Monday, December 31, 2007


Identity formation is the process of the development of the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity (known as personal continuity) in a particular stage of life in which individual characteristics are possessed by which a person is recognized or known (such as the establishment of a reputation). This process defines an individual to others and themselves. Pieces of the entity's actual identity include a sense of continuity, a sense of uniqueness from others, and a sense of affiliation. Identity formation leads to a number issues of personal identity and an identity where the individual has some sort of comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity. This may be through individuation whereby the undifferentiated individual tends to become unique, or undergoes stages through which differentiated facets of a person's life tend toward becoming a more indivisible whole.

Theory of developmental stages
Self-concept or self-identity is the sum total of a being's knowledge and understanding of his or her self. The self-concept is different from self-consciousness, which is an awareness of one's self. Components of the self-concept include physical, psychological, and social attributes, which can be influenced by the individual's attitudes, habits, beliefs and ideas. These components and attributes can not be condensed to the general concepts of self-image and the self-esteem.
Cultural identity is the (feeling of) identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as she/he is influenced by her/his belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics. There are modern questions of culture that are transferred into questions of identity. An ethnic identity is the identification with a certain ethnicity, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry. Recognition by others as a distinct ethnic group is often a contributing factor to developing this bond of identification. Ethnic groups are also often united by common cultural, behavioral, linguistic, ritualistic, or religious traits. Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are summarized as ethnogenesis. Various cultural studies and social theory investigate the question of cultural and ethnic identities. Cultural identity remarks upon: place, gender, race, history, nationality, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and ethnicity. National identity is an ethical and philosophical concept whereby all humans are divided into groups called nations. Members of a "nation" share a common identity, and usually a common origin, in the sense of ancestry, parentage or descent.
A religious identity is the set of beliefs and practices generally held by an individual, involving adherence to codified beliefs and rituals and study of ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as faith and mystic experience. The term "religious identity" refers to the personal practices related to communal faith and to rituals and communication stemming from such conviction.
In business, a professional identity is the "persona" of a professional which is designed to accord with and facilitate the attainment of business objectives. A professional identity comes into being when there is a philosophy which is manifest in a distinct corporate culture - the corporate personality. A business professional is a person in a profession with certain types of skills that sometimes requiring formal training or education. The career development of an individual focuses on how individuals manage their careers within and between organizations and how organizations structure the career progress of their members, can be tied into succession planning within some organizations.
In sociology, gender identity describes the gender with which a person identifies (i.e, whether one perceives oneself to be a man, a woman, or describes oneself in some less conventional way), but can also be used to refer to the gender that other people attribute to the individual on the basis of what they know from gender role indications (social behavior, clothing, hair style, etc.). Gender identity may be affected by a variety of social structures, including the person's ethnic group, employment status, religion or irreligion, and family.

Interpersonal identity development

Main article: Hegelian dialectic Self, other, and interaction
Individuals gain a social identity and group identity by their affiliation. This is from membership in various groups. These groups include, among various categories,:
The term collective identity is a sense of belonging to a group (the collective) that is so strong that a person who identifies with the group will dedicate his or her life to the group over individual identity: he or she will defend the views of the group and assume risks for the group, sometimes as great as loss of life. The cohesiveness of the collective goes beyond community, as the collective suffers the pain of grief from the loss of a member.

family
ethnic
occupation
friendship
dating
sex roles Identity formation See also

Friday, December 28, 2007

Keith Campbell
Keith Campbell may refer to:
Keith Campbell (biologist), English biologist involved in the study of cloning.
Keith Campbell (motorcyclist), Australian former Grand Prix motorcycle world champion.
Keith Campbell (philosopher)
Keith Campbell (cricketer), New Zealand cricketer
Keith Campbell (ice hockey)

Thursday, December 27, 2007

State of Israel
Israel (Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל, Yisra'el), officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל , Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrā'īl), is a country in Asia located on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It has borders with Lebanon in the north, Syria and Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Partly or wholly reckoned in Oceania.
Flag of Djibouti Djibouti  ·  Flag of Egypt Egypt  ·  Flag of Eritrea Eritrea  ·  Flag of Israel Israel  ·  Flag of Jordan Jordan  ·  Flag of Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia  ·  Flag of Somalia Somalia  ·  Flag of Sudan Sudan  ·  Flag of Yemen Yemen
  Flag of Egypt Egypt
Flag of Ethiopia Ethiopia

