text:
Level: Basic

-   In the Bible, Jews were called Hebrews or Children of Israel
-   The terms "Jew" and "Judaism" come from the tribe or kingdom of Judah
-   "Jew" now refers to all physical and spiritual descendants of Jacob
-   A person can be Jewish by birth or by conversion
-   Traditionally, Jewish status passes through the mother, not the father

Origins of the Words "Jew" and "Judaism"

The original name for the people we now call Jews was Hebrews. The word "Hebrew" (in Hebrew, "Ivri") is first used in the Torah to describe Abraham (Gen. 14:13). The word is apparently derived from the name Eber, one of Abraham's ancestors. Another tradition teaches that the word comes from the word "eyver," which means "the other side," referring to the fact that Abraham came from the other side of the Euphrates, or referring to the fact Abraham was separated from the other nations morally and spiritually.

Another name used for the people is Children of Israel or Israelites, which refers to the fact that the people are descendants of Jacob, who was also called Israel.

The word "Jew" (in Hebrew, "Yehudi") is derived from the name Judah, which was the name of one of Jacob's twelve sons. Judah was the ancestor of one of the tribes of Israel, which was named after him. Likewise, the word Judaism literally means "Judah-ism," that is, the religion of the Yehudim. Other sources, however, say that the word "Yehudim" means "People of G-d," because the first three letters of "Yehudah" are the same as the first three letters of G-d's four-letter name.

Originally, the term Yehudi referred specifically to members of the tribe of Judah, as distinguished from the other tribes of Israel. However, after the death of King Solomon, the nation of Israel was split into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel (I Kings 12; II Chronicles 10). After that time, the word Yehudi could properly be used to describe anyone from the kingdom of Judah, which included the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, as well as scattered settlements from other tribes. The most obvious biblical example of this usage is in Esther 2:5, where Mordecai is referred to as both a Yehudi and a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

In the 6th century B.C.E., the kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and the ten tribes were exiled from the land (II Kings 17), leaving only the tribes in the kingdom of Judah remaining to carry on Abraham's heritage. These people of the kingdom of Judah were generally known to themselves and to other nations as Yehudim (Jews), and that name continues to be used today.

In common speech, the word "Jew" is used to refer to all of the physical and spiritual descendants of Jacob/Israel, as well as to the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and their wives, and the word "Judaism" is used to refer to their beliefs. Technically, this usage is inaccurate, just as it is technically inaccurate to use the word "Indian" to refer to the original inhabitants of the Americas. However, this technically inaccurate usage is common both within the Jewish community and outside of it, and is therefore used throughout this site.

A Jew is any person whose mother was a Jew or any person who has gone through the formal process of conversion to Judaism.

It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox Jews believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. In this sense, Judaism is more like a nationality than like other religions, and being Jewish is like a citizenship. See What Is Judaism?

This has been established since the earliest days of Judaism. In the Torah, you will see many references to "the strangers who dwell among you" or "righteous proselytes" or "righteous strangers." These are various classifications of non-Jews who lived among Jews, adopting some or all of the beliefs and practices of Judaism without going through the formal process of conversion and becoming Jews. Once a person has converted to Judaism, he is not referred to by any special term; he is as much a Jew as anyone born Jewish.

Although all Jewish movements agree on these general principles, there are occasional disputes as to whether a particular individual is a Jew. Most of these disputes fall into one of two categories.

First, traditional Judaism maintains that a person is a Jew if his mother is a Jew, regardless of who his father is. The liberal movements, on the other hand, allow Jewish status to pass through the mother or the father if the child identifies as Jewish. For example, former Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal, who had a Jewish father but chooses not to be identified as Jewish, would not be Jewish according to the Reform movement, but former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who had a Jewish father and adopted a Jewish identity as an adult, would be considered Jewish. See their position here). On the other hand, the child of a Christian father and a Jewish mother who does not publicly identify himself as Jewish would be considered Jewish according to the Orthodox movement, but not according to the Reform movement. Actor Harrison Ford would fit into this category: his mother's parents were Jewish, but he does not particularly consider himself to be of any religion, so Orthodox would count him toward a minyan if he showed up for services. The matter becomes even more complicated, because the status of that interfaith child's children also comes into question. Suppose a woman was born to a Jewish father and Christian mother and was raised in a Reform congregation always understanding herself to be completely Jewish. As an adult, she wants to marry a Conservative man only to find out that she has to convert so their children would be Jewish by Conservative standards!

Second, the more traditional movements do not always acknowledge the validity of conversions by the more liberal movements. A more liberal movement might not follow the procedures required by the more traditional movement, thereby invalidating the conversion. For example, Orthodoxy requires acceptance of the yoke of Torah (observance of Jewish law as Orthodoxy understands it), while other movements would not teach the same laws that Orthodoxy does and might not require observance. The Conservative movement requires circumcision and immersion in a mikvah, which is not always required in Reform conversions.

About Matrilineal Descent

Many people have asked me why traditional Judaism uses matrilineal descent to determine Jewish status, when in all other things (tribal affiliation, priestly status, royalty, etc.) we use patrilineal descent.

The Torah does not specifically state anywhere that matrilineal descent should be used; however, there are several passages in the Torah where it is understood that the child of a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man is a Jew, and several other passages where it is understood that the child of a non-Jewish woman and a Jewish man is not a Jew.

In Deuteronomy 7:1-5, in expressing the prohibition against intermarriage, G-d says "he [i.e., the non-Jewish male spouse] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." No such concern is expressed about the child of a non-Jewish female spouse. From this, we infer that the child of a non-Jewish male spouse is Jewish (and can therefore be turned away from Judaism), but the child of a non-Jewish female spouse is not Jewish (and therefore turning away is not an issue).

Leviticus 24:10 speaks of the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man as being "among the community of Israel" (i.e., a Jew).

On the other hand, in Ezra 10:2-3, the Jews returning to Israel vowed to put aside their non-Jewish wives and the children born to those wives. They could not have put aside those children if those children were Jews.

Several people have written to me asking about King David: was he a Jew, given that one of his female ancestors, Ruth, was not a Jew? This conclusion is based on two faulty premises: first of all, Ruth was a Jew, and even if she wasn't, that would not affect David's status as a Jew. Ruth converted to Judaism before marrying Boaz and bearing Obed. See Ruth 1:16, where Ruth states her intention to convert. After Ruth converted, she was a Jew, and all of her children born after the conversion were Jewish as well. But even if Ruth were not Jewish at the time Obed was born, that would not affect King David's status as a Jew, because Ruth is an ancestor of David's father, not of David's mother, and David's Jewish status is determined by his mother.

About the Agudath Ha-Rabonim Statement

In March, 1997, the Agudath Ha-Rabonim issued a statement declaring that the Conservative and Reform movements are "outside of Torah and outside of Judaism." This statement was widely publicized and widely misunderstood, and requires some response. Three points are particularly worth discussing: 1) the statement does not challenge the Jewish status of Reform and Conservative Jews; 2) the statement is not an official statement of a unified Orthodox opinion; 3) the statement was made with the intent of bringing people into Jewish belief, not with the intention of excluding them from it.

First of all, the Agudath Ha-Rabonim statement does _NOT_ say that Reform and Conservative Jews are not Jews. Their statement does not say anything about Jewish status. As the discussion above explains, status as a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe; it is simply a matter of who your parents are. Reform and Conservative Jews _ARE_ Jews, as they have always been, and even the Agudath Ha-Rabonim would agree on that point. The debate over who is a Jew is the same as it has always been, the same as was discussed above: the Reform recognition of patrilineal decent, and the validity of conversions performed by non-Orthodox rabbis.

Second, the Agudath Ha-Rabonim is not the official voice of mainstream Orthodoxy. Their statement does not represent the unified position of Orthodox Judaism in America. In fact, the Rabbinical Council of America (the rabbinic arm of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America) immediately issued a strong statement disassociating themselves from this "hurtful public pronouncement [which] flies in the face of Jewish peoplehood."

Finally, before one can denounce a statement like this, one should make an attempt to understand the position of those making the statement. According to Orthodoxy, the Torah is the heart of Judaism. All of what our people are revolves around the unchanging, eternal, mutually binding covenant between G-d and our people. That is the definition of Jewish belief, according to Orthodoxy, and all Jewish belief is measured against that yardstick. You may dispute the validity of the yardstick, but you can't deny that Conservative and Reform Judaism don't measure up on that yardstick. Reform Judaism does not believe in the binding nature of Torah, and Conservative Judaism believes that the law can change.

The Agudath Ha-Rabonim did not intend to cut Reform and Conservative Jews off from their heritage. On the contrary, their intention was to bring Reform and Conservative Jews back to what they consider to be the only true Judaism. The statement encouraged Reform and Conservative Jews to leave their synagogues and "join an Orthodox synagogue, where they will be warmly welcomed." I believe the Agudath Ha-Rabonim were sincere, albeit misguided, in this intention. I have known several Orthodox and Chasidic Jews who believed that if there were no Reform or Conservative synagogues, everyone would be Orthodox. However, my own personal experience with Reform and Conservative Jews indicates that if there were no such movements, most of these people would be lost to Judaism entirely, and that would be a great tragedy.

