents a fat, female author. A good rather sociable, well-matured companion that would not suffer martyrdom rather than take off three bumpers in a hand”.[4] She is depicted as an ignorant woman, though amiable and unpretentious. Pix is summarised as “foolish and openhearted”.

Her first play was put on stage in 1696 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, near her house in London but when that same theatrical company performed The Female Wits, she moved to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. They said of her that “she has boldly given us an essay of her talent … and not without success, though with little profit to herself”. (Morgan, 1991: xii).

In the season of 1697–1698, Pix became involved in a plagiarism scandal with George Powell. Powell was a rival playwright and the manager of the Drury Lane theatrical company. Pix sent her play, The Deceiver Deceived to Powell’s company, as a possible drama for them to perform. Powell rejected the play but kept the manuscript and then proceeded to write and perform a play called The Imposture Defeated, which had a plot and main character taken directly from The Deceiver Deceived. In the following public backlash, Pix accused Powell of stealing her work and Powell claimed that instead he and Pix had both drawn their plays from the same source material, an unnamed novel. In 1698, an anonymous writer, now believed to be Powell, published a letter called “To the Ingenious Mr. _____.” which attacked Pix and her fellow female playwright Trotter. The letter attempted to malign Pix on various issues, such as her spelling and presumption in publishing her writing. Though Pix’s public reputation was not damaged and she continued writing after the plagiarism scandal, she stopped putting her name on her work and after 1699 she only included her name on one play, in spite of the fact that she is believed to have written at least seven more. Scholars still discuss the attribution of plays to Pix, notably whether or not she wrote Zelmane; or, The Corinthian Queen (1705).

In May 1707 Pix published A Poem, Humbly Inscrib’d to the Lords Commissioners for the Union of the Two Kingdoms. This would be her final appearance in print. She died two years later.

Few of the female playwrights of Mary Pix’s time came from a theatrical background and none came from the aristocracy: within a century, most successful actresses and female authors came from a familiar tradition of literature and theatre but Mary Pix and her contemporaries were from outside this world and had little in common with one another apart from a love for literature and a middle-class background.

At the time of Mary Pix, “The ideal of the one-breadwinner family had not yet become dominant”, whereas in 18th-century families it was normal for the woman to stay at home taking care of the children, house and servants, in Restoration England husband and wife worked together in familiar enterprises that sustained them both and female playwrights earned the same wage as their male counterparts.

Morgan also points out that “till the close of the period, authorship was not generally advertised on playbills, nor always proclaimed when plays were printed”, which made it easier for female authors to hide their identity so as to be more easily accepted among the most conservative audiences.

As Morgan states, “plays were valued according to how they performed and not by who wrote them. When authorship ―female or otherwise― remained a matter of passing interest, female playwrights were in an open and equal market with their male colleagues”.

Pix’s plays were very successful among contemporary audiences. Each play ran for at least four to five nights and some were even brought back for additional shows years later.[10] Her tragedies were quite popular, because she managed to mix extreme action with melting love scenes. Many critics believed that Pix’s best pieces were her comedies. Pix’s comedic work was lively and full of double plots, intrigue, confusion, songs, dances and humorous disguise. An Encyclopaedia of British Women Writers (1998) points out that

Forced or unhappy marriages appear frequently and prominently in the comedies. Pix is not, however, writing polemics against the forced marriage but using it as a plot device and sentimentalizing the unhappily married person, who is sometimes rescued and married more satisfactorily.”(Schlueter & Schlueter, 1998: 513)

Although some contemporary women writers, like Aphra Behn, have been rediscovered, even the most specialised scholars have little knowledge of works by writers such as Catherine Trotter, Delarivier Manley or Mary Pix, despite the fact that plays like The Beau Defeated (1700), present with a wider range of female characters than plays written by men at the time. Pix’s plays generally had eight or nine female roles, while plays by male writers only had two or three.[

A production of The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich (or The Beau Defeated) played as part of the 2018 season at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Pix produced one novel and seven plays. There are four other plays that were published anonymously, that are generally attributed to her.

Melinda Finberg notes that “a frequent motif in all her works is sexual violence and female victimization” – be that rape or murder (in the tragedies) or forcible confinement or the threat of rape (in the comedies).

^ Kramer, Annette (June 1994). “Mary Pix’s Nebulous Relationship to Zelmane”. Notes and Queries. 41 (2): 186–187. doi:10.1093/nq/41-2-186

PIX, Mrs. MARY (1666–1720?), dramatist, born in 1666 at Nettlebed in Oxfordshire, was daughter of the Rev. Roger Griffith, vicar of that place. Her mother, whose maiden name was Lucy Berriman, claimed descent from the ‘very considerable family of the Wallis’s.’ In the dedication of ‘The Spanish Wives’ Mrs. Pix speaks of meeting Colonel Tipping ‘at Soundess,’ or Soundness. This house, which was close to Nettlebed, was the property of John Wallis, eldest son of the mathematician. Mary Griffith’s father died before 1684, and on 24 July in that year she married in London, at St. Saviour’s, Benetfink, George Pix (b. 1660), a merchant tailor of St. Augustine’s parish. His family was connected with Hawkhurst, Kent. By him she had one child, who was buried at Hawkhurst in 1690.

It was in 1696, in which year Colley Cibber, Mrs. Manley, Catharine Cockburn (Mrs. Trotter), and Lord Lansdowne also made their débuts, that Mrs. Pix first came into public notice. She produced at Dorset Garden, and then printed, a blank-verse tragedy of ‘Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks.’ When it was too late, she discovered that she should have written ‘Ibrahim the Twelfth.’ This play she dedicated to the Hon. Richard Minchall of Bourton, a neighbour of her country days. In the same year (1696) Mary Pix published a novel, ‘The Inhuman Cardinal,’ and a farce, ‘The Spanish Wives,’ which had enjoyed a very considerable success at Dorset Garden.

From this point she devoted herself to dramatic authorship with more activity than had been shown before her time by any woman except Mrs. Afra Behn [q. v.] In 1697 she produced at Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and then published, a comedy of ‘The Innocent Mistress.’ This play, which was very successful, shows the influence of Congreve upon the author, and is the most readable of her productions. The prologue and epilogue were written by Peter Anthony Motteux [q. v.] It was followed the next year by ‘The Deceiver Deceived,’ a comedy which failed, and which involved the poetess in a quarrel. She accused George Powell [q. v.], the actor, of having seen the manuscript of her play, and of having stolen from it in his ‘Imposture Defeated.’ On 8 Sept. 1698 an anonymous ‘Letter to Mr. Congreve’ was published in the interests of Powell, from which it would seem that Congreve had by this time taken Mary Pix under his protection, with Mrs. Trotter, and was to be seen ‘very gravely with his hat over his eyes … together with the two she-things called Poetesses’ (see GOSSE, Life of Congreve, pp. 123–5). Her next play was a tragedy of ‘Queen Catharine,’ brought out at Lincoln’s Inn, and published in 1698. Mrs. Trotter wrote the epilogue. In her own prologue Mary Pix pays a warm tribute to Shakespeare. ‘The False Friend’ followed, at the same house, in 1699; the title of this comedy was borrowed three years later by Vanbrugh.

Hitherto Mary Pix had been careful to put her name on her title-pages or dedications; but the comedy of ‘The Beau Defeated’—undated, but published in 1700—though anonymous, is certainly hers. In 1701 she produced a tragedy of ‘The Double Distress.’ Two more plays have been attributed to Mary Pix by Downes. One of these is ‘The Conquest of Spain,’ an adaptation from Rowley’s ‘All’s lost by Lust,’ which was brought out at the Queen’s theatre in the Haymarket, ran for six nights, and was printed anonymously in 1705 (DOWNE, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 48). Finally, the comedy of the ‘Adventures in Madrid’ was acted at the same house with Mrs. Bracegirdle in the cast, and printed anonymously and without date. It has been attributed by the historians of the drama to 1709; but a copy in the possession of the present writer has a manuscript note of date of publication ‘10 August 1706.’