Ausubel, Natan (1964), The Book of Jewish Knowledge, New York, New York: Crown Publishers, ISBN 051709746X
Barton, John & Julie Bowden (2004), The Original Story: God, Israel and the World, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ISBN 0802829007
Best, Anthony (2003), International History of the Twentieth Century, Routledge, ISBN 0415207398
Bregman, Ahron (2002), A History of Israel, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0333676319
Cole, Tim (2003), Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto, Routledge, ISBN 0415929687
Crowdy, Terry (2006), The Enemy Within: A History of Espionage, Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1841769339
Dekmejian, R. Hrair (1975), Patterns of Political Leadership: Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, State University of New York Press, ISBN 087395291X
Gelvin, James L. (2005), The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521852897
Gilbert, Martin (2005), The Routledge Atlas Of The Arab-Israeli Conflict (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 0415359007
Goldreich, Yair (2003), The Climate of Israel: Observation, Research and Application, Springer, ISBN 030647445X
Hamilton, Victor P. (1995), The Book of Genesis (2nd revised ed.), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ISBN 0802823092
Harkavy, Robert E. & Stephanie G. Neuman (2001), Warfare and the Third World, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0312240120
Kornberg, Jacques (1993), Theodor Herzl: From Assimilation to Zionism, Indiana University Press, ISBN 0253332036
Laqueur, Walter (2003), The History of Zionism, Tauris Parke Paperbacks, ISBN 1860649327
Lustick, Ian (1988), For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Council on Foreign Relations Press, ISBN 0876090366
Mazie, Steven (2006), Israel's Higher Law: Religion and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish State, Lexington Books, ISBN 0739114859
Morçöl, Göktuğ (2006), Handbook of Decision Making, CRC Press, ISBN 1574445480
Mowlana, Hamid; George Gerbner & Herbert I. Schiller (1992), Triumph of the Image: The Media's War in the Persian Gulf — A Global Perspective, Westview Press, ISBN 0813316103
Rosenzweig, Rafael (1997), The Economic Consequences of Zionism, Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 9004091475
Rees, Matt (2004), Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0743250478
Scharfstein, Sol (1996), Understanding Jewish History, KTAV Publishing House, ISBN 0881255459
Shamir, Michal & Alan Arian (2002), The Elections in Israel, 1999, State University of New York Press, ISBN 0791453154
Skolnik, Fred (2007), Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 9 (2nd ed.), Macmillian, ISBN 0028659287
Shindler, Colin (2002), The Land Beyond Promise: Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream, I.B.Tauris Publishers, ISBN 186064774X
Smith, Derek (2006), Deterring America: Rogue States and the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521864658
Stendel, Ori (1997), The Arabs in Israel, Sussex Academic Press, ISBN 1898723230
Wenham, Gordon J. (1994), Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 2 (Genesis 16-50), ISBN 0849902010
(Hebrew) Israel Government Portal (with links to English, Arabic versions)
(Hebrew) Prime Minister's Office, official site (with links to English, Arabic versions)
(Hebrew) President of the State of Israel, official site (with links to English, Arabic versions)
The Knesset, official site of Israel's parliament
(Hebrew) The Supreme Court, official site (with links to English, Arabic versions)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, official site
(Hebrew) Central Bureau of Statistics, official site (with links to English, Arabic versions)
Ministry of Tourism, official site
CIA World Factbook entry on Israel
Encyclopædia Britannica entry on Israel
BBC country profile of Israel
Library of Congress Country Studies entry on Israel
Columbia University library related to Israel
The Jerusalem Post, Israel's most popular English-language newspaper
Ynet News, based on Tel Aviv
(Hebrew) Israel Broadcasting Agency, state broadcasting network (with link to English version)
Israel travel guide from Wikitravel
Israel at WikiMapia
Israel at the Open Directory Project
Wikimedia Atlas of Israel, holding maps related to Israel.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007


Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent
Proponents of XP and agile methodologies in general regard ongoing changes to requirements as a natural, inescapable and desirable aspect of software development projects; they believe that adaptability to changing requirements at any point during the project life is a more realistic and better approach than attempting to define all requirements at the beginning of a project and then expending effort to control changes to the requirements.

History
Software development in the 1990s was shaped by two major influences: internally, object-oriented programming replaced procedural programming as the programming paradigm favored by some in the industry; externally, the rise of the Internet and the dot-com boom emphasized speed-to-market and company-growth as competitive business factors. Rapidly-changing requirements demanded shorter product life-cycles, and were often incompatible with traditional methods of software development.
The Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation project was started in order to determine the best way to use object technologies, using the payroll systems at Chrysler as the object of research, with Smalltalk as the language and GemStone as the data access layer. They brought in Kent Beck, a prominent Smalltalk practitioner, to do performance tuning on the system, but his role expanded as he noted several issues they were having with their development process. He took this opportunity to propose and implement some changes in their practices based on his work with his frequent collaborator, Ward Cunningham.
The first time I was asked to lead a team, I asked them to do a little bit of the things I thought were sensible, like testing and reviews. The second time there was a lot more on the line. I thought, "Damn the torpedoes, at least this will make a good article," [and] asked the team to crank up all the knobs to 10 on the things I thought were essential and leave out everything else.Kent Beck
Beck invited Ron Jeffries to the project to help develop and refine these methods. Jeffries thereafter acted as a coach to instill the practices as habits in the C3 team.
Information about the principles and practices behind XP was disseminated to the wider world through discussions on the original Wiki, Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb. Various contributors discussed and expanded upon the ideas, and some spin-off methodologies resulted (see agile software development). Also, XP concepts have been explained, for several years, using a hyper-text system map on the XP website at "www.extremeprogramming.org" circa 1999 (website ^XPORG).
Beck edited a series of books on XP, beginning with his own Extreme Programming Explained (1999, ISBN 0-201-61641-6), spreading his ideas to a much larger, yet very receptive, audience. Authors in the series went through various aspects attending XP and its practices, even a book critical of the practices.

Origins
XP created quite a buzz in the late 1990s and early 2000s, seeing adoption in a number of environments radically different from its origins.
The high discipline required by the original practices often went by the wayside, causing certain practices to be deprecated or left undone on individual sites. Agile development practices have not stood still, and XP is still evolving, assimilating more lessons from experiences in the field. In the second edition of Extreme Programming Explained, Beck added more values and practices and differentiated between primary and corollary practices.

Current state
Extreme Programming Explained describes Extreme Programming as being:
The main aim of XP is to reduce the cost of change. In traditional system development methods (like SSADM) the requirements for the system are determined at the beginning of the development project and often fixed from that point on. This means that the cost of changing the requirements at a later stage (a common feature of software engineering projects) will be high.
XP sets out to reduce the cost of change by introducing basic values, principles and practices. By applying XP, a system development project should be more flexible with respect to changes.