The opinion of mainstream Orthodoxy seems to be that it is better for a Jew to be Reform or Conservative than not to be Jewish at all. While we would certainly prefer that all of our people acknowledged the obligation to observe the unchanging law (just as Conservative Jews would prefer that all of our people acknowledged the right to change the law, and Reform Jews would prefer that all of our people acknowledged the right to pick and choose what to observe), we recognize that, as Rabbi Kook said, "That which unites us is far greater than that which divides us."

There once was a site called Jewhoo, that had an extensive list of Jewish actors, athletes, and other celebrities. The site disappeared in 2005. I gather that the site owners got tired of doing a lot of work researching the Jewish background of celebrities only to find their efforts copied all over the Internet without even the slightest acknowledgement. The site exists no more, and the information is lost. Think about that the next time you copy someone else's work and insist that you're doing no harm. (Another one has disappeared since my last update, but it wasn't a great site and I have no idea why it disappeared).

In the absence of Jewhoo...

JINFO has an outstanding collection of Jews who have won the Nobel prize in various areas or have excelled in various academic fields.

Jew or Not Jew seems to be trying to fill the gap left by the absence of Jewhoo. It lists Jews in a variety of categories and ranks their Jewishness on three factors: I (Israel, Jewishness by birth history and affiliation), O (Optics, how Jewish they look or act) and K (Kvell, how proud the creators of the site are to consider this person a Jew). It includes a lot of non-Jews who are perceived as Jewish and the text is a bit flighty, but they do seem to do the research and you can probably figure out from what they say whether you would consider the person Jewish.

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© Copyright 5756-5780 (1995-2020), Tracey R Rich
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question: Summarize the origin of the name for the people that are now known as the Jews.

answer: The original name for the Jews was Hebrews, which was a word first used in the Torah to describe Abraham. The word is apparently derived from the name Eber, one of Abraham's ancestors. The word "Jew" is derived from the name Judah, which was the name of one of Jacob's twelve sons.

question: Summarize Matrilineal Descent.

answer: Traditional Judaism uses matrilineal descent to determine Jewish status. While the Torah does not specifically state anywhere that matrilineal descent should be used, there are several passages where it is understood that the child of a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man is a Jew, and a child of a non-Jewish woman and a Jewish man is not a Jew.

question: Summarize the rituals of the Judean faith.


split: test

text:
The world is running out of freshwater, and much needs to be done unless we want a crisis to turn into a catastrophe. Desalination will fix the problem, they say, but desalination is not an option open to all countries. A dramatic change in consumer habits and attitudes must also take place, and that takes time.

Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.

Let me open this month’s Absolute Return Letter with two striking indictments:

1.  Between now and 2050, the world will need to produce more food than it has done in the last 10,000 years put together.
2.  2.4 billion people (one in three globally) have no access to proper sanitation; in fact, more people have a mobile phone now than have access to a toilet.

Those who tell you that access to freshwater won’t be a problem are either lying, or they haven’t done their homework, and here is why you should take this very seriously. However, before I go there, a brief note to those few of you, who did indeed read my recent research paper on water. You don’t need to read any further. The following is an abbreviated (and shortened) version of that paper.

Water resources under stress

Going back to the first point above, water is critically important to the agricultural industry. The world is populated by approx. 7.5 billon people today. As the global population approaches 10 billion by the middle of the century, and as living standards rise across emerging markets, demand for food and water will rise exponentially. Food production must rise 60% in the next 20 years to meet projected demand, and food production accounts for 70% of all water consumption globally, and as much as 90% in the fastest growing countries.

A huge amount of water is consumed every day; much of it wasted as the result of negligent attitudes. Take the US, for example, where the average person consumes 1,583 cubic metres per year (Exhibit 1). Compare that to the UK, where average annual consumption is ‘only’ 129 cubic metres.

That is a massive difference, which is certainly not due to differing living standards in the two countries, as they are quite similar. The US climate is much drier than the UK climate so, admittedly, more irrigation is required in the agricultural industry over there, but that is far from the whole story. The impact of different consumer habits and attitudes in the two countries is also a major factor and should not be underestimated.

[Exhibit 1: Water consumption per capita in various countries (m3)]

EXHIBIT 1: WATER CONSUMPTION PER CAPITA IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES (M3)
_Source:_ _Statista_
As is evident when looking at Exhibit 1, per capita water consumption varies dramatically from country to country. What is not evident is that per capita consumption also varies a great deal within most countries, and is driven by factors such as:

-   Living standards
-   Microclimate
-   Quality of agricultural irrigation systems
-   Consumer attitudes

The world consumes over 9 billion cubic metres of freshwater every year with China, India and the US being the largest consumers (in that order). With the global population continuing to grow, more water will be required, but many of the world’s water systems are stressed. Aquifers, lakes and rivers are drying up or becoming too polluted to use, and over half the world’s wetlands have now disappeared. Furthermore, climate change is altering patterns of weather and water systems around the world, causing scarcities and droughts in some areas and floods in others.

Water scarcity is a global issue

Water scarcity is widely perceived only to be a major problem in North Africa, the Middle East and Australia, but the reality is somewhat different. Yes, the areas just mentioned all suffer from scarcity problems, but so do parts of South America and the US, Southern Africa, India and many Asian countries. Spain is the main casualty in Europe (Exhibit 2).

[Exhibit 2: Water scarcity across the world]

EXHIBIT 2: WATER SCARCITY ACROSS THE WORLD
_Source:_ _New York Times_
Water scarcity prevails in densely populated areas (even greater London is affected) and in areas with much irrigated agriculture. Generally speaking, though, water scarcity is a much bigger issue in EM than it is in DM countries. Whereas the Americans, Australians or Saudis just build another desalination plant, should they need to boost water supplies, that option is not always open to a relatively poor country, the reason being cost.

The link between water scarcity and ISIS

Syria underwent severe drought conditions from 2006 to 2011. Allow me to quote from an article posted by the Center for Climate and Security in 2012:

_“Syria’s current social unrest is, in the most direct sense, a reaction to a brutal and out-of-touch regime and a response to the political wave of change that began in Tunisia early last year [i.e. in 2011]. However, that’s not the whole story. […]_

_“From 2006-2011, up to 60% of Syria’s land experienced, in the terms of one expert, “the worst long-term drought and most severe set of crop failures since agricultural civilizations began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago.” According to a special case study from last year […], nearly 75 percent suffered total crop failure. Herders in the northeast lost around 85% of their livestock, affecting 1.3 million people._

_“The human and economic costs are enormous. In 2009, the UN and IFRC reported that over 800,000 Syrians had lost their entire livelihood as a result of the droughts. By 2011, the aforementioned GAR report estimated that the number of Syrians who were left extremely “food insecure” by the droughts sat at about one million. The number of people driven into extreme poverty is even worse, with a UN report from last year estimating two to three million people affected.”_

My point is a simple one. You can blame Bashar Al-Assad for many things, but you cannot blame him for severe droughts. He is not a magician; hence he cannot make it rain, even if he wanted to.

The severe drought in Syria created difficulties of biblical proportions which, combined with an unresponsive Syrian regime under Al-Assad’s leadership, resulted in social unrest of enormous proportions, in tribal wars and even in a catastrophic civil war. Out of all this came ISIS. It is therefore fair to say that severe water scarcity has been at least partly responsible for the rising of ISIS and hence for terrorism in our part of the world.

I bring this up because other Muslim countries are, in the years to come, likely to go through even more brutal conditions than Syria has experienced in recent years.

Take Egypt – a Muslim country in North Africa with a population of 96 million people or five times as many as Syria’s. Egypt’s freshwater resources stand at only 20 cubic metres per capita, and it is already facing an annual water deficit of about 7 billion cubic metres. By 2025, all freshwater resources will be empty!

I could write a virtually identical story on Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya (all Muslim countries), and the storyline on Nigeria (the ‘host’ of Boko Haram) isn’t too good either. Even a relatively affluent Muslim country such as Morocco (where many ISIS recruits have originated from in recent years) have significant water scarcity problems.

Water is, as we all know, critical to survival. Water scarcity therefore leads to all sorts of problems, and I don’t think it is any coincidence that ISIS appears to be particularly strong in the countries with the biggest freshwater problems.

One possible outcome is that countries will increasingly go to war over water. The Egyptians have long argued that the Ethiopians, who hold the source of the Blue Nile (Lake Tana), are trying to store water from the river, hence preventing it from reaching Egypt. Although the two parties recently came to a temporary agreement, which has substantially lowered the short-term risk, the long-term risk is higher than ever.

Both countries are just short of 100 million people today, and both are destined to grow fast in the years to come (Ethiopia even more so than Egypt). At some point in the not so distant future, access to freshwater will become a _massive_ issue for both.

Another possible outcome is that, as water scarcity becomes a bigger and bigger issue, social unrest spreads to more and more countries, which will only make it easier for ISIS to recruit.

A third possible outcome is that the migration problems we have experienced in Europe in recent years is only the beginning of much worse to come. The pressure on Europe’s borders could grow quite dramatically as water scarcity in Africa and the Middle East spreads.

It is estimated that, today, almost 7 million people live in temporary camps along the coast line of North Africa, waiting for an opportunity to slip into Europe. Should countries like Egypt and Ethiopia fail to guarantee sufficient freshwater supplies to their people, that number can only grow.

