How doorways can affect your memory

Walking through doorways causes forgetting, new research shows

We’ve all experienced it: The frustration of entering a room and forgetting what we were going to do. Or get. Or find.

New research from University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses.

“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” Radvansky explains.

“Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.”

The study was published recently in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Conducting three experiments in both real and virtual environments, Radvansky’s subjects – all college students – performed memory tasks while crossing a room and while exiting a doorway.

In the first experiment, subjects used a virtual environment and moved from one room to another, selecting an object on a table and exchanging it for an object at a different table. They did the same thing while simply moving across a room but not crossing through a doorway.

Radvansky found that the subjects forgot more after walking through a doorway compared to moving the same distance across a room, suggesting that the doorway or “event boundary” impedes one’s ability to retrieve thoughts or decisions made in a different room.

The second experiment in a real-world setting required subjects to conceal in boxes the objects chosen from the table and move either across a room or travel the same distance and walk through a doorway. The results in the real-world environment replicated those in the virtual world: walking through a doorway diminished subjects’ memories.

The final experiment was designed to test whether doorways actually served as event boundaries or if one’s ability to remember is linked to the environment in which a decision – in this case, the selection of an object – was created. Previous research has shown that environmental factors affect memory and that information learned in one environment is retrieved better when the retrieval occurs in the same context. Subjects in this leg of the study passed through several doorways, leading back to the room in which they started. The results showed no improvements in memory, suggesting that the act of passing through a doorway serves as a way the mind files away memories.

Live Your 80's Life Back

A nostalgic Google researcher recently flexed his C coding skills and built a fully functional Commodore Amiga 500 emulator for Chrome. You can try the realistic software here. It’s good, geeky fun.

Of course, it’s also a handy way to flaunt some of Chrome’s lesser known features. The Amiga emulator was built with Native Client, a C and C++ sandbox for Chrome. Said nostalgic researcher, Christian Stefansen, worked on the tool, so he’s showing off a little bit and notes that the emulator is “something like 400,000 lines of code.” Or so.

“On the main page you can boot the Amiga, insert floppy disks, play the games, and generally pretend it’s still the late 80s,” he explains in the site’s FAQ. “(We recommend some Enigma music or the soundtrack from the movie Top Gun in the background.)”

So open Chrome and go nuts. Robo-City awaits.

Data Scientists

Data Scientists-‘The Czar of the Modern World’

The Harvard Business Review claims Data Scientist as one of the sexiest jobs of the 21st century; and yes the term itself beholds quite vim and vigor as Data Scientists are getting hotter for better.

The Data Scientist title has been around for less than a decade and the term was coined in 2008 by Dr. DJ Patil, Chief Data Scientist White house of Science and Technology Policy and Jeff Hammerbacher, Chief-Scientist, Cloudera. They described it as a rare species being chased by startups and big technology companies alike for their ability to make sense of large and complex set of information. No wonder its demand is rife and served as a booster for their salaries that have shot through the roof. The Data Scientists are no less than big guns as their sudden prominence portrays that even the bigwig’s and startups now need to comb huge volumes of data for information that is critical for the success of an idea or business.

The Data Scientists are no less than big guns as their sudden prominence portrays that even the bigwig’s and startups now need to comb huge volumes of data for information that is critical for the success of an idea or business. The ecommerce companies who are quite ubiquitous in India have also realized their worth. The chief technology officer of Flipkart, Amod Malviya mentions that ‘Data is a large asset that is often not used to its full potential in most organizations. There is a huge amount of technology investments that we can make in this area’. No wonder the online retailer generates terabytes of data every day and is now building a data science lab that can help them sell better. The big technology trend is to make systems intelligent and data is the raw material.

Here are Five reasons why Data Scientists are Hot:

1. IBM & HP's of the world pouring Billions of Dollar-Yes, they are the new ‘Honcho’s’

To meet growing client demands in today’s data intensive industries, IBM has established the world’s deepest and broadest portfolio of Big Data and Analytics technologies and solutions, spanning services, software, research and hardware. Fueling this is the fact that IBM has made a multi-billion dollar investment in big data and analytics — $24 billion since 2005 through both acquisitions and R&D — to extend its leadership position in this strategic market. HP and GE on other hand each invested over $1 billon in big data. The big data and analytics market will reach $125 billion worldwide in 2015, according to IDC. So if you have any doubt if Big Data is only a buzz word think twice!