An attempt to reconcile humanity and productivity
A mechanism for social change
A path to improvement
A style of development
A software development discipline Goal of XP
Extreme Programming initially recognized four values in 1999. A new value was added in the second edition of Extreme Programming Explained. The five values are:
Building software systems requires communicating system requirements to the developers of the system. In formal software development methodologies, this task is accomplished through documentation. Extreme Programming techniques can be viewed as methods for rapidly building and disseminating institutional knowledge among members of a development team. The goal is to give all developers a shared view of the system which matches the view held by the users of the system. To this end, Extreme Programming favors simple designs, common metaphors, collaboration of users and programmers, frequent verbal communication, and feedback.
Extreme Programming encourages starting with the simplest solution and refactoring to better ones. The difference between this approach and more conventional system development methods is the focus on designing and coding for the needs of today instead of those of tomorrow, next week, or next month. Proponents of XP acknowledge the disadvantage that this can sometimes entail more effort tomorrow to change the system; their claim is that this is more than compensated for by the advantage of not investing in possible future requirements that might change before they become relevant. Coding and designing for uncertain future requirements implies the risk of spending resources on something that might not be needed. Related to the "communication" value, simplicity in design and coding should improve the (quality of) communication. A simple design with very simple code could be easily understood by most programmers in the team.
Within Extreme Programming, feedback relates to different dimensions of the system development:
Feedback is closely related to communication and simplicity. Flaws in the system are easily communicated by writing a unit test that proves a certain piece of code will break. The direct feedback from the system tells programmers to recode this part. A customer is able to test the system periodically according to the functional requirements (aka user stories). To quote Kent Beck, "Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming, feedback is the treatment."
Several practices embody courage. One is the commandment to always design and code for today and not for tomorrow. This is an effort to avoid getting bogged down in design and requiring a lot of effort to implement anything else. Courage enables developers to feel comfortable with refactoring their code when necessary. This means reviewing the existing system and modifying it so that future changes can be implemented more easily. Another example of courage is knowing when to throw code away: courage to remove source code that is obsolete, no matter how much effort was used to create that source code. Also, courage means persistence: A programmer might be stuck on a complex problem for an entire day, then solve the problem quickly the next day, if only they are persistent.
The respect value manifests in several ways. In Extreme Programming, team members respect each other because programmers should never commit changes that break compilation, that make existing unit-tests fail, or that otherwise delay the work of their peers. Members respect their work by always striving for high quality and seeking for the best design for the solution at hand through refactoring.
Adopting four earlier values led to respect gained from others in team. Nobody on the team should feel unappreciated or ignored. This ensures high level of motivation and encourages loyalty toward the team, and the goal of the project. This value is very dependent upon the other values, and is very much oriented toward people in a team.

Communication
Simplicity
Feedback
Courage
Respect
Feedback from the system: by writing unit tests, or running periodic integration tests, the programmers have direct feedback from the state of the system after implementing changes.
Feedback from the customer: The functional tests (aka acceptance tests) are written by the customer and the testers. They will get concrete feedback about the current state of their system. This review is planned once in every two or three weeks so the customer can easily steer the development.
Feedback from the team: When customers come up with new requirements in the planning game the team directly gives an estimation of the time that it will take to implement. XP values
The principles that form the basis of XP are based on the values just described and are intended to foster decisions in a system development project. The principles are intended to be more concrete than the values and more easily translated to guidance in a practical situation.
Feedback is most useful if it is done rapidly. The time between an action and its feedback is critical to learning and making changes. In Extreme Programming, unlike traditional system development methods, contact with the customer occurs in small iterations. The customer has clear insight into the system that is being developed. He or she can give feedback and steer the development as needed.
Unit tests also contribute to the rapid feedback principle. When writing code, the unit test provides direct feedback as to how the system reacts to the changes one has made. If, for instance, the changes affect a part of the system that is not in the scope of the programmer who made them, that programmer will not notice the flaw. There is a large chance that this bug will appear when the system is in production.
Assuming simplicity is about treating every problem as if its solution were "extremely simple". Traditional system development methods say to plan for the future and to code for reusability. Extreme programming rejects these ideas.
The advocates of Extreme Programming say that making big changes all at once does not work. Extreme Programming applies incremental changes: for example, a system might have small releases every three weeks. By making many little steps the customer has more control over the development process and the system that is being developed.
The principle of embracing change is about not working against changes but embracing them. For instance, if at one of the iterative meetings it appears that the customer's requirements have changed dramatically, programmers are to embrace this and plan the new requirements for the next iteration.

Principles
XP describes four basic activities that are performed within the software development process.

Activities
The advocates of XP argue that the only truly important product of the system development process is code (a concept to which they give a somewhat broader definition than might be given by others). Without code you have nothing.
Coding can be drawing diagrams that will generate code, scripting a web-based system or coding a program that needs to be compiled.
Coding can also be used to figure out the most suitable solution. For instance, XP would advocate that faced with several alternatives for a programming problem, one should simply code all solutions and determine with automated tests (discussed in the next section) which solution is most suitable.
Coding can also help to communicate thoughts about programming problems. A programmer dealing with a complex programming problem and finding it hard to explain the solution to fellow programmers might code it and use the code to demonstrate what he or she means. Code, say the exponents of this position, is always clear and concise and cannot be interpreted in more than one way. Other programmers can give feedback on this code by also coding their thoughts.

Coding
One cannot be certain of anything unless one has tested it. Testing is not a perceived, primary need for the customer. A lot of software is shipped without proper testing and still works (more or less). In software development, XP says this means that one cannot be certain that a function works unless one tests it. This raises the question of defining what one can be uncertain about.

You can be uncertain whether what you coded is what you meant. To test this uncertainty, XP uses Unit Tests. These are automated tests that test the code. The programmer will try to write as many tests he or she can think of that might break the code he or she is writing; if all tests run successfully then the coding is complete.
You can be uncertain whether what you meant is what you should have meant. To test this uncertainty, XP uses acceptance tests based on the requirements given by the customer in the exploration phase of release planning. Testing
Programmers do not necessarily know anything about the business side of the system under development. The function of the system is determined by the business side. For the programmers to find what the functionality of the system should be, they have to listen to business.
Programmers have to listen "in the large": they have to listen to what the customer needs. Also, they have to try to understand the business problem, and to give the customer feedback about his or her problem, to improve the customer's own understanding of his or her problem.
Communication between the customer and programmer is further addressed in The Planning Game.

Extreme programming Listening
From the point of view of simplicity, one could say that system development doesn't need more than coding, testing and listening. If those activities are performed well, the result should always be a system that works. In practice, this will not work. One can come a long way without designing but at a given time one will get stuck. The system becomes too complex and the dependencies within the system cease to be clear.
One can avoid this by creating a design structure that organizes the logic in the system. Good design will avoid lots of dependencies within a system; this means that changing one part of the system will not affect other parts of the system.