Is desalination the solution?

Desalination is widely perceived to offer the best solution to the world’s freshwater problems, and it is indeed correct that desalination is a viable outcome for most affluent countries. Having said that, desalination is not an option open to all countries, either because they are landlocked, or because the cost is prohibitively high. (Note: Some landlocked countries have salty groundwater. This could also be desalinated.)

Before entering into a discussion about the pros and cons associated with desalination, let me explain the main principles behind it:

“Desalination is the treatment of saline waters. The treatment process aims at obtaining fresh drinking water from the salty ocean waters or groundwater with high salt concentrations that make them unsuitable for human consumption.” (Source: EarthEclipse.)

There are more than 17,000 desalination plants in 150+ countries today. The prevailing technology behind desalination is called reverse osmosis. Seawater is injected into a high-pressure treatment system, which results in one litre of drinkable water and one litre of very salty water for every two litres of seawater going in. The salty water is discharged into the ocean again. (Source: Pri on desalination.)

Desalination offers the most credible solution to freshwater scarcity available to mankind today. Having said that, there are a few problems associated with desalination:

1.  it is very expensive to build a desalination plant;
2.  it is very power hungry to run; and
3.  the overall environmental impact is far from perfect.

The cost of building a plant first. San Diego in Southern California, a city of approximately 1.3 million people, recently built a new desalination plant at the cost of about $1bn. The plant provides the water supply to 7% of the city’s population (i.e. to under 100,000 people). Can an EM country with 100 million people, which is about to run out of freshwater, afford an investment of that magnitude? Most definitely not.

Secondly, as far as the electricity hunger is concerned, desalination plants around the world consume more than 200 million kWh _every day._ Although the reverse osmosis technology I referred to earlier has reduced the amount of kWh required to produce one cubic metre of drinkable water, it is still a power thirsty technology. The average used to be 7-9 kWh per cubic metre of water, but that has been reduced to about 3 kWh by adopting the reverse osmosis technology.

Economically, should more and more countries convert to desalination, the implications are quite severe. We live in world where the pool of capital at our disposal is finite and, with little or no workforce growth for many years to come, we need productivity to grow at a meaningful rate to generate a respectable amount of GDP growth (which we need in order to service all the debt we are saddled with).

Spending a significant proportion of the capital stock on desalination will further reduce productivity growth, as desalination, in economic terms, is an unproductive use of capital, provided water was previously available at a lower cost.

In that context, I should mention that the power used by desalination plants needs to be generated in a power plant, and power plants require _enormous_ amounts of water. It is estimated that about 40% of all US freshwater is used to cool power stations.

An escalating water crisis could therefore have a meaningful impact, not only on the poorest countries, but on many developed countries as well. As power plants generate more and more power, more and more water shall be required to cool those power stations. This can only mean one thing. Productivity growth will decline further and, when that happens, GDP growth will decline as well.

The logic behind it all is that a rising share of the capital at our disposal is deployed unproductively, i.e. it is used to produce something we have had for free (and taken for granted) for centuries, namely water.

Thirdly, the impact on mother nature isn’t too good either. As the growing presence of desalination plants raises the use of fossil fuels, the greenhouse gas problem escalates. Furthermore, the discharge of very salty water back into the oceans could potentially play havoc with marine life.

Are there any alternatives to desalination?

In the developed world, many things can be done to manage our water resources better without having to settle for desalination; however, fewer options are available to the poorest countries.

Given the extensive use of water in the agricultural industry, more targeted irrigation is an obvious way forward. Enormous amounts of water are wasted every year as a result of inefficient irrigation systems, and that goes for EM countries as well.

Consumer habits and attitudes must also change. A few examples:

Back in 2014, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute in Oakland estimated that humans require about 60 litres of clean water each day to meet basic needs. Americans use about 450 litres a day.

Secondly, 30% of all US freshwater consumption goes towards rearing meat, and 15% towards producing sugar. In other words, rearing meat and producing sugar account for ¾ of all freshwater usage in the US agricultural industry, which is the biggest user of freshwater.

Globally, 70% of all freshwater usage is accounted for by the agricultural industry. If one-third of the food that farmers produce never finds its way into our stomachs (which is true), substantial amounts of freshwater could be saved by changing our eating habits and attitudes.

Another way to cut back on total water consumptions is to be more pedantic as to what sort of water is used for what purpose. We all have a habit of referring to all non-salty water as freshwater, but not all freshwater is suitable for human consumption. That doesn’t imply it cannot be used for other purposes.

Industry insiders distinguish between so-called blue water, green water and grey water.

Blue water is freshwater suitable for human consumption once it has been appropriately treated - typically surface water from reservoirs.

Green water is water stored in soil – typically groundwater – and may also be used for human consumption.

Grey water is polluted water.

Two observations:

1.  we need to get (much) better at keeping grey water away from blue and green water, as water contamination is a big issue; and
2.  we need to get better at using untreated blue and green water for things they are suitable for. You certainly won’t want to drink untreated green water, but why do you need to treat it before it is used to irrigate or cool a power station?

Such changes could save huge amounts of both water and energy, and will have a positive impact on productivity growth.

A final few words

The world will indeed run out of freshwater over the next few decades unless we change one or two things. Knowing mankind’s desire to survive, the habits and attitudes that must change will indeed change.

Having said that, it could possibly turn into a rough ride, before we come out on the other side. Syria literally collapsed following their severe drought, and the same will almost certainly happen elsewhere in the not so distant future.

My number one favourite to turn into the next Syria is Egypt. With only 20 cubic metres of freshwater resources per capita, you only need a drought of modest proportions in that country, before social unrest gets out of control and, drought conditions or not, by 2025, Egypt’s freshwater resources will be gone anyway.

The ultimate solution to the world’s water problems is energy at virtually no cost, which will dramatically reduce the cost of desalination. Energy at virtually no cost is not as far-fetched as you may think it is. A desalination plant powered by solar energy is currently under construction in UAE and, although solar is still quite expensive, the price is on a steep downward trajectory.

Further down the road (probably within the next 20-30 years), the research into fusion energy is probably so advanced that the technology can be rolled out commercially. The introduction of fusion energy will reduce the marginal cost of energy to $0.

question: What methods could the world adopt to manage the water crisis?

answer: We could manage water irrigation better. Enormous amounts of water get wasted as a result of inefficient irrigation systems.

question: Who is responsible for the inefficient use of water?

answer: It may be implied that humans are to be blamed for this. It is due to our negligent attitude that a huge amount of water is wasted every single day.

question: How does water scarcity relate to ISIS?

answer: With the water crisis rising, it creates more social unrest which can make it easier for ISIS to recruit.


text:
AFTAB HUSSAIN (born 17 November 1997) is a Hong Kong cricketer.[1] In November 2019, he was named in Hong Kong's squad for the 2019 ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup in Bangladesh.[2] He made his List A debut for Hong Kong, against Bangladesh, in the Emerging Teams Cup on 14 November 2019.[3] Later the same month, he was named in Hong Kong's squad for the Cricket World Cup Challenge League B tournament in Oman.[4]

In February 2020, he was named in Hong Kong's Twenty20 International (T20I) squad for the 2020 Interport T20I Series against Malaysia.[5] He made his T20I debut for Hong Kong, against Malaysia, on 20 February 2020.[6]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

title: Aftab Hussain

question: Who is Aftab Hussain?

answer: a Hong Kong cricketer

question: What was Aftab Hussain born?

answer: 17 November 1997

question: When did Aftab Hussain make his List A debut?

answer: 14 November 2019

question: When did Aftab Hussain make his T20I debut?

answer: 20 February 2020

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: Aftab Hussain is a Hong Kong cricketer.


text:
MARION COUNTY is a county located in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2010 census, its population was 33,062.[1] Its county seat is Marion.[2] The county was created in 1785 and was originally known as Liberty County. However, four years later it was renamed Marion County, in honor of Brigadier General Francis Marion,[3] the famous “Swamp Fox” and a hero of the American Revolutionary War. In 1910, a separated portion of the county was founded as adjacent Dillon County.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.0%) is water.[4]

Adjacent counties

-   Dillon County - north
-   Horry County - east
-   Georgetown County - south
-   Williamsburg County - southwest
-   Florence County - west

National protected area

-   Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge (part)

Major highways

-   -   [] US 76
-   [] US 301
-   [] US 378
-   [] US 501 (BUS)
-   [] SC 9
-   [] SC 38
-   [] SC 41 (ALT)
-   [] SC 57
-   [] SC 576
-   [] SC 908
-   [] SC 917

Demographics

2000 census

As of the census[5] of 2000, there were 35,466 people, 13,301 households, and 9,510 families living in the county. The population density was 72 people per square mile (28/km²). There were 15,143 housing units at an average density of 31 per square mile (12/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 56.35% Black or African American, 41.69% White, 0.25% Native American, 0.28% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.90% from other races, and 0.52% from two or more races. 1.79% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 13,301 households, out of which 32.20% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.30% were married couples living together, 23.60% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.50% were non-families. 25.40% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.70% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.64 and the average family size was 3.16.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 27.60% under the age of 18, 9.70% from 18 to 24, 26.80% from 25 to 44, 23.80% from 45 to 64, and 12.10% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 85.90 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.40 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $26,526, and the median income for a family was $32,932. Males had a median income of $26,133 versus $18,392 for females. The per capita income for the county was $13,878. About 18.90% of families and 23.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.30% of those under age 18 and 23.50% of those age 65 or over.

