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From Impracticle to Plausible...


Loose relation (to the Bloomberg embed) Star Trek Federation:

 

As a SyFy novel, it's not for the faint-of-heart, nor slight of attention span, as in you really need to know your Trek Universe. Without giving up too much of the plot, it does raise some interesting caveats: it points out in its fictional realm authoritarians typically want control over others, and fight any change - Warp Drive or 1st Contact, even the kind that insures the survival of the species. This Zephram Cochrane is more like the one in TOS versus the TNG/Borg Paramount version. It's kind of like reading The Pursuit of Happyness, and then seeing the movie (I did). As in "Pursuit," both remarkably different from each other, but each deeply satisfying in their own right.

 

How does it relate to this post? One way is the well worn cliche "life imitates art," but the other that concerned me as I flew through this enjoyable novel: what forces would try to resist this next "giant leap for mankind?" If I've learned anything, science is political, and our current in-species prejudices could quickly (and disastrously, I'm afraid) become xenophobia.

 

I'd love to live to see this happen. Wars are either fought over limited resources, or in our nature. Initially, a Moon or Mars base, then further out like Titan, a candidate for microbial extraterrestrial life as well as Terraforming; also a base of operations further from the sun's gravity well, like growing crystals on the ISS in Earth orbit could lead to physics experiments essentially macro scale versions of what's proposed above.

 

The world (and the universe) would indeed become a very small place.

 

Thank you Dr. Mae Jemison and Dr. Miguel Alcubierre.

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Dark Matter Decoder Ring...


Stars in the outer regions of spiral galaxy M74 move much more quickly than expected if they were held in orbit only by the visible matter. The best explanation is that they are being pulled by a large halo of unseen, dark matter. (Credit: Gemini Observatory/GMOS Team)

Five-sixths of the universe is missing. That statement feels strange to write, and I’m sure it feels pretty strange to read as well. Given the vastness of the cosmos–and given how little of it humans have explored–how can we know for sure that anything is out of place? The claim sounds positively arrogant, if not delusional.



And yet scientists have assembled a nearly airtight case that the majority of the matter in the universe consists dark matter, a substance which is both intrinsically invisible and fundamentally different in composition than the familiar atoms that make up stars and planets. In the face of staggering difficulties, researchers like Samuel Ting of MIT are even making progress in figuring out what dark matter is, as evidence by teasing headlines from last week. Time to come to terms, then, with the new reality about our place in the universe. Here are seven key things every informed citizen of the cosmos should know.
 
  1. Dark matter is real.
  2. Dark matter can be visible...sometimes.
  3. Dark matter might show up here on Earth.
  4. We might be able to create our own dark matter.
  5. Dark matter is a totally different thing from dark energy.
  6. The dark stuff really dominates.
  7. The dark universe might have a life of its own.


Discovery Out There: Your 7-Step Guide to the Shadow Universe, Cory S. Powell

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Another Reason for Concern...


A little more warming could lead to a little less of this (or, at least a higher price):
East town

That bottle of Bordeaux you put aside may become even rarer in the next few decades as climate change could reduce wine grape production in traditional parts of the world and move it elsewhere, researchers say. Danish Cabernet, anyone?

 

Wine grape production's sensitivity to climate makes it a good test case for what could happen over the next several decades. And the land suitable for viticulture in current major wine producing regions could be reduced by 20% to 70% by 2050, depending on the amount of greenhouse gases produced, the researchers said this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

An increasingly affluent global population is likely to create more demand for wine and ensure that wine grapes will continue to be grown in current areas as much as possible and be grown in new areas as well, the researchers said.

 

LA Times: French wine could get pricey, climate change study says

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The Passing of Jonathan Winters

Thursday we lost comedian, actor, writer and painter Jonathan Winters. I've been a fan of his since the early days of the Tonight Show, hosted by Jack Paar.

Winter's improv talents were an inspiration to me from the very start, and made him the inveterate story teller. To be able to create a story, a world even, on the spot with no backup other than one's own fertile mind was an enviable talent.

As a novelist and screen writer, these skills were not as important as during my time as an on-air radio personality, and later as a stand-up comedian; improvisational creation was a skill I cherished even as I tried daily to become more facile with its use.

It's a shame that lazy journalists list Winter's short stint as Murph on Mork and Mindy as the biggest footnote of his remarkable career. Though he was not as visible on stage, or on the air, as in previous decades, I will miss him and mourn his passing.