Extreme programming Practices
Unstable Requirements: Proponents of Extreme Programming claim that by having the on-site customer request changes informally, the process becomes flexible, and saves the cost of formal overhead. Critics of XP claim this can lead to costly rework and project scope creep beyond what was previously agreed or funded.
User Conflicts: Change control boards are a sign that there are potential conflicts in project objectives and constraints between multiple users. XP's expedited methodology is somewhat dependent on programmers being able to assume a unified client viewpoint so the programmer can concentrate on coding rather than documentation of compromise objectives and constraints. This also applies when multiple programming organizations are involved, particularly organizations which compete for shares of projects.
Other Aspects: Other controversial aspects of Extreme Programming include:
Dependence upon all other aspects of XP: "XP is like a ring of poisonous snakes, daisy-chained together. All it takes is for one of them to wriggle loose, and you've got a very angry, poisonous snake heading your way." was introduced as an evolution of XP. It brings ability to work in big and distributed teams. It now has 23 practices and flexible changeable values. As it is a new member of Agile family, there is not enough data to prove its usability, however it claims to be an answer to XP's imperfections.
Hybrid/Unified Methodologies: Other authors have tried to reconcile XP with the older methods in order to form a unified methodology. Some of these XP sought to replace, such as the waterfall method; example: Project Lifecycles: Waterfall, Rapid Application Development, and All That.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. tried combining XP with the computer programming methodologies of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), and Six Sigma. They found that the three systems reinforced each other well, leading to better development, and did not mutually contradict, see Extreme Programming (XP) Six Sigma CMMI.
Finally, XP is not the only controversial methodology, because XP is a response to the controversy and criticisms about other methods used in software development.

Requirements are expressed as automated acceptance tests rather than specification documents.
Requirements are defined incrementally, rather than trying to get them all in advance.
Software developers are required to work in pairs.
There is no Big Design Up Front. Most of the design activity takes place on the fly and incrementally, starting with "the simplest thing that could possibly work" and adding complexity only when it's required by failing tests. Critics fear this would result in more re-design effort than only re-designing when requirements change.
A customer representative is attached to the project. This role can become a single-point-of-failure for the project, and some people have found it to be a source of stress. Also, there is the danger of micro-management by a non-technical representative trying to dictate the use of technical software features and architecture. Application of Extreme Programming

Software Development Rhythms
Software engineering
Agile software development
Extreme project management
Extreme Programming Practices
Pair Programming
Toyota Production System
List of software development philosophies

Tuesday, December 25, 2007


A differential equation is a mathematical equation for an unknown function of one or several variables which relates the values of the function itself and of its derivatives of various orders. Differential equations play a prominent role in engineering, physics, economics, and other disciplines.

Differential equation Introduction
The study of differential equations is a wide field in both pure and applied mathematics. Pure mathematicians study the types and properties of differential equations, such as whether or not solutions exist, and should they exist, whether they are unique. Applied mathematicians emphasize differential equations from applications, and in addition to existence/uniqueness questions, are also concerned with rigorously justifying methods for approximating solutions. Physicists and engineers are usually more interested in computing approximate solutions to differential equations, and are typically less interested in justifications for whether these approximations really are close to the actual solutions. These solutions are then used to simulate celestial motions, simulate neurons, design bridges, automobiles, aircraft, sewers, etc. Often, these equations do not have closed form solutions and are solved using numerical methods.
Mathematicians also study weak solutions (relying on weak derivatives), which are types of solutions that do not have to be differentiable everywhere. This extension is often necessary for solutions to exist, and it also results in more physically reasonable properties of solutions, such as shocks in hyperbolic (or wave) equations.
The study of the stability of solutions of differential equations is known as stability theory.

Types of differential equations
The theory of differential equations is closely related to the theory of difference equations, in which the coordinates assume only discrete values, and the relationship involves values of the unknown function or functions and values at nearby coordinates. Many methods to compute numerical solutions of differential equations or study the properties of differential equations involve approximation of the solution of a differential equation by the solution of a corresponding difference equation.

Connection to difference equations
A large number of fundamental laws of physics and chemistry can be formulated as differential equations. In biology and economics differential equations are used to model the behavior of complex systems. The mathematical theory of differential equations first developed together with the sciences where the equations had originated and where the results found application. However, diverse problems, sometimes originating in quite distinct scientific fields, may give rise to identical differential equations. Whenever this happens, mathematical theory behind the equations can be viewed as a unifying principle behind diverse phenomena. As an example, consider propagation of light and sound in the atmosphere, and of waves on the surface of a pond. All of them may be described by the same second order partial differential equation, the wave equation, which allows us to think of light and sound as forms of waves, much like familiar waves in the water. Conduction of heat, whose theory was brilliantly developed by Joseph Fourier, is governed by another second order partial differential equation, the heat equation. It turned out that many diffusion processes, while seemingly different, are described by the same equation; Black-Scholes equation in finance is for instance, related to the heat equation.

Famous differential equations

Picard-Lindelöf theorem on existence and uniqueness of solutions

Monday, December 24, 2007


All India Institute of Medical Sciences
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) (created 1956) is a medical college in India. It is located in New Delhi. It has been consistently ranked the top medical college in India by India Today.
It is one of India's Institutes of National Importance, a distinguished category of premier institutions including the IITs, Indian Statistical Institute, ICAR etc.

Academics

Admission
Every year AIIMS accepts 45 students, of which 33 belong to General Category and 11 belong to the reserved category (SC/ST) and 1 orthopedic physically handicapped, based on the results of an all-India entrance examination for its MBBS program. The number of students who take the entrance exam every year varies from 70,000 to 80,000. Five international students (nominated by Government of India) complete the class size of 50.
AIIMS also specializes in paramedical and basic science training.

