Knowledge Management

The traditional view of knowledge management has treated knowledge in terms of prepackaged or taken-for-granted interpretations of information. However, this static and contextual knowledge works against the generation of multiple and contradictory viewpoints that are necessary for meeting the challenge posed by wicked environments. - Dr. Yogesh Malhotra in Toward a Knowledge Ecology for Organizational White-Waters

Data is organized into information by combining data with prior knowledge and the person’s self-system to create a knowledge representation. This is normally done to solve a problem or make sense of a phenomenon.

This knowledge representation is consistently changing as we receive new inputs, such as learnings, feelings, and experiences. This causes the knowledge representation to change due to our brains being branched or interconnected to other representations, rather than layered.

See detail :  Knowledge Management

Source : http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/knowledge/km.html

                                 Is  Anger Good or Evil?

                                A  Tract Book Essay  By  Anthony J. Fejfar, J.D., Esq., Coif

©  Copyright 2007  by  Anthony J. Fejfar

 In the Summa Theologica,  Part II-II,  Question 158,  Thomas Aquinas considers whether anger is good or evil.  In Question 158, Article I, Aquinas defines anger as the desire for revenge.  He then continues on to take the position that anger in accordance with right reason is good, while anger not in accord with right reason is evil.   Similarly,  in Question 158, Article II,  Aquinas asserts that anger whose end is Justice, is good while anger which promotes injustice is evil.   Finally,  Aquinas argues that only moderate anger is good and that immoderate anger is evil. Id.

           I argue that for anger to be good, it must be ethical anger directed toward the Good as an end.   I also argue that the purpose of anger should be a proportional response to an injustice, not revenge.   Anger which abhors that which is unethical is good.   That which is unethical is that which is not in accordance with the natural law principles of  reciprocity, utility, proportionality, and  equity.    Ethical anger is just anger.   Ethical anger which is directed toward social injustice is also good.   Finally, however, as Aquinas notes, one should never allow one’s anger to become so strong that one loses one’s ability to reason.   Anger which clouds good judgment and reason is not good, but evil.

Sulfur Hexafluoride A Unique Dielectric

Fredi Jakob Ph.D. and Nicholas Perjanik M.B.A. Analytical ChemTech International, Inc.

I. INTRODUCTION

Fluids, either gases or liquids, that are used as dielectrics in electrical equipment must possess certain basic properties. The selected fluid must provide thermal conductivity in order to dissipate heat generated within the equipment. It must have excellent insulating properties and must be able to quench arcs. Additional desirable physical and chemical properties that are important include low viscosity, chemical stability and low toxicity. Sulfur hexafluoride, SF6, is a unique gas that meets all of the stated requirements. Physical properties of SF6 are summarized in Table 1. This very high molecular weight gas has a density five times that of air. Even though the gas is non-toxic it will displace air and precautions are required before entering a closed compartment filled with SF6. One must flush a compartment filled with SF6 in order to physically displace the gas and to replace it with air. A recent article1 describes a potential environmental problem with SF6 . The article notes that SF6 is a very stable gas, lasting 3500 years in the atmosphere and that it is a very potent greenhouse gas. There is also mounting concern that SF6, like freons, diminishes the ozone layer in the atmosphere. ASTM and IEC specifications for SF6 are detailed in Table 2. The carbon tetrafluoride, CF4, that may be found initially in SF6 is a by-product that is generated during the manufacturing process. As will be shown later CF4 levels can be used as a tool in diagnostic interpretation of decomposition products found in SF6. Sulfur hexafluoride should be as dry as possible, even though small amounts of dissolved water have a minimal effect on the dielectric breakdown voltage. However, even small amounts of moisture that condense may result in flashover. Water also interferes with the “self healing” properties of SF6. Sulfur hexafluoride should be free of oil since traces of oil, mixed with oxygen, can result in explosive mixtures. Oil vapor will also be absorbed by the desiccant and destroy the desiccant’s ability to absorb moisture and SF6 decomposition products.

