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From labor to leads, our team is comprised of folks who are not only excellent at their jobs, but who are also excellent at life. All have passed background checks, take pride in their work, and know that they dont just work here; they are part of the Golden Rule Builders family.

Wouldnt it be terrific if you could stay informed about the status of your project at any time, and communicate directly with the right team members for any stage of your project? We use a tool called JobPilot that does just that. When you become a client of Golden Rule Builders, youll have access to real-time information, and youll be able to communicate with your team throughout the building process.

Located in Catlett, Virginia, we are conveniently positioned to serve the entire northern Virginia area. This includes the counties of Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, Fairfax, Culpeper, Rappahannock, Stafford, Fredericksburg, Warren, and Clarke. Whether youre in Middleburg or Upperville, Warrenton or Paris, we are happy to build or remodel for you throughout the general Piedmont region. Golden Rule Builders is prepared to handle every aspect of the building or remodeling process for you. We look forward to working with you to make your dream home a reality!

If you are ready to learn more and take the next step toward your new home or home improvement goals, contact Golden Rule Builders today!

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Golden Rule Builders: New Home Construction, Kitchen ...

It's safe to say the start to the 2022 Winter Olympics did not go well for American skier Mikaela Shiffrin.

The 26-year-old from Colorado recorded a DNF on her first run of the women's giant slalom competition, knocking her out of the opportunity to defend her gold medal from 2018.

"I'm gonna reset and focus on what I can control for the slalom," Shiffrin said Monday after the race. "Still a long two weeks to go and I'm still forward to it.

"I'm sorry that that was the performance I did today but that also happens. I won't hide the disappointment but I'm also not going to dwell on it because that's not gonna help me at all."

Defending Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin received a "did not finish" in the women's giant slalom competition after missing an early gate and falling seconds into her first run, taking her out of the event.

The mindset is now on the slalom event, which Shiffrin already has a gold medal in. As an 18-year-old in 2014, Shiffrin finished at the top of the podium in her first Olympics. She just missed out on a medal in the event in 2018, coming in fourth.

The three-time Olympian is racing in her first Games without her father, who passed away in February of 2020 unexpectedly due to a head injury. He was 65 years old.

Watch all the action from the Beijing Olympics live on NBC

"He taught us so many valuable lessons but above everything else, he taught us the golden rule: be nice, think first," Shiffrin said. "This is something I will carry with me forever. He was the firm foundation of our family and we miss him terribly."

Shiffrin seriously considered retiring after his death, but elected to continue on with her alpine skiing career.

If Shiffrin were to medal tonight, she would join her boyfriend, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway, as a medalist in Beijing. The skier won bronze in the men's super-G competition.

While Shiffrin offers the U.S. the best chance at a medal, she isn't the lone American in the competition. Paula Moltzan, Katie Heinsien and A J Hurt will also be in the event.

The first run of the women's slalom is schedule for 9:15 p.m. EST tonight with the second and final run expected to take place at 12:45 a.m. EST on Wednesday morning.

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Can Mikaela Shiffrin Win Team USA's First Gold of the 2022 Olympics Tonight? - NBC Chicago

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) Nationwide, gas prices are still higher than they were this same time last year. The pain at the pump is likely to continue in the coming weeks.

The combination of geopolitical tensions at this point, unknown turns in the pandemic, unknown developments has made it extremely challenging to forecast beyond you know, three to six months, said Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst for Gas Buddy.

What is for sure is that prices will likely remain high. The average price in the Raleigh area is about $3.20 a gallon this week. Thats 13 cents higher per gallon than a month ago and almost a dollar higher than a year ago, according to Gas Buddy.

Watch the situation unfold with Russia. If if they avoid invading Ukraine, that would be good news. So, too, it would be good news if theres some sort of deal with Iran that allows them to start shipping and selling their crude oil, said De Haan.

If Russia invades and a deal cant be made with Iran, expect anything that relies on transportation to go up, too.

Grocery prices are going up at least in part because of higher fuel prices but things like airlines, and delivery businesses are starting to tack on fuel surcharges. At least when it comes to airlines, ticket prices could go up in the months ahead, said De Haan.

Much of this can be blamed on the pandemic. At its start, people drove less and so oil companies produced less.

Now that demand has come roaring back, its a game of catch up in so many areas of the economy, said De Haan.

When every cent matters, there are a few things you can do to save including easing up on the accelerator and shopping around.

Gas Buddy has reported that certain days of the week may end up saving you a couple of cents per gallon. The company found Sundays, Mondays, and Fridays were the cheapest days to fill up. Thursday is your day to avoid heading to the pump. But the golden rule according to De Haan? Shop around before you fill up.

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Pain at the pump in NC may not let up for months - CBS17.com

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--President John Camilleri is pleased to announce that former OPSEU Chief of Staff, Bob Eaton has joined the executive team at Union Digital. He will be immediately assigned to the government, and media relations portfolio. "Bob brings experience to the table that spans five decades, dealing with staff, members, union leadership, media and internal and external stakeholders, said Camilleri.

During a distinguished and storied career at OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union), he served in almost every elected position from steward to First Vice President Treasurer. He was the architect and quarterback directing the college support PT workers organizing drive; the largest organizing drive in Canadian history.

For the past 15 years, Bob worked as a senior manager in almost every OPSEU department, including collective bargaining, communications, campaigns and organizing, staff relations and finally as Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant to the President for the last 6 years. His retirement from OPSEU coincided with President Warren (Smokey) Thomas.