Nearly all our personal impression of Mary Pix is obtained from a dramatic satire entitled ‘The Female Wits; or, the Triumvirate of Poets.’ This was acted at Drury Lane Theatre about 1697, but apparently not printed until 1704, after the death of the author, Mr. W. M. It was directed at the three women who had just come forward as competitors for dramatic honours—Mrs. Pix, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Trotter [see Cockburn, Catharine]. Mrs. Pix, who is described as ‘a fat Female Author, a good, sociable, well-natur’d Companion, that will not suffer Martyrdom rather than take off three Bumpers in a Hand,’ was travestied by Mrs. Powell under the name of ‘Mrs. Wellfed.’

The style of Mrs. Pix confirms the statements of her contemporaries that though, as she says in the dedication of the ‘Spanish Wives,’ she had had an inclination to poetry from childhood, she was without learning of any sort. She is described as ‘foolish and open-hearted,’ and as being ‘big enough to be the Mother of the Muses.’ Her fatness and her love of good wine were matters of notoriety. Her comedies, though coarse, are far more decent than those of Mrs. Behn, and her comic bustle of dialogue is sometimes entertaining. Her tragedies are intolerable. She had not the most superficial idea of the way in which blank verse should be written, pompous prose, broken irregularly into lengths, being her ideal of versification.

The writings of Mary Pix were not collected in her own age, nor have they been reprinted since. Several of them have become exceedingly rare. An anonymous tragedy, ‘The Czar of Muscovy,’ published in 1702, a week after her play of ‘The Double Distress,’ has found its way into lists of her writings, but there is no evidence identifying it with her in any way. She was, however, the author of ‘Violenta, or the Rewards of Virtue, turn’d from Bocacce into Verse,’ 1704.

[Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 2nd ser. v. 110–3; Vicar-General’s Marriage Licences (Harl. Soc.), 1679–87, p. 173; Baker’s Biogr. Dramatica; Doran’s Annals of the English Stage, i. 243; Mrs. Pix’s works; Genest’s Hist. Account of the Stage.].

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11) 296J Mademoiselle Madeleine de Scudéri (1607-1701) A triumphant arch erected and consecrated to the glory of the feminine sexe: by Monsieur de Scudery: Englished by I.B. gent.London : printed for William Hope, and Henry Herringman, at the blew Anchor behind the Old Exchange, and at the blew Anchor in the lower walk in the New Exchange, 1656. $1,300

Octavo A4 (lacking a1&a4) B-P8 Q3 (A1 blank?). Title in red and black; title vignette (motto: “Dum spiro spero”) First edition,Authorship ascribed to Madeleine de Scudéry by Brunet; according to other authorities the work was written by both Georges de Scudéry and his sister. This copy is lacking A1 &a4 index f., titled holed, browned and with marginal repairs (without loss), stained, lightly browned, corners worn, rubbed, contemporary sheep, rebacked,Very rare on the market the last copy I could find at auction was in 1967 ($420)Scudéry was the most popular novelist in her time, read in French in volume installments all over Europe and translated into English, German, Italian, and even Arabic. But she was also a charismatic figure in French salon culture, a woman who supported herself through her writing and defended women’s education .Scudéry’s role as a model for women writers and for women’s education has also been an important topic of recent criticism. Critics including Jane Donaworth and Patricia Hannon have discussed her as an important influence on later women authors and even as a proto-feminist. Helen Osterman Borowitz has attempted to draw direct connections between Scudéry and the great French novelist Germaine de Staël. Critics have long acknowledged, however, that Scudéry was not only an influence on women novelists. Some have suggested that she also opened up new political possibilities. For example, Leonard Hinds has claimed that the collaborative model of authorship that existed in the salons was also a model for an alternative to absolutism, while Joan DeJean has suggested that her work can be seen as a response to political events of her age.In 1641 Madeleine published her first novel, Ibrahim ou l’illustre Bassa, under her brother’s name. This practice of using the name of her brother as her pseudonymous signature was one that she continued for most of her prolific career as a writer, despite the fact that her own authorship was openly acknowledged in the gazettes, memoirs, and letters of the time. Although the precise nature of his contributions is uncertain, Georges did clearly collaborate to some extent with his sister in the writing of her novels, and he wrote the prefaces to several of her books.

She won the first prize for eloquence awarded by the Académie Française (1671), but was barred from membership. Several academicians had attempted to lift the ban against women so that she could join their ranks, to no avail. Although her own authorship was widely acknowledged at the time, she used the name of her brother, Georges de Scudéry, as a pseudonymous signature throughout her career (Dejean)

Wing (2nd ed.), S2163 ,Thomason, E.1604[4]

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Selected Letters, Orations and Rhetorical Dialogues. Ed. and trans. Jane Donawerth and Julie Strongson. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 8.

John Conley, “Madeleine de Scudéry,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/madeleine-scudery/.

Joan Dejean. Scudéry, Madeleine de (1608-1701). The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French (Oxford University Press 1995, 2005).

“Scudéry, Madeleine De (1607–1701).” Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. . Encyclopedia.com. 11 Apr. 2019

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12) 323J Madeleine Vigneron (1628-1667)

La vie et la conduite spirituelle de Mademoiselle M. Vigneron. Suivant les mémoires qu’elle en a laissez par l’ordre de son directeur (M. Bourdin). [Arranged and edited by him.].

Paris: Chez Pierre de Launay, 1689. $3,200

Octavo 7 x 4 3/4 inches ã8 e8 A-2R8 (2R8 blank). Second and preferred edition first published in 1679. This copy is bound in contemporary brown calf, five raised bands on spine, gilt floral tools in the compartments, second compartment titled in gilt; corners and spine extremities worn; three old joint repairs; on the front binder’s blank is an early ownership four-line inscription in French dated 1704, of

Sister Monique Vanden Heuvel, at the priory of Sion de Vilvoorde (Belgium).

Overall a fine copy.

This is the stirring journal that Madeleine Vigneron , member of the Third Order of the Minims of St. Francis of Paola, she began to keep it in 1653 and continued until her premature death, (1667) It was first published in 1679 and again in the present second, and final, edition which is more complete than the first. Added are Madeleine’s series of 78 letters representing her spiritual correspondence.IMG_1410

In these autobiographical writings, which were collected and published by her Director, the Minim Matthieu Bourdin, Madeleine speaks of the illnesses that plagued her since childhood and greatly handicapped her throughout a life that she dedicated to God by caring for the poor. She received admirable lights on the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, on the mysteries of the spiritual life. The hagiographers have remarked her austerity, her patience, her insatiable desire to suffer for God. Those who knew her perceived in her a virtuous life that impressed them.

This is a very rare book: the combined resources of NUC and OCLC locate only one copy in America, at the University of Dayton which also holds the only American copy of the 1679 edition.

§ Cioranescu 66466 (the 1679 edition).

checklist of early modern writings by nuns

Carr, Thomas M., “A Checklist of Published Writings in French by Early Modern Nuns” (2007). French Language and Literature Papers. 52.

)§(§)§(

End

Updated! A Dozen Early Modern Books by Women Author INDEX J.B. 346J Mary Barber 377J Mary Barber 373J Madam De Bellefont 572G Susanna Centlivre 347J…

#female wits #Irish women #Nuns

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blockheadbrands · 5 years ago

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The History of Hybrids: How Breeding And Selection Led to Modern Marijuana

High Times Reports:

How breeding projects and careful selection have led to modern marijuana.

By Joe Bender, Cannabis Crop Solutions, LLC

Cannabis growers are always searching for the next remarkable strain. The countless flavors and multitude of effects combine to create endless possibilities. In the last 60 years, breeders have capitalized on the diversity of cannabis more than ever before, crossing strains from around the globe.

Today, as cannabis laws become more tolerant in North America and elsewhere, breeding is becoming easier than ever before, which is reflected by the number of strains available through seed distributors. As you browse a seed catalog and contemplate which strains to buy, you might ask yourself, “Where did all of these strains come from?” The story is complicated for many modern strains, which are often hybrids of hybrids. But the key building blocks of many strains are a relatively few, very important breeding projects and landraces.