2. Demand Supply Gap- Greet the sexy beast!

From tech startups to Fortune 500 companies, data scientists are a hot commodity. A McKinsey study predicts that by 2017 the U.S. could face a shortage of almost 200,000 people with “deep analytical skills.” No surprise, then, that they boast an eye-popping average starting salary of around $120,000. People with the necessary skills are scarce, primarily because the discipline is so new. But, the situation is rapidly changing, as some universities around the world have started to offer different kinds of masters programs in data science. This year, for example, New York University is offering Master in Data Science, and Aegis School of Business & Telecommunication in association with IBM has launched Full Time and Executive Part Time Post Graduate Program (PGP) in Business Analytics and Big Data, India's first holistic Data Science program.


“Presently, there are only 10,000-15,000 analytics and data experts in India, and there will be a shortage of two Lacs data scientists in India over the next few years,” CEO of Fractal and a member of the Analytics Interest Group, Srikanth Velamakanni.

3. Its Money Raining- The hunt for Unicorn Data Scientists are in the making!

Mobile commerce player Paytm is hiring a team of eight data scientists in Canada, paying on an average $250,000 (Rs 1.5 crore) each. "The team will look at the large amount of data we have from different angles. For instance fraud detection, up selling and such," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of One97 Communication which owns Paytm. "If a person paid Rs 60-70 Lacs is offered Rs 1.2 crore, then no one in the marketplace will touch him for a while," said Gattu, chief operating officer at Gramener. At least four senior industry professionals said Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon and Walmart were among the companies waving fat pay packets to top data scientists.

A data scientist is a job title for an employee or business intelligence (BI) consultant who excels at analyzing data, particularly large amounts of data, to help a business gain a competitive edge.

Salaries for chief data scientists with over 10 years of experience in mathematics and statistics are regularly touching the Rs 1 crore mark; as mentioned in Economics Times. Forget the complex Data Science skills, market has become so crazy that even candidates with 1 to 2 years experience in Hadoop alone are making 7.5 to 10 Lacs a year.

Unicorn Data Scientist are the upgraded version of our racy data scientists but are a little hard to hunt and are compensated more than $200,000 per year. Even if our desirables don’t know how to code, all thanks to the rising data science tide that has lifted the compensation of all other data analytics professionals, according to a latest survey!

4. Data Scientists are Supermen with Crystal Ball- Aren’t they big cheese!

Data Scientists are super men who tell stories out of the data, respective of the size of data: big or small. They answer questions like what's happening. What will happen? What we should do now? These are termed as BI, Predictive analytics and Prescriptive Analytics. They use statistics, Machine learning, NLP, R, Python, Hadoop, Spark to create Crystal Ball to predict future, solve business problem or find out the missing opportunities. Snapdeal, which has over 20 million subscribers and generates terabytes of data through the interactions that happen with customers in addition to a catalogue of over 5 million, churns 15 million data points (related data set like a consumer shopping on specific days for a particular thing) within two hours, using Hadoop. About 35% of its orders come from recommendation and personalized systems, and the conversion rate of such orders is 20-30% higher than normal orders, the company claims.

5. With Data Science you can finally be a Rock Star!

If you weren’t homecoming royalty in college, it’s time to wipe away your tears. From Google to Twitter, IBM to Snapdeal the hottest tech and E commerce companies are clamoring for data scientists. President Obama has appointed Dr. DJ Patil as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. As Chief Data Scientist, DJ will help shape policies and practices to help the U.S. remain a leader in technology and innovation, foster partnerships to help responsibly maximize the nation’s return on its investment in data, and help to recruit and retain the best minds in data science to join us in serving the public.

Accept the Change

Change is good or not good, Accept it quickly. It is good for you.

I don't feel myself as a opposition of accepting the change. but recently I noticed, I am not very good in that also.
Everywhere, everyone is now using smartphone. but I was not until now.
I used to have a simple Nokia phone, it was smart phone but I didn't use its smart features. Because it was a cheap phone and those smart features does not work in that phone as should be.