Bob's appointment brings Union Digital a wealth of labour experience along with an established list of stakeholder relations including major employers, government, political parties and the media.

"Wherever Bob has gone he assumed a leadership role. It's just in his DNA. The fact that the Union Digital team has a positive history working collaboratively with Bob backstopping and supporting the College Part Time Organizing Drive is an added bonus. We know each other well. This is a great fit, said Union Digital President John Camilleri.

"Bob Eaton is a man of utmost integrity and unparalleled work ethic. Known as a master strategist, Bobs greatest attributes are honesty, integrity and his deep desire to help people. Loyalty is the cornerstone of his personality.

"Like all of us, he has some battle scars, but Bob will never give up his belief that together we are better. Together we are stronger. He is guided by the ideal that Union members deserve strong advocates who always have their backs."

Eaton is honoured and thrilled to be starting this next phase of the journey. "I've done a lot. Seen a lot. I've battled and strategized shoulder to shoulder with working people in the trenches of union activism. The labour movement has provided me and my family with incredible opportunities. I will never lose sight of that. I have lived by my parent's golden rule; always be sure to give back more than what was received. I commit to continuing that legacy of service surrounded by the amazing team at Union Digital," said Eaton.

Union Digital is committed to helping Unions build strong relationships with their members and their employers and are committed to support and strengthen the labour movement by empowering Unions to support working people.

For additional information, please visit Union Digital Inc. website at uniondigital.ca.

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Union Digital Continues to Expand Its Executive Team - Bob Eaton Named Chief Government and Media Relations Officer - Business Wire

How fast is real-time? According to Robert Millers 1968 seminal study on human-computer interaction, we perceive a response time of 100 milliseconds or less as instantaneous. This is much quicker than the average human reaction time, which one online test clocks at 273 milliseconds.

Nowadays, customer-facing applications need to respond in as close to real-time as possible to win our attention and meet standard requirements. For example, 100 milliseconds is a golden rule for credit card processors to meet SLAs. Especially in our new remote-first economy, other areas like media, health care, retail and manufacturing need to take full advantage of real-time data processing to enhance digital business and stay relevant. Yet, leveling up with real-time requires some technical nuances that might be challenging to implement with the current developer skills gap.

According to Manish Devgan, chief product officer at Hazelcast, the problem with most data management techniques is that data isnt being processed in-stream at the edge. Instead, data gets stored and thrown into a data lake where it accumulates, unfulfilled. To make matters more complicated, decentralized data management means organizations may be overseeing many different data lakes, adding to the potential for unused data and increased latency.

I recently met with Devgan to learn how in-memory stream processing goes beyond real-time data. According to Devgan, the secret sauce is processing incoming data in-stream while tying it to persistent storage to create context. By doing so, companies could unlock more innovative real-time experiences, he said.

Real-time presents many opportunities for business operations and end-user customer engagements. This is especially true in the financial sector. For example, Devgan explains how one bank was able to use real-time data at the moment of customer interaction at their ATMs. The system was able to fetch a history of the user account and extend an offer for a low line of credit, increasing their total loans by 400%. Capturing value at the moment of user intent is a golden opportunity, said Devgan.

Capital One is another example of a financial institution leveraging advanced technology to improve the product experience. Theyre one of the leading banks in terms of technology, said Devgan. Capital Ones threat detection system calls a machine learning model in real-time to detect and prevent fraud. Only by acting on incoming data in the moment of interaction can preventative responses like these be signaled.

Other scenarios are also beginning to incorporate increased real-time analysis. This split-second preemptive decision-making is important for many other use cases, said Devgan. Physical retail might loop into customer loyalty programs at point-of-sale systems to increase in-store spending. Or, automobile manufacturers may want to use real-time processing to detect a problem with their robotic arms sooner rather than later.

When an event comes in, it usually has very little information. But when you look up a customer profile and connect it to a greater context, you can direct further actions. Correlating data in motion with data at rest is where the magic happens, Devgan. This distinction uncovers the difference between real-time data and stream processing.

The real-time label tends to get thrown around a lot, and its quantified differently for different groups. Real-time might be five minutes for some applications but 10 milliseconds for others. Real-time could simply mean that a system accesses data at rest very quickly, delivering perceivably real-time results.

On the other hand, stream processing incorporates data at rest and data in motion. It computes incoming, in-stream data and correlates it with data at rest. You dont let the data land you process it as it comes in, Devgan said.

For years, enterprises have been collecting and storing exorbitant amounts of data. A survey by Seagate and IDC reveals that 43% of data collected is largely unleveraged and other studies estimate the amount of this dark data is over 50%. And, not acting upon data effectively makes it just another pile on top of the growing mountain of technical debt.

There is a significant storage expense for holding on to too much data, whether on-premises or in the cloud. But, the paradigm is shifting a bit, said Devgan. Organizations dont want to hold onto everything. The attitude is beginning to shift toward garbage in, garbage out.

So, what sort of technology does stream processing require? Processing data at the edge requires some fundamental changes to design thinking. For one, since data must be computed in-stream, theres more emphasis on in-memory processing. Devgan explained this as pushing compute around instead of pushing data around. To enable this, Devgan pointed to open-source projects like Jet that provide powerful distributed batch and stream processing.

