Operation Sigma Sigma

The Sigma is an experimental glider developed in Britain from 1966 by a team led by Nicholas Goodhart. After disappointing performance during flight testing the Sigma was passed on to a Canadian group which carried out modifications, making the Sigma more competitive.

Design and development

Designed to compete in the 1970 World Championships, the team aimed to develop a wing that would climb well through a high lift coefficient and a large wing area, but equally had the "maximum possible reduction of area for cruise at low lift coefficients". At the same time for the minimum possible drag they aimed for "extensive" laminar flow. To achieve this they employed flaps that would alter both wing area and wing camber. Based on analysis of the nature of thermals encountered in cross-country flying, they reasoned that by having a slow turning circle, their sailplane could stay close to the central (and strongest) part of the thermal and gain maximum benefit.

Its unusual feature is its ability to vary its wing area using Fowler flaps. It had been tried before by the Hannover Akaflieg in 1938 with their AFH-4, the South African Beatty-Johl BJ-2 Assegai and the SZD Zefir gliders.

Sigma (cosmology)

Sigma in cosmology was a property of galaxies used when trying to work out the mystery of galaxies and their supermassive black holes.

History

In the late 1990s the NUKER experts had made observations with a spectroscope of two galaxies, one of an active galaxy with an active galactic nucleus called NGC10-68 and a dormant galaxy next door to us named Andromeda.

The observations are shown. The light from the centre in Andromeda galaxy was distorted proving the existence of super-massive black holes.

Other observations proved most galaxies had a similar centre whether it be active or dormant.

They then realised that the black holes must have something to do with a galaxy's formation, so they turned to something they thought was useless: the speed of the stars around the edge of the galaxy. This was Sigma, the speed of the stars at the edge of the galaxy supposedly unaffected by the mass of the black hole at the centre.

Usage In Cosmology

The NUKER team calculated the sigma of several stars in different galaxies and the mass of the black hole at the (nucleus) centre. They expected no correlation what so ever. But when plotting their results on a Scatter diagram and drawing a line of best fit they ended up with a positive correlation. It appeared that the heavier the black hole at the centre was the faster the stars within the galaxy travelled.

Sigma (duo)

Sigma is an English drum and bass duo consisting of Cameron Edwards and Joe Lenzie. They met at Leeds University at drum and bass nights. Their 2010 collaboration with DJ Fresh, "Lassitude", peaked at number 98 on the UK Singles Chart. Their single "Nobody to Love" topped the UK Singles Chart, becoming their first UK number one. Follow-up single "Changing", featuring Paloma Faith, also got to number one.

Career

Formation

Lenzie and Edwards met in 2006 at Leeds University; Cameron was working in local record store Tribe Records and with Echo Location's Obi running local night Event Horizon, while Lenzie was DJing hip-hop and warming up Event Horizon for such acts as Rahzel and Grandmaster Flash. Once they had finished in Leeds, they relocated to London and became a three-piece with Edwards' school friend Ben Mauerhoff, being signed under DJ Fresh's Breakbeat Kaos. After a while, long distances took their toll – Edwards and Mauerhoff were based in Surrey, whereas Lenzie was based in Harpenden, Hertfordshire and they couldn't get three people into the Harpenden studio – and Mauerhoff left. In December 2008 they formed their own record label, Life Recordings (so called because, according to Lenzie, the industry demanded that it be their life). Its inaugural release was a VIP mix of their early Bingo Beats single "El Presidente".

1000Minds

1000Minds is online decision-making software for ranking, prioritizing or choosing between alternatives in situations where a variety of objectives or criteria need to be considered simultaneously (i.e., multi-criteria decision making). Depending on the application, budgets or other scarce resources can be allocated across competing alternatives.

1000Minds is also used for group decision-making and for discovering stakeholders’ preferences with respect to the relative importance (or ‘weight’) of the features or attributes characterizing alternatives of interest (i.e., conjoint analysis or choice modelling).

Invented by Franz Ombler and Paul Hansen at the University of Otago in 2002, 1000Minds implements the Potentially all pairwise rankings of all possible alternatives (PAPRIKA) method and is supplied by 1000Minds Ltd.

Applications

Examples of areas in which 1000Minds is used:

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior is an American police procedural drama starring Forest Whitaker and Janeane Garofalo that aired on CBS. The show debuted in February 2011 as a spin-off from the successful Criminal Minds, which itself had premiered in September 2005. This edition's profiling team also worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) in Quantico, Virginia. In an April 2010 episode of Criminal Minds ("The Fight"), during the show's fifth season, the original team met the new team and worked with them to find a San Francisco serial killer, with the episode serving as the new series' backdoor pilot.

Just like the parent series, CBS owned the underlying North American rights, while ABC owned the international rights. The series premiered on February 16, 2011 and filled the Wednesday 10:00pm time slot, airing immediately after the original Criminal Minds.

Due to low ratings, CBS canceled the series on May 17, 2011, and aired its final episode eight days later. On September 6, 2011, CBS released the complete series as a four-disc set, packaged as "The DVD Edition." There are numerous special features and two episode commentaries with the cast and crew. The set includes the backdoor pilot from season five of the original show.