Understanding the history of the modern hybrid has value beyond musing about cannabis lore. Familiarity with strain lineage can help guide seed or clone purchases. Commercial growers and dispensaries benefit from diverse strain collections, which are attractive to customers with various needs, so knowing how to select a wide spectrum of flavors and effects is a useful skill. Growers should also understand the environmental requirements for their strains and which cultural practices might work best for each one, and these factors are heavily influenced by lineage. Furthermore, breeding for strain diversity and quality in the future will require thoughtful selection, and will be benefited by knowledge of strains of the past.

Cannabis’s Taxing Taxonomy

There are several distinct types of cannabis. Although taxonomists have often disagreed on how to classify Cannabis, suffice it to say that four widely recognized types are sativa, indica, afghanica and ruderalis. Preeminent ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes interestingly noted that although “zealous taxonomists” are often determined to precisely compartmentalize plants, their plastic nature and adaptive ability to interbreed between seemingly separate genera or species implies that “plants were not made to be cataloged and classified,” and that in cases like the identification of Cannabis, “a historical perspective is imperative.” Weighing in these considerations, I will delineate Cannabis plant types in as useful a way as possible.

Sativas grow as tall as 20 feet, have smooth, hollow stems with longer internodes than their counterparts, and produce achenes that are partially exposed (achenes are the dry fruits of some plants such as sunflowers, which are commonly called seeds, but are in fact fruits containing a single seed). C. sativa leaves are relatively large, with long, lance-shaped leaflets. Sativa flower clusters are somewhat indeterminate, meaning the plants continue to grow new flowers above the old ones for a lengthy period, with equatorial strains flowering for as long as five months. Although not isolated to the tropics, sativa plants are adapted to warmer latitudes, where day length varies little throughout the year and warm conditions allow for continual development.

Indica plants are shorter in stature than sativas, sometimes growing to 10 feet in height, and have a more determinate flowering habit. They have smooth, dense, nearly solid stems, and their leaflets are smaller than sativa or afghanica types. Curiously, C. indica has rather narrow, pointy leaflets.

Adapted to a mountainous, cold climate, and bred for hashish production, afghanica plants are short, stout and potent, and have nearly solid stems. Afghani marijuana is usually referred to as indica; however, in 1926 Nikolai Vavilov described afghanica as a distinct type. Following his description, some growers have continued to separate afghanica due to its shorter stature (less than six feet tall), ribbed stems, wider and longer leaflets, characteristically long petioles, denser buds, faster flowering time and more sedative high than typical indica strains. When most cannabis users refer to indica, they are thinking of plants with Afghani heritage. Bear in mind that while India has cold mountains to the north, it also has tropical climates to the south; this large environmental variation could help explain the morphological differences that create the need to partition afghanica from indica.

First classified in 1924, ruderalis plants are believed to have originated in Western Russia, Western Siberia and Central Asia. C. Ruderalis is typically less than two feet tall, may be unbranched, has smooth, hollow stems and small, wide leaflets, and readily sheds mature achenes, which possess a characteristic, fleshy abscission layer at their base. Most famously, ruderalis is regarded as the source of auto-flowering genetics in cannabis. Auto-flowering strains don’t require short days (less than 12 hours) to flower, as do most cannabis strains; regardless of light cycle, they start to flower as soon as they reach maturity, which is within a few weeks after germination.

Landraces: The Root of All Good

When farmers allow natural pollination and collect the seeds of their crops, then plant them the following year and repeat this process over time, heirloom varieties are developed. This was standard practice until the modern era. Heirloom varieties are somewhat the result of natural selection. Environmental pressures such as rainfall amounts, temperatures, humidity levels and hours of sunlight per day, along with biological pressures such as pathogens and herbivorous animals, determine the viability of individual plants in their environment. Plants with characteristics that allow them to best cope with these pressures will on average produce more pollen and seeds than lesser-fit plants. Therefore, heirloom varieties are well-adapted to their local conditions. When farmers trade heirloom seeds regionally, and continue the process of collecting seeds for subsequent crops, landraces are developed. Within a landrace, plants share common characteristics, but also maintain a level of genetic diversity. Cannabis landraces are the foundation of modern hybrids. Notable examples of landraces include Afghani, Durban Poison, Jamaican, Colombian Gold, Panama Red and Thai.

Indoor cultivation has helped breeders create more potent pot/ Joe Bender

Classic Breeding Products

In the 1960s and ’70s. the majority of the marijuana sold in the United States was grown outdoors. According to researchers, cannabis breeding in the United States for the purpose of producing high-THC strains that finished early enough for North American outdoor cultivation began in the early 1960s. Northern Mexican and Jamaican strains were quicker to finish flowering, but were moderate in potency. Breeders crossed (i.e., hybridized) these strains with more potent, longer-flowering Panamanian, Colombian and Thai strains, and then selectively inbred the hybrids to create the famous outdoor sativas of the 1970s, including Original Haze and Maui Wowie.

Inbreeding involves selecting male and female sibling plants exhibiting desirable characteristics, and pollinating the females using the males. With careful selection, inbreeding for several generations will produce a homogenized line, in which all of the plants exhibit the desired traits. Homogenized lines are referred to as “stabilized” or “true-breeding” because successive generations of inbreeding maintain the distinctive characteristics of the strain.

Skunk #1: Perhaps the most famous inbred line of all time is Skunk #1. During the mid- to late ’70s, traveling cannabis enthusiasts brought Afghani landrace strains to California. Breeders there found that afghanica plants hybridized well with the tall, lanky sativas that were popular at the time. A collective called Sacred Seeds emerged in the underground scene in Northern California and used inbreeding to stabilize a hybrid of Afghani, Colombian Gold and Acapulco Gold to create Skunk #1, which it offered to the public in its first seed catalog in 1981. Skunk #1 quickly became the most popular strain in California, thanks to its sweet flavor and soaring high. In 1982, California police shut down Sacred Seeds, but one of its breeders, Sam the Skunkman, managed to salvage the prized genetics.

In the 1980s, the relaxed cannabis laws of the Netherlands attracted growers and breeders and led to the creation of several Dutch seed companies, including the Seed Bank of Holland and the Super Sativa Seed Club. Fleeing California, Sam the Skunkman made the pilgrimage and brought his collection of Sacred strains, including Skunk #1. There, Sacred Seeds’ hard work came to further fruition in a new seed company, Cultivator’s Choice. This relocation of Californian genetics to uniquely weed-tolerant Holland was a monumental event for the future of cannabis. Breeding work flourished in Holland unhampered by the government, and a platform for shipping seeds worldwide was born. When the first High Times Cannabis Cup was held in Amsterdam in 1988, Skunk #1 by Cultivator’s Choice took first place.

Inbred since 1978, the homogenized, true-breeding nature of Skunk #1 makes it excellent for breeding new hybrids. When two true-breeding strains are crossed, the result is known as an F1 hybrid. F1 hybrids express traits of both parent lines in a uniform manner among individual plants. F1 hybrids also usually display “hybrid vigor,” meaning that the hybrid is more vigorous (better growth rate, yield, etc.) than the parent lines. Due to these factors of imparting uniformity and vigor in crosses, Skunk #1 is highly desirable for breeding, and it is now a progenitor of a great many strains, likely more than any other parental stock.

Owing to its combination of tropical sativa and Afghani traits, Skunk #1 is a high-yielding strain. Tropical sativas develop long, airy colas lacking density, which helps them dry after rainfall and resist mold in rainy climates.

Afghani plants have the opposite characteristics: small, nearly rock-hard colas, adapted to an arid environment with little pressure from Botrytis cinerea gray mold. Hybridizing these contrasting traits creates large colas, with a moderate, spongy density. This bud structure is wonderful for yields; however, Skunk #1 is prone to gray mold. If grown outdoors in humid areas of North America or Europe, Skunk #1 will continue flowering into fall’s mold-favoring conditions. Its slightly longer maturation period and hybrid bud structure also mean that its first flowers to develop are aging and surrounded by layers of younger flowers at harvest time, creating perfect conditions for Botrytis. For these reasons, Skunk #1 is best suited for growth indoors or in greenhouses, or outdoors in a Mediterranean climate. Strains with similarly structured hybrid buds, such as Serious Seeds’ AK-47 and T.H.Seeds’ S.A.G.E., also perform best in these environments.