SQL has a storied history of acting upon data at rest. Now, Devgan said, he noticed the reemergence of SQL in a stream processing context. Though the industry is still defining how the SQL dialect will conform in a streaming world, hes bullish on the prospect of SQL guiding this area. Streaming SQL will be the lingua franca for streaming, he insisted. Were also in an early era of determining how to bridge the stateful and serverless worlds, Devgan added.

But regardless of computing location, it will come down to the net customer experience outcomes. People want to build their business applications and are less worried about the operational management of the system, said Devgan. Whether its building real-time offers for e-commerce or implementing fraud detection, it will come down to the numbers. There is also a role for stream processing in health care to optimize physical resources and enhance patient experiences with real-time data. In all these scenarios, rapid access to data and processing at the edge will determine much of their success.

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How Stream Processing Goes Beyond Real-Time - DevOps.com

The Visions of Peace Initiative is committed to imparting a meaningful understanding of ethical behavior that can be achieved through an appreciation for the value of reciprocity

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 7, 2022 / AA LaNyalla Mattalitti, Chairman of the House of Regional Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia, also known as the Senate House, officially nominated the Visions of Peace Initiative for the Nobel Peace Prize.

To learn more about the Visions of Peace Initiative, please visit http://visionsofpeaceawards.com/

As a spokesperson noted, the Indonesian Senate House fully supports the Visions of Peace Initiative (VOPI) to win the Nobel Peace Prize. To date, VOP has held more than 50 events throughout Indonesia and has inspired hundreds of thousands of young people.

"The Visions of Peace Initiative embraces the Ethic of Reciprocity, also known as the Golden Rule, a universal value that is included within all faiths and traditions," the spokesperson noted, adding that this Ethic of Reciprocity teaches people to "Do Unto Others As You Would Want Done For Yourself and Do Not Do Unto Others As You Would Not Want Done To Yourself.''

The Visions of Peace Initiative is committed to imparting a meaningful understanding of ethical behavior that can be achieved through an appreciation for the value of reciprocity.

VOPI events have been held throughout the Republic of Indonesia, including areas that have experienced conflicts and natural disasters. As the spokesperson noted, it is hoped that through the engagement of youth using art and other creative forms of expression the VOPI can continue to inspire the younger generations.

"With the positive results that the VOPI has achieved to date, I believe the VOPI is very deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize," Mattalitti said.

In addition to the Senate House, the leader of the People's Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia and H. Muhammad Farhan, SE, member of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia have also nominated the VOPI to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

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According to the founders of the Visions of Peace Initiative, Prince KPH Dr. Damien Dematra and Princess Cheryl Halpern, the recognition and nomination of the Visions of Peace Initiative from the Indonesian Senate House is an "unprecedented and incomparable honor."

The acknowledgement of a non-governmental organization has never happened before in the history of the Republic of Indonesia, the spokesperson noted, adding that this tribute will inspire everyone who has already participated in the VOPI and those who are yet to participate, to continue to promote peace and tolerance.

Since its inception in 2017, the VOPI has been working together with schools, orphanages and religious organizations throughout Indonesia.

The Visions of Peace Initiative is honored to have also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Prof. Dr. Ir. Oktovian Berty Alexander Sompie, Rector of the Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon and by Dr. Ephraim Isaac, Director of the Institute of Semitic Studies at Princeton University. Both of these respected academicians have prioritized the importance of the VOPI's teaching the young about civility.

Princess Cheryl Halpern and Prince KPH Dr. Dematra said they encourage everyone to appreciate Alfred Nobel's comment that, "Good wishes will not ensure peace."

"We must remember that civility and peace require a steadfast commitment to instill in every generation an understanding of the Ethic of Reciprocity,'" they said.

About the Visions of Peace Initiative

The Visions Of Peace Initiative is dedicated to introducing the golden rule when meeting young people and encouraging them to express their views on tolerance and peaceful conditions through an extraordinary spectrum of arts. For more information, please visit http://visionsofpeaceawards.com/

Media ContactY Makhuadmin@visionsofpeaceawards.com+62882-1993-6370

SOURCE: Visions of Peace Initiative

View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/687694/Visions-of-Peace-Initiative-is-Nominated-for-the-Nobel-Peace-Prize-by-the-Indonesian-Senate-House

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Visions of Peace Initiative is Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Indonesian Senate House - Yahoo Finance

Golden will soon become the latest Colorado community to require that restaurants offer a non-sugary drink like water or milk as the default beverage accompanying kids meals, amid a COVID-19 pandemic that has pushed the countrys rate of childhood obesity to unprecedented levels.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an agreement with Jefferson County Public Health to have the agency enforce the new healthy beverage measure, which was passed by the council late last month, at restaurants throughout the city.

Golden joins Longmont, which passed its own healthy beverage initiative in September, and Lafayette, which was the states first city to implement such a measure in 2017. Aurora approved its own measure on a first reading in March 2020, as the pandemic was getting started, but never cast a second and final vote on the issue.

Goldens new healthy beverage initiative begins June 1. Officials with the county health department will check for compliance as part of their annual inspection of eateries.

This is just a start to reverse some of these unhealthy habits that advertising has caused, said JJ Trout, Goldens mayor pro tem. We want to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Goldens ordinance would require that restaurants not list or show soda, juice or other beverages with added sugar as the drink of kids meals on its menus, but rather water, milk, sparkling water or a non-dairy milk alternative containing no more than 130 calories per container or serving.