See detail : Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6) : A Unique Dielectric

Fundamentals of Telecommunications

Definition and Overview
Sometimes, when attending a class, it is okay to miss the first half-hour. After all, we do know something about the subject, and that first half-hour is likely to carry little more than introductory information. The same holds true when picking up a textbook on a particular subject. Maybe the first chapter can be skipped; again, it contains introductory material that we already know.

But often this is not the case. We do not know as much as we thought we knew, and that first half-hour or that first chapter contains material that may well be prerequisite material. That is what this Web ProForum tutorial is all about. It provides the equivalent of that first half-hour or that first chapter and may well be valuable in understanding the other tutorials in this series. The tutorial will cover the fundamentals of telephony, from its inception in Alexander Graham Bell’s laboratory to today’s emerging technologies.

See detail in : Fundamentals of Telecommunications

Life is too long not to be happy.” — Thom Barber
How to gain, keep, and recover happiness is in fact, for most people, and at all times, the motive for all we do. How can we create, increase and sustain happiness? For most people the drive to discover the secret to happiness is the strongest motivation that exists. From the beginning of human kind, man has been driven by this motive.
Happiness
To understand motivation we must first begin with the end in mind. It is the absence of pain and the presence of pleasure we are all after. I strongly encourage you to contemplate this simple truth.  And when you get in touch with the simplicity of your motivation, then you can begin to experience a super clear intention.

To be happy we must believe the future will  get better
If you want to be happy today, tomorrow and for the days to come, then you have to believe tomorrow will get better. When you believe tomorrow will be better than today you create hope inside yourself. As you use the power of motivation to set goals for yourself, and you believe you will achieve them, you create an inner sensation of anticipation and excitement. This will add to the passion in your life. For example, maybe you aren’t married yet and you wonder how much happier you’ll be when you get married. On the other hand maybe you are already married and feel dissatisfied. You long for the day when you will find fulfillment in your marriage. Either way, unless you believe your relationships will get better, you will lose hope for well-being in your life. You must believe that your relationships, finances, career, health and spiritual well-being will significantly improve as the days past by. In the absence of such hope you may join the throngs of people who exhibit the worst kinds of behaviour. Many people will resort to behaviours which will be destructive to themselves or others. For example research shows that people who don’t believe their future will get better are more apt to use drugs and alcohol. Conversely hope is so fundamental to human happiness that even in dire circumstances some people can remain happy if they see some “light at the end of the tunnel”.
I strongly urge you to devote as much attention as you can to the subject of happiness. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is. The clearest and most fruitful intention we can have as human beings is to achieve happiness and spiritual well-being. It is what motivated me originally to write this book. If we are not crystal clear on the need for happiness in our lives we will spin our wheels without going anywhere. But the achievement of happiness cannot come without struggling throughout our lives. Mandela’s words, “The struggle is my life,” are not to be taken lightly.
Nelson Mandela personifies struggle. He led and won the fight against apartheid with extraordinary vigour and resilience after spending nearly three decades of his life behind bars. He has sacrificed his private life and his youth for his people, and remains South Africa’s best known and beloved hero. In 1962 Mandela left South Africa for military training in Algeria. On his return he was arrested for leaving the country illegally and for incitement to strike. He conducted his own defense. He was convicted and jailed for five years in November 1962. While serving his sentence, he was charged, in the Rivonia trial, with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment. A decade before being imprisoned, Mandela had spoken out against the introduction of Bantu Education, recommending instead that community activists should “make every home, every shack or rickety structure a centre of learning”.
Robben Island, where he was imprisoned, became in itself a centre for learning, and Mandela was a central figure in the organised political education classes. In prison Mandela never compromised his political principles and was always a source of strength for other prisoners. During the seventies he refused the offer of a remission of sentence if he recognized Transkei and settled there. In the eighties he again rejected President PW Botha’s offer of freedom if he renounced violence. Shortly after his release on Sunday February 11th, 1990, Mandela and his delegation agreed to the suspension
of armed struggle. He went on to win the presidency of his country and to lead South Africa into a new era without apartheid. He was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa on 10 May 1994 - June 1999. Mandela has honorary degrees from more than 50 international universities and is chancell or of the University of the North. Nelson Mandela retired from Public life in June 1999. He currently resides in his birth place - Qunu, Transkei.
Mandela’ life is an incredible example of hope. In spite of constant and continual trials, he was able to sustain the hope for his country and himself. In order to achieve a sense of our well-being, we must believe that everything happens for some purpose and that it serves us. The reason for choosing to believe that everything happens for a reason is because we don’t want to be victims of circumstances. The minute we believe we are victims who are out of control, we become fearful. The truth is fear and happiness simply don’t mix. That’s why people say : “Don’t worry be happy.”
I discovered something quite extraordinary when pursuing the secret to happiness. I discovered that on a deep level we all know exactly what we are doing. What does that mean? It means that people who want to be happy make choices that enable them to experience happiness. And the people who do not want to be happy deliberately make choices that ensure the continuation of their unhappiness.
“ It is better to Believe than to Disbelieve, In so doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility.”
— Albert Einstein —