MBBS course
There are about 42 speciality post-graduate courses conducted at AIIMS. The entry is through a nationwide competitive examination held every six months. These courses are highly coveted by the medical graduates across the country because of the institution's excellent medical services, exposure to unusual & referred cases and excellent opportunities for research.

Post-graduate courses
AIIMS has been ranked repeatedly at the top in its field in annual surveys (starting in 1997) published by India Today.

Ranking
AIIMS was originally built as a Superspeciality

Integrating clinics and research
As per the AIIMS Citizen's Charter,

Medical services
There is a separate cardiothoracic and neurosciences centre (CNC) offering superspeciality level patient care, training and research in the respective fields.
Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences is a 300 bed ophthalmic (eyes) speciality centre devoted to the education, research and patient care. It is designated as the apex eye referral centre for India and is the WHO collaborating centre for ophthalmic programs.
Recently Dr. BR Ambedkar Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital's construction has been completed. It specializes in medical, radiation and surgical oncology.
Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre is the latest addition to the existing facilities. It is India's first full-fledged trauma centre to treat victims of trauma. It is located about 1 KM west from the main campus.

Speciality Centres at AIIMS
AIIMS is a residential university where the faculty members, staff and students live on either the main campus or one of the several campuses which form a part of the Institution. There are five hostels for men undergraduate students and a single hostel available for women undergraduate students. These six hostels together can accommodate 850 students. For Post-graduate students, there are three hostels available for the men students and a single hostel for the women students. Additional hostels for Nursing students and Post-graduate students are available at a facility in the Masjid Moth area, situated near to the main AIIMS campus.
Students of AIIMS involve themselves in extra-academic movements, including Pulse, the annual, inter-college festival hosted by AIIMS.

Residential facilities

AIIMS is the first Indian center to perform a successful cardiac transplant. The surgery was performed by Dr.P Venugopal, the current director of AIIMS in 1994. Achievements

Controversies
Prior to Supreme court judgment of 25th Aug, 2001 and changes in institutional quota, AIIMS was criticised for the way 33% of Post Graduation Seats were reserved for those who complete their MBBS in AIIMS. The quota has been quashed by the Supreme Court as per its Judgment in the year 2001.

Institutional Quota

Main articles: Indian anti-reservation protests, 2006 and Reservation in IndiaAll India Institute of Medical Sciences Notable faculty and Alumni

PGI Chandigarh
Sanjay Gandhi PGIMS Lucknow
NEIGRIHMS Shillong
JIPMER

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Andreas Palaeologos
Andreas Palaiologos (or Palaeologus) (1453 - 1503) de jure Byzantine emperor and Despot of Morea from 1465 until death in 1503.
He was the nephew of Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine Emperor of Constantinople. After Constantine was defeated and killed by the forces of Mehmed II on May 29, 1453, Andreas continued to live in Morea, which was ruled independently by Andreas' father Thomas Palaiologos, the younger brother of Constantine, until 1460. At this time he escaped to the Italian peninsula following an Ottoman invasion. Before entering Italy, Thomas and all his children made the conversion to the Roman Catholic religion. When his father died in 1465, Andreas stayed in Italy under the protection of the Papal States.
During his lifetime, Andreas is believed to have wasted enormous sums of money given to him by the Pope. However, modern historians now believe that the money received from the Pope was only enough for a meager standard of living.
Looking for money and a better life, Andreas tried to sell the rights to the Byzantine crown, which had fallen to him de jure since the death of his father Thomas. Charles VIII of France originally agreed to purchase the rights of succession from Andreas in 1494. However Charles predeceased him on April 7, 1498.
Andreas' younger brother Manuel Palaiologos arranged a deal with the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II, exchanging his rights to the Byzantine throne for a comfortable pension.
Andreas died a pauper in 1502. According to his will his heirs were Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. While most scholars believe Andreas left no descendants of his own, Donald M. Nicol's The Immortal Emperor recognises a Constantine Palaiologos who served in the Papal Guard and a Maria who married Russian noble Mihail Vasilivich as possible offspring of Andreas.
References
Andreas Palaeologos Jonathan Harris, Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400-1520, Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995. ISBN 1 871328 11 X
Jonathan Harris 'A worthless prince? Andreas Palaeologus in Rome, 1465-1502', Orientalia Christiana Periodica 61 (1995), 537-54
Donald M. Nicol, The Immortal Emperor, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 115-22. ISBN 0 521 41456 3.
Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 183-4. ISBN 0 521 09573 5

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Gerard Fairtlough
Author, speaker and management thinker Gerard Fairtlough trained initially as a biochemist at Cambridge University. He worked for 25 years in the Royal Dutch Shell group, where he spent the last 5 years as Chief Executive of Shell Chemicals UK.
In 1980 he founded the biopharmaceuticals firm Celltech and remained its chief executive until 1990. Since that time he has been involved in the formation of a number of high-tech businesses. Gerard has served as an advisor to several UK government and academic institutions. He has been Specialist Advisor to the British House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, Chair of the Advisory Panel on Science Policy Research at the University of Sussex, and a member of the UK Science and Engineering Council.
Gerard Fairtlough has developed and elaborated Triarchy Theory and is the author of The Three Ways of Getting Things Done: Hierarchy, Heterarchy & Responsible Autonomy in Organisations, Creative Compartments: A Design for Future Organisation, and co-author with Julie Allan and Barbara Heinzen of The Power of the Tale: Using Narratives for Organisational Success. He has also written extensively on the theory and practice of organization design and management and of innovation.

Friday, December 21, 2007

October 17
October 17 is the 290th day of the year (291st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 75 days remaining.