Northern Lights: Northern Lights is another classic strain, which has led to numerous, sensational breeding projects. Originating in the Pacific Northwest, Northern Lights is thought to be an inbred line of pure afghanica. It was introduced to the Dutch cannabis scene via the work of the late legend Nevil Schoenmakers, founder of the Seed Bank of Holland. Schoenmakers made various NL crosses and backcrosses, such as NL #5 x Haze, NL #5 x Skunk #1, Silver Pearl and Hash Plant xNL#1.

In 1991, Schoenmakers sold the Seed Bank of Holland to Sensi Seeds. Sensi Seeds currently offers a seed form of Northern Lights, which it created through extensive back-crossing of “three original Northern Lights variants.” Sensi Seeds describes the plants as having low odor and the cured buds as having a honey-musk, earthy, juniper scent.

Greenhouse Seed Co.’s Super Silver Haze, an outstanding Northern Lights hybrid, has the classic Haze taste, which is reminiscent of the smell of cedar wood, and has a truly psychedelic high, which is uplifting and enhances colors.

Blueberry: Blueberry by DJ Short is a stabilized, Afghani-sativa hybrid strain. It has varying tones of sweet berry flavor and a euphoric high. The scent is often like a blueberry pie, and the plants tend to have beautiful bluish-purple hues at harvest. It yields best when grown from seeds, but it can also provide ample harvests from clones. The clones must be well spaced to get plenty of light to their fan leaves, or they’ll yield poorly.

Like many other strains (such as AK-47), Blueberry mother plants tend to weakly flower when they’re left unpruned for too long. Frequent topping prevents this problem. Topping for maintenance and increased clone production exaggerates their already bushy Afghani structure. This creates a lot of shade around their pots, so prune lower branches conservatively to prevent infestations of fungus gnats, which prefer the shady conditions.

As an inbred line, Blueberry hybridizes exceptionally well with other inbred lines. Recognizing the quality and breeding compatibility of Blueberry, breeders have used it in countless hybrids, as evidenced by the number of “Blue” and “berry” names in the current seed catalogs.

Finding a ‘Golden Nugget’

No strain had impacted the cannabis world as significantly as Haze, Skunk #1 and Northern Lights—that is, until the advent of OG Kush. It has the strongest flavor of any cannabis variety I’ve ever tried. It’s hard to put a finger on, but once you know the Kush scent, you’ll never forget it. Not only does it have a strong flavor, its THC level can be higher than 25 percent, making it one of the strongest strains in the world.

Hybrids of OG Kush are now almost as ubiquitous in dispensaries and seed catalogs as the famous strains of the past are. One very successful hybrid of OG Kush is Girl Scout Cookies (OG Kush x Durban Poison), which packs a punch and has flavor to boot.

An interesting aspect of OG Kush is its combination of narrow branch angles and long internodes. The plants have a fairly stretchy, unique appearance, which in veg will not strike experienced growers as looking particularly healthy. Although the narrow crotches are unfavorable for branch strength, the overall result of the strain’s morphology is that a lot of light reaches the bottom of the canopy, so the plants tend to produce top quality even at the base of branches. This allows for tighter plant spacing than other strains, which, when judiciously paired with proper veg timing, could improve yields without sacrificing quality. If grown outdoors, however, you’ll need to protect OG Kush from the wind, which could easily split branches off of the main stem.

Hemp crops are increasingly being used for CBD production/ High Times Archive

Hemp

In recent years, enthusiasm for cannabidiol (CBD) has grown exponentially. CBD provides anxiolytic, antiepileptic and anti-inflammatory effects. CBD is commonly extracted from seed-hemp plants, which are bred to have big buds that yield lots of seeds. These plants tend to have a significant resin content, but must not contain more than 0.3 percent THC to be considered hemp. Instead of a high-THC percentage, the resin of hemp is high in CBD. Fiber hemp differs from seed hemp in that it is grown closely spaced to promote stretching and long internodes, using tall strains that are high in fiber and generally low in flower yield. Dual-purpose hemp varieties exist, but they are less desirable for either seed or fiber production than specialized types.

Breeders have developed marijuana strains that produce both THC and CBD. The most famous strain of this type is Cannatonic from Resin Seeds. The best examples of Cannatonic have a ridiculously strong grapefruit scent and a 1:1 ratio of THC to CBD, creating a very relaxing effect.

Knowledge of cannabis history is crucial for predicting the future of the plant. Understanding the origins of modern hybrids can also help growers use their resources as effectively as possible, by guiding them in assembling a diverse strain menu and in choosing strain-specific cultural practices.

With improved legal status and a greater public interest than ever before, cannabis is set for a new wave of breeding success stories. The future may bring a revival of breeding for the outdoors, and as rules against shipping loosen, regional specialty strains could develop, as were once common. Undoubtedly, indoor, outdoor and greenhouse cultivation will continue to evolve, aided by technology, research and a never-before-seen availability of strains.

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

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

https://hightimes.com/grow/history-hybrids-how-breeding-selection-led-modern-marijuana/

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biomedgrid · 5 years ago

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Biomed Grid | Antibiotic with Essential Metals Complexation and Interaction, An in Vitro Study by Spectrophotometric Method

Introduction

A drug interaction is said to occur when the effects of one drug are changed by the presence of another drug, herbal medicine, food, drink or by some environmental chemical agent. These unwanted and unsought-for interactions are adverse and undesirable but there are other interactions that can be beneficial and valuable, such as the deliberate co-prescription of antihypertensive drugs and diuretics in order to achieve antihypertensive effects possibly not obtainable with either drug alone. The mechanisms of both types of interaction, whether adverse or beneficial, are often very similar [1]. There are different types of drug interactions: Drug-drug interact ions, Drug-herbal interact ions, Food-drug interact ions etc [2]. Drug interactions are complex and chiefly unpredictable. A known interaction may not occur in every individual. This can be explained because there are several factors that effects the likelihood that a known interaction will occur [3]. Zinc is an important co-factor for several enzymatic reactions in the human body, vitamin B12 has cobalt atom and its core, and hemoglobin contains iron. Like Cu, Mn, Se, Cr, Mo are all trace elements, which are important in the human diet. Another subset of metals include those used in thera peutically in medicine, Al, bi, Au, Ga, Li and Ag are all part of medical armamentarium [4].

Humans need a certain amount of certain metals to function normally. Most metals are used as cofactors or prosthetics in enzymes, catalyzing specific reactions and serving essential roles. Anemia symptoms are caused by lack of a certain essential metal. Anemia can be associated with malnourishment or faulty metabolic processes, usually caused by a genetic defect [5]. The metal complexes can be utilized for the transport of selected organic chemotherapeutic drugs to target organs, or for the de-corporation of those toxic organic compounds which are able, before or after metabolic activation of reacting with metals or 1:1 complex [6]. It is emphasized that degree to which metal ions interact in vivo should employ the conditional constants which take into account competition from other ions specially Ca2+, H+ and OH- [7]. The genotoxic consequences of the virus chemical factors involved in chelation, along with examples; kinetics, stabilization or oxidation state, lipophilicity, the mixed ligand formation, are discussed [8]. Amoxicillin is a semi-synthetic, moderate spectrum of penicillin group of antibiotics. Amoxicillin is an antibiotic that is used for the treatment of a variety of bacterial infections, skin and urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and strep throat. It binds to one of the penicillin binding proteins which inhibits the final transpeptidation step of the peptidoglycan synthesis in the bacterial cell wall, thus inhibiting biosynthesis and arresting cell wall assembly resulting in bacterial cell death [9]. Amoxicillin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic and is commonly used to treat bacterial infections of the ear, urinary tract, and upper respiratory tract [10].

Materials and Methods

In this study, all the chemical substances, reagents used here were pure and were kept under sorted under suitable conditions [11].