Well, I had all other smart devices in daily use, like smart TV, iPad, smart watch etc but not the phone which i now feel is the most important thing.
Recently, I noticed a big fall of some great companies just because they did not "Accepted the Change". Those companies were keep on following their own old ideas with this moto:

We are a successful company since N number of years. And we earn this success with our own ideas. Why should we change that now.

They forgot that the change is required nowadays to keep on running.
Now, I tell you why I was not using any smart phone before. Because I like small screen and Nokia phone. Nokia did not launch any successful smart phone with small screen that's why I was not iPhone or any other smart phone. All of them were coming with big screens and I like small ones.
When I noticed that, iPhone 5 screen was smaller than iPhone 6 then I feel Its a Change in peoples choice that's why all the successful smart phones are coming in big screens. So ...
The very next day I had iPhone 6s in my hand.



Well, Change is always good in our lives. It makes us happy. If we accept the change quickly we don't sob for long on the sudden unhappy thing happen with us

Changes can be hard but necessary, and a change of scenery can re-ignite your interest and motivation.

Accept the things you cannot change; have the courage to change the things which you can; and have the wisdom to know the difference. Changes can be hard but necessary, and a change of scenery can re-ignite your interest and motivation.

Understand that people change and sometimes they are not compatible with our lives. We just have to learn to Accept the Change and move on.

The biggest setbacks I commonly see are when people are starring in the face of change. Whether it’s unexpected or they just run out of options, when you force change on someone their whole turns upside down.
The biggest fear of change is usually not knowing what will happen next. Unsettling routines, changing locations and making someone expand beyond their known world spells disaster for many.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that making the change will be the best for us moving forward. The simple key is silencing the “what ifs” and making it happen.
The are no quick tips or twelve steps. Say, yes! Then quickly put action to what you’ve been avoiding.
Why fight it? It’s time to make life happen!

A good read on this topic Who Moved My Cheese?

My Overall Experience of Buying Online

I like shopping. It might include online shopping, I am based in a city where this is somehow a newly introduced trained, and that's why I feel like it is a big risky.
For most people, purchasing a something online without physically viewing the product can induce a lot of stress and fear. This is especially true if you are not accustomed to e-commerce and online shopping.
Here is UAE, there are a lot site getting introduced to purchase online. But the problem is those who are starting this business are not fully aware of how to showcase their product so that customers can buy them without hesitation.
In UAE souq.com is quite famous and can say that this is the very first very successful online shopping site in UAE.
I do not know how and why did it get such a big popularity. The problem is, some products which are available on this site are not available in any other store. That's why when people see them over the online store they cannot wait to buy it. and when the product becomes very popular then it comes in the market.
But souq.com doesn't know how to display the item. For example: they are selling a dress, you will see only ONE picture of that dress and i.e. the front side of the dress, which definitely is not enough for the customers to buy it. same goes for bed sheets. for electronic items: they are not displaying all the details which user want to know before buying.
I bought a few items electronic items from souq.com and few household. Then because of the bad experience, I, now stopped to buy anything from souq.com.
When I buy online, I want to see each and every details of the product.
Then Few month ago, I came across a website not based in UAE that was jollychic.com, they are showcasing their products quite nicely. I though OK, nice. the reviews seems to be good. products appears to be good. OK buy it.
I did. I bought some dresses. Items got delivered. They were good but not as mention or look on the website. I am not satisfied and because it was shipped from china I cannot return them. returning will be quite expensive.
If I calculate a lump-sum of how many things I bough online, my overall experience would be Not So Good.
Here I am giving a chart.  I am giving ranks from 0 to 10. from 5 to 10 are good and less than 5 are worst experience.
This list has only few items i have purchased.

Hot Pillow	Very Best Thing	10
Steam Mop	OK. Lifetime was short	6
InStyler	BROKEN Piece	0
Go-Duster	OK	6
electric massager	not as described. They delivered without any pack. open item	2
Fan Heater	Good	8
Cushion For Neck Massaging	doesn't work as expected.	4
Plastic Square Box	does not close	1
Nicer Dicer	ok	5
Samsung 32 Inch	ok	5
Claro Glass	does not like the same as mention or look in the pic	1
Dinnerware Set	WORST WORST WORST I did not see anything worst than this.	0
Saachi 5 in 1 Multi Snacks Maker	good	8
Magic Mop	good but not easy to use	8
One For All USB to USB	good	8
5-in-1-air-sofa-bed	not as mention	0
bedding-set-6pc	a good thing	9
feather pillow	good	7
bedsheet	OK	7
blender	good	9
table	worst ever	0
bedsheet	not good as look	1
a few items from souq	not available. takes almost a month to refund.	0

Success

"I call people 'successful' not because they have money or their business is doing well but because, as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive and are engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human beings - their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born.