October 17 Events

1253 - Ivo of Kermartin, French saint (d. 1303)
1563 - Jodocus Hondius, Flemish cartographer (d. 1611)
1577 - Cristofano Allori, Italian painter (d. 1621)
1582 - Johann Gerhard, German Lutheran leader (d. 1637)
1623 - Francis Turretin, Swiss theologian (d. 1687)
1688 - Domenico Zipoli, Italian composer (d. 1726)
1711 - Jupiter Hammon, American writer
1719 - Jacques Cazotte, French writer (d. 1792)
1811 - Albertus van Raalte, Dutch/American religious leader (d. 1876)
1813 - Georg Büchner, German playwright (d. 1837)
1817 - Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Indian Muslim intellectual (d. 1898)
1864 - Elinor Glyn, British writer (d. 1943)
1865 - James Rudolph Garfield, American politician (d. 1950)
1886 - Spring Byington, American actress (d. 1971)
1890 - Roy Kilner, English cricketer (d. 1928)
1898 - Shinichi Suzuki, Japanese violin teacher (d. 1998)
1898 - Simon Vestdijk, Dutch writer (d. 1971)
1900 - Jean Arthur, American actress (d. 1991)
1902 - Irene Ryan, American actress (d. 1973)
1903 - Nathanael West, American writer (d. 1940)
1906 - Paul Derringer, American baseball player (d. 1987)
1908 - Red Rolfe, American baseball player (d. 1969)
1912 - Pope John Paul I (d. 1978)
1912 - Jack Owens, The Cruising Crooner, American singer/songwriter (d. 1982)
1914 - Jerry Siegel, American cartoonist, co-creator of Superman (d. 1996)
1915 - Arthur Miller, American playwright (d. 2005)
1917 - Sumner Locke Elliott, Australian (later American) novelist (d. 1991)
1918 - Rita Hayworth, American actress (d. 1987)
1919 - Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov, Russian physicist
1920 - Miguel Delibes, Spanish writer
1920 - Montgomery Clift, American actor (d. 1966)
1921 - Tom Poston, American actor and comedian (d. 2007)
1921 - Maria Gorokhovskaya, Soviet gymnast (d. 2001)
1922 - Pierre Juneau, Canadian film and broadcast executive
1922 - Luiz Bonfá, Brazilian composer (d. 2001)
1923 - Charles McClendon, American football coach (d. 2001)
1923 - Barney Kessel, American musician (d. 2004)
1926 - Julie Adams, American film actress
1930 - Robert Atkins, American nutritionist (d. 2003)
1930 - Jimmy Breslin, American writer
1930 - Joe Erskine, American welterweight boxer and long distance runner
1931 - Ernst Hinterberger, Austrian writer
1933 - Jeanine Deckers, Belgian nun (d. 1985)
1936 - Hiroo Kanamori, Japanese seismologist
1938 - Evel Knievel, American daredevil
1940 - Peter Stringfellow, British nightclub owner
1941 - Earl Thomas Conley, American singer
1941 - Jim Seals American singer (Seals and Crofts)
1942 - Gary Puckett, American musician
1946 - Sir Cameron Mackintosh, British stage producer
1946 - Adam Michnik, Polish activist
1946 - Bob Seagren, American athlete
1946 - Michael Hossack, American musician (The Doobie Brothers)
1947 - Gene Green, American politician
1947 - Michael McKean, American actor
1948 - Margot Kidder, Canadian actress
1948 - George Wendt, American actor
1948 - Robert Jordan, American novelist
1950 - Howard Rollins, American actor (d. 1996)
1956 - Mae Jemison, American astronaut
1957 - Steve McMichael, American football player
1958 - Alan Jackson, American singer and songwriter
1959 - Ron Drummond, American writer
1959 - Mark Peel, Australian historian and academic
1959 - Russell Gilbert, Australian comedian
1960 - Rob Marshall, American director
1960 - Guy Henry, English actor
1962 - Mike Judge, Ecuadoran-born cartoonist
1963 - Norm MacDonald, Canadian comedian
1965 - Aravinda de Silva, Sri Lankan cricketer
1966 - Mark Gatiss, English actor
1968 - Ziggy Marley, Jamaican musician
1969 - Ernie Els, South African golfer
1969 - Rick Mercer, Canadian comedian
1970 - Anil Kumble, Indian cricketer
1970 - John Mabry, American baseball player
1971 - Chris Kirkpatrick, American singer ('N Sync)
1972 - Eminem, American rapper
1972 - Tarkan, Turkish singer
1972 - Wyclef Jean, Haitian-born singer
1972 - Joe McEwing, American baseball player
1974 - Matthew Macfadyen, British actor
1974 - John Rocker, American baseball player
1975 - Francis Bouillon, American hockey player
1976 - Sebastián Abreu, Uruguayan footballer
1977 - Dudu Aouate, Israeli footballer
1979 - Marcela Bovio, Mexican singer and violinist (Elfonía, Stream of Passion)
1979 - Kimi Räikkönen, Finnish race car driver
1979 - Kostas Tsartsaris, Greek basketball player
1982 - Nick Riewoldt, Australian rules footballer.
1983 - Daniel Booko, American actor
1983 - Ivan Saenko, Russian football player
1984 - Jelle Klaasen, Dutch darts player
1984 - Chris Lowell, American actor
1987 - Jarosław Fojut, Polish footballer
1992 - Matthew Crane, British operatic singer
1995 - Alexandria, McKenzie and Megan Calabrese, American triplets and actresses

Thursday, December 20, 2007


The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was the aviation component of the United States Army primarily during World War II. The title of Army Air Forces succeeded the prior name of Army Air Corps in June 1941 during preparation for expected combat in what came to be known as World War II. Although countries such as ally Great Britain had a separate Air Force, the Army Air Forces were part of the US Army and a direct precursor to the U.S. Air Force. The USAAF formally existed between 1941 and 1947 as an autonomous part of the U.S. Army, co-equal to the Army Ground Forces and Army Service Forces.