Another key to happiness is the power of belief. Belief is so fundamental to happiness because without basic belief, no progress is possible. If you want to make significant progress in being happy you must seek to achieve a feeling of certainty. This certainty is the difference between happiness and sadness. How do you move from the emotion of fear to experiencing genuine joy in your life? To do this you must resolve your internal conflicts over the emotions which cause you to feel unresourceful.
The human emotional spectrum can be broken down into two basic elements: love and fear. Hurt, anger, frustration, disappointment, guilt, inadequacy and depression: these are all fear-based emotions. These emotions in turn produce feelings of depletion, weakness, inability to cope and exhaustion. The highest state of being is love. It produces buoyancy, radiance, lightness and joy. If you pursue truth, then you will come to understand that love heals everything.
What I’m saying is this: Anytime we feel we will experience pain, we become fearful. This means pain is the ultimate reason for all our fears. And because at the very core of our being we no longer want to experience fear, we look for certainty. Why? Because we all want to feel certain the future will bring us pleasure. Love being one of the highest forms of pleasure. When we make the wrong choices over and over and over again, a karmic momentum is created.  It’s the accumulated momentum of having made unwholesome choices consistently over a long period of time that causes fear. When we have chosen wrongly hundreds of times, it eventually becomes a powerful momentum, a momentum that literally becomes selfgenerating. This type of momentum eventually caught-up with me after many years of struggling with a very painful event in my life. When I was a young child my mother was murdered by my father. At the time I was only seven years old. At such a young age, I hardly understood the significance of this event, but later on in my teens I started feeling the impact of this incredibly horrific event. I suffered from low self-esteem, rebellious attitudes, stuttering when I spoke, and serious depression. The momentum in my life was all negative. What stopped this downward spiral wa  the power of motivation.
Maybe you too are experiencing a downward spiral. It is because I have been there myself that I want to help you create positive momentum in your life. Today, I realize that all of the negative emotions that I felt as a child had deep meaning for the purpose of my being. The desire to know why my father could act so selfishly and with such cruelty (How could someone murder?), moved me to understand human motivation. When I was a child I didn’t appreciate the events that had taken place. I adored my mother very much and felt so much pain over losing her. Today, however because of my past, I understand motivation quite well. Today I have the privilege of helping people all around the world overcome pain and suffering. Unlike animals we can always choose our response to any stimulus. The God given supercomputer called the human brain is capable of reprogramming itselfin a powerful fashion. Even the most unspeakable events in our lives can be instructive and can be used for good. I have seen this happen in many lives. I have experienced it in my own life.

Source : POWER OF MOTIVATION by Michael Bolduc

POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM DESIGN
By: Mark B. Cavallaro, P.E.
Principal of Current Solutions, P.C.

