UTF-8 and Unicode Unicode Transformation Format 8-bit is a variable-width encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode character set. It was designed for backward compatibility with ASCII and to avoid the complications of endianness and byte order marks in UTF-16 and UTF-32. ^[1] UTF-8 encodes each Unicode character as a variable number of 1 to 4 octets, where the number of octets depends on the integer value assigned to the Unicode character. It is an efficient encoding of Unicode documents that use mostly US-ASCII characters because it represents each character in the range U+0000 through U+007F as a single octet. UTF-8 is the default encoding for XML and since 2010 has become the dominant character set on the Web. Standards * RFC 3629: UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646. November 2003. * The Unicode Standard 5.0, November 2006. [purchase from Amazon.com] + In particular, see the informal description of UTF-8 in sections 2.5 and 2.6, pages 30-32, and a much more formal definition in sections 3.9 and 3.10, pages 77-81. Articles and background reading * UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ for Unix/Linux by Markus Kuhn * Forms of Unicode, an excellent overview by Mark Davis * Wikipedia UTF-8 contains a good discussion of why five- and six-octet sequences are now illegal UTF-8 * Unicode Transformation Formats [czyborra.com] * The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!), an amusing and informative article by Joel Spolsky Character Sets The MIME character set attribute for UTF-8 is UTF-8. Character sets are case-insensitive, so utf-8 is equally valid. [IANA Character Sets]. In a modern HTML 5 page, place this tag inside ... : In an XML prolog, the encoding is typically specified as an attribute: __________________________________________________________________ Last modified: Wed Jan 5 12:57:21 PST 2022 IFRAME: https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-PL33XX4 Skip to main content (BUTTON) Subscribe (BUTTON) Latest Issues (BUTTON) Menu Scientific American * Cart 0 * (BUTTON) Sign In (BUTTON) Email *: ____________________Password *: ____________________Forgot password? (BUTTON) Login Loading Not yet registered? * |Newsletters (BUTTON) Search (BUTTON) Subscribe (BUTTON) Close Search Input ____________________ (BUTTON) Search (BUTTON) Close (BUTTON) Search Advanced Search * COVID * Health * Mind & Brain * Environment * Technology * Space & Physics * Video * Podcasts * Opinion * Store * Subscribe * Current Issue * Cart0 * Sign In * Newsletters * Share * Latest * * * * Holiday Flash Sale! (BUTTON) Shop Now Holiday Flash Sale! (BUTTON) Shop Now SA Mind Behavior Why Nostalgia Is Good for You The bittersweet emotion increases feelings of vitality * By Matthew Hutson on November 1, 2016 * أعرض هذا باللغة العربية * Share on Facebook * Share on Twitter * Share on Reddit * Share on LinkedIn * Share via Email * Print Why Nostalgia Is Good for You Credit: BRIAN STAUFFER Advertisement On holidays, it's natural to feel a longing for times gone by—a childhood spent singing carols or meals spent with now departed loved ones. Recently scientists have explored the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia, finding that it serves a positive function, improving mood and possibly mental health. A new paper illuminates why it works, finding that this sepia-toned sentiment does not cement us in the past but actually raises our spirit and vitality. In several experiments conducted online and in the laboratory, when subjects were induced to experience wistful reverie via sentimental song lyrics or memories, they reported greater self-continuity, as measured by a validated index that asks participants how much they agree with statements such as “I feel connected with my past” and “important aspects of my personality remain the same over time.” Constantine Sedikides, a psychologist at the University of Southampton in England and the primary author of the paper, which was recently published in Emotion, had shown this effect in a 2015 paper. But here they found that nostalgia boosted self-continuity by increasing a sense of social connectedness. Sentimental recollections often include loved ones, which can remind us of a social web that extends across people—and across time. The researchers found this pattern in American, British and Chinese participants. They also went a step further and observed, via questionnaires about other concurrent feelings, that self-continuity brings a feeling of vitality—of “energy and spirit.” Tim Wildschut, one of Sedikides's Southampton collaborators on the paper, notes there are many ways people elicit nostalgia—looking at photographs, cooking certain meals, sharing stories or playing music. He calls the feeling, which we naturally experience several times a week, “a psychological immune response that is triggered when you experience little bumps in the road.” So if you are feeling a bit discombobulated over the holidays, pull out a photo album and spend some time revisiting your past. This article was originally published with the title "Embrace the Nostalgia" in SA Mind 27, 6, 8-9 (November 2016) doi:10.1038/scientificamericanmind1116-8b [rightsPermsIcon.png] Rights & Permissions ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) Matthew Hutson is a freelance science writer based in New York City and author of The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking. 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