Preparation of stock solution [

]

In this study, 250 ml of 1×10ˉ2 stock solution of Amoxicillin was measured by 0.16902 gm of Amoxicillin in 250ml of demineralized water in a 250 ml volumetric flask. This solution was further diluted to expected concentration by using buffer solution.

Preparation of metal solution [

]

In this study, 0.1M metal solution, Magnesium sulphate hepata hydrate, MgSO4.7H2O (0.24648gm) was measured perfectly as well as the last solutions were 0.01 M concentration.

Preparation of buffer solution [

]

In this study, for the preparation of buffer solution, firstly 8.06 gm of Na2HPO4 was mixed in demineralized water with 1.05 gm of NaH2PO4 and then pH 7.4 was confirmed.

Preparation of standard curve of Amoxicillin [

]

In this study, Amoxicillin stock solution at pH 7.4 and concentration 1×10-5 M was mixed in different concentrations like: 9×10-5M, 8×10-5 M, 7 ×10-5M, 6×10-5 M, 5×10-5M, 4×10-5M, 3×10-5M, 2×10-5M, 1×10-5M. The absorbance volume of the solutions was determined at 256 nm by UV spectrometer.

Table 1: List of chemicals and reagents.

Table 2:List of instruments and equipment.

All the equipment and instruments used throughout the study are given in the following table along with their source. From the above Table we can observe that the absorbance of amoxicillin increases with increasing concentration according to Beer Lambert’s law. From the above Table we can observe that the absorbance of amoxicillin varies at different wavelength (Table 1-Table 4).

Table 3:Standards curve of Amoxicillin.

Table 4: Absorbance of Amoxicillin at different wavelength.

Results and Discussion

From the above Table we can observe that the absorbance of amoxicillin is different when it interacts with MgS0₄.7H₂O. From the above Table we can observe that the absorbance of amoxicillin is different when it interacts with MnSO₄.H₂O. This table shows that absorbance of amoxicillin is quite different from absorbance of amoxicillin and metal complexes (Table 5). The intensity of the peak of amoxicillin changes remarkably i.e. absorption character istics are altered due to interaction, but the position of the compound does not shift. Interaction between drug and metal may lead to form complexes which have different light absorption capacity and spectrum pattern is altered.

Table 5: Spectral analysis of amoxicillin with MgSO4.7H2O.

Effect of metals on Amoxicillin by Job’s method of continuous variation

The molar ratios of the complexes of amoxicillin with metal salts were estimated by job’s method of continuous variation. The observed absorbance values were measured in pH 7.4 at various concentration (1×10-⁵ to 9 × 10-⁵M) of amoxicillin and metal salts at 2310 nm. The Job’s plots at pH 7.4 were obtained by plotting absorbance difference against the mole fraction of the drug (amoxicillin) which are presented in the following table. From the above table we can observe that amoxicillin forms strong 1:1 complex with magnesium Sulfate hepta hydrate which is indicated as ‘^’ shaped curve. From the above table we can observe that amoxicillin forms strong 1:1 complex with manganese Sulfate mono hydrate which is indicated as ‘^’ shaped curve (Table 6).

Table 6: Spectral analysis of Amoxicillin with MnSO2.H2O.

Combined absorbance of drug with different metal

The above table shows that the absorbance of amoxicillin differs from the absorbance of amoxicillin + MgSO₄.7H₂O and amoxicillin + MnSO₄.H₂O due to interaction and complexation with antibiotic and metals Table 7-Table 9).

Table 7: Values of job plot of amoxicillin and MnSO4.7H2O.

Table 8: Values of job plot of amoxicillin and MnSO2.H2O.

Table 9:Combined absorbance of drug with different metal.

Conclusion

In the present work, the interaction of an important antimicrobial drug, amoxicillin + MgSO₄.7H₂O and amoxicillin + MnSO₄. H₂O at 7.4 by a variety of physical method like inspection of spectral behavior, Job’s method of continuous variation. From spectral study, it has been seen that Amoxicillin gives a sharp peak at 256 nm. When MgSO₄.7H₂O and MnSO₄.H₂O salt mixed with Amoxicillin at 1:1 ratio, the intensity of the peak changes remarkably specifically absorbance decreases. That’s why absorption characteristics are altered due to interaction but the position of the compound does not shift. The Job’s plot has given the molar ratio of complexes of amoxicillin + MgSO₄.7H₂O and amoxicillin + MnSO₄.H₂O. At pH 7.4 Amoxicillin forms strong 1:1 complexes with metals MgSO₄.7H₂O and MnSO₄.H₂O indicated as ‘^’ shaped curves. These curves may indicate strong kinetics of complexation between amoxicillin with MgSO₄.7H₂O and amoxicillin with MnSO₄.H₂O. When drug individually act with metals MgSO₄.7H₂O and MnSO₄.H₂O curve of their absorbance are verify. By this research work, it helps in the study of selection the best dosage form for better treatment. And definitely very important in adjusting the effective dose and dose ranges.

Read More About this Article: https://biomedgrid.com/fulltext/volume3/antibiotic-with-essential-metals-complexation-and-interaction-an-in-vitro-study.000640.php

For more about: Journals on Biomedical Science :Biomed Grid

#biomedgrid #List of open access medical journal #Journals on Medical Informatics #Journals on Medical Microbiology #Journals on Medical drug and theraputics #Free medical journal

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trademarkmaldives · 5 years ago

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The pharma industry is continuously growing as one of the most profound ‘knowledge-driven’ sectors. Since the researches in this sector are expensive and unpredictable, it is vital to safeguard their outcomes, which can be a new and inventive product or process. Granted patent, which can aid pharmaceutical companies to prevent any unauthorized commercial use of their inventions, is the best means to avoid infringement in this industry. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and geographical indication are the forms of Intellectual Property Rights derived for safeguarding the Intellectual Property (IP). Remember that not all rights can protect all types of intangible property. For instance – when it comes to pharmaceutical products, patents (out of all the forms of IPR) appear more valuable to protect the inventors’ invention.

What does Patent in Pharmaceutical Industry mean?

Patent, in this sector, refers to the legal protection for the inventors’ inventions, including new and useful medicines or drugs discovered by the research-based pharmaceutical firms. The patent rights on drugs mean that only the patentee can manufacture, use, and sell the patented drug. The patent can also provide solutions for technical issues, but to obtain those benefits by getting the invention patented, the inventors should ensure that their ideas satisfy the criteria of patentability.

What is the Criteria of Patentability in Pharma Industry?

As the Indian Patent Law states – an invention, whether or not related to the pharma sector, is patentable only if it meets the following requirements:

i) Newness/ uniqueness: The process or product must be unique, i.e., it should not be available or known to anybody in the world before the date of filing.

ii) Non-obvious: The invention should include features that make it non-obvious even to the skilled persons, for example – it should have advancements over existing knowledge or methods.

iii) Industrial Applicability: The process or product should fit the relevant industry. For instance – a new approach of removing tumor cells from the patient’s body is not patented because it is industrially not applicable.

What are the Types of Pharmaceutical Patents?

If dealing with processes or products that pertain to a comparatively more intense ‘knowledge-driven’ industry, i.e., the pharma sector, the inventor should be more careful about patenting his inventions. Alike in other areas, the patents in the pharmaceutical industry are also territorially bound. Note that even the classification of patents varies from country to country and as per the Indian patent law, the pharmaceutical patents are classified under the following categories:

Drug Compound Patents

The patents that claim any drug compound by considering its chemical composition fall under this category. Known as Markush type claims, these patents serve the inventor of a drug with the broadest protection by preventing others from preparing, using, or selling a similar drug. As long as the granted patent is valid, no one except the owner is allowed to produce or use any formulation involving his drug.

Synergistic Combination Patents

Drug synergy happens when two or more drugs interact with each other to magnify or enhance the effects of the drugs. Patent law, granted by the Indian government under this type, allows the inventors to protect the new synergistic combinations of the drugs.

Technology Patents

The patents under this category are associated with the techniques pharmaceutical companies use to solve specific technology-based issues, including taste-masking, stabilization, and increase in the solubility. Once obtained the patent, the inventors can prevent the usage of the same techniques.