According to the 2010 U.S. Religious Census, Marion County had the highest concentration of followers of the Baháʼí Faith of any county in the United States, at 5.5%.[6]

2010 census

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 33,062 people, 13,058 households, and 8,881 families living in the county.[7] The population density was . There were 14,953 housing units at an average density of .[8] The racial makeup of the county was 55.9% black or African American, 40.6% white, 0.5% Asian, 0.4% American Indian, 1.3% from other races, and 1.2% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 2.4% of the population.[9] In terms of ancestry, 7.8% were American, 6.3% were English, and 5.2% were Irish.[10]

Of the 13,058 households, 33.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.0% were married couples living together, 24.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 32.0% were non-families, and 28.5% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 3.09. The median age was 39.9 years.[11]

The median income for a household in the county was $30,629 and the median income for a family was $38,043. Males had a median income of $32,414 versus $24,929 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,653. About 21.4% of families and 25.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 36.8% of those under age 18 and 19.1% of those age 65 or over.[12]

Communities

Cities

-   Marion (county seat)
-   Mullins

Towns

-   Nichols
-   Sellers

Unincorporated communities

-   Ariel Crossroad
-   Brittons Neck
-   Centenary
-   Friendship
-   Gresham
-   Rains
-   Temperance Hill
-   Sellers
-   Latta

Politics

  Year                               Republican                                  Democratic                                  Third parties
  ---------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
  style=“text-align:center;” |2016   style=“text-align:center;” |38.1% _5,444_   style=“text-align:center;” |60.0% _8,569_   1.8% _263_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2012   style=“text-align:center;” |34.5% _5,164_   style=“text-align:center;” |64.7% _9,688_   0.9% _134_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2008   style=“text-align:center;” |35.7% _5,416_   style=“text-align:center;” |63.3% _9,608_   1.0% _150_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2004   style=“text-align:center;” |41.4% _5,589_   style=“text-align:center;” |57.5% _7,767_   1.1% _151_
  style=“text-align:center;” |2000   style=“text-align:center;” |38.6% _4,687_   style=“text-align:center;” |60.6% _7,358_   0.9% _104_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1996   style=“text-align:center;” |34.4% _3,595_   style=“text-align:center;” |60.9% _6,359_   4.8% _497_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1992   style=“text-align:center;” |35.2% _3,647_   style=“text-align:center;” |56.3% _5,843_   8.5% _886_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1988   style=“text-align:center;” |46.4% _4,403_   style=“text-align:center;” |52.8% _5,008_   0.8% _75_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1984   style=“text-align:center;” |48.1% _4,698_   style=“text-align:center;” |51.6% _5,043_   0.3% _32_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1980   style=“text-align:center;” |37.7% _3,321_   style=“text-align:center;” |61.1% _5,379_   1.2% _101_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1976   style=“text-align:center;” |34.1% _3,076_   style=“text-align:center;” |65.7% _5,927_   0.1% _13_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1972   style=“text-align:center;” |64.7% _4,719_   style=“text-align:center;” |34.9% _2,545_   0.5% _34_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1968   style=“text-align:center;” |36.9% _2,512_   style=“text-align:center;” |41.4% _2,821_   21.8% _1,484_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1964   style=“text-align:center;” |61.0% _3,197_   style=“text-align:center;” |39.0% _2,046_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1960   style=“text-align:center;” |40.7% _1,646_   style=“text-align:center;” |59.3% _2,397_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1956   style=“text-align:center;” |13.2% _417_     style=“text-align:center;” |44.0% _1,390_   42.8% _1,353_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1952   style=“text-align:center;” |59.0% _2,313_   style=“text-align:center;” |41.0% _1,610_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1948   style=“text-align:center;” |0.9% _14_       style=“text-align:center;” |19.6% _301_     79.5% _1,219_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1944   style=“text-align:center;” |1.0% _9_        style=“text-align:center;” |92.9% _858_     6.2% _57_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1940   style=“text-align:center;” |2.5% _18_       style=“text-align:center;” |97.6% _716_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1936   style=“text-align:center;” |0.4% _5_        style=“text-align:center;” |99.6% _1,219_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1932   style=“text-align:center;” |1.3% _12_       style=“text-align:center;” |98.8% _948_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1928   style=“text-align:center;” |7.0% _51_       style=“text-align:center;” |93.0% _682_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1924   style=“text-align:center;” |0.3% _2_        style=“text-align:center;” |99.7% _616_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1920   style=“text-align:center;” |0.1% _1_        style=“text-align:center;” |99.9% _808_     style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1916   style=“text-align:center;” |0.3% _3_        style=“text-align:center;” |99.1% _1,019_   0.6% _6_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1912   style=“text-align:center;” |0.4% _3_        style=“text-align:center;” |98.1% _710_     1.5% _11_
  style=“text-align:center;” |1904   style=“text-align:center;” |3.2% _49_       style=“text-align:center;” |96.9% _1,507_   style="text-align:center;|
  style=“text-align:center;” |1900   style=“text-align:center;” |8.4% _119_      style=“text-align:center;” |91.6% _1,296_   style="text-align:center;|

  : PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS RESULTS[13]

Historic places

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

title: Marion County, South Carolina

question: Cite all notable historical facts about Marion County

answer: Liberty County was created in 1785. In 1789, it was renamed in honor of Brigadier General Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion, a hero of the American Revolutionary War.

question: Describe the types of families in the county and based on this, describe the society they create.

answer: Almost 40% of households are composed of typical married couples. About 25% are single mothers. The rest are non-families and individuals. This means that the population of the county believes in relationships though there is a significant number of relationships that do not last based on the number of single mothers.


text:
First time posting here... I wrote this story for my AP Lit class. Harsh criticism encouraged.