The rule applies to chain restaurants and fast-food outlets along with local eateries in Golden. Parents could still order soda or juice for their children if they so chose.

This is not intended to be laborious, this is not intended to be heavy-handed, Trout said.

Its just a small step, she said, to counter the tens of millions of dollars that beverage companies spend to advertise sugary drinks to children each year.The Colorado Restaurant Association said it would like measures like Goldens to allow 100% juice and low-fat chocolate milk on kids menus to bring this ordinance in alignment with the existing menus of national chain restaurants.

The trade association is concerned about the cost restaurants will have to bear to reprint menus to comply with the law, especially after two years of bruising shutdowns and restrictions brought about by the pandemic.

Restaurants across Colorado are extremely cost-sensitive right now, after two years of pandemic-related operational restrictions and decreased revenue, said Mollie Steinemann, manager of government affairs for the Colorado Restaurant Association. The cost of such an ordinance varies, of course, and relates to reproducing menus and website marketing materials, as well as the labor costs associated with training staff and realigning guests expectations when they take their children out to eat.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in September of obesity trends during the pandemic. It found that an estimated 22% of children and teens were obese in August 2021, up from 19% a year earlier.

Before the pandemic, children who were a healthy weight were gaining an average of 3.4 pounds a year. That rose to 5.4 pounds during the pandemic, the CDC found. The agency also concluded that the rate of obesity increased most dramatically in kids ages 6 to 11.

The CDC reports that for children and adolescents between the age of 2 and 19 years old, nearly 20% or 14.4 million were considered obese in 2017-18.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association have both endorsed healthy default beverage initiatives for children, which have been enacted in California, Hawaii and Delaware, as well as more than a dozen cities and counties in the U.S.

While health officials urge children and teens to consume fewer than 10% of calories from added sugars, data shows that they are consuming 17% of their calories from added sugars, nearly half of which comes from drinks alone, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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Golden will soon forbid restaurants from packaging sugary drinks with kids meals - The Denver Post

At a time when mainstream politicians across the world are openly lobbing racist grenades into the debating chambers of cable news and social media, why do famous comedians still tell Holocaust jokes and can this subject ever morally be the target for comedy? Sometimes yes, mostly no.

Coming from a Jewish refugee family (my mother is a Holocaust survivor and many other family members were murdered), I am naturally acutely sensitive to jokes made about this subject. My family is divided on the question of Holocaust humour. In my work as the founder of Holocaust Awareness Ireland, I occasionally use humour myself. It helps to break the tension with the audience. Without it, the pitch-black intensity of the Holocaust can make the facts hard to absorb, leaving the audience numb.

But jokes about the Holocaust are among the hardest for any comedian to pull off. Except for neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers you are likely to offend everyone else in the audience. Gratuitous, indescribable cruelty inflicted on millions of civilians and the murder of six million Jews, half a million Roma and Sinti, and tens of thousands of homosexuals, the disabled and political prisoners is not an obvious subject for comedy. Especially as its still in living memory.

Holocaust comedy is a high-wire act given the golden rule of comedy: it has to be funny. Empathy is the key. Jokes at the expense of those who cannot defend themselves only really work when the observation exposes our own vulnerabilities.

Every so often, the question raises its head as another comedian uses the Holocaust to get a laugh. Failure will bring opprobrium and censure, as well as a blaze of publicity; the latter perhaps never wholly unwelcome. This time, the English comedian, Jimmy Carr, has stepped on the proverbial land mine, receiving a widespread backlash. In a recent show on Netflix he tells us that thousands of gypsies died in the Holocaust . . . no one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.

Beyond tasteless, Carr succeeds in further demeaning the Traveller and Romany communities, the implication being that they are a marginalised section of society whom no one values, so genocide in their case is a good thing. In an attempt to defend himself, Carr digs a deeper hole for himself by explaining that it was educational and that its a joke about the worst thing thats ever happened in human history, and people say never forget, well this is how I remember.

Except that Carr has shown no empathy for the victims, whose only crime was to be singled out for their ethnicity, just like the Jews. By degrading them today, he questions their right to mourn their unimaginable loss. Humiliating Holocaust victims and their families is an especially despicable act with consequences for them that are more complex than Carr foresees.

If Carr is interested in how to tackle the Holocaust as a stand-up comedian, he should turn to Ricky Gervais. In a double episode of Jerry Seinfelds series of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in 2019, Gervais tells two Holocaust jokes. The first is a version of a well-worn gag where a Holocaust survivor goes to God and tells him a Holocaust joke. God replies that it isnt funny whereupon the Holocaust survivor counters, Youd have to have been there.

The second joke has the commandant of Auschwitz allowing a group of Jewish prisoners their freedom for Christmas. As they are filing out the last one says to his captor, But we dont celebrate Christmas.

Gervais comedic instincts around the Holocaust are humane. His first joke is sophisticated and works at many levels, especially as Gervais is well known as an atheist. His second turns the butt of the joke into a hero; someone not prepared to accept freedom at any cost, especially if the price is giving up that part of him that led to his incarceration.

Both jokes show great sympathy for the survivors. They also work by depicting the absurdity of the Holocaust. This was a structure that Roberto Benigni deployed in his 1997 double Oscar-winning film Life is Beautiful; a fable that has a father and son incarcerated in a concentration camp, Benigni plays the part of the father. He tries to convince his young son that the Nazis are playing a game in order to shield him from the horror of their circumstances. Benigni commented that this contrived scenario was no more absurd than the realities of life for the victims.