Polymorph Patents

Polymorphs refer to various physical forms or crystal structures of an existing compound. Firms produce them to lessen the impurities or upsurge the stability of their already known compounds. Due to the polymorph patents, innovative companies can safeguard the improved versions of their original or existing drugs.

Process Patents

These are the patents that focus on the process of producing drugs rather than drugs. The process patents in India have been bestowing the inventors to produce and get the same products patented, but only if the process used to create them is novel.

What are the Benefits of Pharmaceutical Patents?

Patents in the pharma industry contribute to around 80% of the total revenue generated and is the main component adding to the growth of a drug manufacturer.

The granted patent is vital to protect not just products but also the innovative approaches to produce them.

By preventing the competitors or others from copying any drug, treatment, or medication, patent rights avoid patent infringement.

Patents in the pharma industry help in obtaining a remarkably good return on the high investments made to research, manufacture, and launch a new drug.

Aiming at balancing and fulfilling the requirements of both; the pharmaceutical companies and the consumers, the patent law in India is one of the best examples of patent legislation. Today, a wide range of pharmaceutical products and processes can obtain patent protection. However, before filing the Patent Application, the researchers or inventors of pharmaceutical products or processes must know about the criteria of patentability and the type of patents. It will aid them in obtaining the benefits of patent protection without any hassle. For view source: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com/blog/patenting-in-pharmaceutical-industry-an-indian-perspective/

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whittlebaggett8 · 5 years ago

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China in Tajikistan: New Report Claims Chinese Troops Patrol Large Swaths of the Afghan-Tajik Border

A new WSJ report cites a Tajik official boasting China is much a lot more deeply included in Tajikistan than it admits.

On June 15, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon agreed to deepen their complete strategic partnership, shaking palms around far more than a dozen promotions after assembly on the sidelines of the fifth Conference on Conversation and Self esteem Developing Steps in Asia (CICA) summit in Dushanbe.

In accordance to Xinhua’s description of the joint assertion issued by the two leaders, “China and Tajikistan will go on to assist every other on challenges about their core passions, these types of as countrywide sovereignty, protection and territorial integrity, and give priority to the improvement of bilateral ties in every single side’s foreign insurance policies.”

The two sides, Xinhua states, are dedicated to boosting stability cooperation “to make a China-Tajikistan group of stability stage by move.”

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A report these days from the Wall Avenue Journal gives entire body to this sort of statements. Though the WSJ’s concentration is on the grand strategic positioning between Russia and China as the United States creeps towards exiting the Afghan theater, information from an unnamed Tajik source additional bolster reporting performed previously this 12 months by the Washington Write-up’s Gerry Shih, underscoring that there is a great deal extra Chinese action together the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border than Beijing admits to publicly.

In September 2016 Reuters described on a decree printed by the Tajik governing administration referencing an arrangement to be signed among the Tajik Condition National Security Committee and its Chinese counterparts to offer for the building of 11 outposts and a coaching middle.

The WSJ stories, having said that, that mystery agreements signed in 2015 or 2016 amongst China and Tajikistan “gave Beijing legal rights to refurbish or create up to 30 to 40 guard posts on the Tajik facet of the country’s border with Afghanistan.”

That China was helping Tajikistan in border safety was not a key, but the scale and depth of that cooperation was not recognised.

In accordance to the WSJ’s supply:

Beneath the accords, Chinese border guards have replaced their Tajik counterparts along substantial swathes of the territory alongside the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, in which Beijing deems the Tajiks incapable of stopping militants likely infiltrating Tajik territory, the formal stated. “There are parts of the nation wherever the Chinese have taken in excess of border command completely,” the formal reported. “They patrol on their very own, in their very own cars.”

The Chinese International Ministry spokesman “said he hadn’t listened to of that and mentioned that, when questioned to remark on equivalent studies beforehand, he has claimed they weren’t genuine.”

The rest of the WSJ report puts this tidbit into a broader geostrategic context: The ever-persistent fear of “spillover” of the Afghan conflict into Central Asia and China’s deepening issues about the security of its Belt and Street Initiative. This is great context, but one more angle worth inspecting is the effect of Beijing’s protection-initial mindset and mind-boggling financial affect in the area on domestic dynamics. China has not only exported its protection framing to Central Asia — i.e. the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and spiritual extremism — but has carried out substantial operate to enhance the region’s authoritarian governments with Chinese know-how.

In this vein, it is really worth pointing to a latest report from RFE/RL’s Tajik Service boasting that quickly Tajikistan’s array of CCTV cameras will be geared up with artificial intelligence (AI) engineering enabling them to figure out faces.

Back in May 2013, the Tajik Finance Ministry and China’s Export-Import Bank signed a $20 million, 20-yr mortgage settlement to put into practice the so-identified as Protected City Undertaking, which entailed the installation of Huawei CCTV units throughout Dushanbe. The task was posited as traffic control Asia Additionally noted at the time that authorities claimed the personal loan would be repayable as a result of traffic violation fines.

In the heat of the current U.S.-China conflagration in excess of Huawei and increasing concerns about nefarious makes use of of AI know-how, not to point out privateness issues, the Secure Town job usually takes on a distinct light-weight. Is this about site visitors handle and basic safety or straight-up point out surveillance? The reality of the subject is that it can be both. If China’s takes advantage of of such technologies — in Xinjiang, for example — supply any lesson, it is that Dushanbe’s terrible motorists are not the only persons who ought to be worried.

Returning to Xi and Rahmon’s tete-a-tete, the matter of sovereignty attributes heavily in Xinhua’s reporting. But how sovereign can Dushanbe be with Chinese troops patrolling its border, Chinese technology spying on its citizens, and Chinese loans constructing its infrastructure? The respond to is not clear and will not be right until the instant when Tajikistan’s interests diverge noticeably from people of China. That time has not occur still, but that doesn’t mean it hardly ever will.

The post China in Tajikistan: New Report Claims Chinese Troops Patrol Large Swaths of the Afghan-Tajik Border appeared first on Defence Online.

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chemicalresearch · 6 years ago

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Osmium Market Analysis Report By Product,By Application, And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2026

Osmium is a chemical element represented by the symbol Os and has seven naturally occurring isotopes. It belongs to the platinum group and is obtained when platinum is extracted from ores such as osmiridium and iridosmine. Osmium is found in alloys of iridium and in traces of metals such as nickel and copper, and is highly volatile and water soluble in nature. It is a hard and brittle metal that remains lustrous even at high temperatures. The high toxic and volatile properties of osmium restrains its use in pure form for high-wear applications. Although manmade osmium also comes from chromium smelters, hospital incinerators, and the normal operation of cars i.e. from catalytic convertors, it is primarily the industrial extraction and refining of platinum that produces bulk of osmium.

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Osmium concentrates are manufactured as a by-product of copper and nickel mining or while isolating platinum metal from its ores. Distillation or organic solvent extraction of these ores yield volatile osmium tetroxide (OsO4), which is collected and precipitated using potassium hydroxide. The resultant salt is reduced and roasted to yield a fine power of osmium.

Osmium offers a wide variety of medical applications. For instance, an alloy of 90% platinum and 10% osmium is used in surgical implants such as pacemakers and replacement heart valves due to its inertness. Furthermore, osmium tetroxide aids in fingerprint detection and staining fatty tissues using electron and optical microscopy. Different compounds combined with osmium like Organo-Osmium FY26, could aid in treating cancerous cells. Furthermore, these osmium compounds are not cross-resistant with platinum. Osmium Mettalicum 30 is a medicine that aids in treatment of glaucoma and high blood pressure. Therefore, use of osmium in the healthcare sector for various applications is a major factor expected to propel the global osmium market growth.

Filaments of osmium metal are also used as a catalyst. Furthermore, its high refractivity is desirable in space-based UV spectrometers, which have reduced mirror sizes due to space limitations.