“…which means that we should prescribe you something as soon as possible.”
I looked up. I had been zoned out for the past several minutes. I’m not even sure what I was thinking about, but I noticed that I was fiddling with a pen in my hands.
“Sorry?” I said anxiously.
My psychiatrist sighed. “Mr. Cohen, what I said was that there is a high probability that you have Bipolar Type II, or more hopefully, cyclothymia. Both of these should be treated seriously and you appear to be in a depressive state, which means that we should prescribe you something as soon as possible, because if you enter a hypomanic state you may no longer feel the need for medication.”
I stared back at Ms. Wilcox blankly. I was having a little bit of difficulty comprehending what she was saying.
“I just thought, you know, bipolar means like, drastic mood swings that happen a lot.”
“Well that’s a common misconception. Yes, manic episodes often bring extreme mood swings, but mood swings are not the only part of bipolar.”
“Can you explain what you mean by Type II and cyclothymic?”
“Sure. There are a few types of bipolar—Type I is characterized by periods of depression juxtaposed with severe mania. Mania can cause anything from highly risky behavior down to episodes of full-blown psychosis. Bipolar Type II contains a milder, briefer form of mania, known as hypomania, which is characterized more by confidence, fast talking, racing thoughts and the like. However the depression is much longer and more severe. Cyclothymia cycles rather more quickly between hypomania and dysthymia, which is a type of depression that is not as severe or long-lasting.”
“I think I have that last one. Bicyclethymia.”
“Cyclothymia. I understand your previous psychiatrist diagnosed with ADHD and an anxiety disorder?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I am inclined to agree with him on the ADHD but you don’t seem to exhibit any signs of anxiety issues.”
“I have attacks. Generally in close spaces when people are up in my face and stuff.”
“Mr. Cohen, do you have low self-esteem?”
“That’s a pretty rude question to ask someone,” I said defensively.
“I would say you do. You generally try to preempt criticism with self-deprecation and from what your parents have told me, you tend to act out seeking positive attention,” Ms. Wilcox said flatly.
I got a text at that moment. Probably from my mom. “Calvin, are you done yet? I really don’t want to miss my stories” is most likely what it read.
“Mr. Cohen, you have so far refused medication for both your attention deficit and anxiety disorders…” started Ms. Wilcox.
“Yeah, I did,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to be smothered. You know what would have happened if they put Van Gogh on meds? I mean, he probably never would have cut off his ear, but I don’t think he would have done all the cool stuff he did and drew all those diagrams and wrote backwards and stuff. He would have just been this ordinary boring dude living in a house someplace with a wife and some kids and he would have died and no one would have ever heard of him.”
“Calvin,” Ms. Wilcox said, addressing me by my first name. Wow. Things must be getting serious. “This is getting serious,” she continued. Ha. Called it.
I pointed at the calendar next to her desk. “Why is your calendar still on December? It’s May.”
“Calvin, I need you to focus.”
“I think you mean, ‘Calvin, may you please focus?’”
Ms. Wilcox did not laugh at my clever play on words.
We talked some more and came to the conclusion that I had cyclothymia, which I think is like the wussy version of bipolar. This is what we need psychiatrists for? Seriously? There are people out there with real problems. Like that Son of Sam guy who thought his neighbor’s dog was ordering him to murder people. I’m sure he didn’t have some wimpy “affliction” like cyclothymia. I mean really. The name sounds made-up. I refused medication, got up and walked out of the office.
As soon as I passed through the doorway I felt different. I know my brain is wired all sorts of wrong now, so being in the outside world felt really bad. I mean what am I supposed to do with this new information? Go forth and try not to snap and have a nervous breakdown while crossing the street?
I was standing outside the building waiting for my mom. Oh, no, my mom. How am I gonna break this to her? “Sorry mom, your kid’s psycho. Guess you gotta live with it.” I started pacing around nervously. I had about fifteen minutes until she got there. How do I handle this?
I got another text. This one was for my girlfriend, Jayce. It read “Hey! ” That opened up a whole new avenue of awful. So I have to tell Jayce I’m mentally unsound now? Then she’s probably gonna break up with me and I don’t really blame her. Then what? Am I gonna be single forever? I can’t go on dates. I would just be like a big flashing Ghostbusters NO sign. “DO NOT DATE THIS PERSON. HE IS MENTALLY UNSTABLE. HIS SEED IS UNFIT FOR YOUR WOMB.” I stopped pacing and gathered myself. I can get through this.
I texted Jayce back “Hey.”
“So how are ya? Still shacked up in the wacko basket?” I received back.
I wanted to lie to her so bad. Or at least not tell her. This was something that could wait. But I couldn’t do that to her. That is ridiculously unfair. All I could think of is that one day I was just gonna snap and yell or I would do some dumb thing and hurt her. She puts up with so much already that this one more thing shouldn’t be that bad.
“I have something to tell you,” I texted back to her.
“Mmmhmmm…” came the reply.
“I have cyclothymia. It’s kind of like bipolar. I thought it was just my ADHD and anxiety but apparently it’s not. I’m three shades of insane.”
She responded with, “You’re bipolar? Shocker. Wanna show me one of those poles when you get back home?”
I laughed out loud. Yep, that’s just what I needed to hear.
My mom’s car came rolling up next to me. I got in. I thought telling Jayce would have made me feel better about telling my mom but it didn’t. It really didn’t. Now I just have this giant ball of dread that’s sitting inside my stomach and it feels that if I don’t tell her I’ll explode but if I do tell her, her response may not be something I can handle.
“Mom?” I said meekly.
My mom had just hung up her cell phone. “Yeah, sweetie?”
“So, I was talking to Ms. Wilcox…”
“Oh, you’re finally talking to her? I thought you were still doing that whole ‘I’m training to be a mime’ act for all your psychiatrists.”
“No, Ms. Wilcox is actually really nice. And um, she, uh, she said I have cyclothymia.”
“Okay,” my mom said obliviously.
“No, not okay. It’s like bipolar.”
“You’re not bipolar!” my mom said. “You just want attention. Jesus. Some people have real problems, you know? Like that UCSB guy who shot all those people. He had issues. You’re just a little off. You’re not a special snowflake.”
“I know I’m not a special snowflake, mom,” I said. “I know. But this is serious. I think I have a real problem here.”
“No, you don’t. Kids these days, we just sit ‘em down in front of the TV or we pop ‘em full of pills and that’s supposed to solve all our problems. What ever happened to good old fashioned discipline? That’ll slap the cyclothymia right out of your mouth…”
“Mom!” I interrupted. “This is not about discipline. This is not about ‘kids these days.’ This is about my brain. And there are neurological problems in my brain. It’s why I go back and forth between feeling so amped and then just feeling like nothing matters. And it’s why I can’t pay attention, and it’s why I freak out and have panic attacks. It’s because I’m messed up. I wish I was some dumb disrespectful little kid, because you can fix dumb and you fix disrespectful. But you can’t fix crazy. This is a job for the professionals.”
Mom kept her eyes focused on the road. I was breathing heavily because I was so full of anxiety that I think if I pricked my finger pure adrenaline would have poured out. After about two minutes of complete silence, she said “Okay.”
The next week I came back for another appointment and accepted my medication. I think that’s the only thing I can do at this point. I don’t know if it’s gonna restrict my creativity, or any of that. I hope it doesn’t. But I want to fix my crazy. I don’t want to end up like Vincent Van Gogh and cut my ear off when Jayce breaks up with me. I don’t know if I’m gonna be okay, either. But I’m trying. And that’s about the best anyone can really do.

title: [RF] Office

question: Why does the narrator end up accepting medication?

answer: It seems that the narrator's mother's reluctance to understand what the doctor had just told the narrator about their mental health and general disrespect pushes them to realize that they do have a problem that must be treated with medication.

question: Why does the narrator initially refuse medication?

answer: The narrator seems to have a romantic notion about what it means to live with a mental illness, citing Van Gogh. The narrator seems to lose focus after the initial diagnosis from the doctor and then proceeds to reject the medication.


text:
WILLIAM 'STRATA' SMITH (23 March 1769 – 28 August 1839) was an English geologist, credited with creating the first detailed, nationwide geological map of any country.[1] At the time his map was first published he was overlooked by the scientific community; his relatively humble education and family connections prevented him from mixing easily in learned society. Financially ruined, Smith spent time in debtors' prison. It was only late in his life that Smith received recognition for his accomplishments, and became known as the “Father of English Geology”.[2]

Early life

Smith was born in the village of Churchill, Oxfordshire, the son of John Smith (1735–1777), the village blacksmith, and his wife Ann (_née_ Smith; 1745–1807).[3] His father died when he was eight years old, and he and his siblings were raised by his uncle, a farmer also named William Smith.[4] Largely self-educated, Smith was intelligent and observant, read widely from an early age, and with an aptitude for mathematics and drawing. In 1787, he met and found work as an assistant for Edward Webb of Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, a surveyor. He was quick to learn, and soon became proficient at the trade. In 1791, he travelled to Somerset to make a valuation survey of the Sutton Court estate, and building on earlier work in the same area by John Strachey.[5] He stayed in the area for the next eight years, working first for Webb and later for the Somersetshire Coal Canal Company, living at Rugborne Farm in High Littleton. During this period, Smith inspected a number of coal mines in the area, where he first observed and recorded the various layers of rock and coal exposed by the mining; Smith's coal mine studies, combined with his subsequent observations of the strata exposed by canal excavations, proved crucial to the formation of his theories of stratigraphy.

Life's work

[Tucking Mill House, near Monkton Combe, Somerset. A plaque on the house next door to Tucking Mill House states incorrectly that it was the home of William Smith.] Smith worked at one of the estate's older mines, the Mearns Pit at High Littleton, part of the Somerset coalfield and the Somerset Coal Canal.[6] As he observed the rock layers (or strata) at the pit, he realised that they were arranged in a predictable pattern and that the various strata could always be found in the same relative positions. Additionally, each particular stratum could be identified by the fossils it contained, and the same succession of fossil groups from older to younger rocks could be found in many parts of England. Furthermore, he noticed an easterly dip of the beds of rock—low near the surface (about three degrees), then higher after the Triassic rocks. This gave Smith a testable hypothesis, which he termed The Principle of Faunal Succession, and he began his search to determine if the relationships between the strata and their characteristics were consistent throughout the country.[7] During subsequent travels, first as a surveyor (appointed by noted engineer John Rennie) for the canal company until 1799 when he was dismissed, and later, he was continually taking samples and mapping the locations of the various strata, and displaying the vertical extent of the strata, and drawing cross-sections and tables of what he saw. This would earn him the name “Strata Smith”.[8] As a natural consequence, Smith amassed a large and valuable collection of fossils of the strata he had examined himself from exposures in canals, road and railway cuttings, quarries and escarpments across the country. He also developed methods for the identification of deposits of Fuller's earth to the south of Bath, Somerset.[9] [Engraving from William Smith's 1815 monograph on identifying strata by fossils] He published his findings with many pictures from his fossil collection, enabling others to investigate their distribution and test his theories. His collection is especially good on Jurassic fossils he collected from the Cornbrash, Kimmeridge clay, Oxford clay, Oolitic limestone and other horizons in the sequence. They included many types of brachiopods, ammonites and molluscs characteristic of the shallow seas in which they were deposited. Some of the names he coined (like Cornbrash) are still used today for this formation.

Publication and disappointment

[Bust of W. Smith, in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History]

In 1799 Smith produced the first large-scale geological map of the area around Bath. Previously, he only knew how to draw the _vertical_ extent of the rocks, but not how to display them _horizontally_. However, in the Somerset _County Agricultural Society_, he found a map showing the types of soils and vegetation around Bath and their geographical extent. Importantly, the differing types were coloured. Using this technique, Smith could draw a geological map from his observations showing the outcrops of the rocks. He took a few rock types, each with its own colour. Then he estimated the boundaries of each of the outcrops of rock, filled them in with colour and ended up with a crude geological map.