Absurdity and farce were the devices used by Mel Brooks in his classic 1967 film The Producers with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and later in 1983 with To Be or Not to Be in which he starred next to his wife, Anne Bancroft. Interestingly, Chaplins masterful parody of the Nazi regime,The Great Dictator, came out in 1940 before the Holocaust had fully swung into operation.

Perhaps knowledge of the full extent of the horror now precludes satire as a comedy genre in this arena. The events are so extreme that farce seems to connect more viscerally with the audience than satire. This was the heart of the success of the British comedy series Allo Allo!, which ran for 10 years from 1982, itself a parody of a fictional series about the Belgian Resistance, called Secret Army which ran for two years from 1977.

In part two of the Seinfeld episode, Gervais shocks Seinfeld by showing him a black and white picture of a baby boy and asks Seinfeld to guess who it is. At the third attempt Seinfeld guesses correctly: Adolf Hitler. Gervais asks Seinfeld the classic moral teaser: if he could go back in time would he kill him? Look, he says, hes only one. Hes done nothing wrong yet. Hes adorable. The same photograph inspired the great Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborskas, Hitlers First Photograph, a poem that could be about any infants first portrait. Except, of course, we know how this story ends.

The Holocaust is the Everest of comedy topics. It needs years of training to conquer. I am prepared to be made to feel deeply uncomfortable if the joke is clever, tender and empathetic. Most of all, if I can laugh at this inherited trauma, it might mean that it is possible to live a just life in a world where the Holocaust made justice an impossibility for its victims.

Oliver Sears is founder of Holocaust Awareness Ireland

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Holocaust jokes have their place but require empathy - The Irish Times

February. The month of shattered dreams and ambitions. The trainers are gathering dust and chocolate bars have replaced protein bars. The gusto with which we attacked our new year resolutions is a vague memory.

If your motivation to stick to your resolution to exercise more this year is waning, youre not alone. Its suggested around 80% of people will have given up on their new year resolutions by February.

But the reason your motivation wanes might be because you chose the wrong motives and goals to begin with. And research shows us that choosing the right type of goal is the key to keeping us motivated over the long term.

Many of us believe that we need to grimace, contort, sweat and pant our way to a healthier life. So at the beginning of January, we put in a load of effort to help us reach our goals.

Unfortunately, our brain encourages us to avoid physical effort. This is why the excessive effort we use when exercising will work against us in the long run leading us to feel less motivated to exercise by the end of January.

Our brain is constantly monitoring our body for any changes from our resting state, which could mean danger to our health. The more physical effort we use, the more a signal is activated and our brain tells us that the activity just isnt worth the effort and potential risk.

This is why minimising the effort we need to put into exercise may actually better help us stick to our resolutions in the long term. For example, if youre dreading even a fifteen-minute jog, do five minutes instead.

Or if you hate running but enjoy Zumba, do that instead. The golden rule is that the activity youre trying to motivate yourself to do needs to be pleasurable. And research shows were much more likely to do something if it requires less effort especially when were starting new exercise regimes.

The same principle applies to reducing the psychological effort required to exercise, as our brains also encourage us to avoid it to such an extent that, when given the choice, we often prefer physical pain instead. It does this because it wants to save psychological effort for times of emergency.

When it comes to starting a new exercise regime in the new year, things like fitting workouts into our schedule or getting out of bed an hour earlier all require psychological effort. To reduce psychological effort, it may help to minimise needless decision-making.

When its time to exercise, remove decisions like whether to walk or drive to exercise class, or put your trainers in the same place so you dont have to look for them.

Although these sound like small decisions to make, they can all add up to us feeling less motivated to exercise when were required to make them. Research even shows that when we think our goals require little effort to achieve, were more likely to achieve them.

Another basic motivational mistake many of us made in January was to set our goals too far in the future. Many people start exercising to lose a few pounds perhaps to fit into their favourite jeans again. But when the outcome is far in the future, our brains dont associate the motivation (fitting into our jeans) with exercising so were less inclined to exercise.

By choosing a goal that has a more immediate outcome, our brains will associate the outcome positively with exercise because they occur simultaneously. For example, the mood-boosting benefits of exercise occur more quickly than physical health changes so this may be a better motivator for you to keep exercising well past January. In short, make the reason for exercise an immediate one you can achieve and the long-term benefits will follow.

The final motivational fix is switching the type of goal you have. So-called have goals serve little purpose for our motivational brain, which focuses on more important things such as being effective at what we do and making social bonds.

An example of a have goal would be exercising so that you can have a better body. This type of goal is viewed as less important by our brain because it does not help us meet essential goals that help us thrive.

On the other hand, the types of goals that are more likely to keep us motivated are be goals. An example of a be goal would be exercising to be healthy or to be more athletic. Be goals are superior because humans tend to want to bond with other like-minded people based on our identities.

This motivation is thought to have developed in our ancestral past, as forming bonds helped us to survive. So someone may find exercise easier to stick with if theyre doing it as a way to demonstrate their athleticism, for example. As a result, people do a better job of sticking to be goals, compared to other types of goals.

Even if you have fallen off the wagon slightly by the end of January, that doesnt mean you have to give up on your goals entirely. But making some tweaks to them and your approach to exercise may help you better stick to your goals for the rest of the year.