Market Dynamics

A major factor that drives growth of the global osmium market is its remarkable properties such as stability and hardness. These properties help in manufacturing high quality ballpoint and fountain pens, electrical contacts, jewelry such as rings, record player needles, long life gramophone needles, compass needles, instrument pivots, and other devices prone to frequent wear and tear. Usage of osmium helps to improve the overall quality by making the end product such as nibs, needles hard, stable, and corrosion resistant. Such wide variety of applications of osmium is expected to aid in growth of the global osmium market.

However, osmium is a rare and expensive element, which is a major factor restraining the global osmium market growth. Pure osmium generally costs between US$ 12,000 and US$ 14,000 per kilogram. Moreover, osmium-187 is a more expensive and useful isotope, which costs between US$ 15,0000 and US$ 25,0000.

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Market Outlook

According to the Coherent Market Insights’ analysis, North America held the dominant position in the market in 2017. According to the United States Geological Survey, U.S. imported 322 Kilograms of Osmium in 2014. In North America region, the U.S. and Canada are projected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period.

The largest known primary reserves of osmium include the Bushveld igneous complex in South Africa. However, the copper-nickel deposits near Norilsk in Russia and the Canada-based Sudbury basin are also important osmium sources.

Key Players in the Global Osmium Market

Key players operating in the global osmium market include Ceimig Limited, American Elements, Reade International Corp, Cleantech, and others.

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jovialstarfishharmony-blog · 6 years ago

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Electrical Steel Lamination Market Emerging Trends and Strong Application Scope by 2026

Electrical steel is special-purpose steel customized to obtain specific magnetic properties such as low core loss, small hysteresis area, and high permeability. Electrical steel is mostly produced in the form of cold-rolled strips that are less than 2 mm in thickness. These strips are cut into desired shapes, which are stacked together to form laminated cores of the transformer as well as the rotor and the stator of electric motors. The cut pieces of laminations can be finished by a punch and die, or by a wire electro-discharge machining (EDM).

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Electrical Steel Lamination Market: Drivers & Restraints

The method of producing a material in several layers, so that the material attains improved strength, insulation, stability, appearance, and other qualities, is known as lamination. Processes for lamination differ depending on the type of material to be laminated. The material used for laminates can be of the same or different type, depending on the process and object to be laminated. Windshields of vehicles are manufactured by laminating a tough plastic film across two layers of glass. In transformers and motors steel laminations are commonly used so as to form the core of coils employed to produce magnetic fields.

An electrical steel lamination is an iron alloy that consists of up to 6.5% of silicone. Usually, commercial alloys contain up to 3.5% of silicone. Increase in the percentage of silicone increases electrical resistivity of steel remarkably. Increased resistivity reduces the eddy current induced and lowers the core losses. However, the metal hardens and becomes brittle, which affects workability of the material. The electrical steel lamination is widely used to laminate the core of transformers and motors. The transformer core is an iron core constructed from a highly permeable material made from thin silicon steel laminations. Laminations are aligned together to provide required magnetic path with minimum magnetic losses.

Electrical Steel Lamination Market: Key Segments

The electrical steel lamination market can be segmented into non-oriented electrical steel and grain-oriented electrical steel. Non-oriented electrical steel has linear magnetic characteristics in all directions. It is mostly used in rotary machines and iron core materials ranging from large transformers to small electric motors. Special processing of steel is carried to control the grain orientation. Non-oriented electrical steel has similar magnetic properties in all directions and it consists of 2% to 3.5% of silicone. Non-oriented electrical steel is abbreviated as CRNGO (i.e. cold-rolled non-grain-oriented) electrical steel. CRNGO is economical. It is preferred when cost is the primary consideration and efficiency is secondary. It is also used when there is less area to align components that make use of directional properties of grain-oriented electrical steel.

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Grain-oriented electrical steel has good magnetic properties in the direction of rolling. This type of steel is applied in the manufacture of large, medium, and small transformers, reactors, and distribution transformers. It contains around 3% of silicone. The processing of steel is carried out in such a way that favorable properties are developed in the rolling direction, due to the tight grain orientation relative to the sheet. Grain-oriented electrical steel is also known as CRGO i.e. cold-rolled grain-oriented electrical steel. CRGO is most commonly supplied in coil form. Then, it is cut into laminations. These laminations are used in transformer cores.

Electrical Steel Lamination Market: Regional Outlook

Based on region, the global electrical steel lamination market can be segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is likely to lead the global electrical steel lamination market during the forecast period. The electrical steel lamination market in North America is expanding at a significant pace. In Europe, the demand for electrical steel lamination is estimated to increase in the near future. Latin America and Middle East & Africa are likely to hold a moderate market share during the forecast period.

Electrical Steel Lamination Market: Key Players

Some of the leading players in the global electrical steel lamination market are United States Steel, Laser Technologies, Inc., Tempel Steel, Orchid, Sko-Die Inc., LCS Company, and Lake Air Companies.

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careergrowthblog · 6 years ago

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Saffron Walden County High School: An exemplary school. The Learning Rainforest made real.

Last week I spent a day visiting Saffron Walden County High School in the North-West corner of Essex. This was the result of a conversation with Head and CEO, Caroline Derbyshire who suggested that I should consider writing a ‘Learning Rainforest in Action’ follow-up book. Having read the original book, Caroline felt that SWCHS embodied many of the ideas in it – so I went along to see for myself.

It wasn’t the first time I had been to SWCHS – I’ve had the pleasure of visiting several times in the last 10 years, including the visit that resulted in writing one of my all-time most-read blogs ‘Making Feedback Count: “Close the Gap” which features the feedback system the school was developing at the time. A key element of that visit was a superb CPD session with a carousel of departmental workshops coordinated by Polly Lankester who is now Associate Headteacher.

On my latest visit I had the privilege of observing 21 different lessons on a day-long tour supported by various members of the leadership team. It was wonderful. I can safely say that SWCHS is one of the best schools I’ve ever seen, in any sector.

It would be tempting to attribute this to the advantages the school enjoys: it’s an extremely nice part of the country to live in; teachers want to live in the area, they stay and invest in the community; it’s near Cambridge so there’s a pool of fresh talent from the PGCE courses there; the school has had a benefactor who funded building an exceptional concert hall facility, Saffron Hall, run as a professional arts venue on site. The school’s size and locality enables it to recruit a very large Sixth Form of 600 students (impressively, the school has only recently started taking about moving from GCSE 4s to 5s as the entry requirements: strive for 5 is the mantra! ; It’s a very comprehensive Sixth From compared to many schools and their ALPS 2 suggests they’re doing a great job!).

But these advantages don’t come close to explaining the quality of the experience students are getting there. Dare I say, the reasons align with the elements of my Learning Rainforest analogy:

Establishing the conditions: I’d say that the school provides optimum working conditions for staff. It feels like a wonderful place to work. The physical environment is fabulous but there’s a palpable spirit of professional trust, extensive investment in CPD and the best in-school coffee shop you’ll ever see! Certainly in a state school. Stability in staffing is very high – but this has been crafted, worked at – it doesn’t just happen. Recruiting and retaining great teachers isn’t taken for granted and a lot of effort goes into supporting the teaching school and other alliances. They also offer a superb curriculum with a clever blend of breadth and depth, using Year 9 as a bridging year leading into a wide range of options.

Building Knowledge: The quality of teaching is brilliant. It’s rare to see such sustained quality over a day visiting lessons; each teacher brimming with subject expertise; each presenting a sense of drive and purpose, matching very high expectations of students with expert lesson structures engaging all students in a rigorous, inspiring learning process.

The school’s emphasis on research-engagement has yielded superb practice linked to retrieval practice, modelling and feedback. At a lunchtime meeting with curriculum leaders, I was struck by the thoughtful evaluation of their practice and the way they’re seeking to continually develop their curriculum and pedagogy to embrace the learning from research, reading and their own enquiry work.

Exploring the possibilities: The school provides exceptional extra-curricular opportunities through trips and visits, visiting artists and so on – but the possibilities are largely evidenced in lessons. I saw some of the best drama lessons I’ve ever seen, probably the best KS3 technology work I’ve ever seen and multiple examples of A level teaching where students were firmly in the driving seat. The sixth form is big because its quality attracts students to join – there’s a virtuous spiral of success fuelling success.

