#predictive tools

[obscureref]

Researchers have created software that predicts when and where disease outbreaks might occur based on two decades of New York Times articles and other online data. The research comes from Microsoft and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

The system could someday help aid organizations and others be more proactive in tackling disease outbreaks or other problems, says Eric Horvitz, distinguished scientist and codirector at Microsoft Research

The system is actually cooler than the above quote makes it sound. It actually compares recent news stories to the software's archive to see what events typically follow after.

The example given is involves Angola. Reports of drought in 2006 and severe storms in 2007 fit into a pattern that suggested a cholera epidemic would follow. A few weeks after the storms, cholera broke out.

In similar tests involving forecasts of disease, violence, and a significant numbers of deaths, the system’s warnings were correct between 70-90% of the time.

I swear that we're getting closer to something like Asimov's "psychohistory" all the time.

(Source: Mashable)

[modernastrology-blog]

Solar Arc Calculation

As we know that the secondary progressions are determined by using the 'day for a year' formula. Here you look at an ephemeris for the year you were born and look the number days equal to the number of years of your age and see the position of the each of the planets on that day. Suppose you were born on the first of october and you are 22. So you go to the ephemeris and look at 2012 at the day of oct 23 and the positions of each of the planets is their 'progressed' position for me. 

Now in solar arc, the formula is to take the position of the sun in that 'day for a year' format as described above, and instead of using the progressed positions, you simply add the same number of degrees that the sun has progressed to each of the planets.  Example, continuing with info. above, if you looked at oct. 23 1981 and the sun had travelled a distance of (roughly) 22 degrees, then you just add 22 degrees to each planet. If natal mercury is at 2 degrees scorpio, so your directed (ie: solar arc) mercury is at 24 degrees scorpio!  In my experience Solar Arcs are relly good at timing actual events, whereas secondary progressions are better at pinpointing inward psychological changes.  Let us now summarise the process of solar arc calculation: 

1. Determine Solar Arc date in question. Note Sun’s position from that date.

2. Subtract Natal Sun from Progressed Sun to obtain Solar Arc increment.

3. Add Solar Arc Increment to each planet, cusp and point. (Convert zodiac into 360 notation for simple calculation).

4. Solar Arc Sun and Progressed Sun are the same.

5. Adding Solar Arc increment to MC gives the Solar Arc method of calculating

Secondary Progressed MC.

6. The Solar Arc chart will be accurate to the ACD.

[damonpeters-blog]

public sentiment trending for predictive analysis has merit--perfect data for perfect market decisions leading to rational decisions.  is it possible with fear and risk?  doesn't matter, really; but it works.