Goals of System Design
When considering the design of an electrical distribution system for a given customer and facility, the electrical engineer must consider alternate design approaches which best fit the following overall goals:

1. Safety – The number one goal is to design a power system which will not present any electrical hazard to the people who utilize the facility, who are responsible for electrical equipment maintenance and upkeep. The National Electric Code (N.E.C.) as well as local electrical codes provide minimum standards and requirements for electrical design and protection, wiring methods and materials. It is the responsibility of the design engineer to be familiar with the code requirements as well as the customer’s facility, process, and operating procedures; to design a system which protects personnel.
2. Minimum Initial Investment – The owner’s overall budget for first cost purchase and installation of the electrical distribution system and electrical utilization equipment will be a key factor in determining which of various alternate system designs are to be selected. When trying to minimize initial investment for electrical equipment, consideration should be given to the cost of installation, floor space requirements and possible extra cooling requirements as well as the initial purchase price.
3. Reliability and Maximum Service Continuity – The degree of service continuity and reliability needed will vary depending on the type and use of the facility as well as the loads or processes being supplied by the electrical distribution system Typically service continuity and reliability can be increased by:         A) Supplying multiple utility power sources or services.
   B) Supplying multiple connection paths to the loads served.
   C) Providing alternate customer-owned power sources such as generators or batteries supplying uninterruptible power supplies.
   D) Selecting highest quality electrical equipment and conductors.
   E) Using the best installation methods.
4. Maximum Flexibility and Expandability – In many facilities electrical utilization loads are periodically relocated or changed requiring changes in the electrical distribution system. Consideration of the layout and design of the electrical distribution system to accommodate these changes must be included in the power system design. In addition, consideration must be given to future building expansion, and/or increased load requirements due to added utilization equipment.
5. Maximum Electrical Efficiency (Minimum Operating Costs) – Electrical efficiency can generally be maximized by designing systems that minimize the losses in conductors, transformers and utilization equipment. Proper voltage level selection plays a key factor. Selecting equipment with lower operating losses, generally means higher first cost and increased floor space requirements; thus, there is a balance to be considered between the owner’s utility energy change for the losses in the equipment versus the owner’s first cost budget
6. Minimum Maintenance Cost – Usually the simpler the electrical system design and the simpler the electrical equipment, the less the associated maintenance costs and operator errors. As electrical systems and equipment become more complicated to provide greater service continuity or flexibility, the maintenance costs and chance for operator error increases. The systems should be designed with an alternate power circuit to take electrical equipment (requiring periodic maintenance) out of service without dropping essential loads.
7. Maximum Power Quality – The power input requirements of all utilization equipment has to be considered including the acceptable operating range of the equipment and the electrical distribution system has to be designed to meet these needs. Consideration to whether the loads are affected by harmonics (multiples of the basic 60 cycle per second sine wave) or generate harmonics must be taken into account.

The above goals are interrelated and in some ways contradictory. As more redundancy isadded to the electrical system design with the best quality equipment to maximize servicecontinuity, flexibility and expandability, and power quality, the more initial investment andmaintenance are increased. Thus, the electrical engineer must weigh each factor based on thetype of facility, the loads to be served, the owner’s past experience and criteria.

Summary

It is expected that the engineer will never have complete information available when the systemis designed. It is desirable that the engineer has as much definite information as possibleconcerning the function, requirements, and characteristics of the utilization devices. Theengineer should know whether certain loads function separately or together as a unit, themagnitude of the demand of the loads viewed separately and as units, the rated voltage andfrequency of the devices, their physical location with respect to each other and with respect tothe source and the probability and possibility of the relocation of load devices and addition ofloads in the future.Often the key to the success of a power system design starts with a thorough understanding ofthe owner’s needs. The owner will inherit the facility with the designed and installed powersystem. This understanding typically comes best from discussions with the owner andinforming them of the different power distribution system arrangements and how each fit thefacility budget, use and maintenance requirements.Coupled with this information and a knowledge of the major types of electric power distributionsystems equips the engineers to arrive at the best system design for the particular building.

Copyright 2002, Current Solutions, PC. All rights reserved.

Definition and Overview

Definition
The human-machine interface (HMI) is where people and technology meet. This people-technology intercept can be as simple as the grip on a hand tool or as complex as the flight deck of a jumbo jet.

Overview
This tutorial introduces the underlying principles of good HMI design and outlines a core usability engineering lifecycle.

In addition, the tutorial guides the reader to relevant international standards and sources of further information.

The target audiences for this tutorial are as follows:

• engineers and designers with an interest in meeting end users’ wants and needs
• individuals who have heard about usability or user-centered design and would like to find out more

See detail : The Human-Machine Interface (HMI)