[Smith's famous 1815 geological map of part of Great Britain]

In 1801, he drew a rough sketch of what would become the first geological map of most of Great Britain. Smith travelled extensively across Great Britain working as a mineral surveyor allowing him to meet prominent people such as Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, and the Duke of Bedford.[10] In 1815 he published this geological map, based on a John Cary map. It covered the whole of England and Wales, and parts of Scotland. While this was not the world's first geological map (a map of the United States by William Maclure was published six years earlier),[11][12] Smith's was the first geological map covering such a large area in detail,[13] and is one of the first stratigraphical analyses to utilize paleontological indices.[14] Conventional symbols were used to mark canals, tunnels, tramways and roads, collieries, lead, copper and tin mines, together with salt and alum works. The various geological types were indicated by different colours, applied by hand. Nevertheless, the map is remarkably similar to modern geological maps of England. It also included a 'Sketch of the succession of STRATA and their relative Altitudes'. This geological cross-section was not a new technique in itself, but its appearance on a map, with the clear intention of illustrating the relationship between relief and rocks and their structure, was novel.[15] He published his _Delineation of the Strata of England_ in the same year.[16] In another of his books _Strata Identified by Organized Fossils_ (London 1816–1819) he recognised that strata contained distinct fossil assemblages which could be used to match rocks across regions (Smith's laws).[17] In 1817 he drew a remarkable geological section from Snowdon to London, a development of the ‘sketch’ on his map, illustrating the three-dimensional relationship between geology and landscape via a perspective sketch of the landscape showing the topography. Effectively this was the first block diagram, now routinely used in geography textbooks and animations.[18]

[Silhouette of W. Smith, 1833]

A common narrative in some recent accounts of Smith’s life and his map asserts that rivalry built up between Smith and the first President of the Geological Society, George Bellas Greenough, who was also engaged in producing a geological map of England and Wales.[19][20][21] However original sources point to this narrative not being the case and indicate Smith was used by John Farey Sr., another 'practical man' (i.e. mineral surveyor), to prosecute Farey's own grievances against the Geological Society in an article in _The Philosophical Magazine_ by which he both started and fuelled the story that Smith was disrespected and there was ill-feeling towards him by the Geological Society men and Greenough in particular.[22] In the following issue Greenough replied, publicly declaring his view as being non-antagonistic by stating:

Another common but misleading narrative in some recent accounts of Smith’s map has Greenough's 1820 map undercutting the price and sales of Smith's map, thereby citing Greenough as a primary cause of landing Smith in debtor's prison. However, Greenough's map could not have contributed to the debts for which Smith was consigned to prison as the Greenough map, although dated 1819 on the map, was not published until May 1820, after Smith's incarceration. In fact Smith's maps retailed at 5 guineas, which was the same price as that privileged to Geological Society members for purchase of the Greenough 1820 map. However the Greenough map retailed to public at 6 guineas, thereby being a more expensive purchase than Smith’s map.[23] Also, although neither map sold well, the number of sales of Smith's map appears to have topped those of Greenough's map (only 196 copies recorded as sold) and there are only 15 names in common between Smith's subscribers' list and the list of those who bought the Geological Society's map.[24]

Smith's various projects, starting with a mortgage taken to purchase his estate at Tucking Mill in Somerset in 1798, accrued financial commitments that ran into a series of difficulties which he managed to withstand by borrowing money from sympathetic creditors and mortgagors and funding repayments by taking on a relentless schedule of work commissions between 1801 and 1819. However a project to quarry Bath Stone near his property, for sale to the London property development market, failed to return the significant investment it had required due to poor quality stone and Smith found himself in default to co-investor Charles Conolly. Smith had used his Bath estate as security against Conolly's loan but there was excess to pay. In attempting to stave off his debt Smith sold his 'fossil collection' to the British Museum for £700,[25] but this proved insufficient and funds fell short of the sum owed to Conolly by £300 and as a consequence Smith was sent to debtors' prison in 1819. Through all this financial turmoil, Smith managed to publish his map and subsequent associated publications but in 1817 he remarked “My income is as yet not anywise improved by what has been done, the profits being required to liquidate the debt incurred by publication.”[26]

On 31 August 1819 Smith was released from King's Bench Prison in London, a debtor's prison.[27] He returned to 15 Buckingham Street, his home since 1804, to find a bailiff at the door and his home and property seized. Smith then worked as an itinerant surveyor for many years until one of his employers, Sir John Johnstone, recognised his work and talent and took steps to gain for him the respect he deserved, appointing Smith as Land Steward to his estate in Hackness near Scarborough. Between 1824 and 1834 Smith lived and was based in Hackness, then moving to Scarborough where he was responsible for the design of the Rotunda, a geological museum devoted to the Yorkshire coast, creating the cylindrical layout and arrangement of fossil display on sloping shelves.

Later recognition

[William Smith's grave adjoining St Peter's Church, Northampton]

It was not until February 1831 that the Geological Society of London conferred on Smith the first Wollaston Medal in recognition of his achievement.[28] It was on this occasion that the President, Adam Sedgwick, referred to Smith as “the Father of English Geology”. Smith travelled to Dublin with the British Association in 1835, and there unexpectedly received an honorary Doctorate of Laws (LL.D.) from Trinity College. In 1838 he was appointed as one of the commissioners to select building-stone for the new Palace of Westminster. He died in Northampton, and is buried a few feet from the west tower of St Peter's Church, Northampton, now a redundant church. The inscription on the grave is badly worn but the name “William Smith” can just be seen. Subsequent modern geological maps have been based on Smith's original work, of which several copies have survived[29] including one which has been put on display at the Geological Society of London.

Legacy

[William Smith's fossil collection (right) that helped him produce the first geological map, on display in the British Museum.]

-   The first geological map of most of Great Britain, much copied in his time, and the basis for all others.
-   Geological surveys around the world owe a debt to his work.
-   His nephew John Phillips lived during his youth with William Smith and was his apprentice. John Phillips became a major figure in 19th century geology and paleontology—among other things he is credited as first to specify most of the table of geological eras that is used today (1841).
-   A crater on Mars is named after him. (see List of craters on Mars: O-Z#S)
-   The Geological Society of London presents an annual lecture in his honour.
-   In 2005, a William Smith 'facsimile' was created at the Natural History Museum as a notable gallery character to patrol its displays, among other luminaries such as Carl Linnaeus, Mary Anning, and Dorothea Bate.[30]
-   His work was an important foundation for the work of Charles Darwin.
-   The Rotunda Museum in Scarborough was re-opened as 'Rotunda – The William Smith Museum of Geology', on 9 May 2008 by Lord Oxburgh; however, the Prince of Wales visited the Rotunda as early as 14 September 2007 to view the progress of the refurbishment of this listed building.
-   A building at Keele University containing the Geography, Geology and the Environment department is named after two William Smiths, both influential in the development of mapping. The first William Smith (1546?–1618) laid the foundations of the conventions of county mapping and of urban cartography. The second William Smith commemorated in the building's name is William Smith the author of the first geological map of England and Wales and subject of this article.[31]

[1] Simon Winchester, _The Map That Changed the World_, pp. xvi, 7, HarperCollins, 2001

[2]

[3]

[4] Winchester (2001), _The Map That Changed the World_, p. 27

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11] 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

[12] Greene, J.C. and Burke, J.G. (1978) “The Science of Minerals in the Age of Jefferson”. _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society_, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 1–113 [39]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27] Randy Moore, Mark D. Decker, _More Than Darwin: An Encyclopedia of the People and Places of the Evolution-creationism Controversy_, p. 327, Greenwood Press, 2008 .

[28]

[29]

[30] Review by Miles Russell of _Discovering Dorothea_ by Karolyn Shindler at ucl.ac.uk (accessed 23 November 2007)

[31]

title: William Smith (geologist)

question: What does the article say about William Smith's works that eventually led to his recognition?

answer: He was known as "Strata Smith" due to his constant research into geological strata in various mines, quarries, and the like. He noticed that various strata always appear in the same relative order, and the strata can be identified by the fossils it contains. His use of block diagrams to show the relationship between geology and landscape was a first. After years of research, Smith published the first large-scale geological map of Britain, which covered England, Wales, and some of Scotland. Consecutive works in the field are all based on Smith's original work. Additionally, his work was an important piece of information for Charles Darwin in formulating the theory of evolution.

question: What are the challenges Smith faced in his life?

answer: Smith's father died when he was eight years old, and he was raised by his uncle (also William Smith) alongside his brothers. His humble origins and lack of family connections meant that he was initially overlooked by the scientific community. Recognition of his work came later in life. He worked as a surveyor all over Great Britain to create and publish the first large-scale geological map of the area. However, his map didn't sell enough to return a profit, and even after selling his fossil collection, he was unable to pay all of his debt to one of his creditors. Consequently, he was consigned to the debtor's prison. After release, he returned home only to find it confiscated. Furthermore, it's thought that another mineral surveyor, John Farey Sr., crafted rumors that Smith was disliked by the Geological Society and its then-president Geroge Bellas Greenough, who also published a geological map of Britain. Greenough publicly denied the accusations.

question: What regions and/or cities did Smith work in?

answer: Smith began his working career in Gloucestershire. Then, he moved to Somerset for eight years, living at Rugborne Farm in High Littleton. While working as a mineral surveyor, he traveled all over Great Britain. His prison sentence for unpaid debt saw him locked in King's Bench Prison in London. After losing his house, he moved to Hackness near Scarborough. He died in Northampton.

question: What does the text say about carbon dating?

question: What does the text say about notable figures Smith encountered in his life?

answer: Smith met many prominent people while working as a mineral surveyor, like Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, and the Duke of Bedford. He was involved in a controversy sparked by John Farey with the first president of the Geological Society, George Bellas Greenough, who wasn't antagonistic. Charles Conolly was his creditor around 1819, and Smith went to debtor's prison due to being unable to pay all of his debt to Conolly. His employer after getting out of prison, Sir John Johnstone, is the one who recognized the value of Smith's work and worked to promote him.

question: Who are the influential people who helped or inspired William Smith?

answer: He was raised by his uncle who shared the same name with him. His first employer thought him about surveying, and his name was Edward Webb of Stow-on-the-Wold. A map he found in the Somerset County Agricultural Society inspired him to develop his way of drawing geological maps, but its author is unknown. His employer in the 1820s, Sir John Johnstone, is the first person to recognize the full extent of Smith's work and its value. Sir Johnstone took the steps necessary for William Smith to gain the recognition he deserves.


text:
Unfamiliar street signs cite flower names, and I’d like to stop and appreciate the irony of the street consisting of tenements and uneven concrete slathers forming the dilapidated earth below my feet, but I can’t. The pavement is slipping under my feet fast as I desperately search for something. Anything. As much as I love flowers, I have no idea where I am. Rose, Lilac, Daisy: all useless to me. Third time tonight I’ve had to laugh at the irony of it all. Third time I’ve circled around here.