All of this emerges from a deliberate blend of systems and culture. There’s a rigour to everything with intelligent systems – including the assessment regime I described in an earlier post: The Ideal Assessment Tracking Regime? The school has high expectations of staff, for sure. But the culture allows the systems to deliver. It’s the kind of school you want to be in to teach, to lead, to express yourself. Of course, it’s not perfect. They have some achievement issues to address; some further gaps to close. Not everything lines up perfectly at once and, despite their successes, they’re fully aware of where further improvements lie. That’s the sign of a great school: always ambitious for further success.

To bring all this alive, here are some nuggets from the lessons I observed:

English Y7: Students were engaging with a range of new words such as indolently, impertinently .. used in sentences. The task was to infer their meaning from the context. There was a superb follow-up Q&A where the teacher explored their answers and consolidated the correct meanings.

Physics Y12: A classic demo lesson and whole-class experiment: measuring bullet velocity with an air-rifle and air track, applying conservation of momentum. I used to do this one myself over 30 years ago – I love how stable the physics curriculum is!

Computing. Y9: In a bookwork lesson, away from computers, students were working on code for a PIN number verification routine, explaining and checking each other’s solutions. The peer supported problem-solving going on around the class was impressive.

Drama Y9: An exceptional lesson featuring a devised piece rehearsal: three groups formed circles rotating to bring each student to the front in turn, with everyone else mimicking the central speaker – a range of accents, characters, personal stories. This was followed by a machine/rap ‘families’ choral piece and other elements with students working towards an imminent performance. I was so impressed by the discipline, expectations, trust, rigour… and the time given to repetition and practice. Notably, the drama teacher was about to head off to a 2-day residential theatre trip with her A level students to see three shows in London.

Maths Y9: Applying area in problem solving using algebra. A well-pitched balance of stretch and practice; modelled and checked in the detail. Great maths teaching.

History GCSE: Planning for source question on suffragettes: There was a big focus on securing the relevant knowledge and on retrieval practice: knowing the facts. A3 sheets of annotated pie charts were used cleverly as a device to identity the relative effects of different factors. I also loved the macro timeline reinforcement….students had impressive recall across the Power and People theme: 1170 to present; Magna Carta to Brixton Riots.

Art Y11: Students were making superb clay heads or teapots… extended pieces using a range of new 3D skills, working towards their mock exam. Supporting portfolios were excellent and the ambition, high expectations, support for creative exploration and the intensity in the process/work rate were hugely impressive. The ‘close the gap’ feedback system was still going strong.

Graphics Y11: Interestingly, a recent switch to the Art and Design spec moving from old-style DT design portfolios to art portfolios was making it more much more creative. Students were exploring shapes with a link to natural forms to inform a design brief for an outdoor structure. I remarked on the quality of an exemplar project displayed on the wall. It belonged to the student next to me who was beaming.. it was stunning.

PE: Y7 basketball : An expert blend of group practice, whole class instruction with student modelling, then more practice –with all students involved! One student’s enthusiastic demo of a dribble technique was lovely – in answer to the question ‘why do we need to use that method?’, he showed how it could go wrong if you didn’t use it. Metacognition in PE – brilliant.

Drama Y7…This lesson showed how a curriculum platform is built enabling the Y9 lesson seen earlier to be so good. Here, one group was in the centre with everyone acting as audience offering critique. Again the lesson was characterised by challenge, structure, expectation with tons of feedback; a blend of disciplined creative thinking.

Psychology Y13 : An essay planning lesson; highly synoptic, with the teacher guiding discussion, bringing together different points, modelling how to make links. The was excellent probing questioning (my favourite thing in teaching) linking knowledge to essay technique i.e. linking specific studies to the particular question. It was notable how students had the option to use laptops for notes in a high-trust grown-up manner.

History Y13: Russia: A small group activity to prepare a set of annotated images of Soviet art to share as a revision tool – the question being the extent to which the images represented reality. There was impressive harnessing of student agency, discussing ideas, making notes, sharing.. collaborating with links to the bigger question about the success of establishing a socialist society 1917-41. Again, I was impressed with what students knew and how the task supported them in probing deeper.

Percussion Workshop: Part of the day included observing the visiting So Percussion ensemble who were there to run a workshop with a group of 20+ Year 9s for three days. In the workshop students were involved in a rule-based composition activity taking turns for a practical hands-on marimba lesson, the plan being for them to contribute to a public concert on the Friday.

Geology Y13: So great to see Geology A level going strong! Here the class were going somewhat off-piste, using desks to model a geological event– making a fissure and linking this to the pressure/forces and the flow of magma. Great stuff!

English Y13: A fascinating discussion of gender, with students forming a schema around polarities, organising ideas on standard gender characteristics as students volunteered them. This fed into a process contrasting and applying these identities to central characters in The Duchess of Malfi: a superb blend of teacher instruction and group discussion.

Business Y13: The topic was critical path analysis. Students were using the idea of making tea to explore how far you can go to specify step by step processes. As elsewhere, the teacher-student rapport was wonderful.

English Y11: Lord of the Flies. Revisiting the text for the first time after studying it in��Year 10, students were looking at how to deploy quotations, reviewing prior knowledge and undertaking a keyword check: eg microcosm, allegory… – a great example of allowing all students to think, explore their own recall and understanding and then check.

Textiles Y8: A double lesson forming part of a week on/week off rotation with food tech and wider rotation with resistant materials. For a relatively short dose of textiles, the expectations and outcomes were fabulous. Very well structured booklets drive the curriculum with ‘close the gap’ improvements shown. In the lesson all students were at sewing machines making batik cushions and the mini-portfolios made for homework were superb. I don’t think I’ve ever seen KS3 DT homework this good.

Spanish Y10. This lesson exemplified so many aspects of what I regard as great MFL teaching. The activities got everyone speaking; the key structures were being repeated, reinforced, practised. All class instructions were given in Spanish, with lots of teacher talk in Spanish. The focus was on revision of the language to develop opinion and included the retrieval practice game: Quiz, Quiz, Trade… cleverly allowing all students to be involved simultaneously in practising and checking each other’s understanding. Magnífico!

French Y10: Another great MFL lesson featuring a tic-tac-toe game to rehearse pronunciation. Again instructions were predominantly in French for a task that supported the rehearsal of vocabulary; the teacher intervened to reinforce key pronunciation. Attention to detail! Students had an impressive knowledge organiser booklet with all the key phrases organised lesson by lesson; they explained how they learn phrases by a combination of practice and testing themselves.

Y9 Physics: Great teacher demo of Newton’s laws involving with trolleys for people to stand on moving in opposite direction; good emphasis on making sure students distinguish weight vs mass. This was followed-up with remote control car on a surface moving in opposite directions. Here we had a term one NQT doing a great job balancing developing skills of behaviour management with developing the teaching of the subject. And it says a lot about SWCHS that they have such confidence in their NQTs and the support they get to allow visitors in to see their lessons.

Y8 Geography: Students were looking at GDP/capita vs life expectancy. The graph plotting is challenging providing an important reminder of the attainment range in the school; students operate within a palpable ‘teach to the top’ ethos that permeates the school. In classic Rosenshine style, there was lots of supervised guided practice as the teacher circulated.

I hope the details shared here go someway to illustrate the Learning Rainforest: superb conditions, deep knowledge, exciting possibilities. Culture and systems. Rigour. Teaching to the top. Teaching for memory and recall. And Joy, Awe and Wonder in plentiful supply. SWCHS is a truly wonderful school that many could learn from. I hope they’re prepared for the visit requests! Thanks to Caroline, Polly, Cathy, Matt, Angela and Graham for your hospitality. I know how proud you and your colleagues are of the school and everything you’ve achieved. And thanks especially to all the SWCHS teachers who welcomed me into your classrooms so openly. Excellence like this doesn’t happen by magic. You’ve all created something very special.

Rainforest Image: Taken from SWCHS corridor art display.

Saffron Walden County High School: An exemplary school. The Learning Rainforest made real. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege

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