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The end has begun as Pandora 001prototype personal android returns in the last week of April! HEPHESTUS CORP's premiere product finds her arrival on the 'Super Earth' AIPOTU is received with unexpected (and unwanted) fanfare. If she thought the attention from her 'fan club' aboard DROMEDARY was obnoxious, she is in for a rude awakening down on the planet! But amidst the throngs of admirer's and would be purchasers of her series, there are shocking revelations which may be more than the Galaxy's unique Manufactured Being can bear. While Pandora shows off why and android like her is worth, the PROMETHEUS GROUP Extraction team hatches a daring plan to board DROMEDARY.  Unknown to all, time is not on their side as the actions of powerful entities force Pandora into making a critical choice in the season finale of, The PAnd0RA Ultimatum EPISODE FIVE: Ultimatum!

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Survival Strategies...

Black Youth Project - yes, I signed the pledge (see link)

I've received permission from the author of this paper to post it on this blog. I'm  an advocate of STEM fields, particularly in underrepresented groups, especially when graduate schools are seeing a decline in enrollment from foreign students; those same foreign scholars seen as a boost to the economy. So can minority students: United States citizens. I'm not against immigration of STEM talented or labor workers, but our students are here: now.

The strategies elucidated are not just applicable for graduate school, but the struggle for education and therefore true freedom, a brighter future and self-empowerment ("knowledge is power"), which is beyond one particular subject, or group. I found it enlightening; I hope you do as well, and I sincerely hope it helps inspire action and the next leaders in science.


Survival Strategies for African American Astronomers and Astrophysicists

JC Holbrook, PhD, Astrophysics

University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

The question of how to increase the number of women and minorities in astronomy has been approached from several directions in the United States including examination of admission policies, mentoring, and hiring practices. These point to departmental efforts to improve conditions for some of the students which has the overall benefit of improving conditions for all of the students. However, women and minority astronomers have managed to obtain doctorates even within the non-welcoming environment of certain astronomy and physics departments. I present here six strategies used by African American men and women to persevere if not thrive long enough to earn their doctorate. Embedded in this analysis is the idea of ‘astronomy culture’ and experiencing astronomy culture as a cross-cultural experience including elements of culture shock. These survival strategies are not exclusive to this small subpopulation but have been used by majority students, too.

Physics arXiv:
Survival Strategies for African American Astronomers and Astrophysicists

Kickstarter:
Black Sun: Documentary Film about the 2012 Solar Eclipses

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The Sagan Effect...



“I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round? the children ask. Why is grass green? What is a dream? How deep can you dig a hole? When is the world’s birthday? Why do we have toes? Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else: ‘What did you expect the Moon to be, square?’ Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science. Why adults should pretend to omniscience before 6-year-olds, I can’t for the life of me understand. What’s wrong with admitting that we don’t know something? Is our self-esteem so fragile?”

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Two Cultures...



The Two Cultures is the title of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. Its thesis was that "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" was split into the titular two cultures — namely the sciences and the humanities — and that this was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems.

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question — such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? — not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had. (Wikipedia)

I'm afraid little has changed. Our pursuit and fear to avoid the "military-industrial-complex" as warned of by President Eisenhower, has evolved into a cottage industry of conspiracy theorists (that don't have to actually prove their musings; just muse and say them), because myriad of the bewildered herd will purchase their books; attend their seminars; hit their blogs/web sites. We pontificate "Big Bang" and "Evolution" in quotes, and add "theory" as if that disqualifies anything in science (Pythagoras and your geometry teacher would be amused), adding to it machinate controversies from creative, magical thinkers. Must be quite a rush to be an official part of the "dumbing down" of a country.

Sadly, it's not just avoidance of science and/or the conclusions of science: in Snow's day, neither the twain met, and both disdained one another as being without value. His third culture: a merger of science and humanities in the human species, and an appreciation for both (pulled off quite well in Star Trek - take your pick of which version), never materialized.

 

In the chapter titled "The Rich and the Poor," he couldn't be more blunt:

 

"Nevertheless, that isn't the main issue of the scientific revolution. The main issue is that the people in the industrialized countries are getting richer, and those in the non-industrialized countries are at best standing still: so that the gap between the industrialized countries and the rest is widening every day. On the world scale this is the gap between the rich and the poor."

 

University of Colorado: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution

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life is in the cracks

We call them the lucky ones. They seem to go through life without a hitch. They have perfect attendance and teeth. They do 4 years of college without diversion or perversion or depravity, get a nice job and a house and 2.5 kids, a dog and a ritzy car. How in the heck do you get a .5 kid I don't know. There is something about statistical average persons, the real super humans we all are striving to match up to.