Ian Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Loughborough University

This article is republished from The Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Three tips to help you stay motivated to keep exercising all year long - News24

Formula that describes the transition rate from one energy eigenstate of a quantum system into other energy eigenstates

In quantum physics, Fermi's golden rule is a formula that describes the transition rate (the probability of a transition per unit time) from one energy eigenstate of a quantum system to a group of energy eigenstates in a continuum, as a result of a weak perturbation. This transition rate is effectively independent of time (so long as the strength of the perturbation is independent of time) and is proportional to the strength of the coupling between the initial and final states of the system (described by the square of the matrix element of the perturbation) as well as the density of states. It is also applicable when the final state is discrete, i.e. it is not part of a continuum, if there is some decoherence in the process, like relaxation or collision of the atoms, or like noise in the perturbation, in which case the density of states is replaced by the reciprocal of the decoherence bandwidth.

Although named after Enrico Fermi, most of the work leading to the "golden rule" is due to Paul Dirac, who formulated 20 years earlier a virtually identical equation, including the three components of a constant, the matrix element of the perturbation and an energy difference.[1][2] It was given this name because, on account of its importance, Fermi called it "golden rule No.2".[3]

Most uses of the term Fermi's golden rule are referring to "golden rule No.2", however, Fermi's "golden rule No.1" is of a similar form and considers the probability of indirect transitions per unit time.[4]

Fermi's golden rule describes a system that begins in an eigenstate | i {displaystyle |irangle } of an unperturbed Hamiltonian H0 and considers the effect of a perturbing Hamiltonian H' applied to the system. If H' is time-independent, the system goes only into those states in the continuum that have the same energy as the initial state. If H' is oscillating sinusoidally as a function of time (i.e. it is a harmonic perturbation) with an angular frequency , the transition is into states with energies that differ by from the energy of the initial state.

In both cases, the transition probability per unit of time from the initial state | i {displaystyle |irangle } to a set of final states | f {displaystyle |frangle } is essentially constant. It is given, to first-order approximation, by

where f | H | i {displaystyle langle f|H'|irangle } is the matrix element (in braket notation) of the perturbation H' between the final and initial states, and ( E f ) {displaystyle rho (E_{f})} is the density of states (number of continuum states divided by d E {displaystyle dE} in the infinitesimally small energy interval E {displaystyle E} to E + d E {displaystyle E+dE} ) at the energy E f {displaystyle E_{f}} of the final states. This transition probability is also called "decay probability" and is related to the inverse of the mean lifetime. Thus, the probability of finding the system in state | i {displaystyle |irangle } is proportional to e i f t {displaystyle e^{-Gamma _{ito f}t}} .

The standard way to derive the equation is to start with time-dependent perturbation theory and to take the limit for absorption under the assumption that the time of the measurement is much larger than the time needed for the transition.[5][6]

The golden rule is a straightforward consequence of the Schrdinger equation, solved to lowest order in the perturbation H' of the Hamiltonian. The total Hamiltonian is the sum of an original Hamiltonian H0 and a perturbation: H = H 0 + H ( t ) {displaystyle H=H_{0}+H'(t)} . In the interaction picture, we can expand an arbitrary quantum states time evolution in terms of energy eigenstates of the unperturbed system | n {displaystyle |nrangle } , with H 0 | n = E n | n {displaystyle H_{0}|nrangle =E_{n}|nrangle } .

We first consider the case where the final states are discrete. The expansion of a state in the perturbed system at a time t is | ( t ) = n a n ( t ) e i E n t / | n {displaystyle |psi (t)rangle =sum _{n}a_{n}(t)e^{-iE_{n}t/hbar }|nrangle } . The coefficients an(t) are yet unknown functions of time yielding the probability amplitudes in the Dirac picture. This state obeys the time-dependent Schrdinger equation:

Expanding the Hamiltonian and the state, we see that, to first order,

( H 0 + H i t ) n a n ( t ) | n e i t E n / = 0 , {displaystyle left(H_{0}+H'-mathrm {i} hbar {frac {partial }{partial t}}right)sum _{n}a_{n}(t)|nrangle e^{-mathrm {i} tE_{n}/hbar }=0,} where En and |n are the stationary eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of H0.

This equation can be rewritten as a system of differential equations specifying the time evolution of the coefficients a n ( t ) {displaystyle a_{n}(t)} :

This equation is exact, but normally cannot be solved in practice.

For a weak constant perturbation H' that turns on at t = 0, we can use perturbation theory. Namely, if H = 0 {displaystyle H'=0} , it is evident that a n ( t ) = n , i {displaystyle a_{n}(t)=delta _{n,i}} , which simply says that the system stays in the initial state i {displaystyle i} .

For states k i {displaystyle kneq i} , a k ( t ) {displaystyle a_{k}(t)} becomes non-zero due to H 0 {displaystyle H'neq 0} , and these are assumed to be small due to the weak perturbation. The coefficient a i ( t ) {displaystyle a_{i}(t)} which is unity in the unperturbed state, will have a weak contribution from H {displaystyle H'} . Hence, one can plug in the zeroth-order form a n ( t ) = n , i {displaystyle a_{n}(t)=delta _{n,i}} into the above equation to get the first correction for the amplitudes a k ( t ) {displaystyle a_{k}(t)} :

whose integral can be expressed as

with k i ( E k E i ) / {displaystyle omega _{ki}equiv (E_{k}-E_{i})/hbar } , for a state with ai(0) = 1, ak(0) = 0, transitioning to a state with ak(t).