Success? Don't you know it is all about being able to extend love to people? Really. Not in a big, capital-letter sense but in the everyday.Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word."
Ralph Fiennes, b.1962 Oscar-nominated British Actor

Using CRUD Diagrams to Group Processes into Systems

Using CRUD Diagrams to Group Processes into Systems

Grouping or clustering processes allows the analyst to identify what business processes fit naturally together. The groupings help determine what functions a specific system should perform and what data it requires.

The objective is for groups to have a high degree of independence from one another.

Converting to Association Matrix may Simplify Grouping

Grouping processes does not distinguish between create, read, update, or delete. Therefore, it may be simpler to convert the CRUD Diagram to an Association Matrix by changing each intersection with a C, R, U, and/or D into a common symbol such as a check mark or an asterisk.

Example: CRUD Diagram Converted to Association Matrix

Entity Process	Customer	Customer Order	Customer Account	Customer Invoice	Vendor Invoice	Product
Receive Customer Order	*	*	*
Process Customer Order	*		*			*
Fill Customer Order	*		*			*
Maintain Customer Account	*		*		*
Terminate Customer Account	*		*		*
Pay Vendor Invoices					*
Validate Vendor Invoices					*
Pay Vendor Invoices					*
Invoice Customer	*		*	*
Maintain Inventory						*

Initial Grouping

Begin by identifying the first two processes that use the same data entities. Rearrange the rows to position these two processes at the top of the matrix.

Identify other processes that use the same data entities and, if any, move them into the next rows in the matrix.

Example: Initial Grouping of Processes

Entity Process	Customer	Customer Order	Customer Account	Customer Invoice	Vendor Invoice	Product
Maintain Customer Account	*		*
Terminate Customer Account	*		*
Receive Customer Order	*	*	*
Process Customer Order	*		*			*
Fill Customer Order	*		*			*
Ship Customer Order			*		*
Validate Vendor Invoices					*
Pay Vendor Invoices					*
Invoice Customer	*		*	*
Maintain Inventory						*

Continue Grouping Process

Continue to identify other sets of processes that share the same data entities and move them into the next rows.

Example: Next Grouping of Processes

Entity Process	Customer	Customer Order	Customer Account	Customer Invoice	Vendor Invoice	Product
Maintain Customer Account	*		*
Terminate Customer Account	*		*
Process Customer Order	*		*			*
Fill Customer Order	*		*			*
Validate Vendor Invoices					*
Pay Vendor Invoices					*
Receive Customer Order	*	*	*
Ship Customer Order			*		*
Invoice Customer	*		*	*
Maintain Inventory						*

Manual Grouping

Once all processes that use the same entities have been identified, begin to analyze remaining entities to determine their best fit. This analysis is subjective. In the example you may decide that Receive Customer Order and Invoice Customer should be grouped with Process Customer Order and Fill Customer Order because they are all involved in processing the customer's order.

Example: Manual Grouping of Processes

Entity Process	Customer	Customer Order	Customer Account	Customer Invoice	Vendor Invoice	Product
Maintain Customer Account	*		*
Terminate Customer Account	*		*
Receive Customer Order	*	*	*
Process Customer Order	*		*			*
Fill Customer Order	*		*			*
Invoice Customer	*		*	*
Ship Customer Order			*		*
Validate Vendor Invoices					*
Pay Vendor Invoices					*
Maintain Inventory						*

Consider Using Subject Databases

Entities may be grouped into subject databases using a method such as Affinity Analysis. The subject databases are then used on the matrix instead of data entities. Grouping processes will be easier when there are fewer objects to analyze. For example, Customer, Customer Order, and Customer Account may be grouped as Customer while Customer Invoice and Vendor Invoice may be grouped as Invoicing.