Second time I’ve gotten lost out here. Incomprehensible maps, my own poor sense of direction, every person who I run into either wanting money or not knowing where anything is because they refer to the city as “Frisco”; the night is stacked against me. And I have to be home. I have to be at the station at the stroke of tomorrow. When the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella won’t just lose everything: she’ll be stranded in the city.

I don’t know where I’m going, and it shows. I’ve run past that same homeless person three times. He’s laughing at me now, like he’s the one who has everything figured out. Like his place below the graphitized overhang of a restaurant closed up with a heavy, rusted gate is so much better than the home I have to go back to. But he’s right. It is. He knows that his place on the uneven pavement is his. I only know that every step I take marks one more stretch of land that isn’t mine. I’m lost; he has already found everything that he needs, even if he doesn’t know where his next meal will come from. I want to spit at him, but I can’t. I respect him too much.

Streetlights stare down at me condescendingly, the area of blackness between their diffuse spheres of influence giving me a feeling of insecurity as I cut corners with an indeterminate path in mind. It’s as if they’re mocking me, guiding me along through the abyss of lost-ness only to say “Ha! I’ve got you!” when I realize that I’m back at the same market that I passed five minutes ago. I’m misguided, listening to light and watching the scenes change as if I’m helpless, lost in my own body as much as the body of the city.

I run past a middle aged black man twirling a cane awkwardly and mumbling to himself. He extends a hand out to me just as I am about to pass. I stop to shake it. What’s going anywhere when you’re lost? I can feel the calluses of a life either well lived or wasted away, and the decrepit man smiles back at me. “Hi, I’m James.” He’s complaining about a pinched nerve in his leg and something about getting home. I can half understand him. The topic turns to money. $2.27. I laugh. Tell him to walk with me. I’ll break a twenty at the corner store.

It’s cold outside. Glad I brought a jacket, but the sweat staining my jean legs makes the night breeze chill me to the bone. James won’t stop complaining about being cold. And his pinched nerve. “Been there, done that” I tell him. And all I want to ask him is if he knows Ginsberg. America, two dollars twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956. America, stop pushing, I know what I’m doing. America, I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

I envy Ginsberg sometimes. I envy homeless people sometimes. Old story of Ginsberg and his shrink, Phillip Hicks: “What would you like to do?” “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I really would like to stop working forever—never work again, never do anything like the work I’m doing now—and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure and to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends.” “If that is what you really feel would please you, what in the world is stopping you from doing it?”

I ask James. James says that he knows Ginsberg. James doesn’t know Ginsberg. James knows Ginsberg. Ginsberg is where he’s going after he gets a few bucks off of the sucker taking him to the corner store.

James doesn’t exist anymore, and I don’t have a twenty. I have a ten and a five. But I don’t have two dollars and twenty-seven cents. I don’t want to have two dollars and twenty-seven cents right now. A month ago, I read about Romeo talking about money being poison. And for this guy, my money might very well to prove to be his poison of choice. It might not. At least he knows what he wants. At least he knows where he’s going.

The streets are nearly empty, rare for the city at this hour, yet every streetlight is still lit up. False beacons of direction leading me everywhere and nowhere. And yet, as I walk out of that corner store, I see brighter lights, the road to the BART station and then home. For now, it’s salvation from the unknown. But I don’t know if it’s my path. The one I want to take. But tonight, it’s the one I have to take. Probably going to be the same path tomorrow. But one of these days, I’ll make my own path. I’ll be the Ginsberg of my generation. I’ll be the James with the calluses in my hands. I’ll be who I want to be. But tonight, I’m taking the yellow line back home. Good night San Francisco.

Constructive criticism and general feedback are greatly appreciated.

title: Direction (Meditation on being lost, the wonder years, Ginsberg, homelessness and the future)

question: What does the story say about how the narrator lost her way?

question: Describe the narrator's feelings toward the homeless man.

answer: The narrator had lost her way and was anxiously attempting to find her way back home to be at the station before the clock struck midnight the next day. Because she passed by the same homeless man three times, the narrator realizes she has no idea where she is headed. This homeless man chuckles at her plight and the irony since, while not knowing where he will get his next meal, he feels at home in his small habitation, whereas the narrator, who has a home, can't find her way there. The narrator is envious of the homeless man and wants to spit at him but refrains.

question: What does the story say about James, and what does he have in common with the narrator?

answer: When the narrator tries to find her way home, she meets James, a middle-aged black man. He smiles and introduces himself to the narrator. James has a pinched nerve in his leg, and, like the narrator, he is disoriented and desperate to return home. They form a camaraderie over their predicament and stroll together. They talk about money and Ginsberg, and James claims to be acquainted with the latter. He says that is where he is headed after getting some cash from the person talking to him at the corner store. Afterward, he takes the narrator's money and disappears.

question: What is the story of Ginsberg?

answer: Allen Ginsberg was a poet who told his shrink, Dr. Phillip Hicks, that he wished he could retire from his advertising job and never have to work again. He only wanted to write poetry, relax, spend each day outside, visit museums, and spend time with his friends. His therapist reassured him by telling him that he should just be himself. Because of Ginsberg's life philosophy, the narrator was occasionally envious of him.


text:
  There isn’t much to be said about a rain drop.  Falling from the sky, hurtling towards an inevitable end, oblivious to its own grim eventuality.  It ends much like it began. Silently, swiftly, with no fuss or clamor.  Pitter patter, pitter patter- we hardly notice the death rattle of millions.
It’s raining in the desert.  The ground is so dry that it resists the water,  so dense that it cannot seep down into the earth. Rather it floods over it, running in wild streams, carving gullies across the sand.  It pools and puddles in basins and on the plain, growing larger as it is fed by the runoff and its cousins falling directly to it from the sky.  The falling droplets make ripples across the surface- by this the volume of rainfall may be seen.
The ripples slide smoothly outwards from the point of impact.  The first is largest, the following lessen. Ring after ring glide out, until they turn from faint to finished.  As they expand they roll over ripples from neighboring points of impact. Gently, they roll over each other, skewing their course.  They are quickly lost from sight, buried beneath the waves of later generations.
The desert won’t remember the rain. In a day’s time, it will again be dry, the wind and sand will hide the gorges the water ran through.  The air will be parched, the sky clear.  Innumerable storms have swept across the sandy expanse.  But one would never know, looking out on it.  None of them left a legend.  Every droplet failed to make an impression.  For a time, they stood united in great pools and winding rivulets, snaking across the sand, shaping the landscape.  But as quickly as the rain came did the desert reclaim the sand.
Man is the rain.  Man’s end is also a quiet ripple. His passing is noticed by those closest to him, their lives are changed and their own ripples turned aside slightly by his.  And then his ring expires, written over by new waves, new ripples and new stories.  Those who knew him pass, those who knew them follow; the desert drinks up all memories thirstily and erases any trace of any being there.
So lives are measured.  Not in years or in virtue, but in impact.  The violence of man’s expiration is the ultimate tribute to his existence.  If his substance is to be lost amidst the mass of millions, joining together into one indiscriminate mass of fluid, marked only by a quiet plopping and subtle splash, so be it.  Such an end is chosen every instant by the individual to whom it represents.  They chose timidity over boldness.  They are just part of the storm.
That’s all man is.  A storm of feeling and thought.  There is chaos in every human heart.  From the collective soul echoes such pandemonium that may shake the world to pieces.  Fully expressed, man will be the hurricane.  The typhoon.  Man is a force of nature like no other.
Alone man is no howling wind.  His rage today is not expressed even as a gentle breeze.  Man has allowed himself to become but wisps of warm air- stirring ever so slightly the leaves of trees as he moves along.  Man’s raindrops fall slowly to the ground, fat and tear shaped, splatting gently against some surface infinitely more resolute than he.
But not all men.  Some refuse to be a party to a complacent demise.  Some men’s wind will blow their rain sideways.  They will sting the skin and their heated fury will turn the rain to steam.  No faint drizzle, their droplet will be the herald of a downpour.
The hate that drives them is the hate of the gentle rain. They hate the soft, white clouds that litter the sky, occasionally precipitating some minor rainfall, failing to even mark the day as overcast.  How can a man or woman consign themselves to such a fate?  Are they so filled with apathy that they simply accept the world, allowing gravity to pull them down, directly?  Where is the resistance?
	It’s lost, and they’ve sworn to find it.  Their only drive is to effect this change.  They find the air to be stale, the water stagnant.  In the wake of the hurricane the world will be scrubbed clean.

title: For all the Sheep out there.

question: How does the metaphor of rain function to explain the death of a person?

answer: The raindrop is described as expiring quickly, without fanfare, and ultimately leaving but a passing trace. This is related to the memory of people, who are remembered by their loved ones, but ultimately as the years pass, all those who remember them are gone.


text:
Summer seminar UPC TelecomBCN (July 4-8, 2016)

Deep learning technologies are at the core of the current revolution in artificial intelligence for multimedia data analysis. The convergence of big annotated data and affordable GPU hardware has allowed the training of neural networks for data analysis tasks which had been addressed until now with hand-crafted features. Architectures such as convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks and Q-nets for reinforcement learning have shaped a brand new scenario in signal processing. This course will cover the basic principles and applications of deep learning to computer vision problems, such as image classification, object detection or text captioning.