The probability of transition from the initial state (ith) to the final state (fth) is given by

It is important study a periodic perturbation with a given frequency {displaystyle omega } since arbitrary perturbations can be constructed from periodic perturbations of different frequencies. Since H ( t ) {displaystyle H'(t)} must be Hermitian, we must assume H ( t ) = F e i t + F e i t {displaystyle H'(t)=Fe^{-mathrm {i} omega t}+F^{dagger }e^{mathrm {i} omega t}} , where F {displaystyle F} is a time independent operator. The solution for this case is[7]

This expression is valid only when the denominators in the above expression is non-zero, i.e., for a given initial state with energy E i {displaystyle E_{i}} , the final state energy must be such that E f E i . {displaystyle E_{f}-E_{i}neq pm hbar omega .} Not only the denominators must be non-zero, but also must not be small since a f {displaystyle a_{f}} is supposed to be small.

Since the continuous spectrum lies above the discrete spectrum, E f E i > 0 {displaystyle E_{f}-E_{i}>0} and it is clear from the previous section, major role is played by the energies E f {displaystyle E_{f}} lying near the resonance energy E i + {displaystyle E_{i}+hbar omega } , i.e., when f i {displaystyle omega _{fi}approx omega } . In this case, it is sufficient to keep only the first term for a f ( t ) {displaystyle a_{f}(t)} . Assuming that perturbations are turned on from time t = 0 {displaystyle t=0} , we have then

The squared modulus of a f {displaystyle a_{f}} is

For large t {displaystyle t} , this will reduce to

a linear dependence on t {displaystyle t} .

The probability of transition from the ith state to final states lying in an interval d f {displaystyle dnu _{f}} (density of states in an infinitesimal element around E f {displaystyle E_{f}} ) is d w f i = | a f | 2 d f {displaystyle dw_{fi}=|a_{f}|^{2}dnu _{f}} . The transition probability per unit time is thus given by

The time dependence has vanished, and the constant decay rate of the golden rule follows.[8] As a constant, it underlies the exponential particle decay laws of radioactivity. (For excessively long times, however, the secular growth of the ak(t) terms invalidates lowest-order perturbation theory, which requires ak ai.)

Only the magnitude of the matrix element f | H | i {displaystyle langle f|H'|irangle } enters the Fermi's golden rule. The phase of this matrix element, however, contains separate information about the transition process.It appears in expressions that complement the golden rule in the semiclassical Boltzmann equation approach to electron transport.[9]

While the Golden rule is commonly stated and derived in the terms above, the final state (continuum) wave function is often rather vaguely described, and not normalized correctly (and the normalisation is used in the derivation). The problem is that in order to produce a continuum there can be no spatial confinement (which would necessarily discretise the spectrum), and therefore the continuum wave functions must have infinite extent, and in turn this means that the normalisation f | f = d 3 r | f ( r ) | 2 {displaystyle langle f|frangle =int d^{3}r|f(mathbf {r} )|^{2}} is infinite, not unity. If the interactions depend on the energy of the continuum state, but not any other quantum numbers, it is usual to normalise continuum wave-functions with energy {displaystyle epsilon } labelled | {displaystyle |epsilon rangle } , by writing | = ( ) {displaystyle langle epsilon |epsilon 'rangle =delta (epsilon -epsilon ')} where {displaystyle delta } is the Dirac delta function, and effectively a factor of the square-root of the density of states is included into | i {displaystyle |epsilon _{i}rangle } .[10] In this case, the continuum wave function has dimensions of 1 / {displaystyle 1/surd } [energy], and the Golden Rule is now

where i {displaystyle epsilon _{i}} refers to the continuum state with the same energy as the discrete state i {displaystyle i} . For example, correctly normalized continuum wave functions for the case of a free electron in the vicinity of a hydrogen atom are available in Bethe and Salpeter .[11]

The following paraphrases the treatment of Cohen-Tannoudji.[10] As before, the total Hamiltonian is the sum of an original Hamiltonian H0 and a perturbation: H = H 0 + H {displaystyle H=H_{0}+H'} . We can still expand an arbitrary quantum states time evolution in terms of energy eigenstates of the unperturbed system, but these now consist of discrete states and continuum states. We assume that the interactions depend on the energy of the continuum state, but not any other quantum numbers. The expansion in the relevant states in the Dirac picture is

where i = i / , = / {displaystyle omega _{i}=epsilon _{i}/hbar ,omega =epsilon /hbar } and i , {displaystyle epsilon _{i},epsilon } are the energies of states | i , | {displaystyle |irangle ,|epsilon rangle } . The integral is over the continuum C {displaystyle epsilon in C} , i.e. | {displaystyle |epsilon rangle } is in the continuum.