Example: Grouping Processes using Subject Databases

Subject Process	Customer	Invoicing	Product
Maintain Customer Account	*
Terminate Customer Account	*
Receive Customer Order	*
Process Customer Order	*		*
Fill Customer Order	*		*
Invoice Customer	*	*
Ship Customer Order	*	*
Validate Vendor Invoices		*
Pay Vendor Invoices		*
Maintain Inventory			*

Craig Borysowich (Chief Technology Tactician)

Do I Even Need a Prototype??? & Prototyping Overview

Prototypes can add unnecessary overhead if they are not needed or are not workable for a particular project situation. Analyze the circumstances of the project to determine if a prototype will add value. When making the decision, consider the benefits of prototyping.

THE BENEFITS OF PROTOTYPING

Types of Benefits

Prototyping primarily assists with communication between the end-user and the development staff. The enhanced communication results in greater accuracy and fewer errors in later parts of the project, when they become more expensive to fix. The early involvement also empowers the end-user and facilitates system acceptance and understanding.

Communicate Requirements to Customer

Prototyping is an effective means of communicating the analyst's understanding of system requirements to the customer. The customer achieves a better understanding of the proposed system than could be obtained from written documentation alone. Therefore, problems that may have gone undetected until a later stage are identified earlier.

Prototyping should be used for all interactive systems. Consider that a serious review by end-users will almost always result in a change.

Communicate Requirements to Programmer

Prototyping is an effective means of communicating the system requirements and design to programmers. It is easier for the programmers to build a system from a working model than from a design document.

Customers See the Design at an Earlier Stage

Some design activities, such as Human Interface Design, occur at an earlier stage in the life cycle when a prototype is developed. Customers are able to try out the design and provide their input before much time and money are expended.

If Horizontal Prototyping is used during analysis, a first cut of the system externals is defined at that time. If a Vertical Prototype is developed, a first cut of the database must be designed during analysis.

Prototyping can greatly reduce the scope and size of design activities. Design activities still occur but they are moved to other stages of the system life cycle. Depending on the extent of the prototype, design efforts can be reduced to include only such tasks as test plan preparation, user aids design, conversion design, and database optimization.

Greater Customer Involvement

Customers become more involved in the system development process when a prototype is used. This helps ensure that customer requirements are met.

Reduce Written Documentation

Prototyping makes a system more intuitive and reduces the amount of written documentation required.

Situation Where Prototypes are Most Valuable

Some situations where prototyping is particularly valuable include:

· scope of the project permits customer involvement to improve the system,

· customers are unsure of their exact requirements or are having difficulty expressing requirements,

· the new system is altering a basic business operation,

· customers are not fully aware of all the impacts of the new system,

· the advantages and disadvantages of alternative solutions need to be explored.

Situations For Limited Prototyping

In general, prototyping is more valuable for on-line systems than for batch processing. However, most batch systems produce reports which can be prototyped using a report generator. Prototyping is of limited value in some systems that are logic intensive. In these cases, horizontal prototypes can still be used to evaluate the human interface.

Craig Borysowich (Chief Technology Tactician)

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Use Prototyping to:

· develop a working model of key functional components of a system, which may or may not be developed into the final system,

· enhance communication of requirements between the analyst, customer, and development team members,

· demonstrate features of the proposed system to such a level that the customer can relate it to his or her requirements,

· allow customers and analysts to explore alternative architectures and specific customer task scenarios,

· uncover design flaws early in the project life cycle,

· train customers who will eventually use the system,

· validate customer requirements (are we building the right product?),

· verify customer requirements (are we building the product right?).

Method

To build a prototype, complete the following steps:

Evaluate the Need for Prototyping

Define the Type of Prototype

Develop the Prototype

Refine the Prototype

Tips and Hints

Fourth Generation tools make it possible to quickly and easily prototype a model of system externals. However, if the prototype cannot be built and changed easily, many of the advantages of prototyping are lost. Some tools require considerable effort to set up the database or make database changes, particularly in the hands of inexperienced programmers.

See Also

Interviewing (for defining requirements related to the external design of a system)

Participant Observation (for defining requirements related to the external design of a system)

Timeboxing

Craig Borysowich (Chief Technology Tactician)