Lineage of the United States Air Force
The USAAF had its roots in a turn-of-the century effort at technology assessment of the progress of aviation. The issuance of a patent to the Wright Brothers in 1906, and the interest of President Theodore Roosevelt brought about the creation on August 1, 1907, of the Aeronautical Division of the Signal Corps, headed by Captain Charles deForest Chandler, established to develop all forms of flying. In 1908, the corps ordered a dirigible balloon and contracted with the Wrights for an airplane. Despite a crash that destroyed the first model, the Wright plane was delivered in 1909. The inventors then began to teach a few enthusiastic young officers to fly.
The progress of U.S. military aviation was slow in its early years. Congress voted the first appropriation for military aviation in 1911 and expanded the service into an Aviation Section in 1914. A provisional squadron was formed to support the Punitive Expedition under General John J. Pershing on the Mexican border in 1916 but failed, largely because of poor equipment unsuited to the harsh expeditionary conditions and bad maintenance.
The importance of military aviation was established with its role in Europe during World War I. At the time of America's declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917, the Aviation Section was marginal at best. France asked the United States to provide an air force of 4,500 airplanes and 50,000 men, and with more enthusiasm than wisdom, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker asked for and received $640 million from Congress for aviation. The result was chaos. By May of 1918, it was clear that the Signal Corps was overtasked in the aviation mission. The War Department then set up a Air Service consisting at first of two agencies reporting directly to the Secretary of War: one under a civilian, to deal with the manufacturers, and one under a military officer, to train and organize units. In August President Woodrow Wilson appointed John D. Ryan, Second Assistant Secretary of War, to consolidate the whole under the aegis of the Air Service.
As a result of the important role air power had played in the war, a movement developed during the 1920s and 1930s to create an independent air force. The model for this was the Royal Air Force in Great Britain, which early in 1918 had combined its Army and Navy air arms into the RAF. However the U.S. Army's leaders viewed the airplane primarily as merely a weapon for supporting infantry, and gave the Air Service a branch status comparable to that of the field artillery, responsible for procuring equipment and training units. Local ground forces commanders, none of them aviators, directed the aviation units. A series of boards and commissions studied and restudied the question of air organization, with no result other than approval of the name change to the U.S. Army Air Corps in mid-1926.
The Air Corps Act of 1926 changed the name of the Air Service to the Air Corps, "thereby strengthening the conception of military aviation as an offensive, striking arm rather than an auxiliary service," and created an additional Assistant Secretary of War to help foster military aeronautics. Other provisions required that all flying units be commanded by rated personnel and that flight pay be continued, but the position of the air arm within the Department of War remained essentially the same as before. Perhaps the most promising aspect of the act for the Air Corps was the authorization to carry out a five-year expansion program, though inadequate funding limited growth to organizational changes and aircraft development.
The formulation of theories of strategic bombing (long-range bombardment intended to destroy an enemy nation's war-making potential) at the Air Corps Tactical School gave new impetus to arguments for an independent air force. Despite what it perceived as obstruction from the Army General Staff, much of which was attributable to a shortage of funds, the Air Corps made great strides during the 1930s. A doctrine emerged that stressed precision bombing of industrial targets by heavily armed long-range aircraft, and the Air Corps was given the mission of coastal defense.
The next major step toward a separate air force occurred in March 1935 with centralization of all combat air units within the United States into a single command called General Headquarters Air Force. GHQ Air Force took control of aviation operations away from corps area commanders, which had controlled them since 1920, and organized them administratively into four geographical districts headquartered in Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, and Tampa, and created a strike force of three wings.
GHQ Air Force was small in comparison to European air forces. Lines of authority were difficult as GHQ Air Force controlled only its combat units, with the Air Corps still responsible for all support functions, and the corps area commanders still in charge of all airfields and the support personnel manning them. The commanders of GHQ Air Force and the Air Corps, Major generals Frank Andrews and Oscar Westover, clashed philosophically over the direction in which the air arm was heading, adding to the difficulties.

Origins of the air arm
The likelihood of U.S. participation in World War II prompted the most radical reorganization of the aviation branch in its history, developing a structure that gave it total autonomy by March 1942. On June 20, 1941, under a revision by the War Department of Army Regulation 95-5, Major General Henry H. Arnold, then Chief of the Air Corps, assumed the title of Chief of Army Air Forces, creating an echelon of command over all military aviation components. The AAF was directly under the orders of the Chief of Staff of the Army, General George C. Marshall.
Arnold and Marshall agreed that the AAF would enjoy autonomy within the War Department until the end of the war, while its commanders would cease lobbying for independence. Marshall, a strong proponent of airpower, left understood that the Air Force would likely achieve its independence after the war. Soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, in recognition of importance of the role of the Army Air Forces, Arnold was given a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the planning staff that served as the focal point of American strategic planning during the war, so that the United States would have an air representative in staff talks with their British counterparts on the Combined Chiefs, and in effect gained equality with Marshall.
GHQ Air Force was replaced by the Air Force Combat Command, and its four geographical districts were converted in January 1941 into numbered air forces, with a subordinate organization of 54 groups. Organizationally, the Army Air Forces was created as a higher command echelon encompassing both Air Force Combat Command and the Army Air Corps, thus bringing all of the air arm under a centralized command for the first time. Yet these reforms were only temporary, lasting just nine months as the air arm streamlined in preparation for war, with a goal of centralized planning and decentralized execution of operations.
Executive Order 9082 [1] changed Arnold's title to "Commanding General, Army Air Forces" on March 9, 1942, making him co-equal with the commanding generals of the new Army Ground Forces and Services of Supply, the other two parts of the Army of the United States. War Department Circular No. 59 reorganized the Army Air Forces, disbanding the Combat Command (formerly GHQAF) and changing the Air Corps to a non-organizational combat arm, eliminating their layer of command. Replacing them were eleven numbered air forces (later raised to sixteen) and six major commands (which became eight in January 1943: Flying Training, Technical Training, Troop Carrier, Air Transport, Materiel, Air Service, Proving Ground, and Anti-Submarine Commands). In July 1943 Flying Training and Technical Training Commands merged into a single Training Command.
As a result of its exponential growth during World War II, the Army Air Forces became the world's largest and most powerful air force. The expansion from the Air Corps of 1939, with 20,000 men and 2,320 planes (a limit set in 1934), to the autonomous AAF of 1944, with almost 2.4 million personnel and 80,000 aircraft, was a remarkable feat. Robert A. Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of War for Air, together with Arnold, presided over an increase of personnel and equipment greater than for either the ground Army or the Navy, while at the same time dispatching combat air forces to theaters of war all over the globe.