Substituting into the time-dependent Schrdinger equation

and premultiplying by i | {displaystyle langle i|} produces

where i = i | H | / {displaystyle Omega _{iepsilon }=langle i|H'|epsilon rangle /hbar } , and premultiplying by | {displaystyle langle epsilon '|} produces

We made use of the normalisation | = ( ) {displaystyle langle epsilon '|epsilon rangle =delta (epsilon '-epsilon )} .Integrating the latter and substituting into the former,

It can be seen here that d a i / d t {displaystyle da_{i}/dt} at time t {displaystyle t} depends on a i {displaystyle a_{i}} at all earlier times t {displaystyle t'} , i.e. it is non-Markovian. We make the Markov approximation, i.e. that it only depends on a i {displaystyle a_{i}} at time t {displaystyle t} (which is less restrictive than the approximation that a i {displaystyle a_{i}} 1 used above, and allows the perturbation to be strong)

where T = t t {displaystyle T=t-t'} and = i {displaystyle Delta =omega -omega _{i}} . Integrating over T {displaystyle T} ,

The fraction on the right is a nascent Dirac delta function, meaning it tends to ( i ) {displaystyle delta (epsilon -epsilon _{i})} as t {displaystyle tto infty } (ignoring its imaginary part which leads to an unimportant energy shift, while the real part produces decay [10]). Finally

which has solutions: a i ( t ) = exp ( i i t / 2 ) {displaystyle a_{i}(t)=exp(-Gamma _{ito epsilon _{i}}t/2)} , i.e., the decay of population in the initial discrete state is P i ( t ) = | a i ( t ) | 2 = exp ( i i t ) {displaystyle P_{i}(t)=|a_{i}(t)|^{2}=exp(-Gamma _{ito epsilon _{i}}t)} where

The Fermi golden rule can be used for calculating the transition probability rate for an electron that is excited by a photon from the valence band to the conduction band in a direct band-gap semiconductor, and also for when the electron recombines with the hole and emits a photon.[12] Consider a photon of frequency {displaystyle omega } and wavevector q {displaystyle {textbf {q}}} , where the light dispersion relation is = ( c / n ) | q | {displaystyle omega =(c/n)left|{textbf {q}}right|} and n {displaystyle n} is the index of refraction.

Using the Coulomb gauge where A = 0 {displaystyle nabla cdot {textbf {A}}=0} and V = 0 {displaystyle V=0} , the vector potential of the EM wave is given by A = A 0 e i ( q r t ) + C {displaystyle {textbf {A}}=A_{0}{vec {epsilon }}e^{i({textbf {q}}cdot {textbf {r}}-omega t)}+C} where the resulting electric field is

For a charged particle in the valence band, the Hamiltonian is

where V ( r ) {displaystyle V({textbf {r}})} is the potential of the crystal. If our particle is an electron ( Q = e {displaystyle Q=-e} ) and we consider process involving one photon and first order in A {displaystyle {textbf {A}}} . The resulting Hamiltonian is

where H {displaystyle H'} is the perturbation of the EM wave.

From here on we have transition probability based on time-dependent perturbation theory that

where {displaystyle {vec {epsilon }}} is the light polarization vector. From perturbation it is evident that the heart of the calculation lies in the matrix elements shown in the braket.

For the initial and final states in valence and conduction bands respectively, we have | i = v , k i , s i ( r ) {displaystyle |irangle =Psi _{v,{textbf {k}}_{i},s_{i}}({textbf {r}})} and | f = c , k f , s f ( r ) {displaystyle |frangle =Psi _{c,{textbf {k}}_{f},s_{f}}({textbf {r}})} , and if the H {displaystyle H'} operator does not act on the spin, the electron stays in the same spin state and hence we can write the wavefunctions as Bloch waves so

where N {displaystyle N} is the number of unit cells with volume 0 {displaystyle Omega _{0}} . Using these wavefunctions and with some more mathematics, and focusing on emission (photoluminescence) rather than absorption, we are led to the transition rate

where c v {displaystyle {boldsymbol {mu }}_{cv}} is the transition dipole moment matrix element is qualitatively the expectation value c | ( charge ) ( distance ) | v {displaystyle langle c|({text{charge}})times ({text{distance}})|vrangle } and in this situation takes the form

Finally, we want to know the total transition rate ( ) {displaystyle Gamma (omega )} . Hence we need to sum over all initial and final states (i.e. an integral of the Brillouin zone in the k-space), and take into account spin degeneracy, which through some mathematics results in

( ) = 4 ( e A 0 m 0 ) 2 | c v | 2 c v ( ) {displaystyle Gamma (omega )={frac {4pi }{hbar }}left({frac {eA_{0}}{m_{0}}}right)^{2}|{vec {epsilon }}cdot {boldsymbol {mu }}_{cv}|^{2}rho _{cv}(omega )}

where c v ( ) {displaystyle rho _{cv}(omega )} is the joint valence-conduction density of states (i.e. the density of pair of states; one occupied valence state, one empty conduction state). In 3D, this is

but the joint DOS is different for 2D, 1D, and 0D.

Finally we note that in a general way we can express the Fermi golden rule for semiconductors as[13]

In a scanning tunneling microscope, the Fermi golden rule is used in deriving the tunneling current. It takes the form

where M {displaystyle M} is the tunneling matrix element.

When considering energy level transitions between two discrete states, Fermi's golden rule is written as

where g ( ) {displaystyle g(hbar omega )} is the density of photon states at a given energy, {displaystyle hbar omega } is the photon energy, and {displaystyle omega } is the angular frequency. This alternative expression relies on the fact that there is a continuum of final (photon) states, i.e. the range of allowed photon energies is continuous.[14]

Fermi's golden rule predicts that the probability that an excited state will decay depends on the density of states. This can be seen experimentally by measuring the decay rate of a dipole near a mirror: as the presence of the mirror creates regions of higher and lower density of states, the measured decay rate depends on the distance between the mirror and the dipole.[15][16]

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Fermi's golden rule - Wikipedia