Me, I envy them and sneer at them. I live in the cracks between dreams, with allowances, exceptions, quick fixes, rescues, interventions, set asides, and wits. I use my wits and survival skills. That is when I'm made aware by the statistical average man I'm in a rut. A crack, a crack I have slipped through to where my head is no longer visible to the general public. That is, the paper trail they use to keep tabs on us and the pedigree of the super human race the statistical average man. Oh he is real, he exists alright. When they do the numbers he stands up tall as big as life. He is the conglomerate of every positive thing in our society. He is admired by every seeking forward reaching creature on the planet. Damned be you if you diss them. 

The super ones aren't perfect or so it is said, 99.999% pure + or -.001%. I am always confronted with the plus side one who is a little more than perfect. I just have to ask why. Why are the ruts, the cracks so crowded. Why so few of us stay on top. Momentary elevation of persons become the idol of us all. So and so made it. Then in retrospect, where is so and so today? Did they become one with the super humans of the statistical average? Or did they fall back through the cracks, or into the ruts where the rest of us live?

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ATRAP for Antiprotons...

Figure 1: (a) The CPT symmetry can be likened to a mirror that reflects spatial coordinates, flips charge and other additive quantum numbers, and reverses time. To test for cracks in this CPT mirror, physicists check whether the magnetic moment of the proton (left) has the same magnitude as that of the antiproton (right). (Technically, the moments have opposite signs due to the way magnetic moment is defined relative to the spin.) (b) To measure the antiproton’s magnetic moment, the ATRAP Collaboration measures the cyclotron and spin-flip frequencies, fc and fs, respectively. The ratio of these frequencies gives the antiproton’s magnetic moment, μp¯=-fsfcμN, in terms of the nuclear magneton μN.

The ATRAP Collaboration has measured the magnetic moment of the antiproton more precisely than ever before, allowing a new test of CPT symmetry.



Many physical laws are indifferent to distinctions such as left or right and forwards or backwards. On rare occasions, though, a discrepancy shows up, and we say that a symmetry is broken. One symmetry that has so far avoided any signs of breaking is the so-called CPT symmetry, which equates matter and antimatter at a fundamental level. A new test of CPT symmetry involves antiprotons. Specifically, Jack DiSciacca of Harvard University and his colleagues (the ATRAP Collaboration) present the most precise measurement to date of the antiproton magnetic moment [1]. As reported in Physical Review Letters, the results match data on the proton, thus extending CPT ’s shatterproof status for the time being.



Look into a mirror and imagine the world on the other side is not just a reflection, but instead a real physical world. Should nature behave differently in this mirrored world? For decades, most physicists believed the answer was “no.” They assumed that nature was the same in a coordinate system and its mirror image, and they even gave this supposition a name: parity reversal symmetry or P symmetry. However, in 1957, the nuclear physics world was rocked when two back-to-back articles in Physical Review revealed that P symmetry was violated by nature [2, 3]. This discovery revolutionized the understanding of the weak interaction.
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As a member of BSFS and a self-proclaimed Scifi fan and writer I would encourage everyone to keep their eyes focused on Star Trek: Renegades. The production is moving forward and being produced as a pilot for a web series which seeks to explore the more complex motivations of a renegade Star Fleet crew that will be compelled to take unorthodox and possibly unethical actions to preserve an under attack  Federation. (http://startrekrenegades.com/home/).

Star Trek:Renegade is directed by (one of my personal favorites) Tim Russ, who also directed Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (http://startrekofgodsandmen.com/main/) and who the viewing audience will recognize as Lt. Commander Tuvok from the Star Trek: Voyager series. Opportunities for black individuals in the director's chair don't come along as often as we would like, so when they do we should take note, and if the project appeals to us - we should give it our support, not simply in kickstarter funds but also by being as vocal as we can in sharing information about the project is as many venues as we can conceive of! 

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Diagnosing Fusion Plasma...

(Photo Credit: Graphic by Sam Lazerson)
A simulated plasma in the Large Helical Device showing the thin blue saddle coils that researchers used to make diagnostic measurements with the new computer code

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) in Japan have developed a rapid method for meeting a key challenge for fusion science. The challenge has been to simulate the diagnostic measurement of plasmas produced by twisting, or 3D, magnetic fields in fusion facilities. While such fields characterize facilities called stellarators, otherwise symmetric, or 2D, facilities such as tokamaks also can benefit from 3D fields.