Course Instructors

  [Xavier Giro-i-Nieto]      [Elisa Sayrol]      [AmaiaSalvador]       [Jordi Torres]      [Eva Mohedano]      [Kevin McGuinness]
  -------------------------- ------------------- --------------------- ------------------- ------------------- -----------------------
  Xavier Giro-i-Nieto (XG)   Elisa Sayrol (ES)   Amaia Salvador (AS)   Jordi Torres (JT)   Eva Mohedano (EM)   Kevin McGuinness (KM)

Teaching assistants

  [Junting Pan]   [Míriam Bellver]   [AlbertJimenez]   [Andrea Ferri]   [Alberto Montes]   [Maurici Yagües]
  --------------- ------------------ ----------------- ---------------- ------------------ ------------------
  Junting Pan     Míriam Bellver     Albert Jiménez    Andrea Ferri     Alberto Montes     Maurici Yagües

Organizers

  [logo-etsetb]           [logo-gpi]                   [logo-upc]                                   [logo-bsc]                        [logo-insight]                      [logo-dcu]
  ----------------------- ---------------------------- -------------------------------------------- --------------------------------- ----------------------------------- ------------------------------
  UPC ETSETB TelecomBCN   UPC Image Processing Group   Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC)   Barcelona Supercomputing Center   Insight Centre for Data Analytics   Dublin City University (DCU)

Lecture Slides and Videos

  Topic                        Speaker   Slideshare   YouTube
  ---------------------------- --------- ------------ ---------
  D1L1 Welcome                 XG        Slides
  D1L2 Classification          EM        Slides
  D1L3 Deep networks           ES        Slides
  D1L4 Backward Propagation    ES        Slides       Video
  D1L5 Training                EM        Slides
  D1L6 Software Frameworks     KM        Slides       Video
  D2L1 Memory & Computation    KM        Slides       Video
  D2L2 Data Augmentation       EM        Slides
  D2L3 Visualization           AS        Slides       Video
  D2L4 Imagenet Challenge      XG        Slides
  D2L5 Transfer & Adaptation   KM        Slides       Video
  D2L6 Recurrent Networks      XG        Slides       Video
  D3L1 Unsupervised Learning   KM        Slides       Video
  D3L2 Saliency Prediction     ES        Slides
  D3L3 Optimization            KM        Slides
  D3L4 Object Detection        AS        Slides       Video
  D3L5 Face Recognition        ES        Slides       Video
  D3L6 Image retrieval         EM        Slides       Video
  D4L1 Generative Models       KM        Slides
  D4L2 Segmentation            AS        Slides       Video
  D4L3 Language and Vision     XG        Slides       Video
  D4L4 Video Analytics         XG        Slides       Video
  D4L5 Medical Imaging         ES        Slides       Video
  D4L6 Attention Models        AS        Slides       Video
  D5L Closing                  XG        Slides

Hands on TensorFlow

The seminar includes five practical sessions on TensorFlow, the Open Source Software Library for Machine Intelligence developed by Google. These sessions were taught by Professor Jordi Torres, with the teaching assistance of Maurici Yagües. Both of them are part of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC).

  Topic
  -------------------------- --------
  D1T Linear regressor       Slides
  D2T Clustering             Slides
  D3T Neuron & Tensorboard   Slides
  D4T CNN & SLIM             Slides
  D5T RNN                    Slides

The full course with code snippets is available in this repo.

Student projects

Master students together with some bachelor students organized in teams of five members who solved four directed tasks and developed an open project. The duration of the project corresponds to the single week of the course. Their slides and source code is available from their repos. If you are interested in hiring or contacting the students, some of them have provided their LinkedIn profiles from their project pages.

  Team     Project                                 Page   Slides   Repo
  -------- --------------------------------------- ------ -------- ------
  Team 1   Character autorotation + Autoencoders   Web    Slides   Repo
  Team 2   Neural Style                            -      Slides   Repo
  Team 3   Generative Adversarial Network          -      Slides   Repo
  Team 4   Multi-layer Neural Style                -      Slides   Repo
  Team 5   Deep Dream                              -      Slides   Repo

Schedule

  When        Monday 4          Tuesday 5       Wednesday 6     Thursday 7      Friday 8
  ----------- ----------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- ----------------
  3:00-3:20   Welcome           Memory          Unsupervised    Adversarial     Project Expo 3
  3:20-3:40   Classification    Augmentation    Saliency        Segmentation    Project Expo 4
  3:40-4:00   Deep              Visualization   Optimization    Language        Project Expo 5
  4:00-5:00   TensorFlow        TensorFlow      TensorFlow      TensorFlow      TensorFlow
  4:00-5:00   Project           Project         Project         Project         Closing 3,4,5
  5:00-5:20   Backpropagation   ImageNet        Objects         Video           Project Expo 1
  5:20-5:40   Training          Transfer        Faces           Medical         Project Expo 2
  5:40-6:00   Frameworks        Recurrent       Ranking         Attention       Break
  6:00-7:00   Project           Project         Project         Project         Closing 1,2
  6:00-7:00   TensorFlow        TensorFlow      TensorFlow JT   TensorFlow JT   TensorFlow

Practical

-   Course code: 230360 (Phd & master) / 230324 (Bachelor)
-   ECTS credits: 2.5 (Phd & master) / 2 (bachelor) (corresponds to FULL-TIME DEDICATION during the week course)
-   Teaching language: English
-   The course is offered for both master and bachelor students, but under two study programmes adapted to each profile.
-   Class Dates: 4-8 July, 2016
-   Class Schedule: 3-7pm (you will need 6 extra hours a day for homework during the week course)
-   Capacity: 14 MSc students + 16 BSc students
-   Location: Campus Nord UPC, Module D5, Room 010

Registration

Registration is SOLD OUT for this edition of the seminar. The 30 available seats were covered by UPC TelecomBCN students.

We greatly appreciate the interest of several other students who could not register. We are planning a new edition of this seminar for June-July 2017. A new seminar on Deep Learning for Speech and Language is also planned for January 2017.

You are also encouraged to share your questions and solution in the public issues section for future reference and quality improvement of the course.

Video recordings

Sessions will be recorded in video and posted afterwards, together with the slides.

This term we will be using Piazza for class discussion. The system is highly catered to getting you help fast and efficiently from classmates, the TA, and myself. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, I encourage you to post your questions on Piazza. If you have any problems or feedback for the developers, email team@piazza.com.

Find us at the class page.

-   Fei-Fei Li, Andrej Karpathy, Justin Johnson, “CS231n: Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition”. Stanford University, Spring 2016.
-   Sanja Fidler, “Deep Learning in Computer Vision”. University of Toronto, Winter 2016.
-   Hugo Larochelle, “Neural Networks”. Université de Sheerbroke.
-   Joan Bruna, “Stats212b: Topics on Deep Learning”. Berkeley University. Spring 2016.
-   Yann LeCun, “Deep Learning: Nine Lectures at Collège de France”. Collège de France, Spring 2016. [Facebook page]
-   Dhruv Batra, “ECE 6504: Deep learning for perception”. Virginia Tech, Fall 2015.
-   Vincent Vanhoucke, Arpan Chakraborty, “Deep Learning”. Google 2016.
-   Xavier Giro-i-Nieto, “Deep learning for computer vision: Image, Object, Videos Analytics and Beyond”. LaSalle URL. May 2016.
-   German Ros, Joost van de Weijer, Marc Masana, Yaxing Wang, “Hands-on Deep Learning with Matconvnet”. Computer Vision Center (CVC) 2015.

Acknowledgements

question: Summarize what is taught in the seminar.

answer: The seminar includes several deep learning (DL) architectures used for data analysis and how to train them. Particular examples are convolutional networks, recurrent networks, and Q-nets. The course also covers computer vision applications like image classification, object detection, and text captioning. There are also five sessions on practical uses of TensorFlow, an open-source library developed by Google.

question: What does the article say about the effectiveness of online seminars versus physical ones?