Growth of the US Army Air Forces in World War II, aircraft
SOURCE: Army Air Forces Statistical Digest (World War II), Table 84






Growth of the US Army Air Forces in World War II, Personnel
SOURCE: Army Air Forces Statistical Digest (World War II), Table 4

Creation and expansion of the Army Air Forces
As Arnold's staff saw it, the first priority in the war was to launch a strategic bombing offensive in support of the RAF against Germany. The Eighth Air Force, sent to England in 1942, took on that job. After a slow and often costly effort to bring the necessary strength to bear, joined in 1944 by the Fifteenth Air Force stationed in Italy, strategic bombing finally began to get results, and by the end of the war, the German economy had been dispersed and pounded to rubble.
Tactical air forces supported the ground forces in the Mediterranean and European theaters, where the enemy found Allied air supremacy a constant frustration. In the war against Japan, General Douglas MacArthur made his advance along New Guinea by leap-frogging his air forces forward and using amphibious forces to open up new bases. The AAF also supported Admiral Chester Nimitz's aircraft carriers in their island-hopping across the Central Pacific and assisted Allied forces in Burma and China.
Arnold directly controlled the Twentieth Air Force, equipped with the new long-range B-29 Superfortresses used for bombing Japan's home islands, first from China and then from the Marianas. Devastated by fire-raids, Japan was so weakened by August of 1945 that Arnold believed neither the atomic bomb nor the planned invasion would be necessary to win the war. The fact that AAF B-29s dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nevertheless, demonstrated what air power could do in the future. The Strategic Bombing Survey provided ammunition for the leaders of the AAF in the postwar debates over armed forces unification and national strategy.
Main Article: United States aircraft production during World War II

Source: U.S. Air Force Historical Studies Office U.S. Army Air Forces War strategy
By the end of World War II, the USAAF had created sixteen numbered air forces (First through Fifteenth and Twentieth) distributed world-wide to prosecute the war and defend the Americas, plus a Zone of the Interior general air force within the continental United States to support the whole. An additional eight air divisions served as an additional layer of command for the vast organization, capable of acting independently if the need arose. Several of these air forces and divisions grew out of earlier commands—for example, the Eighth Air Force was originally VIII Bomber Command, then later had its designation again assigned to the command when that organization was discontinued——as the service expanded in size and organization, with multiple lower tiers added and higher echelons such as United States Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF) in Europe and U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific became necessary to control the whole.
Several air forces were created de novo as the service expanded during the war. Inclusive within the air forces and divisions were a total of 91 administrative command headquarters called wings, denoted as bombardment, fighter reconnaissance, training or composite as defined by their functional role. Larger support organizations, such as Air Transport Command (successor to the pre-war Air Corps Ferrying Command) remained under the control of Headquarters Army Air Forces, while their operational organizations (wings, groups, and squadrons) were assigned to the numbered air forces.
In August 1945, the U.S. Strategic Air Forces became the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). In 1947, USAFE became a component of the newly-created United States Air Force. From 1948–49, the unit was responsible for the Berlin Airlift.
While officially the air arm had become the Army Air Forces, colloquially the term Air Corps persisted among the public as well as veteran airmen, whose branch remained the Air Corps; in addition, the singular "Air Force" often crept into popular use, reflected by usage of the term "Air Force Combat Command" in 1941-42. This misnomer crept onto official recruiting posters (see image on right) and was important in promoting the idea of an "Air Force" as an independent service.

The sixteen air forces

First Air Force
Second Air Force
Third Air Force
Fourth Air Force
Fifth Air Force
Sixth Air Force
Seventh Air Force
Eighth Air Force
Ninth Air Force
Tenth Air Force
Eleventh Air Force
Twelfth Air Force
Thirteenth Air Force
Fourteenth Air Force
Fifteenth Air Force
Twentieth Air Force List of numbered air forces
Following the immense buildup in aviation infrastructure and personnel during the war, and in recognition of the tremendous new importance and strength of airpower, then President Harry S. Truman created the United States Department of the Air Force in 1947. This legislation renamed the aviation military group again to the United States Air Force, elevating it to a truly separate branch of the U.S. military. The Key West Agreement outlined the air assets that each service would be permitted to maintain, with the Air Force getting the bulk of strategic, tactical and transport aircraft. The Army was permitted light aircraft for reconnaissance, the transport of general officers and other miscellaneous duties, under the auspices of Army Aviation. This state-of-affairs lasted until the 1960's, when the advent of the jet-turbine helicopter and the concept of air-mobile brigades increased the size and scope of Army Aviation once again.

People who served in the United States Army Air Forces
To denote the special training and qualifications required for membership in the USAAF, the following military badges (known colloquially but ubiquitously throughout the service as "wings") were authorized for wear by members of the Army Air Forces during World War II:
These aviation qualification badges were typically worn in full three-inch size on service or dress uniforms, but two-inch versions were also authorized for less-formal shirt wear. Most aviation badges were made of sterling silver or were given a silver finish, and various devices were used to attach them to uniforms. These included the traditional pin and safety catch and, later, clutch-back fasteners. Most USAAF badges of World War II are now obsolete, having been superseded by later designs, and further information on them can be found under Obsolete badges of the United States military.

Aircrew Badge
Aircraft Observer Badge
Auxiliary Pilot Badge
Aviator Badge
Balloon Observer Badge
Balloon Pilot Badge
Bombardier Badge
Command Pilot Badge
Flight Engineer Badge
Flight Instructor Badge
Flight Nurse Badge
Flight Surgeon Badge
Glider Pilot Badge
Gunner Badge
Liaison Pilot Badge
Navigator Badge
Observer Badge
Pilot Badge
Senior Balloon Pilot Badge
Senior Pilot Badge
Service Pilot Badge
Technical Observer Badge
Technician Badge
Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) Badge