Researchers led by PPPL physicist Sam Lazerson have now created a computer code that simulates the required diagnostics, and have validated the code on the Large Helical Device stellarator in Japan. Called “Diagno v2.0,” the new program utilizes information from previous codes that simulate 3D plasmas without the diagnostic measurements. The addition of this new capability could, with further refinement, enable physicists to predict the outcome of 3D plasma experiments with a high degree of accuracy.

The researchers employed a mathematical technique called “virtual casing” to develop the new code for 3D fusion plasmas that are in equilibrium. Such plasmas are held steady by the balance between the inward pressure of the magnetic fields that confine them and the outward pressure exerted by the plasma. Virtual casing enabled the researchers to efficiently calculate magnetic diagnostic signals given a simulated plasma. This was achieved by recognizing that the magnetic field at the edge of the simulated plasma was all that was necessary to calculate the magnetic diagnostic signals.

PPPL:
A fast new method for measuring hard-to-diagnose 3D plasmas in fusion facilities

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OK let me confess

I am a researcher, not because I am doing a college thesis or a gov job, but because I have a need to know. The problem is that the things we have been called and are called do not fully disclose a remedy to our plight. Not as the overall group we are associated with, not as the various camps within the group. Thus we have no rights or privileges other than what we are allowed by the powers that be (over us as a group).

OK, putting all the recent marbles on the table and keeping it brief:

We got off the boat that came from Africa.

We were here in America already.

We are Africans, Egyptians, Hebrew Israelites, native but Black Indians, Moors, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, others and because each designation has their own myth stories that may or may not link us altogether, we can't agree. Why?

You can not put all of us into the same box if only some of us have that particular history. The group who did come from Africa can not claim oneness with the group that were indigenous Black Americans and so on.

We don't all have the same story and so our masters to keep it simple called us slave names from their property ownership titles to derogatory names. We keep looking for a lumped together name with a common history attached. Slavery is the common experience no matter where we came from. History is most always to make political or religious control or to recover from it. Once written history is not removed. False history is not deleted, just challenged by another perspective. You could be teaching/spreading a lie or a spin-off.

Today we are schooled in all the master's arts and sciences and law. None of this has provided a remedy for us in this country. It should be noted that the main problem is not what we call ourselves among ourselves, but how we are defined in the legal system of the country in the constitutional documents (contracts). Forget about the local law stuff, look at the law that governs the country. As I am not trained in those things I don't have the language skills to comprehend well myself but you lawyers of hue do.

It seems that the American Moorish Movement is heading in this direction. I don't agree with being a Muslim as I am a so-called Christian (don't like that either). I also know these are referring to a more esoteric (cosmic understanding and application) knowledge and not the secular perspective. But, you can't get past names and events attached to names (our slavery started with Muslims, converted Jews and Christians). All the major religions say esoteric knowledge are witchcraft, magic and devil worship. There is much evil in the common religions too! Secret societies had hoarded knowledge, thus inviting corruption and decay of the truth and have abused application. While dispersion of knowledge is not a fruit to the masses, a guiding by wisdom is ignored completely, which is why the whole nation is crumbling.

So what I see is that no matter how we name ourselves we are listed in constitutional documents as property in a corporate institution. That is the problem and we need to see what we need to be to secure our rights under the constitutional contract. That might be the missing 2/5. Today the corporation is restructuring. We might be written out of the new plan or assimilated into the matrix. All us old farts are being put aside because we still remember. Or what if the foreign investment is a guardian, we being the perpetual underage ward (via lame schooling, social confusion, financial disenfranchisement, etc), never realizing this is our country. The renters are tearing up the house we own, we think we are from Europe (we learned (slum-lordism) from them their thoughts). This is our home!?

Lots to sort out, but look at the legal first, the constitutional stuff that established this mess.

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There is a new documentary on Angela Davis called “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners” see https://www.facebook.com/freeangelafilm and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2350432/.  Black Bloggers Connect (see http://blog.blackbloggersconnect.com/2013/03/black-bloggers-connect-presents-free.html) invited people to blog about why such a film is necessary.  The question can be asked, “Do African and African American astrophysicists need to know about Angela Davis?”  My answer is “Yes!” 

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Angela Davis PhD when I was a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Davis).  At the time I was playing my role as the first African American graduate student in the Astronomy & Astrophysics department.  I was slowly being worn down by the petty discrimination, insults, and slights that I had to face on a daily basis with no one available within the department with which to decompress.  Enter meeting Dr. Angela Davis and her graduate students.  She and her students helped me put my negative experiences into the context of the USA incarnations of racism, sexism, and who has the right to make new knowledge.  In effect, I learned that what I was experiencing was not specific to just me, UCSC, or to astrophysics.

 

Dr. Angela Davis is an icon of the Black Power movement in the United States, however when you spend your life studying physics and astrophysics...that part of my education was neglected.  All I knew was the outline of who she was, what she had done, and in the mid-1990s when I met her that she had one of the best jobs in the University of California system: an endowed chair.  What I did not understand at the time that became important to me later was that before she became an internationally recognized political figure, she was already a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles; she was already Dr. Angela Davis with a doctorate in philosophy (see
http://histcon.ucsc.edu/faculty/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=aydavis).  This point is important enough that I am going to refer to her as Dr. Davis throughout this blog.

 

Meeting Dr. Davis and her intellectual community personally helped me endure a difficult situation long enough to complete my doctorate degree; however, knowing her story is important for our collective Black peers in astrophysics for many reasons, but one stands out.  Mentoring students of astrophysics, the fear emerges of being transformed during the PhD process into someone unrecognizable.  This issue touches on the imposture syndrome (see astrophysicist Dr. John Johnson’s blog on this at http://mahalonottrash.blogspot.com/2012/09/impostor-syndrome.html) which arises from not seeing people like yourself in your profession as well as touches on the fear that in order to succeed in astrophysics you have to ‘whitewash’ yourself.  This whitewashing may include extraction and disassociation from family and community, adopting the value system of the majority, self-imposed silencing on certain topics, and in the extreme the adoption of majority fashion, speaking, and interaction style.  Dr. Davis is our peer in that she earned a doctorate and her working world is academia.  The process of earning a doctorate did not sever her connection to the African American community and did not change her values.  She was and is brave and courageous and willing to stand up for what she believes in and willing to sacrifice a comfortable academic lifestyle in the process. 

 

Dr. Davis is an example for us Black astrophysicists to emulate.  Our cause is that we want more diversity in astrophysics.  Then we have to bring our values with us and we have to not be silent.  We have to insist that our colleagues create an environment that supports all students especially those we are trying to attract to astrophysics.  Dr. Davis had the California government standing against her (and she was on the FBIs Most wanted list!) and she won.  We simply have to stand our ground to our academic colleagues and dare to forego the comfort of our fairly prestigious positions.  I plan to see “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners” when it comes to my town and I know that I will be better educated for it and I will be inspired. I think that the same will be true of the other African and African American astrophysicists if they make the time to see this film. 

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Planck's Four Surprises...


Lopsided universe: Planck’s new skymap shows that one half of the microwave background is brighter than the other, and the universe has a large cold spot. Credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration

By now you've probably heard about the amazing new cosmic snapshot from the European Space Agency’s Planck spacecraft. It is one of those scientific achievements so mind-boggling that you have to spend a bit of time with it to truly appreciate what you are seeing. This is relic radiation from when the universe was 370,000 years old, still all aglow from the Big Bang. The radiation has been traveling 13.8 billion years since then, across ever-expanding stretches of space, before landing in Planck’s detectors. Then it took a tremendous feat of imagination and insight to translate that noisy signal into a comprehensible map of what the universe looked like in its infancy.



So let’s step back for a moment, look at how this image came to be, and consider some of the more surprising details hidden within it. [Headers lead into the topics]



The map started out as static.

Human brains cannot make sense of all the data from Planck.

The universe is darker, lighter, slower, and older than we thought.

The universe is lopsided.

Discovery: Four Surprises in Planck's New Map of the Cosmos

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AFRO Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction is gaining popularity at the speed of light on the Internet. FF  is more than simply creating a story with a beginning, middle and end in less than 1000 words. There should be a plot twist and moral. This is a thin slice from the thick juicy part of  a much bigger story; the reader may have to fill in the blanks.

The BSFS has presented  Flash Fiction on its website -- in many excepts or stand alone pieces. This is good. We need to encourage more writers and webmasters to offer AFRO Flash Fiction to readers.

I have posted AFRO Flash Fiction  on my new website: http://www.afroflash.com

As always, I post a link back to BSFS to encourage us all to reach out and let others know that African Diaspora Speculative Fiction  is trending upwards.

(Image from Black Flash by Caesarium on Deviant Art -- it is not necessarily AfroCentric, but it is cool.)

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